Heavenly Tyrant is out today! It's a weird feeling after so many years of losing hair over it. It didn't feel like I was capable of finishing the book until I wrote the last word. The publication process was not a happy one. I'm not doing any events for it, not even a launch. I'm typing this while lying in bed and thinking about what a terrible year it's been. We joked about 2020 being the worst year ever, yet every year since has been progressively worse. And the coming years do not show any indication of being better.
But a big theme in Heavenly Tyrant is that wherever there is oppression, there WILL be resistance. I have had as much heartwarming support from peers, friends, and readers as I've faced heinous shenanigans this year. When a very, very famous author I met this summer asked me "Are you a controversial person?" after I told him about the stuff I was going through, I answered "To many who hold power? Yes. To regular people? I don't think so."
I want to thank all of you who gave me the faith to say something like that. Most people I know are on the right side of history. If you aren't - I don't want to know you.
Anyway, the book. Heavenly Tyrant is SO different from Iron Widow that I'm pretty nervous about whether people would like it. I want to ask you all to adjust your expectations going in. You're not going to get another breakneck-paced story about a Girlboss Going Smash. The smashing was the easy part. Rebuilding what she broke into something better is much, much harder. The story is a lot slower by necessity, and the problems she faces are way more complicated to deal with. I also ask that you read until the end before making a judgement because, well, developments you don't like might not be endgame! And there's a book 3 coming! (This was always supposed to be a trilogy; it's just that my publisher was only willing to buy 2 books from me at first. They changed their minds after seeing the preorder numbers for IW.)
Finally, I want to bring everyone's attention to the five songs the Bookish Songs Collective wrote specifically for Iron Widow! They're now available to stream whenever you get your music. It blows my mind that MY book would get such epic music?! I can't thank or praise them enough. Seriously, CHECK THE EP OUT.
How much nail polish would you need tho? Cuss I feel like time could be fixed with just forcing enlisting people to help but like it would take so much money to buy enough or effort to steal enough polish to fit the cows hooves
I want hatter to have a cow. I want him to treat the cow like it’s his child. Like it’s a gift from the gods. I want him to find the best bell collar, decorate the ears with ribbons. Omfg imagine him like painting the hooves to match his own nail polish.
Oh and it most definitely sleeps in his bed and he sleep in a hammock hanging above him
Alice in borderland au where everything's the same but Arisu is wearing the same dress that Alice does in Alice in wonderland. Why is he wearing it? no one knows. How is it magically fixed/cleaned whenever it gets dirty or ripped? no one knows that either all anyone knows is that it exists and Arisu cant get rid of it.
Here’s like a 2 minute sketch tjag I did of the top of my head cuss I’m lazy but??? I think it conveys my point
the boys probs have bro nights and to those fools who arnt invited ( the girls) they probably think their like talking about girls and sport and just being stinky. and I mean they’d be right they are being stinky and talking about girls, but their actually discussing the best way to force the girls into therapy because I'm pretty sure the only one who didn't get caught up in the sibuna shit was Mara and in the kindest way possible she isn't 100% okay and could definitely benefit from Therapy as well
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what with the live action almost being out, people have been talking about how great its gonna be because we can now truly see the characters as their ages and...huh? I don't mean to be rude but one the actors are gonna age both on screen and off, eventually if they did all 3 seasons the kids won't look like their ages. Additionally half the actors arn't even the characters ages so I don't quite understand that argument. I'd also like to add that, at least for me, I never misunderstood what age the characters were in the animated show. I understood Aaang was a young child, that katara was somewhere in the middle, and Sokka was the eldest of the group before Zuko came. It might not be EXACT ages but I understood simply what age they could be. They also look like kids compared to all the adults in the series. So when people say that we finally see them as children I just don't understand that at all. Maybe I'm dumb and misunderstanding the comments.
Okay so not a on-shot BUT:
Go full on British pe lessons and make it bench ball. Inter house bench ball at that. Realllly give in to how pathetic this is. It’s just every house on campus playing bench ball against each other for shitty sports day points.
And of course these two lads are creating extreme practice regimes and have at least 50 pages of pure sport strategy hand written. Yes they did ignore their homework for this. Yes it was worth it. They rated everyone’s throwing, catching, and blocking skills 1-100 down to the 5th decimal place. This is the most math either have done in their life. They have the perfect strategy worked out for their team.
Either way they lose the inter house competition because no amount of strategy can overcome an all girl team of mean girls (said with love, being on those sort of teams was great).
someone write me a one-shot au where mick stayed for season 3 and he and eddie are running dodgeball like the marines please i NEED IT
December festivities call for a new blog header! Here's a longer look at the pixel gang's Christmas outfits
I think what really set hoa apart from other shows for me ( other then my kid brain thinking season one had 90 episodes) was that all the relationships felt real? and like not even the romantic ones the platonic ones especially. like yeah some of the scene can come off as something out of a cheese romance fic but they can also come off as just them being friends and bonding? and especially bonding with people that they've known for ages but haven't really like connected with if that makes sense? and I think it really reminds me of my old classes where yeah we’d not talk but when it got to certain times ( like before an exam or a last day of school) where we’d all just band together and chat and laugh and be a group? that's what I see in the relationships shown on the screen. but maybe that was also what was missing in season 3 for me at least, because it introduced a lot of new characters who didn't know anyone/ new a few people. with Nina and Eddie the show showed that the og house residence already knew these people so it felt like we with Nina were being introduced into their lives and becoming friends with them and forming the deep bonds they already had. and then with Eddie we still follow Nina sorta so its not as jarring as if the pov suddenly switched to Eddie for season 2 ( and I think it made Eddie being the protag in season 3 a much cleaner transition then it could have been). but with season 3 there were a lot of new characters that didn’t have already formed dynamics. and to go from the tight knit group of season 2 to people leaving, relationship drama, old couples that we loved being replaced by the new people ( and that's not the characters fault nor is it exactly unrealistic but its jarring all the same if that makes sense) it feels odd. it feels like almost a season 1 relationship building style with a season 3 plot and at times it made the show harder to watch because it couldn't explore as many emotions without redoing them from Nina's time, and it couldn't explore as many plot dynamics because the bonds weren't as strong.
but like season 3? pretty good considering they lost their old protag and then also Amber. though I do with we saw Fabians struggle with both of them leaving more because like sabuna was the 3 of them to behind with, and to be the last of the founders must feel horrid. and then for Eddie to rightfully take the lead and Patricia to take his place as like the love interest to the lead it must have been awkward? idk maybe they did explore that its been years since I watched season 3
Niragi is the kinda guy who juices everything. A donut? Juiced. Bell pepper? Juiced. The greatest piece of steak known to man? Juiced.
Anyway one day this dude brought a chicken, cooked it but like it was low-key still pink, blended it, chugged it and left the kitchen silently all whilst Aguni is sobbing into a bowl of cereal at 3am
Not enough praise is given to the actual animation during the seige of the north. The way once aang merges with the water spirit the only colour we see is the RED/ black water of the oasis (like the blood from Tui has stilled tainted it) and the water aang/La is pooling through the city.
The way all light just vanishes once Tui is killed. But also how fire bending forces light back into the world for just those few moments. It really brings in the theme of equality and fluidity in the boundaries of elements cuss both the moon/water tribe and the sun/fire nation in that moment are shown as bringers of light. Idk I think it’s just a really neat trick.
Another part is how only yues eyes are coloured in. Eyes are the windows into the soul/spirit blah blah blah she’s the moon spirit blah blah blah it’s a really cute detail.
Idk sometimes I feel like because it’s animation it’s very easy for some people to just…overlook the story telling aspects of it. Because it’s less detailed then a live action piece but I mean that’s just incorrect. The animation and the way they almost continuously use motion and fluidity in scenes (eg. People’s hair blowing in the wind, fire of water moving in the background, random side characters having lives outside the main narative) This then means that when still shots are used it’s all the more impactful. They rarely just do a still image with the screen ‘moving’ across like a lot of anime’s do UNLESS its a landscape/building their showing off. even then theres often something moving.
I tend to give a lot of (joking) criticism to season 1 for its weaker animation compared to the other seasons (I assume due to budget plus the animators becoming more accustomed to the style later on). But there are some moments that are just…breath taking. The care put into this series at all levels is something I don’t think I appreciate enough which sucks.