#just because there’s sub plots or b-plots and like character development on the side does NOT mean that trc doesn’t have a plot. be serious

[dreamertrilogys]

this is so mean i’m sorry. but it needs to be said. the way some of you talk about trc is like you were shown this plot diagram in 2nd grade and never moved past it. & that you think all stories MUST have only one (1) simple main narrative that follows this diagram to the tee in order for them to have what you consider to be a “plot”

#THE RAVEN CYCLE HIT YA SERIES BY MAGGIE STEIFVATER VERY MUCH DOES HAVE A PLOT. AND IT’S NOT EVEN A VERY COMPLICATED ONE AT THAT 😭😭😭 #just because there’s sub plots or b-plots and like character development on the side does NOT mean that trc doesn’t have a plot. be serious #.txt #but while we’re on the topic of the basic plot diagram. trc does also follow that. like it very much has all those things linked to a #central plot. please tell me we’re all reading the same books here guys #trc

[saiorse-irvyne]

Looking for Beta-readers!

Hello, you beautiful people <3

I'm looking for beta readers for an a/b/o AU I just finished writing the other day! All I need is people who are willing to read and give me their honest thoughts and opinions about it, as well as answer a few questions for me after they’re done.

The story is edited to the best of my abilities and my best friend can to help me with any grammar or spelling mistakes I've missed if i find no one whos interested in that. so no worries about any work in that regard, if youre just here for reading, thats already enough!

What I need is people that can tell me if the story does what I intended it to do.

If it is well paced, if the character progression makes sense, if the romance is believable, if the emotional beats hit right, all that stuff.

(And I have one story beat that I'm not sure work in general, aswell as general uncertainty about the humor i tried infusing this with from time to time)   

About the story: 

You’re looking at 69k words (nice), so it's kind of a slow burn, but not really. Once things get moving, they move fast. It’s a ‘strangers to friends to lovers’- romance situation, with the added caveat of alpha/alpha.

We have Dean and Castiel as the mc’s with both their POV's (and Sam on the side), but apart from that, every additional character is original. 

I really focused on the aspect of how to navigate the struggles of adult love life, with themes like self love, overcoming your fears, dealing with internalized homophobia, emotional maturity, and learning to deal with, and love again after, major heartbreak. 

Although this is Omegaverse, I wanted to approach it from a mature and real angle, hence why the whole alpha/alpha-homophobia setting. It’s really just the a/b/o-equivalent of our current day homophobia, in that regard. 

I made a point about not deriving conflict and tension from anything but real world issues and the problems that come from interhuman connection, because being a person with trauma and issues living alongside other humans with their own, individual struggles is hard. 

So, no misunderstandings in this one. In this house, we talk about our feelings and learn to face our fears when we discover them!

Although the vocal point is all of that, this story IS explicit and has two detailed sex scenes that tie into the development of the plot and are important for character growth. So if that isn’t your cup of tea, this story isn’t for you. 

Additionally, as this is alpha/alpha, the smut has minor sub/dom characteristics. It's very tame and mostly psychological, but I loved exploring the whole dominance/submission angle such a pairing would logically bring about. (On that note, its top Dean/bottom Castiel, just fyi) 

We got a healthy pinch of angst in the beginning and will end with fluff and a happy ending. And a metric fuck-ton of hurt/comfort, so if youre into that, there you go. (Seriously though, i made my lonely ass fucking depressed with this shit. Imagine having someone love you unequivocally for who you are, what a concept) 

I’ll wordvomit some more things here in no particluar order so you can get more of an idea of what you’re working with, as well as the very start of the story as a lil’ sumthin' to get you hooked.

If you are interested in helping me out, send me a DM with your email address and I'll give you access to the google doc! 

All the love!

Sarcastic Castiel, Booksmart Castiel, Angsty Castiel, Dean is an asshole at the start, He will do better, Character growth, Dean is a typical man, Dean is everything i want in a man by the end, Factually not very sound descriptions of working as a mechanic, All the smut tags, Seriously all of them, Sam is significantly younger than Dean, Emotional deepcuts, leaning onto friends, Hurt/Comfort, Writing this was a bit like therapy for me, Unspecified big city, Bitter Exes, Falling out of love, Unhealthy relationships with love, Toxic relationships, Explanations of A/B/O biology, The doctor does doctor things, I can’t think of more things right now, it's late, okay?

Heres the snippet:

Dean threw back the whiskey and sharply sucked in air as the liquid amber burned its way down his throat. The shiver running up his spine while the heat swirled downwards and pooled in his stomach was just what he needed. The confirmation that he could escape from himself, if just for a few hours. 

Usually, he didn’t run from his problems. He had always been the kind of man who pushed ahead, despite any and all obstacles obstructing his way. 

No matter what it was, nothing couldn’t be solved by simply running it over. Even if the resulting chaos kind of hurt.

But that was just how life was- in all its horrific and beautiful glory. It wasn't merciful with the blows it dealt, but it wasn't cruel with it either. A mostly neutral state of affairs, to be dealt with however one could or pleased. 

Which was healthy aggression in Dean's case.

At the end of the day, he'd rather do things that way than sulk in a corner, getting lost in the would haves, could haves, and should haves. Overthinking was the enemy of progress, and he hated nothing more than feeling stuck. 

He lifted his hand and signalled the barkeeper for a refill, not even bothering to call for the man. The music in this joint was cranked up way too high to verbally communicate with anyone who wasn’t literally right in front of you anyway. 

Although rather small, the establishment was positively drowning in people. It had startled him a bit, as this was a bar at the edge of town, and it wasn’t even the weekend or any holiday that would prompt this kind of crowd, but it was exactly what he had been searching for. 

Strangely, the building it was housed inside looked expensive as hell. Sleek and modern, like it had been built by some rich landlord to be rented out for ludicrous prizes. Which was why Dean had expected a relaxed lounge bar or something of the like. Not this madness. 

Well, under different circumstances, this probably was said lounge bar.

Right now though, every single table and booth was occupied, with lots more people standing around with drinks in their hands, making idle chatter that could only consist of short utterances at best. 

A dancefloor had established itself in the middle of the room where a shapeless amalgamation of bodies, clothes and hair moved along to the pumping music. 

From the few words he had been able to decipher as he had asked the barkeep about the occasion, it was some kind of motto-party. Something about 80s and 90s music-night that happened once a month. 

Most likely for the less city inclined folks to get their freak on, without having to go downtown and into an actual club. 

Dean didn’t really care, all he needed right now was to be around people. Be in the presence of other humans, be just one more face in the crowd. The feeling of overwhelming loneliness that had taken hold of him on his drive home had just been too much for him to spend the evening by himself. 

The houses and people had shot by, made to look flat and strangely lifeless in the mellow twilight of countless street lamps lining the road, when it had sunk its claws into him out of nowhere. 

So all encompassing, so vicious. As if it had waited for him to be worn out enough, skulked for the moment of weakness where he would not be able to restrain it anymore. 

Given how he had been living in the past year (and the years before that, if he was honest with himself), it wasn’t a complete surprise why he felt this way. But its intensity was still strange. 

It had quickly grown to be so unbearable that he had pulled over at the first opportunity and had fled into the night, searching for anything to distract himself with. Anything to not feel it anymore. 

Technically, he should really go home and sleep. There was an awful lot of work waiting for him tomorrow, and he would need to get to it as early as possible if he didn’t want to fall behind. But even knowing that, he couldn’t be bothered to care for the problems of his future-self right now. 

Another glass of whiskey appeared in front of him, and Dean picked it up with a thankful nod towards the barkeeper. It met the same fate as the first one immediately. Before the man could turn away to tend to the other people at the bar, Dean shoved the empty glass across the counter and motioned for another refill. 

The feeling of loneliness and anxiousness still circled his mind from the shadows he had forcefully banished it to. Prowling. Waiting for him to let down his guard just enough to pounce and sink its teeth into his neck again. He needed more to shut it out for good. 

“Someone’s motivated tonight,” the man laughed and poured more whiskey into the glass in a trained motion. 

“You know how it is, life’s a bitch and she’s not yet pretty enough for my taste,” Dean said with a crooked grin. He finally started feeling the buzz of the alcohol, and he was delighted by the sensation. It promised freedom. 

Dean chuckled along as the barkeeper laughed at his crude comment and took another sip of his whiskey. This time he savoured the taste while he turned and let his gaze wander over the crowd. Maybe he would find himself a pretty omega to distract himself with. It hadn’t felt like that kind of night at first, but the idea actually didn’t sound all too bad right now. 

What better way to get rid of pent up stress than to pound it away into a willing victim? It was what he did best, actually. Not that that was be anything to be proud of, really. 

Thankfully, that kind of relief wasn't exactly hard to get for him. If there was one thing Dean could count on, it was his looks to make anything of the like to happen, whenever he so pleased.

He didn’t think of himself as vain. But he knew that, objectively, he looked good. Apart from the plentiful statements from others that had echoed the notion over the years, the effect that a friendly smile combined with a flirtatious comment alone had on omega’s was proof enough. 

It wasn’t like he had an ego about it. A little one maybe. But he wasn’t about to complain about the fact that the genetic lottery had blessed him with good looks. And he wasn’t above taking advantage of the luck of the draw to satisfy his desires either.

Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath to get a general idea of what he had to work with. As much as he appreciated what his own looks did for him, he couldn’t give less of a fuck about those of others. It was a nice bonus at best, but what really counted was their scent. 

Anyone could be beautiful, but only few omega’s managed to entice his alpha on a deeper level. And if he was going to do this, he wouldn’t just take anyone with a pretty face. 

He would seek out someone who made his instincts rattle. Someone who triggered his primal urges to run away with him. 

Someone who would bring salvation from the melancholic maelstrom that still faintly threatened to pull him down into its depths. 

The flourish of odours and fragrances that hit his palette was a lot to take in. With so many people stuffed into this cramped space, the room was positively overflowing with airborne aromas. 

The sweet, flowery scents of omegas, the harsh, earthy scents of other alphas and the mellow, flat ones of betas. All of it, fused into the general smell of sweat, perfume and spent air. 

Dean let the concoction rest on the back of his tongue, searching. In this first breath, there wasn’t anything that piqued his interest.

Scent compatibility was technically not required for a hook-up, because there was nothing really wrong with any omega’s scent. None had ever been as boring as those of betas, or as passively acrid as those of most other alphas. 

But in Dean’s personal experience, only the owners of scents who truly stirred his alpha were the ones that he didn’t feel kind of empty with after the deed was done. 

If someone only met the basic requirement of being an omega, it would just be flesh on flesh, meaningless and depressing when the post nut clarity set in. And few things were less enjoyable than being knotted to someone for an hour, who painfully reminded him of the escapism he had just partaken in by merely existing. 

Dean kept searching, growing more disheartened with each breath. Of all of these people, no one smelled enticing at all. Was there truly not one omega here who suited his taste? 

He was about to give up and just accept that it wasn’t supposed to happen for him tonight, when something entirely different hit his palate. 

Something unique. And intoxicating. 

It had concealed itself behind the translucent curtain of scents, almost like it had been hiding from him. 

It was like one of those ludicrously expensive perfumes that didn't smell like much in passing, but revealed a deep and layered complexity once you really focused in on it.

A few more drags, and he was sure. It seemed like he was about to get lucky after all. 

Dean emptied his whiskey and pushed himself off the barstool, ready to track down whoever smelled this delectable, and make them his for the night.

#supernatural #dean winchester #castiel #sam winchester #destiel #story #my fic #beta reader #beta request #a/b/o #omegaverse #alpha/alpha #book tumblr #authors #writing #pls help

[hello-nichya-here]

Forgive me if you've answered this before but what are your thoughts on Kattaang?

Let me put it this way: it is a Will-they-won't-they romance. And it partially fell into two different traps of that type of storyline.

For the majority of the first season, Kataang fell into the trap of Ted X Robin from How I Met Your Mother. Character A was interested, character B was not. The initial assumption was that eventually character B would realize they DID have feelings for character A, but the moments that were meant to show that development felt too forced for it to be believable in any way. At least it just one season of a clueless 12 year old trying to figure out how romance works, instead of 9 seasons and TWENTY FIVE YEARS of a fully grown man not understanding that "no" doesn't mean "convince me."

The second season is MUCH better for the ship. Katara is visibly much more affectionate with Aang, to the point that it DOES start to feel like Aang's crush isn't as one-sided as we first assumed, and during the whole Appa thing we see her trying to connect with him and being disappointed when she's shut down, so there's a lot more back and forth instead of just Aang being shut down over and over again to the point that we wonder why he is even trying anymore since it clearly won't go anywhere.

The first half of season three is honestly the best for Kataang: there are lots of cute moments, and we even get Katara being visibly jealous when Aang is dancing with a cute girl, and it leads to their iconic dance together and their first (on-screen) kiss on the day of the invasion...

And then the second half of the season happens and the ship falls into the Ross X Rachel from Friends style trap: The characters are obviously in love, they only make sense with each other, the narrative is obviously building up to them getting together, and after all the great set up we reach the point of them finally becoming an item...

And then they don't.

Why? Because TV writters don't know how to write happy couples. They can only do pinning and unnecessary drama. As a result we get fed up with the storyline because that sub-plot clearly should have ended already, yet it keeps on being dragged on and on for no reason. Thankfully Avatar only did that for half a season, not ten whole years, and a traumatized 14-year-old child soldier being too worried about DYING to truly think about boys is a lot more understandable than two spoiled, selfish assholes being idiots for an entire decade.

The ship is not perfect. Far from it. But is still pretty decent. While I'm not sure Katara's feelings for Aang are as strong as his feelings for her, I still believe said feelings exist, and if they were to break up someday it wouldn't be because of shitty drama that makes them both unlikeable.

#asks #kataang

[anxresi]

I just watched my first full length ep of Miraculous for months, and I have ‘feelings’.

You know, mostly of the ‘what kind of trash am I watching’ type-kind.

(Remember, this is all from a Chloe-centric perspective, but tbh the rest of it wasn’t too hot either. People are saying S4 is a marked improvement on S3... REALLY?!)

Let’s start with the continuity. Or lack thereof. 

Remember this in Queen Banana?

(Please forgive the RIDICULOUS subs. Chloe was actually saying ‘Adrikins’ twice. Duh.)

It was a silly scene in what was already one of the worst episodes, breaking up with her childhood friend and crush over a stupid movie.

But at the very least, it might’ve lead to some more interesting plot developments story-wise. Chloe cutting ties with Adrien permanently. Adrien having to forego the past with his first friend and move on, the dynamics of the show being shaken up. Sounds pretty good, right?

Well, guess what? With NO build-up whatsoever, Chloe is now more in love with Adrien than ever again. Her reasons for recording the video during the Girl Squad’s not-so-secret meeting weren’t to get ‘revenge’ on him, but in order to cause ‘Dupain-Cheng’...pain.

Gabriel Agreste is set a few short episodes after Queen Banana. As far as I’m aware, NOTHING happens during the episodes between to mend their friendship. 

So how the heck, short of Chloe suffering a convenient bout of major-grade amnesia, has she already forgotten her earlier vow?

 I’ll tell you why: Thomas and his fellow writers have NO respect for their audience, and will continue to disregard previous events for the sake of a) maintaining the Status Quo and b) making their job SO much easier. After all, why bother remembering stuff that happened a couple of shows ago? It’s just a KIDS show, they’ll never notice(!) 

But if Astruc & co couldn’t give a hoot about anyone watching over the age of five, they REALLY do not care for Chloe one microscopic iota. Not only do they have her acting like a complete idiot all episode (on par with her worst S4 self, already a downgrade from her S1 persona that at least showed her better side occasionally) but the stuff the characters say to her REALLY tells us what the writers think.

Nice job there Mary-Zoe btw, staring blankly ahead whilst your sister gets insulted. Remember this? 

...Yeah, don’t see too much of that here. She didn’t even make an effort to talk to Chloe before she disappeared to maybe get her to stop, she just stood there letting the whole scene pass her by. Exactly what was the point of having Mary-Zoe in this episode again? (Oh, she got rid of the BUTLER by putting on an ‘attitude’. Big whoop).

Anyway, back to the earlier topic. So they’ve already called Chloe an ‘ogress’, a ‘wicked wolf’ and an ‘ugly toad’... what else can we pick on? 

Oh yes... her lack of intelligence too! Funny how this season, while her horrible behavior has been ramped way up, her smarts have gone way down! Almost most like the people behind the show have an agenda, isn’t it? 

Forget all the other screenshots. This to me, is the most important one of the lot... simply because it confirms to me that Chloe’s chances of getting a PROPER redemption arc now are somewhere between ‘zilch’ and ‘zero’.

It’s over, everyone. She told us her ‘secret’ in a situation where she couldn’t lie. She’s not merely bad... she’s EVIL. Rotten to the core. Even more so than Felix (who doesn’t receive half the abuse she does) or the lesser-spotted Lila. 

Yep. A 14 year-old damaged child who once showed real potential as a hero by  saving lives and has had MANY sympathetic scenes throughout the show demonstrating her better side is just ‘evil’. She’ll never be anything else, either.

And like all one-dimensional cartoon villains, she gets her comeuppance in the end when her video is deleted, leading to a big tantrum...

....And a collapse of defeat in the street. Hehe, that sure showed her(!)

In conclusion then, it seems the operation was a complete success. All traces of complexity from Chloe’s brain have now been removed, and now she’s just a stupid bully intent on making everyone’s lives miserable again. Only much worse... now that it’s actually canon she’s ‘evil’.

Mind you, I thought the same thing about Adrien being Chloe’s Adri-enemy, but that turned out to be false. Maybe the writing staff suffer from the same amnesia as her? Perhaps they’ll forget her standard outfit next time she’s featured in an episode, and she’ll come to school dressed in Marinette’s clothes instead. I can’t wait to find out...

...Actually, scratch that. I think I can wait. Forever maybe, if it means not having to endure an episode like this again.

Final words from the ONLY TRUE QB herself...

...Yes, Chloe. Seeing what’s happening to you is. :,( 

#chloe bourgeois #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #miraculous ladybug #ladybug #miraculous #chat noir #gabriel agreste #ml salt #ml spoilers #disney #felix

[ilovejevsjeans]

‘I’M BACK AT SCHOOL’ – INSIDE RICCIARDO’S MCLAREN REPROGRAMMING

Daniel Ricciardo’s going to humbling lengths in a bid to overcome his tricky start to life with McLaren.

Though Ricciardo has a 100% point-scoring record with his new team and finally beat team-mate Lando Norris in a race for the first time in the Spanish Grand Prix, his tricky switch from Renault is one of the main sub-plots of the season so far.

Daniel Ricciardo’s going to humbling lengths in a bid to overcome his tricky start to life with McLaren.

Though Ricciardo has a 100% point-scoring record with his new team and finally beat team-mate Lando Norris in a race for the first time in the Spanish Grand Prix, his tricky switch from Renault is one of the main sub-plots of the season so far.

Ricciardo’s struggled to handle certain limitations of the MCL35M as well as Norris, who’s established himself as one of this year’s early stars.

But there’s light at the end of the tunnel thanks to progress the team is making with the car and a painstaking process Ricciardo is going through as a driver as well – one he says leaves him feeling like he’s “back at school”, trying to re-programme himself to learn how to drive the 2021 McLaren.

We knew after the first three races that Ricciardo had been trying to adapt his driving style because he was finding McLaren’s F1 car “a little unique”. Both he and Norris have said the MCL35M can have a slightly loose rear end, particularly at higher speeds.

Ricciardo struggled with that more, describing his car as on a knife-edge at corner entry.

A big part of that problem may be the changes to the tyres and the reduction in rear aerodynamic performance caused by the new floor rules, which have combined to take away enough rear grip to make the car more nervous – especially at high-speed, which is all about commitment.

But at lower-speed, McLaren reckons those changes have also impacted the characteristics of its car under braking as well.

It seems that Ricciardo prefers to ride the brake further into the corner but can’t do that in this year’s McLaren without generating understeer, so he’s slightly slower through the corner than Norris and out of it as well. He’s been waiting for updates to tune the car more to his liking and address that permanently, while trying to learn how to drive around his limitation in the meantime.

The Portuguese GP weekend, where he was a shock Q1 elimination, was made more complicated by Algarve’s low-grip surface and difficult wind conditions. But Ricciardo’s rise from 16th to ninth in the race there left him hopeful he could make progress without waiting for upgrades, as he was happy with the peak of his pace and felt potential set-up tweaks, mainly to the suspension, could bring the car more to his liking.

Then he earmarked the Spanish GP weekend as one without “excuses” given how well everybody knows the track and the fact it’s a grippier, higher-downforce circuit. So Barcelona became a significant reference point in his bid to adapt.

The tweaked front wing that arrived in Spain might be the first example of Ricciardo’s preferences driving McLaren’s development. Lifting up the outer section of the front wing mainplane will reduce the airflow separation in that area, produce more load when that part of the wing is close to the ground, and reduce the understeer.

Ricciardo certainly seemed happier with the feel of the car over the Barcelona weekend. But the effort to address his issues went well beyond changes to his machinery.

We followed Ricciardo onboard for every lap of practice and qualifying in Spain and he was getting consistent messages about trying to shift more brake pressure to corner entry.

In FP1 there was a particular focus on his braking technique, as he was initially riding the brake too far into Turn 5 and at risk of inducing understeer.

Some in-car changes related to differential settings were used to help mitigate that but Ricciardo was also urged to try feeding in steering lock slightly earlier and apply more initial brake pressure at Turn 4 and Turn 12 – two medium-speed right-handers.

That continued in FP2, where the feedback was again to get on the brake harder before releasing it, and relayed to him as trying to create “more of a stabby brake profile”: a sharper initial application of the brake and a quicker release.

The extensive advice he was being given on braking would suggest that Ricciardo is still in a phase of consciously trying to adjust that technique at lower-speed. We put that to Ricciardo after qualifying, and he agreed.

“It’s like being a beginner, all over again,” he admitted. “Tutored every corner: ‘Good job, do that better. OK, improve a bit more here.’

“I’m still having to be a little bit conscious about that, and teach myself enough that it does become natural.

“It still does require a bit of [conscious thinking] in some moments.

“I’m trying to programme myself to basically learn how to drive it faster. So I’m back at school.”

The more confidence Ricciardo feels in the car, the more he expects faster corners to take care of themselves, describing those as requiring technique but effectively rewarding a driver who can just throw it and hold on.

But slower corners are where the big chunks of laptime are, because a driver is in those corners for longer.

The braking phase is a delicate and precise process, the pedal feel and braking traits of the Mercedes-powered McLaren will be different to the Renaults Ricciardo drove the last two years and the Red Bulls before that, and it also happens to be an area the McLaren is still sensitive in at the moment.

That’s not an easy combination to manage, which is why Ricciardo’s still working so hard to get on top of it.

He’s admitted he’s found it difficult to be patient in his bid to improve, but that’s his reality with just one-and-a-half days in the car in pre-season putting the emphasis on learning during these early race weekends.

To his credit, Ricciardo has approached the situation with exactly the right attitude. He has shown tremendous humility in doing so. Ego could easily get in the way. As an F1 driver it could feel embarrassing, or he could turn his nose up and say ‘no, I know what I’m doing, I’m not the problem here’ – but there’s no sign of that.

“I’m very happy with how it went in terms of the integration of Daniel into our team,” says team principal Andreas Seidl.

“It’s not a surprise how it went, we all know the personality Daniel is, which character he is, so I wouldn’t say it’s a surprise how he approached these first races.

“We knew that it is a challenge with this limited testing time to get used to the car, to become one with the car. I will say we are not where we want to be, where Daniel wants to be.

“But I’m 100% convinced it’s just a matter of doing more races with us and we will see the performances we are all used to.”

Key adds: “It is just a process of adapting your feeling and what you want to do, to what the car is actually doing.

“Of course from our side we’re trying to adapt the car and facilitate what Daniel’s trying to do. We’re getting there slowly, there’s certain things we can’t change, tyres and other things will be the same, but in terms of the way the car behaves, the mapping of the engine, the feeling of the pedal are all things that are in our control.

“We are chipping away at all those things to try to find a solution which works.”

Ricciardo’s getting his head down and doing the work that he needs to do as part of that. That was shown with constant progress through practice at the Spanish GP, and he did a good job in qualifying. He was perhaps a bit lucky to outqualify Norris given his team-mate’s compromised session but the performance was very close before that.

And then Ricciardo drove an outstanding race. He grabbed a couple of positions early on and he just did a really solid job thereafter, never looked like slipping down the top 10, quite enjoyed pushing the car to the limits. It was his best drive of the season and matched his best result so far in sixth.

In fairness to Ricciardo’s performances pre-Spain, despite lacking a bit of outright pace relative to Norris so far his race drives have been very good.

It’s a shame for him that on the weekend he hooked it up better, McLaren wasn’t quick enough to give him the kind of emphatic Class B victory that Norris enjoyed in the first three races.

But it can be viewed as a clear indicator of progress, and an important step in Ricciardo re-establishing himself as the force we’ve come to expect. (X)

#daniel ricciardo #dan #articles #i cut out some of teh boring technical talk

[ashilrak]

so you write big, plot heavy fics a lot. how do you go about outlining them?? i'm working on a fandom event and i need an outline and i... do not know how to do that. i've always relied on the seat of my pants and ctrl+f to get me from point a to point b. now, i'm doing a very intense, plot-driven story that needs more structure and i'm at a loss

I wouldn't say a lot, but it's definitely something I'm trying to do more of because they're the type of fics I like to read. I've had more attempts than I've had successes, but it's the type of thing that gets better with time and what works for one person might not work for someone else.

Outlining is a great place to start, but what does that mean? For some an outline for a 100k fic will be 5 bullet points on a word doc, for someone else it may be a 50 page document with notes explaining character's innermost thoughts and how they got from point A to point B. I personally fall somewhere in the middle.

A great place to start is the end. Know what you're working toward and write it down. Let's say I'm planning a fantasy AU where Character A meets Character B in the market and fall in love on a quest to save the princess who Character B is betrothed to. I want this fic to end with Character B ending their betrothal to the princess and going to the market where Character A returned back to their shop.

I have my ending:

Character B ends betrothal and goes back to Character A

But in getting to my ending, I also have a beginning and a middle: aka the beginning of an outline.

Character A meets Character B at a market

Character A and Character B go on a quest to save a princess who Character B is betrothed to

Character B ends betrothal and goes back to Character A

And looking at that, you might already be forming the connections in your head, or adding a bit of backstory where is needed, and suddenly your outline looks a bit different.

Character A is a shopkeeper at a storefront their inherited from their parents upon their deaths. They're a bit bored with their day to day life, but this is stability and it's the memory of their parents.

Character B is a prince getting ready to go on a quest. But before he goes, he needs a set of ingredients for his upcoming quest.

There's a spark between Characters A and B when B wanders into A's shop. B asks about the ingredient he needs, and A explains that they only have the dried version of that ingredient which doesn't always work and asks what B needs it for.

B explains that it's to make a potion, but A is like "you idiot, you need a fresh version". This somehow ends up with them going on the quest together because B needs A's expertise. B's a bit of a himbo, all brawn but lacks the magical knowledge side of things. And A is suddenly able to go on a quest like they've always pictured but hadn't the skills or strength or resources to go on their own.

Character A and Character B go on a quest to save a princess who Character B is betrothed to

While on their quest, they get closer. They have a bonding moment where they talk about the fact that they're both orphans. B reveals that his betrothal to the princess is the only way he'll be able to access his inheritance.

The finish the quest, both having developed feelings along the way. But A knows that B needs his inheritance and they part ways, despite both not wanting to.

Character B comes to his senses and ends the betrothal

B goes back to Character A's storefront and they have a happy reunion and live a happy quaint life and B does small quests for coin.

And from there, it just grows. Tumblr doesn't allow me to indent with sub notes and such, but this is how I approach writing. Sometimes my bullet points are more detailed because I have a specific line of dialogue or scene in mind, other times it's more simple. It's what works for you. Some people need to see it all in writing in a super detailed outline before writing, others just need a vague sense.

I know this isn't a perfect answer, but I hope it gave you a good starting point! 💛

#Ask #ectoblastfromthepast #Karli Talks Writing

[plasticnightmaredoll]

"Mortal Kombat" (2021) second viewing thoughts

I watched the 2021 "Mortal Kombat" movie a second time and watched some videos on YouTube from fans who shared their thoughts on the movie. I now have some new things to add in addition to my full review.

Ok, so, one thing that they made a huge mistake on was making the film 1 hour and 50 minutes. It's not even a 2-hour movie, and yet, they tried to cram in 20 hours worth of crap:

Too many cooks in the kitchen

The sheer number of characters featured in this movie was ridiculous and because the writers/producers decided to do this, most characters lacked proper development -- or any development. I mean, let's take a look at the list of characters in this movie (only the "fighters," not the side characters like Cole's family and whatnot):

Cole Young

Hanzo Hasashi/Scorpion

Bi-Han/Sub-Zero 1.0

Sonya Blade

Jax Briggs

Raiden

Shang Tsung

Kano

Liu Kang

Kung Lao

Nitara

Mileena

Reiko

Goro

Kabal

I mean, damn. That's a shitload of characters! It's actually unnecessary to have that many characters, especially if they weren't even going to reach the 2-hour runtime mark. Reiko and Nitara, for example, could have been removed from the story and it wouldn't have made any difference. Hell, even Mileena didn't need to be in the movie (nothing against her character -- I like Mileena but in the movie, she was extremely underdeveloped).

For Mortal Kombat fans, at least they can fill in the gaps because they know these characters. However, what about people who know nothing about the games? I can't see them finding much enjoyment in this film, and that's a problem.

The goal of mainstream blockbuster movies such as this one, one that is meant to launch multiple sequels, is to draw in as many people as possible. You would think they would want this movie to appeal to those who aren't familiar with the games. I mean, it could even make some of those people want to play the games. As it is, though, this movie is too heavily rooted in the fans putting the pieces together.

Why is it not 2+ hours?

Ok, I get it: it's very difficult to pitch 3-4 hour movies nowadays. "The Lord of the Rings" and "Hobbit" movies got away with it because they are based on highly detailed, well-loved books. You can't just treat such legendary writing like fantasy fodder. You go all out!

"Avengers: Endgame" was three hours long, and it worked because they had a) enough material for such a runtime, b) the sheer popularity of the franchise behind it, and c) it was an epic finale for a massive list of films. You couldn't make "Endgame" 2 hours or less and expect it to be good.

Now, "Mortal Kombat" cannot get the budget of a Marvel film (or any Disney property, let's be real) -- many films cannot compete with the amount of money Disney can pour into their movies and series. MK is also not a ground-breaking, incredibly written fantasy story with extensive world-building like "Lord of the Rings." Yes, MK has a lot of stories and a lot of characters but it isn't even in the same league of quality as Tolkein works.

(Don't hate. I am just stating my observations here.)

However, even if they couldn't make this MK movie 3+ hours long, they should have gone for 2.5 hours. 1 hour and 50 minutes just isn't enough time. Add in 40 extra minutes, and you have much more flexibility.

Honestly, you could make 3-4 hour MK movies since there is so much content and so many characters, but realistically, it probably won't happen. So, the writers and producers have to do their best with what they're given, and....they cut this film waaaay too short. Going forward, they need to expand the runtime of the sequels. They need to. Otherwise, we'll keep getting mediocre films and maybe fewer sequels than originally planned.

USE YOUR BEST "TRAIT" FFS

The smartest decision the creators made was casting Hiroyuki Sanada as Hanzo Hasashi/Scorpion. He's a great actor, for one, and he just FITS the role. I mean, I look at him in this movie and, yep, that's Hanzo. They couldn't have picked a better actor for such an iconic character but.........they barely used him.

When you look at it in two ways, it's quite disappointing and confusing: Scorpion is just as popular and necessary as Sub-Zero to the MK franchise. They're like.... Godzilla and Kong for Mortal Kombat. Sub-Zero got a lot of screen time in the movie but Scorpion was only in the movie twice: at the beginning and at the end.

I mean, WHY?! We had a bunch of time dedicated to a new character with Cole, someone who isn't actually necessary for the story. Yet, we put one of the most iconic characters from the games on the back burner?

NO!

They made a smart decision but then they did something dumb with it.

If they make sequels, then omfg, FUCKING USE HIROYUKI SANADA.

Multiple sequels already planned?

While watching this video, I found out that the actor who played Bi-Han/Sub-Zero, Joe Taslim, has signed on for 5 movies, which includes the one we just got. This makes sense because Bi-Han does become Noob Saibot after dying, but that's beside the point: this MK movie series planned to be at least 5 films long.

Granted, that's not nearly as many as in the MCU films that lead up to "Endgame," but it's certainly promising. This is a chance for the writers and producers to fix some of their mistakes and flesh out the characters more as well as add more coherent details to the story.

I'm guessing the goal is to have the movies leading to an invasion of Earthrealm, ala "Endgame." I don't know how they will go about it, but I hope that, in addition to the 5 movies, we get spin-offs that focus on specific characters. The MCU did it, which helped develop the huge list of characters that ultimately made it into "Endgame," and this made it easier for the writers to focus on the story as character development was already done. If the MK movies do something similar, then this could be a good series of films.

The biggest problem, though, is that they got started on the wrong foot. The 2021 film is definitely a clumsy attempt to introduce everyone to this movie adaptation of the games, and it could significantly hinder their progress going forward. I mean, you start off wrong, you have much more work ahead of you if you plan to fix your mistakes.

It's not impossible, though. It's still early -- like, the first movie. We have at least four more to go. If the writers and producers can get their shit together, then they may pull it off.

And let's be real: I think MK is LONG overdue for a good movie.

The trailer and opening scene

The trailer for the "Mortal Kombat" movie was pretty epic, as was the opening scene of the film. Actually, the first scene almost doesn't fit into the movie because it appears to be from something of...better quality in terms of writing and development.

Now, imagine the whole movie was as epic as the trailer but also wonderfully crafted like the first scene. This could have easily produced a much better MK movie. They probably should have focused primarily on Hanzo, to be honest, and have Bi-Han there as well as the antagonist, and have some other characters on the side but not too many. I think that would have made this movie fantastic and would have fixed the issues with character development and poor plot progression.

Final Thoughts

The 2021 MK movie is still decent entertainment and worth watching a few times. However, I truly do hope the writers learn from their mistakes moving forward and give the people something much better.

#mortal kombat 2021 #mortal kombat movie #mortal kombat #mk #hanzo hasashi #bi-han #sub-zero

[scripttorture]

(Villain story PT 1) My story is about two enemies/villains. Character A is tortured by B as punishment for harming a friend of B. A escapes and tortures B for retaliation (other people who have been wronged by character B also help character A do that). A and B are not directly involved in each other's tortures but they know who is responsible for their punishment. Later, A and B come closer to each other's side and start to compromise their politics. They also come closer as people.---

(Villain story PT 2) They also come closer as people. They realize they think alike. They don't have regrets about the torture they did to one another but they don't want to repeat it. Later there is some atonement for their actions. I am doing the trope "enemies to friends" but with both characters having a twisted mentality (aka "it's fine if you come closer to your torturer").  (Villain story PT 3) However, I don't imply that torture is something light or harmless or that it's natural for someone to be kind to their torturer. i also don't try to excuse the actions of the torturers.I am worried if with this story I present torment in the wrong way. Any commentary or advice? Thank you!

-

OK I think I understand what you’re going for here.

 I’m going to start off by saying that I don’t think there’s anything wrong in writing ‘bad’ characters. Or characters who believe in stuff that’s awful, stupid or just plain wrong. If you want to write unhealthy relationships, characters making bad decisions or characters having rare/unusual responses there’s nothing inherently wrong with that.

 The issues come when we start teaching people these things are ‘normal’, that survival should look a certain way or that a particular kind of trauma ‘wasn’t that bad’.

 Sometimes that stuff can be very subjective, so this is always a learning process.

 But this isn’t about telling people to stop writing particular plots or characters. It’s about the problems that come when fiction is the only source people see for something real and complex and misunderstood.

 I don’t have a problem with authors breaking from reality; it’s called fiction for a reason. The problem is when we present a potentially damaging fiction as fact and do so in an environment which makes finding the facts almost impossible.

 I talk about what is or isn’t realistic often because I think it’s important that we understand the reality. We get better stories when the writers are aware of how and where they’re deviating from reality. We get more compassionate stories when writers take the time to think about what those breaks from reality imply.

 I don’t think you’ve chosen a plot that’s inherently torture apologia but it could stray close to some of the common misconceptions about torture. And you’ve recognised that, which means you’re thinking about it critically. That’s a really important step.

 First off in this kind of scenario it’s worth distinguishing the torturer from the person who ordered torture.

 You’ve made it clear that neither of these characters actively tortures the other. They order it but it isn’t even clear if they’re in the same room when the abuse takes place. And I think that gives you a lot more leeway.

 I don’t know of a single case where a survivor and their torturer (ie someone who directly, actively tortured them) became friends or had any sort of positive relationship afterwards.

 There are abuse cases where the survivor and abuser have gone on to have a healthy and mostly positive relationship afterwards. It’s rare*, but it does happen.

 The thing is abusers usually have an established prior relationship with their victim. Torturers don’t. The most I’ve found is a couple of cases where they were vague acquaintances before hand; I’ve yet to find a case where torturer and victim were actually close beforehand.

 What I’m saying here is that generally there isn’t a reason for survivors to want anything to do with their torturers in any capacity. And there are a lot of good reasons for them to not want to be near their torturer.

 There aren’t a lot of accounts of survivors encountering their torturers afterwards. The ones that I have found-

 Well Fanon describes one that happened in his hospital. Both torturer and survivor had a panic attack. The survivor ran into a bathroom and tried to commit suicide.

 Hospital staff managed to convince both of them that they were mistaken about who they thought they saw (a decision Fanon justified as being the only way they could continue to access the treatment they needed). They rearranged the schedules to make sure they never encountered each other again.

 I’ve read more recent accounts that were by survivors. Most of them seem to be describing panic attacks or at the very least, extreme distress on the part of the survivor.

 That’s partly in response to the torturer in a way that’s beyond the control of both individuals. But it’s also partly because of the attitude torturers typically seem to have to their own crimes.

 I’ll pre-face this by saying we really need more research on torturers. At the moment there isn’t a lot in the way of good quality long term studies. Based on the information we have now torturers seem to struggle to understand the scale and impact of their crimes. Some of them do express regret. Some of them will admit that what they did was wrong.

 But they might also say (example taken from one of the survivors accounts and paraphrased) ‘Well I served my time in jail so you shouldn’t have a problem with me any more. I have as much right to be here as you do.’

 As you might imagine this sort of attitude and lack of understand tends to make a healthy or positive relationship less likely.

 As I said, I never heard of a case where a survivor and their torturer had a positive relationship afterwards and I think that it’s extremely unlikely.

 But the survivor and the person who ordered torture… that is potentially a different story.

 People who order torture usually aren’t present when torture occurs. They don’t exist in the toxic torturer sub-culture these organisations have. They are not typically at risk from the torturers in their organisation. And since they don’t typically witness torture they’re not going to develop the mental health problems torture typically causes.

 And because they’re not typically present when torture is actually happening there’s less chance that a survivor is going to feel triggered by their presence. They might blame them, they might hate them. But the visceral response they have when seeing their torturer doesn’t seem to be there, as far as I can tell from what I’ve read.

 I think that difference, that distinction, gives you a fair amount of leeway. Because a person can know, logically, that the head of the organisation that tortured them is ultimately responsible for their torture and still not have the same level of emotional response or distress.

 Because they weren’t part of the toxic sub-culture torturers create in organisations, a person who ordered torture is less likely to have the same attitude towards their crimes. I can’t say for certain that they’d have greater insight or perspective into what they did; there’s even less research on them then on torturers.

 But I think they’d be able to denounce, regret or move away from torture with less personal risk. They’re not going to lose their whole social circle for saying torture should stop. And they’re unlikely to be physically attacked by their peers for it.

 I still think that gaining that insight, that understanding of the scale and impact of their crimes, would be difficult and unlikely. But my instinct is that it would be more likely in someone who is at a remove from torture then in someone who was actually a torturer.

 Showing that torture is serious is more about how you portray the effects then how you have the characters’ relationships developing. It’s about showing consistently showing the effects symptoms have on the characters’ lives.

 Having more survivors then just these two characters could serve to highlight that this relationship isn’t usual, as well as underlining that people’s responses are very varied.

 If you make the effort to show, consistently, that both the main characters and any secondary survivor characters are effected by what they went through then you should avoid downplaying the damage torture causes.

 You’ve probably already picked out the 3-5 symptoms you want your main characters to experience. Decide what those problems look like for them and show those problem consistently even when the character is improving.

 The story I’m writing at the moment has a character with a minor brain injury and part of the symptom set I gave him involved having lower inhibitions. Which in this character looks like a complete lack of brain-mouth filter, he says what’s on his mind constantly. And he does get better at managing his disability through the course of the story but he still says the ‘wrong’ thing constantly. Which in turn impacts on his ability to relate to other people.

 That’s the sort of thing you need in order to show the effects are serious: a commitment to showing them all the way through the story.

 For instance if one of the characters has severe anxiety that gets set off by crowded spaces, improving and managing that condition might look like:

Rearranging their schedule to avoid places at the most crowded times

Medication to reduce the effects of panic attacks

Constantly using breathing exercises in crowded spaces (and possibly sounding a little strange when they talk as a result)

Sending other people to potentially crowded spaces in their place

Putting off or cancelling things if a place seems too crowded for them

Taking the rest of the day off to recover after going somewhere crowded

 Any of those might lead to the net result of less panic attacks and overall improvement. But they’re still working around a serious condition. The fact the character has to make these adjustments constantly in their life means the condition is still there and still serious.

 The rest of this is probably less about the overall themes or plot and more about how it comes across when it’s written.

 I can’t give you a roadmap to a perfect story that no one will ever take issue with. That does not exist. Because every individual reader will bring something different when they sit down to read and they will take something different away too.

 Getting beta readers can help with this, and help build your confidence. I’ve found in person (or in these days over skype) writing groups to be really useful.

 You’re trying to do better and that is the main thing. You’ll learn in the process of writing this story and what you learn can feed into the next one.

 This is a complex topic you’re tackling and your fear is natural. Do everything you can to do it justice, but give yourself permission to be imperfect. You’re only human. I assume.

 I think the main thing to consider here is whether you’re portraying what happens with these characters as ‘normal’ or not. Because however you look at it this is an unusual outcome. I think you know that and I get the impression from the ask that you’re not trying to portray this as the ‘usual’ or ‘correct’ response. You’re just trying to tell a story that interests you using an unusual response. Nothing wrong with that.

 Implications and atmosphere can be hard to get right. They take practice. Having someone else read over the story can help confirm that scenes are coming across the way you intend them to.

 Once again I think having other examples of survivors will help you avoid any suggestions that survivors ‘should/naturally are’ kind to the people who ordered them to be tortured. Showing symptoms consistently should also help you avoid excusing the torture. Especially if that effects the relationship that’s building between these two characters.

 Take your time. Take breaks. Read your own writing critically and think about what you might be implying with each scene. Get second opinions to make sure it’s coming across as you’d like it to.

 I hope that helps. :)

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

*The fact that it can happen is occasionally used to encourage victims to stay in dangerous situations on the off chance they might be able to ‘fix’ their abuser. This is, of course, dangerous rubbish.

#writing advice #tw torture #tw abusive relationships #writing survivors #writing torturers #writing witnesses #writing recovery #people who order torture #torture apologia #torture survivors and relationships #torture is not safe #writing symptoms #effects of torture #behaviour of tortures #enemies to friends #not sure what to tag this

[smallersocksx]

Pokemon Journeys Episode 62 + 63 Review (that nobody asked for!)

These reviews I’ve been writing for Journeys have been so well-received I was honestly surprised! I think I’ll only write them for episodes that contribute to the storyline or character development rather than filler-esque episodes.

I know I’m late with episode 62 and a lot of people have already reviewed the episode. I had watched the raw on the Friday and I wanted to watch the sub to have a more informed opinion. However, my Grandmother’s dog was rushed to hospital and I was way too anxious to actually do anything other than worry. Thankfully, he was discharged and is doing a lot better!

Anyways, as usual I will keep my review below the cut, so if you want to read that’s great!

I don’t know how long this post will be given it's about two episodes but I’ll try to break it down into sections.

Build-up and the Beginning:

To be honest this was an episode that I had mixed feelings towards whilst waiting for it to air. As I have mentioned many times, one of the aspects I find frustrating about Journeys is the pacing and development, and once it was confirmed Sobble would be evolving into Drizzile after only one actual episode dedicated towards his development, I was honestly annoyed especially as Sobble was pushed to the side in favour of Grookey being the new “cute” starter.

The beginning of the episode wasn’t particularly great if I was honest, I didn’t understand the point of the television interview and then there was Sobble’s actual evolution scene. When the synopsis described Sobble’s evolution being triggered by him saving another Pokémon, I thought it was going to be something epic rather than him saving an Oddish from a falling berry. I think they could have handled Sobble’s actual evolution a lot better, they could have gone down the route of something similar to Professor Sycamore’s Garchomp when she evolved from Gible to Gabite and then to her current evolution, she was surrounded by the other laboratory Pokémon and Professor Sycamore and it was so wholesome. I think if Goh’s other Pokémon had at least witnessed the evolution it would have made the evolution sequence better, I mean Oddish didn’t even acknowledge that Sobble had saved it.

Drizzile:

For the majority of the episode, I felt so sad for Drizzile, I mean I was a little confused that he forgot about his middle evolution as Renji had it on the screen in Episode 54 (but never mind!). I just felt so sad for him after he saw his reflection and learnt he wasn’t an Inteleon yet. However, Goh’s other Pokémon didn’t help Drizzile feel any better, he was literally being tossed around left and right until he was caught by Big Bro Cinderace (that is my nickname for him) but sadly even Cinderace didn’t understand the extent of Drizzile’s feelings.

Throughout the series, we’ve had a lot of episodes surrounding a trainer and a Pokémon trying to understand one another’s feelings and they have honestly made some of the best episodes such as DP’s Stopped in the Name of Love, where Dawn’s Piplup was physically ready to evolve but emotionally he wasn’t and Dawn didn’t even realise the extent of Piplup’s feelings until Meowth translated for her. There’s even an episode in XY, where Serena didn’t understand Braixen’s attachment to her branch without James’ help. There’s probably even more but these are the two that I can think of at the top of my head. Even in these instances, Dawn and Serena didn’t realise the extent of their Pokémon’s feelings without the help of a third party (which was using Team Rocket a lot better than Journeys)

I went a bit off track, it's a lot easier for a Pokémon to understand their trainer’s feelings than a trainer to understand their Pokémon’s and that's because of a language barrier. Similar to animals in the real world, Pokémon have to use alternative means and signals to express their feelings and I think what made this episode more impactful was Goh not receiving that third party help (although Professor Cerise did give him a hint by notifying him about Pokemon experiencing personality changes when they evolve).

Whilst, I believe part of Drizzile’s depression stemmed from the fact he wasn’t an Inteleon yet, I think he was confused and emotionally drained due to these new innate traits he’s suddenly developed such as laziness. Whilst, the episode does acknowledge and try to address this issue for Drizzile, I don’t think it entirely hit the mark. Compared to the BW episode, A Village Homecoming, where a Zweilous under the care of Iris’ friend evolved into Hydreigon it went on a rampage because it was confused by the sudden change and scared until Iris calmed it down (which was some good development for her). Whilst, I respect the fact Goh gave Drizzile space and time to process his emotions, this ending is a little bit unsatisfactory to me, I’m sad Drizzile is just sat in a cave all alone, I was hoping by the end of the episode he would overcome his depression and accept his new form and traits. Plus, if the writers pull what they did with Farfetch’d and forget Drizzile exists, I’m going over there with a pitchfork!

Goh’s emotional development:

Now I won’t lie, lately, Goh has been getting on my nerves and I hate feeling that way especially given he’s meant to be a main character. However, one of the aspects that was annoying me was his rapid development particularly in the area of battle but this episode did an amazing job of representing Goh’s emotional development.

If this was Goh at the beginning of the series, there would have been no doubt he would have tried to drag Drizzile out of that cave instead he was taking his time and trying to coax Drizzile out until Cinderace decided to drag the poor boy out and it broke my heart seeing the single tear slide down Drizzile’s cheek more than it did every instance he cried as a Sobble.

What I love about this episode is Goh learning from his mistakes and recognising that Drizzile’s personality change was similar to when Scorbunny evolved to Raboot and then Raboot to Cinderace. Although they missed an opportunity with Ash, he could have brought up his experience with evolution and personality change with his Charizard. Anyway! As I mentioned in the Drizzile section it's harder for a Pokémon to articulate their feelings as humans do. However, even humans have difficulty expressing or even understanding their own feelings sometimes and Goh understood that.

That heart-to-heart, Goh had with Drizzile made me cry but it did such a great job reflecting Goh’s emotional development and that moment Drizzile wiped Goh’s tear as Goh had once done for him was so moving. As I previously mentioned, I like the message of giving someone space and time to process their feelings but as I previously mentioned that ending left me with some mixed feelings.

Conclusion:

Whilst, I would have preferred Sobble have more development before evolving and for the actual evolution to have been handled better. All in all, it was a good episode that honestly had me crying. The ending for me was a little unsatisfactory but I definitely think this has been one of the better Journeys episodes to have come out as of late.

Episode 63

It’s a miracle! They didn’t wait for 20 episodes to give Chloe and Eevee development and they went to a different region!

Prologue and Continuity:

At the beginning of the episode, the group are watching the Adult division of the Marine Athletics Race held in Hoenn. Eevee takes a particular interest as a Vaporeon is participating in the race and I really loved this link to her debut episode where she was copying all the Eeveelutions such as walking elegantly like Sylveon and attempting to swim like Vaporeon before nearly drowning (God love her!)

However, I love the fact similar to the Ponyta episode, Chloe takes the initiative and wants to meet Vaporeon and his trainer as it may be good to expose Eevee not only to her evolved forms but also learn from other trainers that have had an Eevee why they evolved them into certain forms (Ash this would have been a great opportunity to call May and Serena! Or even Virgil!)

Kairi and Vaporeon:

I honestly loved the dinner scene after the group tried the racecourse and it's a miracle Ash is actually using Dracovish! I loved the discussion Chloe had with Kairi asking why he chose to evolve his Eevee into a Vaporeon. And I liked the fact his answer was simple, his Eevee loved the sea, was a natural on a surfboard and evolving Eevee into a Vaporeon was a natural fit for the two of them.

I’ve only watched the episode raw, there’s a bit where I assume Goh asked Chloe what she would want her Eevee to evolve into. I think Chloe’s answer focused around the fact she wants Eevee to decide for herself rather than have her or someone else decide her path, a feeling Chloe probably relates to as her classmates all assumed she would want to be a Pokémon Professor like her father. Also, Eevee sleeping on top of Vaporeon was so wholesome, I’m sorry why are not talking about this!

The Ending:

After the incident caused by Goh’s Dewgong (honestly going from the episode preview I thought it was something to do with Team Rocket so Dewgong causing trouble was a nice change of pace and not doing Team Rocket dirty by using them as convenient plot devices!) Anyways, I loved the ending, as Kairi gave Chloe a Water Stone and I love the fact it doesn’t mean Chloe has to use the stone immediately but the stone is around and is there as an option. Chloe and Eevee can keep deepening their relationship which already increases Eevee’s evolution potential as three of her evolutions are triggered by the bond between trainer and Pokémon. Going down the line, I think Chloe meeting other trainers that have an Eevee or one of the Eeveelutions is a great way for her to develop and learn from other trainers.

All in all, this was a great Chloe and Eevee-focused episode (as mentioned in my overall Journeys critique I’m just sad Yamper is being pushed to the side when Chloe’s earlier development is attributed to her bond with him). Hopefully, in future episodes, Yamper can be more involved. Overall, the last two episodes of Journeys have been good. The trailer/preview they showed, Infernape’s BACK!!! Also, seeing more of Ash’s old Pokémon like Hawlucha and Noivern my favourite father-son duo!! Journeys finally delivering on what the fandom wanted! Also, I think I heard Kakihara’s voice in the trailer and if I’m right, I’ll be over the moon, he’s honestly one of my favourite voice actors >o<

All in all, Journeys might have some good content coming up, my only complaint being I don’t like how all the Gen 8 content is being shoe-horned into these mini arcs and we’re hardly seeing any Galar characters.

#pokemon journeys #pokemon #pokeani

[themattress]

Evil Team Plots in the Manga

The same as this post, but with the Pokemon Adventures manga.

Gen 1 - Team Rocket:

In the original Red/Blue/Green Chapter, Kusaka very impressively created a very different, more in-depth Team Rocket arc than the one in the games but still managed to retain all of the major setpieces. The first battle with Team Rocket being in Mt. Moon, Team Rocket creating trouble for Lavender Town and making a secret base at the top of Pokemon Tower, a criminal operation being run by Team Rocket beneath the Celadon Game Corner that they own (complete with the secret switch behind the poster), Team Rocket taking over Silph Co. and holding Saffron City hostage, and facing Giovanni in battle at the Viridian City Gym. And just like the anime, the manga was well ahead of the games in tying Mewtwo to Giovanni’s master plan. The chief differences are that the manga had distinct characters as sub-leaders in Team Rocket (Lt. Surge, Sabrina, Koga, and their personal assistants Ken, Al and Harry) rather than there only being generic grunts and, like in the anime, Giovanni sought to conquer the world with an army of powerful Pokemon rather than by a corporate takeover / monopoly.

Gen 2 - Team Rocket:

Once again, all of the major setpieces are kept: Team Rocket cutting off Slowpoke tails at Slowpoke Well in Azalea Town, a special broadcast forcibly evolving Magikarp in the Lake of Rage into Red Gyarados, a secret base of operations in the basement of the Mahogany City gift store, and the climax involving Team Rocket invading Goldenrod City and taking over a broadcast room. But because this plot was even more bare-bones than the previous one in the games, Kusaka creates an even more different and in-depth one where the two Rocket Executives in charge are actually disciples of the mysterious Mask of Ice and all of the grunts are being forcibly brainwashed to do his bidding and work toward his horrifying objective.

Gen 3  - Team Aqua & Team Magma:

Much of the Aqua/Magma plot in the manga was both very similar and very different from the games. There’s an initial confrontation with Team Aqua in Petalburg Woods, but it’s against the Admins rather than random grunts. Team Magma attacks Slateport City, but it’s at the Shipyard rather than the Oceanic Museum and once again it’s the Admins rather than the grunts. Team Aqua initiates the Mt. Chimney event, but only Tabitha teams up with the heroes to stop them rather than the entirety of Team Magma. The face-off in Rusturf Tunnel happens way later than it does in the game and it’s against Courtney of Team Magma rather than a grunt. Blaise of Team Magma takes both Orbs from Mt. Pyre rather than Archie and/or Maxie taking one or the other. The attack on the Space Center is largely off-screen and done by just Courtney for her own personal reasons rather than by Maxie, Tabitha and a bunch of grunts for Team Magma purposes. Archie and Maxie both end up in possession of the Orbs at the Seafloor Cavern, but they get the correct Orbs here (Red for Maxie, Blue for Archie). Finally, Groudon and Kyogre end up clashing and Rayquaza is called upon to stop them, but unlike in the games Norman is required to control Rayquaza in a special way that ends up killing him.

Gen 4 - Team Galactic:

Like Team Aqua & Team Magma, Team Galactic’s arc from the games is adapted but there are notable differences. It’s just Mars at the Valley Windworks in the manga; neither a group of grunts nor Charon are present alongside her. Rather than holding Rick Radshaw in the Eterna Galactic Building as a distraction while other grunts investigate the town’s statues, he is held there to be interrogated for information on the statues, and Jupiter is not present. Cyrus making a creepy spiritual pilgrimage to Mt. Coronet is maintained, but here he tries to kill the protagonists for “desecrating” the site. Team Galactic taking the heroine’s Pokedex in Veilstone City is a more major event that introduces the Elite Grunt. Cyrus visits the cave painting at Celestic Town and fights the heroes, but he makes no attempt to destroy the painting. The Galactic Bomb blows up Lake Valor so that the Lake Trio can be captured, but here there is one hero fighting one Galactic Commander at each of the lakes. Cyrus’ speech to his followers at Galactic HQ, the extraction of the Red Chain from the Lake Trio, and the ritual to summon and control Dialga and Palkia at the Spear Pillar are all directly adapted, but rather than any of the heroes facing Cyrus at Galactic HQ it’s Cynthia who does so. Giratina pulling Cyrus into the Distortion World happens after he’s already defeated and unconscious. Charon attempts to take control of Heatran at Stark Mountain, but unlike in the game he is successful at this and has bigger plans for it than just using it for extortion. Finally, there is a battle with Giratina in the Distortion World, but it is moved to being the final battle of the whole saga rather than an earlier confrontation before Charon took control of Team Galactic.

Gen 5 - Team Plasma:

For the first third of the Black/White Chapter, events from the Team Plasma plot of the games are lifted almost verbatim: N undergoes the crowning ceremony, Ghetsis makes a public Pokemon Liberation speech in Accumula Town which is followed by the hero facing N in battle, Plasma grunts abuse a Munna at the Dreamyard, Sage Gorm and several grunts steal the dragon fossil from Nacrene Museum and the heroes team up with Burgh to go into Pinwheel Forest to retrieve it, Bianca’s Pokemon is stolen in Castelia City and the heroes have to find where the Plasma operatives who took it are hiding, Team Plasma tries to capture Victini on Liberty Island, and N reveals his true status and objectives while riding a Ferris Wheel with a protagonist in Nimbasa City. And for every improvement made (Ghetsis’ presentation, the grunts’ demeanor and lack of Ghetsis illusion at the Dreamyard, and more distinctive character vibes from the other Sages) there are some major steps down (N’s presentation, the lack of Ghetsis in the Castelia City event, and the more out-there designs for some of the grunts that neuter any credibility that they should have as opponents). 

Afterwards, the adaptations made are a lot more different. Sage Zinzolin is still encountered by the hero and Cheren at Cold Storage but here he escapes and begins to draw Cheren toward the dark side. N summons Zekrom from the Dark Stone at Dragonspiral Tower, but he does so without the hero being there as the result of an entirely new big event that transpired at Nacrene Museum. The Relic Castle operations Team Plasma initiated in the games (Sage Ryoku and his forces testing the hero and a grunt trying to claim Volcarona) are combined: with Ryoku and his forces now searching for Volcarona. Both the confrontation with N at Chargestone Cave and N defeating Alder are combined into the same event, which happens much later than when the Chargestone Cave one did in the games but much earlier than when him defeating Alder did (also, it’s outside the cave rather than inside and Fennel is the one who accompanies Professor Juniper rather than Bianca). And then there’s the climax.

The climax is essentially the games’ one on steroids. Ghetsis is present with the other Sages and the Gym Leaders don’t get to fight them until after they are rescued from captivity (and crucifixion!) by a band of ordinary trainers. While one of the heroes uses Reshiram to fight N and Zekrom, the other hero receives details about N’s past by Anthea and Concordia while inside his room in the castle. Ghetsis comes in after N is defeated, reveals his true agenda and attempts to eliminate the hero in battle. And after fully realizing the error of his ways, N bids a solemn farewell to the hero; flying off into the sunset on Zekrom to parts unknown. Oh, and then Ghetsis suddenly seals the hero into the Light Stone out of spite. Fuck Ghetsis.

The Black 2/White 2 Chapter is much less faithful to the games, being a more straightforward continuation from its predecessor and being a hodgepodge of B2/W2 elements and the B/W postgame scenario of Looker hunting down the Sages, but that works to its advantage and causes it to easily surpass the games’ plot. The plot elements maintained are Colress as the new leader of Team Plasma who has developed a device that mind-controls Pokemon, a confrontation with Team Plasma in the Castelia Sewers (although in the games it was some grunts and Colress, here it’s some grunts and Sages Bronius and Ryoku while Colress is facing Zinzolin at Cold Storage), Hugh’s rabid hatred for Team Plasma and the backstory behind it, Ex-Plasma led by Sage Rood standing against the new Team Plasma over their differing ideals, the Plasma Frigate being launched skyward and using the Kyurem Cannon to freeze a city (actually, multiple cities in the manga!), Professor Juniper being behind the movement against Team Plasma’s schemes via agents like Cheren, Drayden, and her father Cedric, the climax transpiring at the Giant Chasm, Black Kyurem and White Kyurem being involved thanks to the power of the DNA Splicers, and Ghetsis losing his composure in a hate-filled rage after N, his “inhuman” son, reaches out to him and offers him compassion.  

Gen 6 - Team Flare:

As in the games, Team Flare secures hold over the stone-filled Route 10 and uses those stones to absorb life energy from Pokemon, but in the manga this event is shown fully on-screen and the Pokemon in question are kidnapped ones from Pokemon Village. The event at the PokeBall Factory, conversely, is on-screen in the games but off-screen in the manga. Lysandre makes his broadcast to Kalos telling everyone that those not “chosen” will perish once the Ultimate Weapon fires, although in the manga it happens toward the very end of the climax rather than kicking it off. AZ is held captive at Flare HQ and implores the heroes to retrieve the key to the Ultimate Weapon, Xerneas is used to power the Ultimate Weapon, Lysandre wears special gear to absorb energy from Xerneas and while fighting the heroes, the Ultimate Weapon fires but fails to achieve its actual purpose, and AZ narrates his own backstory. Essentia controlled by Xerosic is involved in the storyline, whereas in the games she was only in the postgame episode. Other than all of this, the Team Flare arc in the manga is wildly different from the one in the games, being much darker and grittier with a heightened sense of stakes. So much like with the anime, not being too faithful paid off here.

As for the Team Skull / Aether Foundation arc from Gen 7, I’m not getting into that because it is almost entirely dissimilar from the games’ version. Even some basic surface elements here and there (Gladion as Team Skull’s enforcer, facing Guzma at Po Town, rescuing a girl trapped at Aether Paradise, “Mother Beast” Lusamine, and everything centered around Necrozma from US/UM) are so widly different in context and execution that they hardly count.

Overall, this manga is excellent at villain arcs. While the latter stages of the Aqua & Magma arc and early stages of the initial Plasma arc have notable problems, and the Skull / Aether arc isn’t as satisfying as either the S/M or US/UM versions it derives from, on the whole Kusaka’s skill at writing great Pokemon villains extends to the arcs that they are a part of. 

#Pokemon #Pokemon Adventures #Villains #Evil #Analysis #Comparison #Team Rocket #Team Aqua #Team Magma #Team Galactic #Team Plasma #Team Flare #Team Skull

[xfanfics]

Destiel Fic Rec List Part 2

Last Updated in October 2014. Posted in May 2020 for posterity.  Listed in no particular order - the total rec list will have ~250 fics. Header graphic used with permission.

This part of the list contains: 35 fics.

Other Destiel Rec Lists: [1]. [2]. [3]. [4]. [5]. [6]. [7].

—–

Kiss and Make it Better by annehiggins E | 9k

Both the forces of Heaven and Hell are after Dean and Castiel, but sometimes a kiss really does make it all better.

Sweet little loving and bonding fic.    

Retreat into Silence by annehiggins E | 16k | Fluff,  Angst,  Alt!Canon

Written for this prompt by deceptivechasm on the no longer exists LJ simon_says_dean: “Something very traumatic happens to Dean while he's with Sam (or Sam was away) which causes him to stop talking, *again*. Sam didn't know about the first time, and has to ask Bobby (or John) about what happened after his mum died.”

Sweet, adorable, and really schmoopy with added angst.    

I Know What You Like by JinxedAmbitions E | 4k | Pornstar AU, Bottom!Cas

Castiel agrees to help Gabriel out by being a production assistant at his porn company. However, when porn star Dean Winchester comes onto him on set, who is Cas to say no, especially when Dean seems to know all the things that turn Cas on most?

Hnnnghgggg.    

Consort by Valyria E | 139k [WIP] | Angst,  Medieval AU, bottom!dean

When King John of the West Saxons forms an alliance with a neighboring Christian kingdom, his eldest son Dean ends up playing a role he never expected.

Valyria's fabulous (currently WIP) Medieval AU is a must-read. Definitely a slow burn fic--includes very bad/painful sex, but with a great payoff.

What Was Lost Still Leaves Its Mark by shieldmaiden_of_celestial_intent E | 4k | Hot, Alt!Canon, Sub!Cas, Demon!Dean, Dom!Dean, Praise Kink

Demon Dean captures Castiel and tries to force him to play out a few of his fantasies. Cas soon finds himself willing because Dean still retains some of the good qualities of his human life. It starts out with dubious consent but consent is given later. There is a confrontation where Dean makes Cas strip. If you love Dean's panty kink this figures prominently. This is from Cas' POV and gets romantic and hopeful toward the end. This is canon compliant up to the season 9 finale. Castiel is powered down and has human drives like sex and sleep. Dean dominates him but does not hurt him.

I'm not usually a huge fan of subby!cas because it usually feels ooc to me, but this is. I'm. This is just... Yes. Really hot. Warning for dubious consent at the beginning.    

Words with Friends by betty days E | 22k | Human AU, Sub!Dean, Dom!Cas, BDSM |

"Dean Winchester is as straight as an arrow. He’s a lady’s man of epic proportions: the king of the one night stand, the messiah of the friends with benefits paradigm, the emperor of perpetual bachelorhood. Except, apparently, when it comes to his best friend, Castiel Novak. Wherein a longstanding acquaintanceship leads to friendship, then best friendship, then sexting, then dirty talk, then mutual masturbation, then, inevitably, fucking.

Smoking hot and full of feels.  

Little Motels by Lovely_Phrase E | 238k | Human AU

After John's death, Dean must travel to California to find his estranged brother and deliver the bad news. He takes Castiel with him, despite the newness of their relationship, and finds himself falling in love while staying in a series of little motels. What he discovers after arriving at Stanford is enough to destroy what's left of him, but Dean isn't willing to give up what they have together that easily.

Wow. This was RIDICULOUSLY long and I can't really believe I finished it. Regardless of the intimidating length (heh), it was a captivating story. Though it edged near soap opera levels of drama at times, the plot was sure, the characters grew and developed, and the writing was excellent. Very good read--highly recommended. Perhaps not for the sensitive (in regards to Drugs or abuse). Also not for john!stans.  

Dragon Healing for Pleasure and Profit by whelvenwings G | 6K | Fluff, Wizarding World AU, wizard!dean

When Cas, a zoologist and aspiring author, moves into the house next door, Dean can't help but go over and say hi. He hadn't reckoned, however, on Cas' determination to discover whatever it is that's living in the nearby woods. Dean should follow his instructions and send the guy away, and yet there's always something stopping him. After all, whoever said a muggle couldn't heal a dragon?

OMG AMAZING!! Wizarding World AUs are the best, and this muggle/magical person romance is super sweet.  

A Fine Frenzy by the_gabih E | 8k | A/b/O AU, omega!dean, alpha!cas

The rest of Dean's family have these romantic, almost fairytale stories of how they first met their mates. Dean? Not so much. But he's okay with that.

Super hot. Apparently an abandoned WIP, but it's mostly porn so that doesn't really matter.    

The Vessel by chellefic E | 7k | Alt!canon, body sharing

When his vessel goes missing, Castiel turns to Dean for help.

I love this fic! Vessel fics/sharing bodies is always a fun and sometimes sexy trope. This definitely delivers on both of those fronts.    

There's Only One Sure Thing That I Know ❤ by leah k E | 20k | Fluff,  Alt!Canon

Dean doesn't even get halfway through explaining before Bobby starts laughing. When he lets himself think about it for more than five seconds, Dean can almost see Bobby's point: he's faced down demons, witches, vampires, werewolves, ghosts, angels, and Satan himself and now he's been defeated by the God damn Midwest.

This fic was AMAZING. I want to wrap it up in a blanket and cuddle it. Maybe hump it or something. Idk, I'm flexible.    

Unusual by Yosei E | 12k | ABO AU, omega!dean

Now that Sam was in college half-way across the country, Dean needed a roommate in order to keep the spacious apartment (with his own room!) that he'd come to love and call home. With Sam's non-stop worrying, he finally convinces Dean to meet a possible roommate. Who knew that it would be the beautiful dark-winged archangel with a PhD., Castiel Novak?

Come a Little Undone by  FagurFiskur E | 3k | Fluff, Teacher AU, Bottom!Dean, Top!cas

"Well?" Cas prompted, turning his face to the side to look up at Dean. "Are you going to get started?    Something about the annoyed tone in Cas' voice, as if he were the one doing Dean a favor and not the other way around, pissed Dean off enough so that his better judgment took the backseat for just a moment. Unfortunately, that moment was long enough so that by the time it ended, Dean was already straddling Cas' thighs. Written for this prompt: Cas and Dean are teachers. It's the end of the year. Cas is stressed out with grading. How does Dean help?

Short, sweet, and hot. Pining!dean and massages yay.    

Sex 101 by betty days E | 50k | Hot, Dancer AU, Alt!Canon, Slow Burn

or: That Time Castiel Asked Dean to Teach Him How to Have Sex. "I want to have sex," Castiel announces suddenly. Dean chokes on his gulp of Baha Blast. Wherein Dean teaches Cas how to have sex, and Cas teaches Dean why to have sex. This fic is filled with music, literature, fluff, angst, smut, feels, and glitter. Lots and lots of glitter.

This AU will just suck you in. God, I love dancer!dean. It started out with some super hot vouyerism, and progressed to self discovery and more super hot things. Yay.    

Dean Winchester Is a Gay Virgin by betty days E | 79k | Hot,  Angst,  College AU, Mafia AU, Gay Panic

"Dean Winchester has a grand total of two big secrets: Secret #1 is that he’s a virgin. Secret #2 is that he’s gay. Dean Winchester is a college junior, a full-time mechanic, and a baseball superstar. He's so far in the closet, he can't find a way out. Then he meets Castiel Krushnic, the totally dreamy President of the LGBTQA Alliance at school, and finds out that Cas has some dark secrets of his own.

Wow. This is not what I thought I'd be getting into by the title. I was expecting a nice college AU and then there was unexpectedly the mafia, gritty angst, and family feels. What a ride. If this were a book, I would buy the fuck out of it.

Learning to Breathe by underneathitall E | 114k | Fluff,  Angst,  Hospital AU

Dean Winchester was just admitted to the Psychiatric Ward for minors at Lawrence Hospital after a car accident that killed his father but left him alive. When he finds out his roommate is a kid he used to go to school with, Castiel Novak, they start to make a hesitant friendship. At first, Dean's only focus is to get out as fast as he can without any attachments. Soon after that, he discovers that making friendships with other patients in the hospital and developing feelings for Cas might be what he really needed to get through this all along.

ahhsgahahhHhhh I loved this so much! It manages to be weirdly fluffy and feel-good even though it deals with majorly angsty stuff (mental ward, hello).    

Just Kisses by tiptoe39 E | 2k | Hot, PWP

Castiel's not ready for anything beyond kisses. So Dean just kisses him. Everywhere.

Hot and sweet.    

Tales from the Bunker of Domesticity by teaandjumpers M | 17k | Fluff,  Alt!Canon

Moments of domesticity between Dean and Cas (and occasionally Sam) in the Men of Letters bunker. Essentially, this is a story about the boys building a home together.

NnoOoOooOoOooo this was so domestic and lovely!    

The One With Dean's Anal Beads by triedunture E | 1k | | Hot,  PWP, bottom!dean

Complete PWP: anal beads, multiple, dry/painful orgasms, & dirty talk.

Nnnghhhh    

Landing by ladyzanra T | 3k Angst,  Canon!verse

“You think in terms of days, Castiel, but there are no days in Heaven,” Hannah tells him, before he leaves. This, Castiel understands, is the reason she does not stop him.

Fuck everything I'm in PAIN.  

Simple As That by ashwinchester4 M | 2k | Canon!verse, First Kiss, First Time

Dean Winchester is not very good at doing things in the proper order. That includes his relationship with Castiel. After Cas becomes human, things begin to change slowly, simply, easily. Until everything is different.

Gorgeous. Simple as that.  

Let Your Grace Guide You by angel_kink E | 24k | Alt!canon, wing!Kink,

After Castiel heals Dean at Stull, the hunter finds himself with unexpected abilities. He becomes determined to use his newfound powers, with Castiel’s guidance, to rescue Sam from the cage. In order to ensure that their venture to Hell is successful, they are forced to team up with Crowley, who has his own agenda regarding what’s locked up in the pits of Hell. During the course of their alliance, secrets come out, feelings bubble to the surface, and Dean finds himself once again facing an impossibly dangerous situation in an effort to save his brother.    

Napoleon in Rags by linzeestyle E | 42k | Alt!canon, fallen!castiel

“So,” Dean says eventually, breath ruffling Castiel’s hair. “You gonna tell us about this place? “I don’t have to,” Castiel says, pushing himself up on his elbows. “If I’m right, it’s nearby. Near something called Tucson.” Dean looks at him incredulously and Castiel scowls. “I was hiding an invaluable relic, not purchasing real estate. There's no such thing as a hunter retirement plan.

Amazing!! Canon compliant from 8x17 and diverges from there :D    

Kryptonite in Shades of Blue and Green by Annehiggins E | 12k | Superhero AU

Dean is the only member of the Winchester family without super-powers and has lived with the threat of being used against him all his life. When Dark Angel finally makes threat reality, Dean ends up trapping them together for two months. A lot can happen in two months. Written for this prompt on the spnkink_meme. Technically Dubcon.    

Chasing Cars ❤ by ratherbehere E | 45k | Fluff,  College AU, Stripper!dean, demisexuality, Slow Burn

After an awkward accidental encounter at a local strip club, Castiel discovers his college roommate, Dean, has a secret career as a stripper, and their relationship begins to change and a bond begins to form. They face the joys and challenges of life together and discover along the way how deeply they've come to care for each other.

THIS WAS AMAZING! So much UST, Demisexual Cas, which is my favorite, and a long, slow burn romance where they are best friends primarily. Love it.    

A Weekend Project by narrativeimperative E | 16k | Lawyer AU, a/b/o, Omega!cas, alpha!dean,

Castiel Novak is a lawyer for an important firm. He’s also, to his chagrin, an omega. With the help of heat suppressants and some serious denial, it’s not a problem ... until he meets Dean Winchester. And then it’s very definitely a problem.

Literally the best.    

Viva by crowleyo E | 38k | AU, Stripper!Dean, doctor!cas, accidental marriagE |

Dr. Castiel Novak swears he will never let his sister talk him into a surprise trip again. Now he has just woken up in Las Vegas with a hangover, an unknown ring on his finger and a beautiful man next to him. It gets even better, though, when Castiel's last memory from the night before is seeing this man up on a stage in a skimpy cowboy outfit. Now, Castiel has to learn to live a cliche.  

Hush by Braceyourself & dresden E | 105k | College AU

He'd heard all he needed to know about Dr. Novak, really. Straight-laced academic, prioritizes punctuality, favours the smartest students; it doesn't bode well for Dean.

Wow, so great! Dommy!Cas, teacher/student AU. There is rape in it, but not between Cas and Dean.    

The Seraph by Hywar E | 135k | Creature AU, Dub!con, Dom!cas, Sub!dean

Ever since the seraph were discovered, there's been one rule society has had to adapt to: stay out of open water. Powerful, determined and aggressive, the octopus-human creatures are in a league of their own and have no qualms with taking what they want and attacking what they don't. Now, children learn to swim in man-made lakes and beaches are deserted save for researches and the fool-hearted. Dean Winchester is neither of those things. But a hunt has brought him and Sam, his brother, to one of the many abandoned beaches, where Dean is left with no choice but to take refuge in the water. He should be safe, he thinks, he doesn't go too deep - just deep enough to hide himself and to deter his pursuer. He forgot just how fast the damn things could be, and how determined they were once they had their eyes on something.

AMAZING. Love love love! Dominant!Cas who just wants to take care of his willful, human mate. Also tentacle sex. Be warned for dubious consent (because Cas is very convinced he's doing what Dean wants/needs but Dean is not so sure).    

Contact by clotpoleofthelord E | 16k | Alien AU, Tentacles

When aliens land on Earth the first time, Dean ignores it. When they land a second time, he's a little curious. When the third landing happens in his back yard, his life gets very complicated, very fast.

Taking Wing by riseofthefallenone E | 44k

Dean frowns around the cave, his head spinning as he tries to make sense of what he’s seeing with his eyes and his echoes. The smell doesn’t hit him until he’s already staggered to his feet, claws clicking on the stone floor. It’s the scent of another bat; different than any kind he’s smelled before. It’s not exactly unpleasant, but it does strike home a realization that turns his stomach inside out. This place belongs to another bat and Dean has pretty much just basically invaded their home.

This is adorable. I didnt know I could get so attached to two gay anthropomorphic bat people.   

Rain by The MigratoryLane E | 2k | | Hot,  Canon!verse, PWP

The fact that Dean Winchester was a strikingly handsome man had not eluded him. But the low burn of arousal that now flowed through his veins was entirely foreign not a month ago. Where as an angel the mere sight of Dean’s neck elicited no greater response, now Castiel found that he wanted nothing more than to trace his lips across the stubbled flesh beneath his jaw—to lick and kiss and suck at it until Dean moaned with the sensation.

CASTURBATION!!    

Cheers, Angel Eyes by wannaliveindeansdimples E | 20k | AU, bartender Dean, Cop Castiel

Dean Winchester is a bartender. He's noticed a new semi-regular and even given him a nickname. Pretty soon he and "Angel Eyes" become friends. Dean wants more, but is secretive, awkward Castiel ready to give it?

As the author's tags say, no matter the universe or circumstance they always find each other and act all schmoopy.    

A Little Slice of heaven by authocracy E | 5k | AU, bottom!cas, wing!Kink

Welcome to A Little Slice of Heaven, where angels stationed on Earth can come, relax, and enjoy themselves. Dance your cares away at our nightclub, or treat yourself to our world-class spa treatments with staff specially trained in the art of wing maintenance. Let our experts turn your stress into pure pleasure. The War is over, and Castiel finds himself bored and lonely in Heaven. He runs into Gabriel, who remembers him from the battlefield and offers to give him a tour of the best places on Earth. The archangel introduces him to his friend Dean, a masseur with magic hands. Castiel, a little self-conscious and shy, doesn't know what Dean means by "extra services" but is eager to spend extra time with him regardless.

Long Time Coming by authocracy E | 13k | Hot, genderswap au

For the prompt: Okay, so in my head, girl!Dean likes her anonymous hookups, likes her slutty biker look and her oversized flannel shirts and skinny jeans. Granted, she's getting a little old for the club scene, but she's always been more of a bar girl. And maybe Sam kind of despairs of her because he's all "RESPECT YOUR BODY AND YOUR MIND DEAN(NA?)" but Dean's never really bought any of that - she likes feeling close to people, and it's hard to with her lifestyle. Plus, there's something powerful about being hot enough to attract as many guys as she does. Thing is, she's not that easy to get off. It takes her time and effort when she's on her own, let alone when there's some guy expecting things of her. And let's be real, a lot of guys in the kind of places she goes to don't really know how to get a girl off. Maybe she's never even come during sex with a guy. Enter Cas.

I love my genderswap fics, and this one is um... really hot.    

#destiel #deancas #spn #spn fic rec #destiel fic rec #* #list

[sol1056]

multipart ask on Keith

I would honestly love your thoughts on Keith’s character development, specifically him leaving for the Blades in S4. Personally I’ve always been on a fence with how they wrote Keith’s character after that. For one, he started as a lone wolf and I always thought they would subvert that along the way with more character interactions and team building episodes like in S1, but apparently S4 throws all of that away. I thought him forcibly being the leader of voltron would be a great opportunity for development but Shiro takes his place in the black lion and Keith just leaves. 

It really didn't help with all the signs pointing as him as the true leader of voltron when he barely even interacted with the team personally (except for shiro) after that point. To top it all off his “maturation” was a two year time skip montage with his mom and he suddenly became level headed and ready to fly Black. So when he finally returns and become the leader of voltron it felt a bit underwhelming and hollow. To be honest I also find his interaction with the team afterwards kinda out of character [...] 

I just wanted to hear from a writers perspective if Keith leaving was a good idea for his character in general. He had some really good scenes in his time with the Blades but i personally think in exchange it took way too much [away from] his development with the others. I also wonder if it's even possible [to execute well] leaving for the Blades and then becoming the leader of Voltron. 

Here’s a general rule: avoid leaving any of your protagonists at a bus stop. 

A few chapters is already pushing it; the equivalent of 1.5 seasons is out of the question for all but the most superlative of writers. I’ve met superlative, and believe me, no one on the VLD staff qualifies. If they did, they wouldn’t have been writing for VLD in the first place. 

The start of S4 will forever baffle me. Had S3/S4 been broadcast as a complete season, I might’ve assumed there was a technical error, and would’ve tweeted at Netflix and not returned to watch until I got word this really was the midpoint episode. No warning, no foreshadowing, not even a peep out of Keith, and suddenly he’s working with the Blades. 

In an ensemble cast, the point is that it’s an ensemble; you don’t forget one of your core cast at the bus stop while the story-bus trundles on. If Keith were meant as a protagonist, then sidelining him for 1.5 seasons is an even worse crime. If the intent of the story, thematically, is 'stronger together’, shoving one of them out of the picture is pretty much the antithesis. 

This is not to say you can’t do it; in hindsight, I think the clone should’ve been shelved and the real Shiro returned at the end of S3/S4. But that comes with the assumption that a) the team would struggle a great deal more in his absence, b) prompting development that would create a new dynamic once Shiro returned, and c) that Shiro himself would change in some degree, from/during his absence: one that, by definition, that would need to be complete.

In other words, if you’re going to remove a protagonist, two things must happen. One, they must be removed, which Keith wasn’t. The story checks in on him irregularly, and each time, he's treading water while the story moves on. Two, the absence must become a driver: in a sense, the absence is a presence of what’s missing, and regaining the character must be paramount. 

VLD put minor effort into recognizing the impact of Shiro’s absence, limited mostly to the torture-porn of watching Keith isolated in (and by) grief. It couldn’t even be bothered to do that much, when it was Keith’s turn to fall off the team. No one missed him, no one needed him. The result was a clear message there was nothing Keith brought to the team that couldn’t be done by someone else. There was no presence in his absence. 

Consider the few scenes in S4-S6 with anything of Keith. His storyline did nothing to push the main story forward. In S4, the Blades are focused on tracking a new quintessence, a subplot that discovers nothing, provides no twists, and goes nowhere. In S5, despite Keith being with the Blades, the two groups have dropped communication to such degree that neither is aware of the other’s participation in the Kral Zera. 

If you’re determined to leave a protagonist in another castle, for heaven’s sake, use that distance to allow them to continue to impact the main storyline. Make their absence into a working presence that can link the two groups; the complete radio silence just underlines how meaningless the story considers Keith, in the overall plot. 

In that light, Kolivan’s left-field decision for Keith to extract Krolia feels like VLD was grasping at straws, trying to find something to occupy Keith. Worse, that mission contradicts S4: the quintessence is no longer blue, no longer notable for its energy levels, and no longer transported to secret bases in massive quantities by major warships. It’s back to the usual maroon, carried on small cargo ships in limited quantities, and now a dangerous substance with questionable side-effects. 

In a nutshell, VLD left Keith mired in pointless actions with no bearing on the rest of the characters (hello, suicide attempt never mentioned again). Late S5, VLD realized it needed to get a move on, if Keith was to get an upgrade. So it took the easy way out: an overload of exposition flashbacks that neatly evaded any emotional beats between Keith and Krolia. VLD had no idea how to get Keith from point A to around point K, so it settled for just telling us Keith had grown up. On a space whale.

Had we been given a better reason (or any reason) for Keith joining the Blades, had we been given a hefty sub-plot for Keith that led him back to the team in an organic fashion (or at least dovetailed with the main throughline), had the story used those seasons to show us Keith learning with the Blades in a way he couldn’t or wouldn’t with the team... well, for one thing, it’d still contradict the ‘found family’ and ‘stronger together’ themes, since it’d be even more clear that Keith was stronger elsewhere. 

But setting that aside, at the very least, Keith wouldn’t have returned feeling he’d gotten a personality transplant. We would’ve seen his progression, such that any given point along the way would’ve been recognizably Keith, even if the starting and ending points were almost a one-eighty. It’s called character development; most stories do it as a matter of course. 

I’m left concluding that the creators genuinely don’t grasp that characters will change per their experiences. It’s a crucial element in storytelling, because characters are the core of any story. If you can’t figure out what would make a character choose A this time and B next time, you’re failing on one of the most fundamental aspects of characterization. In fact, you’re missing the entire point of a story: character choices are the plot.

I do have to take exception to ‘signs pointing to [Keith] as the true leader.’ I’ve posted before about the mentor trope, and how Shiro’s S1/S2 arc contradicts Keith as Black Paladin. I suggest you read those before coming at me with the assumption VLD did any of the work required to establish Keith's leadership as inevitable. 

It’s possible to have someone strike out on their own, learn valuable lessons, and return grown-up and able to handle the situation they’d originally fled. It’d be a very different story, though, one that isn’t focused on a titular robot, but on a single protagonist’s journey. It’d also be a story that has nothing to do with ‘stronger together,’ as the movement away (to learn) and back (to reclaim) means the protagonist only became stronger when they weren’t with the rest. 

Keith taking command of Black in S6 should feel like a victory in terms of his arc: where once he’d recoiled, now he steps forward. But since we never saw how or why his perspective changed about leadership, all it would’ve taken is a subtle shift in Yeun’s delivery and we could be talking instead about how Keith returned and was still in his ‘you want me to lead, this is how I lead’ pique. 

Shiro’s return creates another turning point where the question would be logically raised, and it’s almost as though (once again) there’s an episode or two we didn’t get. It’d be reasonable for someone to raise the question of whether the team now swaps again. Yet no one does, and we’re supposed to expect Keith --- who waved the little ‘Shiro is Black’ banner far more and for far longer than any other character --- is now content to command Black, with no need to even broach the topic. 

That’s a radically different perspective Keith shows in S7 onward, and it’s a problem created by the lack of development for Keith, in S4-S6. In the course of a single episode, we literally went from Keith being his slightly out-of-his-emotional-depth awkward self, to someone clear-eyed and commanding almost to the point of arrogance. It’s not helped when his original characterization returns for the duration of his fight with Shiro --- only to blip out again as soon as Keith returns to the team. 

And forcing that abrupt shift on Keith’s part meant the rest of the story (and the characters) got shoved around into their respective places and out of shape, as well. Stories are made of characters, and characters are dominos. You knock one over, and it has a cascade effect. Changing Keith from the character we knew to someone else wearing his face could not happen in isolation, and every character around him suffered as well. 

Like Shiro and Lance, Keith had major potential to be a groundbreaking character. He was introduced as the kind of independent, socially awkward, spitfire character usually pushed to the forefront in American media, yet S1/S2 gave him a solid place as Shiro’s greatest supporter. Keith had all the makings of a hero we rarely see: someone who truly believes the title of leader is beside the point, that the team is what matters.

I’m used to Gundam, which almost always strives for a resting place of five (or four) protagonists standing shoulder-to-shoulder. There might be one among their ranks who gets the central position, but the narrative is firmly consistent that should the team lose any one person, it would fall apart. There’s no need to ever tell us the team is ‘stronger together,’ we can see that lesson play out, over and over, whenever the team is divided, split up, or loses someone. 

AtLA followed a similar pattern; by the end, it’s obvious the strengths each person brings to the final battle. There’s no question that every single one is crucial for victory; there’s no point where someone leaves and there’s not immediate and significant impact on the remaining characters’ successes. Sure, Sokka may not be able to bend like the rest of them, but without his brains, they’d be sunk. Katara, Toph, and Zuko might not be able to bend every element, but if any one of them isn’t there, the team is going down. Aang may command the central position, but he can’t do it all on his own. 

While AtLA shone in having characters who visually broke the mold of our usual white-dominated, male-dominated American cartoons, it also broke away from the lead hero + band of intrepid (but far less capable) sidekicks. Like Gundam, it presented a group of characters who grew into a true team. The pictures might show Aang in the middle, but every one else contributes an equal amount, in their own way.

VLD had the makings in its first two seasons to go that route. But its EPs wanted dark and edgy, a perspective too cynical to embrace the optimism inherent in a team-based story. Sure, their deconstruction of VLD’s S1/S2 trope-subversions brought the story to a point where Keith was declared the definitive top guy, the true Black Paladin, head of the paladins. 

Thing is, pushing Keith into that position required altering his personality beyond all recognition, destroying the team dynamic, and gutting any chance of recognizing the other characters as equally integral to team success. In effect, making Keith the de facto leader required destroying the team: and what’s the point of leadership, then?

#vld #voltron #characterization #character arcs #analysis #sol thinks about stuff

[maddie-grove]

Bi-Monthly Reading Round-Up: May/June

PLAYLIST

“How Do You Do” by Mouth and MacNeal (Once Ghosted, Twice Shy)

“Up the Wolves” by the Mountain Goats (Don’t You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey)

“The Daughters” by Little Big Town (Lady Rogue)

“9 to 5″ by Dolly Parton (Lady Notorious)

“Let the Little Girl Dance” by Billy Bland (What a Wallflower Wants)

“Poison Arrow” by ABC (Give Me Your Hand)

“Marie-Jeanne” by Joe Dassin (Never Mind)

“Mississippi” by the Dixie Chicks (An Unconditional Freedom)

“Semi-Charmed Life” by Third Eye Blind (Bad News)

“Honky Cat” by Elton John (Simple Jess)

“A Weekend in the Country” from A Little Night Music (Some Hope)

“Picture Book” by the Kinks (Mother’s Milk)

“A Place in the Sun” by Stevie Wonder (At Last)

“She’s in Love with the Boy” by Trisha Yearwood (A Dance with Danger)

“Little Hollywood Girl” by the Everly Brothers (Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes's Hollywood)

BEST OF THE BI-MONTH

An Unconditional Freedom by Alyssa Cole (2019): Daniel Cumberland, a free black man from New England, had his faith in justice and certainty in the world shattered when he was abducted and sold into slavery. Now rescued, he does what he can as a spy for the pro-Union Loyal League, but he has a lot of rage and trauma that nobody knows what to do with, least of all himself. Then a new spy joins the organization: Janeta Sanchez, a mixed-race Cuban-Floridian lady pulled in too many directions by her white Confederate family and now in desperate straits. Once again, Alyssa Cole has produced a book that’s not only a compelling romance but a fascinating historical novel. Daniel and Janeta are both complex, involving characters with a great dynamic, plus Cole provides a great perspective on less-discussed aspects of the Civil War. 

WORST OF THE BI-MONTH

Once Ghosted, Twice Shy by Alyssa Cole (2019): Likotsi Adele, personal assistant to the prince of Thesolo, came to New York City a year ago for work and had what was supposed to be a casual affair with Fabiola, a gorgeous fledgling fashion designer. Just when her feelings were getting involved, though, Fabiola cut things off with no explanation. Now back in NYC on vacation, Likotsi runs into Fabiola, who proposes that they go on a date for old time’s sake. Although it’s technically the worst of the month, this novella is by no means bad; on the contrary, it’s very cute and sweet, with a pretty sexy love scene near the end. It just suffers from common romance novella pitfalls, mainly a dearth of conflict and some pacing problems.

REST OF THE BI-MONTH

Never Mind (1992), Bad News (1992), Some Hope (1994), Mother’s Milk (2005), and At Last (2011) by Edward St. Aubyn: Across five novellas, Patrick Melrose, son of an aristocratic non-practicing doctor and a charity-minded heiress, struggles with the legacy of his father’s sadistic abuse and his mother’s elaborately cultivated helplessness to intervene. The series follows him from early childhood (Never Mind) to drug-addled early adulthood (Bad News, Some Hope) to slightly more functional middle age (Mother’s Milk, At Last). I’ve never read such enjoyable fiction about the boredom and exhaustion of dealing with trauma and addiction, but St. Aubyn manages it with sharp characterization, whistling-in-the-dark humor, and a great sense of setting. I didn’t like all the novellas equally--Bad News has too many scenes about doing large amounts of heroin for my personal taste, and Some Hope sometimes loses track of its many characters--but, taken together, they’re magnificent.

Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes’s Hollywood by Karina Longworth (2018): Using the life and career of billionaire/producer/aviator/womanizer Howard Hughes, Longworth (the podcast host of You Must Remember This) looks at Hollywood from the silent era to the waning days of the studio system. I love You Must Remember This, and this book exhibits all the strengths of the podcasts: the compelling style, the evenhanded consideration of evidence from multiple sources, and the use of film analysis to examine what was happening in the culture at the time. Longworth’s portrait of Hughes is also refreshingly non-sensational; he comes across as a juvenile reactionary with a little vision, too much money, and some pitiable mental health problems, rather than a genius or a boogeyman. 

Simple Jess by Pamela Morsi (1996): Althea Winsloe, an Ozark widow in the early twentieth century, is determined to remain unmarried and look after her three-year-old son by herself, despite the disapproval of her close-knit community. Still needing help on her farm, she hires Jesse Best, regarded as “simple” because of a cognitive disability stemming from a childhood brain injury. As they work together, Althea realizes that Jesse has depths that few people bother to see. I was a little concerned when I began this romance; the hero has serious, life-altering issues with mental processing, which I thought might create a troubling power dynamic between him and the heroine. Instead, Morsi contributes something really valuable by showing how society ignores the autonomy and complexity of people with disabilities. She also does a great job of showing how a close-knit community can be both claustrophobic and supportive. Finally, I enjoyed the journey of a gay side character (the song’s for him!).

Lady Notorious by Theresa Romain (2019): When George, Lord Northbrook, discovers that his father is part of a tontine whose members have started dying at an alarmingly fast rate, he enlists the help of Cassandra Benton, an unofficial Bow Street Runner, to investigate the possible murders while pretending to be his scandalous cousin. Already friends, they grow attracted to each other during this charade, but they come from different worlds and each have a complicated family thing going on. This is a thoroughly likable romance with a fun plot; I especially enjoyed how George’s efforts to care for his emotionally distant parents mirrored Cassandra’s struggles to let go of her codependent relationship with her twin brother.

Don’t You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey by Margaret Peterson Haddix (1996): Fifteen-year-old Tish Bonner doesn’t have much time for school; with an absent father, a troubled mother, and an eight-year-old brother she feels responsible for, she’s too busy trying to hold things together at home. When her father makes an unwelcome return, though, she finds an outlet in the journal assigned by a nice young English teacher who promises not to read entries marked DO NOT READ. I first read this YA novel in middle school, and it struck me as particularly unvarnished, both then and as an adult. Teens in horrible situations are common in the genre, but Tish’s matter-of-fact presentation the day-to-day of dealing with sexual harassment at work and total parental abandonment at home really brings out the utter bleakness. I love Tish, whose ultimate acceptance of her inability to handle everything alone is as brave as her desperate efforts to keep everything together.

Give Me Your Hand by Megan Abbott (2018): Kit Owens, a talented chemist from humble beginnings, is shocked when former classmate Diane Fleming comes to work in her lab. Although Diane was the one who inspired her to reach beyond community college, she also burdened Kit with a horrible secret...and now they’re in competition to work on a prestigious new grant. I love Megan Abbott as a writer; she has a very sensory-based way of describing things that makes everything palpable. While I didn’t love this book as much as The Fever, it has a delightfully twisted plot and female characters who are “bad” in a realistic (or, at least, a humanely portrayed) way. I did probably like Diane more than I was supposed to; like Lady Audley before her, she should maybe go to jail but she’s still awesome.

A Dance with Danger by Jeannie Lin (2015): In Tang Dynasty China, Jin-mei, daughter of a magistrate, finds herself in a compromising position with Yang, her father’s old associate and sworn enemy of a local warlord. Their mutual attraction makes the ensuing wedding a more pleasant fate than either expected, but Yang disappears mysteriously before the marriage can be consummated. Heartbroken and very suspicious, Jin-mei refuses to give him up for dead. This is a fun adventure-romance with a wonderfully spooky atmosphere, although the ending is a little rushed.

Lady Rogue by Theresa Romain (2018): After her sub-par art-dealer husband apparently committed suicide, Lady Isabel Morrow grew close to and had a fling with Officer Callum Jenks, a Bow Street Runner. Now she’s discovered that her husband sold his customers forged works, and she needs to (awkwardly) enlist Callum’s help in replacing them with the real ones. This is a solid Regency romance, mostly thanks to the fun burglary plot. Isabel and Callum’s relationship, while perfectly pleasant, is rather static; they obviously like and respect each other, but just need a little time to reconcile themselves to the not-onerous-to-them social costs of a cross-class marriage. There’s also a real bummer of a development involving a minor character at the end. I’m not averse to bummers, but it felt out of place here.

What a Wallflower Wants by Maya Rodale (2014): Stranded at a strange inn after a failed elopement attempt, secretly traumatized spinster Penelope Payton finds a friend in the striking Lord Castleton...but is he who he says he is? Absolutely not, but he’s pretty cool regardless. This is a sweet, heartfelt Regency romance with endearing leads and great messages, but it’s pretty sloppily written, and that detracted from my enjoyment somewhat.

#books #reading #theme: i'm not one of those people who goes around having fun

[glassrain]

Bumblebee:

So, at the recommendation of @timelordsoftherings​ I decided to watch Bumblebee, despite my previous - and rather disappointing - experience with the Transformers franchise. And I’m very glad I did, because I really enjoyed this movie (thanks Aaron)! And now I have Thoughts on the movie (naturally) and I need to talk about them. So, here we go.

(WARNING: Spoilers abound)

* Bumblebee is all kinds of adorable. I love him. He’s this superpowered weapon that could take on the entire army if he really wanted to, but instead he just wants to, like, watch movies and play games and adopt this fragile, pink human girl. And he’s so shy and naive and sweet and earnest. He’s so child-like. And I love that dichotomy, how he’s both at the same time.

* Why do the Decepticons/Autobots have Lips?! WHY? It makes no sense? They’re made of machinery? They hardly need lips to speak, so why do they have lips!

* It’s all so retro and I’m in love with it. Cassette tapes! VCR’s! Overalls! Vintage cars! All the oldie music! *swoons*

* Also, why do the Decepticons and Autobots get into fisticuffs? They are impossibly advanced, sentient, alien war machines. Surely they have a more ... what’s the word I’m looking for? Practical. Surely they have a more practical way to fight each other? I don’t know - throwing punches just seems kinda juvenile and inefficient when both players are armed to the teeth with blades and guns and who even knows what else.

* Okay, but honestly the scene where Bumblebee gets his vocal unit ripped out was devastating. It’s shot in such a brutal manner, flipping from the omniscient perspective of the Decepticon viciously tearing at B-127′s throat, to B’s perspective, with everything glitching in and out, panicky and fading, trying desperately to focus on everything at once. Excellent camera work.

* Speaking of Bee’s perspective - I don’t know how Autobots are created. However, I know for a fact that whoever/whatever created B-127 has at least visited Earth before, because he definitely has a theme going on (heck, Charlie called it within like 5 minutes of meeting the guy). The name, the coloring, the hornet-shaped war helmet - the hexagon pattern of his POV visuals was a nice touch. I approve.

* I appreciated the bit with Charlie’s alarm. Not only indicating the passage of time, but also showcasing Charlie’s depression - because that’s what depression does, it saps your motivation to do much of anything, makes you wonder why you should even get up out of bed at all. But then Bee shows up, and Charlie scrambles out of bed right away - a nice way to show her beginning of recovery, without spelling the situation out for the audience.

* Oh. While we’re on the subject of Charlie’s depression ....

* Can I just say that her mom sorta/really bugged me? Like, her daughter’s clearly struggling with the loss of her father. But instead of making an effort to reach out and actually help, she just comments semi-accusingly on how Charlie always locks herself in the garage; throws movie nights without inviting her daughter; gets a new boyfriend; does little to nothing on order to make Charlie’s first birthday without her dad a good, special one; I’m pretty sure she even blames Charlie for her depression at one point, insisting that everyone else is trying to be happy, and couldn’t Charlie at least make an effort? I know all this makes her sound awful - she wasn’t, not terribly. In many ways, Charlie was enabling her own grief. But depression is hard, and no one does it perfectly, and a little effort on the mom’s part was in order, I think, since she was clearly in a much healthier place than her teenage daughter. I don’t know - she just kinda rubbed me wrong. I didn’t like her much.

* I was genuinely upset on Charlie’s behalf when the boyfriend gave her that book on smiling more. Like, the girl is grieving? And depressed? I would have been mad at him too, if he weren’t clearly such an (well-intentioned) idiot.

* Otis was virtually useless. He should have been removed from the story, or at least utilized better.

* Speaking of poorly utilized characters: Memo. I think he was a super important character to include, since a big part of Charlie’s characterization focused on how she’d isolated herself since her father’s death - Bumblebee helping her open up again and start making new friends was a BIG part of her character development, and I genuinely enjoyed it. I don’t think he was a bad character by any means. I don’t even mind the mini-romance going on between the two. What I did mind is the fact that Charlie’s relationship with Memo took away time I think should have been given to Charlie patching up her relationship with her family. The movie takes the time to highlight the fact that Charlie’s relationship with her family - particularly her mom - has been strained since her dad’s death, but the resolution was virtually glossed over, without any real apologies or conversations from either person. It wasn’t bad, per se, but a bit sub-par. I think the movie should have shifted its focus from “Charlie makes a friend and also fixes things with her family” to “Charlie fixes things with her family and also makes a friend.” That’s all.

* .... I lied. That’s not all. There’s also the fact that Memo is kinda reduced to cheap comedy in the third act; I didn’t like that either. Memo was a good kid, and didn’t deserve that.

* Charlie being like, “I will literally sell you my soul if you’ll give me that Bug”? Honestly Charlie, same. That Bug is adorable - I wouldn’t mind it myself, Autobot or no.

* (Okay but seriously, the Bug is so cute! All the fun-yet-classic lines of the body of the car, the light upholstery - [even if it is a bit frayed on the passenger’s side, I think that just gives it character] - and the vintage center control are all just so cute! I want that car, okay?)

* (I mean, honestly Charlie. You like the Camaro over the Volkswagen? What is wrong with you?)

* THIS scene was so sweet and tender. Charlie’s wonder and kindness quickly winning out over her fear, Bee being so confused and frightened - flinching back over everything, because he’s been hurt before, please stop breaking my heart I didn’t ask for that - but shyly choosing to trust Charlie. Both of them are alone and lost, and find a kindred spirit in each other, with this gentle and almost reverent music in the background. This scene is so soft and good.

* (Also, do you see lips on this Autobot? No. As it should be.)

* Look at how cute he is though!

* The scene where Charlie teaches Bumblebee to hide is too precious for words.

* “I have a good explanation for this .... Okay, no, I don’t have a good explanation for this. But if you tell anyone about this I’ll have to run you over with my car.”

* Charlie’s smile is gorgeous. Just saying.

* Alright. I know this movie is a fictional action flick and all, but seriously. In what universe would the American government just hand their satellites and all their intelligence over to an alien race they just met that day? I mean, I know this took place before 9-11, but that still surpasses my suspension of belief by a fair margin.

* Bumblebee, you can’t just spit out her tapes. That’s rude.

* I couldn’t really get behind the general’s plotline. Which is understandable, because the writers are already juggling so much in terms of development - Bee’s development, Charlie’s development on multiple fronts and backstory, the actual plot - so they really didn’t have time to delve into his story too deeply. They couldn’t really afford to make him much more that two-dementional for much of the film, since he was one of the driving antagonists who never really got much more that a minute of screen time per scene he was in (if that) - and so his about-face in the climax felt slapped on and convenient rather than earned. Plus, his interaction with Bee in the beginning of the movie could have been completely excluded with no major changes to his character. For these reasons, I think they shouldn’t have included him as a Character at all. He was just kinda flat and unnecessary.

* I do think his salute to Bumblebee, and the returning Victory Fist, was super cute though.

* I just lost it when Bee started going to town on the mean girl’s car. It’s been a good while since I’ve laughed that hard at a movie. Maybe it was just how late the hour was, but I thought it was hilarious.

* I love parallels, and the ones going on with Bee/Charlie’s dad were so good.

1) She was working the car in her garage as a way to connect with her lost father, a way to keep him alive, so to speak. “If I could just just fix it,” she tells Bee at one point, “it’s like ... he’ll hear me.” All of these desperate hopes, tied up in fixing her car to save her father. Later, after the Decepticons have left Bumblebee (who also happens to be Charlie’s car) for dead, Charlie is scrambling over him , trying to find what’s wrong, sobbing and chanting, “I can fix this, I can fix this,” as she desperately tries to bring back another dead loved one.

2) In passing, Charlie mentions that her father died of a heart attack. When she’s trying to bring Bee back, she shocks him with the electric guns - they act in a manner that’s extremely reminiscent of electric paddles. Precisely the way one would try to bring back someone who had suffered a heart attack. Whether Charlie witnessed and remembered that and was desperately hoping, Let it work. This time, please let it work, or whether this was simply meant for the audience, it’s still a delightful parallel.

3) The diving, of course. The last time she’d dived was the day her father died. That changes when Bee is under the water, and she once again dives, this time in order to save his life.

4) After Charlie has saved Bee’s life, and then let him go willingly because her place is here, with her family, and not out there with Bumblebee, that’s when she’s able to finally fix her car.

* In so many ways, Charlie gets her father back - or at least overcomes the losses she suffered with her father - through Bumblebee. It’s so beautiful, and touching, and I’m so in love with it.

* Oh, and don’t get me started on their goodbye scene. Bittersweet in such a good way.

* Even without the incentive of connecting with her dad, I can’t blame Charlie for slaving away for so long over that car, because oh. *fans self* That car is a dream.

Okay, this got very, very long and I applaud anyone who made it all the way through. Thanks for sticking around to hear all my rambling thoughts!

#bumblebee #random thoughts #if you're thinking about reading this brace yourself #it is VERY long #sorry for oversharing

[divagonzo]

I know this is gonna step on some toes but it;s really bothering me. Why is it now that when people try to pair up the golden trio into different pairings it ends up being 'oh let's make the third one gay/lesbian too!!" like what is wrong with not wanting to be in a relationship or staying single and getting validation in friends/family??? why does everyone has to be paired up? either straight or lgbt?? it honestly makes me feel people arent worthy or fullfilled if they arent paired up >:(

‘Ello Nonnie. Here in the caverns toes are welcome to be stepped on - even if there are consequences for it. (AKA I’m sure I’ll annoy some too with this post as well, even if I will put it under a cut just to spare some sensibilities for others. Though I expect some to speak up and out on Anon about what I’m going to say below the cut.)

I’m gonna make an assumption that you’re probably Ace like I am - or maybe even Het, too, and seeing how far shipping culture has gone for characters in question.  There also are questions on how characters are perceived in the text (is Harry Bi? Is Ron? Is Luna Gay? Ginny a lesbian or bi? So many questions - but it’s also down to the reader and their need (coupled with the death of the Author) for representation - including how little is out there for anyone who is part of the 1% - like a Charlie.) But if I'm guessing what has you bothered is the one maybe from yesterday about Luna and Ginny and Hermione (or something else and if so, point it out so I can read that and adjust if need be) and having an AU where the three of them are in a polyship.

Frankly, that’s the era we are in now, Nonnie, in that every character is possibly not straight and some of it is, Why not? While some is, How can we make our story more interesting towards those who aren’t strictly het? That is the entire basis and origination of AU - it's an alternative universe where the canon barely means a thing and it becomes like Sims, where you can re-write everything to how you want.

So I’m told, those who aren’t Cis and Het exclusively tend to spend time with those who share those traits/actions. (Birds of a feather and all) and it makes sense. (Being introverted gives me some distance to see these things.)

So the shipping goes 3 steps further, in the expectation that if Characters A&B are romantically involved, then Character C should be dating, too. That is an unfortunate toxicity of the trope that women are fed -  that they are there for the consumption of others, either for emotional labour or for validation of the others. They aren’t seen as having inherent worth for existing, only what they can do for others, either in RL or in fiction.  Having independent agency, finding their life content while being single, or content being Ace/Aro/questioning is harmful to those who have bought into the theory that they are only valued for who they date/physical romantic relationship - and not for the fact that they are people and have their own inherent worth.If a man is single (*yet having plenty of icky squicky skiddly doo*) they are seen as the swinging bachelor and celebrated - while women are held to an inherently different standard of “your only value is for what you can do for your man. (I won’t even get into the LGBTQIA side of it with all of the inter-niche dynamics of relationships.)That idea leads to an unhealthy codependency (mostly towards women) where the problematic ideal that women are to be living at home with their parents until marriage while men get to cavort on their own 'til they settle down with a partner.

The toxicity of "you have to be in a romantic physical relationship to have worth and value" is harmful towards women who are single (either by choice or not) and the older a woman gets and is single, the less people do see her. (Sad but true fact.) One of my sibs from another crib is absolutely amazing (and ambitious, highly driven, a workhorse; in amazing shape and a wonderful person - but because she refuses to make herself small for less than stellar men, she gets zero notice ‘cept from Sugar daddy scammers. *snort*

All of it is corrosive - straight or gay. People have worth because they are people - not because of who they are f* or dating. People have value at 18 and at 48.

Having Ron/Harry as a romantic couple is a *shrug* for me but for others, it's a healthier one than some in the fandom (not going there at all) but then changing Hermione to where she is written as being gay/pan/bi is why AU is there. While I don't personally agree, in an AU universe anything is possible and mostly anything goes. Her representation is needed, especially for those teens who wonder “If Hermione is gay in this, what can that explain for me, too?”

I do think the automatic assumption of Two guys as best friends automatically equals gay is toxic. It takes a dump on those men who are healthy and have guys who are friends - even to ride or die bff - and aren't gay - but because everything in media shows that it's inherently gay that you develop problems, including touch starvation - and that is an enormous Pandora's Box of problems. O_O

Personally, I don't see it and disagree with the assumption - and especially because I think it does an enormous emotional disservice and harms men where they can have a healthy platonic relationship, even to the point of having physical non-sexual affection and everyone including Great Aunt Tessie says, "They gay" and I just am boggled. Like, what the hell? Are they gay or can they be guy friends and not have the inherent desire to f* one another?

It's a double-edged sword, where people crave healthy male relationships with other men and with women but the moment it happens, there is an enormous segment (mostly women) who scream, "Just Kiss Already" and I find it so damn tiring. Like, can we just focus for one minute on a male/female relationship and not once bring up sexual tension? (side-note: This is why I am in serious appreciation for Avengers:Endgame in that Clint and Natasha are shown as having BFF platonic relationship and how damn deep and intense and emotionally fulfilling it is without having the side-trope of "friends with benefits". It makes my dark crusty Ace Heart scream in glee that it didn't have a romantic sub-plot shoved into it.)

But to automatically make every interaction as a potential romantic one hurts almost everyone - including those kids who aren't straight - because of the assumption that you only have value in who you are dating. It hurts guys who might actually come across fic and realize, Hey, I can have a best mate and not have the desire to get sweaty and sticky with them.

Y'all do what you want and do. But I'm gonna disagree on some points of note, too. I personally want more healthy relationships that are familial or platonic. Lord knows there's enough focused on romantic ones - and I'm a sap for a healthy romance/relationship.

#Anonymous

[kitsune1818]

MXTX Rarepair Exchange Letter

This list is in order of ship preference.

Nmj/Wrh (novel, manhua, donghua)

Likes: Both dark and light Aus, happy ending, age difference, bottom nmj, top wrh, o/b/o, omega nmj, alpha wrh, dom wrh, sub nmj, complicated relationship, conflicted feelings, lust at first sight love at second sight, protective wrh, possessive wrh, dual cultivation, stockholm syndrome, lima syndrome, bondage, dom/sub, power play, power couple, dirty talk, manhandling, dub-con, non-con, nmj in wen robes.

DNW: top nmj, bottom wrh, alpha nmj, omega wrh, sadist wrh, evil without reason wrh, cheating, infidelity, partner sharing, threesomes, asshole nmj, misunderstandings.

Prompts: The arranged marriage that prevented the war. Wrh wooing Nmj who is unimpressed but oddly flattered. Nmj unintentionally seducing wrh. Wrh survives the war and marries nmj for political reasons, discovers jgy murder plot against nmj and nmj gets to survive the qi deviation because of wrh with minor side effects: white hair nmj. Nmj marrying into the wens and dragging everyone into the righteous path one way or another. Wrh winning the war, nmj political prisoner and eventually wrh partner. Wrh saving kid nmj, kid nmj develops a crush on his savior and vows to marry him and when he is grown up he indeed marries wrh, dad nie gets to live and wrh realization that the kid he saved is now very hot.

Lwj/Nmj (novel, manhua, donghua)

Likes: Top lwj, bottom nmj, dom lwj, sub nmj, friends to lovers, canon lwj possessiveness, canon lwj arm strenght, bonding, lwj childhood crush on nmj, nmj good with kids, domesticity, healing and finding happiness, manhandling, forehead ribbon bondage, bondage in general, dom/sub, nmj in lan robes.

DNW: infidelity, cheating, thinking of another person while together, misunderstandings, other characters sabotaging the relationship, non-con, dub-con, sad ening, nmj death, one side crush/love.

Prompts: lwj childhood crush on nmj, mostly cute moments, nhs does not approve. Lwj leaving the Lan sect in the aftermath of his punishment for helping wwx and seeking refuge in Qinghe with a-yuan, murder plot discovered and averted and getting together.

Jc/Ljy (novel, manhua, donghua)

Likes: awkward realization of feelings, age difference, hurt/comfort, takes no shit, but sweet ljy, grumpy but not mean jc, mother hen ljy, jl awkward and reluctant seal of approval, preference future fic/art but i dont mind underage, meddling wwx, father figure lxc who approves, father figure lwj who disapproves,

DNW: angst for the sake of angst, sad ending, excessive self deprecation, if ljy is underage no sex, gender swap.

Prompts: Jc list is rendered obsolete because ljy is just not like that and jc still loves him. Ljy as the boisterous madam Jiang and long suffering but amused jc. Meeting again after years of no contact and they catch the feelings.

Hua Cheng/Mu Qing (novel)

Likes: Calamity mq, canon divergence, friends with benefits, enemies to friends to lovers, age difference, bottom mq, top hc, efficient mq, efficient hc, bonding.

DNW: threesomes, sad ending, over the top misunderstandings, asshole mq, creep hc, tsundere mq.

Prompts: canon divergent where hc was allowed to stay with xl after their first meeting at the parade, bug his caring falls to mq. Hc and mq joining forces to find xl whereabouts in the 800 he was missing, they have an understanding, can end with them together or split appart on good terms. Calamity mq is friend with benefits with hc.