#And then I prefer to just say nothing

[amethystina]

Hi <3

5. What do you wish someone would ask you about "Gravitational Pull"? Answer it now!

5. What do you wish someone would ask you about "Who Holds the Devil"? Answer it now!

8. What song would make a great fic (to either write or read)?

I hope you are okay and have a lovely day/night <3

Hi! 💜

5. What do you wish someone would ask you about "Gravitational Pull"? Answer it now!

I honestly have no idea. But to avoid this being the most boring answer to a question ever, I guess I can explain that Gravitational Pull was only meant to be a stand-alone fic at first but, as time passed, I realised how tempting it was to keep going with a series of connected "What if" fics where I basically wreck the canon.

Apparently, making Yo Han and Ga On kiss in episode 13 can throw everything out of whack if you want it to.

There will be five fics in total if my plan holds up (fingers crossed?) and will basically feature the rest of episodes 13-16 of the drama. Except each fic will have one, big "What if" scenario slapped onto it which will change the events considerably. And, obviously, also change the events that will take place in the coming instalments.

I'll basically be pushing a bigger and bigger snowball of canon divergences as I move along until I eventually reach the end. And who knows what that ending will entail?

(Why am I doing this again?)

Anyway, in the next one, the "What if" scenario is: "What if Ga On gets shot instead of Soo Hyun?" and the one after that is: "What if Ga On can derail Kim Choong Sik's execution without telling everyone that the Live Court Show is fake?" and so on and so forth.

And they will be posted as separate fics, not additional chapters to Gravitational Pull, since they will all have slightly different themes and focus. It just felt more reasonable from a narrative and storytelling standpoint to post them separately.

And, naturally, the one I look forward to writing the most is the fifth one — because fuck my life x'D

5. What do you wish someone would ask you about "Who Holds the Devil"? Answer it now!

This is just as difficult as the first one, if not more so because, uh, there's a lot to talk about when it comes to Who Holds the Devil. But a lot of it I say in my author's notes already so it's kind of hard to pinpoint something I haven't already said xD

But here's a fun fact: The most difficult chapter to write so far was Chapter 1. There have been difficult chapters since then, especially those that are emotionally heavy or, more recently, demand a certain level of suspense, but none were as difficult as that first one. Partly because I had to restructure it three times before I got it right. The very first draft actually jumped straight to Ga On getting the text from Elijah but I realised that didn't give it enough impact, so I basically rewrote the entire thing two times until I was satisfied.

And, admittedly, it also took me a while to get Ga On's voice right. Or, rather, to let myself write him the way I instinctively tried to do but my brain kept second-guessing. Partly because he was a new character to me (which is always daunting) but also because the style is a little different from how I usually write. My writing is always pretty descriptive, but Ga On takes it to a whole new level x'D Especially where emotions and impressions are concerned. It's all very visceral and that threw me for a second. Not to mention that a lot of it seems to rely on repetition, which most people are taught is a bad way to write. So there was a lot to get used to.

And, quite honestly, I almost stopped writing the DAY after I had started x'D I felt so out of depth and everything was new and strange and I was so nervous about writing a story set in a country and culture I don't actually know (that still makes me panic every now and then) and... yeah. Just a lot of anxiety there at the beginning.

Thankfully, a lot of it has settled by now and I feel a lot more confident about both the writing itself and my characterisation. And that's no doubt why the first chapter will always be the most difficult one I had to write, since it was the one that gave me the most anxiety.

The second most difficult chapter to write was Chapter 23, because I was injured and also couldn't decide on what I was actually writing so the chapter became an unstructured, unstable mess and I almost had to completely rewrite it. And the third most difficult was Chapter 25 because of the sheer level of pain, anxiety, and grief Ga On goes through. The fact that my grandad died while I was working on it definitely didn't help, either.

8. What song would make a great fic (to either write or read)?

I'm so bad at this question that soon I'm going to have to start picking obscure Swedish songs that the majority of you won't understand and just hope you don't call me out on the weird choice xD

Anyway, jokes aside. I answered this question in this ask but, if I have to pick another song, I'll go with There's a Rock by Brolle (or Brolle Jr as he was going by at the time). It's a duet he sings with Frida Snell and I was reminded of how much I love it two weeks ago.

So I'm picking that, not necessarily because it has the most spot-on lyrics, but because it's a song I genuinely love.

(Fun fact: My big sister went to the same high school (-ish, the school system is different in Sweden) as Brolle but he graduated the year before she got there. So her only claim to fame is that she stole his chair when she visited the school for an open house/school tour before actually applying for it)

Questions for fic writers

[vaguely-concerned]

thinking about not only the specific people lucanis pulls in to represent the 'locks' in his psyche, but the storytelling that happens in the structure/order of them. the underlying ideas are presented something like:

the lucanis who went into the ossuary never came back out again; he died down there (the boy caterina raised is gone forever) -> you're putting yourself in danger doing this (by being close to me), you should leave because I can't bear it if you get hurt because of me -> it doesn't matter even if we do try this, it won't work anyway (again because of me) ('you know what he's like, you can open the door but he won't walk through it' :'( oofie doofie) -> what if the real secret is that there was never anything but the monster in here from the beginning. you should leave, there was never anything here worth saving in the first place. (implicitly: what if I deserved what happened, all along.)

it runs pretty cleanly from outward-oriented attachment anxiety ('caterina won't even want me back like this, she won't recognize me (the same way I no longer recognize myself)) and gradually deeper inwards until we reach self-image and self worth. or you know, the harrowing basic lack of it lol.

"careful -- they'll know we're not right," spite says in one of their first scenes... but clearly, some very deep part of lucanis has feared or suspected for much longer than that that there's something inherently not right at the core of him, way before any demon entered the picture. and the voice he gives those lines to is the person who should know him better than anyone in the world, who he has loved more than anyone in the world -- and who deliberately chose to hurt him so horrifically anyway. 'It's better if I'm just a monster and deserved what happened than it is to allow for the idea that the brother I love doesn't really exist and maybe never did'. it's better if he's fundamentally flawed in some way that needed fixing to help him survive, and that's why caterina chose to hurt him again and again -- out of love. (this one I think he might have a very sad wakeup call on one day if he ever ends up with the responsibility and care of a child of his own in some way and realizes just how alien the idea of ever intentionally hurting them for any reason is to him. oh buddy. also interesting that he keeps caterina as the outermost lock -- there IS a distance he keeps there that he hasn't with illario. he doesn't resent her 'anymore' he says, but he also keeps her carefully further away from his deepest self.)

as far as I could tell the only note in the mind prison that's fully hidden and needs to be uncovered is the sad painful helpless stupid little truth that even after all this, even knowing what happened... he still loves his brother. is there anything illario could ever do that would make lucanis completely stop loving him, do you think? sometimes the trouble with unconditional love is that it is, well. unconditional, even when some terms and conditions probably would have been in order haha.

that's the pattern you see there again and again; he would rather destroy and abandon and imprison himself at every turn than let go of love, even when it's just scraps, even when there's only ever enough of it to hurt him. it's only when rook shows up and as it were takes his hand and walks along with him that he can entertain the idea of changing the story of what walking out the door might mean in the end.

[cat-in-a-mech-suit]

A lot of you use “transmasc” to mean woman and it shows.

[turtleblogatlast]

Fun little silly thought I had about the Lair Games and specifically Leo deliberately losing is all the reasons he could have for doing so.

My favorite headcanon for his main motivation is that Splinter wasn’t proud of him anymore.

I imagine that, in the beginning, winning the Lair Games was Leo’s opportunity to shine. He wasn’t artistic or the baby of the family like Mikey, wasn’t a tech genius who created amazing inventions like Donnie, wasn’t the eldest who was insanely strong and dependable like Raph. So he had to shine somewhere else- anywhere else- and what better way to get attention than to be a winner? A champion?

And then he won too much. And it wasn’t special anymore. He got too big headed, too cocky, he knew this was his element and he ran with it.

Splinter’s words of congratulations slowly petered out. Suddenly, there was no real reason to win.

Winning feels empty when the only one cheering you on is yourself.

So- Leo schemed. And he’s a great schemer, fooling his whole family (and Donnie did deserve a win- people were way happier when he won.)

He even gave up his prized possession! His room!

Though he knows his brothers probably think it’s a bad prize. A terrible one, even.

Leo doesn’t sleep much as is, though. So Dad’s snores were more comforting than anything. It was reassuring to hear him so clearly alive and close by.

Even if the distance between them was larger than Leo’d like.

He’d just have to find something else, something more to show his dad that Leo was someone to trust, to be proud of, to love.

He gets his chance soon after, when he needs to pull off a plan against Big Mama at his dad’s side. Leo can only hope this victory is one that has a lasting effect when his father looks at him with pride once more.

Victory, for Leo, is a pretty loaded term.

[fossilizedhysterics]

guess who finished tlok tonight and immediately had this come to him in a vision!!!!

[oatmealcrisp-freak]

"shipping saiki is aphobic because he's aroace!"

stares at you with my demiromantic asexual in a committed relationship eyes then looks at the camera like im in the office

[barksbog]

it´s honestly so hard for me to even finish 15-30h games let alone 100h+ games because i get maybe 2-3h a night to game and the pacing of most games makes that feel extremely frustrating.

at this point i´m begging for more 1-6h games

[creativity-deficient]

Why are people always so shocked when South Park handles a topic well?? I’ll see so many articles that are like “wow even SOUTH PARK is calling you guys out” tf you mean? They’ve BEEN doing this??

[squuote]

comparing dialogue once again as you do. anyway. this cut dialogue from the other games ending vs the the 2011/ultra deluxe final game dialogue is interesting. frying my mind a bit.

no deeper meaning to this post i just think it is. intriguing. i love dialogue comparisons sorry </3

[mcytegg]

ls subz reads as a person w severe depression tbh

[vaguely-concerned]

my capacity to see a bad fandom take and just blithely say 'okay! I disagree' internally and move on because it's not my responsibility or concern that someone else thinks that has leveled up so tremendously over the years. I haven't quite escaped the pit of misery yet but I think I'm getting there

[moeblob]

Huevember 22

Brent, the most expressive bard to ever bard.

[chiptrillino]

Would Zuko wear see-through robes for formal events? Is there anyone who could stop him?

why would Sokka do that

Yes and no. depends on the event, where he is and mostly the season.

He wouldn't ever wear see through robes for official meetings in the EK, and definitely not in the WT. primary the climate wouldn't allow it but also the concept of showing skin is a bit frowned upon nobles in the EK, maybe. Does zuko care? No, but he is here to get his job done and not keep on remembering people that 'excuse you, my scar is up here in my face'.

I personally don't think the fire nation has a problem with nudity in rural aerials or among the common folks. If the weather allows it. It can get hot, it can get humid. Especially on the costal arias at ports, where lots of fishing or life revolves on being close to the water, you see fisherman chilling in the shade in nude. Or a woman having striped off her top while she does the laundry in the river.

Nobles are of course... again a bit more prude. But Ursa used to be a simple farmers' child, and I like to think that the sneaking away is a habit that zuko copied from her. Going through the marked with his mom holding her hand, not as nobles, just simple people. Eating greasy food and way to sweat treats. Watching the life just happening.

Then his "I have to be perfect crown prince" face kicks in. followed by the mess of Agni Kai and banishment time.

jee can sunbathe nude in the middle of the deck. No uncle you can't, you should behave according to your status!!!

I like to think that after years of, you know... propaganda and military entering every single household. The fire nation grew more free and living became more enjoyable. Looser robes, maybe thinner see through fabrics. Just away from everything that remains of the oppressive, restrictive time. Letting in more sunshine.

[milkbreadtoast]

doodled Stayn from living with magicians webtoon... I like him :) (just felt like drawing random webtoon characters fsr lmao)

[queeraliensposts]

If y'all don't believe that transmascs experience misogyny let me tell you something that happened recently.

There was a post that was essentially making fun of "pick me gays", where they were saying that "I don't watch rupal's drag race, I don't like being called "gurl" and I don't do *insert stereotypical gay activity"". And in that post I commented that some people don't like being called "gurl" or "girl" because it makes them dysphoric and you shouldn't label them a "pick me" because of it. The responses I got for that comment were SO hostile for the sake of my mental health I had to delete the comment. Some people even tried to PURPOSELY trigger my dysphoria.

In that same post a cis man said that he prefers men who are masculine and he shouldn't be shamed for his preferences, and EVERYONE agreed with that.

If you don't see the hypocrisy IDK what to tell you.

[akimojo]

i get so disappointed thinking about how close ff was to having another revolutionary female character with jill but they just had to fuck it up by taking away damn near all her plot relevance and screentime once her revenge arc finished 😭