#based on the book a pickle for the knowing one with maybe some death of a salesman mixed in | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

afterthelastreset · 5 years ago

Text

Krisei Zodiac Event Pisces Week

Pisces Zodiac Sign Info Gotten From:

https://www.astrology-zodiac-signs.com/zodiac-signs/pisces/

“Pisces are very friendly, so they often find themselves in a company of very different people. Pisces are selfless, they are always willing to help others, without hoping to get anything back.

Pisces is a Water sign and as such this zodiac sign is characterized by empathy and expressed emotional capacity.”

💧Pisces Week

(This the entire element Is water Im going to base the element off that with the au Ocean rune or just water scenes, since in the rules were aloud to do stuff based off the element of the Zodiac sign.)

Day 1:

The beach. A wonderful place to go on a hot day for anyone with plenty to do and see and so much activities for anyone even if you weren't a swimming person. Building sandcastles. Getting a tan. Going swimming. Just relaxing with a good book or painting the scenery. Volleyball. Collecting seashells. Snorkling or diving and seeing all the cool fish and underwater life. There was also the occasional fisherman and someone doing watersports like surfing, water skying, jet boats, a whole lot of fun on the beautiful waves and deep blue sea- Or if you were the pair of friends in question, you'd be sitting at a picnic table under the shade and snacking on the food you got. Milkshakes ain't got NOTHIN' on the heat here now, except maybe the chocolate ones they served. Chocolate milkshakes was always the best in his opinion as he happily ate and watched all the other people running around and doing whatever they wanted to do on this smoldering hot day, it was too hot for him though sadly. Fur and all but the scenery was really pretty, even more so now that it was sunny and not cloudy like it had been recently. So of course he'd drag his friend out of the house and into the glorious great outdoors!!......Buuut they were a little busy looking at a little piece of drift wood they had found while walking In the hot sun before being dragged to the giant umbrellaed picnic tables of the beach resort. They'd been doing that for quite a while actually.

"Kris?" The human hummed not looking up at the other one across from them. "What are you doing there?"

Instead of looking up from their lap they just shrugged. "Carving somthin'."

he frowned. he knew Kris wasn't a big fan of being in public, but this wasn't exactly what he had in mind for the two of them to do when he dragged the brown haired human out of the house. SO hhe smiled politely and asked. "Really? Whatcha carving now?"

"You'll see. Almost done," they mumbled still not looking up from their position and Ralsei just groaned and sat down into his seat.

he sighed and went back to his coco milkshake then. Watching as people still walked by and once and a while looked up just to see Kris still carving something with their carving knife and keeping it out of sight of the other until they suddenly brought it up and finally held it out to him. And in their hands was a small little carved out fish. he smiled and took the small gift from them and looked at the neatly carved little goldfish he was just handed. If it wasn't obviously made of wood then she would've sworn it was a real goldfish. They always had a nack for this thing and found Kris giving a small smile back, Ralsei couldn't help but stand up to go hug his friend.

"This is beautiful Kris! Thank you!"

"Your welcome."

Day 2:

*This takes place in the Au OceanFellrune since I wanted to try exploring this au more*

Well this certainly was a pickle wasn't it. Imagine just going for a swim with your best friend and enjoying a nice day at the beach to just relax, simple right? Yeah- Nope. A storm had blown in unexpectedly and swept through the sea just a few hours after they arrived. All he wanted was to just relax around on his floaty, not be swept out to the middle of the gigantic lake with no way back..Well, he could swim but those waves didn't look so promising against his mediocre swimming skills, at least if he stayed on the floaty he could stay afloat and not worry about sinking.

But now he had another problem...The sky was starting to get darker by the minute and he wasn't too sure which direction was the way back to shore anymore. It was kinda hard to tell with the waves being so tall and him getting tossed back and forth like a ragdoll on a beach ball wasn't the best feeling in the world, and he was starting to feel like puking. Man....he was starting to get tired of this-

"HELP!! ANYONE?!" Don't ask why he thought it was a good idea to start shouting for a friend who couldn't help him, might've been just a reflex or a hope but it would soon lead to more bad than good...Or would it? "HELP?! HEL-"

A wave chose that exact moment to rear it's ugly head and crash down over the poor human's body, the wind was knocked outta him like a rock slammed into her. Immediately air bubbles surrounded his form as he unceremoniously screamed from the hurtful impact, darkness surrounded his form as the stormy waves above continued to rattle about like some sort of punisher. It was surprisingly....calm in the dark black surrounding him. Almost like the night. Completely silent. A peaceful way to go if she didn't want to die.

It was when he turned and found two pink eyes and a mouth full of teeth staring at him did he scream again.

You know....It's really troubling trying to find some peace somewhere where there's not a lot available just swimming around, so imagine his luck when he stumbled across a seemingly dumb person just floating about in the middle of his territory. Kinda dumb being all the way out here in the middle of the dam storm, but who was he to judge. A human's a human. A quick wave was able to knock whoever the person was over and into the water where he waited. He grumbled just thinking about it... But that thought soon vanished after seeing her face.

UGH- He hated puny fighters. This one wasn't worth the trouble...Not enough courage on her. He also didn't appreciate the bubbles shoved in his face when she screamed again and started kicking up towards the surface. His face scrunched up in annoyance. Did everyone always have to be so rude when they see a gigantic aquatic goat monster looking at them? Oh well. At least he got to do the scaring part he always liked.

Ounce he made it back up through the swaying surface, coughing and spitting out out hislungs, a dark shadow loomed out from under him. In a split second the shadow had bust through the waves with ease. Water splashed over him, almost sending him down under the water again.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHA! YOU FOOOOOL!!!" His raspy voice boomed over the noise of the waves and wind. "Those who enter my territory are doomed to DIE! Wha- H-HEY!" He flinched back when he yelped and instinctively grabbed onto him to keep from being drowned down by a wave. "HEY! Do you have a death wish! Those who ever as much as touch me are bound to- HEY! STOP DROWNING WHEN IM TRYING TO THREATEN YOU!!"

With a blub sound another wave sent him under. He groaned. Did his enemies ALWAYS have to make things more difficult like this? He stuck his hand back under the waves and a moment later he pulled the shivering, sputtering human back out of the bobbing water. he coughed and spat out some of the salt water, heaving and looking up at him.

".....*sigh* You know what? Screw this. My voice isn't worth some drowned human."

He began turning in the opposite direction and making swimming through the waves look like a breeze. he gave him a confused. "Where-....W-Where are we g-g-going?"

"Im dumping you on the shore. You're not worth the trouble of straining my voice."

Day 3:

IT WAS HOT!!

A lot hotter than what he was really used to, and to be perfectly honest, he didn't enjoy having the burning feeling in his lungs, or the amount of ssweat running down his body, or the heat baring down on himself. What was wrong with enjoying a nice inside inside and relaxing? Maybe cuddled up together in a nice air conditioned room, watching the live action of Romeo and Juliet? That was a beautiful tale is he did say so himself. But Noooo- he just had to go running today of all days on the beach. When the sun was fricking making it almost 80 DEGREES!! He stopped and heaved his lungs out, hands on his knees and gasping for breath like a fish out of water. Soft foosteps rang out behind him and soon someone stopped next to him. It took a few moments but he eventually looked up into the smiling face of human.

"W-What art you..*wheeze* smiling at?!"

He laughed. "Ralsei, when was the last time you even took a relaxing jog?"

"KRIS?! Running on the beach with fur is too much. C-can’t we just go swimming instead?)

He laughed again and very easily stood on one foot and stretched the other out into a ballet pose. "Ralsei, exercise never hurt anyone. I know I enjoy it.~''

''THAT'S BECAUSE YOU’RE BUILT FOR THIS!! W-With NO fur!! I-I feel horrible! Why did I bake and eat so many cakes!?”

"Oh don't be so cranky." He rolled his eye not paying him any attention. "We still have half a mile before we can start back."

He heard his lover groan behind him and he chuckled again, well the sooner they finished the sooner they could go back. It was just then he heard wheezing sounds behind him and he turned around....and blinked. His boyfriend was no where to be seen. Until he looked down that is and saw a puddle of exhausted ghost monster on the sand.

"RALSEI!!"

Day 4:

*merman Kris braces legs and goes on land to ask Ralsei a question*

The screams of children swarm about the place as he stood outside the building. He never did like the thought of screaming little munchkins running around him, or their dirty little hands grabbing onto him, or sneezing on him-; He shuddered just thinking about the germs. Funny coming from someone who's eaten raw fish, but he was free to not like what he wanted. But, he was here for a different reason. Not for the kids-

"ACK-"

One of the small buggers crashed into his legs while running around. The little girl shook her head before squealing in delight and getting up to run after another child. Playing tag he presumed.

"Kris?"

He jumped and whirled around into the curious face of the very person he wanted to see...And who he sometimes got mad with. No he didn't like it when he held his hand. Or when he gently kissed him. Or when he smiled and hugged him- He hissed at himself which made him frown and raise a brow.

"Um. Are you ok?"

"NO!...Yes! Im fine. Im fine!"

His crooked smile didn't seem to faze him more and only resulted in more confusion. This wasn't going as he planned was it? Nope! He could see it in his eyes as he looked him up and down. It was pretty rare to see Kris on dry land, with legs, he seemed to despise legs and preferred to sticking to his underwater domain. ….So why was he here in the first place?

"Ok....Um. What're you doing here? I thought you hated land."

"I do!....I- Uh-" His face flushed a light pink, and he mentally cursed himself for stuttering. "I-....C-Came to see you."

"Really?" He nodded and he became a litle redder. Of course, he giggled at the cute sight as soon as it happened and he groaned. Did he always have to respond with his cute little giggles or when- HOLY CRAP! he grabbed his hand! His eyes shined like little gems up at him, and he actually gulped. "That's so nice of you. Did you want something?"

This was it. This was the moment he came for. So of course he opened his mouth-....And a high pitched squeak came out. They froze. A look of abosolute horror coming over his face. he however went wide eyes and gasped. ….Oh no. Not this. He didn't like where this was going- he squealed in glees and immediately grabbed his face.

"THAT WAS SO CUTE!! YOU SOUND JUST LIKE A BABY!!"

His face blew up a bright red and he sputtered. "I-IM NOT A CHILD!!" he cooed and booped his nose. "S-Stop! I didn't come t-t-to be treated like a child!"

he hummed. "Then what did you come here for?"

"I want a date Ralsei! I h-hate it when...you...….." His eyes widened. " D*MMIT!! Why do you always do that?"

"Do what?" he faked innocently batted his eyelashes and giggled once he drowned in the red sea of blush. He was always so easy to fluster like this. So, it was perfectly natural to place a small kiss on his cheek. The result was weird drowning fish noises and him reaching up to try and fail to limply pull his face away from him. he giggled that cursed cute smile. "I'm really honored you came all this way to see me and I'd love to go out with you."

His mouth dropped. "R-Really?!"

he nodded. "But I have to finish work first. Is that ok?";

He nodded silently and he patted his cheek before letting go. A couple children came up to him and wisked him away into a game he didn't understand and he didn't move. Just stand there red faced and silently watching after him...…..He gulped heavily and slowly leaned back up into standing position.

He needed to get better control of his expressions.

Day 5:

*more merman Kris*

What had made him come to this? What lunatic controlling fate made the grand decision of making him fall for such a small weak little thing like him? He would probably never know, but the way he was giggling and holding his very red face right now in his soft little hands. He could always turn around, swim away, and never look back-....but he mustve put some kind of spell on him as he continued to gush at him.;

"I could eat you right know." He gave a small growl, showing on his fangs to give his point. "Know one would know and you always risk yourself by coming you know.''

he smiled. "You won't do that."

His brow raised. "How can you be so sure?"

he smiled wider. "Because your face tells a lot more than you think."

D*M IT ALL TO NEXT HELL!! He cursed himself for being like this, for being so weak and vulnerable around someone who wasn't even a threat to him. What would happen if some danger did come along?! NO! He didn't like the way he looked at him with those big beautiful eyes, or the way he was so patient with his stupid arse, or the way he was always squishing his cheeks in his soft paws and calling him cute- NOPE! NOT AT ALL!! And he definitely didn't spend last night laying awake thinking about how cute and soft he was! Nope! And he definitely didn't hit his head trying to catch him a fish she loved just to see him smile at him-

ABSOLUTELY NOT!!

…...Ok. Maybe- But that's a very small maybe.

Day 6:

*even more merman Kris*

"S-Stop it."

"Why? You're acting like a child."

"Because I don't like physical contact. And I'd like to see you prove me wrong.'' He made a move to pry his hands from his face but that idea was scraped when he felt something small on his face.

OH SWEET MOTHER OF HECK-!! WAS THIS GOATvSERIOUSLY-?! he gave a small kiss on his cheek which he froze at, immediately his face broke out into a watermelon red. His hands were shoved in front of his face as to hide his embarrassment.

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH- STOP THAT!!"

She just giggled and gave him another small kiss. More muffled screams followed, before the flustered screaming merman turned around and jumped from the doc red faced still holding his face as Ralsei giggled and waved good bye.

“Bye, Kris. I’ll see you tomorrow!”

Day 7:

*ralsei helping Kris with his fear of water*

He shouldn't. He couldn't......HE CAN'T!!

"I can't do this."

The human whimpered out as his red eyes gazed over the body of water that was in front of him. Already he could feel his body sweat and legs wobbling as he stared at it. A small black hand grabbed his making him flinch and look at the smaller demon next to him.

Ralsei blinked his pink eyes at him and smiled. "Oh, come on. It'll be ok." To prove his point, he stepped into the kiddy pool still holding his hand. "See? It's safe and sound."

He shook his head. "I-I don't think t-t-this is a good idea, Ralsei." He gulped down the lump in his throat. "I-I think it would be m-much better if I-I watched..through a window."

Ralsei still didn’t back down as he pulled Kris forwards more and yanked him a bit forwards enough for the human to yelp and freeze when the water came up to his ankles and shuddered at the cool feeling around his feet but managed to smile for Ralsei sake. Making the goat monster smile back.

“See? I told you it’d be alright”

@krisei-world

#KriseiZodiacWeek

9 notes · View notes

m39 · 5 years ago

Text

Homestuck 11th anniversary/413 AKA Why I have more tolerance towards the Epilogues

WARNING!

THIS TEXT IS OVER 1.5 THOUSAND OF WORDS LONG!

Enjoy.

EH MAH GERD! E EASTIT MOON BUCKETS!

Wait…

EH MAH GERD!!! E HAMSTEAK BORTH TOOT!!!

And only on this time of year, when we have two holidays, we can talk about the thing that everyone in the Homestuck fandom loves: The Epilogues! :D

Everyone is pointing a gun at you.

OH FUCK!!

You duck behind your desk while everyone else is shooting.

JESUS TAP DANCING CHRIST!!! CALM YOUR ASSES DOWN!!!!!

10 minutes later. You check out of you can stand up.

H-hello?

…

Can I talk now??

…

PERFECT!!

As you can see, today is not only the 11th anniversary of Homestuck but also the 1st anniversary of its Epilogues. Now, imagine one year ago, you were waiting almost 2.5 year for the Epilogues (three years if you don’t count Credits). You wanted to know the answers to many questions such as: Is Lord English defeated once and for all? What happened to that post-Retcon worthless c8nt who lost all of her character development? Is Terezi going to be okay? etc. Sure you got some supplementary stuff like the 1st act of Hiveswap (after like 5 years after its announcement, despite all of its development problems), Friendsim (that visual novel that detailed characters that will appear in later acts of Hiveswap), you read some fanfics like Cool And New Web Comic (personal opinion: very fucking good) and Vast Error (I didn’t read this one but I heard it was good and many people behind it are working with the WhatPumpkin team and on the other official Homestuck shit), there were some official snapchat photos and while those were very good, you knew that they will mean nothing when the Epilogues will drop in. And they finally does, on the Homestuck’s 10th anniversary no less. So you click on The Homestuck Epilogues, happy and excited as fuck and the first thing you see is… an introduction page ripped straight out of AO3.

You earn what can be basically described as a punch in the face where the metaphorical fist is filled with confusion. But it doesn’t end here. Then you notice something more disturbing in content warning and characters:

Rape? Abuse?? Existential Crisis?!? OC?!?! Polyamory?!?!?! GENDER TRANSITION?!??!?!?!?! BARACK! FUCKING!! OBAMA?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?

Like what in the actual fuck is happening?!!

Then you read the Prologue and you are like: Uhm… Okay. It’s not that bad at all, like, far from it. Maybe that AO3 page is just a joke? Everything will be alright right? RIGHT?!?

Then one week later Hussie (with help of some people) drops two nukes on fandom and it all goes to hell. No seriously, it’s like Hussie built Little Boy and Fat Man expies titled Meat and Candy, dropped them on fandom in which the centers of explosions were Dirk’s and Jane’s fandoms respectively and delivered some of the biggest Broken Base effect in Homestuck after like Act 6. Nothing was the same after that. Everybody were fighting each other over who was right, people didn’t even know what was canon anymore and even up to this date people are still misgendering Roxy for fucks sake (it’s not even that hard to remember it: she/her for the Alpha Roxy and her Candy counterpart and he/him for the Meat one; come on man)!

From what I’ve (mostly) seen on Tumblr, most of the Homestuck fans hates it to the bones. Only some individuals actually like them and I happened to be one of those people who likes the Epilogues.

Everyone is pointing a gun at you. Again.

OH COME ON MA-

One hour later.

CAN I FINALLY TALK WITHOUT ENDING UP FUCKING HANGED?!?

…

Bogan: y̵i̸s̷.̵.̶.̶

THANK YOU!

Now, I don’t really care who likes the Epilogues and who doesn’t. Everyone has different opinions. But something tells me that the Epilogues (at least here on Tumblr) are overhated. Like, sometimes, the negativity towards the Epilogues is so big that it makes me feel like I was in Star Wars fandom. And when fandom starts to look like the Star Wars one, you know you are in deep shit.

But you might be thinking by now: Dude, where are going with all of this shit?! Well my dear… uhm… pickles? The point of all of this is that I want to share something with you. And that is the reason. The (main) reason why I (in worst case) have more tolerance towards The Homestuck Epilogues than most of the people (on Tumblr).

When I started writing this long as fuck text I thought that I would easily give more reasons, in other words, give like 3-4 points why I like the Epilogues. But then again it’s better said than done because most of them are connected to this fact:

THE. EPILOGUES. ARE. MOSTLY. NOT. CANON.

This is the reason why I like them, why I can tolerate them. The Epilogues are mostly happening in two new timelines, different from the Alpha one. It’s even stated (or at worst implied) by Jade in Homestuck^2’s 6th chapter that the Meat timeline (and also possibly the Candy one) is not the Alpha one:

The reason why the Epilogues are mostly not canon is that the characters from the Alpha timeline (Terezi, Vriska, Aradia, Sollux, Alt!Calliope etc.) make an appearance in one of the timelines (some of them in both).

Some people who hate the Epilogues stated that it RUINED some of the characters no matter if they liked them or not. That’s kind of… over-the-top because characters that are not from the Alpha timeline are clearly in some cases not the same ones that we know as I see it (at least in case of Neo-Condesce and Doc Strider) as a fuck you towards those fanfics that like to shove Ron the Death Eater and Character Derailment tropes down our throats because some fanfic creators didn’t like some of the characters from the original work.

In other words: Almost all of the characters from the Alpha timeline are the same characters as we know at the very end of Homestuck.

There are still lesser things that I find myself enjoying in the Epilogues:

- The writing is on a very good level and when it’s pissing someone of it’s not from incompetence,

- Post-Retcon Vriska actually gets some actual character development instead of ending up as a useless piece of shit that only insults everyone who achieved much more than she ever would (I mean it took (at least) almost 4 years for this to happen but still),

- The fact that behind Neo-Condesce’s and Doc Strider’s turn to evil is some actual sense, like with the former one it was mind manipulations in her childhood (not to mention the literal mind control by Post-Scratch Meenah) and the latter one (in order to become ultimate) ending up absorbing some of the versions of himself that are basically a massive shitheads (like Bro, Hal, even Caliborn counts),

There are still other pros that either I can’t remember or they are too minor co count.

Does all of this mean that the Epilogues are flawless? PFFFFFF! Of course not. Nothing is perfect. There are some stuff that I don’t like.

The biggest one is that the Epilogues are sometimes overcrowded with so many words detailing every single thing that it actually becomes a slog to get through even one chapter (but then again, this is the reason why I don’t enjoy reading books). Sure, the original comic is like almost thrice as long as the fucking Lord of the Rings in case of the dialogue but it has pictures and animations to be more pleasant for the eyes. Which leads to another con: No. Fucking. Pictures. If I want to look for the details, then at least show me something else than words. Every fucking time I must look at dozens of words describing the most minuscule thing in the novel I’m like:

youtube

Also in terms of enjoyment I prefer the Meat Epilogue over the Candy one. When some people say that this book is a big, steaming pile of sadness and depression, at least the Meat part tells you from the start what kind of tone it’s going to have. The Candy part? Not so much. First it’s all happiness, (almost) everyone is happy, birds are happy, clouds are happy, nothing but happiness. And then you get punched in the gut, smashed into the ground and getting kicked over and over and over for so long that when the kicking finally stops it feels like 15 years passed by that time. And just to add up, the pacing in Meat is better than in Candy.

I’m going to piss you off even more but there are moments in the original Homestuck that are more cringe/rage inducing than some of the most painful ones from the Epilogues, particularly the intermissions in Act 6 Act 6 (DON’T GET ME STARTED ON WHAT HAPPENED TO BOTH SERKETS I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD).

…

Hey you.

…

Are you still reading this?

…

GOOD! Because you have reached the end of this long ass post that will get one like MAX. You know, like my other long ass posts. LOL AM I RIGHT?!?!

youtube

Jokes asides, we had a wild ride since the last 413. The Epilogues (despite what they are) gave us the answers to the biggest questions that Homestuck left for us, we got Pesterquest, the sequel to Friendsim that concluded the history of the MSPAReader (until another sequel -_-) and, of course, we got the official sequel to Homestuck, over 10.5 years later from the original comic’s debut. So, fuck ton of stuff throughout a year for me.

As for the Epilogues, look, I can, in some way, understand that some of you want to stay at least 10 km away from them but it has been a year (well technically almost a year) since they were published on the Homestuck’s official website. It might be a good time to read them once more. Without all of that hype they have built for 2.5 years after the credits. From the different perspective. Maybe even (and I dare to say it) right after yet another re-reading of Homestuck. Either way, remember that in most cases you can give someone or something another chance.

Before I’ll finally end this I must call out some of the more rabid Epilogues haters:

STOP TREATING THE ORIGINAL, ALPHA JANE THE SAME WAY AS A FUCKING NEO-CONDESCE!! THOSE TWO CHARACTERS ARE DIFFERENT CHARACTERS!! SAME WITH ALPHA DIRK AND DOC STRIDER!! MAKE UP YOUR FUCKING MIND!!! STOP ACTING LIKE A BUNCH OF 12 YEAR OLD BRATS!!!

You are on your last breath.

Tha… that’s it! I’m done… wheeze S… See you next time. B-Bye now! Imma… Immabouttopffffffffffffffffffff-

You fall down on your floor after over 1.5 thousand words of talking. Suddenly you feel urge to check Twitter. You see that Homestuck^2 has just received another update. Roundabout starts playing in the background.

What?! And what is thi- PART ONE?!?!?! Oooooooooohhhhhhh ffffuuuuuuUUUUUUUU-

<--- TO BE CONTINUED

#homestuck #4/13 #Homestuck Epilogues #Homestuck Epilogues Meat #homestuck epilogues Candy #homestuck 413 #4/13/20

6 notes · View notes

zeetasposts · 5 years ago

Note

Heya, can I have an Ikesen matchup? I’m an INTP-A, 5w6 on the enneagram, Ravenclaw. I’m pretty reserved in character, though by no means shy. I love learning new languages and studying history, and also have a love for debating and discussing politics. Friends complain that they can’t hide anything from me, strangers think I’m too closed-off, but I really just prefer to stay in the background and support from there. A troll with friends, serious with those I’m wary of.

Hi, there love! I hope you are doing well! Thanks so much for the request! 🌠 Soz for making ya wait sooooooooooo long for this matchup! I hope you enjoy it! ^0^ <3😆🔥

So I match you with................ Sasuke

Gosh you were absolutely having the worst and best night of your life. You had been thrust back in time, on one of the worst days of your life. From the moment you woke up that day, everything seemed to be going wrong, first your geyser burst, then you burnt your breakfast, and finally, on your way to visit one of the famous shrines to lift your spirits, it started raining. Not to mention the fact that you got freaken struck by lighting, and pulled a man x3 your size from a burning building. Things, however, started looking up when you realized just who you had saved.

Nobunaga himself stood proudly before you. You were utterly awestruck, and you low key thought this was some prank, that any moment someone was going to jump out of the bush and say “You have just been pranked, the cameras are there and there.” But no one jumped out of the bush and Nobunaga thought that the smoke had cooked your brain, because of your strange behaviour. You rode back to camp with him and got spooked when you saw Mitsuhide. According to the history you so fondly learned, he was the one who plotted Nobunaga’s murder. He had picked up your hand and place a small kiss on it while introducing himself and before you knew it, you bolted. You don’t know why but between him and Hideyoshi’s death stares you just felt uneasy.

You ran and ran and ran, almost running off a cliff, when a clumsy man saved you from plummeting to your death. You instantly recognized that red armour and coin crest. It was Yukimura who had saved you, you couldn’t believe it. You started questioning if maybe the lighting had knocked you unconscious, and you were now just in the hospital dreaming. You spotted someone behind Yukimuta who looked vaguely familiar. That’s when it clicked, he was there at the shrine, you had pushed him out of the way before the lighting could strike him, and by the look on his face, it seemed he too recalled your face.

He walked up to you and introduced himself as Sasuke, he then pulled you aside and explained the situation. You honestly had to sit down; this was absolutely unbelievable. You had spent your life leaning and fascinated with history, and nowhere you were in one of the most historical eras, with all your high school crushes. Sasuke gave you a knowing smile “You love history too, huh?” you beamed up at him and nodded. His breath caught in this throat damn you were beautiful. He gave you the slightest of smiles and asked if you would like to stay with him in Kasugayama Castle. You dabbed your fake tears out the corners of your eyes “seems like all my wildest dreams are coming true tonight”. Even though Sasuke had just met you, he could tell the two of you nerdy geeks were going to get along just fine.

You were given a room fit for a princess and you couldn’t help but geek out a little at the architecture and artefacts in the castle. The way you looked at Kenshin the first time you met him was with stars in your eyes, he was even more beautiful than the books say. The look you gave him, very much reminded him of the first time he had introduced himself to Sasuke. Based on that fact alone, the god of war found himself opening up to you a little.

You loved the people of Kasugayama Castle they were all so fun and goofy. There was a party every night, and with this mixed lot, there was never a dull moment. You, Sasuke and Yukimura had become quick friends. Although Yukimura was slightly wary of you because he thought you were an enchantress

It didn’t help that you and Sasuke would constantly troll the poor boi. The one day Yuki had eaten all Kenshin’s pickled plums. He summoned you and Sasuke to his room to discuss the dispute when you and Sasuke smiled at each other and laid out your plan for payback. Kenshin eagerly agreed to your plan as he definitely wanted to get back at Yuki for stealing his precious plums. You and Sasuke spent that morning getting all the castle staff in on your plan and finally it was time to put your plan in action. You, Sasuke and Yuki were hanging out in the garden joking around when Yuki dropped “you’re an evil enchantress” comment. At that, you smiled and said: “careful what you wish for Yuki, what if I really am an enchantress”. “Yeah, sure a wild boar woman like you could never be so cool”.

Just then Kenshin walked past and accused Yuki of stealing his precious plums. He drew his sword intending to fight Yuki when you chimed in “Don’t worry Kenshin I know how to make him pay”, Kenshin smiled a knowing smile and nodded, Yuki took an audible gulp. You waved your hands around “abracadabra, I turn you, Yuki, invisible”. Yuki simply rolled his eyes. Kenshin looked around, and Sasuke joined him, they looked right past him pretending like they couldn’t see him at all. “OMW YUKI WHERE ARE YOU”. You had to hold in your laugh at Sasuke’s overdramatic behaviours “I CAN HEAR YOU BUT I CAN’T SEE YOU”. “Nice try guys I know your just messing with me”.

As the day progressed, Yuki got more and more stressed, as it seemed like you genuinely did turn him invisible. He finally cracked at the banquet when no one there could see him. He got on his knees in front of you, begging you to turn him back. That’s when everyone in the banquet hall broke out into a roar of laugher. “TROLLLOLLLLLOLLLL”. Yuki legit tackled you and Sasuke to the ground from managing to troll him once again.

You and Sasuke honestly had the best time together, whether it was trolling the people of the castle or discussing history for hours and hours, when the two of you were together it was always a good time. You discovered that both of you also love learning different languages, and the two of you would often converse in the various languages that you had learned together. Sasuke loved how you even knew so much about politics. At this point, this boy was head over heels for you. If he ever had to imagine a perfect woman, you would be her. He loved how you even had a passion for debate, and the two of you would often converse in witty debates.

Even though the both of you seemed closed off to the world the two of you understood and loved each other.

Sasuke honestly couldn’t hide anything from you and you keenly picked up on, his crush on you early on, in your relationship. You found the way he blushed when you confronted him extremely cute. He actually loves the fact that you could easily read people as very few can read and understand him. It finally made him feel understood and loved.

The two of you make the sweetest couple, trolling and pranking everyone in the castle. When the two of you goofballs are together, no one can understand the two of you, as you guys would constantly be quoting memes or talking to each other in different languages. It is also not rare for the two of you to dab or do your secret handshake at a troll well executed.

Both of you can often be found cuddle on the top of one of the roofs of the castle, looking up at the stars. You listen keenly as Sasuke explains the different constellations.

You absolutely love it when Sasuke surprises you by hanging from the ceiling like spiderman. He will always insist on giving you a spiderman kiss, and you can’t help but chuckle and comply. If the two of you aren’t out trolling and having fun, the two of you are gently nestled in each other’s arms just enjoying each other warmth and company

Other potential matches................ Nobunaga

I hope you enjoyed it, love! ❤🔥

#ikesen sasuke #sasuke matchup #sasuke saritobi #sasuke sarutobi #sasuke #ikemen sengoku matchup #ikemen matchup #ikesen matchup #matchups

2 notes · View notes

worstfruit · 5 years ago

Text

Okay so i reworked this using bastardized doric, which i intend to lessen over time but i think its still a bit much

The tower wasn’t anything like what Gwen had anticipated. It was far too kempt for starters, and though it was deep within the woods outside of town, it was still just sitting out in a clearing. A bit too obvious for her liking.

And yet, on the opposite end of the spectrum it was far too subtle. There were no twisting vines or dead trees. No heads on pikes, no ribcages or femurs strung up on display. In her experience, that meant a trap. Dazzle camouflage—hiding in plain sight with how garishly cute the garden was. She’d never met a wizard who grew chamomile. But even after waiting and watching and sneaking around every angle, Gwen hadn’t triggered any sort of trip wire nor spotted even an open archere in the stone. There was a locked cellar just around the back, next to the small plot of tilled soil. The lock looked rusted to hell, likely from disuse. The garden, though brimming with wildflowers, was a bit out of order as well, and Gwen had to wonder if anyone even lived inside the tower. Still, it did meet the description the locals gave her (an unassuming but old stone pillar erected in the forests southeast of Backwater), and was exactly where the bandits said it would be (a clearing found left of a fresh deer carcass a short distance off the path’s second fork, the side with the big boulder).

She’d been a paladin long enough to learn that if it walked like a duck, and sounded like a duck, then it was probably a duck. Besides, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and at the moment, Gwen was in quite the pickle. Not three weeks prior had she been ousted from her Temple and indefinitely suspended of knighthood by her order. Taking down a necromancer, one that had alluded authorities for over 6 months, would be just the kind of deed she needed to get back in good graces.

Gwen readied her sword and stepped towards the stone structure, still anticipating some sort of magical barrage. An explosion, maybe even just a ‘hey you!’ But as she made her way up to the dry rotted entrance door, there was nothing.

Based off reports, she was half expecting hell itself. A fortnight prior to her expulsion, the temple formally briefed a number of paladins on the mission, recounted ongoing complaints of dug up graves, missing corpses, and robberies from the town of Backwater. It was a small and poor little stop along the way to Capitol; one of the few human villages between the Mission and High Elf territory, mostly used as a last minute night’s stay or provision pick up.

Tangent reports of missing cattle, children, and even the infirm were lumped together due to how small the townships outside of Backwater were. The bandits, who had tried to ambush her during her initial trek through the woods, informed Gwen of an elderly spell caster who conjured demons and brimstone from his own hands. The Backwater locals’ descriptions varied from vampiric in nature, down to common thugs, but all stories had a few principle things in common: he was old, he was in the woods, he worked with fire, he lived in a tower, and was evil. Taking in the scenery before her, Gwen sized it up. She certainly was at a tower in the woods.

For a moment, her manners almost got the better of her and she raised a gloved hand to knock. Thinking better, she gently pushed against the arched door to find it unlocked. It was ill fitted for the doorway, shrunken with age and it glided without touching the threshold.

Generally, necromancers were known to have a penchant for decay, dilapidation, just a general unkemptness that this tower absolutely did not have. The interior was lackluster to say the least; a bit old but otherwise rather mild in all regards. The floors were rugged with some dust in the corners, the stairs narrow but clearly well used, and there was even a small boiler with a little shitty kettle atop. Keeping her hands on the hilt of her blade, Gwen continued onwards, taking gentle steps so that her sabatons did not clack too loudly against the cobbled floors. She used to rugs to muffle her steps, stretching her short gait to match their haphazard patterns. She noticed a number of odds and ends befitting of her grandmother more so than a necromancer; things like doilies and little dried out gourds with sad little faces painted on them, a cracked tea cup here and there, some with tea leaves wet at the bottom. Still—Gwen had been spurned too many times to assume, perhaps the wizard was an elderly woman, or perhaps it was all a ruse. Cute or not, she had a job to do and a reputation to save.

Doing her best to ignore all the warning signs (or, lack thereof), Gwen pressed onwards, towards the spiraling stairwell. There were a few tomes laying about. She stooped to flip through one, noting that while the contents weren’t strictly of a necromantic nature, they were still damning nonetheless. Poison herbs and writing on anatomy, charts of stars and moon phases, a grimoire here and there and even one on exotic animals.

The stairs were lined with melted wax, an odd wick here and there sticking out like stray hairs on a bald man’s head. The tower, save the open door and natural sunlight pouring in from the top, was poorly lit and only so large; though there was no apparent latch door-- there may have been a basement along with the cellar; there was really nowhere else to go quietly but up. Even the archeres were boarded up with odd bits of rays poking through and spilling onto the bumpy walls and cracked wood; it made her ascent a bit difficult but Gwen was nothing in not cautious. She waited long enough for her eyes to adjust to the shadows before pressing onwards.

The next level was even more cramped than the first, and more of a resting area than an actual floor. Gwen froze just as her line of sight passed over a step and into the room—just around the curved corner of the tower’s central support pillar (a massive, cylindrical oak beam), there was a chair. Tartan fabric, frayed, with feather filling coming out about the seams and around the corners, but atop the chair sat…something. It was small, maybe the size of a medium hound, greenish skin and a shock of red hair and cloth curled around itself. She couldn’t quite understand the anatomy if it from the glimpse she got before concealing herself behind the beam, just that it was alive and likely asleep.

Gwen peaked back around just to confirm her suspicions. The beast was tiny and most definitely asleep. Oddly enough, it was also clothed in what appeared to be a little cloak, fit for a child. She could identify its head, its long and pointed nose, two bat like ears and two giant, but closed eyes. It breathed in a gentle rhythm, clawed paws and feet tucked by its side much the way the temple’s pet cat curled up on Gwen’s bed some nights. It resembled a sand imp, ghastly little creatures all wrinkles and teeth. She didn’t want to wake it up to find out if it had the very same fangs.

Next to the chair was a small rickety stool with a book atop, and on top of the book was a half-eaten apple, already yellowing. She looked as far as she could upwards. There was enough of a ceiling for her to guess the third floor was a bit more substantial. As quietly as she could, Gwen moved her foot upwards. She hesitated placing it down unto the next step; if the creature was anything like a sand imp, she did not wish to wake it. Even before she finished her step, she saw its ears twitch. Perhaps this was the warlock’s familiar, and perhaps she was lucky to have caught it sleeping on guard duty.

Rather than continuing upwards, Gwen considered her options. The thing was small. It would be a but a stain on her long sword. But, if it really was some sort of fucked up, green sand imp (perhaps it was rabid or jaundiced), then it was probably fast. Their claws were nasty and they were just intelligent enough to know exactly were to slide them between the seams of plate armor. It’s almost as if they were completely willing to die, just so long as they could make you bleed, even just a little. They had zero regard for their own safety, no sense of reasoning, and no hesitation. It would be like a setting off an alarm bell for sure; loud creatures they were. She hated them more than feral, rabid rats, and while she would surely be able to take one (yet alone a puny, runty, sleeping one), she would rather not.

Which brought her to the next option. The creature all but confirmed the identity of the tower’s primary inhabitant. What sort of old woman would live with a pet sand imp? And, by law, familiars and death magick were strictly prohibited and punishable by, well, death. Love or hate the elves, they had a moral code she could agree with.

Gwen didn’t like to play executioner often, but for her own sake, she was strongly considering the alternative to continuing forward to confront the villain-- which was to go back to town, rile up the locals, gather a shit ton of wood and hay and oil and slow burning lards, and light the sucker up.

Nodding resolutely to herself, Gwen slowly, ever so carefully turned to head back down the stairs. She was feeling pretty pleased with her decision making, a bit clever too (she had found the tower after all, and could report the deed back to her temple even if she wasn’t the one to personally kill the necromancer. The townspeople would think her a hero and she would be allowed back into the Order, surely), until the very same little, shitty kettle she had spotted earlier flew right past her head. Gwen didn’t even have a chance to duck. It clattered against the stone wall loudly, spewing scalding hot water and steam all about. Thankfully, her armor caught the brunt of it, though a few flecks nipped at the nape of her exposed neck and she felt a painful flush of wet air blossom against her cheek and eye. Without hesitating she lunged forward and tackled the offender. She didn’t have of a chance to get much of a glimpse besides a hunched cloak and some white hair.

Her shoulder made contact and the two hit the floor, Gwen’s plate and mail pealing against the stone like a muffled bell. She flipped herself over to throw him to the side so she could land face up. Whoever had attacked her fell by her side with a dull thud. She used the pause to grab at her sword and roll over so that it was against them in a warning. Gwen miscalculated this move, however, and instead of holding the sword to their throat, her adrenaline and weight forced her forward much more quickly than she had intended. The blade plunged into the figure’s middle like a paring knife into a mushy peach. She heard a weak ‘oof’, before she felt the give of steel against flesh. It took a moment for it to register that both of them had stopped moving.

She clambered away and regained her footing using the boiler to stand fully. The ‘necromancer’ was on the floor, staring at the ceiling with glassy, bloodshot eyes. It was an impossibly old man, clean shaven and white like porridge. He wore a fuzzy purple cloak and a blue, linen nightgown beneath. His middle was a burgeoning blossom of bright red, two sinewy legs poking out from beneath his sheer gown and thick robe, twitching in a way that reminded Gwen, once again, of the little black cat that slept at the foot of her bed back at the temple.

Remembering the sand imp, Gwen gasped and turned towards the stairs waiting for another attack. Instead, she saw the green thing poking its head around the corner, clutching the empty tea kettle to its chest and staring at Gwen with big, yellow eyes. Just like the temple cat, Pitch.

Neither she nor the creature moved. Instead it moved it’s eyes from Gwen to the dead old man and back a few times, before finally opening its mouth (to which Gwen could see that it indeed had sand imp teeth) and saying “Is ye the witch?”

The last thing Gwen expected to hear was a voice. Words, intelligible common! It even cocked its head, clearly surprised, clearly afraid, clearly upset but otherwise completely unmoving.

She didn’t answer. She was stooped, breathing heavy, and unsure how to even answer the question. So instead she stood up straight and opened her mouth, then closed it, then looked to the freshly dead man on the floor for an answer. Receiving none, she looked back to the imp and cocked her own head back it. “What?” was all she could muster, though the incredulity in her voice certainly carried other questions. The imp, a he based off the voice, which was scratchy and a bit high (yet so clearly NOT a child, she would have to hear it again to confirm how oddly inhuman yet…human it sounded) adjusted its stance in a way that suggested he was reminding himself of where he was.

“Ah. Er, Ah mean ye. He.” The imp pointed to the man with a shaky claw and let out a short, desperate kind of laugh, and then spoke so quickly that Gwen almost didn’t catch it, “Vern aye says the witch he mairriet fair go cum ben back fur his heid een day, sae, is ye her? The witch?” He retracted his hand and used it to clutch the kettle even tighter to his chest. “Ye're gonnae kill me neist? Gonnae get me head too!?”

Gwen didn’t get the chance to answer or even ask for clarification; the imp seemed to realize his own words and swallowed them faster than he had said them, and without any warning, he chucked the kettle, as hard as his little twiggy arms could, directly at Gwen.

This time she didn’t have the chance to duck.

Gwen saw stars. The kettle was cast iron, and the imp was stronger than she gave it credit for. It connected with her forehead and sent her sprawling back against the tower’s wall with another clang. Gwen threw her hands to her face, cursing loudly and sliding senselessly against the wall and floor as she tried and failed to gain purchase. The wet rugs bunched at her sabatons and the tea kettle kept getting caught underfoot and rolling her backwards. She heard, rather than saw, all four of his clawed feet scuttling up the stairs like a frightened dog beneath the sounds of her own struggle. With a scream, Gwen kicked the rugs free of her feet and the kettle clean across the room, shoving herself upright. The paladin screwed her eyes shut and threw her sword down.

“Come back down here!” she screamed, stepping over ‘Vern’s’ body so she could reach the stairs. She wasn’t expecting an answer. “I won’t hurt you!” Gwen added in a much quieter voice. That was partially true, she wanted to ask the thing questions, and generally liked to refrain from violence if it could be helped. Unfortunately for Gwendoline, it could rarely be helped, and her entire face was smarting. She waited a beat for a response and then began trudging up the stairs, ignoring the dull throb emanating from the impact zone throughout her entire head.

The chair she had seen earlier was empty, and she continued upwards to the third level, all the while speaking in as calm but loud a voice she could manage through grit teeth; “I need to know more about Vern, he may have been a very bad man! Let me ask you some questions, please, and I won’t take anyone’s head!”

The third floor was a bit less boring than the first two. The walls were covered by a bookcase, the wooden panels following the curve of the stone walls behind them. Each shelf was full of knick knacks and dust. Jagged chunks of crystal and spindly plant stems with fuzzy leaves, bird and fish and rat bones, metal instruments and trinkets and tubes set up in between all of the books. The shelves broke in the center of the room, an arched little cove cut into them where an oil lamp hung unlit. Beneath was a small table with various, incriminating things on it, like mortars and pestles and scales, all kinds of little glass vials and broken bottles, quills in dried inkwells. Enough to convince any layman of Vern’s profession, surely.

There was a latch door on the ceiling, but the rope ladder attached to it hadn’t been completely unfurled; instead it hung limply so that the rope was in a loose coil, stuck against the nail lock. The thing was still in the room.

Next to the stair entrance on Gwen’s right was a sad little bedroll, not even a cot, with bits of hay sticking out bellow the fur blanket on top of it. The blanket had a lump beneath it, and the lump seemed to have a long, pointed nose attached.

Even assuming it was out of tea kettles, Gwen didn’t want to alarm it. Instead of addressing the lump, she simply spoke with a steady, but softer voice, to the room at large.

“I am sorry if he was your friend, imp. I. I did not intend to…end his life. Honestly. He caught me by surprise. I am a paladin from the Order of Fragan’s Templar, to the north of Backwater. I was tasked to…investigate reports of a necromancer terrorizing the woods surrounding Backwater and the road to Capitol. I truly mean you no harm, so long as you intend none in return.”

The lump stirred, poking a claw out so that the fur could be pulled back to reveal a narrowed, yellow eye. This time, his voice was more level, accusatory even, than afraid.

“Seems like a gayand quick in-inspectigation.”

“Investigation. I was attacked.” Gwen bit back.

“Ah didnae hear ye cum ben in. Didnae hear anyain let ye in.”

“You were asleep. The door was open; I didn’t hear anyone behind me!” Gwen pinched the bridge of her nose, “I entered just to talk, but since it was dark I was on alert. I was told this man was very dangerous. I saw you and. Well, I became frightened!” She paced forward and stood before the bedroll, using a foot to kick the fur clean away from the imp. He remained bent over, looking up at her. “So, you are Vern’s…familiar? He was a practitioner of some sort, I see.” Gwen gestured to the room around her.

The imp sat up onto its knees, still staring up all small and pathetic.

“A wis his slae.” He said, simply. He seemed to chew the rest of her words over but remained silent otherwise.

“Slae-slave? Was he practicing the dark path?” She asked after a moment. The imp shot her a questioning look. “Necromancy! A wicked pact with some malignant force?” Gwen pressed.

“Uh, he. Ye mean, the witch? Fit path? The wids?”

“Did he raise the dead? Was your master some sort of evil wizard, or otherwise unlawful caster? Did he rob graves, steal towns children and sacrifice animals, consort with the spirits and the like? And please, annunciate this time.”

The imp seemed to understand this and nodded slowly, placing a claw to his lower lip.

“Nay, Ah dinnae think sae.” He adjusted himself to stand and crossed his arms over his chest as if he were self-conscious in regards to what he was about to say, “He mostly wrote mince doon in, uh, in books fur fowk fa couldnae reid. They’d pey him tae scrieve a lot, or make tae make queer balms an sic, stuff thon smellit odd or brunt bricht in jars, an sometimes he e’en conjured portals!” He relaxed a bit as he explained, seemingly distracted with his own tale, moving his hands about, “Or skin a coney--”

“A coney?” She had to pause this time around, though she initially noticed he talked a bit oddly, she hadn’t heard him say enough to catch the accent. Even still, it wasn’t familiar. Mostly understandable, when he talked slow. Perhaps similar to the Northerly elves at most, but very off.

“Jumpy fur craiter, wit the lang lugs an sic.” Fizzle mimicked whatever a coney was by grabbing at his large ears and making an unidentifiable face.

Gwen just shrugged, signaling the imp to continue.

“Deer too, but then he fair hae me skin it an take aw the coin an fur an then!? Guess on whit he dae. He’d gae an send it off tae the witch! He aye talkit aboot her! The witch! The witch I thoucht ye wis. But yer’re no? Yer’re no gyan…tae kill me, richt?” He finished, seeming to remember he wasn’t alone and looked up at Gwen like he’d just spilt milk.

Gwen found herself leaning in, even squinting as she tried to decipher just what the little creature was saying. She caught the gist of it all, up until this point, but he spoke so fast, and all of his words had a way of melting into each other, stumbling and lilting at the oddest moments. She almost wasn’t sure if it was common tongue.

She put her hand to her mouth and rubbed her upper lip. So. The man hadn’t been a necromancer. She eyed the imp a bit as it spoke. It could be lying, or perhaps not know the difference between a portal mage and a necromancer. She let his question linger in the air for a moment before regarding the creature with a sigh. Gwen at least understood that he did not want to die.

“No imp. I will spare your life.” She said, with a bit more monotony than she had intended. Had she not been so distracted with the current predicament, she might’ve found the way he perked up endearing, in a pitiful way. Like a pig spared the slaughter. But, instead, Gwen sunk to floor next to the imp (even when seated, it barely met her eye line) and pressed both hands over her mouth once more, staring straight ahead. “Vern. Vern was his name, you said?” The imp nodded. “Vern…did he have family? Friends, the like?” she asked from beneath her gauntlets.

“No…I dunno aboot the witch, bit, aside frae me an a puckle fowk, nae a body comes bi affen.”

“Fowk? Do you mean folk? The people. Like, towns people, from Backwater? Do they come often asking for things like portals and potions?”

The imp thought for a moment, his red irises rolling up to the side to regard a stray cobweb floating down in a beam of sunlight.

“Na, no anymore. Ah actually cannae remember fin we haed ane. Mebbe aroon lest hairst.”

“Huh?”

“Hairst! Neeps n pumpkins, ye ken?”

“Pumpkins.” She was losing patience. Luckily, Gwen dealt with her fair share of Northerners while posted at the wall, though the conversations were often limited to work related issues. “H-harvest? You mean the autumn, when the leaves fall?” Fizzle nodded excitedly. And in turn, Gwen nodded solemnly, then stood to pace in front of the imp. His head trailed after her movements. “Okay. Yes. We are getting somewhere, despite the clear barrier of tongues. And you, what is your name?”

“Fizzle.”

“Fizzle. Good. Yes. Were you, fond? Of Vern?”

Fizzle simply shook his head, a definite ‘NO’.

“He enslaved you, you said? Made you do things against your will and skin rabbits for no pay?”

“He foond me innae tree stump ane day an pit me innae sack! Ah was hidin an he still foond me. Ah dunno how! Ilky time Ah triit tae scowp awa faet, he wad aye track me doon an 'en dunk me intae the river till Ah cooldn’t stain it na mair!” Fizzle crossed his arms and huffed, looking away for a moment to consider his words before looking back up to the woman. “Aye, he did bad magick. But nae daith magicks.”

Gwen leaned forward excitedly, latching onto one of Fizzle’s words. “Okay, okay, so…would you perhaps say that he was a bad man? A mean man?” she asked, eyeing one of the many decorative squashes peppering the tower. It stared back at her.

“He wis mean an he lovit tae zap fin ah let kettle fussle afore fly cup. Een time he gart me boo like a bench, ower on ma hands an knees an he dane putten his feet on ma back, aw kis ah accidentally brunt his favourite stool!”

Gwen nodded eagerly as she walked around the room, and continued shaking her head to herself well after Fizzle had finished speaking. There was ample evidence supporting Vern’s ‘treachery’. From his choice in literature to the indentured servitude of a sick sand imp! Gwen was smiling to herself as she considered this: he probably enchanted the poor beast to make it sentient (and green)! She was sure the Order would not be pleased about that in the least. Truly a vile, vile man!

“Okay! Great.” She clapped her gloved hands together with a metallic smack, startling Fizzle; “Well, there we have it, my little friend! I came to investigate Vern. I followed the tips of the towns people, and two unscrupulous bandits who tried to accost me on the road here! They told me of his ways, how he had devils shooting fire from their hands. I entered his tower in search of him, just to talk! To confront him, and yet the coward attacked me without warning.” She paused her theatrics to turn and look at Fizzle, eliciting a nod from him which made her assume he was following along and compliant. “So I defended myself! And rightfully so, as I come to find, he’s put some sort of evil enchantment on you, to make you walk upright and wear clothes and speak as if you’re a regular halfling! What other forest critters he must have tortured!” Fizzle raised a brow ridge at this, but Gwen continued on, “The townsfolk will be happy to be rid of that man, of this I am certain.”

“Fit div ye mean, enhancement? On me?” he looked himself over, but saw nothing awry.

Gwen bit her lip. Was it cruel to tell a donkey it’s true nature? Certainly not if it, as donkeys ordinarily cannot understand you. But a talking donkey? Who ever heard of such a thing. Informing poor Fizzle as to what he was seemed akin to kicking a puppy begging for scraps. Needless cruelty (and Gwen had her fill of that for the day). But the imp just looked up to her, and despite her best efforts, she found herself relenting. She figured he deserved to know, and besides, she liked animals quite a lot.

“Well, you are but an imp, are you not? Never in my days have I encountered a walking, talking imp. Let alone a green one! And so far north.”

Fizzle was shaking his head before Gwen was even finished, “Am fae wye wye up north, past the waa.” Fizzle considered this for a second as he noted Gwen’s confusion, “The big, lang rock. Miekle rocks n sic! Man made.”

“The wall?”

“Aye! The waa. Vern wis buying dwarven wares n fit not, fin he fand me up near the mountains. Aire’s a lot o’ ma kin up aire. The caves an moors are ours. Belong tae us.”

“The north? The Great North, with dwarves?! I’ve never heard of sand imps living anywhere but south! In the salt flats and around the shores with those wild folk.” Now Gwen was shaking her head. “That would explain the accent, however.”

“Nae wi Dwarves, no, jis near tham. We hate dwarves an they hate us, an ah div nae ken fit the fuck an imp is, bit am a goblin, lady. A’ve nivver been faarer sooth nor here.”

“Repeat that last bit, where you just cursed at me.” Gwen asked, impassively. She was staring past the little thing, gears turning in her head trying to work out what he was saying.

“Err, Dwarves, richt? Sae, they hate me, an I hate ‘em. Dunno if they name us ‘imp’, bit Aim tellin ye, Aim a goblin.”

Gwen shook her head dismissively—semantics didn’t matter, and she was certain that whatever a ‘goblin’ called itself didn’t change the fact that it was an imp. She knew there were multiple tribes of elves who looked different enough from one another, and humans and halflings and dwarves had the tendency to range from an alabaster white to deep, rich browns and near blacks depending where they lived. Maybe sand imps weren’t just confined to the sands! Maybe they could be green?

“No matter, Fizzle, let’s just keep this between you and I. Those I answer too are not particularly fond of Northerners, and will have a much easier time understanding sand imps.” She filed away his strange account for later consideration; more important was the matter of staging the scene. Fizzle shrugged and continued to look up to her expectantly. It dawned on her that she wasn’t quite sure what to do with him. If the town’s excuse for law enforcement came to access the scene, they would surely want to get rid of the little guy. Gwen sort of pitied him. He had been helpful despite the kettle incident, and she didn’t exactly want to send him from his recent slavery straight to death. “But we will worry about that when the time comes. For now, I need your help.”

Gwen was not proud of this talent, no, but she recognized it as a valuable one nonetheless.

Over years of training under Thalodin Lldewig, she had learned many ways to…suggest things. Through dress, body language, gesture, facial expression, choosing words, and perhaps most importantly, through setting up bodies of evidence (as well as literal, dead bodies) to insinuate. Certain things. Many things. In fact, according to Thalodin, you could say just about anything, without actually ever saying a word. Things that may benefit him, and keep any officials outside (or sometimes, even inside) the Order from asking too many unnecessary questions.

Gwen didn’t like to think of this as lying. She detested lying. Every time she muttered even a white lie, she could feel the eyes of her patron saint burning a hole through her, even from a young age before she ever committed herself to the Order. But again, her mentor had the unfortunate habit of stretching the truth to such a degree that he was ‘forced’ to stage the occasional ‘crime scene’ in a way that may have ‘flattered’ him more than it should have.

It was something that took Gwen quite a while to come to terms with, but eventually, it rubbed off on her. She didn’t like to steal, to cheat or lie or kill, yet situations like Vern’s had been requiring her to do just that as of late.

She thought about her recent expulsion. The shame made her stomach sink and cheeks burn bright. But then the anger set in. Gwendoline was far from perfect and she was so keenly aware of this. It didn’t bother her, if anything it was a reminder and motivation to continue striving for grace; to earn redemption and pass it along to others who needed it more. There was nothing she hated more than injustice and while she knew it was not her place to enact revenge, seeing such wild imbalances in power such as the Elven nobility or even among her own temple’s magistrate made her blood boil.

So she killed an elderly man? It was an accident, and it was done. If she was smart, it could benefit her, and even Fizzle (though admittedly, she was far less concerned about that if she were being honest.) It would quell the minds of the townspeople and perhaps scare off whatever else was lurking in the wood.

She considered these things as she dragged Vern out of the tower. Fizzle helped Gwen to locate a wax dipped tarp Vern kept in the cellar. Together, they slid the tarp beneath his body and Gwen had opted to do the heavy lifting while Fizzle focused on cleaning. Once the blood was sufficiently cleaned and the floors decent, he was to collect all of the tea cups and gourds and doilies in the tower and put them in a sack. By then, Gwen would have staged Vern’s body; dressing him up in more practical battle attire and scoring the earth around their supposed fight stage.

#LONG #r

8 notes · View notes

ofravensandgenesis · 5 years ago

Note

A, J, N for Declan? 😊

Under the cut because it got long. xD

A: Aptitude1. what are your oc’s natural abilities, things they’ve been doing since young? Martial arts and cross country hiking. His primary art style is Chen style Tai Chi Chuan, but he’s had some time under teachers of other arts, namely some Bagua and a little Hung Gar/Hung Ga. He’s not a master in any of the arts, but he does enjoy practicing them and the weapon sets. Fire arms practice folded in very nicely with this once he decided to become a LEO. He enjoys being outdoors and just fucking exploring anywhere he can find a way to get to. Tries to be responsible and not hare off without a plan, but sometimes you just gotta go run wild in nature. (Side note: his martial art abilities are based off of stories from family and friends, not personal experiences) 2. what activities have they participated in? See above. He likes doing crafts/DIY stuff and some gardening too. Standing meditation too, with some Qigong bits here and there. Tends to be a busy guy.3. what abilities do they have that they’ve worked for? See number one. He’s good at what he does re: his martial art practice, but not like, superstar on the Beijing Wushu team levels at all. That’s a whole ‘nother level of devotion. He’s got years of daily practice in there, it’d be kind of shocking if he wasn’t good at it to some degree. xD He’s done some local martial art competitions when he was younger and won a few, but never went beyond state level competitions.4. what things are they bad at? Driving. In the sense that he drives like a grandma. Does not like motorcycles, ATVs, etc. Does not enjoy boats or planes either, particularly if he’s the pilot. Airplanes piloted by someone who knows what they’re doing he can tolerate.5. what is their most impressive talent?I mean, if he’s going to be showing off, it’s likely competition martial art sets, specifically unarmed sets, or if we’re talking weapons he likes the saber, straight sword, and spear sets best. If we’re talking domestic, he knows how to make potstickers and soup dumplings. This sounds deceptively simple until you get to trying to make the pleats look pretty.———————————————————J: Joy1. what makes them happy? Living his life, honestly. 2. who makes them happy? Family and friends. This is writer talk for “I haven’t fleshed out the other NPCs in his verse yet.” xDD He likes being around them though and just chilling, be it at a family gathering or whathaveyou.3. are there any songs that bring them joy? Yeah, he’s a fan of instrumental music and acoustic covers. Will listen generally to anything melodic though.4. are they happy often? Honestly yes…though in “current” time for him he’s dealing with “what the fuck is going on with my understanding of how the universe works,” but even still, he’s managing. Honestly is just generally a cheery guy. A real lil quiet ball of sunshine.5. what brings them the most joy in the world?See one. This boy just wants to live a good life and do good things and meet good people, man.———————————————————N: Never Have I Ever1. what would they never do? He has a pretty straight forward moral event horizon of things he won’t ever do, and that would be inhumane acts of cruelty, directed at either people, animals, the environment or otherwise. There are other things he won’t do of a lesser sort primarily having to do with upholding his civic duty, filial piety, etc. He’s the most upright moral of my Deputies honestly. x’D2. what have they never done that they want to do? He wanted to fall in love and have a nice home with someone who could come back home to him, and that he could come back home to as well. Still does, just, kind of busy with sanity-questioning supernatural issues. And the end of the world. xD3. is there anything they absolutely can’t believe people do? [gestures to number one yet again,] He understands that people do terrible things, but like…it never ceases to shock him internally what some people are willing to do. Especially if they know better. The Reaping certainly was a bad time for him and his optimistic belief in the inherent goodness of humanity based on actions taken by both sides, but Eden’s Gate in particular.4. what is the most embarrassing thing they’ve done? He was a naughty little gremlin at school once. This was back in elementary. There was a girl who made fun of his lunch and he told her that he had a cursed monkey’s paw and that snapping off the four remaining “fingers” would bestow different curses on her. It was a pickled chicken’s foot, not a monkey’s paw. (He read a variation of this story in a comic book a week before. He quite enjoys visiting the library.)Namely that her hair would fall out, her skin would take on a greenish-white tinge from growing fungus underneath it, her fingers and face would become all contorted, and that she’d get cramps in her legs that were so bad she’d have to hop to get anywhere.She didn’t entirely believe him, but guess what this little gremlin did? He went and got another boy and girl to help him out on this (the teasing girl was not well-liked in some circles.) They actually tried as much as some elementary schoolers could to fake her out, and managed to pull off the first two “curses” with taking advantage of some discreet use of thinning-scissors and a poorly dyed green shirt. This was not done in a way that any adult would believe, I would like to point out. xD The bully girl ran off screaming for fear of the later curses to the principle’s office, and then Declan had to explain to his parents what he’d gone and done.It was mortifying to have to explain all that to his mom and dad, honestly. He’d gotten really into it, he and his friends had been considering if tying the girl’s shoelaces together would work for one of the next curses. Maybe glue on her hands? There was a debate between liquid glue and glue sticks that remains un-concluded to this day. He had not really thought about the consequences of when it all came to light. He got more chores for a month for that. xDD The girl stopped teasing him and the others though since her mom told her to not talk to the lot of them ever again, so there’s that.He’s a morally upright sort but he’s not above pranks, even still.5. have they done anything they thought they’d never do?He didn’t think he’d ever kill so many people. Speaking of the Reaping and in-game events. Some of them were so young. Younger than him. Working as a LEO, he knew that death was very possible and likely to happen and he was as prepared for it as he felt he could be…just not like this. Not so many.

#amistrio #thank you for the ask!! :D ♥#Deputy Declan Rook #ask game

4 notes · View notes

okietokiee · 6 years ago

Text

Fic: Hjönk, Hjönk

Pairing: Skwisgaar Skwigelf/Toki Wartooth

Rating: M

I was really inspired by @picklespunchedme @bittebecca @sonderrbeee ‘s various fan art of clown!Skwisgaar 😳 thanks so much for letting me write a fic based on your gorgeous art!! 💕

Summary:

Skwisgaar makes some especially harsh remarks which cause Toki to start avoiding him, and the lack of contact is really starting to make the Swede’s sex drive go absolutely haywire.

Fortunately, Skwisgaar comes up with a genius (albeit horrifyingly embarrassing) plan to make it up to his hot-tempered boyfriend lover.

And Toki positively loves it. Perhaps a little too much.

——————

Skwisgaar knew he had fucked up.

After countless years of brutally harsh, biting criticisms and demeaning insults, Toki had finally had it. Normally he was able to take Skwisgaar’s comments, admittedly not always in a stride, but with minimal bloodshed (most of the time). And he wasn’t even completely sure what was different about today, about the disparaging remarks he’d grown used to throwing out daily.

Maybe it was the stress of having to record a whole knew album from scratch? The stress of the rising tensions becoming so goddamn obvious lately? He knows he’s not the smartest person around, but you’d have to be blind to not see the cracks forming in their band’s already fragile dynamics. He knows it’s not just affecting Nathan and Pickles.

But whatever the underlying causes were, all it took was an offhand, “That’s was fuckins dildos, dos it agains idiots,” during a slow-moving rehearsal to get Toki raging like a spoiled five-year-old kid told that no, he could not have candy for dinner.

After screeching and using his flying-V to destroy a fair amount of their studio and sound equipment, Toki had tired himself out and retired to his bedroom.

He’d also taken to avoiding him for the past week. And maybe the Skwisgaar from a few years ago wouldn’t have (outwardly) cared so much, but ever since they’d shared an earth-shattering, momentous night together just months before, they’d both been inhabiting the same bed for a majority of nights.

And, though Skwisgaar would rather die a painful death by firing squad than admit it to anyone, Toki had been the only person he’d been sleeping with ever since that night. He loathed to label it as anything serious, but that didn’t change the fact that he was painfully reluctant to break this surprising streak of faithfulness, his longest one yet.

However, regardless of how much he didn’t want to sleep with anyone that wasn’t a dopey Norwegian guitar player with a penchant for tantrums and hissy fits, that didn’t change the fact that his sex drive was going fucking haywire.

Storming into the Mordhaus living room, he irritably asked, “Has anyones seens our dildos rhythm guitarist?”

“Eh, I think he went out drinkin’ with thet clown again,” a stoned out Pickles mumbled from the couch.

“Whats!? I thoughts we puts a restrainings orders on dat creep!”

Nathan sighed from a nearby desk, putting down his book. “Yeah, we did. But you know that kid. He just loves those fucking clowns.”

That unfortunate string of words made an idea pop up in Skwisgaar’s head.

“…coulds you repeats dat?”

“I said he loves those goddamn clowns.”

“Nos, de odder words!”

Nathan glared, confused. “Those fucking clowns?”

Skwisgaar grinned manically. “Ja! Dat weirdos loves fucking clowns!”

Pickles could be heard potentially dying of laughter a few feet away.

Nathan narrowed his eyes, a disgusted grimace on his mouth. “I know you suck at English Skwisgaar, but ugh. That’s some brutal imagery.”

Skwisgaar, ever the trooper, did not let the revolting thoughts affect him, as his plan was coming to fruition in his mind. Yes, Toki was annoyingly fond of childish gimmicks, clowns included. Toki could never even stay mad at Dr. Rockso, an old drugged-up, strung-out rock-and-roll clown, no matter what shit that creepy asshole put him through.

Yes, he knew what he had to do. He didn’t like it one bit, and it could potentially ruin his reputation completely if word ever got out that he even considered this.

But…

Skwisgaar bit his lip, his thoughts suddenly full of brown whiskers and childish giggles.

It would be worth it.

——————

Hours later, Skwisgaar was regretting every single choice he’d ever made in life that had led up to this point. He felt like a fool and looked like one too.

His only solace was that the random klokateer he’d ordered to find him this costume was no longer capable of ever blabbing his secret to anyone, at least in any way that involved a functional mouth. Or hands.

And now he found himself pacing around Toki’s small room, waiting for the little dildo to get back home. The sound of his baggy blue and yellow pants swishing and the stomping of his large red shoes did nothing to alleviate his growing anxiety.

Skwisgaar scratched at his neck, careful not to smudge any of the meticulously applied clown make-up he’d taken an hour to perfect. He was vaguely grateful that his experience with corpse paint made this endeavor slightly easier, but also horrified at exactly how naturally circus make-up came to him.

As he was pondering his deteriorating mental state, he heard the door creak open and a surprised, ear-shattering, absolutely delighted squeal.

Toki crashed face-first into his chest, holding tighter than a newborn koala to its mother.

“Oh Odin! Yous a real cool clowns Skwisgaar!” Toki gleefully said, nuzzling the red ruffles around his neck.

Skwisgaar was glad his red cheeks were camouflaged by the blindingly white paint.

“Eugh… Ja, I guess I ams,” the Swede nonchalantly agreed, not meeting his lover’s eyes.

Toki paused from his snuggling, and gazed adoringly up at Skwisgaar’s embarrassed face.

“Skwisgaar… Dids you do dis because you know Tokis been mads at yous?”

Skwisgaar coughed awkwardly and avoided his gaze. “Maybes if a dumb dildos hadn’t beens avoidins me for sos long, it woulds not haves come to dis…”

Toki smirked. “Yous just proving Toki needs to do dat more often.”

“Fucks you-!”

“Okej,” Toki cut him off with a contented sigh, cuddling into Skwisgaar’s colorful, silky costume even more.

This was the closest they’d been in a week, and Skwisgaar’s body was responding rather excitedly to their close proximity.

Toki giggled, feeling the growing hardness coming from Skwisgaar’s loose trousers, and he pulled the Swede over to the bed and pushed him down, crawling right on top of him and going in for a deep, fervent kiss. With the right angle, Toki was able to avoid dislodging the bright red clown nose on his lover’s face.

With a few well-practiced maneuvers Skwisgaar was able to bring Toki down to only his underwear, but when he made movements to remove his own ridiculous clothes he was stopped by a firm hold.

“Nos, keeps it on.” Toki’s flushed, erotic expression was very convincing.

“Ja, fines…” Skwisgaar groaned, canting his hips up, desperate for any kind of friction.

Toki smiled, reaching for the lube that has been ever-present at his bedside table for the past few months. He took a moment to take in Skwisgaar’s smudged clown make-up and gorgeous, smoldering expression. The juxtaposition was disorienting.

“Skwisgaar…?”

“Ja Tokis?”

“Do yous maybe… I knows we havent’s dones it likes dis yet, but,” Toki mumbled, his face red and expression coquettish, “I think I wants to tries to take it.”

Skwisgaar was at a loss for words, his mind (and body) already overheating. So far Toki had been the only one topping, citing his lack of experience with men and dislike of being dominated as his main reasons for wanting to avoid switching positions. And Skwisgaar hardly cared, always being very satisfied by Toki’s eager enthusiasm.

But the thought of finally being able to become so wholly one with Toki had Skwisgaar’s head spinning and heart racing.

“Of course älskling, as long as yous ready,” Skwisgaar said, rubbing circles on Toki’s naked hips.

Toki’s eager nodding was answer enough and then he wiggled out of his underwear.

Skwisgaar leaned forward to get a hold of the lube, but Toki pushed him back down.

“Yous just watch for nows,” Toki murmured with a sweet smile, opening the lube to prepare himself.

Skwisgaar couldn’t handle watching a mewling, trembling Toki Wartooth preparing himself for long without feeling like he was going to literally explode into a cloud of confetti. The Swede pushed his own baggy pants down, not fully taking it off but exposing his painfully erect manhood. He moaned, giving himself a few strokes as he continued watching his lover teasing him.

Finally, after what felt like eternity, Toki stopped and got another generous dollop of lube for Skwisgaar Jr. before lining himself up on the Swede’s lap.

Skwisgaar watched enraptured as Toki slowly lowered himself down with a seductive whine and several sensuous movements of his hips.

“Ah, fuckins hell Toki,” Skwisgaar cried, thrusting up desperately.

Toki reciprocated in kind with more moans and wet, raunchy kisses, ruining a good portion of Skwisgaar’s make-up.

As it was getting especially intense, their movements both in sync and frantic, Toki leaned down and did something incredibly peculiar and, honestly, kind of hot, at least to Skwisgaar’s current fucked-out-of-his-mind state.

“Hjönk, hjönk,” Toki murmured with a smile as he squeezed the large, squeaky clown nose on Skwisgaar’s face with something akin to reverence. All without once pausing his fast, unmerciful pace.

Skwisgaar was too goddamn horny and in love to question this, and he just responded by increasing his thrusts as well as his volume.

“Ah, for the loves of Odins, Toki I’ms gonna-” he punctuated with a shout, feeling Toki tighten around him.

After a long moment of blissful euphoria for both of them, Toki collapsed on top of him, breathing heavily and sneaking a few affectionate kisses along his neck.

“So ams guessings you not mads anymore?” Skwisgaar snickered, running his fingers through Toki’s now tangled, sexily-ruffled hair.

Toki giggled and playfully gave Skwisgaar’s big red nose, which surprisingly hadn’t fallen off at all during their vigorous lovemaking, a few more squeezes, filling the small room with obnoxiously loud honking noises.

“Nah, buts if you does something like dis every time I gets mad at yous then I gonnas make sure to be angry evens more oftens.” Toki chuckled, snuggling up to Skwisgaar’s now cum and sweat stained clown costume.

Skwisgaar sighed, equal parts hopelessly exasperated and desperately fond.

“Wells enjoys it while yous cans you dildo, dis ams not likelys to ever, ever happens again,” Skwisgaar said firmly.

Toki grinned mischievously and lifted himself up.

“I thinks Toki cans change yous mind abouts dat,” he declared proudly, slipping out of bed to walk over to his nearby work desk. He leaned over it enticingly, ass up, giving Skwisgaar the most pornographic come-hither look the Swede had ever seen.

“Comes over heres and let’s me convince yous,” Toki murmured suggestively, giving his cute butt a little shake.

And that night was the first of many that the halls of Mordhaus were filled with the echos of passionate Scandinavian honking and lovemaking.

——————

I don’t think Hjönk actually translates to anything but god I love that word LOL

Also, sorry for any weird mistakes I didn’t catch! I’ll edit it and maybe add some extra stuff soon and then post it on ao3 :D

#about to board a 13hr flight and im glad i was able to post this first LOL #also im only a lil bit ashamed to admit that ya i totally get the clownkink toki probs has :')#metalocalypse #dethklok #mtl #skwistok #skwisgaar skwigelf #toki wartooth #my fanfic #fanfiction #lemon #clowns

43 notes · View notes

en241 · 5 years ago

Text

Friday, 27 March

WEEK 8: COURSE REBOOT & REVIEW: Treasure Island & the Maturation-Identity Problem

In this post I’m covering Realism, and Treasure Island as a Growing Up story focused on conflict, choices, consequences, and survival.

Together, this week’s three posts are a review of everything we did in the first half of the term. Instead of doing it by discussion and discovery (my preference, always) I’ve been doing it by a systematic explanation (which is fine, just as good, I guess). Next week we’ll move on to The Secret Garden.

I hope you don’t find all of this too dull. Writing it up as a systematic explanation is a lot of work.

Now then, let’s set sail . . .

1. Realism

For purposes of this class, I’m dividing things into three basic types of narratives: Nonsense, Realism, and Fantasy. (Fantasy is a hybrid of Nonsense & Realism).

Treasure Island is a work of Realism. (Long John’s parrot talks because it has learned to talk, because parrots can learn to talk -- not because it’s a magical talking bird, or a human character that happens to look like a parrot

As I am using the term, Realism doesn’t mean factual or non-fictional; it means a story-world that largely seems to behave more-or-less the way we ourselves experience the world. If inexplicable things happen, there’s a reason behind them that we can figure out, provided we get the necessary information.

For this reason, Realism makes it easier to analyze a story and its meaning. It’s still a lot of work, because life is so complicated; but that’s a challenge we tend to enjoy and/or find reassuring.

2. The Realistic Growing-Up Story

A Realistic Growing-Up Story has a stable setting that acts as a foundation for the actions of its characters.

These characters are “round,” not “flat” -- or, more precisely, they are “dynamic” instead of “static.” This means that we actually perceive the process of growing-up in much greater detail and complexity than we do in Nonsense.

The plot of a Realistic Growing-Up Story is more complex and typically involves conflicts -- both external and internal. These conflicts tend to revolve around choices, especially ethical choices, not just arguments and swordfights. Nonsense stories, on the other hand, are usually episodic; no one event is more important than another; no one event actually needs to precede another.

3. The Realistic Maturation Plot: Choices, Consequences, Conflict, Problem-Solving

The choices made by characters in a Realistic Growing-Up Story determine whether they gain more knowledge, status, power, freedom, and so on. If they do, they become more mature; if they do, they survive. (If they don’t they remain in stasis, or they regress, or they die) .

The choices made by characters in a Realistic Growing-Up Story are not single, and not simple; characters are typically required to make lots of decisions, different types of decisions, and difficult decisions.

These choices all have consequences -- both harmful and beneficial.

Making choices means deciding which consequences we prefer -- but our preferences may be at odds with those of other people. Thus, in a world full of choices we inevitably have conflict

The Realistic Growing-Up story is usually a series of choices, each with its own causes and consequences, often centered around conflicts with others whose choices are different; a successful outcome is one in which we learn from our choices and make better ones -- ensuring that we survive.

4. Treasure Island as a Realistic Growing-Up Story

This is obviously a book about survival; it’s not just realistic -- it’s full of death.

Choices in this book center around questions of desire: wanting, gain. Success is getting and having and keeping.

Choices are also about who you align with.

Conflict between two principles: (1) get what you desire, get it now, get it often, get it any way you can, and don’t let anyone else get it; (2) what you desire is to see others get what they desire, because they will see that you get what you desire -- you may have to wait for what you want or even go without while others get, but it’s ok if you trust the others

principle 1 = a continual state of conflict: you vs all others; temporary alliances

principle 2 = a state of community; you, but you with other people; permanent alignments

you know, basic playground stuff

5. Treasure Island: Break it Down

I’m leaving out all the details because there just isn’t time; I’m just doing the issues. But if you think about the book, you’ll see how all this applies.

following principle 1 = immaturity and following principle 2 = maturity (duh)

principle 1 = pirates; principle 2 = professionals (duh)

but hey, it’s hard; we’re all a little bit pirate, aren’t we? who doesn’t want pickles and wine?

and principle 1 is short-term powerful AF

but the principle 2 people gots cheese (and when you come down to it, cheese is everything, amirite?)

what happens when we’re stuck on a rock with a bunch of people following principle 1 and another bunch of people following principle 2?

what skills and knowledge do we need in order to make the right choices again and again and again?

Can you follow principle 1 some of the time and principle 2 some of the time, so you can have cheese, pickles, wine, and live long enough to enjoy them?

Is it possible to steal, sneak off, lie, and even freaking kill someone and still be following principle 2?

Is it possible to be helpful, faithful, and trustworthy when you’re following principle 1?

And can you figure out who to trust and who not to trust; who to help and who not to help?

6. Double Perspective

In Alice we had a 3rd person narrator -- Lewis Carroll -- who told us everything about Alice but wasn’t Alice.

Jim is a 1st person narrator -- we’re in his head and we know what he’s experiencing first hand, because he’s the one telling us

Or do we? Because the story is being written by a Jim from the future of the story who is (obviously) older and wiser

Old Jim has (obviously) survived, so that’s good.

But can we trust Old Jim? Can Old Jim really remember being himself as a child?

Really, he doesn’t seem to like Young Jim very much.

But if Young Jim wasn’t young, he wouldn’t have done all those impulsive things that clearly saved the day, over and over again! Does Old Jim not realize that?

Again, this is the identity problem caused by aging: once we are older we can’t truly know the young self; when we are young, we can’t know our older self.

The only place they can co-exist, at least symbolically, is in a story like this. Wonderland is where the two aspects of ourselves can encounter one another, even if they can never be together

7. Didactic or Subversive?

Does the child reader want to read what the adult narrator is writing? Why would anyone want to? Old Jim is only writing the story because other people asked him to (principle 1) and would really rather be sorting money into piles.

Can the book have a double meaning? Excitement and enjoyment and lessons.

Can the book be didactic AND subversive at the same time?

Why does Long John Silver get away?

And come to think of it, why is Long John Silver famous and Jim Hawkins isn’t?

Jim = Alice, gone into have tea?

Squire, Dr = Alice’s sister?

LJS = Cheshire Cat?

Sooooo many questions, yes? But that’s what it’s all about. Questions. Sorry, not sorry. Survival = making choices based on information and knowledge gained from asking good questions. On behalf of the community. (And ourselves.)

now, how about a nice cup of tea? Or maybe, seeing as it’s Friday, something a bit stronger?

1 note · View note

xanthicantag · 5 years ago

Note

alright bro im gonna do all the ask so. U Know You're Doin Em Too

Hot read more since there’s so maaaaaany

1. if you were to have Hanahaki disease, what flowers would you cough up?

I feel like this is entirely based on who i’m feeling the one sided love for? (I googled Hanahaki disease and i’m all about that shit no doubt there) But like, maybe daffodils?

2. if someone were to catch Hanahaki disease for you, what flowers would they cough up?

Uh Roses motherfucker, you’re welcome

3. if you were any historic trope, what would you be? (i.e., the knight, the town baker, the witch of the forest, etd.)

Ok so like on the one hand I love lances, so fucking much, so I’m like big into Knights for that and like protecting people (and/or a beautiful prince cause like, you know), but I also really love the idea of just being like, a traveling fighter of some kind, leading a troupe of loveable idiots or being in a troupe as a loveable idiot. I want to be Iron Bull is what I’m trying to say I guess????? or like, Krem? who knows

4. tell us about your ideal battle outfit.

Ok so I’m torn again. Cause protection and ease of movement are super important, so like a breastplate and some kind of back protection, maybe a shield? or maybe a sick gauntlet arm like Ike from Fire Emblem cause he knows what’s up, and then some minor leg armor to keep the front of my thighs and calves safe and like a shield since those fuck am I right?? On the other hand: If you look like a Thot, the enemy is distracted and an easy target. I’m talking chainmail crop top, plate armor booty shorts, stupid looking heel shoes(?) for maximum thot energy, and of course a whip, either that i use or just have for the thot energy.

5. what would you be a god/goddess of and what would people sacrifice to you?

I think like, a minor deity that helps people make small to mediumish choices (i.e. talk the left or right path, call or don’t call this person), and then like, a cute little charm that people just kinda crush or burn before asking about the choice feels good, feels organic.

6. name five iconic quotes that make you feel things.

Now, I don’t know a lot of quote to be honest, but here’s some paraphrased stuff:

“Now that larping exists dnd is like, not the least cool thing to do”- Travis McElroy

“Yeah I have a pickle allergy, what about it *Pickle eating sounds*” -Me, often

“I fucked your dad” -Me during a quiplash game? And often yeah I’ll admit this

I don’t remember what’s said, but the scene in the Count of Monte Cristo where he just shows off all his sick skills to be like “Yeah I’ll murder the fuck out of your homeboy if he tries to step up to me”.

“All Magicians are inherently inclined to kill” -That unraveled about Megaman robots who get sentience

7. scythe, battle axe, broad sword, spear or trident?

Ok so like, Scythe for formal occasions/when I want to just look good cause I think their a sexy as hell weapon, at me if you want to be I know I’m right. Battle Axes are cool and like, really useful during a siege since you can easily bust stuff down with it and it lets you cut spears in half so you look dope as hell, like, Hector of Ostia if you’re out there, yes you’re correct. Broad Swords are like, just in general really good, you can use it in a duel, a battle, a coronation, magic rituals if you’re really feeling fancy, the list is just endless, a real classic all purpose weapon. Spears are for fucking losers, fuck you if you use a spear sword fight me like a fucking real fighter or get out of here none of this reach bullshit. Tridents are like spears but just, inherently sexier? You know? Like 1 point is stupid and boring, but 3? that’s some good shit. But really fuck all these weapons whips are lances are where it’s at yes feel free to at me again.

8. what combination of natural scents would you use as perfume?

Now this i have like, actually no idea for, but like, just tons of flowers. I just take like a fistful of flowers and rub them on my face.

9. ancient scrolls or leather-bound books?

Oh you know I’m about that leather-bound book life! Fuck A scroll, that is just a piece of paper that is going to tear and be illegible in like 5 years. A nice bound book though? *Chefs kiss*

10. describe yourself as if you were a storm.

A summer rain. It comes in quickly and is gone by the turn of the hour. A brief respite during the dry season, and gone before it can become a disaster.

11. what type of flower (other than a rose) would you offer someone you were trying to court?

First of all op, get the fuck off my back Roses or nothing. Secondly a big sunflower.

12. honey in milk or cinnamon in tea?

Um, neither??????????????????

13. cabin in the woods, apartment in the city or mansion in the suburbs?

Honestly an apartment in the city would be nice but like, living in the woods is the prime chance to be a local mystery.

14. curtains of beads or lace?

Probably lace? Do beads block light?

15. vocal or instrumental music?

I am a big fan of instrumental

16. describe your ideal fantasy outfit

Step one, big cape, it doesn’t touch the ground while on my shoulders but goes about mid calf. Step two, leather armor, it’s light and easy to move in, and provides good protection. Step three, Mask, nothing like flashy, just a plain black mask, preferably a full mask if i’ve got some magic to see with not my eyes, other wise like a typical masquerade mask

17. of all the fantasy races to ever exist, which one would you be?

Fuck. This is so hard. I want to be, so many. No you know what, fuck it. I wanna be a Dragonborn Tiefling hybrid, I’m talking cool horns, I’m talking sweet tail, you already know I can spit literal fire out of my face. Fucking try and get at me I dare you.

18. hard candy, fruit preserves or spice cake?

I love hard candy to just suck on, but my teeth do not.

19. show us an a picture of your ideal crown.

if you don’t think this crown fucks, get out of my face

20. tying your hair up using ribbon, yay or nay?

I’ve had my hair long enough for that like once, and I don’t really like tying my hair up tbh

21. an evening in the forest with elves, a night in the caves with vampires or a morning in the garden with fae?

Um. Bold of you to say I’m not hitting up all these parties??? Like def vampires first since the elven party is advertised to go for like 5 hours, but we all know it goes on for like 4 months and I can’t party that long as a mortal you know. And like you hit the fae up last since you literally are gonna be stuck there the rest of your life after one (1) round of truth or dare

22. tell us, in detail, about a curse a witch would put on you.

Like, in all honesty the biggest thing a witch could do to me via curse would just be to make my right arm like full unusable. Not gone or broken. Just like, it’s slow, I can’t always get it to fully hold onto something so it drops everything, there’s always a small feeling of discomfort, not pain just a minor annoyance, in the knuckles of the hand.

23. talking with sylphs or singing with nymphs?

I get kicked out of the nymph singing area after four seconds of

24. mint, rosemary, basil or sage?

I fucking go wild for the smell of basil don’t even try me

25. favorite childhood story? (doesn’t have to be a fairy tale)

I remembered Inkheart recently and like, I honestly really liked that book

26. tell us about an experience you’ve had that seemed unreal or supernatural. (doesn’t have to be scary)

Sophomore year of college, I realized that all the people around me were people I actually enjoyed spending time with, and it just felt so weird to be there after all the just nonsense that had happened up till then

27. would you rather have poison or healing ointment in your traveling pack?

healing duh? You think I’d ever remember i have the poison one? nope not me!

28. tell us three sayings that you live by.

Try and be a little nicer, unless they really don’t deserve it. Walk away sometimes. Eat food and don’t think about it.

29. vials or mason jars?

Oh get me those vials baby!

30. describe your ideal masquerade ball outfit (mask included).

OH HELL YES. Get me that suit, it’s a sweet dark red with rose colored vest underneath, the jacket and pants have flower vines on them that 100% connect to a big ass rose on the back of the jacket. The mask is more or less this guy:

31. splashing around in a river with mermaids or flying through the sky with harpies?

I can literally swim any day so let’s fly

32. what would you end up in the dungeon for?

Ok i didn’t understand this one at first so I’m keeping my initial reply below and the real one is: You know I beat some like high ranking knight or minor noble in a duel to humiliate them and no i didn’t think it through so here i am lol.

3 things: A talking magic weapon (Probably a sword but i’m down for other options). A certain someone is going in and I’m not letting him go in without someone to keep him safe. There’s dragon eggs that work like the Eragon dragon eggs and I am already waist deep in dead enemies getting one of those babies.

33. if you were a fairy, what color would your wings be?

Take a wild fucking guess

34. if you could have any magical item, what would it be?

God this is so hard, but I think a magic flower that when you pluck one if its petals you can undo a recent event, up to like ten minutes or so.

35. what song would the bards sing about you when you passed by?

I’ll say the Death of Me by Meg Myers

36. would you rather be a pirate or a king/queen?

God that’s hard, Like yeah pirates are cool but i’d love to be royalty and just get to do good shit for the people and also not have scurvy.

37. would you spend more time in the field of flowers, the tavern, the docks or the marketplace?

Hmmm, I think the Tavern as like the number 1, and then a tie for docks and field, and the marketplace in last since i hate crowded areas i need to buy things in

38. would you have a painting of yourself?

Only if I ever ride a dragon and then have a painting to immortalize the moment, and only if the dragon helps me paint it

39. what skill are you famous for?

I mean, people know I sword fight, fight fight, and program, so like, those? and I guess my sick dnd skills

40. if you could live any fairy tale, which one would you?

Fuck if I can think of one!

41. stained glass windows or fairy lights?

Ok Stained glass windows literally slap so like, you already know

#romanarcadia

2 notes · View notes

leta-the-strange · 6 years ago

Text

A far too long, fever-induced Unpopular Opinion, likely first of many, (keeping in mind that is it an opinion and not expressed at all in mean spirit): The casting/character ages in Fantastic Beasts.

Again, this is likely a wildly unpopular opinion because I’ve never come across anyone who has even touched slightly on the subject, but it is an, admittedly minor, detail that got me thinking a little. Again, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter a great deal and I’m sure I’m still going to enjoy the series either way but it’s just a personal opinion I’ve had nonetheless.

I do understand the organic nature of film and the flexibility you need to allow. Sometimes the character will be pitched or imagined as a certain age, but it doesn’t translate into film well (think LOTR or GOT, etc) or the casting directors like an actor who is obviously much younger or older so much that it trumps the desired age bracket. And most times, it is purposely done that way especially in teen-based movies and tv shows (90210, Smallville, Gossip Girl, PLL, etc, etc) which lead to wildly inaccurate expectations of what teenagers look and act like (in my high school experience anyway). Sometimes for legal and professional reasons, its more convenient to have adult actors portray younger characters.

Often pre-imagined characters evolve and change to fit the actor that is set to portray them whether it be gender, race, age, hair colour, eye colour, relationships, characterisation, etc. Sometimes this is celebrated, goes unnoticed or is a disappointment.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I understand that it comes down to a matter of priorities.

Neville, Petunia and Dudley were all blondes in the books. Did it really matter that the actors weren’t (and didn’t dye their hair for the role?) IMO, nah not really. I know a lot of people still can’t forgive the ‘you have your mothers eyes’ issue. I can. Partially. Personally, I didn’t mind Harry’s signature “green as a fresh pickled toad” eyes being blue in the film because Daniel Radcliffe couldn’t wear the contacts. Only auditioning actors with green eyes, the rarest eye colour on the planet, would exclude a lot of talented actors and potentially perfect Harry’s. I don’t believe green eyes were essential to Harry’s character (but I can’t speak for everyone), I think there were more important qualities. Geraldine Somerville, who played the older Lily Potter, also had blue eyes. But then, after making a huge deal over Harry having his mothers’ eyes, they cast young Lily, with whom they do close up, full face scenes of, with big brown eyes. I’m not saying she didn’t do an excellent job – she did wonderfully. I suppose it was just a strange decision in the eyes (pun not intended) of a lot of fans that the casting of a two or so minute role precluded what seemed to be such an integral theme that had been woven through each book and movie so frequently. This is just an example of the questionable, dare I say for lack of a better word ‘lazy’, ‘just imagine for the sake of the plot that he/she…’ attitude that I get from HP/FB at times.

Getting back on the topic of age, one thing I did have a problem with in HP was James and Lily’s age. I don’t think I’m entirely alone in this. 21 seemed old when I was a wee one reading Harry Potter for the first time. It was only when I got older that I realised how young they were and how it added quite fundamentally to the tragedy of their short life and death. It was heartbreaking either way, don’t get me wrong, but seeing (an actual 21-year-old actor portraying) a 21-year-old young mother slain in the first flashback in Philosophers Stone would have been truly shocking. It would also add to the tragic aftermaths of Sirius and Remus too. However, I did later realise that this was probably due to having to match Alan Rickman’s casting as Snape, and later, Gary Oldman and David Thewlis (which I think were all fantastic in their roles). So, they sacrificed the canonical age of James and Lily for the casting of Snape and the Marauders (possibly). Whether this was something the fans agree or not, they prioritised what was most important, in their eyes, to the film. But then, after all of that, for some reason they keep James and Lily’s age of death as 21 on their gravestone??? Therefore, casting two barely-speaking roles to a 43 and 34-year-old who they expect the film going audience to believe are 21??? I assumed that when they did the full casting and knew that Alan Rickman, Gary Oldman and David Thewlis would look far too old for their long-deceased classmate counterparts they would just make the characters older in the films but now I think they wanted to keep film Snape, Remus and Sirius in their early to mid (and eventually late, by the end of the books) thirties and didn’t want it to look painfully obvious. I think a lot of films and tv shows do this to try and pull off the age differences. A 27-year-old actor portraying a ‘high school student’ can often pull it off until you stick them next to a real life 15-year-old. I like to believe it’s that or something other than lazy writing but I can’t know for sure.

This brings us to my current thoughts about Fantastic Beasts which has some of the most wildly strange actor vs character casting age I’ve seen in some time. As a quick refresher (or if you don’t know…) here are the actors ages vs what their characters age is (if I’m not mistaken)...

Eddie Redmayne - 36 / Newt Scamander – 29

Zoë Kravitz – 29 / Leta Lestrange - 29 (probably given that she was in the same year as Newt)

Ezra Miller – 26 / Credence Barebone - 18 (from an interview but still unconfirmed from filmmakers)

Katherine Waterston – 38 / Porpentina Goldstein - 25

Alison Sudol – 33 / Queenie Goldstein – early 20’s/hopefully not late teens (she’s younger than her 25-year-old sister so 24 at the absolute most but I’d say younger given the dynamic). I haven’t found a confirmed age anywhere.

Dan Fogler – 42 / Jacob Kowalski – 26

Callum Turner – 28 / Theseus Scamander – 37

Try and keep in mind that there is no mean spirit intended in my opinion on this. My opinion on the acting ability of each of these people isn’t necessarily relevant to this particular discussion though I do commend actors who can convincingly pull off different ages though I certainly can’t fault actors who can’t as there is only so much you can do sometimes. This is purely about what is most important – character or actor – and the relevance of it.

Eddie Redmayne, in my opinion, seems to have features that allow him quite an amount of leeway in terms of age. He starred in the mini series based off one of my favourite books, Pillars of the Earth (definitely an underrated series I heartily recommended) where he portrays his character as a teen all the way up to a man in his forties/fifties and, in my opinion, is quite believable. I think I have more trouble believing that Eddie Redmayne is 36 than I do believing Newt Scamander is 29/30 (as his birthday is in February, I’m assuming he is 30 during Crimes of Grindelwald) and even if that weren’t the case, I think a six-year difference at those ages can be neither here nor there with some people especially with the right clothes, mannerisms, etc...

Zoë Kravitz – hold on to your hats, a 29-year-old playing a 29-year-old. I haven’t done my in-depth research on the other actors not aforementioned, but I believe this may be the only occurrence of this happening in this film series.

Ezra Miller said that Credence was 18 in an interview. This is probably true, and I would’ve guessed around that age anyway. I think I double checked it on the characters wiki and it matched. As a side note, as a general rule I don’t tend to take the actors words as gospel truth until its confirmed by the writer or director. I feel like, in this film series, there are some actors that get maybe somewhat carried away and speculate rather a lot about their character and sometimes it isn’t entirely accurate. Of course, actors are usually allowed some creative control over their characters and often get little titbits about their past/future that help with their portrayal, but I have noticed some actors’ thoughts about their character don’t add up at all to what the filmmakers have also said and I know which side wins out. A lot of actors are shocked/surprised/disappointed/elated when they find out developments about their character - not even they always know what’s around the corner and sometimes what they think isn’t necessarily true. No matter how deserving, creative or insightful they are about their character, it doesn’t solely belong to them. I think a lot of fans forget this. They go on about ‘so and so said this’ and ‘so and so literally said…’ while blatantly disregarding anything J.K or the FB filmmakers say and again, I know which ones actually run the show. This has nothing to do with Ezra, to be honest, it’s just a quick observation I’ve noticed. I’m so off topic! Anyway, Credence I would’ve put as a late teen/20-year-old at most from his character and I think Ezra has one of those faces that, like many, can float around in the weird young adolescence stage that you can can’t quite pinpoint whether they’re late teens or mid-twenties (I’m in university and pretty much anyone between 18-27ish is indistinguishable to me). Either way he’d be carded at the uni bar. I think if I met a modern-day Credence Barebone I wouldn’t think twice if he told me he was 18.

Katherine Waterston is the one I am most anxious writing about and the one I’m sure a lot of people are cocked and ready to come after me about. She’s probably also one of my two biggest irks with the age issue. Just to get this out the way, I am not the biggest Tina fan (yet). At first, it was casual indifference. I didn’t (and don’t) hate her, I just didn’t really take to her in the first film (I already have hope that the new film may sway me). It really started as simply as that. I will write a separate post on all my thoughts revolving around this because there are many. All I will say is that if you don’t love Tina or ship Newtina based on the first film, it is a very cruel and vicious fandom to be part of. At least in my experience. But that’s a different issue. Let me say firstly that I think Katherine Waterston is very beautiful and I would be happy to look like that at 38 (obviously not the same as she is very Caucasian and I’m a nut-brown Maori, but you get my point). Obviously, I don’t know how the story will unravel and how important it is but was it absolutely necessary that Tina had to be 25? I think 30 would have been passable. Or even better, she could’ve been a little (or however much) older than Newt? Normalising relationships where the woman is older than the man is something I’m here for (my sister is two years older than her boyfriend – 19 and 21 – and it’s so controversial to people??? But I know lots of relationships in the reversal). That would’ve been my ideal scenario if they had Tina originally set for 25 but discovered they really loved Katherine Waterston and decided it would be inconsequential if they wrote Tina a bit older than originally planned. However, I do think it might be the other way around. Maybe it is important that Tina is 25. This might be one of the reasons why I haven’t yet meshed with this character or either of the Goldsteins for that matter. I do admit that I forget that they are in their early and mid-twenties. I do forget that Tina is (apparently) only 25. I honestly believe that I would have liked – or at least had a lot more understanding and sympathy – for Tina’s character had it been obvious she was so young. I will explain more thoroughly in the separate post I’ll eventually write that, had FB been a book before a movie, I would likely have really enjoyed book!Tina. Please understand this particular opinion isn’t about the actor. I’m just saying that I, personally, feel like it was easy to lose sight of the fact that this character is only 25 when the actor playing her is nearly forty years old. Please don’t twist this and interpret it to being me ‘coming after’ the actor. I don’t know why age is regarded as such an insult. It’s the most beautiful, natural thing. Katherine Waterston is 38. There’s nothing wrong with that. She’s healthy and pretty and could easily pass for younger if she so desired. But again, I think sometimes why I don’t find Tina endearing at all (yet) is because I see (not in terms of the actor, the character) a 38-year-old (or round about) woman acting like a 25-year-old. This might be even harder for me to combat in the next film as she is supposed to be quite younger than newcomers Theseus and Leta (ridiculously younger than Theseus) whose actors are both twenty-somethings joining Ezra as the babies of the cast. Don’t come at me about insulting her about her age. Carmen Ejogo is 45 and she cancelled everyone in FBWTFT. A lot of people grow more and more beautiful with age. Older doesn’t mean less beautiful so let’s put that to rest immediately.

Alison Sudol looks like a fucking earth angel and she was a great Queenie. I loved Queenie’s character. Did I love Queenie as a person? No. There is a difference – again, that ties in with what I’ll eventually write about my feelings about those two. I don’t know Queenie’s age, but she is younger than Tina so at the absolute most she would be 24 but I would wager given the big-little sister dynamic they seem to be following, there’s likely more than a year’s difference. I wouldn’t have thought Queenie was so young had I not known otherwise. There are some who find her character a little more annoying than cute, but I think if she were portrayed by someone who was in fact in their early twenties, she probably wouldn’t have come across as so naïve and a little airy. A lot of development occurs in your twenties and there is a tremendous amount of personal growth by the time you hit thirty. The same issue with Tina I suppose. You can forgive a lot of Queenie’s quirks when you remember how young she is but sometimes it’s easy to forget when physically she seems older. I will have to keep in mind how young and impressionable she is still while watching her actions in Crimes of Grindelwald because again, I think I forget sometimes.

I had no idea how old Jacob was, admittedly. I guessed anywhere between 32-40 (I assumed Jacob and Queenie had a bit of an age gap either way) but I was way off. Apparently, he’s 26. My head is in my hands at this point. I know Jacob’s been through a lot (and I’m not saying Dan Fogler isn’t a cutie!) but if some guy told me he was 26 and I arranged to meet him and Jacob Kowalski (again, based on first impressions. I love Jacob) walked in, I’m calling the fucking police. There is no way he is TWENTY-SIX. I love Jacob and Newts relationship, but I never saw Jacob as being the younger one. The fact that he is younger than Newt, Leta and Theseus (again! 11 years younger than Theseus!) when he looks like he could be their fucking uncle is unreal. I don’t really know why they made Jacob so ludicrously young when there was honestly, in this case, no need. I had to track down his age because it had zero (0) relevance to the film. Only thing I can think of is maybe to make his relationship with Queenie not come across as creepy? Who knows.

This one really hurts me. Theseus, my poor boy. The FB team really are just gonna swing around and do THAT. Callum Turner is, in my opinion, a great Theseus from what I’ve seen so far. From interviews, it looks like he adores Zoë and he has great chemistry with Eddie. They’ve also done well to find an actor with similar physical characteristics and mannerisms as Eddie Redmayne making him a very believable casting for Newt’s brother. Though later it was revealed that Theseus is supposed to be eight years older than Newt making Theseus 37/38 which I think was completely unexpected for most people. We knew from the first film that Newt was the youngest brother and even with Callum Turner only being 28, I thought with the right clothes and such they could make him look older – or at least old enough to look like he could pass as Newt’s older brother. But nearly forty? With the kind of trauma Theseus has been through not to mention the likely constant drama of his troublesome brother and fiancée (and his brothers’ new friends and extremely messed up future brother-in-law)? Does he exfoliate with the Philosopher’s Stone? Drop that skin case routine, Theseus. Again, I don’t know what the film is going to bring. Perhaps Theseus must be significantly older than Newt for plot related reasons. Maybe for the sake of the story, he had to be old enough to not attend school with Newt, or maybe their father died early on and Theseus had to grow up quickly to fill a father figure void (that could explain the complicated nature of their relationship) or it might be for any number of reasons. My only hope is that it is specifically relevant to his character and not an inconsequential detail that could easily have been adjusted when they cast such a young actor. It can be a risk having a cast of actors in their thirties and forties playing a cast of twenty-somethings convincingly, and I’ve mentioned why, but it can be pulled off though I think it’s a strange move casting an actual twenty-something year old, one of the youngest cast members, to play a character 10+ years older than some of the oldest cast members characters. I think, like with the Goldstein’s, I will have to be constantly reminding myself when understanding the character that Theseus is that much older than Newt and Leta and even more so than Tina, Queenie and Jacob.

Again, I’m not saying the actors haven’t done a good job with their respective roles, it’s just my 4am cough medicine powered thoughts on how they’ve made some interesting choices regarding what age they’ve kept the characters vs the actors real life ages and how it, for me at least, has affected the way I’ve interpreted the characters and would I feel any different about them had they made the characters similar ages to their actors or vice versa. I might be the only person who has thought about it and it’s not even a complaint on the cast itself (it’s a great collection of actors), it’s just an observation not at all eloquently put by a flu-riddled person.

#the crimes of grindelwald #fantastic beasts #newt scamander #jacob kowalski #queenie goldstein #tina goldstein #theseus scamander #leta lestrange #credence barebone #gonna pass out for 12 hours and probably wake up to a lot of people telling me to fuck off #fantastic fevers and how to alienate yourself from a whole ass fandom

15 notes · View notes

bewareofchris · 7 years ago

Text

infinity war rewatch 4/4

1:45 - end

the hardest choices require the strongest will. YOU ARE DEFINITELY AN UNSOLICITED DICK PIC KIND OF GUY. You're one hundred percent a "not all men" sort of bastard aren't you. Yeah ok. You parents are ashamed of you dickbag.

"yeah if your goal was to piss him off". Fuck off Quill.

Do you think they practiced this confrontation on Titan before he showed up?

Probably not the part where Nebula hits him with a plane? Or maybe?

I'm 100% here for all day for a Gamora and Nebula based movie. They deserve it.

HEY DR. STRANGE. OPEN A PORTAL UNDER THANOS AND WHEN HE'S HALF THROUGH IT? close it.

Fuck Quill.

Tony is speaking from personal experience about the cooling it. Because Tony just did this in the last movie, and realizes that Marvel needs to get a new plot convenience.

Ok, but Thanos was so pissed at Tony he threw a moon. Remember this is a bitch that can make you ribbons and he was like THE ONLY POSSIBLE SOLUTION HERE IS TO KILL THIS ASSHOLE WITH A WHOLE FUCKING MOON.

Rocket and Bucky fighting together is everything good. They should be pals in the future. Rocket, Bucky, Sam and Groot just hang out on the weekends.

"I am Steve Rogers" You're such a meatball Rogers. Such a meatball

Yes Wanda, your friends need you. They definitely gonna die.

YES SHOOT THE GIANT WHEEL THINGS WITH BULLETS. iTLL WORK.

you see what I mean about the movie and making Wanda more consistently super powerful? Imagine she put all that effort and power into killing some bitches.

I'm sure Shuri is doing something super complex and all but it just looks like she's smacking a touchscreen.

Wanda, seriously. Kill this bitch. Ok, have some help.

Hulk needs therapy. So does Bruce, but especially Hulk.

That guy with the arm, really isn't having a good time of it.

STEVE ROGERS RUNNING WILL NEVER STOP BEING FUNNY. Its not appropriate to find it as amusing as it is, but god damn I cant take anything seriously when he's running.

Wanda I'm almost less angry at you for waiting so long because of how you killed her.

Vision looks like he needs a seventeen year nap. "We don't trade lives, Captain." THAT'S WHY YOUR HALF OF THE AVENGERS FUCKING LOST YOU DICKBAG.

I'll blame Quill for Titan. Because fuck Chris Pratt

IMAGINE IF LOKI, THE TRICKSTER GOD, THE THOUSAND PLUS YEAR OLD MAGIC WEILDER WERE HERE. IMAGINE IF LOKI WHO IS CAPABLE OF UNKNOWN LEVELS OF BULLSHIT WAS PRESENT ON TITAN TO HELP OUT DR. STRANGE.

"Stark." "You know me?" Um, yes Tony. Remember? Loki knew you? Because everyone knows you? Because you're an exhausting pain in the ass.

"all that for a drop of blood" YOU'RE ALSO THE KIND OF DICK BAG THAT CHANGES THE RULES AT THE LAST SECOND BECAUSE YOU LOST AND YOU CAN'T COPE WITH IT. They stopped inviting you to game night because of this shit.

It's not the right time to point it out, but you can definitely see that Tony and what’s left of his suit have the right amount of ass again right before he gets stabbed through the entire body.

Also Tony's dead. He's so dead. He's 100% dead.

STRANGE. TONY IS SO FUCKING DEAD. YOU'RE A DOCTOR. HE CANNOT LIVE THROUGH THAT SHIT. HE'S DEAD. HE'S SO FUCKING DEAD.

Also Thanos. Honestly. If Strange is like "Spare his life" then why would you? if he's willing to trade the time stone for Tony's life, why would you spare him? THAT'S LIKE ALL CAPS SCREAMING "PLEASE KILL THIS MAN."

Fuck Quill.

Tony, who can't figure this shit out either: "Why would you do that?"

Strange, who read the script: "We're in the endgame now" (but also I cannot tell you the answer. I cannot tell you exactly what to do, or give any hints.)

(My daughter right after Vision says "he's here": "welp, they're screwed.)

Today in unnecessary things said on screen: "Cap, that's him."

I DON'T CARE ABOUT WANDA AND VISION. I DON'T GIVE ANY FUCKS, BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T PUT ENOUGH WORK INTO IT MARVEL.

today on obvious lies: "I just feel you"

man, you gotta love how Steve Rogers never quits. Can he hold off Thanos? Yes he can. Because he thinks he can. And because everyone loves him. Can he survive being punched directly into the head by a guy who can get hit by a whole space ship without injury? Yes he can! Why?

Patriotism.

Raise your hand if you're mostly just mad that you had to sit through what felt like a 5 minute long death scene that was immediately rendered completely pointless and those are five minutes of your life you'll never get back.

"I understand my child." Fuck you Thanos. I bet you're the guy at the dinner parties interjecting yourself into conversations that aren't about you talking about how you scaled six high mountains and read seventeen first edition books and you know better than anyone that ice is cold. What a bitch.

Wouldn't it have been like hilarious if Thanos' fingers were too fat to get the stone? Like a pickle jar.

(My Daughter: "these people are idiots.)

THOR NOT GOING FOR THE HEAD IS STUPID. CUT OFF AN ARM, CUT OFF HIS HEAD. DO ANYTHING. NOPE. DIRECT CHEST HIT TO MR. HEARTLESS.

I hope you're in the soul stone buddy. I hope Gamora drowns your ass in a half inch of water. I hope she kills you with a weapon fashioned out of your own bones that she gnaws out of your stupid body. I hope you suffer 1000 years my guy. Not because you are a dick.

I'm not going to lie, all of my bitterness and pettiness was 100% healed when Steve said "oh god" at the end of this movie. It made right every stupid moment of Age of Ultron and Civil War. All his bullshit "Safest hands are still our own".

WELL YOU FAILED YOU MOTHERFUCKER.

Just a reminder, Steve is my favorite character.

He just needs to learn how to share, but also that sometimes his morals aren't more important than half the people in the universe.

Strange: "There was no other way." (but you'll never know for sure because I didn't tell you.)

I literally got up and walked out of this stupid movie at this point. I didn't stay after the credits. I didn't tell anyone about it. I just went home and contemplated how furious I was.

#what's better than an atomic clusterfuck? an infinite clusterfuck!#MCU rewatch

36 notes · View notes

seenashwrite · 7 years ago

Text

(see HERE for part one of answer)

Ah, mass appeal, that oft elusive lil' stinker. How to get it is one of those age-old questions for us creator-types. We want it, for personal reasons, for perhaps monetary reasons, and determining what constitutes it and how to tap into it and even if we should try to tap into it are all pickles.

No, not that type, those are fabulous. I mean sticky situations. The non-tempuraish bliss with delusion of "Hey, I'm doing great on my diet, 'cause it's a vegetable!" kind.

Spoiler Alert: I'm not going to tell you not to compare yourself to other people, of course you are, and in many ways this is a good thing, it's called having an ideal to which to aspire, except it shouldn't be rooted in popularity, the admiration should be for their work. . . . Thanks for your question!

I'm kidding, Dean, and you damn well know it. Bite me. And fetch me a whiskey. And some Death pickles. I got talkin’ to do.

Part Two: Water Chumming & How That Shark May Bite Your Ass, So Here’s A Bunch Of Other Stuff That Can Be Done From The Safety Of The Shore

C/P for convenience:

Is it worth trying to please the masses when we can't please ourselves? Am I poking the bear?

Let us recap from Part One:

We talked about how to get from a feeling of ineptitude to - at first - just mild trepidation when it comes time to hit "publish", and started delving into "but how to get there?" so that the path can lead on to an actual measure of confidence, which brings us to the second part of your question up there - which is, I find, a completely normal thought, stemming from exasperation, when it feels like you're surrounded by a ton of people who are having ungodly amounts of success, and it seems like the biggest mystery in the world. So it's natural to wonder: should I follow their lead? Try to do what they're doing?

Maybe - let's unpack that, dig into what that would entail, the pros-and-cons, what some alternatives may be.

Near the end of Pt. 1, we talked about not understanding why some stories/writers gain traction, while others don't, specifically regarding the quality of their stories. As facetious and jokey and snotty and funny as I made that "rant", and said how you could always use the SSDTs [Same Shit, Different Title] stories as a "How Not To Do It" guide, I also mentioned how they must be doing something right - and they are, the metrics we've got (hearts, notes, feedback, asks r/t stories, followers, reblogs) bear it out. It's right there. There's nothing to interpret. It's there. It's fact.

Not to mention, as much as I've tried to drill down on objective parameters for my rec list, to try and smoosh down subjectivity, both on my part and on the part of people who rec to me, there's still a pretty substantial margin of subjectivity. There just is - a story could be ridiculous in plot, could be littered with reprehensible grammar, could poorly represent Sam/Dean/etc., could have a shallow Y/N. Yet if something within the story, no matter how oblique, speaks to the heart of a reader? In the immortal words of Private Hudson:

Game. Over. They’re in. Case closed.

I also mentioned that little number in the corner, that overall snapshot of how much action a given story/that writer accumulated and pondered - does it indicate how great the story is? Also known as: Does that mean their story/their writing is better than mine?

Well. No. Not necessarily. I suspect that - and this would take a huge data mining mission on every single one of a given writer's high count stories to know - in part, some of the number represents a manifestation of a cult following. I'll save you the trouble of clicking the link:

"A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a work of culture. A film, book, musical artist, television series or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fanbase. A common component of cult followings is the emotional attachment the fans have to the object of the cult following, often identifying themselves and other fans as members of a community. Cult followings are also commonly associated with niche markets."

I've no idea why "musical artist" was the only human example they threw in there, because in my experience/observation over **cough** decades of life on the planet, I see cult followings for humans more than stuff, and public figures of other areas beyond music (actors, politics, etc.) just as much. There are men-I MEAN-people who will never be socially ostracized no matter how inappropriately they behave, no matter the amount of evidence, doesn't matter - their following will absolutely make preserving the (fake) image that person cultivated their hill to die on.

But we're getting negative, and where I'm going with "cult status" in our context isn't negative. The "cult" mentality aspect to which I refer is about loyalty of followers (specifically reader-followers) in general, and then further, the loyalty of that subset of reader-followers who were early readers. They adored "x" number of that writer's stories in the past, and even if the quality of newer stories has declined, they are still gonna hit that heart and reblog it and say it was great. Do they actually believe it? Some of them, to be sure. Do some of them have on cult following rose-colored glasses? Friggin' of course.

Like I said above the cut - I'm not going to tell you not to compare yourself to other people, of course you are, and in many ways this is a good thing, it's called having an ideal to which to aspire, except it shouldn't be rooted in popularity, the admiration should be for their work. But there's admiration owed to these writers for maintaining their follower base, regardless of whether those follower-readers aren't in the admiring-for-the-work mode. So while you can't admire them for their stories, because you think they blow, there is an ideal, a definite modelling to consider: what are some of these writers who are getting huge numbers doing to maintain what popularity they've accrued?

Let's pause here for a recap of what we know for sure:

1. You won't know if telling stories is legit in your wheelhouse or not until you start getting some feedback from readers, which is going to help get you out of Ineptitudeville;

2. Ideally, this would begin with an honest, straightforward editor who knows how to give constructive critique --> in the meantime, use The Nail's guiding standards to serve as an at-home editor til you feel ready to find such an editor;

3. You can't get feedback for your supplemental self-editing documents of "nailed it" and "Achilles' heels" unless you put yourself out there (which, hopefully chipping away at #1 will get you over the ineptitude hump and into a healthy trepidation territory so you can do);

4. There's potential modelling to be done by observing what the "popular" writers are doing outside of their stories to accrue/maintain followers, and trying to see what their loyal reader-followers see in stories you don't find very good.

Again - assuming you've gotten comfy enough to just feel a normal nervousness vs. ineptitude, it's on to getting an audience. So, what could it be? That these mega-number generators are doing? I think it's two things:

(A) They have broad exposure that brings others into the fold (B) There's more at work than just stories

But Nash, are you not paying attention? I don't have exposure, they've got a bazillionty followers - you may say.

Then let's get you some exposure that has nothing to do with follower counts, nothing *inherently* due to the potentially not-so-robust nature of your stories at present, things that just might get you more followers, hopefully turning a chunk of them into reader-followers somewhere along the way.

(A) Exposure that doesn't require "popularity":

1. SPN Fanfic Pond ---> 24/7/365 - join it and submit your stories - never know who'll see it - guaranteed reblog

2. SPN Hiatus Creations ---> specific dates - I don't think many people know that they include fics, since they mostly get submissions of art - weekly topics to choose from - join in, submit your stories - the folks behind it most always put a little comment in their tags, so be on lookout for your feedback doc - guaranteed reblog

3. SPN Family Birthdays ---> 24/7/365 - their kindness gets your name "out there" to more people, both the mods behind-the-scenes, as well as that blog's followers - guaranteed exposure - *mandatory* to reblog this with a thank you and at least one point of feedback about it to whomever created that birthday wish for you

4. Bingos: SPN Genre Bingo - SPN Fluff Bingo - SPN Kink Bingo - SPN Angst Bingo ---> specific dates - variety of topics - guaranteed reblog - good/decent potential reblog from others via their followers and those who follow the tags

5. Challenges from individuals ---> sporadic dates - variety of topics - follow people who you see hosting them, if they've hosted one they'll likely host more - hosts will typically reblog each fic (good chance with a touch of feedback), and/or put your "@" and link to your fic onto a master post - more popular the blog/higher follower count, the more exposure, so high reblog/new reader potential

6. Seasonal Celebrations ---> specific dates - Secret Valentines, secret Santas, etc. - do it and you're also probably making a friend, maybe gaining a new follower, maybe their followers will come visit your place because your assigned person reblogs what you did for them - moderate-to-high potential for reblog *

(*Should be a guarantee but some people are dicks; my Valentine didn't ever send me shit this year, not even an apology through the organizer, but you know what? I don't care. Legit. I made a friend through it, and really enjoyed making what I did for them.)

7. “Bangs” ---> sporadic dates - a.k.a. Mini-bangs / Big-bangs - focused on a topic/character - guaranteed reblog

8. Appreciation Days ---> specific dates - Angst, Smut, Fluff appreciation days - you can even submit already written fics/don't necessarily have to whip out something new - specific tags can draw readers - good/decent potential for reblogs

9. Prompts ---> 24/7/365 - imagines, those generic prompt blogs - follow some, keep an eye out for the interesting ones - challenge yourself to crank out one a week, short little 500-ish word blurbs - reblogs, maybe, who cares, this is serving to get you out of the funk and get used to posting your work; it's practice, and if it gets love, then great, if not, you still got stuff to put on a master post - and make a master post and get it in your profile so it's easily find-a-ble

10. Outside of Tumblr * ---> 24/7/365 - Fanfic.net and AO3 - join and put fic there and put your links somewhere on your blog - both have stats - both give opportunity for people to comment and to share direct links to their blogs, which is how this connects to the goal of visibility in the SPN fandom here - also a way to self-reblog your story in a “fresh” way/cuts down on repetition popping up on your followers’ dashes (i.e. - helps cushion the ol’ “Oh they’re posting this again?!” feeling)

[* Note: many of us have great distaste for Wattpad because it is a breeding ground for thieves - people will c/p stories from here and present them as their own, some trying to excuse it by “giving credit” in a blanket manner a la “found at Tumblr” or listing the “@” of the writer. The problem is, Wattpad’s method of reporting leaves much to be desired - like Instagram, they only seem to be interested if a published author takes issue. The only real way to call out these thieves is via an immense amount of pressure from the SPN Family commenting directly at their Wattpad page. My point? Your choice, but if you do join up and post there, proceed with caution.]

(B) The stuff that's more than just writing:

1. Reblog interesting things that show who you are - fan art is a great start - shows your tastes and what you like - when feeling confident, host a challenge, as what you choose for the framework (one of mine, for instance, was using lines of dialogue from Archer) will also reflect what you like, what you're into - tag people you're friendly with and say something like "Even if you're not interesting in joining, signal boost, please??? [cute emoticon]"

2. Narrow down focus - if you're multi-fandom, drill down on your favorite - start by building up a solid following in that one fandom - keep a ratio of about 80% primary fandom, 20% to cover the others/personal/non-fandom stuff - use a "Not [fandom]" tag for that 20% so your followers can choose to opt-out - or if you can't manage this, do a side blog or two

3. Set your queue to pop stuff out (at minimum) 2 or 3 times/day - stuff it - start with CanonSPNgifs - keep your blog active - unless something you want to reblog is time-sensitive, chuck it to the queue - a wall of posts from the same person on the dash is off-putting - same for constant reblogs of your own stuff*

(* Which you should do, yes, but have an understanding of time zones, will ya? I swear some people are re-blogging for myriad time zones in Oz and Narnia, as well, I've no idea... I've digressed)

4. Send Asks to people like the "spread the love" stuff - if they post "Ask Me" things, send them one - reblog the answered ask and say what you think about their answer/at minimum say "thanks, this was great" - reblog those ask games posts for your followers so they ask you questions - get engaged

5. Respond to a good portion of the comments people leave for you, whether feedback or just funny things they said - specifically, feedback with reblog deserves reply of thank you, whether in the notes or a fresh post; see my blog for copious examples - make a post that says your tags are open/offer to tag folks - anytime your follower count jumps by, say, 5, reblog it - make an OMG!-type post every time your follower count increases by, say, 10 - you’re telling them you actually give a shit that they follow

6. Keep an eye out for folks (especially those who make rec lists, so always check out rec lists for who did it when you spot them) who have said it's okay to tag them - always tag them, even if they seldom reply/reblog/feature you on their list, as you never know

7. When you read stories by other writers that you love, reblog them *with some feedback* - do unto others, etc., etc. This is in huge headline size for a reason. Take the hint.

ETA - I chimed in and gave some tips since I composed this post, and it may be helpful for you/for people who are shy or intimidated or just not particularly comfortable verbalizing feelings.

...and here’s what I suggested:

If you want to get specific, say what your favorite thing/things is/are; in my mind that could go something like this:

I felt like I was right there with them in the ____ [setting]

I felt like I was right there during ____ [part of the plot]

I felt like I was watching an episode of the show

I could relate so much to ____ [character]

My favorite line(s) was/were ____

___ [character(s)] sounded just like they do on the show

___ [character(s)] acted just like they do on the show

And there’s also more generic things, such as:

This story really touched me, I needed something heartwarming!

This story cracked me up, I needed a good laugh!

This story made me smile, I needed some cheering up!

This story got me crying, I needed a good cry!

This story was really creative, I needed a change of pace!

And if you want to keep it really simple? This can apply to any story:

I enjoyed this more than I can say, thank you so much for writing it

Is full-on blind cult following an "ehhhh" thing? Yeah. But the basis of it, the true, legit loyalty part of it, is wonderful. You want that. The more readers know you, the more they'll feel comfortable interacting with you, and the greater their comfort, the more likely they'll give you feedback and, eventually, some constructive critique*

(*You gotta make it clear you're fine with critique, though, and don't dare say it if you're just gonna pitch a fit when you get some, however poorly phrased the critique may be; but that's another topic, for another day).

Great, Nash, you still haven't answered my question about pleasing the masses - you may say.

The answer is: that's a call you gotta make for yourself. To hopefully help, I'll tell you two stories about chumming the waters with (what seems to be) the standard wares that get a ton of followers/reader-followers.

Interestingly, I *just* this past week or so had a great discussion with someone (who I won't reveal, of course, because it was PM) on this very topic. You'd recognize their name, if not follow them/have read their stuff, they've got a healthy fanbase, etc., etc., etc. all that jazz. It would surprise you, is my point, to know that they've been pondering on their writing - specifically, the genre in which they feel entrenched. They accrued their popularity (I hate that word, but can't think of a better one) in a certain, ah, niche. You know the holy trifecta: angst, fluff, smut. One of those.

(I am not going to go down the road of how much I loathe the limitations of those, I know myself, this will turn trash fire and neglect you. But they are the cards we've been dealt, there's nothing to be done to change it, we must play our hands. #flames on the side of my face #haaaate #I'm done)

Anyway, they've sat here "x" year/years later and looked back at their pre-SPN fanfic foray (read: how they used to write/what they used to write), and are like - Where'd my voice go? Where'd my style go? Can I get it back? Sure I can get it back, but if I start being "me", what will my reader base do with that? Will they stick around and support me? Will they bail? etc., etc., etc. You get the idea. Reasonable thoughts, all.

I tell you this next bit because while what is going on with above writer is on the side of Got A Wide Reach, like I said in Pt. 1, I am presently on the other side, the Modest-in-Number, Large-in-Loyalty reader collective. And I *have* chummed the waters, though not entirely purposefully. And it didn't work... well, hasn't, I can't predict the future, could blow up tomorrow, but not likely. I suspect I know why. We'll get to that.

I say not entirely purposefully because I stumbled into Fluff and Smut, one of each. (There is a second fluff, but that doesn't count because it was tailored to a very specific person who gave very specific things to include for a Valentine swap thing.) The fluff was via a thing I did, and my dear friend nailed it, gave me three cringy words that were meant to hit the fluff bullseye, and I doubled down. You can see that here, should you care.

People fucking lost their shit. I repackaged it into its own post in case folks didn't like the snark in the one linked above/would rather reblog sans snark. People lost their shit, part deux. Flattering as hell. I appreciated it immensely, truly.

On the smut*, I lost a bet (I can't even recall what it was, maybe I mentioned it somewhere) with the friend that drew me into SPN because they were (are? yeah, still are) frustrated with the show and I needed a writing exercise and I had (at the start time) eleven years of source material, so hells yeah I said yes. The bet was for smut, and I said - Fine, but I can't not plot. Great, was the answer, but I had to typical it up, this was a punishment, after all. And typical, for me, means so much detail that it made brain cry. Copious detail works my nerves. Copious pondering works my nerves. Any one thing that’s too much will Work. My. Nerves. And I wrote it (it's five parts now, but part one and two was the orig piece and ended open), and said to friend "This won't get shit response" - "You wanna bet?" - me, the idiot: "Yup" - "If it does, you have to finish it out".

(*no link because I don’t know your age, and it’s set to sensitive)

People fucking lost their shit. On FF.net and AO3, that is. Not the numbers some people get, but holy hell. Hence, parts 3 through 5. Far as here, not so much the hit. But the people here who've liked it have REALLY liked it, so there's that, and it's flattering as hell, and I appreciate it immensely, truly.

And yet at the end of the day, hey guess what, say it with me now:

Now, for all my pseudo-fussing, I was cool with doing it, because at heart I'm wired to think about marketing, and I thought - Oooooh. This will bring people to the goods, the stuff I'm *really* proud of, and then and then and then....

Nope. Some yes, mostly nope. Most of my loyal roundtable were brought into the Nashooligan fold by other stories.

Here's why I think writer above got on the other side of the coin and I'm riding the edge - they went down the rabbit hole on a few, got mega results, and it fills the confidence tank, and why not wash-rinse-repeat? Humans are wired that way, we don't do things that we don't get something out of, it's normal. Thing is, they - as they see it - got lost a bit along the way. It worked, though, that squashing of their voice - "worked" in the sense that it drew the masses. Some people would be completely okay with this, would find it a reasonable trade-off; this writer isn't presently thinking so.

And back to me - I think the reason my smut and fluff didn't hit the stratosphere and draw in the masses (ergo, little motivation to do more) is because my style is still in there. The snark, the focus on accurate characterization, and like I say, I can't not plot. I didn't pullout the recipe, same ol' ingredients, mix up some standard shmoop/standard porn, flop it in the cupcake paper, bake it, then smear a thin layer of canned frosting - flavor: "Meh Plot" - around it. I made that junk from scratch, like I do all my other stories, and while I did use some of the same ingredients, I didn't go all-in. Notably, my evergreen stance that Y/N can die in a fire, ceiling optional, I ain't doing it.

I am not going to insist you read either of them, I'm just gonna ask you to trust me on this: I read quite a bit, and I've yet to see the ingredients of Reader Mommy Married To Dean Have A Baby Sam Has Dogs scenario mixed together like mine, and I've yet to see a Reader Insert Smut With Dean Smut With Sam Inferred Happy Ever After With Dean mixed together like mine.

Which, like I say, is what I suspect is probs the issue. I didn't get as far down the proverbial hole as my writer friend in terms of Typical'ing Up my stories. Could I un-ring that bell? Better put: could I start ringing bells? And I mean weekly, if not twice a week, quickie ones, throw in a lengthy once a month? Crank out the recipes? Plenty of templates to work from, after all. It would be hard for me in the sense of voice-squashing, but could be done.

So if I had to give you a vote on whether chumming the waters is a strategy to take, given those potential pros-and-cons, here's why I vote "no", both for myself, and for you, and others contemplating such.

It's partly that cautionary tale of my writer friend (and there's gotta be more feeling like her, there's just got to be), and mostly it's because of three writers I can think of off the top of my head. They're all quite talented, they consistently turn out solid, creative pieces that can be differentiated from the rest of the fodder floating around, and all three have substantial reader and/or follower bases. One has less than the other two, but nothing to sneeze at. The second - another person I've had great PMs with on the topic of wide appeal - attributes part of their success numbers-wise to specializing not in a niche genre, but due to specialty in a subset of the fandom (a specific, very popular 'ship).

The third, who has a *massive* reader and follower base, I can't get my head wrapped around, and I don't mean that in the sense of not understanding why people adore them, they deserve every bit of it. We'd have to dig deep into years of works and chart out the numbers (likes and reblogs and comments and followers - again, the only metrics we got) to see if there's a tipping point, but there's no magic bullet, so likely there'd be nothing in that data - or data from any highly successful writer around here - that's gonna reveal some secret. And this is the only writer I can think of that I'd really love to know a tipping point on, because: reason I can't get my head around it is because they don't do typical, ain't even in the ballpark of typical. Now, they do inject smut into much of their work, but plenty of other times it's just inferred. Consistently cheeky, if not snarky, if not balls-out-gut-bust funny. Consistently original, creative plots, even when it starts out purposefully trope-y, there's gonna be a slant on their take. I may not personally like everything they put out, I'm not saying they're perfect, but if we're trying to keep it objective vs. subjective, applied to The Nail framework? They're nailing it easily 80-90% of the time. I've actually got a soft moratorium on them, between stuff I find and noms I get on their stuff, I only include them sporadically on the list or else they'd be everywhere.

That gives me hope. Not-a-one of those three are cranking out stuff religiously on some frequent schedule, they write when the muse hits. Not-a-one of those three are following recipes. Not-a-one of those three are blanketing their voice.

And this goes back to the very first thing you said, about pleasing others when we can't please ourselves. Part of the reason you're not pleased is because on whatever level, your stuff isn't grabbing an audience, however big or small. I know it, because I've been there, as I've told you. The biggest part, though? It's because you know you can do better. Maybe you're cranking it out too fast. Maybe you're not fleshing out a character enough. Maybe you wished you'd taken another run at the plot before you published. I don't know, truly. But you're not digging the end result somehow. When you get there? To legit confidence? You're not going to care as much about pleasing others, you just won't. And that confidence is going to show in how you interact with others, little notes you make on gif sets when you reblog, things you say when you feedback others, all that stuff I said above.

People are attracted to confidence. It may intimidate them at first, they may linger on the periphery, but then once they see it's not arrogance or something, they'll be bees circling closer to the honey, because it... it... how to put... it rubs off. A kind've What Would "x" Do kind've thing. And most people will always welcome having more confidence, I mean, the real genuine confidence. We choose who are friends are - to be cheesy - not just because of who they are, but because of who we are when we’re with them. I think the younger we are, we get the wires crossed of "nastiness" and "straightforward". It's the difference between those folks, for instance, who snap and go all "You cum dumpster!" on Anons who word things poorly (I don't mean the ones who are vitriolic, I mean the ones who use less-than-elegant phrasing), vs. the folks who plainly reply something to the effect of "That's certainly something to consider. Thank you for your input". That they can’t discern the difference between a person dishing out hate - actual hate - and a misstep in phrasing speaks a lot to their confidence, that they’re taking a complete stranger’s words as such a personal affront.

I say all that to say: it's not about just the stories; the stories are a piece of a bigger puzzle. Personally, when I see folks being nasty in that manner? My knee-jerk thought is - They are so quick to lash out and write that stuff, and are so careless with their words, I bet their story-writing follows suit. And guess what? I have been 99.9% correct thus far. There's no OOMPHs in their stories: there's no brain-chewy, no heart-grabbing, no snort-giggles, no soul-touching. It's as typical as that comeback. It's lazy. It's easy. It's eye-rolling. It's expected.

Put another way: their lack of confidence in general is what is infesting other areas, in this instance, their stories. I wonder if - since you said “anything I’ve ever created” - that even if it was a slip-of-the-tongue, it may’ve been a meaningful one. If it’s the case, that there are other areas of life where you feel less-than-ideally-confident (a.k.a. - inept), I think you’re smart to start in this area, with fanfic, because as illustrated there’s lots you can do that’s in your control, that’s not dependent completely on others, and probably have some fun along the way, getting to know folks, getting encouragement, seeing your stuff get circulated, etc.

Do you keep a tiny notepad on you? Do that. Grab one from a dollar bin at Target or get you a Moleskine if you're feeling fancy, doesn't matter, but keep it on you, purse, backpack, jacket, wherever. I don't want you doing what I'm about to say on the notes in your phone, not yet. I want you to physically jot down by hand a word or two or five or whatever, about things you see/encounter, turns-of-phrase you hear, mannerisms you note in others - all that stuff - things that do please you. Those OOMPHs. And now you have some inspirational story points ready to go. Even if you aren’t able/feeling up to doing that other stuff above? This is an easy, small place to start.

Bottom line: this isn't happenstance.

It's not happenstance for the subpar writers, and it's not happenstance for the exceptional ones. This is work. Getting confidence is work. Style is a great deal inherent, true, but it can - and should be - honed, and will likely evolve in subtle ways as time goes on. Confidence and proficiency in a skill (like writing) are not automatic "things" that come with age, not even necessarily with experience. Dig in. Take some of the actions listed above. Start with the least stressful to you, then pick away at 'em as you get comfortable. If you're already doing some of those? Then, start again fresh mentally, as if you just today started doing them. Bump up your effort. Push yourself. See what happens. Get confident in the little things, and it will start to add up, overflow into the empty places.

Look at the pickle you’re in presently as an opportunity to alter your current methodology - I mean, we know whatever you’ve been doing isn’t working for you, right? So it can’t hurt. Batter it and deep fry it, tweaking the recipe as needed; it’s still you, but you’ve applied a well-thought-out, well-crafted extra tastiness to it. There’s people out there who will love it, and they’ll turn up.

See? 😉

#Dear Nash #NONNERS #Not Tyler Durden #I swear #Writing Tips #Writing Advice #Queueby Dooby Doo #Dad's on a blog post and #he hasn't been queued in a few days

6 notes · View notes

alliebruns-blog · 6 years ago

Text

To Live A Life Less Ordinary.....

So here’s something a little bit different. This week there was discussion in the Bad Boy Running group on Facebook about adventures. My pal Lorna posed the following question “On a scale of 1 to 10 how much do the adventure podcasts such as Sean Conway, Anna Mcnuff etc make you feel inadequate?! 10 for me! If you had no responsibilities and could just up and leave for an epic adventure what would you do?” Much discussion ensued over this - head over to the Facebook post to take a look, but something about it really got to me.

That post.....

For some time now, there has been something not right about how I am living. I haven’t been running as much as I would like - down to a little bit of my mojo being sapped by the Thames Path, the arrival of Pickle the very nervous but totally wonderful rescue dog, and my crippling anxiety about the thing that enables me to run. My job.

As some of you know I have worked for many years in the music industry, marketing bands and making you buy music you don’t want. Living the glamorous life that you all read about. Parties and festivals and famous people. I am partially responsible for Ed Sheeran. But please don’t hate me (I love him, he’s great). I am so lucky. Or so I was constantly told.

When we were young - in the years PR (Pre Running)

Two years ago I decided that I didn’t want to do it anymore. Or I thought I didn’t. I was fucked, to be frank. Tired out, abused, taken for granted, under paid, miserable, on the receiving end of some pretty #metoo behaviour. So I went and started my own business as a freelance marketing consultant. To the music industry. And it’s gone well. I had good clients and the money was coming in. I was making a profit. I was doing things on my terms most of the time and I had time for the running adventures and the money to pay for them. Then I lost my biggest client. My bread and butter. And I haven't been able to replace them as yet. And I don't think I want to. And I have had a lot of time to think and worry. When Lorna posed this question in the group, it came at a time when I had agreed to take part in a reccee of a race across Namibia and then one across Panama in November/December of this year. A reccee that was not only going to cost me about five thousand pounds, but was also going to put me out of work action for 3 weeks. It was OK though - I had my big client and I had money coming in. And then I lost them. What the fuck am I supposed to do now?

That’s there to be run......the Namib desert

So is that - The Panamanian jungle

I read through people arguments on Lorna’s post, looking for some answers. Should I cancel the trip? How was I going to afford it? Was I being spectacularly stupid? How was I going to get a client when I had 3 weeks of ‘holiday’? There were a lot of people saying if it wasn't for job/kids/partner etc they would do something epic. Some people even said they wished they could go back in time and get these things done before they had “settled”. I have never settled. I did for a while (the married years pre running) but I never really settled.

People like to tell you how to live or how you ought to live, especially on the internet. Good education, stable career, pension, husband, wife, children, save, mortgage, sensible, safety, plan. Saving it all up for a rainy day. But what if every day is a rainy day? What if it’s raining from day one and it only stops occasionally to allow a glimpse of sunlight into the otherwise black room of your brain? What if everything that you have been told you want is wrong? What if the things YOU thought you wanted are wrong? What if the thing you love starts to destroy you? Was that part of the plan?

Losing my biggest client was not part of the plan. The plan was long term. I want to make a living from my running. Something that is NOT the done thing. I am told by people that I am inspiring and clever and engaging and funny. I do not necessarily believe this, but the proof is in the pudding and I do know people that have gone out and done their first 10k, marathon, ultra because I have talked them into it - whether that is inspiring or whether I am a good sales person, I don’t know but there it is. I have done some pretty great adventure runs and I love to talk about them, I love to see people finish their first marathon or ultra and I love to be able to help with advice that I believe is contrary to most of the stuff you get from magazines or online. The CEO of The National Running Show recently referred to me as the first of the “Rock and Roll runners” - a description I totally love. Running is my passion. It has changed my life. Even if I don't get out and do it every day like the shiny people on instagram, I am always thinking about it. What sort of races I could do, where I could go and how I can help other people make their races and race companies great. How to makes things accessible and brilliant. how to make people glorious.

Before I lost my client, I was branching out and doing all the extra curricular I could around running - going out to Mongolia with Rat Race - the ultimate adventure, becoming their only female ambassador, doing the various bits of press etc. Running all the White Star Races, bringing the White Star community into the Bad Boy Running community to make it the most glorious and dangerous group of all time. Working with the National Running Show to secure a partnership with Bad Boy Running, becoming and ambassador for them and being lucky enough to be asked to speak at their event. I was running races most weekend - winning some of them - and triumphing in all my A game races for the year which I am very proud of (SDW100 sub 24 hour, winner and now course record holder of the TP184 and winning the Ox Epic 2018). Everything I wanted to do with regards to running this year I have achieved, and that to me is amazing. So why have I managed to achieve these things but NOT managed to secure another music client? Maybe it’s because I don't actually want to. Music and me, I think we are finally done. The long drawn out process of splitting up and getting back together is over.

From when I did a win.

I woke up in the middle of the night last night, petrified and afraid. I cannot afford Namibia and Panama. I can’t afford the flights or the time off. I have very little money coming in and no savings. I have no 9-5 bread and butter money. I am fucked. So, so fucked. I am going to have to cancel it. And then I thought of Lorna’s post again. I thought about the people that I admire and look up to - the Sean Conway’s and the Anna McNuff’s. I thought about Mongolia and how much that experience can NEVER be taken away from me. I think about my own mantras - see the world through your eyes not your phone. Relentless forward progress. You have more in you. I think about being old and the regrets I may have. I can’t go - I have a dog and I need to make money. I need to be sensible and grown up. I am going to have to email Jim and cancel it. I am going to have to do what society tells me I should do.

I think about when I am most happy. I think about the Crafty Fox marathon at the weekend and how much I am looking forward to seeing the White Star lot and how much I am looking forward to running. I think about how kind Jim and Rat Race have been to me. I think about how happy I am when I give a talk to a bunch of people that think they could never run a marathon or a 10k or an ultra and how, when some of them email me months later to tell me they have done it, I feel like doing a little cry. I think about my breakdown. I think about the death of my dear friend Scott. I think about my future. I can’t see further than tomorrow. I call my sister, my most wonderful sister, and talk to her. And I make a decision. Based entirely on gut. Based on my sister being spectacularly supportive and kind and talking to me from her heart.

Fuck it. Fuck it all. I know what I want to do. I want to inspire people, I want to live a positive life, and give back the joy running has given me to people. I want to make people believe in themselves. I want to show people they are capable of so much more than they think. I want to write a book. I want to run all over the world. I want to be an extraordinary, ordinary person. And I want to be happy doing it. I don't want to be rich, or famous or the best or the fastest. I want to be the kindest and the most honest and the most accessable. I need money to live, but there has to be a better way. I don't have children. I have Pickle the dog, but she will be well looked after. I have nothing left to lose, and even the tiny bits I do have to lose mean nothing. I want to live a life less ordinary.

So I am going. I am going to run 300km across the Namib Desert to the Skeleton coast. Then I am going to run 200km across Panama from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast. I will be poor. I will have to move out of London. I want to move out of London, so this is not a problem. I will have to work hard to secure talks and part time work. I will have to scale back my whole life. But I will do it. And I will do it fucking well.

Normal service will be resumed next week after the inaugural Crafty Fox marathon. Now go and sign up for something extraordinary.

#running ultrarunning runner trailrunning 2Xu inov8 garmin bovington whitestarrunning runners marathon ultramarathon training

3 notes · View notes

tessatechaitea · 5 years ago

Text

Justice Society of America #1 (1992)

Hourman looks like he's trying to remember how long they've been battling this thing.

If your super power is that you take a pill that lets you have super powers for one hour, don't call yourself Hourman. Why would you tell every villain you're battling that if they just prolong the fight for a little over sixty minutes, they'll kick your ass? My theory is that Hourman's pills actually work for two hours and by purporting that his powers only last an hour, he eventually takes them by surprise when they find he didn't lose his powers. Also, by making them think he'll be powerless at the end of an hour, any stalling tactics they choose to use just gives more time for JSA backup to arrive. Maybe Hourman is smarter than I thought! I remember picking up this comic book because something in me wanted to like and appreciate the Justice Society. I believe I eventually killed that part of me with hallucinogenic mushrooms and alcohol. I also think I gave it a try because of the cartoony cover art and the logo that screams, "This is a cartoon!" It totally fooled me even though, at twenty, I should have realized comic books and cartoons were quite different mediums.

We interrupt this comic book review to say good morning to Gravy. Note the Lobo statue and the H.P. Lovecraft horror corner angle of my office.

The issue begins by reminding the readers that the Justice Society is composed of old geezers. But they don't look super old even though they fought Nazis because they were trapped in a bottle fighting Ragnarok or something. That's how I remember it and I won't be convinced of anything different. Erasing incorrect memories and replacing them with facts is probably like using an old VHS tape to constantly tape over old shows. Pretty soon the quality of the tape is fucked and you can't tell what the hell you're watching. And I don't want my brain to become an old VHS tape full of static and flip-flopping images! I'd rather it be full of crystal clear misinformation!

Popcorn for the kid and a large cup of bull semen for gramps!

These two nobodies have come to Gotham Stadium to see an exhibition put on by the Justice Society. They're all there: the ones with wings, the one with the bedpan on his head, the squat one that definitely gets paid to shit in people's mouths, the blind one, the one with a wood allergy, the one with the pill addiction, the gassy one, the possessed one, the furry, and Starman. You can tell they're an older generation group because only one of them is female and she's just a redundant copy of Hawkman. Clark and Lois are in attendance to sort of explain why the Justice Society aren't super old farts.

I guess I'll learn the details when I get around to reading Armageddon 2001 and its spin-offs. That was the crossover where Captain Atom becomes tyrant of the world in a dystopian future. Oh, sorry. It was actually Hawk and not Captain Atom because all the readers immediately guessed it was Captain Atom and the editors were all, "We need to surprise the audience! Make it a character nobody would have guessed or even cared about at all!"

Lois starts getting romantic and maudlin thinking about how she and Clark may get to spend as many years together as the Justice Society and she turns to him and says half of something romantic before she's interrupted by Clark saying, "Hey, there's the mayor!" What a scoop! Although why the fuck is Clark getting so excited about the mayor of Gotham? The mayor calls the Justice Society "America's greatest heroes" and Clark's boner doesn't subside because he's such a humble Kansas farm boy. Can't we agree that just because somebody was first doesn't mean we have to hold them up as being the best? I mean, George Washington was the first president of the United States but nobody considers him the greatest president. That was obviously Jimmy Carter. That wasn't a joke. Jimmy Carter was our greatest president. Change my mind. No wait. Don't change my mind. There's nothing I hate more than debating over the Internet. Just go have an ice cream cone and calm the fuck down. The mayor introduces all of the Justice Society for the young kids reading who are just thinking, "Who the fuck are these jerks?" The giant monster that crawls up from underground conveniently waits to attack until the entire team is introduced. Good thing or else I'd keep thinking, "Why is Jimmy Olsen on the Justice Society?" Now I know that's Johnny Thunder! Those of you paying close attention already know I knew that was Johnny Thunder when I referred to him as "the possessed one."

Don't you mean "What in Earth?", Hawkwoman?

Ha ha! I'm like the one asshole you time travel with who always responds to the person saying "Where are we?" with "Don't you mean 'When are we?'" Always such a good line that's been said five million times so it always seems weird when some script writer thinks it's okay to use it yet again. Fuck I hope nobody says it in the new Bill and Ted movie. Justin (the young man with the grandfather guzzling bull semen) gets so excited he leaps head first out of the upper deck. Hawkwoman saves him because the guys are too busy not being compassionate enough. Although did he want to be saved? I don't know. I might take the dive if I had to hang out with a guy who drinks large cups of bull semen. Medium or small, I could handle. I might even indulge in a small. But fucking large? And overflowing! So gross.

Oh the nights I've had that began with me thinking, "If I can only get a wirepoon through that Moby Dick!"

Superman swoops in to beat up the monster and steal all of the attention for himself. I guess he did bristle at the notion that the Justice Society were America's greatest heroes. He could have at least waited a few minutes to see if they could stop the monster without all dying of heart attacks. I suppose as soon as Sandman crumpled to his knees while clasping his chest and screaming, "I'm comin'!", Superman felt forced to intervene.

The pill popper is just saying what we're all thinking.

Superman mentions that this is the Justice Society's retirement party. That makes sense. I shouldn't have assumed that they were returning to reality to constantly battle the Ultra-Humanite. They just want their pension checks and some hard candies. Sandman is down and Johnny Thunder believes he's had another stroke.

Luckily Wildcat got to Sandman before the mouth shitter.

Later, Alan and Jay* go to a diner to indulge in some exposition (*Alan is Green Lantern and Jay is The Flash -- Nerd Editor Big Nerd Grunion!). They returned to Earth rejuvenated but now some of that is wearing off. I guess maybe in Armageddon Inferno, they returned much younger and now for this series, the writer wanted to get them back up to kind of old. But not super old like all of their wives and husbands! Not that any of them have husbands because they're all straight males (I think! This is before Alan became New 52 gay). They discuss how back in their day, they only had to fight "jewel thieves and bank robbers" while the new heroes now battle "mass murderers" too. Did they forget about all the Nazis they fought?! Maybe they just remember them as simple art thieves?

Oh, okay. They remember Hitler and the Nazis. It's just a seeming smallish footnote in their story, I guess.

While having coffee, Jay and Alan get their super hero news alerts just like they always have: a television playing in the background with the sound way up. Apparently some "anti-nuke loonies" have laid siege to a nuclear reactor. And they're not as peaceful as you'd expect people who are anti-nuclear power would be; they're armed and, um, loony?

Oh, I guess they are loonies! They're just not anti-nuke like Alan assumed. He is old so everybody fucking up the status quo is probably just another Goddamned hippie to him.

Who is that guy and who are the mutant wild life and why have they been imprisoned? It would have been easier to understand if they actually were armed hippies protesting against nuclear war by exploding a power plant. Oh, duh. That's Cain, leader of The New Order! How could I forget Cain and the New Order after only 28 years! The other members of New Order are Scud, Ammo, Corona, and...Pooch? They're not too experienced or maybe Alan and Jay are super experienced because Alan and Jay beat them like a schoolyard bully beats the new kid's younger sister while making the new kid watch. That was my last simile from my stash of bulk similes I had Pickle Boy write me a few months ago. I guess it was good enough. But now I'm going to need more! Green Lantern and The Flash decide they're not ready to retire after playing hero. But they don't decide it with dignity and gravitas. The Flash just says, "Retirement?" And Green Lantern embarrassingly responds, "Not!" Ah ha ha! Oh, 1993, how I miss you! I mean I don't but I'm not going to say the word that implies I didn't really mean that which makes the entire statement super funny because I'm referencing a film based on a short sketch that was totally hilarious. Justice Society of America #1 Rating: C. It's probable that this series was green-lit simply because DC management were nostalgic for the Justice Society. I'm sure the pitch was simply, "Picture this: the Justice Society of America! But older! But not too much older! Just the right amount of older!" And everybody was all, "Okay. Sure. Whatever. We're busy planning the death of Superman over here. Just do what you want." I guess that was good enough. I mean, I bought it and I was not very discriminating at all! You picked up a lot of comic books you didn't really care about when they were only a buck twenty-five per issue.

#Justice Society of America #JSA #Len Strazewski #Mike Parobeck #Mike Machlan

0 notes

tinymixtapes · 7 years ago

Text

Interview: High aura’d

When you listen to any of John Kolodij’s releases under the High aura’d moniker, American Primitive mixes with scorched blues rippers, subtle drone freakouts, and dark ambient excursions. For fans both old and new, Kolodij’s latest LP, and first for Seattle’s Debacle, No River Long Enough Doesn’t Contain a Bend, is as accomplished a record as he’s ever released. Save for the final track, featuring Angel Olsen’s vocals, No River is an understated showcase of Kolodij’s acoustic and electric guitar instrumentals, coupled with adventurous experimental song-scapes. In the run-up to the release of No River, John and I emailed back and forth from his current home base of Ohio, discussing the history of the project, his work as a chef, and how his home state’s natural beauty inspired the new record. --- I want to focus primarily on the here and now of the High aura’d project, but tell me a little bit about yourself, and how the project came into existence? I’m 44 years old. I grew up in Trumansburg, NY, right outside of Ithaca. The Finger Lakes — what people toss off as Upstate. I’m married to a wonderful, creative woman, who is also the mother of our three girls. High aura’d began as a duo, but then quickly became a solo path. I had always been in bands, and still clung to the idea that I needed someone to bounce ideas off, and fill space with. Due to an imminent tour with Barn Owl, and some new technology, I quickly fleshed out my ideas and was able to get the density of sound I wanted by myself. Listeners have the High aura’d discography to sink their teeth into, but what is your view on the evolution of the project? Any releases that would have surprised you when you first started? It’s purely an evolution. My earliest work was more meditative in conception, and I’ve been feeling a need to reclaim that, but again, it all represents who I am, and was at that time. That day. I don’t think I’m surprised by anything I’ve recorded. I’m truly grateful some people enjoy listening to my work, and I always will be. I’ve been very lucky to work with some fine people and have their support and encouragement. Finally hearing it on vinyl was the kicker… It has this warmth that I was always hoping to hear; and the art, which is photography of mine, but treated by Kevin Gan Yuen and incorporating the work of William Cody Watson; it’s a beautiful, singular package that I hope will make people want to own it. In a 2015 interview with Decoder, your previous collaborator Mike Shiflet mentioned that you were a chef. I would love to hear more about it. Are you still a chef, and what kind of foods were/are you specializing in? I was a professional cook. Chefs are owners. This all comes from the military system of rank. Chef being “chief.” I did not attend a cooking school, but I did unpaid stages for a chef in Boston where I was living, for a year on the weekends, and she offered me a job and I ran with it. I had just wanted to learn how to cook like someone’s great-grandmother, to intuitively know what to do and how to put ingredients together, to think seasonally, and cook from a whole food prospective. I’d always gone to farmers markets as a child, and we had a decent vegetable patch at our house. I’ve always been into Japanese and Vietnamese cooking — all of the places I cooked were New American (minus one very high end Italian place, which was trying to push that envelope) — local-sustainable, worked with local farmers and purveyors to raise and butcher or source as much as possible. We also had the flexibility to incorporate new techniques and ideas. But now, I have four clients, and I try to keep that as happy as possible. I still aim to cook like an elder would, just maybe one from Hokkaido, or a Buddhist temple cook. I try and stay up to date as possible regarding what’s going on in food trends, and I’ve got my various noodle soups locked down. My pho is pretty on-point. When you say, “to intuitively know what to do and how to put ingredients together,” I can’t help but think of music, composition, and songwriting. Do you see any connections between the way you approach cooking and music? In as much as they are, or should be creative crafts, yes. I’m often drawn toward minimal ingredients presented in their finest way; Pickled mackerel, a foraged mushroom. A tomato in late summer, with fresh basil that grew next to it, dressed in great olive oil. I only eat tomatoes when in season. I hate the false flavor a hot house tomato brings. I listen to tons of dub in the summertime, drink more tequila then as well. Are these linked? Your music, especially the new album, combines established sounds of blues and Americana with drone, noise, and other modern flourishes. Blues and roots music is associated with travel, migration, and movement. With a recent move from Rhode Island to Ohio, how did you approach your songcraft with your lived experience of migration? I think unless you’re trying to push your art in an unnatural direction, it’s always a reflection of the sum of your experience up until that point. I’ve moved around a good deal; Ithaca, NY, to Providence, Rhode Island; Brooklyn, NY, and Boston for a dozen years; Narragansett, Rhode Island, for two years, and now right outside Cleveland, Ohio, going on three years. I’ve been in bands since I was 13, my first being a ridiculous thrash-metal band. My next bigger band was super shoegaze, and then next was a slowcore-/country-influenced quartet with a cellist [ed. note: The Pines of Rome]. I feel like all that is in me at anytime. A lot of this record is done with acoustic guitars at the core, but there’s still oversaturated electric guitars, pedal steel, piano, and even acoustic drums, so it’s just me. I don’t feel I honestly consider fans’ expectations, or part of a musical tradition. I just try and hone in on whatever interests me in my work and dig out and polish what I like and present the truest version I’m able to. No River contains traces of both classic tropes of Americana, but mixed with modern drone and ambient composition. How do you balance carrying on the traditions associated with acoustic and blues guitar, while finding new ways to push the boundaries of fans’ expectations? Robert Johnson was probably my first guitar crush, from probably the most embarrassing point of entry, the 1986 Ralph Macchio vehicle, Crossroads, which featured sweet shredder Steve Vai as well. America was in love with hair metal, but I got this Robert Johnson boxset for Christmas, and I was hooked. I’ve always dug Bukka White, Blind Willie Johnson, John Lee Hooker…and this eventually led me to John Fahey, which led me to Gastr Del Sol, and then to Loren Mazzacane Connors and Keiji Haino which led me… all without The Interent! But on a parallel line, Sonic Youth led me to Bill Frisell, Bad Brains led me to Scientist, Led Zeppelin led me to Annie Briggs and Fairport Convention, King Crimson led to Fripp & Eno, Coltrane led me to Alice Coltrane and beyond… I don’t feel I honestly consider fans’ expectations, or part of a musical tradition. I just try and hone in on whatever interests me in my work and dig out and polish what I like and present the truest version I’m able to. Debacle wrote that you “dove into discovering the old forest and rivers of Steelhead Alley” after your move to Ohio. Did you find that exploring the surrounding natural area spilled over into your songwriting? I’d hope it has. Cleveland has the worst reputation nationally, and it’s completely undeserved. The people (as much as they are human, which is to say, as much as any other place) are open minded and kind. The natural wonders around here are spectacular. The forests are grand, the rivers wondrous, and the sky is intense. I’ve become an avid fly fisher, catch and release, and it’s truly amazing being out in the middle of a river and only hearing & sensing the natural world. I often try, when working on a piece to envision myself, somewhere else: in a desert, at the edge of an ocean, nighttime in Sonoma, crossing a footbridge in Miami, wherever feels evocative, and then trying to score that moment. I’ve been in love with cinema forever, and I just try and score everyday life. A lot of cinemas host screenings with live or newly composed scores. Have you had your eye on a film you feel you could do justice with your sounds? I love snowy films. John Carpenter’s The Thing, Paul Schrader’s Affliction, even Tarantino’s The Hateful 8, The Revenant, Fargo, A Simple Plan, The Shining… So perhaps something like that? Most of those are rather perfect as they are. I have performed quite often to films others have made for me, often over-saturated color rich impressionistic pieces. I love doing that. When you lived in Rhode Island, were you playing live often? Was there a venue or scene you were associated with? Have you established a new musical space or community in Ohio? I did play often, perhaps more in Boston at first, but I got out at least every 2 months on average. I played at Machines With Magnets quite a bit, bringing some shows there. I played a bunch with Work/Death (Scott Reber is simply the best). If you’re asking if I was down with Fort Thunder, I was down with Fort Thunder in real time. As far as Ohio, I’ve been playing out less, much of last year, as High aura’d because I wanted to focus on freeing my guitar playing up, and trying to expel learned or histrionic playing — I wanted to get free. There’s a wonderful music scene here with multiple layers and venues. I’ve been playing with some more improv/free people, which is well represented here by New Ghosts and venues like The Bop Stop and Dan Wenninger’s monthly nights. There’s the classic experimental people like John Elliot, Prostitutes, Machine Listener, Chromesthic, Talons, & Trouble Books. And great suppostive record shops/distros like Bent Crayon, Hausfrau Records, and Experimedia. As a listener, it’s fitting to dive into No River Long Enough Doesn’t Contain a Bend as fall kicks into high gear. Do you have ideal conditions or times of day well suited to working on and recording new High aura’d material? I like to try and work on music as early in the day as possible — my mind is as uncluttered as it’s going to be at that point. I do also enjoy relaxing, later at night, and watching really slow movies with grand cinematography and just free associating on an acoustic guitar. I often try, when working on a piece to envision myself, somewhere else: in a desert, at the edge of an ocean, nighttime in Sonoma, crossing a footbridge in Miami, wherever feels evocative, and then trying to score that moment. I’ve been in love with cinema forever and I just try and score everyday life. Is most of the material on No River based off of improvisation? How long did you spend on this project? If you mean recorded improvisation that became a song, 3 songs on this would qualify. Most others were worked on, over the course of 2-3 years. The move to Ohio, slowed me a bit, not that I’m swift to begin with. Finally hearing it on vinyl was the kicker. Helge Sten, who’s work at Deathprod and is a member of Supersilent, mastered the LP, and he just added this magic sheen. It has this warmth that I was always hoping to hear; and the art, which is photography of mine, but treated by Kevin Gan Yuen and incorporating the work of William Cody Watson; it’s a beautiful, singular package that I hope will make people want to own it, and not just download. Music was meant for more than laptop speakers. I’ve seen how other writers, labels, and musicians play drone and noise music for their kids, whether as a way to help put them to bed, or just to see how they react to it. How do your children respond to your work? It’s always strange to think of what our parents do as “cool,” but I imagine hearing some blaring guitar and drones growing up can make quite the impression on a kid. When our first child would need some help falling asleep, say while we were out doing something, and they were tired, but no quite there yet, we’d put on Tim Hecker’s album Harmony in Ultraviolet, specifically “Chimeras.” It would always do the trick. Plus it’s like another favorite, Aphex Twin’s “Stone In Focus,” it just has this glorious decaying motif. They love music, and they’ve all just recently started playing instruments they chose: ukulele, viola, and guitar. We never forced anything on them, they just have always had access. I’m sure to one degree they think my work is strange, but they also are keenly aware of all the spooky music in television and films. And they mostly think it’s too loud. My kids were more responsive to the band my wife and I had together, a fuzz/pop band called WORKING. They love pop music, and we listen to a bunch of that constantly, but I listen to a lot of hip-hop and soul, and they humor me there. Also, spare bits of metal. I think everyone enjoys spacing out on Arvo Part or Ryuichi Sakamoto, no? I know they enjoy it to some degree. My eldest daughter’s favorite record for a while was John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, so I did something right. How did No River find its home on Debacle? Sam [Melancon, Debacle’s founder] has wide ranging tastes, but there are several records in the catalog (Hayden Pedigo, Elkhorn, Daniel Bachman) that, like you, take American Primitive and blues outside the box. Where do you see your place within the label and its ability to document varying scenes and movements within underground, D.I.Y. communities? I’ve long admired Debacle’s streak of representing what they like and giving at a physical manifestation. Their varied tastes are easily viewed, from records by my old friends Kevin Gan Yuen, Golden Retriever, and Daniel Bachmann, to Total Life, and Chambers, which features Gabriel Saloman of Yellow Swans. [It] reminds me in all the best ways of my former label Bathetic, who purely pushed what they dug, simply. With the record’s impending release, do you plan to tour? What’s next for you and High aura’d? I don’t plan on touring, but I do plan on getting out, radially, from here. I’d like to hit Chicago and play with some friends along the way. As far as what’s next, I have some great collaborations finished, looking for homes, one with Matt Christensen of Zelienople, and a brewing LP2 with Mike Shiflet. I may retire the High aura’d moniker, or keep it strictly for more sound/drone recordings. I hope to start work on a new collection soon. I feel like this year has had numerous wonderful records released and this is a glorious time for new music. I’d like to collaborate sincerely and seriously more in the coming year, and keep growing. And to do so freely. http://j.mp/2hWpQES

1 note · View note