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#idk im really out of my depth with this kind of thing if you can’t tell😓
napping-sapphic · 7 months
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Hey there's this girl in my class who's been writing me (outta 250 ppl in our class).
At the beginning it was to have sum information about a trip she couldn't go to, but now she keeps writing me without a reason n all my friends think it's bcuz she likes me but she didn't make my gaydar blip or anything... Actually she looks hetero 100%
How do I understand if she's being gay or just polite wtf please send help🙏☠️
Ahh the good ole “is she flirting” dilemma gotta love it
Unfortunately (again) i am really not the person to ask as i am both Oblivious™️ and lacking like most of the other context to this but if I had to give advice i would say:
Don’t discount her on stuff like gaydar like maybe mine is just faulty af but i get it wrong CONSTANTLY lol I learned really quick to just not try and guess and let people tell me themselves. And then also just be patient with it! Maybe she’s interested in you romantically or maybe she’s interested in being your friend! And both are great things to have :) either way if she keeps reaching out it sounds like she’s been enjoying talking with you so maybe just persue the connection naturally and see where it goes!
Idk maybe try inviting her out to a casual lunch and see how it goes, it’s hard to tell if a relationship will develop without first developing the base relationship at all imo
I’m really sorry I can’t be of any actual help but good luck with it all!!
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buzbu · 11 months
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I’m watching ‘Ladybug and Chat Noir: Awakening’ (you can watch a really bad quality bootleg recording on most pirating sites right now), these are my reactions while I’m watching . A lot of the points won’t make sense unless you’ve seen it too I’m sorry 😭
If you don’t want to watch the movie but want a vague idea of the plot, here u go
⚠️NEW MIRACULOUS MOVIE SPOILERS⚠️
- master fu is soo dramatic
- THIS IS A MUSICAL???
- whoever the singer is for marinette sounds so noticeably different to her it is throwing me off
- the character designs are so cute
- brand placement: 1
- Adrien is brooding so hard with his headphones. I bet he’s listening to something emo
- omg gabriel agreste backstory right away
- Luka cameo
- whyd they make plagg a fart monster
- there are more than 4 background character designs this is crazy
- whyd they make gabe kinda fine
- gabes first musical number as hawkmoth is so insanely Dr Facilier
- they made him such a good villain omfg I’m actually rooting for him he’s got the whole ‘a villain who would sacrifice the world to save her’ thing going for him
- oooo they have the mime villain from season 1 (?), and they are actually showing how op his power is. He could create literally anything and he just made a wall and a gun, he couldve done so much more. They did him justice they made him kinda fine too very Danny Bailey from Schmigadoon
- chat noir calling himself a sidekick is my villain origin story
- didn’t know how much I needed an action montage with a rock cover of the miraculous ladybug song until now
- a slither of adrienette in the montage
- brand placement: 2
- I’m an hour in and chat noir hasnt called ladybug milady ONCE
- oh my god they have the play fighting trope where they end up pinning eachother against a wall this is so them
- I don’t think the songs are very movie like, the words are pronounced like radio songs so you can’t really understand what they’re saying a lot of the time without captions (I don’t have captions 💔)
- the romance feels a lil rushed. Because they spent the first half hour almost exclusively on marinette and setting up her character/insecurities/etc and all the romantic development was in a montage. Now there’s a love song and theyre in love and it feels very underdeveloped to be at this stage already
- this song is cute though I can’t make out the majority of the words but in-love ladynoir content has my heart
- no marichat so far . Waiting patiently
- they haven’t set the love square up to its full potential 💔💔
- ok nevermind they kind of have, ladybug rejected chat noir for adrien, she asked adrien out and he rejected her for ladybug. But there has been no ladybug + adrien interactions or chat noir + marinette interactions yet
- omg gabriel adrien angst omg gabe is so much less of a dislikable character, they actually gave him some depth . Adrien is full on yelling at Gabriel and gabe actually looks like he cares about his son
- this bootleg is terrible quality but even with the bad quality the quality is so obviously good
- I’ve gotten used to the marinette singing voice and now I just love it
- this movie is so dramatic with the love songs and songs about insecurities, I feel like it’s that movie ladybug made fun of in the show
- GABE AKUMATISED HIMSELF AND ITS SO COOL THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT WEIRD IPAD VILLAIN HE WAS IN THE SHOW
- adrien just said ‘the less interested you are, the more they run after you 😒’ because ladybug called him for help after she rejected him😭😭😭😭 bro rlly said all girls are the same
- idk if this bootleg is just clipped together but it keeps randomly turning french with no subtitles and it’s confusing me so much. I don’t know french, why must they be in paris
- these boss fights are so well animated
- chat noir is so bitter god damn
- ladynoir angst but it’s actually high stakes im loving this
- LADYBUG SAVE YOUR CAT WHAT ARE YOU DOING
- SHE LET HIM FALL WHAT
- gabe just turned the water they fell in into lava this is crazy
- they just turned french again I have no idea what they’re saying
- MARINETTE / HAWKMOTH SHOWDOWN
- nevermind
- I’m sorry marinette would pick this dialogue to shreds it’s so corny
- GOT THE TINIEST SLITHER OF MARICHAT I AM HAPPY
- YES YES YES GABRIEL FORCED TO FACE THE FACT THAT ADRIEN IS CHAT NOIR
- HES SELF REFLECTING!!! REALISING EVERYTHING HE DID WAS INSANE AND HURT ADRIEN WHEN HE TOLD HIMSELF HE WAS HELPING HIM. THIS IS WHAT THE SEASON 5 FINALE SHOULDVE BEEN
- THIS IS PERFECT
- this is what ppl wanted for the show . adrien being resentful at first, Gabriel hit in the face with his own guilt and mistakes, having a genuine moment of self reflection, adrien forgiving him and gabe changing instead of getting his wish and being remembered as a hero, plus all of paris finding out hawkmoth was Gabriel, etc. I love this
- brand placement: 3
- omg there’s a masquerade ball everyone looks so good
- so marinette knows that adrien is chat noir but he doesn’t know shes ladybug yet ? That better change in the next 2 minutes
- HE KNOWS!
- marinette is so pretty I’m actually so happy with this
- OHHHH NATALIE VILLAIN ARC ????
- oh theyre talking in french again I have no idea what this ending means
FINAL THOUGHTS!
obvs it isn’t canon but I love this adaptation. The superpowers are portrayed as powerful as they actually are, there’s more drama and angst which I needed, the timeline is VERY different to the show. Marinette stands up for herself to chloe the same day that ladybug and chat noir reveal their identities, so it’s like the origins episode of season 1 mixed with one of the various identity reveals from season 4. Also she’s not friends with any of her class other than alya, adrien and nino, so it’s also kind of pre-origins vibes. Idk, it was really good and I can’t wait to watch it in better quality, with captions, and without ads playing every half hour
Also I’m forever thankful that there was no lila rossi storyline
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the-heartlines · 1 year
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Hiii, I’ve been meaning to as you this for a while but never got around to it and eventually gave up (due to my own stubbornness) but how do you get the courage to post your fics, especially when you were just starting off?
I’m in the process of writing a rhaegon fic but am struggling and then I’m reminded that it probably won’t live up to the wonderful fic writers in hotd-ao3 universe. It’s also so intimidating knowing that someone could potentially be cringing at your work bc it lacks depth or proper characterization.
You’re such a splendid writer and I enjoy your use of language and imagery in each line of your stories.
Being in the Rhaegon server has helped tremendously with my confidence levels but then I go on Twitter and reminded that I’m starting at the bottom trying to claw my way to the top.
How did you start to feel comfortable enough where you were able to push content out without the fear of others?
I’m sorry if this is long and pointless but I’m too nervous to ask on Twitter and put myself out there (although I know that’s the point of writing)! Im trying to be more open in this fandom and I thought I would start in writing fanfiction (I’ve mostly written things for class or just for fun so this is kind of a new territory for me)
Like I said at the top of this long and draining text, you’re really a beautiful storyteller and you’re one of the hotd writers I admire. I can’t get over cherry wine, a masterpiece!
HI BB! Let me break this question down paragraph by paragraph.
Hiii, I’ve been meaning to as you this for a while but never got around to it and eventually gave up (due to my own stubbornness) but how do you get the courage to post your fics, especially when you were just starting off?
so as far as courage to post my fics i guess it stemmed from posting a few drabbles at a time, back in december. AND THEN i posted this rhaegon twins snippet and like idk everyone LOVED it and it encouraged me to write a full one shot (it's supposed to have a pt 2 but ya know we'll see if i ever write it =/...i have TOO many ideas). And Idk starting rhaegonprompts on twt really encouraged me to write more drabbles and THEN *BAM* i wrote hypnos (which is my personal fave- idk stalker aegon is so fucking fun to write).
I’m in the process of writing a rhaegon fic but am struggling and then I’m reminded that it probably won’t live up to the wonderful fic writers in hotd-ao3 universe. It’s also so intimidating knowing that someone could potentially be cringing at your work bc it lacks depth or proper characterization.
I would totally beta it for you if you'd like =D. I fuckinggg love beta'ing (only done it 3x but it's fun writing my little comments on the side lol). I think that's also the risk you take with ANY fic you post...potentially there will be 10 ppl who like it for everyone person who doesn't. And like FR i have days where i want to deactivate, stop writing and just leave all of social media HAHA. it's a REAL feeling, even the best fic writers experience.
Being in the Rhaegon server has helped tremendously with my confidence levels but then I go on Twitter and reminded that I’m starting at the bottom trying to claw my way to the top.
i would just go balls to the wall and post your fic in the server and and i would be more than happy to make a moodboard for it and support you!
How did you start to feel comfortable enough where you were able to push content out without the fear of others?
I will say seeing kudos and comments on ao3 do help, but tbh idgaf and writing fic has become such an OUTLET for me like...esp dead dove =) and even if one person likes it, it makes me happy.
I’m sorry if this is long and pointless but I’m too nervous to ask on Twitter and put myself out there (although I know that’s the point of writing)! Im trying to be more open in this fandom and I thought I would start in writing fanfiction (I’ve mostly written things for class or just for fun so this is kind of a new territory for me)
Like I said at the top of this long and draining text, you’re really a beautiful storyteller and you’re one of the hotd writers I admire. I can’t get over cherry wine, a masterpiece!
omg please don't be sorry! i hope this post helped =D. you just have to take risks tbh. i guess it's cuz i'm 31 and have been in fandom for A LONG time, so idk.
AND OMG A MASTERPIECE?! thank you so fucking much. i do love sapphic rhaegon afterall =')
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I FUCKING SCREAMED WHEN I SAW YOUR UPDATE 😫😫😫😫😫 THIS IS THE TYPE OF SHIT I WANT FUCK!!!! typically dislike any archeron sister ships, but goodness gracious i love this series, like in a way, eris gets his own story written like damn i’m getting emotional i’m just really happy like he’s getting attention period AND LIKE A WRITER WHO DOES HIM JUSTICE LIKE FUCK 😖😖 i appreciate all the eris writers out there, i truly do, like i love y’all, thank you for your amazing work, sending you all love and warmth 😘😘 but i can tell your love for the character is just different, like i see the depth and the emotion there i can’t even explain it n im sorry if im rambling. that was like the longest sentence i’ve written jesus BUT I CANT JUST SIT HERE AND ORGANIZE EVERY THOUGHTS BECAUSE THIS ASK WILL NEVER BE SENT!! ok let me start again. what i really love about you as a writer is that you have passion for eris’ character. i know that there are wonderful writers who can write a good plot with good descriptions, but you take the time to explore his trauma. it’s displayed in some of your fics that talk about the reader helping him work/overcome his issues, and vice versa. you create a small plot that show his humanity, basically and it makes me love his character more. and i’m honestly so happy that you’re taking the time to create this series, consisting of full fics or drabbles cause it’s like “wow here’s another layer to eris n i can’t wait to know more of him” you know, like damn. yes, he’s not good (he recognizes that) but he’s also not as bad as others make him out to be (and this is shown in intended and discreet actions and cues (and sometimes words) in the work). he’s so underrated n im just thankful that a writer like you had taken a liking to him. i’m typically a quiet supporter but i feel like you need to be showered with recognition and praise cause you’re doing great things 🥹🥹 i love your work n im always here cheering you on 🥰 hope you’re well! apologies for the long ass message (idk how to minimize this)
WOW i don't even know what to say - thank you so so much for the meaningful message. it is definitely a privilege to be able to write for you all and share the way i imagine eris! i am so glad that this series has reached so many people and all of the messages everyone sends in are so kind ☺️
i love being able to share the other side of eris and express how i'd imagine his softness and give him the character development he deserves (which i have a sinking feeling SJM will fuck up) i truly love the character she started for him and have been very excited to continue writing him in the best light i can 🥹🥹
thank you again and thanks to everyone for always being so kind and supportive!!! i know i do not necessarily post the most or write very fast, but i appreciate every one of you who reads my fics 🥰
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m1ckeyb3rry · 11 months
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hii i have returned with my ramblings on SITH like i do every chapter lol :))
omg the mention of friedrich being “scary looking” reminded me of that time u said that only the mc genuinely finds him handsome & i still have not recovered from that /pos
I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABT THAT TIME FRIEDRICH BEAT HER UP DURING TRAINING, THE MEMORIESSS
i love how much falco looks up to the mc & how this chapter kinda showed her being a mentor to him, it was so sweet <3 falco being out of breath from JOGGING is so real, like he’s just like me fr we’re both terrible at running
I CALLED IT THAT FRIEDRICH WOULD INHERIT THE JAW, ALL THE SIGNS WERE POINTING TOWARDS HIM LMFAO
the irony of colt being the first of the trio to inherit his titan & also being the first who will die. idk if u plan on diverging from the canon plot & having him live or just sticking with canon plot, but the “i’ll be the first” line rlly hits hard either way, & it’ll hit especially hard if he still dies.
now that i think abt it, the trio rlly is just the found family trope & im gobbling that shit up bro, i love them with all my heart 🫶 i feel like they’re not only soulmates, but also the “our fates are intertwined in every universe” trope as well. so even if one of them dies & the other two have to live on w/o them or two of them die & the last has to preserve their memory, all 3 of them will meet again in another lifetime. they just can’t be separated (they come in a set LMFAO). that’s my take on their relationship at least.
i hope u like my theories & takes lol. when im super invested in smth, i always like talking abt it & going in-depth bc that’s just what i like to do. even if i get some shit wrong (when theorizing or analyzing), that’s ok, bc im just having fun & enjoying smth im interested in :))
hope ur doing well & taking care of urself!! remember to hydrate & get lots of rest. and dont overwork urself (even tho that’s prolly easier said than done). <3
— 🪐
HIII I love your ramblings I always smile when I get the notifications!!
LMAOOO I would like to slightly revise that and add that friedrich isn’t really considered ugly by anyone either he just always looks 0.5 inches away from snapping so people are too busy being scared of him to think he’s handsome. Ofc the mc knows him so well that she sees past that and can appreciate him for what he is <3
HAHAHA IT WAS SO LONG AGO THEY WERE SUCH LITTLE BABIES BACK THEN!! So much has happened since then 🙁
I wanted to somewhat show Y/N being a good person again since we’ve seen so many chapters of her struggling and overcoming her faults and traumas. She’s definitely not a perfect person but she can be very kind at times and she is canonically super good with kids so I thought showing her and falco bonding and her doing something for someone other than herself would balance out the heaviness of everything post-athyae. falco is so sweet I actually love him sooo much but I was lowkey dying writing him in this chapter because he’s just so hopeless 😭 I would like to add that in the running scene Y/N is the one jogging…my man falco is SPRINTING to keep up with her 😩 up to interpretation whether it’s because “slow” for Y/N is fast for like anyone else or because falco is just really not athletically blessed.
I feel like friedrich being the jaw titan is the most obvious choice. He’s way too slippery (does that even make sense?? Idk how else to describe it) to be the armored titan and way too independent to be the colossal, he could be the cart but tbh Y/N just exemplifies the cart to me I couldn’t see anyone else inheriting it, colt being the next beast has been a thing since like the first chapters of the fic, and he just…is not a girl so I can’t imagine him as the female titan.
I won’t spoil the trio’s fates, but writing that scene knowing their futures was definitely painful. I’m trying to write and update more often so you don’t have to wait years to find out what happens to them because there is SO much planned for the future of this story. I’ve been struggling because the past two mini arcs (which were titled return to liberio and warrior’s welcome if you were wondering) have been the hardest to write so far. They’re a lot more introspective and focused on Y/N’s mental development, conflict, and recovery, so it was a lot of just “people visiting houses” with inner monologues as opposed to plot and external conflict. The next mini arc is very different though so I’m excited to get to that!! One more chapter of warrior’s welcome and then I’m finally free 😭
I ADOREEEE FOUND FAMILY!! That’s why endure and SitH are my favs, I feel like they both have their own versions of the found family tropes that make me feel so 😫 but the trio and the endure crew are definitely super different. like the endure found family is just a bunch of siblings (case in point Y/N and Jean) but the trio defies categorization. They’re in love but they’re best friends but they’re somehow more than that?? Idk their dynamic isn’t something I’ve written before but it’s definitely one of the most interesting I think!! (I’d say it’s my favorite but my favorites are endure jean and y/n, endure eren and y/n, and promise y/n and tullia, with an honorary mention to endure y/n and tullia)
I LOVE YOUR THEORIES SO MUCH!! I won’t confirm or deny if they’re right because I don’t want to spoil but I love reading them and responding to them so much. It makes me sosososo happy that you’re so invested in this random story I decided to write on a whim one day and that you’re having as much fun with it as I am. Your asks motivate me sm because with a story like SitH it can sometimes feel like I’m only writing for myself (which is good because it gives me creative freedom but sometimes demotivating as there’s no engagement)
Thank you so much and remember to take care of yourself as well!!
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HAIII👋👋👋FELLOW PV ENJOYER I just wanna say I LOVE UR ART SM🥺🥺the way u draw pv is SOSOSOSOSO COOL N FUNKY I LOVE IT SMMM I usually don’t follow accounts that post purecacao not becauz i hate the ship it’s just not really my thing (also becauz my besties fav ancient is lily and we like making aus together a lot so it’s just easier 2 slam our faves together HSHSHD) but but BUT!! u are the EXEPCTION i just cannot resist ur pv art swagger. it is too pretty it is TOO MUCH OF. A LOT OF GOOD THINGS I DON’T WANNA MAKE A HUGE LIST RN BUTBUT ur gonna get spammed with notifs from me in a second becauz im going through ur pv tag and reblogging ur art of him. I actually saw ur art a lot earlier but. i didnt interact with it idk why I just didn’t feel like writing out a ton of tag compliment essays that day and then I just continued to put it off,, the wonders of having the disorder(s? I just recently got on meds for add but I’m not actually properly diagnosed yet) (also I’m autistic so disorders plural I think) I literallt have no other excuse for not interacting with ur art sooner other than. executive dysfunction sucks and also becauz I wasn’t sure if u were the type of real and TRUE!! purecacao shipper 2 still think lily is shippable or were one of the kinds of people to demonize lily insanely a lot. I had 2 unfollow some1 before becauz they made an extremely negative post about lily that made me kindof uncomfy but. seeing as u also ship hollylily(valid btw) I think it’s time I finally follow u becauz. I love ALL UR ART SM!!!! and I wanna eat it stuff it into my mouth like a chipmunk and run away with it forever it is so. ur style is soooososo unique but in such a visibly appealing way it boggles my MIND when people manage 2 make such unique art styles look SOSO GOOD especially since the only way I was able 2 make my art look okay was 2 make it look. less unique idk. no clue what spawned me 2 ramble on for this long idk I just. think ur art is cool okay. I see ur pv art and my eyes light up n go shiny like big sparkly anime eyes the way u draw is just so. sosososoososo. so. insert every compliment physically possible here I can’t possibly stress this enough just. art. pretty. and I’m envious that ur not even that much older than me I hope that. my improvement speeds up in the next 2-3 years it would b really cool if my art was just as cool as urs when I’m 19. idk. end of ask I’ve gone on for too long I’m sorry I hope u don’t mind. whatever this is ig
this means so much to me holy shit i’m so happy you like my art. and i’m very happy ur a lily enjoyer too!!! i totally agree with you, people demonize her way too much (probably because she “gets in the way” of ppls “gay ships” WHICH I HATE THAT EXCUSE). i still ship purelily, i like to imagine it as a relationship they had in the past. i’m not gonna ignore what they have in canon cuz it’s obvious they loved each other!!! (i’m not gonna freak out when i see other ships with the characters i like LOL). i still love lily and i want her to be happy, she has an incredible amount of depth to her character. she’s not heartless, but she’s not a shy damsel in distress like how other people depict her as well. she’s flawed and incredibly multidimensional, and i hope i have the opportunity to show that more often :D that makes me happy to hear you’re still open to other artists that ship different (normal) things, i hope you enjoy what i draw in the future as well!! i love the ancients a lot and i love other ancients-fans as well!!!
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FOR THE VIV ANON IM SO SORRY I ACCIDENTALLY DELETED YOUR ASK😬
Here’s my answers:
•First Impression:
•I felt really bad for him during his fight :( he was just an average guy who got dragged into Pucci’s conflict without his consent. I was just really glad Araki never outright confirmed his death (even if his body did mysteriously disappear from the stairs during the Dragon's Dream fight).
•Impression Now:
• Baby boy. Baby. I love him so much. I love how weird and extreme all the other Stone Ocean characters are, and then Viv is just. aggressively plain-looking. He’s still super duper duper hot tho, like holy shit, but just LOOK AT THIS FUCKING LINEUP
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POV you asked your straight brother to pick you up at the gay bar
Araki doesn't always make good writing choices, but having one of his villains just be Some Guy who has a regular 9-5 job and isn't a part of this conflict at all was great. Sad for Viviano that he got dragged into all this, but conceptually a very fun arc.
•Favourite Moment:
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•I just find it so funny that one of the ONLY things we know about Viv is that he's into some degree of CBT. I love the vague implications of this, like what other situation Mr. Westwood? Is he referring to a normal, out-of-work CBT session....or does he just legit get off to prisoners attempting to crush his genitals to escape being detained??
•Idea for a Story:
•Post-Survivor, "holy shit I have a magical ghost now and other people do as well". Not only is he recovering from being supernaturally forced to kill his coworker and friend :( he also has to deal with now having a stand, which must be absolutely terrifying for any adult who's gone their whole life without knowledge of this phenomenon. Especially considering his first experience with other stand users was so awful. Like, once he realizes he wasn't just hallucinating the whole thing, where do you start? He doesn't even know they're called "stands", how do you find information on them? IDK maybe I just like the worldbuilding aspect of this, but I wanna see stand user culture, how do new adult stand users (which aren't unheard of, like Tonio and Aya) find out about how stand stuff works?
• Unpopular Opinion:
•Hmmmmm once again with the minor villains not a lot of people really have serious opinions on him. Just APPRECIATE HIM MORE HOLY SHIT. HE'S HOT. HE'S GOT A STRONGMAN BOD. REAL MEAT ON THOSE BONES. HE'S NOT DEHYDRATED-LOOKING LIKE SO MANY OTHER "MUSCULAR" JOJO CHARACTERS LIKE HE ACTUALLY HAS A HEALTHY AMOUNT OF FAT. HE'D BE SO GOOD TO CUDDLE WITH. HE CANONICALLY LIKES COCK AND BALL TORTURE. I MEAN COME ON WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT WHY DON'T MORE PEOPLE LIKE HIM???
•Favourite Relationship:
•The brief period where he was just hanging out with Sonny Likir was nice. I wish Stone Ocean showed us more antagonists interacting! That’s like, one of the best parts of jojo, when you have a villain duo or squad like Cioccolatta and Secco, La Squadra, Oingo and Boingo, or Sale and Zucchero, seeing how these characters act with the people they love/respect/tolerate before we see them trying to kill the protagonists adds so much depth and sympathy and investment. Seeing Sonny and Viviano just have some regular coworker banter before the fight was really fun and makes me wish we could see more of that in Stone Ocean.
•Favourite Headcanon:
•He's bisexual and literally the most closeted man to ever exist. He's the type to laugh at the homophobic comments his friends and coworkers make, and even make some of those comments himself, it's a learned defensive habit. I'm not trying to make him super angsty or anything, he just gives me mega bi energy. I don’t think he grew up in a particularly abusive or neglectful household, just the kind of environment where people in his family/community would make gay jokes because they honestly didn’t think anyone around them was gay. And I can’t see a prison in the early 2010’s as being the most accepting place either, so he’s just learned to keep certain things to himself, and hope those feelings he has about men sometimes just go away on their own.
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cloudedhues · 2 years
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hi! May I ask u if you watch kdramas and if u have any favs? I honestly love reading your thoughts on games/series so I was really curious. Hope u have a great day💕
hi hi! yes i do! mostly on netflix and not a whole lot bc kdramas are a hefty investment and im a creature of habit who rewatches my old shows until im sick and desensitized 😌 no particular order here…
crash landing on you: baby’s first kdrama during the pandemic that really started it all for me and my mom. which made me appreciate it less as a show and more as a great bonding experience as she swoons over hyun bin and i swoon over son ye jin. im in the minority who likes the ending. it was a nice realistic touch that grounded the usual third act melodrama level of heightened emotions in kdramas
it’s okay to not be okay: idk what else hasn’t been said but the style, the artistry, the performances, the soundtrack, the family dynamics, how well the fairy tales serve as a thematic basis for each episode 👌👌👌 i love love the individual character developments more than the romance. sometimes they infantilized the heroine at the second half but she’s still one of my favorite kdrama characters
vincenzo: i can take or leave the romance but regardless the leads’ “this is my worse half” dynamic makes the show. their rapport w their plaza neighbors is also hilarious. vincenzo as a character is fun but too cool for me to be attached. cha young though belongs to my list of favorite kdrama characters (you can see a common theme here that im partial to female characters who are assertive w varying levels of unhinged and/or moral grayness)
her private life: fake dating’s not my absolute favorite but no one has topped the chemistry of these actors. the first time they kissed i felt like i needed to turn off the tv to give them privacy lmao what really sells their relationship is how obviously they’re delighted by each other, how they establish intimacy based on their work, and the fact that he loves fangirling over her fangirling. i wasn’t a fan of the third act twist but they still reign as the best romance here
age of youth: technically my first kdrama (i just didn’t finish the second season) and i invested heavily into the narrative when i watched as a college student. i can take or leave the romances but the friend group is unmatched and the only reason to watch. season one >>>> season two all the way
run on: the second couple are EVERYTHING. i didn’t fully appreciate during my first watch until i finished and learned that this kind of slice of life, slow paced and character-driven stuff is my vibe exactly. any time im doing chores i pull up a random ep in the bg bc it feels like im just casually doing parallel play w a friend
hotel del luna: love the premise, love the ending except for the very last moment, didn’t love the romance or the hero necessarily, but i love the heroine so much i couldn’t leave it out. her backstory and relationship with the not!second lead compelled me to finish and tbh they’re the emotional core of the whole thing
my liberation notes: my friend calls this a depression simulator kdrama 😂 but this had as much heart as a ghibli film to me. best part was the ensemble who had very real flaws and emotional relatability supported by a script w depth more human than pretentious. this rly was a show that you had to earn but when you did, it was well worth it
hometown cha cha cha: small town slice of life basically the ultimate comfort food kdrama 💖 save for like two eps each one hits so well. has the second best romance and the best ensemble here although it does dip too much in sentimentality for my taste at times. but it wouldn’t be what it is without it
special mention to cheese in the trap…which i didn’t finish lol so i can’t speak on the quality of that but lil closelyknit lore facts the webtoon it was based on featured in my blog for a good number of tumblr years some time ago
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elysianslove · 3 years
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Please wrote more surrogate fics please . could I request one with SakuAtsu or could you just start a series on these. If you'd me comfortable with that. That on IwaOi surrogate fic brought me so much joy. I can't even describe it.
oh my goodness i’d love to!!! it makes me so happy knowing you liked it cause like,,, idk why it’s just special to me :) also im so glad you asked for sakuatsu bc these two ships are basically my favorite jhfgbsj. and yesyes i’d love to have a mini series with like little scenarios of each ship <333
this was insanely long. like insanely. 
content warning; artificial insemination, pregnancy, haikyuu manga spoilers, gay people being happy idk 
being iwaoi’s surrogate 
BEING SAKUATSU’S SURROGATE 
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↬ it took forever to even get them together, so with a duo as indecisive as them, it’s imaginable how long the decision to raise a child together took. it took a long, long while for that transition from enemies to lovers to be final, and even then, they hadn’t realized how serious their relationship was until they were off getting married and then suddenly wanting a child? 
↬ it was something atsumu brought up out of the blue, just casually as they sat side by side on the couch. “wouldn’t it be nice if we raised a child together?” and it stuck with sakusa ever since. he didn’t know why he was obsessively thinking about it as much, but it’s all he could think about. literally. anytime he so much as thought about atsumu with a child, and a child of their own too, his stomach did a thousand and one flips. sakusa was never the biggest fan of children, and he knew that neither was atsumu. but, this would be different, wouldn’t it? Still, he tried to remind himself of the cons; they were pro-athletes, they didn’t have time, they didn’t understand the weight of the responsibility, were they even ready for something like that? somedays it was too tiring to take care of themselves, of each other. were they ready to be responsible for a whole life, someone dependent entirely on them? it seemed too— unrealistic. like something he could only hope to dream about, and just dream about.
↬ until he thought of atsumu with a little kid, a spit image of either one of them, sitting on his lap, giggling and laughing and squealing in glee. and so he decided, there will always be cons, he just has to see if the pros outweighed them. and honestly, they did. they were pro-athletes, sure, but that also meant they were financially stable, and could provide for a child, properly. they were mature now, knew each other very well, and had adapted to living with one another. they had family and friends all around. the kid would for sure grow up loved and cared for, and him and atsumu would add another person to their family. it really seemed like a dream, but this time, an attainable one.
↬ so as he ate dinner with his lover, he blurted out, “let’s raise a child together,” and atsumu honest to god choked on his food. he asked sakusa if he was serious, if he meant it, if this was real, and sakusa’s answer was yes to every single one of his question. yes, he was serious; yes, he meant it; yes, this was real. as real as can be.
↬ they both already knew they wanted a surrogate, and it didn’t matter who was the father. so long as the child was theirs.
↬ finding a surrogate was, well, a pain, to put it into perspective. sakusa was so picky about the “requirements,” if you will, and atsumu was suspicious of every single woman, it was kind of ridiculous really. he just “didn’t trust that they wouldn’t run away with the baby!” in his words. atsumu suggested sakusa’s older sister, which seemed perfect in his head, but sakusa refused, claiming it was 1. extremely weird, and 2. he doubted she’d say yes, with her own life to handle.
↬ and it finally, finally, came to atsumu: he could always just ask, well, you. he had met you during his college years, and since then, he’d been coincidentally crossing paths with you ever since then, and you’d even managed their msby jackals team at some point. it was weirdly ironic how he’s coming back to you, kind of like fate.
↬ so he suggested it to sakusa, and for once, the latter didn’t really have any way to object, except, “what if this inconveniences her?” other than that, you were the perfect candidate. they knew you well, trusted you, knew they could rely on you. and atsumu was sure you wouldn’t run with the baby. with regards to the inconvenience part, well, they could always just deal with that when the time came.
↬ they invited you over for some breakfast two days later, after they’d thought about it properly, endlessly, and figured you were their best option. it was weird seeing them so nervous when you first arrived, like they were breaking up with you or something. atsumu barely ate with how nauseous he felt, and sakusa spent the entire time watching you eat instead, hands fidgeting and legs shaking. it was really weird, but you didn’t bring it up, letting them take their own time to tell you whatever it was they wanted to tell you, because obviously, they clearly had something to say.
↬ after breakfast, you sat in their living room, just watching the tv quietly, until sakusa offered to get you some water. you weren’t really thirsty, but you agreed anyways, unsurprised to see atsumu rise from his own seat a minute later with a, “be right back,” as he headed to the kitchen. you could hear them bickering and whisper-yelling, and if you weren’t starting to grow as nervous as they were, you would’ve had it in you to laugh. they returned looking like they were bearing the most daunting of news, sitting down on the couch perpendicular to you. atsumu’s hands were sweaty and intertwined tightly together, while sakusa tried to remain as composed as possible. it seemed like the dark haired man would speak up, finally, parting his mouth with a deep breath.
↬ but it’s atsumu that blurts out, “please have my baby!— our baby. please have our baby.”
↬ honestly, your first response was to laugh, in disbelief, as you clutch your glass of water. but then you see their faces — god they looked so goddamn scared — and you realized that, they were really serious. they really wanted you to carry their baby for them. holy shit?—
↬ you were mostly speechless after that, stuttering as you ask them to please explain, you’re honored but are they are, have they thought about this? properly? in depth?
↬ to your surprise, they really knew what they were doing. they’d done their research, and thought about a million other options before deciding that you were the best one. they also repeatedly told you that you didn’t have to do this, and that they didn’t want to guilt-trip you into doing it either. they wanted you to say yes only if you yourself wanted to say yes, and if this wouldn’t negatively affect you or halt your life in any way. you were the one that was going to be carrying the baby anyways, weren’t you? at the end of the day, this was all about you.
↬ you asked them for time to think about it, and reminded them that it wasn’t a no. you just wanted to make sure you were making the right decision whichever that ended up being. a few days later, you call them, asking them to meet up one way or another, and atsumu’s even more nervous than he was asking you; not even sakusa’s gentle lips to his temple or large hands soothingly rubbing at his back or his kind words could help him. sakusa himself was insanely anxious. in his head, it seemed like your ‘no,’ would finalize everything. that it would really mean no hope in having a child of their own, their very own.
↬ you invite them over to your home, and the kettle is already boiling when they arrive. you make them tea and make small talk if only to delay the inevitable. but, to each of their surprises, you take a deep breath and say, “i’d be honored to carry your baby for you,” with the brightest, warmest smile. sakusa has to bite his inner cheek to will himself to not cry, because he can’t believe you said yes. you agreed. you’re going to carry their baby. him and atsumu were having a baby.
↬ atsumu doesn’t stop himself from throwing his arms around you, collapsing on top of you in tight hug that you kind of can’t breathe, but you let him, and you laugh when he thanks you for saying yes, that he’ll “be forever in your debt.”
↬ it’s the happiest you’ve seen either of them.
↬ when you’re done with the process of insemination (of course, atsumu does joke that the three of you should go the natural way and have a threesome, to which he earns a smack from his lover and a smack from you, at the same time), the three of you just have to wait, really. it’s the longest period of waiting you’ve ever had to do, but you try to be patient, as patient as you can be. when you wake up one morning and throw up, you look at your period tracking app to see if maybe you were pms’ing. except, you weren’t. you were late. like a good three weeks late.
↬ immediately, you’re booking a doctor’s appointment. you wait to tell sakusa and atsumu after confirming your suspicions, because you don’t want to raise their hopes up for nothing. they’ve already been swimming in a pool of doubts ever since the insemination, calling you everyday to check up on you and ask for any progress. when the doctor confirms your pregnancy — holy shit you were pregnant — the first thing you do is go over to their house. you know it’s not the best idea to show up unannounced, but with how long they’ve been waiting, and how much they’ve been wanting this, the more and more you fed into it, you couldn’t wait any longer to tell them. you arrive, and the moment sakusa opens the door for you, you gasp out, “i’m pregnant.”
↬ sakusa’s quite literally frozen in shock, his mouth pressed in a thin line with eyes wide open, while atsumu walks over and goes, “oh hey,” in greeting before noticing sakusa’s face and just ???? “what’s going on?”
↬ “i’m pregnant.”
↬ “you’re what?”
↬ you show them with tears stinging your eyes the results of the test you’d taken at the doctor’s, and atsumu grips the report so tightly, like it’ll disappear if it slips only slightly from his hands. sakusa’s still in shock, trying to process everything. it takes him a good while before he can function properly again.
↬ the pregnancy itself is a lot smoother than you’d imagined. iwaizumi, as their athletic trainer, although not well versed with pregnancy, knew a lot about health and taking care of yourself in general, so he made sure you were always eating right and healthy. he even accompanied you once when sakusa and atsumu couldn’t, to the doctor, and made sure to ask him specifically what you should and shouldn’t be eating. all of the olympic/national team are more excited than anything. they’re insanely protective over you, and always pamper and care for you you when they can, whether that be back/neck/shoulder massages or giving you their food when they notice you eyeing it or letting you lean entirely on any of them for support as you walk. granted, they do make fun of you, especially the bigger your stomach got, but they mean well, really. suna once made fun of you and, because of the hormones, and because he was genuinely just mean, you started to cry. since then, suna swore off bullying you, at least until you gave birth.
↬ osamu is beyond ecstatic to become an uncle. he’s so excited it makes atsumu incredibly emotional. he goes with his brother on trips to ikea to buy a crib and gifts him an insane amount of baby clothes and always begins a conversation with, “how’s the baby?” every time you’re around, osamu’s hand can be found resting on your stomach, soothingly rubbing, excitedly grinning when he feels a kick. he is just so happy for his brother, he could cry.
↬ you ask them if they want a gender reveal when you find out or to keep it until the delivery of the baby, but they’re both insanely impatient (even though sakusa does try to convince atsumu to wait because it’ll be exciting, he himself isn’t even that convinced of that and they just ask you to tell them). with the help of osamu and his and atsumu’s parents, you organize a gender reveal party. the moment he sees the pink smoke, atsumu cheers so loudly it makes you laugh till your stomach hurt. sakusa’s grinning wider than you’ve ever seen him, grabbing atsumu’s face and kissing him, before pulling you into a tight hug. it’s literally the cutest thing ever, everyone just cheering loudly around you and celebrating with you.
↬ when you go into labor, you’re with neither of them, but with osamu, aran, and kita. they were staying the night at a hotel since they had training away from where they lived, and you were spending the night at osamu’s because the fathers of your baby really didn’t want you to be alone so close to your due date, and who better than osamu? your water didn’t break, but you kept having contractions. you were brushing it off as normal pain at the start, but they started to get worse, and closer together in time. kita, because he’s kita, had been keeping track, and told you how far apart your contractions were. to which you went, “contractions?!”
↬ aran’s calling sakusa and atsumu as kita grabs your bag as osamu grabs his keys and helps you to his car. you really couldn’t have been around a better set of men, because they were perfectly composed the whole time, helping you breathe and stay calm by staying calm themselves, reassuring you that you didn’t need to worry and that you will get to the hospital in time. they did flinch every time you screamed or cried out in pain, but aran held your hand the entire drive there, and kita guided you to steadying yourself as osamu drove as fast as he could.
↬ the issue was with sakusa and atsumu. to say they were freaking out would be an understatement. they were positively losing it. atsumu’s anxiety was louder than sakusa’s, but the latter’s was clear as ever on his pale skin and clammy hands. they were so annoying in the delivery room, literally faring worse off than you, who was pushing a whole baby out of her body. when you finally gave birth to a healthy baby girl, atsumu sobbed and sakusa cried in his hands, so maybe it was alright after all.
↬ they literally couldn’t believe their eyes when the nurse handed you the baby and placed her on your chest. she was so, so tiny, so beautiful, and theirs. honestly, you couldn’t hold back your own tears at the sight of her, and at their reaction to her. you held her in your arms as they thanked you, over and over and over again, for the biggest blessing they could ever receive.
↬ despite the fact that you were simply their surrogate, sakusa and atsumu knew they couldn’t just separate you and your baby, and neither could they just take her home all of a sudden. so for the first few months, you stayed in their guest room, but the baby slept in her own room. it was more difficult than you expected it to be when you were leaving her to go back to your own home, but they promised you repeatedly that they’re not really taking her away. it wasn’t as if you couldn’t visit at any time you wanted to come visit her. but at the end of the day, you knew what you had been signing up for, and that she was their daughter.
↬ she grows up to be a gorgeous woman. she’s interested in volleyball, sure, she’d been raised with volleyball players everywhere around her, but it’s not her immediate passion. atsumu thought he’d be more upset about that than he actually was, because he found out that it didn’t matter at all what she wanted to do. hell, if she wanted to do nothing at all and stay home forever with them, he was 100% on board with that. whatever made her happy and healthy, he was okay with. she grows up to be really close and really comfortable with both of her fathers, and they make sure with every passing day that no matter what, she can always come to them. and she does, about every little thing. and each and every time, they listen and advice and guide her properly. a s parents, they’re a perfect balance of strict and lenient. they set and raise her to never cross those boundaries, but otherwise they give her complete freedom. they respect her privacy, her decisions, everything.
↬ there was a day when she came back home from school, and they had taken a biology class for kids, where a teacher had explained periods to them. obviously, as curious as ever, she’d asked her dads about it, because she didn’t really get it. she wanted to know the how’s and the why’s and the what’s and the when’s. with every passing second atsumu had felt his lifespan shorten. eventually he suggested they call you, who she knew as her ‘aunt’ for the time being, since you were a woman and nobody would really explain it better than you. when she did get her period eventually, and had to sheepishly and shyly ask her dads to go to the store for her because she needed, um, supplies, atsumu lost it. sakusa had to try and calm him down all while laughing as he got ready to go to the store for her, because the drama of miya atsumu never gets old. he just couldn’t believe she was already getting her period. what the hell! what the actual hell!
↬ of course, he proceeded to embarrass her by telling osamu, telling sakusa’s parents, telling his parents. not cool :(
↬ when she was old enough, especially to understand the concept of being a surrogate (oh my god the sex talk was a whole other insufferable thing), they told her about you, and that you were actually her biological mother and not just an ‘auntie.’ she tried to be angry at them for keeping it from her, but she was honestly more excited about finding out than anything. it brought the two of you closer together, and for the next mother’s day, she organized a whole brunch for you, her and her dads, got you a gift, flowers, everything. yeah, you did cry.
↬ you genuinely have never been more satisfied and thankful for a decision like this one, ever, especially because of how much of a blessing the outcome had been.
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can u tell this isn’t my first time thinking about this. ever since i posted the iwaoi one i’ve been wanting to do a sakuatsu one, but i didn’t really know whether anyone had enjoyed that or would want more, so thank you for sending in this ask!! love u all mwah <3 
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greensaplinggrace · 3 years
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honestly THANK YOU for saying all that abt baghra bc i thought i was going crazy from not liking her??? bc i haven't read the books and only summaries of them on wiki and like. i dunno why ppl like her actually even in the show bc this guy, her son, is like "i wanna make the world better for us grisha" and she's just like "no." even tho he sees that she's MAKING HERSELF SICK from suppressing her powers! she's literally like in bed coughing in the flashback yet seem much healthier at the little palace. also like after everything, after her disapproval, after the fold, after centuries of waiting for the sun summoner.. he never abandons her. he makes sure she's cares for. he doesn't harm her. and i have to wonder if baghra has ever thanks him for that, for just not leaving her alone. like i dunno how im suppose ro believe aleks is a heartless villain when he still cares for his abusive mom like this. like has baghra even told her she loved him (honestly she reminds me of a classic emotionally unavailable asian parent but maybe that's just me). also im wondering if baghra ever told aleks that he had an aunt.. bc like.. now that u bring up her isolating him it's like hmmmm...
not at me being like alina... why do u trust the bitter old woman who literally beats u with a stick and verbally abuses u every chance she gets.. just bc she showed a bad painting... like.. pls use two braincells to see that who u figured out as his mother... is also using his protection..
like baghra could've upped and left with alina. but no. she stayed bc she knew she was safe under aleks's protection.
alsoim just impressed that after his first friend tried to drown him and harvest his bones... he didn't go into hiding???? he still wanted to make a safe heaven for grisha!!! HE STILL WANTED TO PROTECT GRISHA EVEN AFTER HIS GRISHA FRIEND TRIED TO KILL HIM FOR HIS FUCKEN BONES. like... this is the guy im suppose to believe is the villain???
honestly i feel like part of the reason why LB's plotlines seem so bad and disconnected (and sometimes outright racist but that's another rant) and why darkles is disproportionately more violent and villainous in the later books is bc she didn't expect the darkling to be so popular and wanted to stick with her guns of making him the villain. but also wanted the money from aleks's popularity. but like you can't have ur cake and eat it too.
Well thank you for sending this ask! It's very sweet and very passionate. I'm glad you liked my post! I didn't put as much thought into it as some of my others lol. I kind of just talked. But it was nice to be able to finally talk about some of the problems I have with both her character and the fandom/author's perception of her.
HERE is the post this is referring to, in case anyone's wondering.
👀👀 You've hit the nail on the head for so many things, here!
Baghra is extremely emotionally unavailable, basically to the point of neglect. She's also verbally and physically abusive, traits which I doubt were only reserved for her students and not her son. Baghra claims she would do anything to protect him, but I've known a lot of parents who have that mindset and yet still harm their children because they think it's "good for them".
Aleksander stays at Baghra's side for years, and even when they're opposing each other she's never too far away from him. Idk if you've read the books but he does eventually hurt her. And as much as I don't like Baghra, I think his actions were horrid. But I'm also honestly kind of surprised it took him so long lmao.
Yeah I mean, in terms of isolation, let's not forget that she never wanted to introduce him to his father, either. Baghra's sense of eternity clouds a lot of her judgments on relationships, which means she views most people as dust and therefore teaches her son to as well. The problem with that is that he's a growing child, and he needs those social and emotional attachments for healthy development.
I would bet quite a bit of money that Baghra has either never told him she loves him or she has told him so few times it's practically forgettable.
And everything becomes more complicated because so many of Baghra's actions are understandable because of her life and her history, but the impacts they have on the people around her, especially Aleksander, are permanently damaging. And the fact that that's never gone over in critical depth in the books or how it's glossed over in fandom is just very disconcerting. Like, acknowledging Baghra's failings doesn't mean we're excusing Aleksander's actions, it just means we're holding Baghra liable for her own. Which the fandom should be doing, considering she's the epitome of an abusive parental figure.
And Alina trusting Baghra over Aleksander is even more confusing! Especially in the show!! This is the woman who beat her and abused her and tortured her friends when they tiny little children (and who probably still does so now that they're adults). This is the woman who mocks you and harasses you and insults you on a regular basis. Why does Baghra revealing she's Aleksander's mother make Alina change her mind?! Like fuck, I'd just feel bad for Aleksander. No wonder he kept it a secret, I would too! And that painting is enough evidence?! Really?! A random painting shown to you by this abusive mentor that's been making your life hell. That's what you're going to betray your new lover over?
The friends trying to harvest his bones thing is a good point, too. I think Aleksander, especially show Aleksander, is incredibly idealistic. I think he cares too much for others - those he's deemed worth his care (a sentiment given to him by Baghra). Despite everything she's tried to teach him about hiding and abandoning others and never caring and never doing anything to help or reach out or connect with people, Aleksander still continues to do so. It's likely because he never got it from Baghra growing up, and so is desperate for those emotional needs to be fulfilled elsewhere.
His turning point, when Baghra tells him it was understandable that those kids tried to kill him because the world is such a hard place for them - that's crucial. And the reason it's possible as a motivating factor is because of that idealism and that desire to help and that desire to be everything his mother isn't. Baghra tells him this trauma he just experienced was because of the oppression of his people, and instead of following her lead and accepting that, going into hiding and abandoning everybody to their misery, he goes I can do something about that. I can make it so this never happens again. Which is usually how trauma like that combines with one's core personality traits at a young age, especially when there's none of the essential support systems in place to aid in recovery (ie, the role Baghra should have been filling but wasn't, because she decided to exacerbate the problem instead).
And yeah, one of my biggest problems with the ham-fisted "beating you over the head with a sledgehammer of evil deeds" look-how-bad-this-character-is! portrayal of the Darkling in the later books comes from the impression I get that Bardugo doesn't trust her readers. She's so desperate to have us hate this character and think him an irredeemable villain, not trusting any of her readers to engage critically with a morally gray character, that it feels quite a bit like condescending fucking bullshit. Which ew, I know how to engage with literature, thanks.
She really does seem to look down on a large part of her fandom, and imo, the infantilization of the female characters in her books seems to carry over to her impression of most of her female readers as well. Which is why the Darkling's character arc gets fucking destroyed. But he's still a good cash grab, of course, so she'll shake his dead corpse in front of the fandom for money every time she wants something from it.
Also! Another reason I think her plotlines feel disconnected (I'm sorry Bardugo I respect you as a person, but shit-) is because the writing in SaB is just bad. I mean, nevermind the absolutely nauseating implications of the way she portrays the Grisha as a persecuted group who's situation is never actually fully addressed as it should be, considering Grisha rights is what her main villain is fighting for (imo for a series called the Grishaverse, LB seems to be pretty anti Grisha), but her characters and story alone are just wrong for each other. They don't fit together.
And the ending is one of the main pieces of evidence in that regard! You can’t say the ending where Alina isn’t Grisha anymore is her “going back to where she started” when she’s always been Grisha. She just didn’t know she was Grisha because she denied that part of herself that she was born with.
Alina is reluctant to move forward or change, she struggles with adapting, and she’s very set on the things she’s grown attached to throughout her life. She also has some latent prejudices against the Grisha, and so denies the possibility of being Grisha for those reasons as well.
Alina’s lack of powers in the beginning of her life because she willfully doesn’t learn about them to avoid change versus her lack of powers at the end of the book when she’s accepted them and then they’re stripped away from her by outer forces are two entirely separate circumstances. You can’t make a parallel about lost powers and lack of Grisha status bringing her back to the start when she was always Grisha and she always had powers and she simply refused to come to terms with it because of personal reasons.
The first situation is an internal conflict that indicates a story about growth and a journey of self acceptance. Denying herself the opportunity to learn about her heritage and to find acceptance with a group of people like her because she’s tied to the past and because of the way she was raised is the setup for a narrative that tackles unlearning prejudice and learning how to connect with a part of her identity that was denied her and learning how to grow independent and self assured. It’s the setup for a different story entirely. The second situation is an external conflict that centers around the ‘corrupting influence of power’... for some reason.
In a world where Grisha do not have social, political, or economic power and they are hunted, centering your heroine’s journey of self acceptance and growth around an external conflict about... the corrupting influence of power (in a group of people that don’t actually have any power?!) just doesn’t work. It is literally impossible to connect the two stories Bardugo is trying to push in Shadow and Bone without seriously damaging the main character’s developmental arc.
The only way a narrative like this would work, claiming that she has gone back to where she started, is either a) if the Grisha weren’t actually a persecuted group and instead were apart of the upper class, or b) if the one bad connection between the two instances is acknowledged - that Alina denied a part of herself crucial to self acceptance and growing up, and that losing her powers at the end has also denied her. It is a tragedy, not a happy ending.
Alina suffered because she didn’t use her powers. She grew sick. It was bad for her. This was not a resistance to 'the corruption of power and the burden of greed', it was her suffering because she couldn’t fully accept herself.
Framing the ending as a return to the beginning can’t be done if you don’t address how bad the beginning was for your main character. You brought her back to a bad point in her life. You regressed her. This should be a low point in her arc. It should be a problem that’s solved so she can finish developing organically or it should be something that is acknowledged as a tragedy in it’s own right, for the future the world (the writing) denied her.
This is a ramble and it makes no sense and I’m really sorry, but my point is that Bardugo put the wrong characters in the wrong story. The character arc required for organic development doesn’t match the story and intended message at all. The narrative doesn’t fit the cast. She's got two clashing stories attempting to work in tandem and she ends up with both conflicting messages that fans still can’t comprehend in her writing and an ending that doesn’t suit her main character to such an impossible degree that it’s almost laughable.
So yeah, there's a few reasons why I think the story and the plot feels so bad and disconnected. I hope you don't mind me making this answer so long! 😅 I was not expecting to write this much.
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mediacircuspod · 2 years
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HUGE NOT ME SPOILERS THROUGH THE WHOLE POST!!!
So I’m a huge not me fan and have been watching since episode 1. Im really trying to kind of process the last episode but idk how to feel about it at all. Not me is a fantastic series and im glad I watched it, but honestly I hated this episode. Not saying it’s bad or anything, but it just wasn’t my taste. Anyway im about to rant so if you don’t wanna see it don’t read lol :””)
1). the Todd black wrap up was so bizarre? and also unrealistic??? how the hell would black have escaped unscathed and put Todd into a coma with all of those body guards, WHO ARE ARMED BTW, protecting Todd. I mean good for black I guess but I don’t understand how it’s logistically possible. I guess I can understand the motive might just be hurt and revenge and be as simple as “imma beat this man up” which is fine ig, but honestly I expected more to come from that scene (I wanted to see black escape and kick ass) and that’s my own damn fault.
2). What happened with tawi?? he just got super angry and then we never saw him again? i think there was a news broadcast about his second in command getting arrested but other than that I have no idea if he is being prosecuted/brought to justice ?? I guess this doesn’t matter as much seeing as how we barely saw tawi anyway, but I’d like to know 😭
3). All of them got happy endings ,.,., honestly watching queer characters make it out on top and be happy and successful is the ONLY thing I want to see, but those endings didn’t fit with the story. They could have if pacing was different or if there was more episodes inbetween, but it felt rushed and fake and not true to the characters. Yok punching Dan and then hugging him? i get that yok has always been head over heals for Dan but the last thing yok said to him was that he should have listened to Dan the first time and never been a part of his life. Sure, 3 weeks had passed and within those three weeks he realized people can change and be forgiven, but it still felt too fast because I as a viewer didn’t see the learning grieving and acceptance that yok had to go through during these past 3 weeks to get to the point where he can forgive Dan. It just felt so rushed and like a bandaid type of ending. For a show that made people feel so deeply for so long, I felt like there wasn’t a lot of care put into the ending and that makes me feel genuinely upset as someone who has been watching these characters grow for the past 14 weeks. I wanted them to have a happy ending, all of them. or at least an open ending that could be happy. but this…. this was a tell and not show kind of ending. We will tell the audience that the characters got a happy ending and try to explain in a quick summary how that happened, but won’t really show anything other than kiss scenes. and for a show that was built off showing the audience feelings and depths and motivations, it really didn’t fit.
4). GRAM??? HELLO?!??? the writers literally do not care about him AT ALL!!! every damn week I was defending the writers saying stuff like “oh it’s because grams a traitor!!! we don’t know his motivations likes dislikes etc because he’s PRETENDING !!!” I was like “don’t worry guys he’s only on screen .5 seconds of each episode because he’s WORKING WITH TAWI OR TODD 🤡🤡”. i really defended their lack of care for gram by creating a whole ass theory. And the worst part is that IT WOULD HAVE ACTUALLY MADE SENSE. but instead here we are. With gram literally just not being a part of the story at all, for literally no damn reason.
5). weird ass plot hole about Dan being the traitor since the beginning (but maybe I’m just stupid and can’t follow along 🤡) I’m guessing it was Dan who sold out their hide out (which I didn’t originally think until this ep) ??? so like Dan was the traitor since the first time he met yok or what???? because I was under the impression that Dan was actively helping them, got found out, and then was the traitor at the end for the drug bust. Especially since that scene with tawis men was very much like “if you don’t stop messing around with that gang I’ll hurt your parents” and he only knew about the gangs hide out for A SINGLE DAY BEFORE TAWIS PEOPLE CAME INTO IT ???? so I didn’t think he sold them out about the garage but I GUESS I WAS WRONG ???
all in all the biggest problem I have with not me is that my expectations were through the roof. This show captivated me for so long and made me care so deeply for these characters and their cause. The fact that the ending left so much to be desired and left me feeling SO incredibly disappointed is a lot for me to process rn lol.
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whenfatecollides · 3 years
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Hi ! I've been getting into Dreamcatcher lately since everyone's been saying if you're a lesbian you're gonna like dreamcatcher, and i do ! i was just wondering from someone who obvs knows them better, do you think they're naturally so close to each other or it could be a bit more... fan service stuff bc I'm always worried about getting into groups who just queerbait all the time, idk how to say this and im not trying to attack DC but there's been a lot of talk abt it in kpop lately
I get where you’re coming from, but with time you’ll see that they’re genuinely close
dc have gone through a lot as a group (some of the members have been together for abt 8/9 years now), specially the ex-minx members (jiu, sua, siyeon, yoohyeon, dami) who had to overcome an unsuccessful debut and decide to stick together despite a rough start. there’s a lot in the member’s own story that makes you wonder if there really isn’t a force in the world out there who brought them together because so much happened, to some members more than others, that literally put them right on the path to become a dreamcatcher member. it just had to be the seven of them. 
for starters, yoohyeon auditioned for a few companies and mbk accepted her. she went the first day and quit that same day because of how she was treated by the staff. she said that from that experience she wanted to quit on the idea of becoming an idol, but she really loved to dance and sing. which led her to meet sua at a dance competition before they auditioned for hfe. sua had been training to become an idol since 2012 and hfe was the one company who accepted her (I can’t imagine sleeping on that much talent). this led them to debut together and even become roomates.
siyeon had a close songwriter friend who introduced her to the company, she auditioned and got in. similarly, jiu’s vocal teacher referred her to the company, she auditioned and got in as well. as for dami she had wanted to become an idol since elementary school, one day she participated in an open audition at her school and hfe called her for an audition.
with gahyeon, she actually went through a few companies before landing on hfe. she was an fnc traineed for a while, she got in both yg and sm, but left since they weren’t going to debut a group any time soon. similar to dami she participated in an open audition at her school and she got called for an audition.
and handong had some interest in kpop when she was in high school, but when she got the chance to go to korea for university her dad made her promise she wouldn’t try to become an idol, it was literally The condition for her to go to korea, she wasn’t meant to audition according to her parents will. but one of her uni teachers told her about hfe’s audition and she just went for it anyway asdkjhs (her relationship with her parents is fine now). it was just meant to be.
they’ve also mentioned quite a few times that they didn’t just instantly click with each other like that (some members having a cold impression of sua at first, siyeon admitting it took her quite some time to get close with handong, jiu saying she was skeptical about the adittion of handong and gahyeon but soon realised they made the group stronger), they worked on their relationship over time and they wanted to make things work with each other which itself is really important and shows the kind of loving and supportive enviroment they wanted to build for each other (I go a little bit more in depth about their overall story in this post). they’ve made sure to build a really great sense of teamwork with each other since the beginning, from the fact that they had about 2/3 months to prepare for dc’s debut (minx still performed on october 2016 and dc debuted january 2017) alone, they really had to make a conscious choice about it all. honestly one of the things that makes me sure that dc are close is that they don’t hide the negative feelings they sometimes have towards each other (which are normal), they've spoken a few times about silly things that they’ve argued about and have even mentioned that they don’t get the other members involved in the quarrels they’re having with another member to not create more drama than necessary. but you can really see that they love and take of each other in the little things too, not just the (sometimes) fanservice. and by this I mean things like, sua calling handong in the middle of her vlive to go get food for her, dami letting yoohyeon sleep in her bed and going to the living room because she didn’t want to wake her up, siyeon falling asleep on top of yoohyeon and yoohyeon not having the heart to wake her up as well, among many many many things.
but truly they’ve gone through a lot of hardships over the years, including having a member be away and unable to participate in comebacks and group schedules for a whole year (not because of health issues or anything like that, but because of the covid situation that made it impossible for her to fly back to korea), and they got out of that situation being even more appreciative of that member when it could’ve easily been something that could have made them turn on each other. it was a situation that brought them even closer and appreciative of one another. they really want to be on this path together.
as for the queerbaiting bit, I’ve made posts about this before and as I’ve said, it doesn’t matter whether or not it’s fanservice because at the end of the day they’re respectful and caring, and they’re only normalising same sex attraction. they never make you feel gross for that attraction either, they’ve never pulled a ‘no home though’ moment, they continuously sing songs directed at female lovers without changing the pronouns, continuously accept marriage proposals from their female fans, and even when a fan was dubious and said “but we’re two girls” jiu said that it didn’t matter and that love is love, and they’ve said many times that it’s okay for female fans to be nervous around them (aka attracted to them). 
and not that it’s anyone’s business but the members themselves have dropped many hints over the years, from not specifying the gender of their ideal type
“Dreamcatcher Handong, “even if they’re not good-looking, a warm-hearted person is my ideal type.” “My idea type, erm... a warm-hearted person. A person not necessarily need to be good-looking, if they’re warm-hearted they’re a good person” ©
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Handong: For me, firstly, kind. It would be great if the person has a good personality and is tall.
Gahyeon: For me, because I’m still young I don’t have a definite ideal type. Just someone who smiles prettily and is fun. Ah, if the person has a good voice, it will be good. I like to talk on the phone. ©
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Jiu: I wish to have someone I can chat non-stop with, and who is also knowledgable and has a good character. I’ve never really thought about an ideal date, but what’s most important is that the atmosphere has to be comfortable!
Yoohyeon: My ideal type is someone who’s like Peter Pan, someone fun-loving and positive! My ideal date location would be Paris, France. It’s a really romantic city! Really look forward to spending time there with the one I love.
Gahyeon: I like someone with a beautiful smile, and someone who can really take care of me.   ©
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to lowkey admitting a same sex crush (she went to an all girls school as far as we know)
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to being uh very straightforward about it
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among other things 🐒 I’ve been into kpop for quite a lot of years now and I never experienced a group make this as comfortable as they do honestly. that’s why I say that it doesn’t matter if it is just fanservice, they’re still changing things for the better. but that being said, take your time getting to know them~ I think it’s better that you see it for yourself rather than have someone tell you really
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kakyoinryoko · 3 years
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im curious what u think jotaros life pre sdc was like
probably not good from what we see but i’m not super into speculation about this sort of thing beyond what can be inferred on a pretty base level... like, i feel no need to have detailed headcanons about everything that happened to him exactly. i have vague ideas but nothing super in depth outside of how him being gay and trans affects things already established or implied. i don’t know what exactly jotaro’s high school fights would revolve around, for example, and i don’t particularly have any desire to come up with any headcanons for this. i say this but i’m about to drop an entire essay here i guess. cool, embarrassing, etc
i’ve talked about it a little before but i think Something happened to him between entering high school and reaching his third year that kinda fucked him up, and whatever it was caused him to start acting more coldly and harshly towards his mother, who he previously was very openly loving towards. i’ve heard people say that the only reason holly sees him that way at the beginning of sdc is because she has illusions about her son being a better and kinder person than he is, but that’s just not true. i don’t think the imagery of him dressing like a proper student and being happy to receive a valentine and smiling at her and openly expressing his love for her cooking were false memories, i think he actually said and did those things, it was just stuff that happened when he was younger, probably a first year. i’ve said it over and over, but as it is, in the present day (as of sdc), she fully understands what her son is like. she’s introduced into the series asking the cops how many people he killed. that was her instinctual guess upon hearing he was arrested—this says to me 1) he’s never been arrested before, but 2) she knows about the fighting he gets up to and has feared that this is where it would end at some point. she also emphasizes the fact that he can’t fool her when it comes to his tough guy act—she realizes that it’s deep beneath his extremely rough exterior, but he IS a good and caring person at heart. she never says anything about him that isn’t true, and anyone brushing her off as a dumb naive woman just isn’t reading between the lines. or maybe isn’t reading at all frankly. it’s all right there in front of you.
as for his past. at a guess. it seems like he doesn’t really have any friends at all, at any point in the manga, outside of the people we see him interacting with in the parts themselves. as of his childhood and teen years, the fact that he’s half american and his father is largely absent is one possible reason i have heard brought up before, but i think it’s also because he comes across as pretty weird and hard to get along with. as an autistic person i see a lot of myself and my own struggles with interpersonal relationships in jotaro, so i think his issues with people are in no small part because he is autistic himself. i’m not going to belabor the explanation here because others have made better posts than i could about why he reads so heavily as autistic, but i think it comes down to him missing social cues, and not coming across the way he intends to, and not being able to read the implications in the things people say to him, and him being trans on top of that would make him feel like even more of an odd one out. i think he would deal with that by being kind of a sukeban type, so at least his ostracization feels like he’s in control of it and he’s being strong, but even so, acting like a scary tough girl isn’t a replacement for transitioning.
i think he would start transitioning (which is to say, changing his name and presentation and starting testosterone, but that’s about all) late in middle school, around 14, so that by the time he’s a first year in high school he’s fully stealth. and it makes him happy at first, because people are talking to him as a boy, and using a boy’s name for him (perhaps part of why he’s so chill about people calling him by first name the second they meet him, since that’s a little odd to do otherwise), so for a time he’s a happy enough kid. i think t hits him pretty hard and fast, and he shoots up almost immediately and gets to be like six feet tall and buff and deep voiced by the time he’s like 15, so suddenly he’s not so much the awkward american girl as he is the super tall strong guy that the guys all fear and respect and the girls all have a crush on, which is maybe nice at first, but i think the allure would wear off pretty fast.
i don’t think he necessarily realizes that it’s because he’s gay, but we see ourselves pretty clearly that he doesn’t enjoy the attention from girls beyond maybe thinking it’s a better alternative to having them mock him like when he was younger. he hates having them crowd around him and fawn over him—he has no interest in any of them in the first place, and none of them ACTUALLY care who he is, just that he’s tall and strong and handsome, and he hates that. and then, of course, guys fearing and respecting him turns into people wanting to fight him, and something terrible happens as a result of that, and he ends up an extremely guarded and hostile person as a result, even to the ones he loves. it gets to the point where he’s a target for actual serious violence, even from grown adult gang members as we see at the start of sdc, so his desire to keep people away from him as a means of keeping them safe kicks in—and this is something that sticks with him for the rest of his life, even into his 40s with his daughter. only tangentially related but i think the true tragedy of part 3 is that he was finally getting over that mindset, he was finally starting to see value in keeping people close to him and trusting in and relying on others. but primarily we see him express this sentiment towards kakyoin. and kakyoin dies. and more specifically dies for jotaro. so that all comes crashing down hard, and he’s right back where he started.
back to the main point i also feel i should mention i’m 100% of the belief he has perfect grades and attendance even when he’s more into the delinquent act. i say act mostly because i don’t think he’s actually hugely into the whole bancho subculture; i don’t think he would actually join any gangs, i think he prefers to keep to himself until other people go looking to start shit with him, which he always finishes handily (allegedly, no one has ever seen him get hurt before). probably including the teacher who he ran off, regardless of whatever happened then—he says himself that injustice and harming the weak makes him extremely mad, so there was definitely more going on there than just “jotaro got mad at a teacher because he’s a violent person and beat the shit out of him for no reason and so the guy got scared and quit,” though i don’t really care to speculate deeper than that. the teacher was not an innocent party is all i’m saying.
i suppose this is all just an unreasonably long winded way of saying “idk but i sure think about it a lot.” basically just extrapolations from the way he interacts with his peers from what little we see, and from the bio about him coming across in a much more cold and aloof way than he thinks he does, and from his relationship with his mom, and from what we see based on her memories of him when he was younger.
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bthump · 3 years
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hello, i just recently read berserk and i am absolutely blown away. im so glad to have found your blog, you have made a lot of in depth analyses on griffguts and honestly i have a lot of trouble comprehending griffith's and gut's relationship and feelings toward each other post-eclipse but i feel like you clarified a lot of things for me and im so grateful! i also wanna ask smth in regards to guts and casca but character limit soon so ill do it in another ask. just wanna say i appreciate you!
idk if its just me being ridiculously biased but i cant rly see the guts/casca ship? like i can tolerate it because i feel like it was written to move the plot in a certain direction/character development and not for the sake of romance but i always feel like guts was just... there. i mean when you compare the way he thinks abt griffith to casca in the golden age arc, he obviously reveres griffith so much, and casca is just... there. i really enjoyed their moments and thought they were cute but
with the sex scene i always just saw it as them coping. i did like it in how it explored guts's sexual trauma and it mostly seemed like guts and casca were friends doing it for the sake of coping rather than out of love and desire for each other. not to mention judeau who kept trying to push them together... but then post-eclipse, it seems like guts is so in love w/ her and thats why hes heartbroken, and not bc they were close friends and that he just cares for her as a fellow hawk member
idk maybe im missing something, i would love to be enlightened bc i rly scratch my head when i see people describing it as an amazing love story and a romantic ship when to me it comes off as less like trying to portray a passionate love b/w two characters and more as, this is necessary for guts's character development and motivation in regards to griffith. esp when i feel like guts and griffith's feelings for each other are just so intense, even if its more "subtle" than an outright sex scene
thank you so much! I'm v glad my blog helped clarify some stuff about the story for you, I appreciate you letting me know <3
well if you want to be enlightened about how Guts and Casca is actually super romantic deep down you've come to the wrong place lol because you've mostly described how I feel about their relationship.
I completely agree that during the Golden Age their relationship felt very much like two friends hooking up. The fact that Judeau had to push them into it seems really telling to me, there are strong indications that they're both rebounding from Griffith, as soon as Griffith re-enters the picture they get weird and jealous, after they have sex Guts calls his sword all there is for him and invites Casca along in as non-committal a way as you can, Guts decides independent of Casca to stay with Griffith instead of leaving with her just as Casca decides the same, I also want to shoehorn in a link to this thing I wrote lol, etc.
And I actually don't see any difference after the Eclipse tbh. I actually wonder which translation you read, because I know at least one of the scanlations out there has Guts talk about how he loves her a few times post-Eclipse while the Dark Horse translation never does.
I think Guts' relationship with Casca after the Eclipse is largely based on obligation. It's actually kind of striking to me how unromantic it is.
Like during the Conviction arc he doesn't stop everything he's doing and decide to save Casca once he realizes she's in danger. He goes to check on her, finds her missing, then sits down in Godo's cave and debates with himself for two chapters before deciding to try to find her. And he only comes to this decision after comparing leaving Casca behind to leaving Griffith behind in the snow, and thinking of her as the last remnant of the Hawks ("this last feeble flame.")
I think to Guts she represents everything he threw away when he left the Hawks, and saving her is essentially a chance to better himself and try to make up for it. I don't think that's Guts' only motivation for saving her and then taking her to Elfhelm, I actually have a post here where I wrote a list of all the reasons I think Guts has if you're interested, but I do think it's the most important one.
And man after he saves her and returns her to Godo's, right before the Hill of Swords?
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To me this excellent page - Casca mirroring a child, Griffith looking Like That, Guts' attention torn from Casca because Griffith looks Like That - just screams that Casca is Guts' responsibility while Griffith is Guts' desire. Whether that's revenge or latent attraction or probably both l b r, Griffith is the dude Guts wants to be pursuing and Casca is the person Guts is stuck with.
Even when he sexually assaults her it's all about Griffith lol, it's not even framed as, say, Guts being so attracted to her he can't help it or anything like that, it's framed as "do this and you'll get closer and closer to Griffith."
After learning her mind can be restored he potentially starts thinking about her more romantically, like there's subtext there when he watches Casca with Moonlight Boy on the beach, eg. And even that reads to me as Guts trying to distract himself from his "obsession" with Griffith.
I think Guts wanted to get back together with Casca after getting her sanity back for the same reason he had sex with her the first time - as a distraction from confusing and painful feelings. In the most recent chapters we saw that it didn’t work out and now he’s swinging his sword again, frustrated, wondering what the hell he’s supposed to do now, which in itself shows that he wasn’t trying to selflessly help Casca because he loves her, he mainly just needed something else to focus on while trying to kick his Griffith addiction.
SO yeah, basically ia that their relationship doesn’t seem romantic pre-Eclipse, but I also don’t think there’s much of a romantic element post-Eclipse either. I felt like it was fairly consistent throughout.
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prettyboykatsuki · 3 years
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How do you recommend writing fluff. Or idk, just being in love?
okay so 
1. im super sleepy and head empty rn so this will probably be a lil incoherent and have a lot of typos. please bear w me on that but i wanted 2 answer bc i was thinking of this ask all day 
2. i hope this is helpful 
i should preface w the fact i dont think writing fluff is particularly my strong suit. fluff writing requires a lot of immersive and detail oriented writing and i simply don’t excel at it - but i think writers like @/cyancherub @/doinmybesthere and @/ihatebnha are really good at tying details into their work. all of my mutuals r talented but they stick out to me in that way 
but i thought about this question a lot 2day cause i wanted to respond but didn’t know how but i ended up coming to the conclusion that ultimately i can’t answer this for you all the way 
i’ve been in love a few times and i am in love now but im also kind of an apathetic person. ironically for someone who’s enamored by romance - im actually pretty unaffected with most things. i cry easily but i forget easy too. 
your experience with the emotion of love is effected by everything. my personal philosophy love is the origin and center of everything and i mean that in a way that’s completely unrelated to romantic love. i think an important part of writing good love stories is not focusing too heavily on what media has made us believe romantic love is like. 
it’s a big broad concept with alot of depth and a lot of how you write it will boil down to how you view it. when you think of love, when you hear the word - what do you see? and if you see something narrow, broaden your perspective. find your own words to write love and romance and think of the times that you’ve loved someone or they’ve loved you. it doesn’t need to be romantic. but write about that. write about having popsicles on your porch in summer or passing notes in class. 
romantic love is only one kind and true love is often many kinds of love that you can find in just one person. 
for me - my concept of romantic love is heavily molded by the fact i do not think love will make your heart race. 
i struggled with that for a long time because yknow.. romance movies always talk about how lovers make your heart skip a beat. but after reaching two years with my boyfriend - i stopped feeling that way all the time. the honeymoon phase wore off and i was worried that i wasn’t in love anymore. i knew i loved him but it didn’t feel the same 
but you know what he did make me feel? what he does make me feel? safe. i grew up in a really unsafe environment and it’s so exhausting but talkin to him makes me feel so at ease i get sleepy listening to his voice. its so easy to be myself around him i get teary eyed just thinking about it. 
when i write love, in almost every way, that’s the kind i write. and the more i thought about love in my life, all the times i’ve felt it - it’s because those people gave me something i couldn’t have ever before. safety and peace that had felt so inaccessible to me growing up. 
i wont tell you that there’s a right way to write fluffy content or people being in love. but when i write, personally, i think of how a character might perceive love given all the things they didn’t have in their life. 
for bakugou - i think love is wakeup call. for deku, i think love is an act of selfishness. for kirishima, it’s a feeling of security. for todoroki, it’s probably an almost childish purity of feeling. for momo, maybe it’s someone that gives her confidence. 
we mold love with our hands and we shape it based on our lives. i think once you’ve jumped over that hurdle of figuring out what love feels like for you, it’ll be easier to write fluffy stuff and romance scenes. 
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michibikionmain · 3 years
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This isn’t THE tommyinnit villain essay but it sure is one of them
Ok ok so 4 those of u who aren't on discord with me: i have two main essays that have been in the works for MONTHS, these being my Complete Dream character analysis essay going in-depth for nearly all of his canon interactions and finding his character traits and motivations through the story, and my Tommyinnit (and Wilbur Soot) were Always The Villains on the server essay talking about how the only reason so many people view them as the good guys or heroes is because we see the story from their perspective mainly. This essay? Is not either of those. BUT, it does go through a lot of my thoughts on Tommy and Dream’s characters so I figured I’d post it. maybe itll help me organize my thoughts 4 my Mega Projects lol
@ranboocore bc u helped me pop off on this so hard LMAO
Warning, it’s VERY Tommy Critical, what a suprise. I do not like Tommy as a character lol. idk what triggers yall might need me to tag but if u need one in particular pls lmn!
My biggest issue with tommy's character is that he SAYS hes learned but he never does he is exactly the same person he was at the start of the server just More Sad and with Trauma, when out of all the characters he's had the most push to change. c!Tommy is a very tell-don't-show character which can make it hard for some people to connect to him, especially those who don’t directly share his trauma or see themselves in his character. Of course, there is still a MASSIVE amount of people who relate to his struggles and thus love him regardless of his writing, but those who can't relate to him will always feel some kind of barrier until the things they've talked about are actually shown to the viewer instead of being spoon-fed to them.
It is a very beginner writing thing, and I'm hoping that Tommy is figuring out how to fix this, maybe with support from the many other writers on the server. There's the 3 you mentioned, plus fundy, niki, and maybe tubbo who also play dnd, plus Dream who said he would've been an English major and does a lot of personal writing for fun.  I think the biggest issue in the writing lies in the individual ccs being inexperienced in the medium, particularly with planning out their own character growth. 
Another glaring issue I have with c!Tommy is how he's framed to be sympathetic and he goes through all these horrible things without acknowledging his role in any of them. The things that have happened to him are a direct result of his actions, but the thing is HE won't acknowledge and so it falls flat. This isn’t to say that being abused is his fault, because it’s NEVER the vicitm’s fault, but being exiled? His multiple fights with c!Dream? His friendships falling apart? Losing the disks in the first place? They’re the direct consequences of HIS OWN actions, but he never acknowledges this and constantly just... brushes off any accountability by either saying that it’s Dream fault or simply SAYING he feels bad without properly showing it through redemption and GROWTH.
Denial is useful in storytelling sometimes, but Tommy's character has been in denial since the very beginning of the server and at this point it's just exhausting. He only ever switches between denial and depression, not really going through all 5 stages of grief properly. His violent/upset reactions would be more powerful if they were any different from how tommy usually acts, but this is always how he is. When he “lashes out” because he’s reached the end of his patience, it doesn’t SEEM like the snap it is because that’s just... it’s seriously just his standard reaction to everything. It hold no WEIGHT to see c!Tommy yell at someone violently or threaten to fight them because he does that anyways!
Static characters can be a good thing, and can be interesting if done correctly, but not every character SHOULD or CAN be static in a story.
Static characters need to have their position or behavior challenged and question, where they look into if the way they see and interact with the world is really the 'correct' one or just evaluated to see if they truly believe in them. This questioning period is CRUCIAL! and NEEDS to be well done in a way that ACTIVELY SHOWS the conflict between the two ideals. If they decide to hold onto their beliefs/continue their behavior then, it feels deserved, because rather than just being a flat "they do thing its who they are" they have defined WHY. WHY is a very important question to think of when telling the difference between dynamic and static characters. The why of a character is ESSENTIAL to developing them as a relatable, sympathetic person rather than a flat story telling device. It makes them a human rather than a puppet. When a character's motives aren't well defined or discussed, they're doomed to fall flat in everything else, because the WHY is the foundation of what makes them who they are.
c!Tommy has an underdeveloped "why", his motivations are weak, rarely properly discussed and when they are it doesn't particularly stick with him. His motivations change without showing us the internal struggle that should come from literally shifting your driving principles. There are some good MOMENTS of him reevaluating the importance of certain things, but they're so spread out and contradictory and immediately spat one that they're hard to piece together. He TELLS us what his motivations are as well, which is another big flaw when it comes to all that but we don't have time to unpack all THAT Anyways, the key to static story telling is reaffirmation. The character goes through a complete journey and ends with the same beliefs because they've looked into why they have them and determined that they still matter to them. A great example of static writing in my eyes is c!Techno, who since the beginning has believed that governments are bad. c!Techno enters the server to destroy a government, and still ends up doing that because he sees and we see him experience that the reasons he didn't like government before still hold true and he has no reason to support them any more than before, and so his anarchist beliefs are REAFFIRMED, proving to him that they way he handles things is the right one for him.
c!Tommy’s attachments are all just... they're all so weird.  like he LITERALLY SACRIFICES HIS LIFE MULTIPLE TIMES for L'manburg. By action of sacrifice it seems like it should be the most important thing to him, but then he throws it away for some disks that mattered less to him just a minute ago.  But then it's all about how c!Tubbo is worth more than Anything and maybe he's found something more important! but then he shoves THAT out the window for the discs again ig!!! but then it's about l’manburg again? Make it make sense.... pls....
Here's smth that really irks me about Tommy's character, and is kind of weird but give me a second to explain: Tommy has never actually permanently lost much of anything on the server. Every punishment he's ever received he's tried to find some way around. And like... I'm not expecting him to be HAPPY to face the consequences of his actions but seeing him constantly have his cake and eat it too is very irritating, especially when there are characters who DO have to deal with actual permanent sacrifices. The whole thing with the disks. where he WILLINGLY OFFERED THEM UP AND GAVE THEM AWAY THEN SPENT FOREVER TRYING TO STEAL THEM BACK WHILE CLAIMING DREAM STOLE THEM FROM HIM, is the biggest example of this, but it's generally his characters way of dealing with things. He's very backhanded and conniving, constantly calling himself "big man" except for when he wants things from people and he plays up the "iM a MiNoR" card to try and get them to give him things or feel bad. He's not just some sweet innocent kid like people paint him, he knows damn well he's messed up and while he SAYS he feels bad about it, he has never once really shown, with his ACTIONS, regret for what he's done except for the stuff with c!Sapnap, which could it could be argued he did because he thought it would help get c!Sapnap on his side to fight Dream and he knew c!Sapnap was a skilled warrior and could possibly be persuaded to fight with dream.
c!Tommy is in NO way some sweet innocent child, he knows what he's doing. He KNEW l'manburg was a drug empire, and wanted to turn his hotel into the same He was FULLY prepared to just murder c!Schlatt for legally winning an election that he KNEW was rigged AND INTENDED TO HELP RIG HE LITERALLY TEAMED UP WITH c!TECHNOBLADE KNOWING THAT HE INTENDED TO BLOW UP L'MANBURG AND ONLY LEFT WHEN HE REALIZED IT WASN'T GOING TO ACTUALLY HELP HIM--
The line of c!Wilbur saying "Tommy, are we the bad guys?" wasn't him mentally going batshit it was him realizing that the entire time they've been doing terrible things. c!Wilbur was literally ALWAYS Vilbur but the time people CALL Vilbur is when c!Will himself realized he was a villain.
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