#what a weird thing for the writers to do and the producers or whoever to allow

[gearstrider]

thinking about sam n dean being literally, undeniably, outright stated with no room for misinterpretation canon soulmates.

why did the cw do this

#dont get me wrong i love it #wincest for lyfw ammirite #but #what a weird thing for the writers to do and the producers or whoever to allow #especially given the stated rarity of soulmates iirc??? #gear grinds #wincest

[comicaurora]

do you have any tips on writing soft magic systems? I only ever see them talked about when people are comparing it to hard magic systems or criticising it, which is a shame because I love systems where magic is just in the background being unimportant, with implied rules that will never be explained

god I wrote up like eight paragraphs of explanation and I was really working out some cool stuff there and then the app glitched and destroyed it all and I'm so upset

Unfortunately this reduces to a previous problem, which is "figure out how Tolkien did it and then do that."

Middle Earth is laden with magic. Hobbits being good at hiding is magic. There's a random throne in the ruins at the end of Fellowship that lets whoever sits in it see literally the entire world, and that's hella magic. Aragorn radiates One True King magic and occasionally heals people with a touch. Galadriel's mirror lets people see any point in time, past or future. Gandalf knows several spells, but most of the time he's doing less granular stuff by making lights or small fires or going all Servant Of The Secret Fire Wielder Of The Flame Of Anor etc etc. Elves are inherently so magical that the words of their language are never forgotten by anyone who hears them, the laws of physics don't apply to them, their havens are magically pleasant and beautiful, and the planet itself is magical for them - flat for the elves, round for everybody else.

The benefit of a soft magic system is that it produces a feeling in the characters and audience that the world is vast, wonderful and unknowable. It's at its best when it can answer why, but not how.

Why did the old empire of men have a throne that let you see the entire world? That makes sense! It's hugely tactically advantageous! HOW did they get the damn thing? No idea, doesn't matter, they clearly made it work somehow because the throne's right there. Why does Galadriel's mirror give you limited, randomized omniscience? Because while it's a useful tool if you can use it, seeing the future is a dicey and weird game, and the future can change if someone knows it's coming. HOW does riverwater in a birdbath do that? No idea.

Soft magic systems start running into difficulties when the writer needs to decide how it can or can't solve a given situation, which is a very common issue in storytelling, a format almost entirely centered on problems and solutions. For hard magic systems with clear parameters on what is and isn't possible, this is comparatively quite easy. The wizard can't magic this problem away because-

They're out of spell slots :(

They don't know a specific spell that can do that specific thing

There's another caster nearby stopping them

The object that lets them do magic isn't working

They need to speak words/do gestures/use materials to cast, and they can't for whatever reason

There's something "antimagic" around stopping them

Etc etc. The possibilities are easy to run through, because the "how" is clearly defined, and can be negated into a "how NOT." If magic uses spell slots, stop the characters using it by taking those slots away. If magic needs a material focus, break or destroy it. This prevents magic from feeling like an unsatisfying "a wizard did it" fix for all difficulties because the wizards can only do specific things under specific circumstances.

Soft magic systems can contrive answers to this too, but it can be a bit tricky to justify, and if it's Too Convenient it can feel like the magic system really just does what the writer needs it to do. When asked "why can't magic solve this problem?" soft magic systems can answer in several ways:

Too tired, sorry :( magic is Taxing and stuff so the caster can tip over whenever's convenient

They're in a Bad Vibes zone that's hindering their ability to cast because soft magic can be impeded by soft problems like "somebody was very mean here once"

That specific magic is tied to a specific location, like a magical elf forest, and doesn't work outside of it because it's intrinsic to the place and can't be replicated

There's another magical being around and their kung-fu is more powerful

These explanations work, but that's conditional on the story not making the audience think the magic SHOULD work in this situation, and this is entirely based on what's been established in the story thus far. If the wizard has been able to fly up until now, parking the gang at the bottom of the cliff and saying "sorry, fly machine broke" feels contrived. But if we've only ever seen other, intrinsically magical beings fly, the audience is unlikely to expect that the party's humble wizard will suddenly bust out a set of feathery wings as a gift from baby jesus himself. On the writing side, it's really a matter of feeling it out and making sure nothing feels too jarring - if the character who's previously displayed a certain specific space of abilities suddenly does something completely unrelated (like going from clairvoyance to slinging fireballs, or from a healing touch to earthbending) that feels inconsistent AND it teaches the audience that this soft magic system is softer than they realized, and can then make it much harder for the writer to then convince them that this caster CAN'T spontaneously manifest a power or gimmick that'll save them. But if the magical characters or objects operate within a specific space - one character that specializes in fire, one object that specializes in remote viewing, one artifact that lets its holder control the winds - then the audience will expect and accept things that fit in those broad, soft categories without speculating too much on the underlying "how" of their mechanics.

But the temptation to explain "how" is very strong for writers, and soft magic systems especially have trouble with this, because soft magic systems start calcifying into fragmentary hard systems when they're forced to explain "how". It locks in a hard-defined axiom that can be logically extrapolated. Because a soft system is not DESIGNED for that kind of internal logic, doing that will usually cause axiomatic collisions as they contradict one another. If a hard system is a crisp, geometric crystalline structure where any tangent line drawn through it will intersect cleanly with other lines in very predictable ways, adding "how"s to a soft magic system is like drawing tangent lines through a bowl of pudding - you're gonna get a lot of intersections in awkward places.

To pull an example out of absolutely nowhere, if a soft system without clear rules establishes something like "this spell can be used to summon an object towards the caster, but it DOES NOT WORK on living things", there are a number of questions that can become relevant:

Who made that spell to have those limitations?

Why can't WE make spells that DON'T have that limitation?

How is the spell defining "living things"? Would it work on a plant or a skeleton or a piercing in someone's body?

Why did you let this character use it on a living thing anyway, joanne?

In a lot of soft systems that try to lock in hard spell parameters, "who made these spells" and "why can't WE make spells" become the first and most obvious axiomatic clash. If magic can be created to do what the caster wants, why and how does that work, and why can't WE do it? This forces the writer to come up with an explanation to solve the clash without letting the protagonists make up whatever spells they want, therefore solving all plot problems forever - sometimes something like "the inventors of spells were intrinsically magical beings, like elves or dragons or whatever, and thus we ordinary scrub mortals can't make new ones." That's a functional explanation, but it reduces to a previous problem again - that this hard-ish magic system was created by someone with access to an unstructured soft system.

In a soft magic system, the only answer to the question "how does this magical thing work" is "because magic." If any other explanation is needed, things rapidly collapse into hard lines and axioms and covering for edge cases. How can elves run on powder snow, shoot targets in the dark and see for hundreds of miles? They're magical. Does that mean they can fly like a balrog or sling fire like gandalf or control weather like saruman maybe can? No, of course not, that's not their kind of magic and we have no reason to expect it from them. They're just magic. Magic means a lot of different things, and in a soft system the audience has to operate based on vibes rather than rules.

This can be difficult to balance. For instance, Star Wars has a soft system in The Force, and if you squint, every single movie and show uses it differently. It's not super disruptive to the audience's immersion because it's never framed like a Hard System with Hard Rules and it almost never pulls something out of COMPLETELY nowhere, but if you look at what it does from movie to movie and then show to show, it expands from "influence the wills of the weak-minded", "seeing the future a little bit" and "force choking" to "general telekinesis" and "limited telepathy" to "FUCKING LIGHTNING FROM THE HANDS MAN" which is a hell of a twist the first time you see it, to some even more buckwild stuff in the two different animated Clone Wars (like Mace Windu fighting an entire droid army Samurai Jack style and using the force to pull every bolt out of one of them at once, or the planet with the living incarnations of the Light and Dark Side) and the explanation never goes further than "The Force is magic, it's in everything, people who are good at The Force can use it to do a buncha stuff." It's not consistent, it doesn't have rules, but the audience accepts that Force users can just kind of do stuff that fits the Vibes of the stuff it's already been shown it can do. And as SOON as they tried to say "The Force is strong in people who have LOTS OF MIDICHLORIANS" everybody hated it, because it gave us a "how" answer to a question nobody wanted to ask and it made this pervasive, wonderous, soft magic system that Surrounds And Binds Us Luminous Beings Are We into "we are space wizards because we contain an above-average number of bugs."

As a chronic worldbuilder myself, I absolutely understand the impulse to explain and overexplain and lock in the Hows and the Whys, but as far as I can figure it, soft magic systems live and die on the writer's ability to restrain themselves from saying "how." The answer is "magic." The rest is just writing the story in such a way that "magic" doesn't become plot-breaking.

#asks #writing stuff

[euphoricfilter]

i’m literally so happy/proud/turned on??!,!,

even though i’ve never read them and never will; yandere jungkook fanfic writers won and musta seen the future cause that mv had me feeling feelings ok !!! the fact that the whole “fun sexy summer” song was so dark? and obsessive and lovesick? him following homegirl all around town like a lovesick puppy who just wanted to show her love ??? pls jungkook. that was perfection. sexy. hot. fun. subversive. just so jungkook ugh. seeing him all grown up and debuting and having a female lead in his mv and serenading about love in his sexy goth emo main pop boy way is just.. his duality is insane and let me be like those delusional y/n fans right quick jshdjdh but the way he treats army. the knuckle tattoos, the “i need y’all to sleep”, the constant domestic live, the constant adoration and affection; you know any girl that gets him. is getting 100x that attention and adoration which just made the song feel so much more intimate and hot. because that lil starr eyed puppy really is that sickeningly sweet 🥹 ahhh i just loved everything about it. the promo, the mv, and everything to come

🍬

my yandere jungkook fics got their seal of approval today 🫡

i see what you mean LMAO him reviving himself because she was at the funeral had me giggling like damn he really took “even death can’t do us part” way too seriously

the music video felt very much like jungkook, from outfits to story telling, the mingled comedic aspect and starry eyes. it was all so well produced, showcased both his vocal skills and taking him back to heir debut days when he’d rap too, it was so fun

i’m so glad that bts are more open about working with female artists/actors because like years ago they wouldn’t even mention if they did, so i’m glad that they’re comfortable enough to do that even though i’m sure the icky part of the fandom (probably a lot of solos) are gonna be gross about it. which like goes back into assuming sexuality and just making normal human interaction weird when it doesn’t need to be, but that’s a whole other thing

sexy emo goth boyfriend jungkook trying to serenade someone 🙏

not just any girl, whoever gets to date him 🚶‍♀️i know he’d be very attentive and just such a cutie. gonna have to live every day knowing it won’t be me 🙏

#ask #🍬

[mrs-monaghan]

Thank you for the answer about Tony Montana! I appreciate your concern about Jimin <3 Because Jimin’s attitude towards this high possibility of him performing on stage with this song bothers me a lot. Well at the end of the day I just want him to be happy so I’ll of course go with whatever his decision will be. If it’s his decision though…

It will be great if you share your thoughts on one of the comments below my question:

“I actually do find it weird that jm has turned suga down a lot besides tm. Over the years. Suga has stated clearly he wants to write jm songs, produce his album, collabs. He knows what jm is as an artist and what he could be. Yet he is turned down multiple times

But he goes to rm for help when he needs it. Multiple songs. Its very interesting. Y? Because we know jm respect suga as an artist, song writer, and such yet he wont work him. What holds him back?”

This person just read my mind hehe. If you don’t want to, so be it!

Thank you again!

I dont remember which post this was but whoever said that is right. Jimin didn't just start turning down Suga. TM isn't the only song Suga wanted them to do together. Infact in one of his radio things Suga mentions how he hopes him and Jimin will work together more since TM went so well. So I'm thinking Suga tried to make it happen. So its a qood question to ask why it hasn't. Its also fair to assume Jimin is the reason they've never collabed again.

Yoonmin have an interesting dynamic actually. I wish I had explored it more when I was still a Yoonminer. I can't be assed now 😂

Of course as a Minkook supporter my first thought would be JK. But then that wouldn't make sense because he's anti Minimoni too and those 2 work together all the time. So we can remove JK as an option.

So anon whats left is that only Jimin knows his reasons. Why he hasn't worked with Suga more. Why he doesn't want to perform TM. We will never know really. I hope to find out one day though.

#ask shaz #bts ask #bts

[magical-awesome-kid]

Ok whoever needs to hear this, hear it: Stop gatekeeping cannon.

Seriously, stop.

This is FANDOM! We do shit to our funky blorbos because we love to see them in weird situations! We imprint upon them and want to see ourselves in them! Is it sometimes Out of Character? YES! That's why we tag it!

But if you want to gatekeep something like the Marvel Universe or Detective Comics, let me just say: Everything is Probably Cannon.

Why am I ranting? Because someone just told me to read a batman comic. Holy Guacamole, Batman! You want to discuss cannon? Fine.

Yes, there are Batmans who are absolute pieces of shit. Who abuse their Robins. Who say things that no sane person ever would. There are also Batmen who adore their children, would do anything for them even if they've fucked up before. Hell, there are also Batmans who are COMPLETELY emotionally competent!

Bruce Wayne? Thomas Wayne? Dick Grayson? Terry McGinnis? ALL BATMAN!

In fact, you know that strong moral code, the "no killing" rule that we all cite? HAHA you FOOL for the ORIGINAL cannon was that Batman was a bloody, violent character! Willing to kill! Yes, that was back in the 30s/40s. Still comic cannon. Even at other times, during different stories, we have seen Bruce dip back into those rages. Batman is violent and cunning and emotionless and great with kids and a genius and learning and always prepared and constantly adapting.

Batman is a lot of things.

And that's just the comics. Batman has also been in dozens of TV shows, movies, radio specials, and more. Cannon varies so drastically based on just where and how you were introduced to the character.

I have had no less than a half a dozen commenters tell me to "read the comic." Bitch, I watched the 1960s Adam West Batman and Robin as a kid. It was a special thing shared with my dad. Commissioner Gordon calling on the special Bat Line, the ridiculous costumes, and Bat Shark Repellent.

I gravitated towards cannons where there was a little goofy, a little funny, and, above all else, Bruce was a good mentor and peer to others in the superhero community. Where his Robins were his kids, whom he loved and adored, even if he sometimes fucked up.

And this is just for Batman. Over and over again, I've seen people nitpick about cannon. I've had people come to my blog, my fan accounts, my shit, and get mad because it's not fitting cannon, even as I tag what I'm writing. Even if there is just one cannon, I'm not the writer, editor, or producer of the cannon. I'm never going to write exactly what the makers wanted to be made. I'm a fan.

So for every comic gatekeeper screaming "BUT THAT'S NOT CANNON! READ A COMIC!" Get out. I don't fucking care what you think of as cannon. If you don't like how I play with my little, unreal blorbos, go over to the other corner with your toys and sulk.

#I'm a LIL mad #Cannon #What the fuck even is cannon #Batman #Especially Batman recently #DC Comics #Detective Comics #Marvel #Marvel Comics #Rant #Also this does not apply to real people #Leave real people alone #I am talking about fictitious characters

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

I am so sorry, but I truly must be the one to ask this. What do you think the Cullens and Volturi’s a/b/o alignments/secondary genders are within the omegaverse? How do you think venom effects heats/rut patterns? Is it that upon turning only males have them as they’re the only ones capable of reproducing via hybrid? (Lol not a fic writer just want to know your thoughts)

...

Anon.

Come on.

Bold of you.

But come on.

I also like how you're weasling out of writing your own fic to answer these questions. Really, anon, your guess is as good as mine here.

Do You Have an Answer, Muffin?

No.

And it's not because I'm weaseling out or because this is an entirely made-up fanfiction concept: it's because it is entirely dependent on the porn the author wishes to write.

But What Do You Mean?

A/B/O gender alignments in fics is entirely dependent on who the author wants to be on top. The ageless question in slash fanfics and the cause of many a heated internet debate. BUT WHO IS ON TOP?!!!! WHO IS THE SEME?!!!!

Authors want whoever they want "on top" and then we get alpha characteristics on top of other slashy slashness to justify why this character is totally for realz on top.

It has nothing to do with anything.

Just how the author wants the porn to go down and who they want to get pregnant.

I could try to guess based off of fandom tropes and fanon cliches except, if you take a gander at the Ao3 shipping stats, the canon heterosexual pairings in Twilight are in the lead. When we do expand outside of them it's to the very Cullen pairings of things like Jasper/Bella and if we're getting really spicy Alice/Bella or Rosalie/Bella. Now we could do the wild and bold move of having heterosexual/female slash pairings that are ALSO somehow how A/B/O but it's well known that A/B/O has its lifeblood in male slash.

So, we're looking at... Jakeward? Pretty much? In which case if we go with what fandoms usually do... Edward's the omega and having the baby due to being shorter and skinnier and prettier than Jacob.

Beyond that it'd be me pontificating on who wins the coin flip of A/B/O to get whatever gender they get. Or, I could be that ass and say "oh but they're all Beta, you see" as Beta is generally in omegaverse statistically more likely (except when it isn't for strange reasons and what even is beta for in those fics? Honestly)

But How Would You Do It?

If you're forcing me to be in some alternate Twilight universe where they're also omega...

Well, caveat, this depends on if I'm doing this for a fic or not which may change things in service of the greater plot. Yes, even in an A/B/O fic, people, three should be at least some semblance of a plot. Somewhere. Somehow.

I'd decide via coin flip who gets what. It's a random genetic thing where a vampire is more likely than not Beta with relatively few Alphas or Omegas. It has nothing to do with personality or sexuality, it's just a weird genetic coin toss that affects relatively few people.

In terms of the Omega pregnancy thing... well, this would dramatically change the world of Twilight. Either these children would be known about and be illegal for being immortal children or else it'd be very well known that Omega vampires can produce offspring. Omegas would be desperately sought after by covens wanting children or covens with Alphas who are gifted. And I imagine many more humans might be turned on the off chance that they could end up a highly valued Omega.

Regardless, the Renesmee debacle would likely not happen or not in the same manner as children are a known quantity in Twilight. Now, I'm sure they didn't expect human Bella to get pregnant via Edward (who is statistically likely to be Beta here) but life is full of little surprises like that, isn't it?

And much of the plot of Twilight would be spent in angst as no one could guarantee that Edward and Bella will be compatible sexually due to the random coin flip of A/B/O that occurs upon turning.

Bella, I'm sure, assures Edward that her love is so strong it doesn't matter. Now, this may work out and it may... not.

Otherwise in terms of heat/rut patterns...

Nope, I can't even pretend to care, man.

Followers, you get to decide, which porn floats your boat best.

#twilight #twilight meta #twilight headcanon #twilight renaissance #vampire biology #meta #headcanon #opinion

[sleepyowlwrites]

Weird Questions for Writers: 7 & 17?

7. What is your deepest joy about writing?

it's a combination of my innate desire to create things that have little to no consequence except to produce further trains of thought and delight and my need to have somewhere to put my thoughts besides just in my head or out loud - I talk my thoughts out loud to myself all the time to keep them somewhat organized or to help me remember things - and writing is the best way to do that. it's why I write poetry, because my thoughts naturally form up that way sometimes, and I write stories because I'm always inventing them for things. the real is not enough for me, I have to talk about the peppers in the garden in another world or siblings that do get along or somebody having anxiety and getting through it.

life is a story we tell ourselves, right? I'm telling it! I'm telling it so many times in so many options! I'm a writer!

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won't make it in the text.

here's the thing. most of my wips don't have this stuff figured out yet. because as recently discussed in another ask, I can't think about the worldbuilding too much before I start writing or I can't find a plot. so here's a bunch of lore from ANY of my wips to compensate.

Guild Story: the immortal sorceress was never supposed to be immortal. way long ago before the story, back when magic was more studied and blood magic was still a thing, there were families that participated in rituals to give them extra lives so they could maintain their power and magic for longer. the immortal sorceress was part of one of these rituals by her family's decision. but it went wrong. as you might expect, human sacrifice is required, but on the day of this particular ritual, there was a flood and a rockslide, and way more people died while the ritual was taking place. everybody else in the ritual died too. the immortal sorceress was the only left alive, and all the magic and lives had to flow somewhere, so it went to her. she's got a few hundred lifetimes to get through before she can die.

Magick Story: the year you turn eighteen, your magick will start being very noisy. it’ll be like electrical currents in the air and change the colors of things and just kind of be haywire. it doesn’t suddenly stop and settle on your birthday, especially if you were born earlier in the year, but further on, in like October, it’ll gravitate more toward you specialty. the branches of magic are persuasion, transmutation, infusion and translation, and there are subsets, of course, but one of those four branches will start showing itself more. by December, you will definitely have gravitated toward one of the four branches and from there you start training and learning about the different subsets to find your specialty. there’s never one day that your magick shifts, but October through December is the period when most people’s magick settles down.

Summon Story: I dunno how much information on the spirits I'm going to include, but here's some anyway:

Begar - begar are informants, spirits that were human at one point and were killed in a betrayal. This leads to them desiring to get revenge on whoever killed them even though they forget over time. Their memories are extremely precise, but only for recent events, making them fantastic spies because once they finish a term of employment, they’ll forget they ever worked for the one who summoned them. Begar are not technically inherently malevolent spirits, but their tendency toward anger and revenge place them on that end of the scale. They can only be summoned by human sacrifice to satiate their anger enough to make a contract, but it doesn’t have to be permanent. If more than one Begar are summoned at a time, there must be a sacrifice for each spirit and the summoning circles must not overlap or they will fight each other. Begar are immortal but can be killed in a summoning ring when they’re in a semi-corporeal form or in a fully corporeal form when the summoner’s blood is also on the weapon used.

thanks for asking!

#sleepy answers #writing asks

[ploppythespaceship]

Strange New Worlds (Season 2) - Thoughts & Review

I don't think I've been so mixed on a season of Star Trek as I am with this one. The things this show does well, it does extraordinarily well, and when it's on point, it's some excellent television. Unfortunately, the things this show does wrong are doing their damnedest to drag everything else down. Most of those issues stem from the fact that this is a prequel, and the things they're doing with established characters are really fighting against their original characterization. The individual episode quality is also wildly all over the place.

As a result, I can't come to any one conclusion. I liked some parts, I hated other parts, and it's all just a bit of a mess.

Spoilers under the cut.

What I Liked

The show is very well-produced. It looks great -- the production design continues to find a perfect balance between honoring the TOS look while updating and modernizing it -- it's well-directed, well-cast, etc.

Speaking of the cast, this is one of Trek's strongest group of actors. I particularly want to shout out Christina Chong as La'an -- I frankly didn't like her character much in season one, but she won me over this season, and that's largely due to the performance. Ethan Peck also did an excellent job, especially with some of the more comedic scenes.

Whoever decided that Carol Kane should play the ship's weird ass immortal engineer is a genius. Please give them a raise.

It was only a few scenes in the last episode, but I liked the guy playing Scotty. I was not expecting him to show up at all, but I couldn't stop grinning.

One of the advantages of being a more episodic series is the ability to easily explore many different tones and genres, and this season takes full advantage of that. One episode will be very silly and comedic, and the next will be a dramatic character study, and it just pings back and forth. I love that it has the freedom to explore that much variety.

What I Didn't Like

Spock and Chapel are the single worst thing about this season, and their relationship is definitely something I am going to pointedly ignore going forward. It makes sense to take their TOS dynamic and flesh it out more, but what the writers came up with makes both characters into the worst possible versions of themselves. Now Spock is canonically an adulterer, and someone who's chosen his emotionless affect because a woman broke his heart -- which uproots all of his characterization for the rest of the franchise. And Chapel just comes across as a bitch, particularly in the musical episode. I really hate that for her. It's deeply unfair to both characters.

I am sorry to say that I still don't care for Paul Wesley's Kirk. I appreciate what he's trying to do, playing more to Kirk's intellectual side, but there's a certain level of charm that's just not there. I think he's just miscast.

Number One continues to be incredibly boring, and the weakest link in the cast. I regularly forget that she exists and am surprised when she shows up.

Ortegas desperately needs a spotlight episode. She's the only main cast member who hasn't had any kind of focus or development, and she really sticks out as a result. The few tidbits of development she does get are repetitive -- she flies the ship, and she fought in the war. I know that her role was likely reduced this season due to the death of her partner, but they could have at least tried to add variety to the small moments she does get.

I love that this show is committed to the more old-school episodic style, which gives everything a more classic Trek feel. But with such a short season, I feel you need to be much pickier about which episodes you produce. The shorter seasons mean that bad or even underwhelming episodes have a much greater impact. If three episodes of a twenty-two episode season aren't up to par, that's easy to shrug off. But if it's three episodes of a ten episode season, that's two-thirds of your content. And this season unfortunately had quite a few episodes with major issues holding them back.

Individual Episode Thoughts

This season really does come down to its individual episodes, which as I mentioned are wildly all over the place.

The Broken Circle — This season did not get off on the right foot for me. This one wanted so badly to be the big, action-packed season opener, and everything about it felt incredibly forced as a result. Everything from Spock's abrupt decision to steal the Enterprise, to the threat of war that came from nowhere and was immediately forgotten about, to watching the medical characters take drugs and start beating the shit out of people... it all just felt off, and never clicked into place.

Ad Astra Per Aspera — Much better! This one should have been the season opener. It's a modern take on the classic Trek court episode, which immediately invites comparisons to some of the franchise's best. And while it doesn't live up to something like "The Measure of a Man" or "The Drumhead," it's still pretty solid. It has important things to say, and it says them well. It's simply held back by its resolution being complete nonsense. I understand that as a prequel, the writers can't fully resolve the augmentation debate without completely undermining future series. But I thought they'd find a more coherent loophole than "she requested asylum." She did not request asylum, that makes absolutely no sense, and it sort of makes things fall apart.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow — I loved the time travel plot, I loved the great focus on La'an as a character, and I am actually okay with them subtly changing the franchise's timeline around by re-dating the Eugenics Wars. It was clearly something done intentionally to give the writers some greater freedom, and I can appreciate it. Unfortunately, I just wasn't sold on the romance between La'an and Kirk, which felt incredibly rushed. Without that to tie everything together, the episode never quite clicks into place. But I still respect what it tried to do and don't take too many major issues with it.

Among the Lotus Eaters — Easily the one I have the least to say on. Decent enough premise, competently executed. Not a standout as either good or bad.

Charades — Absolutely hated this one. The writers took a great concept and fumbled it. The direction they chose to go with human Spock baffles me, and doesn't make sense within their own canon. If Vulcan emotions are stronger than human ones, why does Spock becoming human suddenly make him too emotional to function? And why would he forget his Vulcan upbringing and need to be reminded how to act Vulcan? Then of course all of this is just done to further the Spock/Chapel relationship, rather than be the obvious Spock character study it should be. It's awful. Least favorite episode of the whole show, by far.

Lost in Translation — I really like the premise and overall vibes of this one, as well as the greater focus on Uhura (who might be the only legacy character that I take no issue with). Sadly, this episode is let down by some pretty poor pacing. Everything drags for longer than it needs to, and plenty of scenes felt like padding. It could have used another pass in either the writing or editing room.

Those Old Scientists — I was fully prepared to hate this one. I don't like Lower Decks, so I figured the crossover would be more of the same. But to my great surprise, this episode was excellent. Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome perfectly translated their characters to live-action, and the characters are much funnier when they have regular people to bounce off of. I laughed out loud multiple times. But it's not just a jokefest, and has some good character beats as well. A very pleasant surprise.

Under the Cloak of War — Ehhhh. I appreciate what they were trying to do, but it never quite clicked. The Klingon general turned ambassador simply isn't fleshed out enough for the debate of whether he's truly reformed to have any weight. And M'Benga calling himself the Butcher of J'Gal just confuses things unnecessarily. I actually had to look up an episode summary to understand the ending, and when I did, I kinda hated it. For them to act like M'Benga killing a few enemy Klingons in an effort to stop mass bloodshed is on the same level as someone ordering the genocide of civilians, including children... that's frankly insulting. There was a good story somewhere in here, but it needed a couple more passes in the writing room. (Or you could just watch DS9's "Duet" instead.)

Subspace Rhapsody — The musical episode! I won't mince words. This is arguably the best episode of the show, and one of the best musical episodes I've ever seen, second only to the Buffy episode which so clearly inspired it. The songs are largely excellent, well tailored to fit both the characters and actors, and the cast is fairly talented. But it's not just silly songs for the sake of being fun. The writers understand that musical episodes should take advantage of the format to explore characters in a very unique way, and as such, most of the songs are character-driven. And the final resolution being that music needs to bring the crew together, in an ensemble number led by Uhura... that's so perfect. Only the Spock/Chapel stupidity brings this one down. Otherwise it's an A+ all-around. I've had "Status Report," "How Would That Feel," "I'm the X," and "Keep Us Connected" basically on repeat since seeing it.

Hegemony — An action-packed finale that I really enjoyed. They've done a fairly good job reimagining the Gorn to be actually threatening, and this episode expertly keeps the tension high. I've been seeing a lot of comparisons to "The Best of Both Worlds," and while it wouldn't go that far, it's certainly a solid finale.

#personal #snw spoilers #star trek #strange new worlds

[reikumaz]

hiii there,,! just wanted to say how much i love your writing! but you also seem rly cool and sweet so i wanted to ask about YOU! you obviously like rei but who are your other faves? what are your favorite songs, units, shuffles,,, smfnekdkdksksksk stuff like that. sorry if this is weird, you don’t have to answer but you seem so cool, i read your responses and i just want to be your friend /gen

HII ANON…. this is so sweet omg ^^ <3…. am but a humble writer who enjoys interacting with my fellow reiP !!! i would love to make friends with all reiP !

now for your questions! im Gonna put them under the cut because i feel like this will be long lol. and it was long. i am back and it was long !!! thank you for this ask !!

THE OTHER PEOPLE I PRODUCE…….

im valkyrieP…… i feel like being a valkP goes hand in hand with being a reiP. the aesthetics just match up. but not only that, their DYNAMIC ITSELF…. everything that is going on between mika and shu……. idek, it’s just very compelling to me, when i was reading their stories i kinda hated shu but the more it progressed and i grasped his character, i literally fell in love with this guy. im a big fan of imperfection, i don’t think everything has to be black and white. and shu is so incredibly human… i just loved witnessing his development, it had to be one of my favorite things ever. and then mika’s too like GAH. I LOVE THEM. AND ADD EX VALK INTO THE MIX. OH MY GOD. the entire valk timeline is a true masterpiece.

and then my other faves are natsume ( he is my second fave idk why i put valk first although i love valk an abnormal amount ), literally all the eccentrics… after reading meteor impact, i fell in love w kanata and he is also a very interesting personality. and wataru too of course.

and my sons. my sons are yuta, hinata, kohaku, and hiiro. so cute T__T !!!!

then characters i just think are hot are madara and rinne. worst part about this is they are also incredibly interesting characters, especially rinne!!! like the amount of depth with these two is insane, everyime they appear in a story im like what is up with these guys !!! but they are also eye candy. sorry.

i love them all so much !!!! it’s so hard to rank them. but rei and natsume will always be my number one and two ^__^ !!!

for units! i seem biased but my top three are undead, valkyrie, and 2wink in that order. tbh i have never heard a bad song by any of these units, i will never skip a song by any of them their music is just SOOOO GOOD.

now you’re thinking. writer, where is switch. okay i love switch’s songs and i love natsume, and i love their little found family dynamic. WHICH YOU WOULD THINK I WOULD PRODUCE THEM…… buuuut… scratches head. i have a huge affinity for natsume while the other two members.. are kinda buried beneath a bunch of other characters so i would feel like a fake saying i produce switch when i do not have the same amount of emotions for them all.

it’s the same for ryusetai. love kanachia and their kids. but im just not diehard enough about them to produce them Q__Q !!!!

my favorite songs boy oh boy !! there are so many songs lemme try and condense this.

every undead song ever. ( my most played: forbidden rain!!!!!!!, valentine’s eve nightmare, immoral world, gates of abyss, honey milk wa okonomi de, literally every song. )

every valk song ever. ( my most played: enthralling theater!!!!!!!, uruwashi no nightingale, sacred youth’s game, acanthe )

i could write an entire essay about each of these valk songs. i really could. ESPECIALLY. uruwashi no nightingale and sacred youth’s game. whoever hired the voices for shmk needs the biggest pay raise of all time because their voice actors voices together will never fail to give me emotions i have never felt before. and when you throw nazuna’s voice in there….. shakes my head and starts crying and laughing…….. they all compliment each other SO WELL…… i am so genuinely in love with shu and mika’s voices, and it only gets better when you PUT THEM TOGETHER GOD.

every 2wink song ever BUT ESPECIALLY !!!!! fighting dreamer, polyphonic world, lemon squash cheer, and the best ever….. trick with treat. i don’t even know where it ranks but it is for sure competing for the number one spot.

and most of alkaloid’s songs but especially hysteric humanoid and believe 4 leave

and some misc songs !!! moonlight disco, zealous shooting ninja scrolls, galaxy destiny, usa 💀, fallin love equals wonderland, noir neige, death game holic, =eye=… there’s many more but u get the gist here !

then for the best song ever.

BLOODY MOON VAMPIRE. OH MY GOD…. im very big fan of jazz. AND REI’S VOICE… FALLS TO THE GROUND….. god his voice actor has the voice of a siren i swear if i heard this song in the middle of nowhere, i would follow it no matter how dangerous the destination was. his voice is just so smooth and TEMPTING…… whoever casted him also deserves a pay raise because his voice is just. so. rei. this is just how rei should sound, it was just so perfect i cannot handle it. i understand why rei sakuma had so many people under his spell. obviously. (looks at my shrine dedicated to him

#i am not normal Abt my interests #do you guys still think im cool and sexy be honest #THANK YOU FOR ASKING THIS.. THIS WAS A BIT FUN TO RAMBLE ABT #letters to the castle

[blitznut]

T, U, and W for the alphabet thing

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending? 

Yoketron and Bludgeon are brothers. They look just like each other, so therefore, they must be brothers! Even the TFwiki says they look alike. See?

It must be canon!

/sarcasm

W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.

I don't like when people pair the 'spares'. I've hated ever since I read Harry Potter, I hated it when I read Percy Jackson, I hated it in the Marvel and DC fandoms, and I hate it to this day. This sounds bizarre coming from a shipping-centered blog, but not everybody needs a love interest.

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

No Transformers talk this time!

Guilty Gear:

Ky Kiske was a sleeper hit for me. I didn't realize how much I liked him until I wrote a whole wall of text about why his haters are wrong in someone's inbox. He's been through so much - losing his parents, becoming a child soldier, and being forced to appease a puppet government who threatened to hurt the love of his life and his young son - but he still finds hope for future. He still manages to find love in his heart for everyone.

I like Testament very much. Their story deeply resonates with me - a story of a hurt person who believes themselves to be unlovable and irredeemable, but who still tries their best to help the others in their life, and who finds redemption in the people who's they've helped.

I think Dizzy is amazing. I love her story, I love her theme music, and I love her designs. She's just a normal woman who happens to be able to produce nuclear explosions, and who has two weird apparitions (that happen to be married) protecting her. She's been through so much in her life - being forced to bear the sins of her mother, being persecuted and rejected by everyone from the day she was born, and having the family she wanted desperately taken away from her - and she still stays nice, kind, and humble.

Marvel Comics:

I love the Hawkeyes. They're fun characters, but they have enough darkness to play with. Hawkeye (2012) is an amazing comic, and I could not have asked for a better introduction to the Marvel Comics universe. I think that Hawkeye (2012) did a great job at humanizing both Kate Bishop and Clint Barton. It made them feel like people first, and superheroes second.

I am a Deadpool apologist. I think he deserves so much better than what he's given. I think that even fandom gives him the short end of the stick a lot. Wade often gets misunderstood as being someone who intentionally goes out of his way to cross boundaries. He also gets misunderstood as being child-like. I think that Deadpool understands boundaries, and knows what he is doing and saying. However, I think he greatly misunderstands social cues, and has a very immature sense of humor.

Kind of cheaty, but I love the Great Lakes Avengers. Their outlandish origins drew me to comics in the first place. The fact that someone thought they were called the GLA because they were a Gay-Lesbian Alliance is just comedic gold to me. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for them...despite all of the very questionable shenanigans they get up to.

Ducktales:

Penumbra was my gay awakening. I love her so much. I think she deserves so much more love than she gets. I pray to whoever rules our Earthly domain to give me or someone else the strength and will to write write a 80k word Penumbra character study with a slow burn Dellumbra love story.

I love Gyro Gearloose. He's an middle-aged divorced dad who doesn't have custody of his kids trapped inside of a 32-year old gay chicken's body.

Fenton deserves so much better what both the fandom and the writers gave him. I think that most of the problems in Ducktales could have been solved a lot faster if they gave him a gun.

#meta

[x3rrorx]

“It would be weird if she only featured for a verse” why would it be weird?

I meant it would be weird if she performed VAN on her own if she had only done one verse vs. the whole song, not that it would be weird if she had only featured for one verse on VAN in general. But she’s literally the face of the song from promos to vocals to the subject of the video.

I personally think if they did Suffocate WITH Kayzo’s permission it wouldn’t be that be weird. They’d be performing a song Noah did vocals on and has writing credits on, that BO fans know and like. It isn’t just Kayzo’s song based on credit and it’s really the same thing here. For crediting I don’t mean they wrote the song together but she IS publicly and jointly credited on Spotify and it is hers in that way.

You mentioned it’s not the same thing re: writing and producing but it is objectively the same, it just seems weird because the writers and producers are in close proximity to the situation. Noah has written for bands where he is the only writer and producer on their tracks and those bands still perform those songs as their own. They didn’t write VAN for her but they did seemingly approach her and clearly trusted her with the video and recording enough to ALLOW her to be credited as a joint collaborator and she has a right to play a song that belongs to her too.

At the end of the day I do see both sides but I do think she is justified and shouldn’t get hate for performing it from the BO fanbase. I just wanted to clarify what I meant so I’m sorry if this message comes off aggressive, it really was not meant to be. At the end of the day the band seems happy with their decisions and I don’t think it would have happened without their permission

I don’t think you’re understanding the difference.

Noah as a writer is gonna write song for other bands. It will be given to them as their song and him credited. Kayzo and other bands who e worked with Noah wrote those songs and it’s their songs, but Noah sang the lyrics. Doesn’t make it his song though. So yeah, it would be a little odd for them to add it to their performance without the Kayzo (or whoever).

V.a.n is a Bad Omens song. Not a song Noah wrote and is giving to someone else.

No one is hating her for performing the song. At least not from my side anyways. I’m just pointing out how odd it is, in my opinion.

[farmerlan]

A guide to commonly used honorifics in 魔道祖师/The Untamed

OK - so, I’ve actually seen some confusion floating around on specific honorifics commonly used in 魔道祖师 and I figured I will put a post up to address some of this - especially the situations when they get used. Hopefully it’ll be helpful for fic writers or whoever else out there that’s getting turned around by the various translations.

As with most of Chinese vernacular, there’s a TON of similar, but different situations in which it may be permissible to use certain titles/honorifics, so bear in mind this is not an exhaustive guide. Also, I don’t have a PhD in Chinese honorifics or anything, I’m just a Chinese person that watches/reads a fair amount of historical dramas. So if I missed anything/if there was anything that was kind of unclear in the novel or drama, feel free to let me know!

公子 / gongzi/ master

Let’s start with the hardest so I can get this out of the way. You will see this translated in a variety of different ways - master, young master, sir...and they are all correct! Congratulations, you’ve hit the jackpot - depending on the situation, gongzi can be a whole hodgepodge of things.

Master: The most commonly used version in MDZS. This is a separate meaning of master from some of the honorifics discussed below - it is specifically used to address either:

Your literal master if you are a servant in the household

A somebody from a distinguished household in a polite way

General honorific: Gongzi can also be used between strangers/acquaintances as a respectful term. Gongzi is, in some ways, an indicator of respect of the other person’s status. So oftentimes you’ll find two young masters from different sects referring to each other as gongzi politely, but you wouldn’t find two beggars on the street calling each other that. and it’s usually used to address someone younger or a similar age as you. If you‘re talking to someone who is clearly your senior, use 前辈 or 先生.

Because it has the connotation of youth and aristocracy associated with it, oftentimes innkeepers/sellers may use gongzi to address male customers  (particularly youthful men) because it’s a bit more flattering. Kind of like how the modern day shopkeeper calls you ‘美女’ (beauty) or even ‘亲爱的’（my dear - IDK when this started becoming a thing but if you do any online shopping on Taobao you know what I’m talking about) in China. They don’t actually think you’re beautiful/feel affection for you, it’s just a way of addressing the customer to make you feel good about yourself HA. It’s nice to be called gongzi even if you’re not actually a noble.

There’s variants of this - 小公子/ xiaogongzi is typically young master, although I think some translations just directly use the young master for gongzi. It can also mean the younger master if there is an older sibling in question here (e.g. Wen Chao was referred to as 温小公子 as he was the younger son), although you can also use 二公子 （second master), as many do when referring to Lan Wangji. It sounds a little less juvenile.

This term is used for guys - I would say the female equivalent could be 千金/ qianjin or 小姐 /xiaojie.

宗主 / zongzhu/ sect leader

This can only refer to the sect leader - it is a title, and it is passed down. There is typically only one sect leader at any one time, and his eldest male heir will be the successive leader of the sect. I’m going to take this chance to clear up some misconceptions:

Unless Lan Xichen bears no male heirs before his death, Lan Wangji will not succeed him. Lan Sizhui, given that he is not a Lan by birth, will likely never be the Lan sect leader. Yes yes, we all know he’s the adoptive son, but adoptive means literally nothing in the progenical world of Chinese history. Plus, he’s not even the adoptive son of Lan Xichen, so he is a long, long way down from ever being sect leader unless he forms his own, which he would likely never because that’s kind of like betraying your family.

On that same topic, Nie Huaisang succeeded Nie Mingjue because Nie Mingjue died without an heir and Nie Huaisang was the closest blood relative.

For the Jin sect, the succession would have been Jin Guangshan -> Jin Zixuan -> Jin Ling. (y’all I wrote here that it was Jin Zixun first in line but I totally blanked that he was actually a cousin and NOT the son of JGS so ignore that LOL) Since Jin Zixuan died, it became Jin Guangyao - Jin Ling is next in line as he is of the next generation and too young at that time to rule. Honestly, if Jin Ling was older at the time of Jin Zixuan’s death and if this was a Chinese historical palace drama, there would probably be some serious internal political intrigue going on as Jin Guangyao’s claim over the seat would arguably be weaker than Jin Ling’s since he is illegitimate.

For the Jiang sect, Jiang Cheng is the heir even though Jiang Yanli is older because he is male. The question of who will inherit his seat (a very valid question given his luck with dating, although I am sure someone somewhere will eventually warm the prickly cockles of his heart) remains open. IMO there is a less than zero chance that Jin Ling succeeds him unless Jiang Cheng specifically demands for it, but he likely wouldn’t because he is all about decorum and also it would put Jin Ling in an incredibly difficult situation, which is the last thing he would want for his nephew. If he doesn’t end up producing heirs, the seat will likely go to whomever he names as successor, even if non-blood related - maybe the current head disciple.

With that said, although there were generally established rules for succession, actual Chinese history (like all of history) often played out very differently (e.g. Emperor Kangxi stripped crown prince Yinreng of his right to succeed and appointed Yinzhen (Yongzheng), who was the fourth surviving prince, as his successor) so really, even if you were to base sect succession off imperial succession traditions, you could still make the argument that anything goes as long as you have the right people in your corner. HA.

老祖/ laozu/ grandmaster/forefather

I mean, I think grandmaster is probably a fair translation of laozu, which, to be honest, is a harder honorific to translate. It’s definitely influenced by Taoism and not very common at all, but it’s likely derived from Hongjun Laozu (鸿钧老祖), who was a deity and teacher. It does NOT only stand for a senior teacher/master however, because 祖 itself has ancestral connotations, so I think I would personally translate this as forefather. IMO, it’s really only fair to use this on Wei Wuxian and/or originators of a certain branch of study in the MDZS universe - I would consider laozu as the term of respect afforded to people who were pioneers in their fields/sects.

In that sense, Lan Qiren is NOT the grandmaster of the Lan sect. He is an elder - a very respected elder that was basically interim sect leader, but in terms of official title, technically, Lan Xichen could pull rank on him, but he likely wouldn’t unless pressed to because he is also Lan Xichen’s elder.

前辈 / qianbei/ senior/elder

This is kind of an in-between term to politely refer to someone who is your senior, but with whom you really have no formal affiliation with. Unlike 先生, it’s also unisex. A related term is 长辈 /zhangbei, but that is used for people whom you have familial/closer ties with - like an uncle, or someone within your own sect.

师父/师尊/ shifu/shizun / master

Your teacher/master, but not in the servant-master context. Someone who mentors you for years - in the xianxia/wuxia culture, this is a pretty special term because most disciples will only ever belong to one sect and will only ever have one master, and everyone else is a qianbei. The disciple has to ‘拜师’ (to formally request this relationship) and the master also has to ‘收徒’ (to formally accept disciples). So a lot of people went to Yiling in an attempt to 拜师, but Wei Wuxian never did 收徒.

In the wuxia/xianxia context, shifu is technically unisex even though 父 in itself is a male-centric term, although female masters might be more commonly referred to by the gender-neutral shizun instead.

Now that I think about it, shifu doesn’t actually appear in MDZS. Lan Wangji calls Lan Qiren 叔父 /shufu, which is completely different. It means uncle (father’s younger brother, to be exact lol), since that is their relationship.

老头/ laotou/ old man

Wei Wuxian uses this to address Lan Qiren behind his back. It literally just means old man, haha. It’s informal but not a term you would use to refer to someone who is close to you/whom you like, but not exactly a term that is insulting or derogatory, although in Lan Qiren’s case, it is irreverent because it is ill-fitting for the relationship that Wei Wuxian and Lan Qiren have. Meant to be used on men, usually for women it would be 老婆婆/ laopopo (NOT THE SAME as 老婆/ laopo, which means wife. Welcome to the weird wonderful world of the Chinese language!)

师弟/哥/兄/姐/妹/ shi di/ge/xiong/jie/mei/ younger brother/ older brother/ another variant of older brother/ older sister/ younger sister

NOT TO BE USED FOR YOUR ACTUAL FAMILY. This is in the context of the sect only. Your fellow disciples, but with varying levels of seniority. Familial honorifics are a whole different thing.

In the context of the sect, who you call your shidi/ge etc. is usually NOT based on age - it is based on someone’s seniority within the sect. If you have been in the sect/under your master’s tutelage for longer, you are the senior, even if you are younger in age.

With that, I think the novel states that both Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng are similar in age, so it is actually incredibly hard to determine if the author deliberately went against this convention and Wei Wuxian calls Jiang Cheng shidi because he is genuinely younger than Wei Wuxian, or if it is simply because Wei Wuxian is the head disciple of the sect (and therefore, technically, everyone is his shidi). I actually think it might be the former because he refers to Jiang Yanli as shijie, although now that I think about it, it might be the latter...as a reflection of the level of admiration Wei Wuxian has for Jiang Yanli WOAH.

(Fun fact: there’s a scene in the novel in Yi city where Wei Wuxian was silently weirded out that Xiao Xingchen referred to him as ‘qianbei’ - because Xiao Xingchen is his mother’s shidi, which makes him Wei Wuxian’s senior, but then he quickly realizes it’s because he’s talking to Xue Yang and not Xiao Xingchen.)

先生 /xiansheng/ mister/sir/teacher

In present day, this is literally the most vanilla term you can use to politely address a guy. Can be a stranger, or an acquaintance you want to politely address. Usually older than you, although if you’re both similar in age and you’re not really familiar with each other, you might still use it just to err on the side of caution. In xianxia/ancient China, this is usually used more like ‘teacher/sir’ to address an elder. It’s more scholastic in its implication and less generic than qianbei.

In the Lan sect, by crowd definition, 先生 refers to Lan Qiren unless otherwise stated, which makes sense and shows the amount of respect he is afforded in the sect.

夫人 / furen/ wife/madam

A term of respect for typically older women, or can also be used to refer to one’s wife.

Lastly, let me just add that this is just something that’s meant to be helpful for people as they work through the series - at the end of the day, it’s all fictional/xianxia itself as a genre is fantasy so if you need to subvert any one of the generally held succession traditions or whatnot in order to make your fic work, go!!! Do it!!!

#xianxia #honorifics #chinese #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #the untamed #cql #魔道祖师 #lan wangji #wei wuxian #guides #meta

[jdarm]

Now, for the fans that wanted #Supercorp to happen, I feel like what they give us at the end is even better.

Oh, I’m so glad you said that.

It’s like their “For Good” moment from Wicked, where Kara and Lena address how they have helped one another grow. Kara says “You have pushed me more than anyone” and then Lena kills me with, “You’ve made me a better person.”

The thing that you want with a finale is for everybody to come away happy and everybody to feel like—I know this sounds weird—but everybody could feel like they’re seen, like their show is being portrayed, whatever that show is. And that’s what I think was really important for the writers and the producers and all of us, is that at the end of six years and people who’ve been with us through this whole journey, you want them to feel that when they watch it, that it’s their show that they’re watching, whatever their show is. Whoever and whatever it is, it doesn’t matter, it’s their show and you want that to be what they get from their final episode.

And it’s a real privilege as a show and as an actor to be able to do a final episode, because so often we don’t get to. So often shows get canceled before that and stories don’t get wrapped up. To be given the space by the studio, by Warner Bros and by DC, to be able to do that, that is something very, very special. And hopefully we got it right.

[x}

#katie mcgrath #lena luthor #supergirl

[mysherlockstardis]

I’ll bet that John Mulaney takes over for Lorne Michaels when the time comes for him to retire from SNL.

John Mulaney and/or Keenan Thompson.

I feel like John and Lorne have this really insane connection to SNL and to each other. I also can’t ignore how many years Keenan has reliably managed to stay one of the best amongst his cast mates and loyal to the show.

But I have this weird kinda feeling John would have an opportunity for the job if he wanted it. John was an amazing writer for the show. If I’m not mistaken, it was also during the time John struggled with addiction? I could be wrong, but I just got this impression that Lorne worked John really hard on the show. Like, I’m not saying that John had problems because of Lorne, because it’s way bigger than that. John was an exceptional over-achiever at the show who struggled with addiction and mental health issues like everybody else is what I think is true, but I could be wrong. Regardless, John went on to be successful without SNL, but ever since John gained notoriety he has hosted the show at least once a season.

His episodes are usually the best of that season. Like the musical number we ALWAYS expect from John’s episode. John is a catalyst for those musicals and helps produce a ton of other great sketches that week.

It’s why I feel like John looks out for Pete too. It’s because John knows what it’s like to be a young guy like Pete to be competing against the best comedy writers and actors in the industry for a spot at the table. Especially growing up with a lot of family trauma like they both did.

They were both young talented guys on SNL, struggling with family trauma, and mental health problems. Of course, Pete has had the extra exposure as one of the actors as well as having a failed and extremely public engagement with superstar Ariana Grande. Like, this isn’t what this post is about, but I believe that Lorne has given Pete a lot of slack considering all the “scandals” that Pete has been. He’s said multiple controversial comments on the show. On multiple occasions he has had to come out and apologize for the things he had said on live tv. Lorne nearly ruined one his actresses careers when she dropped an F-bomb on Live Cable Television. Yet Lorne is okay with that, as he should be, but I totally thought his ass was grass on that show on more than one occasion.

I would think Pete would be first to say that he was also surprised that season after season Lorne signed him back on to the cast.

So, considering the quirky friendship that makes up John and Pete, and the relationships they appear to have with Lorne Michaels it seems kinda significant when thinking about where Lorne wants the future of this show. They are both young and represent the youth who are making up SNL audiences these days especially on places like YouTube. But Keenan Thompson has been loyal for more years than everyone else and consistently does an amazing job at the show both on and off screen.

SNL could go on for years and years as long as the writing and guests stay relevant.

Lorne would want the legacy of the show to go to someone who would dedicate their life to producing a great show that will keep coming back season after season.

I think both John and Keenan would be great head producers. However, there is something that I think gives John an edge. He’s a work-aholic and he isn’t planning to have kids (as of now). I’m not suggesting that work is the reason he doesn’t want kids, but when I think in the mindset of not wanting kids in the future, I immediatley think of finding fufulliment in hard work. 

I just hope that Lorne does pass the torch whenever he feels ready to do that for the show. It’ll be a gambit either way, because a show struggles when transitional changes are made, but SNL might survive in the right hands.

Admittedly, Kate McKinnon, Bill Hader, and Kristin Wiig represent very successful “younger” alumini of the show. However, they were so damn successful during their time on the show that maybe they may not be interested in heading the producing side of the show as much. Like I feel like the people who survive the show long term either make it bigger with distance and leave it all behind, or kinda lose their shot at the “big times” with only a few managing to bounce back after not leaving the show on their terms. I don’t think I can be clearer when I say that writers and actors at SNL are the kings and queens of the comedy world. And it’s a competitive world. Who writes the best sketches?, Who writes the most sketches? , Who keeps getting cast in the sketches and are willing to work the long hours? There is a combination of 2 things that work to make that show. The performance aspect that Keenan has been dedicated to and consistent with, and the producing aspect that Lorne has been in charge of. Like being the head producer of SNL must be an extremely tiring job with insane hours. Like truly insane hours, I bet Lorne has dedicated an insane amount of hours to that show. Whoever takes over is gonna need to have that work ethic.

Is Keenan gonna give more hours? I don’t know, he does have children who he loves and probably wants to spend time with whenever he can while enjoying the stability and success he has at SNL. Like, Keenan will always have a job at SNL. That’s non-negotiable.

The question is who is Lorne gonna trust to dedicate their life to make an amazing show that has the potential to survive his absence (sadly, when that time comes). There is absolute no reason or rush to hand the show down, because Lorne has consistently produced great writers, actors, and sketches that keep their videos some of the top viewed stuff on the internet.

I just think John, it he was interested, and it’s very possible he might not be, but if he was then I think John would be an incredible head producer at SNL. He had the temperament to do that job amazing while struggling with addiction, imagine the potential that John has as the head of SNL in the right mindset. I think John would love it, and this is coming from the daughter of a work-aholic. Like, anyone who works as hard as John does with no plans to start a family, are usually pretty open to taking on insanely fulfilling jobs like being in charge of show like SNL would be for John Mulaney. I think John performs on his own turns, but being in charge of an operation like SNL take comedy chops, work ethic, and a dedication that might be best to persue without a child at home.

So, yeah this was a ramble from someone who is a mild fan of John Mulaney, and Lorne Michaels who just feels like there is definitley something between the lines as to their relationship. I think it’s one of deep respect, but I think John might have been burned during his time at SNL. He definitley proved to be one of the best writers, and I think John has always pushed himself hard to deliver good content to his audience.

I mean John’ll be great no matter what he does, but if he wanted the gig then I think he would be great at the gig.

Correction: John wasn’t using drugs/alcohol when he worked as a writer at SNL. However, he did have the history of it, and working at SNL is presumably extremely exhausting with long hours. So, yeah. Forget what I said about him being on stuff, but he was still a young talented guy who overcame an addiction that ruins lives and proved himself to be a hard worker who never fell back on any of his old crutches. Regardless, I still suspect that there was tension between Lorne and John because John was such a hardworker and good writer, and Lorne I think expected a lot from him. It can sometimes be incredibly frustrating when you are the golden child, but Lorne still has to make cut throat decisions.

#john mulaney #snl cast #snl #saturday night live #pete davidson #lorne michaels #bill hader #kristen wiig #kate mckinnon #snl cold open #weird thoughts #in the future #arianna grande

[andsmile]

okay here are my two cents, not everyone’s cup of tea but here we go

the article is real. yes, it’s not well written. yes, everything sounds like a fever dream. but this show has been a clusterfuck for years and now they managed to touch the one good thing they had going on (their solid core four ships) that are about to become a clusterfuck too.

however, the reviewer who wrote that seems to be VERY b*rchie biased and literally gushed over the ship happening all over the recap, not stopping to actually talk about what it means for bughead and varchie, or veronica and jughead. they ignored the glances that we know from the stills the core four shares (bughead and varchie), and only said “veronica looks at archie” / “jughead looks at betty” and enhanced b*rchie glances again. whoever wrote it likes the idea of b*rchie so we can’t trust it completely.

cheating SUCKS. sucks, sucks, sucks. however, it’s not the first time it’s used as a plot device to shake things up in a teen show. it won’t be the last. riverdale thrived on the stability of their core ships but they probably wanted to shake things up while simultaneously catering to another part of the fandom, so there you go.

i understand if you’re a thrown off by cheating but (and that might be controversial) i don’t think this invalidates bughead’s or varchie’s journey. the writers have failed to show us why b*rchie would be “confused” to a point that they’d cheat on their significant others (and that’s where the story diverts from other triangles/quadrangles from other better written shows) but this is just another storyline they’re pulling out of their asses too quickly. either way, it doesn’t change what happened so far for varchie and bughead. it’s “the darkest storyline” that you can and should ignore.

this is not real life so if you feel like “forgiving” archie or betty for doing this, it’s okay, it doesn’t mean that you’d be a cheater on real life or that you’d condone this attitude. also, when in doubt, go with the characters reaction: if jug and veronica do forgive them, and you still like the ship, why wouldn’t you?

it’s also okay if you want to jump ships or to leave the fandom. do what’s best for you!

what matters more to me right now is: how will they follow this up? what will happen afterwards? are b*rchie going to honest? are they engaging on an affair (sounds crack but)? are they honestly just going to choose jug and veronica and that’s it? does it mean anything for real, or is it just a thing that happens in the musical, a “showmance”?

we can only expect bad writing, so i don’t think we can expect archie or betty to tell their secret to jughead and veronica. with the tapes thing going on, i feel like they will go back to their relationships and ignore this ever happened, when someone leaks a tape that blows up the core four. and we initiate season 5 with the core four all split up. with a time jump, many things can be forgiven and it’s a set up for angst.

it’s a weird thing that this episode is using ALL of the b*rchie cards and trumphs wrapped into one. flashbacks for kiddie stuff? pilot reminiscing with a song about mistakes and goodbyes? window scenes? “longing”? er... if i was a b*rchie shipper i’d be wary. it’s a huge b*rchie sandwich and it could literally be giving all possible content so they never visit that again. also, i, for one, am glad that these flashbacks are happening now and not in episode 18. maybe they want us to believe b*rchie have been waiting for each other but we just won’t believe it and the writers are on crack but they know their audience, don’t think they don’t.

let’s not blame the cast, reviewers, or even the characters that have existed for 78 years on this bullshit story line.

maybe i am too detached from canon, or maybe i have seen enough shit (that always, inevitably, hits the fan on the fourth season) with my other ships to feel really upset. thing is, i have always been on the loser side of the cw shows before, but that was always the smallest fanbase (with brucas, stelena, dair, etc) and i’ve always watched the big fanbase win over the small fanbase regardless of the writing or continuity. this time we, the bughead and varchies, are the big fanbase. we can boycott, be heard, let them know we hate it, that we won’t watch, and they will listen. the cw has fired producers for that before, and riverdale is the cw’s cash cow. let them know that you hate and don’t watch, especially if you live in the USA.

i know it’s hard to even think about your ship in a good way right now but remember that the archie comics characters have been around for decades and that this isn’t their only universe. which means, you can still love your ship and ship them in the comics or, especially if you want the riverdale timeline, content fans create for you. it’s really the time to support your fanfic writers, fanartists, gif makers, video makers, etc. this is the time we come together as a big community and support each other until this is over.

the fanfics you read, keep reading them. they don’t have any relation to the source material. the arts and gifsets you reblog, keep reblogging them. keep stanning your version of your ship, this is what’s going to matter in a few years from now when the show is over and there’s nothing more to “feed” from.

be respectful to your fellow bughead and varchie shippers now. i guess this is crucial. we can win this war TOGETHER, but not apart. it doesn’t matter that you think archie is the fuckboy that should die - don’t say it to a varchie shipper. it doesn’t matter if it pisses you off that betty always gets excused - don’t say it to a bughead shipper. let’s be friends, let’s stick together, this is the writers fault, and archie and betty as characters also deserve better.

#bughead #varchie #riverdale #i won't tag this as negativity because it's not? #anyway

[themelodicenigma]

I’ve seen a lot more talks recently going around about Ultimanias, Benny Matsuyama, Maiden, etc. Here, on the Twitter...If there is one thing I’m genuinely curious about, is what exactly sets everyone’s understanding about epitexts? For supplemental materials like guidebooks or reference/fan books and how exactly they’re produced? How much do you understand about the history of Studio BentStuff and their way of making said materials, or even about anything related to authorship and publication?

There are just too many things thrown around so easily on the internet these days, not enough productive conversations about these things man. It’s...weird.

It’s easier to have a conversation with someone if I understand their foundational logic for this stuff, because a lot of the things I see are very strange. Or at the least, isn’t practical for what goes behind the production of these types of materials. Authorship and production knowledge is important—having a pragmatic approach for having a sense of what happens “behind the books” is a must have for decent conversations about guidebook/fan book making. Whether it’s for materials that are purely informational, for entertainment and uniqueness, or the sweet spots between—right where BentStuff typically specializes in.

There are SOOO many companies, SOOO many writers and editors, that exist and create this stuff, obviously going way beyond just Japanese related companies like that of the Famitsu, Dengeki, or V-Jump brands. But, obviously given the tags, FFVII or Square Enix games are the topic for today, along with BentStuff. For this stuff (heh), there has always been more than just Studio BentStuff, and even for them, the foundation of how they make their books is what makes them, I’d say, one of the best companies that do what they do. And what they do, how they get it done, was always set before the Ultimania series. If you don’t know about how they made their ALL ABOUT series or their Kaitai Shinsho (解体真書) series, then you don’t really know about the Ultimania—the former two being the heart of the “research and analysis” and “project”-minded approach they use to create that series. I know many don’t understand Japanese or don’t want to go through the trouble of working out translations, but....there is SO much information out there, on their website, in their books. And to be honest, so many of these misunderstandings start to not make sense to me when we have had whole online communities for decades dedicating themselves to translate stuff and provide information.

We can regurgitate the same quotes from the same books for 20 years, making circular arguments, but not talk about this in-depth?

I’ve been planning on releasing this huge thing, this “archive” essentially, of information about BentStuff, but I’ve realized that it’s honestly easier to talk about these things on a more case by case basis with interested people. Because there’s a lot, and I want to be able to talk to people about this stuff so people can really get where I’m coming from. Maybe I’ll post something at a later time to get something started, but this would definitely be a thread where it could start.

But, like, I gotta cover something I saw recently.

Honestly what set this off for me is someone saying that Matsuyama is a “rando writer” (as in being external to BentStuff) or was “commissioned” to write the Diary Entries or Maiden....

It’s just...so interesting the amount of confidence one has when saying these things without any of the proper evidence or understanding on the subject. I’m not trying to be harsh, but, it’s just weird. I just want to throw this out there, real quick:

Matsuyama essentially co-founded Studio BentStuff along with a few other writers from the BASIC magazine company, the lead in that being Akira Yamashita, who is the CEO. Matsuyama is one of the Directors of the company, along with Ichiro Tezuka, a name ya’ll probably recognize from FFIV stuff. This company was built by writers and lead by writers, but many others (some from BASIC too) eventually joined them to create what we have now. He ain’t no “external” nothing, though when it comes to their published books, it is true he didn’t do much until the FFVII Kaitai Shinsho. 

Also, BentStuff write and edit [proofread] their own books, even if there are others who will supplement this, typically the publishing editors. e.g. like with Kaitai, those in the Famitsu editing department (whoever published Famitsu at the time) or for the Ultimania, editors from SE. Naturally that is to say, they get whatever they need if they can from the developers of what book their making—this is the same for any company who makes guides, really, if they have the opportunity to be in further contact with them. However, that caption of a picture you keep quoting from the book? A line from the character profile? Story Playback? You can literally see in the back of the book who was in charge of writing that—go read their staff comments on their website (if you don’t feel like translating like I did, just use Google, you can at least get a general gist for most comments). There’s a lot (they stopped including comments around the FFXII Battle Ultimania), with Ultimania being the latest series, but check out ALL ABOUT and Kaitai Shinsho stuff, too, but there’s even stuff for Dragon Quest. It’s a treasure trove, and the staff say some funny things too a lot of the time. Either way, you’ll appreciate what it is they go through to make these materials.

On that note, of Matsuyama’s writings (particularly of the Diary Entries and Maiden for this discussion), he was never commissioned specifically to write what he does—his own staff comments on the BentStuff website and the peritext (or lack thereof) in the books counteract this alone. Not to mention, it isn’t practical in how the process of their book production works.

Yes, BentStuff as a company can either get the license or be hired to write a guidebook, but in determining who does what for the book, this isn’t done the same as, say, Jun Eishima being hired by SE to write the FFXIII or FFXV novels. Or, even, what Matsuyama would’ve had if he was able to write the originally planned novel for Lightning Returns. The decision of who does what is mostly internal of that of BentStuff, for example, who does the Scenario section, or the maps, who writes the prologue if included, who does the character profiles, boss data, speedruns, time charts, technique tables, etc. Whatever. Matsuyama, just like everyone else, does his decided part, and we can’t any more say he was specifically “commissioned” to write his creative materials than we could for all the other members doing their roles. At least, not without the proper evidence. (get into more below)

Either way, don’t create the wrong idea by using "commission” to describe the reasons as to why Matsuyama included these materials—the most practical and rational reason being, you know outside of him co-founding the company, that many companies allow creative freedoms or projects to be had about their works. Canonical or not—this isn’t new. If a company founded by writers gets the opportunity to write guidebooks, it makes sense for them to seek the opportunity to work in their own “projects” to make their books unique, and the idea of this started all the way back in their ALL ABOUT series, precedent to both Kaitai Shinsho and Ultimania.

There of course, has been other things, like “Square Enix said” when it comes to anything written in the Ultimania books, the notion that certain presentations within a guidebook suggest canonicity, that the more creative materials [their “projects”] Benny or other BentStuff members create are canonical simply because they’re in the books, etc.....oh boy. 

He isn’t a “rando”, nor was it “commissioned”, and most of his creative works are limited to the books for entertainment purposes by BentStuff, for the book, and typically nothing more like being officially a part of the respective series canon. Unless evidence supports his or other’s authenticity as author’s for the series in question, I believe the default thought for ALL his materials should be that of fun readings for the books, expressions by BentStuff. That honestly goes into a different conversation about the canonicity of any of Matsuyama’s or others materials in the guidebooks and about authorship/authenticity, but the important thing to note is the two emphasized points above. If you want to get into canonicity, we definitely can as, honestly, it isn’t really too hard to cover with the proper evidence, which is also from in-book peritext or Benny’s own comments. Other observational stuff too. There are only a handful of materials that can really be discussed based on evidence of Matsuyama’s authenticity as a writer for the respective series. At the top of my head, included would be the short stories for Brave Fencer Kaitai Shinsho, the FFXIII Omega story, and maybe, his materials for the series SaGa—some like Beender just setting-wise aren’t canonical, but the value of his interpretation for this series can be discussed considering he has worked on one of the games scenario at a later date.

I digress.

Like I said, I’m just open to discuss this stuff without having to write a huge informational dump of like, their entire history, though I know people who are researching themselves would find that useful. It’s just a lot. But if any of that above is something you believe or disagree with, please, feel free to tell me why and we can get this ball rolling. It’s fun to talk about, at a certain point, I didn’t spend all my time researching just to be miserable. 

Eh, sort of.

Misery loves company, so....

#final fantasy vii #final fantasy 7 remake #square enix #Studio Bentstuff #ultimania #Tetsuya Nomura