#its part of a larger rewrite but a lot of the stuff here is probably not canon

[confusinglystupid]

draft for a star blazers thing

im posting this solely for @cryptidwithacopiccollection

.

HAIL THE GARMILLONS HAIL OUR LEADER HAIL DESSLER

DESS-LER DESSLER DESSlER DESSLER DESSLER DESS-LER DESSLER DESSlER DESSLER DESSLER DESS-LER DESSLER DESSlER DESSLER DESSLER

Dessler stepped away from the podium, back into the depths of the palace. Propaganda Minister Adelheid Szalabastar greeted him. "Hail." said she. "You wrote an excellent speech." said he. "You're quite the orator. And a speech is only as good as the one who delivers it." Dessler chuckled. "It was no daunting task. Garmillons are such simple creatures. Too easy to please- it was almost a waste of our combined talent." "But don't forget, Abelt; this isn't just for the collective. It's for the shrewder few who may begin to doubt the glory of Garmillas." As they walked, they were joined by Chief of Staff Miesela Celestra. "Chief of Staff." said Szalabastar, saluting and averting her eyes. "Abelt. You're in good health as always. And Adelheid, you look well as well." "Celestra. What a pleasure." Shortly after, the three came upon the doors to the banquet hall. At the door stood two guards, who quickly saluted at the sight of Dessler.

The doors swung open, revealing the way into a simply marvelous, titanic, and exquisite hall. The East wall was entirely glass, allowing a lovely view of Barleras. The west wall, through which Dessler and Szalabastar had entered, had a titanic and beautiful mural painted across it of a Garmillon patriarch (who vaguely resembled Abelt's uncle, Erich nom Dessler) and an Iscändarian matriarch (modeled after Queen Starsha).

The gathered officials applauded, though their applause was notably different from that on Earth. Their applause was a deafening chatter of "Dess-ler, Dessler Dessler Dessler. Dessler, Dessler Dessler Dessler." The "sentences" varied in length, but the first syllable of the first "Dessler" in each was stretched out considerably. Dessler strode across the hall, walking along a long noble azure carpet that stretched from the entrance to a beautiful golden throne toward the East end. The officials, who were gathered at ornate tables adorned with golden accents, continued their rhythmic applause as he made his way towards the head table. By his side were Kess, Szalabastar, Celestra, Talan, and Hyss, all standing.

Dessler sat down and held up his hand, calling for silence. A servant handed him a glass. He took a sip of wine, leaned back, and nodded approvingly, before giving the near-full glass back to the servant to be thrown away.

"Well, let's get on with it."

"Y-Yes, your excellency." stammered the Viceroy, who had rushed everything, organization and planning wise. This was often effective and turned out perfect, though at a great cost to Hyss's mental health and stability. The old Viceroy cleared his throat. "Comrades-- gathered officers, scientists and other important members of noble Garmillon society-- Today we celebrate our 103rd year since the Great Unification, and 103 years of Dessler rule!" "Dess-ler, Dessler, Dessler." piped up the crowd before momentarily quieting down. "Approval ratings are through the roof." added Hyss. "Dess-ler, Dessler, Dessler." responded the crowd. Szalabastar bowed, proud. "And, according to General Histenberger's report, victory continues on into the Lesser Radjendora Galaxy. Those dreadful Gatlanteans never stood a chance." "His-tenberger, Histenberger. Dess-ler, Dessler, Dessler." Histenberger bowed, mild relief on his face at Dessler's apparent approval. "Excellent. And my special entertainment?" inquired Dessler. "What? C-Concubines?" said Hyss, utterly bewildered. Quite a few laughed. Dessler took a moment before doing so. "No, Hyss. The Jarmattu." Dessler corrected, once he decided he had laughed for the appropriate amount of time. "O-Oh! Right!" To say Hyss felt an idiot is not enough. "Uh… General Gör reports that the-the trap will be ready i-in… th-three hours, sir." "Hyss, you're an idiot." "I-Indeed, Leader." agreed Hyss, frightened.

THREE AND A HALF HOURS LATER

Colonel General Garamond Gör stood in the bridge of his flagship, the Görgamecj, watching in excitement as the barbarian ship, Jarmattu, steadily floated into his trap. "Perfect!" chortled he. "Alert Leader Dessler. His entertainment is in order!"

"Er… my Leader?" "What is it, Hyss?" "Gör says he has Jarmattu." Dessler adjusted himself. "Good." He sat upright and straightened out his cape. "Put it on the screen." The lights in the hall faded out, and the buzz of the room died down.

"Now." announced the Supreme Leader. "Comrades. I know your lives and jobs of… managing the lives and jobs of billions of others, it's… all really quite stressful-- especially our beloved Senior Vice Leader Garis Norrop, who manages the entire Lesser Radzjendora Galaxy--" There was some laughter in response to this, as well as scattered chanting or "Nor-rop, Norrop Norrop Norrop," as the great Norrop flushed deep blue, smiled, and bowed-- "And it is my belief you all deserve a moment of rest. So today, I present to you the end of a grand civilization, with the sincere hope of your entertainment. So please, enjoy the show." Applause; then, as Dessler sat back down, the screen slowly lit up, revealing a view of a large alien battleship amid a sea of stars.

"Behold, comrades. The Jarmattu. A marvel from a distant star. Though it comes from a previously uncontacted rock in the Zäl system-- who's natives were still bumbling around their inner four planets when we found them-- this ship carries a highly primitive Gesqtam engine. They seem to have engineered this wave-motion wonder purely out of spite for us. A beautiful testament to the indomitable human spirit." Scattered noises of mild fascination. "But, let's not deny it, soldiers of Garmillas. We all know how boring this is to you all. You desire action, yes?" Dessler stood up, flicking his cape, and smiled. "Let us blow it up." Resounding applause, cheers, and whistling. "DESS-LER, DESSLER DESSLER DESSLER DESSLER!" they cheered, on and on and on…

Dessler raised his hand, signaling for silence. The applause quickly died down. "Thank you, comrades. Now. Scattered around this marvel of defiance are hundreds of remote controlled Dessler Mines, courtesy of our wonderful Dr. Welte Talan.' "Ta-lan, Talan, Talan." muttered the crowd, as Talan bowed. Dessler continued. "These mines, my esteemed colleagues, are no ordinary mines. They are geniusly engineered to be nearly undetectable by radar. Not only that, but even while being nearly undetectable by radar, they also each have a built in propulsion system. Impressive, is it not?"

This was indeed quite impressive. It seemed impossible. How could it have onboard electronics without being detectable by radar? Or how could it maneuver without built in electronics? How could they receive orders with electronics AND something to bend light around it? Murmurs of curiosity and doubt filled the banquet hall. "But just talking about it isn't good enough. Allow us to show you." Yellow dots of various sizes appeared on onscreen, indicating the locations and distance of each mine. A red dot appeared onscreen indicating the position of Jarmattu, and an orange circle followed it indicating a target. Gradually, the mines closer to the camera began to recede, and the mines further off up began to approach, all carefully closing in around the Jarmattu.

Dessler looked on, slightly disappointed. "That's a bit slower than I expected. Mmh. No matter. Comrades, feel free to continue with your conversations and meals, but Hyss. Keep the screen up." "Yes, your excellency." The murmur and clatter of conversation and silverware faded back into existence as the gathered officials turned their attention back to their food and one another. "Perhaps the slow pace will heighten the sense of suspense." proffered Dr. Talan. "My thoughts exactly." improvised Dessler. "It's all about building anticipation for the main event, my dear doctor."

Over the course of the next 20 minutes, more people turned their attention back up to the screen as the mines closed in and tension mounted. Attention shifted when a pinglike tone was heard throughout the hall, indicating the detonation of one of the mines. The Jarmattu had sent a dummy drone out to test waters. "Clever." commented Dessler. "Teron ingenuity at a lesser extent. You'll enjoy what's to come." The Jamattu began firing small anti-aircraft pulse lasers off into the vaccuum, destroying the mines far enough off not to cause a chain reaction and close enough to eliminate real threats. But after about 30 seconds, it stopped. All eyes were now on the screen. The low murmur had turned to anticipatory silence. Another, lower pinglike tone rang out, repeating. An object had just left the Jarmattu. Was it a fighter? No, it was a human and an android, together bearing a large crate. "Thhe babrarians apppear human." observed a simply plastered Agricultural Minister Gelhen. "Many of them are." said Dessler, in reference to the various interstellar breeds of barbarian. "For the most part, they're no different from ourselves." Gelhen laughed at this. "A good jok, yyour exellenc-excelencyy." Dessler grimaced slightly-- slightly enough to be mistaken for a smile by those who did not know him. "It was no joke, my friend. I'm sure if we had a look inside that head of yours, and compared it to that of a Teron, a Jirel, and a Gatlantean, we'd find no difference at all." Gelhen laughed harder, not getting the message. Dessler smiled wider, his eyes fixed on Gelhen like those of a bird of prey.

Meanwhile, the two spacewalkers ventured out, floating to and from each Dessler Mine, attaching something to each one. "Can't we just detonate them and kill those two?" asked Celestra. "I'm afraid not." answered Talan. "You can't detonate individual ones, it's too complicated for that and I produced these on short notice. Blowing them all up at once would render the trap useless, and that, we could do regardless of if there were spacewalkers and have the exact same effect." "Then I have a proposition." stated she. "Have General Gör snipe them with low intensity long range beam weapons." "Unless Gör did it by accident, he seems to have specifically positioned them for a chain reaction, ma'am. It's simply not possible." "Then have him unposition them." Kess said plainly. "They're going to make a joke of your weapon." There was an uncomfortable moment. "That actually… That actually is possible. Your Excellency?" Hmm. Dessler thought for a moment. "Hmm… No, have Gör accelerate the mines. We will outpace them." "Yes, my Leader." said Hyss as Talan winced. "Ah, mm--" vocalized a grimacing Talan. "My Leader, they're closing in at maximum speed already." Dessler closed his eyes, inhaled, waited a second, exhaled, opened them again, and smiled politely. "Thank you, Talan. Your engineering prowess was almost adequate." Talan nodded apologetically. "I'm sorry, your excellency."

But by then. the Jarmattu's spacewalkers had returned to their ship. Suddenly, several-- not all, not even most, but several of the encroaching Dessler Mines began to fly back away from the Jarmattu. Dessler burst out into laughter in response to this. Followed by a frightened and confused Hyss and various other officers desiring to win Dessler's favor. "Hah-That was quite a simple solution. I bid them congratulations," said Dessler, once he was able to, "Though I don't deny I wonder why they've modified so few of them. I believe we should take a moment to appreciate the ingenuity of these creatures. Hail to thee, Terons." Gelhen, struggling to hold himself up against the mixture of laughter and liquor, finally managed to say something like: "An excellentjoke,, sir! ANd how th PRIMITIVes thin kthey've achived somethinng!!, Huzzah to them!!!" Dessler looked over at Gelhen, not disguising his look of anger this time. Gelhen quickly shut up. Seeing the joy fade from the drunk fool's face, Dessler's polite smile returned, and he turned to his comrade Kess. "I wish men like that would learn when to shut up." he whispered. "Would you like me to shut him up, sir?" "You're a saint, Aldous."

Kess stepped away from Dessler, whistled, and pointed. A few Imperial Guard officers joined him as he went to escort Gelhen out of the banquet hall.

"Now then. Let us continue." Looking over at the screen, Talan suddenly gasped and covered his mouth. "Oh, my word." Onscreen, the unmodified mines were being automatically navigated away from the hijacked mines by their built in safety system. The Jarmattu had figured this out, and was using the hijacked mines to push said unmodified mines out of the way, clearing a path to… the Görgamecj.

"What could they possibly be planning?" said a nervous General Gör. And then the Jarmattu's main guns rotated, turning toward the Görgamecj. "Ah-Haha, they-- They can't possibly hit us at this ran--" And with a few flashes of yellow followed by an equal number of thuds, Jarmattu's solid cannonshells did indeed hit them at that range. "E-EMERGENCY GESQTAM JUMP!" cried Gör. And jump they did. Leaving the mines dead in the water without a controller. The screen then went black.

Dessler looked up at the screen, a blank look on his face. Hyss immediately began stammering at an explanation. "Th-That coward, G-Gör, we'll-- we'll sort this out-- the military is under Talan and Z��llick's jurisdiction, I'll have a word with them. B-By the gods. This is… This is t-terrible, I-- I'll have, I'll send for a fleet immediately." "Teron ingenuity, as I said." Dessler was smiling again.

Aldous Kess and his men escorted Gelhen out of the hall. Out of the palace. "I'm TRULY… so sorry." slurred Gelhen, genuinely. "I didn't. know Desslerer wasn't joking. I ,wanted to be entertainining. to him" "I forgive you." said Kess, as they led him out of the upper class district. ",mMy friend… THIS has been a nice… walk, but we're." He paused to swallow, stopping himself from vomiting. "QUIIIIITE far from the palace.. Where are we even GOing???" "It's a surprise." answered Kess. "Ohhh," ohed Gelhen. "Excitingn." They led him into a north-south alley between two brick buildings, and two guards had him face the wall of the eastern one, on which a brown tarp had been set. "Heyy, what are--?"

BANG

But he was interrupted by a bullet passing through his head, spattering blue blood across the tarp. Kess switched out his gloves, tossing the gloves and gun he had used for the deed onto Gelhen's corpse, and donning new ones stowed in his pocket. "Burn this one. He's government. People will look for 'im." Those were orders Kess gave to his men as they took the tarp down from the wall and wrapped it around poor old Dotm Gelhen. "Aye, sir."

WORLD OF STRENGTH WITH HIS BLOOMS AZURE NOBLE IS THE LAND I CALL MY FATHERLAND THUS WE ALL SING THE JOYOUS SONG FOR THE GODS UP ABOVE WHO WILL BRING VICTORY TO OUR BROTHERS INTERSTELLAR: "ALL HAIL THE GARMILLONS GLORY BE TO US ALL FOREVER LONGER"

FIN

#i really dont wanna call this a fic #but it kinda is #its part of a larger rewrite but a lot of the stuff here is probably not canon #like thats kind of a dumb strategy for clearing the #mines and i already came up w a new one thats like. wayyy better (insert quirky winky emojis here) #star blazers #space battleship yamato #uchuu senkan yamato #abelt dessler #dessler #leader desslok #leader dessler #lord dessler #uhhh what else #redof hyss #general krypt #deputy leader hyss #general talan #dr talan #ghader talan #welte talan #uhhhhh theres mo hold on lemme think #propoganda minister shalabastOH MY GOD i spelled her name weird in this one 😭 #yamato #dotm gelhen #general goer #garamond gör #general gör #general volgar #rolf hyss

[digitaldoeslmk]

I apologize if you're not the right person to ask but I've been wondering this for a while and since you both enjoy (but are critical of) lmk and also enjoy/know a lot about jttw I figure you may be a decent person to ask. And I mean this is as an entirely genuine question.

Jttw has so many different adaptations and parodies and, for lack of a better term, spinoffs, why is it that LMK in particular seems to get so much more criticism? How is it different from any other story that uses jttw as a base?

I was under the impression that while a lot of events and chatacters have been changed or tweaked in some ways (looking at red son in particular, as well as seemingly replacing Buddha with the jade emperor, I could go on) it was still relatively faithful at least in spirit. It has a lot of callbacks and mentions to the book, even if it's more or less an AU of the original story.

So why is it that its adaptation in particular seems so...disliked I suppose? Or at least takes a lot more criticism than other adaptations. I could take a few guesses (fandom (and its lack of knowledge of the source material) being a big one, or otherwise being more western than the story probably should be) but as someone who was introduced to jttw by lmk (reading the book now and having a blast with it) I'm curious and confused as to why it seems to be disliked when there are so many other jttw adaptations that also change fair chunks of the story, and those don't seem to garner the same level of criticism.

And I apologize again if you're maybe the wrong person to ask, but I wasn't sure where else to start, if you know anyone who can maybe answer this better I'd love to hear from any of them as well, I've been so curious about this for a while.

no worries at all, and i appreciate the ask!

i do wanna preface this by saying that i have very little interaction with the LMK fandom, and mostly heard the horror stories through the grapevine or by others telling me their own experience with it. and make no mistake, this sideblog is very much me laser focusing on the few stuff i enjoy of the show and expanding on those and filling in the rest with a lot of plaster and spite ajdhawjhbdh

i will keep most of my vitriol to myself though, and that the opinion i'm giving is my own. there's a lot of good folks who are more than welcome to pitch in with their own criticisms here, for a larger poll of voices.

read more cus this is long xvx

as you have said, JTTW has an overwhelming amount of retelling, rewrites, sequels, prequels, adaptations, what have you. trust me, there is a JTTW adaptation for everyone out there and it's part of the beauty and appeal of it. and equally, everyone has their pros and cons for each of them.

one major point to keep in mind is that LMK has a very online fanbase, and it's an abnormally large one. it also has fans on the west and in china, and the language barrier tends to keep both rather separate, for better or worse. so a larger fanbase means a larger pool of criticism simply by law of averages.

another thing to keep in mind is that, because it is so large, a lot of people are getting into JTTW thanks to it, and it's exactly those changes that make it even more of a hurdle for people to meet JTTW where it's at. and by that i mean, a very different worldview and belief system than known in the west.

i've been in the JTTW fandom properly for, three months now?? three and a half lol and the amount of reading and studying i've been doing to just scratch at the depth of centuries of cultural context is not insignificant. and i'm only just starting! it's a wonderful experience, but not many in the LMK fandom are as eager or willing to learn all that, much less listen when people correct them on things that they believe, that are factually false. and that can be deeply frustrating for those who simply want to share in the joy of learning.

it's incredibly demeaning and patronizing, to have such an old and rich culture reduced to a single adaptation that rly lambasts the roots of its entire premise for existing. no other fans of other adaptations have that kind of attitude that i've come across; those are all understood as AUs and not to be taken as gospel, but some of the fandom treat LMK as the end all be all of JTTW media and it's, infuriating.

beyond the fandom leaving one hell of a bitter taste, there's the fact that LMK is a very westernized view and parody of JTTW. it breaks not only with the lore of it, but with the very fundamentals of Buddhist and Daoist cosmology. those changes you mentioned, like the JE replacing Buddha and then the guy getting killed, the absence of several concepts and deities, and sometimes the very change of them, are incredibly disrespectful on their own. it's very hard to remove JTTW from its religious roots (it can be done but those usually read more as "inspired by" rather than proper adaptations), and to do so by filling the empty space with a Greco-Christian view of cosmology is... A Big Ol Yikes.

while we in the west might be okay turning stuff like Christian, Norse, Greek, etc. mythology upside down for our stories, it comes off as disrespectful to do the same for an overall dismissed and ignored religion in the west like Daoism, and even more so for such a sprawling one as Buddhism. that attitude does not translate well at all, and to be faithful only in spirit is simply not enough. you wouldn't (i hope) say that about people who appropriate Indigenous or closed faith beliefs for their own use; it's 2023 surely we don't need to revive the W-nd-ig- debate again, or the Lilith one. (i can for further context but i'd rather not, but you're than welcome to google it)

at the end of the day, an AU is just an AU until you're using it to sell toys and it has turned into a massive entry window for many western fans into a foundational piece of literature for an entire country that has been and still is routinely degraded and discriminated against.

i hope this hasn't come off as too harsh, but this is smth that rly grinds my gears and i tend to be a bit stern when discussing it. none of it was aimed at you anon, i know you're just trying to understand the situation and i do appreciate the effort you're making!!

[lucemferto]

I'm actually so curious. Which things would you specifically change about the Doomsday event? What do you think would've made it much better/more impactful for the overall narrative? /gen

This is a lot to ask of a man who just woke up. But I’ll try my best.

Now, the problems with Doomsday are mostly deeply structural. They’re problems with Tommy’s story and Techno’s story and Philza’s story and the Butcher Army’s story. So, if we really wanted it to be this morally grey issue that the narrative is convinced (?) it is, then we would have to rewrite a large part of S2 - basically everything that’s not the exile.

If we want to go for the “least fixes necessary”-route - the easiest way to fix up Doomsday - then there’s one giant glaring thing: Have Technoblade feel bad.

Now, any stray Technoblade-fans reading this, hear me out! I have my reasons!

One of the most egregious problems that Doomsday has is its horridly confused mood. This comes mostly from the completely different tones of the Technoblade-side and the L’Manburg-side. Techno is elated, happy, giddy even – the L’Manburg-side is downtrodden, they have lost all hope, they’re at the end of their rope.

Narratively speaking – looking at the Three-Act-Structure, which is highly applicable here – this is L’Manburg’s lowest point. And looking at the larger narrative of S2 – beginning to end – this also coincides with the Lowest Point of the larger narrative. Because of this we, the viewers, come to understand the L’Manburg-crew as the protagonists of S2, because the dramatic structure of the season mirrors the dramatic structure of their personal stories.

Now, there are characters that are happy during the Lowest Point – but they’re usually the villains. And we don’t want Technoblade to be the villain, because prior to that – through the Butcher Army event – he’s been framed as righteous in his anger.

The solution here is to also have Techno experience his Lowest Point during the Lowest Point of the larger narrative. He looks at the destruction; he hears Dream – autocratic villain extraordinaire – gloating about how he has won, how no one will be able to stand against him anymore, he sees people like Ghostbur, Tubbo and Tommy grieving and begins to realize that he hasn’t just hurt a government he has hurt people.

(Combined with that, drop Quackity from Doomsday – he doesn’t need to be here and he would muddy the waters as the most overt antagonistic presence besides of Dream. Also, it doesn’t contribute to his story-arc in the slightest)

(Also, have Niki and Fundy delay their villain arc – again, muddies the waters).

A lot of Techno-fans have been telling me in the comments under my YouTube-video, that the main conflict for Techno in S2 is pacifism vs violence. And I see where they come from, but the problem is that it really isn’t a conflict or an arc.

How it goes is: Technoblade is pacifistic – he gets the most convenient excuse to be as violent as possible – he is as violent as possible – his S2-story ends.

There is no sense of any thematic conflict or even character development. It’s very A, B, C with barely any connective tissue or a “dramatic discussion” aka scenes where either the characters or the narrative or both try to formulate a thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

Again, the easiest fix here – though you lose a lot of potential nuance, but again, we’re going for the least necessary changes – is to have Technoblade look at the destruction he wrought and think back to when he was committed to pacifism. He realises that he has become the person he wanted to leave behind, that he has become his worst self. It’s very similar to Tommy’s arc in S2, but that’s because stuff like this works – it’s basic rules of character arcs and storytelling.

(Combined with that, you could also have a story beat, where he tries to talk with the people he saved from the government – you know, Niki or HBomb – and have them be afraid of him, treat him like a monster and a weapon, because of what he has done. Oh, look! Now the incredibly sloppy dehumanization-conflict for Techno is an actual conflict – also good set-up for the syndicate. Techno realizes that you catch more flies with honey and formulates the idea to polish up the image of anarchy).

So, this is my most basic rewrite of Doomsday – again, this loses a lot of the moral ambiguity that S2 goes for and fails to do successfully. But if we wanted to achieve that, we would have to do some major rewrites for the entire S2-storyline and that’s a bit much for me right now.

Of course, even this simple rewrite for Doomsday would have ramifications for the story events that come after. We can’t just leave Technoblade in his Lowest Point – so ideally, he would take part in the S2-Finale. Probably help Tommy to take out Dream – maybe he and Tubbo have a heart-to-heart where they discuss their differences, who knows?

But you only asked for a Doomsday-fix and that’s all you’re gonna get.

#dream smp #dreamsmp #dsmp #dsmpblr #dream smp analysis #dsmp analysis #technoblade #dsmp techno #dsmp technoblade #tommyinnit #dsmp tommy #dsmp tommyinnit #dream smp season 2 #dream smp doomsday #quackity #dsmp quackity #tubbo #dsmp tubbo #dream #dreamwastaken #dsmp dream #niki nihachu #nihachu #dsmp nihachu

[tsarisfanfiction]

21 Asks: Fanfiction Q&A

Well I got tagged by @onereyofstarlight @gumnut-logic and @janetm74 for this, so here goes (answering on fic blog, because... fic!)

This is going to take a while, but it’s also going to be fun, so let’s get started :D

1. What fandoms have you written for?

Uhh... several.  In alphabetical order because that makes my brain happy, we have:

Published: Bleach, Boku no Hero Academia (My Hero Academia), D.Gray-Man, Detective Conan, Flight Rising, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Märchen Awakens Romance (MÄR), Mortal Instruments, Naruto, One Piece, Team Fortress 2, Thunderbirds, Twilight.

WIPs (Unpublished): Avatar: The Last Airbender, Dragon Orb, Flame of Recca, HunterXHunter, Inuyasha, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures (Part 7/Steel Ball Run), Kuroko no Basuke (Kuroko’s Basketball), MI High, Yu-Gi-Oh (Duel Monsters, GX, 5Ds), Yuri On Ice

A couple of those are only because of crossovers... which we’ll get to later.  Similarly, a bunch of the unpublished I have no plans to publish, but I’ve written them so they count in my head.

2. How many works do you have on AO3 &/or FFNet?

AO3: 150 FFN: 149 (the difference is due to a co-authored fic with @lenle-g on AO3, because FFN doesn’t support co-authorship)

(Tumblr has many more because so many of those fics are actually fic collections)

3. What are your top 3 fics by kudos on AO3 &/or favs on FFNet?

AO3 Kudos:

Tales From The Heart (1449)

The Combat School (524)

Succor (348)

FFN Favourites:

The Combat School (681)

Tales From The Heart (185)

Succor (136)

4.  Which 3 fics have the least kudos & favs?

AO3 Kudos:

Wishes of the Dark (0)

4am Forever / Leave Out All The Rest (2)

FFN Favourites:

A Little Fall of Rain / He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother, Leave Out All The Rest / See You In The Sky / Stolen Shadows all have 0

5. Which Fic has the most comments and which has the least?

AO3 Comments:

Tales From The Heart (618)

37 have 0

FFN Reviews:

The Combat School (608)

After Sundown / Heroes Made of Gas / Splatter / Stolen Shadows (0)

6. Which complete fic do you wish had gotten more attention?

I mean, I always like attention :P  That’s a hard question because my fandoms vary wildly in size, so for example, while Tales is one of my most popular fics, it’s still pretty tiny in comparison to the big One Piece fics out there, but ones like Grounded numerically barely rate while actually getting the attention of a much larger proportion of the fandom.

Honestly the fic that’s getting less of a response than I’d hoped is still incomplete... but I think I’ll go with Vulnerabilities.  It’s an older fic, and a drabble collection rather than a cohesive story, but it never really got any traction.

7. Have you written any crossovers?

Ah yes, crossovers.  I’ve got three published at the moment:

The Combat School (Harry Potter/D.Gray-Man)

Vampire vs. Shinobi (Naruto/Twilight)

Stolen Shadows (Flight Rising/Thunderbirds)

As far as WIPs go, I have (who knows when or if I’ll actually finish or post these):

Alliance (Naruto/Team Fortress 2)

Black Phoenix (Harry Potter/D.Gray-Man)

Legend of the Exorcists (D.Gray-Man/Yu-Gi-Oh/GX/5Ds)

Untitled (Avatar: The Last Airbender/Thunderbirds)

Untitled (Inuyasha/Lord of the Rings)

8. What is the craziest fic you’ve written?

What even counts as crazy?

Okay, I say that, but Vampire vs. Shinobi is a stupid, Twilight-bashing, parody crossover thing so.  Probably that.

9. What’s the fic you’ve written with the saddest ending?

Ahaha.  There are a few.  All of these have MCD warnings (two are canonical), two of which are suicide, so watch out if you’re poking around:

Deception (canon)

I Promised

The Fish and the Mermaid

The Light That Shines Twice As Bright... (suicide)

Torture (suicide)

Unwanted

Whirlwind (canon)

10. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Tsari likes positive endings.  I’m not actually sure what the happiest is, though.  I often write... hopeful, rather than happy?  The happiest I can think of... is a WIP that I have the ending planned for but that’s spoilers~

I’ll go with Riding the Dragon, I think.  But honestly just take your pick out of the family fluff.

11. What is your smuttiest fic?

Tsari does not post smut.  She has written some, she has not posted it and will keep it that way.

Out of the posted stuff... there is kissing in Briefings?

12. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I think when you hit 100+ fics, you’re lucky if you don’t.  I’ve had a few here and there, but they’re ignorable

13. What is the nicest comment you’ve received?

Oh boy.  I have had many nice comments, but I am going to highlight this one in particular because it’s the one that forever and always springs to mind when I get asked this:

Wow. That was pretty great. You writing managed to keep everyone in character, and still kept the story from falling flat. It's almost as if you stole a page from Cassie's story, and stuck it here. I really want to see more from you.

On: A Tradition of Pride

It’s nowhere near the longest I’ve got, and long comments make me super happy, but this one?  Being told it fits in with the original book?  Makes me beam like an idiot every time.

14. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

[insert eyeroll here]

I have had fics reposted, yes.  Tales From The Heart and Whirlwind have both found themselves posted on sites I don’t use - I managed to get Tales taken down, but the site hosting Whirlwind isn’t paying me any attention.

15.  How many fics do you have marked as incomplete?

Nine, which is both too many and not as many as I thought.  Although if you ignore the collection fics - Tales From The Heart and Behind The Scenes, which are basically eternal wips - it’s seven.

16. Which of the WIPS will most likely be finished first?

Just A Bruise, because it’s already just about finished, @lenle-g and I just need to tie up the final chapter and editing the rest of it before it’s posted.

17. Which WIP are you looking forward to finishing?

Long Way From Home, because it’s going to be huge and finishing that will feel amazing.  But it’s going to take a long time.

18. Is there a WIP that you’re considering abandoning?

Nope.  I will, one day, finish all of them.  Yes, even Uchiha Itachi.

19. Which complete fic would you consider rewriting?

Complete?  None.  However, the above mentioned Uchiha Itachi is being (very slowly) rewritten - and is actually on its second rewrite - because it pains me in its current state.

20. Which complete fic is your favourite?

Asking the hard questions I see.  I have a soft spot for In Your Shadow, I admit, although I have several fics that I love (mostly my Military Bros stuff...).  Also Tales, although that’s technically not “Complete”.

21. What’s your total published word count?

AO3: 956,962 (I aim to break 1 million by the end of the year... just watch me!)

FFN: 1,102,070 (FFN counts author’s notes, AO3 does not)

If someone is brand new to your writing, what work would you want them to start with to get to know you, your style, what you’re all about?

This is not a numbered question, I see, but it was on the post I copied these from, so I guess this is 21+1 questions!

I’ve answered this before, and honestly I think I’d stick with the same answer - Black Widow.  It’s not my biggest fandom.  It’s not my most recent work.  But it does contain a lot of playing around canon without breaking it.

Although, if someone has the time, Tales From The Heart does great for showcasing the range of things I write.  But that’s also 250+ chapters, so probably not a good one to start with.

And this is where I tag people, yes?  Not entirely sure who’s been tagged already, but let’s go with @lenle-g @ak47stylegirl @thetwelvecaesars @gaviiadastra @willow-salix @scribeofred

#thunderbirds are go #and various other fandoms i am not tagging them all #ask me #tag game #fanfiction

[brokemylegflippingthefirewall]

*This is absolutely a fic promotion, but plz hear me out on the discourse part too

So, self inserts and original characters, the worst fanfic catgeory (fanfiction.net literally says that in one of its fic groupings, and I'm pretty sure the number of views on any fanfic website says the same).

TLDR- Yes, I agree that this stereotype carries truth, but I do think SIs and OCs have more potential to be explored, and the stigma surrounding these labels is blocking that. And oh god I just want to know so badly if this is the deal with the work I'm currently writing or if I genuinely just can't write well.

The longer version- (this was written quite late into the night/ I'm in Singapore/, and might not be so well organized, I apologize for that.)

To what extent is this stigma "justified"? I mostly use AO3 for reading fics, and when I see the OC/SI tag, the thing is....I came to look for fics about canon characters and might not have the wish to invest my time in taking in a new character. I understand that most people who read fanfiction would feel the same. This, I think, is more or less justified. If you came to look for a certain canon character/relationship, and you don't want to get invested in any OCs, then of course the OC/SI tag isn't for you.

But... I think that's about it. Bcs here's the thing,

1. Using the OC/SI format does NOT automatically make the fic worse in quality. Hell, I'm not even sure if the statistical "fact" that these tags generate the worst fics is true. Judging from what I've read in the tma fandom and my other past fandoms, the stuff with OC/SI isn't inherently worse or better than the rest of the fics. There are ones that are pretty normal in writing quality, and the ones where the prose is rly good, others where plot design stands out etc. Of course, there is a lot of wish fulfillment and the like, but... there's also a lot of that in fics that write about canon characters.

2. I can't really say whether a wish fulfillment "I just want to write cool scenes/fluff" fic is better or worse than a more serious fic that explores some characterization or plot point. I think stories (all stories, books, fanfic, myths, everything) exist to entertain us and make us feel things. I am not sure if writing a feel good story is any less meaningful than writing a story that brings people "deeper" thoughts and makes them feel good in some other way. And this isn't even the issue at hand, because fundamentally, writing an OC/SI or not doesn't determine what the content is about. I agree that a larger proportion of OC/SI fics tend to be more on the lighthearted side, but... so is most of the content consumed in the other tags. Readers don't seem to have a problem with feel good stories/fix it fics etc when there is no OC or SI, so I don't see why that type of fic paired with an OC/SI should be considered any less "meaningful".

3. Guys/gals, what is an OC/SI?

Yes, it is very personal, and it is very wish fulfillment, but... isn't that like a common literature thing...like in general? Look at the works that "real writers" publish, from contemporary to the classics, which writer doesn't write about themselves? Like, just off the top of my head, Les Miserables, Marius? Um, Dante's Inferno? (and that guy did not self insert into some random thing he straightup went for the Christian Canon😂 used his real name too, so Jonny I guess if you feel awkward about your MCs name you can think of Dante//Jk). But seriously, self insert and wish fulfillment is a big part of literature itself, and while there are things to be said about these tropes, if people don't have that much of a problem with them in other literature, I don't see why fanfic OC/SIs shouldn't be treated the same.

4. in relation to the last point. More specifically...

I do think that a lot of fanfiction which write about the original characters are also OC/SIs to different extents. I've read fics that depict pairings where the author and readers project heavily onto one (or more) of the characters. I've read stuff where the author uses a minor character to explore the established world building/character dynamics and it's clear that it's an SI but with the appearance of being a canon character (and yes it gets tons more views than one that's written as SI). How do I know this? Because I am one of those readers who project onto those characters, and I know why I read those fics, I know why I like them. It's because I can self insert, and feel like I am part of the story, part of the world. Isn't that something most people want to do? I mean, Universal Studios? Specific franchise themed museums? COSPLAY??? Of course that's not all there is to engaging with a story, but what's the shame in wanting to be a part of an already established world building, or want to love a wonderfully designed character? (slight tangent, but if u feel like it's bcs ur not as interesting/cool as the story's world or other characters appear to be then I can tell you with certainty that's not true. You are very interesting and cool and absolutely deserve to be part of a fantasy world.) Isn't that a big part of why "real literature" is written and read as well? So... what's the problem with being like, okay, I'm just gonna insert myself into the world now, through this original character? Of course, I'm not asking for people who prefer to write strictly in canon characters to change that. What I mean to say is, writing it in the form of an OC/SI, doesn't make it a lot different from other fics, or hell, from classic literature even.

I think a potential problem might be the feeling that you are taking too much creative liberty with something that is established canon, by having your own character directly interact with it. But, um, can't the same thing be said if you take a canon character, and then proceed to project heavily onto them? Like, a big part of why I don't feel comfortable writing just canon characters is that I know I'm clearly projecting and it feels awkward to rewrite an already established character to explore my own thoughts/desires. I would rather just straightup design a new character. (this is all just personal feelings, I haven't thought enough about this to make any kind of argument here. And of course, the main reason is I can't trust myself to write canon characters that don't ooc in some way so having one as my protag might kill me with my own awkwardness. )

5. the potential.

Now this is looking far ahead because I'm not sure how much our current system for distribution of knowledge & copyright can allow it. But damn. The OC/SI thing has a lot of potential. There is one thing that makes it different from writing in canon characters, and that is the way it opens up a clear space for you to add your own experience into the story. When exploring your own world view through the lense of an already established world, or vice versa, so much can be revealed about both, perhaps even bringing to light aspects of the narrative the author hadn't previously seen. We all know this feeling, it's when we ramble on about one of our stories or worlds to a friend, and they point something out, and we're like ooooh that makes a lot of sense but I hadn't thought about it before. Yea, like those moments. Stories are generally made more interesting by their interaction with many different perspectives/experiences. With OC/SI it straightup allows you to be like, okay, I'm going to engage my own experience with this fictional world/character now. I mean, isnt that also a large part of how fanfics work in general? Readers/writers bouncing symbols and experiences off each other in the form of stories? Reading about the various interpretations of canon stuff? Whats the problem with tagging it as it is? I'm just thinking about the fics that could have been written as OC/SI and explored the story in some fascinating way which weren't written at all or were discontinued bcs the number of views discouraged those authors. (I feel that with my current work as well, though I have already written half of it and the remaining half is too juicy to give up so I'll probably be completing it)

6. conclusion, sorta

I guess what I want for OC/SO fics is just the same treatment as everything else. Saw it in the tags you were searching for? Look at the teaser. Do you find it interesting? No, then very well. Yes, then click in and take a look. Do you like the writing style? Are you getting into the narrative?... etc. You know, like, same standards you would have for any other kind of fic. Not feeling like you want to read about a new character? Cool, no problem at all, click away. But I do not think that the current difference in number of views is just based on whether readers are interested in reading about a new character or not. In fact, that's what I want it to be. Show me that "true" difference, the one without the stigma behind it, because, as the same goes for every kind of stigmatized community, you're not receiving the proportionate amount of positive feedback, but what's worse is you can't even trust the criticism you receive. If no one engages, or someone gives a negative feedback, how am I supposed to know if it's because my writing is bad? or my teaser wasn't interesting? or my character was badly written/designed? Or if it was to a certain extent, bcs of the stigma? I do want criticism, of course I do, it's the first step to every improvement, and I would love it if I could get feedback that I can trust. (and this brings us to the truely "oppressed" community of the fanfic world, the people who write very good but cant write interesting teasers//jk)

7. the entirely skippable straw man rant part, also the expression of my love for The Magnus Archives.

some straw man: if you like writing your own characters so much, why not just write your own story entirely? and publish it?

You think I'm not annoyed about that? Here's the thing, I LIKE THIS WORLD I READ FROM THIS BOOK/SOME OTHER FORM OF MEDIA OR WHATEVER, I like it, it's brilliant, I want to write for it, about it, be in it, think about it, read about it, engage in whatever way I can. I CAN'T just "go write my own." And who do you think is more annoyed about not being able to publish the stuff? (According to you) I have written something that is potentially publishable (thank you btw I know you don't exist and is a strawman I invented just now but I've gotta get my compliments where I can//Jk), and I can't publish it in any potentially big way (and rightfully not) because I have no copyright over the characters. I worked hard to design my character, to make the plot meaningful, and to study the original canon plot and characters so that it would all fit together (I mean, partially bcs I can't force myself to sit down and write sth that is any less complex), and I can't actually publish it where more people will read it. And of course, on top of that, even less people will feel like reading once that "original character" tag is up. Does it look like I would be here if I could "just write my own"?

(slight tangent but come on what even is "your own"? how many classic European lit books were just fanfics of each other which were all just fanfics of the Bible or Greek mythology or sth? Stories and symbols have no boundaries it's the economic system that drew those.)

Damn this got way longer than I thought and it's morning now😂 guess I ran out of space to actually promote my fic, might have to do that in a seperate post then. But to anyone who actually read up to here, I'm so sorry for wasting your time no but srsly thanks for reading all of these jumbled thoughts, and good luck with whatever you are working on at the moment, I know you're probably working on something if you're reading through these tags. And of course good luck to the tma folk we're gonna face the end together🙏. good night (I should rly go to sleep now😂)

#the magnus archives #fanfiction #original character #self insert #discourse #literature #tma

[aion-rsa]

WandaVision Episode 9: The Big Questions We Need Answered

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains WandaVision spoilers.

With just one episode left in the season – and technically the series – the finale of WandaVision has a lot of ground to cover.

Its penultimate installment was not just a heartbreaking retrospective of just how terrible Wanda’s life has been and how much she has suffered, it gave us an entirely new understanding of a character that’s been part of this universe for four feature films to date. Plus, there’s the whole thing where a secret government agency appears to have reanimated Vision’s dead body to use as a weapon, and Wanda herself is most likely a legendary, all-powerful witch. 

How the series plans to wrap up these dangling plot threads in addition to laying the groundwork for the upcoming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and establishing what comes next is anyone’s guess. But there are a few things that WandaVision is going to have to tell us in order for this series to truly stick the landing as the MCU’s most ambitious – and best – project yet. (Which right now, with one episode to go, is a title it wins by a mile.)

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Here are nine burning questions we need the WandaVision finale to answer.

What is the Scarlet Witch?

In an episode filled almost to bursting with surprisingly rich callbacks to multiple MCU films, the biggest moment was still probably Wanda being directly referred to as the Scarlet Witch for the first time. But what that actually means is anyone’s guess. 

Sure, she’s powerful enough to literally rewrite reality and turn a run-down New Jersey town into a classic sitcom paradise. But that’s not exactly news – she did destroy an Infinity Stone and almost take down Thanos in the Avengers movies. Agatha bestows the name upon her as though it means something significant, as if Wanda’s some sort of magical harbinger that has a larger role to play in…something (and the Scarlet Witch costume Wanda sees in her vision would seem to back that up). But who or what is she?

What Does Agatha Harkness Actually Want?

Most of us have assumed that Agatha Harkness must technically be the Big Bad of WandaVision – I mean, the song says that she’s been pulling every evil string, c’mon – but “Previously On” hints that may not entirely be the case. The creation of Westview was clearly a result of Wanda’s chaos magic, so…what is Agatha doing there? And what is her ultimate goal?

Has she sought Wanda out simply to determine where her power comes from? To try and steal it for herself? To suss out another powerful witch to become besties with? (Agatha was Wanda’s mentor in the comics.) 

Are we meant to read Agatha as a true villain – or something more complicated? I mean, she does put Wanda’s kids in choke collar leashes, but whether that’s out of a desire to protect herself from the Scarlet Witch or to use her in some way is still unclear.

Is Vision Somehow Alive Again?

Well, there go our theories that poor Wanda has just been puppeting her dead boyfriend’s corpse around Westview (thankfully – that idea was always dark af). Instead, it appears that this is more of a Vision 2.0, a being created by a combination of an incredibly powerful dose of Wanda’s chaos magic, her memories of the man she loved, and the overwhelming grief she can’t seem to control.  But does that mean Vision is actually alive? Like, could appear in another MCU film, alive?  And if so, why can’t he leave the boundaries of the Hex? Does he even have a physical body, or is his form just a Wanda-powered projection?

What is Tyler Hayward’s Endgame – and Why Is He Trying to Blame Wanda for it?

One of the biggest revelations in “Previously On” was that Wanda did not, in fact, storm into SWORD headquarters and steal back her boyfriend’s dead body. Instead, she actually experienced a quietly shattering moment of grief in which she accepted that the Vision she loved was truly gone. So…why did SWORD director Tyler Hayward not only insist that she did, he literally put together a deep fake video to prove it?

Hayward has been a fairly shady figure since he first appeared on WandaVision, but this is some next-level mustache-twirling stuff. Has he just been trying to turn Vision’s body into a weapon – seemingly mission accomplished there – or has he been crafting a much larger and more nefarious scheme? 

After all, he is on record as hating the superpowered beings that he believes are responsible for both the Snap that erased half the population and the Blip that brought everyone back but ultimately devastated those left behind in the meantime. Is the White Vision his revenge on Wanda – and those like her – in some way? (Truly, so many problems could be solved in the universe of the MCU if people just got some help for their PTSD, but that’s a rant for another day.) Or is Hayward’s scheme more complicated in some way?

What is the Purpose of the White Vision?

The Dr. Manhattan-esque White Vision revealed in this week’s credits scene is both creepy and heartbreaking at the same time. The real Vision, after all, had specifically requested that he not be brought back or used as some kind of weapon after his death. And now he’s been made into what is likely some sort of soulless killing machine, using his soulmate’s magic and against his own wishes. How Hayward figured out how to reanimate Vision, what vibranium he was tracking in the Hex, and what he intends to do with this new weapon he’s made are all outstanding questions. But none of them likely have happy answers. 

Look, we probably have to start preparing ourselves now emotionally for the fact that Wanda is going to have to fight the reanimated body of her dead lover, who probably won’t even remember her name. And she’ll have to do it with the magical recreation of him she made in Westview at her side, in a battle that will more than likely destroy both Visions by the end of it.

And at this point, we’re going to need a WandaVision Season 2 in order to deal with Wanda’s trauma from all of that (that’s not a complaint, by the way).

Is Wanda a Mutant Now?

With the X-Men franchise officially part of the MCU, the question has to be asked: Is Wanda Maximoff officially a mutant now? Her exposure to the Mind Stone clearly triggered or otherwise activated some latent abilities – powers that the show implied would have vanished otherwise.

Wanda and Pietro appear to be the only two individuals who survived HYDRA’s attempts to create supervillains using the Mind Stone. Does this mean that Pietro’s survival also indicates that his powers were merely latent and then “activated” by their experiments?

Does this twist give Wanda back her official mutant roots, or is it just an origin story for witches in the Marvel universe? 

Where’s Monica?

When last we saw Monica Rambeau, she was getting busted for snooping by Agatha’s nebulously explained fake version of Pietro Maximoff. Since she doesn’t appear in “Previously On” we’re still not sure where she is, what’s happened to her in the meantime, or what role she has to play in the finale. 

One has to assume she’ll show up to fight at Wanda’s side – whether that’s against Agatha or the White Vision or both – but how? 

We also don’t know much yet about her superpowers. We’re all assuming she’s basically just inheriting her comics abilities as Spectrum, but will those abilities work outside of the Hex or without Wanda to power them?

What Does This All Mean for Pietro?

Though we journey back to the HYDRA base in which Wanda and her brother were experimented on, we don’t see any hint of Pietro in this episode (and, no, the child version doesn’t count). We know that the Evan Peters version is a fake conjured by Agatha to pry information on how she created the Hex out of Wanda – how is she powering that by the way? And how does Fake Pietro know so much real Maximoff history? – but what does all this new backstory mean for the Maximoff brother who died? 

What happened to Pietro when he encountered the Mind Stone? Were his powers also latent and only “activated” by the stone like Wanda’s (and thus making him a mutant)? And does any of this somehow open a door to bring Quicksilver back to the MCU?

Who is the Aerospace Engineer?

Yes, we’ve all apparently spent weeks thinking about a throwaway line from Monica back in WandaVision’s fifth episode, in which she references an aerospace engineer she knows who might be up for the challenge of figuring out the Hex. 

Maybe it’s nothing, but this is Marvel, so it’s almost guaranteed not to be nothing. 

Could Monica’s mysterious friend be Reed Richards and could SWORD serve as a way to finally introduce the Fantastic Four into the MCU? It’s more than possible – it’s practically likely at this point. There are other options – Victor Von Doom and Hank McCoy are also notable Marvel scientists we’ve yet to meet in the MCU – but doesn’t Reed just make the most sense?

How Will WandaVision  Lead Into Doctor Strange 2?

One of the few things we do know about the WandaVision finale is that it’s somehow connected to and will likely lead directly into the upcoming MCU film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. At this point, it seems safe to say that Wanda is more likely than not responsible for both the multiverse and the madness parts of that title, and the finale will involve her somehow fully becoming the Scarlet Witch and unleashing some cosmic chaos powers. But where does that kind of ending leave  Wanda and Vision? Will Doctor Strange himself show up – either to defeat the White Vision or stop Wanda from ripping down the walls of reality? Will Vision have to die again? And how does Agatha Harkness fit into things? (At this point, she’s more than earned a place in Doctor Strange 2, if you ask me.)

The post WandaVision Episode 9: The Big Questions We Need Answered appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3uM3kTd

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[my-sherlock221b]

Speak the Truth--not mine, sharing from the link

https://speakthetruthj2.weebly.com/intro--start-here.html

"What we’ll do for each other, how far we’ll go, they’re using that against us"Everything from this site has been taken from the wonderful Speak The Truth on Storify-- HERE

Do you know your J2 history? The story of Jensen and Jared is an epic one. It is at first deceptively simple. But with a wider view, this seemingly small story tells a much larger, more universal one. In that way, it's also an important one. It's one that spans a time of unique change in American culture as social media tools grew, TV became King, fandom ways were integrated into public lexicon, HW powerhouses rose and fell, and a new hope for true equality in Obama's America supplanted the country's long history of intolerance. It's one that showcases how the role of PR can build over time to consume all levels of actors lives, even two guys who first set out to avoid exactly that. It's one that reveals the widening sphere of PR with the advent of social media, celeb blogs, and online fandoms. Fans are no longer immune to being used by PR as tools in the role of creating an illusion and selling an image. Only together in one place do cracks in the veneer and patterns of PR tactics suddenly emerge as the larger picture focuses into sharp view. It's also a story that I hope one day can be told in full by the people who lived it instead of mere spectators who watched from the cheaper seats and speculated from afar. However, human interest pieces begin with a subject. So here it is. I've been a fan of this show for eight long years. As someone with a "librarian mind", I have saved and documented a lot throughout that time, as have others who have helped me along the way. Supernatural, the TV series, I believe, speaks for itself. 160+ episodes have been produced, aired, and immortalized on DVD. However the larger story that encompasses the show, the actors, the crew, the fans, the HW machine, and the subject of its time, remains hidden if not completely erased from documented fan history. Yet it is one that has enraptured many (even those who won't quite publicly admit it). I believe that counts for something. In other fandoms, I am indebted to other fans who came before me who archived events as they occurred for other fans like myself who came along later. As I leave Supernatural fandom for good, I worry that these details, as we observed them, may be lost. There will be other fans, of the show and of the Js, that will come after me. They should know how it went down all those years ago. This here is merely my small act of scrawling on the cave wall of the internet. As far as I know, there exists no complete record of what a J2 fan has experienced in all the years of the show. So what follows is a timeline summarizing the events of all eight years of Supernatural surrounding its two lead co-stars. It's meant to serve as an J2 archive or library, detailing each event with a date, info, pics, tweets, article, links, videos, and quotes. Most of the focus is on J2 and the players around them, but it will cover show changes and larger HW shakeups in later years as it becomes necessary. If a tiny splash of "Time Capsule" feel snuck in, it's because we all have our experiences and sometimes they feel worth telling. There has been an incredible erasure of fan/show history the last couple years, an act that is rather ironic in a fandom built on the concept of urban legends coming to life. In its wake are attempts to rewrite J2 history. There are some people that have worked very hard to make sure this story is as inaccessible as possible to others. They'd rather see it replaced by their own "revisionist" history that best serves their own interests. But this stuff happened. Records of it are out there. Fans experienced it. And in many cases, J2 or other people directly connected to them responded to it. Denying said part of J2 fan history is disingenuous. Believe what you want to believe in the space between, but events that happened have happened. I know some people will not be happy I have put this together. I struggled with the thought myself. Ultimately, I believe their story in between the lines and cracks of this cobbled together timeline is endlessly iconic. It's a story that shouldn't be lost in the dust of internet time. Because its not just them, even though their unique relationship is quite remarkable. It's that their story has something to tell us all. We all have something to learn in the space in between. You read through the cracks of eight years, follow along detail by detail, and it however small allows you to step in their shoes, no matter who you are, or what you originally thought. Just think, how scared does someone have to be, how many pressures must be put on someone from all angles, your advisers, your bosses, your family, your friends, to agree to these measures over time. When an erasure of a genuine human story happens, we all lose. We, ourselves, as a culture lose. Progress loses. (And what are we here for, if not for progress?) That erasure robs us of that example to learn and grow, improve and teach others. Because no one's life is just their own. We all have a part to play in each others' lives. We all have things we can teach and things we can learn. That's never been more true than the global age of the internet. Thus, as someone who has been in a unique position to watch a lot of these events unfold, I couldn't leave fandom in good conscience without leaving this footprint. They say history is written by the winners. Well, that was before the internet. So fair warning, I will use spn_g links in later years. It is impossible to do an exhaustive archive of J2 without it. Like it or not, it's part of J2 fan history and quite an archival resource when so many LJ links have since been deleted. Careful consideration has been given to the source. Priority is given to the most reliable information. Events (e.g. things we've seen with our own eyes pics, videos, quotes, tweets, etc) are all primary, and denoted by a header font and date. All anon ITK ("In-The-Know") info is considered secondary, and only becomes more or less probable depending on how it fits in with the overall timeline. Thus, some events with "more probable" secondhand information, are noted as an addendum by the phrase, "*rumorhasit:". Unsubstantiated gossip has been left out. This archive is done with the utmost respect for both parties. In a way, it is only in the details that the more real human context emerges. This is something lost in the day-to-day celeb gossip and fandom life. It's easier to make snap judgments about an image than about a fully fleshed out person. My hope is that in seeing the totality of their story, readers can find some form of compassion for the subjects at hand. I've taken great pains to make sure that the record that follows is all of public events only. If they've been released on the internet in a public place, and talked about by fans, they are included here. I've written this in a way that I hope can be a resource for all, both for J2 fans who lived it and those who have yet to make sense of the whole story. In the act of putting this together, even I have learned details that I had forgotten or missed. It's almost a decade of details, it's a lot to keep straight, but I hope that in this timeline format, the clearer picture emerges. If it's the first time you're reading this, just take it in stride. But if you're a fan who lived all of this once already, pay special attention to the timing of events and larger patterns. Watch how appearances and big personal news tend to go together with big professional news like movie casting and season renewals. Notice how players like publicists and managers fit into the story along side girlfriends and fiancees and wives. This is how this industry functions, even with a fledgling show on a netlet. It's in this industry that two guys who initially claimed privacy start indulging fans with stories of their personal life. It's in this climate that a TV show built on two actors' chemistry suddenly tampers said chemistry down to nothing in the middle of its seventh season. There are many threads that pop up here, partly why this story is such an important one. Some things are rarely as they appeared at first glance. Other things are exactly how they appeared at first glance. Decide on your own which ones are which. One can look at this as an archive with two distinct parts. The first four years are more a tribute to the little glimpse we got of two guys with an instant bond that captured us all. The next four years are more a testament to how despite an actor's best intentions, HW can still grab you by the shirt collar and suck you dry. Never forget where the real power of any show lies. Not with the people whose creative work you watch every week. It's those at the top. And they are not as "tolerant" or "liberal" as people might like you to believe. The story of J2 is an epic one, but that's not the only reason why it's important. They're also not the first or last to deal with these extreme machinations. As we proceed into 2013, we are reminded over and over again how much our culture has changed since 2005. Since 2008. Even since 2011. How much longer will it take for HW to catch up with the rest of us? I'm indebted to all the fans who helped me in amassing this record, adding their contributions, holding my hand, listening to my complaints, and overall sharing in the J2/Supernatural obsession for good times and bad. This has been simultaneously the easiest and hardest show to be a fan of. But it would have been impossible to follow for eight years if not for the community of amazing people that I shared it with. Some of them may not understand this, many of them will probably not even read this, but I hope that they still know my thanks and appreciation. Schmaultz aside, we've got 8 years of history to get to! So without further ado!

#j2 tinhat #speak the truth

[ffwriteradvisor]

Rewriting Old Stories

Rewrites are harder than people give them credit for. You can’t just go back and correct the grammatical errors and misspellings and call it a ‘rewrite’ - at best, it’s a second-draft.

Speaking as someone who’s tried to rewrite my most popular fic on three to four separate occasions to varying degrees of failure (I’m working on a fifth now with higher hopes), a rewrite is a lot more involved than that.

The thing to remember when you start a rewrite is that you’re simultaneously working with a story you’re more than likely both embarrassed about and nostalgic for on some level. Yes, it might be showing its age or your inexperience at the time of writing it, but you can also remember how fun it was to write and share it back in the day. Part of you knows you can do better now - if not on a creative level, a technical one at least - but another part wants to leave it as is, either because you want to move onto new things or because you don’t know if you can ‘fix’ it and don’t want to risk messing around on your own ‘sacred ground’.

So that’s the first thing that you need to ask yourself before setting out on a Rewrite - do you actually want to rewrite this story?

If the answer to that question is ‘yes’, then keep reading.

There are a couple different ways to approach the Rewrite.

1) ‘Oh god, burn it and pull something salvageable out of the wreckage’ is probably the wrong way to do it. That’s not to say you can’t pull good ideas from your earlier fics and use them somewhere else, but you should go into it with an open mind rather than treating your old story as an enemy to be defeated and looted of their valuables.

2) A better way to approach it is as a tune-up. This can run from ignoring the bulk of the content and focusing on tightening up the gears (though this is pretty much a second-draft rather than a proper rewrite unless there’s a lot of tightening up to do) to dismantling the whole thing so you can eliminate the plot holes, improve the character arcs and interactions, and get rid of anything that just didn’t work the first time around.

Or if you’re feeling particularly ambitious...

3) You can approach it as an opportunity to make your story a ‘wider universe’. This is a combination of points 1 and 2 - not only are you dismantling the original, you’re throwing in a lot of loose parts from other stories you’ve abandoned along the way, meaning that the end product is going to be even bigger and more complicated than anything would be on its lonesome.

I’ve been working with option 3 recently, trying to construct a gestalt story out of my large collection of One Piece OCs and the half-dozen started and abandoned fic ideas I’ve had for that fandom over the years. I can speak from my personal experience that this is very difficult. You’re snipping and twisting plot threads together and trying to find natural feeling connection points between what started as completely unrelated projects.

Once you settle on how extensive you intend for this project to be, then you can move onto the next set of questions.

First - what do you want from this story?

Do you want to fix the problems you didn’t see occurring as the result of your OCs butterflying away the canon plot the first time around? Do you want to make an AU of your original story that goes in a different story direction at Chapter 10 compared to where you went the first time around? Do you want to aim for a different vibe entirely than what ended up on the page the first time around?

You can answer yes to any or all of those questions. You can even ask completely different ones. All that matters is that you figure out what you’re aiming for here.

Second - are you ready to re-read it?

Because you’re going to have to. Maybe even multiple times, so get ready to smother your initial cringe reaction to the writing of 2013!you. It might be ‘sacred ground’ on some level, but you are also crawling into the Wayback Machine just for the explicit purpose of looking at a period in your life you moved past for a reason.

There's going to be weird figures of speech, bad grammar that even your initial proof-reading attempts might have missed, questionable takes, and a lot of things that got knocked out of your system as you gained more experience as both a writer, fandom participant, and all around person. Skip over the superficial stuff for now - you will have to go back later and see if there's any more specific stuff that you can and should work with - and just stick with the meat and bones of what happened in the story.

Third - Take notes. For the love of god, take notes.

Make sure those notes are extensive - they should cover every change you made to the canon, every major (and most of the minor) plot points involved in your story, every gimmick that showed up (ghosts, dramatic reveals, surprise developments), and then some. Anything that sticks out to you as something even mildly important, you should make note of.

This will save you the trouble of constantly re-reading the original after your first few goes through.

Then, take those notes and boil them down. Was this thing that was brought up a thread that wove into the greater tapestry of the story or was 2013!you throwing shit at the wall just to see if it would stick, only to forget all about it by the time the next chapter rolled around? Does that other choice work with what you know of the universe now and, if not, do you want to change the thing to work with the setting, the setting to work with the thing, or just do away with the thing altogether? Do these relatively small things that were thrown out at random have enough common ground for you to string them together into an overarching theme?

Fourth - start plotting.

A lot of the problems I’ve run into writing fic is a lack of forward thinking. I didn’t plan ahead, I didn’t try to analyze the direction of the plot was developing in, I didn’t go into the project with any goals or expectations...

Those are mistakes you should try to avoid making.

Plotting ahead can help a lot with avoiding these and can help you develop new ideas - a character who goes through a series of dramatic events in a short period of time is prime for an angst episode that you might not have written in the first time around, or the gradual revelation of things a character shouldn’t rightly have knowledge of might make a big reveal about them being an outside context problem for the setting a lot more understandable - after all, what’s the point of an answer to a question nobody was asking?

Try to make a rough timeline of events. This doesn’t have to line up with a canon-timeline, but it can be helpful if your story intersects with canon events or characters at any point.

Even stuff that you don’t have a hard date or place in the plot for can be useful here - just keep it floating until you find a place where it slots in well between what the characters need to be capable of and where the rest of the plot is tonally.

You don’t have to adhere strictly to the first plotline you come up with - writing is as much an art of discovery as it is planning - but it’s always good to have on to start with.

My best three pieces of advice for doing a rewrite?

1) Take your time. A lot of the problems with your first story, besides inexperience, can be rooted with being in a rush. A rush to keep the updates coming, a rush to get to 'the good stuff', a rush to fit in writing with the rest of your life schedule. This time, give everything time. Time to research, time to bounce ideas off of friends, time to think about the implications of what a character doing XYZ would actually mean, time to check over your work for any holes you didn't catch while writing it. You're working with fanfiction, a land where deadlines almost never exist unless you set them yourself. Take advantage of that. 2) Never make it a straight retread 'but edgier/meme-ier/whatever-ier this time'. If you want to shift the genre, you have to put effort into changing the nature of the story in a way that feel natural to it. Your audience 'knows' the characters by now and will be thrown off by a new version that barely resembles the old that's somehow still running through the same story you told before. 3) Give your old audience something new to chew on.

This ties back into the second point a bit, but seriously; make sure that something new happens in the story. Had a lull period in your first go because there was a similar time-gap in the original series? Fill it with something - a new enemy, a casual event to unwind and connect your characters better, even a 'what's happening elsewhere' snippet. Had a character with a vague backstory? See if there's a 'natural' place to slot them in with the canon - depending on what fandom you're working with, that could run anywhere from specific locations and scenarios to just fitting with a larger running theme in other character's backstories.

You don't have to make a masterpiece, but there are going to be blank spaces in the canvas of your original telling where there's room to make more. A new audience might not realize there was nothing there the first time around, but your old audience will see the new content and appreciate it. You don't have to do anything big - sometimes changing too much will break the spirit of it being a 'rewrite' entirely - but try to keep it fresh, even if that's just filling in holes that nobody noticed in your original go. Anyway, good luck with your writing, regardless of if that writing is a rewrite or more original stuff.

#rewrites #writing #plotting #fanfic #fanfiction #this is a partial repost from a writing forum I hang out on a lot so there's a small chance that someone might recognize it #and if you do you should know that this was one of the essays that encouraged me to make this blog in the first place

[erenaeoth]

2, 4, 7, 18, 23-30, 48 👀

woah. sure thing.

2) What fandoms do you write for and do you have a particular favourite if you write for more than one?

To date, I’ve done The Silmarillion, Mortal Kombat, Overwatch, Tekken, and Naruto. The Naruto one is small and not online yet because I’m not sure if its consistent with stuff in the later billion episodes of Shippuden. At the moment I’m enjoying Tekken the most - the setting is a lot of fun, and the characters have seized my heart.

4) What is your favourite genre to write for?

Gangster Dramas? I guess? About 40% thriller 60% angst is my ratio I think.

7) When is your preferred time to write?

11pm-1am. The world is quieter then. Also I feel less guilty about writing instead of doing work if I write late at night.

18) Do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them?

Yeah some. Three MK sequels that never took off. One was a sequel to Katharsis called Netherrealm Guardian, I’ve just opened up a file on it and apparently I did have extensive notes for it. Don’t know why I never did that one. I think maybe the Sub bros dynamic appealed to me more than another Kuai and Hanzo one. Another dropped WIP was a sequel to Feud From Beyond the Grave, when Noob Saibot was calling on Hanzo to fulfil an obligation. The plot was ropey and it was clearly an attempt at a ship fic before I knew how to write them. The last WIP I dropped was a sequel to A Stone Most Rare, which I had to drop because I kept screwing up my Edenian lore and having to rewrite large swathes of it. It was about Jade, Kitana, and Rain and involved insurgencies and class war and gay stuff- you know, the usual.

23) Do you prefer listening to music when you’re writing or do you need silence?

Music. I’ve got different playlists for the different atmospheres or genres I want to be writing. Only time I’ll write without music is if it’s raining, so that I can listen to the rain instead.

24) How do you feel about writing smutty scenes?

Very embaressed. My romance scenes are always part of a larger story to convey developments in how characters respect each other and never just smut on their own, but I am definitely going to have to be a little more detailed than usual in my current WIP (Zen Gardens of the Heart) and I’m sort of dreading it. It’s going to be fine. There’s just going to be a steep learning curve and a lot of rewriting.

25) Have you ever cried whilst writing a story?

During the actual writing, no, I don’t think so. When I’m thinking the scene up or rereading the complete scene, yes. The actual writing happens at a slower place and my head is in so many different places - thinking things like: is it still raining? wtf colour suit is that dude wearing? are you limping on your left side or your right? is she hungry? when did she last eat? oh atmosphere how do I convey that when this scene clearly needs to be a silent stand off like the end of good the bad and the ugly? so the finished event might be a heart-tugging thing, but whilst writing it Im idk trying to conduct an orchestra of amateurs to do the music justice.

26) Which part of your xxx fic was the hardest to write?

Not sure what the xxx here is meant to convey, but in general the hardest parts for me to write are romance which I don’t want to sound too gesture heavy, and fight scenes with new characters, because I have to do a lot of research on a new martial arts style. A scene I probably rewrote the most was Clarence fixing Julius’ tie just before the climax of Black Ice - it was a simple bit but it had to be done right otherwise none of their romantic relationship would be apparent and a key part of the story would have been lost. The hardest fight scene to write… probably the first one I wrote in Katharsis, because MK characters have moves from lots of different styles, where as Tekken tends to just model irl martial arts styles (Fortified by Hate has Kazuya vs Bruce in it - I did a karate similar to Kaz’s and my partner did some Muay Thai, so I can basically just draw straight on experience for that.)

27) Do you make a general outline for your stories or do you just go with the flow?

Make a general outline. I usually have a vague idea of the kind of ending I want, and the first few scenes down in detail. And I know the genre - that’s something I’ve found really helpful that I’ve been doing a lot more recently. Pinning down the genre early is super important. I keep outlines of scenes I want to come, along with my notes tracking what’s happened to far. Some of my notes for old stories are on a thread on my twitter.

28) What is something you wished you’d known before you started posting fanfiction?

Release things slowly. Multi-chapter fics need time to find their audience. A chapter a week is a good model. Don’t worry about jumping into a new fandom. People are happy to have new content, they’re not there to hunt you down for not being a true fan.Stop worrying about the possibility of negative comments. Most people don’t read a fic only to flame it. I used to dread getting bad comments. I’ve written at least 15 fics and only got about 3 unpleasant comments, and most of them are by weirdos with suspect race politics or people desparate to point out an error to make themselves appear erudite. Most fanfic readers are super kind and supportive. Just go for it.

29) Do you have a story that you feel doesn’t get as much love as you’d like?

Not really. I write stories because I love it. If other people love it too, that’s a bonus. Tekken is a very small fandom, so it doesn’t reach as many people and there are less faves/kudos/comments, but that’s made up for by the fact that those who do comment are writing essays in the comments. So I definitely don’t feel like those fics are going unloved even if there is less attention on them.

30) In contrast to 29 is there a story which gets lots of love which you kinda eye roll at?

I did a Noob/Sareena fic called The Wheel of Necessity that’s mostly just them talking about how it’s too late for them to ever be a couple, but I don’t really like the pairing and always felt it was a cheap option for NRS to pull (although they’ve got even weirder with their random Sareena/Kabal content) so whenever I see that fic get love I feel pretty indifferent.

48) What’s your favourite trope to write?

Brothers who hate each other but secretly know that they’re the only ones looking out for one other. They’re always mean to each other’s faces whilst secretly caring and making sacrifices for each other. There, you don’t need to read any of my fics now, that’s them all summed up in one trope.

#fanfic ask meme #mortal kombat #tekken #writing #writing advice #katharsis #feud from beyond the grave #a stone most rare #black ice #fortified by hate #zen gardens of the heart #the wheel of necessity #martial arts

[margridarnauds]

6, 12, 23, and 45 please!

Thank you!

6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in.

So, I have no idea what we’re talking about as far as levels of involvement, but here are the ones I read fanfic RELIGIOUSLY for back in the day. So, behold my shame. 

Cats (oh, my sweet, innocent 12 year old self) - Mistoffelees/Victoria. 

Phantom of the Opera - Raoul/Christine/Erik, tbh. I started off E/C, then shifted to R/C when I realized E was a trashfire, then went to R/C/E when I realized that I loved garbage after all. 

Van Helsing - Anna/Dracula. Which is impressive given I’ve never. Actually. Watched it. Sue me. 

Carmilla - Carmilla/Laura.

The Pirate Queen - Graínne/Donal, one of the first fics I ever wrote. (And then never published.) Yes, he is a garbage fire in the musical, but in my very specific rewrite of it, he wasn’t. Though these days, I kind of lean towards Tiernan/Donal or Tiernan/Gráinne/Donal. Garbage pirate OT3 is garbage. 

Dracula - The Countess (from Makt Myrkanna)/Lucy Westenra. The first explicit femslash I ever wrote, and it might very well never see the light of day because I do not forever want to be known as The One With The Blood And The Lesbians. Though, who knows? It might cleanse me of Printing Press. 

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Yes. Really.): Twilight/Princess Luna. I keep telling myself that my AO3 profile’s eventually going to be nothing but period dramas, my (1) Terra Nova fic, and…a My Little Pony fic, along with various Barbie Movie fics. For old time’s sake. 

Terra Nova - Wash/Mira, due to @janetcarter‘s influence. 

The Flash - Barrison. Specifically, Eobard/Barry. In many ways, it was my prep for 1789 with the whole “I murdered your parent” thing.  

The Avengers - Loki/Tony Stark.  

Les Miserables - Valjean/Javert 

The Golden Compass - Mrs. Coulter/Lord Asriel 

Arthuriana - Galahad/Mordred

Star Wars - Reylo or Finnlo. I don’t particularly have a preference, just let Kylo screw one of his various archnemeses straight to the side of the Light.

Star Wars: Rebels - Kallus/Zeb. Oh. Another enemies to lovers ship. Who would have guessed? 

1789 - Peyrol/Ronan (Was there any doubt? If there was, I need to write more.) 

Revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre - Madame Roland/Marie-Anne. In progress, but A Ship for me. Mainly because I’m a contrarian little shit who writes things when people tell me I can’t and then gets attached to the result.

Brennus, Enemy of Rome - Ahmet/Nissia. Which…I still need to. Write. My fanfic for that one. So that fanfic for it exists.  

Lord of the Rings - Boromir/Aragorn

Friedrich: Mythos und Tragödie - Countess Orzelska/Wilhelmine and Fritz/Katte. Pretty much equally, though Orzelskine (?) Wilhelska (?) is starting to edge out Fratte. 

La Legende du Roi Arthur - Leia/Guinevere in the French and Morgane/Guin in the Takarazuka. 

Irish Mythology - Bres/Sreng. I will defend this one to the death and I will do it with citations and footnotes. 

Scarecrow of Romney Marsh - General Pugh/Dr Syn. Yet another one I. Need to write the fic for. 

Star Trek: …….. 

………You know, my favorite thing about Star Trek is that, regardless of shipping preferences, we can all find something to enjoy. Kor/Kirk. While I can’t speak for DS9 Quark/Brunt, my current favorite from Discovery has to be Michael/Tilly, which might very well be the single most wholesome thing I’ve shipped in a very long time. 

Ace Attorney: Phoenix/Edgeworth. 

12. Who is your current OT3?

Chauvelin/Percy/Marguerite from The Scarlet Pimpernel. I do not accept constructive criticism on this one. Because Percy/Marguerite are sickeningly sweet on their own, Marguerite/Chauvelin has That Sexual Tension in Where’s the Girl and The Riddle, and Percy/Chauvelin fulfill all my requirements as far as enemies to lovers ships are concerned.

23. Name a fic you’ve written that you’re especially fond of & explain why you like it.

I’ve talked a lot about Forgiveness being one of the very few things I’ve written that I’ve ever liked and the ONE thing that I feel…gets my idea of how L/R WORK together and probably shows off my style best, along with Fowl Play (WHICH HAS FANART NOW. WHICH I’M STILL NOT OVER BECAUSE MY BABY HAS FANART.) So, instead, I’m going to shift to Pour la Peine, which…is my messy, messy child in many regards, not the least because it’s so much longer + still isn’t finished. 

(Warning for various and assorted personal, squishy feelings, as well as cancer mentions)

When I first got the prompt from @fallenidol-453, it was January of 2018. Two months before, I’d received the news that my uncle had Stage Four Esophageal Cancer and my mother had moved from our house to his house to care for him, leaving me without her help for the first time in my life, which I deliberately kept as low-key about on here as I could be, given that, to be honest, dealing with the endless “I’m so sorry to hear that”s gets very exhausting after awhile and I was a college student with a schedule to keep. And he and I had a very…contentious relationship, despite the two of us being alike in many ways. Possibly because we were alike in many ways. And, by May of that year, he was dead. And I would learn shortly afterwards that my paternal grandfather had died in January, but no one on my father’s side had bothered to tell me. I spent a lot of time trying to deal with the stress of that time, juggling that with my schoolwork and my fanfic, which I tried to work on from the time I received the prompt onwards. (Tbh, I’d had the opening scene in my mind for awhile before, but I hadn’t had a larger plot + ending until the prompt.)

At first, I thought that I would publish it like I’d later publish Forgiveness, in one straight chapter, but as time went on and on and there became less and less of a shot of having it done any time soon, I ended up just publishing the first chapter and deciding to update it from there. And that chapter got a lot of ribbing from friends. “Her brother is dead” really came off as a very melodramatic first line, but I also decided, very early on, that I didn’t care about what the objective quality of it was; all I cared about was creating a snapshot of a time in my life, just like when I go through the stuff that I made when I was twelve and I laugh about the various and assorted OCs and questionable phrases but love them all the same because they’re my twelve year old self’s. And, where I was at that point in my life, writing Solène mourning a family member who she had a difficult relationship with while I mourned a family member who I had a difficult relationship with, it was the only line that felt right to me.  

There’s a lot of things with this one that I’m still not sure about. There’s a plot twist that I’ve tried to be quiet about for all this time (that I’ve probably been really terrible about keeping, tbh) and that is either going to be the Jumping the Shark moment or the defining moment of it, and I’m obviously not sure how that’s going to be received though I want to believe I’ve foreshadowed it enough to not make it too much of a swerve, I’m not sure how I feel about the ending, there’s a lot there that’s murky and probably more reflective of my writing a year ago than not, and I’m not sure about how I’ve handled the character dynamics given what we’ve got in canon or the dynamic I’ve put them into, or whether the choices they’ll make reflect THEM or what I WANTED them to do. Hell, with a few things, I’m not sure how I’m even going to GET to the ending. 

But, I’m really proud of how much I’ve had the chance to work with Solène and Olympe, I’m really happy with a lot of the work I put into sequences like the two chapters long March to Versailles, which involved looking into a LOT of personal accounts as well as secondary sources analyzing it, and I liked trying to flesh out Solène’s world. But, more importantly, of everything I’ve written, it and Le Cri are probably the most directly personal to me, and even though a part of me still says Her brother is dead is a hell of a melodramatic opening line, it fulfilled its purpose. And, tbh, sometimes that’s all a fic needs. 

45. What is your all time favourite fanfic? 

This is so hard for me, because there are so many fics that have left a huge impression on me throughout the various fandoms I’ve been in. In 1789 alone, I was thinking of at least two different fics at a given point, which is both fantastic and minorly stressful given how small this fandom is (one of which, incidentally, was Little Dove Heart, since that really gave me a huge push as far as Laz and his backstory and his characterization and his relationship to Artois, even if I tend to keep the latter more in the background). And there have been so many fics I’ve read that I’ll remember and go back to periodically, and that really helped me as far as looking at how character voices could be developed and how description would work and how to work a time period and a setting into a story. 

Overall though, I think I’m going to have to give it to Vae Victis, which is a work by @sineala‘s. I’ve never been quiet about my undying love for the Gauls and for Brennus in particular. Brennus is one of my historical favs, and I felt like this fic did a really, really fantastic job of bringing that much-neglected period of time to life and developing the characters on their own, without me having any background in the source material. With fanfic, especially with a more active fandom, there’s kind of an expectation that everyone knows the characters involved, so to be able to work in a different time and to get the reader fully invested in the characters and their relationship in their own right is a really fantastic accomplishment, and to be able to show the Gauls and Brennus (in what little time he gets, because my boi’s not the focus and I accept that) as three dimensional figures rather than a rampaging horde is always much appreciated. And it has a WORKS CITED page at the end, AKA the eternal key to my heart. 

#long post #berncat #sorry for the tragic backstory dump on PLP! #but there's a reason why it's still my baby despite everything

[ninjakitty15]

Chapter 6: The Plot Thickens (Loki X OFC Pairing)

"Loki, have you seen Nell, she's not in her room," a voice on the outside of Loki's room called in, waking me up from my much needed sleep curled up next to him.

"Tell him I'm not here," I whispered.

"You know he could just have that automated voice system Friday tell him you're here," Loki mused next to, already wide awake and apparently reading something while he waited for me to wake.

I groaned and buried myself deeper under the covers. "No Nell esta aqui!"

"As far as I'm aware, no one here is Hispanic, especially not Loki, nice try though," Tony responded.

"Chingate," I cursed and begrudingly pulled myself up into a sitting position. "Whaddaya want?"

"Breakfast is ready, I'm told you favor pancakes which lucky for you are the main dish so hurry up before Thor and Clint eat them all."

"Pancakes you say?" I perked up, "Why didn't you start with that?" I didn't even care that I couldn't find my own shirt as I grabbed one of Loki's long green ones that sufficiently covered what I didn't feel like flashing to the team. Loki himself grabbing a tunic and leisure pants before leading me out of his room to where the smell of much needed food teased my senses. I could feel at least one pair of eyes on me and what I was wearing and all I did in turn was arch an eyebrow in challenge.

"Getting a bit cozy with Loki, I see," mused Nat, offering me bacon as I snatched a stack of pancakes.

I shrugged and drenched everything in maple syrup. "I've only known him less than a week and if anything were to happen to him, I'd kill everyone in this building and then myself."

Tony choked on his screwdriver drink while Nat just laughed at my declaration. "Is that even possible? I mean I looked at your dna samples and you weren't wrong, it matches a dead body's sample exactly, nothing to suggest it came from someone that can still walk and think and live. You can't kill something already dead."

"Medically speaking, you are correct, but they say there's more than one way to skin a rabbit."

"I thought it was a cat," Clint piped up.

"No one's skinning cats as long as I'm still moving."

"So how does one end something already dead?" Tony spoke up.

"For most things you simply destroy it, just remember, what is dead can never die."

"Settle down there, Yara," teased Clint.

"Go on and make me, Euron," I retorted.

"Why am I Euron?"

"Theon wouldn't treat me that way."

"How many of you necromancers are there?" interrupted Tony.

"Not as much as there were before I was caught," I replied glumly. "We're becoming  the next Siberian tigers, if we reach white rhino status we're fucked."

"Is it just the ability to cheat death and create your own army that would make you a good hunting target?"

I shrugged and finished my breakfast. "They certainly have a certain appeal, could be any number of reasons why we're sought after."

"You said nothing would come of them taking stuff from you, I'm just thinking, if I couldn't steal what makes you a necromancer to use myself, my next plan of action would be to somehow make you do it for me since the power stays in you and only you."

I arched an eyebrow, not a bad point there. I looked over at Loki who was probably thinking the same thing.

"Your friend said they were found as husks, shells empty of everything. Do you think they did that on purpose or maybe were forced into it?" he asked me quietly.

"That makes more sense than the theory I came up with before where they burnt themselves out to make them inaccessible even in death. They could've just gutted themselves with their blades to do that."

"Hydra are many things," noted Nat. "And mess many things up, but they know how to make a person bend to their will."

"I know about Steve's super soldier boyfriend, Bucky and how he was brainwashed by them. I don't know if that would work on us, if it's how I think they do it, it wouldn't work on me."

"How do you think they do it?"

"Rewrite your past in your mind so the memories that come up are edited to fit them as the good guys and their enemies as the bad guys."

"And that won't work because..."

"A lot of my past has already been erased from me, it was part of a deal to gain more power, I had to sacrifice something of myself to get it. I don't remember any of my family, they in turn don't know I even exist, they can't be used against me if we don't know each other. Imagine the bad guys finding my mom and threatening to kill her and we just look at each other like we literally just met, kinda kills the mood...pun intended."

"So brainwashing is more or less out of the equation then. Would there be another way to control a necromancer?"

"It would depend on the necromancer I guess. One thing I can tell you though is that no matter what you do to us to make us bend, the dead don't have to listen or respond. You also need to have a lot of power to make the dead do your bidding if they don't want to. For instance, if you were in a Jewish community and asked if anyone wants to fuck up some Neo Nazis, you'd have an army larger than China. But if you were in say Texas and asked who wants to march for the Pride Parade and fight for equal rights, you'd have barely enough corpses to make a difference and youd need more power, more effort to raise more when they've already voted no."

"You're saying they aren't just mindless corpses doing what they're told then," Nat spoke up.

"The living are far better puppets than the dead, its all about physics here, a body alive, in motion can keep going in motion in any direction, a body in rest prefers to stay in rest." That's when something clicked in my head again. "That's why they were burnt out dead, they were forced to do what Hydra wants but none of the dead wanted to follow..."

"Hydra as I understand them, don't usually take no for an answer and probably just made the necromancers suffer more till they were all used up. Did they do anything like that to you?" Loki asked.

"They seemed to think pain was the best way to break me, no one else thought to ask nicely in the five fucking years they had me."

"They had you for five years but you mentioned to Strange that there were missing ones before you were even caught. To me that sounds like they gave up on using up necromancers that didn't give them the results they wanted and focused on you and how to get you to do their will since you didn't burn out like the others."

That for some reason gave me chills. "Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Oh and once again I've become the sloppy second. What else is new? There's still the issue of a turncoat among them too. I told one person I would be flying back from England, I didn't even tell her which airline or what time it landed so in the extremely unlikely event she was the rat that sold me out, she still wouldn't have known where to find me. Someone had to have kept tabs on me or my aliases and sold me out and I want to know who."

"Could it have been another necromancer? Someone that wants you out of the group or jealous of your power?" offered Loki beside me.

"Outing another death mage isn't unheard of but its usually downhill for the rat bastard that does it. The dead are always watching, if they see something unfavorable like a backstabbing they'll be less likely to follow the one with the knife which means more effort is needed to get an army going. You need to have a lot of strength and power to force your will upon things that would rather stay still than help you. Imagine trying to wake up a hungover teenager for school who's clearly not over their rebellious streak and has no friends to look forward to there. Then amplify that by like a 100. Necromancy is a natural form of magic and to wield any kind of magic there must be a flow to it, natural magic requires you go with the flow rather than force it the way you want it to work."

"So whoever did it to you, they are either pretty strong or pretty worn out and probably not in the habit of wielding their magic unless necessary."

"Could be either or, I might be among the most powerful but that doesn't mean everyone else is at level one here, hell they could even be my level in the time ive been locked away, lots can happen in five years."

"How does one get to your level exactly?"

"There's certain tests you need to pass with flying colors, a sacrifice to prove you're all or nothing for it, the bigger and more meaningful the sacrifice the more power you're likely to get."

"Who or what determines all this? You make it sound like you don't just get it yourself."

"I didn't and I can't answer that question either, it disturbs the natural order. If you don't know then you aren't meant to know unless something decides otherwise."

Everyone including Loki was quiet for a moment, absorbing what I had told them before Tony spoke up. "What kinda tests?"

"A situation or scenario happens that determines if you can handle yourself and your surroundings, you don't know its a test until probably much later if at all but it happens regardless. You can't prepare for it either, either accept or fail."

"Are people just randomly chosen or is there some sort of telltale sign?" asked Nat suddenly more interested.

"You ever see things, hear things as a kid, things you were certain of being there but no one believed you when you told them?"

She was silent for a moment, probably attempting to recall that far back before shaking her head. "Not that I can recall."

"Then probably not for you, it starts with being an open mind and a clean slate as a kid and not letting anything or anyone put doubt in you. That's the problem though init, a child sees a sad wailing women at the foot of her bed and usually they go running to their parents in fear, parents come in, say theres nothing there because most of the time adults can't see them regardless and eventually the child starts to listen to their parents over the clearly upset woman that just wants to be listened to herself. Tony probably isn't compatible, those with too much knowledge leave little room for the possible but improbable, scientists usually are."

"What about your lover beside you?" asked Tony. "A god itself is possible but improbable and he wields magic as well."

I turned to Loki curiously. "What did you see when we were fighting Hydra the other day?"

"What you mortals would call zombies? What else would I see?"

I studied him for a moment, curious if he was bluffing or not as he was still very much a God of Lies. "You might be a wildcard on this. You sure that's all you saw?" He nodded stiffly. "Tell me if that changes at any point."

"What else would he have seen?" asked Nat.

I beckoned her to come closer and leaned into her ear. "The dead comes in more than one form, spirits are always nearby, everyone has a few at least. Victims, loved ones, depends on the person."

"What was he supposed to see then?"

"They told me to take his hand when he put himself between me and Strange and they collected the spirit of an agent that almost shot me down on the battlefield."

"They can do that?" she asked louder and pulling away from me.

"If poltergeists can wreak havoc in someone's home, a bunch of vengeful spirits can get even with the one that outed them first."

"Why wouldn't they do that beforehand though?"

"They didn't have me."

"You give them their vengeance," Tony started.

"I give them what would bring them peace, they linger as their bodies rot for a reason. The sad wailing woman isn't whining for attention like some teenage drama queen, she's hurt and needs closure. The ghosts linger because there's unfinished business and I'm their business woman for the job, except unlike the psychics and mediums of today's age, I do it for free and not for entertainment purposes."

"So if someone got wind you can commune with the dead and wanted to know something about their deceased what would you do?"

"Tell em to bugger off unless in that moment their deceased makes an entrance, I'll relay a message only that person would've known about and then tell em to bugger off and let the dead rest. They'll get the same kind of response as a misogynistic man telling me to smile, I'm not here for your entertainment so you can kiss the southbound end of a northbound horse."

#loki fanfic #loki fanfiction #loki x original female character #loki x ofc #necromancy #nell the necromancer #nellthenecromancer #loki x nell #avengers

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HERE'S WHAT I JUST REALIZED ABOUT CHEMICALS

Freaks and nerds were allies, and there was a great deal of play in these numbers. But Cybercash was so bad and most stores' order volumes were so low that it was better if merchants processed orders like phone orders. And when you propagate that constraint, the result is that each person gets freedom of action in inverse proportion to the size of the tree, you're going to face resistance when you do something new. I vowed that I would never be tactful; they were never going to shut me up.1 And in my experience, the harder the ideas you're talking about, you can try importing startups on a larger scale.2 But if someone posts a stupid comment on a thread, that sets the tone for the rest.3 If you start the company. It's like trying to convince someone by shouting at them. At the extreme end of the spectrum, we'd be the first time that happened. We all had dinner together once a week, cooked for the first time that happened.4 For example, in my house in Cambridge, which was built in 1876, the bedrooms don't have closets.

In an artificial world, only extremists live naturally. That may seem a frivolous reason to choose one language over another. And all the work we did was pointless, or seemed so at the time I never tried to separate my wants and weigh them against one another. So an artist working on a painting and trying to decide whether to change some part of it—the things to remember if you want to excel in it. I like the opposite approach: give the programmer as much control as you can; rewrite it over and over; cut DEL: out: DEL everything unnecessary; write in a different language than they'd use if they were a rooted in your town and/or b so successful that VCs would fund them even if they never actually got the money. And perhaps others that would appeal to most humans, and you observe how much humans have in common. Why is the real world where gaming the system stops working. And yet that's what Apple is trying to be as unhappy in eighth grade as you were? You generally shouldn't pass up a definite funding offer to move. Work with people you like and respect.

Which means for a group of people are never able to act as an intermediary between developer and user. Just. Or rather, I don't feel like I have to walk a mile to get there, and sitting in a cafe feels different from working. We had no such confidence. Bad comments are like kudzu: they take over rapidly. Which means for a group of such size. The cause of this problem is the emptiness of school life, the cruelty and the boredom, both have the same answer: 1/1-n to see if it makes sense.

During the Bubble, a lot of things I grew up, it felt as if there was nowhere to go, and nothing they could do amazing things with just a touch of hubris on your well-cut sleeve—is an unexpected development in a time of business disgrace. Informal language is the athletic clothing of ideas. Bad as things look now, there is precious little between schoolwork and the work they'll do as adults. Why do teenage kids do it? So even though they'll all still spend the money on the stadium, at least de facto, expected to prepare them for their careers. There are tricks in startups, as there are in the real world is that it's part of the popularity landscape. Remember, the original motivation for HN was to test a new programming language, and moreover one that's focused on experimenting with language design, I think, is the root of the problem. The fact that this seems worthy of comment shows how rarely people manage to write in spoken language. Suddenly a culture that had been more or less our life.5

What would make the painting more interesting to people. So far so good.6 He has ridden them both to downtown Mountain View to get coffee. The group of kids from higher in the hierarchy, your entire group. The Detroit News. Since high school, with all the same petty intrigues. In this case we get three: the NPD Group, the creative director of GQ. But because he's sitting astride it, he seems to be wired into us. Bring us your startups early, said Google's speaker at the Startup School. Trend articles like this are almost always the work of PR firms really does get deliberately misleading is in the generation of buzz. But enough depends on where you are, but what you could grow into, and who can do that? If they're really ambitious, they want to have as little to do with how abstract the language is.

She says being too modest is a common problem for women. I think the important thing about the real world where gaming the system stops working when you start a startup. The reason kids are so unhappy, adults tell themselves, is that monstrous new chemicals, hormones, are now coursing through their bloodstream and messing up everything. Are we heading for a world in which returns will be pinched by increasingly high valuations?7 As we later learned, it probably cost us little to reject people whose characters we had doubts about, because how good founders are and how well they do are not orthogonal. Another wrote: I believe that they think their approval process helps users by ensuring quality. But the total volume of worry never decreases; if anything it increases. If they shake your hand on a promise, they'll keep it. We really did have the biggest share of the stock in, and control of, their companies. I once calculated how much Frederick's was costing us in bandwidth, and it turned out. We were all just side projects.8

Opinions are divided about how early to focus on that. Not just because of its prestige, but because it throws off the Social Radar, and this remark convinced me that Sarbanes-Oxley must have. It's harder to escape the influence of your own users, and all you'll be able to try out software online. As food got cheaper or we got richer; they're indistinguishable, eating too much started to be driven mostly by people's identities. So there is a strong correlation between comment quality and length; if you say anything mistaken, fix it immediately; ask friends which sentence you'll regret most; go back and tone down harsh remarks; publish stuff online, because an audience makes you write more, and thus generate more ideas; print out drafts instead of just looking at them on the screen than the woman with the hammer. Even one sentence of this would raise eyebrows in conversation. There's no single solution to that.9 They'll listen to PR firms, but briefly and skeptically.10 Trevor Blackwell, David Hornik, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris, and Fred Wilson for reading drafts of this essay, but really the thesis is an optimistic one—that several problems we take for granted are in fact not insoluble after all.

Notes

While environmental costs should be taken into account, they have because they are within any given person might have infected ten percent of them.

Nor do we push founders to try your site. And especially about what other people in the belief that they'll only invest contingently on other sites. The same goes for companies that have bad ideas is to do that? Maybe it would work better, but rather that if VCs are only doing angel deals to generate series A round VCs put two partners on your board, there are some controversial ideas here, I mean no more willing to endure hardships, but this sort of work is in itself be evidence of a lumbar disc herniations, but not the distinction between them so founders can get programmers who wanted to have fun in college.

Throw in the median tag is just the location of the infrastructure that this was hard to game the system? Something similar has been decreasing globally.

Where Do College English 28 1966-67, pp.

Which explains the astonished stories one always hears about VC inattentiveness. It will seem as if they'd like, and Cooley Godward.

001 negative effect on the entire West Coast that still requires jackets: The variation in wealth over time, because it is to take action, go talk to a partner from someone they respect. Odds are people in Bolivia don't want to see. I meant.

On the next one will be maximally profitable when each employee is paid in proportion to the point where things start with their companies took off? How many parents would still want their kids in a time.

The most important subject. But filtering out 95% of the USSR offers a vivid illustration of that, isn't it? To a kid most apples were a property of the things Julian gave us. The best kind of people we need to go all the more powerful version written in Lisp.

Few non-corrupt country or organization will be near-spams that have hard deadlines, like the bizarre stuff. More generally, it may be whether what you learn about books or clothes or dating: what ideas did European culture with Chinese: what bad taste you had to write every component yourself, but I couldn't convince Fred Wilson to fund them. At the time. Certainly a lot about how closely the remarks attributed to them more professional.

Loosely speaking. Like early medieval architecture, impromptu talks are made of spolia.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #founders #influence #order #merchants #sup #part #Detroit #mile #Cooley #others #Fred #things #Radar #sort #Opinions #offer #remarks #humans #Livingston #control #developer #tag

[megacross-ground-zero-rated-r]

On Verah, part two. How I unintentionally furthered an imperialist narrative with a character meant to be an anti-imperial, ecologically conscious voice.

Note: I... May be using this term, and colonialism, incorrectly. It is entirely possible there's a more specific term for what I have in mind but I'm unsure of what it is or how to go looking for it. What I'm trying to get at is economic and ecological exploitation, humans / members of a dominant culture thinking they know what's best in every situation, and not accepting no for an answer are All Bad. Common themes in literature, right? Except these messages are often contradicted by the protagonists, implicitly, based on need or perceived threat that's built into and excused by the narrative.

Example: "Strange, six-foot tall Bug Species that we can't communicate with has discovered Extremely Volital Resource in one of Saturn's moons. After we finish liberating Sympathetic, Human-Like aliens from slavers they'll band together with us and help us neutralize this threat." Neutralize can mean a lot of different things. The end result is almost always whatever the protagonists push for as "the greater good"

In her world Verah would have a greenhouse where she experiments with crossbreeding and whatnot. In terms of what she grows to make products out of its usually fruits, vegetables, herbs, and some grains. Okay. But then you get ideas like "rewriting genetic code of oak and pine trees so they can grow in any climate and provide fuel to people in "barren" areas."

This is a problem because aside from changing the ecosystem of those places to suit human needs with what could easily turn into a focus on production and profit, it also enforces homogeny based on what a "more advanced, civilized" foreigner thinks is best. An easy, clean, Scientific way to make the natural world do whatever the hell you want is a fantastical pipedream, and the idea itself I still feel has story potential if used with a critical eye, but it... Unnerves me that for a long time there was no consideration of consequences to this and I unqestioningly made her next step to start a business.

Potential conflicts/more complex ideas:

- Fucked up plant genetics means a "harmless" little change, like changing the color or shape of a flower, makes the species too adaptable and it takes over.

- Her programming as a mining robot means she thought nothing of leaving an area stripped bare, under the false impression that since plants can regrow they can just bounce back from anything she did. ((Note: Research the ecological impact of various mining practices. I caught myself thinking that since it's "just minerals and ores" it won't have very much effect when this may be dead wrong.))

- Alternatively, her understanding of geology also gives her a decent knowledge of things like the water cycle, erosion, soil composition, etc and that makes her wary of potential dangers of altering the ground for cultivation. She's brought in as a consultant for the question: "What should we grow and/or build here?" And answers: "Nothing. Leave."

- A business owner for a massive trading company manipulates or enables her so she either sneaks around "to avoid hostile barbarians standing in the way of progress" or outright just takes stuff. Or they take stuff to her in a lab, say, here, see what you can do with this, then lies to her about her discoveries making them rich / used to extract every possible cent of profit from the earth / whatever.

- Learning stewardship practices from indigenous people and treating them as a greater authority on the area than she is, acknowledging their right to bar her from entering and doing research. She may be able to sequence the genomes of the natives grasses but that doesn't necessarily mean she can calculate every variable relating to plants, animals, soil, water, etc and deduce the Diverse And Sustainable but Still Determined Useful For Production Outcome. I was originally gonna give her that power but yeah, no, that's probably just about the worst thing I could do.

- Falsely believing that she can account for every variable and exterminating a parasitic species in the interest of biodiversity or letting a "good" species flourish. She ends up seriously disrupting the food chain a la the wolf culling that happened in Yellowstone.

The thing that threw this all into perspective was a well-meaning character finding out about her powers and being like, oh, so are you going to find a way to, for example, grow barley in the desert? And she's like, no, what, why would I try to overwrite it into a monoculture. Why are there so many people out here, anyway, this seems really hard to sustain.

I put the words: "You speak as one who does not know this land, does not see that, and lays bare your own ignorance." Into her mouth as a wham line. Stopped. Looked the fabric I made her from and went well, fuck.

The thing that drives me up the wall is the movie-verse and the larger Roger Rabbit canon likely doesn't have much to say on the settling of America or why Hollywood and the surrounding urban center was built in a place that cannot easily support a large human population. It, like I did with Verah's creation, assumes that discovering a "new" place is immediately, naturally followed by shaping it to fit the needs of those "discoverers." This being portrayed as necessary or nuetral, with nonexistent or minimized consequences.

To be fair the movie doesn't even pretend to concern itself with what came before on a larger, how did the world get here scale and leaves after pretty open to the veiwer's imagination. Trying to fault it for that decision would be nitpick-y at best. No story is capable of addressing every serious topic and to expect as much is foolish. The frustration I have is a product of the kind of story I'm used to and the particular Hyperfixation Goblin in my brain that some fans have, that Needs an Explanation for Everything and is willing to make one if it doesn't already exist. I don't mean to sound like I actually have a serious bone to pick with people who like it as a fun meta-comedy about film noir and golden age animation with slapstick and dirty jokes.

There's a part three of this series of posts digging more into the setting of Ground Zero and how the crossover element brings in new perspectives.

#writing #tropes #colonialism in fiction #the fic #swearing #long post #verah the hybrid automaton

[funnythingshere0-blog]

Is Han Solo Stupid? An Investigation

New Post has been published on http://funnythingshere.xyz/is-han-solo-stupid-an-investigation/

Is Han Solo Stupid? An Investigation

It’s been roughly three months since the dust has settled on Han Solo’s standalone movie, Solo: A Star Wars Story. And now the Lucasfilm train is rolling forward with the start of production of the untitled Episode IX – which will see pretty much every classic character returning other than Han Solo. (Though, it would be funny, after Han died basically three times in The Force Awakens, if he showed up again with no explanation: “Hey, how can I help?’ “Great to have you back, Han.”)

But the one quote I haven’t stopped thinking about since that film came out was a quote from Lawrence Kasdan that he’s been saying since at least 2015, “He’s cynical. He’s tough. He’s pragmatic. He’s not that smart.” These quotes resurfaced when Phil Lord and Chris Miller left Solo, with the point being made that Han Solo is not “funny,” but instead cynical and dumb.

Of the films in the Original Trilogy, Kasdan was only involved in Return of the Jedi from start to finish. He wasn’t involved with Star Wars at all and came on late to The Empire Strikes Back. (With Empire, Leigh Brackett wrote the first draft and it’s a fascinating thing to read and looks very little like what that movie turned out to be. Lucas then rewrote Empire himself, declining a writer’s credit. Kasdan then came on to rewrite the dialogue.)

But, here’s the question: Is Han Solo actually stupid?

Let’s go through all of Han Solo’s major moments in the Original Trilogy where he has to make some key decisions and we can decide.

STAR WARS

Lucasfilm

Mos Eisley Cantina

Here’s where we first meet Han Solo. In this establishing scene Han is definitely overconfident and seems a little defensive when Luke and Ben had never heard of the Millennium Falcon. Han says the price for his services is 10,000, but over the course of the negotiation that figure goes up to 17,000.

Then, when confronted by Greedo, Han wastes little time dispensing of poor Greedo when he starts to seem like a threat. And then after all this, Han still escapes with all of his passengers unscathed even as Stormtroopers attack the docking bay.

Verdict: Smart

Lucasfilm

Millennium Falcon

Han’s moment here is to tell Luke and Ben that he’s seen a lot of strange things but he doesn’t believe in the Force. Now, in the context of the original Star Wars, the Force is a lot more mysterious than it became later. The case could be made pretty easily that it was all nonsense. As a viewer, we don’t see anything levitate until Empire, which is why it was so shocking the first time we see Luke use the Force to grab his lightsaber on Hoth. So in the context of what we know in this movie alone, Han isn’t being stupid, he’s just being skeptical.

Verdict: Skeptical, but not stupid

Lucasfilm

Remnants of Alderaan

When the Millennium Falcon reaches what’s left of Alderaan, Han decides to follow a TIE Fighter in the hopes to destroy it, which is maybe a little stupid. But we can give Han the benefit of the doubt here that in situations like this before, not letting that TIE Fighter tell the rest of the Empire about the Falcon’s location is maybe a smart move. Regardless, once the Falcon is caught in the Death Star’s tractor beam, Han decides he’s going to fight the Death Star on his own, which is really dumb. But then Ben quickly talks him out of it and decide to hide instead. So at least here it shows Han is somewhat reasonable.

Verdict: Had some stupid ideas but didn’t really do anything stupid

Lucasfilm

Death Star

For most of the Death Star sequence, Han just kind of goes along with other people’s plans. Luke is the one who comes up with the idea to pretend Chewbacca is a prisoner and Leia comes up with the whole trash compactor plan. The one decision that is actually Han’s here is the one to chase a bunch of Stormtroopers down a hallway. On the surface this is dumb, but it’s actually a smart move. If Han, Chewbacca, Luke, and Leia all run, they will be captured. But instead Han pretends that their group is much larger than it is and turns the tables on the Stormtroopers. Sure, the Stormtroopers figure this out, but Han has already bought their group a lot of needed time. (It’s this scene, more than any other, that I wish we had seen more like it in Solo.)

Verdict: Smart

Lucasfilm

Death Star Escape

After escaping the Death Star (which, yes, was Vader and Tarkin’s plan all along), Han and Luke have a nice moment in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. Han realizes that Luke has feelings for Leia and, basically, decided to mess with him. “Do you think a princess and a guy like me…” to which Luke cuts him off and says, “no.” Han smiles because he’s gotten under Luke’s skin.

Verdict: Cocky

Lucasfilm

Yavin

Han wants no part of an attack on the Death Star and he’s taking his money and leaving before the Rebel base is destroyed.

Verdict: Smart

Lucasfilm

Assault on the Death Star

Han comes back in the nick of time to save his buddy Luke, giving Luke a clear shot on the Death Star. This is one of Han’s most heroic moments but it was also a little stupid. But here Han isn’t any more stupid than the entire Rebel Alliance.

Verdict: A little stupid but it worked out

***

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

Lucasfilm

Hoth

Han ignores the advice of that poor Rebel soldier about Taun Taun’s freezing and ventures out in the night to rescue Luke. This isn’t Han being dumb because he knows the risks, it’s just brave because he has to save Luke. And then Han is smart enough to use Luke’s lightsaber to cut open the Taun Taun and use its warmth to save Luke. Han also figures out that an attack by the Empire is imminent, resulting in an evacuation being ordered.

Verdict: Smart

Lucasfilm

The Asteroid Field

Han famously ignores the odds and flies into an asteroid field in an effort to escape an Imperial convoy. This feels less “dumb” and more “we are out of options.” In the end, it doesn’t really work out, but it at least buys them all some time. Also, Han tricking a Star Destroyer into thinking the Millennium Falcon is attacking, then attaching itself to the backside of the ship is very clever.

Verdict: Smart

Lucasfilm

Cloud City

Han doesn’t fully trust Lando at first either, but succumbs to Lando’s charms. Leia even tries to warn Han that this all smells and Han just gets defensive about the whole thing. In the first two films, this is probably Han’s dumbest moment. Once C-3PO shows up in a box, they all should have gotten out of there as quickly as possible. But, during the carbon freezing scene, Han is smart enough to know that he needs to surrender. When Chewbacca starts to fight, it’s Han who talks him out of it, knowing it’s futile at this point. Han accepts his fate knowing it is the best thing for his friends.

Verdict: Han got tricked, which is dumb, but he was still smart enough to save his friends

***

RETURN OF THE JEDI

Lucasfilm

Tatooine

After being thawed out, Han tries to bargain with Jabba when he’s in no position whatsoever to bargain. When Han hears that they are being thrown into the Pit of Carkoon, he comments that it doesn’t sound that bad. Han then kind of just stand there while everyone else does the fighting. Though, Han does accidentally ignite Boba Fett’s jetpack, sending him into the Sarlacc.

Verdict: Dumb

Lucasfilm

The Rebel Fleet

Han accepts a promotion in the Rebel Alliance and, even though he’s the best pilot in the galaxy, he agrees to lead a ground strike force on a moon of Endor, making sure his greatest skill isn’t used at all.

Verdict: Dumb

Lucasfilm

Endor

Han does a lot of dumb things on Endor. When his team encounters two Biker Scouts, Han says he’ll handle it and of course gets caught when he steps on a loud branch and then gets punched. This results in Luke and Leia having to clean up Han’s mess, which eventually gets Leia separated from the rest of the team.

Then Chewbacca finds some meat randomly hanging in the forest and Han just looks at it like an idiot and says he doesn’t get it. It’s again Luke who has to warn them it’s bait, but it’s too late and Han and his team are captured.

At the Ewok village, Han finds Leia crying after she just found out Luke is her brother and Vader is her father, but Han can’t read the room and instead accuses her of being in love with Luke. To his credit, he comes back and apologizes, but come on, Han.

When Han and his team raid the bunker, his big plan is to do it “real quiet like.” (When did Han Solo ever used to talk like this?) Another tactic Han uses is the ol’ “tap on one shoulder but I’m really on the other side” technique. Of course, it’s a trap and Han and his team are captured, again. Then, finally, after R2-D2 is shot, Han thinks he can hotwire open a door and, instead, manages to close a second set of doors. It is actually insane that somehow, in the end, Han and his team manage to blow up the shield generator because Han Solo, on this mission, is the worst leader in the history of the Rebellion. It’s no wonder by the time we see him in The Force Awakens he’s just kind of floating through space smuggling monsters.

Verdict: Dumb

So the answer is that in both Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, Han Solo is fairly intelligent – or, at the very least, very clever. By the time we see him in Return of the Jedi he is a dumb guy who says stuff like “We’ll do it real quiet like.” The only in-story explanation is that the carbonite made him dumb.

Final Verdict: The Han Solo from Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back is not the same character as the one from Return of the Jedi.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.</em

Source: https://uproxx.com/movies/is-han-solo-stupid/

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New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/is-han-solo-stupid-an-investigation/

Is Han Solo Stupid? An Investigation

It’s been roughly three months since the dust has settled on Han Solo’s standalone movie, Solo: A Star Wars Story. And now the Lucasfilm train is rolling forward with the start of production of the untitled Episode IX – which will see pretty much every classic character returning other than Han Solo. (Though, it would be funny, after Han died basically three times in The Force Awakens, if he showed up again with no explanation: “Hey, how can I help?’ “Great to have you back, Han.”)

But the one quote I haven’t stopped thinking about since that film came out was a quote from Lawrence Kasdan that he’s been saying since at least 2015, “He’s cynical. He’s tough. He’s pragmatic. He’s not that smart.” These quotes resurfaced when Phil Lord and Chris Miller left Solo, with the point being made that Han Solo is not “funny,” but instead cynical and dumb.

Of the films in the Original Trilogy, Kasdan was only involved in Return of the Jedi from start to finish. He wasn’t involved with Star Wars at all and came on late to The Empire Strikes Back. (With Empire, Leigh Brackett wrote the first draft and it’s a fascinating thing to read and looks very little like what that movie turned out to be. Lucas then rewrote Empire himself, declining a writer’s credit. Kasdan then came on to rewrite the dialogue.)

But, here’s the question: Is Han Solo actually stupid?

Let’s go through all of Han Solo’s major moments in the Original Trilogy where he has to make some key decisions and we can decide.

STAR WARS

Lucasfilm

Mos Eisley Cantina

Here’s where we first meet Han Solo. In this establishing scene Han is definitely overconfident and seems a little defensive when Luke and Ben had never heard of the Millennium Falcon. Han says the price for his services is 10,000, but over the course of the negotiation that figure goes up to 17,000.

Then, when confronted by Greedo, Han wastes little time dispensing of poor Greedo when he starts to seem like a threat. And then after all this, Han still escapes with all of his passengers unscathed even as Stormtroopers attack the docking bay.

Verdict: Smart

Lucasfilm

Millennium Falcon

Han’s moment here is to tell Luke and Ben that he’s seen a lot of strange things but he doesn’t believe in the Force. Now, in the context of the original Star Wars, the Force is a lot more mysterious than it became later. The case could be made pretty easily that it was all nonsense. As a viewer, we don’t see anything levitate until Empire, which is why it was so shocking the first time we see Luke use the Force to grab his lightsaber on Hoth. So in the context of what we know in this movie alone, Han isn’t being stupid, he’s just being skeptical.

Verdict: Skeptical, but not stupid

Lucasfilm

Remnants of Alderaan

When the Millennium Falcon reaches what’s left of Alderaan, Han decides to follow a TIE Fighter in the hopes to destroy it, which is maybe a little stupid. But we can give Han the benefit of the doubt here that in situations like this before, not letting that TIE Fighter tell the rest of the Empire about the Falcon’s location is maybe a smart move. Regardless, once the Falcon is caught in the Death Star’s tractor beam, Han decides he’s going to fight the Death Star on his own, which is really dumb. But then Ben quickly talks him out of it and decide to hide instead. So at least here it shows Han is somewhat reasonable.

Verdict: Had some stupid ideas but didn’t really do anything stupid

Lucasfilm

Death Star

For most of the Death Star sequence, Han just kind of goes along with other people’s plans. Luke is the one who comes up with the idea to pretend Chewbacca is a prisoner and Leia comes up with the whole trash compactor plan. The one decision that is actually Han’s here is the one to chase a bunch of Stormtroopers down a hallway. On the surface this is dumb, but it’s actually a smart move. If Han, Chewbacca, Luke, and Leia all run, they will be captured. But instead Han pretends that their group is much larger than it is and turns the tables on the Stormtroopers. Sure, the Stormtroopers figure this out, but Han has already bought their group a lot of needed time. (It’s this scene, more than any other, that I wish we had seen more like it in Solo.)

Verdict: Smart

Lucasfilm

Death Star Escape

After escaping the Death Star (which, yes, was Vader and Tarkin’s plan all along), Han and Luke have a nice moment in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. Han realizes that Luke has feelings for Leia and, basically, decided to mess with him. “Do you think a princess and a guy like me…” to which Luke cuts him off and says, “no.” Han smiles because he’s gotten under Luke’s skin.

Verdict: Cocky

Lucasfilm

Yavin

Han wants no part of an attack on the Death Star and he’s taking his money and leaving before the Rebel base is destroyed.

Verdict: Smart

Lucasfilm

Assault on the Death Star

Han comes back in the nick of time to save his buddy Luke, giving Luke a clear shot on the Death Star. This is one of Han’s most heroic moments but it was also a little stupid. But here Han isn’t any more stupid than the entire Rebel Alliance.

Verdict: A little stupid but it worked out

***

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

Lucasfilm

Hoth

Han ignores the advice of that poor Rebel soldier about Taun Taun’s freezing and ventures out in the night to rescue Luke. This isn’t Han being dumb because he knows the risks, it’s just brave because he has to save Luke. And then Han is smart enough to use Luke’s lightsaber to cut open the Taun Taun and use its warmth to save Luke. Han also figures out that an attack by the Empire is imminent, resulting in an evacuation being ordered.

Verdict: Smart

Lucasfilm

The Asteroid Field

Han famously ignores the odds and flies into an asteroid field in an effort to escape an Imperial convoy. This feels less “dumb” and more “we are out of options.” In the end, it doesn’t really work out, but it at least buys them all some time. Also, Han tricking a Star Destroyer into thinking the Millennium Falcon is attacking, then attaching itself to the backside of the ship is very clever.

Verdict: Smart

Lucasfilm

Cloud City

Han doesn’t fully trust Lando at first either, but succumbs to Lando’s charms. Leia even tries to warn Han that this all smells and Han just gets defensive about the whole thing. In the first two films, this is probably Han’s dumbest moment. Once C-3PO shows up in a box, they all should have gotten out of there as quickly as possible. But, during the carbon freezing scene, Han is smart enough to know that he needs to surrender. When Chewbacca starts to fight, it’s Han who talks him out of it, knowing it’s futile at this point. Han accepts his fate knowing it is the best thing for his friends.

Verdict: Han got tricked, which is dumb, but he was still smart enough to save his friends

***

RETURN OF THE JEDI

Lucasfilm

Tatooine

After being thawed out, Han tries to bargain with Jabba when he’s in no position whatsoever to bargain. When Han hears that they are being thrown into the Pit of Carkoon, he comments that it doesn’t sound that bad. Han then kind of just stand there while everyone else does the fighting. Though, Han does accidentally ignite Boba Fett’s jetpack, sending him into the Sarlacc.

Verdict: Dumb

Lucasfilm

The Rebel Fleet

Han accepts a promotion in the Rebel Alliance and, even though he’s the best pilot in the galaxy, he agrees to lead a ground strike force on a moon of Endor, making sure his greatest skill isn’t used at all.

Verdict: Dumb

Lucasfilm

Endor

Han does a lot of dumb things on Endor. When his team encounters two Biker Scouts, Han says he’ll handle it and of course gets caught when he steps on a loud branch and then gets punched. This results in Luke and Leia having to clean up Han’s mess, which eventually gets Leia separated from the rest of the team.

Then Chewbacca finds some meat randomly hanging in the forest and Han just looks at it like an idiot and says he doesn’t get it. It’s again Luke who has to warn them it’s bait, but it’s too late and Han and his team are captured.

At the Ewok village, Han finds Leia crying after she just found out Luke is her brother and Vader is her father, but Han can’t read the room and instead accuses her of being in love with Luke. To his credit, he comes back and apologizes, but come on, Han.

When Han and his team raid the bunker, his big plan is to do it “real quiet like.” (When did Han Solo ever used to talk like this?) Another tactic Han uses is the ol’ “tap on one shoulder but I’m really on the other side” technique. Of course, it’s a trap and Han and his team are captured, again. Then, finally, after R2-D2 is shot, Han thinks he can hotwire open a door and, instead, manages to close a second set of doors. It is actually insane that somehow, in the end, Han and his team manage to blow up the shield generator because Han Solo, on this mission, is the worst leader in the history of the Rebellion. It’s no wonder by the time we see him in The Force Awakens he’s just kind of floating through space smuggling monsters.

Verdict: Dumb

So the answer is that in both Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, Han Solo is fairly intelligent – or, at the very least, very clever. By the time we see him in Return of the Jedi he is a dumb guy who says stuff like “We’ll do it real quiet like.” The only in-story explanation is that the carbonite made him dumb.

Final Verdict: The Han Solo from Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back is not the same character as the one from Return of the Jedi.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.</em

Source: https://uproxx.com/movies/is-han-solo-stupid/