#< as per my tags on the og post on here is just for personal organization mb if it's annoying /gen

[punkeropercyjackson]

Best interaction i've ever had on tiktok.I clicked away for a literal minute tops to let them respond and they typed up four whole essay comments in panic😭💀

'Biologically transgender' is genius though

[aces-and-angels]

ART CAMPAIGN BOOST SUBMISSIONS:

edit: i hit the image limit for this post, so any new additions will be included here

the tag is starting to get kinda crowded (great problem, dw). i just thought compiling them all here would make things easier for everyone to find! all of the art displayed below is free to use for the purposes of promoting vetted gfm's here on tumblr. no credit is needed unless specified (marked = ***). if you have any questions regarding how to craft a post using any of the art provided -> please do not hesitate to reach out to me! note: please press follow post as i will most likely need to update this masterlist from time to time.

some info is below the cut on how to best utilize this material. please read it in its entirety before using any artwork. thank you 🖤

learn how to make art for this project here:

---

this project has gained a lot of momentum and has shown very promising results. the level of engagement once art is attached to a vetted gfm increases significantly. you will see what i mean as i have linked example posts of how to best use these pieces to help families in need.

i currently have a list of over 20+ families that i am spotlighting in my own personal progress tracker (the list has gotten so long that i now need to make a second version to accommodate all the families trying to get in contact with me).

this art campaign boost is truly meant to be utilized by anyone. i would sincerely appreciate it if y'all could take some time and pick maybe 1-2 people from this list and use the art below to create your own signal boost posts on the families' behalf. as someone who is periodically tracking their progress- i know that donation rates have slowed for a number of them. i am one person and can only do so much on my own. the essence of this initiative is to get more people to mobilize as a collective. it will take everyone to get on board in order for these families to be able to reach their goals. that means spotlighting their accounts/campaigns periodically.

you need to keep up the momentum.

the individuals you are helping currently live in areas with minimal internet connection, meaning it is very difficult to spotlight themselves on their own. especially since this site is continuously suppressing/deleting their accounts. they need you to interact with their content. tumblr isn't like other social media sites. it's known for being very 'anti-algorithm' and it's common culture for many of us to not really care about our levels of engagement (i.e. follower count/amount of notes per post). it's very hard for your own content to "break" your inner circle of followers and gain traction if the topic of the post is not "popular" or "trending" these families are not operating on this site the same way you are. you may be using this platform as a means to "just vibe" but they are using it as a desperate attempt to raise essential funding to save their lives. the importance that their posts be elevated cannot be overstated. anyone who has ever created any sort of og content here knows how quickly a post can die out if no one interacts with it. this cannot happen with them.

tips for making your own signal boost post* (*for vetted campaigns):

-> make it easy to read + eye-catching: the problem i am seeing when you search many of these families' accounts is that their "tag" (username of their account) is full of the same types of posts (i.e. a generic response to their initial message to another person on tumblr) <- aka it is very easy for people to tune out which is the opposite of what we want to happen. creating your OWN posts in response to their asks allows the art to appear FIRST when people look up someone's account via tumblr's search bar, which will attract more attention to their accounts. it also forces people who are making these posts to actually sit down and read the stories they are sharing with the rest of their mutuals/lurkers alike -> include verification sources: the main reason people are searching for these accounts is b/c they are trying to see if it is okay to reblog/share their campaign with their own following. if you address this plainly and early on in your post that includes artwork -> people are more likely to interact -> tag the account you are promoting: please include the families' account as one of your #'s so it will appear when you search for their names on tumblr. also try @'ing their account in your post so it'll be easier for these families to find your work. some of them are incredibly new to the platform and may not be aware of all its features. something that you may find intuitive may not be as easily understood for these individuals. your role is to make them as easy as possible to find for others so they can gain more support. --- don't have time to type out a whole post for a family on their behalf? -> interact with one of theirs! attach something nice/helpful to their posts so it is more readily available for others to share. the same rules apply from above. as i said before, some of these accounts are brand spanking new and are not formatted in the same ways as others that may be more well-versed on how tumblr operates in terms of promoting their campaigns. (for example: even if the account has been vetted/verified by multiple trusted individuals- the owners of that account may not know to include that info in their posts about their campaign every single time they post. you can make their lives easier by including that info for them by reblogging one of their og posts and adding the necessary info on their behalf)

you can also find a more comprehensive list of vetted campaigns by el-shab-hussein/nabulsi here <- their list is now over 200+ with several campaigns that are "in the red" (very low in funding). please do not hesitate to try to spotlight anyone from this list as well!

el-shab-hussein also has a masterpost pinned here with additional campaigns (including those for other countries like sudan)

alright i've explained enough- time for the art!

artist: @rhq274 | @rhq2744 *** free to use, credit required meet raghad (read and share full post here) Hello, I am Raghad Qanou, a medical student from Gaza City. My people and I have been subjected to genocide for more than 230 days. My family and I have lived through various types of torture and inhumane conditions. This link is my only chance for me and my family to escape death and try to start over. This is not easy. But we are trying, and we would be happy to have you help save our lives and our future. instructions to utilize artwork: those who wish to share raghad's art MUST do ALL of the following: -> follow raghad on tumblr @rhq274 | @rhq2744 -> like + reblog one or more of her posts seen on her account that promotes her fundraiser (you may also include additional art shown below to help further boost her campaign; see example) once those actions detailed above are completed, you may use raghad's art to promote her campaign. *if you are utilizing this art for another campaign that is not raghad's -> you must also mention + link her fundraiser as well /// for those able: please consider donating to raghad's campaign here (vetted; no 221 on el-shab-hussein/nabulsi's sheet)

artist: me lol free to use, no credit required example

artist: @lampyri free to use, no credit required example

artist: @aria-ashryver free to use, no credit required example

artist: @monmonp0k free to use, credit not required- but if given, is appreciated example

artist: @juudaimes-true-form free to use, no credit required example

artist: @gaiuskamilah free to use, no credit required example

artist: @marnota free to use on all social media platforms (i.e. tumblr, insta, twitter, etc), no credit required example

artist: @marquainequeen free to use, no credit required example

artist: @palms-upturned free to use, no credit required example

artisit: @inkyswampbones free to use, no credit required example

[milgramprojectfan]

While I’m waiting for Kotoko’s MV to drop so I can continue my overview passion project, here’s Milgram, but Danganronpa? Comment if you have any better ideas for their Ultimates

(Someone’s probs done this before, but idc. Im not going anywhere with this so if someone wants to use my ideas just tag me in your post lol)

Jackalope obvi as Monokuma

Es as the protagonist, and Ultimate Warden

Haruka as something like the Ultimate lucky student maybe? Maybe Ultimate Taxidermist or smth he doesn’t have a lot going for him

Yuno as the Ultimate Companion, but she’s secretly the ultimate Sugar-baby? Weird ultimate but it fits her story lol. Ultimate Model or Pop Idol would fit her too but idk

Fuuta as the Ultimate Competitive Gamer? Graffiti artist? Online Harrasser? Social Justice Warrior? There’s a lot he could be tbh

Muu the Ultimate Affluent Prodigy or some nothing talent she just paid for cuz she’s rich (or is she?). She’d definitely be a big antagonist.

Shidou as the Ultimate Doctor

Mahiru as the Ultimate Influencer or maybe Matchmaker. Maybe Model?

Kazui as the Ultimate Salaryman idk I can’t think of anything else

Amane as the Little Ultimate Animal Caretaker

Mikoto would probably forget his Ultimate, but I don’t want a Toko/Jill situation so he’d die first like Rantaro 😭

Kotoko as the Ultimate Vigilante, like if Maki was super upfront about her talent. I also see her being the main antagonist

Ok so I think 11 people isn’t nearly enough to make an interesting story… so… I’m adding some more (plus pictures to show what they look like). I think some of them would be like plus ones, so there’d be a talent vs no talent dynamic

Haruka’s mom as like an Ultimate Caregiver (but she sucks at her job), maybe Haruka could be her plus one?

Yuno’s sugar daddy as the Ultimate CEO (also this is legit the only picture I could find 😭)

Fuuta’s victim as the Ultimate Student or smth idk we don’t really know her. Maybe some sort of gaming or internet ultimate would fit

Rei as the ultimate Amateur Investigator

Shidou’s wife as the Ultimate Florist? That or Ultimate Housewife which… isn’t really a good ultimate. Could be Shidou’s plus one

Mahiru’s Boyfriend has no personality so he would just be a plus one to Mahiru

Kazui’s wife as the ultimate salary woman? Honestly no clue, maybe another plus one situation

Amane’s mom as the Ultimate religious zealot

We don’t know much about the other two’s victims, so I’m just gonna add those two main bully girls of Muu, (Aa and Sayu are their names apparently). Since they were friends at one point, I could see Muu bringing one as a plus one and just paying for one of them being the ultimate lucky student.

For the plot I’d say everyone would come to the prison under different pretenses (like Muu’s gang would think it’s a super prestigious academy, Muu and her bf think it’s a couple’s retreat, Shidou and his wife think it’s a place to get treatment for her, etc.) Then Jackalope reveals the real purpose and traps them in the prison. I’d say a minimum of like three people would have to die per trial for there to be an acceptable amount of survivors.

Some plot things I think would happen, Mikoto probs would die first (just cuz he’s messy). Then after learning the rules Kotoko would murder one or two people she deems evil (maybe Yuno’s Sugar daddy and Amane’s mom or smth), cuz only the first death matters. Then I think she’d do that a couple trials, before someone fakes their death (probably Muu) and gets Kotoko executed. Also I think it’d be interesting if pretty early on Es would be revealed as the Mastermind, and the perspective would switch to Rei. I think for the third trial, like how in the og games there’s a double kill, there’d be a HUGE blood bath that like cuts down all of the just extra space characters.

[bluravenite]

So i hadn't seen the original post since I try not to be too active here but... Im going to list off references just as a reminder 🫶 !!

A tumblr user in the ghost fandom posted about their opinion that people shouldn't write or draw dewdrop and copia as trans or emotionally complex characters. Their reasoning being:

Here's the link to the og post as well as a great reply from media nocte, which i think VERY well sums up the general argument here. "Get fucked OP."

Also this wonderful response by leafy, my love...

As well as syringe's post which even lists Tobias Forge's opinions, which OP said the papas were 'his super secret fight club level identity' which if it were true, he wouldn't be accepting Ghost band awards as himself nor with his family, nor openly interviewing about it... If it was so secret...

Tobias has even been open about other characters of his (such as Mary Goore, as mentioned per an interview) used they/them pronouns even if not INHERENTLY trans or non-binary.

He's always been openly accepting of people regardless of their gender or sexuality (this isn't to idolize him, just stating my knowledge of his values.)

My last point to op?? Here's what those "trans" people think about mine and other works.

I know i have more personal conversations with people where we have discussed how validating it can be for trans and non-binary people to write, read, explore these characters.

A reminder. Tags exist. Read the fucking tags on a fic, chances are the author wrote trans!dewdrop or "usage of cunt" in the tags or notes, and if they didn't?? It takes 3 seconds to comment "could you please add a trans character content tag please?"

As an artist myself, who originally stuck to the "stage representations of the characters" i the slowly started exploring the way i perceive their stories, how i can make MY OWN ART out of these characters that relates TO ME and MY FEELINGS and likes and opinions and such because THAT is what creativity is about. Taking what the world gives you and making it your own.

I am not trans, i am barely even nonbinary... Labels are scary, half the time i don't know who i am okay? I don't always feel like a girl, i don't always hate my body, sometimes i feel like if i live in this body for just a second longer I'll have to scratch all the skin off and crawl out of it myself... Sometimes i wish i could bind, be flat, have a deeper voice, be more masculine, sometimes i want to wear skirts that are way too short and the pretty corset from renfaire that makes my chest look so puffy and pretty... Sometimes it's nobody's fucking business... And sometimes my characters reflect what i am, what i wanna be, what i am not, and what i may never be. And just like my gender and my body?? It's nobody's fucking business.

In all my niceness and honesty. (Which are starting to run lower every time people say stupid shit in this fandom...)

Get. Fucked. OP.

Now let me get a bit more personal for a moment op... I've the posts saying you "went to a Catholic school"

As someone who grew up going to an All-girls Catholic private school, as my whole family before me had done, here's a little bit of insight.

All the shit they told you?? Yeah it causes trauma, it causes resentment and repression. Feeling disgusted and surprised when this "male character" has "female" genitals? Please ask yourself how you feel about your body first. Your mind. Why do you want to read "gay/bi men doing those activities" but not a trans man enjoying himself just as much? Would it be different if if were a ghoulette? Would it be different if the ghoulettes were the ones doing it?

OP please evaluate yourself before you OPENLY SPEAK for a community that you are not a part of, and if you ever do decide to explore your own repression, sexuality, and gender? Know that you deserve a chance at fucking up and learning about yourself. I say this from personal experiences. Making catholic school your whole personality internalizes that "sinful" feeling. That's probably why you enjoy ghost too... Not to psychoanalyze a random person on the internet but...

Get help.

Thank you.

[drawnaghht]

@trufflemacandcheese

About the ship tags poll... Ah, sorry for not specifying ^^; I did post that the poll was about Yuichi x Rise!Leo specifically.

I actually want to do a separate one for Leosagi, but this one was specifially just for Leoichi/Leochi! (or, me using mostly my own made-up tag, YuiNardo)

TL;DR - Leosagi and Leoichi/Yuinardo are separate ships :D technically we don't have this problem with other fandoms with newer versions of characters, or even with other ships like Donsagi, but since Yuichi Usagi is a separate character from his ancestor, Miyamoto Usagi, it would make sense to have separate ship tags as well. Especially since the tags already exist anyway, so why not use them per ship? It is also more respectful to both older and newer Leosagi fans and fans of both Usagi characters. I am all of these myself, so hah, this is all silly fanstuff, but I'd just prefer the separation bc the ships are too different to share a tag + it's easier to sort and find fanart/fic later if there are separate tags. So Leosagi poll will go up later!

Longer explain: there was discussion around it a year or more ago, + posts here and there on tumblr mostly, about how technically Yuichi Usagi x Leo is a whole new ship bc Yuichi Usagi is a whole new character from the Samurai Rabbit show... and how maybe it's good to use just the one tag for it? So the oldest unique name/tag for them seems to be Leochi/Leoichi. Since Miyamoto Usagi x Leonardo is an older ship that's been around for 19 years since the '03 turtles show and Leosagi has been the tag/ship name that stuck with that, it's a separate ship. So are the tags associated with it, such as Katanashipping and older tags (which I haven't seen people use anymore.) But people saw the similiarities of the two Usagi's (family after all, lol, but I wonder if there's something else simmering under there), and started tagging the newer ship as Leosagi too, almost as an umbrella term, since we'd briefly had 12!Leosagi as a ship, and people just like the dynamic that the 03 show introduced, but people liked the new TMNT cartoon too.

ROTTMNT didn't have any Usagi eps tho, so - some Rise fans had started making their own Rise versions of Miyamoto Usagi as well, well before the Samurai Rabbit show. And this new ship clashed with that a bit, because people were either taking the character of Usagi from the show and just giving him book/2003 Usagi's personality (so continuing what Rise!Leosagi shippers were already doing, but confusing the pool of thoughts there bc it's a new character w a new name). So the fans who use tumblr and draw/write for the ship got upset that this new ship was taking over the tags and clogging the tags with just Yuichi x Leo content. There’s also the distinction that og Leosagi in 2004 is a ship where they’ve interacted in canon - Usagi exists next to the TMNT in the cartoon, and I consider 03 Usagi a whole separate version of him because they seemed to have changed his backstory a bit + made him younger to match the turtles. There’s also history of the characters interacting in the comics, because their creators Peter Laird and Stan Sakai were friends and Leo is Stan Sakai’s favourite character of the TMNT. Yuichi x Leo is a crossover ship however. so the new ship was a surprise.

Perhaps at first, it was kinda fun to see new art or fic, but then I guess people started getting annoyed for how many fans were using multiple tags and including Leosagi in their posts too, even when Miyamoto Usagi is not there.  A lot of people treated the two ships as the same or made the name an umbrella  tag, which I sorta did too at first bc what, it’s not like there’s guidelines pinned to the start of a tag page on tumblr, are there? So imo, it’ll just sort itself out eventually the more people start using the unique tags exclusively vs the old tag. Sliderbunny was the Miyamoto Usagi x Rise!Leo tag for a while, but that's also become mainly used for the newer ship. I’m not sure if tumblr shows the contents of tags from over a year ago anymore, but there are most likely blogs still active which jave those older posts with tagging prior to Samurai Rabbit coming out on Netflix.

I'm more annoyed personally that people also mis-tag the characters and the book/show. They are not interchangeable! So yeah, it's been a whole many-posts-long discussion over this ^^;;

I also made longer posts thinking abt these myself but I'm not gonna link them here cuz these are just general polls of curiosity. But you can find them under "ship tags" tag on my blog if you get curious. RABNerd28 on youtube made a very succinct (imo) video about this topic as well, which summarizes many of the issues the older shippers find when going online to see content for their favourite ship.

I actually have no idea where Leoichi or Leochi came from as ship tags or why there are two spellings of it (almost like "two pronunciations" lol), but so far, it's a pretty popular tag. So there seems to be no need to double-tag it with Leosagi, when it's 2 different ships. I find it also that whatever the fan content for 2003 Leosagi or just Leosagi is in general, it would be nice to just respect fans who made the ship popular at first, when TMNT03 aired their Usagi eps in 2004. I actually shipped this too back in the day and still do, so for me personally, it's nice to have separate tags just so I can find things better on my blog + so if people who don't like one ship, they can always block the tag and not see those posts from me. Or just general consideration ^^ I think we don't have this discussion around the other usagi ship tags bc well, there are a lot less posts about these other ships both on tumblr and elsewhere, maybe the fans don't have the energy to argue about this?

Another result of earlier discussions and the general tag-clogging, lots of people also dislike the show and the character of Yuichi Usagi. I as a fan of both show and comic, really don't like that, so that's one more reason why using separate tags is better - so at the least: Leosagi and Leoichi separately.

i still prefer my own made-up tag bc it's more unique + sounds fun. also reasons why I made my own unique ship tag: fans make Yuichi really OOC in their art/fic, or they haven't seen the show or the flat-out hate the show.... which is all fine, ordinary stuff even, as far as bigger fandoms and fanworks go. folks make Rise Leo OOC often too, but no one bats an eye. But hey, it's just other fans having fun with concepts and ideas. That's what fanworks are. Transformative fiction. People can change anything they want. But I personally like the show and character, and I like the Usagi Yojimbo books too. So reading/watching and making theories and in-character or just plain meme/funny stuff is how I have fun.

whatever the reasons for the tag names, for this poll I just piled all the reasonable ship tags I could find for it (i.e. used in at least 2 posts) just to see what people use the most. seems that Leoichi is winning so far, which makes sense as it is easier to pronounce.

[writingmochi]

! "show off your favorite albums!" tag game !

rules: go to this link and search your 4 favorite albums/eps (all time favs or current favs [maybe both if you dare or even more]), screenshot and crop the pic and upload it here, then tag other peeps

tagged by: yerin from @itz-yerin fame! thanks for tagging me <3 you tagged the right person as i love music for heck sake

p.s. this is gonna be hard for me to curate cause i love so many albums. but i'll try my best

i added a new context for the rules inspired by the reblogs on the og tag game. credits to @/smileyerim *wink*

left side: all-time favorite albums/eps from top left to bottom right: ok computer by radiohead (1997), synchronicity by the police (1983), loveless by my bloody valentine (1991), fake it flowers by beabadoobee (2020)

right side: current favorite albums/eps from top left to bottom right: moodswings in to order by dpr ian (2022), awaken, my love by childish gambino (2016), the name chapter: temptation by txt (2023), post by björk (1995)

tagging: @kookthief @boba-beom @tyunlatte @heart2beom @s-uwu-binie @euphor1a @lovejoshua @junniieesbby and anyone who wants join! (no pressure!)

bonuses for kpop listeners!

all-time favorite kpop albums & eps

from top left to bottom right: the dream chapter: magic by txt (2019), treasure ep.fin: all to action by ateez (2019), new jeans by newjeans (2022), love yourself: tear by bts (2018)

-

all-time favorite kpop album

from top left to bottom right: the dream chapter: magic by txt (2019), love yourself: tear by bts (2018), treasure ep.fin: all to action by ateez (2019), teen,age by seventeen (2017). notable songs per release: can't we just let this monster alive? & run away & new rules; 134340 & fake love; dazzling light & wonderland & mist; lillili yabbay & trauma

-

all-time favorite kpop eps

from top left to bottom right: new jeans by newjeans (2022), the dream chapter: eternity by txt (2020), treasure ep.3: one to all by ateez (2019), al1 by seventeen (2017). notable songs per release: attention & hype boy; all tracks cause it is *that* good; utopia & wave & aurora; don't wanna cry & habit & my i

-

recommended kpop albums and eps

from top left to bottom right: city of onf by onf (2021), pink tape by f(x) (2013), director's cut by seventeen (2018), [x x] by loona (2019). notable songs per release: my genesis & beautiful beautiful & the realist; shadow & rum pum pum pum & airplane; thanks & run to you; butterfly & satellite & colors & hi high & heat(9) & favorite

^ i swear if you listen/have listened to these four releases, send me an ask and we can fangirl together aafsfajf

[invisiblegarters]

5 Songs - QL Show Edition

Tagged by @thatgirl4815 - thank you for tagging me!

When you get this, list 5 songs from the Asian QL media that you actually listen to.

🎶They do not have to be custom-made for the series.

🎶Non-western tracks only. Let’s support Asian music and languages!

🎶Feel free to tag anyone who may be interested in participating.

🎶Add #5qls tag to your post for others to find the new favourites!

So I challenged myself to only put one song per artist/show here, elsewise over half of the answers would be the same artist, lol.

Anyway, without further blathering, my list:

Over the Moon (Eclipse OST) - hands down one of my favorite songs ever, not just from QL. I love everything about it, and it's one of the few songs I never skip, even if I'm not really in the mood. It has the ability to take me right back to watching The Eclipse for the first time, and how much I loved that damn show (and Akk, favorite character in just about anything ever). It just puts a sort of wistfulness in my chest and then just makes me want yet another rewatch. Also I just love Khaotung's voice. I said it. I don't think I've heard an OST he's done and not loved it.

It's Always You (Between Us OST) - Pretty much same as the above, really. I know that this show wasn't for everyone but it caught me and caught me hard, and this song will take me right back to that feeling every time. Just hearing the intro makes me a little misty, lol.

Follow (My Beautiful Man OST) - It was really a tossup between this one and "Bitter" from S2, but this is the OG and I was obsessed for a long long time so it nudged it out. I just love it - it's Kiyoi Sou, right there in a song - all arrogance and confusion and desperate need to be adored. Impeccable.

Sunshower (Eternal Yesterday) - Yet again, a song that just flings me right back into the place where I was watching this show that I knew was going to break me and yet unable to stop because it was just that good. I adore this song - it's wistful but hopeful at the same time, and despite how much that show broke me I can't listen to this without smiling (now, that is). Also just have to plug the show for a sec - it's so good, great chemistry and amazing performances and has the best confession scene I've personally watched yet. Third episode is perfection and honestly I can't recommend it enough if you can handle it. I love it so much (might actually be time for a rewatch).

Closer (Cupid's Last Wish OST) - Have I ever gone on here about how much I love this show? Because I do. It's so much fun, and this song perfectly encapsulates that. Every time I hear the song I get a little happy inside, and it's also really great to put on while driving. It's a song made for montages, lol. And it's got all the charm of the show - no seriously, CLW is super charming, I can't believe I almost didn't bother with it because I was afraid it would do the "I love you, not your body" thing (fine in theory, not my favorite thing when it comes to queer media specifically). Now it's one of my comfort shows. Rewatch it all the time when I need to smile. Mix's and Earth's voices complement each other really well, too.

Honorable Mentions: Let's Try (I can't with that high note okay I just sat there gaping at my PC the first time I heard it), I'm Not Boring You're Just Bored (introduced me to Tilly Birds, thank you Jojo (and trailers totally count hush)), Your World, My World, Strange Days, Go Sign, Bitter (as mentioned above), Kiyoi Sou's Theme (instrumental but it's so good),

Not tagging anyone because I don't know who has been, but if you are reading this and you haven't been tagged please consider this your invitation to play. But please tag me so that I can read the answers!

[to-a-merrier-world]

Happy Fanfic Writer Appreciation Day~!

As per this post, today is a day for fanfic writer appreciation! So, I wanted to share some of my current fave fics🥰 (Since I’ve been on a Star Wars kick for a while, these will all be Star Wars.) As always, follow the rules: mind the tags and don’t like, don’t read <3 And if you read any of these, leave the authors a kudos & comment!

(If you are on this list and do not want to be, please let me know!)

Without further ado, here’s some fic recs in no particular order:

1) look at me (with your eyes closed) by @maderilien Boba Fett/Din Djarin, Rated T, 120k+ words.

Aaaaah, this fic was delicious. A canon-divergence fic after season 2 episode 1, it follows Boba and Din as Boba goes in search of his ship (which was sold off rather than conveniently still in Jabba's Palace). It's got it all--Allies to Friends to Mutual Pining to Enemies to Lovers, adorable scenes with Grogu, action, angst, a happy ending! I loved the world-building in this, and the alternate story for Boba--especially in his personal journey. I highly recommend this one (and its prequel)!

2) Broken Threads by @sadiebwrites Din Djarin/Luke Skywalker, Rated T, 78k+ words.

Brooooo, this fic!!! Set in the immediate aftermath of RotJ, Luke is dealing with unforseen consequences from his torture aboard the 2nd Death Star, and Din is, as always, a bounty hunter whose conscience hits just in the nick of time. This is a fantastic read for OG trilogy fans (especially lovers of Luke & Leia), Fallen Order fans, and prequel-era Jedia fans (3 cheers for T'ra Saa everyone). A wonderful adventure and slow burn romance, I really recommend this one! I definitely cried, like, twice lol. (No worries, though, it's a happy ending.)

3) Hot for Teacher by @astrangebird Din Djarn/Cobb Vanth, Rated E, 40k+ words.

I started reading this because I love trans!Din and I also love Cobb Vanth, but then this fic just hit me with ROMANCE and FEELINGS and ugh, I adored it. Set in what I can only describe as a "sorta-modern, but definitely still Star Wars" AU, Din is a Tusken sign language professor and Cobb is the retired sheriff taking a class to fill his sudden free time after an injury. It's a wonderful story with a somewhat messy romance and happy ending, I highly recommend!

4) hunting toward heartstill by @blackkatmagic Mace Windu/Cody (Main), Rated M, 207k+ words.

Okay, this one is basically a fandom must-read at this point, right? Mace/Cody may be a rarepair, but it's No.1 in my heart thanks to this fic. Not only does it have the ultimate "Fake Relationship/Married" trope (with possibly THE most romantic marriage vows ever), it has some real edge-of-your-seat action and turn-you-to-goo romance. Multiple plot lines are masterfully woven together into a very satisfying end (of the story, and the Clone War). Cannot rec this one enough!

5) Now Comes The Tide by @purplesauris Din Djarin/Luke Skywalker, Rated E, 9k+ words.

An absolute banger, I love this fic. It's mostly porn, with a sprinkling of romance and Force sensitive!Din, and also features trans!Din (a personal fave), armor sex, and inappropriate use of the Force (a classic). I loved Luke and Din's chemistry in this fic, and the sex scenes are wonderfully steamy~ I highly recommend this one!

6) The Abyssal Plain by @lyresnake Obi-Wan Kenobi/Darth Maul, Rated E, 25k+ words.

Obi/Maul is a messy fave of mine, they're just so much fun and this fic really demonstrates that. Maul is in his trash planet years when Obi-Wan crash lands and ends up in a very uncivilized situation lol. I loved how this fic portrayed Maul and his entire mess, but also the mess that is Obi-Wan Kenobi. It built a fascinating romance between the two, striking a balance between them that I found really interesting and engaging. Definitely my fave Obi/Maul fic <3

7) A Slow Fall Towards Grace by @glimmerglanger Obi-Wan Kenobi/Cody, Rated E, 116k+ words.

If you're like me, then you really enjoy seeing Obi-Wan suffer lmao, and this is definitely the fic for you (don't worry, it's got a happy ending, too!). In what I can only describe as Obi-Wan's disastrous journey to love, this fic follows Obi-Wan throughout his life to the end of the Clone War in an A/B/O AU. This fic features some heavy stuff, but it has a satisfying ending and possibly one of my favorite scenes ever in a fic (idk what it was about that birth scene in chapter 5, but the Drama really grabbed me by the throat lol). Really recommend this fic for angst and A/B/O lovers, this one's def for you!

8) Beekeeping and Husbandry by @meggory84 Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi, Rated M, 135k+ words.

Y'aaaaall this fic. Is. So. Good. I loved the disability rep in this fic, and the whole portrayal of Qui-Gon is probably my favorite of any fics I've read. Heavy on the deep dive on Qui-Gon's character, this fic follows an alternate ending AU of TPM where Obi-Wan "heals" Qui-Gon and Mace gets a terrible vision of the future (aka, he sees everything leading up to his death). Usually with time travel / full-vision of the future AUs, we see things from the POV of the character with all the information trying to save the day--but not in this AU! And I loved that, it made things so interesting. Cannot recommend this one enough!

9) A Safe Haven by @hixystix Alexsandr Kallus/Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios, Rated E, 146k+ words.

Listen, if you're even a little bit of a KalluZeb shipper, or even just a Kallus fan, I cannot recommend this fic enough. Following Kallus's rescue above Atollon, this fic follows Zeb and Kallus through the rebellion and after as they find themselves and each other. I loved Kallus's character development in this, and the world building of life in the rebellion, especially for an ex-Imperial like Kallus. This fic really takes you on an emotional rollercoaster, but the ending is very worth it (and the sex scenes... those are also worth it. Woof.).

10) How the Other Half Lives (series) by @reedroad Luke Skywalker & Leia Organa (Main), Rated G to T, 660+k words (on-going).

Do I even have the words to describe this series? I'm literally in love. An AU in which Leia goes to the Lars' on Tatooine and Luke to the Organa's on Alderaan, this fic follows the two from childhood through AU-versions of the OG trilogy, and heavily features Ahsoka Tano and Ezra Bridger. What the author does with their world-building and characterizations is just *chef's kiss* perfection. My absolute favorite iteration of Prince Luke Organa and Leia Skywalker with a killer depiction of Darth Vader and Han Solo, this fic has everything you could possibly want in a role-swap AU.

11) Reconstruction Corps AU (series) by @cacodaemonia Waxer/Boil (Main), Rated G to E, 518k+ words (on-going).

Once again, I'm in love. Not only is cacodaemonia an incredible artist with much of their art featuring in this series, their writing honestly takes my breath away. The sheer depth of emotion in this series!!! If you're a clone fan, I literally cannot rec this series enough. I've laughed, I've cried (a lot), I've rolled around in bed like a happy rolypoly, it truly evokes the full range of emotions lol. Mostly following Waxer and Boil throughout the War and after, this series is just such a heartfelt love letter to the clones and the Star Wars universe itself.

12) a simple thing by @ryehouses Boba Fett/Din Djarin, Rated E, 700k+ words (on-going)

Originally, I put off reading this fic cause it was just so damn long. And then I started reading it... and didn't stop for, like, a week. This is just one of those fics that you cannot put down. An incredible deep dive on Din Djarin's character, this fic features fantastic world-building (especially for Tatooine), a very well-written BDSM relationship, an exploration of "religious"/cultural trauma and recovery, and a nuanced look at Mandalorian culture and politics. This fic has one of my fave portrayals of both Din and Boba, and I just cannot recommend it enough.

13) Why Not's and How To's by @trixree Obi-Wan Kenobi/Darth Maul, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Clone Troopers, Rated E, 54k+ words (on-going).

Honestly, all I needed to know about this fic was that it’s a “Legally Blonde AU” and I was SOLD. While not following the plot of Legally Blonde, Obi-Wan definitely carries the energy of Elle Woods in this fic. In an AU where Obi-Wan left the Jedi on Melidaan and eventually becomes a lawyer and Darth Maul is never cut down on Naboo (and picks up Anakin along the way), this fic follows both the build-up of Maul and Obi-Wan’s relationship and also Obi-Wan’s attempt to help the clones gain their rights in the Republic. This fic is very fun, and takes an interesting approach to the whole “fixing the Star Wars” fic plot.

14) efface the footprints in the sands by @blackkatmagic Rex/Agen Kolar/Kix, Rated M, 78k+ words (on-going).

🥺🥺Efface the footprints, my love… Not even finished, and already a comfort fic for me, this fic follows Agen Kolar as he takes over Anakin’s battalion when Anakin faces charges for his slaughter of the Tuskens. He must not only deal with a distraught Captain and Padawan, but a mysterious and dangerous creature lurking in the deep. I love the hurt/comfort in this fic, and the whole atmosphere of the planet and characters really lends itself to the drama of it all. Cannot rec this one enough!!

[whenyoulosesmallmind]

well now i just NEED the playlist

part one | part two (you are here!)

anon, my lovely! i have a streak of bad luck when it comes to making playlists for wip projects - meaning, i’ve made playlists but never actually finished the thing i was working on - so i will refrain from making one for now in a bout of superstition.

i'll gladly share some more music, though, (more or less) related to tarn's hot girl midlife crisis - ESPECIALLY i think i'll use this new ask of yours to talk a bit about those opera pieces i mentioned in the tags of the last post, with some extra funsies thrown in.

i'm sorry, this isn't really what you asked for, but if you want to make your own unofficial midlife crisis playlist with the songs i've already mentioned (and feel free to add your own, of course!) please, go ahead! and do share if you do! :)

that said, lets-a-go!

if you've read the tags in the first post, you know i said recitar (probably better known as vesti la giubba, i think?, but as opera etiquette goes the songs are usually titled using the first line spoken by the singers, and i’m gonna follow that) was tarn’s ‘show must go on’ song - if not because i get to call him a clown (the main character (Canio) and singer of this particular aria plays a character called Pagliaccio - lit. clown)

you multiple links for this particular piece because i honestly cannot pick a favourite: Pavarotti, Domingo, Lanza and... Mina?! - while she’s not a proper opera singer, i think her re-interpretation was pretty cool and it’s fun to listen to a male role being sung by a woman for a change; she also has a beautiful voice.

favourite and most pertinent lyrics: and when Arlecchino / steals away your Colombina / laugh, Pagliaccio, and the audience will cheer

- i’ve never had the opportunity to share this thought before, so i’m gonna go off topic for a moment to say that i love that the word used in the og to evoke how the ‘Arlecchino’ has stolen ‘Pagliaccio’ ‘s partner (Colombina) is “invola” (conj. of the verb “involare”) which is, yes, very old italian, but describes a picture in which Colombina is both being seduced by Arlecchino, and hence being stolen away from her partner, but she is also flying (that ”volare” in “involare” in modern italian means literally “to fly”) away from Pagliaccio, like the dove she is named after. 

one of the first contender as the empyrean suite stand in in the human au was libiamo ne’ lieti calici (here by Diana Damrau and Juan Diego Flòrez): i thought that the airy and celebrative (of love, especially, passionate and fleeting) atmosphere of this song made for an excellent and hilarious contrast if it were to be used to cover up murder noises, but as things went on and i started to sketch out a more defined version of human tarn he grew to hate not only this particular song but the la traviata as a whole - of course, the characters and their grieves are very radicated into high society so it’s not hard to presume that tarn’s problems with the opera per se would come with it being a complete antithesis to what the decepticons stand for, and he would be very inclined to make you believe so! in truth, it’s actually a very personal matter (and he has a particular distaste for Alfredo, the male protagonist, usually interpreted by a tenor, fyi)

some other misc songs i really enjoy from la traviata: sempre libera; (by Lisette Oropesa and by Diana Damrau; if you were to listen to critics Damrau’s performance here isn’t very good, but i still enjoyed her acting and had overall fun listening to her, so here you go) lovely piece, i especially like how they have the tenor sing off stage to achieve that “overheard” effect, maybe a silly thing, but i find it really endearing, coro di zingarelle e mattadori (sic); (i don’t know where this performance is from, but it has noi siamo zingarelle (sic) and di madride noi siamo i mattadori both together so i’ll take it. trigger warning for: inappropriate language to describe romani women (the italian equivalent of the g word) and discussed bullfighting) if you can get past the 1853-ness of it it’s a very fun piece that almost always makes me want to get up and dance - honorable lyrics mentions goes to the bit where the marquis, who was gossiping about Alfredo and Violetta at the beginning of the song, gets called a slut and then to bullfighters’ bit which has them enter the scene just to say how hot and sexy they are.

about carmen, though! i mentioned votre toast, but what about other songs? in près des ramparts de seville (by Elīna Garanča, my beloved and the most Carmen ever. did you know that originally carmen flopped for being too horny of an opera? now you know) you can start to see why i called tarn a don josè; with the exception that josè at least tries to mantain some self control before becoming a disgusting simp. 

mentioning la habanera is kind of cheating so i’m just not gonna say anything about the song per se and link my two favourite performances: 1. Maria Callas; she starts singing at 2:15 if you want to skip the ouverture, but i suggest you don’t: she just is that much a pleasure to watch and listen to, her satisfaction and joy just bleed into the performance, that little pleased smile she has on is very contagious, 2. Elīna Garanča; amazing, showstopping, i have a little crush on her, etc., if you thought the près des ramparts performance was horny you will discover that this one is also very much horny (also fun note: Elīna Garanča is a mezzosoprano while Maria Callas is a soprano! it’s again the situation of of Samuel Ramey playing Escamillo, even if a little less drastic)

let’s conclude this little opera parentheses with again another song i considered as an empyrean suite stand in: va, pensiero (or, more known as the nabucco choir, here sang by the choir of il Teatro dell’Opera di Roma); again, there’s the discrepancy between the meaning of the song and its longing (for the singers’ homeland, this time) and tarn’s use of it, but what actually, imho, would’ve made it interesting as a possible empyrean suite is that as a song it did have an important place in the italian resurgence, and such as a somewhat political piece, as its composer, Giuseppe Verdi, (long story short) ‘broke containment’ and its pieces were not only widespread among the upper classes but the commoners who sang them and made them into something that unified a country in name only, otherwise physically divided.

in the end i decided against it because votre toast is objectively funnier. still, va, pensiero is a beautiful song.

(and since i’m spamming my own scribbles: BAM HUMAN TARN AND MIKA LYRICS. brings back memories...)

now! how about those FUNSIES EXTRA i mentioned forever ago? for the ‘things i actually listened to while writing/plotting’ we have notte all’opera (lit. night at the opera) because what can i say? if tarn’s living his hot girl midlife crisis i’m living my 80s italian pop one - plus, this one is a really funky one. now, to more recent times, there’s la paura del buio that has a really nice tarnsaurus break-up post deathsaurus defection (especially the first verses: i look myself in the mirror and i pretend to be at the circus / on a merry-go-round of happiness that i don’t want to get off / even if i’m not having fun anymore).

and a propos of måneskin, i wanna be your slave is a really good tarn song that fits him in every universe - eons ago i even drew a little something about it and even meant to make a sort of spiritual sequel with the lyrics: i wanna set you free / but i’m too fucking jealous / i wanna pull your strings / like you’re my telecaster / and if you want to use me i could be your puppet; but alas i never did.

first of all, if you’ve got here, i bow to you, and thank you for reading all my nonsensical rambles; but let’s on go ahead to the bonus track: someone special, i felt like i should also share something that’s incredibly warm and fuzzy and self indulgent for tarn et deathsaurus - go on, listen to it, i won’t spoil the lyrics but i promise it’s extremely fluffy.

but you know what there is an astoundingly lack of in this musical post, considering it’s me we’re talking about? if you guessed POETS OF THE FALL you’re right, if you didn’t: don’t worry, you’re about to ascend to an entire new plane of existence.

now, since they’re one of my most loved bands, where to start when picking in relation to my current and most beloved wip?

revolution roulette is probably my favourite album of them, and while i do love all its tracks i will stop to three for the wip: 1. revolution roulette itself is another good buildup to defection for deathsaurus; 2. ultimate fling is THE deathsaurus/esmeral breakup song and probably my second absolute favourite from the band (lyrics that make me absolute rabid: ashtrays filled with the fruits of our transgression / here and there sarcasm overflows / to stay I'll need this sitcom to be re-run till I get the gist of just how it goes); 3. i lied this is two :) but! to my defence, i think they both paint a good picture of what i like (and like to write) in tarn: 3.1 passion colors everything (lyrics: the face I wear behind my grin / the price I've paid for my original sin); 3.2 save me (lyrics - tw for self harm if you go listen the whole song: looking at myself in the mirror / funny I should see only headlines and ads with my name / i was told I'd see my ally / so who are these skeletons with guns taking aim?)

clearview is their second most recent album and while it’s not bad it certainly is not their best, but it also has my favourite song of all time: children of the sun that, admittedly, it’s a bit of my jolly because i always find a way to shoehorn it into my favourite things, but its good. listen to it :)))

- also: drama for life is an absolute banger and another good song for tarn (lyrics that make me eat dirt: a blueprint for life, blueprint your life / aggressively primal cultural high / this mental Versailles is much grander than the lies / you tell yourself to get through the night)

twilight theater is another favourite of mine, and the one i think i will end this post - on another double featurette and a bonus track: 1. change refers more to a tarn immediately after finding about megatron’s denunce of the cause (since i can’t put it into my own words you get lyrics: do you feel a change coming on / rolling out of the blue like a storm / and it's throwing your dollhouse world in disarray / so you can rebuild or conform [...] i too fear the change coming on / rolling out of the blue like a storm / can you hear it scream at the hurt that I knew); 2. smoke and mirrors i think fits nicely for a young tarn post autobots/early decepticons era (when the malady's no remedy / till we reach the lowest absolute / and necessity will finally force something through what's walling you)

[inmyarmswrappedin]

i am catching up on some of your posts from yesterday and i wanted to add that i don’t think that the remakes have exactly tarnished og skam, but maybe more like watered it down in some viewers’ eyes? a lot of people saw og skam as unique in its format and way of portraying teens along with important topics. but after three years of the same stories being repeated across the remakes, it seems like some people have just gotten tired of those same stories and that then gets translated into people forgetting that they were actually new and unique when just og skam was airing. i don’t know if that makes sense? the stories got wrung dry, honestly. which is why i so wish that the remakes had just used the skam format and told their own stories, so that the universe could expand in terms of who is being represented and also so that og skam could just stand on its own once again.

Hi anon! 🍒 This is an interesting ask (btw thanks for the thoughtful asks you guys have been sending me all this time! I genuinely enjoy not just reading your asks, but giving them a platform and discussing them). I feel you in some aspects, but maybe not others.

I agree that the remakes have watered Skam down for some viewers, but I wouldn't say they have watered down the stories per se. I think it's more, like, for some people Skam is simply a show that drops in clips during the week with yellow timestamps and a lead character. That is all that Skam is and nothing else. But if you've been reading my tumblr long enough, you might've caught discussions about how Skam made use of the illusion of "realism" to actually show idealism and hope. However, for some viewers, Wtfock is just as realistic as Skam even when it is continually cruel and disdainful towards its characters. This is a way in which (certain) remakes have watered down Skam, because Skam had a very specific mission statement and feel and intention, that people don't think it's an essential part of Skam that should be kept throughout the versions. And this also goes for aspects like showing a character's vulnerability, for instance. (@lightsandlostbells explained how that was lost in some remakes because they cast actors who, simply put, were too old and self-aware to convey teenage vulnerability anymore.)

I also feel like Skam was really good at finding very specific and personal moments that hadn't really been shown on mainstream TV before, like Isak taking that gay quiz for instance. That was the first time I saw a gay character do that on a piece of media, and yet soooo many people resonated with it! It's small stuff like Noora losing her shit over the fish cakes, which was such a poignant portrayal of controlling one's intake of food not to lose weight (as EDs are often portrayed on TV), but to have control over something when your life is unraveling. I feel like this kind of scenes came about as a result of the extensive research NRK did before sitting down to write the show, like I genuinely feel they listened to the people they interviewed and sought to be accurate and respectful of their experiences. (However limited by their own views as white feminists/white moderates they were.) The remakes, for the most part, have lost these small moments, because they're more focused on dropping as many clips as possible to keep tags alive, more focused on having lots of things going on, maybe to make up for shorter, less intimate clips.

This is how I feel the remakes have watered down Skam (and tbf, the extent to which the remakes have watered down Skam varies as far as I'm concerned, like I don't place Druck and eskam and Austin with Wtfock, France or Italia, and I don't think anyone will be surprised there). Because I think if the remakes had focused on truth over spectacle, I genuinely feel people wouldn't be as tired nor the stories as wrung dry. I feel like they focused more on telling the story than telling the emotional truth behind the story.

At any rate, I feel like if a story is adapted well, it can be adapted over and over and over. Like, how many versions of Romeo and Juliet are out there? Or Pride and Prejudice? But not every version of these stories is equal, which I also feel was something the wider Skams fandom had issues with facing for a while. Like, it was kind of verboten to like one remake more than another, and even more so to like a remake better than Skam. (And for as much as this ask is all about how the remakes watered Skam down... Here's the thing: Some people like those remakes better anyway. And that's fine!)

You could say, "well, people don't just mainline 8 versions of P&P in a single year, maybe those stories would be wrung dry if people did." And like, while I do think all the remakes try to capture international fandom to a bigger or lesser extent, or at least enjoy the international attention... I also don't think any team is expecting people to watch all 8 versions lol. I don't think all that many people involved with a Skam (whether crew or cast) has watched all 8 versions with all of its seasons. So like, that's on us for feeling like we have to watch everything or we're somehow being unfair to a remake or another. And it certainly doesn't help when stans of a particular remake will be like, "well, you're just looking for reasons to dislike this remake, Sander forgave Robbe so idk why you're still talking about it!!" as if I had some sort of vendetta against the Belgians or some shit.

I do miss Skam (or when Skam was at its best rather, like I don't miss Noora's season lmao, though it had its small moments like I've mentioned), but I also feel like... Maybe the people who enjoy the "watered down" remakes never really enjoyed Skam for all that it was, but only certain elements of it. And like, I can certainly relate to that!! Because I definitely enjoyed certain elements of Skam while not liking some other aspects and liking how the remakes did them more (like, for instance, I MUCH prefer how eskam did Nora/Alejandro over Noorhelm and idc that it's "watered down" Skam and that we don't see as many small moments with Nora G as we did with Noora). And I get that Skam stans (or, like, evak stans, because I truly only see this sentiment about wishing that Skam hadn't been wrung dry from evak stans, sorry, I've never seen it from Noorhelm or Sana stans, and Mohnstad stans seem to be angrier that none of the remake P-Chrises capture Herman's raw sexuality (LMAOOOOOO) than anything else) got to have a fandom without comparisons to other evaks or without complaints that evak was too white, cis and male. Honestly, when people draw certain comparisons between Isak and a remake Isak, I too want to scream. But otoh, without the remakes, I wouldn't have David (or Shay, Jo, Cris, Joana, Eva V, Nora G, Amira N, Lucas R, and many others) so you know... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[katara0524]

Impromptu Ramblings about the NEO:TWEWY Demo

In case y'all weren't aware, I've been a pretty big fan of TWEWY for a couple years now, and with the sequel coming out next month, the excitement I feel for this game is greater than ever :) I played the Demo for the first time yesterday, and following a couple views of some livestreams of others playing it, I felt like sharing my (very ramble-y) thoughts prior to the release of the full game. This post WILL contain spoilers for both TWEWY and NEO:TWEWY, so if you want to avoid those from now on, please block the tags: #twewy spoilers, #ntwewy spoilers, #neo twewy spoilers, #ntwewy, and #neo twewy ^_^ Oh, and if you wanna keep up with any other posts I make about my experience with this game, please refer to the tag "kat plays neo twewy" :)

-First things first: I have not watched the Final Trailer and I don't plan on doing so to avoid spoilers, especially after the pre-release era of KH3 where a lot of the later trailers spoiled a lot of the endgame content. That being said, I've seen some minor screenshots from the final trailer including what many believe to be characters from the original TWEWY, namely Shiki and Joshua. That is all I know about the Final Trailer and I would very much like to remain as blind as possible going into NEO :)

-The very first cutscene was quite ominous in the sense that this game is likely going to be about "changing fate" (a recently common theme in Squeenix games, which I do appreciate), perhaps leading off from the end of A New Day in the OG and trying to stop an Inversion of Shibuya. Also worth noting that A New Day had similar aspects in which the main character experienced "future visions" of tragic events, although in A New Day these events were not able to be changed, while in NEO it seems like one of the main "powers" our protagonist has is specifically to rewrite these events and avoid a "bad ending." Very interesting indeed!

-I really like the revamped comic book style dialogue scenes, it's much more fluid and modern, which is an excellent direction for the series to take!

-I would love to have an actual PokemonGO knockoff of Final Fantasy creatures, please Squeenix that would be incredibleeeeee

-Also the LINE stickers??? Are so cute???

-I would just like to point out that Fret is an absolute treasure throughout this entire demo, he's hilarious and I will protect him with my life

-UHHHH don't like that Fret picked up some Reaper Pins just out of nowhere.....or the fact that they're apparently popular all over Shibuya.............did y'all not learn anything from the OG game or what lmao

-Okay so when I first got the "curry or ramen" scene and heard NPCs talking about the new curry place replacing the old ramen place I became IMMENSELY distressed that Ramen Don was totally cut from the game because....well, Ramen Don is a King okay?? But I'm glad to learn that no, he didn't fall off the face of the earth, he's still in business and he's the one opening the curry restaurant lolol. PHEW, crisis averted!

-.....I don't like the sudden appearance of a Wall Reaper and being able to read NPC thoughts. Wtf happened when they left the ramen place??? Are they playing the Game alive somehow?

-Okay so I have my own theories about this "Swallow" character and what they're up to but considering this is only the Demo and I still Have No Idea What's Happening, I'm just gonna say that I think Swallow intentionally led Rindo and Fret to the Crossing so they could join the Game. I mean, add in the fact that Swallow still communicates with Rindo during the Game and you've got yourself a suspicious character right there lol

-"Hey they're shooting off fireworks!" Fret honey that's not fireworks oof (see also: "*laughs* I'm in danger")

-WOOOOOO way to traumatize Rindo right off the bat like that LMAOO

-The visuals for the intro are VERY GOOD, the song is pretty decent until it gets all "screamo" (which I absolutely cannot stand sorry lol)

-Shoka is every Customer Service employee ever and I respect that

-Susukichi went from being "meh" to "WOW THIS GUY IS FUN" in the span of 10 seconds and I also respect that (he is also built like an Absolute Unit which is hilarious)

-The Wall Reapers (and just Reapers in general) seem.....way nicer and more helpful this time around?? Like in the OG the Wall Reapers were SO RUDE gfhjgjdfkhn and yeah I'm sure we'll get some like that but the juxtaposition of the first Wall Reaper in the OG compared to the first one in NEO is insane.

-The puzzles are quite a bit more entertaining this time around even if it's generally the same "fetch quest" formula lol

-"Rindo's Group" way to go Fret HFKJDGHSDFKJ mans really left the default name in there lmao

-OKAYOKAYOKAY so to those who aren't aware I am a MASSIVE SIMP for Sho Minamimoto, he's my absolute favorite and I think about him daily. HIS INTRODUCTION IS. INCREDIBLE. I LOVE IT SM.

-GOD hearing him actually SPEAK FULL SENTENCES is just SO SURREAL I love this sm

-Also the remix of his theme???? NEO TRANSFORMATION????? IT'S SO GOOD????????? It's like gone from a Boss Theme to a more triumphant sounding theme and I am HERE for it (every version of Transformation is just INCREDIBLE and getting a new one is even better)

-I Love Him, Your Honor

-Also idk how exactly but it's kinda weird seeing Sho in the OG vs NEO, cuz while he's mostly the same Insane Math-Obsessed Catboy, he's.....calmed down quite a bit?? Like OG made a whole point of how poorly he cooperates with others (not to mention just being completely unhinged and trying to kill everyone), whereas here in NEO he's......actually kinda working with others??? HELLO???? Sir what happened to you and Neku during those 3 years I would love to know all about it

-I guarantee you Sho is still probably scheming shite and will likely pull some total insane BS later down the road, and I am very much looking forward to that. Also, is he looking for a certain Pin or something??? Cuz he keeps talking about different Pins and even mentions "this is just another Psych Pin" like he's actively looking for a Pin to do something with. Maybe it also has to do with the "latent powers of Players" thing he mentioned as well??? What is this dude UP TO oml (also is he in contact with Neku at all?? they're both technically fugitives at this point right?? WHAT HAPPENED AFTER A NEW DAY I AM BEGGING YOU)

-I seems like Sho ALSO has an idea of what's going on in this specific game (even if he won't admit it straightforward). Per his quote "The game's 142,857. Factor it out," he's essentially saying, "This game is a neverending cyle, figure out how to get out of it" (or at least that's what I got from his "cyclic number" nonsense lolol)

-I do like how Sho mostly stays out of sight until he's needed for a battle or assisting with a mission, that's kind of on par with his whole "uncooperative" quirk from the OG, plus he might literally have to stay out of sight of other Reapers and Players considering he's likely breaking the rules of the Game (not surprising considering him and Neku broke practically every rule in the book during OG)

-The nicknames for Sho- I can't- They're so FUNNYYYY GFHJSDFKJ

-He goes from being called "Pi-Face" and "Tabooty" in OG to "Mr. Minami" and "M-Teezy" in NEO LMAOO

-(Wowee I just realized I've been mostly talking about Sho oopsies sorry y'all, this is what I meant by thinking about him almost daily he is THAT much of a fav of mine ghfkjsd)

-Okay RIP Fret and Rindo for not getting literally ANY explanation as to how the Game works OOF, that is kinda cringe that whoever gets the Pin earns points, not whoever erases the Noise (which like I understand but also URRRGGHHH I WANNA SEE THE SQUAD SUCCEED)

-"I should be going home now it's getting late" Oh you sweet summer child-

-Also love the mention of parents in this game???? KH you could learn a thing or two from TWEWY (poor Rindo's mom fhgjkdh)

-KUBO IS HILARIOUS I SUPPORT HIM AND HIS GROSS FACE (also thank you Final Trailer thumbnail for spoiling my suspicions about him very cool smh)

-Kaie is a LAD I also support him, go King type those funky texts I believe in you

-FRET PLS STOP SCANNING FHGJKSDHKJFGHFKJ he's like me when I scan in OG during Weeks 2 and 3 and see Taboo Noise coming after me ghfjdshfj

-Also Rindo can you stay off your phone for TWO SECONDS ik you're trying to figure things out but Fret is a jelly boi and I don't want him to be upset with you my guy

-Sho being an actual sorta mentor to the kiddos?? Who are you sir this is so unlike you ghfgskj what happened to the guy who tried shooting children in the face 8 times over LMAO (granted he's probably just using them but it's still nice to see him actually cooperating and sharing knowledge with the kiddos aaaaa)

-EYO EIJI OJI THE TIKTOK INFLUENCER IS BACK LMAO

-hgjkfshgkjf "we aren't glorifying capitalism on my watch" THATS SO FUNNY TO ME GFHJFSDGHJKS (also an all-orange ensemble is disgusting you deserve jail for one thousand years fkn Cheddar Goldfish Cheezit ass woman)

-WICKED TWISTERS NAME DROP EYOOO we love to see it

-gfhsgjf Poor Rindo embarassing himself for the sake of the Game that's incredible

-R e t u r n t o M O N K E. That is all.

-Dialogue during boss battles is HELLA cool i love that

-HHHHH THE KANON SCENE MADE ME A N G E R Y FRET STOP SIMPING MY GUY says the girl with a Literal Simp Encyclopedia and simps for pixels on a screen daily

-Can't wait to see the other Reapers :eyes emoji:

-CAN'T WAIT TO SEE NAGI MY BELOVED YEAHHHH WOOOOOO AAAAND that's about it for the demo lolol, I absolutely CANNOT wait for next month, this game is gonna be INCREDIBLE holy hell Prepare for more simping, more screaming, and more vibing from Yours Truly :) I fully intend on sharing more general thoughts like this on both Tumblr and Twitter so it's not just reblog-retweet-reblog-retweet with the occasional comment fhgskjd

If you wanna witness my insanity up close and personal I have a Square Enix Discord server called Sea Side Dreamers! You can look it up on Disboard, or you can add me on Discord @Katara0524#9244 for a direct link :) We have topics about Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, NieR, and ofc TWEWY (as well as other topics!), so if you want some good ol' chaos and chitchat, you're more than welcome to join!

[nagisasstunningpersonality]

TINSITOGS, a retrospective (happy birthday)

(yes I’m like two days too late I know I’m sorry) 

Why hello followers and ass class fandom, nice to see you there. I’m sure MOST people know about this, but in case you don’t, hi. On AO3 I’m better known as livixbobbiex, writer of maybe one of the most infamous Assassination Classroom fics. 

Which I mean like, if you haven’t read it yet you totally should it’s fanlore at this point I promise- 

Shameless plug that I don’t need aside, I felt that, on its first birthday since actual completion, I just wanted to share some things about it. Some tit bits about writing it, fun facts, maybe even some author advice TM. I appreciate that it’ll be super annoying if I do that in the tags, though, so that’ll all be under the cut. If you don’t want to read the whole post, then no matter what, thanks for the support in general! 

I also want to take the opportunity to announce that I’ve reopened my discord, so if you want to talk about my fics with me (and others), you’re more than welcome to join! (the link is here) 

The origin story 

I’ve stated this many times, I think, but TINSITOGS was never supposed to be a serious story. Taking you back, quite a long time, it actually started in a facebook DM with a friend. We used to come up with “head canons” with each other, which were basically just very condensed fanfiction plots over a multitude of text messages. I believe I was trying to cheer her up, and I tried to come up with some kind of plot line. 

At the time, I was fairly fresh to the Ass Class fandom, and I was joking about how there were no teen pregnancy melodrama fanfictions. It wasn’t that I wanted one, I just thought it was strange for a school centric anime with a bunch of ships to NOT have one. And, back then, I only really cared about karmagisa. So I just decided ‘right it’s happening’. The reason I decided to make it ABO was due to ‘it making sense’. Fun fact: it was almost written as AFAB trans Nagisa, but I decided against it as I didn’t rate my ability to handle it well back then. Looking back on it, I’m glad I made that decision. 

Over around two months, writing out the plot of this story took over my life a little bit. I had no idea where I was going with it, but I was having so much fun with the drama that I decided that Karma and Nagisa shouldn’t get together soon at all, and I had a lot of fun teasing my friend with the ‘will they won’t they’. It was only when I got bored that I invented this intense drama plotline to finish it all off. 

That period of time was a lot of fun. And whilst that friendship didn’t end well, I still have a lot to thank her for. She chose Daichi’s name because I had no idea, and she wanted to annoy me because I didn’t like Haikyuu. When I couldn’t decide on his hair colour, the purple was her suggestion because ‘why logic?’ Daichi speaking Korean was because of how much she liked Kpop. She even helped me choose the title of the actual fic, so there’s a lot you can thank her for, honestly. 

After I finished that story, though, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Whenever I daydreamed, I used to think about that damn Daichi Akabane, and how much I wanted to tell his story. I’d even come up with extra stuff to fill in a lot of the gaps, and developed his character in my mind. I decided that I was really desperate to write it down. Usually that worked when I had an idea I wanted to work through. 

I wrote the first chapter in late 2017, and then the next two as well. I just, kept going, and realised that I could go further still. TINSITOGS was never something that was supposed to be shared, but I decided I may as well. After all, that fated ‘teen pregnancy drama’ fic still didn’t exist, and I thought it would be funny to make it happen. 

Yes, as I’ve stated publicly a few times, TINSITOGS was a crack fic. If I wanted attention from it, it was infamy. We even joked about me cursing the fandom if it ever became the most popular fic (whoops?). What I wasn’t expecting was a bunch of people, in a fandom where at the time there were NO ongoing karmagisa fics and it was pretty dead, to really seem to enjoy it. It was enough to have me keep writing it, at least. I still don’t know at what point I actually started taking it seriously, but somehow I did, and the rest is history? 

The reception 

In my wildest dreams, I never thought that I would be the author of one of the most popular fics in the fandom. To this day, the amount of views TINSITOGS has is insanity to me. For the record, across all platforms it’s on today it has 238,000, which is literally a number I can’t even visualise anymore. Almost quarter of a MILLION. To this day on AO3, it’s the most viewed Ass Class fic that’s an ACTUAL ass class fic (the others are multi fandom compilations). So yeah, I achieved the original goal, I guess? 

Now you might be wondering, “omg the karmagisa fandom is fujoshi trash”. And, considering the origins, it is kind of funny. The thing is, though, TINSITOGS was written at incredibly good time. It was written when there were, essentially, very few long form Karma/Nagisa stories. If any other fics did get posted on occasion, they were usually just oneshots. I was also, at that point, writing very fast. A symptom of ADHD is becoming obsessively productive over certain things. Since I was able to get a 3k chapter out every few days/once a week, TINSITOGS was consistently bumped to the top of AO3′s default view. And some of those first few chapters were altered canon, and transcribing the canon dialogue didn’t take very long. The more views it got, the more people would read it out of sheer curiosity. 

I think it also helps that, at least after it started getting some positive feedback (which was honestly after the pre written chapters), I purposely tried to make it ‘not terrible’. I mean, I personally think the first chapter is pretty weak and if it wasn’t somewhat iconic to a lot of people I’d rewrite it. But in general, I purposely tried to make the world of ABO my own, to make it more accessible to those who don’t like that genre, and stay away from the inherently grosser stuff as much as possible. I genuinely do get comments about how I introduced people to the genre as a whole, still not sure if that’s a GOOD thing but hey, it happened. 

TINSITOGS turned into a lot more than just a joke. It turned into my favourite hobby. It turned into a research project (honestly, you would not believe the amount of mummy vlogs and legit scientific articles about child development I consumed). It turned into something that, at least I believe, was widely loved. 

Meaning 

I think it might be wrong to say that I don’t have AN idea of when I started to take the fic super seriously. For me, it was around the time someone commented something along the lines of saying my writing meant a lot to them, that they’d spent all night reading it and had been unable to put it down. 

Not to get too dark here, but I do have a past in writing a very long, somewhat popular fic (it’s still on my fanfic net profile if anyone’s interested, but I don’t recommend it). However, in the latter part of my teenage years, the depression struck. Writing was the love of my life, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it anymore. Maybe I’d be able to muster an idea or even a chapter at the best points of that, but I’d never completely finished any story. Starting to write again was a huge step in my recovery, and one of the reasons I convinced myself that life was worth it was being able to impact someone’s life somehow. Even to this day, I still remember the fics I read when I was, like, thirteen. How much I still remember them, and how much they meant to be at the time. I wanted to be that writer for someone else. To be honest, it was actually Yuri!!! On Ice that got me out of the super bad, but I still never wrote anything of real consequence. TINSITOGS was the first time in a long time I actually committed to something. 

And, to be completely honest, there were a lot of times I was tired of it, and wanted to just quit. But, the thing was, I felt like people depended on me in a way. I got so many comments that were just FILLED with support, telling me how much they looked forward to every update. It wasn’t just empty words, either, a lot of the times these comments would be super engaged with the actual writing. I can’t even describe just how much they meant to me, how much I would look forward to reading everyone’s opinions. And then discord happened, which was a lot of fun. 

TINSITOGS went a lot further than I ever thought it would. There were comments, discussions, fan art, fan FIC (which is honestly incredible to me). Someone even added it to TV Tropes, at one point. Not to mention the Cards Against Humanity deck and quiz It makes me so unbelievably happy that I could inspire that much creativity, but it’s a two way street. It was all of that which inspired me to write, too. 

Writing 

The only real goal I actually had was aiming for around 3000 words per chapter. I had a whole facebook log of plot points as planning, and I was mostly just trying to expand on them into prose. I honestly thought that, at its completion, the entire fic would be around 100k words, if that. Not, at one point, being literally the longest ass class fic on AO3. 

There are a lot of aspects that were directly adapted from the original messages, and I tried to stay faithful to it more so at first, even if I later removed some of the pure crack. But the style was also vaguely similar, with the story being told mostly from Nagisa’s perspective with swaps to Karma when it made sense. All the main plot beats, too, are pretty much identical. The plus to this was I was able to add a lot of really fun foreshadowing, and I feel like it’s a fun reread because of it. 

Honestly though, if there’s a demand to release those OG message logs, I will. Mostly because it’s kind of funny, and interesting to see. Isogai and Nagisa were engaged at one point, even. 

Obviously, it changed somewhat. 3000 was the minimum length, and the time to completion was whenever it felt right. One of my big concerns was about pacing, so it took a lot more fleshing out and maybe ‘filler’ content for some of the main arcs to work. 

There’s parts of TINSITOGS I don’t think aren’t written that well, and some that I’m still super proud of. I think you can definitely tell there’s a gradual shift in style, and I get a lot more comfortable with writing them as characters as it goes along. To be honest, my pride for the fic overall is what it represents. 

It is funny to think about the places it got written in, though. I started it when I worked at McDonalds with no life direction, then it went through my first year of university with me. It’s been written in at least four countries. Aeroplanes, night clubs, long haul buses, a train through the Japanese southern coastline. Even the start of covid. TINSITOGS managed to see a lot. I even turned a scene in (the boat scene during the India chapter with altered names) to my university as a legitimate assignment. 

There were also a few messages I wanted to achieve, once I realised I had the platform to put them across. One of them was, obviously, ‘use protection kids’. It was important to me that I didn’t glamorise it too much, and I think that came across. I also wanted to dispute some of the issues with ABO, and subvert the consent issues as much as I could. An arc I really ‘liked’ writing was how abuse doesn’t always look the same way, and that it can be a drawn out change in behaviour. How the most important part of ‘being a good parent’ isn’t perfection, but genuinely loving and doing the best you can for your kid. How love doesn’t solve everything, and effective communication can take a very long time to learn and build a functional relationship. I mean, there definitely was a lot I tried to put in, and you’re free to interpret it all how you want. But, I like to think some people learnt some of these things, at least. 

Daichi 

Honestly, Daichi developed almost of his own free will. I had a good idea of his appearance, and that he was smart. Writing him from birth until around nine years old (older if you read the sequel fic) pretty much allowed that fluidity. It was really fun to explore a nature vs nurture development, and let his own characteristics speak for themselves. 

He’ll always have a special place in my heart. 

This is the first image I ever made. When I was trying to figure out what Daichi looked like, I honestly just edited Karma’s hair (pretty well, actually? I’m impressed with my past skill). That’s where the ‘he looks just like Karma’ meme kind of came from. 

This was the first image I actually created of Daichi. I THINK it was on rinmaru games mega anime creator or something, but it’s literally not available on the internet anymore as far as I can tell, so I can’t double check. This was in the pre-piccrew days. His eyes are closed because they didn’t have the right tone of goldish/silver.  

His sister, Kaguya, didn’t even exist originally, even though I decided on that ending pretty early on. Actually, she was going to be called ‘Irina’ due to some hijinks. Initially, when Karma found out about Irina’s pregnancy, she was going to get super emotional and mad at him and basically force him to name his first born daughter after her. Karma agreed to shut her up, never intending to have another child, so when the surprise second child later came along they had to live with the pain. However, to be honest I just forgot to write in the actual scene that set it all up, and I decided against adding it anywhere else. The name Kaguya was a very last minute decision, and it was a chance for me to explore some ideas that didn’t fit with Daichi’s character. 

Interestingly too, Daichi and Nao were never intended to be a thing. I only decided that towards the VERY end. Even though the reason I named Nao that was because of a ship I had in a J Drama (Good Morning Call). It just kind of ended up happening because I won myself over with imagining the cute. 

The music 

I used to write with a lot of background music, though not all the time. Particularly towards the start, there was a lot that didn’t really make sense thematically, yet I would write to a lot. 

Here’s a link to the spotify playlist if you want it it’s basically all the ones I noted I’d listened to a lot. Not including the smut ones, though, I have a whole playlist for that. 

Some of the notable ones: 

Five String Serenade - the first scene I wrote of the entire fic, in Chapter 25 New Year Time where they fell asleep cuddling. 

Cosmic Love - when I wrote Nagisa’s love confession scene in hospital (I also wrote this pretty early on) 

Northern Downpour (though it was actually a cover by Emma Blackery) - The chapter after Daichi’s born (30) 

When The Party’s Over -  Confession Time Third Period, Chapter 69. I literally listened to this song on REPEAT when I planned and wrote the kind of ‘break up’ scene, and it’s one of the few parts that made me cry writing. 

Turning Page - I know I said no smut, but this song actually gave me the idea to have the “I love you” in chapter 108 be less on a whim and actually more built up. In the original plan, Karma really did just say it without thinking. I’m glad I changed that.  

Bury Me Low and Numb - pretty much all I listened to when writing the last few chapters, because Evil Nagisa core. So much so that Bury Me Low was in my top 2020 songs rewind. 

As for the title, there’s actually quite a funny story. I had no idea what to call the fic, and when that happens I usually just try and find some song lyrics. I really wanted to use something from ‘October’ by the Broken Bells. Not only because it’s my favourite song (has been for years), but thematically it really worked. The issue was, it worked as the WHOLE song, there were no individual lyrics that captured everything. And, if they did, they didn’t flow very well. And naming the fic ‘October’ would have been weird for a lot of reasons. There Is No Sweeter Innocence That Our Gentle Sin really was just plucked randomly, in a desperate search to find any snappy lyrics from any song that had some kind of meaning. After a bit of discussion, we settled that it kind of worked... if Daichi is innocent and they committed a sin or something. It also wasn’t the most obvious lyric from the song (Take Me To Church if anyone doesn’t know) so I just went with it. It works out, I think, because TINSITOGS turned out to be a pretty good acronym and pronounceable word in its own right. 

The merch  redbubble drama 

It’s a well known fact that I’m not very good at art. However, I decided to try pixel art because it seemed the easiest to not mess up. I made Karma and Nagisa, before deciding to also give Daichi a try. 

This, to this day, is the only good quality art of Daichi that I actually own. The only one I’m actually happy sharing and thinking it doesn’t look terrible. As much as I love people sending me fanart, it’s not ‘my property’, right. 

So, I was kind of joking about TINSITOGS having merchandise. At first I just made two funny quote things, and uploaded it to redbubble. I was never intending to actually make money from this, and I’d agreed to myself that if I did, I would just donate it to charity. I was joking with the quotes, but since I had this artwork I figured I may as well uploaded. Separately, there was also an image that had pixel Daichi next to pixel Nagisa and Karma (which I also created). 

Aside from showing up in a few people’s adverts across the internet, there was no real harm with this. In fact, I didn’t make money anyway. It was just... more the joke of it existing. I did, however, buy myself a Daichi phone case, which is one of my favourite possessions. 

The funny ‘drama’ comes in when they got taken down due to copywrite. Sure, the one with Nagisa and Karma, I understand. But the other three literally had no mention or anything to do with Assassination Classroom, aside from being from a fanfiction. So basically, someone who owns those rights claimed my OC as theirs. Which makes Daichi canon? Whatever the case, I found this hilarious don’t worry. 

How has TINSITOGS changed my life? 

This is quite a strange thing to think about. Because, in a lot of ways, it really hasn’t. As I’m sure a lot of people know, I don’t really consider myself to have any real ‘fame’, despite the impressive numbers. Whenever I tell people in my personal life, they seem to think I’m some sort of internet celebrity, but that’s never been the case for me. I mean, it’s hardly a cultural phenomenon. 

In a lot of ways, I’d much rather befriend someone than have them admire me. Possibly because being someone’s inspiration is kind of weird... I’m just an awkward duck who likes to write after all. I don’t mind it, though. I genuinely find it an honour, even if I don’t necessarily agree. I also want to take this time to say that if anyone ever wants to talk or message me, you’re more than free to do so. I’m usually super casual with people who do that, I promise. 

TINSITOGS was the first story I ever finished in the way I truly wanted to. Start to end, a full narrative. And it took a LOT. There were so many times I almost felt like quitting, or took super long breaks. For me, ADHD queen, actually finishing something was a huge deal. And I know I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t owe it to everyone who read it, and myself, to see it through. You know like, if I were to die tomorrow, at least I’ve left something behind. 

In a lot of ways, it’s changed me for the better. It’s helped me develop my writing styles, and way of thinking. It encouraged me to become more active in the fandom, and develop some important friendships. I always feel like my Tumblr and Fanfiction ‘known’ factor is separate. I think most of my Tumblr following is more to do with my theories/Japanese context research if anything, for example, but I know I wouldn’t be so interested in that if TINSITOGS hadn’t lead me to deeply examine character and really look into analysing source material for clues. I also think there’s just... a lot of myself in it. 

I was 17 years old, when I first came up with the idea. I finished the story when I was 20. Now, at the time of writing, I’m 21. That time has seen some pretty significant changes - just in general life facts and my own personal human development. For me at least, a lot of that was pretty turbulent, and TINSITOGS stands as a time capsule for that, in a way. 

I know I gained a lot of confidence, and it affirmed to me that writing is what I love. Telling stories and sharing them is what I love. 

Conclusion

Do I think TINSITOGS is an outstanding piece of writing, or the best fic ever? No. I really don’t. It’s strange to say because I definitely spent a lot of time on it, but it’s not like I put my full unbridled efforts into the story. I don’t fully plan, use a beta, or even read through on my own. And that’s okay - that’s not what I write fanfiction for. Fanfiction is my place to have fun with characters and stories I like, without the pressures of having to stand on my own complete originality. Yes, I’m fully confident that I can write at a “higher quality”, if I really wanted to. I’m also aware that some authors put their full effort into their fics, and that’s just as valid! 

It feels odd to say this about my own writing, but I honestly think there’s just something in this story. It might not be written in the best prose ever, and the premise might be kind of dumb for a lot of people. But, I think, there’s some part of this fic that managed to grab people. Somehow, at some point, many readers get captured into the emotions and so drawn in that ‘they just have to finish it now!’ Again, I’m not sure myself how I actually achieved that. Of course, that won’t apply to everyone, but I do feel there’s some truth in it. And it makes me happy, to have caused that. 

If TINSITOGS is your favourite fic, or if you genuinely think it’s the best story you’ve read, then thank you. I really appreciate your support, and I’m happy to have been a part of your life, I guess. I know how much fanfics can mean to a person, and that’s why I’m not going to take it down, or edit it at all. And it’s fine too, if you loved the fic for a while and moved on -i t happens. Whatever the case, I’m very honoured to have been able to occupy a moment of your life. Or if you find this fic in 10 years time, even, I still wholly appreciate you. 

This story was incredibly important to me, and thank you for reading if it was ever important to you too. 

You may ask, what now? Well, this is only intended to be a detailed look back for whoever’s interested, and it’s likely the only one I’ll actually do, a year after completion. Of course, if you ever want to ask me anything or just discuss the story, you’re honestly good to contact me in whatever way I have available. 

I’m still writing my ongoing stories, of course, despite taking a small break due to the university work load. I fully intend to complete the stories I’ve already started to tell, at least. After that... I’m not sure if I’ll still write fanfiction. Don’t panic, this isn’t a ‘I’m quitting writing’ thing. I may, however, have bled the Karmagisa genre a bit too dry at that point. Who knows? I am pretty interested in writing something original for once, so maybe that’ll work out. 

For now, at least, thank you to anyone who read this fic. To anyone who commented, liked, or interacted with me over it. To anyone who created or learnt from it. I’m really glad that I got to share this story with you all, and ultimately left some kind of mark, no matter how big or small. 

Happy birthday, TINSITOGS. I had a lot of fun writing you. 

[oh-boy-me]

Idk if you’ve ever talked about it before, but how does Mammon speak in Japanese? In the translation, he speaks kinda rough and casual (maybe a bit of a southern USA flair? he uses y’all once or twice iirc) Does he have a particular accent or dialect in the OG text?

Oh, Mammon might be hard to break down, but I’ll see what I can do!

So I don’t think Mammon has any particular accent, per se?  I think he’s just very informal.

From what I’ve noticed, Mammon’s speech is characterized by informal phrasing and some phonetic changes.  I don’t think it goes into any actual ヤンキー (”delinquent youth”) territory, but I might be wrong as I don’t have any experience with that subculture.  Regardless, it’s pretty rough, and very informal.

The following example sentences all come from the phone call where he cancels your plans (I think it’s intimacy 25?), his home screen dialogue, and the current Halloween event.

And this time more than any before, Japanese is not my first language and I have never lived in Japan, so if you find anything incorrect about the content below, please let me know so I can fix it.

---Informal Phrasing---

Japanese has lot of different ways to say the same thing with varying levels of politeness.  Mammon tends to use (one of) the most direct ways of saying things.

It’s important to remember though that a lot of these “direct” things are characteristic of male speech in general, and I won’t go over those.  Mammon says やつ (guy, basically) to refer to others sometimes, but so does Lucifer.  Likewise, it’d be weirder if he didn’t use the dictionary verb form most of the time.  There might be some that I describe even though they aren’t particularly unique to Mammon, because I’m not an expert on masc-coded Japanese.

悪い！！ (warui)

(Phone call) This literally means “bad,” but in this context it’s “my bad” or “sorry.”  It’s a rough way to say it, rougher than ごめん (gomen), which I know Levi says off the top of my head, and すまない (sumanai), which I know Lucifer says.

If you need to apologize in Japanese, I think it’s best to stick to すみません (sumimasen) or ごめなさい (gomenasai) to avoid accidentally coming off as too rude or too stiff.

許せ！！ (yuruse)

(Phone call) This means “forgive me,” but like.  As a command.  A pretty demanding one at that.  An example you’ve probably heard is when a man yells やめろ (yamero) to make someone stop what they’re doing.

その時は何があっても予定を空けろよ！ (sono ji wa nani ga attemo yotei wo akero yo)

(Phone call) Here’s the imperative again.  空けろ (akero) is the command form of 空ける (akeru), which here means to clear your schedule (予定 is schedule).  The よ (yo) at the end softens the command a little. The sentence means “At that time, no matter what you’ve got going on, clear your schedule!”

A softer way to say it would be 空けて (akete), and even softer would be 空けてください (akete kudasai).  I’m pretty sure Mammon isn’t the only character to use the imperative like this, but he’s certainly uses it a lot.

館中の掃除を言いつけてきやがって…… (yakatachuu no souji wo ii tsuketeki yagatte)

(Phone call) You can tag やがる (yagaru) onto a verb to show your contempt for someone’s actions.  You hate that they did something.  Like most of these, it’s pretty harsh. The sentence means “He had the nerve to order me to clean the house,” but with the strength of やがって, “He fucking ordered me to” might be closer in attitude.

近いうちにまた誘ってやるから (chikaiuchi ni mata sasotte yaru kara)

(Phone call) If you read the Levi post, you might remember that やる (yaru) is a more colloquial way to say “to do” than する (suru).  It’s also a more colloquial way to say あげる (ageru), “to give.”  It used to imply that the recipient was on equal or lower standing with you, but I don’t think that’s really the case anymore except for how it’s not really a polite phrasing.  Attached to a verb, both あげる and やる imply a favor is being done. This means “I’ll invite you out again soon before long, so”

---Phonetic Shift---

In general, the most common phoneme shifts in Mammon’s lines are cutting the middle and monophthongization.  Cutting the middle is a term I’m making up for the sake of this post and is exactly what it sounds like: lengthening the first syllable in place of the next ones.  Monophthongization is when a vowel made of two sounds (diphthong) is pronounced as one sound (monophthong).  In the case of rough Japanese that we’re working with, that usually means <ai> and <oi> turning into <ee>.

そのなんつーか…… (Sono nan tsuuka......)

(Phone call) つーか (tsuuka) is short for というか (to iu ka).  You can see how “to iu” assimilates to “tsuu,” especially if you say というか a few times fast. なんつーか/何というか means “How should I put it?”

だぁっ！わーったよ！！ (Da-!  waatta yo)

(A Devildom Halloween, 1-3) わーった (waatta) is from わかった (wakatta), which means “I get it.”

そりゃ傑作だぜ！ (sorya kessaku daze)

(A Devildom Halloween, 2-16) そりゃ (sorya) is a shortened それは (sore wa), “that is.”  Also, I’m not sure where else to put this, but ぜ (ze) is a very strong assertive particle that I don’t think many people actually use anymore irl. The line is “That’s a great joke!”

すっげースピードで鞭とんでくるんだけど！ (suggee supiido de muchi tondekurun dakedo)

(Phone call) Here we start the examples of monophthongization, which is probably the worst word you’ve had to read in a while but I promise is the easiest phonetic concept to understand here.

すっげー (suggee) comes from すっごい (suggoi), which means either amazing or terrible, depending on the context.  Like I said before, <oi> often simplifies to <ee> (the second “e” is written either ー or え). The line means “The whip’s gonna come down real fast.”  すっげー is emphasizing the speed.

By the way, やばい (yabai) also means amazing or terrible, based on context, and can be changed to やべー (yabee) in the same way.  Mammon’s said that before too, but I don’t think it’s in my example pool.

あー…金降ってこねえかなー (Aa... kane futte konee kanaa)

(Home screen) This time, the negative こない (konai) turns into こねえ (konee), with the same <ai> --> <ee> shift.  This time, it got written as ねえ instead of ねー. This is his “wish it’d rain money” line, and the translation is basically the same.

うるせぇ…… (urusee)

(A Devildom Halloween, 2-13) うるせぇ is from うるさい (urusai), which means “shut up.”  This time the second え is the smaller ぇ!

おっせえよ。俺を待たすんじゃねえ (ossee yo.  ore wo matasunjanee)

(Home screen) We’ve got two here, with 遅い (osoi), late, turning into おっせえ (ossee), and 待たすな (matasu na) becoming 待たすんじゃねえ (matasunjanee).  Putting んじゃない where a な would normally be makes it a rough-sounding command.  And then the ない turned into ねえ like tends to happen with Mammon.

The line is “You’re late.  Don’t keep me waiting.”

気安くさわんな！ (kiyasuku sawanna)

(Home screen, UR+ animation) This could possibly be in the first section too, idk, but.  The general way to say “don’t touch me” is 触らないで (sawaranaide), and a more casual way to say it is 触るな (sawaru na).  Mammon takes it a step further, and drops the る to say さわんな (sawanna).  Levi uses the 触るな style, so I assume Mammon’s style is pretty noticeably informal.

他人の為に何か買ってヤンなきゃならねぇんだ！ (tanin no tame ni nanka katte yannakya naraneenda)

(A Devildom Halloween, 2-13) やらなきゃならない (yaranakya naranai), is already a pretty casual way to say “have to.”  Mammon’s version uses the same んな as the last line, turning やらなきゃ into ヤンなきゃ (yannakya).  Also notice the switch from hiragana to katakana, which is often used to convey the conversational tone.  And then ない once again becomes ねぇ! The line is “Why do I have to buy something for someone else?!”

And last but not least... そうだ、殿下。　言い忘れてた (souda, denka. ii wasureteta)

(A Devildom Halloween, 2-23) This line means, “that’s right, your highness.  We forgot to say.” Why is this one last?  Mammon says this line to Diavolo.  From what I’ve seen it’s about the same level of politeness that Lucifer uses when talking to Diavolo.

It’s worth noting though that Lucifer and Mammon both speak casually to Diavolo.

So this isn’t organized at all, but I hope this gave you an idea of how Mammon’s idiolect ended up giving him a distinct one in the localization!

This is always a hot topic with Mammon’s portrayal as a POC character, so I need to say that I don’t know enough about Japanese subculture and language codes to say anything for sure about whether this makes him sound “uneducated.”  Impolite, definitely, but “uneducated,” I don’t know.  Regardless, the connotation definitely exists in how he’s written in English.  And with that I’d like to remind everyone that your idiolect says nothing about your intelligence.  Don’t judge a person’s worth by how many big words they use.

[silver-wield]

Cloud's Resolution.

Now, we've heard how a certain resolution is Cloud's, even though the ultimania literally proves otherwise. However, imma tell yall that Cloud does have a resolution and his is resolving the LTD.

Ok, spoiler warning for ppl who haven’t played – do I still need to do this? Eh ok, (I tag FF7R spoilers as final fantasy 7 remake spoilers) and it’s gonna be short cause I'm on my phone and only got 10 shots to make a point.

Also, this is one person’s interpretation of the scene, so if you disagree that’s cool and we’ll agree to disagree.

You’re also gonna have to excuse the janky quality on some of the screens, I’m grabbing them from Youtube and it’s frustrating af trying to get the exact moment I want.

Please check my master post to see if I've already covered your question, thanx

Let's mosey!

No cut, this is your extra spoiler warning.

Cloud’s resolution is found across all three of the others. It begins in Barret's and ends in Aerith's. After which, there's still that very clear dividing line that's put an end to the LTD, just like all the other evidence I've mentioned.

The house, which features prominently, has two triangle shaped windows, representing the two girls within the triangle. Tifa is on the right and Aerith is left, as per their places in the double arm grab. That Aerith's ghost comes out of the same room as Tifa is a hint that people assume she's the correct choice, but she's an illusion. The only real person to exit that room is Tifa. The only real person in the room during Aerith’s resolution is Tifa. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Onto Barret.

He mentions both girls several times. At the beginning of the scene, we can see the house in the background. Cloud isn't facing it.

He's turned towards the path leading to the exit.

Barret talks about Avalanche members and things that he needs to resolve for himself, because this is his resolution and Cloud's role in it is as a witness. His section of the resolution for himself is small in this instance.

Barret references Aerith first. Cloud doesn't react. At all.

Then Barret references Tifa and it's here that Cloud's part of the resolution begins. He turns.

His attention has gone from the exit and moves onto Barret and we get that moment where Cloud hears about Tifa being given flowers and smugly rolls his eyes because ofc Tifa would reject some other guy.

Cloud is now facing the house for the remainder of Barret's resolution. He's looking at the window where Tifa is.

Aerith's mentioned again and Cloud has no reaction, again. Then, as he and Barret are leaving the area, Cloud glances at some bright red flowers and Barret makes a comment we can't hear.

In Tifa's resolution, the focus isn't on the house for the bulk of it, but we do see the right hand window more times than the pair together. This is to hint that Tifa is represented by it in the LTD.

There's a second LTD reference on her belt with the pearls, which are her, Cloud and Aerith within the overhead view of the garden. The darker pearl and medium one on the right are touching, while the smaller one on the left is more isolated.

Real Cloud hugged Tifa. It's canon and I don't have anything else to add to it.

When we pull back and get a view of Tifa at the end of the resolution, we see she's mostly blocking that right hand window. Because she's the girl in the window. It's mostly obscured as a hint at her relationship with Cloud being obscured and him not having fully resolved his feelings for her. Also OG callback, but we knew that.

For most of Aerith's resolution, Cloud is looking at the house where Tifa is. Because by this point he hugged her and his two psyches are unifying their feelings towards her.

This is his resolution.

He began in Barret's by having both girls mentioned, which tested his feelings for them. He reacted to Tifa.

In Tifa's resolution real Cloud hugged her, but in Aerith's we learn that soldier Cloud believes he hugged Tifa because he references the embrace and Cloud is always soldier Cloud around Aerith, which is why she says his feelings for her aren't real. Because she knows he's soldier Cloud.

And this is the conclusion of Cloud's resolution. He looks between the two windows then asks if he gets a say in the LTD, while he is still looking at Tifa's window.

Cloud witnessed the other resolutions, but his is found in all of them because his is resolving the LTD within himself. His choice is found in the fact he constantly looks at Tifa's window throughout Aerith's resolution. His words and thoughts are for Tifa. He references moments with Tifa. Soldier Cloud chose her. Real Cloud always chose her.

Cloud’s resolution is the LTD and he chose Tifa.

But yall already knew that from the four other LTD posts I made that show Cloud's choice 😉😘

Adding this since someone tried saying it's just a house and always had those windows. Yes, it did. It's called applied symbolism where something already existing is given new context and meaning relevant to the story.

And the lights were off when Cloud left.

[mostincrediblechange]

Mun Views

A quick warning. These views may be unpopular, or controversial, but they are subjective. 1. On formatting. Not necessary, but aesthetically pleasing as long as it's not difficult to read. 2. On OCs. Love/Hate relationship. I have several OCs myself, but I've had so many poor interactions with OCs and my canon characters. OCs can be incredibly well-written, but so often they're a glorified self-insert. Which isn't BAD per se, but sometimes can get uncomfy for me. 3. On smut. I think smut can and should be plot driven when written. Not sex for the sake of it, but an exploration of the characters in an intimate setting. It can be beautiful and rewarding, without crossing the line into porn. Which again, is not bad, but not necessarily something I want to write for my characters. 4. On your fandom. Some circles in the DWRPC are quite....... toxic. But I've been on tumblr long enough to have curated my dash and the people I follow. I enjoy the side of the fandom I'm involved in for the most part. 5. On exclusivity. I'm not exclusive simply because I love to see the contrast in different portrayals of the same character. But there's nothing wrong with people who are. 6. On 'burnbookisms'/anti-blogs. They're just an excuse for more publicized anon hate. 7. On hate. It's entirely unnecessary and cowardly and disgusting. I do not and will not tolerate it, ever. 8. On positivity. I think it's much needed, especially these days with everyone cooped up at home and slowly going mad from stress and anxiety and depression. Tell someone you love them and why. <3 9. On OOC posts. I make too many probably, but I like to get to know my mun friends. 10. On URLs. I like coming up with good urls, don't like "x" or "-" in my urls but to each their own. 11. On your character. This dumb bitch? Been writing him for damn near ten years now and I love him. Nine will always be my OG baby boy, but boy oh boy do I love Twelve and Thirteen, too. Writing them has kept me sane and alive at times. 12. On your own writing. I don't think I'm a spectacular writer, but I have my moments where I sit back like, "shit yeah that's good." 13. On following back. I don't follow back EVERYone, but if it's a character I would be interested in writing with, heck yeah. 14. On one-liners. Not my cup of tea. I'm a para person all the way. 15. On tumblr. It's a weird ass place, but it's really the only form of social media I fucks with. I don't have a twitter or an insta or a tiktok. I'm an old millennial, sue me. 16. On roleplaying in general. It's one of my favorite hobbies and it has gotten me through some rough patches. I've made plenty of real life friends through it, and even met my wife through roleplay. So I'd say I'm pretty okay with it. extra: 17. On multi-muse blogs. I've got one, so......... 18. On side blogs. I've got several so........ honestly, I think multi-muse and sideblogs are so helpful especially for nd people who struggle with organization and time management. So I'm always here for it. 19. On icon/gif/image use. I love using icons, not as much gifs, but PLEASE, either make your own graphics, pay someone to make you some, or source graphics from resources that are designed to share them! Do not steal gifs, icons, or graphics. That's shiiiiiiitty. 20. On 'popular' blogs. Again, love/hate. I'm pretty sure my DW blog could be considered "popular", but some blogs with hundreds of thousands of followers produce a lot of content, but it's mediocre. I prefer to have a relationship with the people I write with, and with popular blogs, I'd feel like just one among many. Most of the big blogs I follow are art blogs, or graphic or gif-makers, not popular RP blogs.

tagged by: no one, I stole it tagging: @conduitandconjurer, @immortalled, @mstinteresting and anyone else who would like to do it!

[riceccakes]

Earth, Wind, and Coffee: Chapter Four Analysis

and now the last chapter of the fic! i really had so much fun writing these analyses so i hope you’ve enjoyed too :))

i’ve got a lot to say about this last chapter too so be prepared for a long one. lets get to it, shall we?

some fun stuff before we start!

before changing the direction of the story, the last chapter of the fic was going to be Chapter 3: The Meeting, A Well Deserved Jab, and a Good Night’s Rest

so, The Meeting was going to happen, korrasami was gonna come back together and instead of the krew outing during this chapter’s A Well Deserved Jab, korrasami was gonna go out on a date. korra still would punch iroh, korra never ‘moved in’ with asami, it was just gonna be a fluffy section. A Good Night’s Rest was actually going to feature hiroshi going to asami’s apartment while korra was over and being like “who the fuck is this” and korra was gonna be upset asami didn’t tell her dad about them (as, in the og timeline, they would be dating at this point) they’d have a convo working this out, a little like how korra said she’d never understand how asami and hiroshi don’t have a great relationship in A Much Needed Conversation. korra would then go to hiroshi’s office and make that whole speech and still ask asami to go the south. this is a v summed up version, one that when i made it, i was happy with. having published what i did, i much enjoy that ending more than this one :)

i wanted a way to show that korra likes asami (obviously, this is a korrasami fic) but of course, asami spent most of this only wishing korra liked her

mako asking out korra was a late edition, one i actually really like. mako’s role in the fic is pretty minor, sorry to those of you who really love him and maybe wanted more from him. however, i am a really big fan of the fact that in lok, even after all the stupid love triangle shit, mako was able to be good friends with korrasami, so i still wanted to capture that. he’s not at all upset when korra turns him down, but rather super happy for the fact that korrasami feel the same way about each other. an even later edition to this point is the bedroom scene when korra asks asami to wait for her, i’ll mention more about this scene later cause i really love it.

and we in gooooo: (i usually try to write these following the sections of the chapter but for this analysis, im gonna go topic by topic within each section)

literary devices (diction, figurative language, etc.):

There have been better days than this one. Days where Korra blows up Asami’s phone with funny Instagram posts she finds while Asami’s at school, days where she invites Mako and Bolin over and the four of them play board games, days where Korra asks if they can go out for a walk and she excitedly explores the area around Asami’s apartment. There have been worse days than this one. Days where Korra won’t get out of bed, days where Korra won’t speak, days where Korra won’t even look at Asami and she has to see that glossed over gaze gawk out the glass window.

back again, just quoting my favorite sections. and this one, yall, this one. the mirrored writing style, the ending with alliteration, how easily it describes a passage of time i mean come on. when i wrote this i was like “yyyyaaaasssss” and i won’t deny it. the “glossed over gaze gawk out the glass window” is obvious in alliteration, one that just sounds so good, it rolls off the tongue. but, there’s actually also another one, one that’s a bit more hidden “she excitedly explores the area around Asami’s apartment” note how these both end the descriptions of korra’s bad/good days respectively, as a sort of way to frame which parts of the sentence correspond with the good days and bad days. now, going onto korra’s days, three examples of good days, three examples of bad days (that’s technically six different days right there, and it doesn’t even have to be in succession.) what i also love about this info into korra’s days is how it shows a passage of time without having to be like “it’s been a few weeks” or “after some time/a while” it doesn’t stick out, at least not to me, it’s not a jarring way to say, “hey, in the story now, time has passed since last chapter!” idk, i just am really proud of this paragraph and i wanted to point it out in its own section :)

Asami will never, ever say she’s happy that the Red Lotus attack happened, but, it’s what brought Korra to her. It’s what brought more friends to her, it’s what brought her to see her father isn’t as great and almighty as she’d grown up to believe. How could she ever thank something so horrible for bringing about all these life changing things in her life?

this sort of, existential section, was something i came up with on the toilet. (tmi? im not gonna apologize tho, this is a behind the scenes explanation of my writing and some of my best writing happens on the toilet ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) any who, i didn’t want to leave any loose ends and, up until this chapter, i don’t really think i showed how asami felt about the attack and the situation and what’s happened after. also, asami being the perfectionist and analyst she is, i know she’d reflect on everything that’s happened to her in the span of about six months (give or take) and even more so, reflect on what’s happened with korra in the time they’ve known each other. it was a bit painful to write this section, it’s that sort of mentality that’s like “some horrible, horrible shit happened, but really, really good things came out of it. so, should i still hate all that horrible stuff or should i just appreciate the good things that came out of it?” (i’ve been debating this for years now with something personal and to this day, i’m not sure. i’m not sure if i’m more thankful for it all happening because of the few good moments it brought or if i wish none of it happened for the chance at some alternate reality of good things happening. anyways, i digress)

Kuvira stays silent for a moment, “When Hiroshi reaches out to you, tell him everything you said to me. Tell him everything you said when we were in your apartment after the presentation. He needs to know how you feel, he needs to know how he’s made you feel for years. Hiroshi can’t change if he doesn’t know what’s wrong and you want him to change, don’t you?”

Asami grips the steering wheel, staring at the red light in front of her. Her foot slowly pulses on and off the break, inching forward, waiting for the signal.

“I do.”

She feels the pit of her stomach churn, wondering if she could ever say all of it to her father. Kuvira isn’t wrong, she wants her father to change, but not in every way. Not in the business sense, not in the ambition sense, but rather, she wants a father, she wants to feel like the man she calls Dad really deserves the title. It pains her to say he hasn’t. The light turns green and Asami’s foot hovers over the gas pedal.

“So then you’ll tell him?”

For just a moment, her Satomobile doesn’t move but with a sharp, deep breath, Asami steps on the pedal. “I will.”

back again with our car metaphor/symbol thing! i really do love this idea of using the Satomobile as a way to show the relationship between hiroshi and asami, and how asami handles that relationship. this is from A Much Needed Conversation, some time after asami’s returned to future industries, calling kuvira in reluctant hope of knowing what her father is doing. they talk about asami telling hiroshi all this important stuff, stuff that asami’s been hesitant to bring up at all. (only after a breaking point did she finally let it out) this section has a mix of it all, diction, metaphor, along with some suspense by using line breaks. 

Her foot slowly pulses on and off the break, inching forward, waiting for the signal. / “I do.” - here’s a good example of suspense. (it continues through the rest of the excerpt) so, here was have asami, absolutely scared shitless, as she always is with her father and this subject of her life in relation to him. except, now with their time apart and what happened with the meeting, asami’s kind of got this “fuck it, whatever” mentality that goes a few different ways. “fuck it, whatever” my dad totally turned on me and was an asshole, i don’t care. “fuck it, whatever” we cut off ties, i can do whatever i want. “fuck it, whatever” i might very well do whatever it takes to get my dad back because i miss him but im also super scared as per usual. “fuck it, whatever” im not the one who needs to do anything to get him back so i won’t even think about it. there’s just a lot for asami to unpack here and in the setting of her father’s legacy, it’s even more for her. 

She feels the pit of her stomach churn...The light turns green and Asami’s foot hovers over the gas pedal. - more suspense. the light is green, green means go, but asami is waiting, thinking, hesitating. this also relates to the line earlier “waiting for the signal” well, this is the signal, the green light means go. but also, kuvira telling asami to tell hiroshi everything is also the signal to go, it’s like the push for asami to do it. she sees the signal, it’s go time, and yet “Asami’s foot hovers over the gas pedal” asami is still nervous, still scared to have this conversation with her father because she just doesn’t know what’s going to happen.

“So then you’ll tell him?” / For just a moment, her Satomobile doesn’t move but with a sharp, deep breath, Asami steps on the pedal. “I will.” - this mirrors just a few lines earlier. when kuvira asks asami to tell hiroshi everything while she’s waiting for the green light, her dialogue has a line break. for dramatic effect purposes, but also to show a sense of firmness. it’s by itself, it doesn’t need to be supported; asami really, truly means this. however here, her dialogue tag is connected to the narration its related to. even while asami confirms she’ll do this, that she’ll talk to her father, it’s hesitant, it takes a moment for her to say yes. 

what i really love is how much can be covered in such few lines. i’m not sure you all saw this when reading, ive always been very into reading/writing analysis, so i’m always looking at everything with a fine tooth comb; in my own writing, it’s no different. if you didn’t see this before, i hope learning it now gives you a different perspective if you ever choose to read my fic again :)

content (typing up loose ends, leaving breadcrumbs, additional info):

lets talk about korra

a lot happens for our girl in this last chapter. i’ll try to be concise, i tend to kind of ramble. i think what’s kind of cool, and i didn’t realize this beforehand, is that theres a speech from korra in each section. in A Well Deserved Jab, we see korra’s first time speaking at the support group meeting and what i really like about this is there’s no real big event that’s happened for her to finally be able to go up there. i feel like there’s always this one, life altering moment in stories when people need to deal with trauma or just work up the courage to do something, but in our case, it’s not like that. it’s the time and the care that’s slowly been working and helping korra for her to feel ready. it’s been a culminating process for her to get to go up there and for whatever reason, korra felt ready. let’s go a little into this speech

we finally learn more about the attack. we learn why korra’s always been picking at her wrists, the memory of the zip ties are still strong and she scratches at hopes of making the feeling go away. we also hear more about korra losing control that night, which in turn made her want to control everything with her life after the event. (lil fun-ish note while we talk about some deep stuff right now, last chapter’s first paragraph, about korra enjoying pour over coffees, was a purposeful choice. when doing pour overs, you have direct and absolute control over the coffee and how you make it, which gives korra a greater sense of comfort, because she knows she’s in charge when doing this.) my favorite part about this whole speech is right before the tail end of it, where korra says “sometimes surprises are better than plans” it was never in her plan to meet someone and find comfort and support and love and grow with it. (my headcanon is that korra just wanted to mull this over alone, sort of like in book four after the canon red lotus attack.) instead, korra met asami and the two clicked and korra could see a light at the end of her tunnel she thought would be pitch black forever. i really enjoyed getting to write this for korra.

korra’s second speech takes place in A Much Needed Conversation. another scene from the fic i wrote beforehand, i think somewhere between finishing chapter two and mulling over the decision to make the fic longer. this was sort of my cathartic, “lets yell at hiroshi for being sucky” moment. a lot of points are brought up here, all of which i believe are valid. it poses the simple, yet ever complicated question of “why?” i’ll get into hiroshi’s response in a later section, but what i’ll highlight about this speech is korra’s statement, “Now, I know that I don’t need to be saying any of this, because Asami can more than hold her own in any conversation, but I am doing this because you are hurting the woman I love, and I will not just let that happen.” its a declaration of love, love that i know is deeper than just romance but also deeper than just friendship. it’s admiration for asami being so strong, admiration for asami being so powerful and smart, korra says more about it in the speech. i tried it make so that korra wasn’t trying to control this situation with asami’s father, but rather, this was korra’s attempt at getting them to try and work something out. korra wants what’s best for asami, she wants her to get everything she wants. korra knows asami wants a better father and the most korra feels she can do is slap hiroshi (with her words) across the face and get him to realize that’s what asami wants.

korra’s third and final speech opens A Good Night’s Rest. we get just a little more about that night, i actually wrote this speech out loud. i just sort of put myself in korra’s place and started talking. my intent with this opening was to give more insight into how korra feels about asami. this is also a call back to the beginning of the chapter, about waking up asami if korra ever needs her. i took this action as a solidifying definition for asami to know “yeah, korra really does love me.” sure, in the last section, korra sort of did say it, but actions still speak louder than words. a lot of this final chapter was just showing how much korra has grown, i think i achieved that.

before we move on, i just wanted to say a lil bit about the bedroom scene where korra asks asami to wait for her. it’s a small confession that i think just says so much. another time here to show that romantic korrasami will happen, but it’s also just insight into korra and her thoughts about romancing asami. she wants it too, so badly that she almost gets into it before she’s ready. did i psych you guys out like asami, who thought she was finally going to kiss korra? it’s all in the lines, “I’m almost there...I know I am, Asami. I’ll be there soon, I need to be better. I need to be better for you.” and now, after thinking about it, i almost wasn’t gonna word it like this. what korra’s saying here is that her progression is only being done so that she can be good for asami, which, i didn’t want to convey. however, sometimes, that’s just how people think; they think, “if i have to do something, i gotta do it for someone else.” and so that’s what i’ve done with korra here, it’s just this mentality that she’s growing out of. it’s okay to have this thought process, good even, but not for every single thing you do. and i wanted korra to know that, which is why i love asami’s response, “I think you’re already great.” it’s just to remind korra, yes you can get better, you will get better. but not for asami, but for yourself, because asami already loves you the way you are.

kuvopal

breadcrumbs; that’s all i’ve really done so far with kuvopal is put lil breadcrumbs everywhere for the people who like the idea of the relationship to grasp at. is that mean of me? maybe, but i really love kuvira and opal as a couple so i wanted to keep hinting and hinting and hopefully getting you readers interested too. kuvopal has been sprinkled in since chapter two and i wanted to leave the readers with just a little ounce of hope

asami’s official introduction with opal heavily involves bolin, enough to the point where the two kiss each other on the cheek. now, of course, after reading the chapter, you know bolin and opal aren’t dating, but i wanted to stress you out a lil bit xD asami is weary of mentioning kuvira, so there’s not much we really get to see about how opal feels. opal may have wanted to talk when asami mentioned kuvira just before korra asked about spring break, but she didn’t. why didn’t she say anything? do you think she’s wanted to talk about kuvira? what about her major, child services and the foster care system, do you think kuvira influenced that, being she essentially was fostered by the beifongs? do you think we’ll ever find answers? *wink*

iroh

so obviously, we don’t like iroh. if there’s anyone in this story who doesn’t get a happy ending or a second chance, it’s him because he’s the worst. i realized we hadn’t seen too much of iroh in the previous chapters and this being the last one, i needed to really show just how not cool iroh is. the soccer game is very clearly an indication of just how conceded and rude he is. after the game, his conversation with asami is bad. he’s being invasive and inconsiderate of asami and he doesn’t care. same with at the restaurant. so, of course i wanted iroh to get his comeuppance and we have that by korra punching him.

going off of this, i didn’t want it to feel like iroh got a one and done kind of deal. he was incredibly awful to asami and his “friends” and i didn’t want this behavior to be taken lightly. so, i chose to make iroh just basically lose everything :) he loses his friends, possibly his job, i just KNOW izumi is disappointed as fuck that he’s acted like this and uncle iroh is rolling over in his grave that someone of his own blood would be like this. i wanted to address iroh in his own category because i just wanted you all to know that he is the only character not getting off easy. i really hope that how iroh’s situation turned out is good, as in, he got what he deserves.

hiroshi

hiroshi was an interesting character to go about in the final chapter. obviously, throughout the fic so far, hiroshi hasn’t been a standout father or boss. if i haven’t said it before, i’ll say it now: i always wanted hiroshi to have a second chance, ie, i wanted hiroshi to try to be better. for one, asami deserves it. she deserves a good parent who’s there for her and isn’t just obsessed with his job and the glory and empire he’s built up for himself. another reason, i believe everyone (within reason, *cough cough* not iroh *cough*) deserves a second chance. at the very least one more try, to be better, and if they’re actively trying, they’re doing better.

so hiroshi gets a bit of a wake up call from not only korra, after she so passionately scolded him in the name of her love for asami, but hiroshi also got one from asami directly. take your pick as to which conversation sparked hiroshi to call her to say goodnight. it’s an effort, and asami even says it herself, that after a while, the juice of it ran out. but kuvira said it too, it’s a start. what im trying to highlight is that no one is perfect and their ways of trying to change themself isn’t going to be perfect either.

and the kicker is hiroshi going to the south, without any other reason than to see asami. hiroshi only ever travels for future industries related business, but here he goes, without kuvira, to the south to see asami. i want to keep highlighting, asami says this is just the start. she hasn’t yet fully forgiven him, but she’s giving him the chance to be forgiven. that’s what i want to make most apparent on the topic of hiroshi and asami’s relationship: hiroshi is not getting off easy. but he’s trying, and in the words of the good place, that is what matters isn’t if people are good or bad, what matters is if they’re trying to be better today than they were yesterday. hiroshi, in this action, coming to the south, is trying to be a better father that day than all the days before. offering up the job offer from tonraq is hiroshi trying to be a better boss that day than the day before. staying in the south to spend real, quality time with his daughter is hiroshi trying to be better that day than every day before that.

it’s all in the trying.

honorable mentions:

in the og timeline, back when korrasami was going to be a confirmed couple in the fic, after returning from the south, asami was going to go to the cafe at one in the morning while korra was working and korra was going to make her an avatar. i liked the full circle aspect at the time but really, i much prefer what i’ve posted over that og timeline.

anything i would’ve wanted to change?

i think, overall, i maybe would’ve wanted to divide chapters up differently. as i continued writing, the three sections definitely could’ve supported themselves as singular chapters. especially this final chapter, which was almost 20k words. but, in the end, i am so proud of this fic and of myself for following through and finishing it.

i lost a bit of steam towards the end of this analysis, i’ve actually had this in my drafts for almost two months. but, i think what i wanted to say, i did, and as always, if you have any comments or questions, or just wanna talk to me, do it ! i love any and all commentary on my writing :)) 

thanks for reading the analysis if you did x