#in other words i dont feel strongly about this but i write like i do lmao

[aroanthy]

hi!! i know u talk a lot about aromanticism a lot on here, but i don’t think i’ve ever seen u talk about aromantic anthy. would u mind discussing/elaborating on it or linking to a post where u do because i’m very curious!!

i got a similar ask half a year ago or something ridiculous like that on my main blog, but i’d like to really do justice to my url right now and explain it in more concrete terms.

i will say, it’s important to bear in mind that this reading of anthy’s character is very much informed by my own experiences, and a lot of those experiences are ones im not keen to talk in depth about. but you know. let’s make some nebulous gestures towards ideas of being traumatised, being autistic, struggling to meaningfully connect with others and honestly not really wanting to do such because of how they treat you.

like ive previously said, an aromantic perspective on the world would, i think, really benefit anthy. when youve lived your whole life experiencing violence at the hands of these patriarchal structures, of which romance is absolutely one, it’s kinda like. damn. im uncomfortable buying into those ideas.

anthy also has this lovely line in ep 19 where she says to utena ‘romance either happens or it doesn’t’ and it’s just sooooooo. so very interesting to me, actually, that anthy would say something so black and white about ‘romance’, a topic that anthy knows better than a lot of rgu characters is hopelessly confused and arbitrary and often enabling violence. and utena (fellow aromantic gaybo) says 'yeah, i know, but...'. these simplifications, these elisions. what is and isn't articulated. but what? maybe things are much more complicated than we'd like to think.

anyway enough of that tangent. one thing i as a trans and aromantic person always return to when discussing trans and aromantic readings of characters/texts more broadly is that there's no singular piece of evidence that can really cement these readings as Undeniable. it's like. okay. there's a critique of romance as a patriarchal structure in revolutionary girl utena. there's an ambiguity about anthy's feelings towards characters like utena, where there is clearly a queer connection but it takes shape in unconventional and complex ways. me, i'm aromantic, i see all of these pieces and i go oh well that's because she's an aromantic lesbian. you know, there's plenty of little moments i can evidence but those moments can be used to argue for an alloromantic lesbian anthy too. romance is a very arbitrary thing and i think everyone should take their own approach to it unapologetically. of course, mine is that it's hellish and i want nothing to do with it, but im just one guy. and im okay with that. i feel strongly about this reading and it is personal, and id be dishonest to say otherwise, but i do also find that it's well-evidenced in the text. as one of my lecturers once said, don't worry about authorial intent, it isn't real <3

[waitingawhile]

Peer Pressure Duo loveposting

Coming to the realization that if you take any character on the dream smp and analyze their relationship to c!ranboo or c!technoblade you immediately get this other side of that character or just an interesting pair. Like, what the fuck was burger duo. That was a thing that occured and it had no reason to but it made so much sense and I loved it. Niki and ranboo or Niki and technoblade both offer a great opportunity to learn more about her character and how they may parallel her. Quackity's opinion of Technoblade. Quackity's opinion of Ranboo, especially in NLM. Fucking bedrock bros and the driving influence it had on cTommy's character post-exile. The way these two characters just exist in another person's narrative and immediately become a catalyst of change for them. c!Techno's impact is far more conspicuous as once he has appeared within a narrative the characters begin to talk about and fixate on him as a force of nature. c!Ranboo's impact is more like a fridge horror to anyone experiencing it where their impact is not realized until down the line, or perhaps is only realized by the audience when looking for it. Like. Yeah c!Tommy main character sure yes by way of force. Bro inserts himself loudly into each plotline, but he does not always mesh and becomes more of a cameo in stories that are not his own. He remains an unchangeable force. C!Ranboo is like. Underneath each plotline. They openly receive the meaning of that plot line upon entering it and react quietly and methodically in response to those meanings. He's extremely good at grasping a situation, but no matter how much he is meshed into yet another narrative, he is invisibilized and overshadowed by the other characters involved (and this is by design). There is not a single space that is off-limits to c!Ranboo as dictated by those who inhabit it, but c!Ranboo isn't people's topic of discussion. C!Techno on the other hand tries deliberately to remain on the margins of the plotlines or is explicitly feared in spaces by those who inhabit it, but is constantly involved through mention or incitement to different stories by their respective characters. I don't know man. Like what the shit they're both so incredibly narratively compatible with just about every character on the server (tho not often personally compatible).

The presence of both Techno and Ranboo in Dream's prison escape in combination continued to add such a new and refreshing flavor to Dream lore. And on that note! The way that Ranboo acts around Dream (the real dream) is obviously so fucking *i glitch out of the map*. These twooooooo. ccTechno and ccRanboo really said We Are Writers. We Are LARPers. Observe.

[lovingperfectionsblog]

A Type of Undressing

Max Verstappen x Reader

Summary: Max finally finds out why the reader hates him so much and what he chooses to do about it.

Requested: oi, your writing is amazing. do you think you could write something abt max x driver/reader where shes like "i dont come on here to make friends, i come here to drive" and shes like resting bitch face definition till she gets drunk w max one time and confesses she has feelings for him but is afraid of what people might think of her crushing over some other driver

Warnings: Very very angsty, swearing, drinking, sexism.

Word Count: 2258

Authors note: This was so lovely to write and I am so sorry it got a bit angsty, But I just felt like there are certain realities to being human and especially a woman in this world and it’s important to highlight those injustices and what those truly mean for us.

_____

“It okay if I join you out here?” Max perched on the seat opposite you on the balcony, away from the rest of the drivers and team principles.

“The great Max Verstappen can do what he wants” you didn’t bother dragging your eyes away from your drink and your voice was icy, so much so that it even surprised you at how cruel you had sounded, but in truth, it was for your safety. No one could see you getting along with your teammate, lest the rumours of your legitimacy in the sport start up again and how you only got there because you were shagging another driver, or was it team principle? Oh no, maybe it was the entire grid? You’d lost count of the latest accusations.

And so Max sat and silence fell between the two of you. The loud music and even louder talking from the others being enough distraction for the both of you, not enough to eliminate the awkwardness that settled between you both but enough for you to get lost in your own thoughts.

Although, Max’s thoughts remained solely on the awkwardness between you two, for two reasons. The first being him desperately wanting to find out why you hated him as much as you did, because lord knows there was something he had done to make you despise him the way you did and the second, being that despite your absolutely hatred of him, he was absolutely head over heels in love with you.

He understands the irony of that, being in love with the woman who hated him. Quite frankly, he knew he was a walking cliché, both falling for the woman who hated him and for falling for his teammate, but it was you, the feisty, vibrant, determined, thoughtful you and he hadn’t expected it but here he was, avoiding any advances from other woman because he was unable to get over you, despite how hard he tried.

And God knows he was trying. The long-winded argument he had with himself as he debated coming out onto the balcony to join you was proof of that, knowing that he shouldn’t. That he had to just leave you alone, both to get over you and to not make you hate him anymore that you already did, but he had ashamedly lost the argument with himself. Justifying it with the fact that you had already hated him so there wasn’t much more he could do to make you hate him more and well, would it be too embarrassing to admit that he kind of just wanted to be alone with you? He just wanted to sit with you and be around you, even if you didn’t utter a single word to him, even if you refused to smile at him, Christ, even if you refused to even look in his direction he was okay with it, he just wanted to be alone with you and those brief moments were few and far between so if he had to sneak away in the middle of a party to do so, strongly against his own advice, then he would so it.

It was embarrassing. He was embarrassing.

In truth, the day he even realized how he felt by you, he wasn’t pleased at the realization by any means. Quite frankly he was irritated by it. Irritated enough to want to chuck Daniel out of his flat for even bringing it to his attention, but the second his friend had mentioned it, it was as if he had slammed into a barrier, him unable to prevent the truth from hitting into him at full speed.  

He distinctly remembers trying to convince Daniel he didn’t have feelings for you, the argument going back and forth between the two of them and then suddenly Daniel had said the words that made his entire brain malfunction:

“Listen, I’m not saying you’re in love with her, I’m just saying that whenever she even walks into the room it’s like you become the Max you’ve always shied away from”

“What the fuck are you talking about? What Max is that?”

“I don’t know, the one who feels like he can be himself I guess”

And Daniel was right, somehow, even with the cold exterior you showed him, he still felt like he could be himself, not the world champion, not the formula one driver, not the formula one prodigy, just Max. You somehow didn’t reduce him to be anything other than who he was.

Max had initially put it down to a quite he once read:

“Finally, in a low whisper, he said, ‘I think I might be a terrible person.’ For a split second I believed him - I thought he was about to confess a crime, maybe a murder. Then I realized that we all think we might be terrible people. But we only reveal this before asking someone to love us. It is a kind of undressing.”

You already saw the worst in him, you already thought he was terrible, he would never have to reveal any of that because it was already out in the open between you two, so maybe asking you to love him wouldn’t be nearly as hard, because maybe, just maybe that could be out there too.

 “So what do you think of –“ Max tried to make conversation, that was before you’d cut him off in a sharp tone, still not even looking at him in the slightest.

“We don’t have to do this, I think we should just keep our conversations around racing at the track yeah?” you couldn’t look him in the eyes.

You were too drunk to look him in the eyes and you knew the second you did you’d be done for. The perfectly constructed self you had created would crumble in seconds. You didn’t want to know more about his life or his favourite colours or anything about him quite frankly.

You didn’t want to fall even more for him than you already had.

God what was wrong with you. This was your teammate. You had worked your ass off to be one of the very few women who had participated in F1, let alone gotten a continuous seat in it and the second you do, you go and fall for your goddamn teammate. You were a walking cliché.

Neither of you knew what to say after that and suddenly the silence that you had so desperately wanted had begun to suffocate you.

“I should go” you were slightly embarrassed at the sway in your step as you realized just how much you’d had to drink after getting up, so focused on getting out of there that you’d completely ignored just how difficult it may be to do just that.

“I could walk you to your room” Max had stood along with you, it dawning on him just how drunk you actually may be, thinking only of helping you as he reached an arm out to stabilize you, but while he thought nothing of his grip on your waist, you had been left in complete shock, your panicked eyes reaching his own, immediately prompting him to let go of you completely out of fear that he had upset you even more.

“Sorry what?” you knew he had asked you something, but his touch had completely caused your mind to blank, focused only on the heat that had wrapped itself around you, and the distinct loss of it which you oddly wished you were still experiencing.

“Oh, I asked if I could walk you to your room” Max had reached out a tentative hand towards you, allowing you to hold his forearm for balance instead this time.

Do not do or say anything stupid, tell him no, you can get there by yourself, get out of there now! Remember what you worked so hard for, this is your job, and you are going to win, you’re not here to be his friend let alone his girlfriend, walk away now before those eyes get you again.

“No, no, I’m good” and with that you were pulling away from him, making your way to the glass doors, mentally patting yourself on the back that your inner monologue had won and as Max watched you retreat he knew it was now or never, weirdly thankful that you were both drunk, hoping it would aid in the conversation.

“Why do you hate me?” Max’s question had knocked the wind out of you, freezing you in your tracks.

You’d turned to look at him and your heart shattered at the sight in front of you. Max had never looked so dejected before and you were the reason for it. This isn’t what you wanted. This was never what you wanted.

You want to be with him.

“I don’t hate you Max, I never have” your eyes shifted down to where you were picking at your nail bed, “that’s the problem”.

“I’m not sure how it’s a problem to not hate your teammate” Max could feel his body begin to start a monologue, and he tried to stop the word vomit that was about to tumble out of his mouth, but like many battles he’d lost against himself we’re it came to you, he was about to lose this one too.

“like, look, I get that I’m horrible and awful and terrible and whatever else you may think I am, but truthfully, I think you’re amazing and not only as a driver and God, it’s such a fucking cliche and I am pretty sure I’d be lambasted in the media for even admitting to this but I just, I have these, feelings, and I don’t know what to do with them and” Max had been pacing, avoiding your eyes, but when he eventually did, it was like he was hitting into the barrier all over again, “Oh my god”.

“Please don’t” you knew there was a tremble in your voice.

“Why not?” Max was willing to listen to whatever you decide, but he just needed to hear you say it, that the way you looked at him now, that it meant what he thought it, that it was how he felt.

God, please feel the same.

You refused to answer but you also refused to leave. You wanted him to figure it out, you didn’t want to say it but you wanted him to know. You needed him to know. You needed him to figure it out.

“Is it because of the team? Christian? Is there someone else? Just what, because, the way you’re looking at me right now Y/n” He needed to hear you say it.

“I worked so hard for my seat Max” why wasn’t he getting it, why did you have to lay it all out for him, can’t he just connect the dots for you, “I didn’t sleep with anyone for my seat, and if things happen here” you indicated between the two of you.

Suddenly it all fell into place for Max. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t the team. Max was about to lose out on the woman he loved, because of a double standard.

He had read all the articles, he remembers the anger he felt at every accusation, could they not see how well you drove? Fuck, you even gave him a run for his money, you’d earned your seat just like every single driver on that grid, but there would always be a double standard.

You were a woman in F1 and that was your sin and so you had to be punished for it every single day.

“No one has to know” Max was grasping at straws and his heart was shattering as he watched you shake your head.

“Everyone would know” both of you knew that and he would not be the one to bear the consequences of it, you would.

Even when the male drivers bore the term of ‘F1 Slag’ it was a point of humour and pride. Everyone knew it would be different with you. God it already was, and you hadn’t even done anything to be awarded the title.

“This is unfair” the laugh you had let out at Max’s childish statement had zero joy in it, it was almost as if it was a mocking laugh, directed at him.

“Unfair? Max, please, enlighten me, how is this unfair to you?” he suddenly felt gross, because he knew that if it was unfair to him, the entire weight of it would be on you, it was beyond unfair for you, it was your every day lived experience.

“I’m sorry” Max tried to reach out to you, and you nearly let him, nearly gave in to what would be your undoing.

“It is what it is I guess” you wished it wasn’t as simple and as complicated as that, “I’m sorry for being such a terrible person” and with that you were gone, through the glass doors before Max could even think about stopping you.

He wished he was upset, he wished he had felt rejected, but he couldn’t, not when the truth was as simple and as complicated as the fact that he was a terrible person to you and you had chosen to love him anyway.

And you had just confessed you were a terrible person to him, and no matter how many times you though that was the truth he knew what his response would be every single time.

He would choose to love you anyway.

[chryblossomjjk]

bts fic recommendations | 01.17.23

→ hi friends! this is a little segment i do every tuesday (reviewsday get it, aren’t i funny, pls tell me how funny i am) where i read and review two-three fics. as a content creator, i know how big of a role other creators play in your growth, therefore, i want to do my part in making sure everyone gets the recognition they deserve! so with that being said, please check out the amazing fics listed below. make sure to like, reblog, and leave feedback! ♡ #reviewsday #kikirecs

motor head - @jeonjcngkook (jjk x reader | fwb, angst, smut, pwp)

summary: jungkook doesn’t like seeing someone else have your attention, so he decides he’s gonna do something about it.

feel like ive been here since the conception of this majesty?? like i was here for the horny discord chats n edits about motorcycle jk, therefore, it's only fair that i can gatekeeper him... mine. ALSO NOT U STARTING IT OFF W GETTING SANDWICHED BETWEEN MY BIAS N BIAS WRECKER?? THE DISRESPECT OF IT ALL!!!

^the feminism leaving my body when sav writes about jk manhandling oc n having her use his bike as a vibrator

^^me regaining the feminism when she whips a whole tape measure at him theme shits is HEAVY LMAO

also like... your brain w this fucking smut bro?!?! it's literally one of the hottest smuts ive read in a v v v long fucking time?? THE JUMPER CABLE HANDCUFFS LIKE GTFO??? SHAKESPEAREAN OF SMUT REALLY!! and i completely get where oc is coming from bc some of the things he said had me side eyeing like... repressed feelings maybe? but then is he just super possessive and his anger/hurt came from ego n not emotions... genuinely love when the characters are hard to read like thats everything. n she better fuck taehyung >:( BUT RUN DONT WALK TO READ THIS UGH IT WAS SO GOOD BBY LIKE NO WONDER SHE WAS DOING ROUNDS IN THE TAGS!!!!!!!

tales of broken hearts - @taegularities (kth x reader | ex2l, childhood sweethearts, fluff, angst, smut)

summary: when a work trip brings you back home, you don't expect for anyone to await your return or remember you. but despite the time apart, taehyung still does - still looks at you the same way he used to five winters ago.

rid, im not joking when i say this is everything i want in a fanfic. like ex2l always gets me, and you legit mastered it with this one. something about right person wrong time just does it for me. that opening line was so simple but so so so beautiful:

"Love doesn't bloom during frigid winters."

and your ability to fully write in the pov of the character that you've crafted is nutty. like on the outside, it seems like a simple thing to do, but ik from experience that it's really not. like the way you perfectly represented oc's bleakness in the beginning through the word choices, that only shifts when taehyung is being discussed, is a1 storytelling. and same with him, like even when things are falling apart, the metaphor compares oc to a star, n that's how he sees her despite the circumstances. IM EMOTIONAL!!!

and idk dude i think i feel so strongly about this piece bc i relate to this oc sooo much. like the way ur desire to get out of ur current situation bleeds into every aspect of ur life n ruins relationships n u end up even worse than u started off in a lot of ways- NOT THIS FIC BEING A WHOLE HIT PIECE RID LMAO >:(

they deserve eachother sm and oc deserves a happy easy love and THE ROUNDABOUT MOMENT IN THE END LIKE ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME I LOVE WHEN EVERYTHING TIES IN AND UGH I FUCKING CAN'T THIS WAS A MASTERPIECE LIKE I NEED TO SEE THIS ON FILM BBY THE BIG SCREEN!!!!!!!

posting this a lil early but who gaf :')

[torakan]

PART THREE

it’s a bit short, but i’ll try to post the next one soonish ^^

part two

I didn’t really hesitate out there, to be completely honest. My goal was to satisfy my curiosity as fast as possible and if feasible, avoid troubles, so I just went straight to the box and took the paper, trying to hold my saliva inside. That piece of chocolate still smelled pretty damn good… so with no thoughts about food I took that note and, collecting all the knowledge I had about letters and spelling, I read: “I’m sorry I saw you. Hope ur okay now. This is for you.”

An apology? That thing was for me? And now he’s been hoping that I was okay? Are you freaking serious? That was creepy… nice, but still very creepy. Even now I couldn’t stop myself from comparing what I heard about humans before with everything that was happening to me at this very moment and it was… actually, yeah, it was nice. A thought crossed my mind: maybe it was a trap? Maybe this bean was trying to make me think I’m safe, but in fact he just needed me to let my guard down? But then what? Would he catch me and expose me to the local news? And after that humans would’ve been aware of our existence, and it would’ve been completely my fault. Or perhaps he wanted to keep me as his pet? Not a much better option, but I still would’ve preferred this to being a traitor.

I caught myself on overthinking again and shook my head. This was one of the flaws I had and needed to work on – less thinking, more acting. And I don’t mean like not to think at all, which even if I wanted to I could not have ever… nevermind.

With that, I thought to fuck all my thoughts and do what my gut feeling tells me to. You know, a borrower may not be as academically smart or whatever as human, if only he’s not interested in educating himself, but our intuition truly never fails. I opened my handmade bag (I am pretty proud to tell you all that I made it myself and it was the second thing that I’ve sewed in my life) and took a pencil lead I once found abandoned on the guy’s desk and a piece of paper, similar to the one he left, but a bit more worn out. I didn’t really care though as long as the human was able to read what I wrote.

When I was a child, my dad and older brother both tried to teach me how to write, but I wasn’t the plodding type of kid, and it was always more fun to wander around running my mom’s errands or looking for ass adventures. I did manage to remember how to write some words, so here is how my response turned out: “I m fine dont wory. Please dont tell other beans about me. And dont bother. Rules.”

I was quite fond of it even though my handwriting looked a bit unsteady, but I did it. There wasn’t enough space to write everything I wanted, but I thought it was understandable. If anything, the guy didn’t seem stupid to me, so he should get it.

To be completely honest, I was filled with anxiety the moment I looked at everything that was going on at that moment. However, it was already too late to chicken out, so I just put both papers back with strongly shaking hands and hurried to vanish from there as quickly as possible. The human had already left the kitchen, and I could hear the sound of the water flowing in the bathroom, so I assumed that the guy was giving me the opportunity to get home safely. Or maybe it was just a coincidence, who knows?

next

@gtzel @smallsday

[pynkhues]

curious as to your thoughts on the may december discourse (some spoilers i guess) - vili has come out and essentially said that he felt the film contributed to his victimization and hurt him. and the response from a lot of film twitter seems to be to yell ITS NOT A BIOPIC and to say he doesnt understand the film (gross). i feel like i dont really care if its a biopic or not, when the film literally quoted vili/mary kay, recreated the mary kay in prison photo exactly, and both charles melton and julianne moore studied vili/mary kay for their performances. to hand wave that all as "not a biopic" feels like a way of writing off any discomfort. i feel like the film should not have made those specific choices, but having done so they had a duty of care to vili. i dont think the film that ended up getting made is worth the continued trauma to vili even if it is art. there were other ways they could have told the story to minimize the harm and they chose not to - and i dont think that choice is a great commentary on tabloids or whatever, its just a ghoulish thing to do

I did see that, anon, and I do have thoughts on it as it's a real grey area in terms of creative license, art and storytelling, and it's a grey area that's been around really since storytelling existed, but before I get into that I just want to quickly clarify what Vili said, because I do think it's important.

Vili didn't say that the film contributed to his victimisation and hurt him, he said the film offended him because it was a ripoff:

“I’m still alive and well,” says Fualaau, now 40 and still living in the Seattle area, where the scandal unfolded. “If they had reached out to me, we could have worked together on a masterpiece. Instead, they chose to do a ripoff of my original story. “I’m offended by the entire project and the lack of respect given to me — who lived through a real story and is still living it,” he adds.

“I love movies — good movies,” he says. “And I admire ones that capture the essence and complications of real-life events. You know, movies that allow you to see or realize something new every time you watch them. “Those kinds of writers and directors — someone who can do that — would be perfect to work with, because my story is not nearly as simple as this movie [portrays],” Fualaau adds.

The reason I think this distinction is an important one to make is because in interviews since Mary Kay Letourneau passing, it's pretty clear that Vili - while absolutely being a victim-survivor - doesn't see himself that way, and even says pretty specifically in his Doctor Oz interview from 2020 that he doesn't see her as a predator or himself as having been preyed on ('there was no perversion...she was my wife and my best friend' are his exact words), and he's pretty clearly open to the idea of a film being made about his story.

I'm not saying this to diminish his feelings about May December at all (I strongly believe that Vili is entitled to feel any and every which way about the film) or to patronise his own understanding of what he experienced - I can't even begin to imagine the complexity of trying to unpack the life he shared with her - but I think it's important to reflect his feelings accurately and to provide a little context to those feelings.

With that said, do I think the creative team should've reached out to Vili before making the film?

Honestly, I don't know.

I think it's one of those questions in art where there's not really a right answer. If Vili's feelings towards Mary Kay are still lost in the silver linings of her grooming, any film that has his direct approval or involvement is going to run the risk of tacit endorsement. It also hamstrings the creative team and opens them up in terms of liability (I actually was a writers assistant on a TV show a million years ago that was sort of a bio pic and I can tell you for a fact that it was a disaster once the person it was based on got involved), and, of course, it runs the risk of shifting the focus of the story the writer is wanting to tell.

And that's the thing about art, right? By design, art is supposed to reflect us back to ourselves in ways that we might not always be comfortable with. Of course, that usually happens less literally than in how Todd Haynes has used Vili and Mary Kay's stories, but not always. Todd Haynes is certainly no stranger to the technique given Velvet Goldmine is pretty transparently inspired by David Bowie and I'm Not There is often confused as a Bob Dylan bio pic despite the fact that it's actually not.

Hell, everyone loves that Succession points a pretty clear finger to the Murdoch's, and while, of course, the Murdoch's - and Bowie and Dylan for that matter - have social, political and economic power that Vili doesn't which does impact the ethics of the decision, it's still made under the same creative ideology that aspects of a real story can render an artwork, a story, a film more emotionally authentic, can create greater resonance, can offer a sharper reflection of the world we live in and offer, perhaps, a message or a question that lingers.

All of this has actually kind of been funny timing as I just finished reading Sarah Weinman's The Real Lolita the other day which is a really excellent blend of true crime, literary history and critical commentary on this exact topic. The book explores the real life case of Sally Horner who was kidnapped by a pedophile in 1948 when she was 11 years old and was forced to roadtrip with him around America for two years. It's actually mentioned in passing in Nabokov's Lolita, but once you go a little deeper it's pretty clear how much of Horner and her story Nabokov used to create Dolores Haze / Lolita.

In the book, Weinnman asks the question as to why Lolita gets to be remembered when Sally's been left to obscurity, and of course, the answer is that there are other Sally's in the news cycle, but only one Lolita in art, and that hopefully in her writing Sally Horner's story she can write her back into bookshelves and place her back into this artwork but who knows if that's what Sally would've wanted (Sarah does, at least, talk to Sally's lone surviving family member, and makes a measure to show that it's very unlikely Nabokov ever did the same).

Was Nabokov wrong for not seeking out Sally's family for Lolita? Honestly, I doubt it even would've occured to him to do so, and the fact that we do now ask questions like this about the ethics of inspiration is, I think, a good thing. We should be critical of how stories are told and who is, and isn't, involved in the telling of them, but again, I don't actually think there are right or wrong answers here.

Fiction is always inspired by real people, real events, real life, it's a part of creation, it's a part of capturing a moment in time, it's about reflection and authenticity, but of course that's been rendered more complex in recent years by the fact that we live in a world that's ever shrinking and the people or the events that inspire new stories are inevitably brought into the public narrative in a way they just weren't back in 1955 when Lolita was first published.

So what does that mean for creativity and inspiration? I don't know, but personally I guess my thoughts would be that Vili is absolutely in his rights to be offended by the film, but I also don't think the filmmakers were wrong necessarily to not reach out. It's not the most ethical choice, but I also don't think it was an inherently bad one either. This isn't a Blonde situation where they write fiction and present it as fact, the creatives have been clear about it being inspried by what happened between Mary Kay and Vili, but they're also not saying Vili and Mary Kay are Joe and Gracie.

I appreciate you feeling like it's much of a muchness though given how they've apparently lifted entire scenes of dialogue. It's a murky question after all, and it's certainly one that's more complex when it comes to people like Vili and Sally than it is with the Murdoch's or even David Bowie, but yes, I'm not sure I see it as something inherently wrong, and I don't personally think it was ghoulish. I just think the specifics of this particular case just kind of shows how the sausage is made when it comes to storytelling.

[svedupelle]

the random antisemitism on my dash from you fucking blew, that post literally has someone saying death to jews in the notes

Im guessing this is the post ur talking about and that this is the comment u mean

(if not, and someone somewhere in the tags said word for word "death to jews", then i didnt spot it. But more importantly, you understand that i am not responsible for that person writing those words, right? and that i may have reblogged that post not because of what some rando said in the tags that i didnt check beforehand, but because of what the post is actually about? which is the state of Isr*el's continued atrocities against palestinians, and more specifically the morbid humor in some random isr*elian on the internet being blind to the real extent of their nations descent into despotism and violence? Just so we're clear about the subject matter of the post)

Anyway. so if that is indeed the comment ur saying meant to say death to jews, then it would seem ur confused about something. Namely zionism *isn't* the same thing as judaism. let's start with the fucking dictionary:

So merriam-webster agrees with me that being a zionist is not the same as being jewish. And quite frankly, it can't be, since unless if we want to posit that gentiles have an inherent and innate opposition to the jewish people having a nation of their own, then it must be possible and true that gentiles can also support a nation of Isr*el, and therefore, can be zionists. And I don't personally believe that not being jewish inherently makes you hateful of jews and opposed to a peaceful existence alongside and together with them. I doubt you do either, considering.

So, we've basically already established that being a zionist does not automatically make one jewish, which means that calling for the death of all zionists does not mean you are calling for the death of all jews.

On the other hand, it would make sense for a lot of zionists to *be* jewish, thus meaning that you are calling for the death of, if not all, then at a least a lot of jews. Now i hate pedophiles. IF we were to imagine a world where 60% of pedophiles were jewish, and i said i think pedophiles should die, i do not believe it would be antisemitic, because i would arguing for the death of pedophiles *regardless* of a majority of them being jewish. Similiarly, the person calling for the death of all zionists is probably doing so independantly of a lot of zionists being jews (maybe, i didnt check to see if there are any statistics on that and im not about to, because this is mostly hypothetical anyway).

"But 'zionist' is just a dogwhistle for jewish, so they do mean death to all jews!"

Then let's take a look at the first part of their comment: "death to the illegal settler colonial state of Isr*el"

now im no expert. but i do believe they may be referring to the aforementioned atrocities and the current apartheid that palestinians endure under the rule of Isr*el. Personally i find it reasonable and to some degree expected of people to condemn these acts. Maybe calling for the death of living people is extreme, but either way, i dont think this person is calling for the death of jews, specifically.

Or maybe they are. Maybe the person in the notes is a big antisemite. I dont know. I dont feel like digging through their blog to check. What I do feel more strongly about is the fact that you worded your ask in a way that suggests you know me, since you expect better from me. Whether ur a follower or a mutual, it makes me incredibly sad that you felt the need to send this through anon instead of a dm. maybe its intimidating or something, but getting this ask doesnt feel like a dialogue, it just feels rude. u didnt even greet me first

i'll make it clear: i have no ill will towards jews. at all. i very much want for all jews across the world and especially in my country to be able to live their lives free from the prejudice, hatred and trauma that they may suffer as a result of antisemitism at the hands of people like myself. i dont know how to make this clearer

i do not support the nation of isr*el. i dont like its actions, i dont like its leaders. i am a firm believer in the fact that until the nakba ends, there will never be a worthy argument for the nation's continued existence. and i do not like how people intentionally misconstrue criticisms of it as antisemitic to condemn the critic, such as what you are doing.

The fact that you seem to be familiar with me annoys me. i despise letting people down. i always do my best not to do so, and always wish to be reliable. but you're annoying. so either dm me if you want to have a real discussion, or block me. read this before you go though, its somewhat interesting. now fuck off

[just-a-carrot]

Helloooo!!! I was looking for inspo for my own visual novel a little while back, it's set in a ballroom so eventually the keywords lead me to discovering save the last dance (and itch.io in general im a total noob to this lmao) i dont know what it was but it just like took a vice grip around me INSTANTLYY.

So I downloaded the main game today and I am actually silently cursing you because I got nothing done all day I was just like transfixed. The artstyle grew on me alot, and oh godd the character designs... God I love the designs, espcially Genzhou's. There's just so much love (even in every gruesome death scene lol) put into this it's almost difficult not to get obssesed...

Also sidenote I found it kind of encouraging almost to see that you're (self-proclaimed) older, I found that really inspirational lol. There's something that just makes me want to create and actually sit down and learn when I play your games. I guess I've always had this feeling of having all the time in the world but recently I've been feeling almost like it's too late to learn new skills (which is kind if ridicolius since I'm like smack dab in the middle of gen z). Regardless I guess your work made me realize the artistry in visual novels, I could keep going but I tend to ramble lol

ahhhhhhhh this is so sweet!! i got very weepy reading this, especially as i'm already feeling quite soft today as it was a bit of an anxious one... 😭💕

that's fascinating that you found StLD first searching for ballroom stuff!! i am always curious how people first find out about any of my games. i'm happy you enjoyed it, especially enough to go play the main game sob. i'm incredibly touched

and i'm even more touched that you've been enjoying the main game so much 😭💕💕💕 especially all the kind words about the art!! i've grown more confident in my art more recently but especially in the beginning stages of the game i was incredibly self-conscious and worried about it because it was rather odd-looking and didn't match any other typical VN styles. so that's really sweet of you to say. this game certainly has had a lot of love put into it (and blood, sweat, tears, my entire life... etc.). it is very much a big passion project and my eyes were perhaps too big when i got started, but because it dug itself so deep into my psyche and i also made some good decisions like releasing in parts, etc., i've been able to keep working on it until the end despite it taking me like 2.5+ years so far. i'm not even sure i can put into words what this game and chars have done for me and my life and the many journeys and discoveries i've made along the way

dkjfalsdkf yes... i am a millenial, i will say that much. though i don't often feel like one. except for the fact that i often have no idea what people are talking about or referencing and tend to be awkward and confused most of the time LOL this is also why my characters are all older, as well. i sometimes feel a bit strange since i feel much older than many of the others in the VN dev sphere (well, perhaps in age only, not really in mental maturity maybe LKDJAFLKDS). if this can give inspiration to others that are also a bit older though, then i am glad 🤣 i have spent much of my life going from thing to thing and never really knowing exactly what i want to do. case in point my current job has nothing to do with my master's degree. though the one constant has always been creation of some kind, whether it's drawing or writing (and now with games, doing both of those on top of scripting and coding and a bajillion other things lol). i don't think you should ever feel "too old" to do something. or to get started doing something. or to feel like you "haven't done enough" etc. i say this so strongly because i also try to reassure myself sometimes perhaps LOL it's also ok if you don't know what you want to do so you're just trying out different ideas that you're passionate about. so many of us just wanna find something that makes us feel fulfilled and passionate, that makes our hearts ache, that fills us with joy and motivation. so if you can find something that does that for you, no matter how old you are, grab it and don't ever let go lkdajfalskd

at any rate, i'm glad i could also help you discover more about VNs in general. i hope it will be helpful as you work on your own games!!! 💕

[ironstrange1991]

More Than Just A Song

Fluffy / Comfort

Yes, I will use any image of Stephen/Ben without his goatee/beard as Supreme Strange

Pairing: Supreme!Strange x Fem!Reader (Same pair from Don't Let Me Go)

Warnings: None, this is just fluffy

Word Count: 0,840k

A/N: I had this song in my head for weeks and it always made me think of Stephen, I don't know why, but I had this scenario in my head for days and I needed to write it. It's cute and all, but if you know the ending of this pair and assimilate it to the lyrics of the song it's incredibly heartbreaking, so I strongly recommend that you read Dont Let Me Go after or before reading this ;)

Stephen always had difficulty recognizing his flaws, but certainly not accepting his limitations and being annoyed by not knowing or not understanding a subject was one of them.

It was probably the silliest thing in the world, which made him even angrier, but ever since you returned from your trip to Iceland which you went to attend a science fair sponsored by Stark Industries, you haven't stopped singing a song.

You hummed that song at work all day, you sang it in the shower or when you were cooking, to the point of humming that song one night after you had sex. You were lying on your back on the bed, his head was on your shoulder and you were drawing circles on his shoulder totally oblivious to anything and when he realized you were humming it.

Usually he loved to hear you sing. Not that you were any good at it, you were totally out of tune, but he loved to hear you humming around the house. He also liked how eclectic you were in your tastes that ranged from Beethoven to ACDC, but the problem was that you listened to music in languages ​​he didn't know and that was exactly the case.

Stephen knew the basics, he was good at French, he understood Spanish reasonably well, but that was all. You on the other hand were fluent in at least eight languages, the most recent being Icelandic and you kept singing that Icelandic song that wasn't exactly bad but irritated him by leaving him out, because it was something he didn't know, that he didn't understand and he didn't like not knowing and understanding things.

When he got over his pride and finally asked you what that song was about you just smiled at him saying it was just song that played nonstop on radio when you were in Iceland and it got stuck in your head, but it didn't feel like just any song, not when you had it in your head all day and for weeks on end .

Sometimes he caught you distracted looking at him and humming it, you had this habit of looking at him distracted when he was working or even when he was at the Sanctum doing something, you stopped doing what you were doing and kept looking at him. Usually he was flattered, but he became intrigued by understanding that there seemed to be a connection between the song and him for you, but what connection would that be and would it be a good thing after all?

He's reached the edge of ridiculousness by questioning Sue Storm at a dinner party about the song. You and Sue were friends and she laughed when he asked and told him the name of the song and the name of the singer and that night, you were sleeping next to him, he took his notebook and put on headphones finally finding a video of the song with English subtitles and that's when he understood.

Stephen wasn't necessarily romantic, you didn't have a song or even used to celebrate dates, but the realization of what that song meant, what all those moments meant made him soft.

He heard it a couple of times before putting the notebook on top of the nightstand and looked at you sleeping and without holding back he lay down next to you pulling you by the waist to settle closer to you and kissed your cheek, your eyelids, your nose until you wake up.

You smiled at him with your eyes still closed "Why aren't you sleeping?"

He sighed touching your face "Because I was busy investigating something that had been driving me crazy for weeks"

You frowned, running your hand over your face, not understanding "From work? Why didn't you tell me?"

He denied smiling "Not from work. About you and that damn song."

You didn't seem to understand and he pulled you to his lips and then whispered in your ear "Nothing can pull me away from you now. I hold on tight to you. No one can love me like you do."

You smiled ear to ear, immediately recognizing the snippet of the song.

"Next time you want to confess your love to me try a song in a language I know."

You chuckled putting your arms around his neck and rolled over him putting your legs around his waist "Do you know what that means? That I was on the other side of the world when I first heard this song and all I could think about was you. There’s only you."

He smirked, his hands tight on your waist "And that means..."

You kissed his lips softly and then purposely bit his bottom lip

"That I love you Stephen Strange and nothing in the world will separate me from you."

"They wouldn’t even dare to try, Miss Stark." He brought a hand to the back of your neck, pulling you into a passionate kiss.

You can listen to the song on Spotify HERE or on Youtube HERE And you can read the english translation HERE ;)

You will find it on my Spotify playlist too.

Leave a comment if you liked it. Interact! I will love to read all of your comments and opinions. It inspires me to keep writing ;)

MASTERLIST

Taglist: @graveyzxbabe @dontmindme262 @bloodyflowerrr @insanelyobsessedwithdilfs @sassenach-on-the-rocks @iobsessoverfictionalmen @sherlocksgirl91 @dragonqueen89 @newtsniffles @strangelockd @evelynrosestuff @cute-angi @whiskeyho @prix1994 @sherlux @xourownsidee @rbymoon @kakashibabe02 @hobimysolecito @geeky-politics-46 @lykaonimagines @d0ct0rstrangewife @classickook

[wander-wren]

do anyone else’s thoughts come almost exclusively through the lens of like, writing? like there was a poll going around about whether you think in first/second/third person

i was just laying in bed thinking about stuff that happened tonight and the way i did that was by mentally holding the conversation i would have with three other people about it (bouncing between them) and then writing a tumblr post about it, and then also writing THIS tumblr post as i started thinking about this. even when i was a little kid i would frequently think in the third person, as a narrator of the story of my life. i can’t remember if ive always done this—it also applies to me thinking via imagining irl conversations and journaling, so maybe i just did that before i got into writing. maybe i spend too much time online. maybe this is normal and i’m misunderstanding how other people think

the only times i really dont think in the “hypothetical future conversations” format is if im thinking about/remembering what i’ll call a strongly sensory experience. more feelings/images than words. sometimes there are both at once

am i normal or insane for this one chat

[mihai-florescu]

i also told half my friends about that poll and it was like, kind of doubly insulting of a comparison because i watched II when i was like 13 and am actually familiar with it. and it getting so many votes was kinda shocking to me (beyond the size/prominence of enstars' fandom playing a part) because 1. i still thought object shows were relatively niche or obscure and didnt know there were enough fans to give it so many votes in the first place and 2. the entire story is constructed so badly that there isn't even like a story to talk about. if you asked me about the plot of II i'd have to explain the history behind its existence and then how there is no concrete plot because the writers are hobbyists who don't know how to make a comprehensive story. it's so bad, it was already bad enough but then sometime way in they introduced a plotline about a corn version of steve jobs stealing alien eggs to fuel his iphone production line. his name is steve cobbs. this was meant to be a total drama esque show, what are the writers on?

anyway i dont have to explain to you how greatly interesting wataei is but i hope you know my pain at that poll. discussing enstars is getting to talk about themes and ideas and how they interplay and contrast and parallel between characters, it's stuff you can chew on. discussing inanimate insanity is just talking about the 3 simultaneous ideas they had for a show that they tried to write and failed horribly each on an individual level and also it all just clashing egregiously in tone. they wrote an entire spinoff alternative show because they knew they couldn't salvage it and were sick of making it.

so yeah even as a former fan of inanimate insanity in my childhood they just ... it's not a comparison you can meaningfully make, it's like comparing a delicious pudding to nickelodeon gak. you can do it but what's the point? they aren't the same thing, you have to talk about each in a totally different way.

also lightbrush isn't even canon because there are no romance plotlines in II (thank god). i really shouldnt have felt so strongly about the poll as i did

It's all such a fever dream of an event... but i somehow feel like the enstars fandom on tumblr is very small compared to other social medias (good. Well, either this or i live in my beautiful bubble of very lovely followers & very lovely people i follow. It's most likely the latter). Yet i cant imagine it's smaller than the ii one... but i remember it breached containment and ii fans were promoting it on twitter. At some point it became less of a "looking at it objectively" and more of a "we should win because...we should?" on both sides. For us it actually made sense tho. Were the lightbrush fans writing thousands of words and bringing dozens of screenshots to compile a measly showcase of maybe 10% of their ship's canon relevancy like i was? (Or we were, probably, i dont think i was the only one but i only focused on doing My Part, didnt really look at what others were doing. My discord name is still "brave wataei warrior" to this day after that event) No. They couldnt. We all knew that. Which is why the whole thing was baffling and infuriating. They just wanted to win for the sake of winning something despite the objective evidence. Haha lack of objectivity in the object show fandom *badum tss* thank you thank you im here all day.

[literaphobe]

Okay I love marinette and this story but somethign that really enraged me was the fact that marinette was planning to never tell Adrien about ANYTHING regarding his family and birth. And what made it worse is that it’s been what ? 8 /9 years ?! And he had to find this stuff on his own. I’m really curious thought about what he learned through the years and how ( I’m assuming ladybug told him some stuff as Chat ) and I’m sure that really must have been difficult for him , just finding more and more stuff . No wonder he would get drunk to the point of having no memory the next day. Anyways this chapter was so fun and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it

HI ANON. Part of ur rage is meant to be felt. the other half is a question: why HASNT tvl marinette told him anything? and why CAN’T she? or why does she feel so strongly about not doing so?

I took this screenshot and highlighted that word for a friend a few days ago, so im just using it here again. anyway, tvl is FULL of ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ moments. of course, even if you DONT blink and you DONT miss, at this point, there’s a lot of stuff none of you know for sure. i described it as double dramatic irony in some random comment reply iirc, but essentially, there’s stuff the readers know that the characters don’t (love square identity shenanigans), but there’s ALSO stuff the characters know that the readers don’t (events that occurred over the 8 or so years between s5’s end and tvl’s timeline)

so there’s like a LOT that you’ll wonder about and hypothesize about. loads of questions to ask. and will all of them be answered? who knows. ANYWAY. for now, i hope this is something fun to chew over hehehehehehe

also, tvl adrichat not remembering stuff from when he drinks is just a Thing that happens when he drinks. he doesn’t get blackout drunk often or anything. if you’ve noticed, tvl love square aren’t depicted drinking very often. they DO drink, they have on occasion, it’s just not super often. THEN AGAIN ur perfectly welcome to headcanon that he does! i often write things that are open for the audience’s interpretation, so you are all welcome to interpret ❤️

[goshen-applecrumbledore]

hi! Is it too late to say why and how your writing is special? Because, uh, I LOVE IT SO MUCH. You’re my favorite spn writer. A few others come very close, but you take first place easy. Your fics are consistently delightful. It’s like at the end of each sentence I’m _feeling_ something, and feeling it strongly, something I dont know how to describe. It’s more than angst (I really like angst).

In 2 or 3 sentences, you’ve made me feel like Sam or Dean, you’ve given me an outlook on the whole situation (and it usually hits like a ton of bricks). Seeing you posted a story (like just now) really brightens my day.

To go on a quick tengent about how special your writing is : you have reignited my age-old dream of being a writer myself. I wish I could paint a picture/an emotion as well as you, write reactions and feelings that feel so realistic to the reader. (Simultaneously, I despair of ever being able to use words so beautifully and efficiently, so I keep putting it off).

Anyway, I’m so thankful to have become an spn fan at a moment where I can enjoy your stories!! Thank you so much for sharing your work. All the best ❤️

sorry this took me a while to reply, it was overwhelmingly sweet, haha. I'm glad you like my writing, it always makes me so happy when people describe it as efficient or economical (the 2-3 sentences thing). and it makes me even happier to hear that you want to write!!

you can do it, and you should, if it's something you want to do!! nobody's BORN good at anything, it's all practice. obviously everyone knows that, but I think we forget when it comes to art, like starting and getting better is insurmountable. I've been writing my whole life, and for most of that, I sucked. even if we're just talking about fic, my work got zero play and negative reviews constantly! because I wasn't good! which is fine!! and then I just kept writing, and reading (so important-- real books, not just fic) and learned more about what I want to read and thus what I want to write, and I found a style out of that.

you just gotta start doing it, and it's never too late. everyone is learning forever. my husband makes fun of me for having a bad vocabulary and not knowing the definitions of super simple words (it's true) and I'm constantly editing and re-editing my work because I lean on the same few turns of phrase and the same lazy verbs. it's all just practice. anyway thank you and ganbatte

[ingravinoveritas]

The fact Michael put hands on David in the office writing scene and proceeded to say he would have 'torn David to shreds in seconds' whilst in feral Sheen mode *yer, I dont think anyone thought of them fighting when he said that*. I mean I know most of staged is scripted/directed by Simon but oh man, my brain stopped working for a bit. Also the Damsel in the tower (David forever the pretty princess) and the big spoon dialogue made me laugh so much.

Hello, Anons! Thank you for writing in to share your favorite bits of Staged with me. I’ve had a few other Anons write in to share their opinion of the show overall, but I wanted to group these together since they’re referencing specific moments in the episodes.

Anon #1: I caught that moment in episode 4, too. Here’s the visual, for those who haven’t seen it yet:

What was so interesting to me is that there were two specific instances in this season where Michael and David very deliberately enter into each other’s physical spaces/touch each other, seemingly without prompting. This was one, and then the scene where David touches Michael’s arm that Anon #3 mentioned is the other:

We could sit here all day and discuss what was scripted vs. what wasn’t, and whether Simon wrote these little moments of contact into the script, but my immediate gut feeling is that he didn’t. It’s one thing to write the words on the page, but Michael and David are the ones who bring those words to life and imbue the situations in the show with their own chemistry and connection. And it seems to be their natural instinct to be in each other’s space and to touch.

I think we sometimes forget how important touch is to human beings. It can be a way of grounding someone, of saying, “It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m here for you” when a person is having a crisis or a difficult time in general. Depriving someone of touch who needs it can also be tremendously harmful, mentally and emotionally, so I found it very lovely to see Michael and David giving that to each other so freely. (We got a hint of that from the hug at the NTAs last year, but this seemed to be even greater confirmation.)

I also thought it was very interesting that, of everyone in the third season, Michael had the most on screen physical contact with David, and the married vibes between them were played up so strongly. David seemed to be physical in equal measure with Georgia and Michael, but for Michael, those intimate touches only came from David. And the “old married couple” line completely fits with Georgia repeatedly calling Michael David’s “other wife” in real life.

...Which leads me to the moment you mentioned, Anon #2. I was entirely entertained by this scene at the beginning of episode 5, with Michael and David eviscerating each other’s careers, albeit quite playfully. It actually reminded me of a very similar scene in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, where Matt Damon and Ben Affleck do the same thing, re: each other’s careers. (If you haven’t seen it, you can watch that scene here starting at the 2:00 mark.)

The difference is that with Matt and Ben, it noticeably has the feeling of two best friends taking the piss out of each other, but with Michael and David, it very much comes across as that “old married couple” vibe instead. It’s playful teasing underpinned with so much love and affection and something...more than what we see with Ben and Matt, especially with how Michael laughs. Difficult to say whether it was improvised,  but I absolutely believe Michael’s laugh and David being pleased at making Michael laugh were both genuine. 

So many choices were made in this season (the “damsel in the tower” line gets me too, because I swear that is right out of an MS/DT fanfic I once read). The “big spoon” question nearly knocked me out of my seat, too, particularly because a) They answered it; and b) The response wasn’t something like, “Oh, I’d have to ask Georgia about that” but rather Michael and David answering without hesitation, thereby heavily implying that they have, in fact, spooned with each other. Amazing.

I appreciate you all sharing your favorite moments with me, and getting to talk about them definitely made me smile. (Also, Anon #3, if you need a link to watch Staged season 3, please DM me and I can help you out there.) Thanks for writing in! x

[gloomforrestrunes]

(This is so horribly worded, but I don't know how else to word this question.)

How do you write psychological manipulation/abuse so authentically? I've been in an abusive relationship before, and just reading snippets of Laxo/Nex's relationship in your posts is hitting very close to home for me. These are genuinely well thought out and written very respectfully to victims, and I applaud you for taking the time to accurately display how awful abuse can be and the effects it has on victims in your comic.

ah, thank you! i have very strong opinions on how abuse like this should be portrayed in media, which all comes down to centering the victim rather than the perpetrator or a "savior" character.

quick warning, im gonna go into some examples of poor depictions of abuse below, but no specific media is named and i dont go into too much detail

i am so, so tired and jaded from pieces of media who depict abusive relationships only to discard the victim in favor of focusing on either the abuser (attempting to go into the "sympathetic" villain route but is almost always done in a way thats tone-deaf at best or actively harmful and insulting to survivors at worst) or another character (usually the protagonist) who's only role is to "save" the victim from their abuser, depicting the victim as meek, submissive, naive, and unable to make decisions on their own. the victim's personal feelings are usually never explored, their trauma never properly addressed, and they are usually never defined outside of the abuse that was inflicted onto them, which is. bad!!! and gross!!! and extremely insulting!!

in runes, though, laxo is the protagonist. while yes, you will see him endure abuse from nex, you also see him outside of that context and outside of his trauma. he has a favorite color and weather and season and food, he's given an actual voice and personality. he is gentle, sure, but he isn't submissive. he's actually pretty playful and likes to tease a lot. he gets frustrated easily but is bad at showing it other than pouting. he snorts when he laughs. he loves to make things out of plants. he talks to flowers for comfort reasons. he loves so strongly and so much that it can overwhelm him.

his trauma effects him and inhibits him, but it doesnt define him.

while kane and nex are meant to be the antithesis of each other, kane isn't meant to be a "savior" who swoops laxo away from his abuser and everything is fine and perfect and laxo is suddenly completely healed. in reality, the most kane could, and does, do is gently guide laxo towards realizing that whats happening to him is wrong and not normal. but breaking a victim away from their abuser is never that easy. getting out of abusive relationships is never that easy.

ill go into more personal details as to why ive written runes the way i have under the cut. what ive written beneath here isnt an invitation to ask me for personal details unless i trust you.

runes, at its core, is a vent story. when it was previously named something else and the story and characters were completely different, i didnt take it too seriously. it was lighthearted and silly. but i was a really, really sad and traumatized child and didnt have the resources to do anything clinical about it.

eventually i created laxo as sort of a vent character, then he became, basically, a self-insert. i adored him so much to the point where he became the main character, and i rewrote the entire story to be about him. about me, in a way. the story slowly became darker as i daydreamed it in my head, projecting all of my awful feelings onto this character. then i created nex.

again, dont ask me for details. but nex is a mirror of my irl abusers, more so back then. an exaggerated frankenstein's monster of the people who hurt me in ways that im still in therapy for today. while he is a mirror of multiple people, his design (even his human design) and species even is taken from one person. my old childhood best friend's older brother was obsessed with wolves. so, nex is a wolf.

this is what i mean when i say that runes is a vent story. even though it has grown far past that point and these characters have blossomed into far more than what/who they were based on, there will always be that association. so i guess another answer to how i can write this stuff authentically is because ive lived it. even though what nex and laxo have is a bit different from the type of abuse i endured as a child, its also extremely similar.

this is a more personal reason as to why i may get snappy or otherwise upset when people say that they like nex (as a person, not as a character or a villain) or reduce him to a "yandere" (which has happened multiple times. ://) because he's not just a fictional character to me. he is a mirror of the real actual people that did awful, awful things to me. while there is a degree of separation now that the story and nex as a character has developed as i have (which is why im still open to talk about him as a character/analyze him/etc) there will always be that association.

even though runes is a vent story, however, that doesnt mean that it wont have a happy ending. im still here, arent i? and im healing, and im getting better, and im moving on. why shouldn't laxo, if we're essentially one and the same?

[hyunnieshannie]

Have you ever read a fic that captures you in every way?

Warning: this is a rant // Review about a fic I just finished. I DONT usually post this kind of thing on the writing blog and would usually post this on my secondary ( @hyunsungbased ) but I felt like I needed to rant properly so here you go.

I just finished the most gruesome. Heart wrenching. Psychiatric facility needing fic I have EVER read and enjoyed all 35 chapters of the gut twisting, anxiety inducing story line.

The tags? Usually ones I don’t go out of my way looking for (Dead Dove: Do Not Eat and others) but when I saw THE TRAILER. YES. A WHOLE. MOVIE. TRAILER. for it. I had to do it.

Like this fic genuinely surpassed being just a fic. I 100% believe that if the author changed the names around from SKZ / ATEEZ names it could be a published book. That would more than definitely capture the attention of horror // psychological thriller fans.

As someone who wants to be in film as a director I’d JUMP at a chance to make this a tv show or movie. It was fucking PHENOMENAL.

The plot. Attention to detail. Continuity. The side plots. The foreshadowing. The hints dropped throughout the story, Everything about this fic was so incredibly well done. The author must have been as meticulous as Chan was throughout the story to genuinely have me this floored.

There are very little authors who’ve had me this intrigued. A few being some mutuals I’ve made here. (@milkandhyunnie & @straywrds I’m looking at you) and some who I continuously read their works. (You can find the works I genuinely love SO MUCH in my Fic Suggestions list HERE

Back to my rant/Review:

I Don’t cry at fics. I barely cry reading but some of the deaths gutted me. I have an entire video of myself SOBBING over two deaths. Ranting to a friend of how cruel it was even tho I was EXPECTING it. And every-time it was brought back up I could feel myself choking. It was unfair and cruel. And one of the characters last words being “Do you think he’s waiting for me?” Destroyed me in my entirety.

This fic became an obsession. Almost as unhealthy and the relationship between the main characters. It ate me alive. My brain couldn’t function properly. It became an obsession. I stayed up countless nights reading because i couldn’t put it down.

I fell in love with the characters, their development, and genuinely felt so strongly. And DEFENDED THEIR ACTIONS.

There were times I found myself thinking ‘wow yeah I’m in love with Hyunjin’s character in this fic..’ when I know I should have been wincing at the thought of who his character was.

It. Fucked. With. Me. So. Bad. (In a good way)

I talked about it to all my friends —> told them what was going on as a play by play as I read.

They aren’t really down for the kind of fic it was (Murder// Gruesome killings// and other things that is best described in ‘Have you ever seen the show Hannibal?’ {no. No one in SKZ does those things to each other // Eats. Weird things}) they opted to me giving a synopsis.

They laughed with me and when it came to. Cried as hard as I did and they weren’t even reading it. (Ty to my friends for putting up with me because dear god. When I say it became an obsession I genuinely mean it. A lot of it inspired how Kierra acts within our fic super board. So if our last chapter of Kierra’s past shocked you that fic may have definitely had a part to play. Kierra was ALWAYS going down that road. The author inspired the gruesomeness of the act itself)

As someone who’s been writing another fic on the sidelines to test the waters of the dark and twisted this fic has truly inspired me. (I may perhaps leave it on AO3 instead as I’m not sure how our readers here - who are used to our casual fluffier happy ending writing style may react.).

I have never been more inspired to write angst with either a hopeful ending or no happy ending at all.

I could go on about this all day. I have done it too. I have went on a whole TWO HOUR explanation on how I felt about this I could probably write an essay about why it was so good.

If you made it this far thank you.

Here’s a gift for your troubles.

*cries seeing them because this fic altered my brain chemistry*

>> Mini’s Note: If somehow any of this interested you after reading this (i tried to leave it as vague as possible while my brain still tries to process the last 3 chapters) pls feel free to dm me for info on it but I cannot stress this enough. This fic is so heavy in terms of topics and the details put into it. SO. HEAVY. I’ll gladly pass it along but it really is not for the weak of stomachs. If you still want it, I advise you HEAVILY READ THE TAGS MORE THAN ONCE.

Ps: i have started their next series which is on going and supposedly DARKER than the one I just finished. Please pray for not only may sanity, but for the sanity of the friends who will have to deal with me for the next [insert time period] that I spend reading it.