#i legitimately don't have a solid answer | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gwenllian-in-the-abbey · 3 months

Note

Do you think Rhaenyra would have killed her siblings or it was mere paranoia on Alicent's side? The book doesn't provide a solid answer for this, and in the show it's clear that Rhaenyra would never harm her siblings.

Hi anon, I kind of went into it in this post, and although that ask was about Jace vs. Aegon III, I think the principle remains the same. In short, no, I don't think it was paranoia, but to understand why, we have to understand why Rhaenyra's brothers pose a particular threat to the stability of Rhaenyra (of Jace's) rule. Keep in mind, this isn't a moral failing specific to Rhaenyra, but simply a byproduct of the conditions of her inheritance.

I don't think Rhaenyra would have wanted to kill her siblings (or their kids), or even have planned to kill her siblings, but I also think that ultimately what she wanted wouldn't matter very much. All it would take would be someone wishing to rise in her esteem claiming that Aegon was fermenting rebellion, perhaps producing a forged letter as evidence, or an eyewitness who would swear that he had been secretly meeting with former greens. Could she risk it? Her brothers are weapons that can always be used against her. And at some point, it would be out of her control. Rhaenyra won't live forever, nor will Daemon, and when Jace attempts to take the throne, with no less than 7 legitimate male claimants alive who would have a claim ahead of him, there are bound to be challengers. The Blackfyre rebellion began with much flimsier pretexts.

We have real life examples of this. Henry VII intended to keep the remaining Plantagenets alive when he took the throne, as long as they stayed loyal. After all, they were his wife's family members, and killing them off would not be a good look. But the remaining Plantagenets would always be a threat to the Tudors. Ten year old Edward Plantagenet, the son of George of Clarence, was imprisoned in the Tower of London for 14 years before he was executed in 1499 for a supposed connection to Perkin Warbeck's scheme. Henry VII finally took action at least in part because he was negotiating a betrothal between his heir and the daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. The Spanish monarchs did not want their daughter marrying a man whose succession could be challenged, and so Edward, the strongest claimant at that point, had to go. Henry VII's son, Henry VIII, increasingly worried about the stability of his own succession, became vulnerable to the whisperings of opportunists looking to rise in the king's esteem and eliminate their own political enemies. At this point, the remaining Plantagenet claimants became a source of paranoia, justified or not. The arrest and execution of Margaret Pole, the niece of Edward IV and Richard III, was based upon a tunic found in her home that supposedly represented her support for her son's claim to the throne and the restoration of the Catholic church in England. The tunic was almost certainly planted by Henry VIII's chief minister, the protestant Thomas Cromwell, the same man who orchestrated Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon (yes, the same princess whose hand Edward Plantagenet had died to secure). And Henry VIII liked Margaret, she'd been the governess to his daughter, and though they had their ups and downs, he certainly didn't hate her. Still, when her son was put forward as a rival claimant and she was accused of supporting him, she had to go too. And of course, going backwards a bit, there are famously the princes in the tower, Edward and Richard, sons of King Edward IV, who despite having been officially declared bastards (a law, you see, was not enough), were still enough of a threat to the throne that they were (most likely) murdered, whether by Richard III or one of his associates. Mere rumors that those boys still lived sparked rebellions during the reign of Henry VII.

And you can say well, there's a difference, surely, in that Rhaenyra is the rightful queen, and these other people were not? But "rightful" is not some inherent state of being, it's dependent upon who is in power. Every person who sits the throne believes themself to be the rightful king or queen. But Rhaenyra in particular gained her position because her father exercised his power and declared her heir in defiance of the expected order of inheritance, contradicting the very decision that made him king in the first place. After Viserys dies though, for all intents and purposes his wishes cease to matter. He is no longer king, and lacks any mechanism by which to enforce his wishes from beyond the grave. At that point, people will choose to support one claimant or another, based upon their own concerns (dragon math, precedent, oaths, promises made by one or the other, existing family bond) and to consider Rhaenyra or Aegon (or any other claimant down the road) the rightful king/queen. Rhaenyra's security upon the throne, like the position of Henry VII or Richard III, is inherently weaker because she comes to the throne through unconventional means. All it takes is a plague year, a famine, or a foreign invasion for any random group of lords to decide that the true king Aegon/Aemond/Jaehaerys/Maelor should be on the throne and that they should start a rebellion in his name. If Rhaenyra feels insecure in her rule, or in Jace's ability to peacefully inherit after her, it only makes sense to eliminate any potential rivals, and her brothers and their children will always be a threat, no matter her original intentions. Even if Rhaenyra keeps her word and does not harm her family, her brothers and their line pose a threat to Jace and his line as long as both lines exist.

So Alicent is not being paranoid at all, she's being realistic. If Viserys were to disinherit Rhaenyra, or were Rhaenyra to accept the peace terms and give up her claim, she would become simply another sister, but Aegon can never be just another brother to Queen Rhaenyra because in the eyes of some, he will always be a potential rallying point for dissenters, and if not him then his brothers, or his children, whether they want to be or not. That's the point Alicent is making. It's not a reflection on Rhaenyra's character, it's just that if it came down to a choice between securing her reign/Jace's succession, and the lives of her potential political rivals, it's not difficult to guess what Rhaenyra would choose.

#asks #aegon ii targaryen #rhaenyra targaryen #alicent hightower #f&b #history

174 notes · View notes

netherworldpost · 5 months

Note

I have an important question that I think you are uniquely qualified to answer. I have received a gift of supplies for hand-carving rubber stamps. Rubber pads, linocutting tools, ink, brayer. I think I'll grab tracing paper when I get the chance. But most importantly, what should my first stamp be?

This is going to sound like postal propaganda

(and it is)

(but I have a legitimate reason)

I think the first stamp should be a back-of-envelope design. You can either do a positive or negative, depending on what skills you want to experiment with

So either the block inks the lines

Or the shape

This will help you learn the tools, the material, how hard to press, is one pass sufficient or should you do another, how much practice is needed to get straight lines (etc)

Once you're comfortable with that -- trees. Another shape with a ton of variety, minimal chance of "...okay what is this...", and you can easily adapt line-work of solid shape-work depending on how easy/hard you are finding the materials.

When you want to get into more complex shapes, look into graphite transfer paper. It operates like a carbon-copy -- you draw on top of it, it puts down graphite onto the thing (in this case, the block)

...and...

welcome to my favorite printer comment since the early 2000s when I first got into print production and got REALLY into old printing for reasons:

mind your "p"-s and "q"-s!

and "b"-s and "d"-s!

(the letter shapes are so regularly similar it's really, really easy to forget to mirror them when you're carving)

WELCOME TO PRINT-MAKING (or at least block printing if you already make prints etc.) LIFE NEVER IS THE SAME AGAIN

IT IS INCREDIBLE

"i have an idea"

I HAVE MADE THE IDEA REALITY

also don't forget you don't have to print on paper -- as you get plans and skills, print on

paper

pants

shirts

aprons

books

61 notes · View notes

traegorn · 2 months

Note

Hi I was listening to one of the first episodes on your podcast, i'm interested in witchcraft and wicca. You mentioned how wicca was mostly created by Gardner. So like what about the concepts of god and goddess? Is this something that he just made up? But then people believe still knowing he made up? I just don't get.

You also mentioned that his book is not good for beginners. What about Doreen Valiente book you mentioned "witchcraft for tomorrow" is that a good book? From your description she seems more honest, so the book interested me

So we'll answer this backwards -- while I have a deep respect for Doreen Valiente, her books aren't that great either (especially for a beginner). If you want a solid, beginner Wicca book I still recommend Scott Cunningham's Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner paired with Margot Adler's Drawing Down the Moon for context. Valiente was a much better poet than she was a teacher, and we have much better sources out there now.

As for the the question are the Wiccan God and Goddess "something that [Gardner] just made up?" I guess my response is that it depends on your point of view? When Gardner put the form of Witchcraft that became Wicca to practice and paper, did he come up with the God and Goddess on his own? Sort of. Clearly he was inspired by earlier sources, but he was putting down what made sense to him personally.

Now some people think that somehow makes this conception of divinity less legitimate, because even most Wiccans think of Gardner as "just some guy." But I think that's way too simple a view.

Like I came to my understanding of divinity on my own, and found that Wicca lined up with what I already believed. What you will find most often in Wicca is that there is an extremely wide variety of beliefs about the actual nature and form of the God and Goddess. We don't have scripture, there is no authority. This leads to a diversity of understanding of divinity some people aren't necessarily comfortable with. The witch themself has to make some of their own decisions on this.

Something to keep in mind about Wicca is that it is far more orthopraxic than orthodoxic. Most Americans conceptualize religions from a purely orthodoxic perspective, where a religion is defined largely by belief and faith, because that's how Christianity works. Orthopraxic religions are far more defined on how they're practiced. Things like our rituals, holidays, ethical rules (the rede) -- those are largely what make things Wicca.

Hopefully that was helpful.

#witch #witchcraft #witchblr #wicca #wiccan

52 notes · View notes

dlamp-dictator · 2 months

Text

Okay, Let's Talk About 5 - 30

So, this horrid stage has probably stumped a lot of folks, especially folks that aren't used to the typical Project Moon Bullshit™ of having to fail about 10+ times before you actually figure out the answer to the puzzle the game is giving you... and RNG screwing you over. Mostly that last one, but occasionally Project Moon does throw out some damn tough puzzles to solve.

And with Chapter 5.5 now out I wanted to make a quick guide on how to get through this stage so people can actually beat Canto 5, rush through the Christmas event, and have access to 5.5 before it ends in a month. I'll... debate on explaining how to kill Siltcurrent/Neon Whale/That FUCKING ASSHOLE PARALYZING BIG NUMBERS ASS HAVIN-

But that's for another time.

And yes folks, people have been legitimately stuck on this stage to the point of some people having been barred from the Christmas event because of it. And the most I've seen of people actually helping with this boss in terms of guides and advice is the general fandom being some real assholes about reading passive and showing of their Base Ishmael solo clears without actually explaining anything. But I'm not here to whine about the fandom, I'm here to help with this stage.

Now usually, this is the part where I'd usually give a synopsis for the followers and mutuals that would like context to my long ramblings, but this is an endgame stage and the process of explaining Project Moon games in depth to people unfamiliar with them gives my stomach ulcers so I'll cut my usual fluff and get to the advise.

The Short Answer

For those of you wanting to just know the basics of how to survive this stage here's the brass tacks:

Stagger Ricardo twice to "win"

Don't kill Ricardo's two goons, just clash with them (ideally with a tank ID with aggro) to avoid buffing him further.

Ishmael is quasi-immortal and won't die so long as there's a surviving Sinner in play, so she can tank damage easily.

Use tremor IDs to make staggering easier during his "Test of Big Brother" phase

Use Ishmael's base EGO ASAP to make clashing for her easier.

Alright, with that said, here's some more details about the boss fight.

The Long Answer

I know I said this before, but it's worth repeating. This is endgame content. At this point of the game Project Moon expects you to have that Season Pass at least half finished, at least three teams of Sinners with good synergy (having teams for Charge, Tremor, Rupture, etc.), and have at least some meta IDs. This is not an unreasonable ask either. Most of us started between Seasons 1 & 2 and should have at least a solid team or six made already, a lot of the gacha resources are easy to obtain with patience, and you should have a decent understanding of the game's general mechanics by now. You can only be so ignorant before the failure is ultimately your fault, and while Ricardo definitely has some bullshit to him, most of his puzzle pieces are understandable after the fifth attempt.

I don't say this to insult you guys, but I know a lot of people stuck on this stage are also people that have been speedrunning the content and are now running into a wall as they've pushed further than what the game expected and probably don't have the game knowledge or resources to get through a very blatant knowledge & resource check. Yes, I've seen the Base ID & Base EGO clears too, but those are from people very used to Project Moon Bullshit™ and are outliers.

Now, with all that preamble out the way, here's the general idea.

This is a semi-survival stage where you have to not defeat Ricardo, but reach his second stagger threshold in about 5-7 turns. The biggest issue with this fight is that you've been doing a lot of mindless non-focus fights where you just needed the correct damage type (pierce in this case) to Win-Rate your way to victory. This stage is different in that you have to build a completely different team (tremor ideally), and be mindful of the Middle's general passives where they can get up to 5 Offense Level for getting their team slaughtered, making all of their clashes go up by one or two points. Along with this, the Little Brothers' attacks can debuff your team with Paralyze and Plus-Coin Power Drop, some of the most crippling debuffs in the game for your team outside of very specific IDs.

But you likely already know all of this and have reached the Ricardo part of the stage several times already. Here's the important bits you probably didn't realize.

Don't Kill the Goons

You might have noticed Ricardo gets super buffed when you kill his goons and makes COUPON BLAST™ all the more terrifying. Yeah, the man gets some rather bullshit power-ups if you kill or focus-fire the goons. I understand the though-process of killing the Debuffers and then wailing on Ricardo, but don't. Just beat their clashes and deal with them. The paralyze is crippling, but use a tank for those if you can since tanks (usually) don't do high damage anyway. Plus-Coin Power Drop is annoying, but for units that have big single-coin nukes or use EGO for nukes, this isn't as crippling as Paralyze and is the lesser of two debuffs. Just deal with the goons being there and try and focus most of the damage on Ricardo. The goons have a phase where they both block so you can just focus on Ricardo too, so hold out until then.

Oh, and speaking of tanking debuffs.

Ishmael is Immortal on this Stage

Ish is a mandatory character in this stage and has a sort of quasi-immortality along with a passive called Last-Ditch Struggle. So long as there's at least one surviving Sinner on the team aside from Ishmael herself her won't go below 1 HP. Along with this, she has a unique passive for this stage called Last Ditch Struggle, which gives her additional clash power when at low health. This isn't to say Ish is invincible or anything, but it does give you an edge in the fight. Combined with Snagharpoon's Compulsion passive (the EGO passive, not the debuff on Ish) you can get an additional clashing power about about three, which makes a huge difference against Ricardo's stupid-high numbers. You can use her with something like a fully threadspun Roseate Desire with either Awakening or Corrosion depending on the sanity level and it'll do insane work.

"But Allen, I don't have Rosea-"

Get it. 400 Ishmael shards isn't as big an ask as it was in Canto 2 or 3. You're in endgame now, you should know what you need and should have a few EGO nukes for bosses like this. Roseate Desire or Ryoshu's Blind Obsession. You should have at least one of these by now to survive Ricardo's more devastating attacks aside from COUPON BLAST™. If you really rushed the content this much then just chill out, wait until you've caught to the the season pass to at least give Blind Obsession Ryoshu, and then continue on.

Speaking of endgame content.

Have a Tremor Team

So, you might have noticed during Ricardo's big defense phases he'll have this interesting debuff called "Test of Big Brother", this usually gives him 5 bind next turn, guaranteeing you can safely clash him, along with doubling the damage he takes and increasing the effect of Tremor Burst. And like I said before, this is a fight where you have to reach his second stagger threshold to win. This is phase of the fight is essentially your final warning to get him to that point before COUPON BLAST™ happens and you're team is wiped in two turns.

Not that second part of Tremor Burst's effects behind doubled. It means you can probably get him to stagger by that point if you've got your nukes handy. And surprisingly, a Tremor team isn't a big investment either. Base Ish, Heath, and Meursault all have tremor application, and Ish's base EGO can inflict Tremor Burst at Threadspin 4. And there are several Tremor IDs that are cheap like N Corp Don, LCCB Ish and Rosespanner Meursault. There's are some other good Tremor IDs like Rosespanner Rodion and Molar Outis, but one's a 3-Star and one's a limited 3-Star, so I'd hold off on those unless you wanna' hunt down someone's friend's list.

Oh right, last bit of advice before I sign off on this.

Using the Damn Friend's List

A lot of us forget this is a thing, but there is a Friends/Support function in the game. You can send a request to people who have fully kitted Sinners you'd need for your team to fill in gaps you can't yet. I don't know the effect this had some stuff like EX clear yet, but if you're speed-running to get to the current event then just use the damn support system and build a decent tremor team to get through this. For the next while I'll have Regret Faust on mine to help some folks, but this is for a limited time only until I can go back to how I like to keep my Company listing. You can also just search around until you find someone with the sinner you need.

And... that's about everything I can tell you about 5-30. Even once you get passed this stage there's still about two or three more little road blocks in the way before you can fully completely the Canto, but this was the more frustrating on out of the four so I wanted to go over it a little. Sorry if I sounded harsh here or there, but I really wanna' stress this is an endgame stage and shouldn't be taken lightly. Limbus Company has it's fair share of bullshit but fair and unfair, but this stage is only slightly unfair until you realize the mechanics around it. Then you can do those Base Ishmael solo clears. I won't because that's hard as hell, but it's something.

Anyways, I'll be seeing you folks later.

#limbus company #your dictator is speaking

16 notes · View notes

supersoakerfullofblood · 2 months

Note

hi!!! hopefully you are having a good day!!! but a quick question-

how can i give insight to a character's backstory without it look liking a word-dump?? especially if the whole story have a diary entry format.

Very good question that honestly really depends on your personal style, but here's what's worked for me.

The best advice I can give is to stop thinking of your character's history as "backstory." That's one of the words that's become so loaded in popular writing discourse as to not mean anything solid anymore, like "worldbuilding," "theme," "protagonist," etc. Words like that are helpful once you've made your own definition for them, but with so many voices in Youtube tutorials and social media posts all saying similar but different things for what these mean, it's best to find a word that better suits how you view the concept. For me, that word is "history," because like how the present is founded on actual history, our characters are only the product of their history. Characters, like people, rarely if ever operate in the present tense.

So--revealing history without the dreaded expository dump. To answer this, we first have to look at why expository dumps are so uninviting. Here's an example of it done poorly (I'm writing this as an example, not taking someone's writing to like, diss on them hah):

Cheryl took the elevator up all five floors of the haunted house, which groaned as she went, the elevator left untouched since the house's last occupants moved out. When they arrived at the penthouse suite, Doctor Gastor explained that the last residents here thought they were wizards and practiced daily at arcana. Their names were Abigail and Horace--he had renamed himself after a demon had told him his true name, so he claimed--and they wintered in this remote, northern sphere to avoid Italian summers. Horace was wealthy, Abigail poor, but he had found her in poverty and saw something of the occult in her movements, so he stole her away one summer, and the two found more in common than they would've thought, for they married the next year. Cheryl paced the floor, picked up and dusted off a book titled in runic chicken scratch, and opened the cover."

This isn't the worst example I could think of, but it has the hallmarks I'm looking for. The first issue with this expository dump ("Doctor Gaston explained... next year") is that it shatters the flow of the passage. As a writer of narrative fiction, the goal of every sentence is to lead smoothly to the next sentence. To do this, we always have to be thinking of what the reader wants to read after a given sentence. If one sentence is about an elevator groaning in a haunted house, the reader probably wants to know how Cheryl reacts to it! Is she scared of ghosts? Does she believe in ghosts? Is she scared of elevators? If so, what does she do? Move to hit a button on the elevator to stop it? If scared of ghosts, how does she internalize this? If not scared, how does she internalize perhaps how Doctor Gaston is shivering? (Is he shivering?) These are all places the reader's mind wants to go to after that sentence. Instead, we get this history about some old wizards (if I had the patience, I would've made it longer to really make it intrude on the narrative, but I don't have the patience). If this is the first time the reader's hearing about the wizards, they probably won't care about them. This synopsis of their story interrupts what the reader actually cares about, which is whatever Cheryl cares about in the moment. To fix this interruption, Cheryl could find the book of runes maybe in the chapter before this, because that gets the reader invested. The reader, just like Cheryl, wants to know why there's a book of runes in the haunted house. So Cheryl asks Doctor Gaston about it, which legitimizes this exposition, because it's also what the reader wants to know.

Another major fault of info dumps is when they don't relate to the character at all. Cheryl's history (let's say she's a girl from the country who wandered into the house on accident) has nothing to do with wizards. Maybe in the narrative, she learns to cast some spells, which makes her care about wizards, but at this point, she doesn't. If Cheryl has nothing to do with wizards, or little to do with them, then why should the audience care? When writing a character's history, you should only include the parts that matter to the character. And this written history should never be too long, because you never want to stunt the flow of the piece (what "too long" means is up to debate and your discretion and style).

Also, exposition only works when it feels genuinely embodied by the character speaking. Is Doctor Gastor explaining the wizard history, or is that the author talking? Some of it sounds like Gastor (the bit between the em dashes sounds like what he would say), but the rest sounds like Gastor is only a mouthpiece for the information I want to put out.

So, solving it. One trick I like to do when giving exposition is to make the exposition into its own mini-scene. You don't want to write, "Carmen was friends with Piper, and they went to the dance once as friends." Instead, give it some space on the page:

She and Piper were the only girls in their group who had gone quiet at curfew. Beatrice’s only crime was in whispering comments in the early hours, short things to guide the group’s banter, never loud enough to warrant arrest. “Not really, no.” “That’s nice.” Carmen nodded and drew his eyes across the crowd. “Did she sleep well?” “Beatrice?” “Yeah.” “I guess.” The path turned up the steep hill on which the dining hall was built. “I don’t know. I don’t think anyone really slept well.” “Oh.” “It’s just uncomfortable, you know?” “The girls?” She raised an eyebrow. “And the boys aren’t?” “No, they are.” He laughed, and Piper was dragged to the same laugh at Homecoming three months ago. She had requested for the Melpomene band’s recent concert recording to be played after the next pop song, and surprisingly, her request was approved. Carmen laughed as their poor performance boomed from the speakers, laughed at the disruption of a dance, and Piper laughed too. But within the minute, the concert’s strident ballad was supplanted by another chart-topping pop song. But for those forty seconds, music was displaced, and the dancers stopped; city walls fell; Piper had broken something for forty seconds, held power for forty seconds. She said now, “It’s just weird, being here. It’s all too happy. Too clean.”

Exposition can work really well in brief flashbacks. And note how the exposition starts: a mirroring of "laugh" because the image is fresh in the reader's mind, so I take them on a sort of dream logic to the past. Note also that this is planting the seeds for some relevant character-building: Piper's growth into an independent woman--"Piper had broken something for forty seconds, held power for forty seconds." Here's another example from my current WIP:

He thought of Brynjar the day he had given him the knot. It was the spring of Óskar’s sixth year, and Brynjar had taken him to the docks one morning to watch sailing men fix fresh ropes on their karves and clip pulleys to sails to tie them to the boats’ sides. “Never doubt a weaver woman,” Brynjar said, annunciating each word. “They keep everything afloat.” “‘Floating,” repeated the young Óskar. “If the ropes aren’t strong, a boat’ll flip and spin. Like this!” He lifted Óskar above his head and spun on his heels, and Óskar cackled. The father set the son on his shoulders and smiled. “Yes, we need those ladies.” Óskar felt his father’s shoulders raise, and he knew the man forged something witty in his mind. “It means, Óssie, a man is only as good as his woman. And you can tell your mother I said that.” Eldrid, Óskar’s mother, would leave in her sleep later that year, and the witches would say she was sick, and Brynjar would spend some nights looking through the cracks in his home, remembering the gray wife he woke to that morning. In his memory, Óskar did not know whether this new recollection of his mother’s passing tainted his father’s speech or if he really did turn somber, but all the same, a short silence paused the scene at the dock, and Brynjar coughed to break it. His voice was low now. “Dangerous,” he said, looking with eyes like the beads of a raspberry at the men on the dock, looking through them. His jowls lowered like curtains, forced low with the hill of a frown, and in the memory, his skin blued and bloated. “It’s dangerous out there, Óssie. Be safe.” He sniffed. “Be well.” “Óskar?” Ingrid stole him. He breathed back into the world and saw now that the road had turned down and the rock wall had turned in, and they approached a strip of sea.

In addition to providing a character's history, this also fleshes out the world: the importance of women and boats, the dangers of the sea. Before the flashback, Oskar is thinking about a knot, so he thinks about the day he got the knot, which makes him think about sailing boats. At the end of the flashback, he thinks about the ocean ("looking through [the sailors]," so probably at the ocean), thinks about his father's skin if he drowned, and back in the present-tense, uh oh, Oskar is nearing the ocean. It all flows together; we're guiding our reader.

But these are only small exposition dumps, and sometimes, we need to convey much more information. You can subtly convey much more information than you realize through dialogue and description, because how a character talks and acts is guided by their histories. If a character is short-spoken, they may have had some interpersonal trauma that you can flesh out more when the time is right:

“No,” Sylvia whispered, trapping Chloe again with her stare, desperate. “I can’t sleep over.” “Why not?” Jane asked. “Mom says I have to be home by seven.” She looked down at her empty plate, at the crumbs from one slice of pizza. “But you haven’t asked her,” Jane prodded. She shook her head. “I did before.” Still in disbelief, Jane asked, “What did she say?” “She said I have to be home by seven.” She blushed. “And I can do whatever till then.” “Oh,” Jane said. She slunk back in her chair. Chloe turned back to her parents. “Can you call Jane’s mom?” “Sure thing.” “Thanks!” She swiveled back and, fingering the fruit Phoebe scrambled on her plate, decided to eat it later. She grabbed a second slice from the box. Moments passed as they ate in silence, Sylvia watching her plate, and the muffled television played something in the living room. Mom and dad laughed. “I should go,” Sylvia said. She bumped the table as she stood, reciting, “Thank you for having me.” Jane looked at the clock hovering above the front door. “It’s only six-twenty.” “I need to go home.” “Oh.” Jane stuttered. “I’ll see you next week!” Chloe said the same. “Thank you. See you.” She opened the door and slipped through. It clicked behind her. Chloe and Jane paused their gnawing and looked up at each other, sharing a thought. They hadn’t heard a car grumble on the gravel, didn’t hear anything drive by at all, and neither of them knew how close she lived. They scraped their chairs from the table and crept to the dining room window like characters in a Jones Bones movie, Jane thought. But when they pulled back the curtain, she was gone. No cars drove on the street, and the sidewalk was empty. A golden glare shrouded the street and surrounding houses as the sun lowered behind a roof.

Throughout this book (The Ghosts of Glass Lake, available now ;)), it's implied that Sylvia has a controlling and/or abusive mother. In this scene, Sylvia is curt and direct. You can almost feel the urgency behind her words, how she bumps the table as she stands, and how it almost sounds like she's rehearsed this exit. It's also implied that no one came to pick her up--she walked home, but neither Jane nor Chloe know where she lives, and neither does the reader. Maybe she walked home for miles because her mother didn't pick her up. You can get a lot of meat from implications!

But still, there are times when you just need a lot of dense exposition, usually near the beginning of a book when you need to describe the setting. My best advice, if you ever need to do this, is to keep it as brief as possible, and to pay extra attention to pacing/flow/tempo/whatever-you-want-to-call-it so it doesn't distract, doesn't feel like a chore:

The seventh and eighth graders of Carmen’s church spent one Saturday every winter at Camp Catechism. The campus set its roots in northern Michigan, breathed easterly winds from Lake Huron, and sparked to life as batches of middle schoolers arrived on midnight buses. Cabins formed a bivouac in a birch forest, and one mile to the east lay the lake and the curve of its horizon. It was frozen now, and the limbs of trees wavered slowly under snow, ice eating at chipped, white bark. The chapel the middle schoolers sang in now was a wide A-frame built and reeking of old wood. A low stage headed the room from which stood a pianist, a drummer, and a guitarist, a stage from which Roman Richards would soon discuss Ephesians. The dining hall was a short walk from everywhere and displayed from a wide window the canopy of the burdened forest, ossified waves, and the sun glinting unbearably against it all. Cups of hot chocolate were filled and refilled on a counter at the entrance of the dining hall, and campers drank these violently, abrading their throats as adolescent drunks. Boys and girls separated into two large halls subdivided into tight rooms for each youth group, everything barred entrance from the other sex. As a general rule, phones were banned, as were drugs, candles, and cursing, though the popular boys forged unique methods to circumvent these restrictions, and anyone caught with contraband was witnessed a martyr for a greater sense of vagrancy. Still, most campers lived within their rules, their obligations, just as they always had at church, and any rule breaking (“sin,” as Roman Richards claimed) was relegated quickly to myth, to rumors spread away from pious ears. As such, Carmen and his contemporaries were only loud ostensibly, never committing to a biblical criminal record. This was not to say that anyone at Camp Catechism was reserved—they spilled everything about their lives to their youth group leaders, but no one yet could articulate exactly what they meant, exactly what they felt, and scantily of dreams, ambitions, or desires.

And as all good exposition does, it flows well back into the narrative. The last paragraph above is a bridge between the camp description and a look into Carmen's inner life.

You may also find halfway through your narrative that you need to dump a bunch of character exposition, and you need to do it urgently. My trick for this is to make chapter A flow into the exposition, chapter B be an extended flashback scene, and chapter C to pick up where A left off. For example, if you need to talk about a character's relationship with his father but haven't done that yet in depth, find an easy way to transition into a flashback chapter that does just that. It's an enlarged version of the flashback tool I talked about above!

Now, all of this is what's worked for me, and I write third person distant POV narratives. It sounds like you're writing first person close POV haha. So I don't really have any examples to help with, but the general advice to 1. Keep the pacing/flow/tempo/etc. so exposition doesn't distract, and 2. Write exposition only about what matters to the character, preferably only what matters to the character in that moment, then you should be a-okay. Exposition is only as bad as it distracts, and these are the strategies I've found to distract as little as possible and to use the exposition to meaningfully build my characters as much as possible.

And again, this exposition dump problem doesn't have hard and fast solutions. Every author deals with it in their own way, and I'm sure with practice, you'll find what works best for you and what comes naturally to you, just as I'm always discovering and refining what works for me. The advice in this post is, I think, a solid place to start from :)

#writeblr #writing #writing advice #writing questions #creative writing #fanfic #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #writer #writers of tumblr

19 notes · View notes

eqt-95 · 24 days

Text

Thanks @sssammich and @sideguitars for the double-tap tag!

1- How many works do you have on AO3?

28 (?!?!)

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 711,082

3. What fandoms do you write for?

in chronological order: harry potter, batwoman, arcane, supergirl

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

follow the buttons

the glasses that broke lena luthor's back

a nemesis and her hero

a crisis of indulgence

like we're made of glass

5. Do you respond to comments?

i aspire. it's real hit or miss for me, but i genuinely adore every comment i've ever received even if it goes unanswered.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

i guess it would be being batwoman but only because i wrote it as a cliffhanger for the sequel?

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

i generally always aim for happy endings, but in my opinion the 'happiest' is a crisis of indulgence but only because it's layered with angst. all my fluff pieces are happy throughout so the end doesn't hit as intensely (i think).

8. Do you get hate on fics?

only once that i remember: same person on multiple fics. such is life.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

i have tried, but it objectively isn't great so i steer clear of it. this has actually been a conundrum with my latest fic: sauce or no sauce?

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

i wrote a kate kane + lena luthor one shot once. does that count?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

i don't think so

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

someone asked to translate one into german. not sure if it ever happened.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

i haven't but i'd be interested, though i'm usually one of two people: a chaotic procrastinator with fading interest or the most diligent person on the planet. i can't guarantee which would show up for a collaboration.

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

supercorp has had the most lasting affect.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

there are three: 1. being batwoman | year one - (batwoman) i did so much legitimate comic book research and planning for this that it's a shame i've left it go 2. a handy handful - (arcane) i have 30% of the rest written 3. let's for flying - (supergirl) again, i actually have a lot of it worked out but for one reason or another it's in limbo

16. What are your writing strengths?

i'd need to reread things to figure that out

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

consistent prose

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

like, would i personally do it? no, i don't even have a solid grasp of the english language. why would i go butcher another one?

19. First fandom you wrote for?

harry potter

20. Favorite fic you've written?

i answered this in another ask recently, but i think my answer has changed. i'm actually really happy with the concept of like we're made of glass. i don't know how well the execution landed for people (one commenter wrote: not good. it made no sense), but i'm ok with that. things aren't made for everyone.

- - - -

i'm not sure who all did these already, so i won't tag folks, but if you see this, consider yourself tagged!!

#i don't do compliments well so no. 16 is a solid nonanswer #sideguitars #sssammich #sam i always skip the third 's' and then am confused when your name doesn't pop up as a tag option #thanks for the ask... thing game questionnaire?#qs with quinn

14 notes · View notes

rick-rayson · 1 year

Note

*vibrates excitedly* okay okay then could you plz do Yara Flor sfw alphabet 💖😍💖😍💖😍

YARA FLOR - SFW ALPHABET

A/N: 100 posts wooHOOO. AND it's of my baby.. that I haven't read in a long time ngl. As a result, I do apologize in advance if it's OOC!

A - Affection: How do they show affection?

Deeply affectionate despite not wanting to come off as too smothering. She likes to think she's slick when she brushes against you, always sits next to you, and gets you things that remind her of you when she's out. Whenever she catches herself in the act and gets embarrassed, prepared to be met with ramblings of, "What? I can't say hello?", "Is it wrong to be caring?".

B - Beauty: What do they find beautiful? What do they look for?

Feel like she likes intelligent, meek people. Watched some really horrible stereotypical TV show with Jon or something and found the nerdy characters cute. Especially likes it when someone who is usually reserved is still able to take initiative, very specific but she likes it. Curly hair !! I feel like she finds curly hair really beautiful. She also loves locs with pretty beads, she finds them super pleasing to hear.

C - Cuddles: What kind of cuddler are they? Do they like cuddles?

You will never, EVER get her to verbally state that she likes cuddling, ask her and she'll scoff thinking that's a legitimate answer to your question.

But catch her when she's sleepy and see just how easily she melts against you. When she's awake still her hold on you is featherlight.. until she falls asleep. Then pray to the gods that she doesn't crush you in her tight bear hugs.

D - Devotion: How devoted are they? Are they all in?

Is that even a question? Yara is unapologetically sincere in how she holds herself, and if she's willing to share herself with you then you gotta be pretty damn important to her.

With Yara you are blessed with the utmost assurity that wherever she ventures, and wherever she finds herself, she's still your Yara. She may not be explicitly forthright with her loyalty, but she doesn't have to be. She's a solid person in your life.

E - Embrace: How do they hug?

If you're taller than her she goes for the midriff or the neck, shorter and she'll embrace you around your shoulders. She's the type to sway a bit if the hug is long. She's the type to catch you off guard with how staggering her hugging can be.

F - Flaws: What are some of their faults?

Yara is stubborn to a fault, which is either good or bad depending on the situation.

She tends to have plans and goals that she will stick to no matter what, which makes it hard to collaborate with her.

"It's either my way or the highway, except if you pick the highway I'll be sad so don't do it >:("

G - Gentle: How gentle are they?

She tries to be gentle for the sake of others, a sense of responsibility over herself, both physically and emotionally she tries.

H - Honesty: How honest are they about what they don't like and what they do?

Pretty dang honest. If you're someone from the Justice League it's a no from her on the dating scene. She can be seen as an occasionally blunt person but she's good with her words.

On the other end she's honest about what she does like too.

I - I love you: How long does it take for them to say it?

I'm stuck between thinking she could go a while without saying it, or immediately say it to you unabashed after like a couple weeks. There's like no in-between.

J - Jealousy: How jealous are they?

It's not that she's jealous it's just that why should she keep silent about how you're her partner? Especially to strangers that don't seem to be getting the hint?

Aside from that though she's not painfully jealous, but she will put someone in their place it she has to.

K - Kisses: How are they as a kisser?

Yara is something else, one part of her has you convinced she's never kissed anyone in her life, and the other part has you believing she's the goddess of kisses.

Deep, feverish kisser, the type to leave you dizzy from it. Her warm hands cradling your skin as her lips plaster onto yours and even that's not enough. Does it until sbe leaves you breathless.

L - Little Ones: Do they want kids?

Not anytime soon, Yara still has adventures far ahead of her to think about kids.

M - Mornings: How are mornings spent with them?

Can't really tell who's the first to wake up, but Yara's usually the one to get up first. She brings you and herself something to drink as you sit in bed, washing away your drowsiness and planning for the day ahead between soft mutterings. Mornings with Yara is liken to bathing under sunbeams.

N - Nervousness: What gets them nervous? What are they scared about when it comes to the relationship?

She's scared that she's too out of sync with other people, that due to her rather unique parentage and upbringing that there's a disconnect between her and others. It's harder to notice among the Future State JL because well, they're like her. But she's not fond of being tied down to such a team anyways.

O - Openness: How open are they?

Generally a pretty open person, she has her secrets (like where she stashes extra snacks for Jerry) but none that are malicious or that would put the relationship in jeopardy.

P - Patience: How patient are they?

Yara... Isn't the most patient person. Those types that tap their foot and look around to find something to distract them from the time, that's Yara.

She can be quick to anger but not with her relationships, mostly at the misgivings of others.

Q - Quiet Moment: Share a quiet moment

She takes you flying on Jerry in the afternoon, waiting for the sun to set as the two of you take in the flowing wind and the beauty of the world that's now so small in your eyes. Such an occasion would usually warrant laughter and cheers loud enough to hurt your throats, but in this moment, it's nothing short of euphoric.

R - Romance: How romantic are they?

OhohohOOOOOO... She's a mess. Tries to impress you and make you swoon over her and she's a little rusty, but it's hard to say that to her when she's beaming at you as though you're the reason for worship. The sun and moon. When she's not trying so hard to woo you, and does her own thing from the sincerity in her heart, she has you smitten.

S - Support: How do they support their s/o? Are they protective?

She's willing to go above, beyond, and below (coughcough the Underworld) for you. Yara knows what it's like to fail to protect others, so she's so devoted to your safety and wellbeing.

T - Try: How much effort do they put into the relationship?

Yara's swept with puppy love and then some when it comes to the relationship at first. She puts in a lot of effort.

U - Unspoken Words: What do they wish they could say?

She wishes she could say how much you mean to her without wanting to cringe at how sappy she is.

V - Vulnerability: How do they show vulnerability?

She doesn't, doesn't try to at least. But you can tell with the way her body relaxes at the sight of you, when her hand searches for just a bit of you to ground herself in, to commit to her memory the touch of your skin. You kinda have to figure it out based on visual cues, because the words die in her throat when she has you near.

W - Whole: Would they feel incomplete without their s/o?

She'd definitely feel crushed if you were in a relationship for a while, but she'd be able to move forward, even if her heart hurts.

X - XOXO: What's a loving gesture you should expect from them?

Expect get-away's, it helps Yara and she hopes it helps you, the two of you don't even have to do anything. Once or twice a week Yara just brings food and takes you somewhere to be alone. Being a member of the Justice League can require her to prioritize the job over most things, but you're still important to her and she will make it apparent.

Y - Yearning: How much do they miss their s/o?

More than she'd like to admit. Whenever she gets a little bit of quiet time between the work she does, her mind automatically thinks of you.

Z - Zzz: Sleeping with them, how does it go?

Snores. (/hj) grips onto whatever part of you she can find. Certified duvet thief through and through. Sprawls out until the two of you are a mess of limbs.

#dc comics #dc x reader #dc x y/n #dc x you #yara flor x you #yara flor x y/n #yara flor x reader #future state wonder woman #wonder woman x reader #dcu #dcu comics #dc #dc future state #future state justice league

59 notes · View notes

heartofspells · 16 days

Text

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Thank you for the tags, @brandileigh2003 @tracingpatternswrites & @mycupofrum!

Username: heartofspells

1. How many works do you have on A03?

96, all of them HP except for one lonesome Supernatural fic

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count?

1,685,584

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Harry Potter, though I've dabbled in a few others, only one fic of which is still available for Supernatural

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

At the Healing Edge of Broken

Prick the Craving, Watch it Seep

Multiplying Parents

How to Succeed in Business

The Tying of Canines

5. Do you respond to comments?

I used to. Hardly ever anymore, and unfortunately, I've got solid reasons for that. I will respond to them if someone asks a question that legitimately needs answering or similar. And while I maybe don't respond to them anymore, I do read every single one multiple times. I love comments, and I'm so grateful for everyone who takes time out of their lives to leave them for me <3

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Ah...heh. That's really not an easy question to answer for me. I guess, coming from a personal stance, knowing everything I put into it and the build up that led to then ending, I'd have to say Wasteland. That's the one that's still lingering with me to this day.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

That's also hard to answer, because as much as I love flooding my fics with angst, I have a lot that end very happy or hopeful. Narrowing it down to longer fics with more character arc throughout, I'd probably say This Way We Fall because it leaves them on such a high note after all the struggle.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Unfortunately, yes, but that's part of it, I guess. I've become better at ignoring it.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do, but at the end of the day, it's mostly just typical smut when I look at it, though I do have a few kinkier ones scattered in there (ceiling smut, er...inter-species stuff). There's also the...not entirely nice stuff when it comes to smut as well simply because I like exploring all aspects of most everything.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Haven't so far. Doubt I ever will, but you never know.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of. I hope not.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have! I co-wrote Family on the Mend with @tracingpatternswrites and it was so much fun! I'd love to co-write more fics in the future!

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

It's gonna have to be Wolfstar just because that's where my heart has rested for years, but there are others that run as close seconds.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Oh god. YOU. It's not posted anywhere, still only exists in my docs, but I'm convinced that fic will haunt the rest of my life.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I always struggle with questions like this, but that also means I've spent a lot of time thinking about it over the years. I think, mostly based on reactions I've had and what other people have said, that I'm quite good at capturing heavy and deep emotions, hopefully enough to not only grip a reader, but to plunge them into the heart of a scene and make them feel those emotions as well.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Details? There are times I think I'm terrible at this, and not just in fiction writing. It's in everything. Something might exist in my head, and I sometimes manage to forget that not everyone can see my exact thoughts and know what I'm thinking, so I leave important bits and pieces out of things and explanations that only end up confusing people - or worse, makes me seem not so great in general simply because I forgot the inclusion of a very important point when it mattered most.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I'm not against it, though it's not something I generally do because I don't know any other languages and that's a risky game to play. I'll only include it if I've spoken to someone who speaks that language fluently and has agreed to translate for me. But having other languages in a fic is a wonderful thing, especially if you're trying to include other cultures, though speaking as someone who has to rely on things like Google Translate that aren't always accurate, included translations are always appreciated.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

This changes constantly for me. I'm not sure how it couldn't. I love most of the fics I've written, and it's like choosing a favorite child sometimes. However, I think right now I'd have to say it's a toss up between CRuSH (i'm just so proud of this one) and Multiplying Parents (also very proud, and this one was so much fun and makes me grin every time i think about it).

Open tag! Because I'm very late to this and I've got the feeling most everyone has done this by now.

#20 questions #tag game

12 notes · View notes

howtofightwrite · 1 year

Note

What’s the best way to come up with a backstory for nigh-irredeemable villain and hate sink without getting into Unfortunate Implications territory? I’m specifically worried about ableism - making him a sociopath or giving him a traumatic backstory both imply things I don’t want to about mental illness and trauma. I thought about giving him a privileged background with parents who never told him “no” and shielded him from consequences of his actions, but I feel like that takes too much agency away from him and shifts too much blame to his parents.

This is one of those situations where there really isn't a single, “best,” solution.

One of the first things that comes to mind is, don't try to make your audience feel sorry for your villain. This is a personal opinion, so you're free to disagree, but if you're trying to build up your villain, presenting a tearjerker backstory undercuts that. It diminishes your villain. Sort of like characterizing Batman as, “a rich boy with daddy issues,” really shortcuts the whole, “Dark Knight,” mystique.

Digging into a villain's backstory can be quite perilous. Especially if you're trying to show the adversity that shaped them into the baby eating monstrosity we see in the present. Under the best possible circumstances, you can potentially make the character a deeper and richer individual as a result, but this comes with a severe risk of accidentally turning them into a whiny, entitled, and petulant while robbing them of whatever genuine threat they'd managed to build up.

In fact, a villain who actively conceals elements of their past, (or throws out small fictions about their origins) can be far more threatening, and also build up that mystique by depriving the audience of information about how they became who they are. For a moment, consider the sheer volume of speculation about the backstory of Heath Ledger's version of the Joker, sparked from his erratic and inconsistent explanations for how he came to be (and how none of those stories really line up with his behavior.) Especially the part where his constantly erratic and chaotic persona slides right over a shockingly methodical approach to violence that keeps the character compelling. You don't know who he is, and he's constantly trolling everyone who tries to get a better understanding of him.

One situation where you can start digging into their backstory is if their villainous plan actually has a solid philosophical foundation. This can get into some pretty disturbing territory, as your villain may literally be a terrorist, but if they're trying to put an end to an unjust social order, stop some greater evil, or are even just out for revenge against a group that has wronged them in the past, you can get a legitimately sophisticated villain that could be downright sympathetic, while also being a complete monster. Somewhat obviously, this is going to be a lot harder to balance, but the option is there.

These kinds of villains can actually play against narrative expectations, and what we tend to expect from stories. In the vast majority of cases, the hero in a story is seeking to maintain, or restore, the status quo, while the villain seeks to disrupt or alter it. This can become a point of reference to quickly identify who is the hero, and who is the villain. This also means you can have a story where the villain is, legitimately, trying to create a better world (and not just in the vague and intimidating, creating an evil world they can rule over, but legitimately seeking to improve it), and is opposed by a hero who is trying to maintain an unjust, or even oppressive, status quo. Within that, the more extreme the villain's methods, the more complicated the calculus becomes. (Especially if they can avoid crossing a threshold where they're simply sowing misery indiscriminately, and their, “brighter future,” starts to sound like empty platitudes.)

Again, there isn't one right answer, but if you want an irredeemable villain, you probably shouldn't try to redeem them by delving into their backstory.

-Starke

This blog is supported through Patreon. Patrons get early access to new posts, and direct access to us through Discord. If you’d like to support us, please consider becoming a Patron.

#Starke answers #how to fight write #writing advice #writing tips #writing reference

147 notes · View notes

thegardenandthegrave · 4 months

Text

"What if I'm the bad luck?"

The time traveler who has discovered an alien species that feeds on luck finds himself asking a question that a lot of people with trauma ask themselves.

"What if I'm the bad luck?"

But now the Doctor has evidence of this species that bimble along the time stream and change the fates around them for their own benefit, and it adds a layer of legitimacy to the question that I think the world building is beginning to back up.

Not only do we have luck-based time bimbling goblins, but don't we know another alien species that feeds off the energy of a person, who affects the time stream, and who are generally unfortunate to meet?

I'm talking, of course, about the weeping angels.

So that's two separate alien species who use manipulation of the time stream to generate energy for their own purposes.

And for someone who has faced as much trauma and as many near misses as the Doctor has, it isn't that far a leap to wonder if he might be doing the same.

"Do they cause all accidents?" Ruby asks, and the Doctor doesn't have a solid answer but thinks "Oh, that's possible!"

"Am I the cause of the misfortune I'm always trying to prevent?" Is the question the Doctor is asking, but I think we can take it one step further. "Am I gaining something from the cosmic coincidence of so many tragic endings?"

I really hope this is something that RTD decides to explore further through the series, either to legitimize the idea or to give the doctor some closure on the trauma he carries with him beyond his time recovering with the Nobles.

#doctor who special #doctor who spoilers #fifteenth doctor #okay hear me out lets take it a step further #either the tardis is putting the doctor onto these situations on purpose or jes doing it himself #and the regeneration energy is getting more violent with each new doctor #and that is obviously due to better cgi and budget #but i think something can be said for the secret to the regeneration ability might be found in either the number of tragedies he faces #or the ones he averts #that being said i do need to go back and watch thirteeen's era

14 notes · View notes

the-modern-typewriter · 2 years

Note

What did you love about the first Twilight book?

I love how excited I was when I first read it, the genuine enjoyment I got out of it. I can't remember all the feelings now as it's been a long time, but I couldn't put those books down and I think that counts for something. I love that when I first read it, it felt something new and fresh and exciting, because at the time I hadn't come across girl meets supernatural creature to that extent before. After, sure. But not when I first read Twilight.

I loved the tension of the dangerous vampire who could kill the main character also being in love with her - I mean, I'm not saying its wholesome and sweet, but I'm a strong believer that not all stories have to be wholesome and sweet! That's a great conflict for a romance novel. It provides a legitimate obstacle against what Bella and Edward want and the relationship. It creates more tension than half the romance novels I read which didn't exactly hit the spot. It's the same reason I'm drawn to a lot of hero/villain and protagonist/antagonist stories. They want to be together, but there is a solid reason for it not to happen that is actually high stakes, feels authentic and isn't just the characters being stupid or dithering over whether they actually like it each other or not.

I liked that Edward was open (even obsessive) about his feelings. It made a nice change from being a teenager where everyone was awkward and flustered about everything, and finding out if someone liked you was this big thing because people didn't just come out an unambiguously say it so shamelessly.

Like, I didn't necessarily want fluff as a teenager?

I mean. Tell me honestly, if you've read my work:

“What if I'm not a superhero. What if I'm the bad guy?

Did any of you think I would read that line and not love Edward Cullen just a little bit?

And yeah, sparkling in the sunlight. Sure. I'll bite, I thought. They needed some reason they can go out for plot reasons and not burn in the sun, it fits the setting of Rainy Forks, and while I wasn't like 'ooh yay sparkles,' I don't remember it bothering me either. I was happy to read with suspension of disbelief because I'm just not the kind of person who gets too worked up by world building details.

As an asexual reader, in hindsight, I think the fact that for a lot of the books they didn't escalate the relationship in a physical way really worked for me.

I loved the character of Alice! Vampire baseball during a storm is actually quite a fun idea. I can buy into it.

Yes, Bella gets a lot of slack for often being quite a reactive, complacent protagonist. For caring about a boy over other things, possibly too much. But, especially as a teenager, I related to her a lot. I didn't want to always read the brave girl who went out and fought for what she wanted. That wasn't me. I wanted to be what people fought for. I wanted to turn up at a new school and have everyone secretly think I was pretty and brilliant, especially by the one person who didn't seem interested in anyone else, making me extra special. There's a wish fantasy there, which actually I think is fine for teenagers (and other readers!) to have.

She may not be my favourite protagonist ever, but I didn't have any problems with her. She cared for her family. She's observant (at least in paying attention to Edward's eyes, and let's be real, in the context of reading that novel, that is what we as the reader want to know about too!) Edward not being able to read her mind was interesting in Twilight because we didn't know where that plot line was going to go.

Also.

“And you're worried, not because you're headed to meet a houseful of vampires, but because you think those vampires won't approve of you, correct?” “That's right,” I answered immediately, hiding my surprise at his casual use of the word. He shook his head. “You're incredible.”

Amazing. So relatable, actually. This novel made me laugh!

While I acknowledge that it has it's problems - as a lot of stories do, for example sometimes the writing is clunky etc among other things. - I also think the first book is well paced.

You know from the start that Edward is a vampire. You know that something is going to go bad from the opening, because the opening raises that question, thus adding to the suspense alongside the romance of the first book. It's not about that. It's the journey. The when that information is going to drop on Bella and why.

I think that some of the anxieties that series taps into, such as the fear of growing old, connected into a lot of worries I had as a teenager, when half the time everyone is telling you that those are going to be the absolute best days of your life. So you're sitting there like, oh god, then what? I can't grow up yet, I haven't done any of the things! Bella's conflict around that and her desire to be a vampire made sense to me in that context, especially when a lot of the other books at the time were all about moving forwards and change and kinda didn't tap into that panic? At least not that I remember.

The conflict between Edward and Bella and the being a vampire thing, thematically? Actually has a lot to say about the conflicts of adolescence, and moving on and changing versus wanting everything to stay same. It roots it into something more then ‘oh, feeding on blood’. It felt like a lens specific to being a teenager.

I don't know. Maybe I wouldn't have such strong feelings about it if there wasn't such a backlash against it. But as it is, I think people are way too harsh on what is a fairly solid YA novel (given the amount of people who clearly resonated with it at the time, it did something right), and for a while in my life it really made me happy.

Sure, we can ask a lot more of books than that they make us happy, but also. That's not a small thing either.

#Twilight #book thoughts #I should be writing but #idk #anyone else feel me?#that got long sorry #I have feelings

167 notes · View notes

hindahoney · 1 year

Note

Hey I'm a conversion student and your last post got me thinking, what counts to you as idol worship? I've been interested in the concepts of pantheism and panentheism lately and whether these are "kosher" beliefs (this has been discussed by a number of rabbis I can't remember the names of).

If Christianity is distant from Judaism because of the Trinity and idol worship, what is there to say about Jewish beliefs in G-d being found everywhere, in everything, with every person and object and molecule being an example of G-d's being?

Is that idol worship? I know you wouldn't consider yourself an authority or expert but you seem to have a solid understanding of the meaning of the term, better than me at least!

FWIW I'm on the same "Christianity and Judaism couldn't be further from one another" bandwagon, I'm not trying to dispute that because I heartily agree! It just got me thinking, where does the boundary lie.

I think the lines can become blurred, and there has been debate about what constitutes idol worship. For example, some Jews hold the belief that the way Chabadniks hang up a picture of the Lubavicher Rebbe in their homes (I'm unfamiliar if other chassidim do this) and the way they speak about him borders on, if not is outright, akin to idol worship. Chabadniks would assert that they don't worship the Rebbe, so it isn't idol worship, and that he was just a great man whose teachings should be remembered. But this example is proof that the lines between what becomes idol worship, what constitutes an idol, and what constitutes worship, is complicated.

The belief that Hashem is in everything is not idol worship. It would only become idol worshipping if you started to worship anything other than Him. But this is easier said than done. To some people, they see money as an idol and believe people who are money-driven are committing idol worship. To others, social media is an idol. It gets all of our attention and we spend our entire days on it. Is that worship, even if it doesn't follow "traditional" ways of worship? To spend all of your time on something? I think there's a legitimate discussion to be had.

But if you want a clear, cut and dry answer: Any and all worship of anything other than Hashem is idolatry.

#jumblr #judaism #frumblr #ask hinda

35 notes · View notes

bonefall · 1 year

Note

having read a lot of your ideas in one sitting (lol) I'm so excited for your redux of avos. it's not one of my favorite arcs per se, but needletail is one of my favorite characters and I'm confident you can do her justice, especially in making her a POV character!!! With that in mind I was wondering, do you have anything in mind for sleekwhisker? does she stick by the kin to the bitter end like in canon, or does she just become an unwilling participant? does she die early? do you think of her with the possibility of becoming a multifaceted antagonist along breezepelt lines or just a rogue nuisance after the fact? anyway, love your work! keep fighting the good fight!

Thank you so much!! AVoS is going to be the hardest arc to rewrite. I feel like the original arc has such a heinous takeaway that I've actually done things in previous arcs specifically to soften the blow of AVoS; The Sisters, the Tribe, and BloodClan all got a ton of sociological attention to detail so that the Kin would be an outlier.

I mentioned Sleekwhisker once before! I updated this overview post with a link to it, plus the Breezepelt ideas. But I'll talk more specifically about Sleek here

To answer your questions

The Apprentices

There's a specific scene at the start of AVoS that bugs me, where Sleekwhisker basically says, "It doesn't matter where a person is born" and it's kinda framed like it's... bad? Especially in the context of saying this to Alderheart, both Tigerkin and kittypet-blooded (through Jessie in this rewrite), who is anxious at his first Gathering.

It SHOULD be a radical statement, but one born out of goodness. In general, the ShadowClan apprentices don't actually believe in any principles and that bothers me.

So I want to approach them, and Sleekpaw at their head, as being CORRECT about some of their initial ideas.

They're sick of not being helped by other Clans. They're tired of the way they're subjected to bad leaders. They hate being told they can't have outsider friends. They're right. They don't know how to word their discontent but they DO HAVE LEGITIMATE REASONS FOR FEELING HOW THEY DO

But the problem was Darktail. They trusted the wrong person, someone who exploited them for his own gains. He creates a coalition of ex-DF trainees, discontented young cats, half-clanners, and exploits them like a cult.

Sleekwhisker

So, with her, I want to thread a needle (heh). The person at the beginning of AVoS would HATE the person she eventually becomes. At the start of AVoS, Sleekpaw is the leader of the ShadowClan apprentices, the brightest, a rising prodigy. She speaks about how the Clans aren't so different, how it shouldn't matter where you're born, and how "something has to be done".

If it wasn't for Darktail, if someone had been able to save her, Sleekwhisker might have even been a new Firestar.

But that's not what happens. Over time, Darktail changes her into his right-hand man, slowly turning her against her friends and her ideals. This culminates in her drowning Needletail.

See though, I'm not sure what the steps are for that yet though. Hollyleaf over in Bonefall Po3 has a pretty decent 'roadmap' for how she gets from the prodigal apprentice she was at the beginning to the murderous, revenge-seeking warrior she will become. But Sleekwhisker? I don't have that yet.

Just a knowledge of the character arc I want her to have, in the end.

And I know that Breezepelt will see Sleekwhisker specifically, and recognize himself in her. I think that should really twist his gut, to know that he was complicit in the destruction of this young warrior. Just like the adults in his life were to him, just one arc before.

Other Stuff

I would like to make it official that Sleekwhisker and Raven are an item, but I've been making sure there's lots of other gay rep before I do that.

I have three solid MLM couples (Smokefoot x Talonclaw, Runningwind x Redtail, Stonepelt x Weedwhisker)

One solid WLW couple (Sunstrike x Furzepelt)

And a lot of other queer dynamics (Bluestar @ Oakheart & Lizardstripe, Hollyleaf's Secret Tunnel Friends, Ivypool and Blossomfall, Aroace Firestar, whatever the hell is going on between Brokenstar and Runningnose, Sparkpelt and Hollylark, Mothwing)

But I want more solid, healthy WLW couples before adding Sleekwhisker x Raven officially. Maybe my standards are just too high? In any case I intend for them to be a couple.

And to answer some more of your questions more directly;

-How long does she stick with the Kin?

To the bitter end, like canon. She's too far gone and can't be saved; and in any future appearances will continue to be a problem in some capacity.

We're going to have to see what the future arcs do with her, too. As you know, I stick close to canon and rework the major events, and Sleekwhisker is still out there in the world. There's a chance, in any given new book, that she could pop up again; so I can't work her into the TBC arc, or even ASC when it's complete if she doesn't pop up.

I will say though if we go through enough arcs that it does look like they've just utterly dropped her as a character, the Bonefall Rewrite WILL give her an actual conclusion to her arc.

-Rogue Nuisance or Multifaceted Antagonist?

Well, to begin with, the Kin has a LOT less non-Clan rogues. I'm capping them to 6, not including Darktail himself. Most of them are going to be warrior-named and Clanborn; I am not going to tolerate the idea that every villain can just conjure up a bunch of random rogue bodies to use for Nefarious Deeds.

(Kin starter pack: Flame, Nettle, Rain, Raven, Roach, Dragonfly. Consider all others cut; IF Zelda, Loki, and Max don't get chopped they will be combined with Jacques and Susan.)

So if Sleekwhisker is ever a 'rogue nuisance' it'll always be with the backing of the Kin remnants, and she's the leader of this faction.

Sooo... thinking about it now, hey, maybe she can eventually change over time as she actually learns to lead this group. We'll see how the modern arcs go, and if there's a random new character somewhere who could become an older, wisened Sleekwhisker... or, an aged, even crueler Sleekwhisker. We'll see.

#Sleekwhisker #Bonefall Rewrite #Bonefall AVoS #I really love girl villains so in any case I solemnly swear I will not let her get forgotten #I care her #Sleekraven my beloved

48 notes · View notes

kuwdora · 1 year

Text

Posting meme- CHRISJEN AVASARALA !!!!!!!!! (from runawaynun)

CHRISJEN AVASARALA !!!!!!!!! (from runawaynun)

Runawaynun your Expanse vids are amazing, everyone needs to watch them!!

Okay I fucking LOVE Chrisjen Avasarala. I love her in the show, I love her in the books. I fucking love where she starts at the beginning of the series and where she ends up—both in the show, and in the books Shohreh portrayed her beyond perfection. Her leadership style makes my eyes pop and I just love how she commands a room and is trying her fucking best despite all the shit happening. Her wardrobe. Her attitude. HER EVERYTHING. *flails a lot*

I watched season 1 of The Expanse and enjoyed it enough to want to read the first book after I finished the season. Just to hold me over until the second season. Well…I read the first book and then gobbled up the second book Caliban’s War. I lost my utter fucking mind when Chrisjen met Bobbie and then spent the rest of the hiatus waiting and salivating for Bobbie and Chrisjen scenes. THEY WERE MAGNIFICENT. Season 2 was incredible. 10/10 amazing stuff.

One thing that was readily notable after I read the first three books and continued to wait for the show to return, is how much cursing they wrote out of her dialogue in season 1. There was a noticeable uptick in her salty language once the show moved to Amazon and for that I am grateful (but still fuck Jeff Bezos, and I know the irony wasn’t lost on the authors that a real-life inspiration for Jules-Pierre Mao saved their show).

Anyway, I love the series but also the trilogies have some AMAZING QUOTES. Here are a few that I’ll share from the books. ItReachesOut compiled most of these on motivational posters which is linked below.

“My life has become a single, ongoing revelation that I haven’t been cynical enough.” ― Chrisjen Avasarala, Babylon's Ashes

“…and a familiar voice was coming from the terminal, "Going to be monitoring anything we fucking say. If you wanted to discuss menstruation at great length and detail, this is probably our best chance. He's always been squeamish about women. And no one likes a Peeping Tom, even if he is Prime Minister.” ― Chrisjen Avasarala, Nemesis Games

“It'd be a better world if there was always at least one right answer instead of a basket of fucked.” ― Chrisjen Avasarala

Realizing you've got shit on your fingers is the first step to washing your hands. -Chrisjen Avasarala

Always good to have a penis in uniform in the room. -Chrisjen Avasarala

I don't give a fuck whose birthday it is, you make this happen before my meeting is over or I'll have your nuts as paperweights. -Chrisjen Avasarala

I have crates of anti-herpes drugs that are more legitimate than you are. -Chrisjen Avasarala

I don't mean that they all fuck men. I mean they're all men, the fuckers. -Chrisjen Avasarala

That man's asshole must be tight enough right now to bend space. -Chrisjen Avasarala

Try not to put your dick in this. It's fucked enough already. -Chrisjen Avasarala

runawaynun's AMAZING EXPANSE VIDS:

Sexy Back (Chrisjen) THIS COVER is fucking brilliant.

Solid (Bobbie/Chrisjen) THEM!! god I love Bobbie.

Poor Atlas (Chrisjen) the lyrics and tone of this song is so devastatingly perfect omg

Thes are all STUNNING incredible amazing frothingly good Expanse vids with Chrisjen! runawaynun also has some delicious-looking femslash fic I have not dove into yet cause I haven't really had the brain to read Expanse fic but OH MY GODDDD. I love Chrisjen Avasarala.

#december posting meme #the expanse #chrisjen avasarala #the expanse books #kuwdora recs #vid rec #my posts #textpost #queuedora

44 notes · View notes