#which means I have erased it from my life and 99% will not read it or include it in my own writing

[phoenixtakaramono]

2, 12, 26

<3

Re: Questions for Fic Writers

Thank you for the Ask, anon! So sorry it’s taken awhile to respond but finally I’m on a brief break from writing so I can finally answer this! (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)♡

I do have to give everyone a warning. After Question 2, I do get a bit nitpicky and kinda specific of what I personally do not like. Please don’t take offense, luvs. <3

2) Go to your AO3 “Works” page, to the sidebar with all the filters, and click the drop-down arrow for “Additional Tags.” What are your top 3-5 most used tags? Do you think they accurately represent your writing habits?

I had to lol a bit looking at them. So disregarding the Fanart and Illustrations tags (I usually make a cover art for my long fics), what we’re looking at are:

Developing Relationship: You’re talking to a slowburn romance writer. By nature, I am also very much demisexual irl. And I am an avid consumer of light novels and danmei where 100-300 chapters in, they finally hold hands or kiss, and I have to scream into a pillow and kick my feet in delight upon reading it (the number is an exaggerated hyberbole, haha, but you get the gist). It’s the developing relationship that makes the experience special imo so I like to spend more time and effort showing how these characters can come to fall in love with each other in my own works.

Possessive Behavior: So, irl, I would hate this. Dear lord, I would run for the hills if a man showed an ounce of possessiveness and has essentially revolved their life around me to a disturbing degree (it’s not cute being love-bombed and isolated from friends and family, etc). But since this is fictional and the love interests tend to be canonical d*ckheads whereby possessiveness is very much in-character for them, and especially if it’s for a dark fic, I will serve you psychotic yanderes or clingy, obsessive Male Leads who love only the Main Character and would end the world just for them. I am so used to wholesome healthy cookie-cutter relationships irl, so I like to explore the opposite in fiction.

S*xual Tension: Same as the developing relationship. I mean, yes, I can write the NS/FWs and can churn them out with a straight face, but it’s usually not the focus of my works. It’s the s*xual tension where it’s at. I wanna see chemistry. I wanna see it sizzle. I want to see them pine. When I write a romance, I want to make it clear from the start how well-matched these two characters are for each other and, why, yes, you should continue to read my super ultra long fic if you want to see how I will make them kiss and make love to each other.

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence: Alright, this one is especially indicative of my writing habits and the stories I tend to write, aka Post-Canon AUs. It’s very much What-If scenarios that keep me up at night and inspire me to write what you read. I don’t think there exists a fic of mine which is not either an AU or an AU - Canon Divergence. For me, after I finish a source material, usually I want to see a continuation of the same characters—with their core essence and personality kept as true as possible. And that is also indicative of what I write. What I like to read myself extends to what I like to write.

Fluff: I like fluff as much as the next person, but I like it when it’s earned. When that coldhearted Love Interest who’s grown embittered gradually warms up to the Main Character and entwines their fingers to slowly bring their hands up to their face to softly plant a kiss to the back of their hand, or the Main Character who’s grown to be besotted with the Love Interest and nuzzles their face into their chest as their arms wrap around them, sharing body heat as their bodies spoon up against each other—you see what I mean? It hits better when it’s earned (when you see their journey). Since my fics tend to be long, I also like to inform my readers that, yes, there will be fluff in the story. They’re coming.

Character Study: I do use a lot of my fics as an opportunity to do a character study on some characters that fascinate me, whether it be a character introspection or their POV, etc. Some fics are more obvious think-pieces and character explorations disguised as stories. It’s exploring my love for a character, seeing what makes them tick, and condensing their essence down to mere words on a page.

Canon-Typical Violence: I’m a detail-oriented writer. 99% of the time, what I write is on the graphic end. I go lush with the sensory details and descriptions. And for the source materials with canon-typical violence, I feel obligated to include violent scenes in my own works so it feels like you’re reading an extension of the universe. I also tend to put this warning up just in case, just so readers have been forewarned.

The last tag is pretty self-explanatory I think, considering the fics I write are 🔞 queer literature between two consenting adult fictional men, haha. Nuff said.

12) Are there any tropes you used to dislike but have grown on you?

So, funny thing about me and my love-hate relationship with tropes…. In the spirit of honesty, this is a bit of a landmine to navigate for me, haha. I’d answered an Ask about this (if you do read it, skip down to the Contrarian Tendencies section), as why I tend to develop an aversion to tropes and clichés that’s affected not only what I consume as a reader but also affect the content I write. So if my brain happens to identify a pattern of tropes or clichés or popularly used words or even popular fanon nicknames for characters, I will instinctively dislike the fad 90% of the time on sight and I will go outta my way to avoid any fics/ stories/ shows/ manga/ manhua/ manhwa that even mention them—unless the creator is intentionally satirizing a classic cliché or reinvents the wheel to breathe new life into a tired trope. As an analogy, think of how fatigued some of us have become of the generic superhero movies being pumped out via DCU and MCU—and then think of how The Boys (TV) is like a breath of fresh air. It’s the execution and originality for me. I like it when there’s a clear attempt on the writer’s part to be unconventional. I love trope subversions and deconstructions. That’s kinda how my brain operates with tropes. I can’t exactly explain why my instinctive aversion to fads exists for me. It’s probably the predictability/ unoriginality and sensing a popular fad that kills it for me. It might be because as much as I am a bibliophile (person who loves reading books), I only have a limited amount of free time and don’t like to spend it on something that’s completely unoriginal with the usual tropes that come with the premise/ genre which comes across like beating a dead horse with a stick to me, and it shows me that the writer has put little to no effort into trying to come up with something new. So unless it’s intentional or satire, it’s pretty much become a compulsion for me to dislike clichés, fads, and generic cookie-cutter writing on sight.

This is just me though! It’s not a measure of what I think a writer’s skill or creativity is! I’m just an eccentric contrarian with hipster tendencies, haha. I just typically don’t like following trends in writing, and prefer to pave my own path to do my own thing. This aversion is similar to how I am as a writer. As an example on the smaller level, while not a trope, sometimes in fandoms I see a character affectionately being given non-canonical nicknames. For me…if I see it, chances are I will likely just drop the fic I’ve been reading, no matter how well-written it is and how amazing the plot and characterizations are. If I think a nickname has overstayed its welcome, I have reached a point where I won’t even come ten feet of it in my own stories. When it has reached that level of nausea for me, I have essentially developed an allergy to the nickname—that if I see it in any other franchise I have yet to check out but know that name exists for a character, I will avoid that other fandom like a plague just so there’s no cross-contamination of my writing or reading material. (So I’m not gonna name names because I don’t want writers to think I’m calling anyone out—because this aversion is only specific to me and is not a metric of the true quality of a writer’s work—but as a general example, it’s one of the reasons why I don’t like “Johnny” being used for a certain character in The Boys that have shown up a handful of times across various authors’ works already—because my brain associates that with another well-known character from CoD (🧼) who coincidentally shares the same first name (John) who also canonically has a certain nickname they’re known by (Johnny)—and what a funny coincidence that it’s the same as their nickname for a character I’m reading about in this different fandom. It could be very well that it’s cute so that’s maybe why some writers use it (which, I have to say this: don’t let me stop you; it’s your fic so do whatever you want; I encourage you to continue so in fact; this is just me being nitpicky to a fault) but there are writers I know who are in the CoD franchise as well as The Boys. So I just cannot remove the association my brain has made and that’s personally why it’s not my cuppa tea.)

“A-Yuan” is a good example, for the character Shen Yuan from SVSSS, where I saw it everywhere in the fics I read, disliked the fad because my brain strongly associated “A-Yuan” with a character from MXTX’s other work, MDZS, so it was incredibly jarring to me on principle, but over the years—and especially engagement with my cute readers—it has grown on me. A-Yuan though is probably the one exception I’ve made so far where I will read works with that fanon nickname while also include it in my own work myself. No other fanon character nicknames for other fandoms so far have pierced through the barrier of my initial dislike to the other side. If you ask me for reasons of how this manifests for me, it can differ. 1) It’s too cutesy and can be immersion-breaking if it’s not done right or if it’s out-of-character (especially if no one would call them that in the source material). Or 2) the nickname reminds me of another character from a different franchise, which makes me feel like I’m reading about an entirely different character from that franchise than the character I want to be reading about. Or 3) it makes me feel like I’m reading about a writer’s Original Character and not the actual character I’d wanted to read about so I feel like I’ve been misled by unintentional false advertisement. Other examples are (in no particular order of which fandoms they come from): Hanni, Dray/ Drake, Johnny, Tommy, Sesshy, Sev, Jimmy, BeiBei…I could go on but I already feel my soul has shriveled just mentioning these. In my opinion, just a made-up fanon nickname or petname being mentioned once or twice or a handful of times is okay, or if it’s said mockingly or if it’s like an earned thing to show relationship growth, but dear lord if that cutesy nickname has replaced the actual character’s first name for, like, 90% of a fic and has become their go-to. This also applies for Original Works. If I have to read a character calling someone by something corny like “Little One,” “Goddess,” “little lamb,” “cub,” or “kitten” for the 3,000th time in the same work and it’s not the writer trying to be ironic or funny, I will take a fork to my eyes.

As for actual disliked tropes that have grown on me…gosh, there are none. None, zilch, nada. It’s either A) I dislike it wholeheartedly and will go out of my way to avoid my pet peeves, or B) I like something and will continue to read 100 iterations of it because everyone does it differently so it’s refreshing to see everyone’s different take (I will read any dark fics revolving around a villain or antihero or hero-turned-ruthless with a scheming mind and twisted motives; I eat that up for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and will love it till I’m in my 90s or buried in my grave). There’s no coming back once I’ve become fatigued by something. And if I have come to dislike something, I will loathe it with every fiber of my being and nothing can convince me otherwise once I have put it on my Do Not Like list. We’re talking about tropes I find insufferable like unnecessary miscommunication/ misunderstandings leading to a fall-out/ unnecessary poor communication leading to unnecessary drama, fake-out deaths (if not done right), love triangles (if not done right), damsel in distress (if not done right), unnecessary and undeserved character assassination character bashing to make way for a ship, etc. Now can there be exceptions to this? Yes. God, yes, they exist. But these are the tropes I rarely see executed well. And if it’s not executed well, it grinds everything to a screeching halt for me and I notice its existence even more. I will however make a strong attempt to persevere and patiently read on despite so in hopes that it gets better to see what the hullabaloo is all about, but even I have my limits for how long I can keep holding on.

26) Would you rather write a fic that had no dialogue or one that was only dialogue?

First of all, why? Hahaha. Secondly, I guess I’m going to be nitpicky here as well. So unless it’s a satirical fic where there’s only one character (lmao, y’all recall that infamous Groot masterpiece?), I would rather write a fic that had no dialogue because at least I can differentiate everyone’s introspection and thoughts, interspersed with descriptions and other storytelling elements. Maybe instead of dialogue, they communicate via telepathy or body language. I’dunno, but it’s certainly more flexible. It’s just a small pet peeve of mine where I read a story where there’s a large chunk of dialogue—but I have absolutely no clue who’s speaking. It’s frustrating. And is a surefire way to break my reader immersion and take me outta the story.

[lord-luminous]

Someone called Bill Cipher and Ford Pines a doomed soulmates pairing and I haven't been able to stop thinking about that.

Being doomed soulmates, to me, always felt intrinsically tragic. One of the few examples I could think off hand are Achilles and Patroclus, two people loved each other so much but they weren't destined for happiness. Greek heroes 99% of the time never are. Soulmates as a trope is defined in someone being destined to end up with their perfect match.

That's why Bill and Ford being doomed soulmates is so utterly fascinating. BillFord is probably the most anti-romantic pairing Gravity Falls (show) could honestly conjure. So much of that pairing is built on manipulation, lies and transaction. Bill is using Ford to get into the a physical realm so he can rule it, while Ford is idly using Bill to learn more things about the unnatural side of the world. So those two being soulmates on any level is going to be anything but healthy. I mean, even in the show, Bill tortures Ford for information.

Furthermore, it can be used in such fascinating theories and AUs. When we read the story as them as explicit doomed soulmates, while pairing information we have from the show and fandom theories you can bring to life fun concepts.

When the show was airing, there was a theory post-ATOTS that Blendin Possesed By Bill had messed with Ford's project to further ruin it than Stan had. Which is why it looked more damaged coupled with the "Blendin was here" with a triangle right there in the episode. So what if it was Bill that ruined the project? That would make the Stan Twins fight and go their separate ways, while this intentionally led Ford right down the path to meet Bill eventually in Gravity Falls. The path that eventually lead to their partnership, Ford being pushed into the portal, 30 years trapped in the Dream Dimension, and later, Bill's defeat.

And that's just one idea I came up for some random fanfiction floating in my brain. The reason I even like that particular concept is that it does more than absolve Stan of wrongdoing, but rather shows you how twisted Bill Cipher could be. There's more you can do with it. Doomed soulmates destined to find each other, and destined to ruin each other. Bill being half the reason Ford was pushed through portal or how he let Ford go insane through fear while Ford being a part of the Cipher Zodiac that could vanquish Bill or using the memory gun on Bill to erase him from existence.

It's so interesting because even if BillFord isn't my ship, you can unpack so much through their dynamic through this lens. Like what makes them click together and what drives them apart.

You guys might have already realized all this, but I just needed to get this off my chest. Finding out more about Bill and Ford's relationship has altered me on a fundamental level. Doomed Soulmates is actually the most appropriate way to define it. How else would you define it?

Thank you for listening to me, a semi-casual fan of Gravity Falls.

[abstractdiagram]

i fail to understand how you can support harry potter after all the things JKR has done to the trans community. watching it gives her money, writing fic about it keeps it relevant and makes more people interact with her content, which puts money in her pockets. that money goes directly into anti-trans laws. i hope you know that what you're doing still supports her and harms every trans person you know. there are no excuses, none

I don’t understand cancel culture. Too many creators in my life have turned out to be horrible people for me to delete their works from my life. Bill Cosby turned out to be scum, but that doesn’t change that when I was little we’d listen to his comedy albums for fun. I can’t delete that positive time for me just because he’s awful. Same for Neil Gaiman. That was devastating but I still read the books I have because they’re good, despite him being bad. JKR is an unmitigated twat but that doesn’t mean that my continuing to write for an existing audience is going to victimize anyone. I highly doubt anyone would specifically search for non-canonical m/m smut fiction for a fandom they’re not already familiar with but if I inadvertently cause someone to get into the HP fandom, I hope they get used copies of the books. I haven’t purchased an actual product or book or anything from the franchise in… over a decade and a half I think. I’ve had the books since most of their release dates and just kept them. I don’t like the movies so I don’t have them. My minor purchases over previous years hardly pay JKR squat and the fact that I haven’t purchased anything likely makes no difference in the bottom line. I don’t go to Hobby Lobby or Chick-fil-a either but they’re trucking along anyway.

I also don’t understand how someone which such a massive dislike for all things JKR and HP would just happen across my insignificant blog without specifically searching for the tags I used. If you don’t like it, don’t read it please. I give tabs and warnings for what I post.

I’m not angry about this note. I’m really not. I mean no sarcasm and no irritability on my part in writing this post. I do my best to support my beliefs and I love my trans cousin and his trans husband. I’m just making my way along like everyone else and if someone becomes problematic after their career affects me (Gaiman, Cosby, etc) then I stop buying new content and I don’t defend them. But I can’t and shouldn’t have to permanently erase all works, memories, items, references because they’re assholes. That money is spent, those memories are made and for the few shitty fanfics I’ve written, well those aren’t exactly raking in the new readers that don’t already know the IP.

If you truly believe that once a person reveals that they’re predators or anti-something that you believe in or alien drag queens from beyond the moon then you have to drop and hate everything they’ve ever created, well, please drop me. I’m not a rapist and I’m inclusive to pretty much anyone (except certain political/religious people. If you think someone should die just because they exist, fuck right off away from me). But I’m agnostic and have reasons to dislike organized religion (enough for some to cancel me right there) and I won’t give up things I already have or have done from now-toxic fandoms. I don’t protest or march or petition or walk for causes that I believe in 99% of the time (though that’s mostly because I’m at work at night and either don’t know it’s a thing until too late or I’m sleeping). Some would even say I’m a bad person. Shit, I was arrested twice as a young teen for shoplifting. I eat THC/CBD gummies for fun. I’ve been so blackout drunk in the past that I don’t remember whole nights. I swear, I lie, I hate most politicians. I’m not a great human!

TL;DR. Your opinion is yours. That’s fine. I have mine. We will never meet in the middle because we are diametrically opposed. I don’t want to waste our time arguing over something neither of us will change. Please don’t seek out tags that actively piss you off and I won’t post without tags.

[that-spider-witch]

On “Dead” Cultures and Closed Spiritual Practices: Why Colonialism Is Still A Problem.

Let me start this by saying that, as far as my knowledge of Paganism and Polytheism as a whole goes, I’m what the internet witch community calls a “Baby Witch”. I’m stating this out of the gate because I know there will be lots of people, including witches who have more experience on the craft than me, who might decide to ignore what I have to say based on that fact alone, stating that I’m not knowledgeable enough to give my opinion about this.

Here’s the kicker: I’m a ‘baby witch’, yes, but I’m also a twenty-six year old Venezuelan woman. I’m an adult. I’m Latina. I’m a Christian-raised Pagan,but I’m also a Latinoamerican woman over all other things including that. I grew up on this culture, these are my roots. It is because of this background than I’m writing this post today.

Looking through the “Paganism” and “Witchcraft” tags of this website, I’ve seen a few posts throwing indigenous deities and spirits’ names around on lists alongside deties of open cultures. Yes, you can know better by doing your own research and not going by what just a random Tumblr user wrote on one post (as I hope its the case with everyone on this website), but the fact that pagan beginners are still getting fed misinformation is still worrisome to me.

There’s nothing like reading a so-called expert putting Ixchen (Maya), Xolotl (Nahuatl) and Papa Legba (Vodou) on the same damn list as Norse, Hellenic and Kemetic deities and tagging it on the tags aimed at beginners who might not know better to truly ruin your morning. I’m not mentioning user names here: If you know then you know.

To quote @the-illuminated-witch on her very good post about Cultural Appropriation: 

“Cultural appropriation is a huge issue in modern witchcraft. When you have witches using white sage to “smudge” their altars, doing meditations to balance their chakras, and calling on Santa Muerte in spells, all without making any effort to understand the cultural roots of those practices, you have a serious problem.

When trying to understand cultural appropriation in witchcraft, it’s important to understand the difference between open and closed magic systems. An open system is one that is open to exchange with outsiders — both sharing ideas/practices and taking in new ones. In terms of religion, spirituality, and witchcraft, a completely open system has no restrictions on who can practice its teachings. A closed system is one that is isolated from outside influences — usually, there is some kind of restriction on who can practice within these systems.”

A counter-argument I’ve seen towards this when someone wants to appropiate indigenous deities and spirits is to use the “dead culture” argument: Extinct cultures are more eligible for use by modern people of all stirpes. It is a dead culture and dead religion. It would be one thing if some part of the culture or religion was still alive, being used by modern descendants, but the culture died out in its entirety and was replaced, right? They were all killed by colonization, they are ancient history now, right?

Example: “If white people are worshipping Egyptian deities now, then why can’t I worship [Insert Aborigen Deity Here]?”

To which I have two things to say:

Ancient Egypt’s culture was open and imperialistic, meaning they wanted their religion to be spread. This is why Kemetism is not Cultural Appropriation, despite what some misinformed people might tell you. Similar arguments can also be made for the Hellenic and the Norse branches of Paganism, both practiced by people who aren’t Greek/Norse.

Who are you to say which cultures are “dead” and which are not?

Religious practices such as Vodou and Santería certainly aren’t dead, not that it keeps some Tumblr users from adding Erzuli as a “goddess” on their Baby Witch post, something that actual Vodou practitioners have warned against.

Indigenous cultures such as the Maya and the Mapuche aren’t dead, despite what the goverment of their countries might tell you. The Mapuche in particular have a rich culture and not one, but two witchcraft branches (The Machi and the Kalku/Calcu). Both are closed pagan practices that the local Catholic Church has continuously failed to assimilate and erase, though sadly not for lack of trying:

“The missionaries who followed the Spanish conquistadors to America incorrectly interpreted the Mapuche beliefs regarding both wekufes and gualichos. They used the word wekufe as a synonym for ideas of the devil, demons, and other evil or diabolical forces. This has caused misunderstanding of the original symbolism and has changed the idea of wekufe right up to the present day, even amongst the Mapuche people.”

For context, the Wefuke are the Calcu’s equivalent of the Familiar, as well as reportedly having more in common with the Fae than with demons anyway.

This and other indigenous religions are Closed because it is wrong for foreigners to just come and take elements from marginalized groups whom are still fighting to survive and that they weren’t born into. To just approppiate those things would be like spitting in their faces, treating them and their culture like a commodity, a shiny thing, a unique thing to be used like paint to spruce up your life or be special.

I know some of you are allergic to the word “Privilege”, but on this situation there really ain’t a better word to explain it. You weren’t born here, you don’t know what it is like, you are only able to see the struggle from an outsider’s point of view.

If a belief or practice is part of a closed system, outsiders should not take part in it. And with how many practices there are out there which are open for people of all races, there is really no excuse for you to do it.

Why Colonization Is Not “Ancient History”

If you have kept reading all this so far, you are probably wondering “Ok, but what does Colonization has to do with any of this?”

The answer? Everything.

With the general context of culture appropriation out of the way, let me tell you about why the whole “dead culture” argument rubs me the wrong way: Here in Venezuela, we have a goddess called Santa Maria de la Onza, or Maria Lionza for short, whom’s idol statue I have been using to illustrate this little rant. If you happen to know any Spanish, you might recognize the name as a derivative of Santa Maria, aka the Virgin Mary, and you are mostly correct: Her true indigenous name is theorized to have been Yara.

And I say “theorized” because it is a subject of hot debate whether she was really ever called that or not: Her original name, the name by which she was adored and worshipped by our ancestors, might have been forever lost to history.

That’s the legacy of colonization for you: Our cultures were stolen from us, and what they couldn’t erase they instead tried to assimilate. Our ancestors were enslaved, their lands and homes stolen, their artwork and literary works destroyed: The Maya and the Aztec Empire were rich in written works of all kinds, ranging from poetry to history records to medicine, and the Spaniards burned 99% of it, on what is probably one of the most tragic examples of book burning in history and one that people rarely ever talk about. 

People couldn’t even worship their own gods or pass their knowledge of them to their children. That’s why Maria Lionza has such a Spanish Catholic-sounding name, and that’s why we can’t even be sure if Yara was her name or not: The Conquistadors couldn’t steal our goddess from us, so they stole her name instead. Catholics really have a thing with trying to assimilate indigenous goddesses with the Virgin Mary, as they tried to do the same with the Pachamama.

On witchy terms, I’d define Maria Lionza as both a deity and a land spirit: Most internet pages explaining her mention the Sorte mountain as her holy place, but it is more along the lines that she is the mountain. 

You’d think that, with Venezuela and other Latinoamerican countries no longer being colonies, we’d be able to worship our own deities including her, right?

As far as a lot of Catholics seem to think and act, apparently we are not.

The Catholics here like to go out of their way to shame us, to call us “cultists”, to ostracize us, with a general call to “refrain from those pagan beliefs” because they go against the Catholic principles. Yes, the goddess with the Catholic-sounding name, a name she happens to share with a Catholic deity, apparently goes “against Catholic principles”. You really can’t make this shit up. (Linked article is in Spanish)

This is just an act of colonization out of many, of not wanting to stop until the culture they want to destroy is gone. Don’t believe for a second that this is really their God’s will or anything like that, they are just trying to finish what years of enslavement and murder couldn’t. They might not be actively killing us anymore, but they still want us dead.

So no, colonization is not some thing that has long passed and now only exist on history textbooks: It is still happening to this day. It is by treating it as old history that they can keep doing it, and it is by pushing the narrative that our indigenous cultures are “dead cultures” that they try to erase our heritage.

Because we are not dead. We are still here, we are alive, we have survived and we’ll keep on surviving, and our gods and goddesses are not yours to take.

¡Chao! 🐈

[mithliya]

Hello! Can you suggest to read anything (article or books) on comphet? Long story, I slept with men, but I didn't ever felt attraction to them. I spend nearly decade 'fixing' myself, bc my first ever experience was sexual assault and then another and grooming. And then men I tried to date dropped me like hot potato telling everyone I'm frigid, which made me ashamed. They treated me like I am defected, hinting I am mentally ill. For not acting like what women in porn act at damn age of 16 bc from watching porn they insisted they know on women biology! I did not have any sex-ed anywhere so I legit knew nothing on my own biology. I did not know I am not experiencing sexual attraction bc I did not know how it works! Just these men telling me I'm not like other women. Not passionate. Women just so happy insisted I am frigid bc of the assault trauma, but I can train myself with practice. And that it's natural state to date men and my mental health issues would heal etc. Include some threats of godly punishments. I had more horrible exp, and I only now begin to realize that while yes majority of my exp were forced and later brain repeating trauma in hopes to fix it with repeating, it was also traumatic bc I can't feel a shred of attraction to men. I was madly trying to date at least any men with 'oh maybe I will not be revolted with him, or with him, or with him, bc I need to fix myself!!! I can't live being that way!' Like, honestly, mostly anything beyond a chaste kiss on the lips revolted me, but I kept making myself endure it over and over in hopes that I will 'get used to it'. Bc I was told how I react is abnormal. I froze 99% of time and could not tell 'no' or 'stop'. I was terrified when I felt that revolt first time from a kiss with guy, bc I was expecting first kiss as the dream exp, but first one was assault from drunk adult on my 15yo self, and then second was willing, but revolt I felt was extreme!! But all media and culture told me it would be the most magical exp! And everyone around acted that way too! My life was crushed and I had no idea how to live with it. And I did not tell anyone for years, being ashamed of my 'defect', just obsessively fixing it. And when I did told, women my age or older told me it will be ok once I meet the right guy/ I can just get used to it. My health, life, education, everything suffered from the cptsd I developed. I mean, now I have no idea how I was able to do it, bc no pressure can make me repeat any of it. But I was so ashamed of being frigid. And was sure it destines me to die alone. I legit was sure I am abominated defected freak and later started to act that part. It took some horrible rape for me to stop and go 'ok I will be freak, I will die alone, I will not leave the house actually at all, bc I can't take it anymore' and only then I was able to stay safe of assault and abuse. It took me many years of therapy before I stopped being dissociated from my body enough to be aware I have attraction to women instead. And I honestly don't think I am worthy of dating bc I feel stained, unpure, and generally to ashamed with all these experiences. I mostly did that all myself to myself. Honestly my worst fear is people thinking I am bi, bc saying I'm bi would erase that decade of suffering of 'what is wrong with me' I asked for books or anything, bc it makes me feel a bit less crazy if i read on similar experiences? Some things I still struggle to put together and the level of pain I feel is extreme as you can imagine.

hey anon, i’m sorry you went through all of that. it sounds quite traumatic, some of it overlaps with my experience (not knowing what’s wrong with me, trying to “fix” my lack of attraction, being dissociated and disconnected from my feelings, not feeling the way other women felt about men)

i honestly don’t know any resources that would help you. around a decade ago, i stumbled across the term “comphet” from other lesbians and they were mainly talking about it like.. ignoring your feelings because you think you must be attracted to men, even if there’s no evidence of that in your life. the more recent sources i’ve seen into comphet & more traditional sources are often moreso aligned with political lesbianism so i dont think it’s that helpful to any actual lesbians. i’ll instead reiterate the points that resonated with me back then:

1. having to dissociate to be with a man (can also be a sign of trauma)

2. choosing “crushes” on guys mostly to appeal to your friends or fit in

3. not being able to have sexual fantasies involving men (this does not include flashbacks or intrusive thoughts, but rather actual sexual fantasies)

4. sexual interactions with men feel forced & are unwanted

5. you are unable to envision a future with a man

6. mistaking feelings of anxiety or fear or nervousness for attraction to men (could be trauma-related, i advise to look back to before your trauma & analyse how you felt)

7. you felt the need to use substances to be able to get through sexual interactions with men

8. you have had to convince yourself that you somehow like a guy and practically choose to make yourself like him, whereas it comes naturally with women & is out of your control

9. you pretend to have certain feelings for men to appeal to others rather than genuinely having them

10. building on 9, playing up a romance with a man for public image purposes

11. struggling to relate to other women when they fawn about other guys

12. having beliefs that all other women find women attractive & think men are gross, but it’s just your obligation to be with a man anyways (so it’s not something you want, but something you HAVE to do)

i cant think of others but honestly what i generally recommend is to think through your life, & especially in your case think BEFORE the trauma. it’s tough because the trauma was at a young age, but it can muddy things as there are bisexual & even heterosexual women who become repulsed my men because of trauma. so think of your life before then, did you have feelings for guys? did you have male celeb crushes? or were they only female? don’t think of how you pretended for others, think of how you genuinely felt about it.

the things you said to me do not sound wanted and it sounds like you were afraid to speak up and would freeze in fear (a common trauma response). but again, it’s hard to know whether this trauma response is rooted in having a traumatic experience prior to this or if it is rooted in sexuality. don’t feel rushed to choose a label either, it took me several years before i felt confident enough to call myself a lesbian & it took a lot of introspection into my own life because like you, i was deeply dissociated and disconnected from myself (partially due to trauma & partially bc of pre-existing mental illness). being in such a state for prolonged periods can make it hard to understand your genuine feelings, but it’s possible.

also my recommendation is also to not look through comphet stuff online lol because nowadays people use it to even mean that they are attracted to guys & sometimes want to have sex with them, it’s unhelpful and might further confuse you. i wish i could share the stuff i read in the past about it but it’s all lost at this point 😭 good luck anon, take care of urself & take ur time figuring things out!!

[translations-by-aiimee]

Mistakenly Saving the Villain - Chapter 8

Original Title: 论救错反派的下场

Genres: Drama, Romance, Xianxia, Yaoi

This translation is the product of my limited knowledge of Chinese characters as I attempt to learn the language. If I have made any egregious mistakes, please let me know.

Chapter Index

Chapter 8 - Psychotherapy

Yue Wuhuan had a long history of attempted suicide. His mental state was extremely bad and he couldn't control his actions whenever he felt attacked, so his promise couldn't be trusted at all.

The Acacia Seal could prevent suicide, but it required the activation of the Divine Mind Pearl to prevent it, which would worsen Yue Wuhuan's mental state and he would no longer trust the treatment, which is the worst means of preventing suicide.

Song Qingshi didn't hesitate to drop the option of using the Acacia Seal. Other methods with similar effects were also used to torture enemies and weren't very different from the Acacia Seal. Song Qingshi also considered other methods of treating psychological pain, such as hypnosis or entering the sea of ​​consciousness to erase those unbearable memories, but hypnosis is easy to wake up from, and the pain would be more serious, and washing away the memories will hurt the spiritual consciousness and cause even more unhappiness. Being accepted by Xie Que at the age of eight, there were too many memories that need to be cleaned up. If you wash away 99% of them, he would become a fool. . .

Eliminating all the unsuitable options, the only suitable answer was modern psychology.

The subject that Song Qingshi was least good at was psychology. It's not because his test scores were bad, but psychology focuses on spiritual communication with the patient and analysis of the heart. He can't even solve his own social anxiety problem. He was clumsy and didn't know how to read expressions, so he only learned a little bit. How could he solve super difficult problems like Yue Wuhuan?

Top Student Song once again tasted the fear of being dominated by difficult questions and dreamt of failing the course.

He quickly took away all the things that could be used to kill himself in Yue Wuhuan's bedroom and used his spiritual consciousness to scan Yue Wuhuan's vital signs many times every day, lest something gets missed, until one day he found that Yue Wuhuan was staring blankly at the koi pond in a daze. Not knowing what to think, he had done everything in his power and yet this was still something way beyond his capabilities.

As a result, Song the unreliable psychiatrist was forced to go out of business. . .

Song Qingshi carefully organized a treatment plan, added calming medicine to the decoction Yue Wuhuan took, and used soul-soothing incense every night to help him sleep, which greatly reduced the frequency of him being awakened by nightmares. Then, after ruling out the inappropriate and impossible therapy techniques he knew little about, he finally decided to try Rational Emotive Therapy.

Rational Emotive Therapy is a cognitive therapy created by Doctor Ellis in the 1950s, which emphasizes the role of individual will and reason. Treatment starts with establishing a good working relationship with the patient and helping the patient build up their self-confidence. Then deny his wrong self-perception, and finally encourage him to obtain a correct self-perception and return to a normal life.

The theory seems quite simple, but it's hard as hell to impliment.

Song Qingshi’s best way to decompress was to study and solve problems. He racked his brains for a long time and finally found inspiration from the time he had been approached by a girl in the library. he could pick a very difficult book, pretend not to understand it, find Yue Wuhuan to ask about it, and after not getting the answer, naturally, invite him to accompany him to the library to find the answer, and then in the process of searching, guide him to feel the joy of knowledge, build self-confidence in the sanctuary of wisdom, and go to the sea of ​​bliss together.

There was once a girl who persistently hit on Song Qingshi. Every day, he encouraged her to study hard every day and taught her to do the study problems. Then the girl's grades improved significantly, and she was finally admitted to a key university as a graduate student. At the graduation ceremony, she was so moved that she cried. Yes, it is said that Song Qingshi cured her of her nymphomania.

Nymphomania is also a kind of mental illness, right?*

*(T/N: Nymphomania is the uncontrollable or excessive sexual desire in a woman.)

When Song Qingshi thought about this case of an accidental cure, he suddenly became a little more confident.

. . .

His original body was also a bookworm. There are tens of thousands of books in the Medicine King's Valley library, most of which were related to pharmaceutical toxins.

Song Qingshi was afraid of being seen as deliberately making things difficult, so he didn't dare to take any professional books. So, after sifting through books for a while, he finally found a book called "A Floating Life on the Jade Terrace" among the miscellaneous books in the corner.

This travelogue was written by Confucian cultivators thousands of years ago. It described a faraway paradise, with gorgeous rhetoric and obscure allusions. Song Qingshi had always valued science over literature so he was seriously lacking in the romance department. He had never studied poetry and songs, much less the allusions and metaphors in this world, so he felt like he was reading this piece through a veil of fog. It felt like a very stylized depiction of flowers, trees and other scenery.

Yue Wuhuan's medicinal bath treatment was over, and the residual medicine in his body had disappeared. He was currently recuperating, waiting for the future Six Meridian Rejuvenation medicated bath.

After confirming that Song Qingshi had no idea about his body, he put away his gaudy clothes and tied up all his hair with a green jade crown. It was neat and tidy, not even a single hint of mess, only willing to wear the simplest green robe for his clothes. The high neckline locked around his Adam's apple, barely any spring light hitting his body, just like a scrupulous purist. He refused to say more than a word at a time and refused to make one misstep. There was no emotion in his eyes. His face was as cold as frost. Every part of his body held an air of rejection.

Although Song Qingshi refused to call him a "slave" on the grounds that he wasn't used to it, he just lowered his head and respectfully answered "Yes." "Okay." And so on. . .

Song Qingshi held the book and quietly hid in the corner to observe for a long time. He was afraid of both Yue Wuhuan's disguised debauchery and his true indifference, and he was even more afraid of being rejected if he opened his mouth. He had to make a lot of mental preparations before he dared to go forward and speak.

Yue Wuhuan sat in a daze in the corner of the corridor, aware of the peeping eyes and he couldn't help but look up.

Song Qingshi smiled awkwardly and shuffled over. Taking a deep breath, convincing himself that he met Senior Yue Wuhuan in the library, then mustered up the courage, opened the book, handed it over and said, "I don't understand this passage. Can you explain it to me?"

Yue Wuhuan watched his actions carefully, feeling that it was getting increasingly harder to understand this person.

Song Qingshi rubbed his fingers and said nervously: "Of course, if you don't understand, we- we can. . ."

"Let me take a look." Yue Wuhuan took the book and skimmed a few lines. His expression was slightly stunned. Then he looked at Song Qingshi strangely, and explained to him, "The Jade Terrace refers to the Jade Terrace Realm. Legend has it that the Jade Terrace Immortal Emperor was best known for his beauty and often came down to earth in disguise to invite beautiful cultivators to share the pleasure of fish and water. This passage is a racy affair in which Confucian Immortal Emperor Hong Wen fantasizes about his encounter with the Jade Terrace Immortal Emperor, using scenery to write about things and objects as metaphors, where as 'soft jade flower pendant' refers to. . ."

The more Song Qingshi listened, the more confused he became. He had never read any jarring reading material in his life, so how did he manage to pick something like this on the first try? He came back to his senses and heard that Yue Wuhuan had already explained the majority of it, so he quickly took the book back and hid it behind him. Like a fire turned to ashes, shaken into the wind, pretending like nothing happened.

The two looked at each other speechlessly for what felt like half an hour.

He was obviously doing psychotherapy, but showing this jarring book to a patient who had extreme background knowledge on the matter, was a major blow.

Song Qingshi was annoyed and embarrassed. His ears were hot, he couldn't speak, he wanted to cry, but he couldn't cry. . .

Yue Wuhuan came to his senses first. He noticed his expression, sensed a misunderstanding, and comforted him: "Immortal Lord Hong Wen's writing style is relatively. . . well, most of his works describe landscape travel notes. This one is just an exception. Master, if you like this style, you can read his "Tales of the Sea Pearl House" "Secret Realm of a Thousand Mountains" or "Endless Sea", which will be slightly better. . ."

Song Qingshi nodded aggrievedly, expressing that he had noted it down.

The two continued to stare at each other silently and the atmosphere was extremely awkward.

Song Qingshi felt that he couldn't keep silent like this. He tried to find the bright spot in the scene of this mess, and chatted awkwardly: "What's the "Tales of the Sea Pearl House" about? I haven't heard it. It seems very interesting. Can you tell me about it?"

Yue Wuhuan was silent for a moment, not knowing how to describe it, so he recited the whole text with him.

Although Song Qingshi's poetic talent was lacking, he wasn't a fool. After listening, he understood that Immortal Lord Hong Wen was not a literary master, but a sour person who liked to use all kinds of beautiful words and difficult allusions to pile up texts, pretending to be brilliant, but in fact, it was empty and tedious trash reading.

Yue Wuhuan asked respectfully, "Is there anything else Master wants to hear?"

Song Qingshi suddenly felt something was wrong. He claimed to be smart and never forgot what he read, but he only read good texts, and they couldn’t be too long. He also had to read them carefully while memorizing them. Who would bother to memorize such rubbish texts? And remember it word for word? Know all the hidden metaphors? He thought of something unbelievable, and asked Yue Wuhuan cautiously: "Have you read a lot of books? Where did you read them?"

"When I was young, I was enlightened by my tutor, and Xie Que also read some." Yue Wuhuan thought that he was examining his past, and dared not hide it, so he replied honestly. "I mainly read them at Golden Phoenix Manor. I. . . Every time I served the venerable lord to his satisfaction, I begged him to allow me to enter the book collection to read books. Please rest assured, Master, Wuhuan knows that his status is humble, and he is only worthy of reading miscellaneous books, and wouldn't dare touch the immortal cultivation method."

Golden Phoenix Manor has a huge collection of books, and with a glimmer of hope, he wanted to find a way to escape through the books. Unfortunately, the rules of the manor were strict, and non-disciples weren't allowed to borrow books related to cultivation exercises, and could only read a variety of miscellaneous books. He also used his body to bribe the disciple who was in charge of the library in exchange for two low-level cultivation books. Unfortunately, at that time, most of his cultivation had been destroyed by the Acacia Seal. He had researched for a while but ultimately had no results.

The original owner of his body had seen the scale of Golden Phoenix Manor's library, which was many times larger than that of Medicine King's Valley. Even if it was just miscellaneous books, there were tens of thousands of options.

Song Qingshi asked anxiously: "Do you remember all those books? Can you recite them?"

Yue Wuhuan hesitated and said: "I only remember the books I have read, about ten thousand of them. If Master needs, I can read out. . ."

Song Qingshi gasped and his throat tightened. He forgot all the treatments. He quickly found all kinds of pens and inks and rulers, wrote, drew and copied all the sets of IQ test questions he had done, and then gave Yue Wuhuan to answer them.

Yue Wuhuan was at a loss when he first saw these weird graphic questions. After Song Qingshi taught him a few questions, he gradually got used to them and flowed through them, without stopping his hands, and soon handed in the paper.

Song Qingshi calculated the score and almost suffocated. He was fortunate to have joined the world's high-IQ club, but he barely passed the club's passing line. He knew that he was not a genius, so he made up for it by studying hard. However, the IQ test that Yue Wuhuan took casually had reached 162 points, which was on par with the historical record and put him well within the realm of being a super genius. Also, considering that he had a different worldview, his education had been different and he might not be good with these questions so his score could maybe even be higher. . .

Yue Wuhuan's past experiences had originally made him feel pit and intolerant, but now Song Qingshi was touched by the scales of the collapse and anger. Those bastards actually ruined a genius who was likely to enter the hall of science and change history to such an extent! What's the difference between that and giving Einstein to wild men for meat?

How wasteful! How unappreciative of something amazing! Wantonly destroying such a beautiful thing!

Song Qingshi was so angry that tears came down, and he couldn't think of words to swear so he kept repeating: "It's too much, it's too much, it's too much. . ."

Yue Wuhuan looked blankly at the tears in the corner of his eyes, not knowing why they were flowing.

Song Qingshi quickly wiped away the embarrassing tears, and told him very seriously: "Wuhuan, you're very smart."

"My lord, that doesn't make sense," Yue Wuhuan calmed down and regained his composure. He lowered his eyes slightly and thought with some amusement that no one would care whether he was smart or not, only how many kinds of tricks he could perform in bed. No one would care whether he reads or not, but only whether he can perform to their liking...

The corners of his mouth couldn't help but curl up sarcastically. Endless malice appeared in the hidden shadows of his eyes. This kind of intelligence would only make him suffer more soberly than others. "This is the immortal world where the weak are eaten by the strong beasts."

The author has something to say: Song Qingshi: I was super responsible back then! Every day, I urged the girl to write five big papers, which cured her nymphomania! It wasn't easy! I'm asking for praise!

PS: Yue Wuhuan has to do at least ten papers a day to be good, right?!

[maryellencarter]

So we still have multiple Lupin III stories in progress.

I don't know if I can bear to post any of them. I've already left almost all the Lupin servers I was in.

Not because I want to move on. I still love the show and the characters. I have more stories to tell. But...

...there just isn't a place in this fandom for me.

People can't even fucking acknowledge that they're being unwelcoming. They'll tell me to my face that they're biphobic and expect me to just be fine with that. They'll toss out general statements about how only homophobes could read a relationship as nonromantic and expect me to be okay with that too.

I've been as loud as I thought I could while being polite. It hasn't made a dent. So here's a different try:

If you say things like "Jigen isn't attracted to women", "any story with a Jigen girlfriend is a bad story", "Jigen doesn't have any chemistry with his onscreen girlfriends", "Jigen only has relationships with women because of compulsory heterosexuality" -- you are BIPHOBIC, and let me be clear in very small words:

THAT. IS. BAD!

It means YOU HATE ME!

So I do not want you reading ANY OF MY STORIES!

You don't deserve them! You don't deserve to enjoy good writing from someone you are ERASING and SILENCING and FORBIDDING FROM REPRESENTATION.

Furthermore:

If you're one of the 99% of the fandom who saw episode 5 of Lupin Zero and said anything like "This can only be read romantically", "Every queer fan is happy about this development", "It's good that they finally stopped lying to us":

you have hurt ME PERSONALLY. Which I said, loudly, multiple times, with explanations, and not ONE person came over and said "I didn't mean it that way" or "there's room for you".

(Two people tried to tell me I could still interpret the relationship as platonic. I appreciate the thought, but -- no, no I can't. I can't *share* that interpretation without having it overridden by arophobic well-meaning asshats who can't register that they're doing any harm by acting like they think I meant it as romantic, and that's already destroying me.)

So. If you think a platonic friendship, or a nonromantic sexual relationship, can't be the deepest relationship in a person's life --

-- if you think that making a queer relationship romantic is something that only homophobes can regret or be upset about --

-- if you think making any fictional relationship romantic makes it "more", deeper, more fulfilling, more meaningful --

then GO EAT A SACK OF BRICKS!

and also don't read my stories anymore.

because I was just that stupid, autistic, aromantic *loser* who thought a story that explicitly talked about the importance of friendship was going to be about

ACTUAL FRIENDSHIP

i thought i was seeing a part of myself that never, ever gets portrayed. there are no canon-media stories about friendship that's more important than romance. i dared to start *writing* about it.

and then i found out that not one solitary person in this fandom is capable of taking a minute from ASSIGNING their joy to everyone around them and realizing, hey, a queer person is saying they're NOT happy about this development, they're deeply distressed, they just lost what everyone else gained.

Nobody wants me here. Nobody wants *what I am* here. They're happy to read my writing, but only if they can *overwrite* me into the assumption of what Somebody Who Writes Things They Enjoy must be.

I haven't even been able to watch any Lupin, except for showing selected episodes to Kat, since this happened. I can't think about posting a new story without crying all over again. I'm not allowed to exist here, and I can't even yell loud enough to get anybody to acknowledge it.

I'm not somebody who nukes my fics. Even if these weren't all co-written, an archive is an archive, and everything I've posted on AO3 is still up there. But I genuinely do not know if I can share anything more with the people who make me feel like this.

[lazykcdoodler]

Thoughts on Louie and Della's Relationship + which of the triplets is my vote for Most Likely to hold any sort of longterm grudge against their mom (and why it would be Huey)

I was looking through the Della Duck tag in my blog, when I came across some discourse about the Della-Louie relationship dynamic that I reblogged a while back. I was reading thru the comments and saw someone's HC about how S3 Louie might still hold a small grudge against Della for stealing the Spear of Selene.

And I'm like, no?? If any of the kids in S3 and beyond would hold any sort of substantial grudge against Della for taking the Spear, it would obviously be Huey.

Wait, why did I think that-

Then because Huey's not explored enough, I had to take a step back and think about why I thought of him as the most likely candidate.

First, to work thru my thoughts on Louie and Della's relationship, and why he's less likely to hold a grudge against her in the long run. To start things off, he and Della already had their big clash and make up in the S2 finale. Remember this?

Their small arc in S2 did important things for their character development. That's not to say that they'll never argue again, or that they won't ever have problems. I can certainly see Louie using the Spear as ammunition for a future fight, if things came to that. But Louie and Della have other traits in common, aside from sharp scheminess and their tendency to think that they're the smartest people in any room.

Louie and Della are communicators. Yes, they're both sly and manipulative. But their success in that department comes from their ability to understand people. Dewey might've inherited Della's impulsiveness and natural charisma- but his inclination toward dramatics, his need to be well liked by others, and his desire to stand out among his family and peers, all mean that Dewey is more likely than Louie (but not Huey) to keep secrets and his personal feelings quiet. Della and Louie? Much less so.

It took Louie less than a year to voice his insecurities about his capabilities as an adventurer to Huey. When their mom came back to the Manor, Louie voiced his personal concerns in the very same episode. Louie is a crier. He complains a lot. He's an excellent orator. By far, Louie is the easiest triplet to read as a character, because his thoughts and his intentions are made known to the audience very quickly.

On Della's side of the equation, it's strongly implied throughout the series that she served as the emotional translator between Donald and Scrooge. Don't get me wrong; Scrooge and Donald love each other very much, and they understand each other in a way that very few others do. But when wires get crossed and either of them clam up on their hurt feelings (or fight about other things to avoid the elephant in the room), Della comes in to mediate. She voices whatever the other person won't say out loud. But that deserves its own post.

Regardless of any trouble between Louie and Della, I'm sure of three things. 1) Della and Louie love and care about each other, 2) Della is trying her hardest, Louie doesn't like getting into fights, and he admires passion as a trait in other people, and 3) in spite of everything- despite how agreeable Huey is, or how Dewey's such a momma's boy- out of the boys, Della's relationship with Louie is probably the healthiest in the long run. When it comes to his feelings, Louie is the most emotionally honest triplet. If he beats around the bush, it won't be for long.

While Dewey and Della ride the same wavelength (which causes its own problems), she grounded Louie in Timephoon and said those infamous words because she's been in Louie's place before. She knows what scheming and selfishness got her and her family, and she doesn't want Louie to do the same thing. Because she knows she was harsh- and she knows she might've been too harsh, since she just began learning how to be an authority figure- Della is probably less confident with her ability to handle Louie properly. Which means she's more likely to go to Donald for help with Louie's issues, far more often than she might for Dewey and Huey. Louie will always let Della know where she stands with him. And while she won't take his shit, Della will listen and reciprocate his emotional honesty with her own.

Huey is not good at emotional honesty. Don't get me wrong, he's great at helping other people. But unlike Louie, Huey is as emotionally transparent with his insecurities as a steel bear trap.

So. Why Huey? As I mentioned above, he and Della have stuff in common. They enjoy video games and exploring. They're both outdoorsy. Della is giving this her best shot, and Huey's a kind kid. They get along fine, so obviously things must be fine. Right?

Rrriiiigggghhhhtttt. So, why do I think that Huey's the most likely of the triplets to have any residual resentment toward Della for taking the Spear?

Dewey admired Donald's commitment to his family, but he had to learn to respect him. Louie respected Donald's passion and work ethic, but he had to learn to admire him. Huey never had to learn any of that; Donald has held Huey's respect and admiration from Day 1.

Huey's uncle has a terrible temper. He's easily misunderstood by others. He's the hardest worker on the planet, but he's often underappreciated. Huey can relate. This intrinsic understanding is the root of Huey's longstanding admiration and respect for Donald's character and Donald's efforts. Despite their pre-series financial insecurities, Donald successfully raised three boys on his own while providing them with a relatively middle class lifestyle. Despite everything, Donald is rich in the love of his family and friends.

When it comes to Donald's difficulties with public society, out of his brothers, Huey is the most empathetic to their uncle's plight. He might not be a father of three, but Huey holds the best understanding of the responsibilities that Donald undertook on their behalf.

And therein lies the rub.

Huey Duck is the Responsible One. He works hard, takes his duties as the eldest triplet very seriously, and helps Donald wherever he can. Whether by serving as a vocal translator during a bank transaction, taking charge of his siblings when their uncle is away, or speaking in Donald's defense when his brothers call him boring or lame, Huey tries to makes things easier.

Della probably did some of those things for Donald when they were younger, and vice versa. I'm 99 percent sure that Donald has been teaching her how to AdultTM since she got back from the Moon.

(Because her impulsiveness got her stranded for 10 years).

Huey and Della love each other. They get along great. They have plenty in common. But Huey Duck is by-the-book, and naturally inclined toward hard work- just like his Uncle Donald. Della ripped up the book, took a shortcut, and had to learn to become hardworking the hard way. Huey Duck is the Responsible One. Della had to take a crash course in becoming a Responsible Authority Figure after Louie's scheming almost erased the family from history.

There are many reasons to admire Donald, but his ability to wrangle the three of them is probably near the top of Huey's list. If Donald wasn't responsible before the SOS Incident, he certainly learned to be. Huey has his own lifetime of trouble dealing with Louie's cons, Dewey's impulsiveness, and their collective recklessness and disregard for Huey's work and Huey's passions. They're difficult and infuriating, but Huey tries. And whenever Huey tries, his respect for Donald probably rises. Because Donald isn't their sibling- he's their uncle, their guardian, their first parent since the day the triplets hatched. While the triplets probably had honorary family in their lives long before they met Scrooge (apparently, Mouseton and Duckburg are very close to each other), Donald was HDL's only parent for 10 years.

Because Huey's mom was reckless, and got stranded on the Moon.

At least Huey knows where Louie and Dewey got it from. (It's bad enough, coming from them).

But Huey Duck is the oldest. He needs to be a figure of strength and capability. He needs to be a leader, needs to provide support, needs to be a good role model. His family relies on him for that sort of thing. Mom's been through a lot. Uncle Donald has been through a lot. Huey spent ten years watching his uncle go through a lot. Huey needs to set an example. He's the oldest- which means he needs to extend a hand, make an effort, and bury any proverbial hatchet even if it kills him a little.

(Huey wants things to run smoothly. Huey doesn't want to be a burden for others. Canonically, Huey locks away a lot of his own problems and internal anxieties...until his control slips. Huey hates it when that happens).

Let the record show that I love Della Duck. She's one of my favourite characters. I love how hard she tries, and she's come amazingly far. I'm sure Huey appreciates her efforts.

I'm not saying that canon Huey holds a grudge, or that he secretly resents his mom. I just think that out of all the triplets, he's who I'd pick as the most likely to do so. And unlike Louie and Dewey, Huey knows how to hide certain thoughts and feelings successfully. Huey can be anxious, but he can't be mean (he's already weird and nerdy, he can't afford to be mean). Huey has spent his entire life honing his control over his less...socially acceptable emotions. (Hello, Duke). If Huey has grudges about Della and the Spear or anyone and anything else, I have faith in his ability to hide those negative thoughts for a long, long time.

Until he can't.

[vanilla-bean-buttercream]

A quick guide on coming to terms with making a mistake and learning from it, by someone who has been walking this road for a long time:

Alright, you did something wrong and someone called you out. That doesn’t feel great. Right now, you’re feeling shame and anger, especially if it’s public. Now your mistake is out there for the world to judge, which is traumatizing at worst and scary at best, especially with rampant cancel culture. I get it. However, there’s something you can do to make the situation easier on yourself.

1. Be responsive, not reactive.

Reactive - speaking first and thinking later. It’s the need to be cold and cutting to turn the situation away from you as quickly as possible. Sometimes it looks like a good response but after some reflection, it’s not.

Responsive - thinking first and speaking later. Process what’s happened. Research. Get all your bad feelings out privately and come back to the situation with logic instead of emotion.

You do not need to address the criticism right away. I hate when I see posts like “wow they took two days to respond they must not care at all” and that’s just not it chief. This is not a life or death situation, it just feels like one because our anxious brains can’t tell the difference.

You have time. Use it. Log off social media if you have to. Take time to process how you feel and then come back. Which brings me to my second point.

2. Do not vent about how the mistake makes you feel publically.

So many times I see people venting online about how they feel about being called out. Your feelings are valid, yes, but they are not an excuse to behave the way you are. Valid just means you’re allowed to feel that way. Feel it, embrace it, but don’t do so out in the open. That’s painting a target on your back for this situation to get worse. Find a friend you can vent to. Not someone who is going to side with you, just someone to vent to. Get all those nasty feelings out on the table. Feel listened to, not coddled.

The other problem with speaking online is: strangers who stan you are going to take your side and enable your bad behavior. I’ve had this personally happen to me. They come with feelings instead of logic, not liking that you’re being “attacked” for doing something wrong and turning their aggression toward those who called you out for the mistake. This helps nobody, least of all you. And at the end of the day, it makes people afraid to speak up when they see something wrong in fear of getting backlash, which is not great either.

3. Accept you did something wrong, and that’s okay.

You never stop learning. There is no degree for graduating from the University of Unproblematic Behavior because it doesn’t exist. Even when you are in your 70s, rules are going to be changing, just like terminology. Something that was progressive in the 2020s isn’t going to look progressive in the 2030s. 

Despite what people think, no one has their life together in their 20s. Or their 30s. Or their 40s. There is no “and they lived happily ever after” because your story doesn’t end when you learn one lesson like in the fairytales. So, you’re going to keep making mistakes. What’s more important is you learn from them just like in the stories and keep going.

4. Accept that people are going to hate you for making a mistake.

This does not mean it’s right for someone to harass another person for making a mistake, but moral superiority never governs wisely. You cannot change how others respond to you. You can only control how you respond to them. Delete any ask you get shaming you for making a mistake, especially if it’s anonymous. If you have to, turn off anonymous messages. That only gives shamers more power.

[And real quick, I’d like to tell you the difference between a shamer and a teacher because sometimes people don’t know the difference.

Shamer - someone who just yells “you’re trash; everyone look I found trash” and that’s it. No reference on how to improve. No other helpful advice. Just a judgment of character and nothing more. I’ve seen shamers use the excuse “it’s not my job to educate people” and they’re half right. I know what it’s like to correct different people over and over and over again. I’m a preschool teacher. However, if I sit a kid in the corner and don’t explain why they’re there and how to fix it, the behavior is going to keep repeating 99% of the time. Shaming fixes nothing; it just feels like you’re doing something.

Teacher - someone who tells you you’re wrong, then gives you the right answer. This person says “you messed up, and here’s why.” It doesn’t always coddle your feelings, but it will always have a few words to guide you in the right direction. People who are teaching intend for you to get better. They care about you and your existence in this world, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Teaching doesn’t always fix the problem, as you can speak a lesson at someone and have them dismiss everything anyway, but it’s at least trying to help.]

5. Don’t say “sorry” and call that an apology.

A “sorry” and nothing more is a bandaid on a splinter at best and duct tape on a crack in a dam at worst. I’ve been around enough people who think “sorry” is the solution to fixing a problem, and it’s not. It’s really not. In fact, I’ve grown to hate the word. It feels dismissive and “I just want the problem to go away and for you to shut up.”

In fact, there are other ways you can apologize besides saying sorry that are actually helpful:

Reblogging your bad take with a reply acknowledging you did wrong

Linking to a post that helps those you’ve hurt

Promoting the idea that you’re willing to do better

Donating to a charity organization that helps those you’ve hurt

6. Don’t expect brownie points for owning up to your mistake.

This one’s the hardest pill for some people to swallow. You can do everything in your power to fix your mistake, but that doesn’t automatically make you free of it or better than it. Remember, apologizing is acknowledging you’re willing to do better, not that it never happened. 

Remember the phrase “Yes, I did this, but I’m working on being better.”

That phrase is one of the best ones you can use in your defense. It’s not dismissing it happened and erasing history. It’s pointing to the history and saying “Yeah, I did that, and I’m growing because I realized it was wrong.” Calling out your own bad behavior encourages others to look at you with a more sympathetic lens.

7. Keep learning. Keep making mistakes.

It’s so easy to pull back from everything after you’ve made a mistake and not want to try anymore. Like I said, it can be traumatizing, but I implore you to do everything in your power to not pull back completely once stuff hits the fan.

When I was called out publically, I overcompensated and went the complete other direction, brushing my hands completely of what I was called out on. That’s not great either. I made a mistake when I made a mistake; it’s that easy. 

Realize that even though you’re fixing this mistake, you’re going to make more. That’s okay. Keep learning, keep problem-solving, keep listening. It’s so hard to do at the start, but once you get the hang of it, it gets easier.

-

I don’t know if this guide is actually going to help anyone, but it’s been spinning a lot in my brain since last month, and I know if I keep seeing it on my blog, I’m going to keep remembering it. Just know this is not a one-size-fits-all solution either, but as I said, a guide on how I do it. 

Thank you all for reading this far.

[starlit-trickster]

the things iori does regarding kyo drives me insane.

follow him around everywhere to threaten his life and challenge him to a fight? ok weirdo. and kyo just treats this as a minor inconvenient. it’s been more than 20 years asshole, the bastard’s still alive

no matter how many times iori says he’ll kill kyo. he won’t do it. he can’t do it. the moon would be lonely in the sky without the sun

kyo is the one consistent thing in his life that he actively pursues. he has a life outside of that, with being in a band and all, but kyo is the one who gets him to make drastic decisions. his life is short due to the orochi curse and he spends a good amount of that time chasing after kyo.

going after him, that thrill of fighting against him regardless of their family rivalry, kyo feels like a beacon of hope within iori’s lonely life.

when orochi is sealed away and kyo is taken by nests, iori is the one to look for him. not his family or friends, his rival. and iori sure does find him! multiple of him. with hundreds and thousands of clones slaughtered you’d think his “murder kyo” quota would be satisfied but no. he only wants the original.

I DUNNO WHY BUT THAT JUST STICKS OUT TO ME

and when you read his team story for 99? it’s....intense. he sounds desperate.

nests is probably my favorite arc 2 of my 3 kof ocs are products of nests but that’s besides the point

cut to ash arc and all the stuff that happens there. chizuru’s treasure gets taken followed by iori’s. meanwhile kyo’s just angry about everything. Just angry. probably repressing his feelings but that’s a rant for another day

when ash erases himself from existence and the treasures are able to be taken back, iori has the option not to. and by all means not having the yasakani magatama is a good thing. he wouldn’t have purple flames, he wouldn’t have to deal with the orochi curse, wouldn’t have to enter the riot of the blood, he wouldn’t have his life cut short-

iori could have lived a normal life by not taking back the magatama.

and yet. he reclaimed his flames. because without them he didn’t feel equal to kyo.

which drives me crazy because he is still on par with him! he reworked his entire kit to work without fire. and, if anything, i think his moveset without flames is more brutal!

the man could’ve put everything behind him: the yasakani, orochi, the kusanagi. and he didn’t. the first thing he does after getting his flames back is challenge kyo.

i still gotta think more for the amplified specters arc since there isn’t a lot to be said

though there is that interaction iori has with tung fu rue

Tung: Oh, such a menacing tone! Your sins are deep... Is that boy causing you to act this way? Iori: This has nothing to do with you... I'm gonna kill him. Get in my way and I'll kill you where you stand! Tung: Hm... You actually enjoy this kind of situation, don't you? And that's why you haven't killed him. Am I wrong? Iori: Hmph... What a bunch of crap.

honestly i think this dialogue speaks for itself

iori lives a lonely life yet kyo is always there. i’m trying to think of what to say to wrap this all up but nothing’s coming to me. there’s definitely something i forgot to say, i just don’t remember what it is right now.

kyo and iori’s relationship fascinates me so much it’s unbelievable

[bagadew]

The Great Ace Attorney Playthrough: The Adventure of the Great Departure (Part 3)

Last Time: We finally found Miss Brett, the English woman who’s present had been erased from the scene of the crime, and dragged her ass to court only to discover that she was a Massively Racist Bitch in a swan hat. After a lot of back and forth it became clear that Dr Watson Wilson actually died of poisoning, and that Miss Brett took advantage of the fact Japan currently doesn’t do autopsy reports to shoot his corpse in the chest and frame me (Ryunosuke) for the murder. Fortunately for us Hosonaga took the bottle from the crime scene, and after needlessly translating Miss Brett for the last hour (and presumably filtering out a lot of questionable content) was only to happy to produce it for the court. Unfortunately for us the poison wasn’t in the bottle, so it’s up to a lady in pink to save the day!

I’m going to roundhouse kick Auchi

I’m liking how everyone else in this room is just as done with Auchi as I am

Our saviour Ryunosuke, that’s who

Oh, that’s not a glass

Is it about poisons?

It is!

Ok so I’m pretty sure that Curare is incredibly powerful and fast acting poison (which lines up with what we know). Unfortunately I think it needs to be injected but I might be mixing it up with something else.

Susato’s actually given me the report now, which is probably a much more sensible way of getting information (rather than me trying to remember what I’ve picked up from Agatha Christie novels), and unfortunately it looks like I remembered correctly about it needing to be injected.

(Side note: how alarming is it that I’ve retained this much knowledge on poisons? I feel the need to explain that I’ve been reading and listening to audio dramatisation of Agatha Christie novels since I was about three, but I feel like that makes it worse)

What is curious though is it’s potential use as an anaesthetic. Given that Dr Wilson had just had a tooth removed with anaesthetic I wonder if there’s a connection there?

I’m not sure what it could be though, unless it turns out Miss Brett Weekend at Berniesed his corpse all the over way from the clinic.

GET HER ASS RYUNOSUKE!!!

Actually wait...

GET HER ASS JUDGE!!!

Auchi if we were to run this courtroom on things you know about we’d be running a kindergarten.

Auchi, you’d never even heard of Curare until I told you about it, be quiet while the grownups are talking.

Yeah, Curare is not a nice poison.

I’m not going to post the full explanation here, but wow, Kazuma’s really going all out with his description!

Also it looks like I misunderstood about it needing to be injected. Everyone’s saying that it can just be swallowed, which I guess that makes sense given how deadly it is.

Miss Brett’s being a bitch again (but what else is new) and Kazuma’s taking none of your shit and telling her that the feeling’s mutual. (Something I would have screenshot, but I was too busy calling Kazuma a legend to press the little square button.)

I knew it, it was only in the glass.

Yeah, now try it again from the glass you took.

Don’t worry Ryunosuke, I got this!

It’s ok Kazuma! Believe in me (Ryunosuke) and our beautiful friendship!

It astounds me too Kazuma, but for once I’m on to something!

Kazuma, please stop saying foreboding things, I need you to survive the next case and you’re already not being helped by the fact that you’re so much better than me. You’re so good you kind of render me, the protagonist, a little bit obsolete in fact.

PENALISED!

I guess I was wrong then! That bottle does somehow contain poison.

Yes Kuzuma, because I’m going to be penalised otherwise!

OH FUCK I’VE GOT IT!!!

I UNDERSTOOD CORRECTLY THE FIRST TIME!!!

IT DOES NEED TO BE PUT INTO THE BLOODSTREAM!!!

AND THE DOCTOR HAD A GAPING WOUND IN HIS MOUTH!!!

WHICH MISS JEZAILLE BRETT ADMITTED SHE KNEW ABOUT!!!

It’s finally time!

Let’s get her!

He’s got it!

GET HER ASS RYUNOSUKE!!!

She’s cracking!

Is it hatred Ryunosuke?

Ah no, my mistake - it’s lawyer rage conviction!

I know I’ve said this a lot but...

GET HER ASS RYUNOSUKE!!!!!!!!!!

HE DID THE THING!!!!!!!!

WE’RE USING HER OWN WORDS AGAINST HER

AND IT FEELS SO GOOD!

Oh good... she’s started laughing

Oh no. We’ve set things into motion haven’t we.

Kazuma, I can’t stress enough how important it is for you to take care of yourself in the case to come.

SHE’S DESTROYING THE EVIDENCE!

You can’t do that!

Oh who am I kidding, this lady’s been dancing on privilege since she walked in.

Oh Ryunosuke I think she might have done...

I knew she felt like an end of game villain!

Auchi’s about to catch these hands!

Kazuma’s telling us to step into our mind palace.

‘Is Kazuma right’, he thinks, as he remembers the blood on the plate.

I don’t know Ryunosuke? Is water wet?

You got it Kazuma!

I mean to be fair it did only just happen.

DID HE STEAL THE PLATE?!?

YES HOSONAGA!!!

YOU BEAUTIFUL GENIUS!!!

I do genuinely love these moments in Ace Attorney though. When everyone works as one to get some untouchable big fry. There’s something very rewarding about the whole thing.

Shit... she swapped it out...

Fortunately my man Hosonaga has everyone’s plates though!

Cheer up Ryunosuke, look, we have steak blood at least. And I’m sure Hosonaga’ll bring us the rest of the plates if we ask nicely. Especially after Miss Brett broke his bottle.

Miss Brett’s now making racist statements again.

But at least I’ve been given the steak to examine!

Bless you Kazuma

Ryunosuke what short of cats have you been looking at!

Get his ass (affectionately) Kazuma!

THE STOLEN COIN!!!

I KNEW SHE SWAPPED THEM!!!

(Also it looks like I was right about it being stolen by Nosa)

Didn’t know that was there, did you Miss Brett?

Now, dig your own grave with your words!

Now it’s time to dob Nosa in it. Sorry Nosa but you were kind of a jerk. Look on the bright side though, now’s your chance to redeem yourself in my eyes, like Hosonaga has!

Old man Korekuna’s armed and pissed!

Nosa I’m sorry. It’s best to throw yourself on his mercy now before I rile him up more. Use your baby to calm him if you must.

NICE CATCH NOSA!

I take everything back, Nosa your complete safe, old man Korekuna has no idea how to use that thing.

Ah, I forgot he was proficient in vase!

(Which I forgot to screenshot)

Never mind Nosa, you’re still screwed!

That is the right face to pull (Nosa not Hosonaga):

Look at him in the corner there. I feel bad now.

It was theft wasn’t it?

...oh Nosa what have you done?

(Kept food on his kids plate probably, given how he can’t afford childcare)

Nosa’s now accusing his infant son of being the mastermind... Sure Nosa, everyone’s bying that.

Either accusing a baby is a panic response, or I don’t need to feel so bad anymore.

Hosonaga how did you not immediately catch this guy?

HE SLIPPED THE COIN UNDER THE STEAK SO IT WOULDN’T BE FOUND WHEN HE WAS SEARCHED!

MISS BRETT’S TRYING TO WEASLE HER WAY OUT TO LUNCH AGAIN!

Oh thank god!

I thought for one terrible second we were letting her go.

(I’ve say it before and I’ll probably say it again, this is an intense first case)

Yes! ‘Her’ steak had a big bite mark in it!

But I thought and English Lady like yourself wouldn’t eat steak that way Miss Brett?

Of course, there’s a difference between the two photos.

I knew I could see the glass in the first one, which means it was taken before Miss Brett rearranged the table!

Oh, now Nosa’s saying that he switched the plates.

I must admit I didn’t expect that, I thought it was something Miss Brett did to remove the bloody evidence.

She’s cracking!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

YEEEEAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!

IT WAS ALIVE!!!

BABIES!!!

BABIES EVERYWHERE!

Oh god... what’s she planning.

Your honour, she’s already poisoned one person, do you want to be next?

Kiss my ass Miss Brett

Get used to it Auchi.

HAHA!

DAMN KAZUMA

(Editor Note: I am very upset by how poorly my screenshots conveyed Kazuma destroying Auchi’s hairdo with his sword)

Also, were you always hot Kazuma?

Wait no - I can’t be thinking that. The bar for fictional men I like is the floor and if I want Kazuma to continue to live a long, happy, non morally ambiguous life, I need him to not fall into the category of ‘fictional men I find hot’.

For some reason, I picture it being blue and spiky your honour

Wait what’s this about Kazuma having a mission?

Oh fucking hell, I’ve doomed you to moral ambiguity haven’t I Kazuma?

Thank you for the backhanded compliment your honour!

Ooh, petals rather than confetti, that’s a nice touch!

We did it!!!

And most importantly of all, we’re being praised by Kazuma!

Susato! Our saviour! Has turned up, along with her father: the innocent Professor Mikotoba, who I would like to thank and to reiterate that he could never kill anyone!

Seriously though, what was the relationship between him an Dr Wilson?

Ah ok, I simply just had to click on to find out.

So apparently the two of them worked together in the same hospital in London for a while.

OH MY GOD KAZUMA’S TAKING THE SWORD WITH HIM TO GREAT BRITAIN!!!

YES KAZUMA! F THEM UP!!!

(Also if your journey tragically ends in the customs office there’s a non-dead-Kazuma reason for me to go in your place.)

Oh fuck, she got off didn’t she...

I knew it

Of fucking course...

So basically she’s going to get off with a slap on the wrist. That’s what I’m getting from all of this.

Yep

Ah, but what you’ve failed to understand Kazuma is that the British Government and 99% of those people in power, are hypocritical dirtbags who will change the rules to suit them.

OK TEAM LETS GO GET HER ASS!!!

FINAL BOSS! FINAL BOSS!

Now on to the party with Kazuma!

And also Hosonaga apparently. Who is clinging onto his waiter job even though the case he was investigating is solved. Look like Ryunosuke was right about money being tight.

Hosonaga, do you not have a job anymore?

Were your superiors upset when you said ‘fuck the government’ and bought Miss Brett to us? Or was it your one man forensics team shtick that upsets them?

Oh yeah, we never did find that out did we?

Kazuma Asogi I forbid you from charging me with looking after your sister, of for that matter anything, incase something happens to you!

Fortunatly for us Hosonaga is here! Diving in-front of that Kazuma shaped plot bullet with promises of food!

Ryunosuke over here, taking the cases final moments to roast Hosonaga.

I think we’re even now Satoru, my second favorite character.

I don’t want to click to the next text box.

OH FUCK!

Oh wait, false alarm everyone!

I genuinely thought that the case was going to end with something like: but little did I realize that he never would.

Anyway that’s enough worrying about Kazuma! For now let’s enjoy the fact we’ve finished this bastard hard first case!

We’re moving on to Episode 2: The Adventure of the Unbreakable Speckled Band next!

[bokutosbubblebutt]

Chapter: Happiness || Teaser

——————

To be honest, it was really a miracle how you got there. You never expected that your parents would allow you to leave the house, to go outside, meet other people, start a life.

After never ending discussions, trying to find a compromise, they really said yes.

"We will try it a few months and if we are satisfied, if they can keep you safe, you can stay!"

You never felt more happy in your entire life. You finally could go outside, start a life, meet people, make finally friends and maybe even fall in love. Something you had dreamt about since you started reading.

Even though there was a high chance of being forced to go back to your place, the place that was supposed to keep you safe from every injury possible, you tried to make the best out of it. Even though there was a high chance of getting hurt and accidentally killing yourself, you tried your best to enjoy it.

Nervous but excited you were standing in front of your new teachers office, Mr. Aizawa. You already read about him in a superhero blog. He was the one, who could easily erase the quirks of his enemies and then capture them with his weapon. Pretty impressive, in your opinion. Simple but very effective.

It was really early in the morning. The classes usually start around 8:20 and it was 7:30 now. Already a bunch of people came across your way. You greeted everyone nicely and smiled at them but they all seemed to be in a hurry and stressed. Well, it was the first day of a new school year and taking care of such a big school with so many future pro heroes must be really complicated.

The school. Overwhelming! The campus was gigantic and had so many buildings, grounds and areas. You barely ever left your house, so it happens that you even got overwhelmed by only visiting the shopping center sometimes. Such a big place with so many different individuals made you panic a bit, and since you weren't used to being surrounded by people, you may suffered from social anxiety but the excitement and your curiosity made you gladly forget about it.

Your only concern right now was that you just tried to not get lost in here.

The whole atmosphere was completely different than at home. Here, it made you feel free like living an exciting life full of many people and different activities. At home, it was like a constant feeling of not being yourself or more like not knowing yourself.

And it smelled different here. It smelled like something sweet and dangerous, but quite serious as well. The sweetness definitely came from a lady that walked past you a few minutes ago. You recognized her immediately by her hero costume. It was the pro hero Midnight. For some reasons you've always looked up to her. She just always did what she wanted, not caring about what others think or tell her, sometimes you wish you could be like her but no, not in your situation.

Nervously you stared at the ceiling, trying to count the blue and white stripes on the metallic plates and not taking care about the things that happened around you. The counting helped you focus on one thing and made you forget about your nervousness.

"You need to go to Mr. Aizawa as well, right?" a deep voice made you snap back to reality and loose your concentrated trance.

A tired looking boy with really dark circles under his eyes was staring at you, scanning your appearance. He looked pretty buff and intimidating at the first sight. His indigo hair was standing up in all directions and made him look really tall. Awkwardly he turned his body towards the door and back to you.

"No taking?" He asked again and stared confused at you. The boy tilted his head to the side and raised an eyebrow. Again his eyes scanned your body. Since you fiddled with your fingers the whole time, your hand caught his attention. A scar was going down from your middle finger to your wrist.

He had never seen you before. He would remember such a sick looking girl. You were really skinny and pale. You had completely grey eyes and light grey, almost white, hair, which stopped straight above your shoulders. Your whole appearance was ghost like and, to be honest, kinda sad. You looked so skinny, your cheekbones clearly defined, a big gap between your legs and like it would only take one little blow, probably just a little refreshing wind in the summer, to make you fly away. If you had a little bit more meat on your body, you would look prettier, he thought but that was just his opinion.

Perplexed you looked at him in shock, still not fully realizing what he just said to you. He's going to be the first person you ever had spoken to besides the people your parents hired and your online friends. He is the one, the first one.

"Uhm, no, I mean yes. I-, I am just nervous. Birfst, I mean first big day, you know."

you stuttered awkwardly and blushed in embarrassment. Amused the boy smirked and leaned back against the wall.

Great, the first sentence and you immediately fucked up, you thought. He probably must now be thinking that you are stupid and not able to speak, great.

Again you were staring at the ceiling, counting how many stripes the pattern had to make you forget about what a nervous wreck you actually were right now and he was silently watching you. Again he was trying to remember the person who was standing in front of him, trying to find out if he had seen you before but such a sick and sad looking girl was someone, he definitely would remember.

After waiting some more minutes the door suddenly opened and a man with long black hair and eyes that looked like they would fall shut every second, was standing in the door frame. Mr. Aizawa.

"Come in" he said and walked back into the room.

The boy turned around and walked into the room as well. The office was really messy and many stacks of papers were laying around. It smelled like coffee in here and the morning sun heated up the air, making the little dust particles that were floating around able to see. It was this kind of mixture that gives you a headache if you stay in here for too long.

„You two are the only one who are going to transfer to Class 2-A." he explained and sat down at his desk, trying to find something.

Both Class 2-A? The boy must be one of your new classmates then, you thought. You just hoped that he's not one of those school bullies, who make fun of others, will steal your money and put you into the toilet like you already have read about in some books. 

„I already filled out your forms and put them together in your folder. The only thing you need to do, is designing your hero costume but I can't find the sheet for it right now. I'm gonna be right back. Please go trough it and check if we missed something" he handed you your folders and then went through another door.

Your folder was pretty thin if you compare it to the other one. Well, obviously because there was not much information about you so far. Only your stats like height, weight and birthday and of course a description of your quirk.

Quickly you read through everything and checked if there were any mistake and surprisingly there was one. Just a small one but still something you better don't forget.

Curious you were eyeing the other folder and tried to read the boys' stats. After he went to the next page, you finally could read some single words if his quirk description.

"Your quirk is brainwashing?" you suddenly asked and smiled at him in excitement. „How cool! You must be pretty powerful with that, hu?"

Shocked the boy looked at you because he didn't expected you to speak so loudly. He thought you were more shy and quiet, your appearance didn't matched how you talked.

„Uhm, not really." he answered and closed his folder.

„I think it's a pretty cool quirk. How does it work?" you asked the next question and turned your body towards his, grabbing the arm rests of your seat.

„If someone answers me I can activate it." he explained and put the folder back on the desk, still shocked and not knowing how to act.

„But you can control when you activate it or not?"

He simply nodded and looked at you.

„My name is Y/N L/N but you can call me (Nickname). Nice to meet you!" you laughed with a big smile and offered your hand to shake it.

„I'm Hitoshi Shinsou, nice to meet you."

———————

So this is the first chapter of one of my stories I am currently writing on Wattpad

It’s called Chapter: happiness

If you liked the first chapter and are now interested in what’s going to happen next, here’s the link

[blossom-hwa]

the danceracha and 3racha working aus were so funny i wanted to request a vocalracha one but i have no idea where they could work 😭

God damn you guys really enjoy my lukewarm sense of humor??? Well I just pictured vocalracha working at a tutoring center and bitching about it so here we are! Hope you enjoy <3

3-year anniversary drabble game: send me an NCT/WAYV/Stray Kids/The Boyz member + a prompt (check out the post for ideas) and  I’ll write a drabble for you!

Half of this is based off of real experiences from when I used to tutor math god that was a TIME

~

Title: Tutoring Shenanigans

Pairing: no pairings, just vocalracha being dumb

Triggers: a lot of cursing

~

quick clarification:

seungman: seungmin

watch your foxing mouth: jeongin

~

watch your foxing mouth: seungmin

watch your foxing mouth: can you please take my shift this Saturday

seungman: no

seungman: the one time I get the weekend off in ages? I'm not going to bother teaching little gremlins math who the fuck do you think I am

watch your foxing mouth: I think you’re a little asshole who’s going to spend the entire weekend just working on homework like the nerd you are

seungman: see I'd say you were right

seungman: but I don’t have homework this weekend

seungman: I actually had other plans

watch your foxing mouth: like what

watch your foxing mouth: no one’s going to ask you on a date lmao

seungman: first of all fuck you

seungman: second of all I was going to drop by at work and maybe bring you a coffee because I'm nice

seungman: but not anymore

watch your foxing mouth: bullshit you never would’ve done that in the first place

seungman: you’re absolutely right but I'm also offended that you doubted me so quickly

watch your foxing mouth: when I asked you to get me water from chan’s cafe

watch your foxing mouth: you specifically asked changbin to fill the cup with ice

watch your foxing mouth: and then you brought the cup back

watch your foxing mouth: and told me to wait

watch your foxing mouth: what the fuck kind of impression do you think that makes?

seungman: that’s fair

seungman: but I'm still offended

watch your foxing mouth: feeling offended is part of your personality

seungman: you know me so well

watch your foxing mouth: which is how I know you’ll take my shift this weekend :)

seungman: you’re funny

watch your foxing mouth: SEUNGMIN PLEASE

watch your foxing mouth: I DON’T WANT TO DEAL WITH ASHLEY AND HER FUCKING BITCH ASS

watch your foxing mouth: SHE NEVER WORKS

seungman: suck it <3

watch your foxing mouth: I hate you

seungman: love you too <3

~

seungman: this small girl

seungman: walked into the center

seungman: and told me

seungman: tennis is not a fucking sport

watch your foxing mouth: I can’t believe I was getting drinks and missed that

watch your foxing mouth: what was her reasoning

seungman: ‘you don’t run in tennis’

seungman: huH?????????????????????

watch your foxing mouth: well we’ve established that these kids are rich little assholes

watch your foxing mouth: and have no brains 99% of the time

seungman: you’re right I should expect this

seungman: why do we work here again

watch your foxing mouth: rich kids = rich parents

watch your foxing mouth: rich parents = rich establishment

watch your foxing mouth: rich establishment = slightly higher than minimum wage pay

seungman: fuck you’re right

seungman: idk I feel like I'd be having more fun working at the cafe even if the pay’s worse

watch your foxing mouth: money or fun?

seungman: the ultimate question of life

watch your foxing mouth: fuck capitalism

seungman: you say that yet you’re slaving your ass off teaching basic math to kids who don’t want to learn for a salary that’s a third of what you could be earning as a private tutor

watch your foxing mouth: WELL IF I HAD A FUCKING CAR

seungman: you’d drive it into another tree

watch your foxing mouth: honestly fuck you I'm dumping your shitty americano into the storm drain

seungman: look you hit the tree not me

watch your foxing mouth: IT WASN’T EVEN THAT BAD THE BARK WAS SOFT AND THE CAR WAS FINE

seungman: allow me to repeat

seungman: you

seungman: hit

seungman: a

watch your foxing mouth: SHUT U P

seungman: fucking

watch your foxing mouth: QUIT 

seungman: t r e e 

seungman: IN A PARKING LOT

watch your foxing mouth: just dumped out your drink <3

seungman: you better be kidding me

seungman: you better be fucking kidding me

seungman: YANG JEONGIN

read by one at 4:49 pm

seungman: I'm transferring that bitch ashley to your table fuck you

~

watch your foxing mouth: why are you the one who always controls the music player

watch your foxing mouth: I want to play my tunes too asshole

seungman: no one can concentrate with your fucking trot shit playing in the background

watch your foxing mouth: and we can deal with your shitty ‘lo-fi comfortable beats’ or whatever the fuck is in your YouTube playlist?

seungman: if the parents are happy with it then we’re like. legally obligated to keep doing it

seungman: kevin would play strictly beyonce if he was in charge of the music

seungman: you would play shitty trot

watch your foxing mouth: my taste in music is not shitty thank you very very much

seungman: sangyeon would play like. classical music idk he’s an old man like that

seungman: and if we left it up to the kids wap would be playing all day every day

watch your foxing mouth: I hate it when you make sense

watch your foxing mouth: god damn just noticed all of the people working here are male

seungman: except yeji 

watch your foxing mouth: oh right except her

watch your foxing mouth: but also where is the female representation???????

seungman: they’re smarter than us

seungman: they’re either out of state for college

seungman: or they can actually drive

seungman: meaning they can afford to tutor privately

watch your foxing mouth: this is why men suck

watch your foxing mouth: we’re not smart enough to turn shit around

seungman: and we end up stuck catering to the whims of rich little assholes who aren’t going to learn jack shit anyway

watch your foxing mouth: sigh

seungman: sigh

watch your foxing mouth: ASHLEY IS HERE I’M NOT TAKING HER MY TABLE IS FULL

seungman: FUCK I HAVE A SPOT LEFT

seungman: OH FUCK YOU SANGYEON

watch your foxing mouth: suffer

seungman: my existence is pain

seungman: suddenly I have the burning desire to learn to drive

seungman: at least I wouldn’t hit trees in the parking lot 

watch your foxing mouth: see I know you’re trying to provoke me but I'm not going to give in because watching you deal with ashley is satisfying enough

~

watch your foxing mouth: my brain is fried

seungman: is this supposed to be news

watch your foxing mouth: honestly I'd be offended but I'm too tired to express it

watch your foxing mouth: I never knew teaching basic addition could be so tiring

seungman: why do tutors exist

seungman: why don’t teachers do their jobs

watch your foxing mouth: idk 

watch your foxing mouth: why do we have to do their jobs for them for far less pay

seungman: throwback to the time the owners kept forgetting to give us a raise even though we were the longest standing employees at this shitty center

watch your foxing mouth: don't fucking remind me

watch your foxing mouth: I'm just sitting in the cafe trying to erase all thoughts of ashley from my head

watch your foxing mouth: I wish sangyeon was here today

seungman: god yes that bitch ella is awful

seungman: why does she walk around like she owns the fucking place

watch your foxing mouth: bright ass lipstick and shit

watch your foxing mouth: like no bitch

watch your foxing mouth: I understand you do our schedules but I also understand you’re an asshole

seungman: sometimes I want to set this center on fire

watch your foxing mouth: afuckingmen

watch your foxing mouth: oh hey

watch your foxing mouth: oh fuck

seungman: ?

seungman: why do I hear sirens

seungman: and see smoke

seungman: jeongin

seungman: JEONGIN ANSWER ME YOU BETTER NOT FUCKING BE DEAD

watch your foxing mouth: calm your tits

watch your foxing mouth: didn’t know you cared that much about me

seungman: I don’t

seungman: who would I bitch about work to if you died

watch your foxing mouth: honestly fuck you

seungman: anyway what happened

watch your foxing mouth: jisung set the refrigerator on fire

watch your foxing mouth: it was glorious

seungman: you’re telling me jisung almost burnt this center down

seungman: b u t d i d n t ?

watch your foxing mouth: sadly

seungman: shame

seungman: would’ve loved to see that bitch ella burn

watch your foxing mouth: can’t all have what we want ig

seungman: wait give me a sec I'm clocking out I want to see this mess

watch your foxing mouth: come out quick chan looks like he’s going to cry

watch your foxing mouth: it’s hilarious

seungman: doesn’t he refer to you as his child?

watch your foxing mouth: what of it

seungman: idk

seungman: just if I talked about my parents like that I'd be six feet under by now

watch your foxing mouth: chan’s too soft for that

watch your foxing mouth: bet you he won’t even fire jisung after this

seungman: I know better than to take you up on that 

seungman: anyway where is he I want to take a picture

watch your foxing mouth: doesn’t he refer to you as one of his children too?

seungman: what of it?

watch your foxing mouth: you’re right you’re right let’s go watch him suffer

[ja-khajay]

2020-2021 Animation Watch(ed)list

I haven’t posted about animation in a while that I remember, and I know a lot of my followers are into it as much as me so I decided to make a list of the animated movies and series I watched on the past year or so, coupled with my short, spoilerless take on them. Enjoy!

Organized by

Things I saw for the first time

Things I rewatched

Under a cut for the sake of your dashboards! PS: I have not added any images yet. If you are interested in knowing more about the visuals of these movies, I might make an old fashion ask-prompted imageset list.

Part One: Things I saw for the first time

The Bear’s Famous Invasion of Sicily

Movie, 2019, Italian/French

9/10, a delightful little movie with amazing visuals. It feels like an animated picture book.

One of those “plot is in the title” media! I had never heard of this before but was heavily recommended it by my family members, who all loved it! It’s a sweet story, nothing groundbreaking but the unique colorful visual style alone makes it worth it.

The Castle of Cagliostro

Movie, 1979, Japanese

10/10. Reminded me of all the books i loved reading as a child

I assume its because it’s so old and the art style and themes are so different that it gets little to no love compared to other Ghibli movies, which is a shame! It’s fun with an endearing cast and as always, great animation and music

Mushishi

Series, 2006, Japanese

10/10 three episodes in I knew it was going to be my favorite series ever

One of the few things I’ve seen I’ll describe as life-changing. It’s absolutely lovely but never toots its own horn about it. Humble, calming, emotional and surprisingly mature. It’s pretty impossible to binge due to how intense the experience is. I just want to walk in the forest now...

FMA: Brotherhood

Series, 2009, Japanese

6/10 Dissapointing adaptation of a classic story

I read the manga for this when I was in middle school and remembered loving it. The animated version does an ok job of presenting the characters and worldbuilding and has some nice action scenes but overall looks really damn cheap and just. Not very good. Seeing I already knew most of the plot I did not have the element of discovery that made me marvel so much reading the original. It’s still a nice series but I really recommend reading it instead.

Code Lyoko (s1+2)

Series, 2003, french

3/10. 1.5 being for the opening song alone

This show sucks ass if I hadn’t been watching this with my bestie I would have dropped it two episodes in. The art style is ugly the stories are always the same and the first season has a (later removed thank fucking god) LITERAL “erase any consequences” button as a plot device in every episode. If you watch it for one thing let it be the nostalgia factor of early 00s Vidya Game Plot

The Legend of Hei

Movie, 2019, Chinese

7/10. Impressive visuals and a poor story

I finally watched this, peer pressured by the load of gifsets on my dashboard! It’s a sweet movie with really impressive animation, sometimes a bit too flashy for my taste (the action sequences go so ham they become not very readable...) but the story was just ok? The setting is barely explained and you are instead bombarded with vague epicspeech about powers and stuff that made me fondly remember Kingdom Hearts lol but that asides it’s a really good time! I need to watch more Chinese movies the few I know are just delightfully off the shits in how they approach action and I love that

Hunter x Hunter

Series, 1999, Japanese

9/10. Superior to the recent one!

I first got introduced to the series via the 2011 one. Comparatively, the 99 series focuses way less on action and way more on the characters, which I love because that fits my personal preferences! Despite mediocre filler episodes and some weird slight pointless plot changes, what it changes from the original manga doesn’t have much of an impact on the characters. The animation quality isn’t always consistent including a huge art style change for an arc (???) but it’s overall pretty nice. The series really shines in the last arc it adapts.

Oban Star-racers

Series, 2006, Japanese/french

9/10 a lovely surprise

This series is completly obscure despite having been created by people famous for their other series (Cowboy Bebop, Code Lyoko that i can name) and it’s a crime! It’s a kids show but without being stupid about it who tells the story of an inter-planetary race. If you liked that one scene in the star wars prequels you know what I mean. It’s got surprisingly nice animation for a TV series, and some truly great character design. The art style is a bit unique in a not for everyone sense, but I didn’t mind it much. It’s also THE most offensively 2000s series i’ve seen in terms of visuals. y2k kids assemble

The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon

Movie, 1963, japanese

8/10. Classic fairytale format with incredible visuals

Watched this for the art style because I know it inspired Samurai Jack, and it delievered! I dont’ have much to say about this one, it’s a very simply film but it’s sweet. For my pirates out there if you want to find it in good quality with english subtitles it’s VERY hard to find. If you just want to see the looks of it, it’s on Youtube with portugese subs.

We now enter the Gobelins Shorts Zone....!

My Friend Who Glows In The Dark

10/10 makes me cry each time

Pure delight...great animation writing everything. A little short about death and friendship but not in the way you imagine!

Colza

9/10

Visual treat...homely and nice :) not far from a 10 but a 9 because nothing about it is that groundbreaking

Sundown

9/10

If you’ve ever been ten minutes from failing a group project because of a single dude you will REALLY enjoy this. Loved the colors and personality

T’as vendu mes rollers?

10/10

It’s SUCH a sweet little short I loved that one so much

Dix-huit kilomètres trois

10/10

Surprisingly well written dialog. Visuals are great but the humanity of the characters carries this to another level

Un diable dans la poche

9/10

Amazing visuals and the most tense/creepy of Gobelin shorts i’ve ever seen. Chilling

La bestia

8/10

I had some issues with the pacing. Interesting story and visuals choices but I was not fond of the art style

Goodbye Robin

5/10

Confusing but predictable. Both at once??? Yes!

Le retour des vagues

6/10

Cool animation stuff but felt pretty pointless

                                                                ***

Part Two: Things I rewatched

Ruben Brandt: Collector

Movie, 2018, Hungarian

10/10. Underrated as hell

Watched this fully blind for the first time in an animated festival and rewatched it with friends. It’s a crime I never see anyone talking about it given the amount of whining I see about the lack of both adult animation and 2D movies? This film is a unique love letter to art in the form of a weird mix of charming crime story and psychological horror with amazing visuals. I recommend watching it blind and also buying it to show appreciation for how nice it is!!! WATCH THIS MOVIE...

Mononoke

Series, 2007, Japanese

10/10 Visual/storytelling masterpiece in the weird shit departement

If you can stomach intense stuff watch this. The visuals are incredibly unique and beautiful and under the jewel tones and art direction high takes it’s a really cool horror series. My only obstacle to enjoying it the first time I saw it was how dense it is - simply put, it’s so...culturally Japanese it’s not very accessible to me who doesn’t know anything about the culture? Watching it for the second time helped understanding the stories more! 

Corto Maltese in Siberia

Movie, 2002, french

9/10 but really close to ten. A great adaptation!

I’m a huge fan of the original comic so I entered this a biiiittttt suspicious it would suck but it was a really pleasant surprise! It has all the wonder and charm of the original and the animation was surprisingly good for the little budget. If you’re not familiar with the series, it’s a sort of geopolitical action/adventure movie but with it’s own really poetic vibe to it. It’s almost impossible to find online but happens to be fully on YouTube so go ham I guess?

Redline

Movie, 2009, Japanese

10/10 cinema was invented for this, actually

Every review of this movie i’ve seen gives it five stars and starts by talking about how immensly stupid it is. I’m no different. It’s a masterpiece of escalating energy with the depth of a puddle and it fucking rules. It’s free on YouTube too so there really is no excuse to not watch it. Watched it for the first time on a huge cinema screen and despite this my second rewatch on my small laptop was as/even more enjoyable. If you watch this stoned with friends you might travel to another dimension

Spirited Away

Movie, 2001, Japan

10/10 deserves the love it gets

I watched this a single time as a kid and had little memory of it! I mean it’s Ghibli you know it’s going to be good as hell but this one rly shines in how colorful and detailed it is and in it’s world! It made me remember I had a huge crush on the dragonboy as a kid. I’m gay now

Kung-fu Panda (1&2)

Movie, Usa

10/10. KFP fucking rules

Honestly my favorite franchise of the whole disney/dreamworks/pixar hydra. It’s fun as hell, doesn’t skip a single beat and has amazing animation and character designs. If something is a good time I will not care if it’s deep or not and boy I fucking love these movies

Sinbad, Legend of the Seven Seas

Movie, 2003, Usa

5/10 Some great some really bad and overall generic

I tend to hate american cinema and this includes that era of animation I have no nostalgia for. Sinbad is in a weird place because I love adventure stories and the visuals of the movie absolutely deliver but it’s very predictable and TANKED by the addition of the female character, pushed in your face as “look we have woman!!!” despite her writing being misogynistic as hell lol. The evil goddess rules tho. This movie would have been a solid 9 if instead of the girl the two dudes had kissed

[wlwinry]

“edwin is inc*st” is the funniest fucking defense of r*yed ive ever heard in my fucking life, like. first of all no it’s not bc they’re not siblings, biological or adopted, and they’re not related--yes, it’s implied that the rockbells and trisha knew each other when they were younger, but two families being friends doesn’t mean they’re related. ed “grows up with winry” because they’re childhood friends, who are neighbors, that live in the same town within walking distance of each other. ed only lives with the rockbells at one point before the epilogue, and that’s during his recovery from the automail surgery--and that’s for one year. even after trisha died, ed and al weren’t taken in by pinako, they lived on their own in their house. as for them “looking similar”--they both have blonde hair? is that your argument for their relationship being inc*stous? they’re both blonde? amestris is filled with blonde-haired, blue-eyed people. logically, you don’t assume that every couple who has the same hair color is in an inc*stuous relationship, you fucking idiot. you can read their dynamic as more platonic or familial, ofc, and it’s perfectly valid but those are headcanons--canonically, they are not siblings, they’re childhood friends who fell in love with each other over the course of the series. it isn’t inc*st in any sense of the word unless you headcanon them with that sibling dynamic and ship them regardless--which, I can assure you, 99% of edwin shippers don’t.

r*yed, on the other hand, is a ship between a minor--a fifteen year old, and if you tell me that “fifteen isnt a child/minor” i will actually fucking kill you--and an adult more than twice his age. even if it’s “aged up”, which is morally questionable especially if it’s for nfsw content, the nature of their contact with each other means that roy has had an authoritative position in Ed’s life since he was at least twelve, which implies serious fucking grooming during that timeframe. he’s in a position of power over ed by being his commanding officer, and that’s exacerbated by ed literally being a child until the epilogue--a traumatized child, which, contrary to some other twisted fucking defenses of p*dophilic shit, doesn’t make him “more mature”. it makes him more susceptible to grooming--if anything, it makes the implications of r*yed even fucking worse, and as a traumatized child who was groomed, abused, and stalked? it makes me absolutely fucking sick to see ed’s trauma being used as a defense for p*dophilia. there’s no fucking way around any of this, as it’s all canon--you can warp this dynamic however you like to make it fit your disgusting ship, but it doesn’t erase that you saw a traumatized fucking child and the adult in charge of him and decided to sexualize that relationship.

if you ship r*yed, think it’s okay for people to ship r*yed, if you’re friends with people who ship r*yed, if you think fiction doesn’t affect reality: unfollow me right now. i don’t care if we’ve talked before. i don’t care if you think we’re friends. i should not have to lay bare my own fucking trauma and abuse to make it clear that this is wrong. i should not have to do that to make sure you fucking people don’t follow me. 

you are not welcome here. so get the fuck out.

[joealwyndaily]

 Joe Alwyn — Red Magazine (Jan 2020) interview 

You’d think that a back-to-back Hollywood movie career and a megastar girlfriend might have changed Joe Alwyn, but he’s quick to assure Nathalie Whittle that his feet remain firmly on the ground. 

“So you didn’t see the part where the aliens attack?” asks Joe Alwyn, a playful smirk on his face. He’s referring to his latest film, Harriet, which I had a sneak preview of the previous day, although the fire evacuation (false alarm) meant I missed the ending. The biographical drama tells the story of Harriet Tubman (played by Cynthia Erivo), the historic abolitionist who escaped slavery and led hundreds of others to freedom. Alwyn plays her insufferably cruel and capricious slave master Gideon Brodess. He is, of course, joking about the aliens. At least, I hope he is. Today, we’re tucked away in the corner of a dimly lit bar at London’s Covent Garden Hotel. It’s the sort of drizzly afternoon that might dampen the moods of most, but not Alwyn. He appears cheery and at ease, sporting country casuals: a grey mohair jumper, blue jeans, and brown boots along with an unkempt beard; perhaps an attempt to disguise the boyish good looks he’s become known for. He stops to interrupt me only once with a look of alarm: he’s forgotten to offer me something to eat or drink. I can have anything I want, he assures me.

At 28, Alwyn has had the sort of career trajectory that most aspiring actors wistfully dream about for years, even decades. His education included a degree in English literature and drama at the University of Bristol, followed by a BA in acting at London’s Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. But within two weeks of his graduate showcase, Alwyn received a life-changing phone call. He refers to it as the thing “I owe everything to.”

“I’d just signed with an agent and I was kind of pinching myself, you know, how surreal is that?” he says. “She sent me a portion of the script for a film, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, that Ang Lee was directing. I’d grown up watching his films — Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi — so I couldn’t believe I was even going to do a tape for someone like that. I got my dad to film me in a scene in my bedroom and some mates to film me during a lunch break. The next thing I know, Ang wants to meet me in New York.” Cue a series of auditions and screen tests that led to Alwyn bagging the title role in his first big-budget Hollywood film. He was just 24. “It was so much so fast that I didn’t really compute what was going on,” he concedes. “Before that I was just a poor student who barely understood how people got auditions, let alone landed jobs.” Did he have any jobs before that? I ask. “I did have this one job in London,” he says wryly. “Do you know that frozen yogurt place, Snog?” I’m struggling to picture Alwyn serving up frozen delights. He’s laughing now. Was it a good gig? “Exceptional!” More laughter follows. “I mean, I was paid some money! Then I worked in a menswear shop. I did what I could to make some extra cash.”

A far cry from a frozen-yogurt counter, doors started opening to bigger and better opportunities as soon as Billy Lynn hit cinemas. The next script Alwyn read was Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite (released in 2019), in which he secured a small but riotous role as young baron Samuel Masham alongside acting greats Olivia Colman and Emma Stone. “Putting on giant wigs and running around in make-up and chasing Emma Stone through the forest — what more could you want?” he laughs. The film earned widespread critical acclaim, receiving seven BAFTAs and a record 10 British Independent Film awards. 

Having further honed his craft in subsequent films Mary Queen of Scots and gay-conversion therapy drama Boy Erased, Alwyn is about to enter into unknown territory. This Christmas, he’ll play Bob Cratchit in his first-ever TV drama, BBC One’s A Christmas Carol; a “darker, twisted, less glossy” version of the Charles Dickens classic. He’s “feeling good about it,” but I’m curious as to how he’s approached this change of scenery. Was he not nervous? “Oh, very. I tried to watch other people. It’s the second time I’ve worked with Guy Pearce [who plays Scrooge] and I asked him a lot of stuff, which probably annoyed him. I watched the way he works and the questions he asked on set when he was approaching a scene.”

Two people who will definitely be watching Alwyn’s TV debut are his mother, a psychotherapist, and his father, a documentary-maker. “They’d better be watching!” he laughs. Born in London’s Tufnell Park, Alwyn recalls being given stacks of videos every birthday and “watching them to death, until the tapes burned up.” One of his favourites was The Mask of Zorro. In fact, he was so obsessed with it that he and his best friend took up fencing lessons at a local community centre in Crouch End, where, by chance, he was spotted by a local casting agent for the hit British romcom Love Actually. She asked him to audition for the role of Sam; he breaks into a wide smile when I ask what he remembers of it. “I didn’t know much about what the film was; I was most excited about the fact I got the day off school! But I remember being in a room with Richard Curtis and Hugh Grant reading scenes, many of which didn’t make it into the film. And I left the audition thinking, ‘I really recognize that guy from somewhere’.”

Alwyn didn’t get the part. Instead, he forgot about acting for a while, with the exception of summer holidays, where his parents would send him and his older brother off to “some drama camp as a way of preoccupying us.” He explains that when he later realized he wanted to act on a serious level, he kept it a secret. Was it because he was worried how his parents would react to a somewhat precarious career choice? “Well, it meant putting myself out there in a performative way, and that wasn’t necessarily something I did or was used to doing. It felt like it should be quite a ‘look at me’ job, and that wasn’t really how I felt growing up. I wasn’t a painfully introverted kid, but I wasn’t a particularly extroverted one, either. So maybe I was self-conscious about the idea of saying to people, ‘Look, I can do this’.”

He credits drama school with giving him “permission” to go for it. “Plus my parents were great about it. They’re both freelance themselves, so while they recognize the perils, they also couldn’t say to me, ‘We can follow what we want, but you can’t’. There wasn’t a boundary, which helped a lot.”

I wonder if it’s been difficult acclimatizing to the level of fame that’s come as result of his roles. “There have definitely been changes that have taken some getting used to, whether it’s sitting down and doing an interview or someone recognizing you,” he says. “There are things that have changed in my life, but I still very much feel like the same person. It probably helps that I’ve been hanging out with the same friends literally every day since I was 12 years old. Maybe it’s when those things change that people change, I don’t know.”

It’s fair to say that the level of interest in Alwyn has, in part, been heightened by the fact that, in his spare time he plays the role of Mr. Taylor Swift. The pair reportedly met in late 2016 and became in item shortly afterwards. I’ve been warned ahead of our meeting that Alwyn “doesn’t talk about that”, and he’s keen to justify his stance in person. “I feel like my private life is private and everyone is entitled to that.” he says. “I’ve read stories recently about people like Ben Stokes and Gareth Thomas, which are a gross invasion of their privacy and of their lives. It’s disgusting. That’s not journalism, that’s just invasive.”

It must be tough, I suggest, being in a relationship that is surrounded by so much scrutiny. “I just don’t read the headlines,” he says. “I really don’t, because I can guarantee 99% of them are made up. So I ignore it.” Recent rumours suggest the pair are engaged, and are owed in part to one of Swift’s latest songs, Lover (’My hearts been borrowed and yours has been blue. All’s well that ends well to end up with you’), as well as a piece of string tied around Swift’s finger in a Vogue cover shoot. According to die-hard fans, this means something. But to Alwyn, it’s clear it means nothing at all. Is he never tempted to respond to the mistruths, to shut them down? “No, because it’s just pointless,” he sighs. “It won’t change anything. I just don’t pay any attention. I have my life and it’s kind of separate to all that stuff.”

I’m curious as to how much time he gets to simply enjoy the success he’s experiencing. “There’s lots of time not working, I wish there was less in a way!” he laughs. “I go to the pub, play football, go to gigs, watch TV (he’s just finished season three of True Detective), pretty normal things. There’s no ‘secret life’. But ultimately, I worry about finding the next job; that’s the truth. In the midst of everything, there’s always that feeling of ‘I’m never going to work again’. It’s a cliche, but you can’t just sit there waiting for the phone to ring. You have to try and take control. You’re at the mercy of the things you seek out — the directors and the connections — so I try to be on top of that as I can and read what I’m sent and be discerning. I try to pick wisely and follow up on people and leads that I’m interested in.”

Is there an end point he wants to get to, where he’ll feel like he’s made it? “Things have certainly shifted in my twenties,” he says. “Success to me now is doing things that make me happy and that make me feel fulfilled, doing what I want to do and being on the right track. Not in terms of being on a results-based track, but just doing something I love.” He pauses and smiles. “That sounds a bit sentimental, doesn’t it?”