#idk it's fun to think about & sometimes i want to believe in it but ultimately i dont think it has much merit & is mostly confirmation bias

[dekusleftsock]

I thought everyone was exaggerating when people kept bringing up the whole “bakugou says he’s Kacchan bc of kaminari” thing, but they actually believe that… what?

WHAT

Literally how do you guys function

AND THEY CALL ME DELULU???????

It’s such a stretch too. Like “oh yeah he said Kacchan no Bakugou in this movie” ITS NOT EVEN IN THE MANGA HELLO???

The whole reason Kaminari calls Katsuki Kacchan is because he’s making fun of him. It’s poking fun at the fact that Katsuki can’t say anything or get mad at Kaminari because then it would raise the question, “Well why can Midoriya say it?”

He literally side eyes him every time he does it but ultimately doesn’t react because he can’t. He can’t if he wants to keep up the act that he is uninterested in what Izuku represents, who he is.

SO WHY, IN THE EVER LOVING FUCK, WOULD IT BE KAMINARI?

WHO is present in this battle?

WHO is the person that made eye contact with him the second he woke up?

WHO is the one that grabbed his hand immediately upon Katsuki flinging himself towards them??

I don’t think THEY even believe it either, I think it’s just some way to cope and explain away the fact that this moment is inherently romantic.

Because I don’t think he’s making fun of the name Kacchan, I think he’s wearing it proudly. I don’t think it’s a joke at all. It’s a joke in the disbelieving way—the way you act when you’ve made an enormous accomplishment or won some prize, and you just can’t help but act absolutely insane at the fact. Because it’s funny that you’re here, in this situation. It’s hilarious in that disbelieving way.

Because he’s laughing at the truth, he’s been laughing at nothing this ENTIRE CHAPTER.

“Ouch! Haha! I’m so fast!”

“I can’t even stop! Ha! Ouch!”

Note: (I’m not using the official translations because for some reason they lack the maniacal crazed laughter and I’m confused as to why?? I even checked with pikahlua and they specified that there was laughing so…. I’m confused.)

What’s even weirder about this is the fact that afo also says (in pikahlua’s translations) “just who is this brat?!” Instead of “what is wrong with him” which implies less crazed bakugou ness imo. Confused as to why, again.

Because this can’t be happening.

Now, I know it could very well be him teasing afo and calling him dumb, saying basically “you’re too young/old to even know how to pronounce my name, use Kacchan instead like the child you are.” Especially since in the context of names like Katsuki’s, he has that tsu sound that can be hard for children to pronounce. (I’m not 100% on this but I’m pretty sure that the u sound is also meant to be silent since it’s a double consonant. So Katsuki’s name is technically pronounced “Ka-ts-ki”)

BUT IDK I THINK HES JUST FUCKED AND A LITTLE CRAZY RN!

That maniacal laughter at the fact that he’s in pain, the disbelief that he may even surpass Izuku, to me it’s holding a double meaning. The meaning that afo is dumb and needs to be treated like the child he is, and the meaning behind the fact that it’s a name Izuku owns for him. That’s his.

It can be both.

It’s not fucking Kaminari. It was never Kaminari. Even if you don’t read it as the second definition it’s still not about Kaminari.

But it’s also undeniable that it has to do with Izuku some way some how.

I also believe that the western side of the fandom is making an extra big deal out of this because, to us, we don’t really have a proper understanding of what a nickname like Kacchan means in its cultural context.

We can TRY to understand, comparing it to endings with ie or y given to children, and then sometimes going with that nickname into adulthood, but it still has its own distinct cultural context. Because a name like “Gracie” over “Grace” does to an extent sound childish, but I have a feeling that -chan has its own childish feeling. There’s a reason none of Katsuki’s other friends in middle school call him Kacchan, and there’s a reason Kaminari decides to make fun of him for the name in the first place.

I just think it’s important to use our thinking brains before we start yapping about things we don’t quite understand yet :)

Like it’s so unbelievably important to understand that horikoshi won’t tell you what’s happening in his story and why, he’ll show you instead BECAUSE HES A GOOD FUCKING WRITER

If it was about Kaminari, he would have specified, but he didn’t. He showed you that Kacchan is Izuku’s nickname for Katsuki, and he showed you that Katsuki cared more about Izuku than he let on for a long time. Just like he showed you that Izuku pushes down his emotions, showed you that Izuku struggles with projection and anger, showed you that Ochako was the one with this crush and not Izuku, and showed you that the feelings he had about Katsuki were deeper than anyone had realized.

He showed you parallels, he specified the important parallels that you absolutely had to see as a viewer (ex toga and ochako), just as he showed you the ones that were more subtle but still there (ex toga and deku). He showed you the pieces, and that doesn’t make his character’s underdeveloped or unspecified, that’s just how writing fucking works. “Good writing” DOESNT MEAN that you have to be pulled along through your baby steps with your hand held, the fact that you don’t get it is on you. Reading comprehension is a learned skill that has to be practiced over and over again, and that is not the writers job. The writer is only supposed to deliver you their story, and however you decide to misconstrue that story is, and hear me out friends, on you.

So I’m sorry if I’m tired of hearing arguments like “toga is a predator and Horikoshi wrote her to be horny”… she’s supposed to represent love. I’m sorry if the representation he made of love was uncomfortable for you, but maybe that’s the point? Because she’s an outcast? Because she’s supposed to be hard to empathize with, but that we have to empathize in the first place?

Arguments like “Katsuki was referencing a joke about Kaminari bc Kaminari said this in this movie” is just about the largest fucking reach I’ve ever seen. And I know, I know that when bkdk eventually get their implied or canonical ending that people are going to be mad. They’ll blame shippers for pressuring him, or they’ll say he’s a bad writer, or they’ll send him homophobic slurs because “how dare the character I see myself in be gay”. And I’m done with the stupidity and lack of common god damn sense.

So if you are going to be upset by the fact that you’re going to be proven wrong, then I again say, it’s on you.

[mumblemysoul]

steddie fandom is wild because sometimes I'll be reading a fic and for some reason Robin is more of a friend to Eddie then she is with Steve.

Which is hilarious because the most emotional conversation they had with each other in the show is Robin criticizing Eddie's music taste as NOT music.

Head Cannon all you want but, I think she is firmly staying on her own side side of the music vibe chain. Not even if you have your punk or rock steves, which are fun au's but often feel like changing Steve to fit Eddie.

Steve is a bitchie sports dude that is great at being a baby sitter, (has lingering high school hierarchy personality but pretty much seems to pretty done with that).Wishes for everyone to be safe and will decimate himself in the process to achieve that, (and may accidentally be overprotective at times)he maybe isn't the smartest buckaroo in the room but will notice the things people miss and can make a makeshift plan in tight situations. Also painfully durable, at a certain point I'm pretty sure he can take a grenade to the chest and come out with some small cuts on his chest. He is thoroughly invested with his friends and wants to get them to be the best them they want to be,talking to Robin about the girl she always likes, watched star wars with Dustin and thinks the fact he has a girlfriend is great (even if he doesn't believe it). Alongside that he is a very gossipy individual and is very mean girl oriented.

Eddie is loud and greatly theatrical, he loves going against the man and the social system as much as he can. (Despite his wishes for going against the norm he also has a habit of also putting people in boxes, which he learns to practically not do over the course of season 4 due to his experience with steve and Chrissy). He has a habit of being soft and silly to try and make situations less tense and make people smile. He is extremely skittish despite his slightly mean persona that his friends are normally accustomed to. (As seen with his rough push for Dustin and Mike to find a replacement as he considers Lucas to have joined "the dark side",Dustin and Mike also seem scared before they have to tell the news too). After the Chrissy scenario he is extremely tense and for a long time skittish and uneasy as he currently being hunted. When he learns of the final battle he seems show his soft side to Dustin and overcome his skittishness in a last stand with vecna that ultimately leaves him dead.

These both characters intercept at their deep relationship with Dustin and wanting Dustin to be the best Dustin could be. What makes their relationship in fanon work is Steve's relentless drive to protect, be selfless while be a mean girl who gossips at the same time(looking badass during it). Steve to Eddie is someone by technicality, going against the norm in a unexpected way. In a way not even he can expect, and that he in a large way, he admires(while also admiring Steve's chest). While Steve can admire Eddie's ability to be Eddie, to bring out the part of Dustin that Steve can't quite understand but firmly supports.

Changing any of the two characters a lil too much can feel like copping out or kind of getting rid of what makes that character that character. Also, Robin is her own character too and needs more nuance then being seemingly changed to fit into a eddified box.

Idk maybe I'm big dumb and looking too much into things. I have a habit of also not understanding stuff either so, I'm sorry

No bad will to anybody, I like au's. I want oreos

[zalrb]

This is kind of weird and I’m going to preface this with saying that I think your writing is absolutely excellent. If I were Elena in your Steferine fics, I don’t think I’d be able to seriously believe Stefan loved me because of how addicted he is to Katherine. I know the purpose of the fic isn’t a HEA Stelena and that it’s meant to hurt her because it’s Stefan and Damon choosing Katherine over her, and if I were Elena, I wouldn’t be able to get over that, if that makes sense. Like I know Stelena have this bond, this soulmate love and Steferine is ultimately obsession and great sex and I don’t think Stefan needs to validate Elena when she chose his brother over him and Elena does need to face consequences for her actions, but Idk, after seeing them both with Katherine in the context of your fic (Stefan continuing to see her despite Elena’s objections and jealousy, Damon actively pining after her, hell even Matt agreeing to hook up with her), I would just rethink everything in my life and just leave town. I know Elena wouldn’t do that because she loves Stefan and would stay and fight for him, but after it was all over, I think she would, just for a little bit. Everyone who has ever claimed to love her has in a sense picked Katherine over her, never mind that she picked Damon over them because Elena is nothing if not a hypocrite, and I think that would eat at Elena long after it was over and Katherine was gone.

I’m not requesting that you write this or anything, this is just a badly worded way of saying I think the sheer hurt you manage to insert into your writing is nothing short of masterful, that if I were in that character’s place I would be utterly unable to take it. Ngl, sometimes I have a hard time reading it because I cannot fathom what I would do in Elena’s situation, but then again if I were Elena I would have tried to run over Damon with my car in 1x04.

Idk if this is the kind of engagement that you want from your readers, but I thought I’d say something. I hope I didn’t come off as critical of your writing because that is so not the case, you are absolutely incredible and these are just my deranged musings. Is there anything I can do to better engage with your stories? I do like and reblog them but in terms of commentary/discussion, what are you looking for and how can I do it?

Oh, this is great engagement, thank you! But who says it's not an HEA for Stelena? 😉 (I'm not saying it is either! but it's more like Steferine is the prominent relationship in the fic rather than Stelena).

I get what you're saying, though, because I definitely dial everything to a hundred in that series (even though I sometimes wonder if I go far enough haha) while keeping it as in character as possible for a scenario like this while also kind of being like, if we're going to be honest about what all these people mean to each other and really looked at how these people reacted to each other, the outcomes of these dynamics would be extremely messy and extremely painful. And that means Elena is taking some pretty hard Ls and actually has to deal with the emotional consequences of them.

But in the same regard what makes Stelena Stelena is that they stay through circumstances where other people would leave. Like, Caroline, for instance, isn't staying through something like this, not with Stefan, not with Tyler, that's just not who she is. And I certainly would just take my L and go, haha.

But Elena's journey through the series is fun because when it starts, she's just sick with jealousy, and she's just indignant and angry and reactive and realizing that she made a choice to be with Damon and fully feeling the loss of Stefan, like it really sinking in for her that she made the wrong choice and that she didn't think of what losing Stefan would actually feel like and mean

Stefan sighed and shook his head. “Elena. Katherine’s right, you made your choice. You moved on. You didn’t think I’d move on too?”

Elena gritted her teeth putting her hands to her head. “I just didn’t think it would–”

“Rip your heart out?”

Elena didn’t say anything and only looked at him, devastated. 

so the in "Toxic" she's here

but I make it a point for Stefan to explain that what he feels for Katherine isn't love, it isn't even affection, which in its own way makes Elena lose her mind

“I can’t believe you’re defending her! What, you have feelings for her again?”

Stefan rubbed his temples. “This isn’t about having feelings—”

“No?” Elena yelled. 

“No!” He insisted. “I know who she is, Elena, I’m not falling for her, OK?”

“OK, so it’s not about revenge, it’s not about emotions then what could it possibly be–”

“Maybe we just have great fucking sex!”

Elena flinched as if struck and Stefan closed his eyes, still indignant but regretful.

but she knows that despite it being intense, it's not necessarily profound.

Which is why in "Choices" when they meet and they have their shared memory of a previous Valentine's Day, what that night meant, what the sex they had on that night meant, when he confirms that nothing like that is happening with Katherine, she's still jealous but she's relieved

“OK, let’s just say I’m not releasing two dozen doves for anyone.” 

“Or going to any Victorian balls,” she whispered.

Their eyes glistened as if they were sharing the same memory of that night, the ballroom, the dancing, the feel of the bookshelves, of the fabric of the chaise, the ripe, wet urgency of their lovemaking…

“No,” he said finally, lowering his gaze. “Nothing like that.”

Elena’s relief was only outmatched but the nagging curiosity – if she could even call it that – about what he was doing and who with, she didn’t want to know but also wanted to with her whole being. 

and then in "Blood", when she sees the blood sharing, it breaks her brain

Elena had never thought of it before, Stefan drinking from someone who wasn’t her, someone drinking from him like she’d done. Sharing that kind of intimacy. Elena’s vision went off-kilter, the world tilted off its axis.

Was this how Stefan had felt when he’d found out about her and Damon? She didn’t know what that had meant at the time, not really, but Stefan did know, he knew now and he still …

The moment was over.

Everything happened quickly.

Elena sped forward and dragged Katherine away by her neck, ignoring the cries from Stefan and Caroline and Bonnie for her to stop.

but what's more is that even in the midst of all of this, they're still them, like it's not even just about a gaze, it's their physicality, it's impossible for them to not be them even when she just wants to be enraged and even when he's over his head in a toxic cycle

and then suddenly the pain was gone. Stefan threw Katherine to the side, her body crashing into the wall, and helped Elena up, bringing her to a corner, inspecting her head, her face, saying frantically, “It’s OK, you’re OK.”

Elena kept trying to push forward but Stefan held her back, his arms around her, He stood still as a rock, allowing her to battle against him until she started to calm, to feel the recognizable comfort of his arms around her and she eased into his embrace, unable to fight against the peace he’d always made her feel …

and then anger bloomed, anger at the familiarity, anger at the intimacy between them even now

and it's at this part where Stefan describes his relationship with Katherine at the moment as an addiction, which again inflames Elena's jealousy because he continues to see Katherine despite the wreckage and that's painful but it also catalyzes Elena into looking at the situation differently

“So, this is about getting back at me.”

“No, it’s not about that,” said Stefan firmly. “It has nothing to do with you, Elena, it’s about her, me and her.”

“What about you and her? What is it? What is this thing?” The images came to her again and Elena put her hand to her head.

“I don’t know,” said Stefan. “It’s score keeping, it’s – it’s, it’s kind of like an addiction.”

“An addiction?” said Elena, looking at him pained and alarmed.

so that when we get to "Boundaries" and Stefan is saying these hurtful things

“You don’t want me, Elena,” he said.

“Stop it,” she said.

“You just don’t want me with anybody else.”

“Stop. This isn’t you.”

“I’m your safety net, your sure thing, and you think it’s being taken away from—”

She slapped him. The action surprised her as much as it did him. Her hand stung. The sound of the impact still ringing in the air.

Firstly, he never talks about how he stopped loving her, he talks about how she stopped loving him. So kind of like 1x10 where she's like don't tell me how I feel to let yourself off the hook

Secondly, what he says

“We met. We fell in love. It was epic. And now it’s done. This,” he gestured between him and Elena. “Whatever this lingering … this …” He breathed heavily. “It’s done. We’re done.”

Elena nodded angrily. “Done.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Finally.”

He looked at her. “Finally.”

And then he left.

still hurts but it's very reminiscent of how he acted in season 3

So, by this point in the fic, in Elena's mind, Stefan is going through another form of addiction. Katherine is an obstacle she needs to help him overcome because he never says that he loves her, he never even says that he likes her, and he admits that he isn't happy,

“I know that you’re not doing this to hurt me—”

“Good.”

“But this is what you want? Really?”

Stefan didn’t say anything right away. “Right now, yes.”

Elena’s lips trembled. “This is what makes you happy?”

“I never said that.”

it's just that he can't stop.

All the while they're having moments like this

She walked up to him, holding his face in her hands, pressing her forehead against his, and he exhaled like he’d just remembered how to breathe, just remembered what respite felt like. They stayed like that, drinking each other in, and then the door flew open, Katherine appearing.

and he's clearly affected by her, he's not indifferent, he's not hateful, he's not cold, he's in complete agony

“Elena, why are you he—”

“I don’t know why I’m here, I’m just here. That’s my point, Stefan. I had to be here because you were here. With her. You had to see me here.”

Stefan stared at her, at a loss. “I never did this to you.”

“Yeah, Caroline said the same thing.”

“I left my house. I left my town—”

“I know,” said Elena.

“So then why are you doing this to me?”

“Because throwing tables wasn’t enough. I’m not as stoic as you.”

so even though she's hurt and she's extraordinarily jealous, when he's having his outbursts, it's kind of like his blood lust outbursts

“What do you want to hear, Elena?” He was shouting. “You want to hear that it makes me sick? Well it does! But the rush I get? I can’t —” He took a deep breath. “I can’t stop! Is this what you mean? This is what you want to hear?”

same vibes as

“Fine, let’s talk about it! Let’s talk about how good the sex is, that I’ve had her every which way for hours on end and it’s still, somehow, not enough!  Let’s talk about how it feels like I’m addicted to her, like I’m hooked on the high I get when I’m around her! Let’s talk about how right now, I can’t see an end in sight! You really want to talk about that? You really want to hear that? Really? Do you want me to go on?”

Stefan burrowed his face in his hands, unable to bear the expression on her face. 

kind of like

and it's also a continuation of

and she repeats that they don't give up on each other, that's not what they do

exacerbated by the fact that she had chosen Damon.

What I think you had to suspend disbelief the most for is when she waits outside Katherine's apartment for him but I just saw it as her wanting to see his reaction when he sees her, to see if he really had moved on and it's the complete opposite

Elena.

Stefan felt the ground shift beneath his feet.

“Please don’t tell me you’ve been out here the entire time.”

She only looked up at him, teary-eyed, but the devastation in that simple motion was all the answer he needed,

he confirmation a lance through his chest. He could only exhale, anguished and overwhelmed. “Elena—”

so basically this series' Wickery Bridge

which is all to say this fic is as much about what SE can withstand as it is about the fun toxic psychosexual power dynamics between SK and how the two things feed each other and the point is kind of that no one else would be able to get through this but SE (if they do!)

In terms of engagement, commentary and discussions like this are great! Thanks for the ask :)

[jelzorz]

Have some hcs about the adult cast of tdp bc u know what i love them

u all know I love tired opeli with my whole heart but opeli takes on the guardian role for all the kids bc someone's gotta do it and no one's gonna do a better job than her. She's the closest the kids have to a mum-figure these days, and the only female adult rayla (eventually) interacts with on the regular, and yeah, she's totally not equipped to deal with the bullshit three and half teenagers cause, but ultimately it's a responsibility that she takes very seriously and u should probably not fuck around with her wards if you don't want to deal with the wrath of their very fond if very Tired High Priestess turned babysitter.

Corvus is less put together than everyone thinks. He's very good at his job and very good at maintaining a relatively calm and cool exterior but his life experience outside of being a tracker is like. Zero. He is awkward af around interpersonal encounters, especially when it comes to dating (who has time to date when you're the king's close personal friend and bodyguard??) and he has a bit of a Time trying to deal with the kids bc he can't tell when they (Soren and Rayla, mostly Rayla) are just poking fun.

sarai and barius got along Famously. a girl does not love jelly tarts that much without learning how to make them, and before Ez was born, Barius had to learn very quickly how to be chill around his probable-soon-to-be queen when she was constantly in the kitchens trying to figure out what makes his jelly tarts so good. Barius' whole thing around Ez eating too many jelly tarts is the talking-to he would get if Sarai was still alive and he let her son get cavities.

gren doesn't spend a lot of time with the kids but he is good friends with corvus, and corvus is good friends with Soren, so they go out as a trio to have some sensible after-work drinks whenever all three of them are in the same place and have time off at the same time. In another life, Gren would be the one to insist on karaoke.

ezran is a very good king for his age and sometimes it's easy to forget that he's so young. But not if you're corvus or opeli. Ez brings in strays and sneaks jelly tarts into meetings (that he shares with them ofc) and sleeps in all the time (he's a growing boy) and they're not co-parents per se, but they are co-guaridans and it can be. A lot at times. Barius keeps a pot of substitute hot brown morning potion for them in the kitchens bc there are days when they just need it to Live.

when callum brings rayla home they are very relieved that she's ok and that she's safe, but they are also very conscious of the fact that she Left to begin with, and the day Callum tells opeli he wants to propose, opeli has a very long Chat with rayla about her intentions re: Callum, aka, how she can NOT do that to him again. opeli has had to watch him break one too many times and she won't do it again. Rayla swears to her that she doesn't have it in her ruin him a second time and opeli believes her but warns her anyway: forgiveness will not be offered so easily if she does. (Fic to follow)

(as wary of her as rayla is tho, opeli is the first to know [outside of Callum] that they are expecting a baby BC rayla panics and goes to the only other adult woman she knows for advice. Opeli gives it freely and promises her that everything is going to be fine and that help is Here whenever she needs it).

Ezran does not like it when his friends refer to him by his title and opeli, corvus, and barius have to learn that this is just a thing they're gonna have to deal with while ez is king. Barius refers to ezran by name to the rest of his staff and the younger/fresher kitchenhands are in awe of this until they realise that a) ez is just chill and b) Barius had been chasing this kid out of his kitchen for A While.

Idk more when I think of them

[liesmyth]

you’re a sporty person. I have a question. I used to enjoy working out and trying out new sports, but in the last 2 years I’ve been really uninterested in, well, pretty much anything. This is gonna sound stupid but I feel like one of the biggest barriers to exercise for me is that I have to put on different clothes to do it. I just can’t stand the inconvenience. like for example if I’m in bed in my pajamas, now I have to get changed. If I’m already dressed for the day, now I have to put on a whole different outfit. drives me crazy. anyway, have you or anyone you follow ever dealt with this and do you have any tips?

That's not stupid at all! I would bet it's very common, but I only know for sure it's very common FOR ME, and yeah it absolutely majorly sucks. Especially in the winter if you're a northern hemisphere person, because you have to put on extra layers of gear in the morning. Sometimes just the idea of putting on a bra feels harder than running 5k. That's honestly why I have been working out in the afternoon / evening a lot this past year even though I do better in the morning usually — if I've already been out and about for hours I find it easier to get motivated for a workout, but if it's the first thing in the morning then I keep putting it off.

Anyway some tips that may or may not help:

Just get some fresh air. Walk to a window, a balcony is excellent if you have it, if you're on the ground floor then just step outside. Close your eyes and breathe. It's a nice reminded that there's a whole world outside and you just have to lace up your shoes

Find a fun / low effort exercise routine you can do in your bedroom in your pajamas, just to get a move on. Like one of those music video choreography dance routines. A 10 minutes yoga flow on a mat. A door-mounted pull-up bar. Personally, I love this 5 mins mobility routine. I don't even break a sweat but it gets me moving!

Blast music! I have a playlist of songs that get me going and it's 300x easier to get ready while listening to it

If you're an audiobook / podcast person, have a designated audiobook you only listen to while you're working out. Believe me, it helps! I have some recs for good audiobooks if you want them.

Make it a reward system! Like, there's a pizza place right next to my gym. I can get a treat once I'm there, I don't even need to go INSIDE the gym I can just walk by with my gym bag and grab a slice. But then naturally once I'm outside the gym I end up working out before getting that pizza slice

Workout buddies if you have them! Or even just messaging your group chat that you're gonna do X for accountability

Don't think about tying up your shoes as the prelude to a workout, just think of it as tying up your shoes. Same for any other layers. You're not getting ready for anything, you're just taking it step by step <<<< This is what my therapist keeps saying. Unfortunately I'm a chromic overthinker but sometimes it works

IDK anon I hope these help! It's less about exercise and more about procrastination, unfortunately, and I'm soso bad at it so I completely understand — but ultimately IME it comes down to finding lifehacks that make you work best.

Let me know how this goes <3

[jakeperalta]

not a gaylor but i also don't know why but travis+taylor seems sooooooo fake to me???

and neither of these people need it so again i'm left like whaaa???

but something about it just seems soo not genuine and idk overplayed? maybe it's the attention that they get (which is mostly not their fault but sometimes i don't get how taylor can be so private in some situations then have papwalks that conveniently all make her and her friend of the night look good)

and i don't dislike her for it cause kudos to her for knowing what narrative she does want to partake in but idk maybe i see too much celebrity theories on the interwebs

I don't think it's fake in that I do believe they are genuinely dating, but I don't think it's much of a conspiracy theory to also acknowledge that they're no doubt well aware of how they can work the publicity of it all. and whilst people are always like "she doesn't need a man to be famous!" or whatever, obviously it's not about being more famous but there's still a clear benefit — leading up to an album drop there's photos and articles of her everywhere (because we all know that relationship gossip gets more engagement than any other celeb news), most of which frame her as cool/fun/hot/aspirational and also plenty of which will incorporate promo (like how articles will bulk out their content with a mention of 1989tv coming out soon or refer to her as like "the shake it off hitmaker"), plus there's a bit of image management following all the bad press from matty — a lot of people were very critical of her for that (and imo the way it was handled was a whole mess too) but now if anyone looks back at the tour the memorable guy who she invited to shows and shouted out on stage is going to be travis instead. then the benefits for him are obvious (suddenly people outside of nfl fans care about him and his podcast — at the start of the year I'd never heard of him and now I know which drinks company he invested in because we conveniently saw taylor drink it).

like you say I don't dislike her for it, I just think ultimately when the clear choice is made to be so public that does mean there's an interplay between taylor (girl who's smitten with her new guy) and the Taylor Swift brand that she and her team project

[thousandyearphantombunker]

TFP au where Miko's host family are the Darby-Esquivels- I have a lot of issues with the logic in TFP surrounding miko- inorder to be an exchange student she'd need consistently high grades and while the show tries to make it sound like mikos host family is neglectful and they basically don't exist- that's nonsensical why would anyone volunteer to be a host family and then not hang out with the kid? You don't get paid anything so it can't be about money! it really is about developing a relationship with the exchange student during the duration of the program. In this au, jack and raf are half-brothers, jack's dad divorced his mom and Raf's dad is dead, we get some actual backstory on miko, also here miko cares about her grades- cause if she started failing she'd be forced to drop the exchange program- this also subverts some expectations cause in this au I want miko to actually be punk! And I want to give Jack a bit more oomph, Raf would be heavily rewritten (he stays a shy hacker boy who becomes friends with Bee and Ratchet but can we give him something to work with outside of that?)

Also Silas and MECH and dark energeon aren't dropped from the story- MECH and Silas as villains where genuinely more interesting than the omega keys and artifact crap we got, I'd go as far to say Silas is more interesting than Megatron and after all the stuff we see with starscream being an actually competent scary villain that was also comedic it angered me to see him become so flanderized- so here we take a cyberverse route but do it a bit differently and Unicron stays a major threat (I'm taking some inspiration from armada so in this au sideways replaces arachnid but instead of starscream getting redeemed- well let's say he still doesn't get a happy ending) I changed arachnid out for sideways cause she made little sense in universe.

Raf doesn't understand bumblebee in this and there's at least one story where they have to find alternative means of communication- let be actually be disabled by his lack of a voice box

I'm probably never going to write this but I'd like to see other people add to this au with there own ideas, let's get freaking insane and do the stuff tfp didn't have the balls to do! kill Bulkhead and let him get actual character development so it hurts, give Dreadwing a redemption arc, lets give arcee her time to shine, let's get some gay shit with Knockout and Breakdown let's fucking go!

edit: I was thinking about what problems I have with most human characters in transformers is that they 1 aren't as interesting as the bots are, I understand they want the characters to be relatable but sometimes they make them into flat characters borderline harem protagonist, another problem is a problem more commonly found in YA books- when a 16 year old middle class scrawny white girl with no combat training or superpowers or anything can successfully fight off a room full of vampire fbi agents with no injuries or losses, so my goal is to make the kids badass but in a more believable way, so they aren't just damsels in distress either

like I know jack was chosen because he's suppose to be like a young Orion pax and whatever but like it never felt right to me, they could have drawn the parallels clearer, we can also make Miko's badassery and cool moments more emotionally satisfying and make them feel more...deserved idk how to explain my problems with the humans in transformers too well.

Also can we make this the ultimate found family au? And bringing back some inspiration from transformers animated for Bulkhead- not exactly mind you but I love the idea of miko showing bulkhead something cool/creative for a hobby like how sari showed him art, and in RID15 apparently raf and bee liked watching cowboy movies together so now I'm just imagining pure fluff with these ideas I'm trying to come up with some fun ideas for jack and arcee- I usually don't like fluff but I like seeing friends being friends- it's adorable

More on miko, in this au she'd be the master of malicious compliance and finding loopholes, she's scared of failing and cares about her grades as stated above, but she also has early onset senioritis so she finds her ways, she rarely actually breaks rules or skips out, so she works smarter not harder, she's still got some major flaws, she's got a secret case of overconfidence, she's cynical (I think her parents would be loving but super controlling and never gave her privacy so she became sneaky to get away from them, she might have become a lone wolf in school maybe people thought she was scary or something maybe she tried having friends but her parents scared them away I like the idea that mikos super outgoing but in a way that scares people or she struggles with deeper connections outside of surface level, more on Jack, I'm taking some spiderman inspiration- like the rest of the fanbase I shall torture him for fun, give him some hidden rage, a guilt complex, constantly stress over June Raf and Miko, and here he's going to be a senior, he still lives with June and pays her rent but it's always a little bit extra even though she says he doesn't have to, he remembers the time when his parents first divorced and when Raf's dad got sick in this so he worries about cash a lot and maybe has some depression, he's working out what he wants to do with his life and all around is trying to act stupidly responsible and mature to cope, raf is still a dorky lil baby but he's got a surprisingly dark and unsurprisingly gross sense of humor and is more interested in biology than computers at the start, but starts picking up on stuff real fast, he and bumblebee work on alternative means of communication together(one day the bots can't translate what he's saying so after that they start practicing sign or Morse code or something!) Idk just tell me random stuff that bothered you tfp and RID15 or ideas you guys have that could make this au interesting

[xluxsolarisx]

yippie!!! i'm so glad you and the plushie enjoyed the lavender farm, i thought you would:3 ^^ your drawings are super cute i love them, doing little doodles like that is so fun it's great to see you branching into it :D, would love to see more of your drawings in the future, chess and baking too are fantastic fkdjks (also your work ethic with setting goals for your drawing skills and enthusiasm for it is genuinely kinda inspiring:> like i mean i definitely should practice like that too rather than just figuring it out as i go lmao)

i can't believe whoever's in charge of shipping hates both of us and wants us to die it's so rude tbh

anyeay. is so great and loves you and gives you a kiss on the cheek and explodes. AOAUgjfksj:3

YEAH!!! it was really fun, i was actually studying when i got that ask and it was a nice little break thinking about going to a lavender farm with you and a plushie hehe :3 and thank you!!! drawing IS really fun!!! it was a lot more fun than i thought it would be. the reason i set those specific goals is because i work best with like little steps at a time because otherwise i get overwhelmed and too hard on myself and procrastinate or just stop because i'm Not Perfect...breaking it up into pieces helps and it helps me focus too ^^ chess and baking ARE fun! i used to just play chess.com but now sometimes i play with friends, it's really nice! i even bought a snazzy new chessboard and the pieces have gold borders it's so pretty c: baking is nice too because if you made the sweets yourself it doesn't matter how many you eat or how much sugar is in them it doesn't count. it's in the quran god said that himself. also you said you'd like to see more drawings in the future? how about NOW!!!

i have to admit i drew the bunnies (EXCEPT for the last bunny and the miffy bunny. the last bunny came from me staring intently at a picture of a rabbit and the miffy bunny came from my bountiful imagination and creative soul), the bird (not the rooster the other one idk the name) and the peace sign hand with a step by step guide but i'm still proud of myself ^^ one day i will give that woman a body. maybe she'll even have clothes. i'm still working out how to draw clothes but maybe... also someday i'll paint a really big hand writing with a fountain pen and paint the hand's nails with real nail polish and write the pen strokes with a real fountain pen and it'll be so awesome and shaded so nicely. another one of my Ultimate Goals. also yeah it's so fucked up that they don't ship to usamerica...god made up time zones and shipping distances to punish people who wanted cool stuff and wanted to be friends despite not living in the same country like he made up language to punish people for the tower of babel. my theory. ok byeee ^^ giggles so sweetly and kisses your cheek back and is so great also and loves you too and dies instantly and painlessly because i was standing so close to you when you exploded i was instantly flash fossilized. but that's okay i forgive you. because i love you. bye 💖💖💖

[goodtweetbadtweet]

4, 9, 17, & 25 for the writer ask 🫶🏻

Aww thanks for asking babe 💜

4. What’s a word that makes you go absolutely feral?

Out of context I don’t think there is such a word. But nestled nicely between other words in a lovely smutty passage? I really love the word ache. And brutal. I love the word brutal.

9. Do you believe in ghosts? This isn’t about writing I just wanna know

No. But I haven’t experienced significant deaths yet, so I reserve the right to change my mind.

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

I’m honestly not that big of a planner, so idk really, but .. re: love at first bite, I guess I can just vomit some of my thoughts here. Like I am trying to include a lot of typical romcom tropes, idk the names and I’m too lazy to look them up but just

-relationship based on lies & pretending to be somebody you’re not

-lies unveiled and then falling for ‘the real him’

-the guy who ‘fucks randos with headphones on’ (according to Greg anyway) meeting ‘the one’ and being fundamentally changed by love

-rich man falling for poor woman

-manic pixie dream girl -ish

-huge romantic gestures, I particularly love the idea of an airport declaration of love or running after your love in the rain but I’m not sure how that’ll play out yet

And I’m just trying to make them my own and make them .. a little more real, a little less sappy and cliche but ultimately it’s a love letter to cliches and I want that to show. A few other things I can mention just for fun:

-Gia’s sister Francesca, affectionately Franny, was born in France so their unimaginative parents literally gave her an Italian name that means ‘the Frenchman’ or ‘from France.’ People call her Francesca a lot, mostly in the sense of ‘when your mom calls you by your full name, you’re in trouble’

-Gia was named after a relative, possibly a great-grandmother. I named her after the Angelina Jolie movie Gia (1998) about the sad life of supermodel Gia Carangi. I saw the movie once sometime in the early 2000’s and never again, but the name stuck with me and shortly after that I saw Girl, Interrupted (1999) and for some time as a very young girl I was fascinated by Angelina Jolie and these tragic women she played. But that’s irrelevant.

-I don’t want to include a sex scene because it’s a romcom and an explicit sex scene would be very out of place, but also I can’t write anything without a sex scene. There’s definitely going to be a ‘fade to black’ moment and I’m probably going to release the scene as an extra tidbit because I’ll be writing it anyway.

(I hope nobody wanted a cohesive answer from me.)

25. What is a weird, hyper-specific detail you know about one of your characters that is completely irrelevant to the story?

Avery Taylor’s mother is very much alive. She lives in Florida and works as a pageant coach for teenage girls ages 13-19. She hasn’t seen Avery since Avery was five and they both prefer that, but for very different reasons. When the Jimenez scandal broke, she learned what became of her daughter and wondered what would’ve happened if she never left. This was the second time she wondered that; the first time was when she found out about Avery’s father’s suicide, People tell her she looks ‘like an older version of that girl on tv.’

[hopeswriting]

(pt. 1) Okay, I'd totally love an indepth analysis/deep dive into Kyoya Hibari in terms of EVERYTHING. Like sometimes, I think to myself like wow, everyone loves the guy, but when I think of the reasons why, it's so hard to articulate and elaborate why I would die for this man (half jk). He's not meant to be well-written and developed by Amano because it's pretty obvious that he's just there for mostly badass plot reasons... Nonetheless, his development was very organic, subtle, and believable??

(pt. 2) Like I would like your take on what attracted people to him and ultimately made them STAY for him (other than his pretty boy looks and whole "loves animals and is partial to kids" tidbit LOL). Like what makes him so iconic compared to other black fluffy haired boys who are also asocial (not antisocial contrary to popular belief) and ridiculously strong and near canon-breaking OP? Hibari's just an anomaly even outside of the KHRverse, and lowkey, it's completely amusing to me.

ohhh, this is gonna be a hard one! idk how much indepth i’ll be able to go, because like you said his development was a really subtle one, but i’m happy to share some of my thoughts on this guy.

okay so, the first thing that caught my eye here is how you said hibari is an anomaly compared to other characters with the same character archetype as him, which makes me a bit curious about where you’re coming from with this, because from my experience that character archetype is often well-liked? often becomes a fan-favorite too, even (tho please don’t ask me who i’m thinking of specifically here, because of course i’m coming up super blank right now 😭).

like, i’d argue the primary reason hibari is such an iconic khr character and so well-liked is because he is a black fluffy haired boy who is also asocial and ridiculously strong and near canon-breaking OP. and imho that’s the first and most obvious appeal to him, and i for one am one to agree with this.

it’s the way it does make him an anomaly within the khr universe alone, because the way amano used that character archetype with him specifically, it puts him in a really fun and unique position within the narrative, both in and out of universe, not quite similar to anyone else in the manga even if amano for sure wrote other OP characters in it. it’s the way he isn’t held down by the narrative as much as the other characters, the way he can bend it to his wishes because of how OP he is and how unyielding he is personality-wise generally speaking, which means he has more room to act unpredictably and out of script so to speak, which inherently makes it more interesting to have him around, or at the very least just plain fun to have him around, because literally no one ever knows what he’s up to and what his next move will be, or how long he’ll go along with the script, if at all lol.

and i feel like there’s quite a lot of people that kind of just stop there because that’s all they need? which is like, super valid, and i literally was one of those people too back when i read khr for the first time in middle school. it’s like, he’s pretty and strong and does what he wants and can make other people do what he wants whether they want to or not, and it’s like. what more do the people want, you know zerdfghd? but i do think there’s definitely more to him that subconsciously makes him so well-liked, if not very consciously!

i want to stay a bit more on the subject of his character archetype, because as much as i agree that he's just there for mostly badass plot reasons, and giving him that character archetype worked well for that, amano still, like, really pulled that off, you know? like she didn’t do anything groundbreaking with it for sure, because that wasn’t the point, but she wrote it well.

sure hibari is mostly used for badass plot reasons, but whenever it happens it’s written in a way where it’s never on the nose, and never takes away from hibari as a character first and foremost, if you get what i mean. because whenever it happens it conveniently does work in favor of the plot, but it’s easy to forget that because it’s also always things hibari would do regardless, because that’s just the way he is. amano never lets him be a plot device before being the character we’ve become familiar with, so as far as his character archetype goes, it’s like, there’s appeal in that character archetype in and of itself, but also amano wrote it well within the story in a way that fits right in with both the universe and the other characters, making it even easier to like.

but like i said there’s more to him than that, and the most obvious thing to me when you scratch the surface of his character archetype, is the way that organic, subtle, believable development of his is made through a flat character arc. “The Novel Smithy defines them as, “Flat arcs are still character arcs, but instead of growing and changing as a character, flat arc characters stay the same. Instead, their journey is about learning to uphold their inner truth in a world that doesn’t accept it, allowing them to overcome the external conflict along the way.”” (source) which is the definition i’m going to go with here, because that’s exactly what i mean here when i’m talking about his flat character arc specifically.

it ties right back to how he’s an anomaly within the khr universe in and of itself, because unlike literally any other characters i can think of right now, when we first meet hibari he’s already deeply set in his ways/beliefs/principles/world’s view. and it’s even more apparent because of the fact he’s part of the 10th gen, who are all about growth and finding themselves through the course of the manga, tsuna most of all--who start that growth when the manga starts, unlike hibari who’s already at the end of that journey, and has been there for who knows how many years lol.

but because amano needed him to not be out of place within the story, not that much anyway, or, like, not in that way, because she needed him to still fit in with the 10th gen and still be relevant within the khr narrative without changing that primary, core fact of his character because that’s the whole point of him, that’s what he brings to the table and is meant to bring to the table, she gave him a flat character arc to go through, shifting the focus on the external conflict when it came to him, while it’s all about the internal conflict the external conflict brings upon for the other characters, if that just made sense lol. (also that was a long ass phrase zedfgvhcd, my bad.)

and yet, by giving him that character arc, whether it was by design or a lucky mistake, tho i’d agree he wasn’t meant to be well-written and developed by Amano, it still gave him just enough room for him to have a growing journey of his own, in his own way, which let him get that very organic, subtle, and believable development he has. because like the definition says it, that character arc does come with a learning curve, so like. i’m not sure how to say this, but like, instead of having hibari just managing to uphold his inner truth and stays exactly the same as he was before, instead by managing to do that it also gives him a deeper, new understanding of his inner truth every time, without never changing what it is at its core.

his rivalry with mukuro and why he fixates on him the way he does come to mind here, which i think is the example that best illustrates my point here. it’s like, he lost against him, all strong that he was, failing to protect and keep safe what is important to him, even if that’s the whole point of him being strong to begin with. and even if eventually he managed to reassert that inner truth of his in a way, defeating mukuro with his strength, which was a key part of mukuro’s defeat as a whole, it also definitely wasn’t what brought upon mukuro’s defeat the most, so what now, you know? where does he go from there, and what does that mean for his inner truth that presumably had never failed him before that?

on another note, having that character archetype with that character arc puts hibari in a situation of his own in yet another way. you know how i said khr is all about growth? and how that growth happens through the characters having to deal with situations well beyond their control? well, hibari not having to deal with that growth in the same way kind of lets him be the voice of stability so to speak.

and yeah, i KNOW okay zefghgfdg, and i totally agree he’s the most unpredictable character in the manga, whether you’re an ally or an enemy, or even if you’re the person closest to him or family, see kusakabe or fon. literally all anyone can ever do is guess what his next move will be, and be wrong most of the time lol, but hear me out.

he’s unpredictable to them, and to anyone but himself because even if he’s actually fairly consistent in the way he acts, he just doesn’t care to let anyone else in on the know lol. he’s even consistent quite in the simple way too, like. it goes something like this: if you break his rules he’ll bite you to death, if you’re strong he’ll bite you to death, if you’re annoying he’ll bite you to death, and if he thinks you can entertain him, even if not right away, then sure, he’ll play nice for a bit before biting you to death. so yeah, i’d argue he’s actually a very steady, stable and predictable character in this way.

but mostly when i call him the voice of stability, i mean for the readers, you know. it’s the way everyone always goes “oh thank god, hibari’s here”, or “oh it’s hibari, there’s nothing to worry about”, or “if hibari was here, things wouldn’t be as bad (anymore)”, OR “oh god, shit, fuck, hibari’s here, everyone hides--”. because even if you can never be sure if he’ll make everything better or worse, the one constant you can always be sure of is that all bets are off whenever he shows up, and i think that comfort he gives by always remaining unfazed and un-overwhelmed by all the dire, high-stakes, overwhelming plot-situations happening earns him non-negligible points too.

oh yeah, also! real quick, but re: amano not writing him as more than a plot device, but also really pulling off writing him that way, because on the note of him being the voice of stability and him going through a character arc reverse to the others’, it really lets him balance the overall plot in a way that enhances it. and i’d go as far as to say in a way it just wouldn’t be the same without him too.

i’m thinking the whole gola mosca trap thing during the varia arc for example. any other guardian, any other person, and xanxus would probably have had to retrieve mosca before it went berserk, but because hibari is the way he is, because he simply would have never cared to be cautious of something that was clearly fishy, not when he could bite xanxus to death instead, well, we all know how it went. so even if hibari is among the guardians with the least amount of focus through the manga, he’s still so inherently tied to the plot all the same, he’s also among the ones you remember most and are most familiar with.

and THEN you take all of this together, the way he’s such in a unique position in different ways within the khr universe compared to literally any other character, and his interactions with other characters are by design also very unique and fun and interesting to see. it always brings to light sides of them we don’t really get to see otherwise, or don’t get to see in such an obvious way otherwise, and sometimes it’s even the opportunity for small character development/insight, and on both sides too.

for hibari it’s about him adjusting to being held by the same narrative standards as the other characters whenever he interacts with them or acts in concert with them, which is always an insight into what he’s willing and thinks worth compromising his ways for. as for what sides of him it brings to light, mostly his patience, and his ability to play the long game to get to his own goals.

for the characters interacting with him, well, it’s of course on a case by case basis. for dino for example, it was the opportunity to show his mafia boss side when it came to his fighting skills during the varia arc, because hibari wasn’t going to let him tutor him in any other way. and i can’t think of any other example lol, but you get what i mean.

and if nothing else, it’s just plain fun to see those interactions, because they always come down to negotiating and/or bribing hibari so he’d willingly go along with the plot for once lol.

and that’s what i personally think is the holy trinity of why hibari is such an iconic, well-liked and fan-favorite character. i’m gonna use the word fun again, because basically i think it’s really what it all comes down to. he’s fun to have around, fun to see interact with other characters, and fun to see him not caring about the narrative he’s existing within lol. and yeah he wasn’t written to be any kind of groundbreaking or complex, is mostly merely used as a convenient plot device, but whether by design or a lucky mistake, he still got to be a little more than that, and actually have something he himself could add to the plot/narrative, as well as meaningful relationships with other characters.

that, plus the fact amano still gave him traits that weren’t meant to ever be plot-relevant or to be able to be used as a plot device. like you said he loves animals and is partial to kids, and has a soft side that comes out whenever they’re involved, but he’s also hardworking, actually owning his position as the disciplinary committee chairman by being shown doing the less fun work of it on the administrative side of things, and even sacrificing his own fun so he could do that, like when he didn’t get involved in the snowball fight.

he’s also committed to it and reliable, and has the trust of the nami middle students when shit hits the fan like with mukuro, because they know he doesn’t just use the DC as an excuse to bite people to death, and that it is really all about rules and discipline and keeping the peace of nami middle safe and lasting. he’s no hypocrite either, holds everyone to his rules and punishes them when they break them, but he also holds himself to rules he agrees to abide with, like when they fought for the best place to see the cherry blossoms bloom.

he’s playful, likes (one-sided) snowball fights and forces people into one-sided games where he gets to bite them to death if they wake him up from his naps. he’s funny, whether because he doesn’t care to acknowledge and be aware of the narrative he’s existing within lol, or because of that smart mouth of his. he’s over the top too, showing up to the shimon island by helicopter and jumping from it instead of waiting for it to land, and getting himself hospitalized for mere colds lol. etc, etc (tho i feel like i pretty much covered everything here zerdfghgff).

and you know, it’s not meaningful in the way everything i said above is, but it is meaningful in the way where it makes him that much more of a relatable and well-rounded character.

and then of course, the cherry on top of all this is once again the very organic, subtle, and believable development he went through. i don’t feel quite qualified enough to go over this point in details, but it all comes down to him confronting the fact that even the people he sees as weak have their own ways to protect what’s important to them, and have strength in their own ways even if it’s not the same type he has and swears by, and to him coming to respect it and even help it grow even stronger and stand by it, while still upholding his own definition of strength as the be all and end all of everything.

i think the best example that comes to mind here is when he explicitly makes part of his fight against adelheid about helping tsuna finds his resolve again and finds what his pride is. because i mean, the hibari we first meet at the start of the manga? he just would have never, and would have never cared to.

and that’s pretty much everything i have to say about him! and idk if i covered the “everything” you were talking about? but if there’s something specific you wanted to have my take on, you’re welcome to let me know about it so i can give it to you!

and generally speaking if you expected something else or just want to talk about hibari and whatnot, i’d say @ chierry, @ indigosprite and @ lecritiquedouce are quite qualified for that too.

thank you for the ask! i’ve never really needed or got the opportunity to pick apart hibari like this, so this was a lot of fun to do. and sorry i took a bit of time answering you, but things went crazy for me literally just around when you sent me this ask lol.

[yanderefairyangel]

Engage for the choose violence ask meme, 1, 3, and 22?

Thanks for the ask

1/A character everyone gets wrong

Oh boi, there is so many of those case when it comes to Engage, but I had to pick one, I'll go with Zephia. She is NOT being redeemed in the slighest in her death scene, if anything, the death scene serves as a closure for the Hounds side plot and that's it. Also, people make fun of her goal but let's be real : her motivations perfectly aligns with the theme of family and loneliness present in Engage and it makes her an interesting retelling of the mythic Mélusine. She is lonely and wants to fill the void in her existence, but since she believes no one would love her, she ends up believing Sombron that only a child born from her ribs would give her the absolute ultimate love she seeks for, the literal worship she seeks, and that's why Zephia ends up wanting whatever Sombron have with his kids... and she aslo wants him as the dad because he is literaly the only person who accepts her, she thinks no one else would take her since she is hated by humans and has nowehere to go but by Sombron's side not to mention that her wanting to be loved would mean she wants to monopolize her child, and therefore it would make sense for her to have it with someone whom she knows doesn't care about anyone.

3/screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

Cue me everytime I see someone saying that the game's story or writing is bad because it's not. Not even close. It's clumsy, it's sometimes weak, but it's not bad at all, the writing is very competent and solid.

22/ Your favorite part of canon everyone else ignores

Idk if it's ignore but I think it weird no one talks about Lumera's past more. It makes her a perfectly written character despite the little screetime she gets. We learn how she lost her family, friends, and her entire kind was killed. And how she had to fight because, as the Divine dragon, as Elyos's hope and "ligt" if she did, the world would be doomed, which makes it that the advice she gave to Alear in chapter 2 about never running away or the promise she made with them on her deathbed that they should never run away sounds even more personal, and important : That's something she had to apply to herself in the hardest moments. And the fact that her being the goddess of Elyos makes it that she feels so lonely having no one who loves her as she is, making a parallel with how Alear hates being worshipped and craved for a relatioship from equal to equal, well Lumera wanted that too and she could have had that with Alear, whom she ended up loving like her own child. Her relationship with Alear is just soooooo beautiful, the way they look at her with such tender eyes and call her "ka-san". And how also, Lumera is clearly someone who is portrayed at not being able to do everything right : she is powerful, but she isn't some deity who can solve everything by rubbing her nose, she can't save everyone, and that might lead people to lose faith in her, but this comes from the fact that she refuses to let people see her weakness, else she fears they would lose faith in her, which is the opposite of how Alear is, very open about how they are.

[hoyatype]

when i first realised i was Bisexual™ i became obsessed with all these online communities for bisexuality, and v often i’d come across a bi man saying “i really want to have sex with a guy but i can’t imagine a ltr with one”. or a bi woman essentially saying the same thing.

and what was so, so terribly sad and frustrating was that the replies would usually be: ur bisexuality is valid ❤️ being bi doesn’t mean being equally attracted to men and women ❤️ you’re still part of the lgbtq community even if you’re a man dating a woman/woman dating a man [to be clear, i do believe in the last 2 positions but not the purpose they are being invoked for…]

and people would often bring up this idea of a ‘split attraction model’ [which i have seen in discussions of asexualité and don’t necessarily disagree w in that context]…where romantic and sexual attraction are different and so it’s totally possible to be sexually attracted to the same gender but never romantically attracted; therefore being bisexual but preferring heterosexual partnership was all ‘valid’ and strongly affirmed

anyways for ages and ages i thought about making an angry alt account to say the following but i never did:

WHY was it that it was almost always MEN saying they couldn’t be romantically attracted and truly date MEN even though they wanted to sleep with them, or WOMEN saying they could never really truly be with other WOMEN but sleeping with them seemed cool and fun? is there a WORD for this kind of thing? or TWO WORDS? like HETERONORMATIVITY or INTERNALIZED HOMOPHOBIA maybe

bc it was really truly rare to see this kind of post where a man was going: idk i can’t see myself romantically with a woman, it’s only men for me. or a woman going oh, no, i only want to partner with women long-term even if i’m attracted to and want to sleep with men (although sometimes you’d get those and sometimes it would be due to political fatigue with the patriarchy, which i empathise with although i do not feel the same). like. it was mostly people saying that opposite gender ltrs were off the table for them. which was so INTERESTING. what do we call this???

i wanted to say: isn’t it, well, WEIRD and a bit UNCOOL if you really think about it to go into an lgbtq space and say that you see homosexual relationships as purely about the sex and not containing the possibility for genuine long-term partnership, emotional interdependence, and care? does it not seem a bit idk OBJECTIFYING to treat a whole swath of people you are attracted to as people to have sex with but nothing more? being sexually attracted to someone does not make it impossible for you to treat them as means to an end, as useful objects for a fantasy, but not people

and what was going on with all the VALIDATION that relied on particular true and imo defensible arguments (that bi people are not ‘better’ bi people for being in a homosexual vs heterosexual relationship; that bisexuality can mean 90% of the time you have classically heterosexual relationships and attractions, you don’t need to split your affections perfectly evenly to be bisexual) to assert something so instinctively UNTRUE to me: that totally and definitively precluding the possibility for being in LOVE with another man (as a man) or another woman (as a woman) is still a VALID and positive and completely acceptable way to be bisexual? i just don’t understand, on a very basic level, how someone could decide that—unless maybe they are being INFLUENCED by COMPULSORY HETEROSEXUALITY and HETERONORMATIVITY into an overly rigid view of what love can look like?

ultimately i think it would feel less surreal and hurtful and weird if these kinds of beliefs were being articulated outside of lgbtq communities, like by OTHER PEOPLE who are less likely to GET IT (like i would expect someone homophobic to believe that bisexual people, whatever their sexual inclinations, should ultimately end up in a nice inoffensive heterosexual relationship, that would be more correct and appropriate)…but truly i felt so sad to see other bisexual people express this specific bias which for every individual seemed to be purely PERSONAL, just an INDIVIDUAL PREFERENCE, and yet in aggregate their preferences seemed to conform so well to heteronormative beliefs about what love can look like and what a partnership can look like.

i just! didn’t get it! and now that i’m thinking of it again i still don’t understand! i feel like i’m being gaslit when i log onto my little bisexuality forums and people are not only articulating this whole ‘as a woman i will only sleep with women but want to end up with a man’ thing without shame—and! more than that!—saying that it’s gatekeeping or policing someone’s sexuality to say that this is perhaps homophobic or perhaps worth additional scrutiny, at the very least. i have yet to find an explanation for all this that does not feel like an excuse for an insidious and unexamined inner belief.

having some identity position does not mean any theorising you then do about that identity is valid, or that any beliefs you have about others and your relationship to others is de facto valid. i did not understand and did not agree w the idea that any way in which someone’s bisexuality naturally expressed itself (‘naturally’, as in: in a heteronormative sadly-still-sometimes homophobic environment, where bisexuality esp for women is depicted pornographically all the time and romantically…almost never) was ‘valid’, and needed to be affirmed and defended as ‘valid’…

in summary: i’m a hater and a gatekeeper and i had to stop reading many of those communities. it was either that or threesome discourse…

[waltwhitmansbeard]

heyooo I just started writing fan fic and I really have no idea what I'm doing haha, can you explain how you draft and edit and write you long fics? i don't know what to do besides just starting at the beginning and writing to the end. (also sending this to multiple writiers so I can get lots of opinions)

hey! first of all, i wanna say i'm flattered that you ask, although i can claim no sense of credibility in the realm of writing anything, fanfic or otherwise. i'm just some guy, like everyone else on here, and i'm just doing my best with what i've got.

i don't believe that every writer will approach a longfic the same way, and i don't think a writer will approach each of their longfics in the same way, either. i know that the fic i'm hoping to write when gocmh is done is going to have a different process than mfl/gocmh did, because the stories are different and the needs are different. i can tell you how i approached mfl, and maybe you'll find that helpful, but if you don't, that's okay. your fic isn't gonna be mfl, it's gonna be yours, and ultimately you're the only one who is going to be able to figure out how to write it.

i'm gonna skip past all the general writing advice, which is read a lot and spend almost your entire childhood and adolescence meticulously picking apart all the stories you love to figure out how they work like they're clocks make of gears and springs. when it came to mfl, i wrote the first 5-8 chapters on pure vibes. every chapter's contents were just as big a mystery to me at the outset of writing them as they were to the readers when they sat down to read them. i was only ever thinking about the next step, the next sentence, the next tiny jump in the story. i was not thinking about where we'd end up, bc as far as i was concerned, that wasn't my business. my business was what happens next.

and in the process of writing that way, i was basically just improvising. it's a cliché, i know, but the first rule of improv is to yes, and, and i yes anded myself over and over and over. if i typed that the world of mfl was like x, then it was like x, and i had to just fucking deal with that. so much of early mfl (and truly all of that world) is just me making up rules and facts that later me would have to treat as sacred. is this the most efficient way to write? idk, and idc, either. this was the most fun, exciting way for me to write the story, and i don't regret it.

after a while though, my brain naturally started to stretch its legs (ew, terrible metaphor, abort, abort), and i started thinking ahead. not like terribly far ahead, but enough where i could say, "ok, if i'm at point a, and i know what point e i want to reach someday, i just gotta figure out points b through d." and sometimes that involved outlining the chapters that could get me from a to e, and sometimes i'd make it up as i went. it depended on the day and the points and what was going on in my life at the time. as i write this, i have the final ten-ish chapters of gocmh planned out, what's going to happen, who's pov it's gonna be in, etc. i actually planned out the last 15-ish chapters this way, and have written some, but even in the process of writing those chapters, shit has changed! something i thought was a good idea in the planning process didn't work out the way i'd hoped in execution, and i had to pivot. that's writing, baby.

now i know this isn't going to work for the the fic i have planned for after gocmh. i'm going to want that fic properly planned out, each chapter outlined and themes woven in carefully ahead of time, bc that's that story. i fully expect for shit to go haywire in the actual writing, of course, because in all my years of fic writing (and friends, there is so much more fic writing than y'all know about with this username), shit has never not gone haywire in the actual writing. but idk, that's the fun part. subverting your own expectations. cutting yourself off at the knees. kicking your own ass. it's fun!

i'll also talk a bit about how i wrote people and rhythm, the originals fic you can still find on my ao3 account. that fic took about six months to write, and to date i don't think i've ever had so much fun writing anything. imagine, if you will, two whiteboards, each divided vertically in half, covered in sticky notes. on each of those sticky notes is written a brief scene description, an event that Has to Happen. each of the four whiteboard halves represents an episode (that fic was organized by episodes, not chapters, bc i fancied myself an Auteur), and i would place and replace and replace those sticky notes until i had all the scenes i needed to make an episode in the order they needed to happen in. and then i would write! and bc i'd already done the organizational work to figure out the story beats, i could write the individual scenes in the order that struck my fancy, bc if i skipped a piece of the story that was important, it didn't matter. i knew where that sticky note went, and i could fill in the blank later. if this type of planning/writing appeals to you, i recommend the website/app trello, which is basically the digital version of whiteboards and sticky notes.

i wanna talk about something you said in your ask. "i don't know what to do besides just starting at the beginning and writing to the end." so, uhhhh, who says? who says you gotta start at the beginning and write to the end? start in the middle. start at the shit that makes you excited. write the scene that makes your mouth water and your hands turn into claws. write the good shit first, and then when you've got it, ask yourself, "ok, how do i earn this? i want my readers to get to here, bc it's good and juicy and so much fun, but i gotta work to get them here." start where you wanna start and work backwards from there if you must. asking "why" is so useful for this. oh, you're at point f? why did point f happen? that's point e. why did point e happen? that's point d. (then, you know, use the rest of the alphabet.) so much of life is just us reacting to shit, dealing with the onslaught of Life as best we know how, even if it fucks shit up for us in the future, so if you wanna write the reaction first, go for it! just remember that reactions stem from actions, so you gotta give us those, too.

(also, a story need not be told in order! flashbacks and the manipulation of time can be extremely fun and exciting! this is something that takes a lot of skill, though, not to say that you don't have that skill, but just be careful when doing this. you can still use the concepts of time jumps in your writing process, even if you don't present your story in a jumbled order.)

i don't know if i've said anything of value here. i can only talk about writing as i experience it, which is not, of course, how any other writer experiences it. i can't give you tips or actionable advice bc i, too, am making this shit up as i go. i write bc i like telling lil stories for my lil internet friends, and bc sometimes ppl say nice words, and i collect those nice words like a dragon hoarding its shinies in its lair. but don't write for the nice words, bc if they don't come as fast as you like or as much as you like, you'll get discouraged, and ultimately it's more important that the story be told than that it be praised.

(not to belabor the point, but there's a john green quote i love so much i have a poster of it hanging in my bedroom now, as an almost 30yo, that i've had since my college dorm room, and the quote is:

“Don’t make stuff because you want to make money — it will never make you enough money. And don’t make stuff because you want to get famous — because you will never feel famous enough. Make gifts for people — and work hard on making those gifts in the hope that those people will notice and like the gifts. Maybe they will notice how hard you worked, and maybe they won’t — and if they don’t notice, I know it’s frustrating. But, ultimately, that doesn't change anything — because your responsibility is not to the people you’re making the gift for, but to the gift itself.”

just something to keep in mind when writing. write for you, and write for the ppl you love, and write for the thing itself. the thing you create is a gift, and the gift deserves to exist for its own sake.)

so that was long! i hope it helps, and if it doesn't, sorry! i did try my best. i hope you find a method of writing that feels fun and natural and exciting to you, one that keeps you coming back for more. writing is the thing that keeps me going on days when i don't really want to keep going, and if it can become that thing for you (or hey, maybe it already is!) then i think is a gift, too.

[trashlie]

hey it's the same anon as last time ^^ i'll try to stop by your inbox more often when i have the time and some thoughts to share. discussing these things is fun and you make such great points about the characters and the story. i'll be signing these asks with lil anon (like lil buddy 😼) so you know it's me. and good to hear! i hope you continue to get better 🥰

i get why you're invested in kousuke's story. he is, objectively, a really interesting character. it's unfortunate that people disregard him, bc understanding him is a key part of understanding the story. and understanding him doesn't necessarily mean having sympathy/empathy for him. like on a personal level i can't stand him and want to smack him with a broom lmao but as a reader/observer it's interesting to try and understand his motivations/actions, if that makes sense 🤞

oh yeah you're completely right about kou getting worse as the story progresses. his recent development has felt like watching a car crash in slow motion - tragic, but fascinating and you can't look away. if ily was a less interesting story, a character like kousuke (typical rich asshole with some redeeming qualities) would have had significant growth by now. but that would be such a cliché, right?

and sometimes i do wonder if kousuke is doomed by the narrative, or if he eventually will be able to break free from... himself, essentially. the thing is, kousuke's is trapped. in order to grow and change, he needs to separate himself from the hiraharas/this fake reality that's been constructed from him, and see his situation from a different perspective. but in order to even want to change, he needs to grow as a character first. which he cannot do as long as he's involved with the family. it's like a snake eating its own tail. nothing/no one has been able to get through to him yet, so i guess there needs to be an outside force (maybe a revelation) that breaks him out of this cycle, shatters the very foundation of his fake reality, or maybe removes his safety net. and i really wonder what's that going to be. like... even though christmas is coming up in the ily universe, i doubt he'll be visited by the ghosts of the present, past, and yet to come and then all of a sudden he's a gentler, kinder man the next day lmaooo idk what do you think it'll be that's going to push him towards (positive) change? i think it's undeniable that kousuke needs to crash and burn first, and then maybe he can build himself up from the ground. i really do hope that's what's going to happen eventually! he is (mostly) a victim of his upbringing/environment, so it'd be nice to see him make steps towards growth/healing/being his own person. either way we're still so far from anything like this happening so who knows.

re: nol and fear - wow i didn't make the connection that nol is also driven by his fears, but you're absolutely right. i saw him as someone mostly controlled by self-loathing/self-destructiveness/low self-esteem, but these feelings are ultimately rooted in his fears. thanks for pointing that out. such an interesting parallel between the brothers.

all the ways the brothers are two completely different people with similar issues are endlessly fascinating to me (i just love me a complex siblings dynamic). you mentioned that neither of them have that family relationship with their parents at this point, and i agree. however, i think it's important to keep in mind that a key factor in nol and kousuke being such different people are that their early days were completely different.

nol had a very loving mother who shaped him during his most critical years of development (ages 0 to 5). and i actually believe nol got his best qualities (kind, caring, generous, brave, funny, etc) and morals from nessa, not rand. also, the hiraharas hadn't poisoned him yet. the layers of pain and trauma came later. on the other hand, kousuke received a completely different version of care and was taught a number of really negative traits - that his wealth and name make him better than other people, that his family doesn't function like others do and that that's normal, that he shouldn't feel guilty taking advantage of people and situations, that he deserves to have everything he wants, that his sole purpose is to inherit the company, and - as you said - that love as a reward, rather than something he's inherently deserving of. no wonder nol was/is such a threat to him - he's competition, and there can only be one winner. how can this boy, a 'mistake', have received this "reward" (=rand's love (nol hasn't actually received it but kousuke thinks he did)) so easily, when he didn't do anything to deserve it? that can only mean that nol is better, that kousuke is in his shadow, somehow inferior. and that just contradicts kousuke's entire worldview. idk it's just. much to think about.

oh wow i wrote so much, sorry about that. btw feel free to copypaste this in a separate post under a cut so it doesn't take up too much space if you feel like it, i wouldn't mind! have a good weekend 💗 - lil anon

Lil' Anon, I love it, perfect! Hehe!!!

You are SO right about Kousuke, too, in that you don't have to love a character to enjoy them. In-verse I would not get along with Kousuke or even want anything to do with him lol. He frustrates me a LOT - but right, you can understand WHY a character is frustrating. You can become invested while knowing you would absolutely fight them lol. The thing about compelling characters is that, for the most part, they are the drivers of plot and story and if they aren't a character worth investing in, you run the risk of caricatures of antagonists, villains who fall flat and cartoonish. ILY certainly borrows from the truth that everyone is going through something, no matter who they are. That doesn't always validate what they do, but as far as a story and PLOT goes, it makes everything far more interesting. That's the main thing I want people to come away with, not just as far as ILY goes but media in general. Because it's fiction, there is no harm in enjoying an antagonist. Your plot and story wouldn't be as enjoyable if they WEREN'T compelling or intriguing. When I say Kou has become a character I'm very invested in, it doesn't mean I approve of the things he does. In fact, I root for him BECAUSE I want to see him grow, because I want to see if he ever takes the reigns on his life and comes to much-needed realizations.

Because you are right - there is a big chance that Kousuke IS doomed by the narrative. I've talked about this re: Alyssa before, too, in that just as in real life, there's a chance he may never come to the terms he needs to. He may never find his way out of his safety spots, may never try to leave what is safe and secure. That's what's so important about acknowledging how fear drives him - if he cannot overcome that fear of being uncomfortable, of facing disappointment, of being outside what he finds safe and secure, then he really can't make the changes he needs to. He won't have the opportunity to see himself in a way that might give him the perspective he needs. In general, growth requires courage. If we want to grow, we have to face scenarios that bring us discomfort, that maybe make us fall apart, in order for us to learn just how much we can take, just how much we can overcome. But Kousuke has never really been in that kind of position. He's had everything handed to him, whether or not he wants it to be.

I really like the analogy that it's like a snake eating its own tail; I think that really sums up the vicious cycle and why we've not seen him wake up to reality, why things seem to go in one ear and out the other.

Over on reddit I've been talking to someone a lot about Kousuke, too, and a thought we share is that not only does Kousuke need that crash and burn - I think everyone is in agreement about that! - but maybe something that can be a wake up call for him is his career. They made some really great points, too, I'll link to their response here, but we know that Kousuke isn't truly happy in his life and career. To him, we endure uncomfortable situations, or one's that aren't fun because that's life. We don't live in an ideal world, we have to do whatever we can to get by. But Kousuke literally could have his pick of anything in the world, couldn't he? At some point, when does he realize he's unfulfilled? The whole purpose of his career trajectory was to earn Rand's affection. At what point does he realize it isn't going to happen - if he's not already at that realization? At what point does the empty, hollowness set in? When does he realize he doesn't feel fulfilled because none of this was for HIM, this doesn't mean anything to him without Rand acknowledging him? And suppose he does get that acknowledgement. Then what? The quest is over, there's no higher goals, nothing more to achieve. Oh, sure, he can go on to be the CEO as he was born to. But would it MEAN anything to him?

I'm thinking - or hoping? - that this might be the kind of thing that gives him the wake up call. That there is no point in his life that brings him joy - except maybe eating sweets lol. But that can only be a catalyst. You're right in that a big need is for him to get away from his family, for him to exist outside of their reach, to lose that safety net.

I have a couple thoughts in this regard. Whatever Yujing is working on - likely an expose - syncs up with Shinae's graduation and Nol's release from prison. It clearly has to do with the Hiraharas - and this means Kousuke, as well. When she found out Nol had pleaded guilty, she'd been looking at an old article about Nol attacking Kousuke, which we've seen may not be what we thought it was at all, that perhaps it was Kousuke who attacked and Yui blamed Nol. There's also that incident Kousuke is so DESPERATE to hide, something Yujing knows about. It seems likely that this expose, this piece, is something that could taint the Hirahara name. Even if Kousuke was not involved in other aspects, this would end up affecting him, because a major part of his identity is that he is the Heir, so what happens if his identity is that he's the Heir of a dirty family? If it becomes known that he is not the ideal gentleman bachelor he's been made out to be? Is that enough to make him step back and see his family - especially his safety net Yui - in a new light?

There's also my favorite crack theory, that Kousuke is not Rand's son. Now, again, I don't necessarily think I believe in this as much as I enjoy exploring it, but there's been a number of little moments that feel like they could be foreshadowing - or red herrings lol. Suppose it was true, Rand isn't actually Kousuke's father. Aside from the fact that he's spent his whole life trying to earn love from this man, I think it would also be detrimental in that he'd finally have to face the unsavory parts of Yui that he tries to ignore or deny. The one pillar in his life having lied to him and egged him on to chase after this pipedream, reassured him that if he's good enough, he'd be acknowledged. Wouldn't that shatter him? Again, I'm not so sure if this is likely - it kind of feels overdramatic, but then again, the deeper we delve into the story, the more those kinds of dramatics start to feel normal.

At any rate, yes, I think he needs a wake up call that will make him see his family for what they are, make him see himself in a different light. And that's just the beginning! I really look forward to our big timeskip to see where we find Kousuke, if he's yet in a place where he can start making these changes to himself, if he's got a security network to push him to make those changes (and if he cares enough to do it lol).

Also yes, yes, very good points about Nol! Nol and Kousuke are definitely foils in that Nol had the kind of nurturing, affectionate childhood that Kousuke lacked. We've seen instances of Nol surrounded by peers his own age and we might be able to assume that, aside from being teased for having such a long name, maybe he actually got along with them? But also, because of the teasing incident, Nol had that safe space in his mother - Nessa comforted him and gave him a nickname to make up for the teasing. We've never once see Kousuke receive such affection, and I just always think about that little flashback where he's in the bush watching Nessa dote on Nol and then Yui appears before him without eyes. It's such a cold relationship, it doesn't feel like it was nurturing. She goes through the motions of being a mother, certainly, but that's the thing - the difference between mother and mom. Nol had a mom, Kousuke had a mother. And we can see that even when Nol was driven by fear, even when he was trying to distance himself, he couldn't help but indulge in those traits his mother passed on to him. He started to care about the friendships that weren't supposed to matter because he's such an empathetic person. He understands loneliness so well, how could he help but reach out to people he thought needed help? But Kousuke never developed those kinds of skills or traits. How is he meant to empathize with or understand people he was literally raised to see himself apart from. They're not like him, they are Other. Literally a formative foundation of the way he views the world!

Light and shadow plays such a role in the ILY universe. Nol is literally in the shadows, but Kousuke thinks that its him who is in the shadow cast by Nol, that he cannot let Nol shine, lest it drown out his own light. I think that really sums up the root of their relationship and their issues: Nol didn't so much want to shine as much as just share that spot with Kousuke. I think at some point he gave up trying to earn Rand's favor and instead sought out Kousuke who was in the same boat as him. But Kousuke thinks only one of them can be in the light and if it's not him, that means it's Nol - Nol who is so undeserving who hasn't put in the same effort as him. Isn't that funny? Kousuke literally was born into privilege, knows he is afforded things most others never will be, knows that he has things others could work for their whole lives and never possess. But he thinks it's Nol who has earned something without making any effort. The irony of it, man.

Don't feel bad about how much you wrote hehehe! I.... also cannot hold back when it comes to anything ILY so I'm delighted to receive equally long messages haha! Looking forward to more fun conversation with you, Lil Anon! And thank you for the well wishes! I'm going to try to make myself do more painting today! Fingers crossed (I am not doing the best job at taking care of myself this week lol I'm hoping some painting will help!)

[maggot-monger]

C O U X Y

come throughhh anon!!! love these ones...

C - answered here

O. Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?

aight set my massive "every song i have ever liked" playlist on shuffle and got "obscured" by blutengel & hocico, which reminds me of my wifey from the magnus archives, aka jude perry <3 she's so scary <3 incinerate me daddy <3

U. Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

oh nice ok let's go with non-spn ones just for the thrill of it!

laurits seier from ragnarok the netflix series: so, ok, i'm biased because of general non-fandom-specific loki favoritism, but genuinely laurits is SUCH a good adaptation of loki. obnoxious, smug, insecure, ugly & pretty little weed, good humored, switches side at the drop of a hat according to reasons that are motivated by anything ranging from genuine logical emotional need to genuine but illogical emotional need to wanting to stir shit up to pragmatic calculation to "did i do that? lol who knows why." actually kind of an unlikable asshat for many of these reasons (in a way i find extremely likable), but funny and touching also. exciting and interesting about gender in ways i identify with and sometimes struggle to find rep for. relatable other identity difficulties. single-handedly responsible for me being able to stomach pregnancy arcs by virtue of doing pregnancy in THE weirdest, grossest way imaginable and being SO sweet about it. cool style. hits on people and sucks at it. just genuinely the height of blorbo qualities, for me

laszlo cravensworth from wwdits: so. i mean. what a way with words, first of all. my sweet cheese, my rotten soldier, my good time boy, etc. legend. laszlo gives the impression of being a self-important dickweed who does not give a fuck, and he IS that, but he also is arguably the most emotionally intelligent of the dingdongs, just selective about how he shows it. i get that! admire it, even! he's genuinely invested in his relationships with especially nadja but also to some extent the rest of the people around him and actually steps up to be responsible about it when needed. plus he wears nail polish and has a weird dick. idk, what's not to love

eowyn of rohan from lotr: one of my prototypical, formative faves. the drive to do something she feels strongly about, in a way she is barred from doing but is much better at than the role she is supposed to have, and has that unbelievably beautiful epic moment where she gets to defend someone she loves in a really unexpected but direct way is so significant — but i think that alone wouldn't have had such a strong impact as that in combination with other facets of the character. like, she can do battle, she's good at it, but she ultimately decides that it is maybe not the best thing. i respect that! i think about that a lot! i also have skills that i think aren't necessarily great! and she has a somewhat developed alter-ego that feeds my desire to read genderweirdness onto characters i like. AND she's tight with my other lotr fave, merry brandybuck; they've got fun chemistry and she finds a kinship with him in their mutual desire to fight for what they believe in while not being allowed to, and instead of trying to distance herself from the risk of being found out, she helps him to follow the same instincts that she shares.

X. A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

i always love a bodyshare moment or a dual-identities situation or whatever. that isn't always applicable though so let's go with unreality and ambiguous endings. unreality and ambiguous endings my beloveds <3

Y - answered here

[corruptedsilence]

@dxrksideroyalty​ - one way might be to make Missi just generally more flawed. less knowledgeable because realistically she is still new to this world of fantasy and supernatural and young, less able to charm her way through royals, making more mistakes or failing at more things, more generally antagonistic or lacking confidence. making her weaker cause of her humanity or have more issues cause of it that isnt just self harm and mental illness. could even retcon some of her abilities so she's more able to lose a fight or might be more hesitant to pick fights with people if she's less confident about winning and always coming out on top. giving her more flaws and problems overall. making missi less able to talk her way out of things and less likely to pull rank. but ultimately up to you and what you think might work. 

Yeah, and I don’t want to sound like I’m belittling or downplaying things but I don’t try to make her believable all the time. Missi as a vampire is confident in herself, but she does blatantly lie a lot, and she lies by omission as well.

Just--- no one calls her out on it. Missi claims she’s a Duchess, people just at face value accept that self proclaimed title. I’m not trying to make her into a perfect liar I just, no one’s muse seems to have been interesting in trying to be suspicious of her claims. Duke has called her out of it, and she admits she lies by omission, and she just gets away with it. I am as frustrated as Duke is with this stuff tbh. She boasts about her skills and abilities but rarely does someone question it.

I would love for someone to actually push her on it and have her fail. I would lvoe to see someone step up like “hey, ur title is BS” and have her deal with the consequences of basically impersonating a royal fhewjkfhwjk Though I can’t tell sometimes if people just, don’t want that confrontation which is fair, or if people just go along with it. Her title isn’t even a real title-- she just self-proclaimed herself such after killing Duke fhwjkkhw

Honey, form Sweet-Chimera has questioned her about it and was like “oh so what you duchess of?” and Missi again had to just come up with a lie on the spot fhjkewhk which was pretty fun to see her stumble with that

I do think I might revamp some of her abilities and powers, her connections and how her weaknesses will work in the coming days. I do want to keep her confidence though if only because it’s one of the main things that separate her from her human side. Possibly more stumbling with coming up with the right words or her spending time having to learn these kinds of skills.

Many of her (social) skills, though i probably don’t portray it right, are taken from her novels. She’s, most of the time, just copying what she’s read in books of how someone charming would act. Ozzie and Duke have been more or les sthe only people to see her in situations where her books can’t give her an answer. Where Missi is frustrated, excited, happy, or upset because she can’t figure out what she’s supposed to do. Maybe I don’t put enough emphasis on that? Or maybe i should put more empty holes in there for her to struggle with.

I also worry though at this point with how far my blog has gotten that it would be too OOC to add all these new flaws or change things as well. I don’t want to make separate verses if only because i dont want to feel like im belittling or favoring certain interactions and certain relations because i know i would.

I’ve thought about resetting my blog again, if only to start out with a more fresh start and only keep certain interactions from people/threads but i worry just resetting again or favoring only certain threads would just, again show that favortism and put down people who i still care about but like, idk. Like if I reset I’d want to keep what I have with You, Emerald’s Ozzie, Striker-Saloon, Grimgrinnr, SweetestThrenody, Al’s rp blogs (most if not all), fizzarolli, and opo’s robo fizz stuff (if they wanted to keep that stuff idk), and hannah-the-small (mostly clems stuff tbh) and that’s like what I can think of off the top of my head? And try to just, do s reset on everything else to start more from scratch on the rest with a more balanced-missi

but i worry if i dont do good that time then, what would the reset be for? would it all be a waste of time? idk. and then i’ve just wasted everyone’s time and made things more difficult