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dreadnought-dear-captain · 4 years ago

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You Asked, I Told (Part 2 of 2)

Spoilers ahoy! See Part One for more, plus an update.

I imagine Steve staying in Winnie’s orbit for a little while before drawing away. The guilt would have been immense, even if she still accepted him as a surrogate son after the breakup. Also, Steve’s move into the military was a kind of amputation of his old life, including Winnie. Winnie was undoubtedly hurt by his distance. But for all of her flaws, also has a strong forgiveness reflex, as we can see with her relationship with Bucky. I think Steve’s own unresolved mother issues also complicated his relationship with her. With Sarah dead and his grief unprocessed, he probably figured it was easier to leave them both behind in the city and try to move forward.

Gah, I’m so sorry I didn’t include that. I put it in shortly after I received this message but forgot to answer the Ask also. MST stands for Military Sexual Trauma. It’s something that the VA regularly screens for and provides special services for. As people have probably heard, it’s a very common occurrence, affecting more women than men per capita but actually happening to more men by sheer volume. So, in other words, the percentages of MST in female service members is significantly higher than in men, but because there are fewer women relative to men in the military, the men’s smaller (and very, very likely under-reported) percentage ends up equaling more men who’ve experienced MST than women. It includes rape, sexual assault, as well as sexual harassment and coercion.

I’m an ass and didn’t track what chapter this was after (as well as being bad at answering Asks in a timely manner), so I cannot respond as specifically as I would like. But they really are making some significant progress. Even when shitty things are happening, you’ll probably notice that they are talking a lot more, sharing a lot more, coming back together after their rows more quickly. I’m very proud of them on a regular basis!

I think Tony is an extremely difficult character to write, you’re so correct. Alas, he’s only alluded to in BW. But I am going to attempt to write him in my next fic. It’s a daunting task, indeed, and definitely not a reflection of whether I like him or not. I think Tony is just fine. It’s just very hard not to write him as a one-dimensional quip machine.

Haha, what? Fic reading during Zoom meetings?? Never heard of her.

This is an interesting question and a good observation. I think it’s a little of column A and a little of column B. I do like playing with identity, how we are different things to different people. Growing up, Bucky was James to George and Jamie to his other family and Bucky to his high school friends and Steve. I think Bucky is an aspirational name for him, in a way. This Bucky character he created in high school was his best version of himself, as far as he’s concerned.

And importantly, as you mentioned, it’s what Steve learned to call him, and Steve is also an aspirational object for Bucky. Jamie is pretty loaded, Jamie the soft boy, Jamie who gets hurt, etc. I imagine as he got older, part of him recognized that this isn’t Bucky thing is kind of a farce and probably started referring to himself publicly as Jamie eventually. Thus, it’s also become a very intimate name, because only Steve thinks of him that way, and perhaps he wants to be that person Steve imagines he is. Hence the self-reference. It’s not the tightest argument. I honestly initially started with a name more familiar to readers, and it just stuck.

OMG FIVE LOVE LANGUAGES. Okay. Okay. For those not familiar with the Five Love Languages, here’s a summary of them. (And you can even take a quiz for yourself here!) I’ve put some thought into this, and so has my beta, and our first response was that they may both be touch. This could be plausible, and it only doesn’t work so well sometimes because of the additional trauma- and defense-informed barriers that Bucky has. Bucky also has lots of ideas about gay love and affection that aren’t very compatible with this, either.

So that kind of makes me wonder if he wants touch so badly because he doesn’t allow it for himself and he’s just a human with basic human touch needs. I also think Bucky appreciates quality time as well, though he’s not great at asking for it. I think the touch thing works for Steve because even if he was in another relationship with someone else, he’d still crave touch a lot. This is a harder exercise when dealing with such massive amounts of trauma, to be sure.

Does anyone else have thoughts? I’m not married to this at all. I think a number of different arguments could be made.

I’m hanging in there! I just recently moved from one state that was terrible about COVID-19 public health stuff to another state that’s hardcore about it, so that’s been a change. Moving is rough, and I moved alone with not really anyone I know super well in the area. How do meet new ppl now?? But it’s a very good thing, and I’m excited for the time when I can make some new friends in 3D, lol. Thank you for asking!

(Me and my friends now)

I don’t think you’re missing a whole lot, honestly. I think part of it is that up until very recently, Steve couldn’t even begin to comprehend the trauma Bucky has experienced. Like obviously he knew something was there, but the nature of it was still a mystery to him. I think it’s hard to remember sometimes that we know a lot more about Bucky in any given moment than Steve does. So we see all this stuff piled up and are like STEVE WHAT THE FUCK. But Steve doesn’t know all that and has been learning in these really brutal and incomplete chunks.

And even when Steve first found out about the sexual abuse, the implications have been slow to settle on him. I’ve been trying to write this Steve as a realistic person who can both understand things but also is trying to get his own needs met when he’s vulnerable. He also suspects it’s really bad and doesn’t want it to be, feeding a little of his own denial and defenses. For as complicated as Bucky obviously is, I think Steve is pretty complicated, too. He doesn’t think of himself this way, however, to some detriment. He wants to understand Bucky and he doesn’t want to know, because the truth is horrifying to him. I think these things compete in him and don’t always lead him to have the best behavior.

AND FINALLY -

Oh, I’ve missed all of you too! These Asks are such a joy to get, even though I suck at answering them in any reasonable amount of time. Thank you for all of your consideration :)

-----

Thank you so much for the wonderful Asks and for the words of kindness and support! I look forward to sharing the rest of this story with you soon.

#YOU ASKED I TOLD #asks #send me asks #baghdad waltz #you are all amazing

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wexhappyxfew · 4 years ago

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SHANNON!! HELLO MY FRIEND ☺️☺️ hope you're having a lovely day!! Okay you know I absolutely your character Death, so whatever you want to talk about with him :)

KRYSTAAAA hello my friend! I hope you are having a great day yourself! You sent this yesterday but I wanted to take my time with this as discuss one of my *FAVORITE* things about Death in this post - appearance and reasons WHY he appears this way. I know we don’t see actual images, but I try to work with the description in Landslide to give Death, in my personified way, an appearance - because in my mind he has an appearance, quite similarly to a man - LET ME STOP MYSELF WE’LL GET INTO IT BELOW HAHA!!! AW THANKS!! :,) I’m so glad you enjoy it truly, that means so much and I’ve worked to really develop Him and His character all together along with His role with Natia because it is one of the most important connections Natia holds with someone in Landslide - even though they can’t ever speak - AGH I LOVE IT!! Let’s get into it!

SO -- we are going to work with 4 general images that I’ve always envisioned Death as and I’ll really talk about WHY I have Him as such because there are reasons why these pictures are the way they are and why I decided on these pictures for Him!

Let’s solidify two things first!

(1) When I created Death in general, I wanted to make Him a male, just because I saw Death as male in my mind and for the dynamic of the story it would work best. But for a spin-off from Landslide (there may be a few!) I’ve thought about digging into another aspect which is - in this sort of fic, Death is seen in the way the seer wishes to see Death, which I think is pretty cool! There’s a reason though Natia sees Death as male....ahem...Agent Mortem I’m looking at you.

(2) The two important things to touch on with the Death I’ve created - cloaks and wings - cloaks (+hood) have been broguht up a various amount of times already for Death n the 26 chapters of posted Landslide chapters and content BUT we have yet to discuss wings. I can’t jump TOO into that yet exactly, but that is the second most important aspect of Death I’ve crafted together! Keep that in mind!

OKAY...now that we have all of that put together, let’s jump into it - 4 pictures, 4 ideas - WE LOVE TO SEE IT!! There may also be a cut somewhere below - idk where, but it’ll be there! Enjoy!

AND AS A SIDE NOTE - THESE IMAGES ARE FROM PINTEREST SO NONE OF THESE IMAGES ARE ACTUALLY MINE OR CREATED BY ME!!!

FIRST IMAGE: This is probably the best, accurate description and image of Death in my eyes at least - I’m sure the readers have envisioned Him differently (just imagine He has a cloak on and it’s covering His head LOL!) - but in many ways this is my portrayal of how I envision Death. Almost looking as if he is a regular man - dark tousled hair, a grey coat, dark boots - the works! But he’s quite sad, this wandering person, aimlessly moving about and he’s quite grief-filled. And so, that’s a reason I particularly love this photo because we get the head focused downward to convey this portrayal of grief and how consuming it is. I really wasn’t out to make Death this emotionless person who just takes and takes - I wanted in my portrayal to show how much pain he holds - and how he is protecting Natia with all His might from someone like Himself because He can’t bare to do His duty that He has for eternity on Natia.

AND THE WINGS!! Okay, wings - we get more into the wings at the end of part 3 and extremely expanded in part 4 - but wings are extremely important. They are in fact black and feathered - I begin to reference him at the end of Part 3 as if he were a ‘Father of Ravens’ in a sense because of what a raven represents and for Death’s character I feel that is very true to his character specifically His role He takes in with Natia. You might even see him int he form of ravens as we come particularly out of Bastogne and the weather gets warmer - it will be very prominent.

I would say this is my absolute favorite - if you ever need a reference - this is image is 100% what I would have crafted for Death if he were portrayed in a picture!

SECOND IMAGE: Here is an absolute FAVORITE!!! (1) We know Natia sees Death essentially as male (for various reasons regarding Agent Mortem who literally is Agent Death or Agent of Death if we want - but that’s for another ask!) and so this I would say is a very good representation of the wings + ravens + eyes + profile of Death. The narrow-eye expression of his facial features if very prominent - Natia does much of the same - and let’s just say Death has picked that up as well. He sees the world really in blacks, whites and greys - similar to how Natia views the world because of Agent Mortem ( a morally grey character) and so I really took all of that and worked with it in this way! Natia, Death and Mortem are the mains in my mind and so they all see the world in grey - but who will break from that? They’re all connected with one another in many ways - who will break that?

But yes, in this picture, I go off the fact that in Landslide, Death will take the form of a raven as his best chance to get closer to Natia, to even try and interact with her and that is very prominent at the end of Part 3 and all of Part 4 and even some postwar!

THIRD IMAGE: OKAY - so here is where we get into more of the ‘cloaked figure’ that encompasses Death and this image of his cloaked figure. The cloak hides quite a lot of things and one of those things are his wings - which don’t really make an appearance until the end of Part 3 for various reasons! Which I can’t say just yet :) But it also hides his face - his expressions - why might you ask does he want to particularly hide that?

Let’s reference the most recent chapter update - Chapter 26, entitled Weapons Don’t Weep. (1) Natia is in fact a weapon, not only crafted by War, who makes his somewhat annual appearance, but also my Agent Mortem - who’s to say Death might’ve also crafted her? (2) Death and Natia have a unique connection - they can’t communicate through words, they can’t really communicate through much if you think about it - just feelings, emotions, thoughts. SO - this just adds onto evidence of how Death actually can control her a bit. The chaos that ensued at the end of Chapter 26 was a precursor to that - he can control her chaos, she can’t control his. The closing of his eyes - he uses a cloak to hide that he is abusing his power of control on her - and letting chaos warp her. NOW THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING - A MERE PRECURSOR AS STATED. We’ll get into it much later on and why, but the cloak covers wings + facial expressions for good reasoning.

AND THE HORSE YOU MAY ASK? Well...I did call Natia a dark horse right? The definition of a dark horse is “a candidate or competitor about whom little is known but who unexpectedly wins or succeeds.” Not only is Natia a lone wolf BUT she is very much a dark horse - you don’t know much but she manages to win her battles - she may not win the war, but she will wage a battle and win what she must to survive, that’s the name of the game currently. Plenty of times in discussion - it’s like Death and Natia at a game of poker, in a black room (as described by a friend!!) and that’s very real almost every chapter that is written and published - a tension continually building, awaiting to see what will happen next, and just a constant build off of that over and over again. She takes on the persona of a dark horse more often than not - she’s underestimated, never entirely trusted, yet she survives?! People start to take that into consideration, especially in Bastogne - BUT THAT IS FOR ANOTHER TIME!!!! :D

FOURTH IMAGE: OKAY NOW -- this is sort of the expected image - Death with his cloak, a cane, dark gloves, shadowed face that you can’t see. This is the image I imagine when I am writing and Death is sort of watching Natia from afar - purposely I place him in those scenarios for various reasons depending on what is happening in that time during the story. And this is the image he sort of takes on. I don’t have many notes particularly for this image, only simply the fact that this is what masks what is portrayed in the first image - it covers the wings, the facial expressions, the man that is evidently underneath and simply that a man - yet a being forever wandering aimlessly, doing his duty given for all of eternity. But I really think this is what most will remember the Death I chose to personify him by! :D

OKAY SO THIS WAS SERIOUSLY JUST SO FUN OMG!!! This is the first time I’ve used pictures to really dig into what I’m getting at with characters - especially handling a character to the capacity in which Death withholds - there’s a lot to unpack with Him! But I truly hope you enjoyed this - I’m always happy to do more of these for any of my characters - especially even War, or Natia, or Agent Mortem - I might even just do it for fun who knows - OF COURSE WHEN I HAVE TIME HAHA!!! But I really enjoyed this so thank you for indulging and enabling Krysta!!! This was super fun to give my in-depth take on someone like Death and how I decided to craft and personify him!

#band of brothers #landslide #bob fic #bob oc #natia filipska #natia + death #we have some pictures we have some descriptions #we have analysis #we have just a whole lotta stuff to unpack here #YEAH ITS QUITE JUST CHAOTIC THIS ENTIRE THING BUT WE LOVE THAT DONT WE!!! HAHAHA

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onthepageoftears · 5 years ago

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Kill Your Darlings Ch. 9 (Jaskier x Assassin!Reader) || Witcher

A/N: Omg we finally got to 1k followers! Thank you to everyone who has followed me from the beginning and just yesterday lol, I appreciate you all so much 😭💞Be on the lookout for a giveaway (probably an imagine one)

Also, as a treat I’m releasing this chapter earlier than usual! Sorry it’s a bit shorter, but next chapter will be action packed so get ready for that 👀👀

Your comments and feedback are always encouraged and mean a lot to me!

Summary: Finding a lost child might be harder than you thought.

Warnings: language, mentions of killing/kidnapping, lost child, sad father lol

Words: 1,769

Please Don’t Plagiarize My Work!

“What a beautiful piece of land you have here.” Jaskier’s smile was genuine as he gestured to the cabin in front of you. The man, who you learned was called Toby, could only nod, his eyes nervous as he looked between all of you.

The walk here wasn’t long at all — it was just outside the village, closer to the entrance of the woods and a large body of water. It was the perfect spot for a fisherman, but still risky with the woods right in the backyard. Unless Toby was a hunter as well, having the open forest in your backyard was pretty much a death sentence. Monsters lurked, day and night, and often strayed from their forest home.

The cabin itself was in pretty good condition — no major damage, and though it was small, it was big enough for a father and daughter. Hell, it was much bigger than the place you used to call home, but you pushed that thought aside as you followed Toby around the outside of the house.

Toby cleared his throat. “I last saw my daughter playing in the back, as usual. I turned my back, just for a moment, and then she was gone.”

Jaskier frowned. “Just like that?”

“Well, I thought she just went to play in the woods. Sometimes she’d just run off after a squirrel, or go pick a flower for me. So I didn’t think much of it.”

“The woods are pretty dangerous for a child.” You lifted your chin up; a challenge.

Toby was quick to answer. “We have a hunter in town who goes in there to check around, make sure no large…beasts are…lurking. I usually go with my daughter when she runs off, but this time—“

You nodded, taking a step back from him. Part of you felt guilty for inquiring about his parenting, especially because of the hurt look in his eyes. But you wanted to make sure that when you found this little girl, she would be returning to a safe home.

Geralt quickly filled the silence, “How long until you looked for her?”

“It wasn’t that long before I started to worry. I went out to look for her, where she usually went. There’s a small stream in the woods that she likes to play in. That’s where I found this.”

He walked up to his back porch and grabbed something. When he came back to the three of you, his eyes were glazed over. In his hands was a small doll, stitched with a smile that made your stomach drop.

Toby looked at it carefully, his hands shaking under its weight. “Her mother made it for her. Before she—“ He stopped, swallowing a sob. The three of your stood quietly, waiting patiently for him to compose himself. Once he did, his jaw was clenched with anger. “She’s only a child, but she wouldn’t run off without her doll, not this one. I fear that she was…taken.”

“Taken?” You stepped forward, making Toby look at you. He shamefully looked away, back toward the edge of the woods.

“Bandits have been traveling around these parts recently. Stole from Ivon’s farm just up the road.”

“And where were they seen last?”

“Just up the trail, yesterday. You don’t think they—“

Geralt spoke before you could, his voice as cold as usual but somehow, reassuring. “We’ll follow the trail in the woods first, try to track her from there.”

Toby nodded, his eyes still lingering on the forests’ edge, almost like his daughter would emerge any second. You followed his gaze, taking a deep breath as you searched for something that wasn’t there. You wondered what your mother or father would have done if this happened to you as a child — if they were still alive. Would they be as concerned as Toby? Would they post parchments all over the village and in the city, doing anything they could to find you?

This case shouldn’t have been affecting you this much. It was simple: find a little girl. You shouldn’t have been thinking so deeply into it.

Get the job done. Get the pay. Then leave.

Rauf’s voice left your mind as soon as you heard Toby’s, an almost polar opposite to your iteration of Rauf’s. Toby’s was small and frightened — broken. “I like to think I’m a good father.”

You peeled your eyes from the woods and back to Toby. His hands were wringing at the doll in his hands, before one of them reached up to wipe the beads of sweat that were pouring down his face. You stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder, the look in your eyes just as set as your firm jaw.

“We’ll find her,” you said. And you meant it.

“What’s her name? The girl?” You didn’t realize Jaskier was writing in his notebook until just then. His face was stern — there wasn’t a spark of malcontent, though you wouldn’t blame Toby for being angry that he was jotting down details.

But Toby didn’t seem to mind at all. Instead, he stepped forward, nodded Jaskier on. “Lilla.” Then, he turned back to you, his eyes full of hope. “And here, you should take this. In case you find her.” He handed you the doll, and you took it gently, knowing this meant the world to his little girl.

“When we find her,” you corrected, then gestured to the doll that was now in your hands. “She’ll be happy to have it.”

“Let’s go. We’ve only got so much time before dark.” Geralt turned towards Toby, “We’ll come back here as soon as we find something.”

“Okay. Thank you, again.”

Geralt didn’t answer, and instead began walking towards the woods. You nodded to Toby, grabbed Jaskier by the arm, and followed after him.

—

The quiet noise of the woods surrounded you as the three of you followed the little girl — Lilla’s — tracks. Though it was three days past when she was presumably there, Geralt’s senses were heightened to the point where he could still make out a clear enough trail. You and Jaskier followed behind him, practically useless at the moment.

To be honest, you were worried. About Lilla, yes, but also about being in the open. You had doubts that anything would happen to Jaskier out here — you were far from the city, and you hadn’t noticed any strange people lurking in the village. Still, being so vulnerable made your skin crawl, and every now and then you felt a chill go up your spine.

Then again, it was probably better that the three of you were on the move rather than being sitting ducks at that small tavern. There was less of a chance for any other assassins to find you now, especially since you were in the middle of the woods. You guessed the mere idea of being on the run, needing to hide — it made you want to stay inside until you could figure this out. But now, that wasn’t an option.

You turned your attention to Jaskier. He was walking beside you, more quiet than usual. His eyes were glued to the pages of his notebook, which he was scribbling who knows what in the pages. His face was scrunched in concentration, not even noticing the small amount of hair that was falling in his eyes. You let yourself smile, just for a moment, before remembering when Toby first approached your table at the tavern. Despite the voice in the back of your head telling you to stay quiet, you couldn’t help your curiosity.

“Why did you want to take this job?” You asked. Jaskier looked up hesitantly, as if he wasn’t sure you were talking to him. Once he realized you were, he shrugged.

“I’m always looking for a new adventure.”

You rolled your eyes — he was a bad liar.

Instead of calling him out, you continued to stare at him, waiting for him to break.

He scoffed. “I didn’t want to stay in another room for hours on end.”

You blinked.

“Fine.” Jaskier shoved his notebook in his pocket, this time avoiding your eyes. “When Toby was explaining everything, you looked really…concerned. And from the short amount of time I’ve known you, you would never admit it. So I said something.”

You were silent for a second, and found yourself looking up at the darkening sky.

“I’m thankful you did.”

Jaskier’s head snapped up, his nose scrunched in confusion.“Really?”

You nodded, a smile creeping on your face. A sigh soon escaped your lips. “The thought of a child, alone and scared—“ You shook your head. “I’m glad we didn’t walk away.”

“Me too.” Jaskier smiled his contagious smile, eyes twinkling in the near darkness.

“Stop.” You ripped your gaze away from Jaskier, almost walking into Geralt. He was kneeled down on the ground, his fingers tracing the dirt below.

You looked around, eyes stopping on a small stream. This must be where Toby found the doll.

“Her tracks end here.” He stood up, eyes scanning the surrounding area. You looked around the area, trying to find any other tracks. You definitely weren’t as skilled as Geralt, being that his witcher senses made him, well, super human, but Rauf had taught you a thing or two about tracking.

You stopped short, just a couple feet from the stream. “There are more tracks over here.”

Geralt walked over, careful not to disturb the marks. “Two sets.”

You sighed, “Shit.”

“What does that mean?” Jaskier stood a little aways from the two of you, trying to stay still so he didn’t compromise the tracks.

“Most likely?” You met Jaskier’s gaze. “Bandits.”

Geralt walked back the other way, along the stream. His eyes were trained on the ground, face scrunched in a frown. “They must have snatched her up, taken her that way.” He continued walking forward, and with a grunt, turned back to you. ”The tracks are still clear.”

Jaskier scratched under his chin, then rubbed a hand over his face. Though he was a couple feet away, you could see the fear in his eyes. But it wasn’t fear for himself.

He spoke, “What do we do? Go tell Toby that it was bandits?”

You shook your head, trudging over to him through the dirt. “There’s no time. It’s already been three days. Who knows what’s happened since then.”

“So…what does that mean?”

“It means,” you turned to Geralt, who nodded slightly at you with a knowing glance. You turned to Jaskier with a sigh. “We’re going to invade a bandit camp."

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Let me know your thoughts! :)

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aqvarius · 4 years ago

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I hope the rmd mc for kasumi is a bit different cuz she rly be hittin on my last nerve and I don’t think she would rly v✨i✨b✨e with kasumi in her current given state

i’ve decided i need to play matsunaga and cc before getting a better sense of the eicu guys but honestly some of these recent asks feel like my own brain jumped out of my head and started sending me anon asks lmao bc i totally agree. anyway i know it’s a controversial opinion to not like the rmd mc and i’m TRYING to be fair and put aside my bias against her and try to analyse what exactly it is that i don’t like, but yeah i just don’t really find that she has romantic chemistry with the characters (that i’ve read, i.e. takado and hosho). not that anyone ever asked for this, buuuuuut this ask has basically triggered yet another mc rant so stop reading here or get ready and settle down with some popcorn lmao.

DISCLAIMER: this is all just my personal opinion! and i’m sure many of you will disagree with me. please place a “i think/believe/feel” before every claim i make as everything i say here is just my own feeling towards her. i also need to disclaim that i have only properly read takado and hosho’s routes (bc i’m still...mad at sen’s route, and i’ve only made it through one chapter of matsunaga so far) and i understand (and fully subscribe to) the idea that mcs read differently depending on the route as well. and as always, please don’t let my opinions affect your own enjoyment of any characters or titles that you love!

ALSO as i was writing this, i went back and read my previous rant about her and i realised that i’m more or less reiterating the same points i made there but in a (hopefully) more structured and slightly more developed manner whoops.

so here’s almost 3000 words and a whole bunch of screenshots under the cut because i don’t want to spam everyone’s dashboards with my unprompted Opinions(tm).

so anyway i’ve been thinking it’s a translation/tone thing. when i have the time/energy, i might sit down and really try to analyse the actual language, but just going off my intuition, i think maybe it’s because:

1. sometimes they choose to express something idiomatically and so that tone doesn’t come across as sincere. this isn’t a real example, but let’s think about the difference in tone between “oh no!” and “yikes”. because of modern day vernacular, we kind of associate “yikes” with a sarcastic and judgmental tone, whereas “oh no!” might connote a more genuinely concerned reaction. so sometimes i think that the use of very contemporary vernacular (which, lbr, trends towards a more sarcastic tone in general bc us gen z kids are mean) results in a lack of sincerity which makes the mc come across as a little more callous and less... actually kind and nice? i did get the feeling that hlitf mc has recently swayed towards this sort of tone as well and suspected that they had the same translator (which was confirmed later in a voltage Q&A). i’m definitely #biased but i can forgive this more because we had a good amount of content with her being adorable before the tone switch so i have a pre-established impression of her in my mind.

by the way, i just want to say that while i do have this critique, i do really admire and respect the voltage translation and localisation team (and am... super indebted to them) and i do think they do fantastic translations generally.

anyway, i believe this linguistic issue is at least partially responsible for my personal perception of the rmd mc’s personality that i expand on in the succeeding points, but my next point has more to do with the writing and characterisation of the most recent wave of mcs.

2. rmd mc has very few visible vulnerabilities. i think this is one of my biggest qualms with the new title mcs like rmd, destind and mk but i think stories are at their best when you get to see the mc fail and be vulnerable and wallow. the reason why i love certain mcs - particularly the ones whose titles and storylines centre around their careers (hlitf, irresistible mistakes, my last first kiss, scandal, celebrity darling, kiss of revenge, sleepless, otbs, arguably msb, etc.) - is because we get to see them fail and then grow. not only that, but you often get to see the relationship between the mc and the love interest deepen in these moments. but if you have a ‘perfect’ mc, then there’s no room for growth, so plotlines are forced to fall back on drama and trauma on the love interest’s side which... is exactly what rmd and mk do.

this is not to say that rmd mc doesn’t make mistakes, because she certainly does, but i don’t find that they’re ever genuinely serious mistakes. for example, think about hlitf mc’s repeated mistake in season 1 of going after small crimes without seeing the bigger picture and thus potentially messing up an entire investigation. they allow her that space to mess up and be completely wrong for public safety. then they give her the time to be self-reflective and run away back to nagano really think about what her mistakes are, and where to go from there. she is confronted with humbling failure, and is forced to address issues about her own pride/ego, and matures into someone who has a more nuanced idea about justice. on the other hand, rmd mc never has to (consistently, afaik) go through a genuinely humbling experience, so she her pride/ego/arrogance never gets seriously called into question. maybe this is because the premise of rmd has to do with life and death and they don’t want to make it seem like she’s directly responsible for someone’s death, but hlitf also deals with life and death issues and the mc learns that if she messes up to save one civilian, she may actually be jeopardising the lives of tens or hundreds or more.

anyway, taking takado’s route as an example, because this was our exposure to her as a character, the most frustrating thing is the way that she tries to lecture takado that he’s wrong about his attitude towards amputations, and never actually has to personally experience the potentially disastrous consequence of putting her ideology into practice. i think i would have enjoyed the route a lot more if she had gone over his head and naively made the decision not to do an amputation and then the person ended up dying or having to have a larger section amputated all because she was like uwu we can’t just cut off people’s limbs without waiting. i think if that situation had happened, we could have seen her actually have to confront her own naiveté and realise that she’s a noob and too idealistic and that reading a lot of medical journals does not translate to having actual field experience and intuition and who is she to question him like that when she knows nothing. she only realises that omg... we may have to consider some things with something called nuance... basically when more of takado’s backstory is revealed.

(maybe this is because i work in academia so it extra-frustrates me, but omg if i had to one-on-one mentor a student like her, i would genuinely go nuts. she reminds me of some students that some colleagues and i have had where they “well, actually” at everything you say bc they read some stuff on reddit or twitter that has absolutely not been proven through practical application of, or research conducted through the lens of, their theory. like imagine i told my advisors “despite being experts in [their respective fields] and having written numerous very important books, you’re wrong because i don’t agree but i have never myself conducted proper research to counter that!!”)

basically i wish they treated takado’s route like kaga’s routes (bc lbr takado and kaga are maybe... the same person?). look at the self-reflection here:

and here:

she does get down on herself at times, but look at the way that she humbly accepts her mistakes. sometimes she wallows on her mistakes, as anyone would, but look at the way she examines her failures and turns that feeling of inadequacy into motivation to work harder and smarter.

by the way, these screenshots are from his ms1 and ms2 - so pretty early on - and we get to see her learn from these mistakes because she’s allowed to make them. we also get to learn more about kaga’s strictness and his kindness because of these mistakes.

i don’t know if the whole refusal to allow rmd mc to make significant errors is a response to readers who are like “omg.... why are voltage mcs so weak, why can’t they be perfect women who never get anything wrong” but ANYWAY i just feel like they never confront or address her hubris properly.

3. following on from point 2, i find her one-dimensional. i’ve mentioned this before in a rant, but i don’t find her to be a very deep character bc to me, she reads as mostly surface level sass. i said: “her dialogue with them often reads as like they put 100 points in “snark” and 0 points in any other personality trait” lmao. so she’s great in one-off screenshots where you can see her bite back with a very screenshottable one-liner, but i find it tiring to have 30 chapters of her just literally running her mouth. because of this constant tone that they keep giving her, i find it really difficult to see any emotional depth in her character. because she’s the perspective character, her internal dialogue is just as, if not more, important as the love interest’s external dialogue in terms of carrying the emotional weight of falling in love, and i just don’t understand how there’s any sense of two people falling in love and getting to know each other when every sentence out of her mouth is just sass. can you imagine you meet someone and you get to know them but never have any genuine conversations bc every line out of your mouth is sarcastic? like your date is opening up and telling you about some difficulties he’s going through (which i’m sure you all know is a very vulnerable and scary thing to do) and instead of being empathetic and kind and understanding, you’re just like “sucks to be you dude”. and instead of saying “you don’t need to carry everything on your shoulders”, you say “you’re STUBBORN and i’m RIGHT”. OF COURSE i’m being kind of hyperbolic here (not even that much tho, see screenshots below) but that’s basically the tone she constantly takes.

so when takado opens up about the rina thing, instead of being like “oh shit i’ve been judging him all this time and i’m genuinely sorry because i didn’t know a thing about you and yet i’ve been running my mouth”, she says “your head is as hard as a rock ya know?” and then KEEPS GOING.

where’s the empathy sis? where is it? i’m looking but i can’t find it.

EVEN TAKADO WAS LIKE “I WAS TRYING TO TALK SERIOUSLY ABOUT IT”

and then the writers just push off her rudeness as like “it’s okay it’s chill!! takado laughed about it afterwards and it made the issue sound insignificant!!” even tho it’s obviously an extremely traumatic thing? WHY does he even fall in love with her??? i don’t UNDERSTAND alsdkfjs she has NO FEELINGS!! i just want genuinely romantic moments... is that too much to ask... it’s called romance md...

once again, let’s compare that to hlitf mc, when she finds out about kaga’s trauma. literally the FIRST reaction she has is to consider his feelings.

without even hearing his side of the story, she defends him because she trusts him and immediately empathises with him and the first thing she does is try to understand him and where he’s coming from.

later on, when she hears him just dismissing things and playing callous, she actually cries on his behalf, which shocks him because he’s not used to people caring about him:

isn’t that a MASSIVE difference in reaction to essentially the same character opening up about their trauma? which do you find more conducive to developing emotional intimacy? in my opinion, it’s so much easier to fall in love with someone who supports you and has your back and trusts and believes in you and tries to understand you and can have a genuinely caring conversation with you when you need it. by the way, it’s not like kaga’s mc doesn’t sass him either! they have great bantery chemistry and she shit-talks him ALL THE TIME (a lot of the time under her breath and he’s like HUH? it’s great).

and yet... we still actively see her caring about him... instead of being like WHOOPS my tongue slipped, i can’t help that i’m naturally insubordinate ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

by the way, i’m not trying to put the onus on female characters/heroines to be caring/empathetic/kind/loving. i’m putting the onus on ALL characters to be caring/empathetic/kind/loving in their own ways if we’re supposed to be convinced that they’re falling in romantic love. sure, kaga’s mc is exceptionally loving but kaga returns that love with his own ALL the time ;~~; anyway i’m gonna stop talking about them for now bc otherwise i would just completely derail and keep going on and on about them.

anyway, back to takado, i actually find him to be more caring and loving than his mc? i actually genuinely like takado as a character and i think that real life me and him would be great together so i’m like extra offended that he’s with her rather than ME??? i would treat him so much better.

i consider this lack of emotional depth to actually be a bigger hindrance on my enjoyment of the game than the lack of flaws thing. voltage’s recent wave of mcs with the love choice titles have been trending towards the ‘perfect woman’ type of mc, but while i have some Thoughts(tm) here and there about the other protagonists, none of them strike me as being as hard to get along with as rmd’s mc. so i’ve mentioned my issue with the masukisu mc’s weird moral boundaries (more an overall voltage issue that manifests the most strongly in her character), but i also do find that they don’t let her make big mistakes and they present her as this perfect superwoman figure with no weaknesses which like... unrelatable. but at least her banter is flirty banter and there’s a lot of chemistry there (even if it’s sometimes lacking emotional depth, as in some of kazuomi’s scenes - and that’s not her fault, that’s 100% on kazuomi lol). you can definitely understand why they’re attracted to each other at least, and you can definitely see real, deep love form between her and yuzuru the most. even though the masukisu mc is a ‘perfect woman’, the premise is designed to spark relationship conflict and the writing really helps us understand the emotional turmoil of falling in love with a target because of how much it lets the mc dwell on it. destind too basically has a perfect mc in terms of work/career, but they let her have her very glaring weaknesses and, once again, the premise forces her to address her shortcomings with regards to her idealistic view on soulmates/destiny and explores the head vs heart thing where she has to really examine her emotions and how they potentially come into conflict with her preconceptions of and preoccupation with numerical compatibility.

thinking about it objectively, i feel like takado’s mc and mlfk ayato’s mc have a couple of similarities in the way that they don’t realise they’re in love for the longest time (although obviously childhood friends to lovers provides a better context for not realising that love - same with my boi natsume), but there’s just something lovable about mlfk’s mc that i don’t see in rmd. without going too deeply into it bc (1) i’m tired and (2) i’ve been going on about this for WAY too long now, i think that comes back to tone or writing (and possibly translation) style. i think at some point, i might actually go and compare the language in the “omg am i in love...?” scenes between takado’s mc, ayato’s mc and natsume’s mc but uh... not tonight haha.

actually, at some point, i genuinely wondered if rmd mc was aromantic. i really just thought she did not experience romantic attraction because i literally got no sense of it through her internal monologue bc they kept pushing the whole like “i only relate to people’s ~aesthetics~” thing. and then i wondered how they were going to make an aromantic mc fall in romantic love...? because... it’s an otome game? (btw i’m not saying that aro people can’t enjoy otoge, i definitely know people who do! but there’s a big diff between someone playing an otoge vs someone being a character falling in romantic love in an otoge. but please call me out if i’m misunderstanding aromanticism!). anyway, long story short, rmd mc (takado’s especially) falling in love is absolutely unconvincing to me because i find her dialogue - both internal and external - rather unfeeling.

these three points (1. translation that favours colloquialism over communicating emotional tone; 2. characterisation of a hubristic mc who doesn’t need to overcome significant challenges; 3. lack of emotional depth and empathy/understanding) are basically why i don’t think that she has good romantic chemistry with the love interests in romance md that i’ve read so far. i also have some very petty personal gripes (sekai...........) but they’re not relevant to this particular topic and frankly just... really petty so i don’t want to get into them here.

so anyway, long story short: i agree that i don’t think she would really vibe with kasumi in her current given state. like, they could be friends, maybe.

#romance md: always on call #rmdaoc #munechika takado #i'm... afraid to tag this #but i must do it to keep my blog organised so i can come back and find this #her love in the force #hlitf #hyogo kaga #voltage inc #otome romance #love 365 #love choice #snow writes #meta #snow rants #that should be a new tag #voltage mc

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beyondtheborderridiculous · 5 years ago

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Why I love A3! and am content being stuck in actor hell

In this essay I will

No seriously. I really love this game and I have no otaku/weeb friends irl that would ever play this with me. And I just want to fangirl and have no other outlet than writing a massive post just spilling out my love for this game. Read at your own risk, lol.

For me, what makes me fall in love with a game, more than their game play, is their story. I play games for their stories because I am a story lover. I love stories so much, that I majored in literature, lol. So for me, I only really play games that are story-centric. But even though I’ve been playing video games for as long as I can remember, I suck at them. My coordination is always so bad, and I’m so bad at grinding, that sometimes, when a game is too hard, I stop playing halfway through and never end up finishing the story out of frustration. There’s a lot of games on my switch and other apps that I’ve played that are on hiatus due to this reason.

But A3! is really simple to play. Took a while for me to get the game mechanics of it, and I was a bit confused at first, but unlocking the next chapter is a pretty simple feat. (The fact that I downloaded this game during the period where all the main story acts were accessible also helped.) So I got to read all of Main Story 1 and I FELL IN LOVE.

I fall in love with stories if I fall in love with the characters. And as a story consumer I am so impressed by the amount of thought the game developers had for each and every character.

My first impression of how the story would unfold was that Sakuya would be the main focus of this game and that other than Masumi, the other characters would fall to the way side. Sakuya was your typical shounen hero character, the optimistic, untalented but hard working guy (the Naruto in the early arcs of that series). He’s not my favorite type, but I understand that he’s a necessary and in my first impression, the most important character of the story. Then there’s Masumi, the kuudere/tsundere talented bishounen who’s the rival (i.e. the Sasuke). The fact that he falls in love at first sight with the player (or Izumi) was a hilarious surprise, and he became an instant fave. I know that some don’t like his obsessive yandere tendencies, but I find them hilarious and am quite fond of them (but I would never condone it irl). Honestly, during Harugumi’s act, I honestly thought that the focus would solely be on them. But it wasn’t.

Tsuzuru got the chance to pursue his dream of becoming a playwright and he dwells into some regrets of not pursuing his dream earlier. (The fact that he straight up dies after each script is written cracks me up every time. Seeing it in the anime adaptation killed me.) Citron is the comic relief. He’s necessary to gel a team of strangers together. But during this act, his past and background is hinted and it doesn’t seem to be all sunshine and rainbows (To be honest, and spoilers for the EN server here, but before I read Main Story 2, I straight up thought that Citron came from a different planet, lololol). And then Itaru. Chigasaki Itaru my man, my all time fave. To be honest, when I first saw him I didn’t have a favorable impression. The prince-like bishounen is the type I dislike the most. But he’s an otaku? A closet gamer? But to be honest, even when that was revealed, I didn’t think much of it. I initially thought, ‘Oh, they made a gap mode character, cute.’ And again, I thought that he would be put into the backdrop. BUT THEN HE WANTED TO QUIT AND HARUGUMI PERFORMED A STREET ACT TO CONVINCE HIM TO STAY AND I DIED (Omg, Citron in the anime adaptation killed me). I thought that only Sakuya and Masumi would be the focus, but I was very very pleasantly surprised to find that all characters had their own major screen time (Maybe save for Citron. His was kind of the smallest, but that’s for a reason. At this point, I’m tempted to make a first impressions vs. current thoughts post of every single character. Would anyone be interested in me doing that?).

By the end of Act 1, I fell in love with Harugumi. And to be honest, I was apprehensive of reading Act 2. I became so invested in Harugumi, and now I have to start a new journey with a new set of characters? I just wanted to read more about Harugumi and I was disappointed because I thought that I wouldn’t see those characters again. But again, I was pleasantly surprised to see that that wasn’t the case. Act 2 is Natsugumi’s story, but Harugumi characters were sprinkled here and there. And I thought that it was cute that Temna, a really prideful actor, looked up to Sakuya and asked him for advice. And then you have Sakuya saying that he didn’t really do anything as a leader, LOL. Save for sleeping on the stage together. And then Temna proceeds to follow this advice by going to Izumi and saying that after much research, the answer to a better team was sleeping together. LMAO TEMNA YOU IDIOT (I love you)! Natsugumi’s story was adorable, and I adored it.

Main Story 1 is the introduction and formation of every troupe. By Act 3, I was expecting it to become repetitive. What was impressive to me was that it wasn’t. Every single character is so vastly different from one another. They have their own personalities and fully fleshed out backstories. In Main Story 1 alone, that’s twenty characters. That’s highly impressive, especially like I mentioned beforehand with Act 1, everyone got their own screen time and character development. And for those that didn’t it’s because there’s a reveal/plot twist later down the line that’s at least hinted. You don’t always see that in t.v. shows/anime/manga with an ensemble cast (Voltron Legendary Defender, I’m staring at you. But that’s just one example, there’s others too).

But the game developers didn’t stop there. For each of those twenty characters, the writers developed not only their personalities and backstories, but also their own personalized relationship dynamics with other members of the company.

Each troupe is very unique in their dynamics. I have a very hard time picking a favorite troupe because I am just so fond of them all. The relationships that the members have with each other in each troupe is so different, so special. I think the reason why I love anime/manga so much is because found family or nakamaship is usually a prevalent theme in them and I am a sucker for these. One of my favorite genres is slice-of-life just because I love reading relationships, whether they be platonic or romantic. And each troupe has these in spades.

BUT IT DOESN’T END THERE.

By Act 3, I thought that I figured out the pattern. Harugumi supported Natsugumi during Act 2, so in Act 3, Natsugumi would do the same for Akigumi. And then Harugumi will fall to the wayside. But I was pleasantly surprised again (do you see the pattern here?) to find that wasn’t the case. Fucking Itaru became the outside support/advice giver for Banri LOL. What made me fall in love with the game even harder, and what made me impressed with the game developers even more, was that not only did they write relationships within the troupe, but they also created and personalized intertroupe relations for ALL TWENTY CHARACTERS. Like how?! That’s so much work and so much to juggle with! As an avid story reader, that was just so crazy impressive to me.

So that’s just me geeking about the narrative and character and relational development. Let’s talk about the gaming side of things, shall we?

I’m pretty familiar with app gatcha games as I’ve played my fair share of them. A3! strangely focuses more on the story aspect than the game aspect, which I am totally okay with. But what impressed me from the gaming perspective was how A3! handles events. Most gatcha games I’ve played, the event story line had nothing to do with the main story (SWD Obey Me and FE Heroes being prime examples here). Events were used as fanservice in order to get money from the consumers. And my first event was the Summer Beach Episode, so I initially thought that that was the same case for A3!. But it wasn’t.

When Main Story 1 ended, I was satisfied and at the same time I wasn’t. The story was good, and it ended well, but I wanted more. The game seemed to hint at more, so would I ever get more? And then I find out that all of the events (or most of them anyway) is the continuation of Main Story 1. That’s crazy!!! As a gamer, and as someone who has a family member that works in the gaming industry, I was crazy impressed because I haven’t seen this done before. I thought that that was immensely smart on the game developer’s part. Honestly, I know that not everyone plays the events in app games. But by making the events canon, and not au, gamers will be more inclined to play the event games. And I also know that it’s crazy easy to get bored of games, especially if the main story ended or the gameplay/story line isn’t that interesting. But the beauty of app games is that they could constantly be updated; their stories could continue to be added to. And with A3!, the event story line dwells deeper in these character’s backstories. Remember what I said about me initially thinking that the story will only revolve around protagonist and rival character? With each troupe play event, the lead and support actor constantly change. Everyone straight up gets their time to shine and their character development continues. Along with their relationships with others within the company. As someone who’s already invested in these characters, there’s no way that I would miss these events! I’m determined to play all of them! And that’s why I really think that the game developers came up with a smart strategy to get their gamers hooked.

My biggest regret is that I downloaded this game recently, so I missed the prior events. PLEASE, LIBER AND CYBRID, I WOULD PAY MONEY TO HAVE ACCESS TO THE PREVIOUS EVENT STORIES. I don’t need the gatcha cards pertaining to these events, I just really really want to read the previous event story lines. I am forever grateful to yaycupcake that I was able to read what I missed (and the future events), but it’s not the same as experiencing it myself.

What’s also smart, is that you have to read the event story lines, or else you won’t be able to completely understand Main Story 2. There’s aspects of things in the event that Main Story 2 will touch upon. So as a consumer, you really do want to participate in all the events.

Let’s talk about Main Story 2. I somehow discovered that in Main Story 2, each troupe is going to get an additional member (the BRBrookies). And I didn’t know how I felt about that. I liked the dynamic that each troupe has now. Wouldn’t an additional member ruin that? And could I really get myself to like these four new characters? The joke’s on me because I severely underestimated the game writers. You would’ve thought that I would have more faith in them since they impressed me so much. But I was a fool. Main Story 2 is great, and it didn’t seem like anything was pulled out of nowhere because it was all hinted at either in Main Story 1 or during the event stories. And each rookie is a perfect fit for their troupe and each troupes’ bonds continue to grow stronger and I cry every time. I can’t wait for it to come to the EN server.

Now I’m a talk about the music.

For a while, I was aware that in the otaku/weeb community, that there was an idol craze. But I never understood it’s appeal. This game is starting to make me understand, lol.

I may not have understood the idol craze, but I do like vocaloid. When I first listened to vocaloid, I thought that it was weird that I was listening to a computer program sing. But what really attracted me was the stories told in the songs (again, story lover here). As an example, I’m going to talk about Evillious Chronicles. The Evillious Chronicles told a story in each song that was all a part of a story, and it was also my introduction to vocaloid. Storytelling through songs was just genius to me, and I fell in love with it. Granted, I know that it’s not new to vocaloid, and that not every vocaloid song is part of a series or tell a story, but it was what drew me in.

So vocaloid may seem like a tangent here, but to me, the A3! music was kind of like vocaloid. I accidentally stumbled on it when I was actually searching for someone doing a gameplay video of the Alex in Wonderland event. I couldn’t find any, but instead I discovered Alice in Wonderland Go Go. I gave it a listen, and fell in love with the melody. The music fit the theme of Alice in Wonderland so well. And then I listened to Susume Pirates next. It fucking slapped. These two songs became my gateway to A3! songs.

I’m a go on a bit of a tangent here, but I’m a talk about the voice actors for a bit. As someone who’s also pursuing voice acting, I always appreciate when voice actors go the extra mile for their fans. Despite the vastly polar opinions of Voltron Legendary Defender, I adore the voice actors for their contribution to the fandom. Especially Josh Keaton (Shiro’s VA). So imagine my surprise, that I discover that not only is the Main Story completely voiced in A3! (which is very impressive and high production for a f2p app game), but the voice actors sing too in these songs too!

The A3ders sing the theme song. But each troupe has their own song, and each song is so vastly different from each other because these songs reflect the dynamics of their specific troupe, and I love that. But not only are there troupe songs, each character has their own song! And once you read the main story of each character, their song just becomes so much deeper! I give mad props to the song writers for tailoring each song to fit the character. I’m not going to lie, I bawled while reading the Manju Fist event, and then when I listened to Taichi’s character song afterwards? My mom thought that someone died since I was crying so hard. And did it end there? No! There’s a song that’s fucking tailored after every play! And they’re all bops!

The amount of times that A3! has impressed me is just way too much to count. It’s a fucking amazing game, story wise and music wise. And the love that the developers have for A3! is just so evident, and I love that. It definitely deserves its five star rating, and deserves an even bigger fandom here in the west.

So there, that about wraps up my massive essay on my love for A3!. If you read this far, I tip off my hat to you. If you also want to talk about A3! hit me up! I need someone to fangirl with, lololol.

#a3!#mankai a3!#fangirling #oh man this is hella long lol #should i do the first impression vs. current thoughts as i mentioned before?#because i have feelings about every single character #talk A3! with me someone lololol

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phoenixrisesoncemore · 5 years ago

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I was tagged by @wangxianbunnydoodles (oh my, this is long and you might regret it; also I don’t follow instructions well 😉). I tend not to be very good at these things (sorry to anyone else who has tagged me in these kinds of things before—this is a rare event happening mostly because I wanna talk about Tolkien books and ships) but here goes:

Top 3 Ships

I don’t actively ship characters that often. I’m not sure why that is. I do enjoy reading fic with pairings either canon or not, but I don’t often go “all in” on ships in most narratives I consume. There are notable exceptions (more than three but these are the three most recent—I have no idea how to identify my top ships):

WangXian (CQL). This is surely obvious from the current state of my blog, right? I blame The Untamed and its impossibly tender, only-subtextual-by-a-hair’s-breadth romance. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a show express ultimate devotion, deep affection, true appreciation, complete understanding (eventually), and the sheer *necessity of the other* between two people quite like this one has. Hell, I don’t think I’ve ever seen two characters and desperately wanted them together and happy as much as I have these two, so bravo to the cast and crew for generating such second-hand devotion in me.

Silvergifting (Tolkien). This is all @thearrogantemu’s fault. I’d read some Silvergifting before I read These Gifts That You Have Given Me, mostly out of curiosity (some good stuff, too!), but I had never read any Tolkien fic that convinced me it was *true* (on many, many levels, though the ship level is the one pertinent to this post). In any canon-like universe this ship hurts, but in the Gifts universe it hurts the most; it hurts like Hell. It hurts in the way only razor-sharp, sorry-the-universe-works-this-way, oh-are-those-my-entrails-on-the-floor-I-didn’t-even-feel-the-knife tragedy can hurt. And it’s so convincing that it’s just...a fact now. Tolkien just forgot to tell us. So now I ship Silvergifting, but most deeply, specifically THAT Silvergifting. (Meanwhile, 14 year old me continues to look at *significantly* older me like I’m insane.)

ZeLink (Legend of Zelda). Deep down I’m still 12 years old and no amount of fine lines and wrinkles is going to change that. When is Breath of the Wild 2 coming out?

Last Song

I listen to soundtracks and bombastic and dramatic orchestral pieces much more often than I listen to what people mean when they say “songs,” and a significant chunk of the “songs” I listen to are from musicals/operas.

Earlier today it was Hanz Zimmer’s soundtrack to Dark Phoenix (don’t start me up on the continuing disappointment that Phoenix adaptations continue to be to me—you don’t want to hear it; even I don’t want to hear it).

Before that it was Barbra Streisand’s The Broadway Album. (I prefer her outer space cover of “Somewhere” to the actual thing. Fight me.)

Before that it was Carmina Burana (One of my favorite things ever was when we went to a live performance of Carmina Burana and a boy who couldn’t have been more than 7 years old sat in the aisle in front of us and head-banged enthusiastically through “O Fortuna.” It was so metal. You go, kid. You get it.).

Before that it was a splattering of Billy Joel hits with emphasis on “2000 Years”, “River of Dreams”, “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant”, “The Stranger”, and “Only the Good Die Young” (thanks to that outstanding WangXian interpretation!).

Of course the soundtracks to The Untamed/CQL have been on repeat for weeks around here, particularly every single iteration of “WuJi” and the flute-heavy instrumental pieces (man, those are good!).

Not long ago I had Sarah Brightman’s covers of “Figlio Perduto” from La Luna and “Glosoli” and “One Day Like This” from Dreamchaser burning through my iPhone battery (yes, I like popera).

Enya, and especially Shepherd Moons and The Track Which Shall Not Be Named has been on repeat a lot.

Last Movie

I don’t sit down to watch movies that often any more. It just takes too much stillness and undivided attention and more resistance to multi-tasking than I have. The actual last movie that I watched (in a “have it on on another screen while I work” kind of way) was Raiders of the Lost Ark, which, of course, I’ve seen umpteen times and which followed a similar rewatch of the Back to the Future trilogy. The last movie I watched completely without distraction was Book Smart; I don’t watch comedies very often, but I really enjoyed it in an “OMG, I can totally relate to this” kind of way (except for the class president thing—that would have required that I interact with other people my own age and also not be homeschooled). Before that I think it was the Tolkien biopic. Man, I still haven’t written anything about that.

Currently Reading (in order of when I started them)

Oh dear.

The Familiar: part 1, Mark Z Danielewski. *sigh* For as much as I think Danielewski is brilliant and House of Leaves is one of my favorite books ever, I’ve just not been able to get into much of his other work. It’s universally a time and energy investment to penetrate and puzzle through, and I just don’t have as much of that as I used to. House of Leaves makes that investment worth it from early on and is absolutely a page-turner once you settle in, but other than The Fifty Year Sword I’ve just not been able to get into the rest of his work. The Familiar: part 1 is supposed to be the first in a 26 part series which is currently halted at part 4, I think. Without a guarantee of all parts ever being published, I don’t think I’m ready to invest more time into part 1 and may end up abandoning it, unfortunately.

History of The Hobbit, Douglas Anderson. Anderson did what Christopher didn’t and gave The Hobbit the HoMe treatment (if a bit less literal and opaque in format). It’s fascinating (I mean, there’s the Beren and Luthien name drop you were not expecting right there in the first draft), but reading essentially the same passages with only small changes over and over can be a slog, so reading it has been an ongoing project for over a year now.

Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien’s World, Verlyn Fleiger. This is Fleiger’s look at Tolkien’s Middle-earth in light of his association with Owen Barfield. Particularly, she is examining Tolkien’s work in conjunction with Barfield’s Poetic Diction and his thoughts on language and meaning. I have not read Poetic Diction, but I probably will now since it apparently addresses language formation as related to the origin of human consciousness which is SO up my alley.

New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton. My late sister-in-law had a masters in theology from Notre Dame and became a huge Merton fan. Meanwhile, my best friend actually spent a weekend retreat at The Abbey of Gethsemani. Between hearing about him from the two of them, I developed an interest in Merton. I happened to read “Moral Theology of the Devil” a couple of years ago. It was one of the most illuminating theological things I have read and deeply inspired my own Tolkien fic-writing (let’s just say the progress there is otherwise slow). This book is a collection of pieces which happens to contain that piece, and I’ve been skipping around through it for a while now.

The Lord of the Rings reread (Tolkien, obviously). I hate this, but I am so deep in so many critical Tolkien books that I’ve not had the chance to really sit down and relax into my reread for months and months and will likely just end up starting over. Plus I want to read it concurrently with the next entry in this list and the next entry is taking longer to get through because of its format. That entry being:

The Lord of the the Rings: A Reader’s Companion, Hammond and Scull. This is a treasure trove of data and insights for those really wanting to dig critically-historically into The Lord of the Rings on a chapter-by-chapter, passage-by-passage basis. The only issue with it is that jumping back and forth between the two (as you have to: this is a reference book) tends to kill the mood of The Lord of the Rings when read as it’s meant to be read: for enjoyment!

The Power of Limits: Proportional Harmonies in Nature, Art, and Architecture, Gyorgy Doczi. This has been an ongoing read here and there since Christmas, especially as I work on two personal projects.

The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, Lesslie Newbigin. To be honest I don’t think I am going to finish this one. I like a few of the things he says, things I think are truthful and which need to be confronted in American Christian culture in particular, but it’s just too much Calvin for my taste, too many assumptions I do not share being the heretic that I am, and I spend too much time anger-notating about theology to read it with grace.

In Full Measure I Return to You, thearrogantemu. This is a reread of the (relatively) happy AU fic for my most favoritest Tolkien fic (Gifts), but I’ve put my reread on hold while I finish one of the two projects, after which I am diving in and screw the rest of this list for the time being.

Food Craving

Sushi. My kingdom for some good sushi. I’ve only had sushi once since we got back from NY and while it was the best sushi I have had locally IT WAS NOT OMAKASE AT SUSHI NOZ. It also didn’t require a personal loan to pay for, but *shrug* I’m spoiled now and will forever crave what I can no longer have.

People I’d Like To Get To Know Better

I hate tagging people in these things because I’m awkward and shy and do them so rarely myself that it feels hypocritical for me to ask it of others. That being said: if you’re a follower of my blog and you want to do this, please do! And please tag me! I’d love to get to know more about you 😊.

#getting to know you #wangxianbunnydoodles #tolkien #the untamed #movies #music #books #food

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kuriquinn · 5 years ago

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For the Future of Fandom

I decided to make a whole other post for this, just to drive the point across.

As creators, the most important motivation for us to create art is an inborn desire to do so. We will create things whether or not we share them with the wider audience because that’s what we do. We were born with this drive to convey our emotions with whatever means possible, be it writing or pictures or sculpture or whatever. Our art is for us.

But more often than not, we want to share it with others. Be it family or friends or an entire world of the audience out there in cyberspace or at conventions and such. And we do that because we want to know what people think of our work.

We’re not putting it up to be ripped to shreds, or copied by other people, or as an ego-boost for ourselves (trust me, there are easier ways to get those than the uncertainty of posting our creations for the masses to consume). It’s a, “Hey, I did this thing, I think it’s cool/that you’d enjoy it, what do you think?” kind of move.

Which makes getting feedback on our work probably the second most important part of being a content creator. It’s the motivator, the thing that makes us go, “Wow, people really liked what I did last time, maybe they’ll like *this* too”.” and keep creating.

The less feedback we get, the less we get the message that people want to see more of our work. And that makes a lot of creators decide to forgo the uncertainty of posting things/sharing their work online, and instead keep it to themselves or a select few chosen souls who they know they can get honest and consistent reactions from.

Feedback is SO important to us.

But I also understand that some content consumers have trouble with leaving feedback. Some are too shy to leave more than kudos and likes (and ao3 is awesome for having the kudos feature!), either not knowing what to say or worried they’ll say the wrong thing or worried they can’t express themselves properly in a foreign language or just being hugely intimidated interacting with the author(s) of their favorite stories.

There’s also a generational thing.

When I first entered the world of fandom (like 20 years ago, omg I’m old!), it was practically second nature to leave a comment on every chapter/every story/every piece of artwork you liked. It’s just what we did. It was understood to be part of the fandom process.

That being said, every comment was not positive, and there was a LOT of unnecessary flaming, abusive, insults disguised as “constructive” criticism. And those kinds of reviews put some content creators on such a defensive that when someone came along with the genuine wish to leave feedback, even if it was well-intentioned “you did this aspect so well, but I’m not sure I liked this, but I’m still going to keep reading because the other thing you did was awesome” kind of criticism, those creators got defensive and snappish. They responded with annoyed review replies or passive-aggressive rants in the next chapter of their stories.

And the only thing that accomplished was making content consumers very wary about leaving any type of feedback. Which made feedback itself dwindle, and new consumers coming into the fandom didn’t get to see the absolute waves of reviews and comments and feedback that used to be left on fanworks.

So now, 20 years later, the older generation of creators is trying to figure out whatever happened to all the comments, while the younger generation coming into it doesn’t understand that feedback used to be the actual norm. The onus for this disconnect doesn’t fall only on content consumers or only on content creators, it’s something that has evolved badly.

But that doesn’t mean this is how it has to be forever.

So many people in fandom are newbies who don’t really understand the etiquette of consuming fan works. Especially in the younger generation where so much in their world is accessible for free and with no need to pay it forward. How can we expect a certain reaction/behavior if we’re not willing to teach and encourage it? Sitting back and complaining that “it’s not like the good old days” won’t do anything. We have to actually engage and be active in changing the discourse on feedback culture. Come up with solutions instead of just bitching out the silent lurkers (which discourages then from even trying in the first place).

To that end, I’ve recently been experimenting with something I saw online somewhere, where the author provides a kind of rubric to help the reader out. (And this really appealed to me as a teacher, because I’ve used a similar type of thing in my class for reading responses and student evaluations of lessons and there’s always been a good response!)

The short version is, creators fill it with whatever reactions they hope for and leave it beside their newly posted chapter/picture/photo/poem/etc. as a guide.

Ex.:

I want to know what you think of my story! Leave kudos, a comment or as many of these emojis as you want and let me know how you feel!

❤️️ = I love this story!

😳 = this was hot!

💐 = thank you for sharing this

🍵 = tea spilled

🍬 = so sweet and fluffy!

🚔 = you’re under arrest! the writing’s too good!

😲 = I NEED THE NEXT CHAPTER

😢 = you got me right in the feels

(Feel free to substitute whatever reaction/emojis you want)

And it’s been working!

I started writing recently in a new fandom and wasn’t getting any feedback on a bunch of stories I was putting my everything into. And then I stumbled upon this trick and suddenly I’m getting loads of feedback in emoji form.

And as readers have become more familiar with my work across the chapters? They’ve actually started leaving personally written feedback too!

I’ve had half a dozen readers even comment how much they like the idea because it takes the pressure off them thinking up what to say and can now leave feedback with the same ease as leaving a kudo/like. And as the creator, it’s kind of run to look at your emoji legend and see what your readers are saying in emoji shorthand.

This is just one way to do it.

I’m sure there are tons of other ways you guys have figured out how to improve the exchange of feedback between consumers and creators, without pretty much ransoming your work behind paywalls or “I-Will-Not-Continue-Until-I-Receive-X-Amount-of-Comments” disclaimers.

And I’d love to hear them and repost them to share with anyone else!

The point is, generally, content consumers just need a starting point, dipping a toe in the water to get used to leaving feedback. As creators, it’s not wrong to want to have feedback from our audiences and this way we can gently encourage them to do so across the board.

I highly recommend trying this out. On your next few short chapters or pieces of fanart or whatever, leave an emoji legend with whatever comments you are hoping for (or just copy the ones above) and see if there’s a difference in the feedback you get. This worked really well for me and I’m confident it can work for you too!

Remember, content creation and consumption is not a quid pro quo thing. The minute it becomes that, you lose the fun of it. But by the same token, feedback is the only payment a lot of content creators receive for our hard work.

Obviously, we’ll continue to create whether audiences interact with our work or not.

But we might stop sharing our creations, or stick them behind a paywall.

Enough of the world has been monetized already. If we intend to keep fandom creations accessible to our communities and new generations coming in, we have to look at a way of maintaining it in a cooperative way. And creators shaming consumers for not providing feedback is as bad as consumers shaming creators for not creating on demand.

It’s a new decade. Let’s be better about this.

#fandom culture #creators and consumers #fandom is not passive #fandom is interactive #let's be kind #let's work together #new decade #fandom

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mneiai · 5 years ago

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So recently I read the two books out for The Folk of the Air and also the whole Throne of Glass series.

Here’s my quick review type things of each, with some vague spoilers (like mostly what you could figure out by reading the book descriptions) (also wow the descriptions of the Throne of Glass books are actually super spoiler-y lol). These are my personal thoughts and feelings.

The Folk of the Air (The Cruel Prince and The Wicked King) is really good. Way more time spent on faery stuff because, well, it’s almost entirely set in their world. Some child abuse and a shit ton of bullying, and torture, murder, sexual assault, and stuff like that. It can be a bit much at some points, ngl.

The main character is a girl who was taken from the human world and raised by the dude who killed her parents, along with her two sisters. She’s very isolated, both because she can’t really trust even her own family and because she’s a human, and therefore faces a ton of prejudice. But she manages to get power through wits, daring, and an unyielding need to survive (the world itself is dangerous for her, let alone the people in it, but she doesn’t feel like she has a place in the human world). Basically the one power she has as a human is that she can lie and she uses that to its full potential as much as she can.

The main romance is incredibly slow burn and very interesting imo. A sort of enemies to reluctant allies deal that’s fun to watch unfold and has a ton of foreshadowing. It’s a very faery-esque type of relationship, so involves trickery and betrayal and whatnot, which fits perfectly into that world.

The main other relationships are...not many. The main character basically has her complicated relationships with her family, a few allies who become friends in some regard, and then a massive amount of enemies. But each relationship is very unique, so I never had any confusion over who did what or who is what, etc.

The representation in the book is fairly good. The main character (and her twin sister) is Latinx, her older sister is a lesbian who is in a romantic relationship, there’s a fair amount of at least vague references to other people being some sort of queer, as well, including the last King.

I think one of my favorite parts of the books is that the main character is the protagonist, but we know she’s not really a hero. That no one in the books is really a good person. So we want her to get what she wants, but we aren’t being forced to think everything she does is morally good.

The third book comes out in November and I am so excited. The last ended on somewhat of a cliffhanger and I’ve read the released early chapters of this next one and already I can see what I think might be foreshadowing for some very cool shit.

Throne of Glass is by the same woman who wrote Court of Thorns and Roses which I found mindnumbingly dull, but this is much better. However, it has all the dark fantasy stuff, and also it gets like disturbingly anti-choice in the last two books. It also builds into being super, like, cissexist with some weird masculinity worship as the books go on, which I think may coincide with an increase in smut.

The main character is of that standard romance-fantasy Chosen One trope where they were The Best Ever at their skill (assassination) when they were a teenager and they’re The Most Powerful Ever basically after that. There’s a lot of “ooh, our main character just outsmarted everyone!” with a tell instead of show explanation for how they did it which started to wear on me, especially in the last book. Like the foreshadowing will be “she sent a letter!” which like...that’s not actually how foreshadowing is supposed to work lol

The main romance starts out as a love triangle between our heroine and two best friends. And then eventually that’s not a thing and she’s with some other dude. Who is...I don’t think half as hot as we’re supposed to find him? At least not for me. Their relationship also starts off with a lot of violence/threats of violence between them that isn’t actually necessary (like they could have started off cordial and it would have made no difference to the plot, unlike in The Folk of the Air where them being enemies was a major plot point). The other romances are way better, though, and somewhat make up for it.

The main other relationships are very good, much better than the main romance, and include a ton of really meaningful friendships and building a found family.

The representation in the books is kinda blah at first. We’re told a few of the more main characters are bisexual, but are never shown that and they all end up in het-looking relationships (over and over again) so bi/homophobic readers can largely ignore it. Most of the characters are written in a way to make them seem white if the readers want that, even if they don’t necessarily have to be, and the first character who definitely is not is fridged for a white person (like basically a major part of the entire series kicks off because this person gets fridged). I think it’s the fourth or fifth where they first introduce a definitely gay character who has definitely been in a gay relationship, who is a bitter, awful old man who fucks over our heroine a bunch. The sixth book has a new part of the world with a bunch of new characters who are definitely not white, but there’s like some exoticism and bullshit like that around them (and that’s also where the disturbing pro-fetus stuff starts, so, like, weird trade-off).

My favorite parts of these books is the world building and the supporting cast, for sure. The mythology that’s been built up is fairly cool, even with the derivative parts (omg, they use a term that GRRM literally made up for ASOIAF at one point and my secondhand embarrassment is huge lol). The main character I stop caring about so much like halfway through, but a lot of the other characters, including new ones that are introduced later in the series, are super interesting. And we get their POVs, because the books slowly start doing less and less of the main character’s POV as they go on (the sixth book doesn’t even have her in it).

The ending was just shades off of Harry Potter epilogue bad and way too neat and happy for me, but that’s what fanfic is for lol I’m skimming some of the books now just for that purpose.

#personal recs #the folk of the air #throne of glass

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femslashmas · 6 years ago

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2018 fic year in review

thank you so much for tagging me @homosociallyyours !! this was really fun (and also a bit hard haha) to do ^__^

1. number of stories (including drabbles) posted to ao3: 19 (6 100 word seasonal drabbles, and out of the rest 4 are under 1k and 2 are chaptered but one of those is still a WIP)

2. word count posted for the year: 142,383 which is def more than i’ve written in previous years but my initial goal for this year was 200k and then i lowered it to 150k and then decided i should focus less on word count and more on actually finishing the fics lmaooo

3. list of works posted this year in order of posting:

the tesco fic (although i didn’t make the tumblr post until recently)

three spring drabbles (100 words each)

begin again [timestamp] (my only snowbaz fic in 2018)

we’re swimming with the sharks until we drown

SPHERICAL

got me an appetite, now i can taste it

Take a Chance on Me

Getting Naked on Camera (NOT CLICKBAIT)

my favourite colour is you

louis tomlinson’s completely 100% foolproof guide to snagging the fit bloke next door (3 100 word drabbles)

no better place than right by your side

days gone by (WIP)

love the cronch

zero to sixty

where the love light gleams

4. fandoms i wrote for: mostly one direction and by that i mean i posted a timestamp for a carry on fic from 2017 and the rest was one direction lol

5. pairings: harry/louis, simon/baz (ONCE)

6. story with the most hits: Take a Chance on Me with 10975 hits :o

7. story with the most kudos: Take a Chance on Me with 426 kudos

8. story with the most comments: Take a Chance on Me with 52 comments threads

9. work i’m most proud of and why: well Take a Chance on Me was both my first time doing a big bang as well as the longest thing i’ve ever written (twice the length of the previous longest!) and i’m still completely in love with the art for it courtesy of @vulpixlou and i def don’t go back to stare at it ever nope 👀👀

10. work i’m least proud of and why: i mean i could nitpick the hell out of my stuff and i know there are certain bits i would write differently now but at the same time i created something with my brain that didn’t exist before and that’s just too cool not to be proud of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

11. a favorite excerpt of your writing:

this is from Take a Chance on Me (shocker) and i was having trouble thinking of my fave but then i was skimming through all of my fics and ngl i had forgotten about this bit but y’all i’ve been trying to work a Dramatic Airport Reunion into a fic FOR FUCKING EVER and i finally did it and i actually don’t hate it? (spoiler for the ending of Take a Chance on Me)

“See…” Louis starts. “See, there’s this guy. And, oh god, he’s an absolute twat. Wanna know what he did to me?” Harry nods faintly, and Louis, emboldened now, goes on. “So, I already knew who he was, right? I knew him, because he’d been in this god-awful boy band for years, and even if me bloody sisters hadn’t been so bloody in love with him, I’d still have known him, because he was just that famous.”

“I wasn’t that famous.”

“Don’t interrupt,” Louis chastises, and Harry mimics zipping his lips. “So this guy, I knew him, but he didn’t know me, but, fucking hell, I think someone forgot to tell him that, because there I was, minding my own business, when this kid just…” Louis giggles then, because the memory is just so ridiculous, “he just starts fucking singing to me, can you believe it?”

Harry shakes his head. “What a weirdo.”

“Right? The weirdest.”

“What happened next?”

“I fell in love with him.”

“What? That soon?”

“Of course not, Jesus, Harold. I’m not that pathetic. I waited the appropriate amount of time to fall in love, thank you very much.”

“Is that why you’re here, then?” Harry whispers. “Is it because you love him?”

“That’s part of it, yeah. I love him, and I love the way we just fit, and I adore his daughter, and our pets are friends now, and I think our sisters are best friends now, so they didn’t actually give me a choice, but do you want to know the biggest, most important reason?”

Harry nods quickly, so hard his chin bumps his chest, and Louis’ so fucking in love with him at that moment that these are the easiest words he’s ever said.

“I’m here,” he tells Harry, “because I was lying in my own bed, in my own house, surrounded by all my things, and all I wanted to do was go home.”

He’s yanked forward then, Harry’s fingers digging into his shoulders, and he barely feels the pain because it’s Harry, and everything’s good when it’s Harry. He’s babbling into Louis’ neck, and the only words he can make out are his name and “love you” and he shivers with the feeling.

Harry’s hair has grown out enough since the night Louis snuck in to see him that he can tangle his fingers in the strands. So he does, pulling Harry’s face away from his neck and pressing their lips together. Every kiss feels like an apology. Every kiss feels like home.

12. share or describe a favorite review you recieved: so this miiiiight be cheating but i received two comments on a fic i wrote in 2015 and it was kind of a surprise that something that old still held up and people still enjoy it? def made me feel better about my current writing and also anyone who quotes my fics back to me has earned my undying love and affection

13. a time when writing was really, really hard: i have adhd so p much always ahahaha

14. a scene or character you wrote that most surprised you: the entirety of “we’re swimming with the sharks until we drown” ngl because i struggled with the like… morally gray criminal-y elements? and portraying the two of them in such a different way while still staying in character which i like to think i nailed? hopefully lol

15. how did you grow as a writer this year? i don’t feel like a i have? but i’m also bias and hypercritical so maybe i did and just didn’t realize ahaha

16. how do you hope to grow next (this?) year: i want to enjoy writing again and i want to finish more fics and not let them rot in my docs because of self-doubt

who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer: okay so first @amandaisnotwriting is the real MVP as she bears the brunt of my whining/complaining/drama queen moments as well as the fact that she listens (some would argue is forced to :p) and reads over fic for a pairing she doesn’t ship for a fandom she doesn’t care about 😂😂😂

@rainbowbaz always makes time to look over my fics even when she’s crazy busy and is honestly amazing and saves my fics from americanisms ahahaha

and FINALLY we met p late in the year but but @livingatthelairport ‘s comment on “the tesco fic” helped me out of a writing slump and now she’s become my cheerleader (and friend 💜) and that’s make a huge difference in my attitude towards writing! it’s also easier to write a fic for a specific person than worry about the opinion of a crowd which is def something i’ve been missing in this fandom rip

also to everyone else who has read my fics, listened to me rant about them or just helped the process along in any way at all this is a GIANT thank you!!

18. anything from your real life show up in your writing this year? i mean i can’t think of anything off the top of my head but a lot of my inspo comes from the world around me so probably lol

19. any wisdom you can share with other writers: there’s nothing wrong with feeling jealous of other writers because i’m not a fan of hiding feelings just because they’re ugly as long as you don’t let it fester and turn into resentment or make you bitter. there are a lot of factors that go into a fic becoming “big” in a fandom but honestly most of it is just random chance so don’t beat yourself up because someone else’s success is not your failure and it’s nice to get recognition for your hard work but if you’re writing solely for the feedback then you’re writing for the wrong reason and that will lead to the resentment and bitterness mentioned earlier

also if you compliment someone you say you like their outfit but if you complement someone then you complete them

20. any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

I’M GLAD YOU ASKED

these are all the things i didn’t start and/or finish in 2018 that WILL be completed this year

the cat fic

the doctor fic

the final three chapters of days gone by

penpal AU

Space. Florist.

teenage fanboys who are also best friends

baking blog fic

a short follow up to tacom

twitter drama fic

80’s/’high school’/secret admirer!AU

something based on yawning grave by lord huron

part three of the alien harry series

chocolate orange holiday fic

LA fic (wtwm)

70’s fic

monkey fic

i’m also planning to do the @larryabroad challenge again because i had so much fun with it last time :D

21. tag some writers whose answers you’d like to read:

p sure everyone has done this but if you haven’t then do it now! and also tagging @cosyblack k bc you’ve had a really good year even if i have beta bias 😂

this took waaay longer than i thought it would omg but it was nice to take a look back!!

#me a writer writing all of this: i’m not good with words

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ladyofpurple · 7 years ago

Note

GIRL ITS BEEN MONTHS SINCE YOU UPDATED TPOY!! please tell me you haven’t given up on it )-:

I KNOW IM REALLY SORRY OMG

This took a bit longer to answer than it should have because I was trying to figure out how to reply, I guess?? The short answer is basically that writing bits of fic during my exams when I didn’t actually have the time to was super productive, mainly because I Didn’t Want To Do The Thing but my entire future hinged on Doing The Thing and anxiety-driven avoidance is excellent creative fuel, apparently. The problem is, of course, that once I finished and started getting my results back and actually had time to breathe again my brain kinda fizzled out and I never wanted to look at a Word document ever again in my life. Writing is really hard right now, for some reason. And not just TPoy — everything I try to write either gives me a headache, makes every idea I’ve ever had go flying out the window like magic, or looks like absolute garbage to me. (I’ve been trying, though, I promise!!!) There is more TPoY, though!! I swear to God!! It’s just coming along a little slower than anticipated.

The long answer is... a little more complicated and probably more than you’re interested in, and the main reason is the short one anyway. But I’ll put a long answer under a cut just in case (aka the entire history of TPoY lol), since I’ve lowkey wanted to post about it for a while now but didn’t quite know how to? May get a little very personal, I suppose.

Basically, TPoY is and always has been a garbage fic. I don’t say that to disparage my own writing or attempt to elicit praise from anyone: I have always considered it a glorious dumpster fire of experimentation, a ridiculous Frankenstein’s monster of all my favorite ML tropes as a practice run, since it had been so long since attempting to write anything at all. I’m thrilled that people like it, of course! Whenever people send me asks about it my answers always involve a lot of exclamation points and variations on “I AM CURRENTLY SOBBING ON THE FLOOR IN GRATITUDE” because I honestly have no idea how to express how genuinely teary-eyed I get when someone tells me how much they like it, or post a comment. That being said, it was always intended for my own amusement and/or therapy, and that it’s gotten so many bookmarks and kudos and comments is incredibly surreal, even after a whole year.

When I started writing it, I was working through a lot of stuff. My first boyfriend had broken up with me, and as we lived together in his hometown I was stuck there on my own for another year before I could move back home. 2016 was filled with a lot of horrifying shit that kept happening one after the other and I eventually almost had to drop out of school because I couldn’t handle it all. The relationship was pretty toxic but all I knew at the time was that I was scared and alone and heartbroken.

When I started writing, it was after 8 months of the worst bout of depression I’ve ever experienced, and I still wasn’t well, but I functioned passably enough to start hyperfocusing on things. I had an idea about a fic I suddenly wanted to write, and it would have a happy ending and all, but I could work through my feelings in a way I hadn’t tried to since before my ex and I got together. I pulled a lot of the start of the fic (the rejection, the miscommunication, the avoidance) from my recent breakup, yes, but also from my first rejection, aka the only other boy I’d liked enough to confess my feelings to. We were 17, and he admitted that he knew, and then suddenly we weren’t friends anymore. A year and a half later, I got together with my ex, and suddenly after three years of dedicating my life to “us” on his whims he was ghosting me without explanation.

I see a lot of myself in Marinette at that age. The awkwardness, the enthusiasm, the incredibly obvious lovesick obsession with a cute boy who’s nice to you. I wondered if maybe she would react the same, if put into similar circumstances as I had been. Focus on the self-doubt that would follow, based on insecurities she’s already shown in the show — coupled with your standard teenage hormone-fest —and you’d have a fabulous starter for angstfic and a free therapy session all in one.

The problem with that is nobody knows this backstory but me. People focusing on Marinette’s insecurities is nothing new. Other people are annoyed it’s such a popular trope. And the fact that I’ve chosen to focus on certain aspects of the main characters’ identities for the purposes of a story I started on a whim has been making me insecure for a long time because people in the fandom are tired of those characterizations. I’ve never gotten hate comments —I don’t even remember ever getting constructive criticism on TPoY. But I’m well aware that the plot is far from original and definitely lacking in certain places, and as the comments roll in and the hits go up my anxiety mounts because oh my God I’m that guy in the fandom.

I always intended on focusing on different aspects of their characterizations in different fics to suit the plot, y’know? Not ignoring parts of their personalities, but just... emphasizing other parts. But TPoY is the one most people have read. I have a couple one-shots where I tried to do something like that, with different aspects of their characters, but short one-shots can’t really compare to a 100,000+ word WIP, even if they even slightly compared in popularity (they don’t). So my only notable contribution to the fandom is TPoY. And that makes me anxious.

Then there’s the Frankenstein-like obsession with adding every trope I’ve ever wanted to write in a fic like this. I’ve mentioned before that the original plan for this was, like, 10-15 chapters at most. But every chapter I write I’m like, “But what if I did this???” Like I said, I never intended it to be even remotely popular. The only other fandoms I’ve written for are microscopic in comparison. I had no frame of reference for a pairing this big — all my previous experience was from Fanfiction.net, for Christ’s sake. I assumed I wouldn’t finish it, and even getting to chapter 6 was a surprise. But that hyperfocus somehow held on for dear life and I was banging out chapters like nobody’s business. And people were responding to it. And I think that kind of went to my head a little? Not like in an “I deserve all this attention” kind of way, but more like a “People like?? This thing I’m doing??? I cannot squander this opportunity, I must give them m o r e” kind of way. It was the best I’d felt since the breakup and I didn’t really think I deserved it, so I kind of wanted to... prove I did, I guess, by writing everything I’d ever wanted in a lovesquare fic in hopes that people would keep liking it and me and I’d keep feeling nice. (I mean, I’d planned to add in a ridiculous amount of tropes anyway, I just ended up adding a lot more than I’d planned.)

On the one hand, people go nuts for that shit. On the other, it’s getting harder and harder to justify cramming all this shit into the same fic. This compulsion keeps fucking me over by giving me spur-of-the-moment ideas for sub-plots I never wanted and certainly didn’t properly think through before posting the foreshadowing or setup for — yet at the same time they’re usually thought of and integrated several chapters in advance so I can’t just... leave them out? And part of me kind of doesn’t want to?? And I’m trying with every fiber in my being not to rewrite just the first 3 chapters, let alone the entire fic. A side-effect of my FF.net history at 13 was Never Edit Anything. Yeah, I’ll do some spell-check. Maybe some rewording here and there. Sometimes I’ll post a chapter and come back sporadically over the next few days to change out some punctuation or whatever. But if I don’t like a section after writing for a while? Throw the Whole Ass Chapter out. After it’s posted? This Is Your Life Now.

let’s not talk about how everything after chapter 27 was supposed to go very differently

Never mind that, after writing a hundred thousand goddamn words in a year, one’s writing skill tends to evolve and increase over time. Not just in regards to vocabulary, but with consistency and pacing and structure. This means, of course, that I can’t ever reread my own writing without the Evil Writing Goblin in my brain telling me to start the whole thing over from scratch. It’s fine.

I suppose I could get a beta, but I’m very bad at taking critique and as I’m even worse at talking to people than I am at posting on time I don’t think that would work out very well.

The point of this goddamn novel is that TPoY means a lot to me, probably a lot more than people realize. It’s kinda dumb and very cheesy and absurdly long, but it was the first real thing I did for myself after my whole life fell apart. I will finish it!!

But it’s hard to write it right now. I’m trying— I’m writing four chapters at the same time right now (a bit less than 10,000 words combined at current count). I don’t want to try to rewrite the whole fic or keep “mischaracterizing” the characters or lose the suspense I’ve tried to build (or, God forbid, try to keep interest so hard it hurts the rest of the fic) and risk alienating readers. I can’t stress enough how much these supportive comments mean to me, even on something as silly as a fanfic. But I also don’t want to force myself to write it or write something just because other people might or might not like it and risk alienating me. So I’m stuck at a kind of anxiety-induced impasse with myself that’s just made worse by the fact that I’m having trouble writing anything at all at the moment.

Jesus Christ this was longer than I meant it to be. Please don’t take this as a pity-party or anything. I don’t want sympathy or, I don’t know, reassurance or anything, I just wanted everything to be Out There because it really is the most in-depth response I could give and y’all deserve an honest answer. Some of you guys have been reading since the beginning and I can’t express how much that means to me. I feel really bad when I haven’t updated in a long time, because I know my fic makes some people really happy!

And PLEASE don’t take this as a “STOP ASKING ME ABOUT TPOY GODDAMMIT” because this is the opposite of that. I FUCKING LOVE IT WHEN PEOPLE ASK ME ABOUT TPOY. I L I V E FOR IT. But it sucks when the only answer I have is “I don’t know when it’ll be up, sorry :( ”

I mean, that’ll probably still be the answer I give, unless I by some miraculous (heh) stroke of luck) start hyperfocusing on writing again.

But at least y’all kinda know why now.

#did someone call for Too Much Information??#BUT THANK YOU FOR YOUR MESSAGE I LOVE AND APPRECIATE YOU #I HOPE THAT ANSWERS YOUR QUESTION #[SEVERAL HEART EMOJIS]#tpoy fic #anon good nurse #Lady answers stuff

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outta-the-junkyard-angel · 7 years ago

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walt task 004 ;; interview with the player

Describe your character. How do you see your character in your own eyes and not based off the bio. How have you developed this character into your own?

I see Angel as a complex human being. There are so many sides to her, so many hidden traits that even after four years I still find myself learning new things about her. On one hand, she’s a street smart, independent woman who doesn’t need to rely on anybody else. She’ll figure things out on her own and isn’t afraid to defend herself however she has to. She’s confident in her ability to provide for herself even if the means aren’t necessarily legal. She’s a firecracker. On the other hand, she’s got a lot of insecurities and fears. There are still times in her life when she feels like she’s easily replaceable and that those who claim to care are just a snarky come-back away from leaving for good. There are days when she doesn’t feel good enough. When she’s ashamed of her background despite how strong it made her because she doesn’t have the same advantages as some of her friends. Angel is a sweetheart to those who make it past her walls, to those who dare to see her as more than just a pretty face and she’s incredibly loyal. It’s hard for her to let go of people because she knows how it feels to be let go of.

What’s your favorite thing about your character? What’s your least favorite?

My favorite thing about Angel is definitely her vulnerability. She does her best to hide it and probably only a handful of people have ever seen that side of her but it’s so honest and pure when she lets her walls down completely and opens up to those around her. Those threads always put me on an emotional roller coaster. My least favorite thing about her is probably…how stubborn she is. She does not let go, even when she should. Example. Brett. She knew she should have left a long time ago but unwilling to lose another person in her life, she chose to stick around. Angel had this idea that she needed him, that maybe he could change and that this was where she was meant to be.

What are some of your favorite relationships your character has formed?

Favorite relationships wow wow wow. Okay. So Angel has had five million interactions (that may be a slight exaggeration) and quite a few relationships that I’ve absolutely fallen in love with. I’m gonna start with some characters who are no longer here or maybe are played by different people now. First, we’ll start with Anne’s Dodger. MY BROTP man. Danger was the ultimate reckless friendship but they supported each other through everything, even when they were breaking stuff with bats. He was there for her through her break up with Eric and supported her throughout all of it. Elise’s Dodger is another relationship that I loved. He quickly became one of her best friends and he was one of the few people that have seen her vulnerable side. After years of pining over Scott, she realized that she needed to move on and Dodger was the first person who made her heart skip a beat again, who made her feel safe. Let’s just take a second to talk about JAMES P. SULLIVAN okay? The big brother she always wanted and never had. Their threads gave me LIFE. He was so understanding of all the things she did, and was always there to help pick up the pieces when her life was a mess. Eric. Eric, Eric. Eric. This man. My first OTP at Walt. This relationship, even though I consider it AU now, will always hold such a special place in my heart. He didn’t care where she came from. He didn’t care that she had nothing. She didn’t care that he had money. They loved each other for who they were and we put them through a lot of shit they didn’t deserve…but it was fun. I honestly do love hateships, okay and Jafar was one of the finest. Angel has not gotten along with a single Jafar this RP has had. Not a damn one and I love it. Jafar has always been able to get under her skin and rile her up. It’s amazing. Jafar is amazing. Peter Pan...that little psycho. I loved the messed up relationship they had. Like...Bia...I miss Peter. Come back to us. Come love us. Let’s finish this horrible game.

And now for the current people in her life: Brett. @junkyard-buster Oh my goodness. Brett. Buster. This man. I waited ten million years for somebody to pick him up and I am so glad that Bre did. He was the first man she ever loved and I think part of her is always going to care about him. Even now when she hates his guts, she wants him to see that there is a part of him that’s worth loving. She’s seen it but at the end of the day she hated being treated like a trophy. Scott fucking Lazzari, @s-lazzari ladies and gentlemen. She is so heart-eyed over this boy and it’s funny because she tries to play it off like she’s not. Angel would die for this goofball. She’d stand between him and Brett any day of the week. His arms are home and if something ever happens in the normal verse where she loses him, I honestly don’t know if/how she’ll recover. Now for my girls. Okay, Angel loves the fuck out of Alice @aliddellmimsy and so do I. Their friendship brings me life and I love these sassy blondes. They’re a dynamic duo and one of my all time favorite brotps. Merida Dunbroch. @redwaywardarcher These two never fail to find something to do and I feel like it probably always ends up with somebody getting punched or them running from the cops? They’re reckless, they’re hellions and Angel would fight anyone for Merida. Daphne. @d-blake Angel’s not into the whole clothing and make-up side of being a girl, but she thinks Daphne’s pretty cool.

Has your character changed you in any way? Or do you yourself in yourself in your character?

TW: MENTIONS OF ABUSE/NEGLECT, DRUGS, ALCOHOLISM. Read this next section with caution if you are easily triggered by these.

Angel has definitely changed me. Honestly, out of all my characters, Angel is the one that I connect most too. I was never a foster child and I never ran away from home, but my parents were both drug addicts and alcoholics. I was neglected and emotionally abused. I was told that I would never amount to anything, that I would end up alone. I was told that I did an okay job but here’s all the things I messed up. Reading her bio...that broken part of me connected with the broken part of Angel and I knew that I needed to be the one to tell her story. Along the way, I’ve learned a lot about her and a lot about myself. We hold on to people longer than we should just because the thought of living without them leaves a pit in our stomach. We pretend everything is fine when everything has spiraled out of control. We love others too much and ourselves not enough. Angel has taught me to be strong...to find the people who actually care and won’t run whenever my darkest side shows. She’s helped me come to terms with the fact that family isn’t always blood. And most importantly, she’s helped me see that even when I’m afraid that I should never be afraid to love.

Do you think your character has had a big impact on Walt? Is it a good impact or bad?

I would like to say she’s had a good impact. To see that others view her as this strong, badass woman really means a lot to the both of us.

Favorite thing your character has done and worst?

My favorite thing would probably be standing up to Brett. It needed to be done because they both needed closure. She needed to close the chapter on that part of her life in order for her to move one. Least favorite thing...Probably letting Scott go for the “space” he claimed he needed. She didn’t fight hard enough.

What is some progress you hope to have with your character in the future?

I’d really like to see her forgive her parents. Like, she claims she doesn’t care but she holds a lot of resentment and I’d really like to see her move past that.

What is one thing you would tell your character?

You are worth it. You don’t see that sometimes. You see yourselves as a placeholder in people’s lives but you aren’t. You deserve to have friendships. You deserve to be loved and to be in love. You deserve to be happy.

What has been your favorite thing about Walt?

Honestly how long I’ve been able to call this place a home. Overall, this place has been a safe place for me and reignited the spark I had for writing.

Has your experience been a positive one?

For the most part...yes. This place has been such a big part of my life. I’ve met some incredible people, shared incredible adventures, laughed so hard that I cried, and cried over threads that held intense emotions. Walt has brought some wonderful friendship into my world and I am beyond thankful. There are times, even recently that I’ve felt on the outskirts but overall, I love all of you dearly.

Got a favorite memory? Share it!

Um...is it bad if I say Brett showing up again? Cause damn that was some good drama.

What are you looking forward to in the future?

I want to see Walt thrive. I want to see it continue to grow and for each member to be welcomed with open arms. Zuley has put a lot of work into this place and so have I. I want Walt to be home for all those who apply.

Have you had a favorite event? Favorite plot?

This scream event omg. I also love Angel if future week.

Favorite Character that’s not your own and why?

I want to start this out by saying that everyone is going to get mentioned. I have seven characters and I split it up because I love all of y’all. So here we go.

@s-lazzari am I biased? Hell yes. But I love Scott with all my heart and SOUL. I love Lady & the Tramp 2. Scamp is one of my favorite characters. He wants to prove that he’s more than just a rich boy, that he’s tough even though underneath it he’s a goofball and a marshmallow.

@junkyard-buster again...biased af. Listen. Brett is a great villain okay. He is calculating and he knows what he wants and he’s not afraid to go after it. I love the development we see him go through in the future thread with Angel.

@voodookingfacilier He’s just so well written. Like...every time I read his replies I get the creeps and I love spooky things so that’s a-okay with me.

@zer0-de-luca I just wanna hug him. Like...honestly. He’s a cutie.

Ideas, shoutouts, requests, dedications, questions?

Again, the love is split up among several characters, so your time is coming, buttercups.

Zulema, where do I even hecking start. Of course I had to put you with Angel’s task because I owe you so much. Angel’s bio brought me to this place but it’s people like you who have kept me here. You have been such a blessing. Thank you for allowing me to text you all in caps because I’m excited about Kentonie or Scangel. Or even just freaking out about something on the dash. You are an incredibly gifted writer and your dedication to those you care about is amazing.

Arlene, GIIIIRL. I absolutely adore you and I hope you remember that always. Writing with you is such a pleasure and shipping with you is always guaranteed to cause me a hurricane of emotion. Getting to know you has been one of the highlights of my time here at Walt. A million hugs to you, lovely!

Jill, loml. you are so freaking talented it kills me. Your responses are spot on. Your characters are flawless and so are you. I am so glad to have had the honor of writing with you and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for Max and Rita, Noelle and Elara , Atlas and Kailey, and Noelle and Henry. I love youuuu!

Bea, you also belong on Angel’s because Angric. You were the first person I had a ship with once I took up RP on Tumblr. Prior to that, I’d only written with people I’d known for a while but the chemistry Angric was was unbelievable. Thank you for suffering with me on the roller coaster of emotions, even though you inflicted most of it (; I’m glad you’re back, boo.

#i'm emotional #watask

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thespacehairandthespaceidiot · 7 years ago

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I'm so excited you reblogged mattex fic!! I love mattex so much omg. Do you have any favorite fics?? I want to read more!!

Ok first off, I’m sorry it took me a couple days to respond to this. I’ve had things going on and then I had to ruminate on my answer for a bit.

Trust me, no one is more excited than me that I got the chance to reblog mattex fic again. I’ve got tons of favorites, but unfortunately, lots of them(not all) have been taken down and thus aren’t ones I can rec. I don’t know if you’re new to the scene or if you’ve been around forever, but unless you haven’t read much of anything at all yet, I probably can’t rec you much you aren’t familiar with. But I’ll do my best to share some of my favorites that ARE still up. (I’d say about half of these require being logged onto Ao3, so if you don’t have an account yet, I’d highly suggest opening one so you can read all the things. I don’t think the wait period to be accepted is long at all these days.)

Get Ready To Play by tisziny is an AU where Matt is the host of a children’s tv show who Alex starts seeing. I don’t really wanna go into more detail for fear of spoiling anything, but it’s an old favorite and it even has a very enjoyable sequel.

Every Hour Thy Heart Runs Wild by space-and-thyme is a haunted house AU where Matt is basically a ghost haunting Alex’s newly-purchased abandoned manor home. The beginning especially is pretty creepy, and though that certainly lightens up as the fic goes on, I wouldn’t recommend reading late at night. I did beta read the later half or so of this as it was being published, just to lay my cards on the table.

The waves have come to take you away by Amie33 (no tumblr, as far as I know) is a little random in that it involves Alex receiving news that Matt has died and has lots of feels angst, particularly in the first half. But needless to say, it doesn’t stay awful and depressing and it’s another I’ve always been fond of.

I’m just realizing now that all three of these fics are rated M and I don’t know if that’s your thing or not, but I’m really not the best person to ask if you’re looking to avoid smut altogether. In any case, I’m switching now from individual fics to writers, because the next few people are ones who just write all-around great mattex and who I can’t possibly come up with just one favorite for. So check these people out if you haven’t already and just go through all the things. (I’m linking directly to the mattex tags their on Ao3 profiles, but they all have doctor/river fics on there that are just as wonderful too).

hihoplastic (amillionmillionvoices here on tumblr) is the one who wrote the ficlets I reblogged which inspired this message you sent. She also just finished up a very old fic with a final four very satisfying chapters and has a number of other great fics I’m gonna be revisiting soon myself.

spoilersweetie (she used to have the same name on here, but it looks like she’s deleted her account???) has plenty of fabulousness to distract yourself with for a while. A few different fics of hers come up as most popular in the tag on ao3 and they really are. I was just saying recently I need to go back and reread some.

riversdamsel (same on here) has several really fabulous AUs, including an angels and demons fic, one where Matt stars alongside Alex in Moll Flanders, and a medieval-esque royalty/blacksmith fic, along with several oneshots I really need to revisit sometime.

And then, loathe as I am to be THAT PERSON, especially if you’re not a newbie to the mattexfic scene, in which case this is extra ridiculous, I’ve written a fair amount of mattex that’s been reasonably popular and you can find that, if you’re interested, under my same name on Ao3: TheSpaceHairAndTheSpaceIdiot. I’ve got one long amnesia fic and a bunch of shorter fics, thought plenty aren’t actually all that short at all, just less chapters. I’m going to resist complaining about my own writing, because I know I’ll just get messages and texts yelling at me for it tomorrow, but with so many of the fandom greats having taken their works down, I figured I should at least mention my own ::shrug::

#mattex #this is by no means an exhaustive list #i just have very little memory of what's actually still up on ao3 #since i mostly read from my own files since i downloaded everything before it all came down #and sorry to anyone i tagged who thinks this is weird or whatever or is otherwise annoyed by this #i was asked for recommendations and this is what i came up with #it's 3:30 in the morning as i'm posting this so i'm gonna try and reblog once or twice tomorrow just in case my anon needs help finding it #especially since it's been a couple days since the original message was sent #fic rec #OTP: My Wife #Anonymous #ask

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such-a-common-girl · 8 years ago

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“Irresistible” Chapter 5 Dean Winchester x Reader

Words: 2,886

Dean Winchester x Reader

Warnings: Language, smut, oral sex (fem. receiving), fluff, gun use, threats of being shot, angst

a/n: omg im sorry it took me forever to get this chapter out but ITS WORTH IT I PROMISE

ch. 1 ch. 2 ch. 3 ch. 4

“Oh my, fuck,” You moan out, tangling your hands in Dean’s hair as he moves his tongue up and down your clit.

“Dean, yes,” You start to roll your hips. Dean grabs on to your thighs to hold you down, flicking his tongue at a faster pace. You can feel the familiar heat rising up in your lower area, indicating that your orgasm is near. You bring your hand up to your breasts, playing with your nipple as Dean now enters two fingers inside of you as well.

The pleasure is almost too much to handle. He really knows what he is doing.

“I’m coming, oh god, yes,” You yell out, and release yourself over him. Dean gets up from between your thighs, a smile plastered on his face.

“I will never get tired of this.” Dean smirks, bringing himself up on top of you.

It’s only seven in the morning, but Dean recently has been waking you up more often than not quite pleasurably. Whether it be sex or him eating you out like you’re candy, mornings have proven to be amazing with this man.

Lately, Dean’s been staying at your house while he was in town, which was not very often anymore. He basically moved in- he even has a key to the house and extra clothes for when he stays over. He’s been extremely busy with work lately, so anytime he had at home, he spent it with you. Whether that be at your house, or out going on dates, you’re spending almost all of your time together.

You love him, you know this. Who couldn’t love this man? He’s perfect in every way possible. He’s treated you better than any man has ever treated you before. You know there are things about his past that he is keeping from you, but you know that it’s for a reason. Ever since that talk you two had a few months ago, you haven’t brought it up since. He’ll tell you whenever he is ready.

“Don’t go to work today.” Dean breathes out, lying down next to you in bed. His hand is playing with your hair, and his other hand was rubbing circles on your stomach.

“If I miss another day of work to stay at home and have sex with you, I think my boss will fire me.” You laugh. “She’s lenient, but not that much.”

“Baby, one more day and I won’t ask again. I have to leave tomorrow morning with Sam and I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, and I’ll have to stay at my house tonight since we’re leaving early. I’ll come over after you get off but that’s not nearly enough time to do to you what I want.” Dean whines.

“Why don’t you skip work this time, huh?” You tease, knowing very well that he can’t. “Actually be home for more than a week at a time.”

“Would if I could, but I’ve got people to save.” Dean smiles, kissing your forehead. “Vampires are nasty sons of bitches.”

“I’m sorry?” You give Dean a look, pulling away from him slightly.

Did he just say vampires?

“It was a joke.” Dean says quickly, panic spreading throughout his face. “Sometimes we, uh, we call criminal ‘vampires’. You know, because they normally only commit crimes at night. FBI lingo, sorry. Sometimes I forget you’re not… one of us.” A weak smile crosses his face.

“You agents are odd.” You laugh. “I’m still not calling in to work, though.”

“Damn.” Dean groans, and pulls you closer to him.

“I’m going to be late if I don’t get out of bed now. I need to shower still.” You say, but don’t make any effort to move yourself out of Dean’s grasp.

“I’ll only let you go if I can shower with you.”

“So, tell me about this man of yours. Dean, right?” Your coworker, another nurse named Amanda, asks you from across the nurse’s station. You two were both on your lunch break, and since she was the only other nurse you really talked to, you two usually spent yours together. You would even go as far as considering the two of you friends.

“Yeah, Dean. He’s great.” You admit, taking a bite of your sandwich. “He’s so sweet, Mandy. He brought me flowers the other day. He claimed he wasn’t the romantic type, but he’s surely contradicting himself.”

“I just think it’s the cutest thing ever that you’re his first actual girlfriend and he’s, what, thirty nine?” Amanda raises her eyebrows. “And by that picture you showed me of him, he’s a fuckin’ catch. You seemed to tie down the player, huh?”

“I suppose.” You shrug. “We’re not exactly official, I guess. He promised me that he’s not with any other girls, but that he just needed time. He’s got a lot of baggage, I guess.”

“You two have been seeing each other for almost six months now, and you aren’t official? And you haven’t met his brother or his friends? Or been to his house? Or know anything about his personal life?” She frowns. “That doesn’t make you nervous?”

“No, I trust him. He’s genuine, and he’s truthful. He told me how it was and was honest with me from the beginning, and assured me that he just needed time. I trust him.” You repeat. You’re not sure if you’re trying to convince Amanda or yourself.

“I wish I had the same amount of trust in my man as you do. If Chris was out constantly for work, days at a time, I’d surely be afraid that he was cheating on me.” Amanda sighs. “But I’m glad that you can trust him.”

You smile at her, choosing not to respond. The thought has crossed your mind, but like you said, you trust him. He wouldn’t lie to you, right?

You finish up your sandwich and throw your trash away just in time for your lunch break to be over. Only six more hours until you can see Dean. Seven couldn’t come soon enough.

“Good luck with your patient in thirty seven, he was an asshole to me the entire time you were on break.” Another nurse, Nia, says to you.

“Yeah, should’ve warned you, he’s-“

“EVERYONE PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR, RIGHT FUCKING NOW!” A man comes up to the desk, dressed in black and with a black ski mask covering his face, holding a handgun towards you three.

Fear instantly sinks into your chest, and your heart begins to race. Out of instinct, you reach your hand to the red “emergency” button on your desk that alerted security to come.

You raise your hands up in the air, backing away from the man. You feel like crying, you’re so afraid, but you refuse. You don’t want to show the man holding a gun at you that you’re afraid.

“Where is Johnathan Lee?” He screamed, shaking the gun and making you jump. “I know he’s a fucking patient here, where the fuck is he? If you don’t tell me, I will shoot you.”

“There is no Johnathan Lee here.” Your voice comes out shaky. You hope that he can’t tell that you’re lying. There was, in fact, a Johnathan Lee here. He was the patient that came in on a drug overdose. But you weren’t going to let him get shot. “He got transferred out of this unit yesterday.”

“You’re a fucking liar! I’m giving you one more chance to tell me before I shoot.” He cocks his head at you, and you begin to panic.

“I told you, he was transferred yesterday.”

A gunshot rung out in the air, and you swear you could feel it barely miss you. It hit the cabinet behind you, and you were right- it just barely missed you.

“Put the gun down!” A police officer yells. You look over to him, and an entire team of officers were coming in. The armed man pointed the gun towards the officers, and suddenly it was a standoff.

“Put the gun down, now.” Another officer says. “We know who you are. So just put down the gun, and no one is going to get hurt.”

After some thinking, the man puts down the gun. You breathe a sigh of relief, a weight lifted off your chest. You’ve never genuinely thought you might die before.

The officers immediately put the man in cuffs, and take him out. They question you some, but you’re too shaken up to remember any of the conversation. You remember that they vaguely told you something about more people coming in to ask you questions.

“You can go home, Y/N. You deserve it.” Your boss comes up to you, patting your shoulder and handing you a glass of water. “Amanda and Nia went home hours ago.”

“Police told me to stay here. Said people would be coming to ask me more questions.” You say, taking a drink of the water she gave you.

As if on que, a man and a woman wearing FBI uniforms come up to you and your boss. You instantly remember Dean, and are desperate to go home and see him. You need to see him right now.

“FBI.” They show you their badges. “Are you Y/N?”

“Yes.”

“Do you mind if we ask you some questions?”

They go through some questions, things you presumed were the standard ones they must ask. You gathered from them that the man who came in here was a drug dealer who had sold to the patient that he came in to kill. The patient apparently didn’t pay him, and he was coming after revenge.

“We’re sorry you had to experience this, Miss. Is there anyone we can call for you to come pick you up? It’s helpful to have loved ones around you after a traumatizing experience like this.” The male agent tells you, sympathy in his eyes.

“Um, yeah. My… My boyfriend works for the FBI? Out of the office downtown? His name is Dean Winchester, can you call him for me? I forgot my phone at home this morning.” You say shakily.

“Give me one minute.” The man nods, and walks down the hallway.

You stand beside your chair in silence, waiting for the agent to return. He looks over at you, and calls his partner over to him. You start to get worried, and you walk over there to him.

“Is something wrong?” You question.

“Are you sure your boyfriend works out of this office here?” The woman says.

“I’m positive.”

“Um… There is not a Dean Winchester that works at our office, ma’am. I just searched our entire list of employees and he is not listed for our city, or anywhere in Kansas for that matter.”

Your mouth goes dry.

“Look again.” You say after a few moments of silence.

“Ma’am, I looked twice already, he isn’t-“

“Look again.” You snap. The tears are already threatening to spill from your eyes, and this time, they might win.

You knew Dean was keeping things from you, that wasn’t a secret. But blatantly lying about his job? You can’t do this. Not today.

“He’s not listed.” The female agent says again.

“Thank you for your time.” You walk away from them, stomping over to the workers longue to grab your purse so you can leave.

As soon as you get into the room, you fall onto the floor and start crying. You can’t hold in it any longer. What has Dean told you that is the truth? Was it all a lie?

Tonight was the night.

It’s the night that Dean was finally going to make it official. He was going to ask you to be his, one hundred percent. You would officially be his girlfriend.

He wasn’t ready to tell you the full truth yet- no. Not because he doesn’t want to tell you (okay, maybe he doesn’t- it does make him look utterly psycho if you were to not believe him), but because you weren’t ready for that. He was doing it for your own good.

But a relationship? Fuck, Dean wanted that with you so badly. He tried to put this off as long as possible, trying to convince himself that it wouldn’t work. That he can’t do this with you. But the more time he’s spending with you, the more he realizes how much he cares for you. It was only this morning that Dean realized that he loved you. When he genuinely wanted to spend the entire day with you, and not just for sex (although that was in the plan as well.) He knew that his feelings were growing stronger by the day for you, but that confirmed it for him. He loves you.

He was going to tell you that tonight, too.

Dean has it all set out. He was going to take you out to the diner that he had taken you to on your first date, even order the same thing. Then he was going to take you back to your house and watch The Walking Dead with you, because he knows how much you love that show and you’re always trying to get him to watch it with you.

He didn’t exactly have a set time for when he was going to tell you he loved you, but he figured it would come out at some point during the night.

Dean loves you, and he’ll do anything to show that to you.

“Of course she forgot her phone here.” Dean rolls his eyes as he walks into your house, seeing you weren’t home yet. “I hope she gets here soon.”

You have no idea how you got home without getting into a car accident.

Your mind was running wild, and tears were clouding your vision. You weren’t paying attention to the road one bit.

“Fuck.” You curse when you see Dean’s impala in your driveway. He was the last person you wanted to see right now. You had already called your sister to see if she could come stay with you for a while, or vice versa- you just wanted to get away from everything for a while.

You park your car, getting out and walking to your door. You walk inside to see Dean playing with your dog, acting like everything is good in the world.

“Hey- woah, what’s wrong?” Dean gets up, rushing over to you.

“I had an… interesting day at work.” You fake smile at him.

“Bad?”

“We’ll get to that later. I wanna hear about your day at work. What’d you do?” You ask him, and he’s obviously startled by the question. Asking him about his job was typically off limits, since everything he did was ‘top secret’ and he could get fired if he told anyone, or at least that’s what he told you.

“It was a pretty slow day, just did some paperwork. Nothing much.” Dean says slowly. “You’re freaking me out, tell me what’s wrong.”

“So, nothing happen today, huh? No bad guys to catch?”

“Like I said, it was a slow day. Everyone stayed around the office for the most part.”

“Hm. Interesting.” You say, setting your purse down on the floor and walking past him. “Let me tell you about my day at work. It was going great, until a man came in and shot at me.”

“What the fuck-“

“Let me finish.” You snap. “He missed. Obviously. The FBI came in to question me, though. Wanna know what I learned from them? That you’re not an agent! How fucking weird is that?”

“Y/N, I can explain-“

“Oh, I would love to hear this explanation.” You snort. “Let me guess- it’s complicated? I wouldn’t understand? You have a lot of baggage? Well, here’s the thing- I’m over that. I’m tired of the secrecy, and apparently, the lies as well! I fucking love you, you know that? I thought you might love me too, but you obviously don’t.”

“No, no, no, Y/N, I love you, too. So goddamn much. Please just let me-“

“Tell me everything. Now. Or I’m done.”

“I can’t, fuck, Y/N, please just trust me…”

“You lost your trust. So, if you’re not going to tell me, get out of my fucking house.”

Dean looks at you, hurt filling his eyes. You’re hurt, too. You want to just burst out crying, you love Dean so much. Ever since you first met him. But you can’t do this, not unless you get the truth from him.

He just shakes his head and walks out the door, slamming it behind him. You fall to your knees in front of the door, letting the tears fall out once more. He left. He chose his secrets and lies over you.

But little did you know, Dean was still at the other side of the door, tears falling down his face, too.

Ch. 6

a/n: ok ok ok ok ok ok please don’t hate me I promise it will get better like omfg im sorry but i promise!

TAG LIST: @maximoffangel-girl @captainradicalpassion @enyacascade @maybe-a-winchester @i-just-wanna-live-gc

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scenarios-on-ice · 8 years ago

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You must have infinite regeneration powers :D So cool. And WELCOME BACK! <3333 I’m glad to hear you had fun in Japan! and awww, I’m sorry to hear that school’s giving you a hard time (again)! :( *hugs*

For me, I am/was a homeschooler and I just finished the required exam to be considered a high school graduate so I’m basically done with studying for now….

Are they? *blinks innocently* I wasn’t aware!

(If you’re talking about Agni

“WHY DO YOU HAVE TO SAY GOODBYE”

“If I say goodbye, the plot will learn to move on…it outlives me when I’m gone”)

If Isayama actually manages to save the plot with a big revelation about how everything is (once again) connected I’ll be fine, but I really do think it would have been best to leave the worldbuilding at the whole Marleyan/Eldian thing. Personally, I feel like that was just the right amount of complicated to make readers go ‘ooooh so THAT’S what was going on all along I can’t believe I didn’t think of that’. It would have been nice to get some answers and maybe some more character development for the TItan Trio and Zeke instead of all the confusion going on right now (though I do have to admit that I like the new characters. And Reiner’s flashback to his days as a soldier in the recent chapter hurt my feels really badly).

OMG you’re actually going to do it Luna-senpai I bow down to you

I’m not even sure what to say so thank you??? So much???

True, I was thinking that as well since the anime kinda misses out on a lot of stuff and therefore has less usable scenes. And here, my evil side is showing again: ‘Let’s go home’ could definitely fit with ‘it take and it takes and it takes’ but, how about with 'If there’s a reason I’m still alive when so many have died’?

Feel free to make a shorter version or something if it’s stressing you out too much, though! And of course, I’m always happy to talk about this/help find the right panels! :D

To be a bit more clear, Rize isn’t actually pregnant so that’s something (do you think she would have ALLOWED herself to be impregnated if she could help it?). Her kakuhou’s just kinda being used again to create a new, more powerful generation of mini-quinx that are basically the new Kaneki Kens. Yeah. And Furuta refers to them as her 'children’

Here, I’ll explain that if you want:

Remember how we talked about Mutsuki being decidedly not-fine? Well, they completely snapped in recent chapters. It’s been revealed that they had a romantic interest in Sasaki (understandable, since he was the first person who was ever genuinely kind to them) and was extremely jealous/hurt by his behavior when he first met Touka at Re(the cafe). Though they were able to keep their feeilngs in check, after Torso’s torture things got worse and after Sasaki/Kaneki just up and left, Mutsuki kind of went yandere.

There’s a scene with them repeatedly stabbing someone disguised as Sasaki while declaring 'won’t kill, won’t kill, he’s mine’. Then they tell Aura (one of the new members of the Q squad who is bent on murdering Kaneki as revenge for his aunt, who ended up badly injured when Kaneki and his friends broke out of Cochlea)- “Let’s kill him together.” I suppose they resent Kaneki for leaving?

And you know, Kaneki’s group GOAT is all over the news now…Mutsuki finally got a clue where he is.

That 'sensei’ scene is trouble for both Kaneki and Touka.

In case you don’t remember, Takeomi and Yoriko got engaged, right? And Yoriko asked Takeomi to help her find a friend of hers (Touka) who disappeared years ago during the Anteiku raid. In a recent chapter, Takeomi ran into Mutsuki while holding the only picture of Touka Yoriko had and Mutsuki asked for the picture, claiming that they knew this person.

So. Well. Mutsuki’s probably going to go beserk if they get their hands on Touka. And they’ve already got their hands on Kaneki.

I kinda want to scream right now.

As for the 'virgin’ scene, Touken is now officially a thing! That question is followed by Touka and Kaneki finally talking about their feelings like sensible people instead of raging and angsting at each other, and then Touka’s like “When the time is right, I’ll let you do it with me.” 0////0

I’m not really sure how to feel about this though. I always thought Touken was going to become canon so I’m not surprised, but I kinda wish it didn’t in a way as well? Though I see how it works I’m not overly fond of it because it’s a really, really cliche formula in anime and manga: tough girl who becomes softer through her affection for main guy, tough girl whose character development is directly linked to main guy in a way that makes her more emotional and more traditionally feminine. The most 'popular’ examples of this could be the Winry/Ed dynamic from FMA and the Eren/Mikasa relationship from AoT and they’re not the only ones; this is just a really popular trope in shounen manga. Admittedly Winry/Ed seems to be a well-done version of it from what I’ve seen, while Mikasa/Eren puts some interesting twists on it and Touken is a more realistic portrayal, but it’s still a cliche that I get tired of seeing.

I also feel like Touken could have done with a bit more development in recent chapters. They’ve been apart for so long and haven’t had that many significant interactions until this whole 'are you a virgin’ convo (which was feelsy and good but a little more buildup would have been nice).

Whatever, I’m still going to be mad if Mutsuki manages to hurt Touka.

Whoops, almost spoiled something again! Not gonna do it, though. Well, the next few weeks will be pretty good, so I’m happy about that! And I’m not sure if I wrote this in the last message (but I’m too lazy to go and check), so I’m gonna (potentially) write it again: The perfect way to describe me during the flight back is using a line from ‘Farmer Refuted’. If you repeat yourself again, I’m gonna scream. Only without the If you repeat yourself again part. It. Was. Horrible. And shaky.

Oh, that’s pretty interesting! And yeah, you did mention being quite the genius. You’re like Hiro from Big Hero 6 hahah

... Sure you weren’t aware.

Oh yeah, it’s about Agni. Why couldn’t plot armour save him???? HNNNNNNNGH

Well, at this point I’m too confused with the manga to like anything. He should’ve left it at the basic plot and not evolve it into the mess of plots it is now. (Fun fact: this was originally worded a lot more harshly) I think he’s slowly losing readers by doing this. If they don’t quite understand what’s going on anymore, they give up. How do I know? CAUSE I’M ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE DAMMIT Like I said, Armin is what keeps me going.

I think I’m gonna try to make a shorter version of the song, but I’m not sure how it’ll turn out. I also have 0 idea how long it’ll take (but it’ll be a while before it’s done)). Ah, that’s a good idea for the lets go home scene! Well, either that or ‘I’m afraid I wouldn’t remember their names’

Oh good, she isn’t pregnant. I was scared ;-; BUT THE OTHER OPTION ISNT MUCH BETTER; IS IT NOW Well, sure, Rize wouldn’t allow herself that, but if she’s starving/drugged, then I guess... THIS IS GETTING TOO DARK

You want to scream and I’m going to scream. Just. I give up. No. Why.

Oh, Touken is canon? Cool! I can’t say I ship it, but it’s really nice something became canon. But did Touka seriously doubt Kaneki being a virgin? Kaneki, the biggest nerd on the entire planet? Oh yeah, he’s totally a fuckboy, there isn’t a girl in town who hasn’t slept with him, pffft

Well, I guess cliches are nice every once in a while ^^

As for Boku no Hero Academia... I’ve binged the manga and it turns out it does get very, very dark. Not AoT or TG level dark (what kind of monster would do that?), but quite dark, so you might enjoy it ^^

#evans #tokyo ghoul anon #submission

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