#your critique could be the reason someone started to dislike their art and stop having fun creating

[dashing-through-ecto]

A little note to all who care.

Unsolicited critique can be the reason people block you.

I'm just having fun drawing my blorbos and sharing my art with people who like the same stuff as me.

I'm doing this for free and I'm especially just doing this for myself.

My art is my way of expressing my love for something, so unless I ask for help or inspiration, kindly keep you critique to yourself.

[beserkerjewel]

Hey I saw your post and I would like to politely chime in if you don't mind

As a fairly well known writer in the caratblr community, I don't want to speak on behalf of all of the writing community but I can speak for most when I say that a heavy majority of us have very very specific guidelines and rules for what we write, and the reason most of us have a bigger following or tend to "boast" about our own writing is because smut, at the end of the day is still writing and can still be considered art.

Now I am very much aware of some other writer's on here who don't really have restrictions and write about some pretty traumatic stuff, and i have comforted numerous mutuals over some really gross anons who send in really disgusting asks, such as borderline incest, child porn, etc.

So while I do agree, we shouldnt be encouraging these specific writers for indulging in these suck fantasies, I found it a bit innapropriate foe you to generalize and kind of belittle the writing community as a whole

For most of us, our writing is our safe space and we try really hard to keep it that way for both readers and ourselves and to be constantly belittled by people who do not write content is kind of hurtful

I don't want to make you feel like I'm calling you out I honestly just wanted to let you know my personal opinion, and I want to get your further thoughts on this matter

Oh i nearly forgot to mention the critiques!

I do wholeheartedly agree with this, I have seen tons of writer's not be able to take critiques but I do think there is a difference between and actual critique and striaght up hate or passive aggressiveness

A lot of the times people don't know how to properly give a critique and end up just hating on something they just don't personally like

If you don't like it then don't read it

I know I personally have gotten "critiques" that were solely based off of a dislike of the genre I was writing in, and that is pretty hurtful

Just because you don't liek a genre or a kink or anything related doesn't mwan the work is bad!

Now for any writer's who are reading this, when you do get actual critiques please don't take it to heart!! I think we can all always improve ourselves as writer's and to blatantly disregard info that could potentially help kind of just makes people not want to read your content so please be mindful!

Okay this ask is making me very amused (derogatory) but you're 19 so I'll be nice.

I'll start by saying I'm coming from the point of view of someone who is also a writer, unless you think that the title of "writer" only applies to fan fic and not original fiction? If you take even a cursory look at my blog you'll see that I'm very loud and open about being a writer. So it's odd that you immediately assumed that I'm just a random know-nothing reader with no experience and/or who doesn't know what I'm saying unfairly being mean about writers when that's not the case. That honestly irked me a lot.

I'm not sure where in my post I say that it's bad to boast about your writing as a fan fiction writer, and I'm not sure how you interpreted it that way, but that's not what I'm saying at all. All I said was that it's odd to me that there's a general movement in the fan fic writer's community that wants fan fiction to be seen as an art form on the level of published works, but will absolutely NOT take any criticism about anything, whether mundane or actually terrible. It can’t be both ways tbh.

I'm very happy that we're on the same page about all the nasty stuff that pops up in fan fic! However that doesn't stop the fact that there are so many of these stories and it's difficult to impossible to call it out without having dozens of writers descend on you to defend their right to traumatize others, so I would absolutely be remiss if I didn't mention that.

The truth about writing is that, once it's out there, you have little to no control over who's gonna see it or what they'll say or think. People are gonna have opinions on your writing, and not all of it is gonna be nice! You're right that sometimes people can be hurtful for no reason, but sometimes critique that is worded gently and respectfully causes a lot of fan fic writers to lash out hatefully and declare themselves victims of a harassment campaign, which is strange and off putting. That's what I'm railing against in my post and generally speaking on when I mention this.

Finally, I just want to mention that I don't think fan fic is inherently bad, but I do think there are a lot of short comings in the fan fic community, both in the writing itself and in the people, that needs to be addressed.

[valley0fstorms]

The Vil Essay(tm)

Vil Schoenheit, the dorm leader of Pomefiore and a 3rd year at Night Raven College. He is a character that people seem to mischaracterize often, which is a shame. People like to write him off as narcissistic and vain and that’s about it, but these people miss every other aspect about him and only focus on the parts openly apparent due to his association with Snow White’s Evil Queen. He is such an interesting character, and it is a shame people dumb him down to his want to be beautiful as his only personality. 

Throughout the 19 character stories he appears in (at the time of writing this), he is shown to be a much deeper and thoughtful character than some people make him out to be. Out of the 57 notes made from every story he appears in, Vil has only shown the stereotypical nature that fanon has given him in 9 of them. So yes, while the traits are there, they are simply a small part of a greater, more complex personality. 

His strictness and attention to his appearance aren’t out of narcissism though, he is in no way narcissistic. The definition of a Narcissist is, according to Merriam-Webster definition A of Entry 1, “an extremely self-centered person who has an exaggerated sense of self-importance,” and yeah, if you take Vil at face value, you could assume this is true of him, but if you look more into him and read the stories he appears in, you would quickly see that this is not the case. Another thing is that Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), according to Oxford, is “a personality disorder characterized by an exaggerated sense of self-importance, a need for admiration, and a lack of empathy for other people.” That last part, “lack of empathy,” is a big thing, as it is seen that Vil does have empathy. He knows that he is strict, and he knows that the routines that he makes the students of Pomefiore go through can be hard and stressful for them, and he understands that not everyone can keep up with it, which is why he looks for effort overall. If the students he looks after put at least some effort into trying to keep up with the skin and hair routines Vil puts in place, he will be happy. 

Moving on from that, it is seen that Vil is rather observant. For example: In his lab SR story, he is able to tell the slight difference in the color of the potion he and Rook were trying to create, and in Jamil’s Fairy Gala SR story, it is seen that he can accurately pick out the issues in 3 separate people that he was coaching at the same time, telling Leona, Kalim, and Jamil the flaws in their practice. To elaborate on this, he was able to tell Leona wasn’t motivated just by watching him practice, he noticed all of Kalim’s mistakes in his dancing, and how Jamil’s dancing fails in being able to captivate an audience. He watched the 3 of them practice at the exact same time and picked all of these out, informing them of their shortcomings. 

Now, for the idea that Vil is self-centered and doesn’t care about anyone but himself… There is much evidence that shows this is not the case. One of the biggest is the entirety of his Ceremonial Robe SR story. The story is focused on him and Jack for the most part, to the point he makes a cameo in the Groovy art for the card.

If you haven’t read the story, the basic summary of it is this: At the Entrance Ceremony at the start of the school year, Jack, a 1st year, sees Vil in the crowd and calls out to him. Vil responds, remembering Jack from their home is the Land of Pyroxene. He comments that Jack was one of the few people who weren’t prejudiced against Vil because of his choice of career and expression, and they spoke for a while, Vil noticing that Jack’s robes were messy but deciding to not comment on it. Later they ran into each other once more. Jack makes an offhand comment about how his ears make the robe’s hood uncomfortable, and Vil questions him on it, commenting on how the entire Robe was put on sloppily, making Jack let him fix the uniform for him so that he wears it correctly, commenting on how Jack’s build and how he should wear the robes for it to be most comfortable all while looking nice, giving him a small lesson about how the Ceremonial Robes are the most formal uniform they have.

With this story in mind, it is clear that Vil cares quite a bit for the appearance of others, and not just himself. And if his entire Robe story wasn’t enough, Leona’s uniform R card story also shows this, where Vil comments on how one or two of Leona’s buttons are loose, though he doesn’t fix it for him, given that Leona is a 20-year-old man who should know how to fix a button, until Leona annoys him enough that he just does it for him. Vil will take note of other people’s appearances, telling them the issue with their appearance and possibly how to fix it, though he has no intention of fixing it himself most of the time. And how could I forget Vil’s strict beauty regimen that he wants his entire dorm to do? He says it is in place simply to keep up Pomefiore’s beautiful image, but in reality, he wants his dorm members to become better. One of Pomefiore’s biggest things is becoming comfortable in your own body, which is, in all honesty, probably why Epel, the small, feminine-looking boy who wants to become physically strong and more like Jack, was placed there. 

And speaking of Epel, one of the reasons people seem to dislike Vil is his treatment of Epel in Epel’s robe SR story, where Vil almost crushes Epel’s head in his hand and forces Epel into speaking “properly,” having good table manners and posture, and generally not letting him act like a “mud-covered potato” as Vil so lovingly referred to Epel. While yes, this behavior from Vil is a valid reason to dislike him, he has his reasons for this. Epel is considered to be extremely beautiful by nature, with his small frame and feminine appearance, and Vil knows this, which is exactly why he is so strict with Epel. Vil knows Epel hates his body for being small and frail, he knows Epel wants to be stronger, and while the way he is going about it certainly isn’t the best, Vil does want Epel to become comfortable with himself, and looking at the Ghost Marriage event, which is set after the Pomefiore chapter coming this September, it can be assumed that, during the events of Chapter 5, Vil does become laxer with how he treats Epel, given that he seems to ignore some remarks made by Epel towards him getting slapped by Eliza for not owning a large dog.

To go on a small tangent, speaking of Ghost Marriage (GM), In this event, we saw a new side to Vil, one probably coming out after he Overblots in chapter 5. He seems less forceful than he has been shown to be, especially with Epel, but for sake of not repeating information, let’s look at another detail; Vil’s use of personal pronouns. In Japanese, the terms used to refer to oneself are gendered, and Vil uses Atashi (あたし), which is a more feminine term, as opposed to using Boku (ぼく), which is generally more masculine, and for the first time in GM, we heard Vil use boku to refer to himself, specifically when he had to act like the perfect prince for Eliza, the ghost bride. Leona had specifically made a remark about Vil while he was in his act, basically saying that he knew Vil was uncomfortable referring to himself using such language and that he should stop, but for the sake of the act, he kept it up, until he got slapped that is. What can be taken from this is that Vil prefers to use feminine terms for himself, but over all he is still a man and refers to himself as such, even if he uses feminine personal pronouns

Vil is a character who is and does many things. Vil is strict. Vil is punctual. Vil critiques others. Vil points out their strengths and weaknesses. Vil helps others, in his own roundabout way. But above all, Vil cares about other people’s opinions. In most of the stories he appears in, he listens to what the person he is speaking to has to say, albeit with varying levels of patience depending on the person. He may seem forceful, yes, especially with how in Leona’s Gala SSR he ran to Savanaclaw and banged on Leona’s door demanding he came out after Leona ditched practice for the Fairy Gala, but as explained earlier, Vil has good intentions with this and he knows how Leona can get sometimes, and as such he knows that some force is needed, though there are times he can get too forceful and cause an issue. 

There are so many aspects about Vil that can be taken just from his personal stories, and the way people normally portray him is definitely there, but those traits are just a few of many that create Vil’s personality. As a character he is complex, and until Pomefiore’s chapter comes out, we cannot be sure as to his true motives for wanting to achieve true beauty, but even without that, we can still look at his character and make speculation. Before the release of Chapter 5 mid September, it should be said that, whatever happens and whatever Vil does in it is going to be him at his worst, as is the trend with the Overblots. It is perfectly fine to dislike him for his actions and criticize him for them, but ultimately he is just a character. Don’t berate someone just because he is their favorite, even if you yourself don’t like him; this can be said for any character in any series, not just Vil. 

[tortoisenottortoise]

Am I the only one who likes seeing muscular women in media more than muscular men?

Alright so, this one will probably end up much shorter and a little more ranty than I'd like, but this is kind of personal so be fairly warned. 

 Recently I've seen a few complaints about the new He-Man show and honestly, I fully understand and empathize with them. Whilst I haven't fully seen the show, from what I've viewed I can personally speaking agree (or at the very least understand) where most criticisms come from. I think it's incredibly shitty that the writer basically lied to his audience about how the show would run. Now normally I'd be fine with a twist such as He-man dying, but he's an important part of the show and the way the marketing & merchandising for it was running kind of comes across as him basically using He-Man's name to get people into the show. I also feel like it's fine to view Teela as obnoxious and annoying, nothing about her personality-wise seems likable to me. I also heard a few complaints about Orko's (I think that's his name, don't crucify me) backstory and how his character was handled.Yet as the title suggests one that didn't stick with me was the criticism of Teela and a general trend towards the criticism of women in media as being "masculine". 

I've heard over and over that Hollywood representing strong women by giving them masculine traits is a bad thing and yet... I kind of don't get it? It feels odd to say, almost like I'm the dumbest man alive for admitting something which most people on the internet seem to be so sure about, yet I just don't understand where this is coming from. I've seen this thrown at She-hulk, Wonder Woman, Abby, and many other characters, yet when inquired it usually loops back around to, "Yeah they have muscles", and that's about it. This type of criticism in specific seems to overly focus on the appearance of said characters. It's the one critique I just can't get behind and it feels like at best it's a shallow criticism that fails to get its point across, and at worst it's actively demeaning to women who desire to or show masculine traits. But first, let me break this down into sections.

Section 1: Muscles =/= Masculinity (In my opinion at least)

Oh boy, I feel like this is a section that might rustle some feathers, but I'm going to try and explain myself best as possible. I simply do not view muscularity as a feature that is inherent to or should be inherent to men. I'm not going to pretend as if muscular men aren't more saturated in media and art, nor as if they're societally treated as masculine, but one of the reasons I fail to understand this criticism is that I see muscles beyond the horizons as being just a masculine trait. 

I believe that muscles should instead be seen as a sign of hard work and determination. As someone who's currently trying (and struggling) to stay healthy and fit, it's much harder than a lot of media portrays it to be. It's a test where you push yourself to the limits, not just for the sake of doing it, but so you can improve as a person. Whenever I go to the gym and see a muscular gal or guy walk by, my immediate thought isn't, "how masculine" or anything like that my thought is, "wow! They worked hard to get like that, I should work hard as well!". 

This interpretation tends to feel like it's just simply taking a piss on people who actively work hard to achieve higher levels of strength. Especially when society places and enforces these unrealistic standards onto people. If you don't have a six-quintillion pack nor can bench press a fucking house then you're worthless, of course, that is unless you actually attempt to pursue said standards which in that case you're automatically dismissed as cheating your way to gaining your muscles instead of putting any work in. And that's just for men who often don't have to deal with traditional idiots who are stuck in the year 1950 where I can't walk on the same street as them. My skin crawls when reading tweets from older men talking about how weightlifting women are "ruining their fertility" and I absolutely hate it when people in my life treat these women as if they're mythical creatures from a fairy tale, or when females who have trained to such a degree are simply dismissed as being inferior. 

Obviously, I don't think the people who say this are like that, but whenever I hear this type of critique I can't help but think of the culmination of all these experiences I've gone through. But then again, this might honestly just be because I'm personally attracted to muscular women.

  Section 2: Body type diversity

  Another reason that I tend to like muscular women in media over muscular men is simply due to the sheer oversaturation of muscular men. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem if anybody likes muscular men. I totally get wanting to shove your face in between some man titties or get inspired by their physiques. In all honesty, almost everything I said earlier can directly apply to men, but one of the reasons I bring up body type diversity is that there tend to be much less muscular women than men. I

f anything, I'd have to say that muscular men are almost treated as the default when it comes to things like superhero comics, movies, video games, anime, etc. In a similar vein, the default for women tends to be slim and curvaceous, you get the drill. Whenever someone who doesn't fit into either body type shows up and isn't treated like a joke/gag or a character to rip on, I can't help but be happy about it. As much as I have no clue wtf is going on with TLOU2, I can appreciate that Abby's portrayal doesn't seem to exist solely as a joke meant to demean women for working out. I'm excited when an anime protagonist is a fat character who can go beyond just being a "fat guy" and is treated the same way a normal person would be.

 Regardless of what you think about whatever trait you're criticizing, there's probably someone out there who fits it. If you're not into it or dislike it, then that's fine, but I'd rather have that expressed than it being actively made out as a harmful trope as opposed to just literally another body type that some women have.

  Section 3: Muscular women inspire me more

Ok so, we've now blown into a full-on personal experience, buckle up boys, girls, NBs, anything in between, and I feel like I'm forgetting someone so apologies! But yeah, muscular women in media tend to be a lot more inspiring than people seem to give them credit for. This comes down to a mix of both the qualities I outlined earlier in what makes the characters inspiring but also plays into the idea of body diversity. 

One of the traits that make amazons seem more inspiring is their inherent rarity/lack of screentime. As I stated earlier, whilst I do enjoy my fair share of man-titties, it kind of gets to a point where it's more depressing than inspiring when all you see is just super-models shoved in your face whenever you walk into a theater. If for every Goku I could find ten other guys who were on the chubbier side then I'd be able to take more from when I see Goku and other characters with his body type, yet it's so saturated that it no longer becomes something to aspire to, but simply the norm.  It's not that you can work to become muscular or skinny with hard work and effort, you have to be muscular or skinny unless you want to be deemed a failure. Being chubby often isn't presented as a starting point but just treated as a defect. As someone who spent years battling with my own self-perception, that's just not a good message to get across.

Now, this obviously isn't to say that people can never make muscular characters. After all, it's their story so they can put whatever they want in it. The aim of the game isn't to stop people from making a specific type of character, but to encourage a diverse set of people to make a diverse set of characters. This is the reason why I view muscular women as so inspiring. Instead of coming across as just "the norm" or "the standard" they stand out from the crowd and despite knowing what they have to deal with, are still ready and willing to work out and improve their bodies. They had a goal in mind and set time aside to achieve said goal, that's something I can get behind.

  Conclusion:

This will be another short section, but I just wanted to mention it because it caps off my thoughts on this post in general. What originally started as me just not getting the reason why people disliked Teela's design somehow turned into a passionate rant and I'm A) not sure if it fits on this particular subsection of the community, B) scared I'm going to get ripped to pieces, and C) somewhat unsatisfied with all that I said. At the end of the day, this probably won't be seen by too many people, but to those who do see it, I hope you have a wonderful day. I just wanted to talk about something that was near and dear to my heart and hoped that I made it clear why I view things the way I do. 

P.S: Can we stop having this double standard where we act like women whose arms show the slightest hint of definition are "unrealistic" whilst men can look like tree trunks and be considered normal and healthy? please and thank you!

[halothenthehorns]

All in the Family

Chapter 106: The Sorting Hat's New Song

There was so, much, pink. Nobody could blame Sirius screeching and covering his eyes or Evans looking like she was hard pressed not to start color changing everything in sight just to give their eye sores a break.

The couch was royal pink with gold embroidery. The carpet was piglet pink and so fluffy you could die on it or mistake it for cotton candy. Even the walls were decked out in a rainbow shade of pink. There were pale pink doilies on every wooden, pink-stained end table, only the book sitting open and waiting with its white and black pages broke the scene. James could barely recall a time it had been so visible, let alone open for them, like it wanted out of here as bad as them.

They appeared to have interrupted some tea party, a hot pink kettle was still smoking and strawberry pink scones were assorted neatly on an orchid pink tray.

"Whoever owns this house must be blind," Alice said slowly, turning carefully on the spot and spotting a hallway leading off to this sitting room. She took a slow, careful step towards it, still remembering Mad-Eye's house and what happened when they'd appeared in there, but nothing attacked her.

Frank followed her every step. They were definitely in some woman's house, an ugly toad-looking person who was in every picture along the hallway shaking hands with assorted people in cherry blossom pink frames. The new DADA teacher, they'd all have to assume judging by the chapter title, though why the Sorting Hat's New Song would be memorable in comparison they found hard to believe.

Peter had to take a piss but honestly feared what the bathroom would look like if this was the sitting room. Regulus was prodding his wand curiously along the scones waiting for something to happen, but finally he snatched one up and popped it into his mouth.

James was reading about Harry's trip up to the school with the same concern as Harry, where was Hagrid? Why was that Grubbly-Plank woman back? It was certainly a much more pressing issue to him than those creepy horse things Harry could suddenly see, but Peter and apparently other students had also been seeing them for years and they didn't seem to hurt anybody so he really was brushing past that, even as Remus was muttering at his side and peeking over his shoulder like he was hoping the book would give a visual.

If Harry's guess was right and he was still out convoying with the giants, then that didn't bode well for his health.

James had everyone's attention now when he announced the rest of the staffing changes going on, the toad-faced woman from Harry's trial being at the staff table.

Their suspicions may have been confirmed, but it cleared up none of their confusion. What was someone from the Ministry doing being a teacher there?! This had never happened as far as they knew, the Ministry didn't interfere in Hogwarts! Had Fudge's tyrannical behavior really come so far so fast?

Peter finally lost the fight with his bladder and took off after Alice Smith and Longbottom into the hallway in search of a bathroom as Prongs began merrily singing the new sorting hat song at the top of his lungs.

The rest of the house was just as ghastly, they really were going to go blind before they got out of here. He spotted the kitchen, with pink tiles and even stained glass pink windows, along with cherry-pink cupboards the other two were going through.

The first door he tried though mercifully led him into what must be her room, a queen-sized bed for such a squat lady with fairy hangings draping it, but his eyes locked on an adjacent door with a pink diamond handle and he went to quickly relieve himself. The toilet hummed a tune he didn't recognize and he loathed the salmon pink hand soap he had to use. Even the ruddy water she'd enchanted came out with the same tinge, it was like a nightmare!

By the time he was done James had read past the students' reaction to the hat's song, which had sounded nothing new to any of them, and the feast had begun. Peter let his eyes trail curiously about the room instead of rejoining them, eyes landing on several things. There was another door leading off to a closet, a jewelry box as large as he was prominently between that door and the bathroom one, and yet more plaques and awards. There seemed to be absolutely nothing about this woman that he did not dislike.

When Dumbledore unequivocally announced that Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic was to be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Remus winced and tried to step behind James. There were theories, and there was confirmation, and his stomach gave a nasty twist at the idea of someone working for the Ministry also a teacher at his school. He wasn't even sure if the Ministry was aware he attended Hogwarts, and he certainly didn't want to find out!

Sirius finally stopped pretending to gouge his eyes out when he saw that and went over, throwing an arm over his shoulder and looking around to spot Evans and Regulus were still in the room. He knew he didn't need to anymore, but he still kept his voice low enough they shouldn't have been able to hear, "relax Moony, nerdy guy like you, they'd be mad to throw you out just because of your furry little problem."

Remus did marginally relax. He only had two years of school left though, what exactly was next for him with the Ministry looming over him was an ever-pressing problem he couldn't ignore much longer.

Lily noticed the exchange but didn't give it much thought, she'd spent far too long ignoring the Marauders to give a care what they still had to whisper about. She'd been tempted to follow Alice and Frank to explore this Umbridge woman's house, but was now glad she hadn't, attention fully on the book now as she listened avidly to the speech she gave, overriding Dumbledore's own.

Regulus watched as Potter got twitchy with boredom trying to read said speech, but he took in every word with an uneasy frown. He watched as Sirius grabbed the wrist of his friend who wasn't reading and pulled him out of the room with a glazed over expression, and the werewolf certainly seemed happy to get as far away as possible from all this. Potter watched them go with a grumpy look like he wanted to bolt from this as well before glancing at the Muggleborn Evans and droning on with his shoulders a little straighter, like bolstering himself to finish was impressive or something.

Sirius had him into a little dinning area that looked sickeningly like a tea party for a five year old and the wide, oak doors stained pink shut before James had even finished the first of Umbridge's very long sentences. He didn't immediately start snogging him this time though, just put one hand on the door for some kind of bar and ran his hand up and down the inside of his leg and slowly rutting against him as he whispered in his ear, "you ever given a blow job back?"

"No," he quietly admitted, a bit shamefully too.

"That's okay," Sirius' breath was so warm as it fell over his cheek, "I don't mind being your guinea pig, everyone's got to start somewhere. Just, rule number one, mind the teeth," and he nipped his ear, causing Remus to laugh hard.

"That's not a problem with me Padfoot," he assured, pleased to hear his voice almost steady that time.

"Don't think we have time for it now though," Sirius was still breathing improperly onto him and it was taking everything Remus had not to seize him and start snogging him. "Just, if I don't, feel free to bring it up next time we get a chance." He squeezed the inside of his thigh again but left his hand there with plenty of pressure. "I'm starting to feel like I'm harassing you. You're clearly enjoying this," he rubbed his hand up purposefully where his obvious pleasure was building and wrapped it around then to pinch his ass, "but you've yet to try getting me alone."

"Just, dealing with a lot," Remus panted, one hand pressed firmly against Sirius' back so he couldn't go anywhere, the other just trembling uselessly at his side as he half lied, and rather than admit the rest, redirected. "So have you, if you'd admit it."

"Where's the fun in that?" he pulled back just enough to grin at him in the hazy pink lighting, but that reasonably could have been his brain this time. "Bottle it all up long enough and it comes out sweet, I'd swear it," and he squeezed hard.

Remus couldn't stop himself then and finally let his other hand pull Sirius to him by his shirt, kissing him with everything he had and knowing he'd regret it later for missing his chance to talk to him and his reward was Sirius grinding so hard against him he couldn't think straight. They could hear the pause though, they'd definitely waited too long to get an alone moment, and both of them actually whimpered in disappointment as they forced themselves apart and stood there for several long moments panting at just within arms reach as they were zapped away.

When Potter had finished it was pretty obvious he hadn't taken in a word, he had to give himself a shake to even realize he was talking about his own kid again and Hermione's critique of said speech.

Her explanation for it though certainly caught his undivided attention. James frowned to himself as he played the speech over in his head again, even going back and rereading some of it without Hermione's repetition. His skin crawled at the idea, what was the Ministry playing at? No matter how much they didn't like Dumbledore's truth, surely they couldn't do anything too radical, right?

He glanced up and saw the drawn expressions of Sirius's little brother and Evans, and didn't see either of them looking much happier at the idea.

James paused and ran a miserable hand down his face when Harry's two friends went off to their prefect duties and his boy was left alone to stew in the school's attitude about him, and the whole thing continued to grow worse when he made it up to his tower and even his dormmates seemed to be talking about Harry. What he would give to appear at his side like he would for any of his friends, offer a good joke for the laugh needed for that long trek up to the tower. He absolutely did not like this recurring pattern of Harry feeling so alone recently.

He saw Evans twitching out of the corner of his eye, but by the time he looked up she was frowning at him same as ever, or glaring at the book. Either way he grinned at her to let her know he knew she'd been feeling the same way. For a moment he was tempted to try and get her to admit as such, but instead decided he'd do for her what he wanted to for Harry moment's ago. "Don't worry Evans, I'm sure just because that woman dresses like a toad every day they won't enforce that upon the rest of us. The other students will realize that in no time!"

It actually worked for just a moment, she cracked a smile he'd swear it, but then she flicked her fingers at him to keep going and he did with pleasure that only lasted long enough to realize Harry's own dormmates were in fact going to start an actual fight over this. Harry and Seamus were about to draw wands on each other before Ron intervened!

James glanced up and around to find himself once again the lone Marauder in the room, and as he read the last lines of the chapter, he knew exactly how Harry felt.

[tricewithaz]

how are you feeling about the grishaverse fandom right now? (general populous attitude, hot topics, fics, art, ect.)

Havent been around here for long but honestly?? It could be way worse. Typically im the kind of person that the moment i see something that bothers me (that really bothers me i mean not something i generally disagree with) i take it out of my dash, i unfollow or mute or whatever so i tend to not see things that bother me. Sure there are some hot takes i dont agree with and whatnot but that happens in any context. Its a piece of media, of art if you will, and that in and on itself is subjective. I barely see genuinely immature or straight up harmful content, barely any fetishization (which, coming from kpop and anime..... damn it feels good), at least that i see.

Something ive really taken notice of is critique. Its just so easy to critique a plot line or a character and everyone is fine with it, even if they dont agree. Everyone shares thoughts, feelings, opinions, etc on the books and its okay. Which, again, coming from a kpop fandom, its mindblowing. Youre telling me no ones going to call me racist or misogynistic, no ones gonna say im being disrespectful towards leigh, no ones gonna scream at me for establishing why i dont like matthias' death? Mindblowing. Feels really nice to not feel guilty about disliking a piece of media within the grishaverse.

I must say, ive barely read any fanfic on here, but the few that ive read, the characterisation is just chefs kiss. Not reducing a character to one (1) personality trait? unheard of. Love to see it.

What i have to say about fanart tho ahem *please stop whitewashing Jesper please please please please*. Like just???? why???? he is described as being like, quite dark. And i see a lot of him either being light skin or even if hes relatively dark with whitewashed features. Please just dont. It really says something that youre loyal to everyones descriptions but him??? cmon. On a more bright side, i love love LOVE how all of us *all of us* draw kaz the same. Like, genuinely. He literally was never described as having a scar on his eyebrow and his lip or an even slightly crooked nose. But we all just...... go with it? i think its cute. Zoya on the other hand is ALWAYS different and i also think its cute how were described someone exceptionally beautiful and all of us think of different features. Love to see it.

And as for my opinions on Alarkling. Listen. I dont ship it. Obviously the Darkling is abusive (and excessively teenage edgy for a 500 year old guy but whatever). However, theres some things about him and about his relationship with Alina that are very interesting and i get why people would ship them (out of canon) and why people would want to explore their relationship. I generally just think that its a bit more complicated than Darkling Bad. This is not to excuse people who genuinely try to excuse his actions and argue that their relationship in canon is equal to malina's and even nikolina's (which is another complicated ship for many various reasons).

Another topic of discourse that i have a bone to pick with is Nikolai's marriage to Ehri. Starting with the topic of her age, although described to be "young", Nikolai himself was also described this way back when he was supposed to be around 21. The whole " Nikolai is a creep because theres an age difference with Ehri" point is one that i find pointless mainly because we don't even know Ehri's age. I feel like people also treat this as something Nikolai wants to do and that he's interested in her instead of what it is: an imprisonment in response to a crime against the Crown. Arguably (and as logical as i find it in context) making someone marry you is..... morally dubious at best. Personally i feel like its just another royal arranged marriage. Terrible in concept, but it is something that existed (and still exists but thats not a topic for this post) and that makes sense in the plot (love me that angsty political and romantic conflict and if leigh doesnt make an ehri pov i might throw myself off a window).

And i think thats all i dont think i have many other hot opinions on this fandom. I generally feel pretty comfortable here.

Sorry this got way too long 🤪

[randomnumbers751650]

Long, unedited text in which I rant about comparative mythology, Joseph Campbell and his monomyth,

Back in 2012 I wanted to improve my fiction writing (and writing in general, because in spite of nuances, themes and audience, writing a fiction and a nonfiction piece shouldn’t be that different) and thus I picked a few writing manuals. Many of them cited the Hero’s Journey, and how important it became for writers – after all Star Wars used and it worked. I believe most of the people reading this like Star Wars, or at least has neutral feelings about it, but one thing that cannot be denied is that became a juggernaut of popular culture.

So I bought a copy of the Portuguese translation of The Hero of a Thousand Faces and I fell in love with the style. Campbell had a great way with words and the translation was top notch. For those unaware, The Hero of a Thousand Faces proposes that there is a universal pattern in humanity’s mythologies that involves a person (usually a man) that went out into a journey far away from his home, faced many obstacles, both external and internal, and returned triumphant with a prize, the Grail or the Elixir of Life, back to his home. Campbell’s strength is that he managed to systematize so many different sources into a single cohesive narrative.

At the time I was impressed and decided to study more and write in an interdisciplinary research with economics – by writing an article on how the entrepreneur replaces the mythical hero in today’s capitalism. I had to stop the project in order to focus on more urgent matters (my thesis), but now that I finished I can finally return to this pet project of mine.

If you might have seen previous posts, I ended up having a dismal view of economics. It’s a morally and spiritually failed “science” (I have in my drafts a post on arts and I’m going to rant another day about it). Reading all these books on comparative mythology is so fun because it allows me for a moment to forget I have a degree in economics.

Until I started to realize there was something wrong.

My research had indicated that Campbell and others (such as Mircea Eliade and Carl Gust Jung, who had been on of Campbell’s main influences) weren’t very well respected in academia. At first I thought “fine”, because I’m used to interact with economists who can be considered “heterodox” and I have academic literature that I could use to make my point, besides the fact my colleagues were interested in what I was doing.

The problem is that this massive narrative of the Hero’s Journey/monomyth is an attempt to generalize pretty wide categories, like mythology, into one single model of explanation, it worked because it became a prescription, giving the writer a tool to create a story in a factory-like pace. It has checkboxes that can be filled, professional writers have made it widely available.

But I started to realize his entire understanding of mythology is problematic. First the basics: Campbell ignores when myths don’t fit his scheme. This is fruit of his Jungian influences, who claim that humanity has a collective unconsciousness, that manifest through masks and archetypes. This is the essence of the Persona games (and to a smaller extent of the Fate games) – “I am the Shadow the true self”. So any deviation from the monomyth can be justified by being a faulty translation of the collective unconsciousness.

This is the kind of thing that Karl Popper warned about, when he proposed the “falseability” hypothesis, to demarcate scientific knowledge. The collective unconsciousness isn’t a scientific proposition because it can be falsified. It cannot be observed and it cannot be refuted, because someone who subscribe to this doctrine will always have an explanation to explain why it wasn’t observed. In spite of falseability isn’t favored by philosophers of science anymore, it remains an important piece of the history of philosophy and he aimed his attack on psychoanalysis of Freud and Jung – and, while they helped psychology in the beginning, they’re like what Pythagoras is to math. They were both surpassed by modern science and they are studied more as pieces of history than serious theorists.

But this isn’t the worst. All the three main authors on myths were quite conservatives in the sense of almost being fascists – sometimes dropping the ‘almost’. Some members of the alt-right even look up to them as some sort of “academic’ justification. Not to mention anti-Semitic. Jung had disagreement with Freud and Freud noticed his anti-Semitism. Eliade was a proud supporter of the Iron Guard, a Romanian fascist organization that organized pogroms and wanted to topple the Romanian government. Later Eliade became an ambassador at Salazar’s Fascist Portugal, writing it was a government guided by the love of God. Campbell, with his hero worship, was dangerously close to the ur-fascism described by Umberto Eco (please read here, you won’t regret https://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf).

“If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled as New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge – that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.”

Campbell did that a lot. He considered the Bible gospels and Gnostic gospels to be on the same level. Any serious student, that is not operating under New Age beliefs and other frivolous theories like the one that says Jesus went to India, will know there’s a difference between them (even Eliade was sure to stress the difference).

But Campbell cared nothing for it. He disliked the “semitic” religions for corrupting the mythic imagination (which is the source of his anti-Semitism), especially Judaism. When I showed him describing the Japanese tea ceremony to a friend who’s minoring in Japanese studies, she wrote “I’m impressed, he’s somehow managed to out-purple prose the original Japanese”. So, it’s also full of orientalism, treating the East as the mystical Other, something for “daring” Westerners to discover and distillate.

What disturbed…no, “disturbed” isn’t the word that I need in the moment, but what made me feel uncomfortable is that, in spite of all his talk of spirituality, the impression I had of Power of Myth is that I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone more materialist than him. Not even Karl Marx, founder of the Historical Materialism, was as materialist as Campbell.

At one point in the book, he was asked if he believed in anything and he gave a dismissive reply and said “I want to get experiences.” A man who studied all the myths of the world available, apparently didn’t believe in anything. Is that what spiritual maturity is? A continuous flux of experiences? Being taken by some sort of shamanistic wind like a floating plastic bag?

In nowhere in the interview he talked about virtues. In rebellion with his Catholic childhood, he said that we should go to the confessionary and say “God, I’ve been such a good boy”. Any cursory reading of the Gospel would say otherwise. Wasn’t this exactly Pharisee’s prayer in Luke 18:9-14? While the wasn’t the publican, who went with humility and asked for forgiveness, the one who walked out with an experience? And not only in Christianity, since in Tibetan Buddhism, a tulpa is something you have to kill, not foster like an imaginary friend like in some internet circles, contamined with this obsession with experiences.

The way I came to see Joseph Campbell as a man who was so stuck in his own world that nothing could move him out of it. All he wanted to do was this big experience, but in the end it’s as wide as the ocean, but shallow as a puddle. Even when Campbell speaks about having a “cosmic consciousness”, all that New Age jargon, claiming it’s about people discovering they’re not the center of the universe, it’s still so…self-servicing. It addresses a crowd so obsessed with experiences, but wants nothing to do with anything that requires compromise. He quotes the Hindu concept of maya, that life is an illusion, but I wonder how right he is about it.

I want to share this critique, by a researcher in comic studies: “We do not remember The Night Gwen Stacy Died because Gwen’s death reminds us of our own mortality, ‘the destiny of Everyman’, but because the story exposes the fragility of Spider-Man reader’s fantasies. Even icons can die.”

The exposition of the fragility of myths, especially the Hero’s Journey, never happens in Campbell’s work. It never talks about the potential of myths hindering entire societies, causing strife and causing people who can’t fit to become outcasts. Not even the cruel ones, like the Aztec death cult is treated as sublime, ignoring the fact that the Aztec neighbors helped to Spanish because they had enough of the Aztec myth.

I have changed my article. While I will still write on the hero entrepreneur, I’ll take a more critical view. The focus of the entrepreneur as an individual has many issues, because it ignores the role of public investment (necessary for high risk enterprises, like going to the moon or creating touch screens) and it treats with contempt the worked wage. Cambpell also treated with contempt the “masses”, who cannot be “heroes”. The theory on the entrepreneur is the same, treating the entrepreneur as a hero and the waged workers as lowlifes who have nothing to do, but to work, obey and be paid – to the point it feels like some economists treat strikes as crimes worse than murder. Not only that, but they can exploit the worker (see a book named “Do what you love and other lies about success and happiness”, it could be replaced with “Follow your bliss…”).

Campbell wrote in a time that there was no Wikipedia. So his book was the introduction of myths to a lot of people. It helped it was well-written. He considering his approach apolitical, but it’s clear that’s it’s not exactly like that (though this is a reason why Jordan Peterson failed to become the next Campbell, since he’s also a Jungian scholar, but he tried to become a conservative guru and this was his downfall). And, nowadays, Campbell is still inevitable in the circles that his themes matter, unlike Freud and Jung. Read it, but be aware of its problems, because it has already influenced what you consume.

[faroreswinds]

Data Mining Activities & Quotes Analysis: Sylvain

As per what I said before, I want to look deeper into data mining for funsies and just see what I can spot. 

Today’s character is: Sylvain! 

As a little disclaimer, I won’t be doing all his quotes because that’s a LOT! Instead, I’m just going to focus on stuff I think is interesting to look at, like particular classroom questions, or his lost items, or whatever. One day, I’ll probably get into the chapters individually but today is just to focus on one character. I’ll also update this as I find more stuff, as a small heads-up. If you find something that I missed, feel free to let me know and I’ll update the post as well.

Ok, so let’s get into it!

Check out more from this series of analysis here. They will be updated over time.  

Basics- Battle

Most of the battle quotes aren’t interesting, and the data mining does not include the voiced lines without text so I had to turn to the wiki page. That said, there were a few Post Time Skip Defeat the Enemy quotes he says I find particularly interesting:

"Don't bother haunting me."

"Burn until we meet again."

Based on Annette’s support with Claude, we know the Kingdom has a particularly interesting view on the afterlife. I won’t go into the details here- instead, I will be making a Kingdom focused page for all things cultural that will cover it- but the talk of “burning” and “haunting” go along with their beliefs. 

Not to mention, it is very, very dark. And Sylvain, despite his carefree attitude, has got a dark and gritty view of life. He’s smiling on the outside, but he will have no qualms with taking you down. 

Basics- Cooking and Choir

Sylvain just has no interest in either of these things, as per his quotes: 

Cooking Together

Part I: Cooking... Cooking... Heh. Well, it'll all work out somehow...maybe.

Part II: If you just follow the recipe, most things will come out fine. I think.

Choir Practice

It's hard to sneak out when the professor is watching.

Share a Meal- Dining Dialogue

Sylvain only has two people he has quotes with during meal time: Ingrid and Dimitri. Surprisingly, not Felix, despite having an ending with him and not an ending with Dimitri. His quotes with Ingrid are just cute, but I think his quotes with Dimitri have some nice little insights:

Support C

Sylvain: You know what, Professor? His Highness here is the most stubborn guy I know.

Dimitri: Now, Sylvain, why not go ahead and eat? If you do not, I may help myself to it.

Support B

Sylvain: By the way, how delicious are the monastery meals, right? We sure don't eat like this back in the Kingdom.

Dimitri: I agree. If we could only grow more food on our poor soil, and in the severe winter of the north...

Sylvain has a lot of quotes, including from FEH and from his support with Dimitri, that pertain to wanting Dimitri to relax (and that he’s too stubborn to). This goes hand in hand with the relationship chart that came out from Nintendo Dream some time back:

I wish I could link this picture to the original translator, but I don’t know who did it. But as you can see, Sylvain wants Dimitri to relax. 

The quotes from support B gives some insight into the Kingdom, about how they just don’t eat like they do at the monastery because the winter of the north is so severe and it’s hard to grow food.

Sylvain’s default responses aren’t particularly interesting, except for:

Neutral: I realized it after I got to the monastery—nobody in Faerghus knows how to cook.

Basically saying that the food at the monastery is particularly good. This goes well with Faerghus having poor yields of food in general. 

Share a Meal- Favorite/ Least Favorite Foods

Sylvain seems to have a pension for fish, as based on his favorite foods. Nearly every dish he loves is fish based, except for one with is a meal for two dish (obviously a philandering thing), a few white meat dishes, and the Sweet Bun Trio, which is a Faerghus sweet. Except for the Sweet Bun Trio, all his favorites have meat, which makes sense because colder climates tends to lend to meat dishes to maintain the calories needed to maintain body heat. The dishes with fish include Teutates Loach (a fish from the Kingdom), White Trout, Airmid Pike, and Albinean Herring.

He has few dishes he doesn’t like, which all happen to be seafood based except for one. The fish meals are not described as particularly tasty, or they are extremely simple without much preparation. The only non-fish meal he doesn’t like is the Beast Meat Teppenyaki, which is described to have a wilderness taste- and he probably doesn’t like it due to history he may have with his brother. 

Interestingly, he doesn’t seem to have an interest in Gautier Cheese Gratin, which has cheese from his region. 

Gifts and Lost Items

Sylvain, of course, does have some items/like certain gifts that pertain to the philanderer in him. These include:

Gift: Dapper Handkerchief-  A handkerchief adorned with refined embroidery. Appreciated by fashionable men .

Lost Item: Unused Lipstick- Lipstick that would make an ideal gift for a young lady. It probably belongs to someone who likes wooing women.

Lost Item: Crumpled Love Letter- A carelessly discarded love letter. It probably belongs to someone with a complicated love life.

Sylvain clearly takes an interest in fashion, as well as his womanizing ways leaking into his lost items. We can see his casual nature when it comes to wooing the girls with the fact that the lost letter is “carelessly discarded”. 

But the rest of the gifts/ lost items paint Sylvain’s other side:

Gift: Landscape Painting- A landscape painting of magnificent Lake Teutates in the clearing fog. Appreciated by those who enjoy nature or art.

Gift: Board Game- A fun activity in which players compete using stones on a board. Appreciated by those who enjoy tactical thinking.

Lost Item: The History of Sreng- A book recording the history of the Sreng people. It probably belongs to someone who has ties to Sreng.

Despite his carefree side, many of us know that Sylvain is actually incredibly smart and takes an interest in making positive changes and taking his job seriously. The board game shows he enjoys tactical thinking, and his lost item, the History of Sreng, shows he is taking an interest in local politics and is keen to learn. As for the Landscape Painting, we can see that Sylvain enjoys art (as you will see later), and that he’s not all about women and lazing about. 

As for his disliked gifts:

Gift: Book of Crest Designs- A book containing the designs of 21 identified Crests. Appreciated by those who enjoy studying Crests.

Gift: Watering Can- A tool used for watering plants. Appreciated by those who enjoy gardening.

Gift: Floral Adornment- Flowers cut short so they can be worn decoratively. Appreciated by most ladies and those who like gardening.

Obviously, thanks to Sylvain’s history, disliking Crest-related gifts is no surprise. However, he also doesn’t seem to have an interesting in gardening, as he is not keen on the gardening-related gifts. 

Classroom- Instruct

Sylvain has three study requests:

You know, jousting is a popular sport in Faerghus. The ladies love a guy who can joust. Speaking of... Let's polish up my riding and lance skills.

The best way to impress people is to save them by diving into harm's way. That's what a Great Knight does, yeah? So let's focus on my axe and heavy armor skills.

I want to study reason and faith. What, surprised? Hey, I may be rough around the edges, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate a little magic!

We learn a few things from these:

Jousting is popular in Faerghus. Makes sense for a knight-based nation. 

Sylvain seemingly wants to impress people by diving in harm’s way. But based on his general attitude, I think he really actually wants to just protect people and is pretending it’s all about the ladies. 

Sylvain wants to learn magic, both faith and reason. 

He also does not liked to be consoled- he wants critique to improve himself. 

Critique

Part I & Part II: I'll have to do better next time.

Console

Part I & Part II: OK. You can stop it.

Classroom- Questions and Answers

Sylvain has two questions he can ask in the classroom: 

This is from the academy phase, and we can see that Sylvain prefers it if you tell him to basically play hard to get. There are some interesting things regarding Ingrid’s dislike here, but this is about Sylvain... and apparently, he doesn’t want to change and doesn’t like it if you tell him to clean up his act. (Ingrid likes it, though). 

This one is from part two. Of course, it pertains to the war, and how depressing it is, and wants something to do to feel a bit better. Funnily enough, the other infamous nobles Ferdinand and Lorenz join him for this one! We can see they all have different tastes, but Sylvain is not interested in a cup of tea, but would rather ask out a girl. He’s not against talking a walk though, but no one seems to actually like it either. 

There are other questions that Sylvain joins in on, but I will add those when I eventually get to them. For now, I will just start with these two and update later. 

Group Tasks

Similar to the dining dialogue, Sylvain only has quotes with Dimitri and Ingrid, and not Felix despite having an ending with him. That said, Sylvain has more dialogue with Ingrid than Dimitri, so we will start with Dimitri first:

Stable Duty & Sky Watch

Support C

Sylvain: So, Your Highness, you're gonna keep the scolding to a minimum, yeah?

Dimitri: Why are you assuming you will be scolded? All you need to do is take things seriously.

Support B

Dimitri: Hey, Sylvain. I would like your help for today's work.

Sylvain: Heh, so you've finally learned you can't do everything yourself?

Results

Support C - Good

Sylvain: Professor... It's... It's finally over...

Dimitri: You are quick to tire out, Sylvain. You should consider building your stamina.

Support C - Perfect

Dimitri: Professor, the work is now complete. Sylvain did his job as well.

Sylvain: Was getting yelled at my job? Because, yeah. I did that.

Support B - Good

Sylvain: The result was fine... Though I thought we could have aimed even higher.

Dimitri: Agreed. Let's come up with a better plan next time.

Support B - Perfect

Sylvain: Professor, don't you think we did pretty well? His Highness here did most of it.

Dimitri: No, it was not all my doing. We made it thanks to your help, Sylvain.

These occur only when you pair them for stable duty and sky watch, which would be both activities the pair would find common interests in due to their personal budding talents and canon classes. We can see that Dimitri wants Sylvain to take things seriously, and Sylvain takes a more playful approach. Sylvain will also comment on Dimitri learning to not shoulder everything on his own, calling back a bit to Sylvain’s concern over Dimitri not being able to relax. 

Sylvain seems to be annoyed early on at Dimitri’s constant scolding, but this changes when their support improves, the two of them praising each other and hoping to improve together. 

Now for Ingrid:

Stable Duty & Sky Watch

Support C

Sylvain: Ugh, I'm with Ingrid? I'm not gonna get away with anything.

Ingrid: Stop messing around and get moving. You don't work, you don't eat.

Support B

Sylvain: Hey, Ingrid, this kind of work is definitely your thing, and I've got some urgent business, so...

Ingrid: I can't finish this all alone. Try to be helpful sometimes, Sylvain.

Support A

Sylvain: Me and Ingrid? Hm, I guess I'll get to work.

Ingrid: Well now, a rare and welcome proclamation. You're a real sight to behold when you try to be.

Weeding

Sylvain: Weeds have it tough. They sprout then get ripped right out of the ground. I'll do my best to be gentle.

Ingrid: Are you seriously trying to seduce a weed? Unbelievable.

Sylvain: What? No! Come on. I was just talking to myself.

Clearing Rubble

Sylvain: If I had to clear this out by myself, I think even I would get depressed...

Ingrid: Fine, fine, I'm not going to leave it all for you.

Sylvain: Let's do it quick though...before I change my mind. I'll grab the heavy-looking chunks. You get the rest.

Results

Support C - Good

Ingrid: Ah, seems we've finally finished.

Sylvain: That's it! I'm done! No more work for me, especially not with her...not in a million years.

Support C - Perfect

Sylvain: Hey, we did pretty well. All because I really went for it, of course.

Ingrid: You're a glib one, aren't you, Sylvain? I did the bulk of the work here, you know...

Support B - Good

Sylvain: I wouldn't call it a rousing success, but it went OK, all things considered. Right?

Ingrid: Well, it went OK once I rolled up my sleeves and helped you.

Support B - Perfect

Sylvain: Heh... How's that, Professor? If ya ask me, I think we did pretty well.

Ingrid: Yes, Sylvain put his back into it for once. Next thing we know, pigs will be taking to the air.

Support A - Good

Sylvain: I don't want to complain since we did OK and all, but that could have gone a lot better.

Ingrid: I think so too... Next time, I'll try even harder.

Support A - Perfect

Ingrid: Professor, here's the report. Perfect, don't you think?

Sylvain: Ingrid and I go way back. If we couldn't manage to cooperate, then what would that say about us?

Sylvain and Ingrid have dialogue no matter what they do. We can see, especially in the stable and sky watch, that at first they don’t really get along. Sylvain is tired of Ingrid’s pestering and Ingrid is tired of Sylvain being lazy. But as their support goes up, we see that they get along better. Ingrid starts praising Sylvain, and Sylvain starts putting more effort in.

Sylvain also seems to be a bit melancholy about the weeds, noting that they start to take life before someone takes takes it away from them. 

Finally, just some fun default stuff. 

Uses keigo when speaking to

Byleth, Edelgard, Dimitri, Seteth, Hanneman, Manuela, Gilbert, Alois, Catherine, Shamir, Jeralt, Rhea, Jeritza, Anna

Spoken to with keigo by

Bernadetta, Dorothea, Petra, Ashe, Ignatz, Lysithea, Marianne, Flayn, Constance

“Keigo” is polite speech, used when addressing people who are in a station in life above you, whether in title or simply out of respect. For instance, he uses keigo for those who are older than him and teachers, like Manuela and Hanneman, and for those who are in higher stations, like Dimitri or Edelgard. 

Those who speak keigo to him consider him of higher status, or someone worthy of respect. Looking at this list, I would say status. 

Tea Party- Favorite Tea

The Tea Party is a pretty big section, so I won’t cover everything but I’ll try to touch on what seems important. Feel free to let me know if you notice more! 

Anyways, Sylvain seems to have a pension for black teas, although not all black teas listed in the game. He prefers Bergamot Tea (commonly known as Earl Grey) which is popular among nobles (he shares this like with Edelgard, Lorenz, Hanneman, Constance, and Anna, most of whom are nobles, and in particular are nobles with particular taste) and Seiros Tea, another black tea that is actually from south Almyra, interestingly enough! He shares this like with Ferdinand, Lorenz, Ignatz, Yuri, and Anna. Both of these teas have a three star rarity- not the cheapest tea in the list, but not terribly rare either. 

He will note that the tea is expensive if you give him an expensive tea, and perhaps seems a bit uncomfortable with you going out of your way.

This tea must have been expensive. I'm sorry if I made you go out of your way.

Tea Party- Talk

Sylvain has a number of quotes from talking, although most of them aren’t too terribly interesting. However, some have some great insight: 

Is something wrong with my face? A bruise on my cheek? Heh... Nah, Professor. Everything's fine.

Everyone has their own reason to fight. At least I'm honest about mine.

Opera, art, literature, I love 'em. They always give you something to talk about.

Sometimes, I'm surprised how warm the monastery is. I wish my parents' home was like this.

Sylvain is an interesting guy because in some ways, he’s not honest and in others, he is. For instance, he insists that you do not worry about his injury. Don’t worry about him. He’s not being honest about any pain he has- this includes his distastes for a lot of women chasing him despite his philandering. However, he is honest in others in his world views. He’s a lot like Dimitri when it comes to trying to see the other side, as seen in “everyone has their own reason to fight”. This is displayed in his other quotes throughout the game too, although we won’t be touching on those. 

As as per the gift of art he likes, we can see here that he’s actually very much into culture and art. He likes them, and likes to talk about them. 

And finally, some insight into his family. Sylvain’s relationship with his father is complex (as per the Blue Lion tradition) and here we can see that he doesn’t view his family home as warm- both perhaps literally in that it’s a cold climate, and figuratively. 

I won’t be going over the like options because there are too many, but I will take note of a few options that make him blush:

Working together...

The opera...

Cute monks...

Some insight things into Sylvain. Obviously, as he likes the opera, the topic of it will be among his favorite. Sylvain likes people working together (although he himself is a bit of a loner, he wants people to work together and talk things through like Dimitri does) and finally, the cute monks... 

I’m taking special note of that because in English, traditionally monks are male. However, the game seems to use monks for both men and women (monks in Greek can be used for both), and the Japanese word used instead is 修道士. Someone with superior Japanese can correct me, but it would seem that this is a masculine word, used for men, especially when using the kanji  士, which means “gentlemen” or “samurai”. 

However, as stated before, the game uses monk for both men and women. I checked the files and even the female monks use  修道士. So, while people claim this is proof he is bi, I would not call it a strong indicator personally (At this time I still think he has a thing for Felix, don’t get me wrong). 

Advice Box

Part I

I wonder if I'll ever find a partner who understands I don't mean any harm when I flirt with others. Does someone like that really exist?

You're bound to meet someone open-minded someday.

That's a dream that will never come true.

Have you considered giving up on flirting?

I'm hesitant to invite a girl to my room in the middle of the night with You Know Who living right next door. I'm terrified of the scolding I'd get the next day.

Maybe I'll rethink the room assignments.

It makes sense that she would be angry with you.

Perhaps it's time you and I discussed your behavior.

Part II

I'm weary from this ceaseless fighting. I wonder if I'll ever meet a kind, beautiful young lady who can cure my hardened heart.

You will one day. I'm sure of it.

Save the dreams for when you're sleeping.

A woman like that wouldn't go for you.

All we do is battle. The fighting never stops, and it's turning everyone's disposition dour. Even the ladies! We should throw a banquet to lift everyone's spirit.

Good idea. I'll see what I can do.

It's too soon to let down our guard.

How selfless of you.

Part I notes aren’t too interesting, other than that Sylvain is worried about Dimitri (his neighbor in dorms) hearing his rendezvous with the ladies and getting a scolding. 

Part II is more interesting. Sylvain’s second note is about lifting up everyone’s spirits regarding the war, and that throwing a banquet might help make everyone feel better. He prefers if Byleth agrees and will start to make arrangements, rather than getting praise for his selflessness. 

And for now, that’s all! I will update as I go, but for now I hope you enjoyed this!

Suggestions and new info welcome. 

[midzelink]

Well, this is certainly something that happened.  

In response to a post I made stating the various reasons I don’t like the Twilight Princess manga (which was in and of itself a response to some replies I got on this other post), I got a barrage of replies from a user (who will go unnamed, they’ve already been blocked) in defense of the thing - which, ordinarily, wouldn’t be a big deal!  People are allowed to have different opinions and I never once stated anyone who liked it should feel bad!  I started writing up a reply to them in the middle of this barrage, but their replies just kept coming and got subsequently worse, yet it was all...so bizarre to the point that it would feel weird to not address that it happened.  I’m putting all of this under a read more, because wow this is a wall of text, but also this is the kind of nonsense I want people to avoid having to read if it can be helped.  At any rate, this is what they had to say:

I don’t know, this really honestly feels like reaching. It feels like criticism for the sake of criticism without actual narrative flaws being shown, but your anger seems to stem from “This interpretation is different from what I thought even though I admit all official art shows the charachter this way” and “Link HAD to be raised in ordon because of one quote from the enclosed instruction book”. Twilight Princess was literally made to be “the edgy zelda” in reponse to fan overreaction to wind waker. This is undeniable. All official art depicts link this way. He turned into a freaking wolf in the middle of the twilight craze! but no, he *can’t* be like that because of random expressions he makes when holding pets or items? First of all, even in the manga he isn’t an edgeboy all the time.

Secondly, it feels like you're merely glossing over all that was added in terms of charachterization! In the original game, I felt nothing for Ilia. She showed up, yelled at link for maybe getting epona slightly hurt, and then got kidnapped. Maybe a bit of tsundere stuff, but seriously, Midna is literally the best tsundere ever. You can't out midna-minda in her own damn game. XD In the manga, Ilia and Link actually have a warm and very close relationship, you can see them through all the slice of life in the first volume. I really grew to like her and truly felt sorry for her when bad things happened to her. She actually gets far, FAR more respect as a person and charachter in the manga than merely a trophy for link to get back. But no, you're far too focused on subtle expressions and insinuations because that is literally all anyone had to go on for the longest time. In reality, Link, as has been said many times, is an avatar as much as he is a charachter. You can't gloss over his official art depicitons any more than I can random expressions he makes when finding a heart piece.

Not to mention, you call the blog midzelink yet you make zero mention of the super obvious wlw-as-fuck zelda flashback in volume 5? It's a sad thing that Shad being straight is something I have seen people complain about, yet Zelda and Midna's relationship getting such a huge focus passes without a peep. It's a disturbing trend I see in my fellow Fujoshi. And on the subject of Shad, his relationship with Ilia is far more likely something included to give her a happy ending, rather than just seeing link off into the sunset to try to find midna and live forever alone in ordon. On that note as well, Link not being from Ordon fits PERFECTLY with the ending, Link being the only hylian, link being from there, all of this is SCREAMING that that is the place he never truly belonged, the manga simply takes it one step further and in this version says he was never from there any way, cementing that. It gives the concept that Link was using Ordon as a place to avoid being who he was extra weight. And Honestly, it makes him less of a jerk in the end for leaving ordon, as he never truly belonged.  

And It's actually a narrative flaw in the original for Lanaryu to make mention of misusing the power of the master sword and then having nothing come of that warning later. If you're going to set chekov's gun down on the table, you better use it by the end of the play. It's simply capitalzing on something that the story actually set up, and playing into the tone of the story nintendo marketed it. But really, most of my annoyance dosen't come from the fact that you don't like the manga. People can dislike what they want. It's that all your grievances seem to come from stuff at the very beginning, and you liked it for so long, when they were there just as much as they are now. This kinda reeks of someone else slowly influencing you over time, rather than your own thoughts.

Phew.  

Okay.  

First of all, what the f**k, dude.  Who leaves this kind of essay in the replies of someone else’s post?

Secondly,

(Note: a “fujoshi” is a woman who likes yaoi, usually used in a derogatory manner, but it seems to be self-proclaimed in this case.  That is to say, this person proudly announced they fetishized MLM relationships, and then proceeded to tell me my opinion was Bad and Wrong because I didn’t praise Himekawa for a scene that ultimately wasn’t WLW at all, even though I and a lot of other people liked to interpret it that way.  Do not give Himekawa credit for gay rep, ever.)

Again, I was going to reply to this person civilly...up until I read the Midzel/Fujoshi reply, which decimated me on impact. There’s a heckuva lot I could say in response to, well...everything else, but in the interest of making this post shorter, I’ll break it down into a bulleted list:

Link being raised in Ordon is not based on “one quote from the enclosed instruction book” - Ilia specifically states when she gets her memory back, “When we were young, you and I... You were always there... You were always beside me... Link.” (I already mentioned this in my original post, which they evidently neglected to read properly.) And this is to speak nothing of the familial bond between Link and all of the Ordonians that is fairly evident within the context of the game, i.e. Rusl trusting him to deliver a very important gift to the Royal Family, or all the children looking up to him as much as they do.

Saying “all official art depicts Link this way” in defense of his characterization in the manga being edgy (when his in-game persona is far-flung from that) is pretty shaky when you realize that the same can be said for Skyward Sword, which arguably has the most emotive and happy Link of any game. In all of SS Link’s official art, he is angry, mid-yell, or stone-faced.  That’s how character art works.  That’s how marketing works.  They wanted to market TP especially as a darker game, yes, in response to the critiques of The Wind Waker, but this is literally a man who smiles softly every time he picks up a dog or a cat. You can pet the goats.  You get excited about fishing.  If TP Link should be “edgy” because of his official art and no other reason, then SS Link should be, too.

it’s your own damn fault you felt nothing for Ilia, Ilia owns, suck it

MIDNA IS NOT A TSUNDERE, HOLY SHIT.  SHE’S NOT.  I WILL NEVER CONCEDE THIS. She doesn’t mistreat Link because she likes him, she mistreats him because he is nothing to her when they first meet, and this is a stance that slowly changes as they get to know each other!  She stops treating him like garbage when she stops seeing him as such, and her behavior throughout the game post-Zelda is a mixed bag of shame over how she treated him previously and a longing to make up for it.  How anyone can construe that as tsundere I will never, ever understand.

the Midzel comment is so wack I really can’t believe I had to read that shit with my own two eyes

no, Link likely isn’t from Ordon (again, already addressed in my original post, but again, I guess this person can’t read), but he was certainly raised there, see: the first bullet point

Lanayru never once mentions ANYTHING about misusing the power of the Master Sword, so that entire point is completely invalid.  I literally have no idea what they’re talking about here. Lanayru does have the famous line, “Those who do not know the danger of wielding power will, before long, be ruled by it,” but that’s in reference to the Fused Shadows, not the Master Sword.  Which, you know, you would know if you actually knew the source material as well as you claim to, dude.

Lastly, yes, I did like the manga when I first read it, but as I already stated, that was because I blasted through all four (available at the time) volumes in one sitting, and it was immediately after my hyperfixation for this game resurfaced (about a week or so before I made this blog!).  I was Starved For Content, and the manga was Content.  Now I’m not Starved, and two more volumes have released since, and guess what!  People’s opinions can change!  And my opinion is that the manga isn’t for me, and this entire, extremely accusatory essay of yours in the replies of a post I made stating my own opinion was entirely uncalled for and rather intrusive.  So, yeah.  Blocked.

This has certainly been a trip.

[elk-ambrose-scott-writing]

Friendly PSA: Don’t Be Toxic When You’re Commenting

I decided to delete a video I worked very hard on off my YouTube channel because the comment section was just...one person said “cringe” and it turned into nothing but memes and arguing and more name-calling underneath. 

I haven’t been having a good time with my depression and anxiety lately. Like many artists and creators, I’m really, really sensitive and I can’t just block that shit out. If you don’t like something, that’s fine. Leave a dislike and move on, or send out a form rejection letter and move on. Telling someone that their work is “cringe” is just meant to be hurtful. It’s not helpful. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about the experience of being an artist on the Internet lately in terms of rejection, formal or otherwise. I’ve had a few rude rejections lately too. Not every piece is for everyone, but telling someone your favourite part of their story was when it ended isn’t helpful, and acting like your opinion of a piece (which, by nature of being art, is subjective) is OBJECTIVE isn’t helpful. 

I feel like things have just gotten worse since I started. If I were a kid seeing all these things, I’d give up. Hell, when I was a kid, seeing these kinds of comments made me almost give up, but I was lucky in that I had friends IRL who were also content creators who encouraged me not to give up. Some of the people you’re calling “cringey” or rejecting might not have that. Your comment might make them stop forever.

Even as an adult, seeing those comments just made me want to nuke my channel and stop  Every time I went to respond to a nice comment and saw that exchange still going, months after the video came out, I thought to myself “I could just stop”.  I don’t make a single god-damn cent off my fanvideos. I have no reason to keep doing this. 

Seeing those rejections just made me want to stop writing. It made me question everyone who’s ever critiqued the piece and said it was good. It makes me question my own abilities. 

Which is what they want. 

So I deleted the video, which was about 3-4 hours of work, off YouTube, because by leaving it up I felt like I was feeding the trolls. Maybe I’m feeding the trolls by talking about this. I don’t know. I haven’t sent out that piece since. I’ve been creating fan content for over a decade now and writing at a semi-pro level for almost as long, maybe I should be used to it, but it’s hard getting used to someone telling you that your work is bad, you’re bad, and you should feel bad. But I know one thing: that behaviour is toxic AF. 

It should not need to be said, but I’m going to say it anyway because apparently, the people in the back didn’t hear the first time. I don’t care that you broke your elbow There is an actual real-life person on the other side of the screen, making content FOR FREE for your consumption. There is an actual real-life person on the other side of the email who took a chance and sent you their art. Don’t just think of how you would want someone to reply to you, or to tell you they didn’t like your work. If you think you can handle harsh “criticism” (commenting “cringe” isn’t criticism, it’s just rude), great. Think of how someone else, someone different than you, would want to be told their work just isn’t for you. Think of how you don’t know what the person who made this thing is going through. Have some compassion. Have some kindness. Have some respect. Have some fucking decency, it literally costs you nothing. 

TL,DR: Don’t be toxic, your opinion is subjective, and it’s free to be nice. 

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. 

[omgviolette12]

After Hours - Chapter 9

Previous Chapter

Summary: Evelyn Monroe has been a TA for professor Laufeyson’s Calculus course for four months now. He was known to be quite strict, but that never deterred her from applying for the position in order to be close to the man she had been secretly pining for. One evening, she returns to his office after opening hours… and with her bountiful luck, she walks in on something not meant to be seen.

Chapters: 9/?

Words: 2800+

Warnings: None

Tags:  @milkymaidme @dangertoozmanykids101@alexakeyloveloki @little-moonbeam-666  @marvel-ous-fics@clovermariear@lynnesm@bitchyikes@moon-child-of-a-poet, @allthecraftandthings@bubblegumspitt @shockwavee @blondekel77 @nerd–nirvana @valdemarismynonbinarylove@nightrose64 @pastelhexmaniac @iistormii

If you’d like to be added, let me know. I’ve also posted this on AO3

_____________

After getting handsy with her professor, it was as if Evelyn were on a blissful high. She was happy, extremely so that at the time she didn’t care about the mess they made of his desk, or the roundabout way they had to take to leave the building to avoid being noticed together.

Thankfully there hadn’t been a run-in with Andrès or any other lingering students, so he was able to drive her home without incident.

Evelyn was not sure why, but she anticipated the drive to be in awkward silence, or have some sort of strange tension. This was a new experience for her, so she didn’t quite know how to act around him now. She was usually good at starting conversations out of thin air, especially with this professor of hers...but she had no idea what to say, or where to begin.

While she expected to grow more comfortable in his presence after what they did together, it seemed to have made her even shyer instead.

Strangely enough, he sensed her plight. Removing a hand from the steering wheel, he stopped the fidgeting of her fingers by giving her hands a comforting squeeze on top of her lap, “You’re oddly quiet, for someone as talkative as yourself. Is something on your mind, darling?"

His deep voice startled her from her thoughts, her senses now aware of his hand dwarfing her small ones, “Oh..I’m fine. Just, um... thinking. Nothing important.”

Evelyn didn’t want him to view her as childish or immature, which she believed her current line of thinking was. She would much rather keep her thoughts to herself than portray the image of a naive, fiddling woman that she was sure he abhorred.

Loki, however, was persistent. Whatever troubled her seemed to affect him as well, and he needed to get to the bottom of it. “Evelyn, you do know how fruitless it is for you to lie to me?”

One thing Evelyn disliked, yet admired about the man was how perceptive he was to her emotions. She felt like an open book most of the time, and she wasn’t sure she liked that yet.

Sighing audibly, she turned to look at him. His eyes were focused on the road, with a smile on his lips. It softened his features significantly, however small that smile may be. Seeing his calm demeanor affected her, prompting her to speak.

“It’s just… are we together now? Like, exclusive? It's probably a stupid question, but I wanna make sure we’re on the same page.”

He merely chuckled, his eyes gaining a teasing light, “ I did recall claiming you as my woman, yes? Or do you require more...confirmation?”

Evelyn didn’t think her face could get any redder. She pouted, her expression indignant, “Can you give a straight answer, please?”

Loki gave her hands another light squeeze, his smile widening, “It wouldn’t be any fun that way. Besides, I love it when you get all flustered. It’s quite cute, really.”

She never expected the word ‘cute’ to ever leave his mouth, nor the playful manner in which he spoke to her. If this was his version of teasing, she wasn’t sure her heart could survive the brunt of it.

“But to answer your question,” his tone grew more serious, looking away from the road momentarily to glance at their joined hands, “ It would be complicated, given your status as a student. We are indeed in a relationship, but this fact cannot be made known on campus. I am sure you know why.”

“Um...yeah, I get it. I’m still your TA, so it would make sense to keep things on the down-low. I don’t mind.”

Besides the obvious ethical reasons, she didn’t want to be hounded by jealous bitches on campus. Especially the faculty. She had seen a couple of her other professors throughout various departments interact with the man, and they all had the same little ‘I want your cock inside me, teehee!’ twinkle in their eyes.

Evelyn did, however, want to tell someone. What if she needed advice? But she couldn’t tell any of her friends on campus since they were straight-up gossiping hoebags.

I could at least tell Candice, right?

“Candice? Is that your sister?”

He turned onto a familiar street, stopping at a traffic light. He then looked at her curiously with a raised brow, “As long as she doesn’t attend the school, I don’t necessarily mind.”

I said that out loud? Again?!

“Oh! Oh, really? You don’t mind her knowing...?” She didn’t think that last thought would slip from her brain and into her traitorous mouth, but she might as well roll with the dice.

“No, I don’t see why I would. She’s going to find out eventually, so there’s no point in hiding it.”

That went... better than expected. It seemed too good to be true, so she decided to test the waters a bit more, “But, I thought you didn’t want us to be public? And she could be a bit...judgy. In fact, my whole family is...”

Especially her mother. If she found out Evelyn was involved with her professor...she’d most definitely smack her into the next century.

He pondered for a moment, seeing that the topic worried her. “Public on campus, yes. But within our own private circles, it's fine to be more open. She’s your sister, not some random friend.”

He continued to drive once more, and she could tell they were getting close to her apartment, “...And regarding your family’s possible judgement, it honestly matters little to me. I only care about what you think.”

Butterflies went haywire inside her stomach, her face heating up at his words. He only cared about what she thought? Her opinion, especially within her family, was always overlooked - so she was extremely grateful that he valued what she thought about him.

She felt a bit embarrassed, clearing her throat lightly before replying in a quiet voice, “Oh...um...thanks?” She didn’t know how else to respond, so it sounded awkward to the ears.

He only laughed, eyes glinting with amusement at her reply, “Don’t be so embarrassed, I’m merely telling the truth. Ah, here we are,”

He pulled to a stop across the street from her building, and Evelyn felt a sudden sense of loss wash over her. She didn’t want to go home already - she wanted to spend much, much more time with him now that things were different between them. She was becoming so attached already, it frightened her to a degree.

Evelyn didn’t know he was calling her name until she felt a gentle pull on her chin.

"Evelyn? I asked if you've saved my number," he looked at her concernedly, brows scrunched up.

"Huh? Yeah yeah...I think I - oh, no... I didn’t actually," she pulled out her phone to check, but then remembered that she forgot to save it from his email a while back.

“Here, allow me,” he held out his hand for her phone, for which she quickly obliged.

Loki entered his number quickly, then called his own cell to save hers.

When she went to take back her phone however, she was caught unawares when he took hold of her face to draw her into a hungry kiss. His hand moved to her neck, and the kiss quickly grew in intensity as his tongue explored the warmth of her mouth.

The kiss felt almost desperate, as if he wanted to savor her before he had to leave.

When they parted for air, his eyes were dark and narrowed.

“Mine,” he murmured against her lips, so softly that if they weren’t so close, she might have missed it.

______________

A few days had passed since Evelyn had last seen professor Laufeyson - or Loki, rather. She still had to get used to calling him by his first name, although she hadn't had the time to put it into actual practice.

She was still behind in several projects, and with final critiques now steadily approaching, Evelyn feared that she’d barely have time to see him in the near future, save for their meetings.

However, the next meeting they’d have would be with the other TA’s in his class to discuss grading/proctoring final examinations, so they wouldn’t be alone.

Fortunately, she did have his number - she was just...too scared to actually use it. He didn’t contact her after that night, only texting her briefly to see if she made it inside her home without incident.

But he was a busy man, so she never expected him to be an active texter anyway.

She didn’t want to seem clingy and bombard his phone with calls and texts, but she did miss his voice…and touch.

Evelyn really wanted to slap herself. She wasn’t this obsessed back when she admired him from afar - it was starting to become unnerving.

She stretched lazily in her chair, sighing softly to herself. She’d been stuck in the studio for several hours now, yet she was struggling to complete her painting because her mind was too preoccupied to focus.

Her senior painting class was meeting up tomorrow for the weekly group critique, and she wanted at least one solid work of art to show for.

She was about to resume painting, until her phone went off with a ping!

Her heart randomly started pounding, stomach warm with butterflies. Did Loki finally send her another message?

She went to check quickly, and was promptly doused with cold disappointment.

It was the group chat she had with several of her friends on the app Line, and Andrès had sent a message.

Evelyn sucked her teeth in annoyance, before checking the notification to see what he had to say.

Yaboi Andrès: Can y'all tell me if I'm tripping balls or not???

A flurry of messages pinged soon after.

Ieatass uwu: What happened? :C

Chantel24: You're always tripping balls. Stfu.

Mandydandy:  what's tripping balls mean?

Evelyn rolled her eyes. He occasionally had stupid shit to say, and the group chat always blew up her phone when he riled them up.

She was about to turn off notifications, until he sent one message that stopped her heart.

Yaboi Andrès: It's about professor Laufeyson. Y'all know him right? He teaches math in the science dept.

Ieatass uwu: Yea Eve's his TA. What about him?

Mandydandy: Fucker failed me when I took his Statistics class last year. And I'd gladly take it again ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Chantel24: Yeah, why?

Evelyn suddenly became extremely worried. He was just going to complain about failing the class...right? It's not like he heard anything that night. They were quiet, she was sure…

Yaboi Andrès: I think he's clapping cheeks in his office y'all.

Evidently, she was wrong.

Mandydandy: !!!!!!

Mandydandy:Now I know u fuckin lying.(ಠ_ಠ)

Mandydandy: Like, foreal?

Chantel24: …….

Ieatass uwu: Laufeyson of all people? How you know? Omg…

Chantel24: Explain. This better not be stupid.

Evelyn's heart began to beat uncontrollably in her chest, her hands starting to sweat. Her eyes never left the screen as she gripped the phone tighter, watching as Andrès typed a string of messages.

Yaboi Andrès: Aight so boom. Eve left her purse in his office or whatever, asked me to pick it up. I said hell no, but changed mind cuz I'm a good friend as you know. But when I went, he told me I was failing the class and all that shit. Got me fucked up.

Chantel24: Get to the point.

Mandydandy: ^^^

Yaboi Andrès: Chill, I'm getting there. Anyway fast-forward, it's night and I just got out my last class. I'm still tight as fuck, and scared too cuz I need to pass the class. So I'm like fuck it, Imma go plead my case or just drop the course.

Yaboi Andrès: I ain't know his office hours but I went anyway, and this where shit gets spicy…

At this point, Evelyn knew she had to intervene.

She started to type furiously, her fingers shaking as she did so.

Evie<3: Andrès. As his TA, I’d appreciate if you didn’t speak about him in that manner. He’s a private, proper person who wouldn’t do what you’re suggesting. Stop typing weird shit please.

It felt strange typing that, seeing as she herself caught Loki doing the exact thing Andrès accused him off. Only this time...she was the one on the other side of the door.

Thinking about it again, she felt so off. Was she a horrible person, doing something so filthy in his office and liking it?

Evelyn started to question her morals seriously in that moment, her heart suddenly unsure. She feared she may have bitten off more than she can chew, involving herself with a professor.

She anticipated awkward situations like this would be common place, and she wasn’t sure she could tackle them.

Another ping drew her attention back to the phone as she bit her lip.

Mandydandy: Eve, bless ur heart. We all know u wanna hoppity-hop on his dick too. ‘hE’s A pRoPeR pErsOn’ my ass.

Ieatass uwu:  And I oop- ⊙.☉

She became angry in that instant. Oh, if only they knew…

Evie<3: Unless you’re itching to catch these hands, I’d suggest you watch your mouth. I’m dead serious.

Yaboi Andrès: Chill, chill! It's really not that serious.

Mandydandy: I’m just fuckin with you, dang. You know I’m like this already >.>

Chantel24: Y’all are outta pocket today.

Evelyn forced herself to shut off the screen, slamming her phone a bit too harshly on the table. If she engaged them even more, she’d only make herself out to be suspicious.

When she saw Loki next, she’d have to speak to him about this. And she was not looking forward to it.

She took off her glasses to rub at her eyes tiredly, stressed from the entire situation.

I need a damn break from this shit...

Speaking of breaks, she was in desperate need for the restroom, as she was cooped up in the studios for hours on end.

She went to the only restroom outside of the studios, washing her face with cold water to help stave off the incoming headache.

Evelyn decided to just head back and get ready to go for lunch, seeing as she couldn’t find it in herself to finish painting anyway after that conversation. She hoped some food would help lift her spirits, if only a little.

As she was heading back towards the studio, she spotted two figures in the distance, a man and a woman, right at the entrance. She’d left her glasses back on her work table, so she couldn’t see clearly.

When she got closer and the figures became clearer, her heart skipped a beat once she realized who it was.

"...And these are the student studios, I'm gathering? For the seniors?"

Loki spoke to the woman beside him, whom she now recognized as her senior painting professor, who insisted her students call her by her first name - Cindy.

“Yep! We have about 15 seniors this semester, and they all share the same space, divided into cubicles that serve as their private work areas. It does get a bit cramped, but we’re working on installing more walls and expanding...”

Cindy spoke animatedly to a seemingly interested Loki, until something else caught her attention.

Sensing her presence, the woman turned her head, with Loki following suit. And as soon as he laid eyes on Evelyn, his visage immediately lost all of its tension.

Evelyn didn’t know how to react to his presence, especially since they had an audience.

“Oh Eve! Are you busy right now, by chance?” Cindy asked, her voice unusually high pitched.

She was taken aback by the sudden question, "Huh? Oh, no, not really…?"

"Phew, good! I was giving Mr.Laufeyson here a small tour of the department, but I have to head to a meeting in a few. I don't want to cut it short, so I was hoping you could take over?"

She could feel his gaze burning into her skull, and she forced herself to focus on Cindy, "Yeah, yeah! I don't mind…"

"Thank you for your help thus far, Cindy. It was much appreciated," Although Loki spoke to her, his eyes never left Evelyn's form.

Regardless, Cindy blushed visibly, “ Oh… of course! Any time you decide to drop by, please visit my office. I’ll be sure to give you a more thorough tour next time...”

And with one more nod in Loki’s direction, Cindy scurried off, leaving the two completely alone.

When Evelyn turned once more to address him, she was startled to see that he had already moved incredibly close.

He took hold of her hand without warning, and she struggled to keep up with his long legs that took them to a secluded corner in the empty hallway.

“Profess- I mean, Loki! What’re you doing here? Why -“

Her voice was cut short by the look in his eyes. They were absolutely feral, almost black with desire.

It wasn’t long before he gripped her jaw harshly with his hand, tipping her face upward before delving his tongue inside her mouth with much urgency.

??!!!

And that was the only visible thought Evelyn could manage.

[definitefraggle]

thought-vomit

1. What if... we could critically examine our own sexual and non-sexual desires within the context of the society and power dynamics we grew up in... and STILL NOT shame or harrass anyone else over their own desires? It’s almost like it’s possible to do both!

2. Persuadable targets are the most effective targets. If you phonebank or canvass for a Democrat, your canvass director won’t send you to knock on the doors or call the homes of hardcore Repubicans. They’ll send you after people who are gettable. So it makes sense that antis go after people who are “gettable” in pursuit of ridding their online spaces of content they dislike.

3. What makes the majority-female population of Tumblr Fanfic Fandom “gettable” or less scary to go after vs. straight cis boys at the chonz or Pornhub or e-hentai, etc., is worth examining and critiquing. In other words: the very things that make women “persuadable” ties directly into how women are socialized by a misogynistic world to be accomodating and to put the desires of others over our own. It’s logical to prey on that weakness (probably subconsciously, to be fair) but also gross.

4. Antis would probably be opening themselves up for harrassment/doxxing/etc. if they DID go after the straight cis boys and their objectively much more politically distasteful porn

5. But that doesn’t make it any less frustrating and rage-inducing when they don’t go after those guys. Like, if you care about Problematic Porn and ridding the world of it, porn for straight cis dudes is always going to be worse. Always! And you don’t even have to go to Pornhub, plenty of it is right here on Tumblr!

6. In the Ye Olde 90s and Early 2000s, the sexy trendy hot-in-the-streets crusade was that Fanfic Should Be Well-Written and You Should Be Fine With Strangers Critiquing Your Work and People Who Say They Write Fanfic Just For Fun Aka just want to write what they want and get praised for it no matter the quality level are Aliens We Cannot Understand! And Their Bad Fanfic Is Annoying To Sift Through And it Shouldn't Be This Way!

In retrospect, that was really dumb, like the anti stuff is. The difference is, calling someone a bad writer is much, much less harsh and damaging than calling someone a PEDOPHILE. 

It is also much easier to doxx people these days than it was then. It's also much easier to whip up a mob against people these days than it was then because there are simply more people using the internet now.

There were ship wars back then, also -- I remember hearing, perhaps falsely, that someone was even doxxed or had their employer called during the Ray Wars -- but, again, it's so much easier to doxx and mob people now.

It's also frustrating, as a political junkie who is heavily invested in the world becoming a more just place for the people with the least amount of power, to see what are often basically ship wars using the language of social justice. Like, issues of race, sex, class, etc., obviously affect all aspects of life, including hobbies like fanfic writing, and I am totally on board with, as I said at the start, critically examining everything through that lens. Even masturbation! I'm fine with naval-gazing and discussing and thinking shit over! More than fine with it.

But using those issues disingenuously to basically push for your preferred ship over those icky ships you dislike... it's just making a mockery of these battles that people literally bled and died for. It's beyond stupid.

7. I hope at some point, some ex-anti can do some kind of red-yarn-murder-board and show me if all of this degraded version of meta and discourse literally just came from ontd and sf_d folks jumping ship from LJ to tumblr. Aka, people just moving toxic communities from one platform to another. I mean, I am happy to be proven wrong, show me how it actually started, I'd love to see it. I just, idk, there's probably a really interesting post to be made by someone who was actually part of the first waves of this.

8. I was there for Strikethrough and Boldthrough and I was definitely... amused/irritated at the time at all the, "HOIST THE PIRATE FLAG! TO THE BARRICADES!" rhetoric and I had a looooot of Jew!rage at the CONSTANT invocations of the PASTOR MARTIN NIEMOLLER POEM over FANFIC PORNOGRAPHY even though in past years I had been more chill on parodies of it and in recent years I am much more chill about it again, but I tended to keep my mouth shut because I wasn't one of those affected by the deletions. 

All that said, AO3 ended up being a great thing to come out of it. Boldthrough/Strikethrough was something that legitimately was scary to fanfic writers and really should have been scary to anyone that even wants to discuss books, let alone write fiction of any kind -- I think a Lolita discussion community was deleted?! A community discussing a frickin' book? That should bother you, and if it doesn't, idek what to do with you.

I am not a free speech absolutist, I believe in censoring and no-platforming hate speech and I think there are discussions to be had about what kind of speech and art you want in your community vs. what you don't.

But AO3 had that discussion, and they made the decisions they made, and they made them for reasons I understand and support. If you don't like it: Weebly is right there, bud, make your own archive for your own fic.

My point is: I was not a "HOIST THE MIZZENMAST, LADS! WE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM!" person during Strikethrough and even I know that it wasn't a CABAL OF PEDOS trying to KEEP PEDO-ING AROUND ffs. Stop lying about shit you weren't even around for.

I’m personally veeeery uncomfortable with chan/actual underage fic but if everyone who read or wrote it was a pedophile, then ... look, there cannot statistcally be that many pedophiles. If you think that many people are legitmately sexually attracted to irl children, your personal project shouldn't be ridding the internet of fanfic, it should be working on NUKING THE HUMAN RACE because too many of us aren't attracted to adults and our species no longer works. Like, it's Twelve Monkeys Virus time if you think these are the stats.

8. I hope antis shipping symbrock is the equivalent of when me and other Fanfic! Should! Be Good! people eventually evolved, like pokemon, into Fanfic! Should! Be Porn! people, but it's also fucking frustrating lololol

[kayliemusing]

25

0: Height - 5'2

1: Age - 23

2: Shoe size - 6 1/2 US, but sometimes I can manage 6 or 7

3: Do you smoke? - No

4: Do you drink? - No

5: Do you take drugs? - Also no

6: Age you get mistaken for - I don't think I really mistaken for the wrong age. In high school my sister's friends thought I was older than her, but I think now I look my age or I look at least 20-22

7: Have tattoos? - No

8: Want any tattoos? - Yes. I want a couple. I want a French phrase 'tu me manques' or roman numerals that read out the day my dad died (maybe all as one tattoo).

9: Got any piercings? - No, but I'm hoping to get my ears pierced again very soon

10: Want any piercings? - Like I said, I'm getting my ears done again. But I've always wanted a nose stud, but I don't know if I'll ever do that one.

11: Best friend? - Megan

12: Relationship status - Single

13: Biggest turn ons - Nice jawline, nice hands, kindness, humor

14: Biggest turn offs - Narcissistic or arrogant, rude to wait stuff or retail/fast food workers, sometimes long hair (depending on the person), sometimes beards, moustaches definitely.

15: Favorite movie - I think Clueless or Onward. I don't really know my favourite movie haha. Clueless is definitely a movie I think of when I want something lighthearted and funny. And Onward, along with most disney/pixar animations, always feel really comforting.

16: I’ll love you if… - You either love Taylor Swift or say something genuinely nice about her.

17: Someone you miss - my dad

18: Most traumatic experience - Witnessing my dad die/seeing his body at the viewing

19: A fact about your personality - I'm really quiet unless I get really mad/protective or I'm passionate about something then I'm like a bomb going off lol

20: What I hate most about myself - My stomach. Also that I critique everything I do and can never have a conversation with someone without feeling like 'was that okay?'

21: What I love most about myself - I think I really love the way I think, because I feel like I notice things others don't or I just think in a very observational or poetic way.

22: What I want to be when I get older - The big dream is to be a bestselling author. Bonus points if it's a NYT best seller. But mostly I think I want to be happy and content.

23: My relationship with my sibling(s) - Good, but also chaotic

24: My relationship with my parent(s) - Good. I'm really close with my mom (I was with my dad too) but my mom feels like my best friend.

25: My idea of a perfect date - Something really fun but intimate too. Like maybe going for a late night drive and listening to music or going to a museum or art show. Something like that.

26: My biggest pet peeves - When people drag their feet on the ground and make that scuffing sound, when people put the change on the counter when my hand is out for it, and when people unnecessarily criticize Taylor Swift or start the conversation about her like "i don't like taylor swift but-" like you have been stopped right there.

27: A description of the girl/boy I like - I don't have a crush on anyone

28: A description of the person I dislike the most - My sister's ex. He doesn't swing his arms when he walks, he has weird hair, a big nose, and the dorkiest laugh you've ever heard. Also he smells bad and would actually play video games for so many hours straight instead of getting up and showering. Also had this weird need to be "taken care of" like he was an eight year old boy.

29: A reason I’ve lied to a friend - Usually if I didn't want to hang out.

30: What I hate the most about work/school - That I have to go to work/school.

31: What my last text message says - I told my best friend that I got a new villager on animal crossing named Gala and that she's a pig.

32: What words upset me the most - "LoverFest was cancelled" rip me

33: What words make me feel the best about myself - I don't know if I have any. I guess if someone compliments me by telling me I'm doing a good job or something like that it always makes me feel really good.

34: What I find attractive in women - When they support other women

35: What I find attractive in men - Kindness/generosity

36: Where I would like to live - I have this weird obsession right now to live on some countryside in a ranch-style house, surrounded by wildflowers and open field. Maybe it's in france, who knows. A more realistic place I'd like to live is Calgary

37: One of my insecurities - My entire body

38: My childhood career choice - I think I wanted to be a business person or a teacher or a hairdresser. It changed all the time. But I knew I wanted to be a writer by the time I was 13 so that too.

39: My favorite ice cream flavor - I'm basic, vanilla but if i wanted to get funky, I'd choose birthday cake batter.

40: Who I wish I could be - Someone confident, talented and at peace with life no matter what.

41: Where I want to be right now - I want to be in a place that I feel creative, fulfilled and content, because I'm having a hard time feeling those things right now.

42: The last thing I ate - Scrambled egg wrap w/ salsa and some cheese.

43: Sexiest person that comes to my mind immediately - I have a thing for Matthew Daddario.

44: A random fact about anything - Did you know turkey's are so smart that they can tell two different people apart? also taylor swift is releasing fearless (taylor's version) tonight and it has 6 new tracks on it that were cut from the original fearless so i'm gonna be bopping tonight.

[simplyoriginalcharacters]

Selina Loun

Hi! Theo was the first oc I submitted so this is my second one Selina!

This takes place in the same world as Theo with fantasy mixed with a steampunk-like technology. I also forgot to mention that though the technology is steampunk the architecture of most areas doesn’t give a vibe of what people usually think when they hear steampunk which is usually a story in the Victorian era. Steampunk is only the technology not the actual architecture and look of the world. I hope that makes sense.

Hi! This is Mod D with your review. Full profile and critique are under the cut.

Name: Her name is Selina Loun though she always seems to go by aliases (so far she’s been, Cat Cane, Poppywillow, Ophelia Strauss, and Bee)

Gender: female

Age: 28

Sexual orientation: straight

Height: about 5'8

Relatives: Ramona Loun (mother, deceased) Griffin Loun (father, deceased) Aloysius Loun (brother, alive) Stephen Loun (uncle, the one who raised them)

Abilities/weapons: she has a weird steampunk-looking rusted gun that runs on crystal ammunition. Her strength is somewhat enhanced with her bionic arm but not too much.

Appearance: Selina is a slightly muscular woman with her left arm being a bronze with a few gears and bolts on it. She has slightly pale skin with wavy kinda light blonde hair that reaches to her shoulders. It’s kinda messy so she always keeps it up in a ponytail or if she’s making a sad attempt to dress nice its a messy bun. She wears a shirt with sleeves that run to her elbows with a dark blue jacket with five gold colored buttons on the right side. The jacket is somewhat burned at the bottom (she won’t get rid of it though she loves the jacket) occasionally she wears a dark forest green vest that closes with leather straps instead. She has light brown pants that are light and airy so she can move around. She has a leather belt with brown leather boots as well with metal surrounding the toe of the boot (for kicking)

Likes: Selina likes to be in open areas and likes big cities and kingdoms. She likes a competition because she always thinks she can rise up to the challenge. She likes “sweet drinks” which is pretty much soda there. She likes to relax and drink every once in a while but she’s smart enough to know not to overdo it. She also likes jewelry specifically anything gold. She really likes making risky choices and gambling which can get her into some major trouble sometimes.

Dislikes: she hates getting being the center of attention it can make her very uncomfortable but it tends to happen quite a bit since a scene gets made when she gets into trouble. She doesn’t like small spaces either she’ll start to freak out a lot. She doesn’t like iron golems. That’ll be explained later in her profile but she does not get near them at all. Change can be a problem for her sometimes she likes things how they are and she doesn’t like major change.

Fears: she has a fear of mind control she sees it as invading and she views it as the only ability that is truly evil.

Occupation: she’s an anti-hero so she’s not the most reliable when it comes to jobs. Sometimes she steals but a lot of times she’ll take jobs that require making deals and mostly the jobs she prefers are getting money from one person to another. Sometimes she does not fulfill her end of the deal and sometimes she does. Actually a lot of times she lies about and it starts conflict so that’s where the aliases come in.

Personal goals: she wants to learn how to shape shift so she can learn how to change her appearance if she’s ever on the run and it would make jobs easier but that is really powerful so you almost have to ask professionals to learn. When she asked she was basically asking how to get better at crime.

Personality: Selina is actually a good person at heart despite acting aloof and like she doesn’t really care. She’s pretty calm a lot of times and doesn’t really freak out. She thinks she can handle everything Though she lies a lot she’s never actually killed anyone. She’s a master of bluffing saying she’ll kill you then yelling “HEY LOOK AT THAT” then run away. She has fought before though and sometimes she lost sometimes she didn’t. She has quite a sense of humor too and she’s kind of an asshole not gonna lie.

She can be sarcastic and mocking a lot of times whenever she’s confronted with an opponent. She can be very arrogant at times and she thinks she can handle anything and everything and she can be very stubborn at times so she never really learns her lesson. Even though she tries to go through with taking jobs and most of the times doesn’t really think about what she’s doing, she has faced some situations where she thinks what she’s doing is too messed up even for her. She has pretty basic intelligence she’s no genius but she’s not stupid.

Backstory: Selina grew up with her brother, Aloysius, and her uncle, Stephen. Their parents died when they were younger so they both lived with their uncle. They were very close with him and he was pretty weird and antisocial. He liked art, science, and had a giant collection of books. Though he did like to explore and go on adventures. They all grew up in a small desert town named Rem. As they got older, they moved away from their uncle and starting to work with each other on missions. Selina and Aloysius were very close as well for many years and of course they would argue like siblings do but they loved each other.

Until Aloysius started to learn about magic and abnormal powers. He began to study them more and more and after learning about multiple abilities mind control stuck out to him the most. Selina did not like this because she thought it was wrong to invade someones mind. She became afraid that he would be taken over by his power and he was. He started to push boundaries and slowly stopped feeling sympathetic for people. This started to hurt Selina, because she had a great relationship with him and that was slowly dying. On missions, Aloysius was more violent and controlling and at the time, they were kinda neutral or didn’t like to fight much.

Selina finally said screw it and they split up, she wanted to be alone for a long time afterwards. She moved to a large city but she could only afford to live in the lower area of the city called underworld. This wasn’t really like a ghetto area but is sure was strange. There was more magic than technology there while the upper areas had technology the underworld had more magic involved. It was pretty big down there. There was a lot of lying and cheating down there. Selina worked at a bar at a guild but soon she started taking missions but she’s a hot mess and didn’t really stay faithful to these missions.

Extra information about her

- I didn’t really know where I could fit in the golem explanation but the reason why she doesn’t like iron golems is because during a mission the person who she was supposed to take money from did have an iron golem that nearly killed her. It took her arm so now she has a bionic.

- sometimes her aliases do not go well she once said her name was Minty Soap or Moose and that didn’t fly at all.

Questions:

So she seems kinda sloppy right now because I’ve been trying to get a solid profile and I feel like I have some unnecessary stuff in her profile do you know if there’s anything I could do to shape her up?

Is her backstory too angst-driven? Like im ok with sad stuff in back stories but is it too much with her?

What things need more information or need changing about her? Thank you for reviewing her!

From the outset, I can already see that Selina’s profile has improvements over Theo’s, given the additional sections and elaborated information. However, she still has some of the same issues his profile did – if to a lesser extent.

First things first, Selina’s capabilities need to be further explained. As written I don’t know how exactly her steampunk gun works (does it fire crystal bullets? Are the crystals charged with energy and it shoots lasers/electricity?) and the description of her bionic arm, while better, is too vague. Describing her strength as ‘somewhat enhanced’ and beyond the average human 'but not too much’ is focusing too much on what she can’t do vs what she can do. So while I understand the gist that she can’t lift a car or knock down a building, I’m still left wondering what her strength limit actually is. Try putting in some examples of what she can do with the arm – the more they align with her criminal activities the better. Can she use the arm to break locks? Easily knock out would-be pursuers? Does it have any useful tools like a grappling hook or hidden compartments for stolen items? This gives readers a much more direct idea of what Selina is capable of, in addition to giving a glimpse of how she acts on the job for a double dose of characterization. Also, I’d also suggest including any detriments from the bionic arm as well – does the arm overheat or have to run on a limited power source? Does it have a tendency to break at in-opportune times or are parts of it particularly fragile? If the bionic arm is just an overall upgrade to Selina’s flesh and blood arm then there’s really no reason she couldn’t have just gotten one of her own free will. Including any negative impacts from having to use the bionic arm makes the impact of her being an amputee much more poignant, in addition to neatly avoiding a lot of negative storytelling aspects that revolve around artificial limbs in science fiction/fantasy.

On the same token, Selina’s Occupation needs to be embellished a bit more. I am really glad you included this aspect in her profile as it adds a lot more to her character, I don’t really feel like I understand what exactly she does. A big thing that would help here is changing 'anti-hero’ to a more specific label. Anti-hero might be a good description of Selina’s character from a storytelling perspective, but something like 'confidence trickster’ or 'pick-pocket’ gives a much better idea about what her occupation in-universe is. If she’s more of a general rogue and doesn’t have a specific area of expertise, even something like 'professional scoundrel’ would work. I understand that she lies, cheats, and steals to make a living but how Selina styles herself in the context of all of that is a big part of her identity. Continuing on, Selina preferring jobs where she 'gets money from one person to another’ is way too vague. What people? What money? Does she steal from the rich to give to the poor? Does she work for a specific client to steal from a specific target? The more specific the nature of her preferred type of work is, the better an idea readers can get of Selina’s character. Is she okay with stealing from innocent people or does she prefer targets that 'deserve it’? Are there limits on what she’ll steal from people or will she take anything and everything asked for? On the same note, does she limit herself to stealing just what was asked for or does Selina tend to take everything not nailed down regardless of if it’s an objective or not? What jobs Selina takes and who she’ll work for are just as important as how she does them in giving a clear picture of her character. As a final note on her Occupation, Selina occasionally having issues following through with a job is a great characterizing point – I just need to know why she has trouble and what the ramifications of that are. Does she just lose track of time, put too much on her plate at once, or are there times when she just has a change of heart in the middle of working and bails on a job? What does this mean for her professional reputation? Is she seen as a loose cannon only hired by the desperate, or have her actions yet to catch up with her? There are a lot of impacts here that could play out really interestingly in-story, but the profile should do more to highlight them.

Moving on to Selina’s Personality section, while the ideas here are good they don’t seem to have enough detailing or focus. In-particular the way that the section is worded is written too much like a dialogue and not enough like a straightforward explanation. Stating that she has 'quite a sense of humor’ is a great why for another character to describe Selina in-dialogue but for an objective presentation it’s far too vague. The same goes for her having 'fought before sometimes lost sometimes she didn’t.’ That doesn’t actually tell me anything about Selina’s personality – it just tells me she got into fights. What motivated her to get into the fights? What was the impact of her losing or her winning? Try taking out the non-specific parts of Selina’s Personality section and replacing them with more specific terminology. Instead of saying she has 'quite a sense of humor’ say she 'tells bad puns to lighten the mood’ or 'pulls pranks on people with her bionic arm.’ It still gets across that Selina has a sense of humor, except now that aspect actually tells specific information about her too rather than just stating it’s something she has. More touches like that would go a long way to making her Personality both accurate and distinct, instead of just accurate. As a final note on this section, Selina’s use of bluffing is not really a good example to go with. It’s great for an amusing OOC commentary about her skills at misdirection but for a profile where the examples and information is supposed to be taken directly it comes across as 'Selina is good at bluffing because she’s good at bluffing’ rather than an actual example of her skill and character. Think of the ideal tone as being more like an essay rather than a social media post and go from there. For example, saying that she’s a master at bluffing and explaining how she bluffs people – IE impersonates others, is a really convincing liar, and/or is really good at misdirection – would keep the focus directly on Selina’s capabilities rather than being an amusing assessment of them.

On the subject of Selina’s background, I think what you’ve got included works pretty well – and to address your concern it doesn’t seem at all to be angst driven (Selina herself doesn’t seem angst driven). I like the history between her and Aloysius and the attention to her childhood with her uncle covers just enough to show where Selina got a lot of her progression from without getting too overburdened with minutia. It has the same tonal/vagueness issue some of her other sections have, but not to the same degree. There are three aspects I was left wanting to know more about, though. First was Selina’s split from Aloysius. Their drifting apart due to Selina having issue with his using mind control magic is great, but the actual moment of the split seems almost too casual given all the prior paragraph did to build up Aloysius’ changes. What I want to know is if there was a particular moment where Selina had finally had enough. Did Aloysius do something particularly bad with mind-control? Did he mind control a target while he and Selina were working, or did he actually attempt to mind control Selina herself? As I said the build up is great but the mention of Selina reaching a breaking point without actually providing one makes the sudden separation fall a little flat. The second thing I wanted to know more about was Selina’s encounter with the iron golem that took her arm. As central to her character as that moment is (between necessitating Selina’s bionic arm and her intense fear of iron golems) that’s too key of a moment not to be included here. In-particular, while I already get the gist of what happened from the blurb you included, the Background section could do a lot to make the context more memorable. Did it happen while she was still with Aloysius or did this happen after Selina went her own way? Did she end up completing the job or did she have to hightail it out (or did it go so poorly that Selina had to be rescued)? Who was the person she was trying to take money from, and what role – if any – do they play now that they know Selina tried to steal from them? Filling in the context here would make this moment a lot more impactful on Selina’s character rather than it just existing as a footnote to explain why she hates iron golems, in addition to possibly providing a future antagonist for her to deal with. Lastly, the third thing I wanted to know more about was the guild Selina found herself involved in. Given the nature of her character and the description of the city of Underworld I was imagining something like a standard 'thieves guild’ but being more specific would go a long way to characterizing the current chapter of Selina’s life more (IE, what she’s involved in and the setting she’s in). What rules does the guild have, if any? Are they a legitimate, legal guild or do such things even exist in a place called 'Underworld’? Does Selina have any friends there or is she just a loner? While the details don’t need to be exhaustive here, some more information would go a long way to establishing where Selina is when the story starts.

As a final note, I’d suggest including a Relationships section as well. While the Background section did a fair job of highlighting Selina’s two main relationships between Aloysius and her uncle Stephen, those are both prior relationships. None of Selina’s current relationships – guildmates she hangs out with, that person with the iron golem she tried to steal from, the leader(s) of the guild, favorite customers she sells drinks to – are specified. Given that this point is where the active story picks up with her, these would be good relationships to go over given the role that they’ll likely play as things progress. Also any mention of Selina keeping in-contact with her uncle or her brother could be included her too, if that’s applicable at all.

All in all, I think Selina has a solid profile, even if her character seems more distinct than is actually detailed. By which I mean, I get the gist that she’s a pretty well rounded character with pros and cons and a solid backstory, but the gist is all I get back of the lack of elaboration. The improvements from Theo’s submission are great but she does have some of the same issues his profile had. Tighten up the focus, be specific instead of vague, and elaborate more on a few key character points and I think you’ll have a really great profile for Selina.

I hope this helps!

-D

[luninosity]

Hi Luni, I just wanted to say that I love your kitten!Sebastian series!! I feel like the criticism of it being out of character (I don't agree) can't really be applied here because it's not something that would ever happen our world, so how can we know how someone would react, and also, you've said that when you write RPF, it's based on the actor's public personas/images, because we can't really know them. (I'm the person who commented lots on each chapter of AC recently)

Yeah, without getting into a Big Discussion™, I feel like OOC critique is a really odd one for a fic that is both RPF and AU, for exactly those reasons - like, I’ve never claimed that this is the ‘true them’, and they’re facing entirely new SF-future challenges anyway, so they’ve been shaped by that in different ways?

I mean, in general, yes, you want characters to have recognizable core traits that make them ‘Chris’ or ‘Seb’ or ‘Steve’ or ‘Bucky’ as opposed to a random Tom or Jerry, because we’re here for stories about the characters we already love. Obviously that’s the case. But our individual head-canons for those characters will always differ, especially in AU settings - maybe I think Chris would react this way, maybe you think he’d react this other way, and hey, guess what, those are both perfectly fine interpretations! (Assuming there’s at least some extrapolation from what we know about the character and his established values - for instance, I don’t think you could write a believable Chris Evans who  - without any explanation of altered circumstances in order to justify it in-text; if that groundwork’s done, that’s okay too, if someone wanted to explore that story - didn’t love his family.)

I think the part that is making me disillusioned with fandom in general (I was saying this to a couple people after the comments popped up) is this weird cultural shift from ‘this thing wasn’t the kind of thing I like so I’m just gonna go find something that’s more my thing instead’ to ‘this thing wasn’t the kind of thing I like so therefore it is BAD and I must TELL THE CREATOR THAT IT IS BAD AND THEY ARE BAD AND THEY SHOULD NOT CREATE ANY MORE’. Like, what?!

Fan creators do their work for free, out of love and affection (or sometimes burning frustration + affection regarding source texts), and fanworks are not measures of a person’s being ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ and you (meaning random anons etc, like mine) do not have any authority to police ‘good’ or ‘bad’ content or whether someone should be allowed to create more works. We can (and should) talk about structural hierarchies and inequalities in fandom culture, don’t get me wrong, but one of the fundamental tenets of fan culture as I understand it (or as it used to be) is that we welcome people who love what we love and who want to create things to share with other lovers.

And maybe we learn and get better as creators; maybe a first fic or art IS out of character, or maybe even a later one is, because the creator’s trying something new. So what? The creator still tried something new and was brave enough and generous enough to share it for free. (Fan works are not pro works, so the only compensation for our labor is emotional compensation, which is why this matters so much more in fandom spaces, and there’s a whole other essay here about how fan culture functions, because of this, necessarily differently from the whole ‘you put it on the internet, deal with it’ argument that sometimes gets made; but moving on for now….)

Ahem. I sort of got into a Big Discussion anyway. My point is, I’ve been talking to a couple people ( @viperbranium, @hitlikehammers )about gradually moving away from writing fic (not any time soon! I have a LOT of WIPs to finish! I still love all my OTPs!), because this culture is starting to…not feel like the fan culture I fell in love with, way back when, where people were welcomed (and I remember the first time I shyly wrote a comment!fic for a serious BNF in Supernatural fandom because she’d made an LJ post wanting a coda to an episode, and I tried, and it probably wasn’t very good because it was my first fic - but you know what? she REPLIED AND POINTED OUT BITS SHE LOVED AND GOT ALL EXCITED OVER MY LITTLE NERVOUS NEWBIE EFFORT, AND OH MY GOD I FELT LIKE I COULD MAYBE BELONG) - and where if you didn’t like a thing (and let’s be clear that I’m talking about likes/dislikes, not something like deliberate malicious misrepresentation) you’d just shrug and move on, where you’d never dream of telling someone to stop creating because you personally felt that one fic of theirs was OOC.

And, to be clear, it’s not about feeling personally hurt if someone simply doesn’t like my fic. Sure. There are many fics I don’t like, sometimes for no other reason than the writing style rubs me the wrong way. You know what I do? I close the tab and move on. And I’m starting to wonder whether (especially given my tiring circumstances at the moment, with Evil Demon Cat likely not going to make it to 2018, and daily vet visits, and so on) I have the emotional energy to devote to something that’s another source of stress: even if I just laugh and delete obnoxious messages, I still have to read them. I still have to see them. I don’t want to write and post a fic wondering how many nasty ‘you should stop writing this pairing forever and go write OC’s since you obviously want to anyway’ (yes, that’s a quote from one of my anons) notes are about to appear this time. (Maybe I will just go write original fic, anon. I have sold some already. Thanks.)

Anyway, that became more of a…thing…than I meant it to. Um, thanks for letting me vent? *laughs* I still have a lot of fic to finish writing, so I’m not going anywhere any time soon. Those are just thoughts. Swirling cranky thundercloud-colored thoughts, probably also colored by my own tiredness. (I am so very tired. We’ve been keeping Kitty locked in the bedroom at night because he’s started trying to hide in the weirdest places and we don’t have the time to hunt him down and then medicate him in the mornings, but he HATES being locked up and screams all night. And daily vet visits. And also it is finals week so I am GRADING ALL THE THINGS and I have an Obnoxious Entitled Male Student this semester who tried to argue his paper grade “because all English grades are subjective and opinion-based anyway right?” OH WOW I GUESS ALL THOSE YEARS OF BECOMING AN EXPERT IN MY FIELD AND DOING TEACHER TRAINING AND GRADE STANDARDIZATION AND NORMING SHOULD BOW DOWN BEFORE YOUR EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD SELF, YES, ABSOLUTELY, BY WHICH I MEAN NO YOU ARE WRONG).

Like I said: tired.

I’m going to go and have lunch now.

Oh! But also I didn’t say thank you for YOU being awesome, and all the lovely support in your message, because that’s awfully nice to hear! YOU ARE AWESOME AND I ADORE YOU AND YOU HAVE MADE ME SMILE AND I HOPE YOU KNOW HOW MUCH BETTER YOU HAVE MADE MY DAY.