#sorry not sorry but the post was made exactly not to cater that audience and yet | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

teaspoon-full-of-sugar · 4 years

Text

edge

pairing: harry styles x reader (au)

warnings: smut, dom/sub, exhibitionism, degradation, spit play, choking, face fucking, spanking, ring kink (if that’s even a thing ..?), orgasm denial, unprotected sex, subspace, aftercare, very fluffy and cheesy ending (like seriously so cheesy and cliche pls don’t bully me i didn’t know how to end it)

word count: 4.7k

synopsis: harry and y/n are a cam couple

author’s note: i hope you enjoy! xx all the love

masterlist

—

It started by accident, really, with a simple, offhand comment one night.

Already two-and-a-half bottles of wine deep, Y/N was close to tears with one glance at their pitiful bank account, and Harry was trying his best to comfort her and assure her that everything would end up fine, but he had absolutely no way to promise her that. Their part-time jobs did very little to cover their monthly expenses, and their next loan payment for school was coming up; needless to say, they were feeling overwhelmed.

And what better to do than drink and complain about your problems when you’re feeling overwhelmed?

“Maybe I should go into porn,” she sighed, and he rubbed his hand under her shirt, trying to soothe her. They knew that they were taking a risk moving across the world for uni, with no backup plan and nothing to fall back on, but in the end, it will, hopefully, be worth it. In the end, they would have a brighter future, despite the mountain of debt, but the middle part, the part where they struggle and contemplate giving up, is so difficult to get past.

“I—I’d do it with you,” he hiccuped, resting his head against her shoulder.

“Maybe we should do our own videos,” she said, “I heard that people can make a lot of money doing that.” Not noticing that he had gone quiet, she continued, laughing and raving. “Could you imagine? Oh, what if we did one of you going down on me? Harry, babe,” she moans lightly, “that would be hot.”

He smiled widely, eyes nearly rolling into the back of his head at the thought; he felt a rush of blood in his groin. They had talked about recording themselves and posting it online before, so the idea wasn’t something they were unfamiliar with, but it normally only happened when they were tipsy, and they never talked about it in any detail like she was. Now, the thought of her recording him between her legs or vice versa, for them to enjoy over and over, made arousal burn in his belly. He could imagine how the camera would shake as she came on his tongue, her hips bucking wildly, hand pulling at his hair. He holds back a moan.

“That would be so hot,” he said, “we should totally do it.” He downs the rest of his wine and pulls out his laptop.

“No,” she giggled, “no, no…”

“‘M doin’ it,” he said.

“Don’t do it,” she argued weakly, making no actual move to stop him. While she seemed to be on the fence about the idea, she had a slight grin on her face, her heart nearly racing out of her chest.

“We are so doing this,” he said, exploring the page. He gasps suddenly and taps on her leg, making her nearly spill the glass of wine. “Y/N, Y/N, Y/N—”

“What? What? What?” She mocked him. With mischievous smirk on his face, he faces her, a slight purple hue to his lips.

“What if we did cam?”

And the rest is history.

Now, they dedicate their Friday nights to do cam videos. It started off as something they did on special occasions, quick little teasers that lasted no longer than ten minutes, but they ended up getting a lot of money for it. It helped pay their school loans and get a head start on their savings, and it gradually turned into a regular occurance.

By the time they are ready to begin their live one evening, it’s nearing ten o’clock. They’re on their bed, pillows and comforter long gone, leaving nothing but faded floral sheets, stretched tautly beneath them. Y/N is nestled into his side while Harry’s on his knees and fiddles with the computer, brows pulled together and lips puckered slightly. She’s tired, her swollen eyelids closing every few seconds. He kisses her forehead, wrapping an arm around her. Their laptop, with the main webcam, is propped up on a stool right behind the footboard, and the secondary camera, a cheap handheld camcorder connected to the computer with flimsy wires, which is used for close up shots, is thrown off to the side. Harry leans back on his heels.

“Ready?” He asks with a teasing smile. Even with such a small gesture, his grin is still infectious, with cute little dimples and laugh lines. She returns the smile. It’s a redundant question at this point, whether or not she’s ready, but Harry asks every time. It never felt like a chore; it was something they both enjoyed, and if they were to grow tired of it, they would stop. They were finally financially stable enough to be able to make the decision.

While initially they decided to start doing cam for the money, it became something that they both enjoyed doing. She always got this little rush of excitement in the seconds before they finally went live. This was the last moment of secrecy they would have for the next hour or so. To many, the thought of some strangers watching her and Harry at their most intimate would make them apprehensive, but she always got this exhilaration from it.

“Always,” she says, stealing one last kiss from him.

It’s a tradition of theirs to hit the “Go Live” button together, cheesy as it is, and tonight is no different. Their faces light up the screen, and they both grin, arousal building with each thrilling second. There is only a moment of calm before dozens of familiar usernames flood the screen.

“See some new ones,” Harry comments under his breath. She rests her cheek against his shoulder, toying with the rings on his fingers. The introduction part is always the most awkward; there is no decorum or set way that they have to be done, and not feeling comfortable using their first names, she and Harry found it difficult to find their rhythm and interact with the viewers. It felt a bit unforthcoming for them to just dive in without saying anything.

“What are we feelin’ tonight, lovie? Soft and vanilla or rough and dirty?” Harry asks, like he normally does.

Comments fill the screen; a lot of them describe what they would do if they were there, but most of them have similar responses: rough and dirty.

The couple very rarely genuinely ask the viewers what they want to see because the most important thing, to them, is that they are enjoying it. What’s the point of doing it if they aren’t enjoying themselves? Sure, they sometimes cater toward the audience (that’s the easiest ways to make any money), but for the most part, they stick to what they both know the other would enjoy. Harry gives her a soft smile, leaning in a little closer. No matter what she wants, it’s all the same to him; as long as he is with her, he likes just about everything.

“Rough and dirty,” she smirks, tongue curling over her teeth teasingly. “I want you to fucking wreck me.” She whispers that part, low enough for only Harry to hear. He hums appreciatively, leaning back.

Ding!

“Be careful what you wish for.”

He kisses her, rough and gnawing, their teeth knocking together with his tongue slipping through, gently prying her lips apart. He bites on her tongue, and she lets out a small whimper, trying to hold off a smirk. Even after all this time being together, since they were just teens, he still knows what makes her tick and ache and melt; he knows exactly where to kiss and bite and lick to make her fall apart. She tucks her arms beneath his own, draping tightly around his waist, her fingertips tracing along the plain of his back, and he shivers.

His hand wraps easily around her throat, another thing he found early on that she enjoyed. He can feel her breathing pick up. She tugs at his bottom lip, suckling at the skin. He digs his fingers deeper into her neck, pressing harshly onto her pulse point. Eyes rolling back, she moans, strained and muffled, breaking slightly, and wraps her hands around his wrist.

“Open,” he beckons, and she does as best as she can, jaw still confined within his strong grasp. Her tongue dips out, ready and willing. “Good girl,” he says, loosening his grip on her throat. A breath of air slips past her swollen lips. Spit dribbles out from his puckered lips onto her greedy tongue. She closes her mouth quickly to keep it all in, his hand tightening around her neck once again. She sighs, head tipping back.

“You know the rules, babylove. Don’t swallow.”

“Mhm,” she nods, voice muffled. Her fingers dip into his boxers, nails tracing over the inked skin. She can trace the outline of his tattoos from memory at this point, every curve, point, and shadow etched in her brain. She pinches the extra skin at his abdomen lightly, and he smiles, pressing a kiss to her swollen lips.

“Wan’ my cock, huh?” He raises a brow. “Should I make you beg?

Ding! Ding!

“No,” she mumbles, pouting slightly. “Wanna make you feel good.” He hums appreciatively, tapping her cheek lightly.

“Taught you well, lovie,” he says. “Down.” He guides her onto her onto her elbows as he adjusts onto his knees, her hands moving back under the elastic band, the tips of her fingers teasing his skin. “Le’ me see,” he coaxes, fingers tugging on her chin. Sure enough, his spit is still in the divot of her tongue. “Good girl, you can swallow now.”

Ding!

Her fingers tease up his thighs and into his boxers, cupping his balls suddenly. He bites his lip, slapping her on the cheek. It’s not enough to do anything more than a slight burn, but it leaves her tingly with her eyes fluttering closed.

“Don’t be greedy, slut,” he spits, yanking her head back by her hair.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “Just want you so bad.”

She tugs his boxers down, but only enough for his hard cock to slip out. She normally starts off slow, teasing him until he can't take it anymore and pushes her all the way down, using her as he pleases. That’s not the case tonight. A part of her wants to take control, to suck him until he’s nearly falling apart, his knees weak. She takes nearly all of him in her mouth, and he gasps with surprise, his hands combing through her hair, guiding her. She gags on him, her bottom lip pressed tightly to his balls. He tugs her back.

“Watch the teeth,” he hisses. She gasps for air, lips lingering on the red, nearly purple, tip. His hips buck. He breathes out through gritted teeth, shaky and heavy.

“Sorry, just wanna make you feel good,” she says, pressing a wet kiss to his hip. She runs her tongue over the divot of his hip bone.

“Want me to fuck your mouth, lovie?” He asks, his fingers tracing over her tender lips. She nods, and he can feel her trying to move, but he holds her back by the hair, grip tight. “Beg,” he says, brows cocked.

“Please, H, want you to fuck my mouth, use me,” she moans, mouthing over the head of his cock. He holds himself steady, teasing her, just barely letting her feel but not allowing her to fully take him in her mouth. A pool of spit slides down her lips and into his hand, wetting the skin even more, before it falls onto the mattress. Her hands travel up the back of his thighs and onto his partially clothed bum, giving him a cheeky squeeze.

“M’kay, relax, babylove,” he says, brushing flyaways from her forehead, the skin already sticky with sweat. “Hold still and look at me. You know the rules.” She looks up at him, wide eyes never breaking from his as he guides his cock down the length of her throat, squeezing and stroking. She barely winces as he thrusts his hips, shoving himself deeper with every move. Her tongue runs along the bottom ridge of his cock, tracing every vein.

Ding!

She squeezes the skin of his thighs, guiding him further down her throat. The filthy wet sounds make her clit throb and her arousal seep into the sheets. There’s absolutely nothing better than seeing him above her, lost in pleasure, his chest flushing red, nearly incoherent: all because of her. There’s also something incredibly intimate about it as well; he always insists on keeping eye contact until there are tears in her eyes. With one hand gripping her hair tightly while the other gently caresses her cheek, he guides himself into her warm mouth. He nibbles on his lip.

“Take it, baby,” he moans, stuffing his cock deeper in her mouth. He traces his fingers along her throat, feeling the muscles swell and contract beneath them. Saliva dribbles from her lips, down her chin and the length of his shaft. She chokes and gags, but she doesn’t let up.

She barely reaches the base, her nose only just grazing the curls before he’s yanking her back, a string of saliva trailing from the head to her swollen lips, which breaks under the force of her gasps, and his cock twitches at the sight of her looking properly wrecked, eyes wide, blown with lust, her lips swollen and wet from spit and pre-cum, and chest heaving.

“Bend over,” he says, tapping her cheek. “Made such a mess, baby,” he says after she moves up, running a hand over the wet patch that formed on the sheets. Like a good girl, she turns until she’s facing the headboard, her glistening pussy on display to their hundreds of viewers. She shakes with anticipation.

Harry doesn’t deter from his normal routine, not touching her until she’s nearly in tears. She can feel the heat from his hand hovering over her skin, and she can feel hungry eyes on her; a small part of her wants to shrink away, but with Harry right beside her, it makes her feel like the strongest, sexiest woman in the world. Harry finally runs a finger along her slit after a few tense minutes and roughly presses into her clit. Her hips buck into his hand, and she presses a cheek into the mattress, moaning with relief.

“Such a good little slut,” he hums. “So wet for us, baby.”

Us.

When he says that, her pussy clenches and a rush of arousal threatens to slip down her trembling thighs; she sinks further into the mattress, sliding down until her chest is pressed tightly to the sheets, and her thighs spread even further until the joints of her hips ache with overexertion, but the pain is welcomed.

“Keep 'em on or off?” He asks.

“On,” she answers, the feeling of his cool rings against her heated skin is comforting almost. Her stomach tingles when he slips two fingers inside her pussy, with his thumb massaging at the tender skin between her holes. He easily finds that spot inside her, the spot that makes

Her orgasm comes painfully soon, her clit throbbing and begging for attention as he fucks her so close to oblivion, his rings adding extra friction to her sensitive walls. The scent of her arousal is thick in the air as it slips down his hands, traveling either down to her belly or her thighs. She’s so close, close enough to taste it; she just needs one more push until her high completely swallows her, bathing her in a warmth that only he’s been able to give her, but she is, perhaps, a little too optimistic. With every helpless jut of her hips, the more frequent moans, and the tightening of her walls, Harry knows the signs of her impending orgasm, but he can’t let her have it that easily.

A pained yelp slips past her lips when he suddenly pulls away and smacks her clit with wet fingers, the fervent climax drifting away until a dull ache, of yearning and lust, is all that remains. He spanks her sensitive pussy and lands two more on her bum. She groans, savoring the sting from his rings, cold yet burning.

“Not yet,” he says, running his hand along her prickled skin. He spanks her, harder than before, and she groans with pleasure. He wants to see the raised imprint of his hand on her smooth skin.

She can feel herself slipping. It starts off slow, a slight fog behind her eyes, and then it drifts and settles, spreading to her limbs. It feels like being high, swaddled in a soothing haze, and you can only feel yourself. The external earth doesn’t exist, and in that moment, it’s just her and Harry. Her world muffles, the sporadic chimes coming from the laptop ceasing, and the mattress disappears from beneath her, leaving her floating and vulnerable, with nothing to hold her other than him.

Harry.

He has always been able to make her teeter on the edge of pain and pleasure, and with her senses are in overdrive yet dulled at the same time, she feel that edge slip away into the abyss, with each slap delivered to her ass, they’re dulled just a little bit more. Like an addict, she yearns to feel the first one, the one that made her legs tremble, the one that sent tingles up her spine and a burning to her supple skin.

“More,” she says, inching closer to him.

“More?” She can hear the smile in his voice. She stretches her arms in front of her, back arching further than ever before. He lands another slap to her ass, lower and closer to her dripping pussy. He kisses the welts that raised over her skin from the rings, but she can barely feel them, nothing more than a welcomed prickle.

He spits on her pussy and slips three fingers inside this time, stretching her further than before, and with the extra friction from his rings, she tightens up almost instantly, the burning fire from before coming faster and stronger than before.

“Fuck,” she moans, long and drawn out. His free hand spanks her again, and she hisses, her arms giving out. Pleasure rushes through her veins, threatening to envelop her, and she can feel herself give in once again, sinking into him and accepting anything he has to offer. “Close,” she whines, but he pulls away again, slapping her clit roughly. She cries out, wanting to shy away from him, but her body betrays her, and she backs into him, craving yet another stolen high.

“Move t’ the side, button,” he says, tapping her leg, and she does, turning until they’re parallel to the webcam. He only teases the head of his cock through her folds for a moment before he slams into her with little warning, her warmth swallowing him easily. This is something he could never get tired of: the feeling of her hot, wet walls gripping him and of her arousal slipping down his thighs.

Ding! Ding!

His near brutal pace knocks the wind from her chest, making her drawn out cries of pleasure break and split. As he pounds into her, his hips smacking harshly against her raw skin, the remnants of her ruined climaxes leave her walls overly sensitive to every rough thrust, but she backs into him, meeting his hips, eager to finally come undone. He digs his nails into her tender skin, and she lets out a breath.

There has always been a fine line between pain and pleasure, and Harry knows exactly how to dangle her right at the very edge.

“Takin’ me so well,” he coos, but she can’t even fathom his compliment in her addled mind, let alone respond. He wraps his hands around her throat and pulls her head next to his. He wants to feel her, the heat of her breaths, the salt on her skin, the tremors of her thighs, everything. Her body grinds back against him, whether consciously or unconsciously, he doesn’t know. Her eyes are closed, features pinched, chasing her high.

Y/N can feel everything, every rush of blood flowing in her veins, every stroke of his cock inside her, every bead of sweat that drips from his skin and onto her back. She can feel everything, yet nothing at all; it all blurs together into a blanket of warmth and euphoria, and he’s at the center of it all: holding her and pleasing her and giving her everything she never knew she desired. She can barely speak, nothing more than a few broken whimpers filling the thick air, lost amongst his heaving breaths and the chimes from the laptop, which is at the back of their minds at this point.

She hooks her arm behind her, around his neck, her fingers carding through the sweat-drenched locks. She tugs on them painfully hard when he hits her weak spot, and he groans. Her heart is nearly racing out of her chest when yet another taunting orgasm tightens her stomach.

“Need cummies,” she whines, her words slurring, head falling to the side. He nestles his nose into the crook of her neck, hips grinding his cock deeper inside her.

“No cummies, yet, lovie,” he says. “Wait f’ me.” He can feel her struggling to hold her orgasm back, the walls of her pussy fluttering, milking him; he groans, feeling more blood rush to his cock when she squeezes him even tighter. “Relax,” he coos, scratching his nails along her scalp. He slaps her clit, making her twitch and buck even more, and he spreads his fingers around the swollen skin of her pussy, teasing where they’re connected. He lets go of her neck, and she nearly collapses without his support, leaning heavily on her elbows, back arched.

“Please,” she whimpers, shaking her head, “Can’t hold it.”

She slumps onto the mattress, her quivering knees slipping out from under her. Her hips buck, a long, drawn out moan slipping out as toe-curling orgasm washes over her, bathing her in warmth and relief and pure bliss. He comes soon after, hands gripping her hips tightly. Her shallow breaths are barely audible in the thick air, amongst a cacophony of chimes from the cam and his own heavy breathing. He rubs along her back, pressing sporadic kisses to her spine, following the ridges up to her neck.

“Babylove?”

She doesn’t answer, only a weak whimper and a sigh leaving her as she shifts beneath him, causing his softening cock to slip out, their releases pooling beneath them. He quickly closes the laptop to keep some semblance of privacy, and he tries to ease her onto her back, but she’s unresponsive, head nestled deep into the bed, but her breathing becomes more stable, muscles lax.

“Y/N?” She hums and turns onto her back. He cups her cheeks, trying to look into her eyes. They’re half-lidded, and she can’t seem to focus on much of anything. “Can you get up f’me? Need t’ get ya cleaned up.”

She finally looks at him, her pupils dilated, like she’s faded, lost in an empty mind. She blinks and looks down at his hands on her arms. Her brows furrow, and the tremors return, starting in her hands and spreading to her legs. They’re not pleasant, like before when she felt like she was floating; these ones make her blood run cold. Her high lessens, her head still foggy, but the feeling returns in her limbs, leaving her skin burning and bruised. When she meets his gaze again, there’s a sinking feeling in her stomach, shame and dread.

In her current state of mind, she mistakes the concern in his eyes for anger, and tears fill her eyes. She disappointed him; she was being greedy and dirty and bad. She covers her face with her arms to hide the tears that slip out, knees tucking to her chest.

“‘M sorry,” she cries suddenly. His heart stops for a second. What on earth could he have done to make her want to apologize? He tugs her arms away from her face.

“For wha’?”

“You said no cummies, and I couldn’t hold it—” Her face crumbles. “I was being a bad, bad girl.” She mutters to herself, biting her lip, which quivers pitifully. “Please, please, don’t be mad,” she begs, hands clinging to him. Before, she felt absolute euphoria, a high she didn’t want to come down from, but now, her skin aches, and there’s a pang of guilt and shame in her belly that she can’t seem to soothe. She doesn’t even feel it when her teeth break past the skin of her lips.

“Hey, none of that,” he says, easing her bruised lip from her teeth. He runs a thumb over her knuckles. “‘M not mad, never, lovie,” he reassures her. “C’mere,” he says, tugging her into his arms. “Look a’ me.” He rests his forehead against hers. He’s had to coax her out of a subspace only a handful of times, but she has never crashed this hard. Never has she been this shaken, nor has it ever happened during a cam. He just wishes he noticed sooner; he should have known not to go as rough as he did, especially when she was feeling tired to begin with. When she’s in her subspace, she tends to take it a little too far, thinking she can take more than what she would normally handle.

“Better?” He asks her after a moment, and she nods, but her hands still quiver at her side. “Be right back, yeah?” He lays her back down gently and goes into the washroom to draw a bath. When he comes back, he finds her with her hands over her face, shoulders shaking.

“Can ya walk?”

“Yeah,” she says, scooting up off the bed, but her knees buckle, and they barely make it to the bathroom.

“I gotcha,” he says. “Jus’ gonna getcha cleaned up, feelin’ all better.” Her bum, the skin raised with welts made by his own hand, barely touches the water before she’s wincing. There’s a tinge in his stomach, but he continues to help her in, holding her under the armpits.

“In ya go,” he whispers, nursing her like she’s a toddler. The water is hot and comforting against her aching muscles. The lavender oil he tossed in leaves her skin silky with a tingeful burn on her bum and thighs. She clings to his arm, which has now wrapped tightly around her middle, pressing into her tender breasts.

“Come in with me,” she says. He sinks to his knees and cups her neck, elbow dipping in the water.

“Be right back, button,” he says, kissing her forehead lightly, “Jus’ need t’ change the sheets.”

He returns not a moment later and joins her in the tub, washing her body with a sweetly scented scrub. She comes fully down in the bath, with his arms coiled tightly around her, one over her chest and the other around her middle, their fingers toying together. The water’s run cold, but they don’t make any move to get out any time soon, basking in the warmth of each other.

Despite how many years they have been together, he still finds it difficult to believe that he can be so comfortable with another person.

She puts her heart, body, and soul fully in his hands and trusts him not to break it.

He trusts that she’ll do the same for him.

And when she snuggles into him and presses a tired kiss to his cool skin, after he gets them dried and in their bed once again, he knows that there is no other person in the world he would trust more with his heart than her.

—

#harry styles #harry styles imagine #harry styles x reader #ellie writes #ellie writes smut #ellie writes fluff #ish #gif not mine #credit to owner

2K notes · View notes

wishingstarinajar · 3 years

Text

I am going to ramble a bit but I will hide it under a cut because it's a bit long. It will be about the previous fandom I was active in around two years ago and how it affects me to this day. It's also about popularity and putting others on a pedestal.

If this sort of ramble isn't up your alley then feel very free to skip over this post! I don't mind. If you want to read more about it, just check under the cut.

The Franchise And Its Creators

====

THE FRANCHISE AND ITS CREATORS Around mid-2014, I joined the Wakfu and Dofus fandoms, a small-ish fandom as a whole but popular in certain circles.

For those who don't know, Wakfu and Dofus are (online, console, mobile, figurine, card and board) games, comics, animated series, specials and movies created by a French studio named Ankama. These two franchises are intertwined with each other as they play out in the same universe but in different timelines. I myself dabbled around in the animated part of the fandom; I was a huge fan of the two series and the Dofus movie.

There was very little catering to the international part of the fandom when it came to the studio's attention and interactions. There were no English dubs or subtitles; international fans had to rely on English fan subtitles on ripped/pirated episodes of the show and movie, same for the franga/comics. Merch was hard to get. A lot of articles related to the shows and whatnot were in French only, which is understandable because it is a French-made product. But there's no denying that the international fanbase felt a little neglected back then.

====

MY FANDOM JOURNEY

Because I was very interested in the lore of both franchises, I had to do a lot of digging and translating to be able to fully indulge in it all. I went full in! I dug deep, created OCs, art and also tried to write fanfiction. I also shared news and info about the series and movie; I ran a fan blog dedicated to sharing things with the international part of the fandom. I was also often approached about lore, particularly for a few of the canon characters and one of the races that play a role in the Wakfu franchise; the Eliatropes. It was fun, it felt good to help other fans out, it was nice to make friends and be creative with others about similar things.

Eventually, the character and art theft began. We all know this is a 'normal' part of fandoms, so I won't hammer too long on it. My issue with it was the fact that my main OC, a female Eliatrope, gathered a lot of attention because female Eliatropes were a rarity in the Wakfu franchise. They existed but didn't get a moment in the limelight, except for one that even received her own game (Islands of Wakfu) but it was so obscure that a lot of fans didn't know about its existence. My OC was somehow mistaken as canon by plenty of folks and many others started to use her as a template to create their own (female) Eliatrope OC. I didn't mind, as long as they weren't straight-up copies and I tried to be supportive by answering lore questions and give feedback whenever it was asked for it (which happened a lot). Of course, copying and theft happened more often than not; over the five years I was part of the fandom, I sent out almost a hundred DMCA reports for art and character theft (like true theft; I could handle some similarities or one-time occurrences). One particular case went to the extreme but I won't beat that dead horse any further; it brought me enough misery to last me half a lifetime, that's all I'll say on it. I kept a lot of the negative experiences behind closed doors and dealt with a lot of it quietly to not bother, worry or burden anyone else with any of it. I wanted a positive and supporting environment for my followers, even if the truth wasn't as pretty.

====

ANKAMA'S STRUGGLE

Over the years, studio Ankama increased attempts to cater more to the international fanbase of its animated properties (articles in English, English dubs and subtitles, etc). However, the studio's struggle to garner the attention of international supporters (aka companies and sponsors) didn't go too smoothly, and to make matters worse, they were also struggling with finding a platform in France to broadcast the Wakfu series on after wishing to take a different and more mature direction. Ankama wanted more freedom with the Wakfu show, like less censorship, a serial rather than episodic, and it not being aimed at a young audience like its previous contractor demanded Wakfu to be. Ankama even turned to crowdfunding to get certain projects (like new Wakfu seasons) off the ground and let's just say that those crowdfunding projects are best described as tiny dumpster fires; they weren't pretty to watch. The first one was a disaster with plenty of displeased backers and the following crowdfunding attempts often didn't meet the end goal due to bad past experiences or the lack of interest.

Luckily, Netflix breathed some life into the international Wakfu fandom, which was great! But it was still received badly (mostly due to the awful English dub and sound mixing of the first two seasons and special) that the third season Netflix made possible was not getting the attention it deserved. It was also a rushed product due to financial and time constraints on Ankama's part. Netflix eventually declined a fourth season and it all fell a bit apart from there. Ankama turned to crowdfunding once more to try and make season 4 a reality. Last time I checked (which was quite a while ago), it did decently enough to make season 4 a reality. (Please don't ask me about it, I don't know anything about it.)

====

THE PEDESTAL

While all this was happening behind the scenes, I was starting to struggle with the reputation I built up in the Wakfu and Dofus fandom over the few years I was a part of it. The best way to describe it is that I had grown exhausted.

Aside from dealing with the theft and answering people's questions daily, I wanted to be treated as an average fan but I kept getting put on a pedestal. People went as far as to call me by titles (like lady Wish and miss Wish) more often than not. To be called and treated as such made me feel alienated, like as if I wasn't considered real. I often asked to just be called Wish, no titles/formalities required, and that I wasn't as 'popular' as they believed, but the majority of the people didn't seem to listen. People were either afraid or refused to interact with me because they considered me 'too popular', or simply wanted nothing but my validation, feedback and/or free art. I also had my fair share of haters and people that didn't approve of my 'status' in the fandom. Join the club xD I wasn't very happy with it either.

I really started to dislike being called 'popular' because it had such a bad impact on the people around me (and my own mental wellbeing). Friends started to become jealous of the attention I garnered and it dragged me down every time. At times, it would turn toxic. It was never my intention to make my friends feel like they meant less because they surely didn't. To learn that they believed others were only friends with them or only looked at their art/writing because they were good friends with me hurt so much. It still does. I refuse to believe that was fully true because I was (and still am!) surrounded by very creative people and they all deserved as much attention as I was getting, at times more. I wish others saw it that way too.

I was also heavily chained down thanks to the role (model) I played in the fandom. Too many people (especially young ones) looked up to me and there were a lot of expectations that I felt forced to meet. I started to lose the energy for it, but if I dared to stray a little from the path, the pitchforks and torches would come out. It was very restricting.

In the end, I felt stuck. Things started to grow toxic. There was a point where I began to dislike the franchise because of the bad feelings it brought me. I couldn't even get myself to watch the series or movie anymore. I focused less and less on the canon side of things and more on my own ideas, which was one of the only comforts I really had left in the fandom. I started to shut myself off, which upset a lot of people. I am sorry for that, I wish it didn't happen that way but I was at my wits' end.

When I realized and also accepted that I was no longer enjoying myself with canon or fanon, I knew I had to move on or stuff would end badly. It was a very tough realization and decision to accept and make; I literally dedicated five years of my life to the fandom. I spent hours a day digging for info and news to translate and share, doing 'research' for my fanfics, answering questions, and whatnot. I truly lived the fandom day in and out. It was the first fandom I ever actively participated in to this degree. What the heck was I going to do without that?

====

THE NOW

Abandoning the fandom was a scary step to take but not one I regret. I left the Wakfu and Dofus fandom behind me in late 2019. I feel freer now and so much happier. I no longer have the burden of expectations, being a lore guide or be forced to portray a certain role model weighing me down. I am no longer on that f*cking pedestal. I can finally explore interests that aren't exactly child-friendly without a big part of my following pummeling me down for it. (Don't worry, I always try my best to keep it in the appropriate places.)

Do I still like Wakfu/Dofus and all the stuff I've created with it? Yes, I do but I also want nothing more to do with it. Aside from the friends I've made there and also stuck around on my new adventures, I left the fandom behind me.

I still get approached at times about how my Wakfu OC, art and writing inspired someone and ask me if I could give them feedback for their own ideas or give them advice/information on Wakfu/lore. I am extremely humbled by it every time. It's great to see someone feeling inspired and be creative. However, I've moved on. I've left interacting with the Wakfu/Dofus fandom and fan-made stuff far behind me. I haven't touched it for almost two years and it shows on all the social media I share my art and writing on. I at times wish people could be considerate about the fact that I moved on but I also know and understand that not everyone knows my reasoning or my side of the story. I try not to be too harsh on it.

====

MY ADVICE

I don't hate anyone for how things turned out; a lot of it was my own doing by not saying no or taking a stronger stand.

It did teach me a lot of things, especially about caring for my own well-being and putting others on pedestals. Please be mindful when you treat someone like others treated me before; it's not healthy, for yourself and the person you put on that high pedestal. Take everything in moderation and consideration, that's all. Everyone's human, everyone has feelings, and everyone deserves a sense of being. Even your favorite artists and content creators. Don't treat them like an otherwordly being that you have to worship.

In turn, if a fandom or something you enjoyed is making you unhappy nowadays, you owe it to yourself to make or find a change. Be good to yourself, always!

Thanks to anyone who read through this ramble. I needed to get this off my chest. I am not asking for advice, neither pity or whatever else. I just wanted to share my thoughts on past experiences because I have a feeling others might be going through something similar.

Thank you again, please take care.

#wish talks #wish rambles #edited with some format fixes

42 notes · View notes

lizacstuff · 3 years

Note

I agree with what you said to that anon about appreciating what we have while we have it. Eda and Serkan are so epic and I like all their moments. I would enjoy reading your thoughts on the episode as a whole.

Sorry I’m just getting to this today, busy week!

I loved episode 19! A random hodgepodge of thoughts:

Serkan just... handling Efe. I love that our king eventually, always wins. I mean this story isn’t over, but in ep 19 Serkan showed who’s the boss. From telling Efe straight out that he needed to apologize to the staff to engineering his continent-wide confession, Serkan was in control.

Speaking of Efe, I love that Eda didn’t sugarcoat anything with him. She made it clear she was disappointed in him and gave him honest advice about how to continue. Efe was a bit delusional thinking that Eda deescalating the situation the night before, meant she was on his side. DUDE, you lied and even though you haven’t admitted that it was more than a mistake, SHE KNOWS you did something underhanded. It gave me a weird warm fuzzy the way Eda told Efe that she knows what Serkan is capable of doing and what he would do next. She knows him.

(More under the cut:)

Also love that Engin was so angry and ready to throw down. Apparently, sabotage is what it takes to get the giant teddy bear angry, good to know. I love that Engin is such a good friend and business partner to Serkan. He’s exactly the energy Serkan needs around him. I have no idea why Engin can give Serkan exactly the right advice about Eda all the time, but can’t navigate his own love life at all, but I’m glad he’s been a great wingman to Serkan.

I’m also glad Ayfer has something else to think about other than worrying about Eda going back to Serkan. She gets a little obsessed in that vein, so I’m all for her starting a new catering business. Don’t know what to say about Erdeem and Leyla’s fake engagement, I guess I’m on board if it brings some comic relief, but I still don’t see what Fifi would ever see in him.

Ceren and Ferit were interesting, no? Ceren can’t say she wasn’t warned about Ferit, both Ayfer and Eda tried. However, I have to give him some props for admitting where he was mentally before things went too far. I think that’s a sign that he does really like her, knows he’s not ready for it and doesn’t want to start something that is doomed to fail. Selin really did a number on him and it certainly shouldn’t be Ceren’s mess to clean up.

About Selin, I’ve already talked way too much about her in this post from earlier in the week, but there’s one thing I didn’t touch on that I’m curious about. When Celin is told to take a hike with the chauffeur, she leaves the loft, pauses while all teary eyed and brings up her phone like she’s going to call someone before deciding not to make the call. Who? Who was she thinking of calling? Clearly not Serkan or Eda. Ferit? Was that jackass really going to call Ferit to make her feel better? Or was she going to call her reporter friend? Aydan? Efe? Piril? Enquiring minds want to know. It seems like more than a throwaway moment. Why put it in if it wasn’t foreshadowing something. Or was it just to show she had run through all her friends and realized not one would be sympathetic or approve of what she had done, so she had no one to call when her schemes failed and it gave her a sad?

Aydan and Seyfi as matchmakers is everything I need to be happy. As long as they are on the side of Edser, then I say let them meddle! Also props to Aydan for burning Alptekin’s clothes. That dude needs a huge wakeup call, so any act that might get his attention and bring him to his senses is a-okay in my book.

As for the meddling, that breakfast scene was so bittersweet. OMG. Serkan and the crusts. It was such a perfect detail to add. It showed that he not only knows her, but even subconsciously his default is to do things, big and small, that make her happy. No wonder the sweetness of it all but broke her. With that they ratcheted up the pining/longing/angst to atomic level.

That whole day was fraught for both of them and the audience. Serkan realizing he had to tell her at the same moment that Eda decided she wasn’t going to play his hot and cold game anymore was both entertaining and frustrating. I think Serkan let her get away a few times, because he was putting off the inevitable, but by the end it was like, EDA, JUST SIT DOWN AND GIVE HIM A MINUTE TO PULL HIMSELF TOGETHER AND TELL YOU WHAT HE NEEDS TO TELL YOU. Not that I blame her for her cynicism, he earned that over the last few weeks. I did very much enjoy the merry chase she led him on, the fact that he’s even willing to walk in on that charity dinner meeting is a testament to how much he wanted to find her. You can’t convince me he would ever walk into that nest of vipers without a very strong motivation.

I honestly can’t believe we got them sharing a chair in front of all those ladies. This show! It gives and it gives and it gives. There’s always something sweet or silly or romantic right around the corner. Rarely does it miss an opportunity. As for Serkan attempt at the dinner, he would have had better luck talking to her if he hadn’t gotten hung up on asking her if she still loved him. Duuuuude. You broke up with her and now want to back her into a corner where she would need to be vulnerable with you while you’re trying to get her to listen to you. Tactical error. But I get why he was distracted by that.

Thankfully, it lead to the most romantic phone conversation that was never heard. But I love that even though she couldn’t hear what he said, she sensed it. She somehow knew he might have said he missed her. I also love the way that Serkan was playing along with her about the party. He knew she had been put through the emotional wringer over the last couple of weeks and was trying to make him jealous and he gave her the gift of succeeding. They are so much more compatible that they think sometimes.

As much as they tend to miscommunicate in important moments when emotions are running high and clouding the issue, when they aren’t they seem to fundamentally understand one another.

Which takes us to the biggest misunderstanding of the episode. The morning after. Serkan woke up embarrassed. Not really because he’d been drunk, but because he’d called Eda and she’d come over and taken care of him when he had no right to ask that of her while she’s still in the dark about what separates them. That’s why practically the first words out of him mouth the next morning are that he shouldn’t have called her while drunk. I understand why he felt that way, its all about him not deserving her kindness, especially not until she knows, but I can also see why that would hit Eda wrong. She immediately takes it that he’s sorry she came, that he wishes she wasn’t there. Which is, of course, not remotely the case, but they just talk past each other and her hurt feelings cause things to escalate uncontrollably.

I really wanted to yell at Serkan to just rip off the bandaid and tell her. I did enjoy that Eda’s wound-up emotional state was the thing that pushed him to matter-of-factly yell out how in love with her he is and how in love with her he will always be, thank you show. We needed that. And so did Eda. They’re the words she’s ached to hear since the first moment she realized there was something more to the breakup.

Thank goodness this damn secret will all be over within the first few minutes of the next episode. They, and we, deserve to move on to a world where Eda knows a) why Serkan broke up with her b) that he’s still, and always, madly in love with her.

All in all a very good episode that moved things forward.

#sen cal kapimi #edser #edser discussion #sck discussion #sck episode discussion #sckask #sck 1x19 #asklizac #Anonymous

18 notes · View notes

shinigami-mafia-imagines · 3 years

Photo

So I’ve got this problem Continue on below the mark if you want to read a probably crappy apology for disappearing after promising to be more active. Or just enjoy the pretty(yet messy) screenshots.

So, I know i’ve been absent for a long long long time. And instead of making excuses or saying that work has picked up way too much for me to even sit down and write(which it has and it’s honestly draining every ounce of mental and physical health out of me), I’ll just come right out and say it. I no longer hold a strong muse or desire to write for Bleach or KHR, or even HxH anymore. That muse had been waning since the last time I made a post. But somewhere along the way, it had completely died. Instead, I’ve been wanting to write more for myself with my own characters with my own scenarios. Don’t get me wrong, I adored writing for everyone, giving them what they wanted and seeing them be so happy over what I had written. I loved the messages of encouragement and praise you all sent me. It honestly was the highlight of my day when I saw those messages. But I feel like my creativity for these series has long since dried up. And I knew this would happen a long time ago, that I would eventually burn out on them and lose interest in continuing the blog. I’m not sad in the slightest, though I know others will be. And that’s what stings. I’m proud of what I have written, though. I’m proud that I was able to make a few peoples’ days with scenarios and headcanons, even if they were small paragraphs or seemingly predictable headcanons. I’m proud of the efforts I put into making the blog look pretty despite the fact that writing out code or even just trying to change little things in the code to do exactly what I have in mind exhausts me to no end. And I’m proud to have had such a wonderful audience to cater to. This blog will remain up. But nothing will be added to the master list, no Scenarios or Requests will be fulfilled any longer. I may occasionally come by with a oneshot or two, just to have them here. But they won’t be for the three Fandoms I previously have written for. I don’t think this comes as a shock to anyone at all lol. I haven’t been active for so long and I did feel bad over leaving without saying a word. So this will be my somewhat final one. I may just change the name of the blog to Faux Dreams to match the AO3 account, but that’s only if I want to post any oneshots here. Either way, thank you for reading, I’m sorry, and I hope you have a wonderful year. Keep writing, keep being creative, and do not let anyone make you feel like you can’t do the things you absolutely want to do. Love, Peace, and Chicken Grease, Mod Faux

#FFXIV #Screenshots #Final Fantasy 14 #G'raha Tia #Crystal Exarch #Au Ra

6 notes · View notes

asterekmess · 4 years

Note

1/7 I’m actually a fan of the idea behind Scott and Stiles’ friendship and the story Scott told. Scott and Stiles worked together well when they first started in Season 1, because they were obviously complementary. I even liked how Stiles was able to shrug off Scott’s jealousy and possessiveness and kept putting up with Scott despite Scott treating him like trash (“I just made first line! I got a date with a girl who I can’t believe wants to go out with me, and everything in my life is perfect!

2/7 Why are you trying to ruin it?!”) and ditching him for the popular crowd as soon as he could. It wasn't a perfect friendship, but it worked well enough. The problem, of course, is that through the course of the show, Stiles grew up and Scott didn't. Stiles would lock himself up and sacrifice his own life to save everyone else’s (that’s literally the theme of Teen Wolf Season 3B). Meanwhile, Scott would gladly sacrifice other people’s life to save his own and to keep his true alpha title

3/7 (Scott begging others to do his dirty work for him is literally the theme of Teen Wolf Season 6A&B.) Stiles focused on responsibility and building relationships with other people, while Scott took them for granted; it bugged me how many times Scott would treat people as friends that he could make demands of just because he said so (Stiles, Lydia, Boyd, Danny, Kira) and then abused other people’s patience (Derek, Chris, Isaac, Allison, Malia, Liam.) Scott boasted about being a true alpha and

4/7 smarted off to his enemies because he knew that his friends would have his back. Until the last, for Scott McCall, it was always someone else's fault when Scott McCall fucked up. There's nothing more annoying to me than Pissbaby Scott Getting Pissy in the club in Rave because Allison had the nerve to prioritize saving Jackson’s life over Scott’s jealous fits and temper tantrums.

5/7 There's nothing more pointless than Scott lying about Kira’s fox to control her and then playing up his shitty little chest wound that had long healed just to convince his friends not to abandon him again. Scott was so tone deaf to other people’s pain, traumas and history that it seemed like he was obsessed with minimizing what they had gone through and making it ALL about himself instead. And even that wouldn't have bothered me if they had allowed Scott’s friends to say "Quit it, Scott.

6/7 You're 18, not 8." If they had allowed Stiles to get angry with Scott without portraying it as a crime, or Derek to beat the ever living crap out of Scott for violating and dehumanizing him, or Isaac to clap back when Scott abused him in front of Melissa, or Kira and Allison to shout at Scott when he lied to them. But the production didn't. The show basically said that "Stiles is a hero and a good friend because he lets Scott use him and gaslight him to his heart’s content and doesn't leave.

7/7 The show basically said "Allison loved being yelled at and stalked around so much, she started dating Scott." The show basically said “Derek realized that Scott violated and dehumanized him for his own good, so he doesn’t have to hold it against him.” The show basically said “Isaac accepted being hit and abused by Scott because he deserved it for looking at Scott’s woman.” It didn’t have to be toxic, but it ended up being that way.

A lot of my issues come around to the writing of the show. I honestly believe that we’re a little spoiled in our fandom world. There are so many fics with so much depth. So many writers that put so much effort into making proper foils and character arcs. They wait and wait and wait, revising until they know they’ve got the fic exactly how they want it, and then they post it.

Writing a tv show doesn’t really allow for that. Sure, they write a script and it gets looked over a few times, but there’s no time to stew in it. To consider how that episode’s script and plans interact with previous episodes, to consider how it will effect future episodes and the direction they should go in. The time is crunched, there’s a couple read-throughs and then you get those actors in front of the camera and go. I get it. I hate it, but i get it. My frustration came in my expectations of the forethought that I believe would’ve gone into the show before it ever came out. BEFORE it gets a pilot or green-lit, or whatever the terminology for that is (I’m a stage actor, not a tv actor), it was my assumption, that there would be so much thought out. If I’m working on a series of fics, I have at least a basic plotline for every volume. If I’m writing a 100k fic, I make an outline and I decide on the general plot and then? Then I decide what the character development/arcs will be. Taking a writing class, you get told constantly to think about how the characters should change from beginning to end. You get told to consider turning points in the story. You need to have a concrete understanding of each character’s personality, backstory, behavior, and have a PLAN for what to do with each other them and how you intend for them to grow (be it good or bad)

So when I went to watch this show the first time, I was totally caught up in YEs werewolves! Yes full moons! Yes, fangs and claws and superstrength! YEs even the human gets to do fun stuff! But that excitement quickly faded, because the foundation I thought I was seeing, wasn’t actually there. I saw Scott attacking people and yelling at his friend for trying to help. I saw Derek threatening people and clawing Jackson. I saw Jackson and Lydia being stuck-up and that stereotypical ‘popular’ kind of pompous and cruel. I saw Stiles being vicious and impulsive. Allison showed up as this...perfect person? I saw it and I thought that was the point. That they would all learn and grown and depend on each other and that this show about werewolves that spent so much of Season 1 talking about ‘pack’ would turn these people into a pack. That they would call each other out for their various issues and everyone would grow. That Allison would seem like this beacon of goodness, until she revealed a deep character flaw that she would have to work on like everyone else. And then we got to the second season, and it all just went sideways. Derek just got meaner and Erica and Isaac both joined while being just as mean. Boyd seemed like a decent dude, that voice of reason. And then he was barely there. Stiles kept hitting on Lydia and wouldn’t stop. Scott was awful to Allison. It all got worse and they were suddenly split into Sides. Derek and the other Hales that popped up were never actually a part of Scott’s pack/group. They were always on the outside, even after Derek just sort of...gave in and said Scott was in charge now? It was frustrating and confusing, watching bits of their personalities flip-flop all over the place to suit a plot that felt like it was just trying to cater to the audience, without having any actual backbone of plot. If you write something JUST for other people, it’ll never have integrity. The growth of these characters was constantly either completely skipped (characters going from bad to good in an instant), cut off at its ankles (killed off or sent away), nonsensical (Derek had to lose all his powers to become a full-shift wolf, and that somehow had an effect on his personality??), or it never happened (Scott. And, to some extent? Stiles.)

I find that I have the most fun in this fandom when I take canon and use it as a sort of malleable clay to play with and make my own worlds out of. I get to keep my favorite characters around (Boyd, Erica, and Isaac, and even Jackson sometimes), get rid of characters I don’t like (Ethan and Aiden, usually Jennifer and Gerard, and sometimes Scott), and toss what I’ve got into an au or a canon-divergence and see what they do. I mean, that’s basically what all fandom is, but for this one, it’s a bit like SPN. I refuse to acknowledge anything that happened in SPN after like...season 6 or something. I haven’t even seen past s8 (just like in TW i haven’t seen past S4) and it doesn’t matter. i mold the tv show to make whatever I want.

Canon gave me some good ideas, but I don’t like to stick to it too strictly in my own creative works.

I’m sorry that canon let you down, but fanfic will always be here for you.

#personal #I have no idea if I was completely off topic or something #go for it #anti-scott mccall #Anonymous

20 notes · View notes

jonny-versace · 3 years

Note

Hey! I kinda stumbled into your post about The Magicians and, as someone who a) is also interested in fandom culture and b) was an active member of The Magicians fandom during its highest (and lowest) points, I thought I'd share some of the context revolving around the shipping controversy.

So, during the first two seasons, the central m/f ship clearly seems like endgame, with no big hints about the main character being anything but straight. Sure, because the protagonist's best friend is a queer man who has a crush on him, and there are the usual queerbaty lines here and there, they were a big ship among the fandom, but nothing more. Until season 3 came along, and had something of a bottle episode, where the two get stranded in the past together and are explicitly in a romantic relationship. After they return, both kinda acknowledge the fact, but The Plot comes knocking. Shippers became more numerous, and some people started speculating that they could be a viable ship, but most of the fandom took it as a nod from the writers and a self-contained story that wouldn't come back.

All the while, the show's social media accounts hyped up this pairing more than any other, and made frequent remarks suggesting more canon recognition. Virtually every week you'd find a tweet, a poster, and so on, that egged people on. And by this point, the showrunners had the audience's trust due to their handling of other topics. There were more POC than usual for TV, the main character's chronic depression was an ongoing struggle, things like addiction and trauma were handled in believable ways. By having a self-described "depressed supernerd", who is comfortable with being bi/ pan, and storylines that catered to a queer neurodivergent audience, during three years they grew and grew in popularity and as a safe space for exactly these groups. I was one of those: I'm a historian, and pretty used to consuming media critically; I wasn't a teenager who's never seen herself represented, but an adult who got used to looking for good representation when I want to find it, or just watching things with no expectations for the fun of it, and at most dissecting the "what ifs". This show stroke me as the former, and became the relaxing and understanding queer space I ran into after a very long week. And there were A LOT of people in a similar situation.

Then came Season 4, and that's when things got tricky. Because you see, for three years they told us this show was clever, and it turned out to actually be; that this was a subversive and complex story being told in an absurdist way, and all that came to fruition. So when, with this season, there was both a flashback confirming that the main character wanted to persue a romantic relationship with his best friend, like in the past, but got turned down, and a very final break up between him and the girl who seemed like endgame for the first seasons, shipping went from "cool but unlikely pairing" to "damn, that's a great subversion of queerbaiting!". And their social media, trailers, released images and so on confirmed that to the audience (the tweet I recall better had the main m/f pairing, with a closed book, and was captioned with something on the lines of "a chapter ends so that another can begin"). The protagonist spent the entire season trying to rescue the guy he'd confessed feelings for. In a moment where they'd have to establish his identity, the frase said by said guy was the same reference used to talk about the bottle episode multiple times before. The nature of their relationship having changed is acknowledged by another character. At the end of the day, it seemed like a clearly confirmed fact.

And that's when the protagonist dies. There's a lot more ugliness around his death and how it was handled by the script, or how the showrunners pat themselves in the back. But it suffices to say that when an audience is mostly composed of "queer depressed supernerds", killing off the person who represented how someone like this could not only survive, but thrive, is more than a little traumatic. And doing so without ever giving the oh-so-central amd hyped up m/m relationship any ending, good or bad, makes it all seem both pointless and mean spirited.

Sorry about the gigantic text; this was such a unique fandom response and situation that I'm still quite fascinated by it (something like the near perfect creation and corruption of a vulnerable community's safe space). I don't know if you care about it, but just in case this interests you as well, now you have a summary.

hi hello! first, thanks for the extremely thoughtful post, it was interesting (I don't explicitly remember what I said in my post but I very much do remember being fascinated by the fall out of what the show did at the time) (I swear I'll finish pick it from S2 one day, though I'll admit I personally found season one a bit of a slog).

I remember reading enough posts from people on here and articles on sites like io9 to agree that what they did re killing off the bipolar I believe? lead and framing it as a noble sacrifice or something was in extremely poor taste, and I sympathise(d) with all the people who could relate to him and their grief coz like you said, even from my outsider perspective it seemed very ugly on the part of the show.

as far as the ship part of the conversation goes, I'm still largely ignorant of that from a first hand experience pov. but generally speaking, for me, I was and still am fascinated by what these (often lower budget, American CW/syfy etc) shows do to kinda stoke or fan fandom expectations/wants vs what fandoms do to themselves to set themselves up for a fall (canon vs fanon basically). in other words, how much a show queerbaits its audience vs how much the audience queerbaits itself, if that makes sense. not at all saying that's what happened in your fandom, again I haven't yet seen enough of the show to form an opinion on the ship aspect, but really just generally with those kind of shows (Supernatural being the big one recently, that Roswell show, even Teen Wolf going way back).

I usually find myself coming to the conclusion that like most things it's not a black and white issue, and that there's a certain amount of "blame" for lack of a better word on both sides. but again that's usually an observation from me as like a satellite to these shows and fandoms, not really valid in many senses, just something that eases the itchy part of my brain that's super intrigued when these fandom dramas explode as they're prone to do.

but no, I deffo do care in a larger sense so thanks so much! I'll deffo save this in case I ever get around to finishing the show for myself

#planetarywho #long post #really thanks for this!#kinda stoked an interest to get back on the show #again s1 was very much not for me but i want to finish almost from an experimental position lol

1 note · View note

kcnnarys · 3 years

Note

men ain’t shit and I’m so sorry you’re getting hate, you don’t deserve it. As a bi woman, this is a topic I’ve been very passionate for a long time. The dudes in the choices are still dudes. And they refuse acknowledge that one dinky little phone app’s target audience is women and that it’s okay that men don’t get “equal representation.” So many people on here act like it’s straight girls vs gay guys when it comes to rep, but overall the argument is men vs women in gaming. I can count on one hand the number of (console) video games I’ve played where the main character is a set-in-stone, canon woman (excluding games like fallout, mass effect, etc where you pick.) This fandom truly makes it feel like women can’t have shit.

And of course I want mlm players to have representation. Of course I think it��s silly that pb doesn’t offer more “Gender of Choice” stories, but like it’s the constant bitching via men that really does me in. Like I didn’t post under every rockstar games tweet that grand theft auto or red dead redemption were genderlocked. Sometimes stories are about women, sometimes they’re about men. People take the name Choices a little too literally think they deserve to pick every aspect and it sucks.

Anyways. Sorry for ranting, and you don’t have to publish this at all if you aren’t comfortable, I don’t want to add to discourse or make anything worse for you. But I do want to thank you, because seeing your post made me feel a hell of a lot better, and I’m so so sorry you’re getting bullied over it. I just hate that women in this fandom can’t say or do anything because men be acting like men, even in this corner of fandom.

PS- if you really wanna see men whining, check out any tweet about the new assassins creed game. They’re being disgusting because they don’t like the female option between the two characters- it’s disgusting. Like they’re not just actively disliking her, they’re demanding the game get rid of the option altogether. Men will never understand what it’s like to be a woman in gaming. (Or you know, the world)

EXACTLY omfg rt to all of this ..... i also have grown up playing a lot of console games and all of the ones i played were genderlocked as a man or choice of gender (mostly the aforementioned, especially in the 00s) so choices, while admittedly a gongshow at times, was one of the first games that was written specifically for women and wasnt completely botched. and i found a community of women online who also play choices and are so full of love and kindness and you cant place a value on that.

EVERYONE deserves that feeling of community and safety, including mlm. games rarely (if ever) cater to them and that is a huge problem. but being misogynistic and making women feel bad? the end does NOT justify the means. let women exist and enjoy their sense of community, especially since so many of us on here are lgbt (which is another crucial piece of information that is being disregarded)

sending you some love ❤❤

#anyways everyone respect women it will make you so hot and sexy #asks #anon #long post

6 notes · View notes

eyreguide · 5 years

Text

Thoughts on Jane Eyre (1961)

1961 adaptation of Jane Eyre (this is such a staged photo, there's no scene like this in the episode!)

There have been a handful of American hour long adaptations of Jane Eyre that were produced in the 40s/50s/60s for anthology television shows. Three are generally available - one of them starred Charlton Heston as Rochester and another with Patrick MacNee (from the TV show The Avengers) as the brooding hero - and they are all interesting in their way, but there is another version that is only available to watch for free at the Paley museum in LA and NYC. This one starred Sally Ann Howes and Zachary Scott. It's one that I want to explore in this post because it's so interesting to me as an adaptation. And in many ways I adore it.

I think of this post as a way for me to show that I can like Jane Eyre adaptations that change a lot of things from the book. I'm not completely close-minded when it comes to liberties taken. I do generally like for adaptations to be faithful, but if, in the event of time constraints, or catering to the audience, etc, there has to be some big changes, I still hope that those changes remain faithful to the story/characters/spirit of the original. And in this TV version, I found that to be the case, which is very rare, especially with the changes they decided to make and the fact that it is only an hour long.

I'm going to list some of the changes made, and why I think they worked or why they just delighted me even if they don't exactly fit in with the story. But first I should mention the usual with these hour long productions - Jane's childhood is always skipped, and generally the Rivers section is shortened or skipped. I can live with that, since the main drama is with Jane and Rochester at Thornfield. Production values are simple and no one cares to even approximate an English accent. Oh well. And now on to some of those liberties taken with the story:

Grace Poole as a suspicious character is immediately established

With some adaptations, Grace Poole is not a major character - but she does play a role in the plot of the novel because she is the red herring for the mysterious occurrences at Thornfield. She gives Jane a reason to not wonder too much about who is behind the fires and attacks, even if it's unclear why Mr. Rochester doesn't get rid of Grace. I liked that in this adaptation you see that Grace likes to drink (important to note), and also that she might like to creep about the house. It's also great that a little bit of suspense is set up right in the beginning, because this version focuses on the romance between Jane and Rochester foremost, so that early bit of Gothic flavor is appreciated.

Jane meets Mr. Rochester in the library

Instead of a Hay Lane scene where Mr. Rochester almost runs Jane down on his horse, Jane goes to the library and Mr. Rochester startles her because he is sitting there in the gloom. It's kind of hilarious because it is surprising for him to be there, and he's completely nonplussed by Jane and her reaction. Sadly we don't get the poetic beauty of a fairy tale turned on it's head with Mr. Rochester riding in majestically on his horse to literally falling off, but with this scene, we get that Mr. Rochester is unsettling to Jane, he is established as morose and brooding, and just as it is in the book, the scene is not very romantic at all.

Mr. Rochester tells Jane there is a madwoman in the attic

I like this change, (and it's kind of a big one!) because it's realistic to me that Rochester would just tell Jane he has a mentally unsound "relative" up there, which is what I would think most of the servants in the house know. It also serves to downplay Jane's naïveté when it comes to not questioning the secret Mr. Rochester is obviously keeping. Especially when he is going to marry her, and he should share everything with her. It's a change that makes sense.

There is a scene between Mr. Rochester, Jane and Blanche!

Alright, so Blanche is not a nice person, but in the book, we only have Jane's observations of her, and not really any dialogue between the two of them, so having a scene where Blanche is absolutely catty to Jane, and Jane gets her own back with a little zinger is the best. Something that's not in the book, but something I totally wanted. It went like this:

Blanche: "But governess aren't supposed to, are they Miss Eyre? Fall in love I mean. My Mama thought she would wield an immoral influence, so she packed her off. Minus the tutor." Jane: "What a shame you never completed your education, Miss Ingram." Blanche: "You have a sharp tongue haven't you? You must learn your place..." Rochester: "And your place is at the piano, my dear Blanche."

The scene also features Mr. Rochester more demanding in his wish for Jane to return to the party, and just generally seeming to prefer her company to Blanche, as Blanche is rather snippy. I have all kinds of love for this addition. The subtext of the scene from the novel is brought out into an actual scene.

The proposal is wonderfully awkward

The proposal scene in the novel is especially fun to re-read (the first time you read it, I think you are caught up in the fact that Mr. Rochester is actually proposing now) but when you go over it a few more times, it's so clear just how much he's trying to push Jane into revealing her feelings. And with this adaptation, you get a greater sense of that. Mr. Rochester here, is so deliberately obtuse as he blatantly makes Jane think he is going to marry Blanche. It's awful teasing, but funny in a way. Especially when he makes the complete turnaround, and is all 'you're the one that I want.' Jane's confusion is completely justified. And the scene shifts into romantic very quickly, especially with this line of Rochester's:

"I don't ask you to love me, perhaps you know too much about me to love me now. But I need you Jane, I need you to take my life and make it over. The best and the worst of it. If you will."

He's bares his soul to her, and it's beautiful.

St. John Rivers is a joke

This is not something I would generally like about the adaptation, because it is so far from the way St. John is written in the novel! But he's so out of character in this, and so humorously unappealing, that it is funny, and he brings an unexpected lightness to the story after so much heartache. St. John in this adaptation is rotund, balding, stuttering, over-effusive and I get the sense that when he's asking Jane to become a missionary and his wife, he's surprised that Jane actually considers it. I mean, Jane acts like she seriously considers it, but the moment he leaves, she's like no way! That's also hilarious to me. I guess I like this change too, because I don't care for the character of St. John, so I'm not as attached to seeing him as he should be portrayed. It's almost like with this change, St John's personality (in the book) matches the physicality of this adaptation's portrayal. Someone so handsome and angelic-looking, shouldn't be so cold and dismissive.

Mr. Rochester and Jane's reunion is aggressive

Ah, the last scene! In the novel Mr. Rochester is pretty broken down - I mean he's lost his sight, one hand, and the love of his life, so that's understandable. And in the book his melancholy wins out over his pride. But with this adaptation, Rochester has so much pride, he's angry that Jane's returned to him, because he feels like he doesn't have anything to offer her, and it's kind of adorable. Jane's passive aggressive comments are also endearing to me. Their relationship throughout the episode often featured verbal sparring, and it really comes out now. Jane doesn't have patience for Mr. Rochester's pity party, and it's glorious. Favorite line from Jane -

"I'm only sorry to see that you met disaster with such poor spirit."

Me: *slow clap*

The Writing

Perhaps you may have noticed from the parts of the script I've quoted, that this adaptation takes some liberties with the original text. It's true, it absolutely does. I think it uses very little of the dialogue from the book, but surprisingly the script is very good at capturing the tone and spirit of the novel - at least I think so. And that makes it an interesting script for me, because something that is so changed and abridged still gives me the feels when it comes to the story. There are a few moments in the episode that are emotionally powerful to me, where the script perfectly brings to life the romance and personality of Jane and Rochester. There's this one from just after the fire in Rochester's room and Rochester is talking to Jane, commenting on how much good she's done for the place --

Rochester: "Joan of Arc come to raise the siege of Thornfield." Jane: "I'll do what I can sir, whatever I can." Rochester: [quietly and thoughtfully] "I wonder if you could raise it."

Or this one after the attack on Mason, and Rochester is revealing more of his feelings to Jane --

Rochester: "Are you still my friend Jane, now that you know all this?" Jane: "I shall always be your friend, sir." Rochester: "Then I shall make one more confession. You are my only friend."

To paraphrase Jane - who wouldn't melt at those words?? And Jane is so pessimistic about her feelings for Rochester. This line is especially bittersweet in how it shows Jane’s lack of confidence in loving Rochester:

Jane: "I had come little by little to admit to myself that I loved him. Though I knew if ever there was a hopeless love, it was mine for Edward Rochester."

There's also humor, as in Mr. Rochester's question when Jane returns in the end and finds him blind and lonely -

Rochester: "What brings you to Thornfield? On holiday visiting ancient monuments and ruins?"

What this adaptation manages to do astonishingly well is cut to the heart of the story and presents a dialogue that is true to the novel and the emotion, but in brevity. For instance, instead of Mr. Rochester describing why he's not interested in Blanche during the proposal scene - in the novel he asks what love Blanche has for him and what happened when he caused the rumor to reach her that he was not rich, etc. No, in this adaptation Rochester dismisses Blanche by calling her a "supercilious stick." Come on, that's hilarious! I don't know how this version can fail to delight anyone.

Conclusion

I've spent most of this post highlighting aspects of the script, but I should give lots of credit to the actors, especially Sally Ann Howes as Jane and Zachary Scott as Rochester. Jane is "not such a rabbit" as Rochester calls her in the show, and it was refreshing to see a Jane who could hold her own verbally against Rochester. Most adaptations struggle to show a strong Jane with an "inward fire". I don't think Sally was the perfect Jane - there was still somewhat of a too submissive quality to her portrayal, but I think she did a creditable job and I enjoyed the touch of asperity she brought to the character.

Zachary Scott - well, I developed a great fondness for the actor because of this. (I have since watched a bunch of his old films!) I loved the brooding romantic quality he brought to Rochester. He's rough, he's bitter, he's teasing, he's tender, he's almost perfect, and I found him very swoon-worthy. And the way he would deliver some of those lines! *fans self* There's a moment too when Rochester abruptly moves closer to Jane and you just know he wants to kiss her, but he stops himself. Perfection. That exact moment of longing and restraint is the emotion I want from every Jane Eyre adaptation. I want to say that even the soundtrack to this production is gorgeous - very romantic and pensive.

I can't believe I'm so obsessed with this version. I can't believe it because there are so many adaptations of Jane Eyre out there, that I can own (and do), yet this one - now one of my top favorites - is unavailable! I also feel sad that I can't share this version with everyone, because I truly feel that it would be a great introduction to the story if someone has not read it. Err, if you don't mind TV production values from the Sixties. And of course it would delight any fans of the novel. All I can say is that if you have the opportunity to visit the Paley Museum, try to watch this in their library. And if the copyright owner of the program happens to see this.... please make this for sale!!

And thank you, dear Reader, for getting through this long review!

(Note: This is a re-post, with edits, of something I wrote on Bookish Whimsy a few years ago)

#Jane eyre #Charlotte bronte #Sally Ann howes #Zachary scott #film adaptation #literature

4 notes · View notes

thewadapan · 5 years

Photo

It's Friday night.

You've locked yourself out.

The streets are empty.

> RETRACE STEPS

(I finished an MS Paint fan adventure.)

Creator’s Commentary

Normally, when I post stories on this blog, I throw the whole thing beneath the spoiler break - but that’s not really possible this time around. Click the link above if you haven’t read it yet - it only takes about ten minutes - then come back here if you want.

All done? Still with me? Okay, cool, because we’re going to be heading into spoiler territory here pretty quickly.

“RETRACE STEPS”

OPEN ON BLACK:

INT. – LATE AFTERNOON

A door opens on the right, spilling light into the threshold. The ceiling light automatically flickers on. Alice enters frame and heads to her door.

She tries the handle, but the door doesn’t budge. As her hand depresses the handle, the title briefly becomes visible.

We return to the original angle. Alice reaches into her left pocket, and finds nothing. She turns to lean against the door, facing the camera, and checks her right pocket, then the pockets of her hoodie. She tries the handle again, but the door is definitely locked. She leans, for a second, motionless.

ALICE Fuck.

She stalks out of the threshold, and the door closes behind her.

I. Making friends is harder than I thought.

When you’re a kid, people sorta make friends for you. Maybe your parents’ friends have kids, so suddenly those kids are your friends. Maybe you go to nursery or school, and then your classmates are kinda your friends too. At least some of those people will probably never stop being your friends. As you move through the education system, that cohort diffuses through the local schools - but chances are a few of your friends will stick with you all the way.

When you arrive at university, chances are you’re completely alone.

You’re thrown through the gauntlet of fresher’s week, forced to put yourself out there as you identify new friends and foes. One of the main attractions of university-managed accommodation - particularly catered accommodation - is that it places you with a huge amount of new people. Heck, part of the idea behind having a roommate is that they’re your “designated friend”.

(I didn’t have a roommate, and ended up going to university with two of my school friends, so these are less experiences and more observations - but that’s not to say I didn’t go out of my way to make new friends in those first weeks.)

After a month or so of the dreaded “three questions” (”What’s your name? Where are you from? What are you studying?”), the cliques have mostly solidified. The college relationships have crumbled, after one or both parties realised they were mostly in it for the sex. The cool people have long since stopped showing up to lectures. You haven’t gone back to any of the sports clubs and societies you signed up for. Maybe, just maybe, you’re occasionally glancing at your phone and wondering if you should finally give your parents a call to let them know you haven’t died.

If you’re lucky, you’ve met your new best friends. If you’re unlucky, then you’re very, very alone.

But of course, it’s not all down to luck.

She stalks out of the threshold, and the door closes behind her. Outside the threshold, there is a shot from the banister above of Alice walking down the stairs, facing away from the camera and typing on her phone.

Outside, Alice sits on the wall and stares at her phone. There is a brief montage of her slowly pacing up and down the path, leaning out into the road to check if anyone’s coming, checking her phone, peering into the downstairs window, kicking loose stones back into the gravel, and back to her sitting on the wall. After a few seconds, she puts her phone away and trudges out of frame across the stones.

II. Coming up with stories is harder than I thought.

I can’t exactly remember what I put my name down for during freshers’ week, but one way or another I ended up dragging a new friend to a writing workshop for my university’s filmmaking society. A bunch of strangers from all years were crammed around some tables that had been pushed together in our Student Union’s bar.

This guy, the head of the- president of the society? Sure, the President, let’s go with that. The President stands up and sorta fumbles his way through an introduction, before telling us to turn to the person next to us. I turn to my friend, because I don’t like talking to strangers. Then the President tells us (I might be misremembering here) that we’ve got one minute to come up with a story.

There’s a moment of awkward silence, because nobody wants to be the first person to start talking about the first dumb idea that’s popped into their head at those words.

Then the conversations start.

I went into that first minute expecting to come up with absolutely nothing. To be honest, I’m pretty sure we came up with nothing. I think there might’ve been some implication that they’d go around the table once time was up asking for quick summaries - this terrified me not just at the prospect of having to bluff my way through a pitch, but at the prospect of having to listen to everyone else do the same. Honestly, the moment that’s stuck in my mind most since was when I talked to the guy sitting on the other side of me, and he started trying to tell me about Lord of the Rings, which... okay, I don’t like Lord of the Rings, sue me, whatever. Someone else talked about the Batman movies at one point, and - actually, that might’ve been the same guy. Y’know what, I’ve gotten off track.

The point is that at some point during that meeting, Retrace Steps was born. I don’t remember when exactly, or how I came up with it - I suspect I’d locked myself out of accommodation at some point, or knew a friend who had, and thought it’d be funny to do a story where someone does that and can’t for the life of them get back in. In order to add complications, I decided that their roommate wouldn’t answer their texts, and that the residence office would be out of hours - and that was when the idea that everyone had disappeared came into my head.

INT. MAIN BUILDING – LATE AFTERNOON

Over-the-shoulder shot of Alice entering a corridor in the main building. The camera focuses on the sign saying ‘ON DUTY’, then pans across to the door to the general office. It focuses on another sign saying ‘The office is now closed...’, then across to another sign by the door with a phone number on it.

Foreground with Alice comes back into focus. She takes out her phone and dials.

ALICE Hello? I’ve locked myself out, do you have a spare...

She trails off, and puts the phone away. Clearly, someone’s answered but has hung up. Cut across for a close-up of her face, trying to figure out her next move.

SERIES OF BRIEF SHOTS:

Alice looks for her keys in:

A) a computer lab B) a library C) a laundry room D) a games room E) a bathroom

There are no keys, and no people. Alice goes to the kitchen and gets a mini-doughnut out from a box in a cupboard. She eats it thoughtfully. Once she’s finished, she reaches out to grab another, hesitates, and decides against it.

III. Making movies is harder than I thought.

A lot of the ideas being thrown around the table were for some pretty high-concept stuff, and I remember thinking - hang on, aren’t you supposed to actually be filming that? I’d approached the challenge from the angle of “what do I have, and what can I make with it”, not “what do I want to make, and how can I make it”. In an unfortunate twist of fate, my film - of all those that were conceived that day - would end up being far and away the worst. But I’ll get to that.

For a student film, the "everybody disappears and you’re locked out” concept made perfect sense - you could film it at your accommodation, you’d only need a single actor, and it’s a story that your audience will probably (if not immediately, then at least after another month or two) be able to relate to.

(Side note: I obviously hadn’t come up with this concept whole-cloth. Michael Grant’s Gone series of YA novels - which I’d finished reading midway through secondary school - is a superhero story about a bunch of kids on an island where all the adults have suddenly disappeared. More pertinently, Starscribe’s The Last Pony on Earth is the diary of someone who wakes up completely alone in their city, only in the body of a cartoon horse. Yes, Retrace Steps has its roots in My Little Pony fanfiction, and I’m very sorry about that.)

My friend wasn’t interested in sticking with the society - he mostly did it to back me up - but I guess I was. Knowing that most people would be angling for directorial roles, I signed up as a writer and threw together a script. An email came back the following day; apparently from el Presidente himself:

Thank you for sending the script Retrace Steps. As you have said in your original email, the script is quite short. But I do think it is a very intriguing concept nonetheless, one that is probably helped more so than hampered by its brevity. After all, the nature of your script would to a degree require an empty street, as well as a quiet hall, both of which are rare commodities indeed, especially during the weekends.

Anyways, since the script is well formatted, I will just offer a suggestion, one which I hope may help your final edit before the deadline, should you wish to do so.

Your script portrays excellently Sam's anxiety over the course of the narrative, from his inability to find his keys, then his inability to find anyone at all. I do however believe that you could make the final scene perhaps have more impact. How this is done depends on the overarching theme of the story you are telling, as what you would emphasize at the films' conclusion would depend on it.

Is it an allegory to the anxieties of the average student (Sam), who finds himself socially isolated by a sense of exile or ignorance of the larger community? Or is it perhaps more of an absurdist comedy, or even horror? Though I could wrong, I was under the impression that it was more likely to be the former than the latter. If so, could the story end with it emphasizing Sam's exclusion from society, such as a close up shot to the door and keyhole?

As with all feedback, you are under no obligation to take them to heart, and the things I pointed out are but small things to consider on an otherwise great piece of work. Thank you for making this piece available to the rest of the society.

It seemed that I’d successfully communicated the theme of isolation - less so the theme of entitlement. Bringing that theme to the fore would be my biggest challenge throughout subsequent drafts of the script (where I failed miserably) and the development of the fanventure (on which the jury’s still out).

(Those subsequent drafts would also see the characters “Sam” and “Chris” - those being the names of two friends I’d pegged as backup actors for the roles - get renamed as a more generic “Alice” and “Bob”.)

The Retrace Steps team consisted of a director, a producer, a cameraman/editor, and me. I met with the director only a couple of times - she seemed pretty competent, but decided that she couldn’t commit the time to the project and stepped down. Our producer was all too happy to take over the role.

Auditions started shortly after the teams were assigned - although I’d used male pronouns in the script, I’d anticipated that there’d be a greater demand for male actors (because most of the writers/directors would be male and most of the actors would be female) and planned to go into the auditions with no preference one way or another.

In truth, however, I think the gender of the story’s lead does have a noticeable impact on how it comes across - at least in film, where there’s no good means of narration. Speaking very broadly, when dealing with themes of isolation, I think the key question that comes to an audience’s mind is “why is this person isolated?” - and if the character is male, I feel like they’re more likely to assume the answer is a personal failure of some sort; there must surely be something wrong with him. If you’re reading this, chances are you’re in pretty deep on the internet, where I think these issues of perception are less pronounced - so if your instinct is to buck against those assumptions, well, I’m glad.

(The fanventure would end up using second-person narration, they/them pronouns and androgynous character designs to sidestep these issues entirely, while drawing the reader directly into the conflict.)

Our producer/director wasn’t able to make the callbacks (which felt like another red flag), so it was down to me to relay back to her what I thought of everyone. It was kind of a challenging process, because - as I’ve said - I don’t like talking to strangers and I certainly don’t like telling them what to do. Still, I was able to more-or-less settle into it, and eventually the director and I settled on a girl who seemed to know what she was doing. I feel a little bad for effectively putting her through the project, but the joke’s on us: within a year she’d been elected el Presidente of the entire students’ association. I can only assume that none of her opponents knew about the movie; it might’ve made for a pretty good smear campaign. Or not, nobody really cares about student politics anyway.

(The director couldn’t make it to the meeting where the society allocated the actors either. Basically, the President went through the actors one by one, and the teams would negotiate for each of them in turn. I’m fairly sure only one or two of the other teams were after the same actress as we were - I basically just said “we only need one cast member and we thought she’d do best,” and that was all it took; once that was settled I simply left and pretty much didn’t interact with any other members of the society in person until the screening. The other roles she could’ve got were minor anyway - although, in retrospect, she might’ve been better off.)

I think I’m not going to bother explaining exactly why the Retrace Steps short film turned out to be such a disaster. I’m pretty willing to pin the blame at the director’s feet - she’d arrange shoots at strange times with little notice, only to show up half an hour late herself. When she and I disagreed on part of the story, our cinematographer generally sided with her; she had the strongest personality of any of us, while I didn’t want to cause trouble. Our other team members - the actress and a lights guy who the society’d lumped with us (the lights ended up being a collaborative effort) - stayed out of it.

As the end of the semester approached, we were missing crucial swathes of footage. Our director pulled an ending out of her ass - a brief confrontation between myself-as-Bob and the actress, that... somehow involved custard creams? The script called for doughnuts, but we weren’t organised enough to have bought those in advance, and the biscuits were all we had at hand. I can’t actually remember exactly how it went, because it didn’t make any sense, but I remember enough to know that it actually ended up indirectly inspiring the execution of the revised ending present in the fanventure.

The end of the semester arrived. The society had hired out the small hall in the students’ union to screen all the movies. The screening started, and there was no sign of our director or cinematographer - they’d apparently been editing all afternoon. Eventually they arrived and sat down near myself and our actress.

I’m not gonna lie. What followed wasn’t the most embarrassing experience of my life. It probably wasn’t even in the top ten. But it was pretty embarrassing. All the movies were pretty awful in their own ways, but ours was uniquely terrible. To our director’s credit, she’d managed to cut the footage together into something we could maybe pass off as an absurdist comedy (which, to my own credit, had been kinda what I’d pictured in the first place - I’d just pictured something with a little more in the way of actual narrative). Even so, despite the awkward laughs - or perhaps because of them - it was atrocious.

I’ve only seen the movie once, at that screening, and I cringed the whole way through. Some time later, the director messaged me asking if I had a copy - apparently it hadn’t occurred to her to save one for herself, and our ex-cinematographer had gone AWOL - but I didn’t. Stupidly, I’d decided not to chase after one either, because in the moment I couldn’t imagine wanting to put myself through the experience of seeing it again. Almost half a year later, when I was almost done with the fanventure, I got back in touch with both the director and the society: I wanted to have the movie on hand so I could write about it in this commentary, but I didn’t say that, because I didn’t want to let on that I’d remade it as a frikkin’ webcomic. The person from the society said she knew someone who had a copy, and that she’d ask, but she never got back to me and by the time I remembered to chase her up it felt like it was too late to actually do so. It’s likely that the movie will never resurface - which I guess is good in a way, in that there’s no way in hell I’m gonna show it to any of you.

I was bitter. I wanted nothing to do with student societies. I wanted nothing to do with filmmaking, and haven’t made a film since - not unless you count Are You Happy, which I pretty much only made because I could do so entirely on my own. I’m much more leery about the prospect of collaborating with strangers, although I suspect that if an opportunity came my way I’d probably take it.

(Side note: last October, in an interaction which wound up being pretty excruciating in its own right, I contributed a satirical listicle to another society. This was a nightmare for a variety of reasons, but - suffice to say - it’s not particularly pleasant to discover that somebody’s made a bunch of edits to your work without telling you, especially if the changes are for the worse. I wish I had more positive things to say about collaboration, really, I do. Actually, I will say that my experiences working with others in the Transformers fandom have been pretty darn good - you can find details of that stuff over on the list of things I made.)

For a good while, I suspected that Retrace Steps would never see the light of day. I entertained the idea of rounding up a few of my friends and bashing the thing out myself over the course of a few weekends, but I ended up being pretty busy with other stuff. Besides, the society had the nice lights and cameras, and I didn’t want to go through the hassle of borrowing from them. Most of all, there was the tiny voice telling me that my script probably hadn’t ever been much good in the first place, and that I should switch back to pure prose - a medium with a much faster turnaround.

(That voice was right, as I’m sure you’re seeing for yourself. Look, it was a student film, there’s probably no such thing as a good student film - I’m just banking on fanventure-adaptation-of-a-bad-student-film still being fair game.)

EXT. STREET

Wide shot of Alice walking through the street, shouting. It is raining.

ALICE Hello? Is anybody there?

Overhead shot as she looks up and squints at the sky, then reaches back and lifts her hood.

Everything slows down. Cut to a side-on shot of Alice lifting her hood. A muted sound slowly turns into the jangle of keys as things speed up again. Cut across to medium shot face-on, as Alice looks confused. She reaches up with her other hand into her raised hood, and pulls out the keys. She holds them between two fingers, and the camera focuses on them.

ALICE Oh, for fuck’s sake.

IV. Talking about Retrace Steps without talking a little bit about Homestuck is harder than I thought.

Homestuck was this big multimedia webcomic that ran from 2009 to 2016. Homestuck was very good, and its unique “MS Paint Adventures” format inspired thousands of “MS Paint Fan Adventures” - some of which take Homestuck’s premise, but many of which are otherwise entirely original stories.

The oldest writing on this blog, in fact - presuming I haven’t hidden it out of mortification - is a rudimentary (and really god-awful) fanventure called You’ve Just Been FiRED. Don’t read it, it’s very, very bad, and I abandoned it after about thirty pages - some of which remain unpublished as of writing.

My second attempt at a fanventure, which - no joke - I wrote in the pages of my school planner during one exam season, is called SP00KY M4N0R; unlike traditional fanventures, which use the aesthetic of interactive fiction but none of the non-linear storytelling, this one was a fully-fledged choose-your-own-adventure story. In the following year’s planner, I started writing a spiritual successor called W1LT1NG (the setting of this one is slightly less self-evident: it took place inside an Egyptian pyramid). Neither of these stories have seen the light of day outside of a couple of my friends (and teachers) - but they might, so I’ll discuss them no further.

At some point in high school, I tried adapting SP00KY M4N0R for the web - first in MS Paint, then later in Photoshop CS2 - but put the project on the back burner and never really picked it back up again.

It wasn’t until after I joined the Homestuck Discord server that my interest in fanventures was rekindled. I became its 9615th member on the 6th of January, 2018 - in other words, a good while after we’d wrapped on Retrace Steps - but very quickly realised that its rate of activity was far to high for me to keep up with anything, duly muted it, and pretty much just forgot about it entirely.

Months later, something - presumably in either the Worth the Candle server or the Worm server - drew me back, and I found myself lurking there infrequently. On the 2nd of November, I briefly waded in - to ask some questions about Cordyceps - and after that, I think I lurked on-and-off for pretty much a whole month while I finished the remaining works on Makin’s List of Shills (if you’re wondering what all of these names in italics are, you might want to click that link). After that, I was pretty much there to stay.

A small but notable number of the server’s regulars ran fanventures of their own, and so I found myself becoming much more aware of the format than I ever had been while working on SP00KY M4N0R. Eventually, I decided I wanted to make something of my own - this was shortly after I’d finished working on Another Son, which had ended up being something of a mixed bag in a lot of ways - and hit upon the idea of adapting Retrace Steps as a fanventure.

You see, the thing about fanventures is that many of them begin with the same premise - “you are mysteriously alone”, and then things escalate as you learn more about the world the second-person protagonist has found themselves in. Retrace Steps has that same premise, with a very simple twist - the reason you are mysteriously alone is simply that nobody likes you.

SERIES OF SHOTS:

A) Alice re-enters the building B) She heads up the stairs, C) reaches the door to the threshold D) (a brief return to the original angle from the very beginning of the film) and enters the threshold. E) Extreme close-up of the key entering the lock. F) Over-the-shoulder shot as the door is unlocked and starts to open. G) (180-degree cut) She stares, dumbfounded at what she finds within. F) (Her POV) Her room is full of people, all holding red plastic cups and staring at her.

V. Drawing is harder than I thought.

Before I get into the meat of the work, I should probably give a broad overview of the process I used for creating the images - which, for the most part, was identical to the process I’d used for SP00KY M4N0R. The panels in Homestuck are 650px by 450px; in order to create a rougher (read: more forgiving) look, I halved these dimensions to 325px by 225px. I’d originally planned to scale the images back up to full size during publication, but ended up deciding that the negative space around the smaller frames helped create an atmosphere of isolation. Besides, I wasn’t sure if it’d be possible to scale the images back up without any anti-aliasing.

If you don’t know what anti-aliasing is, I’ll briefly explain - it’s when pixels at the edge of shapes in digital images get changed to a slightly different colour, to create smoother outlines. This works well at high resolutions, but at lower resolutions muddies detail and makes the image appear somewhat blurred - the effect is particularly pronounced if the images are entirely black and white. Homestuck avoids anti-aliasing pretty consistently, and doing so is a hallmark of the MSPA style.

Thankfully, Photoshop CS2 allows you to turn off antialiasing on pretty much every individual tool. I drew all the graphics using a 4px brush, but thanks to a beat-up old variable-pressure graphics tablet I could reduce this to 2px as needed. The 2px brush size was employed pretty heavily for detail in some of the busier environments, and at times I found myself using the selection tool to nudge stuff around at a pixel-by-pixel level.

Although Retrace Steps is adapted from a script, I’m pretty sure none of the dialogue from that script ended up making the jump into the second-person narration of the story. In fact, very few of the script’s locations remain either. The words and the artwork developed in tandem - I was rarely more than a few panels ahead in the script, and would generally let the physical on-panel action inform what was being written.

I occasionally looked up bits of reference - most notably to get some architectural details for the Tesco store - but otherwise winged it. Occasionally, in the more complicated images, I’d start out by drawing some perspective lines. For a couple of the images in the credits (specifically the cup and the Poké Ball) I went so far as to use autoshapes as guides, because I was struggling to draw passable circles freehand.

(No, those shapes on the right aren’t my attempts at circles, they’re the guide I used while drawing the doughnut.)

I’ll give more specific thoughts later, but broadly speaking I think my drawings suited the story I was trying to tell about as well as they could. I’m not an artist, and in the future I’m going to stray away from visual projects like this; the part I value most is the writing process, and I’d say that only a tiny fraction of the time I devoted to this project was actually spent writing. The flip side of that, of course, is that people generally much prefer stories with a visual aspect - it’s hard to convince them to read a webcomic, much less a prose story.

ALICE What the actual fuck are you all doing in my room? BOB (somewhat passively) Uhhh… didn’t you get my email? ALICE What email? Everyone in the room stares at her. Then, as one, they move to push her out of the room and shut the door. She protests, until-

ALICE This is my room!

BOB (poking his head back into shot with mucho sass) Yeah, but it’s not though, is it? He slams the door the rest of the way shut, and the lock clicks back into place.

Back to very first angle.

ALICE (quietly, to herself) What the actual fuck.

She knocks on the door loudly.

ALICE (shouting, her face inches from the door) This is my room!

Silence. She tilts her head forward, hitting the door with a sad thud. Then she turns and sits down, back to the door, and the camera cuts to join her at this new level.

She sits for a few seconds, thinking, then gets up again and leaves frame.

VI. Writing this commentary is harder than I thought.

Anyway, I figure the best way to get down into the details is to just start at the beginning and work my way through.

The first twenty panels take place in something of a liminal space - the corridor on which the reader’s room lies. I made sure never to show any of the other doors in the corridor; so far as the reader is concerned, they may as well not exist. The door is numbered “41″ - this being a truncation of “413″, the most ubiquitous of Homestuck’s so-called “meme numbers”. I kinda envisioned the room as being the first on the fourth floor of the building.

(If I’m feeling cheeky, I’ll say that the other doors are the ones up in the site’s navigation bar - they literally exist outside the scope of the panels.)

I probably didn’t spend as much time as I should’ve perfecting this environment - the door’s very wobbly. My first attempt placed it at the end of the corridor, but I didn’t like the way that looked at all.

Just in terms of the site itself, there’s a couple of things to take note of. The first is the solo cup sitting at the top of page, next to the advertisement, which is also the story’s icon on the site - and its only splash of colour (well, except in the ads, which I don’t have any control over). The second is that the link to the next panel is “->” - a slight variation on the command used by Homestuck, which was “==>”. The significance of this should be obvious to Homestuck readers, but I’ll comment no further on either of these details until later.

(Fun fact: I didn’t find out that those big red American plastic party cups had an actual proper name, and that that name was frikkin’ solo cup, until well into the fanventure’s development, if not after I’d finished it entirely. One of my friends used the term in passing conversation - I can’t remember what about, because I was too busy freaking out internally. It’s like pottery; it rhymes.)

On panel 3 - once they’ve walked into the corridor - the lights have turned on, and the entire colour scheme for the comic flips. The idea of having automatic lights was present in the original script, but it wasn’t until pretty late in the fanventure’s development that I decided to make them plot-relevant!

Out of all the images, it’s the close-up of the door on panels 5-7 that comes closest to matching a shot description in the script. The original idea was that the door being locked was the inciting incident that would lead the protagonist to go look for their keys - so the title/command “RETRACE STEPS” would literally appear as they pressed the handle. In the first draft of that panel, this was in fact the case - but my prereaders didn’t think it looked that great, and I was inclined to agree; besides, the title also appeared prominently on the title page and during the credits.

It’s not until panel 7 that we get any words at all - a simple “huh”. In the original script, I made relatively heavy use of profanity in Alice’s dialogue - this was supposed to signify hostility. I wasn’t happy with how this came across, and completely backpedalled in the fanventure - the second-person narration is entirely devoid of swears. I wanted to portray your inability to curse to as a deficiency: you’re unable to fully express yourself. Like most aspects of your character, this isn’t something you’re supposed to consciously notice or understand until after the story’s twist is revealed.

Panel 8 includes a command: “Try door again.” Generally speaking, the commands used in Retrace Steps are much more perfunctory than those in Homestuck - they’re almost entirely devoid of snark, with many being only a single word.

This entire sequence has a lot of legwork to do in terms of laying out the situation in a believable manner without giving too much away. On panel 14, the narration lists your inventory: a phone, a packet of tissues, and a wallet. The phone and the wallet both play direct roles in the narrative, but I consciously chose to include the tissues because I think the word itself has connotations with illness, sadness, and loneliness.

It’s worth noting that these items are those that I personally carry about in real life. Other than the abstract geography of the corridor, this is perhaps the clearest example of me drawing directly from my own day-to-day experiences. The word “self-insert” is kind of a dirty word in a lot of ways, but the truth is that I wanted the protagonist of Retrace Steps to serve as both a self-insert and an audience surrogate. This is why I felt like the MSPA format would serve the story well.

(None of that is to say that you should draw conclusions about me as a person based on the behaviour of the character in the story. Superficially, they share a lot of my tics, but their actual thought processes and motivations are different in many ways.)

Panels 17-19 are just repeated images of the empty corridor; the lights turn off on panel 20, and the site’s colours briefly flip again. Heading into this project, I had the rough idea that I wanted to tell the story in a “nice” number of pages - maybe a hundred, maybe less, maybe more. I decided that, if I repeated the door image, I’d have a buffer to use to shorten or lengthen the final page count as needed - but that turned out not to be necessary. This little span establishes that the lights in the corridor are on a timer, a fact which turns out to be relevant down the line.

The first scene change occurs on panel 21, which shows a stairwell. My original version of this sequence confused basically everyone who saw it - I’d envisioned the camera as being at the bottom, looking up, but everyone presumed I’d done it from the top down. The current approach makes much more sense, as all of the lines of action in the image point towards its centre.

As you descend the stairs and thinks about your roommate, the narration rambles much more. In this story, I decided that use of the internet would be a signifier for loneliness in some way - the roommate has an old-fashioned phone and communicates only by text. I wanted to give the impression that they’re bad at checking their messages; preferring instead just to talk to people face-to-face. That’s not the whole story, though - to a certain extent, they actively ghost you.

Once more, I’m drawing pretty heavily from my own life experiences for this sequence. For a long time in high school, I used to have a terrible flip phone - my parents didn’t want me to have anything better. I eventually upgraded to a terrible smartphone, which I mostly used to play Hill Climb Racing and Glow Hockey. Late in high school, I wound up using a bulky Kindle Fire as a portable computer, with my brother’s old terrible smartphone in case I needed to call anyone; the phone was pretty much always out of battery. It was only within the last six months - halfway through my second year of university - that I got an actual honest-to-god good smartphone. This stuff becomes relevant again later, during the Pokémon GO sequences.

(As I said earlier, I didn’t have a roommate, but my neighbour did - his roommate kept strange hours, and I’m pretty sure most nights he didn’t come back to accommodation to sleep. They got along, but there was an arrangement in place there.)

The image of seeing someone at meals but never speaking to them struck me as a fairly strong one - in student accommodation, you’re forced to interact with people because you use the same amenities, but the extent to which you actually communicate with those people is a matter of personal choice. The narration uses the word “sit”, which I think implies a lack of understanding of that element of choice - you don’t sit together, therefore you cannot speak. The idea that you totally could sit together just doesn’t occur to you.

Anyway, panels 25-33 take place immediately outside the building. With public buildings like this, people who smoke are unlikely to stray far from the door - and the smell lingers for a while after they’re finished. Public smoking has always been one of my pet hates - I’m asthmatic - but I consider the extent to which it bothers me to be something of a character flaw. The protagonist of Retrace Steps is kinda built of flaws like this: things which sound reasonable but are rooted in their lack of empathy.

The narration uses the word “ramble” to describe the text sent to your roommate - later on, we learn that the word “rant” might’ve been more accurate.

This is the point where the story itself notes that it’s a Friday night - a fact which was previously stated in the very first line of its description. The idea of not doing anything on a Friday night is a pretty common symbol for loneliness; it’s the night when most people go out with friends, at the conclusion of the workweek. Tropes are tools - if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The other symbol for loneliness in this sequence is slightly less obvious, I think - it’s when the reader kicks a single stone out onto the path. The narration notes that they “don’t know” why they did that; this was intended to mirror the story’s central mystery. In the original version, they kicked the stone from the path back in amongst the rest - the idea being that they’d kinda fallen by the wayside, and wanted not to be alone. I kinda go back and forth on which version I prefer, but they get the same thing across.

Panels 34-35 are each “unique” images, in that they only recur in the credits. It felt like a waste to spend a long time drawing complicated images like this without reusing them in any capacity, but I’m glad I did.

The first of these unique images was supposed to convey the city’s emptiness in a clear way. It’s probably one of my favourites, even if it’s pretty rough in places. The forced perspective is more strongly felt in this image than in any other in the fanventure, and it led me to mess up the scale of the protagonist - this was something that I only fixed after the comic was otherwise pretty much done.

I was on the fence as to whether or not to include the billboard. A lot of the imagery in the fanventure is very on-the-nose, but the billboard is easily the most blatant in this respect - the protagonist completely ignores the concept of self-improvement so they can play Pokémon GO. I ended up showing the panel to an uncredited friend, and they convinced me it was a good idea to keep it in.

The Pokémon GO stuff is pretty much when the fanventure jumps the shark, to be honest. You can tell, because the command - “Pokemon GO on your phone” - is a reference to a dumb thing Hillary Clinton said during the 2016 American presidential election.

See, the thing is, the vast majority of the game’s mechanics are designed to encourage going outside and interacting with others - you can ignore or circumvent this, but it’ll cost you one way or another. Which is fascinating to me! The game is easiest if you go out of your way to make friends with other people who play the game. This is a common theme throughout much of Nintendo’s output - and it somehow usually feels less cynical than the kinds of forced interaction you find in many other mobile games.

The bit that’s really fascinating, however, is the lengths people go to avoid these inconveniences. They’ll buy both versions of each new Pokémon game, rather than trading with someone who has the version they didn’t buy! They’ll buy a second Nintendo DS, just so they can get the Pokémon from one game to another! I can’t begrudge them, because I’ve certainly done similar things myself in the past, but I think you can certainly frame it in a way where it looks like all these gamers treat social interaction as an obstacle to overcome. Who’d’ve thought?

The narration on panel 37 ended up going through several revisions, thanks to feedback from Gitaxian. Back when I was new to the Homestuck Discord, Gitaxian was one of the people who made me feel welcome - we both really like this one obscure essay about the live-action Transformers movies (and totally recommend that you should read it). He responded pretty positively to Everything Is Red Now, a Spider-Man comic I made over a year ago, and was my first choice for a prereader on Retrace Steps.

Gitaxian found the sequence in its original form to be a little over-detailed, and suggested that I change its tone from “explaining the game” to “complaining about the game”. He also noted that making it “rantier” would be a way of concretely validating the roommate’s perspective. I followed his advice, and I’m much happier with where the story ended up as a result.

Knowing I’d be revisiting these panels later in the story, I ended up taking the time to polish them up a little: I added details of a fence and path in the background, and tweaked the hand in the foreground. By this point, I was starting to get pretty tired of drawing; of the project in general. I’d put aside other things I was working on, and had academic assignments to deal with as well.

Panel 40 is one of a couple of panels that I feel would benefit from similar polishing. The idea was that it’d be a top-down view of the street, with two streetlamps providing light. The round shadows would give the impression of a pair of eyes or binoculars, with the lampposts themselves being pupils - tying into the paranoia described in the narration.

I thought that, by zooming out and letting the darkness creep into frame, I’d be able to force something of a tonal shift - and I think I was reasonably successful in this regard, particularly as the colours of the site itself flip once more. The prose also shifts slightly in tone, as the tail-end of the rant leads into the realisation that something’s wrong.

In its original form, people were confused by the image - the shading wasn’t nearly heavy enough, and the composition was unusual. This is where the art style works against me; I only have two colours to work with, and it can be hard to distinguish between detail and shadow at such a low resolution.

(There’s an animated music video for SIAMÉS’ “The Wolf” which uses a similar monochrome-plus-red palette to Retrace Steps - I saw it long before development on the story started and forgot about it until just now, so I don’t think it was an influence on the fanventure, but it’s definitely worth a watch!)

In the very first draft of the script, the protagonist found the key to their room in their hood. Seriously. Like, it’d start raining, they’d put their hood up and there’d be the key. I couldn’t think of a good ending, so I just came up with something daft and called it a day. The “doughnut offering” aspect of the story didn’t appear until I redrafted the script, a little ways into the film’s development (probably before we shot anything), but I can’t remember exactly how it came about. Originally, the script simply ended with the door getting slammed shut - the last line being a “what the actual fuck” from Sam/Alice.

(At the time when I was writing the story, I didn’t make a habit of buying mini doughnuts. I still don’t, except for on some occasions when I’m eating at a friend’s house and want to bring something low-commitment - even then, it’s usually cookies or muffins or full-sized doughnuts. Presumably, it was Retrace Steps which influenced that particular habit.)

On at least a literal level, the story’s message is “buy people doughnuts if you want them to be friends with you”. But naturally the actual message - and, I think, the reality - is that it’s not so transactional; really it’s just about assuming the best of people and being nice to them. Of course, there’s plenty of pitfalls in that approach - I’d be tempted to write a whole ‘nother story about them, if I didn’t think it’d end up being a little too dark and deconstructive. Be nice! That’s all I’m saying.

At least when I was writing the script, I’d actually planned for the protagonist to buy doughnuts from the local Sainsbury’s store. We have a Tesco store as well, plus a bunch of bigger supermarkets, but the Sainsbury’s is usually the quietest - it’s expensive and poorly-stocked. Plus, I just felt like it’d look better on-camera.

(If you’re not from the UK, all you need to know is that Tesco and Sainsbury’s are the two biggest supermarket chains. Well, apparently Asda overtook Sainsbury’s last month, but we’ll see how long that lasts. I’d say they’re generally pretty-much-indistinguishable, but at least in my mind I associate Sainsbury’s more closely with the middle classes - Tesco, meanwhile, is ubiquitous.)

When it came to adapting the script, I realised I could use any supermarket I wanted, and I picked Tesco. Specifically an “Express” store, which is a smaller shop found in town centres and the like. It fitted the story better - and besides, I’ve always liked the colloquialism “Tescos”. As in “aight mum I’m poppin off Tescos, our Jack says they’ve got a bogof on Lucozade, works out a quid for two litres so I’m buzzin, you after anythin or nah”.

(As part of let’s-call-it-research for the story, I found an eight-page thread on Mumsnet where a mum asks “am I being unreasonable to get really annoyed with people who call Tesco ‘Tescos’?” - this was immensely funny to me, and pretty much cemented my decision to use a real supermarket in the story as opposed to a made-up one.)

So yeah, panels 41-44 take place outside this Tescos. It was my brother - credited as “patipon” - who noted that I needed to use more solid black in the image. Most of what we discussed about the story took place in voice calls, which is a shame; historically, it’s been uncommon for me to solicit him for feedback on projects like this one. I consulted him on several of this story’s panels - he devotes much more time to graphics and artwork than I do - and his suggestions were always useful.

The prose on panel 43 is probably one of the bits I’m most proud of. It’s an awkward mix of metaphors coming from a character who isn’t used to being able to think when they’re at this particular place. I like the phrase “fumbled passes in the aisles” a lot.

(Gospar, one of my IRL friends and another prereader on Retrace Steps, occasionally graces us with the saying “ah, another day, another butchered social interaction”. Meanwhile, I went through a short-but-embarassing phase of butchering the trivial social interaction of “how are you?” by replying “I’m here” - something which I can’t excuse, but which I sure can immortalise in a webcomic.)

(All of this talk of Tescos reminds me of a draft I’ve had sitting around on my hard drive forever - the beginning of a first chapter which I wrote early in secondary school. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic snow-covered Britain where people travel around in sailboats on skis, and opens with some guy going into a buried Tescos for supplies. There, he runs into some orphan, who persuades the guy to let him hitch a ride on the snow-boat - snoat? Sure, whatever, snoat. The twist was going to be that the guy was planning to nuke some settlement, for reasons which I never wrote down and have since forgotten, and the kid would work this out and have to kill the guy to stop him. I note this simply to say that, while my stories may have gotten slightly less dumb and bad since I started writing, it seems that Tescos will be an enduring feature.)

(Wintry post-apocalyptic settings will also be an enduring feature, come to think of it: around the time I was writing Retrace Steps, I was also running a Dungeons & Dragons campaign for some friends which was basically standard fantasy - only it was set on an infinite-in-every-direction ski slope. I’m not a very good Dungeon Master, so I let the campaign die after a handful of sessions over the course of the year - which is a shame, because I’d planned a KILLER TWIST for that story too. Anyway, enough nonsense - back to Pokémon GO.)

I suppose at this point I should note that the two Pokémon you run into are Dugtrio and Magneton. These two are the evolved forms of Diglett and Magnemite, and are kinda-unique in that they’re literally just three of their previous stage grouped together. Hopefully, the symbolism of someone trying to obtain these Pokémon - and only succeeding after offering them a berry - should be clear enough.

(Note that the narration on panel 46 says you’re “not sure why this thing wants the berry” - at this point in the story, the protagonist doesn’t understand the significance of gestures like this.)

(I’ve yet to obtain either of these Pokémon in-game myself; Diglett and Magnemite are surprisingly hard to come by.)

The second half of the fanventure - from panel 51 all the way to panel 100 - takes place back inside the corridor. There’s a lot in the way of repeated panels with very little narration here - I was going for a more introspective tone, and this seemed like a good way to achieve that.

On panel 52, the narration notes that you plan to message your internet friends, then call your parents. It’s a little beat, but I felt like there was something kinda sad about the idea of having a closer connection with people you’ve never met than with your own parents. This is a pretty irrational way of looking at it - in my experience, most people on the internet who talk about their parents have pretty frayed relationships with them. Besides, there are plenty of cases where random peers will be better-equipped to help with specific problems - it’s just a case of balancing that against the fact that your own parents will probably care about you far more than any of those people.

I wanted to convey the image of someone who has the vast majority of their social interactions online. This theme is crucial to Homestuck itself, but while Homestuck demonstrates it by communicating its story pretty much entirely in chatlogs, in Retrace Steps I try to communicate it by showing everything except the chatlogs. Homestuck kills off everyone except a bunch of internet friends and their guardians; Retrace Steps just quietly omits everyone except a bunch of strangers standing in a room ha ha ha whoops spoilers.

Anyway, on panel 53, we start to see an environmental change caused by these strangers. For the first time, it seems like you’re not completely alone in this world.

The light's motion-activated - it turns on when you open the door, and then turns off again after around ten minutes. You've been gone much longer than that... meaning somebody else must have triggered it since then.

While working on this commentary, I decided that the original text of panel 55 - present in the story since its original release on 04/04/2019 and preserved in the above quote - was kinda overwrought and clumsy. Usually I’m pretty loathe to make edits to a story after it’s out on the internet, but this one felt acceptable - “Why was the light on when you arrived?” is much more succinct way of communicating what’s going on.

This panel’s artwork is also pretty clumsy - in case you’re having trouble parsing it, that’s supposed to be your head at the bottom. I tried to put a bit of light shading on it, but I’m not really happy with the result. Like I say, at this point I was getting pretty tired of drawing. Nah, I’m not changing it.

On panel 58, there’s a rare bit of onomatopoeia as you finally think to knock on the door. The negative space encroaches in from the right... but what does it hide?

Oh hey, it’s your roommate!

I think to a certain extent, this is another confusing image - Gitaxian observed that it didn’t really make much sense spatially. It’s kinda supposed to be a side-on cutaway, but that doesn’t really come across - I briefly tried adding a wood grain, to communicate that it’s the open door, but that didn’t make much sense at this scale and only confused matters further. In the end, I tweaked the boundary between the door and the corridor to give the impression of a couple of hinges and called it a day.

Panel 61 is, I guess, the big twist. You wanted to know where everyone is? Surprise! They’re in your room! Having a party! And you weren’t invited!

I wanted the reader to have a second to contemplate this, so the next couple of panels swap back-and-forth between you and the doorway. To underscore the silliness of the twist, one of the people in the back takes a big long sluuuurp from their solo cup - this breaks the spell, and you point for them all to leave.

It’s panel 67 that breaks the narration for the first time in the story. I wanted to present the roommate’s dialogue as a sharp contrast to the inner voice of the protagonist - it’s full of abbreviations, completely devoid of punctuation, and written entirely in solo-cup-red. The roommate simply sighs that you “never change”, and slams the door on you (with yet another cheeky bit of onomatopoeia appearing on-panel).

The idea that being around other people somehow supplants your inner thoughts is a very deliberate one - the commands cease entirely, the narration goes away. In these moments, we see you how everyone else sees you - as someone who’s pretty much entirely silent. On panels 69-70 there’s simply some ellipses, which kinda lengthen into a brief return of narration as you’re left on your own once more.

The reason this party’s taking place in “YOUR room” - as noted in the narration on panel 71 - is simply to show a feeling of entitlement. On the surface, you’re mad that you can’t get into your room - but you're also just feeling like people should invite you to parties.

Hopefully, the questions on panel 72 and panel 74 should be answering themselves by this point. You don’t know it at the time, but these will prove to be the last pieces of narration in the story.

After you’ve had some time to sit in the corridor and feel sorry for yourself, your roommate starts feeling bad and comes out to offer a sincere-but-backhanded apology. We’re into the last quarter of the comic now - starting with panel 76, there’s no text outside of what is spoken by your roommate.

The command used to advance to the next page has changed from “->” to “-->”. The story isn’t about just one person any more.

(This device is lifted directly from Homestuck, which switched from the command “==>” - used when the comic had four main characters - to “======>” when it swapped to a cast of twelve. Many fanventures - such as Oceanfalls - riff on this concept further, and mine is no exception.)

Out of all the text in the story, I’m probably happiest with the monologue on panel 79 and panel 80. I think it speaks for itself.

(As I always find myself saying, these commentaries kinda show that I don’t trust my stories to speak for themselves. I did hold off on writing this one for a couple of months, but there was lots of behind-the-scenes stuff I wanted to get on the record and I ultimately couldn’t help myself. The truth is that pretty much nobody reads these things - the commentaries, or the stories they’re for - and so the whole thing’s pretty much for my own benefit. I get to declare what I was going for, you get to decide whether or not I got it.)

Panels 81-95 are pretty much a frame-by-frame animation of you offering your roommate the doughnuts, and them leading you into the party. It’s basically two actions, but I try my best to draw them out as long as possible - by this point, the story’s said pretty much everything it needs to, and now it’s all just... emotional payoff? I feel like I’ve never been much good with character arcs, but I’m proud of how this turned out.

As promised, panels 96-99 are a straight repeat of panels 17-19 - the automatic lights turn off and the site’s colours flip for the last time, neatly mirroring the story’s first two panels in its last two.

Back in the kitchen, she opens the cupboard again and grabs the box of mini doughnuts.

She returns to her door and knocks again.

ALICE I bought doughnuts?

There is a long pause. The door suddenly opens and Bob pokes his head around, reaches out to grab like three doughnuts from the box, and then darts back inside. The door slams shut again.

ALICE Hey!

VII. Animation is harder than I thought.

This story is titled Retrace Steps because, in its original script form, it mostly focused on somebody retracing their steps in the hopes that they’d find their keys. The fanventure, however, drops this aspect of the plot entirely - leaving it with something of an artifact title. Maybe I should’ve come up with an alternate title, but I didn’t. On some level, it now simply refers to the trip to Tescos - on another, I think it implies that something’s been lost. I think it was the nagging feeling that the title no longer held enough significance that led me to create the story’s final flash.

If you haven’t read Homestuck, all you need to know is that pages with commands that are prefixed with an “[S]” are usually longer animations set to music, used for particularly important moments in the plot (or, just as often, for random chicanery). Having a flash of this sort is a point of prestige for fanventures - especially if it approaches any real length of complexity. I’d vaguely liked the idea of letting music play a fairly prominent role in the short film, and it felt right to return to those roots.

There wasn’t really any question as to which song I’d pick, either. See, back in college, I ran this terrible meme page called Summer Meme Sundae. It was absolute garbage. Please don’t click that link. Basically, its deal was that - for the latter half of its run - I tried to introduce something of a plot across the “memes”, wherein the page’s mascot got castaway and wound up in Australia. It was very silly and absolutely incomprehensible. Like I say, don’t look at it. This isn’t reverse psychology, it’s legitimately unfunny and bad. Anyway, the last post I made was something of a rudimentary flash in its own right - set to “Pizza for Breakfast” from The Meme Friends’ Last Week’s Pizza EP. I know basically nothing about The Meme Friends, but I thiiink they were some randos on 4chan’s /mu/ board.

It’s fair to say that the aesthetic of Last Week’s Pizza, which includes such tracks as “Cold Pizza”, “Everyone I Ever Loved is Now Dead”, and “Executive Pizza Party (Business)”, kinda appeals to me. If you’re reading Retrace Steps, the chances that you’ve heard the track before are next to nil - it comes with zero baggage. Moreover, it’s from a freely-distributed independent project created by a collective that hasn’t put out anything in years - it’s extremely unlikely that anybody’s going to come and tell me off for using it.

I specifically picked “No Forks, No Knives, It’s Pizza Time” because I felt like its tone was closest to that of the story, and because it has a relatively short runtime of just over two minutes - which still ended up being a little too long, but I don’t think it turned out too bad.

The flash opens on the image of the door in the corridor from the previous panel, which is gradually cut into smaller and smaller pieces by black lines until it disappears altogether. Cue title. One of the reasons I like the flash format - aside from the lack of antialiasing - is that you really have no way of telling how long the video’s going to be or what happens except by watching it. There’s none of YouTube’s functionality for skipping around - you’re forced to sit and watch the entire thing start-to-finish without stopping.

(I think Retrace Steps is definitely best read in a single sitting, and the final flash is a big part of that. My fourth prereader, Multivac of the Homestuck Discord server, was unable to watch the flash at first - I forget why - and found the story unclear. After watching the flash, he seemed to backpedal on this sentiment. Time will tell whether his initial assessment was correct; I picked Multivac because he’d previously responded positively to Everything Is Red Now, and because I’d usually consider his reaction to something to be a pretty decent rough baseline for the general reaction of the Homestuck Discord server.)

When stuff starts happening, it starts happening fast - you see the protagonist’s descent down the stairs again, but this time you see all three panels at once, as if there’s more than one person on the stairs. The minute you get outside, you start seeing entirely new people - many with red accents of some kind. Someone smoking, someone who’s been shopping, someone with a rucksack...

The people outside Tescos had a little more in the way of thought put into them. On the left, there’s a homeless person, and someone walking by with headphones on. Over on the far right, there’s someone holding their phone out in front of them - they’re wearing a hat famously worn by Ash Ketchum in the Pokémon anime, just in case there’s any doubt as to what game they’re playing. Someone sorta tired-looking crosses away from the rest. Everyone in the frame’s kinda collectively ignoring the two people holding hands.

(Textually, Retrace Steps is a story about... platonic fulfillment? If that’s a phrase that makes sense? My personal take is that the protagonist of this story struggles to create and maintain friendships. However, I tried to leave room for interpretation - particularly in terms of this section of the flash - and I think a reading definitely exists that brings in more romantic subtext.)

(Actually, I already kinda explored this last year - much less effectively - in Another Son. Like in that story, I wanted the audience to understand why the characters are lonely - but I used a much more sympathetic approach this time around, which crucially makes you actually want the story’s protagonist to stop being lonely. Something which bothers me about certain stories - and this is a really common failing of music videos, which lack the introspection of prose - is when the narrative takes its protagonist and frames things in a way which says “you should feel sorry for this person” while they proceed to do really unsympathetic things. If you’re going to give them a victory, the audience should feel like they actually deserve it!)

After a brief segment where you finally catch that Dugtrio, the flash cycles back through the various locations until we arrive back in the corridor. This sequence was added mostly to pad for time, but also serves to bring things full circle for the flash’s final shots. On the final beats of each bar - which fall on a higher note - the colours flip; this was purely an aesthetic choice.

The next section of the flash is just credits, which I kinda wanted to use to lull the audience into a false sense of security. See, the original plan was for the final image of the comic to just be you, standing completely alone, holding a solo cup - an ending which I think is much more ambiguous.

I still think this original ending provokes a much stronger emotional reaction - and indeed, it did at the time. As Gospar said, “also you sure you wanna keep the sad end / I think the fade out on others and the static / sort of implied they hadn’t changed?” Gitaxian agreed - “I think having the crowd fade to just the two of them, and then ending there, would be the best ending”. I’d already considered doing that, but had decided against it for reasons I’ve forgotten.

See, by this point in the story, you’ve made this connection with your roommate - but everyone else remains a stranger. I like this ending for its optimism: instead of saying “you're still alone”, it says “this is a good start”.

Oh, and remember the solo cup that’s been sitting up next to the ad? Yeah, that’s gone now.

She protests and knocks on the door again. Just before she kicks it, it suddenly opens again. Bob has like three doughnuts in his mouth.

BOB These are pretty good actually.

He grabs the whole box and opens the door fully, lightly beckoning for Alice to enter. She does so. The door closes.

We cut to inside the room. Everyone is standing in cramped, uncomfortable silence. Somebody hands Alice a red plastic cup.

CUT TO BLACK.

THE END

VIII. Knowing when to shut up is harder than I thought.

I just went to Tescos and bought a box of mini doughnuts.

(I didn’t set out to do that, but they were selling a single box for next to nothing and I felt like it was too serendipitous to ignore.)

It’s the end of the year. Classes finished over a month ago. I always end up staying for a good while after, because doing so gives me more time to work on projects like this, but most of my friends end up leaving before me - in other words, I don’t have anyone to share the doughnuts with.

(They have strawberry-flavoured icing and multicoloured sprinkles, and they taste frikkin’ great, so I can’t say I’m too beat up about that.)

I’ve played very little Pokémon GO since I started working on this fanventure. I... think I kinda ruined it for myself?

When I finished Retrace Steps, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to do the fanventure format for a while. That lasted all of about four days, after which I started Huskyquest. It seems silly to give away this new fanventure’s plot here, so all I’ll say is this: it’s got dogs in it, it’s got more than three colours, and you should definitely drop it a like because I’ll hopefully be picking it back up again pretty soon.

In the meantime, feel free to peruse all the other things I made on this blog! There should be another project coming out here very soon, so if you wanna be informed when that happens, drop me a follow either here or on twitter. And of course, if you have any questions, my ask box is always open. Thanks for reading!

...You’re still here?

It’s over.

Pokémon GO home.

> Go.

#MSPA #MS Paint Adventures #MSPFA #MS Paint Fan Adventures #Homestuck #fanventure #Retrace Steps #The Wadapan #04/04/2019 #31/05/2019

3 notes · View notes

amillionmillionvoices · 6 years

Note

“Please listen to me-” + hicsqueak

Hecate isn’t quite sure what she expected to happen. It’s the first conference they’ve attended together, staying in the same hotel, in the same room under Pippa’s name. She’d booked them a suite, far more lavish than Hecate would ever indulge in, but she can’t deny it’s been nice, to have a place to retreat to when the crowds become too much and the socializing begins to grate at her nerves.

She’d known Pippa had her own agenda for the conference - modern workshops and seminars and luncheons with the upper echelons of society. She’d mentioned trying to shop around her most recent article on modern pedagogical exercises in chanting (an article Hecate had read, edited, and eventually grudgingly admitted was logically sound), and bemoaned a meeting with the CEO of some company or other, a man who’d donated a significant amount to Pippa’s school.

Hecate had her own schedule as well, sticking to the larger panels, mostly there to observe and listen and perhaps, if she has the time, attend a seminar on alternative teaching methods for ‘alternative students,’ though she would hate to be recognized at such an event.

(Still, her students come first, even when her students include the likes of Mildred Hubble.)

She’d known they would spend a significant amount of time going their separate ways. But she hadn’t expected Pippa to be quite so distant.

She hasn’t invited Hecate to any of the lunches she’s attending, despite complaining about how handsy Arnold Moonshine always gets when he thinks she’s single. Hasn’t introduced her to anyone during the breaks, hasn’t sought her out for a quick word, hasn’t touched her at all - not even a fleeting brush of her hand against Hecate’s arm, the way she always does when they’re in public at either of their schools.

She tries to be grateful for it. Tries to reason to herself that drawing attention to themselves as a couple would be a disastrous idea, and it’s not as though it’s anyone else’s business besides.

But a louder, childish part of her, feels wounded. That Pippa evidently doesn’t want anyone to know they’re together. That she’s either ashamed or embarrassed to be seen with Hecate in such a public forum.

She understands why. Hecate knows she isn’t liked much out of very small, traditional circles. Knows even there she’s the odd one out, too awkward and too brusque to really connect with anyone. She’s been relatively lucky, that her life isn’t predicated on who she knows. She’d taken the potions mistress post at Cackle’s early on in her career, and Ada had taken a shine to her, for reasons Hecate still doesn’t quite understand.

Pippa, she knows, has had to build her reputation, her school, her life from the ground up. Yes, her name gave her some advantages, as her family has always been well-liked by most, but there’s no denying she’s worked hard, to cultivate the right relationships, to be seen with the right people, to learn what to say and how and when to say it.

Hecate doesn’t possess those skills. She’s too blunt, too sarcastic, too unwilling to cater to the people around her. And Pippa knows that. Knows that she’d be a hindrance rather than a help; that she’d inevitably say something and alienate someone and all Pippa’s hard work would be lost.

So Hecate keeps to herself. Follows Pippa’s cues and during the day pretends they’re nothing more than colleagues, barely friends.

At night, Pippa returns to the room far later than Hecate, exhausted, and her mask slips away. Her shoulders hunch and she smiles weakly, but genuinely, for the first time all day.

Hecate quirks her lips when Pippa collapses, still in her clothes, and curls up on the sofa, her head in Hecate’s lap.

“I hate conferences,” she confesses, nuzzling her head into Hecate’s hand when she begins carding her fingers through Pippa’s hair.

“I can see why,” Hecate murmurs, setting aside her book.

Pippa sighs heavily. “At least the funding for the east wing is in order.”

Hecate raises her eyebrows. “Already?”

Pippa snorts. “Dryfus is easy,” she says. “Pay him enough compliments and buy him lunch and he’s yours.”

“Dryfus,” Hecate repeats, trying to place the name. “Dryfus Ellington?” Pippa hums in response. “He’s an idiot.”

“A rich idiot,” Pippa mumbles.

Hecate purses her lips but says nothing. There’s nothing to say - she understands why Pippa does it. Why she needs the money - for expansion, for supplies, for scholarships. It’s the latter she’s the most invested in, Hecate knows, trying desperately to make her school affordable to everyone.

But it’s private, isn’t funded by the council the way Cackle’s is, and a steady source of funding is necessary to keep Pentangle’s up and running.

It doesn’t mean Hecate always agrees with her methods, but she can’t imagine what she would do differently.

Pippa sighs in the silence, turning on her back to look up at Hecate. “I know you don’t approve.”

Hecate falters, then continues brushing her fingers through Pippa’s hair. “It isn’t that.”

“No?”

“I disapprove of the fact that it’s necessary,” she says. “But I think no less of you for it.”

Pippa’s lips quirk in a smile, and she catches Hecate’s hand, pressing a kiss to her palm. “I’m sorry I’ve been so busy,” she says. “Tomorrow we’ll stay together.”

Hecate swallows. “That’s not necessary. I realize you have more important things to do.”

Pippa frowns. “I’ve made all the arrangements I needed,” she says. “It took me a day longer than I’d have liked, but—tomorrow I’m all yours.”

She smiles, and Hecate’s stomach drops.

It isn’t worth it. Pippa works too hard to have every relationship she’s developed unravel in Hecate’s presence.

“I… appreciate the offer,” Hecate says carefully, “But I understand.”

“Understand what?”

Hecate works her jaw, trying to parse her words, to sound careless and unaffected. “I’m not exactly the most popular person in these circles.”

Pippa sits up, faces her with her legs crossed and a hand on her arm. “So?”

“So… I understand the need for distance. You’ve worked hard to cultivate these relationships. My presence would only serve as a hindrance.”

“That’s not true.”

Hecate arches an eyebrow. “Is that not why you’ve been pretending we’re merely colleagues?”

Pippa’s frown deepens and she pulls away, settling her hands in her lap. “I haven’t been—” She stops, and stares down at her hands. “I’m sorry.”

She’d hoped, vainly, that perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps Pippa had another reason for avoiding her—but she can tell by the guilty expression on her face, the way she wrings her hands together that she wasn’t wrong at all.

“You don’t need to apologize,” Hecate says. “I’m aware of my reputation. I’m aware of the damage it would do to yours.”

Pippa falters, opens her mouth several times and finally says, “It’s just a game. It’s a stupid game I have to play to keep my school running, and these people care so much about names and status and I need them to—”

Hecate ducks forward and kisses her briefly, softly, stemming her words. “I know.”

“It has nothing to do with you,” she says. “It has nothing to do with how I feel about you.”

Hecate doesn’t quite believe her, but nods regardless. “I know.”

Pippa blinks rapidly. “You’re not angry?”

Hecate offers a small smile. “I’m fine, Pippa. Truly.”

–

She isn’t fine.

It hurts, watching Pippa across the hall, knowing for certain now that she’s being, to borrow Pippa’s phrase, shunted. To know it’s on purpose, to serve a goal.

She understands, doesn’t fault Pippa for it, but for the first time, she wishes she were more palatable to people. Wishes she could turn herself off for a while, could be normal, could be like everyone else.

Settling into her seat, she hates that she glances around for Pippa. Hates that she finds her just two rows back, sitting next to an older woman that Hecate can tell just by looking at is wealthy. Pippa catches Hecate’s eye and smiles briefly, and Hecate nods back, then turns in her seat to face the podium.

The first presentation is duller than the ones her students give, and Hecate lets herself tune out the drone of his voice and uninteresting (and unoriginal) findings.

People in the audience have begun to whisper, and there are two women in front of her who catch her attention, heads bent together as they look over the schedule.

“Pentangle’s leading a workshop?”

“On modern magic,” the other says derisively. “There’ll no doubt be singing involved.”

“She had to cancel the last one she signed up for. Too busy screwing her way to the top, I’d imagine.”

Hecate freezes, blood cold as she stares at the back of their heads, jaw clenched.

“That’s not very nice,” the other whispers back, and the first woman huffs.

“Well it’s true. How else do you think she gets all that funding for her ridiculous school?”

“Or perhaps,” Hecate says quietly, pleased when both women jump and turn, startled, “manipulating the petty and disingenuous out of their money is easier than you would like to believe.” She fixes her gaze on the second woman. “You’ve donated a significant amount in the last year to Catshead Academy, have you not?”

The woman - Miss Belltower, she knows - stammers, but the other she doesn’t recognize recovers after a moment and lifts her chin, her voice still quiet in the large ballroom, “That’s interesting coming from you, Miss Hardbroom, as I was under the impression Miss Pentangle endeavored to take your headmistress’ place in much the same way.”

Hecate’s anger flares, her voice a bit too loud, “Ada Cackle would never—”

“I’m not talking about Miss Cackle. You are sleeping with Miss Pentangle, are you not?”

Silence or aversion is as good as a yes, and Pippa doesn’t want people to know. Doesn’t want that association, so she lifts her chin and says clearly,

“No, I am not. Though I fail to see how that’s any of your concern.”

Miss Belltower turns away, and the other woman contemplates for a moment before saying, “I suppose it isn’t. But perhaps you should pay closer attention to rumors, Miss Hardbroom. It would be a pity to lose your upstanding reputation to one…mistake.”

She arches an eyebrow before turning back in her seat and fixing her gaze pointedly on the presenter.

Hecate has no idea what she means or even how to go about finding out. She’s always done her best to keep herself above gossip, beyond who’s retiring and who’s publishing and what posts are open at various academies.

But Pippa knows. Pippa knows everything, makes it her business to know, to keep her head above water, and Hecate clenches her teeth in irritation.

She can tolerate being ignored for the sake of Pippa’s school, for Pippa’s students. She can handle the twisted feeling in her gut that perhaps Pippa is embarrassed to be seen with her. But she cannot abide secrets, or being kept in the dark, and it’s soon after the panel is over that Hecate finds Pippa in the hallway, chatting amiably with another witch.

“Pardon me, Miss Pentangle,” she interrupts, caring little for the annoyed glance the other woman gives her. “Might I borrow you for a moment? Miss Cackle has a few questions on modern pedagogy she asked me to have answered while I’m here.”

Pippa frowns, a bit confused, but smiles and makes her excuses and turns to Hecate, voice lowered in the crowd. “Is everything alright?”

Hecate glances around to ensure no one is paying them any attention, then transfers them both to an empty conference room and shuts the door with a wave of her hand.

“Hecate?”

“I’ve had an interesting conversation with a friend of Miss Belltower’s,” she says. “Evidently our relationship isn’t as private as you’d like.”

There’s a moment, a brief flash of panic in Pippa’s eyes that Hecate’s certain no one else would catch before she frowns.

“I haven’t heard anything,” she says, but it’s a lie, bold and brazen, and Hecate arches an eyebrow.

“So you’re unaware that some people believe you’re only sleeping with me in an attempt to assume Miss Cackle’s position as headmistress?”

It’s an indelicate way of putting it, Hecate knows, especially if Pippa truly hasn’t heard the rumor; but she has, Hecate can see it on her face, the way her mask breaks for a split second, the horrified look in her eyes, but without surprise.

“I—” she starts, and Hecate snaps.

“Don’t lie to me, Pippa.”

She blinks, startled, and shakes her head. “I’m not trying to lie to you. I just—it’s idle gossip, it means nothing.”

“It means something, or you would have told me about it.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” she insists. “Yes, I’m aware of it, but I didn’t think telling you would do any good. I know you don’t like gossip to begin with and it’s nothing more than that.” She pauses, frown deepening. “Unless—you don’t believe it, do you?”

Hecate huffs. “Of course not.”

“I’m serious, Hecate. You don’t believe I’m with you because I want something, right?”

Hecate sighs, her anger dwindling in the face of Pippa’s palpable fear. “No, I don’t believe it,” she says firmly. She isn’t always quite sure why Pippa is with her, but she knows it isn’t because of that. “But if I’m going to do my part and deny any rumor that we’re together, I need to know what those rumors are.”

“You told someone we weren’t together?”

Hecate frowns at the surprise in her voice. “Miss Belltower and her…friend.” Pippa looks shaken, and Hecate doesn’t understand. “I thought it’s what you wanted.”

Pippa blinks and nods. “No, of course, you’re right. It’s better this way.”

“Pippa—”

“That was quick thinking, though I’m sorry to have put you in that position.” She smiles too broadly. “Once I’ve locked down sponsors for next year’s scholarships, I’m sure we can tell people. If you want.”

Hecate tries her best not to flinch. Tries to pretend that the words, their implication, make no difference to her. That being hidden in the shadows for the sake of appearance doesn’t tug at something inside her, doesn’t tongue at her insecurities.

But Pippa must see it, because she’s across the room in seconds, a hand on Hecate’s arm. “Hiccup—”

“It’s fine, Pippa,” she interrupts, unable to stand the concern in Pippa’s eyes. “It’s only another two days, regardless.” She pauses. “In fact, I may head back early. There are some things at Cackle’s I need to—”

“Hecate, no, stay,” she begs. “We’ll—we’ll do something tomorrow, I promise. We’ll get away from the hotel and—”

“Hide,” Hecate finishes, her voice flat. “That’s fine.”

Pippa looks away. “It’s not hiding.”

Hecate purses her lips. “I’m willing to go along with the charade in public, but let’s not pretend it’s anything other than what it is. I embarrass you.”

Pippa’s head jerks up, her eyes wide, and her hand tightens on Hecate’s arm. “Hecate, no. That’s not—that’s not even close to—why would you say that?”

Hecate pulls away, irritation rising. “Because I’m not naive. You’ve made it quite clear that I don’t belong in this part of your world.”

Pippa frowns. “And you’re alright with that?”

“Yes,” she lies. “If it’s what’s best for you—”

“It’s not.”

Hecate pauses. “I don’t understand.”

Pippa shakes her head, clearly exasperated, though Hecate has no idea why, until she says, so clearly, “I’ve loved you since I was eleven years old, and for thirty years I had to live without you. Now that we’re together, I want to—to—leap on my broom and shout it to the rooftops. But I can’t. Because—”

“It’s a game,” Hecate repeats. “Of course.”

“But you don’t believe that,” Pippa says. “Not entirely. Or you wouldn’t be so upset.”

“I’m not upset.”

Pippa glares at her. “Don’t lie to me, Hecate, not about this. Don’t say you’re fine when you aren’t.”

“Then don’t lie to me, Pippa,” she snaps. “Do not attempt to dress this up as something pretty, for your sake or mine. I don’t need to be coddled.”

“I’m not trying to coddle you, Hecate, I’m trying to—” She cuts herself off abruptly and turns away.

“Trying to what?” Hecate goads, and Pippa sighs.

“I’m just…trying to do the right thing. By you. By us. By my school.”

Hecate watches her for a moment, sees the struggle on her face, and almost hates that she says, softly, “You may not be able to have it both ways.”

Pippa’s eyes water and Hecate’s stomach knots, her hands itching to reach out. Instead, she curls her hands into fists and lifts her chin.

“That isn’t fair,” Pippa says, and Hecate shakes her head.

“It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

Pippa barks out a wet laugh. “Of course it’s not.”

Hecate frowns, feels thrown off course. “I don’t understand,” she says, and Pippa seems to crack, seems like a torrent of things she’s held back slip out, and she’s powerless to stop them.

“I hate this,” she admits. “I hate pretending we’re not together. I hate that I can’t touch you or hold your hand or—or—even speak to you naturally. I hate the excuses and the—stares and—and I don’t care if people know. I want people to know. I want them to know I’m yours.”

Hecate blinks, surprise and confusion plain on her face, she’s certain. “But… your school…”

Pippa scoffs and her voice hardens. “Anyone that wouldn’t give us money because of you is money I don’t want,” she says. “And anyone who wouldn’t support us because of you is support I don’t need.”

Hecate flounders. “Then why—”

“Because of you. Because you’re—you’re revered, Hecate. Your work is known in every witching circle there is and even the people that don’t like you admire you. You’ve built a reputation for yourself, a good one - as a traditionalist, yes, but as someone who cares deeply about The Craft and educating young witches and I didn’t want—”

She breaks off, and Hecate swallows tightly, barely manages to ask, “Didn’t want what?”

“I didn’t want to damage that. With my… modern practices and—singing and… pink.” She bites her lip and looks up at Hecate with wet eyes. “I didn’t want people to think I was manipulating you. I know how much you hate being pitied, and I just—I didn’t want them to think of you as one of my supposed ‘conquests.’ You’re better than that. You deserve better than that. And I can’t be the one to ruin—”

Hecate kisses her, closes the space between them and kisses her fiercely, hands on her cheeks. Pippa startles, but instantly relaxes, brings her hands up to curl around Hecate’s biceps as she leans in, opens her mouth under Hecate’s.

When they part, they’re both breathing heavily, and Hecate presses her forehead to Pippa’s, eyes closed, heart hammering.

“Pippa,” she murmurs. “When is the last time you’ve known me to care what fools think of me?”

Pippa curls her fingers around the back of Hecate’s neck. “But they hurt you,” she whispers. “You pretend they don’t, but I remember—”

When they were young, when harsh words and criticisms would follow Hecate down the hallways, when rumors would pop up, about her family, about her, about her and Pippa.

Hecate shakes her head. “I cared because I was afraid,” she says. “I thought if you believed the rumors, if you knew how I felt, you would leave me. But I couldn’t care less about Miss Belltower or her friends or anyone else.

“But you—”

“Please listen to me,” Hecate cuts her off, pulling back far enough to see Pippa’s face. “There isn’t anything anyone could say that would matter more to me than you. If they think I am… naive or gullible, let them think so. There are far worse things,” she says pointedly, but Pippa shakes her head.

“I don’t care. Those rumors—I’m used to them.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

Pippa smiles softly. “No. But they don’t bother me anymore.”

Hecate nods slowly, her fingers brushing the ends of Pippa’s hair. “And… I don’t embarrass you?”

Pippa kisses her firmly. “Never.”

“Then perhaps we’ve been the foolish ones,” Hecate says, ducking her head. Pippa kisses the frown on her face, her nose, her lips.

“We could be not foolish, from now on?”

There’s nervousness there, and hope, and Hecate’s lips quirk in a small smile.

“I would like that.”

Pippa beams, wrapping her arms tightly around Hecate’s neck. “I love you, Hiccup.”

Hecate buries her face in Pippa’s neck. “I love you, too, Pipsqueak.”

Pippa sniffles, pulls back to wipe a stray tear off her cheek and finally lets go, stepping back. “I suppose we should get back to the ballroom for the next panel?”

Hecate nods, and Pippa holds out her hand. “Together?”

Smiling softly, Hecate takes her hand, holds on, doesn’t let go.

“Pippa?” she asks, just before they transfer.

“Yes?”

“Don’t call me Hiccup in public.”

They fade away, Pippa’s laughter ringing through the empty room.

#hicsqueak #hecate hardbroom #pippa pentangle

207 notes · View notes