#I might just do that if i get the motivation (i.e. One (1) anon asking me nicely)

[luigis-slut]

"I could fix him" "I could make her worse"

Well, I probably couldn't fix him but I could recommend her a nice therapist or possibly a quality short-term inpatient facility. I could be part of their support network as per the safety plan that their psychiatrist created for them.

[emblemxeno]

I'm sorry I need to get this out to someone and I feel like you'd understand my frustration. I explained nicely to a friend actually El is a villain and linked to the interview. This was the response I want to tear my hair out I've had it with these people. This is really long sorry feel free to ignore

Here's the thing: Just because writers intend to do something doesn't mean they succeed in doing so. The original thought might have been to make Edelgard a villain, but that is not what came through in the final product. A villain, by definition, is a character whose evil motivations and actions drive the plot. Nothing about Edelgard's motivations are evil, and her actions are no more evil than any other Fire Emblem character, including Claude and especially Dimitri cont

To point, here are Edelgard's motivations / goals:1.) End Rhea's rule over Fódlan (Rhea's in specific; Edelgard says numerous times she has no qualms with the Church as a whole or people's belief in Sothis, but JUST the Central Church)2.) End the crest system and establish a meritocracy so nobles can no longer oppress commoners3.) Kill TWSITDThese are not evil goals. cont

Yes, she has to start a war in order to accomplish goal one, and War Is Bad, but unfortunately there is no such thing as a bloodless revolution. While Rhea was severely traumatized, her rule WAS going too far and she WAS running a dictatorship right down to having Seteth destroy any records that would reveal the truth behind the church. She needed to be stopped. And importantly, Edelgard never wanted to have to kill her. cont

Doing so at the end of CF was a last resort brought about by Rhea ordering Catherine to burn a city of innocents alive. This is why in the other three routes Edelgard merely imprisons Rhea, and in 3 Hopes is shocked when Claude asks her if she wants Rhea dead, saying, "Is it not enough to remove her from power?" It's also why Seteth, Flayn, Claude, Lysithea etc can be spared. Edelgard had to start a war for revolution, but she spares as many as she can. cont

Even though Claude COULD come back from Almyra with an army, and she KNOWS this, she lets him go. Because she doesn't want him dead. So no, she's not a villain, any more than Dimitri is a villain. Stopping Rhea's rule was just. Establishing a meritocracy is just. Killing TWSITD, the ACTUAL villains, is just. Edelgard's actions are morally gray, but she's not evil and therefore not a villain no matter what the writers' intentions were cont

Edelgard isn't a fascist because none of her actions hit the requirements for facism. In fact, again, the Central Church controlling what information people are allowed to have, entwining religon and the government, and also killing anyone who dares to stand up to them comes closer even if it's still not true facism. Edelgard isn't a dictator because she abdicates the throne IMMEDIATELY after establishing her meritocracy, as explicitly stated in her endings with Byleth and Lysithea. cont

She's not an attempted genocider because again she lets Seteth and Flayn go and only kills Rhea as a last resort, i.e. she never wanted to kill the Nabateans, she just wanted to remove them from power. So I don't want to argue either, but I've been dealing with this since FE3H released all those years ago and I'm tired of it. She's not any of the things her haters claim and I disagree that she's poorly written

How do you deal with this day in and day out? I actually want to die, thanks for letting me get that out

No worries anon. Truth be told I deal with it day in and day out by angrily typing up a post and then deleting it. Not saying you should do this or I'm bothered by the asks or anything! Just that, some times it helps writing shit out and just hitting delete before posting or replying or whatever. There's a looooot of shit that I've written about and to people that nobody has seen because it's just me venting and being angry, but having the self control to do away with it.

But onto the main topic: the person you were talking to in question is, like a lot of Edelgard's stans, looking at it in a remarkbly surface level way. And when they're not doing that, they instead are ignoring canonical lines that prove otherwise.

"Wants to stop Rhea's dictator like rule over Fodlan" sounds good on paper, but bringing in actual canon? Rhea is hardly doing anything. The Empire has not had major religious influence for over a century by Edelgard's time. The Alliance was created without any input from Rhea or the church. Faerghus is the only country that the church has any hand in assisting.

The censorship and banning of certain things? Fluff and window dressing that has no bearing on Edelgard's views because she doesn't know that the church banned shit and while she knows the church changed history, she is completely wrong on what was changed and why it was changed in the first place.

Not only that, Edelgard's campaign is fueled by ignorance and misaimed hatred towards a system that was already established before the church, since Nemesis in his incredibly long reign of terror, had these people called "The Ten Elites" who helped his ambition and conquering of the land, and the Elites offspring were already treated with prestiege because that's what happens when you're related to powerful warriors with shiny weapons that make you kill people faster or make you survive longer.

Rhea, as described by the writers, rewrote history for her benefit, but what's important is the details: she kept the Elites in a positive light because mass popular opinion was that they were good people, and-once again described by the writers-she didn't want to rule over Fodlan with an iron fist, she only wanted to keep the peace.

As for Edelgard "not wanting to kill Rhea", 1) the basis for this was one knockoff classroom question (that unfortunately Hopes tried to make canon cuz actual story consistency doesn't matter), when 2) she has a line before Rhea even sets fire to Fhirdiad about wanting to obliterate her and the other children of the goddess.

And sparing as many as she can? Edelgard? The person who victim blames people for fighting back until the end? The person who blames Dimitri for "keeping the war going" when he's merely defending his home? The person who orders you to kill a retreating commander who has already lost??? Never mind the fact that Edelgard herself isn't doing any of the sparing: it's Byleth. It's Byleth's choice to spare Claude, Lysithea, Seteth, and Flayn. Edelgard accepts that choice because Edelgard-in a Doylist sense-is written to defer to the player because you can't risk waifu marketability.

"Establishing meritocracy is just" is where I start taking this less seriously, at least from my position as a very left leaning person. Meritocracy is never just, because people shouldn't be judged on an arbitrary value of "how good they are at something" because it never works. It sounds all sunshine and rainbows, but once a bigoted person gets power? Merit becomes meaningless. The U.S. is technically a meritocracy in our social worksphere, yet a black man can work 10 times as hard as his white counterpart does but won't get hired because the man in charge is racist. That's what kind of environment a meritocracy can and will eventually fester: people's proven work ethic being snubbed in favor of the bias from the person up top. And given that Edelgard also has lines regarding her disdain for religious people in general (her words in regards to Almyra not "blindly following a goddess", her view of religious people being too weak), her disdain for people who can't do things by themselves, her disdain for people with no work ethic or drive to work... Yeah, she's gonna be a shit ruler.

To top it off, yeah her actions are fucking evil. Declaring war on independent nations with the purpose of assimilating them into your empire is evil. Utilizing monsters created from human experimentation is evil. Assisting in kidnapping is evil. Being complicit in regicide of another country and inciting coups in the same country in order to make it collapse, when that country did nothing to you, is evil. Having a serial killer be your attack dog and sating him with hunting grounds where he gets to kill people willy nilly is evil. Having Hubert as a retainer is evil (I'm only half joking on this last one too).

But yeah, all in all. Not surprised. Hope you have a good one anon, take a rest, if that person was your friend they... sound like a lot haha.

[ruki--mukami]

Let me just say that open interactions on your blog are such a great idea! It's so interesting to see how the same starter develops a completely different story depending on the character Ruki is interacting it and their previous dynamics.

As a reader, I just wish some of them could sometimes last longer as some stories are just dropped in the middle.

Anyway, I am having enormous fun!

🧩 Thank you so much, Anon!! I’m glad to hear that you, as a reader, have been enjoying the open interactions and have fun reading them. I’m well aware some people who follow my blog might follow for one or the other (asks vs. rp reblogs) but I’m elated if there are people who are content with even just reading the replies that I have written for each person and their OC. 

It’s definitely a fantastic way for me to both indulge myself in settings I’ve always wanted to see Ruki in while also furthering his relationships with other characters. And it’s also quite the fun challenge to write it in a way that would make sense for each dynamic to respond to. For instance, I wouldn’t want an academy scenario since I know not everyone goes to school. Especially with the scars this time around. I tried writing that sentence in particular so that it could potentially be a big deal, or it might just be any ordinary day if the OC has already seen him exposed before (i.e., love interests he has been interacting with since forever).  

It’s also more entertaining for me, as a writer, to keep each plot different, just because writing the same exact story each time gets dry for me very quickly. Furthermore, it’s fun for me to incorporate traits specific to each OC that Ruki can comment on (in hindsight, there were some missed opportunities that I regret but oh well—that’s what the second round of replies is for!) just like how I write my asks. I try to write each answer in a way that, if taken out of context, it wouldn’t make sense for any other scenario/character because that’s just how unique they are. From his lovers to the people he only interacted with a few times, I’m always excited to see how the plot will turn out. 

Sorry for rambling—all these factors that go into each response are just very fun for me to explore. I have a little criteria checklist in my head each time I write in general, so the open interactions add a new level of challenge for me. But seriously, Anon, I commend you if you truly take the time to read each thread in full—I honestly didn’t expect anyone to go that far, ahaha. I regret how the stories seem to drop in the middle as well (trust me—I probably only finish about 1% of my rp threads, the rest end in cliffhangers due to my own fault💀✋) but that’s because I try to reply to everyone in a timely manner while not leaving anyone out (to those I still haven’t replied to yet, I’m so sorry I swear I’m not ignoring you—it’s just a poor time management+sporadic motivation issue, if it’s something personal, you would know by now since I like to be transparent). 

For the people I do roleplay with, please don’t hesitate to let me know if there is a particular thread you’d like me to prioritize. My system right now is currently: reply to the open interactions + those who didn’t partake and have their own thread so that I can still interact with everyone. There have been times when I considered prioritizing writing speed > quality for the sake of finishing the stories, but as someone who enjoys taking my time and writing things poetically, I prefer to make sure everything sounds acceptable before hitting reply, rather than writing whatever idea comes to mind then sending it off without any revision. 

Anyway—TL;DR, I’m ecstatic to hear you’re having as much fun as I am with this, and for those who partake in not only my open interactions but just anything to do with my blog in general, thank you so much. It’s always a joy to rp with everyone and I look forward to helping everyone develop their characters as someone who runs a canon blog. Also I haven’t forgotten about the previous open interaction and hope to reply to those when I get home from my outing currently. 🧩

[mittensmorgul]

For anyone interested in long-term residence in the supernatural fandom, please have some observations I’ve made over the decade I’ve been here. Take it or leave it as you will, but I’ve found all of this info useful over the years I’ve been here.

I wrote this yesterday, and it achieved its mission of identifying the sort of folks who would react negatively to it (i.e. a lot of block lists have been updated), so now that it’s been edited for content, it’s going under a cut (because that is how we do things on tumblr in general, unless we have a deliberate purpose for annoying readers with excessively long text posts) for the sake of people who actually do care about the fandom and its history. If that’s not you or your reason for being here, then keep on keeping on with your own thing, I guess. For those who are interested, there’s a lot of fandom resources some of us have been building for years that you might enjoy knowing about.

First off, I’ve been informed by a few friends who’ve read through this for coherency’s sake that it sort of reads like a *shakes cane from porch* fandom grandma complaint, but honestly... I earned this rocking chair and goshdangit imma rock now. So apologies for any “back in my day” vibes or faint aroma of tiger balm this post might give off. Then again, it’s loosely based on a similar post from 2012 so like... time is a flat circle anyway I guess.

1. There is no such thing as “tumblr famous,” unless you’re referring to the hilarious and delightful fic of the same name (please go read it, you will cackle). Posting Hot Takes for imaginary Clout™ on this site is kind of pointless in the long run. Sure you can post solely for the sake of stirring shit and getting notes, but the majority of the folks who do aren’t long term residents of the fandom. They’re just tourists moving through our little beach town for spring break. If you’re actually intent on moving to this corner of the fandom for an extended stay, please bother to really feel out the permanent residents and understand the culture and general mood of the neighborhood. It bears no resemblance to whatever’s going on across town where all the bars and beach parities are happening, and those loud, drunken revelers are, again, gonna disappear back to their regular lives or on to the next party eventually. That doesn’t mean the fandom is dying, it’s just evolving.

(funny how I had several comments implying that I’m just trying to keep the fandom from evolving with this post, because I sincerely do want the fandom to continue on for years to come, and that is impossible without evolution. We can evolve without self-immolating, though. mostly i included point 1 for an excuse to push ancient but hilarious fanfic on you.)

2. Once you post something here, it’s been unleashed to the fandom winds. You never know where it will end up, or who will comment on it or add to it. Remember that time Misha tweeted the link to the Epic Cockles Love Story post? No? It was wild. That was 2012. They all know we’re here, and how to find us if they want to. Please don’t take it to their doorsteps.

Obviously if someone is being a dick on your posts, please feel free to block them, but the whole entire point of this site is to engage people with your posts. Being big mad that someone reblogged your post with comments or supporting evidence, or happy headcanons or “HECK THIS IS GREAT BECAUSE (insert personal story about their experience or whatever else made them Feel Things about your post)” is frankly ridiculous. If your goal is to avoid any sort of engagement with your posts, then maybe try instagram instead. From what I understand, there is a SPN fandom presence there, and nobody can tarnish your original posts with unwanted commentary. But the ability to reblog with additional commentary is a FEATURE of tumblr that builds community through conversation. Otherwise we’re all just talking to ourselves in a vacuum, and that’s what actually kills fandoms.

(and for the folks who just want to blog how they want to blog and don’t want people to engage on their posts at all, please feel free to block anyone you want, as well... nobody wants to step on your toes, but most of us also don’t want to walk on eggshells wondering if this post is one of the “do not add comments for any reason” sorts of posts, either. This is a huge fandom and most people can’t even begin to keep track of every creator and their url du jour, and what their personal rules might be regarding interaction with their content. Including a “please don’t add comments” note at the bottom of your posts-- and not in your tags that won’t even show up on reblogs, but in the actual body of the post-- would sincerely help avoid any awkward or unwanted interactions, too. At the end of the day, you are in control of your own fandom experience and the block button exists.

For the record, I block zero fandom blogs (which is why I posted this, I wanted it to reach a wide scope... refer to the opening paragraphs as to why).

3. Since this post was partly inspired by a tag I left on that post going around about how “previous tags” mean fuckall on this site (which you can read here), just a reminder that if you like someone’s tags or feel they add value to the post, part of the Peer Review structure of tumblr encourages you to PASTE THEM INTO A REBLOG. If you do this, then at least credit the person who actually wrote the tags! Don’t just copy someone else’s tags into your tags on your reblog of the post without credit either. They were not YOUR tags. (I have had this happen to tag rambles I wrote and someone else got credited with them on a subsequent reblog and it is FRUSTRATING). Just... don’t even bother to write “previous tags” because WHAT PREVIOUS TAGS?! Nobody is gonna bother to chase back the chain of reblogs trying to find where the mystery tags came from, friendos. That way lies madness.

(for the record, since some folks seemed to focus on this point solely, writing “previous tags” on a post isn’t inherently a BAD thing, but for anyone who actually is here for more than one-off shitposting, then it’s sort of a pointless thing in the long run. This wasn’t intended to suggest people who ARE here for one-off shitposting are bad or “doing it wrong,” but for people who might actually want to preserve that hilarious joke or insightful comment. People delete posts and entire blogs all the time around here. Links break. I get that the upcoming generation just shrugs at that and moves on with their lives, but heck... you don’t have to accept that all entertainment is disposable if you don’t want to. There’s a bizarre sort of nihilism plaguing us all about the impermanence of pretty much everything that feels like something we should be fighting against rather than buying into wholesale, even in our escapist entertainment. I’m just exhausted by the complete loss of joy in community.

*shouts from the peanut gallery* IT AIN’T THAT DEEP, JUST GET SOME FRESH AIR AND LOOK AT A PUPPY OR SOMETHING

Yes... yes it isn’t really that deep, but bigger picture in the state of reality we’re all entirely disillusioned with, are we supposed to just give up on everything, including the things we cling to because they bring us a tiny spark of hope that we’re not all just trapped in this dystopian nightmare and things might actually be worth living for?

*peanut gallery clinging to burnt husks of peanuts in a barren peanut field* but this is how we have chosen to cope

Okay... you do you... I feel bad for you but if that’s the case then this post is NOT FOR YOU. AND THAT’S FINE. I honestly do not care if you don’t care! I mean, I’m sorry anyone has to live in a world that drives them to that mindset, but I understand. This post is for anyone who might look at their lives and their choices and think “no wait, I unironically enjoy this and want more from the experience of that enjoyment than I’m currently feeling.” Everyone else can continue with their lives as usual.)

4. CONTENT THEFT IS NEVER OKAY. PERIOD. Things like “credit to the artist” or tagging gifs or images you found on pinterest as “not mine” isn’t actually credit. If you can’t source an image or gif set, DO NOT POST IT! We don’t REPOST (i.e. save an image and then create a new post with it as if it was our own creation). We REBLOG (click the little square arrows and reblog from the actual creator). That goes for gif sets, fanvids, screencaps, meta, fic... everything.

(hopefully everyone here already understands this one, but I felt compelled to include some “these are stupidly obvious” reminders anyway, since this is ostensibly some sort of advice column. This is the equivalent of the warning label on your toaster reminding you not to use it in the bath. Like... duh...)

5. Close kin of item 4 is SOURCE YOUR SHIT. 

(for 100% disclosure purposes, I specifically discussed this one in this specific way because of an influx of anon ask messages I received in the wake of the finale. Literally the inciting incident for creating this entire post was what I can only assume was a joking ask about a comment Misha made at a con years ago. Someone actually bothered to take the time to type out those sentences to me. I have no idea what they were expecting in reply, or what could possibly motivate them to send this comment about something so entirely random from, again, several years ago. Just a joke? No idea, but whatever... it got me thinking that there might actually be people who are new to the fandom who MIGHT actually care about the fandom history, and maybe they just don’t know where to go for that info, or how to even begin searching through 16 years of history for things they might actually find enjoyment in, rather than just hauling random out of context garbage out on main and pointing and laughing about it now. People are actually allowed to care about things. It’s not cringeworthy to actually care about things, and you are not alone in actually caring, and there’s this whole big room over here full of people who are thrilled to share in that with you. This post is intended FOR THOSE PEOPLE SPECIFICALLY, so if that is not you, please just continue walking by.)

Yes, I know lots of y’all are new around here right now, but dredging up stuff from years ago that fandom has completely debunked and presenting it as TRU FAX again is just exhausting. We’re not trying to be party poopers, but seriously, we have seen it all and are mostly done with extinguishing bags of flaming dog poop on our front porches for the umpteenth year in a row. I’ve seen a lot of posts that have the same tone as “I saw Goody Proctor dancing with the devil” or “I heard kylo ren has an eight pack” and just... the information is there for anyone who cares enough to find it.

This goes double for “why is nobody talking about this thing I just discovered while watching the show for the first time?!” And, oh hon, we have talked it all into the ground over the last fifteen years. We’re happy you’re discovering it again, but I promise we talked about it plenty when the episodes originally aired. We have such a rich meta history that lots of us have worked really hard to preserve. I encourage you to seek it out, if nothing else than as historical artifacts. The way we have discussed the show has been a 16-year evolution. People have written literal doctoral dissertations on this show. Your shitposts are fun! We love reliving our own experience through fresh eyes, and seeing your wonder at experiencing it all again for the first time! But y’all didn’t invent this fandom in the last six months, either.

Meta Sources and Minerals provided by our friendly neighborhood fandom archivist, @lets-steal-an-archive

Academic books and articles about SPN 

A collection of Meta Essays going back to s1 and organized by topic (all of this has happened before, all of it will happen again)

SPN Heavy Meta Archive (s1-3)

Mel’s Dreamwidth archive of meta (s1-12)

Oranges8hands Dreamwidth archive of meta (s1-15, with many similar entries to Mel’s... though ymmv on viewpoint in a lot of these too)

Anyone remember Fandom Wank? Not the concept but the actual LJ... No? Okay have a link to SPN topics that ended up there. Through 2013. We have seen so much... including several fandom containment breaches.

for all your art sourcing needs, please see @theroadsofararchive, the repository for so much fandom art.

need to find a gif of something? canonspngifs is a vast repository of gifsets of the entire series. If the gif you want to use in your post happens to be the first gif in the gifset, in the tumblr gif finder thingy just paste the permalink to that post from canonspngifs (which is easily searchable by episode, character, location, situation, quotes, and sometimes even color and clothing items the actors are wearing... it’s really well organized, especially for tumblr >.>) and the first gif will be automatically linked with credit to the gif creator attached. It makes life easy that way. It’s also convenient when trying to remember something specific but can’t remember what episode it’s from. I’ve used the site to jog my memory before going to the superwiki armed with more specific search results to find episode quotes and references. Or sometimes I just scroll through all the nice gifs for fun, too.

Need a screencap of something and know exactly which episode it’s from? Try Home of the Nutty. You might not find the exact screencap you’re looking for, but they have a complete set of caps of every episode, and it’s an incredibly useful resource for quick reference checks and the like. Just give pages a chance to fully load before clicking on the next one. The site is easily overloaded, but it’s still free to use (and again, with credit... Pretty much every screencap on my entire blog is from HotN unless otherwise credited).

As you can see, this is a fandom built on preserving our history. You absolutely are not required to engage with any of this if that’s not of interest to you, but I can only assume that there are people who would be interested in it if only they knew it existed and how to find it. Well, now they do.

6. A few more notes on tags, and how they work on tumblr. The first 20 tags on your ORIGINAL posts are searchable sitewide, so if you want to be able to find something again, tag that thing first before going on general tag rambles. The only place tags on reblogs are searchable is on your own blog. So you don’t have to put 50 tags trying to get a post seen if it’s a reblog. You’re just spitting into the wind at that point. If you have a filing system for finding things again, then by all means add those tags (again, in the first 20, so they’re searchable), but you don’t need to tag a reblog “destiel” and “deancas” and “dean” and “cas” and “dean x cas” or whatever. Pick one for your personal blog’s filing system, that’s all you need.

(this was only added because tagging and searching on this site is so very broken... I get that a lot of folks don’t care about ever searching their own blogs again for anything, so this one only really applies if you do often find yourself trying to find old posts. If not, then it’s not really relevant.  It took me years to work out a decent tagging system, and at the beginning of my time here I never thought I’d end up camping out here for a decade and falling this deep into the fandom, and I regretted my lack of consistent tags only years later when I realized I actually wanted to be able to go back and find specific old posts again. So... for anyone who wants to err on the side of caution, working out a sensible tagging system really helps if you’re here for the long term. I personally tag content by episode, because some of my other general tags are so large as to be practically useless as a search term. But whatever system you choose to file stuff on your own blog, it really only has to make sense to you. And again, if this is pointless advice for someone who has no intention of settling here for the long term. Please feel free to ignore it. I just wish someone had explained it this way to me ten years ago and saved me the hassle of retroactively tagging something like 30k posts... especially now that using the mass tag replacer is the fastest way to get your entire blog deleted... oops? so yeah, don’t use the mass tag replacer either >.>)

7. Tags on Tumblr DO NOT WORK LIKE TAGS ON TWITTER. If you @ someone in the body of the post, it will show up in their notifications (if they’re the sort of person who even checks their notifications... not all of us do. For the record, I generally don’t...), but putting actor or ship names in the tags on a tumblr post does absolutely nothing. It’s not the same as tagging the actor’s twitter account in a tweet. Nobody’s getting notifications about you tagging a post about Jensen here as “Jensen Ackles.” There is a difference. Please learn it. (and don’t take headcanons and ESPECIALLY RPF or otherwise explicit art or fic from tumblr to twitter and tag the actors in it. That’s just... not okay.)

(I have seen the pearl clutchers getting all in a huff about the mere existence of RPF or even explicit content of fictional characters if it doesn’t meet their purity standards, but tagging those things allows people who don’t want to see it to actively avoid that content here. Nobody has a right to tell people their fictional content shouldn’t exist at all, or that creators of that fictional content somehow deserve harassment or threats for having dared to create such “immoral” content, won’t somebody PLEASE think of the children... and no... you do not do that here. Don’t be the problematic behavior you wish to ban from the world. Learn to use tags to protect yourself from, as i have attempted to emphasize here, fictional content you are personally upset by. That’s a you problem, not a problem for the creators of potentially upsetting content that they tag appropriately for.)

8. General formatting stuff: If you’re writing long text posts, visually break them up so people aren’t faced with one long wall of text. The enter key is your friend. Also, if you put long text posts under a Read More break and send people to your blog to finish reading, please ensure that your blog is actually visually accessible (tiny text, or light grey text on a dark grey background, or a visually busy background might be aesthetically pleasing to you but nobody can actually read it. Loads of folks won’t even try. Which is great if you don’t actually care whether people are able to appreciate your content or not, but something to at least consider if you *do* actively want to encourage engagement with your work. Confirm how your blog looks on both mobile and desktop and make sure it’s actually functional in both, too).

And since I mentioned that most of my experience on fandom tumblr has been in the SPN fandom, here’s a bit of a reminder for folks who are new around here. With the reminder that I have been here more than a decade and still feel like a newbie myself sometimes...

This is an OLD FANDOM. There are many, many people who have been at this longer than some of you have been alive. The average age for creators in this fandom is older than you think (I think of my friends in their 30′s as young’ins okay? okay). With that understood, you are responsible for the content you consume and are exposed to. Curate your experience. Ship and let ship. YKINMKATOK. Don’t deliberately expose yourself to content you find upsetting for whatever reason. Tags and warnings are your friends, not targets for you to attack in some sort of purity war. People will ship things you do not like (or in specific ways you do not like), will say things you do not agree with, and will find their happiness in things you abhor. That is not your concern. Find what you do like, and support and engage with it, and ignore (or block, or unfollow) the rest. Tumblr has a feature that lets you blacklist tags so the content you’re trying to avoid won’t appear on your dash.

Remember the paradox of tolerance.

It is not your job in fandom to police how other people enjoy the fandom. It’s not *my* job to police how *you* enjoy the fandom, UNLESS your enjoyment is in actively harming other real human beings in the fandom. If you don’t like their take on the character or the show or the plotlines or their ships or anything else, you don’t need to engage with their posts at all! The necessary corollary to this is that clarifying misunderstandings or correcting factual misinformation is not “policing.” 

(this is where the peanut gallery reminds me it ain’t that deep, and I plead with them to put down the social media and find just one (1) thing to actually believe in in this godforsaken life, find something other than disdain and cynicism and spite to live for. If those things motivate you to find a larger cause for yourself, then great, use them to your advantage, but use them to find something that makes you a better person or brings you a modicum of joy and connection to your fellow human beings despite living in a dystopian hellscape of a world)

I have seen a lot of posts lately that are founded on the sort of authority that comes with “I watched through tumblr for a few months and then watched the last three episodes of the series” and as such are just... missing the larger context of the entire show, and are unfounded entirely in canon. I 100% appreciate the new enthusiasm for the fandom that we’ve been living in here for years, and it’s wonderful to see new people enjoying the thing we love. Your headcanons are valid, you are valid, but recognize that your headcanons aren’t canon. All of us finale denialists have accepted this in some measure, so we feel you. We truly, truly feel you. But regarding actual canon, we have a resource for that: the Superwiki. Learn it, live it, love it, as Metatron would say.

(which you could discover he said in 10.17 Inside Man, thanks to the superwiki! accept no substitutes!)

(and again, there have been people who have been involved in fandom for years who haven’t engaged with canon in years, either! You can play in this universe however you choose, BUT FOR PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT CANON AT ALL, WHICH I AM AGAIN POINTEDLY SAYING MIGHT NOT BE YOU, READER, AND I’M NOT SUGGESTING YOU ARE WRONG FOR NOT WANTING TO ACTUALLY ENGAGE WITH CANON, but if you DO want to engage with canon, please have some useful resources. Why do people feel personally attacked by being presented a list of helpful resources? Absolutely baffling.)

(also: words have definitions. “Canon” is a specific thing, meaning in this case “the finished media product that aired on television.” Anything beyond those limits is secondary canon (think: john’s journal, which is not canon but canon adjacent at best...), word of god (i.e stuff said by the writers and showrunners), or headcanon (which includes actor commentary-- they may have helped create the show with their acting choices and whatever, but they are not in control of the story overall). If there’s something you dislike about actual canon, you can reject it and supplement it with your own theories or preferred outcomes-- that’s basically what fanfic is-- but that doesn’t make your theories canon (much to all our dismay, that’s just not how any of this works. This is not to invalidate how anyone engages with the show or the fandom, just trying to clarify what seems to have been a source of unintentional misunderstandings. Your theories do not have to be “canon” to be legitimate interpretations.)

***I am setting this section apart, and did make a separate post of just this following information, because this is where we go from being relatively chill about different parts of fandom choosing to interact in different ways and you do you and blog however you want, to “hey can everybody please understand that the way you are interacting with this specific material might be harmful for specific legal reasons, and stating that you do not care about the consequences of your actions does actively make you the asshole here...” Okay, now that we have that understood:

The spnscripthunt collective has been steadily acquiring new scripts (which are posted in full on the superwiki for everyone to enjoy, for free). The language around how some folks are talking about these scripts is... concerning. For very real legal reasons, actually, and not because we’re feeling precious about the collection and don’t wike it when meanies use them in shitposts.

-First off, these scripts are not “leaks.” They are all verified and legally purchased (or gifted, in some cases, but still acquired entirely above board. we didn’t whack anyone over the head in a back alley for these scripts, or swipe them out of someone’s trailer on set).

(in case anyone was unaware, these scripts are the copywritten protected property of Warner Brothers. So yes, how we use them and share them with the fandom could have legal repercussions. We present them as a collected resource of fandom history which SHOULD fall under Fair Use doctrine, but this is untested legal water. Insinuating that the scripts are somehow not entirely legally obtained, or that posting them for public access involved less than 100% transparent and entirely legal transactions is incredibly concerning.

Once again for the peanut gallery, if you don’t care about any of that and are just having a good time with it, at least be mindful of the work and expense a large group of people have gone through to acquire and present the content you’re all too eager to exploit for cheap thrills. Some of us do actually care and are not exactly comfortable with the fact that others don’t seem to care about burning it all to the ground. We can’t force you to listen or behave as we’d hope you might, but at least be aware of the potential consequences of your actions. All we’re asking is for you to not be the douchebag who sets the whole neighborhood on fire with your illegal fireworks display. Is that too much to ask for? more on that in a second, first... a psa)

-If you see a script for sale and are unsure if it’s legit (or believe it might already be freely available in our collection), please feel free to ask us for advice. Our goal is to make as much of our fandom history available to the entire fandom, and we absolutely do not want anyone shelling out money for stuff you can already find for free.

(seriously, we’ve seen a bunch of resellers cropping up selling printed versions of the scripts we bought and uploaded for everyone to enjoy free of charge, or scripts that are otherwise of dubious origin. We’ve been at this for years now and know what’s actually out there. We don’t want anyone to fall for a scam if we can help it)

-Also, the usual reminder that the scripts we acquire ARE NOT NECESSARILY THE FINAL SHOOTING DRAFTS. In fact, the majority of scripts in our collection are NOT. Changes are made daily to scripts, even during filming. Comparing a Production Draft (white pages, effectively the first “final draft” of what usually becomes a series of drafts before filming wraps) to a much later revision (say... green or goldenrod revisions, several of which we DO have in our collection for comparison) and how those earlier drafts often differ wildly from the aired version versus how similar a much later green draft is to the aired version, for example, can teach you a lot about the television writing process. The link above to the superwiki scripts page has a nice little explainer about how this process works.

Differences between our posted scripts (many of which are white drafts, aka FIRST complete drafts, which will likely go through multiple rounds of revisions before filming even begins) and the aired version of the show are not all “acting choices” or a director or editor just cutting whole scenes on a whim. It’s insulting to everyone involved in production to suggest that’s the case.

(and yeah, fine... whatever, make any sort of posts you like regarding how those changes came about, but at the very least understand that it’s not actually the truth about how any of this works. Don’t care that that’s not the truth and want to make the posts anyway because shitposting is fun and that’s the extent of your sense of humor? FINE! You’re entitled to do that! But at least you DO know the truth now, and hopefully so do the people who engage with your posts. Deliberate ignorance isn’t cute, smooth lions notwithstanding)

There’s probably a whole other post to be made on fandom tagging etiquette, but again I don’t really use the tags enough to know what’s going on with that whole situation. I’ve also probably left a lot of stuff out, so please feel free to add things I’ve overlooked.

Thanks also to @trisscar368 and @thayerkerbasy for help compiling this, too. They were kind enough to escort me through the park to feed these pigeons. Now I need to take them out for ice cream. :’D

So I guess welcome to the neighborhood. Make yourself at home, but like... try not to trash the place while you’re here. Some of us live here by choice, lol.

[cheri-translates]

Hello cheri! How is your day? Im a fellow gavin stan but recently there is a guy stealing my attention and its shaw hahaha bt i still love gavin my 1st love on game. anyway on your opinion how did mc fell for shaw? And when shaw finds out he likes mc? Thank you ❤

(´･ᴗ･ ` ) Hello Anon! My day is great after receiving this interesting yet challenging question~ The development of a relationship requires the involvement of both parties, so I ended up discussing both questions simultaneously!

Here are the short answers to your questions, but do note that these are just my personal opinions:

1. She uncovered and accepted his complexities

2. Exciting Moment Date

A summary of the Shaw x MC dynamics can be found in these lines from Exciting Moment Date: 

Let’s dive deeper into each line.

-

1. “Emboldened by the straightforward response, I couldn’t help but move closer to him.”

For this, we have to chart the development of MC’s impression of Shaw across the dates.

Shaw’s first event (i.e. Night Fire) took place one week after MC entered the Winter World. In a world where nobody else recognised her, it was perfectly natural for MC to gravitate towards Shaw despite not knowing him well:

At the same time, her instincts cautioned her to stay away from him. After all, how good could a person be if he seemed to dye his hair in a flamboyant colour, wore a riveted jacket, and handed out fake identities like it’s nothing?

Her instincts also warned her that he was the one who attempted to strike Victor in Ch 10 of the main storyline:

At this point, she was likely experiencing two conflicting emotions. On one hand, she was very dependent on him and filled with gratitude for the emotional and practical help he gave her. 

In a world where she had no idea how to proceed, Shaw’s straightforwardness and self-assured nature likely provided her a huge sense of comfort.

At the same time, her instincts sounded the alarm bells in her head.

But being the kind and good-natured MC she is, she continued sticking around with Shaw and was even concerned for his well-being. 

Within the span of one day in One-Day Date, she didn’t just move closer to him physically, but also learnt that he’s actually a graduate student in Loveland University who takes his exams seriously. She also learnt that he’s a talented bass player, and also talented in graffiti. 

She learnt that perhaps there’s greater substance to this young man than she originally thought. And this led to her curiosity being aroused - what more could she uncover about this mysterious man?

One glaring commonality in Shaw’s early dates is that MC asks A LOT of questions. Just as Shaw was intrigued by MC, MC was equally intrigued by him, and actually expressed it even more clearly.

There are too many questions to list down, so here are Shaw’s reactions to them instead:

In the Rosa Rubus event:

In the Genuine or Fake Call from Seeking Date:

In Exciting Moment Date:

MC can’t help but draw nearer to him.

-

2. “The music was being played at a low volume. But because Shaw was wearing only one earphone and the room was quiet, I could still hear the sound of music coming from the other earphone.”

As mentioned at the start, both parties needed to take a step for the relationship to develop successfully. Hence, it didn’t matter if MC barraged Shaw with questions if he wasn’t receptive to them. 

He needed to take the initiative to “wear only one earphone” so that MC was able to understand him through the other. At the same time, MC needed to listen carefully to the “low volume” of Shaw’s genuine feelings.

To elaborate on the above paragraph, we have to understand the way Shaw operates.

In a recent Ask where someone asked about his personality, I mentioned that he’s straightforward like Gavin yet mysterious like Lucien. This might come across strange because how could such a contradiction exist?

But that’s exactly how Shaw is. The reason why Shaw behaves like this is due to a mix of nature and nurture. 

He’s naturally impetuous (e.g. drawn to adrenaline-stirring activities such as skateboarding, performing rock, sneaking into places he shouldn’t be sneaking into). But he was taught by experience and in the study of archaeology to be patient.

Basically, this mixture of nature and nurture results in push-pull dynamics when it comes to Shaw, and a beautifully crafted slow burn where Shaw has to grapple with his feelings for MC. I’ve done a post on his early feelings for MC which you can check out here!

[PUSH] In One-Day Date, he asked her out yet left her to dry:

[PULL] Afterwards, he invited her to indulge in his hobby, and even asked her keep her art on the wall even though he insulted it 5 seconds ago:

[PULL] In Exciting Moment Date, he wanted to spend time alone with MC:

[PUSH] But he didn’t have a concrete plan on what they’d do:

[PUSH] He made it seem like holding hands wasn’t a big deal:

[PULL] But he vehemently refused to let go:

[PUSH] In Exciting Date, he closed himself off:

[PULL] But relented soon afterwards:

Remember how I mentioned before that MC tended to barrage Shaw with a ton of questions in his earlier dates? Interestingly, Shaw didn’t actually mind them.

We see this in his Genuine or Fake Call from Seeking Date:

And also in his Future Bass Call from Exciting Date:

Deep down, Shaw wants to be understood. He wants to be heard. But he needs someone who’s thick-skinned enough to handle his sharp tongue, and to care enough to understand the hidden meaning behind his words, whether said or unsaid. I’ll return to this point at the end.

And at the same time, MC listens. Aside from asking questions about his present motivations, she also wanted to know about his past, and about him as a person:

Anger reveals a lot about a person’s true concerns, so let’s break down this particular line when MC went off on a little rant about Shaw:

In other words, “You’re a contradiction and I can’t comprehend how your mind works. I’m feeling frustrated because I can’t seem to understand your thought process. I wish you would stop disagreeing with me because I want to be on the same wavelength as you are. I really want to understand you."

-

3. “To my surprise, it was an instrumental - slow, deep, soft, mixed with the sound of rain.”

While Shaw engages in this this pull-push tango with MC while she tries to understand him, she is surprised when she sees that there’s more to Shaw than his bravado.

In One-Day Date, she notices his vulnerability:

In Seeking Date, she gets a glimpse of -

His seriousness:

His quietness:

His kindness in the way he kicked the stone away to prevent others from tripping over it:

His meticulousness, albeit slightly delayed:

In Exciting Date (including the prologue), she guesses that there’s more depth to Shaw that she realised:

She is also a recipient of his kindness:

Again and again:

-

4. “Gingerly, I moved another step toward him for a clearer listen.”

These traits drew her closer to him. She started trusting him without even realising it.

In Seeking Date:

In the prologue of Exciting Date:

She also picked up the way he speaks in the Rosa Rubus event and Exciting Date (and even more so in future CN content):

How did Shaw respond to MC’s incessant drive to know him more? He imbibed the words of his mentor:

He was very patient.

He tested her tenacity in running errands as his informant. He tested how well she kept to her promises. He tested how much she cared about the Dragonfly Eye bead he gave her. He tested how much she cared about not making a fool of Isolated on stage.

He also took his sweet time grappling with why he was inexplicably drawn to her, which manifested in the form of the push-pull dynamics mentioned earlier in Point 2. 

Was he simply an observer toying with MC? Was he simply deriving amusement from MC’s reactions?

And after all that testing and waiting, he finally knew for sure:

Shaw not only offered to let MC into his world. 

He also carved out a space in his world for her.

And that’s when the Shaw x MC ship sailed.

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Hey. I'm INFJ. I want to ask about relationship problems. The relationship in question is between my ESTJ mother and I. Generally, I would describe our relationship as close and loving, but there is a conflict, and that came from our opposite ideology and political beliefs.

I want to say before continuing that we are neither American or European, so our ideology and politics shouldn't be understood from the "western" side of things, though to simplify by comparison, my views could be described as leftist and my mother's as conservative. I should also add that I used to hold her worldview when I was younger, but changed once I was old enough to form an opinion of my own. This caused my mother to imply many times in our discussions that I am "brainwashed" and dismiss me as "too young" and "too ideological". I should add that the latter (ideological) is a valid criticism. Still working on that.

Otherwise, I often tried to persuade, then later find middle ground with her, to no avail. We ended up arguing many times, until we decided to not talk politics with each other anymore. So, what's the problem, you might ask.

Recently, the political climate in my country got intense. Heated, even. I won't go into details, but there are protests again the government by young liberals/leftists-equivalent of my country. Many of my good acquaintances joined the protest. The government used police force against them, and it got violent. There are young unarmed protestors who were teargassed, beaten, and shot with rubber bullets and high velocity water jets. Some protestors were heavily injured. Some protestors were arrested and incarcerated in horrible conditions. My mother and I agreed to not speak about politics, so I said nothing.

Until my mother, right infront of me, with another family member, openly mocked the protestors, made judgments about them based on the goverment's propaganda, called them a nuisance, and implied that they "deserved it". It's not about her discussing it, but it's about how unempathetic she was when she said those things, towards those young people my age, with similar ideology to me, and how apathetic she was when she said that "nothing's going to change anyway". It was the first time that I saw my mother in that angle, the complete lack of humanity in her words. It still haunts me until now.

So my question to you is, how does one deal with that? I love my mother, I think I always will. I also know that she loves me, or at least the part of me that's still her child. But for a moment, I loved her less, and that frightened me. I began to wonder, what would happen one day if we have to actually take sides, because things are getting worse in my country, not better. This adds to other issues I have in my life and made me more depressed. A part of me tells me that I should tell her about how I feel, but how do you tell someone you love that they're one of the reasons for your sadness?

I'm sorry if this is stupid. I'm sure that this feeling I have is one-sided, and I wonder if I'm being selfish or ungrateful. Maybe it's because I'm too sensitive these days, so I thought if I have an outside neutral opinion, it will help illuminate my clouded mind. Thank you. I hope you had a good summer break!

------------------------

The sentence that sticks out at me the most is: "It was the first time that I saw my mother in that angle, the complete lack of humanity in her words." I would argue that the problem doesn't lie with her. In fact, nothing about your mother had changed. She was still the same woman as before she uttered those words. The issue arises from your perception of her and the standards by which you evaluate her.

I follow world affairs very closely, so I think I know which region you are speaking of. One of the biggest problems in the manner that people think and talk about politics is the tendency to stereotype. Stereotyping is basically a form of cognitive oversimplification. It makes your thinking ability fast but also very dull and blunt, unable to understand situations with the nuance and sophistication that is required for good judgment and decision making.

It doesn't matter which country/culture you are from, there is always some variation of "right versus left". Why? Because in every society, there will always exist an underlying tension between those who don't want change and those who do. You may label these two opposing forces as right vs left, conservative vs liberal, regressive vs progressive, etc, but the fact of the matter is that these labels are gross oversimplifications of people's political belief systems.

When you divide people along an oversimplified dichotomy, it's too easy to stereotype them, in terms of believing that all people on each "side" hold all the same beliefs and values. Stereotyping goes along with the natural tendency of humans to be tribal. You start to view those on your side as being intellectually and morally superior to those on the other side. This leads to dehumanization and even demonization of the other side. In essence, you lose the ability to empathize with people, as long as you believe that they aren't on your side or the "right" side.

It seems that your political thinking has become too stark due to how extreme the situation has become. You have the feeling of fighting for your life because of the way that the situation has been handled by authorities, as they are indeed putting people's lives in danger. Your feelings about the situation are completely valid. But you fail to recognize that your mom's feelings about the situation are also valid. Certainly, there are hard-core fundamentalists and extremists out there that you can never reach because their beliefs and values are not based in any form of reason. However, I don't think your mom fits into that category, does she?

Do you know what it means to have no humanity? You are accusing her of something like psychopathy. Is that really true of her? I don't think so. She said: "nothing's going to change anyway". I don't consider this an expression of "apathy", as you assume. This is an expression of hopelessness. In that sentence, there is a real possibility that your mom is sympathetic at heart, but she disagrees that the chaotic actions of the protestors (i.e. the method) will lead to any meaningful change... and she may be absolutely right about that.

You haven't grasped the nuances of your mom's beliefs and values because your mindset has been so hardened by the extreme nature of the political conflict. This means that, when you engage in political discussion with her, you are unable to: 1) acknowledge how she feels, 2) acknowledge that there is some reason/merit/validity behind her beliefs, and 3) be open-minded enough to meet her halfway.

Put another way: If you met someone who wouldn't acknowledge your feelings as valid, dismissed all of your beliefs and values as completely wrong without proper investigation, and only sought to "convert" you, would you want to communicate with them? Probably not. This is the unproductive attitude that you now both bring to the table. This is the divisive attitude that arises when a conflict becomes too polarized and everyone is forced to "choose a side".

Unless one of you learns to listen and communicate more effectively, what will change? You say that you have tried to find middle ground with her but always end up arguing. Not finding middle ground is one thing, but getting caught up in interpersonal drama is a whole other thing. The option to amicably agree to disagree is always available. If you genuinely respect someone and respect their freedom to form their own beliefs, it shouldn't be hard to agree to disagree. Why do you find it so difficult to let her be her? Ultimately, you're not really interested in "middle ground"? You just want her agreement? Getting caught up in arguments all the time, especially on a recurring basis, indicates poor communication skills that stem from a troubling lack of objectivity. The more you argue with the intent to shame/change the other person, the more you push them away from your side, and the more myopic you get in your own beliefs.

You seem to have fallen into the trap of categorizing her into the tribe that you view as the enemy of your tribe, namely, the authorities that are cracking down on you young protestors. You've started to view her as the enemy, now you can't empathize with her, and even accuse her of having no humanity. You now consider yourself morally superior to her. If there is any possibility that she could be your ally, you've slammed the door on it.

You describe a very dire and desperate political situation that affects everyone, BUT, it doesn't affect everyone the same way. Different people have very different ways of dealing with intense emotions like fear, insecurity, grief, despair, helplessness, etc. Due to inferior Fi, ESTJs have extremely low tolerance for intense and uncontrollable emotions. Remember that one's ability to utilize the inferior function is not much better than a young child. If ESTJs can't neutralize or deflect their sense of powerlessness quickly, the burden of the emotions will quickly destroy them. I don't think you've really understood the thought process behind your mom's words and what is really motivating her "apathy".

Just because someone doesn't agree with your methods, doesn't mean that they don't have anything in common with you. Politics isn't just about good vs evil, as in, if you don't stand up for good, then you are evil. Everyone has their own way of looking at the situation because everyone has their own interests to take care of first and foremost, and everyone has their own ideas about the best methods to pursue. This is true for both you and your mom. It is possible to agree on beliefs but disagree on methods. For example, I'm assuming that you care about this cause so deeply because you care about your future. Sure, your ideas about the future differ from hers. But, certainly, you are both interested in securing your future, aren't you?

History has shown us that young people are always more willing to fight for causes because: 1) they would suffer less immediate material loss than the elder generation, 2) they have fewer life responsibilities, obligations, and commitments to take into consideration, and 3) their lack of life experience sometimes makes their thinking too simplistic when visualizing future implications.

Your interests aren't fully aligned with your mom's in this situation, perhaps because you are from different generations. However, this doesn't mean that your interests don't align in other important ways. At the end of the day, your mom is probably deathly afraid of seeing YOU on the news being beaten to a pulp and disappeared by the police, right? And it may be the case that she's passing harsh judgment on the protestors because she's trying to discourage you from meeting their horrible fate? That's hardly lack of humanity.

To be a good critical thinker, you need to learn to be more objective. Objectivity means understanding all aspects of the situation, or as many as you can manage. Objectivity and empathy often go hand-in-hand. You won't be able to empathize well unless you acknowledge that there might be some aspects of the situation that you're not seeing or understanding. When you take more time to get to the bottom of someone's thought process and why they really feel the way they do, you will discover all sorts of openings to influence their political beliefs in a friendly way. But when you can't even acknowledge that the other side might have an important point to be made, because you are so hardened in your stance, you've created a dead end for yourself.

[ginger-and-mint]

Hey, I'm wondering if you have any advice on writing kink stuff? Basically, it feels like I'm writing the same story repeatedly. Coming up with stuffing scenarios that both make sense, and aren't just retreads, is really hard. It probably doesn't help that a) I don't have much writing experience, b) my interests are really narrow, and c) I have no imagination, lol. How do you keep stuff fun and interesting? (Jsyk, I sent this to Tiny as well, I love both your blogs 😊)

Hey, anon! Thank you so much, I’m so glad you enjoy my and Tiny’s content and I’m flattered to be asked for advice! ♡ I have a lot of thoughts about this, so I’ll do my best to boil them down into something useful.
 ^^

Since you mentioned being pretty new to writing, I broke up my advice into a few different “stages,” starting with things that are easy to implement and moving to things that might feel more manageable as you get more comfortable with writing. Under a cut because Real Heckin Long.


Stage One — Don’t Sweat It

This might sound corny and unhelpful, but I genuinely think that especially when you’re first starting out, it’s best not to put pressure on yourself to write the world’s most original stories. Write to please your inner fiend and nobody else! If repeated versions of the same story continue to light your fire, there’s no shame in embracing that.

Doing this will honestly help you with originality in the long-term anyway, because you’re giving yourself the freedom to learn more about what specifics you really enjoy in kink writing. Later on, you can use that knowledge to put new twists on those specifics and invent new scenarios.

Stage Two — Stuffing Scenario Cheat Sheet

I completely agree that believable stuffing scenarios are really difficult to invent. What’s realistic is a matter of opinion of course, but for me, this is a quick breakdown of logical reasons for a character to overeat. If you’re getting tired of using the same justification in your fics, try picking something new from this list:

Accidental stuffing:

Character is distracted by something during the meal

Character eats so fast they don’t realize when they’re full

Character has been hungry for awhile and overdoes it when they finally get to eat

Reluctant intentional stuffing (motivated by external circumstances):

Character feels social pressure to keep eating **

The food will go to waste otherwise **

Eating contests / challenges **

The character is trying to bulk up

Enthusiastic intentional stuffing (because the character wants to):

Character just enjoys the feeling of being full

Character and/or their partner(s) have a stuffing kink

Character has temporary access to good food and is indulging while they can

Fantasy Shenanigans:

Side effects of being a magical creature (e.g. a werewolf eating too much for their human form to handle, a vampire needing to feed all at once, etc.)

Magic that causes a character to overeat (e.g. enchanted food, curses, potions, etc.)

Magic that requires a full stomach and/or extra energy to work (e.g. my di-mage spell mechanics, the antidote in this fic of Tiny’s, etc.)

[free space because fantasy lets you set the boundaries of what’s realistic, so your imagination is really the limit!]

** If you’re aiming for realism, I would be careful of these scenarios. In my opinion, they can be done believably, but often are not. Some things I would look out for:

Most foods can easily be stored for later, so if you want to use the “avoiding waste” trope, make sure that you’re either in a setting without access to refrigeration or that the food is something that genuinely wouldn’t keep until the next day (or at least would be way less tasty after a night in the fridge.)

Social pressure works best in scenarios with people that the to-be-stuffed character 1) doesn’t know very well and 2) wants to impress or keep face around (e.g. formal events, business dinners, first dates that involve food, meeting their partner’s family, etc.)

Loving friends, family, and partners don’t pressure or guilt people into overeating! Characters stuffing themselves because their loved ones are really insistent that they have to taste-test everything or act so disappointed because they went to all this work on some extravagant feast always ring at best false and at worst abusive to me. What kind of loving relationship is it if you don’t feel safe to say “no thanks, I’m full?” That’s not to say social pressure with loved ones can’t be done well, but it usually indicates some kind of character flaw (i.e. an inability to say no and/or a steamroller-y personality) that in my opinion, has to be acknowledged by the fic’s end if you want the tone to stay light and fluffy.

Again, this may just be my opinion, but eating contests only come across as realistic with certain character personalities and in certain contexts. Like yeah, I can believe that a himbo with YouTuber Energy would take on a hot wing eating challenge in front of all his bros, but not so much that an otherwise self-respecting character would drop everything to eat themselves sick because a friend randomly challenged them.

Stage Three — Change Up Other Elements When Using Similar Tropes


Especially if you have narrow interests, it’s probably inevitable you’ll write same basic story structure over and over. I know I sure do! However, I would say that changing other elements of the narrative can give your writing an entirely different feel, turning it into a whole new story that will not feel like a simple retread to a reader.

One thing you can change up is setting. A lot of times kink writers will just plonk characters in the comfort of their own homes, which is valid — but setting hugely influences the atmosphere of a story, so the same Kink Plot will read really differently if it happens, say, at a campground or on a boat. Providing a rich setting can even become a feature of the kink itself. For example, setting your story at a lavish buffet could introduce an element of indulgence that hits you and/or readers differently than a story that involves casual takeout in the living room, even if the rest of the story is similar. Try bold settings! They’re fun!

Another element to vary is context. For example, the basic trope of “stress eating” would play out really differently if a character is about to go on an important mission vs. if they’re recovering from an emotionally difficult day; a story about about a character intentionally stuffing themselves will have a completely different flavor if they’ve been going hungry for awhile vs. they’ve been overeating all week; and so on.


Finally, consider changing up the focus. An easy way to do this is to switch up whether you’re writing from the POV of the stuffed character or a caretaker. You can also focus on different details of the stuffing — for example, lingering on how delicious the food looks and tastes vs. how the character feels as their stomach fills vs. physical details like whether they’re getting bloated or grumbly.

Stage Four — Connect to Character or Plot

The most surefire way to make kink stories distinct is to give the story an additional purpose besides just being kinky. This doesn’t have to be some big, extravagant plot (although it certainly can be) — it can be a simple as writing a kink story the way you usually would, and just finding something within it that you can use to reveal an aspect of your character.

Start with an ordinary kink scenario and try to dive a little deeper. For example:

Say you want to write a story about stress eating. Okay — what is the character stressed about?

Maybe you come up with something relatively simple and generic, like school. Okay, what about this character makes them so likely to be stressed out by school? Are they a perfectionist? Are they facing a lot of pressure from their family? Do they have a goal that requires excellent grades? Have they struggled with this subject in the past?

Let’s say you decide to go with perfectionism. Now, what scenes can you use to show this struggle? And optionally, can you give the character some kind of resolution by the story’s end?

And there you go! Your fic now not only has kink, but also shows how your character reacts in a certain situation.

Character especially is a treasure trove of uniqueness, in my opinion, because well-developed characters react differently to the same scenario. Stories feel more original because even if a reader has read this exact same plot before, they will not have seen how this particular person handles it. So one of the best ways to make fics distinct is to spend time developing your characters!

If the goal is to simply write solid distinct kinky stories, trying to create detailed plot is more work with lower return than investing in your characters, if you ask me. You have to enjoy the process of creating plots itself for it to be worth it. If that’s something you’re interested in, I have a whole load more thoughts about that -- but since this is already incredibly long, I’ll save that for a separate ramble if anyone is specifically interested.

---

I hope something in this huge infodump is helpful to you! Some of it may sound intimidating if you’re just starting out with kink writing, but it’s absolutely all something that can be worked up to. Please feel free to ask any follow-up questions if stuff I’ve written doesn’t make sense. Good luck with your writing, anon, and thanks for giving me an excuse to just go off. ^^’ ♡

[chalkrevelations]

Moving on to Episode 4 of Word of Honor, and y’all.

Wait, first: If you’re new or just visiting, this is a re-watch, so there are SPOILERS not just for this ep but for the ENTIRE SHOW. Maybe a lot of them. Scroll away and come back later if you haven’t seen all 36.5 eps and want to watch it unspoiled. (They’re all gonna be tagged “word of honor episode reax”)

A couple of big things, first:

So, right up front, I don’t know for sure that this is the first time we’ve heard the word, but it’s the first time I’ve twigged to it in this re-watch. As Zhou Zishu and Chengling are leaving the inn in the morning, at the very beginning of the ep, Wen Kexing asks why ZZS continues to call him gongzi and wants to know if he’s still too much of an outsider for a less formal form of address. He uses the word 外人 (wairen) (at 2:30) for “outsider,” which is how the subs translate it here. Anybody who’s been around for these flailing reactions since the first time I watched the show might remember that I made a deal about this somewhere around in the late 20s of the episodes, based on a post from someone that I scrolled quickly past while avoiding spoilers and that I have NEVER FOUND AGAIN and am STILL LOOKING FOR, that alerted me to the use of this word and its nuances in ep 25. There’s a conversation there about WKX possibly taking over some of Chengling’s training at Siji Manor, and WKX demurs, calling himself “外人.” Youku translated it there as “someone else,” as in having “someone else” train your disciple, and ZZS responds with “And you’re 外人?” again translated as “someone else.” This actually seems to mean “stranger,” or “outsider,” as they do actually translate it here in Ep 4 - presumably someone who’s from outside your sect, at least in the Ep 25 instance, in which WKX is labeling himself that while he’s in the midst of his upcoming crisis, trying to keep his emotional distance from ZZS and Siji Manor. It’s used again in Ep 26, when ZZS finds WKX giving training advice to Chengling, and it’s one of the ways they have WKX and A-Xiang reflect each other, when she uses it in Ep 29, and rejects it as a description of herself, in order to claim a place in Cao Weining’s sect/family (which, now, knowing … GOD. My HEART). Anyway, I found it super-interesting that WKX is using this word here in Ep 4 to push against ZZS’s boundaries, in contrast to the way he’ll use it later, to try to fortify his own walls against ZZS and Siji Manor. I begin to suspect that he doesn’t want to tell ZZS who he actually is because, maybe, just a little bit, he wants ZZS to figure it out, to recognize him, to truly know him (zhiji) without him having to spell it out. We kind of travel back around to this idea near the end of the ep, when WKX is questioning ZZS about the Baiyi sword, and ZZS tells him that their relationship is like the fish that ZZS unsuccessfully tried to cook and threw on the ground – raw (i.e., unacquainted) – to explain why he keeps shutting out and shutting down WKX. Only we know now that isn’t entirely true, and WKX certainly suspects it isn’t entirely true. (Also, just an observation, ZZS says in that later scene that he’s not interested in who WKX is. DON’T TELL HIM THAT, my dude, now it’s going to be 3,246 episodes before he’ll give you any personal info.)

Also, just a note – I think we make the switch from Zhou-xiong to A-Xu in this ep. (ETA: No! I have been reliably informed by @janedrewfinally that this switch happened back at the end of Ep 3 (at 41:18), and it seems to be part of what precipitates the Completely Reasonable, Not At All Flirtatious, Utterly Heterosexual No Really, Like Bros way that ZZS takes WKX's wine jar. You know the incident we mean.)

The second thing that I really started turning over in my head here is the developing relationship between WKX and Chengling, and this is one of the things that took me so long on this one, because I wanted to go back and look at those two, specifically, in the previous eps again, and revisit their interactions both with and without the mediating factor of ZZS. The first time WXK sees Chengling is in the marketplace at the end of Ep 1 when Chengling ends up giving his token to ZZS. But I think the first time WKX sees Chengling is maybe when WKX’s sitting in the cutout window with his drinkie during the massacre of Mirror Lake and ZZS draws the Baiyi sword to protect Boatman Li and Chengling, just before they make it to the boat and float away back to the mainland. I don’t know how much of the beginning of the fight in the abandoned temple WKX then sees before A-Xiang makes her entrance, but there’s a lot of Chengling flinging himself in front of Boatman Li and ZZS in a way that’s not entirely dissimilar to the way Zhen Yan will fling himself at his parents’ bodies in flashback in a later episode, and then WKX definitely sees dying Boatman Li charge ZZS with Chengling’s care, then make Chengling bow, in a parallel to the scene we’ll get later when Qin Huaizhang accepts Zhen Yan as a Siji Manor shidi. In Ep 3, there’s a lot of weird sympathetic looks from WKX as A-Xiang berates Chengling over dinner (she doesn’t quite have this jiejie thing down yet, and she’s probably never had someone younger than her to take care of) for not taking care of himself so he can be strong and get his revenge for his family’s deaths. This time out, Ep 4, we start with the beggar gangs coming after Chengling, which has some resonance with the former Ghost Valley Master and his Ten Devils standing around the bodies of Zhen Yan’s parents and debating what they’re going to do with this kid before they steal him away. You can see WKX’s eyes start to narrow as the lead beggar dude talks, and he eventually even asks them, “What are you going to do if he doesn’t want to go, take him away by force?” We get a LOT of cutting to WKX in this conversation, even though he ostensibly has nothing to do with this, it’s really a convo between Beggar Guy, ZZS and Chengling. WKX pulls focus, and he eventually provokes that fight, and sure, he wants to see ZZS fighting and hopefully get a look at the Baiyi sword, and he even may think that’s the extent of his ulterior motives, but I’m not sure that actually is the full extent of his motives, there. This episode is also when we really see WKX start to encourage Chengling to continue to press at ZZS about taking him as a disciple, including the first use of the infamous “Tough women can’t resist clingy men” saying. Chengling comments that he was just supposed to be Son #3 who stayed home and took care of the old people, and WKX comes back with the Extremely Significant Comment that “When the children want to fulfill their filial piety, the parents have died,” which is not only Extremely Significant, but also sounds like it may be a quote from a poem or other literature? Anyway, a lot of this is just to say, KINDLY AU ANON WHO WAS THINKING ABOUT WRITING THE STORY IN WHICH WKX GETS CUSTODY OF CHENGLING BECAUSE ZZS IS NOT AT MIRROR LAKE, ARE YOU STILL OUT THERE? Hopefully you are hard at work, writing, because I have been having thoughts about this relationship.

What else? Kind of chronologically:

First of all, it continues to physically pain me to have to look at that horrifying facial hair, ZZS. I cannot WAIT to hit Ep 6.

We open this ep on WKX rolling walnuts in his hand in a way that is reminiscent of SOMEONE who we’ve seen do that before – multiple times, given they put that shot of Ghost Valley Master in the opening credits. Nevertheless, I didn’t catch this right away on my first time through. It took me a few episodes, and then I FINALLY noticed the opening credits shot right in front of my face. Point to you, show. Once you know, this ep practically shoves it in your face, recreating not only the walnut rolling, but a dude getting held up in the air and choked out (which we’ve seen before, in Ep 1 (and will see again)) before being slammed down on the ground with WKX crouched over him (which we’ve seen before, in Ep 1). Later, WKX is concerned about his manicure (which we’ve seen before, in Ep 1). It’s actually a little bit funny that both he and ZZS - a master assassin and a guy who literally skinned another dude (and maybe ate him?) to take his throne – are both so prissy about actual, literal blood. Anyway, is it significant or a coincidence that WKX waits until ZZS and Chengling are out of sight before actually going wild-eyed? You know the look I mean.

OH MY GOD, it’s Lovelace. I had blocked this dude from my mind. Eurgh. Nevertheless, there are a number of things I love about his scene, and all of them are related to A-Xiang, my feral beloved - from the way she clomps into the room, completely unworried about stepping the least bit gracefully while making her presence known and stomping (lit. and fig.) all over his dramatic little bit, to the way she berates him, threatens him with “Aunt Luo,” bares her teeth at him, and makes the eye-gouging motion at him. She is the best, and I adore her. I also love how she literally laughs in WKX’s face at his comment that maybe he just wants to be friends with ZZS, OK, is that alright?

The fight with the beggar gangs in this ep may be the first time we see something similar to the cage of spears maneuver in Prince Jin’s throne room all the way up in Ep … what? 30? … although it won’t be the last time we see it, and each time we see ZZS is perfectly capable of avoiding it or escaping it, making me suspect that Tian Chuang only “trapped” him in it because he let them, just like he only got taken back to Prince Jin in chains, in the first place, because he let it happen. We see it at 5:30 with the beggar gang’s staffs, when ZZS breaks it up by literally flinging another dude into the middle of it. We see it at 5:41, when he kicks his way out of the formation. And we see it at 8:15, when the sheaths have come off the swords, and he feints under them to break his way out. Just noticing.

When WKX is talking about the Baiyi sword as they all sit around ZZS’ sad little raw fish in the dirt by the lakeside, he mentions that Rong Changqing created three master works – the White Cloth sword, the Dragonback, and the “Great Wild Land,” per Youku’s translation. ZZS has the Baiyi sword, I assume the Dragonback is Ye Baiyi’s sword. Is the Great Wild Land actually the Ghost Valley? Given what we learn from Ye Baiyi in the back nine about Rong Changqing and his plans for Ghost Valley? Anyway, then we get some magic pipa playing, and ZZS (trying to, apparently) play WKX’s xiao in musical self-defense, and even though he leaves his opponent bleeding, WKX takes the opportunity to make suggestive comments about teaching him how to blow properly, just in case WKX’s been slacking on his act as a cheesy pick-up artist and anyone’s beginning to see through him. ZZS yells at Chengling for his lack of martial skill, then yells at him for crying, because that always works, particularly with traumatized teenagers who have had their entire family and sect massacred like, two nights ago. As a shifu, I’m not sure how you manage to inspire such devotion, my dude. WKX plays the indulgent parent, but also reassures Chengling that ZZS has good reasons for yelling at a traumatized, newly orphaned kid. I suppose he is getting him ready for all the yelling that’s going to go down once they get to Five Lakes Alliance and Chengling has to deal with Gao Chong and Shenshen. Chengling’s response, with WKX’s encouragement, is to ask to be ZZS’s disciple again. Was Han Ying (who I guess we’ve yet to actually meet at this point (EDIT TO ADD: NO WAIT, he was in Ep 1)) this much of a little dumbass to 24-year-old ZZS when Han Ying was 14? (EDIT 2 TO ADD: And who is writing this story, omg.) Although, ugh, that makes me realize that part of ZZS’s bad mood is that Chengling asking to be a disciple must be bringing up a shit-ton of bad stuff for ZZS about how he got all the other Siji Manor disciples killed. (Wen Kexing sees himself in Chengling, making his bow to Qin Huaizhang, one of the few good things that ever happened in his life, while ZZS sees all those red flowers on the mural back in his rooms in Prince Jin’s palace.) A final lakeside observation – A-Xiang pokes at ZZS’s uselessness as a cook here, and WKX will later ask him why he’s so utilitarian about food and drink, when they’re the greatest pleasures of life. (Really, WKX? THE greatest pleasures? Although that’s certainly an interesting comment given where we end up, in the end.) And it makes me begin to wonder – is ZZS so bad at cooking, and does he continue to avoid it, at least partially because he’s already losing his senses enough so that it interferes with preparing a tasty meal?

Also, we meet the Four Scorpion Assassins, and Pretty Arhat and Evil Bodhisattva have some pretty bold names, but now I’m back on my thing about the women in this show, and wondering what kind of enlightenment or release these two feel like they’ve had, and how it may or may not resemble the mindset of the women of the Department of the Unfaithful in Ghost Valley. I’m not well-versed in Buddhism, though, and am maybe not the person to take on how that religious symbolism is or is not used as a metaphor for female freedom in this show.

This is getting kind of long, so one last observation for now, and I think I may have mentioned this before: WKX has color-coded ZZS and Chengling as a unit in the robes he bought for them when he also rented out the entire inn. He’s not in the same color, but he is in a complementary shade and tone, which I find interesting. Also, his sash is sort of salmon, not the red of his Ghost Valley getup, but not completely divorced from it, either.

[aethylas]

For anonymous: a series of answers/clarifications/amendments on The Goldenrod Revisions! (I've answered these all in one post just to make it easier). Thank you so much for the asks, this helped me a) clarify my thoughts b) solve some canon continuity issues so I really appreciate them!

THANK U for agreeing to answer my questions! I'll have to ask them separately so they're not in 1 super-long impossible-to-read ask. I have 3 about 15x19, 1 about 15x20, 2 about 15x21, 2 about 15x22, and 2 about 15x23. quick disclaimer: i don't mean any offense at all by my question count! I didn't even notice these oddities the first time I read this; once I read it and accepted it as the true canon, I took a closer look and then noticed. but plz don't think these made your fic any less great!!

No worries anon! It is literally my pleasure to answer them and I am VERY very happy to find discrepancies with canon in the fic - then I can hopefully fix them and make the fic better :) Also I really appreciate the very systematic way you laid all these out, it really helped me reply, and also subsequently make a couple of edits to the fic!

For 15x19:

1. Why did Chuck trust Michael with the task of killing Jack? As God he should know Michael betrayed him in 15.08; did he expect Michael to disobey him again?

I think in this case we're/Chuck is relying on knowledge from the canon 15.19, i.e. Chuck would assume the outcome predicted by the show - that Michael WOULD betray the Winchesters/the world in order to please his father. So God assumed Michael would act the way he did in Inherit The Earth. But additionally, Chuck isn't actually very keyed-in to his own characters' motivations (esp. when love is involved) or very attached to certain results - he basically sends Michael and Lucifer to kill Jack because he figures it will entertain him no matter what happens - whether Michael and Lucifer kill each other, whether they kill the Winchesters/Jack, etc. - either Jack dies this way or Chuck will think of another way to do it.

2. How was Sam able to kill Lucifer? It was said only an archangel could kill another archangel with the archangel blade; was this a total lie or could Sam do it since he's Lucifer's true vessel? (plz don't change it to have Michael kill him; Sam being the one to do it was perfect, I just wanna understand how he could do it).

So glad you raised this because I honestly totally forgot! But now that you have, I have corrected that lore continuity with a line about biblical metaphors.

3. How is Rowena alive? She said she was dead in 15.08, so I initially assumed as a witch and the Queen of Hell she found a way to travel between Hell and Earth despite being dead. But then Sam says "Michael could've killed you" and then Chuck kills her twice in 15.21, both of which indicate she's alive here - does this mean Michael resurrected her when she summoned him?

God okay this is like - please call me out if this is incorrect or still confusing - but it's kind of like, based on the very inconsistent and confusing lore of the SPN afterlife that I assume Rowena is 'dead' but also 'alive' in the sense that Crowley was 'alive' and is now 'dead'. Does that make sense? She's not 'alive' as a human but rather as a demon (or something like it). So as Queen of Hell and a presumably demonic-adjacent entity, when she's 'killed' she gets sent to the Empty now vs. being 'killed' as a human and going to Heaven/Hell. (Based on when we see her in Hell, I assume she possesses her own body? Unclear. Just go with it. They've never been great with what it means to show vessels in Heaven/Hell etc.)

4. I thought asked all I wanted to know about Goldenrod but I just thought of 1 more thing: I don’t get why some dialogue implies Michael was dead? He mentions how he “found himself back on Earth” and tells the Empty it couldn’t stop Chuck from resurrecting him & Lucifer, but prior to 15.19 we last saw Michael leaving the bunker with Adam alive and well in 15.08, and it seemed like he was gonna stay on Earth for Adam’s sake. So what happened to him?

Oh that's a great point! I think that is actually just a confusing choice on my part that Chuck killed absolutely everyone including Michael/Adam in 15.18 Despair and THEN chose to resurrect Michael (but not Adam) alongside Lucifer when he was bored/wanting to kill Jack. I made some slight adjustments in-text to hopefully make it less confusing because I know that's different to the lore of canon 15.19 Inherit the Earth.

For 15x20:

1. How did the angels and demons in the Empty wake up? Did Michael use the last of his grace to wake everyone up? Were they already awake thanks to Jack blowing up in 15x18 or did they somehow sleep through that? (Not expanding on the Empty's claim that "you made it loud" is one of countless things I'll never forgive the actual show for, so THANK YOU for taking the show back to the Empty in the first place; I was just curious about this one element.)

So the Empty was already 'loud' according to canon, but since canon is vague on what exactly that means (thank you writers!...) I got the impression it meant the Empty wasn't 'peaceful' anymore but still powerful enough to suppress the beings inside, like the beings in there were awake and suffering but unable to rebel. Sort of what we see with Cas in this version of 15.20. Maybe like, additional suffering in sleep paralysis? Regardless, Michael does expend his grace to weaken the Empty enough that other beings wake up and/or are able to fight back and exist outside their own personal nightmare chamber. So whatever your impression of 'loud' is with regards to the other beings in there, assume Michael was able to free them from the Empty's control.

For 15x21:

1. Having Jack & Amara take out Hell & Purgatory was a BRILLIANT idea; I love that they ended all the places of suffering and changed the system. I just wonder - what happened to the souls and the demons still in Hell at that point, and the Leviathans and other monsters still in Purgatory? Were they just wiped out completely and sent to the Empty? Or did Jack turn them human and add them to the cycle? (I don't think the show clarified whether or not Leviathans have souls, so...)

No matter whether they were monster or demon or even angel, they would eventually be given human life. I broke it down to 'human enough souls' vs. 'not human enough souls'. Human-enough were immediately brought to life with memories and versions of their original bodies, and not-human-enough were sent to the Soul Queue to be born as infants. I assume Leviathan and most demons fall into 'not human enough', therefore, whatever tiny microbe of personality/soul they had was added to the cycle of rebirth and would be translated to a new human soul. Of course this might have a WILDLY different impact on the world depending on how many people go to hell in this system, how many people were 'human enough', etc.... But we're basically fudging those numbers a bit one way or another just to give certain characters the revival they deserve haha.

2. Did Cas drown and die after Chuck threw him in the lake and Jack left their limbo-dream world? If so, did he go through the same question-&-answer situation with Death that Sam & Dean did? Or was he with Jack & Amara when they rebuilt the world?

Cas was already dead/dying even when he was talking to Jack, he was sort of in a different version of the 'Veil' per se. VERY wishy-washy, but basically he and Jack were on a different dream-plane that they were jolted to in the chaos of the disorganised no-Death world.

I think Cas, Rowena, Lucifer, Michael, etc. as beings who were killed after the snap is a bit ambiguous. Rowena and Lucifer, I think, as entities who were demonic-dead or Empty-level-dead pre-Snap probably went through the reincarnation Yes/No Death questionnaire. Cas and Michael might not have since they were technically 'alive' and human before the Snap. Regardless, I think they probably wouldn't remember the interaction even if they had it.

The reason the question happened to the Winchesters AND that they remember it is Main Character Syndrome... they were the only people left alive when Jack and Amara did a hard reset, and that honestly Death took time to chill/exposition at them because he likes them. Really. Despite all appearances. Or respects them enough to let them know what's gone down, anyway.

Metatextually, it was really just to reaffirm to the audience that Dean (and Sam) want to live, in contrast to 15.20 Carry On 😅

3. Did all the snapped people (Eileen, Adam, the Waywards, etc.) also go through the Death question-&-answer process but not remember it, or did Jack & Amara just send them back?

Snapped people were reset automatically! Normally the new-humans also wouldn't remember their interactions with Death/reapers, just like in canon lore when someone like Dean has a near-death experience.

I realise this whole section and various other lore reformation parts of the fic aren't SUPER clear on specific logistics but on some occasions I'm like, I've done enough info-dumping, I don't want to overwrite exposition. But if you think it's worth clarifying certain points let me know and I can try to do so!

For 15x22:

1. The twenty something blonde guy in sunglasses getting hot tea, is that Belphegor? sure sounds like it but I wanted to confirm.

Yep!

2. Since Death mentioned that Jack only resurrected the angels, demons, and monsters from the Empty who had enough of a soul, and since all the human souls from the Veil went to Heaven as confirmed by Kevin's presence, how exactly are Anna's human parents and Bela alive now?

Great question - 1) I SOMEHOW FORGOT ANNA'S PARENTS DIED? Complete screw up on my part, I don't know how that happened. I fixed this so it's her grandparents now. 2) Bela was sent to Hell as part of her deal, so I was assuming she was a demon by this point in canon (since it would be... MANY Hell-years since she died.) Therefore she had a 'human' enough demon soul to be put back as a human.

3. Oh, and the tall woman with the flyer in 15.22; who is this supposed to be? Hannah I’m guessing?

To be honest I didn't have anyone in particular in mind for that scene; it was kind of a catch-all for missing characters like, it COULD be Hannah. It could be Raphael. Hell, it could be Abbadon. I didn't want to do a full shot of every single person missing from the cast who had died (esp since like - we wouldn't know who they were anyway! Their bodies would be different). So this one is literally just fill-in-the-blank. But if I had to assign a character there I'd say it would probably be one of the more arrogant angels like Raphael or Uriel.

For 15x23:

1. How is Bobby in the Roadhouse with the gang? 10x17 seemed to imply the angels were about to throw him in the dungeons to punish him for helping Cas; did Ash hack him out of prison, or was he never imprisoned at all? Also, is Jack not surprised to see another Bobby in Heaven because the boys already told him there was another Bobby besides the one he knows from Apocalypseverse? (I was half-expecting him to comment about that and confuse Bobby).

Oh that's a great point! I think that's another sort of fill in the blank since it's been five years since 10.17... even if he was in prison of some kind, I think it's likely either Ash helped him get out in the same way he helped everyone else, and since the angels were extremely short-staffed I doubt getting Bobby suitably imprisoned/punished was their top priority. But honestly I'm not super clear on how the angels intended to punish Bobby, I don't think canon is clear either... like, We Just Don't Know.

Finally I'd like to know, has Sam proposed to Eileen yet by the end of the final episode? The script doesn't mention a ring on her finger, and as Sam's fiancee, I'd assume she'd also have carved her name on the table. Sam mentions the innuendos Dean has said "in the past year," so it's been a while since Jack's prayer scene, yet Cas says Dean & Claire's argument was the last time they spoke, and it doesn't seem likely to me that Dean wouldn't call Claire in a year given how close they are...

Nope! I think Sam is saying 'I'm going to marry her' as a declaration of certainty of his feelings and faith in the future, not neccessarily as something that immediately happens. With regards to 'in the past year', that referred to the period when Eileen was alive during s15 as well! I assume Dean did teasing off-screen (and I mean, he did plenty on-screen too.)

I honestly think that Sam and Dean are just very very busy in the aftermath of the events of the 15.20 reset, like they have to deal with the new world AND try to wrangle all these hunters into this new system of collaboration. I didn't put Eileen on the table because she isn't there in the finale and because I do think the Sam/Dean/Cas/Jack family unit was a bit more central and important to the show, but maybe they add her (and any possible kids, if they have any) later on. God, imagine generations of hunters and/or Winchesters carving on that table. Sacred Artefact...

(1) Ok that's all the questions I have. Again, so sorry to blow up your inbox - I really appreciate your willingness to clarify these things! If there are some things you'd rather not explain and leave ambiguous, I totally get that. And in spite of these aforementioned confusing parts, I still ADORE your fic and will continue to read it whenever I feel like re-"watching" how Supernatural really ended! Thank you so much!! .... (2) I’m SO sorry to overload u! I know I asked a lot and I didn’t mean to sound like a hater saying “none of ur story makes sense”; that’s not what I meant at all! If this was a regular good ol fix it fic I wouldn’t have said anything but since u said u wanted it to wrap up the show as replacement canon, I thought maybe I should point out places that didn’t line up. But take as MUCH time as you need! Good for you working to meet your deadlines; I hope you succeeded!! And again I really appreciate you taking the time to answer whenever you have time—absolutely no rush!! Have a GREAT Memorial Day Weekend!!!

Anon thank you SO SO much for all these questions, as you can see it really helped me identify problems or straight up errors in my work wrt continuity and I'm so happy that means I can improve it. If any of the answers weren't clear or you think I should modify the fic to make certain things clearer than they are right now (other than the things I said I'd fix in-text for sure) let me know! It's really been a pleasure answering them too, I'm sorry it took me so long to get around to it, I actually went back and proofed/edited the whole fic as part of adding some of these corrections in (and that took like... three weeks...) and as you said, it's very important to me to get it as true to canon as possible so - yeah, just, once again, thank you!! You're wonderful! ♥♥♥

[dull-bun]

Annoying Introduction and rules HJCFNE

H I

Okay okay

SooO Before I start writing any drabbles or stuff like that here, I want to introduce myself, what I write, who I will write for and what I don’t write- Hello! My name’s Shiny-Bun. I am agender so I don’t have pronouns I prefer more over the other but you can just use they/them! I am pansexual and I’m up to write almost anything!

Wʜᴀᴛ I ᴅᴏ ᴡʀɪᴛᴇ

Male character/oc x GN!/male reader

Female character/oc x GN!/female reader

Fluff

Angst

Self harm comfort

(and any other comfort)

Suicide

Abuse

Songfics!

Character death

PTSD

I’ll also write HCs and fics, my ‘specialty’ if you will, is HCs and a small fic but I’ll write a proper fic if requested!

Wʜᴀᴛ I DON'T ᴡʀɪᴛᴇ

Smut (I will write it in the future but for now, I am not too comfortable! I hope you guys understand!)

Female x male and vice versa (unless it’s platonic) ((I also might write fem x male on very rare occasions))

Character x character

I mean character x character as in I will not write ships (I.e, bakudeku, tododeku, etc)

Forced/non-con (I’m not a dark blog s o -)

REAL PEOPLE (I.e, youtubers, actors, singers, etc)

Besides those, I think I’m fine with any topic!

I’ll tell you guys if I am not comfortable with writing something :>

Wʜᴏ I ᴡʀɪᴛᴇ ғᴏʀ

My OC’s or yours!

If you do want me to write your OC x reader, just tell me how your OC looks, how they act, ect. You can DM me or send me an ask!

Please make sure to be thorough and have details! 

My hero academia

I will write for Pro heroes, villains and students. 

I also haven’t watched much but I can try writing them!

Anonymous 

Anonymous meaning the character is not specified

I will also use an anonymous character if you do not specify the character or if you just want a drabble with no one in specific

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

I will write for characters from seasons 1-5, I have not read the manga yet unfortunately :( (Though you can request for seasons 6-8, I just might get their personalities v e r y wrong HJBEFRN)

I don’t recommend requesting for the manga- I don’t want to get anyone’s personality wrong HFBER :<

Ouran High School Host Club

I’m a little iffy about writing for this one- Only because I haven’t watched it in a while :( I need to re-watch it-

Black Butler

I’m also a bit iffy on this one, I also haven’t watched it in a while and I haven’t watched much of it? You can still request it though!

Hollow Knight

I will also write for Hollow Knight! It’s not very well known but I enjoy playing it!

Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild

I love this game e y e -

Beastars [??????](MIGHT NOT WRITE?)

oNCe AgAIN- I’m not too keen on this one but I’ll try my best!

Wozwald

Wozwald is a song with a lot of characters I would really like to write- My favorite cover of the song is made by miy_yuu

Kilmaa, Shama

Kilmaa and Shama are connected, they are both songs and I love all the characters! My favorite cover is also made by miy_yuu

I think I covered everything!

Also you guys can choose emojis for anon asks! I’ll make a list of them if you choose to use emojis :> I am also planning to make a masterlist once I get into writing

I’m doing my best and my motivation is low but I will try as hard as I can to write for you guys! Thank you once again for everything :>

Take care of yourself or else I’ll eat your spine :)

[annecoulmanross]

Do you know the Roma sub Rosa series by Steven saylor? If yes, what do you think of the Cicero description in it?

Hello anon!

I’m assuming this ask might be about the conspicuous absence of Steven Saylor’s Roma Sub Rosa from this post about Cicero fictions?

Yes, I’ve read most of the Steven Saylor novels and short stories, and though I’ve enjoyed aspects of them, I do confess I have a (few) bone(s) to pick with Saylor about how he depicts Cicero! More on this below the cut!

[Spoilers for all of Steven Saylor’s Roma Sub Rosa stories, but like, nothing that you wouldn’t also be spoiled for if you picked up a history book about this period.]

The important thing to know about Saylor, first and foremost, is that he actually set out to write a series of books about (and, indeed, from the perspective of) Cicero. But once he got around to the research stage, Saylor decided he didn’t actually like Cicero, and basically relegated him to being a side-character relative to the self-insert OC narrator “Gordianus,” whom Saylor created to be his new protagonist.

Now, I respect the fact that Saylor wanted to have a character that he could basically mold to his own whims – sometimes you don’t want to have to read thousands of words of Latin to get an accurate grasp of a real, complex historical figure just to be able to write in that person’s inner voice, you know? That’s valid. If (when) I write a Cicero novel, it’s not going to be from Cicero’s perspective. I also want the greater freedom of a lesser-known (or original) POV character.

That being said, I think that Saylor’s treatment of Cicero is ungenerous, unimaginative, short-sighted, petty, and mean – and that I don’t respect. Saylor’s Cicero is amoral, deeply lacking in compassion, and egotistic. The historical Cicero was obsessed with his own self-image, yes, but he cared very much about the people in his life. Saylor’s Cicero lacks many of the fundamental relationships that made the real Cicero who he was, like his love for his daughter and his passionate friendship with Atticus. Saylor’s Cicero is full of logical inconsistencies: in A Gladiator Only Dies Once (2005), Cicero is too squeamish to enjoy a gladiator show, but in The Throne of Caesar (2018), Cicero revels in Caesar’s death to the point that he was “giddy with joy.” (Historically, it’s reasonable to say that Cicero viewed the death of Caesar as a purely positive thing, but Saylor’s narrative clearly shames Cicero for this supposed bloodlust, which is not a take I find valid or compelling within the arc of this Cicero’s character.) Saylor’s Cicero exists only so that Saylor’s Gordianus has someone to consistently cringe at and morally judge.

I also think that Saylor leans too heavily into the idea that historical men are all misogynist and that the only way for a historical man to express enmity with a woman is to slander her with sexual invective. While the real Cicero had no compunctions about using sexual slander, he used the same types of sexual insults against both men (Clodius, Caesar, Antony) AND women (Clodia) and even then, he didn’t use these terms against all the women he disliked ; Cicero very much hated Cleopatra, but never used any sexual slurs against her – whereas Saylor has his Cicero call Cleopatra a “whore” for no apparent reason, in The Throne of Caesar (2018).

Ultimately, though, I think the worst injustice done to Cicero in Roma Sub Rosa is a narrative one: by ending his series with the death of Caesar, Saylor omits one of the pivotal moments of Cicero’s career: his final (and fatal) resistance to Marc Antony. The conclusion of Saylor’s series suggests that, after Caesar’s assassination, the story is simply done, and the world will soon settle gently into a new normal. In reality, the year following Caesar’s death represents a massive and violent sea-change, during which Cicero sacrificed his life in a vain – yet noble – attempt to preserve the republic against the machinations of those who would install an empire. It’s a tragic story of resistance to tyranny that has inspired revolutionaries for two thousand years, and Saylor simply doesn’t seem to care about this.

To counterbalance this laundry-list of disagreements, here’s is a more positive list: Three (3) Things I Like About Saylor’s Cicero

1. Every single Baby Gay™ in Saylor’s books is in love with Cicero, which gives us some incredible lines like this one, from Cicero’s intern, Rufus: “‘I didn’t kiss her for pleasure. I did it because I had to. I closed my eyes and thought of Cicero,’” from Roman Blood (1991).

(Note: Rufus also waxes rhapsodic about Cicero by quoting Sappho’s most famous queer poem, the Phainetai moi, in The House of the Vestals (1997) – cf. image below.)

2. Quite often, Saylor’s narrator has to witness everyone around him (including the members of his own family) hero-worshipping Cicero. I get a certain schadenfreude out of reading about this.

3. Every once in a while, Saylor will use his narrator to make prescient comments about the future (i.e. our present), and sometimes (sometimes) these comments are emotionally rewarding to a Cicero fan, like this speculation: “Who knows, perhaps all that survives the ravages of time will be scroll upon scroll of those long-winded speeches of Cicero’s, lovingly transcribed by Tiro – and ours will be known as the Age of Cicero, seen through his eyes alone,” from The Throne of Caesar (2018). 

Overall, though, I more often find myself angry at how Saylor handles Cicero, rather than amused. I fundamentally don’t think he understands who Cicero was as a person, or what motivated him, or why anyone would care about him, now or then. That being said, I do appreciate that Saylor gives a good amount of character development to Tiro, Cicero’s enslaved (and later freedman) secretary; he’s one of my favorite characters in Saylor’s books, and one of my favorite historical figures, period.

Also, you know, there’s this:

I hope this answers your question – feel free ask more about Cicero, any time!

[seatawinan]

december gifts

hello all, as a thank you for the amazing people here for helping me get through 2020, i thought i’d give back by giving you gifset gifts based on requests. also i guess as like a birthday giveaway (?)

to keep it simple, i guess a send me an ask with your preferred song lyrics or quote matched with a bl show. you can be specific with what scenes in the show, and lyrics. or the surprise me option of just sending a song title and the show and i choose the lyrics and what to gif. it can also be like the playlist gifset with your scenes/shows, and preferred songs (ex: wattine’s final kiss + lyrics/song, then wyel kiss+ lyrics/song in 1 request). can also be no lyrics/quote btw

coloring: pls tell me if you prefer my “standard coloring” or “surprise me” option again (the weird colorings i use sometimes)

add ons: pls tell me a simple song/lyrics gifset is ok, or can i “add on extra stuff”? like make it a polaroids, books?, flowers, the astronomy doodles, other doodles ***i can’t promise i can do the add ons*** i.e. i did extra stuff for person X’s request bc i was motivated that time, but person Y’s request has no add on bc i was unmotivated, even though person Y said yes to add ons

others:

maybe 2-6 gifs per set

non-bl shows are ok too, but all i can think of is gnr for that

this is just for fun, since i liked doing the make me choose challenge. this is not in a “oh I (sam) am very great and very blah blah blah”

i guess don’t send asks on anon? since i will tag you when i post it and i may message you for questions while doing it. those with *secretive main blogs* can message me on anon but tell me what your bl sideblog is

i might edit this post to clear things up? this is just an impulsive decision lol

not to self-advertise, but my *special gifsets* tag is here is you’d like to something from that

happy holidays 

💙 sam

[aqvarius]

I hope the rmd mc for kasumi is a bit different cuz she rly be hittin on my last nerve and I don’t think she would rly v✨i✨b✨e with kasumi in her current given state

i’ve decided i need to play matsunaga and cc before getting a better sense of the eicu guys but honestly some of these recent asks feel like my own brain jumped out of my head and started sending me anon asks lmao bc i totally agree. anyway i know it’s a controversial opinion to not like the rmd mc and i’m TRYING to be fair and put aside my bias against her and try to analyse what exactly it is that i don’t like, but yeah i just don’t really find that she has romantic chemistry with the characters (that i’ve read, i.e. takado and hosho). not that anyone ever asked for this, buuuuuut this ask has basically triggered yet another mc rant so stop reading here or get ready and settle down with some popcorn lmao.

DISCLAIMER: this is all just my personal opinion! and i’m sure many of you will disagree with me. please place a “i think/believe/feel” before every claim i make as everything i say here is just my own feeling towards her. i also need to disclaim that i have only properly read takado and hosho’s routes (bc i’m still...mad at sen’s route, and i’ve only made it through one chapter of matsunaga so far) and i understand (and fully subscribe to) the idea that mcs read differently depending on the route as well. and as always, please don’t let my opinions affect your own enjoyment of any characters or titles that you love!

ALSO as i was writing this, i went back and read my previous rant about her and i realised that i’m more or less reiterating the same points i made there but in a (hopefully) more structured and slightly more developed manner whoops. 

so here’s almost 3000 words and a whole bunch of screenshots under the cut because i don’t want to spam everyone’s dashboards with my unprompted Opinions(tm).

so anyway i’ve been thinking it’s a translation/tone thing. when i have the time/energy, i might sit down and really try to analyse the actual language, but just going off my intuition, i think maybe it’s because:

1. sometimes they choose to express something idiomatically and so that tone doesn’t come across as sincere. this isn’t a real example, but let’s think about the difference in tone between “oh no!” and “yikes”. because of modern day vernacular, we kind of associate “yikes” with a sarcastic and judgmental tone, whereas “oh no!” might connote a more genuinely concerned reaction. so sometimes i think that the use of very contemporary vernacular (which, lbr, trends towards a more sarcastic tone in general bc us gen z kids are mean) results in a lack of sincerity which makes the mc come across as a little more callous and less... actually kind and nice? i did get the feeling that hlitf mc has recently swayed towards this sort of tone as well and suspected that they had the same translator (which was confirmed later in a voltage Q&A). i’m definitely #biased but i can forgive this more because we had a good amount of content with her being adorable before the tone switch so i have a pre-established impression of her in my mind. 

by the way, i just want to say that while i do have this critique, i do really admire and respect the voltage translation and localisation team (and am... super indebted to them) and i do think they do fantastic translations generally. 

anyway, i believe this linguistic issue is at least partially responsible for my personal perception of the rmd mc’s personality that i expand on in the succeeding points, but my next point has more to do with the writing and characterisation of the most recent wave of mcs.

2. rmd mc has very few visible vulnerabilities. i think this is one of my biggest qualms with the new title mcs like rmd, destind and mk but i think stories are at their best when you get to see the mc fail and be vulnerable and wallow. the reason why i love certain mcs - particularly the ones whose titles and storylines centre around their careers (hlitf, irresistible mistakes, my last first kiss, scandal, celebrity darling, kiss of revenge, sleepless, otbs, arguably msb, etc.) - is because we get to see them fail and then grow. not only that, but you often get to see the relationship between the mc and the love interest deepen in these moments. but if you have a ‘perfect’ mc, then there’s no room for growth, so plotlines are forced to fall back on drama and trauma on the love interest’s side which... is exactly what rmd and mk do. 

this is not to say that rmd mc doesn’t make mistakes, because she certainly does, but i don’t find that they’re ever genuinely serious mistakes. for example, think about hlitf mc’s repeated mistake in season 1 of going after small crimes without seeing the bigger picture and thus potentially messing up an entire investigation. they allow her that space to mess up and be completely wrong for public safety. then they give her the time to be self-reflective and run away back to nagano really think about what her mistakes are, and where to go from there. she is confronted with humbling failure, and is forced to address issues about her own pride/ego, and matures into someone who has a more nuanced idea about justice. on the other hand, rmd mc never has to (consistently, afaik) go through a genuinely humbling experience, so she her pride/ego/arrogance never gets seriously called into question. maybe this is because the premise of rmd has to do with life and death and they don’t want to make it seem like she’s directly responsible for someone’s death, but hlitf also deals with life and death issues and the mc learns that if she messes up to save one civilian, she may actually be jeopardising the lives of tens or hundreds or more. 

anyway, taking takado’s route as an example, because this was our exposure to her as a character, the most frustrating thing is the way that she tries to lecture takado that he’s wrong about his attitude towards amputations, and never actually has to personally experience the potentially disastrous consequence of putting her ideology into practice. i think i would have enjoyed the route a lot more if she had gone over his head and naively made the decision not to do an amputation and then the person ended up dying or having to have a larger section amputated all because she was like uwu we can’t just cut off people’s limbs without waiting. i think if that situation had happened, we could have seen her actually have to confront her own naiveté and realise that she’s a noob and too idealistic and that reading a lot of medical journals does not translate to having actual field experience and intuition and who is she to question him like that when she knows nothing. she only realises that omg... we may have to consider some things with something called nuance... basically when more of takado’s backstory is revealed.  

(maybe this is because i work in academia so it extra-frustrates me, but omg if i had to one-on-one mentor a student like her, i would genuinely go nuts. she reminds me of some students that some colleagues and i have had where they  “well, actually” at everything you say bc they read some stuff on reddit or twitter that has absolutely not been proven through practical application of, or research conducted through the lens of, their theory. like imagine i told my advisors “despite being experts in [their respective fields] and having written numerous very important books, you’re wrong because i don’t agree but i have never myself conducted proper research to counter that!!”)

basically i wish they treated takado’s route like kaga’s routes (bc lbr takado and kaga are maybe... the same person?). look at the self-reflection here:

and here:

she does get down on herself at times, but look at the way that she humbly accepts her mistakes. sometimes she wallows on her mistakes, as anyone would, but look at the way she examines her failures and turns that feeling of inadequacy into motivation to work harder and smarter. 

by the way, these screenshots are from his ms1 and ms2 - so pretty early on - and we get to see her learn from these mistakes because she’s allowed to make them. we also get to learn more about kaga’s strictness and his kindness because of these mistakes.

i don’t know if the whole refusal to allow rmd mc to make significant errors is a response to readers who are like “omg.... why are voltage mcs so weak, why can’t they be perfect women who never get anything wrong” but ANYWAY i just feel like they never confront or address her hubris properly. 

3. following on from point 2, i find her one-dimensional. i’ve mentioned this before in a rant, but i don’t find her to be a very deep character bc to me, she reads as mostly surface level sass. i said: “her dialogue with them often reads as like they put 100 points in “snark” and 0 points in any other personality trait” lmao. so she’s great in one-off screenshots where you can see her bite back with a very screenshottable one-liner, but i find it tiring to have 30 chapters of her just literally running her mouth. because of this constant tone that they keep giving her, i find it really difficult to see any emotional depth in her character. because she’s the perspective character, her internal dialogue is just as, if not more, important as the love interest’s external dialogue in terms of carrying the emotional weight of falling in love, and i just don’t understand how there’s any sense of two people falling in love and getting to know each other when every sentence out of her mouth is just sass. can you imagine you meet someone and you get to know them but never have any genuine conversations bc every line out of your mouth is sarcastic? like your date is opening up and telling you about some difficulties he’s going through (which i’m sure you all know is a very vulnerable and scary thing to do) and instead of being empathetic and kind and understanding, you’re just like “sucks to be you dude”. and instead of saying “you don’t need to carry everything on your shoulders”, you say “you’re STUBBORN and i’m RIGHT”. OF COURSE i’m being kind of hyperbolic here (not even that much tho, see screenshots below) but that’s basically the tone she constantly takes. 

so when takado opens up about the rina thing, instead of being like “oh shit i’ve been judging him all this time and i’m genuinely sorry because i didn’t know a thing about you and yet i’ve been running my mouth”, she says “your head is as hard as a rock ya know?” and then KEEPS GOING. 

where’s the empathy sis? where is it? i’m looking but i can’t find it.

EVEN TAKADO WAS LIKE “I WAS TRYING TO TALK SERIOUSLY ABOUT IT”

and then the writers just push off her rudeness as like “it’s okay it’s chill!! takado laughed about it afterwards and it made the issue sound insignificant!!” even tho it’s obviously an extremely traumatic thing? WHY does he even fall in love with her??? i don’t UNDERSTAND alsdkfjs she has NO FEELINGS!! i just want genuinely romantic moments... is that too much to ask... it’s called romance md...

once again, let’s compare that to hlitf mc, when she finds out about kaga’s trauma. literally the FIRST reaction she has is to consider his feelings.

without even hearing his side of the story, she defends him because she trusts him and immediately empathises with him and the first thing she does is try to understand him and where he’s coming from. 

later on, when she hears him just dismissing things and playing callous, she actually cries on his behalf, which shocks him because he’s not used to people caring about him:

isn’t that a MASSIVE difference in reaction to essentially the same character opening up about their trauma? which do you find more conducive to developing emotional intimacy? in my opinion, it’s so much easier to fall in love with someone who supports you and has your back and trusts and believes in you and tries to understand you and can have a genuinely caring conversation with you when you need it. by the way, it’s not like kaga’s mc doesn’t sass him either! they have great bantery chemistry and she shit-talks him ALL THE TIME (a lot of the time under her breath and he’s like HUH? it’s great). 

and yet... we still actively see her caring about him... instead of being like WHOOPS my tongue slipped, i can’t help that i’m naturally insubordinate ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

by the way, i’m not trying to put the onus on female characters/heroines to be caring/empathetic/kind/loving. i’m putting the onus on ALL characters to be caring/empathetic/kind/loving in their own ways if we’re supposed to be convinced that they’re falling in romantic love. sure, kaga’s mc is exceptionally loving but kaga returns that love with his own ALL the time ;~~; anyway i’m gonna stop talking about them for now bc otherwise i would just completely derail and keep going on and on about them. 

anyway, back to takado, i actually find him to be more caring and loving than his mc? i actually genuinely like takado as a character and i think that real life me and him would be great together so i’m like extra offended that he’s with her rather than ME??? i would treat him so much better. 

i consider this lack of emotional depth to actually be a bigger hindrance on my enjoyment of the game than the lack of flaws thing. voltage’s recent wave of mcs with the love choice titles have been trending towards the ‘perfect woman’ type of mc, but while i have some Thoughts(tm) here and there about the other protagonists, none of them strike me as being as hard to get along with as rmd’s mc. so i’ve mentioned my issue with the masukisu mc’s weird moral boundaries (more an overall voltage issue that manifests the most strongly in her character), but i also do find that they don’t let her make big mistakes and they present her as this perfect superwoman figure with no weaknesses which like... unrelatable. but at least her banter is flirty banter and there’s a lot of chemistry there (even if it’s sometimes lacking emotional depth, as in some of kazuomi’s scenes - and that’s not her fault, that’s 100% on kazuomi lol). you can definitely understand why they’re attracted to each other at least, and you can definitely see real, deep love form between her and yuzuru the most. even though the masukisu mc is a ‘perfect woman’, the premise is designed to spark relationship conflict and the writing really helps us understand the emotional turmoil of falling in love with a target because of how much it lets the mc dwell on it. destind too basically has a perfect mc in terms of work/career, but they let her have her very glaring weaknesses and, once again, the premise forces her to address her shortcomings with regards to her idealistic view on soulmates/destiny and explores the head vs heart thing where she has to really examine her emotions and how they potentially come into conflict with her preconceptions of and preoccupation with numerical compatibility. 

thinking about it objectively, i feel like takado’s mc and mlfk ayato’s mc have a couple of similarities in the way that they don’t realise they’re in love for the longest time (although obviously childhood friends to lovers provides a better context for not realising that love - same with my boi natsume), but there’s just something lovable about mlfk’s mc that i don’t see in rmd. without going too deeply into it bc (1) i’m tired and (2) i’ve been going on about this for WAY too long now, i think that comes back to tone or writing (and possibly translation) style. i think at some point, i might actually go and compare the language in the “omg am i in love...?” scenes between takado’s mc, ayato’s mc and natsume’s mc but uh... not tonight haha. 

actually, at some point, i genuinely wondered if rmd mc was aromantic. i really just thought she did not experience romantic attraction because i literally got no sense of it through her internal monologue bc they kept pushing the whole like “i only relate to people’s ~aesthetics~” thing. and then i wondered how they were going to make an aromantic mc fall in romantic love...? because... it’s an otome game? (btw i’m not saying that aro people can’t enjoy otoge, i definitely know people who do! but there’s a big diff between someone playing an otoge vs someone being a character falling in romantic love in an otoge. but please call me out if i’m misunderstanding aromanticism!). anyway, long story short, rmd mc (takado’s especially) falling in love is absolutely unconvincing to me because i find her dialogue - both internal and external - rather unfeeling. 

these three points (1. translation that favours colloquialism over communicating emotional tone; 2. characterisation of a hubristic mc who doesn’t need to overcome significant challenges; 3. lack of emotional depth and empathy/understanding) are basically why i don’t think that she has good romantic chemistry with the love interests in romance md that i’ve read so far. i also have some very petty personal gripes (sekai...........) but they’re not relevant to this particular topic and frankly just... really petty so i don’t want to get into them here.

so anyway, long story short: i agree that i don’t think she would really vibe with kasumi in her current given state. like, they could be friends, maybe.

[chibimyumi]

Hey! Hope everything's fine (: I wanna ask about the following: what do you think will happen to r!Ciel? I just can't see o!Ciel, Sebastian, the Undertaker etc killing r!Ciel... He might decide to leave the scene for his brother's sake. It would be quite ironic if r!Ciel will choose to sacrifice himself after UT's hard work to bring him back to "life", given the fact that he's an ex-human who committed suicide.

Dear Anon,

First of all, thank you very much, I am doing great. I hope you’re doing great as well! Secondly, I am so sorry for the late reply.

What I think will happen to R!Ciel.

I definitely think that Undertaker will do anything in his power to make sure that R!Ciel does not get killed again; we have seen Undertaker’s obsession with the Phantomhive family, after all.

Sebastian is the titular character of this series, and right now he is incredibly scared of the reaper. Functionally, Undertaker is designed as the main villain and foil to Sebastian. Therefore, storytelling-wise, I think the logical proceeding would be for Sebas to thwart Undertaker when it comes to R!Ciel. Both of them would share the same reason to oppose each other, namely that they are each other’s greatest obstacle in achieving their respective goals. For Sebastian, it is to fulfil his contract and devour O!Ciel, which Undertaker is trying to prevent. For Undertaker, it is for Sebas to NOT fulfil his contract, as he wishes to reunite the Phantomhive family as much as possible. As such, though R!Ciel is of course a character of his own, he does also function as a plot-device for Sebas’ character arc to bear fruit.

Unpacking ‘Need vs Want’

Any good character arc should contain a good ‘need vs want’ correlation. The part above ⇈ and the greatest part of the manga so far, addresses only the ‘need’ in the ‘need vs want’ in Sebastian’s character arc. The ‘want’ is mostly left untouched. Sure, we could say that Sebastian ‘wants’ to fulfil his contract in order to have O!Ciel’s soul, but there has never been any explicit explanation as to whether Sebas had a choice in the matter to begin with. He did not seem to have any say in whether he gets summoned or not, as was suggested by him telling O!Ciel to dismiss him if he required no service of him. Here, we learned that Sebas can’t just leave on his own accord; i.e. he is chained. From this, we may conclude that sacrificing R!Ciel was the fee to get Sebastian to travel to the human world. If we do accept that he had no say in whether he wanted to come or not, we could say that by ‘paying’ with R!Ciel, Sebas was put in a magic-parcel and sent to O!Ciel, with the included promise to enter a bond of servitude. In order to dismiss him, the same postage fee would have been required to repack him and send him back.

If we accept Sebas’ condition of entering the contract as being involuntary, all the ‘want’ in him that is left so far is:

wanting his meal to be delicious

to not be a speechless slave.

Out of these two ‘wants’ however, only number 1 counts as the correlation with the ‘need’ which befits a character arc.  Number 2 is more of a coping mechanism, or a means to an end, if anything. Whether or not he acts like a speechless slave will not really change the way he fulfils his contract. For number 1 however, Sebas does need to act differently depending on how he wishes to manipulate the flavour of O!Ciel’s soul. Sure, so far in the manga, Sebastian has done quite a few things already to influence the flavour of his meal, e.g. letting the snakes attack the boy in Snake’s tent in the circus arc, or not allowing him to continue simpering due to trauma in the werewolf arc. (But one could even argue that shocking him out of trauma has more to do with the ‘need’…)

The current development in regards to Undertaker is probably the first time where Sebas’ ‘want’ arc can finally shine. I shall explain below:

R!Ciel and O!Ciel’s bond.

One of the most important things the flashbacks were telling us is that O!Ciel and R!Ciel have an incredibly strong bond, and that O!Ciel used to be hyper dependent on his older sibling. After R!Ciel died, O!Ciel had to rapidly grow up in order to fill the shoes his brother left behind, as well as to establish his own identity, or arguably, his brother’s identity according to the almost idealistic standard to which the younger twin held him.

O!Ciel is no longer dependent on his twin, but if we read this spread page from the werewolf arc as the order of guilt-level O!Ciel feels towards people, we see R!Ciel being in position number 1.

So the arc for O!Ciel here is to decide whether his sentiments play a role in his decision making.

Will he show that he has entirely let go of his sentiments and see R!Ciel for the zombie he is, and continue his revenge arc in a bee-line?

Or will lingering sentiments flow into a mini personal-redemption arc now that the main object of O!Ciel’s guilt is back?

Considering O!Ciel’s personality, I personally am more willing to bank on a route 2, where the sentiments might threaten to influence O!Ciel, but him having to smack these feelings down even more harshly. If anything O!Ciel has learned in the past almost-4 years, is that the dead stay dead. Back in chapter 19, O!Ciel even lectured Soma on the stupidity of wishing things back that are gone at one point.

O!Ciel realises very well that R!Ciel is not his brother anymore. We have seen his shock upon seeing his brother’s corpse talking to him, yes, but afterwards, the first spoken reaction we see of him is utter outrage. That scene was so full of spontaneity and catharsis, it is hard to believe that he used all those long, looong moments of absolute silence to come up with a script to give people a ‘show’ of how he wants his zombie brother deader. If anything, the long period of silence was probably him considering what the return of ‘the real first born’ means to him, and how it will influence his future. And of course O!Ciel is not happy to find out that the one adversary even his demon seems unable to overcome, has become their adversary again in a major problem that O!Ciel cannot afford to hand-wave. During the Campania- and the Boarding School Arc, O!Ciel could say: “Oh, Undertaker is up to no good, he has to be stopped. If not, then it sucks for others.” But now, if Undertaker doesn’t get stopped FOR GOOD, well… it will become: “That sucks a lot for me!”

Returning to Sebastian’s ‘want’

So, what does all this rant about O!Ciel have to do with Sebastian’s ‘want’ arc? If O!Ciel goes for route 1 (bee-line to revenge), then Sebastian and O!Ciel’s ‘want’ arc will overlap, and the two of them can head towards the same goal (albeit with different motivations).Here above however, I said that I am more likely to vouch for route 2.

If O!Ciel opts for route 2, then O!Ciel’s ‘want’ and Sebastian’s  ‘want’ will contradict, as surely Sebastian is not waiting for a soul with ‘too-many-sentiments-to-kill-a-corpse’ flavour. In that case, however reluctant Sebastian might be to fight Undertaker again, he will at least make sure that O!Ciel’s resolve to kill the zombie won’t wither. This task however, will require a much greater effort and determination on Sebastian’s part than anything he has done so far in terms of ‘seasoning his meal’. The snake-stunt in the Circus Arc was adding some salt and pepper perhaps, but this time, playing a hand in whether or not O!Ciel has the guts to kill R!Ciel will be as flavour-changing as choosing between boiling or stir-frying a meal.

Hence, with clashing interests between demon and boy, Sebastian must see to it that his ‘want’ won’t be hindered by O!Ciel’s ‘want’. So,  ladies and gentlemen, and other respectable individuals, here is where we might see Sebastian’s first ‘want’ arc where he acts solely out of personal desire. Regardless of whether O!Ciel would initially choose route 1 or 2, the final result (if Sebas has any say in the matter) will still result in them going after R!Ciel.

R!Ciel Leaving Baby Brother?

As for R!Ciel leaving the scene for his brother’s sake… I personally find it quite hard to believe so. As explained in the Boarding School Arc, Bizarre Dolls – however well they are made – are in essence the embodiment of a person’s strongest emotions and fixations in life. R!Ciel’s fixation is probably his regret that he could not stay by his baby brother’s side to protect him and planning every detail out in their ‘glorious shared future’. Remember how R!Ciel could not handle O!Ciel saying he is going to live his own life and become a toy maker? Yikes.

The possessiveness of R!Ciel that was unfiltered due to his young age became the essence of his current being; a baby-bro-con zombie. Instead of “braaains”, it is “baby-brooooo”. In short, I do not think there is any chance R!Ciel will be able to physically and mentally let go of O!Ciel. As touched upon in this post, I think Undertaker’s and O!Ciel’s shared objective is to force O!Ciel to live a ‘happy life’ together with his twin.

If anything, R!Ciel’s (artificial) intentions fit the theme of Kuroshitsuji perfectly; humans are too greedy to let go and will submit to their greed ever after death.

If we consider this, then the Bizarre Dolls tell us that: “what makes humans human is their greed and fixation. In order to make a corpse human again, the main and only way to make this possible is to restore this greed and fixation.

[solacefruit]

Hello! This is the person who wrote the one shots on Quotev — the one that anon went through so much trouble to get sent your way. If you’d be willing, I would appreciate genuine critique of my work — I’m genuinely looking for how I might improve my writing, and I haven’t been getting very much feedback. Apologies if you’re too busy or if this bothers you!

Hello there! I’m willing to give you my thoughts on your work, since you’ve asked so politely and gone to such effort, but before I do that, I’d like to preface everything by saying that I’m going to approach this answer more or less the same way I would give feedback to students in a class. I think that’s most helpful. I also hope none of this feedback comes off as harsh or hurtful, because that’s not at all my intention. 

You clearly know how to write well: your work is well-edited, with only a few errors here and there (be careful using semicolons, they can be very tricky). It’s clear you know the rules of writing, so I don’t think you’ve got a lot of room for improvement there. 

The stories themselves, though, didn’t click for me as a reader. I didn’t get pulled into the world you’ve created and I didn’t connect with your characters. That doesn’t mean that what you’ve done is bad, though! But I am going to suggest some ideas for restructuring your work that might help make your stories more dynamic and effective in capturing and retaining your reader, or showing off your skills and ideas to better effect. 

Your first story begins with the description of the character in a lot of depth, but I cannot recommend this as an opening paragraph. If you’re ever writing a manuscript, you need to remember that your first page is your first–and often only–chance to hook your reader and convince them to keep going. (Especially true if you’re sending your work to a publisher!) Because of that, a lot of good stories begin with first page or two that does everything it can to tell you who, what, where, and the tone of the book. 

Very few good stories start with the “I have black hair and blue eyes and today I am wearing a big hat” type character description, unless that is actually important–i.e., The Little White Horse begins with Maria detailing to herself what she’s wearing, because she’s vain and it brings her comfort to know she looks beautiful, which matters because… [and then the plot begins]; the first Harry Potter book describes the Dursleys in very Dahl-esque fashion, which matters because… [contrast them to the peculiar happenings of the plot emerging]. What your character does is almost always more interesting than what they look like, so it’s often a sensible idea to prioritise your narration accordingly. Both of the above examples tell you who, the tone of the story, and then what is happening, while filling in other details so you know where and when by the end of the first chapter.  

Something else I noticed in your work is that you’re a keen world-builder with a lot of ideas, but I found your stories to be a little overwhelmed by that, rather than enriched by it. This is something I’ve seen a lot in young creative writers, so it’s definitely not you and it’s not actually a fault, exactly–but it can detract from your work and make your work actually less inviting to read, rather than more, and that’s something that’s important for speculative fiction writers to be aware of. I’m currently working on a series of tips and tricks requested by popular demand, so I’ll probably elaborate more on this later, but basically, your world-building should be an iceberg: you know how immense it is, but your reader will only see a small delicious fragment of it. 

Oversupplying world-building details often makes works impenetrable or–most commonly–overshadows the characters and plot and sinks interest in the ship story. (For me, the most egregious example that jumps to mind is Foundling by D.M. Cornish but that’s a rant for another day). Your work isn’t too overcrowded, I feel, but for me, I got the sense that you used your stories as vessels for your world-building, instead of using your world-building to decorate and deepen your stories. The reason this causes problems is because people–myself included–are most often motivated to read because they relate, connect to, or are curious about characters, rather than a world. (Worlds are very fun, don’t get me wrong! It’s just that world-building tends to be most fun for the people doing it, not the people reading it). 

Finally, something I wanted to bring to your attention is style, and particularly streamlining it and leaning into your own voice. At the moment, your work is a little heavy with what I think of as “fanfiction-itis” for lack of a better concept. It’s basically an overall tendency to 1. be uncertain about what person the story is told in, or jump between views. This can be a choice! But it’s one you should be making consciously. There’s first-, second-, and third-person, but in third-person, there’s also an omniscient narration and limited narration. Each can be used to huge effect–but you need to pick the right one for the story you’re telling and stick to it. 2. over-rely on epithets and character description. Often this is a result of the above when it’s third-person omniscient. As a rule of thumb, you don’t really need to use epithets much at all. “The taller boy,” “the blonde girl,” and so on doesn’t add anything, but it does often distract and make the writing look a bit… juvenile to experienced writers. Unless the description is saying something about the character that’s worth knowing, it’s usually best not to bother with it. “The black-furred warrior walked by” says a lot less than “Blackfur stalked past, scowling.” 

3. use unnecessary or tautological dialogue tags. I’ve seen a lot of “said is dead” passed around on this site, and that’s great advice to follow if you want your work to be unenjoyable and annoying to read. Said is the most useful dialogue tag, because it is invisible to us, and many other “common” tags are likewise useful–things like asked, or replied. You only need to use a different and noticeable dialogue tag when it changes the dialogue in a meaningful way. For example:  i. “what did you do?” he queried. ii. “what did you do?” he asked. iii. “what did you do? he asked cautiously. iv. “what did you do?” v. “what did you do?” he said, but he was looking away, distracted. The first one’s dialogue tag is useless and clunky: we know he asked a question, there’s a question mark there, but unlike “asked,” queried really stands out and can break the flow of reading. The second one is unobtrusive, but doesn’t tell us anything about the tone of his question: he could be angry, purely curious, scared, who knows! The third one tells us his tone, but be careful not to overuse adverbs–that’s J.K. Rowling’s curse. The fourth tells us that, whatever he’s asking about, he’s worked up about it and it’s probably not great! The fifth is an example of how you can actually turn dialogue tags into full sentences sometimes. By being precise with your dialogue tags, you can make your dialogue really pop, and also not distract your reader. 

4. tell, rather than show. We’ve all heard “show, don’t tell” as writing advice, but there are actually a lot of times when “telling” is perfectly fine. However, broadly speaking, characters tend to feel more alive if you make them act out their personalities, rather than recount them to your reader. If someone has a big personality, you don’t need to say it: it’ll become abundantly clear from their actions soon enough!

By being aware of these things and making conscious choices–even if your conscious choices are to keep doing these things!–your strength and skill in storytelling will improve. It looks to me that you’ve gotten to the point where now you have to hone the talent you already have, which means that being precise and self-reflective about your writing style and choices is probably going to be the best course for you to improve going forward.

I hope this is helpful to you! I want to stress that all of this advice is offered in a “take what is useful to you, leave the rest” spirit. For every piece of writing advice, there’s excellent writing that contradicts it, so honestly a lot of good writing is just knowing when to follow advice and when not to, when to follow a rule and when to break it. Good luck with all your future work!

[coolxnxblue]

de rules:

1. Themes might very with this blog. It’ll typically be SFW, but there will likely be dark themes, violence and swearing.

Things will be tagged! I’ll try my best, anyways. If you want something in particular tagged, please let me know through ask / anon / im. The format I use for tagging is, for example, tw: swearing.

I don’t have any triggers but I do ask you tag all of your NSFW content.

That said, I won’t do anything NSFW - gore is okay, though.

I’m of age.

2. I’m private, meaning I only really roleplay with people I follow. This is so things don’t get too overwhelming and for me and to cement who I want to interact with. I generally follow most people if our writing clicks, though.

If I don’t follow you and you’d like me to check out your blog, lurk in my notifs. I’ll definitely see you and make note to check you out. Same with promos, or you can just rb them to a sideblog / send an ask with its url. I can’t gurantee I’ll follow, but I’ll certainly check it out!

If it’s a crossover, I have to know the fandom and be at least a little bit confident with it. This is so I’m able to work with you, our thread and have muse for it. You’re free to ask if I know of a fandom or not! I’ll have a list at some point.

I follow the tag #coolxnxblue. If there’s anything you want me to see, like dash commentary, just tag that and x-kit will alert me of your post! I may respond to ic stuff ic stuff if I’m feeling it. 

In that sense, I’m chill with dash shenanigans with most folk, not just mutuals!

Absolutely no godmodding. It ain’t fun, fam. If you’re not sure what this term means, do look it up. This includes powerplaying, metagaming, and other things of that nature. This applies especially in fights if they happen (I’m chance-based and hope that you are too).

I can be picky with OCs. But rest assured, if you’ve followed me/interacted with my promo, I’ll always give your pages a read.

Please don’t be offended if I don’t want to interact with you (and please don’t try to guilt me into doing so!).

As for following back, I usually take a week tops to do so - but if you’ve hit up my promo, I go through that eventually.

I DON’T CARE ABOUT AESTHETICS. I just think they’re pretty. If you don’t use formatting or anything like that, or heck - even wanna’ just do iconless rp - I have no problem with it whatsoever! It’s you, your writing and your muse I care about!

3. Please don’t rush me for starters or responses.

PLEASE understand that I have blogs galore and my muse tends to fluctuate; this can mean I’m everywhere at once and can end up neglecting a blog or two. It’s nothing personal; you know how muses are! Additionally, life happens to be a thing.

Please note the mun deals with anxiety and depression, and has part time jobs which are honestly tiring - this might affect how frequently she roleplays.

Chances are, I’ve probably has seen that bit of interactivity and just haven’t gotten around to responding yet.

My roleplaying style being para/multi-para, I may take a while to respond. I hoard drafts like a dragon - it’s really just the motivation to write and ship those out.

I hoard asks, but sometimes can’t find muse or interest for all of them. If it’s been a month or two, generally assume I’m not interested / can’t find muse for it. You’re free to send another though!

I answer asks from anyone - personals, rp blogs and anons. I’ll answer non-mutual asks occaisonally but I won’t be making threads out of them

4. Shippings? Heck yeah, I ship lots with my blue son! Just make sure they’re of similar age pls.

If I don’t happen to be interested, don’t force anything on my character.

I do not ship incestuous ships. Do NOT follow/interact if you do.

The ship has to have chemistry; I’m generally shipping trash, but if they don’t click, they don’t click, sorry.

This is a multi-ship blog, meaning there will be more than one ship without them conflicting with eachother.

If you want to ship and I already have a ship of your choosing going with a duplicate, please don’t hesitate to hmu! My ships aren’t exclusive and each character/relationship portrayal is unique to me!

Relationships are eternal until you deem otherwise. If you’re not interested in a ship anymore, just let me know!

Sonic X Tails won’t be happening on this blog, sorry.

5. Whilst I am of age, I’m not aiming for sexual content on this blog (and will not be dealing with fetishes). That stuff makes me uncomfortable, and I typically don’t recommend pulling it with my character if you’re interacting with me. Nonetheless, should it arise, I will tag it appropriately as nsfw //.

6. About reblogs…

I am not a meme source, and reblogs clog up my activity. Please reblog any ask / starter memes you find on this blog from their SOURCE. The exception to this rule is if there is no source; go ahead.

I don’t feel comfortable with Personals reblogging my IC or OOC posts, so please don’t do that. If I put something in the fandom tags for whatever reason (bar promos), you’re free to, though.

This goes for my art too unless it has the tag ok to rb, but otherwise only the person I drew it for can reblog it. If you wanna’ reblog something, I DO put it on my art blog eventually!

A few times is fine, as it happens, but repeatedly breaking these rules will result in me soft blocking you.

I try to participate in reblog karma as much as I can, but always reblog from the source/a meme source.

If a post or ask is for you, you’re free to reblog it to save it though - but only if you’re an rp blog!

7. I’m a para / multi-para blog, novella if I’m adventurous and have time. Whilst I may roleplay crack threads with shorter responses, this does not apply to all threads I write. This means:

I write my replies as detailed as I can muster, and length can range from 1 paragraph to 6.

Short responses (such as one-liners) in more serious threads where I’ve written a decent deal can instantly kill my muse for that thread.

Whilst I’d prefer for partners to at least somewhat match my length, it’s entirely up to you - just try your best and make sure you give me enough to work with. ♡

If my muse happen to go nuts out of nowhere - like, overboard - don’t stress too much about matching him.

8. Threads! You can yeet asks, memes, and even starters at me if I’ve liked a call! I’ll obviously have my own you can like.

You’re free to like starter calls even if we’re not mutuals; I can check out your blog that way. I still only write starters for mutuals though.

I know pretty much most if not all Sonic media, bar Fleetway which I haven’t gotten around to reading yet. Since that’s unfamiliar territory, I’m unlikely to tread in it yet.

Starter memes are the BEST way to interact me because they just yeet a prompt at my face and really help me write starters. If you see me reblog one, send one!

If you want a certain verse, lemme’ know! Otherwise, I’ll either resort to game verse or whatever continuity your muse applies to (i.e, Sally (archie), Starline (idw), and so forth).

If you want to turn an ask into a thread, go ahead!

In that sense, I don’t recommend writing starters for me unless we’ve discussed something. I don’t like to leave anyone hanging.

Please don’t assume things about my muse. If you’re uncertain about things, ASK.

IMs are open to mutuals, if you want to do any in-depth plotting. I also have Discord if that’s more convenient for you!

9. Guidelines on mains and relationships:

If we’re mutuals and we interact a lot, you’re welcome to ask me if I’d like to be your main!

Please don’t be offended if I deny, though; I typically want to pick those I trust to be my mains as well as people I can comfortably write with.

Not limited to them! I roleplay with duplicates galore so don’t be afraid to hit me up if you want to interact!

Pre-established relationships are a-okay in my book; if you have an idea for a relationship between our muses we can work towards, hit me up! I reblog those pre-established relationship memes every so often too. Romantic relationships link back to the shipping guidelines.

Also, friendship/family/rivalry relationships are EXTREMELY valid to me - so don’t feel scared about asking for them!

10. If you have any issues, please let me know and hopefully we can resolve it!

Mun is actually super nice, so don’t be afraid to hit her up!

I am absolutely terrible with IMs and Discord. I either respond quickly or days later, depends on my mood. Social anxiety tends to interfere with this (and more recently exhaustion from work) - but honestly, if you’ve sent something, I’ve likely read it and just haven’t gotten around to it yet! It’s nothing personal; trust me!

Please leave me out of drama; I’m here to have a good time, as is everyone else, and it pains me to see people arguing.

This is a little different with callouts - if I see anything on dash pertaining to any problematic users, I will take it into consideration and rb it if I believe them to be harmful.

11. To retierate, I tend to follow those that:

Write para and whom I feel my muse would click with.

Seem chill? Tone can really intimidate me honestly.

Have rules and about pages! Knowing the boudaries of my rp partners is super important as well as their lovely muses! Sometimes rules are enough, though, if you’re going to write the about eventually.

Tag their nsfw.

Don’t have massive icons - ie, have rp icons that take up an entire text post like 500x500 or something. I don’t want to clog the dash and it’s tiring to resize them.

...also, if I follow your hub blog (provided it doesn’t double as a personal), it generally means I’m cool with any blogs that are attached to it.

12. On threads…

If you’re not interested in a thread anymore, and would like to drop it, please let me know! I’d feel terrible if we’re both not having fun with it or if partners feel overwhelmed with the amount of threads we have.

Honestly, unless I let you know, our threads have no expiry date - so no need to worry about me dropping them without telling you. I can just be quite slow sometimes.

13. Mun does not equal muse! Anything my muse might say does not reflect on how I think unless I explicitly say so.

14. Know that if I follow you, I WANT to interact with you.

I literally couldn’t care less about follower counts. I care about YOU guys and our interactions.

15. Rules may be subject to change.

Please like this post if you’ve read the rules! You don’t have to, but it’s of personal reassurance to me if you have.