#and trying to figure out what about myself i've been misinterpreting

[stinkbeck]

nothing more relaxing than like acting out a play in my room alone

[jo-com]

𓍢ִ໋🌷͙֒✧˚ ༘ ⋆ ➛ Opposite

Oscar Piastri x Fem!reader

Summary: Oscar has always been so grumpy and moody; frowning towards others but when he sees you, his mood changes faster than the speed of light itself.

Genre: Black cat boyfriend x Golden retriever girlfriend

Note: look out for grammatical errors and this is not proofread guys!

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ➛ My Masterlist

─────── ─ ⋅˚₊‧ 𐙚 ‧₊˚─ ───────

“What’s got your panties in a bunch?” Lando joked, seeing as Oscar’s expression rested into it’s usual downward smile. It was always fixated like that so it’s hard to tell whether or not he’s mad or just himself— others often misinterpret his attitude though.

Mainly because of his resting bitch face and the fact that he’s always frowning all the time, but people got used to it overtime.

Oscar just rolled his eyes and shrugged,”Nothing, i was just staring at something.”

“Staring?” Lando scoffed, “mate, you look like you’re about to murder someone.”

Oscar flipped Lando off, not even sparing him a single glance as he does so.

The other driver chuckled at his child like behavior and just shook his head in a playful manner, “I am telling you man, whatever your staring at right now, might think you’re judging the inside of their soul”

“I don’t even care, fuck them” oscar retaliated, his eyes rolling in the back of his head out of habit.

Before Lando could even tease him any further, a familiar voice spoke softly; interrupting their conversation and joining in themselves.

“Fuck who?” You asked innocently, your smile so radiant and bright that it lit up the once cold and mundane atmosphere.

Oscar’s whole demeanor changed and so did his mood— as soon as you set foot in the hospice and when his eyes landed on your pretty figure, he was like a completely new person.

“Hi babyy!” He spoke, dragging the y with an exaggerated smile, his tone going from gloomy to happy.

Lando giggled from the corner, “wow, where did that come from.”

Oscar momentarily glared at Lando— his eyes shifted back to his old one. If looks could kill, Lando would be buried 6 feet under.

His fellow driver put both hands in front and gestured to back off, “guess i am off then, see you around y/n."

"Bye lan, it was nice seeing you!" you replied happily.

Meanwhile, whilst Lando was heading out, Oscar's sharp stare never jearked away from his body; staring daggers at the poor man.

But of course, once Lando has left, his whole aura changed; he was all bubbly and smiley. It's like he wasn't the Oscar from earlier.

Oscar then patted his lap, gesturing for you to sit there, to which you happily obliged. Sitting excitedly on his lap and gripping his waist to try and balance yourself.

You leaned in to his embrace and shifted yourself to comfort.

"What were you guys talking about?," you mumbled, moving your head up to see his face clearly.

Oscar let out a contented sigh as he gently laid his hand in the roof of your head and ruffled it. You were just so damn adorable, sitting on his lap like that.

Your eyes narrowed from his movement, "What was that for?" You gasped confusingly, earning a soft chuckle from your boyfriend.

"Nothing you're just too cute not to" Oscar spoke, using his free hand to pinch the side of your cheek.

He looked at awe with your confused look-- he doesn't know why it affects him that much and why it makes his heart go beat crazy, but he likes the feeling.

Only with you though.

You guys were too busy with each other that you didn't even notice another presscence blocking the doorframe.

Only when a subtle gasp where let out that the two of you knew that there was someone else.

"IS THAT A SMILE I SEE FROM THE OSCAR PIASTRI??"

"LEAVE US ALONE PIERRE"

And he's back.

...

Sorry for not updating in a long time, I've not been myself lately😭

[lemotmo]

Okay I'm going to partially tell on myself. I am new, as in the Buck/T kiss showed up all over my dash, as did all of Oliver's interviews and I just thought he was the yummiest most delightful human being I had ever seen and heard (my god is accent is heaven) new. And I thought that first kiss was really well done. It was a great scene. Now, that being said, I didn'twant to jump into a show that was seven seasons into the story with zero context, except the stuff I had been seeing on my dash for years. So I started from the beginning, with the full intent and excitement of getting to T in season 7. Imagine my surprise when he popped up occasionally in earlier seasons. His only good part was when we were supposed to believe that Chim could lift him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, haha. That was great.

Anyway by the time I made it to season 7, it was too late. I had just watched 5 seasons of Buck and Eddie. There was zero room for T to compete on any level. Which is why the behavior of some is so confusing to me. Let me say first that I do not think the show always intended to put Buck and Eddie together, I don't think that's been the intention since the beginning. There is however a very good case to make that Eddie's introduction was Buck's actual Bi bell ringing moment though (*what a man plays in the background*). I do however agree that the writing has trended, increasingly so, in that direction. The writers do not hold all the blame however, Oliver and Ryan have kind of acted them into a corner. There are several scenes, multiple scenes, where the acting choices the two of them made were interesting, to say the least (looking at you 'go for the title' kitchen scene I love. Buck was flirting on every possible level in that scene).

Sorry, I got off track, back to my point. The people like me, who came in after the kiss popped up everywhere, being all in on T is somewhat fine. The problem would be the ones who are deliberately refusing to go back and watch the entire series before pontificating on B/T being destiny and all that other nonsense. There is an argument to be made that they're avoiding it because they know most of the history dismantles their current ship fixation. So as a result those people can be easily dismissed because they have zero context to any of their opinions. The ones who were with you all for 5 seasons though, yes I've seen their posts, who lost their shit over 2 pairs of lips touching, is what I cannot wrap my brain around. I completely understand the excitement behind that first kiss. It was a much anticipated moment for BUCK. He was the important person in that scene.

But confusing, or deliberately misinterpreting, Buck's revelation and sigh of relief at finally figuring out something pretty significant about himself, as being about him finding T is a gymnastics act I did not expect to see from so many long haulers. I mean, it should be obvious but T wasn't important in that scene. His gender was what was important. Which is why they have barely bothered to show him since that episode. And the interactions they have shown, minus the hospital kiss, that they made sure to show Eddie's reaction to btw, have all been red flag scenes. Little things that show this relationship isn't really that different from his previous relationships. Buck may have figured out the gender part but he's still making the same relationship mistakes. It's why the few scenes they've had together, and it's the bare minimum of effort, have been about Buck trying to initiate some level of communication and emotional connection and him being dismissed or having it turned into a daddy kink joke. I also think Oliver's enthusiasm dipped drastically by the end and it showed.

Which brings me to Eddie. The show, and more so, Oliver and Ryan have already done the hard part. The emotional connection, which is way more difficult to pull off than a physical connection, is already there. Their chemistry is already established.They're partners in every way but physically. As a result it is not a huge character leap to eventually bring a physical relationship into it as well. That will not be a shocking character development for either character. It goes back to the way the two have been written and they way Oliver and Ryan have interrupted those scenes. I won't touch their interviews because I think it's pretty clear, at this point, they seem to agree it's the way to go. There's more story to explore with them learning how to navigate an actual relationship than there is in bringing in other, lesser characters, to firstly try to compete with that connection, and then try to establish endgame status. I don't know. It's not about any two pairs of lips touching it's about the right two pairs of lips touching. Because when it's the right couple the characters get that sigh and exhale of finally! But the audience gets their sigh and exhale of finally as well. That is the point.

Sorry this got looooong 🤣

Ooooh Nonny, you speak right to my heart.

First of all, thank you for going back all the way to season 1 to actually sit down and watch the show. We aren't just making up Buddie. It has been there since the beginning. I'm so glad you got to witness their beautiful history together and that you realised just how right they are for each other.

I can't speak for the people who suddenly turned 180° and dropped Buddie for BT. I have been shipping Buddie from season 2, so I don't understand their reasoning or motivation either. It like you said so beautifully:

"It's not about any two pairs of lips touching. It's about the right two pairs of lips touching."

And that is what it comes down to. We can be content with a lackluster, meaningless relationship for queer rep. Or we can be exhilerated with an amazingly complex and years in the making relationship, which will be so much better for queer rep. It will be revolutionary in so many ways to make a slow burn queer ship canon.

(Before anyone comes at me for talking about queer rep. I have slowly been figuring myself out over the last couple of years and, looking back at my life and relationships, I've come to realise that I definitely belong somewhere on the ace spectrum. Not sure where exactly, I'm still searching for the right label, but it feels right to me. This is actually the first time I said this on a public forum for people to read. Kinda scary to be honest.)

I know what I would choose for myself if I was faced with these two options. Why wouldn't we automatically choose this for Buck and Eddie as well? It's mind-boggling really.

So yeah: queer Eddie and Buddie canon in season 8! All the way!

Don't apologise for your great post. I loved reading it. Feel welcome to drop in whenever you want. :)

[riddlerosehearts]

silver twisted wonderland is strongly autistic coded and, although most likely completely unintentional, really good autistic representation in my opinion and i wanna talk about why 💚

okay, so. as an autistic person myself, i love to see myself in fictional characters and headcanon characters i can relate to as autistic. i personally feel that you don't necessarily need evidence to do this, but i do like having evidence and being able to back up my headcanons! and i've thought of silver as autistic-coded ever since a couple months after i first got into twisted wonderland early last year, and have been wanting to make a post on his many autistic traits since october. i should warn in advance that this is probably going to be a long post, which is why i'm putting it under a cut. so with all that being said, let's get into it!

silver takes people's words very literally. all the time.

the first time i called silver autistic-coded, in a message to a friend of mine, was when i was sharing my thoughts on the endless halloween/spectral soiree event and i reached this scene between him and jamil:

in this scene, jamil exclaims "you've got to be kidding me!" in frustration and silver misinterprets this as jamil thinking he was trying to make a joke, and then tries to explain what he actually meant. he also does something like this in leona's ceremonial robes vignette, when leona responds to silver's assumption that he and malleus are friends with "you're dreamin'. come back and talk to me once you wake up. or better yet, don't", and then silver replies: "in fact, i am very much awake". and in ruggie's PE uniform vignette, ruggie tries to joke about teaching silver to haggle "if you ever end up on the street" but silver responds by genuinely thanking him, to ruggie's surprise. this type of overly literal thinking and clear difficulty with understanding sarcasm is incredibly common in autistic people and silver does it all. the. time. i'm only giving a handful of examples because it would take way too long to try and compile every single instance of this.

similarly, silver tends to take what people say at face value and assume that others have good intentions where most people would not.

examples of this include the fact that, also in leona's ceremonial robes vignette, silver believes leona without question about having seen malleus in the greenhouse even though it should be obvious that leona is lying. and, in silver's broomquet/bloom birthday card voice lines, when azul gives him a coupon for his birthday, silver is told that there must be a scheme "behind this gift" and responds by saying that there's nothing written on the back of it--or, in another translation, he's told that there's "something fishy" about it and replies that it's not a coupon for seafood. so he not only doesn't even consider that azul of all people might have an unsavory motive for gifting him a coupon, but he also misunderstands a common turn of phrase. these are very common traits that cause autistic people to be thought of as oblivious and naive.

silver has trouble understanding social conventions and nuances in general, and has ways of thinking that seem strange to others.

in silver's birthday boy voice lines, he apologizes to yuu for not realizing why they were asking what he wanted a while back and having answered with "more time for training", and he also thinks yuu is odd for being excited when it's not their own birthday. in his PE uniform vignette he tries to help vil with a film club project by starring as an extra in a short film, but vil ends up getting angry with him because silver can't figure out when he's "supposed" to act surprised. he also surprises and confuses others by treating events like the culinary crucible and beanfest in unusually serious and overdramatic ways, with the latter event causing vil and riddle to discuss how difficult it is to tell when he's joking--during which riddle, who spends a lot of time around silver as a fellow member of the equestrian club, notes that silver isn't the type to tell jokes. jack and jamil have a similar discussion after silver tells them about how he befriended a family of bears as a child, during the endless halloween event. and in his birthday boy vignette, he talks about how ever since sebek grew taller than him, he's been asking sebek to get the dishes from the top shelf, which always causes sebek to get a "triumphant look" on his face. and then, rather than realizing sebek is taking pride in being taller than him, silver says he thinks that he must "get enjoyment out of fetching things from high places".

again, there's way too many examples of silver doing things like this and i don't want this post to be so long that it's impossible to read. but this is all just very autistic of him and these are the kinds of things that cause us to be thought of as weird, stupid, and annoying by our peers.

silver has flat or blunted affect.

the word "affect" refers to how one portrays emotion, through gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, etc. if you have a flat or blunted affect, your emotions will come through very little, no matter how strongly you may feel them, and it can be incredibly difficult for others to tell if you're happy or sad or what you're feeling at any given time. this is something autistic people commonly experience, and silver has this with his lack of facial expression in particular. in-game, silver has extremely little variance in facial expressions compared to every other character, and even his one rarely used smiling expression--while adorable and always a delight to see--is more of a small half-smile.

and it takes a lot to even get this much out of him. he'll often say that he's happy or excited, and seem to genuinely mean it, but not smile at all. i believe that most often he's seen smiling like this when talking to or about lilia (brb while i cry at the thought of that). and this trait of his is commented on several times, such as one of his groovy voice lines when he says the following with his usual neutral look on his face:

or, in his birthday boy voice lines, where he says: "every time someone takes a birthday picture of me, they ask me to smile more. i AM smiling…"

it's fairly common for autistic people to have flat affect and be thought of as robotic, emotionless, and unapproachable as a result. and there's actually a lot more on this topic that i want to talk about, but i'm going to come back to it later in this post.

silver has a love for mushroom risotto that can be seen as him having a samefood.

the word "samefood" refers to the tendency that autistic people can have to eat the same food very frequently for days, weeks, or even months at a time. people who have samefoods might have a strong reliance on routine and/or have sensory issues that make them resistant to trying new foods. and they may often need the food to be prepared the same exact way each and every time. it's common for autistic people to be thought of as picky eaters with bland palates (because samefoods are often, but not always, the kinds of foods that are usually considered bland and plain) because of this.

admittedly, silver does say in one of his voice lines that he's not too picky when it comes to food, but the reason i'm applying this trait to him is because of jade's labwear vignette. lilia comments on the fact that silver is having mushroom risotto again and says he's always been like this and that he needs to broaden his palate, to which silver replies that he doesn't mind eating the same thing every single day. then, when he tries the risotto he gets so shocked that he freezes in place and lilia suspects that he's been poisoned, all because it turns out that the texture of the mushrooms is different that day. lilia says he doesn't see why that matters and asks if silver is sure he isn't just imagining it. this last bit is also interesting to me because autistic people are often overly sensitive to food texture, and get similar reactions as the one silver got from lilia when we try to talk about it. i feel like it's lucky that the changed texture of the mushrooms was one silver enjoyed, because it could've been very frustrating if his samefood was suddenly different in an unpleasant way.

and, i originally wanted to also include sections for some other small things, like how he's mentioned feeling his chest tense up around large crowds and having trouble relaxing in unfamiliar places, or his having a fairly limited range of interests and thinking that he's not fun to be around, or how he tends to communicate better with the animals that flock to him than with his schoolmates, but this post is already getting long so i figure i should go ahead and move onto the next thing i wanted to talk about:

throughout this post i've been saying that autistic people who share the traits that silver has are often thought of as stupid, annoying, unapproachable, and/or emotionless by those around us. we get bullied and looked down on for things that we can't really help. and that's exactly what happens to silver.

here's where i'm going to mention leona's ceremonial robes vignette once again! after the "you're dreaming" "i am very much awake" interaction, leona gets annoyed at silver for not understanding what he meant and says he must have a screw loose, and then ruggie says the following, right in front of silver:

leona then tricks silver with his lie--or, i guess technically it's more of a half-truth--about the greenhouse, an action which causes even ruggie to say he feels bad for silver. and later, when leona goes to diasomnia to confront malleus, this interaction occurs:

this vignette is just one of several examples of other students looking down on silver and taking advantage of his tendency to take people at face value and assume the best of them. not just ruggie and leona, but a significant amount of other students see silver as absent-minded, odd, and bothersome and have given him (along with kalim) an insulting nickname.

also, silver's flat affect and the cruel way that people treat him over it is the entire focus of his dorm uniform vignette. silver gets in trouble with crewel, who dismisses his apology because he doesn't "look" sorry, for falling asleep in class and has to collect everyone's reports. his classmates act polite to his face while he's collecting them but then as soon as he walks away they start talking about him behind his back, saying that because he always has the same expression on his face, he's unapproachable, exhausting to deal with, and probably doesn't even actually have emotions. silver overhears all this and instead of getting upset that his classmates are insulting him, saying completely ridiculous things and treating him like a burden, he puts the blame on himself and starts thinking he needs to change himself to fit in with them. he thinks he needs to be like kalim and tries unsuccessfully to get kalim and jamil to give him lessons on how to be more expressive. it's pretty common for autistic people to not even realize we're being treated unfairly and instead believe that we're the problem. it's also common for us to try and mask our autistic traits in order to fit in, and to try copying the behavior of those who seem socially successful and well-liked.

but, silver has people who understand him, who love him exactly as he is, and who don't believe he needs to change.

for one thing, kalim himself doesn't think silver needs to change. he says he thinks silver is really nice and isn't unapproachable at all, but he'll try to help him be more expressive if it's something he wants to work on. kalim is silver's best friend and has never wanted him to be anyone other than himself. and when sebek realizes what silver is doing he immediately thinks it's ridiculous and instead comes up with a plan for silver to be able to show his classmates that he isn't emotionless. malleus and lilia then spot the two of them training in the courtyard and talk about how much they love and care for silver, and how well they understand him.

also, that conversation that lilia and malleus have is one thing in particular that makes me really happy about this vignette and is a reason why i think silver is such unexpectedly good autistic rep (even though, again, he's not canonically autistic and probably wasn't written that way on purpose). because, when i read the endless halloween event i knew next to nothing about diasomnia, had read hardly any of their vignettes yet, and i said to my friend "i know they probably just want us to think silver is weird because he was raised by fae, but i think he's autistic coded." i assumed that him being a human who was raised by fae would be something you could use to explain away all of his quirks if you wanted to, and say that they're a result of that rather than of him possibly being autistic.

but seeing lilia and malleus talk about how they know that silver is an incredibly passionate and empathetic person, that they know he feels very strongly even though his emotions don't show on his face, and that they don't find him difficult to read at all, made me realize that lilia, malleus, and sebek are all fae (half-fae in sebek's case, but still) who are each very different from silver--and sure, i guess you could say that some of his communication issues might come from his upbringing as he never went to school or interacted with others his age very much before going to NRC. but he did grow up with sebek who, again, is half-human and very different from him. and his flat affect at least is explicitly not something that could come from his upbringing as lilia, malleus, and sebek are all at least as expressive as any human--if not even more-so in sebek's case. and from the way lilia and malleus talk about his inexpressivenesss, it seems clear that they know it's an unusual thing, probably not any more common for fae than it is for humans. it's just not a problem for them, because it's a natural part of who silver is and they love who he is.

and basically silver is just sooooo autistic.

when i originally got the idea to write this post i made a joke to my friend that it would be easier to just post a link to silver's twst wiki page as an explanation of why i think he's autistic. i mean, it really would've been since his autistic traits come through in so much of how his character is written and there's so much solid evidence for it. but instead of doing that i decided to autistically write a... *checks notes* 2500+ word essay overexplaining my headcanon because i just love him so so much. so in conclusion:

[william-o]

I participated in the Seasons of Gensokyo Zine!

I'm back once again in a collaboration Gensokyozine to share a fic I've made for their zine! Last year I wrote two short poem pieces but this year I did something I rarely do and wrote a whole short story!

You can read my piece on its own on ao3 here! But I highly recommend looking and reading all the amazing pieces this new zine has to offer!

I have quite a bit to talk about for this piece I wrote, it's been a journey! If you're interesting keep reading below!

So I knew there was going to be another event like this this year but I had no idea what the theme would be until the announcement was made. When I heard it was going to be based on seasons it was actually pretty tough figuring out a story revolving around that. I was also determined to write more than just a poem this time around so it had to be somewhat substantial.

Thankfully in the application where we had to pitch our idea there were a few topic examples provided, one of which involved using a story involving cicadas. So I started to do some research on cicadas, and what I found as a source of inspiration was a story about Cicadas by Lafcadio Hearn. Perhaps you've heard about him? Me being a *somewhat* superstitious individual saw it as a sign that this is what I was to write about for the seasons of gensokyo zine!

With further research I discover the existence of Dog Day Cicadas. They share the name of the shot type in the extra stage of Hidden Star in Four Seasons, they have folktale of how they're a sign of the end of summer and beginning of the next season, and strictly as a bonus for myself they're green and black just like me! It sounds like a story perfect to feature Yukari!

Now one of my biggest fears about writing a fanfic is completely misinterpreting a character. So I did all I could to try to get Yukari written just right. My idea was that it was most common in Gensokyo that people hated the sound cicadas make, except for Yukari. I was however advised that I needed some kind of reason that Yukari would like the sound cicadas make, or some kind of justification. Thankfully I found just what I needed in Chapter Five of Cage in Lunatic Runagate where Yukari states "The moon was unthinkably silent compared to the Gensokyo that was constantly noisy from bickering between humans and youkai. ~ Whether it was decay or pure heaven, I hated it. I needed the noise of the city." Close enough in my book to say that Yukari prefers noise over silence whether it be from people, a city, or cicadas.

Now when it comes to Son Biten, I didn't pressure myself as much to try and get her character right as I did with Yukari. She is one of the newest characters after all so there was less material to analyze her character. Although if I were to criticize myself about this fic, it would be that she's only there to be a plot point. I'll admit, I only really wanted her in here as a way to have the great sage equal to heaven and gensokyo and an actual sage interact. I will say I did a little bit of research to Son's personality, but I more or less just had her trying to do her best pretending to live up to the title she gave herself (Even though her character is more than just that).

And for good measure at the end I threw in a poem, this time in the tanka form (5-7-5-7-7). This was overall a lot of fun to write! I tried to format the story as a whole similar to a Hifuu story as well as the "A Beautiful Flower Blooming Violet Every Sixty Years" story. Speaking of Hifuu, I did throw in a little reference to Taboo Japan Disentanglement, did you happen to catch it? Well I hope you enjoyed my little story, I'm gonna go order some pizza and I'll see you again next year! (Hopefully!)

[not-poignant]

Hi!! I hope you’re enjoying spring! And I hope that the warmer weather and the blooming flowers bring about comfort and rejuvenation (if they have indeed started blooming, I have no idea how and when spring springs in your part of the world at this time). 🌷

How do you feel about fanfics of your original fiction? I’ve read most of your works on ao3 and have been following your tumblr for a while so I know (or at least it seems like) you are very encouraging toward any type of interpretation and writing.

I’ve seen there are a number of works people have written that either use your original characters or your worlds and I’m wondering how that feels on a personal level. Have you read them all? I imagine it’s quite flattering. But what if things seem a bit out of character or not exactly how you imagined? And what if those out of character moments or out of world moments seem like misinterpretations rather than reimaginings?

Basically this is all coming from a place of uncertainty. I’ve written some Ice Plague fanfic that I am personally proud of but it’s scary 😳. It’s still a draft and has been sitting as an open window on my computer for months now.

I have so much respect for any artist who puts their art out into the world. You’re so amazing Pia!!

I meant to reply to this and then Life did it's lifening thing SO HERE I AM NOW

Firstly I have a blanket 'omg yes please I love fanfics of my stuff' - there's even a fandom tag wrangled for it on AO3 (it might not stay there forever, and idk how it happened, but it's amazing and I'm forever 'omg thank' to the person who did that, though I wish it happened for more original fandoms over at AO3 which are very fandom friendly and have lots of fanfiction).

But you know that, I just figured I'd say it again. :D

Now to the nitty gritty of it all:

Philosophically I think it's fantastic in general. Every author feels like they've 'made it' as a 'real author' at different points in their career. For some it's their first paycheck or royalties. For others it's their first published novel. For others it's their first positive review from a stranger.

For me, it was the first time I got fanart, and then the first time I got fanfic. That for me was the marker of realising I'd 'made it.' Everything else is incredible too, don't get me wrong, that was just my metric. I didn't know it was until I got there, and I was like 'oh, this must be the feeling other people were talking about.'

Have you read them all?

So, no I haven't. I have a rule that I don't read any fics for a universe I'm still actively writing in. This applies to fanfiction for works I'm writing right now (so I haven't read any transformative works like fanfiction for the Underline series), and it also applies to fanfiction for works I'm writing fanfiction for (I stopped reading BG3 fic the moment I started writing Palmarosa, and I don't read Stardew Valley fanfic either).

This is mostly a 'liability' rule so that people can't say 'hey you copied this idea of mine give me money.' That's not highly likely to happen, but it does happen, and I think occasionally people forget that if I set up enough foreshadowing in a story that's not finished, and other people unconsciously write the 'logical end' of that foreshadowing, and then I write it myself, I didn't copy them, I followed the logic of my own story, lol.

I do read everything once I've finished writing in a particular original world! Back in the day I used to leave a lot more comments and engagement and then realised that might not be wanted or might be strange, or even might be seen as playing favourites if I do that to some people and not others, so now I try to keep some distance so people don't feel like I'm breathing over their shoulder basically, judging them.

There was a period of people trying to check in with me about their fics to be canon compliant, and I sort of disliked it, because to me that's the opposite of what fanfiction is - they're not writing my version of a story - I'm doing that, they're writing their version. And as with everything else, just like you have to make up what's not present in say...The X-Files, I like it better when people invent their own solutions or change rules based on what they want to see. Now I'm a lot firmer about encouraging people to remember that fanfiction is 'anything goes' and it's really not at all about how I feel about their ideas or how "correctly" those ideas apply in my own mind about my universe.

That leads me to answering your next question:

But what if things seem a bit out of character or not exactly how you imagined?

GOOD!!! That's what fanfiction is! Anyone expecting anything different is like...wildly out of touch with the purpose of transformative works which are meant to transform characters, canon, plot points, and scenarios. If people want to take my characters and put them on a spaceship, they can. If people want Temsen and Gwyn to fuck and have a happy ending, they can write it and I'm happy for them.

I literally am extremely happy about this, even if it's so wildly not what I'd write it's actually a trigger for me and I can't read it lmao. That's what fanfiction is for.

Fanfiction isn't for me, fanfiction is for fandom, for the people in it, for the people transforming the original thing. I'm extremely lucky I get to participate in it, but do you think I'm out here worrying about whether ConcernedApe/Eric Barone (creator of Stardew Valley) thinks my version of Alex or Sebastian in my Stardew Valley fic are like the most 'in character' version? Nope. I don't want him to know about my fic at all, I'm doing terrible things to his characters lmao.

And what if those out of character moments or out of world moments seem like misinterpretations rather than reimaginings?

That has nothing to do with me, and it's not my business. It's wrong to even pretend to make it my business. I don't want to be flippant and say 'so what?' - So it's more like - that's literally the point of fanfiction. Or again - good!

People can make characters into self-inserts. They can turn a character into pure wish fulfillment. They can take a world they love (the Underline universe) and then put themselves in there and make Gwyn super femme and I'm not really going to want to read that and that's great, because ultimately it has nothing to do with me and it shouldn't have anything to do with me. They can make every character experience mpreg, if they love mpreg, I'm so happy for them lmao.

Tbh, I also feel this way about fanfiction for other fandoms too. Do I stumble into Dragon Age fics with characterisations so wild and offputting I'm like 'OH GOD NO' and want to throw my phone across the room? Of course! And what do I do? I close the tab and find someone who's not doing that. It's so free and easy to just make different choices and find (or write!) the fics I want to see in the world without judging other authors for living their best lives.

I want fanfic authors to live their best lives, and that includes me as a fanfic author. I don't want to - as a creator of some original universes - have attitudes that would go against that.

So yeah, I'm...what I would call pretty zen about people 'misinterpreting' my characters (it's not really a misinterpretation, because that assumes that the goal of fanfiction is to always write characters 'in character' and it's not - there are many many goals in fanfiction, being canon compliant is only one of very many).

I'm less zen about people trying to get me to approve their ideas for fics or headcanons they have about my stuff. First, that's not really my job in the sense that...this is their responsibility if they want to write a fic, and also it's not great for me to interfere with their creative process (and not really fair on me to expect me to do creative work for them outside of the creative work I already write - asking me to have thoughts on their headcanons usually ends badly if they're unrealistic lmao). Like, it's not really fandom 'normal' to just go up to the show creators of Teen Wolf and go 'hey do you think my headcanon would happen? What about if they all got pregnant?'

And second, it implies that this is an area I should have input into and it's not. Even if I said 'I hate fanfiction don't write it' like a hypocrite, people can still write it. That's how much I don't matter to the process of writing fanfiction for an original work I've created. If people make getting my approval for their headcanons my 'problem' by putting it in my inbox, I will reply from the perspective of someone who writes the canon (which can sometimes lead to headcanon shattering, which I don't want to do! So tread lightly, folks), if people don't want me to shatter their headcanons before they write the fic, don't share 'em with me - they're not my business. :D

This can get confusing because sometimes people are asking me genuine worldbuilding questions and hypotheticals in good faith about my writing, and sometimes they're kind of trying to ask about their writing and get me to do some of the hard work for them, and I can usually tell those folks by how many anons they send me and if they seem strangely fixated on a particular subject I clearly have no interest in writing about, like mpreg (mpreg anons, you know who you are). In those cases it's like *I hand the pad and pen to you, and now it's your turn to answer these questions - if I wanted this to be part of my imaginative landscape, I'd be imagining it, and I don't want to.*

I get to be here and share other people's fanfiction and fanart, that's a privilege I get to enjoy, but I don't sort of have to be here to validate what other people are doing or thinking or writing or drawing etc. It's something I get to be a part of when people choose to share it with me in a way that I can then share it with more people, but I'm not an arbiter of it.

It can exist not only in my absence, but also in the face of my active disapproval (bless all you Anne Rice fanfiction writers who said 'fuck you' to Anne Rice being extremely litigious about people writing fic for her works and doing it anyway, bless every single one of you).

Thankfully I don't disapprove of it at all, no matter how batshit triggery wild OOC the headcanons are, it's like looking at something happening in a building I don't live in and am not supposed to live in. My response is like: 'Well, I don't live there, so...that has nothing to do with me, but hey, maybe other people want to live in that building so I'll share the address to folks who know me too.'

[shuihuzhuan]

to be entirely transparent this is a vent post. nobody's obligated to read it and the only reason it's public is because venting to specific people makes me feel Worse, and i just want to try to put things into Words for myself, you know?

i've definitely been doing some self-isolating Lite (tm) for a while now but haven't quite figured out why or how exactly to remedy it, especially because for the past half year or so i've just felt way too, like, tired, i think is the best word, to put the energy into not only figuring out how to fix it but putting any of that into practice and clearly it's not been doing me any favors, especially when it comes to the fact that i definitely want to make more / better friends with people but am ultimately struck by fear that it's kind of inevitably going to fall apart both because i'm pretty uninteresting (if enjoyable, as i am often reassured, and for that i'm appreciative) and because i find it difficult to muster the energy to try to keep up with people and often feel like i'm left in the dust but have no way to change that without sacrificing the little health and energy i happen to have that i'd obviously prefer to spend on something for Me Specifically. and i guess that's probably eye-rollingly selfish, but at the same time i don't exactly have someone to hold my hand and drag me into doing something different, i have to make myself do it. and making yourself do shit is just like. hard.

i've ultimately found that there's just some kind of fundamental disconnect with the way i interact (or rather, don't, even if i really want to) with people and what i only later really perceive as what they Want from me later on. i unfortunately take things very negatively in a way that i usually describe as just "getting scared" but it feels obvious it's a little more than that, i'm just not sure i have the ability to put it into words, but whatever it is it's in a way that makes it so i just Don't have the ability to make myself bite the bullet and take initiative and i kind of just let whatever happen happen and don't realize i'm making that decision consciously unless one of the people i'm doing it to happens to reach out to me (which they have no reason to feel inclined to do).

this has been both for relatively understandable reasons and reasons that just feel kind of ridiculous when i think about them - of course it makes sense to not want to be further misinterpreted (to put it kindly) without Knowing im being misinterpreted and therefore having no way to fix it, but at the same time just Not talking to new people or not putting myself in situations that scare me isnt the way to go about it, making friends with people who will be able to bring me up to Their level Is, but also if i can't talk to anyone new, i won't be able to find anyone that can help me make that happen. it's a vicious cycle, or whatever.

it's incredibly difficult to continuously present that i want to be spoken to if i've done something upsetting but only really prompt conversation with me in that case. that's the kind of thing that scares people out of talking to me, but i'm not quite sure what to do with it especially circling back to the whole thing about not having much energy at all, you know?

in essence, i'm aware that i'm not really... special? i don't really have anything new to offer at any point and find it difficult to follow things for very long. i'm very head-scrambly in a way that makes it hard for me to follow things even when they're what i have a personal vested interest in (like, even as i write this im jumping back and forth to start and finish paragraphs in a way that probably just makes the whole thing insanely hard to follow if anyone's made it this far). there are a million other people out there with a semi-niche interest that they'll repeat things about over and over again unprompted because they can't remember if they have or can't remember if the people they're talking to don't have any interest in it.

and i guess i've internalized that too much rather than realizing people want to talk to me for me even if i'm Boring not because of what i bring to the table but because of who i am, but if i can't bring myself to talk to them out of fear of being annoying they won't be able to Get anything out of me and then there draws miscommunication From the lack of communication in general, leading people i care about to think i don't want to talk to them for whatever reason when that's not the case (what happens is i start thinking "they don't want to talk to me, i'm pretty sure i'm just annoying them" turns into other people thinking that i think they are annoying because i don't want to talk and then nothing is done about it), but at the same time i'm just unfortunately forcing them to put in effort for something that's not necessarily going to pay off.

something recently got me thinking about the way i Communicate and if i'm like... good at it? and what i'm thinking is that maybe at some point i might have been but i just find it so draining to try to tap into the skills i know i should have to an end i know i should be trying to reach.

i like talking to people. i'm a big fan of it. but i think i'm just used to do so in a way thats just so insubstantial and brush-off-y (even if i'm not trying to be) that when i need to even do something so small as ask someone if they Want to chat i get too scared to and end up thinking that we're both better off if i don't embarrass myself by doing so, and then i dig myself into a hole of making people think i don't want to talk to them when that's not the case.

the paranoia inherent to the Mental Illness Concoction certainly doesn't help, and even though 9 times out of 10 it's not proven and is, obviously, ridiculous and unjustified, the one time in a million that it ends up being correct fools my mind into thinking i need to do more of it rather than think rationally.

i'm also, like, very well aware this comes off as distinctly pity party-ish but to that i'm just like. shrug? not really much to be done about it, especially when doing so takes both energy and courage i don't have. guy who can put in the effort to yap to the void but not to talk to people for real

[isfjmel-phleg]

I've talked about the misinterpretation of The Secret Garden as being about healing from grief before, and I'm still thinking about it and found some interviews with authors of recent retellings that demonstrate this assumption about the story:

Ivy Noelle Weir, author of The Secret Garden on 81st Street: When I was re-visiting the original work, I was struck by how much it is, really, about grieving. Mary, Lord [sic] Craven, and Colin have all lost people, and they’re sort of feeling their way through it and figuring out how to live when you’re grieving. Grief, unfortunately, doesn’t really know an age, and it’s something children experience too. I rooted myself in Mary’s perspective: What is like to be so young and experiencing so much change all at once? If I were her age again, and finding myself all alone in a new place, what would bring me comfort, what would intrigue me, what would be difficult?

Lorelai Savaryn, author of The Edge of In Between (transcribed from a video interview): Actually, in my early drafts, Lottie had a poor relationship with her parents too, and that was one of the moments for me—some things weren’t working, and it wasn’t […] really the story I wanted to tell. So there was a point like three rounds into revisions where I realized to make the story right, I had to have her relationship with her parents be lovely and wonderful, and so I had to completely start over and write the whole thing over again at that point and change that, and I think that that allowed for her grief journey to be more authentic to what people—to what kids for the most part could relate to. I know we can all have complicated relationships with our parents, but I wanted her first experience of loss just to be really true to like someone who had deeply loved, because I think we can all relate to like losing somebody that we deeply loved, so I chose to change that […]

Amber A. Logan, author of The Secret Garden of Yanagi Inn: So when I started thinking of stories to retell (I love a good retelling) and started brainstorming about retelling The Secret Garden I had to ask myself: what kind of elements do I want to pull out of the original? Perhaps it is because The Secret Garden is a children’s book, or perhaps because it is a product of its time, but I’ve always felt that the main character, Mary, wasn’t dealing with enough grief. She just lost both her parents and was shipped to a strange place on the opposite side of the world! I wanted to really pull that grief out and delve into it on a much deeper level. But the original story is about healing and new life, and I wanted to include that kind of bittersweet happiness at the end that only comes about from having survived a dark place[.]

Weir is correct that the major characters have all lost people, but her perception of them as "feeling their way through it and figuring out how to live when you’re grieving" isn't really supported by the text? Mary is not grieving at all because she had more or less no relationship with her neglectful parents. Colin has lost his mother, but he never knew her, so his sense of loss is directed not toward her personally but what could have been. The two of them are "figuring out how to live" but doing so after having never been given the chance to in the first place. Mr. (not Lord!) Craven, meanwhile, spends most of the book wallowing in his grief rather than trying to cope with it; this is a subplot and not the main theme.

Savaryn is telling a story that is unambiguously about grief. It's a perfectly valid story, but her observation that retaining the heroine's poor relationship with her parents undermined the story she wanted to tell is interesting. It didn't work because the themes of The Secret Garden are significantly different from the themes Savaryn is employing. It's not that Mary's "grief journey" is less "authentic" but that she isn't grieving her lost parents because there was nothing about that relationship to grieve, and that's the tragedy of it. Yes, we can all relate to having deeply loved and lost, but that's not the story Burnett was telling, and since Savaryn is telling that story, the choice to use The Secret Garden as an inspiration doesn't seem to me to fit well.

Logan seems to have missed the point entirely. Mary's not "dealing with enough grief" is not a flaw of the book to be chalked up to its time or intended audience; it's a very deliberate choice that Burnett makes to demonstrate the outcome of Mary's loveless upbringing.

And I'm struggling to understand why it seems to be so difficult for so many creators to grasp something that the text makes so clear. Why does everyone want so badly for Mary to be grieving a loss? Is it not bad enough that she has been so emotionally neglected that she has no concept of attachment? There appears to be such determination that Mary must be grieving that the assumption is made that Burnett got her own story wrong and it must be adjusted to correct this failing--when the actual issue is right there, in the text, practically spelled out.

Maybe I should write a paper.

[aqua-dan]

I’m sorry for like constantly filling up your inbox with question but I’ve figured out what Roy and Garth’s little misunderstandings were so you don’t have to answer that ask.

I also would like to admit that I think that I’m kind of a Roy.

Bare with me…

I often trash on my friends at any given opportunity. Any opening for a snide remark, any mean comment I could possibly think of in two seconds. If it’s clever and witty then I’ll squeeze it in and for any other person what I’m doing is seen as mean and for a while… they also considered me as rude.

I never really realized that I was actually overstepping someone’s boundaries. This is more geared to one specific person and I felt like really bad about it… because… the whole reason I was being like that in the first place is because I like them and I want to be close to them…

Like I considered them different from everyone else - I felt like I related to them and I felt like they could understand me - like they could understand the worst parts of me and if they over time got conditioned to being around me even when I’m like that then they could be the type of person who I can show all my ugly to as well.

It’s like weird - I don’t know how to describe it. In my head I seriously think that what I’m doing is like extremely and so obviously affectionate and caring. It’s like me insulting them is actually the most hilarious thing in the world because me thinking low of them would be the biggest joke to end all jokes… because I don’t think low of them - I really like them and I thought that was obvious.

I guess it’s easier to show that in a special little game made for them then it is to do it in a normal way because if I do that I’ll be showing my ass because if I was affectionate in a normal way and they didn’t like me then it’d kind of crush me and if I do it this way and they still like me than perhaps it’s mutual.

God, to think when they communicated to me that they didn’t think we were close enough for that then I felt like a damn idiot because I felt closer to them than literally anyone else. :(

It’s very twisted but my POINT is that lowkey Roy probably really likes Garth if my situation at all resembles that.

Ah, classic preschool bs, if he’s mean to you for no reason than it means he likes you but it is very true.

I think that people don’t understand RoyGarth because they refuse to see the implications. It’s not a bad or confusing ship at all. It’s misunderstandings and if they truly hated each other’s guts its not like that will ever effectively take away from the quality of the ship.

What Roy does for Garth is almost inherently affectionate and almost romantic seen through the right lenses.

Sorry for the tangent. This isn’t me venting AT ALL by the way - I’m just trying to connect Roy’s behavior to something and I know myself better than anyone so!

Hey! No worries, anon! I actually LOVE getting asks, and I'm always super appreciative for every one I get! I'm sorry also that I'm so slow to answer them. I get so nervous answering things sometimes because I don't want to say the wrong thing. I've been known to go and re-read whole series just in case so I can give the best response I can. But that does mean that sometimes asks sit around for a bit... oops. This ain't about me though, so!

Thank you genuinely for sending this! I think it's a really interesting take on this whole thing from someone who has clearly analyzed their own actions/feelings, and gives us a perspective that we may not otherwise see.

I do think it's really intriguing, both in real life and in fiction, how differently two people can view something and how actions can be interpreted/misinterpreted.

Again, thank you for being willing to share this! (And as a side note, I still am planning on answering your other ask anyway, but maybe as a comprehensive look at Roy and Garth's interactions)

[thenwethrowitonthefire]

hello.

reading your answer to the last ask made me feel warm, I had read it multiple times and each time after I lied down, zoned out, letting myself to feel or smile at certain parts (like where you talked about Russell and calling him peter pan. good nickname:)).

reading your share of story and even others on tags touched me deeply. you were right about to feel 'they get it' btw, it put me at ease how you or others get what I said. I was a little worried about misinterpretion about last ask I sent, so you can guess how I felt by the answer, when I got a long touching answer where you were talking with passion about sparkstember (and any other things about sparks)

I had watched the links you sent me and the concert in 2014 was a real masterwork in another level, their performance shook me by core to the point i wished I could go back in time and get ticket for it (if tim traveling was real(or is it real?) watching sparks on London hall would be def on my list)

in the end thanks for giving me hint about the sparkstember, I checked it out and would like to participate(not sure how much of it probably not all of it but I want to try) plus I'm not worried about my anon mask, at least not anymore. rather keeping it because I find joy on looking for my answer rather than I get notification. beside I think you had figured who am I long time ago(unless you haven't so I would eat cake to that)

Hey, I am really glad it made you feel that way :) You can bet other people felt the same way reading what you wrote, me included! It's never stopped being special to me, that we've got Sparks and this lovely fandom.

... that 2014 concert is one that makes me wish for time travel too. I'd definitely go see it again ✨ Something that doesn't come across at all in videos is how beautiful the lights in the hall were as well, it was just stunning in every single way, absolutely magical. (I'd also go see some 21x21 shows, the Exotic Creatures Of The Deep show, and Balls. But the great thing is that the thing I'm most excited about is the shows the future holds 💖 No time travel necessary 🌞)

I had indeed figured out who you were some time ago, but I'm all for letting people eat their cake ^^ So you can be anon on here for as long as you like :) I've really been enjoying your asks and I'll always continue to have a million things to say about Sparks and their work. So yeah, inbox is always open.

Anyway, I really look forward to seeing you around with Sparkstember! Also (and this goes for anyone who may be reading this): don't worry if you're not familiar with some of Sparks work yet. There is so much to explore with Sparks and it's a beautiful thing to take your time with! It doesn't matter how much you know or don't know, or how long you've been around: if you like Sparks you like Sparks and that means you have a place here. (Even after 12 years I'm still learning new things! It's great!)

I couldn't decide on my parting gift for there is too much to choose from, and so today... I'm giving you memes :)

Number 1, number 2, number 3 and number 4.

Also there's a little special day coming up for the Sparks fandom in... 4 days. (Don't worry, you don't need to do anything or look anything up. You'll see it on your dash when the time arrives, can't miss it 🌞)

------

Edit: wait here's the parting gift for this ask! (Maybe you've seen it already by now but it's just really nice anyway.)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by S P A R K S (@sparks_official)

[acourtofthought]

What would be your reaction if SJM said the next book was by Elain and Azriel?

It is...

What would be your reaction if she announced that the next book was Elain and Lucien?

(What kind of reactions would you have in these hypotheses).

If Elain and Az were endgame and announced as being next I would first apologize for what was clearly my misinterpretation of the books before it 😂

And I would probably like the book. I like every trope and I have loved every SJM pairing she's given us. I was excited for the continuation of Feyre and Tamlins story in book 2 only to ADORE Feysand. I really liked the idea of Dorian and Celeana, loved Celaena and Chaol but definitely understand why they weren't meant to be. Nesta is not one of my favorite characters however I do like she and Cassian together. I mean, I did like the thought of E/riel at one point so it's not like I don't see the appeal. I just began to notice things that I missed the first time around and my opinion changed after I started deep diving into the books but that's ONLY because it's what I think the author has been telling us and that's only because I began to really pay attention to how she has written in the past. But that doesn't mean if SJM turns around and says, "nope! E/riel is who I want!" I'm going to boycott her. If that's who she wants then I will allow her to lead me along in her vision. I'm not the one writing these characters so if she says, "E/riel is endgame and this is how I'm going to make that happen" then I'm going along with it because that's the story she's telling.

If that happens though, I would like for Elain to call out Az for a few things. I hope that things I consider "wrongs" between them are acknowledged moving forward, that she finds out he didn't support her searching for the trove and gives him hell, that he was interested in her for the wrong reason (three brothers / three sisters).

I would be sad over the missed Elucien opportunity. With Lucien and Elain, I do think SJM has a chance to give us a story that feels new and fresh, something different than we've ever seen from any of her other characters. Not only because their personalities are so different than others she's written about but because we've never gotten the POV from a character who has known with certainty that they have a mating bond with someone else. But again, if SJM wants E/riel than I believe in her ability to have it all make sense by the end.

If she announced Elucien, I might momentarily pass out 😂

I hate desperately wanting things, it's a very consuming feeling for me. As a result, I hate the feeling of disappointment, it's very soul crushing, so I try to be happy and content and accept things as they are. Which on one hand is a good thing (I think) but on the other hand, I could see how I might come off as complacent at times because of it. Like, maybe I could be doing so much more with my life but rather than pushing and failing, I live in a happy bubble where the stakes aren't too high.

With that said, part of me hates that I would really love to see Elucien happen because I know it's just a book and I know that it's not going to be anything that truly matters regardless of who is endgame and I wish I wouldn't have gotten so obsessed with the series because I hate knowing I might now be disappointed (this is why I like series AFTER they're complete and I can search for spoilers to better prepare myself) 😂. And I've put a lot of time into writing posts on my blog and I've spent a lot of time interacting with those in the fandom so if I'm wrong, that's a long way to fall😂. It doesn't help knowing that I now have people online who hate me and would love for me to be wrong.

So if Elucien is endgame, I think my heart will momentarily stop and I can't imagine how euphoric it will feel to not only know that I'd be getting to read an entire book about two of my favorite characters but also that I actually figured something out 😂. That I was able to pick up the authors hints and that I don't lack reading comprehension, that I'm not misogynistic for shipping Elucien, that I'm not "delusional". It's not that I believe any of those things however, I can't pretend like it's fun reading them.

At this point, I think we're probably all ready for news, regardless if it's the news we want to hear or not. I personally don't think she's been building E/riel as endgame since book 2 however I know E/riels do. And Elucien did become mates in book 2 but we still don't know what they'll do about their bond. That means both sides of the fandom have been waiting for answers since as far back as 2016 and that is a looooong time.

[aibidil]

I met a new doctor the other day and he asked me if I'd ever been active on patient support groups. I was like, "Actually, no. I have for other conditions, but not for this, because I never felt I needed support."

For my pituitary issue,

there are objective metrics for diagnosis and management

no doctor has ever dismissed or downplayed a concern I've raised

doctors have almost always given good advice

the one time I had a bad doctor, I was able to navigate the situation easily with basic medical research ("From what I've found, the best practice is...")

No one (myself, doctors, family members) has ever second-guessed my diagnosis

Why would I need a online support group?

Contrast that with ADHD, POTS, hEDS, low ferritin, dyslexia (slightly different bc it's educators not doctors, but same thing otherwise), and encopresis (all of which I've figured out largely through internet support groups as patient or parent-of-patient):

doctors know very little, were taught incorrect information in medical school, or are bizarrely resistant to certain treatments (eg enemas: I have a lot of thoughts on the homophobia of that one, but that's another post)

my concerns are routinely dismissed

my concerns are brushed off as being caused by something else (anxiety, overweight, etc)

I'm told symptoms will resolve on their own if I'm patient

doctors' advice is either unhelpful or harmful, so I have to turn to peer advice that is helpful and, to protect their egos, lie to my doctors about what action I'm taking

doctors either push pharmaceutical solutions when they're not yet indicated (ie prescribing PPIs before trying nutrition changes to manage pediatric reflux) or resist pharmaceutical solutions when they are indicated (ADHD meds are some of the most researched and evidence-supported prescription drugs)

doctors misinterpret the significance of "normal" ranges of bloodwork results where normal is population average not a range to indicate health (this is common with ferritin, thyroid)

So yeah, it was nice to remember that I truly don't turn to online peer medical support if I don't have to. If I have a medical condition that they actually take seriously and manage well, I am more than happy to hand over the reins, trust what they say, and literally never think about it at all.

I have NO desire to make medical conditions part of my life's work and identity. This only ends up happening because doing the deep dive and figuring it all out myself is often the only way any solutions are found. So when doctors get pissy because patients are learning about things on tiktok or on Facebook support groups, what they should really be doing is asking why on earth people would need to resort to getting their medical information through these channels instead of by asking their doctors.

[paradoxcase]

Chapter 5 of Harrow the Ninth

Another broken memory, with the broken skull, in the third person, of a scene from Gideon the Ninth but involving Ortus instead. I went back to this scene in Gideon briefly so that I could compare

So here is where the "necro suitcase" comment is clarified, I see

In the original scene, she didn't do this (the sitting on dirt thing). Gideon mentioned that it's something that necromancers in the stories she read did, but Harrow didn't do it for whatever reason

Gideon originally just mentioned that the planet had a lot of water, and was mainly interested in the fact that it wasn't frozen or boiled away, but Harrow here is saying that all she can see is water, and Canaan House. I guess it's possible that Canaan House is somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but what if this is something like what happened in Homestuck where future Earth became a waterworld that was entirely ocean? I guess it might explain why there aren't people living there, and why no one has wood or paper anymore, but like, there are people in this universe living on Pluto and Mercury, I'm sure they could figure out how to support a decent population on a planet that is 100% ocean, too

In the original scene, Harrow said the planet was a tomb, but there's nothing in the narrative here to explain why she thought that, and she doesn't say that this time around

I honestly don't know what Ortus did mean by "bone frenzy" here, unless it just meant blood lust or something, and how he thinks it related to Harrow's schizophrenia, and how Harrow thinks it could be misinterpreted, but interpreting poetry has never been something I've been good at. Is Mattias Nonius, and Ortus's epic poem about him, going to become more relevant in these Ortus-related memories?

Ok, this is funny, because I was 35 myself four years ago, and definitely did not feel this way about it, and actually still don't, living forever still seems pretty cool to me, modulo situations like Cytherea's and the whole thing where the Lyctors are being eternally pursued by Resurrection Beasts. Given that neither of them know about those things in context of this broken memory, I think this might just be Ortus, personally

She did talk to the pilot at this point in the original scene. But here we get a cryptic note that only Harrow can see:

I have no idea what this means, but I'm reminded of Cytherea's "you lied to us" message at the end of Gideon the Ninth. This therefore seems like the person who said, or wrote this was probably a Lyctor, and someone else's thoughts or memories or whatever are getting mixed up with these broken memories. I'm curious now if these broken memories were just a side effect of Harrow's Work, or if they were specifically intentionally rewritten as a separate step, or if they are just Harrow's imagination trying to fill in the gaps of memories or pieces of memories that are just gone now. If they were specifically rewritten, I'm guessing something about how that was done injected this message in here, but if it's just post-Work Harrow's imagination, this might be something that she heard someone say at some other time and then forgot about

In the original scene, Harrow offers Gideon a veil to shield her eyes and Gideon puts on sunglasses instead. Here this scene ends without Ortus covering his eyes at all, or Harrow worrying about him, which is sort of interesting

[acacia-may]

Here is a fruit basket 🍎🍊🍋🍏

Aww thank you so much, Little Fan! 🥰

🍎 Is there anything you straight-up won’t write?

I will not write anything NSFW. It's just not for me. I'm the most vanilla person to have ever vanilla-ed (and actually get all blushy even writing about a couple kissing, which is why they often just don't in my stories even when they are technically romance. 😅 My sister often teases me that I can really only write one (1) kiss scene which is basically just a line like "And then they kissed." 🙈 I have been trying to prove her wrong and write a little more kissing into my stories but I'll never be the type to write anything steamy. It's just not my personal cup of tea).

🍊 Who’s a character you don’t write for that often, but keep meaning to write for more? (They’re so interesting! But maybe you have trouble pinning them down, or keep getting distracted by another blorbo…)

I answered this here if you want the full discussion, but long story short poor Gordon. I never did finish that story wip in his POV and feel like I really dropped the ball with him even though he was always one of my favorites. (Sorry Gordon!)

I've always wanted to write more Walter too--just kind of diving into Rill's relationship with him as more of a father figure than just a butler and especially how Walter is totally going to step in as "Grandpa" if/when Rillmy ever has kids. ^^

🍋 What’s your favorite spicier trope to write?

Again I am beyond vanilla and don't write anything spicy ever, but (and I'm about to embarrass myself here...) my sister swears the spiciest thing I have ever written is a line in which the POV character remembers a multilingual character unwittingly switching languages during a particularly (ahem) heated moment.

And I do like that trope 😳 (though not just in a spicy way!!) [which is why I put that line in there (even though nothing happened on screen in this fic, I swear 🙈)]. As a linguistics major, I've always been fascinated with the science behind the multilingual brain and how it has actually been proven that multilingual people will unconsciously switch languages especially when expressing something with a deep and/or passionate emotion behind it. In this particular instance, this character actually professed his love in Spanish which (at least for him) meant more than expressing it in English because he used "Te Amo" which is a really intense "I love you" (for like your immediate family or your spouse or your soulmate) rather than "Te Quiero" which is more of a general "I love you" for everyone else (i.e. less close family, friends, people you're casually dating ect.). Whereas in English there's only one word for love so it gets overused and its multiple meanings/uses can easily get misinterpreted.

I think my sister's point in saying this is my spiciest line (beyond just poking fun at me for being vanilla & this not being very spicy at all) is that this was an intimate thing to say and this character chose to say this very intimate thing during a heated moment which in itself was intimate therefore making the whole thing even more intimate (or, you know, spicy). But that's about as much as I can do in terms of spicy tropes, I think. 🙈

🍏 Is there something you overuse, whether it’s a certain phrase, trope, or piece of punctuation?

I definitely overuse em-dashes. I usually write "stream of consciousness" so my sentences just run on and on and on. I should probably try to shorten them or at least vary the structure now and then. 😅

I think I also overuse certain phrases specific to whichever character I'm writing (especially if they are the POV character). For instance, Vanessa winks a lot, Langris' mouth twitches in the corners (to show that he's actually having a good time in spite of himself), Finral sheepishly scratches the back of his neck, or my most recent pitfall something aches in Hero's chest every couple of sentences (because he's sad 😔), and I have to edit those out. It's hard for me not to fall into the habit of using the same descriptors for the same characters over and over again.

[peach-pot]

songs that’re in my aro playlist and why 😎

(I ❤️ misinterpreting lyrics for the sake of aromanticism. also I'm on the grayro spectrum and that influences this a lot.)

1. World of Two by CAKE

feels like being aromantic and two people in your life start dating and making a BIG show of it

"I don't want to / Live in your world / Of two / There's only room for you"

2. When by dodie

"I think I've been telling lies / 'Cause I've never been in love"

"I'd rather date an idea / Something I'll never find"

"They tell me I loved, teach me how to think"

"I'm waiting to live, and waiting to love / Oh, it'll be over, and I'll still be asking when"

come on.

3. don't quite belong by dodie

feels like knowing there's something up with you and romance, but not yet knowing what being aromantic is

"Holding hands like it's planned / How do they know what they mean? / I go up to a friend, grab his arm / "What's the code I should know? / Do you struggle like me?""

"Am I / Missing something vital here? / 'Cause I / Woke up feeling kind of weird / Guess I'll just pretend / Play along 'til they figure it out / I don't quite belong"

4. Beside Myself by The Escape Artist

"The way I love you is if I were someone else / And I'm sat here beside myself / God, I can't keep doing this"

"I guess I don't know what I want / Who knows better? / Oh, everyone / So this is why we're alive / To procreate, perform, pretend, prescribe / It's just the way things work"

"Now we're talking, and I know just what he wants / So I stop him / This time I'm honest for once / "Hey, man, this is really not something I do." / But he won't quit, just wants my number as "friends" / And I hate it"

"I know you see me as if there's something wrong / And it's hard not to play along"

come on. I mean come on.

5. I Wanna Keep Yr Dog by illuminati hotties

it's about getting out a relationship and missing the dog more than the person. very easy to make about being aro if you ask me.

"I felt very little for you, oh well / Thanks for taking care of ol' me"

"You’re alright, but I wanna keep your dog / This is the last night unless you let me keep your dog / I know you want me close / But when you're gone, it's her I miss the most / I'd rather keep your dog"

6. Happy Unhappy by The Beths

feels like being happy being aromantic and then having a crush for the first time and it being more of a bother than anything else. (describing being single as being "happy unhappy" feels like a very aro thing to me on its own.)

"'Cause I was fine on my own / Tolling steady like a dial tone / Couldn't you leave me? / I was happy unhappy / But now I'm overthrown / Wish my heart were really made of stone"

7. Too Soon by Liza Anne

I relate this a lot to my experience being grayromantic where every time I think I have a crush I overthink it, whether or not the feelings are real at the end of the day. feels like thinking you might have a crush and not wanting to overthink it so you can instead just try to have a bit of fun with the feelings for however long they last.

"I think that I am gonna try to / Be a little less in my mind to / Overthink a good thing / Under feel a real thing / I wanna lose my mind a little / I wanna love you"

8. I Think I Love You by The Partridge Family

"I think I love you so what am I so afraid of / I'm afraid that I'm not sure of a love there is no cure for"

"I don't know what I'm up against / I don't know what it's all about / I got so much to think about"

^^ what experiencing romantic attraction is like when you're me and you're grayro and every time it takes several weeks to figure out if what you're feeling is even romantic attraction in the first place.

[cassowary-rapture]

I keep seeing this post about the ASD diagnostic criteria including “takes everything literally” and autistic people answering it wrong because it doesn't mean literally everything. So that's been rolling around in my head and I've been trying to figure out if I do that

And yes I fucking do. I'm usually able to figure out what people actually mean, but I do have to think about it. It's initially confusing. Then I go from confused to pleased with myself for figuring it out to annoyed that people don't phrase it differently. And that's just when I realize that there's something off about what they said. I'm sure there are times when I get it wrong without realizing it

Like whenever I went to the school nurse as a kid, they would ask if I had a temperature. It was a weird question and I'd struggle to answer. Eventually I realized that they were asking if I had a fever. But that's not what they said and responding to the implied question felt like lying, so after that, I would usually just say "I don't know" and let them figure out the answer for themselves. There was at least one time where I was in a bad mood, decided to be a pedantic little bitch, and said something like "Of course I have a temperature. Everyone has a temperature"

I just recently got over my relatives saying "You'd better eat before your food gets cold!" Something I hear a lot because of ADHD. It's 75 degrees in here. Can the food get cold? No, right? It can only cool to room temperature, which is not cold. It took me like three decades to stop just taking it at face value, figure out what they actually meant (that the food will stop being hot/no longer the ideal temperature for eating), and find that whole thought process, which I go through every time they say it, amusing rather than silently fuming over them being "wrong"

And me taking it literally and rambling about work or household chores or whatever when I was cuddling with an ex and they asked, "What are you thinking about right now?" led to a very confusing argument. Apparently that was...not how I was supposed to answer that? I was supposed to be cute or romantic and say that I was thinking about them, going back a few minutes if necessary to gather some material. Granted they were a dick, but they seemed very confident in their offense. Convinced that I had purposely misinterpreted the question in order to upset them