#any and all ‘romantic’ stuff must be preceded by followed by or happening during moments-

[starmagnets]

sometimes i think what if there was an au where kinar and shilipha were able to meet under normal circumstances and yknow. possibly fall in love but then i remember that that wouldn’t be nearly as fascinating nor as funny as what they have going on in the main universe and then i return to writing them being fucked up and weird about it

[hxlfsoul]

😱 = What does your character fear most in their world?🐉 = Of the fantastical elements in their world what does your character actually find strange, or hard to believe?

♡ / accepting / @entangledheroes​

These are all for fantasy verse 01. 

So, first off, he fears his family first and foremost. The burden of having to rule a kingdom lead by an unloved king, a tyrant who was cruel even to his own children, those he should have protected as they would lead the future and decide his fate after he stopped being king. Shoto, truly, would have lead a coup against his father if he wasn’t set to become the king as soon as he turned 16, as by his father’s wishes for Shoto to make some use of himself.

He’s scared of what burden that will bring. Those in the kingdom have no faith in his family and none have ever seen him, considering he was never supposed to leave the castle or interact with commonfolk, those things being against his father’s express wishes no matter how much Shoto wishes he could go against them, the idea of disobeying and the punishment that would follow is enough to cause him to fall into submission. After all, a dead prince could not lead a country out of ages of darkness, could he?

So I suppose, in short, what he does fear would be ruling. He fears that he won’t be good enough, that they won’t trust in him, that they’ll kill him, that his father’s court won’t listen to his own opinions because they’re vastly different to those of his father’s. Most of all, he’s afraid of what comes after - if he’s spent all his life trying to be a good king and then becomes king and manages it, what’s the purpose he has left in life? That’s all he’s wanted, to be a better king than his father, to treat others kindly, but once he’s fulfilled that desire there’s nothing left for him and he doesn’t want to have to face the rest of his life unsure of what he wants out of it.

His own insecurities terrify him to his core, the thoughts that run wild through his head, the ideas his mind makes up on trivial things. He fears going on quests with knights and adventurers and failing them, he’s afraid he’ll let people die for him over and over again, he’s afraid that in the end his efforts to make a difference won’t be enough and he’ll burn out, fall from grace and that he’ll be forgotten by everyone the moment it happens.

Most of all, he’s scared to meet people, to trust them, to be around them because he’s never known others, never had friends or seen family other than his father, never gotten to socialise. He’s afraid that people will use him, that he’ll be naive, that people will grow tired of his inexpressiveness no matter how he tries to show emotion.

Truthfully, Shoto is scared of few things. His father, his future, his thoughts. Most of all, he’s afraid to fall in love with someone and lose himself in that feeling. However, something specific to his world he’d be scared of - something physical - would have to be the monsters that lurk in the woods. It would be the evil creatures that pretend to have humanity, the not-quite-human shifters to the west, the fae. He’s afraid of the world because he never experienced it and that’s something that will show to be rather limiting when it comes to his decisions as a king.

He’s terrified he will fail to keep peace, that he’ll fail to create peace, between magical creatures and humans, between himself as a mage and other beings. He’s terrified to be rejected simply because he was born with magic, to be outcasted by regular humans, by those who are weaker and assume he is their king, he is the son of Enji, and he must be exactly like him.

He fears being seen as the very man he’s grown to hate, to be seen as simply another mad king, and he’s terrified he already is, because he doesn’t want to be anything like that— he never will.

Something Shoto finds particularly odd in his world? Well, not much, really. He’s lived with the idea that stuff like magic and creatures like dragons, faeries, etc etc, are completely normal. He’s unaware to the idea of anything out of the ordinary because his ordinary is vastly different to the real world we all live in, you know? Everything in his world is a constant.

Something he finds strange is people. Their customs, their traditions - Shoto never got to partake in things like full moon dances and offerings, in winter festivals and other holidays, such as Hiems, Calor Frigus, Carimare etc.

He isn’t used to them and their behaviours, strange compared to his own - although he is called odd compared to most - and those of his family, who have always held on as if they have pride, an illusion to hide the brokenness of royalty and the fears of life, the uncertainties of all they have lived through. 

He finds people odd, as some can be cowardly while others brave, some selflessly kind while others are brash and insensitive to the struggles of those around him. The variation between every person, between strength, what matters most, their morals - all of it is foreign to him, to the point he cannot view it as normal because he isn’t used to it and he’s not sure there will ever be a day where he isn’t awed by the individuality of others.

For some clarification:

The full moon dance festival is known as 

Following winter festivals and markets, there are the holidays known as Hiems and Calor Frigus. Hiems is a holiday preceding Calor Frigus, taking place on the 17th day of December. It is a romantic celebration in 

These are named by:

Hiems - Snow (Latin). Hiems is a day in which snow/ice mages and magic users will combine their power to create snowfall across the entire kingdom for a day, regardless of whether there is natural snow or not. This is mostly centered around children, to give them something to entertain themselves with while adults prepare for the gifting season, as well as the meal to be eaten at the end of the day during sunset. The evening meal, known as Coaespa (a hybrid between the words coena and vesperum. Coena is a Latin word for meal, while vesperum means evening) consists of several dishes. 

The first course, a starter, is often a salad - this is traditionally made with carrots, bell peppers, cucumber, a leafy green (lettuce, spinach etc) and local meats. The exact recipe may differ by region, as other ingredients - whether fruit, vegetable or others - may be added, as well as variations in the meat. These may also differ by class. However, the core ingredients remain the same regardless of area, making it recognisable. This salad is known as as Hiemsilis (a hybrid between hiems and exilis, a word meaning ‘small’ in Latin). 

The second course is traditionally a carbohydrate dish, often consisting of noodles, a dipping sauce - varying by region, some may contain alcohol, some may be sweet, some savoury, consistency differences etc - in which the various vegetables cooked with the noodles are dipped, left in large pieces for convenience. There is rarely meat served with this course, known as Hiemsilva (a hybrid word between hiems and silva, a word in Latin meaning ‘plant’), as it is strictly a plant-based dish. Some, however, go against this tradition. The vegetables prepared depend on region, class and what is available. Some regions have broader ranges of vegetables, but may not use all of them. However, others may have smaller range and buy from those with more vegetables to include more in dishes, and so on.

The third course is typically a cake, created with fine ingredients. There is a specific quality of flour, sugar etc that is kept an eye on specifically for this dish. On top of the cake, these will be small pastries, often filled with melted chocolate and it will be topped with something akin to glace, however made with milk and icing sugar instead of water. Ingredients for this must be advertised as so and the royal family often pay half of the original price to allow those who are poor to afford them, where they may be unable to - for example if one ingredient is expensive, it will be subsidised with payment directly to the seller to be kept at an affordable price for the general public. It is not eaten at any other point in the year and is made as a sponge cake with the finest made jam used in the middle, much like a victoria sponge, and cream mised with fruit pieces strewn throughout the centre, which is hollowed out - in smaller or larger circles, depending on the baker, but never more than half. This cake is known as Hiemsli (a hybrid between hiems and libum, a Latin word for cake) and it is specific to this holiday.

Calor Frigus - Warmth Cold (Latin). This is a gift giving season lasting from the 20th day of December until the 20th day of January. This is when materialistic gifts will be exchanged, often handmade. It is a time to show appreciation for loved ones, whether by showing thought for something they may like and buying it for them or by constructing artworks, ornaments or other items specifically for them - although, the latter is more common.

The gift giving period for family members lasts until December 26th.

The gift giving period for friends lasts from December 27th until January 2nd.

The gift giving period for rivals and/or enemies lasts from January 3rd to January 9th.

The gift giving period for lovers/crushes is January 10th to January 16th.

The last few days - January 17th to January 20th - are used to give gifts to those who have been away, to the sick or to leave flowers/food offerings/gifts at the graves of deceased loved ones. This is often a time of mourning, used to remember those who have left the world, who have disappeared and to wish well those who are ill so that they may recover.

Carimare - a hybrid of the words Caritas (Latin) and Amare (Latin), both being words meaning ‘love’. It is similar to valentines day. However, instead of gifts and confessing, it is only celebrated by couples who are courting each other. It is a celebration of their love, rather than a gift giving occasion, in which both will plan a day out together, but without anything materialistic. It’s a show of how happy a couple is together, how well they know the other etc, how they can make them happy without the need for material items and gifts from the other. It’s all about the slowness of love, the subtly of knowing someone well, lingering glances and gentle touches, soft kisses and hand holding. It is a holiday about emotional intimacy and gentle affection. People are often discouraged from confessing on this day as it is a celebration of existing love and peace between people rather than for new love and fleeting interest. 

No gifts are exchanged on Carimare, which takes place on March 27th. All gifts given to lovers are given during Calor Frigus, other than the typical courting gifts.

[awed-frog]

I know you said you'll still follow the show, reblog gifs, and finish the dcbb you're working on this year, but ahhh - I'm going to miss reading paragraphs and paragraphs of your detailed analysis! You're my favourite meta-writer, and I really looked forward to reading your opinions after each episode :) Although you probably won't be super active in this fandom, will you still write deancas fic in the future? Just for fun?

Hi, sorry I left this for a few days. Your message really cheered me up in a period that’s been hard for me - mostly for family issues, so thank you - thank you so much for all this.

As for my projects - the truth is, I don’t know what I want to do, and how I feel about it all. 

[Putting the rest of this under a cut because there’s some negativity there - the tl;dr version is, yes, I’ll keep writing fiction for now and I’m hoping to post the next big project in a couple of weeks or so.]

Right now I feel let down, mostly, and as I said, part of it has to with myself and who I am as a person (someone who gets in too deep and 100%, and that’s not necessarily good), but I’ve also been around long enough to be sure that part of it is the show itself. What mostly annoys me as a meta writer is the fact Supernatural won’t own up to the subtext it is so clearly embedding in its narrative. Some people still feel optimistic, and that’s great, but let’s remember that what they’re doing right now - that’s a pattern. We got to the point where their whole season arc doesn’t make sense without Destiel (that’s basically what happened with Amara), and their mirrors are so precise they’re basically blinding you (still not over that Colette thing), and yet at the end of the season, nothing happens and nothing has changed. I mean, even with all the goodwill in the world, it’s getting harder and harder for me to believe TPTB will act any different from all the others who’ve been there before (and here I’m thinking mostly about Merlin and Sherlock) - they saw there was something happening there, for whatever reason, or maybe they pushed it from the start, I don’t know, but at some point they decided that yeah, why not keep it going - but the truth is, they never meant to go through with it, because that’s not how it works - because bi people are not a thing, because your gay characters must be openly gay from the start, because a story about a gay man must have something to do with AIDS or whatever, because you can’t trick people into watching a vampire story and then BAM, surprise, motherfucker, it was actually a gay romance all along, because the most they can do is two people holding hands in the very last scene and nobody would be happy with that, so why bother? 

I’ve tried to force myself, for years, to believe there was no malice there, no sheer exploitation of people’s hunger for representaton, but I don’t know if I can anymore. If you look at the last two seasons, the pattern is exactly what it’s been for the previous seven: a lot of subtext (sometimes  stretching credibility), a lot of double speak and scenes that could be interpreted either way, incredibly romantic moments followed or preceded by stupid and/or out of character #NoHomo stuff, and, mostly, no textual confirmation of any kind that something is actually going on. Which, frankly, enough.

And it’s not about Destiel, either. I would be okay with this obsession to keep the show only about Sam and Dean if they actually told me what’s going on with them, because they’re such complex and interesting characters and I would love to spend more time with them, but really, it’s hit and miss there. For instance, during this season I have learned nothing new about Sam, and I’m not any closer to understanding who he is and what he wants. As for Dean, 90% of his character development happened in the season finale - while the work of deconstructing performing!Dean has been majestic at times, it often felt like an afterthought. And how is it possible that we barely heard them talk to each other about this extraordinary thing that’s happened to them? Your mother coming back from the dead - you’d think that would be the focus of, I don’t know, everything? - but, again, I’m not much closer to understanding what’s going on there than I was before. As for Mary herself, she never made much sense to me as a character (apparently the fact Sam was a vessel for Lucifer and John wasn’t exactly nice to his kids was still news for her after one full year? like, uh?) and I still don’t understand, exactly, what it is they wanted to do with her. Other times, the message was clear but the way they got there didn’t work for me - for instance, Crowley’s death was hurried and weird, and that whole Claire episode proved the very thing Claire was trying to disprove (ie, that no, she wasn’t ready to work on her own) and yet the final scene ignored basically everything that had happened in the previous forty minutes and just went with it. 

So, you see, there’s plenty of big and little things like that I’m annoyed about - and I get some of them have to do with the limitations of filiming a TV show (stuff about budget and whatever else I know nothing about), but when you see other episodes, well-made episodes, you realize they know how to do the thing and just don’t want to. 

Sometimes I think Supernatural, like Destiel, was never supposed to be a thing. This is not Game of Thrones or Westworld or True Detective - it’s not something they created to win awards and have people hold on to their souls for dear life and question their entire existences. It’s just - entertainment. It’s what the CW does, right? I don’t want to be snobby, but they didn’t make The Vampire Diaries or Beauty and the Beast or Gossip Girl so they could change the world (I sort of enjoyed all of those, so again - I’m not saying they’re bad shows - at all). Those are simply things that sell - stories featuring incredibly good-looking people doing reckless things, living on the edge and helping you take your mind off your mean teacher or annoying dad. That’s it. It’s all it is. The fact Supernatural became more than that, and came to mean so much to so many people - that was probably a perfect storm of things - Kripke’s was a story about the American Dream that came at just the right moment, the cast (in my opinion, especially Jensen) is really talented, the writers mostly know what they’re doing and so on. This is why I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that those episodes I don’t like - those are the norm. The masterpieces - they’re accidental - and not in the sense people don’t work hard on them, but in the sense the show was never supposed to be like that. 

So, I truly don’t know. I enjoy writing metas, and I’m slowly getting over the colossal disappointment that was the season finale, so, who knows - maybe by the time S13 airs, I’ll decide to go back to it. I don’t know. When I wrote that last meta, I was very emotional and absolutely furious, but feelings fade and change. What I will stop expecting, though, is for the narrative to follow any rules when they’re clearly trying to break them - and not in a good way. For instance, it truly made no narrative sense for Eileen to die, and it made no narrative sense for Toni to have a kid at all (or that she’d extract information from Sam by dream-raping him), or for Sam to break into that emotional King Arthur speech, or for Cas to die the way he did - and yet. So if I do start to write metas again, I’ll try to be more light-hearted about it and allow for ‘whateverness’, because apparently this is what we’re getting.

As for writing - I’ll always be grateful to this show and to the fandom for giving me my will to write back. I’m the kind of person who’s been working on a novel or a collection of short story or whatever else since primary school, but the last few years have been busy and adult and on and off traumatic, so I’d stopped completely, and this - this not writing, this living in a finite world, this drowning out of the voices in my head - this made me ache and shatter somewhere in my very soul. Writing stories again and getting feedback on them has been a joyful, liberating, crucial experience for me, and it has really helped me to make sense of myself as a person again. Plus, I really love these characters and feel there are so many things left unsaid - at this point, I couldn’t bear to leave them behind. My plans are to keep writing at least until the next DCBB, but if Supernatural will really finish in a season and a half, it’s possible I’ll keep posting the occasional coda during S13 and S14 as well. At the moment, I’m working on three big things - I think I’ll manage to finish them, and I truly hope you’ll like them, because, really - the friends I’ve made in the fandom, the messages I exchange with those who read my stories, all those taking the time to let me know they’ve kept reading all night long or something - it’s been so deep, so intimate and world-changing - a moving, incredible experience. I owe you guys so much, and that’s something I’ll not easily forget.

So, well, sorry for the novel - I guess I just wanted to say - I’m not leaving this story behind yet. I’ll just try to care a bit less and focus more on other things, but I’ll be around. Family don’t end with blood, and all that.