#and I am incapable of shutting up ever

[localcanadiancreature62]

AHAAHHAAHAHAHAH HAHAA. True.

i love saying “i’m being normal about it” bc i’m actually a filthy fucking liar and i’ve never been normal about anything a single day in my life

[lovesickeros]

lord its so dark in here the sahara desert of tsaritsa content you are like a shining oasis. your characterisation of her compels me & mihoyo would be hard pressed to top it imo.!! caaaaan i humbly request yr thoughts on her first meeting w a reader of any kind, or maybe even multiple kinds (sagau, sagau god au, isekai, etc) if you so desire...

it really is like a desert here. being the fan of a character we aren't getting until the last damn nation is driving me up a wall but i will persevere bc if nothing else i support morally bankrupt women in media. we r in a severe drought over here but i do my best. unfortunately nothing i say is ever coherent so pull out your translation notes its abt 2 be messy

also this got out of hand but thats bc first meetings w the tsaritsa are tricky to write + a LOT of her characterization lies in deeper exploration then just surface level yknow...NOT A DIG AT YOU this is just my excuse for rambling. gently pats the tsaritsa she can hold so much complexity i do not have the word count to delve into it completely :]

gonna talk cult au for a bit here though because that's 99% of my content. and honestly? she thrives in sub au's of the cult au like villain au + imposter au. it's basically made for her. i mean, early days, the imposter au had been going around for a little while but one of the first few ideas was the Fatui taking reader in so like. it kinda technically actually was. pretty sure cult au Tsaritsa popped up because of the imposter au. a lot of it's writers kinda left though which. man am i getting old or.

anyway.

there isn't much of a chance her first impression is all that positive. at best it's usually neutral, imo, but rarely if ever positive. specifically because i view the Tsaritsa as someone who isn't as fanatical as most of the acolytes typically are towards the creator. she's not exactly going to worship the ground you walk on unlike a certain geo lizard. which is partially why i think she thrives in the sub au's i mentioned.

imposter au, for example. she meets you at your lowest. there's no gaudy extravagance or pampering from the acolytes waiting for you because your own acolytes have turned on you. for all intents and purposes you aren't a "god" at all. which is why i don't think she meshes well with normal cult au reader. the Fatui are made up of outcasts, basically, and imposter au slots right in just perfectly. you're weak, at your lowest, when you meet the Fatui in the imposter au. and the Fatui can help you, too.

a mutual exchange, really. the Tsaritsa sees a tool she can use to one up the rest of the nations and especially Archons, and she has no qualms about you using her and the Fatui in turn. you both want something out of it, after all. whether you just want to be safe from the rest of the acolytes, or you want revenge, or whatever else..she'll give you the power to fulfill it, and she gains the strongest piece on the chessboard when all is said and done.

the best way i can describe the first meeting is "practical", i suppose. she sees an opportunity in you. the ultimate gamble. because if she "saves" you, and you dont trust anyone else because they tried to kill you, well..she holds all the cards, doesn't she?

but the Tsaritsa, imo, is just as capable of being just as fanatical towards you as anyone else. she just won't worship you as the creator. but as yourself? clawing your way back to your divine power and taking back what belongs to you? the Tsaritsa is, to me, a character who's character flourishes in long-term fics more because she changes a LOT between "just met reader" and after having been with reader for some time. she's practically apathetic at the beginning but a lot of her character, in my characterization, shines through LONG after the first meeting.

[cheekblush]

took myself on a little shopping trip yesterday in the city where i used to study in hopes of lifting my spirits but by the end of the day i felt so disheartened. wandering the same streets 10 years later and not much has changed. i’m still the same lonely unlovable girl.

[sugarsnappeases]

politely asking if you could pretty please talk about option b from the jily post

HELLO!!! let's do it!!!!! this post is probs also gonna be a bit of a mess but it's mainly about sociopath lily who i love and miss dearly.

firstly, i would highly recommend paying a visit to jen and asking her about the baby killing fic <- link to the tag <3 bc godddd.... makes me crazy. but lily killing james (and harry) in general is something that can be so special.

so this is a lily who's careful and strategic and calculated and who's public image is a purposeful performance, she's the one in control of the expectations that people have of her - a lot of the time, for me, her ultimate goal is to be Remembered, or Revered. she wants glory and she doesn't care what she has to do to get it. coming to hogwarts as a muggleborn, she was basically starting at the bottom of the ladder in terms of people that would make the history books. but from there, she was top of her class, and in the slug club, and head girl, someone important in the school, remembered fondly by the teachers. after hogwarts tho, she's still just a muggleborn, and in that political climate, with the war and also just the general blood supremacy ideology, there's not much glory to be found there. but, she has james, the boy who's been loudly pining after her for years, a pureblood with a lot of social standing even if he's a blood-traitor. in fact, it's for the best that he's a blood-traitor bc she's a gryffindor and therefore, according to stereotypes, one of the good guys, on the light side of the war. if that even makes sense.....

so she marries james, and it's a big event, and now she has the potter name behind her. it's a very pragmatic approach to things, but james is mostly inoffensive, and he only sees what she wants him to see, and he gives her a much more solid social standing. and also simultaneously she's now fighting on the front lines of a war and she makes herself an indispensable member of the order. but she's still just a soldier. and then she has harry, and i don't think she really wants him but as much as she's in control of the expectations, she's still a pureblood wife now, and imo they're a very traditional, get married young, have kids young kinda bunch, even the 'progressive' ones and she's subject to that and sacrifices must be made and so harry is born

and i think she's thrilled when she finds out about the prophecy, bc with the war, she's kinda plateauing a little in terms of what she can do to make a name for herself and the prophecy means that she's Important - 'born to those who have thrice defied him' - and that she has the chance to Do something, the approach of some kind of glorious apotheosis. now, if we're talking canon-compliant sociopath lily it's the kinda thing where she decides that if she has to die to reach the glory she feels she deserves, then that's absolutely what she's going to do and she won't feel any qualms about that. taking that pragmatism to the extreme.

i think ultimately (and this is where the murder comes in), it just depends how the cookie crumbles from a certain perspective. like if the martyrdom that she can get from her death is worth the months in hiding with just james and the baby, if it's worth having to share that martyrdom to a certain extent with james and potentially harry, if the uncertainty of what might happen w the prophecy is too great to risk her entire legacy on - she can't just die and have it mean Nothing. if she decides she can't risk it or it's not worth it, i can very much see her deciding to cut her losses with the public image that she's so carefully built up, cut her ties with the life she's lived so far, and fuck off somewhere. the glorious apotheosis is the murder of her husband and son. she doesn't think she's going to get where she wants to go if she stays (she's also very impatient and really, she's been waiting long enough) and decides that the only way out of that life is doing something drastic. also it's so cathartic to just let go and kill them. also it's so sexy.

in baby killing fic i think (?? jen correct me if i'm wrong i may be confusing this w something else idk) she blames their deaths on voldemort which i loooooove but i also like the idea of her just upping sticks and leaving completely after the murder, and watching the aftermath from afar as people are like 'lily would never' and 'something must have happened to her' and the major uproar that results from it all considering her disappearance is surrounded by both the end of a influential pureblood family line and also the death of the child of the prophecy (even if less people know about that latter part). it's another way of leaving a mark. she becomes a Figure of Importance. nobody knows where she is, there's a whole big mystery surrounding her, she's front page in all the papers, it's a different kind of glory. and also so satisfying. i think she also quite likes the fact that she robs voldemort of the chance of killing them. like she would think that she was the one who had to put up with them for so long, why should voldemort be the one that gets to kill them?!?!?

idk i just think it's nice to let lily be messy and impulsive and murderous and just kinda snapping and deciding that she's had enough of her charade. good vibes yk. and then after she like lives the rest of her life somewhere in hiding, she changes her entire appearance and gets a fake name and a new life and maybe she like. makes a name for herself by like inventing potions or enchanting things in like. cairo or something. like she's reached the end of her the performance of 'lily evans', gone out with a bang, and now she's something new, something more. or idk maybe she goes on a killing spree and eventually kills herself too before she gets caught..... depends on my mood

(also. in terms of lily killing james like. in a fic. jen and i have spoken a bit about this big tomlily au - tomlily post for those who are as of yet unenlightened - where we've fucked w timelines and stuff but tom and lily are basically partners in crime/racing each other to achieve immortality. and they're looking into like. all different methods for it. and lily marries james bc she traces the Cloak of Invisibility down from ignotus peverell to the potters and she thinks maybe she could try and unite the hallows. and then she later kills him, taking the Cloak as she does but also using his death to make her first horcrux. tom's like standing in the corner of the room so proud as lily brutally kills her husband and then performs a horrible piece of the dark magic to secure her immortality...... omg what if she makes a horcrux out of the cloak... like tom does out of the Resurrection Stone.... jen are you seeing this?? i'm not entirely sure about it.... will consider further. anyway then tom and lily go on the run together travelling about looking for like, the philosopher's stone or some kind of fountain of life idk. anyway i think it's very sexy but that's kinda just a side note)

[lyinginthesnow]

okay but when tom hugged shiv and she just curled her arms into herself and leaned her head down like she was protected in her own private world that she would not let him enter…. even in that intense moment of grief she could not feel safe around tom, she could not relax into the comfort he was offering. and she only allowed herself to stay there for a moment before going to be with her brothers. but then! later, at the end, she leaves in the car WITH TOM.

im so interested in this constant push and pull within shiv. she can’t stand tom being too close to her. she doesn’t want him too far either. she wants to forgive him, she can never forgive him, she wants to never forgive him. and at the same time, she hates that she cares at all. that she couldn’t cast him off after he betrayed her like some irrelevant thing she no longer has a use for. but she does care about him. she loves him or she loves how it feels that he loves her. and she hates him and she hates herself and and and

[winterswhite]

I have a lot of thoughts about the way characters refer to themselves and others and I do plan to talk about more of them at some point, but right now I wanna talk about Citron and Homare and how they both use watashi in katakana (ワタシ) to refer to themselves. It says a lot about both of their characters and I find it super interesting, especially with the reasons both of them have, and where those reasons are the same and where they differ.

Most people who play gacha games probably already know about the different first-person pronouns that exist in Japanese, but I'm gonna talk a little about it anyway just in case. Watashi (私) is the most commonly used first-person pronoun in Japanese overall, being polite, formal enough for work situations, and gender-neutral. For the most part, people will use watashi to refer to themselves at work or in other formal situations regardless of their gender, while in casual situations it's used by women. Instead, in said casual situations, men tend to use boku (僕) or ore (俺) depending on the situation and who they're with; watashi would sound too stiff, for the most part.

That's part of why I find it interesting that characters like Citron and Homare both use it in casual speech. It's obviously not unheard of, but it does tell us things about who they are. They're the only two MANKAI actors to use watashi at all, which already stands out, and then even more so because of how it's written in katakana for both of them. Both of them have layers to their usage of it, with the obvious reason on the surface, and then deeper reasons underneath. The obvious reason is its politeness - Citron and Homare both have very good reasons for using watashi. They're both public figures to differing extents. Citron is the prince of Zafra, and Homare is a published poet with a good number of fans (who also comes from a wealthy family). It only makes sense for both of them to speak formally, and this extends to everything in their speech patterns.

Going beyond that, though, the reasons that they use it in katakana are particularly intriguing to me. In Citron's case, it ties in to another reason he has for using watashi at all: his initial ruse of being a foreign exchange student and his ongoing charade as the silly foreigner without a strong grasp of the Japanese language. As the "default" pronoun that's acceptable in most (if not all) situations, many Japanese textbooks will only teach you to use watashi, so it'd make sense for him as a foreigner to use it exclusively. It creates the impression that he isn't super familiar or experienced with the language, and probably isn't confident enough in his skill (or ability to fit in) to use any other first-person pronouns. He also speaks with a strong foreign accent and "messes up" his words often, and several of his words are written in katakana to reflect this. Katakana is most commonly used when writing non-Japanese words, but it also applies to Japanese words spoken in a way that doesn't sound Japanese (and other cases, but I'll get to some of those eventually). This is why his first-person watashi also gets written in katakana: to keep up the image of him being a foreigner with an accent, and nothing more than that.

Citron's reasons for using watashi in katakana are mostly external, tied to other people's perception of him. Homare, on the other hand, mainly has internal motivation to do the same. He does also use watashi because of his family background and social status (including as a writer), but the reason it's in katakana for him is partially to highlight his eccentricity; how strange and unique he is in personality and speech. Katakana can also indicate loudness in some cases, after all. On top of that though, I believe there's another reason he has to use it this way. In written media, robot characters often speak entirely in katakana to show their stiff and inhuman way of speaking. Since Homare feels alienated from others, comparing himself to and seeing himself as a broken cyborg, it's perfectly fitting that he uses watashi in katakana to reflect that. He's robotic, not quite human, just a little too different from others. This is just my interpretation, but since he otherwise speaks just like anyone else, with everything in kanji and hiragana as it should be, it creates the impression to me that it's solely his "self" that is robotic.

I think it's fascinating how it's specifically these two who ended up being users of ワタシ, as the two who are known for playing with language in different ways, and especially in comparing their reasons for doing so. On the surface, it seems the same: polite, but eccentric. Digging deeper, though, you can learn a lot about their characters from something as seemingly trivial as this, and that's a huge reason I find things like it so interesting. One wants to maintain an image of himself in others' eyes, the other has a solid image of himself that he cannot shake. While both are othered by society, one further alienates himself on purpose, and the other has simply internalized it.

[anxious-witch]

Me, trying to grasp bokris dynamics and pestering @sparkles-oflight about it: THEY ARE LIKE KATNISS AND PEETA TO ME

[froggyrights]

are you leaving? sorry for asking :/

Not sure yet :') being in this fandom takes such a huge toll on me when shit hits the fan that i cant really justify to myself staying and being invested in the same capacity as I have been. However I love my mutuals and this community too damn much to just up and leave completely 😭 for now im gonna take a break from tumblr and just give it some time. I could never leave tumblr fully though I fear I'm a yapper at heart so maybe I'll just end up posting about whatever. I really don't know ! I'll figure it out !!

[chiropteracupola]

actually I have decided that I need to restore my Discussable Fantasy Enjoyer Qualifications so I am going on a quest for a copy of temeraire Right Now

[spaceratprodigy]

messy sketch but. them. :)

@hibernationsuit — 💕💖💕💖🥺💖💕💖💕

HELLOOO??? I AM SQUEALING!! LOOK AT THEM!!!! I am on the floor sobbing rn hello my friend I love you with my whole heart!!!!!!!!

[featureenvyproductions]

Going to forever keep advertising my shit with tropes because do I have to? No. Am I too "stupid" to do it another way? No, not really. And as you've all seen, I also am perfectly capable of writing real blurbs and do write real blurbs. But I think it's fun to make the pic with the tropes anyway and have that around too. And also it keeps the pretentious people away. The sort who don't understand reading is not always for taking a "discomfort" vitamin because they A) are privileged enough to not have discomfort every day of their life to need to escape from or B) are fresh out of college and haven't discovered the joys of/have been shamed OUT of reading as a fun low pressure thing they can do to escape when they're fucking tired (and they think this sort of thing is new with fanfic and not more or less how "trash" lit like romance novels are marketed), as opposed to reading as some sort of Moral Duty To Be Deep that was instilled in them by a middle aged straight white English professor who thinks one can fulfill this by writing 10 pages about books where people scream at each other, have affairs with young women, or Make Up A Guy to warn people about things that Could Happen (that *cough* already happen to marginalized people *cough*) Anyway it's my version of a scarecrow. Firing shots to keep the rent low. Come take a seat next to me in the dumpster my fellow raccoons.

[krshush]

I know I've made myself permanently worse this time. I Know it. I just know it.

[girlwiththegreenhat]

don't know how to explain to people that we Want tumblr to continue to exist

[brakebabe]

Wish I could shut my mouth about an actor for once and have a super secret crush that’d be fun

[beauty-grace-outer-space]

Sometimes I feel like I should have like a business card character bio sheet that just.... lays it all out so people know in advance if they want to opt out of a friendship/relationship with me. 

Like: 

“This is BGOS. She-- quite literally-- never shuts up and 90% of it will be whining. The other 10% will be rants about obscure obsessions that no one cares about. 100% of it will be annoying. Do you wish to proceed?” 

[russell-crowe]

Yes or no game. Do you think Noel caused his divorce?

No (maybe, but if I had to choose between a hard yes and a hard no, a no)