#i have read the ‘trauma porn’ novel and enjoyed it all things considered

[aurorawest]

Reading update

Just Like That by Cole McCade - 2/5 stars

So I started reading this age gap romance about two professors at a boys boarding school expecting it to be different than the last Cole McCade romance I read. It...wasn't. The emotions are turned up to 11 all the time, from the very first page, and that means there's nowhere emotionally to go. It also felt rushed and like the characters didn't really have room to breathe. So...I might retract what I said about the first Cole McCade novel I read needing to be shorter, because this one was shorter, and it didn't work.

Scattered Showers by Rainbow Rowell - 4/5 stars

Bought this for the SnowBaz story, ended up reading the whole thing and quite enjoying it. The SnowBaz story was definitely still the best though.

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo - 4/5 stars

In my last reading update I said I wasn't going to read any my Leigh Bardugo books, totally forgetting this one was sitting very near the top of my TBR pile. I liked it a lot, but I have been informed that Hellbent involves a glowing, fully erect demon penis in multiple scenes (and not even for demon sex) soooo yeah. I think I'll give it a miss.

The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting by KJ Charles - 4.75/5 stars

Drama! by AJ Truman - 4.25/5 stars

Bloodline by Jordan L Hawk - 4.75/5 stars

Wanted, A Gentleman by KJ Charles - 5/5 stars

Oh I loved this one so much. I love when KJ Charles writes books with a twist because I never see them coming. And it's not like the clues aren't there. This is a super quick read but so good. I definitely could have read a full length novel about Martin and Theo.

The Klockwerk Kraken by Aidee Ladnier - 5/5 stars

You look at this book and you think, tentacle porn. And yeah, there's some sex with tentacles. But??? This book??? It kind of wrecked me. It's two connected novellas about trauma, healing, family, memory, love...really really good. Highly recommended.

Pack of Lies by Charlie Adhara - 5/5 stars

And then I read a werewolf book and loved it! Not that I expected to hate this or anything, but I definitely went into it feeling a bit iffy, because werewolves are really not my thing. This book is romantic suspense and really good, and I loved Julien and Eli so much. This is a spinoff of Adhara's other werewolf series, which I want to read, but it's only available as an ebook, and I don't do ebooks.

Seven Tears at High Tide by CB Lee - 4/5 stars

Cute little YA mermaid book. Mermaids also aren't my thing so I liked this more than I thought I would. Much better than Jason June's Out of the Blue, imo.

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske - 4.75/5 stars

Again, my toxic trait is I don't really enjoy reading books about women or f/f romances. But not surprisingly at all, this book was really good. Though, you know. I inhaled all references to Robin and Edwin (of which there were many) and was sorta/kinda more invested in the hints of romance between Hawthorn and Alan. Obvs excited for the third book.

The Rules and Regulations for Mediating Myths and Magic by FT Lukens - 3.5/5 stars

Just Like This by Cole McCade - DNF

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. I put this one down before I got through chapter 2.

Never Ever Getting Back Together by Sophie Gonzales - 5/5 stars

I tore through this book in a single day. It was SO funny and sweet. It's considered YA but quite honestly I'd call it New Adult. Or if you don't like New Adult, straight Adult. Sophie Gonzales is the author of one of my top reads of last year, but of course, since this is an f/f romance, I was wary. But ugh, so good. Highly recommend this one.

The Luminaries by Susan Dennard - 5/5 stars

Apparently the idea for this came from the author posting polls on twitter for what would happen next, which is...unspeakably lame, honestly. But the book that came out of it is great. Loved the world, loved Winnie and her family (especially her brother and his boyfriend).

Beguiled by Joanna Chambers - 5/5 stars

Loved the first one, loved this one more.

This Census-Taker by China Miéville - 3.25/5 stars

What was this even about? Pretty sure Miéville was high on peyote when he wrote this.

Nick and Charlie by Alice Oseman - 3.75/5 stars

Picked this up because it was 20% off at Target and was actually pleasantly surprised by how much more adult it is than the series. Then of course started watching season 2 of the series and found it to be as sanitized as season 1.

The Henchman of Zenda - KJ Charles - 3.5/5 stars

He Bears the Cape of Stars from Duck Prints Press - 4.5/5 stars

Glitterland by Alexis Hall - 3.75/5 stars

This is a re-release of one of a novel Hall wrote like a decade ago. It's not a romcom (which I knew going in), but I didn't expect it to be quite so rough. Similar in ways to Paris Daillencourt is About to Crumble, only that was funnier. The fact that he wrote out the Essex accent really grated, but I guess it kind of made sense. My bigger issue with this book was the absolutely shit editing. There were repeated paragraphs, formatting issues, and places where it seemed like there had to be something missing because it made no sense.

The new edition is annotated by Hall, which was pretty fun. Not a bad read, but it's not Boyfriend Material.

Part 2

#just like that #just like this #cole mccade #scattered showers #rainbow rowell #ninth house #leigh bardugo #wanted a gentleman #kj charles #the klockwerk kraken #aidee ladnier #pack of lies #charlie adhara #seven tears at high tide #cb lee #a restless truth #freya marske #never ever getting back together #sophie gonzales #the luminaries #susan dennard #glitterland #alexis hall #reading tag

[baekhvuns]

OMG HELLO BAEKSSS!!!

It has been such a long time 😭

I have SAUR much to tell you!

Ok first of all let's start with how I got a part time job as a second year student and 😭 THERE'S THIS GUY THERE AND MY FREAKING MIND CANNOT COMPREHEND HIS BEAUTY! Like istg he looks like a mix of yunho and soobin?? His lips are an exact copy of soobin's! (Don't ask why il abt his lips-) And obviously he's so tall. (The part-time job is at a restaurant btw) and when I tell you he's probably the reason so many people even come to that restaurant like I'm not saying all of them but I'm sure half the portion of them high school girls 😭 but I kinda feel lonely there since I'm bad at socialising but dw I'm working on that.

My phone just acted up- anyways, it acted up again 😭 so I was saying i read those asks regarding the whole ff thing. And y'all aren't wrong, Bcz these days the plot is porn 😃. I mean have you seen those fic with tons of warning at hand that's just a collection of kinks 😭 and the whole bsf's dad trope??? Like atp y'all require grass! Or maybe a whole dang rainforest!

But other than that I reread your fics just to feel something 🥹 and yes I'm positive I felt something Bcz now I'm lovesick. Someone send me my Mr Park, my bg, MY DUKEEE 😭 oh I also dedicated one song to each of the hwa fics, (even tho I've read the other members fics, ...hwa just hits diff.) Okokok! Pls don't judge my music taste tho 😩 [the way I said one nd gv out a whole playlist smh]

Rewrite the stars- if I didn't put rewrite the stars, the greatest showman I'd be considered a criminal! You belong with me too!!

The trouble with hating you- ok ok so Polaroid love for the whole happy moments but then she's in the rain by The Rose for when hwa breaks yn's heart and aurora (Ateez)

Mr and Mrs park- MAMA IM IN LOVE WITH A CRIMINAL 😩 Britney spearsss and i discovered a new song that's called "old love" by Yuji and boi, i get flashbacks to that confession scene! Bambi (baekhyun), mhm (kai) and peaches were made for this, OK HEAR ME OUT FILTER BY JIMIN-

Duke and the general- I GOT SO MANY!!

- day and night (Jung seung hwan)

-But it's destiny (10cm)

-breaking down (Ailee)

-lover (TS)

-My everything (Ariana Grande)

I could go on-

Khronos- Tears, trauma o wait one last time by Ariana, young and beautiful Lana del rey, stay with me (chanyeol and punch) all about you (Ateez) euphoria too

Just friends- ohhh lemme whip my nsfw song playli-

-circus (Britney mother spears)

-Angel eyes (ABBA)

-into you (Ariana)

- they don't know about us (1D)

- luxurious (Gwen Stefani)

- pillow talk (Zayn) AHEM-

- love talk (wayv) AHEEMMM

-cream soda (exo) aiahwjahsjsj

-Candy (baekhyun) AGH-

Ok but in the end we never knew if yn and hwa got married but like imagine if they had decided to and they hv their kids! Like the leading models get married and just think THE VISUAL hwayoung would hv (I mean I obv don't mean I'm the yn 😭) and then yn takes her for a red carpet or something when she's like 9 or 10 and then we see hwayoung directly after like 10 yrs and everyone is shocked Bcz she has the genes of her mother with the personality of her father THAT'D BE SO DOPE!

Let's not fall in love again- OK GET READY FOR THIS!

-Everytime (chen, punch)

-love sight (TXT)

-I think I'm in love again (kat dahlia) I love the irony, Bcz I also know this is what went thru hwa's brain

- I will go to you like the first snow (Ailee)

- love me like that (Sam Kim)

Bodyguard- but idk why I'd like to put some 00's nd 10s songs here bcz....it's just the vibe!

-OMG I WANT IT THT WAY 😭😭 idkw but it fits acc to me

- you drive me crazy (Britney again...I luv her sm :') )

- all of me (John legend)

- dandelions (ruth b)

- serendipity (jimin)

-a lot like love (baek a yoon)

Somehow bg's ones are kinda soft? Idk 😭but yeah this was fun to do! I love doing these things for ffs, like you'd do with movies or novels! And i hope you enjoy these too 😩🤧 anyways it's like 1:00 AM, and my phone screen feels a little too bright for my eyes 😭 gnn and bye hope you're taking care of yourselves! 💕💕💕

HELLO t’s been a while!!

omg???? a part time AND at a restaurant as a second year student?? swap places right now idc idc idc & OH??? that’s a very interesting thing u shared, when r we making the moves 🔫 chaerss u have a very y/n job, you gotta bring out your y/n-ness in these situations like ITS NEARING THE HOLIDAYS U NEVER KNOW

ur correct, i was scrolling thru some atz fics yesterday to see abt to read and all the disclaimers were: angry, handcuffs, pissed off reader x pissed off member or name calling or every kink in existence what happened to HI?? HELLO??? A RAINFOREST LMFAOOO,,, crying u guys r so nice it makes me so happy to see that u guys really enjoy the fics to the whole 😭😭 i will be back pls im defrosting!!

LMFAOOOO OKAY IM READY BC I ALSO HAD MY LISTS FROM WHEN I WROTE THESE FICS!! omg the rewrite the stars one is absolutely correct, it’s what i listened to every time i wrote that fic!

omg wait ur kinda right that fits the trouble w hating u,, i used classic by mkto for the funsies! WAIT FUCK THAT CRIMINAL FITS MR AND MRS PARK SO WELL FHWKDHWKHDKW I ALSO USED HIM & I BY HALSEY AND GEASY & IM YOURS BY ISABEL LAROSA!! duke and his general never had a song lost but i agree with everything up there 🤚🏻

omg khronus??? i used moon lovers ost the most, my love my lee hi and davichi’s songs, insterstellar BUT YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL??? KILL ME RIVHT NOW FJWKFHEK this was my playlist for khronus

WAIT THEY DONT KNOW ABOUT US WAS A BODYGUARD HWA SONG + you & i FBWKDHK,,, just friends had the most fashion and nsfw songs, the weeknd, just friends by virginia to vegas, say it right nelly furtado, rich girl by gwen stefani, i like me better lauv, OH PILLOW TALK??? 👀 omg no bc i have a whole universe for them and ur right on track no bc imagine the two top models of the industry getting married like??? crazy i know the kids would be crazy tall too and the GENES??? wow i will draft a fic just u wait

STOP THAT LETS NOT FALL IN LOVE IS SO ACCURATE STOP IT FBKWBDKS IM IN LOVE AGAIN WAS MY SHIT!

omg no i love these i love hearing the thoughts on the different stories & what ppl think their future would be like esp for just friends, the entire industry at their wedding??? iM THERE hope u had a good sleep!! thank u for sending this in 💓

#✉️ : ask #[ chaerssss ]

[blurrypetals]

A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas - blurrypetals review

originally posted feb. 22, 2021 - ★☆☆☆☆

This is not Sarah J. Maas's worst book, not by a long shot, but it is definitely her least fun, most unnecessary effort, and we're talking about an author who also wrote Tower of Dawn and A Court of Frost and Starlight. I have a terrible, sordid history with Maas. I started off as a fan of Throne of Glass who was then spurned for being a fan of the story and characters she started with and, ever since then, I have never been able to view her as anything more than an amateur stumbling her way through high fantasy concepts, leaving nothing but wreckage in her wake. I really hate what Throne of Glass became and consider it to be a pretty perfect What Not To Do guide as far as writing diverse yet consistent characters, writing a satisfying, sweeping narrative, and many, many other things. This series, however, seemed at first to be a strange outlier. The first three books might be overlong, trite, and have a lot of the same issues with diversity and tryhard feminism as Throne of Glass, but at the very least, they are fun. Despite all their flaws, and despite how much shit I enjoy talking about Sarah J. Maas, the first three books are an okay guilty pleasure. I think they are disgustingly overrated and too many copycats are trying to emulate it, but they're...fine. I think the novella is unnecessary and weird, but it's mostly just fanservice that seemed to wrap up Feyre and Rhysand's story, so even if I didn't like it, it at least was short and fluffy for the most part. I think there were a lot of critical mistakes made with this book, which is a shocker considering just how definitely totally competent our author is! But seriously, past the fact that this book exists at all, the biggest mistake Maas made was putting it in the third person. I think the biggest strength of the original three books was that we were in Feyre's head, experiencing things right alongside her. One nice trick of the first person perspective is that there's a sort of built-in empathy that's sort of difficult to fuck up and it really helped sell Feyre's journey. Here, we are not necessarily far from Nesta and Cassian's heads, so it genuinely confounds me that Maas decided to change that. Why not have an alternating first person POV between the two? I just don't understand. But let's get into the meat of things. What do I mean when I say this book feels unnecessary? Well, not only does it feel a bit like we're picking open a story that felt like it wrapped up pretty nicely, but everything new that does happen feels like a foregone conclusion. It was pretty readily clear from the middle of A Court of Wings and Ruin, perhaps earlier, that Nesta and Cassian are mates. I personally have never been a fan of the whole fated mates thing in this stuff, since it sucks out any semblance of romantic tension out of things, and while I never expect Maas to do the interesting or unexpected thing, it would have been nice to have maybe one couple get together who just got together despite not being mates. That said, it isn't as if the romance would have been made better by that. These two have a little bit of chemistry that isn't so bad, but it's overshadowed by their near constant and frustratingly repetitive fucking. It's actually insane how much unsexy sex is in this book. I mean, there's something to be said for Maas finally ditching the idea that she is at all trying to write for younger readers, but at what cost? Another plot point that carries a lot of the so-called tension in the novel is that of Feyre's pregnancy with her and Rhysand's son, the truly poorly named Nyx. Everyone is certain Feyre is going to die because the baby has wings and her vag is not prepared for it (I wish I was kidding) but this is another thing that feels like a foregone conclusion on arrival because A, we know Sarah J. Maas doesn't have the fucking guts to kill anyone off, let alone her precious Feyre and definitely not Rhys, who also dies if Feyre dies, and B, we already know that their son is going to be okay because of all the business with the Bone Carver. And, other than some business with a crown, a mask, and a harp, the rest of the plot centers around Nesta recovering from her PTSD. I'll begrudgingly admit, her PTSD is actually not poorly written. That said, it is very poorly handled. In the original trilogy, Rhys is upheld as this extremely kind and generous and wonderful dude who helps the broken, has trauma of his own to reckon with, and in this book, he is a fucking cunt. It is legitimately, truly shocking how disgusting and awful he is to Nesta. Yet again, we experience Sarah J. Maas's brand of so-called character development by way of performing a personality transplant that serves the half-assed plot rather than the established character. Now, where have I seen that before? Aelin? Tamlin? Chaol? Nah, can't be. Rhysand isn't the only one who treats Nesta terribly, though, it's the entire inner circle, even her fated mate, of course! The way they all treat this grieving, traumatized, abused woman is utterly sickening, and they all are treated as if they're in the right for it! It's absolutely nuts. Even though I've never cared for Nesta as a character, no one and I mean no one deserves to be treated the way Amren, Rhysand, Mor, and the rest all treat Nesta in this book. I've said this many times before, but I'll repeat what I said in my review for the last Sarah J. Maas book I read, Kingdom of Ash and it's this: Sometimes it is better to be spectacularly, hilariously awful than it is to be utterly boring and leave your reader feeling indifferent and, while this one did make me angry at points, I was mostly just bored and tired. Apathy is the worst feeling you can leave a reader with and this is not the first time Sarah J. Maas has done this to me. I know a lot of people think Sarah J. Maas hung the moon, but I am just so tired, I just do not get it. I once understood what made her books fun, but when she shits out trite excuses for romance and fantasy such as this, I can't understand why anyone could enjoy such a mediocre example of thinly veiled porn as this. Do us all a favor, Sarah, and do better. It's just sad at this point.

#a court of silver flames #a court of thorns and roses #sarah j. maas #2021 #goodreads mirror #blurrypetals

[dreadnought-dear-captain]

You Asked, I Told

(Note, if this post shows up twice or massively delayed or just looks weird, it’s because it was flagged for adult content [??!] because I had a picture of Willem Dafoe’s face in a gif. I am not even kidding. Do with that information what you will. I’ve removed it and I still don’t know if/when this can be publicly viewed, I’m kind of lolling. So if you see a blocked out photo that looks like porn in your post, I swear it’s just a gif from The Lighthouse!)

Hello, amazing people. This weekend, I’m putting the final touches on my last draft of Baghdad Waltz Chapter 39, which will then go to the beta for one more round of edits. I imagine I will have the chapter posted in 1-3 weeks, which is close to record speed for me, especially since it’s around 30k words. I’m going to be talking about my writing process (at unfortunate length) for one of the asks, for those who are interested. 

Please forgive me. I’m feeling quite verbose and a little squirrely. I blame living alone during lockdown. 

It’s also Memorial Day weekend in the States, which is when we are meant to honor those who gave their lives in military service to this country. This is often confused with Veterans Day (November 11), which is honoring anyone who has served in the military and is no longer serving. This gets further confused with Armed Forces Day (rotating date, May) which is to honor those currently serving in the military. I know, super confusing. 

There’s a wide range of opinions on how Memorial Day should be commemorated, which often involves gathering with friends and family for a barbecue or some other social activity. It’s the first major holiday after a huge holiday drought throughout the late winter and spring, which often makes people look forward to it immensely. Some people feel it’s inappropriate to celebrate Memorial Day with barbecues and fond social gatherings because it’s dishonoring the memories of those who can’t be here, people don’t take time to remember those who have died, people have no idea what the day is actually for, etc. Others, even some very vocal veterans, maintain that people died so that we could be here to celebrate in freedom, so why not relish this life we have? Many offer the caveat that it’s appropriate to at least acknowledge the purpose of the day, even if it’s just in a few minutes of quiet reflection. 

Anyway, I offer this as a little food for thought for this upcoming long weekend. 

(And in case you missed it, I posted a BW Timeline for your reference.) 

Contains spoilers through Chapter 38.

[Takes deep breath]

I’m so glad that you are enjoying the read and that you’re finding it inspiring for your own work. I think my dedication to research for BW is threefold. 1) As this story evolved, I decided that I wanted to create the most realistic depictions of military, civilian, emotional, and physical life that I reasonably could. I will fully admit to lapses in this, deliberate and unintentional, because sometimes the plot just needs to go and I can’t wait around for a year-long medical discharge process for my character. 2) I’m in an academically stringent occupation, and because research is such a prominent part of my work life, it’s bled to my hobby. (IS THIS EVEN A HOBBY ANYMORE?) And 3) I get very easily and passionately obsessed with things and delight in getting “into the weeds” with a subject. Almost every research divergence usually takes me off track for at least an hour. And you will never catch me without an MTA subway map open in at least one tab.

But that wasn’t even your question! Sorry. Are you beginning to get a sense of why BW takes me so long to write?? I cannot keep my shit on track. As for the bibliography, YES! I plan to include that in my author’s note at the end. I wish I had kept better track of all of my works consulted over the past three years, but I will definitely discuss the importance of some of the main ones. I’m so thrilled that you are interested, and I’m excited to share them!

Thank you. This is such a kind thing to say, and I’m humbled and delighted to hear it, especially because our fandom is so blessed with some AMAZING fics. And asks certainly don’t have to be questions! I appreciate them all (except the flaming bag of dog shit ones, which I haven’t had in a while, hooray).

(Re: Chapter 37) Good question! I imagine Claire would want to keep the 1:1 conversation somewhat limited, as she is treating the couple as a patient rather than them as individuals. If anything, she might have somewhat superficially checked in to see if he was okay rather than dive into anything regarding the relationship with Bucky not around. That could be seen as a betrayal of trust to Bucky and could be interpreted as favoritism, which Steve craves and which Bucky is probably terrified about.

I am always pleased when people re-read and enjoy it or get new things out of it, even if it’s sometimes a re-read is a function of my slow-ass writing. I really want a story with good re-read value.

You make an excellent point about Bucky’s relationships. His friendship with Jack also had no real closure. Sometimes this is a factor of circumstance and sometimes it’s because of his avoidance, like a self-fulfilling prophesy almost. He’s learned that people betray you, either by hurting you or dying, so he creates conditions sometimes (often unwittingly) for things to go sour and end poorly, or he will simply make himself disappear so that he’s not hurt and doesn’t have to wait to see if he will be abandoned or betrayed. He’s not a guy who is good with goodbyes.

As for Thor, I totally see how it would read that way. I think Thor started out fishing for longer-term possibilities in a romantic relationship but then realized Bucky is really not a guy who is comfortable settling (which, as we can see, is true). As for why it seems more serious, one thing is that Thor still wanted Bucky in his life as a friend, possibly one with benefits. They have a lot in common, and it’s hard for veterans - and, more specifically, special operators - to find people in their lives they can relate to with these very intense life experiences. I wanted this to be a real relationship, but maybe not necessarily one that was bound to become a RELATIONSHIP. I think Bucky was very intriguing and attractive to him, and he very well may have struggled with his own vacillation between whether to take it seriously or whether to remain friends+. This can lead to mixed messages.

And we also have to remember Bucky’s notoriously unreliable narration, where he will see what he wants to see. Our perspective comes from him. We see the details he zooms in on, miss the one he ignores, view the relationship through the lens of his own contentious desire for a real relationship, even as he consistently demonstrates the lack of capacity and his fear about getting serious. I imagine Bucky has having an extremely poor ability to distinguish friendship from romance, and why wouldn’t he, given the most recent bit of history we have learned about him with Jack? He’s had a series of friendships become sexualized, and I think this affects his capacity to be discerning. Bucky’s radar for relating, whether friendships, romance, or potentially dangerous sexual situations, is terribly mis-calibrated. How confusing for him and for the people in his life. Of course, everyone is free to interpret the dynamics of any relationship however they choose. These are just some of my thoughts.

I really appreciate observations from the re-read! Thank you!

I watched the video and you are right! This is definitely a Bucky song. Bucky’s sense of self is by turns profoundly distorted and lacking in grounding, especially now that he’s not in the military. He’s been in a low key existential crisis since he was a kid and has turned to drinking and sex and war to fill this horrible void, and although I can’t speak for what the artists here intended, I certainly sensed those elements here for sure. (Also, what an interesting choice for a music video…)

Thank you for sharing! I’ll add it to the unofficial BW playlist in the author’s note, which consists of various songs people have associated with BW and shared with me.

Good question! I started off this story picturing the actors who represent the characters in the MCU, because I figured we’d be picturing that when we read the fic anyway (though my beta told me she doesn’t see them as the actors, more like artists’ renderings of the characters, which I find interesting). So when describing their physicality, I tend to refer back to the MCU, since this is technically an MCU AU. But the longer I go with the story, the murkier the resemblance feels to me, especially when I think about Bucky, IDK why. I have also been considering doing something more with BW after I finish it (i.e., converting it into a proper not-bajillion-word novel, sunk cost and whatnot), in which case I would definitely change the characters’ appearance, names, cut MCU Easter eggs, etc. So when I try to think of who these people might be in future iterations of the story, things get even more blurred in my mind when I imagine them.

I wonder how other people see them??

So, with regards to PTSD clinical teams, there is some variation across VAs in the system. Some focus more on military-related trauma, whether it’s war, military sexual trauma, accidents, etc. as a way of concentrating their services and managing supply and demand. From talking with providers in these kinds of systems, sometimes you just NEED a military-related trauma, but you can be treated for, say, a childhood trauma if it’s more pressing. Other VAs are very open in their criteria, and you can see them for pretty much any kind of trauma that qualifies diagnostically for PTSD (or sub-threshold PTSD) without question. That’s why I love the expression “If you’ve been to one VA, you’ve been to one VA.” That said, it kind of doesn’t matter what kind of PTSD clinical team is at the VA in Manhattan, because Bucky has so much military trauma that he would very likely qualify to receive services in any PTSD clinical team. They just might focus on childhood stuff (if Bucky actually let them, which is another matter entirely).

This is a great question! Thanks for asking.

I love a snarky asshole Bucky so much, and I’ve tried to temper this version of him with enough hard-earned genuineness to offset it a little bit. It’s such a tender balance with him, because if you back him too far into a corner, he’s going to let you have it. But if you give him too much space, it’s hard to pin him down and wring something honest from him. He’s definitely learned to use humor and sarcasm to deflect from painful or uncomfortable situations, and it’s a very adaptive short-term strategy that makes him both endearing and infuriating to others.

But ugh, yeah, shit gets so rough around Chapter 28/29. I don’t know how to feel when people have really strong emotional reactions to this story, because one part of me doesn’t want to contribute to the crappy feelings people may already be struggling with — especially in the times of COVID — but I don’t want to be afraid to dive into the hurt these characters are experiencing. That’s why I recommend checking in with oneself before reading to get a sense of how much emotional bandwidth is available to manage the immense problems of two people struggling so much. I also think that for some people it can be cathartic or otherwise not-bad maybe (?), based on the feedback I’ve received. I also really try hard to balance out the painful stuff with growth, even though it can be terribly difficult to locate sometimes.

In comments to folks, and here, I often talk about adjusting the ticks on your measuring stick for progress, where instead of leaps of progress over feet/meters, we may be observing things on an inch/mm scale. This story is my most sincere effort at a “recovery is not linear” narrative, which I think is so much more reflective of real life for a lot of folks than a straight upward trajectory. Humans are such creatures of habit, and the lessons these characters have learned through their lives about themselves, trust, relationships, and how to manage emotions are very deeply ingrained — often through traumatic means. These are the lessons learned the hardest, with the greatest perceived consequences for change, and it takes real courage for us to be able to try new things even once, let alone to establish a reliable pattern of behavior. This can lead to a lot of frustration for us as readers/writer, and I come from a place of this being okay, because we are encountering a parallel process with the characters, who are frustrated with each other and themselves about the same things. I do hope the pain/progress/joy ratios are not horribly out of whack most of the time. That’s another reason I like long chapters, because if this was just blips of sometimes terrible episodes in shorter form, I think it would be very challenging to not lose hope entirely.

But I’m so glad you’re finding the read meaningful, even if it’s sometimes painful and difficult.

(YES.)

And FINALLY -- (this is all soooo long, I’m so sorry.)

Oh, thank you for this question! My spreadsheet ended up getting too difficult to manage, and I actually had a small crisis six months ago about how the fic was going to end, because it just didn’t feel right. I had to scrap it and go back to the drawing board and really ask myself - what would these characters really do? Naturally, as a factor of their psychologies and circumstances, how will they bring this story to an end? Some advice I once heard about a “satisfying” ending is that it’s the place where there’s simply nothing more to say about the characters. There’s no more story to tell. I had to abandon all of my desires  and ideas for a particular ending or concerns about making people sad or happy or excited or disappointed. I know that the only ending that will be satisfying is one that makes sense for these people. Anything contrived or backward-engineer-y wouldn’t feel right to anyone. I do have a couple of specific character arc things I want to happen, so I set those down as touchstones and said, okay, what would happen next? What would Steve do with this? And what would Bucky do with this? And what would they do with the thing the other person did? I take a very psychology and prior-behavior-based approach to plotting, almost all character driven. The rest is just figuring out what is supposed to go where and how to organize it.

I’ve converted everything to a Google Doc and have a very basic outline where I write plotty-plot stuff. I also have a “garbage dump” doc where I write certain lines I want to use or certain details I want to include somewhere. When I get into a new chapter, I’ll check the dump doc as I outline and write to see if I want to pluck anything from there. I have my outline open regularly to add to it. Sometimes I write scenes out of order, dialogue first, but that’s only if I really am excited about a particular scene and cannot contain myself. Otherwise, I write completely chronologically and have no buffer. I post things as soon as I write them.

As for your specific questions, I do have a “process” for getting into my characters’ heads. It helps to know them so very well and to have a firm sense of their idiosyncrasies and patterns of behavior. As you may have noticed, they repeat their patterns all. the. time, as humans do, but I also want to have them change their behaviors a little as things go and they progress. So I may wonder what they could do a little differently, why they would WANT to behave differently, and imagine what they would need to do to change their behavior. Do they need to take breaths? Do they remember the last time some shit went down? I really try to think of the “how” and “why” of every single action - from big blowouts to eye rolls.

So once I’ve figured out what they are going to do, I try to pinpoint the associated emotions I want to highlight. This is a whole separate process, because I have to think also about their internal versus their external emotional states. Steve, for example, will often have a discrepant inside and outside, because one of the truths about his character is that he is a chronic suppressor. There is also the issue of unreliable narration and interpretation of behavior. Steve might do something in a scene, but that doesn’t mean Bucky is going to interpret it the way it was intended. I have to think about their individual filters, which often reflect their internal beliefs about themselves. Bucky is more likely to read Steve’s actions as reflections of how BUCKY feels about HIMSELF (e.g., he’s disgusted by me because I’m disgusting) rather than imagine what Steve is really thinking based on his own experiences and beliefs about Bucky. I also attempt to convey some of the more second and third layer emotions that people have in situations, rather than only highlighting the primary emotion. Sad things don’t always just make people sad. Powerful emotions, for example, might make Steve feel out of control of himself, which could generate secondary emotions for him like frustration because he’s losing control. Part of the process in the construction of the narrative is also scrubbing what I’ve written for POV, because Bucky’s word choices aren’t the same as Steve’s, and in order to try to preserve the “voice” of each character, I often have to change the words I’ve opted to use, as well as the syntax.

So, as you can see, there’s a lot of layering that is happening all the time. As for the dialogue, I have no compunction about saying the lines aloud, “acting” them to see how they sound, to get a sense of what tone I want them to say things in. Now that I think of it, I do a bit of movement-based stuff, thinking about how people sit and stand, figuring how many steps it takes to get from A-Z, what it would look like to lean against something, how it would feel on the body, etc. I try to get the most felt sense of things as I can. If I’m imagining a scene, I try to put myself in the shoes of the characters to the point where I feel the emotions, just so I can know how it reflects in my body and my mind and behavior. I have more than once gotten drunk and drunk-written drunk Bucky then gone to clean it up later, as drunk writing can generate some great content I never would have been able to come up with sober, but the form, grammar, spelling, etc. is often rubbish. I also talk a LOT to my beta about all of this stuff, and I have certain friends and acquaintances in the fandom who are my consultants for various things.

So, I’m somewhat method I guess?? Is that a thing?? I dunno. It’s not hard to do when you live and breathe a story. It’s required a deep level of interest in - quite possibly an obsession with - the characters and their lives. I adore my characters, not in a self-congratulatory way, but because they feel so real to me. So it’s a joy to plan and write -- though I do hate first drafts with a passion.

OH - I also sometimes fast-draft chapters, which I did for 39. That is, write as FAST AS YOU CAN with no regard for how shitty the writing is. I wrote 10k words in a week, which was a finished fast-draft for me, and thus I had a very good felt sense of what was going to happen in the chapter, which felt amazing. It requires intensive outlining before, and nearly every word had to be rewritten, but one of the greatest frustrations of a story for me is having blank space ahead. Re-writing is way more fun than first draft writing. I have fluffed it up twofold with higher quality content, which I did all in less than two months…!! 

-------------------------

Well, this is surely my most unnecessarily yammering YAIT in history. But I hope it at least conveys my enthusiasm for these wonderful asks! It’s so lovely to hear from all of you, even if I take an eon to get back to you. Hang in there, everyone!

@grimshady @hutchhitched​ @b0n3l3ssm1lk​ 

(And thank you to @bae-buckyaboveeverything​ for the shout out. You made my day<3)

#you asked #baghdad waltz #asks

[cowthropologist]

1, 8, 13, 14

1. Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic. 

Something angsty and dramatic, relatively fast-paced.  Slow romances, slice of life, and fluff are all challenging for me.  I write a lot about trauma, PTSD, and grief.  I try not to write detailed fight scenes though, I don’t think I’m good at them.  I like to focus on the moments in between the action.  My work is usually pretty exposition-heavy; I tend to write as a way of thinking through stuff, and trying to put PTSD symptoms into words is an interesting challenge because most of those experiences are intensely nonverbal for me.  The bulk of my published fanfiction at this point is an exercise in trying to communicate how it feels to be traumatized, which is a hilariously heavy subject for my porny asscreed oneshots...  Looking at my works on AO3, they’re pretty evenly divided between action-heavy, angsty multichaps and porn-as-character-study oneshots lol.

8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

Oh this is hard.  I don’t really think of myself as being super good at dialogue?  Mostly it’s just a means to an end.  Characters gotta talk, you know?  But this whole chapter from the fic of doom, especially the first scene, is very dialogue-heavy and I think it’s pretty good.  It could probably use some editing -- it’s like 5 years old and back when I wrote it I think I decided that I didn’t need to specify who was talking after every line of dialogue in conversations, even conversations involving more than two people, and readers could just figure it out from context clues?  So that didn’t go as well as I thought it did at the time.

What I like about that first scene is that I think it establishes the dynamic of Kaidan and their mom and sisters really well.  It’s warm and funny, and it also gives a lot of insight into the personalities of all of the characters and how they interact as a family, the kind of roles they tend to adopt in conversation and during arguments.  Family dynamics are interesting to me; every family has a kind of shape to it, all the people interlocking with each other in different ways.  I enjoyed writing about that in this story and I think I did a pretty good job.

13. What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?

Stop thinking and write!

I forget if it was a writing teacher or my dad who told me that.  It’s so easy to get in your own head and spend a million years staring at a blank page going over possible first sentences or trying to decide on a scene or the course of a conversation, going over it mentally without ever actually putting a word on paper.  You don’t write 100% of the stories you don’t fucking write.  So just write something, even if it sucks.  You can always throw it out later.

14. What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?

I mean there’s all kinds of ridiculous, arbitrary stuff like “don’t use adverbs” or whatever and that’s all nonsense.  None of that counts as advice, it’s just bullshit.  So I’m gonna pick on one of the two big writer-advice cliches instead: “Write what you know.”  I cannot for the life of me find the quote, but some very smart person once said something to the effect of, “The ubiquity of the ‘write what you know’ axiom is the reason we are plagued with so many novels about a middle-aged professor who is considering having an affair.”  BAH.

The big problem with “write what you know” is that people tend to interpret it as “only write stories about things that you have personally experienced,” which is obviously terrible advice.  You think Michael Crichton can time travel??  Most people have tedious, depressing lives that absolutely no one wants to read about.  Like if I want to experience boredom and ennui I can just go to Wal-Mart.  I don’t need a couple hundred thousand words’ worth of exposition about the stupid bullshit I have to deal with on a daily basis to get me there, thanks.

Alternatively, in the immortal words of Ursula le Guin, “As for “Write what you know,” I was regularly told this as a beginner. I think it’s a very good rule and have always obeyed it. I write about imaginary countries, alien societies on other planets, dragons, wizards, the Napa Valley in 22002. I know these things. I know them better than anybody else possibly could, so it’s my duty to testify about them.”

#ask game

[otohoe]

I wanted to just work on my Mitsun WIP (lmfao can u believe we now live in a world where this is a controversial statement) but I guess we can’t have nice things so this is happening instead!!

I would like to start by saying that I’ve been contacted by some people wrt to this bullshit and they have been nothing but absolutely sweet angels. I love my friends. they’ve been so so supportive and I’m infinitely grateful to each and every one of you for reaching out to me. I’m so happy to have you guys in my life. I just also think if I don’t get these thoughts out there they will burn me up inside until I do. So.

I have been deeply affected by the trauma I experienced in my past. I was a victim of pedophilia and rape on multiple occasions. That shit has affected me permanently. I'm a fundamentally different person because of what I've endured. Stronger in some ways, and much more broken in others. I've had extensive therapy to deal with these things. And yet I still enjoy the agency and control it allows me to write about these things. I control the scenario. This is a good thing for me.

There is a good reason my blog is labeled explicit. There is a reason I tag the shit out of everything. As someone who gets badly triggered on account of PTSD, I take great care to label everything for trigger warnings. If you still consider yourself a child in spite of not being one, blacklist this shit. Block me. I will not be offended. I will, however, be offended if you decide to publicly call me out for... what, writing fanfiction you disagree with?

On that note, let's briefly talk about the claim that I'm not allowed to stan Mitsunari or write smut for him. I'm... sorry, what? Never fucking mind that MC is supposed to be around 20-- Ieyasu's age-ish-- and Mitsunari around 18/19, and, y'know, an adult. If you take issue with adults writing and reading about people this age, you've got a lot of fucking romance novels to criticize the fuck out of. A ton of movies. A ton of tv shows. Or are we just not supposed to interact with media that doesn't feature people aged 30? There is a fixation on the 18-29 age group-- for romance in particular!-- because it's what society considers one's prime. So I guess we're just shaming everyone now. And don't even get me started on porn! Should adult men not be masturbating to porn of women in their 20s? Is that likewise unacceptable?

For that matter, I would stan Mitsun if he was 30/50/80 just as much as I stan him now. I like his personality. I like the way he looks. Nothing about my being a Mitsun fan has to do with the fact that he’s, according to you, apparently underage.

But hey! Let's ignore the fact that he's supposed to totally be an adult and that Voltage constantly writes about Mitsunari, an adult, in sexual scenarios (which, no, is not actually different at all from what us """"fandom elders"""" are doing! the only actual fucking difference is that one is done for profit while us fanfic writers are just writing for fun and the goodness of our hearts in our free time lmfao but sure let's demonize all forms of creativity that don't fit your very, very narrow idea of what's acceptable for people to write about). Let's say he's not an adult! Here's the thing. He's a fucking fictional character. He's fictional. It. Doesn't. Matter. Except to you, who seems to think that fiction = reality! 

It's not the first time I've been accused of being a rapist because I write about rape scenarios. Or of there being a threat of me becoming a rapist because I was raped. And you know, that shit hurts. Because at the end of the day, all that does is demonize survivors who create trauma-coping content. False accusations like this hurt survivors. 

And before you come in here with claims about how my fanfiction and others like it encourages other survivors to further entrench their damage instead of coping with it... first of all, that shouldn't be my responsibility. In no way should me coping in my way (post-therapy!) affect others’ coping methods. I don't actively endorse my methods. I’m not on a soap box telling people how to handle their shit like I have a psych degree, because I fucking don’t. People have to actively seek out the content I make or choose to follow me. Remember, my blog is labeled explicit and is hidden from search results otherwise!

(I'll also go on record right the fuck now to say, that, if any of my followers seem to likewise think that fiction = reality in any way, shape, or form, unfollow me right now. Please. Block me if you need to. It will save us both a lot of grief.) 

You are not allowed to dictate the content I produce. You do not have the right to tell me how I cope with my past trauma. 

Take a page out of your own hypocritical book and block whoever you need to and move the fuck on. Don’t claim you don’t want to create drama while literally bathing in it. You coward. 

I’m done. This is the last straw for me. I’m done playing apologist and keeping quiet when it comes to people who vagueblog about me like they’re being at-fucking-all subtle and plagiarists that think it’s okay to pull their bullshit and get away with it because, what, the people they’re plagiarizing from aren’t as well-known? That no one will call them out on their bullshit? Fuck that. Fuck this. 

#I'mmmmmmmmm so angry #I just wanted to write fic and make memes #but HERE WE ARE #so I guess this shit is happening now #mmmmmmm I refuse to be accused of this bullfuckery without fighting back #how absolutely dare you #also if you think this is about you it's probably not so #y'know #SINCE THE PERSON THIS IS ABOUT HAS EXACTLY ZERO REASON TO COME ONTO MY BLOG IN THE FIRST PLACE #:))))) #plz.................. fandom idiots................. don't interact.................. #it'll save us all so much trouble!!!!!!!! #tam talks

[thesffcorner]

Kill Creek

Kill Creek is a horror novel written by Scott Thomas. We follow Sam McGarver, a best selling horror author who is suffering from a massive writer's block. He has separated from his wife and is teaching at a university, while trying to write his next novel. He gets an invitation to do an interview for WrightWire, a pop culture website known for putting on massive, scripted shows, and he accepts, not realizing that not only will he not be alone during this interview, but it will also take place at the notorious Kill Creek Manor, a house with a dark and haunted past. The idea of this book sounded awesome; 4 horror authors have to spend a weekend at a haunted house for an interview; kind of like Until Dawn, but instead of teenagers the victims are masters of the genre and could therefore have a unique approach and even predict what the house would throw at them. The first half of this book was excellent; I liked the set-up, I liked the characters, the history of Kill Creek was suitably dark and twisted, and I really liked the direction of the plot. Unfortunately, as soon as the characters arrived in Kill Creek, much like his own lead character, Thomas’ story quickly devolved into cliches, nonsensical plot twists, characters acting completely opposite to what they did before for no reason, and this really interesting premise was squandered. The book never recovers from the wasted potential that is the interview, so I figure I should start with the positives. For a start, I appreciated that all of the characters, while not all likable, were at least relatable and consistent. With the exception of one, each character had an understandable starting point, and though they all end up doing questionable things, I still rooted for them, and wanted them to survive the book. I liked the way each character’s personal trauma and past informed the ways in which they interacted with the house, and for the most part found all of them equally intriguing, at the start. The house itself was really well done. A lot of the book relies heavily on the Southern Gothic tradition, which I enjoy. It’s a big house that has been abandoned for decades, in the middle of nowhere in Kansas, and it does all the things creepy houses do; cold spots, sounds, apparitions, power turning off and on, rooms that go nowhere, creepy crawl spaces, etc. I almost wish, considering the role the house played that we got to spend more time inside it, and really delved into it’s dark history, like Del Toro did in Crimson Peak. I also liked what we get to see of Sam’s classes. His 5 elements of gothic horror were brilliant and I kept reading the book wondering and theorizing about how everything fit in them. I also liked the interview, where Sebastian was explaining what true horror means to him; it was a great deconstruction of Lovcraftian horror and I really liked that the queer character was the one who gravitated most to it. There were other scenes that left an impact: Sebastian seeing Richard for the first time, Sam hugging Wainwright after he tells them what happened to Kate, his stunt with the Underground, Daniel mourning his daughter. The moments of humanity and genuine kindness made me root for the characters, which is something modern horror desperately lacks, often treating its characters like disposable blood bags. Unfortunately, there are more issues than positives. Now, I am by no means a purist; different genres can borrow and modify elements from each other, as even Sam points out in his lecture. There are elements that make a specific piece of work ‘Gothic’ horror, but that same work can also fall under the slasher, body horror or even religious horror category. What Thomas is essentially trying to do here is to take 4 genres of horror fiction: Lovcraftian horror, southern Gothic, slasher and erotic horror and piece them together into one book. And the effect is much the same as the one you get at the end of Cabin in the Woods; confusing, predictable and not particularly effective at any of the genres. I am never scared of Gothic horror; the most I am, is unnerved or unsettled. However, when I watch/read anything pertaining to torture-porn, body horror or even slasher, I am terrified, and there wasn’t a single point in this book where I was even slightly unsettled. Gothic horror and straight up slashers don’t mix, at least not the way Thomas has done it here. For example, we have quiet scenes of Sebastian being haunted by the mistakes of his past, the dread of losing his memories, losing his ability to tell stories, and in the same breath we have Moore getting the shit kicked out of her, or Kate slicing her arm open, Ghosts of Mars style. These simply don’t work together, and the end result is an uneven feeling throughout the book where I’m not sure what I should be scared of, because anything goes. The other main issue was the horror element. The idea that the house was never evil, but people believing that it is made it haunted was just… unsatisfactory. How can rumors actually make a house haunted? And I don’t mean, oh because people think this place is bad, anything even remotely strange or distressing that happens in it is automatically prescribed to the location; no I mean somehow people’s notions that the house is haunted created or called a primordial, decaying evil that has a physical form, and can take on the shape of specific people enough to fool others that it is human, save people from dying, and also kill them in unrelated bus accidents? What? The ending was such a mess, because there are no rules to this creature! It can do absolutely anything, and there was no suspense left in the climax or the epilogue, because I knew exactly what would happen. Thomas just borrows tropes from other horror works, and does nothing to subvert them; he just let’s them play out with no critical eye, which is why we get such a dumb Bloomhouse ending, to what was otherwise a book that really seemed to respect the genre and it’s traditions. There were also major issues with the characters. Let’s start with the ones I had the least amount of problems with: Kate, Wainwright and Sebastian. Kate was boring as hell; she had no personality other than being southern and black. There is a line in the book about how her dad would hate that she’s sleeping with Wainwright not because he’s her boss but because he’s white, which is a can of worms I don’t want to touch with a 10 ft pole. There was an attempt to tie her to the history of the house, seeing as a freed slave woman who lived there was lynched, but we know nothing about Kate or her relationship with Wainwright, other than he is white and she is black. Wainwright at least had a lot of potential to be interesting. There are hints to his personality throughout the first half which never pan out; he has daddy issues, he feels inadequate and like a fraud, he has a temper that fires off when things don’t go his way, he is willing to do anything for clout. I thought the reveal was that he would rig the house for the interview Until Dawn style, or he’d trigger the haunting with something he does, but nothing of the sort happens. I thought maybe his temper and aggressive streak might make him abusive to Kate, but that also never happens. Sam hates and suspects him, but there is no reason for it; he’s just a rich boy who gets way in over his head and nothing beyond that. Sebastian was the character I liked the most, but he was wasted on this book. He is old, he has been closeted his whole life, he has lost the love of his life to cancer, and his father to dementia and is now aware that he too is slowly becoming forgetful. How interesting would it have been if Thomas actually grappled with his past, the wife he betrayed by using her as a beard, his fear of losing his memories of Richard, his desire to remain famous or at least remembered because he himself is starting to forget. How novel to actually have a queer protagonist in a Gothic novel where their sexuality isn’t punished by death of suffering. But no, he’s just barely in the book, and though I appreciate that at least Thomas didn’t have a third act twist where he suddenly became evil, it was clear Thomas had no idea what to do with him. Then we get to the characters I actively hated. Daniel I liked for most of the book; I hated the way his character was treated by the author however. I have never seen such little respect for a religious character in anything; I legitimately felt like I was watching God’s Not Dead, except Daniel was losing his faith instead of finding it. If I had to guess, I’d say Thomas doesn’t like religion, and doesn’t have any interest in actually exploring the complicated relationship characters who are religious have with themselves, their church, their families and God. Daniel is religious because he survived a spider attack as a child, and though he seems to be questioning his faith, we never really get to see why, or what drives him to be a Christian author at all. Every debate Daniel has with Moore is dumb, and the way he answers questions is purposefully written to have Moore come out on top, instead of presenting reasons as to why a person would believe certain things. It came off as fake and disingenuous, especially because the relationship Daniel has with his daughter was so good, and the scenes with him and his wife at the house were heartbreaking. But then, because Thomas needs a villain it’s just Daniel, for no reason other than… Thomas hates parents and/or religious people. I also didn’t appreciate how many fat jokes the other characters made at his expense of how everyone treated him like he was dumb just because he was excited to be around authors who were his peers and influences. Then we have Moore, who was probably the worst female character I’ve ever had the misfortune of reading; worse than Mara Jade, worse than Razorgirl. She deserves to be taught in class as an example of how not to write female characters; a complete caricature of feminism, and ambitious career driven women. She’s rude, abrasive, a massive inconsiderate asshole that is constantly constantly defensive, takes every single gesture in the absolute worst faith but also still has to be a) straight and b) hot. I actually wouldn’t have minded a female writer who started out as an indie erotica writer whose work became successful and her writing darker. I liked that she was clearly an Objectivist with an Ayn Rand level of strict work ethic, who is also rude and unpleasant. But the way she was written made absolutely no sense, and her fucking insulting backstory, about how she was severely abused by her ex, was just the icing on this shit cake. She oozed with ‘I’m not like other girls’ and ‘strong women as imagined by men’; she has an unnecessary and frankly unbelievable romance with Sam, is the only one who is described to write in the nude and is also the token woman in the male group, and if I can say one positive about her character is that it at least stayed consistently rude and disgusting to the very end. Sam was clearly the writer insert character and for the most part he was fine; at least he read like a real, flawed human, not a human-shaped robot. There were many moments where he describes other male characters as beautiful or comments on how attractive their eyes or faces are, so I got excited that maybe this book would explore his sexuality, but no; he is a boring, bland straight protagonist. I appreciated that he had depression and anxiety and was actually being treated for it, I liked that he explored toxic masculinity in his stories, but there was still the ridiculous ‘romance’ between him and Moore, and the reason why he refused to tell anyone what happened to his mother was… unclear. Like he’s clearly an adult and mature enough to know that therapy works, but still childish enough to cling to what his brother told him to protect him when he was 10? Ok? Also I didn’t like that he made no effort to make things better with Erin and he still got her back in the end. If I could recommend half of a book I would, because everything in this novel, up until the authors have their interview was great. Everything past that point kept becoming more and more convoluted, and what made the book interesting, the characters and the mystery of the house completely unraveled. I would be interested to see what else Thomas has written, because there is a good story in him; it just wasn’t this one.

goodreads

#kill creek #kill creek review #book reviews #moni talks

[mild-lunacy]

The 'Why Omegaverse' Question

I'm a very self-indulgent person, and so I like analyzing why I like the self-indulgent things I like to read almost as much as reading them. And well, currently I'm reading a Johnlock Omegaverse fic and it made me wonder why I almost always enjoy it so much.

Usually when the subject comes up, I've seen things like people enjoy the world-building, the gender dynamics exploration or the porn (usually that bit's implied). To be honest, I've never actually seen people talk about it much. Not that people in fandom are all that shy about our porn, but wank happens just with the top/bottom discussions, forget Alpha/Omega discourse (not that I've actually ever seen that). It doesn't completely translate. Like, I think people usually write Omega!John and bottom!John differently, although there's more overlap in Omega!Sherlock and bottomlock. The storyline about how both Omega John and Sherlock resist their secondary gender's stereotypes to be BAMFy fits both of them in different ways, just as the whole Alpha strut and self-confidence can be spun to fit them both. I think in my case, I find both options more pleasant in Omegaverse 'cause often there's more explicit characterization work to justify the differences in the fic's John or Sherlock. Like, I'm a very picky reader that's super sensitized to OOCness, and I think Omegaverse helps me 'cause the characterization divergence is there but is more consciously constructed as an AU. So I'm like, okay this is a bottomlock universe or a toplock universe, and I can go with it 'cause it's never presented as the 'natural order of things', so to speak. Of course, this is ironic 'cause the mainstream concept of the gender dynamic in-universe is usually all about the 'natural order of things' being Alpha/Omega pairings. It's just that you're still dealing with these implicit or symbolic issues (feminization, projection, etc) a lot in regular fics, but I feel like it's defanged if it's directly acknowledged by the narrative.

This might be why it's awkward to talk about enjoying Omegaverse porn, in a way. At least speaking for myself, there's an underlying sense of discomfort in 'un-queering' the pairing, even if you keep the characters' equipment. At least if you're not reading Alpha/Alpha or Omega/Omega fics (which are rare and I myself usually don't read). I think for me, there's an appeal in the absolute normalization of it, sort of the same way I enjoy 18-19th century novel Sherlock fusion fics with no homophobia. Like, you could say it's erasing the queerness of the characters by making them play essentially heteronormative roles in the society (especially when one of the characters was literally male and one female in the original novel). Or you could say it's simply that the fic's erasing the other people's problem, which is external to the actual relationship dynamics between the characters. In the case of Omegaverse, you're still usually problematizing the gendered aspects of the relationship (ie, it's not usually portrayed as absolute smooth sailing, ala a fluffy het romance), but you're not coming at it from the same angle so it's still refreshing. Is that what *I* like about it, though?

It's a bonus, certainly. In the end, I do like the thinky world-building and the gender exploration stuff, but it's not enough by itself. What makes Omegaverse a true guilty pleasure is usually the trope aspect: the chance to enjoy a classic iteration of the fuck-or-die trope combined with a soulmate trope. If you look at the usual fuck-or-die fics these days, they're not generally romantic. They tend to be more straightforwardly dealing with issues of consent and trauma if they're not pure rapefic PWP, whereas a lot of Omegaverse fic still allows you to have consent in-universe along with a focus on characterization and romance; PWPs are relatively rare. My point is, the trope's original conceit was that both people secretly want it, and may be wary but interested and compatible (and at least initially/partly capable of consent, though you could have angst about the subject in many fics). It's obviously problematic rather than romantic in a more realistic context, but this is why I enjoy the sci-fi premise of the Omegaverse. It's quite possible to create these results using a different sci-fi/fantasy scenario (certain magical artifacts, alien spores, sometimes Sentinel/Guide, etc), but Omegaverse provides a ready template, whereas everything else requires constructing a complex plot from scratch. Of course, this is partly why I enjoyed them back in the day, but most fics I've seen lately just go with drugs and/or a villain as the immediate cause. Both of these are traumatic, being sort of the antithesis of a happy ending scenario. So... me no likey.

With the seemingly romantic soulmate trope taken alone in fics, most of what I see is also less than romantic, with the usual point being to problematize the soulmate bond scenario somehow. Otherwise it's considered 'boring'. I just like my bond fics being about a happy, even joyous union, with the drama coming from the difficulty getting together or some other external source. Omegaverse fics generally use this type of approach. Call me old-fashioned. I know I am.

I think rather than the porn (which is really hit-or-miss in terms of how well even a good writer does with it), I'm into the soul-bonding and pheromonal attraction aspect of the trope. This might also be another reason why I don't really care much who's the Alpha or Omega: usually the desperation (another favorite trope!) goes both ways emotionally. The whole nature of the Omegaverse is about breaking down personal boundaries and forming a more perfect union, both physically and emotionally. I mean, usually this is a theme in most romantic pairings, but here it's being made both emotionally explicit and natural (in-universe), whereas I tend to view super-fluffy fics (especially involving long-term commitment themes) with suspicion. This probably has something to do with me being a 'cold-prickly type' reader. Normally, reading about marriage (essentially) would seem OOC or over-the-top to me somehow, whereas if you're soul-bonded as an Alpha/Omega couple, well, you can't really avoid it. There's usually no (easy) divorce and/or polyamory option, etc. You're just kinda stuck being in fluffy love forever, haha. I know a lot of people would find that stifling or even less romantic, but it suits me just fine. Though I could do without the babies, generally, in the end I even make the baby exception for Omega Sherlock (poor boy, haha). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#pointless rambles #me myself and i #johnlock feels #characterization #sherlock au #fanfic meta #reader response #omegaverse

[femslashrevolution]

Femslash and Community

This post is part of Femslash Revolution’s I Am Femslash series, sharing voices of F/F creators from all walks of life. The views represented within are those of the author only.

I’m really filled with warm fuzzies at having been asked to talk about femslash to the femslash community.  You might know me as writerstealth, or previously as sexghosts, in another lifetime.  So, in the interest of understanding where I’m coming from on this, I am an old, in fandom terms.  I’m 41, I’m married, I have kids, a career, and all that jazz.  Writing femslash is a fun way for me to express my queerness, enjoy the things I love, and get appreciative feedback from an audience that loves the same things I do.  It’s pretty much a no-lose situation for me.

I wish that I’d had the internet and had access to femslash when I was a kid and figuring things out.  I think it’s great that young queer girls now have this wealth of reading material at their fingertips where they can learn about sex and their sexuality and see it as normal, which it should be.  As an older person in fandom though, I also feel like it’s incumbent on me to be supportive of the younger people who are sort of wandering through this world without a guide.  The biggest thing, maybe the most important good that femslash can do, is offer community.

I’ve often made myself available to kids who were struggling with something or wanted advice or were trying to figure themselves out (“I’m not gay, I just really, really like reading porn about lesbians banging.” “Okay, sweetie… let’s talk about this…”).  I think that, for us olds, it’s important that we do that because most of us as young queer kids did not have an older queer person that we could talk to when trying to figure things out.  So, we need to be that person for the young queer kids that we encounter in fandom now.  

Femslash has put me in contact with fans and friends and that’s all awesome, because I need those things to be part of my life.  But it’s also put me in contact with young queer kids who needed advice or a sympathetic ear.  I’ve talked one or two kids off the ledge.  Other friends of mine have similarly counseled fandom kids through some painful things.  And honestly, it’s a joy and a privilege for me to do it, to be the support for other kids that I never had.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what my responsibilities are as an older person in fandom.  Some of you probably read my frustrated rants about the insistence of younger fandom to apply the rather limiting labels of “top” and “bottom” to lesbian relationships and I won’t rehash it here, but one thing that’s been on my mind is what our responsibility is as older writers when we’re putting out erotica.  I probably absorbed my share of dumb, shitty ideas about sex from casing my mom’s romance novels when I was about eleven years old and didn’t have the slightest idea that there was any distinction between fantasy and reality.  I’m not saying we should stop writing our deliciously questionable shit, but we should be available to help when younger people tap us on the shoulder and ask, “Hey, this thing is happening to me, is this normal/OK?”  I’ve even considered putting some kind of tag or up-front note on the really dicey stuff, just to remind enthusiastic young readers that what they’re reading isn’t necessarily a healthy or positive representation of sex.  I haven’t quite worked out what that might look like.  But in general, lately, I’ve moved into writing stuff that really elevates more enthusiastic consent.  We all go through our sexy dubcon thing from time to time, but it’s important, I think, to make it clear that there’s a line between what we’d like to fantasize about and what we’d like to actually do.

But again, it’s less about censoring ourselves, and more about being that safe space where people who are just figuring themselves out can come to talk about things and learn and work through it.  We all have to go through painful learning experiences when we’re figuring out love and relationships and fucking.  As people who dedicate a lot of our free time to writing about those things, I rather think it’s incumbent on us to support those who are learning.

Femslash is a wonderful, flexible medium for exploration, learning, and release.  It’s great for giving you ideas for things to try with your partners.  I know one woman now in her late twenties who was reading femslash as a fourteen year old and had an arsenal of things to try by the time she had sex for the first time two years later.  It’s great for getting your sexual impulses out.  Some people have posited that the act of writing fic in itself is a queer act because you’re writing stuff for other women to get off to, and I’d raise my pint glass and toast to that as well.  I’ve been told by a few friends that a particular piece of my writing has gotten them laid on at least two separate occasions.  Femslash is a playground for all kinds of things, including working through trauma.  I wrote one piece that explored a character from the perspective of viewing her as a sexual trauma victim rather than as a villain as she’s typically viewed, and I got messages from women saying, “Thank you for writing this, I’m a trauma survivor and I’ve struggled to articulate this need to my partner but I was able to show them this and now they understand.”  I race-bent and queered a character in another fic to make her a Palestinian Muslim lesbian and I got a message from a Palestinian Muslim lesbian literally freaking out because she never sees herself represented anywhere.  In so many ways, it’s entertaining at least, and on your best days, you can feel like you’re doing the Lord’s work.

So, I’m honored that I was asked to talk about this.  I love this as a pastime, but most importantly, I love the community that exists around it, which has supported me in my own personal struggles from time to time as well.  Yep, even me.  An old.  I want to remind everyone to nurture and support that community, especially if you are an old and you have a smol seeking you out for advice.  Keep writing femslash.  Keep exploring.  Keep taking chances.

Think of the children.  :)

#writerstealth #I Am Femslash #Femslash February 2017 #Femslash February #TYpe: Meta #submission

[terramythos]

Thoughts/reactions master post for October Daye #13 “The Unkindest Tide” or "major deja vu" 

Excellent Start: it fuckin opens with The Luidaeg showing up and dumping a bunch of lore

-There are some things to unpack here after thinking on it. The Roane predicted that Toby would bring them back. We knew already that they were seers and could predict the future. But this implies they did not predict their savior being Toby SPECIFICALLY, just someone from Amandine's line.

This is interesting for a couple reasons. First, it's a solid explanation for why The Luidaeg, the oldest and one of (if not the) most powerful Firstborn took interest in Toby, who's a changeling and thus beneath the notice of most of Faerie. On a related note, it's also an explanation on why Amandine was so keen on turning Toby into a human. The character who prevented this happening was, no surprise, The Luidaeg.

But while it appears Toby will indeed fulfill this prophecy, it's been implied if not outright stated that Amandine's line is also prophesied (probably by the Roane) to bring back Oberon. This is a wild guess, but I feel it makes more narrative sense and would be an interesting twist if we set Toby up to fulfill that prophecy, only to ultimately have August (or both of them as a team) do it. I'm pretty sure August is redeemable, unlike Amandine, and her character arc so far is based on trying to bring Oberon back and FAILING, so...

-I could be reading too much into this, but hey. I do think I should go back and read (1) The Luidaeg's short story where she confronts Amandine and (2) the scenes in book 5 where Toby talks to one of the few surviving Roane. Said Roane predicts Connor's death, but she says so much cryptic shit there may be something else hidden there relating to this.

...OH. OK. You know that makes a lot more sense. All the setup for this (which has been going on since book 5 lmfao) pointed to The Luidaeg being morally questionable and possibly evil in this one but like, this is way more in line with her character lmfao

Though I guess theres plenty that's morally questionable about forcing an entire race of people to turn into another one whether they like it or not

-Side note: The Luidaeg and Quentin's friendship remains adorable

-Gillian's magical signature is officially fennel and primroses.

-OK but like, we have to approach the fact that Gillain's skin is still basically sentient in some way? Like Firtha's consciousness is a big part of the short story. And can glean from that that the others probably have something to them. So uh, what happens to the souls (if you can call them that) when we fuse the skins to the Selkies?

New Firstborn?? New Firstborn! New Firstborn.

-ok so like correct me if I'm wrong but practically every Firstborn we met has been female. I think the only dude we've met is Blind Michael, who was a basket of crazy and Decisively Killed Off in book 3. Otherwise we've got The Luidaeg, Evening, Amandine, Acacia, and now Captain Pete.

The Luidaeg is such a fascinating character. One of my favorites from literally anything. This scene really exemplifies why I think. Seemingly cruel yet compassionate, coping with horrific tragedy, yet also a supernatural and terrifying monster. SORT OF. it’s complicated

-There's a scene after this where she verbally takes down an adult man, then is so kind and patient to a child who approaches her. And that contrast really hits. She has been consistently kind and protective of children through the whole series. It makes it more brutal when she says she doesnt even like them much because she misses having her own, and you know she can't lie. She's kind to kids because it is the right thing to so.

-Shit goes down in a bad way (seemingly unrelated to the main premise?). Like Dianda gets kidnapped by her evil brother whom we have not met before

SIMON TORQUILL REDEMPTION ARC IN THE FUTURE...... 2!

-Not to be rude October but like, werent you already planning to rescue Simon ANYWAY. That one's basically the freebie of those 3 favors you just promised

-ok I'm writing this part WAY LATER cause my dumb ass forgot that Simon returning is CONTINGENT upon bringing Oberon back and now this line makes way more sense. 

-little lore tidbit on why it's so easy to transform October and not the other characters... its the whole Tam Lin thing we figured out last book. Guess that should have been obvious

Not to be het rights on main but oh my god. Oh my fucking shit oh my god. (Its not really het rights cause tybalt is bi but oh my god holy shit)

-I am laughing at the fact this is a tense moment with lives on the line and an obvious time limit and Toby and Tybalt just go "time to make out a little in front of everyone"

-Lmao right after I typed that the Luidaeg basically said the same thing

-lmaoo she fuckin slices Tybalt's finger for his part of the spell then just does a tiny pinprick for Quentin because she likes him more 

-random interlude in the Undersea where toby rescues Peter

Ok Quentin's reaction here is funny

This scene's got a little bit of everything

Explanation on why Gillian can talk to her skin, since it's a "lost" one and hasn't been worn much. Also sort of an explanation for the Luidaeg calling the skins by name.

-anyway it's pretty obvious that Dianda's brother is the one behind Isla's murder, right? Like, why else introduce him at this point

-"maybe sending The Luidaeg to find Pete has been the wrong call" I'm starting to feel that way to be honest

-Yeah Torin being responsible is confirmed. There’s a scene where Toby gets badly injured and it’s borderline torture porn, which seems to happen once a book now. There is a cute somewhat angsty scene with her and Tybalt, which is always fun.

-There's some fun bits when they take down Torin but nothing particularly noteworthy. The interactions with Pete and The Luidaeg are fun when both return to the scene. I'm trying real hard to like Gillian but she's been pretty ineffectual this book, and every time she shows up it seems to be whining about Toby, which is a shame.

Luidaeg feels and The Moral, which is pretty good! Found family is a reliable weak point of mine.

-They do find an alternate solution (splitting the “dead” skins), and everyone who wants a Selkie skin gets it. They also let some of them stay Selkies for a few more years, but most get turned into Roane. And happy Luidaeg! 

-Though the whole “Gillian has a sentient selkie skin” is not addressed again and she’s the first one who gets turned. did Firtha/her ghost just get annihilated from existence? i don’t know man 

-Overall I'm pretty lukewarm over this entry. Like Once Broken Faith, it feels like a book made to Address a Big Lore Change but doesn’t have a solid conflict to support it. Torin is some one-off Merrow dude i’m pretty sure is never mentioned until he suddenly shows up and is the bad guy here, and the whole kidnapping Dianda and long interlude in the middle where they go to the Undersea to rescue Peter seems just... really random, considering the setting (Duchy of Ships) and the Selkies are supposed to be the center of the story.  

Nothing wrong with one-off villains, but ones like Blind Michael and Rhys were way more memorable/interesting than Torin. This just felt way too much like the randos from Once Broken Faith who were just villains cause someone had to be. can’t even remember their names or their motivations 

It's a shame cause there are some things I did really like in this novel. There’s some good character development. Captain Pete was cool (even if the conclusion basically writes her back out of the story). But imo this book should be a big Luidaeg entry and she's absent for like 70 percent of the book, which doesn’t help 

I guess what I'm saying is this would have been fine as a novella if there wasn’t a big novel-defining conflict to use. January’s resurrection was done in a novella and that’s pretty damn major, Lore-wise. 

I cant complain too much, cause the last 2 books knocked it out of the park. But I hope the next one feels more relevant.

-One thing I do want to mention (which I didn’t picture anywhere) is there is a lot of cryptic shit in this entry surrounding... Marcia of all people? Captain Pete and The Luidaeg both seem inordinately interested in her. And she seems very nervous when they speak to her and ask her questions and says a bunch of weird cryptic shit. I think this is setting up for something with her, but I’m not sure what. We basically know none of her backstory, which is unusual for a character who’s been in the series since book 1, so it wouldn’t be out of place to explore her more. I do think there’s something up with her birth/heritage. We know she’s a mostly human changeling (like only 1/4 fae?) but she’s very involved in the fae stuff, which is unusual. We don’t even know what the 1/4 is and the main character is literally a bloodhound for that sort of thing. 

-Anyway, there’s a novella at the end of this one called "Hope is Swift" starring Raj. So we'll see how that is!

-I like it so far. Lots of Cait Sidhe lore. The premise is that Raj gets hit by a car in cat form and then taken in by a vet and mistaken for an actual cat. There's also a they/them nb side character named Cal. 

-Overall I did enjoy the novella. Not a lot goes down but there’s good Cait Sidhe lore and character development for Raj. We also got to formally meet Ginerva, who was a character in name only to this point. I liked it more than the base novel i think 

-and not to drive more on my point in previous reads but BLIND MICHAEL. IS MENTIONED A LOT. mostly re: trauma and recovery, which is nice, but still. 

-I hope book 14 throws us back into the meat of the story. i mean, 10 was probably the weakest entry but it was surrounded by good ones, and since this one was preceeded by 2 of the best books in the series i hope the pattern stays true 

[xtremedespair3d]

Anime Spring 2018 Final Impressions + Plans for Summer

It’s been a long time since I made the last post on every anime I watched on winter, or posting anything on Tumblr in general, it’s time to come back to talk about what anime I’ve watched this spring season and what I’m going to watch this summer.

WARNING: This list may contain spoilers.

Spring 2018

Golden Kamuy: I’ve looked this one this entire season, even though I may not know much, after watching a few episodes, I was definitely impressed, but there are a few people who are disappointed with how the anime turned out, I kind of understand that, but at the same time it leaves me a sour taste in my mouth.

I’m happy season 2 got announced for October, definitely looking forward for more.

High School DXD Hero: I’ve always been skeptical about this season just by the new art style alone, even if it’s by the same studio that made the Citrus anime, but it seems like Passione pulled it off.

Not only the art is rather nice, as I stated, it looks to be faithful to the light novels, they retconned the Juggernaut Drive moment from Born from episode 0, it took me by surprise and learning that the rest of Born was anime original ruined my life and everything I’ve seen has changed.

Steins;Gate 0: Not a lot to add, but it’s definitely one of the strongest series I’ve seen this season so far.

Tokyo Ghoul:re: As someone who hasn’t read the Tokyo Ghoul:re manga, I’d say this one was decent. I saw this ComicBook post where fans were disappointed by the season finale, but hey, there’s season 2 coming in October.

(Man, what’s with these shows having season 2 in Fall?)

My Hero Academia season 3: It’s lower in my list because, while MHA is really good, I read the manga and I pretty much know everything that happens, even if I forget what happened since it’s been ages since I read the chapters the anime adapts, at least they refresh my memory.

Lupin the 3rd Part 5: This one is good, my only problem is that every few episodes with storylines end, there are those extra episodes that take place in previous jackets, like red jacket and pink jacket Lupin, I can’t help but think those are filler. It’s probably my first time I’ve been mad to filler.

Persona 5: The Animation: Totally did not expect the problems P5A has at all, from animation quality, like terrible fight scenes, to pacing issues, like everything is happening so fast and A-1 decided to rush the 100 hour plot into a 25 episode series. At least it looks better than Persona 4: The Animation.

Given by the episode count I mentioned, I’m looking forward to the surprise teased by the director, I hope I see a lot of people lose their shit like Darling in the Franxx (Heh, A-1), I kind of have the guilty pleassure to see people suffer in this case.

Caligula: This one I really was looking forward to hate. The animation was decent and all but all I can think of is the story, I really don’t like the world at all and I probably don’t care for any of the characters, especially Ritsu.

At the end of episode 10, Ritsu left Mobius and came back to reality alone while all of his friends are left behind, by that point, for some reason I thought “I officially hate Ritsu for that!”, but the more I waited, the less I considered that idea and decided to drop it.

By episode 11, it’s where things are getting worse: The Ritsu we were seeing all along wasn’t even Shikishima Ritsu, it’s a dude called Tachibana Shingo...

...and this dude right here IS THE REAL SHIKISHIMA RITSU!

LIKE... WHAT?!

I thought Mobius Ritsu was Shingo who took Ritsu’s name but it’s actually the real Ritsu who took Shingo’s likeness. Why? Why would he do that? It’s not even explained. (Not sure if the game does)

I wanted to drop around episode 8 but I was 4 episodes left to finish watching this trash, and the more I saw it, I felt interested to know what was going on in the story.

I cared less about everything that happened in this show. It’s not offensively bad as 18if, but seriously, the world of Caligula sucks.

The only highlight of the series I’d give credits for are the post-credits teasers by Pop Team Epic creator, Okawa bkub.

Winter 2018 ongoing

Darling in the Franxx: Darling in the Franxx has grown to be the most divisive series to date, mainly from the “Bitchigo” controversy ever since.

While I definitely enjoy the series and I feel defensive about it, I can’t help but think that this is Trigger (and A-1)’s most controversial anime they’ve produced to have such fan outrage. Speaking of which, I don’t think it’s even being animated by Trigger anymore, it’s probably only A-1 alone along with Trigger animators and they just slapped the Trigger name on the credits. (I’m probably exaggerating), and Darling in the Franxx is not even on Trigger’s website!

If this is another one of Trigger’s big flops (The second one being Kiznaiver which WatchMojo called it “disappointing” which made me pissed so bad considering that I loved Kiznaiver, fucking thanks for the trauma, you cunts. (Don’t ask)), then Trigger, as storytellers, have become one-hit wonders, and that one hit is Kill La Kill. (Speaking of which, it’s getting a video game... developed by the people who made Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time, which turned out hot garbage, RIP)

As of the writing of this post, the series hasn’t ended yet, so we’re still gonna have to wait how the ending will turn out.

Toji no Miko: This one was alright, for some reason I expected the second cour to be somewhat time-wasting and trying to figure out the story because I was satisfied with the end of the first cour, but this one was decent.

Even if the anime series ended, while the mobage is currently on existence, I’ll never stop making Kancolle x Touken Ranbu jokes, at least the series had its own identity to make up for it.

Grancrest Senki: This one I was the least hopeful to watch, though not as trash as Caligula per se, but it’s just generic fantasy with some political drama, and ridiculously violent (Which there’s nothing wrong with it but the amount of gore is really something from a fantasy anime).

There were a couple of good moments but overall, it was meh.

Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card: I’m a little surprised that Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card ended with 22 episodes as opposed to 24 or 25 episodes, overall, I enjoyed the series, hopefully we won’t wait for a long time for another season.

Plans for Summer

Attack on Titan season 3: Reminder that we didn’t have to wait for another 4 years for another Attack on Titan season.

Angels of Death: This one has the potential to be one of the better anime adaptations of an RPG Maker game, unlike Ao Oni which failed spectacularly, considered that the Angels of Death anime is being made by JC Staff.

As of the writing of this video, it’s now confirmed that the total of episodes was 16 episodes, 12 of the regular series, and 4 OVA.

Overlord III: It’s still hard to believe that Overlord II was a winter show and this new season is a summer show, considering that I normally would expect shows having two seasons between winter and fall (Such as Shinmai Maou no Testament (2015) and Bubuki Buranki (2016).)

Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs: All I can think of is the titular character, Yuuna, is cute, and hot springs, what’s not to like?

Fate/Extra: Last Encore Illustrais Geocentrism: It still feels weird that Last Encore ended with 10 episodes, but at least there’s going to be more, but it’s going to be a two hour special, in two separate episodes. I thought I’ve seen sources that it was going to be episodes 11-13, I’ve seen a lot of sources and they confuse the heck out of me.

(Finally, a good line-up to watch)

BONUS: FLCL Progressive: Technically, FLCL Progressive came out on June 2nd on Adult Swim/Toonami, unlike the majority of the shows are all July shows.

FLCL Progressive and Alternative have quite the unique releases.

I was so baffled that many of the people I talk with were skeptical about FLCL Progressive, there were even stories of the original creator not wanting to make a sequel in the first place, I never gave a crap and ignored to what they said and just moved on to watch it.

After the first episode, it seems like the reactions were mostly positive (Maybe because a lot of people must be more newcomers than a few veteran FLCL fans), though the one thing that cringed me out was the part where Haruko (disguised as a teacher) made everyone watch porn.

Also, my bigger problem with watching FLCL Progressive (and Alternative) is that I have to watch them English dubbed and the subs got delayed until November (yes, that long; I’m not an English dubbed person, okay?).

Speaking of problems, as I mentioned that it was English dubbed, the parts where the characters say Japanese phrases is absolutely cringey as fuck, and with episode 4, at the beginning of the episode, Hidomi made a Jacksepticeye reference by saying “TOP OF THE MORNING!” and that triggered me so bad.

Speaking of Hidomi Hibajiri, she’s like my only highlight of this entire season, she’s such a cutie.

Like the original FLCL, Progressive and Alternative (I keep counting that one a lot, but, since it’s released on September, it still falls into Summer, I guess?) have 6 episodes, so as of the writing of this post, which ironically it’s almost 2 AM and it’s saturday, so new episode tonight, there’s at least going to be one more episode to end, and Alternative, while the first episode was released as a surprise release on April Fools, the rest of the episodes will be on September.

I wanted to add Tensai Bakabon to the list but now my interest to watch has turned off and I prefer Osomatsu-san over this one (This and Osomatsu-kun are made by Fujio Akatsuka and they’re being animated by Pierrot).

I hope you enjoyed my list of everything I saw this spring (while tryhard reviewing them in the process) and what I plan to watch this summer.

Twitter: @HKomaeda

#anime