#so in that sense fandom as a whole needs to relearn

[bookwyrminspiration]

the way that your blog was what i went to in order to get the slightest grasp on this drama and discourse... i've got a vague idea, but holy cow...

folks just need to re-learn how to moderate their fandom experience. i learned that as a teenager, when i started shipping something people considered "icky." block people, block tags... ugh. people frustrate me.

Well I hope my blog's been at least slightly helpful! I try to stay aware of the fandom's goings on, even if I don't always engage--though there are certain things I feel more obligated to comment on given that I am fairly well known

I do think for at least some of the people involved (though I obviously can't speak for them) this may be their first big lesson in moderating their experience. Keepblr tends to be a first/intro fandom for a lot of people where we learn how the hell to do it, what's courteous, etc. Especially with the recent influx and this being the biggest thing since then

And this is not at all to condescend--it's a genuine observation of just how things work. I myself learned via keeper. So I'm not mad at them for it, it just is a bit sucky to go through at times

I'm not worried either, though. We've been here before and we'll be here again. We'll get through it

[sobbing-quietly02]

Y’all might hate me but the way I see it in LU is that both Wars and Wild would the medics in a way.

Let me explain

Wars; was literally in a war were he most likely have to of known basic principles of medicine at the very least. Possibly was a temporary field medic during the war. And that’s just from the war itself, we don’t actually KNOW what life was like before for wars. Maybe he came from a family of nurses or apothecaries.

Now for the controversial

Wild; now at frost it wouldn’t make sense but please let me explain.

Wild would be one of the medics BECAUSE he’s had the most experience being injured. It is common belief within the fandom and comic that Wild is irrational (and Wild within battle) and gets injured a decent bit, but that is the current.

I want you to think about how Jojo has written Wilds backstory within LU. From what I understand he had to start from scratch with everything. HE HAD TO RELEARN WHAT IT MEANT TO BE HUMAN AND ALIVE.

He probably had gotten numerous injuries just from the great plateau and even then it was just a small fraction of his adventure.

One characteristic about Links in general is the ability to will themselves though tragedy and harm and Wild is no exception. Knowing that there is a high probability that Wild went though his adventure somewhat injured constantly. Most likely minor injuries and ones that wouldn’t hinder his ability to fight but enough to hurt and be painful.

Another point about the ‘starting and learning to live’ is the aspect that some common sense things for most people wild just didn’t know.

The best way to show this is an example

Say someone was set on fire by a Wizrob and now has severe burns on one of their legs?

Wild who’s experienced extreme burns during his adventure (because he didn’t actually know that Lava was the hot thing in death mountain) knows

A) what the person is going though (empathy). The way that this would be helpful is if the person is unconscious or is unable to communicate what their feelings outside a basic burn.

B) know how the treat the injury in a way that would allow the person to still be able to move/ use the injured part to a degree. And he knows how to use the stuff that they have with them the help. There’s something’s that would be helpful but are in a completely different area or region.

In this example Wild (bc he’s gotten injured so much) is able to help communicate and heal the injury. And help in a way that others might not.

And that’s not even talking about the fact about the fact that Wild seems to be the main cook of the group (given that’s his nickname) and he can cook various potions, especially for willpower/ strength (stamina/green) and health/ healing (healing/red).

Bc of these facts shown I do believe that Wild will become the main assistant to whoever’s the medic (most likely Wars due to actual medical experience).

And the question of ‘wouldn’t Hyrule be apart the medic gang?’ And my answer would be on the spectrum of ‘unlikely to unless the person is dying’ bc of his powers but that a whole other post that im too tired to make rn.( but will if y’all want)

And keep in mind that fact that every Link in the chain has been injured before, has taken care of it (probably by themselves), and has survived.

Meaning that The Med Crew tm wouldn’t immediately be needed unless the person is unconscious, struck in a Vidal area or disabled bc the injury.

Examples; extreme concussion, struck in the chest/ abdomen, broken leg, is unconscious etc which can all happen whilst fighting.

And really everything is conditional. Each Link will respond to the injuries and wounds of the others in their own ways due to many things including there experience.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk, lmao

Please note that these are not all my thoughts, I have so much more especially about dynamics within the chain. And even more with Wars and Wild, omg when that update comes out if them two. I won’t stop yapping.



[pynkhues]

we have different understandings of the characters, but your posts are still super interesting to me. i think louis needs control in his life, for sure, but i think if s2 suggests anything, it’s that having sexual control doesn’t translate to having real power or control over his actual life. i think his dynamic with armand very intentionally contrasts with loustat’s dynamic, and was also very much a consequence of lestat being a more dominant partner and louis believing that taking on this role himself would empower him, would prevent him from being abused again—but of course, that’s not how it works.

and while i think it’s true that lestat struggles with self-control, so does louis, especially when he’s with lestat and when their relationship is at its best—it’s basically the whole point of 1x07, and it’s very clear that he enjoys it, that it creates this internal battle, because it triggers his issues with his sexuality and masculinity (and all of this intersects with his social position as a black man), because it leads him to hurting claudia and so on. i also think part of louis relearning to trust lestat will have to involve lestat getting a better grasp on his self-control, whereas louis will have to learn to let go of the composed facade he put on in dubai.

This might be controversial, but I actually think the fandom massively overstates how much Armand and Louis' dynamic is supposed to contrast with Lestat and Louis'. It's there, of course it's there, but I see it more as Louis' relationship with Lestat informing his relationship with Armand, as opposed to directly contrasting, and I'd add to that that I think it's as informed by Louis' relationship with Claudia as it is by Lestat. I think it's very pointed in the show that Louis only chooses Armand when it becomes clear that Claudia no longer needs him and he knows Armand does, which I actually lowkey think parallels with the fact that Louis only wants Claudia when he loses his business in New Orleans. Like I said in those tags, I think Louis needs to feel like he's taking care of someone - it's specifically how Lestat seduces him back when he can still read his mind, by asking him to protect him from the wolves of New Orleans when we all know how little he needs protecting in that sense - and I think there's a lot to be said in the loss of The Azaelia as being the loss of his self-image as provider, given Lestat doesn't have a job, and he literally breaks up with Lestat before bringing back Claudia who will, of course, need him as a child.

I also don't actually think Lestat and Louis had a D/s relationship at all back in Rue Royale. I think Louis probably did feel Lestat had a degree of sexual dominance, but I don't think that was tied to positions or 'roles', I think it was tied to Lestat being an older vampire, white, the perception of more experience, and also bisexual, the latter of which I think Louis had enormous issues with. He viewed Lestat as having more control in life because he did. Lestat could move through life in a way that Louis couldn't, and the thing they shared - their queerness - was, I think, undermined for Louis by the fact that he felt Lestat could leave him for a woman. Lestat's sexuality, to him, in the era that he is from (and I say this is as someone who is bi!) marks for Louis a path to social acceptability that Louis feels entirely denied.

His taking on the role of Dom to Armand's sub is, yes, about perceived power and control, but again, I don't view it as in contrast to his relationship with Lestat, sexual or otherwise. It's informed by it, yes, but it's also informed by Claudia and, crucially, the era and the country Louis' just escaped. Louis was denied independence, power, his sexuality, and his masculinity (I'm not going to get into it here, especially because I know it's a hairy topic in this fandom, but I view Louis' issues around his masculinity as primarily external to his sense of self, unlike most of his other issues). Again, there's no indication that Lestat and Louis ever played into those relationship dynamics back in the 1910s through 30s, and so it's ultimately not about Louis taking on Lestat's position in the relationship in a sexual sense, but in him feeling like he's shedding a broader identity to step into someone with a greater degree of both social and personal power.

But also I agree that sexual control doesn't translate to having actual control in a relationship, but at the same time, Armand never actually gives him control in the way that I think Lestat does. Yes, of course, Lestat has more power, just as Armand does, but if you want to argue that the show is intentionally contrasting their dynamics - which I think it is to an extent (although again, I think that extent is overstated by fandom broadly) one of the clearest examples is that Louis asks both Lestat and Armand to turn someone for him, and while neither of them want to, Lestat's the only one who does.

Lestat gives Louis that power over the make-up of their family unit, Armand won't even do that for Louis when it'll get the daughter he loathes away from them. In fact, he'll kill that daughter instead.

I agree though that Louis struggles with self-control. It's actually one of the things I love most about him, haha, but I think he's always working towards control as a personal strength and a personal goal. I don't think Lestat is, and I've got to be honest, I'm a little baffled by you using 1.07 as your argument because - - Louis' very much in control throughout that? It's all good and well for him to feel like he's slipping into the well with no bottom, but Louis' very much on the winning team. That's kind of the point. He does kill Lestat. He slits his throat. They're only 'at their best' as a family unit because they're playing a game where Louis knows what's happening. He might try and diminish his role in all of it to Daniel, to imply that he's ceded control to Claudia, that he's wooed again by Lestat, and maybe he does in part, maybe he is, but the fact that they're 'at their best' as they're plotting his death, and Lestat submits to death only for Louis to save him, exerting absolute control over that situation, I think pretty fundamentally undermines the idea that 1.07 is a submission of anything on Louis' part.

Louis sparing Lestat's life is him striking like the hand of God, just as Lestat told him he could be in 1.02. In many ways, it's absolute power, it's absolute control. He kills him, he saves him, and he'll hurt their daughter to do it, especially when she thinks she's the one with the power.

[tsarisfanfiction]

Source of Knowledge

Fandom: Trials of Apollo Rating: Gen Genre: Angst/Family Characters: Will, Apollo For his overnight vigil, Apollo raided items from his children's cabin. The next evening, Will found them again. TOApril day 27 - Missing Objects. This was a pretty broad prompt, but then I remembered the books Apollo basically stole from Will's bookshelf without any indication that Will know about it, and figured I could do something short and angsty with that... so that is hopefully what this is.

Will found them after Apollo and Meg had gone into the woods.

Maybe he should have found them earlier – it had been a whole day, he thought, since they’d gone, and there certainly wasn’t any excuse to have not tracked them down before he did – but he hadn’t.  He’d had other things on his mind, things like injured campers and missing siblings and a finally-sleeping mortal father, even if Apollo’s sleep had been restless at best.

He still hadn’t been actively looking for them when he’d stumbled across them.  There was a whole nest of things – a flashlight, blankets, a discarded but still full water canteen – but the ones that caught Will’s attention were the same things he’d first registered as missing the previous night, when he’d gone to bed in a cold and empty cabin.

Over the years, cabin seven had acquired a large collection of books on Apollo.  Will was pretty sure some of them had been written by long-gone older siblings, and at least one had the distinctive handwriting of Chiron.  Others were more modern, typed instead of handwritten, on paper instead of fading parchment, and even papyrus.  Cabin six might be known for their library, but they weren’t the only cabin with a god associated with books and learning and knowing things.

It was the newer, less fragile books that had gone.  The ones Will kept on a bookshelf near his bed, rather than the ones more securely stored in with the instruments, the one remnant of the head counsellor’s nook before Lee had converted it into its current instrument storage.  They were the ones Will had once learnt stories of his dad from, guided by Lee in his teacher-mode, and sometimes some of his other more knowledge-inclined older siblings, and the same ones Michael had used to try and teach Austin and Kayla, although with difficulty, because Michael could teach archery but he wasn’t so good at books.

Will had used them, since, to teach younger siblings that thankfully weren’t at camp right now, safely back with their mortal parents and hopefully away from the disconcerting danger that was once again invading camp.

He didn’t know why Apollo had taken them with him for his vigil.  Surely he didn’t need to read about himself.

Will tried and failed to forget how much Apollo had cursed his mortal memory, implying so heavily that he had given up on subtlety and blatantly told them that he couldn’t remember much.

The thought of his father sitting up all night, wrapped in a blanket – gods, Will hoped he’d wrapped the blanket around his shoulders instead of just sitting on it, or giving them both to Meg – reading books about himself in the faint glow of a single flashlight in a bid to relearn about himself was a painful one.

How much of his sense of self had he lost?  His personality was rawer than Will was used to, pubescent mood swings to match the teenage body while his words meandered all over the place, from a hurt and defensive child to glimpses of a protective father Will remembered from private dreams.  It was a much fuller picture of his father than he’d had before, where dream visits had been short enough for Will to know that his dad loved him, and that his dad was very good at being an idiot, but in hindsight not much else.

Now, he felt like a person, which seemed almost blasphemous to think of a god, except Mr D was familiar and showed signs of depth, sometimes – if not as much as Apollo had shown in the past day and a half since he’d woken up.  The problem was that now that he was thinking about it, Will didn’t know if he was actually seeing Apollo.  There was no fakeness to Lester, not that he could tell, but if Apollo needed to read books about himself to know who he was, then could Will really believe that Lester was his dad?

Or at least, that Lester was all of his dad?

It wasn’t something he really wanted to think about.

He knelt down and picked up the books.  Apollo had left one open, looking abandoned in a hurry – maybe when Rachel’s helicopter had arrived, because Will knew better than to hope his dad had actually fallen asleep last night, even if his mortal body had needed it.  Will carefully didn’t look at what was on the page in question, feeling like knowing what, exactly, Apollo had wanted to read and perhaps relearn about himself would be too much.

Sometimes, ignorance was better.

It was easier, safer, to close the book without looking before adding it to the small pile of other books and moving on to folding the blankets.  He kept his movements methodical, lining the edges of the blanket up exactly before making each fold, until he had two carriable squares of blanket draped over one arm, flashlight and still-full water canteen tucked into the crook of his elbow, and the books in his free hand.

If the blankets ended up on his bed that night – the second night alone in a cabin that was never meant to be so empty – and the books open on his pillow after lights’ out with the flashlight to read by, well no-one else was there to prove it.

[sharkiegorath]

ok I read the whole Forgotten Realms Avatar series and at the start it's not what i'd call good but it’s entertaining. the third book is decent and fun. then the last two books are suddenly very good and i am scurrying like a rat

from the start I was struck by how similar the mortal Midnight was to Gale: Mystra’s Chosen with a volatile magical item grafted onto her chest, indignant about the gods but determined to finish her duty even if it's certain to kill her, arrogant and reckless but so good-natured it doesn’t really show until the stakes escalate, probably falls in love too easily, purple seems to have been her favorite color... also love the irony of how widely hated Mystra is by BG3 fandom, because at the start of Midnight’s tenure as Mystra she is THE god breaking rules and making divine enemies to try to help mortals and minimize damage. In Prince of Lies she even has an arc about struggling to convince other gods and concluding that godhood is a type of single-minded insanity but thankfully she won’t lose her sense of humanity hahaha ha ha. I need to read the later Elminster books to see exactly how the personality merge worked, but the way it’s described on the FR wiki and cross-referencing BG3 and this series, I assume Midnight is still a strong element of current Mystra. (ok confirmed by Ed Greenwood but i need to talk about this more in another post bc it's giving me extreme brainworms)

Shadowdale is meh but not the weakest book. Adon and Cyric had interesting enough arcs. I think Midnight and Kelemvor do have chemistry based on their banter and basic dynamic, it’s just rushed and bogged down with standard straightmalewriteritis. Kelemvor is a blatant misogynist to drum up initial conflict with Midnight, a trait completely discarded and forgotten in the subsequent books; they somehow missed the obvious hook that maybe Kelemvor is wary of female mages because of his family curse. I did like how by the end of Shadowdale he was about to go to battle and he was staring at puddles thinking “if my situationship was here she could do magic and turn them into steam :(" And I was pleasantly surprised by the ultimately inconsequential character arc of Bane relearning mortality and bonding with a follower, only to accidentally kill him, because magic is unstable because of what Bane did. 

Tantras is largely irritating besides Midnight and Adon's friendship and Cyric's series of successful deception rolls. The underlying plot actually isn’t bad but there are way too many characters holding the idiot ball and not communicating for contrived reasons. In Shadowdale, almost every newly introduced sympathetic character ends up dying shortly afterwards, like they’re just lining up to speedrun emotional investment; it's even more obvious in Tantras. Worst of all, there's very little buildup to Cyric’s villainy after his heroism at the end of Shadowdale. It's frustrating because his corruption could make perfect sense but it was so flat and clumsily executed. Then Kelemvor's curse is resolved anticlimactically. I vaguely recall the story getting better towards the end, when Torm appears, but nothing gripping. There was one cool perspective trick where the story rewinds to show the same mundane scene from Midnight, Kelemvor, and Adon's eyes before they go off on mini solo adventures.

I like Waterdeep, but my opinion is probably improved by comparing it to the previous books and knowing it was written by a different author. There’s still an overuse of epithets, but there’s a noticeable improvement in characterization and narrative logic. Cyric acts more like ‘himself’ in his first scene compared to any point in Tantras. Midnight, Kelemvor, and Adon actually act like friends. I appreciated how they grapple with the ethical consequences of removing Kelemvor's curse, though their Cyric debate feels drawn-out. Waterdeep is also much better at introducing secondary characters, giving plenty of space between their introductions and deaths, and surprisingly making the deaths meaningful later on. The ending manages to make Midnight's ascension feel more tragic than triumphant.

Prince of Lies is great. There's a sharp improvement in how it utilizes POV and weaves a complex story. It might even work as a standalone, but I appreciated it more because I already knew the backstory and characters. There are multiple storylines satisfyingly coming together; all of the new POV characters hold up to the originals; the prose is good; the dialogue is engaging; everything about Cyric is appropriately unsettling and he largely manages to not feel like a cartoon villain. I've already mentioned how I enjoyed Mystra's ominous idealistic arc in this book and I was surprised by how invested I was in the other gods, especially Torm, Oghma, and Mask. The only things I actively dislike are the casual fatphobia throughout and the conclusion of Mask’s role. Now that I think about it, Cyric's arc throughout the whole series and Mask's involvement would've been better if we ever, ever acknowledged that in PoL Mask was basically Cyric's lover (non-physical) (fake cursed sword) for ten years. like what was up with that. hello

I spoiled myself for over half of Crucible because I was getting fatigue from this series fsdoufsdifas. I was hesitant about the start, because it seemed so different from Prince of Lies, but it quickly won me over with the unreliable narrator and scope. At its best, it’s the exact kind of artsy metaphysical fuckery I love from The Elder Scrolls. Cyric genuinely believed in the propaganda version of himself, subtly recontextualizing everything he does until the end! He does a freaky heart swap with his tragicomedic best follower ever! He drinks his not-exes' breakup tears transubstantiated into their last pieces of humanity!

The trial plot is clever, but it stumbles with Mask's involvement - disappointing, because he was a fun character for most of PoL, but he keeps tripping over his own plans and doesn't have meaningful enough connections to the main characters. Overall, though, I love it. It explores why a good person would be a bad god, demonstrating exactly how it disrupts 'balance' instead of leaving it as a vague abstract concept. The ending is brutal, without violence or death or straightforward fates worse than death. It's theological horror, something similar but distinct from eldritch or psychological. It upends the earlier high fantasy and B-plot romance to tell a bonkers story where the biggest betrayals come from within. For all of Cyric's gore and insanity, it's also horrifying to watch Kelemvor systematically closing himself off (even if it's for the greater good), and to see Mystra trying her hardest to be a 'good' god but having her compassion warped through her power and responsibilities.

The thing is, Crucible wouldn't hit as hard without the previous books, including the first two. Midnight and Kelemvor frequently clashed over morality as vulnerable, desperate humans. They developed and matured as people, but it comes full circle as gods. Their friendships with Adon demonstrate how far they come and what they've lost by the end. More controversially, I think I had so much fun partially because the first two books were janky and the third was only kinda good. It was fun seeing the quality go from mediocre generic sword and sorcery pulp to occasionally poetic and absolutely bonkers. On an unintentional metatexual level, it reflects how the characters and their world changed for the better - so the emotional bus crash at the end of Crucible felt more tragic and earned. If the series had been obviously good from the start, it would have to maintain that quality, and the last book would have to work harder to land.

tl;dr i love divorce and that "truly great TV is 200 episodes and 40 of them are the worst you've ever seen" post is onto something

[monochromatictoad]

Top 5 characters from the LoS series :)

And, as an extra challenge, top 5 characters from the main games!

LoS!

5. Raisa Volkova

I love her. I love her concept and how she goes about her ways in the game. She misleads both Gabriel and Zobek from figuring out she's Satan's daughter, until the Demon Virus is already spread amongst the city! She led them into wasting one of the cures on her! My only issue with her, is that her brothers don't get nearly as much screentime as she does, making them not as developed as she is. Still a good villain though!

4. The Toymaker

Funny old man, who deserves way more than he got. His story is well thought out, and is actually a fun puzzle! You get more lore on the world through his story in LoS2 and LoS:MoF. His puppets are fun to fight in MoF, and the boss fight in LoS2 is so chaotic and fun! He kinda gives me Eggman vibes from his boss fight! Also, they used the Wallman from OoE as a basis for him!

3. Marie Belmont

The her!!! I wish she had more influence in LoS2, but she's so good!! In LoS1, there is a scene where Laura electrocutes Gabriel, and Gabriel almost gives up right then and there, but Marie holds him through it and reassures him, giving him the strength to keep going. Then in the end, when Zobek kills Gabriel, Marie stands over him, guarding him from the restless souls of those who were trapped because of Satan. And the whole 'I know who you are' scene in LoS2? 😭

2. Laura

This poor girl has gone through it. She deserves a break. A kidnapped child, forced into easily a couple centuries of Vampirism by her 'Mother'. She blocked out memories of her human life, only for them to come back by the display of Marie and Gabriel. You even get to play as her in the DLC! She's capable, but still clearly a child who just wants a family and security. Ya'know.... Something all children should have.

1. Gabriel Belmont

My man. Someone please let this man have a yearlong break and nap. Orphaned boy, who only wanted to live by God and have a family. Who then got betrayed by his 'family' at the Brotherhood, and turned into a monster. In MoF, He is unapologetically evil, but in a sense of like, I'm getting justice from everything you've done to me. Which is why he destroys the village his son had been sent from, which resulted in Sypha's death and Simon's adoption by the Mountain Village. Of course it's toned down in LoS2, but he still eats a family as his first meal, but this time, you see him look ashamed of what he did. He gets his redemption, and he has earned a break with his family.

Main Games

5. Shanoa

Honestly, the whole, 'Raised as a weapon' trope really gets to me. I like her premise, she has a nice design, and she feels and looks natural to the plot of Castlevania. She's a badass, without being a jackass. Also, her and og!Laura are so cute together.

4. Yoko

I love her, even though, much like Shanoa, I don't know much about her. I adore how she seems respectful of Mina and Soma. I've also seen some fandom stuff of her basically adopting Soma as her younger brother, and I love that so much.

3. Simon

My gosh this man needs a nap too. Regardless of what universe he's in, I love his character. He seems like a stoic, yet good man. A heart of gold kinda guy.

2. Isaac

My kinda villain. Absolutely bonkers crazy. I love his unhinged nature, and the 'what ifs' about him. I love the toxicity he exudes, and I love his arrogance. I love him so much.

1. Sara

Underrated and underutilized. She has so much potential in the games from her introduction forward, but they never really go anywhere with it. How cool would it have been for Julius to be talking with Sara, and her helping him relearn who he is? How cool would it have been to have Sara teaching the new Belmonts how to use the VK? Maybe even giving them tips for combos and special moves?

[beloveddawn-blog]

Spin and Ply Ch 3

Summary:

Spinning creates the qualities and strength of yarn, but it will always be full of twists and knots and need to be carefully managed unless it is plied. It’s softness cannot be felt unless it’s allowed to gently unwind against its complimentary strand.

Emmerich has feelings about being both Different and supposably Perfect.

Fandom: The Saga of Emmerich Holyblade & Corvirus Magidark

“Okay, so we definitely underestimated that battle.” Emmerich admitted, pacing at the edge of camp while his energy was still high. He knew he’d be asleep in minutes once he finally calmed down, but he wasn’t ready for that yet. The guilt wasn’t ready for that yet.

“You underestimated it.” Corvi replied, sitting against a tree and rummaging through his pack. “I said taking on a group of bandits was a stupid idea with just the two of us. We should have brought those guardsmen.”

“I don’t trust their Captain.” Emmerich admitted, speeding up. “He has a foul feel to him that goes deep.”

Corvi looked up then, pinning Emmerich in place with the intensity of his gaze. He didn’t usually meet people’s eyes if he could avoid it, so Emmerich always knew when he did he was about to say something he deemed worth the effort. “That doesn’t always matter. No one we meet is really going to be up to your level of righteousness, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a purpose or aren’t useful. They’d have helped us with the bandits, him being a bully is a different problem.”

Emmerich sighed as Corvi went back to digging in his bag. “Why do you always have to be right all the time?” He asked, exasperated more with himself than with his friend.

“If you read more you’d know more, Farm Boy.” Corvi replied smugly. “Pick up a history book sometime, it’ll be good for you.”

Emmri dropped down beside Corvi just as he made a satisfied noise and pulled out a bag and… the drop spindle Emmri had made him over a decade ago.

“You still have that?” He asked, surprised. He’d known Corvi had used it consistently back home, but… “You only have so much space for things and you brought that?”

Corvi sniffed dismissively and handed Emmri the bag. “Make yourself useful and feed me roving. A career change doesn’t mean I’m suddenly fine with being idle.”

“That’s true.” He replied, smiling as he saw the familiar sight of the spindle turning. It didn’t help him the way it did Corvi, but there was still comfort to be found in it. In proof that Corvi was here, whole and well. In a little piece of home, of the safety that it had provided. In the knowledge that he could do some things right, even if he needed a little help at times. “I could make you a better one, you know. One that doesn’t wobble so much.”

“Don’t you fucking dare.” Corvi replied, gentleness underlying the snarl of the words. “I’ll have to relearn everything if it doesn’t have a wobble. How will I keep count of the twists then?”

Emmri laughed. “You’re not supposed to count the twists.” He replied. “It’s about the tension.”

“You say that, and yet your spinning is shit.” Corvi replied, laughing slightly himself. “You’re too impatient for making fine yarn, and too picky about your materials to get anything done with the resources we have. So I’m going to continue counting and basing my work off of evidence, and you can keep talking about tension and basing your work off of idealized gut feelings, and we’ll see which of us has a nice pair of warm socks for winter.”

Emmerich let him have the win, instead focussing on separating out the squished roving into the right position for Corvi to draw from. He knew the answer to that already. They would both have warm socks, entirely due to Corvi’s diligence. His strengths lay elsewhere, but he could always count on Corvi to be next to him, complaining and fussing but always ready to hand him whatever it was he needed but forgot. Even his common sense.

[asscrackcreed]

let’s discuss - shit the fandoms wrong about

altaïr pre character development - this guy is a COMPLETE asshole he was a DICK he thought about himself only and al mualim teaching everyone that emotions like love made u weak made him learn the wrong way to act and behave

but ppl just tend to stop at that which is WROOONG this guy might be an asshole but he is emotionally very vulnerable and that’s what made him difficult because he couldn’t process his emotions correctly i mean he was very stoic and u could say that was due to the time of how games were made but see how he never audibly grieved ? basically yeah sure he was rude af but that was because he didn’t know what to do with sad feelings - he just processed it all into aggression

altaïr post character development - he became really wise and loving true and i haven’t read any of the books so correct me if i’m wrong but i feel like he would’ve made hella mistakes as a parent, i.e getting angry often, patience running thin often, raising his voice, learning how to empathise with his sons lmk if it’s specifically stated anywhere where he was a gentle parent but imho i feel like he had to relearn controlling his emotions and i don’t think he was a perfect parent at all

malik - how many times did he call altaïr a novice? once? twice? it’s cute but some of u are overusing it in fanfics that’s eNOUGH SLICES… also he’s not grumpy all the time, he was just angry at altaïr i mean tbf we only ever saw malik interact with altaïr tbf but he did also have a wife and kids and altaïr did accidently end up indirectly killing kadar so… imo he was not grumpy with everyone, maybe a little, but after his brothers death he’d be more reserved and quiet however i don’t think hes legit always super grumpy and angry

ezio - every fanfic he’s throwing a party. stop. just STOP. ezios been one of the most hard working assassins in the series hes not constantly throwin parties if we’re talking about young ezio then it works otherwise he’s probably building a career in a modern au or smth. he fell under the ‘one aspect in the media and we’re gonna run with it for his whole personality’ category

connor - i don’t think connors the most sensible person ever. i think he’s a little selfish, not in the sense that he’d let any harm come to his loved ones but he’s always been straight forward about what he wants (which is always with good intention). he doesn’t need to always be the most sensible and logical 24/7 guy. also i think he’s a little clumsy just a bit ik he was more clumsy as a kid but i like to hc he still kinda is as an adult. the connor is always looking for charles lee jokes are not that funny anymore btw…😭 he’s not your soft uwu brown beat this man is snarky and rude when he wants to be remember he IS a kenway…

edward - he has to be one of the most emotional ppl in the series. he’s always shouting and upset about smth and the fact that he married at like 19…? yeah he’s a bit of alcoholic and likes to have fun but he’s also true to his emotions and i wanna see him be more vulnerable

arno - before i played unity i thought this guy was emotional and stuff but after de la serres death he became a lot more stoic. and work oriented. he reminds me of connor tbh because they were much happier younger and both were hardened by deaths and what the templars did. he’s still a major simp i think but idk why i personally feel like it’s infatuation and elise would never have given him the love he wanted

arno before de la serres death - HES SO CHARMING? hello no one ever talks about this arno he’s so upbeat and funny and sarcastic please whyyyyyyy do we make ezio a whore and not arno like come on

evie - i’ve said it before i’ll say it again yall fuckers NEED to STOOOOOPPPP making her a goody two shoes she wasn’t ‘doing the good thing’ all the time if it wasn’t for the rooks shit would’ve been harder, basically jacob was right to make the rooks cuz u end up taking over areas and reducing resistance and gaining power making it easier to take down crowley with less repercussions in society and she was kinda wrong for making jacob feel dumb sometimes when she was so hard on him for not basically doing what she wanted

jacob - idk if i made evie sound like a villain and ofc jacobs weakness is doing what he wants but he’s still smart he would not be working with evie or fighting alongside her OR assigned work WITH her if he was dumb frfr hes HAS to be academically AND street smart that’s how he knew making the rooks was a good decision. what evie lacks he has and i don’t like when jacob is a COMPLETE idiot. hes dumb sure but he needs more credit than some of u give him. i do also sometimes use that take but he’s one of the more popular assassins because he’s so different to everyone else. hes not serious but that doesn’t make him a total dumbass

bayek - i haven’t played origins so this is a harder one but he seems a lot happier than we make him out to be and yes he seems to be the responsible father but i also feel like he can be kinda goofy sometimes idk like when he’s serious he can be completely terrifying but otherwise he’s extremely sweet

kass/alex: another person who’s very emotional i think they cry like everyday genuinely they are what ppl make jacob out to be

des - i feel like hes bummy af like this guy doesn’t wash his hands as much as he should…

[aurelialux83]

I agree that people are unfair and often ridiculous when it comes to Marius, but if you say that they are deliberately undermining canon when they choose to ignore the importance of Marius and Daniel’s relationship (which is clearly important for both characters), then I think you might be falling into the same trap when you say that Daniel didn’t leave Marius or that they didn’t “break up” when the text makes a very important point and is explicit about Marius having “lost” Daniel to Armand (the word Anne used) and him being in anguish about it. He lost his companion, someone he’d loved and looked after with a purpose in mind, and he lost him to Armand. And it affected Marius greatly. It said a lot about Marius as a character re: how not having Daniel’s companionship anymore altered his sense of purpose. That was what the whole passage was about. And I think ignoring that or choosing to see that specific plot point as Daniel just wanting to pay Armand a visit is also undermining canon and Marius’ ongoing character development. And Daniel’s too as him finally getting to make a Big Choice like that one after what he went through was clearly significant for him, and while it clearly doesn’t mean that he’ll never see Marius again, Daniel chose to go back to Armand/stay at Trinity Gate out of his own free will after two decades of him not being able to be in the right headspace to do so. And I obviously say this as a huge Marius fan who has honestly had it with the treatment he receives from the fandom x

Surely Daniel made a choice in returning to Armand. I'm not arguing about this and I don't want to belittle anyone's feelings. And I don't mean to disrespect anyone either. I apologize if I let anyone think I don't respect ship Armand/Daniel. "Lost" as you said is a strong word and it certainly carries a lot of meaning with it. However, we only know Marius' anguish, because he is suddenly deprived of something that he loves and has cared for for so long. Sound familiar? Should: Akasha. Marius is anxious yes, for Daniel, of course, but also because he sees a reflection in what is happening to him. However, we don't actually know anything from Daniel. I honestly think, seeing the end of Blood Communion, Anne wanted that free space, to put Armand back into it. We can talk endlessly about how it went between Marius and Armand. But as a writer you don't let the main character say: "He needs you" or an introverted character like Marius: "His heart is no longer closed against me." And you don't write a whole chapter of excruciating torture and the fear that you can't hold back from suicide, when you think you've lost someone forever. So Armand went back to the castle, without Daniel, and all of this happened, and he was forced to face centuries of love and suffering. I think the @the-apostates-martyr wrote a wonderful thing about this:

" how Armand and Marius healing isn't all about Armand finding autonomy and being on his own it's about relearning to surrender to Marius as Master the way he was made for in the blood and has wanted all along but been too proud and afraid to take again."

So in the end a lot is left open, also because Daniel doesn't appear anymore. And the last book focuses on the relationship between Marius and Armand. It may have been a moment when he returned to Armand, as it may be that in the end Marius, Armand and Daniel, they found their way to stay together.

[feralcherry]

Naruto takes that might enrage you (girl addition)

Warning, some of these takes might enrage you- that’s fine.

Fillers don’t count as canon, don’t even bring them up if you talk about this post lol. Also it’s been a while since I’ve seen the whole series, so some of these might be disproven as I continue with my rewatch. The excuse that Shounen is for boys is also very weak and holds no weight, as tons of girls (and nonbinary folk) relate to the characters in this show, so that doesn’t excuse Kishimoto for his weak writing of women.

To preface, I love this show. Love it to pieces. It was part of my childhood and holds a very special place in my heart. But there are some things I personally don’t like or wish could have been done better. I love every character and will go blue in the face talking about how much I still love this show. That doesn’t free it from my criticism. I’m also only listing what I don’t like and what I would change, though I’d be more than happy making a post about what I loved.

Let’s start off with my girl Sakura Haruno. She is easily the most hated girl in the series, and all because of how ‘weak’ or ‘annoying’ she is. As if that’s not the fault of Kishimoto himself lol. She was shoved off to the side continuously and never given cool storylines, unlike the other members of her team.

What I took issue with about Sakura:

-What were this girls dreams?? The whole reason she became a ninja was never really talked about nor were they really developed as time went on. She was all about Sasuke, which would be fine if she grew out of it. But no. 

-Her crush on Sasuke was super stale. He was handsome and powerful, but what else was there to him? He was a jerk to her most of the time (there are some instances he’s somewhat kind to her, but if we go off canon, it’s not enough to make her deep love make sense). I think it would have been so much more interesting to see her grow out of her infatuation for him. If they had to have ended up together, watching them relearn each other and fall in love would have made them more compelling. She stayed loving a boy who thought very little of her. 

-She’s pitted against her best friend and doesn’t develop much of a relationship with other girls her age. It’s kind of sad, and I think they should have fought over something other than a boy. 

-We are told repeatedly that she’s super powerful by other characters, but she’s never given time to truly shine. She got like a single battle with Sasori and she deserved more cool moments like that!

-She was a healer, which makes perfect sense. But why is it mostly girls who are the healers? It’s a bit weird, when there’s also Neji with his perfect chakra control. She only has her healing abilities and her super strength; but even then someone like Kabuto has more offensive healing based techniques than her. Like his chakra scalpel. 

What I would fix:

-New dreams. Show her find a dream outside of her team and grow into it. Also give her more of a backstory. Sai has more of a backstory than she does and he’s way newer than she is.

-I would let her fuck up one of the Peins instead of Konohomaru- she’s a main character and passed over for that little brat?? She should have gotten to do more than scream out for Naruto and heal people :/ 

-She her intellect a bit more. She’s so smart, and yet we don’t really see it.

-She’s perfect for genjutsu, Kakashi himself said so. So why not give that to her? Or play more with ninjutsu. She has earth and water on her chart, so why not give her those abilities? Maybe even wood jutsu to even her out with her super OP teammates. Idk how, it could have happened, this is a show full of demons and god like abilities, it could have happened someway.

-She should have grown out of Sasuke and not married a man who doesn’t really appreciate her and isn’t there for her at all.

-I would totally have expanded on Inner Sakura more. Imagine if it made her mind impenetrable? Could have woven that in with her skills for genjutsu and made her unaffected by other’s illusions.

Next, let’s go with a more beloved character of the fandom. Hinata. Now personally I don’t care much for her- she could have been so cool but just like Sakura, they kind of messed her up.

What I didn’t like about Hinata:

-Her entire existence is revolves around Naruto. Naruto this, Naruto that- and yet she simply sat back and watched as his life was shit and did nothing despite her ‘love’ for him. And then fillers/movies are added to show that oh wait! she’s been there this entire time!! no lol. Build her up from the start as his love interest at the very least.

-She stayed super meek the entire time. Shy girls are okay, but I wanted to see her grow into herself more and not need as much reassurance. She’s a ninja and should stand on her own two feet more.

-She’s less skilled then Neji and I would have loved to see her outmatch him at some point, even once. Or gain abilities outside of her clan, or do something that made a name for herself outside of being the heiress of the Hyuga.

-She never fixed her clan which was one of her few spoken goals. That was a huge bummer.

-I think it would have been cool to see her mess up Pein a little more. She only stepped in because it was Naruto, which reinforces that she’s only about him. But at least let her land a hit if she’s as powerful as people say she is. 

-She makes the most sense to be a housewife or a healer with the way her attitude is but in Boruto, she’s kind of rewritten to be a ‘scary’ mother which just doesn’t fit her. Plus, she tells Boruto to go and take care of his dad?? Bro, that’s your child and your husband is the hokage. 

What I’d fix:

-Prove her dad wrong and show him that her compassion isn’t a weakness but a strength. 

-Fix the Hyuga clan bs.

-More character growth and showing more of her life away from Naruto. Her romance with him could also have been better. I hated her always watching him but never standing up for him, it kills me.

-Neij dying for her proved their clans hierarchy bs to be right and it just doesn’t make sense for him to die for her. It showed that he was right to feel caged and that he simply existed for the benefit of the Main family.

Now with the others, there’s much less I have to say about them because they aren’t main characters or the love interests.

Ino-

-Jealous of Sakura, no dreams of her own, stupidly loves Sasuke and for what? WHAT’S SO COOL ABOUT HIM?

-I like her growth for the most part, it was cool watching her fight in the War Arc with her team. 

-Why is she the medical ninja? I never got that.

-She got with Sai but they didn’t really show their development and how they fell in love with each other. It’s like she only likes him because he looks like Sasuke and called her pretty once.

Tenten-

-Should have gotten to train with Tsunade at some point, since she was the one who originally idolized her. 

-We know nothing about this girl at all. She doesn’t even have a last name.

-Her weapon usage was meant to be so cool and yet she missed so often- there’s a disconnect there. Her abilities could have been built up more. Imagine if no matter what she never ever missed. That would have been cool.

-Her weapon shop isn’t doing well. Just because it’s an era of peace doesn’t mean the need for weapons is totally over, not if there are still active ninja??

Karin-

-I actually like her, she’s kind of funny and I like that she’s mean even if she can get annoying.

-Again, another healer, though she’s also sensory which is more interesting. I’d like to see her with some jutsus though. That would have been neat.

-Her love for Sasuke makes sense since he saved her and smiled at her, making her think of him as her hero. And she’s the only one he apologizes to without Naruto strong arming him into it.

Temari-

-She’s pretty solid in my opinion. Though I would have loved to see her more without her brothers.

Konan-

-Her goals in life were to support Yahiko and Nagito’s dreams. It would irritate me so much if other girls in the series were more well rounded and din’t also have some sort of dream involving a boy.

-She was underused. I would have loved to see her fight more.

Tsunade-

-Only becomes hokage to support others dreams...All of them men. And then later passes the title onto Kakashi who doesn’t even want to be Hokage either. 

-No other justus used, she’s on par with Jiraya and Orochimaru and yet she’s only super strong and the best medic. She should theoretically be more well rounded than that, right? She also should be shown fighting more even if she’s a medic, she’s also s legendary sannin 

-Had to be saved by 12 year old Naruto. I know it’s a show about him, but she’s meant to be a literal badass but needs a kid to save her.

Kushina-

-Wanted to become the first woman hokage and then didn’t. Her husband did. and then she became a housewife?? What?? She should have become the first woman hokage with a badass husband or had another prominent role in the village like as a council member or something.

Kurenai-

-Always lost a fight? She’s some genjutsu using badass but always lost fights.

-No real personality, she’s just chilling there. Sexy as hell though. Has a kid and that’s about it.

-What I will give her is that I’m so glad she was allowed to age. So many anime mothers always look the same as their teenage self and she looks like she can be anybody's mama.

Over all, the girls could have been handled much better. I wouldn’t find issues with any of them being housewives or all about boys if that weren’t what seems to be the standard in the anime. I just wanted more of a variety and better character development, especially for Sakura and Hinata who are the mains 😩

Now to what might REALLY piss people off- ships! I’m not trying to start some war here, this is just my opinion and you can take it or leave it.

Sakura- Naruto, since they had the most development and showed more than two seconds of caring for each other. Even Sai in Shippuden has more of a connection to Sakura than Sasuke did.

Ino-Shikamaru, if she had to end up with a guy it makes sense it’d be him since they spend more time together than her and Sai did. (inosaku for the win tho)

Hinata-Shino or Kiba, again, because they spent more time with her. Naruto and her felt very rushed and I don’t quite understand the appeal.

The one that made the most sense and became canon was Shikatem, though their son’s design was lazy :D 

If I do a second part, it’ll be about the boys and the ships with them that made sense to me. For now, this is all I have. If you’ve made it this far, thank you lol

byeee

[riding-with-the-wild-hunt]

Day 1 of Fëanorian Week: Maedhros and Medicine

Hello, my lovelies! I hope you are all having the most amazing Monday. Anyways, it's my first Fëanorian Week as an active creator in the Silm fandom (cue confetti and balloons), and I'm trying my best to participate in (hopefully) every day! Wish me luck, friends!

Anyways, I thought I'd start out with some Maedhros-themed meta. I chose to work with the prompts "torture," and "adjustment/coping." Many thanks to @feanorianweek for all their hard work on this. You all are awesome!!

(TW for discussion of: torture, medical procedures, severe injuries, general body stuff)

Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor or a nurse and I haven't extensively studied medicine. I'm just into speculative biology and speculative medicine (pretty much speculative anything, tbh), and I wanted to write about this. I invite all you wonderful medical professionals out there to add on if you care to. Just be kind, please, okay? :)

Now, on to the meta!

Most everyone knows about Maedhros' capture by Morgoth. There's a lot of writing on the subject, and on the subsequent topic of his recovery (the ever-so-lovely @outofangband has many resources on both of these things if you want to check their work out).

Maedhros is tortured for approximately 30 years before Fingon rescues him. Think about that for a minute. 30 years. To put that in perspective, that's more than double my entire lifetime. It's slightly under half of my father's.

I'm going to guess that the amount of time Maedhros spent hanging on Thangorodrim is much longer than the amount he spent in Angband itself, simply because he's more useful as a visible trophy/symbol than hidden away in a cell somewhere. This is definitely speculation, but for the purposes of this, I'm going to say he spent 8-12 years in Angband and 18-22 years on Thangorodrim.

Now, we know that Morgoth is an, er, less-than-courteous host. Maedhros probably would've been beaten, starved, burned, experimented on, assaulted, maimed, poisoned, and otherwise harmed in all sorts of ways before he ever gets on Thangorodrim.

And then there's the matter of those 18-22 years he spent hanging from a mountain, suffering respiratory damage from the polluted air and the hanging, starvation, thirst, extreme damage to his bones, muscles, and tendons, hypothermia, potential animal attacks or parasites, infection of previous wounds, sleep deprivation, and, well, you can imagine the rest.

(And this doesn't even include the psychological consequences. We'll get to that later.)

But anyways. He gets rescued. What then? I highly doubt that any elf had actually returned from Angband before, so....do the doctors know how to handle Maedhros' injuries? They've probably seen missing limbs, broken bones, stab/slash wounds, etc. from battle, but what about a partially collapsed/stretched diaphragm (yes, this happens if you are hanging from your hands/arms for a long period of time), or extreme blunt force trauma, or internal bleeding, or repeatedly opened and probably gangrenous wounds, to name a few?

Unless there's a REALLY dark side to the Valar that we don't know about, elven medical professionals wouldn't have had to deal with these things in Valinor, and probably not even on the Helcaraxë. Which leads me to believe that most, if not all, of the healing techniques used on Maedhros were experimental, purely theoretical, or the highly respected Fëanorian method of"guess we'll wing it."

This means that Maedhros probably never healed right in a lot of places. Even if elves have different physiognomy than humans, his immune system and his capability for recovery were both probably compromised from extreme strain. Chances are, Maedhros wouldn't have been able to walk for years after his return. He would've had to relearn a lot more than just how to write and fight with the other hand. And even if he managed to get close to how he'd been before, he would never have been the same physically, and he would've been constantly pushing through fluctuating levels of pain. For the rest of his life. For thousands of years.

Oh, and he probably would've needed to relearn how to talk to a degree. During the mountain years, he probably would've created a whole new vocabulary of words for things that weren't connected to his former linguistic knowledge. At the beginning of his recovery, it's possible that most of his speech would've sounded like babble to everyone else, even if it made perfect sense to him.

And then there's the psychological and neurological effects! PTSD, severe anxiety, suicidal ideation, chronic depression, selective mutism, extreme dissociation, eating disorders, hallucinations, paranoia, phantom pains, no/low self-worth, memory loss--these are just a few things that can come out of having been tortured.

All of this leaves me with a lot of questions: did elves have physical therapy? Did they understand nerve damage? Would their surgical techniques have been helpful to Maedhros? Were they aware of the extent of his injuries? How good were their painkillers and antibiotics? Did they even have those? Were new procedures developed because of Maedhros? Did he, as king and after, advocate for better medical understanding of torture survivors, or write about his experiences to help others? Did he spend time with recovering elves? Did he have to hide his pain because ableist views were widespread? Did he use mobility aids? Did he have nonverbal episodes? Did he always have lingering respiratory/lung problems? Was he really sensitive to light (hint hint: ask me about my eye headcanons)? Did he ever forget who people around him were, or become disoriented and afraid?

Whatever the answers here may be (and there are many, many possible theories) my conclusion remains the same: it was an absolute miracle that Maedhros survived--and not only survived, but continued on to be a ruler, an accomplished diplomat, an incredible soldier, a caretaker, an ambassador, and so much more, all while persevering against physical and emotional pain and probably facing ableism.

And probably most people never even realized just how strong he was.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this big honker of a piece and/or learned something. I'm glad I got to write about this, because Maedhros matters a lot to me. Like, a lot a lot.

May the Valar smile on the rest of Fëanorian Week! I look forward to appreciating all of your wonderful creations and commentary. 😘

[kinetic-elaboration]

100 Days of Writing: Day Sixty-Three

I decided to catch up on The 100 Days of Writing and then I... accidentally wrote a large number of words. In my defense, this is like 2 weeks’ worth of questions. Also I skipped the ones I didn’t have anything to say about so actually this could be worse.

(I’m not even kidding, this is really long. I talk about writing rituals, tools for plotting, my thoughts on opening with dialogue and why I don’t like it, my favorite topics, the weather, and what length of fic I like to write.)

I’m tagging, and apologizing to, @the-wip-project and fellow participants @she-who-the-river-could-not-hold, @thelittlefanpire, @hopskipaway, @easilydistractedbyfanfic, @dylanobrienisbatman, and @fontainebleau22.

*

Day 49: How do you get yourself in the mood to write? Do you have a ritual?

Every time I tell myself I’m going to get back into doing these questions, I see this one in my bookmarks and go nope! and turn around. It’s not a hard question; I’ve just been having trouble consistently getting into the mood to write, so I feel like any answer I try to give to it will be, in some sense, a lie. Like do I ever get “in the mood” to write? Really?? Also, I feel like I’m relying too much on ‘ritual,’ building up ‘the perfect writing situation’ in my head, which at the end of the day is less important than just saying ‘I’m going to do this now’ and then doing it.

I do have some things I always do when I sit down to a writing session. I write on my couch. Almost always (unless I’m on an event deadline where I just have to write in bits and pieces whenever possible), I write in sprints—I use write or die to keep me actually typing and not staring into space. I write in order, and I often write a whole scene at a time. So before I start I need to have at least a couple solid opening sentences in mind, plus some kind of idea about what happens/needs to happen in the scene. In order to get in the right headspace, I usually spend some time just thinking before I actually get to writing. I reread my outline or notes, and skim whatever I might have already written on the project. Sometimes I look at images that help me get in the right mood. Sometimes I just imagine or daydream for a bit. The difficulty, especially recently, is in making sure I do this just enough and not too much, because then I get too caught up in my head and I can no longer translate what I’m seeing into words.

In a broader sense, I also have a building up to writing ritual—again, I think this is part of my problem, that I don’t know how to balance this build up with actual writing. In the hours/days before writing something, I turn it over in my head a lot. I practice different versions of those critical opening sentences. I play it out like a fantasy just to see if there’s a possible flow, even if the final version is different. Basically, I try to turn it into something that just needs to be written, that just needs to get out. But again—this can lead to overthinking and frustration.

The best way I can describe writing for me is that, when it goes well, I find a rhythm, or enter into a zone, where I can describe the images in my head in a way that’s both accurate and pleasant to read. But entering that zone or finding that rhythm is like jumping into a game of jump rope. If you don’t do it right, you’re just going to trip over your feet and get tangled in the rope. But if you do it correctly, it’s fun and exhilarating and you can keep jumping for a long time. Sometimes it takes me some false starts to jump in. And recently I’ve been having days where I just can’t at all, where I tangle the rope up so much I can’t unknot it. Those are the days I just have the same sentences repeating over and over in my head, sounding wrong, and I can’t do anything about it. On the other hand, I write in much longer sprints than I did a couple years ago. I used to only write partial scenes, maybe a few hundred words. Now I can write whole scenes without stopping, and on a few occasions, I’ve written multiple scenes or even whole stories without stopping. So in other words, when it works,  it really works. But it doesn’t always, and there’s not a lot of in between.

*

Day 50 What fic/story made you?

Um… honestly I’ve been writing, in general and fic specifically, for such a long time that I didn’t have a ‘maybe I can do this’ moment. I mean one problem I’ve never had is thinking I can’t do this. I had positive reinforcement for my school and academic writing, and for a long time my fictional stories were just for me, and I knew what I liked. Even just thinking about my fic writing… I’ve been posting fic online since 2006, and I’ve been in multiple fandoms. I don’t really have much connection to a lot of those early stories anymore. They feel like they were written by someone else, a little. I’ve also moved on from most of the fandoms I wrote for in my early fic days so I don’t feel like I can really judge them anymore.

That said… there is kinda an obvious answer for my Star Trek fic lol. I also have favorite stories, and stories that stick out even years after I wrote them, in all (or at least most) of the fandoms I’ve been in. But I’m not sure if that’s the same.

Also, I had two teachers who were really encouraging of me and who I still think about often. One was my seventh grade English teacher, who had us do a lot of writing exercises of various types, both large and small, including keeping writing journals we wrote in every day at the start of class. He once told my mom that I wrote well, not for a seventh grader, but in general, and to be honest I still think of that with some regularity and take a lot of pride and comfort in it. The other was my creative writing professor in college. I don’t think I did my best work for that class, but she was very encouraging and seemed to like what I did. At the end of the semester, as I was preparing my portfolio, she told me that if I didn’t want to do much editing, I didn’t have to, because my unedited work would stand on its own. Again, especially considering all the problems that I saw with my writing for that class even then, I really took that comment to heart. When I’m feeling very self-critical, I remind myself that even my raw scribblings have, perhaps, something to them, and it helps ease the excessive and unwarranted pressure I put on myself. These aren’t really stories about specific writing pieces that ‘made’ me but I do think they speak to that ‘maybe I can do this’ feeling.

*

Day 51: Do you use tools for plotting and what are they?

So, generally, no. Sometimes I’ll look at various writing/plotting/organizational tools as a method of distraction, but my actual process is very simple. I use plain old notebooks and pens, and word documents on my computer, to plan all my fics, from the one-shots to the multi-chapters. I start by writing down general thoughts and brainstorming, then I build a scene list and/or outline, and then, if necessary, I separate the scenes lists into chapters. Sometimes I break down the scenes even more, if I have additional ideas I don’t wan to forget or if I know I need to hit certain points in a specific scene. The process varies a little bit from project to project, but that’s basically all I do.

I did use Evernote to plan the (still unwritten….) Ark AU. I don’t know if that was the best program choice or if something else exists that would have more precisely met my needs. But that’s what I used and that’s how it is. It’s a little annoying that every time I open it, it’s been updated, and the interface looks totally different and I have to relearn where everything is. But the tagging system has worked decently to allow me to see the big picture of this complex, multi-strand, multi-character, multi-ship disaster epic of a story. I struggled to plot it for a long time because I didn’t know how to balance all of the different parts. In Evernote, I made one ‘note’ for each character, and one for each scene (in addition to miscellaneous notes about sub plots, relationships, questions, etc.). Then I tagged each of them, including tagging the scenes by chapter. So now I can look at a list of all the characters, or all the scenes, or all of the scenes in chapter 8, or whatever, but I can also look at just one particular note at a time, and not be distracted by anything else. That said, I do also have one note that is just a total scene list for the whole fic, which is pretty reminiscent of my usual outlining process.

So… somehow this helped me plot (tentatively) the whole thing, but as I’ve written almost none of it—I finished outlining this in February 2020 so in my defense… I think you can see why it stalled—I’m not yet sure if it was a successful experiment in a ‘plotting tool.’

*

Day 60: How do you start your chapters? Do you start with dialogue? Why or why not?

While I am definitely against prescriptive “writing rues” generally, as my own personal rule, I try not to start with dialogue unless I have a very good reason.

To be quite honest, I think it’s lazy. I do think that dialogue openings can be used well, if the writer acknowledges that they are intensely stylistic and, from a reader’s perspective, quite difficult. Even within fanfiction, where a line of dialogue (especially if accompanied by a dialogue tag or swiftly followed by a reference to the speaker) gives a lot more information to the reader than in original fiction, opening with dialogue still shoves the reader directly into the deep end of the scene, with very little to orient her. WHERE is the speaker? WHO is being addressed in the dialogue? WHAT is the context of the conversation? Who ELSE might be present in the scene?

There are reasons you might want to throw the reader in the aforementioned deep-end. Maybe it’s an in media res situation and you want to emphasize the overwhelming nature of the action—starting a scene with “Get down!” for example. Or maybe the overall mood is one of disorientation or floating or uncertainty, and you want to create the same effect in the reader.

But I think if you’re starting a scene with dialogue because that’s the first thing that comes to mind for you—the person who conveniently already has the setting, character list, and even future plot already in mind—and it’s just simplest and easiest to start that way, you’re doing a disservice to the reader.

For example, I actually am planning to start the next chapter of the Sleeping Beauty AU with dialogue. My POV character is in a room with multiple other characters, and she’s examining something meaningful to her and not fully listening to the conversation around her. So I want the dialogue to float around in the background, to feel unmoored, and to stand in contrast to the very precise, detailed thoughts and memories that she’s experiencing, which are grounded in physical sensations like touch.

I haven’t quite gotten it to work yet, though, in part because opening with dialogue and doing it well is, in my opinion, quite hard. The difficulty lies in alleviating the challenges the reader is experiencing and making the text fluid and easy to picture. You need to get all of that scene-setting information—the who, what, when, where, and why—in very quickly, but without being jarring. In this scene in particular, I have multiple characters, all in a comparatively unusual location, and I need to establish where they are, who exactly is there, how they’ve come to meet my POV character (which happens ‘off screen’ between the end of Ch5 and the beginning of Ch6), all on top of the character’s thoughts and feelings.

I know all of this very well. To picture the scene in my own head takes only a moment. I just think about it and I see all seven of the characters, where they’re sitting, how they’re positioned, what their facial expressions are, and I also know roughly what each of them is thinking and feeling. To describe all of this in words would take several sentences. Do I put all those sentences on the front end? Do I weave them in among other description and dialogue? Is all of it even necessary—maybe we don’t need to know who’s sitting in what order on the couch, for example.

I’ve gone over a couple of different ways to do this in my head, and I’m sure it is possible, but I’m struggling to get it all down in a coherent way. (Admittedly, I’ve only made one solid attempt. As I was describing above, I’m probably going to jump in with several false starts, and then it will suddenly click.)

My initial attempt to set up the scene relied heavily on dialogue, but when I read it over, what sounded snappy and interesting in my head just fell completely flat—because it lacked context and thus, any meaning. I think the gulf between how dialogue openings feel to the writer and how they feel to the reader is large. To the writer, they feel easy and natural. To the reader, they can feel forced and, contrary to the writer’s intention, serve as an additional reminder that this is a constructed narrative rather than an immersive experience—the opposite of natural. In other words, as I said, they’re a highly stylized form of writing.

To illustrate, this was my first try at the Chapter 6 intro:

"I still can't believe it," a lightly awed voice says from somewhere behind Clarke. "The Princess of Alpha Station really used to live in our quarters.”

She pictures Miller, sunk into the couch cushions, slowly shaking his head, the expression on his face equal parts satisfied and amused.

"Really? That's what you think is the oddest part of all this?"

"Yeah, Bry, I do. Would you prefer I gloat? About being right this whole time? Who says she's just a legend now?"

My current idea is to still start with dialogue, but to move back into a significant amount of description pretty immediately afterward, and only then add more dialogue. Even this is a little hazy, since I haven’t thought much about this fic in a while. But I do think it’s quite clear this won’t work.

As for how I DO start chapters/scenes/stories… I like to start with a strong image that sets the scene and mood of the story, and hopefully leaves the reader wanting to know more. Here are some examples of story openings I’ve written recently, which I like a lot:

When Bellamy is angered, deafening bouts of thunder shake the heavens.

The cawing of the crows—high, sharp, angry shots of sound. The buzzing of the telephone wires.

Marcus Kane's body shows up again in June, skeletal and rotting, six months after his disappearance at the turn of the year.

The sky has turned a bruised yellow, like the inside of a plum, by the time Bellamy starts seeing the robots in the fields.

At noon on the third-to-last day before Christmas, Murphy leaves the cafe, with a single peppermint mocha and a small paper bag, and heads right, walking parallel to the ocean.

The last one doesn’t seem as interesting but consider: you get the who, what, when, and where, the mystery of the paper bag and where he might be going, and also the immediate understanding that this is probably going to be a Fluffy Beach Christmas story—which is correct, that’s exactly what it is.

I’m not saying that I’m always creative or unique. I often start stories off with descriptions of the weather. And I have committed the ~~cardinal sin~~ of starting with a character waking up, heaven forbid. I don’t have any hard and fast rules for myself other than that I try to avoid dialogue, or at least, be careful about its use (another example: I use dialogue to start off Mad Women—but it reads like narration, until it’s rudely interrupted, a sort of in-joke/reference/twist). I try to match the mood of the story and, as I said, include something that will create a question for the reader, some version of why, that the rest of the story will answer.

*

Day 61: Do you describe the weather? Try changing a scene you wrote by adding weather effects.

After writing a book for the last question, here’s an easy one! Yes, I describe the weather. A lot. Often. In detail.

(Though if we’re talking about the Sleeping Beauty AU as my “current wip,” I actually don’t do much weather describing there, because 4 of the 6 chapters take place in a location with no weather.)

 *

Day 62: What is your favorite thing to write about?

Honestly I like to write about people being dramatic about their emotions. That’s what I’ve discovered while writing my surprisingly self-indulgent Troped fic: I want to describe people acting as if Everything was the Most Ever. It’s fun. Part of this is getting into the usual romantic tropes—longing, pining, exaggerated touches and glances and the like—but why stop at romance when you also have stuff like The Weather and Random Feelings to contemplate?

I also like setting scenes that I find soothing, which is part of why I like Seasonal Stories.

 *

Day 63: Are you more of a drabble/flash or a longfic/novel kind of writer?

I’m in the middle. I mostly write one-shots, and I’ve noticed that a lot of them fall in the 4-6k range. Long one-shots can get all the way to 10-12k but I feel like most of those are, semi-objectively speaking, too long, and would probably have been stronger if they were pruned down to 6k, or, better yet, never made it past 6k in the first place.

I have written some multi-chapters, or, uh, started multi-chapters, but I’m VERY bad at it. The only thing that makes me slightly less bad is being stubborn. Hence the existence of a WIP that I’ve had going for over 10 years now and refuse to call abandoned. Hence this year’s extended angst about the Sleeping Beauty AU, which is only 6 chapters but has taken me literally years to write. I don’t honestly know if I’ve ever finished a multi-chapter WIP, like, properly speaking. I’ve done some short multi-chapters that I wrote as if they were one-shots and then split up for ease of reading or, I dunno, just because. I wrote a Big Bang once, but it’s not very good. Nor very long, if I remember correctly. Generally speaking I probably shouldn’t be allowed to write novels lol—I have a lot of them in my ‘I should write this one day’ idea list—but as it so happens, no one can stop me, so here we are. I definitely have wild fantasies of writing multi-chapters with ease but I’m just a very slow writer and my ideas can’t keep up with my actual-writing. Thus one shots are much easier than multi-chaps, and one-shots on a deadline are much easier than ‘I’ll finish this whenever’ one-shots. One-shots written for events or exchanges also tend to be shorter (and, imo, better) because of the deadlines they’re written on, and are thus more likely to hit that sweet 4-6k spot than stories where I’m allowed to ramble at will.

All that said, I ALSO write a good number of drabbles/writing exercises. I used to write them more often than I do now, but still over the last five years I’ve produced 110,000+ words in free-standing scenes so like… that’s also a thing I guess.

[oneinist]

Recap #3: The month of the BLOCK/SLUMP/RUT 🤣

It’s the time of the month where I look back and ramble, give some shoutouts, ramble some more... Reflecting is such a big word but I suppose it fits. Or maybe this is more like my journal 📗

Ao3/Fanfiction

Soooo, August has been a bit of a peculiar month for me. I miraculousy managed to post one drabble, at least, but my writer’s block is still very present and fucking with me... My head used to overflow with all kinds of smutty ideas and now it is close to blank apart from this one idea (which is a Kaka/Iru/Yama doing the naughty in Iruka’s headmaster’s office with Kakashi and Yamato in Anbu gear - not a word written though, just lives in my head).

So instead I have been indulging in reading fanfiction and it has been wonderful! I am in love with @pinkcatharsis Ever after Tenzou/Iruka, @vulcan-highblood Will You Stay The Night (or will you stay forever)?, A Match Made in... and You Feel Like Home (and i don't know why) - all three are Kakashi/Iruka, as well as @cyhyr Branding Kakashi/Iruka. I didn’t know Ao3 History kept track of how many times I’ve accessed a fic and it looks like I have stalked you cause all of these have about 30 visits each from me. What can I say, I reread XD Anyhow, thank you so so much for sharing your wonderful work~~~ 🍠 🐬 🍆

I’ve also been reading @ao3commentoftheday blog whenever they post and I am rethinking and relearning so much about fandom still. I’d like to think I am opened minded and supportive, but I realized that I am very much influenced by the performance and production oriented society that I live in - especially from my work place... It’s all very well summarized in @mysticmilks post. I think the analogy is spot on 🍪🍪🍪 I know I’ll never get it 100% right all the time myself either, I am just committed to trying and doing what I can.

And another completely random realization I’ve had is that I am going to switch my multi-chapter drabble fic into a series where the drabbles are stand alone. When I started writing just three months ago I felt very insecure about my low word counts and felt as if it would be misleading to treat each drabble as a single piece of work. Now, I would never think like this about another author so I realized I was giving myself a hard time. 

Micro fiction, flash fiction, drabbles are just as much fanfiction as anything else. From a practical stand point too, I realized that the tags would make more sense if the drabbles are separated. Most drabbles are Explicit but some are Teen and Up, again, most are smutty but a few fluffy too - now everything is just blanket explicit and smutty which doesn’t really tell the whole story. 

Tumblr/Fanart

For I while there I could still draw but sadly for my block spread and took that away from me too... ... ... It got so bad that at a point in August I would feel dead inside when I looked at a canvas ☠️ I decided to take a step back from creating all together. 

So I have just gone crazy on the like and reblog train! You all put so much wonderful content out there be it fics or fanart, headcanons, meta discussions or just your personal thoughts on random stuff, and memes - never forget the memes. 

Also I am low key happy panicking over the surge of followers. Like THANK YOU but also all I do is reblog at the moment so even more THANK YOU. I wanted to draw something naughty to celebrate my 69th follower and maybe I still will, just very much after the fact 😅 Currently closing in on a 100 and I am just flabbergasted. 

In August I was thinking that this would be my last monthly recap and I would switch to quarterly ones after this, but now that I am writing it, I am enjoying it, so we’ll just have to see, I’ll leave my options open for October~~~

Events

This is where I feel a tad bit sad again. I have a wonderful maze for the KakaIru Maze Challenge and I have WIPs for all my prompts but I am not making any progress due to my block. I am still hoping for this block to just GO AWAY and that I will complete the challenge now that the deadline has been extended, but I also know that I need to be kind to myself and not force anything.

KakaIru.rocks

So there’s this wonderful forum kakairu.rocks I have been apart of since I stopped lurking and became active in my fandom - I reblog their stuff quite often 😄 There are polls, quizzes and headcanon discussions, Fic recs and a bunch of amazing events run by the awesome @kakairu-shrine. We recently launched a more extensive prompt section to the forum too. I say we, because I was asked to join as moderator about a week back together with the lovely @kaoruhana08. I am honored and stoked. It is semi-official since already mentioned on the forum tumblr. Why don’t you come join the forum if you are into KakaIru ❤️❤️❤️

Closing notes-ish

I miss drawing and writing, and I’ve probably made it sound much worse than it is and I am sure that it will pass eventually and I will be back to my usual brain rot XDDDD 

Last a shout out to everyone in Umino hours and KakaIru discord servers for being so supportive - YOU ALL ARE SO AMAZING!! 

Also I understand it might seem weird for me to say I am in a block when I managed to whip up this here WALL OF TEXT. As always, if you read this far, why thank you~~~ 👀

[haljathefangirlcat]

MOR mozalieri angst and galadred jb 👀

OH MY GOD ARE YOU TELLING ME YOU’RE INTO MOR TOO SDFGHJKLSDFGHJKLK

... ahem. These are both really short because I jotted them down as a spur of the moment thing  and I have absolutely no idea when or if I’ll actually make something out of them. So I’m just gonna post everything I wrote for them since it counts as “a little snippet” anyway, lol.

The first one is angsty af and entirely the fault of that part of L'Assasymphonie where Salieri is playing with the knife while ranting about his impostor syndrome and his inferiority complex. Uh, and Le Bien Qui Fait Mal, too, but that goes without saying. If it ever went anywhere, it would probably include very pained love/professional admiration confessions, a idiots in love/mutual pining “wait, no, I’m pining for you but you wouldn’t even look at me!” “are you kidding me, I’m the one pining but I thought you hated me!” moment, and PLENTY of hurt/comfort. I have absolutely no idea about anything else, though, because I don’t even know where or when even the scene I came up with is set... which would be a pretty important thing to know, from a practical standpoint, tbh.

TW FOR SELF-HARM AND VIOLENT IMAGERY

He’d only ever thought of what it was like to love like that. To feel the bright-bladed knife plunge and twist and dig inside his chest, tenderly cut through quivering flesh and sinew, saw his ribcage open to open up his heart to the burning beauty and white-hot light streaming in from above. To seek that pain and hide away from that pleasure, and curse the man who was the cause of both while cursing himself for letting him hold such power over him, for loving him and for hating him, for always failing to live up to him, to be like him.

He’d never spared one thought to consider what it might be like to be loved like that. To be made aware that your very existence was a spring of endless suffering for one who claimed to feel an ever-growing affection for you, to be made into an obsession in the black of night and an ivory idol bathed in golden sunrises, to become an inescapable curse. To have that much power, and not rejoice in it or even want it. To not be cruel enough to stomach it.

Mozart didn’t need to mock him with his brash laugh or hurl cold words at him. It was the softness in his voice that made guilt well up in his gut like pouring venom into a bowl until it overflowed; it was the sadness in his gaze that cooled his heart until he shivered. It was his own shame at himself, washing over him once again in new, sudden, crashing waves for new, sudden, piercing reasons, that brought him down on his knees, brought his head in his hands.

And Mozart, he came down to him. He lowered himself and crouched on the floor to reach him. Put his arms around his shoulders for a moment, then drew back and took Salieri’s wrists in his hands, holding them gently, gingerly. Scared, or disgusted, or perhaps just careful not to stain himself with his blood. It was starting to cool. It felt sticky, dirty.

«Come with me,» Mozart said, and drew Salieri’s hands away from his face. Some distant part of Salieri’s mind felt he should not allow that so easily, but the rest of him just felt tired, so he did. How strange that even though he was the one shaking, his breath ragged and hitching, it should be Mozart to cry. He wanted to laugh at the sight, but found he couldn’t. He could only let himself be dragged up to his feet, and then into a chair when he started feeling lightheaded.

He even obediently raised his hand and stayed put as Mozart ran to fetch warm water, soap, and clean cloth.

The second one is, once again, inspired by one of your fics. ;) Remember when you wrote that artist!Jaime/tattoo artist!Brienne fic where they bonded over Arthurian characters and I was like, “someone should introduce both of them to the concept of Galahad/Mordred because they’d love it so much for their own different reasons?” Ideally, this should be the fic where they actually get introduced to it... if it ever went somewhere.

The basic plot would be: “Jaime was overjoyed when he found out he could pour his old love for all things Arthurian AND his passion for drawing into fandom. His first fanart were all very dramatic, very romantic Mists of Avalon -inspired Arthur/Morgana pieces because he identified with that due to his ‘fated’ relationship with C., but as that started to go sour, he branched out into edgy, purposefully badwrong Arthur/Morgause stuff. Eventually, he found out about Galahad/Mordred and got really into the whole ‘doomed man on the path to making all the wrong choices finds redemption through connecting with another misfit with a high moral drive and noble nature who may have his own issues but believes there’s something good in him for some reason’ aspect of it. That’s when Brienne, budding fanwriter mostly into gen stuff due to romance bringing back bad memories, found his art and unexpectedly got hooked to the whole ‘noble-hearted and justice-loving misfit can’t really connect with anyone on a deeper level until he meets snarky, sad not-so-doomed man who actually sees HIM beyond both the brave knight thing and the ‘will never fit in anyway’ thing’ aspect. Now, they regularly chat through comments and tags and the occasional message. But things get more complicated when Jaime, who actually lost a hand in an incident years ago and had to relearn to draw after that while suffering the ableism of the usual suspects, finds the courage to post selfies on his blog both with and without his prosthetic hand to show the world and himself that the hardships he had to overcome don’t mean he’s less of a person or less of an artist or less in any way. That’s when Brienne goes from finding him interesting and funny and actually pretty charming to finding him HOT. Which scares her a whole lot due to her past experiences. But that’s okay because they’ll never see each other irl anyway, right? Unless they find out they actually live in the same city and Jaime asks her to meet to work on a collaboration they’ve been thinking of for a while but never really got to work on until now...”

And here’s what I currently have:

But then Mordred is staring at him again with those too-green eyes of his, except that this time there’s no mockery or coldness in them, and Galahad’s been warned again and again not to get too close to him and he’s been told over and over that he can’t trust him, but now he thinks that maybe, maybe he really does understand –

 Brienne stares at her screen. She actually described Mordred’s eyes as gray. Didn’t she? Usually, she picks dark gray, or dark brown, or dark. And yet, in this one story, they’re suddenly green.

Okay, time to take a break from revising. She gets up from her chair, rolls back her shoulders, and goes to grab a snack and a glass of water. She tries not to wonder what’s gotten into her – but she doesn’t really need to anyway, because she has a feeling she already knows.

Not that there’s anything bad about it. In a way, it only makes sense. He’s the artist who got her into the ship in the first place, and they’ve had a few pleasant conversations in the notes to his posts and, eventually, in the comments to her fics. So, it’s not that big of a deal if she associates him with these characters. And… well, recently he’s started posting selfies on his tumblr. And fine, she might have some sort of pathetic little celebrity crush – is that even the right term? Is he a Tumblr celebrity? – on him. Truth to be told, it’s not even as pathetic as the crushes she’s had when she was still in school, because at least he’s never insulted her or made fun of her looks, and she’s reasonably sure he wouldn’t even if he ever had the chance to. Which he won’t get, but anyway…

Anyway.

Apparently, the lines might blur when she’s distracted. Big deal.

[mbtiofwhys]

Futaba Sakura

INFP

Functional Order: Fi - Ne - Si - Te

Spoiler warning This article will cover Futaba’s analysis with references to both Persona 5 and Royal main plot and events from her confidant.

Premise We know that Futaba is considered INTP by the vast majority of the fandom, so in this article we’ll proceed a bit differently. First of all, we’ll discuss why in our opinion Futaba isn’t INTP and how to differentiate between cognitive patterns, behaviors, hobbies and traumas. We’ll also address the problem of consistent writing in a fictional work. The second part of the article will move past why we don’t think she’s INTP and instead will cover why we think the best suit for her is INFP. We’ll make sure to be meticulous in our work and we’ll provide source material if anyone wants to check type theory more in depth, so please stick with us until the end. Obviously, if someone wants to discuss this with us and has solid proofs towards INTP, we’ll gladly listen!

Futaba isn’t INTP

We browsed a broad number of discussions about Futaba on the net, because at first we thought that if INTP is what everyone agrees on, maybe there were reasons we weren’t seeing. But in reality, we couldn’t have been able to find a solid analysis of her character that arguments its point with functions and cognition - apparently, she tends to be considered INTP only based on the stereotype she conveys in the game: the quirky, nerdy hacker waifu who loves pc stuff and is socially inept. So, our first approach was: ok, regardless of the stereotypes, she might really be INTP. But what does INTP mean? INTP implies: dom Ti, aux Ne, tertiary Si and inferior Fe. The Ne/Si axis can be spotted pretty easily in the game, but we’ll address this more in-depth later. The problem has been the Ti/Fe axis. Dominant Ti means a person approaches reality through logical lens: they problem-solve, they analyse, they dissect everything reality provides them until they find a structure that makes sense for them. On the opposite side, there’s inferior Fe: the unconscious need for harmony, for being liked by others, the lowkey want of being of any help without precisely realising how. Looking at Futaba, in our opinion, there aren’t much signs of a Ti/Fe axis, neither in her normal state nor in stressful situation. Futaba can be snarky, she’s quick witted and a bit weird, but she isn’t strictly logical - and besides, it’s not that a love for hacking and witty comebacks are personality traits exclusive to high-Ti users. And speaking about her awkwardness, we think that there’s a key point that is often overlooked: in Futaba’s case, social ineptitude isn’t due to inferior Fe, it is due to a trauma. Futaba lost her mother in an accident, and that event affected her so much that she became a shut-in for a year - that’s not something one easily recovers from. We know from her confidant that she didn’t have any friends beside Kana when she was in school, but to be fair, this isn’t a vital thing to know when typing someone if we don’t know the details. All we’re told is that she was bullied/ignored for being quirky and surprisingly smart for a girl her age, but again, this isn’t a thing exclusive of dominant Ti. From a person who didn’t leave her room for such a long time, it’s to be expected that her social skills would be far below average, especially since she’s so young. What is interesting to look at, though, is how she dealt with her trauma, what has blocked her for so long and what moved her forward once she started recovering.

Futaba probably is INFP

We can’t say this with a 100% certainty because in her case, past the Pyramid arc, the writer(s) didn’t do a very great and comprehensive job of showing other sides of her personality that fall outside the “quirky, nerdy hacker waifu” stereotype, even in her confidant. Nonetheless, there are more than a few elements we deemed worth looking into more. First of all, there’s the time she spent as a shut-in. From what the game showed through scenes inside and outside her Palace, it’s safe to assume that Futaba suffers a severe Si-loop, with all the incapability of moving past a certain event that prevents one from looking out for other possibilities (healthy Ne) and instead brings one to close off the outside world. More specifically, we believe it’s a FiSi loop, more than a TiSi one: the difference lays in how the person revives said past events - do they over-analyse them? Or do they wallow in their own emotions? The problem Futaba had with the whole situation (and this is repeatedly pointed out by her shadow) it’s exactly that she developed a distorted vision of what happened, due to the fake suicide note and her own guilt, and she couldn’t think straight about the whole situation. But more than that, she didn’t even try to think about things logically - she went full on self-blame, seeing herself as the murderer who killed her mom with her tantrums and childish attitude. This is a delicate topic, because all her reactions are probably tied to survivor’s guilt as well, but the point is that she didn’t even try to rationalize her supposed fault, either. She simply lived with her feelings, judging herself as a horrible person who did something extremely wrong and, thus, has to die because this is what she deserves. So, yes, given how brooding and being very hard on oneself are two patterns that characterize high Fi, especially when hurt, we believe that a FiSi loop is what led Futaba to become a shut-in. Another very interesting thing to look at is what happened when an unexpected solution came up: the Phantom Thieves. Futaba finally reached for help, but she did so in a way that can easily remind of an inferior Te grip: she became controlling and contacted the group to blackmail them into helping her as a desperate measure to get out of the situation. But she acted hastily, with only the hint of a weak plan that in fact crumbled the moment a first obstacle came up - in order to proceed with the change of heart, she would have to show her face and expose her identity, a thing she absolutely didn’t account for, and thus she dismissed everyone and called it quits. The heavy imbalance in the dom/inferior axis gets progressively fixed over time: firstly, she reconnects with the outer world (aux Ne) and learns to appreciate again all the stimuli she can get from it. Secondly, she relearns how to behave with other people and how to live in the normal world (we’ll get to this later). And, lastly, she focuses on a goal again: finding the truth about what happened to her mother. As she admits herself, this is “a super personal reason to join the Phantom Thieves”, because it’s not tied to justice or changing society: she wants the truth and she wants the revenge, and joining the group it’s the first, most effective way to obtain what she’s after. This is how a balanced Fi/Te axis works: a personal goal to reach that is tied to one’s true self and feelings, towards which the person takes concrete steps in a (more or less) structured way. Furthermore, regarding her hacker’s skills: the love for computer and coding isn’t a trait bound to high Ti. The fact that many Ti users like it doesn’t mean that if someone like it, it must be a Ti user themselves. And looking at Futaba, she specifically founded Medjed as a way to bring justice (her justice) to the world, but discarded the name as soon as other people associated with it and started to use it for personal gain. She no longer recognized Medjed as something lined with her moral, and thus distanced herself from it and became Alibaba instead. This way of thinking is something more aligned with Fi than Ti.

Social ineptitude doesn’t mean inferior Fe

“Recall that Fe is about creating a positive social support system that opens one up to receiving love and expressing generosity. [...]Immature Ti doms often suffer from: stunted emotional development, lack of empathy or inability to understand people, antagonistic/antisocial behavior, misanthropy or cynicism, selfish or stingy mindset, very shallow or unhealthy relationships.” (via mbtinotes here on Tumblr) While we can see why all of this can be easily linked to Futaba, as we’ve stated above the fact that she doesn’t know how to deal with people comes from the time she spent as a shut-in after a traumatic experience, and it’s not tied to inferior Fe. Let’s focus on this topic: inferior Fe and how it may resemble social ineptitude and social anxiety. Futaba lived as a hikikomori for months, a self-imposed isolation where she only (and barely) interacted with Sojiro. There’s also another crucial factor to bare in mind: Futaba is still very young. As a teenager, she hasn’t developed a solid sense of self not because she has inferior Fe rather than dominant Fi, but simply because she still has to live her life, making mistakes and going through significant experiences to mold her identity. Saying that Futaba may resemble a Ti dom in her social interactions is true, what makes a difference, though, are the reasons behind those behaviors: Futaba finds difficult being in big crowds or talking to strangers not because she has an immature inferior Fe, but as a result of her past traumas and the absence of human interaction in her life for a year. As we remind often in our articles, we have two dogmas: to look at cognition rather than at behaviors, and to always remember how traumas aren’t related to one’s MBTI type. So, those behaviors are tied to her social anxiety and social ineptitude not because she has inferior Fe, but rather due to her traumas and a lack of social skills caused by her hikikomori life-style. We then need to look at how Futaba ‘normally’ behaves when she’s not stressed. She doesn’t speak unless the conversation interests her, she doesn’t like useless pleasantries, she often comes up with witty retorts or comments but never in an inappropriate way. We should have, let’s say, three main factors in her interactions if she really had inferior Fe: the awkwardness tied to the will to try that is met by a constant failure, the incapability of reading the mood despite the will of ‘being appropriate’ and the lowkey strive for being accepted.

In order:

Futaba doesn’t want to try, especially at first. She only tries when she’s invested. Her first, most genuine reaction when the group ask her questions or try to involve her in their conversation is to sit on protagonist’s bed facing a wall. Because, even if she’s grateful to these people, she doesn’t properly care for them - so, they’re not worth the effort of breaking old habits. When the effort is worth? When they start talking about something that she finds interesting, and when she grows a sort of affection towards them. So, when everything starts to feel personal;

Futaba isn’t interested in ‘being appropriate’. She hardly cares less, in fact. And all her snarky comments remark how she can be quite capable of placing them without resulting awkward or ruining the mood;

Futaba doesn’t want to fit in. We understand how it can be easy to think that she strives for acceptance, but in the end, this is simply not true. Futaba “marches to the beat of her own drum” and only because she feels safer with the group or empowered by their presence, this doesn’t mean she looks for acceptance in the way Fe does. On contrary, her whole ‘recovery week’ after Medjed’s defeat revolves around the search for balance: Futaba has to learn how to live in a functioning way, but at the same time the Thieves themselves must adjust to her personality. She has to grow, but she doesn’t have to change, and certainly she doesn’t want to smooth certain aspects of her personality only to please people.

In conclusion, her initial behaviors (wearing a mask in public, hiding behind protagonist, panicking in crowds) are all tied to a form of social phobia/anxiety rather than inferior Fe. 

The proofs of dominant Fi

If you want to say that there aren’t super strong evidences of dominant Fi in Futaba either in the story or her confidant, you have all the right to say so. Because it’s true. And, in our opinion, this is a case very similar to Ann’s extremely absent aux-Si: a problem that stems from writing and developing the character itself. We plan to talk more about P5 and writing in the future, but for now we’ll quickly address Futaba’s problem: as other members of the cast (especially female ones) she’s not given much opportunity to shine outside her stereotype. Her psyche and trauma are well addressed in her arc, and this is why we could gain sufficient elements to exclude TiSi loop and point towards FiSi loop. But the problem is that a character (and a person) isn’t only their traumas, and a personality cannot show only in circumstances of heavy stress. Unluckily, outside of her story arc, Futaba tends to stay in the domain of witty comebacks and nerd quotes/jokes - not that she ever gets OOC, but she doesn’t show a rounded and complete personality, either. One of the only things that stays constant throughout the story is her profound desire for truth and revenge for her mother: she joins the Phantom Thieves for that reason, she pushes through the Velvet Room confinement thanks to that, and she even mentions wanting to study cognitive psience in her future at the end of Royal. And all this is deeply tied to a personal aspect of herself and her life, namely the bond she had with her mother - this is why we think Fi dom suits her more than Ti dom, alongside with her not having inferior Fe. One could say it’s not much, but in cases like these, process of elimination also comes in hand: if she’s not INTP (which, in our opinion, she absolutely isn’t, despite having lot of stereotypical INTP traits), but still has aux Ne and tertiary Si and is an introvert (because all these three points are evident) the only other choice is INFP.

If you made it this far, thank you. We know ours is an unpopular opinion, but we hope we explained our reasons. If you still think she’s INTP and disagree with us, please let us know why, as we ourselves would like to know deeper reasons why people type her that way - and no, the fact that she’s nerd and is a hacker doesn’t count.

If you’re interested, these are the resources we’ve referred to in our analysis:

An entry from Funkymbti on loops: https://funkymbtifiction.tumblr.com/post/142527516660/can-you-describe-what-each-loop-looksacts-like

The part of Mbtinotes’ cognitive guide referring to inferior Te and Fe: https://mbti-notes.tumblr.com/theory#inftefe

Mbtinotes entries regarding spotting Fe vs Fi and Te vs Ti: https://mbti-notes.tumblr.com/post/137908467362/type-spotting-fe-v-fi https://mbti-notes.tumblr.com/post/142863816372/type-spotting-te-v-ti

[finding-the-daylight]

So, now that my finals are officially over, I am going to proceed to have a drink or two or three and rewatch Eclipse. Here’s (soberly) what I remembered from the film prior to starting this account (since starting this account, posts re:Eclipse have reminded me of things I’m not going to include in this introduction): 

1. Bella is basically playing tic-tac-toe with Edward and Jacob and her feelings for them. She can’t make up her mind. When I watched it the first time, my dad was in the living room half paying attention to it and said she was very selfish. 

2. Edward tries to control Bella, but it’s “out of genuine concern for her”.

3. Jacob tries to control Bella, but it’s “out of genuine concern for her”.

4. Both fight for her affection and even though she’s engaged to Edward, she won’t let go of Jacob.

5. When the newborn army shows up, Bella cuts her arm with a rock.

6. There’s awkward tension in the tent.

That’s literally all I remember of the movie while sober (aside from what I have relearned from posts about Eclipse on this blog). My drunken thoughts will be below the break:

Okay, so this dude I think his name is Riley is lowkey kinda dumb, no offense. Like he just stood there and screamed “WHAT DO YOU WANT?!?” This is how all horror movies end badly. You don’t talk back. You run or hide or esape.

THE MEADOW IS SO FUCKING PRETTY. IT’S THE PUREST THING WE HAVE IN THIS FANDOM OMG HE’S PLAYING WITH EHR HAIR AND I JUST WANT SOMEOEN TO PLAY WITH MY HAIR. DAMN BELLA, MY FINALS ARE OVER. SUCKS TO SUCK, DOESN’T IT?

I never noticed the CUllen cuff before, but now thanks to this blog it’s all I’m looking @ lmao. 

I FCKING LOVE CHARLIE TOO MUCH AND HE DESERVED BETTER THIS WHOLE TIME. HE IS SUCH A GOOD FATHER AND HE DESERVES THE BEST.

THERE’S A GLOWING RED LIGHT OUTSIDE MY WINDOW WTF I THINK IT’S THE REFLECTION OF A CAR LIGHT BUT I FUCKING SWEAR

NVM ITS GONE

WHAT THE FUCK EDWARD?? YOU MESSED WITH BELLA’S TRUCK SO SHE COULDN’T SEE HER FRIEND? FUCK. I WOULD’VE DUMPED YOU AND LEFT YOU IN THE WOODS BRO.

Edward sitting with Bella’s friends. We can’t help but stan. He’s still a bitch for the truck thing though. 

I love how Alice looks @ Edward and tells him the party will be fun because she knows nothing bad will happen. But then he reads her mind and looks conerned wtf is ognna happen?

Side note: I really like the lighting in this movie. Everyone has a healthly glow. They lokk happy.

The fucking Volturi always gotta ruin everything. Bitch ass hoes. Ol’ crusty asses acting like some outdated monarchy. Why don’t the vamprires start a democratic government?

Charlie really deserved better. Like I know they couldn’t tell him teh truth but they could’ve been slightly less untruthful prbabl.

I WANNA FIND SOMEONE WHERE MY MOM SAYS WE’RE LIKE MAGNETS WITH EACH OTHER. I WANT SOMEONE TO LOOK @ ME LIKE I’M THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE. DAMNIT EDWARD. DAMNIT STEPHENDW. 

Y’ALL ARE TELLING ME THE ENTIRE CULELN CLAM COMBINED COULDN’T TKAE OUT VICTORIA? THIS SHIT IS GETTING UNREALISTIC LMAO.

THE MUSIC THAT STARTS PLAYING WHEN JAKE TURNS AROUND IN THE PARKING LOT SENT ME LMAOOOOO. 

Leah is such a badass and I wnat to be best friends with ehr plase. 

ALSO FCK THIE IMPRINTING STORYLINE. 

SAM AND LEAH WERE HAPPY TOGETHER.

NO BELLA YOU DON’T FUCKING WANNA KNOW WHAT IMPRINTING IS. NONE OF US WANTD WTO KNWO. IT NEVER SHOULDVE BEEN WRITTEN.

Taylor and Kristen are such babies in this movie. They’re so young and precious. WHIH REMINDS ME WHY TF DID SPTHEJNFNWFNA MAKE THIS SEIRESO ABOUT CHIDLREN??!?! I STILL SAY IF THE CHARACTERS HAS BEWNNF MORE MATUEE AND IN LIKE THEIR MID OR LATE TWNETIEMS OR THIRTIS IT WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER. FIUCKUNG FIGHT ME.

INITING BELLA TO HEAR THE TRIBE’S HISTORIES? THE CULTURAL APPROPRIATION FUCK STEPHEN0AWFJQ. BITCHJ.

SETH IS SO PRECIOUS. AGAIN. THEY’RE ALL SUCH BABIES. THESE POOR CHILDREN.

this hwoel shite is sof ukcing offensie. bitch. listen. why tf did stpehwb fafb have to appropriate cultues like this? BITCH>> you do realize if the legnds are actually like this they’rel ike that because it’s aout defeating yo white as sright? like your’e aware stpehebe ? 

omg bree is so scare d poor baby. literally why did stephenjdbawfbi do this? she just wnated to be ok not hurt anywaon.

exuce me vut CARLISLE IS HOT AS FUCK BITCH

edward is saying some real romantic shit and i sill hate him for the turck thing but like he loves her so much btu he’s stil an asshoel in this smovie

I’M ABOUT TO HATE JACOB I CAN FEEL IT IN MY BONES I’VE SEEN THE GIFS HOE WE GONNA GIGHT. BITCH SHE JUST TOLD YOU SHE DOESN’T LIKE YOU DON’T PUSH HER LIKE THIS. DUMBAS S HOE BITCH. YOU’RE GONNA FIGHT FOR HER? I’M GONNA FUCKIN FIGHT YOU BTCH. I WISH SHE WAS ALREAYD A VAMPIRE SO RTHAT PUNCH WOULDA HURT BITCH YOU DESERVED IT.

THESE FUCKWITS ARE FIGHTING OVER HER AND NOT LISTNEING TO HER THEY ARE BOTCH CANCELLED. BELLA NEEDS TO LEAVE BOTH THESE HOES AND GET A NEW MAN WHO ACTUALLY KNOWS HOW TO LISTNE. BITCHES.

I love Emmett so much. BELLA SHOULD FINA A MAN LIKE HIM. IT’S WHAT SHE DESERVES.

ROSALIE IS ABOUT TO POP TF OFF. SHE IS A QUEEN AND I LVOE AND SUPPORT HER. the saddest thing about this is that she thought her life was perfect and then some fucking asshoes ruiend it. she was so happy. wtf im gonna cry. fuck. i hate sptehej n so much. these gross ass hoes i’m gonna cik all theyre assses. this is so gross i’m so angry literaluy setthing beithc. BUT THEN SHE GETS HER REVENGE AND IT’S BEAUTIFUL. FUCK THOSE BASTARS. but she;s so sad it breaks my heart. she wants to be human so bad. this scene is so sad and it’s theonly good scene in twilight and nikki reed deserves an ocsa like if you agree.

jane and alec more childrne who should’ve been able to be children fck the volturie

why the hel is jessica the fucking valedinact ion? it should’ve been bella they made her seem so damn smart but now she’s not theo ne? i don’ beliee it. but anna kendrick is a gift and now i wanna watch ptiche perfect. CHARLIE is so pure he deserved better and i’m gona kep saying it.

i love those fucking rose colored lamps hanging at the cullens house int he window at hte party scene can anyone link them to me i need? 

why the hell is the wolfpack athe cullesn hosue? this doesnt make sense and it doesn’t seem real am i too drunk and imabginf this?

jno wait it’s real. jake’s appolgoizng.

how fucking conventinet the woflpakc is there hwen alice realizes there abotu to be attacked. this aint realistc. bitc.

why are these kids being forces to act like audls? “I wans;t asking for permission” hoe you’re like 16 go home and go tib ed and odnt go to war.

these woflies gonan kick yo ass edward get tf out

i’m laughign nrow but nothigng funy is happening lmaoooo

fck carlisle is really hot as fuck his jawline kills me

i hate jasper’s hair here i’m sorry i know we all lovehim bt heis hair is a dam nmess

belal is so fuckign negative all the time no one is gonan get killed exceptsvictoris

THE COWBOOIIIII WHY DOES HE LOOKS LIKE OWNE WILSON IN THIS DAMN LIGHTIN? ALICE AND JASPER LOVE EACH TOHER SO MUCH MY APLOGIZKE MAAM FCK IT UP.

why thfe fuck is hake comparing his situaton with leah and sam and emily? We are nto the same hoe wae are not the same. bella is choosing edward sit yo ass down. but i still thin kyall are both problemastic as fuck in thos movie and hse deserves better.

CHARLIES DESEVRS  BTETER THEY KEEP LYIGN EVEN WHEN THEY DUCKGN DONT NEED TO

reblog if you thought edward and bella wre gona fuc, when she went over to his house in eclipse when yo ufirst read the book or saw the movue

he really oes love her a lot though fkcn i’m so alone 

 he looks si sad wgen he mentind ices tea on the porch poor edward

EVERY DANM MOMENR OF FOREVER BITCG I WANT  LOVE LIK THST 

LITERALLY THIS IS THE SUTPEIDEST PLOT EVER. A WHOLE FUCKIN ARMY TOO ATTACK ONE IGRL? BITCH. THIS AINT EVEM A THING. 

im gettign ral tired yall dik if i waill mke it to the end of this movie but i will tru

i hate the enrgey from jae and efard in this tent. ya’ll are both dumb hoes and she could do better than either ofy ou. 

WRHAT THE FUCK FASTER IF YOUR TOOK YORU CLOTHS OFF BITCH WHAT THE FUCK NOW I AM GONNA FUCKIN PUNCH YOU IB HOEP BELLA OUBCHES YOU WHEN SHES A VMAPRIE STUPID HOE 16 YEAR OLD SHOULD BE AT HOME IN BED INSTEAD OF IN A TENT TRYING TO FIGH A FCUKCN WAR

edward is such an emo boi in the tent and he thinsk she doesn;t lve him any more. yo ua stipiud hoe edearf but she still loves you anwyab ithc.

wheb edward said i’m not gonna force her into naythign ever agin i realized he was hte better man good for you eddie you fickun manned up you win

MY REASON FOR ESXITNST HOE I JST WNAT TO BE LOVED

now edwards bene a fuckboi again trying to hurt jake b ymaking sure he knew they were getting maried edward what the fuck iw was just starting to be on your side agian and you let me down like this

jacob is beign an emo boi now jake go be a child @ home and stop this nonsense you’re not a man go be a chid and take a nap and eat some grilled cheese youkk feel better

now she told him she wants to kiss him wtf bella don’t kead this bitch on he’s already in pain let hom gp home and eat a grilled cheese

mow bella’ supsetti spaghetti because edwards know she kissed jake

this shit is so unenecasialr dramtic wht the fuck yall  like a whole army ofver one girl and then its like all everyboyd trying kill everybody this is bulshittheyre all children who should eb at home eating grileld chesses not at war

victoria is a real bitch lying to this boy telling hin she lvoes him hoe bitch

og shit efward ifs pissed now he’s tauntign ab ithc

i acutaly kinda fel bad for riley he wnet through so mcuh and was manipulated i wish the cullens could have adopted him and bree

oshit is the volutire 

SAM DONT FUCKUGN TALK TO LEAH LIKE THAT EVER AGIAN YOU HOE

CARLISE AND I REPEAT AGAIB IS HOT AS FUCK FUCK CARLISRL

I LITERALLY AHTE THE VOLTURIE FOR KILLIGN VREE THEY WILL NEVER BE FORGIVEN

JASPER KNOWS WHATS GOOD HE DOESN’T TURST THESE HOES

I’M SO PISEED THAT THE CULLENS NEVER FUCKING IFHT THE VOLTURIE LIKE CARLISLES IS SMART AS FUCK AND EHS TILL WONT START A DEMOCRAY LIKE YALL KNOW ROSLAIE WOULDVE FOGUHT FOR THAT SHIT TOO

 I LVOE YOUDADY CARLISLE

THIS 16 YEAR OLD LYING UP HERE BECAUSE OF TE DUMBASS WAR I TOLD YALL TO GO GOEN AND EA A GRILELD CHEDWE

poor jakie he knows hed better good for her but she reallys loves eward jake deserved better than what he got reblog is youf agree he jst said he’s even love her after she’s a vamprie bruh go eat a grilled chease and love yourself

WERE BACK IN THE FUCKING MEADOW ITS LIT AND ITS LOVELY I WANNA FALL IN LOVE IN A MEADOW WITH A HANDAOME MYSTERIOUS MAN WHO LOVES ME UNCODNITONATLY

KIRSTNE STEQARD IS THE WBEST AND SHE DESERVED AN OSCAR FOR THIS MOVIE HER AND NIKKI REED AND NODBOYD ELSE

fianlly this bitch is gonna beh onest with chalrie took you long enough

that was an anticlamtnc ending but i love love