#ive noticed i actually tend to like the ones about books a lot rather than about games

[metanarrates]

you got that genre and gender essay for us 👀

i might talk about gender in the hunger games a different time but right now im ready to talk about genre in it (FINALLY. sorry gamers ive been in the sludge for a while)

so one of the things that really struck me about the hunger games while reading is that it did not function strictly as an action genre story during the games themselves. the genre it actually seemed to be dipping into a lot of the time is wilderness survival. this is weird, for a couple of reasons.

for anyone unfamiliar with the wilderness survival genre, the underlying conflict tends to be rather slow-movingly paced. this isn't always the case - some wilderness survival stories do have limitations that force the plot to speed up - but in the vast majority of works I've seen, the main force the main character is working against is the slow-moving course of nature. there is a lot of time spent hunting, crafting, building shelters, tending to injuries. occasionally there are bursts of action, but the story is much more concerned with the daily work of solving more longterm survival problems than it is with more temporary threats. it's typically a story about endurance rather than urgency.

now, I like the genre just fine. I would even say suzanne collins does it decently well. the problem is that it doesn't actually suit the premise of the hunger games.

the hunger games is, on premise, a death game. for at least the first two books, the main setpiece of the story is the promise of the arena. it is a televised match where children have to kill each other for the entertainment of a crowd. this isn't a crazy uncommon subgenre or even main genre for action stories - there's a lot of story potential in forcing combatants to battle to the death against their will. my favorite novel, omniscient reader's viewpoint, has death game elements. when done well, it is tense, exciting, and asks questions about the culpability of both viewer and participants. oftentimes, the story's major theme is forcing the audience think about the way they may treat violence as spectacle. this is certainly something the hunger games also wants to do.

this premise carries a lot of intrinsic tensions. in a story where people are hunting one another in order to survive, the protagonist almost always is under threat, or nearly under threat, of being attacked. the tension of potentially having to kill adds another layer of tension. the demands of audience, in a story about violence as spectacle, serves to add another layer. the protagonist always has to look over their shoulder, to make sure that their audience can't hurt them if they become dissatisfied with the protagonist, and to be sure that they can fend off attackers at any given moment. to do otherwise, at least without justifying it, would be to undermine the logical stakes the premise introduces.

the end result, when done well, is a fast-paced action story with consistently heightened tension. you'll notice that this doesn't blend well with a slow-paced genre with a consistently low but omnipresent baseline tension.

through both games, again to collins' credit, there are a lot of high-tension action sequences. katniss does spend a good deal of time fighting, running, tensely hiding out, and dealing with high-octane environmental factors. however, I was consistently a little disappointed by how quickly a lot of these sequences ended. more importantly, I was confused by how often it would lead back into katniss skirting around the woods. she spends a ton of time fishing, hunting, chatting with allied tributes, scouting, and waiting around in a cave for peetas injuries to heal. the threat of the other tributes finding and killing her slips into the background. the audience in the capitol only matters occasionally. the minuitiae of surviving in a wilderness takes up major screentime. the threats intrinsic to the actiony premise stop being an immediate concern.

this inability to follow through on the established stakes totally kills my suspension of disbelief in the gamemakers as threats. very few people would be actually interested in continuously watching days-long, unedited livestreams of teenagers hunting and fishing and occasionally kissing. it doesn't make sense as a story about entertainment, because the events on screen would simply not be logically all that entertaining. the only reason the gamemakers don't act to force katniss towards more action is that collins plainly does not seem as interested in writing action. and that's really the root of the first two books' weird genre problem.

since collins seems to want to focus on wilderness survival rather than action, neither genre can properly shine. as a reader, i'm always feeling antsy whenever katniss takes a break to nap for a day, and I'm always frustrated whenever an an action scene is cut short instead of staying excitingly tense. the action stakes never feel believable to me because it seems like they only exist when the plot remembers they should. the survival stakes just feel like a tiresome chore in a story that should have much more urgent concerns. it's just a really weird choice. why write a death game story if you're often disinterested in the stuff the premise demands?

I also don't think that the rebellion/war story is done well in book 3, for similar pacing and tension issues (that book DRAGS in ways that actively undermine what it seems to be trying to do.) but this little essay has run on long enough. this has been a really longwinded way of saying "these books struggle a lot with tension and pacing and it makes them feel weird in how they play to their supposed premises," but I did want to approach it from a genre angle because that's what I was thinking about while reading. what is genre, after all, but a shorthand to communicate expected aspects of setting, focus, mechanical structure of a story?

[ffsg0jo]

⊹˚. ♡ hi hi! i’m Dove and i was wondering if i could have a romantic matchup for BNHA please? (i’m 17 and an ISFP if that helps!)

i’m not entirely sure what my gender or sexuality is :,> (all i know is that i have a preference for men and i prefer to be referred to as masc titles)

i really like sleeping when i can, drawing and writing are things i also like to do! i also like ranting about random things-

i tend to stay by myself though i do like hanging out with my friends whenever i can! i’m very sensitive emotionally and i tend to be able to empathize with people easily, though it tends to take a toll on me. having anger issues doesn’t help either- though i rarely take my emotions out on people.

i’m very physically affectionate and i tend to show my love through actions rather than words. i tend to get overstimulated/overwhelmed whenever there’s too much noise or people around me. i’m also super loyal to my friends and tend to be a bit protective over them (and just the people i love in general)

i tend to stay up VERY late at night because it’s pretty calming and it’s when i have the most energy. i tend to stay at home a lot but i do like going on walks or randomly exploring my area. i’d also like to be a librarian or work at a bookstore!

i love moths and cats to death and could talk for hours about them tbh- though i love listening to people i like talk about the things they like too!

thank you lots for your time! i hope you enjoy your day!

₊‧.°.⋆✮⋆.°.‧₊

Sero :

Sero honestly wasn't that close to you at first. Even though you're both in similar friend groups, he just never got to hang out with you that much. Not by choice, though, because you always seemed so lovely when he did interact with you. But recently, he's been seeing you a lot in the common area in the dorms at night, just chilling. He joins (with your permission) and keeps you company until both your eyes are closing. Sero's a pretty chill and calming person anyway, so you don't mind and appreciate the company. There's just something about sitting underneath a starlit sky that brings out a certain vulnerability and openness to you both. He seems to understand you in a way that no one else can, and there's no one else Sero has been more comfortable opening up to than you. The moonlight also seems to highlight your beauty and makes you look ethereal, so it was truly only a matter of time before he fell for you.

Kirishima :

Kirishima is one of your bestest friends, but there's just something so naturally charming and sweet about him. He's the best person to go on random walks with, and he's always pointing out birds and squirrels in the trees. It's actually really endearing and cute. He's not much of a book person but he's always down to go to bookshops with you and points out books he thinks have the prettiest cover. I can see you both having a crush on each other, and literally everyone else notices and picks up on it, too. But for some reason, you both remain in denial. For Kirishima, he doesn't realise he has a crush on you. It's mainly because he thinks his feelings are normal because everyone loves their friends! He's also absolutely certain there's no way you see him as more than a friend. Even though for some reason his heart beats faster when you hug him, and he fantasises about being in a relationship with you when you're holding hands... Yeahh he definitely doesn't have a crush on you.

a/n :: im so so sorry for answering your ask late !! exams have been a pain in the butt fr, and i haven't really been able to concentrate properly, but i hope ive done you justice and thank you so so much for sending a request in. i hope you like it and let me know what you think !! you're so sweet, thank you so much, and i hope you're having a wonderful day and are taking care of yourself too !!

[aiweirdness]

A big neural net reviews a smaller neural net's recipes

I’ve used various neural networks to generate recipes, to varying degrees of success. My earliest recipes were generated with char-rnn, which had to learn everything - spelling, punctuation, words - entirely from scratch. Its recipes were terrible (Swamp Peef and Cheese, anyone? Or Chocolate Chicken Chicken Cake?). Later when I started using GPT-2, I was using a neural net that had already seen a lot of recipes online during internet pre-training, and its recipes looked a lot more realistic (although not entirely realistic - there was that recipe for Black Forest Cake that suggested pouring the batter into a toaster, or the jello recipe that starts with “remove all internal rinds”).

GPT-3, an even more powerful text-generating neural net, has seen so many recipes during its internet pre-training that its recipes are boringly plausible. Bake its Black Forest Cake recipe and you’d probably actually get cake at the end, even if it’s not the best cake in the world. Its recipes aren’t funny at a glance, which is why I haven’t posted any of them - until internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch suggested that, rather than have GPT-3 generate its own recipes, I have it rate char-rnn’s recipes. Readers, it worked.

I prompted GPT-3 with two example recipes from allrecipes, each followed by 3 of their human-written reviews. Then, for the third recipe I inserted one of char-rnn’s recipes:

Chocolate Chocolate Cake

1 cup sugar 1/4 cup butter 1 cup margarine 1 cup cocoa 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 cup margarine 1/2 cup pecans, chopped 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 egg yolk 1/2 cup sugar 1/4 cup chopped pecans 1 cup sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 cup cocoa 1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, salt, and salt in a large bowl. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture boils and stiff peaks form. Add milk and cook until mixture is completely melted. Remove from heat and stir in sugar and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Spread in batter. Sprinkle with pecans.

Yield: 1 servings

And then I let GPT-3 add reviews. Would it mention the excessive lakes of vanilla? The complete lack of flour? The foolhardy reliance on the heroic efforts of a single egg yolk to hold things together?

oxtailsandturnovers Rating: 5 stars 03/04/2007 delicious chocolate recipe!!! and the perfect balance between cocoa and chocolate. and they sure were LONGNECKS! big time rave here. lazy w birthdays w friends and family, try this recipe for something chocolate sweet the ppl will talk about over and over.

AKEMIYUNA Rating: 5 stars appraisal 12/03/2008 Excellent for the kids Halloween party. Everyone got so thrilled by seeing something new on Chocolate in sponge. He even likes nuts separately but it will taste good..

BYOMFYABF Rating: 2 stars 10/01/2008 I could only give it a 2 as I had to make changes to it due to ingredients I had. First, I used Dove Dark Chocolate cocoa instead of Hershey's, no nuts, and the mashed bananas and caramel topping were a must. I did use coffee instead of the hot water, and dark margarine instead of regular, therefore I could not use light whipped cream, but I made homemade whipped cream. It had WAY too much flour in it, but i guess it could have been me measuring heavier than I should have. I also only used 2 cups of flour. it was my first bundt cake, so it was huge!!!

Here’s another batch of reviews, this time of a more chaotic char-rnn recipe:

Simple Soup Alaborate Soup Pie

6 each chopped white perserves; ** (optional but ring) 1/2 cup chopped fresh marjoram 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme 1/3 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup thinly sliced onion 1/4 cup onion (chopped) 1/2 teaspoon garlic; minced 2 small carrots 6 can dry white wine 1 tabasco sauce 1 tablespoon sugar 1/2 cup flour, whipped topping 2 tablespoon chili powder

Marinate: Serves 4. Whip and short under boiling. Add the sliced mushrooms and peppers and stir to coat. Stir the sugar and carrots. In large bowl, beat the egg to make a 1 1/2 tablespoons of the flour. Add shanks and stir it well. Spoon into a frying pan before serving.

Recipe By : DonajehLi Koubmanda

Yield: 8 servings

JEFFREY97389 Rating: 2 stars 03/03/2006 Even though everyone said this was great, I thought it was just 'OK!' The perserves gave a strange flavor to the sauce.

MATTJANDTRACER Rating: 2 stars 01/02/2009 This recipe sounded good. When it came out it tasted a bit like a casserole and not a stew. I used venison instead of deer and pork. I liked the way it turned out, but it wasnt very French.

Hammy Rating: 5 stars The g iving this as a gift as it takes about 10 less minutes but using American cheese and not blended with parsley flakes, lime-flavored gelatin, which is my husband's favorite dish from SuperValu. Just happens to be the creamy sauce. Don't worry about a pie crust.

In fact, the more chaotic the char-rnn recipe, the more chaotic the reviews tend to be, as if GPT-3 has picked up on the chaos and is trying to somehow produce reviews that could plausibly be written by whatever weird humans are visiting this mangled recipe website.

Geilded Peanuts & Crabmeat Basil

3 beef, boneless chops, or thyme, 1 lamber and flince of fresh diced in diagonal 1 parsley 2 large leeks (for garnish) 3/4 teaspoon sesame oil, seeded and peeled 1 any jeans'l-tortilla 1 pepper or cinnamon 1/4 cup baesly pinto beans. (Crushed and thawed; minced fine you recipe) 1 tomato base 1 fat in the last 5 inch plates 1 garlic clove; crushed 1/4 cup dijon mustard

In a large bowl set aside. Remove the sides from the heat and saute with a fork and cover and cook on Low for 6 to 6 hours.

Yield: 6 servings

Morales Rating: 0 stars 03/30/2008 I had high expectations for this recipe, but it was an outright flop. I don't know if the measurements were somehow incorrect or what, but I ended up with a watery mess that certainly wasn't crab salad. My girlfriend, who is a new chef liked it fine, but I really wish that the recipe didn't claim that it made six servings when it really made enough for one, if that's what we were going to call it.

Carole Rating: 5 stars Glorious sobs! This recipe will be delicious for a minumum of 1½ Hours to maximum 2½ hours Time to bring lots of fresh sized potatoes in the house or grow in the age may become quite famous

Amanda Rating: 3 stars 11/13/2009 My friend is having a birthday party and will celebrate with Camping. She's in charge of the dishes and wanted to serve food at the campfire. I'll 10th grade, my easy information for her party. It will not sound strange anyway test this task with a note to work rationally.What to take trees, portable tables for chairs, the main meal, food. I personally love the taste of it but has anyone seen a shepherd (wasn't any spices), oysters. It is sufficient

It does kind of make sense that GPT-3’s recipe reviews aren’t directly complaining about the utter weirdness of char-rnn’s recipes. Probably very few of the recipe reviews in GPT-3’s training data involved baffled complaints about nonexistent or repeated ingredients, or apocalyptic levels of recipe failure. So GPT-3 has learned that even the critical reviews tend to fall within a certain sentiment range. It’s interesting that it tries to emulate char-rnn’s primitive neural net glitchiness - I’ve noticed before that GPT-3 seems to be capable of pretending to be a much simpler neural net.

Subscribers get bonus content: After generating a few reviews, GPT-3 would sometimes go on to generate new recipes (such as “BBQ Cheeseburger Salad” which contains lime jello, whipped topping, and sliced black beans). It may have been deliberately trying to make them terrible to fit in with char-rnn’s recipes.

Speaking of AI-generated recipes: there are some absolute disasters in my book on AI, You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Indiebound - Tattered Cover - Powell’s - Boulder Bookstore

[i-did]

hi hello i couldn't sleep last night so i was scrolling thru all ur asks and stuff and ur opinions and analyses are so interesting!!! and then afterwards i was thinking about what u were saying about mlm smut and i'd also been thinking about such things a little bit recently bc like.....at a certain point it becomes quite clear that the vast majority of smut-writing is just imitation. like there's the sex noise verb list and all and the whole general mechanics of the sex and those things just .... replicate over and over. and the whole thing w people writing mlm vs wlw smut regardless of their own sexual orientation..... like i feel like a big part of that is just a self-perpetuating thing. like if u have not had sex and u r getting all ur (pleasure-related) sex ed from fandom (even if u do watch porn, that doesn't rlly tell u how to describe stuff? idk) regardless of What fandom , the majority is going to be mlm smut. which is itself majority imitation of other mlm smut, imitating and imitating back to whoever knows what the first smut fanfic was etc. there's just way More to mimic than there is on the women side of things. which then becomes a self-perpetuating thing, bc the mimicry continues and generates more and more. and---if there are fundamental misunderstandings of anatomy involved---those self-perpetuate as well. and maybe even exaggerate. and yeah. does this all make sense? idk i was just thinking about it. like all the stereotypes and stuff continue bc writers are getting their inspo from other writers rather than their own brains. or something. idk!!!!! it's just all... divorced from reality? bc words. or something!! i hope u get what i'm trying to say. just thoughts i've been thinking. anyway i think ur thoughts are cool. and ur writing. ok bye have a good day!!

Okay yeah this is kinda messy but hope u see this, uhh yeah I think you're right about the echo chamber effect fr about stuff. I think it's a mix of projecting too sometimes. talk more under the cut and also link to a video essay since I love video essays.

Here’s a video that sort of touches on this topic: 

“Gay fanfiction” by Sarah Z. (has CC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8E_C00dKwI

This video begins to talk about fetishization at the end, but also… not really. The words “gay fanfiction” is used as a catchall, when really gay fanfiction is largely mlm written by non-mlm.

Fandom is a largely women's space dominated by the female gaze in a media industry world that is dominated by men and the male gaze. I'm really glad women have this space to explore creativity and queerness, and I don't expect the female gaze to go away, but I am still ultimately bummed out I can’t read most fanfic or interact with most fandom spaces without having fetishization in my face. 

So about 80% of fandom is women, and most of those women aren't straight, but 90% of those women prefer mlm ships. Why don’t they prefer wlw ships? Well definitely part of it is the fact that queerbaiting is centered around white straight men, and then there is also the fact that women tend not to be written as well charcter wise. But the fact still remains that you get jerjean getting priority over Layla and Alvarez who are in canon just as much and are a canon wlw couple who actually interact as well as Alvarez could likely be a woc because of her Hispanic last name. Korasami doesn’t get nearly as much hype as zuko and saka, despite the fact that they are 2 fully dimensional characters who canonly kiss and hold hands, something the creators fought for and ended up having to sacrifice another reboot for. 

I do believe the fandom echo-chamber is largely responsible for… a lot of things, like you're saying. But what's interesting is that the complaints I've heard about visual porn from non mlm in the fandom space is that they can’t get off to it because its for the male gaze and misogynistic usually. But they also don't seem to notice how the mlm smut circles has the female gaze and is also… almost always mlm. If it was a pure anatomical not knowing thing, I get that, but I also think that leads to the question of “then why the male body for porn, and not your own? The one you know and are familiar with?” 

I know some people want to get outside of their own body for porn and don’t want to think of their own anatomy at all, but overall I'm still uncomfortable. If an anglo said “well I watch porn of only Mexicans so I don't self insert” I'm gonna be like … hhhh in a similar way. I understand people “like what they like” but I wish they also noticed said patterns in the first place. I understand the t4t tumblr porn circle, and how it's different from cis people who only watch trans porn. 

I actually wished that instead of fandom focusing on mlm ships where some asshole guy hits on bottom troupe charcter for top troupe character to save, was instead… a wlw character experiencing said shitty getting hit on and other wlw swooping in. what's interesting is fandom writes a lot about misogynistic experiences without often realizing it. Ive read fanfic where guys get called sluts for sleeping with people or called bitch for speaking their mind, these arent things men usually experience, but rather women. Fandom has a lot of internalized misogyny and also queerphobia imo. Women characters often get pushed to the sidelines and men become the canvas for female fans to project onto. 

There is this natural inclination to mlm. When people are talking about “gay shipping” or “gay books” or “gay feels” or even just “gay” mlm is what’s largely in mind. I honestly am kinda saddened by this because if gay fanfiction was really solely about writing more to feel represented, then you would see a lot of bi and ace and lesbian rep, but this isn't the case. Queer women are seriously underrepresented, and I want to hear their stories and read them in fanfiction as well as published. 50% of lgbt literature is mlm, and of that its largely written by women. Becky Albertalli, Rainbow Rowell, Maggie Stiefvater, are the YA big names and are all women writing mlm. Red white and royal blue is written by Casey McQuiston and Captive prince (which is not YA) is written by C. S. Pacat, who is non-binary, but is also TME and not mlm. These are all the big names in mlm lit, behind them is some gay men, but honestly their stories aren't preferred, they're not the right “flavor” for the consumers usually, who are largely women. In general YA consumers and authors are women, but I wish that they… just wrote about women too. I think there is a certain… snowball effect to the overrepresentation of mlm representing the whole LGBT community that leads to fetishization, as well as misogyny playing a factor in: less women characters being written well to write fanfic on, when they are written well they're taken less seriously or the audience struggles to relate to them, they're less marketable then men. 

Idk I never feel “seen” or “represented” by any of the books above, which don't address boyhood and manhood and queerness intersecting really, and AFTG doesn’t either. I relate to AFTG as a trauma victim who has experienced a lot of what many of the characters go through and have gone through in the EC as well as them just overall being very well written characters, but I don't relate to it as a mlm really. I've never seen like.. gay voice or being straight passing or femphobia or how boyhood can be affected from a young age by those around you sensing you're ‘other’ or if you didn't experience this you feel outside the mlm community. Let alone sub cultures like bear and leather and pup, at most you see the word “he's such a twink” in fandom which... i fr hate non mlm using that word because it's usually used to replace the f-slur essentially, used derogatorily or to call him “such a bottom” and stuff like that. It’s like a joke or an insult.

Long story short, idk mang this was a ramble and I think I'm coning down with something. I wanna see more queer women rep and women authors writing about being a queer woman too. I think it's a complex web of fetishization and a bit of forbidden love yaoi culture (or it used to be in the BOYXBOY days) as well as misogyny on an industry level, creator level, as well as reader/consumer and fandom level. I don’t think it’s inherently wrong to explore other peoples stories and what we read has to be segregated, “only mlm are allowed to read and write mlm, only wlw are allowed to read and write wlw,” but I also think author’s intent and audience and background is telling, as well as overall statistics. Like about an hour ago I was looking for cookbooks in spanish or in english, and I was looking for some mexican food cook books, but I had to look for them using words in spanish because otherwise what came up was a bunch of “fiesta party, easy as uno dos tres authentic cooking!” and I was like… hm. Since I could tell they were marketing to anglos. (also the author’s last names were like michelle smith, james cooper, and this could be for a variety of reasons, but I trust Hispanic names more tbh and deadass would look at the authors pictures and if they had other books in Spanish or what their specialties were.)

anyways. not sure how to end this. uhm if anyone has any book recs (my to read list is like 500 books tho no joke) preferably not YA white mlm written by a white lady, hopefully queer women written by queer woman, LMK, I need more wlw and queer women stories on my list. I have a decent amount but always looking for more. I kinda wanna link my goodreads or my storygraph but I also don't want to get doxxed and it has my legal name on it so.

Also, I'm dyslexic and using spell check but if there's like some wild typos my b.

[yuraimi-lee-bunny]

Gray's Character Analysis Part I. Introdution

Well, the day has come, here begins the analysis of Gray as a character throughout the series. I had previously done character analysis, but this is the longest in analysis writing I'll do, but it's worth it. I hope you enjoy it, don’t hesitate to comment on everything you believe or even add other examples or characteristics that I have not noticed. I’m very excited and nervous hehehe.

Here we go!

There are 3 important facts you need to know about Graham/Gray/Crackle to fully understand their personality and worldview:

1.- His name is Graham Calloway (let's put aside that we FINALLY have his last name, it will be important and symbolic later)

2.- He’s an orphan

3.- He wants to be successful.

Gray enrolled in the “Vocational School” being actually VILE. Maelstrom mentions that he currently works at the Sydney Opera House as an electrician and will soon be promoted to Stage Lighting Technician. Let's start with the fact that Graham wasn’t working in a simple place, we’re talking about a place like a lot of prestige and tourism, light and electricity being extremely important, therefore, really professional and prepared people must be hired. That tells you how Gray besides being a great electrician, he wants to work at the best of the best to earn as much money as he can. And with that promotion, Graham is doing very well, he is succeeding. But as he said: "I feel like my talents can be put to more ... lucrative ends"

Something that from the first time I watched the serie and that I could notice in Gray is that he's curious, he always wants to see and do beyond what is presented and has. He likes new experiences, learning things that help him with his purposes, challenges and showing that he can overcome them (I consider that he only shows it to himself, not to someone or others). Even in the first book of "Who is Carmen Sandiego?" it's mentioned that he spent a lot of time with Dr. Bellum creating and devising new things. This boy always has ideas in his head as to what he likes the most, which is electricity. He's really passionate about it.

He realized that he could make more money by stealing from the rich and not just being an electrician. Gray always points up and wants to show himself that he can do it. He's always calm, relaxed, with a mischievous look, as if somehow he's always ready for everything and nothing surprises him. Until then a girl named Black Sheep arrives. When Graham first meets Black Sheep it was because of a tease he did to her, showing that he’s too naughty, he likes to make jokes, however, he tends to underestimate people. Black Sheep fights back and well, we all know the scene.

Something that surprised me a lot and at the same time I loved it (it was from then on that I said "You have all my attention boy") is that I believed that because of the way Black Sheep defended herself, he could take it to heart, get angry or something similar, but no! Graham appeared very calm before her to greet her with a handshake, as if nothing had happened. What makes me interpret that Graham is someone who is going to recognize and respect people who really show him that they're capable and that they should be respected. At the same time, it seems that he doesn't like people who are too smug, who have simple goals, and appear to be the best but with their actions doesn't show it, the best example is Sheena/Tigress, both in the book and in the series shows that although he tolerates her, deep down he likes to make fun of her, he has no compassion on her and according to the book "Graham rolls his eyes when Sheena says she likes shoplifting."

He wasn't afraid of Black Sheep or her attitude, on the contrary, he liked it and she won his respect. At the same time that Graham really isn't someone to hold grudges or get angry easily, but rather someone who tries to keep things calm and under control, he stays out of the unnecessary drama. He was almost always the mediator between Tigress and Black Sheep (there are more such moments in the Book) And he isn't someone who is afraid to say things as they're, he is very frank and direct.

When he makes a mistake, he doesn't get frustrated, he just lets it go and moves on: Sheena calls him "Lame" and says nothing, his friends make fun (in the case of the book) of his nickname "Graham Crackle" and he say nothing. Even Carmen Sandiego on the train beats him in the fight, knocks him unconscious and there isn’t a hint of frustration in him. He knows how to deal with his own mistakes and doesn’t let them affect his self-esteem or image. He keeps going. His self-esteem in fact is seen to be normal, he may perhaps appear to be "cocky" for his looks, but in reality he's never seen to be affected by what others think of him, nor does he act as if he were better than everyone. But he himself knows that he's good at what he is, and as he already said "I want to be successful", he knows that he can achieve it, and will do it, even with chaotic actions. There is an interesting phrase in the book that isn't mentioned in the series, is when Black Sheep proposes a nickname of Gray, she says "Electrical Failure" to which Gray replies "Failure? No, I don't think so" which gives me a certain idea of how Gray doesn't consider himself a "failure", perhaps he makes mistakes, but even so he doesn't believe that for this reason he's belittled in such a way, much less for it "a fail", as I said, He has healthy and secure self-esteem.

Another interesting point is how expressive he's in looks and gestures: those eyebrows almost never stay still! This point is curious because as some say "a look says more than a thousand words" and he's a great example of this. I actually consider that that touch makes Gray have a mysterious air next to the long eyes that he has. He doesn't talk much, only what is necessary, causing all eyes to express what he thinks/feels. But other times you don't know what's on his mind. But most of the time, his expressions are a clue that he happens to him and feels. Remember this, it will be important.

He also has a certain "gift of the word" or rather knows how to use the correct words to address people (In addition to making word jokes) which these two characteristics together achieve many things: calm situations, ensure that Black Sheep isn't expelled, have an almost date with Carmen Sandiego, among others. It seems that he's someone who is direct, transparent and pragmatic, he doesn't try to complicate his life, but if he likes to make intelligent movements, play with people and show that "he's one step ahead of you" (although that doesn't work almost never with Carmen)

In general, this is what I have managed to analyze about Gray's personality. However, as I said, it’s an introduction, some things will remain, while others will change a little or even a lot throughout the analysis. I hope you liked it and for the moment, it will be 5 parts in total for the entire analysis. I will leave the parts with their titles in each post (Maybe the titles will change depending on if something better occurs to me as I write.), and I will leave an analysis that I had already done before but it complements a little to Gray and his personality. Maybe every two days I will get the next part, depending on my time, but also so that you can take your own time to read, reflect and comment on your points of view.

Part. I Introdution (HERE)

Part. II Empathy vs Ambition

Part. III Amnesia and it’s Future Consequences

Part. III.5 Graham Calloway: The Walking Enigma

Part. IV Integrity At a high (and unfair) price

Part. V The final decision and a new beginning

Plus 1. Gray and his strange habit of explaining things

Plus 2. Crossover: Sabrina And Gray: New Beginning

Plus 3. Crossover: Hawk/Eli and Crackle/Gray: Redemption

[floralkittygambler]

RadioDust is the Healthiest Toxic Ship for Angel so far

@honesthazbinarchives​ Briefly. I’d like to go into this more in the future BUT these are the main points I said I’d do. Heh ‘stay tuned’ for why HuskerDust is toxic [haaaa funny fuckin reference n shit like Viv herself aint overdone it]. Yer dont even wanna know the lack of enthusiasm in tryna do a playful ‘cringetopia’ joke - wasnt as fun as anticipated. Anyfuckinways, the shit. Before we begin, disclaimers n whatnot, no hate intended, dni if you’re a bit of a knobhead [either stan or extreme anti], an all that nonsense. I dont own the characters no shit.  In this I’ll discuss how RadioDust aka SpiDEER (thats right, yer stuck w my shit humour now) is both the healthiest ship for Angel we’ve seen so far but still rather toxic. Idc if you hate me for it but dont fuckin waste yer time telling me. Great. I dont care. Yer fuckin hard n whatnot for harassin strangers online. Big dick energy to you. This will be slightly messy, my apologies, it’s a quick summary of many points.

Alright. Firstly, out of the entire male cast Angel interacts with over all platforms, Al is given a fair bit of mercy in terms of sexual advances. In fact, a swift ‘no’ and Angel doesn’t do it again - unlike most of the other cast [pent’s is covert, husks is overt]. One thing I like is that Angel himself admits to their chemistry (claiming that whilst he thinks Al’s a prick, he thinks Al dislikes him which saddens him as he’d at least like to be friends as he feels they have good chemistry - according to the VA via Hunicast’s 1yr anniversary), there’s no further efforts to jump on his dick but a clear curiosity/interest in what Al can do.  Lets go to the basics, both are of similar age [allegedly in their 30s, though Ive heard Al may be up to mid 40s] as well as created near the same-ISH time (as in, Viv’s oldest characters, at least for HH). Likewise, Viv admitted to knowing fuck all on either of their eras (and to make that public wasn’t really a wise choice BUUUT if you felt the need, it’s better worded with interest “Right now I’m working towards educating myself more on their time periods to improve their portrayals” <-- crucial if yer want that ‘realism’). Because of their real-world ages, Viv confesses they’re her favourites (even if you didnt know, she makes it pretty clear). It could be a nice ‘homage’ to their impact in her life but not too relevant otherwise. It could fulfil the need for self indulgence that she’s unhealthily leaking into the canon - which will ultimately make the series shit. No sugarcoating there.  As for their ages, a relationship can work whether the gap is large or small HOWEVER there are many ethics and conflicts to each. And being an adult into kids is always fucked up. With that being said, studies have shown that closer ages often work better due to the often similarities in mindset, maturity and life goals (older folks are more likely to want to settle, younger often have more ambitions), likewise there tends to be an unbalanced power-dynamic if the ages are too far, which can lead to various types of abuse. Dont get me wrong, being with someone much older (AS LONG AS NONE OF YALL ARE KIDS) very much CAN work - but rarely. There’s much more hardwork needed as well as being in the right mindset for both, otherwise it’s bad. More on that in HD. Long story short, both are closer in age meaning both are more ‘relatable’ to one another. There’s common grounds, even in the eras there’s some higher understanding of one another. Notice how Vaggie and Charlie are similar in age? (Even though Charlie is far older, her appearance and mentality for her race is on par with Vaggie’s, making it far more likely to work out positively) One of the most prominent out of all of this however is their actual interests. So listing; Both like action/chaos/having fun (often at the expense of others), both love cooking and can be food snobs in their own right, both have sadistic AND masochistic tendencies, Al likes performance and theatre whilst Angel loves *to* perform, on that last point Angel was very intrigued and enjoyed Al’s song number/performance naturally, both really enjoy pranks and both enjoy liquor (neither show an actual addiction, but rather an interest in social drinking - no dependencies on it). Again, close eras mean both have a higher probability of understanding the other and their lifestyles better. Both are high on appearance and love themselves, implying self confident mindset (healthy BUT the narcissism isnt) yet enough consideration for how they are viewed. On the parent system, one adores his mama whilst the other hates his pops.  Now Ive gone on about how they’re similar. But similarities ALONE is not enough. If it was, then fandom’s would be a lil more harmonious~ A HEALTHY relationship needs compatibility, POSITIVE conversation flow, common grounds, trust, openness and understanding. Even then, some people click and some just dont. It’s like how you can just hate someone for no reason. It just IS. Common grounds and similarity is scientifically proven to be attractive to someone - be it good or BAD. People are drawn to those like their parents in some way usually, likewise we look for people similar to ourselves (from our interests, to humour, beliefs, goals, etc). Science itself states that ‘opposites attract’ solemnly applies in the real world successfully. Though similiarity plays a large role, there has to be some differences too - that person is STILL an individual separate to yourself. Too similar and it’s boring. Too similar and you’ll do everything together without some ‘you’ time. Both Vaggie and Charlie have similar interests/hobbies in dance and music, yet still have enough differences to be identifiable when together. Vaggie is more grounded than Charlie. Charlie gives some optimism and fun to Vaggie. Remember, a partner does NOT complete you - that’s a toxic mindset when taken too seriously, You complete YOURSELF. Whether you have someone or not, you must feel complete in yourself as to not slip into toxic dependency on a lover - to become them, a shadow of them or feel like you’ve lost your identity without them. Sounds harsh but it’s true. Chaggie compliments each other without a dependency. You stand alone yet uplift one another. You don’t always agree but in the end you always have each other’s backs. Love is often butchered in a toxic light in the media.  So taking that into consideration, how does spideer work? Well, here’s some examples of good, bad and neutral: - Angel loves animals, Al fears/dislikes dogs. Perhaps Angel could assist him in overcoming this? - Al hates being touched, Angel dislikes being squeezed. Maybe this could help them reach an understanding... Or cause a rift? - Angel was the only one to break Al’s composure, either Angel is the *key* to delving further into Al’s more raw self... Or just another obVOXious pest? (yeah, I said it-) - Neither respect other’s boundaries, meaning both may fuel the other to be overly disrespectful in this area. Not good. - Angel is a sarky/sarcastic fuck, Al loves dry humour. Both seek amusement and chaos. In relationships one needs to see how conversation flows and in the hunicasts, both keep up some good as well as toxic banter. Both could roast the fuck out of an opponent however. - Al is acro/ace, Angel is hypersexual (appears like a sex addict - now I say this as his book has a crossed out ‘fun stuff’ with ‘work shit’ written on it. He’s always fixed on sex from his job to his humour), this could either aid Angel ease up on the sex stuff OR make him overly push it onto Al causing major rifts and discomfort (aces can have sex, ref to ace posts that real asexuals put to understand more but no one wants to be forced into sex is the point here). And we’ve already discussed their lack of respect for boundaries. The positive is that maybe this will make Angel understand how Val is rubbing off on his own behaviour towards men [again, more on that in the HD post]. - Both similar yet different in a way that does suit their compatibility chances but that doesnt mean they will click, it just improves the odds. - Both have similar enemies in Val and Vox, they’re on common terms. Likewise, Al is against the ‘sexual deviance’ of hell meaning he may be oddly supportive and protective of Angel in terms of Val. I dont even think his sadism will override this either. - Al dislikes modern tech, Angel seems to use it as his job requires it. A nice little menial difference. - Only ONE is an addict. Take it from an expert, you NEVER put two addicts together. They’re very vulnerable and prone to slipping deeper into their addictions as well as depending on each other too much that they essentially become very clingy, suffocating and toxic to each other. Seen it in action, it’s ugly.  - Both could have a lot of fun and calm moments with each other. - He isn’t immediately smitten with Al but immediately shows a natural interest in Al’s powers and performance, embracing it openly. Leads for a good friendship turned lovers plot. - In Viv’s patreon, she confirmed Angel loves confident guys [sounds exactly like Al] We need to think about where both are mentally. What benefits would a relationship give both? How would they be good and bad for each other? For Al, aside from his outdated views and being a fucking murderer and narcissist, he actually seems in a good mindspace for a relationship IF he opted to be in one. Angel however has a very immature mindset, likewise is in a phase of life where hes bed hopping. IF he were to be in a relationship, I’d say he needs a male equivalent of Cherri - someone with a similar mindset yet some differences, willing to have fun and in touch with their younger side, down to cuddle, open to share and receive love as well as not afraid to publicly be affectionate with him, someone who sees him as more than just for sex, someone fun, someone who’ll let him embrace his cutesy side publicly without shame - Cherri is younger so maybe someone who’s his age or slightly younger perhaps? I think Angel’s not retirement home ready to settle and needs someone on his level that can cuddle and chill as well as feels free and youthful enough to go wild with him. In one sense, he’s got a teen girl sorta mindset (dont put him with a teen though, it’s fuckin weird-). He needs someone positive and raw, someone to let him be himself as well as someone comfortable to be themselves around him. He has a habit of latching onto unobtainable men (in psychology, this is self sabotaging subconsciously): Travis the client, Val a pimp, Husk (emotionally unavailable and needs HEAVY self work - interestingly far more than Angel - plus he’s still onto his last relationship and an addict to gambling and alcohol), Pent who’s the enemy he was currently fighting (inappropriate timing), Alastor who’s not interested in another but his own needs [selfish, VERY bad for a relationship]. Subconsciously he’s self sabotaging on purpose. There’s many psychology books as well as sources online for this, if you’re interested. Either way, Angel is drawn to men either like his father [who dislike him, shun him, or are otherwise cold, abusive or just blatantly dislike or otherwise dont care about him] or anyone with money to fuel his drug addiction/’debt’ to Val. Going with any of these men isn’t a good idea.  Preferably, Angel needs someone who he doesnt immediately crush and obsess over. Someone who he doesnt sexually harass or assault. Someone he can build a connection with quickly that can bud into romance (think how Chaggie started as a friendship which clicked immediately). Maybe even someone he doesn’t expect to fall for but does so anyways. It would be more realistic as Viv wants as well as more healthy. That for once he isnt sex or money craved instantly, thus doesnt sexually harass/assault and is given a proper chance to develop and grow a friendship and love. Someone who isnt an addict.  Someone with an on-par mindset where they click. Someone open to love. For any chance of a good relationship, Angel needs to be with anyone BUT who we’ve already seen. There’s too much toxicity that’ll be swept under the rug and justified otherwise. Too much shit to fuel homophobes in terms of gay stereotypes. Even though Ive focused a fair bit on Angel, it’s NOT just about Angel. That’s something fans forget. Some he depends on or someone who depends on him in the long term wont last and will be very dangerous to both.  Just because you suffer, you dont then deserve to be rewarded with ‘something nice’. You dont get to have everything youve ever wanted. Giving him any of these blokes [minus Val] gives him a pass. Gives him what he wants. I get Viv loves him but life doesnt work that way. True lasting growth comes from learning that. Acceptance and growth. You dont get everything you want and sometimes thats a GOOD thing. He’s not a spoilt kid who gets everything he asks for, he’s YOUR creation. If you really wanted what your creations deserve then you need to research and be realistic with it. Because hes starting to feel like a shitty Gary-Stu at this rate. I live with an ‘Angel Dust’ like person. It used to feel like life gave her everything and most times it did. Everyone loved her and she could get away with murder if she wanted to. But now she’s had to struggle and grow, let go of some ‘wants’ because they werent good for her and she’s becoming better for it. She has a long way but she’s more humble for it now [still got self confidence but it’s less narcissism now, which is more healthy for her]. Also, they make the word anal lol

[thedancefloorsilly]

omg 300 followers??? i remember finding your account at around the 200 followers event, and holy crap you grew so fast 😫 congrats!! 🎊 you deserve it, you're so talented and your writing is AMAZING! it's a pleasure to read <3

anyways, for the event:

my romantic f/os are machi and shalnark

personality: i'm mostly introverted and super awkward around people i don't know that well, but once i get to know someone, i'm more talkative and outgoing. i would probably consider myself more book-smart rather than street smart (totally didn't forget how to use a toaster once) i like to plan things to the very last detail. i'm not rlly the biggest on pda, just something subtle. my love language is probably quality time. i also tend to tease the ppl i care about.

hobbies: i like to talk/hang out with friends. i also enjoy reading and making cookies sometimes. playing violin is also probably one of my biggest hobbies too

appearance: i'm pretty short, wear glasses, and have dark hair that's kinda long (wow i feel like i'm writing a wattpad description right now 💀)

anyways, i think that's it? i'm sorry that's so long, i didn't anticipate it being that long whoops. thanksssss and have a great day/night! <3

AH HEY!! omg THANK U SM THATS SO SWEET <33 well its great to have u here bc im always happy writing ur requests :)) the more info the better so dw!! have a good day or night too enjoy these ;D 

Event post: here

u could tell I had fun writing this cause I think this is one of the longer ones ive written my bad for the long read😩

Machi

- Due to her amazing intuition, Machi had this feeling that you and her were probably going to get along well. With that, there was something about you that made her intrigued. Even though most of your first interactions might’ve been a little awkward with your shyness (I mean who could blame you though she’s so pretty), Machi still came back to talk and learn more about you. She’s pretty happy that she still continued to talk to you, because Machi did end up noticing how you opened up more to her. Not only that, but there was a great connection between you guys!!

- You and Machi both agree that you’re both not that big when it comes to PDA. You both do like holding each other’s hands, though. Sometimes when you’re in public, she’ll shyly grab onto your hand (don’t mention it though, because she might get a little embarrassed).

- She always remembers your interests, and knowing that you love to read, sometimes Machi likes to gift you books! She’ll usually take recommendations from either Chrollo, Feitan, or Shalnark (he doesn’t read that much but he does know lots of good ones out there).

- One day you were baking cookies in the kitchen when she noticed the smell lingering in the air. “I didn’t know you were baking cookies,” she asks, to which you nod in response. After that, she then offered to help you out. (Based on my hc’s) Machi is actually a pretty good baker, but she doesn’t do it too often!!

- Now, everything seemed pretty normal at first, you and her were just following instructions perfectly, nothing too bad, right? Well once she booped you on the nose with some of the batter, that simple action was what started a whole food fight. You then responded by taking some batter on your finger, and then putting it on her nose. Well, she returned this favor by putting MORE batter on your face (you can see where this is going...). it didn’t take long until globs of cookie dough, flour, sugar, and other ingredients were being thrown in the air.

- Though the kitchen ended up looking like a total mess (and the cookies were nowhere near being done), the quick food fight ended up with you and Machi smiling exchanging lots of laughter. Sure, maybe you had to start all over again, but at least y’all had lots of fun!!! Buttt you weren’t sure how you guys were going to clean all this up...

Shalnark

- Despite being a little shy or awkward at first, this didn’t bother Shalnark from wanting to get to know you more. Sure, conversation at first was often lead by him, but he always noticed how you would actively listen and chime in here and there. Though you were a little quiet, Shalnark thought that this was so cute!! From this, he just wanted to get to know you better.

- The more you would talk to each other, the more and more you started to open up towards Shalnark. To him, it’s actually surprising at how different you were compared to when Shal first met you. He always jokes about how awkward and cute you were back then, contrasting to how extraverted you were around Shalnark now!!

- Now, Shalnark is more of a PDA type of person, so sometimes he really can’t help giving you a bunch of kisses in public. Then again, he’ll also respect this and will hold off on those random bursts of affection. At most when you’re in public, Shalnark will just hold your hand or wrap his arm around your waist or shoulder.

- Since you both love to hang out with each other, Shalnark will always ask you out on dates to new places! Most of them are a surprise because he wants you to really see your expression once he surprises you. The only information Shalnark will give are things telling you how to dress and such. 

- I can imagine Shalnark surprising you to go on a carnival date (like those ones by the boardwalk)!! He won’t tell you this before hand (since it’s a surprise of course), but the only hint he’ll give is to dress kind of comfortably (but also nice if you want). Shalnark takes you in the afternoon, and once you arrive to the place, your eyes bright up with realization!!

- The whole time there, you guys are just running around the whole place, going from game booth to game booth. As competitive as you guys are when trying to win, at one point Shalnark plans to win you one of those giant stuffed animals! He also doesn’t let those rigged games get in the way of winning that prize!! Even though it was his first game, Shalnark ended up proudly winning it for you!!

- The rest of the time there was the spent on the rides. After a while, you guys decide to go on the last ride of the night, a somewhat big wooden rollercoaster that overlooks the boardwalk and the sea. As you guys began to slowly go up the lift, you turned to notice the beautiful sunset from how long you guys have been there. Maybe admiring the orange and yellow hues from the sun made the mood much more romantic, because once you guys looked back at each other, you and Shalnark managed to swoop in a quick kiss at the peak of the rollercoaster.

- Immediately though, you guys were interrupted with the quick drop of the ride. Though unexpected, it still didn’t ruin your time because it was still so much fun!! Eventually, you and him got off the ride, still very giggly from the adrenaline. After that though, you and Shalnark then leaned in close to finish that rollercoaster kiss, a perfect end to an amazing day. 

a note from the author: you and your f/o’s are canon B)

[emisfritish]

I’ll try every way (part 3)

Well because I have virtually zero self control, here’s the third part tonight. And I think you can expect parts 4, 5 and 6 by tomorrow night.

Summary :  Five times Tine could only show he cared through different gestures,  and the one time he didn’t need to.

Pairing : Sarawat / Tine

Show : 2gether the series

Part : 3/6

Previous parts : Part I / Part II /

Next part : Part IV

--------- 

A couple nights later, Tine and Sarawat are hanging out in Sarawat’s bedroom, quietly working on homework. They are each doing their own thing, and focussing on their studies. 

Well. If Tine is honest with himself, Sarawat is indeed focussing on his essay, as indicated by the furious typing he has going on and that can be heard around the room from where he is sitting at his desk, while Tine himself is laying on his front in Sarawat’s bed, textbooks spread in front of him, deep in thought. His mind on everything but his homework. 

It’s just that… This is nice. Between Sarawat’s rehearsals with his band, Tine’s own intense cheerleading practice schedule, and both of their classes, they don’t get to see each other as often as they did when they first started “fake dating”, and Tine just enjoys those moments, where the two of them can just be. 

What little free time they do have, they tend to spend with their group of friends, and although Tine always appreciates those moments, he enjoys being around Sarawat without any expectations of doing anything in particular, and just being able to hang out and be together.

Sarawat is… Well. Sarawat is something, to him, as Tine is starting to figure out. But before anything else ? Sarawat is his friend, and Tine is glad they get to keep the unwavering companionship that has always existed between them. His feelings for Sarawat may be complicated right now, but actually being with him and hanging out together ? That has always been so easy, and there are few people in his life that Tine feels he can be this comfortable with. With whom he doesn’t feel like he needs to put on a show for all of the time, and can just be himself. 

So yeah. This is nice.

And if Tine also gets to enjoy observing Sarawat’s delicate features while the other boy is too busy focussing on his essay to notice, well… No one actually needs to know that. 

“Hey Wat,” he asks, when a lull in the typing grants him a window of opportunity to talk.

Sarawat just hums in answer, obviously still focussed on his essay and clearly not paying close attention to what Tine is saying. 

“I saw that Desktop Error was coming to town for a concert. In about a month or so,” Tine starts to explain. “Do you want to maybe go together ?”

Before he even finishes his full sentence, Sarawat suddenly turns around completely from where he is sitting at his desk and just stares at Tine. 

“What did you just say ?”

Tine rolls his eyes, certain that Sarawat heard him the first time. 

“Desktop Error. Concert. Next month. In the city. Do you want to go ?” he repeats himself. 

Sarawat just keeps on staring and stays silent, long enough that Tine starts to think that maybe he’s made a mistake. Maybe he was being a little too intrusive with asking this. Music is something that Sarawat loves and obviously knows a lot more about than Tine does. Maybe it’s just one of those things his friend prefers doing alone. Or maybe he would rather go to the concert with someone that actually has any musical culture, other than listening to a few mainstream bands, that is. 

Sarawat’s friends had actually had to drag him to Scrubb’s concert, last year... Maybe he doesn’t even like concerts at all.

“But you don’t even know or like the band,” the other boy finally answers after a while, looking confused. 

“Well… Yeah. That’s true. But you do,” Tine says, shrugging his shoulders. “And you’re always saying I only listen to Scrubb, maybe it’s time for me to broaden my horizons a little !”

Sarawat keeps on staring, looking like he’s deep in thought, and with that calculating look he gets on his face whenever he’s not quite sure he gets what’s going on with a situation he’s in, and Tine starts to backtrack, not wanting to force his friend’s hand. 

“I mean, it was just an idea. We don’t have to…”

“Yes,” Sarawat finally says, interrupting him mid-sentence. 

“What ?” asks Tine, trying to wrap his head around the conversation and understand what Wat is agreeing to, in spite of the whiplash the conversation is giving him. 

“Yes. I’d like to go,” Sarawat elaborates, an unreadable look in his eyes.

Feeling a rush of relief and joy, Tine can’t help but smile at his friend in answer. Before he has the time to say anything else though, Sarawat keeps on talking. 

“Are you sure you’re going to be able to handle it though, Tua woon wai ?”, he asks with a smirk on his face. “Unlike P’Dim’s concert, this is actual good music. We can’t just go and listen to Scrubb on my phone during the concert,” he continues,  seemingly having gotten over whatever was making him look all confused and going right back to his favourite pastime, teasing Tine.

“Salaleo ! Of course I will !”, Tine whines back, feigning offense at his friend’s jab, which simply causes Sarawat to outright laugh at him.

“I’ll book up some tickets tonight then,” Tine continues after a few seconds, throwing a blinding smile Sarawat’s way, before casually turning back to his textbooks to actually start reading his lesson, entirely missing the fond look on Sarawat’s face.

Broadening his horizons. He can do that, Tine thinks to himself. And who knows, maybe it’ll actually be good for him.

[brujoenlafrontera]

hi!!! I’m a puertorriqueño/nicaragüense enby looking into resources for learning bruja stuff, any good place you know to start?

I’ve gotten a couple of asks about this lately, and i’m so happy to know there are more latinos finding their way to the practice, tumblr’s brujeria tag often gives the impression that theres so little of us out there reclaiming our practices but getting asks like these brings me a lot of faith that thats not true :) first and foremost:

GETTING INTO BRUJERIA IS HARD.

it really is. baby brujos like us know that better than anyone- getting started, is often the hardest part of doing anything, and its no different with brujeria. it can feel so overwhelming and feeling lost is natural. from my experience, although i am still a newbie ive been able to find a lot of information out there, here are the best places to find info, sorted by priority:

FAMILY! a little self explanatory, but brujeria at its best is truly is an inherited, familial practice. If you can, before delving into internet resources, definitely connect w your family if you’re able to and ask them for guidance and about their experiences!

Your family is always the best resource over anything you can find online; theres so much misinformation out there or information not relevant to your region and if someone in your family already has established practices, always trust them first

 Do some thinking back to all your cultural traditions, quirks, stories, and superstitions that you’ve  learned from your family across time and never thought too much about- and rediscover them under a new light

KEEP IN MIND: brujeria is NOT a singular , concrete practice w concrete rules in itself, the term blankets a lot of traditions across latam, the caribbean, mexico, but imo its always best to stick with brujeria related to your heritage and where your connection is.

this can be hard for people (like me!) with huge family taboos toward brujeria that make it unsafe to ask around about, and/or limitations in family connections (also like me unfortunately). I personally can really only get the tidbits and stories that my family accidentally slips out when I occasionally see them. i try to write them down as much as possible, but the info i can get is limited... and thats where the following comes in.

ONLINE COMMUNITIES. i.e, youtube, tumblr, instagram brujx communities. notice I haven’t said “internet” in general- the reason why i trust community based social media more than random individual websites you find on google is because, in the case of brujeria and honestly any non-european craft, you’re often gonna find a LOT of white people writing blogs, books, etc about their “spiritual experiences” in latam countries and wrongly/incorrectly taking ATR or indigenous traditions (like with smudging). I know, with social media, although those same white people are also on insta and tumblr, it’s a LOT easier to see the face behind the accounts and differentiate who to trust, who’s legit and has real experience to share, rather than a nameless, faceless, website that is actually some colonizer sharing colonized ideas who thinks theyre on a spiritual journey taking traditions all willy nilly. And the fact that in social media, its much easier to find a lot of good brujas at once bc they tend to follow each other lmao.what ive personally done to find information tho is essentially SCOUR tumblrs, insta accs, and watching tons of youtube videos for posts, accounts, videos, etc, and narrowing down good info from there through , namely:

CHECKING WHO YOUR SOURCE IS!!!

ASKING YOURSELF FROM WHAT EXPERIENCE THEYRE SPEAKING FROM

ALWAYS TAKING EVERYTHING WITH A GRAIN OF SALT

AND STICKING TO INFO FROM CULTURES OPEN AND RELEVANT TO ME.

again, brujería is different depending on where your family is from in latam, and if you have an established connection to indigenous and/or black roots, so it’s useful to use keywords relating to that when searching (like if ur black, you can look into ATRs(african traditional religions) which tend to mix deeply with brujeria, if ur indigenous, finding other people from your tribe is great, and if youre not pursuing your already learned traditions you can think about connecting to them more deeply(altho indigenous traditions are their own thing, sometimes they do mix with brujeria too), and apart from familial roots, if ur catholic/christian and/or want to explore it, saint work/catholic brujeria might be a good fit for you!)  

tumblr: there are a couple of fantastic brujxs on this site with great blogs and resources who have sadly left the site, but i still go through their posts heavily for spells, rituals, scraps of info! etting started w brujería is hard bc there’s really not that much info out there right now, but i compile as many good brujeria posts i find on my acc.

@brujeria-n-bongs great for catholic brujeria, now at @Upliftherbs on instagram

@brujeria-lost @barberwitch @reina-morada @highbrujita

@naomi121406 is by far the most active and informative tumblr resource ive found, shes an afro-indigenous diaguita curandera from argentina so shes also really helpful if ATRs are in your path!

Im not black myself and dont follow ATRs so i don’t really know many good blogs for afrolatine brujxs out there but if anyone would like to tag some in the replies thatd be awesome!

instagram: Ive found that instagram #brujeria tags has a pretty healthy active stream of posts. You’re gonna have to sift through a lot of them to get to the good stuff though- imo a lot of hispanics use the brujería tag not to mean “latine brujería” but just the spanish word for witchcraft, so a lot of white hispanics will put wicca/neo witchcraft in the tag. imo that’s really not something i’m personally interested in bc it’s not true to brujeria’s traditional nature, is very white/eruropean , and that wicca shit basically just got here. its a relatively a recent thing😭 so i try to stick to bruja accounts that aren’t influenced by that.

youtube: The youtube brujería tag is hit or miss? and again, contains a lot of wicca. But there are some good practitioners on there like The Mexican Witch! You just gonna look around, and dont be afraid to click on videos by really really small youtubers; they often are the ones with the most informative and legit things to say!

Everyone’s path as a bruja/o/x (sjdf trying to be inclusive w gendered language is difficult) is different but here are some topics i think are great to look into as a beginner!

ancestors: start at the bottom and figure out who they are, where theyre from, and set up an altar. it’ll help you a lot with figuring out your identity and path as a bruja later on.

setting up a grimoire

divination: tarot is actually what got me into brujeria at first! tarot isnt strictly traditional and is european in itself but its a wonderful tool for connecting to dieties, saints, etc as well as super fun and helps a lot with introspection

ritual abrecaminos, aka road opening spells!

amarres (love spells... proceed with caution)

limpias, mal de ojo

saint work: even if you’re not catholic (im ex catholic), a growing number of us (especially lgbt latines like @/upliftherbs on instagram) are starting to take back and decolonize our view of saints like La Virgen Maria and removing her from the rigid european/colonized interpretation thats been forced into us

candle spells in general (i fucking love candles tbh, cheap, easy, fun, and WORKS)

spiritual colognes, how to cleanse

finally, here are some helpful posts yall should definitely read and think about moving forward!

about using tumblr as a resource

about looking into brujeria as a part-white part latine

bruja psa + about reclaiming lost indiginety

honestly naomi’s entire brujeria tag is great and super informative for beginners and basically holds answers for almost anything at this point

hope this post helps yall out!

EDIT: oh lord now that this is posted the outline format i tried to use is all kinds of fucked up please dont mind the odd numbering lmfao tumbr hates organized formats

[ohblackdiamond]

liner notes/unused joke summaries for kiss fics (part iv)

Despite what my general dislike of the shift key and my tendency to mock all that I love might imply, I actually overthink everything I write to a great extent. I make no claims to these explanations being in any way enjoyable, but if you wanted to know what I was thinking while writing KISS fic… now you do. Part one can be found here. Part two is here. Part three is here. 

little t&a --If Paul had boobs, they would be big and Gene would want to grab them.

>>Title from a Rolling Stones song of the same name; most of the chapter titles are from another Stones song, “The Spider and the Fly.” I started it during quarantine as a means to occupy myself and destress, and didn’t initially plan on posting it at all. Once I’d written five chapters without having posted it or mentioned it to anyone, I figured, well, I guess this might as well go somewhere, so I put it up. I had the hope that it’d give me something to strive for during the stress of lockdown, and I’d assumed that I wouldn’t ever have that much time to devote to a story again.

There were a couple of things that really inspired me. I’ve always enjoyed sexswaps as a bit of a guilty pleasure, but wanted to do a different take on them-- there’s this tendency for sexswaps to either be wacky hijinks or an excuse to write particularly brutal noncon. There’s also a tendency for the sexswapped character to almost automatically start adopting stereotypically feminine traits he didn’t have prior, with no real reason for it. I wanted to try and avoid all that as much as possible.

... There’s also another tendency for the sexswapped character never getting back to normal, and I wanted to avoid that, too. I mean, c’mon, KISS is supposed to start the Love Gun tour a month after the fic. Paul can’t exactly pull the trigger of a love taco. (Maybe gently brush it a bit...)

I had Paul already cursed for five days at the start of the fic because I thought it would make things easier and allow the plot to advance more quickly. I also felt like it would give him more autonomy-- prior to Gene showing up, he has tried (albeit in small ways) to get a handle on what’s happened to him, and while he’s hermited it up, he hasn’t given up. Autonomy in general was pretty important for me re: Paul. (Incidentally, probably one of my favorite things about this fic is that Paul’s made that poor twelve-year-old kid on his bike buy him sanitary napkins.)

I wanted to explore a couple of other things, too, mostly rock and roll’s (and KISS’ in particular) pretty heinous treatment of women. Gene and Paul argue in the eighties that groupies know the score from the beginning, and even postulates that those relationships are more “honest” than just taking a girl out to dinner. They’re not alone in this (and, of course, as married men, these days they try not to discuss those times at all); almost every band/artist from around that time period will give you the same answer. “The girls know what they’re doing.” I think many of them did know. I also think many of them came into those hotel rooms expecting a lot more than they ever received, and I think plenty of girls ended up at the very least disappointed by their encounters, if not humiliated or worse.

I don’t know if this was successful, but I also wanted to at least try to poke a few holes in celebrity/idol worship as well. Carol’s scathing comments to Paul-- “they [fans] think there’s something you’ve got that they can get at, but there’s not” pretty heavily exemplify behavior I’ve seen at conventions, fan meet-ups, etc. At the end of the day, well, there’s no point in putting them on much of a pedestal. I dunno. I’ve seen some weird crap in the name of fan worship, in and outside of RPS. Keith Richards talks about it in his book-- girls urinating on themselves out of sheer nerves/excitement just at seeing the band, etc., which, while disturbing, had to have given them a sense of being something beyond ordinary (and act accordingly, of course).

I don’t know. I like them a lot, but I can’t hero-worship these guys; they don’t live in the real world. They’re not, ultimately, relatable or accessible despite the billions of photos, the twitter posts, the meet and greets-- any more than they were 40-odd years ago. I think there can be a real danger in thinking they are. I wanted to show that, too, but again, I don’t know if it came across properly.

One of the aspects I really struggled with was getting a good handle on Paul’s innately slippery sense of identity without it overtaking the story entirely. Gene’s very stable identity was a good foil, and it helped that most of “t&a” is from his point of view, rather than Paul’s.

Another place I faltered with was Paul’s outing alone at CBGB. The first draft had the guy in the club slip quaaludes into his drink, but I really didn’t like that at all and felt it took too much control away from Paul/punished him for going out on his own. I thought it’d be more interesting if Paul deliberately took what he knew was a dangerous combination (alcohol + quaaludes) in the hopes that would make him feel better about sleeping with someone he didn’t care about.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, having him do that (and the way the scene with the guy at the club ends) also meant that I couldn’t have him hop right into bed with Gene that night, either, so that accounts for some of the delaying. I was also really wanting to make sure in general that when Gene and Paul finally did go all the way, there wasn’t any feeling of being coerced or pressured. Not that Gene would do either of those things, but I didn’t want him or Paul to be doing it out of any feeling of obligation or hurry; I wanted it to be as natural as possible, under the circumstances. And I wanted, again, Paul’s dubious sense of self and Gene’s ambiguous feelings about Paul(’s boobs) to come into play-- yes, Paul, now you, too, can take Gene on the amazing technicolor dreamdate you’ve been fantasizing about for the last seven years! Or, you know, not. Overall, there are some pacing issues and the story slows down considerably after Gene takes Paul home from CBGB, but I like to hope that most of the scenes add something.

There were a couple of secondary plotlines that got scrapped because I couldn’t get them to fit well enough with the narrative. One of them was Paul’s very troubled relationship with his sister, Julia. There’s a fair amount of references to her scattered throughout, and Paul brings her up on several occasions, generally without much provocation, and generally at mildly odd moments (at Central Park and immediately after getting drawn by Gene being the standouts). There was an initial draft of the chapter in which Ace calls Paul, where Julia’s the one calling Paul instead (after having gotten his number from their parents). I wanted to at least get the start of a reconciliation going between them. Ultimately I scrapped it because I couldn’t get it to flow with the main plot and never felt like I’d ever explored it thoroughly enough for it to be worth a detour.

The comparison between Paul and Carol is pretty blatantly obvious, even in the narrative. Paul and Gene both recognize it (Gene, initially, when he notes that Carol doesn’t seem to belong at 54 any more than Paul does), and it makes them highly uncomfortable. (Mary-Anne, Carol’s friend, also notices it-- “she [Paul] reminds me of Carol. Just pitiful.”) They’re both very shy, insecure people that have thrust themselves into a world they’re not naturally suited for (show business) in order to achieve their own ends. They’ve both put great stock in a single person who helped them (inadvertently or not) during a dark time, and are driven by those feelings, despite knowing that person is out of reach.

Physically, they’re intentionally mostly opposite (Carol’s short, with a slight build, lighter hair, blue eyes, vs. Paul being, well, Paul-- tall, fuller build, black hair, brown eyes). But narratively speaking, neither of them are described as beautiful; “cute” and “kind of pretty,” sure, but nothing past that (except when Gene says it towards the end). That was important, too, for a couple of reasons. One, I wanted to further the comparison between them; two, I wanted to at least try and dispel the idea that all groupies were glamorous; many of them were rather ordinary-looking.

Paul not being “playboy material as a girl” was very deliberate. I feel like a lot of sexswaps tend to make the guy in question end up a ridiculously hot babe, which didn’t quite jive with what I was going for (not that I wanted Paul to end up awful-looking, but...). ... He’s probably hotter than he thinks he is though; at least, Gene didn’t mind at all, and Pete thought he was pretty. I wanted him to be recognizable if one knew where to look (face, body language). I didn’t want him to end up a tiny, frail-looking waif-- given what he looks like as a dude, that didn’t make sense to me. So this meant the less perfect attributes had to stay and carry over to a female body. He ended up with big boobs because... well, honestly because if he wasn’t going to end up with a great figure overall, he might as well have great boobs. And I mean, really, his chest’s already pretty all right as-is.

I didn’t want there to be a love triangle, but I did want it obvious, at least in an offhand way, that Peter and Paul had had sex (Ace mentions it in the car with Peter, with his “how long did it take you”). I wanted to incorporate Ace and Peter to as great an extent as possible in general.

Marbas is an actual demon from The Lesser Key of Solomon, although other than the few sentences Paul reads off from that grimoire, there’s not much more information on him to be found. 

[lady-plantagenet]

Unsolicited Book Reviews (n2): Death be Pardoner to Me

Rating:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Even before I had an account, I tended to go to tumblr to see people’s opinions before buying a histfic. Certain books are either severely underrepresented, where I feel like there needs to be something on them, whereas others, though talked about enough, something more can still be said about them. So for my quarantine fun, I have decided to start a series where I review every medieval historical fiction novel I read. Hopefully, it will either start interesting discussions or at least be some help for those browsing its tag when considering purchasing it.

TL;DR: Since the author claims this book is written through her channelling of George Duke of Clarence, I don’t know if I should approach this as a historical fiction review or otherwise. Regardless, well-written and very balanced. The voice throughout was similar to how I pictured the real George of Clarence. Nevertheless, I deduct one star because I have noticed some innacuracies. Whether this discounts the veracity of the author’s claim - I leave it up to you. Despite how dodgy this book may appear, it has gotten very good reviews online and I do assure you it is not trashy or melodramatic at all; it is high quality compared to most modern histfic and other genre fictions in its prose and psychological insight.

Plot: So what essentially happens is, we get a fictionalist account (albeit a very short one) of George’s life. The book’s chapters are split between 1st person (where he (George) intimates what he felt and what thought during an event) and 3rd person limited POV. The author claims that the entire book is told in his own words but I suppose the background descriptions and such in the 3rd person chapters were her own words. We get basically every major event in his life (birth, childhood, marriage, rebellion and death) and some in-between. The in-between moments were by far my favourites as they are what added depth to what is essentially this character analysis (because we all know what he did, we are now interested in why). I was happy to see a lot of little details in this book were confirmed by my research (Caxton dedicating him a book, his penchant for fine clothing, his suffering of headaches (maybe after suffering the recorded head injury at Barnet) etc), his gift for legal arguments (I obviously squealed when I found that out) so I did end up learning something.

On the other hand, I would have wanted an account of the time he spend with Louis XI, Margaret of Anjou, Anne Neville and Jasper Tudor and what he thought and said. I would have also wanted more insight into the whole Burdett and Stacey debacle, not to mention his relationship with Sir Roger Tocotes: the old friend who though was apparently part of the whole poisoning Isabel scheme, Clarence could not bring himself to execute. Warwick surprisingly doesn’t feature very heavily either, nor does Isabel enough. But I’ll take what I can get when it comes to his particular historical figure.

Characterisation/ Historical Accuracy: As I’ve said, since the author claims to be a medium (I shall not comment on this as I myself am undecided on where I stand) any incongruency cannot be taken as merely artistic licence. So, the voice of George (which I suppose has been transcribed into our contemporary speech so we can understand what he says) feels very true to the character. His attitude towards things definitely sounds like a man from the 15th century. He is more reasonable now, than he would be if he were telling us his story during the action itself, because a lot of the book is told through the spirits (?) hindsight. Nevertheless, you do feel as if you were with the character while everything unfolded. The portrayal is more sympathetic than in other novels, nevertheless, he is no Gary Stu or major victim. He is portrayed as someone with genuine principles, intelligence, capable of some love towards other while also being deluded by his own self-importance, sometimes irrational and judgmental. So more or less a real and complex person.

On the other hand, some claims in this novel are quite bold but though unsubstantiated are not strictly speaking innacurate (I won’t spoil here, but if anyone has zero plans of reading this book but regardless wants to know what I mean PM me). One thing that made me deduct one star was this one blatant innacuracy: Ankarette Twynyho’s portrayal as a young woman, when we know that by the time she reached Clarence’s household she had a grandson (John Twynyho who petitioned Edward IV for a posthumous parson). There was also the implausible suggestion that George would not allow for in his household to be said that Richard of Gloucester married Anne Neville for her money (which though spirit George may in retrospect believe he loved her, 15th century George would at worst have been the one starting those rumours and at best, would not have cared). However, the latter unlike the former isn’t disprovable beyond doubt - but still I can somehow feel the Richardianism from the author seep in a bit. It actually has quite blatantly in a couple of instances. For example the suggestion that Richard visited him in the Tower (which I am 90% sure could not have happened). I do believe George and Richard loved each other in some weird twisted way since they were raised together and brothers, but I genuinely don’t believe it was so conscious on either’s part. Also, Isabel Neville was described as very ill from the birth of Richard of Clarence, but as we all know she was actually really well after the birth, she did not die of childbed fever. This is precisely why Clarence thought poisoning could have taken place. Isabel and George’s relationship as a whole was rather sad, and a part of me hopes this is all a hoax just so I can hope they were happier together in real life.

Prose: You may be surprised to know that the prose is actually still better than the vast majority of historical fiction novels. It flows well throughout, the dialogue is engaging and realistic, the descriptions of places and things (what in my opinion is essential for a period novel) is really well done but not too embellished. Certain scenes seriously gave me the feels (happens rarely), but then again it is hard to know if my reaction is more to do with the draw I have towards George in general than the author’s craft - regardless, I still think it is better literary wise than anything Weir or most popular histfics ever wrote, though obviously does not hold a candle to Jarman, Lytton-Bulwer or Scott. But then again, this was not even intended to be a novel in the classical sense. This is where half of the stars come from whereas the others come from insightfulness (as it did give me some avenues of research). There is also a semi-mystical theme throughout (as you would expect from a medium) but it is very subtle and not at all TWQ-esque, an honestly - it is plausible as we do need to keep in mind that medieval people did all believe in Angels, spirits and such. I think this added a nice flavour in some scenes.

Overall, this novel believable or not was much-needed. Too much is written about Richard III and the others. When a mutual told me of it I obvs could not resist haha. Since it was so short (around 200 pages with fairly large font) I think I might go ahead and purchase her Anthony Woodville one too (imagine my luck: two of my favourite historical figures got books).

[peter-parcoeur]

“When you’re gone” - Part IV

PETER PARKER x READER (Tony Stark’s daughter)

warning: lots of angst in this chapter & irondad+spiderson feels hitting hard

Previous chapters: one || two || three Comment if you like it ♥

IV.

Peter was sat in the bus on his way back home when he started thinking about a way to talk to Y/N without her spatting back at him or avoiding any eye contact. There must have been something, any topic that could possibly break that massive ice wall she had built around her.

What if she refused to talk to him? How awkward would it be to be locked in his own bedroom with a girl who hated his gut? That’s when he realized: in about an hour, Y/N would be in his bedroom. A girl. In his bedroom. No girl had even been that close to his intimacy and suddenly, the thought of it made his throat dry from all the nervousness he had built in just a minute.

When the bus stopped, Peter started running as fast as he could to get home, using a couple swings from his webs to get there quicker. Slamming the door behind him, he rushed to his bedroom and sighed desperately at the sight in front of him.

A complete mess.

Usually, he wouldn’t be too bothered about his unkempt “personal space”. After all, the only people who were allowed to walk in there were May, Happy (occasionally) and Ned who happened to be even worst on the personal hygiene scale. Needless to say, his best-friend never complained about Peter’s smelly socks all over the floor, his untidy bed and all the obvious signs that screamed “nerd alert” like his Lego Death Star from Star Wars or his video games scattered all over the room.  

Picturing Y/N Stark standing there in the middle of this mess almost gave him a panic attack.

He had now less than an hour to get rid of all of his shameful toys, tidy up his room and remove the obvious smell of a 17yo virgin who’d rather spend his nights gaming or streaming porn than try and get an actual girlfriend.

It took him half an hour to hide any shameful hint at his loneliness, hoarding his closet with his toys, clean up the room and make his bed. Running out of ideas as his brain had gone to FULL PANIC mode, Peter went into the bathroom, hoping to find some kind of home fragrance that would give his bedroom a fancy, sophisticated smell. Unfortunately, all he could find were May’s favorite perfumes. Without a second thought, Peter grabbed the first one in sight and sprayed his bedroom with it. The bottle made it seem like an expensive “haute couture” smell.

“That’ll do” he thought.

“What are you doing?”

Peter jumped at the sound of May’s voice. She was coming back from work and now standing in his doorway, staring at him through her thin glasses.

“Err, a bit of clean-up?”

“Are you sick or something?” she joked, obviously surprised at her nephew’s unusual activity.

“No? I mean… I had all of this energy and… I felt like… It was overdue, you know” he stammered, kicking a comic book under his bed with his foot.

“Okay, cut the bullshit, your room smells like Coco Chanel’s farted in there” she laughed, raising her eyebrow until he dared to admit the reason behind his sudden change of habits.

“Okay, okay but let’s not make a big deal about this?” he started, waiting for her to nod.

“There’s this girl –“ he started.

“Ooooh a girl!” she beamed “you’ve got a date?”

“What? No! why would I take a girl on a date in my bedroom!”

“Dates often end in a bedroom” May stated before correcting herself “not that I would allow it under my roof!”

“It’s not a date, May… We have this assignment, so we’ll be working here, maybe a couple hours a week?”

“Oh, well, that’s cool”

“Can you please, PLEASE… not make it embarrassing for me?”

“First of all, wow… yes offence? And second, why would I do that?”

“You tend to do that actually”

She smiled, only because she couldn’t deny it.

“I promise I’ll behave. Who’s the girl?”

“Y/N Stark”

“As in---“

“Yes”

“Wow. Okay. Are we okay with this? I mean, are you… okay?”

Peter shrugged, quite unsure about the whole situation. He had been so busy cleaning-up his mess to make it less awkward for him that he had completely forgotten about how she’d feel. Right now, he could only hope for the best.

“I guess we’ll see?”

May nodded and walked into the room to peck the top of his head.

“You should open your window, it smells like a hooker died in there”

“That’s actually your perfume?”

“You don’t know everything about me, sweetie” she smiled, pinching his cheek before she left his room “I’ll be in the living room doing my thing, you know where to find me… And keep that door open, we don’t want any baby spiders running around this place a year from now!”

Peter rolled his eyes and grunted at the awkwardness of this conversation. Looking around him, he felt quite proud of himself at the sight of his neat, organized bedroom. It actually looked like a place where he’d love to have his first kiss and a couple more first times.

Not that he had this in mind with Y/N. At least, not until now he hadn’t.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 There was a knock on the door at 6:30 sharp, which reminded him of Tony’s typical habit of showing up on time wherever around the world. May watched him walk to the hallway, trying to keep it cool when he was actually halfway between a good run and a steady walk. He had now changed clothes to one of his only “great” sweater, with his sleeves rolled up and a fresh pair of jeans. If May hadn’t promised to behave, she would have commented on his fancy “this is not a date” new look.

Nervousness kicked in when he opened the door and saw her standing there with her backpack hanging on her right shoulder. She was wearing some sort of Gym apparel, skin-tight yoga pants and a cropped sweater that gave him a quick glimpse of her toned stomach and tiny waist. Her hair was tied in a high ponytail and her glistening skin made it look like she had jogged to his place.

“Hi” he said, almost out of breath as he realized she looked even better make-up free and wearing the most casual sports clothes. He felt suddenly stupid for wearing his good sweater now.

“Hi, sorry for this” she pointed at her outfit “I thought I would have some time to change after my dance class but I didn’t want to be late so--- here I am”.

Peter couldn’t help but smile as she said it. She didn’t want to be late.

“Don’t flatter yourself, I just hate to be late” she added when she realized he must have heard his side of the story and now making up his own scenario about how she couldn’t wait to see him again. None of this was an option on her side.

“It’s okay” he blurted “come on in”

Y/N was pleasantly polite and nice to May as she introduced herself when Peter thought she would be hating on the Parker’s name over ten generations. When she complimented May’s outfit, Peter thought about how his life would be if he ever managed to date a girl like Y/N and what a major upgrade that would be.

When Y/N turned around, May gave her nephew the thumbs up, mouthing “I like her!” with a bright, encouraging smile on her face. Peter simply answered with a sign of his hand miming a throat cut that could only mean “please shut up”.

“Do you want anything to drink?” he asked when they entered his room.

“Water would be nice”

Peter excused himself as she dropped her backpack to the floor, her eyes exploring his room with a noticeable curiosity. When he came back a couple minutes later with two glasses of water, Y/N was standing in front of his desk, scanning through the pictures on his wall.

Squishing his eyes shut with complete despair, Peter realized he had forgotten to take off the most important parts of his room: Tony’s pictures.

“Hmm” he coughed “here’s your--- water” he hesitated, handing her one of the glasses.

“Thanks” she whispered, barely noticing him as her eyes seemed glued to the picture of her 8yo-self smiling brightly in Peter’s arms.  He looked exactly the same as today, only less broody.

Peter didn’t know whether to speak at all or just stand there awkwardly as she processed her thoughts. It was probably creepy for her to see herself as a child in his arms while standing there next to him, looking like he’d never aged. For a second, it seemed like her wall had collapsed and she was actually reachable. Her eyes were haunted with a mix of nostalgia and sadness but she didn’t seem angry anymore.

“Weird, right?” Peter blurted out when he didn’t know what else to say.

“What is?” she asked “This situation or the fact you keep a picture of a little girl on your wall?”

Peter frowned. Maybe that wall was still there after all. Luckily, some of his biggest strenghts were his patience and obstinacy.

“I only keep it there because it’s a good memory. I had a good day and I wanted to remember it… That’s all. Sorry if it creeps you out.”

She seemed surprised with his honesty, but it was nothing next to his own surprise when she answered.

“It was a good day, yeah” she said, her face daring to show some hints of a smile in the corner of her lips before her eyes drifted to a picture of Tony and Peter and all signs of happiness faded away.

She turned around quickly and looked for a place to sit, her nose sniffing as she quite obviously tried to refrain from crying.

“We should get going, my mum wants me home by 8pm” she said, grabbing a notebook and a pen as she sat on the bed when she failed to find a desk and/or a chair.

The tip of her nose had turned red from the rush of sadness she had felt, looking at her father’s smile on this picture. To think of the pain she was going through made Peter feel worse than ever, so he decided not to mention anything personal as long as she didn’t give him a greenlight.

That didn’t happen until the next hour.

They had been working on their assignment for over an hour when Y/N suddenly seemed unable to contain herself any longer.

“What could he possibly see in you?” she snapped, smacking her pen on her notebook with a hard tug that made Peter jolt with surprise.

“Excuse me?” he asked, bewildered at her sudden mood swing.

“I’m sorry I just--- I’m trying to understand what my father could possibly love SO much about that he felt the need to travel back in time and just…. Abandon me.”

She had said it. The word she was dreading to speak out loud.

Her father had abandoned her so he could save another kid.

Getting up from the bed, she paced his room back and forth as she tried to compose herself so she wouldn’t cry in front of him. Peter felt terrible now. Never in a million year had he thought about her side of the story. How could she think Tony had abandoned her?

“He didn’t abandon you, Y/N, how can you say that?”

“Oh really? And what do you call it? Some heroic sacrifice? BULLSHIT! You weren’t there! None of you fucking Avengers were there to see it!”

“See… what?”

“The look on his face when he came back without you” she sniffed, turning around to face him now, wiping her face with the back of her sweater as tears started rolling down her cheeks.

“I hoped and prayed he would come back… I thought he had died up there, just like all of you… I was heartbroken and just when I’d completely lost hope… He came back from freaking Space with that blue chick!” her voice was cracking up with emotion by now, Peter wished he could’ve walked up to give her a warm, comforting hug, but she seemed furious at him.

He realized just how much she resented him when she kept on talking.

“I was so relieved, it was genuinely the happiest day of my life… To have him back, I felt lucky, I felt blessed…” she paused “but do you know what his first words to us were?”

Peter shook his head no.

“I’ve lost the kid” she said, recalling her father’s words as vividly as ever.

Peter looked up to stare into her eyes, his own watering from the aching pain in his stomach. No one had ever told him about this before Y/N. To hear this was a terrible reminder of his loss.

“You think that’s painful? Try and have your father losing sleep for months, staying up all night trying to figure out how to turn things back so he can bring YOU, precious Peter Parker back.” She snapped “He didn’t do this to save the world, he wanted to save you! He left me and my mom knowing this would be a one way trip!”

She was properly crying now, sobbing through her words as she recalled the day he left her, never to come back again.

“I’m—“ Peter started “I’m so deeply sorry Y/N… I didn’t know… I—“

“Of course you didn’t! That’s what makes it so hard for me to hate you!” she bawled, unable to contain herself now at the wound inside her heart seemed to have opened wide for the first time since the funeral.

Peter instinctively got up and wrapped her in his arms, hoping she wouldn’t punch him for even touching her. She rested against his chest, rigid as a tree so he wouldn’t feel any of her weaknesses. He could feel her shaky breath against his neck as she sobbed uncontrollably on his shoulder. Resting one hand behind her neck, hoping to soothe her, Peter went completely silent until she felt ready to speak again.

“You know the worst part of this—“ she started, freeing herself from his arms like she wouldn’t allow herself to be that close to him –

“I was actually sad when you didn’t come back with him, can you believe it?” she used both of her sleeves to wipe her eyes off, unbothered about how messy she looked now.

“Part of me was extremely thankful to have my dad back, but I couldn’t help thinking about you. Isn’t that just hilarious really? I cried when he told me about everything, how you vanished in front of his eyes, how you… apologized and cried and… I was genuinely heartbroken because for some reasons, I adored you! Just like my father did!”

Peter was loss for words, it felt like a truck had run over him about ten times. He was just standing there speechless, looking at her with tears in his eyes.

“It haunted me for weeks… But I had my father so I guess, I couldn’t be mad at the universe about a teenage boy from the Queens! But then my father left and suddenly… I’d lost you both.”

She paused, slightly out of breath from all the crying.

“My favorite person in the entire world, my universe, my role model, my guardian angel… and you, that nice, funny guy I had an irrational childish crush on! How stupid really, what a joke.”

Never in a million years would Peter had thought about this. To think she was actually sad he was gone was unthinkable, even if he knew how much she seemed to appreciate him as a child. Talking about this brought back memories from the past, how every time he visited Tony and his family, Y/N seemed so happy to see him. Tony even often joked about how he would become her favorite person someday, never hiding his jealousy whenever Y/N asked for ‘her best friend Peter’. All of this seemed surreal now that she was his age, standing there looking both flawless and broken.

“I don’t know what to say, Y/N… I wish I could do anything, I swear—“he hesitated.

“I swear I would take his place in the blink of an eye if I could turn back time once more… I never asked for any of this to happen, I don’t even recall the snap, it’s just a blur… Sometimes it doesn’t even feel real and I expect to wake up and everything’s back to normal”.

She could tell he was as upset as she was now, only slightly more disturb by his own memories.

“I know you’re going through the worst kind of pain right now but… I’ve lost him too.”

“Don’t you dare!” she threatened “he wasn’t your father!! How can you—“

“HE WAS THE CLOSEST THING I HAD TO A FATHER!!” he cried out, completely losing it now as he realized all of his father figures were long gone.

“You’ve lost your father… I’ve lost three.” He sighed, sitting on the edge of his bed with his head buried in his hands at the thought of his own dad, his uncle Ben, and now Tony.

 “I think you should go” May’s voice came out of nowhere, unexpected. None of them knew how long she had been standing there but her face said it all. She couldn’t handle the pain Peter was going through.

Y/N watched as May stood in the doorway with a concerned look.

“I’m sorry Ms Parker” Y/N simply stated, powerless. As she walked closer to Peter to pick up her backpack from the floor, he never looked up to meet her gaze. Part of her wanted to show some sign of support, a hand on his shoulder, a pat on the back, anything, but she couldn’t. That pain mixed with resentment was too conflicted, that wound was too fresh.

“Do you want me to call Happy so he drives you home?” May asked as she realized Y/N seemed to be as distressed as her nephew.

“I’ll walk. Thank you Ms. Parker”

With that, she left the room.

May sat next to Peter on his bed as soon as they both heard the front door closing.

“So… that was a shitty date” she smiled, wrapping an arm around Peter, hoping her usually goofiness would save the day, once again.

“Really, May?”

“Sorry… Do you want to talk about this? I can do adult talk”

“I think I’d rather be alone if that’s okay” he sighed, finally lifting his head up to wipe off the tears from his eyes. He looked drenched from all the energy he had left in his body.

Of all of May’s qualities, Peter appreciated the fact she wasn’t over reaching when he asked for privacy. She knew how to be discreet and how to respect his need for loneliness. He knew he could always count on her any time of the day.

“I’m just saying this” she added while leaving the room “this could either end with a physical fight… or the most intense love story”.

“May, please” he sighed “now is not really a perfect time for jokes”.

“You just wait…” she smiled before she left the room, closing the door behind her.

Peter immediately crashed against his pillow, feeling drained.

As he tried to fall asleep, he felt something poke his back and reached for it only to find out Y/N’s had left her notebook behind. Out of curiosity, he flipped through the pages, mostly homework and notes from different classes, until a piece of folded paper dropped from behind the front cover.

Part of him knew this wasn’t right. He wasn’t usually that curious but somehow, he felt the need to catch a glimpse.

His heart sunk in his chest when he recognized Tony’s handwriting.

The two couple words were enough for him to lose it.

“Give this to the kid—“

[p-artsypants]

Queen! I have come to ask another question if you don’t mind! After reading “Longest Night” I have been wanting to start writing so I can produce works as amazing as yours! The only thing is... I don’t know how to write well... For example my dialogue is boring like “Marinette said”, and when I end up writing a chapter it’s so short and fast paced. I want to produce a story like you did, long, intense, exciting! Do you have links, information, anything for a beginner writer? Much appreciated!

ME? QUEEN?? I’M HONORED!!

(I am not a professional writer, and what I say below is not gospel, but what I do in my own writing.)

Now, hold on. Boring? Let’s say simple. Which is absolutely fine. You have to start somewhere, and you only get better with practice. For me, I read a lot of older novels for examples of writing. 

Tumblr talks about fancy writing. They like to say ‘don’t use said’ ‘don’t use their names over and over’. Except I totally do. If you use ‘said’ a lot, people stop reading it. It acts like a colon, like in a script. You can flavor it of course, by using ‘whispered’ and ‘shouted’ appropriately. Sometimes I just replace it with an action. 

She moved closer to the door. “What did you say?” 

That acts as a tag for the person talking. But you don’t have to come up with a hundred different ways to say ‘said’. 

Same thing with name tags. The more you use careers, ages, hair color, anything, the more it interrupts the sentence. It’s fine to be simple and just use names. DON’T USE HAIR COLOR! I used to do it, but when I did notice that it wasn’t good writing, I started to notice it in things I was reading.  If there’s only two people talking, one male, one female, ‘he’ and ‘she’ should suffice for tags. 

Every time someone new talks, tag the dialogue.  

Example of what NOT to do:

The designer exasperated, “Adrien, this habit is making your grades slip.” 

The blond moaned, “Dad, you just don’t understand! I’m expressing myself!” 

The father articulated, “yes, but rollerderby is a waste of time, and not to mention dangerous.” 

The fencer uttered, “It’s who I am, Father! It’s in my blood!” 

While none of this is necessarily wrong, I find it distracting. You can mention hair color once, to let the readers know that character’s hair color. But I wouldn’t use it as a tag. Using careers or age is fine if the character is not introduced. I used that a lot in Longest Night for the henchmen in the background.

An arm linked with his and pulled him away. “Oh Chat Noir, you shouldn’t drink that. The floor is dirty…”

Grimalkin whined, and met the eyes of the stranger.

No, not a stranger. A tall man, wearing a gray and pink suit with a hat. Mr. Ramier. “Thank you for stopping those muggers, even though you’re in no condition to do so.”

Grimalkin wanted to hiss and pull away and hide, but the pigeon man had always been kind to him. Unless he was akumatized, and even then, it was a relief to be fighting him.

“Come along now, the police will be here any minute.”

Grimalkin whined again and tried to pull away, with little effort.

“Mr. Kemper wants you to hide in the back room. No doubt they’re looking for you!”

He…wanted him to hide? That was unexpected, but not unwelcome. Grimalkin followed Mr. Ramier to the back room that Mr. Kemper was gesturing to.

Up until the bolded sentence, the owner of the store Grimalkin was in was only referred to as ‘the owner’ because he didn’t have a name. After Mr. Ramier says the name out loud, the tag changes from ‘the owner’ to ‘Mr. Kemper’. 

In English classes all through High School, teachers told you not to use run on sentences or incomplete sentences. But, I tend to use both. In fiction writing, a lot of the rules don’t apply. Grammar is still pretty hard and fast, but sentence structure is more loosy goosy. Run on sentences for fast paces sections that go on and on and makes you hold your breath and hold the anxiety. And incomplete sentences. To make you breathe. Focus.

Commas and periods make you breathe. Which. is. why. you. read. this. sentence. like. you. have. Asthma. Using punctuation is a must, but it’s also a handy tool for setting the tone.

I write dialogue the way I talk in real life. Incomplete sentences, pauses, and stuttering in the form of repeated words with a dash. I was recently told by a reviewer that I use ellipses (...) too much in my writing, and that it’s distracting. So, use that one to your own discretion. 

Marinette said, “Adrien, I need to talk to you.

Adrien looked at her. “Sure what’s up?”

“I just wanted to let you know...I have feelings.”

“Feelings?”

“Feelings.” She confirmed, a little too firmly. “For...you.”

His eyebrows raised. “Are they...good feelings?”

Alya leaned in. “Good. Good feelings, Sunshine.”

“Okay, they’re good feelings. Would you care to clarify?”

She opened her mouth, pausing, and then, “No.”

“Marinette...” Alya gave her a look.

“Okay, yes. Alright.”

Adrien just stared at Marinette, his eyes kind. Never judging. He was her friend, wasn’t he? He cared about her. Surely, he’d never laugh at her or be offended by her being completely and utterly in love with him--

“I...I love you.” She blurted.

His eyes widened.

“I’m-I’m in love...with you. Is what I mean. I mean, anyone would love you. And even if I wasn’t in love with you, I’d still love you, you know? Even Alya loves you! Right Alya?”

Alya just rested a hand on her forehead.

“Right, so,” Marinette continued. “I’m just...just letting you-you know, know? And I hope that’s-that’s cool with you. That I’m cool with you, er, that you’re cool with me. Loving you.”

“Marinette.” Adrien said.

“Hm?” She squeaked.

“It’s more than cool. It’s amazing.”

Now, as far as pacing. That’s something you’ll have to learn as you go, because I haven’t found a hard rule for pacing. For Longest Night, I have sections that are very flowery:

Paris was a city trapped in time. The rain blurred the past from the future, the happy and the sad, the night and the day. Erik Satie tried to emulate this effect with his Gymnopedie, and the impressionist painters worked with soft edges to create an atmosphere of calming mystery.

Here, on the sidewalk somewhere in Montparnasse, Adrien and Marinette, or rather, Grimalkin and Lady Lacrima, stood in the haze, freedom and imprisonment blurring lines. They were out, Salo was dead…

But it didn’t really feel real.

This section creates an opening scene. It describes the setting and gives the audience a clear image in their mind about what it’s like. But there’s nothing actually happening. The main characters are standing still, and there’s rain. I could have easily just said: 

It was raining. Grimalkin and Lady Lacrima embraced on the sidewalk. They were free, but it didn’t feel like it.

This is saying the exact same thing, only more concise and with less imagery. Now, if that wasn’t confusing enough, consider not dragging it on for too long. Leave some of it up to the imagination. If I pick up a fic, and the first three paragraphs are talking about how the light is so gently flittering into the room, I might just glaze over. 

It was the perfect temperature. Not too hot, not too cold. A soft bed, cradling her as if she was fragile, and a warm blanket weighing her to the bed. A soft ambient light held back the darkness, but didn’t pierce through her lids.

Marinette tried to open her eyes, caked as they were. The light was dim, illuminating gridded ceiling titles immediately above her. It smelled faintly of chemicals, while a droning hiss carried through the air. Her neck ached, but as she tilted her head, she briefly looked around the room. No one to her left, though she did see a strange machine and a metal stand, an IV stand. A tube ran from the bag down to her arm. A door cracked open revealed a bathroom and another door on the far side of the room was closed, but silhouetted figure stood in the window.

To her right, she found the owner of the voice, her own mother, sitting in a chair by her side, hand in hers, and reading from a book. Jane Eyre, as it looked. Farther down the bed, her father sat in another chair, his hand wrapped loosely around her foot.

Behind her parents, orange light filtered through the light curtains.

A bright red blob caught her attention. Tikki laid curled up on her chest.

A moment more, allowing her brain to digest all she could see, and she realized she was in a hospital.

I took the time to really flesh out the setting in this chapter for a few reasons. A) We’ve never seen this hospital room in the TV show, so we have no visuals for what it looks like. B) I’m describing it from Marinette’s point of view. She doesn’t know what the machines are for, and she doesn’t know who the person standing in the door is. I, as the author, would know, but even though this is written in 3rd person, it’s limited.  I’m giving everyone the same knowledge that Marinette has. 

I wrote a one shot that all goes very fast. It never really slows down. That’s because I never felt the need to slow things down. There’s a few sections where I really described the anxiety that Marinette was feeling, using her senses and what she was doing. 

As Marinette looked across the three girls, her stomach churned with unpleasant feelings. Nerves, nausea, dread…

And idea popped into her head, speaking in a voice that sounded a lot like Tikki. But she simply waved it away with a shake of her head.

‘Please please please don’t be embarrassing and try to ruin this in a fit of jealous rage.’ Alya’s voice piped up, as the angel on the other shoulder.

She swallowed, and looked to Adrien.

He was hunched in his seat, his leg bouncing quickly. She couldn’t see his face, but his body spoke of uncontested anxiety.

Her voice crawled up her throat, resolution pumping through her veins, pounding in her ears, sweating through her palms.

This was a bad idea, a very very bad idea—

“Excuse me, Mr. Agreste?” She blurted, right as he was about to speak.

All eyes were on her, and she felt the immense pressure of it all. This was not like being Ladybug. These weren’t akumas and she had no authority in her civilian clothes.

“Yes, Miss Dupain-Cheng?”

Gabriel looked right at her, staring her down. But his tone held no judgement or impatience. Just curiosity.

“I was hoping, if it isn’t too late. May I also throw my proverbial hat in the ring?”

“You?”

“Yes. Of course, I know I wasn’t invited. So I understand if it’s a no.”

Gabriel was quiet a moment, thinking.

Adrien, however, was staring at her, mouth open, eyes wide. Utterly gobsmacked.

“Adrien, do you have any objections to having Miss Dupain-Cheng join the others in the interview?”

He breathed, his whole body relaxing in one sweep. “No, I don’t mind at all.”

Maybe it was the nerves, but Marinette could have sworn he looked relieved.

“Then I see no problem. Please bring your chair over with the others.”

“Thank you sir,” she said, humbly.

By jumping into Marinette’s head for a second, we kind of pause time. Just for a moment. Enough to make it interesting. 

Wow this went on for a while. I hope it was helpful and that I didn’t come off as condescending anywhere! Happy writing!!

[mortuarybees]

☼ book a&c

☼ - appearance headcanon

no but really i tend to alternately imagine aziraphale as like, an older chubbier richard ayoade or a blonde oscar wilde bc i saw an art one time like that lavender scarf and all and i am WILD about that (i cant find it Someone Pls Link) in either case with big round glasses and a glasses chain despite the fact that he never really takes them off so the chain is like, entirely unnecessary, he just likes the Librarian Aesthetic. i think that aziraphale isn’t super politically engaged most of the time (certain periods being excepted for various reasons, including the 80s and 90s) especially since the early 20th century unless it’s required for assignments just bc he really cant be bothered to do much more than read the paper, but i do think the clothes industry is something he’s actually weirdly extremely Tuned Into? based entirely on the fact that we’re told that he buys clothes rather than creating them for moral reasons flksjl i think he’s just vehemently opposed to fast fashion and insists on getting his clothes from ethical sources. he wears the most hideous handknitted fair isle sweaters and sweater vests youve ever seen that hes been commissioning from a family run yarn supply store down the street since the 70s, over loudly printed shirts (esp plaid) from liberty london which tbh i dont know if their claims to sustainability are legitimate but i know oscar wilde shopped there and so aziraphale still does and he’s a master of believing what he wants to so i think their various pledges and memberships are enough for him to keep buying shirts like this when a shirt wears out. harris tweed slacks that are just the worst fit youve ever seen bc he wants them loose and comfy. also he still to this day goes to goodyear’s, the same flower shop wilde went to, and gets a green carnation to wear on his lapel, and they’ve always kept one set aside for him, through the decades. even if they don’t think they have one, aziraphale expects them to, and so they do. also im still partial to the eye miniature locket thing

crowley is of course tall and lithe and young and has good cheekbones and dark hair that he keeps very carefully styled (god ive seen so much art with the 90s middle part it’s what i believe). he wears very sharp suits that fit very well and sometimes people think he’s Cool or Successful but if they’re around him for very long the impression quickly becomes “son of a rich investment banker whose dad got him a job at the firm but he must be informing to the feds because he is EXTREMELY nervous all the time”. he just puts a lot of concentrated effort into looking put together and stylish because he is neither but desperately wants to be both. very partial to the headcanon that after the apocalypse he gets much more comfortable with himself and confident and he stops styling his hair unless they’re going somewhere nice and even grows it out a little. and he starts to adopt the fashion of the gang of dads he pals around with and wears comfortable flannels and sherpa quarter zips and usually jeans but more and more often joggers bc they’re socially acceptable sweatpants and once theyve lived in the village a while and enough people have chanced to see him without his sunglasses and haven’t like, run screaming or tried to burn him, he starts going without them a lot of the time even in town because everyone knows that’s just anthony, he has an eye condition. and he just slowly starts to look more comfortably middle aged as that is the true age of his soul and gain some weight so hes not so painfully thin, almost without his even noticing because he’s finally just. comfortable and settling into his life and his corporation without being so stressed and self-conscious all the time.

[razberryyum]

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The Untamed/陈情令 Rewatch, Episode 6, Part 1 of 2

(spoilers for everything MDZS/Untamed and a little for Princess Weiyoung)

[covers MDZS chapter 18 and a bit of chaps 56 and 66]

WangXian meter: 🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰

(a 🐰 is earned every time there is a WangXian scene or even when they’re just thinking of each other…there’s so much Wangxian-ness in this episode, one post couldn’t contain all of it)

Team CQL went rogue for the two major events featured in this episode—the Cloud Recesses drinking incident and the WangXian bathing scene—and really, bless them and their ancestors for that decision. Not only did the changes provide Wei Ying and Lan Zhan with additional bonding time, but they actually had significant bearing on future events.

Originally in the novel, Lan Zhan didn’t actually partake in the drinking incident that got Wei Ying punished: some nameless disciples, Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng were the ones who actually took part in those activities. Lan Zhan only found their drunk asses the next morning and dragged Wei Ying off for disciplinary action (although, from the way the scene was described in the book, it actually seemed like he was more angry at Wei Ying for looking at porn, lol). However, for the live action, that entire scenario was transformed into Lan Zhan actually getting drunk for the first time, albeit against his will. Of course it would have been better if he willingly joined in, but at that point in time, that would have been illogical, not to mention completely out of character for him, so even though Wei Ying sort of did Lan Zhan wrong, there was probably no other way he could have gotten him to share a drink with him otherwise.

I am especially grateful for this change because that is the moment when my eyes were finally open to Wang Yibo’s talents as an actor and I started to really appreciate his performance. Prior to this episode, I was actually wondering if he was playing stoicism so well because that’s really all he was capable of doing, but then, when he dropped that rigid façade and gave us a charmingly adorable drunk Lan Zhan, I realized that everything that came before were indeed acting choices, that he was definitely able to do more than that. Not to mention, he also had pretty good comedic timing. I started to look at him in an entirely new light after watching this episode, and the rest is, as they say, history.

Upon revisiting this episode last night, I finally realized something that I never thought of before, and I feel actually pretty stupid for not even making the connection until now.  During the Koi tower scenes in the present, when Wei Ying as the paperman was eavesdropping on Jin Guangyao and his wife’s conversation, I couldn’t figure out how JGY was able to put Qin Su under his control the way he did, but in watching this episode again, it finally came to me: he probably used a modified version of the charm that Wei Ying used on Lan Zhan in here. After all, JGY was one of the many people who raided the Burial Mounds and took over the Yiling Patriarch’s possessions after his death, so it would make sense for him to discover this particular memento as well. When I first watched this episode, I was mainly just impressed by how powerful the charm is that it would be able to put someone like Lan Zhan under its spell, considering he’s not just some lay person, but rather someone who already had a pretty high level of cultivation by then. I simply saw it as yet another indicator of just how talented and powerful Wei Ying was even at that young age. But now, thinking that Team CQL may have laid the groundwork for something that was going to happen so much later just makes me so much more impressed with their planning.

Of course I could simply be overthinking this whole thing and JGY’s magical powers could just be his own magical powers, or something common to the cultivation world that my dumb brain just overlooked, but for those few seconds when I thought I came upon a fascinating connection, I was quite proud of myself, so allow me to coast on that sense of euphoria just a little while more.

Bonding and other cuteness

Of course I loved every single moment of the Drunk!Lan Zhan sequence, starting with that tiny little flirtatious gesture by Wei Ying. Seriously, how CUTE is that?? Makes me smile every time I see it, and I’ve rewound that little moment numerous times. How anyone can be resistant to Wei Wuxian’s charms I can never understand, but clearly Lan Zhan was still holding out on him. I’m glad that Team CQL chose this incident to reveal the nature of the Gusu Lan head ribbon since it directly led to Wei Ying’s bonding moment with Lan Zhan. Even though the other man was still generally cold to him, it was really sweet that Wei Ying still felt comfortable enough to share the precious memory of his parents with him.

It’s a real shame that Lan Zhan didn’t remember any of it the next day, but I did take comfort in the fact that he still knelt by Wei Ying like a united front to receive Uncle Lan’s wrath and punishment. I’m sure most of that was motivated by his own pride and sense of righteousness, but I still found it touching, especially with how much Wei Ying was defending Lan Zhan so that he would be spared the disciplinary action. Wei Ying was much less protective in the novel during that scene–he was mostly indignant–even  though he was still the one to blame for Lan Zhan’s involvement in the whole incident by basically tricking him into breaking curfew. I love that even though Team CQL changed the drinking incident, they still managed to maintain the spirit of its novel counterpart, much like they did with the Phoenix Mountain Hunt.

And then of course there was this:

Which was obviously a treat for our imaginations to get our creative juices flowing so that we can imagine on our own what might have taken place during the night that led to Wei Wuxian waking up in his half-dressed state. For this gift, I am eternally grateful to the production team.

Jiang Cheng Has Fun For Once

I was actually surprised that Jiang Cheng would join in on the drinking party because up until then he had spent most of his time basically disapproving everything Wei Ying did while also seemingly in a constant state of worry that he would embarrass their sect. Imbibing alcohol was clearly a violation of Gusu Lan rules so it’s kind of amazing that Jiang Cheng willingly join in on such an act of rebellion. Nie Huaisang, on other hand, I totally expected to be a part of the shenanigans…I would’ve expected nothing less from him…but Jiang Cheng was a pleasant surprise. I really enjoyed seeing him let loose like that, especially since we got to find out what he looked for in a mate.

The sad thing is Wen Qing actually fit all of his requirements for a wife, except for that family one, which i in the end, proved to be the most important one after all since it became the deal-breaker, dooming their relationship before it even got a chance to get started.

Another rather sad aspect of seeing Jiang Cheng so at ease and acting like a total goofball is that this really would be the only time we would ever see him this way.  His time at Cloud Recesses was probably the most enjoyable and carefree for him. I doubt he was ever able to enjoy himself the same way again. It actually makes me wonder if he EVER was able to have fun, period, during the last 16 years. Just thinking about what he’s gone through makes me wish I could give him a great big hug. 

Reason #10 for Why I love Big Bro Lan Xichen

His amused reaction to hearing about Wei Ying’s transgression:

…which was immediately followed by his “oh shit” response to hearing his little bro was also involved.

Big Bro Xichen is just too adorable, AND HE DESERVES ALL THE LOVE IN THE WORLD DAMMIT.

Uncle Lan is One Mean Mofo

Seriously, what’s with Lan Qiren’s obsession with the number 300? I really need to know if there’s some significance to that number since it’s featured in BOTH of the major disciplinary incidents in the show that were carried out by Uncle Lan.  For this first outing, those rulers looked downright brutal; it’s a utter miracle that Wei Ying and Lan Zhan were even able to survive being beat 300 times with that medieval torture device. At the very least their spines should’ve been broken, paralyzing them for the rest of their lives. In the novel they were only caned 100 times, which is still a lot but it’s still a somewhat grounded enough number that I could believe they would be able to heal from their injuries. But 300? They should be maimed. I’ve noticed that with chinese dramas though: they tend to be excessive when it comes to inflicting punishment. I actually stopped watching a show once because the main character was being beaten repeatedly in the stomach (Princess Weiyoung) while being held prisoner. That particular character should not have survived that beating…at the very least he would’ve needed his nutrients to be delivered by IV for the rest of his life (even though IVs didn’t exist yet) because there was no way his stomach was ever going to work again after that. I was almost offended by how ignorant the screenwriters were about basic anatomical and biological functions so I decided to just stop watching (well, the fact that I wasn’t that into the show anyway probably contributed to my decision as well) Of course the 300 floggings weren’t enough to discourage me from continuing forward with The Untamed, but it did throw me out of the show for a good moment because I couldn’t get over how ridiculous that number was.  Uncle Lan really has a sadistic streak in him

Not to mention, he was also surprisingly tactless. He had just learned about Wei Wuxian’s mom from big bro Xichen and I couldn’t believe that he would just throw that info at the Wei Ying in such a careless way, only to shut him down when the poor guy desperately asked for more details about his mom. Uncle Lan had to know enough about Wei Ying’s background to understand how sensitive he would be in regards to his deceased parents, so I was actually taken aback by how heartless Uncle Lan was being during that scene, so much so that for a while after, I really wasn’t feeling much love towards him. Although, now that I think about it, love is probably a misnomer any way since I doubt I would ever love Uncle Lan nor can I even say I ever actually liked him–he’s too much of a fuddy-duddy for my tastes. It’s more like I just accept his existence, appreciate his importance to the Lan brothers, and I find his disapproval of Wei Ying kind of amusing. But in that moment, I definitely did straight out dislike him for being such a cold SOB, especially towards Wei Wuxian.

To be continued in Part 2…(posted)

[solacefruit]

Hello! This is the person who wrote the one shots on Quotev — the one that anon went through so much trouble to get sent your way. If you’d be willing, I would appreciate genuine critique of my work — I’m genuinely looking for how I might improve my writing, and I haven’t been getting very much feedback. Apologies if you’re too busy or if this bothers you!

Hello there! I’m willing to give you my thoughts on your work, since you’ve asked so politely and gone to such effort, but before I do that, I’d like to preface everything by saying that I’m going to approach this answer more or less the same way I would give feedback to students in a class. I think that’s most helpful. I also hope none of this feedback comes off as harsh or hurtful, because that’s not at all my intention. 

You clearly know how to write well: your work is well-edited, with only a few errors here and there (be careful using semicolons, they can be very tricky). It’s clear you know the rules of writing, so I don’t think you’ve got a lot of room for improvement there. 

The stories themselves, though, didn’t click for me as a reader. I didn’t get pulled into the world you’ve created and I didn’t connect with your characters. That doesn’t mean that what you’ve done is bad, though! But I am going to suggest some ideas for restructuring your work that might help make your stories more dynamic and effective in capturing and retaining your reader, or showing off your skills and ideas to better effect. 

Your first story begins with the description of the character in a lot of depth, but I cannot recommend this as an opening paragraph. If you’re ever writing a manuscript, you need to remember that your first page is your first–and often only–chance to hook your reader and convince them to keep going. (Especially true if you’re sending your work to a publisher!) Because of that, a lot of good stories begin with first page or two that does everything it can to tell you who, what, where, and the tone of the book. 

Very few good stories start with the “I have black hair and blue eyes and today I am wearing a big hat” type character description, unless that is actually important–i.e., The Little White Horse begins with Maria detailing to herself what she’s wearing, because she’s vain and it brings her comfort to know she looks beautiful, which matters because… [and then the plot begins]; the first Harry Potter book describes the Dursleys in very Dahl-esque fashion, which matters because… [contrast them to the peculiar happenings of the plot emerging]. What your character does is almost always more interesting than what they look like, so it’s often a sensible idea to prioritise your narration accordingly. Both of the above examples tell you who, the tone of the story, and then what is happening, while filling in other details so you know where and when by the end of the first chapter.  

Something else I noticed in your work is that you’re a keen world-builder with a lot of ideas, but I found your stories to be a little overwhelmed by that, rather than enriched by it. This is something I’ve seen a lot in young creative writers, so it’s definitely not you and it’s not actually a fault, exactly–but it can detract from your work and make your work actually less inviting to read, rather than more, and that’s something that’s important for speculative fiction writers to be aware of. I’m currently working on a series of tips and tricks requested by popular demand, so I’ll probably elaborate more on this later, but basically, your world-building should be an iceberg: you know how immense it is, but your reader will only see a small delicious fragment of it. 

Oversupplying world-building details often makes works impenetrable or–most commonly–overshadows the characters and plot and sinks interest in the ship story. (For me, the most egregious example that jumps to mind is Foundling by D.M. Cornish but that’s a rant for another day). Your work isn’t too overcrowded, I feel, but for me, I got the sense that you used your stories as vessels for your world-building, instead of using your world-building to decorate and deepen your stories. The reason this causes problems is because people–myself included–are most often motivated to read because they relate, connect to, or are curious about characters, rather than a world. (Worlds are very fun, don’t get me wrong! It’s just that world-building tends to be most fun for the people doing it, not the people reading it). 

Finally, something I wanted to bring to your attention is style, and particularly streamlining it and leaning into your own voice. At the moment, your work is a little heavy with what I think of as “fanfiction-itis” for lack of a better concept. It’s basically an overall tendency to 1. be uncertain about what person the story is told in, or jump between views. This can be a choice! But it’s one you should be making consciously. There’s first-, second-, and third-person, but in third-person, there’s also an omniscient narration and limited narration. Each can be used to huge effect–but you need to pick the right one for the story you’re telling and stick to it. 2. over-rely on epithets and character description. Often this is a result of the above when it’s third-person omniscient. As a rule of thumb, you don’t really need to use epithets much at all. “The taller boy,” “the blonde girl,” and so on doesn’t add anything, but it does often distract and make the writing look a bit… juvenile to experienced writers. Unless the description is saying something about the character that’s worth knowing, it’s usually best not to bother with it. “The black-furred warrior walked by” says a lot less than “Blackfur stalked past, scowling.” 

3. use unnecessary or tautological dialogue tags. I’ve seen a lot of “said is dead” passed around on this site, and that’s great advice to follow if you want your work to be unenjoyable and annoying to read. Said is the most useful dialogue tag, because it is invisible to us, and many other “common” tags are likewise useful–things like asked, or replied. You only need to use a different and noticeable dialogue tag when it changes the dialogue in a meaningful way. For example:  i. “what did you do?” he queried. ii. “what did you do?” he asked. iii. “what did you do? he asked cautiously. iv. “what did you do?” v. “what did you do?” he said, but he was looking away, distracted. The first one’s dialogue tag is useless and clunky: we know he asked a question, there’s a question mark there, but unlike “asked,” queried really stands out and can break the flow of reading. The second one is unobtrusive, but doesn’t tell us anything about the tone of his question: he could be angry, purely curious, scared, who knows! The third one tells us his tone, but be careful not to overuse adverbs–that’s J.K. Rowling’s curse. The fourth tells us that, whatever he’s asking about, he’s worked up about it and it’s probably not great! The fifth is an example of how you can actually turn dialogue tags into full sentences sometimes. By being precise with your dialogue tags, you can make your dialogue really pop, and also not distract your reader. 

4. tell, rather than show. We’ve all heard “show, don’t tell” as writing advice, but there are actually a lot of times when “telling” is perfectly fine. However, broadly speaking, characters tend to feel more alive if you make them act out their personalities, rather than recount them to your reader. If someone has a big personality, you don’t need to say it: it’ll become abundantly clear from their actions soon enough!

By being aware of these things and making conscious choices–even if your conscious choices are to keep doing these things!–your strength and skill in storytelling will improve. It looks to me that you’ve gotten to the point where now you have to hone the talent you already have, which means that being precise and self-reflective about your writing style and choices is probably going to be the best course for you to improve going forward.

I hope this is helpful to you! I want to stress that all of this advice is offered in a “take what is useful to you, leave the rest” spirit. For every piece of writing advice, there’s excellent writing that contradicts it, so honestly a lot of good writing is just knowing when to follow advice and when not to, when to follow a rule and when to break it. Good luck with all your future work!