#i'll add another post to this one bc there's still much more to say about him obvs

[eliza-makepeace]

I'm still in the midst of the reread, but I haven't had time to comment on it for a while, so here it goes.

Broody Murtagh is something that can actually be so personal. Boi has a long painful history w/ sword. Boi is not normal about it in front of people.

Boi has anger management issues about said sword. Plus daddy issues. Also, Murtagh, beloved, I get where you're coming from, but out of all the people in the world, I don't think you're the one who can act judgy about others being connected in any way to Morzan.

My poor little meow meow. I wonder how much he remembers of the moment Morzan gave him the scar. It seems he does, despite having been so young. I love how in The Fork, when Essie tells him about her own scar and how her father accidentally gave it to her, it looks like he's going back to his own experience. Maybe reevaluating it, maybe considering that, despite the kind of person Morzan was, he perhaps hadn't wanted to hurt him like that.

Baby boy. BABY.

Horsegirl!Murtagh my beloved. He's so proud of his horse, and it's so obvious he loves (human) Tornac so much. Good-humored Murtagh is also precious.

Why can't he just be a weird 18yo who enjoys knowing about political intrigues????? He just loves the good ol' gossip.

MY GOd this boy is traumatized.

Happy Murtagh ilysm.

He's just a proud older brother! I still find it a bit deus ex machina that eragon, with only a few months of training with brom can be murtagh's equal, considering he's been raised to be a swordsman. Also, Murtagh's giving a lot of Íñigo Montoya praising Westley vibes here lol.

Jesus, Murtagh, you could've been a bit more sensitive about this. Poor Eragon doesn't even know what to say. I get that part of why Murtagh went after the Ra'zac and joined Eragon was because it was the only way he knew how to cope with Tornac's death, and because he's sort of trying not to deal with how much he misses him. But still. Dude. You could've just said "he passed away a while ago" and it wouldn't have sounded so brutal.

[poetrysmackdown]

some informal thoughts

hello! hope the holiday season has been kind to all of you. and i hope all my jewish followers had a lovely hanukkah! anyways, since i said a few months ago that i’d pick poetry smackdown back up sometime around this time of year, i thought i should make a post. the gist of it is that i’m still quite busy, i have a break that’s about three weeks shorter than I was planning on, and i don’t currently have the mental bandwidth required to read, contemplate, and sort through poem submissions in a way that does justice to them, even if i were to recruit some friends to help out. since running a tournament format requires at least five weeks of continued engagement once it’s underway, and since i’m not at capacity to offer that right now due to the change in my schedule, i’m gonna have to bow out for now. sad bc i was looking forward to it!

my hope is that i’ll have some more time over the summer to hunker down with it, in which case you’ll be hearing from me. it’ll frankly depend on the kind of job i land in for the summer, but i find that my unemployed spirit can typically keep me doing stupid shit regardless of workload...to a point. i don’t want to make any promises because i don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up just to let them down again LOL. i do admit the amount of exposure the first tournament got has made me feel like more of a perfectionist this time around, doubly because i don’t feel that i’m very suited to being a public online presence (even a relatively quite small one)—i’m bad enough at responding to emails for my own real life responsibilities, let alone tumblr asks for the silly responsibilities i invent for myself lol. that’s not to say i no longer want to do it, or i don’t enjoy it, or even that i don’t feel capable of making a really interesting bracket—just that if i am working to put something new together, and if people are taking the time to submit poems they care about, then i don’t want to half-ass it.

my second admission is something like this. I made the original bracket as a celebration of poetry and our relationships to it. yes it was silly and competitive, and the poems were very tumblr, but still, celebration was the intention—I wanted to have conversations about poetry. I stand by the bracket format as a fun and valuable way to foster conversations about poetry, but truthfully, the poems i’m wanting to have conversations about right now—the poems that we should be talking about right now—are ones that i'm not comfortable putting in a bracket. I reblogged The Baffler’s Poems from Palestine collection on here earlier, and Najwan Darwish’s “Who Remembers The Armenians?”, which I still often find repeating through my head when I'm traveling from one place to another, walking home or riding the bus. I came across this beautiful thread recently where people have been translating Dr. Refaat Alareer’s “If I Must Die” into their own languages (this just makes my translator's heart sing!!!!!!). @havingapoemwithyou has been posting some great poems from and for Palestine as well—check out their tag here.

There's always more to add, and I'll be posting more on here as I come across it, but that's what I feel anyone should be focusing on right now when it comes to poetry. i think poetry can be an escape but it should never be a distraction. does that make sense? i wouldn't be against doing a one-off poll here or there, but it feels weird to be making a tournament for poetry right now, or anytime soon. i feel like what free time i have right now is still best utilized helping my friends with organizing in the real world. and god, a bit off-topic but while I'm talking, fuck poetry foundation—I have so much respect for all the poets keeping up the boycott, because while i think it's a simple decision, it's not always an easy one (Aurielle Lucier discussed that here).

anyways, if you read all of this, thank you for your time!! I could go on and on, but really this was just meant to be a message telling y'all that there won't be another tournament for a while lol. even so i'll be trying to use this small silly platform as best i can until palestine is free because that's the absolute least i can do.

[oh-my-may]

LET'S TALK HSR PENACONY 2.1 (or rather, have my impressions and thoughts on the main quest and some other stuff)

First of all, I went out of it with so many thoughts and emotions. This is not gonna be spoiler free (duh).

ACHERON IS SO FUN TO PLAY. Like, really really fun. Finally Simulated Universe is not an annoying pain anymore, and much quicker too. Thanks to a good friend of mine her relics aren't too bad either. She's already so fun to play with Black Swan, can't wait for a Kafka rerun now 💀

Aa for the story now: I FUCKING KNEW MIKHAIL WAS THE WATCHMAKER. I KNEW IT. Now to wait for them to confirm that Misha is connected to him, either as a ghost of his past self or a child or some sort. It's the only way.

It's also really refreshing to see that HSR is giving 4star characters significant roles in the story. First it was Tingyun, now it's Gallagher (and maybe Misha? I'll die on this hill).

Loved the pacing. Story was quite long and lots of gameplay but didn't feel overwhelming at all, probably because we didn't just stick to the MC the whole time. The characters split up and we didn't just follow the express crew but also Aventurine, I really loved that. It felt so dynamic and immersive.

WELT AND ACHERON INTERACTION. BRO. The way I gasped the whole time. We still don't have a canon confirmation of how Raiden Mei and Acheron or just generally HI3rd and HSR are connected but it's sp clear that Acheron is by far the closest connection yet. So sp excited to find out more about this. Raiden Mei, I'll love you in every universe.

Aventurine and Ratio are also very interesting to me. What does Ratio gain by involving himself in all of this? What does he get out of it? Anyway, their little journey through the mansion was nice. GIGANTIC RATIO. The kinda stuff my dreams are made of tbh.

Generally the whole Aventurine story got me right from the beginning. He's generally one of the most interesting characters to me (although this game has plenty of them). I gotta admit of course I was suspicious of him (as one should be of all Penacony characters) but I liked him nevertheless. This patch supported my feelings, my GOD HE xkdjjdjdjd. The way I cried. Since I played the story so late ofc I saw some spoilers/screenshots of his backstory but I never expected it to hit me this hard. Just wow. His ending, too. It's so bitter. Kinda hope we get to see him again, since he'a mot really dead, right? Just in some limbo.

His boss fight was really something. Not a lot of different patterns, but I still had to try a bunch of different teams, since you're kinda fucked even with just a single single target character in your party. Had to unbench Clara, and I gotta say, she came through for me. I might not have used the most meta team, but it worked soooo...

And just as I was glad I had managed the fight they hit you with that big cut scene, woah. AND THEN WITH THE FIREFLY SCENE? AND SUNDAY????

First of all, apparently it was common knowledge among the community since last patch that Sam was Firefly. Yeah, I gwt it bc of the leaks and stuff. But I'm just so confused as to HOW. Like HOW and WHY and just generally HUH. I can't wait for them to explain this connection (if you're reading this and you wanna spoil me with non-confirmed stuff then leave it, please, I might as well wait another 3 weeks).

And then Gallagher and Sunday... Just as I was admiring Sunday's beauty because he might legit just be one of the most gorgeous male character designs... THEY KILL HIM. When I tell ypu I was SHOOK. Mouth agape and all. Didn't know what to do. What a cliffhanger.

Now I don't have a real theory as to what I think will happen. If I remember correctly they said the main story will stretch until 2.3, right? I really wonder what else will happen, the story already seemed so huge this patch and I really wonder how it'll conclude. There's still so many questions and stories. Might add on to this post later when I have more thoughts.

Also Aventurine's banner just dropped but as of writing this I haven't pulled yet. Might add a little post later about it.

For now, have some screenshots I took during the story:

ALSO I GOT AVENTURINE. SECOND 50/50 WIN IN A ROW IN THIS GAME HAVE I FINALLY BROKEN THE CURSE. Now for the long and treacherous road of farming his trace mats and relics ... Since I never really prefarm 🥲

A pic I took in my excitement. Forgot the screenshot button exists.

[melverie]

So......about Solomon

Before we get started: Discussions on this post are more than welcomed as long as you keep it civil and constructive. At the end of the day, this is still a game about fictional characters, so there's no reason to literally harass others over liking or disliking a character If it truly upsets you that much--which is valid btw--than the best thing to do would probably be to simply not engage with the other party, and not harass them over it; you won't change anyone's mind that way. I know most of you aren't like this but unfortunately it still needs to be said Also, if you want me to add sources to some points, feel free to ask! I've tried to mention the chapters as I go, but I might still have forgotten some. Some of the arguments I make are also hidden behind certain player options; if you can't find them, fell free to ask about them and I'll gladly tell you Also also, general spoiler warning for both the og game and Nightbringer. I'm not really covering anything specific after lesson 60 in the og game and lesson 14 in NB, but I might still mention things from later lessons

Now, onto the actual topic. There've been quite a few arguments against Solomon in the past few days, but I mostly just want to focus on those three:

Solomon wanted to force MC into killing Lucifer at the end of season 2 in the og game

Solomon betrayed the brothers and keeps hiding behind "wanting to protect humanity" as a scapegoat for his actions (putting these two together bc I think they go hand in hand, but it'll make more sense later)

Solomon tricked Asmodeus into a pact without his consent

This entire thing is very long, so feel free to jump around if one point interests you more than another

Solomon wanted to force MC into killing Lucifer at the end of season 2 in the og game

[mainly 38-12, og & 38-15, og]

He did, yeah. But here's the thing

They were all forced into a corner since the fate of all three realms was on the line here, and with the Ring of Light's whereabouts still being unknown at the time, they literally had no other choice if they wanted to save everyone. It wasn't Solomon that randomly decided the only way to restore the Night Dagger's power was by killing a powerful demon, it's always been that way. And he can't just be like "Oh well, let's switch strategies then and focus on finding the Ring of Light" when the entire cast (minus Simeon) has no idea where the ring is and the last time any of them saw it was centuries to millennia ago, if not longer. They don't have the time to search for it considering all the destruction MC's Ring has already caused in such a short period of time

Solomon first tells MC to do kill Luci, only to add that he was just joking and knows MC would never actually go through with it. Then, he says that if they wouldn't do it, he'd do it himself. Which kinda sounds like forcing, right? Except this happens [38-15, og; pic below]:

He was prepared to, which doesn't clear him of trying to indirectly force MC, let's get that straight. But ultimately he drops it and accepts that maybe their only option really is to just die here. This is also the only time we see him acting against his beliefs btw

Also yes, Solomon might not have been the one that decided they needed to kill a powerful demon, but he seems to be the one that settled on said demon being Lucifer. The only other viable options would most likely be Diavolo and Barbatos. Don't know if the Demon King in his vegetative state still counts but similar to Diavolo, killing him would probably be seen as a direct declaration of war, so they're out. And from a strategic standpoint, Barbatos is the better option to be kept alive simply because of his powers. There most likely also is some kind of sentimental attachment at play here since Solomon is much closer to Barbatos than he is to Lucifer. None of justifies killing Lucifer of course, but we also need to acknowledge that everyone's hands were tied, they were out of time and given the circumstances, this was probably the best decision they could have come to (until Simeon showed up with the Ring of Light, of course)

Solomon betrayed the brothers and keeps hiding behind "wanting to protect humanity" as a scapegoat for his actions

First of no, he did not betray them. Ever since the end of season 2 Solomon has made it clear that his ultimate goal is to protect humanity and that he, similarly to Diavolo in regards to the Devildom and its denizens*, would do anything in his power to protect the human world and its inhabitants [38-15, og; pic in the point above] [38-19, og; pic below]

*friendly reminder that Belphie was charged with treason for planning to destroy the human world, since in Diavolo's eyes that would have severely damaged the chance of peace between the three realms [13-14, og]

Solomon continuously sticks to his beliefs. He said he'd protect humanity, and that's what he's doing. He never extended that kind of protection to the brothers, he never made any false promises, he didn't betray them in any way, nothing

I'd also like to point out he's not actively going out of his way to antagonize demons, or angels, or whatever. In fact, he even explicitly says that he does not wish to make an enemy out of either party [10-A, NB; pic below], which of course also extends to the brothers

You can even outright ask him if he's planning on backstabbing the brothers, and this is what he has to say [11-8, NB; pic below]:

And you know what? That is a valid concern. They can't say for sure what the future holds, and they just recently had to deal with the entire Ring situation that could have very easily destroyed all three realms, so wanting to be cautious and to be prepared for the worst makes sense. He also makes it clear that he does not wish to fight the brothers if it can be avoided, so there's that

And no, he's also not tricking MC into siding against the brothers in Nightbringer. Rather, he just wants to know that they're fighting for humanity should the relationship between humans and demons in general ever turn hostile. He puts the cards open on the table and gives a proper explanation to his reasoning for siding with humanity [11-8, NB], and once again goes a little further into detail before MC gives their answer [14-16, NB; pic below]. Plus it's up to the player if they choose to stand with him or not, and no matter what you choose, he accepts the decision

Also keep in mind that season 3 heavily suggests that the human world at large has no idea that angels and demons even exist, so MC is pretty much the only one he can even ask to help protect humanity alongside him to begin with. He can't just go up to a random guy on the street and ask them to fight something who's existence they aren't even aware of in the first place

Imo Solomon also seems to know more about where things might be heading than he lets on, with him actually knowing Nightbringer and whatnot, so granting himself some peace of mind by making sure he has at least one ally is perfectly reasonable

Also, Solomon is very much aware that he is not infallible. For example, he states that he realized he still has a lot more to learn about demons [60-20, og], and he even admits that he doesn't always know what the right course of action to any given situation is, which was part of the reason he first asked MC to help him with protecting humanity all the way back in season 2 [38-19, og; first pic below]. In season 2 he actually wanted for MC to be aware of what's happening, but it was Diavolo that decided it would be better to keep them in the dark for the time being [36-18, og]. He trusts MC's judgment and that they will help him make the correct decisions [14-16, NB; second pic below]

Solomon tricked Asmodeus into a pact without his consent

Before I get into anything, let's summarize the base situation so everyone's on the same page. This is based on the things Asmo tells us [53-16, og], as well as the things Sol tells us [6-18, NB]:

Asmo was trying to flirt with someone but their friends kept on telling him to leave them alone since he's a demon -> Asmo's dejected by this and goes to a tavern in Solomon's hometown

Solomon notices and feels sorry for him; he offers to talk to him and they chat for a bit

Asmo lets it slip that he's Lucifer's younger brother

they get drunk and end up forming a pact -> Solomon says that he was only able to forge a pact with Asmo because his judgment was impaired at the time

Right of the bat--yes, the way Solomon got his pact with Asmo is not okay. I'm not putting that up for debate. He fully took advantage of Asmo here, and there's nothing that can excuse that. I also want to make it very clear that it is in no way my intention to relativize this in any way. The way he went about getting this pact is, to put it simply, fucked up and I do not wish to condone that in any way. With the following points I simply want to explain how I see things. Maybe it'll put things in a slightly different perspective for you, maybe it won't. Now, I hope I made that clear enough, so let's continue

The way I see it, Asmo seems to be pretty okay with the pact. From the way he acts around Solomon in the present day all the way to him describing his reaction to the pact as just a "did I really sign that" [53-16, og], nothing seems to suggest that he holds any ill feelings towards Solomon, and personally I don't see any reason to be angry for someone who himself seems to take no issue with a situation that is directly about him

If it were as upsetting to Asmodeus as some make it out to be, surely he would have found a way to get out of it? Asmo is one of the most powerful demons in the Devildom; if he truly wanted to break the pact he could have just killed Solomon and that's it. And if the pact itself somehow prevented him from doing so, I'm sure Lucifer would have more than gladly stepped in. Heck, I bet all of the brothers would have made it into a family thing in a heartbeat if Asmo wanted out but couldn't do anything himself. As Thirteen told MC, Solomon is immortal, not unkillable

But speaking of Lucifer, shouldn’t the same sentiment about forcing others into a pact be held toward him, too? Because he basically did the same thing with MC. This is what happens when you tell him you don’t want a pact with him [20-14, og; pic below]:

Yes, this comes down to player choice and yes, you need to make the pact for story continuity, but it ultimately does not change the fact that in-universe he forces MC into a pact if they say no

Also speaking of forcing others into a pact--Mammon and MC, anyone? Yes, MC did it because Levi asked them to so he could get his money back. We know they had no ill intentions. But you never know what the future holds and Levi literally proposed to basically hand over part of Mammon's agency over himself for the money Mammon owns him, to someone Levi has met about 5 minutes prior, knows nothing about and who's only been in the Devildom for a couple of hours at that point, no less. Lucifer also mentions that demons literally cannot resist temptation [4-10, og; pic below], so there literally was no way Mammon could have just noped out of that pact. We all know how badly he wants his credit card back, after all

To top it all of, we have MC's and Mammon's conversation in Nightbringer where Mammon explicitly says that he would only want to forge a pact with someone that is special to him [2-9, NB], and that he'd make sure to be their first pact [2-11, NB], yet he is forced into his pact with MC. A pact that ultimately turns out to be exactly what he wanted, but nonetheless he was stripped of the ability to say no when it was forged

And for the record, I'm not saying "oh, others did it too, so we shouldn't be so harsh on Solomon!!!" No! Forcing a demon into a pact isn't something that should be taken lightly. A pact literally means a demon hands a huge chunk of control of themself over to a human for as long as the pact exists. And on the other hand, for a human, making a pact with a demon usually means selling their soul. Neither party should EVER be forced into it. We of course don't know if MC actually sold their soul to Lucifer when they made their pact, but even if they didn't, Lucifer's "I won't belong to you. You will belong to me" speaks for itself

What I am trying to say here is that if you want to be mad at Solomon for forcing Asmo into a pact without Asmo's consent (which, again, is valid), you should also be mad at MC for forcing Mammon, and Lucifer for forcing MC into a pact

Anyway, back to Solomon now

Solomon actually admits that he used to treat demons like collectables--more or less, at least since he immediately follows the confession up with "just kidding" [14-14, NB]. Judging by what we've seen in the og game though, he seems to genuinely make an effort to better his relationship with the demons he has made a pact with, or at the very least with Asmo and Barbatos. I mean, the difference between Sol's relationship with Barbs in the og game vs in Nightbringer is night and day

In the present time, Asmo and Solomon are also super close. I literally cannot think of a single instance where they did not get along (though it might have happened like once or twice). You can literally pic any part in the og game to see their relationship play out, but some highlights include Solomon saying he got a huge oil painting of Asmodeus as his "permit" to summon Asmo across worlds [39-13, og] (which is not something you would allow someone you hate to do btw) and both of them mentioning that the two of them repeatedly hang out together in the human world [Proud Brothers, devilgram on Asmo's page, og], the hickey on Solomon's neck that's most likely Asmo's doing [Who Left the Hickey?, daily chat with Mammon, og]. Asmo (while drunk) is comfortable enough to tell Solomon that his cooking sucks and Solomon actually takes it to heart [47-16 hard mode, og]. Then there's Asmo's excitement at Solomon being in the Devildom for the first time [Proud Brothers, devilgram on Asmo's page, og; both of the pics below]

There's also that infamous chat pic of them doing face masks together (that I unfortunately don't know which chat it belongs to, so if someone could tell me, I'd appreciate it <3)

I don't know about you guys, but that's not typically an activity I do with someone I despise

So it's clear that current day Asmo holds no malice toward Solomon

Which, finally, leaves us with the way they forged their pact in Nightbringer

[mainly 7-12, NB & 7-15, NB]

@impish-ivy already went over it in this post, especially in the tags (I highly suggest checking out the reblogs as well btw), but to reiterate--Asmo was IN NO WAY forced into that pact. His brothers tried to talk him out of it, but at the end of the day Asmo willingly agreed to it. Yes, they were in a dangerous situation, and yes, Solomon used that as a basis to ask for the pact, but as ivy correctly points out in the tags, Lucifer could have easily handled the situation by himself, yet Asmo agreed regardless. By implying that Asmo was in any way, shape or form forced into that pact you're not only taking away a huge amount of his agency, but you also deny him his character moment and development that came with this scene. Asmo himself says that forging this pact will finally help him accept himself as a demon. Taking this moment from him is doing him a huge disservice

Aaaand that's pretty much all I have to say

If there's anything else you'd like to add, OR if there's anything you don't agree with, feel free to share! And once again, I'd like to remind everyone that civil and constructive discussions are more than welcomed on here!

Anyway, thank you all for reading, hope you have a great day! <3

[thana-topsy]

If you're up for sharing more writing tips, how can I tell if what I've written is actually any good? With writing I get stuck in a cycle of feeling like I'm the next Shakespeare while writing but then I'll look over my work a few days later and absolutely hate everything and think it's the most cringe shit ever, then I'll leave it a bit longer and think eh it's not as bad as I thought but still not great and so on. I feel like being forced to write for a grade during school and having everything be marked and assessed and assigned a particular value has robbed me of the ability to critically analyse my own work in a way that's objective and accurate but also fair and realistic. I can analyse other peoples' stuff till the cows come home but I lose all rational thought when it comes to my own stuff

Adding onto that, how do I get to the point where I can stop looking back at my old work and hating everything and wanting to delete it all? Realistically I know finding fault with my old stuff is good bc it means I've grown and improved from where I once was etc but at the same time I wanna enjoy stuff I've made in the past without cringing every time I read it

Hey there Nony, I wanted to let this one percolate a little bit before answering because I've been where you are. And it's a rough time for sure. But aside from my own experiences, I also wanted to get the opinions of some of my writerly friends in the fandom, too, since everyone is a little font of wisdom in their own right.

So I'm going to share their advice alongside my own, because this is kind of a complicated string of questions you're asking. Long post ahead!

@paraparadigm says to Keep Writing: "Write more. Write so much (and so many different things) that eventually the sheer volume bulldozes over self-devouring ego, comparison twitches, or feeling lost, because you don't yet know your own baseline. Coupled with "read more, read everything, read things you enjoy and things you don't, read for the craft as much as the entertainment." And: "I'd add that when revisiting old writing, it's helpful for me to differentiate between "ew the writing is not as technically solid as it is now" and "ah that's interesting, I guess that's where I was at then, emotionally and psychologically". Old writing is also a sort of archaeological record of your younger self, and that can, in fact, be a bit itchy to revisit, so learning to cherish that without passing judgement can be really helpful. I try to treat it like those little marks one puts on the door jamb to track a kid's height."

@mareenavee says "Part of it is writing more, as Para said and I will always second that. Another part is, honestly, the hardest part. It's to try very hard to get out of the habit of negative self-talk.... There's so much work involved with this but normalizing being proud of your work and having some grace with yourself is part of that answer."

@archangelsunited says "Early on, instead of going “this has to be a masterpiece” I would tell myself my only job was to tell a story. I couldn’t tell a story if I was deleting it. Also, talking about your work helps. The less ashamed I was of my writing, the more people wanted to read it. There is a need to hide your work, and that can lead to a downward spiral all its own. And, 90% of the time, you have to suck at something to learn to be good at something. The work you already wrote shouldn’t be the sum of all your skill, it should be one of those measuring sticks for the moment. Despite previous thought, you won’t be stuck at the same level forever."

@polypolymorph says "In addition to accumulating experience via reading and writing, you also have to be willing to reinvent the wheel. Unfortunately the Process™️ is unique to everyone, and even when you are deliberately mimicking a voice as, say, a ghost writer, you can't expect that 2+2=4 for you. Your process might look more like a Lotka-Volterra equation for the same type of work and that's okay. Trial and error is the best way to figure out what advice actually works for you--and if it doesn't, it doesn't mean you're wrong. Don't get stuck on pop writing advice like a sad roomba does on an upturned rug. Learn when to throw it out."

So there's some advice from some other excellent writers! I hope you've been able to find some value in their advice, because it certainly kicked me in the pants a few times.

As for me, I think, having been where you are, my biggest piece of advice is: Find joy in the craft. Get curious instead of critical. An artist shouldn't down themselves over a rough sketch when they're working out a drawing, so why would a writer do such a thing? Everything you write is practice. Everything you make has value because it builds up to the next thing you make.

At the end of the day, you are the only one who is capable of telling the stories that are in your head. This fact alone gives whatever you put onto paper value, regardless of quality. You are creating magic, in the most literal sense! Creating something out of nothing, conjuring images into someone else's mind from hundreds of thousands of miles away, transcending space and time. It's amazing!

Lastly, my final piece of advice is to just write for fun. Write things nobody else will ever see just because you wanted to get words onto paper. You have to unlearn what was drilled into you in school. You are more than a content creation machine. You are an artist, a wordsmith. And just know that there will never be a day when you look at your own work and say "That's it, I have achieved perfection."

Writing is a life-long journey. Just enjoy the ride!

[yesloulou]

hello, i am a big fan of your gifs & am teaching myself to make my own! just wondering - when you want to make a gif that is one column wide (540px for tumblr) how do you keep them looking so crisp? i find that im struggling with landscape videos because they are so wide, i'd like a more square shaped gif but it ends up as a rectangle. if i try to size it down to a square the quality is skewed 🙃 hopefully this makes sense! xx

anon im so honored here is a little Gif Sharpening Tutorial !!!

this is the first gif making question ive ever gotten so unfortunately this will also be the first time i try to verbalize these gif making stuff. if there are things i haven't explained clearly please do follow up (my dm is open too!!)

the thing with wide (3:2, 16:9) gifs is that you normally obtain this kind of ratio by shrinking the clip (1920px width and up) down to 540px without any cutting, which is about 1/4 of it's original width that you'd end up with, which means you're losing 3/4 of the pixels in it's width, which is a LOT of details lost in the process, which is why we can't sharpen wide gifs the same way we sharpen square/squarer gifs, and i feel like we should talk about these two scenarios separately. (with square gifs, assuming we're working with 1080p, we'll cut it from 1920x1080 to 1080x1080 or less, and then shrink it down to 540px. this way we'd only lose less than half of the pixels. it's a lot less details we're losing here. as a result it's more tolerating towards sharpening techniques)

ok this is where i take a pause and ask myself when tf did i get so technical about moving picture making on tumblr dot com... ok let's keep going...

Basic Sharpening

soo how i normally sharpen my gifs (which are more often on the squarer side) is based on this awesome gif tutorial, the idea here is that we smart sharpen our gifs first, which will inevitably result in pixelation (over sharpening) to some extent, so then we use a semi transparent gaussian blurred layer to repair these pixelation and hopefully make it smooth and sharp. in addition to following this tutorial you'll also want to play around w the parameters (radius, transparency, sharpening amount, etc) as there is no one size fits all.

after following these steps, if i want to smooth things out even more, i'll use a layer of denoise (see below for setting i normally go with). if i want things even sharper, I will add another small amount of sharpening (again, see below). these two methods can be used together. imo they are what make a gif go from "omg it's crisp" to "i feel like im looking at daniel ricciardo in person what the fuck". the two gifs i attached at the beginning can hopefully showcase the difference <3

2. Sharpening Wide/Landscape Gifs

ok, at this point you've imported a 1920x1080px footage into ps and made it into a timeline, you've resized it to 540p and if you're using the gif tutorial above, you'll start off your sharpening process by doing a 500% 0.4px smart sharpen. after the basic gif making steps, this is gonna be the result:

it's pretty sharp, but it doesn't look as good as the ones at the beginning of this post. in this part we'll attempt to minimize this difference as much as possible.

first we take a closer look at how 'radius' in photoshop's smart sharpen works. to my understanding, radius is the width at which photoshop recognize an edge as "an edge that needs sharpened". in this example, you'll see that at 0.4px, the edges stand out the most, but the gif is not as crisp/fine as that of 0.3px (since a 0.4px edge is thicker than a 0.3 px edge). a 0.4px radius for this gif is what i'd say is over sharpened. on the other hand, if we go further down to 0.2px, the image is basically left unsharpened bc photoshop failed to recognize most of the edges this image contains (as they're mostly 0.3px and up)

so in the next step, we set the initial smart sharpen radius to 0.3px instead of 0.4px:

which is much better. but still doesn't solve the loss of detail problem as it's still pretty far away from top left. so then what i would do is that, when shrinking the image down from 1920px, i don't go to 540px directly. i will instead go to 1080px or 720px first, sharpen as i normally do to preserve as much detail as possible, then further downsize to 540px, and then add a small amount of sharpening to finish off. it'll look something like this:

720px w/ regular sharpening ⬇️

resize to 540px ⬇️

smart sharpen, amount: 90%, radius: 0.9px ⬇️

which will be the end result!!

this gives us way finer edges than what we started with (500% 0.4px) let me actually insert that one again ⬇️

however... (this is gonna be the last part i swear). even tho this is how i would do a 540px wide landscape gif, i feel like with 16:9 or similar ratio gifs, tumblr gif size limit is rarely a concern so why not leave the gifs at 720p so there isn't even additional detail loss to begin with. ik every gif tutorial is likely telling you to resize to 540p but, in a lot of the cases the less extremely you shrink down an image, the less detail you lose, the better it's gonna look on the screen. here is a comparison between the 720px gif (top) and the 540px gif (bottom) we ended up with where the 720px one looks a lot nicer (esp around the curls)

to sum up! with larger ratio/wide gifs, if the original video is of nice quality, i would stick to large sizes (720px and up) as much as i can. if that's not doable, i will sharpen the gifs at a larger size before shrinking it down to 540px so the details are better preserved.

---

Hope this is helpful! again ty for this ask and my ask box and dm are always open <3

[messrsbyler]

Hello!! what do you think about the tag those days? do you have a fav blog? who do you think is saving the tag from dying with posts and theories?

i think the tag is slowly dying tbh and it's sad to see? the reality is that for the past year or so the tag has been kept alive (from what i've seen and my personal experience here) because of art/fic creators and analysis blogs. however, it's been a year since s4 dropped and as i've seen some people around the tag say, everything that could've been analysed or said about byler in the last season or all seasons has already been said. now, i personally LOVE doing analysis even to this day, doesn't matter if i'm probably repeating something someone else spotted and blogged about two months ago. it's fun to make those posts, but we can't ignore that they are becoming repetitive and that side of the tag is burning out. because of that, things like fics/art/headcanons/ficlets/aus are so important now.

we don't have to run out of content to enjoy in our tag, but people should be willing to step outside their comfort zone and accept that canon is limited to what can he done and said about byler. aus however open new doors that this tag hasn't really explored yet, and for some reason there's a bit of resistance? and that leads us to a dead end because then there's no new not repetitive content and the tag starts dying even with its huge following.

another issue is definitely the lack of rb in the tag. i can jump on any post in the byler tag and check the notes and i know the ratio between likes and rbs will be ridiculous. ofc i can't force anyone to rb if they don't want to, but liking a post and not rb kills a post bc it stops reaching new people who will then engage with said post and then it will reach even more blogs. liking does nothing, it's a dummy button.

rb not only allows a post to stay alive, it's also a great opportunity to create conversations in the tags and engage with other people on this side of the internet. and well if you aren't into that or don't like to add tags to every rb, a simple rb still does much more than a like.

i have many fav blogs and i'll probably forget some, but from the top of my head i have @andiwriteordie (writer and au lover) @foodiewithdahoodie (amazing takes and headcanons) @astrobei (writer and artist) @wiseatom (amazing writer) @doriandrifting (analysis and amazing takes) @emblazons (amazing takes and gifs) @mayahawkins (one of the best gif creators in the tag) @perexcri (amazing writer) @likegoldintheair (amazing writer and amazing headcanons/ficlets) @elekinetic (amazing writer and amazing scripts) @kidovna (beautiful art and aus and comics) @noodles-and-tea (art art art i am obsessed) @nnilkyway (again beautiful art) @strangeswift (writer and a fun blog to check out) and many more that i'm probably forgetting right this moment.

if you (anyone who is reading this) have a blog rec pls lmk!!! i'm always looking for new byler content!!

(if you have stonathan blogs recs uh also lmk i need more stonathans on my dashboard thanks)

[renstears]

Nightbringer theories (Obey Me; SPOILERS!)

Alrighty so I decided to play Nightbringer after being scared of it for the past few weeks; so far, I have some questions and theories in mind. I’m still on Lesson 8 so I’m not sure if most of my theories here are gonna be right or just straight up wrong.

Questions & Theories:

- Since Solomon came with us to the past (or more like came to the past to come aid for our ass), wouldn’t there be a chance the Solomon from THAT timeline/past meet the present Solomon we know of? Wouldn’t this create a whole time paradox….?

- Lilith’s body got disappeared by Diavolo so that she can get reincarnated as a human; would there be a chance we get to see her reincarnated form at least if we don’t see her angel form? Also, reminder that Lucifer is the only brother who knows she got reincarnated, so most likely the other 6 brothers will have a huge fucking melt down like last time in the previous Obey Me game.

- When the game first started, we hear Solomon narrating a bit about Barbatos and this human Barbatos went to. Solomon used they/them pronouns for the human, at first, I thought it might be us/MC—but then it occurred to me, why would the devs only now reveal our/MC’s appearance and the timeline that Barbatos met this human must’ve been a very very long time. Either 1. They used they/them pronouns for the human to keep their identity hidden until revealed later on 2. The human is either one of our ancestors/related to Lilith’s reincarnated form or 3. This human might be a Biblical figure from the Bible; if you go to the official Obey Me Instagram; they illustrated Barbatos controlling a puppet that looks like a king (some speculated the king is David as he is the father of Solomon).

- In another illustration made by the official Obey Me cast on Instagram, it shows Diavolo gesturing to a red apple. Either this is indicating he was the one that lured Eve to eat the apple and regretted that decision which is the reason why he decided to improve his behaviors later in life.

- Man when I heard Raphael’s voice during Asmo’s arc I thought it was Adam, but nvm, it wasn’t. We may see Adam in the story though, like I mentioned in one of my previous posts, Adam was Lilith’s ex husband, so I don’t doubt that the devs would add an element of it to the story.

- There isn’t much information about Barbatos in demonology and from mythologies, but it's ironic that from said mythologies, Barbatos has the ability to reconcile arguments between friends/rulers but he seems to have this heavy dislike towards Solomon and refuses to speak about it. I seriously wonder what Solomon did bc this man fucking forgot what he even did to the butler.

- While I was doing research on Barbatos, I stumbled upon this (credits to Myths and Folklore wiki editors!) according to the The Infernal Dictionary (a book of demonology). This is stated about Barbatos:

"Barbatos, great and powerful demon, count-duke in the underworld, a type of Robin Hood; he is shown in the form of an archer or a hunter; He is found in forests. Four kings sound the horn in front of him. He's acquired the knowledge to divine the speaking of birds, the roar of bulls, dogs barking and screaming various animals. He knows the locations of buried treasures, say magicians. He reconciles quarreled friends. This demon, who was once of the order of Virtues of Heaven or that of dominions, is reduced today to commanding thirty hellish legions. He knows the past and the future."

I personally don't think in the game, Barbatos is an angel (or maybe he is an angel but man's disappeared for so long everyone forgot him and my guy turned into a demon afterwards/hj). It'll be interesting to see his lore and how the devs wrote his backstory. In mythologies, he's illustrated looking like Robin Hood, so maybe Barbatos (in the game) went to the human to give them justice??? Take my theories with a pinch of salt.

And that's all I can think of, I'll make more theories as I continue playing in my free time.

[tumblezwei]

I'm gonna make a kind of pretentious rant rn bc I saw a post I didn't like so bear with me

So like, there's this post I saw. it starts out with "finally figured out exactly what it is about the 'stop complaining about the lack of women in shonen anime, if you want stories with strong and interesting female characters shojo is right there' argument that bothers me so much" and then it says this

I'll be honest, the biggest annoyance here is calling shoujo and shounen "genres." And to me that just shows that even though OP seems to get the actual intention behind the above statement, they still have some fundamental biases against shoujo that makes them think all it has to offer is "girl stuff."

Like, look at the comparisons they give. Princess Tutu and Madoka (which isn't even confirmed a shoujo) vs Naruto and MHA. Ask literally any shoujo fan for a rec that compares to Naruto and I can guarantee you neither of those above will be the first to cross their minds. Because surprise surprise! Shoujo does, in fact, contain as much deep, complex, and interesting stuff as shounen! And that even includes action! I can give you so many examples of a shoujo being mistaken for a shounen (cough Banana Fish cough) or a shounen mistaken for a shoujo (cough Horimiya cough) because demographics are not defined borders. You can't just say that of course someone who likes action/adventure won't like the Girl Stuff. It's a reductive view of what female-centered media can be in and of itself.

But like, I get it. As someone who also grew up with traditionally masculine interests, it can be annoying to hear people say that you should try the Girl things for Girls. But I'm gonna be real here, you just straight up aren't going to get good female representation in your traditionally masculine interests unless you also show support for the traditionally feminine. Which leads into this addition to that post:

Like that's the thing about this. It's all well and good to say that boys deserve good female characters. They absolutely do and we should continue to advocate for such, but that sentiment rings so hollow when those good female characters already exist and y'all just don't want to touch them. I get that you don't want good rep for some random series, you want it for Naruto, for One Piece, for Demon Slayer. But I am stressing so much that the reason shoujo fans are so insistent that you try these other series out is because that's how you show that you want it.

Because again, it's perfectly acceptable to clamor for good rep in the series you already love, but by consuming nothing but shows/manga made for men, by men, with majority male casts, you are telling them that that's what you want.

A caveat: I'm not pointing at you the reader or OP specifically and saying "it's YOUR 🫵 fault shounen has poorly written women because you haven't read Fruits Basket," because it's obviously more complicated than just pure numbers. But it's frustrating to see people plead for y'all to diversify your reading portfolio only to get met with the brick wall non-solution of "well boys deserve good female characters too you know!!"

Like yeah! They do! We never said they didn't! But all saying that has done is plop us right back to where we started. What am I supposed to do with that? What am I supposed to do with any of this? As great as it would be for MHA to suddenly start treating it's female characters better, we both know that isn't happening. You gave us a problem and we're trying to offer a solution. So why are we the bad guys here just because you have preconceived notions of what shoujo is like compared to shounen?

And to add another caveat, it's ok to not like shoujosei stories people recommend! You don't have to like Basara or Yona or OHSHC or any other that you may have tried and dropped. I don't want it to sound like I'm guilt tripping people into being ashamed for not enjoying stuff they don't enjoy, but 9 times out of 10 the people pushing back with that kind of attitude haven't even tried. How do you even know you won't like the series we recommend if you don't even care enough to know that they aren't all one genre?

And I guess that's it. Like, at the end of the day you can do whatever you want, I just wanted to put my frustrations out there. Which is why I screenshotted this instead of rbing OP. I'm sure they want a lengthy argument just as much as I do (not at all).

[chevvy-yates]

WIP WEDNESDAY

Decided it is time for another update so here's a longer post to what I've been up to and stuff that circles around in my head lately.

tagging:

@medtech-mara, @imaginarycyberpunk2023, @itzsassha, @humberg, @kittenchrissy, @rosapexa, @cinnamon-mey, @heywoodvirgin, @dreamskug, @drunkchasind, and everyone who sees and wants to do as well.

No pressure as always!

—

1. CHARACTERS & LORE

Let's begin with sth. first I have on my mind for a while: As this fandom (sadly) seems to fall more and more apart, I would like to know if there are still people interested in reading actual lore content or not. As some of you know my dear friend @nervouswizardcycle and I are continously building up some sort of our own expansion after the main game events with rp/fic, character builds, backstory lore and support by vp and it eats a lot of time. The lack of interactions on tblr during the last few months and in several discord servers has led to me not posting a lot anymore either (beside my mental exhaustion phases that come and go). It seems more active again though, as majority already played Phantom Liberty by now or are right into it, so they slowly come back bc they presumably avoided spoilers. —————— So, here is me wondering how many following my blog are 'really' interested to see me sharing all lore of the boys (including story parts) or does the majority prefer just to see pretty pics and that's it? —————— (I've wanted to add a poll here but it doesn't let me save my post so I might do it in a seperate one a bit later) I know: it's my blog, I post what I like in the first place, and I'll likely continue that way but somehow I would like to know if it's worth the effort of formating and thinking about how the posts could look or if I can take that time to do something else with it instead if there's less interest. So, I would just keep it in my tiny discord server I share with my rp partner(s)/in private chats with those interested bc it's gotten to be a lot and we are still at the very start it feels.

2. SKILLS, CYBERWARE & HUMANITY LOSS

As I'm the type that can't have ocs with no background/lore, I sat down the other day and did a build for each with their skills, wrote down what chrome everyone got (incl. additional c-ware from the lore books plus I'm reading e.g. into what programs my runner twins are likely to make use of). It went this far that my friend used the amount of the game's 'cyberware capacity' as 'humanity loss'. It is used in the lore books/ttrpg anyways. So I've counted all my boys possible capacity* and use it as humanity loss (HL) now which led me to thinking about which one of my ocs goes to get treatment and how often they go to see a MedTech on regular base. I thought I could give them a certain minus amount to reduce the HL for each depending on how much or less c-ware they got — e.g. Thyjs as soldier has most (but all is good Militech chrome) and used to go and still goes regularly so his HL gets a huge reduce — whereas Ryder's gets always nulled no matter how often he gets threatment, because BEAST (rogue AI) eats it away each time (to understand that in full you probably have to know the story). Ry must have most HL loss as he often walks along the edge towards cyberpsychosis, so I'm forced to reduce Thyjs' with most c-ware installed a huge amount. And that's how I made it now. It's probably far away from canon ttrpg as my 'canon cp world' consists of 75% game, 20% lorebooks and 5% own added ideas I haven't seen on the lore yet. And I like it that way I gotta say. On a little side note: It also had me thinking about creating a new support character for the team that could be in fact a MedTech. But I won't do that anytime soon.

* some things might still change as I slowly started playing their playthroughs and skill them for real now. I love each build so far because it's a whole different experience! And playing someone with noe netrunning ability is hell as I was only usedto paly netrunner before.

3. FIC SNIPPET TIME

I decided to give you an insight of what I've roughly written yesterday about Ryder and Thyjs having a talk about how they feel for each other:

“Ik ben eerlijk. I liked that accidental kiss we shared a-and i-ik find je leuk, Ry. Probably more as— a friend is supposed to do.” De Wit instantly starts feeling nauseous and something tightens around his stomach but he needs to get it off of his heavy feeling soul. “I-I guess I have stronger feelings for you than I had expected and it’s confusing me.” He frowns, “It’s not usual for me. Never felt any kind of such an attraction towards other men. I-It’s just you— I think I might be into you, Ryder.” The last sentences came in a mere murmur than spoken and Ryder’s name was only a light whisper. Thyjs didn’t dare to look to his left. He feared he would lose his new gained friend now because he said his stupid thoughts aloud. Instead he continues staring at the distant horizon feeling the lump in his throat only getting heavier. The sun was already half arisen and the sky was painted in a bright orange and yellow fading out into never ending blue. After de Wit seems to have finally finished his long talk, Ryder realizes the pack has fallen out of his hands. He needed to repeat in his mind what Thyjs just told him. Did the man really pour out his heart to him at this very moment? He couldn’t believe it at first. The pale soldier he obviously secretly fell for just told him he was having feelings for him that reach further than friendship? It took him what seemed like an eternity to get out of his frozen state. Ry moves up into a straighter position, still supporting his body with his right forearm, turning more towards Thyjs, who is still watching the rising sun with a rather sad look on his face blinking every once in a while. Eventually Scharfenberg brings up his left hand to reach for the older man’s face and de Wit suddenly feels two fingers under his chin making him look at the younger man again. He sees a tiny smile on those dark lips he caught himself looking at so many times in utter secrecy. That tiny smile that’s usually the base for a brighter even more heartwarming smile baring dangerous fangs who make the man look frightening, but smiling like that? Thyjs often caught himself thinking Ry looked cute with these fangs as well. Ry sees Thyjs’ confusion as his eyes look questioning right back at him. So Ry better says something now. “I-Ich äh—” he clears his throat, “—I don’t know where to start. How to talk feelings in the first place.” Letting Thyjs talk himself off seemed to be right for Ryder and it was worth it, because he thinks it’s the most earnest confession someone has ever made to him, yet he doesn’t know how to answer to all this best. So he decides to place himself into a sitting position, to look the soldier boy straight into the eyes. His gaze gets distracted by Thy’s slightly opened lips for a split second. It is the same situation as earlier downstairs, only that Ry has his fingers still under de Wit’s chin and starts to lead his face towards the other man. Just a few inches are left between them and Thyjs can feel the younger man’s warm breath on his skin. He also has this incredible sight at those beautiful male black eyelashes again the very moment they cast down and then he feels those same lips from before on his own with such a soft pressure that again he closes his eyes in an instant and starts to revel in that same electricity running through him but also the revenant paralyze surrounding him again.

It is just a brief kiss, similar to the one in the apartment downstairs but shyer in its move. As soon as it happened it ended. Ryder opens his eyes afterwards immediately because he fears somehow the man in front of him would get up, step back and turn away but instead he still feels his chin pressed softly against his fingers. It casts another tiny smile onto Ryder’s face as his now racing heart skips a beat or two, seeing that Thyjs didn’t make a move nor a sound. His eyes open now as well and Ry swears he’s never seen heterochromia looking so soft but also surprised at the same time at him like Thyjs does right now. He waits for a reaction but Thyjs just keeps looking at him, lips parting shortly just to close again. “What? — Did that make you that speechless now?” Ry asks with nearly the same surprisement. Thyjs lets out a heavy breath and nods, eyes totally lost looking at him which lets Scharfenberg put on a warm smile. “Want to— try again?” Thyjs swallows his unspoken words that gathered in his throat he couldn’t speak aloud and nods again. Heavier, his lips turning into a smile as well and his eyes are suddenly filled with happiness and relief, like he’s telling Ryder that he cannot wait to have their lips meeting once more and to feel that intense buzz from before as it spreads through his entire body like when he’s powering up electricity. This feeling right now? It’s strong and sends an entirely new sensation through him. Is dat het gevoel van vlinders in je buik? He wonders but doesn’t get much more time to think about it because Ryder choses to lean in for a second time.

It can and probably will be rewritten or changed but I definitely want to have it this way! Thjys starts talking and talking almost doing a monologue instead of a dialogue until he comes to the final point and Ryder wants to respond with words but doesn't know how to (he may find them a bit later) and just does what's best: kiss this soldier. I'll max out this kissing scene for a lot more pages just because I can.

I love the idea of Thyjs as war machine being totally romantic and getting super takative when alone with Ryder. And Ryder definitely is a soft romatic boy, alsways was bu Beast made his life harder to show this side more but Thyjs gets to see it also in private.

4. VP

Since I do more 'actual play the game' now even though I have installed most of all mods back, I rarely do pics atm. If I do, they are just rather nice pics where I try to use the ingame light rather than to spawn spot lights. here's a preview of what comes next:

I have so many ideas I want to put into reality. Especially pics that underline the rp/fic chapters mentioned above. But I'm not going to force myself. I'll see what I can realize for the rest of the year and what gets to be stamped as a New Year's resolution. I'll probably focus on a few blorbo pics this weekend because Ryder's birthday is around the corner (31st October) and Jay's boyfriend Enzolino has just a day prior. So if I can manage, I'll do that in the first place.

Thanks for reading! <3

[lyriumlullaby-ao3]

okay hi friends, i’m home from school and i have just enough brain power to talk about

Mythal and the creation of the Blight ✨

those of you who’ve been reading my meta lately may recall that i said i had theories about this. we’re gonna dive into them now :)

if you’ve never taken Solas to the Temple of Mythal, you need to—it opens up SO much dialogue, including a discussion of the TONS of statues and representations of the Dread Wolf inside the temple. I'm not going to go super in depth about that content here, i'm saving it for another post, but the important thing to note here is that depictions of the Dread Wolf are literally EVERYWHERE in there. i haven't counted, but i'd be willing to bet there's more imagery of him than any other 'god' besides Mythal herself.

and in the game's epilogue scene and Trespasser, we get a taste of Solas'/the Dread Wolf's relationship to Mythal. It's a bit obscured as to the nature of that relationship (again, stuff for a different post!), but they're obviously quite close, with warm (if complex) feelings towards one another.

for those who haven’t read Tevinter Nights (one, you should if you get the chance, it’s fantastic), there’s a short story contained within called "Dread Wolf Take You" written by our very fave, Patrick Weekes. now, i’m not gonna spoil anything there, but there's some important discussion of the red lyrium idol found in the deep roads during DA2. here’s what it looks like, in detail, for those who’ve forgotten:

[source]

In that same short story, this idol is described as "two lovers [embracing], or a god mourning her sacrifice." there is also a point in that piece where it comes out that Solas considers this idol to be “his.” okay... why?

i think it's because it depicts himself and Mythal. not a stretch with the imagery, right? and i'm not inclined to think they were lovers, at least not anymore. they might have been, but if so, it wasn't the core aspect of their relationship in my eyes. i'll explore that in more detail later on in another post as well. so this leads me to the consideration of 'a god mourning her sacrifice.' (and this, only because i'm inclined to follow the breadcrumbs given us by bioware, especially Patrick Weekes. they're good at weaving stories, as has been pointed out by other users talking about their discussion of what a good story twist is. god i CANNOT find the post?? pls if you see it send it my way bc i feel bad for mentioning it but not linking it.)

in the Temple of Mythal, we learn from Abelas that Mythal was killed, "murdered," as he describes it, and this is confirmed by Solas in Trespasser. Solas says the other gods killed her. now, i'm uncertain about whether this is literal or a metaphor, but i don't think it much matters. i'll explore both views as i keep analyzing and you can decide for yourself.

so here's what i think: i've mentioned before that i believe the Blight to be a biological weapon created by the Evanuris during their war with the Titans. it was specifically created to infect Titans and corrupt/destroy them. this is why we end up with lyrium that has the blight, red lyrium. and here's where we get into the part that's still a bit fuzzy to me. i'm going to lay out a few possible scenarios, but there are certainly more, so if you see something i've missed, please do add on!! i'm going to offer these in the order of what i think is least to most likely.

scenario one: the Evanuris (possibly lead by Elgar'nan, although that's not really important,) create a horrible biological weapon that will infect the physical world, but leave the spiritual untouched. there is no Veil yet at this point in time, so this is an aspect of its engineering, not a feature of the world's structure. they need a blood sacrifice to complete its construction, the sacrifice of a living being (or beings) to finish it and send it off to destroy the world. they decide on Mythal, storm her temple, and murder her to complete the weapon. (this would follow with a few of the things Abelas says at the Well of Sorrows: "[Mythal] was slain, if a god truly can be. Betrayed by those who destroyed this temple.") Solas casts the Veil to prevent the Blight's release, sealing the Evanuris away and locking whatever 'warhead' the Blight is contained within in "the Golden City," which i believe was Arlathan, behind the Veil. this warhead then corrupts the city, blackening it, and accounting for what Corypheus describes when he and the other Magisters Sidereal breach the Veil and enter this supposedly "Golden City" only to find it tainted and empty.

scenario two: where everything is the same, except the Evanuris plan to sacrifice many lives, likely those of slaves, and Mythal instead intervenes. there is a legend told of a time when Elgar'nan and Falon'Din were going to war over some argument, and Mythal interceded, suggesting they resolve the conflict with a single champion each, rather than sending their many soldiers to their deaths. They did so, and thus Mythal saved the lives of untold thousands. What if she did the same here? What if she offered to die for the cause instead of sending an untold number of slaves to their deaths? Perhaps there was something about her form, her body, her power, that made her blood more potent and thus other sacrifices were unneeded? i like this one slightly more than the first, because of the way Weekes describes the red lyrium idol as an image of Mythal's sacrifice. But this still leaves us without a way to account for the destruction of her temple, if she went willingly. which leads me to...

scenario three: my personal favorite theory. the Evanuris create this weapon, despite protests from Mythal, and are prepared to kill her to get their way if they must. Elgar'nan is notoriously ruthless in this way, and if he was indeed the ring leader, as i suspect he was, this is very plausible to me. completing the weapon may or may not have required a blood sacrifice all the same--if it didn't, no problem, but if it did, perhaps the sacrifice of many slaves was still the plan. this matters little to this scenario, as you'll see in a moment. Mythal goes to Solas, a trusted friend, a favored companion, however you see their relationship. (i'll get to that in my next meta, i promise, so no spoilers on what i think!!) She knows of a way to stop them, and she knows it requires blood magic, a life sacrificed. She would never ask another to die for something like this, and so she offers herself. Solas is horrified, but knows she is right, and that this is the only way. Mythal kills herself, and Solas uses the power of her blood to cast the Veil, separating the world of spirits from the physical world. the Evanuris breach Mythal's temple in search of her, and, finding it empty, desecrate and destroy it, until they find themselves caught in the wake of the Veil coming down. i like this theory best because it accounts for all the pieces: Weekes' use of the term "sacrifice" for Mythal, Abelas' description of Mythal's death (mostly, if we take the term "murder" metaphorically, in that she was forced into a situation by others where she had to die against her will), and Solas' attitudes towards blood magic. recall that he says it's a tool like any other, and when it's used to gain power, that's wrong, but it need not always be evil. and note that he says he's never bothered to learn it (possibly a lie, he tells many of those) because it makes it harder to access the Fade. now, to the matter of if the blood sacrifice was still needed to release the weapon... maybe it was. and if so, perhaps that's part of how the Magisters Sidereal unintentionally released it upon the world, as they were said to have sacrificed "slaves beyond counting" (Canticle of Silence 2:2) in order to breach the Fade. So either way, it seems the sacrifice requirement was fulfilled.

in all of these scenarios, it's worth pointing out that the Evanuris, if they're smart (which, don't they have to be at least a little, to get to where they are?), must have some way to separate their spiritual selves from their physical forms in order to avoid the Blight when it is unleashed. I have more to say about this, but it's better left to my next post. :) so for now, just stay tuned on that, but the point here is, if they have done so in preparation for the release of the weapon, wouldn't that make it awfully easy and convenient to seal them away from the physical world entirely?

so, with all that said, stuff that still needs exploring in future meta:

Solas' nature. A spirit? A demon? A god? Just some fucking guy trying to do the right thing? I'll talk about this next time. :)

Solas' and Mythal's relationship! Also something that will go in my next meta post.

writing this also gave me ideas about the Evanuris and the Old Gods that i'm going to talk more about. i'm pretty sure i made a post especially about this already? and if so perhaps i'll rewrite it, but it may have been an addition on someone else's post, in which case i'm going to make my own!

plus a few other assorted things featuring Cullen, Cole, and dwarves! (not all at once. sorry lol)

in summary, the Blight's a biological weapon, and that's why Mythal died/was murdered and Solas cast the Veil and sundered the world. <3

[justanisabelakinnie]

What characters do you headcanon as lesbians? Not just for Encanto, but all your fandoms!

I'm glad you asked me, friend!

Hmm...let's see...there's Isabela and Luisa in this fandom, we all know that already.

But besides them, my favorite lesbian headcanon would have to be Ty Lee from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Each of her interactions with boys just screams comphet, especially the nameless bums on the beach! And she has much better chemistry with Azula and Mai, and--look, regardless of what you think of either the Tyzula or Mailee ship(I am okay with both), you gotta admit that Ty Lee having feelings for either of the two ladies is infinitely more believable than her having feelings for a boy. Especially since she reminds me very strongly of myself: we are both bubbly, girly, pink-loving, and friendly with people we are close to, and often dismissed and not taken seriously, yet tougher and cleverer than we look. Her interactions with both genders reminds me of my own struggle with comphet and grapple to come to terms with my lesbian identity, it all reads as incredibly lesbian to me, to the point where I feel uncomfortable(if not personally attacked) when I see her in m/f ships. And with how widespread femme erasure is, Ty Lee being a proud femme lesbian would be awesome rep to have! but the show's over so 😥 but oh well, I can still have it as a hc, it gives me comfort all the same!

From the same fandom is Azula. For much of the same reasons as Ty Lee, except her comphet would be even stronger. but once she gets over it and undergoes a redemption arc I can see her and Ty Lee being an incredibly loving power couple together lol.

Anyway, I also hc Misa Amane as a lesbian, a hc which is only strengthened by this post.

I also hc Sonia Nevermind and Chiaki Nanami from Danganronpa as lesbians bc I ship them and they're way too pretty and femme to get with boys hahahahhahahha~!

Also, Queen Elsa, obvi!

Also from Disney, Charlotte la Bouff definitely had a thing for Tiana and only thought she wanted the prince because it's a "required" part of the fairytale dream and I will not be convinced otherwise. In the sequel it will turn out that Naveen has a pretty sister or female cousin whom Charlotte will marry so that she and Tiana can be sisters/cousins-in-law and both have their princess dreams!!!

And for live-action movies there's Regina George from Mean Girls(this one doesn't even need explaining, it's literally the same as miss pyromaniac princess above but without the abusive dad lol), Jennifer Check from Jennifer's Body.

All the Vocaloid girls minus a select few are lesbians because I say so.

Also from the mha fandom: Mina/Jirou/Tsuyu are a poly lesbian couple, perhaps a qpr since Mina is canonically cupioromantic and I'd hate to take that away from her.

And finally, Annabeth Chase.

I think that's it for now, I def have more that I can't remember bc it's too much to add here lol. Maybe I'll put them in another post for my lesbian/sapphic ships in general.

Anyway thanks for asking because I love to ramble about my lesbian ships/hcs/stories and ideas! Take care!

[schizowitchic]

re: the last post i reblogged i am now going to rant about biphobia i have experienced and am experiencing! yay /s

(under a cut bc this got way too long)

so in secondary school i was in a friend group full of queer people, majority of whom were bisexual girls (at the time. a couple are now nonbinary / asexual) . and they were very big on the whole "bisexual culture is liking every woman and 2 men" thing, a lot of "ew men" jokes, and all in all general "liking women is better than liking men" "why am i dating a gross icky man i should be with a woman".

now i am more attracted to men than women, not by much, its typically fairly equal, but i definitely have a leaning towards men. and i repressed that for AGES. because it simply was "frowned upon", so to speak, from almost everyone i was close with

(for further context for the rest of this. i am not out as genderfluid. i use she/her pronouns irl and ppl know me as a cis woman. i am not really out as aromantic, when i identified as aroace i did tell a few people but i think they either completely ignored me or forgot. lol.)

nowadays, i tell my friends i am bisexual. one in particular always seems to forget, constantly calling me gay/lesbian, assuming i have no opinion or that my opinion will be "ew no" when she asks if i find a man she likes hot. (she has told me so many times "why am i asking you this you don't even like men". i have told her i am bisexual several times) (she also thinks it's funny to call me & another friend "f-slurs" . she says that not the actual word but still. i have to find it funny bc she gets so defensive if we imply she's homophobic)

(i do call myself gay bc i consider none of my attraction ever to be straight. i have no major issues with being called a lesbian apart from the fact that. yknow. im not a lesbian and have never identified as such)

i made a post a while back saying something like "help im being biseuxal erasured". because i am!! i am stuck in yet another situation with people who are either mainly attracted to women/only attracted to women/don't often talk about their attraction to me & also two cishet girls who are attracted to men in a very different way than i am (one of whom erases the fact i am attracted to men and the other who i don't like and probably assumes i'm a lesbian bc of how often everyone else says that)

also full of "ew men" jokes!!. might i add.

i literally have no space to talk about the way i experience attraction, i have to water it down and pretend i only like women, pretend i am interested in romance, pretend i feel attraction when the occasioanll bout of extreme sex-repulsion hits, take (albeit censored) homophobic slurs, sex jokes about me & another female friend that are getting uncomfortable.

and pretend like the main perpretatror of this isn't being at all queerphobic. (she also has massive racism and antisemitism issues. although my friend did throw basically a whole book at her face when she made a really bad joke). to the point where i no longer consider her a friend but i can't say that bc then im overreacting and i'll get the same bullying ostracisation treatment & my friends are still gonna hang out w her so i can't avoid it

people wonder why i am aplatonic when throughout friendships i have experienced: making fun of me to my face & behind my back, bullying, homophobia, biphobia, aphobia, ableism .

like what the fuck. im sick and fucking tired of having nowhere safe to express my sexuality bc let's be real, the internet often isn't the best space.

ive made my peace with either having to compromise my aromanticism or my allosexuality irl (ie either be out as bisexual or out as aroace) but apparently i can't even freely be bisexual without people making assumptions and at this point im just waiting it out until i can hit restart and try make new friends

[glitchingpixel]

So since there was a bit of interest going around, i thought i should finally bring this to the world and share about it. Soooo....

What is CGG?

Cgg stands for college greek god. The name for this au is still a wip bc this was during school time and i just needed a quick name to call it jfuieujdjd. This au is basically a slice of life au, following the sextuplets in a bunch of goofy (or even angsty)  college situations 👀(yes, they're actually in college here dndjsj). 

Now, I know the name can be a lil confusing. But no, the bois aren't born as gods. They are not reincarnations. And they are not possessed. They're just their normal selves along with everyone else. It isn't until a field trip to a museum in their elementary school days that their, and so many other people's, lives have changed. An artifact they were exposed to somehow caused them to embody divine beings. But they don't know it happened. One day, something triggers the being to "wake up" inside of a person and now this person has special abilities, along with some characteristics, instincts, and even a sense of memories from the being that now sorta resides in them. Whoever has been affected can have a god, goddess, nymph, titan, etc in them now (i don't know if i will add monsters to this). The bois have 2 gods each (I'll explain later as to why). Being gods, these new consciouses have a big influence on the bois, probably leading them to make choices they never would've faced on their own. But really, everyone who has been affected is just trying to live their lives like everyone else. It's their choice to keep trying to fit in or not.

Like I said before, each Matsuno brother has 2 gods residing in them. That is because there are a few canon Greek god aus, but the gods the bois represent are not always the same. There are a couple I had to choose myself, but this is all mostly guided from canon aus and art. If a person was affected they can have 1-2 beings in them

This au is originally intended as a friend au. All the Matsuno's are already paired with a sona belonging to my friends. I'm not saying that your sona/oc can't join in and be paired with a Matsuno or interact with them in any way, I just ask to respect that this au was and is ORIGINALLY for my group of friends to enjoy. They also help me with a few ideas to make this au better and more fun fjekfkdk

Another thing i hope that you respect is that there is NO PROSHIPPING and NO NONCON/DUBCON in this au. Yes, i know Greek mythology gets a little.....much, but I don't want that anywhere in my au. So don't make the excuse that since 2 gods were lovers before, that's an excuse to bring in blmatsu or whatever else. Im pretty chill when it comes to that stuff, not saying anything and moving on, never looking at that sort of content again. But if i see that anywhere on my dash with my au, i WILL block you. This is your ONLY warning. This au is to have fun and for it's og and future enjoyers to be comfortable

If you have any questions about this au, like about the bois or their situation, what gods they have, what woke them up etc. don't be scared to ask!✨ This post is mainly to inform the insp and the premise of the au. I have no idea if i will make a sideblog for this. Maybe if there's enough interest in it.

I hope you all enjoy the shenanigans that will happen :3

And a special thanks to @/matsu-ball-soup for always being there for my infodumps, ramblings, and supporting my indulgences kfkfkfk (/ω＼)

[beautifulpersonpeach]

BPP, I've been following you for some years now. On your old blog before the Ricin incident happened and now on your new blog here. I'm lurker who appreciates the context and history you provide about fandom behavior and how BTS fits within kpop. Though I'm a Stay and multi, your arguments about kpop fans reactions to BTS and Armys counter reactions to kpop fans and the industry always looked reasonable /consistent to me.

But to make sure I don't stay in an echo chamber, I follow other bloggers with opposing views. There are some bloggers who are very critical of Army, BTS, Hybe, and especially RM/Namjoon, constantly complaining about the music and the fandom, so it is obvious their bias plays a role in their analysis and discourse. Which is another thing I remember you saying about what makes up 'discourse' in kpop. Some of those bloggers like Jimin so I was wondering if they would give his song more charitable reviews or rely on the same tropes they've been saying about BTS members and Army for years. Since Jimin's SMFP2, they have not just given it a charitable view, they've thrown out all the tropes they used for BTS and Army. And while I expected that reaction since their bias is so evident, I was still surprised. Their analysis of his work compared to other BTS members is like night and day. I wouldn't mind if they like Jimin only and just spent more time talking about him bc of that, but those bloggers set themselves up as analysts of kpop and BTS in general. It felt frustrating for me to see that though that is a behavior you predicted. I'm just shocked at how little high quality comprehensive critics there are in kpop, and it makes me appreciate your content more though I don't always agree with you.

In your Ricin incident post you said you'll be leaving Tumblr soon. I sent you an ask last December asking you to stay but you never posted it. I wonder if you're still considering leaving, or if you have changed your mind. Another request: can you pls add your BTS member profiling posts to your masterlist? You wrote one about why Hobi has less bias in the Army fandom months ago. I found it so interesting but I've not been able to find it since.

***

Hi Anon,

Can you send another ask or DM to remind me exactly which Hobi post you're talking about so I can link it for you? I try to keep my Masterlist as clutter-free as possible, sticking only to the long-form 'discoursey' posts so they don't get lost in the noise. And because many of those posts are from old BPP, posts that pissed off people enough to want to physically harm me, so they get the place of honour, front and center on new BPP. I'll consider adding more member-focused posts to the Masterlist though.

What I actually said in the 'Ricin post', is

"...I plan to keep this blog as a sort of archive... I have less time to spend on Tumblr, and so it might take me longer to respond to your asks and I generally won’t be as active on here. Over time, this blog will become dormant."

*

That was in July 2022. And I think in the time since then, my followers have experienced that my posting pattern is irregular already, with long stretches of time in between. This blog will eventually fall into more irregular use, i.e. become dormant, because that's just how the cookie crumbles folks. BPP is a blog that happened by accident and since getting a double promotion at work recently, as much as I enjoy interacting with many people here and being active constantly, it's just not a viable option for me. I'll be here until I'm not. That's really all I can say.

In the meantime, I'd like to direct you to some bloggers who have been doing this for a lot longer, and/or are still active, and/or who have fun or interesting things to share from time to time [**]:

@jung-koook, @stormblessed95, @onthecuterside, @kimsaena88, @wingzie

...and if you've been lurking on my blog for years as you say, you've probably noticed the regulars in the replies who usually leave really interesting tidbits, so there's another list for you there too.

Aside, I'm not saying this to be modest, but I'm not certain I appreciate the tone in your ask about my blog relative to other bloggers. We can all tell when someone does not critically examine their bias of a group or fandom in discourse, but that's also the norm in k-pop. Why penalize them for acting exactly like most other people in this space since there's clearly a desire among k-pop fans for that sort of space? I write what I write to educate on all the sorts of players in this system and why the system runs the way it does. If you're going to criticize certain bloggers for acting as they've always done in this system but not the system itself, then what's the point? All you're doing is nullifying that energy and we're all back at square one, and there is no net positive. You know what I mean? If you used the same tone in the ask you sent last December, that's probably a reason I didn't post it. Just FYI.

Set Me Free Pt 2 is a legitimate masterpiece. It's good enough to turn anyone into a fan, so some bloggers reacting favourably to it feels like a given to me, whether or not they bias him. Jimin on even the best days, is the most polarizing figure in BTS, and probably in all of k-pop. The direction he went for in Set Me Free Pt 2 is very on brand for him, because it's unexpected and because of what led up to it. In all the ~10 years I've been following Jimin, SMF Pt 2 is what solidified my idea of who Jimin is in my head. He has produced one of the most forward-thinking music in the industry (sonically) this year and it's only March. You said you're a Stay and multi so I'm curious, have you streamed Set Me Free Pt 2 today?

[**] Edit: For any of my new followers and just in case Anon you’re not aware, my blog is firmly Jikook-affirming. What I mean is I like Jimin, I like Jungkook, I love watching them interact and I think they have a beautiful relationship. Many of the blogs I follow and that I tagged above also speak favourably about Jikook, as individual members and as a pairing in BTS. I recognize that some people prefer jikook-biased bloggers, others don’t care for it, and others are indifferent, so here’s a clarifying note for anyone to tailor their followings accordingly.

[dreamedge]

AO3 tag game :3

shout-out to @ragecndybars for the tag! <3 I got to think a lot about some older fics and also the deep, eternal impact CC has has on my soul, so I'm emotional rn lol.

How many works do you have on AO3?

21! Which is, a lot more than I thought tbh. I've been writing these long, long fics for so many years now that I've sort of forgotten about all the little ones I've managed in between. And even the long ones add up after a while. Though, I did only import a small selection of my fics from ff.net, so the back catalogue of stuff I've actually written is way longer. ... That's fine, some of that stuff can stay buried lol.

Even at 21 though... *Looks at my shoebox of story ideas and outlines* Its... its still not enough. Its, its just no where close to even making a dent in everything I want to write eventually.

What’s your total AO3 word count?

650,444. I'm pretty sure at least half of that is entirely in CC, and another quarter is in can i bleed. Which, tbh I'm not sure how I feel about that lol. Deeply introspective fics, my passion, my talent, my beloathed. Some part of me does miss simply writting 5k chapters and calling it done for a week. Not all of me though.

How many fandoms have you written for, and what are they?

Only 10! That number probably isn't going to grow much either. I tend to gravitate towards bigger projects these days rather than simple oneshots or even like, 5 chapter long stuff, so I tend to go all in on a small number of fandoms instead of spreading my attention around, even though I want to.

Cardcaptor Sakura

Digimon

Dragon Age Inquisition

Percy Jackson

Persona 3

Power Rangers RPM

RWBY

Teen Wolf

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle

BNHA

Top five fics by kudos:

A Most Precious Thing (Tsubasa): tbh this being number one is an absolute surprise, though I'm very happy about it. According to AO3, this was published almost 10 years ago, will be 10 years exactly in just a few weeks, but people still regularly give it kudos and comments. It was a complete experiment, style wise; I'd never written anything like it before, I've written one thing like it since, and I'm just so thankful that people loved it so much despite the inexperience behind it.

Of the Woods (Teen Wolf/CCS): This being so high up is not a surprise, and I'm annoyed about it. Mostly bc I know its only so high up bc its for such a big fandom, written during said fandom's height. I think its probably one of the fic I've soured the most on since I wrote it; its just not that great.

Crests Corrupted (Digimon) : Oh, here it is. My masterpiece. Maybe its weird to say that of the fic that's only 3rd, but it truly is, and to see a fic I have put so much of myself into being even this high and this appreciated means so much to me.

can i bleed within your love (Persona 3) : Hi! I don't have much to say about this one, only that I'm so happy with the sheer outpouring of love this has gotten, and I can't wait to finish it.

True Feelings Chocolate (Digimon) : Oh, um, I sort of forgot about you. What are you doing here? ...This is awkward, I really didn't expect this to do so well. Its just a silly little fic I wrote for valentine's one year. I'm glad it did well?

Do you respond to comments?

I try! I don't succeed a lot of the time; generally I'm very tired after posting a chapter and then its been like two weeks and responding feels awkward. Also I tend to ramble, if you haven't noticed yet, some sometimes I'll just close out of responding to avoid any chance of me accidentally spoiling or saying something I shouldn't. I'm... working on it.

What’s the fic with the angstiest ending you’ve ever written?

Oh that's easy. Its the RWBY one, Your Love on Your Sleeve and Your Pain Buried Deep. I don't tend to write angsty fics, I like happy endings, I think this is the only one I've ever written and I'm glad to keep it that way.

Do you write crossovers?

I've written one before, the TW one that's up there. I generally tend to prefer fusions over straight up crossovers; I've gotten several P3 fusions planned, a PJ fusion, the bnha fic I wrote is a fusion. I just, I love fusions. I greatly prefer writing them over cross-overs generally.

Have you ever gotten hate on a fic?

Once or twice, but that was ages ago and I've mostly blocked it from my memory. The fandoms I'm in now have been full of such lovely people, I've been really lucky.

Do you write smut?

Smut, as in the fic happens to have a sex scene? Not typically, but I'm not against doing so when the need calls. Smut, as in the entire point of the fic in the sex scene? No. I'm actually very bad at it. I'll do it if I must but I find even writing kiss scenes awkward, let alone everything else. I will gladly leave it to people much better at their craft them I am.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

To the best of my knowledge? No I don't think so.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I've had people offer? I don't know if they ever did or even if, in my general ineptitude when it comes to responding to people, I actually agreed they could.

Hey, if anyone wants to translate my works, feel free!

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

... Hey, thats not fair.

Hmmm, well, after much thinking I'm gonna go with Kurogane/Fai from TRC. Other ships may currently have their hooks in my brain, but kurofai is a big comfort to me still, I really love them. And lets be honest. Ain't no one doing it like those two.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish, but don’t think you ever will?

I have, its not posted anywhere, and technically I've barely started writing it, its almost entirely outline rn, but I do have a p3 fantasy au thats just... fucking massive. Its a huge project just from the outline i have, long even in comparison to CC, so long that I doubt I'd ever finish it to the point where I've barely started it.

What are your writing strengths?

Combat. I write a damn good fight scene and I know it. I take a lot of pride in that. I also tend to have a pretty solid grasp of pacing on an overall level for longer fics. Per chapter pacing gets a bit more eh, but the overall pacing of arcs and stuff for my longer fics, I generally know what I'm doing.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I never know when to shut the fuck up! This is a problem I've known I've had for years. I just let characters go on these long, internal monologues, which is only acceptable because I also write deeply introspective fics. However, it tends to slow chapters down a lot and after a bit, characters repeat themselves and its a problem.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fics?

I'm incapable bc I'm monolingual but I've always loved fics that use other languages! Maybe I can do that some day lol.

What was the first fandom you ever wrote for?

Yknow, if I dug far far far back in my ff.net account it would probably be Naruto? I think. My memory is fuzzy and I'm not actually going to go look. However, thats the first one I posted.

The *very* first fic i ever wrote, I have a very clear memory of for some reason. It was a FFX2/Series of Unfortunate Events crossover, I was in the fourth grade, I thought it was the coolest thing. Hm, memories.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written so far?

I actually have two answers for this, which, I know is against the spirit and rule of the question BUT. Too bad.

One is A Most Precious Thing, bc it was such an experience to write. Despite being 10 years old I still love it. It was, as I said above, an utter experiment. It is written entirely in 2nd person, which is not actually a choice? I made? Um, I tried, very hard in the beginning, to write in in my standard 3rd, and it didn't work. The story actively refused to be written as such and I kept ending up back in 2nd. And at some point I just gave up and wrote the rest of it as such. And it taught me, so much, about point of view and how that relates to emotional distance, and really, but trusting myself with my writing, that even if I can't say why this is happening, somewhere deep down there is a reason to it and I should trust that. As a writer who takes my craft very seriously, this one has a soft spot in my heart bc of all of that.

However, Crests Corrupted owns a piece of my soul that I will never get back. It is my thesis, my masterpiece, It has defined years of my life, I have poured hundreds of thousands of words into it, I have given it so much of my heart and my pain. It has redefined how I approach writing, it has shaped, totally, the style in which I write today. Even years from now, even years after I finally finish it whenever that is, I don't think I will ever be truly free of it. It is my favorite. How can't it be?