#but if you would like to give it a try i would recomend some early game ost like 'Timber Hearth' 'Outer Wilds' 'Space' from the base game | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

btsandvmin · 4 years ago

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Do you think any of the bts members are part of the lgbtq+ community? I assume you think vmin are, what makes you think that? I kinda feel like jimin could be bi... while tae gay maybe? And Yoongi could be bi as well. Tbh they all kinda give off gay vibes, but I guess it's bc of the cultural difference and bc they are all so close... so they may do things that seem a lot to many people but not to them... so who knows? A lot could be fan service too. But Namjoon and Jin are the ones who definitely give me straight vibes (Jin a bit less tho). What do you think?

I think there might be members that are LGBT+, but of course that’s just based on how I percieve things. I apologize in advance for this answer being a bit messy... As you say there are many things that make such speculation difficult.

Honestly putting definite labels on someone is not something I really want to or think we can do... Sometimes the members do things that might indicate interest in various genders, but that’s still too vague to define a sexuality for me. Unless they say something themselves, I don’t think we can know.

I mean, even assuming someone you know is LGBT+ is gay, pan, bi etc. with a specific label without them having told you is so common and can even lead to mislabeling someone. One obvious example is how bi-erasure makes someone go from straight to being gay when they start dating someone of the same gender etc. There are so many types of sexualites and gender expressions to begin with. Some don’t even accociate with a label at all. For example I personally think Namjoon seems to be attracted to women, but even if that is a correct guess it doesn’t have to mean he is straight.

It’s very complicated, at least for me, to dive too deep into it with anything except “hunches or guesses” based on behavior and actions. This becomes even more complicated when we add difference in culture, idol fanservice, personal comfortableness with intimacy, level or homophobia or supportive people around them and personal experience etc.

BTS likely can’t even be honest with their sexualities if they are LGBT+ and that makes it even more difficult to know depending on if they even want to show that part of themselves or not. Internalized homobhobia can be very strong, even though I suspect BTS being more and more open towards LGBT+ might help if members are non straight. And we still don’t know anything about how their families or friends would react etc. Not to mention we know a lot of fans would hate them and leave them if they ever proved to definitely be non straight. So them hiding being LGBT is obviously going to make it more difficult to guess if any member might be LGBT+, if they on purpse try to not show it. For example saying some things are not for men to do, or being careful with how they come across. Something I personally think Jimin for example might have done more in the past, as he is aware how he can fit into a lot of stereotypes for what is “gay” or feminine. The same goes for Hobi who can be very flamboyant. And while these things can be an indication for sexuality or gender identity they don’t have to be. Especially not when idols even get encouraged at times to act or more “delicate or feminine” or do fanservice with the same sex etc. There are a lot of blurred lines, and those lines can be a bit fluid as well...

There are also soooo many colors of the rainbow that I don’t think it’s weird for a lot of idols to be part of the community in some ways, even if they might never openly be so. Some might also be allies, some might be curious or unsure about themselves and some might be in straight up denial as well.

So, I rather just guess if they might be LGBT+ than what exact label, because going in to detail is so personal and different from person to person.

I also want to say again, that “straight until proven otherwise” honestly needs to go away, and assuming someone is straight is a toxic way to assume sexuality. Not to mention it’s much more harmful to shut down conversations about them possibly being LGBT+ than mistaking a straight person for possibly LGBT+. A LGBT+ person might have no choice to hide (very likely in the case of idols), so showing we are open and supportive no matter what is what matters the most.

That being said I feel it’s very very likely at least some members are LGBTQ+ if not for anything else than comments like “when we don’t have boyfriends or girlfriends” from Namjoon and other moments like it, in combination with their support for the community. At the very least they are allies.

Personally the way some members involve themselves in LGBT+ culture in various ways I see as something to more likely happen when you are part of the community yourself and not just an ally. But BTS having the influence they have of course it could all also be meant to be inclusive and show support as they have for various causes. That’s why it all still remains uncertain.

I will make a more articulate section on Taehyung and Jimin’s possibly being LGBT+ in my bigger analysis. But I will try to summarize a little bit of my thoughts in this answer and hope that it all makes sense.

Big Hit in general and in particular Bang PD seem to be pretty open and LGBT+ friendly. Many concepts of Big Hit artists can have LGBT+ subtext. It’s not always explicit, but something many rainbow ARMY might pick up on, like the storyline between JK and Yoongi in the BU. For example reading Demian which the whole BST era is based on I personally see a lot of LGBT+ subtext in that book (which is then also fitting with other things we know about Hermann Hesse’s life). But a lot of people won’t pick up on it and we can’t know for sure because no one ever explicitly says it is meant to be LGBT+.

Many BTS members support LGBT+ artists, it doesn’t have to be because of them being LGBT+ but it wouldn’t be odd for them to search for representation and artists to relate to if they are LGBT+ themselves. Mostly we have seen Tae, Namjoon and JK being more “loud” witht their support for LGBT+ artists, songs, movies, books etc.

Namjoon, Tae and JK have all expressed support in various ways directly to LGBT+ fans that have showed up to fansites.

Members like Yoongi has straight up said it’s nothing wrong, everyone is equal, when Namjoon was a bit more “diplomatical” and tried to swerve the question a bit. Both could still be LGBT+, and both could be allies, even with very different reactions.

I think all members have their moments to show LGBT+ support, and all members have “questionable moments” that makes people speculate about their sexualities. For me Tae, Namjoon, Yoongi and JK seem to be the most open about support or showing interesting in LGBT+ things. But that can also have to do with their personalities, or even feeling less scared to show support. In some cases it might even be easier for an ally to speak up for someone LGBT+ when they can’t themselves, as in a closeting situation.

I know you asked about all members, but I want to be honest and say that while I do know a bit about all of them, I do know a lot more about some members than others. I am also kind of sitting here and aren’t sure I can say more than I think all of BTS are allies, and that it seems likely at least some members are LGBT+. I have seen small things from basically all members, but I haven’t seen enough to lean heavily towards any particular sexuality. So, while I am sharing my thoughts here they can sway back an forth a lot and can very much just be based on misinterpretation. It can also be difficult to put a definite reason to why I react more to some members doing similar things.

Based on actions alone, because I try not to bring in vibes, I guess the short summary would be:

Jin - Has talked the most about wanting a girlfriend, and while he has said things like his celeberity crush is Brad Pitt I haven’t seen a lot with him in regards to LGBT+. To me less likely to be LGBT+.

Yoongi - Has been very firm with being supportive of LGBT+ and has had both lyrics and interviews that could be interpreted as gender not being important to him in general. Doesn’t show a lot, but the things he does say seem very pointed and deliberate. To me more likely to be LGBT+.

Namjoon - Has been the loudest since the earliest with his support for LGBT+. Wrote LGBT+ lyrics for Glam but also very sexual lyrics about women in early songs. Has talked about queer culture a lot and while he seems careful at times has expressed a lot of open support. Enjoys a lot of queer culture and has recomended movies, songs and books. Has showed more personal interest towards women, but seem very interested in LGBT+. Definitely an ally, likely into women, but also very possibly into other genders. To me more somewhere “in the middle” or more likely LGBT+.

Hobi - Has done subtle things like wearing rainbow belts during pride, but seemed to start being more LGBT+ supportive when all of BTS did so. Could possibly be non straight or also just very comfortable with himself and an ally. (He has “effiminate or flamboyant” behavior but I don’t want to lean too much into that.) Buuuut he also accidentally said stuff like “boyfriend”. To me “somewhere in the middle”, or more likely to be LGBT+.

JK - Seem to avoid questions about women/crushes and sometimes even answering with men (Like Namjoon or Ironman). Is the most “feminine” according to members (though that was a while ago) and is very open to expressing things in a gender neutral way. The member who has said the least in regards to masculine stereotypes like “men should” and also one of the members who is the loudest about LGBT+ artists. Also having done covers by LGBT+ artists without changing pronouns. To me more likely to be LGBT+.

I am fully aware I just basically said I think almost all members are likely to be LGBT+. But I really try to just look at them as individuals. It’s also as I said much more difficult for me to be able to truly know their thoughts in regards to LGBT+ based on such limited information as the subject in itself is partly taboo. It’s also possible with such a close knit group that if some members are LGBT+ that will affect and make other members more open as well. Basically the way BTS express support doesn’t have to be personal for all of them.

However, despite it all I think Taehyung is the member who seems to be the “most loud” in a personal way when it comes to LGBT+ (and also Yoongi). For me it makes sense with their personalities and how they are outspoken in general for something they believe in. @romanticdrift recently answered an ask (HERE) with a lot of good points, and in particular when it comes to Taehyung’s possible sexuality. This is why I feel Jin who also is quite outspoken in general but haven’t talked a lot (at least not to my knowledge) about LGBT+ things feel more like an ally in comparison.

For me there are many things about Taehyung over the years I can’t help but think of when it comes to LGBT+ and have given me reason to wonder about Taehyung himself being part of the community. Especially when putting them all together it seems to be something important to him.

Talking about many things and people from queer culture. Not just enjoying them but sharing it with fans.

Singing songs like Stigma about being a sinner for something you can’t help or change. Many of Taehyung’s songs many LGBT+ fans relate to.

The reference to the gay movie “Moonlight” in a self written song, and most of Tae’s songs being gender neutrual. (All except Winter Bear).

The meaning of the color purple as the last color of the rainbow.

Saying “thank you” to fans with a pride flag at a concert.

Since early on having no problem with crossdressing or other things that might “look gay” (there are also moments where he has objected like “men don’t do...” as most BTS members have). But we also have things like randomly doing roleplay where he can’t be together with Jimin. I mention this because it wasn’t for a camera, but something Jin told us.

Talking about the reason for his Christmas song not being with Jimin. The fact that he highlighted the reason as the lyrics not fitting two men and going on to say he doesn’t think he will ever release it. To me this is probably the most personal example where Tae seems bothered about something homophobic.

Basically there is something in the way Taehyung expresses his support that just seem more personal, and more tied to himself. He isn’t just loud with support ike some other members, he expresses things like he relates to it more openly.

For Jimin I think he is more difficult with actual examples of openly supporting or expressing things LGBT+. And it’s difficult looking at him without going into gender norms and falling into sterotype traps as well. I do think Jimin has changed a lot and as many other members wear a lot more gender neutrual clothes etc. If I make this about Vmin I would even say Jimin’s image properly seemed to become a bit more “soft” around the time Taehyung gave him the Gucci sweater, which was gender neutral. Think more Jimin in sweater paws and soft oversized clothes.

It could also be an image change as Spring Day era definitely brought a lot of softer Jimin. However, I want to emphasis here that Jimin still to this day has a lot of styles and outfits that are also very masculine. And that many other members also wear gender neutral clothes. Not to mention that clothes can express things without being tied to sexuality or gender of the person who wears them.

For me I think it can be even more ambigious with clothes only because often we don’t know if they decided the clothes or if it was a choice by a stylist etc. And we know most members have worn gender neutral clothes or womens clothes, especially for performances or photoshoots. So personal clothes I see as of more importance. For example Yoongi wearing very limited edition Pro-LGBTQ+ shoes as his personal clothes (HERE).

Back to Jimin... I personally see Jimin as a very aware and careful person when it comes to how he is percieved in general. Thus if he is LGBT+ I think he unlike Taehyung would likely be more careful. So, Jimin showing less directly LGBT+ support might be a choice out of acting careful. No matter if he is LGBT+ himself or not. But it does make things more vague. But he also painted the symbol of bigender on himself, so.

The things I have noted except for his image over the years are fewer than with many other members, and I try to not to put too much weight on his looks and manners and “vibes”, even if those things can be because of him being LGBT+.

Jimin has sometimes acted a bit defensive about his sexuality/masculinity, but he has never denied the possibility of him liking men despite getting asked.

Jimin is a member who has perhaps the most (together with Tae and Hobi) showed a liking for fanservice between members. (Doesn’t have to show his sexuality, but could also be a place where he gets to express something he usually can’t).

Lie is a song about not showing your true self and hurting/being punished. Jimin has been very vague when speaking of the meaning of the song. It’s a song many LGBT+ fans also relate to.

Jimin is a naturally flirty person, and the flirting doesn’t seem to be limited to one gender. But, it doesn’t have to be flirting based on attraction.

The bigender symbol in the hero photoshoot and the Filter performance playing with gender identity.

In general, there is just a lot less direct things when it comes to Jimin and LGBT+. Which doesn’t surprise me considering his personality. There are moments of course, like liking LGBT+ artists like Kehlani or reacting to pride flags at concerts. But at least to me there is a lot less to actually analyze when it comes to Jimin and LGBT+ moments and that makes things more difficult. So, to me Jimin is probably someone I am more unsure of, which might be surprising to some of you, especially considering this is a Vmin blog. But because of Jimin’s personality and early reactions/behavior I also am not at all surprised if he is more careful on purpose, especially if he is LGBT+.

Interesting to me as a Vmin shipper is also that quite a few of Taehyung’s LGBT+ things could possibly be related to Jimin. For example the line from “Moonlight” in 4 o’clock or Tae asking if Jimin can “be the girlfriend” while roleplaying. Not to mention the Christmas song of course. But I don’t want to use things from Taehyung to try and guess about Jimin. Basically looking at only them as individuals Jimin is less likely to be LGBT+ than Tae, but I do still think the chance of both of them being queer is there.

And if I then dive into Vmin's behavior with each other assuming they are both queer, that might show some interesting things too. But that will always be based on the IF, not as proof for their sexualites.

So, that was my view... I have been asked about this quite a few times, and I hope this post made sense. I know it was long and messy, but that’s also because sexuality can be such a difficult topic.

Thanks for the ask. If you enjoyed this and want to support me you can like, reblogg, comment or check out my Ko-Fi page: https://ko-fi.com/K3K43433H

#bts #bts sexualities #vmin #vmin analysis #btsandvmin #jimin sexuality #taehyung sexuality #Btsandvmin ask #Btsandvmin answer

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dayseternal-blog · 4 years ago

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Hi Days! I'm a huge fan of your work and your tumblr blog bc you give so many naruhina fanfic recs and talk about your stories, etc.

To sum it up, you're my favorite person lol, I'm a bit shy so I'm asking this as an anon, but I wanted to tell you something random just because I've always just thought about it and maybe you would agree or comment on it.

Have you ever listened to mitski? If you haven't I recomend you do bc she's amazing, but anyways I was listening to a song of hers called "washing machine heart" and it reminded me of naruhina, like the fic "together you and I" but different you know, like naruto only married hinata because he couldn't have sakura, she was his second option and every time he looked at her he wished and pretended it was Sakura, so Hina tries her hardest to look pretty and try to be the person he wants, always getting saddend by the idea that she isn't the one he wants, she knows his heart will only belong to Sakura. She let's him trample all over her heart and use her because she loves him unconditionally, maybe cry to her on some nights because he longs for Sakura's love that will never come.

I've read so many fanfics and I've never encountered one using this concept, I'd write it myself, but I'm not good at writing, maybe I'm reaching but it could inspire an angst story made by you or just a prompt or idea/concept for anyone to use. The hurt in this could be inmaculate and I bet a good writer could bring everyone to tears if they read a story like this. You don't have to do anything ofc I'll love you either way, I'm not meaning to push you to write a whole story with this concept by any means or to even post this ask, it's just something I made up/ related to this certain song, so I wanted you to see it, perhaps share your opinion or thoughts on it or just think about it. I love pain a lot hahaha bc I'm not a narusaku shipper in any way, I actually dislike the ship a lot.

Thank you for reading this and pls keep up the awesome work!! I'll always be a fan and support you and your spectacular writing❤️❤️

GAH What an awful fic idea you have 💔

“The Ring that Binds” by softwind - Rated M, Canon-Divergent, Multi-chapter, Incomplete. Naruto and Hinata are married. So why is Naruto calling “Sakura” in his sleep?

“Girl No 10″ by meeiwen - Rated M, Modern AU, Multi-chapter, Complete. Naruto makes a mistake with a dancer one drunk night. Years later when he meets her again, he begins realizing his perfect life is a lie, but he’s too late to fix it.

And

“Territorial” by @bunny-hoodlum - Rated M, High school AU, Multi-chapter, Complete. When Hinata takes advantage of Naruto’s desperation for love, they’re both a little too much for the other to handle.

Are similar to what you have there.

HERE’S MY VERY QUICK AND INCOMPLETE STAB AT YOUR PROMPT IT’S UNEDITED UNREVISED CANON-DIVERGENT AU RATED T FOR LANGUAGE BUT I HOPE YOU LIKE WHAT I COULD COME UP WITH 😘 THEY ARE NOT MARRIED BECAUSE I WOULD BE TOO SAD

...

Naruto finally makes it to the Hokage’s office, having had trouble shaking off fangirls on his way. He can immediately tell he’s the last one there, even though it’s the eve of the Rinnegan Festival. Tense expressions greet him, the atmosphere somber.

Sakura whips her attention back to the desk before them. “Rokudaime, with all due respect, I don’t think Naruto belongs on this mission.”

Her behavior has confused him all night. First moving away from him so that Hinata would sit between them at Ichiraku when Hinata could have just sat on the other side of him. Then pushing him to follow Hinata back home. He said aloud that he’d be seeing her later, and that he wanted to catch up with everyone first, but Sakura just glared at him...

She’s been pushing him away, more and more every day, breaking his heart to smaller and smaller pieces...whether knowingly or not, he’s not sure about that, but she’s never rejected him from being her teammate on a mission.

Worried, he meets Kakashi’s gaze.

“I understand your concern, Sakura.” His tone is heavy. His usual careless attitude nowhere in sight. “Call it just my gut-feeling...you’re going to need Naruto’s strength for this mission.”

Hanabi was kidnapped.

Hiashi and Hinata are nowhere to be found.

“What do you mean...?” Naruto finds himself asking. “I just saw her. We just saw her. Not even an hour ago.”

“When Sai reported Hanabi’s kidnapping, believe me, Naruto, we moved to notify her family immediately. Anbu can’t find them.”

“What?” The last memory he has of Hinata abruptly leaving dinner and running off without hardly a word nags at him, inexplicably tightening his chest. “She’s fine. Hinata’s strong. She can take on anybody. No one would dare-”

“Naruto,” Sakura interrupts, her gaze cutting sharp. “She’s nowhere to be found. And as much as you believe that, no one is invincible. Not even Hinata. We need to form a plan, otherwise we’re losing precious time.”

“No one is invincible. Not even Hinata.”

An emptying numbness invades his insides, discomforting slickness muting him.

This isn’t his fault, is it?

What if she needed to tell him something?

She was acting strange at Ichiraku.

Quiet, unusual for her as of recent...

But how was he supposed to notice? Should he have followed after her, like Sakura said? But they were supposed to meet at his apartment later on anyway, so why did she have to come out early like that and ruin the good time he was having? She knows how he hasn’t given up on Sakura.

She knows everything about him. She’s been his rock after Sakura tried to shut him down for good. So how can it be that she’d just disappear? There’s no way.

There’s just no way that she disappeared right after she left...

Hours.

Hours of wandering around in abandoned, desolate, war-stricken villages in god-knows-where, and nothing. No one.

He’s asking for the hundredth time, but he doesn’t care, he’s past the point of desperation, and anxiety-laced tension fills the air. “Taku, you really don’t see anything?!” The Hyuuga they have on their team led them into this godforsaken wasteland.

Taku turns on him aggressively, getting in his face in reaction, and yells, “What about you?? You think I’m not trying my best?! This is my family! Just because you’re Hinata’s boyfriend doesn’t mean you’re any more worried than the rest of us! You don’t sense her??”

No. He doesn’t.

His Sage Mode has never been so useless. In fact, he senses no one besides them in this place, and it’s with terrible unease that he begins to entertain the thought that she’s gone for good.

“There’s no one even here besides us! Nothing! Why’d you take us down here? Where are we even?! How do we get out of here in the first place?!” he argues back.

“Sakura-san was right! You don’t belong on this mission! I don’t know what Hinata-sama could ever see in you, I haven’t seen her smile in months!”

“What do you mean by that?! She smiles all the time! I’ve never seen her act so cheerful in my life!”

“So you fucking know it, too!” Taku glares at him with an incredulous expression. “That she’s just acting!”

“What the hell do you mean by that-”

And he doesn’t know what happened next, but Sai’s grabbing onto Taku and he himself is locked in Shikamaru’s shadow manipulation. Chakra’s sparking off his own hands, while blue embers warp along Taku’s.

“Calm down,” Shikamaru orders both of them. “We’re not getting anywhere if the two of you keep fighting.” He waits for Taku to loosen his stance.

Sai lets go of him.

Taku throws an insulting glare around before sauntering off.

Shikamaru sighs. Hard. “Go cool your head, Naruto.” He retracts his shadow, and Naruto wastes no time walking off in the opposite direction, far from wherever Taku is heading.

Yet Taku’s ridiculous words ring in his head. “That she’s just acting.”

But she said that she’s happy to be with him. That she doesn’t mind that he’s still in love with Sakura. She said that she’s just happy to be with him.

She said that. She did. And she wouldn’t lie to him, right?

She was just acting?

“You’re not going to finish your ramen?” he asked her on their date last month.

“No...” Suddenly, she smiled brightly, something she’s been doing more often ever since he mentioned that he’s always liked how genki Sakura is. “Do you want the rest of mine? I’m dieting.”

He scrunched his eyebrows at her. “Dieting? Why?”

“Well...” She looked thoughtful for a moment before seeming to come to a decision. “Naruto-kun, you like thin girls, right?”

He knew she was talking about Sakura. “...I guess...”

“I want to make you happy,...” she started. She bit her lips for a hesitating moment before continuing, “so I’ve been trying to lose a little weight.”

“Oh.” He didn’t know what to make of that. Unbidden, he looked her over.

“Can you tell?” she asked, her characteristic shyness lowered her lashes, yet she didn’t fidget under his examination, and he could tell how she was trying her best to have that confident persona he admires in his former teammate.

Despite her recent changes in attitude, Hinata’s still been so physically small compared to himself and everyone else. Under her jacket, he couldn’t tell if she looked skinnier or not, and even if she was, he doesn’t think she really needed to be skinnier.

But then she looked up at him with that heavy, hopeful weight in her gaze, and he couldn’t let her down. Not when she’s trying so hard for his approval.

He fibbed easily. “Yeah. You look really good.”

She shined another smile at him that made him feel good. Even if their relationship wasn’t traditional, he could at least still make her happy. He could at least tell her some sweet words and see her sweet smile and-

She was lying.

She wasn’t happy?

He never made her happy?

Then what was the point of any of it?

No, she must have been happy, right?! She said so! She told him so! Many, many times!

After all, he asked her. All of those times he thought she was faking her smile, he asked just to make sure, and she vehemently told him that she was really happy to be with him.

She said he could talk to her about all of it. That she could take on his heartbreak because her feelings were so much bigger than...

“Uzumaki Naruto.”

The unfamiliar voice has him leaping to his feet.

A man as pale as a ghost with piercingly icy eyes is floating down to him on some strange platform. “You’re really as pitiful as I expected.”

“Who the hell are you?!” He readies his stance. He’s not in any mood for games, and he’s ready to let loose some of his stress on this very suspicious character.

“Hinata’s fiance.”

“Hinata?!” Fire races through his veins, heating his feet, and he’s ready to leap at this guy. “Where is she?!”

“With me.”

His heart rate exponentially explodes, beating into his ears, his skin practically bristling. “Let her go,” he demands, and the threat of his words leaks from every pore of his being. “Now.”

The man almost snorts. “What makes you think she wants to see you? You only ever used her, broke her...” His collected expression hardens, and Naruto can sense that he has no intention of releasing her. “I’ll make her happier than you ever could.”

Several thoughts fly too quickly through his mind to properly process any of it, leaving only residual uncertainty and that deepening sense of his culpability in her sudden disappearance. But he doesn’t linger on the unpleasant sensations. “What the fuck do you know?!” And he’s charging at him, a Rasengan heavy in his hand.

The enemy is far more powerful than he appeared, immediately blowing him back with some kind of focused chakra. “Weak, pathetic.”

“GIVE HER BACK!” He replicates himself a dozen times, each of them throwing Rasenshurikens at the man.

Yet more of that strange yellow chakra protects him. He’s unscathed even under his shadow clone onslaught. “No. I gave her a choice, and she came with me. I’m just here to get rid of you, take revenge against you for her sake.”

He hardly comprehends the nonsense spewing out of the enemy’s mouth, and he rallies his clones into close combat, but the man manages to avoid many of the attacks while landing hits of his own.

Clones poofing away only to be replaced by more, frustration and fury starting to blind him into sloppier and sloppier moves.

“I love Hinata. That’s why I deserve her.”

He chokes on his own breath, and in his momentary loss of concentration,...

He’s falling.

------------------------*

aaannnnd that’s as far as I want to go with that. Imagine the rest of the team arriving in time to notice Toneri making his escape toward the sky, and I guess the rest of the story would sort of follow the rest of The Last...Naruto self-reflects a lot in a bundle of depression for a long time and yeah.

...ahhh... I encourage you to write the fic you want to see in the world ❤️

#anon #thank you for thinking i could do your fic idea justice #but in the end 😅 i'm sorry that this is a letdown #i'm not much one for angst you know #who wrote white lilies not me #thank you for laying the praise on thick 🥺 don't know if i'm deserving #thank you for reading!

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peach-the-owl · 4 years ago

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How about when the M9 meet Lucien and see the child reader with him and try to take them back but they want to stay with Lucien and he gets protective of them.

I’ve gotten a few requests for Lucien content, I’m not complaining… just a little surprised at the popularity

A Betrayal?

Child of the Nein (Lucien & Child!Reader)

WARNING: SPOILERS FROM EPISODES 116 AND 117, and very minor spoilers from 121

The Tombtakers had finally reached their destination deep in the A5 ruins, however you were not alone in these twisted halls of timeless ice. Others who’d come for either treasure or research, you weren’t sure which, also wandered the place, or rather they did until the group took them out. You were never much of a fighter yourself so you hid in the sidelines feeling confused and conflicted about the choices you’d made that lead you here.

The chamber you enter was rather large with a strange gem hanging from the ceiling, again you find you’re not the only ones who’d made it this far down and before you know it everyone jumps into initiative. Your pulled off to the side by Lucien and placed behind some fallen ruin for cover.

"Stay 'ere and out of sight." He instructs, you just nod and duck down as he jumps into the fray. The sounds of battle echoed in the chamber, someone skids across the floor near you giving you a better look, you don’t recognize them but do notice the Kryn Dynasty attire they were wearing. They slowly push up off the ground and lock eyes with you, their face turning to one of shock and surprise.

"A child?" Is all they can manage before the goliath in the group, Zoran, stalks over and picks them up with ease. You awkwardly wave at him and he gives you a nod of acknowledgment before slamming the poor soul to the ground and piercing his blade through them, causing their body to grow still. It was actually rather surprising how quickly and easily the Tombtakers took to your sudden presents in their group, maybe it was because you were with Lucien, or rather the Nonagon, when they finally arrived in the snowy wasteland. Although the only one who was probably the least thrilled of your presents was Cree, of course she knew you weren’t any physical threat to them so she was at least tolerant with you around. Not that she’d dare to actually try anything against you seeing as Lucien kept you close to his side the whole time, unless in combat sometimes.

"My apologies. You’ve arrived early. I was hoping to tidy up a bit." You hadn’t even noticed the battle had ended until you heard Lucien’s voice echo around the chamber. You can barely hear the muttering of conversation as you peek out from behind your little hiding spot. You heart feels like it jumps to your throat when you see the Mighty Nein enter the chamber and start questioning "Molly" on why he was acting differently and abandoned them. You edge closer to try and hear everything that’s being said, but why were you being sneaky about it? Neither party would cause you harm and they knew if Molly went traveling somewhere you wouldn’t far behind, so why the need to stay hidden? Before you can form an answer to your own questions a piece of the debris you were clinging to crumbles away causing you to fall to the ground with a small yelp, alerting everyone to your presents. Your lifted back onto your feet by the elf Tyffial, probably on Lucien’s request and walk towards both groups.

"(Y/n)!? We're grateful to see you are well, but what are you doing here?" Caleb questions.

"Ummm… adventuring?" You answer questioningly, this felt a lot more awkward then probably should’ve.

"That doesn't… never mind that, just come over here." He ushers you to them, before you could even move a hand is placed on your shloulder and you’re carefully drawn back.

"Now that won’t be necessary. They’ve been doing just fine under my care." Lucien interjects, keeping you close to his side.

"(Y/n), listen to me, that’s not Molly anymore. You don’t have to stay with them, come with us and we’ll keep you safe." Caleb tries to reason, your head feels a little dizzy from the overwhelming confusion of what to do now.

"I beg to differ, they've been with me the whole time and just look, nary a scratch on them." Lucien argues.

"This is getting ridiculous, we're taking the kid back with us." Beau jumps in, getting tired of the pointless back and forth. She starts walking towards you but your pulled back and Lucien steps in front of you, acting like a physical barrier and using his tail to wrap around your waist to still keep you close to him. This action of his didn't go unnoticed by some of the Nein.

"I'd think twice before ye take another step forward there." He says, his voice dangerously low.

"Are you threatening me?" Beau pauses her movements and stares at him a moment, slight surprise on her face.

"Not so much a threat as it would be a… strong recomendation against your actions." You knew he was just being cheeky with her, but a threat was still a threat and you feared if you didn’t step in and do something soon they'd be at each other’s throats.

"Hold on, don’t I get a say in this." They both look at you, Lucien having to release his grip on you and step back a bit to do so. You look between the two of them and weighed your options for a second.

"Great you got him to let you go, now get over here." Beau urges, you look at her and take a deep breath in hopes that what you were about to do would be the right choice in the long run.

"I’m not going with you." You will up the courage to say. Everyone in the Nein stared at you in shock, like you had killed someone.

"What?"

"You heard me." You couldn’t bring yourself to repeat the statement again.

"Did you not hear what Caleb said, that isn’t Molly!" Beau points an accusing finger at Lucien.

"I know that!" You snap at her. "Don’t you think I haven’t noticed that already! I may be young but I’m not stupid!"

"You sure about that." You catch her mutter under her breath, deep down you knew she meant well but boy did she have a way of getting on people’s nerves when she wanted to.

"I made my decision and I’m not changing it." You say, looking away from her. It hurt a little to turn your back on them but in your mind this was the best option to avoid any unnecessary bloodshed.

"Well, there ya see, the little one's made their choice. I think it best ya be respectin' that." You could detect the pride in Lucien’s words at this little sorta victory. "With that out of the way, I believe it best we be heading off now. You’re all welcome to follow." He continues as he once again brings you in close to his side and makes his way to the doors to exit the chamber, the rest of the Tombtakers not far behind.

"Before you go." Yasha pipes up and opens her flower journal, pulling out the four leafed clover Molly had once given her. "Ummm, you-you gave me this four leafed clover one time. Umm, and you told me that hopefully it would bring me luck, uhh, and life would be a little bit better so…" Yasha was struggling with her words a bit, you hadn’t fully thought about how this would’ve affected her. You and Molly had been her first real friends and now Molly no longer seemed to exist and you were just going to walk away from her.

"Well, a fine gesture. We could all use some luck on the road ahead." Lucien takes the clover and tucks it away into his jacket. You take a glance at Yasha, she gives you a somber smile.

"Be safe out there." She tells you.

"You too." You reply with a nod, you then notice that her hair was white, making you slightly wonder what you missed at Rumblecusp. You feel a hand place itself on your back and are ushered to continue to make your way to the exit of the chamber. You take one more look over your shoulder at the Mighty Nein before they’re out of your line of sight and trek your way out of the A5 ruins.

#critical role #critical role & reader #mighty nein #the mighty nein #mighty nein & reader #lucien #lucien & reader #cr nonagon #mollymauk tealeaf #nothing romantic here

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

Text

Tex Avery Birthday Spectacular!

Hello all you happy people! And welcome to a celebration of the only cartoon director I knew as a kid and one of the finest whose ever lived, Mr. Tex Avery.

Avery is a legend in the animation industry and rightly so. Starting out at a few other studios, and loosing sight in one of his eyes due to some tomfoolery at one, Tex was annoyed with the restrctive enviorment and eventually found his way to Termite Terrace, the animated shorts wing of Leon Schislenger Productions, aka the future Warner Brothers Studios and the makers of Looney Tunes. And his impact on the franchise is vast, cannot be overstated and I only learned about just how much recently: The man created Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny, created the prototype for Elmer Fudd, and created the design for Porky we’re all far more familiar with.

Eventually though while he was happy there, his career when ended when he eventually got into a squabble with Leon schsinger over the ending of “The Heckling Hare” and left soon after. Given he got a four week unpaid suspension for it , a bit extreme given all he’d given the studio, I can’t blame him. He instead went over to MGM who badly needed his wacky energy, and thus got to go as nuts as he wanted, with creative control a better budget and the result was his peak and classic characters like Red and my personal faviorite and personal boy: Droopy. I will try and do a birthday thing for him next month, we’ll see if my rather packed schedule will allow for it. Point is I watched the guys cartoons a lot as a kid between looney tunes and his shorts being repacked for the Tex Avery show in the late 90′s, and until recently I had no idea the depth and scope of his career: The guy gave looney tunes it’s standard fourth walll breaking and made it a huge part of the industry, and he was the one to hlep htem break out of being a Disney knockoff and into what we know today. The guy has my utmost respect so today I honor him as the first animator to get one of my birthday specials: As is my standard ten shorts, my patreons get to pick one each (I now have two but she start’s next month so her benefits will too) if they so choose (Kev opted out of the porky pig one next week) and I went to my friend blah for a recomendation as he’s an avid fan of the golden age of animation and thus usually has a really good choice up his sleeve. Now that’s out of hte way join me under the cut for some shenanigans as old tex would want it that way.

1. The Gold Diggers of 49 (1935)

This was Tex Avery’s first short with warner and the first of his I could find, not ot mention his first time working with Chuck Jones and Bob Clampett, who he’d mentor and go on to be the heart and soul of Looney Tunes and define the characters Tex created. And since this is more significant than his earlier work i’m coutning it as his first. And as a start it’s.. ehhhhhhh.

I don’t blame him for it though. Most don’t hit it out of hte park their first time up to bat, and frankly the deck was stacked against him. He was saddled with Beans the Cat...

No one brak no one. He was part of an attempt by warner to create a new star as part of a Little Rascals/Our Gang style group of kids debuting in the short “I Haven’t Got a Hat”. This short is notable not for Beans, who no one cares about, but for the debut of Looney Tunes first star: Porky Pig. Porky was just one of the various characters but the only one audiences really liked. It took some time for Warner to get the hint though, hence Beans starring here and Porky playing his girlfriend’s father.. and also now being much older than him for some reason.

So instead of being a Little Rascals ripoff bean is now a mickey mouse ripoff, as the short gives me mickey mouse vibes.. but without the things that made those shorts actually good and feels mostly built on studios trying to make what they think audiences will like. There’s sparks of waht Tex would become.. but just not enough wiggle room for him to make something special. Also porky looks and sounds weird in this one and Bean’s girlfriend has a REALLY annoying voice. Oh and two horrible Asian stereotypes, because it was acceptable at the time but lord was it never okay. Then again I should be at least mildly greatful none of the shorts had blackface.. because tex apparently REALLY had a problem with that, something I obviously didn’t know as a kid as they edited it out but given most of his MGM shorts have “blackface edited out of x version”, yeahhh.... I may like the guy, quite a bit and feel those gags weren’t done out of malice.. but it dosen’t make them okay, they were never okay and he should’ve done better.

2. I Love to Singa (1936) Thankfully our next entry is 800% better, as we get a classic from my childhood and probably multiple childhoods. Admittedly part of the reason this one stuck in my head is the title song, sung by a young jazz singing owl whose dad doesn’t like that he sings Jazz instead of classical, enters a contest and nearly looses singing classical to please his dad only for his dad to intervene and finally accept his son. It’s a wonderful story of acceptance with some decent gags, beautiful animation and one hell of a title track that will probably never leave my head. The song is really what makes this short and sometimes that’s okay. Also just to note so someone else doesn’t: This short was a parody of the Jazz Singer one of the first talkie’s.. and also a film that uses blackface and whose 80′s remake bafflingly also uses blackface for some reason. Yes really.

3. Tortoise Beats Hare (1941)

One of Tex’s only four Bugs Shorts.. but given 3/4 of them are certified classics, and one of them involving a horrible stereotype.. to the point it’s part of the rightfully infamous “Censored 11″ and the ONLY one involving Bugs Bunny.

So as I said, Tex has a bad history with casual racism, and while it was the style at the time and I don’t THINK he was actively malicious towards black people.. it doesn’t make some of his work any less harmful. The rest of his bugs work though is remembered for the right reasons: his first appearance, and early classic we’ll get to next.. and this standout everyone who saw it as a kid or an adult fondly remembers.

You all know the premise: Bugs finds out, in an utterly brilliant wall shattering bit at the start where he reads off the crew names and then the title, that this picture will have him beaten by a turtle and taking offense to that challenges the guy. This is honestly one of the few Bugs shorts where he’s the out and out villain of the picture. He’s doing this race purely out of ego, yells at Cecil whose perfectly nice in this one, and in general is the bully set up for a fall he’d later be famous for taking on. But it works, both because this si early in bugs career so it’s entirely in character, and because Mel just really sells the obnoxiousness while still being funny.

This short also has one of Tex’s trademark setups as this is essentially a prototypical droopy cartoon: A meek, goofy voiced protagonist whose shorter than his large obnoxious enemy and who torments him by showing up every where he’s going to be and casually doing it. Cecil even does so using an army of fellow turtles with Droopy later using a similar trick in one of his shorts. As a big Droopy fan i’m clearly not complaining and while Droopy would do it better, this short’s still a classic for a reason with tons of great bits and is a fun break from the usual bugs setup, though in full fairness the usual bugs setup is still solid gold so take that how you will.

4. The Heckling Hare (1941)

Originally I was going to have Daffy in Hollywood in this spot as I thought it was on Max, it was not, so I swapped it out with his final bugs cartoon. For the record his first, and Bugs, is being saved for Bugs birthday this summer. And honestly i’m glad I did because this was 7 mintues of pure joy that has another setup that Tex himself and other Looney Tunes animators would resuuse: Bugs being pitted up against a far dumber antagonist. One who often still fully deserves it but allows him to just have fun for several minutes at this dumb bastard’s expense. It works well here, with tons of clever gags, my faviorite being the two doing dumb faces with each other only for bugs to stop and pull out a sign as seen right above.

It’s also an approriate capper to our warner made Tex shorts for the day, as this would be the one that got him fired. He and Schisnger argued over it and he got suspended as I mentioned and I found it again a bit fucking extreme. So did Tex and after a handful of shorts elsewhere, he’d move over to MGM, whose cartoons would ironically be bought up by warner. They needed a shot in the arm to compete with Disney and Warner and Tex was happy to provide hte needle filled with nonsense. And the results.. are pure gold.

5. Dumb Hounded (1943)

I’ll admit as a kid I didn’t know Tex’s MGM shorts were theatrical, or any shorts but somehow I knew they weren’t looney tunes. Besidds obviously having hteir own show they just had their own tone and pacing and style. While the Looney Tunes aren’t bad, at all honestly, Tex’s work here was in a class by itself with MGM gladly giving him a higher budget and even more creative freedom. And the results speak for themselves and one of those results is one of if not my faviorite classic cartoon character. And since I might not be able to get to his birthday with one of these next month, though i’m certainly going to try march is just VERY VERY FULL. Anyways point is our happy hero was introduced here. And given i’m frequently depressed and often withdrawn, not that you could tell from my reviews here, I related to this depressed bulldog who always won anyway despite being an outsider, finding love, sucess and always beating a much larger, much more assholish antagonist. But Droopy is good on his own merits as his shorts are just that funny.

This was true from Day One as dumb hounded is fucking perfect: The Wolf that Avery always used in his cartoons escapes from jail and is hunted by bloodhounds including our boy, who charmingly introduces himself with “You know what, i’m the hero”. From there it’s a simple setup but a great one as Droopy finds the guy.. then chases him from here to enternity with one amazing gag after another. Simple, utterly hilarious and the dawn of a legend, with the ending having Droopy go a bit nuts after getting his reward money before returning to his usual demeanor “You know what? I’m happy” So am I bud, so am I.

6. Red Hot Riding Hood (1943)

Yup same year. Tex hit the ground sprinting. This one is his signature MGM toon and for good reason. Using his usual forth wall breaking style, both the wolf and red riding hood rebel when it opens with a typical telling, so it changes to a 40′s nightlife setting: Grandma lives in a penthouse and is man hungry, Red is a fanservicey night club act and the Wolf is a sexually harassing asshole who chases after here and has some over the top reactions to her that are iconic in some’s mind.

The short is gorgeously animated with Red’s dance sequence and Wolfie’s reactions being the highlight and the short isn’t as bad as it could be as the wolf is treated as a scumbag for hitting on her and generally being a creep. SO the first two thirds aren’t bad with nice touches like the narrator clearly improvising the new story. It’s just badly hampered by the last half where Grandma sexually harasses Wolfie and it just doesn’t work. This double standard stuff annoys me and “haha get it it’s funny when a woman stalks a man” isn’t funny. Wolfie stalking her really isn’t that funny either it’s just not you know an entire third of the film. So a classic for a reason.. but one that really has degraded with time. Still worth analyzing and what not, just not great.

7. Who Killed Who? (1943)

Yes still. It was a good year. This is another one off like Red Hot Riding Hood and as is tradition since the Tom and Jerry one, my patreons each get to pick one and Kev selected this one. And this.. was a great choice.

Seriously I could not stop laughing with a great gag a minute, WAY too many to mention, a classic ending, and just nothing but net the whole time. I don’t have much to say really.. but because this one’s just good. The whodunnit genre hasn’t really gone away, it’s cliches are welll known even today and this is a lovely parody of it that hits the ground running after a live action intro and runs right through the wall across a lake and straight into droopy “You moved.”.

The only real observation I have other than “This is fucking awesome watch it immediately” is that the villian looks exactly like the Phantom Blot. Who knew the Phantom Blot was a live action guy with a weird haircut the whole time huh? Seriously this one is a masterpiece, an instant faviorite, and I highly recommend it.

8. Screwball Squirrel (1944)

As you can probably guess by how I lead it in this one is not very good. It is tex TRYING to make a bugs or daffy type character again and somehow failing at it. He created them, he did plenty of shorts like theirs with other characters and got how the cat and mouse antics of the old theatrical shorts worked.. so I have no idea how this one happened.

I’m really not overselling it: The short is about Screwy, who hyjacks it from a cute widdle bunny clearly parodying bambi.. who he beats the shit out of, then decides to get things going asks a dumb dog to hunt him, then insults him to provoke him to attacking him. He then spends the entire short tormenting the poor dumb bastard who again HE PROVOKED. It feels like a poor imitation of dumb hounded, as while Bugs clearly outclassed the dog there, he’d die if he lost, so while he was punching down, he clearly didn’t have a choice and you can’t honestly blame him. Here, Screwy is fine, he just wants someone’s head to fuck with and spends a whole short torturing him. We don’t even get catarsis as while the dog does catch him at the end via weird gag, they end up deciding to beat up the bunny instead.

His voice is also just the worst, just utterly grating and making me wish an anvil woudl fall on HIM instead. Screwy would return for some other shorts but I have no idea why. This was easily the weakest of these ten shorts and I will probably not return to the guy next year.

9. Bad Luck Blackie (1949)

This is one i’d forgotten till I got a ways in. It’s also weirdly one of the only MGM Tex shorts on HBO Max as this was included in the Tom and Jerry collection for some reason, the dog in it clearly isn’t the tom and Jerry verison of spike... though the dog Droopy fought a lot was indeed called spike. Yes that is confusing, no I don’t know why MGM thought this was a good idea.

As a result though I have been saving giving out about this till now but seirously , put the tex avery shorts on HBO Max. Their on Blu-Ray, their on boomerang, especially Droopys. I do not get why they aren’t on here. I’m tired of them holding things out for the boomerang app when not everyone subscirbes to that. Let me have my morose dog dammit.

That giving out aside i’m glad this one caught my eye via i’ts weird name as it’s another masterpiece. It also does what one Tom and Jerry short I reviewed, the one where tom’s a millionare, earlier this month failed to: properly make it’s antagonist loathsome enough to deserve the parade of abuse he gets. With that one Tom is tourturning jerry for like 30 seconds, but Jerry torments him for most of 5 minutes.

Here we get about two minutes of our lead kitten getting torremnted by a mean bulldog. It’s not only still a bit entertaining to lessen the horror just enough to be watchable but not enough to make the bulldog likeable, but it makes what happens for the rest of the short oh so fucking satsifying. While the previous short today really didn’t get the karmic ballance neded for a good classic screwball comedy short this one overwhelmingly does.

Our kitten gets some help in the form of Blackie, a professional black cat who agrees to turn the tables, sauntring across to a wonderfully catchy tune. any time the little guy whistles. The result from there is 5-6 nonstop minutes of comedy genius, as Tex finds new and creative ways for the cat to come out of nowhere, and even shakes things up to keep it intresting towards the end iwth the dog getting the whistle.. only for it to still not work out, and for our little kitten to get his revenge at last by painting himself black after the bulldog paints blackie white. As should be obvious by now, it’s really good, showing Screwball Squirrel was the exception not the rule. In general Tex was this good during his mgm and when he was at his peak we got gems like this. Truly sensational, watch it if you have max it’s under the tom and jerry section for some reason.

10. T.V. of Tommorow A decent one I remember seeing as a kid. Not much to say though, it’s mostly a bunch of gags about “future” tv’s based on their viewer’s needs. Some good stuff.. not as good as most of what was here today but still better than the worst of it and still very memorable and part of a memorable tetralogy i’ll probably come back to when I do Tex’s birthday again next year. Not a bad note to end on though.

Overall these shorts show just how strong a creator tex was, gleefully taking convention and ripping it to tiny pieces. As i’ve mentioned many times i’ll be coming back to his work next year.. and probably be watching a hell ofa lot more in the time between. Might even do a second special on him in between birthday ones. We’ll see how this does. The Tom and Jerry one sadly wasn’t quite the hit I hoped.

Until then I have many other reviews. And since Today (This review is late) was supposed to be the 90′s tom and jerry movie but that turned out not to be on Max for some reason. I still plan to cover it some day i’ll just have to find it and buy it first. But tommorow if I have the time i’ll be continuing the Lena retrospective with an intresting little side trip. So until then, i’ts been a pleasure and you know what? Thanks for reading.

#tex avery #droopy #bugs bunny #porky pig #the gold diggers of 49 #cecil turtle #tortoise beats hare #the heckling hare #tv of tommorow #dumb hounded #red hot riding hood #who killed who #red #spike #bad luck blackie #screwy squirrel #screwball squirrel #owl jolson #I love to singa

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tamcitrus · 4 years ago

Text

16 months.

pairing | Oikawa Tooru x fem. reader.

words | 3,3 k.~

genre | fluff, romantic, aged up characters.

warnings | mentions of abusive relationship, mentions of sex, mentions of possible pregnancy.

a/n: I got this idea after thinking about Oikawa living in Argentina. I’m a sucker for this man.

recomendation: Before reading, think about any city in the world where you’d like to live. Got it? That’s where this all happens.

First month.

He saw you a few times a week in the cafeteria he stopped by after his morning run. You were always smiling. You got your coffee, you tipped the baristas and sat at the table by the window to watch the park across the street. Sometimes you were there before him, sometimes after. You always had a book with you, sometimes you read it, sometimes you don't. He heard you speaking a language he didn't understand, and he heard you speaking english too. And you were always alone.

Second month.

After four weeks of seeing you regularly, he finally got the courage to speak to you. Well, you spoke to him first when he stopped at your table one day. You said some words but he didn't understand what you said. He scratched his nape and smiled apologetically.

"English?" you said and smiled.

"Yes, english!" he laughed. "My name is Oikawa, nice to meet you."

"Hi, my name is y/n. Nice to meet you too," you pointed the seat in front of you. "Would you like to join me?"

He nodded and sat in the chair you pointed. "I come here almost every day and I saw you around a lot, so I thought we could be friends or something," he explained. "And you're foreign too, I thought it'd be nice to have a friend in my same situation."

You laughed at his words. He thought it was a beautiful sound.

"I am, yeah. I moved here for work. You're japanese, right? What brings you here?"

"Work. Volleyball, specifically," he took a sip of his coffee.

"That's why you're out there running every morning?" you asked and looked at the park.

"Yes, that's- oh… you saw me," the words sunk in his head a few seconds later.

You laughed at him and offered him a toast with jam. He took it and kept talking with you until you both had to leave. The next morning he sat with you again.

Third month.

You had your first date. After weeks of having breakfast together and exchanging phone numbers, he finally asked you out. This time you didn't get ahead of him. He took you out to a fancy restaurant, you had pasta and a nice wine.

"I'll pay the dessert," you announced when the dinner was over.

"But tonight was on me," he said.

You were walking to his car, out of the restaurant.

"Yeah, you paid for dinner, now's my turn," you sound decided and he wouldn't argue with you. He liked your resolve.

You guided him to an ice cream store and walked out of the car, excited.

"Have you ever come here?" you asked and he shaked his head. "It's the best ice cream in the whole town."

And it was. Maybe because it was fucking expensive -your words- for a simple ice cream, or maybe because you gave it to him directly on his mouth, but it really was the best ice cream in town.

That night he drove you back to your home and you kissed him for the first time.

Fourth month.

After a lot of teasing from his old Seijoh friends, he decided it was time for more. So, one day at your usual breakfast, he dropped the first question.

"I know this might seem sudden but… would you like to be my girlfriend?"

Your cup was a centimeter away from your lips and it froze there. You looked at him with big eyes, surprised. You could see the little frown on his face when you took a bit too long to answer.

"Of course I want to, dummy," you finally said and he let out a sigh he didn't know he was holding. "I've been thinking about asking the same question, actually."

Fifth month.

His season was finally over and he could take a weekend off. So you decided to spend it together. You had a lot of sleepovers over your first month of dating, but it always ended with him getting up extra early for training. So, this time he woke up the same time as usual -damn his body and his routine- but he was happy to see your sleeping form next to him. The sheets barely covered your naked chest so he pull them up to cover your body. He put your hair away from your face and kissed your cheek, causing you to stir in your sleep. And then he just watched you sleep.

He smiled. It's been a while since he felt so full, so happy.

Sixth month.

You had a big fight. He was overworking, again. His trainer warned him that if he kept going like that his bad knee would be affected, risking his career.

"If you don't slow down for a bit, you'll have to stop forever. Why don't you understand it?" you never raised your voice to him, not even now that you were angry.

"I know my limits, babe. Please. I need your support on this," he was holding your hand.

You spent almost every weekend at his apartment now. You had opened a wine before dinner and then he talked to you about his training.

"You always have my support. I just can't sit and watch you hurt yourself."

You didn't want to listen anymore, it wasn't like he was going to say something else and risk to get you angrier, so you got up and leave his side to make dinner.

You barely talked that night, or the next day. The next weekend you left town to visit your family, interrupting your weekend-together tradition.

Seventh month.

After almost two weeks, things were back to normal. Oikawa promised to listen to his trainer and PT, and he did. He relaxed a bit with the training and took a day off every week. You adopted a dog and he walked him on his day off.

"Do you… would you like to try to live together?" he said one day when he was back from his walk with Godzilla. Yes, you named the dog Godzilla. He was a middle size dog, black short soft fur, and he was a child in disguise. "I could take Godzilla out every morning with me, you wouldn't have to pay a dog sitter," he explained like he just discovered a new planet.

"Really? That's your big reason for living together? You'll have to do a lot better than that," you laughed. You gave your boyfriend a water bottle and then your dog two bowls full with water and food.

"Well, no, duh. But look at him, he's so happy to go out with me!" he laughed and kissed you.

"We can give it a try. You can stay here for a week and we'll see how we handle it. Wanna go for your stuff?"

"Give me five minutes and then you can drive me home," he was sitting on the floor and playing with Godzilla again.

"Do you read my mind or something?" you said. He looked at you, confused. "Catch this."

You threw him a copy of your keys. He gasped in surprise.

"We're really made for each other, uh? We have a huge connection, baby!"

"I did the copy so you wouldn't wake me at 6 in the morning when you go to run, but let's call it connection," you mocked him.

He stood up and hugged you. You smiled against his chest. Maybe you did have a great connection. Maybe, just maybe, you could believe this was meant to be.

Eighth month.

The living together week was a success, and you decided to try it one more time before making a decision, so he was at your place again for a whole week. It was like an unspoken rule to come here. His apartment wasn't big enough to have Godzilla anyway so your place was the best option.

You both woke up with a loud noise at your porch. Your car had a busted window. Oikawa went out quickly to check nothing was missing and everything was still there.

"Babe, we have to report this," he said.

You were scared but you didn't look surprised.

"Yes, but don't touch anything. I'll take pictures and then we go. Can you take Godzilla's leash? Let's take him with us, please."

That day you talked to him about your previous relationship. An abusive relationship, which ended with you injured and with a restraining order against your ex.

"He worked at the same place I work. They transferred him to another city after what happened. He must… I don't know, I just assume he knows about you and this is some childish revenge. Hopefully this is the only time we hear about him."

"I'm so sorry you had to go through that, honey. I love you so fucking much. I would never do something to harm you. I'm here to protect you now," he hugged you and repeated his feelings like a mantra.

You felt safe again. You believed him. Maybe this was what a healthy relationship felt like.

"I love you too, Tooru."

Ninth month.

Oikawa finally moved into your little house. There were no more incidents or news from your ex. You were safe and happy.

For your months anniversary you prepared a full japanese dinner with Oikawa's favorite plates, but with occidental wine. You ended tipsy and dancing on the living room. He carried you bridal style to your now shared bedroom.

"We should get married," he said and laughed.

"You should ask me again when we're sober, ok?"

He pulled you into his arms to hug you.

"You think I'll forget but I won't," he declared.

You had sex that night and five minutes later he was softly snoring with his head on top of yours. You fell asleep smiling against his chest.

Tenth month.

You never stopped to think about it but it was weird to date someone and speak in a language that wasn't your natal one every day. You realized it when Oikawa's best friend came to visit for a few days and you offered him to stay at your home.

You heard him speaking with Iwaizumi in japanese and it was a strange sensation, to hear him but don't understand him. Meanwhile, you used the time to video call your family and speak in your natal language too.

At dinner, Iwaizumi talked in english so you could all understand each other.

"He was totally a heartbreaker in high school. There was always a bunch of girls after him at our games, I had to keep an eye on him all the time," Hajime said and you laughed.

"Don't listen to his lies, baby. He's just jealous the girls didn't cheer for him," your boyfriend said.

"Oh so the girls were behind you after all," you tried to sound upset but you were mocking him and you laughed at the end.

“He never really cared but it was fun to watch,” Iwaizumi laughed. “Oh, Matsukawa and Hanamaki are looking forward to meet you, y/n. I hope you can travel to Japan soon.”

“I’d love to meet them too!” you said, and raised your glass so you could make a toast.

He left the next day with gifts for his friends from you and Oikawa.

Eleventh month.

"I had an offer," Oikawa said one day when you came back from work. He had dinner prepared when you arrived.

"That's great, my love! Tell me about it," you were waiting for him at the table.

"I'd have to travel for some time, back to Japan. They want me in the national team," he said.

"That's amazing, baby! Why are you not excited about it?"

"I'd have to leave in a week or so and I'd miss your birthday," he explained. "I just feel bad about it. I'll say yes, but I wanted to talk to you first."

"Of course you'll say yes, Tooru! Otherwise I'd leave you right now," you laughed and he smiled. "Probably I wouldn't be able to do that but you have to say yes. We have a lot of birthdays ahead of us."

"I love you, y/n," he made his way to you to kiss you.

"I love you too, Oiks," you hugged him tight. "Maybe I can take a few days off work and visit you. I could meet your other friends too."

"I'd like that very much. Now, let's have dinner."

Twelfth month.

It's been almost three weeks since you saw him for the last time. Your birthday passed and you had a little celebration with friends and a long video call with him on the night. And now you were flying to japan to surprise him. You contacted Iwaizumi so he could pick you up from the airport. Besides him, there was two other guys in the car.

"You must be Matsukawa and Hanamaki, right? I'm y/n, nice to meet you," you turned around and shake his hands.

"We don't talk much but nice to meet you too!" the guy with the pinkish hair said.

"Bullshit. They do talk a lot but they're not fluent in english," Hajime explained. "We have a bit of time before the game, would you like to leave your luggage at the hotel?"

"That'd be great, thanks Iwa," you said. "Oh shit, sorry! I hear Tooru call you that all the time and-"

"It's ok, you can call me Iwa," he laughed.

He looked at the mirror to check on the other two guys. They were whispering between them and they were talking to Iwaizumi. You should've learned basic japanese before coming.

You went to the final game of the national season with your boyfriend's friends and waited for him to leave the big Tokyo gym.

"Y/n?" he waved his hand to his friends and then he saw you. "Babe, you told me you couldn't come!" he ran to hug you and shush his friends when they laughed.

"Surprise!" you said at his ear. When he let you go, you kissed him.

"Come on, let's go and get something to eat," he held your hand and you leave the place.

You had an amazing dinner with him and his friends and the next day you went to meet his family.

Thirteenth month.

After the Japan national season was over and you were back at home, he resumed his regular training. He would take Godzilla to walk with him every morning and the three of you exercised together on the afternoon of your free weekday.

The weekends were either for friends or date nights.

“We could do a small trip the next weekend,” he said on a Sunday night.

“We can’t be far for long, baby, our jobs won’t allow us that.”

“I know, but I was thinking somewhere a few hours away. We can go early, we take ‘Zilla with us and then come back at night,” he peeked his head from the kitchen.

��It sounds like you have it all planned, right Godzilla?” you said and caressed the dog who was with you in the couch.

“We already know every restaurant in this city, so maybe I’ve been doing some research,” he sticked his tongue out to you and disappeared again in the kitchen.

“Ok then, next weekend we go out of town!”

You walked to the kitchen and hugged him from behind while he cooked.

“First time we go alone, ok? I already made a hotel reservation,” he laughed. “Don’t tell ‘Zilla, he’ll stay with a dog sitter for a day.”

Fourteenth month.

You had your ‘first time as couple’ list almost all checked. There was a few things left, things you didn’t even talked about. It was too soon for that. But when your period was a few days late, you had to stop and rethink some stuff.

“What’s wrong? You seem distracted today,” Tooru held your hand when he sat by your side in the couch, ready for your movie night.

“Nothing, I… I was just thinking,” you smiled at him and squeeze his hand. “Did you bring the ice cream?”

“Are you sure you’re ok?” he nodded and offered you the bowl with your dessert.

“One hundred percent,” you kissed him. “I’ll tell you if something’s wrong.”

“It’s already time for your period, right? Do you want some extra cuddles?” he hugged you and kissed your cheek.

“Yes, that’d be awesome.”

You sighed and rest your head on his shoulders. Maybe tomorrow you’ll tell him. Maybe it was a false alarm.

Fifteenth month.

Two days after your period was a week late, you talked with Oikawa. Immediately after your talk was over, he took you to the hospital to get you checked. It turned out to be a hormonal disorder and with the right pills you would be fine, the doctor said.

“You can talk with me about anything, you know it, right?” he said when he was driving back from the hospital.

He wasn't mad or disappointed, he was just worried about you.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

“Don’t be, babe. I just want to take care of you,” he put a hand on your leg and caressed it. “I know our jobs don’t give us time for a kid, but I’d like to have one or two someday in the future.”

You looked at him. You felt guilty now.

“If you want that too, we can talk about it again. If you don’t, then you just need to tell me.”

“I don’t want to hold you back,” you explained. “I’d like to have a family someday too. And if you’re in it, it would be perfect, Oiks.”

“You said that as if you’re a burden to me, baby, and you’re not. You’re my girlfriend and I love you and you’re at the top of my priority list,” he parked the car at your entrance.

“Right after volleyball,” you joked.

“And Godzilla,” he continued your joke. “I’m serious, y/n. I want to make you happy.”

“And you already do it, Tooru. I’m the happiest woman with you.”

Sixteenth month.

Oikawa planned a one week trip for your first year anniversary. It was a top secret plan. He only talked about it with Iwaizumi.

He asked you to take some days off at work and kept everything as surprise until the day before arrived.

"We're going to my birth city?" you gasped.

"I always wanted to travel there, it seemed like a good idea. Besides, you already met my birth city so I thought I should meet yours," he explained.

"I really love how your brain works," you teased.

"Oh, come on, I thought I was being romantic!" he laughed.

"You are, baby," you kissed him.

“And I want to meet your parents,” he added.

“You already know them.”

“Not personally,” he finished preparing his suitcase.

The trip was a success. You had dinner with your parents one night and they loved him even more than they did before.

On the last day, he asked you what your favorite place in the city was.

“Will you show it to me?” he said.

“It’s not a big deal, really,” you answered. But you take him there anyways.

“Ok, so, remember what I said that night that I was drunk?”

“If I was drunk too I probably don’t remember,” you laughed.

He looked nervous and he was blushing. That was weird.

“We weren’t that wasted, babe,” he had a hand in his pocket and he was fidgeting with something.

“I’m sorry but you’re distracting me,” you held his arm so he would stop moving. “What are you doing?”

“You’re so cute,” he laughed. He took a little box out of his pocket. “I said we should get married.”

“What?” you were speechless.

“Will you marry me, y/n? We can wait as long as you like. But I want this and now. I want to be engaged with you.”

He opened the box and showed you a little ring. You remembered the question, of course, and also how you said some night on a date how much you liked this same ring on that jewelry store on your city.

“Yes! Yes, I’ll marry you, Tooru,” you smiled at him.

You closed the distance between you and hugged him. You were about to cry and he was laughing his nervousness out.

“Happy anniversary, my love.” he whispered.

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romy350-romyakari · 5 years ago

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Since I'm okey with people calling me out here I will unleash my humble opinion on a matter that makes me roll on my seat because is so funny as it also is so... uhmmm "weird" to have in count.

Take it as the writers huge mistake what I'm going to point out in a bit.

I guess I'm still salty even after 5 years. Is confusing at best and I'm adding this after writing all of this. Is a lot to read so please just know is a huge ramble.

aka me rambling over what I feel on rewatch been no longer that young

Is part of our experience judge that to some degree.

Characterization is important, it defines who we see on a story and is better if there are consistend or if their inconsistent have a good reason to be.

Well I was young once and could miss mistake like the 180° not so justified turn of events on a main character. I realize some years later and can laugh about it because it makes no sense.

I'm going to explain the case of Angel's Friends cartoon and that huge mistake from their characters.

Like I am fond of the series because it was my first fandom. But still I can't unsee this as you can guess.

Let's begin with the nature of something they like to state early on the cartoon show which was really cliché but angels were the goodie two-shoes and devils were the bad guys im general. Simple but not so simple for them to keep in rule it seems.

I like to imagine they respect some of the calm and more expected nature of the angels and the chaotic and up to no good ways of the devils like the Original comics did for both of them but we wouldn't be here on my post if that was the case.

It was quite a mess how the cartoon take the character since the side character could be so plain that you forgot that they were doing something till they were support help to their own side been angels or devils.

But again with the stuff that make me roll off till now and nobody on the show says a thing about.

They freaking mess up with their own statment of Sulfus on the cartoon show and they can't tell me no they didn't. Is hillarious and let me tell you why.

They may say on that thing how "loves make you change" but this one could be taken for a fool and is really lot coming from me.

They present him lot more chaotic and really problematic on just chapter 1, it did give an impression but everthing goes down hill a bit from her and on.

As the plot of first season is the villianess doing hidding matchmaking and poison of love plan that seem to turn into a real love story for this chaotic case of the female lead Raf an angel and the male lead who is Sulfus a devil so she could scape limbo to the terrible consecuenses that bring over a trully huge rule on the series wich is part of a magic code of not interfering with each other party and less uhmm a kiss, you really see lot of stuff go on here and mark my word is not like "oh no this is not safe for the kids" but is not quite recomended for them peraphs.

This doesn't make sence but i think the villianess plan was an excuse to showcase the romantic tension and ovearlod or romantic takes.

I can't watch the series withouh some wather to pass the taste of "i thinks this is too much"

But this mention has a meaning behind since i need to state this and the huge overload on the romance we get because i believe is a guge thing that affecter how they write the characters on the cartoon show .

They really did bad to Sulfus uh? Like most of the show. You wouldn't qish to have to deal with chapter 1 Sulfus as asigned rival, he seem to be a big deal on the devils group because how remacable chaotic he was but that didn't last long.

The villianess plan was a match making one since he and Raf break a rule that is used to her advantage she would lead them to comith a sacrilege which would really shake that magical code that they should not mess with. It causes huge dissasters and mess btw.

There is s small time gap before the love poison the villianess send on a spider that she encomended her only servant with leaning it to find the pair of eternals she was targeting. On that gap we still retained normal characterization for Sulfus but the episode went down hills on characterization pretty quickly.

It was so uncalled for the way they set the situation of the bit from the spider tho... idk if blame the spider at all because actually the romance would no have a foot at all if the writers didn't bend Sulfus as a character like the extend they did.

There is this huge point they state that their romace was not because of the spider bit that later i think is kind of acknowledge but is quite confusing if they wat to justify some fated love.

Anyways from then on we see how literally did soften Sulfus character to the point he been devil makes me wonder why nobody call him out about it like there is this expectation they stated us the normal was been that troublesome chaotic for devils but they seem to just let it pass from then on. I am still laughing because he actually change so much that rewatch episode one you can just laugh because at that point you know he will became a softie later that is actually bad for him as a charcter since there is little to non struggle on why he is behaving that way or if he wants to undertand this changes at all.

There is near to non thinking on him since idk, it should peraphs feel more comflicting with all stated but he just misses the cue and goes for it on ocaccions?? Is quite weird he is so open to forget the only rules the devils respect. The no involve themselven with angels matters pr the angels themselves unless is about work.

Was is the spider? Who knows they smke it confusing after the trial episode and then the movie came and idk if laugh to the villaness of some fortune teller since wow she was lucky on that scape uh?

They literally make him datable material for the female lead and is a sad thing but well, the cartoon show itself could acomplish as the one with most romace scenes/moments of all time for a cartoon show, not well written but it has them. And maybe the one with an exclusive kissing sequence [no it was not just a few seconds for the kissing scene, there was a freaking sequece of it if i recall well and i recall it as something thar they put budge on it for some reasons since they did a 360° turn around on the sequence even] is impressive comoared to other european cartoons that claimed to have romace on the tags and give you a but here and there while this was like a full bag of the bread but questonable if is one you will like lol

You know the writer forgot many stuff when then Sulfus was the one trying to remind Raf the rules but follow behind her because who care love is a fool or so writers say on those chapter after the half of season 1

If you cringe is undestandable, I cannot rewatch in a full go as I used to when I was younger, i could because i let so many stuff pass.

Sometimes I wonder why even follow this plot idea when the Original comics had a great plot a great characters.

The most consistent Sulfus I know so far is Original Comic Sulfus, that is entretating to read and he does not change much from who he is, he may be a may character and this yime kind of falling in love with the Raf there but well, is not quite the deal since is explained this weird odds of the posibility of anglels and devils with training on 99% not be complete perfect and could end up with a crush or so but all is just momentary and will vanish once they reach 100%. Is onsided crush thing since the live interest for Raf is a human on the Original Comics and that, again, is a prohibited thing, the magic code is not applied between angels and devils but between humans and eternals here.

Back to Original comics Sulfus is quite funny how he figure out he is having a crush, btw they all pre-teen kiddos apearance wise except for the master of the school program while the cartoon show present them as teenager lookalike, and really he does struggle and bit on that whole process of realization. It seems Original comics Sulfus give hint of it but it was subtle changes that yeah it was nice details, maybe is even sad how he just decides to be subtle about it and do nothing big since is not something he would bother much aside there is bigger issues for angels and devils, that characters I like of that characterization is that he will still be who they state him to be but subtle changes mark that realization.

And the rest of the cast is just as cool on ther characterization, you see somtimes little on some of the characters but they don't lose thar cool characterization they had from the start and is so welcome from me as a reader.

A shame they cancelled the good comic because of the cartoon show, really a shame. I will be sad about that till the end of my days because iwanted the resolution of all major a smaller struggles were cool to read.

I have no idea how they funded a movie and a second season of the cartoon show and idk how their live action somewhat based on some fact of the cartoon show went.

But to make thing short here the resume:

Cartoon show mess it up big time with characterization and we lost cool orginial comics thanks tho the cartoon show, that would be all.

You fan cring or be sad about it and I will get it.

Yeah I"m still bit salty about that.

#Angel's Friends #AF #cartoon #comic mention #random rambles #I'm still quite salty #chapter 12 of the orginal comics will never be forgotten in my heart because it haunt me to this days nobody told knows a thing about it.#i will forever wonder what give the qriter the confidence to aprove what whent down on the cartoon show #i wonder how did the animators of that 360° turn around feel having to animate that thing #i doubt i will forget about his any time soon #there is the case of Gaby but oh that one hurts. they did so so much wrong Gaby. you deserved better that what cartoom show did #resume is original the teams where 5 angels 5 devils on the comics. on the cartoon show they have 4 on the angels and 4 the devils.#guess eho they take out of the angels group??? Gaby was out the group can come just for a few episodes as an extra character on season 1 #he is nothing like on the original comics and that hurts. also he was used as a plot device 😭🥺#THE AUDACITY I TELL YOU. i am bitter because the also take Ang-lee out of the hroup and he became backgroud extra. he didn't say much on th #orgimal.comics but habe some od the moments fro the groups that show some point like maybe angels and devils can get along sometimes.#little stuff but uhhh... maybe I'm salty to fill the hole on the angels group they created Sweet. that is how they angels were girl group.#Mefisto was the one taken out of the devils gamag and became backgroud extra.#even is Ang-lee and Mefisto didn't add much they were nice to have around on the comics #maybe feel more alive the groups.#i could rant abou this and mention what I love of the roiginal comics but this wil get long #uhmmm #don't kill me please?

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prideandpen · 5 years ago

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witchy wishlists 2019

Hello friends! I’m Deanna, and I live in Oregon. I’ve participated in witchy wishlists for the last couple of years and honestly every year it’s the same story. I worry that i won’t get any response to my wishlist and I’ll feel awkard and like I shouldn’t have bothered trying to participate. And then some absolute gem of a human being will pop into my messages and the whole thing will turn around. That’s sort of the magic of the witchy wishlists I think. They’re for everyone, they’re not restricted to certain groups of people who already know each other. They encourage fulfilling wishes for strangers.

So, here’s my 2019 wishlist. sorry for the lengh, I tend to be a little wordy. And I can’t wait to try and fullfill some of yours too :)

1.) Book recomendations (or books! if you’re comfortable going that route) - I really enjoy YA plots. But, being 26 I have a harder time getting invested in the stories, especially the romances, of teenagers. I’m constantly aware that these are kids so I really wanna find fiction that sorta give a nod to YA fiction (extra love for fantasy, historical, and cultures that aren’t american/english/european) -preferably ones with minimal or no sex

2.) Moodboards or artwork - either for me/my tumblr/my interests or if you’re interested in learning about my sky pirates wip I’d love character moodboards/artwork and would be thrilled to bits to give you some references for them

3.) Divination - I love getting readings of any kind but they’re typically a luxury I can’t afford - especially as if I’m going to spend that money on a reading I want it to be with someone whos readings I’m confident in. I’d love: -past life readings; I know a bit about a few of my past lives but would love more insight on them -love readings; I have no current love interests and haven’t for a while so I’d love some insight on if/when/how that might change -general 2020 readings -career readings; I don’t currently have a career, but I plan on job hunting early next year -education readings; I plan on going back to school next year -whatever sort of reading you feel inspired to do for me (if you do a reading for me can you please also include the information about what medium you used and what came up for it - I love to know the details)

4.) Speaking of education. I plan on going back to school next year. The online university i’m looking at is pretty much a self study program, which is fine except that it’s been nearly 10 year since I was in school last, plus I have my adhd to contend with so any tips for going back to school, and maintaining a good self study plan would be highly appreciated. They don’t have to be adhd specific, but ones that take that into account would be really helpful 5.) A language exchange or study buddy! I’m trying to learn Korean! It is slow going. I have self study struggles and adhd that trips me up a lot. It’d be really nice to either have a friend who speaks korean and knows/is learning english to chat with or someone else who is serious about learning Korean to chat with and talk about it with. We can hold each other accountable and work on improving. 6.) Spells! Incantations! Etc! I don’t actually do a lot of spellwork and my book of shadows is basically non-existent because I can never be bothered to fill it out because I want it to be pretty and organized (which, super unrealistic). But I’d love some spells that are either great for just on the go or simple enough that it doesn’t cost a lot of time and energy to perform them. (or! perform a spell for me and send me some pictures, evidence - honestly that’d be insanely nice)

7.) Ask me to do a reading for you! I do enjoy reading for other people and I’ve gotten pretty positive feedback in the pas. Which is what i’d get out of reading for you - genuine feedback 8.) Hit me up with some cool information: -neat history facts -cool language/linguistics stuff -interesting cultural information -fun details about dancing -etc 9.) Send me a card! -for Christmas or whatever holiday(s) you celebrate -or just a card for the sake of sending a card (a postcard of where you live would be cool too) 10.) link me to the best lesser known personality quizes you’ve found

11.) art - I kiiinda already included this, but honestly any artwork. - make sure it’s signed! 12.) tell me about your practice/path/spirituality/etc

13.) Pray for me, send me good vibes, positivity, light, love, ask your dieties to look out for me. And I’ll do the same for you <3

#witchy wishlists #witchy wishlists 2019 #witchy wishlist #witchy wishlist 2019 #witchblr

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m00nslippers · 5 years ago

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(1/2) I love how passionate you get! I'm going to do this in two parts though, if it is no problem to make it easier (sorry if it is a bother!) You said that many Jason fics change either pairings for the sake of their fave (jaytim and jaydick fics). And I totally understand not pointing out any cuz you now, dofferent strokes for different folks. But what about fics that do right for both characters? Could you recomend some maybe? (and if you want give a brief explanation of what it gets right?)

Okay, that’s a good idea.

I like most of @generatorcat‘s stuff. Like If You Don’t Grow and I Didn’t Say I Liked You. I like them because Tim is allowed to be a jerk sometimes. He’s mostly not a jerk, but he’s shown to make incorrect assumptions from time to time. He’s shown to get angry. He’s not always the bigger person or the correct person in every confrontation. He doesn’t always know what he’s doing or what the right thing to do is. Sometimes he tries to dictate to Jason, to scold him, or whatever, but it turns out later he didn’t fully understand the situation and he was the one in the wrong.

I feel like that actually reflects canon a lot better. Tim often talks about Jason in the comics like he’s got his number, like he knows exactly what his ‘problem’ is, but if you know Jason then you know that Tim doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about for the most part. He thinks he does, but he doesn’t. Jason has issues, but they aren’t what Tim seems to think they are.

Also Zoeleo’s The Many Deaths of Jason Todd and it’s sequel is another good one. In it, Tim is actually called out for being a bit controlling. And he’s at one point jealous and kind of a jerk because of that and has to apologize later. He’s still kind of the typical Tim you see in a lot of fic, like he’s always got a plan and he’s trying to ‘manage’ everyone, but he’s allowed to be wrong. He’s allowed to be on the losing end of an argument. It’s proven that all the assumptions he makes about people aren’t always correct and he’s sometimes too self-assured.

Also most of Joverie and @meaninglessblah stuff like Check Yourself and An Honest Mistake, so far at least, (with the exception of Kintsugi, I have a lot of issues with that one, personally). Their stuff I think is good because it tends to bypass a lot of issues other fics have completely by separating their spheres of knowledge. In the one, Jason is a former-skater, current hockey player while Tim is a current skater and they both have very different skating styles. In the other Jason is a vigilante and Tim is a nurse. Basically they aren’t really juxtaposed on the same subject and when the situation requires the knowledge of one of them, the other defers without issue. Or seems too at least, it’s a little early, the fics are ongoing. Basically Tim will defer to Jason when his knowledge would be greater than Tim’s on a subject and I really like that.

Misadventures of the Baby BatBros by PrettyMissKitty I like because it shows Tim having self-destructive tendencies, and the need to be bailed out or for his plans to fail. I think this fic can go too far in that, but at least Tim isn’t always so self-assured and capable or the best at everything. It lets Tim admit he’d not the best fighter, which I think is something more fics and the comics in general should embrace, that Tim struggles athletically. He puts in the work to be capable but he lacks talent and physical ability in that area. I think that off-sets this need to make Tim a genius that people seem to have and lets him be an underdog.

If we’re talking JayDick, gotta give a shout out to @paperempires and their co-writers, love all of their stuff. Especially A New Taste of Love, We’ll Fuse When We Collide and All Soulmates Final, No Refunds. I think their Dick is a great balance of friendliness and kindness but also not being a simpering saint to Jason. He expects Jason to follow his lead and if Jason doesn’t cooperate, he gets angry and confronts him. Also the Jason in these fics isn’t some perfect guy either, he can be a bit of a jerk at times, but his redeeming qualities shine through. The fic doesn’t have you wondering what the hell Dick sees in Jason because he’s so terrible to him, they are both good people they just have trouble communicating. That’s another thing about their fics I like. It’s not all Dick always being there to listen and Jason being the angry tight-lipped one. Dick has problems with communicating and anger, too. That’s a big part of his canon character, he gets angry and says things he regrets later.

I also love Mikimoo’s stuff for really similar reasons, like That Awful Bitter Taste and Another Perfect Catastrophe and Between The Bars. I like that Dick is always trying to take charge in these fics and when he does give up control to Jason it’s really begrudging. Dick should be more competent than Jason in most situations, or at least perceive himself to be. Dick should not defer to Jason, like, ever. The only situation where Dick might defer to Jason is when it comes to infiltrating the Gotham underworld but even then he’s going to struggle and probably not quite trust Jason. I like the Dick pretty much just never wants to give up control to Jason on a case unless the situation forces him too.

Well that’s what I have to say about that, at least. Hopefully that’s helpful and doesn’t call anyone out.

#JayTim #JayDick #Jason Todd #Red Hood #Tim Drake #Red Robin #Robin #Dick Grayson #Nightwing #fanfic #fanon #fandom #meta

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klancyklance · 6 years ago

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Yikes that's a long story

Reblog this and put in the tags when you started watching voltron and how you found it

#i was actually gonna watch it early 2017 #back when i had access to netflix #vut when i realized the first episode was an hour long #i thoght the rest of the series was an hour long #just like with stranger things #my dumbass never checked to see if the rest of the episodes were an hour long #since i just automatically thoght they were all long episodes #later on i found out about the whole klance shipper threatening dreamworks #i honestly dont remeber what happened #but thats another thing that drew me away from watching this show #then after that i lost access to netflix #a year has past and in jan/march idk what month #i was subscribed to a klance artist #for some reason idk how she got in my subscriptions #she would sometimes stream #one day i was trying to avoid school work and went to youtube #then a notification poped up that she was streaming klance art #so me being bored decided to watch her stream #i was genuinely confused #idk what klance was back then #so i asked her and she responded back saying it was a ship name #so i asked what was it from and told me voltron #i asked if each episode was really an hour long each #she said no and said if i was planning to watch it #it would be on netflix #so we got netflix again and gave in to give the show a try #and then the rest is history #i give all thanks to mangomomm she was the one who pulled me into this hell hole fandom shes agreat artist and i recomend you go suport her #work she did great klance animatics and she is super friendly i would also recommend to join in on her streams she is super interactive with #us she is an amazing person sorry that i sound like a major fangirl but shes just a great person

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wordswithkittywitch · 5 years ago

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Donner, Blizten, and Pooka

The traditional host for Billy and Zoë, DeviantArt, is being recalcitrant, so I’m posting it directly to my tumblr this year. If AO3 had a spot for original work, I’d use that just because I love how straightforward their system is. I should look for a better platform, I guess. But for now, this year’s is hosted on tumblr. (I don’t know why I never say Zoë and Billy. I guess it’s just that I’ve been saying their names in alphabetical order since 2002, and I’m not likely to start now.) This is actually an idea I've had since the first year I starting writing these, and I'm so glad I've finally done something with it.

This year’s story has a few instances of gruesome imagery, but no major triggers behind the obvious “character death”, as you know at least one character, be it recurring or otherwise, is going to be a dead one.

With no further ado, enjoy 2019′s addition to the Billy and Zoë universe.

(4940 words, 9 pages, several horror elements. Because it’s a freaken horror story.) Recomended audio accompaniment.

Donner, Blitzen and Pooka

No, this isn’t the same story as last year, just the same exposition

Billy and Zoë were always said to be good kids, not getting in fights, making the sports teams, honor roll, debate team, cheer squad, chorus and band. Both moderately popular jacks-of-all-trades, they managed to make prom king and queen even though they were just friends, and got scholarships to the same college. Billy played sports year round, but managed to talk about other things, mainly debating, singing or playing clarinet. Well, not when he was doing those things, as they involved his mouth. He had a tall, muscular build, his features seemingly mismatched. He had soccer legs and basketball feet, baseball arms on a football torso, which his head was thankfully not too small for, his white blond hair contrasting with his cheeks, which were always red for some reason, be it anger, embarrassment, or chill. Zoë’s body, however, seemed more perfectly constructed. Her complexion was warm and comforting like a cup of cocoa and she had shiny black hair, large brown eyes, long willowy arms and legs rippling with muscles and small, athletic breasts that did not get in the way when she cheered, played the flute, lacrosse, tennis or cricket. Both frequently smiled, especially when the life-long friends found out they were going to college together.

It was a bright, cold day, one of those days in mid-December when there’s finally what to Billy’s mind counted as an “adequate” amount of snow. It was just so hard for him to really get into the spirit of things when the weather looked less like a Christmas card and more like a whole lot of dead plants stuck together with asphalt. Why someone who went for a jog through the woods every morning before class was so excited about five inches of snow was beyond even Zoë’s understanding and also Billy’s ability to explain. The cold air just felt so… crunchy on his lungs. It sounded bizarre, even to Billy, but once he’d been going long enough that he didn’t feel too cold, running in the snow was so refreshing.

So, despite the fact that his cheeks looked like the entire cheer squad had slapped the shit out of him and there wasn’t exactly what one might call feeling in his fingers, Billy was in a very good mood. He turned away from the main road and jogged into what was charitably called the cross-country trail by the college track team. It kept the name mainly because very few people were wiling to reassess it. There was nothing quite like going over broken ground to get the blood pumping, Billy thought. He was immediately greeted by the smell of pine and the crunch of unbroken snow under his feet. He took it from the fact he couldn’t hear water trickling that the river had finally frozen over. He couldn’t see it from the trail, but from his previous morning jogs he knew that it ran parallel to the trail for about half a mile.

Some people asked him, and quite rightly, when exactly a first-year college student had found them time for a morning jog, but it was early in Billy’s athletic career when he learned how to have the “Why am I doing this? It’s way too cold out. It’s way too early. I hate every choice that led me to jogging in the snow.” during the first ten minutes of the jog itself instead of for a twenty minute block beforehand, so that saved a lot of time. It was all a matter of dedication and mind over matter. Also, he had dropped his 8:00 AM ethics lecture within the first month, so that gave him plenty of time. He could drop one course if it gave him enough energy for his other classes, this college had a notoriously high freshman drop-out rate, and Billy refused to be just another fresher who dropped off the face of the earth.

It was nice to have a jog into the thin strip of forest that the college seemed have bought to be a pleasant stripe of green forty feet in the background of the models in their early thirties wearing backpacks that came around about once a year to pose for photos that would make the college look more fun-loving and ethnically diverse on the website. It was one of the few places on campus that was far enough away from the Laundromat basement to not smell heavily of dollar-store Febreze knockoffs. Even on days when he had to substitute his morning job for an afternoon jog, because after all, no amount of Red Bull can hide the fact an all-nighter was all that stood between Billy and a “incomplete” assignment, especially not if you were the teacher’s aide who had to read the damn thing; Billy almost never saw any other students or faculty on his jogs. Unless, of course, you counted the caretaker’s distressingly fat Maine Coon a part of the faculty, but Billy had only encountered one student who was willing to argue Timmers worked for the college, and that person was a third-year law student who had just smoked a bag of marijuana so large Billy honestly wondered if it was now available at Costco.

The fact of the matter was that Billy had never seen another human walking the cross-country trail at eight in the morning, so when a slender figure stepped out from between the trees Billy let out a manly exclamation of surprise that he would insist did not sound remotely like a three-year-old girl stepping on the tail of a cat of the same age. Fortunately, that slim figure was Zoë, and she’d been friends with him long enough that there was no point in trying to fake having dignity in that moment.

“Zoë!” Billy exclaimed, deeper than his previous scream but still high enough that he took a moment to cough and compose himself before he continued, “What are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Zoë said urgently, which is never a good way to start a conversation. She held out her hands in that position people usually only take if they’re trying to calm down someone who is on the verge of throwing a fit or if they’re pretending to tame a flock of velociraptors.

“You look like hell,” said Billy, which was true. She was still wearing the outfit she had been the night before, but appeared to have taken her morning shower anyway. Water dripped miserably out of her sweatshirt and dribbled down her leggings, her long black hair plastered to her face in a single black, tattered sheet. Her makeup ran down her face in long black streams that made her eyes look large and hollow, and heavy brown stripes that showed thin strips of bluish-pale skin between them.

Despite knowing as little about makeup as he could manage, Billy was aware that Zoë was not exactly a beauty vlogger and her usual approach to makeup involved pulling random tubes of liquid out of her coat pockets and saying things like, “Oh shit. I’ll just blend it out I guess.” or “Or don’t look at me! Don’t look at my eyes, I hate this, I guess I’m just catwoman now!” or “I guess that’s what blotting is for.” Somehow seeing it running off her face made it look more dramatic and distorting to her features, rather than “I’m a woman performing a musical recital and if I do not rub something on my face it will appear from where the audience is sitting that I have rubbed something on my face, but in a way I do not want.” That was definitely not the effect it was creating now; now it looked like something had tried to rub her face off her head.

Billy thought that he could see faint white etching of frost forming on her hands and up her neck, but he was fairly sure that was an optical illusion caused by the thin light through the branches and the part of his sock that melted snow had now soaked through sending a “it’s too cold out here to be alive” message every few seconds.

“Billy.” Zoë said urgently. She stumbled forward, her legs seemingly unwilling to bend properly. Her hand grasped his shoulder, so cold he inhaled sharply with pain. It was like the mere touch of her skin on the fabric of his sweatshirt was actively stabbing him through to the bone with knives so cold his flesh stuck to the blade like lips on cold metal. She looked into his eyes and he shuddered again. There was something wrong with her eyes, they looked concave, like the eyes on fish that has no business being still sold as edible at that age.

With apparent effort, Zoë forced out another four words. Though the phrase was short, each word was spoken with the slow intensity of someone fighting both the urge to scream in someone’s face and the urge to collapse with exhaustion. Billy was far too distressed by the state of his friend to notice that, as thin and breathy as her voice was, she didn’t inhale before speaking.

“Leave the reindeer alone.”

Startled and not yet getting a concept out of what Zoë had just said, Billy pulled away from her instinctively. He tried to parse out a meaning from her statement, but with only half of a mind on the subject, as the rest of his mind was taken up by worrying about what Zoë had done to get in that condition, it seemed meaningless.

“What happened to you?” Billy asked, trying to fight his urge to recoil and losing. Zoë simply shook her head and began to back away. Okay, she was clearly not in a state to discuss it, maybe once she had warmed up and was in a safe place and dry clothes he, or maybe a therapist, could get her to talk about what had happened. Billy didn’t like the idea of that, he was bad at giving emotional support and would much rather hurt whoever hurt his friend. To be honest, he didn’t have any experience fighting someone physically, but he was very big and muscular and thought he had pretty good odds beating up someone if he had to. After all, he was motivated, and more importantly, he was eighteen, and eighteen year olds have an inflated concept of their ability to come out on top in a fight.

Someone had hurt his best friend and he needed her well enough to tell him who it was before he beat the tar out of them. That meant getting her inside immediately. She probably already had hypothermia, based on the fact it was late December and she was dripping wet.

“Let’s get you inside.” said Billy, taking a cautious step towards Zoë. She drew further back, stepping over a fallen branch without taking her eyes off of Billy. He put up his hands as unthreateningly as possible.

“You’re going to be okay.” he insisted, moving closer. Zoë shook her head, she looked like she might burst into tears at any moment, but god what was wrong with her eyes? Every time Billy tried to make eye contact with her, he felt something deep inside himself forcing him to look away before he figured out what he was looking away from.

“Leave the reindeer alone.” Zoë repeated, her voice low and urgent. Billy lifted his hand, and much quicker than he would have expected, she spun around and walked briskly back into the woods. He broke off into a run after her. Cross-country it was. While it seemed that every branch in the forest was trying to high-five his face, Zoë moved forward quickly without appearing to be impeded by the woods at in the least. Branches cracked loudly as he pushed by them, snow crunched beneath his soaking wet sneakers, his breath came in long ragged gasps as he ran. Strangely, it seemed like the only noises in the forest were the ones Billy was making himself.

“Zoë!” Billy cried out, not expecting her to react but desperately wanting a noise to blot out the awful silence around him. She didn’t appear to hear him at all, and she certainly didn’t call back. Zoë made no sound. Not even the woods made a sound, no birds chirping or squirrels chittering threats to animals fifty times their size, no distant sounds of other students waking up in the campus just beyond the trees.

Billy had no idea how she managed to walk that fast, but at least it meant she was doing better than she looked like, he wouldn’t have expected someone who looked as bad as she did to be able to walk at all. He should have caught up to her by now, Billy thought, pressing on with a fresh gust of effort, but she seemed to only get further away the more he ran. He ignored the pain and the wet and the branches lashing out at him, not daring to take his eyes off of Zoë least he lose sight of her. She was getting harder to follow, her wet gray sweatshirt blending into the shadows between the trees. She moved silently behind a tree and failed to emerge from the other side. Billy blinked furiously and forced himself forward a few more yards, as his mind argued between the two ideas that if she stopped behind that tree, he could catch up, and the fact that tree was too young and thin to hide a toaster behind it, much less a teenage girl. He grabbed onto the tree when he reached it, more to stop himself from falling facelong into the snow than anything else.

Bent over double, face red as plastic holly, Billy gave up on catching Zoë and tried to catch his breath instead. He was fast enough on the sports field, but he knew that in a footrace Zoë could overtake him nine times out of ten. The tenth time Billy wasn’t sure if Zoë was just sick of being asked to a rematch and let him win one. She was shorter, but had much longer strides than he did. Billy pressed his eyes closed and cursed himself internally for not thinking of this sooner. No one went off the trail in these woods, she could run as fast as she could, but her footprints would still lead Billy to wherever she stopped.

He opened his eyes but didn’t straighten up. He looked at the snow. Billy wasn’t much of a tracker, but he could tell the difference between four inches of untouched snow and snow someone had just walked through. He was so sure she had been standing just here when he lost sight of her, that this was the tree she had darted behind. He glared at the tree accusingly, as if it were the tree’s fault that he lost track of her. Taking a deep breath, Billy drew up to his full height and looked around. Behind him, there was a distinct path he had been crashing along as he chased her, but aside from that Billy had no indication of where he was. He inhaled deeply, and the cold air was like daggers on his heaving lungs. How could he had been enjoying the weather less than half an hour ago? It was less than half an hour, wasn’t it? How long had he been running through the woods? He might not have been used to running between trees but he was still exhausted. He even didn’t feel this tired at the end of a football match, so how long had he been in the woods? He looked around, trying to remember which way the shadows were falling when he started his run, less to guess at how long he’d been out there and more to see if he’d gotten turned around. He must have done, Billy reasoned, as the woods weren’t that deep. It was just a strip of young trees between the quad and the river, wasn’t it? He should have been able to see at least one of them from any point in the woods.

Finally, Billy’s eyes fell on something other than glittering white snow and twisted branches. In the snow, not far from him, the trees thinned enough that there was what should have been another stretch of unbroken snow. But this snow had fresh tracks left in it. Sadly, he could tell in a moment that these were the tracks of an animal, not Zoë, but they were so odd that for a moment, Zoë flew from his mind. They were large, but delicate and round, cleft in the middle like a deer but with two dots behind them. Part of Billy thought that they looked a little like rabbit ears with little round eyes under them, but he had as little experience with rabbits as with deer.

The strange thing about the prints is that they started in the very center of the clearing and moved out into the deeper woods, like some giant hand had placed the animal delicately in the center of the clearing and let it wander away. Billy put that thought out of his mind, because it was ridiculous, it was creeping him out, and if the animal had held still while the snow started to fall that could have covered its tracks. Probably. Not that it had snowed in the past week, but Billy put this out of his mind and moved closer to the tracks.

These tracks were broad and easy to follow, even with him churning up the snow beside them as he traced their path. He asked himself why he was following these tracks when Zoë was clearly in danger of something, but he found himself reluctant to give up on them and look for signs of someone who hadn’t left any tracks he could follow until this point. There was a movement at the edge of his vision, and Billy began moving towards it before he fully looked up. Maybe these tracks had lead him to Zoë after all. There was something grey moving between the trees, and his heart shot up in his chest with hope, failing to quiet down appropriately when he saw whatever it was it was far too large to be Zoë. And whatever it was, it was moving towards him.

Billy held still for a moment, not daring to move lest whatever it was spook as easily as Zoë did. Maybe it was her, after all, and she was just much closer than he thought she was. No. It was coming out of the trees now, it was looking at him, and it was clearly what left the hoofmarks.

As he had been conscious the past few years, Billy was aware of the movie Frozen and was able to think “Yeah, I guess that looks like the reindeer owned by dude who people keep saying I look like, so I guess that’s what reindeer look like.” despite the fact a small part of him had until this point always pictured reindeer as looking more like Bambi than Sven. Whatever it was, it was wearing a bright red bridle so it was clearly tame. Also, he rationalized, a wild animal wouldn’t be happily trotting up to a human it had never seen before.

“Hey.” said Billy weakly, holding up his hand and immediately feeling stupid for doing so. The reindeer cocked its head and trotted forward a few more steps.

“I, uh, don’t have anything…” Billy said quickly, patting down his pockets. A reindeer with a bridle walking up to a random human was definitely something that had broken out of a petting zoo. That would account for why the red bridle covered in round brass bells.

“I know.”

Billy blinked hard and cocked his head. The reindeer looked down at him. Billy had really not expected reindeers to be this big, but that didn’t account for where the voice came from.

“Who’s there?” asked Billy, looking around.

“I am.” said the reindeer. Billy hadn’t caught its mouth moving but that was definitely where the sound was coming from. He took in the bizarre appearance of the enormous creature. It’s antlers seemed to branch up forever into the trees, its thick creamy-white mane shook gently with every breath. Thick white and brown fur covered powerful muscles and the smell coming off of it was like nothing Billy had ever experienced. Because he was watching it so closely, he could see the dark, furry lips form the words, “You’ve lost your friend.”

It wasn’t a question.

Mind racing, Billy desperately tried to figure out what the appropriate thing to do in this situation was. Either he was losing his mind, in which case what he did next didn’t really matter, or a reindeer was talking to him.

“Do you know where Zoë is?” Billy asked carefully. The animal smiled. It’s mouth wasn’t suited for it, and there was something very odd about the teeth.

“I can take you to her.” the reindeer replied.

This was weird. There was no getting around that. He had just found a talking reindeer in woods that were much, much bigger than they were on the outside, but the important thing was that Zoë was still missing.

“I promise,” the reindeer said slowly, with a warm and husky voice. Billy couldn’t quite understand how the animal’s lips were forming English sentences, but they were definitely moving in time with the speech. Tentatively, Billy reached forward and touched the animal’s head. Warmth immediately flooded into his hand, and the reindeer rubbed against it affectionately. It reminded Billy how cold he was, and suddenly all he wanted was to bury himself in the animal’s fur and start feeling his fingers again.

“I promise to bring you to Zoë.” the reindeer repeated. Billy flexed his cold fingers. If he was this cold, then Zoë, soaking wet and turning blue, needed help now. The last doubt out of his mind, Billy moved to the reindeer’s side and tried to figure out the fastest way to get up it. Steeling himself, he took a firm hold of the red bridle and swung his weight up on the animal’s back with all his might. He got a leg over and pulled himself into a balance, and it seemed to him that the reindeer flexed its muscles to settle him more firmly astride itself. Warmth flooded up into Billy from the thick, shaggy fur.

For a moment, there was nothing but the stillness of the woods and the ragged warm fur beneath Billy’s hands. Neither of them moved. Then, he heard the animal’s voice again.

“Dear god, you are stupid.” said the reindeer.

Before Billy had fully registered what the reindeer had said, the thick, warm fur wriggled around his hands like maggots eating a corpse and tightened onto every part of him it could grab. Like thick cords, the fur wrapped itself around his fingers, his wrists, and up his arms. A sickening thought crushed the air out Billy’s lungs: This was not a reindeer. Billy knew almost nothing about reindeer but this was not a reindeer and it never had been one.

The reindeer arched this neck back and laughed, its mouth opening at entirely the wrong angle and showing entirely the wrong set of teeth. It was as if someone had transplanted a wolf’s mouth into a reindeer’s head, but did it wrong so that the mouth could open up to an obtuse angle. A long, horrible tongue rolled past the fangs and writhed in the air like a dying snake as the creature snarled out a sickening noise that was slightly an agonised screech but mostly a cruel laugh.

Billy became aware of the fact he was screaming and probably had been since the fur moved. The creature’s laughter rang through the icy woods, echoing and shattering icicles off the trees. The animal reared, and Billy hoped for a moment it would throw him off but the fur moved like snakes, rooting him firmly to the spot.

Then it ran.

Ice-encased branches whipped across his face, but could not dislodge him even when he pulled with the force. The forest was still morning-bright, the sunlight cracking through the branches and casting a thousand periwinkle-blue shadows dancing around the snow like dying spiders. The not-a-deer’s hooves passed over the landscape, sending a flurry of snow in its wake.

Before them, the woods appeared to finally thin. They were reaching the edge of the woods, and a last gasp of hope awoke in Billy’s chest. If they got out of the woods, would the not-a-deer let him go? Was that it’s plan all along? Sunlight danced on the ice, and Billy’s breath caught in his throat. He knew what the thing’s destination was. He threw himself as hard to the left as he could, but something… momentum? The twisting fur? The sheer will of the creature? Righted him again. There was nothing Billy could do.

They were heading right for the river.

With a leap, the not-a-deer broke out of the woods, hanging in the air for a moment, the icy surface of the river sparkling beneath them like a delicate spun glass sheet.

“The ice!” Billy screamed. “It won’t hold us!” But even as he wailed these words, Billy knew that was exactly the idea. The crash of hooves meeting ice was enormous, but even that was drowned out by the sickly crack of the ice’s surface giving way. Billy’s last scream was cut off as the water hit him; he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move, all he felt was the water shredding icy cold through his whole body, it felt like even his heart forgot to beat.

Billy knew he was going to die. He would probably drown before he froze to death, and all that was left to do was decide if he was going to die with his eyes closed or not. It was the only choice he had left in this world. Billy forced his eyes open against the icy water. At what he saw, he almost wished he hadn’t.

Zoë’s body floated unfettered mere yards away from him. Her eyes were closed, her skin was discolored, and her hair floated around her face like smoke. Blood cut red streamers in the water from where something with a large mouth and sharp teeth had removed a chunk of her leg. But still, he could see it was just a taste missing. This was where the thing took it’s meals. This was not a dinner table, this was a larder. This was were the thing brought it’s meat to eat slowly over the long, cold winter.

There was something else in the water, something small and moving towards him. It didn’t swim, it didn’t float, it merely stood upright in the water, pulled ever closer to Billy by some unseen force. It was also Zoë. But it was Zoë as he saw her in the woods before this all started. She was underwater with him, but water dripped off her heavily, tears rolled down her cheeks from her sunken, lifeless eyes. Billy knew no sound could carry through water, so when he heard Zoë speak, he knew she wasn’t using her mouth to do it.

“I told you.” said Zoë’s ghost, her voice trembling. “I told you.”

Billy couldn’t respond, his lungs full of water, but his last thought as the cold and the water and the shock drained what little life was left in him, was this:

I found Zoë after all. I found her.

Above the surface, the ice rocked gently and slowed in its movements. The world was quiet, but after a few moments, one finch let out a tentative twitter. The silence of the wood was broken. The thing had fed once again. A few more animals dared to start moving. What appeared to be a small clump of leaves stood up and stretched its back. Timmers shook snow out of his fluffy mane and trotted delicately to the edge of the river. Humans were so horribly predictable: they see an animal and automatically assume it’s there for their benefit. Timmers had long since stopped trying to warn the students about the pooka himself, no amount of purring around their ankles or hissing and charging from the woods or growling ominously at the river seemed to do any good. Every human who had gone to the river had met the pooka and every human who met the pooka were drowned by it.

Timmers thought that this time, leading a real human with a real voice, even if they were a ghost at the moment, to the next victim would have some effect. The plan had almost worked perfectly: the ghost had spoken to her friend, the human was warned, and he still jumped on the reindeer the first chance he got. Timmers stretched out his body in the feline equivalent of a sigh of resignation and turned back to the caretaker’s cottage, where a tin of good wet food and an army blanket twisted into a turban-like affair waited for him in front of the electric heater, Timmers’ salary for his important work on campus, even if no one bothered to listen to him.

There was just no helping humans.

#Billy and Zoë #stuff Kittywitch wrote #holidays #horror

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clevercatchphrase · 6 years ago

Note

I notice you have a Patreon. I am considering getting one for my writing. However, all the Patreons I've seen are art-based. Do you have any tips on how a writing-based Patreon might work?

WHOO BOY! If anyone has any advice to add to this post, PLEASE DO because for the next several paragraphs, I’m going to be rambling straight out of my ass with well-meaning-but-probably-unhelpful advice.

First off, what kind of writing are you making? I know a few general catagories are; Poetry, Fan Fiction, Original Fiction, Analysis/Review/Critique. Each one is special and should be approached a little differently, and knowing what type of writing you’re making will help you determine your milestones and tier rewards.

Okay. so, milestones and tier rewards. These two… categories? Utilities??… are going to be the most important aspect for anyone making/running a patreon.

For teirs, what are things you can feasibly and regularly offer to your patrons? For poets, they may offer their higher tier patrons a short poem on any topic their patron requests, for fiction writers, they may share cut scenes from their books that won’t make it to final print. For analysis writers they may offer a tier where they’ll review something a patron requests. Any of these things might intrest potential patrons, but you should ALWAYS keep in mind what you are willing to write about. Don’t be afraid to put limits on the topics. For example, you might be a fan fic writer and have a tier saying “I’ll write a short story about any pairing you want” but if you do, you may find yourself with a pair you don’t think has chemistry and may struggle to write something you thing is engaging. Also, don’t let your tiers get in the way of the main content you started your patreon for! For example, I know artists with patreons who offer a free sketch as a monthly reward for each of their patrons on top of the fully illustrated pictures they’re making. If they can handle that work load, good for them! I personally know I would never be able to draw that much and still make comic pages in a timely fashion, so I can’t and probably won’t ever be able to offer additional art for individual pledgers as a reward.

some rewards you could consider for writing are;

early access to rough drafts/finished works before public publishing

get your name in the aknowledgements

give me feedback on my writing

exclusive discord/streams/skype/google hangouts (if google hangout is even still a thing. Is it? Is google+ still a thing?)

Get the scripts/outlines as a “behind the scenes” after you’ve published a piece

Now for milestones, they should stay focused on your main content as much as possible. So, like, I personally don’t recomend a milestone that says “If we get to 200$ a month, every patron will get a personalized letter from me, or a character of their choosing”, because that’s probably not what patrons are coming to you in the first place. For me, I have a goal to increase the number of comic pages produced per week if I can make a certain amount of money, because that’s what my patrons are coming to me for, and that is something I can feasibly do if given the financial means. It’s like… a feedback loop but in a good way?? Basically “support me and I’ll give you more of what you want!” (but of course I plan to make content, pledges or not. I’m not gonna hold my content hostage just ‘cause I’m not being paid for it)

Here’s some ideas for milestones that may or may not be good for a writer;

reaching a certain milestone allows lower level, or all tiers to get early access to content

reach a certain milestone and lower tiers can get access to discords, streams, skypes, etc.

reach a certain milestone and you’ll tackle that one analysis you wanted to do, but have been dreading because you know it’s gonna take a lot of reasearch and time

reach a certain milestone and let all tiers vote on which topic you’re gonna write about next (out of a predetermined list you’ve made)

Now, you can choose all these tiers/milestones if you want, or you could chose none! It’s up to you! It may even help to ask your followers what THEY want to see/get as a reward to help you figure out what to offer. Just be honest with yourself what you’re willing to keep up with. For example, I personally, not very much for conversation online with strangers. I might never make an exclusive discord for my comic because I fear I wouldn’t be active there, and people may feel cheated if they don’t get to talk to me. But if enough people wanted to watch me make the comic pages despite spoilers, I’ll have no problem setting up private streams for them to view as I draw~

Now, real talk? No matter what you do, starting a writing patreon is going to be hard, especially if you don’t have a pre-established following or fan based. Heck, this is true of ANY patreon that doesn’t have an already existing following. But the good thing is, you can’t “lose” at patreon. If you try and nothing really works, well, hey! You’re probably not doing any worse than you were before you started, so long as you haven’t quit any pre-existing job, expecting patreon to suddenly make you rich over night. (please don’t quit any pre-existing job you have by the way). In fact, even if you get just one patron, donating one dollar a month, that’s one more dollar you’ve made than without the patreon, isn’t it?

Lastly, I wanna say, whatever you do, don’t undercharge for your work. Sadly, writing takes a fuck ton of time, from research to scripting, to revising and editing, and yet it can usually be consumed in a 10th of the time it takes to produce, and most consumers might think being charged a high amount for such “little” return is unfair. Fun Fact, it’s not. You should get paid enough to live off your writing if that’s what you’re doing as a profession. Writing has value, so never sell yourself short!

Edit: one last thing I forgot to mention; Depending on how fast you write, you may benefit from a "charge per update" model instead of a "charge each month" model, but that's entirely up to you!

#long post #I've been meaning to make a post on patreon asking everyone what rewards they want to see #maybe I'll get around to doing that today..#argentdandelion

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doloresrojo · 7 years ago

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Tag game

I was tagged by @queen-fighter <3 :)

Rules: answer 30 questions and tag 20 blogs you would like to get to know better.

Nickname: Loli, Lolis, Lolita, Lola

Gender: Female

Sign: Taurus sun, virgo moon, cancer rising

Height: 1.62 mts., I don’t know my height in inches.

Time: 10:41 pm, the day is finalizing and I am starting to feel awake.

Fav band(s): Jimmy Eat Worls, The Killers, Arctic Monkeys and DLD.

Fav solo artist(s): I don’t really have a favorite one; If I am honest, I am more of a song person.

Song stuck in my head: Whatever it takes by Imagine Dragons, don’t know why but it makes me feel so powerful.

Last movie I saw: Ready Player One.

Last show I watched: The Magicians, season 3, I am hooked.

When did I create my blog: On may or june of 2015.

What do I post: Movies, tv shows, books, astrology, things about personalities, a lot of aesthetics and every now and then something I wrote.

Last thing I googled: “Is it harder to be an INFP for men than women?” I was curious.

Do I get asks?: Never, and I like it that way XD.

Why did I choose my URL: It´s my name, and I couldn’t think of anything cooler.

Following: 93

Followed by: 63

Average hours of sleep: Well, every day I take a nap of 2 and a half hours and sometimes 3 hours, and I sleep about five or six hours. So that would make 7 to 8 hours of sleep. Healthy.

Lucky number: I don’t have one. But I like 4, 8, 16, 18 and 24.

Instruments: It depends, of what are we talking about: singing? combat? to get trough life?, if it’s tha last one then my imagination, movie theaters, my car and netflix.

What am I wearing: my summer pajamas, it’s really getting hot in here.

Dream job: I’ve been trying to figure that out since 2014, and I don’t know. I am 26 and wondering through life; if your younger than me and reading this and you feel like me, my best advice is to try everything you think you would like until you find your call.

Dream trip: Ireland, Italy, London, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Japan, Querétaro, Guanajuato, Baja California Sur, Puebla, Argentina, Perú, Ecuador, New Zeland, etc., etc. Honestly, any place where I can disconnect, recharge and change my perspective on life and myself.

Last book I read: “Tower of Dawn” by Sarah J. Mass. No one asked about this story, but what the hell. When I started to read this novel I had to go to the bank to deposit a check, it was on december and I don’t know about the US and anywhere in the world but here in México every december we get something that is call “Aguinaldo”, wich is basically what your employers give you for a year of work, something like a bonus; and my “aguinaldo” instead of being deposited to my bank account (like it should be) was given to me by check. Naturally, all banks where infested with people, angry, difficult people and overwhelmed workers. It was a friday and my innocent self thought that I could go to the bank at 11:30 am and I would find it empty (Work was slow that day and my boss left early), so there I go and the bank was at it’s full capacity, but I thought “I am already here”, so I took a seat (I was lucky to find one), ignored all the ladies and gentlemen shouting and complaining and the suffocating feeling of being surronded by so many people. Thankfully, I took my copy of “Tower of Dawn” with me and when I realized that it was going to take more than an hour to get my turn, I started to read. I am bad at small talking, like really bad, and when it strangers it gets worst; and yeah, I was the only one in the bank who was reading and actual book, and in english, so some people felt curious and started to ask me about the book “what is it about?” “wow, that’s a really long book”, and I was like “It’s a fantasy book”, “yeah, it is”; my mom and sister had pointed to me that I can be very, I don’t know if the right word is cutting, but it’s the best I can think of, so I felt bad and tried to elaborate more, “it’s about fairies, um, monsters, that sort of thing” and then I stoped beacuse to me trying to explain the Throne of Glass series is like trying to explain Game of Thrones to someone that has never seen it. Some people still made small talk with me and I tried to correspond, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of embarrasment so I didn’t feel comfortable, but a nice lady asked suggestions, what book I recomended her to give to a person that enjoyed reading and that made me feel better. Now I realize that this story is neither interesting or funny, so sorry if you read it and it wasn’t what you expected. But, if you read this and felt that it is okay to be awkward and that reading in public can make other people interested in reading, then my job is done, and bye haters! I am sorry is been a tiring day and I had some wine. I am not myself.

Fav food: Chinese food of Mexicali; believe it or not, I live in a city in the region of Baja California, México, that is famous for the chinese food.

Nationality: Mexicana, ¿qué no ves que tengo el nopal enfrente?/ Mexican, don’t you see that there is a cactus in front of me?. The last thing I wrote it’s an expression that in some parts of México we use to say that we are obviuosly mexicans.

Fav song: “Evil” by Interpol. The bass it’s so sexy, and yes, I know that the song is based on the murders commited by Rosemary West and her husband.

Top 3 fictional universes I wanna join: Star Wars, The world of the Magicians, and even though I haven’t read the books, the universe of Percy Jackson and Magnus Chase sound fun.

Tagging: @jason-todd-rh @bruce-wayne @ryan-potter @highladystarfall, @wolveswolves, @dappermouth, @gotladies

Thank you @queen-fighter, I had fun ;)

#get to know me #get to know you

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shakespearerants · 7 years ago

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Book Review #1

Blurb: “Our memories are what make us who we are. Some are real. Some are made up. But without them we are nobody.”

Hattie’s summer isn’t going as planned. Her two best friends have abandoned her: Reuben has run off to Europe to ‘find himself’ and Kat is in Edinburgh with her new girlfriend. Meanwhile Hattie is stuck babysitting her twin siblings and dealing with endless drama about her mum’s wedding. Oh, and she’s also just discovered that she’s pregnant with Reuben’s baby...

Then Gloria, Hattie’s great-aunt who no one even knew existed, comes crashing into her life. Gloria’s fiercely independent, rather too fond of a gin sling and in the early stages of dementia. Together the two of them set out on a road trip of self-discovery - Gloria to finally confront the secrets of her past before they are erased from her memory forever and Hattie to face the hard choices that will determine her future...

Some stats: first published in 2016. ISBN: 978-1-4711-2031-2. 406 pages in the paperback edition. 32 chapters plus epilogue. First-person narrator with frequent switches in PoV. Written in present tense. Style is standard, lots of dialogue and internal monologue. Took me about five hours to get through, but I read very very fast, so I’d estimate about 10 - 15 hours for the average to slow reader.

Synopsis: Hattie is a seventeen year old girl who lives in London with her mother, her twin siblings, and her mother’s finance, who is a personal trainer. She works at a diner and despises her boss, Melanie the Manager. Her best friends are Reuben, a ne’er-do-well playboy who comes from a very rich, but also dysfunctional and unloving family, and Kat, an aspiring artist. Reuben is in Europe, having accepted his father’s invite to come live with or at least visit him in France. Kat is in Edinburgh with her girlfriend, who is described as controlling and jealous. Hattie’s family is set to leave for a vacation in Spain while Hattie stays at home alone. Hattie takes a call from a woman claiming to be a friend of her great-aunt Gloria, who she didn’t know existed until then, stating that she is very ill. She decides to visit her and finds a drunk, extravagantly dresses elderly lady, living in a completely cluttered flat, who doesn’t want anything to do with her, though she does confess that she is in the early stages of dementia. Enraged, Hattie flies after telling Gloria she is pregnant in response to Gloria’s allegation that she has no real problems. A few days later she receives a letter from Gloria, in which she apologises and asks to meet up again. Hattie returns to find Gloria and the flat in much better condition, and agrees to go on a road trip with her. They visit places that are in some way significant to the story of Gloria’s life, beginning with her childhood home. Throughout the journey, Gloria reveals more and more about her troubled past, beginning with her traumatising childhood and teenage years, which are dominated by her alcoholic father, a WWII veteran who physically abuses her mother, her older sister’s husband Vinnie, who is also physically abusive and emotionally manipulative towards her sister, and her forbidden relationship to Sam, a young black man. As the two women arrive at the last station of their journey, they find that Hattie’s friend Reuben has arrived at the hotel they booked and passed himself off as Hattie’s husband. Hattie is not amused by this, due to the fact that she and Reuben didn’t part on good terms and she last told him via email to “fuck off, Reuben, and never contact [her] again” in response to an email he sent while he was drunk, which was the last straw to end their already straining relationship. He explains that he couldn’t contact her and missed her, but after some probing it is revealed that the real reasoning behind the surprise visit was, more than anything else, boredom and the end of his fling with a girl he met in France. Hattie tells him that he is the father of her unborn child and then later leaves him to watch a sleeping Gloria as she drives off into the Moor to clear her head. On her way back, she swerves to avoid hitting a rabbit running over the road and crashes into a wall. She awakes four days later in a hospital room to find that her family and Kat have arrived. Reuben left because he had a flight booked to an undisclosed location. Hattie and Gloria complete their journey a few days later, when Hattie is out of hospital, and then drive home with her family. The epilogue is set four years later, at Hattie’s mother’s wedding.

Personal Opinion: Personally, I think the blurb is rather misleading; Hattie’s situation isn’t really as bad as implied, it’s described as more of a summer slump plus the additional anxiety caused by unexpected pregnancy. Also, the glorious road trip the two women go on is less really a self discovery and more of a revisiting of places with really bad memories associated to them. It’s not as adventurous as it sounds, either: Gloria’s neighbour planned the whole thing, they’ve got places to stay, no camping or sleeping under the stars required, and there aren’t really that many deep conversations about the meaning of life and everything. I’d describe it as the story of two women, one running away from her problems and hoping to finally understand her estranged dead father, one trying to face the traumas in her early life that shaped her before she forgets about them, who both use the other simultaneously as distraction and support. That being said, the book features rather heavy themes, ranging from teenage pregnancy to abortion to social stigma to implied murder, even if (and once you’ve read the book, I guarantee you’ll agree with me on this) the implied victim really had it coming. It is, in a way, also about family and what that really means. What I found refreshing was the way Hattie and Reuben’s relationship was treated. It could easily have been turned into a romantic cliché, two best friends having sex and then the girl realising that she is pregnant and she tells him and he confesses his love (bla bla bla, you get it). Instead it was displayed very realistically: teenage girl gets pregnant accidentally and realises that the father is in no way at all cut out to be a dad, gets no support whatsoever from him, and realises that she has to take matters into her own hands. Also, Gloria’s beginning dementia is always treated as what it is: a terminal disease with no chance of recovery. What I also really liked was the switches in PoV, which were set apart by a slight change in typeface, and the emails, letters and text conversations included. You really get close to the characters that way, and you see the difference between their thoughts and the way they portray themselves to others, especially in Gloria.

Critique: None, except that I would’ve liked to know a bit more about Gloria’s life and career after the age of 20. Also, those emails Hattie writes are way too thought out and eloquent for a teenage girl.

Would I recomend this book? If yes for whom? If no why? Yes, I would, for anyone who’s looking for something easy and fun to read that also touches heavier themes. It’s a rather casual read despite everything, so its ideal if you want an interesting story with a few plot twists, but don’t have the time for something that really sucks you in. Can be spaced out over longer stretches of time well, there aren’t enough characters to forget the names of.

Do not read this book if ...

...You're looking for something that really deals with all the heavier themes touched (see T/W!). Yes, they are touched, but not much more.

...You’re looking for a fun, light read without heavier themes or “just” a road trip novel about finding yourself.

T/W: rape scene (very graphic), emotional manipulation (implied), emotional abuse (implied), physical abuse (graphic), verbal abuse, unhealthy relationships (romantic and platonic; implied and graphic), gradual memory loss (graphic), off-screen character death, murder (implied), blood/pregnancy/complications when giving birth (graphic), period-typical racism, alcoholism, contemplation of suicide, depression (implied)

#book rec #book review #books #how not to disappear #clare furniss #bookblr #reading

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jackmonkeygames · 6 years ago

Link

https://ift.tt/2XfK7bC https://ift.tt/2ScDBPb

It seems that everyone is starting their own actual play podcast. There is all kinds of good reasons to do so. I can go on about the benefits forever but this blog post will be focused on making the podcast in the first place. I will also point out some critical mistakes that I have made while making the podcast in hopes that you can avoid them. Though this will also cover podcasting a while there is a focus onHow to start an RPG Podcast

Have a concept its OK if others are doing it

The Place

The Right equipment (And Software)

Hosting Services

The editing

When should you publish

Pitfalls (What to avoid )

How to make a RPG Podcast

The Concept for making a great Actual Play Podcast

As a gamemaster, we always have ideas for campaigns. Then our players seem to take them in unexpected directions. Because of this you could actually run the same adventure as someone else and have it totally different results. The focus will be on the players and their unique view on the game you have presented.

For Star-Fall Actual Play Podcast I have a major plot line and a whole bunch of sub plots. set for each season. I recommend that you do the same. Sure you can run the game on the fly but you will want a basic framework. you may notice that running a RPG Game for home is very different to running a game for a podcast

As for cast members I recomend anyone who is outgoing. They do not need to be expert Dungeons and Dragons players (Perhaps it’s better if they are not less editing out the arguments over the proper way to cast magic missle) The Fifth Crew only half the players have ever played a RPG before our first recording session.

Listening to Star-Fall

The Place where to record your podcast

One of the things that I have noticed is that its really hard to record in any place that is not totally quiet. So forget Pubs , Bars , Restaurants. Other factors is that some rooms echo a lot. It’s a good idea to test the space before you start recording. More than once I have been too eager to start recording to find the room echoed so bad that I was unable to use the recording. It is also important to make sure the softer voices are closer to the mic. (We have that problem in our show)

The ideal place would be with a lot of irregular surfaces (Curtains we love curtains) for more information on how to set up a recording space in your living room. How to start an RPG Podcast The good thing about Game rooms is there is a lot of bookshelves with odd shaped objects like Warhammer minnies that are great to get a nice sound.

The Right equipment for recording an RPG Podcast

There are all kinds of articles on what to buy. But they are trying to sell you something. when writing How to start an RPG Podcast we have a total budget of $20 a month.. TOTAL! So before you start going out to buy a whole lot of equipment know that the first season of Star-Fall was recorded on my Samsung S7 and cheap microphone. Yes, we do not sound amazing but we feel its more important to publish something that needs work then to never publish at all. Then find out if this is something you want to do while you start to save for the expensive microphones. I would hate for you to buy thousands of dollars of expensive sound equipment to publish three episodes then find out you hate podcasting.

The Software

What I lack in hardware I have an abundance of Software. Being that I used to work at Apple teaching the creative apps I was able to obtain the some software dirt cheep. (No I can’t send you a copy). Though even now I’m using a lot of free software.

Ubuntu Studio (Cost: FREE)

Ubuntu studio is perfect for the budget RPG Podcaster. Not only is it free but will run on most of the older laptops people are using today. it comes packed with all kinds of audio software to help with the RPG podcast. Do you not need to be a Linux expert to use it but it does help.

I’m suggesting Linux because I’m currently writing this blog on a $300 Laptop that is about four years old. Linux makes this thing faster then it ever was with windows. So basicly a cheep computer that will get the job done. https://ubuntustudio.org/

Audacity (Cost: Free)

This editing software is fantastic and simple to use. There is a reason why podcasters have been using this for years. What i like best about it is that when you remove a “Ummm” from your clip everything behind that point that you cut out snaps to the left. (IF you have ever done any editing this is a time saver) I also find the noise reduction, Compression, & Normalizing feature to be very good especially for a free software

The one thing that you need to work on is that you cannot publish to MP3 without manualiy installing a plugin. (They do that to avoid copyright issues) Don’t worry there is instuctions

Audactiy Runs on Windows , Mac , and Linux

Audactiy https://www.audacityteam.org/

Hosting services

Here is where it starts to cost you money. We have been lucky to have Patreon backers help with this cost. You need to find a hosting company that specialises in podcasts. The reason for this is that it will save you HOURS of work otherwise. Getting everything coded into an RSS feed for a podcast is hard work (I used to hand code my RSS feeds in the early days of podcasting and I DO NOT MISS DOING THAT)

Also, Podcasting services like Libsyn do not charge you for bandwidth. This is very good if you get popular for some reason. They also give you a blog. I hightlyrecomend doing some blogging about your podcast.

Editing your RPG Podcast

My Biggest tip for learning know how to edit is do it when it does not matter. I know its tempting to record a session and go straight to work editing. But if you do it that way you are going to stress your self out trying to figure it out. It’s better to record a game that you are not going to publish so you can edit it without worrying about messing it up. (Trust me I have been teaching adults computers for 10 years) You will learn more in five min of playing with something you don’t care about than two hours on a clip that needs to be published tomorrow. Get to know Noise Reduction, Normalize & Compressor

Removing the dead space during the show

There is always a little bits of quiet duing the conversation. Or parts where everyone is waiting for the wizard’s action who happens to be in the bathroom to come back. These points nobody wants to hear these so cut them out. Our rule of editing. “If it does not add to the story cut it out ”

Side topics

Remember the last time your RPG game table stayed on topic the entire game? Me neither! These moments are very fun during the game and I can say that it can really bond a game group together, however. It is something that nobody else wants to hear. I would say that most of my time is spent cutting out this sort of chatter during the game.

The Dreaded ummmmm!

You are going to get really good ad editing out “Ummms” out of your Actual Play Podcast. It happens a lot. The cool thing about this is that its easy to do and it makes you sound like you have spend a lot of time public speaking.

New To Star-Fall?

Go back to the first episode to see what you are missing.

Star from Episode One!

The Pitfalls of recording an actual play pocast

What is a blog post on How to start an RPG Podcast without warnings? there are a few pitfalls you need to be aware of if you are going to start publishing your RPG podcast. Here are a few that I have discovered .

Respect other peoples copyright. ok ok you don’t beleave me or feel you can do what you want. That is ok because there is a Lawyer who needs to upgrade their computer and could use some extra cash they will be contacting you shortly. I’m lucky that I’m married to an International Copyright lawyer. Though because I’m not a Lawyer this should not be taken as advice just “Get a real lawyer if you need help” This is just a blog post How to start an RPG Podcast

Avoid Logos of other companies. I don’t care how much you love Dungeons and Dragons or Monte Cook Games. The moment you put their trademarked logo on your website without their written permission, you will get the scariest letter you have ever seen in the mail from their lawyers. TO be clear this is not because they are evil its because they have to do so in order to protect themselves. So if you do get a scary letter from a lawyer don’t blame the company they are just doing what they need to do.

Do not read the rules out on your podcast word for word. I know this sort of thing comes up all the time in a game where you need to know exactly how a spell is used or how to grapple. If you do this you are going to make someone very angry. Edit that part out of your show. ITs ok to use your own words on the rules but word for word is a bad idea.

Do not use other peoples artwork! I know you have a character who just happens to look like Deadpool. Do not use the artwork in your show! Do not take images from other websites. Do not use the images in your books. (Comic book characters can fall under Trademark and Copyright so don’t use the artwork even if you drew it yourself )

Artists work very hard and we often do not get paid enough when we do get a gig. So don’t add salt to the wound by taking someone else’s artwork. Do everyone a favor and pay the artist to make something for you. I would also like to mention I’m married to a Lawyer who very protective of my artwork so don’t steal it .

If you need artwork you can hire an artist like myself.

Music.. only use public domain or music that was created for your show. Remember what I said about the game companies and their logos. How they are not evil? The Music copanies are the definition of Lawful Evil. Entire law firms are dedicated to finding people who have violated music copyright laws on their podcast so they can take your money (and lots of it)

I know many gamemasters who like to have music playing in the background. This is a bad idea for two reasons. One the copyright. Two if its playing in the background it will make your edits sound odd. IF you are going to use public domain music then add it in post edit. It will sound better.

Record all your shows before you publish the first one. I know it sounds daunting but it’s better to do that and then edit then to always be behind on publishing your episodes. That and we found that we had issues with scheduling a game night

Dice are loud on the table !!! If you have your mic on the same table as the dice it sounds like thunder to some mics. This may not be an issue but its something to be aware of. having everyone roll on their books putting the mic on a boom or somethign soft can help

Do not give up! You are not going to get famous by doing this anytime soon. It’s going to take a lot of work. Keep going. Your audiance will find you,

Each episode of Star-Fall Actual Play Podcast takes about 3 hours of editing. So expect to be spending a lot of time editing. If you can find a way to have some of your cast embers help do that

The Gamemaster should be closest to the Mic. We had one session that was a total nightmare to edit. As the GM I was the furthest away from the mic and nobody but the players could hear me. The sound quality was total crap and we had to scrap the episode. If you only have one mic it should be closest to the gamemaster. I do recommend more than one mic.

Battle is boring characters eating in the pub is fun … to listeners. The problem with fights in Rpg Podcasts is that its fun for the players but boring to the listeners. Try to focus on the characters more than the battle. Sure have battles now and then but try to keep them short or edit the shit out of them.

I hope this was helpful in How to start an RPG Podcast

Episode 14: Zapperburger Roleplaying in fast food

January 8, 2019

In “Episodes”

RPG Actual Play Podcasts for 2019

January 6, 2019

In “RPG Podcasts”

Star-Fall Season Two Episode Four Something is Hungry

March 17, 2019

In “Episodes”

The post How to start a RPG Actual Play Podcast appeared first on Star-Fall RPG podcast.

#IFTTT #WordPress

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