#anon having a normal one again...

[itsdrawingmen]

I already looked it up in the game and yes, you are right. Zen says that if Yoonsung were a WOMAN she would be his type of girl

Sigh

I don't think you really read what I write, you see what you want to see, but I like to make consistent arguments and analysis, so I'll answer this for my own enjoyment.

Let's do it from the top.

Yeah, sure, Zen says 'if he was a woman'. Take that as you will. What IS hilarious, however, is that you decided to say they love each other as brothers in the same breath. Which is never ONCE canonically stated. Who does call Yoosung a 'little brother' is MC, and the 'if he was a woman' line comes specifically from an interaction when she does. And I will remind you, when she does, Zen answers with this:

Not only does he NOT call him a brother, his mind immediately turns to romance. This is a normal and hinged thing to say about someone you like as a 'brother', according to you. I should go ask my brother how he'd feel if I said shit like this about him. I don't think he'd like it.

But, again, interactions can be read in different ways. And I think we already overanalysed this one. We won't come to an agreement about it. The facts are the following:

Zen and Yoosung never refer to each other canonically as brothers;

Zen and Yoosung are not related, by blood or legally.

If you wanna be pedantic about it, Zen joined the RFA when he was 20, and Yoosung 17. They don't seem to have interacted much right off the bat, Zen wasn't really a willing participant in the RFA, and he wasn't extremely friendly, per se, as evidenced by the Christmas DLC. They likely first met in person at the second RFA party, when Yoosung was 18 and Zen 21, and picked things up starting around there. Somewhere after that, as mentioned by Yoosung, they got so close that they would just call each other to yap on the phone about everything and nothing. For all intents and purposes, they indeed are two unrelated adults who care for each other very much. Or, friends. There is such a format of relationship, besides romantic and familial. And friendship sometimes blooms on its own, and sometimes it does bloom into romance. Believe it or not, like it or not.

On that note, who Zen does explicitly say reminds him of his brother is Jumin. Out of curiosity, do you go after juzen shippers?

Your next question is 'would I ship V with the twins'. What if a mouse drove a Honda Civic, amirite? V/Chois is not a good choice to exercise your whataboutism, because it has literally zero in common with yoozen, but I will entertain you. I don't think I'd ship it. In part, it's because V, a rich young adult, met the twins when they were fifteen and poor, and was quite heavily present in at least Saeyoung's life starting from there, but also because he had immense power over them, financial, connectional, and informational. However, that is not, and was never, the case with Yoosung and Zen. So I don't see how not shipping V with the Chois while shipping Yoosung with Zen would be hypocritical of me.

Besides, that ship just lacks substance to me because I don't see the dynamic necessary.

Also, V is barely a 'father'. At best, he's a shitty irresponsible guardian, but that's a question for a different discussion.

Up next: I don't write Saeyoung smoking or drinking alcohol, I don't know why you felt the need to ask me that. Everything I write or draw about the mysme characters, I like to keep canon-compatible. Saeyoung doesn't smoke or drink, his self-destruction takes on other forms.

And finally, my favourite thing that you saved for last, and I did, too. Never have I once tried to 'force' you to be like me. I literally explicitly said 'you do your thing, I'll do mine', yet here you are, sending me anon rants about how wrong I am. I told you, I've been doing my character analysis, and I don't think I'm misinterpreting any of them. I just stick by my opinion and my reading, is that a wrong thing to do in your books?

I'm not in power over anyone in this fandom, and I don't act like I am. You could probably say I'm normalising shipping Zensung. Which, well, maybe I am. But with that, what I think I am normalising is sweet friends-to-lovers dynamics, where both parties genuinely love and care about each other, engage in sexual and non-sexual intimacy with kindness and mutual admiration, learn from each other and are in active exchange. They have their own flaws and hangups, and sometimes they take it out on each other, but at the end of the day, they're able to tackle problems as a team. I want to see such relationships, and I write them. You can do the same with what you want.

And also, seeing as the Block button is free but you decided to choose violence:

[iamhereinthebg]

I was on the subway and I read a fic about Mystery Kids on Ao3 and suddenly I started crying?

Anyways, you said your shoulders/arm hurt, I hope you feel better now!

The cutest aaaaah

Anon I am on my knees asking if you know any mystery kids fic because I only know like

two (and I think one got deleted and I don't really vibe with the second one dhsjkds :'))

So glad you liked this one so much though :DD Fanfics are so cool

If anyone has any fics on the mysteries/mystery kids please tell meeee ToT (disclaimer: I read most of the fics on the tag of Akane, the three clock keepers, Shijima and Mei on ao3 already rip I don't read on any others websites for fics though :DD ) but even if I may have read it already idc I need to know I may have missed some dhskjds

And thank you I am doing better!! :DD still have a lot of appointements but I believe It will only go in the right direction u.u

[basket-of-radiants]

Why were you so disappointed by Rhythm of War?

This has been sitting in my askbox for years. I've taken several cracks at answering, only to get frustrated with the subject matter and burn myself out every time. I didn't like Rhythm of War. More than that, I didn't like it in a way that tainted my enjoyment of the entire series. And despite what it may seem, I don't actually enjoy discussing things which I don't like. I always want to talk from a place of good faith. Which is why now that my feelings towards the series are a little more positive, I think I can finally answer this.

I'm going to try to stay away from specific plotpoints and story beats for this post, because my goal isn't to nitpick (if for no other reason than it would take a week to write this post), I'm just looking to talk about my overall impressions. I think that might mean the only spoilers here will be structural? idk, if you haven't read Rhythm of War yourself then you should probably do that before looking for other people's opinions anyway. 

I liked Way of Kings when I first read it. I didn't love it at the time, but I liked it. Certainly enough to keep reading once I'd finished. One thing that made me a bit uncomfy, however, was the war against the Parshendi. They were this unknowable enemy which the book was not interested in knowing. An inhuman army. Their main purpose was to kill Kaladin's friends, or else be killed by Dalinar's armies. And yet the Parshendi, and the parshmen in the form of Shen, did show hints of personhood. And so it bothered me how Dalinar spoke so casually about how the Alethi had decimated their numbers, how the others used the war as a means to amass wealth and power. (It didn't bother me in a "this is a bad book" way but in a "these characters are bad people" way.)

One of my foibles as a reader is that when a book is very clearly treating one side of a conflict with more humanity, I tend to be a bit predisposed towards the other to account for that. And with the Alethi clearly being the invading party and superior military force, there was also some underdog favoritism. I didn't really like how the book treated the Parshendi. This is to say that going forward, the singers would be more important to me than any other through line.

So imagine my delight at reading Words of Radiance and meeting Eshonai, one of the Parshendi, who even gets her own point of view sections! They were no longer being treated as a faceless mass, we were getting to see things from their perspective as well. And it became plain to see the damage the Alethi had done to them. I couldn't really bring myself to root for Dalinar or really any of the humans against the listeners. I couldn't even bring myself to like most of these characters. I still enjoyed the book but once it became clear there wouldn't be a peaceful conclusion, let's just say that I wouldn't have wept for Dalinar and Adolin if Szeth had managed to off them. Like everyone in the book, I assumed that going forward all the parshmen would be turned into evil voidbringers in the everstorm and that the listeners were mostly dead. Except for Rlain, and Eshonai because I'd read or been told that book 4 would be Eshonai's book and thus had assumed she was fine. (Oathbringer spoilers, she was not fine.) So ultimately it was still a bit of a downer way to end the book. 

So imagine my delight at reading Oathbringer, where for the first time singers were being treated as people, full and real people, and where the human characters could no longer ignore or dismiss them. We met Khen and the others, common singers who were sympathetic and just wanted freedom from bondage. We see Venli grapple with the loss of her home. We see Leshwi and Moash connecting with and understanding one another. We learn of a history where singers were the original inhabitants of the planet. Parallel to this, Dalinar is having a truly excellent character arc about confronting one's past actions and acknowledging them to move forward and do better. I loved Oathbringer, for some years it was my favorite book, and I was excited as hell to see what came next. At the time, it seemed to me that there is a clear direction the story is going. Two books about needless war, and then a third where the main cast is forced to acknowledge the personhood of their enemies. This was so cool, all of my feelings from the previous installments were being validated, the characters were going to have to face what they've done in the past and outgrow their militaristic mindsets, I was so sure of that.

Imagine my disappointment when that does not even remotely resemble the direction the story went in Rhythm of War. RoW presented a clear, straightforward “us vs. them" narrative, where every character was totally fine with killing singers. Characters aligned with the singers were either flattened into wholly evil versions of themselves (Moash) or were expected to turn on their side in favor of the humans (Venli.) Because clearly there was no reason good people would be on the side that's all former slaves trying to stay free. Maybe there's some sort of accord or understanding between Navani and Raboniel that I might have found meaningful if the seeds of mutual understanding weren't already there in Oathbringer and then apparently ignored for a year by all the characters.

I have a lot of issues with how the listeners are handled in these books. (Here's some elaboration.) Following OB, I had thought that all my concerns were going to be addressed. Following RoW, I knew they never would be. 

Which is my main complaint, because that's the thread that matters most to me in this series.

I have a lot of other Things as well. Gonna just talk about a few big ones. 

One outsized source of disappointment that may seem a little petty, and which probably is, is that I felt mislead by the premise of the book. It had been announced that this book would center Venli and Eshonai, and I was unbelievably hyped for that. That did not really turn out to be the case. The purpose for their backstory chapters felt less about exploring them as people and contextualizing their arcs, and more about filling in gaps of world history. In the main plot, Venli was a POV character and she certainly played a role, but honestly not a very important one overall. To me she felt like a side character in her own book. I don't think it's controversial to say that the main character of RoW was Navani. A lot of people really like Navani and are happy about that. Unfortunately I'm not one of those people, and I found it all the more difficult to enjoy her when it felt like it was coming at the expense of some of my favorite characters. 

This particular gripe somewhat comes down to preference, obviously everyone prefers to read about characters they like more than those they don't, and it can go both ways. (For instance, on a craft/technical level RoW is probably the superior book to W&T, but I liked the latter a lot more because of my stupidly outsized attachment to Szeth and Nale.) But I do think there's something of a real criticism in how the book would rather focus on the feelings of a queen rather than those of a genocide survivor, and how the former's are given significantly more weight and import. It ties in with my main criticism, I think. 

And then there's how human/human racism had also been wholly cast aside as a plot point. Jasnah fixed slavery so that's resolved, and the only person who still cares about structural racism is the evil bad bad evil villain Moash/Vyre, who is now wholly irredeemable and who you're allowed to totally write off because he's sold his soul to Odium. I've already talked a lot about this. Other people have already talked about this, probably better than me. The writing was actually on the wall for me in OB, but again, RoW was when I fully accepted that this was never going to be addressed. 

There's something else that probably deserves its own discussion rather than being quickly tacked on at the end here, but here we are. This book changed how the series approaches war. 

In WoK, war was very clearly portrayed as a bad and inglorious thing. It was brutal, it was painful, those at the bottom died cruelly and unceremoniously and pointlessly while those at the top turned a profit. Every day was a new horror. The enemy were never evil, they were always just more people forced to go through the same thing. Through the next couple books, it felt to me that even if the characters had accepted war as necessary, there was still a tragedy to it. Conversely, in RoW (and W&T) war is basically a series of boss battles, in between which our protagonists can kill dozens of footsoldiers with barely a thought in the same way WoK had criticized.

Final note on all this, it sucks how we have no perspectives from the former-slaves-singers demographic. Those guys are really thrown under the bus, and seemingly get no self-determination now or ever. It was a glaring problem to me in RoW. Conscripted and enslaved humans and singers probably have just as much ground to form mutual understanding as a fused and a queen. (In fact they already had. In Oathbringer.)

In essence, RoW disappointed me because it left me with the distinct impression that none of the series's most important through lines (well, most important to me) were going to be resolved well. I liked W&T, but I haven't revised my opinion very much about the overall handling of these topics across the series. Maybe one of the reasons I was able to enjoy W&T so much more was because I no longer had such high expectations.

[askchilchuck]

*turns you into a chinchilla* (ooc: if you don't want to go thru that whole arc again just make it so I'm giving Chilchuck a chinchilla)

He does not seem pleased with you.

[airenyah]

I get you about the hetero vibes of JD. Like there are CPs who act like they have been married for years and I am inclined to believe that and there are CPs who are just happy their job is to flirt with their homies and they lean into it. The latter is JD to me. Like no matter how much they would flirt, I won't believe they are actually together. I can belive they are best friends, even soulmates but not a couple

yep, exactly! i mean, JD also act like they've been married for years in a way, but as i mentioned in my other reply, it just feels like more of an inside joke and feels much more platonic than romantic

and they most definitely have fun flirting with each other. i think it's as entertaining for them as it is for us. especially for joong. i think it's a well known fact that no matter how insane you think you are about JD, you can be sure that joong is more insane about JD than you are. and i fully support him in that <3

[necrotic-nephilim]

Sorry if this might be a rude question but why don’t you just make a seperate account for your nsfw fics?

not rude, it's a valid question! tbh it's a combination of a couple reasons.

i started posting anonymous dead dove batcest fics long before i had the balls to make a tumblr. at first i was content to just leave them unassociated with each other because i didn't really care about them being tied to me. i made this blog to actually show solidarity to my partner who wanted to make a sideblog for Sandman comic stuff so we could cheerlead each other and be brave together, since i've wanted to make a batcest sideblog but i've been nervous about actually having to get it going. (mal ik you're reading this go be brave and actually make your blog so i can cheerlead you damnit-) only did it dawn on me then that i should probably mention the fics i've written on the blog after like, three of them were posted anonymously. and it would've annoyed me to have half of them anonymous and half of them not, because notifications for them would've gone in different places. i could go back and take my fics off anon if i wanted to, but i can't switch the account they're on without taking them down entirely and that'd fuck over people who have them bookmarked already.

which, ties into my second reason, if i made an entire second ao3 account it'd be harder for me to see notifications, reply to stuff, and post things for both accounts because i'd have to constantly switch. and honestly i'd be terrified of accidentally posting on the wrong one on a brain fog day. posting fics is always the most tedious part of writing them for me lol. it's easier for me to stay logged into one account and have all of my stuff in one place for me and just use the anonymous collection when i feel like it. if ao3 pseuds worked like tumblr blogs, where you can't see all my side blogs but i can, i would've used pseuds, but since you can see all pseuds on an ao3, i felt it was a moot point.

and the last reason is i just feel more comfortable being anonymous on ao3 because of the rise in anti culture. on tumblr it's very easy for me to just filter that out and find the people i want to follow and block the people i don't. i don't mind getting hate, on tumblr or on ao3. but i think, for whatever reason you want to blame it on, there's been a massive boom of antis on ao3 who are very entitled about how they read on ao3. i tag extensively, but i just feel safer from getting targeted attacks if everything i write on ao3 isn't attached to one profile. if people like a fic i wrote, want to find more i always link my tumblr in the notes, but if an anti wants to get huffy with me, they can't easily track down my other things. they definitely could if they wanted to, but being anonymous on ao3 just makes me feel more secluded, in a weird way. it's like saying "if you want you can come find me but on here i'm just a weird faceless guy throwing stuff in the void". i've used ao3's anon feature a lot, actually, i used to be a hydra trash party dumpster kid back when that was in it's prime.

i also used to be vaguely popular on a different tumblr blog and my main ao3 and while i think it'd definitely be cool if i got a decent chunk of followers on this blog too, i don't really miss having fanfiction do so well i got targetted hate on all of my fics from the same people, i had my fics stolen, etc. it was really exhausting for me. i have 120+ works on ao3, not counting what's anonymous, and that level of exposure tires me, even when i use my main ao3 to post things that aren't trashy. it's just a weird feeling knowing so many people are subscribed to you on ao3 and what if you post something they won't like because you jumped fandoms again, or you're posting something niche, or you don't think it fills enough fandom tropes to be well-liked. i used to obsessively think like that, and it made me not write the things i wanted to because i cared about numbers. and i don't want to slide back into that hole. writing on anonymous is mostly to remind myself i wrote this for me, and if other people like it, they can come find me, but i don't have to perform like that anymore. if i get a really weird fucked up idea, i can write the really weird fucked up idea. at the end of the day, just makes me more comfortable! but i get it's a super confusing set up from an outsider perspective so, i really don't mind the question, thank you for asking!!

[petorahs]

what other hsr ships do you like, if any?

quite a few!

(disclaimer pls dont get mad at me for any ships i mention, and note that they never affect what i draw for Avenday 😭)

I have a ScrewTio wip coming up and ive drawn them before :3 literally so interesting. just as much foils as Avenday i would say

other than that in terms of OTP: AcheSwan, BronSeele, Jingliu x Bai Heng, whatever the hell Feixiao x Jiaoqiu x Moze polycule have going on

do NOT separate the girlfriends or i'll start tweaking..(lighthearted)

as mentioned in prev tags i love both RobiFly and StelleFly! CaeFly is... ok i guess but only if i put them in my elaborate headcanons and even then it works just as well with Stelle. I plan to draw RobiFly soon they are soooooo cute to me :3

theres more but i'll mention in tags!

[itsahotminuteinbetween]

once again thinking about the grinch and how they should've just left him alone

[werewolfetone]

Me in the IRA: what ardfheis the milfs on 🤔

Gerry Adams: GET OUT ❗❗

This is what was on those boston college tapes that were subpoenaed probably I think

[a-lilyinthevalley]

(Floral Wreath anon here!)

*Grabbing flowers and plant parts while browsing a book, stressed*

Fir twigs, yellow acacia, fernleaf yarrow, tansy, garlic flowers, aloe, amaranth, ragweed, Jericho roses, agarwood, purple lion's herb, thrift, milkweed, asphodel, aster, bamboo, birch leaves, calathea, marigold, chrysanthemum spray, vetiver, Balm of Gilead, palm lily, crocus, daphne, ribbon plant, spurge, fennel, ash leaves...

Would rockweed help? No, no, that would just drag Wind Archer into this...

Snowdrops, golden star, ginkgo, liquorice leaves, bachelor button, barley, maybe waxvine... White and purple hyacinth? Hmm... Oh, Verse, why must you be so cryptic? No matter, let's see if any more of these flowers can be used in any potions to help things along.

Morning glories, lilies, sea lavender, lithops, pea lotus maybe, bluebonnet, purple medic, star daisies, lemon balm, monstera leaves, quina, daffodils, muskroot, lotus, beargrass... Wow this is a lot, but I'm only halfway through this jammy book.

*sigh* Okay... water lilies, four leaf clover, ginseng (ooh, makes wonderful tea), red poppies, pentas, pinkweed? Yes, restoration is good. Canary grass, spruce twigs, pine needles, rose-colored primroses, almond blossoms, flowering almond, bracken ferns, mountain pasque, pomegranates mayhaps... Pear blossoms, acorns, black and peach roses, wood roses, sweetbriar, wild petunia, white willow, garden sage, elderberry, figwort, hoodwort, lamb's-ear, comfrey, dandelions of course, what else...? Yew, meadow rue, bluewings, tulips, Cretan mullein...

Pansies, perhaps? Mm... we'll keep it as an option. Wild poinsettia, xeranthemum, and maybe zinnias. Oof, that was... a lot. Now to sort them by specifics.

Verse, if you can hear me, can we get any more clues about how to get White Lily back?

[You. Are amazing. I'm very normal about this. Pulling out the artillery plant and then mentioning Wind Archer had me DYING. You cannot just say that.]

Verse doesn't respond. However, Fwanon feels a breeze sweep through the room, and when they look back to the flowers collected, something has changed about them.

The bamboo, yellow acacia, snowdrops, dandelions, zinnias, and forget-me-nots are all... glittering.

The anon also notices a new plant added to the bundles surrounding them - wormwood, also glittering.

Had She marked the important plants, as a way to assist them?

[kaiotisk]

Hey, not that it means a lot from a no-face but, I hope whatever is going on blows over soon. I hope the days are kinder to you

hi that is honestly so sweet of you to say thank you

[pcktknife]

Ur right + i think pearl and Marina would specialise in different types. Maybe Marina could do steel type since that’s kinda sciency? Idk what pearl’s type would be but she should have a loudred on her team

anon is reporting live from my brain rn

[beanghostprincess]

Help I just finished the usopp v luffy fight and now I'm crying (I know what happens later and I knew this was coming but still)

I can give you a hug, a gun, or a therapist. I personally recommend the first one because I don't have money for a therapist and you need to live to keep watching the show so. Yeah. Do you want a hug-

[stormyoceans]

Wait, why does her partner have to be with you? does this person have no home, nothing to do or what?

because apparently, at the prime age of 42, he gets too bored staying home alone while my sister happens to be out for work over the weekend, and since he doesn't get along with his family, if he can't find any of his friends to hang out with the obvious solution is to make me babysit him 🤷🏻‍♀️

and the thing is..i don't want to be mean, i don't LIKE to be mean, but i just don't get it, because it's not like we particularly get along, or have anything in common, he just gets here, eats some snacks i have around, watches sports or other programs he likes, tells me about his job, and then leaves. it really does feel like babysitting. and sure, he is family in a way, but i can't fully be myself and relax around him, and i can't just ignore him, so this always leaves me incredibly drained. not to mention that my sister always ends up warning me about it only a couple of hours before he shows up so my plans for the day inevitably fall through

and the few times i've tried to say no or set some boundaries i got yelled at both by my sister and my mom because apparently i 'have nothing to do anyway' and 'what if one day you're gonna need us/them? do you want to die completely alone?' which you know. definitely feels like an appropriate emotional reaction to me just wanting to relax a little over the weekend but yeah

thankfully he left earlier than usual today (would have loved to know beforehand how long he was gonna stay, but again. seems like im asking for too much), so hopefully i can still do some of the things i planned to

anyway. sorry for the rant, anon, i don't really like to be negative, but i just needed to vent a little ;;;;;;; BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING OF LOSING MY MIND OVER SHOWS AND JIMMYSEA

[rollercoasterwords]

is atwmd updating soon?

hopefully before january ends

[zer0point5ive]

david for the wip ask game 👀? if no david then.... wound (like an injury, not a wound tape)

send me a word !

“He meant a lot to you, huh? This ‘guy.’”

Lawrence sighed against pale skin, teeth dragging across a sharp collarbone and hands reaching down to thumb at the edge of David’s threadbare t-shirt as he considered the question. As he thought about his answer.