#and I’m losing interest in fandoms at the moment so I can focus on this project which helps me out

[rinnysega]

I have enough material knocking around for three books - each standalone but also intertwined in characters and basic thematics

I’ve got a long road ahead but let’s see where it takes me 💕

Just gotta finish the first one first 😂

[paigesbasketball]

Shadow the Hedgehog Headcannons

Shadow the hedgehog x reader Warnings: None Notes: just shadow if he were being a tease to his significant other (a little sum cause the movie was dropped)

Sarcastic Remarks: Shadow loves to make sarcastic comments, often poking fun at your habits or quirks. He'll tell you things like, "Guess I’ll have to show you how it's done, again," whenever you try to do something he thinks you can’t handle.

Mocking Your Speed: Since he’s known for being incredibly fast, Shadow might tease you about not being able to keep up. "Hurry up, unless you're planning on slowing me down," he’ll smirk, knowing full well you’ll catch up in your own way.

Feigning Ignorance: Shadow loves pretending he doesn’t know something when he clearly does, just to get a rise out of you. If you ask him for help with something, he might say, “I’m not your tutor,” then end up showing you anyway.

The ‘Unexpected Compliment’: He’ll drop a compliment in the most unexpected way, making it seem like he’s trying to be rude at first. "You actually look halfway decent today. Guess it’s the lighting," he'll say with a smirk, knowing you’ll blush or respond defensively.

Teasing Physical Touch: He may deliberately brush up against you or playfully nudge you when you're not expecting it. Sometimes, it’s just to mess with you, and other times, it’s to see how you'll react to the sudden closeness.

Over-the-Top Drama: Shadow might act overly dramatic when you do something he finds amusing. "Oh, sure, that’s how you’re going to solve it? Classic,” he’ll say with exaggerated disbelief, even if it’s a simple solution. It’s all in good fun to see your reaction.

Competitive Tease: In friendly competitions or games, Shadow will never let you forget who’s winning. “Not bad, but I am the ultimate,” he’ll taunt, grinning whenever you get even a tiny bit close to beating him.

Mocking Your ‘Flustered’ Moments: If you get flustered or embarrassed, Shadow loves to notice and point it out with a sly grin. “Did I say something that made you blush? How cute,” he’ll tease, not letting you live it down for a while.

"I’m Not Interested" (But He Totally Is): Shadow will act uninterested when you flirt or compliment him, saying things like, “Stop wasting your time,” but his small smirk or subtle eye contact will tell you otherwise, making you wonder if he’s just playing hard to get.

Unbothered Smirks: Whenever you try to challenge him or show off, he’ll give you that signature smirk and say, “Is that all you’ve got?” His teasing tone makes it sound like a challenge, even if he knows he’s got it all under control.

Tease and Walk Away: Shadow is notorious for saying something teasing and then walking away before you can respond. He loves leaving you with no time to react, knowing you’ll be caught up thinking about what he said.

Messing with Your Routine: If he sees you’re in the middle of something important, Shadow might deliberately distract you with a harmless comment or playful taunt, just to see how easily you can lose focus.

"You Could Use Some Help": If you’re struggling with something, Shadow will occasionally offer his help in a teasing way. “You could use a lot of help,” he’ll say, just to make you roll your eyes before he steps in to assist.

Becoming More Touchy: After spending more time together and getting to know you, Shadow begins to show more affection in a subtle, touchy way. He may rest a hand on your shoulder or casually wrap an arm around your waist when you're close. It's his way of expressing how much he's grown to care for you, but in typical Shadow fashion, he’s still a little reserved about it. These moments are rare, but they show his soft side emerging as he grows more comfortable with you.

So... i fear after watching the movie I have fallen a little for shadow, like i have been with the fandom for along time since i have played that games as a child but wheeeewwww movie shadow did sum to me or maybe it was the final push...

-Caty writes

[howgalling]

idk if I mentioned but I got to speak to JRO after the con at tfnation; specifically about the first aid plot line he didn’t end up getting to include in the mtmte comics!!

I missed the panel where he was talking about it, but one of my friends mentioned it, so I had to ask for more information!!!!!. First Aid essentially loses the plot for a while trying to find a way to bring ambulon back. it’s briefly mentioned as an off comment by (maybe ratchet?) that first aid has been isolating himself for months with ambulon’s dead body in the comics. Which is crazy btw lol anyway

first aid spends all that time between the plot failing to find ways to bring ambulon back to life. He fully repairs ambulons body, every fragment of him is visually perfect, /technically/ functional. He even repaints ambulon, touching up the patchy paint job Ambulon was known for.

But ambulon is truly dead. What made ambulon who he was, his memories, his personality, his knowledge, his friendship- was obliterated in the bisecting, as was his spark. It was a complete brain-death by cybertronian standards.

As far as I’m aware, the spark is just a power source, relative to the memory banks portion of their processors and whatnot, specifically the sections that store the bots actual personality and memories. Though it’s always worded differently. JRO didn’t give an exact time range (understandable lol) for how long they were on Delphi, but the general thought is that First Aid and Ambulon were on Delphi together for a decent chunk of years, relative to the timeline.

:((( first aid and ambulon really endured Delphi together and bonded throughout that, and to see him murdered so abruptly, (by their ex-boss who they watched descend into madness- no less!!!) was extremely traumatising, as much as it’s played as a joke by the fandom lolol. ambulon suffered what was essentially complete brain death at the moment of injury, non-recoverable.

The dynamic between ratchet, Pharma and first aid/ambulon is really interesting, other people can word it better than me but it ties massively into the feedback loop first aid gets lost in from that point. Watching his closest friend die in a hysterical power play between his two superiors would be helpless agony. And it hurts more because we know first aids temperament :(( he’s still soft, despite it all, and he’s the type of character that you just want to shield from the nastiness of it all. 😭😭

First aid goes as far tracking down the mechs that were involved in the faulty combiner experiment Ambulon was forced into. Looking for maybe even an echo or an imprint, faint traces in the data+code of the mech’s that might have had /anything/ of his friend left in it. Pieces he could put together to make him whole again. But there’s nothing, just surface level memories from a bond that never succeeded. MAN

Anyway, I’m going to try and draw something for it, please give me focus

[bestworstcase]

seen a few posts on the subject lately that have me pondering the fandom theory that cinder will eventually, to some degree, lose control over the grimm arm. which mainly gets put forward as either:

it overtakes her completely, a la hound

salem uses it to kill her after she opens the choice vault and/or she defies salem and the arm attacks her

the arm acts of its on accord to do something cinder has chosen not to (e.g., attack a maiden)

with the arm in every variant becoming a straightforward reiteration of the shock collar from which cinder must be saved, or at best save herself (🔥). i think the difficulty in this reading is twofold.

first that removal of the grimm is thorny because it’s cinder’s arm, a part of her body, and so much of her character after beacon turns on the trauma of the violent dismemberment she suffered; i don’t think you can do ‘saving cinder from the grimm arm’ with any seriousness unless you engage with it as the act of a trapped animal gnawing off its own limb, so it has to be cinder cleaving herself from the arm in order to free herself from salem. any scenario wherein cinder is dismembered by someone else to save her does a disservice to the character and a scenario where cinder destroys a part of herself for another person’s sake reifies the view rhodes imposed on her that the only way for cinder to ‘be good’ is to allow others to hurt her.

and that’s… i think, the whole point of the grimm arm on a thematic level. this:

is the grimm arm, is what the grimm arm symbolizes. cinder strangles her owner while the madame frantically mashes the collar’s button to electrocute her; insofar as the grimm arm reiterates the shock collar, it’s the collar that can’t control her, but more importantly it represents is cinder being refigured in this moment as a monster.

which ties into:

the distress cinder feels watching tyrian maul this beowolf toward the end of v4; her particular focus on its arm comes from her self-identification with grimm, because the grimm are not and have never been the monsters in her story. as a child her predominant experience with the grimm was of being electrocuted and made to denigrate herself in punishment for failing to adequately clean crystalline statues of the monsters kept at bay by the bars of her gilded cage. she was ten at the oldest when she began to fantasize about killing her owner. so what did she see when she looked upon these statues?

there’s a reason salem fills the role of magical benefactor in the cinderella narrative, and it isn’t as simple as trading one evil stepmother for another; the grimm are the golden shoes, or the glass slippers if you prefer, which empower cinder to pursue her freedom. (i think it’s likelier than not that the arm was cinder’s idea, for this reason.)

so the narrative question underpinning the grimm arm is whether rhodes was correct in his condemnation; the arm is only a physical manifestation of the judgment laid against her that night and her transformation in his eyes from innocent child to monster.

that becomes untenable if the arm is parsed as merely an iteration of the collar and the mechanism of control which chains cinder to salem against her will. cinder has very clearly-articulated ideological reasons for being where she is, and her interest in the maidens is only a proxy for the power struggle she’s having with salem; she is bound to salem by her own conviction that the huntsmen uphold an unjust and unmerciful order.

separately from that there is also the question of motivation, and to a lesser extent the actual material nature of salem’s connection to, and hypothetical ability to take over, the arm. in order for cinder to lose control over her arm we must accept the presupposition that the grimm arm obeys cinder at all only because salem allows it, and therefore that salem may revoke cinder’s illusory control at any time she chooses. however:

one, i’m not sure that interpretation aligns with the struggle we see and what salem says in v4. “can you feel it? it can sense your trepidation. don’t fight it, girl. you must make it dread you.” <- implies a more complex relationship between cinder and the grimm than a simple matter of salem attaching it to her and ‘programming’ the grimm to obey; i could write a whole post picking apart this one line, but in the interest of brevity:

the grimm is responsive to how cinder feels about it, and her trepidation—her fear—is inhibiting the process.

cinder is in pain and visibly distressed, so salem’s question, can you feel it?, is not about the physical sensations; salem knows the grimm is sensing cinder’s trepidation, and cinder needs to be able to reach through the pain and grasp that too. it’s “can you feel what the grimm is feeling?”

her trepidation has become an obstacle because it’s driving cinder to fight an emotional or spiritual connection to the grimm, one that needs to open both ways.

“make it dread you” is an interesting choice of words, especially in conjunction with “don’t fight it,” because when the statements are paired they seem contradictory; how does one make something afraid by surrendering to it? but. dread can also mean reverence. and i think that might be the sense salem has in mind, because if it is necessary for cinder to open herself to an emotional or spiritual bond with this grimm, then salem is talking about synthesis and combination, and inciting ‘dread’ in the sense of regarding with great reverence, is a natural converse of ‘fighting’

if that’s so, ‘not fighting it’ isn’t an act of surrender but rather invitation; you must let it in so that it may know you as something greater than itself. you must transcend your fear and give it reason to revere you.

the “easy” answer, like always, is to presume that salem is making it difficult for cinder on purpose and weaving an elaborate lie to blame her for struggling, and like always the problem with that is it renders the text meaningless: the only way to ‘analyze’ salem under this lens is to disregard everything she says and make assumptions based on things other characters have said about her, which must be unquestioningly taken as fact. but the narrative keeps telling us, in increasingly unsubtle ways, not to do that.

so we cannot dismiss anything salem says as a complete falsehood without interrogating that possibility. if she is lying to cinder here, why? what purpose does it serve to give cinder false advice? if salem is deliberately withholding control over the arm from cinder, to what end is she hiding that? when she sends cinder off to haven in v5, her parting advice is “take care to protect [yourself and your gifts]; there is only so much i can do to aid you.” she does not seem to want cinder to feel dependent on her; how likely is it, really, that this is all a long and convoluted gambit to trick cinder into believing she’s free when in reality salem could turn her into a literal puppet at any time? if salem wants an obedient slave, and has the means to enforce her will through magical compulsion, why bother with the charade?

it is much simpler to interpret this as truthful instruction, which cinder likely doesn’t fully understand because salem does not explain it very well, setting up the continued struggle throughout the rest of v4 (because cinder doesn’t understand) and salem’s growing frustration (because this all seems quite straightforward to her).

and if it is truthful advice, then… control over the grimm arm isn’t something salem gave to cinder, but rather something she taught cinder how to achieve; thus, it’s unlikely to be something salem can just take away.

which, two, casts the incidents when cinder doesn’t have complete control over the arm into an interesting light. the first time occurs after winter cuts it off, and i think this one is somewhat ambiguous as to whether the arm grew back by itself or regrew in response to the shock, pain, and panic cinder felt when it was severed. if we take salem’s instruction in v4 to be truthful, the grimm arm is in tune with and responds to cinder’s emotions, and by v7 she has undoubtedly bonded with it, embraced it as her arm. it doesn’t seem like a leap to speculate that the arm grew back because cinder wanted it to.

the other two incidents, of course, are salem torturing her through the arm in 8.6 and cinder feeling salem reconstitute through the arm in 8.14; only one of these is clearly a deliberate action on salem’s part.

does cinder’s arm go haywire in 8.14 because salem is giving her a warning? i’m a little skeptical that cinder would react the way she does if that were the case, and far more skeptical that salem—as risk-averse as she is—would risk losing both relics and getting her fall maiden killed by tasering her mid-battle.

further:

salem knows cinder is alive after haven, despite everyone else presuming cinder dead, and refuses to explain how.

growing the arm back is extremely painful.

salem has a phenomenal tolerance for pain, to the point that even having her bones smashed into paste doesn’t faze her.

salem undeniably has some kind of connection to cinder’s arm; unless she managed to sneak her seer past dozens of huntsmen on high alert after killing lionheart, that connection is the only possible way she could have known that cinder survived.

when salem reconstitutes, she doesn’t appear to be in pain—but we know that grimm can and do feel pain (not just cinder’s arm, but there are many, many examples of ordinary grimm reacting to injury with obvious pain), and we know that nothing short of being set on fire can make salem flinch. so her stone-faced reconstitutions may or may not be painful; cinder’s agonized screaming while her arm regrows suggest that it is painful for salem too, and salem is just used to it.

if salem could feel that cinder was alive through the grimm arm—and if sensation can flow from salem to cinder through that connection, which it can—then it’s well within the realm of possibility that the link goes both ways such that cinder is aware of salem through it just as salem is aware of her.

which is to say, in 8.14 i think cinder may have experienced spillover of the pain salem felt when her body pulled itself back together.

and that leaves The Torture, the one clear-cut case of salem abusing whatever power she does have over the grimm arm to hurt cinder. as it pertains to the question of whether salem can revoke cinder’s control over the arm, there are two details worth noting:

one, it’s not clear whether the pain salem inflicts is accompanied by a loss of control; the arm thrashes and cinder grabs it by the wrist with her other hand to hold it down, but the writhing might be an involuntary reflex (pain!) and grabbing the arm an instinctive attempt to quell the pain. cinder’s arms spasm in similar ways during the flashbacks when she’s electrocuted. if salem does try to seize control over the arm, however, it doesn’t look like she succeeds: cinder presses the arm down and makes a fist, after which point there is no more thrashing.

so either the arm remains completely under cinder’s control and its writhing movements are an involuntary pain response, or salem tries to take control and fails. the former seems more in line with the—very delicate—balance salem has to achieve in this scene between punishment and capitulation.

and two, when the pain starts, cinder flashes back to the helplessness she felt as a child, but by the end, emotionally, she is here:

so i think it’s a little ambiguous as to whether it was salem or cinder who made the pain stop. after all, salem’s tactic here comes down to rewarding cinder for being defiant so that cinder will stay—she’s begun to figure out that cinder is more interested in winning the power struggle than in the maidens per se—which means she now has a vested interest in making cinder less afraid.

torture may seem like a counterintuitive way to accomplish that, but it isn’t a warning or a threat, it’s a battle she knows cinder can win. cinder expects to be brutally punished; she’s horrified when she realizes emerald brought her back to salem. but then… the pain salem inflicts on her is no worse than what she’s survived before. she’s able to bear up under it and overcome it, make it end, just like she did when she killed the madame.

that’s the worst salem can do to her?

and then salem goes into “it’s all my fault. you’ve fought your whole life unwaveringly for what you want, and here i am holding you back, instead of lifting you up.” the point of this is not to get cinder under her thumb, but rather to make it appealing for cinder to stay by demonstrating that the consequences for losing a battle with salem are not too severe and that salem can and will concede should cinder outmatch her, and that outmatching salem is possible.

if this is what salem intends to do, then the most important question with regard to the possibility of cinder being overtaken by the grimm and enslaved is how much salem might have held back so as to let cinder ‘win.’ but i think this tactical approach in and of itself is a concession that cinder cannot be controlled, because salem is more or less openly inviting greater defiance: relinquishing control for the sake of giving cinder an incentive to stick around. it’s, “you deserve more than i’ve given you and you can get it from me if you fight for it.” so again, either salem values cinder’s free will above obedience, or she can’t take control over cinder’s grimm parts.

you don’t try to carefully thread the needle of permitting and rewarding open defiance when a subordinate threatens to defect unless you have no other choice, or else really, really care about that subordinate having free will!

(which does also have some interesting implications for the hound; the narrative frames him predominately through the heroic perspective and in scenes with salem he seems to be under her complete control, so he is—apparently—an enslaved, tormented victim of brutal experimentation. but we also know nothing about him or the circumstances that led to this experiment, and there is a sixth seat at salem’s table unaccounted for. no other character in this story is what exactly what they appear to be at first glance; is he?)

the point being that i have serious doubts as to whether salem even can turn the arm against cinder in the way that the fandom generally seems to expect, to varying degrees. hurt her with it, certainly. but reach through that connection and puppet the arm against cinder’s will? it isn’t like the seers—those act like extensions of salem herself, with limited autonomy outside of her direct command. cinder’s arm is part of her, and salem’s part in cinder mastering it seems to have been limited to telling cinder how to form her own bond with it.

there is also the question of why: to what end? if salem embedded some sort of hound-mode failsafe into the arm against the possibility of cinder defying her, why did she not trigger it when cinder disobeyed direct orders in v8? if the purpose of the grimm arm in salem’s plan is to enforce cinder’s hunt for the maidens—prevent her from showing mercy or turning away from them—then why did it behave when cinder attacked winter instead of fria? if salem wants cinder to be more ruthless, more violent, why does she keep trying to divert cinder toward less destructive means?

the one suggested inciting moment that hasn’t already happened in some capacity is opening the choice vault, and by that point either the sword will be in play or salem will still need the summer maiden to open shade’s vault. she has never been particular about how the vaults get opened before; if the crown can compel obedience a la the golden cap, that is the obvious method by which to force the destruction vault open, either by compelling the summer maiden to open it or compelling her to deliver herself to cinder. and if cinder is still willing to play ball—why would salem choose then to enslave her, after handling cinder’s disobedience in atlas the way she did? to what end?

the only thing salem needs the maidens for is to open the vaults. she has plenty of her own magic to be getting on with, an inexhaustible supply of grimm, and two-going-on-three relics at her disposal.

when cinder defies her, she capitulates. when hazel defies her, she drops all of her hostages and pretends to fight him instead of like, doing this to him—

—and we know this woman is a capable fighter: she matches ozma blow-for-blow during their duel, and that was before he gave up his magic. so she, to put it gently, doesn’t seem all that keen on retribution when one of her own turns against her, and she’s already demonstrated some willingness to just Let Cinder Leave, even against direct orders, with minimal punishment when cinder returned.

so i think a reversal is difficult to justify in terms of motivation, because salem is demonstrably willing to concede and seek compromise if cinder refuses to be controlled, and it’s working—not in the sense that cinder is loyal or obedient again, but she’s invested enough to stay and play the game, which is all that matters to salem. i’m not sure why that would change before the choice vault gets opened, and it’s hard to see how even the worst-case-scenario crown (i.e., outright mind control) would change the calculus that much given that salem could only get to it with cinder’s cooperation.

if i’m right that the 8.14 “she’s back!” moment was not a deliberate warning from salem but rather cinder feeling the pain salem felt upon reconstituting, i think it’s a lot more likely that we’ll see cinder take a stab at turning the connection against salem: if the awareness through the link goes both ways, and salem can use the link to hurt cinder, it stands to reason that cinder may also be able to use it to hurt salem. at the very least i think it would cross cinder’s mind to try.

because, as i said, if the grimm arm is a repetition of the collar, it’s the collar that couldn’t stop her from wrapping her fingers around the madame’s throat.

[survivalove]

hii what type of tropes do u think katara fits ?? and what type of tropes do u think her character subverts ??

Hi anon! I’m not gonna lie this is a heavy topic which has been weighing on my mind ever since my Katara rant a few days ago. Tbh, I wasn’t going to make a post about this, just cuz I feel like maybe I talk too much 😂 but you just gave me the perfect excuse so here we go:

1. Girls are Healers, not Fighters

I want to start this off with the issue of misogyny in the Northern Water Tribe and how the fandom discusses Katara’s portrayal in LoK. First of all, the NWT not allowing girls to fight is misogyny and Pakku telling Katara to “go in the healing hut with the other women” very much sounds like “go in the kitchen where you belong”. This is something everyone understands.

However, I think we start losing the plot when people only focus on this aspect and ironically parrot the same misogyny when they talk about female healers in the franchise and in media. Let’s look at Yagoda. Yagoda is a recognized master. She doesn’t teach in her house, her kitchen or her bedroom. She teaches in a school alongside other master healers and students. When the Yue was stillborn, who did her family turn to at first? Pakku? No, the healers. During the civil war, did Katara just sit at home twiddling her fingers like so many in the fandom would have you believe? No, she was single-handedly healing dozens of rebels in her White Lotus outpost. The importance of female healers in the franchise and media in general should not be diminished when speaking out against this misogynistic trope. I just had to get that out of the way.

So, how does ATLA subvert this trope with Katara? They show her developing her healing abilities alongside her fighting skills. One does not hinder the other. When Katara discovers her healing ability, she gains respect for possessing a talent so rare and revered, by a man originally from the nation that wiped out the male and female waterbenders of her tribe. When Katara saves Aang’s life, the most important moment in the entire show IMO, in the same episode, she is also shown facing off a major enemy in battle and winning. These two sides of her are constantly shown in balance to the fullest extent of her power, without one skill being diminished to highlight the other.

2. The Hero’s Girl

I think this is another trope that’s prevalent in media, particularly shonen animes which ATLA gets compared to so often. A lot of times these female love interests are never in the main story without the main male character. They seemingly have a one-sided crush, fall apart at his feet, interacts with him only when he needs her (and only him), and can sometimes be a pick-me when it comes to any competing female characters. I think a lot of people see Katara this way solely because she gets with Aang in the end, when this does not even come close to how she is portrayed.

Katara is an extremely developed character. Her arc is largely independent of Aang even though there are so many parallels between the two. Katara initially sees Aang as just a friend and even when she starts seeing him as a potential love interest, she’s not begging him to notice her or accept her affections. She gets jealous but isn’t competing with anyone for his attention for long and she has relationships with other characters that further the story whether Aang is there or not. She doesn’t exist solely to be with him, in fact she even teaches him. Katara and Aang being endgame is not integral to either one of their stories. They don’t agree with each other all the time and when he pushes their romance too far, she isn’t framed in a negative light for rebuffing his affections. No one in the narrative forces her to be with Aang because he’s the Avatar for status, or anything else. Love is not her biggest priority and she chooses to put off her romantic feelings until the war ends.

Now does she get jealous of other girls who seem to like Aang as well? Yes. Does she cry and get emotional when something happens to him? Yes. Does she spend an episode pestering the fortuneteller about her future husband and get excited at the idea of falling in love? Lol yeah. Does she blush and hug and kiss Aang often? Literally every other episode. But that’s not all there is to her or their dynamic. I think some people often overemphasize the fact that Aang and Katara do get together in the end and act like it automatically voids the rest of her development in canon when it really doesn’t. Like I said in another post, I know a lot of Katara stans that don’t ship her with anyone or can discuss her character at great length without mentioning romance. People who choose to focus on her ending up with the hero to ‘defend’ her are more doing her a disservice if you ask me.

3. One-Dimensional Female Characters

This sort of ties into everything I just said and is also something the franchise achieves with all the female characters, but even more-so with Katara. Katara has several behaviors that directly contradict her general personality traits:

In the Chase, Katara lectures Toph about the importance of doing chores and being a team player and in the same episode, insults her, picks fights with her to the point she leaves the group entirely.

Katara loves her brother and always cheers him up when he’s feeling him down, but she still will tease and pick on him, and on a darker note, lashes out at him in the Southern Raiders when he doesn’t tell her what she wants to hear.

Katara turns up her nose at the wrestling tournament they find Toph in and winces as she attacks The Earth King’s soldiers, but still partakes in fighting the war because it’s for the greater good.

Katara from a young age had to take up the societal expectations that her mother would have had in her family and in her tribe, but is still a child and often takes delight in activities children enjoy, as she should.

The point is, Katara isn’t one-dimensional. There are a lot of contradictions within her that are usually juxtaposed one after the other. Yet, most viewers can only focus on one side at a time, usually choosing to focus on the negative aspects of her character. They will complain about her being motherly as if she never has fun. They will focus on the one time she was out of line with Sokka just to attack her character. They will cry she was too hard on Zuko, after 2.5 seasons of him chasing them down.

Most annoying of all, they will compare her to other female characters who are less hypocritical in nature and, in my opinion, simply not as complex as Katara. Don’t even get me started on how community is such an integral part of Katara, Sokka and Aang’s characters and how their character development often get overlooked in favor of characters with more individualistic and straightforward narratives. But this is about Katara.

Katara is an unapologetically feminine character that is sweet and kind without serving some villainous agenda that gives her a reason to be on par with the male characters when it comes to fighting skill. Her strength gets questioned in ways that Azula, Toph, Mai and Ty Lee’s do not. She subverts a lot of misogynistic tropes that a lot of 2000s female love interests in media suffered from and still do. She’s a very difficult character for most people to wrap their heads around, simply because she doesn’t stick to the script that most fmcs who look and act like her, do.

If we pretend she’s not fictional for two seconds, Katara is a hypocrite and hello? Who isn’t. It’s human nature for people to change their minds or do things that don’t really match up with that they’re say about. People who get mad at Katara for this, are essentially saying they’re mad because she’s not a flat character and they don’t even realize it. Her contradictions aren’t just one-off moments and her grief over her mother’s death isn’t something she only brings up once or twice. These occur over and over again because she is the other main character and with that comes a lot more screentime for her to be hypocritical, grow and show development to a level that the other female characters can’t.

[lol-jackles]

Hello, I’m sorry if this gets a bit long. I’ll try to edit it down once I’m done

So, I’m not saying this to downplay its importance to fans or Jared’s truly wanting to help people, but Jared was also very smart to come out with the Always Keep Fighting campaign, no? I could be talking out of my ass I this, because I wasn’t in the fandom at the time, but as well as being brave to share his anxiety/depression with fans, it also seems smart to share it on his own terms before it could be used against him. I think I’ve read on your blog that actors with MHI are often considered a liability to a production because if they “lose it” or walk off of the project, the higher ups are screwed. But, by Jared volunteering his personal information to the huge SPN fan base (and I assume some amount of press coverage), isn’t this a good way the give himself a bit of insurance? If his bosses are starting to think he looks expendable, they can’t now act on any desire to get rid of him without him or even his fans being able to turn around and call them out for discrimination.

I’m not saying these thoughts were the reason for AKF but do you think Jared had the foresight to sort of protect himself with the campaign as well, or was it all risk for him?.

I’m asking this because I read your recent response on possible reasons Jensen isn’t as sought after as Jared post SPN, despite being the clear favourite of some crew on the show.

Jared must have an amazing reputation to overcome the possible mental health stigma, and the fact that some SPN crew seem to blatantly favour Jensen (Wanek, Phil Segricia, Bib Singer, etc).

On a side note: who on the production crew do you think favoured, or even just backed Jared over Jensen? Or treated them equally even?

Okay, this was a lot. But I’d be interested in seeing your insight on any of this (I know you’ll pick what you would prefer to focus on) because from what I can tell, you really do have a pretty good read on what was likely going on behind the scenes.

I think you’re on the right track because it was also my first gut reaction the moment the Variety article came out. For Jared to come out when his career is still hot is pretty telling, normally actor don’t admit to mental illness until their career is drying up.  It’s one less thing he has to hide and therefore one less leverage others BTS can’t use against or hold over him.   

"I wasn’t in the fandom at the time"

During the early season there were rumors circulating that Jared was always late to the set. My first thought was, "They're setting him up to have a difficult reputation". It's producer tactic 101, put out fake news that the actor is a diva who is always late and if the actor doesn't toe the line, escalate it to "difficult actor" so that the studio is not the bad guy if the actor suddenly leaves. 7 years later we find out that Jared was looking to break his contract, so the producer(s) were preparing to make him the fall guy. Once Jared stayed on, the "late to the set" rumor immediately evaporated.

I bring this up because it ties into our speculation that Jared's decision to out himself for mental illness was at least partly motivated by removing a leverage against him BTS.

It was also the right time because he proved that as the principal lead of the longest continuous genre series in America, he's not a risk because filming schedule was never disrupted, which costs a lot of money. Even when he had a breakdown on set in season 3, he still finished out the season. His subsequent breakdown after season 10 could have derailed that, but he returned for season 11 and again lead the show through it's rating resurgence. Impressed, CBS arrived two years later at his doorstep with a holding deal.

"On a side note: who on the production crew do you think favoured, or even just backed Jared over Jensen?"

My immediate thought was Jeremy Carver. He was not in favor of the season 10 Dean-centric arc that Robert Singer and Jensen were angling for, and even tried to head off their campaign during Comic Con prior to season 9. His wife is currently the showrunner of Walker. There's also writer Adam Glass, I'm not sure why but he just vibed being all about Jared.

ETA: thanks to others' reminder, I would also add Sera Gamble. I can't believe I didn't immediatley thought of her as she's one of my favorite writers.

[brokenlovesong]

any idea on how to get motivation to write I’m dying here 😭😭✊✊

Dude, I’ve been asking the same thing😭 we in the trenches together.

But real talk, here’s a couple of things I sometimes do to attempt to motivate myself (I say attempt). Hopefully it’ll help you as well!

Ask yourself what you want to see out of your character. I find that if I know where I want my character to eventually end up, it helps me plan what comes before. So like do you what your character to learn a lesson? Or maybe achieve something? Or even lose something. Focus on building up to that point. Relationships are also incredibly important. Where is the relationship between any two character starting off vs ending up? Is one learning something from the other? Etc

Continuing with relationships, I find seeing how characters parallel and contrast with each other to help me be able to frame the individuals better. What makes the two characters alike and what makes them different. These differences and similarities help to define a character and write them more distinctly.

I find music helps me a ton to guide my stories when I don’t know what else to do. Pick a song that relates to your idea and then start trying to pair lyrics to moments. Don’t focus so hard on this that you lock yourself into it and can’t allow any creative freedom. But it’s a nice starting point

Engage in media relating to what you want to write about. When I was working on my senior project, a big theme was mental health and how one persons mental health affected someone else. I got really stuck and unmotivated but I put on a bootleg of next to normal and I found that gave me the push I needed to continue. Even if something isn’t a one to one on what you need to work on, often letting yourself live in a world similar to what you want to write for a moment will spark that interest you need. If it’s fanfiction you’re working on, engage in the fandom somehow. Listen to songs about it or if it’s a tv show watch and episode or two.

If you have someone else you can bounce ideas off of, do that! A second set of eyes and ears is always one of the most helpful things you can get. Even if you don’t take whatever suggestions they give, it may still give you an idea or two and if not, just hearing your problem out loud can still reframe it in your mind. They also may point out things you never thought of. There’s really no loss to getting a second opinion.

Finally, remember writing should be fun. If you aren’t enjoying it, write something else. Take a break. Especially if this is just fanfiction (not sure if it is but I’m throwing that out there). Fanfiction is literally zero stakes. Your writing for yourself. Your not getting paid. No one is going to fire you if you don’t put out that fic. You can’t force yourself to enjoy something.

And if it’s simply that you can’t get your ass up to actually start writing (because I know that feeling too well) THIS IS YOUR SIGN GO RIGHT NOW AND DO THE THING

I hope this made any semblance of sense. Feel free to dm me or send me more questions if you’re still stuck and if there’s anything you don’t understand I’d be more than happy to further explain it. I love talking about writing. It’s a big passion.

[which-hospital]

Take the Strain (03/02/24)

Melty brain week. Staying on top of my reading but at what cost?

This episode review ended up incredibly unbalanced with three paragraphs about the same topic and then I ran out of energy by the time I got to the rest of it. Normally, I'd try and give myself some time to try to balance it out but I really don't feel like for this episode.

I’m just going to unpack all of my Teddy Thoughts at the start.

An even more frustrating episode than I bargained for because there were actually some things I liked. Just, separated entirely from their context. Things I liked: Jan. Jan's so underrated. I am so desperate for them to actually continue from Switzerland that I will take anything at this point and I did really like that it felt like Teddy still wants/appreciates Jan’s approval, even now. Very Character of him. Extremely Character. In my head, Teddy has never and will never get over needing Jan’s approval and that’s just emblematic of the deeper issues going on with him. Those moments were good. I just don’t think Jan being upset at Teddy had to come from her noticing the Jodie stuff, he was already up to objectionable stuff without that. 

Similarly, I thought Teddy and Paige’s conversation in the lift had potential. The big problem I have with how this relationship has ended is that it feels like the writers are somehow convinced that they're breaking up because Teddy and Jodie happened, when Teddy and Paige would absolutely have broken up even if that didn't happen. They've been headed this way since Dog Days, at least. I just think the whole thing would've been better if they'd have leant into the fundamental issues the relationship has, instead of putting all the focus on this stuff with Jodie which is not the most interesting or even biggest problem they have. The Sah/Paige kiss created so many interesting routes they could've taken but they lost track of what they were doing with it very quickly and then kept losing track of every new opportunity they created. In my heart, they are to Casualty what tomshiv is to Succession. In reality, they're a mess.

I wish I could give a real, proper reason why I don’t like Teddy and Jodie together but I just don’t. It’s so bad that I can barely their scenes together. I guess we’re heading towards more of them, potentially even a proper romance plot? Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh. As I type, I am grimacing at the thought. Whenever I get a romance plot and I don’t like any of the potential outcomes I just start thinking of more unlikely outcomes. Anyway, Paige/Jodie when? When Jodie also figures out that Teddy is probably best left single right now, she and Paige can commiserate together and then get together. It wouldn't make sense but has any of this made sense?

Otherwise, it was a heavy one. Are they just making the most of always being on after the watershed or something?

My incredibly unpopular (at least, unpopular in other areas of the CAS fandom) opinion is that Iain is my least favourite paramedic. Don't dislike him at all, I like him but I just don't understand why the show chooses to only remember plot that has happened to him and often chooses to pretend things that happened to the other paramedics never happened. Maybe I associate him with Faith a bit right now, too.

The music sequence or whatever was so out of nowhere that it was more amusing than dramatic.

I’m glad Rash and Rida have worked it out for now.

The way Casualty has been dealing with disabilities lately has been uncharacteristically uncomfortable. I don’t really have the brain space to expand on that right now but certain choices sure have been made.

Nothing in next week’s spoilers that I feel like I need to comment on, except for Max finally agreeing to take Jodie’s kidney. I would really, really hope it’s mainly an episode of Jodie and Max stuff.

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

My dad and I binge watched all the currently released episodes of Mandalorian season 3 (up to 4 right now). Based on what I’ve seen so far:

1) I feel that the “imperial warlord” is going to be revealed to be Admiral Thrawn. It makes sense since the Ahsoka show is coming up, which is going to be about the whereabouts of Ezra and Thrawn.

2) I do like that this season is actually centered around the Mandalorian culture. The first two seasons were definitely more about Grogu and the Jedi from an outsider’s perspective (Din), so it’s nice to see Din actually be the focus of the story for once. Also, because of the heavy focus on Mandalorian culture, I do get why Bo-Katan is now a main cast member. She fit perfectly in the storyline.

3) Bo-Katan is getting the “Jaime Lannister loses his hand” / “Zuko Alone” treatment. I’m not a hardcore Star Wars fan but from what I’ve seen, Bo is a character who the fandom is a bit divided on. Lots of people like her and lots of people dislike her. So, what I meant earlier is that it looks like Favreau and Filoni are trying to get the audience more on her side by exploring her character after she lost everything. She lost her allies, the Darksaber, and her motivation to fight, which is forcing her to reassess her life. And in this low moment for Bo, she’s finding a new purpose in life by bonding with Din and Grogu, joining the Watch, and seeing the Mythosaur. It’s definitely an interesting angle for this character.

4) What’s up with Pedro Pascal and starring in TV shows where he’s not the main character of episode 3?

5) I liked the Dr. Pershing and Elia Kane episode. It was a little random, but I liked the idea that the New Republic is just the Empire repackaged. The idea that the new government is repeating the same mistakes as the previous one is realistic and you can definitely see the real-life parallels that the show was going for (Operation Paperclip). How this leads to First Order is still beyond me but to be fair, the sequels are still 20+ years away in the timeline.

6) Shipping or not, I do like the angle the show is going with when it comes to Din and Bo’s partnership. Bo views Din as a cultist, Din views Bo as someone who has lost sight of the Way. However, the way their partnership is progressing feels natural. Obviously, they’ve become Grogu’s parents. For Bo, based on how she was looking at Din during the redemption ceremony, I feel that she does appreciate Din’s dedication to the Way. He may be from a cult but at least he hasn’t fallen to the wayside and become a mercenary with no morals. Also, I feel that Din respects Bo as a person since not only did she take care of Grogu and save him on multiple occasions, she’s a Mandalorian leader who wants to restore the honor of their people. It’s like they may not get along on the surface level, but they respect each other’s dedication to the Mandalorian people and culture. And, I don’t know, maybe this might lead to a blossoming friendship/potential romance. What I’m saying is…I can see it.

[vacantgodling]

re. about

ren (or rimz for cool kids). he/him. twenty five. black. queer. neurodivergent.

i'm redoing this because i'm losing steam (thanks work) and i'm pulling back on a lot of projects to mostly focus on things that make me personally happy. as is the nature of my brain, i will still jump back and forth between projects when i lose the flow for another, but i’ve narrowed my important wips down to just three main ones. other projects are currently being shelved, or put to the side as half baked ideas that i still need to keep in the oven before i introduce them to anyone formally.

(so if you don’t see a wip listed in the wips tab, it’s either shelved indefinitely or i want to work on it on my own for a bit. you can ask me about my other wips if you know/remember them but i can’t guarantee i’ll answer about them at this time. this also doesn’t mean i won’t ramble about them when i feel like it.)

important sideblogs = no pressure to follow just fyi

@babylonsfalling -> all my fandom and other nonsense goes here

@todazzlingreading -> this is a personal checklist for things i want to read by y’all that i don’t have time or spoons to get to at the moment i see it. once i read a post there i’ll delete it from that blog and rb it over here with any comments in the tags :3

to find my art commissions, please look here: https://www.tumblr.com/vacantgodling/715216537870532608/commissions-are-open

re. disclaimers / interaction

i mainly write fantasy; it’s a broad overarching label that covers all of my interests and it’s my first love in writing. horror and horror adjacent elements always make an appearance in my works. i emphasize complex mlm relationships and male leads, and romance is a great love of mine as you’ll notice from the king of my current wips. worldbuilding is also a great love of mine. i also love writing smut and talking about my characters having sex.

as such some disclaimers: following me is a very much curate your own experience. i don’t want to hold back talking about adult and mature themes so if you’re uncomfortable with anything i talk about i’d just suggest you unfollow lol nothing personal.

i’m open to asks and talking about anything but there’s no pressure. anons are always cool. i’m probably not gonna do writing based tag games too too much bc writing has been nonexistent lately but character asks or ramble ones i will do :)

also, as a personal ask: please do not refer to any of my characters as babygirl or girlie(s). shit makes me squick thanks.

re. main wips

linked are the main tags & once i finish the wip intros for paramour and tcol (revamping them) i’ll link them as well. feel free to ask to be on the taglist for any of these (i’m going to do better with these) — taglists will be activated for all writing and official posts. this won’t include ask games or random babbling.

PARAMOUR || “saved” from an imminent social death through arranged marriage, HYACINTHUS SHRAPNEL is whisked away to The Chateau aux Aisles D’or, where an unlikely sexual relationship with his butler AMON leads to far more than he bargained for.

THE CHRONICLES OF LATHSBURY (check out the crash course HERE) || The Aegean Guild of Explorers, led by the mysterious newcomer to Lathsbury Madja Fandel welcomes its newest contingent after the guild bid: PIPER FAIRWIND a MBW with a fighting spirit and desire for money and glory, DEUX UNDERSHIELD a naive protector seeking answers for her brother’s spurn, SANDRA “SAN” DEARBORN a vicious hunter with a chip on their shoulder, CLEAR BRIGHTENDALE a medic with a host of dark secrets, and FORTE SYMPHONIA a ranger seeking his own destiny, are as ready as they’ll ever be to enter the fray, to conquer the mysterious and dangerous LABYRINTH. Forces that have been in motion since before their lives even began are finally reaching their peak, and the five of them will have to use everything they’ve learned and then some to stay alive.

re. navigation

talking -> musings and personal thoughts

about renjamin -> insight to me / who i am

ren analysis -> when i get meta about my wips

ren mix -> a treasure trove of my music taste

ren polls -> any polls i make

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[stardusthuntress]

EnigmaTech - Ch. 1

My Tech lives AU! This one is based on the idea that the Bad Batch just needs someone with a clear head to follow his trail and appreciate the man for what he is truly capable of! So far I’ve stuck to one-shots and imagines, but this one felt like it needed a little more. I’m not a many-chapter-fic writer, but this one I felt like it could be divided into 3-4 solid chapters that focus on the beloved brainiac. Consider it a mini-series! 

(Part 2)

Chapter 1 - Clues 

Tech x FAB!reader (eventually, but he doesn't meet her quite yet) (just female pronouns; no use of y/n, it’s all in third person [she/her]; no physical description in this one) 

Word Count: ~2.5K

Chapter Summary: Using only what the batch has at their disposal (a lot more than they realize, thank you Tech), a new friend manages to convince them that Tech survived and is in need of their help!

TW: mentions of Tech’s demise (but he lives!); reader infodumping (self-indulgent, sorry! I really connected with Tech on this and this is how I'm coping with the writers' poor decisions at the end of s2); I am a scientist, so I wanted to bring my own experiences into this a bit, hopefully, I got all the details correct, I'm not a geneticist tho, nor a comp sci person, so please be nice if I messed up!

Author's Notes:

Somehow, this came out from Hunter’s pov. Wasn’t exactly the way I’d planned it, and this might change in the next chapter, but I needed a way to illustrate how Hunter was struggling with losing two brothers and his little girl (he's 100% a girl dad now, no going back).

Also, this is totally self-indulgent. I always write she/her/reader's pov like it's me because that's what I know how to do. If I can write from the heart it's more genuine. Hope you guys are okay with that!

I like to make references to other fandoms and stuff when I write, hope you guys don’t mind that. There’s at least 1 blink-and-you-miss it Hamilton reference, among others… hehehe!

Side note, this was not beta'd. I tend to just crank stuff out because it's on my mind, and post it asap so I can get it off my chest. Please lemme know if there are typos and if you guys like it!

Tech dividers by @/djarrex!

She joins the team shortly after Tech and Omega are stolen from them. 

When the bad situation they were in got even worse, they ran to Rex, in need of a calm, collected, commanding presence that wasn’t in the grip of fresh losses to help them figure out what to do next. Rex brought them his best analyst, an old friend who quietly helped out in secret during the war, and now helped him rescue as many brothers as he could. 

Echo knew her. They came up with a few battle strategies together when he was with the 501st. He trusted her with his life. 

Hunter, who always held his trust in reserve to begin with, now trusted even less since Cid is the reason Omega is now in the clutches of the Empire. But Rex and Echo insisted, and he knew they were in dire straights and would not be able to rescue Crosshair and Omega (and Tech) on their own, especially not while their better judgment was clouded with so much pain. 

At first, she just helps AZI patch them up and keep an eye on them as they heal. Slowly, they begin to trust her a little more. As she brings them water so they don’t have to get up, and sits with and chats with Wrecker until he falls asleep, and helps Echo with his prostheses, and always makes a point to do everything quietly to go easy on Hunter’s senses. They appreciate how her effort says she cares.

Eventually they start letting her learn them a bit more. And they learn more about her. She’s an interesting mix. She’s somewhat neurodivergent like Tech - she can go on endless infodumps and loves to learn. But she also has moments where she exhibits what Tech once described to the as “neurotypical behaviors”. She jokes with the men and flirts with them when the time is right. She gets a lot of social cues, but she does miss a fair amount too. The boys learn why Tech describes his differences like a spectrum. 

Eventually, Hunter and Echo come to the realization that she is going to need notes, detailed notes, if they are going to find their lost siblings. They have all tried giving her as many notes as they can remember, but in order to do enough research to find them, she would need to know more about Crosshair and Omega, and no one took notes on everyone quite like Tech did. They decided to give her access to Tech’s notebook, if all 3 of them agree on it. So they confront Wrecker. He’s all in. He trusts her, despite Cid’s betrayal, his determination to see the best in people has hardly wavered. Anything she needs to help them get their brother’s back is fine with Wrecker. And he trusts that if both Hunter and Echo have come to the same conclusion, then it’s worth it. 

For days she sat reading his copious notes, it kept her quiet and distant from them - Hunter was grateful for that, he needed time to adjust to her presence He wasn’t used to being around a woman so often. She brought a different way of existing to the soldier’s lifestyle he was used to. 

Her habits and mindset was somewhat new to him. 

“It may seem like an enigma now, but there are clues everywhere. You just need to know where to look and how to read them” she had said when she began her quest to learn more about their fallen brother, lost brother, and stolen sister. 

He was just grateful he, Wrecker, and Echo didn’t have to re-live the pain watching that horrible moment all over again to try to get something out of it. 

One day she begins to surface from his notes. Hunter braces, he had gotten used to her presence like that, and didn’t think he was ready for the conversations about brother’s end that were certainly coming. 

“This passage here, about Omega… it doesn’t make sense, it’s not Tech’s words” 

“What do you mean?” Hunter peers over her shoulder “that’s him alright, watched him write that one myself shortly after we picked her up.” 

“Oh, that’s not what I meant, sorry… these words are phrased exactly the way he writes everything, his speech patterns, his grammatical ticks, he IS the one that physically wrote the words down, except one thing doesn't match his pattern: the scientific errors. The one thing he knew none of you could check.” 

“So, you’re saying that Tech tricked us?” Hunter’s annoyance is apparent in his tone. His temper was on a short fuse these days, but she understood why. 

“No! I’m saying he’s employing a handy psychology tactic here. Usually used only for one of two purposes: reassurance or manipulation, but it’s definitely the former.” You hold up a hand, knowing Hunter is read to interject and snatch Tech’s datapad away from you for implying Tech would ever deceive his brother’s and harm them. “I know, you watched him write it and he would clearly never hurt any of you intentionally. A later passage about his conversation with Omega about feelings clearly conveys that quite eloquently and explains how deeply he cares for each one of you, but I think he might be trying to protect you from the full truth here, at least until he knowns what it is. As I’m sure you noticed, almost everything he writes has a double meaning, if not a triple meaning.” 

Hunter’s eyes remain narrowed, but he’s quiet, waiting for the whole story before he makes any decisions. He was protective of his little family before, and that’s multiplied tenfold since Cid’s betrayal cost them so much. 

“This passage here uses the word “perfect copy” to describe Omega, but there’s a lot inherently incorrect about that from a scientific perspective, and Tech clearly knows that. Perfection is, technically speaking, unachievable. There’s always something that deviates from the original, just a little, especially when discussing the complexities of genetics. I’m no geneticist, but his notes from when you first met Omega states that according to his scan (the results of which are included in the notes), she bears the female genetic marker - two X allosomes, and no Y - and has since she was created, which in and of itself means that she cannot be a perfect copy of Django who was male at birth, and bears the same male genetic markers that you lot do - an XY allosome pair. Which means, his statement here that she is a “perfect copy” is incorrect and he clearly knows that… at one point he even goes on to describe how she displays more neurotypical traits like you boys, rather than his neurodivergent ones… (whispered) paternal traits indeed, you’re definitely a clone of Django, you shouldn't worry about that Tech... He could be referring to her as a ‘perfect child’, however, again, perfection is inhuman and totally impossible when referring to something as complex as a sentient being, so that’s also unlikely unfortunately, as sweet as it would be for him to describe her like that… Earlier he mentioned that Nala Se told Tarkin that there were 5 ‘genetically deviant clones’ and that that must include Omega because Echo is genetically a ‘Reg’…” 

She turns to face Hunter directly, “Tech knew you were reading this over his shoulder and had access to it. He’s doing his best to describe Omega in a way that will only fortify your protection of her, not because that would ever waver - he describes several times how your paternal instincts are very attached to her, and he is both certain and grateful that nothing could change that - but he does it because she is very important to something, some big secret thing the Kaminoans are doing, though I don’t think he knows what exactly…” she trails off, searching through the datapad for more as she thinks. 

Hunter is shocked, first by her analysis, second by how easily she read Tech, and third by the fact that he, Hunter, is starting to agree with her analysis. “But if they’re ‘not his words’ as you said… then whose words are they?” 

She’s silent for a moment, as she considered this, still scrolling back through Tech’s copious notes. Hunter is struck for a moment how Tech always seemed to write like he was running out of time… 

“I think… I think, based on the way he explains how you lot describe Omega when she’s asleep and your paternal instincts ‘truly appear’ as he puts it, and,” she emerges from Tech’s notes for a moment, and Hunter is struck by how she’s just like Tech “and from my personal experience around you lot… I think he’s using your own words as a way to reassure you. Again, a handy psychology trick when used by a kind hand.” she nervously dives back into Tech’s notes. Hunter notes how she seems to make an effort to not annoy him again. 

She continues with her thought as her mind races on “all of the words he uses to describe Omega have positive connotations, there’s no hidden negativity, which means his intentions are good and not manipulative.” 

She looks up, but doesn’t totally dissociate from the datapad this time, her eyes still glossy wand swirling with thoughts. She opens her mouth like she’s poised to say more, but worry crosses her features “I’m sorry, I’m rambling again. I’ll stop. I do that a lot, I know.” 

She looks around concerned, by this point both Echo and Wrecker have joined the conversation, but none of them can look at her right now. 

Hunter is the first to speak “don’t worry, we’re used to it, Tech does the same thing all the time… or… used to anyways.” 

She tenses a bit “understood, I’m sorry for your loss, I still intend to help you as much as I can. Loss like that is cruel, let’s see if we can get him back, yeah?” 

“Yeah” Hunter relaxes a tiny bit, but feels the sadness of loss settling in. He doesn’t believe Tech could have survived that fall. 

She dives back into the notes. There’s a moment of silence. She continues to read quietly, giving the men a change to exchange quiet glances, feeling better now that they might have someone like Tech, something familiar, who can help them find their family. They find comfort in the quiet as she continues to ponder his scribblings with a knitted brow for a few moments. 

Hunter breaks the silence. “I feel almost ashamed that none of us figured that out. He’s our brother. I guess we didn’t know him as well as we thought we did.” 

“It’s not your fault, Hunter. Same goes for you two,” she pats Echo and Wrecker. “Pain of loss can be blinding. You do know him well, but your own emotions got in the way. It helps to have an outside voice to help you see through the haze of emotions. Nothing wrong with asking for help. I’m  here to help in any way that I can.” 

Her attention shifts again, and she emerges from the datapad completely this time. The hand that clutches it falls to her lap as her eyes find Hunter’s, and he’s not surprised to find a new thought sparkling in them. 

“You said Hemlock gave you back his goggles, did he not?” 

“Yeah” Hunter’s hesitancy returned 

“Don’t worry, I don’t want to hurt any of you lot, either. I just need more information about the incident itself” 

Hunter sighs. 

“Did his goggles still have the recording device on them?”

“How did you know about that? None of us told you about that” 

“He includes many screenshots and videos from them in his notes” 

“Right. Sorry” 

“It’s okay. Hesitancy to trust is natural after being sold out like that, I understand. But please know that I just want to help you find your brothers and sister, they seem like good people, and this Tech fellow is clearly brilliant!” 

Hunter produces the goggles, recording device still attached. 

Echo chimes in “I checked for a recording from it, but scans said there’s nothing on it” 

“No backups? You’re telling me a man like Tech didn’t have backups of everything in a secure format? Is this not his backup datapad full of his notes I’m holding? I’m guessing that somewhere on here is a backup copy he fashioned himself that the Empire wouldn't be able to tamper with, one with a hidden access port - something the Imperials wouldn't know to look for since to them devices like this are usually only remotely accessed” 

She gently detaches the recording device from the goggles and inspects it carefully. The men gather around her and watch her with baited breath. Clearly the Empire did not remove it from the goggles, as there is still a fair amount of dirt on the side that had been next to the band of the goggles. As she gently brushes the dirt off, her finger nail finds the edge of something. Tracing it out, she finds a rectangle in the rubbery casing around the recording device, and gently pops it open. 

“Bingo” she whispers, as though a loud noise will shatter the moment. 

“I think I’m starting to agree with you” Hunter whispers in her ear, quiet enough that only she can hear. 

She inspects the port the silicone hatch revealed “I don’t suppose any of you lot have seen a cable that might fit this lying around somewhere?” 

They sit quietly for a moment, well aware Tech left cables for all sorts of things scattered everywhere. Each contemplating the most likely spot for Tech to keep an important cable like this, before Echo pipes up “I’m betting he’d keep a spare in his spare kit!” 

Wrecker launches out of his makeshift seat to grab the kit, and hands it to Hunter. “You better look for it, I don’t think he’d like me rummaging through his stuff… might break something…” he trails off, clearly sad. 

She pat’s the big guy on the arm and he sits back down, a little closer this time. Seeking her warmth for comfort. 

“He clearly loved and still loves you very much Wreck, even if he has his own way of showing it” 

Wrecker smiles, “thanks Y/N” 

Hunter produces several cords from Tech’s pack and holds them out. “One of these look like it might fit?” 

“Yes!”

Echo reaches for the other end of the cable “what does the other end look like?” She let’s him inspect it while she attaches the one end to the recording device. 

“This one goes here,” he plugs it into the console they sit next to. “Let’s see what he got as…. Let’s see what trail he left for us” 

As the recording comes up on the bigger screen, they all gasp. Most of the contents of the recording are going to be a difficult mess to untangle, but one thing is clear: Tech is very much ALIVE!!!

(Part 2)

Please don't steal my work! I pour my heart into these so if you like it please reblog to share instead of reposting it!

[yuansie]

ocean memories : prelude's elegy.

synopsis. the last elegy dedicated to the past, never to be forgiven and always to be remembered... for now.

pairing. rafayel x fem! non mc! reader

warnings. talks of hatred and allusions to death oop, reader is a pianist but idk much abt that so i tried to be vague abt the process LOL ?, rafayel being rude bc why is he ignoring his aunt ?! /hj, slight spoilers of rafayel's anecdote (anecdote 3... and it's literally just a line LOL). if there's anything i should add, please let me know!

genres. angst el o el !

rating. rating. pg-13 😟

w/c. 1k

a/n. REVIVED JUST TO POST THIS !! i will HOPEFULLY be able to post this weekly heh 😜 NAWT PROOFREAD BTW !!!! also, i would like to say that the series does have spoilers to rafayel's overall lore but is different to how the fandom has come to piece together the timelines. for the sake of the series, the abysswalker myth is set in the past and therefore there will be minor changes to rafayel's lore HFOAIHWEFIAHE anyways. i hope you all enjoy this !!

HE NEVER IMAGINED HIMSELF TO BE SITTING HERE, he never imagined himself to accept his aunt’s invitation. especially after what he's done and in the midst of being investigated.

he supposes he did it out of impulse, his body itching to do something for once instead of drowning deep into his sorrows and the inky thoughts that plague his mind. in a world lacking color, a world lacking all warmth, rafayel finds it impossible to ever take an interest in something other than boiling rage and the thirst of revenge.

everything is a painful reminder of what has been lost and will remain so. the cries that echo in his ear like a broken record making it impossible for him to forget. that one voice that haunts him in every possible way, an aching reminder of what he's done and will forever remain lost.

this too, he thinks as his eyes scan the theater, the rows of red velvet seats occupied by lovers of the opera. this too… she would’ve liked it.

she would. she really would have liked it. she would have savored this: the music.

because music feels like the crisp wind on a nice day where the tides are calm and you can taste the salt in the air. because music makes her feel like she moves like the water does, and because music is as beautiful as everything that is a part of her beloved ocean…

the smell of sea salt is so strong that he sits up in his seat so fast it gives him whiplash for a moment, lurching forwards as the lights dim and focus on the stage, his aunt taken aback from his sudden movement.

sea salt. fresh air. the soft smell of citrus that somehow follows. the shy hints of vanilla.

he’s looking everywhere, bicolored eyes frantic. his heart pulses and aches in his chest, beats with sudden fervor that he can feel it. anxiety claws at his throat and churns in his stomach. such a familiar scent, lost to the tides of time and the cruelty that is man’s greed.

a scent he believed to be gone because of his own greed.

a scent so—

the curtains are fully apart, revealing the pianist.

sea salt, fresh air, the soft smell of citrus that follows, the shy hints of vanilla—

gone.

“i’m losing my mind,” rafayel mutters, settling back into his chair.

the pianist wears a long, black dress, the fabric covering her arms. he can't make out her appearance: her eyes are covered by a mask, facial features hidden. he pushes his former thoughts to the back of his mind, fighting and shoving them back into the little chest he leaves these painful memories locked away.

he props an elbow on the chair’s arm, resting his chin in the palm of his hand, ignoring his aunt’s questions.

the melody that plays blocks his aunt’s nagging, becoming the only thing he hears.

it’s a sad tune, chilling his bones and making goosebumps run down his arms and back. it’s hauntingly beautiful, touching his soul and shaking its core. he feels his whole body ache, his everything yearning for someone he hasn't seen in years and won’t ever see again.

and he is left in his seat, rendered silent as the melancholic blues of the song continues to play, thinking about the what ifs—even if doing so hurts him.

all the sadness and regrets and hatred you’ve had in you, you pour them out in each performance, the piano being the only outlet you have for these emotions. the sadness you felt when you remembered the abandonment and the death you witnessed, the betrayal and hurt you've endured, you let them pour out like water through your fingertips.

you hate her.

you hate him.

you despise him.

and you will never see him again.

you hate yourself as well.

longing turns into loathing, admiration to condemnation, love to deep and utter disgust.

the melancholic melody you play takes a sharp turn, becoming something that only reflects your pure hatred to the man who lost it all for something cursed. and yet, as much as you hate and loathe and curse him, you love him just as much. you yearn for him, your bones and flesh and soul aching in anguish at the distance from him.

your fingers now press softly against the keys, your touch gentle like that of a lover's. rage turns to longing, and your original tune returns to its somber tone.

as much as you hate rafayel, you love him. after all, you've spent more time loving him than hating him.

you miss his eyes, the way the blues look like the sea and the pink like the sunset sky. you miss his smile and the way it always radiated the warmth and happiness he felt. you miss his touch, the way it was never cold. you miss the smell of sea salt, lavender, cedar, and hints of citrus that follows him.

sea salt, lavender, cedar, hints of citrus.

you play the final note, blinking repeatedly. you don't register the applause, don't notice the standing ovation the people give you, you don't notice it at all. how could you when you smell sea salt, lavender, cedar, and the hints of citrus that follows?

but then it’s gone.

so you stand up, bow, and leave.

this is your last performance, your last time ever dedicating your time to a person who never cared for you in the very end.

“i hate you,” you whisper.

rafayel remains standing, as if glued to his spot as everyone begins to leave, his eyes on the stage. “i’m going crazy,” he mumbles.

it's sick and twisted how things turned out between you. how did something so sacred, something so blessed and beautiful become tainted? become broken beyond repair? how did you become something that haunts him when you used to be a pleasant dream and thought? you haunt him, and he has locked you away. so why does he hear you now?

rafayel is crazy, and that's why he heard you in his head, uttering those three words from long ago again.

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taglist (open). @bakutual @nadinefromwhere @justmystical

OCEAN MEMORIES, yuansie 2024

[away-ward]

I'm so curious about your favourite books (dark romance and otherwise) outside of the devils night series? Are there any other dark romance series that have stood out to you like devil's night? Any standalone that you liked?

Hey!! I wish I had something for you; a long list of recs that we all lose our minds over. That’s the best part of reading and fandoms is the community.

Unfortunately, I don't really.

Devil’s Night caught me at a weird time, when I was going through something. I read a lot of dark romance fanfics when I was an unsupervised teenager with unlimited internet access, and sort of got over it after a while. After I finished DN, I still had time left on my KU subscription, so I tore through a bunch of what was offered. None of it sticks out now, and it’s been a few years since then.

But for you, I went through my old kindle account. These are in no particular order, just as I found familiar names that I've read various series/books from:

Monica Murphy LJ Shen S. Massery Elle Kennedy Saffron A. Kent Callie Hart Sav R. Miller Selena

There's probably a few others that I didn't find, and several authors that I tried but ultimately didn't like anything I picked up enough to finish. I hope that helps, however vague it is.

There is one series that still comes back to me from that time, other than DN. I’ve spoken about it before, but it’s the Crown Pointe series. I would technically call it a dark romance, because of it’s tropes, but I know much darker things are published daily on KU.

Heartless Hero and Stolen Soulmate are great, and I honestly wish that DN’s writing and plot development were similar to Crown Pointe. CP, in general, uses its pages and time to serve the plot and characters better than DN, in my opinion. In CP, after every interaction between the main characters, I knew something had changed or progressed in some way. Even the sex served to change the dynamics, either to the reader or the characters, which made it feel more useful to the story, rather than just shoved in because it’s what’s expected.

(as a bonus point, the couple in Stolen Soulmate is interracial. I know some people were complaining about that with DN.)

The thing that CP lacks that DN has is an interesting cast of characters. I like the main characters for each book well enough. There were some minor characters I would like to get to know better. There were plans for those characters to get their own books, but they were never published for some reason. As you can probably tell, because my conversations about DN usually circle around character relationships and dynamics, interesting characters and plot are more important to me than the overall romance.

I’m currently reading A Walk to Remember. A friend said that the ending is different than the movie. I think it’s probably just their interpretation. Still, I’m reading to find out if I feel the same. So far, I much prefer the movie to the book. The updated setting, the changes made to the characters, and how they interact and progress are more engaging and, honestly, make more sense. As it is, the movie took the basic premise and characters names. But we’ll see. Maybe my thoughts will change. It’s my first Nicolas Sparks and I think it’ll probably be my last.

A few weeks ago, I finished a re-read of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. I was once again struck by how successfully the author was able to convince me of the close, lifelong friendship between the four girls, while keeping the focus on Vivi, and her eldest daughter, Sidda, front and center. The movie doesn’t do it justice. Last year sometime, an anon that went by Z asked for stories that featured female friendships, and I still hold this one up as a good example.

Below is a scene that made me want to read the first time the Horsemen were arrested. Was Will excited? Kai stressed? Damon annoyed? Did their dad's fight in the Thunder Bay police station lobby? Was Martin just a baby cop?? Give me all the moments.

But I'm also really fond of this scene on its own.

Don’t know what I am going to read next. I’ve debated before about whether I should post more about what I’m reading or watching. I know that the followers I have are here for DN stuff, though I never meant to limit it to that. As the DN fandom goes quiet on tumblr, I question whether it’s a good time to archive this blog, and leave it as it is. I’d keep it active, but only as a collection of Devil’s Night stuff. Or if I should divert to other topics as I go.

Since you’re following for a reason, I’ll ask you. Keep in mind, if I really wanted to spend the time building a new blog for what I'm reading, I will. It's not a huge deal.

Thanks for reading this far. I know it went way of track, as I usually do. I love talking, after all.

And I appreciate the question, even if my answer isn't much of an answer.

[bestworstcase]

to what level do you place faith in drawing story conclusions from the lyrics of RWBY songs? I find them extremely interesting to analyze, but in reality I'm aware that it's been said before that the lyrics aren't ever written with one specific thing in mind. that being said, either way, I think Guide My Way draws connections between Ruby and Salem that are quite interesting

well, i’ve heard that about the lyrics before, but never having seen the actual statement in context for myself, my inclination is to assume that “the lyrics aren’t written about any one thing” didn’t mean what the fandom seems to have generally taken it to mean, and instead meant something more along the lines of “the song lyrics are written to convey emotion and theme and are not necessarily literal.” because it is self-evident that’s how the songs are written.

in general, i think serious analytical interrogation of the songs requires an examination of their narrative context, i.e. their actual location in the story and what the lyrics communicate about that particular scene. song placement is non-arbitrary. why does ‘red like roses pt ii’ accompany the nevermore fight? because the absence and the idea of summer rose is everywhere and ruby decapitating this monstrous grimm while the music screams i needed you, you left me, how could you gives us a glimpse behind her mask.

consider ‘until the end.’ the fanon interpretation that ‘until the end’ belongs to summer or ruby is so ubiquitous that it’s annotated as such on the fandom wiki. because the lyrics “heavily imply” it, apparently. but that is a bananas way to read the song, which also makes it a good case study to explain how i go about analyzing them and why i do it that way.

the first thing i look at is where the song is in the story and what it’s doing there. ‘until the end’ marks ozpin’s decision to return from his self-imposed isolation and plays underneath his monologue, which begins as a meditation on fear and builds to a kind of rhetorical invitation to transcend fear. and then salem arrives in atlas. so this is a crucial turning point for the story: it’s when all the lies and secrecy have to end, because ozpin chooses to rise above his fear and salem is committed to revealing herself.

so, is ‘until the end’ about ruby or her mother? does it make sense to interpret the song that way? immediately before ozpin comes back, ruby has her heroic moment, forcing cinder to flee, but once the monologue/montage begins, the narrative makes a deliberate point of moving her out of focus. it lingers instead on penny, winter, cinder, and ironwood. it’s not her moment, not her song.

the structure of the scene, in fact, unambiguously signals that ‘until the end’ is ozpin’s song. it begins when he speaks. the first two stanzas are literally the subtext between the lines of his speech.

step two is to look at the song itself. what is it about? what story does it tell? ‘until the end’ is about regret, and shame, and longing for reconciliation, and resolving to try. that fits for ozpin in this moment, poised between months of hiding and the steps he takes to atone for his mistakes in the next volume, which supports the contextual argument for reading ‘until the end’ as his song. 

from here, we can start to pick the song apart in more detail. i think the “you” in the second stanza tricks people into looking for a subject, but if ‘until the end’ is an exploration of ozpin’s mindset as he makes the decision to come back and try again, it makes quite a lot more sense to interpret the “you” as ozpin talking to himself. and if we do that the whole thing clicks together. 

the first stanza is his doubt, his despair, his dread. “we try so hard, but what are we fighting for? we’re losing all our strength, how can we give more?” i’m so tired. i never wanted this. it’s never going to end. i don’t even know what i want anymore. 

the second stanza answers the first with his sense of duty and the self-hatred intertwined with that. “time falls away; pain always finds a way to stay. the tears that you shed may find a tree to water, but only when you’re stronger.” it will always hurt. pain is inevitable. your suffering serves a greater purpose; if you were stronger, you could see this through.

the third stanza rejects that old way of thinking. ozma tried so hard to bury the past, but the lamp forced him to relive it, see it with new eyes, think about it again after all this time. “to live free or die, it’s all the same. the enemy was right, there’s no reclaiming. in waves of shame, we’re desperate to make amends, but through a simple soul, we lie complacent.” salem was right: nothing can go back to how it was. the gods will never be appeased. too much has changed. i made so many mistakes. i want so badly to make it better, and instead i’ve been doing nothing, waiting for someone else to be the savior i couldn’t be. 

the final stanzas bring that realization to the inevitable conclusion. “love brings us dreams, but grief makes the heart burst at the seams. as light fills my eyes, i’ll picture me beside her, and pray that i’ll inspire. […] i promise i’ll be here until our story has been told, til our bodies break down every door, til we find what we’ve been looking for, and stare with pride into the face of fear; in our finest hour, i’ll be standing here.” i came back for salem. she rebelled against the gods for me. i’m going to keep trying until we find each other again.

and then he does. salem’s monologues in V1 and V3 were addressed to him; ozpin’s monologue in V7 is likewise addressed to her. ‘until the end’ sketches his emotional journey from the broken man who fled in shame and terror from the truth to the one who found the strength to rise out of that darkness.

the final step is to think about how literally to take the song. remember, their purpose is to convey emotional and thematic subtext—which means that we shouldn’t just assume that they’re exact portraits of a character’s conscious mindset. subconscious impulses, buried feelings, forgotten memories, idle dreams, all of that is fair game. and even songs that do articulate conscious perspectives are going to be distillations. are we hearing a fleeting burst of adrenaline-fueled bravado (try ‘ignite’) or a persistent and deep-seated self image (like ‘bad luck charm’) or something in between? it depends. it’s important to factor what a character says and does into our interpretation. 

with ‘until the end,’ i think the decision to clip the song after the second stanza and develop the music into an orchestral rendition of ‘fear’ is probably meaningful. the monologue doesn’t build to a resolution. it builds to a question. “will you be proud of that person? will you forgive them? will you understand why they felt the need to do the things they did? will you even recognize them? or will the person staring back at you be the very thing you should have feared from the start?”

and that is a thought that fits neatly into the gap between the second and third stanzas of ‘until the end.’ the second stanza is, ultimately, the voice of ozma’s fear; the monologue responds that fear itself is not worthy of concern, only the choice of what to do with it; the third stanza answers the monologue (he’s ashamed; he can’t forgive himself yet, but he wants to make amends; he’s able to see his mistakes and his reasons clearly now). so i think ‘until the end’ describes the complete arc of an emotional journey ozma has committed to but only just begun. 

and then you just poke and stretch and stress test that against everything else in the text until you’re either satisfied that it’s cogent or convinced it doesn’t hold water. ultimately the songs are just subtext with a bullhorn. 

…anyway.

back to ‘guide my way.’

because it follows from ‘red like roses’ and plays under ruby’s reclamation of herself from the shadow of her mother’s pedestal, there’s not really a question of ‘guide my way’ being about anything except ruby’s evolving view of summer, right. “i” is ruby and “you” is summer.

and that makes me VERY UNHINGED because ‘guide my way’ picks up an important thematic thread from ‘sacrifice’:

show them gods and deities blind and keep the people on their knees

and

you were born to hypnotize them all they said their prayers can you hear me up there?

note that the accusation salem makes of ozma in ‘sacrifice’ isn’t that he sets himself up as a god but rather that he blinds people by showing them gods. hypnotizes, you might say. and then we have ‘the infinite man’ “creat[ing] gods among men” and ‘world of remnant’ “with enough training and focus, a user’s aura can turn them into something much more than just a man.” civilians in this world do not have their aura unlocked and semblances are not a matter of common knowledge outside of huntsman circles. this is what salem means—

–and summer rose was the best of those quasi-divine guardians. the perfect fairytale hero. the paragon. and now ruby’s looking back on that hero-worship and reaching the same conclusion salem did. blind and keep the people on their knees. you were born to hypnotize them all. it’s nothing but smoke and mirrors.

AND THEN. 

ruby obliquely compares summer to salem (“what survives after all the dust has gone?”), ozma (“were you there til the end?”), and penny (“were you at least called a friend?”).

what’s the uniting thread here? 

rebellion. 

or, more specifically, the moment when a choice to rebel became commitment. penny broke the rules and planned to stay in vale because ruby called her friend. ‘until the end’ is, as discussed, about ozma breaking free. and of course any possibility that salem would ever bow to the gods again vanished when they killed everyone.

i think—on some level—when she left the tree, ruby knew. she’s felt that pressure herself. she knows exactly what it’s like to shatter beneath it. the blacksmith showed her that summer wasn’t perfect, that she lied and left with raven, and gently connected those choices to the desperation ruby feels, trying to carry the same impossible burden. and the answer is not “give up” but rather “choose yourself.” and ruby already believed that summer didn’t die that night, that salem captured her and made her into a hound instead. and she knows, they all know, that salem persuaded hazel to her side by playing to the grief and rage he felt over gretchen’s death. 

and while i doubt ruby has consciously done the math, she’s smart enough to put the pieces together and i think, subconsciously, she does feel an inkling of suspicion that maybe—maybe—summer chose not to come home.

[byakuyasdarling]

💘: Why would people love your ship? Why would people dislike your ship? How might it start debates?

🎞️: What ‘canon’ scenes would the fandom point to as evidence for the validity of your ship?

💌: How would your dynamic be portrayed? What might people focus on most? Any misconceptions?

for the ask game ^__^

Thank you for the ask, Mika! <3

💘: Knowing the D//GR fandom, there would be quite a few people would probably dislike it because it’s canonically established ship and hence “boring”. It’s a real issue in a lot of fandom where female characters are often ripped out of their canon relationship so the male character can be shipped with some other guy because apparently it’s inherently more “interesting” (it’s not, because there’s often no actual chemistry and it’s just projection). It’s especially a common critique of the AT//LA fandom where these female characters are so beautifully written and developed along with their relationship… only to get COMPLETELY sidelined by the fandom because “we want this guy with this guy!” — and we all know most of fandom is just ships most of the time. It just feels like a lot of fandoms just ignore females, and it really peeves me and others. I do think Andreagami would suffer from that. — Though, there are fandoms and shows like The Ow.l Hou.se that have a beautiful portrayal of all kinds of relationships from all walks of life that don’t have this issue.

RANT ASIDE LOL, I also don’t think people would like it because it’s technically a childhood friends to lovers story (even if they’re “rivals” in between) and their dynamic may be interpreted as “enforcing gender roles” because the fandom loves buzzwords 🚶‍♂️🚶‍♂️. As to why people would like it — well it’s written to be canon. Their relationship narrative is healing from trauma and I think that their relationship enforces a deeper-dive into both characters (especially Byakuya). I do think a lot more of the fandom likes it and there’s a weird 10% that try to be strange about it

🎞️: Chapter 3 (T//HH) is a big moment for their relationship, as it is Byakuya snapping out of his self-imposed caricature and learns he has a losing condition in all this — which is losing her. It’s the moment reality and the reality of his feelings are slapped in his face when she’s first assumed dead.

💌: I think people would try to morph it into “sunshine gf and grumpy bf” and although I’m not opposed to that, it isn’t accurate. S/I is fairly nihilistic (as well as Byakuya), but she still find light and joy in the simple things — and that’s a trait Byakuya admires. To him, she’s not “blindly happily”, but she’s happy in a way he can comprehend and emulate. S/I is also way more guarded with everyone else for the most part; not in an obvious way, but she puts on a persona.

[alwayshappyhoursomewhere]

💞 and/or 🎈!

(from the fic writer ask post)

💞 what's the most important part of a story for you? the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, the technical stuff (grammar etc), the figurative language? Characters and their relationships. The best aspect of fanfiction for me is being able to take characters I find intriguing or that I can relate to in some way,  put them in a situation that makes them confront their relationship with (an)other character(s), and see how they (re)act. I’m really not a plot-driven writer, in the sense that I don’t have the patience to make things happen unless they directly contribute to developing the relationship I'm interested in. I don’t like writing fic where things happen to people, I usually write fic where feelings happen to people xD (Hence why I suck at writing long stories that require good plot development in order to be good, although that’s also because I have the attention span of a fly and one shots are my friends). 🎈 describe your style as a writer; is it fixed? does it change? I don’t think I can define my own writing style, because I’ve written (fiction) very sparsely in the last 10 years compared to what I used to do before. It makes more sense to say what I admire in (fan)fiction and what I ideally strive for: sparse but meaningful prose with intentionally chosen words, good pacing, sustained tension, good character building within a believable narrative frame. A focus on portraying emotions but in a way that feels restrained; emotions are conveyed mainly through characters’ actions and non-verbal cues rather than dialogue and/or exposition. 🦋what are you most insecure about when you post a fic? Everything lol. From overlooking typos to under/over tagging to will-people-think-this-is-stupid to that-other-writer-is-better-so-why-should-I-bother-to-post-this. 🌻 what makes you want to give up on writing? what makes you keep going? give up: losing interest, life being busy, and obviously limited reader engagement. We all say ‘I write for myself first’ but the reality is that we also want people to read our stories and let us know if they enjoyed them, which most readers don’t do even in the easiest of way (kudos!). I guess reader-only folks just don’t get it, how validation-starved most writers are and how motivating it is for writers when readers actually give a sign they’re enjoying a story. keep going: loving certain characters/ships/dynamics too fucking much and being unable to get over the brainrot in any other way; supportive readers/friends; being in small fandoms (they are a curse too, but small fandoms motivate me more because I know that if I don’t write the thing, there’s very little chance someone else will do it, and I do want to read the thing). 🍉in what ways has writing helped you process trauma and/or navigate through your own life? (thanks for being so considerate, anon!) This is limited to my current fandom, but what I’m writing now reflects (in some ways) my experience as an aspec person who has been in a relationship for a long time (and doesn’t regret said relationship in the least) but that is only now starting to fully realize how being aspec has influenced that relationship and their approach to it (in good and bad ways). Re-engaging with fandom spaces has led to a lot of self-reflection, and now the discourse around aspec identities is much more nuanced than it was when I stopped actively being part of fandom a few years ago, which has led to a variety of 'ooohhh I get it now' moments xD