#and then i would like to have like ~100 of the background pieces pinned and cut to take with me | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

misspoetree · 1 year ago

Note

Um... you were kinda right with the "sr in case anon didn't saw that" ^^; because yep, anon didn't saw that XD

But honestly, no worries about answering the ask late or so, please, no, just don't, even tumblr (and if not the app then the topics) can get exhausting over time, so please, take your breaks and recover a bit, even if I would never get an answer, it is completly fine, you are not obliged to answer it at all :D

But after you cast out the fishing line like this, I admit, I am a lazy carp, I bite.

CHOMP down on this hc's, because I literally just threw so much mismatched pieces at you (I really FORGOT about Tays business background, OF COURSE! It totally makes sense that Korn keeps him close because of business, I am dumb) but your genius idea about Korn getting a glimpse of Tays dangerous side... hooolyyyyyy... i am getting goosebumps!

(There is still an itch that wants to dig deeper into the whole net of Korns idea behind Tay and Time as friends for Kinn, like, is it just to keep business partners close? If so, how important is the business really, that Korn is willing to let an emotional bond like friendship grow between the boys and risk Kinn, our all-time-titts-out emotional dandy who is fucking starved of platonic affection, to hesitate, if things with the business of Tay or Time goes south? He either considers the business as that safe that it can never fail or loose its worth or Tays Family is that powerful that it wouldn't be good to have them as an enemy (Tay mafia heir incoming????) maybe it is completly different and he has more reasons for it... So much to unpack, I am getting my pool noodle right this moment and gear up for a deep dive)

But back to the important things, your reminder of ep 7, where Korns whole house of cards is swiped away by Tay, YES! One and a million, YES!

Ohhhhh, seeing Korn put business over everything else, that this is the reason for the whole friendship between Tay and Kinn, but then he needs more distance between them, but the more he tries, the more there is Tay with a machete gracefully hacking and slicing the net of lies apart- AHHHHHHHHH! You have a fantastic brain!

Btw, I am so happy that you liked the things my brain came up with, but I am even more in love with what you did with them.

Because Tay sways between the things he was forced to learn, the smiles, the way how he carries himself, the way he speaks and interacts with people, all this got build on the raw, unpolished knowledge that he has no choice but to master all those things if he wants to survive in this world.

He cuts the net Korn sets up, not to fight him head-on but to avoid getting caught in it as well. He simply survives. Inside the conference rooms, where words wield the power and outside in the bars, where a knife is loosely carried and a gun only a few seconds away.

(Again, how fucking exhausted must he be to perform in this two completly different scenarios, with clients and persons that are the exact opposite of each other and still manages to survive?)

Your, I will call it little scene because when I read it, it felt a 100%like it! Holy. Wow.

Oh hell, I need to recover, because you broke open my head and wrote that what I would never be able to convey in words, even if its just in an ask.

You have talent talent my dear, so please, if you start writing it, pin it up everywhere because I really want to read it

Tay being torn apart by his actions versus his heart and emotions is amazing and felt painfull good to read! And it kicks up my brain... I think unlike the other (traumatised™️) kids in the show, I don't think he is used to putting all his emotions aside... especially after I read your snippet, holy... I mean, with Kinn it is pretty obvious that he pushes his emotions aside and is done with it. But Tay?

Im mean, you already showed with your Ep7 reference that he is able to pull Kinn out of it. That doesn't sound like a man who is used to seeing his feelings as unworthy or useless.

I think Tay loves with a feral snarl and a gentle hug. He loves desperately and truly. He knows how to keep his friends safe, how to talk with them about feelings. He isn't someone who pushes everything away knowingly.

So maybe the time where all his training, his watching and analyzing turns into a blind "act", he looses control, he doesn't see himself as the person he knows anymore. And an overthinking, overanalyzing guy meets moral and emotional distress of his own making, ouuu... could turn out pretty dark for a hardworking brain like Tay's if you ask me...

And I am curious because you beautifully crafted the moment, where Tay's whole angelic act comes crumbling to the ground. That moment, when he flees and runs away from his own actions, when he's desperate and broken and so, so vulnurable...

I am curious to see, if there's something that catches Tay when he falls, or if he crashes and break his wings.

For now (I am open for discussion if I overlooked something again XD) I think that Tay... would be pretty lonely. Back then (I think of pre Porsche era) he had Kinn, who is forced to swallow down his emotions (best example, when Kinn listened to Tay and Time how he should smile and behave towards Porsche to show that he is ahem, interested. Aaaaand this brings me back to Tay being so used to putting up an act as soon as he goes outside that he even knows how to break it down for someone else and explain it. Because it is normal for him to know which impulse that he gives causes which reaction. It is engraved in his mind) so Tay is the one who helps Kinn out but on the other hand, it's going to be difficult for a guy with an emotional capacity like a rock like Kinn has, to be helpful in a full fledged breakdown.

And Time? Looking at him roughly, I see someone who has cheated on Tay many times, in this case breaking his trust and definitly the perspective of being someone to hold on to when shit is about to get real.

That brings me to the question, who would catch Tay? Who would take care for him, who or what would give him the place of peace and a break from the constant attention he has to maintain? How could not break under all this pressure?

Your whole part about Tay and his feelings, the moment where his instincts and heart collide and shows him the monster, holy. You nailed this!

Tay wants to love! He wants to have something real, something more than just a lingering thought of companionship or a blissful fantasy!

But he sees himself now, he sees under his own veil and realizes what he could do with that power and those abilitys.

He is so fucking scared and desperate and there's still no one in sight, no one to hold him, no one to catch him. He stares in his own abyss and he stumbles and he falls, he falls, he falls.

I mean, I could be wrong with a lot of this stuff, so I am kicking the ball back to you, what do you think would happen? ^.^

(Having the time of my life with getting into the Tay agenda rn XD)

Beloved Anon, you’re evil (affectionate). ❤

You dropped that into my asks while I was at work, and I genuinely lost my mind for like half an hour. I’m glad nobody came into my office because they would have seen me acting insane. Stading by the window, wrapped in a scarf, staring out into the thunderstorm, vibrating, talking to myself. (Having the time of my life, honestly.) 😂😂

And you’re really sweet and hilarious by the way, thank you. <3

Uhhhhhh, your itch with Korn’s idea behind the friendship with Tay and Time got me itching, too. I DO think that Tay’s family really is that influential. Time says that he crushed his car in the old area of Tay’s father, and “he cleared it off. The whole thing went silent.” There’s more than money necessary to make something like that happen, in my opinion. So yeah, being on good terms with those families is probably a smart business decision. (Random side note: Tay mafia heir is also an incredible sexy concept, OMG. Honestly, why has there been so little Tay action in the fandom?! The possibilities!!! 😭😍)

But you’re right, nevertheless. Ther’s never just one side to Korn’s actions, always playing 4D chess against everyone. And it is risky to allow “our all-time-tits out emotional dandy who is fucking starved of platonic affection” (that description made me laugh so fucking hard, oh my God 🤣🤣) to have this kind of emotional bonds, sure. But: wouldn’t the opposite be even more risky? To put Kinn in complete social isolation and still expect him to be a somewhat functional human being, NO, to be the heir of the family, able to differentiate between friend and foe?

I mean, look at all three brothers and their social life: Tankhun’s “friends” are his bodyguards, paid to be there (dying on that hill that Pol was only hired to keep Tankhun company btw 😌), paid to do what he wants, to obey, to die for him if necessary – not seen as independent, free-thinking human beings at all. (I’m not saying that Tankhun doesn’t love his bodyguards but that still doesn’t change the situation.) And Kim, well, he has completely isolated himself until he decides to pull Chay into his very own net of manipulation and we all know how well that went for Kim, being utterly starved of affection - only ending up tangled in a trap of his own making.

My point is: isn’t Kinn the most socially functioning of all of them because he’s the only one that has real friends? Friends that keep him in check and tell him when he’s being fucking stupid? That are not paid or lovers or part of the family?

And even though I think that Korn doesn’t really get the concept of friendship outside of business, he’s smart enough to see that they are…necessary. That it’s better for his children to have them than not. Well, at least until he comes to the conclusion that one of those friendships might not be worth the trouble…if you catch my drift. 👀

You keep saying such incredible nice things to me (not me reacting like a dog that’s been called “Good girl”, wagging my imaginary tail. 😭 I’m so weak, it’s embarrassing. 🙈🙈🙈) but I also really love your thoughts and the way you phrase things, it’s brilliant! 🙌🏻🙌🏻

I mean, ahhhh, you spelled it out so beautifully, the way Tay isn’t a man “who is used to seeing his feelings as unworthy or useless”. (But a man who might tend to put the feelings of others over his own, to shift the focus from him to others. A man who is used to deal with his feelings on his own. A man who might not push everything away knowingly, but some things just happen to…slip through.)

And your paragraphs about Tay’s actions turning into a blind act, an “overthinking, overanalysing guy meet(ing) moral and emotional distress of his own making” and TAY EXPLAINING HIS OWN ACT TO KINN - *gently shakes you by the shoulders* - ahhhhhhhh, yesssss, exactly, you get it!!!! 😭😭😭

“He is so fucking scared and desperate and there’s still no one in sight, no one to hold him, no one to catch him. He stares in his own abyss and he stumbles and he falls, he falls, he falls,” – AHHHH ANON I’M GOING INSANE AGAIN!!!!

I’m so sorry that I have so little to add to the second part of your ask except for “!!!!!” and *static noise* but I’m actually maybe under circumstances writing a little something. 👀 I’m rusty af and it will probably take months because I’m a really slow writer and I have so little time and who knows if it even will be any good …but I’m still so fucking excited?! So, thank you again for putting the idea into my head and to my Tay HC people who started all of this. 😭🙏🏻

And well, I don’t want to give too much away at this point, but the fic I’m writing plays relatively soon after the thing with Tawan happens, so Kinn is definitely no help with any form of breakdown…or any emotional thing at all. But just like you said, I don’t think that Kinn is very helpful on a good day either. He’s just not a person you would go to…to lay your heart bare.

And well…Time. Good old Time. His infidelity is actually one of the catalysators of my story, getting Tay into this situation he was trying to avoid because he knew (through instinct, paranoia, “training”) that things would end up going south. So, he’s also not a candidate to catch Tay at the moment. If he ever is. But…that doesn’t mean I don’t have plans for him. 👀

I don’t think that there’s any person to catch him, to hold him, to take care of him, actually. Not at that moment, not in the way he needs to, anyway. But I think there’s a person to ground him. A person to make him see things from a different (not necessarily better, but different) perspective. A person who digs out truths with reckless abandon, who isn’t deflected by kicks and screams and a bloody mess but encouraged. A different kind of beast.

I want Tay to go to Vegas. As crazy as it sounds. (And that only works based on my “There's...'something' between Tay and Vegas, some kind of understanding” headcanon, I guess. )

So...wow. This answer somewhat escalated and I hope you’re not disappointed with it, Anon. 😅 (Btw, no need to be shy, my DMs are always open ❤…even though I don’t answer them any quicker, I'm sorry. 🙈)

#anon ask #kinnporsche tay #kinnporsche headcanon #long post

6 notes · View notes

forkaround · 2 years ago

Text

Thai BL and Writing

Okay, so I have something to say.

Thai BL and Writing

I don't, even for a second think, that Thai BL has bad writing.

I'm mentioning this comment specifically because of what they talk about as the flaws - logic, consistency, character motivation or common sense.

I think where a lot of people trip up is thinking that when writers write a contemporary thing that it is set in the real world. Unless it is a true story (and even those aren't 100% factual. But then that's why you have documentaries), the world is built from the ground up even if it is a contemporary, seems like real life setting.

Now to break down the flaws -

Logic and Common Sense - I don't think these two should be applied to any piece of fiction let alone BLs. One reason is if character acted with 100% logic and common sense you most likely won't have most stories. And while on paper it sounds like a good idea it takes away humanity and honesty from any character. Also Logic and Common Sense are actually subjective. Everyone has had an experience where you thought something was obvious but the other person was completely oblivious to it.

What is to be focused on, in any piece of writing, is the themes, the story, what it makes you feel, if there is honesty in the characters (mind you, honesty and truthfulness are not the same thing.)

I think, many times, if someone comes from a different background they might not understand why someone did xyz. Especially true for Western Audiences trying to understand Asian Media as we saw with GAP. Another thing might be someone looking at a thing and going - this is not my world! Meaning that they, in their lives, in the subjective lives don't think that this is how the world works. And this is pretty common and understandable mistake to make.

The other two were - Consistency and Character Motivations.

The example they use is Bad Buddy. Honestly, I don't see it. I have other examples (Specifically from this year) - The Eclipse, Big Dragon, Kinnporsche, Secret Crush on You, Love in the Air, GAP, Not Me, Triage, My Secret Love, hell, even Unforgotten Night and Ai Long Nhai have those two things.

What I always say about this is do not apply real world ideals to fictional works. It's pointless and useless. You won't win. Writing isn't about checking boxes. Writing is about feeling things. SCOY and GAP, even UFN, are absurd pieces of media, and every step of the way you feel these characters. You're not supposed to understand / relate to them so that you can say 'I would do this same thing in the same situation'. That's antithetical to writing. It's antithetical to any form of art. I see this is YA Fantasy too. It's first person POV and there is this expectation that - I'm aka the reader, is the Main Character. This is solely a thing placed upon the character and writer by an inexperienced, often privileged reader. You're not supposed to sympathize. You're supposed to empathize.

I've talked about in general so far but...

This was under a NLMG complain post I made. If you follow me you would know I have no love lost for Never Let Me Go. I think it's badly written. Why? Because it breaks worldbuilding. Plenty of shows I mentioned before lose steam towards the end but they never lose the worldbuilding or themes and that is what matters.

For eg: The Eclipse. (Coz they are both GMMTV) There is one scene that exemplifies their losing steam the best. The Akk Ayan mutual Pin scene. It's not the content itself that shows this. It's that from whatever the previous scene was, they are suddenly in Akk's room, put pins on each other, they are somewhere else. Even something so short, that's anticipated since ep 1, still needs build up and fade out. Without it the whole thing feels jarring and out of place but thematically this was where it was always headed.

NLMG begins by treating the Mafia as a serious thing. Kit even chops a finger in from of his son. It's supposed to be serious. But as the episodes progress, especially once Tanya is shot. It's no longer so. Compare this to other Mafia involving BLs. - Kinnporsche, LITA, UFN. They are all tonally different to each other. You can't confuse one for the other. They all still treat Mafia with the seriousness it deserves. NLMG is much more serious compared to those three. It has an overall heavy vibe. But the Mafia is taken seriously only by Chopper.

That's all Watsonian. A little Doylism now: When anyone attaches the word Mafia to anything there is a weight the institution of Mafia carries. Everyone alive is aware of this. Thus it's absurd to have something that has a universal connotation and not delivering on it after you've established it in universe to have the same connotation as it does outside of it.

Thus,

Logic and Common Sense are not as objective as most people think.

Any individuals lived experience is not the same as another's and trying to make it so is foolish and a folly.

Thai BL has good writing. People just trip over what that means all the time. Eg: LITA's PayuRain part. '~It has not plot~'

Art is not meant to be a point by point checklist. It's sole job is to make you(the audience) feel.

You (a writer) can't take a commonly understood thing and throw what's inside away because you just want the aesthetic.

#writing #thai bl #thai bl meta #love in the air #kinnporsche #big dragon #mafia #unforgotten night #gap #secret crush on you #the eclipse #not me #triage #ai long nhai

6 notes · View notes

pookha · 8 months ago

Text

I can be your friend: Chapter One

Luna finds Pansy visiting the thestrals and discovers that Pansy has no friends at Hogwarts anymore. She vows she can be Pansy's friend and that they'll be friends forever. Luna watches as Pansy finds her strength again.

Notes: I'm not 100% on how long this will be. It will not be novel length for sure, and I anticipate 4 or 5 chapters, but it may stretch to 6. I'm pantsing it a bit more than normal to let it grow organically. This is a genfic, not a ship. There may be background ships like Harry/Ginny, but they will not be important to the arc, so I didn't tag them.

Luna expertly glided across the snow on her skis, keeping her strides crisp and even. She occasionally tried the newer style of ‘skate skiing’ but kept almost pitching over when she did and went back to classic straight line pushing and using her poles. As she approached the clearing where the thestrals should be gathered, she paused. She didn’t hear them clomping around as they normally would when she brought them food. She searched the sky, but had to turn her eyes back down and darken her goggles from the glare on the snow. She scanned the sparse woods on the edge of the Forbidden Forest for threats that might have kept the thestrals away, but didn’t spot any. From experience though, she knew that didn’t mean there weren’t any threats. She silenced her skis and poles, then camouflaged her parka to match the snow before proceeding. When she got to the edge of the clearing, she saw a familiar figure. Pansy Parkinson sat on the snow cross-legged with a thestral foal in her lap; its mother stood nearby, her ears flickering nervously.

Luna watched quietly for a few minutes as Pansy ran her hands over the foal's legs and belly. When she tipped the foal over onto its side, the mare took a step toward her, but Pansy talked to it soothingly.

“It’s all right, I’m just checking him for parasites. There shouldn’t be any with the weather, but you never know. She held up her hand and the mare took another step forward and sniffed. Pansy touched the mare’s muzzle, her hand gently stroking the sensitive skin over the nostrils. The mare chuffed and rubbed her head against Pansy’s hand.

Luna slid into the clearing on her skis. The thestrals that had been hanging back around the edge of the clearing bounded forward, nickering. They couldn’t see or hear her, but they could smell her…and the meat in her pack.

Pansy looked up and her wand sprang to her hand. She slid the foal off her lap and stood. “Who’s there?”

Luna released her camouflage charm and lowered the hood on her parka. She stabbed her poles into the snow and stepped out of her bindings.

“Oh, it’s just you, Lovegood.” Pansy sighed and lowered her wand.

“I usually bring them extra food in the winter.” Luna stripped off her gloves and pinned them to her sleeves. She opened her pack and took out several gobbets of raw meat. The meat steamed in the crisp, cold air and the thestrals stepped toward her eagerly. She touched each of them and greeted them by name.

“Thanatos. Persephone. Kali. Anubis…” They all had names related to death and they each stepped forward in turn to take a chunk of the meat delicately from her hands. Luna never flinched, even when their jaws came close to her hands. When she was done and the thestrals were tearing at their meat, she turned back to Pansy. The foal stood next to Pansy. He’d taken a piece of tender liver from his mother and was shredding it then gobbling it down.

“I’ve never seen you here before.” Luna sat next to Pansy. The foal sniffed at her and her empty pack before turning back to his food.

“I come here sometimes to relax. They make me feel better.” Pansy sighed and started to stand. “I’ll go.”

“Why?” Luna asked, tilting her head and putting her hand on Pansy’s elbow.

“Why what?”

“Why go?”

“I’m intruding. I can see they know you. You must come here all the time.” Pansy tried to finish standing, but Luna tugged her back down.

“You’re not intruding. I can see they like you, too. Kali is very protective of Hades.” Luna pointed at the mare and her foal in turn. “If she accepts you, then you’re okay.”

Pansy sat back down and the silence stretched. Luna saw Pansy squinting against the glare and duplicated her smoked-glass goggles. When she handed the copy to Pansy, Pansy took them and turned them over and over in her hands before she put them on.

“I’ve been coming here since my second year. Before I had friends, I had the thestrals. I could always see them, you know.” Luna scratched the foal's withers and he stretched up like a cat so she could scratch him better.

“Could you? I’m both jealous and sorry. I couldn’t see them until this year. I wish I could have always seen them without having to see someone die.” She paused and then said softly, “they’re beautiful.”

Luna smiled. “They are. Most people that can see them don’t call them beautiful, but they really are. They’re also just as intelligent as hippogriffs and equally as proud.”

“I would love to fly on one,” Pansy said and laid back in the snow.

“Thanatos will let you ride him, and I can ride Persephone.” Luna pointed at a large stallion on the edge of the group. When she said his name, he approached her eagerly. She held up her hand and let him sniff them.

Pansy sat back up.

“He will?” She held out her hand like Luna had and Thanatos pushed against it and let her scratch his ears.

Luna made a clucking noise and Thanatos knelt. “You have to put your feet just there behind the wing joint and you’ll have to hold on tightly to his mane. Do you want me to give your gloves a gripping Charm?”

Pansy nodded and mounted. Luna pulled her wand and charmed Pansy’s gloves. They seemed to grip Thanatos’s mane of their own volition. When she was mounted, Thanatos stood. Luna called Persephone over and leapt lightly onto her back with practised ease. She gripped Persesphone’s mane with her bare hands. When she whistled, they both flapped their wings and took off.

“When we really get going, we won’t be able to talk!” Luna shouted over the already shrieking wind. “I’ll guide them with whistles and I can teach you how later.”

Pansy gulped just once, then nodded.

Luna whistled sharply and the thestrals flew off toward the castle, the sun at their back. Hogwarts sparkled with snow and ice. A few students on the ground exclaimed as Pansy and Luna flew over them. Some of them could obviously see the thestrals and others couldn’t. Luna turned at a noise from Pansy that carried even over the wind. At first she thought Pansy was screaming, but it was just a joyful, “Whoop!”

The thestrals circled the castle twice, gaining speed each time, faster even than a hippogriff. On the second circuit a figure in Gryffindor Quidditch robes joined them on a broom. Even with his goggles on and hood up Luna could tell from the way he gripped the broom that it was Harry and she nodded at him. He nodded back and sped forward. The thestrals immediately caught up to him and when Luna whistled an ascending scale, they sped off, leaving Harry behind. She watched Pansy and saw Pansy’s shoulders hunch, even under her parka. Luna whistled a descending scale and the thestrals slowed. Pansy’s shoulders relaxed. Soon they were back at the clearing and the thestrals landed gently. Luna jumped off hers and helped Pansy down before she tumbled off. She had to prise Pansy’s fingers from Thanatos’s mane and Luna couldn’t tell if she’d overdone the gripping Charm or if Pansy’s fingers were just cramped.

“I—that was…terrifying and amazing and I loved it.” Pansy’s voice was awed. She lifted her clawed hands to her goggles and pushed them up. Her eyes were wide, dilated too much for the bright snow and she winced.

“Yeah. Did you know we flew all the way to London on them once?” Luna said and Pansy stared at her in disbelief.

“Really?”

Luna looked up at Harry passing over them on his broom. He circled and waved. The thestrals eyes him warily, Thanatos’s leg muscles bunched as he prepared to fly at Harry to protect his herd.

“It’s okay, Thanatos.” Luna patted him and he jerked his head toward her, mouth open and teeth bared. He snapped them shut, cast one last baleful glance at Harry, then nudged Persephone with his huge head. A moment later all the thestrals had slipped into the woods and disappeared. Harry waved one last time and flew off toward the Quidditch Pitch.

“Harry’s mad to be out practising now in this weather.” Pansy laughed.

“What are we then, to be out flying in this weather?” Luna smiled.

“Mad also.” Pansy turned to Luna. “How did you deal with it for so long? Being called Loony and not having any friends?”

Luna looked down at her hands, clenched and unclenched them. “I just… got on with it. Ginny was always nice to me, but really until Harry, you’re right; I didn’t have any real friends. I just kept being myself. I knew that someday, someone would be my friend, see me for who I was.” She sighed in a long exhalation.

“I thought I had friends, but I guess I didn’t.” Pansy’s voice choked and Luna looked up at her. Tears streamed down her red, wind-burned cheek. She wiped at them absently and sniffled. “No one in Slytherin will talk to me and the students from the other houses actively shun me. I don’t know if I can go on like this.”

“I can be your friend,” Luna said and reached over to wipe a tear from Pansy’s cheek. Pansy didn’t flinch away. She grabbed Luna’s hand as she looked her in the eyes.

“Just like that? You could be my friend, just like that?” Pansy gripped Luna’s hand tightly and crushed it.

“Sure, if you really mean it. We can start by feeding the thestrals together. I bring them beef liver and kidneys from the kitchens every other day. I just knock on that door by the Hufflepuff common room next to the picture with the pear you tickle to get into it. The house Elves have the meat ready for me at half three and I take it down before it gets dark.” She looked around at the sun starting to set, huge and red over the treeline.

“On that note, we should go back. How did you get here?” Luna looked around curiously, seeing no footprints outside the clearing.

Pansy wiped her eyes and nose on her coat sleeve, then pulled her wand and a miniature broomstick from a pocket. She touched her wand to the stick and it grew back to a full-sized broom, which she mounted.

“Want a ride?” she asked. Luna nodded, clipped her poles and skis to her parka in an X and climbed behind Pansy. When she wrapped her arms around Pansy’s waist, Pansy flinched, then relaxed. They flew back to the castle at a sedate pace, but it was still much faster than walking.

Two days later, Pansy met Luna outside the kitchen where a grizzled old House Elf handed Luna a package. They could both smell the blood.

“Are we flying or hiking?” Pansy asked.

“Neither today, I think. The snow’s blowing too much, so I asked Professor Hagrid to deliver the meat for us. He’s going to meet us in front of the doors to the Great Hall.”

“What are we going to do?” Pansy asked as they walked to the Great Hall.

“I thought we could practise Charms or Defence, or we could just talk if you’d like?” Luna made sure it was a question.

“Do you think the House Elves would let us into the kitchen?” Pansy looked over her shoulder at the door.

“Was there something you’d like to do there?”

“I like baking, but I can’t do it here. Professor Slughorn didn’t approve my request for an oven for the Slytherin common room and I’ve never dared ask the elfs.”

“I think they would let us in if we asked them nicely. If not, Harry’s on really good terms with them and he could ask for us.” Luna smiled at Harry’s name.

“Aw, do you have a crush on him?” Pansy fake-giggled and Luna brayed a genuine, heartfelt laugh.

“I did at one point, but now I love him as a friend. Maybe if he weren’t dating Ginny, I might ask him out, but he’s just a friend and I think that’s all he’ll ever be.”

“Is—is he a good person?” Pansy whispered.

Luna stopped and stared at Pansy. Pansy shivered under her gaze.

“He’s a good person. He’s one of the most selfless people you’ll ever meet. He risked everything to get rid of Voldemort and he even died doing it.” Luna’s tone was level and matter-of-fact.

“He died?” Pansy quirked an eyebrow at Luna.

“He came back from Death to see things through.” Luna started walking away, but Pansy grabbed her arm and stopped her.

“Do you really believe that?”

“I saw it. I was there. He was dead in Hagrid’s arms, then he was up and we were all fighting again. Neville killed the snake and everything was chaos until Harry killed Voldemort.”

“I wasn’t there. My parents were running away, deserting, and they were killed by Nott and Rowle. I was able to hide before the Aurors got there and killed Nott and stunned Rowle.” Pansy’s voice thickened and tears began to flow. She stepped into the Divination classroom that Firenze used and closed the door. She slumped on the floor and began to cry in huge gulping sobs. Luna knelt next to her and embraced her, letting Pansy’s tears fall on her robes and soak them.

“I hated them, but I didn’t want them to die.” Pansy’s whispered hoarsely.

“You’ll see them again, if you want to.” Luna whispered back as she rubbed Pansy’s back like a child’s.

“I—I don’t know if I want to or not. They were bad people, evil people and they tried to make me like them. They almost succeeded.” She hugged Luna tighter and sobbed.

A knock came at the door.

“Luna?” It was Harry’s voice.

“I’m here,” Luna called back.

“You okay?” Harry asked from behind the door.

“I’m okay. May I ask you a favour?” She squeezed Pansy, then rose and went to the door.

“Sure, what is it?” he asked.

“Could you take a package of meat to Professor Hagrid at the entrance to the Great Hall? It’s for the thestrals.”

“Okay. Anything else you need from me?”

Luna cracked the door open and saw him. His wand was out, but lowered.

“I’m okay, really,” she said and thrust the package in his other hand.

He tried to peek around the door, but Luna stepped into his view and blocked it.

“Do you trust me?” she asked him, pointedly.

“With my life,” Harry answered without thinking.

“I’m okay.” She started to close the door.

“I’m sorry!” Pansy wailed from where she knelt on the floor.

Now Harry shoved the door open and looked past Luna.

“I’m sorry I tried to turn you in,” Pansy whispered. She didn’t meet Harry’s eyes.

“It’s in the past and we can move on from it if you want to. I forgive you.” Harry took two steps in and knelt next to her.

“How can you forgive so easily?” Tears dripped from her chin onto the floor.

“It’s been a hard lesson to learn, but when I injured Draco in Sixth Year, I knew that someone had to start with forgiveness first.” He held out a hand to her and she gripped it tightly. He helped her stand and she fell into Luna’s arms and sobbed into her shoulder.

“I’m going to go give this to Hagrid.” Harry kissed Luna’s cheek, patted Pansy awkwardly on the shoulder and left, making sure the door was closed firmly behind him.

“He was ready to throw down for you, wasn’t he?” Pansy clutched Luna harder.

“If that means he thought you might be attacking me, I don’t think so, but I do think he was worried about what we were up to together.”

Pansy pushed back from Luna, pulled a handkerchief from her robes, wiped her face and blew her nose. “Did he really mean it about moving on?”

“Harry doesn’t hide his feelings; if he didn’t mean it, he wouldn’t have said it. It’s one of the things I like about him.” Luna waited until Pansy had put away her handkerchief and took her hand.

Pansy took a small compact from her robes and checked her face in the mirror. She frowned and touched her puffy red eyes with her wand and they cleared. She sighed, straightened and suddenly she was cold and aloof again, but now Luna saw the vulnerable person underneath.

“Can we try the kitchens? I’d really like to bake something.” Pansy’s voice was still thick, but Luna thought that only a friend would really notice. She took Pansy’s hand and Pansy gripped it hard, her knuckles whitening. They walked to the kitchens together and when they passed by Parvati Patil, her head swivelled to follow them and her eyes widened. She rushed off just as Luna and Pansy turned into the corridor that led to the kitchens and the Hufflepuff common room.

“She’s going to gossip to Lavender and then it will be all over the school that she saw us walking together holding hands.” Pansy sighed

“Does it bother you knowing that other people are talking about you?” Luna whispered to her.

“I—Yeah. It shouldn’t, but it does. Does it bother you?”

Luna shook her head, then closed her eyes and nodded slightly.

“It used to make me sad, but then I made friends and it stopped bothering me, but sometimes I wonder if Harry, Ginny and the others are just humouring me. I shouldn’t have those doubts because they proved to me time and again that they love me, but doubt creeps in anyway.” She smiled and squeezed Pansy’s hand. “And now I know we’ll be friends forever, too. I don’t know how I know, but I do.”

Pansy stopped, pulling Luna to a halt also. “You really believe that, don’t you?”

“I don’t believe it; I know it for a certainty. We’ll be friends for the rest of our lives. I felt it with Ginny and Harry and later with Neville.” She pulled Pansy along again.

Luna tickled the pear on the painting and stepped inside the kitchens. Pansy paused for just a moment then followed her. The door shut behind them and the cacophony of the kitchens drowned out Luna’s voice.

“What?” Pansy half-shouted.

“It’s polite to wait for an Elf to escort you. They’ll notice us in a moment.” Luna’s silvery eyes tracked the mad scrambling of the Elves as they bustled. An older elf who’d been supervising a pair of younger elves looked up when she saw one of his charges looking up. He said something sharply to the elf and she turned back to the pastries she was filling from a piping bag. The supervisor ambled over to Luna, not hurrying.

“Miss Luna,” he said and bowed to her.

“Kirby.” Luna bowed back and the elf smiled as he straightened. Luna kissed him on each of his cheeks.

“What can we do for you? Treacle tart? Fig pudding? Eclair?”

Luna smiled at the kindly old elf. “No, my friend Pansy has a request. She’d like to use the kitchens to bake.”

The elf turned to Pansy and stared up at her. “What does Miss want to bake?”

“I—I,” Pansy stammered and Kirby looked away into the kitchens. Pansy squared her shoulders, took a breath and let it out slowly. Kirby turned back to her.

“I think I’d like to keep it simple at first and just make a pavlova topped with strawberries if you have them or blueberries if you don’t.”

Kirby nodded. “We’re preparing dinner now, so I can’t permit it at the moment, but come back two hours after dinner and you can use the kitchen. It takes a lot of beating to get the egg whites to soft peaks then to the stiff peaks, can you do it?” He looked doubtfully at her thin arms.

Pansy laughed, then pulled her wand from her sleeve.

“Accio whisk. Accio mixing bowl.” The whisk and mixing bowl flew from their racks to her and she caught them and put them down on an unoccupied bench. She lifted her wand and started to say something, but a small elf hurried over with a basket with eggs in it. She laughed again and taking the basket, she bowed to the elf, who bowed back before scurrying off back to his station.

Kirby and Luna both watched her as she cracked an egg and expertly separated the yolk from the white by spilling them over the cracked egg shell. She put the white in the bowl and put the shell with the yolk on the counter. She quickly repeated the process five more times and then started whisking the egg whites. Kirby kept flicking his eyes between her and the elf who was filling pastries, but didn’t say anything to either of them.

Pansy whisked in broad round strokes, checking the peaks every so often.

“See how the peaks flop over almost immediately. That means the first part is done.” She held the whisk up and showed Luna. Her brow glistened with sweat.

Luna nodded. “It looks strenuous.”

“Ha! This was the easy part. Now we add sugar and beat to stiff peaks.” Kirby tapped her elbow and handed her a bowl of sugar. Pansy eyed it. “That looks exactly right. You measured it?”

Kirby nodded.

Pansy waved her wand in a circle and the whisk started moving in circles in the bowl. Luna watched it go round and round, more slowly than she expected it to.

Pansy slowly poured the sugar into the bowl, making sure to put it in the path of the whisk. “Consistency is more important than speed.”

Pansy turned to Kirby.

“Am I failing your test by using magic for this part?” Her voice was crisp and tense.

Kirby laughed, long and tinkly.

“No. You would have failed if you’d done this by hand. There’s no need to tire yourself out. You look like you know what you’re doing. Want to finish? You can stay at this table, but if you get in the way, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

Pansy bowed to Kirby.

“Thank you. I will stay—we’ll stay.”

Luna nodded and bowed to Kirby, too.

Pansy showed her the rest of the recipe, and told Luna how she liked to use Arrowroot instead of cornstarch because she thought cornstarch didn’t help build flavour. She showed Luna how to pipe it and they both laughed at Luna’s attempt.

“It looks like a big, white dog turd,” Pansy said and then they were laughing again. Kirby looked up disapprovingly, but nodded at the piped out pastries. He came over from his bench.

“We can’t bake these right now, but I’ll put a stasis charm on them and when you come back later tonight, you can finish them, okay?”

“Okay, thank you again, Kirby.” Pansy held out her hand and shook his. Luna kissed his cheeks goodbye. As they were leaving they saw him raise his hand to charm the pastries then lower them.

“I already put a stasis charm on them,” Pansy whispered.

Kirby winked to her as the door closed behind them.

“I really do need to practise Defence before dinner. Want to help?” Luna took Pansy’s hand again.

Pansy smiled.

“I’d love to.”

#harry potter fanfiction #luna lovegood #pansy parkinson #luna lovegood & pansy parkinson #friendship #bffs

0 notes

bike42 · 1 year ago

Text

Wednesday September 6, 2023

We dodged it for 44 months, but COVID caught us at an inopportune time - on a tour in Ireland. Jeff started having a sinus headache last Saturday and by Monday he was pretty miserable (we chocked it up to the hot bus ride). He had a long nap when we arrived at the B&B, but rallied for a walk to the castle and the group dinner. The next day we were on the bus all day with our M&M tour. We popped into a pharmacy at lunch that day to buy Sudafed and COVID test kits. The Sudafed gave him immediate relief and he functioned well the rest of Tuesday.

Wednesday morning we got up, felt ok but each did a COVID test. His was immediately positive - similar to when Lori was teaching Ryan and I how to test and he went positive just before Christmas 2020. My test was negative and I felt fine. I went down to breakfast to find our tour leader, Peter, and grab a tray for the now quarantining JT. Since he’s had symptoms for over three days now, we we’re hopeful he’d be able to travel with the group on Friday when we head south to the next hotel.

He insisted I go out for today’s tour, so I did. The tour was several spots around Sligo. We started at Carrowmore Megalithic Cemetery. It took me awhile to figure out where we were and what we were seeing, but we had a fantastic guide that led us to different Stone Age tombs built by Neolithic farmers. She was a great combination of historian and archaeologist! A similar story to other places in the world where the farmers came and pushed indigenous people inland.They grew cereal crops and domestic farm animals (cows, sheep and chickens).

They estimate probably 50-55 monuments were originally here, some were likely dismantled over the years. Inside the tombs they found grave artifacts: remains (primarily cremated), quartz crystal, tools and pieces of pottery, jewelry from sea shells, pins made from deer antlers.

The tombs were desecrated in the 1800’s, later part of the 1900’s archeologists came and discovered that these were actually Stone Age monuments. There are 250 tomb monuments in Ireland - 100 in Sligo area

Our guide talked about the surrounding area, and pointed out Benbulben, a flat top mountain across the valley - she said no monuments there as the sun and moon don’t intersect. She also pointed out Knocknarea, the mountain with a very large carin monument on top, which led to her story about Queen Maeve. Legend says she’s buried in the monument standing up. Probably largest passage tomb that’s been left undisturbed.

The coolest passage tomb was the Listoghil chamber. Twice a year, the sun illuminates the perfectly aligned stones - Oct 31st and April 30th. The guide shared a photo from several years ago (see photo). They don’t see it every year because normally, Ireland can go many days without seeing the sun!

Our next stop was the Strandhill Peninsula for a stop at the Atlantic Ocean. We had two hours to walk the beach and have lunch on our own. Supposedly, this is the best place to surf in Ireland, and there were surfers out there but the waves weren’t that great. I walked the beach and dunes for a bit, overlooking a little RV park with Knocknarea in the background. I joined a few others in our group for a panini and a pint and enjoyed the outdoor patio on the beach.

After lunch we drive to another tomb monument - this one with more extensive stonework. It occurred to me that all of these would be more spectacular to be viewed from above! James brought his guitar along and sang two songs for us there … one called “Buried in Stone,” which he wrote after his brother disappeared in Montana.

Our last stop of the day was “Atlantic Sheepdogs,” for a spectacular talk by Martin and a performance of herding by his amazing 4-year old Border Collie, Moe. She was wicked smart and clearly takes her job seriously! The farm has also dedicated itself to conservation of some ancient breeds of sheep that were on the verge of extinction. I was surprised to learn that the value of wool is practically nothing! These sheep are bred primarily for meat these days.

We drove through Sligo and the bus stopped to let people off if they wanted to stay in town. I rode back to the hotel and Jeff was feeling pretty good and ready to get out and get some air. It was just over a mile walk back down to town, a nice walk. We strolled along the river and found a spot we could sit outside and have a burger. We passed on the milk shake, but our waiter convinced us to try the sundae with hot caramel and crumbled biscotti cookies. Yum yum.

We walked back to the hotel and Jeff went back to quarantine in the room and I joined most of the group for a 90 minute M&M show. It was so cool to be sitting right in the front and watch their fingers fly over the guitar strings. Peter joined them for a few tunes with percussion, and even sang an Irish tune for us.

Lots of talent in the room. Several people were headed out to the pubs to find more music, but I was starting scratchy throat and headache so I headed back to the room to try to sleep.

0 notes

not-active-blacksapphhicmaddonna · 2 years ago

Text

⋆✮⋆all the info you need⋆✮⋆

call me ace, 24, queer/sapphic, they/them

hey y'all! very excited to be starting a blog dedicated to writing fics etc.. this blog will be *mainly* fics and reblogs of gay shit i like!

info about this blog:

here's the serious ones -

this blog is/rules & boundaries:

100% anti-racist. there will be no tolerance for anti-blackness, derogatory comments towards black women/people in any form, respectability politics, colorism!!!!!!!!!, featurism/texturism, or any other general fuckery surrounding blackness or other people of color point black period. come correct.

100% trans/nonbinary friendly and safe. there will be no tolerance for transphobia in any regard. period.

we 100% acknowledge and disarm privilege in this space.

i'm always down for conversation, but please remember that google is free and not to be an ass. respect goes both ways. 🫶🏼

this blog is 18+. minors do not interact. i will not respond to messages from people who's age i cannot see in their bio/pinned post or otherwise publicly posted on their account. i will not write requests for anybody under the age of 18.

this blog will contain sexual content (smut, references to sex, gifs/images if applicable at any point, may be included in replies/answers to questions, etc.).

i probably don’t know you in real life but even if i do, i work full time and have a life to attend to. if i don’t respond right away/complete a request, don’t be rude or assume i’m ignoring you!! and i’ll treat you the same. 🫶🏽

BLACK WOMEN/TRANS PEOPLE/PEOPLE PERIOD ARE NOT A FETISH. if you’re non-black and here because you have a kink/fetish for black women/folks, don’t.

here's what I won't do -

i will not write: race play, anything romantic/sexual between a minor and an adult, anything involving r@pe, sexual assault, incest, or cnc kinks, anything that romanticizes self su**ide/self harm, ea*ing dis**ders, or anything else that feels like it will be harmful/pointlessly triggering/create a negative effect/perpetuate stigma etc.! also no trauma porn surrounding racism/homo-transphobia, etc etc etc.

however -

i will: provide trigger warnings and content warnings on every fic/writing, credit for anything i've been inspired by/use etc., use active consent with any collaborations/outside parties, be open to accountability or critique and make any necessary adjustments if i cause any harm, and provide a word count on each writing piece. 🖤

any of my boundaries are subject to change at my own discretion and i reserve the right to rescind my consent at any point for any reason in any situation.

here's the fun stuff!

some of my current ships/headcanons/emotional support characters or celebrities/actors or just interests etc. -

wenclay! (bianca barclay x wednesday addams) - wednesday, tv show

aneka x ayo - wakanda forever/black panther, movie(s)

pretty much ANY AND ALL characters played by lashana lynch or just her by herself (I would do anything for this woman🧎🏽)

shuri x riri williams - wakanda forever/black panther, movie(s)

gracie from skins uk!

character/person x reader! has been a style i'm just recently getting into!

anything that has to do with black vampires (i will make so many of these characters, sorry in advance fr LMFAOOO)

some original characters butttt nottt toooo muchhhh for rn

so many more!

story types/formats:

one shots

short/long chaptered series

drabbles

non-canon/head canon/alternate universe

canon compliant

fluff

smut

angst

whatever i feel like fr

ALL MY MAIN CHARACTERS ARE BLACK. PERIOD.

this is a queer space, specifically a sapphic one. i will never write anything cishet based/oriented. I probably won't even write background characters as cishet but maybe I guess lol.

i'm suuuuper down for requests! just send them to me through an ask. i also have my submissions on. please don’t submit anything that goes against what has already been stated!

✩ i will give a very slight priority to non-anonymous asks, but i will answer/do all of them as long as they're within my boundaries!✩

pretty much i'm just yearning all the time. lets commiserate together.

i'm very excited to start writing again, and i hope y'all enjoy! please ask any questions and i'll get back to you asap! also please drop any feedback y'all have on any story/fic, i'm desperate LMFAOOO

thank you for reading!

love a black woman from ∞ to ∞ fr 🤝🏽

1 note · View note

greysfall · 3 years ago

Text

My 4444-word review of NEO TWEWY (with personal illustration + heavy spoilers)

My overall critical score for the game is 7.5/10, while my personal enjoyment score is 8.5/10. This review is posted as I have 80% completed the game, got the secret ending and achieved the Angel psychic rank. I’ll first start with the main pros and cons as follows.

PROS:

- Enjoyable as a whole, still upholding the first game’s spirit in world building and sharing the same backbone - which was mostly revealed in the Secret Reports, it’s impossible to grasp the story without reading them.

- The new cast and new game is charming in their own way

- The old cast’s return is one of the biggest highlights for sure, it was fun and impactful. Everyone stays true to themselves and also had their own stories wrapped up nicely.

- Boss designs are cool, new pins are fun to use and collect

- The connection between the old and new cast is well written and executed, including but are not limited to the tension between the old and new protagonist, the weird but fun interaction between the 2 Composers, the new friendships revealed and formed

- Sho being in the main cast is something so uniquely TWEWY and uniquely Sho

- Still good music

- Still many fun side quests, some of them really uphold the same quirky spirit of the old game and some are surprisingly touching

- Many new nice stores and yummy looking foods to explore

- The map is really easy to memorize for me, it’s fun to travel around the “current” Shibuya to see all the differences compared to the past

- The social network is crazy and interesting to read through

- Has an anti-frustration system to help 100% complete the game more easily and earn money faster, so post-game is relatively managable.

- Overall, I really feel the efforts the team poured into making this as their passion project, not just during the development process but for all the last 14 years. They showed the vision of what they wanted to make, at the same time giving something to both the old as well as new fans.

CONS:

- The biggest problem with the game is scenario writing. The story is so heavily back-loaded. The director himself thought it would be better to balance out the tension flow by adding more at the beginning but gave in to the scenario writer in the end, probably due to time pressure. This results in an underwhelming execution of characterization and lots of wasted potentials for the first half of the game.

- I struggle to view it as a stand-alone game, since the backstory and the old cast both play such an important role in the core of the game. If someone plays this game without having played the OG, they can only enjoy it on surface value at best.

- The new cast is nice but most of them aren’t quite as intriguing as the old cast, maybe it’s cuz they’re all too nice deep down that they lack a little bit of an edge, of that batshit craziness that everyone in the OG used to have? I think some characters (Fret, Nagi) ended up weaker in terms of characterization because the writer is too afraid of making them unlikeable – which kind of backlashed cuz they only became likable in the most expectable way to cater for a specific group of fans. I would have wished for the other team leaders to be more crazy too, had they not suffered 30+ loops of the Game…

- The CAMERAWORK IS HELL.

- Gameplay does get tedious at certain points with all the time travels.

- Shiba is so badly written as a villain, some Shinjuku characters should be given more screentime cutting into Shiba’s– like Hishima or Kaie or even, Hazuki (though his limited presence also solidified his importance).

- Some of the main character designs, for example Beat’s hairstyle and his food reactions are hilariously bad. What’s the point of covering up most of his unique facial features?

- Some of the minor/side characters’ design are too cool for them to have such a small role (eg: Ayano, Eiru). Ryoji did get much screentime but is nowhere as fun as Makoto was.

- Overall the scope of this game is made a little too big for the team to handle as perfectly as the last game that was very compact, it felt somewhat rushed in development too so the missing pieces are clearly there in the final picture

The entry fee versus paying for it all in the end

An important difference between the Neo game and the original Shibuya game was that the Shibuya rule asked for an entry fee that is the Player’s most important asset, stated as a chance the Composer gives them to reexamine themselves. Meanwhile, the Shinjuku rule neither encourages nor allows personal growth and ultimately aims to erase as many Players as possible. It’s a pity we were never introduced to the full Shinjuku rulebook, as it seems like the system there focuses more on building up power and a grand government to compare with the individuality-driven system of Shibuya.

When you have to compare the new game and the original game (OG), this is an important factor to consider. Also, the OG has a serious storyline running through and through, locked with a different partner/GM creating unique atmosphere for each week and you don’t get to see your old partners again until the end. NEO’s team system does not allow such deep insight and communication between the Players. All of your teammates are always there throughout, the dynamic does change with each new addition but it is not as prominent as a partner change.

Another important factor is how the OG was built from scratch for a new platform as “something no one has ever seen before”, while Neo recycled a lot of old unused ideas from the previous development (check out this interview for more details). The development team for NEO lacks 2 key members and had a change of writer so the final product is not as strongly bound together as the last game.

The new cast is definitely inspired by today’s teenagers (from the view of creators), compared to the old cast they’re more sociable and always seem to take whatever works for them despite feeling unstable inside. They are all innocent and genuinely nice kids, avoiding to hurt each other to a degree that they end up keeping some sort of distance. They’re also unable to communicate at deeper levels, always stagnant at this half-baked stage of equilibrium without any motivation to get to the core of things. That is the cost of entering the game without an entry fee, without even dying or having a reason to be there/to fight seriously. These kids were stolen from the RG into a Game that was decidedly the worst environment for them to change or develop, just wandering around cluelessly to find a way “out” until tragedies started to unfold one by one and they ended up being charged the total sum of the price for their actions – ultimately losing everything in the end.

That is, I believe, a story arc which can resonate more to the youth of today rather than of my generation. If the message of the old game was to “listen”, enjoy life to the fullest and accept to trust others, the message of the new game is to “speak up” from the inside, trying to understand yourself and take actions instead of just going with the flow and finally, to take responsibility for such actions.

If Neku was handpicked by the Composer for being the special one with an all-dense soul to ensure victory of the game then Rindo was just a normal kid chosen out of random by Kubo to be his back-up plan, who just happened to have a high enough imagination to awaken the incredible power from his pin. Rindo was then officially chosen by the Composer as Josh picked up and handed the pin to him again, this time not as Josh’s personal Proxy – but as the Proxy to represent the normal people of Shibuya and via whom he could gamble if humans can fight for their own fate.

The underworld heroine and the hero with little of his own

Shoka is for me a refreshing and layered heroine. She’s the kind of character that took at least 3 trials of creators to form as a complete individual – that included Nomura who gave her the base design and Reaper background, Gen who gave a more cunning touch and the writers who made her English dialogues more punchy. Dishonesty equals “tsundere” is such a cliché, so the English writers tried really hard to avoid that trope in my opinion, while still letting her good intention come through.

She serves as the character who is informed of everything the players should have known, and there was almost nothing she could do about it. Almost. Until she met Rindo.

They were drawn to each other by sharing a state of “not having anything of their own”. They both started out with not being able to truly know themselves, Shoka even hated her RG life but also managed to mature from that stage before Rindo. She must have vibed with Shiki’s love and passion in the Gatto Nero threads, initiating her connection with Shibuya and understanding herself more. With Shoka as Swallow, they were able to open up to each other and offer mental support… but was still not getting to the centre of their problems because for all this time, Shoka could not tell Rindo the most important things about herself.

How did Shoka feel when she met Rindo at the UG? She probably didn’t want to hope that he would live the day until she witnessed the Twisters’ potentials. From the very beginning, they were both incredibly conscious of each other and also constantly frustrated that the person they happened to “notice” was such a condescending bitch/a clueless loser. The Shinjuku Reapers are overall quite drunk in power and uncompassionate to Players, Shoka included. She is also a master of dissociation, which results in her constant boredom, tone swings, haughtiness and subconsciously distancing herself from the friend – the boy she cares about – from false hope, as she judged from facts that it was a hopeless situation where nothing could ever be. Maybe she is naturally a bit of a chameleon just like her name suggests (Shoka 紫陽花 = hydrangea, the color-changing flower), so putting on an act and always dissociating herself from what’s important was easy, while hiding her contradiction was impossible. It was the ex-Reaper Beat who broke it out to her, that she should decide whether she really cared and wanted to do something for a change. He knew how it felt like to cross that line, and knew she wanted to too.

Shoka is endeared by many of the Shinjuku Reapers and has shown independent acts of kindness (the Shinjuku ghost), proving that her kind and truthful side is as real as her harsh and dishonest side – which makes her a nice mirror to the previous heroine Shiki, who also embraced a dichotomy of self-complex and self-love within her character. In the end, she was the first of the new cast to ultimately accept all that is important to her and independently made the decision to help save Shibuya despite all costs.

She was jealous at Rindo’s interaction with Tsugumi and Kanon but remained silent cuz she wasn’t at a place to have any say about it. She also didn’t reveal about Swallow because that would only add an awkward irrelevance to their current situation, as she was too ready to face erasure at the end of the Game. She only wished to “play a game” with him, be it FanGo or the Reapers’ Game. The tension that the team could only feel at the end, she’s felt it the entire time. The song “DIVIDE” is applicable to not just one bond in the game, but it always makes me think of theirs. There is always a “divide” between her and Rindo throughout the course of their journey, as the living and the dead, as a Player and Reaper, as someone who has a place to return to and someone who doesn’t, someone who knows little but wields too much power and someone who knows a lot despite not being able to do much.

“If only I had the chance to connect with you on the other side

But time goes on, and without us realizing it

The battle is getting heated

Time goes on, and without us realiazing it

Divided again”

To be honest, maybe I didn’t grow any affection for the new main cast from Rindo’s perspective but from Shoka’s. Since I started to sympathize with Shoka, I started to see the boy in a more “real” way. The real Rindo, behind his peaceful façade with others, would lash out on Shoka for her unfairly harsh attitude while none of the others cared. He could also subtly feel that mantle of unspoken secrets from her, her own contradictions, the unresolved chemistry between themselves – and not knowing what to do with it rather than to feel angry with all the unfairness he could not process. (As a Libra too, he’s triggered the most by unfairness!)

It is actually a positive development as he’s at least “reacting” to something strongly now rather than to keep evading his problems. During my replay, I clearly saw the difficult situation Shoka was in, her remaining harshness after the Motoi incident was due to her internal struggle with a mission to save her own life, versus a chance to really be with the team. Her decision was to do both at the risk of losing favour from both sides. Rindo started to accept her layer by layer, as the person who resonated the most to her contradicting nature from the start and knew that via learning her resolve, he has learnt his too.

Later into the game, she even got too much of his attention. Maybe even without knowing she’s Swallow, he’s familiar with her thinking direction and Swallow had always been closer to him than any other friend. It was only after she had to betray her important ones twice that she could start being truly honest. The scene when she died a 2nd time left a strong impression in me, the little reveal let Rindo know that he is also losing Swallow as he’s losing Shoka – and that only death could drive the last secret out of her. Her final “Later, loser” echoed through Rindo as it was the final truth, with only him remaining to hear it: they had actually, already lost everything.

Rindo was the boy who never dared to face all that matters to him until he lost it all, fighting an unfair battle in the faith that they would somehow still win. Shoka was the girl who always knew what was dear to her, but never dared to think she could be together with them ever after and still threw her all into a battle she knew was losing. I think they stir each other on naturally to fill out their gaps, similar to what the Shibuya game partner systerm would have aimed for. The end reward was a little divine intervention to help close up the divide between them once and for all.

During the game there was not enough space to process anything personal so at the ending when they officially became “friends”, it was an important affirmation of their bond. Some people complained it was friendzoning but it’s not, they just have arrived at the perfect place to start something more. “From now on, we will truly be together” – I read it as that kind of message.

The heroine from a lost battle, with her story taken away

After reading the secret reports and playing the game to be surprised of how small a role Tsugumi had in the main game despite being the “Hype-chan” thought to be a major character of the next TWEWY installment, many fans would feel sad at a missed opportunity to see the Shinjuku arc in full depiction.

It was shown clearly that, a Shinjuku arc was very carefully planned out and is a vital part of the whole story, yet it could not be made due to various circumstances behind the development scene. I would assume, that the team were not able to make a TWEWY game that ended on a despairing note, but it already happened in their mind, thus becoming a mental burden that forced them to break away from it and started the game anew with NEO. A significant part of NEO became the healing arc for the Shinjuku characters, especially for Tsugumi though I really wished more emphasis should have been placed on her rather than Shiba. We didn’t even get to see her brother – Shinjuku’s Conductor who had a vital role and instead was given the clueless Shiba, who had absolutely no idea what’s going on all the way until the last day in NEO. It’s as if Tsugumi has had her story stolen away from her, because her own battle ended with a saddening loss.

I think every time the game creators look at Tsugumi, they would feel that sadness too. Maybe to them, she is a bigger character than what is seen by the fans, as despite their failed effort to depict her story, she’s lived in their mind for all these years through periods of destruction, healing and rebuild. Though it is a pity we could not get to experience the full scope of the Shinjuku story, the creators was clear about the place they wished for it to arrive at.

Individuality, connection and the social network

The team system adapted from Shinjuku rulebook does not allow much room for personal development, as the team dynamic is closer to a work relationship forced to bear results, than a spiritual bond to max out all corners of understanding as found in the partnership system. The old Shibuya system allowed only 1 winner and 1 week limit per game, while the new rule declares for a 1 winning team and only the team at last place will be erased – the other teams will enter another loop. Furthermore, whichever team to challenge the unwinnable Ruinbringers will face the risk of ending up dead last followed by erasure. As a result, the longest-standing teams are most likely not the strongest ever recorded, but the ones who have figured out a strategy to simply survive until something changes, enjoying their newly found social constructs while they are at it. Basically, it is a system to hypnotise players into the illusion that they are still “living”.

Therefore, we as players would not get to the core of each Player individually as fast and directly as we did in the last game. The Twisters were able to stand out not because they’re powerful, they only started to have a real chance after growing enough to each form a meaningful and personal connection to another teammate. It did not come as a team, nor did it intiate from the existing friendship between Rindo and Fret. In fact, I did not find much solidity or anything truly note-worthy about the main team and new characters within themselves until they started clashing with other team members, Reapers and new recruits from week 2 onwards. Rindo found his personal development with Shoka (via a clash with Motoi and pretty much a mini dating sim between them), then via the confrontation of his role with Neku; Fret found his with Kanon then Nagi, the team learned about the real Neku via Beat, Neku entered the UG via Coco’s wish to save Tsugumi… it was not the team but their personal links that empowered them to fight and solve each of their problems.

The other team leaders may have failed because they did not form such personal links, after 30+ hopeless loops Fuya’s team all fell apart to pursue their own interest even at the cost of erasure, Motoi quit his KOL façade to work like a dog for the Reapers (probably to save just his own ass not his team), while Kanon dropped her tricks to find changes via honest cooperation in acceptance of a fair loss. The despairing note in that is huge without making much of a scene because their failure didn’t happen at their best effort to “win”, but in their last attempt to find a way “out”. Even Shiba got his way “out” in the end thanked to his personal friendship with Hishima and Tsugumi.

Something has shifted in the mindset of the game creators in the last 14 years, as both games are about “connection vs individuality” but the last game focuses more on connection between just individuals and this one on the overall network that is formed out of those individual connections.

The introduction of Beat into the main cast was truly the bridge between old and new, they helped each other out in several turns before officially recruiting him. Beat is a character whom a lot of fans including myself have felt somewhat concerned about after Neku disappeared from the RG, so when the new kids welcomed Beat with warm and organic interaction and Beat seemed happy, I started to feel like I wanted to help them out too! I think the overall team chemistry is enjoyable enough for new players, but I could warm up to the new kids more from the pov of a returning character – whom I’m glad to be Beat, as the older brother figure who is genuinely kind, fun, serious and upbeat at the same time; who is needed and needs the kids in return.

The social network is a fun and refreshing feature. You can read all of the crazy tidbits about Shibuya and the links each character have formed with the town people, it’s also fun to visualize how the characters act off screen. Characters’ profiles provide extra insight into their background too, like how it reveals Tsugumi has been friend with Coco during her time in the RG. During the game when not all characters have showed up, you can sometimes guess which empty spot will belong to whom. For example there is a 1 character linking to Neky that is not linked to anyone else, so I could guess that was Joshua, and that another character linking only to Joshua was probably Hazuki, hinting that the 2 Composers are related before either of them even showed up.

Hazuki only showed up for 5 minutes, but his presence is so vital and true to the game that I think he is the most memorable out of the new cast. The two Composers have such an intriguing bond, with their yin/yang or phoenix/dragon themes, opposite color design, the sempai/kouhai tone and the way they keep some sort of distance/work relationship as if it’s mandatory between Higher beings, yet at the same time they can talk so casually because they are truly equal – and different from one another. I have written a separate meta on them here.

Some people pointed out, that all Shinjuku characters’ names and themes are based off Hanafuda cards and the Phoenix in Hanafuda belongs to the Paulownia suit – which is Joshua’s name flower. This is so interesting because it feels like the creators somehow saw it as a sign to interweave the Shibuya and Shinjuku storylines together. Though it doesn’t come out much on the surface, it’s fascinating nonetheless considering both Josh and Haz had at some point interfered with the other town’s affairs.

“Shibuya tour with Haz” was such a special scene, as it happened between 2 characters who do not/no longer have a reason to care about Shibuya, on the subject of what is worth saving about Shibuya. Hazuki carried out the purification of Shinjuku and stepped in to restore Shibuya just as part of his job and unlike Hanekoma or Joshua who both possess profound understanding of humanity, he really didn’t know humans at all. Rindo’s irrational wish invoked in him a sense of curiosity, to try gambling on something irrationally and learning a bit of what his senior have experienced. With all the pieces put together, it provides an overview on Higher beings as a whole, and that Joshua and Hanekoma are really the odd ones out with Hazuki being somewhere in between them and the rest.

The old friends

It’s easy to have returning characters overshadow the new cast as they have already matured out of their personal story arc and stayed in our hearts for all this time. In the end, I have managed to enjoy both the old and new cast separately and altogether, and they will both find their own place in our memory of this game for the long term.

Sho is truly as crazy as ever, the game wouldn’t be the same if Sho is any less of what he is. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like Neky or Beat is younger than Nagi at all, with moments when it seems like Neky has aged 14 years instead of 3 years. His friendship with Coco surprised me pleasantly, and their interaction together with Beat was fun to watch. Rhyme’s found a new dream and her friendship with Kaie is precious too, especially considering that she can still talk to him online after the game ended. Josh and Neku’s interaction suggested that they have resolved the past and are on equal terms now, they even parted ways in good spirit and I don’t feel any worry about them like I did before.

Neku and Shiki’s reunion scene was beautiful, theirs is such a special bond that it has grown and supported them even without being able to see each other. I am so happy to see them all again and that they stay true to who they are, albeit looking more grown up, cooler and happier than ever before.

Overall, NEO can’t become a classic on par with the OG, but is definitely a good sequel and a good game in its own rights. I’m happy with whether or not there will be a 3rd game to complete the 3 monkeys theme, but if there will be – I hope the creators can really find the time to learn from the last 2 games and start over with a fresh mindset and strong core.

#neotwewy #neotwewyspoilers #ntwewy #ntwewy spoilers #neo the world ends with you #twewy #review #meta #neo twewy #shoka sakurane #rindo kanade #tsugumi matsunae

182 notes · View notes

writingquestionsanswered · 4 years ago

Text

Tattoo Shop AU - a quick, practical guide for writers

Guest Post by lebanon-hangover

lebanon-hangover said: this is based on my personal experience with the industry only, so depending on the era and country you are portraying, it may not be 100% accurate for your setting.

Hygiene

It may not be obvious at first glance, but most tattooists are clean freaks. We work with human blood every day, and we get clients from all ages, ethnic and social economic backgrounds, with all sorts of medical conditions.

We usually mop frequently, bleach the sinks, wipe down everything, and use cling film or bags to wrap everything. I mean fucking everything. We also scrub in, and sanitise the area on the person we work on.

Needles are collected in a sharps bin, and handled very carefully. Medical waste goes in yellow bags, and both are collected by a professional service.

Used ink caps may look full, but the ink gets diluted by blood. Like you dip the inky needle into the person, but you also dip the person’s blood into your ink. These are medical waste too.

Cleaning up must be done promptly after the session. Bin everything disposable, put things through the ultrasonic and the autoclave, and sanitise the area. We may take machines apart, but more for maintenance than cleaning, sometimes we swap parts in them too.

We have two sinks, one for hand washing, one for cleaning.

All inks and needles have use by dates.

The internal dynamics of a studio

Depending on the country, some tattoo shops tend to have ties to biker gangs, and some of those internal dynamics and unwritten rules are often present.

There’s a pecking order and it’s dead serious. Basically the longer you’ve been in a shop, the higher ‘rank’ you are, you get the better positioned stations, first pick of walk-ins, etc (Unless the client is asking for someone by name). Regardless of your actual experience in the industry, like if you move into your old apprentice’s shop, they are still senior to you. If the owner or their partner is an artist, obviously they are on top of the chain by default.

We are self employed, but we have a boss. You are only making money if you are working, but you still have set work hours.

We get paid by the clients, and we pay the studio a cut. In return, there are some items provided by them, and some we buy for ourselves. Usually the chairs, tattoo beds, gloves, cleaning products, clip cord covers, masks, aprons, ink caps, vaseline, green soap, and some basic ink is provided by the shop. We buy our own machines, arm rests, stations, pedals, power supplies, clipcords, tips and grips, needles, special colours, stencil fluid…these are a personal preference, and often depend on the artists’ style.

We totally ask to try out each other’s equipment sometimes, or ask for a certain type of needle if we ran out.

The receptionist is usually just one of us, maybe a piercer, but it also can be a hired person in top studios.

The apprentice in the traditional system is often mistreated, and they have to pay for their education, have to be there multiple days a week and don’t make any money. It’s kind of like a tear them down, build them back up again thing to see if they are really serious about the job. Times are slowly changing, but 99% of them will always need a second job. Most of them are working as bar staff.

When you open a new studio, you must visit all the existing local ones and introduce yourself, otherwise you may get a brick through the window. Otherwise there’s not much beef among individual artists, they are often friends, go to conventions together and party after, etc.

The Artists

Tattooing is a fairly physical job, stretching skin is very important. We have to also keep our clients safely still, so we often use positions to pin them down a bit. Sometimes you hit a reflex point on the foot or under a knee, and you don’t want to get kicked. Sometimes you have to pull away super fast, cos they are sneezing, yawning or giggling.

Most tattooists drink a lot of coffee, tea or energy drinks.

Some people are all rounders, some have specific styles, but we recognise each other’s art styles. Sometimes we delegate work to each other, if we think our coworkers style fits the concept better. For example if there’s a person who does script well, we give them those projects.

We don’t like when people come in with designs from other artists. Art theft is frowned upon, and we work best with our own drawings.

Most apprentices practice on their own legs, and sometimes we tattoo each other when it’s quiet. Most people have cover ups, or bad pieces from their early days. The artists’ own tattoos sometimes are in a different style than what they do, but we like to collect ink from friends or colleagues we admire.

In the first 1-2 years one is an apprentice, then junior artist. At 5-8 years of tattooing, you have earned your stripes and are considered an experienced artist.

Conventions are really fun, but can be stressful. You can make good money working at one, and sometimes get awarded for it too. We can also spend a lot at a convention.

Sometimes we poke our fingers by accident, and it’s a scary thing. Good case scenario is just some random dots on your fingers. Let’s not go into the bad case scenario.

We do guest spots sometimes, just to meet new clients, and change it up a bit.

We spend a lot of time drawing up things, and designs are meant to fall on specific muscles, stretch with the skin a certain way, so they are tailored to the body proportions of the client. A good tattoo is also an optical illusion, complimenting the body shape.

Social media presence is like a second job, you need good photos, and you need to market yourself.

Tattoo ink does not wash out, so some stains are inevitable when pouring it out. Those ink bottles get stuck so easily, and we wrestle them a lot. We try to avoid it, but wearing all dark colours is a thing for a reason.

The Clients

Tattooists need to have a good ‘bedside manners’ too. We get nervous or self conscious people, and we are told personal things during long sessions. For example scar coverups and memorial pieces can be very emotional.

We have pretty good poker faces and first aid trainings. People can faint, get shaky, throw up, some have seizures, have b.o., get sweaty, etc the same way as at a blood donation event? It’s no big deal really. We sit them down, give them some water and some sugar, and re-book them if necessary. Most artists keep some wet wipes, mouth wash, deodorant, sweets, maybe even some clean clothes at work, just in case.

If someone comes in with a wild idea for a jobstopper, we would sit down and have a long talk. If they haven’t got many tattoos, we usually try to stir them towards more safe choices, offering them creative ideas. It’s like those jedi mind tricks sometimes.

If someone is undecided, we show them our own hand drawn flash sheets. Once its gone, its gone tho, we don’t use the designs twice.

Pinterest is full of photoshopped fake tattoos, some that won’t even work as real ink. Many people also touch up their work digitally on photos, so some clients have really unrealistic expectations.

We can totally tell if someone is intoxicated or hangover. It thins the blood, and they bleed out the ink, and it’s super annoying. if it’s bad, they will be sent home and rebooked.

Some folks are self conscious about body hair, their size, stretch marks and scars. Chances are, we have seen similar, and we aren’t bothered by it, because it’s work. Surgery scars, scars from accidents, self harm scars, burns, we see it all the time. We shave some really hairy dudes all the time girl, your legs are fine. Seriously. If something makes tattooing you dangerous we will tell you.

Fit, muscular people are harder to tattoo because they are really firm. Its a workout for us.

Everyone gets midnight messages about the aftercare from nervous clients, and drunken booty calls about getting inked right at this second. We have copy paste replies…

We get creeps sometimes. Stalking, weird conversations, tmi info dumps etc.

Other things to include (for fun, or for plot reasons)

We sometimes have those “oh fuck” moments. We all do, but mistakes can be fixed, and we play it cool.

Tattooing takes time. Usually 30 minutes to multiple sessions though years and years.

Healing tattoos takes about 2-4ish weeks, and your characters shouldn’t go roll around in dirt, sunbathe, swim, pick at the scabs. Nasty infections, and messed up tattoos would be the results.

If you have a strong immune system, and you get a lot of work done in one sitting, you may get a brief bit of a temperature. It’s normal, and will go away.

Its a lot easier to get seriously drunk after getting a tattoo. Be careful.

We sometimes draw on each other for practice with our marker pens.

Tattoos are inside the skin, not on top of it. Imagine a low opacity, skin toned layer over the ink, adding to the healed tattoos’ colour. Please stop making your characters skin fully transparent.

Heavy blackwork and palms are done in multiple sessions.

You can’t cover up moles, because if they develop skin cancer, the dermatologist can’t see the signs.

There’s a stereotype about piercers having blacked out sleeves.

Stencil fluid looks just like cum.

You get that annoying itch on your face when you scrubbed in, put on gloves and finally ready to go.

Some artists have a strong preference for coil or rotary machines, and they bicker about it a lot. Coils are louder, more punchy, and more traditional, perfect for lineart. They can be customised, and they last forever. They are also called glorified doorbells by people who prefer rotaries. Rotary machines are smoother, lighter, and often use needles that are pulled back into the cartridges for safety. They are better for shading and delicate line work. Older tattooists often say they are dildo or butt plug shaped, overly delicate and are for “soft millennials” only.

Every artist owns like 5 to 20 machines, and they have specific machine builders they are loyal to.

The “which cable is broken and cutting out” guessing game. Clip cords and pedal cables get worn out easily, and that results in your machine running really jerky.

Walk-in always show up 10 minutes before closing.

We often look quite silly at work. Sleeves rolled up, folks use all sorts of plastic ppe, headlamps, and we tie up our hair. Add couple of purple smears from carbon paper, and we aren’t scary at all.

#writing guide #writing tips #writing advice #writer's guide #writeblr #writing community #writing #writing help #submission

383 notes · View notes

kindness-ricochets · 3 years ago

Note

I’ve been seeing a lot of thoughts and hc of autistic wylan lately and you seem to also be a fan of the concept. May I ask why? Exactly? I could definitely kinda see it but wanna hear you thoughts you’re always so eloquent

Hey there anon! Sorry for the delay—I’m guessing you already found an answer to this elsewhere while I was off Tumblr for a bit, but just in case, here are my thoughts. This will be heavily personal, but… well, you can’t very well ask an autistic person about autism and expect neutrality!

Autism is different for everyone and can be difficult to pin down, so while Wylan is arguably autistic, he misses several beats that for me would have made him definitively and undeniably autistic. For example, when the bells start to ring, triggering black protocol—I work in a place with a lot of bells and am frequently caught too close to one and normally press my hands over my ears until it’s over because that sound is like shrapnel raking across my insides. All of them. Not just the ear and brain parts. Wylan doesn’t have that sort of visceral reaction, but that may just mean he doesn’t have the same sensitivities that I do, or to the same level. He also never, that I recall, eats meat—as weird as that might sound, eating meat is incredibly complicated with heightened sensitivities to taste and texture. I’m not sure how old I was when I realized it was strange to get up from the table to spit out my food because it viscerally repulsed me. So it might be that Wylan is autistic and has different experiences than I do. Those are things I would include in a story as major indicators of a character being autistic. This might also mean that his father’s way of raising him taught him to hide unusual reactions and stimming behaviors. It’s not that much of a reach to assume a man who tried to abuse the dyslexia out of his son would take the same approach to autism. (More on autism and abuse later.)

So while I’m going to lay out why I read Wylan as autistic, that’s why I think it’s valid to read him as not being autistic as well. Both are valid.

A final caveat, I am well overdue for a reread of the books, so I likely left something out or could have found better examples. Take this as a few of my reasons for a personal headcanon. Anyone who feels differently, that's fine! We can each read things our own way :)

1 - Hyperfixation: The way Wylan loves music

Most of the Crows’ backgrounds color how they see the world: Kaz’s shrewdness, Matthias’s tactical thinking and superstition, Inej’s faith and Suli wisdom, etc. That’s a sign of good character writing. But very little of Wylan’s upbringing seems to have influenced how he sees the world. It comes closest when he thinks about how his father would scorn his new friends, but we never see that scorn from Wylan.

The way a hyperfixation feels, it’s like you’ve always lived in a close parallel world, never fully been a part of the other one where it seems like everyone else lives, but suddenly there’s this bright shining piece of your soul laced through the other world. It lets you connect, it lets you exist in their realm, and you can’t help but filter everything new through that lens because it’s the brightest, most wonderful thing. (I had been between hyperfixations for a while when I started a new job; six months into that work, I read Crooked Kingdom. One of my coworkers thought I had fallen in love, it was that marked a difference.)

So, combining these: Wylan never really acts like he was part of his father’s world, and indeed is in some ways separate from the other Crows, but he parses everything through music, his hyperfixation. He sets words to music to remember them, like he does with the contract. Even his own anxiety is made sense of through music, when in his first narrated chapter, he sets it to music: what am I doing here what am I doing here…. When he’s overwhelmed, his thoughts are “a jangle of misplayed chords”. The Crows have backgrounds that influence how they react to the world, but Wylan’s hyperfixation is his means of experiencing and understanding the world.

2 - Literal thinking: Wylan responds to exact words

In this post, I went into detail on the line where Wylan suggested waking up men to kill them. Wylan is generally unsupportive of killing people—Oomen, Smeet’s clerk, his father… he advocates not-murder in each of these situations. Accepting his aversion to murder, his suggestion to wake men up and kill them seems like a genuine reaction to Jesper saying he doesn’t want to kill unconscious men. Wylan takes things literally.

This happens the most with Jesper, probably because Jesper talks to Wylan the most. Nina and Matthias don’t really register him past how he might be useful, Inej is usually quite direct, and Kaz is very deliberate when he speaks with Wylan. This really interests me because Kaz tends to vary his speech more than the others do, he adapts more to being around other people. He jokes a little with Jesper, spars with Nina, speaks more openly and more sharply with Inej, and he’s precise with Wylan. Kaz may not know what autism is, but he recognizes what’s effective with Wylan.

Another example is when Wylan is sketching the Ice Court plans and Jesper says it looks like a cake. There are plenty of valid responses here: pointing out that concentric circles look like lots of things, that it’s just a sketch, telling Jesper to stop looking over his shoulder. Instead, Wylan says that the Ice Court is sort of like a cake. That… doesn’t sound like something Wylan would normally say. He’s not addressing the whole situation, he’s addressing the specific words Jesper said.

One of the most heartbreaking examples of this (to me, anyway) is with Marya. Wylan does the same thing with his mother, when she asks if he’s there for her money and says she hasn’t got any, and his response is, “I don’t either.” We understand as readers that what Marya is communicating here is that she is so accustomed to being utterly ignored unless she is being used, and if she told Wylan that no one visited but to take advantage and she assumed he was here for the same reason, he would say it wasn’t the case. But he just responds to the immediate statement.

There are a lot of examples of this.

3 — 0% perception, 100% creativity

Wylan can identify things that don’t make sense or that he doesn’t understand, but at the beginning of the series he can’t make leaps, only ask questions. On the Ferolind, he wonders about the source of water at the Ice Court; though Kaz doesn’t say as much, he was clearly wondering, too, because he eventually figured out the underground river. There’s an interesting parallel here where, in the beginning of Crooked Kingdom, Wylan asks a question about how they’ll break into Smeet’s and Kaz tells him to use his eyes instead of running his mouth—at which point Wylan is able to figure it out. I don’t think this is because he never tried before, though, but because no one ever bothered to teach him. Kaz can be harsh but he gives harsh corrections rather than harsh rejections and Wylan learns from him.

It’s hard to understand the world for people with autism. The world is designed and run by and for people whose minds are fundamentally different from ours, whose thoughts and experiences are unlike ours. Imagine trying to learn English or Spanish or Mandarin or any other spoken language if your first language was olfactory. That’s sort of what it’s like for someone with autism to just get dropped into the world and expected to figure this out.

This can be attributed to Wylan’s upbringing, but I disagree with that because none of the others were brought up in the Barrel, either, and Wylan doesn’t understand trade or politics with any special skill. Kaz wasn’t born in the Barrel, but he managed to go from “stealing is wrong” to “wrong isn’t my concern” real quick; Colm Fahey didn’t raise his son on gambling and firefights; the Ghafas never expected their daughter to be away from the family. Only Nina has relevant training—and even that’s precious little, she left school way too early. The others figured it out; Wylan needed a bit more help. He also seems surprised by the way his father conducts business. Wylan takes things on face value—like the time he’s surprised someone would do something, simply because it’s unlawful. This is something he expresses to a group of gangsters. He’s never been taught the way of any world and these things are not intuitive to him.

But Wylan isn’t stupid.

He doesn’t know how to understand the world, but he does understand how things go together. Given a pointy diamond, a handle, and a screw, he cut through Grisha glass. He carries flashbangs and magic napalm, he recreates military hardware—Wylan understands how to make things interact for a specific result. But to me the most telling thing isn’t just that he puts together chemical pieces, it’s that he figured out Jesper controlled bullets. He saw the pieces and put them together.

Wylan can understand when things don’t make sense, but he can’t make sense of them—yet when he understands things at their basic level, he understands them without preconception, for what they are. This is a very autistic way of thinking about things, it goes back to the literalism. He can’t make the leaps of logic other people can, but he also doesn’t make the assumptions they do—“I’ve never heard of a bullet Grisha, so that’s not a thing” vs “Well Jesper’s an almost impossibly good shot and he controls metal and bullets are metal, so why not?”

4 - Broken brain/body connection

Wylan’s great at chemistry and drawing and playing flute or piano—but he’s something of a disaster other times. This is in particular contrast to the other characters, all of whom are physically adept. Meanwhile it’s a challenge for Wylan to climb a rope ladder and he spends a full paragraph trying to figure out what to do with his hands. It’s easy to say, well, he’s used to a sedentary lifestyle, but at this point he’s not. He’s worked in the tannery for months. He’s just physically awkward.

I have less to say on this point only because it’s about something I don’t fully understand myself. I don’t really understand what it would be like to have a body that just… does things? Like normal stuff? Without tics and stims. No idea. Only that Wylan’s discomfort in and seeming lack of mastery of his own body feels very relatable to me.

5 - Abuse

One of the most familiar things about Wylan is how he has been so thoroughly abused and broken down that he’s afraid to do or say much of anything. Again, this is a place his background can be an obscuring factor. Of course Wylan didn’t think to blow up the walls when the first met the parem-juiced jurda and got trapped, he’s a spoiled rich kid! Except, he also startled when Jesper said his name later. Wylan didn’t hesitate because he was spoiled, he hesitated because he had no confidence.

He also thinks Kaz would laugh at him for playing music at his mother’s grave. Now, personally, I can’t see Kaz laughing at Wylan—being indifferent, thinking it’s pointless sentimentality, shaking his head, maybe commenting sharply that they need to go if they don’t have the time. But not laughing. Kaz is a snarky, sharp-edged jerk sometimes, but he doesn’t go out of his way to criticize, he just lets people know when they inconvenience him.

Wylan has been trained to identify attention as negative by an overbearing abusive father who literally saw him as less favorable than a demon. Now, that may have been hyperbole, but Jan criticized everything he could about Wylan—art, music, emotion—and made clear that he was worthless and competent to nothing. (Jan Van Eck can suck a rotten donkey dick but that’s neither here nor there.)

A lot of people with autism experience levels of bullying that have similar impacts. Or as the kids these days are calling it: we go to school. We go to school where we are weird. Where we look weird and move weird and talk about weird things and there’s a whole little bevy of asswipes to makes sure we know it. I got teased more for playing Pokemon and sitting alone reading than the kid who pissed himself onstage at assembly. (This was before Pokemon was cool. I’m old.) And that is not unusual for autistic kids. It’s also not unusual for this to be compounded by relatives or even parents who may be trying to help but don’t understand and can make things even harder.

So we can’t read social cues and we’re taught at a vicious age that everything that comes naturally to us is wrong. Imagine trying to interact in society with that background. There is no guide and most advice from neurotypical people isn’t actually what they mean. It breaks you down.

Wylan’s anxiety isn’t definitive of autism, but isn’t something that was incredibly familiar as someone whose neurodivergent experiences created a strong level of anxiety.

6 — High Compassion, Low Social Competence

Wylan isn’t very good at making friends. In fact, none of the Crows likes him much in the beginning, and only some of them soften toward him by the end. (Matthias and Nina come to respect his skills as a chemist but neither seems to particularly like him.) But you can see throughout the books that Wylan wants to connect with them and be one of them, he just… isn’t. He’s off-beat. He’s weird. He asks questions and mimics behaviors (trying to be cool and tough like Jesper, saying “mission” like Matthias does, imitating Kaz’s scheming face) but he doesn’t quite get how to adapt.

But he still cares about people. Not just them. Everyone. He cares about the people they leave in the ditch outside the prison wagon, he cares about Hanna Smeet, he cares about Alys. He cares about the people who’ll take a hit from Kaz’s sugar caper.

Wylan’s awkward social skills have undeniable big autism energy. I posit his compassion does as well. This is simply who Wylan is, and that means being someone who cares about everyone. I have nothing to back up that this is related to autism. I can say that it’s like me. (Not to brag.) I can’t turn off the part of my brain that says everyone matters. Individuals can opt out of that compassion, but they have it by default. There’s a certain agony in feeling a pull toward and love for just about everyone and yet an inability to develop meaningful connections with them, and that keen loneliness… it just burns.

Again, it’s not definitive of autism, but it’s very similar to an autistic experience.

I said in the beginning that I didn’t think Wylan certainly had autism and I stand by that, but he is a powerfully honest reflection of many people who do. So he can be understood to have autism, and that’s part of the reason some people have that headcanon.

#six of crows #wylan van eck #autism #actually autistic

63 notes · View notes

bokunosimpfiction · 3 years ago

Text

Yandere!Heisenberg x Reader Pt 3

A/N: Since y’all demanded a plot that’s what you’ll get. Will it be good? No. I’ve never written anything with a plot in my entire life. Ever. Not even when I did Nanowrimo or whatever. I just bullshitted the whole thing. Like I’ll do with this fic. Y’all are going to have to remind me to update because I have the attention span of a goat. I’ll try to update this on Saturdays??? IDK at this point. ALSO, WHY THE FUCK IS THIS SO POPULAR?????????? DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY NOTES THIS HAS ON AO3???? 69????SIXITY FUCKING NINE??? I HATE EVERYTHING MY LEGACY WILL BE READER CALLING HEISENBERG DOOFSCHMIRTZ I HATE EVRYTHING DSHFUGSADFJ

Synopsis: You have totally, %100, given up on escaping. Totally. You haven't been gathering supplies for one, final last hurray. Nope. Totally not. All you have to do is persuade Heisenberg of that so you can change your mind at the last minute. Y’all know the trigger warning for this series but if you don’t tw:kidnapping (implied)

Taglist: it’s exclusivly @localdepressedvampire so if you want to be on it for just this story or for all my pieces fill out the google doc in my pinned post or dm me and I’ll put you on it. :)

You’ve made a breakthrough in your long-term plan of escapism. Even with the mini escape attempts that were really about exploring the factory and less about actually trying to get out, you hadn’t made a lot of progress: until now.

Well, two, really… Okay, maybe 1 ½. Firstly, you found a sawed-off two-barrel shotgun. With ammo. In fact, there was a various amount of ammo around the factory, but no actual gun. Until now. The second discovery, which is nowhere near as useful, was a window. Which was probably 50 or more feet up from the ground. You didn’t get a chance to inspect it that much, considering as soon as you saw it and got a glimpse at the far-off ground, you had to run again from Lycans.

Which gives you a basic idea of a way to escape. You knew where the ammo was, you knew where the gun was and had a route to the edge of the building, and hopefully could find stairs at the end of the hallway. Now all you had to do was find a time where you could be gone long enough to get a decent head start before, he notices you’re even gone. Even when he was in the workshop, he kept a close eye on you, keeping you in arms-length to the point where it taxed on both of your mental health.

And even then, in that chair in the small room, you watch him work in the finer details on something the size of your head and torso. You try not to look at the phone in your lap, he doesn’t even know you have it, much less how great the reception is in the building. How did he not know about his old phone that was still working fine? Oh well, he doesn’t need to know you’re looking at memes and reading feel-good wolf-star fanfic on ao3.

The best idea you had was to leave him while he was asleep, but there were two some issues with that: he clung to you like his life depended on it, your back to his chest and arms around you almost tight enough to keep you awake; it was dark as hell in the hallways of the factory as is, but it would be impossible to navigate safely with the lights; and the Lycans were most active outside at night, which was where you were trying to go. They’ve tried to eat you before as they show no discrimination on food.

The only way to get a good enough head start would be to leave while he didn’t notice you were gone, and wouldn’t notice for a long, long time. And that when it hit you. The only time he ever left you by yourself was when he had to deal with the other three lords. And while he left you in that basement that you originally woke up in, you had memorized your way out and found that going up five flights of stairs took you to that faithful widow.

Would you have enough time to explore and look for an actual exit/entrance, or should you play it safe and find a way to go out that window. You wanted to laugh to yourself, you’d never think that going down a 50ft plus drop would be considered safe, but here you were, kidnapped and held hostage by one of the people your late grandmother warned you not to associate with, or even go near. The letter you received directly quoted “the four lords and their mother, Mother Miranda, are not to be approached or associated with at any costs. You’ll know them when you see them, they smell like death and money. See them and run.”

You can’t help but find that ironic, considering that you did try to run, heeded her warning, and still faced the consequences that were far worse than she had warned you about. You regretted coming here, to this small village, when you first arrived: no friends, and even those you tried to approach held you to her standard and expected them to be just like her. You were far from her kind and optimistic nature (at least that’s what you heard of her; you hadn’t even known of her whereabouts until she was dead).

Even the duke, who had helped smuggle you into the village, didn’t seem fond of you. It was a shame, you tried so hard to impress him. But he saw you to a point where you could easily reach her old cottage without having too many issues, turned his cart around, and left without a good-bye. It bothered you to no end that your only companion for about a year or so was an elderly outside cat and the creaking noises the walls made at night.

And then the cat died and not even a week later you got kidnapped. You never considered yourself lucky, but damn if that wasn’t the worst streak of luck you’ve had in a long time.

You pretend to turn a page in your book and scroll through your Instagram feed, seeing friends having fun at the beach, or studying at the library, or your old best friend taking selfies in provocative clothing to your ex-boyfriend. Did she forget he cheated on you? She wasn’t always the smartest, but she brought that heartbreak upon herself. You see a photo of your mom, she had posted a picture of a black and white photo of her with her mom, you’re guessing, you have no idea who that old woman is.

This is the last photo I had with my mom before she died. We lost contact after I moved out. I wish we parted on better terms, Nana.

She’s in a prairie dress, holding an ancient-looking key in one hand, and the other wrapped around her mom, a middle-aged woman with long hair in two braids and a face that had too many stress wrinkles. You guess your mom was as bad as you were in college. The background looks dreary. You would have guessed it to be the quality of the photo if you hadn’t recognized the house behind them as the house you lived in used to live in.

The loops on the handle of the key look familiar. You spread your fingers apart to zoom in and see the blurry engravings on the side. It was the payment you gave to sneak into the village. You thought it was a worthless family heirloom at most and found it strange that he had even found interest in the key, or even valued it deeper than money in general. Maybe this photo or other photos of you and your family would help out.

Why is that key suddenly piquing your interest? Were you that bored, as to sit there and think about a key that was at least twice your age? A key that you didn’t even have. You needed a hobby besides escapism and rejecting your captor’s sexual advances. You look up at him again, only to find him leaning against the desk, hat off and sunglass placed on his forehead, his gaze on you. It wasn’t his normal piercing one, that studied you and calculated your every move, but soft and lazy. His current gaze was dreamy; he was daydreaming about you. You found that equally undaring s it was unnerving.

“Karl.”

“Yes, Sweetiepea?” Honestly, what the fuck.

“Firstly, why are you staring at me like that? Secondly, that is the most disgusting way to use that pet name. I need to take a shower after you called me that.”

He chuckles light-heartedly. Even his softer more genuine, happy chuckles are booming and loud. “Okay… Sugarplum!” And he busts out laughing.

Clearly dodging the first question and focusing on the second. You can’t believe you gave him ammo for his annoying-you-gun. And you thought you’d grown immune to most of his… less-savory traits. Were you growing used to him? Next thing you know you’re going to like him and develop Stockholm syndrome!

“You’re a shit head, hobo magneto…” You turn your head away and let your hair cover half your face so he can’t see you smile. You’ll miss him when you escape and get the duke to smuggle you back to your home in Bucharest. But only a little. Just because calling Heisenberg these names are funny.

“Why don’t you call me by my name, I know you know it.”

“You sure about that?” You quip back.

“You’ve lived with me for at least two months now!”

“Hm…. I think I know your name! It’s uh…” You are totally faking not knowing his name. “It’s… Heidi Carlson? Yeah, that sounds about right!”

“It’s Karl Heisenberg!”

“Quit being so silly, Heidi! Maybe it’s nap-time!” This was a little too fun.

He looks back at his project for a moment and genuinely considers it. “I know you’re being antagonistic but you’re probably right.” And with that, he walks towards you and goes to scoop you up. You have to shut your book quickly in order for him not to notice the phone in between its pages before you let him pick you up.

He immediately notices that. “Are… Are you sick?”

“No! Of course not!” Because you genuinely aren’t sick, and he’s already up in your business as-is, you don’t need him dotting on you because he thinks you’re sick or something. You’ll go fucking crazy.

“You’ve put in zero effort into anything remotely physical since your last little failed escape attempt.” He gave it a little bit of thought. “You’ve given up, haven’t you, and you’re just depressed about it aren’t you?”

You want to say no, you really do, but if Heisenberg thinks you’ve given up on escaping, perhaps it’ll give you enough space to plan the big one. The reverse heist so to speak. “No- I… okay maybe I have but I still don’t like you.

He leans down and presses a kiss to your forehead. “Good girl. Now let’s get us that well-deserved nap.”

You plug your nose and turn away as a joke. “You’ve gotta take a bath first, you smell like oil and sweat.” You don’t fight it, because you have to play the part, but you still have to act a little bit like yourself.

“Okay, fine doll, but don’t think you’ve escaped my barrage of affection, because as soon as I get out of the shower-“

You bonk him. And he looks at you so confused before he smiles and leans down to nuzzle his nose against yours. You try to hold the bile back in your mouth and lean forward and peck his lips before leaning back. You failed at trying to not visibly gag.

“Ew… I can’t believe I just kissed you.”

“Well, I guess someone caught feelings… Didn’t they?”

#Karl Heisenberg #yandere Heisenberg #yandere resident evil #resident evil x reader #yandere heisenberg x reader #heisenberg x reader #tw: kidnapping #fluff #well it's as fluffy as it gets with sarcastic reader-chan and yandere heisenberg #he thinks this is fluffy #because he's fucking delusional

111 notes · View notes