#which I’m tagging even though the books been out for almost 20 years but alas

[nerdyydragon]

When we finally make it to confirmed romantic Percabeth and Athena pulls the “I don’t approve of your relationship with my daughter” bs card, we’re going to watch Percy’s war flashbacks in real time a split second before he says the equivalent of “DISRESPECTFULLY, choke” as he proceeds to turn down godhood and launch himself into hell.

It didn’t hit as hard in the books but the tv adaption of the Echidna sequence? Athena punishing Medusa because of Poseidon and then punishing Annabeth because she can’t punish Percy? Percy “Annabeth would push me down a flight of stairs” Jackson uno-reversing and pushing her into the arch stairwell because he knows what sort of bullshit is it is to be punished for something you didn’t do by a [step]parent who’s made you desperate for their approval? We haven’t even made it out of book one and Percy has already shown Olympus just how much he does not care about them, but especially when it comes to the safety of his friends.

[mandaloriandy]

Fic Writer Interview

I suppose I should... actually get around to doing this.

I was tagged by @maderilien, @stormwarnings, and @willowcrowned! (that’s what I get for putting off doing this, I get ganged up on.) (I’m just joking, I am very touched that you all thought of me)

How many works do you have on AO3?

49

What's your total AO3 word count?

339,898

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

oh fuck there's so many. uhhhh 32 apparently. big yikes. I'm just gonna copy-paste the list over, that'll be easiest. A lot of these are overlaps but alas such is life

1. Star Wars - All Media Types (24) 2. Star Wars Prequel Trilogy (18) 3. Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types (7) 4. TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms (4) 5. Homestuck (4) 6. Doctor Who & Related Fandoms (3) 7. Avatar: Legend of Korra (3) 8. Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling (3) 9. Marvel Cinematic Universe (2) 10. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV) (2) 11. The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types (2) 12. Doctor Who (2) 13. Ender Series - Orson Scott Card (1) 14. Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) (1) 15. Iron Man (Movies) (1) 16. Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (1) 17. Original Work (1) 18. Sherlock (TV) (1) 19. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) (1) 20. Big Hero 6 (2014) (1) 21. Emelan - Tamora Pierce (1) 22. The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien (1) 23. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga (1) 24. The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien (1) 25. Captain America (Movies) (1) 26. Paranatural (Webcomic) (1) 27. Torchwood (1) 28. Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica (1) 29. Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types (1) 30. Star Wars: Rebels (1) 31. Doctor Who (2005) (1) 32. The Hobbit - All Media Types (1)

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

To nobody's surprise, my top 5 fics by kudos are (in order) the first 5 parts to the Jedi Shmi AU.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Oof. I used to. But I ended up spiralling pretty badly uhhhh a couple years ago and had to stop. I feel like I should reply to comments, especially those wonderful long ones, but even though I do this whole writing thing, I always have a really hard time, like, knowing what to say to them? Like "akjsdfk;jf thank you" always feels inadequate, but writing a well thought-out reply takes a stupidly large amount of brainpower, and I'll leave them marked as unread if I want to reply to them and then they just accumulate in my inbox and I end up spiralling again, since it just continues to exist as a mental load of something I have to do and the avoidance just gets bigger and bigger the longer I put it off and–

look, I just get into my own head too much about it. I respond to questions, usually. I love all the comments but I can't let myself overthink it, and the easiest way to do that is to not let myself reply.

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

I guess Obi-Wan’s Terrible Horrible No-Good Very Bad Life doesn’t count because it... doesn’t have an ending yet? and I don’t know how angsty that ending is going to be. Even Composing Hallelujah doesn’t count because it ends happier than in canon, even though it’s... y’know, not exactly happy-ending.

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you've written?

Hahaha I don't do crossovers often, but I have done them, and the craziest one I've actually written is probably my Sailor Moon/Puella Magi Madoka Magica fic. It’s especially crazy because I’ve only seen a few episodes of sailor moon lol

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

lmao YEP

There's this one, like Ender's Game/Doctor Who fic I wrote and posted on FFN back in middle school. And it got a ton of hate, as far as I can tell mostly from the same person, talking about like, how bad and non-canonical and whatever it was. And when I migrated over to AO3, I reposted it there too. This was in like 2012. The migration, at least, the fic was written in... idk, 2010?

And then. In 20-fucking-19.

I got a comment saying "Terrible. Makes zero sense. It’s like the author threw canon out the window and took a shit on it." like lmao what??????

(for reference: https://archiveofourown.org/works/361723?show_comments=true#comments and https://www.fanfiction.net/r/7621672/)

(like what the actual fuck was this person on)

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Not any that I've been brave enough to post. And… also… nothing that I've actually written more than a few paragraphs on… I keep chickening out. I did recently make a deal with a friend, though, so… we'll see. If I do, it’s probably going to be quite dark, because that’s the kind of smut I like to read.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I sincerely hope not.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes!! See how the blackbird walks into russian and just recently In all your wanderings into french!!!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I've tried. It's never gone… especially well? I don't think any of them ever actually ended up complete, they all just petered out after a while.

What's your all time favorite ship?

I don't really have an "all-time favorite" anything, let alone a ship. I'm a horrible multishipper and I'm going to cause problems on purpose

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

Sigh. Probably my intricate, 30-something-k unpublished Silmarillion Helcaraxë fic. It has so many moving pieces. I know where most of them end up but it's going to take so much effort to get there

What are your writing strengths?

writing

What are your writing weaknesses?

writing

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Hm. Given that I mostly write fic for SF/F, I don't run into the "real life languages" problem a lot. I end up working with conlangs of various complexity, for the most part, and for those… I'll sprinkle in a word or two if it makes sense, especially swear words and stuff. But for most of those conlangs, grammar is… less well-determined than vocabulary, so I almost never do phrases, let alone full sentences. I'll just put it in italics (if the POV character understands it) or say "and they said something unintelligible in [x language]" or the like.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

I think………. let me check the dates on this. I think the actual first fanfiction I wrote was sometime in fifth or sixth grade, for this "Zenda" book series I read?? Either that or Harry Potter.

What's your favorite fic you've written?

A big shout-out goes to The Lichtenberg Figure, which I can’t believe is the only Tamora Pierce fanwork I’ve published, but for my favorite... it's gotta be Messenger. Like, looking back, there is a bunch about it that I am very not happy with, and a lot of things I think didn't come across the way I wanted, and things I would not write the same way now, years down the line, as I have very differently balanced understandings of… well, a lot of these same characters. But, fuck, I just can't let go of Mandalorian!Beru.

No pressure tags!! @apaladinagain @determamfidd @faeymouse @lumateranlibrarian (apologies if you’ve already done this one and I haven’t seen it!)

[the-mandalorian-clone-lover]

Aces in Spaces Chapter 8

I know its not Monday, But, I literally have written so many cute things and it’ll take forever to get to them so I’m moving to posting twice a week (please don’t feel like y’all have to keep up with that I’m just an over-excited nerd :P

Slightly longer chapter! Erica is finally getting to meet the support group (and Hannah) for herself! 

Tags: @sunshinepascal @rentskenobi @maybege @princessxkenobi @obaby-wan @agent-450

 Masterlist

Erica going to the support group 4 months dating

“You agreed to meet him here. You agreed to meet him here and there’s no reason why you can’t do this. He said there would be cake, I promise, everything will be ok. It’s possible you might not even have to say anything other than your name.”

Erica takes a deep breath after her pep talk, leaning her head against the head rest and counting to even her breathing. Where was Roman?

It’s still 20 minutes before the start she reasons, he probably isn’t as eager to be early as she is. She thought maybe if she showed up early enough she’d have adequate time to prepare herself before going in (as if she hadn’t spent the whole morning and previous evening doing the same thing, her mind traitorously reminds her). She bites the bullet and reaches to call Roman.

“Hello darling” She can tell he’s smiling and she’s about to scold him “Butch is driving the monstrosity, you needn’t worry for my safety.” He tacks on helpfully.

“Roman I don’t know if I can do this.” Maybe she hadn’t intended on being so honest but he already knows her most guarded secret, he probably understands.

“How can I help?”

She drops her head against the seat again, somehow he always knows what to ask and it’s making her feel like crying again at how caring he is. “I, are you on your way?”

“We’ll be there in… three minutes tops dear one.”

She takes a deep breath. She can handle that. “I’m not going in without you.”

“Of course not ace, I can’t have someone steal you away”

The thought makes her heart leap to her throat anew. She hadn’t even considered the prospect of having to deal with that while she was here, wasn’t this supposed to be a support group? Isn’t that like a safe space? Good God is nothing sacred anymore?

A car pulling in next to her breaks her free from her thoughts and she sighs in relief at realizing it is what they have dubbed ‘the monstrosity’ (much to Butcher’s dismay). Roman is out of his door and over to open hers in a flash, holding his arms out in question and she dives in without a second thought.

“We don’t have to if you aren’t ready today.”

She shakes her head against his shoulder, picking her head up slightly to say against his ear. “These are your friends now, they’d miss you.”

“I can send Butch to tell them I’ll be back next week.”

Erica pulls away slightly to look at Butch and Roman turns with her.

“Boss, I wouldn’t want to—”

“Then again” he turns to look at the sky absent mindedly, “if he simply pops in and says we’ve both been called away to the advantage of a certain librarian who needs assistance shelving books, I suppose that can’t be helped now can it?” He finishes looking at Erica again, definitely teasing, and she swallows slightly before nodding.

“I’ll go in then, I want to meet her.” Her eyes go to Butch, “Unless you really would want the afternoon off? I don’t mind doing a movie, or—”

She trails off, eyes searching the ground and Roman tightens his arms around her reassuringly.

“I don’t mind either way Ms. Erica, if you feel up to it today, we’ll give it a go together. My Hannah would understand either way.”

She looks to Butch again. “Do you promise she won’t be mean to me?”

Roman tilts his head, where had that come from? Erica sounds like a young girl going to school for the first time, not anything like the strong and fearless woman he knows her to be.

Butcher on the other hand looks horrified. “No, no, no” He reaches out to her shoulders and she meets his hand half-way with her own, pulling him to embrace both her and Roman. “Hannah would never, y’all two would get along like a house on fire” He’s lowered his voice now, speaking softly and his tone bleeds comfort around their huddled trio, even Roman’s starting to feel safe. “If she was that’d be it Ms. Erica, I can’t let anything happen to you two.” He’s rubbing her back slowly now, “And you know how the boss gets if you’re sad Ms. Erica, gets all weepy” Roman starts to struggle from his side of the huddle, “can’t get anything done” Roman is now avidly struggling, “can’t even get out of bed in the morning—”

“Really? Must you?”

Erica’s laughing, “Alright girls you’re both pretty, now if I can be a member of a crime syndicate, I can handle a support group, I need to meet this lovely woman of yours.” She finishes with a smile and Roman beams, She wasn’t wrong about him viewing the others in the group as his friends and since he made them in the process of helping her, it’s something he feels the need to share.

They head in together, the door doesn’t leave enough room for them to walk arm in arm but Erica walks between them when possible and soon they find themselves coming up to the desk. Where Hannah is currently absent. Erica tilts her head but Butch speaks before she can, whisper shouting in (fond) annoyance.

“Love I told you not to climb that ladder when there’s nobody there to catch ya!!!”

Erica looks to her right at Butchers exclamation and finds that ‘love’ is a small slight woman with darker skin, who is balanced (rather precariously she will admit), at the top step of a ladder. She also turns to look at Butch, smiling affectionately before raising her eyes and making eye contact with Erica. Erica smiles back in an effort to make herself seem less intimidating (being 6 feet tall doesn't always help). Hannah, however, enthusiastically extends her arm above her head to wave, much to butcher’s chagrin, (who is attempting to coax her down from the ladder) and Erica waves back shyly. She certainly seemed nice enough.

Hannah begins to descend the ladder, Butch’s hands finding her waist to guide her as soon as she’s within reach (which only takes about a step on her part) and three steps from the bottom he scoops her up to twirl her around before setting her down again, face nuzzling into her neck from his place behind her.

Erica turns toward Roman to give them privacy and he brushes his fingers against her in question. She takes them, nodding, gazing into his eyes for a last assurance before hearing Butch’s quiet ‘love I want you to meet someone’ and turning to face them both.

Hannah seems to bounce almost, still whispering but exuding joy all the same, “Hello!” She extends her hand gently, “I’m Hannah, I work here and help the group when they need it” she elbows Butch softly with her other arm, “I’m also dating this hunk so there’s that too.” She breaks eye contact to wink at him before turning to Erica again and smiling kindly. “I think it’s brave what you’re doing, I know it isn’t easy to talk about things that are so personal.”

Erica breaths a sigh of relief, taking Hannah’s hand in both of her own. “Thank you.” She blinks before releasing the other woman and looks down at her feet to gather herself before she speaks again. “I’m Erica” She elbows Roman in much the same fashion “I’m dating the other hunk.” She gives Hannah a lopsided smile (the one she makes when emulating something she isn’t quite sure about but hopes she’s doing right, Roman’s seen it before and if he were braver in the library he’d pick her up and spin her like Butch did Hannah because she’s doing so well). They’d had late conversations about how today would go, Erica desperate for every detail he could give, wanting to plan her every move, and even then she’d finally confessed to feeling unsure she would be able to go through with it. To discuss struggles that she’d worked so hard for years to hide would be digging up a lot of old memories and she wasn’t sure she could. Not alone, and certainly not with others around. He’d settled on just telling her that she could tap him twice on the thigh at any point and he’d give Butch ‘the look’ and they’d leave, she didn’t have to do it all in one day. So far, she’s swallowed all her fears and been amazing, part of him wants to tap her thigh now so he can bring her to that ice cream place and shower her with affection for being so strong.

But alas, Hannah is chatting up a storm with her about all sorts of things now, makeup, clothes, where she got the adorable sweater she’s wearing and wondering if Erica ever has trouble with her sleeves being too short. And Erica is smiling fully (her real one, not the lopsided one, and that alone is a huge step) so he doesn’t think she’ll let him pull her away. It might be an even better prospect honestly.

He makes eye contact with Butch and raises his eyebrows, “It seems we’re both in want of a partner, do you suppose things will ever be the same?” He puts on a mournful face as if a breakup had actually occurred. Butch plays along, though he’s fighting a smile.

“No boss, think we ought to just stick with ourselves, it seems we’ve been abandoned.”

A ‘SHHHHHHH’ is whisper shouted from somewhere and both the girls seem to jolt back to their surroundings. “Oh goodness” comes Hannah’s quick whisper, “I don’t mean to keep you! You all run along now” She answers Butch’s protest before it’s even out, “yes I promise to stay off the ladder” She tugs him down by the collar to plant a quick pec on his lips (him bending at the waist and her on the tips of her toes and straining up) before turning back to Roman and Erica.

“Roman, that is a wonderful woman you have found, and I swear if you hurt her I’ll fight you.”

Erica pauses before leaning forward, putting her arms out to offer Hannah a hug. She gets one. “You’re the best.”

Hannah smiles when they pull away, “Girls have to stick together, I got you.” She pats Erica’s elbow and winks at her before shooing them again, walking with them a few steps before moving behind her desk. The slap to Butcher’s butt seems to echo through the library and Erica nearly snorts, turning around to give Hannah a thumbs up around Butcher before walking again (she misses the way the man is completely unphased by it but Roman doesn’t and oh boy is that going to get him teased in the near future).

They walk down the hall together like Butch and Roman have done so many times before, Erica taking Roman’s hand at the last second, whether to comfort herself or to subtly show he’s hers she isn’t sure but it helps both things. She glances through the room as they enter, sticking close to Roman, and smiles when she hears an excited “Butch!!” from the far side.

The blond boy Roman mentioned, Tom, comes bounding over, nearly throwing himself into Butch’s waiting arms and Butch turns into the momentum, swinging the boy’s legs a little. “Hey squirt? How ya doin?”

“Oh I’m swell! I learned that word this week, swell, it means, um, nice. Do you like it?”

Butch smiles, “It’s great. Can I introduce you to somebody I think is swell?”

“Butcher” Tom says confidently, “I already know Roman. And Hannah.”

Butch laughs, “Well you can find more than two people swell!” He turns to gesture at Erica with a sweep of his arm and Tom’s eyes widen. Jenny appears behind him and Roman shares a smile with her, he knows Erica won’t mind the young boy at all, he’d told her how sweet he was and if anyone would understand it was Erica.

“You’re the pretty lady. The ace Roman always talks about!” Ok so maybe he hadn’t expected that exactly. Tom walks forward and presents his hand to shake (much the same way he did to Roman that first day). “I’m Tom, and Jenny is my sister, she’s around here somewhere” This time the boy’s eyes don’t leave Erica as he mentions the other name, staying steadfast on her face. “You have pretty eyes.”

Erica is smiling (and blushing a little Roman notes), looking down at the boy with fondness before glancing up to (who she assumes is) Jenny. She gives her a smile as well before reaching out to shake Tom’s hand. “I’m Erica, and” She looks to Roman, “I am the ace Roman talks about.”

“Can I keep calling you the pretty lady though?”

Jenny chooses this moment to step in, “I’m Jenny, Tom sometimes says what’s on his mind without—”

“No I meant to say that, look at her Jenny she’s beautiful!”

Erica laughs a little awkwardly now and Roman decides to help, “Did Marie bring the cake this time T? I’ve been waiting to have some of hers but I keep forgetting!”

The boy’s eyes widen in wonder again, hurriedly grabbing Roman’s hand and dragging him towards the other end of the room. Jenny takes a step closer to Erica as they both watch the boys walk away fondly.

“He really does talk about you here, and he’s been so eager to learn, he listens like it’s going out of style.”

“That’s my Roman.” It’s quiet but Erica realizes belatedly she did say it out loud, and she blinks quickly to reorganize herself and turns to Jenny, “He just, likes to educate himself, loves to learn.” She looks back to the table, hoping she hasn’t already made a fool of herself in the first five minutes.

“Well, that isn’t the only thing he loves.”

She looks back to Jenny in surprise, mouth going dry before she can say anything. “We haven’t—”

“I didn’t mean to pry its just” Jenny, bites her lips in thought, “he talks about you so fondly, and, it’s a big step to come to a group for something he doesn’t experience, not a lot of people are willing to do that for someone else. I don’t have a lot of men around Tom but, he takes cues from both of them and he’s grown up so much since they started coming, I wanted to thank you.”

Erica looks to Jenny slightly shocked, she hadn’t even thought of that butterfly affect. She reaches to rest a hand on Jenny’s forearm before answering seriously. “Roman is a wonderful person and an even better man, if Tom wants to grow up to be like him, I’m glad to share him anytime.”

Jenny meets her eyes with the understanding of everything that’s going unsaid and covers Erica’s hand with her own. “Do you do hugs?”

Erica smiles, “I don’t mind at all.”

The support group meeting goes much the same way, (a thousand times better than Erica hoped) and Roman drives her back to the penthouse for their dinner date (Butch stuck around the library for “reasons” and Roman is all too thrilled at the prospect of giving Erica all the details.

“Thank you.”

Erica thinks it’s as good a place to start as any, today felt, cathartic almost. To be around people who felt the same way she did, who saw things the same way and were just as uncomfortable in some situations as she was. Roman doesn’t say anything so she continues.

“I, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about it but, I liked it. They were all nice and Tom really was a sweetheart like you said and Jenny is a wonderful woman. Hearing them talk about, feeling awkward in ‘meet cute’ scenarios and in the beginning of relationships, or even friendships? That was..” She trails off, shaking her head in amazement, “healing. Like I knew I wasn’t alone, but it’s so much more meaningful hearing someone else describe the exact same feelings, knowing they are actually understanding you because they’re right there saying it. It’s, it’s wonderful Roman. I can’t thank you enough.”

He nods, smiling at the road and reaches a hand across the console to offer it to her, she brings his open palm to her lips to place a kiss on it before wrapping it in both her hands.

“Remember dinner is on me”

“Not a chance Ace.”

“Ok well, tacos? Please?”

Roman laughs before Erica speaks again, “There’s two on the way to your house, one on main and one on 3rd street.”

“Do you have a preference?”

“I was just saying its not out of our way!”

Roman keeps chuckling, “I never said I minded”

They pick the closer one to the house in the hopes the food won’t be cold when they get home, Roman pulls into the drive through (something he’s been using a lot more since they started dating) before turning to ask what she wants.

“To be allowed to pay, that’s what I want.”

He sighs, “Fiiiiinnnneeee”

“And two burritos.” She says finally. “Please.” Comes the afterthought.

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

[pumpkinpaix]

9, 13, 14, 20? :O

9. Are you more of a drabble or a longfic kind of writer? Pantser or plotter? Do you wish you were the other?

ALAS I AM APPARENTLY A LONGFIC WRITER,,,, or like, a very short tiny vignette, no in-between.  I used to be incapable of writing anything long (all my shit from like 2007-2012 was under like 5k pretty much), but now it’s like. fuck! every story i want to write ends up spiralling out into like 50k+ projects /o\ I’m definitely a plotter. I wish I could be more spontaneous, but I do much, much better when I have some kind of endgame in mind. I can kinda fudge the middle, but the beginning and end have to be set :/

13. Do you share your writing online? (Drop a link!) Do you have projects you’ve kept just for yourself?

yep! here’s my ao3, which is pretty much just mdzs right now, but I’ve got some Saint Seiya stuff planned 👀 truly getting ready to return to my roots. saint seiya was the first fandom i wrote for! :D if you’re looking for my tumblr ficlets, I believe the tag is #myficlet

however, in terms of original prose and poetry, it mostly all just stays in folders on my hard drive. :’D I’ve entered some poetry and prose into local writing contests and won before, so my work exists out in the ether, but one day I’d like to have published books :’) I have so much poetry that kind of just sits around, and i’m like maybe?? it would be cool to share some of it? but all of it needs more editing and refining, I almost never edit my poetry it just kinda comes out in a mess and then I don’t look at it for years, so none of it is like good. a lot of it has potential, I think, but I have like, maaaaybe one poem that I would say is almost good lol.

I have like five nano novels hanging out as well, so just like. hundreds of k of words stacked up over the last decade and a half :’D

14. At what point in writing do you come up with a title?

depends! sometimes I think of a title and a concept at the same time and try to weave them together. sometimes it comes in the middle, and sometimes I’m scrambling right at the end. sometimes I’m struggling for the whole fucking time (me with lxc fic right now good god this title has been eluding me for MONTHS)

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

okay, since you’re the one asking, I’m going to talk about my painting selections in this little tumblr not-fic i wrote about hyoshun even though I know you don’t really do the classic series, but hey.

I’ve seen both Aivazovsky’s Ninth Wave and Repin’s Sadko in person, but I’ve studied all of the paintings that were included. I’ve never been to the Tretyakov, so I haven’t seen any of those in person, but GOD i want to. All of the paintings that I talked about are some of my favorite 19th century russian works except Sadko, which is nice, but not like, one of my favorites. I just like it.

here is why I chose those works in particular:

1. Aivazovsky’s Ninth Wave is a fucking experience to witness. It’s impossible to convey the presence of it, the size of it, on a computer screen. you feel swallowed up by the ocean and the light and the terror and the beauty of it--even as you face death, you also face the sun. you know, just like. peak sublime. I really think Shun would find the concept of the sublime very moving, given what we see of his character in canon: he cares, deeply and viscerally about the inherent value of life, but sees himself as small within it. And I don’t necessarily think that scares him so much as it awes him sometimes. He knows his own value and strength, respects risk, and respects sacrifice. I think would relate a lot to the Romantic artists who looked out at the vastness of the world and reacted with wonder and terror.

I think Shun very much feels a deep sense of wonder at being alive, of existing, and that he takes that very seriously. idk, there’s that moment at the 12 temples, when he stops to smell the roses at Aphrodite’s temple. it’s like, yeah, we’re in the midst of fighting for our lives, but god. there is such beauty here. facing the sun even as you face death. I think he would like that painting a lot.

2. Knowing Repin’s other work, I find the Sadko really beautiful and charming and surprising! It’s such a fun subject for a painting--instead of painting a religious scene, it’s a scene from a bylina, about a man named Sadko. I believe here is the scene where he’s asked to choose a wife from a line of beautiful sea maidens, but all he wants is to return to the surface and live with his human wife that he loves so much. and it’s okay! he does! the painting is lovely and just really visually stunning. and there’s something really moving about the way that sadko has eyes only for his wife on the surface, dressed in plain clothes, out of reach, even as these dazzling women laden with jewels parade before him. aaaaaaaaaa. anyways, I think Shun would like this painting too, for those reasons!!

3. Now the Tretyakov paintings that I’ve never seen, but GOD they just. they get me right in the heart. first, Conscience, Judas, by Nikolai Ge. it’s hard for me to describe exactly what I’m feeling when I look at it, but that really vicious white on Judas’s robe, the coldness of it, the alienation of a traitor. I want to weep for judas. I am not christian, so my interpretations of the bible are largely moot and uninformed, but I’ve always been intrigued by the thought that like--without judas’ betrayal, christ could not have risen. without the fall, there cannot be a triumph. that doesn’t mean that judas was acting for that reason, i certainly don’t know enough about biblical studies to make any kind of interpretation, but in the sense that like--christ had to fall and judas was the instrument of it. imagine the remorse of knowing. there’s something very human and sad about watching everything you loved and betrayed walk away from you into the darkness while you are left behind. without you, it could never have happened. i don’t know. there’s something about the nature of unforgiveable sins in there. i think about Shun’s speech to Balron Lune and I think he would feel some kind of way looking at this painting.

4. Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, by Perov--this painting kills me every time i see it. again, not christian, but like. the agony of christ. god. the nature of sacrifice. knowing that you must suffer and die, but oh! you would rather live, please if only you could live. let this cup pass me by. that on its own is already so much to sit with. and I think Shun, as well as the other saints, for very obvious reasons, probably have a lot of complicated emotions surrounding the concept of sacrifice and doubt. and idk, whenever there’s a moment when you feel like you are reaching through time and space to realize that someone out there has felt the way you are feeling, it’s like. that’s a lot. it hurts.

5. The Demon Seated, Vrubel: aaaaaaaaaaa. one of my favorite paintings!!! the demon is beautiful, and the demon is terribly melancholic, and the demon is alone, and the demon is powerful sitting amidst the blooming flowers and the setting sun. the gentle face in contrast with the muscular body. the inherent negative aspect of a demon in contrast with the subject’s heroism. I think that this would remind shun very much of his own brother, who is so angry and violent and dark, but whom he still sees as gentle and loving still. i think shun would look at this painting and see ikki sitting there, alone, watching the sunset on some distant shore. as for hyoga, I think it would be hard for him to see this without seeing shun after the hades arc: a kind and beautiful man, a demon by nature not by choice. someone soft made unwillingly hard. a murderer who would ferry even centipedes out of the house to safety.

ANYWAYS. I LOVE ART and i project all my feelings onto shun thank you for coming to my ted talk

writing asks

[fencer-x]

1. Hii, do you still post Drarry fic recs? I've only recently started shipping these two and the fanfic side of HP is entirely new to me, and if I'm honest it's slightly overwhelming lol. So I was wandering if you could perhaps help me find or rec the kind of fic I'm looking for because I have trouble finding them myself in this sea of fanfics. (This is probably going to be a really long ask so apologies for that).

2. So what I'm looking for is the Hogwarts era, and not eight year or post war but before the war, the Voldemort era if you will, from the 5th year and onward when Draco and his family are still involved in being Death Eaters and stuff. If there are fics set in that time where eventually romance blooms between Draco and Harry could you rec me some please? I have no idea what kind of search criteria to apply to find them unfortunately.

3.And another thing I'm looking for is some slow burn in general where the build up and transition to romance between Harry and Draco isn't too sudden which is the case in most fics I've read. It would be good to really see their annoyance and hatred towards one another before the romantic feelings appear, cause I much prefer that kind of dynamic rather than the one where one of them is already feeling a secret attraction toward the other almost from the start or where it escalates too quickly.

4. I have nothing against some silly, dorky Draco with some really funny inner monologue but I'd also much prefer seeing his less fluffy, unapologetic and callous self, and I feel like in most fics that part of Draco's personality disappears too easly and too fast to be in character for him. :/ I hope this isn't a bother and that my requests aren't too specific, and I hope you could point me in the right direction with this. P.S. need I say the E rating is much desirable? :3

First off, WELCOME TO THE SHIP. You’ll have a fantastic time searching for recs, because given the JUGGERNAUT status of this ship, there’s absolutely something for everyone. That can understandably be overwhelming, but this ship’s been going strong for 20-plus years, so no need to rush into things! Take your time and find something that works for you.

For recs, I’ll first give you a great resource: capitu’s Masterlist. It’s great for when you’ve got some certain theme or something you’re looking for (like non-8th-year Hogwarts, for example). AO3 is easily searched using tags, but sometimes you want a list a human being put together! Capitu also has a tumblr where you can trawl through the tags to find posts advertising fics you might like.

I also cannot recommend @drarryficrecs highly enough. Here’s their carefully tended masterlist! And another from fyeahdrarry!

If you want to look on AO3 and sort by, for example, kudos or bookmarks, try using the tag ‘Hogwarts Era’ to narrow down the timeline, and then other tags as you see fit.

As for personal recs, I haven’t made a new post in a while (because I haven’t had time to read much lately, though I intend to rectify that soon), but I’ll see if I can find a few that might appeal to you based on your criteria. I love slow burns and almost only read explicit fics for these two, so that shouldn’t be a problem :) I also adore snarky, crass, rude little shit Draco, so again, NOT a problem :)

However, I confess, pre-8th year isn’t something I usually see written too much now, so 95% of what I read is 8th year or later. I have a couple of recs, but only a couple, alas. 

The If Sieve by cest_what - [An If Sieve lets you see how things would have unfolded if somebody had made a different decision at a particular time.] My thoughts: pretty much what it says on the tin! Draco gets hold of an If Sieve, and things go about how you’d expect as he dives down the rabbit hole of how his life might have changed if he’d made different choices at crucial points along the way.

Men Who Love Dragons Too Much by fencer_x (yes...me XD *shameless self plug*) - [Extensive re-telling of Deathly Hallows - ‘Kill Albus Dumbledore’ is less a challenging task and more a suicide mission, so when Draco Malfoy is presented with the option to either dispatch his Headmaster or suffer an excruciating and most ignominious death of his own, along with his parents, he reaches deep into his black little Slytherin heart and manages to scrape together enough courage to go with option C instead: Spend Sixth Year secretly studying Animagecraft in the hopes he’ll turn into something sufficiently imposing even the Dark Lord himself won’t be able to keep Draco under his thumb. But just his luck, his Animagus form turns out to be a dragon, and a rather randy juvenile at that, intent on finding its mate: one Harry James Potter.] My thoughts: So, I’m not sure if this would count for you; it’s not 8th year, but they aren’t really at Hogwarts either? Not for most of the fic lol. Because like it says, it’s a retelling of Deathly Hallows. However, it’s...big. I beefed the heck out of that book in order to weave Drarry into it. At 480,000 words, it’s the slowest of burns, there is snark and hate aplenty, and oh yes there is definitely some porn. Eventually. But not gonna lie it’s gonna take a while to get there, the boys being who they are. Still, perhaps you’ll enjoy it!

And that’s all I have on-hand! Like I said, I don’t tend to read pre-end-of-the-war stuff too much these days, if only because most of the stuff I see written is set a little later. I can recommend everything to meet your wishlist EXCEPT that time slot! However, others might have some suggestions, in which case by all means, feel free to tack on to this admittedly short list!

[elegantmess-southernbelle]

Our Greyhound Bus Experience

Strap in, friends, this is a long and harrowing ride. Literally, in the case of this friend.

At 11:45 PM (PDT), 10 of July, 2019, my dear friend, whom we shall call Oliver, was supposed to be leaving Seattle on his 11th cross country trip with Greyhound Bus Lines. Our intent was for him to have a leisurely trip to my home in Richmond VA and eventually fly home from Seattle after DragonCon. At least, that was the plan.

First of all, due to health problems, Oliver is a larger person, weighing 350 lbs. He is uses a motorized wheelchair for most mobility that weighs in at exactly 232 lbs. He is Ainu (a Japanese native minority).

Before they could begin to load Oliver on the wheelchair lift, the problems began. The lift began malfunctioning almost immediately, extending and promptly retracting. At one point, it actually reached the ground, and then refused to rise again. Several people fought to get the lift working and, even then, it repeatedly malfunctioned. It would not get off the ground empty, as they tested it without weight. At one point, Oliver was hovering about 1 1/2 feet (50 cm) off the ground with no motion in either direction. After an hour, the employees gave up, and the driver drove himself to the depot nearby to fetch a replacement bus and test the lift himself. 2 1/2 hours after the bus was meant to leave, it was finally ready to go.

That was the easiest part of this trip.

Upon arrival in Spokane at 7:09 AM PDT, it was discovered that the bus had missed their connection to a Jefferson Bus to Billings, MT, and across North Dakota, to Minneapolis (Jefferson Bus Lines serves the Mountain West from Spokane to Minneapolis, though the tickets are issued by Greyhound). The Spokane station is a Greyhound Station. In Spokane, Oliver was reissued his ticket for the next route west, leaving at 5:15 PM PDT. The new route also went to Billings via the same path, but crossed Wyoming and South Dakota, and on to Minneapolis, rather than North Dakota as his original itinerary did. Having the resources available, he seriously considered transferring to the Amtrak Empire Builder and eating the cost of the Greyhound ticket. In retrospect, he believes he should have, but hindsight is 20/20.

During his 12 hour layover, he called Greyhound Customer Service to tell them what had happened. He was told that nothing could be done about the issue until 24 hours after he had arrived at his final destination. That, by the way, would have meant that the earliest he could have called would have been on Monday the 15th of July, after the immediacy of the events could have been lost, particularly to someone with a neurological disability, which Oliver has (namely Moyamoya disease).

Upon attempting to reboard after 12 unexpected hours in Spokane and 2 meals out of pocket that he otherwise wouldn’t have needed (Spokane has no restaurant in station as of that date), they checked what was to be the first of his Jefferson Lines busses, only to discover that, once again, the lift was broken. This was discovered, again, before an attempt was made to load Oliver. Jefferson Lines, however, was able to fix the problem almost immediately. Rather than try and fail to repair the lift, as Greyhound had in Seattle, they immediately went and got another one. During this time, Oliver discovered that his new ticket and his baggage route tag no longer matched (Greyhound has passengers take possession of their own bags at every stop, while Jefferson does not). The single, quite overwhelmed ticket agent in the station —from Jefferson, but doing the work of both companies— had issued everyone replacement tickets, but forgotten to also issue new route tags to put on the baggage itself. Thankfully, the young man who works there as the only luggage specialist was able to run in and grab a new baggage route tag for Oliver, thus making his bag match the itinerary on his ticket.

(Also relevant here and in future in the story is that Oliver’s bag was marked in Seattle with a bright pink a “special handling” tag. This is supposed to mean that baggage handlers at each Greyhound Station are supposed to handle his bag. Ultimately, the only Greyhound stations which respected this were Spokane and Chicago.)

He traveled uneventfully through the night from Spokane to Billings, Montana. Sadly, this meant that part of the reason Oliver had booked the trip as he did was moot. He’s fond of Western Montana, thinks it’s beautiful, and had been looking forward to seeing it. However, due to the schedule shift, the bus was crossing the area not by day, but by night. His arrival in Billings was uneventful. His transfer to the next bus was likewise, due to the professionalism of the Jefferson employees. Alas, it was in Billings where the baggage error caught up with everyone on the bus, save him, who was continuing east. Since their baggage tags no longer matched their itineraries, their bags were held in Billings for the next bus across North Dakota to Minnesota. One friend he had made on the trip, we’ll call her Countess, had lost her baggage, leaving her bereft of clothing suitable for the funeral she was attending in Chicago. Oliver, having caught the error, stayed with his bag across South Dakota and into Sioux Falls.

At this point, the night caught up to Oliver and he attempted to go to sleep. He uses a C-PAP. And, unfortunately, the electricity on the bus proved to be faulty. Ten times during the night, he awoke when his C-PAP shut off. However, he lays no blame on Jefferson for this as they were very apologetic about the complication and he did survive the night.

Minneapolis, unfortunately, is a Greyhound Station, despite it also being the Jefferson Lines corporate headquarters. By this point, three nights had elapsed and Oliver had only managed, at most, 4 hours of sleep per night, the whole time in a seated position. Whilst being loaded into a Greyhound bus from Minneapolis to Chicago, the driver and station personnel responsible for loading him onto the bus manhandled his chair by shoving, pulling, and yanking it into positions of their choice by the seat back, contrary to his explicit orders not to. This ultimately damaged the seat back. The actual trip from Minneapolis to Chicago was uneventful, as Oliver slept the whole way.

In Chicago, everything got better... and much, MUCH worse. The station’s chief baggage handler saw to the handling of Oliver’s bag personally and attempted to console Countess as to her lost baggage. Heartened by the good treatment he and Countess had experienced at the hands of the chief baggage handler, and with memories of a similar wheelchair lift problem in Chicago on a similar trip two years prior having been handled remarkably well by the personnel at that station, Oliver decided that it would be in his best interests to talk to the customer service representatives who are stationed permanently at Chicago to see if his troubles for this trip could be similarly resolved.

He could not have been more wrong.

The customer service agent who took his complaint was not only extremely dismissive of his problems, but having not heard that the lift issue in Seattle took place before he used the lift, took it upon herself to tell him to his face that “weight is not a disability.” That, “they shouldn’t have to accommodate someone whose only disability is being fat.” That, “the ADA has limits and you should know them.”

With Oliver now stunned into, in his own words “Beached Fish-style Silence” (mouth moving, no words coming out), she then walked away, talking quite well above conversational levels, about “entitled people who abuse the ADA”, carrying this monologue throughout the station amongst the other station and talking about how it contributes so heavily to the delays in Greyhound service.

(Editors’ Note: I’m glad I wasn’t there. As a female-bodied person with a disability causing insulin resistance, I feel very strongly about fat shaming and ableism. This person was 1000% out of line and it’s a common intimidation tactic to do what she did to pit other people against the disabled. Thankfully, it didn’t work to turn them against him, though it did silence him, an abuse survivor with PTSD. Just be aware. This is a not-uncommon corporate tactic and NOBODY should tolerate it.)

He left Chicago, en route to Baltimore, via Cleveland and Pittsburgh. A mostly uneventful day passed crossing Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Alas, in Indiana, it was discovered that, like most drivers, this driver did not appreciate the thought of letting a wheelchair using passenger off the bus at meal stops. Oliver, at the outer limits of his capacity, is able to walk roughly 330 feet (100 meters) in a day. This meant that he could not easily walk into and out of the Howe, IN travel plaza, though he forced himself to do so anyway, as the alternative would be going roughly a full day without food. At all previous food stops, the driver or another passenger had been willing to take an order and money from Oliver, preventing delays. Indeed, the driver across Montana was so upset at herself for having to do so, that she kindly bought his food in Missoula with her own money. (Not surprisingly, she was a Jefferson employee....) The driver in Indiana? Not so much.

Given that he had no choice, Oliver walked into the travel plaza, purchased food and went back to the bus, collapsing in agony. At this point, it must be noted that, in addition to Moyamoya Disease, the condition that puts Oliver in a wheelchair is Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Type VI, a degenerative connective tissue disorder. (Those interested can find more information online.)

After sitting in chair in agony for another hour and a half, the ride eventually returned to normal. Everything was fine into Cleveland. However, because on most Greyhound Busses, the restroom is in the back and the wheelchair seating is in the front, Oliver found himself needing to use the washroom in Cleveland, rather than doing so en route. This meant he had only enough time to either use the washroom or get food, not both. Given the choice, he decided to use the washroom. He was required to do so without his chair again. Upon reboarding, they were informed that, due to accumulated delays en route, they would not be having a rest stop at Pittsburgh, but would instead be continuing through the night into Baltimore. Thankfully, they had switched drivers in Cleveland, and when the new driver was told of Oliver’s needs, re-added a very short break in Pittsburgh to the trip to accommodate. This was necessary, as had he not had stopped in Pittsburgh, he would have been unable to use a washroom or acquire liquid to take his medicine.

From Pittsburgh, they then made Baltimore. However, somewhere in Ohio, (likely at Cleveland), Oliver’s luggage got lost. The loss was discovered in Baltimore when the suitcase did not appear at the side of the bus. He was told at Baltimore that it almost certainly had gone on to Richmond without him. That could not have been, as Oliver witnessed it being loaded in Chicago. The only possibility is that it had been unloaded at a station stop between Baltimore and Chicago, the most likely being Cleveland.

By this point, Oliver was too physically exhausted and emotionally worn out to do more than file a half-hearted complaint. This was also when Oliver discovered that his bus, which was to go from Baltimore to Richmond, having originated in New York, was running at least 4 hours late. No reason was ever given, though Oliver suspects it had to do with the blackout of Manhattan that day.

Two buses left Baltimore with a destination of Richmond, (including one that was an express between Baltimore, DC and Richmond), before his scheduled bus arrived. However, Greyhound would not change the ticket, due to the inconvenience to them of putting a wheelchair on one of those busses. His bus finally did arrive in Baltimore, 4 1/2 hours late. He boarded, minus trouble and luggage and proceeded to groggily travel through DC during rush hour, finally arriving in Richmond at 3:15 PM EDT on Sunday the 14th. This is a full 19 hours later than he should have, on a day when Richmond’s bus system is on a limited schedule and the only local wheelchair transports are impossible unless pre-booked.

At this point, I fetched him from the station, using what means I had, and guided him to my house, via these limited busses. This forced us to hike/roll a mile and a half from the last bus stop served to home, in 90 degree F (33 C) heat and both of us exhausted, angry and miserable.

He is now here, finally, and has had a full night’s sleep. Where his story goes from here is anyone’s guess, but I think it safe to say it won’t be getting there via Greyhound, as they have lost a lifelong customer.

[puroresu-musings]

NJPW THE NEW BEGINNING in Sapporo 2020 Review (Feb 1st & 2nd, Hokkaido Prefectual Sports Centre)

(Feb 1st)

Tiger Mask & Yuya Uemura vs. El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori  ***

Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma & Toa Henare vs. Manabu Nakanishi, Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Yota Tsuji  **1/4

Will Ospreay, Ryusuke Taguchi, SHO & YOH vs. Zack Sabre Jr., El Desperado, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & DOUKI  ***1/4

Ryu Lee & Robbie Eagles vs. Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI   ***1/2

Tetsuya Naito & SANADA vs. KENTA & Jay White  **3/4

Kazuchika Okada & Jon Moxley vs. Minoru Suzuki & Taichi  ***1/2

Tomohiro Ishii vs. EVIL  ****

NEVER OPENWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH: Hirooki Goto (c) vs. Shingo Takagi  ****1/2

(Feb 2nd)

Toa Henare vs. Yota Tsuji  ***

Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma & Yuya Uemura vs. Manabu Nakanishi, Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Tiger Mask  **1/2

El Phantasmo vs. Gabriel Kidd  ***

Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii & Robbie Eagles vs. Shingo Takagi, EVIL & BUSHI  ***3/4

Jon Moxley, Ryusuke Taguchi, SHO & YOH vs. Minoru Suzuki, El Desperado, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & DOUKI  ***3/4

Tetsuya Naito, SANADA & Hiromu Takahashi vs. KENTA, Jay White & Taiji Ishimori  ***1/2

BRITISH HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH: Zack Sabre Jr. (c) vs. Will Ospreay  ****3/4

Kazuchika Okada vs. Taichi  ****1/4

Photos.

The New Beginning shows kicked off with a two night stint in Sapporo, as has been the tradition of the last three years or so. Night 2 was great, but the first night of action suffered from a smaller house and a very cold crowd, which hurt pretty much every match on the card (you could easily have added an extra 1/4* at least to everything, had there been a better crowd). The audience had maybe 80% more face masks than usual, likely down to ongoing concerns regarding the Corona Virus, and as a result, it is obviously dificult to make much noise in a face mask, hence the unusual tepid response from the Hokkaido faithful.

The first night really picked up when Hiromu and Ryu Lee faced off for the first time since Takahashi broke his neck in 2018, in a very good doubles clash. On any other day, in front of any other crowd, this would have been easily a **** match, but alas, it wasn’t. It was still a fun, all-action outing, with the Lee/Hiromu exchanges being the undoubted highlight. The finish saw Robbie Eagles tap BUSHI out with the Ron Miller Special at the 11:47 mark, and set himself up as a potential next challenger to the Jr. strap, after Lee. Jay White pinned SANADA to further build heat for their impending match at Osaka-jo Hall next week in a decent, though overly long (18:42) tag match which built around Naito and KENTA’s fiery exchanges. This wasn’t anywhere near as good as the New Year Dash encounter between these teams, as it had a fraction of the crowd heat. Minoru Suzuki pinned US Champion Jon Moxley at 17:48 to end another decent doubles outing. This had some flaws that really hindered it, namely a lack of any real heat, and some really slopy exchanges at times, but was never anything other than entertaining. Taichi destroyed Okada in the post match with his mic stand. Okada made a comeback, but Zack Sabre Jr came in and locked a sleeper on, which brought out Will Ospreay, who was taken out with Zack’s Michinoku Driver. Taichi nailed Okada wih the dreaded Iron Fingers From Hell, a Black Mephisto on the ramp, then locked in the Stretch Plumb. This did a really good job building Night 2′s top matches.

Things really picked up next with the Ishii vs. EVIL match. Whilst this built to a hot closing stretch, there were moments where this was perfromed in front of almost total silence, which again, really brought this one down. After the usual EVIL chair nonesense, they started swinging for the fences which woke the crowd up. They slammed into each other with hard shoulder tackles and Lariats, before EVIL escapes a brainbuster attempt, hitting a German and the half-and-half suplex, only for Ishii to fire back with a big Dragon Suplex of his own. EVIL fought back immediately with a headbutt and Lariat for a near fall. After an exchange of Lariats, Ishii nailed some headbutts, another big Lariat, and the Vertical Drop Brainbuster to take the win at 21:14. As I say, this ended up being an excellent match, they won the crowd over in the last few minutes, but it took a while getting there. 

And in the main event, Hirooki Goto defended the NEVER Openweight Title against Shingo Takagi. This is their third match together, and I had their previous two at ****3/4 each. Watching this show, I just knew they probably weren’t going to reach those heights. And unfortunatley, they didn’t, but still had another excellent battle regardless. Again, much like the previous match, the same old story here was the quiet crowd, as these guys worked their behinds off, having a really hard-hitting and compelling bout. The closing stretch saw Shingo hit a second rope Death Valley Bomb for a near fall, and Goto hit his old Kaiten sunset flip bomb off the top for a near fall of his own. They had an exchange, before Goto hit a draping reverse GTR for another near fall. Shingo hits his own version of GTR, then scores a near fall with a massive Pumping Bomber. Goto turns a Last Of The Dragon attempt into Shouten Kai for another great near fall, and they had an intense headbutt and forearm exchange, which was the loudest reaction all night. Goto nails a headbutt, then the reverse GTR. he tries the regular version, but Takagi turns it into Made In Japan for a near fall. Shingo follows that up with Last Of The Dragon to end the match and win the title at the 20:10 mark. As I’ve written ad nauseam in this review, the lack of crowd heat was a pretty big detriment to this show, and nowhere was it more obvious than here. This could easily have been a MOTY contender in front of another crowd, but as it is, it was just excellent. Though I must say, I’m very excited about the Shingo win here as it offers up a plethora of potentially great programs, whereas realistically, there wasn’t much more Goto was going to do with the belt. He had a brief exchange with SHO in the post match, which should be interesting.

The second night had a considerably livlier, and bigger crowd (over a thousand more) which enhanced this show exponentially. The first great match of this show saw the CHAOS trio of Ishii, Goto and Robbie Eagles, victorious over the LIJ team of Shingo, EVIL and BUSHI. Shingo and Ishii brief battle was the highlight here, and I hope we get to see a NEVER title encounter between the two soon. The finish saw Eagles lock BUSHI in the Ron Miller Special as Goto and Ishii both hit Ushigoroshi’s on Shingo and EVIL respectively, meaning the masked man had no choice but to tap at 9:42. Eagles gets another big win here. Moxley and Suzuki had a wild, non-stop brawl throughout the next 8 man tag, which was better than anything either did the previous night. Taguchi submitted DOUKI with the Ankle Lock after 13 minutes of fun action, to score another big win himself, as Moxley and Suzuki brawled through the crowd to the back. There’s a chance that Funky Weapon is also being built to challenge for the Junior Title at some point soon. And in another all-action outing, SANADA submitted Ishimori with Skull End to win a very good 15:34 bout. Everyone looked really good here, and again, the story was KENTA and Naito’s brawling, hyping up their Double Title Match next week.

The British Heavyweight Title Match between ZSJ and Will Ospreay was, by far, the best match all weekend. This was a fantastic outing between two of the smoothest, most consistent workers out there today. It went 27:04, but never felt like it, and I probably could have easily watched an hour of this. It started off as a great technical battle, before breaking down into the big moves and near falls you’d expect. The story to this was that Ospreay has never beaten Zack, and with the title being on the line for the first time ever in Japan against two native British wrestlers, Will was more determined than ever. ZSJ constanly had a counter to Will’s signature spots, but Ospreay would always find a way out of Sabre’s counters. After countering a Hidden Blade into a Breaks Special, Ospreay made the ropes. Zack tried the Michinoku Driver, but Will turns it into a reverse brainbuster for a two count. Ospreay escapes a European Cluthc and hits a big head kick, then they had a great sequence in which Sabre Jr kept escaping Storm Breaker attempts, finally locking in a triangle, but Ospreay free’d himself with a powerbomb. A Shooting Star Press gets a near fall for Ospreay. Will tries Storm Breaker again, but ZSJ turns it into a Manjigatame, then pulls Ospreay to the mat, turning it into a grounded Cobra Twist, the same move he won their G1 match with, and adds a leg triangle for added measure. Will struggles for the ropes but eventually passes out, and Red Shoes calls for the stoppage win for Sabre. This was an incredible, and almost perfect wrestling contest.

This left a lot for the main event to follow, but whilst it wasn’t as good, they still had an excellent match. The major problem with this is that nobody, not even in his hometown, realistically bought Taichi having a snowballs chance in Hell of winning this one. And to make things even more problematic, it went a whopping, and completely unnecessary 31 minutes. Had this been 10 minutes shorter, it would have been even better, but it did get a bit long in the tooth. It started slow (really slow), but the final 12 minutes were great. After bludgeoning Okada with a chairshot, and getting a near fall with an Axe Bomber, Taichi went to the old Kawada play book, hitting a head kick and locking on the Stretch Plumb, but Okada refuses to quit. Taichi lets go and makes the cover for a near fall. Okada hits the dropkick, but Taichi counters a Rainmaker attempt into another Stretch Plumb, but Okada escapes, trying a Tombstone. Taichi escapes that and hits the Dangerous Backdrop three times, for a great near fall. They traded Yakuaza Kicks in the middle, before Taichi hits a dropkick of his own, and goes for Black Mephisto, but Okada counters into a short Rainmaker. Okada tries another, but Taichi bumps the ref, hits a low blow, and a super close near fall with the Gedo Clutch. Taichi back to the Kawada playbook with a Gamengiri and the folding press Powerbomb gets another near fall, but Okada caught a Superkick and hit the spinning Tombstone, then the Rainmaker to end the match at 30:53. Okada told Taichi to “go home” in the post match, thanked the fans for coming out, and told them he’d see them on the impending Hokaido tour in July.

NDT

[twinsimskeletons]

meme thingy drunk edition

I was tagged by @notjustabooksims​ <3 enjoy this drunkard’s rambling!

Rules: Tag 20 followers you’d like to know better (20? nah gurl)

Nickname: I don’t really have a nickname. Carys isn’t exactly easy to shorten. My best friend from uni calls me Meowprize, based on my last name and a love for cats, and my bestie from high school occasionally calls me carrots or carts when writing because of autocorrect. She even got a book signed by a fave author, Joe Abercrombie, to carrots :’). I’ve always wanted a nickname but, yeah, no easy one for Carys. Where I live now a lot of people call me cerys because there’s a couple of them who are very well known in the small community. On a side note, they always apologise and acknowledge that they’re doing it. I just tell them I respond to any familiar sounding name like a dog lmao. 

Gender: all gurl bb

Astrological sign: Pisces.  I’m not a believer is astrology, because I’m a bitch for science. My mum claims she once did a personal study on it and found there was some correlation but she also is part of the OBOD (druids etc in the uk) and studies shamanism sooooo

Height: i have no idea, i haven’t measured myself in a while. like five foot four maybe. average but on the side of short, which confuses me. I’m a beanpole and taller than my mum and sis (who is four foot eleven hahahah) and I’ve always thought of myself as tall bc of that.

Sexuality: ace. people are pretty but sex ain’t my jam.

Hogwarts House: okay give me a second. according to buzzfeed i’m very slightly leaning towards ravenclaw, which from my weak understanding of hp fits. i like knowing things. 

Favorite Animal: cats cats cats cats cats everybody (to the tune of the shots song. but also penguins, which i have a smol tattoo of). 

Number of blankets: One on my bed. Only because it was a knitted xmas pressie from my mum and the older i get, the more i treasure gifts that people have made. on my sofa i have a blanket i stole from Australia   my auntie let me keep after i visited her at eleven years old, a fleecy tiger blanket i think i was either given as a present or bought, and a small woollen blanket made by a community knitting/rural skills project from the office that my co-worker let me take home bc he didn’t know what else to do with them, haha.

Where I’m From: Born in England but I’ve lived in Scotland most my life. Depending on who I talk to, I either call myself british or scottish. (scotland is better in almost every aspect if not for the damn snp). *insert pic of theresa may crying upon resignation* (sidenote... can i come live with you louise, the uk really is imploding and i’ve always wanted to visit denmark).

side note: tories do have feelings? damn

Dream Trip: I would LOVE to go to America again and visit some of my dearest friends I know via sims stories on LJ many years ago. Alas after forking out as much as I did for my car, europe may be the next ‘abroad’ holiday. But I’m hoping to visit one grandmother in june, and I would LOVE to visit a second set of grandparents this year, because my grandfather is quite old and I really want to interview him before he passes. He has some crazy stories - consulate in berlin during the cold war, unofficial ambassador for Guatemala and survived an assassination attempt while there (bodyguard not so lucky...), had a period as an ambassador for an island (i’m so sorry, i can’t remember the name) and organised the first royal visit in so many years etc (who would have thought little old me would have been related to some much history lmao, though honestly who cares about the royals these days). I’m v close to the first grandmother and fairly close to this set, and /if/ i do ever have kids (or adopt more likely) then I’d love for them to know their characters and voices/stories. 

When I created this account: April 2015. I had a simblr before, under Tyrfish (a nickname for a cat, long story, and also my online name on LJ) but I stopped. I actually can’t remember why now, but I was still on LJ at that time. Then LJ was dying, I was at uni, and decided to make a new tumblr. I’m fairly sure @romeo-and-simulet was part of my reason for trying again. Temptress... ;) 

This is the cat Tyr, nicknamed tyrfish. When she was a kitten (with two eyes) my sister and i (plus an ex friend) used to pretend she and another kitten Loki were ‘fish’ that we, as sharks or fishermen, were trying to catch. I’ve never claimed not to be a weirdo.

Why I created this account: Because LJ was dying and I wanted to keep writing SOL, damn it. I created this tumblr and quickly came up with the idea of rewriting it... why... how... idk.

I have no recollection of who has done this and who is already tagged... but @romeo-and-simulet @ninjaofthepurplethings @arenderedpixel @ktarsims @acquiresimoleons

[anthropwashere]

@proserpine-in-phases tagged me in a thing about writing, so naturally I’m going to do this instead of write!

1) is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

A lot of my deadfics end up stalling out over research roadblocks. I’ll flub my way through one scene with the intent to come back after I’ve done my Google-fu, and then another, and another, aaaaand that’s now too much work. 

2) what work of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?

A JTHM fic I wrote in high school that ended up deadfic because I ran off to BMT. It was well-received at the time but looking at it now? It’s just so ow, the edge. I’ve low-key considered tearing it down and rewriting it, but it’s been ten years and I can’t even recall where I was going with it. 

3) what order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?

90% chronological with a lot of snippets for later scenes piled haphazardly at the end of every Gdoc. of all the things that might have been was the big exception. There’s 28k posted and another 50k trapped behind a heap of writer’s block. :C

4) favorite character you’ve written?

Gee, I wonder!

5) character you were most surprised to end up writing?

Winry Rockbell. Not my usual character type to write by far, but she was just as surprisingly fun to write.

6) something you would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late/complicated to change now?

A ton of older fic on AO3 has a lot of weird formatting and grammatical errors. I think it’d be easy to get hung up over changes I’d want to make to various giftfics I’ve written over the years as well.

7) when asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?

I can count on one hand the number of real life people who know I write and have fingers left over. I hate talking about my writing face-to-face. 

8) favorite genre to write?

Mmm, suspense/horror? Whatever you call ‘presenting a problem to a character that gets insurmountably worse, and also it would be justified if the character just huddled screaming under a blanket instead of confronting it.’

9) what, if anything, do you do for inspiration?

Read other fics that handle similar topics/ideas. Look through the literal GBs of refs I’ve got saved. Get out of the house and do something even a little bit out of my norm. Get lost on Wikipedia.

10) write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?

Music always, rarely near people.

11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?

Man, I’ve been writing and posting fics for 15 years now. I have to hope every aspect has improved since I was friggin’ 12 years old writing garbo Mary Sues.

12) your weaknesses as an author?

I can’t concentrate on anything long enough to finish it. More fic ideas than I’ll ever have the energy to commit too. Run-on sentences. I don’t write women almost at all. COMMAS. 

13) your strengths as an author?

I feeeeel like I do a good job of getting the reader into the character’s headspace? I adore limited narrative so when I write a fic I try to commit to that character’s style and personality. I also think I do horror/suspense decently.

15) why did you start writing?

11 year old Lorelei found ffn and went, “Oh shit, this is a thing? Sign me up.”

16) are there any characters who haunt you?

...I’m not sure what this means? 

17) if you could give your fledgling author self any advice, what would it be?

It’s okay to write positive endings, edgelord. Sometimes less is more. Sometimes more is good too, but damn girl, tread carefully. 

18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?

These seems like a dangerous rabbit hole to fall down, so I’ll just link the most recent fic whose style and impact left me speechless the first time I read it (and envious, and determined, and more than happy to read it three more times).

Divine Right of Kings by Oedipus Tex

19) when it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

Badly! Which is why I’ve never successfully finished a longfic! But I do try and make outlines or at least a tidy splash of notes at the bottom of the Gdoc. One fic I’m working on right now requires spreadsheets.

20) do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?

Little spurts. NaNo’s been excellent in the past at making me do more than a couple hundred words on a good day. Alas, the last Camp NaNo I signed up for I dipped out of because of my migraines, and I didn’t even bother signing up for July.

21) what do you think when you read over your older work?

For the most part I consider it all passable, as far back as AO3 goes at least. Anything earlier than that I pretend doesn’t exist. 

22) are there any subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?

Intimacy, be it porn or fluff. Anything technical I can’t gloss over with some hastily gathered Wikipedian knowledge. Comedy.

23) any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?

I don’t think so? Not much of my personal experience has been applicable to what I’ve written. A bit of geography, maybe?

24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

I’d never claim to be an expert on anything, but I do try and do my research for fic. Learning new things is my favorite part of writing.

25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of

You may have a snippet from my four biggest FMA wips (all of which are over 15k words and nowhere near done, send help).

- We Are Sisyphus (03 fic where alternate Ed lives.)

Other Ed and Alfons are unpacking groceries, picked up on their way back to the tiny flat above not-Gracia’s flower shop that seems all the smaller with a fourth person inside. Gratia’s come up as well, bearing fresh vases of flowers too damaged to sell but still smell just as sweet. It helps to mask Hohenheim’s reek, something he can’t really help with how advanced his decay’s gotten in their time apart. 

“Surprised you even recognized him,” Ed says under his breath, under pretense of showing him some of the notes he’d brought back. He gives Hohenheim a long, quelling glare out of the corner of his eye. “I mean, considering you left when Al was still practically a toddler.”

“There were more recent pictures at Pinako’s house,” Hohenheim replies, apparently uninterested in taking the hint to back off. “But it’s the way you look at Herr Heiderich that made me realize just who he reminded me so sorely of.”

“Oh yeah? And how’s that?”

“Like you’re grieving.”

- your head will lie in dust (Father wins, makes the five sacrifices immortal. AKA, the Hohenheim fic with the group chat that can’t stop, won’t stop.)

“There was a cut on your cheek,” Hohenheim says.

Edward brings shaking fingers to his face. He digs his nails in as if he’ll tear his skin open just to spite Hohenheim on principle. Then he stops. Shuts his eyes. Lets Mrs. Curtis slide from his lap. “I,” he says. “You’re wrong. You have to be.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. He has said this so often now, to so many people over so many years, that the words have lost all meaning. He tongues at the space where regret should be and finds only an empty hole. “Do you hear them?”

Edward flinches in slow-motion, an exercise in arranging the muscles of his face into a tense knot to display his anger, his fear, his grief. Little words for emotions greater than any person should have to bear. Edward flinches and struggles to breathe. He presses his hands over his ears and tilts rigidly to the floor.

- our hands were first to forgive (The Mustang remains blind and gets automail AU nobody asked for.)

It’s unsettling, how easy clapping alchemy has turned out to be.

He’d expected it to be difficult, to be something he’d have to learn through trial and error. He doesn’t know why he thought that. Edward’s never shown any hesitation in the use of it—though when has Edward shown hesitation in anything? Bad example. Not that there are a lot of examples to choose from, and of those he’s only been able to see Alphonse transmute without a circle. That’s a somewhat recent development, isn’t it? Before the boys went up to Briggs. He never thought to ask what had happened to allow Alphonse to abandon circles. It hadn’t occurred to him to think that anything needed to have happened to allow it at all. Knowing the source of clapping alchemy, he doubts it was anything pleasant. One more thing to ask after, once he can see again.

This ability, this… gift? He hesitates to call it that. Unwanted, unasked for, received all the same. Fine. This gift wasn’t learned. It feels grafted into him, weird and rough at its edges, like the scars on his torso his shirts still catch on months after burning Lust to ash. Unnaturally a part of him, but a part of him still. For all the knowledge that was poured into his mind in the Gate, he doesn’t feel like he learned anything.

He feels burned.

- Pour Out Like Light (9 years post-series, Ed finds out Trisha’s illness is hereditary. This absolute bastard of a wip is currently stalled out at over 46k words and nowhere near done.)

He peels a potato, sets it down. A broken, twisted hand reaches over his shoulder to pick it up.

He sets down the vegetable peeler. “Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Why didn’t you tell Granny?”

“Tell Granny what?”

“You knew it wasn’t the epidemic, didn’t you?” He cups the potato in both hands, in the hand he’s always had and the hand he’d traded away and Al had given back. “If you knew, why didn’t you warn her I’d get sick too? Why didn’t you warn me?”

She doesn’t answer. Instead there’s the heavy, loose-limbed thud of a body collapsing to the floor. It has a wet sound to it, a splattering sound. Her death rattle sucks the sunlight out of the kitchen, strangled and thick with fluid. There is almost, almost the sound of his name.

This post is huge now, wow. Um. Never sure who’s cool with being tagged in these kinds of posts. @ladyyatexel @leda-x @haikujitsu I don’t really talk writing much w/ any of you but you’re all fantastic and it’d be cool to hear some of the thought process behind the fics? No obligation, of course.

[carrieeve]

tagged by @she-who-the-river-could-not-hold​, sorry that it took me about a century, thanks for the tag :)

• 1. have you ever been in love? now that i look back at it, i really don’t think so;

• 2. who is your favorite artist? music: Metallica, Luxtorpeda, Jelonek, Zoë Keating, Ludovico Einaudi; art: Vincent Van Gogh, Alfons Mucha, Jan Matejko;

• 3. what is your favorite music genre? i don’t really have a favourite genre,i’ll pretty much listen to anything, maybe except dor techno and some electronics cause it gives me a headache. but i’d say i have a preferance for rock and heavy metal; 

• 4. have you ever had a penpal? i even have one right now! we bonded over Bellarke fanfiction and now we’re sneding each other care packages and complain about how most foods are too heavy and don’t travel well, it’s awesome!

• 5. are you single or in a relationship? single;

• 6. what color are your eyes? blue

• 7. what is your favorite word? well, given how often i use it, probably kurwa, i swear quite a bit when i’m in certain company. or when i hurt myself--which is a lot;

• 8. what’s the color of your hair? right now, it’s deep dark red but naturally, it’s light brown, going on gray;

• 9. what is your favorite color? purple, i think. and yellow. blue, pink, rich red. i like colours in general.

• 10. any tattoos? nope. i’m like 90% sure that i want one but i’m not doing it until i’m at least 101% sure and have a design chosen;

• 11. what is your favorite flower? i’m most definitely not a flower person and so i don’t have a favourite one but i guess orchids are pretty;

• 12. what qualities do you find attractive in a person? honesty, reliability, tolerance, a sense of humour and a willingness to be patient with me;

• 13. who was your first crush? well, i did have a husband when i was in preschool, so i guess we must’ve really loved each other if we’ve decided to take this step so early ;-) but then the marriage didn’t survive when we were separated by the school districts and so, at the ripe age of 13, i fell in love anew, with a classmate. he was a really good crush to have because he was always nice to me, didn’t ignore me and never mocked me; alas, he also changed schools later on and we haven’t seen each other in ages. funny story, though, i actually saw him on facebook the other day and he’s married now, apparently. and boy, the time was not gentle with him;

• 14. do you wear glasses? i sure do. i tried contacts when i was in high school but they were uncomfortable as fuck and i gave up after one day i rubbed my eye so persistently i rubbed the contact out and it landed on a notebook in front of me. not to mention, with my prescription, they would cost me about a kidney a year, so i just stick to glasses;

• 15. do you prefer swimming in a pool or in the ocean? pool, definitely;

• 16. what is your favorite social media app? app? none of them, they are all shit. you’d think that with how many users there are, they’d make a better effort to actually make them work instead of just adding new features that make them all crash;

• 17. what is your sexuality? straight

• 18. do you have any siblings? yup, a baby brother; who is almost 24 years old and taller than me so maybe i should stop calling him a baby. ha! never;

• 19. where do you want to travel to? Hawaii and Australia/New Zealand but alas, i am not made of money; realistically, i’d love to go to England again, visit London as a grown up. Scottland, Wales. and also, one of them tiny Greek islands, where i could just pack a bag full of books, sit my ass next to the pool and do nothing for a week, that would be perfect;

• 20. who do people say you look like? (celebrity/family member) people often mistake me for my mother, especially those who know us for work-related reasons and not personally; those who know me better, say that in parts, i look like my dad, also. and when i was younger, i looked a lot like my dad’s mum when she was the same age; celebrity-wise, i was once told i looked like Emily Deschanel;

• 21. who is your best friend? her name is Sylwia and she even has her own tag on my blog for when her jobs sends her deep into the woods for some courses to raise qualifications, so that i can reblog memes and animal vidoes for her;

• 22. what is your dream job? i don’t really have one; i used to think i wanted to be a writer, maybe books, maybe movies. but at some point, i realised that this sort of freelancing without a structure would drive me nuts and i’d procrastinate myself to death; i like my office job. 

• 23. do you know how to drive? yes. for all that i growl and often wonder why do there have to be other drivers on the roads, it relaxes me. especially going quickly on a motorway;

• 24. are you a feminist? yes!

• 25. what is your birth month? February

• 26. do you enjoy reading? yes! fuck, yes. i don’t read as many books as i used to (not that it stops me from buying new ones), it’s more fanfiction at the moment, some short stories and a few people have asked me to read some drafts of things they’d written. but still, there’s a lot of reading;

• 27. have you ever dyed your hair? i actually had my hair dyed on Monday ;-) i’ve been doing it regularly and sticking to the same colour for about a year now. i think i was about 16 when i did it the first time? i chose a dark chocolate and that was the biggest and craziest act of teenage rebellion i’ve ever had;

• 28. what is your favorite thing in your bedroom? definitely my bed but then there really isn’t much more there, i only use that room for sleeping;

• 29. surfing or skateboarding? oh, that’s a good one, thinking i would kill myself on either one. but i’m gonna go with surfing cause it’s a summertime activity and when i tried to learn how to skateboard, i scraped my knees so badly i still have scars. and resentment, apparently;

• 30. how tall are you? 164 cm, or something around that;

• 31. do you want kids? yes, i do but this is a complicated subject;

• 32. if you could time travel, what year would you go to and why? somewhere around 1989, so that i coould see my mother when she dyed her hair blonde and my dad without his moustache, that he had drunkenly shaved in retaliation. he didn’t recognised her in blonde so she wouldn’t recognise him clean shaven. drunk logic but it turned out to be true. and i’m related to those people. and that’s about it. for all that the world is a trainwreck that crashed into a dumpster fire right now, at least we have indoor plumbing and penicillin;

• 33. hugs or kisses? depends from whom ;-)

• 34. have you ever done drugs? not illegal ones. but i have been prescribed this really awesome sedative once, my roommate used to laugh her arse off;

• 35. what color are your nails if they’re painted? o, ho ho, take your pic! i have like 25 different nail polishes in nearly all colours. but i usually go for reds, pinks, or something so dark that it’s almost black but actuallu isn’t;

tagging: @jasperjoordan @blueshirtbell @the-most-beautiful-broom @thehundredtimesobsessed @pichitinha and whoever else wants to, i’m not good at this part;

[khirsahle]

30 questions

Tagged by @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels

1)  Nicknames - Hmm, not really. My name doesn’t lend itself to nicknames, alas. In school, I was often called “Kitty” or “Kitten”, but if someone tried that now, I wouldn’t be so amused.

2.) Gender - Cis Female

3.) Star sign - Scorpio and proud, muthafucka!

4.) Height - 5′5″ - You know how when you’re young, doctors will sometimes guess how tall you’ll be? My doctor was convinced I’d be over 6′0′‘. Nooope. That skipped me.

5.) Time – Currently 6:39 PM

6.) Birthday - I’m a Scorpio.

7.) Favourite band – I...do not have one. I have bands I love to listen to, but not a single favorite.

8.) Favourite solo artist – Vienna Teng is pretty high up there, so sure, let’s go with that.

9.) Song stuck in my head – Call Me Maybe, and it is ALL LadySass’s fault. Ever since she started writing Cullen Me Maybe, that is all I can hear. I’m cursed.

10.) Last movie you watched – It. I went with the boy and some close friends. So, look. I hate It (the book). Massive massive hate. Not only is the structure absolutely ridiculous (seriously, his editor should have known better), but the sexism is just off the charts. But while I hate the book, I can’t seem to quit King. He’s one of the major influences on my own writing. So I went to see the movie, and hey. It was decent. Not great, but they fixed some of the things I hated most even if they totally forgot Mike was even there and went schlocky horror instead of suspense.

I’m just saying, if they had gone pure kids on bikes horror genre, it would have been a good movie. As it was...eh! It was okay! Too many jump-scares and not enough actual scares.

11.) Last show you watched – The Good Place. I love it so much.

12.) When did I create my blog – ...*shrugs*. Right before I posted Lonely Ghosts.

13.) What do I post – Mostly fic-related, plus reblogs. I’m not much of a discourse-poster, as I tend to prefer sticking to the outer rings of fandom whenever there’s a fight.

14) Last thing I googled – Beat the bushes. I said this today to someone at work and they stared at me like I was INSANE. I hadn’t realized it wasn’t a term everyone knew. (She’d heard of “beat around the bush”, but not “beat the bushes”.) Funnily enough, I’m pretty sure the two come from the same source and yet mean opposite things.

15.) Do you have other blogs – Nah. That seems like a lot of work keeping them separate.

17.) Why did you choose your url – *laughs* Because someone already took “Khirsah” (JERK!) and I’m bad at French.

18.) Following – 55

19.) Followers – 2,455. I keep thinking I should do a giveaway at 2,500. That seems like a good time to do something.

20.) Favourite colours – Torquoise, robin’s egg blue, etc.

21.) Average hours of sleep – Around 7. I cannot function on 6, though I function just fine on 4.

22.) Lucky number – 33, 24, 27, 16. 0/00. Funny story. I am kidnapped and taken on cruises about once a year. I know, wah wah wah, but see, I am 1) allergic to the sun and 2) TERRIFIED OF MARINE LIFE. So I can neither sit on the beach OR go into the ocean. I usually just sit under an umbrella or in the cabana, editing/working. But anyway, the future in-laws always give us money for gambling. I? Am also not a gambler, but I play along every year and play Roulette whenever the family goes down to the casino. Because whatever, it is easy and doesn’t involve math.

Turns out, my apathy breeds insane luck.

I always play those numbers, plus sometimes a few others that I like the looks of at any given moment. And so far, I always come away with multiples of my initial money. Like, sometimes around 5-7x the amount. Any time I actually start to care, I totally do terribly. But when I don’t give any fucks? By the end of the trip, I’m always up by quite a bit.

Once, this man--who was losing heavily, which is usually my cue to leave, as I REALLY HATE watching people lose their money, omg, it makes me so uncomfortable--kept talking about his “system”. “You’ve gotta have a system!” he kept saying, playing Roulette what I assume is the correct way. He kept losing and losing, and I kept winning and winning. Finally he turned to me and begged me to tell him my system.

“...I just pick numbers I like,” I said. “I really don’t know what else to tell you.”

He was...less than impressed. And left almost immediately after. But hey, lucky 33, 24, 27, 16, and 0/00, amirite? (Gambling is the worst.)

23.) Instruments I played – Voice and fiddle, neither well

24.) What am I wearing – Today I went with a cranberry-colored A-line dress with a sweetheart cut-out and swiss dot-style mesh collar. Hair up in a bun, with my black frame glasses and wingtip eyeliner. A necklace that says “There They’re Their. Idiot.”

25.) How many blankets I sleep with – One sheet and one fuzzy aquamarine blanket. The boy has his own sheet and blanket. I do not share.

26.) Dream job – Already pretty much there, actually. God, sometimes I want to punch me. I’m sorry. If it helps, I’d also love to be a Young Adult author.

27.) Dream trip – Antarctica!!

28.) Favourite food – I love chicken satay to an unhealthy degree. I’m also a huge fan of Israeli couscous.

29.) Nationality – United States. Southern United States. (But I don’t really have an accent unless I get REALLY excited or REALLY mad. Then the drawl is unleashed as the claws extend.)

30.) Favourite song – My Medea by Vienna Teng

I tag anyone! Anyone including @ardatli @delazeur @sasskarian @pluckyredhead I don’t want you to feel pressured, though, so only answer if you want.

[taradreschner-blog]

tara dreschner + headcanons

1. Tara is judgmental. They can’t help it or at least have never tried. They quickly come up with an idea of what someone is and rarely change their mind, instead choosing to believe the role that they’ve cast everybody in. Their assumptions are often deeply cynical in nature; they look for the worst in people before ever finding the good. There are people Tara will never be friends with because of what they’ve seen in them.

2. They’ve only begun recently making friends besides the two they’ve always had. It was easy in high school to stay forever in each other’s company, to barely acknowledge anyone outside their band of musketeers. But with Denna gone Tara had no choice but to expand their horizons and, reluctantly, they did. Despite themselves they’ve actually enjoyed spending time with Gen and Leo, but it feels like a strange sort of betrayal. Not even to Denna, who doesn’t seem to mind with how busy she is with her fascinating new life, but to Tara. They aren’t used to talking to people who don’t know them in and out, who don’t instinctively know how to translate their rolling eyes and monotone into affection.

3. Most people think Tara is rude. They don’t blame them, mainly because they kind of are. They communicate primarily through blunt comments and long-suffering sighs, actual enthusiasm hidden behind a layer of armor. It’s a defense mechanism, albeit a horrible and often negative one.

4. As a child Tara had always been too much. Too bossy, too serious and sullen and prone to acts of mild melodrama like calling daycare teachers fascist ogres or “borrowing” every book in their family library one by one until their room became a fortress of bound leather and paper. They were terminally weird, the kind of kid that made adults chuckle and peers cringe. Their mother called it precociousness. Most people called it being a pain in the ass. They were, Tara thinks, both right.

5. Tara doesn’t have a father. Or, rather, they do and it doesn’t matter. Lea Dreschner, heiress to a family legacy of railway barons and stock market kings, had known a man once upon a time as a rich girl with nothing to do. Things ended, as relationships so often do, and she found that she was pregnant. She describes Tara as a happy accident, the thing that helped her decide what she wanted out of life. These days Lea works as a motivational speaker talking about finding your inner light and living as a summer breeze, listing sentimental declarations on life and love that Tara can’t bring themselves to believe. Lea is everything her child is not; optimistic, enthusiastic, extroverted and often naive. It’s easy to see that she was sheltered in a way that Tara never could have been. Lea sees life as a fairytale and, almost as a result, Tara sees it as all too real.

6. This is not to say that Tara dislikes their mother. They love her. Lea Dreschner was for a time the only one who stood by her child, who insisted that there was nothing wrong with a child that was a little serious and uptight and prone to lecturing about injustice. It was Lea, when Tara came out at fourteen, who made buttons and threw a party for two with streamers and cake frosted with pronouns. She’s silly and Tara needs a little bit of silliness just as her mother needs someone to bring her down to earth.

7. It was natural, when Lea began making friends in the neighborhood, that Tara would tag along. Spending time with Denna and Preston was always refreshing, kids of the same age who always seemed to understand that their lack of expression didn’t mean a lack of enthusiasm.

8. Tara hates their family home. It’s a McMansion monstrosity, all beige and spiraling staircases and tacky granite floors, that Lea had bought when she’d decided to settle down. Their childhood bedroom has been altered greatly over the years; walls are covered in posters of everything from 1930’s public health warnings to bands they haven’t listened to in years, polaroids and dried herbs hanging above their bed, colorful rugs scattered across the floor, and a shade over their light that tints the whole room green.

9. In Preston’s Dnd campaign, which Tara pretends to still not know all the rules to, Tara plays a wood elf bard named Madge (They insisted they couldn’t think of a more creative name). They insisted Preston let them create a spell and now “Wonderwall” is their go-to move. The rest of the time they do everything they can to avoid a fight, leading Madge to make many options that lean worryingly evil.

10. A word that could be used to describe Tara is particular. Another is exacting. Perhaps the most accurate would be control freak.

11. Tara looks way cooler than they actually are. They care about clothes and style in a very particular way and their mother has always indulged their whims. Many people say that Tara presents more feminine, but Tara thinks that’s kind of bullshit. Their hair may be grown out long, but it’s more 70s shag than anything else. A lot of their clothes lean retro- bell bottoms and crop tops and big ugly jackets with big clunky boots to top it all off. And if sometimes they wear a bitchin’ dress, well, that’s no one’s business but their own.

12. In their sophomore year of high school, Tara began selling their old clothes and their mother’s vintage online for petty cash. Years later their shop Despoena has achieved an impressive amount of popularity and has expanded into an online vintage store, as well as selling a couple indie clothing, makeup and skincare brands. Tara does not make clothing themselves, but they have a good eye for curating a specific image. The store’s official instagram has far more followers than their personal one, which is how they like it. No one except Denna and Preston even know they run the store, though others might know of it.

13. They know they’re hardly charming enough to be the face of the enterprise, so they keep it purposefully anonymous. The store’s official blog and social media is amiable in a way that Tara is incapable of being, seeming authentic and soft while still professional.

14. Tara recently found out that the amazing designs they’d seen around town are by Naia and they will walk over broken glass to get her stuff in their store. They just don’t know how to ask her.

15. It’s too silly and unsure for Tara to admit wanting it, but in moments where they’re truly honest about their goals they want to expand Despoena into something even bigger. They’ve started taking business classes, but they’re too nervous to talk about it with anyone besides Preston (Not Denna. It’s petty, but they like keeping something from her like how they know she’s keeping something from them). It feels ridiculous for someone as practical as them to be dreaming so big.

16. Imagine Despoena as a cross between Nasty Gal and Goop. There’s a focus on a natural minimalism with quirky touches. Down below I’ll link to some of the clothes and stuff I think would be on there. If I could do literally anything in photoshop I would make a logo, but I’m actually garbage sooo… sorry.

17. Tara was raised on health food and their deep dark shame is that they basically hoard circus peanuts. They’ve been vegetarian basically since birth in addition to being kosher and circus peanuts are neither. They taste like toxic bananas and are orange for some reason and they always have a bag hidden under their bed.

18. Tara and Heath would actually probably get along if Tara were able to talk to Heath without immediately hating them. If anything they could bond over starting a business anonymously or being ridiculously protective of Denna. This isn’t even a headcanon this is just something I realized while writing this.

19. Tara is more cold than angry. If they’re mad at you, you might not even know until a month later.

20. They don’t really look pretty. Or attractive or whatever, despite having the bone structure of an angel. And they don’t want to be attractive. When it comes to their personal look, Tara revels in the strange and interesting. They’re far more likely to wear a sweatshirt patterned with cockroaches than one of the simple and fun dresses you’d find on Despoena. It’s not that Tara dislikes that style- they love it, it’s why their store is the way it is. But for themselves they can only accept it in diluted doses; a simple blouse only feels right when combined with the most trashed thrift store jeans that they have and ostentatious costume jewelry. It’s with the combination of the staid and the bizarre that Tara can feel like themselves, rather than picking a side to stick to.

21. All of Tara’s favorite movies are campy B horror. They love the cartoonish performances and technicolor gore. Preston and Denna have, in their time, been forced to watch many. Tara has most of them memorized line-for-line. They often lament that their wardrobe could use more neon pink-orange bloodstains ala Suspiria.

22. Tara is guarded, but deeply protective of anyone they consider a friend. If someone hurts someone that they care about, they will hate that person for the rest of time. It’s a passion that they don’t have in regards to defending themselves. Tara doesn’t care about people who might have been cruel to them once upon a time, but anyone who ever pushed Denna or Preston on the playground better watch out.

23. Tara was raised Jewish, but doesn’t practice heavily. They still identify as culturally Jewish, go to the synagogue on Yom Kippur, and do their best to keep kosher, mainly out of habit. Since they’re vegetarian, it mainly means feeling weird about cheese made with animal rennet. One time they tried bacon out of curiosity and honestly? Not worth it.

24 At 6’1, they’ve always been one of the tallest people they know. Whenever they interact with someone taller they get grumpy. It’s not something they’re self-conscious about; rather, they see it as something that helps define them.

25. Tara does, in fact, know things about video and tabletop games. They just have horrible twitch reflexes and a bad habit of getting sidetracked on quests no one thought of making, like trying to break down the government of a fantasy world and replace it with a functioning democracy instead of doing fun things and killing dragons.

26. Sometimes Tara appears on Preston’s channel, often to fail horribly at Overwatch (they main Zarya because she’s cute, but have no idea how to play her). Their main appearances are on a very rarely updated series where Tara plays Grand Theft Auto with Preston and tries to accomplish a very specific task that isn’t actually in the game (i.e: buying a pizza, working out at the gym).

27. Part of the reason Tara likes to focus on other people is because it means they don’t have to think about their own problems and mistakes. It’s easier to help a friend than to help yourself.

28. Tara’s romantic history is… complicated. They’ve never been in an official relationship, just flings that occasionally seemed like they might be more. Sometimes when they’re too depressed for their own good they wonder if they’re incapable of anything more, if that’s the cost of seeing the complicated parts of people first.

29. I have a half-formed wisp of an idea that might be really stupid, but I think in high school Tara had a crush on one of Denna’s significant others and nothing happened but they still feel really guilty and gross about it.

30. Tara would rather be miserable than possibly hurt one of their friends.

31. For all of middle school and the first two years of high school, Tara had braces and (occasionally) headgear. It was horrible and part of the reason why they rarely smile or show their teeth.

32. Halloween is Tara’s favorite holiday. They would always give their candy to Preston and Denna as a kid, because their favorite part was going all out with costumes and decorations. Their costumes have only gotten more elaborate over the years and they rope friends into joining them. In the vague future where everything’s cool and they’ve accepted Denna and Heath’s relationship, they finally get to accomplish their dream of going as the cast of Scooby Doo with Pluto as Scooby.

[shenanigumi]

20 Questions Tag Meme

I was tagged by @lanaya-lavellan​! Putting it up here first, since this blog was the one that got tagged.

1. How tall are you? 5 feet 4.5 inches at last count.

2. What color and style is your hair? Brown, except it’s the kind of brown that can’t really make up its mind—streaks of lighter and darker, sometimes bits of gold, mostly almost copper. It’s wavy and kinda bushy and falls past my waist at this point, so I should really have my mom trim the ends. It gets in the way all the time, but literally the only thing I know how to “do” with my hair is put it up in a ponytail. A low ponytail. I can’t even do the high ones like Chizuru’s got.

3. What color are your eyes? Boring brown. But I like to think it’s kind of a nice brown. A clear, chocolate brown. Not the dull brown I’ve seen in other people.

4. Do you wear glasses? Yeah, have for the past 15 years. When I was six, my mom took me to the San Jose Opera production of Die Zauberflöte and we found out I couldn’t see the subtitles without binoculars, so we hooked me up with glasses as soon as possible after that. My eyesight has been getting steadily worse ever since. Literally everything farther than 3-4 inches from my eyes is blurry without my glasses.

5. Do you wear braces? *shudders* Please don’t ask about my teeth. I had braces for a year and a half, from sixth to eighth grade. Apart from that, I’ve technically had retainers since second grade, but it’s been literal years since I’ve worn them and now my teeth are subtly starting to shift again so all my suffering may have been for naught ughhhh

6. What is your fashion sense? You say “fashion sense” like I have any kind of sense for fashion. Alas, I do not. Most often it’s a.) 1 of about 5 pairs of almost identical skinny jeans, each of which I wear repeatedly until obviously dirty; b.) whatever t-shirts are clean; c.) an extra layer of some sort if the weather calls for it, typically a zipper hoodie; and d.) boots or sandals. I have exactly one functional belt, and though I own multiple pairs of shoes, I wear exactly one pair of boots and two or three identical pairs of sandals to death. I do adore dresses and skirts, but they’re so much effort I hardly ever get/take the opportunity to wear them.

7. Do you have any siblings? No, thank gods.

8. What kind of student were/are you? The kind that was above average when she was a kid, so she developed expectations of natural aptitude—the kind that panics whenever she gets a C or lower on any given assignment due to a phobia of disappointing her parents—the kind that started struggling to do her assignments because of the weight of her own unrealistically high standards—and the kind that learned to really, genuinely hate school because of it, yet still feels obligated to participate. Don’t even talk to me about school, seriously. I'm strung out so tight I’ll snap if you touch me.

9. What is your favorite subject? I really do hate school. I don’t even like my past Creative Writing classes, for gods’ sakes (blame the teachers I’ve had). I’m okay with my small press editing class because my classmates are chill and one of them legit runs the class, but like, I literally don’t have a favorite subject. Unless you count my independent study on Bakumatsu Japan, because that’s fucking awesome.

10. Favorite TV shows? I don’t watch TV alone, but I’ll watch some things my family puts on, like certain dumb game shows or Project Runway whenever it’s in season. I also sometimes get hooked on Law & Order (especially Criminal Intent), even if I usually can’t watch the first several minutes due to general squeamishness. Oh, and if RWBY counts, I guess I like that too, although my enthusiasm has waned somewhat as the series progresses.

11. Favorite books? Sorry, but for all my love of writing, college has totally ruined my appetite for reading, as well as my ability to read for pleasure. I can’t even remember the last book I read all the way through, let alone ones I actually like. I suppose the longtime favorites that have stood the test of time include The Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I also seem to remember liking the Pippi Longstocking series by Astrid Lindgren.

12. Favorite pastime? Writing, first and foremost (and, more prominently, bouncing ideas around!!); dancing, at least whenever I remember I like it; and playing video games, more for the plot than the experience. Seriously, I am such a casual gamer. I’ll be on the easiest of modes and I’ll still probably have a hard time. That’s a big part of why I like otome… no actual gameplay required…

13. Any regrets? This is depressing enough already, come on! But I don’t really have any long-term crushing regrets, so moving right along…

14. What is your dream job? I'm technically already a writer, since I write constantly, but getting paid for my passions would be awesome. My ultimate goal is to be able to sustain myself just by writing fiction, whether novels or short stories… but in the meantime, I’d love getting a day job as an editor. Frustrating as it usually is, it brings me a strange sort of enjoyment, and I like to think I’m good at it.

15. Do you want to get married? Being only demisexual and grayromantic, I’m not entirely sure marriage and I agree with one another. Besides, marriage is more a side effect than a life goal, wouldn’t you say? Lots of prerequisites, don’t you think? I’ve only checked one box, so… I mean… we’ll see. But if anyone gets me any diamonds, fuck that, I’m saying no till I get a better ring. Amethyst is where it’s at. Nobody gets enslaved and worked to death over amethyst.

16. Do you want kids? How many? In my current state, I absolutely could not handle kids, and it’s difficult for me to think of not being in my current state, so I can’t give a solid answer. See, I feel like in order to truly be said to “want kids”, you have to be okay with all the possibilities. If it were possible for me to have a single blood-related daughter without having sex, artificially inseminating, or being pregnant at all, I might consider it. Maybe. Until then, nahhhhhhhh.

17. How many countries have you visited? Just the one I’m from. Might consider exploring more now that a certain “mangled apricot hellbeast” (to quote someone on Twitter) has been elected president, though. Think some of my family members can hook me up with an Italian citizenship if I ever need to make an escape…

18. What’s the scariest dream you’ve ever had? There was a super-symbolic dream that really upset me (fear, anger, sadness, you name it, I felt it) back in eighth grade, all about how so much sexism and racism in America has been swept under the rug instead of getting fixed, and how the same people have ultimately been in power for centuries. It was really deep and unsettling, and I was only like 13-14 so I didn’t know how to process it. I’m still not totally sure.

19. Do you have any enemies? Nah. There used to be people I hated, and I’m fairly certain people hated me too, but I haven’t had anyone I’d call an enemy since roughly high school. The last person I hated was one of my Creative Writing teachers. I refer to him only as “Professor Jackass”.

20. Do you have a datemate? …Hey, ain’t that a planner? Or are you referring to a significant other? (And if that’s the case, if you marry your datemate, do they have the potential to become a housespouse?! I might even consider getting married now!!) Anyway, I do have a planner, but never learned to use it. I also happen to have a boyfriend of just over two months, and I don’t really know how that happened, or what I should be doing with him, but he somehow manages to make my life brighter—so I hope I can do the same for him, in my own inimitably clumsy way.

Tagging: @doodlethewhiteraven​, @sabinasanfanfic​, @impracticaldemon​, @shell-senji​, @kazama-hime​, and @queen-mizera​ if you haven’t gotten this already! But please feel free to NOT do it.