#and i thought there's no better difference to illustrate a point than this lol

[teruel-a-witch]

McDanno according to CBS/L*nkov:

McDanno according to fans/Alex&Scott/everyone who has eyes and a brain:

[syndullqs]

𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐭 — 𝒕𝒆𝒄𝒉

summary — a mission unlocks memories in your brain you’d rather forget. tech helps, in his own way.

warnings — gn!reader, angst, fluff, mentions of childhood trauma, hunter’s a prick

note — i heard this sound on tiktok and it unlocked a memory i did NOT want unlocked lol so enjoy this self indulgent piece

𝐈𝐓’𝐒 𝐅𝐔𝐍𝐍𝐘 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐀 𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐘. it’s funny how something as small as a child crying causes someone to fold in on themselves. you almost were shot because of it, and you definitely got an earful back on the marauder.

“what were you thinking? just standing there? you could’ve been killed!” hunter’s voice penetrated your clouded thoughts, scolding you for a poor job. he had a point; you were almost killed.

“but i wasn’t, hunter, so what’s the big deal?” you challenge, crossing your arms over your chest. what was next, was he going to question how you worked with the team? was he going to exclude you from future missions? you almost dared him.

“the big deal? y/n you nearly cost us the mission and you could have been killed,” he paused, taking a minute to think. though, given his next words, he should have taken more time to think, “i think you should sit out on the next mission,” his voice was still raised, breaths spilling from his mouth like he ran a marathon.

yet there it was.

exclusion.

“fine, it’s your call, you’re the sergeant,” your words were not short of being venomous, making hunter realize instantly what he just told you. you were a valuable asset to the batch, a sounding board, and he just told you to sit out.

there wasn’t a lot of places for you to go, so you sat in the co-pilot’s chair. you brought a knee up to your chest, resting your chin on it. the silence was comforting, but your mind still swam. hunter’s words, their words, the child crying…

“for the record, i don’t think you should sit out next mission,” tech was the first to speak, the softness and quietness of his voice illustrating just how unused to that he was. his words only earned a scoff from you.

“it was the child crying, no?” he guessed. tech noticed the shift in your demeanor when the child started crying to her mother, wondering why everyone left. you grew stiff, your eyes unfocused, and of course, you were nearly shot.

“what gave me away?” you asked him, still refusing to meet eyes with him. despite tech not being well-versed in comfort, he still knew how to read people. he could read them very well. interpreting those emotions was a different skill.

“the fact you were nearly shot, mainly,” he stated as-a-matter-of-factly, “but also the way your demeanor changed. your shoulders tightened, your eyes widened. not to mention your voice changed,” he went on to describe just how much your body changed. you didn’t think he paid that much attention to you.

“i didn’t think it was that obvious,” you shrugged, taking your chin off of your knee. you slid your eyes over to meet his, the softness of them underneath his goggles provided an odd place of comfort for you. he didn’t judge you, he was merely stating facts.

“it was,” he felt heat rise to his cheeks, a feeling he logically knew was because of his attraction to you. emotionally, he wouldn’t acknowledge it.

“at least to me,” tech added softly, attempting to make the situation better than what it was. your eyes widened again, unsure of how to feel about this. ever since you started working with the bad batch, talking about emotional experiences was hard with tech. so you didn’t. hearing him acknowledge your feelings and talk about his own shocked you. it shouldn’t have.

“when i was a kid, i was bullied a lot,” you started, pulling down the wall you’ve built up over the years, “their form of bullying was excluding me from things. i was invited to parties, but never talked to. i was never played with, and kids made fun of me for the stuff i liked,” you continued. you’ve never spoken to any of them about this. it was too sensitive. the fear of rejection and judgement was too strong.

silence followed, filling the space between you. tech didn’t know what to say, but he knew that this was sensitive information. he knew that it was hard for you to talk about, and so he didn’t want to say anything to potentially make things worse.

“hearing that little girl cry, asking her mother where everyone went, it just…i don’t know. it was under different circumstances but still,” you were failing to understand why the moment froze you. hunter was right, you could have been killed.

“it was a different circumstance, but,” tech started, his words coming out slowly as he processed them, “your fight or flight kicked in. it’s human nature whenever we come in contact with something that’s upset us or, dare i say, traumatized us,” his eyes searched yours, trying to read the expression on your face. tech knew what it was like to be ostracized for the things you’re good at. he was a defective clone, he knew almost exactly what you felt.

“when…when i was a cadet, still on kamino, i wasn’t treated very kindly by the regs simply for being different. the words they said, even some of the things they did, it was not kind of them,” tech’s words marinated in your mind for a moment. you found yourself completely facing him, engrossed in the man in front of you. you finally found someone to relate to, that knew what it was like to be excluded and bullied. for once, you could breathe.

“you didn’t deserve that,”

“neither did you,” he agreed, his warm, brown eyes cradling yours. he came to the same realization you did. he wasn’t as alone as he thought he was. as much as he wished neither of you went through what you did, it brought you two together, and he was grateful for that.

“we do need to work on your fight, flight, or freeze response,” he lightened the mood. you smiled and laid back in your chair.

“i know i know,” you smiled. you didn’t catch it, but tech smiled too.

here’s some tech! this was kind of self indulgent so i apologize for that, i still hope you enjoy though!

[hansoeii]

Several things: -LOVE your art, it’s amazing! Especially the one with Crowley and Aziraphale under the umbrella - which software do you use? Your art always look SO gorgeous (cheeky quote from GO right there lol) - how did you get so good at drawing?And thank you for encouraging other people to keep drawing and being so kind as I sometimes can’t help but compare my sketches to others and feel silly, but I guess it’s just a learning curve… Thank you so much for bringing your art to the world!😊

Thank you so much!!

I use Clip Studio Paint for drawing and Photoshop for small adjustments!

2. Haha thanks! Honestly...it's the hyperfixations. I managed to improve a lot in just a year because I've been drawing SO much cos there's so many shows and movies I became obsessed with that I wanted to create art for. So by drawing a lot I just naturally improved. For example these two Illustrations are just a year apart:

I actually didn't actively try to improve, it's been a while since I did proper studies (I just don't really have the time for it between freelancing and art school), it just happened.

But I can absoluetly recommend going on YouTube and look for some art tutorials if you actively want to start improving! There's some channels that helped me so much back then:

moderndayjames

Incredible shape language and super insightful tutorials on all kinds of topics! I learned so much from him.

Ahmed Aldoori

So many awesome tutorials on so many different areas of art. Love it.

Marco Bucci

Incredible tutorials on color theory and understanding how color works in general! Learned SO much from him!

Sinix Design

The OG tutorials I began learning from. I watched his videos religiously as a teen. I adore his painterly style and adopted it in some way, haha.

Ethan Becker

This dude sometimes drops these tiny art tips that just completely blow my mind and that I adopt immedietly. He's super entertaining but also such a great teacher.

And I can also recommend checking out this book by James Gurney if you want to get better at colors!

And for anatomy I highly recommend the Morpho books!

But improvement doesn't only come from drawing a lot. A lot of the time I don't draw for a while and just study the world and artists around me and suddenly I improved when I get back to drawing. Don't ever overwork yourself to the point that you don't enjoy what you do anymore. Take breaks and listen to your body!

I learned to try and not compare myself to other artists, which helped a lot. Through conventions and social media I made so many lovely artist friends and realized how we're all struggling in a very similar way. A lot of us don't even really know what we're doing most of the time, haha. But we help each other out, it's such a wonderful community. I think when you're not actively part of the community it tends to feel like other, more successful artists are some kind of art gods that have perfected the craft and never struggle. But believe me, all the artists you admire go through rough times all. the. time. Sometimes what they do feels easy and natural, other times (more often than not) it feels like you have to try and learn how to walk all over again and you start to doubt your abilities. I personally go through that so many times.

So what I'm trying to say is that instead of comparing yourself to the artists you admire, learn from them instead. Ask questions, befriend fellow artists, study the artists you enjoy and just have fun with it!

And finally I thought it would be fun to share some of my horrendous Johnlock fanart from a decade ago for some motivation:

I hope my answer didn't overwhelm you, but I thoight it would be nice to give a more detailed answer!

Have a wonderful day and keep drawing! :)

[vilevampirez]

long list of funny things abt my experience doing emote commissions for mike

first of all I wasn't expecting to get commissioned at all (my commissions weren't even open, I just made an exception for mike) let alone by MIKETHELINK of all fucking people, so I had nothing prepared. I had no portfolio, commission sheet, nothing. I had never made any twitch emotes, so I had no examples to show either. meaning that when barbmine showed up in my dms asking if I took emote commissions, first I lost my fucking shit, then I panicked and rushed to find the most recent emote-like illustrations I had, including animation, and the most recent animation I had on hand happened to be a viewtiful joe one lmao. the animation in question 👇

(the usernames on the watermark aren't even accurate anymore..)

I have some experience taking commissions but they'd always been for friends of mine, this was my first time getting commissioned by a real "client" and the client was fucking mikethelink tazercraft of all fucking people . I know he "found" me through Mine, she sent me a dm first asking for commission info, saying she would show it to mike later. the thing is that when she said that she also implied that she was in touch with other artists too, so I was like "oh ok I'll send my stuff but I probably won't get chosen lol" and then a few hours later I got two twitter notifs, one saying that mr. thelink tazercraft was now following me and another was his DM. to say I almost had a heart attack would be an understatement

later I found out Mine had made a tweet asking for artists to reach out/people to rec artists for mike's twitch emotes. that post had around 40 comments. many people had been recommended more than once. I wasn't mentioned by anyone once, and in fact, I had no fucking idea that post even EXISTED until way after the fact. I have no idea how I ended up getting this job

mike happened to contact me on a day where I was severely sleep deprived. our entire business conversation took place while I was half-panicking, half-almost-passing-out. I don't know how I survived

at many points during our conversation I gave a lot of leeway for mike to give up on commissioning me, implying multiple times that he would be better off commissioning a different artist. and it's not because I lacked confidence (though a bit of that too, of course), but because of my lack of experience. I was very open about that to him, so many times I expected him to second guess his decision to commission me. unexpectedly, he was really insistent. I think partially he didn't want to go through the trouble of finding and contacting a different artist, but also I guess he just liked my art that much (??!?)

I definitely undercharged him lol. it's not that I don't value my work, it's just that I was absolutely not prepared for any of this shit to happen and didn't have enough time to think

I use adobe after effects for animating mike's emotes. I already knew how to animate (though I had never animated anything big), but I had never used after effects before. I even told mike this before accepting the commission, but he just said it was easy and I could totally do it, and I was just like "fucking hell. fine". and look, I know my limits, I knew I'd be able to learn after effects with relative ease. if I thought it'be too much for me to handle, I wouldn't have accepted the commission. it just that to this day I'm still shocked that mike commissioned an artist who HAD NEVER USED THE TOOL NECESSARY FOR THE COMMISSION HE WANTED.

due to the point above I was pretty apprehensive about animating the emotes, but now I'm glad I got this opportunity bc it reignited my passion for animation that had been dwindling for a long time and I've been learning a lot while working. also with every new emote I figure out how to use a different feature of after effects and it makes the job a little bit easier

before giving my payment information I came out to him to avoid confusion with my legal name being different from the name on my socials. he was very chill about it and always used the right name and pronouns for me whenever he mentions me on stream

fun fact: I was reached out to by another big (brazilian, not in qsmp) youtuber for a commission but I had to refuse because I had too much on my plate already (still do..)

my favorite emotes are the devil one and the nerd one

I made his twitch avatar and banner too! I'm really proud of the avatar. the banner was absolute hell

I'm a lurker (and nowadays a vod watcher since I've been busy w/ uni work) but I do watch every single one of mike's streams, so just know that I'm always seeing you guys use the emotes :3

[ribbonetteart]

Tribute to one of my favorite movies of all time + the franchise that has me in a death grip 💖

a bit late for Christmas but at least Valentine's day is around the corner ^^;;

Process below if that interests you:

AS I SAID EARLIER, I had been working on this piece as early as December of 2021 😱!!!

This was the original sketch! I was inspired after learning about Blaze's own design inspiration coming from Takarazuka theater, as well as it being the Nutcracker season so this film was in bouncing around in my head.

and this was allllll the way back in 2021 ^^; I had put the idea to paper to capture the image in my head immediately. But the idea in my head was extravagant and beautiful and would certainly take time to complete, as well as the patience and skill to work with watercolor 😔 I've certainly done my share of watercolor, both physical and digital, but I still feel like my physical watercolor work is a fluke, and I was still a novice digital artist at the time of this sketch.

In short, I wasn't confident my skill could live up to the vision.

So I would put this on the back burner. It wouldn't be ready in time for Christmas, and I could use this as an opportunity to hone that digital art experience so it could be ready next year!

2 Years Later...

It's December 5th. Fuck it. Let's crack this open again, I tell myself.

SO starting with the line art, it's actually 2 different brushes layered over one another.

I also changed Sonic's expression to be more love struck-looking, because I'm a sucker for romance.

The image on the left is a watercolor line brush, while the right is a pencil brush. The reason I wanted a water color look was because I thought it would make the illustration look dreamy and fantastical, and I wanted that to extend to the line art as well. However, my usual lines on traditional usually veer more towards thick and cartoony from years of studying the Sonic art style, so I really felt like I was working against myself here. I had also asked friends for their input and they preferred the lines on the right as well. If my followers actually do read these blog posts, I'd love if you could comment which line art style you prefer drawing or looking at.

The happy medium was to just combine the 2. Here's a better look at that:

I like it! I think it combines the solid line with the rustic water color grain. Best of both worlds :]

For the actual painting, The most notable thing I can say is that getting the right pastel-y color was VERY difficult to achieve for someone like me who often loves to use bright and saturated colors in her art. I feel like I really set myself up to do one of those "evil art style" or "opposite art style" challenges I've been seeing around. I had to repaint Sonic at one paint because the blue of his fur was WAY too saturated for the style I was going for:

I started with painting Sonic and Blaze in first and then working on the background. I think that's probably the backwards way of doing it but one of the perks of digital art is you can do stuff any order you want when you have layers.

The background wasn't actually as difficult as I thought it would be. I wasn't going for any difficult perspective, and I was using a reference so that could be it. I'm usually averse to backgrounds but I really wanna tackle more of my weak points in art. I actually had way more fun than I was expecting, painting the sky and adding texture to the grass. I think I had the most fun rendering the water coming from the fountain (which you can't even see too well anyway, lol).

Funny enough, I had just about finished painting the characters and background by early January. So why am I posting this in February?

The Flowers...

In case you don't know. I love flowers. I love looking at them, I love learning about flower languages, I love drawing them. so seeing that my reference image showed flowers circling the fountain, I was excited! I was already having more fun than I expected to be having (working against my usual style, rendering a background), so how could this be a pain in the ass?

Well, I am my own worst enemy 😞I couldn't exactly identify each flower offhand from this screenshot alone. The texture of the flowers is kinda grainy, since I don't think the animators were expecting viewers to look too closely at the set piece to use as reference for my lovingly crafted crossover fanart. If anyone has this in high quality though, please tell me.

(I think I actually got this reference from a tumblr post but I can't find it on my blog for the life of me nor can I find it in the tags I'm so sorry)

I'm a huge stickler for details so I really wanted to be as "accurate" as possible in my illustration. I can hardly identify some of these flowers with confidence. I think there are roses in there? or tulips? I'm not sure if those yellow flowers are roses or some kinda petunia or if I'm way off.

I'm sure these details won't matter to most viewers but it was EATING AWAY AT ME. Eventually I decided to try drawing in flowers that might look similar to the ones in the reference. Or some based on their flower languages. I was certainly overthinking it ;;;; It led me to going "fuck it" and just throwing in whatever I wanted. There are no irises visible in that screenshot but I made it the centerpiece of the flower ring. Who give a shit.

I made some guides for me to follow: The blue ring was so I could make sure the flowers make a half circular border around Sonic and Blaze. I was envisioning how it could look as like an icon or sticker or something, which is why it's framed this way. then the second guide is the sketch of the flowers I made. I always do line art and I'm not great at just improvising with color to paper, or color to screen in this case.

The rest of this process is then just working on each flower piece by piece (with the help of the mirror tool of course) with varying degrees of detail. Some flowers are more abstract than others, and I had debated if that would look jarring and disrupted any kind of harmony I was trying to maintain with the style parameters I set for myself. And then I decided I was overthinking it once again which is why this was taking me nearly 2 months to complete.

At some point during this process, my wifi went out for a whole week! Of course, I could still work on this illustration offline, but I had a lot of tabs open with a bunch of reference images on there (plus I like to listen to music while I draw otherwise I lose focus and I had neglected to download a varied selection on my phone or laptop 😭 Learn from my mistakes).

The most tedious of this process was making each set of gladioluses a unique color.

Was it worth it? You tell me! I think they're pretty, at least.

Along the way, I repainted the grass because it wasn't symmetrical (It didn't need to be but I had been using the mirror tool for a lot at this point and it was bugging me). I made other little final adjustments, like color adjusting the leaves on the flowers, lowering the flower ring border, and so on.

Ultimately, I'm extremely satisfied with the final product. I had my heart set on doing something like this for a long time. I had so much fun just experimenting throwing on color or not worrying about technical stuff. Of course, I did do what I usually do and overthink it at some points, but I'm working on it!

I've wanted to do an extremely indulgent AU illustration and other drawings for a Sonic x The Nutcracker story for a long while. I will be totally honest, I'm still a little embarrassed to share stuff like this, even after years of posting fan art online. It feels like the more self indulgent something is, the more people might judge me for it ^^; But I wanna practice what I preach and kill the thing inside me that cringes at my harmless attempts at joy and whimsy.

I would love to do some more drawings for this AU, but maybe post them around December when it would be more seasonally appropriate. I hope you'll stick around for it!

If you read this whole thing to the end, thank you. Whether you follow my blog or not, I hope you have a lovely day :3💝

[cali]

im a different anon but im just curious what advice you would give to someone whos been pillbugging it for um. over a year now

mmm i cant really answer how to stop having depression which im guessing is what u mean + i dont know how ur head works but ive been living mostly NEET-ly for more than 2 yrs now and everyday im getting a better curve at dealing with it so i can tell u what works for me.

half the time when im pillbugging hard im paralyzed by a nontangible fear and the only thing that could stop it is adressing wherever the fear is coming from but the confrontation of the topic, trying to figure out where its even coming from, is terrifying too so i dont do it and stay swimming in tar. theres a sentence people keep saying when they explain why they watch 2 hour video essays "it makes my head go quiet". thats the enemy, the thought, not the person saying it. long term i mean. when its short term anguish that can be bridged by pillbugging its fine i think but if ur "making ur head quiet" for more than a month i urge u to make it go really loud again but thats hard. the only times i can try and confront those thoughts is when i feel otherwise nice, if i got externally forced to have a fun day, hike with my papa, date day with my girlfriend, sometimes just got myself to make a nice meal and it helped, when u feel better its a little less scary and u can maybe try and think out of it a little better. also i think on those days youre generally more positively charged so u got more hope outlook. COOL. i think this is why some people do meditation. im not good at it so i dont really know but i think its a brave pasttime of tackling unpleasant ideas. i used to try and dope my way out of it with lsd cuz everytime i used it it kind of forced me to confront whatever trouble i had but ive forbad myself that cuz i didnt want to rely on it as crutch + it was just unpleasant to get hit over the head everytime. now i only do it when i feel good already (havent done it in half a year lol). sorry, drug tangent. also weed is synonymous with pillbugging 4 me.

otherwise, rituals.... mmmmm..... when therapists and whoevers say stuff like take daily walks daily exercise take daily shower i think all of those are like half about the direct benefits they give and half just about doing anything regularly. cuz it helps. during pillbug hours the point for me is kind of to have time pass as fast as possible so the timeframe to hurt is reduced which is counterproductive cuz if it flows u by rlly hard u cant really grasp onto anything to get off the ride easily. and its never going to come really easy theres no probable single action or event that is going to singlehandedly pull u out of the mire, no rapture, no healing vitamin, its always going to be slow and tedious and boring and stupid but a routine is a nice framework to start that. brushing ur teeth is nice. and when u do something daily the days start becoming more tangible again and u will be able to tell how many days ago tuesday was. maybe u can think abotu what factors motivate u and twist them to do your biddinggg. shame and dissapointment works really well for me if i tell someone i will have this done by then and i dont it usually overpowers the malaise or whatever other reason has been making me not do it prior. but this requires social bonds and i cant guarantee u have those. in summer i started doing therapy cuz in germany i need it for transgenderism and shes also a good beacon for that, if she says do something until next time we meet i dont want to dissapoint her. other than that, um idk, everyting else is just kind of part of that. take walks even if u dont want to think about things even if its scary. be brave like childrens book illustration of knight slaying dragon. and then maybe u get a princess kiss

[cerealandchoccymilk]

Trigun Bookclub: Vash's Speech (FLOP EDITION...)

all bookclub posts

so i wrote this entire thing over a span of a day and a half. and found out just as i was finishing it that the ultradeep™ vash lore analysis point i wanted to make is actually NOT in the og trigun. [here's my mental breakdown post lol]

but i spent so much time and energy on this that i cant just say whelp! and delete it... so i'm posting it anyways. the straight-up incorrect parts are crossed out and some post-realization notes are in red. theres also a few paragraphs of postscript commentary/rambling in purple at the end of the post.

read it if youre bored i guess. but take it all with a grain of salt.

in the future (once we get to trimax vash+knives interaction) i will write the version of this that my memory intended, with an actual conclusion that makes sense lol

Mini-entry this time because I got consumed by linguistics brain worms :P But I wanted to make sure I talked about Vash's speech and his usage of pronouns!

A bit of background before we get into the analysis:

Japanese pronouns are very different from English. As the Wikipedia page puts it, "The use of pronouns, especially when referring to oneself and speaking in the first person, vary between gender, formality, dialect and region where Japanese is spoken."

The styles of spoken Japanese in general are another can of worms.... They're similar worms so I'll be touching on them a little, but it's not that relevant yet.

In real life, people have multiple pronouns (and speech styles) that they switch between depending on the situation, like with friends and family, at work, in front of kids, etc. For example, I primarily use 俺 online (along with joke/slang pronouns for funsies like 漏れ or おれっち), 自分 or 僕 in public depending on the person, and 私 in closeted situations. My cis male JP-school classmate uses 俺 with friends/family, used to use 私 in class at first, and then transitioned to 僕 as he got more familiar with the teachers.

Although this sort of code-switching happens all the time IRL, it's way less frequently illustrated in fiction, both for consistency's sake and because fictional characters just don't care as much about status. That's why I thought what's going on with Vash is particularly interesting!

Details continued below...

--original readmore position--

Here are the connotations for the two first-person pronouns that Vash uses (pulled from Wikipedia):

ore/おれ/俺 - informal - males - Frequently used by men. Establishes a sense of "masculinity". Can be seen as rude depending on the context. Emphasises one's own status when used with peers and with those who are younger or of lesser status. Among close friends or family, its use conveys familiarity rather than "masculinity" or superiority. It was used also by women until the late Edo period and still is in some dialects. Also oi in Kyushu dialect.

boku/ぼく/僕 - formal/informal - males - Used by males of all ages; very often used by boys; can be used by females but then carries tomboyish or feminist connotations. Perceived as humble, but can also carry an undertone of "feeling young" when used by males of older age. Also used when casually giving deference; "servant" uses the same kanji (僕 shimobe). Can also be used as a second-person pronoun toward male children (English equivalent – "kid" or "squirt").

(the usage of boku as a 2pp is actually part of a different phenomenon--if you're interested in that kotolabo's video explains it better than i ever could (eng captions available))

And these are the notes for every time Vash has used a first-person pronoun in the span that I've analyzed so far, which is until Chapter #06. I'll be adding onto this in the future as my annotations continue. no need anymore. i skimmed the rest and found out that, aside from a childhood flashback, vash uses exclusively ore after chapter #05.

The first instance is in Chapter #02, when he cries in French.

「なぜ僕がこんな目にあうのママン　何も悪いことしてないのにみんなが僕を狙うよママン」（独り言） "Why do things like this keep happening to me, maman? I don't do anything bad, but everyone's always after me, maman!" (to himself)

Here he uses boku, the softer pronoun. However, because he's putting on a "helpless French boy" persona, this one actually doesn't say much about Vash (other than that he's being silly).

The second time is later in the same chapter, when surrounded by the women of April City.

「奴に…会うまでは！！　俺は立ち止まる訳にはいかないんだ！！」（主婦たち） "Until I see him again... I cannot afford to stop moving!" (Housewives)

This time he uses ore, the rougher and more masculine pronoun. The situation is very tense; he has several guns pointed at him. This is also the first instance we see the trauma and hurt Vash holds inside. Overall he's very desperate here. We can see in a bit that ore is his "default." He drops his usual polite/kind tone to be as sincere as he can with the women. I think he can't afford to code-switch and be polite because this is a very personal and emotional moment for him. This doesn't mean his tone is necessarily rude (in-universe!!! probably better not to talk to strangers like this IRL); he still uses relatively soft language.

The next two are in Chapter #04, both when he refuses the sandsteamer guy's job offers.

「やだやだやだやだ　僕は争いごと嫌いなの！！」（砂蒸気の人） "No, no, no, no! I don't like trouble!" (Sandsteamer guy)

「僕は客なの！！この車の警備態勢にはチョーー期待してるから ヨロシクね！！」（砂蒸気の人） "I am a passenger! I have great faith in your security, so I entrust everything to you, okay?" (Sandsteamer guy)

He uses boku here. As we'll see in future instances, this is the pronoun he uses in front of other people and is the one he chooses most frequently. He constantly avoids trouble, so he always uses soft language and the humbler pronoun. nope it was just out of politeness towards a stranger and trying to sound less assertive/more harmless(?) to get out of the situation

In the next page, Vash talks to himself during his piss break.

「…まったくもう　保険屋の2人組といい…　俺(おら)ァもっとひっそりとやってきたいのに」（独り言） "...Jeez! As if those two insurance girls weren't already enough... I was hoping for a nice, quiet trip." (to himself)

Although the pronunciation here is oraa, it's a reduced form of ore wa (wa is a grammatical particle). His tone here is sort of laid-back (and tired, as you can tell). Again, this is his default 1st-person pronoun.

A few moments later, on the last page of the chapter, he says,

「よく分かった　ツラかったろう！！大丈夫だ 僕にまかせな　悪い様にはしねえぜ！！」（カイト） "I understand. It must have been so hard! It's okay... I'll take care of you. I won't let anything bad happen to you again!" (to Kaito)

Here he switches back to boku. He does this in front of almost everyone, but this is especially the case because he's speaking to a child he wants to protect. Using the boku pronoun gives a softer, more approachable vibe.

In Chapter #05, he goes back to ore when he talks to Kaito about No Man's Land.

「時々考えるよ　この惑星に…来た事が本当に俺達にとって幸せな事なのか　ってね」（カイト） "I sometimes wonder... Was our arrival on this planet actually something for us to be happy about? ...Y'know?"

From here on Vash is more familiar with Kaito, enough to open up a bit about his true feelings about humanity. It is also partially Vash talking to himself. irrelevant/coincidence

In Chapter #06, Vash talks to himself in front of Kaito.

「間違いない！！俺にゃー死神か貧乏神が２ケタ以上ついてるんだ」（独り言・カイト） Overhaul: "Why do death and destruction always follow right behind me?!" Literal: "I swear, I have at least 2 digits’ worth of death-gods or poverty-gods haunting me!!"

He uses ore here again. At this point, he's pretty much completely familiar with Kaito, and considers him a friend/teammate. The speech here is very casual. Skimming through the later chapters, I was able to confirm that from Chapter #05 on, Vash uses exclusively ore.

wait

AAAND CUT! this is where my dumb ass realizes that vashs speech is different between trigun and trimax, and that the conclusion i planned on making was trimax-exclusive :) now forget everything you just read in this post past the wikipedia table screenshot because itll be completely irrelevant in less than a week!!

trimax vash uses boku 99% of the time and ore exclusively in front of knives as far as i can remember. i wanted to say stuff about how he is always wearing the kind persona as a mask and shows his true emotions (aka his sheer trauma and rage) in front of knives and knives only

but like. he really doesnt in og trigun. thats just him being kind to strangers??? and barely has any deep meaning to it. it doesnt mean the individual analyses are wrong but theyre definitely not making the point i was going to make at the end of this post and it just aint that deep.

very frustrated with myself rn... but the 2 good things i got out of this are 1) i wont have to write the pronoun explanation again and 2) i skimmed through all of trigun so future annotations might be faster/cost less spoons since i already have some things to write down in mind.

This will definitely get a part 2+ in the future, especially once we get to see Knives. the redo will just be a new single-part post. this stuff will most likely only become relevant once we see knives+vash interaction in trimax The Meryl speech analysis we mentioned in a past post is currently in the works, and will also be part of this speech series!

[joannerowling]

I’m a big fan but I will admit that, while I think it’s the most beautifully written of the 7, I thought as a teenager that the ethical core of Deathly Hallows was a bit skewed and haven’t changed my mind having re-read it as an adult. Harry using the torture curse and the narrative approving of his ‘gallantry’ is a real low point. I also have issues with how she handled Snape from a Christian perspective, given that he was the one character explicitly working to atone for his sins. But I mainly put those gripes down to the final book needing to revert to a fable of good vs evil to tie the whole thing up, which necessitated losing some of the nuance of HP’s politics that had been explored mid-series.

The early books were ‘mean spirited’ because they were children’s books set at a boarding school that deliberately evoked the Roald Dahl tradition of writing terrible adults that need to be viciously cut down to size lol. The humour is so distinctly British.

Agree to disagree, i think it's pretty funny that Harry snaps over something like McGonagall getting spat on. It's in the same vein as Hermione cursing Marietta to have "SNEAK" written on her forehead for me. Is it good? No (and i don't think the narrative *says it's good*), but is it satisfying and did Carrow have it coming? Hell yeah! Remember that the Carrows are explicitely said to be fond of Crucifying students and even forced some to use the curse on first years (11 years old kids) apparently for shit and giggles. I think giving Amycus a taste of his own medicine was fine.

You would have to elaborate on the Snape bit for me to comment.

I get what you mean with the third part, not sure that i would call it "the Roald Dahl tradition" - even though he excels at this, but is it not more like a feature of child lit in general? How many fairy tales start with a poor girl being treated like shit by her comically evil step-mother meanwhile her father is completely useless? And child lit, or rather books where children are the heroes in a world of Terrible Adults, is a particularly favoured genre of British writers since at least Dickens.

JKR's work for children does fall into this tradition (i would say the Ickabog even more so than HP), but i think her specificity comes in a) her willingness to target character types that are rarely deemed of interest for kids, such as politicians (Fudge, Scrimegour), state workers (Umbridge, Bagman), journalists (Rita), business owners (Vernon), etc., people who usually are more the targets of satirical newspapers, and b) the fact that her satire is intricate and barely caricatural, compared to say Dahl's. Fudge for instance is NOT a caricature in his behaviour and even appearance, he's a *realistic* British politician… in wizard clothes. Compare that to Dahl's Trunchbull. Or you know, compare two official illustrations of one of Dahl's and one of Rowling's characters:

(Jim Kay on the right, Quentin Blake on the left)

Both have exaggerated features but Dahl's is cartoonish and focused on proportions and attitude, whereas JKR's is allll about the details (the knot, the cats, the texture and colour of those clothes). That is not to say one is better than the other but only to point out the difference.

[toads-treasures]

Writer Interview

I got tagged by @forget-me-maybe and @pouroverpaloma, thank you for the tag!!! I'm sorry that I definitely may have overshared!!

When did you start writing?

This is going to sound cliche but, since I learned how to write at all, I think? I distinctly remember that I got in trouble when I was about six years old, because I took a photo album that had nice sturdy paper pages from the laundry room and wrote a mystery story in it. I remember it was a mystery because on every other page I colored my own version of the old transitions they’d do in cartoons, with a question mark with concentric colorful circles around it lol. Strangely vivid memory of those transition pages, I think I was very proud of them. 

But I’ve been writing and “illustrating” pretty much my entire life. I started writing fanfiction in middle school or highschool, and that’s what I’ve always liked writing the most.

Then I decided to get a creative writing degree, which then led me to developing both a god complex and a crippling sense of perfectionism and self doubt, and completely drained any enjoyment from writing literally anything, because I couldn’t get my professor’s voices out of my head. I loved my professors and I think I learned a lot, but I became so obsessed with my writing being perfect and impressive and something they would want and like, that I stopped writing things that I liked. So, I had a crisis and dropped out! And didn’t write anything for like four years so 🫠 but we’re slowly gettin’ back into it. 

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

I don’t think there are any themes I enjoy reading that I couldn't really write, but genres definitely. I don’t know if I could write a contemporary romance. Unless I am doing a modern AU lol but even then I always seem to end up adding some kind of fantastical element.  I love reading a good Emily Henry novel, but I try to write a lighthearted contemporary romance and inevitably some ghosts or fucked up fairies of some sort will appear. I gotta inject a little horror and fantasy into pretty much everything I write, which I think a lot of people are surprised by. I’m surprised by it, because I am such a baby I can’t handle watching horror movies. I think less horror, and more like, gothic elements maybe? IDK man it’s been a long time since I’ve been in a literature class.

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

I wanna be Maggie Stiefvater when I grow up. She’s a young adult novelist but she is such a talented writer, I can’t even explain other than her books make my brain go !!!!! 

I cannot recommend Scorpio Races or The Raven Cycle enough. She’s got such a distinct voice, and she is really good at magical realism which I love. I don’t know if I intentionally try to emulate her though I think I’m just a sponge that just absorbs bits and pieces of anything I read, but I think I have unintentionally stolen a line or two from her before.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

I have a home office that I adore and is super cute and cozy but unfortunately most of my writing is done at work on my lunch break. But that’s also a pretty nice place, a shaded courtyard at the hospital I work at that’s got really nice tall trees that blossom in the spring. 

What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse?

I always come up with some pivotal character detail or plot point while I’m doing dishes. Then I have to scramble for my phone with sudsy hands to immediately tell Liz I have had A Thought.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

I think a lot of my stories are about grief, which I don’t usually realize until later. Grief and memory and growing out of the place you were born, and the kind of dissonance that comes from wanting so desperately to go home but not fitting when you get there. Or things are different than how you remember, for better and for worse. I love thinking about complicated parent/child relationships, and coming to the realization that more often than not your parents are neither heroes or villains, they’re just people.  Coming of age stories but the protag are in their late twenties? 

I looooove to write about people slowly (or not so slowly) falling in love and the little things you notice about someone when that’s happening. Like the way a slight sunburn sometimes makes blue eyes look even bluer, the way someone’s eyes widen before they start laughing, like they’re surprised at their own amusement. Getting to know someone in so many different contexts. So different kinds of intimacy I guess? It wasn’t until recently that I even considered writing smut lmao and even now when I try the characters just end up having some deep conversation and unearthing some kind of trauma. Let’s not analyze what that says about me. 

But it always seems to come back to grief at some point and living with loss and growing around it. Which is strange because I’m very lucky to have not gone through that process with anyone extremely close to me. It is definitely something I think about a lot though, it’s almost like I’m trying to brace myself, or practice grieving before it actually happens.

What’s your reason for writing?

Escapism babyyy. I say escapism then talk about how all I ever write about is grief….so….but it is both escapism and kind of working through some shit emotionally lol. One of my favorite possibly cringey things to do, but something that has genuinely helped me a lot, is creating a character that has a lot of qualities that I feel self conscious about. They have ADHD, they’re tall and a little clumsy, or they’ve got the same body type as me. They also dropped out of art school. But it doesn’t bother them at all. They’re not insecure about any of those things. Or if they are, they learn not to be. And the other characters love them anyway.

One of the things I’ve really enjoyed doing with a lot of the fanfiction I write is I get a chance to write about the moments in between the big moments. Explore aspects of characters that maybe there wasn’t time for in the game. Or you know if it’s Wyll just aspects that Larian didn’t bother to do at all i’m not bitter 

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

Literally any. I crave any form of validation. I love when people can point out themes and stuff to me because I usually miss that myself lol.

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

Uhhhhhhhhh I have never considered this. Positively? I think more than anything I want people to care as much as I care about these characters, that we’re all being genuine and sincere and sappy together.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

I don’t know if it’s my greatest strength lol but I love writing dialogue. That always comes easily to me. And descriptions of landscapes. That’s always something people in class would point out. I will wax poetic about a mountain or the sea don’t test me. 

How do you feel about your own writing?

It comes and goes lol. I try not to think about it too much honestly because I’ll spiral pretty fast into extremely self critical territory and freeze up. Because I must be a genius, Professor Signor told me so, now I have this impossible standard to live up to. Also my professor never told me I was a genius but she did really like my writing and wanted me to take a bunch of honors classes and be on the school literary magazine and all of that pressure and expectation kiiinda made me freak out and run away. So now I try to just have fun, and that’s what I want to feel more than anything is that I’m having fun, and truly enjoying this part of me that has been a part of me for as long as I can remember. 

tagging @hauntedliz @mars-colonyand @likesomethingblooming if you wanna!

[nostalgia-tblr]

Okay actually I do have a proper thought on the "sylki is incest" wank. which is that the "anti" take seems to be that Loki/Sylvie is obviously, glaringly, an incestuous pairing but its shippers deliberately ignore that because they like the pairing otherwise (yet also the accusation involves them liking the incest element... honestly it's a bit of a muddle, but let's move on). But. Well, here's the thing that is obvious, at least to me...

Go to AO3 and have a look to find the most popular (in terms of number of works) Loki pairing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom as a whole. Actually, i'll save you the effort:

(These numbers are slightly out-of-date but the ratios remain accurate. I checked.)

Now, that. That is an incest pairing, isn't it? There is some fic which specifies an AU of some sort in which Thor and Loki are not related to each other but most of it is about brothers who are also lovers.

"But they're not really related," you say? Sorry, but in the important ways, they are. Every one of those films, and the Loki series, frames them as siblings-with-issues, and yes one of those issues is whether or not they agree that they are siblings, but I'd say the MCU comes down pretty firmly on the side of "they totally are."

And the point I'm making here is that the actual incest pairing is treated as such by its fans. If you don't feel up to reading any thorki fic I'll save you again and say that it overall leans into the "forbidden love" angle, and the shame and internal conflict of an incestuous attraction or relationship. So shippers of a given pairing do indeed know what incest is and they rarely try to avoid that aspect of such pairings.

Whereas. If you read the Loki/Sylvie stuff, that whole "thorki vibe" is entirely absent. Fans vary on variants, in terms of in what ways these two are or are not "the same person" but they agree on one thing: fucking some other version of yourself is not incest. This is pretty much a unanimous belief, and here I'll mention something else I think is relevant: there are a few sylki twincest AUs (many of which seem to have been written out of spite - LOL, fandom!) and in all of those the AU also features another crucial change - they are not both Loki variants in those fics.

Yeah, that's right! To make Loki and Sylvie siblings you have to remove the selfcest element entirely. Because - this may shock some of you, so sit down before you read this next part - you are not your own sibling. Even identical twins are obviously different people. A clone of yourself might get us into more philosophical territory but that's not what multiversal variants are either. Allow me to illustrate with another informative image:

You get me? Yeah, you get me.

So, to meander towards an actual conclusion here. The MCU!Loki fandom does not, in general, refuse to accept that romantic/sexual pairings that would be incestuous actually are incestuous. In fact if anything it embraces that element of such pairings. It is usually seen as the defining feature of them. If they think siblings are fucking then they will write about those siblings fucking, and they will not be shy about it!

And aside from that mentioned handful of AU fics, sylki is not written as incest. Because it just isn't incest. Look, if you personally see Loki and Sylvie as siblings to the point where the pairing squicks you out, then fair enough there's not much either of us can do about that. Do your best to avoid that content and don't be a wanker about it and I wish you well in your endeavours. But that isn't what most of the complaints stem from, is it? As usual in recent years fans who didn't like a pairing (which, btw, is allowed) wanted to have the moral high ground and some bright spark hit upon "this pairing is INCEST" via some slightly odd logic and it spread from there. Because we can't just not like something, can we? (Actually, that's also allowed!) No, we have to be better than those fans over there, who are all terrible people in some way. They are problematic.

And this is a lot of words for me to essentially say "no, the sylki fic and the thorki fic have very different vibes actually" but... well, they do. The sylki shippers are not denying the incest, because there is no incest there, and even if we for a moment pretend that "siblings" is a reasonable and indeed expected interpretation of the variants concept, it is clear from their content that the people who ship Loki/Sylvie do not see them that way. And that has nothing to do with DNA or otherwise, which I can prove with this very quick question: in one word (or less, if you can), what is the relationship between Loki and Thor?

You said "brothers" or "siblings," didn't you? No, you did. I know for a fact that you did, don't play coy with me on this. We all understand that these two characters who definitely share no DNA are, in every way that matters, brothers. This is not a difficult concept, it's not somehow confusing large numbers of fans either way.

tl;dr - Sylki isn't incest but if it was we'd all know that because the fans of it would not be constantly denying what would, almost certainly, be the main appeal of that pairing for them if that was the case. You can deny that all you want but 11,731 thorki fics (as of 10th December 2023) back me up on this one.

So there.

[aropride]

speaking of psychosis- i wasn't speaking of it here but i was speaking of it- i've been trying to figure out what was up with the great psychotic episode of freshman year, because i had assumed it was a trauma-induced psychosis type of deal, but it occurred to me that i was definitely having sort of thought broadcasting types of beliefs, probably some other stuff but i can't remember atm and don't feel like digging thru my old vent account lol. (ramble continues under the cut this got VERY long)

(line with text so tumblr doesn't eat the image. idk if it still does that but better safe than sorry)

(the months with "2" are split into first and second half of the month bc it was relevant, couldnt figure out how else to signify that succinctly)

i cut out the labels of each belief for safety + in case that's triggering to ppl but each row is a different belief i had that in retrospect was probably some sort of delusion? top two are very similar but different enough i tracked them differently. bottom two might have just been anxiety+ptsd but i do really think they're connected to this

it was definitely at its worst mid nov-end of jan, but started in september and didn't really let up til like june

anyway like i said i had assumed it was a combination of trauma and being off my meds and isolation that made the perfect situation for me to go fucking crazy, but i hadn't really thought about it that hard . but now that i Am thinking about it, again, i was definitely having these kinds of beliefs before The Trauma

and in my past self's defense. one thing about my thought broadcasting beliefs specifically was that i was straight up being essentially cyberstalked at the time and didn't know, so i was completely right that certain people knew more about me than i had told them, but i was wrong about the reason why

anyway i was reading up on schizospec disorders for class (kind of. also just for fun) -- also important context schizophrenia does run in my family i think on both sides? but my parents are weird about talking about it. so that's part of this also.

but i noticed that of the three labels i was looking at- brief psychotic disorder, schizophreniform, and schizophrenia- (i didn't look into schizoaffective bc i dont think i have many bipolar symptoms, and didn't look into stpd bc i don't think it counts as a personality disorder if it lasts like 10 months lol, and delusional disorder because i do think i had some negative*&cognitive symptoms (*psych term meaning absence of things present in nonschizospec people, not literally just bad symptoms lol)-- though to be fair, that may have just been a combination of situational aspects & autism?)-- either way, it's not on this beautiful and awesome diagram in mspaint i made so i could illustrate the timeline aspect of the diagnostic criteria:

bc a diagnosis of brief psychotic disorder requires symptoms to only last a month, and schizophreniform for 1-6 months, whereas schizophrenia is lifelong .

basically the problem is- while the worst part of my psychotic(?) symptoms lasted ~4months, they were definitely there in some form for around 10 months, which is too long for a diagnosis of schizophreniform, but i don't feel comfortable just, assuming it's schizophrenia lol, especially when most of the symptoms i experienced dont affect my life anymore? it does make me nervous though that this happened right around the typical age of onset.

this might just be a problem with diagnoses being too specific to cover the entire spectrum of human experience, and i might just be outside of any area where a specific label could be applied . also, i know it's been written about but not become an actual diagnostic label- but there are places where ocd and psychosis can over lap, and schizo-obsessive disorder has been suggested as a diagnostic label, but not officially used anywhere afaik..

i think my main concern at this point is just, whether or not i should be concerned about it coming back. like, is it possible to be in various stages of active psychosis(?? it still feels very strange to refer to it that way but i guess that's what it was, so) for ~4-10 months, and then just be chilling after. or should i be worried. was this a one-time thing starting because i was off my meds and being worsened by isolation and trauma or is there a possibility of this happening again. and i think that's a question that can't be answered with any certainty, probably

[mermaidsirennikita]

saw someone comment how cooper picked bernstein because he resembles him so he would get points for a "transformative" performance. which i honestly would buy as his mindset because he clearly was not interested in him on any level other level. there's also the fact he stole this movie from jake gyllenhaal. which idk if he would have been the better choice but a) he's a superior actor and b) he's actually jewish.

Honestly? I could buy that speculation. (And then he honestly made himself look less like Bernstein with the ridic prosthetic nose? Which tracks with the Oscar desperation.) The thing is that BCoops basically stripped Bernstein of anything distinct or transgressive aside from his sexuality, which a) shouldn't be... a distinct "transgressive" thing, it was a part of who he was and it impacted his relationships obviously, but it wasn't this INSANE thing b) completely invalidated making a biopic about him. What makes this guy worthy of a movie? Because his life needs to be a good story when translated into a script--it can't just be "was considered best at this thing". And again, besides some fairly out of context performances, we never even really saw what made HIM the best at this one thing.

Another thing that could've made the biopic better imo would be getting into his and Felicia's political activities, which were legitimately distinct. Like, you're gonna keep returning to Felicia's hinted at homophobia but you're not going to show her raising money for the Black Panthers' families and working with Coretta Scott King? You're not going to get into the FBI files on Bernstein? Because that's a quick Google away and it seems way more interesting than half the shit in there.

I also found the way the movie handled Felicia's feelings on his sexuality so muddled. Like, yeah. She's human. Her feelings are allowed to change. And I can totally see her going from "I'm good with being with this man who I know I can't completely fulfill because I love him" as a young woman in theory to "this is harder than I thought it would be". But the movie never seems to illustrate that because we see so little of anyone's inner life. Plus, it just seemed bizarre to have her going "YOU'RE SO HATEFUL" when we really never see the man being hateful and also she actually seems much more bugged by, I don't know, him fucking all these other people. And I'd say "oh the movie was saying she was deflecting" but lol you have an entire major reunion scene where she's all "you aren't hateful".

Also? You can portray a relationship as complex and transactional and also loving. It can be all things. You can depict Bernstein having serious, passionate, COMMITTED relationships with men while also loving his wife (albeit in perhaps a different way--I've seen some suggest Bernstein was bi, some suggest he probably wouldn't have been with women if he was born at a later time, we'll never know). You can say he loves her but also benefits from having a wife with his profile. You can say she loves him and also get way more into her having a serious relationship with another man who died before she married Bernstein. You can say she loved him also say she loved being with a high profile man whose ambitions aligned with her own. You can say they loved each other and were separated when she found out she was sick, and additionally that he never actually left his partner at the time, even if he did move back in with Felicia to care for her.

I'm not a huge Jake G fan, but he does seem like he was way more passionate about Bernstein as a whole person, I do think it would've been cool for a Jewish actor to have the role, and I suspect he would've been way more comfortable with Bernstein's queer identity. And the thing is? Bernstein's kids love this movie. Which, great. But I have to wonder how much of that has to do with it totally whitewashing their parents and their relationship. Because it is legitimately hard to accept our parents as people. I imagine that being uncomfortable with your parent's constant affairs makes that worse, and who is comfortable with that?

But is a part of who he was, and I personally think this exemplifies why biopics are often better (not always) when people are less involved in the development. Because people aren't objective, and people often want a flattering story versus a good one, understandably. There are always exceptions--I think Rocketman is amazing and Elton was involved. But I also think Elton is more open to certain things being portrayed than certain people would be.

[autisticwriterblog]

I was tagged by @pintsizeninja. Thanks for tagging me!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

2345. That's what happens when you've been posting since 2016 and don't study or have a job for health reasons so you've got nothing better to do than write fic. 😂

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

2,682,156 words

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently it's Alan Wake and Control, with occasional dips into Dishonored and sports anime like Haikyuu.

4. Top five fics by kudos

All of these are old (like over 6 years old) and I'm not that proud of most of them (especially the HP one because fuck it). But they're popular for some reason, so here they are!

Healer - My Hero Academia

The Boggart - Harry Potter

NSFW OTP Challenge: Erasermic - My Hero Academia

"Keep breathing." - My Hero Academia

The Date - My Hero Academia

5. Do you respond to comments?

I try my best to, because I really appreciate every comment I get.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Let's stick with Remedyverse fics for this question. In that case... I'll pick:

Five Times Ilmo Hugged his Brother (and the Time he Didn’t) - because for spoiler reasons, we all know why Ilmo doesn't hug Jaakko at the end. It's otherwise a fluffy or hurt/comfort fic until the end and then bam! Angst!

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Again, sticking with just my Remedy stuff... let's go with:

The First Step is Always the Hardest - from my Ahti/Norman series.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I have done in the past, to the point I've needed to block them on ao3. Just the other day, I got a transphobic hate comment on an old fic. Luckily, it hasn't happened with my current fandoms.

9. Do you write smut?

Quite often, yeah.

10. Craziest crossover?

It's more an AU than a proper crossover, but recently I wrote an Alan Wake fic set in a Zero Escape AU.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

A few times, yeah. It was super flattering to be approached with the offer to translate my fics!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope, and I'm not sure I'd want to.

14. All time favourite ship?

All time? Hmm... let's go with my faves for my current fandoms, plus a few I've written a lot for in the past/think about a lot:

Ahti/Norman MacDonald - Alan Wake (my incredibly niche rarepair that I love a lot)

Jesse Faden/Emily Pope - Control

Amity Blight/Luz Noceda - The Owl House

Micah Bell/Arthur Morgan - Red Dead Redemption (I like enemies-to-lovers and redeeming utterly hateful characters lol)

Kozume Kenma/Hinata Shouyou - Haikyuu

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I've got a half-written oneshot for Critical Role somewhere in my drafts that I never finished. It's about a character getting hit with the Feeblemind spell and the others looking after him.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I like to think I'm good at dialogue.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I really struggle with fight scenes.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

If the character drops dialogue in a different language in canon, it only makes sense to do it in fic too. Case in point: the amount of Finnish idioms and swear words I've learned because of Ahti.

19. First fandom you wrote in?

This would've been way back in 2012 when I was 13. On fanfiction.net, I posted (really cringy) fics about The A-Team.

Although, techinically, the first time I wrote a fic was when I was 6. I didn't know other people did it and I certainly didn't share it. But I've got an old story (and illustrations) in a notebook from like 2005 when I wrote about Charlie and Lola, a British kid's show.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Just sticking with Remdyverse again... currently I'd choose:

Episode - part of my autistic Odin series. It's angsty, but also has lots of protectiveness from Tor and Bob being a good friend. i just really like writing about the Old Gods at the moment and I'm especially proud of this one.

Tagging: @quailfence, @koskela-knights, @taniushka12, @hamyheikki and anyone else who wants to do this!

[cienie-isengardu]

I see a lot in fics this portrayal of stormtroopers/501st as being intensely loyal to Vader, sometimes even over the Empire. Is that really true in canon/Legends? I know Lords of the Sith referenced this, but otherwise I haven't read enough of the EU to confirm how much of this is just fanon. I'm assuming you know bc of your Vader's Men tag lol

The intensive stormtrooper training is conditioning people to be loyal to Empire and so obedience to Vader, as the one of highest imperial commanders is a natural order of the things but yes, there are stories and tie-in materials that strongly suggest or outright says that certain stormtroopers and imperial officers in fact admire Darth Vader and their loyalty run beyond the usual level of allegiance required from imperial soldiers. So no, this portrait in fanwork is not solely invention of fans as it has a solid ground in source materials although it should be taken into account that: 

a) the level of personal loyalty will vary from one character to another  

b) there are not many stories in which imperial soldiers are forced to choose between Vader and the Emperor so it is really hard to predict if those people are in fact more loyal to Vader as a person than to the Empire(Palpatine) as a whole. When it comes to imperial army, in most cases Vader and the Empire/Palpatine are seen as inseparable as Vader is the epitome of loyalty to Empire to most Imperials (which makes sense, as Vader usually rely on bounty hunters or his vast different sort of agents if his personal goals are against Palpatine’s will and the discretion is needed. Otherwise he is commanding troopers to kill/destroy whoever incur his anger and then deals with his master’s displeasure). 

The second point is especially vital in regard to imperials like admiral Piett that in general is acknowledged in sources as one of officers that Vader truly respects but through the decades Firmus sadly didn’t get that much focus as character to give us absolute certainty of his allegiance beyond the general idea of “serving the Empire”. Which makes it hard to make an objective analysis if Piett was forced to choose, would he betray the Empire out of loyalty to Vader or not. A scenario that has been a common thing in fanwork for years. Which is why I’m bringing Piett to illustrate that fans’ interpretation of imperial characters and their loyalty to Vader may be exaggerated beyond what sources provided. Which doesn’t necessarily mean it is a wrong assumption but rather that focus of tie-in materials is pretty much limited when it comes to Imperials, especially those of Old Trilogy or stormtroopers in general.

At the same time, Vader was introduced from the start as someone that has a better working relationship with common troopers and the imperial officers serving directly under him than with high-ranking Imperials. There is no need to look further than A New Hope to see the difference between how the Sith Lord acts around his men and Admiral Motti (or later in The Empire Strikes Back, how he treats Admiral Ozzel or Captain Needa). It shows up in his speech patterns, like “There'll be no one to stop us this time” or “We’ll have to destroy them ship to ship” when he is talking to his men (as he is including himself and his men in the “us/we”) but it is for sure a me vs you talk with Motti during a meeting on Death Star. When questioned by Commander Daine Jir* Vader is willing to explain himself and shows zero anger at the man for not obeying at once 

while having no second thought about force-choking admiral Motti. Through the Original Trilogy, Vader did not threaten common imperial troopers but he did not have any reservations about killing the officers if they failed him. What is even more important, Vader is one of few high-ranking imperials that takes an active part in widely understood “warzone”, be it the search of stolen Death Star’s plans or taking part in space battle to protect the imperial station or taking over rebel Echo Base on Hoth - and tie-in material even claims that Vader flying his own fighter into battle(s) incurs the wrath of high officers,which implies the Dark Lord of the Sith’s active part during fight breaks imperial norms.

 This is the ground on which I believe was built the idea that stormtroopers may feel a great respect and even personal loyalty for Vader - and to be honest, from the perspective of common soldiers it makes perfect sense. Vader is the right-hand man of Emperor Palpatine, a man that wields a mystic power and runs the Empire and who for sure does not need to risk his life on the battlefield yet he is marching alongside stormtroopers into one battle after another, sometimes even saving said troopers in the process (x)(x)(x) while most high-ranking officers (especially those presented in the Old Trilogy) usually stay behind in the safety while soldiers die fighting. Also, quite often the sources provided examples in which Vader on purpose does not involve troopers accompanying him into fights as he prefers to face dangerous and personal foes/tasks alone (x)(x)(x)(x)("Go," Vader said to them. "The ship is lost." Most of them nodded, turned, and headed off immediately, but three of the stormtroopers remained. "Sir, we should accompany you to an escape pod." "Unnecessary," Vader said. "I'll find my own way. Now go. That's my order.", Lords or the Sith) which I suspect is another habit of Vader that common stormtroopers may interpret as specific sign of their commander’s care for their well-being - is it truth or not is up to debate of course, but whatever the reasoning, it really looks like Vader did not endanger the lives of soldiers unnecessarily and even could kill an officer that ordered the troops into an unwinnable scenario. Or like Ozzel did, lost the element of surprise for imperial invasion.

And really, the image of Vader leading troops or being surrounded by stormtroopers is one of the most common things in the Star Wars franchise that is included in films, comics, books, games and other tie-in materials. Considering what a powerhouse Vader is on his own, it is easy to imagine how his presence on battlefront raises morale of imperial soldiers or why it means so much to stormtroopers to know the Dark Lord of the Sith is there with them on battlefront.  

Another thing that adds a lot to common troopers’ perception of the Dark Lord is that Vader does not care for people’s place of origin, family or political connections or even species. Through the sources Vader favors skills, competence and loyalty above anything else. Which means that people born in Outer Rims or people for whatever reason not meeting the specific standards set by the military/political elite can easily get promoted under Vader’s wings if they prove themselves - be it on battlefront or thinking outside the box (x followed by x). And this especially was visible in older sources, when aliens, women and droids were part of a wide range of Vader’s agents despite the bias toward those groups within the Empire. So working with Vader often resulted with many benefits in the long run for those who managed to impress the Dark Lord. What is very important, as many promising troopers and officers that normally would be hold back by lack of proper connection or birthplace were hand-picked personally by the Dark Lord of the Sith, either for his 501st Legion or for general benefit of the Empire - what for many “lowly cogs in the imperial machine” literally means new possibilities opened up solely thanks to Vader and this probably adds a lot of weight to their personal loyalty. Serving under Vader could bring a person a chance for fast promotion (general Veers is the best example) but also provide protection (x)(x) or access to the best medical help even when said person couldn’t anymore serve the Dark Lord, as happened with Erv Lekauf:

Vader’s suit could withstand nearly every assault. But Lekauf, a man trained to react without pausing to debate, flung himself in front of him and took the brunt of the flame. He fell, gasping, as the clones closed in on the Dark Jedi and Vader burst apart their Force shields with pure focused rage. [A Two-Edged Sword]

and

“My granddad thought the world of him. When he got badly burned on a mission and had to be discharged from the Imperial Army, Lord Vader made sure he was taken care of for the rest of his life. Whatever some people say about Vader, monsters don't look out for lieutenants." [Legacy of the Force: Sacrifice]

As I mentioned before, a great number of people serving Vader were hand-picked personally by the Dark Lord of the Sith which includes his own 501st Legion - and that for sure increases the reason for personal loyalty of said soldiers. 

Members of the 501st are hand-picked by Lord Darth Vader from within the stormtrooper units. Battlefield promotions are awarded to those who earn his respect [The Imperial Handbook].

or 

Worse, walking into a local garrison or fleet anchorage meant taking whatever they had available, whether good and competent or lazy and useless. Picking out random stormtroopers was an even shakier proposition these days, given Vader’s habit of periodically combing through the ranks and transferring all the best and brightest into his personal 501st Legion. [Choices of one]

or

When Lieutenant Daine Jir first spoke out against one of Darth Vader’s suggestions, murmurs of “dead man walking” immediately followed. But instead of choking the life out of the Imperial officer, Vader promoted him to the rank of commander. 

Jir was one of few officers, along with Admiral Piett and Captain Janus Bonn, to earn Vader’s respect. The Dark Lord appreciated Jir’s brutal honesty, in contrast to the manipulative rhetoric of most Imperial lackeys. Jir, a competent and ruthless member of the 501st stormtrooper legion [...]

The New Canon also seems to follow this special bond that Vader has with some stormtroopers, as could be seen with sergeant Kreel (x) who was even gifted the Jedi lightsaber by the Dark Lord (though so far Kreel is also loyal to Palpatine… who has like zero idea or care who the stormtrooper is).

So to answer your question, yes, there are plenty of stormtroopers (or in general imperials) who greatly respect Darth Vader and in some cases this respect runs as deep as personal loyalty toward the Dark Lord of the Sith. And this specific bond between Vader and troopers can be traced through various source material, like:

For reasons that went beyond the armor and helmets, the imaging systems and boots, Vader felt more at home among the troopers than he did around other flesh-and-bloods.

And Appo and the rest of Vader's cadre of stormtroopers seemed to be at ease with their new superior. To them it was only reasonable that Vader wore a bodysuit and armor. Some had always wondered why the Jedi left themselves exposed, as if they had had something to prove by it. [Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader by James Luceno]

or

After Anakin Skywalker turned to the dark side, his 501st Legion clone troopers remained loyal to him. For their brutality and efficiency, they became known as “Vader’s fist”.

(And no, this has nothing to do with the chip-in-brain nonsense of TCW/New Canon)

(and here a fun fact! The Anakin/Vader's personal stormtrooper legion is named after fan organization 501st Legion that was introduced into canon thanks to Timothy Zahn and Lucasfilm, as a nod to fans and their great hand-made costumes and charity work! Which adds another layer why 501st Legion is always seen as the elite between elites and so important part of Anakin/Vader's legacy)

or

As the shuttle descended through Hockaleg’s atmosphere, Vader said, “I am curious about the details of your demotion.”

“It’s all on record, sir,” the trooper said, angling the shuttle toward the spaceport.

“I would prefer to hear it from you.”

“Permission to speak freely, sir?”

“Granted.”

The trooper cleared his throat.

“You are aware I’m a clone, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Well, twenty years ago, after Shadow Squadron was disbanded, I had a new commanding officer-a non-clone. When he ordered me to kill my gunner - who had been wounded in combat, but not mortally - I refused. And when my commanding officer tried to shoot me for refusing, I broke his jaw. I spent a year in solitary.”

Vader considered the details, then said, “What happened to the injured clone?”

“He recovered, although he was killed several months later during a bombing run.”

“Do you regret your actions?”

“No. sir. Everybody dies. I’m just glad I helped a friend live a bit longer.”

As the spaceport came into view, Vader said, “If you were to serve under my command, would you ever disobey an order?”

“Yes, sir, but only if it helped you live longer.”

Vader was stunned by the aged clone’s words and the implication that he might disobey one of his orders…or that he might consider the Sith Lord a friend. Before he could ask the clone for an explanation, the clone tested the comm and received a loud burst of static. [Vader Adrift]

or mentioned Erv Lerkauf

The assassins paused for a frantic reload.

“Lord Vader…” said Lekauf, but he was pinned flat by the Force, arms flailing.

“Stay down,” snapped Vader. […]

One man dropped instantly without his intervention. Vader lunged forward and sliced through two more, left-right. The fourth lost his arm and blaster in the same slicing movement and dropped to his knees, utterly silent, mouth open wide in frozen agony as he stared at the seared stump. Vader brought the lightsaber down across his neck. The hangar was silent now except for the sound of his own breath. He looked down at the back of the one man he hadn’t killed. The black tunic was still smoking a little.

“Fine shot, Lekauf,” said Vader. He released his Force pressure. “I told you to stay down.”

Lekauf got to his knees and holstered his blaster. “I never rose, my lord. I can fire from a prone position, though, and you made no mention of that.”

Lekauf stood up and went to him as if to check him for injury. It suddenly struck Vader that he was solid and a good height. And he was loyal enough to step in the line of fire, and then-defy him to cover his back.

Good man. At least one possible template, then. [In his Image]

and

""Me, too." Jacen found he enjoyed the company of 967. They all had the corporal's general optimism. "How long have you been in the army?"

"Since I graduated, sir. Four years."

"What made you sign up?"

Lekauf smiled, almost embarrassed. "My grandfather served under your grandfather in the Imperial Army, sir. He always talked about how Lord Vader put himself in the front line. Meant a lot to him, that did."

Jacen patted Lekauf's shoulder. It was humbling to see how loyalty could last generations. Whatever sins Anakin Skywalker had committed as Vader, there were still those who recognized his qualities as an inspirational commander. Jacen decided it might be safe to walk back in time and watch him again. [Legacy of the Force: Bloodlines]

or a nostalgia trip of retired stormtrooper:

Dark Lord told us it wasn’t our fault the Falcon got out from the Hoth blockade. Then he executed half the squad. But you could tell he was proud of us.

or

“Supreme confidence reigned in the heart of every crew member in this Imperial death squadron, especially among the personnel on the monstrous central Star Destroyer. But something also blazed within their souls. Fear - fear of merely the sound of the familiar heavy footsteps as they echoed through the enormous ship. Crew members dreaded these footfalls and shuddered whenever they were heard approaching, bringing their much feared, but much respected leader.” [The Empire Strikes Back]



or

I’ve heard that the regular officers hate him, but the Stormtrooper Corps almost worships him. [Lords of the Sith]



or

and

The Truest Duty by Christie Golden [From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back]

And to be honest, this special stormtroopers’ admiration for Vader is not seen only in “serious” source material but also in humorous variations like Lego Star Wars Vader reading book to stormtroopers  or Droid Tales episode 5, in which C-3PO and Lando distract stormtroopers with a tale about Darth Vader (and how the Lord of the Sith saved rebellion on Endor) and just look at the troopers happily listening about their boss.

So in general, fans may sometimes exaggerate the intensivity of stormtroopers or in general imperial soldiers' loyalty toward Vader but this specific bond between Dark Lord of the Sith and common soldiers is grounded deeply in star wars lore.

[conostra]

Griffith, Guts, and the Death of Innocence: How Murdering Children Fucks You Up Mentally, Actually

Griffith and Guts are many things- almost lovers, brothers-in-arms, trusted comrades, and above all else, incredible reflections of each other. Miura created both of these men as phenomenal foils, and there’s never a moment where this doesn’t shine through in their reactions to certain events, and to their own growth, snd how it cganges5their perceptions of each other. But there’s one particular pair of events that I think perfectly illustrates their differences: The death of innocence to their own hands.

I’ve talked at length (at least 20-something pages worth LOL) about Griffith’s absolutely fucked up relationship to… well, relationships in general. I made a post specifically about his interactions and relationship with the young boy who joined the Hawks. But to succinctly summarize my thoughts: Griffith was faced with an absolute that he was forced to reconcile with in order to continue pursuing his dream. When that young boy had the wings granted to him by the Hawks clipped by battle and bled out into the terrain of war, Griffith was very clearly distraught. He is left to ponder the fact that this young boy, younger than even him at this point, was led to battle by his sword, and led to sword by his word. He's cost this boy his entirety, every dream he ever had or could ever have, every possibility his life's multitudes could have contained. Gone. All through his mere words, his very existence. And this would happen to countless more boys, and men, and women, children, innocents, civilians and soldiers alike, should he continue.

Guts was equally invested in what he caused, but the difference was that the blood showed not in his words, but on his hands. On Griffith’s orders, one night, Guts assassinates the brother of the King of Midland, and in the midst of escaping, he kills a smaller figure that, only after his sword plows clean through his abdomen, does Guts realize was, in fact, the young son of the man. Guts has cast this boy to death, having cut off any chance of him ever truly knowing his father's love. Any chances at being better than the sorry nobility with which he was surrounded, all through chance, were squandered, all through chance. This was not intended, this was not planned, and yet, it happened all the same, and Guts was left to flounder in the inescapable pool of his own inner turmoil after the fact.

Both of them are forced to have the bleak reality of their actions wash over them like rain, and both are forced to reckon with what they've done.

Both of them, understandably, are destroyed by this. Obliterated. Neither of them can function properly after the fact, and for a long while. But for one of them, this becomes permanent. One of them breaks themselves down from this, while the other becomes broken. One of these men allows this instance to define who they will be, and the other uses this to guide who they will become.

Griffith, from this, falls into the medieval equivalent of the alt-right pipeline LOL, specifically indoctrinated under the idea that If I Don't Feel Things, They Can’t Hurt Me. And for the record, he is wrong. Both in his ability to not be hurt by things, and his ability to not feel them. This incessant repression of all of himself, his emotions, his sexuality, his own human desires at the expense of his grandiose dream, lead him down a path of ruin. This pseudo-stoicism lends itself only to festering truths being locked under a truthful veneer of depressive apathy, a complete expression of himself in its own right, cracked only when in the company of a man who he deems to bear as much as himself. He wants to shut this turmoil away and bury it, only to allow it to continue to simmer, burn and flash in some moments, and ultimately explode in a brutal, spectacular fashion.

Guts, meanwhile, as the actual face of some weird alt-right ideas from idiots about the way anger and suffering supposedly actually make you *stronger*, instead becomes a better warrior and a better man by not allowing this moment to define who he is, and who he can continue to be. He will always define himself as a warrior first. But a warrior does not necessarily mean a ruthless slaughterer of men, women, and children alike, an indiscriminate killer who cares only that his sword is swinging, and does not care what fills the space in its arc. And it takes him time, an entire journey in fact, to learn and truly understand and internalize this. But it happens. Because he allows himself the space to mull over himself and his destiny, and does not internalize and pathologize what he does and what happens to him the way Griffith does. But they are in different situations, under different weights during different circumstances- and yet, this is what makes them these foils. Neither of these men would react the same way to either’s situation, and we can tell that in the way they oppose in the same. 

But a man is made as much through his actions as he is through that which acts upon him, and I think they exemplify that very well.

[sanityshorror]

Why are people so mean to you? You're literally one of the nicest people of interacted with on the internet

Long answer below cut

Many reasons, though none which are actually legitimate lol. I mean, yeah I can absolutely be a massive fuckin ass, BUT if I popped off on someone, it's because they really, really, really put time and effort into having got me to that point.

Another reason is that a certain person who used to be a 'friend,' ... Well it's a whole can of worms but ultimately, the final result was her purposely lying in order to set me up to make me look like a terrible person, then wrote an entire ass book of a callout which was 95% just blatant lies and beyond distorted 'truths' to the point it wasn't even true.

Additionally, people make just... wildly incorrect assumptions about me ("sanity thinks he's better than everyone and has the biggest ego!" Or "sanity is so mean!")... despite knowing jack shit about me. It's so baffling given the fact my blog and everything I post is my CONTENT. I am not my content, I am just the creator.

Let's see... What else...... OH! I'm very edgy boi. And have very dark humor. GOD FORBID!

Oh, another reason is because even though I don't talk about it... Like... Ever. I have been open about the fact that, yes, I do look at and watch gore tapes. However, I never brag about that (anyone who does is fucking stupid), it's not a flex. I very vocally discourage people from going to look themselves, and have never, will never, tell anyone how to find it let alone send them direct links. I've been asked by people before, I blocked all of them without replyiny. AND SO, WHY DO I WATCH GORE? I am an extreme horror creator. I am a splatterpunk author and artist who does a lot of horror illustration that include gore. It's legitimately for RESEARCH /serious. And that should be obvious to anyone. I'm also going to mention that yes, real gore footage and images are completely legal unless it involves CSA - that is beyond illegal. Just the thought of that type of gore makes me physically ill. I never never nor will I ever look at illegal gore. Kids being harmed is a massive trigger for me and ugh- i just want to puke at the idea of someone seeking it out.

Hmmm...OH! Because ASF is my favorite movie. Why is it my favorite? Because it IS uncomfortable. It portrays horrific things that happen in the real world, and shows these things graphically. It's not supposed to entertain, IT'S SUPPOSED TO UPSET YOU. Yes, I'm working on a video essay explaining the importance of ASF.

Aaand people are sent into tizzies over...😨😨 EXTREME HORROR😨😨 SERIAL KILLERS THAT ARE ACTUALLY A REALISTIC PORTRAYAL OF SERIAL KILLERS 😨😨😨 GOD FUCKING FORBID?! UNACCEPTABLE 🙄

Also, because Julius and Killian are supposedly me fetishizing mlm. I AM A PANSEXUAL MAN. And frankly, if people actually bother to read about their dynamic then go talk to MLM folks IRL... You'd realize that Julius and killian are the farthest thing from fetishizing.

Hmmm... And at the core of it all? Yes, this is going to sound up my ass but the ultimate reason? Jealously.

It seems like more people hate me than actually do, just because the ones who hate me are really fucking loud and can't keep my name out of their mouth (even though I forget or don't even know they exist until they somehow wind up on my radar). And a few certain people have about 50+ alts that they use to never stfu about me.

As for Chris Piss, that's completely different from the usual stuff. Slimebeast is...sure something.