#I'm super curious if things have changed for those young people they have these days

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

From a pr perspective, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. A big group of swifties (that are very pro Matty and anti Joe) now think based on Easter eggs and such, that Taylor and Joe broke up last year. Iirc, probably summer 2022. To them Midnights now reads as a breakup album and they held off from announcing the break up until after tour started so then she can publicly be seen with Matty who she started dating around Fall 2022. All this to say that Matty has been there for her and actually wants to marry her (based on the new song) and Joe is very much villian number 1 (their words not mine). But as an outsider looking at that timeline, that means she was dating him while he did the nazi salute, the comments towards ice spice, and the abusive to black women porn comments. If I go by that timeline, then it seems like the ice spice collab looks very suspicious. And it seems like Taylor is very much okay with having a racist bf her fans are very split on liking.

Oh anon - you've started this 'from a PR perspective' - but none of this is about PR - it's all about fan perceptions and fan storytelling. I find the way that fans distance themselves from what they're actually discussing and feeling by pretending they're taking about PR, really noticeable - and it's not something that I'm prepared to go along with. But I will share some thoughts about various points you raise.

I find the the phrase 'it seems like Taylor is very much okay with having a racist bf her fans are very split on liking' terrifying. Because it really does suggest that Taylor should care about her fans views of her boyfriend - and that is really, really fucked up. I think it's very emotionally healthy of Taylor not to give a fuck what any of her fans think about he boyfriend. It's also reasonably obvious that Taylor is very much ok with Matty Healy being her bf and so she's OK with Matty Healy being the person he is.

As for the fan theory that they've been together a while - I hadn't seen it, but I also don't think it's very important or very likely to be true. When Joe and Taylor broke up, I wondered if it had been planned for a long time, because she had that weekend off and it seemed the album so reflected what she said. But she wouldn't be the first artist to write a break up album before she'd broken up. The idea that she must have broken up before recording Midnights suggests that she needs to have resolved aspects of her life before writing about them. Given that she embodied the song bejewelled at the London concert which definitely happened after the album came out - I think it's pretty obvious that with Midnights she was writing about unresolved issues in her life, and they continued to play out over the next year.

Which is all to say that people can tell whatever stories they like, but I have very little time for questions that are basically 'If this completely fictional scenario is true, how should we judge all involved'.

[gffa]

Hiiii :D I was just wondering, do you have any good Marvel fic reccomendations? Your massive list of star wars fics is like the no.1 thing I go to when im in a star wars mood, and all of them have been amazing, so thanks so much for that!! I'm just curious if you have any good Marvel fic recs?? If not that's fine lol, thank you for your service 🙏

Hi! Lol, I had to sit with this post for a few days because "Marvel fic" is such a wide range of possibilities, like are we talking the comics or the live action shows? The Avengers movies? The X-Men movies? Which section of those fandoms? Avengers as a team? Captain America? Thor? Iron Man? Daredevil? X-Men: First Class? Just... anything? I don't actually have a lot of comics fic recommendations (mostly because it's too hard to wade through all the movie stuff because so many people cross-tag into the comics tags despite it not being comic fic that those tags are now useless), but my go-to for Marvel comics are always: ✦ Betrayal + Paradox Law + The Game of Empires by Valerie J It's hard to describe this series, other than that about ~15 years ago, it was an ambitious attempt at taking various elements of the X-Men comics and weaving them into a coherent whole, focusing on giving Remy an epic backstory to explain his origins and his powers. It probably wouldn't really fit with more recent comics, but if you're a fan of late '90s/early '00s X-Men comics, this was a hell of a ride with cool powers, surprising family twists, time travel, fun relationships, and incredible ramp ups to tense situations that explode in the best way. ✦ The Gestalt Arc by Lori McDonald Another old school fic centered around the Remy/Rogue relationship and taking them on an epic journey, in an alternate version of what happened after their kiss in X-Men #41. The ups and downs of how they work out their issues, the lives they try to lead with each other, finding their path forward together, it's still one of my favorites for the era. ✦ Anything by Traincat for the Young Avengers My favorite is grab a blanket, brother, but they're an author that I'd write a blanket rec for, if any of the summaries sound relevant to your interests! They also write Peter Parker/Johnny Storm, which isn't my area of comics, but I'd trust them with it! But primarily I'd route you to them for their super fun Young Avengers stories, the Teddy/Billy and Eli/Kate ones especially. ✦ Anything by silverspidertm2, X-parrot, takadainmate, or Mythtaken Identity for Journey into Mystery and Loki: Agent of Asgard-era fic. This is when I was in my prime era of reading Thor comic-centric fic, around Journey into Mystery and Loki: Agent of Asgard, when he was Kid Loki and then Teen Loki. There was a lot really fun worldbuilding or road trips or just feelings explosions fic from this era. Beyond that, my bookmarks are a bit of a mess, but you can scroll through them to see what you're looking for. My primary fandoms were: ✦ Daredevil TV, where I went in hard on Matt/Foggy (and some Matt/Foggy/Karen and Frank/Karen and a little Matt/Elektra), where I read voraciously for about a year before MCU burnout hit. Some faves are Double Blind by smilebackwards and Something Dumb to Do by poisonivory and jump, check parachute augustbird.

✦ Thor (MCU), which is actually the heart of who I was as an MCU fan, I spent a long time there reading a lot of fic and this will take you to my bookmarks with the pairings filtered out. I was a big fan of Thor & Loki's relationship so that's most of what's in there, and I always suggest starting with these three fics: ✦ Bargaining by proantagonist, thor & loki & odin & frigga & cast, time travel, 108.9k Faced with an eternity without his brother, Loki strikes a bargain to change the past. Post TDW. ✦ No Such Liberty by Xparrot, thor & loki & cast, 147.3k The first thing Loki said, after he had swiped his tongue over his lips to wet them, was, "You shouldn't trust me." ~ Following the attack on New York, Thor takes Loki back to Asgard in chains; but this does not mean that the god of mischief's schemes are ended, or that Thor has or ever will give up on his brother. But when Thanos threatens the realm to claim his lost prizes, on which side will Loki fall? [post-Avengers fix it] ✦ The Lullaby Singer by TheOtherOdinson, thor & loki & odin & frigga, 85k wip Odin hasn't left Asgard in over a thousand years. When he finds out Loki is still alive and preparing to launch an attack on Midgard, he could send Thor to stop him. Or Odin could go himself. As a bonus, I have a few more Thor genfic recs here.

✦ Captain America (MCU), where sure I liked some gen fic but lbr I was there for the Stucky. I mostly read during the height of the post-TWS fervor and then tapered off a lot after that (given how hard they swerved away from their relationship) and I haven't read almost anything in the fandom since Endgame, but if you want some fun TWS-era fic, I put together this list recently. (To be fair, I also liked a lot of Steve &/ Natasha, Bucky &/ Natasha and Sam/Natasha, so you can find that in there, too.)

✦ Iron Man (MCU), where I liked a mix of some fun gen pieces and some Tony/Pepper which put me in the minority, but I don't care because there were some banger authors for both. If you're interested in them, I always liked pretty much anything I read by roboticonography. icarus_chained wrote a wider variety of stuff, but I've always liked anything I've read from them as well.

✦ Avengers (MCU), where I read a lot of fic, but it's kind of all mixed in together, even some sprinkled in Black Panther fic, some Spideypool that was super fun for a hot minute, some Guardians of the Galaxy characters showing up, etc. Step carefully if you're not interested in pairings (I read a fair amount of Tony/Loki and Steve/Loki in amongst the other stuff), but honestly by the end I was probably reading more gen than anything.

✦ X-Men: First Class-verse, which is my exception to not reading much for the live action versions of the X-Men, because I am a long time Pietro Maximoff fan and while Peter wasn't my Pietro, I did love him and there was some absolute banger fic for the Dadneto trope, which was where my heart was at. Come Together by blarfkey is absolutely the first place to start!

Hopefully this is what you were looking for, but if you have further refinements on what you're interested in, let me know and I'll try to give some pointers! I've been out of reading Marvel for awhile, but I have a huge backlog from when I was in it, at least. 😂

[happytaffeta]

Not going to reblog the post because I respect and agree with the op and I don't wanna write a fucking essay about my feelings on their post, but I finally stumbled across a photo of the calf and I haven't had a great afternoon, and i haven't had a great week. So uh. Here's your warning: Animal husbandry is important to me. I grew up in a rural area and I, and every kid I knew, and all my neighbors, kept various animals and a lot of them were livestock. I never kept cattle but I knew kids who did. I am going to be sad and angry below the cut, and I'm putting it below a cut because it's gonna be a bit long and maybe not super articulate, and definitely not always as kind as I maybe could be. I don't expect to change the minds of people who think that what's happening to that poor thing is okay. But I need to get some thoughts out.

I kept rabbits, goats, chickens. Mom had(still has) horses. we had cats and dogs and occasionally would capture reptiles and amphibians, look at them for a bit in a secure container, and then release them in a safer location where they wouldn't get hit by a tire or spotted as easily by the dog, or my kid brother(gentle, but young, so both clumsy and curious) or the rowdy neighbor boys(less gentle, just as young). You breed livestock, even on a small, 4-H kid, backyard scale, you end up on a first name basis with death. Wildlife happens. Sometimes there's a nasty outbreak of something and it hits half your flock. Sometimes there's stress from a hot summer day or general social group aggression. There are ways to avoid a lot of things but when you're a first time keeper of a given animal type trying to start a little show flock, or a nice little herd for your project book, no matter how much you read up first, there are things you learn by running up against the reaper. Some eggs never hatch. Some kids are stillborn. A first time mother gives birth on the wire instead of in the nest box. Now and then there's an invisible but fatal physical defect that kills a critter later. My first doe kid died a week and a half after I brought her home, heart defect. No one knew. She was weaned and everything, cause I didn't bring her home until after she was full time eating solid food.

This calf is not going to be okay, ever. This is a blue eyed white foal kind of situation, except those are pretty avoidable for the most part. You cannot save these babies, and trying only adds more pain to an inevitably early death. Trying makes you into the monster, it makes you be the one causing pain. This is an infant who is never going to be able to understand why the world consists of suffering, and there is no way for us to explain it, and there is no way to make it stop that is not death. This isn't a life to save. This is not someone who can consent to life-extending medical intervention. This is a creature who needs as gentle and quick a farewell as we have the power to give. Please don't do things like this. Please don't make us into monsters. Please, let the suffering baby beasties go.

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

Hey, how are you doing? How was coming back to work?

If I can be curious, let me ask you this super hard (or maybe simple, it depends), question: who's your favorite character and why? Also, which one do you find the most easy to understand/write?

Have a nice day my friend, cheers 😊

@dolceaspidenera hi! I'm so happy to hear from you! ^.^

And ooh, those are good questions. I won't answer them completely, but I will give you honest answers ^.^ I apologize in advance for what turned into a character analysis mini-essay XD

I do have a favorite character of the M6, but I prefer not to write like it on this blog. I think it's awesome when fan creators focus on their favorite characters - it means that everything they make is done out of love! - and it's almost something you'd expect in a dating sim fandom when you have to choose one specific character to experience most of the story with. I initially chose not to do that just because I genuinely enjoy writing for connections with all of the M6, even if there's very few that I would want a specifically romantic connection with. Every single one of them are characters that I'd be happy to get to know, as a lover, or an honorary sibling, or a close friend.

The longer I write like that, the happier I am that I do. It means I've explored aspects of the world of the Arcana that I wouldn't have initially been invested in, but that have contributed so much to the story! It also means that I get to chat with people who have so many different perspectives on the game because of their own preferences, and I've learned a lot from them!

As to who is more or less easy to write - that changes based on the prompt. For example, prompts that reference pre-prologue Vesuvia are a lot harder to write with Portia, simply because she didn't arrive there until after Lucio's "death" and because the game doesn't really delve into the life she's had there since. And the hardest prompts for me to write in general are for MC with specific familiars, only because those are characters I haven't read about XD

There are also themes I wish I could explore more, sometimes, for all the M6, but doing so would require so much speculation that it would be hard to keep the headcanons feeling "canon." Julian's life before Vesuvia, for example - he's been knocking all around the world since his teens, and of the two or so decades that that comprises, he's only spent a few years of that in Vesuvia. He glamorizes his adventures when he talks about them, but nobody in their late teens acts as a medic on a battlefield for their apprenticeship without taking away some kind of baggage. When does he break down without dramatics or smokescreens? When does he learn to talk about a painful past without trying to redirect his hurt into drama? When does he learn the healthy kind of selfishness that lets him be completely honest?

Asra's so emotionally private it's hard to get a read on them sometimes. We know they're deeply in love with MC and that that's been a shaping influence on them for the last nine years - but what else? There's so much about him that aches to be known, which he frequently tells MC in his route, but he still treats his relationship with them like it's fragile and new. What happens when things are more settled and they know MC isn't at constant risk of falling apart? Did they ever feel betrayed by MC for not leaving Vesuvia with them? Did they ever feel resentful of MC for causing that much relational pain, or at the very least, for holding them in a full-time caregiving role for three years? When does he learn to depend on them to the point of exposing them to his own ugly thoughts and feelings?

Nadia, for all of her capacity, is still very emotionally young. She's just beginning to process her feelings regarding her own family, which stem from her childhood and were never addressed directly until they were invited to the Masquerade. She has a deep-seated lack of faith in her own strengths, which MC has had the chance to help her overcome, but that attitude has been affecting her perception of other people's opinions of her for most of her life. At what point does she learn how to interpret someone's concern for her as something other than belittlement? At what point does she learn how to recognize and apologize for her own mistakes in a relationship without experiencing it as self-rejection? At what point does she learn to recognize someone else's strength without comparing it to her own and feeling challenged if she doesn't measure up?

Muriel's especially hard to predict physically. He has a whole host of reasons to feel the way he does about his body in relation to himself and others. It could be easy to say that, as he heals in his relationship with MC, he learns to enjoy and seek out physical pleasure as he overcomes trauma (in multiple ways, like food, and comfort, and intimacy). But when it does come to physical intimacy, Muriel is so easily read as demi/asexual that his interest in that aspect of a relationship doesn't really act as a good benchmark for healing. Maybe his aversion to touch is only trauma-related, and underneath that gruffness is a pent-up, touch-starved lover. Maybe he stays consistently disinterested in that kind of physical pleasure, simply because that's the way he is - and there is nothing wrong with that. But we don't know how that progresses.

So much of Portia's life is missing. We don't know much of what her life was like before she came to Vesuvia after Lucio's "death", and we honestly don't know much of what it was like after. We know that she's friends with all the palace employees and that she has a close connection with Nadia, and that's it. It's hard to know how she fits into a post-canon community because she remains so detached from the other M5 throughout her story. Most of what we know of her life with MC afterwards is that she spends a lot of it on a ship. She's the kind of person who thrives in building and maintaining community, and yet we have so few clues about what that looks like. Does she become like family with the sailors, assuming that the ship keeps the same crew? Does her new status give her a peer-based relationship with Nadia? Does she try to keep Julian in her life, or do they drift apart again? Does she eventually create a new home base in a different country?

And, well, I've already a written a whole character analysis of Lucio. We know that he's determined to become an honest man, but we don't know how that plays out. Does he get tired? Does he find a stopping point at "morally gray"? Does he stick it out and become one of the most emotionally healthy characters? Does he ever settle down somewhere else and build a life there? Does he stay in touch, or reconnect with anyone from Vesuvia and build a new friendship with them?

Anyways, those are some of the rabbit trails I let my brain loose on sometimes, and those are a lot of the character aspects I have a harder time writing for because it's so open-ended. Maybe another creator will read this and have answers I don't yet XD

Thanks for your questions, friend, I hope you don't mind my mini-essay!

brainrot

[olderthannetfic]

I don't mean for this to come off as old man yells at cloud, I'm genuinely just curious for your and your followers' thoughts.

When I was a young person in fandom spaces, there very much seemed to be a culture of learning from older fans how to behave in said spaces -- to the point that often younger fans would pretend to be a few years older than they really were, even if only to feel that they were truly amongst peers. Between puriteens, antis, etc. it really feels lately like that's been flipped on its head.

Obviously this is a sweeping generalization and maybe it's just my particular fandoms and yes, maybe I'm just projecting because I'm getting older, but being an older fan seems to garner the reaction of what are you doing here from a bunch of 16 year olds more than anything these days. There's also a particular sense in the Marauders fandom that young people invented the fandom, which is patently untrue because uh, I've been here since before most of you were born?

That last part was a bit of a digression. We were all kids once, too, but I never thought I invented fandom. Again, I'm just curious about people's thoughts on this phenomenon, as well as what everyone thinks the responsibility and ethics of older fans in fandom spaces are when engaging with younger fans in general.

--

It's an effect of mainstreaming.

There are simply exponentially more n00bs than there used to be.

Plus, there's a ton of context collapse where people who are equivalently old in fandom but from completely different parts suddenly smack into each other and each think the other is a n00b who doesn't understand how things should be done.

I think the responsibility is a boot up the ass to anybody who deserves it, just like it always was. AO3 and other such spaces are default adult. People can act like it or they can suffer the consequences.

Also, let's be real, 99% of the "Ew, you're Too Old! This place is for teens!" types are about to graduate college and are actually having a crisis about their own age. Plenty of actual teenagers continue to try to seem Super Mature in all the hilarious and self-important ways we did back in the day.

As for ethics... Don't do sexy roleplay with underage people. That's about it. I think we owe other fans and community members basic respect and so forth, but it doesn't vary with age.

As for Marauders fandom... 1. LOL, these dumb children! 2. Start a blog that recs old shit or that posts "Today in Marauders fandom", but it's November 29th 2005 or something. Plenty of The Youth™ will be all over that.

Honestly, there are plenty of young-ish people hanging around my own tumblr, and it's not like I'm kind about childish babies. It's just that plenty of young people are also tired of childish babies: tired of being lumped in with people ten years older and half as mature and/or tired of their actual peers when it seems to them that those peers genuinely are all antis. Lots of people like history if it's presented like fun knowledge and not just "nothing is ever allowed to change" poisonous nostalgia.

For real, start an oldschool Marauders fandom blog.

[kynamo]

hello!! i just wanted to ask a few questions if that's fine

1) ur style is amazing!! i enjoy how soft it all looks - its not a question just wanted to say that

2) why do you like bkdk? not trying to be rude or anything! i'm really curious is all

3) what brushes/programs do you use, i've been curious about it for a while now

Whoa my first ask!

thank you so much!!! I'm glad you enjoy my style so much, it makes me happy to see people enjoy my art

I'll answer your third question first as that will be a much shorter response HA; I use Clip Studio Paint, as for my brushes I use all sorts of brushes that I've downloaded from the shop. But the brushes I've been using the most lately is one called 6B Pen! the content ID is: 1995920 if that helps :)

as for your second question... this will be a lengthy response! and a bit of spoilers too the further I talk (1.2k words! goddamn)

I've honestly loved both Deku and Bakugo since the beginning! Their dynamic is one of the most interesting dynamics I've seen in a while personally. I was really into MHA back in 2016-2017 (my irls that knew me then will know this as a fact) and I was a HUGE Deku fan. I remember when the panels of Bakugo getting kidnapped happened and that was WILD. I knew since the beginning that these two were not gonna just disappear from each other's lives, they were connected to each other.

Witnessing Bakugo's development made me root for him and love him. A lot of people want him to change his entire personality which doesn't make sense to me, like he wouldn't be Bakugo without the attitude. He's a flawed character who has changed for the better. I'm honestly glad it took him a while to apologize. You actually got to see the progression of him realizing that he fucked up and is genuinely sorry for what he’s done. If it had been done any sooner the apology wouldn’t have been as impactful. He wouldn’t have been as genuine otherwise. That’s HIGHLY important to him as a character. There’s so much I can say about him as a character as there’s quite a lot of depth to him that I heavily enjoy!

I’ll leave Bakugo with one final thing as I’ve said so much already gejdndn but!! I think one of the major things some people struggle with when it comes to change is that change doesn’t always mean changing every aspect of yourself. Changing every part of yourself can sometimes make you feel lost or like an impostor in your own skin. I think it’s important for Bakugo’s character to have the development to understand he isn’t invincible, that he can lose, he’s made mistakes and has been trying to make up for it, and it’s okay to feel. It’s okay to feel but you can no longer bottle it up like once before. Those days are over. But that doesn’t mean he has to change the core part of himself. He’s learned his own way of what it means to be a hero.

Yeah Bakugo is loud! He’s proud! He’s witty! He’s able to adapt to situations and he’s quick to think about what he needs to do to reach absolute victory! He’s learned the lesson that he doesn’t have to be nice, but he needs to be kind. Those are two very different things. He’s never gonna stop swearing and being a bit of a menace but you know you always got someone in your corner when you need it with him.

Deku to me is also an incredibly interesting character. In the beginning he wasn’t super confident about himself, he had to play catch-up to all of his peers when they’ve had their quirks since they were 4! That means he had to work harder, be smarter, to be adaptable as he wasn’t able to use OFA to its full potential. While everyone had years worth of practice when it came to trying to get into UA, he had less than a DAY. There was also a giant secret that was his responsibility to keep at such a young age.

A secret… that he immediately told Bakugo about.

Deku who wasn’t confident in himself, someone who was told he could never do it, a boy who had no power of his own, yet he had a soul/heart of a hero. He naturally wanted to save. The kicker is his first need to save came about because of Bakugo. Deku saw Bakugo and his body moved on it's own. There's so much to unpack with that alone! But Deku obviously had his development occur over the series.

He struggled with this idea that he had to do this alone. He was isolated from his peers due to having to keep this massive secret from them. You can see he got close to his friends, but he didn't really talk to them about himself. Yeah they were close! But he kept a lot of his guard up around them still.

He was friendly but he wasn't open.

It was interesting to witness this arc of his over time how he became more confident in himself and in his abilities to save. But there was also another set of developments that were occurring that has led us to his vigilante arc. This need to be a hero led him down isolation. He became fearful because Shigaraki figured out his weakness.

Deku doesn't want to admit to his own feelings.

Deku keeps it locked up.

And that to me is when shit gets real fascinating.

I said earlier that Bakugo has become more open over time. He's accepted his feelings and isn't trying to bottle it up any longer. Deku on the other hand who is seen having his heart on his sleeve never tells anyone what he is really thinking. Every once in a while does he actually say what's truly on his mind (“I could admire All Might from a distance, but you were right there. This amazing person in my life! That's why I always… I always… chased after you!” - Deku says this in chapter 119!) but other than that he keeps his cards rather close to his chest (“When the urge to win is stronger than the desire to save, I tend to run my mouth a little more without thinking. You'd think I'd hate myself for that, but…somewhere deep inside… It's because you're who I picture when I think of ‘victory.’” - Deku's thoughts in chapter 120!).

It wasn't until recently that we, as the readers - have been entirely closed off from what Deku is thinking. Yet there has been a new possibility that has just opened up: Bakugo's thoughts.

"Because for all of his triumphs, he was still just a damned nerd." (chapter 348!)

Holy fuck??

Everyone is pretty much certain at this point in time that Bakugo was the one narrating chapter 348. Deku closed his thought process off but Bakugo has opened up his. Quite the fucking development if I do say so myself. They somehow swapped! And I can talk for two hours about this (and I have actually! the power of neurodivergency is so real) but I should cut this much shorter HELP

This all adds up to why these guys are my favorite out of the whole series. Their separate development including how their arcs go with each other and bounce off one another is so fucking cool!! They're foils of each other and it just works. I've always been interested in characters and how they'll change over the course of time and these two have really made my brain rattle.

It's due to this that to me they just work overall. Shit you don't even have to see them in a romantic light if you really don't want to. But to me: they're partners in every sense of the word. Their relationship cannot be broken, they're always meant to have the other in their lives. And that's why I ship them.

Plus to me they're just so silly... how could you not love them???

THANK YOU IF YOU REACHED THIS FAR?? and thank you anon for asking!!!

[mayorasmusings]

So I was randomly surfing tumblr on the persona tag and I’m pleasantly surprised to find someone with Persona 2 on their list. I swear this is rarer than a 4 leaf clover, and the fact you have DDS up there as well. I’m gushing at this rn, truly a rare find.

I also saw your previous post, what would you say were your first impressions on the Cast of IS and what you think about them now? (Anyone really if you only do one but I was super curious)

- ☕️

I'm really happy to read that!

Persona 2 and DDS have a very special place in my heart.

I played DDS before I discovered that there was a game that was banned for homosexuality and Hitler. As an edgy teenager, I burned a copy of P2:IS with the translation patch and played it on my hacked PSone. Those were the times!

But, then I cried buckets, while playing this game, got obsessed with it, discovered how actually queer and traumatized I fucking was - and until this day, I am still in love with it 🥲

But without further ado:

First impression

Maya: bubbly, annoying manic pixie dream girl with a weird outfit making her big tiddies look bigger than they already are, but she has a goddamn pretty face.

Yukino: the butch friend, who shows off her toughness.

Tatsuya: he's too cool for school and is that bad boy every girl is after

Lisa: She's that "I-can-change-him!1"-girl, who goes after a boy who obviously has other things on his mind. She's sweet though.

Eikichi: annoying guy having a rivalry with the bad boy, all the girls are seemingly after.

Jun: he's too sweet for this world. I really feel sorry for him. Especially the way he was manipulated.

Impression now

Maya Amano: I love her very much. She's that fun, loving big sister everyone would want to have. Even if a little insensitive, here and there. Especially when telling that a stuffed animal would laugh at someone expressing their emotions healthily, but I blame it on her dad and the time, this game came out.

Yukino: she has a heart of gold and deserves so much better.

Tatsuya: he's caring, sweet, protective, and like everyone else, has wonderful voice-acting (Takehito Koyasu ❤️). Also, he's quite insecure and vulnerable. I really feel sad for him, having to bear the burden of knowledge in the parallel universe in EP.

Lisa: she's so sweet, caring, smart, and talented. Also, it surprised me, that she uses drugs and prostitutes herself. Her character was an interesting take, on how Westerners view Japanese people and how dehumanizing it can be, to reduce Japanese women to that submissive, demure, and prudish stereotype. Also, interesting to see her dad resembling Steven Seagal in that context.

Eikichi: having a father like this, I don't wonder about anything. He's creative, loving, and has more depth to him than he lets on.

Jun: unchanged. I really love the way he interacts with everyone and how elegant and delicate he is. Though, I do see someone with a barbed tongue, if called for, showing that he also got something from his mom's attitude. Not only from his dad's sweetness. Also, all those TatsuJun-feels 🙈

All in all, it is a very well-written cast I adore and really like to return to. I wish there was an anime or any type of follow-up to where everyone is grown up, but I'm also fine, with being left to my own imagination. Which I will unabashedly share with you.

In my AU, everyone gets to live.

Maya, Shunsuke, and Yukino open up their own little PR agency.

Needless to say that Yukki and Shunsuke are happy together.

Maya starts dating Katsuya at some point and it's quite a chaotic, but loving relationship.

Tatsuya becomes a social worker for homeless young people - being a cop wouldn't really help anyone, he decides. He is a great streetworker, who empathizes with the rather unruly parts of society. At some point, he starts working in a prison, helping the inmates with their problems.

Jun, with the backing of his parents, owns a flower shop. He and Tatsuya are happily married.

Eikichi has a successful band and is still together with Miyabi.

Lisa becomes a cut-throat-businesswoman and works as a boss of a casting-agency for pop-music. Dating hot dudes, she drops, whenever they get too annyoing.

[iamthecomet]

can we hear about your nanowrimo project? I know I'm super curious

Hi! Yes of course you can! Explaining it requires some backstory (it probably doesn't require it, but I like to give it). It's very much not my normal type of project (my two biggest original projects are urban fantasy/sci-fi/magicy stuff). But I actually started writing it (by hand) while I was at work at a job I hated during the pandemic. I was essential and everything was awful, and I got really nostalgic and started writing a story about a group of friends growing up in a VERY small community in the 00s (reflective of where/how I grew up). I also knew I wanted to address the way sudden (young person) death affects a small town and a community in general. Because I've been through it, and I've seen it, and it's staggering. So I knew, when I started, that one of those friends was going to die. And I didn't want it to be a book where the death hits you out of nowhere. I wanted readers to know right away that someone died, and who. Just as an effort to be like "here is this person, they're dead, here is the life they led." Sort of like how you tell people stories about people you've lost. It puts everything into a different perspective. I wanted to sort of tell this story of these kids out of order. Starting bigger (they're friends, this is the time frame, one of them dies) and then sort of narrowing down, until by the end you know them and their community and all of the ways tragedy has changed them. Sort of like being able to look at yourself before a tragedy and after it at the same time. So, my NaNoWriMo project is that book. The main characters are Del and Meg who meet in kindergarten and are best friends from day one. They drift apart a little in high school. Then further apart when dumb teenage drama drives them apart. Then a couple days after graduation Del dies (which is a real thing that happened to a friend of mine). And they never get a chance to figure it out. And that sounds fucking awful when I write it down but it's also the way real life works sometimes. I'm working on this book instead of the others because there's a local writing group I'm a part of that's full of people twice my age and the goal is that by May we will have a book that is "ready to publish". The scale of this one is much smaller than my others, and I also didn't want to send demon smut to someone my mom's age. Writing it has been wild and emotional and I still have SO much more to do. But it feels important to me for ways I can't explain yet because I don't have it totally figured out yet. I'm both very burnt out on it because of this and very proud of it. Hopefully I can figure it all out and turn it into something that actually makes sense.

TL;DR: It's a book about teens and life in a very small town in the 00s. And how tragedy effects them, and the community at large.

[misc-obeyme]

hi i LOVE your threads that bind series (and all ur other work). i was curious about if you had any more info on arsenios? like, his power seems to be persuasion through song, is it in like a siren kinda way or? and any other tidbits if youd like to share *insert marge simpson 'i just think theyre neat' meme* <3 also every demon ever being 100% done with solomons shit before he even opens his mouth lmao

asldfjkaskldf anon... you have no idea what this means to me lol.

I will be posting the next chapter of The Threads That Bind tonight! It really kinda took on a life of its own when I started writing it, but I actually like how it turned out. It means so much to me that other people are enjoying it!

As for Arsenios, well... I have a lot of info on him lol. It just happened that he fit in with this story so I decided to include him because I am fond of him and I really wanted to write about him more. Being asked about him makes me sooo happy!

So to explain his power a little more, it was initially inspired by the concept of human musicians making a deal with the devil in exchange for musical talent. The ones who come out of nowhere and play amazingly well, but then die young tragic deaths. I figured it made sense that the demon who was making those deals would be good at music themselves and maybe their power was rooted in all things musical.

Arsenios spent a lot of time answering summons from humans that wanted to make deals to gain musical talent. He had to make pacts with them and in that way lent them his power in the form of skill. Of course, these were just regular humans and not immortal sorcerers, so they did inevitably die young, thus releasing Arsenios from whatever pact he had made with them. And of course he got their soul out of the deal.

Something really terrible happened to him, though, and changed his whole life, so he doesn't actually do that anymore. It happened some time after Lucifer and his brothers fell, but before MC showed up in the OG.

Now he mostly spends his time performing at gigs in various places throughout the Devildom. He's not super famous, just kind of a local musician, but he's busy enough that he needs a manager to book things for him. He only goes to RAD sporadically because of this and he only goes at all because Barbatos talked him into it.

He can choose whether or not to weave magic into his song and he rarely does it. But it is kind of like a siren song when he does do it. Depending on the intention, he can persuade people to do things. But it's kind of subtle, he was really going hard in The Threads That Bind lol. More often, he uses it as kind of a suggestion and he only needs a handful of notes. He can use instruments to do it, too, but because he often doesn't need much, he usually just sings.

I had him singing in what I called the "ancient language of demons" because I didn't wanna make up lyrics lol. But the lyrics can have an impact on the power of the song. For instance, if he sings in a language that the person being influenced can understand, it lingers a lot longer in their mind and can be more powerful. He's nervous about doing this to humans because he doesn't want to drive them mad by accident, so he sticks with demonic for them.

Arsenios could write entire songs that weave complex spells if he really wanted to, but he has no such ambitions, so he doesn't bother.

And you know it's so funny because I LOVE Solomon, but Arsenios only barely tolerates him and it is so fun to write. I think they could become friends eventually. Arsenios actually respects his power and he's secretly impressed by it, but good luck getting him to admit it lol.

Anyway, I didn't mean for this to get so long! But I felt like some context was needed about where the idea for his power comes from. And of course I could write about him all day lol.

Thank you so much for asking and I'm so glad you're enjoying the story! <3

[elialys]

I'm reading your anon messages and I love that you become a fringe/Anna guru... That is no one better for the title lol

And I kinda wanted to participate too hehe so... I just read the answer you give about season 4 and the hatred people had for Peter. I'm from that time, but I had forgotten how real it was. I was quite young while the fourth season was airing, and I always loved Peter and Polivia, but I have to admit that he annoyed me a bit at times hehehe, and I often felt like it wasn't the right time to focus on him, but today I don't know if that happened by the influence of what was happening in the fandom... Besides, I was so focused on the multiple theories that were floating around that I didn't fully enjoy that season. Recently, I rewatched the entire series, and it was great to just enjoy the journey already knowing the ending. I understood Peter's side much more and was able to see things in the character and in that season that I hadn't been able to see back then. I also can not express how much I agree with you that in the end, Peter was just a victim of multiple changes of paths from the writers and the bad execution of their ideas. I know that you're going to start rewatching it now... Do you have any expectations? (Some kind of revelation hehe) Or do you think your opinion will change about anything? Hope this doesn't upset you, I'm so excited that fringe fandom is active again! xx

Hiii! Thank you for your message, always happy to hear from other people who experienced the show live! ❤️

I am clearly VERY biased when it comes to Fringe and its characters, especially Peter and Olivia because I spent so many years of my life writing about them and their psyche, I can't untangle my own headcanons about them and their thought processes from what's actually canon. So I'll never claim my opinions to be sound or objective, they are definitely emotionally driven 😅

That being said, I do think the very very strong reactions/opinions that were all over the fandom back when the show was airing influenced us all who participated in it. Like, to this day, as I said before, I am incapable of reacting normally when people criticize some aspects of s4, even though they are *right* to do so, and I even agree with some of those things, rationally. Except that I am not rational at all when it comes to people being super harsh on Olivia and/or Peter in that season because, fandom trauma haha

I was actually thinking about how much/how well I remember the show, since I'm about to rewatch it after 6 years. I basically still remember the first 3 seasons by heart, I watched and rewatched them so much. But season 4? Some episodes, I only vaguely remember the plot 😂 Season 5 too, to an extent, but that's more because rewatching it back then was too painful and too closely linked to feelings of 'REMEMBER WHEN FRINGE ENDED AND YOU WERE HEARTBROKEN?'

I don't really have any expectations for my rewatch, save for the fact that I expect to be crying basically all the time. I've been waiting all week to start, and I keep randomly crying when I get thinking about some aspects of the show, especially the characters. Granted I'm hormonal but still, I'm slightly emotionally compromised, I feel like my 6 years of bottled-up feelings are bursting out, it's already been an interesting experience and I haven't even started 😂

I guess I'm most curious about how I'll handle season 4 now? I did rewatch it a couple of times after the show ended, but I hadn't really had any time to distance myself from all the BS lol. I don't expect my opinions to change much though, on anything. Like I said, I'm too wrapped up in old feels for me to be objective about anything xD

[varjopeura]

🎯, ❤️, 🥊 for any/all of the blorbos! I'm curious about the lot of 'em. :D

🎯 -What do they do best?

(I'll include a few word introductions of the blorbos here too, gives the answers just a little bit of context)

Todenmukaisuus (or Tomu for short, since her name is so. fucking. long. Fun fact: her name would directly translate to Veracity!) is my current D&D character and main blorbo, a light-hearted tiefling rogue running from her past and trying to make friends with everyone she meets. Tomu would love to claim that she is an excellent liar, swindler and snake oil salesman, very good at persuading people to pay money for things they definitely should not buy - but she isn't half as good a liar as she wants to be. Yes, she's very good at crafting her fake potions and forging papers, but the moment she tries to cook up a good hoax in practice she ends up being way out of her depth. Her actual talents are in the crafting bits. (Like, don't get me wrong, she actually should be very good with the lying too, she definitely has the stats and skills required for it - she just can't for the life of her roll any good when she attempts deception.)

Glimmer, my precious, my favourite, my literal ray of sunshine, is a tiefling cleric of the Dawnfather Pelor, devout in her worship of powers of light and good. Glimmer is a healer in both physical and spiritual sense. She knows how to treat a wound, be it with magic or stitches, and while she's patching you up she's going to do her best to get your mind at ease, too. Whatever worries you, she'll make sure it's not your problem anymore - whatever you've done is more than enough, you are enough, you are loved, she loves you. And whatever it was that worried you, those are now Her worries, her burdens to bear. She's way too good at taking responsibility in things she can't change, and exceptionally good at worrying about stuff.

Lila is a young half-elf with a newly found sorcerous talent and a found family consisting of a major criminal organization. Currently deeply involved in a war between said organization's different factions. Lila has a natural affinity to magic that mainly has to do with death and undeath. She is a trained liar and manipulator, as well as a thief and smuggler. I'd still consider her true talent to be Following Orders. She will do anything and everything her criminal family requires her to do, and no matter how hard the task, she will keep going at it until she finds a way to succeed. Left at her own devices, she will usually either freeze or do something extremely stupid, but when someone else is there planning things and giving orders she really shines at executing the plans.

Aalo is my character in our Vampire: the Masquerade campaign! She's a professional art photographer and hobbyist ghost hunter, and these days also a horrifying undead abomination vampire, plagued by prophetic visions and unpleasant hallucinations. Aalo has spent her entire life studying all things paranormal and occult, and her strongest skillsets lie in using that knowledge to her benefit. She's also useful to have around for some light breaking and entering, but other than that? She is actually kind of useless, I love me a pathetic woman :D

(ohhh this is going to get Long, isn't it?)

❤️ - What is one of your OC’s best memories?

Todenmukaisuus' favourite memory is actually a fairly recent one! (Mainly because the good memories of her past are now shaded by feelings of heartbreak and betrayal - the wonderful memories of hangout sessions with your best friend aren't as wonderful after you've realized the horrifying amounts of abuse and gaslighting that same friend subjected you to). But even ignoring that, the enchanted bubble bath shared with a whole bunch of new friends would've made the list of Tomu's best memories. Her party had just arrived to a new city, one that she'd wanted to see for ages, and were staying for the night in a Super Cool Wizard Tower with a Super Cool Wizard living in it. Attached to their room was a small bathroom with a bathtub enchanted to always stay warm, with fresh water constantly pouring in in a gentle stream. The walls were covered with shelves filled with dozens of little bottles of perfumes and soaps and bubble solutions, all of them of delightful and exotic smells and colors. After weeks on the road and months running from her past, that kind of luxury in itself was a dream come true! But the most important thing was that there, crammed into a one-person bathtub with two other people, playing with the floating bubbles and laughing and play-fighting, Tomu felt really and truly safe and happy for the first time in gods know how long. At that moment she realized she wasn't traveling with these people because of some duty or debt or even convenience, but because she Actually Liked them. They were Her people, and this was Her city, and everything was going to be okay after all.

One of Glimmer's fondest memories is from a time she was very young, so it's more of a series of brief recollections and feelings than an actual scene. She was maybe six?, seven? at the time, spending her time learning how to read. It was a particularly beautiful day, so her teacher took their lessons to a nearby park, where she could study sitting under a great oak tree. Glimmer remembers the warm sun on her skin, the sounds of birds, the painstaking process of slowly turning the symbols on paper into spoken syllables and words; a deep sigh after a challenging sentence, a laugh, her hand brushing the soft green grass; her fingers finding a four-leaf clover and picking it up; her teacher agreeing to save the lucky clover between the pages of a book; the feeling of having a mutual secret and the spark of friendship forming between the teacher and the student. Glimmer still carries the dried clover with her in her adventures, as a personal treasure from her past.

Oh, Lila gave me the hardest time with this one! She vehemently refuses to pick a single memory among many happy ones - the good times before the Bad Stuff Happening were good, that's the end of it. No need to dwell on memories when there's things to fix in the present.

The absolute highlight of Aalo's life and undeath was her first art gallery exhibit. The rush of seeing her works on someone else's walls, the same works that were so often described as off-putting or unnecessarily macabre, and seeing people actually Looking at them, interested in them. Interested in what she had to say with her art. Appreciating her vision. She never quite figured out the right words to describe her feelings at that time, but nonetheless she's been chasing those same feelings over and over again ever since.

🥊 -What do they love to do? What do they hate to do?

Todenmukaisuus loves encountering anything New and Interesting and Exciting, be it a new person or item or activity. She loves traveling to places she hasn't yet seen, loves getting swept up into unexpected adventures, and loves spending her money on useless but beautiful gifts for her friends. She absolutely fucking hates touching anything dirty or gross or otherwise icky (unless it's some poisonous substance you can squeeze out of a defeated monster, then it loops right back into the 'interesting new things' category, for some reason).

Glimmer enjoys the simple things in life. Baking fresh bread, sitting down with a cup of tea after a day's hard work, finding some peace and quiet in meditation. And, altough she might not readily admit it, she really loves casting Fireballs. What's not to love in a big fiery boom! She hates spending prolonged times outside of daylight, and talking to pompous people in positions of power.

Lila loves to drink expensive wine in good company (or cheap wine in Really Good company), she loves going out to all the super fancy places and behaving like a real and proper upper class girl would, but more than anything she loves getting into dumb and completely avoidable trouble, going 'yes and' to bad ideas until she's horribly tangled in a very bad scenario, and then desperately wriggling her way out of it. She hates having to make actual Important Decisions without someone telling her what to do.

Aalo's favourite activity in the whole wide world is to uncover secrets, dig up dirt on people, and solve mysteries, especially of the supernatural kind. She also deeply loves photography, including every step of the process from planning elaborate ideas and weird technical tricks to actually developing the film. She hates staying still and spending her nights alone.

[hard-core-super-star]

do you have any Kate fics that make you feel exactly like this? melting from so much cuteness and giggling and stuff like that. oh okay, so this happens more when you reread it than when you write it down, noted, it's just that it seems hard to keep a straight face while writing things like this mostly smut or maybe the cutest life-changing, heart-warming thing in the world. lmao, I think you can steal this. I mean, give it a try???jshakksks. yes, it does. 🫠

I don't know if it would be fair for me to say it since you didn't say some things either- yeahhh I won't get over it. I'm here to see what would happen. It wasn’t a good surprise tho😭😭

SEE?? how can this be a problem? this is something cool. you can literally claim 19 as your lucky number. you still remember what she replied??

YEP LMAO, it's okay, I didn't expect superman tho, if that's any use. tumblr is the social media you use most? It literally has nothing to do with the subject of tiktok but I was curious. “I feel so old” — said a 19 year old. I feel like that too hdkska. sometimes it's strange to feel like a grandma, but not just anyone... those with conservative beliefs, this is the peak of rock bottom.

yeah, you can call that a win. now I don't know how to create a context to let this person know, and my brain can't work right now lmao.

poor rubix's brain, besides melting and freak out almost all the time, it works all the time- I don't think I've ever heard of 8 Ocean 🤔 stop, that shouldn't sound that funny skehwjkak. NO???? I MEAN, SAYING THEY'RE NOT IMPORTANT DOESN'T HELP AT ALL!! mhmm, I just did it ��

– 🌟

ask me again in the morning and i might be able to pull enough braincells together to give you a list of fics that aren't just my own lmao. weirdly enough, writing smut can sometimes be easier than writing fluff 😶 it’s definitely hard to keep a straight face with both and, if i’m at home, i usually have to take breaks and walk away before i start giggling at my own lines. it’s easier to appreciate what i write when i don’t wait until the last minute to write it. great, it’s halfway to going on my wall 👍 it sounds both hilarious and awful lmao.

i think it would be extremely fair. and in return i’ll spill some more of my very obvious thoughts. you just love to cause chaos and make my heart stop every few sentences, don't you?

i don't know, i’m still not convinced but i’m glad you find it entertaining and not weird. and yeah, of course i remember, i think it's going to be engrained in my brain forever. i basically just sent something saying how cool the music videos for the Crybaby singles had been so far and she thanked me [and called me by my name which was quite the experience] and talked about how fun the music videos had been to shoot. it's nothing like super significant but it was unexpected and i still think about it to this day because…well, it’s tegan. i don't think i have to say anything else.

it certainly does help me feel a little better so i’ll take it. a win is a win. yeah, Tumblr is mainly it, i still use Instagram but the things i post are random af and basically just for my self and my before mentioned only friend. i know i’m technically not old but damn, people my age are annoying af. with a few exceptions of course but 🙃 is thinking kids shouldn't be allowed to have phones at such a young age really a slightly conservative belief? i think it's just common sense tbh.

something tells me the person will know so you don't have to worry too much about it 👀

not this again akskdjdjsjsj yeah, my brain is quite overwhelmed all the time, it's not as fun as it sounds. i can't recommend it enough, fuck the critics. here are two reasons to watch it, ready? sandra bullock and cate blanchett. what more do you need??? if you need gay subtext, it's definitely there, btw. I ALREADY APOLOGIZED FOR THE MISUNDERSTANDING, WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME??? thank you for this, i’ll be thinking about it until i fall asleep.

[blazehedgehog]

I’m curious why you think Scott Cawthon donating to Republican politicians was “ Definitely not the end of a career.” Do you mind explaining that a bit more please?

Scott generally seemed like a nice guy for the most part. Just about everything he put out in to the world was love and support for his fans. Despite who he chose to support financially, nothing in his games suggested he carried hatred in his heart.

People have said worse things than "I donated to my political party of choice because I had faith in them to do the right thing." He could have left it at that and the whole thing would have probably blown over.

But he didn't.

Instead, he joked about "getting canceled" and left. He didn't even really offer an apology. He pretty much said "This is just who I am, you can't change me, and I'm officially too rich to care. Bye!"

Which is, bare minimum, super weird, right?

Maybe this is one of those things where I'm too small for it to effect me, but I don't believe in cancel culture anymore. There are guys like Alex Jones that were practically born "canceled" and they have continually thrived. There are lots of people like that.

I mean, ProJared got canceled, even tried to pivot to "I'm canceled!" merch with his new mistress, and the dude still probably makes multiple thousands of dollars between Youtube and Twitch. Any dip in viewership he's had seems to have been more to do with the fact he slowed down on uploads for a while.

Which is to say nothing of guys like Pewdiepie, Jontron, etc. They have rabid (often young and/or ignorant) fan bases and still pull in more than a living wage despite repeatedly saying some deeply awful, harmful things (and, occasionally, even engaging in harmful behavior).

By comparison, what went public about Cawthon was basically nothing.

Cancel culture is mainly a boogeyman these days. It's something for red pill patriot weirdos to wave around as being this big hairy deal simultaneously while it never seems to effect them (because they never let it). It's like how they swear Antifa is this "fascist terrorist organization" as if it literally isn't a shorthand for anti-fascism.

It's brainworms!

So for Scott to wave that boogeyman around as a reason to disappear... there's a lot more assumptions you could make there than if he had just chosen to take the hit, explain his reasoning, and keep on trucking. But he didn't want to have that discussion, he didn't want to do anything more than burn the bridge on his way out the door.

It is maybe the worst way he could have handled a situation like that, because it opens the door to a lot of really bad, nasty assumptions that he has specifically chosen not to engage in. He has encouraged the worst speculation about himself and his intentions.

The saying goes that "where there's smoke, there's fire" and Scott left a lot of unexplained smoke behind.

We can only assume the worst. Dude canceled himself more than anyone else did.

[recurring-polynya]

Do I mind if I ask how you approach writing longer fic? I've always struggled to write anything more than maybe two chapters long and I'm curious if you have a particular method to how you approach such stories.

Thank you so much for this ask! I absolutely love it when people ask me for writing advice because it makes me feel like a Smart Person Who Knows Things.

Before we start, here is one grain of salt to take all of this with: I have a naturally long-form brain. It is very hard for me to write something less than 1k. Short fiction is great, and there is nothing wrong with sticking to short things if that's what your brain likes to do.

So. You have decided to write a story. This is going to focus on "stories". Some people write fic that's more freeform or whatever, I am not going to cover that. What I mean by a story is this:

It starts

Some stuff happens

It ends

It is highly probable that your story contains a change of state, which could be that a villain is defeated, or a goal is reached, but it could also be that character falls in love with another, or someone learns to like broccoli.

I like to start out by completing the sentence, "This is a story where _______". This is basically like coming up with a summary for an ao3 post, except that it doesn't need to be catchy. Lots of different kinds of things could go in that blank! It could literally be what happens: This is a story where Ichigo goes back in time and punches young Aizen in the nose. It could be about what you want to explore: This is a story where Hitsugaya gets a better understanding of his zanpakutou. It could be about the vibe you want to achieve: This is an AU where everyone is in a punk rock band and has cool hair and outfits. The idea of this is to clearly define what you, the author, is interested in writing. Make sure it feels right! Maybe you pick the first one, but when you say it out loud, you say, "You know, I really just want Ichigo to go back in time so he can horse around with young Renji and Rukia and punching Aizen in the nose is just an excuse for that." That may sound dumb, but it's fine, actually! Most people don't read stories strictly for the plot, they read stories for the implications of those plots! Will my favorite two characters kiss? Will there be funny interactions between these two groups of characters? Will there be sick fights? Stories are excuses to have scenes. Sometimes, you will have a story where the interesting sequence of events is the draw, but the point is to know what you're about.

Once you feel happy with your "mission statement", you need to decide the bounds of your story: where it starts and where it ends. It may be easier to start with the end. In some cases, it may be obvious from your mission statement: everyone gets home, a villain is defeated, Kenpachi realizes the meaning of friendship. On the other hand, let's look at that punk rock AU. You've picked a vibe, but you don't really have a natural story arc. It has to have a destination, though, otherwise, it's not really a story, it's a recipe for 3 chapters of an abandoned fanfic. So brainstorm a little: Maybe they get a record deal? Maybe they win a Battle of the Bands? Maybe Byakuya accepts that the band is actually good and tells Rukia he is proud of her. Do not settle for a plot just because it works. Pick something that makes you excited! You're the one who is gonna have to write it!

I said that we needed to pick a beginning point, too, but I'm actually going to skip that for now. The next thing I do is think of all the Big Scenes I want to write, the ones you are hype to write, the ones that pop in your head as you think about the premise. Make a bullet list. They don't need to be in order. The descriptions don't need to be super detailed, but write down anything about it that is important to you. If there's a mood or a snippet of dialogue or a joke you want to make, go ahead and jot that down so you don't forget it later. What you're doing now is putting broad blotches of color on a canvas, filling in space and leaving the detail for later.

Once you are pretty happy with what you have down, try to arrange it in chronological order. Put your end at the end (if it wasn't one of your big scenes, add it now). The next task is figuring out how to traverse your scenes. You've already picked out where you want to spend the majority of your energy. The rest, I regret to tell you, is your slog writing. Now, it often happens that you will find joy in some of these scenes and your best writing may occur there, but that's serendipity. These are the scenes that you are gonna have to make yourself sit down and write, so you honestly want to limit them to just the ones you need.

So how do we do this? Look at the first thing on the list. Can you start there? If so, congrats, that's your beginning. If you can't, what needs to happen to get to there? Where can you start so that you can get to your first fun scene as soon as possible? There. That’s it. You’ve picked your beginning, good job! Now, go through the rest of your list, and add in things that must happen, even if you don’t particularly look forward to writing them. The characters need to travel from geographic point A to point B. Shuuhei needs to say something that Izuru hears and misinterprets. The Central 46 makes a new law. If you have a good idea of how these things happen, go ahead and write them down, but it’s okay if you don’t know yet. Fill in all the blanks so that if you think of each bullet list as a scene, you could read it as a story, start to end. Once you get writing, you might add more scenes, or move things around or whatever, but you should have a thing that functions as a story.

If you struggle with this, an alternative is a story with a very strong structure that is going to guide you though what you have to write.Here are two examples from my own stories Hold On, Hold On (which is only one chapter, but the principle is the same) is structured around the 5 stages of grief. Not Broken, Just Bent takes place over roughly a week, and I just decided what happened every day of the week. See You on the Other Side takes place in the middle of a bunch of canon events, which worked at mile markers.

Congratulations. You’ve just made a rough outline!

Special note for avoiding burnout!: I am a slogger. I will drag myself through the broken glass of an interminable plot to get to a single thirsty scene. That's why, at this stage, I try to look at the ratio of what I want to write to what I must write. It's gonna vary for everyone, but this is a hobby, and if looking at this proto-outline makes you feel deeply tired, maybe this isn't a good story to be devoting your time to! Can you carve it down? Can you chuck two scenes you really want to write and get rid of 80% of the slog? Or maybe you can't! In that case, just write that thirsty scene as a standalone drabble! Or just go work on something else! Maybe in the future, this one will come back to you and you’ll have a fresh idea or a renewed enthusiasm for it.

Another thing I sometimes like to do at this point is to write out some notes about my characters and their motivations and moods. Character A is homesick. Character B is so determined to defeat the enemy that they are having a hard time being sympathetic to Character A. Character C cares for both A and B and is trying to support them both. This is sort of background info that you want to keep in your head as you are writing. Depending on the type of story you are writing, this might actually be the main plot, or it might be happening subtly, but adding to the emotional impact of the story. It’s very easy for me to write these sorts of emotional arcs, but if you struggle with that, you may wish to go ahead and made a more detailed outline for that, too.

Now, it’s time to start writing! I am great at beginnings-- it is very often the case for me that the opening scene was one of my Big Tentpole Scenes. (Before you hate me too much, I make up for this by being double horrible at endings; just let me have this) Usually, I will start at the beginning and write linearly for as long as I can until I get stuck. Then, I will look forward on my outline and do the next chronological scene that I feel like writing. In general, if I sit down to write and there is something I have an urge to write, that trumps everything else. Inspiration is a precious commodity, and you should embrace it when it hits! You can slog any day. I will occasionally hold off writing a scene that I really want to, because I am saving it, like a prize for myself for getting that far. This is a very personal process of figuring out what motivates your brain and then giving your brain what it needs to be its most productive.

Eventually, you will run out of things you are excited to write, but the good news is, you’ve got a bunch of story now! Odds are that what’s left is going to be a lot of those connective tissue scenes, and you’re just going to have to do them, except that now, because you’re connecting two concrete points instead of two abstract points, it will be a lot easier. You can continue running jokes you’ve started. Maybe you invented a cafe in an earlier scene where your characters hang out and you can have them return there. Try to think of ways to make these scenes more fun, both for yourself to write and for your reader to read. 

Around this time, I like to start refining that rough strokes outline into what I will call an “as-built” outline. (This is an engineering term where you update your plans or models for something to reflect any changes that had to be made along the way). This is a great activity to do at times when you feel like you have writers block. I write down every scene I have written as a 2-3 word blurb, in order. I break the scenes into what I think makes logical chapters, and I will do a word count on those prospective chapters and write it down. As you do this, you will realize that maybe you can move a scene from here to there, which will make it 1000% easier to write. Things may be happening too much, or you’ve got the characters eating three times in the same chapter. If you have subplots and dangling threads, this is where you make sure they get closure. I know this sounds very headache-y, but you are so far along in the story at this point that it’s really not-- it’s a way to look at the problems you have left. Use some sort of formatting (I like to bold things I haven’t done and sometimes I put them in red) and it gives you a very visual to-do list.

You specifically mentioned multi-chapter fanfics and I admit that I don’t tend to think in chapters, I tend to think of the story as a whole and just break it up where it feels natural. The as-built outlining I described is very helpful in making sure that my chapters feel balanced. They don’t necessarily need to be the same length, but I like them to have the same amount of stuff in them. One chapter may basically contain one long scene, and other may contain many short ones. I don’t tend to, but you can certainly have a fanfic that varies between short and long chapters, that can actually be an interesting effect. But like I said, I always like to know what I am doing, and so having it mapped out, you can say “welp, this is what I’ve done, how do I feel about that?”

Polynya, you may be saying at this point, do you write the whole fanfic before you post any of it? and I regret to inform you, the answer is yes. A lot of people write as they go, and I have made one attempt at this and I didn’t like it. I don’t like locking myself in, I just need to be able write out of order and go back and change things. Here is the story of a little in love: someone gave me an AU prompt and I got mildly obsessed with it, and wrote 5 snapshots drabbles in that universe, ending with a slight cliffhanger ending. I probably should have stopped there, but I decided to keep going. I wrote out an outline of 5 acts where the first act was detailed to the degree of each chapter being specified. The chapters here were much smaller than I usually make chapters: 1-2k. I wrote act i and ii and it was actually great, and then I hit act iii which required a lot of set up for misunderstandings and a mini romance arc. I couldn’t wing it, but nor could I figure it all out with outlining. I write dialogue in almost sort of an improv “Yes, and...?” style, so until I do it, I don’t know what’s going to happen. So, what I did was treat the second half of act iii as a complete story in the process I describe above, wrote the entire rest of it, and then posted it. One might notice that the chapter lengths grew to 3-5k each. I have two more acts to go, and I haven’t decided how I am going to do them yet, but I suspect I will treat each of them as their own mini-stories.

(I will admit that in Heart is a Muscle, I tend toward chapters that are about 10k long, and this is honestly too long, someone should smack me. If you like punchy chapters, 1-2k is good. I think 3-6k is probably an ideal chapter length. Is this how long the chapters are in my latest fanfic? Absolutely not.)

Okay, so there’s one more step, which is quality control. I am habitual re-reader-- I read my fanfics-in-progress over and over and over while I am working on them. I understand that not everyone does this, but I am usually the primary audience for my own writing, and this is the actual fun part for me. Nevertheless, you should re-read your work at least once, to make sure it hangs together.

This is purely optional, but I recommend it: get a writing friend (if you don’t like re-reading your work, I recommend this even more strongly). If you can get a full-service beta reader, that’s great, but if you can’t find someone, or if receiving that level of critique stresses you out, it’s perfectly valid to just find a friend who will read your stuff and a) shower you with compliments, b) reassure you about parts you aren’t sure about (or suggest ways to help) and c) point out any huge problems you missed. When I am writing a long fanfic, it is a huge motivational factor for me to be able to send my beta chapters as I finish them. If you are already an established writer, and you have people who consistently comment on your fic, they might be overjoyed to get a sneak peak at your work.

And that’s it! That’s the way I do it, anyway! Some people are able to sit down and write a very detailed outline and the write it start-to-finish. Good for them, I say! I have tried this and it doesn’t work great for me. I will admit that some of my fics (especially my early ones) I just sat down and banged out whole-cloth like an insane person and they are generally better than the ones I actually plan out, but that’s not a reproducible process.

As one final mechanical note, I usually write in Google Docs, which I can access on multiple devices (I used to write a lot on my phone), has convenient sharing functionality, and I use the ao3 html formatting script add-in. I generally have two documents for a single story-- one is the outline, and any other notes I want to have handy. I’ll usually put a trashcan space at the bottom for scenes that got cut but I don’t want to lose. The other is the fanfic itself.

I hope this is helpful! Please feel free to follow up with other questions and good luck with your writing!

[stormblessed95]

I don’t know when to draw the line at what BTS says as genuine vs being coerced. Does that make sense?

Main example: them being asking heteronormative questions and ideal crush all the way to 2015. From a time period where they probably felt extremely pressured and put on the spot to answer these questions. Like do you take their answers as solid, Aka they’re all attracted to girls or do you have to take it with a pinch of salt to a certain year because they were put on the spot, under pressure and/or before then perhaps some members weren’t out yet and was just blending in.

I’m saying this in regards to “het BTS” warriors or shippers who desperately want to prove jimin is straight to make tk more possible ect. They always seem to use answers or content from 2013/14/15 to give their case, never anything past that.

When In recent years, since 2017/2018 there’s moments where they don’t answer the question at all, avoid it ect. Do you understand what mean? Like do you accept everything they’ve said as word Aka what they find attractive in girls or do you rule a line where perhaps they’re more comfortable in themselves and perhaps take what they say from like 2019 onwards more seriously in things they say regarding who they’re attracted to ect.

Like I’m curious what they would say now to questions like “what do you find attractive in a girl/your idea girl” if members are queer or they’re in a established non heterosexual relationship already.

I’m saying this as a queer person who’s tried to fit in, make up people I find attractive until I melded into a gray area with my answers so it’s not gender specific or changed certain wording to the question itself eg. “What do you find attractive in a guy.” To “what do I find attractive in a person?”

Hi, sorry it took me a bit to get to this ask. I think that in the beginning, there was a lot of just trying to get by and make it. There was a lot more crude and insensitive jokes between the members during those years as well. They were young, teenage to young adult boys. They have gone through a lot of growth and maturity to get to where they are now. And I'm sure some of that, for some of them, could have been exploring and figuring out their sexualities if they didn't already know. In the early years, they stuck to very heteronormative behaviors and answers in interviews and questions. They rolled with it. I'm not sure what else they were supposed to do though, honestly. They participated in different types of fanservice as well that they also do not do anymore. They flashed abs and showed skin on stage even though they did not want to. They were just trying to make it. They don't do any of this anymore.

So I think in all honestly, context is important. But that even back then, they weren't always super specific with things. For example, when asked about their ideal type of girl they are attracted too, Jimin kept it very generalized. "Cute and with weird/funny charms" and he stuck with that answer very consistently. It was yes, I'm saying girl, but really this could be anyone. Lol Yoongi, also tended to keep things more generalized, often even using gender neutral terms in his answer even if it was just assumed to be only about girls. One of the few times I heard Yoongi use feminine gendered terms when describing a girl he thought was his type was when he hit on the radio host interviewer 😅 calling HER his ideal type. Lmao and another example would be JK, who changed his answer drastically every time he was asked. From pale to tan. From short to tall. From soft to muscular/athletic. It gives off *I don't know so let me make something up real quick because I've been put on the spot." But I wouldn't call that disingenuous though either.

I know JK talked about having a predebut girlfriend, but he ended it because it was awkward and they didn't talk to each other for 200 days. Which to me screams, I got this girlfriend because she was nice and that's what I'm supposed to do, right? Jimin talked about having a one sided crush on a girl predebut. And I don't think he was lying or not being genuine. But that doesn't mean he is straight. It means he either thought he had a crush at the time and then realized he didn't when he sat and explored himself more. Or it means he could like more than just one gender. They also had some stumbling awkward interviews that I think are clear that they at times say what they think they are supposed to say. Which truly makes sense for people who are just starting out in their careers, who are in the public eye and who are as young as they are. So again, I think context from these younger years in these statements made are important. As well as acknowledging that people CHANGE. They grow and mature, especially from when you take into consideration the amount of growth people go through from 16-18 years old to mid 20s. Minds can change, or if not change, they can become more sure and confident in who they are. Jimin had a whole ass journey he went through over the years to come to terms with who he is and with loving himself for who he is.

As for more recent years, or what they would say now, I'm pretty sure they would say things to avoid the question or be more inclusive. Like they have been. Such as in 2017 when they were asked about true love and Joon mentioned boyfriends and girlfriends. I made a post about that here

Or when they were asked if they have a dates or want dates to the Grammy Awards and Joon cracked a joke about how yeah, they've got 7 dates (each other). Quite neatly avoiding the question entirely.

Basically sometimes heteronormative answers have to be given when presented with a heteronormative question in extremely conservative societies. Especially as a young person and idol who otherwise wouldn't know how to navigate that type of situation and has been trained to make yourself as marketable/boyfriend-y as possible for their fans essentially

I hope that helps? Not sure if it did or I made sense. Hopefully I understood what you meant and didn't just ramble. Hopefully that all made sense and I explained myself well. And sorry for the yoonminkook examples rather than the other members too. They are my bias line, sometimes I can't help it! But they also gave the best examples for what I was wanting to say too

[scandalsavagefanfic]

Hello! I am a huge fan of ur writing. I've loved everything I've read of yours. I've read alot of what you've posted, except for a couple of the tags that are squicky for me (so I'm very thankful you tag very thoroughly). No judgement for the squick, it's just not for me. & when I'm having a bad day, I usually just go thru ur ao3 and find something to reread. I think about Therapy's Bruce & Jason every damn day. While I obvs appreciate ur darker more "problematic" content (I really vibe with some of the themes you write about bc of my own trauma, & so it's very cathartic to read about in a fictional setting), I am truly a sucker for ur more happy content. The Happily Ever After verse also lives in my head rent free. Idk more wholesome stuff just seems more special when you write it. Anyways. I would die for you. But the point of this ask is cause I'm curious as to why you don't like Urban Legends? I'm sorry if you already talked about it here or on twitter and I missed it. I was just wondering because I really enjoy your take on things and would love to hear why you dislike it. I've been enjoying it so far personally, but I am always open to DC comics criticism.

Aw thank you so much! I'm so flattered by everything you just said. You're so sweet ❤❤❤❤❤

I haven't talked about Urban Legends here or twitter (I haven't been very active in either place lately. Just a lot going on and no energy 😔) but I'm happy to do it here.

Before I start though, I just want to add a standard disclaimer and make it clear that if you like it, there's nothing wrong with that and you don't have to let me ruin it for you lol. Like what you like.

That said, since you asked...

I said this when I was talking about it on discord, that there is a difference between hope and expectation. I always hope that a new story centered on Jason (or anyone really, but things have been especially egregious for Jay for 15 years) will be good or at least treat the character with a minimal level of respect (to be honest, the bar is super fucking low). But my expectations always temper my hope, to keep it from getting unrealistic. Because my expectations are based on experience.

The long history of Jason Todd, since even before his resurrection, has been one of retroactively trying to make him "a bad seed" in order to absolve Bruce of any responsibility in his death.

I don't even expect DC or their writers to start honoring the fact that Jason was not an angry, reckless Robin (and less of the later than Dick or Tim and definitely Damian). There plenty of ways that retcon can be folded into his history and be compelling and sympathetic. And if they're going to stick with that retcon, I'm only asking that they do it in one of those compelling and sympathetic ways because Jason was 15 when he died, heroically, in one of the most selfless acts in comics, to save a woman who literally handed him over to be brutally murdered. He was 12 when Bruce plucked him off the streets, he'd been homeless and fending for himself for at least two years. I personally think that Jason's story hits harder for him and Bruce if their original, canon relationship, of Jason as starry-eyed and eager to learn and absolutely devoted to Bruce and Bruce to Jason, is preserved. But Jason's origins does leave room for a meaningful interpretation of him as angry and frustrated at the lack of meaningful results of Bruce's methods.

And that's really where my irritation at stories like Batman: Urban Legends, Cheer and Batman The Adventure Continues has it's roots.

Every time one of these stories comes out, I think (or hope, rather) that this will be the one that remembers and respects the origins of the Jason and the Red Hood, that takes into account the changed sensibilities of comics readers in the 30 years since Jason's death and the subtle, 20 year, retroactive campaign to make him the "bad Robin". The "born bad" trope is played out and literally no one likes the message it implies. That some kids are just bad eggs and there's nothing parents or the adults around them can do. Especially when it's played as the kid's fault. If Jason's time as Robin is going to be characterized by anger, then it should be rooted in anger at the social injustices he witnessed as he grew up in an impoverished, crime-ridden, area and the horrors he faced raising himself when every day was a battle for survival. There are topical, meaningful, stories to tell with that backdrop.

But those are never the stories we get.

⚠⚠ Spoilers for Batman: Urban Legends, Cheer ⚠⚠

I'm particularly disappointed in Urban Legends because for the first issue, it looked like that was the kind of story we were going to get. I was put off by the first flashback of Jason being mesmerized by Bruce's guns, and I got that feeling in my gut that it was a bad sign. Jason depicted as impatient and overconfident and the scene with the guns is heavy-handed foreshadowing that got my spidey-sense tingling. I had a inkling then (in the first three pages) of how this story was going to play out, but it was early and I could still see many narrative paths that could lead to a satisfying story. My concerns were soothed somewhat and the little flame of my hope fanned, with the flashback of Alfred scolding Bruce, with Barbara's concern for Jason. A bit of worry returned with the way Jason ruthlessly pursued an addict who didn't appear to be a dealer and with the ending of the issue. The stuff with the addict sat wrong with me but the ending was tempered some by how despicable Tyler's dad was written. The scene was clearly set so that the reader could sympathize with Jason's decision and the scene with the addict could be brushed aside as a side-effect of comics over-the-top need for constant action, so I still held hope.

Issue 2 made me uncomfortable and it's where my hope starts to take a backseat to my expectations. I can dismiss Jason's self-deprecating internal monologue as unreliable narration, except that the flashback reinforces his thought process to explicitly show that it's not unreliable narration, and should be taken at face value. Jason faces physical abuse at the hands of his mother's drug dealer and when the flashback continues later, Jason kills the drug dealer. To be clear, this is a pre-Bruce Jason. His mom is still alive. He's like... 10. He kills this guy for shoving his head into a wall and implying Jason's mother paid for her drugs with sex. This is a scene that serves a single purpose. To show that Jason has always been prone to violence.

In the spirit of full disclosure, there is the small chance the drug dealer might not be dead. But the story obviously wants the reader to think he is, and it hasn't done anything to change that yet.

Starlin already did this story with The Diplomat’s Son in 1988 and he did it infinitely better. AND that’s still technically canon. So now I’m supposed to believe that Jason lost his cool bad enough to kill two douche bags before his sweet 16? Like it’s totally normal for abused kids raised in poverty, who’ve led hard and heartbreaking lives to just... haul off and kill people? That’s bullshit, and when taken with the Jason in the third issue, who is little more than an idiot thug, this story is really doubling down on some fucked up stereotypes.

Which brings us to the most recent issue. I went into this installment with very low expectations. I thought this story was going to be about Jason, through this experience with Tyler, a young boy with a similar background to Jason's, coming to the realization that Bruce's way is the best way and that Bruce did his best by Jason.

That would be annoying (in no small part because it takes increasingly absurd levels of plot armor to keep Bruce's no kill rule relevant, let alone irrefutably right). But I can probably live with that, if only because maybe if Jason officially falls back into line with the Bats crusade, maybe I'll get stories that treat him with respect, stories that don't relegate him to comic relief, dumb brute, or a background body with no lines in a story about the Joker burning Gotham (like Jason would just fucking stand there quietly for that).

And that may still be where the story is going, Jason realizing Bruce is right.

But holy shit do I not have the right words to describe how fucking insulting and gross issue three is.

From start to finish--including the flashback--Jason is written as cruel and fucking stupid. Like straight up dumb.

The entire issue is Bruce explaining the fucking basics to Jason like it's his first day. And Jason flies off the fucking handle and terrorizes a doctor he knows isn't a part of making the Cheerdrops, beats the shit out of some random addicts, and finally, when he can't accomplish anything on his own because he's a dumb brute he calls Barbara for help and rushes in with no information where he's promptly incapacitated and must now wait to be rescued by Batman.

This panel is the least of the issues sins but I can’t screenshot the entire story but it’s representative of the tone for the whole issue (and retroactively tainted the prior two issues).

This is beyond insulting. The only conclusions Jason comes to in this issue are the ones Bruce leads him to by talking to him like he can’t make the simplest connections. And like... in this story Jason can’t make the simplest connections.

This (and the Jason throughout the entirety of this issue) is a far cry from the Jason we fell in love with in Under the Red Hood, who was competent and strategic and intelligent enough to seize control of Gotham’s underworld from Black Mask (who’s no fucking slouch, he’s the first and only person to unify organized crime in Gotham) AND elude and manipulate Bruce until the time and place of his choosing.

This is a far cry from even the Red Hood and the Outlaws Jason who is competent enough to fight the League of Shadows and Ra’s al Ghul (among very dangerous and skilled others) and smart enough to create antidotes for mind control nanotech viruses.

As he should be, by the way. Jason Todd is one of the best, most comprehensively trained fighters in DC’s stable of non powered vigilantes. He’s not irrational or hot headed. He’s pragmatic, tactically minded, and patient. He’s a detective. Right now. Has been since he was 12. Bruce doesn’t have to make him one because he already is. 

Jason is not a stupid thug who uses his fists because his brain doesn’t work. And I can’t tell you how so very exhausted I am by this narrative. 

This is actually the most egregious example of Jason’s skills and intelligence being not just undermined but dismissed entirely. Even Morrison’s Jason had some degree of competency. 

The one, single redeeming factor of this story is the art. It’s beautiful. And Marcus To is a godsend he seems to be one of only a couple of artists who remember that Jason was a child when he was Robin and I’m literally only buying this book because of him. 

Anyway, I’m sorry. I didn’t want that to come out so... um... passionately lol. I’m just very very tired. My intention with this isn’t to ruin it for you, if you like it, that’s fine. 

But this issue shot this story to the top of my "Vehemently Despise” list. 1) Batman: Urban Legends (Cheer), 2) Battle for the Cowl/Morrison’s Batman and Robin, 3) Batman The Adventure Continues.

I hope the next issues somehow salvage this dumpster fire. But I’m not expecting it.

(Damnit. That sounded harsh again. To reiterate, I’m not trying to judge anyone who enjoys it, I just personally hate it and you asked me why lol 😅)