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celiabowens · 4 years

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underrated SFF books (YA and Adult)

So uhm, since I keep seeing the same books on my dash all the time (and I like them too, just...there’s more! to read!) here’s a list of less popular SFF books, divided into YA and Adult. I’ve tried to mention when there is lgbt rep and the trigger warnings. Also, books written by poc will be in bold. Please point out any typo or mistake or if I’ve forgotten specific rep/tw mentions.

All of these are books that I’ve read and enjoyed (by enjoyed I mean anything from 3 stars and above), but if anyone wants to add titles please feel free to do so!!

YA:

The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi: beautifully written, fairytale-like story rich in mythology (inspired by several Hindu myths. There’s a full list on goodreads indicated by the author herself). Roshani’s prose is gorgeous.

A Crown of Wishes by Roshani Chokshi: it’s a companion novel to The Star-Touched Queen, but both can be read as a standalone. I liked this one more than its companion and I particularly loved how the romance was written (slow burn, but specifically, the author really highlights the mutual respect between the characters, we love to see it).

The Young Elites by Marie Lu: fantasy trilogy set in a world inspired by Renaissance Italy, in which children who survived a mysterious and deadly illness ended up with strange and dangerous powers. Secret societies and a female villain!

The Kingdom of Back by Marie Lu: historical fantasy following Mozart’s sister, Nannerl, a girl as talented as her brother, but afraid of being forgotten because of the lack of opportunities she has to be seen and heard. Nuanced sibling relationship, no romance.

The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski: fantasy f/f romance! Both a coming of age story set in a society with a rigid class system and a slow burn f/f romance with a lot of banter. TW: abuse.

The Weight of Feathers by Anna-Marie McLemore: magical realism. The book follows two families of traveling performers that have been locked in a feud for over a generation. This was the author’s debut and I remember getting an arc of it and being impressed by both the prose and how the forbidden love trope was handled.

When the Moon was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore: another magical realism novel. One of the main characters is a trans boy and the book focuses on issues of racism and gender. One of my favorite YA!

Strange Grace by Tessa Gratton: fantasy romance set in a village that periodically sacrifices a young man in order to keep a deal with the devil that ensures their prosperity. Also, polyamorous and non-binary rep.

The Rise of Kyoshi by F.C. Yee: first book in a duology following avatar Kyoshi’s life. It explores the political and cultural aspect of the Earth Kingdom and Kyoshi’s past. Bisexual rep.

Descendant of the Crane by Joan He: sort of a murder mystery fantasy, as the main character finds herself suddenly thrust into power once her father has been murdered. The story has a slow build up to a last part full of twists and machinations and it features lots of court intrigue. Warning: the ending is quite open and afaik there isn’t a sequel planned as of now.

The Bone Houses by Emily Lloyd-Jones: a quite unique take on zombies influenced by Welsh mythology (it’s super cool). The novel follows Ryn and their siblings, as they try to get by after their parents’ death by working as gravediggers. Only well, the dead don’t always stay dead. The characters read a bit younger than they are imo. There is chronic pain rep.

The Magnolia Sword by Sherry Thomas: retelling of the original ballad of Mulan. The book follows Mulan, who’s trained her whole life to win a duel for a priceless heirloom, as she joins the army. There’s a lot of political and historical details, which I really appreciated. Do not go into it expecting a fun adventure though. The descriptions of war aren’t extremely graphic, but be aware of the fact that most of the book is set during a conflict.

The Candle and The Flame by Nafiza Azad: standalone fantasy set in a city on the Silk Road! It’s a quite slow-paced tale about love, family and politics. It has lush descriptions of landscapes and cultures (and FOOD, there are some really great descriptions of food). It’s a very atmospheric book and while I struggled a bit with the pace I’d still recommend it.

Forest of a Thousand Lanters by Julie C. Dao: sort of an East Asian inspired retelling of Snow White, but following the Evil Queen before she became Snow White’s stepmother. I honestly haven’t read its sequel (which should focus on Snow White herself), but I do think this can be read and enjoyed as a standalone too.

The Queen’s Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner: it’s hard to point out exactly what this series is about because it has evolved so much with time. It starts out as classic quest/adventure series with The Thief (which may seem a classic and simple book, but is actually full of foreshadowing and has a really clever set up), but develops into a complex and intriguing political fantasy in The Queen of Attolia and The King of Attolia (and then goes back to the quest theme in book 5, Thick as Thieves).

Adult:

A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers by Alyssa Wong: I’m cheating with this one because it’s technically a short story but I love Alyssa Wong’s stories so I’m putting it here anyway. It can be read for free and you should just...read it.

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang: grimdark fantasy (TW: abuse, self harm, rape, drug abuse), inspired by Chinese history. It’s adult, but follows younger MCs and the unique blend of different historical periods/inspirations makes it extremely interesting. The characters are extremely fucked up in the best possible way, plus the use of shamanism is awesome. Please make sure you check all the TW before reading.

The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang: a Japanese-inspired militaristic fantasy, with elemental magic, a badass housewife dealing with her past and hiding a sword in her kitchen’s floor. It has interesting and nuanced family dynamics and a great reflection on propaganda and the use of narratives.

Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri: first book in an epic fantasy duology inspired by Mughal India (TW: abuse, slavery). I really liked both Empire of Sand and its companion and I find them pretty underrated. Both books have great slow burn romance (with a focus on mutual trust and respect) and focus on culture, religion, self acceptance and politics.

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: a fantasy bildungsroman set in Mexico during the Jazz age. It’s a great approach to adult SFF as it follows a young girl on a life changing adventure. It features Mayan mythology and a god slowly becoming human (this trope is everything!).

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden: a coming of age story inspired by Russian folklore. The trilogy as a whole has one of the best arcs I’ve ever seen: each book is perfectly self-contained and has its own arc, but also fits perfectly in the bigger picture of the trilogy. The atmosphere is amazing, the cast of characters is extremely well developed. Also frost demons are better than men.

The Binding by Bridget Collins: historical fantasy, but with very minimal fantasy elements. It’s set in a world vaguely reminiscent of 19th century England. I’d say this book is about humans and self discovery. It’s about cowardice and the lies we tell ourselves and those we wish we could tell ourselves. Gay rep. (TW: abuse, sexual assault, pretty graphic suicide scene).

The Divine Cities trilogy by Robert Jackson Bennett: starting with City of Stairs, it follows a female diplomat and spymaster(!!). The whole trilogy features an interesting discussion about godhood, religion, fanatism, politics, without ever being boring or preachy. It has complex and rich world building and a pretty compelling mystery.

Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett: heist fantasy following a thief as she’s hired to steal a powerful artifact that may change magical technology as she knows it. Set in a Venice-like merchant city. Also, slow burn f/f romance.

Jade City by Fonda Lee: sort of a gangster urban fantasy, heavily inspired by wuxia and set in an Asian-inspired metropolis. It follows a pretty big cast of characters, each with their own journey and development. It features nuanced family dynamics and a lot of political and economical subplots. Not extremely prominent, but book 2 features m/m side rep.

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse: inspired by Native American culture and specifically by the idea of subsequent worlds. It has a kickass MC and a good mix of original elements and typical UF tropes. TW: the book isn’t extremely violent but there is death and some gore.

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine: space opera inspired by the Mexica and middle period Byzantium. It focuses on topics like colonialism and the power of narratives and language. It has one of the best descriptions of what it’s like to live in between spaces I’ve ever read. Also very interesting political intrigue and has a slow burn f/f romance (and a poly relationship recalled through flashbacks). I ranted a lot about it already.

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee: a Korean-inspired space opera with a magic system based on math. It’s honestly quite convoluted and difficult to follow, but it also features some of the best political intrigue I’ve ever read. Plenty of lying, backstabbing and mind games. It also features lesbian and bisexual rep and an aroace side character (TW: mass shooting, sexual assault, abuse). I also really recommend Yoon Ha Lee’s short-story collection Conservation of Shadows.

The long way to a small angry planet by Becky Chambers: character driven space opera featuring a found family journeying through space. A fun read, that also deals with topics such as sexuality and race. Quite easy to go through, as the world building and plot aren’t particularly complex themselves. f/f romance.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo: an Asian-inspired fantasy novella that gives a voice to people usually silenced by history. It follows a cleric (non binary rep) as they chronicle the story of the late empress, retold through objects that she used in her life. It focuses on bonds between women and the power that lies in being unnoticed. f/f side rep.

The Black God’s Drums by P. Djèlí Clark: an urban fantasy novella, based on Orisha mythology and set in an alternate, sort of steampunk, New Orleans. I really like how creative Clark’s worlds are and how good he is at writing female characters (which rarely happens with male authors).

The haunting of tram car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark: novella set in an alternate steampunk Cairo populated by supernatural entities. It’s set in the same world of a Dead Djinn in Cairo, which is a short story you can read for free.

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone: epistolary novella set during a time-travel war. It has gorgeous writing and an amazing f/f romance. As a novella, it’s quite short but it’s beautifully crafted and so complex for such a short book!

The Citadel of Weeping Pearls by Aliette de Bodard: a novella set in the Xuya universe (a series of novellas/short stories set in a timeline where Asia became dominant, and where the space age has empires of Vietnamese and Chinese inspiration), but can be read as a standalone. It’s a space opera featuring a disappeared citadel and the complex relationship between the empress and her daughter as war threatens her empire.

One for My Enemy by Olivie Blake: self-published urban fantasy following two rival families in New York. Sort of a Romeo and Juliette retelling but with gangster families and magic. Honestly recommend all of her books, I love how Olivie writes and especially how she writes female characters.

#book recs #book recommendations #adult sff #ya literature #lgbt fiction #litblr #listen this doesn't show in tags i'm DONE #done with this tagging system lol #also if there are mistakes please tell me!!#book rec

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mayonnaisetoffees · 3 years

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Mayo's Fic Recs

List of my favourite fics below the cut; this list is a WIP and completely personal taste; a mix of fandom classics and lesser knowns

Please remember to leave comments and kudos for the authors and podficcers!

*shows particular favourites

Fandoms currently included: Spn, Merlin, Les Mis, BatFam

Fics That Changed Me Fundamentally

Loaded March*** by Footloose. Merlin | E | 1.26M(Series)/ 35k (First part) | 188k hits (First part)

The reason SAS Captain Arthur Pendragon can’t keep a communications specialist in Team Excalibur because none of them are good enough. And then Lieutenant Merlin Emrys gets assigned to his squad, and Arthur does everything he can to prove that Merlin isn’t good enough, either. Except he is.

You can read all about my thoughts on Loaded March here, here, and here. Basically this fic series is beautifully written, has absolutely delicious UST, has found family, magic, and high stakes. It’s been part of my life for almost a decade now, I made friends through LM that I still have to this day, and it genuinely changed me as a person. Plus there are 78k of Extras to itch that I Finished Now What scratch. Parts 1-5 have been podficced and you can find them in works inspired by this one in each part.

Down to Agincourt*** by Seperis. Supernatural | E | 1.12M(Series)/ 154k (First part) | 73k hits (First part)

The world’s already over and they’re already dead. All they’re doing now is marking time until the end.

S7!Dean is transported back to the aftermath of where 5x04 The End left off. Much like LM, DtA was one that I avoided for a while. I didn’t think it would be my thing. I’m not usually into End!verse, it sounded so bleak from the summary, and it sounded so long for something I wasn’t sure about. If you’re reading this and nodding along? You are as much a fool as I was. Yes, it’s the end of the world. But it’s not over yet. This is a beautiful journey in what it means to be yourself, how to survive the end of the world, a How-To for Coups, and a study in food as a love language. I only read this fic this year, but like LM, it has genuinely changed me. Map of the World has been podficced.

Supernatural

Let’s start with the current hyperfixation. All of these are at least passively Dean/Cas unless otherwise stated. I've split into ones from my first time around in the SPN fandom and more recent ones because the vibes are actually really different and it took me some time to adjust (Not in a bad way! In a time has passed they have grown as characters way)

Old-School SPN (AKA the Classics my first time around)

Canon-Compliant or Divergent

Home in Motion* by nomdeplume13 M | 232k | 48k hits

Castiel swore he was done with spur of the moment decisions that permanently changed Dean Winchester's life. A year after the angel's most disastrous, his newest may present the largest challenge of dean's life: Fatherhood.

Did someone say kid!fic in canonverse? This is perfect. Canon divergence from the end of S6. Cas saves a baby from a neglectful mother and gives him to Dean to raise. They all move in with Bobby. Great OCs. Bobby considers Cas his son. Listen everything I say here will not be able to begin to encompass how much I love this fic. Just trust me on this one.

Named* by RC_McLachlan M | 95k | 95k hits

Jesus Christ is dead. Somehow, that isn't the worst part of Dean's week.

With a summary like that, need I say more? No but I'm gonna. This is one of the funniest fics I've ever read, but it doesn't take any emotion from the serious moments, if anything it heightens them. There are so many quotes from this I think about all the time. It was written in 2010 and so there's a bit of misogyny/character assassination of Anna in places.

Second Childhood by CloudyJenn (read by exmanhater) G | 16k (1h30) | 10k hits

"Dude, I can't do this whole thing by myself," Dean said with far more desperation leaking into his tone than he liked. It would just be too much to make it through hell and death and Lucifer only to have Castiel bail on him because of a frigging baby.

They beat the Apocalypse (OG-S5) and then Sam gets de-aged by a spell. I've listened to this so many times I know it by heart, it's an ultimate comfort fic to me.

Defy Any and All Expectation* by Tenoko1 (read by Tenoko1) M | 138k (14hrs) | 37k hits

Chuck's newly released books tell of another war between Heaven and Hell. Team Free Will sets out to try to defy prophecy, only to realize there is a lot more at stake and amiss than the not-quite-accurate words of one Prophet of the Lord. Along the way, Dean and Cas' relationship continues to evolve into something neither expected or were prepared for, all of their lives transforming in ways no one could have expected. But with no shortage of cases, monsters, and mayhem, it's going to require the help of new friends and old enemies if they're to have a hope of saving the world one more time. Alternate Season Six.

So this is a re-written version of Tenoko1's The Path We Choose which I don't think is around anymore. By the time I was reading the re-write as each chapter came out, I knew every single line of TPWC and it wasn't all that much shorter. It's such a perfect canon divergence because they are all 100% in-character. If you're into podfic, you already know what an absolute gift 14 hours is, but if you have never tried podfic before, Tenoko1 is a fantastic place to start. Her voice is soothing and energetic and her Cas sometimes comes to mind when I'm reading fic in Misha's place (sorry Misha)

His Fucking Kids 'Verse by 8sword M | 96k(Series)/ 3k (first part) | 26k hits (first part)

Jesus, the school should just have a parking spot labeled, “Reserved for the Novak-Winchesters,” because Dean’s getting sick of having to cruise around the parking lot looking for a spot every time he gets a call from the principal about Emma.

Emma survives and Dean and Cas are raising her and Claire. This fic series will make you laugh, make you cry, and (nowadays) make you wish Emma had survived to be a part of Wayward Sisters.

One Species Too Many by wallmakerrelict E | 22k | 37k hits

While Dean is laid up for a month after breaking his leg on a hunt, Cas decides that it's a perfect time to adopt a litter of kittens. But even though he's gotten better since Purgatory, Cas still isn't quite the same as he was before fixing Sam's head, and being trapped in a cabin with him for weeks on end is making that all the more obvious to Dean. When Sam takes off on a hunt, Dean has to figure out on his own how to navigate his new relationship with Cas while also helping to raise a bunch of fuzzballs that aren't even cute. Not even a little bit. (Well, maybe a little bit.)

Dean breaks his legs, and honey!Cas brings home some kittens to foster. It's achingly sweet and also painful because you know Dean wants to fix Cas but there's nothing to fix. It is tagged for ableism for this.

Tripping* by Hatteress E | 49k | 78k hits

That time the universe decided Dean belonged with Cas and wasn't afraid to pull out the big guns to make it so. Big guns in this case being obsessive fangirls, archangels turned tricksters and overly enthusiastic cupids. Welcome to Dean's life.

Alt!S5 and it is beautiful. Also any fic with Missouri is an automatic win.

Broadway Musical by Grifitings M | 12k | 79k hits

This is the day that marked the Holy and Blessed Union of Dean Winchester and Jo Harvelle. The merging of prominent bloodlines is always a grand occurrence, but breeding pedigree hunter families like Winchester and Harvelle is something to be rejoiced. It is also something to be meticulously planned, which thankfully the Host is very good at. Or, the romantic comedy where Dean Winchester and Jo Harvelle are destined to get married, Castiel is given the task of playing matchmaker and fails terribly, the entire Heavenly Host becomes a sitcom audience, God warns against male pregnancy, and Jimmy Novak is incredibly unimpressed with angels in general.

Jimmy deserves a sainthood and frankly I don't even want to hear about crack if it's not on the level of the Host yelling at Cas not to touch the butt.

Classic AUs (AKA AUs from my first time around)

Try Something Tuesday by almaasi E | 48k | 144k hits

Dean Winchester teaches a third-grade class. He's new to this whole ‘bisexual’ thing - but by pure happenstance, he meets Castiel: a particularly dapper male librarian who moonlights as a substitute teacher. Dean's curious and Castiel is willing, so why the hell not? Except, fate never intended it to be one-time-only...

This was one of the first spn fics to really really stay with me and it never really left.

Rock 'n' Roll Queer Bar by ChasingRabbits E | 127k(Series)/ 8k (Part1) | 29k hits (Part1)

Ellen and Jo Harvelle run Harvelle's Roadhouse, a bar that unintentionally becomes a beacon for wayward queer souls. Her employees: Dean, the smartass runaway with a big heart and bigger mouth; Castiel, the college drop-out turned hippie; his (surprisingly heterosexual) trouble-making brother Gabriel; and Charlie, who has been told several times that the back room is not to be used for after-hours Dungeons & Dragons games. But there's a lot of love in this place, and a new family for anyone who may otherwise be without.

This series. If you've ever felt unsure or out of place or anxious or just really felt like no-one understood you, this fic is for you. I first found this series when I was coming to terms with my queerness and I genuinely think it was invaluable. Also I am a sucker for the go for a dinner at Cas's family and end up storming out trope.

Play It All Night Long by janie_tangerine (read by Tenoko1) NC17 | 43k (4hrs)

The rom-com-ish one where Dean hosts a late night radio show, Castiel is a regular listener of his who starts calling one day and ends up calling more often than not and Dean finds himself liking it. This, until one day Castiel calls for not exactly petty reasons (just before Dean's brother Sam is visiting with his girlfriend for spring break) and things get very, very crowdy at his place. He also doesn't know it's just the beginning of it. Also features Gabriel, Chuck, Andy, the Roadhouse crew and a huge amount of music quoted. Especially Bob Dylan.

Again, this podfic has got me through many a night of insomnia. Cas calls in after a particularly shitty day and it all goes from there.

New-School SPN (AKA post-2014)

Canon-Compliant or Divergent

Tall Grass by aeli_kindara E | 57k | 28k hits

“I think we should have a garden,” Cas says. Dean looks up from his beer. He hasn’t had that much to drink, but Cas still has a vague look of unreality about him, a splash of living color that doesn’t fit in the bunker’s echoing stillness. Dean didn’t hear him coming. A lot of the time, Cas is so unobtrusive it feels like Dean has the bunker to himself, with Sam away. Dean shakes his head to clear it. “A — garden?” he repeats.

There is a reason you will see this recced time and time again. It healed parts of me I didn't know needed healing.

So Says the Sword* by komodobits E | 85k | 73k hits

The briefing was simple: ‘Stand guard over the Michael Sword until the battle is ready to commence. Await further instructions.’ Castiel doesn’t mind working security duty; he was briefed shortly after the initial salvation of the Sword from the pit, and again before taking up his position. He knows what to do. However, it’s easy to forget that the green room isn’t real. Time moves differently there, the space ever-changing to make a prison of mountains, cathedrals, salt flats, orchards, and whatever Castiel was led to believe about Heaven’s greatest weapon—Dean Winchester is something entirely unexpected

I saw ssts mentioned in like every single If you're getting back into the fandom READ THIS rec list. For good reason. It's described as "canon-adjacent in that seasons one to three happened exactly the same, but when Dean goes to Hell, he is not raised by Castiel". It's one of the most interesting concepts I've read and it's one of those fics where the writing style will stick with you. Castiel POV in a way you've never read before.

Aching in the Absence of You* by sobsicles E | 95k | 9k hits (in 5 days)

Brittle and battle-worn, Cas looks at him over coffee one morning and says, "I need to go," and Dean instantly knows that he's not coming back. He's not really sure how he knows it, but he does. It settles into the pit of his stomach, curling hot and tight like something he instinctively wants to tear out with his bare hands. He takes a breath, and it gets stuck in his throat, hitching there. It hurts, hurts, hurts when he finally exhales. "Yeah," Dean says, "of course you do," and he nods jerkily as he looks down at his phone. He doesn't say goodbye. He doesn't look up from the screen when Cas gets up and leaves the room. He doesn't finish his coffee, or move for a long time. By nightfall, Cas is gone.

If you don't already know sobsicles, I am delighted to introduce you to the person who will smash you to pieces with a hammer to put you back together Kintsugi-style. This one is post-finale but without 15x18 (it'll make sense as it goes). Cas says he's going to leave again and again Dean doesn't ask him to stay. Full of lines so beautiful they'd make Shakespeare weep, Sobsicles has this way of writing that is so evocative and paints such a clear picture. Fair warning, if you're Dean-coded, this might be A Lot.

dumbassery, denial, doing (the three d's to the destination)** by sobsicles E | 108k | 25k hits

Freedom is just one adjustment after the next. ~~~ Cas hums again. "I think you already have. It's been months since everything settled. All that's left to do is...get used to it, and perhaps—" His voice stalls out, uncharacteristically, and his gaze roams Dean's face with intensity. When he speaks next, his tone is a little raw. "Perhaps what one does with peace is...whatever they want." "What if I don't even know what that is?" Dean grumbles, arching an eyebrow in challenge. "'Cause I know damn well you don't just mean good food and a good bed and time in Baby, not simple wants like that. You mean—ya know, the big things, the wants we didn't get to have before." "Yes," Cas agrees. "If you're not sure, figure it out." "Easier said than done."

Yes, two sobsicles recs back to back. This one I read first and it still holds such a special place in my heart. A sign of a good fic is being able to picture it perfectly. The sign of an amazing fic is that when reading this I was so in Dean's shoes I could feel a pool cue between my hands and Baby behind my back. And I sobbed like a baby in this. It has probably my favourite ending ever. It's genuinely beautiful. If you don't read another on this list, read this one.

Teaching Poetry to Fish by aeli_kindara M | 52k | 14k hits

In which Castiel teaches poetry to fish. Also, himself. Also, eventually, Dean. (A series-long story, diverging slightly from canon after S14.)

The ultimate Cas character study and interwoven with poetry.

So There It Is, I've Said It All by PorcupineGirl (read by Ceewelsh) G | 4k | 13k hits

"Why, do you have something you need to say to me that you don't think I'll like?" I think I'm in love with you. "Yeah. I guess so."

Dean figures out he's in love with Cas then can't stop thinking it. This is genuinely beautiful and if you've ever had trouble actually saying the thing you're thinking, you'll relate to Dean here. I recently did the podfic for this.

you won't find this place alone by amidsizedfrog G | 9.5k |

When Claire said she was dropping out of college to pursue hunting full time, Dean said, “right,” and left the room. Or, the cross-generation conversation about formal education, choosing your own path and figuring out what it looks like to find a family. Or, in other words: "But what I do have is a GED and a give-'em-hell-attitude, and I'll figure it out." - Dean Winchester

This is a beautiful look at education in the hunter world, and I love anything that looks at Dean and Bobby's relationship and this does it perfectly. Also best cameo ever.

Seek to Know You Better by ahurston E | 33k | 23k hits

Dean and Cas, a long stretch of highway, and 36 questions empirically designed to make two people fall in love. As if they weren't already.

This is perfect. It has a lovely slow pace like it has the vibes of an indie film if that makes sense? Like it's two guys going from place to place talking. It was an instant favourite.

Newer AUs (AKA more recent AUs)

And This, Your Living Kiss* by opal_bullets M | 57k | 69k hits

Only a very few people in the world know that the celebrated and reclusive poet Jack Allen is just Kansas mechanic Dean Winchester, a high school dropout with a few bucks to his name. Not that it matters anymore; life has left him so wrung out he never wants to pick up another pen. Until, that is, a string of coincidences leads Dean to auditing a poetry course with one Dr. Castiel Novak. The professor is wildly intelligent, devastatingly handsome...and just so happens to be academia's foremost expert on the poetry of Jack Allen.

When I asked which fics were absolute must-reads for someone who'd been out of the fandom a few years, this was said repeatedly. But what really got me to read it was everyone actually told me more about what it meant to them than just the summary. It's a study in poetry, a study in learning who you are and who you used to be, and a reminder that it's never too late.

The Graveyard Shift* by riseofthefallenone, PurgatoryJar E | 620k | 175k hits

Dean’s favourite coffee shop, The Graveyard Shift, is only open after the sun goes down. Which is perfect for him, because that’s exactly when he craves coffee the most while doing the overnight at the fire hall. The coffee shop’s owner is pretty perfect too, but it’s kind of a bummer that Dean never gets to see Cas during the day. In a world where the supernatural live more or less in peace with the rest of humanity, it’s a little impolite to ask Cas just what he really is - or what his dark past entails.

A fantastic magical realism fic - magical creatures live and work with humans. Gabe and Cas run a coffee shop, Dean is a fireman, and the burn is slow and delicious and the intrigue kept me reading for like a week every single spare minute.

Painted Angels by WinJennster E | 106k | 162k hits

Author Castiel Novak has finally hit the big time, with a book based on his failed college relationship with a brilliant painter. He's put all his pain behind him, but at a book signing, he comes face to face with Dean Winchester for the first time in twelve years, and the reunion doesn't go like Cas hoped. Dean's a broken man, with a lot of scars and secrets, shoulders weighed down by his demons and self loathing. Cas sees a second chance with the man he's never stopped loving, but Dean's moved on, and is about to get married. Sam launches a "brilliant" plan to reunite his brother and his best friend, but Cas is worried it will all blow up in their faces, and he'll go through the agony of losing Dean a second time.

The first part of this I actually saved back when I was first in the fandom but I never got around to reading it (I had a To Read folder of 100+ fics that I absolutely dove into when I got back into spn) and the rest of the series finished in 2016 so I'm counting it in this section not the other. On the one hand, I wish I'd read this when it first came out. It's beautiful and heartbreaking, and so visual. On the other hand, I think I appreciated it a lot more now than I would have seven years ago. The parallel of me coming back to the old fandom that I loved dearly with Cas coming back to see someone and places he loved so much really hit. (Although coming back to the spn fandom was much easier and much less heartbreak!)

Finale Fix-Its (yeah fuck you Dabb that this has to be a whole category)

The Goldenrod Revisions by aethylas M | 66k | 15k hits

A rewrite of Supernatural’s final two episodes, expanded into a five episode arc - in which Chuck needs to be defeated, Castiel deserves to be saved, and the characters in this story get a very different ending.

Script format re-write of 15x19 and 15x20 into a 5-episode finale fix-it. As far as I'm concerned, this and chocolatecakecas's American Pie fanvid are the Supernatural finale.

break the skin (to break the barriers)* by sobsicles M | 30k | 9k hits

The first time she meets him, he's nothing more than an almost-missed appointment. ~~~ Dean is silent for a long, tense moment, then he gruffly says, "It's not for banishing the angels. It's to summon them. So, it doesn't—it's not to get rid of 'em, but to draw 'em in." Mitzi can't help but glance up at him at that. His voice is so heavy with so much unexplained pain, and she doesn't understand why, or what angels have to do with it. She knows religion can impact people. She's very aware that it can get complicated, and that it can be a huge source of pain for someone, but Dean sounds grievously wronged, somehow, as if it's a truly personal thing. She pushes through, focusing back on her job, clearing her throat before murmuring, "Well, I guess we all want angels to visit us sometimes." "Just the one," Dean mumbles. "Your guardian angel?" Mitzi asks. Dean breathes out, "Something like that. As close to one as an angel will ever get."

Therapy through getting tattoos and telling your life story to someone who obviously doesn't think it's real. Outsider!POV not just done well, but done literally the best.

Kingdom Come by ahurston E | 17k | 10k hits

Cas wakes up on the coast of Maine. He makes his way home.

I don't know if this counts as finale fix-it as it's more fuck the finale we're ignoring that. There's just so much love and care in this fic.

The Family Business by chai_lattes M | 16k | 5.5k hits

It's all over. It's been weeks since Chuck's defeat and Cas' return from the Empty. There are no threats on the horizon, no apocalypses to stop, but there's something that keeps the Winchesters from being happy. Something that's maybe always been there. On their way back from a hunt, they find John Winchester, back from the dead.

If you're anything like me, you start rubbing your grubby little hands together at the tag John Winchester's A+ Parenting like yes let's address this! This is one of the best examples of John coming back and how it jars with the life that they have built. Also Claire and Jack getting to share screentime!

Merlin

If I have a forever fandom, it's Merlin. I've always kept one foot in this fandom, and it introduced me to fandom, and most importantly to podfic which kinda had an impact. All Merthur unless stated.

Canon-Verse

Seven Magpies by syllic (read by lunchee) E | 33k (3hr15) | 58k hits

Arthur opened his eyes a minute later to the sight of seven magpies streaking across the top of the clearing, their shapes dark against the white clouds and the muted grey of the sky. He tried to remember what it was that seven magpies meant—he'd had a nurse who had sung the rhyme to him as a child—but couldn't. Arthur wakes up somewhere he doesn't recognise, but where he clearly belongs.

Okay so this is an AU but it's Canon-AU so it's going here. Fantastic role reversal fic that you will be thinking about for weeks.

and from your grace, i fell by TheDragon (read by Ceewelsh) T | 4.6k (41mins) | 13k hits

“Where’s Merlin?” he asks the maid. “Where’s that idiot of a Court Sorcerer?!” “Begging your pardon, Your Majesty. I thought you knew,” the maid replies, not daring to look him in the eyes. “He’s taken ill.” “And he couldn’t be bothered to tell me himself that he would be unable to attend today’s council meeting?” Arthur questions, voice full of acid. “He hasn’t woken since he collapsed two days ago, Sire,” the maidservant says, blissfully unaware that what she’s saying the power to stop Arthur’s heart in its tracks.

When I first read this, it had me completely transfixed. I could not stop reading. It was so raw and so full of emotion. I was then lucky enough to get TheDragon in our exchange, so I did a podfic for it and it's probably the most proud I've been of one.

Modern AU

The Student Prince* by FayJay (read by FayJay) M | 145k (15hrs) | 696k hits

A Modern day Merlin AU set at the University of St Andrews, featuring teetotal kickboxers, secret wizards, magnificent bodyguards of various genders, irate fairies, imprisoned dragons, crumbling gothic architecture, arrogant princes, adorable engineering students, stolen gold, magical doorways, attempted assassination, drunken students, shaving foam fights, embarrassing mornings after, The Hammer Dance, duty, responsibility, friendship and true love...

A classic is a classic for a reason. I'm also pretty sure this introduced me to podfics so like special place in my heart x2. Did you know if you filter AO3 by hits on Merlin, this has 426k more hits than the second result? Now that is a Fandom Classic.

Drastically Redefining Protocol* by rageprufrock (read by lunchee) E | 46k (5hr30) | 269k hits

In which Prince Arthur meets Merlin and all hell promptly breaks loose.

As I always say, if this can happen to me and I still love the fic, nothing is going to change that. Arthur hides from his duties in a cupboard and gets stuck in there with a chainsmoking med student.

Fundamental Imperfections by Starlingthefool (read by bravenclawsome) M | 12k (1hr35) | 123k hits

In which an argument about Dickens leads to a Twitter scandal, broken bones, midnight conversations, and transatlantic longing. (Or, an AU with Arthur and Merlin as moderately famous authors.)

This fic has everything: Charles Dickens, long distance texting, Morgana choking a Sherlock cosplayer with his own scarf. This is the ultimate comfort fic and I compare all fics to this even when they're incomparable. I never read the sequel because it was WIP and I was waiting for it to complete, it hasn't been updated since 2015 and apparently ends on an unhappy note, so if you're going to read the sequel you have been warned.

Les Mis

Modern!AU

Overzealous Oddities by YassHomo e/R, Courf/Cosette/Marius, Comb/Ép | G | 6.4k | 4k hits

Courfeyrac: Remember when I smashed our tv and we laughed about it? Enjolras: No. Courfeyrac: Let me rephrase Courfeyrac: I've smashed our tv, lets laugh about it.

I love me a text fic and this is in my opinion the best one around. Just look at that summary. I have quoted that so many times.

But Paris was a very old city and we were young* by GingerNinjaAbi E/R, Courf/Jehan | M | 99k | 42k hits

Perhaps somewhere in between all the cups of coffee, shots of tequila, sunny March days, terrible lumpy jumpers, love, cigarettes, drunken nights and the desire to change the world they'll all leave Paris with a degree in something. Or not. Grantaire's money is on no. But he's a pessimist who's hopelessly in love, so perhaps his opinion shouldn't count.

The ULTIMATE modern!AU tbh.

Tagged by Salomonderiel E/R, Courf/Jehan | E | 155k | 28k hits

So there's this artist. He could probably be compared to Banksy, but he's a lot more... cynical. He shares rooms with a poet who braids his hair with flowers, in a flat near Covent Garden they rent from a short-tempered shop keeper with a penchant for fans and who'd do anything if you mentioned Poland. Sometimes, the three of them will go and deface public buildings in London whilst completely smashed off their heads. And then there's this, shall we say, 'revolutionary'. He has a band of other revolutionaries, who all meet at this cafe by Borough Market. He shares rooms with his best mate, a philosophy student, spends too much time with a flirty guy who has a thing for poets, goes boxing with a guy in a red vest, wants to punch the wet sop who drools on the blonde waitress and is getting tired of this guy who keep breaking his laptops through sheer dumb luck. Thank god the hypochondriac's there to keep an (slightly too) attentive eye on their stress levels. The revolutionary thinks the graffiti artist's work is a waste of space. The artist thinks the revolutionary's campaigns are a waste of time. And all the while, the poet and the flirt drool over each other in the background...

This is perfect and it's funny and it's beautiful and it rips my heart out multiple times.

Canon

To Be Free by kjack89 (read by Ceewelsh) Gen, Cosette/Marius | T | 3.8k (32mins) | 375 hits

Three blows from a bayonet had transfixed Combeferre’s breast, followed by a fall from the barricade as he rapidly lost first blood and then consciousness. But neither of these, it seemed, was enough to kill him, as much as later he might perhaps wish that they were.

I read this because it was on a list kjack89 did of their favourite fics which don't necessarily have the same hits traffic. It's nothing I would have usually read (canon era, not e/R, MCD) but I am so glad I gave it a go. It's a study on what if Combeferre had survived the barricades too and the guilt. This stayed with me for days afterwards until I eventually messaged kjack89 to get permission to podfic it.

BatFam

Canonish (I don't know differences between canons but these are all they're superheros fics)

Robins United by laceymcbain (read by reena_jenkins) Gen | T | 49k (6h15)/ 19k (2h25) (First part) | 103k hits

Bullets, knives, a three story fall, even a fucking crowbar hadn't managed to keep Jason down permanently, but Dick Grayson (and the rest of his "family") was going to kill him with kindness.

The ultimate batbros series. Also if you haven't heard reena_jenkins' podfics before, you are welcome. Pre-pandemic I took a lot of public transport and reena_jenkins kept me sane.

batcoons by drakefeathers (read by reena_jenkins) Gen | G | 6k (49mins) | 14k hits

Jason and raccoons have a lot in common. (Additionally: his so-called family are much bigger pests than the stray animals hanging around his safehouse.)

This is funny, it's heartwarming, and it's a really good character study.

Here Comes the Sun by batsy_rocks Clark/Bruce | T | 19k | 20k hits

Clark Kent is a kind-hearted reporter working in the big city. Bruce Wayne is a stressed dad of four with no idea of what he's doing. Then they meet.

Bruce Wayne is a Tired Single Dad™. It's genuinely such a sweet fic.

#fic rec #spn fic rec #merlin fic rec #les mis fic rec

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reconditarmonia · 4 years

Text

Dear Yuletide Writer 2020

Hi! Thank you for writing for me! I’m reconditarmonia here and on AO3. I have anon messaging off, but mods can contact me with any questions.

Fiddler on the Roof (2018 Folksbiene Production) | The Psychology of Time Travel - Kate Mascarenhas | Simoun | Where the Sky is Silver and the Earth is Brass - Sonya Taaffe

General likes:

– Relationships that aren’t built on romance or attraction. They can be romantic or sexual as well, but my favorite ships are all ones where it would still be interesting or compelling if the romantic component never materialized.

– Loyalty kink! Trust, affectionate or loving use of titles, gestures of loyalty, replacing one’s situational or ethical judgment with someone else’s, risking oneself (physically or otherwise) for someone else, not doing so on their orders. Can be commander-subordinate or comrades-in-arms.

– Heists, or other stories where there’s a lot of planning and then we see how the plan goes.

– Femslash, complicated or intense relationships between women, and female-centric gen. Women doing “male” stuff (possibly while crossdressing).

– Stories whose emotional climax or resolution isn’t the sex scene, if there is one.

– Uniforms/costumes/clothing.

– Stories, history, and performance. What gets told and how, what doesn’t get told or written down, behavior in a society where everyone’s consuming media and aware of its tropes, how people create their personas and script their own lines.

General DNW: rape/dubcon, torture, other creative gore; unrequested AUs, including “same setting, different rules” AUs such as soulmates/soulbonds; PWP; food sex; embarrassment; focus on pregnancy; Christmas/Christian themes; focus on unrequested canon or non-canon ships; unrequested trans versions of characters.

—

Fandom: Fiddler on the Roof (2018 Folksbiene Production)

Character(s): Any (The Fiddler, Hodl, Pertshik, Shprintze)

I would love to read about the Fiddler from the recent Yiddish production of Fiddler on the Roof, understanding him/her/them as a real person with a backstory, present and future rather than a symbol. They seem to be female (and their actor describes them as female) but wear men’s clothes and are on the men’s side at the wedding, and everyone seems cool with that? I’m 100% on board with any gender identity you decide you’d like to write them with. How did he/she/they come to be who they are, and what are their interpersonal relationships (platonic, familial, romantic, any gender) like? What might an encounter between them and the supernatural (dybbuks, demons, witches?) be or have been like? Have they always lived in Anatevka or do they wander from village to village? What happens to them after the play ends?

Or, Hodl and Pertshik! I maintain a headcanon (which you don't have to share) that Hodl reads a lot of anarchist books and pamphlets while she's in Siberia and comes around to Emma Goldman-esque views on marriage, and she and Pertshik stay together but never marry. I'd be so interested in something about their future! (Or f/f with genderswapped Pertshik??) But I'd also be happy with fic about either of them individually - Pertshik pre-play or Hodl (post-play) on her own without him on screen.

Or, Shprintze! (Or Bielke.) I love the expansion in this production of Pertshik's lessons to the younger girls, and I'd be super interested to read about one or both of them growing up in America, a very different life, having maybe absorbed some of those political beliefs as children. I also headcanon that - following the play's plot trajectory of increasingly unsuitable matches - she's got to be a lesbian, right? Bring on the Shprintze/OFC! yes, I know what happened in Sholem Aleichem's original stories

For that matter, feel free to do the supernatural plots with the non-fiddler characters too! Someone talking politics with a dybbuk? I'd also be really interested in digging into the language aspect, which I'd never really thought about before seeing this production - when do or don't they speak Yiddish, in their past or future?

Fandom-Specific DNW/Opt-In: I'm explicitly okaying antisemitism appearing in the story as part of the world the characters live in, although I do not want a character's personally facing antisemitism to be the focus of the plot. I don't really want to hear much about Khave/Fyedke.

—

Fandom: The Psychology of Time Travel - Kate Mascarenhas

Character(s): Any (none nominated)

This novel is so carefully worldbuilt, yet with such amazing potential for unusual character interactions, life stories, and relationships as shaped by time travel as well. I nominated this without characters because I would be delighted to receive fic that focused on worldbuilding, whether through the stories of OCs, or through any of the canon characters. I’m most interested in:

the Conclave and more broadly in social interactions and (romantic or friendly) relationships between multiple characters who are time travelers (rather than a time traveler and their non-time-traveling partner or family)

art that might be created with time travel (like Grace’s exhibitions or Angharad’s dance; what about novels or other fiction somehow created using time travel?)

the rules and customs of time travel (in-world documents? habits or observances that develop on a mass level beyond people’s individual compulsions or visits to significant dates within their own timeline? what fictional stories do time travelers write about time travel?)

more about the Conclave as a workplace, its social dynamics and logistics

interactive fiction?!

but really I’d love to read anything in this fandom. I'd be happy with fiction and/or in-world documents!

—

Fandom: Simoun

Character(s): Neviril

I've just completed a rewatch of this show, and it has reaffirmed for me that I love Neviril. She's a leader in both a military and a religious sense, respected by her squad and by the populace, but figuring out what that means to her is such a personal journey. I still love her scene in the hearing where she speaks aloud what no one has wanted to admit or talk about - that they're soldiers now, this is war, can they still call themselves priestessses? - but I was also struck on this rewatch by how Chor Tempest increasingly becomes a player in itself in the politicking (the bit in Episode 21 where the whole lot of them fly out against orders, because it's what they, with Neviril leading and giving voice to the group, think is what their role is about), and by the scenes of her blessing the people (when iirc she is needed elsewhere by the military governor for flight purposes) and Paraietta (after what Paraietta did to her).

I love the military aspects of this canon in general (and the associated tropes of loyalty and trust and bravery and positive/negative relationship to authority) and that definitely ties in to Neviril figuring out what her role is as the squad leader, but I'm also just here for that very process of figuring it out and defining it for herself.

So...what happens to her post-canon? What is the "new world" and her travel in it like? If she makes it back to the main world when war is brewing again, but her old cohort can't fly anymore, what does she see her role as being - a leader for peace, for war, something else? How do she and Aer interact with Paraietta, Rodoreamon, Floef, and/or Vyuraf?

Ship-wise, Aer/Neviril grew on me a lot! I appreciated Aer more as the determined bit-of-a-loose-cannon type than as the manic pixie this time, and noted Neviril's comments about how she was drawn to Aer's determination. But I'd also be up for a poly situation where she's involved with both Aer and Paraietta, who are friends, or, I guess, one where it's a three-way relationship, although I don't personally know what the Aer/Paraietta side would be like! (I do like how they work together in battle even when they're shown as having personal issues.)

I think this is the only fandom I could be interested in explict fic for this time around, as an option - the series is, on some level, about the contrast between the reality and physicality of their bodies and the general perception of what they do (which even in its non-spiritual military capacity is removed from a connection to their bodies via the Simoun aircraft), about becoming an adult, and of course about gender.

Fandom-Specific DNW: I'm not really interested in Kaim and Alty and would prefer for them not to appear or for their backstory to come up. I would also not like to see pre-timeskip Dominuura/Limone.

—

Fandom: Where the Sky is Silver and the Earth is Brass - Sonya Taaffe

Character(s): Any (Chaye Roznatovsky, Demon)

Anything expanding on this story would make me really happy. Chaye's years with the partisans, the comrades-in-arms she had and loved then and who else's memory she holds or makes into a weapon, her journey to America, going by the surname of "no one." The demon's mirror world, its loss of that world (what exactly happened on the other side?) and its need to be where Jews are, demon Judaism? Or the future of both of them now that they've found each other!

Fandom-Specific DNW/Opt-In: DNW Chaye/demon. The premise of the story being what it is, I'm explicitly okay with antisemitism being a prominent feature of the story if you write something that covers either or both characters' backstory, but would prefer post-war antisemitism not to be a focus.

#dear author letters #fiddler on the roof #simoun #the psychology of time travel #yuletide

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gvnbreaker · 5 years

Text

CHARACTER SURVEY || Aja Hyskaris

@yascaret edited/removed some of the questions to make this more FFXIV-friendly. I made a few of my own changes as well.

RULES. Repost, don’t reblog! Tag 10! Good luck!

TAGGED BY. @yascaret and @wood-warder

TAGGING. If you’re reading this, you’re tagged!

BASICS. FULL NAME : Aja Hyskaris

NICKNAME : None (yet?)

AGE : Appears around late 20s/30 by hyur standards

BIRTHDAY : Midsummer

GENDER : Non-binary; she/they

ETHNIC GROUP : Viera (Rava)

NATIONALITY : Ivalician (?)

LANGUAGE / S : Common

SEXUAL ORIENTATION : Homosexual

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION : Homoromantic

RELATIONSHIP STATUS : In a relationship with Lofn Yascaret & Pjel Qoet

HOME TOWN / AREA : The Hyskarian Deepwood, Golmore

CURRENT HOME : A small house in Shirogane.

PROFESSION : Mercenary. Bounty/monster hunter & occasional bodyguard.

PHYSICAL. HAIR : Vibrant red, wild, curly, falling to mid-back; undercut. Sideburns and widow’s peak.

EYES : Amber.

FACE : Square with a sharp jawline. High cheekbones, thick, arched eyebrows, and a prominent, aquiline nose. Often smirking insufferably or flirtatiously, prone to great expressiveness and wide smiles but just as easily brooding. Sharp teeth.

LIPS : Full. Her smiles are crooked to begin with and deadened nerves on the left side of her mouth add to the effect.

COMPLEXION : Deep brown with warm undertones, lighter palms and soles of her feet, a lighter smudge underneath her nose and around her nostrils. Freckling around her shoulders, arm, the tops of her thighs and her lower back.

BLEMISHES : None of note.

SCARS : Covered in scattered scars of varying age, depth, and severity, particularly on her left side and near her prosthetic arm. Ceruleum burns on torso; old, ringed scar around throat; vertical scar on left corner of mouth; small scar across nose; edge of left eyebrow; three scars beneath right eye.

TATTOOS & PIERCINGS : Blackwork tattoos around forearm and legs, among others (design with art to come); white tattoos (curve, three dots) beneath eyes; Several gold rings along outer shells of ears; gold septum ring

HEIGHT : Just under six fulms, not counting her ears.

WEIGHT : Average.

BUILD : Muscular and stocky, with broad shoulders tapering to a strong waist and thighs. [body type reference]

FEATURES : Her left arm, from the start of the bicep, is a mechanical prosthetic, appearing to be of magitek-or-close make.

ALLERGIES : None that she knows of.

USUAL HAIR STYLE : Worn loose and wild, not so much a style as a thick mane.

USUAL FACE LOOK : Bare-faced, wearing tinted red pince nez. Smirking, grinning, flirting--generally looking like a complete asshole.

USUAL CLOTHING : Loose, open shirts, trousers, long coats, heavy, knee-high boots, leather jackets.

PSYCHOLOGY. FEAR / S : Imprisonment, isolation, drowning, Garlean war machina.

ASPIRATION / S : Stability, helping others, belonging. In her younger years, she had romantic visions of knighthood, but those have since quieted with the years.

POSITIVE TRAITS : Adventurous, Passionate, Brave, Charismatic, Strong, Empathic

NEGATIVE TRAITS : Cocky, Bull-headed, Self-destructive, Reckless, Impulsive

MBTI : ESFP

ZODIAC : Leo

TEMPERAMENT : Sanguine

SOUL TYPE / S : Warrior

ANIMALS : Wolf

VICE HABIT / S : Brooding, drinking to excess, recklessness, impulsive decisions, using sex as validation.

FAITH : She spares it little thought.

GHOSTS ? : Yes.

AFTERLIFE ? : Maybe.

REINCARNATION ? : Hopefully.

ALIENS ? : When she met her first hyur man, she knew aliens were real.

POLITICAL ALIGNMENT : Garlemald bad, fuck cops.

EDUCATION LEVEL : Average for a viera of her village. She's taught herself to read between the lines better after being conned out of a full hunt reward once or twice in her early days in Rabanastre.

FAMILY. FATHER : Fleeting contact a lifetime ago.

MOTHERS : Still in the Wood.

SIBLINGS : Several, no contact. She was close with one, but has made peace with never seeing any of them again.

EXTENDED FAMILY : Still in the Wood--as far as she knows.

NAME MEANING / S : Aja, from the Hyskarian Deepwood

HISTORICAL CONNECTION ? : She was born in Golmore, but as far as she knows her name has little meaning.

FAVORITES. BOOK : Adventure stories and romance novels. She’d never admit it, but they can be found hidden in her satchel or underneath or inside other things.

DEITY : She tries not to think about them.

HOLIDAY : Moonfire Faire, ????

MONTH : Summer

SEASON : Summer & Fall

PLACE : A grassy field. The back of a cycle. On top of someone or between someone's legs.

WEATHER : Thunderstorms, rain showers, clear skies and bright sun overhead.

SOUND / S: Rain, thunder in the distance, the soft breathing of a woman asleep.

SCENT / S : Metal, cedar, rain, leather, girlfriend ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

TASTE / S : Meat, whiskey, curry, girlfriend ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

FEEL / S : Furs, leather, grass, rain, girlfriend ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

ANIMAL / S : Cats, coeurls, dogs.

NUMBER : 7

COLORS : Red, browns, black, gunmetal

EXTRA. TALENTS : She's a blunt instrument, so beating the shit out of things. Flirting. Fixing things, usually the mechanical variety. Making friends. Diffusing social conflicts as often as she creates them. She's a good cook, but it's suitable really nowhere else but over a fire with a beast's flank in one hand and a metal spit in the other.

BAD AT : Love. Understanding and accepting her feelings. Has a chronic case of Foot-in-Mouth Disease. Has a long fuse, but her temper can spin out of control when pressed. Terrible at restraint and not being reckless and impulsive.

TURN ONS : Stockings, especially with the seam up the back. The nape of a woman's neck. Banter. Compliments. Smiles. Give her a smile and a coquettish eyelash flutter or make her feel strong and she's useless putty in your hands.

TURN OFFS : Flirtatious men, cowards, cruelty, Garleans.

HOBBIES : Fishing, tinkering, gambling, trying new foods, sparring and training, exercise.

TROPES : You Can’t Go Home Again, Badass Longcoat, Dark-Skinned Readhead, Cannot Spit It Out, Hot-Blooded, Scars Are Forever, Everyone Can See It, Artificial Limbs, Berserk Button, Unusual Eyebrows, Dark and Troubled Past, Rage Breaking Point, Cool Bike, Hot-Blooded Sideburns, Fiery Redhead, Red Oni Blue Oni, Gun Blade, La Résistance, Spell Blade, Love Epiphany, Bruiser with a Soft Center, Didn’t Think This Through (Gonna stop now or I’ll be here all night)

QUOTES : “Ah, fuck.”

MUN QUESTIONS. Q1 : If you could write your character your way in their own movie, what would it be called, what style would it be filmed in, and what would it be about?

A1 : John Wick mixed with Final Fantasy VIII mixed with Drive but with Garlean soldiers, turncoats, gay bro content, a sorceress, and also heaps of gay in general.

Q2 : What would their soundtrack/score sound like?

A2 : Chromatic rock, Nightrun, hair metal, a lot of Deftones, Tool, the Weeknd, indie and acoustic rock for angst.

Q3 : Why did you start writing this character?

A3 : When viera were teased at Fanfest, I lost my mind and have been unable to concentrate on any other character since. Aja was actually going to be a hrothgar, but when they genderlocked them and the model and general design didn’t fit her body type, well… plans changed.

Q4 : What first attracted you to this character?

A4 : Much like @yascaret’s answer, getting my gay hands on viera in FFTA and being obsessed since then. I wanted to write a warrior, a little battered but unbroken despite everything. She came out differently than originally planned, but in a good way. She’s just an even bigger himbo now.

Q5 : Describe the biggest thing you dislike about your muse.

A5 : I worry about Flanderizing her too hard, because while she is a big flirtatious himbo idiot I also want it to come across that she has depth.

Q6 : What do you have in common with your muse?

A6 : Not a lot. I guess we're both stubborn idiots with very long fuses that nonetheless eventually explode and/or destroy whatever is on the receiving end. Also what's gender precious

Q7 : How does your muse feel about you?

A7 : She probably wouldn’t acknowledge me at all, but we might bond over spicy noodles.

Q8 : What characters does your muse have interesting interactions with ?

A8 : Lofn and Pjel are the obvious choice, but… Lofn and Pjel. I really love writing her alongside and against them because their personality traits both complement and chafe against one another, often in the same scene. Also I love their chemistry and look forward to how that plays out. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Q9 : What gives you inspiration to write your muse ?

A9 : B u n y d e a t h s q u a d. Just in general seeing my RP partners and roleplayers I haven’t interacted with yet writing and posting content for their characters really inspires me. As far as writing Aja, I take a handful of aesthetics, design elements, and themes and smash them together until something clicks. Listening to music and rolling through a prompt generator usually kick starts me into writing a drabble or developing something, and the FFXIV Write challenge has been great for that this month.

Q10 : How long did this take you to complete ?

A10 : About an afternoon and part of an evening. I fell into TV Tropes a little too hard near the end.

#about #character building #memes #ffxiv crystal #ffxiv rp #balmung #furiously formatting this before the oncoming storm knocks out our power and yeets my draft into oblivion #rava viera #viera

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lukes-writing · 5 years

Text

Character Introduction: Whisper Johanna Archer-Gutenberg

Project: The Dreamcatcher series Name: Whisper Johanna Archer-Gutenberg Age: 19 Height: 161 cm (5″ 3,4′) MBTI: ENFP

Continue reading below

Appearance

Whisper is a slight girl of average height with fair skin and flat chest which is sometimes a target of mockery. She has dreamy, faraway hazel eyes and a winsome, mysterious smile; the combination of these traits lends her a slightly otherworldly, uncanny appearance. Apart from her face, her most prominent feature is her fair hair tied into long dreadlocks.

Whisper's style of clothing is as eccentric as her hairstyle and personality. She usually dresses in loose-fitting clothes of bright colors and floral patterns including long skirts, sundresses and airy blouses. She feels the best walking barefoot.

Whisper also wears excessive, flashy jewelry and plentiful of talismans, magical amulets and lucky charms. She has also several tattoos, the most prominent being a large dreamcatcher on her upper back. Due to her eccentric appearance and style of dressing, she's nicknamed "the hippie girl" by her friends and she doesn't mind it

Personality

Whisper is a difficult person to understand. Even though she's generally kind, caring and positive person, it takes a careful, delicate approach to reach into her comfort zone and gain her trust. She is whimsical, even erratic, and nobody knows what's going on in her mind at the moment. That makes her difficult to lead and control, even though her spontaneous and impulsive behavior can offer a solution to many challenging situations.

She is generally an extroverted person who enjoys company, but like most aspects of her personality, her temperament is a subject of frequent changes. She enjoys time alone, spent by relaxing, meditation or long walks. She is the happiest when she's at peace with herself and the world and values all kinds of harmony.

Whisper is also very sincere about her feelings and is not hesitant to express them, no matter how harsh it may sound. She is also open about which people she dislikes and tends to avoid them at all costs, even if it means getting into more conflicts which is frequent because of her stubbornness and quirky nature. On the other hand, when she gets on well with someone, she quickly becomes attached and makes a great friend.

Even though Whisper seems timid at first, she is open about nudity and sexuality, claiming it's a natural part of life. On the contrary, she strictly condemns any kind of intolerance, hate, bigotry or unnecessary violence. Her opinions are liberal and she has trouble accepting authority, especially when the person is trying to assert their dominance using force.

She abstains from alcohol, but rather frequently smokes marijuana which helps her unwind and focus. She claims it also enhances her ability of astral traveling. She is open to experimentation of all kinds, but she's also rational enough to not let it go too far.

Skills, talents and weaknesses

While Sienna is the team's most valuable member when it comes to logical thinking and far-sighted decisions, Whisper is appreciated for her intuition and creative approach to problems. She always follows the voice of her feelings rather than cold logic which can end up with various results.

Whisper is artistically gifted - she is able to paint, compose poems and play several musical instruments, which takes a toll on her practical abilities such as the knowledge of technology or the ability to do manual work. Since she is usually lost in her thoughts, she's also forgetful and scatterbrained.

Another of Whisper's strengths is her empathy and ability to understand people. She can see the person's true nature and intentions just by spending a few minutes with them. She's extremely sensitive to body language and can perceive the person's aura to some degree, making her an efficient lie detector.

Whisper's greatest weakness is the lack of physical strength. She's not proficient in any kind of martial art and neither can she handle a firearm or a weapon. This is partially caused by her strictly pacifistic nature and also by her slight, delicate frame not suited for physical combat. Moreover, in stressful situations, she often tends to panic and rushes into stupid decisions. That's why she usually counts on her battle-skilled teammates when it's going tough.

Special powers

Whisper's special power is astral traveling, an ability to detach her soul from her body and travel through the astral realm. This allows her to travel unseen to dangerous or restricted areas without the risk of getting hurt. During the detach, the body and soul are connected by a silver astral rope called a "Lifeline" by the travelers.

Her ability requires years of training in the form of meditation and relaxation techniques and has several levels of mastery:

Out of Body - the traveler can detach their soul from their body and roam the astral realm;

Out of Space - the traveler's soul isn't affected by space, allowing them to immediately transfer the soul to any place in the world;

Out of Time - while traveling, the traveler's soul is unaffected by time, able to change the subjective perception of it.

The ability also has several drawbacks. The most obvious one is that Whisper's physical body is unconscious when her astral body is detached. That requires her to either perform the detach on a safe, isolated place or to have someone to look after the senseless body and protect it from harm. Also, to perform the detach, Whisper has to remain relaxed and focused for a while, making it hard to detach in the middle of the fray. Another danger are the immaterial astral beings known as "Hunters" which possess a potential threat to the detached soul.

Her abilities allow Whisper to serve as an efficient spy since physical boundaries don't affect the detached soul. Also, while on the Out of Space level, she can immediately contact any other person able to tap into the astral realm anywhere in the world.

Questions

Favorite color? Green

Favourite artist?

Favourite animal? Dog

Least favourite animal? Toads (because they’re slimy)

What element would they be? Wind

Theme song? Waiting on the Sky to Change by Downplay

Alignment? Chaotic Good

Deadly sin that best represents them? Lust

Which animal would they be? A swallow bird

Socioeconomic level? Comes from a rich family, but money doesn’t mean much to her

Hobbies? Reading, poetry, music, walks in nature

Patience level? Variable, according to her current mood

Favourite place? Anywhere green and calm

Role model? Her uncle Wiccan Salisbury

Favourite foods? Grilled salmon with vegetables, sushi

Favourite book? The Harry Potter series

Pets? Four budgies (Godric, Rowenna, Helga, Salazar) and three dogs (Arwen, Frodo, Gandalf)

Most appropriate TV trope(s)? “Granola Girl”, “Does Not Like Shoes”, “Cloudcuckoolander”

Smells like? Spring air and a soft perfume

How do they feel about love? She believes in true love and soulmates, but her urge to seek variety and new things in life makes her doubt she would be able to stay with just one person for the rest of her life

Quote/catchphrase: She sometimes tends to replace profanity in a sentence with some more innocent word, creating expressions like “What the twig is going on here?”

Least favorite color? Gray

Fears or phobias? She suffers from mild claustrophobia; being in a closed, isolated room makes her anxious

Music they listen to? Ambient music, soft rock

Bad habits? She occasionally smokes marijuana

What turns them on? Quiet, affectionate talk, soft touches, neck kisses

What turns them off? Roughness, insensitivity

Religious and to what extent? Any spiritual beliefs? She firmly believes in some kind of higher power, but is not a part of any organized religious movement

Kind of student if they attend/were to attend school? (e.g. class clown, straight A) Her grades varied greatly according to the subject and her current mood. She wasn’t too eager to study as she preferred to groom her artistic side.

Random fact!

What ONE item would they take to an uninhabited island? A notebook to write down all kinds of ideas she would come up with

Outlook on life? Always positive, “happy accidents” outlook

Favorite object? Her decorative brooch shaped like a key with wings - she considers it her lucky charm

What was your character like as a child? She tried to be well-behaved to her parents’ image, but her erratic, moody personality sometimes caused discords

What is something other people assume about your character? Judging from her look, the people can guess her loony personality and inclination to art, but they also often assume she does drugs and/or takes sex very irresponsibly

Nervous habits? Talking to herself

Addictions? Apart from harmless addictions like tea, books and music, she has no harmful addcition

Enneagram type? 4

Siblings? Knight Edward (older brother), Liberty Camilla (older sister)

Wears jewelry? Yes, she wears a lot of excessive, flashy jewelry

First kiss? (when and with whom) When she was 18, she experienced her first kiss and first intimate experience with her best friend, Noelle

Glass half full or half empty? Half full

Belief in an afterlife? Yes

Views on gambling, lying, killing, etc...? Strictly negative. She is a person of firm morals and she hates people with questionable moral code.

Do they stand up for what they believe in? Always, firmly

How much do they value money? Not much. It can buy nice things, but it’s not the most important thing in the world.

Wants to get married? Indifferent

Wants to have kids, raise a family? Indifferent; not yet decided

Cat or dog person? Dog

Is there one fictional character (print/stage/screen) you could compare them to? She has a part of Luna Lovegood in her, but there are a lot of differences

Anyone they really hate? Bigots and hateful people

How has their look/design changed over time? Not really, I’ve always wanted her to be like this, so I created her this way. She was maybe more timid in the early stages of development.

What brings them the most joy? Being herself; people accepting her for who she is

Do they play any instruments? Violin, piano, flute

Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff

Favorite holiday? Christmas

Nickname(s)? Often nicknamed “hippie girl”

Would they dare kill someone? Only if there was no other way to save a friend/family member in danger

Body modifications? (Piercings, implants, tattoos, etc.) She has several tattoos, with the most prominent being a large dreamcatcher on her back

Author’s Note

So this is my first character introduction (with more to come in the future), of course I’ve picked my favorite in my current project ^^ If you have any further questions for/about Whisper, or if you have any feedback about her, please send me an ask or post a comment! If you enjoy my work, you can consider a small donation at www.paypal.me/lukassladky. Thank you for stopping by!

#my oc #oc introduction #writeblr #writers #my writing #TeamDreamcatcher

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fistsoflightning · 5 years

Text

unending character meme // zaya qestir

RULES: repost, don’t reblog! tag, and good luck!

TAGGED BY: tagged in spirit by @to-the-voiceless

TAGGING: any and all who want to do it but haven’t actually been tagged by anyone!

BASICS.

FULL NAME: Zaya Qestir

NICKNAME: none, really.

AGE: 29 by the end of Stormblood. 30-ish by the end of SHB? Haven’t figured out the time distortion thing.

BIRTHDAY: 17th of the 4th Umbral Moon (8/17)

ETHNIC GROUP: Au’ra; Xaelan

NATIONALITY: Nomad? From the Azim Steppe’s Reunion, if that helps.

LANGUAGE / S: Eorzean Sign Language, Xaelan (crude/unpracticed); understands most languages through use of the Echo

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Bisexual

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Demiromantic

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: dating Thancred Waters??? unsure of status during post-SHB but getting there.

HOME TOWN /AREA: Reunion, Azim Steppe

CURRENT HOME: A shared room in the Rising Stones or a shared house in the Mist; depends on where they are at the time of night.

PROFESSION: jeweler, weaver, gladiator of the coliseum, bard teacher (appointed reluctantly by Sanson after many a problem with Guydelot’s schedule), adventurer and warrior of light

PHYSICAL.

HAIR: Straight and somewhat below shoulder length. Most of their hair is black, but slowly changes to blue and white at the tips.

EYES: Dark blue; navy color? Light blue limbal rings that glow in the dark, too.

FACE: Sharp jawline accented by their scales, often covered with some royal blue facepaint similar to Arenvald’s own.

LIPS: Often chapped, but otherwise normal.

COMPLEXION: Ashen brown? Hard to describe bc of weird lighting everywhere they go.

BLEMISHES: None

SCARS: There’s a lot, and I might make a scar map at some point??? Major ones happen to be their legs and their left arm; the legs from Ifrit and the arm from Elidibus in Zenos’s body in 4.5

TATTOOS: None, no matter how much people think the facepaint is one.

HEIGHT: Taller than the average Au’ra, about 5’4

WEIGHT: about 135 pounds

BUILD: Muscular, especially due to their main fighting style requiring muscle literally everywhere. Fistfighting for money is no small feat.

FEATURES: Their scales are an odd color (think black and blue borealis dice, but as scales), and their horns definitely look a bit… ragged. Watching them fight will give the odd realization that lightning sparks in cobalt blue come off of them sometimes.

ALLERGIES: Some undetermined fish allergy. Higiri fed them some assorted sushi once and never did again, so the Scions (and themselves) have no clue what fish they need to avoid.

USUAL HAIRSTYLE: Tied into a loose ponytail at the back. Sanson often comments how they share a hairstyle, but it’s simply from need of clear vision when moving around for monk skills and attacks.

USUAL FACE LOOK: Stoic as all hell. Not used to making full-on facial expressions outside of conversation, so normally looks bored.

USUAL CLOTHING: Tabards, cyclas, or generally something with flowy fabric that doesn’t restrain movement all that much. Metal boots and gauntlets/knuckles are also common, but not always.

PSYCHOLOGY.

FEAR / S: being the last one standing, change, losing their younger siblings/younger friends, spiders, breaking a promise with their mother.

ASPIRATION / S: To have a proper adventure, and to inspire others to live their fullest lives.

POSITIVE TRAITS: Devoted, comforting, slightly protective, carefree

NEGATIVE TRAITS: Easily angered, impulsive, emotional, stubborn

MBTI: ISFP-T (Adventurer)

ZODIAC: Leo, apparently? Sort of fits, if you look at it closely.

TEMPERAMENT: Some crazy blend between phlegmatic and choleric? Generally carefree and easygoing with friends and willing to spend a lot of patience on them, but unrelenting and downright frightening in serious situations, especially when involving Garlemald.

SOUL TYPE / S: Server/Caregiver

ANIMALS: Birds and dogs.

VICE HABIT / S: Drinking, although the Echo does prevent it from having any effect whatsoever, so its more of a taste thing? Tends to sleep a lot when stressed, and often spends their leftover money on gemstones for their shared collection.

FAITH: Polytheistic; the Twelve and Nhaama are gods they generally believe in.

GHOSTS?: Yes, mainly because they’ve seen one.

AFTERLIFE?: Yes.

REINCARNATION?: Probably, with how they’re sure they’ve seen someone who was supposed to be dead before

ALIENS?: before becoming Warrior of Light, it would be no, but with the revelation of Elidibus on the moon and Midgardsormr and OMEGA‌‌ (ALIEN‌ ROBOT????) they aren’t so sure anymore.

POLITICAL ALIGNMENT: Does not care enough even though they are staunch friends with Nanamo. Didn’t care enough to try and challenge Oktai for the seat of Qestiri Khatun, certainly doesn’t care enough to take a political stance in Eorzea.

EDUCATION LEVEL: Barely any; just enough to read letters written in Eorzean and faintly Ishgardian (courtesy of Alphinaud and Haurchefant).

FAMILY.

FATHER: there was one, once, but he’d rather he be forgotten in pursuit of a happier future. Zaya remembers him as Baatar, but they don’t remember if that was actually his name.

MOTHERS: Erhi, Odgerel.

SIBLINGS: Oktai (older brother), Taban (older sister), Sarnai (sister), Delger and Tuya (fraternal twins)

EXTENDED FAMILY: any of the Scions (former or current) or their fellow Warriors of Light, if we’re talking found family. House Fortemps, Aymeric, Estinien, Sanson, Guydelot, Sidurgu, Rielle, and all of the Qestiri tribe are up there too, but you know, that’s kind of a lot of gifts to be sending around during Starlight. (zaya totally sends them all gifts anyways.)

NAME MEANING /S: Zaya means fate in Mongolian, which all of the other Xaelan names seem to be based on. Their previous name, Dzoldzaya, meant light of fate.

HISTORICAL CONNECTION?: Recorded history on the Azim Steppe is easily lost, but if asking around the different tribes, one could learn about a rather prominent Qestiri warrior whose image is painted in some of the caverns nearby where much of important, unforgettable Xaelan history is recorded by the Gharl, swathed in blue cloth. In the days of Amaurot, there was one standout Amaurotine who shared a love for lightning and birds…

FAVORITES.

BOOK: They don’t know enough Eorzean to read a full book, not even a children’s book. The Echo doesn’t help with reading. Urianger has read a book of myths and legends that turned out to be true to them, however, and that has been their favorite for a while. They’ve been considering asking him to read more for them, but that’s been placed on hold after the events of the First and following Mt. Gulg.

DEITY: Nhaama, or Rhalgr, if talking to someone who thinks ‘what’s a Nhaama’ when they mention her.

HOLIDAY: Starlight Celebration. Something about the festive mood always makes them happy.

MONTH: August (4th Umbral Moon)

SEASON: Summer

PLACE: On the Source, Reunion in the Azim Steppe just because interacting with other tribes is rather fun. On the First, Il Mheg all the way!

WEATHER: Clear nights where they can trace the constellations, but it isn’t too cold to need a blanket.

SOUND / S: Excited chatter, harp, singing, small hammers clinking against metal.

SCENT /S: Rain, fresh wood, the air in Gridania, light perfume, Syhrwyda’s food.

TASTE /S: Snurbleberry, honey, most Doman seafood, buuz.

FEEL /S: Soft and smooth fabrics, cold metal, the grip of someone’s hand around theirs, wind blowing through their hair on a warm day.

ANIMAL /S: Yol, chocobo (birds!).

NUMBER: 17, for their nameday and the first year they spent in Eorzea

COLORS: Cobalt blue and indigo, pale gold, soot black.

EXTRA.

TALENTS: Extremely good when working with cloth or metal; even more so when tinkering little trinkets. Interestingly enough, very good at playing flute and harp without much practice. Expert at pulling a person’s true emotions out with simply body language.

BAD AT: Sneaking around/stealth. Do not, under any circumstance, give them a job involving secrecy or stealth unless you want it to fail. Speaking/reading is also pretty horrible, due to how they were raised. Also bad at taking change or lies well.

TURN-ONS: Loyalty, bravery despite all odds, kindness and love even when it would be easier to be otherwise, being able to understand other beliefs, and a love of freedom or new experiences

TURN OFFS: Lying to their face knowingly, extreme greed, lack of self-worth, anger for no good reason

HOBBIES: making music with Guydelot and Sanson, attempting to keep a journal, idle tinkering, dancing, gardening

TROPES: Good is Not Soft, Hope Bringer, Magnetic Hero, Omniglot, The Power of Friendship, The Quiet One, Silent Snarker, Dark is Not Evil, Five Stages of Grief, Horrifying Hero, Magic Music, Warrior Poet, Dance Battler, Warrior Monk, Determinator, Pintsized Powerhouse, Pragmatic Hero (don’t let me stay on TV‌tropes pls)

QUOTES: have a snippet of some writing?

Scrawled onto a piece of paper underneath his arm in Thancred’s handwriting and marked with Zaya’s name reads, “Your words, no matter how I react, do not change how I love you all.”

MUN QUESTIONS.

Q1: If you could write your character your way in their own movie, what would it be called, what style would it be filmed in, and what would it be about?

A1: Honestly, I think there would be two movies that could include Zaya; some comedy musical revolving around Zaya’s bard lifestyle while placing their active lifestyle in the background (called “A Bard Knock Life” bc i think puns are cool) or an action drama framed around Zaya and the Scions living some sort of high fantasy/DND type adventure bc I love that stuff called “The Unbroken Thread”. (THAT‌ QUEST‌ NAME STILL GETS‌ ME)

Q2: What would their soundtrack/score sound like?

A2: Something featuring a flute, probably. I got attached to Zaya playing the flute being a former flute player myself. (I only wish the oboe performance sound bank clicked with me a little more…)

Q3: Why did you start writing this character?

A3: Originally, Zaya wasn’t meant to exist. I was literally planning on just creating A’dewah, Syhrwyda, and maybe Lumelle and Elwin in different roles. Then the Au’ra came out; I‌ used my free Fantasia from the sub rewards just to be an Au’ra (I was a miqo’te before; shh, i was still babu who liked cats) and suddenly Zaya started being formed as Menphina Jewel. Before I knew it, that Menphina Jewel grew a whole backstory and a new name and new friends (Azim Steppe arc of Stormblood MSQ? Final nail in the coffin.) that slowly took over the previous two Warriors as the focus of my attention. I wasn’t even supposed to keep playing FFXIV‌ past HW, dude. I had like a million other things to be doing at the time, but here I am, lying in my grave 3 years later still attached.

Q4: What first attracted you to this character?

A4: They’re (mostly) mute. I really wanted to explore what it’s like to not be able to talk and only converse in body language, but then I discovered that might be a problem, so my interest in sign language collided with Zaya’s backstory. It also helps me work out a personality without them sounding/looking too much like what I think is Basic Story ProtagTM like I tend to do on accident (see A’dewah and Valdis’s dialogue sometimes.)

Q5: Describe the biggest thing you dislike about your muse.

A5: They can’t really speak. Funny how the thing I like most is also the thing I hate most. It’s very frustrating when I want them to convey something and then they can’t without using actual words and a voice because I haven’t got a clue on how to convey that through body language. How in the world do you convey ‘I feel like I’m doing arcanist calculations when you speak’ in nonverbal language??? I have no damn idea and every attempt looks like I meant something else.

Q6: What do you have in common with your muse?

A6: The snark, man. I have friends constantly commenting on how I’ve made a burn without me realizing I’ve done so, and it’s hilarious. The love for music also carried over big time, especially after discovering how fun the bard NPCs were to write and how they’d fit into Zaya’s relationship web. (they’re totally the more comedic side, but I love Guydelot and Sanson anyways.)

Q7: How does your muse feel about you?

A7: No clue, dude. Maybe thinks I’m boring? I don’t tend to want to drastically change things or look for new adventures; the biggest leap I’ve taken in two years is probably changing to a reed instrument from flute, and even then I don’t have to change key when‌ I read music, so it’s not that big a deal.

Q8: What characters does your muse have interesting interactions with?

A8: Urianger and Lyse, maybe? I like the exploration of repairing relationships after something that might have ended another, weaker bond. It’s also kinda fun trying to see how Zaya would react; they’re a lot more rash than I am in real life, and that’s honestly saying something. Alisaie and Alphinaud, however, are the most fun just because I know what I’m doing when I write them, and it’s funny to see how Zaya reacts (or has a lack of reaction) to their dynamic. Guydelot and Sanson fall into another category of ‘dear god I simultaneously love and hate these two’, while Thancred, Y’shtola, Urianger, Syhrwyda, Duscha, and Ryne fall into some sort of strong found family vibes that just get me everytime I think about it

Q9: What gives you inspiration to write your muse?

A9:…Doing job quests or side story quests or even MSQ I haven’t caught up on yet. Watch as I slowly rewrite as many MSQ‌ and job quest scenes as I can in any of my Warrior of Light’s viewpoints. (currently chiseling away at some backstory/before they were Warriors stories after reading too deep into the race/subrace text and lore keep an eye out LOL-)

Q10: How long did this take you to complete?

A10: A day or two; don’t remember when I began. It was probably when I was procrastinating on homework, though. I didn’t post it until a week later whoops.

#ffxiv #ffxiv character meme #zaya qestir #whee i wrote a bit much #oh well #zaya cm #tales from the blue

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innately-pretentious · 2 years

Note

your matchups are so nuanced i could cry i’m so happy ur reqs are open! may i request a matchup for bsd? I hope the details i write would actually be useful bc i have the tendency to add inconsequential stuff *screams* i apologize in advance

am an adult (not comfy with sharing exact age hihi) my prominent interests are magical realism and gothic literature, animal and horror documentaries, lastly would be chemistry and physics! some of my favorite genres/tropes in all types of media are: tragedy, psychological thriller, myths/folklores from other cultures, vampirism, historical romance, slice of life, and time travel/science fiction.

hobbies would be reading, writing, learning/studying chem + physics (i love learning in general! one day i’m reading about economics, the next, how shark endoskeletons don’t fossilize bc they be made of cartilage)

my love languages (giving) are: gift giving, physical affection, and quality time. (receiving) physical affection and quality time. teasing is also my love language which is pretty bold since i get flustered at the bare minimum of getting teased back-

i have around short - average height, the extra inches of height yeeted to my chest and it’s 50% inconvenience 50% alright :'), mid-length black hair, a tiny bit of belly, and have biggish doe eyes and regularly chapped lips that i regularly use balm on to no avail, two subtle dimples near the bottom of my lips but only show when i smile really big.

i’m an INFJ-t, gemini sun (aries moon and virgo rising) the level of bottled up emotions in me are infinite 💀 late-night stuff be 💙

Sporadic info(?): i could love anything about oceans, i LOVE cats, i kinda give ‘innocent’ vibes according to old ladies but my friends have heard the nastiest jokes from me, it's either i sound too soft borderline inaudible or i sound like i’m about to brawl with you, your mom, and your resident closet demon, i’m bilingual and am slowly learning japanese as a third lang. i love being affectionate and taking care of people i’m really close to like cooking for them and listening/being there for whatever they wanna say, i kindaaa let compliments slip by easily but i don’t lie about em ever, and I ENJOY SCIENCE MUSEUMS SO MUCH OH MY GOD especially interactive ones! very into swooshy clothing, all songs by Yorushika has bewitched me body and soul they have a deathgrip on me forever (specifically: prostitution, howl at the moon, hitchcock, say it, and indigo) cuddles + kisses add decades to my lifespan i love em so much, to condense my traits in adjectives they be: flirty, curious, restless, always mega sleepy, and handsy.

cookies and cream ice cream, salmon sashimi, and grilled meat are my fav food, i get mildly injured quite a lot but i’m familiar with the basics of patching myself up bc it happens so often bc i space out a lot, i used to be very physically active and i’m trying to get into the habit again. (someday i wanna be a nuclear physicist but u didn't hear that from me)

Thank you sm for even reading through this stupid mammoth of a text 💀 Please take ur time and be well💐!!

I Ship you with Ranpo!

At first he absolutely tries to deduce all that he can about you, it is not everyday that someone as unique as you just wanders into his life. He tries to get a good ideas as to what your interests are when you two first meet, however he doesn’t let you know he has figured them out. In time as you two spend more and more time together he realised he made the right choice by not disclosing he knew what you might be interested in. When it is just the two of you hanging out together, over a coffee at your local cafe, he loves watching you gush about what you love. He is completely silent, leaning back into his chair as he watches the way your eyes light up as you talk about your passions, your smile as you explain them in detail. He can’t help the small smile that plays on his lips, feeling his heart beat faster and faster, your enthusiasm almost makes him as excited as you. In the beginning of you two dating, he definitely does not miss the way you get flustered at his words or compliments, he is incredibly quick witted and certainly uses this to his advantage. Focusing on specific things that you have done that way, not just generic things like ‘You look beautiful today’. That would be too boring. Instead he opts to comment on specifics, the way you have done your hair, or a certain way you styled your outfit, walking away looking very accomplished with himself. Leaving you behind him with a faint red glow on your cheeks, glancing back at you completely flustered, proud that he has this effect on you.

You would both definitely share the same love language, which is physical touch and quality time. Being close enough to someone to share physical space is something that is so intimate in his eyes. He has such an overactive mind which is particularly exhausting, therefore just spending time close to you is one of the few things that makes him feel relaxed. Watching whatever is on the TV on his days off, content just spending time together. After a little while as it gets later into the night you often feel his head softly land on your shoulder, with him fast asleep. Turning your head focusing on his relaxed features, eyebrows not furrowed in concentration, his mouth slightly open as his breaths get heavier. You can’t help as the blush rises from your neck up to your cheeks. Smiling softly and turning off the TV, gently coaxing him to bed, holding his hand as he half sleepwalks to the bedroom. Chuckling to yourself you can’t imagine what others would think, the sharp minded detective being so vulnerable and soft in your company. The thought makes your heart ache. As mentioned earlier, he also is a huge fan of physical affection, one of the ways you notice this is when he is leaving for work in the morning. He always treats you with the upmost care, gently holding your face as he gives you a kiss goodbye. Cradling your face, your hand coming on top of his, lingering a little longer before he has to pull away. It’s almost as if he is subconsciously telling you he doesn’t want to leave, promising to be back, not to miss him too much when he is gone.

On more than one occasion you have absolutely stolen his cloak. You always see him wearing it, in fact it was most likely one of the things that captured your attention. You have a love for gothic things and ‘swooshy’ clothing, you would be a liar if you said you hadn’t wanted to try it out. Wrapping it around you, immediately hit by his scent, it makes you feel so comforted. After twirling around in the mirror, smiling to yourself about your appearance, you put it back in the place you found it, and head back to the living room and wait for him to come home. When he does he slowly enters the apartment, glancing down at the sofa finding you fast asleep, the end credit rolling on the film you didn’t quite manage to finish. He smiles as he heads to the bedroom, hanging up is hat when he notices his cloak. You thought you had placed it back in the exact same position, however he is extremely tuned in to his surroundings. Deducing what you had been up to, he can’t help himself as the corners of his lips turn upwards. He has a few other cloaks, he doesn’t mind you having this one. He takes it down, inhaling the smell of your perfume that lingers on the fabric before hanging it up in your wardrobe. He heads back out to where you are currently lying down, softly gathering you in his arms waking you to let you know he is home.

Movie night dates are a favourite of both of you, and require adequate planning from both parties. You walk hand in hand to your local supermarket in preparation, spending a long time picking out the best snack combinations. You both have a sweet tooth therefore this decision is of vital importance, he also has logged away in his mind your favourite ice cream flavours, always having a few tubs in the freezer for when you might want some. He always lets you pick the movie, knowing you have good taste in horror movies. He is usually not that phased by what he sees on screen due to his line of work, therefore you can show him pretty much anything. Although he does have to watch himself as he can work out the ending of the movie within the first half an hour!

As you know Ranpo is a genius, basically a human encyclopaedia, he greatly encourages your love of learning. With the two of you peacefully enjoying a Sunday afternoon on the balcony, him observing the scenery and you stuck in your current latest read, you love using his brain to your advantage. Breaking the silence to ask him the definition of certain words or his thoughts on various topics. Resting your head on your hand as you look up at him with your big doe eyes. It still manages to make his chest tighten after al this time, your entire attention on him. On the days he has off he will try to take you out to a place he knows you will enjoy, keeping in mind your lust for knowledge, a museum is most likely his first choice. Loving the way you let your childlike wonder show as you meander around the different exhibits, the two of you telling the other random facts as you go. He listens carefully to what you have to say, asking a few questions here and there, you smile at him as you know his mind is nowhere else but with you in this moment.

The song I associate with you guys would be ‘Beauty Above All’ by Craft Spells!

Hope you like it! Honestly it was no trouble at all, hope you’re doing alright wherever you are and that you will have an even better tomorrow ❤️

#matchup #ship #bsd x reader #bsd matchup

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retronator · 7 years

Video

youtube

Some time ago I said I have to tell you about a few new pixel art animations. After Boat Nomad and Black Crystal, here is Elvis & Dimmi. Equal parts loved and hated, the controversial animation comes from Ivan Dixon (on Tumblr known as @pug-of-war) and Paul Robertson (@probertson). Paul is especially well known in the pixel art scene (here is my old feature of his work). Both of them worked on plenty of gigs for Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, but most probably know their pixel art recreation of The Simpsons intro.

So, what problem do people have with Elvis & Dimmi? First of all, just watch it above if you don’t want spoilers—gore and language warning though.

Back/still here? Alright. Apart from the obvious audience who dislikes gratuitous violence and swearing (they wouldn’t be happy with Adult Swim’s Korgoth of Barbaria either) the other negative comments come from people who expect that good always wins over evil.

Elvis & Dimmi is a reversal of the usual black and white plot. The goblins here are the good guys compared to the unanimously dislikable duo of heroes. It’s a play on the tropes we take for granted in RPGs. We often think of ourselves as the heroes, yet we break into every house, open every drawer and chest, and steal every piece of gold we can find for our own advancement. Killing monsters is often just a mechanic to level up the player as well. But who is the monster, when a ‘hero’s journey’ is a plot device painted with breadcrumbs of dead bodies?

Dixon and Robertson successfully reverse the tables, but what most people can’t swallow is that the newly-recognized bullies get away with it in the end. Just like the underlying criticism of the hero trope, this too is very intentional as you can read in Ivan’s post:

“in the real world petty, stubborn, ignorant and powerful bullies win all the time. Again, we don’t endorse this. It would feel in-genuine (particularly in the current political climate) to have them receive poetic justice just because that’s what we crave.”

Unlike the more problematic rape-filled Truckers Delight that gets away with a 90% thumbs-up ratio on YouTube, the Elvis & Dimmi video currently holds 2k likes and just as many dislikes. Both of the videos are at the pinnacle of pixel art animation, the newer contender even more so with its 12-minute length. Why does it fare that much worse though? Maybe it’s that the subscribers to the YouTube channel weren’t expecting something like this following the Simpsons intro. The 4/5 stars rating on Newgrounds points a bit in this direction. In my eyes the video is successful. It offers on-point criticism of unidimensional attributions of good and evil we so easily assume for our entertainment—and worse, by extrapolation, in the real world.

In any case, art and controversy were never strangers, and this most prominent step towards a pixel art movie certainly gave everyone some food for thought.

#Feature #Ivan Dixon #Paul Robertson #Animation #GIF #Pixel Art #RPG #Fantasy #cover2

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nekithamajere · 6 years

Text

Dragon Age OC Asks: Jace Surana

No one asked for these but I thought I’d give them a shot anyway. Hopefully I haven’t forgotten to answer any.

1. What do they smell like?

Jace smells of woodsmoke and a bit like lyrium.

2. What is their voice like?

Start of Origins: steady and fairly deep. Very calming.

Around Inquisition: hoarse and rasping. Still calming, but in a different way.

3. What is their biggest motivator?

Jace wants to help people.

4. What is their most embarrassing memory?

In the opening months of Origins he is constantly making a fool of himself due to being a Circle Mage. Lots of ‘stupid questions’, misunderstandings, and more than a couple of stupid physical stunts he maybe shouldn’t have tried without training more.

5. How do they deal with/react to pain?

Jace can heal, so he grits his teeth and uses a healing spell usually. If he can’t he grits his teeth and deals with it until he either passes out or can receive medical attention.

6. What do they like to wear?

Functional robes, or something akin to Inquisitions Warden’s Battlemage armour.

7. Which of their relationships have impacted them most positively?

His relationship with Leliana, I think.They help each other a lot, and are really supportive and understanding. And Sten, because Sten taught Jace how to think effectively with different perspectives.

8. What’s the weirdest thing they’ve ever eaten?

Alistair’s surprise stew probably.

9. Describe the way that they sleep.

Start of Origins: Pretty stationary, very little movement because he’s still used to sleeping in the little cots in the Circle. Usually curled up to reserve warmth. He’s a cuddler and a blanket hog.

Start of Inquisition: Not nearly as stationary. Years of differing sized beds have allowed him to stretch out and move without falling, but he still curls into tight balls. He just shifts around a lot more. Still a cuddler and blanket hog though.

10. What is their favorite food/kind of food?

Pastries and breads, because there’s just so much variety and a lot of flavour that can come with them. Also cheese is beautiful.

11. What do they feel most insecure about?

Origins: Lack of knowledge about how things work in the real world.

Inquisition: His health (or rather his lack of health)

12. How do they like to dress?

When he’s not wearing armour (and even when he is) Jace is wearing a lot of layers. Allow him to be comfortable, or to become easily comfortable, in all climes.

13. How do they react to feelings of guilt?

Not well. If possible he tries to fix things, but if he can’t he tends to dwell off and on.

14. How do they react to/deal with betrayal?

Shock, numbness, anger. He’s quicker to make rash decisions, even when his heart is tearing itself apart.

15. What is their greatest achievement?

Killing the archdemon/marrying Leliana. Honestly they were both as frightening and equally rewarding.

16. What are they like when they’ve gotten too little sleep?

That would require Jace ever getting enough sleep, lol.

In all seriousness he tends to be more forgetful, and he forgets words sometimes. More scatterbrained.

17. What are they like when they’re drunk?

Jace gets more melancholy, also super sleepy.

18. What kind of music do they enjoy?

He really likes anything Leliana sings. Also loves hearing songs in different languages.

19. Are they right or left handed?

Right handed.

20. Fears?

3 Fears: ‘Surface level’: Being useless

‘Repressed’ Tranquility/Under Chantry’s thumb

‘Deep, dark fear’ People finding out the deal he made with Desire for Connor.

21. Favorite kind of weather?

When it’s cool and breezy but not incredibly damp.

22. Favorite color?

Blue

23. Do they collect anything?

Books and misfits.

24. Do they prefer either hot or cold weather more?

Personally he prefers cold, so long as it isn’t damp, but his lungs prefer hot and dry.

25. What is their eye color?

A very pale blue.

26. What is their race/ethnicity?

He’s an elf, and is quite pale.

27. Hair color?

Very near blood red in colour.

28. Are they happy where they are currently?

If he’s off searching for the Calling: No. He wants to be with Leliana, but he has to hope for something.

If he’s inquisitor: Kind of? He doesn’t like the position of power but he likes being near Leliana in such a tumultuous time.

29. Are they a morning person?

Oh sweet Maker no.

30. Sunrise or sunset?

Sunset

31. Are they more messy or more organized?

There may be a mess but it’s an organized mess.

32. Pet peeves?

Nobles being stupid and reckless with other people’s lives. Writers forgetting the ‘e’ at the end of breathe.

33. Do they own any objects of significant personal importance?

He has his Warden’s Oath still. And the Reflection amulet. Has his first Mabari’s ear too. He had it preserved so he could always have something to remind him of Sev.

34. Least favorite food?

Alistair’s surprise stew.

35. Least favorite color?

Yellow plaidweave.

36. Least favorite smell?

The Blight.

37. When was the last time they cried?

When he heard the Calling for the first time.

38. Were they with anybody the last time they cried?

No, he was alone in the tent while he had a bit of a panic attack.

39. Tell us about one of the times they got injured?

When Jace killed the archdemon, and it exploded, he was thrown back. Hit his head hard. By the time the dust cleared and Wynne found him laying face down in one of the many large puddles of archdemon blood that were everywhere.

He didn’t drown, but they couldn’t get all the blood out of his lungs. It’s what’s causing 90% of his health issues.

40. Do they have any scars?

He has a lot. Couple of more prominent ones include:

-The huge scar on his left cheek that runs straight through his tattoo on that side. It was a dagger.

-He has a scar in the center of his left palm from the first time he used blood magic. He hates it. It reminds him of Jowan.

-Manacle scars around his wrists from when he was trapped in Fort Drakon.

41. Do they struggle with any mental health issues?

Depression mostly. A sprinkling of PTSD

42. Do they have any bad habits?

Bites his lips to shit if he’s not careful.

43. Why might someone dislike them?

He comes off as a know-it-all who won’t listen to others sometimes.

He’s pretty stubborn, and is very keen on keeping secrets.

44. Why might someone love them?

He does listen to people, and is in fact pretty knowledgeable about a whole host of things. He’s a good listener, and gives good advice.

45. Do they believe in ghosts?

Not in the traditional sense? He believes spirits/demons are sometimes stuck in the patterns and emotions of people who lived/died in an area, and that if they get powerful enough they can affect the waking world to an extent.

46. Is there anyone they would trust with their lives?

Leliana

47. Are they romantically interested in anyone?

Leliana

48. Are they dating/married to anyone?

Leliana.

49. Do they like surprises?

It depends on the surprise, and what constitutes a ‘surprise’. If he knows something is coming but doesn’t know what he gets nervous. A pleasant surprise out of nowhere is usually welcome though.

50. When is their birthday?

Late fall.

51. How do they usually celebrate their birthday?

If he’s not too busy doing other things, he tries to treat himself to something. A new book, a night at a tavern, a new blanket. Even if it’s pretty barren, maybe he’ll make camp early to cook a proper dinner.

52. Do they have any family?

He has a mother he dimly remembers from before the Circle.

53. Are they close to their family?

After leaving Kinloch he tries to get back in touch but fails.

54. What is their MBTI type?

0 clue.

55. What is their zodiac sign?

Maybe Scorpio if we’re using our calendar.

56. What Hogwarts House would they be in?

Hufflepuff or Slytherin I think.

57. What D&D alignment are they?

Chaotic good, I think.

58. Do they ever have nightmares? If so, what about?

Jace has nightmares often, which is part of why he’s so restless in his sleep.

He dreams of darkspawn and demons mostly. The demons don’t worry him so much, but the darkspawn dreams do.

59. What are their views on death?

He’s not sure what he thinks. He hopes people find peace afterward, he’s seen too much nasty death not to have hope, but he’s still not sure.

60. What is something that they’re sure to laugh at?

Stupid puns and dogs being adorable idiots.

61. When bored, how do they pass time?

Reading, studying, talking to other people.

62. Do they enjoy being outside?

Origins: All the time, even in inclement weather.

Inquisition: Yes, but he has to be more mindful of his health.

63. Do they have an accent?

A Ferelden accent.

64. Upon seeing a slice of chocolate cake, what is their first reaction?

Eat it probably, after making sure it wasn’t poisoned.

65. If they knew they were going to die, what would they do/say?

Try to comfort Leliana, most likely. Make sure she would be okay and safe.

66. How do they feel about sex?

Jace doesn’t seek sex. He only really wants it when Leliana does.

67. What is their sexuality?

Biromantic somewhere-on-the-ace-spectrum.

68. Do they become squeamish at the sight of blood?

No. Gods though, could you imagine a squeamish blood mage?

69. Is there anything that they find really gross?

Vomit. And the flesh bags the darkspawn make.

70. Which TV Trope(s) best describes them?

Tired

71. Do they enjoy helping people?

Yes.

72. Are they allergic to anything?

Not really allergic to things but sand, dust, pollen, and really high humidity really irritate his lungs.

73. Do they have a pet?

Mabari. Loves him some dogs. Also has a soft spot for the Bog Unicorn and the Giant Nug if he’s involved with Inquisition.

74. Are they quick to anger? What are they like when they loose their temper?

Jace isn’t quick to anger at all, honestly. He has a really tight grip on his emotions. When he finally does, he’s vicious and cutting. His magic plays up around his fingers. Fire usually, burning with his passion. Sparking at his fingertips. When he’s angry but not heated the ice pools around his fingertips.

75. How patient are they?

The man has too much patience.

76. Are they good at cooking?

He’s okay, not the most creative or best cook around. Give him a recipe and it’s usually edible.

77. Favorite insult? Do they insult people often?

No real insult comes to mind. Probably real specific ones if need be. He doesn’t really insult people with his words if he can help it, though he will in his own inner monologue.

78. How do they act when they’re particularly happy?

Jace becomes lighter, if that makes sense. More present and more apt to point nice things out. More likely to take some time to himself too.

79. What do they do when they learn about other people’s fears?

Do their best to assuage them if possible. If not Jace will just file the information in the back of his head in case something happens and he needs to comfort people. Or in case he needs to use the information later.

80. Are they trustworthy?

Yes.

81. Do they try to hide their emotions? Are they good at it?

He tries to be pretty neutral most of the time, it helps him remain impartial when he needs to be. He’s been dabbling in the Game for a decade or so, he got good at politics and manipulation and lying during the Blight. Ten years later he’s a pro.

82. Do they exercise regularly?

He’s wandering around fighting things regardless of what timeline. He doesn’t have much of a choice.

83. Are they comfortable with the way they look?

Origins: Yes. He’s got some mass to him by the end of the Blight, and he’s clearly very healthy and fairly attractive.

Inquisition: Not really. He’s gone grey super early. He looks like a walking skeleton. He doesn’t really see himself as attractive anymore.

84. What are some physical features that they find attractive on people?

Voice is a big indicator. And he won’t admit it but he likes Leliana’s cute nose. Healthy hair is something he notices too.

85. What kind of personalities do they find attractive?

Intelligent, creative, and affectionate when possible. Caring and kind are also big ones. A sense of humour would be nice too.

86. Do they like sweet foods?

Yes, though he tends to have a slight preference for savoury.

87. What is their age?

19 at the start of origins. 29/30ish by Inquisition.

88. Are they tall or short or somewhere in between?

He’s tall for an elf but short for a human. Around 5’4, 5’5.

89. Do they wear glasses or contacts?

I always headcanon him that he should wear glasses. Whether or not he does, due to glasses maybe being a liability on the road and stuff I’m not sure.

90. Do they consider themselves attractive?

By the time of Inquisition, no. He’s too sickly, to worn to really consider himself attractive.

91. What is their sense of humor like?

Puns and watching cute dogs do stupid shit. Also sarcasm. Also the two sisters in Denerim at the time of the Blight was a huge Aesthetic. “The Maker brings ham…”

92. What mood are they most often in?

Fairly ambivalent. He needs to be semi-functional most of the time, so he’s usually pretty ready to slip into his ‘I need to get shit done’ mood.

93. What kinds of things anger them?

The Chantry. Oppression. Needless cruelty. Bureaucracy.

94. Outlook on life?

Jace hopes he lives long enough to create a future that allows the biggest number of people to thrive. He wants to ensure Leliana is safe and provided for.

Other than that, he doesn’t really have an outlook. He figures he’s going to die sooner rather than later, and has long accepted it.

95. What kind of things make them sad/depressed?

Failing to help people. Either by directly saving them or by messing something up that could have helped a number of people.

Also Haven in general was such a buzzkill for him personally. Too many bad memories sort of all stuck in one spot.

96. What is their greatest weakness?

His overly caring nature can get him into real trouble. If people are in trouble he tends to overlook fairly obvious signs of traps and/or ambush.

97. What is the greatest strength?

His willpower and his raw magical talent.

98. Something that they regret?

Making the deal with Desire that led to Connor’s eventual possession. Jace regrets it more than anything, and eventually has ‘Connor’ tracked down and killed.

99. Biggest accomplishment?

Saving the world.

100. Their favourite weapon(s)?

Starfang and Duncan’s Dagger for martial weapons. For a staff he uses Spellfury.

#jace surana #dragon age origins #warden as inquisitor au #long post

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gyrlversion · 5 years

Text

Toni Morrison defended, championed and chastised presidents

Toni Morrison was more than an acclaimed novelist. She was, for much of the last quarter-century, a voice of national conscience who spoke with piercing moral clarity about politics, race and cultural change.

She received particular attention for comments about three modern American presidents, writing with eloquence and fury about the values they embodied. In one enduring phrase, Morrison, who died Monday at 88, called Bill Clinton “our first black president” — an assertion that stirred years of debate, and for which she later expressed a measure of regret over how it had been misinterpreted.

“Beloved,” “Song of Solomon” and other celebrated novels and works of nonfiction are surely her most enduring literary contributions. But Morrison’s thoughts about the presidents who helped shaped the last three decades of American life might help historians better understand the writer — and the times in which she lived.

Bill Clinton

In The New Yorker in October 1998, Morrison lamented what she saw as the mistreatment of President Clinton, beginning with the Whitewater real estate scandal of the early 1990s and culminating with the furor over his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

President Bill Clinton embraces Toni Morrison after awarding her a National Humanities Medal in 2000.Rick Bowmer / AP file

“The Presidency is being stolen from us,” Morrison wrote. “And the people know it.”

Morrison, appearing to suggest that African American men could surely relate to Clinton, wrote that the embattled president, “white skin notwithstanding,” was “our first black president.” She went on:

Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.

In the years that followed, some liberal Democrats embraced Morrison’s characterization of Clinton. But her words were also contentious. Clinton, progressive critics argued, harmed African American families with welfare reform efforts and a 1994 crime bill that many experts blame for accelerating mass incarceration.

Ten years later, in an interview with Time magazine amid the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, Morrison said readers had “misunderstood that phrase” about Clinton:

I was deploring the way in which President Clinton was being treated, vis-à-vis the sex scandal that was surrounding him. I said he was being treated like a black on the street, already guilty, already a perp. I have no idea what his real instincts are, in terms of race.

Barack Obama

As that 2008 presidential primary race got underway, Morrison publicly endorsed Barack Obama, then a junior senator from Illinois.

In a letter to Obama quoted by The New York Times, written at “one of those singular moments that nations ignore at their own peril,” Morrison explained that her endorsement was not based on Obama’s racial identity: “I would not support you if that was all you had to offer or because it might make me proud.”

The author told the future president:

In addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don’t see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which, coupled with brilliance, equals wisdom.

Morrison told The Guardian in 2012 that she “felt very powerfully patriotic when I went to the inauguration of Barack Obama,” adding: “I felt like a kid.”

In the same interview, she bemoaned the “hateful” attacks on Obama from conservative critics and some 2012 Republican presidential contenders. She criticized what she saw as racially coded language in Republican politics, such as when Newt Gingrich called Obama the “food-stamp president.”

As Obama’s second term approached, Morrison told The Guardian, that GOP rhetoric was now “really embarrassing for my country.”

Obama, who in 2012 bestowed Morrison with the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, paid tribute to the late author Tuesday on Twitter:

Toni Morrison was a national treasure, as good a storyteller, as captivating, in person as she was on the page. Her writing was a beautiful, meaningful challenge to our conscience and our moral imagination. What a gift to breathe the same air as her, if only for a while. pic.twitter.com/JG7Jgu4p9t

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 6, 2019

Donald Trump

Morrison was one of 16 prominent writers who, immediately after the 2016 presidential election, contributed short essays to The New Yorker about the meaning of Trump’s surprise victory.

In “Mourning for Whiteness,” Morrison lamented fatal police shootings and racially motivated violence, such as the 2015 church massacre in Charleston, South Carolina, and decried that so many white Americans were “prepared to abandon their humanity … in the name of white power and supremacy.” She expressed fear over the implications of Trump’s rise to power:

So scary are the consequences of a collapse of white privilege that many Americans have flocked to a political platform that supports and translates violence against the defenseless as strength. These people are not so much angry as terrified, with the kind of terror that makes knees tremble.

She also directly condemned the new president: “On Election Day, how eagerly so many white voters — both the poorly educated and the well educated — embraced the shame and fear sowed by Donald Trump.”

Daniel Arkin

Daniel Arkin is a reporter for NBC News.

The post Toni Morrison defended, championed and chastised presidents appeared first on Gyrlversion.

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pathfindersemail · 7 years

Note

Do you think people like Reyes because he's the spicy Latino character? im trying to understand the hype. I kind of think people just like him for being hot brown boy with hot accent.

lol wtf you’re like the third nonny to ever ask me to speak for the entirety of Reyes stans and tell you why we like him. I mean, whatever answer I give will be personal and not necessarily a reflection on the community, so let me get started on something I can generalize: fetishization.

[*Note I have a small postscript answer anticipating Sloane Kelley’s characterization at the end of this post.]

Short answer: No, but… Long Answer: Yes, but… >both buts lead to: but racism is something we participate in regardless of whether or not we are anti-racist.

Basically, we consume and propagate tropes and images regardless of how we problematize it, and it’s really up to your consumption of Reyes’s character to determine your complicity in the fetishization that inevitably follows a character like him.

The Unintentional Lecture on the Spicy Brown Boy with an Accent Trope

I think you’d all be lying if you say you didn’t get a wee bit charmed by the accent when you first heard it. It’s subconscious; it’s ingrained in everything we consume; the person with the accent is exotic, mysterious, and jarringly different from the identities you formed in the creation of your protagonist.

Writers, filmmakers, and artists have constantly employed accents for characters to instill a very impermeable yet nonetheless alluring sense of “difference.” This is why George Lucas racistly gave the aliens accented English in the prequel trilogy despite having given them acceptable yet unintelligible (to us) alien languages in the original Star Wars trilogy. The bureaucrats starving Naboo for a trade deal get the haughty Japanese businessfolk accent; the slaver who owned Anakin and is “stingy” has a vaguely semitic accent; Jar Jar Binks with his “massah” lingo and incoherence eerily mimics the language white writers ascribed to black slaves in 19th-century fiction (as seen in Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Huckleberry Finn), and it’s weirdly reminiscent of Jamaican accents as well, so you can’t help but think of his “tomfoolery” in a racialized undertone. I’m sorry to call out George Lucas in this (I’m really not tho), because he isn’t alone. My point is that in the most blatant of cases, accents from real communities and groups are transposed onto alien or monstrous creatures in a move that simultaneously anthropomorphizes them (i.e. giving them voice and characterization) without granting them the dignity of being fully human and an American or British accented English seems to be the dominant mode of doing this. [Let’s not talk about how Bioware has handled accents for aliens in GENERAL in the ME Original Trilogy for now, because this is complicated]

On the flipside you can dehumanize human characters by giving them this same treatment of accents. See this post for an elaboration.

What happens when you give a human character an accent?

Oh all sorts of things. I’m gonna just drop it right here and lay it on y’all this foundational and phenomenal book called Orientalism by Edward Said. Being a product of the late 70s, updates and headway have been made in this mode of literary criticism. But basically, artists and writers have always romanticized “Eastern” tropes, cultures, and artifacts (including speech) in a way that hides the violence of imperialism while inundating the “motherland” with its stolen wealth. Writers loved them their muslin fabric, their jade jewelry, their olive-hued women; the sexual provocativeness of 1000 and One Nights. It was a way for the “West” to impose and project its imagination on cultures they do not and refuse to understand.

Spanish accents (whether from Spain, Latin America, and other spanish-speaking post colonies) are not exempt from this “Orientalism” despite its emphasis on the East. As some of you might recall, Spain was once part of the Islamic empire of Al-Andalus in the fifteenth century; Western Europe (cough cough mostly England cough cough) constantly ascribed to the Irish and the Spanish a “blackness” associated with “Moors” - no doubt a result of their trade dealings with Muslim cultures at the time. There is a long history of Spanish figures and characters being treated as malcontents - they are outsiders who fit remarkably well in their courtly contexts. [See this post for examples, but I also recall Spanish Tragedy as an early modern example].

So to sum up what I mentioned above, Reyes definitely is a product of all these tropes at work. As a prominent character, his accent does have a function. Everything you’ve absorbed via your good friend Cultural Osmosis Jones will subconsciously make you alert to the following descriptors: enigmatic, elusive, charming. I also think it’s interesting that he walks up to you as Umi is aggressively making her customer pay by brandishing a dagger. Your introduction to Reyes are therefore associated with: seedy bar fight and accent.

The complicated part of this answer is, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, Reyes is nonetheless well developed and humanized. He does not flirt with you at every turn (contrary to what some people say), and he does not make advances if you choose the non-romance options for dialogue. He also expresses genuine vulnerability WITH you (so you’re not manipulated into pitying him). But perhaps the most human part of him (that arguably makes him more exciting than other Andromeda characters) is that he is unapologetically flawed. In the culmination scene of their romance, he either thanks you for accepting these flaws, or he makes a cheesy line about how you have him figured out.

“You’re the encrypted one.”

“haha… I was about to say something cheesy.”

“Say it.”

“Consider me hacked.”

We can say aw cute how cheesy, but what he’s really trying to say is that he likes you because, like any hacker, you mastered his code and can read them, whereas with others he maybe constantly misread to be what they want him to be (a smuggler, the Charlatan, etc). The sweeter option where he thanks you for accepting him is a more straightforward way of admitting the exact same thing.

To return to the question, YES the accent plays a heavy part in hooking the player into his backstory (conscious or not), but Courtney Woods really did a great job psychologizing him into a very relatable and refreshingly honest figure whose irreverence makes for an interesting experience of a game that otherwise poorly handles ethical quandaries.

Skin Color?

There’s no question that people LOVE a brown character. The aforementioned “classic” Uncle Tom’s Cabin has an array of enslaved black characters, but the only ones who get a happy ending are… “quadroons,” which is a derogatory term for black slaves who are visibly mixed/mostly white (i.e. they pass as “a quarter black”) whereas the unambiguously black character like Uncle Tom dies horribly. But that was the nineteenth century. What has happened since? I don’t have to explain to you that when casting for a protagonist who is also black, Hollywood tends to hire light skinned black characters. Why? Frankly because people are racist and tend to criminalize dark skinned black people. “Brownness” goes along with the orientalism mentioned with accents; it hearkens to an exploited colonial wealth that speaks of exotic flavors. The description of darker skin as chocolate, caramel, or other foods grown from colonies and plantations relies heavily on the consumer/reader/viewer’s acceptance of brown as exotic.

Again, Reyes gets better and more humanizing characterization than his skin color and accent, but this history is nonetheless present in our consumption and imagination of him. And fandom has to be aware of this history if they want to avoid fetishizing a Latino character in their artistic works and contributions.

So nonny, I think the trope is sedimented in our love for Reyes, but to not be able to see past it and appreciate the better parts of his development would be reductive and, frankly, just as racist as sidelining the few representations of Latinos we get.

Postscript note: Sloane Kelley is also a victim of all this baggage and history. As one of the few black women in the game, she was written to be disposed of and unliked. Even if you side with Sloane from the very beginning, she doesn’t get as much fun developments and moments with Ryder as Reyes does, which means Bioware deliberately made her not easily sympathetic. And unlike the original trilogy’s Aria T’Loak, she isn’t presented as competent given how her mob boss antics are shown as unnecessarily violent (it’s the first thing you encounter when you arrive at Kadara), and she is presented as tactlessly uncompromising whereas both Aria and Reyes are allowed room for a business savvy maneuver.

I still argue that you should be given the option to broker a truce between the two. It’s so fucking shameful that you basically lock the romance over her dead body (which is why I rarely share gifs and images of the cave scene). It’s violent, and I really expected better from Bioware.

#Anonymous #Reyes Vidal #Sloane Kelley #Racism tw #Orientalism tw #tropes

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jonathanryder-blog · 8 years

Photo

↳ Character Development

“None of us can make it through this life without suffering some kind of pain. Having lived through my fair share I can tell you the most difficult to endure is loneliness. He was right. Life is a game, and one that we must play. No matter how careful we are there is simply no way to go through this life unscathed, but fortunately for us, it’s a game we don’t have to play alone.”

BASIC INFORMATION

Full Name: Jonathan Elliot Ryder

Nickname(s): Jon, Jonah, Ryder (mostly by work colleagues), Miracle Worker

Pronunciation: J-oh-n-ah-th-ah-n Eh-l-ee-uh-t Rye-d-uh-r

Titles: Doctor, Surgeon

Age: 36

Date of Birth: February 20th 1983

Hometown: Goldwater

Current Location: Goldwater

Ethnicity: American

Nationality: Anglo-American

Gender: Male

Pronouns: Him/He/His

Orientation: Bisexual/Biromantic

Occupation: ER Doctor/Trauma Surgeon/Field Surgeon/First Aider

Living Arrangements: Can be found here

Financial Status: Upper-Middle Class

Accent: A hybrid between a neutral American and English accent, the latter hints very strongly from influences his father gave him growing up so his voice ends up making him sound more foreign than he actually is. He’s adopted a neutral tone mostly for work related reasons -- so people can understand him better.

Religion: Agnostic

Occupation: ER Doctor & Trauma Surgeon

MUTATION

Physiology: Human

Species: Homo Sapiens Superior / Mutant

Strength: Average

Stamina: Above Average

Speed: Average

Dexterity: Fine-tuned motor control particularly of his hands, able to perform unique movements without his hands shaking making him an incredibly good surgeon when wielding a scalpel.

Reflexes: Relatively quick but still average.

Power: Biokinesis / Healing / Restoration { More on this here }

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

Face Claim: Tom Hiddleston

Hair Colour: Dark blonde

Eye Colour: Gunmetal / Silvery blue

Height: 6 ft 2 / 188cm

Weight: 79 kg / 174 lbs.

Build: Slender but athletic & toned.

Somatype: Between ectomorphic and mesomorphic

Posture: Straight unless tired, then tends to slouch when sat.

Tattoos: N/A

Piercings: N/A

Dominant Side: Right

Blood Type: O - universal donor.

Distinguishing Marks: Several smaller scars littered across his hands from injuries prior to gaining his abilities, faint scar lines dotted across his torso from large injuries he tried to heal on others and ended up marking his own body instead. The most prominent is on the side of his neck typically covered by shirt collars and one on his temple from where he slipped and fell out of a tree he was climbing when he was a child.

Clothing Style: Really depends on the day sometimes this, or this but it’s nearly always some kind of combo of a jacket/blazer + top/shirt + jeans/trousers. Often he can be seen wearing glasses although these simply have plain glass in the lenses as he doesn’t actually specifically need them anymore now that his ability has developed. { More on this here }

Accessories: Always wears a wrist watch given to him as a gift by Ophelia.

Facial Hair: Typically is clean shaven but when he does have a beard tends to look along the lines of this.

Usual Expression: Occasionally distant, sometimes appears to be lost in thought but mostly just friendly.

Distinguishing Characteristics: Several smaller scars littered across his hands from injuries prior to gaining his abilities, faint scar lines dotted across his torso from large injuries he tried to heal on others and ended up marking his own body instead. The most prominent ones are one on the side of his neck typically covered by shirt collars, one on his temple from where he slipped and fell out of a tree he was climbing and another one on the lower angle of his jaw from where he slipped on the docks and fell hitting his chin on the wooden planks when he was a child.

PSYCHOLOGY

IQ: 122

Languages: English, French, Italian and can speak bits of the following: Afrikaans, Zulu, Setswana, Arabic.

Vocabulary: Articulate & thoughtful.

Memory: Rather good but nothing exceptional.

Temperament: Calm, level-headed.

Learning Style: Kinesthetic & Visual

Emotional Stability: Relatively stable, he doesn’t exactly give himself the time to talk about how he feels preferring to focus on other people because he deems their needs as far more important in comparison to his own. He uses his work to cope with things and will throw himself into work to the point of overworking himself to try and forget about things that are bothering him. Overall he’s pretty stable but if someone hits a nerve then they might just get to see he’s not quite as stable as he likes to appear on the outside.

Sociability: Jonathan is somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, he enjoys people’s company but he also needs some time to himself just to relax.

HEALTH

Physical Ailments: Growing up Jonathan suffered from short-sightedness, this was fixed by glasses and contacts and continud into his adult life. When his abilities manifested however, this restored his vision to near perfect levels but due to having spent his entire life wearing glasses he couldn’t simply stop. So now to avoid suspicion from people who knew him as a child he wears a pair of glasses with plain glass lenses and no curvature.

Neurological Conditions: Headaches often triggered stress or fatigue.

Allergies: N/A

Sleeping Habits: Generally his sleep schedule is a mess, especially when he gets night shifts ‘til the early hours of the morning. On those days he comes back and will sleep during the morning-afternoon and be up mid-late afternoon before trying to go to sleep correctly at 11/12pm that night.

Eating Habits: He’s a big fan of a medium cooked steak, seafood is one of his favourites and he has always loved crab, lobster, prawns and fish. Besides this he loves baked goods - a thing that has been the case ever since he was small.

Exercise Habits: He isn’t a total exercise freak but he enjoys going on long walks with Jas listening to music depending on his mood, otherwise he’s big on going for runs. Wherever his feet take him he’ll go, and depending on the day will depend how much he pushes himself. He tries to go out for at least an hour a day if he can.

Body Temperature: Warm but not too hot.

Addictions: Work.

Drug Use: None.

Alcohol Use: Mostly for pleasure, or social occasions. He enjoys the taste and company he tends to keep but other times he just enjoys it as a stress reliever but very rarely drinks enough to get drunk (difficult anyway due to his fast metabolism).

PERSONALITY

Label: The Helper

Positive Traits: Dependable, intelligent, level-headed, knowledgeable, charming, polite, steadfast, affectionate, sensitive, dutiful, sympathetic.

Negative Traits: Perfectionist, solitary, stubborn, reserved, self-depreciating, excessively humble, unwilling to take the spotlight.

Fears: People learning about what he can do, being persecuted for it, others being hurt for what he is.

Hobbies: Reading, sodoku, cooking, walking (Jas), running, listening to music, fishing, sleeping, playing chess, crosswords, watching TV, watching movies.

FAVOURITES

Weather: Snow, but not snowing. He likes days where the snow has settled and the sun is out causing it to glisten in the light. Besides this he loves rain, storms with thunder and lightning.

Colour: Blue, greys, white, blacks

Music: Jazz, Soul, Classical, Ballroom, Blues along with the odd bit of Indie thrown in

Movies: Hannibal, The Godfather, The Shawshank Redemption

Sport: Running, Tennis Skiing

Beverage: Single malt Speyburn Scotch

Food: Medium/Rare steak with a béarnaise sauce

Animal: Dogs

FAMILY

Andrew Kenneth Ryder → 68 Years Old → Jeremy Irons → Alive

Michelle René Ryder → 63 Years Old → Rene Russo → Alive

Children: N/A

Pet(s): Can be found here.

Family’s Financial Status: Upperclass

RELATIONSHIPS

Orientation: Bisexual, biromantic.

Relationship Status: Single

Current Love Interests: TBD

Former/Ongoing Love Interests: Ophelia Thorne

EXTRA

Zodiac Sign: Pisces.

MBTI: ISFJ-A

Enneagram: The Perfectionist - Type 1

Temperament: Phlegmatic

Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw

Moral Alignment: Neutral good

Primary Vice: Wrath potentially?

Primary Virtue: Diligence or Humility

Element: Water

Likes: Roaming & travelling the world. Old architecture. Cathedrals. Long dinners by candlelight. Quiet. Chestnuts. Sunset. Stars. Night. Water of any kind but particularly the ocean. Fishing. Exploring. Long walks. A good log fire and the smell and sound of burning wood. Coffee, tea, hot chocolate, whiskey. The warmth of sunlight. The sound of rain. Piano soundtracks. France, Italy, London -- most European cities. Humour. Nature. Dislikes: Open shoes, Headaches. Loneliness. Dirty fingernails. Mould. Noise. Bullying. Racism. Bigoted individuals. Animal cruelty. Inequality. Spicy foods. Horror films. Liars. Politics. Slackers. Heavy traffic. Air pollution. Crowds. Feeling embarassed. Pushiness. Smoking. Overcooked food. Gawdy colours.

Tropes: A God Am I/God Complex, Actual Pacifist, Adorkable, Apologises a Lot, Beware the Nice Ones, Big Secret, Bi The Way, Break the Cutie, Broken Ace, Character Tics, Cultured Badass, Doesn't Like Guns, Everyone Has Standards, Geek Physique, Gentleman and a Scholar, Good Is Not Soft, Good Thing You Can Heal, Hates Small Talk, Heroic Neutral, Heroic Sacrifice, Hot Scientist, Loss of Identity, Nice to the Waiter, Omnidisciplinary Scientist, Papa Wolf, Sharp-Dressed Man, Stepford Smiler, Tranquil Fury

#character development #15 years later #I did a thing #and the tropes #lmao

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yibbes · 6 years

Text

A Word Discussion: Part 1 - Song Lyrics

It’s been a hot minute.

And...

Moving on!

*Warning*: The following is an opinion and will not adhere to the traditional structure of persuasive writing, though I try to back up what I believe. But it is just rambling, thoughts being worked out, a window into my brain, as it were. You get to choose what you take from this. Hopefully it will cause your brain to stir.

*End Warning*

“Reckless Love.” “How He Loves.” “Above All.” Songs with questionable lyrics that have theologians arguing left and right. These have been in the back of my mind for a long time, so I just wanted to flesh out my own thinking (I’ll save the last song for you to research on your own).

As a guy who can’t even drive without listening to music, it’s pretty clear that worship music would be a very obvious method of worship, relaxation and communion with God. But why is it that certain songs, genres, lyrics, etc. really irk some individuals?

First off, my opinion: I’m okay with the original version of “How He Loves”, not so much okay with “Reckless Love” and “Above All”, but keep reading.

Let’s examine “How He Loves”, written and sung by John Mark McMillan, made popular by many famous bands but for me, from the David Crowder Band. The line from the song is, “ So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss.” It’s made people uncomfortable enough that when the David Crowder Band sings the song, they replace the line with, “So heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss.”

John Mark McMcillan isn’t offended, but he is confused.

“Why does the church have such a problem with things being sloppy? Do we really think we’re fooling anyone on Sunday morning, especially God?”

http://johnmarkmcmillan.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-he-loves-david-crowder-and-sloppy.html

Mel Wild, senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in Wisconsin, has a very engaging response to this. I’ll quote one section:

“Are we really that fragile in our relationship with God?I don’t even get “heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss.” What is that supposed to mean anyway? By trying to make a very powerful word picture tasteful, it’s been made totally tasteless–like fat-free cheese. Looks good but tastes like plastic. It has no power to penetrate the human heart. Sure, it’s been made acceptable for those who apparently don’t want to express anything so authentic but, by doing so, it becomes uninspiring and, for all intents and purposes, meaningless word-baggage.

To quote the Scarlet Pimpernel, “There’s nothing in the world quite so bad as something which is not so bad.”

I love the picture of heaven meeting earth with a BIG SLOPPY WET KISS! Yes! Yes!! Yes!!! I think that’s exactly what our inoculated hearts need–better yet, that all our religiously repressed passions and emotional dysfunctions would get bear-hugged right out of us by our heavenly Papa!

I love exactly how this song was originally written. It’s raw, it’s passionate, it’s powerful. It’s on fire with God’s love. It’s wild-eyed and wonder-filled, expressing something beautiful and bold that beckons us to go deeper into the fullness of joy and pleasures at His right hand. That’s worship.”

https://melwild.wordpress.com/2015/04/20/whats-so-bad-about-a-sloppy-wet

With “Reckless Love”, yes, Cory Asbury has tried to defend his usage of the word “reckless”, but isn’t it reckless to use words so...recklessly?

“Songs are powerful instruments of faith, both forming and expressing faith. For this reason, we are prudent to ask if we do, in fact, believe what we sing and sing what we believe and make this a theological and pastoral question used in the choices of the diet of music offered for our congregation’s worship. To do otherwise would seem reckless.”

Todd E. Johnson, theological director of the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology and the Arts at Fuller Theological Seminary: https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/april-web-only/reckless-love-cory-asbury-bethel-music-and-justin-bieber.html

Side rant: This just reminds me of how frequently in the Bible it references the power of words and the tongue. Every time God speaks, each time Jesus preaches, each word is carefully and purposefully crafted. How often do we just “let loose” and say whatever we want just because it makes us feel good? We make excuses that we can do say and do whatever we want, compartmentalizing our Christian identity and our “feel-good, relaxing, chill, mellow” perversion. Whatever happened to Matthew 15:11, Proverbs 21:23, Psalm 141:3, Proverbs 17:27-28, Ephesians 4:29, Colossians 4:6, and countless others. Is it truly Biblical to say that we are permitted or it is necessary to succumb to sin as a means of...anything? That we should just take a break from being a follower of Christ for a few minutes, hours, days? Of course, these verses and even this topic will be reserved for another...discussion. (Can you tell I think about this topic often?)

This extends to worship songs. Could people just be writing lyrics and accompanying music that will make the general population fall in love with the songs or artists? That isn’t by any means a stretch of the imagination from people who are all innately sinful.

https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/entertainment/2018/may/is-gods-love-reckless-experts-disagree-over-popular-worship-song

Although, Andre Henry, theologian and managing editor of RELEVANT, says both interpretations of the word (“Some might say the shepherd is reckless for leaving behind his flock to save the one. Asbury says that's just how God loves us and those who don't understand why would call that reckless.”) are flawed.

“Those bothered by reckless as an adjective for God seem to take the word out of context," he says. "Furthermore, Asbury rose to prominence in a worship context that is famous for using dramatic language that turns traditional meanings on their heads.

"If there's any problem with 'Reckless Love,' it's that the songwriters meant to celebrate God's uninhibited, extravagant, practice of self-giving but hit a snag on familiar tropes and platitudes of the worship genre before they could ever get to plumb the depths of their main idea."

Furthermore, Henry believes Asbury could have cleared up confusion by doing more to discuss how Jesus gave everything to save sinners.

Both Pastor John Piper and Henry seem to agree that worship leaders should be more specific about the words they choose when writing and singing songs.

"As we sit in service, give us songs whose original meaning we can joyfully affirm because they are fully biblical. Don't give us too many where we have to change the meaning in order to be faithful," Piper suggests.

So the conclusion is that it is quite important how words are used, and in this area specifically, in worship. God examines the heart and Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” There is a tension between what people mean and how people portray it. I personally believe in the saying, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” It doesn’t matter how good someone’s intentions are, it’s the heart and the following actions in response to the glory of God that matter. And to have the right heart towards God means having a relationship with Him, through His Word (that is, the Bible), prayer, and relationships with His people, that is, the Church.

So, why do we fight and bicker and have such strong opinions of how we worship God? Why can’t we respect that God has made people to be different?

I do want to share this blog, though. Food for thought:

https://blog.restoringkingdombuilders.org/2017/09/19/do-christians-sometimes-go-mindless-during-worship/

As I continue to wrestle with this subject, I think the important thing is to test everything we say and do, such as our choice in worship music, whether listening to, writing or playing, against the Bible. Always ask yourself: “Is this in line with Scripture?” And you have to be honest with God and yourself. None of this rationalizing and make excuses business.

At the end of the day, though, I don’t think God is preoccupied with our every whim, our simple preferences for one thing or the other, one song or the other, one style of music or the other. We don’t have to win an argument to glorify God. I think His focus is His own glory, which should be our focus as well.

But I’ll end with this:

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/a-god-worth-repeating-in-worship

#Christian #worship #worship music #lyrics #reckless love #how he loves #above all #david crowder band #john mark mcmillan #opinion #reflection #songs #music

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