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dittolicous · 2 years

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For catching trains, I feel like there would have to be at least one group of conservationists who'd be willing to really work with Ingo. I mean if they can get some sponsors there's no doubt in my mind a truly dedicated team would uproot and fly over to Unova, maybe working with Professor Juniper, to create at least an interim set up so they can both let Lady Sneasler and get eggs/kits have Ingo on hand for her emotional/mental needs, and get the chance to start some preliminary studies. Not to mention giving the conservationists time to learn from Ingo and get introduced to Lady Sneasler bit by bit! I see everybody honing in on heavy-handed, extremist right from the start "give us the rare Pokemon for their own good" and raise you this:

People can want to reintroduce an extinct species and also not be jerks about it. In real life, genuine conservationists are willing to bend over backwards to help. I've worked with some incredibleones, I know this lol. If that means taking things slow and having a lot of meetings where different short AND long term plans are introduced and discussed, drafting contracts dealing with what can be done and by who and who retains/can grant access to the species in question, they'll do it.

If Cynthia helped confirm that Ingo was actually in the past, lived with and cared for the Hisuian Sneasles and Lady Sneasler, any conservationist with more than two brain cells to rub together (which is... Hopefully a requirement for employment, lmao) would know that they WANT Ingo on their team in whatever capacity they can get. He's got first hand experience and is a valuable resource, they'd be stupid not to want him involved every step of the way.

Oh, don't you worry, there are conservationist that are all for working with Ingo! And before I start rambling, I do want to say that this whole custody battle between Ingo and Sinnoh is NOT a case of Conservationist being jerks, so much as it is a long line of miscommunications, crossed wired, ideas of what is best for the reintroduction of extinct species, and so on. I've actually been trying to make it clear that the Sinnoh experts are not villians or bad guys, but good oeople who's methods differ from Ingo's and thus ideals and truths end up clashing.

Because, let's be real here, from an outsiders perspective, someone who doesn't see the inner workings of Ingo and Emmet, they're only going to see a former Battle Boss with an extinct Pokemon, situated in a CITY when the Pokemon's habitat is mountain ranges. Ingo and Emmet are good people, who will work themselves to the bone to do right by their teams, but... they aren't conservationists! They did not get their degrees in that, did no do internships, field research, in that. They're not experts on species reintroduction or biologists or what have you. They're train conductors, battle facility heads, their expertise is in something completely unrelated to endangered species care. (And also, there's got to be fear about using endangered Pokemon in a lot of battles)

Consider 1) Ingo having amnesia, 2) his own reintroduction to modern life, and 3) having to not re-learn, but figure out if he's still qualified to do his former job, let alone do a NEW one, it leaves him not looking so qualified to care for Lady Sneasler.

And then there's the personal aspect for the Sinnoh specialist, who by all accounts worked their lives to try and save Pokemon species, and then seeing one that is DEEPLY tied to their culture, taken across the world by a professional battler, basically cutting them off from their home land. There's going to anger, confusion, bitterness, concern, and so on. I mean, Sinnoh seems to be a land of traditions and respecting history, so seeing a piece of their history, their culture, taken from their home? I mean. It was Galarians who lead to the illness spreading to Sinnoh, killing out the Sneasels to begin with. So, for an outsider to claim the last one? It can rub people the wrong way. Humans are fallible creatures. Even the best intentions can go wrong.

Plus, crossed wires. There's going to be issues of people thinking the Unova crew is trying to like withhold information, cover things up so as to get their way, that they're not fully trustworthy because of certain actions, leading to harsher actions. I mean, yes, time traveling is a thing that can occur... but in Ingo's case, he has to prove he wasn't a time poacher or lying (re: documentation being lost, destroyed by time). It's a snowballing effect, AND there is political problems compounding atop it all.

OKAY but back to researchers working with Ingo, that's the end goal! There are plenty that desire and WILL work alongside Ingo and Emmet, building a foundation for change, and that will bond with the Sneasels. It's with their guiding hand that a sanctuary will be built and teach the twins many things when it comes to conservation efforts. They're ALL going to learn so much from each other.

Like there's going to be many times where a specialist will throw out a relatively unprecedented idea for the care of the sneasels, doing so because it HELPS Ingo's situation, making his life easier and allows for him to give more towards the reintroduction of Hisuin Sneasels/Sneaslers. We're talking bringing it into the city, closer to the subway, getting them resources or backers, connecting them to people who can, and so on.

And eventually, as the bonds grow, a sanctuary will be built in Sinnoh and little Sneasels will finally leave the nest, accompanied by some favorite conservationists~ But that's a long ways out. It's just gunna need some time ;) Don't worry, the clash won't be dragged out, but it needs to be felt for the joy of them coming together can be felt.

Heck, these efforts are even going to eventually improve the political relationship between Unova and Sinnoh, with their continued work together, not just in preserving species, but sharing precious history and culture.

(Ingo does want to forget any more loved one and he doesn't want the world to forget them either!)

But yes. There is CONFLICT in this story, but in my opinion, no one is actually Bad. They all just have their own perspectives that conflict with others.

#submas #pokemon #pla #lady sneasler #sneasel #catching trains fic #EVERYONE IS TRYING SO HARD TO DO THE RIGHT THING #BUT NO ONE IS SURE WHAT THAT IS

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cotccotc · 3 years

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SKZ REACT to...

◈ you being followed

part of my eight as fate event !! ( requested by anon ♡ )

genre/s: comfort, skz x gn reader

warning/s: description of being followed on the street, descriptions / mentions of panic attacks

wc: 1.8k

a/n: this one took me quite a while but i’m happy with it !!! i decided to write out a longer introduction to this to kinda set up a scene !! i hope y’all enjoy it (esp the comforting parts ofc kdjdjf)

it’s somewhat unlike you to walk alone at night. you figured it would only take you a few minutes, but you got out of work late, setting you back quite a while. to make things worse, while you were working overtime, the sun had set, leaving you to traverse the dimly lit city streets on your own. all you know is that your boyfriend left the door open for you, and a couch date sounds really great right now.

somewhere along your walk, you heard a shuffling noise coming from behind you. you disregarded it, thinking it may have been simple paranoia. you’ve seen too many movies, you think. however, as you keep up your leisurely yet steady pace, you hear another noise. this time you turn around.

a man. in a black hoodie. looking you dead in the eye.

your eyes widen as a small gasp leaves your mouth. needless to say, you begin sprinting to your destination, heart racing at a pace that rivals the speed of your feet. with your focus aimed at getting as far away as you can, you’re honestly not even sure how your legs know where they’re going. nevertheless, your saving grace comes into view. after a quick glance at the now empty street behind you, you sprint even faster than before. and, once you make it to the apartment door, you fling the door open and leap inside with enough force to rattle the hinges.

“y/n? what’s wro-”

“i was being followed,” you interject, a choked sob finally escaping you.

◈ CHAN

his first instinct, no matter what, is to make sure you feel safer now.

he’ll sit you down on the couch, staying close beside you and rubbing your back while reiterating that whoever that man was is gone now.

i’ve always liked to think he’d be good to have around in the event of a panic attack. especially if you’re the type of person who needs physical and verbal reassurance. back rubs, hugging, and breathing reminders galore.

once you’ve calmed down, he would wipe away your tears and hold you close to him as he asks you about the rest of your day.

he’s an amazing listener and he can’t wait to hear about the latest employee or customer gossip lmao

but more importantly, it would take your mind off things, which is all he truly wants.

if you start looking a bit gloomy or drifting off in thought, he’d probably suggest some cuddle time !! he would make sure to remind you of how courageous you were in that moment before promising you one last time that you’re safer now, here with him.

you’d finally fall asleep in his arms, filling him with relief.

◈ MINHO

first reaction: absolutely pissed.

not at you of course, but at the guy who was following you. with you still in his arms, he glances pointedly out the front door and the windows, closing the blinds after giving the entire apartment a once-over.you end up in the bedroom, in which he’ll guide you to sit beside him on the bed.

his expression will have completely changed from anger to loving concern. he’d look deeply into your eyes while holding both your hands in his, assuring you that you’re safe now.while you continue to cry, you explain what had happened in more detail. he strokes your hair as you speak and nods along, blood boiling.

he can’t stand the thought of any person making you feel unsafe. but, he’d maintain a calm exterior in order to make you feel more at ease.

once you describe the whole situation, he’d reassure you once again that the man can’t get to you now.

“he’ll have to get through me.”

you giggle.

“hEY”

◈ CHANGBIN

i think he’d have a similar reaction to minho !!

very visibly pissed that some random guy had the nerve to intimidate you. that dude’s lucky he didn’t follow you the whole way home or else he’d probably be pretty uh. damaged. by now..

he’d sit you down on the couch, do a quick check-in at each of the windows and doors, and come back as soon as he can to console you.

when he does, he’s quick to sit beside you, arm wrapped around you with the other wiping the tears off of your face.

after you explain the situation a bit more clearly, he becomes even more angry (probably mutters some curses under his breath)

but !!!! i think he’d really try his best to focus on cheering you up

asking you what you’d like to do for the rest of the night, if you’d like any food, if you’d like to sleep or stay up for a while.. etc.

plus he’d amp up the silly antics to make you forget about things !!

◈ HYUNJIN

i think his physical reaction would become similar to yours. very quickly.

like once he sees your tears and senses your quickened pulse. his immediate response (whether voluntary or not) would be to emulate you.

so, naturally, he’d hold you in his arms and let you cry it out, while small sobs of his own escape him.

seeing you so scared is a scary feeling.

of course, he’d reassure you that you’re safe !!! he’d look into your eyes, tucking your hair behind your ears, and tell you that it’s all over now and that you’re safe.

you, of course, don’t want him to feel sad or scared, so you’d console him as well.

you two would comfort each other the whole rest of the night. i think the most probable option would be the two of you cuddled up in bed watching a movie or reading webtoons together

distraction !! but make it a drama !! or a romcom because .. vibes !!

and when you decide it’s time for bed (however late that may be due to the stress from earlier) he’d be sure to remind you that he’ll be with you all night & when you wake up

(but he’s also secretly clinging onto you out of fear as well kdjfgj)

◈ JISUNG

“oh sh- oh sHIT-”

wouldn’t know what in the fuck to do

would haphazardly check all the windows like minho did, holding your hand as you continue to cry

after he’s done, he’d cling to you and hold you SO very tight <3

lots of “shh shh baby.. baby shhhh” and all that jazz.. you know the sungie vibes…

he’d stroke your hair and arms, noticing your slight shakiness and suggesting you both cuddle for some extra comfort and warmth

no matter what time of night it is, he’d turn off the lights and cuddle with you as you describe the event in more detail

quiet & calm

even if you end up crying again while you speak, he’s there to brush the tears off your face with his thumb and help you calm down again

◈ FELIX

before you came, he might have cooked a small meal for the two of you to share. even though you worked late, it’d still be waiting for you when you arrive. he’d wait too.

when you do happen to burst through the door, he’d jump and gasp out of fear but he’s quick to run up to you and hold you as you let out everything you’d held in during your walk-turned-chase

also !! will help you get settled in as you describe what went down

helping you take off your coat and shoes, getting water for you, grabbing some blankets; all while listening intently and giving you all of his attention

once you’re seated on the couch, wrapped in the softest blanket he could find and staying hydrated after such a harrowing event, he’d be sure to hold you as close as possible to remind you that everything’s okay

eventually, through his subtle gestures and calming demeanor, you won’t even realize how you got situated !! he just knows what to do to make you as comfortable as possible without even trying all that hard

you may choose to skip dinner, but no matter what, he’ll be holding you close the whole night through to make sure you know he’s there to protect and care for you

◈ SEUNGMIN

he’s very methodical about how to proceed. his first instinct is to do what some of the others would and check the house, but he decides to help you calm down first.

you’re rambling about what happened in between sobs and quick breaths, which sends a pain through his heart as he shuts and locks the door.

if you’re shorter than him, he’d bend a little to make direct eye contact with you. he’ll rub your arms and tell you that you don’t have to be afraid anymore

the most calming and reassuring voice in the whole world omg !!!!!!

he’d wipe your tears away and cup your face with both of his hands, prompting you to look back into his eyes before smiling at you

“you’re safe now, right?”

you smile back at him, nodding.

“now, let’s lock all the doors so no bad guys can get in!”

then, he’d take your hand and let you help him lock the doors and shut the curtains, making it feel like a chore instead of a precaution

and for your “good work”, he’d reward you with some binge watching & cuddle time !!! (as if that wasn’t the original plan skjdfg)

◈ JEONGIN

(under his breath, eyes wide) “oh my god…”

i think he’d start freaking out a bit like hyunjin did, but he’d do his very best to hide it. he knows he has to be strong to help you calm down and feel safe.

like felix, he’d help you take off your coat and shoes, leading you over to the couch as you shakily describe what happened.

(i’m sorry i keep making comparisons to the other members bUT) like minho, he’d hold your hands in his, rubbing them softly with his thumbs to soothe your nerves as you let everything out

he’d try to cheer you up by suggesting alternative motives the man might’ve had instead of wanting to harm you

for instance:

jeongin: “what if he was lost and needed directions but he was too shy to ask because you’re so pretty/handsome?”

you: “babe i don’t think-”

jeongin: “OR what if he thought he knew you !!”

you: “but he-”

jeongin: “WHAT IF IT WAS BATMAN-”

overall, his aim is to distract you (as well as himself), which ends in success. you’ll both be in stitches by the end of the night

and… laughing is super tiring, right?

therefore, as reiterated throughout all of these reactions because we all know it’s true:

CUDDLESSSS

oh also.. right before you fall asleep in his arms, he’d ask if you want to leave the light on during the night :( bc he’s a cutie :((((

tags: @stayndays, @hanniiesuckle17, @leggomylino, @freckledberries, @kisskissbanggang, @mr-jisung-main, @childofthecosmos, @kpopscape, @skzwriternet, @hyunsins, @sleepylixie, @sunshine-skz, @vera-liscious, @thatrandomoneinthecorner, @cyberskz, @seungminsaidsta, @somethingrandomworld, @ethan806 ( join my tag list !! )

#districtninewriters #inkidz #skzwritersclub #straykidsland #*fics #*8 #skz imagines #stray kids imagines #skz #stray kids #skz reactions #stray kids reactions #skz ot8 #stray kids ot8

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simonomaly · 3 years

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What peeping too much horror does to a mf

Ok for context: I thought The Horror could work really well as a Magnus Archives statement, specifically a Spiral related entity. This interpretation of the horror is heavily inspired by MAG 65; minus the "eating a computer" thing of course. I'm probably gonna make more of these, with a Jermaverse character to go with each entity cause hoooly shit it’s insane how many of them fit with certain entities.

Related statement under the cut, please don’t take it too seriously lmao, I’ll probably write up statements for the other ones too cause they’re honestly fun to write

Statement of Hannah Guy, regarding their experiences viewing the streams of Twitch Streamer Jerma985. Original statement given (redacted date). Audio recording by (redacted), Head Archivist of the (redacted) Institute, Las Vegas.

Statement begins.

I suppose I shouldn't have to tell you that being a student sucks. Yeah yeah, I know, your school years are supposed to be the best years of your life, we've all heard that, but seriously, when you're stuck lying awake at 3 to 4 in the morning studying for your finals when all you want to do is curl up with a blanket and sleep for a week, it doesn't really feel that way.

When even making coffee with Redbull failed to get me through the earlier hours of the morning, I decided to try some… unorthodox methods. Namely putting on some Twitch livestreams and hoping whoever's streaming is loud enough to keep me jumping awake every time I slip up. I was aware of the consequences that could come with that, but I'm a pretty good multitasker and in my sleep deprived state I was convinced it was the only way I'd get through these last weeks.

I ran into problems right off the bat. First off, I was never really into that side of the internet that much; I always preferred pre-recorded videos over live ones, so I had no idea who I should be watching. Originally I had planned to put on random streamers that I found on the Suggested tab, but they were all 3d models of anime girls who talked insanely softly and I really wasn't into that kind of crap. Asking around probably wouldn't help either, considering the only people I knew either didn't watch Twitch streamers or were into those anime girl bullshit.

I ended up settling for a guy called Jerma985 after I saw a clip of him raging over a Simpsons driving game. If he was like that for every stream, he'd be perfect for my purposes. And it worked! Dude acted insanely neurotic, sure, but the unhinged ranting only added to the effect. If he didn't startle me awake, he'd scare me awake, and either way it was what I wanted. I got through my exams pretty well, and I had mister psycho streamer to thank for that. His rambling had actually gotten endearing to me, and I found myself still watching his streams even after exam week.

In horror movies, when something's about to go terribly wrong for the protagonists, it's usually foreshadowed by something like, say, the weather or the time of day. Maybe it's a dark and stormy night. Maybe it's Friday the Thirteenth. It keeps tension going for the viewers.

Real life is nothing like that. It was a completely ordinary day when it happened. I almost wish it HAD been storming that day. Maybe I'd have picked up on the wrongness of it all. But I didn't. That's why I'm here now.

I was watching the stream go on as usual. Jerma was streaming Monster Rancher, and he was doing his thing when a chat member asked to "peep the horror". Then another. Then another and another, until a good majority of the chat was asking if they could peep the horror, whatever that was. I like to say I was a pretty experienced viewer at that point, but I had no idea what was going on here.

Apparently Jerma did though, and he started ranting about how "you guys are sickos, you know that?" and "you do realize someone's going to die, right? A living, breathing human being is going to die, and you STILL want to peep the horror, you- you people make me sick." But as Jerma usually does, he relented, and put up an image on the screen.

It was some sort of red and black pulsating mass. I couldn't make out the details at all; it looked like an AI generated image and it probably was. But I was certain of one thing.

It was the funniest shit I had EVER seen in my whole life.

I'm not kidding. When that image popped up on the screen it was like a- a car crashed into a building. I just- started laughing. I couldn't stop. I don't even know why it made me react like that. It shouldn't have been as funny as it should've been but my brain wasn't working right. I laughed along with chat while Jerma stared directly at us and plethora of "OMEGALUL" and "+2" and general keysmashing filled up the chatroom and I was part of them. I was one with the chat. I didn't even care about the dying bullshit at this point; I had registered it as some weird inside joke way earlier on and I had forgotten all about it.

Eventually Jerma took the image down, but it still took me a while to calm down. I woke up my parents in my short moment of euphoria, that's how hard I had been laughing. I gibbered something about sleep talking and that seemed to take their minds off the situation, but I was still on the high. I finished the rest of the stream with relative silence, and went to bed at around 6am.

Jerma started doing the "peep the horror" bit pretty often after that, and I tuned in for every single one. The unexplainable humor of that image only made me enjoy it more. I'd laugh along, knowing deep down all of this was wrong, but I didn't care. It scared me, sure. But the prospect of a good laugh and a distraction from my troubles just kept me coming every time. I'd skip out on certain outings with my friends just so I'd be free to watch a stream. Then I started limiting my sleep. I'd stay up for as long as I needed to to finish watching the streams when they happened. It was more important that I got my semi-weekly peeping. Someone said somewhere laughing increases your lifespan. I believed them. I kept peeping. Normal jokes had no effect on me anymore. I'd tune them out with an "uh huh" and when I felt bad for whoever told the joke I'd force out a chuckle. But it wasn't a real chuckle. The horror was the only thing that could make me laugh, a legitimate laugh. It was wrong. It was so wrong and it didn't matter. I was laughing.

On a completely normal day I tuned into a new Jerma stream. The horror was promised. He was doing it every stream now. I was happy. I sat there, in my little office chair, waiting to get a peep. And I did. Chat did it's usual thing and Jerma complained and the image returned.

And it wasn't funny.

I thought there was something wrong with ME at first. It was supposed to be funny- I was supposed to be laughing and crying and clutching my chest from laughing but I WASN'T LAUGHING. I didn't even chuckle. But it had worked before! It couldn't have been me.

After that the logical solution was that there was something wrong with the image itself but that couldn't be right. Chat was laughing. Omegalul. Omegalul. OMEGALUL. Everyone was laughing without me. The humor was still there; it just wasn't working for me for whatever fucking reason.

I just stared at the image for a while waiting for the humor to kick in while somehow knowing, deep down, it wouldn't. Something had gone wrong, by pure fucking chance. I had remembered the dying bit at this point but there was still some denial left in me to think I was safe. Nothing would happen, it was just a fluke. I'd go back to laughing next time.

It was at that moment that I saw what was actually going on. On the screen, I mean. The horror would usually grab my attention so I would never notice what was going on in Jerma's facecam. But I did now. I wish I didn't. I really do.

Where Jerma usually would be, there was something else. It looked like Jerma. It stood like Jerma. But it wasn't Jerma. It couldn't have been Jerma, because Jerma doesn't… flicker. I don't know how to describe it as anything other than flickering. Have you seen the music video for Scatman where there's multiple cameras and Scatman is in every single one of them but in a different pov? It was like that except the cameras weren't there. It was just the thing that looked like Jerma flickering into a different image each time I looked at it. It started out pretty realistic but I could see bits and pieces of something out of cartoons and game graphics as well. All of them looked like Jerma but like I said it wasn't Jerma and it was growing.

No. It was getting closer.

I could see it now. It knew I wasn't laughing and it didn't like that. It didn't want me to miss out on the fun. It was inching closer to my screen, slowly taking up the tab I had pulled up. I could see what it looked like much better now. It was a constantly shifting mass of Jerma images, spiralling together much like the horror itself. I could see the eyes, bright blue, the color of a blue screen when your computer crashes, staring directly at me. I have no idea what my expression looked like but it was apparently funny to the thing, and I could see the mouth morph into the one on the greedy grinner face. It was laughing at the quite literal horror. I'd be offended if I wasn't terrified. It's mouth started moving, not like shifting but like it was trying to talk to me. I couldn't hear it at all but it kept mouthing something I couldn't perceive.

It finally occurred to me that I could just turn my pc off and that's exactly what I did. I turned off my pc, my phone, every other electrical device in the house, and just for good measure, I pulled the plug on the router as well. I'd explain it to my parents later. Right now I just wanted to get that thing away from me. It had seen me but it couldn't follow me out of the screen. I was safe as long as there weren't any electrical devices anywhere near me.

It didn't matter. As much as I tried to avoid it, I couldn't avoid electronics forever. I'd be with a friend, and it'd be back, on my friend's phone, staring at me with it's neon blue eyes. My dad would be watching the news on the TV and it'd be there when he wasn't looking, filling up the entire screen. I got in trouble for that; apparently it had burned into the TV and my parents thought I had done it as a joke. I tried to explain it to them but they wouldn't hear any of it. I didn't blame them.

After around a month of this I couldn't take it anymore. I did my research, found out about you guys, and the rest is history. I'm here now, doing exactly what the guy at the front told me to. Making my statement.

I still don't know why it happened to me specifically. I don't think I did anything wrong. There were no rules about peeping the horror. Maybe I was just really unlucky. Whatever the case is, I need help. I know you guys are experts at this kind of stuff and I can't fucking deal with that thing stalking me everywhere. It's never tried to hurt me physically before but recently something's changed. I can hear it now, on the computer where the guy at the front works. It's calling me over. I can't make out the words, and I don't want to. I fear what will happen to me when I inevitably can.

Statement ends.

I tried to contact Mx. Guy to see if I could get any additional information on this case, but apparently they had passed away shortly after they gave this statement. Cause of death was unknown, although the reports say they had smashed every electronic device in the house, except for their pc. It had been turned off by the time their body was found.

I also did some follow up research on this Jerma985, but I didn't get that much information. Apparently he was a Vegas based Twitch Streamer known for his rather surrealistic sense of humor, who had quit a few years back and hadn't turned up anywhere since. I did get confirmation on the legitimacy of the "Peep the horror" bit, but apparently it was just an inside joke within his audience and there was no supernatural aspect to the whole thing. Although it does puzzle me that his final stream ended rather abruptly during one of those aforementioned "Peep the Horror" bits, with a 5 second screen of just a black and red pulsing mass before the entire thing cut out.

End recording.

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fictional-other-tarot · 2 years

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im curious do you use the tarot cards to help you write the letter? id like to do something like this for myself and id just like to understand a lil more how it works if youd rather like answer me privately i can come off anon too dkjh

Hello there!

I think tarot is very personal so while I don't mind telling how I do things, I do want you to remember that the way it works best for you might be different, so don't be afraid to try out different methods.

Also under a read more because I ramble a lot.

I use one tarot deck and multiple oracle decks, even some selfmade ones. I also don't pull the top cards after shuffling, but wait until a card falls out (which sometimes leads to more cards than originally intended).

I write the letters by focussing on the character and to whom they are writing their letter (its why the only mandatory things you need to say to me to get a letter are the self insert's and fictional other's names) and pulling the cards with their names in mind.

Mentally I'm basically just repeating the phrase "A letter from … to …"

I don't particularly use a spread (where each card is pulled for a specific question, I used to do this before, but I thought it would be too draining for me for this blog), but I do have made a little guide for myself on how many cards to pull from which deck depending on the type of letter I write. If you are interested in that feel free to message me and I'll post it here, instead of keeping it in drafts.

So after the cards are pulled, I try to see the story they are telling. Most of the times there's a message that keeps returning in the cards, so I take that as the main message that needs to come through. (I even already had someone who had the exact same card twice, which is how I even got to know I accidentally had the same card twice in my oracle deck)

So it's trying to piece together the story, together with the type of letter they asked for. Like, an Ace of Cups for a loving letter I interpret more as "I truly love you for you", while in an encouraging letter it would be more like "Don't be afraid to embrace who you truly are" to me.

And then comes the hard part of actually writing the letter. I never know how to write letters and it's why I'm using tarot for this in the first place, I really wanted to give other selfshippers love from their f/o but never knew what to say. I even made oracle decks for myself with terms of endearment and letter endings/beginnings.

So writing the letter is really thinking about the story the cards are telling and trying to figure out how someone would write that down on paper.

They can be more vulnerable in a letter, and have more time to think their words through. So when for example the cards are talking about stress and anxiety, I try to think on how I would write to someone telling them that I want them to take care of themselves or that there isn't anything to worry about and of course that I'll always be there for them.

And also on which style to write it in more, while I'm most comfortable with a more drawn-out writing style (idk if me overexplaining myself here is any indication of that lmao), I do try to change that too depending on the vibes I get from the cards. Some readings have intense vibes, others more caring, and others are even very casual.

So yeah, sorry for the long anwser, I don't even know if this will truly help, but yeah, you can always ask me to explain it differently. Good luck on your own readings and remember to have fun! 💕

#mod cosmos questions of importance #mod cosmos universe of flowers #im actually really bad with words #i wont be able to talk much about actually interpretting the cards because thats so personal #and even im still trying to figure out how to interpret them better

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local-jester · 3 years

Note

DO YOU HAVE MARX HEADCANONS!!!!!!?!?!?’v?????????? please

QSWEFREWQERT

HELL YEAH I DO. (im glad someone finally asked me for my utter brainrot)

(im sorry this caught me off gaurd and made me laugh)

(this will be long, as you may or not be aware of ricopop i do not shut the fuck up about this grape and these hcs are from two years of obsession and brainrot)

LETS BEGIN

regular headcannons: marx some what regrets milky way wishes but tends to hide it with mischievous actions.

he's still a little shit at times but has gotten more behaved and wants to change his past but knows he cant

he loves playing/messing with kirby and kinda pretends to hate him.

smug bitch at times

he kinda acts like a cat sometimes and will purr when petted or playing.

he goes through phases of extreme hunger and becomes demonic like (kinda terrifying)

he can use the claws on his wings as replacement hands

(he likes sweets and desserts obviously)

species headcannons: scarfy/noddy hybrid

age headcannon: 15-20 (teenager to young adult)

relationship headcannons: magolor is his friend (i won't yeet my ships into here but lover would be mag's too) he's aqquainted with taranza,susie and the other dream friends except the mages.

he likes king dedede, hates mk, okay with kirby but pretends to hate his guts, indifferent on bandee.

other hcs: marx has a chewing problem so magolor bought him a chew toy (i said this in a insane ramble a few days ago)

he has an issue with sitting still.

he tends to get nervous alot when he feels stressed and will chew on his claws or fiddle with them/his bowtie

he can't control his magic sometimes

his wings are bit sensitive due to being unatural so touching them sometimes may hurt him

his tongue is long

he eats food either by normal method or saying fuck it and splitting himself in half and eating it like that (blackhole)

when he's lonely he'll try and find magolor and force him to play by teleporting or attacking his cape by pouncing on it.

he forgot which beachballs explode.

he's surprisinly interested in science, math, reading and technlogical stuff but doesn't wanna make that stuff himself.

he loves drawing though it's hard for him. but he tries.

hates baking now. (refer to one of the most recent offcial channel ppp artworks poor thing is stuggling)

(refer to older posts for the eye headcannons)

he likes flowers. mostly just likes looking at them. he likes things that look cool or interesting.

{refer to older posts for the whole fiddling thing full explanation}

marx is kinda shy of strangers but his jester attitude makes him a little braver

he puts on a persona.

he acts very child-like at times but hates being treated like a kid.

he loves affection but he seems too scary due to his past so magolor satisfies all his affection needing needs.

after milky way wishes marx was a bit mentally damaged and people were afraid of him which made him very depressed.

he's the one who got magolor to (return to dreamland plot)

he can see in the dark and his eyes glow.

he's kinda scared of purely dark places so he uses his wings to light up places.

(he also uses them as a night light)

the wings crystals/scales brightness depend on how much energy he has.

romance makes marx shy/nervous and seeing couples kissing is icky to him.

he likes giving gifts to friends.

he tends to take advantage of peoples fear of him by tricking them or making them do things for him hence why nobody still truly trusts him.

he gets angry easily at times

he still loves tricks and pranks.

lego fun for him

he sucks at conversation somtimes

magolor has lost alot of things as marx when he likes someone to get their attention he'll steal things from them.

he likes stealing

marx wants to make friends but doesn't know how and due to peoples fear of him he can't

he likes to dress up sometimes and is indecisive.

(i think i'll stop for now.. lmao. there's so much qwq)

#marx #headcannons #marx headcannon #jester is rambling again #jester's insane rambles #ask response #sorry not sorry

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kjscottwrites · 3 years

Note

hiya, i am very interested in outlining techniques/habits. would you be willing to do a whole post about yours?

Sure! I love outlining and talking about outlining so bless u and sorry for this rambling in advance. Let me get into it with the caveat that by no means is this an instructional, I have zero professional experience, this is just the way I do it, and everything I learned I learned from ... fuckin film school lmao so it's unlikely to be optimized for writing novels anyway.

ANYWAY - I'll break it down into steps:

Step 1: The Dump

I always start with something loose and improvisational I'll call it a "scratch" or a "dump" outline, pretty much no rules with this one. Sometimes it'll be a free-write in a word document, sometimes a structured outline, sometimes just word bubbles and a bunch of bs scribbles on a piece of notebook paper. Whatever.

This is always focused on just the initial idea. I typically avoid granular character details like names and appearances and personalities at this point - I stick to general utilitarian figures, the bare minimum I need to move them through the story. Emotional arcs and defining traits and backgrounds come later - this way I can make each character weave seamlessly into the narrative, vs trying to make the narrative mold to a bunch of misc. preset characters.

At this point, my MAIN goal is to nail down three key things:

A) What's the central dramatic question?

B) What are the stakes?

C) What are the messages/themes I want to touch on?

For Cavernous specifically (and for a lot of my other projects) I used the snowflake method as a jumping off point. I'll start with a couple of sentences, expand that rough logline into a 2-3 paragraph summary, then expand that summary out into something between 2k-10k words that maps onto a rough beginning, middle, end. (I personally try to avoid strict 3-act structure, save the cat, heroes journey etc. but if these help you, use them!) If I'm not sure about a certain part of the story at this point, I just skip it and put in a placeholder like "and then something bad happens and they..." The point is making a vessel for the story, not necessarily filling that vessel.

ANYWAY this is getting long so I'll put the rest of the steps under the cut:

Step 2: The Actual™ Outline

Were I working on a screenplay, this part would be "breaking the story" but idk if y'all call it that for novels. Basically I expand things out into a more formal/traditional outline slash treatment, like probably between 8k-15k words? This is an action-to-action synopsis, broken up chapter-by-chapter (or scene-by-scene for a screenplay) without skipping anything. If there's unknowns, plot holes, or other problems, this is where I fix them.

My rule of thumb for outlines is mainly just "describe it on the page EXACTLY how you'd describe it to your friend who asked you what the scene was about." Hit only the important stuff, keep it informal/conversational, do NOT worry about specificity and good prose. Sometimes I put memes or emojis in these, it's like. Whatever captures it in the absolute easiest way.

I use bullet points: A) whenever I'm not sure what order I want things to play out in. This is especially useful for worldbuilding/exposition heavy scenes where I want a defined set of information to get doled out organically in the drafting. B) When a scene is complicated/action-packed/has multiple side by side storylines.

I use stream-of-consciousness paragraphs for pretty much everything else. Here's a little sample of the Cavernous outline for reference. This is pretty much how my outlines are gonna read on any type of project:

I'll also do a lot of character work in this step! Which i won't talk about a ton bc this is already long and that's a WHOLE topic on its own - basically this stuff:

(also making a lot of picrews like, so many fucking picrews)

If there's multiple parallel storylines, I decide at this point exactly what order they go in and how they're paced out. Logically you should write your A Line, B Line and C Line separately and weave them together after the fact, but for some reason I basically never do that - working strictly chronologically makes more sense to me. Why? Because I am smooth brained. I don't recommend it, it's a hassle. ANYWAY color coding for multiple storylines is *essential* either way. Cavernous has just an A and B line in the first half, and a diverging C line in the second half which re-merges with the B line by the end. I plan on having the second book structured similarly!

The other thing I do during this step is some of the more utilitarian stuff - I make decisions about format, perspective and tense, wordcount goals, target demo etc.

MOST importantly I lock in my logline and elevator pitch at this step. I know that if I'm struggling to write either of these successfully, something is amiss in the foundation of the story and I have to go back and find it and fix it (or chose to cut my loses and move on to a new project, even) before I ever start drafting.

Step 3: Being inconvenienced Usually this is where I start drafting until I start to get forgetful and sick of referencing back to my wordy-ass outline

Step 4: Making a technical outline to fix step 3

I'm not really sure you could call it an outline? Actually no, yeah I'd call it a beat sheet. It's an easily edited quick-reference version of the Actual™ Outline. Anyway I gave an example of the one for cavernous here - so I'll share a bit from a different project:

Some of these points are expanded for a bit of clarity but some of them are just shorthand - this isn't necessarily decipherable to a reader, but *I* know what "Lundis receives a sign" means and as long as I have it in this simplified structure I can easily rearrange and move that D line scene up so that it falls just after the titles if I want, for instance.

I typically force myself to stay on track, but IF shit starts going off the rails in the drafting stage in a way that I like, I always stop, go back, adjust the outline(s) accordingly, make sure everything still works, and then go back to drafting. Because I deadass can't write without a roadmap. I become completely helpless and grind to a halt.

So yeah. Maybe all this will be helpful to someone? Maybe it's not. My biggest piece of advice for anyone looking to hone their outlining/structure/planning skills is take 👏 a 👏screenwriting 👏 course 👏because even if you have zero interest or intention to do screenwriting, the discipline is SO technical and SO different and it'll at WORST offer a new perspective. That's my soapbox. Okay love u bye

#on writing #CavernousWIP #sorry it took so long to answer this but THANK YOU again

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ahwait-no-yes · 4 years

Text

Let’s talk about if Saihara hated Ouma

So lately I’ve actually seen a bit more comments on how Saihara doesn’t actually like Ouma and people have gone as far as saying he hates him and idk why people genuinely believe it so here I am about to refute that (I’ve been waiting ages to make this post just so you know so this came out as a horribly unstructured ramble more than anything oops)

some notes beforehand:

I have an obvious bias as I do ship saiouma. although i’ll try to be neutral on what I say here, I can’t hide my bias. I have tried to include what people that hate this ship believe to counter them though, also if you ship other things that’s totally fine?? don’t think of any of this as an attack at your ship and I’m not saying Saihara loved Ouma, I’m just tired of people saying Saihara hated him.

You’re allowed to respectfully disagree as long as you don’t berate me or say I don’t know the game when the majority of the screenshots in this are from my own gameplay, lmao.

and massive whole-game spoilers! Don’t read this if you’ve not finished DRV3!

Glad to know you made it under the cut! now I can begin with where I think people got this idea that Saihara hates him from- the infamous “You’re alone Kokichi and you always will be” line.

I admit this was very cold and still breaks my fragile saiou heart, but to base Saihara’s entire perspective of Ouma on this one line he said while he wasn’t thinking straight is just.. no.. It’s unrealistic. we’ve seen how Saihara is able to adapt his views and grow (I’ll come back to this later), he’s not stubborn in this regard like Momota or even Ouma is, so even if he did mean it 100% (which I doubt because when *anybody* is angry they will say or do things they may regret had they been calmer), it’s not like his view on Ouma from chapter 4 was his final view on him. And that’s what people fail to realise.

So, how does Saihara view Ouma then?

well, I’d say he’s been interested in Ouma as a detective from the moment he met him with his curiosity piqued at Ouma’s claims of leading a secret organisation.

and he remains curious about Ouma throughout, always questioning why Ouma says certain things, what Ouma is lying for, he just wants to figure him out- and this doesn’t just apply to free time events either

I think you get my point there, now, I think if I didn’t ship saiou and read this, I’d argue these are all pre-chapter 5 and before the breaking line so he may have been curious before but not after- that then brings me to my next point

Saihara was confident- dare I say believed- in Ouma, especially after Chapter 5.

how bold of me to say ikr, but this ties in to Saihara’s ability to adapt his views. He’s sort of like a mixture of both Kaito and Ouma honestly, because naturally as a detective he has to be suspicious and think logically as Ouma does, while at the same time Kaito taught him to believe in his friends which has also helped him to advance in trials. I think he might have extended this belief to Ouma, because he trusts that Ouma is doing what he does for a reason.

In fact, I’d argue he’s the only one of the remaining group who wouldn’t readily accept pinning Ouma down as a villain. If anything, it’s the opposite- Saihara fought to clear Ouma’s name, and never stopped trying to understand whether or not his intentions were true or false

i’ll just drop this screenshot here (that i named THIS MAKES ME SO HAPPY.png in case you were wondering)

this is what I mean when I say he wouldn’t accept it as fast as the others and would second-guess it, bear in mind this is the moment Ouma “admitted” to being the mastermind. and it’s not like this doubt was sudden or anything, cause I can recall this moment (that I actually didn’t catch on to on my first playthrough)

which gives me the idea that hadn’t Ouma purposefully messed with everyone and built up his bad reputation, it would’ve been so much easier for Saihara to disprove him being the mastermind at the point he said it.

Anyway, going back to my point- excluding Kaito (cause Ouma directly told him), Saihara is the first to bring up Ouma’s innocence, and this is what I mean when I say Saihara believed in Ouma

note that I say believed in. believing Ouma and believing in Ouma are different, it’s like how loving someone and being in love with someone are two different things, so don’t argue that by saying “he didn’t trust him” because ik that and that’s not what I’m trying to say.

but he did believe that Ouma had his reasons, and he tried to discover and understand them. I mean, take this for example

he’s already on board lool look at him go, but no really look at the confidence

he’s both confident in himself and in Ouma not lying here, then goes back to being curious about his intentions

oh and let’s not forget who it was that searched Ouma’s lab to find clues to prove he is a remnant of despair. Why do you need to search for evidence for something you (and the others even more) think is irrefutably true? the answer is obvious- he was doubtful of it from the start, and needed evidence to convince himself it was true, but then as he found nothing to prove it (and even evidence against it), he had to convince the others of it too- and prove Ouma’s innocence

(the last screenshot was from Hikkie’s playthrough on Youtube)

But as you can see, he’s clearing Ouma’s name as the leader of the Remnants of Despair.

Now, I bet someone would argue that this only proves Saihara was determined to find the truth in general, because he’s mister detective, so I’ll raise you the fact that Saihara didn’t need to try figuring why Ouma does the things he does- he could leave it at just knowing the truth and if he really didn’t like Ouma like people say then there’s not much merit to it.

“So what if I know this now? I didn’t care about him, it’s pointless” he could’ve thought something like that, but no

(I also think the “you’re lying again kokichi, there’s a method to your madness” moment fits here too)

Not only this, but there’s also how Saihara learnt from him.

honestly im still kinda mindblown from this ever since I first realised it, but when you think about it, Ouma hinted to Saihara in his FTEs how to win the game.

(those 3 screenshots are from justonegamr’s kokichi’s FTE video; random fun fact this was the playthrough that i watched while first getting into drv3)

But if you think about it, Ouma tried this again in his own trial in his attempt at ending the killing game and then Saihara also used this to actually end it

Not only that (which personally i think is pretty powerful in itself), but Saihara also tries to take Ouma seriously and picks up hints he leaves and uses them later

as well as

(and generally just)

generally, Ouma will hint and then Saihara will pick it up. it’s been like that for the whole game- why should Saihara give any extra thought to what Ouma hints if he dislikes him?? really, he could’ve just ignored him the same way he did at the end of chapter 4- but again, he didn’t “”hate”” Ouma enough to keep ignoring him, he considered him a friend in the end anyway.

and the end is what I’ll talk about now, too.

first- can we just acknowledge this?

he doesn’t ignore Ouma at all here. even though he didn’t trust him, he was sad to have lost him.

Not to mention the way he thinks about lying at the end of Chapter 6. (like, please this is just- *chefs kiss*)

IMAGINE Ouma was alive to hear him say that omg but Saihara could (and probably would) extend what he says here to Ouma himself- y’know, the ‘embodiment of lies’

by thinking about lies in a different angle instead of at face value like this, he gets a more neutral view on them rather than just thinking “they’re bad!!”, why wouldn’t he be able to do the same for Ouma? especially now that he knows Ouma was innocent and actually hated the game as much as they all did. I mean hey, even after chapter 5′s trial he sort of already thinks about lies differently

and throughout this post, I’ve tried to avoid talking about his free time events or his salmon mode ending because people always say “well they’re not canon” and to that I say not canon to the plot, yes, but still canon to the characters. so yeah, I don’t disregard any of them.

from this point onwards these all technically happen before chapter 5, so it’s not entirely relevant to my point that saihara still liked ouma even after the end of chapter 4, but it’s still something that shows he liked him beforehand at least. I mainly just wanna ramble though haha

one thing I’ve always thought was interesting was how Saihara easily lashed out at Kaito in his own free time event

and Kaito is undeniably Saihara’s best friend who he holds in high regard. If Saihara having backbone means he doesn’t like someone then damn bye bye momota have a nice trip in space

in terms of ouma and saihara though

how about the fact that Saihara willingly sat there and played rock paper scissors (janken pon!) with Ouma 100 times?? bruh I got bored playing that with my brother after 8 rounds yesterday how would Saihara manage 100?? would you really have the patience for that when you don’t even like the person you’re playing with?

how about his third free time event too?

(from justonegamr’s kokichi fte video)

Saihara wanted to spend some time with Ouma, that’s- its literally written there I don’t know what you want from me the guy wanted a nice time with someone he supposedly doesnt like

what I love about this is how “reaching out” could be taken both literally and figuratively. Wanting to understand someone and trying to find a way to but them being too unwilling to trust anyone.. damn 😔👊 also shuuichi either wanted to handshake or hold hands, what else do you do when you reach for someone’s hand come on

oh yes and how about that he’s content with the refusal because it allowed him to figure out a small thing about Ouma? understanding that Ouma has a different way of being reached out to? mhm please think about that for a bit

that parallel in the salmon ending too...

he considered how it’ll be like with him after they get out and how he’ll learn about him, then ultimately decided when ouma reached out to him that he does want this, and even comments on the warmth of his hand... afhskfdlj

his blush when ouma mentions how his lies didn’t bore saihara was also a very cute moment

ooh and what about the love hotel???

there’s that one line “I know i’m meant to be Kokichi’s ideal in this fantasy but when he tells me he loves me I feel like he means the opposite” or something like that- i’d argue it’s because he’s cautious of Ouma for one but also am I getting something wrong here or is he talking about how he, Shuuichi, thinks Ouma doesn’t like him? because I see people argue this is proof saihara doesn’t like ouma but all he’s really doing is just doubting ouma loves him

well in any case

WHY would he want him to stay in a love hotel of all places if he disliked him?! I know I’m just a broken record at this point but I can’t think of anything logical for it. they didnt even need to include that line in the scene at all but they did like they could’ve easily said something to do with realising where he was instead but nah. even after the event’s over, he says to himself

doesn’t he sound disappointed by it? and the fact that he even questions if it was a dream- okay

ooh, something i’ve realised while writing this as well: it kind of seems like Saihara might not want to like him but does anyway; he quickly ‘smothered the thought’ of staying with Kokichi, didn’t want to admit that Ouma’s lies never bored him, and I also thought about how in one of Kaito’s free time events he says to himself “I shouldn’t be talking about another boy like that”- well, maybe it’s similar for how he thinks of ouma? it’s not like Saihara didn’t care for the others’ opinion on him (probably the opposite ngl if you mess up in class trials he says something along the lines of“Ah I screwed up! They probably think I’m a fraud”) and considering nobody else liked ouma (except for maybe gonta) I wouldn’t be surprised if he felt shame for liking him, thus repressing that feeling (especially around the others, there’s that part in trial 4 where he’s trying to convince kaito he isn’t siding with ouma cause he knows by doing that could damage his friendship with his bro)

I mean this is something I only thought of just now, but it could be plausible (i hope?)

One last thing- I find it incredibly funny how in chapter 2 when ouma is literally on top of saihara he doesn’t freak out or scream and everyone else in the room is also completely chill with it and unquestioning. no really they’re just standing there.. and how long was ouma even in that position for??

Now, I think that’s all. So to finish off, I’ll just say

People get the idea that saiouma is bad because some don’t realise Saihara can still like a person without idolising or putting them on a pedestal. Idk if this is gonna sound controversial or not, but I honestly do think he did exactly that to Kaito and Kaede- which doesn’t make what they have with him toxic or bad at all, I just think his view on Ouma is a lot more realistic and less clouded. Heck, if Saihara canonically liked Ouma as much as he does with the other two I don’t know if I’d ship saiouma as hard as I do (it is fun to imagine though).

If you actually read through this then.. wow? I’m surprised you got through this unstructured mess? I hope you can agree with me for some of my points at least but I’m not here to convince you or anything, this has just been on my mind for weeks now I needed to get it out somehow.

I said it at the start and i’ll say it again now too- i didn’t intend on attacking or comparing saiou to any other ships so I do apologise if I seem like it, i’m just terrible with my wording (lmk if something genuinely offended you, i’ll probably change it) but you’re free to ship whatever you like cause at the end of the day it’s just a bit of fun. that being said, I don’t want to actually argue on this so please don’t haha, i’ve contemplated just deleting this but I’ve put a lot of effort into this post even though i cant analyse for 💩

I hope you can enjoy the rest of your day!

have the kokichi gaygun as a farewell present

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aerixlee · 3 years

Note

Hi, I love After Sunset and have reread it multiple times lol. I wanted to ask if you had any particular method to writing Azula for the fic? I usually don't like the more off the rails depictions of her in fiction but something about the way you write her is viscerally enjoyable to me.

*shows up 3 months later with no hesitation bc getting this ask made me vibrate out of existence with excitement* hello :)

the timing for this ask couldn't have been any better - it genuinely made me so unbelievably happy to read? this exact topic is one of the main things i was (am?) worried about in after sunset, specifically that i wasn't doing it right. i've been nervous since the very beginning that i was writing azula in ways that was difficult to read but fuck this is such a fantastic question and i'm so excited to answer it - this is going to be.... a really really long answer. i definitely got a little (a lot) carried away. sorry in advance lmao

(also it never fails to make me emotional when i hear that people are still rereading) (i might've cried a lil) (just a bit) (i can't believe people haven't forgotten about this fic) (to everyone who has stuck around: i love you more than anything)

for context, i put like..... a lot of thought into how i was going to go about writing azula. like i have pages and pages of notes analyzing her so i could write her character properly and do her justice - i still think i could've done a better job, but it was important to me that i at least do my best. my main thing when i was writing azula was keeping in mind that she is a 14 year old, a child, one who has been the victim of an extreme amount of abuse and emotional manipulation. i posted a response to a comment under chapter 15 back in january that asked for writing advice regarding azula that i think sums up my thoughts fairly well if you want to take a look at it. azula is a traumatized teenager first and foremost; she's not going to accept help easily or trust anyone easily, and i planned her arc out in a way that has multiple ups and downs. it really does get worse before it gets better, and if i end up writing more for this fic, i can promise that the worst has yet to come. we're nowhere near the height of azula's arc yet, and i don't even mean that in a dramatic breakdown sort of way. this has been part 234978 of me wishing that i could skip ahead in my own fic so i could post the scenes that were written months before we even reached the search......... kill me

and i said this in my comment: progress isn't possible unless the person who needs to heal is willing to heal. force doesn't work, coercion doesn't work - it has to be a decision that the person in question makes in order for them to actually take steps forward. healing isn't linear. neither is progress. that's the most important thing to keep in mind.

azula's breakdowns were definitely the most emotionally taxing parts about writing her. i personally tend to avoid reading fics that show azula's breakdowns to the extent that i wrote them for some reason? and i was very hesitant to write it myself, so i was really really careful in how i approached it. i didn't want to take things too far, but i also knew that i had to push the boundaries of what i tackled a lot more than i already was. i needed to show how bad she was getting, not just tell it, and i needed to justify the reason behind each moment of her behavior. not sure if i did it right, but i tried.

(as a side note, i wrote a lot of this fic during a time in which things were uhhhh not so great mentally for me, so azula and zuko are written in a way that is very very close to my heart. that could also have something to do with the way scenes are written, so i thought it was worth mentioning.)

azula is an incredibly calculated individual. her breakdowns, by contrast, show her doing things out of pure instinct, doing what she "wants" to do rather than what she's put a lot of thought into doing. and that fascinated me to no end when i was reading the comics; i thought the authors' approach was really interesting despite some of the less favorable aspects of her portrayal. in other words: catharsis!!!!! i wrote those scenes to be cathartic to azula specifically!!!!! not for the reader, not for me as the writer: for azula, the character, and what that meant for her in the scene and the moment - especially within a larger context. and it was so so so fucking emotionally draining to write, but that's what it was. i did my best to ramp up the emotional intensity to the max, and i also tried to make sure that every single thing that azula said or did had that element of reasoning behind it. because yeah, she's not thinking everything through like she would if she wasn't in full breakdown mode, but she's still azula. and azula doesn't do anything without reason, even if those reasons are superficial and weird and vaguely questionable. i tried to make sure that nothing azula did or said was without motive, and i'm not quite sure if i managed to pull it off, but hey, that was my goal.

hopefully all of that makes sense? i'm not quite sure if it does or not but i could genuinely talk about this fic for hours. i might be writing other things now, and i might be mortified by the absolutely horrible writing of the earlier chapters, but i will still talk forever about literally anything with this fic. that's a threat and a promise.

i reread some comments and looked through my inbox bc of this ask and now i'm emotional lmao wow i miss this fic and you all sm. also specifically to anon: i hope this answered your question! and if you wanted clarification on anything, feel free to shoot me another ask - i know a few things here are probably a little confusing lmao i was rambling a lot out of excitement. and thank you again for the ask!!

anyways. love yall <3

#you all probably: what the fuck is this #me: emotions #after sunset (the sun always rises)#atla

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the-last-cuddlebender · 4 years

Note

So you just refuse canon and bumi and Kya were lying or were just dumb not to realize what was really happening and perfect dad aang didn’t favor tenzin so much and he wasn’t the special one who got all the trips and time with him and was the favorite and every air nation person didn’t revere him and his mother didn’t adore the baby of the family who gave her grandkids and youre right I had to look it up but pema was o n l y 16 years younger and a man doesn’t leave a long term partner to hook up right away with a girl if there wasn’t something going on before even if maybe they didn’t get close to f#cking or maybe it was the worshiping from her that he liked and it was enough even if he really didn’t have anything going on with her but for you tenzin is this perfect victim who never done anything wrong like aang and who only suffered by everyone else being mean and wasn’t loved enough for your liking but this is your hc and to be fair you can have any you want. Bumi was the oldest and he was a non bender that must have been crushing but he kept being a good person and loving his family. Kya was the middle child who was gay and who probably was a bit confused and a bit lost and still was the most caring person ever to anyone and was always willing to help and who even went to stay with her elderly mother. tenzin was the miracle child who got all his parents attention, an island and grow up to expect to be special and a leader who was rigid on his teaching and rules and was also sort of a shitty teacher who also treated a girlfriend/oldest friend like crap not because of the break up but how he did it. That’s all tenzin not just poor baby defenseless never done anything wrong tenzin but if that’s what you want I’m glad he isn’t as loved as you think he should be because with the bits we got his siblings are much more interesting and even better people

(I assume you’re referring to this post about a previous ask, and I’m happy to discuss)

Hi, anon! There’s considerably more for me to unpack here, so bear with me. I’ll try to keep my response contained to a few points:

some child (< age 12) psychology

Katara and Hakoda’s relationship

some pretty dang neat-o history facts that explain more than you think (because my diploma has to be worth something lmao)

(I’m trying to be concise, so if I sound short, please know that’s not my intention. I just wanna save this from becoming a novel. I also just burnt myself with NaNoWriMo, so it may kindof ramble idk)

To start, I don’t refuse the “canon” of the Kataang family, so take that as you will. I gave my argument completely within the lines of TLOK canon because I figured that was what you were after. And I can make an argument for something while not arguing against the opposition. A good argument should be able to validate itself. I never went after Bumi or Kya, and I never would. I love their characters to bits. I was focusing on Tenzin.

Nowhere in my previous post did I say that Tenzin is a ‘perfect victim’ who never did anything wrong. I’m discussing the reasons why I think his character should be explored and appreciated more. He is an extremely complex character just like the rest of the cast. To box him in as “the favored one” is narrow-sighted at best. He’s human. There’s more to him. He didn’t ask for his lot, but he makes of himself what he can with it, just like Bumi and Kya. He by no means had a cozy time (and he has the stress-lines to show it).

You say that Tenzin was “expect to be special and a leader.” That alone makes me want to know more about him and how he grew up with that weight on his shoulders. That kind of expectation can destroy a person. It’s very a-la the pressures of the first-born in a monarchy crumbling under the stresses of learning to rule. Tbh, I think that’s why Tenzin was written as the youngest, so that the cliché wouldn’t be as obvious.

I have NEVER said that Bumi and Kya were lying or were dumb. I was discussing kid-Tenzin and how/why kid-Bumi and kid-Kya perceived favoritism (all while remaining within the lines of TLOK canon, too). Perception isn’t a bad thing. It’s just someone’s interpretation of the world. Idk if you think there’s a negative connotation to the word, but there’s not. Person A can look at the sky and see the moon and Person B can look at the sky and see a void that makes them feel small and insignificant. It’s just a difference of perception. Just because they’re different doesn’t make one or the other inherently wrong. Different truths are more than capable of co-existing.

FIRSTLY, about Aang passing:

Kya wasn’t the only one to help Katara after Aang passed. Aang left a void in MANY ways, both as a family man and the Avatar. Bumi, being in the military, guarded the world in his stead. Tenzin took up the mantle in the City and on the island. Kya took on the emotional safety-net.

Katara was Aang’s best friend, partner, and second-in-command. She was just as renowned as him. I can imagine the world expecting her to shoulder his burdens in the wake of his passing. She was the Mighty Katara, after all.

ALL of her kids helped her through his passing, in their own way. Being a shoulder to cry on is just one facet, and all three kids helped her beautifully.

Some psychology:

I’ll explain why I think Bumi and Kya perceived favoritism (which every kid does, myself included. It’s natural and somewhat instinctive for siblings) as best as I can. I’m not a psych major by any means, but I can lay down what I know and remember from my classes.

I’m not saying favoritism doesn’t exist in families. I’m talking about family dynamics in situations where favoritism is subjective because it objectively isn’t there. (Others might define favoritism differently, I suppose. But these are my thoughts)

Children (again, I’m talking <12 here) perceive the world differently than adults. They have incredible imaginations and a pretty tame survival instinct. Give a kid one of those mind-bender jigsaw puzzles, and they’ll have a higher chance of success solving it because their minds haven’t grown enough to be constrained by reality. They’re mad geniuses who haven’t been developed enough to be closed off from the possibilities. That’s what makes childhood so precious.

That’s why even Gyatso wanted to wait until Aang was older to learn he was the Avatar. You have to let the mind grow and fall and dust itself off before you fence it in. This doesn’t discredit or underestimate kids, either. They are extremely capable. I’m just talking about their lesser known psychology.

“Developed” is also a word that doesn’t have negative connotation here. I’m speaking clinically. Some cognitive and executive brain functions aren’t developed until 25. It doesn’t devalue ability or understanding. It’s just a word.

Kids internalize things differently than adults, especially when it comes to interpersonal relationships. Perceived favoritism among siblings (in situations where there objectively isn’t favoritism, of course) is a classic example. Kids need only be a few years apart for this to be seen. If a two-year-old gets a younger sibling, they can regress to breastfeeding because of the perceived favoritism they see being given to the youngest. Mom isn’t going to let the other kid starve, but the kid doesn’t know that.

This isn’t just in infants, though. And as it can be seen with the Kataang kids (they were all kids when Tenzin went on the trips with Aang, and kid-Tenzin is my focus here): Bumi and Kya don’t ‘know’ that Aang is saving time for them, too, when he isn’t there. All they see is Dad gone with Tenzin and leaving them behind. And by ‘know’, I don’t mean to insult their intelligence. They comprehend why, but their instincts don’t. Siblings have a lot of strange instincts, not just Cain Instinct. Object permanence is critical until critical and abstract thinking are properly developed. Before then, it’s a “I believe what I can see” mindset (in the simplest terms...I don’t wanna wax eloquent about the nuances of it rn. I can see people taking this as me discrediting kids, but I’m not. I’m just trying to explain the Point B missing between Points A and C presented in the show).

Katara:

Children don’t start developing abstract thinking until about age 12. It’s part of their cognitive development. That’s when they start developing critical thinking (and scientific method and etc.) and the understanding of relationships between verbal and nonverbal ideas. Before then, seeing dad take their youngest sibling on field trips would 100% feel unfair, no matter how the situation would be explained to them. They literally can’t understand it.

***Katara: If you want an example, look no further than when Katara confronts Hakoda in The Awakening. Katara knew Hakoda had to go when he did (2 years before the show, by the way, making her 12). She really, really does understand, even when she’s older. But it still hurts, and she doesn’t know why. That’s because the damage has been done. She perceived his leaving differently when she was younger and it internalized differently as a result. She feels a little abandoned even though she knows Hakoda didn’t and why he had to go. Its affects don’t go away, though (as seen in the invasion).

I never said that Kya’s and Bumi’s feelings would go away or were untrue to begin with. It was real to them, and that’s all that matters, just like Katara’s feelings being real to her is all that matters. Hakoda understands that. Aang would, too.

Is that Aang’s fault? It depends on what your definition of a good dad is and whether or not you give him room to make mistakes. Personally, I think he’s a great dad to all three of his children, even in the canon of TLOK. He just isn’t given a proper analysis in the show.

Time spent together does not equal time spent loved. Otherwise, school teachers would be more of a parent(s) to a kid than their actual parents.

The acolytes:

The acolytes of The Southern Air Temple being all “Avatar Aang had more kids?” and completely side-lining Kya and Bumi is not in any way a testament of Aang’s or Katara’s characters. That’s the acolytes’ characters. Aang and Katara have no control over what the acolytes do/do not want to believe or think, no matter how many times they would have corrected them. They fangirl over the airbenders in the scene you’re referring to. Even the fangirls in the comics completely side-lined Katara as Aang’s “first girlfriend.” Their behavior in TLOK never surprised me.

Teacher!Tenzin:

Tenzin being a poor teacher was a good thing. It meant he could grow with his equally-poor student so they would become something better together, as mentor and pupil. I found that idea for growth to be pretty darn cool.

Devaluing the opposition:

“The bits that we got his siblings are much more interesting and even better people” objectively, sure, I could agree, but if I met an interesting and awesome person for a short window of time, I wouldn’t believe they were interesting and awesome 100% of the time. Bits of a person do not define their character. Every person has a capacity for just as much good as evil—it’s a variable that stretches equally in either direction.

*********************************************************************

History-fun-time with the-last-cuddlebender woohoooooo

(a.k.a. I’ll address my thoughts on the “Tenzin being given the temple” and Tenzin-Pema situations, as you’ve presented them, as delicately and concisely as I can)

Importance of different generations:

If we go on the theory that TLOK mirrors more than just the industrial shifts of the real-world at the turn of the 20th c., then the age difference between Tenzin and Pema isn’t abnormal. (It wouldn’t be abnormal until even the early 1990s.) I have to use some anecdote to explain this, so bear with me:

Their age gap is strange to us because we’re used to things progressing so quickly. History as it’ll be written about the generations from the mid-90s onward will be very, very tricky. Generations now-a-days aren’t as easily defined because of the colossal leaps in technology from the past twenty or so years.

Loosely, a generation is a group of people defined by relatively the same “changes” that happened in their lifetime (or whose effects affected their early development). There have been way too many changes in technology (which we know has a much stronger effect on a person’s early development now than ever before) in recent decades for that formula to hold up anymore, otherwise there would be a new generation every 4 years.

An age gap like Tenzin’s and Pema’s feels so much stranger to us because our generations are so tightly layered. 4 years could mean a world’s difference when, back then (and I explain what I mean by “back then” further down), it didn’t change much on the dating scene. Life was more or less the same as they both grew up. It was far slower to change. And everyone in TLOK was growing up in the void of post-war for several decades. The technology jump didn’t (arguably) happen until just before Asami (if still holding up the comparison to modern day), so an age gap even in-universe wouldn’t be abnormal at the time they were dating.

(Even my parents got married at almost the exact same ages as Tenzin and Pema, the only difference being that my mom was 26 not 25. Most people I know are in the same boat. It’s just a generational disconnect)

Kya, Bumi, and Katara weren’t kicked out so Tenzin could be “given” the island (needs time period explanation):

I know TLOK says it got its inspiration from the 1920′s (the inspirations are there), but, if I were to date it, I would say that it’s moreso set in the mid 40′s-ish. (Kuvira ESPECIALLY reminds me of a not-as-known-as-they-should-be person from that time).

Among others, the size of the radios and Tenzin/Pema sleeping in one bed are some easy hints to me about TLOK being set in the mid-40s (if we’re using New York City as the template for Republic City).

Even in the time of FDR’s earliest Fireside Chats, the radios were monsters that had to be kept in the corner of the living room. Towards the mid-40′s, commercial radios were becoming compact, and the radios in TLOK are pretty darn small.

The Cathedral Radio used in TLOK wasn’t created in mass in the real world until 1933, and people didn’t have the means or money to replace their massive radios with smaller ones until (arguably) after the New Deal (1933-1939). Thus, I say the 40s.

Tenzin/Pema sleeping in the same bed also supports this time period because it wasn’t uncommon for couples to sleep in separate beds leading up into the “I Love Lucy” era of the 50s (the separate beds were for too many reasons to talk about here because they were a fad--for even medical reasons--for about a century).

^^^setting the time period is needed to prove why I think Kya and Bumi left of their own volition, why they would do it, and why it was actually quite normal

Kya and Bumi weren’t kicked out of the temple. In real life, it was a trend up until the mid-40s for families to stay in the familial home, some even long after marriage. After that, however, multiple factors encouraged the want and fostered the need for young adults to leave their home as soon as 18. Kya and Bumi would be influenced just the same given the parallels with the time period.

Not all families did. The big (mostly industrial) cities were the first to do this. TLOK mirrors this with Bolin and Mako’s family staying together.

Republic City, like New York City, was years ahead of these kinds of changes, so they started the one-bed shift and kids leaving the home just before the 50s. (This isn’t to disregard the cultural influences bellying the four nations. I know that familial homes are a characteristic common to Asian cultures since the US is more oft to sending elderly into nursing homes and such--and I’m having a blast learning about Asian culture since my specialty in college was medicine in Europe and the West--, but, here, I’m working on the assumption that the world in TLOK is migrating towards a Republic City standard, and the comics seemed to be hinting at that from as soon as just after the war, not to mention in TLOK.)

Again, kids leaving the home at the age of 18 is a very new thing that’s pretty specific to the US (in the time the trend first started) because of the new opportunities that were so suddenly afforded to younger people post-war. These opportunities were in all areas of life, not just economic (economic arguably being the least contributing factor imo), but that’s a historical essay for another time.

My point is, kids leaving the familial home began as a choice in a post-war (100-year war, in TLOK’s case) world that encouraged them to do so.

Bumi and Kya were not kicked out so Tenzin could be “given” Air Temple Island. Bumi joined the military, and Kya traveled the world. They CHOSE to leave because there was opportunity to do so (that hadn’t been there for 100 years). They wanted to find their own destinies (and be the nomads they were born as...I always found it to be a great irony that Tenzin, being the poster-child to carry the legacy of the Air Nomads, never really got the chance to be a nomad. It’s sad, really, and potentially another reason why Aang took him on one-on-one trips since he knew Tenzin would be stuck with his legacy?).

Katara (again): As for Katara leaving the island, I believe that, among other reasons, Katara left Republic City because the light pollution made it difficult to see the stars she had grown up with. In real life, the Milky Way used to be visible to the naked eye everywhere in the world, and I think that change would be reflected in TLOK by default. Katara would probably find comfort in something as consistent as the stars and the Aurora lights in her old age. Plus, the city was probably too loud for her, and snow muffles sound pretty darn well.

TO BE CLEAR: This is not a justification. This is an explanation. I’m taking no “side”, here, because I’m not invalidating the opposition to validate my own. These are just my thoughts for how I see Point A becoming Point C in a way that keeps in line with TLOK canon.

*********************************************************************

Final thoughts:

You and I “perceive” Tenzin and his family differently, anon, and that’s okay. That’s just our interpretations of the show. I’m not calling for Bumi and Kya to be torn down so Tenzin can be uplifted. I’m talking about Tenzin (kid-Tenzin) in particular. His character is his character, and his value shouldn’t have to proven by devaluing Kya and Bumi. Likewise, Kya’s and Bumi’s value shouldn’t have to be proven by devaluing Tenzin. Just because they’re “more interesting” than Tenzin doesn’t make them interesting people (meaning that line of logic is flawed. i.e. lesser evil isn’t good because it’s lesser; it’s still evil. They should be interesting if the comparison is taken away, and they absolutely are and for their own reasons). Their characters should able to stand in an isolated argument, and they absolutely do, make no mistake. I love them to pieces, and nothing I’ve said about Bumi and Kya has made them inferior. I love them to death and have written more about them than Tenzin. It wasn’t until I started thinking about Tenzin that I realized his potential.

Tenzin, Kya, and Bumi were never “given” anything, and I doubt they would ever want it to be. They all had it rough, and they all deserve love. Bumi fought for a name in the military. Kya carved out her place in the world. Tenzin dug in his roots and planted the seeds for a garden he thought he wouldn’t be alive to see grow.

Me believing Tenzin should be appreciated more does not mean I believe Kya and Bumi should be appreciated less.

...just like Aang giving Tenzin one-on-one attention does not mean he didn’t give Kya and Bumi one-on-one attention, too:)

Again, this isn’t an attack on any character, person, or fandom! I’m not a psych expert, either, and I apologize if it sounds like I’m delegitimizing kids and their experiences. I’m trying to do the opposite. I can go more into detail about Kya and Bumi, but this post is a novel already and I'm too burnt out to add more.

I’m just trying to give Tenzin as much love as Kya and Bumi🥰 I love all the cloud babies equally (as I should😤), and I wanted to toss out my two cents for discussion because I don’t see the cloud babies being loved equally in fandom (kindof ironic)

If there is some hidden childhood!tenzin content please hmu I beg🥺

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makeste · 4 years

Text

BnHA Chapter 270: Harry Potter Rules

Previously on BnHA: Present Mic punched Ujiko in the face! It was awesome. I’m thinking about getting a tattoo of it. Meanwhile Endeavor saved Mirko’s life by setting her on fire (reason #15 why I will never become a superhero), and Aizawa did some sexy Spider-Man poses for our viewing pleasure while fighting the rest of these Noumus which are still annoyingly refusing to die. Anyway but back to Present Mic, the undisputed MVP of this chapter. Because you see, in addition to the punching, he also used his Loud Voice attack (literally the actual attack name; Horikoshi will steal all of my jokes and leave me with nothing) to smash open Tomura’s Noumutank! Which I really thought was going to immediately lead to Everyone Dying, but apparently I was wrong! Anyways so yeah, right now Tomura’s just lying down all heart-stopped and not-breathing. Which seems very anticlimactic, BUT I JUST HAVE THE CRAZIEST FEELING that maybe, just maybe, the super powerful villain lad who just spent the last three arcs slowly upgrading his bad self just in time to wage war on the world as the story reaches its climax, might not actually be dead though.

Today on BnHA: DON’T MIND THAT OMINOUS ORGAN MUSIC PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND, IT’S NOTHING, IGNORE IT. Ahem. So first of all, as some of the bolder among us dared to speculate, Tomura is not, in fact, dead. He’s still very much kicking it with his nipple-less pecs and truffula tree hair, putzing around in his mental landscape filled with crumbled buildings and disembodied Theatrical Gesture Hands. For some reason he doesn’t have shoes or a shirt in his mental landscape, which was a very interesting choice on Horikoshi’s part, but we will speak no more of it. Anyway so to sum things up, Tomura’s family is all “TENKO WE LOVE YOU” and he’s all “oh hey” and then AFO fucking appears and he’s all “COME HERE MY BOY” which is exactly as creepy as you would expect, and for some fucking reason TOMURA ACTUALLY DOES COME HERE. And lol it turns out Ujiko gave him AFO. Like the quirk. Yes, that quirk. So long story short, Tomura is about to be possessed by AFO’s evil soul or some shit, and to put the cherry on top, fucking Deku out of fucking nowhere, MILES AWAY, is all “HE’S COMING.” Because of course he can sense it, because AFOFA IS REAL, AND FUCK ME THIS IS ALL HAPPENING TOO FAST, FUCK.

I know this chapter has been out since like 1pm, but I’m not getting to read it until 5 hours later because for once in my life I was trying to be responsible and actually get some work done on a Friday. I thought this might lead to less oh-god-I-still-have-to-get-that-done anxiety hovering over my weekend, but instead it just led to oh-god-I-have-to-get-the-chapter-recap-done anxiety hovering over my now! anyways so this might be a bit rushed lol

(ETA: yeah turns out this wasn’t exactly the kind of chapter you could just read quickly and get on with your life lmao. so, then!)

what a nice panel of Present Mic taking out the trash

you heard ‘em fellas. the doctor is secured. good job everyone we did it, manga over, congratulations. now to cut away to a two-page spread of Dark Shadow comically smothering Dabi’s flames with a giant stock pot lid, and that’ll be that! what a wonderful, extremely short and strangely underwhelming arc in which we haven’t even seen the actual main characters do anything yet. but I guess we don’t need them since the main bad guy is lying dead on the floor! everything is just so fucking dead and secured!! do you think if I keep repeating it enough Horikoshi will finally be like “okay geez I get it” and reveal his hand already

Mic is now ordering Ujiko to power down the Noumu, which again, I’m sure he will definitely do without a fuss since after all the good guys have clearly won the day

OH SHIT OH FUCK

rip X-Less. gonna just take a moment here to imprint your beautiful face onto my memory before it turns into a pile of ash. your face, I mean. not my memory. well my memory more or less already is a pile of ash but that’s neither here nor there ANYWAYS

:’)

what are these little sound effects. I think that’s supposed to be a buzzing noise?? anyways whatever it is PLEASE STOP IT, I AM NOT HAVING A NICE TIME SO STOP

ffff Horikoshi sure has done an excellent job of setting the mood in such a way that all of these panels of X-Less doing incredibly mild things are sending my stress levels through the roof. like is anyone else reading his lines more or less like “WELP, TIME FOR ME TO DIE, ANY SECOND NOW, WE’RE REALLY DOING THIS, THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING, HERE IT COMES”

(ETA: when is this poor sweet innocent man going to fucking die already.)

LET’S CUT BACK TO MIC ESCAPING THE IMMEDIATE VICINITY

I have the clearest mental image of Horikoshi standing by with a walkie talkie in one hand and one of those remote bomb detonation clicky switch thingies in the other, patiently waiting to receive the go-ahead once all of the important characters have gotten to safety

anyway so now Ujiko is talking again

no fear everyone this is just the beginning of his verbal noumu deactivation sequence. nothing to worry about. everything is fine

yes for some reason his code phrase to put all the noumus back to sleep involves going into rambling detail about his work researching quirk singularities and shit. it’s fine. it’s not a big deal. code phrases are just like that sometimes all right

just ignore the increasingly panicked look in Mic’s eye as he slowly realizes he was way too fucking keen to just leave the “dead” Tomura back there with his laser-eyed hero buddy. anyway so let’s continue learning all about the Quirk Illuminati or whatever the fuck

okay so... he faked his own death? 70 years ago, at age 50 or thereabouts? I mean, that’s interesting and all I guess. not saying I wouldn’t be thrilled to spend the rest of this chapter learning all about Ujiko’s boring evil life. I don’t need to say it because it’s implied on account of Ujiko sucks and is the worst. so yeah can we get a move on though

oh shit?!?

WHOSE NARRATION IS THAT IN THE BOXES TOMURA IS THAT YOU OH GOD OH GOD

also, comparing AFO’s smile to a buddha’s really sent an actual shudder of disgust down my spine for some reason lmao. I personally would have steered that comparison in a different area, maybe less to buddhas and more to Norman Bates from Psycho, but to each their own

oh shit wait up

okay but this is actually a pretty big revelation though, isn’t it? because it’s been hinted for a while now that AFO and Ujiko had some method of duplicating quirks (the fact that all the Noumu share the same regeneration quirk was the biggest clue, but there was also John-chan’s quirk, as well as Hood’s Muscular-esque quirk), but as far as I can recall, this is the first time we’ve had it confirmed. though to be fair I wasn’t joking when I said my memory really has been shit lately sob

anyway so for real though, can you really call it a BnHA chapter if you’re not spending a good chunk of it being hopelessly confused over the ownership of some ambiguous thought bubbles. WHO IS THIS. I do seriously feel like it’s Tomura, because he’s the wrathful one, but another hallmark of a typical BnHA chapter is me constantly questioning everything I know as I muddle my way through

(ETA: yeah I’m pretty sure it was him. still impressive how vague it is though! it could also potentially be Ujiko, Mic, or even Deku. hopefully Caleb’s translation on Sunday can shed some more light on this. though he wasn’t really helpful last time this happened lol.)

SOMEBODY PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON

didn’t... you just... say that “preservation” was your quirk?? what do you mean that you wanted it?? CAN YOU JUST FINISH YOUR SENTENCES LIKE A NORMAL PERSON

anyway so here’s a summary of this chapter thus far

present mic: okay goodbye forever x-less

x-less: what a strange thing to say! :) also is it just me or is this machine fucking staring at me

present mic: turn the noumu off please

ujiko: seventy years ago... society... singularity... he’d be 120 years old now...

??: [REPULSIVE FEELING EW WHO’S TOUCHING ME]

ujiko: all for one has the smile of an angel...

??: [SON OF A BITCH I’M SO FUCKING WRATHFUL]

ujiko: my quirk... preservation... the truth is... my quirk... preservation... the truth is... my quirk...

all caught up?? grand. also btw is anyone else super disturbed by the fact that Ujiko recognizes Mic as being “Kurogiri’s friend”, like holy shit though? how would he know that. I can’t think of any implications of this that aren’t super disturbing tbh

anyways back to -- LOL WHAT THE

Horikoshi Kouhei: [furiously scribbling notes to himself at 3am] BUT WHAT IF THE FOLDING CITY FROM “INCEPTION” HAD MORE GIANT HANDS

jesus christ. is this like some mental representation of what shit is currently like in Tomura’s mind? lots of crumbly destruction and traffic lights and the house his father built (isn’t it? I feel like it looks familiar), and SO MANY HANDS, HE JUST LOVES HIS HANDS

anyway so at this point it’s a coin toss whether or not anything in this fucking chapter is ever going to make any kind of fucking sense! but here I am voluntarily along for the ride while Gene Wilder sings that creepy boat song right in my ear!

DSFKLDSJ

ACCURATE REPRESENTATION OF SOMEONE WHO HAS BEEN FLOATING IN A JAR FOR THREE MONTHS TBH. that is some luscious quarantine hair

SDFLKJSDLFKJSLKFDHLKSDJFLKJLKSDJL:FKJSDL:KJ

(ETA: that Tomura in the top left may be my new favorite panel. look at him. all he is is a nose and chin and ~*~HAIR~*~.)

HANAAAAAA AHHHHHH OH MY LORD OH MY LORD! OKAY I’M FINALLY PAYING ATTENTION NOW FOR REAL! NO MORE JOKES! EVERYBODY SHHHH!!!

FFFFFFFFFF

“LOOK AT ME I’M A MAIN CHARACTER I CAN HAVE STRANGE VISIONS AND TALK TO DEAD PEOPLE IN MY DREAMS, SOUND LIKE ANYBODY ELSE YOU KNOW?” TOMURA SHUT UP I DON’T HAVE TIME TO ANALYZE THIS SCENE THEMATICALLY RIGHT NOW I’M TOO BUSY BEING SAD ABOUT YOUR DEAD SISTER WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY CALCULATING THE ODDS OF THIS SOMEHOW BEING FORESHADOWING FOR HER NOT REALLY BEING DEAD. OH GOD, OH FUCK YOU GUYS, I’M FREAKING OUT

WHAT KIND OF YOUNGER BROTHER DOESN’T CALL HIS OLDER SISTER “NEECHAN” TOMURA WHAT KIND OF ANIME CHARACTER ARE YOU

AT THIS POINT HIS HAIR IS ITS OWN INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER WITH THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS WOW

HORIKOSHI PLEASE STOP SHAKING THIS CHAMPAGNE BOTTLE OF SIBLING FEELS SO VIGOROUSLY I AM SO TERRIBLY AFRAID OH GOD

“BY THE WAY TENKO I JUST HAVE TO SAY, YOUR MAN BOOBS ARE SERIOUSLY IMPRESSIVE AND YOU SHOULD BE VERY PROUD.” YES HANA I WAS JUST GOING TO SAY. HOW ASTUTE OF YOU TO POINT THAT OUT. BOY HAS BEEN HITTING THAT BOWFLEX

WTAF IS HIS HAIR THOUGH SERIOUSLY??!

IS IT JUST ME OR IS THIS DIALOGUE BUBBLE ACTUALLY COMING FROM THE HAIR ITSELF. TOMURA. TOMURA BLINK TWICE IF YOU ARE IN DANGER

SJJKJSKJSW

TENKO IT’S ME YOUR GIANT MOM I’M BEHIND YOU HONEY TURN AROUND AND LOOK HELLO HI I LOVE YOU DO YOU STILL WANT TO BE A HERO

ffff why is he so pretty all the time lately

you are very handsome with your billowy hair and ken doll abs, you. sure are having a lot of trippy visions for a dead guy too there

HEY!!!!

WHO SAID YOU WERE ALLOWED -- DO YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST -- ffffffffff I need to be alone with my thoughts for a few minutes fuck

okay well. but since it is getting late I guess we’ll just pack these feelings up real quick and put them inside a box and neatly label it “feelings I have about Tomura having a vision of his mom and immediately turning back into his innocent little boy self in said vision as soon as he sees her.” not too sure about the contents of this box yet but I will have to explore them thoroughly at a later date

oh hey it’s this asshole

“THAT WAS TWENTY YEARS AGO, DAD.” jesus Kotaro. get over it

and also guess what, if you go and get Tomura all riled up so he wakes up grumpy and disintegrates the first hapless guy he sees, I will hold you solely responsible for that poor man’s death. I’m just warning you now

oh my

I remember this conversation going a bit differently the last time, but hey

LOOOOOOL

HIGH FIVE. PUT ‘ER THERE

WHY WOULD YOU LOOK SO SURPRISED LOL DID YOU NOT JUST TURN TOWARDS HIM WITH A SINISTER MURDER FACE LIKE TWO SECONDS AGO. LIKE WTF DID YOU THINK WAS GONNA HAPPEN

OH NO OH SHIT

FUCK ME, GUESS IT WOULDN’T BE A DRAMATIC BNHA DREAM SEQUENCE IF THIS ASSHOLE DIDN’T MAKE AN APPEARANCE AT SOME POINT OR OTHER NOW WOULD IT

-- HOLY SHIT?!

RECORD SCRATCH, FREEZE FRAME??

holy shit. holy shit. holy shit. holy shit. holy shit. holy shit

holy shit. fuck

...okay so

is this implying that AFO has been Noumufied? but that doesn’t make any sense, does it? he already had multiple quirks. what other advantages could there be to him becoming a Noumu. well whatever I’m just typing out all of my thoughts real fast for the time being and I’ll try to make sense of them later

or is it because he sees Kurogiri as a father figure? and AFO also?

or is he using Kurogiri’s quirk????? IS HE SOMEHOW WARPING INTO TOMURA’S DREAMS

because that third one, to me, is what this panel most looks like? Tomura says he looks like Kuro, but he doesn’t though. Kuro has a very distinctive face which this is very much lacking. instead it looks to me much more like one of Kurogiri’s portals, with AFO’s buddhaesque smile sticking out. so yeah. I got nothin’. except, again, fuck

(ETA: yeah I obviously have more thoughts about this now, but we’ll get to those in a bit.)

...

.......

-- !!!!!!!!!!LKJLK!JLKJ

oh shit oh shit oh shit

OH SHIT

NO BABY NO DON’T DO IT

GASP

THEY’RE TRYING TO SAVE HIM AHHHH

I HAVE LIKE TEN THOUSAND THOUGHTS IN MY BRAIN RIGHT NOW YET SOMEHOW MY MIND IS ALSO STRANGELY BLANK?? I DON’T EVEN KNOW?? I’LL JUST KEEP READING

KOTARO ARE YOU TRYING TO HELP HIM OR ARE YOU PULLING HIM TOWARD AFO??

OH HE’S PUSHING HIM BACK!! OH SHIT IT’S A WHOLE FAMILY EFFORT

THEY’RE TRYING TO SAVE HIM AFO IS GOING TO TAKE HIM OVER AND THEY’RE TRYING TO PROTECT HIM OH GOD OH JESUS

BABY TENKO EYES OH MY GOD HE LOOKS SO MUCH LIKE DEKU THAT I THOUGHT IT WAS DEKU FOR A MOMENT

NO TENKO!!!

FUCK -- DOES HE NOT CARE? HE ACTUALLY UNDERSTANDS WHAT’S ABOUT TO HAPPEN BUT HE DOESN’T CARE?? IS HE TRULY SO PROFOUNDLY MISERABLE THAT HE’D GO AHEAD AND ACCEPT THIS FATE WILLINGLY

NO SOUNDS. NO WORDS. YOU COULD HEAR A PIN DROP IN MY ROOM RIGHT NOW

except that I have the most incredible, chilling, disturbing, electrifying feeling that my mental soundtrack is about to start blaring AFO’s theme from the anime on full blast...!

LOOOOOL SOB OH FUCKK

THE MOST TERRIFYING, DRAMATIC KIP UP YOU’VE EVER SEEN IN YOUR LIFE!! THIS IS IT, IT’S BEEN REAL FRIENDS, THIS IS WHERE WE DIE

-- ARE YOU REALLY, TRULY, GENUINELY SHITTING ME RIGHT NOW

NOW OF ALL TIMES IS WHEN WE FINALLY CUT TO THE TRIO, I’M CAN’T, I’M FUCK

AND THAT’S THE END AHHHHH

holy shit holy shit holy shit. wow

okay so. I don’t really have any sort of neat and tidy way to wrap up this hot mess of a recap lol. so, just... have a whole mess of all of my stupid whirling thoughts

those first four pages really did nothing to brace me at all lol

okay, so. here’s my understanding of all this, I guess. basically we’re going full Harry Potter rules here. AFO horcruxed his quirk, and from the looks of it, a piece of his soul (perhaps even the main piece) along with it. he then passed it on to Ujiko to implant into Tomura

horcrux!AFO then wakes up, and takes over Tomura. so then my understanding is that he’s going to be possessed by him. and I also got the impression that he’s fully aware of that, but just doesn’t care at this point. he knew his family was trying to warn him, but he didn’t care. and that look in his eyes when he disintegrated them just seemed so fucking resigned to me, though. jesus

but now the more interesting thing! so we can liken Tomura to the resurrected Voldemort from book 5 and onward, reborn after transferring his power into a new vessel. which would go a long way toward explaining how AFO was able to sense what was happening from all the way in Tartarus; because if we liken it to Voldemort and his horcruxes, it would mean that he still has a connection to them (similar to the connection between Voldemort’s mind and Harry’s)

but so now comes the really interesting thing -- what does this then imply about the connection between AFO and Deku? because you’ll recall that AFO alluded to a similar mental connection back when Deku first activated SIXQUIRKS. and now we have Deku somehow being magically aware of AFO’s sudden resurgent presence in this chapter. but why?? if the reason AFO and Tomura share a psychic link is because of a shared quirk, why would Deku also be experiencing the same link? the answer is, he wouldn’t -- unless he, too, had the same shared quirk

in other words, I think All for One for All is fucking confirmed you guys. I can’t think of any explanation for this other than that OFA is also a horcrux quirk. a little piece of AFO broken off and embedded in his brother, and then passed along through the generations. and now residing within Deku

anyway. so that’s a hell of a lot to ponder lol. I guess we can at least be grateful for the fact that we’re not waiting two weeks for chapter 271 like Hori originally planned. can you fucking imagine. what a fucking asshole lol

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tenshindon · 4 years

Note

*waves* Hi, I'm Silver. I want to write Yamcha more accurately (he seems really nice?), but I haven't the time or money to buy the manga or episodes, so... any tips, I guess? Can you help me? Thank you 🌻💜

hiya !! i’m always happy to talk about yamcha and The Character Of yamcha :) gonna put my thoughts under a read more cause this Might be long:

I havent watched Z or Super in a while but I do watch and read through the original Dragon Ball often so accuracy May Vary due to my trash memory. I’m also going to try to keep the games’ depictions of him out of this since accuracy varies among those.

The first thing I wanna touch on is Yamcha’s ego- especially how it evolves over the series. The main thing to keep in mind is that while he is generally cocky about his fighting abilities (which is a major weakness of his as he underestimates his opponents often and gets in trouble because of that), he’s never overly confidant with himself as a person; he seldom tries to paint himself as a better person in comparison to others and rather keeps realistic skepticism about himself. It’s also worth noting that, depending on how old Yamcha is in your depiction, his awareness for his fighting inadequacy compared to his friends varies (the older he is obviously the more conscious he is).

Next thing I’ma talk bout is something that i see kind of treated inconsistently; Yamcha’s relationship with women and his love life. I feel like a lot of people forget that Yamcha’s defining character trait in Dragon Ball was his gynophobia- he chased Goku and his friends so long for the dragon balls so he could remedy his fear of women. Of course, he eventually does date Bulma as they realize dating each other would resolve their mutual wishes for Shenron (Bulma’s being getting a boyfriend and as mentioned before Yamcha’s fear of women). As we’re all aware though, nearly a decade later Yamcha and Bulma mysteriously separate, and the reason for doing so is never explicitly made clear in canon (I could honestly make a whole separate post on Bulma and Yamcha’s break up- there’s a lot to discuss with it so if anyone wants that let me know lmao). The majority believe that Yamcha was unfaithful which, in review of his whole character, makes literally no sense- even just subtracting his fear of women (though I’ll elaborate on that later). But back on track and in regards to his fear of women, it never fully goes away. It just so happens that he’s most comfortable around Bulma, and since Bulma’s the most prominent female character of the series we tend to forget his fear in the first place. When around other female characters, he’s subtlety more anxious- or at the very least he isn’t so much of a playboy as fanon interprets him to be. One final thing to note is- unless I remember the series wrong (and anyone’s free to correct me on this)- Yamcha’s never implied to have gotten another girlfriend or even a lover at any point. Of course it’s hard to track the intricacies of Yamcha’s life- this is a shonen anime where slice-of-life episodes are limited, and even then Yamcha is far from being a prominent character anymore (post Dragon Ball).

Up next is his loyalty/friendships, methods of handling conflict, and overall courage because in my rat brain these all go hand in hand. Nevertheless, Yamcha’s a devoted friend- he’s shown time and time again to be supportive of his pals and, even in spite of his shortcomings, always does his best to help the gang out. Like i touched on before, as Yamcha gets older, he’s more and more aware just how far behind in training he is in compared to his peers. But that doesn’t stop him from trying to fight off whatever threat’s present. So with that we can infer that even if Yamcha can’t be the absolute best, that’s not going to stop him from at least trying if it means helping his friends or making them feel better. Additionally, he’s quick to stand up for others, even if he doesn’t know them too well or even at all and he’s shown not to hold onto grudges. One thing to remember is that, presumably for 16 years, Yamcha’s only companion was Puar (that’s not even considering his life before meeting her) and most interactions he has with people involve robbing them. His social skills might not be the best (though that doesn’t mean he can’t act socially capable- he clearly has no issue trying to make Beerus feel comfortable and like a friend at Bulma’s party) but again, his social skills varies with age and the situation. But again, referring back to his readiness to defend others, he isn’t afraid of getting into conflict if it means helping someone else.

Last few topics I’m going to talk about are his relationships with property, finances, and goals- they seem like a small topics but I still want to talk about it. Now hopefully we’re all familiar with Yamcha’s beginnings of being a desert bandit- and seeing his methods of obtaining items, he didn’t try to charm his victims into giving him their stuff. He just took it if he could if he couldn’t intimidate them and retreated if he couldn’t get what he wanted (which is also noteworthy of Yamcha’s awareness of his limits- a bit contradictory to his fighting ego but it seems that if Yamcha’s certain he isn’t able to win something, then he’ll save himself if it means delaying a goal or staying alive). He doesn’t seem to mind playing the long game either, as he’s willing to tail Goku and co. for months as he waits for them to gather the dragon balls without ever letting his true intentions slip. When it comes to finances, Yamcha doesn’t seem to care to heavily about them: back in the desert, Puar mentions to Yamcha that he should wish for money to which Yamcha dismisses it quickly, stating he could just steal money if he really needed it. It’s also worth noting that despite being a successful baseball player by Super, Yamcha chooses to live in a modest apartment. Either he’s very paranoid with money and, despite having enough to buy a full house, chooses to live in a cheaper apartment building or he’s more comfortable with smaller living spaces- which makes sense since he’d lived nearly two decades in a desert cave and had to scavenge for supplies (plus he seems to still think fondly of the desert as he has a painting of such in his apartment).

For the TL;DR version of this post, here’s essentially what you should keep in mind when portraying yamcha:

He’s generally a very lax, simple, and sociable person when he wants to be- though a bit socially awkward when he isn’t prepared

He’s not egotistical, but he has a bad habit of underestimating his enemies at times. this changes over time of course.

While he’s not itching for conflict, he is loyal and quick to stand up for friends and strangers alike

He acknowledges he isn’t the best, but that doesn’t stop him from trying

He’s ambitious and seldom gives up on his goals

He cares little for huge amounts of wealth or property and generally is just trying to get by in life comfortably

While not cripplingly petrified of women post DB, he still maintains a mild anxiety around women he doesn’t know- even around women he does know pardon Bulma he’s still a bit on edge

I’m done with my character study using the anime and manga, but I like talking about Yamcha so below this little buffer I’m going to get into how the games portray him. I might’ve forgot something or got some things wrong so feel free to talk to me about that if you want to. Anyways, you can stop reading if the above is all you’re concerned with- regardless if you keep reading or not, I wish you the best of luck in writing Yamcha ! :)

If you’re still reading, join me in my continuous ramble of the Rubix cube of Yamcha’s character because Toei and Toriyama can’t be consistent.

Something that seems to be portrayed a significant amount is that Yamcha’s aware of his charm and that he uses this to advantage to smooth talk his way out of situations- not that he just so happens to be good looking and endearing and his panicked socialization just happens to work out for him. In regards to his way of talking out of situations, that’s honestly something I could see if Yamcha acknowledges he’s against a threat much greater than his fighting abilities will allow him to handle- and it’s not like he doesn’t consider himself attractive, if we’re to take his reaction to losing his tooth as anything (in case you aren’t aware, he curses Goku for ruining his “beautiful” face). An example of this is most prominent is his interaction with Frieza in FighterZ, where Frieza remarks that Yamcha is both “handsome and sensible”, to which Yamcha attempts to keep the conversation casual so as to not have to fight (which he later points out to Goku once the latter urges that the three of them should just start fighting already). Though I’m sure his first reaction isn’t to talk his way out of something- he’ll just do it if the opportunity presents itself.

I obviously take huge issue with Yamcha’s portrayal of being a womanizer- his major goal was to settle down, get married, and live out the rest of his life with someone. So for him to be portrayed as having to juggle girlfriends is a bit strange to say the least. You could maybe argue that Yamcha hypes himself up to be a lady’s man as a way to cope with his anxiety (fake it til you make it y’know) but I have little faith in the characterization in Dragon Ball games and for them to think that complexly- plus, again, it contradicts with his humble and awkward personality.

Aside from these two notes, that’s all I have to say. so I’m done- forreal this time.

#dragon ball #dragon ball z #dragon ball super #yamcha #snap chats #sorry im late to responding #first i was asleep and second of all i had to think a lot with this- plus i kept getting distracted #there might be a little bias in this with how i see yamcha so take my words with a grain of salt #whether you're 100% accurate or not the thing to remember most is to just have fun :)#saiyanblood2 #reply

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mmamagoto · 4 years

Text

hello i am here tonight to ramble to you, my 15-ish followers, about the cat king and natori bc i have some Thoughts and they are being fueled by Feels. and also that quiz i posted just. a while ago now. which now that it’s taken me so long to get back to this dumb ramble means i have no clue what quiz i was originally talking about so hA i’m a dumbass

aside from the fact that i headcanon/interpret them to have known each other for a very long time, there is the fact that they have some odd and perhaps not altogether expected similarities-- for instance, they both have an appreciation for aesthetics and fine foods, music, everyday and luxury comforts, and leisure time. in all honesty, they probably can have pretty engaging conversations with each other over shared interests

they both also have the same capacity for playfulness, tho of course this is something that’s without exception reserved for loved ones in natori’s case lmao

i do like the idea that there really is this inherent, subdued comfort in their interactions, and that a certain dry banter between them is not unheard of thinking emoji

which leads me into the topic of their dissimilarities! sort of. which i kinda think complement the other in some ways thinking emoji

on the surface, their differences are pretty obvious. the cat king is aggressive, impulsive, easily annoyed, and just altogether mercurial in temperament. if he ever had a filter for his speech then it’s long since dissolved lmao

by contrast, natori is more passive, methodical, keeps a cool head when purposely provoked, and is all around generally even-tempered. he’s also spent a lifetime watching what he says and being all too aware of the consequences of loose lips jfjfie;a

yet also, natori shows some impulsivity of his own, as well, and doesn’t always appear to think things through as thoroughly as he might prefer (case in point, even after the king had thrown off his bodyguard cats, natori still tries to restrain him himself jfjkfd;a and also soon after runs up the tower staircase after the king without a single guard.......). and for my own portrayal as well, i definitely do interpret him having a weirdly stubborn streak despite his passivity and enabling tendencies lmao

i’m also really amused by the idea that even tho they know each other fairly well just by virtue of having spent so much time together, there’s a lot of occasions where they struggle to read the other or figure out what the other’s Logic is

we do clearly see natori struggle to keep up with the king (both physically and metaphorically, in just trying to keep him out of trouble). but i absolutely feel that natori’s thought processes are sometimes just as much of a mystery to the cat king as his are to natori lmao

also i feel there’s a certain amount of trust between them, which i’ll admit i mostly chalk up to the look the cat king gives natori toward the beginning of the movie in haru’s dressing room

when he’s confused and thinks maybe they did make a mistake, natori arrives shortly after by chance (sort of), reaffirms what the two of them know, or at least were told, and coincidentally also sets the king’s mind at ease

also i like that when haru brings up her, uh. concerns about not being a cat in the hopes of them seeing that she Obviously can’t marry lune, it’s funny that their immediate reaction is to look at each other, again, for backup or to reaffirm their plans, etc. with each other jjfiea;

#i couldn't decide whether to post this here or on natori's blog rip #still undecided but it's in this blog's drafts now so welp #it ends abruptly but i ran out of steam and it hasn't come back so just #just take it #i'm sorry #;bèn dàn #;holder of the braincell

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sagemoderocklee · 4 years

Note

for the director's cut meme, how about the chapter of alliance where lee pledges fealty to gaara?

oooohhhhh, starting with one of my all time favorite things I’ve written ever. love that for me.

i could talk about chapter 13: a beast’s gratitude (x) for ever. especially that last scene, which was the moment that Alliance was always leading up to. god it’s been ages since i’ve done any work on the allied nations saga, so this will certainly be a nice change to maybe get me motivated to work on the sequel again.

whenever i talk about alliance, i always have to preface with the fact that alliance didn’t start out the way it ended up.

the idea came to me in the summer of 2010, sometime before I moved from the west coast to the east coast. I can distinctly remember sitting in the airport editing the prologue and first chapter while waiting for my flight with my friend/roommate. i had this mac book i’d bought off a friend who massively overcharged me for a computer that didn’t even connect to the internet wirelessly. it was a real rip off to say the least, but at least i had a computer to write fanfiction on lmao

anyways, those details aren’t important, mostly just nostalgia. the important thing about alliance is that when i started writing it back in 2010, there wasn’t a lot of gaalee fic content out there, and certainly not a lot that didn’t stick to the fandom’s most tried and true method of getting them together: Lee going to Suna.

now, it’s not like that’s a particularly bad trend. it’s certainly not inaccurate to send Lee there given that Gaara giving up his role as the Kazekage is... incredibly small. I mean, I have countless WIPs and ideas that send Lee to Suna for various and sundry reasons, but the trope does tend to fall a little flat when it gets done and done to death, and again at this point in the gaalee fandom that was really all there was--Lee goes to Suna as an envoy, despite his less than stellar political skills. it’s boring, tbqh. like can we get a little bit more variety here please?

anyways, that was my thought process when I set about starting Alliance. and with Alliance being my first real GaaLee fic, my first big Naruto project, i really wanted to do something different, something fresh: i wanted to send Gaara to Konoha, and not just for a short visit.

knowing me, you know that i like my stories high stakes and heavily political. well, actually, alliance is the reason for that. alliance sort of shaped me a lot as a writer. but like i said, alliance didn’t start out the way it ended up. it wasn’t going to have a sequel, it certainly wasn’t gonna turn into a saga with four parts, and gaara and lee were definitely going to be together by the end of it all. if you’d told me when i first made that document in 2010 that it would take me 8 years to finish just that one fic, that i’d end up with almost 300k words, an three more fics to write i wouldn’t have believed it.

so, anyways, i’m babbling and getting off topic.

back on track: at the time i started alliance, 2010, the manga wasn’t done, so we were still smack at the beginning of the Fourth Great Shinobi War, so that’s where my story was going to take place and then deviate from the canon. when i started alliance, i loved gaalee, but i didn’t have a lot of a foundation for them. this was, again, my first real big gaalee fic, and boy did i have grand ideas about alliance, about what it would be for the fandom.... i really wanted it to make an impact--and that impact is what this ask is all about.

so, when i first began the fic, i started off with the prologue, which came easily enough. but then i struggled with the first chapter because how the hell was i ever going to get gaara and lee together?

well, if you’ve read alliance you know they aren’t together... romantically.

i don’t exactly remember when it struck me that Lee was going to swear fealty to Gaara, but the idea came to me early on. i think after i’d started and restarted the first chapter, when i’d realized that i had a much bigger challenge ahead of me than i’d anticipated.

gaalee isn’t a ship with a huge canon foundation. it’s not a ship with hundreds of episodes of content for the creator to throw away at the end and toss them into hetero marriages for the sake of a cash cow franchise, thus undermining everything the series presented to us.

so the question was always: how do they end up together? what motivates them to fall in love? what is strong enough to bring them together as friends, as equals and allow them that chance at something more? what was going to be the one thing that would have that impact i was so determined to have?

lee swearing fealty to gaara was my answer.

and it was the answer to more than just the questions about gaara and lee as a couple. it also answered how lee specifically was going to change. one of the biggest frustrations with lee’s entire lack of character development in the canon is that he never stops being gai-sensei’s double. he’s never allowed to be a fully actualized character; he’s never his own man, not defined by the Springtime of Youth and the green suit.

swearing fealty to gaara meant forging a new path for himself and growing as his own person. and it’s so wholly Lee. It’s rash, hot-headed, passionate, reckless, and driven entirely by his emotions.

for me, alliance was always about that moment when Lee knelt on the uncomfortable gravel pathway in front of the hospital and swore himself to him. it was always about the moment when Gaara, confused beyond the telling, accepted Lee because his own heart wouldn’t let him refuse.

and the aftermath, the affect that Lee swearing fealty to Gaara has on their relationship... that’s what i was always after with alliance. alliance is just the foundation. it’s the stepping stone for more. and that all started with that final scene in chapter 13.

grand ideas aside, i know alliance isn’t like a super popular fic--i mean, god lee and gaara don’t even get romantically involved in it, so most people aren’t gonna be looking to alliance for their gaalee fix. but that fic will always be my baby, and that moment is so special to me. i think i still have my first two drafts of the scene since i hoard documents like i hoard notebooks lmao

anyways, i’ve rambled a lot but i hope you like the answer!

#allied nations saga #naruto #shippuden #gaara #rock lee #gaalee

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h-e-l-l-b-r-o-k-e · 5 years

Note

Can you give us any tips on writing? You are brilliant!!

Y’all don’ know how freakin’ flattered I was (still am!) receiving this!! Gosh… I wish I could you guys a step-by-step guide into my writing process but I honestly don’t have one, though I really wish I could help. Writing, for me, has just always sort of come naturally. Probably because I’ve always had a hyper-active imagination, which I began applying to writing in first grade (around age 6). I still have that first notebook I scribbled many little stories in as a child. I was daydreamin’ a whole lot back then and I’m still daydreamin’ now. It’s sort of ridiculous how much I miss out on because I practically live inside my head. It’s quite bad in some aspects. Anyways, I’ll try my best to give you some tips, even though I’m a horrible teacher!

1) Prep!!!! If you’re not already inspired by whatever thought or idea has been floating in your head, you need to beckon your mind into finding and holding on to that inspiration. Or, in the words of Troy Bolton, “Get’cha head in the game.”

Some things that help me:

Create playlists: Find music that you enjoy, but that doesn’t hold too many personal memories (though there could be exceptions). Playlists should stay consistent in tone (even when you don’t know what to write about yet), and overall consistent in ambience. Creating such playlists help to create another world in your head. A world in which you can visit and revisit in between writing projects. Wanna take a break from project #2 and return to project #1? No problem, just go back to its respective playlist and it’s like you never even left. It sounds crazy, but it works for me. You begin to associate everything about your story with the playlist you created for it, and your story will act like personal memories associated with that playlist. Don’t rush yourself in creating these playlists. Sometimes it literally take me days to craft the perfect jumbo of songs.

Revisit your past experiences: Think about the crazy things you’ve been through. The bad. The good. The ugly. All of it. But, don’t hurt yourself doing this. These memories often spark something in me, even if it’s just the tail end of some aspect of an idea (could be a certain tone for what you want to write, an object, a protagonist/antagonist or even just a minor character, or even a blurry situation—these are all things that your imagination will have to expand upon afterwards). Even if you don’t revisit your past, your brain will usually incorporate aspects of yourself and your experiences into your characters and story, and sometimes you won’t even realize it until much later. Trust me, I know.

Study strangers and people you know: Just, please, don’t be a creep about it lol. Well-played characters from movies and TV shows work perfectly fine as well. Study how people speak—or if your studying a film/show, study their lines. Study behavior, why people do the things they do, why people say the things they say, and so forth. By understanding behavioral patterns makes it easier to create genuine characters who feel real. There’s a lot of psychology at hand.

2) Write. Really. That’s it. Just do it. It’s such a blunt piece of advice, but it’s so true. You can’t get any writing down if you don’t just write. It may be complete crap, but it’s okay because a first draft is meant to be tweaked, revised, and polished. And, make as many drafts as you want to polish that sucker up.

Here’s a few things I like to do and things to keep in mind:

Take a break. After finishing that first draft, relax for a couple of hours or days, or weeks, to freshen your mind. When you return to make the second draft, you’re more keen to mistakes, such as grammar, phrasing, and disruptions of flow.

Details have to serve a purpose. When writing a story, almost everything in it has to have some sort of purpose (small, big, or somewhere in between). Whatever it is, does it enhance your character’s personality, their motives? Does it enhance the plot? Will it make it easier for your readers to empathize with said character? If you mention some thing about your character, make it serve a purpose even if it’s minor. Storytelling is like a puzzle for you to figure out.

Defamiliarize! One of my creative writing professors based her whole course around defamiliarizing clichés and it is honestly the best advice I’d ever learned from someone else. This challenges you and pushes your creativity further. Give your readers something they won’t really expect, and that will leave a lasting impression. However, this is not necessary whatsoever but it is great.

Show don’t tell. Gee, how many times have you hear that one? I heavily believe in this piece of advice, or rule of thumb if you will. However, remember to mix things up. Sometimes it’s okay to tell instead of show. Though, show ratio should outnumber the tell. Showing is great for building suspense and tension.

Include different sentence structures and rhetorical strategies; don’t always start with pronouns. You don’t want to have a robotic voice that makes it seem like an instructions manual. Metaphors and similes are fun strategies to include. Plus they always come from within your prowess.

Ever heard of method acting? Become a “method writer.” Immerse yourself in the world you built for your story. Become one with your protagonist (know that fucker well lmao). Feel what it is your characters are feeling. Act it out. Research the living hell of whatever it is you’re writing about. It makes it easier to have a genuine narrative. It also makes it easier to write it out.

Expand the world your narrative is set in. I love doing this, and I always receive positive feedback on the little details I include in my stories because it makes them feel authentic and realistic. The real world isn’t flat, and your story’s world shouldn’t be either.

Delete any subject pronouns feeling, seeing, hearing, etc. stuff. For example: He saw the bird flapping its wings. Change it to: The bird flapped its wings. Sometimes they can flow well within the narrative, but most of the time its highly unnecessary.

Don’t ramble. Don’t info-dump. I have trouble with this, and I usually have to reel myself away from doing this. It’s a habit, and just like how I love to hear myself talk, I love to see myself write. Rambling takes away what’s at hand in the story and info-dumping overwhelms the readers. Instead, slowly ease your reader into that important information. Sprinkle the knowledge throughout your writing like breadcrumbs.

And, most importantly…. Everyone’s writing style is different because everyone is influenced by different novels they read, different music they listen to, different films they watch, and the different lives they live. Don’t feel like you need to imitate someone else’s writing style to be considered “good.” Instead, stick with what feels natural to you but that doesn’t mean you can’t….

Experiment with styles! It’s fun and you can learn a little bit more about your own unique style through this.

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