#Please write 5 Tweets about this Thread

[wangxianficfinder]

Fic Finder

Feb 10th

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1. Hello! o/ I'm looking for a fic I saw last year on ao3 but couldn't read it, then when I looked to read it I couldn't find it.

I think the description said that: Wei WuXian and Jiang YanLi decide to run away together with Jin Ling, and after 13 years since they left the cultivation world, Lan JingYi finds them by chance.

I can't remember if the tag(s) or description says A-Yuan is with them or if the Wen Remnants survived and ran with them. But I'm sure the action takes place after Jin ZiXuan dies and Wen Qing is probably dead and Wen QiongLin is captured and imprisoned by the Jin Sect (Not so sure about the last part with Wen Qing and Wen QiongLin).

I also think the Wei Ying | Wei WuXian/Lan Zhan | Lan WangJi tag was also at relationships (I think, not sure).

I hope that helps, I really tried to remember more details but unfortunately that's all I can remember, I hope maybe someone finds this fic, and even if not, thanks a lot for trying and have a nice day or evening! <3

FOUND? it's a long road but we're not alone by Stratisphyre (M, 62k, WangXian, JYL & WWX, LWJ & LJY, JL & LSZ & LJY & OYZZ, Canon Divergence, Not Everyone Dies, Canon-Typical Violence, Parenthood, Grief/Mourning, Family Feels, Reunions, Golden Core Reveal, Getting Together)

1 might be a @shanastoryteller tumblr fic too.

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2. Hello! :) I’m looking for a modern AU where Wen Qing tells WWX (platonically) that she loves him, and he is surprised and starts crying, I think. She’s confused that he didn’t know. She may have been warning him to be careful about starting a relationship w LWJ or telling him that she approves if that’s what he wants. Thank you!! 💕 @sadgargoylesss

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3. Please help! I know this fic, but when I search the tags I expect it to be under its not there! Canon divergent au where the wen remnants survive by leaving the burial mounds in small groups and finding jobs elsewhere. Teacher Wei Wuxian who ends up founding a schooling in filing after initially starting off by looking after the little kids while their parents and grandparents work. Identity shenanigans, bc no one realises it's wwx who is running the school, including jwy who yells at him when the school gets in trouble for not paying taxes. I'm pretty sure the opening line to the summary was something like "like a stream flowing downhill the wens left the burial mounds" something like that. It's a long fic. At one point lwj arrives at BM to find no one there and thinks they've all died. This happens again when the Jin go to kill them.

Thanks for your help! 🩷 @theladypeartree

FOUND! Just as the Snow Melts by draechaeli (T, 66k, WangXian, Everybody Lives, Canon Divergence, Mojo's bookmark)

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4. Hello! I love this page!!!

I’m looking for a twitter threadfic!

It’s about LWJ transmigrating from being an omega concubine to the YLLZ (and dying in childbirth) to becoming a newly-destitute socialite(?) and using all his omega concubine seduction skills to woo himself into being (?CEO) WWX’s sugar baby.

Meanwhile the socialite (or company worker(?) LWJ switches into the concubine position.

I remember LXC losing his mind a bit, LWJ scratching strategies off a list.

The thread so funny and amazing and I can’t find it! Please help.

Thank you!

FOUND? #4 is a thread fic by enigmatree on Twitter but apparently they have currently locked their account so I can't share the link. But if you're following her, the first tweet of the thread starts with "Tumblr post: tragedy happens because the wrong people are in the wrong story."

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5. Hi, I'm looking for a fic on AO3 where WWX was staying at a beach house for the summer with WQ and NHS and his siblings and LWJ was at another beach house with MM and Qin Su. And they get together over the course of three summers as WWX has a gay awakening and goes on a date with LWJ to the aquarium and they write letters to each other outside of the summers. I think it was called "summer of peaches" but I can't find it anymore. @briarrose45

FOUND? 5 sounds like Year of peaches by fruitys but they deleted all their fics.

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6. hi, i'd like to ask about a fic that should also have attached fanart (which is what i am looking for)? i thought it was caged by moonflowers, but i cannot find the art i'm thinking of, which is of lwj in a chastity device...the fic itself is a setting where lans wear chastity devices until marriage or something, from what i vaguely recall...? thank you.

FOUND? Is that something in your trousers, or are you... oh, it is by sparkly_butthole (E, 4k, WangXian, Weird Lan sect rules, Shenanigans at the cold springs, Chastity Device, Orgasm Denial, Wwx just wants lwj to feel good, Early in Canon, Frottage, Mutual Masturbation) with the artwork linked to the fic

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7. Hi 👋 👋 👋 please help me those ff 😊 . Thanks you ☺️ A: wei Wuxian learn music and talisman from lan Sect 's teacher .B: jin zixaun and Jiang Yanli not get married C: nie huaisang and Female get married. (wangxian ff) this female give wei Wuxian love letter. @richie-234

FOUND? 🧡 Stunted, Starving Juvenility by TomatenMark (E, 925k, WangXian, WIP, Fix-it of sorts, Talisman master WWX, Not JFM Friendly, Study Arc, Getting together, Fluff and Angst, Engagement)

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8. Hi okay so this is a NSFW ask and probably has been deleted. But basically lxc and lwj both feel like jc and wwx should get back closer and come to the conclusion that they should fuck them together and jc is like huh even though wwx is stronger and better than me. He is submissive and they hold hands and come to climax together.

I remember it has 2 chapters and the book was just about them. Some characters might have been mentioned but I don't remember reading about anyone other than the two.

FOUND? Pillow Talk by kathie_raddare (E, 13k, WangXian, LXC/JC, Top LWJ/Bottom WWX, Top LXC, Bottom JC, Foursome - M/M/M/M, No Incest, Blindfolds, Post-Canon, No actual action between the pairs, Lan Brothers have a horny plan, Forcing WWX and JC to talk while being fucked, Oblivious WWX, Tsundere JC, Lan Brothers being monsters in bed, PWP, Brothers to enemies to friends, Size Kink, Biting, Hair-pulling, Spanking, Voyeurism, Cock Worship, Blow Jobs, Rimming, Bottom Alliance, Holding Hands, But not in the way you're thinking, Boywife WWX, Lan Brothers competing, Who breaks their bottom first?)

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9. hi, i'm looking for a fic that may be deleted, if you or anyone might remember the title/work: it's a rape fic formatted as a 5+1 fic, where it's 5 times wwx was raped when he was unconscious/asleep and one time he was awake for it? the 5 times include with jiang fengmian & jin guangshan; sect leaders(?) incl lan qiren, nie mingjue; and then gusu lan? i'm hoping it's not deleted but i can't find it anywhere in my bookmarks anymore :(

FOUND? i hear the wicked get no rest by Anonymous (E, 3k, WangXian, Rape/Non-Con, Underage Sex, Non-Consensual Somnophilia, Drugged Sex, Non-Consensual Oral Sex, Gang Rape, Eventual Happy Ending, A Revived Dove As It Were)

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10. Hi, So I read this fic a while back on Ao3 I'm pretty sure it involved some form of omegaverse. The main points I remember were that bondings in the cultivation world were typically unequal with only the omega having a mark not the alpha. LWJ and WWX become bonded and have an equal bonding which is the norm for the Lan's (but I think the other sects don't known that the this what is normal for Lan's) I remember there was a lot of jealousy about the fact JYL did not have an equal bond with JZX @lysslov

FOUND? Alliance AU by Ilona22 (E, 22k, WangXian, JYL/OC, Arranged Marriage, A/B/O, PWP, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, Intersex Omegas, Not JC Friendly, Matchmaking, canon Jiang family dynamics, Family time, Some are not happy about it, Night Hunts, Mention of male omega pregnancy, Intrigue at Jinlintai, Mentions of Prostitution, War, Conflict between characters)

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11. Hello! I’m having so much trouble finding this one fic, I haven’t read it in a while and none of my searches are coming up with anything OTL. I remember it was a canon divergent fic where i think jc and lwj try to save wwx from being thrown into the burial mounds, and jc loses an arm in the process. I can’t remember anything else about the fic, and it’s been a while so I’m hoping it wasn’t deleted or something!!

Thanks in advance! ദ്ദി ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ )✧

FOUND! Yearning for Miles by lovely_hina (M, 379k, WangXian, XuanLi, JFM/YZY, XiCheng, LQR/Sisi, JueQing, SangYao, XueNing, Time Travel, but not really, they see the future in a thingamabob, Slow Burn, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fix-It, Fluff, Canon-Typical Homophobia, Mutual Pining, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Development Galore, PLEASE ADHERE TO IN-CHAPTER TW, Canon Divergence, wwx still loses his core) think this is it but in this it's only jwy who loses his arm after trying to save WWX, lwj isn't there

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12. I seem to have forgotten the name of this fic. In it, Wei Wuxian dies before the indoctrination and Jiang Yanli while imprisoned later (the Wens basically win) gives LWJ his notebook that contained a time travel talisman. LWJ then tries several times to keep WW alive and has to reset multiple times. They do get married eventually.

FOUND? 🔒 Time Reversal by AitchNKay (M, 63k, WangXian, Major Character Death, Time Travel, WWX dies a lot, everyone dies, Time Travel Fix-It, Fluff and Romance, Drama & Romance, Fluff, Tragedy, Angst with a Happy Ending, WangXian Get a Happy Ending)

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13. Hey how are you ?

I'm looking for two wangxian fics

A) First: a modern fic where wei ying was dumbed by Jin zixun and was heartbroken. Lan zhan his best friend,who has a crush on him, consoled him and after that their relationship progressed. I think it was one or two chapters

B) Second: a modern fic in which wangxian are best friends but lan zhan tells wei ying one day that he is dating someone ( mo xuanyu) after that wei ying gets jealous and starts avoiding everyone. I only remember that's not a long story.

I hope u can help me thanks @smarti1997

13A)

FOUND? Just Ask Me To Stay by mrcformoso (M, 21k, WangXian, Former JZn/WWX, Modern, Dancer WWX, Musician LWJ, Roommates, Best Friends, Friends to Lovers, Break Up, Post-Break Up, Recovery, Family, Realizing Your Best Friend is the Love of Your Life, WWX Has Self-Esteem Issues, And LWJ is not having it, Sex as Self Worth Reaffirmation, Fluff, Light Angst, Anal Sex, Anal Fingering, Oral Sex, Domestic Fluff, LWJ Has a Big Dick, WWX Has a Breeding Kink, Size Queen WWX, Belly Bulge, Porn With Plot, WWX Has Friends, LWJ Has Friends, Hurt/Comfort, A lot of comfort, Romantic Comedy, Cute, Cuter story than the summary makes it out to be, Feel-good)

13B)

FOUND? A storm without a warning by Spodumene (E, 22k, WangXian, WangYu, Modern AU, Compulsory Heterosexuality, Masturbation, Eventual Smut, Pining, Denial, Drunkenness, Jealousy, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Angst with a Happy Ending)

FOUND? Say More by lettered (E, 95k, WangXian, LWJ/MXY, Modern, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, non-graphic drug use, non-graphic withdrawal, Drug Addiction, one suicidal thought, negative thought, WWX struggles with Mandarin and feeling connected to Chinese culture, this is not a large plot point but bears mention, Compulsory Heterosexuality, WWX kisses a girl, Sexuality Crisis, Gay Panic, some gender confusion and questions without serious gender questioning, incorrect definition of omnisexuality, Open Relationships, Masochistic Fantasies, non-graphic sadomascochistic realities, humiliation fantasies, Submission Fantasies, some D/s realities, one condomless blowjob, suggestions of some unhealthy co-dependence, Possessive Behavior, Slight Consensual Non-Consent, Frottage, the open relationship is not wangxian)

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14. Hi can u help me find a fic :(( in wwx's first life he keeps on sating ily to lwj but lwj keeps on rejecting him and then before wwx's death, he qas the one to say get lost to lwj. Fast forward lwj regrets it and when wwx reincarnated, he uses every chance to say ily to wei ying but wei ying keeps on saying thank u. Pls helppp thank uu!

FOUND? When the Words Stop Coming by mrcformoso (T, 7k, WangXian, Canon Compliant, POV WWX, POV LWJ, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Pre-Sunshot Campaign, Burial Mounds Settlement Days, Canonical Character Death, Love Confessions, Rejection, LWJ is a Panicked Gay, Temporarily Unrequited Love, Trauma, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Sad with a Happy Ending)

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15. Hello! I am looking for a specific modern fic where the characters were museum workers, or perhaps art gallery workers. I remember the fic went into great detail about how art and exhibit pieces were carefully catalogued, packed, and moved between locations. I can’t remember the plot at all, just that I was so interested in this logistics element which I had never considered before. Does this ring any bells? I would love to read again, thank you! @gloriousclotpole

FOUND!🔒💖 Pentimento. by orange_crushed (E, 73k, WangXian, Modern, College/University, Art Conservation, Museums, Painting, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Angst with a Happy Ending, Misunderstandings, Pregnancy Mention (Side Character), Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Self-Worth Issues, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Past Sexual Harassment (Background Character), Masturbation, Sexting, Anal Sex, Oral Sex, Intercrural Sex, Blood and Injury, Major Character Injury, Head Injury, Injury Recovery, Hospitalization, Workplace Accident, OSHA Violations Probably, Hurt/Comfort, Hair Pulling, They'll Be Okay I Promise, incarceration, Past Incarceration, Forgery, Discussions of Criminal Justice Systems, Family, Cock Warming, Labor Unions, Discussion of Adoption, Adoption, Parenting, Honest Conversations About Maybe Having Kids, Flash Forward, Epilogue, LQR Being A Good Uncle)

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16. Hello! I’m looking for a soulmate fic, where the soulmate can write on his skin and it appears on the skin of their soulmate. Wei wuxian loves the idea of having a soulmate and is writing a lot, lan wangji never responding. Wei wuxian then thinks maybe he doesn’t have a soulmate. thank you so much! @needlovebeloved

FOUND? Deconstruct by flowercity (FaoriE) (T, 11k, WangXian, Soulmates, Canon Divergence, Fluff, Light Angst, Mutual Pining, they’re so in love)

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17. Help, please. This fic is about LWJ who is a book author who wanted to use WW's illustrations for his book. WW told him he could not do scenes involving hunger and eventually that topic is brought up that makes WW upset. LWJ calms him down and tells him that it will help others that went through what he did. LWJ goes to WW;s home and meets Yuan there too

FOUND? 🔒🧡 “I will climb to where you are” or: the bunny book by ladyofrosefire, NotAFicWriter (T, 40k, WangXian, Modern AU, Mutual Pining, Fatherhood, Family, Long-Distance Relationship, Semi-Epistolary, Grief/Mourning, Past Food Insecurity, WWX’s Outstanding Mental Health, Panic Attacks, past parent death, Fluff)

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18. Hello! i'm hoping you can help me find this fic. In it, lan zhan has rejected his soul mate bond with wei ying, who gets quite sick. the moment LZ sees WY at like a cultivation conference, he changes his mind. LXC and LQR are against soulmate bonds because of Madame Lan. Please help me find it!! tysm for all you do @fingersrevenge

FOUND? ❤️ to arrive late is better than not to arrive at all by Moominmammashandbag (M, 35k, wangxian, angst w/ happy ending, soulmates, chronic illness, hanahaki disease as a curse, feelings realization, angst, fluff, smut)

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19. Hi. I love what you are doing. So THANK YOU. I'm looking for a fanfic on AO3. I think it's a time travel WIP. Somewhat crack. Teen WangXian eloped (?) and there were rummors about them adopting many children. The summary was about people (Lan Xichen maybe? and someone else) talking about how many children they had. I'm not really sure. Thank you. @whatevereveryday

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20. Hey I'm trying to find a fic that's about post canon Lan Zhan meets you get Wei Ying and they do sleep together and Lan Zhan proves that Wei Ying and him are together and at the end Lan Zhan tells Wei Ying that younger Lan Zhan loves Wei Ying and after he disappears Wei Ying goes to find Lan Zhan and he finds him with marks on him with probably mean post canon Wei Ying got to him

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[suudbe]

hi! i hope you don’t mind me asking but what happened with Akatsuki? im very out of the enstars loop so i feel a bit lost in understanding what all is going on 😅 feel free to ignore me if you don’t want to explain!

No problem at all! I'll explain to the best of my ability.

Recently, Enstars added 5 new idols. One of the new idols is Taki Ibuki and he is from Okinawa and is Ryukyuan. When Japan colonized the Ryukyu Kingdom, they forced the people to assimilate into Japanese culture. This process is called Japanization.

So, when rumors came out about the Ryukyuan character Ibuki possibly joining Akatsuki, a unit focused on Traditional Japanese aesthetics, people who know that history immediately called out the implications of writing such a thing. The head writer is known to write indigenous characters disrespectfully, but surely he wouldn't go this far?

It's been stated in several Akatsuki stories that Keito, Kuro, and Souma want it to only be them. There is a heavy emphasis on them having a bond stronger than blood. This is gonna be a one-off collab that leads to something bigger maybe Ibuki will go solo! Literally anything else BUT this please.

What followed was a story that mischaracterized every Akatsuki member. It was like all character development was reversed, for Keito, it seemed like he was a completely different dude.

The Enstars official twitter released a message to "Please not spoil the last few chapters for at least 4 days 🥺" they've never done this to my knowledge. It was blatant damage control for the shitstorm they had created themselves. Ibuki was brought into Akatsuki. What followed the next few hours were QRTs in all different languages absolutely GOING IN on Happyele, as they should. I saw so many people mourning the future of the franchise, many more leaving altogether, so much sadness and anger.

People connected the dots of releasing a Rei along with the event, since he's very very popular, and also announcing the PJSK collab. These would build up hype so maybe people would overlook it or it would draw them back in or some shit.

If I'm to sum it up in one sentence I'd say that Akatsuki was blatantly mischaracterized so they could fit their racist narrative of Indigenous people being "primitive" or "fixable" and needing to assimilate into Japanese culture.

Hopefully I explained the gist of it, I have a hard time phrasing and I've been told I explain things a bit unorganized. Here's a link to a twitter thread that most certainly explains way better than I could and two Wikipedia links that helped me learn.

A thread by @/gitsunegal on twitter written Oct. 10th when the rumors started. The last tweet in the thread is after the announcement, Jan 3rd.

A Wikipedia article on Japanization, contains summaries of not only Okinawa but also other areas that experienced Japan's colonization.

A Wikipedia article on the History of the Ryukyu Islands, I'd like to specifically point out the section Okinawa Prefecture, 1879–1937. Starting at the section Battle of Okinawa, the article discusses heavy topics such as rape, violence, and death.

If I missed anything or if any information is inaccurate please feel free to correct me or add on.

[kaisooficpodcast]

Chasing Summer Skies by and with rainepaige08

I am Alexio Sospranio and you’re listening to the kaisoo fic podcast!

For new listeners welcome, welcome to the show. The kaisoo fic podcast is a space where we discuss literature found in the kaisoo world. Where we have authors on the show to give them a platform to talk about their writings and journey as an author in the fandom. 

This episode there will be some reference to the previous episode with rainepaige08. If you have not, do check that episode out as well, but this episode can also be a stand alone episode, just that listeners who have gone through the previous episode with Raine will be able to see more or less where we are coming from. Raine is also the very first guest we had on the show, so having this episode together again is very meaningful. 

Without further ado, ladies and gays and of the like, let us give a warm welcome to Ms Raine Paige!

Welcome Raine, thank you for becoming a returning guest on the kaisoo fic podcast show. We are very pleased to have you with us this evening.

Before we begin proper, do you have any opening comments you would like to make?

Thank you for having me here again and hopefully I’m more relaxed now than last time.

Pleasure is mine, i know we are more comfortable now that we have talked a bit more both on the twitter dms and discord voice chats, so I do agree that this episode will be more enjoyable as well. 

Raine. yes? Shall we dive into the episode! We shall! We start with the fic.

Intro to Fic

Chasing Summer Skies is celebrating its 5th year anniversary since it was first posted. Congratulations on that Raine! Chasing Summer Skies is an ongoing, currently at the point of recording it has 11k words in 3 chapters on ao3. For those eager to go through the fic, it is complete as a tweetfic on Raine’s twitter account, rainepaige08.

I think what is really precious about moving tweetfics to ao3 is that there seems to be more flexibility and leeway for there to be commentary on the setting, premise and perspectives. Mainly because of the word limit on each tweet, you are sort of confined to the few sentences. So first question of the evening, I would like to hear from you and your choice of transferring your Chasing Summer Skies to ao3. Why did you make the decision to move?

In the past, the decision was just to transfer it word per word from the tweetfic for me to have a copy of my story since it is hard to scroll on the app. But I tried to reread it and with the improvements on my writing over the course of 5 years, I realized there are scenes I could have written better hence why new narrations are added.

Indeed it is hard to scroll on the app. Fic reading becomes more satisfying and the storyline becomes more put together in full potential on ao3 as compared to it being as tweetfics. But being on the app does have its merits as well, especially in gaining reactions and ending each update on the thread with a cliffhanger that makes readers eager to read the next update.

Our first episode together you mentioned you’ve been writing since your first year in collage back in 2011. So that brings us to you writing for a good 13 years. Have any other of your fics been rewritten with an updated plot as well? 

A Familiar Face, which is the CEO AU, was also rewritten and new narrations were added but not to this extent. Maybe I just felt this itch when I am rereading the tweetfic after 5yrs that I want the scenes to be more vivid and their feelings to be expressed more.

Ah yes, Familiar Face, of course! 

As a reader, okay ill speak for myself, this fic is hard to forget. And to me it is very heartwarming to know that you still love it enough to rewrite scenes and breathe new and more life into it.

Let’s continue by talking about the tweetfic, the plot breakdown or the events that happened in the fic.

Raine, would you like to briefly talk a bit on the fic for those who may not be familiar?

Chasing Summer Skies is a story about Jongin, an event photographer and Kyungsoo, a wedding coordinator who met during Summer and had a summer love affair. However, what they didn’t know is that Jongin's girlfriend is Kyungsoo’s sister which he would eventually help plan the wedding.

What a premise to start with… by itself, even without knowing too much of the plot, you know it is gonna be angst and heartache. The question is how deep are we getting into it. More of that in a bit. 

So in the first few scenes, what brings our two lovers together?

It starts with Kyungsoo finding out that his room was double booked and now occupied. But suddenly a stranger approached him and by weird fate; it was the person staying in his room. The man introduced himself as Jongin and offered that they share the room instead. That’s the starting point of how they spent the summer together and got to know each other, to which they would eventually fall in love during the short trip. 

Pacing and Difference between the tweetfic n ao3

Things happen in the fic quite quickly, so much so that Kyungsoo asks himself, i quote:  “Could you fall in love with someone you only met for a week?” He knows the answer but just doesn't want to admit it. With that, will the pacing change now that you're moving it to ao3? Or maybe let me rephrase - generally what is the biggest thing that readers will see differently in this 5th year anniversary of Chasing Summer Skies?

The pacing of how they fell in love would still be fast, since I wanted the readers to doubt too if it was possible to genuinely fall in love with someone in just a few weeks. I like how it begs the question if it was just a spur of the moment thing or not. What the readers will see differently in this version is how Jongin’s and Kyungsoo’s connection were built. I mentioned in one of my posts that I want to build up their happy moments before the chaos would start. So, there would be additional scenes to watch out for. 

Okay good good we as readers do want to see more happy kaisoo moments. Even in the tweetfic we have happy moments in the beginning… but then after Kyungsoo’s return from the vacation, it drastically turns to, i quote what Min says in the very end of the fic that she saw the yearning, love and sadness combined when they would look at each other. 

Inspiration

Now having brought up Min, a question Raine, when you first thought of the fic, what was the very first relationship dynamic you had in mind or a scene that popped as inspiration in your head? Was it Jongin and Min’s relationship or the summer fling or could be neither of the options.

My first thought was “i want a kaisoo but one of them is in a relationship” so like an infidelity fic since I want to challenge myself to something more…controversial? questionable?. Since I think the plot of Infidelity is something that is being frowned upon until now. 

Next that I thought of is Min being Kyungsoo’s twin but I think there are already a lot of fics with that concept so I decided for her to be his sister instead. After that, I thought of a way for them to have a connection. I don’t want the connection that Kaisoo has to be on the summer trip so that’s when I thought of a videographer and an event coordinator and Kyungsoo being Min’s brother, she would definitely ask help plan her and Jongin’s wedding

Infidelity.

Min Kyungsoo’s twin? No, too many twins written. Someone very close to Kyungsoo.

Job connection

Min connection to Jongn

Connection to not be just as a summer fling

Kyungsoo be Min’s brother who happens to be a wedding planner for Min and Jongin’s wedding so that

Kyungsoo can still be in the picture

Similar question to the one I just asked on inspiration because I do want to know a bit more on your author’s choice. When you start a story, how much is already figured out? I will break this question into two sections, one for the tweetfic and one for the ao3 version. 

Inspiration - tweetfic (breakdown while writing for plot)

In our previous episode you mentioned that you had the start and ending in mind specifically for the CEO AU and this fic. As you were writing the tweetfic, what kind of outline did you have or were you exploring their backgrounds, relationship dynamics and oncoming conflicts at the same time as you write?

It was quite different from the CEO AU since I only have the start in mind and up until Chanyeol was introduced. I also have in mind what the ending is and the character’s relationship dynamics and major conflicts. but everything after that point, I would then gauge the reader’s reaction on the twitfic. Part of it was actually if the fic would still be a kaisoo end game or would it change to chansoo since there are a handful of readers that are question the flow of the story at the middle.

What was in mind was just the beginning of the fic to the first time Chanyeol was introduced. And the ending. Possible relationship dynamics and major conflicts. 

Because it was a tweetfic and there are live reactions, it is a good gauge of their feedback. There was a point where readers started to question if the fic was going to change to chansoo end game, which got some readers fired up and questioning. 

What were those relationship dynamics or conflicts that you prioritized to push the plot?

though i did get a lot of feedbacks from people, I still decided on a kaisoo ending. Another would be the decision to push through with Min and Jongin getting married. 

In the tweetfic version of Chasing Summer Skies, were there any specific moments you wanted to see expanded on or did you see potential generally throughout the fic that you thought could be explored in more detail?

What I noticed first is how little are Jongin’s pov on the fic so I wanted to build Jongin’s character at the start since I think that’s the portion I failed to expound on the tweetfic since it is mostly Kyungsoo’s pov. Wanted to expand on Jongin’s POV because there were a lot of negative views on Jongin. Did not to justice to why Jongin did certain things to kaisoo’s relationship because it was mainly Kyungsoo’s POV so there was no insights to Jongin’s actions.

We do indeed see more of Jongin’s POV already in the first chapter where he goes out for his run and admires Kyungsoo’s sleeping face. 

Another portion I wanted to expound on is chansoo’s relationship and the difference between Kyungsoo when he is with Jongin vs with Chanyeol. 

That is a lot of moments for us to discover, we are very excited for that.

Inspiration - ao3 (develop scrapped or new plot devices)

You did mention in our previous episode that you had the start and ending in mind but changed the scenes halfway and even scrapped some ideas. With you now transferring the fic on ao3, are you planning to develop all the scenes you scraped in the tweetfic or are there new points of the narrative you would like to bring to the readers? 

One scene I scraped which was added is Kyungsoo visiting Jongin’s workroom (this would be updated this week). It would give the readers a little backstory for Jongin and how he loves his work. 

Min “photography is a hobby” but as Kyungsoo visits Jongin in his workroom, readers get to see that Jongin genuinely loves his job.

When you mentioned you will be adding how readers will see Jongin loving his job and Kyungsoo witnessing it, I don't know why but a moment that comes to mind is a scene a week before the wedding. Min invites Kyungsoo to her birthday dinner where Jongin defends Kyungsoo against his homophobic father. Somehow thinking about the dinner scene, and hopefully when reading this new scene, we get to see how kaisoo are able to relate to each other on a very vulnerable level. They feel like they are both misunderstood and undervalued. Kyungsoo with his father’s disapproval and Min’s distaste towards Jongin’s work. 

Another new scene would be with chansoo since before I am scared of building up their part in the story since I know most of my readers have preference over kaisoo, but I feel like that scene would be essential to add. 

For the plot, I definitely do agree that chansoo moments are essential to add. Right now with the tweetfic it may seem like just kaisoo moments with a sprinkle of chansoo. The nature of this fic… it is heavy angst for kaisoo, it would definitely be nice to see more light hearted moments for chansoo to balance things out. Because we were hinted at the fact that chansoo do spend a lot of time together, so it is definitely important to add.

I will talk more about kaisoo vs other ships in fics on the next episode for the one year anniversary of the podcast because this is something I'm passionate about, basically championing for fic writers. But for now i would just like to say that it is sad to know that people have a strong preference for kaisoo so much so that they will not accept any other pairing… But it is for the plot… Having as you said, Raine wants to expound on the difference between Kyungsoo when he is with Jongin vs when he is with Chanyeol. Chansoo’s dynamics is dramatically significant to bring the plot forward. And it also makes kaisoo’s relationship all the more precious and important for Kyungsoo.

Impact

The things that happen between Kyungsoo’s return and Min’s passing, can be quite… distressing. Mainly because there are many times where we readers… okay for me at least, would want closure for Kyungsoo, but then a misstep happens. They fall back on each other, then they are back to square one again where Jongin is with Min and Kyungsoo is heartbroken. It is very anxiety inducing because how many times can his heart take this sting of rejection only to be met with desperation to want to love and be loved again? That is my feelings as a reader, but share with us how writing out these scenes impact you in any way? 

I can actually still recall how emotional I felt writing those scenes. and as a person who easily cries, yes I am crying while writing most of those scenes. I wanted the emotions to be felt through the words and I wanted the readers to feel the same frustration that Kyungsoo feels as his heart is being pushed and pulled and played over and over again. I want every heartache to feel raw and relatable.

You want every heartache to feel raw and relatable, Raine, what insights have you gained upon writing Chasing Summer Skies?

I learned from this fic that I love writing emotional scenes. Emotional struggle of the characters. I also started to build more complex characters like Jongin that there are reasons why people did what they did. 

I like that, the emotional struggle where there are complex human emotions. It is true to life. There are choices taken because of miscalculated steps and different priorities. 

People disagreed with what Jongin did, but I also learned to not be pressured by expectations of the readers and to stick to your end goal. 

The main struggle I had was with chansoo’s relationship. On the surface level they may seem happy, but if you dig deeper, we see that there are different types of love and you meet people at a certain part of your life to help you navigate through it. I think that is what Chanyeol is to Kyungsoo. He made Kyungsoo feel safe. He was the one who tried to push Kyungsoo forward when he was lost. 

But at the same time, you see Kyungsoo going back to Jongin over and over again and at some point Chanyeol realized that needed to be the one to put an end to their relationship. 

Chanyeol’s intention on sticking around Kyungsoo was to put a genuine smile back on Kyungsoo’s face. But I sometimes cannot believe that they almost got married, but again, as you said, different types of love. With Chanyeol it is always safe, but it was not the love that Kyungsoo wanted. Chanyeol needed to be the one to end things especially after it was confirmed through Baekhyun’s intervention that Kyungsoo does not love Chanyeol.

What scene are you most excited for readers to read? If you have, could you read to us listeners a snippet of it?

The extract i will be reading is the part of the wedding in Kyungsoo’s POV

The music played and Kyungsoo watched as Jongin walked towards where the officiant was.

Just one look. Just look at me once, Jongin, and it would be my cue to stop this. Please..

Kyungsoo told himself as the other entourage walked on the aisle. It was Min's turn and Kyungsoo fought the urge to look away as he saw Jongin smiling at his bride.

The ceremony started and the couple exchanged their vows, but Kyungsoo still waited.He still hoped for that sign. For that one glance from Jongin.

But it never came.

The ceremony was concluded and Jongin and Min are now announced as husband and wife.

But Kyungsoo still waited.

Until the reception, Kyungsoo's eyes never left Jongin. Even when Chanyeol checked if he's okay, he still stared at him. Hoping, still hoping, that Jongin would look his way. 

The reception was about to end with Min and Jongin leaving for their honeymoon.

Kyungsoo finally gave up.

He said thank you to his assistant and said sorry that he needs to leave the venue. He walked towards Chanyeol and tapped the man's shoulder. The musician looked at him and nodded as he already knew what it meant.

As Kyungsoo walked towards the hotel, he failed to see Jongin looking back at him before the man left.

One last look.

I want to repeat this line for my own sake because it is just devastating: Kyungsoo fought the urge to look away as he saw Jongin smiling at his bride.

A very definitive moment for Kyungsoo happens right before the extract you just read, where chansoo are in the hotel and Chanyeol comforts Kyungsoo by saying he does not have to be at the ceremony, but Kyungsoo persists on and says: "No. I want him to take that path while knowing I am there witnessing it. That even after knowing that it would shatter me, he would still do it."

That moment is an example of how their love is a love at the wrong time. 

Yea, and this happens after Kyungsoo’s proposal to: "Meet me at the airport at 4am tomorrow. I'll book a flight. I'll do anything. I'll find a way to escape."

Kyungsoo looked at Jongin's eyes and held his cheek as he added,

"Just say yes."

This is his final ace. The last card that Kyungsoo could gamble on.

Raine, what a line… what a moment, desperate but hopeful Kyungsoo… it is too hard to read. 

It shows that Kyungsoo did all that he can for Jongin to pick him… despite all that, Jongin still chose to be with Min. 

And hence Kyungsoo is persistently fighting the urge to look away from Jongin because he wants Jongin to take the path knowing that it will shatter Kyungsoo’s whole being. And Min knows that. Wait no she knew after they got married and when Kyungsoo left the country. When Jongin heard that Kyungsoo left, he broke down and told Min everything about their relationship. 

I just want to remind readers that Min understands why Kyungsoo wants to stop the wedding but she also knows that Kyungsoo will choose Min’s happiness because she is the only one that understands him in their family. 

Thank you for sharing, i think I speak for listening readers that we are very eager and excited to read that point in the narrative when it comes.

What is your favorite comment of all time, something you always think about when you're in a lull and unmotivated to write?

“It’s been quite some time since I last delved into the world of Kaisoo fanfiction, but recently, I stumbled upon this latest work of yours. As I immersed myself in your storytelling once again, I couldn’t help but feel a wave of nostalgia wash over me. Your writing still carries the same emotional depth and authenticity that first captivated me years ago.

Your fanfictions always hit me right in the feels, and reading this fanfic (eventho it’s an angst) made me miss Kaisoo even more. I just wanted to thank you for all the amazing stories you’ve shared over the years. You’ve got serious talent!”

Before we end things, dear Raine, do you have any other comments or running thoughts we did not cover today you want to share with us listeners?

It was really nice to be able to talk about this fic after 5 yrs as I think it was one of my hidden gems among those I wrote.

A fic that i always want to go back to when i need a good cry from life. 

Wow, an angsty fic as a comfort fic. But yea i do agree we need to cathartically express our feelings in reading a good fic that knows how to make us cry. 

Thank you for providing this platform to authors and artists to discuss their craft and our love for kaisoo. 

It is my greatest pleasure to be able to celebrate your mastery in this craft you have chosen to do. We share this joy together. 

Dear listener, the link to the author’s ao3 and twitter profile will be given below in the notes section. And with that ladies and gays and of the like, we have come to the end of today’s episode. 

Do keep a lookout for next month's episode because oh my! it will be the one year anniversary of the kaisoo fic podcast show! Can you believe that listeners… One year… im so touched, happy and relieved that people tune in and enjoy the show. Next month’s episode would be like a review of the past year’s episodes. 

New episodes either every 13th of the month or 12th and 14th, special kaisoo dates, of course.

To reach me, i am kaisooficdrunk on twitter and if you want you can drop me questions on my curious cat you can do so with the same username. There will also be another link that brings you to my tumblr blog with the transcription for today's episode. There you can also find the other scripts for other episodes as well.

Thank you for listening, have a good day, dear kaisooist, and we look forward to next month’s episode. Stay tuned.

[artleaguemdcnorth]

Drawing Class - First Day , 8/22/23

Welcome to the start of the 2023-24 Fall semester.

This Drawing class is a Blended format. The semester will begin in a virtual format for the first two weeks.

Starting on Tuesday Sept. 5th we will meet in person in room 5204 at 12:20 pm.

The virtual meets via Teams for the first two weeks of school are as follows:

8/22 Tuesday via Teams @12:20pm

8/29 Tuesday via Teams @12:20pm

Please check your school email for the link.

Our first in person meet is scheduled for:

Sept. 5th , 2023 at 12:20 pm , in room 5204, building 5 North Campus.

I am going to give students the first two weeks of class to buy all class materials. This will allow those students who buy online enough time to get their materials ready before our first in person meeting on Sept. 5th.

Make sure you use this time as I will not allow for any excuses after that time frame. All class materials need to be in hand on the first in person meet.

You will be using class time on Tuesday after our virtual meet,  and Thurs to complete the purchase of all class material. If you are purchasing online make sure everything arrives before 9/5/23.

On Thursday, students will engage in an Asynchronous assignment that will include watching three videos and posting a reflection essay to your Tumblr portfolio. This will be your first Tumblr post.

A class syllabus will be emailed to you the Friday prior to the start of the semester along with a welcome letter.

Make sure you begin to review it before our virtual meet on Tuesday at 12:20pm..

On the first week of school,  students will be given class time to complete several tasks required to have a sucessful semester.

During the virtual meet on Tuesday, we will review the class syllabus and class requirements together as a group.

Please check your email for these documents once they are sent to you, keep a copy for your records as we return to in person class on Sept.5th.

Once I dismiss the class on Tuesday , students will be required to do several things. This will be the class work to be completed on the first day .

These tasks are as follows:

1) Create a personal Tumblr and Twitter account for class. 

Make sure you use a last name and first name initial, the class you are taking (art1300C),  your year in school , your educational pathway. 

You will then include a  quote from your favorite artist in the bio.  

See below an example from a previous student:

2) Look up my twitter handle @Prof_AFresquet , follow it then send me a **tweet with your tumblr and twitter info. 

**You will respond to a tweet I will send at the start of class on Tuesday (8/22/23)with a brief introduction and include the following:

a) Year in school (freshman, sophomore )

b) Art or  Art education pathway

c) A quote by your favorite artist . (Include their name) .

Please note that during this semester , the classes will be migrating from X (formely know as twitter ) to Threads via instagram. I will talk more about it on the first virtual meet.

This week , students will be given the opportunity to go and buy the following  class materials:  

MATERIALS TO PURCHASE THIS WEEK

*sketchbook bound 8 x 11 or slightly bigger _X__

*Soft charcoal sticks (also known as willow)  _X__

*Charcoal pencil set ( the set usually comes with the eraser below)  __X_

*Kneaded eraser. _X__ 

*Newsprint pad 18 x 24 _X__

*Drawing or Foam board to hold 18 x 24 drawing pad.__X_

*Black Higgins or China Ink. __

*Brushes for ink ___

*Sketching Knibs to work with ink. ___

* Bristol paper 18 x24 ( 100lbs ) ___

You can find most of these items at :

Michael’s

Blick’s Art

Artists Warehouse

Jerry’s Arterama

Walmart 

Target. ****  

See below examples of materials you will be purchasing.

Newsprint Pad 18 x 24 inches

Charcoal Pencils set

Sketchbook hardbound

Soft Charcoal (or Vine) sticks. Buy a package

Kneaded eraser

Homework On Thurs:

1) Watch the videos above this post (all three videos.)

2) Students will then write a reflection post regarding what they learned form the videos. 

a) What inspired you most about these artist.

b) How you can put what you have learned about their life  to work for you as a student artist. 

You will post your response to the videos in a Tumblr post by 10pm Thursday 8/24/23.

FYI- For those students who already have an instagram account you can start following the class by looking for the clasas name below. Once you have an Instagram account it will allow you to migrate an create a threads account which has working mechanisms similar to X (formerly known as twitter). Due to changes to twitter I will be moving all media to both of these social platforms.

Class Instagram :

@ArtLeagueMDCnorth

Class Threads

@artleaguemdcnorth

[scientistofdeduction]

Ok, I live tweeted a rewatch of Study in Pink

And I had a lot of thoughts about it, but main take away was how much I found myself genuinely enjoying it for the first time in years without getting depressed or bitter.

Like a “it is what it is and I’m still going to have fun” attitude.

Under the cut I’ve compiled all my tweets into a single little weird post. Enjoy if you read it.

Alright

So it’s Sherlock rewatch day

For the anniversary of SiP.

I’ve had so much distance on this show since it ended. I wouldn’t say I never rewatch it but I certainly put it down a few months after with the intention of never getting back into it in the same way.

I still know every line of this episode

Probably of the entire first season

It’s not bad, not this first season, but there’s still glaring issues to me that jump out considering the changes they made from the Pilot to the aired SiP episode.

Let’s be honest, Greg Lestrade is the best bit of this whole damn show.

“How do people keep themselves safe?”

“Well, don’t commit suicide.”

Rupert Graves’ deadpan delivery got me on that one this time.

Listen, Lestrade is the one thing I won’t pick apart.

Give points to the editing in this show.

Pretty op tier throughout

Cut from John “who was the first” to the zipper body bag reveal of Sherlock, upside down

Everything about that is really good.

Try not to think “wasted potential” every 10 minutes of this challenge 😂

I Will forever headcanon Sherlock as ace/gay and unbothered by people knowing or finding out. He formally came out to Mrs Hudson and because he loves her, cares not for her parading his business.

Hudson: establishes John is NOT Sherlock’s boyfriend

Immediately relate that she’s ok with it all but in a way she thinks is subtle

Spend the rest of the episode “outing” Sherlock to John

“Please date my awkward son, Mr Army Man, he’s lonely”.

Season 1-2 Hudson is the other greatest character in this show let’s be honest

So many possibilities set up in such a short screen time.

I think contrary to previous belief that actually Sherlock being a “villain” for lack of a better word here is set up pretty well in ep 1 and that thread is continued well in ep 6, but I think they dropped the ball in between.

“Stay away from Sherlock Holmes” is appealing—they could’ve set him up better to be misunderstood by all except those closest to him, and have Holmes not pretend to be anything he isn’t

But I think the whole weird sociopath thing really funked with that thread.

God there’s about to be a million and one fix it fics in my head after this isn’t there?

(Edited: I will definitely post a link if I start doing BBC fic again)

Mark Gatiss as Mycroft is also great casting I just god really loathe the writing of this Mycroft

“Yada Yada bully Mycroft we know, Ro”

It could’ve been a goofy joke! Between brothers! Sherlock reluctantly “Yeah thanks for checking out my new roommate bro but we’re chill” Mycroft laughs it off

No real creepy older brother, he doesn’t spy on them after that, drops the whole Bond villain act etc

This is in fact one of my least favorite Watson’s on screen

(Fanon John doesn’t count he’s cool and soft)

The characters play off each other and it’s silly goofy

Still just a fun watch

Ik I complain alot but it’s nice to have this goofy little first season

This show also could’ve been a deep little meditation on mental health but that and the whole “Sherlock does drugs” bit were missed potential

Phil Davis plays such a creepy Jefferson Hope/cabbie killer

I like the moments too where he and Sherlock have little calmer funny human moments

What gets me is that Holmes is very close to canon age in this (BC was like 34) but damn trying to picture a 5 or maybe 8 year younger man playing this but versus the cabbie over the pills just imagine.

The confrontation with Hope is super well written and still fanfic fodder for days

Hope playing up on this Holmes’s need to be right, his addiction to solving puzzles for stimulation

At the time his inability to look beyond himself for solutions

—this Holmes was willing to risk death for a stupid brain game (he was wrong) (he was so self centered in that moment he believed he was right despite it being very easy to see he was wrong)

Missed beat on the mental health note— assume a Sherlock who back of his head realizes he’s being goaded into taking the wrong one and back of his mind /doesn’t/ care. Instead of asking Hope if he’s right he just chucks the thing away, frustrated because the moment is gone.

“Are you alright”

“Yes of course I’m alright”

“You have just killed a man”

“That’s true..

… but he wasn’t a very nice man”

This departure from the pilot script right here set up the toxic relationship between these two and every time I mourn the loss.

Instead of John getting real and trusting Sherlock, “I saw men die in the war good men” and admitting his ruined sleep because of it. Instead of “I’ll sleep fine tonight,” because Sherlock gave him a war worth fighting for

We get a joke, a little laugh

And this only continues.

Anyways I always get a little laugh at the wonky Mycroft dialogue that’s there just to end the episode with “Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson” as the final words

This show has always been goofy and it makes it fun to revisit.

Happy 13th, Sherlock.

[celestiabyss]

[MY THOUGHTS ON TWITTER BEING DOWN + MY CURRENT PLANS FOR OTHER PLATFORMS 🐦]

Hi everyone! As many of you might have experienced, Twitter has not been loading tweets for many hours for a lot of users (me included) due to the so-called "rate-limited" mechanic that doesn't make any sense. At the time of this writing, I could no longer see tweets majority of the time from my main account, so the situation at hand makes me even more pessimistic on the future of Twitter.

A good chunk of you probably knows by now that I've been active in Twitter as celestiabyss for over two years now. It is the platform where I started sharing my theories and thoughts about Genshin lore, and it is where I got to see many fellow lore enthusiasts that inspire me to this day.

Twitter isn't perfect, but ever since a certain someone bought the platform, things started to get really messy. Unnecessary features got added in while necessary features were removed. Twitter Moments, for example, was the only feature that was close enough to being an organized archive. You might have seen me use this before to compile my lore tweets and theories. Around November last year, the Twitter Moments feature could no longer be updated with new tweets, and this was the reason why I barely wrote long lore threads ever since then.

A lot of problems continued to emerge and threaten the stability of the platform 'til this day. Despite the social chaos of Twitter, it couldn't be denied that Twitter has -- or used to have -- certain functionalities and accessibilities that helped a lot of people connect to online communities such as fandoms much easier whether as lurkers or active users. Twitter is in no way "better" than Tumblr, Reddit, Discord, and the like, but it does offer something that other platforms do not have. This is why it's such a shame that the platform has been dying a slow death ever since Spiral Abyss man had the audacity to buy it and ruin it.

I will not deny that branching out to as many other platforms and other social media as possible is one of the strategies that many content creators use to reach many people. While it is inevitable for me to adopt this strategy too, it still pains me to see my primary platform in shambles and potentially losing connection to the communities I've come to love. The incompetence of the Spiral Abyss man is killing many communities that rely on this platform.

1. Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/celestiabyss)

There is such a high learning curve for me when learning extra platforms such as Tumblr and Discord, which is why these two have been collecting dust for so long. I do have Twitch and Youtube as my other more active platforms though, and as someone who just started streaming months ago, it will be a challenge for me to rely mostly on these two alone to reach you. I will see what I can do to better inform everyone of when I'm streaming. But for now, pls keep an eye out on my other platforms. All of them use the "celestiabyss" username:

- I will still be streaming there starting this week once I finish my uni stuff and recover from my sickness this week. Target return date will be on JULY 5 AT 10 PM GMT+8. Please check the Profile tab and Schedule tab of my page for sched announcements.

2. Youtube (youtube.com/@celestiabyss) - All Twitch VODs and future content will still be uploaded here. Twitch stream schedules and other announcements will also be announced through my Youtube channel's Community posts. I currently do not have plans to stream on Youtube, but if I ever feel like learning how to do so, I will let you know.

3. Tumblr (https://celestiabyss.tumblr.com) - This is the backup socmed account I made ever since Twitter started crumbling around November 2022. It's mostly on hiatus right now, so I'll still see what I can do to resume long-form lore posting here.

Anyways that would be it for now. I need to get back to finishing my papers and recovering. All this platform planning will come again later. I'll see you when I see you and stay tuned on my Twitch streams 🌠

4. Discord (celestiabyss) - I am very inactive in this fandom-focused Discord account since I use my personal one more. But yes, I'm in the following lore servers: (1) Khaenri'ah Lore Project and (2) Coffee and Culture. I'm also in GenshinSupportClub's server. I haven't checked them in a long time though and I have yet to learn how to fully navigate these servers. To all my Twitter mutuals who I have gotten to interact with through Genshin and HSR lore tweets: pls let me know if you have a server too (LET ME INNNN 😆).

[starpaths-writing]

I've seen like at least 2-3 tweets recently of people complaining about (or observing) the skgy/gyky ao3 tag not updating much these days and (1) folks are probably already aware that writing takes time and IRL stuff happens that delay finishing projects and (2) by all means... YOU can change that... YOU can write fics or social media AUs or etc... Especially @ those active accounts with threads of story/AU ideas... you got the outline, just spend some time putting it together with proper punctuation/formatting/etc.

counter-arguments:

I haven't written or published a fic before >> we all start somewhere!

I suck at writing >> I completely sympathize with feeling this way about your own writing, but at the same time... if writing is something you'd like to "get good" at, you have to start. you WILL improve the more you write. if you really, really don't feel good about your work, then just practice finishing works until you have a finished work you're proud of and would like to share :) If you've ever written any sort of communication someone else understood some degree of, you can write fiction too :) (yes, writing a creative story is different from writing a school paper or email, but just the practice that you wrote something that is coherent and put together) Also keep fighting against your perfectionism !!! as people always say, nothing will ever be perfect !!!! just finish stories and get out what you want to say and you're good !!!

Nobody will notice or read my stuff >> sorry for going into engagement stuff, but for the skgy/gyky tag, if you're publishing on a platform like ao3, then at least 1 person is gonna look at your fic, period. it does start getting dicey if you use other platforms like twitter (tweets get lost in the sea) or tumblr (most people left years ago) but this is what (proper) tagging is for! this is what writing communities are for (and those definitely exist in the 17 fandom)! If you've never published anything before though, then this one shouldn't stop you because you never know! Also someone IS noticing if there are people talking about the lack of new additions to the tag re: skgy/gyky

I have no good ideas >> no comment if this is due to writer's block or burnout or etc because I need advice too. But "good" ideas aren't formed immediately - usually they've gone through a lot of time simmering or drafted before the final "good" idea is fully formed. If you have even a glimmer of an idea (putting skgy/gyky in the world of a fictional series, childhood friends skgy/gyky, skgy/gyky interacting more after they had a Moment on stage or etc), just start writing and it really will just fall into place with time !!! Just do not plagiarize or use gen AI please LOL.

I'm not trying to throw a pity-party for myself, but: yes, I have art and fics that i've personally liked but didn't get the engagement i hoped they would. And I don't have online friends nor anyone IRL I feel comfortable sharing my fics/RPS stuff with so sharing my stuff truly does feel like flinging my work & time into the abyss sometimes. But at the end of the day, creating fanwork is for your own enjoyment, and/or to put ideas out there that you hope others will find interesting or are inspired by to create their own fanworks.

The first skgy/gyky fic I published was literally because I was interested in a dynamic I hadn't seen anyone else write/publish before. And I don't think I'm good at writing either, but all 5 of my published skgy/gyky fics have at least 1 kudos each - at least 1 stranger out there in the world liked my fic enough to give it a kudos rather than just exiting the tab once finished.

tl;dr if you want more content for your ship/series, YOU have the power to create !!! trust me when I say someone out there WILL read and enjoy your work !!! if you haven't written a fic before, you could even find a new regular hobby !!!

[shenaniganeryfromtheabyss]

five(ish) writing tips from an amateur fanfic writer w/ an english mjr notgf

1) write what you genuinely want to (within reason). don't worry abt being different, if what you're doing is "overdone", if it's cringe, etc. i'm literally rewriting Food Fight because it's original story is ass and i love/hate it. have fun with your writing.

2) please, for the love of god, use beta and sensitivity readers. even if you can't afford professionals, i assure you there are people online who will do it for free. even just asking your friends for a second opinion will genuinely help you. be open to criticism, especially while your actively writing. (don't become Onision 2)

3) be clear about who your audience is, because you /are/ writing for an audience. don't hide your trigger warnings as a marketing tactic or downplay the plot events or say you have a plot to begin with when your story is just smut with filler. yes, this is directed at specific smuttok authors because you fucks exhaust me as a rape and abuse survivor.

2.5/3.5) this relates to both two and three, because i'm feeling petty. if you write "dark" themes especially, be ready and open for criticism of how you handle it in your story. don't hide behind "art is subjective" and "don't like it? don't read it !!", people are allowed to be uncomfortable about what you're writing. especially when those people have first-hand experience of your "dark" themes.

4) using stereotypes isn't inherently bad and you don't have to walk on egg-shells over them. using media that hasn't aged well for inspiration is okay. it's only when you're not critical and use harmful stereotypes to be harmful that it's a problem. many 80s classics are questionable at best, but i try to understand why and use that knowledge to improve my writing. this is a great way to incorporate their stories into yours. i, personally, really like 80s movies such as The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Steel Magnolias.

5) don't write a 100 tweet long thread about "writing tips" that's just you bitching about your preferences and slights with popular kid's cartoons you objectively didn't understand. especially when some of the "tips" directly conflict your actions as a "writer", like "don't sexualize children". :]

[lucyoccupy]

INSURANCE Settlement Options that ChatGPT can help us laugh about....

#Me: Please write 3 clever taglines for this thread “Settling for justice: One person’s fight against the odds” “Breaking the blacklist: An elderly, disabled person’s pursuit of fair settlement” “From toxic exposure to social justice: A legal battle worth fighting” #Me: Please summarize this thread written by me and ChatGPT and why people on social media may find it of interest #ChatGPT: In…

[chisiuwu]

sorry for disappearing from here, i'm still drawing but i kind of took a break from social media some weeks ago and i didn't bother to update tumblr. i will come back and post my latest drawings soon, but i probably won't read dms, reblogs, notes or asks for a while. maybe months. a friend showed me my inbox messages (i was too anxious to open them myself--) and most of them were nice, so thank you for supporting me, it genuinely means a lot that you took the time to write nice words and reach out to me; to the person who asked me to tag more properly certain arts, i will take your critique into consideration too

if you follow me in other social media, you probably already noticed i disabled notifications, replies and dms, and it seems that i'm pretty much unreachable. i don't particularly enjoy it either, but this is better than having strangers making me uncomfortable – i said it on twitter but, fandom drama* apart, i'm not a very social person and comments are a bit overwhelming now that my art is popular (⁠´⁠ ⁠.⁠ ⁠.̫⁠ ⁠.⁠ ⁠`⁠) i do appreciate every single good reply i get, but twitter and instagram (especially twitter) are very hostile towards art, in the sense that it gets seen for only 5 seconds and people act either like the artist won't read what they have to say or like they need to please people's desires. the good thing is that i'm not a very emotional person either and now that the Big Thing is over i can just relax and enjoy the very few interactions i get from my mutuals and friends

(*the fandom drama in question was adressed in a twitter thread i don't regret making even though it got blown out of proportion. i said what i said and i thought about it very carefully before posting it)

the reason i'm spilling my thoughts here is precisely because tumblr posts survive better than tweets or whatever the hell insta stories are. i can freely say what i need to say not having to adjust my words into a certain format. for example, i wanted to remind everyone that i'm not mad over people who unfollowed or broke the mutual for whatever reason. especially if you're an artist and we kind of got along, i genuinely hold no resentment and it'd be okay for me to interact again (except if you subtweeted me in that case k1ll y0urself). i also ran a chainblock extension on google chrome that basically blocked every quote i had on certain tweets, or people retweeting tweets calling me out. i have literally zero memory of who said what, and if you either got caught up or you have changed your mind and want to get unblocked, you can try to get in contact with any of my mutuals to tell me! last thing i want to say is a bit obvious, but i ever create something that makes anyone uncomfortable, i can't care less about being unfollowed over it. i am educated enough to understand what kind of impact my art has, and if anything i ever did was truly hurtful, my friends would tell me. i am just drawing anime lesbians

so, if you've read this far: 1) i won't stop making art, don't worry about me because i will come back and i am also one of the very few mentally stable lgbt people in the world 2) it always makes me incredibly happy to connect with others through my works, and i'm very thankful towards every person that has ever left a positive impact on my life, even towards those who are silently following for any reason they may have. i hope you are all having a nice day ♡

[dekusheroacademia]

Twitter drama, fandom history: what happened with mha362 and the reddit situation - part 2

This is a sequel of this post. Please refer to that to disclaimers and general info.

In this post I will talk about the weird Reddit post!

Summary: mha362 came out, trending like nothing before, everyone is desperate, everyone is celebrating. Big twitter accounts write bait anti bkdk, bkdk sends request for one of these big accounts to die, there's mention of people rejoying about suicide, general transphobia, stolen fanarts etc. Basically, everyone is being quite angry from both sides... the sides being bkdk/Bakugou's fans and people who detest Bkdk and Bakugou with everything they have.

Again, this is not about the fans who simply hate him/bkdk, but about the strange vitriolic interactions that happened around the release of mha362 leaks.

Also, spoilers.

The reddit post "My boyfriend is being a monster on twitter over an anime character"

4 days ago (5 or 4th of August depending on timezone) someone (user "Concernedbytweets") posts this thread on the subreddit r/relationship_advice. The post has been removed but you can still look at the comments here.

The user was a new one, account just created, which is actually not too suspicious given that most people who post on these advice subreddits use throwaways, in case their friends/partner knows their usual account.

Is the post true or false? I will analyze the false first, and the chance that it is true, later. Then, I will talk about the comments.

FALSE?

The post ends up in the hands of a twitter user who immediately shares this screenshot on twitter, but the thing is... this happens just 2 hours after the post has been made (the screenshot comes from that), which is quite a strange coincidence as I remember the post only had a few comments and upvotes when I visited it.

The user in the reddit thread, instead of focusing on the homophobia and the homophobic things said, focuses on the "I could see myself shipping them"... just after reading the summary. I am a bkdk shipper, their relationship is long and complicated, it would be quite hard to just decide to ship them from a summary (and what summary? general bnha summary?).

Also the boyfriend sharing homophobic tweets, knowing his bisexual girlfriend is on twitter (even if she doesn't use it a lot) is strange, also because he has shown no homophobia outside that, and because they clearly have some friends in common.

TRUE?

Well, the details regarding the lease and house situation seems quite odd and specific, making the post sounds a bit more true.

Plus, the update. This update arrived after many commentors thought and asked about Vocal Pineapple and if he could have been her boyfriend:

The fact that the user added this edit does make it seems more real, regarding the fact that she is worried about people finding her boyfriend's twitter account, and the clear denial that the person in question was Vocal Pineapple.

So, I am not sure if this is true or not. Who knows!

But the comments are still interesting. We have a lot of commenters requesting and asking if this was Vocal Pineapple, and people sharing the post on twitter, wondering if it is him.

VP has to write a tweet to deny it, while others start talking about how bkdk fans are inventing fake reddit posts to insult antis.

Here are some comments from the reddit thread:

People not beliving the post and deciding it is Bakugou fans getting worse:

And then we have people confirming the twitter horrible hate:

EXTRA THINGS THAT HAPPENED

Korra and Asami are straight

In the reddit thread, someone commented that Bakugou and Deku are straight and shipping them is as bad as... being homophobic online. And that shipping gay ships is wrong, because actually they are straight. Even Korra and Asami are straight:

For who doesn't know Korra from "Legend of Korra" is bisexual, and so is Asami. They both show interest in guys, and then in each others. They are canon. The ending of the show set them up as lovers, and they have adventures (and kisses) in the sequel comics.

But apparently... showing interest in guys and existing in a world where showing explicit queerness is impossible in cartoons, means that they are canon. The idea is that apparently queer characters only need to stay in their place, in specific roles and genres, and out of the "normal genre" as all characters are created... straight.

I posted this on twitter:

And got interesting replies:

This discussion ended up in trying to say that there are so many tomboy lesbians (bisexual erasure much?) movies around and cartoons and shows... but whops, they meant that there is a stereotype of tomboy women to be queer, and thus making them actually queer is BAD??

2. Sexism

An user tried to explain to Vocal Pineapple that heteronotmativity plays a part in the hate bkdk hate. The tweet was "If bakugou was a woman, you would all ship bkdk", given the tropes and the relationship (ex. Deku unlocking quirks because of Bakugou etc.)

Somehow, VP's answers was "you are sexist"

Completely missing the point, probably on purpose. And declaring how female characters can be a rival without the need to "fuck them" and romanticize them, when he does the same for Ochako:

For a comprehensive archive of what happened and all the hate that came out after Bakugou was revived, please click here.

[kitausuret]

I posted 1,934 times in 2022

That's 1,142 more posts than 2021!

196 posts created (10%)

1,738 posts reblogged (90%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@oliveroctavius

@brw

@seek--rest

@reaperlight

@kitausuret

I tagged 1,835 of my posts in 2022

Only 5% of my posts had no tags

#flash thompson - 246 posts

#venom - 244 posts

#peter parker - 199 posts

#eddie brock - 154 posts

#harry osborn - 134 posts

#asked and answered - 99 posts

#mj watson - 83 posts

#wanda maximoff - 71 posts

#symbiot3 - 56 posts

#felicia hardy - 31 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#'yeah hating things is sexy & cool but you take it too far. why are you spending so much time angry on the internet please just smoke weed'

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Andrea Benton and April Parker, AKA Mania and Mayhem! Commission by the incredible Fiti on Twitter! All of his commission and portfolio information is right here.

They are hanging out and having a great time together. 💕 They are siblings, of a sort!

(posted with permission from the artist)

73 notes - Posted April 27, 2022

#4

616!Eddie Brock should not be allowed on Twitter because he'd see something like "would love to see more mlm romance in media 😔" and he would immediately launch into a 12-tweet-long thread about how we should NOT be romanticizing multilevel marketing schemes and how they are a way for the rich to get richer and how instead we should boost stories about small business owners and on and on

until approximately one hour later he quote-tweets himself saying "I have been informed that 'MLM' is a more versatile acronym than I originally thought. My apologies for the misunderstanding and let me also clarify my unwavering support for the queer community of this city.

"However, if you would like more information on multilevel marketing and pyramid schemes and how to avoid them, please see the sources below: (links)"

84 notes - Posted March 25, 2022

#3

still thinking about the fact that one of my mutuals didn't even technically tag me in a thing about Spider-Man 3, she just did a casual little "@ kita" without making it a real "@" and somehow I still managed to come across it in my massive dashboard. the universe is conspiring against me. she knew that somehow I'd see it. she manipulated the energies of reality and so now here we are and against all good reason I want to rewatch SM3 and by that I mean suffer.

94 notes - Posted June 2, 2022

#2

Behold, the power of Peter's one pair of non-white underwear:

Amazing Spider-Man #298

See the full post

120 notes - Posted September 27, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I think my favorite kind of comics-based fanfics are the ones where you can tell the writer went into it with at least 200 issues of whatever they're writing behind them because they have a lot of good characterization and reference to multiple events in canon and tons of knowledge

but they have very obviously cherry picked what they did and didn't like to create the story THEY want to see the whole time I'm reading with tears streaming down my face yelling "yes.... YES!!!" because they're so galaxy brained for that

215 notes - Posted May 14, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[davidmariottecomics]

Send in Your Qs!

Hi there! 

This is a suuuuper short blog this week. It was going to be a "Stuff that Sucks" but probably because there is so much bad stuff going on, I'm not really up for doing that deep dive right now. But, y'know, please please please pay attention to what's happening at a local and national level. I reached out to my Senators to tell them the RESTRICT ACT is bullshit. And for some reason, 25 Senators are co-sponsoring it and should be appropriately shamed for such an action. Again, that's only one small of the larger puzzle, but as I said to my senators, it seems increasingly the U.S. is facing on a congressional and judicial level (which is it's own problem...), decisions that are polarizing simply because they will either define things for the better or for the worse and many of the decisions being made have been for the worse. 

Anyway, like I said, I'll be back to talk more about that soon, but for the moment, let's talk about what's coming up! 

Next week: I'm finally actually going to do another Ask Me (Almost) Anything blog! I've been teasing for a while, but next week I'm actually going to do it. I'll be soliciting questions on the comments of the website version of this blog or at my blog announcement tweet on Twitter. As usual, the rules are pretty simple. Requests for work/portfolio reviews will be disregarded, sorry. There are some things that I can't answer for confidentiality reasons. If your question isn't chosen, chances are, I just can't answer it. Questions about what it's like to work in comics, my personal life (within reason), and wacky hypotheticals--like what's more intimidating: one dog correctly riding a motorcycle or a bunch of dogs sharing a sidecar?--are appreciated. 

And hope everyone is having a peaceful Ramadan, Easter, Passover, or just weekend! 

What I enjoyed this week: Blank Check (Podcast), Honkai Impact (Video game), Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo (Anime), Mass Effect (Video game), The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (Video game--I've only played the first half-ish, so no spoilers, please), Teen Titans Go (Cartoon), Poker Face (TV show, finally finished the first season), Forest Hills Bootleg Society by Dave Baker and Nicole Goux (Comic--it's very good!), Devil House by John Darnielle (Book) 

New Releases this week (4/5/2023): Sonic the Hedgehog #1 5th Anniversary Edition (Editor)

New Releases next week (4/12/2023): Quiet week from me! Enjoy another comic! 

Announcements:

I don't know if I can talk about it just yet, but watch this space in the very near future for an upcoming in-person appearance. I might have more things to announce soon too, so definitely consider this a tease! 

I was a guest on Becca's Twitch livestream, playing The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog. You can catch that on YouTube (and subscribe there and on Twitch for more of this kind of fun)! 

Wanna practice your sequential art skills and/or just do something kinda silly and fun? A few weeks back, Josh Burcham was sharing this really great thread from Scott Gray comparing Steve Ditko and Gene Colan's takes on the same script. It's a lot to see, especially since Gene was given twice the page count to tell it, but it's also just fascinating to see how wildly different two creators can interpret the same script. Josh suggested doing a new version where people draw from the same one-page script and I volunteered to write something for it! Here're the scripts (I did two so there's a robot one and a not-robot one) and if you're interested in participating, just draw what suits your fancy. They're meant to be loose and open to interpretation--so feel free to cut what isn't working, combine panels, rework things, etc! If you do it, please share with Josh and me!  

Lastly, I haven't exactly worked out how all I'm going to go about it, but you may've seen last week, I hit 4000 Twitter followers (and that number kept growing) and I hosted an art share. Check out the thread. There are a ton of very cool artists over there to go follow and hire and work with! I've talked a lot recently about how things are really difficult as social media is increasingly segmented and visibility is made harder on the existing platforms. I can't independently solve that problem, but I am going to be trying to do more stuff like this more often, be it on the remains of Twitter or adding a weekly round-up of cool stuff I saw this week to this blog or something else! 

Pic of the Week: While we were streaming this week, Tiansheng decided that he wanted to sleep on Becca's bag. Why? Who knows! But he really hammed it up. 

[kaeyasaki]

💔 — :; who they leave you for

-> an :; all jokes, this has been in my drafts for a while now and i never finished it because i was clearly on something when i first started it and never bothered finishing,, it seemed fitting as my final goodbye to the hq fandom as i’m only writing for tetsu now, so thanks hq fandom,, you were okay for the most part

-> ft :; miya atsumu, suna rintarō, kozume kenma, sakusa kiyoomi, iwaizumi hajime, bokuto koutarō + oikawa tooru

-ˏˋ miya atsumu ˊˎ-

atsumu x camilla cabello -> atsumilla

to put it short they’re both musty and musty people belong together. all it took was a jokingly sent feet pic into camilla’s dms and she was quickly packing her things to leave hers and shawn’s house. their first date went well, but camllia decided atsumu was a real keeper when she found out he was a great kisser! better technique than shawn and didn’t mind that camilla enjoys kissing like fish. he indulged in it and the two of them quickly drove other couples eating in the five star restaurant away with their... interesting displays of pda.

-ˏˋ suna rintarō ˊˎ-

suna x kris jenner -> sunis

suna was actually aiming for kendall when he spammed the jenners on twitter, but these days kendall’s busy connecting with nature and getting herself into photoshop scandals so she never actually saw suna’s tweets. you know who did see his tweets though? social media’s hawk eyed kris jenner! kris thought suna was cute and he’s a lot younger than corey gambles who was her partner at the time. younger man = more media coverage which = more income into her bottomless pocket! when she first approached suna, he didn’t even care he hadn’t gotten kendall’s attention because his eyes were wide open and focused on her mother, milf kris jenner.

-ˏˋ kozume kenma ˊˎ-

kenma x travis scott -> kenvis

kenma was happily logging on ready to stream on his youtube channel before he was hit with a copy right claim. it turns out he’d used ‘sicko mode’ in one of his fortnite streams and never gotten permission. thinking contacting the record label for permission seemed long winded, kenma shot travis himself a dm and travis fell hard! he thought kenma’s stoic face perfectly complimented his own and offered kenma permission and a dinner date and the two have been happy together since! these days kenma still streams but he helps coparent stormi with his lover travis while kylie’s busy slandering kenma and his stream on her instagram story between promoting her new line of kylie skin.

-ˏˋ sakusa kiyoomi ˊˎ-

sakusa x chrissy tiegan-> sakussy

the queen of twitter clapbacks and the king of twitter burner accounts, these two had beef on one of chrissy’s threads, but it turns out the two were just a case of the typical enemies to lovers troupe! chrissy was actually impressed with sakusa’s wit and callouts and the two of them slowly became a twitter stan duo! after finally meeting, sakusa explained why he used burner accounts and suggested chrissy do the same as she keeps getting blocked, now the two of them harass controversial celebrities and anti’s and have several burner accounts logged in to continue the argument after getting their main ones blocked. petty but hot of them.

-ˏˋ bokuto koutarō ˊˎ-

bokuto x oprah winfrey

bokuto made his raging crush on oprah no secret and has been dedicating each one of his scores to her on live television. oprah got tagged in so many fan cams made by his loyal fans that she just had to notice him. oprah saw bokuto as a marketing opportunity at first because come on, he’s the himbo to her girlboss, what a media pleasing couple! bokuto was thrilled when oprah invited him to meet but since meeting, oprah’s fallen hard for bokuto’s infectious laughter and she’s found herself feeling young and free again. bokuto is just happy he’s somehow cuffed a nice woman with a big ass.

-ˏˋ iwaizumi hajime ˊˎ-

iwaizumi x nicki minaj -> iwaicki

these two met when iwaizumi was in cali and he was walking out the gym. miss minaj had just come out from her own private session and iwaizumi just couldn’t help but notice what a great looking specimen she was. however, his face fell when he saw kenneth petty, criminal and nicki’s lover. iwaizumi knew kenneth was a bad match for nicki because hello? he’s a literal criminal and he’d never forgive himself if he allowed such a goddess to fall into the wrong hands when he knew he could treat her better. iwaizumi knocked kenneth out and proclaimed how well he’d look after nicki to her in front of her car and nicki couldn’t help but stan! herself and iwaizumi have been a happy couple since and any man that comes within a 5 metre radius of her is getting hard stares from him. truly a power couple.

-ˏˋ oikawa tooru ˊˎ-

oikawa x bryan tanaka -> oikyan

oikawa has had personal beef with mariah carey ever since she featured on his spread in volleyball weekly. he didn’t even know how she managed to get into it because the only sports she does is running and that’s only her mascara when a minor occurrence happens. he’s had twitter wars and been blocked on several social media platforms but he won’t stop until he’s satisfied. one night oikawa was ready to grow up and forget about it all until he ran into bryan, mariah’s boyfriend at a local convenience store. bryan was buying stuff that he’d tiredly said mariah had demanded and oikawa took this as the chance to finally get back at her for his highschool years. he told bryan not to bother and that he’d never boss him around the way mariah does. a tired, but grateful bryan gave in and the two have since found interests in gardening and guitar together leaving mariah scrambling to fix her tear stains before christmas just before her yearly relevancy comes back.

[3-frogs-in-a-trenchcoat]

//tw cancer, scroll if you can't handle it please

im sure we've all heard by now that Techno has cancer and many of us are upset, its a horrible illness that no one (emphasis on no one) deserves.

First off, lets look at the positive side of things and calm down a bit: by the sound of things it was caught early or, at the very least, in time. Its in his arm so its less likely to spread to rest of his body. He has the money to afford good treatment, which he's already getting. And, most importantly, hes shown he has positive attitude (I mean he plugged his merch). Us freaking out and getting real upset won't help him or us. I don't think we should be more nervous about it than the guy who has it. I feel we've already moved past the freaking out phase a bit but there are ppl who need to hear it. breathe. calm down. he's receiving positive support from many sides so lets keep it going.

now, for a list of things that I have seen or that if I see, every second you're not running I'm getting closer and its on sight (under the cut)

1. "I don't like him but..." " I don't watch him but..." but shhhh. then you'll say that he doesn't deserve it, or that you hope he gets better, which is good, but we can make that statement even better by eliminating that first part. the fact that you don't consume his content should have no impact in if you wish him well or you think he deserves it.

2. on that note, NO he doesn't deserve it. no one deserves to have a life threatening illness. I sincerely don't care who you stan or any other reason why you think he "deserves" it. lets not even get into how fcked up that is and just keep it to yourself. no one wants to know.

3. anything about the smp. I should think it goes without saying that it isn't his focus rn? if you can't understand the why then consider: you've survived months on tiny scraps of lore, I think you can keep going. another thing, if for some reason you still care: the smp isn't "falling apart", if you want smp content, watch vods or, how about the other streamers that still play on it often? same applies for other content: he will upload when and if he can and feels up to it.

4. speaking on the smp, cc!techno has cancer, not c!techno. I can't believe I had to include this but I saw a tweet and apparently its a thing?? NO fanart, NO fanfics. I do not, and I repeat, I do NOT want to see a drawing of c!techno in prison with cancer on any tl. Thats weird. Don't make it weird. snap out of it, separate real life and the smp, cancer is a serious thing with actual consequences, not smth you can add to a character for angst or bc the cc that play them has it. I think I speak for most of us when I say it makes everybody uncomfortable, to say the very least.

5. just generally don't make it about you. and I don't mean sharing your experiences with cancer, that's ok (in the proper setting). I mean constantly and repeteadly going "oh IM so upset about this" "this affected ME so much", you know? this includes "but technoblade never dies 🥺"

6. also keep in mind many can't handle the news all that well, because of whatever reason or trigger so NO ONE give anyone shit if they need to step away from everything. be decent.

to be clear, I haven't seen most of this stuff on Tumblr yet. I write it here bc 1. I can reach more people that I can on twitter and 2. I don't have to write a snooty sounding thread on twitter. feel free to add on or, more importantly, spread it so we can stop it earlier than later. I really hope techno gets better and I know he's strong enough to do so, so we just need to be there for him in the best way possible.

[yukinojou]

I already squeed quite a bit on Twitter, but turns out my Shadow and Bone thoughts demand longform. So that was a 40+ tweet thread or using my Tumblr for an original post for once.

I was wary about the Shadow and Bone adaptation the way I'm usually wary about good books being adapted onscreen. It was amplified because my actual favourites are the Six of Crows books, and because the American-based movie complex has a bad track record of doing anything based on Eastern Europe. 8 episodes in 3 days should tell you how much I loved it - the moment I finished, I wanted more.

First, the technical praise:

Damn but the plotting is tight. It took me a while to realised it's based on heist movie bones, where every little thing (The Freaking Bullet!) is important. The story fulfills its promises and manages not to bore at the same time - it delights by the way they're fulfilled. I called out a few plot developments moments before they happened, and I was happy about it. Such a joy after so many series where "not doing what viewers expect" led to plot holes and lack of sense. It might be an upside to the streaming model after all.

From a dramatic point of view I can tell all the reasons for all the changes, especially providing additional outsider points of view on Ravka (Crows) and letting viewers see Mal for themselves the way he only comes across in later books.

Speaking of which, this is a masterclass in rewriting a story draft. SaB was Bardugo's first, and having read later books you can really see where she didn't quite dare to break the YA rules yet, especially Single POV that necessitated a tight focus on Alina's often negative feelings rather than the big picture and a triangle that felt a bit forced. The world in the series is so much bigger, the way Bardugo could finally paint it when SaB success gave her more creative freedom, and some structural choices feel familiar too. It's a combination of various choices by crew and cast, but the end result meshes together so tightly and naturally.

Visuals! Especially the war parts because Every Soviet Movie Ever, but also the clothes (I would kill for Nina's blouse in the bar), the jewelry, the interiors. The stag was so very beautiful. And a deep commitment to a coherent aesthetic for each character and setting.

Look, you can do a serious fantasy series with colours! Both skin colours and bright sets and clothing! And all scenes were well lit enough to know what's going on, even in the Fold!

Representation (aka I Am Emotion)

To start with: I was born behind the Iron Curtain, in the last years of the Cold War. The Curtain was always permeable to some extent, and we have always been aware that while we have talented artists of our own, we never had the budgets and polish of the Anglosphere Entertainment Machine. So we watched a hell of a lot of American visual storytelling especially because yeah, you can tell we don't have the budgets. 90s and 2000s especially, it's getting better now.

In American stories, the BEST case scenario for Eastern European representation is the Big Dumb Pole, the ethnic stereotype Americans don't even notice they use, where the punchline is that his English is bad or that he grew up outside Anglo culture. Other than that, it's criminals, beggars, sex trafficking victims, refugees. Sure, we may look similar (except we really really don't, not if you're raised here and see the distinct lack of all those long-jawed Anglo faces), but we are not and have never been the West, never mind America. It's probably better for younger people now, but I was raised under rationing and passport bans. Star Trek and Beverly Hills 90210 were exactly as foreign to me.

The first ever character I really identified with was Susan Ivanova in Babylon 5 (written by J. Michael Straczynski, yay behind-camera representation). This was a Russian Jewish woman very much in charge, in the way of strong women I know so well, not taking any bullshit, not repressing her feminity. I recognised her bones, she could be my cousin. The sheer relief of it. There have been few such occasions since.

The reason I picked up Shadow and Bone in the first place was recommendations from other Polish people. I've had no problems finding representation in Eastern European books because wow our scene is strong in SFF especially, but it's always a treat to find a book in English that gets it. And Leigh gets it, the bones of our culture, and I could even look past the grammar issue (dear gods and Americans, Starkova for a woman, Morozov for a guy) that really irked me because of the love for the setting and the characters, the weaving in of religion/mysticism (we never laicisized the same way as the West, natch), the understanding of how deep are the scars left in a nation at war for centuries. The books are precious to me, they and Arden's Winternight and Novik's Spinning Silver.

To sum up: Shadow and Bone the Netflix series gets it. You can tell just how much they've immersed themselves in Eastern European culture and media, it comes across so well in visuals and writing and characters. Not just the obvious bits (though the WWII propaganda posters gave me a giggle), but the palaces, the additional plotlines and characters, the costumes, the attitudes. About the only thing missing in the soldier scenes was someone singing and/or quoting poetry.

I will blame the Apparat's lack of beard on filming in a non-Orthodox country. Poland's Catholic too, but I very much imagined him as an Orthodox patriarch, possibly because I read the books shortly after a visit to Pecherska Lavra in Kiev and the labyrinthine holy catacombs there. Small quibble, not my religion, not my place to speak.

(I've seen discussion on the issues with biracial representation in the show, which is visceral and apparently based on bad experiences of one of the show writers in a way that's caused pain to other Asian and biracial people. I'm not qualified to speak on those parts, other that Eastern Europe is... yeah. Racist in subtly different ways. If anything, the treatment of the Suli as explained in Six of Crows always read so very true of the way Roma are treated, and even sanitised.)

And now for the spoiler-filled bits:

Kaz and Inej. I mean... just THEM. So many props to the actors, the writers, the bloody goat.

I adore the fact the only people who get to have sex in the show are Jesper and a very lucky stablehand.

Ben Barnes needs either an award or a kick. The man's acting choices and puppy eyes are as epic as his hair.

So Much Love for Alina initiating the kiss. Her book characterisation makes sense, she's so trapped in her own head because she has no time to process everything that's happening, but grabbing life by the lapels is a much more active choice. Still not making the relationship equal, but closer to it.

Speaking of, Kaz's constant awareness of how unequal his relationship with Inej is, and attempts to give her agency. I'm really curious how his touch issues come across to someone who doesn't know the backstory there.

Feodor and his actor. He looks exactly like the pre-war heartthrob Adolf Dymsza, a specific upper-class Polish ethnic type that's much rarer now that, well, Nazis killed millions of Polish intellectuals in their attempt to reduce us to unskilled labour only. The faces he makes are the Best.

Nina!! Nina is perfect, those cheekbones, that cheek, I was giggling myself silly half the time. I cannot wait to see Danielle Galligan take on the challenge of Nina's plotline in Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, she'll kill us dead.

I already mentioned that the writers fixed Mal's absence from the first book, but Mal in general! The haircut gives him a kind of rugby charm, and Archie Renaux is outstanding at emoting without talking. Honestly, all the casting in this series is inspired, but him in particular.

Extra bonus: Howard Charles and Luke Pasqualino playing so very much against the type of the swaggering Musketeers I saw them play last. Arken dropping the mask at the end... Howard Charles is love.

I can't believe not only was Milo's bullet a plot point, but the fact Alina was wearing a particularly sparkly hair ornament in a long series of beautiful hair ornaments was a plot point.

In conclusion: so much love, and next three season NOW please. Okay, give me a week to reread the books, and an extra day because new Murderbot drops tomorrow...