#but im not about to write a tumblr essay about that lol

[rowanisawriter]

[idolbound]

At a base level, Meredith holds a general dislike towards men, with few exceptions. These reasons are primarily related to sexuality, and her exceptions are given through familial relationships. While this dislike is not necessarily overt (as interacting with men is very much a part of her life), the way she engages with men socially vastly differs compared to women. The reasons below are derived from both canonical events and personal headcanons.

Familial & Interpersonal Relations

As a little girl, Meredith adored her dad. While her older sister Amelia was closest with their mother, Meredith was very attached to their father, spending almost as much time with him as she did with Amelia. While Meredith was very young (around 5 years old) when her beloved mage sister became victim to demon possession and killed their parents and neighbours, she was saved by Knight-Captain Wentworth Kell. In that moment, Meredith saw him as her hero and savior, and it instilled the faith and belief in herself that she too, would become a templar from that fateful day forward. As such, Meredith became an initiate in her early teens, serving as Ser Wentworth's page for a few years. In that time, she learned directly from him, but she also saw him akin to an adoptive father. Over the years, Ser Wentworth began experiencing early symptoms of lyrium-related dementia; prior to his retirement to the Chantry to live out the rest of his remaining days, he named Meredith as his successor to fill the position of Knight-Captain, and in his speech, he called her the "daughter he never deserved." This relationship was pivotal for young Meredith, and in some ways, more painful than losing her own family; she would visit him, watching him and his memories slowly fade away over a two-year period. By the end, he did not remember who she was, and the grief of losing another father is something she has carried with her ever since. In this sense, Meredith's father and adoptive father respected and loved her deeply, teaching her all they knew. She held both of them in high esteem, both as a child and teenager/very young adult. These familial relationships are very important to Meredith, and they are one of the only ways that she finds herself in close companionship to men whatsoever. In a way, she extends this type of relationship later on in her life to Cullen. Taking the older mentor role, Meredith had chosen Cullen to be her Knight-Captain because she felt a sort of kinship with him; like her, Cullen was quite young and deeply traumatized from a mage-related incident. She took advantage of this shared experience to shape and influence his ideology about mages and how to control them in the Circle using strict routines and regulations. In this way, she sought to mould him into her future successor, trusting that he would continue to lead Kirkwall's Templar Order in her footsteps, long after she is gone. In this sense, she has a somewhat maternal relationship with Cullen, seeing him as a pseudo-son; while she would never go quite as far as saying he is the child she "never deserved", she certainly places far more trust in Cullen than anyone else serving under her, and holds a certain fondness towards him.

General Relations

In terms of men more broadly and in a general sense, Meredith has never felt a desire to befriend nor deeply engage with them, mainly for two reasons - both of which are related to sexuality: namely, Meredith's own sexuality as a lesbian, as well as Meredith being seen as someone conventionally attractive to heterosexual men. Combined, these interrelated factors have led to Meredith's general aversion and dislike of most men; she would prefer to have nothing to do with men at a personal level, but works in a male-dominated environment and lives in a heteronormative society, which makes avoiding men in that capacity difficult. In the very least, Meredith finds some salvation in practicing and following a religion that is matriarchal in its hierarchy, even if the rest of society isn't.

Meredith's Lesbianism & Being Conventionally Attractive

Meredith has always been considered a very conventionally attractive person. Even from a young age, she has always been good looking, tall, and strong. Growing up in the Templar Order, she had to live alongside her mostly male Templar brethren in the barracks, and as a result, many of them have tried to flirt with her or even go so far as to pursue a relationship with her over the years. As a young teenager around age 14 to 15, Meredith's interests were strictly on her training and her devotion to the Chantry, seeing herself as nothing but a pure, pious Andrastian, who would likely be upholding a vow of chastity (even if the practice was not mandatory for Templars), or in the very least, choosing to remain chaste until marriage, if there was ever an opportunity to do so. However, as noted in the canon, marriage for Templars requires special permission from Chantry leaders and requires that the non-templar partner must be able to financially support themselves in case the templar is relocated to another Circle.

As such, Meredith often cited her devotion to the Chantry and its doctrine as the main reason for rejecting these boys, but as she grew a little older, around age 16, she started to discover her preference towards the fairer sex. While there had been some... inclinations early on (by way of homoerotic friendships with other girls living under the care of the Chantry), it wasn't until she realized that her lack of sexual interest in boys was not because of her devotion to religious doctrine, but instead, was because of her genuine sexual attraction to other girls. It took time for her to realize that there was nothing about boys that attracted her to them; she lived amongst them, saw them in more personal ways than most other girls her age, and still wanted nothing to do with them at an intimate level. They were her templar brothers, nothing more (despite their efforts to be more than that). This early 'conflict' shaped her ideas about how boys treated her, but felt that she could not express her attraction or pursue relationships with girls without repercussions, and so, for the first few years of being a Knight-Templar, she kept things to herself and still used her devotion to the Order and the Chantry as a reason to reject suitors. As Meredith came to terms with her attraction to the same-sex in her late teens, she soon became quite confident in herself upon entering adulthood. As she inherited the position of Knight-Captain after Ser Wentworth's unfortunate passing in her very early 20s, she was described as having a steeled resolve and being far more charismatic than that of the old and greying Knight-Commander Guylian. This enabled her to bring about changes to the management of the Circle, implementing strict routines and harsh punishments for the mages, without question or doubt from her peers. Even years later, after the incident that led Viscount Perrin to send mercenaries to kill the Knight-Commander, Meredith rallied the templars into a retaliatory charge to the Viscount's Keep in order to arrest him for his crimes; in a similar fashion, not a single templar balked or questioned her orders, and this led her to being named Knight-Commander at the young age of 29. Those who work with Meredith see her as a powerful figure in leadership; between her physical looks and dominant personality, Meredith has established herself as both a competent leader in the Templar Order and an attractive one at that.

Even early on in her career, it was clear to most people that Meredith's devotion to the Order and the Chantry was her utmost priority, but unlike her younger self, she attained more freedom through earning a higher rank, and so, as Knight-Captain at age 24, she began to explore her sexuality and pursue same-sex relations with other women. Mainly, she sought casual relationships with those she knew were like her within the walls of the Chantry itself (again, serving as the only place she can really go to freely outside of the Order). This allowed Meredith to fully find her confidence in tandem with her ascension in the Order, feeling far more comfortable with herself, even if that part of her had to remain hidden from the public, because of her duties as well as the potential for social stigma that could affect her career. Over time, in some ways, Meredith's lesbianism is a little more obvious to those who pay attention. In particular, the templars who have known her and served alongside her for all of their lives have noted her blatant disinterest in, and rejection of, men, and sometimes, likely, the way that she has disappeared after evening prayer and not returned across the harbour until later than most (though for years, when her brethren were still not afraid to ask, she always cited it as 'administrative business', and left it at that). In this time, her love for, and attraction to, women was cultivated, and it played a part in her confidence - which in turn, has played a part in how people perceive her, still, as a very attractive woman.

However, despite all of her hard work and ascension through the ranks of the Templar Order and some of the rumours about her sexuality, some men still believe they might have a chance in pursuing her. This has certainly lessened over the years to an extent as she has gained power and influence as Knight-Commander, and in some ways, because of aging (though that said, many see her as still rather attractive - for example, Jethann of the Blooming Rose referred to her as a "tall, handsome woman" in recent years), but after having to deal with men finding her extremely attractive for all of her life, despite her very obvious disinterest in the opposite sex, Meredith has grown to have a general dislike for most men.  While she generally trusts that the men who serve under her do so at a professional level, she cares little for their personal lives or interests, and only interacts as necessary. Overall, she has very few 'friends', given her position and devotion to the Order, but she holds even less desire to be friends with men. She has no reason to engage with men beyond a professional capacity. That said, though, she does seem to care a lot for Thrask, and is quite upset when she finds out he betrays her, so I like to believe that they were in the same cohort in their youth, training and serving the Order together for many years; in this way, that particular relationship almost embodies a familial relationship, and is most certainly an exception to the rule.

Conclusion

Overall, the social context of Thedas, and Kirkwall in particular, has shaped how Meredith has developed as a person and how her sexuality exists within the constraints of the society she lives in. While Meredith accepts close familial relationships that are based in mentorship, respect, and to some degree, love, she typically rejects general relationships with men outside of that context; as a lesbian woman, she has no romantic or sexual interests in men, but as someone who is considered conventionally attractive by society and ergo, heterosexual men, she has had the unfortunate experience of being romantically and sexually pursued by them. And, because it is not the norm in society, Meredith cannot be open with her lesbian sexuality (again, for fear of social stigma affecting her career), and therefore, cannot establish rejection on the basis of a lack of attraction, but rather, instead, must reject men on the basis of her devotion to her faith. This has led to Meredith's general dislike for men, and preference to avoid interaction if at all possible. Outside of this fictional context and going into real life, a lot of lesbians - myself included - find it more comfortable to decenter men in our lives. This is a process that helps women break free from a compulsory heterosexual society (from Adrienne Rich's (1980) theory that heterosexuality is innately assumed and enforced by a patriarchal and heteronormative society, particularly for women), by way of unlearning and subverting patriarchal norms, and changing gender relations, so that women's worth is not tied to the interests of, nor the relationships to men. Obviously, this process is arguably easier for lesbian women who already lack the romantic/sexual attraction to men and who love and support women. Obviously, for Meredith, this is not as easily attainable in the context of Kirkwall and wider society in Thedas. She spends almost all of her time surrounded by men in the Gallows who serve under her as Knight-Commander, though for the most part, they respect her as their leader. While she cannot necessarily decenter men in the same way as someone like me in a modern world, she finds her reprieve where she can by going to the Chantry for her daily evening prayer where she is surrounded by other women. This is why, if she has the opportunity to meet, work with, or even engage in potential relationships with, more women outside of the Order - as nobles or even otherwise - she will take it.

[senshisdaughter]

THE TERUHASHI KOKOMI DOCUMENT (that I forgot I made for like, the past 2 months lmao)

This is a thing I made almost in one sitting while listening to this playlist by CASP, It literally is the best character playlist i've ever seen, it resumes her character arch so well!!

Enough said, he's the thing:

Part 1: Introduction

Kokomi Teruhashi is my favorite character from saiki k. As much as I see myself in Saiki or find characters like Kaido and Akechi funny, no other character has grasped my attention like teruhashi. Her bits were funny, she had some of the most interesting dynamics with other characters, mainly Saiki, and she was the one of the characters that best reflected the themes of the series together with Kusuo.

So, seeing the utmost love I have for her character, you can probably imagine my surprise to find out how so many people who have “watched” the show simply hate her. Some will say she’s annoying, some will say she’s narcissistic, mean or a bitch. Some will hate her for getting in the way of their headcanons or for any other reason you can easily see flowing around. Even worse, this teruhashi hate is not a small minority but quite a big amount of the fandom, to the point that teruhashi lovers will tag any teruhashi positive posts with the saiteru tag, even with the ship not present, so that the few teruhashi lovers from the ship can see it.

In this essay I will firstly analyze Teruhashi’s character, mostly from the anime as I have not read the manga, and after that I will point out some of the reasons people say they hate the character and after question the real reasons behind this hate.  

Part 2: The perfect pretty girl:

Teruhashi, like most characters in the show, gets introduced as a shallow character. The whole joke at first is the expectation breaking that comes from Saiki’s power: the perfect pretty girl does not have a perfect personality like we would expect. She is overly aware of her beauty and uses it to benefit herself. She gets surprised by someone simply ignoring it, to the point of becoming obsessed with Saiki without even knowing his actual name.

Her characterization at the beginning of the series is very straight forward, she is a living illusion, a egocentric person who will manipulate people to get what she wants using her beauty, while pretending to be perfect in all aspects. Most of her jokes come from the absurd levels of power she demonstrates because of her appearance or from Saiki running away from her love schemes, as he doesn’t want all the attention that Kokomi brings with her.

At first, like ALL characters in the first season, Teruhashi is not painted in a good or deep light, mostly being very exaggerated in her worse traits and being targeted by Saiki’s funny remarks. This is the way the show first introduces us to characters. Nendo simply starts as the stupid one, Kaido is the shy and awkward Chuunibyou, Yumehara is the love crazy girl and so on. Here is where I personally find most Teruhashi haters get their distaste from, even though, as it will be further analyzed later, there are still some questionable things about the amount of hate this version of the character gets.

At this point in the series most characters are there only to be funny, without too much depth. But, as the season continues, the show starts to allow its characters to gain more depth. As much as Teruhashi still continues to mostly stay as the “perfect pretty girl who actually has a bad personality deep inside” we finally start seeing more depth to her during the later half of the first season. We start to see her develop friendships with Yumehara and the others, allowing us to see more of her personality than just her crush on Saiki and her contradictory personality, even if those are still the main focus of the character. 

But, as with most characters in the show, there is a very important change in tone after season two. We do not see Teruhashi Kokomi simply as the pretty perfect girl, but we actually get to see a bit more than that.

Part 3: The real girl

Kokomi Teruhashi is, above anything else, simply a girl. And that fact gets more and more obvious as we continue in the series. Her behavior that appears perfect is a mask, her thoughts that were very judged by Saiki in the beginning become clearly normal thoughts a teenager would have. Even the way she weaponizes her beauty: we see how all of that is placed on top of a real, normal human girl. 

Kokomi uses people as much as she is used, we get to see clearly how hard it is to “be perfect”, and how much it is expected of her. She isn’t allowed privacy even in her own home (I WILL NOT TALK ABOUT HIM), she isn’t allowed to have common hobbies and behaviors, any change she makes to her appearance is seen and judged and she is not treated like a normal person. The show starts to deconstruct the idea that Teruhashi is faking her perfection out of malice or narcissism, giving us a new view of it.

We see Teruhashi’s internal thoughts: how she thinks she's giving people happiness, how she knows people expect her to embody perfection, how she knows the responsibility and power she got from birth. It changes her relationship with her beauty, no longer is she abusing it, but simply taking back as much as it is taken from her. 

With A LOT of the jokes in the anime, when thinking about them for a little bit, some things become concerning: this 16 years old girl is certain that people will get depressed if she doesn’t show up and perform her perfection (which we know to be true seeing how they all react when she is simply sick), this 16 years old girl is sure that giving chocolates to her crush will start world war three (which, even if we see it as hyperbole, is taken completely seriously by her, and whatever it would actually happen or not is irrelevant, as she feels responsible to stop it even at the cost of her happiness). We see time and time again how much she constantly feels responsible for others feelings and actions, completely changing the reason we think she puts up an act.

Not only that, but we see how much she appreciates being treated as a normal person. Her crush on Saiki, born initially from spite, becomes genuine affection as she grows fond of him mainly because he treats her like she is not special. Of course she hated it at first, she never knew what being treated like a person was! Not only that, Teruhashi feels that she is responsible for others happiness, and here she sees a boy that isn’t happy to see her. As much as it hurts her pride, which is the way Saiki sees the situation, it also directly hits the only thing she sees as her worth, as her responsibility. 

Kokomi at first seems very prideful, and it would be a lie to say she isn’t, but mostly we see how to a certain extend that was a side effect of her mask, and as she gets more and more used to being treated like a normal person, especially by Saiki and Yumehara, she starts to care less about it, even allowing herself to make a “mistake” by forgetting a random thing about what a boy changed after fainting from exhaustion trying to be perfect.

Yumehara herself is one of the most important characters for Teruhashi’s growth. We do not know much about Kokomi’s past, but she clearly doesn’t have a lot of friends at the start or before the series. She, as all of Saiki’s friends, is deeply lonely, as even though she is popular she isn’t close to anyone. That is, before she and Yumehara become friends.

Part 4: Being human

One of the main challenges we see Saiki going through the series is his feelings of alienation from the rest of humanity. He doesn’t feel human, always feels like he is different from others and needs to put on a mask to exist in society. We also see this mentality slowly being melted away by having friends, as they pretty much grab Kusuo by the neck and throw him away from this idea, by showing him love and understanding. This is one of the most important themes of the story, and one Kokomi Teruhashi embodies just as well.

Teruhashi at the start pretty much lived simply to fulfill the role that was given to her by society at her birth: be as perfect as she looked. Boys were too shy to interact meaningfully with her while girls were too intimidated to be friends. When people did talk to her it was mostly to compliment her on her appearance or to try and get something out of her. That at first changes with Saiki.

This random boy from her class, a boy that she still finds the need to make a little happier with her presence (a thing that has ALWAYS happened since she was born), a boy she doesn’t even know the name of. This boy simply gave no fucks about her beauty. He saw Kokomi like he saw everybody else, both in appearance and personality, so he treated her like he did everyone else: indifference.

  Of course Teruhashi doesn’t believe it, something like that never happened before. Of course her first reaction is that something is wrong and that she needs to fix it. At this point she is so immersed in her mask that she can’t even see it is not her real self. And the more she tries the more Saiki treats her like a normal human being.

Then we get the second most important character for Teruhashi’s growth: Yumehara. Yumehara is the first girl we see that not only decides to treat Kokomi as a normal human being, but also to be her friend. We clearly see both of them struggle at first, as Yumehara finds it weird to talk to “the perfect girl” and Teruhashi simply has no experience talking with girls. But we see them building a relationship, caring for eachother and, most importantly, we see Teruhashi being allowed to be a normal girl.

With both of them by her side Kokomi slowly starts to truly become herself, gaining a bigger possibility then the role she had been put since birth. And with time even her other friends in the group start to treat her more and more like a human being. From Hairo and Mera (aroace icons fr) that don’t seem to really care about her beauty, to Kaido and Nendo, who even if they do care about it still end up treating Teruhashi as a friend first.

We can clearly see how much this connections change

Teruhashi's mindset: she becomes less egotistical while still being aware of her beauty, she understands what's more important to her than her perfection, she finally starts to understand that she is allowed to be human.

Part 5: Parallels painted pink and blue

It is so easy to think of Teruhashi’s crush on Saiki as any other joke, like Yumeharas, but there is a very important reason why she and Saiki are placed side by side so much: they are perfect mirrors.

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K is a show about loneliness. Not the psychic powers of quirky people, the main thing everyone in the cast has in common is that they are all deeply lonely. Kaido, Nendo and Kuboyasu are social outcasts, Yumehara and Mera while not being isolated by their peers are also not very social with them, and Hairo, even though he’s popular, doesn’t have anyone to match his freak energy. They all find connection in their weird little friends group. And in this group there are two opposite but mirroring characters: Saiki Kusuo and Teruhashi Kokomi.

Saiki doesn’t feel human, but like a monster. He feels disconnected from his peers as he was born with powerful abilities that, while they can be used for personal gain, he feels responsible to hide as a way to keep others safe. So, he wears a mask of normalcy, not allowing anybody near him and hiding everything that makes him special. He has to deal with the weight and troubles of hiding a part of himself from others, and finds it difficult to show it even to those he knows would accept him.

Teruhashi doesn’t feel human, but like a goddess or an angel. She feels disconnected from her peers as she was born with a powerful beauty that, as it is impossible to hide, she feels responsible to make it as visible and perfect as possible, in an attempt to make others happy. So, she wears a mask of perfection, making it impossible for people to completely get close to her as she hides everything that makes her normal. She has to deal with the weight and troubles of hiding a part of herself from others, and finds it difficult to separate between her mask and herself.

They both grew up with a similar problem: they were alienated from others because of their uniqueness. But, both diverge at the fact that Saiki can hide his powers, while Teruhashi can’t. So while Kusuo fights a part of himself until he doesn’t see it as part of him, Kokomi is eaten by her mask, confusing herself with the mask she wears.

Both characters force each other to confront the truth, as Saiki needs his powers to keep up with Teruhashi and she is unable to mask in front of him. By their similarities they both push each other to become more in tune with their humanity.

Even their real personalities are similar, both being mean to others in their heads while acting very kindly in the end. Both are absurdly competitive, stubborn and even childish at times. They are both good but flawed people, who lost touch with their humanity as it was taken away from them by others because of their unique traits. Even if dealing with it in completely opposite ways, both are, at their core, very similar characters. They are the two who can understand each other the best, having similar problems, from god like abilities and bad brothers (I WILL NOT TALK ABOUT HIM)

Part 6: The haters

Here is where my main problems with Teruhashi haters lie. While anyone is entitled to like or dislike any character, the characteristics that are targeted on Teruhashi are, at its core, characteristics that are very clearly present on Saiki. But, when Teruhashi shows them instead of the protagonist they become a problem.

Saiki is a self-centered guy, who will do everything in his power to avoid others. He is constantly mean to his friends and strangers in his head while being quiet on the outside. Saiki constantly makes it clear, especially in the first episodes, how he needs to lower his abilities, be it physical or intellectual, to keep being normal, because he is better than his peers at both.  

Kokomi does the same, she is self-centered and does everything in her power to get what she wants. She is constantly mean to others in her head while being nice on the outside. She makes it constantly clear that she is prettier than her peers and she does not hide it.

They both have the same unlikable characteristics. but they get framed differently by both the show and the fandom. Saiki can be mean in his head, because if he doesn’t say anything he isn’t being fake, while Kokomi deciding to be nice to others is bad? If Kusuo uses his birth giving abilities to avoid people and manipulate situations it's relatable because he’s being a introvert, while if Teruhashi uses his birth giving beauty and luck (that works in the same level as Saiki’s powers) to get someone’s attention and manipulate situations she is manipulative and a bitch? 

And it’s not only traits she shares with Saiki that are badly seen. She is annoying to Saiki and never leaves him alone? So is Nendo, but when she does it it’s bad, even though we know Saiki never went and rejected any of his friends' affection directly. People will say she can’t take no for an answer when no was never said to her. 

People expect a character who’s whole life was told she is perfect to not think she is. People expect a character who’s been given everything she wants her whole life to not expect that? Saiko thinks exactly that, and like Teruhashi starts to learn that things are not like that, but he still will default to thinking this. But when he does it’s not a problem, but when Teruhashi does it she is entitled and bad.

Like it was said before, disliking a character is something anyone can do for whatever reason, but I do find it important to analyze why you hate a character, especially if the reasons you give are only a problem when given to a confident female character. The whole point of her bit is that, the fact she knows she is beautiful and uses it to her favor is something that would surprise and get people mad, and seeing it be realized by people outside the anime makes it ever so clear why her characters has such a hard time being true to herself. If she didn’t pretend to be perfect the hate that she receives from the fandom would be very similar to the hate she would receive in her world.

But then the question becomes why? In a show full of self-centered characters, who are inconvenient, who are entitled, who are arrogant, why is Teruhashi the one who gets the most hate for any of these characteristics? While I do believe for some people they just didn’t find her bit funny, I do really think that for most it was simply misogyny. She is a confident woman who knows and uses her beauty to get what she wants. In real life women like this will get targeted and harassed, they are hated simply because they don’t act “pure and innocent” as it is expected, as it is completely shown in the show through Teruhashi. She is a character molded by misogynistic stereotypes, and while I do think the show does well in using them while criticizing it, a big portion of the fandom simply was not able to see this character without the lenses of misogyny the character itself is made to criticize.

I find it to be very important to analyze why you hate Teruhashi if you do so. Did you not find her funny or were you bothered by a woman showing character flaws? Did you get annoyed she got in the way a ship you think is better? While I cannot convince everyone to stop hating a fictional character, I urge you to ask yourself WHY do you dislike her, and to see if you dislike male characters with the same flaws you say you hate. 

Part 7: The tragedy of Teruhashi Kokomi 

Of course, it does sound a bit contradictory for me to say that “anyone is entitled to like or dislike any character” and then write a big ass dissertation on why you should not hate Teruhashi. But there is a big reason why I really wanted to do this: I really really love her character.

It's tiring to see many many people hate on a well written character, and sadly, the reason she is hated is BECAUSE she is well written. The show doesn’t say out loud that Teruhashi is fine, that she is a normal teenage girl that was cursed with unending beauty in a world that will never allow her to acknowledge it. The social behaviors criticized by her character are only made more explicit by the way a portion of the fandom treats her, and sadly, that was inevitable with a character like her.

So in the end I can only hope to see more positive things about her in the future, as I do love this character as much as I do Saiki. And even though I know people will still hate Kokomi, I hope some people can see what a great character she actually is.

[mbat]

i really wanted to try and write like, a thing explaining how i think steven universe future is one of the best portrayals (and my personal favorite) of mental illness in media, and how i think people misinterpreted it (me included at first, cause my experience over time has given me new perspectives) but i. AAA i literally dont even know if its necessary cause i dont know if people still think it was bad or a bad way to write steven (it wasnt!!) or like any of that, mostly cause. holy shit its just so obvious to me?

like i watch that show and i relate to him so much that i just understand it all and its so obvious to me and i dont know if other people find it. not obvious. like everything is right there in the text laid out i think

the main thing that i saw get misinterpreted when it aired was the second to last episode where steven turns into a fucking kaiju and everyone, again me included, thought that it felt rushed, but everytime i rewatch it i think... no it wasnt, actually. because we see it expecting a big fight or thinking it needs a whole lot to fix, but it doesnt. its not a fight, its someone having a mental breakdown and thinking theyre purely unlovable and evil, but being made to see that they are still lovable and arent evil even after all the bad theyve done, theyre loved unconditionally, and that other stuff mostly really doesnt matter (and hey, it can be fixed/dealt with later, its fine!)

its just my favorite show ever, specifically future! and i really wish other people would see what i see, but do i even need to try..? i didnt really write it very well anyway, but drafts exist for a reason. idk ive just been thinking about it a lot

TL;DR: i adore steven universe future and im wondering if anyone thinks its even necessary for it to be analyzed for people to maybe better understand it/do you think that there are enough people misunderstanding it that it needs a perspective to maybe help be more understood

[spacedlexi]

Would love to hear u talk more about Clem and Minnie mirroring one another if u haven’t already 🦅

i have Not >:) cracks knuckles

talking about minnie can be hard since she Really only exists in eps 3 and 4. eps 1 and 2 keep the twins pretty mysterious we only learn a few things about them. i think the most important thing we know about them tho is that they (or at least minnie) provided a sense of relief for the ericson kids. tenn saying how minnie would sing them "dont be afraid" when they were feeling scared. i think its safe to assume she wrote the song Specifically to have a way to make the other kids feel better when things were rough

when the twins die the kids lose this emotional support and we can tell its been hard on all of them (some more than others). but then in comes clementine. our girl whos been carrying the "light in the darkness" motif since season 1. and although she got that shit a little dirty in seasons 2 and 3 (ava going off in s3 about how clem and aj are light and hope and shit so we're still supposed to see it (and recognize that clem has become so Dark in s3 without aj)), she got her light back when she got aj back and she'll die protecting him

clem (and aj) fall very quickly into the hole the twins left. now its clem who makes them feel safe. first with finding them food then protecting them against the raiders ("youre our savior clem" "we were more scared than we let on when you met us. you made that go away"). its not an accident theyre put up in the twins room. and with the way violet grabs the frame and looks at it sadly we can even assume clem sleeps in minnies old bed (also the old torn down paintings seem to only be on ajs side of the room and hes got his whole "i wanna be an artist too" thing going on). clem has unintentionally taken on minnies old role of making the kids feel safe and reassured

then we finally meet minnie. and based on how the others described her there is definitely a piece of herself that shes lost (that shes killed). her light is gone now. and although her motivations have been warped, they remain the same. i do genuinely believe she is still trying to protect the ericson kids and do whats best for them, but just in the only way she thinks she can to stop more people from dying. she might even think the pros of living with the delta are worth the cons. clementine is the one teaching them to fight back but minnie knows from experience that fighting back just gets you killed, so she feels like if she can just stop clementine then everything will be fine ("youre the FUCKING problem here" "i wont let you get them all killed" and she does seem genuinely concerned if clem and vi are fighting in the cell. and obviously we know she doesnt want anything to happen to tenn). both minnie and clem want to protect the ericson kids they just have conflicting opinions about which is the right way to do it. but minnie Does show her ass when she ends her "if you just do what they say you can live" speech with "you can be rewarded just like i am" 👀 oh girl... she didnt just give up she gave in. killing sophie was her breaking point and i really wish we knew more about how that scene went down outside of lillys dramatic retelling i would like to see it objectively please. but based on the way lilly tells it, minnie (im sure begrudgingly) accepted her place at the delta before it even came to that, and was probably just pulled along by sophie when she tried to escape. which is probably why (im assuming) lilly gave her the choice to kill sophie to stay with the delta (her New family), and she did... she kills a piece of herself when she does this (only compounded by the twin imagery), and i think her seeing clem fight back reminds her of sophie and brings all those feelings to the surface. and if she can just kill clem everything will be ok, cuz it worked last time....

minnie singing "dont be afraid" when attacking them on the bridge. a song that once brought them peace now being used to herald death. but since she approaches already singing it she was probably singing it to soothe herself as she succumbs to her bite, walking away from the wreckage she blames on clem, her delta family dead (she Did care about them in a fucked up way), using a herd of walkers against them the same way clem used a herd of walkers to attack the boat. all minnie cares about at this point is finding tenn, and she does, and shes gonna take him with her. just like clem looking for aj, finding him, and taking him. but where clem would die to protect aj, minnie wants to kill tenn to take him "home" with her. add to this ajs feelings about ending up alone without clem and wanting to be walkers together if it came to it. this is why tenn dying on the bridge feels narratively fulfilling to me even tho i hate it 😭 tenn wants to be with minnie (and sophie and their parents) and death doesnt scare him. it kinda comforts him. him and minnie dying together here is like the dark fate clem and aj barely avoid

and then vi fitting into this as she became tenns caretaker after the twins left. she also wants whats best for him so her and minerva fighting at the end for tenn is interesting. especially since violet (and louis but he wasnt tenns caretaker the way vi was) can die throwing him over the gap. i like the layers violet adds to being in the bridge scene, and it makes it even more sad when she cant protect him because thats all shes been trying to do since before clem and aj even showed up. plus aj shooting tenn puts violet in a similar position to louis in regards to marlons death

i really love the ways violets route adds to all the minnie and tenn stuff. and the way we can see clems influence change her. how a saved violet is ready to fight with clem but a kidnapped violet believes in minnies goals and thinks giving up is the safest plan for everyone. because regardless if you save her or not violet ALSO wants to keep the ericson kids safe and just doesnt know the best way to do it. clem encourages violet to step up and minnie encourages violet to give up (warping her character growth which is why i cant Not save her 😭 and the betrayal of it all). using violet as a common denominator is another way to differentiate between clem and minnie. then throw the romance on top of that.... you can see why i get a little...Sillay.. this is ALSO why i dont like vinerva in any romantic capacity post the events of ep3 and why i love seeing vi with clem. its what they each encourage in her. minnies weakness, clems strength.... why seeing vi and minnie fight clem makes me want to cry but seeing clem and vi fight minnie makes me jump off the walls LETS GOOO

and i havent even talked about lilly yet.... how if lee took lilly up on her offer in S1 about stealing the RV together clem couldve ended up in her custody.... i definitely believe clem looks at minnie and sees some broken scared part of herself in there. she is Fiercely Loyal and would do anything for her family so if she was raised (or broken) in that environment (and it seems very "ends justify the means" with the delta as it sounds like its actually pretty good over there if you can look past the intimidation and torture and kidnapping) i could definitely see her being the one standing behind lilly in some other universe. its what lilly still tries to do with her but its too late (and so lilly tries it with aj instead which is still a way to get to clem). but clems grown now and shes been making her own choices for a long time. shes already been through this with the new frontier (and hell even with carver at howes). she'd die before she gave in. and minnie made the choice to kill her sister to save herself

even with the little info we actually have on minnie she still works pretty well as a foil to clem. this is why i find it easier to talk about minnie when comparing her to clem like i feel like its her main purpose. i feel like theres still more i could say its just eluding me. its not a coincidence that minnie almost takes clem down with her in the end. why shes the reason clems able to get bit. minnie blames clem for her own demise and she's gonna get in one last fuck you. and minnies fate is one clem is desperately trying to avoid. kinda 👀 to be taken down by your narrative foil

[judasgot-it]

English is not my mother tongue so could you explain me why people call bsd boys baby girls? :c I really don’t get it, I used to think that just the boys that think they’re attractive but are cringe use that word to girls

Omg so I typed out like a whole response and it was deleted by tumblr grrrr

But anon you're 100% right, babygirl has a whole cringe history. Most people irl remember it still for being really weird and trashy, but recently it's become a bit of a friendly 'cringe joke' online

Like, calling someone babygirl is still weird, but especially if it's with friends it's a 'funny haha' kinda weird.

Calling the BSD boys babygirl, though, is a fun Fandom thing as of recent. It's just a new term for calling your fictional character crush, for example; pookie, husband, darling little angel, etc.

It's funny mostly, especially when you call the scariest character you can find your babygirl. Its a vocal equivalent of putting a pink frilly apron on them.

Like fyodor. Everyone online calls him babygirl so no one outside of the Fandom knows that he's a villain, just that he's babygirl.

Idk if this explanation was actually that good tbh but uhhh TLDR: babygirl is super cringe when used geniuenly like in flirting or as a pet name, but calling your anime boyfriend your babygirl is an exception cause it's funny and cringe on purpose.

[creampz]

⋆ ★ RULES.

#★vegasbaby. is my personal tag for all my work(s). sometimes i don’t update my mlists right away, but any time i post you’ll see things under that specific tag. (fics, hc's, etc..)

minors are to not interact with me or any of my works. must be 18+ or it's an immediate block. it would help a lot if you have some kind of age indicator! i’m not your parent so what you choose to consume despite ignoring my boundaries is up to you. i have mdni everywhere on my blog, but if i catch you lurking at all when you shouldn’t be, i will block you. this is an adult space.

i write requests on my own time and when i feel like it! currently, they’re open. thirsts like these take me quicker to write. please be patient because i try to answer everyone <3

i will say this again, but i do not write smut for minor characters. i will not age them up either. i will not write teen!character or teen! reader. it makes me uncomfy, please don’t ask / request that.

keep in mind, i’m only one person running this entire blog and it’s very hard to monitor constantly. if i don’t get to your ask(s), i apologize :’). i love talking to you guys!sometimes when im away ill run on queue

i write only for fem! reader (smut) — for angst, fluff i don’t mind writing in gender neutral.

please do not translate my works or feed them to any sites/platforms. screampied is my only tumblr & all works are mine. my ao3 is creampz and im gonna start cross posting my work there—whenever i have time eheh.

⋆ ★ BYF/DNI.

do not interact — minor, pro-isreal, kink-shamer, thinspo, racist / anything anti LGBTQ+, etc.

please refrain from stealing my themes, gifs / graphics. inspiration credit is totally fine by me as long as you ask! i’m fine if people want to use my graphic stuff as inspiration but please don’t entirely copy me.

this blog may write & interact w dark content time to time. i always tag properly in case you wanna filter that ( ex. #cw dacryphilia / #cw gunplay ) but nothing too supreme.

this is a safe goofy horny space! racism, unnecessary hate, and dumb tumblr beef will not be tolerated here. promise, i do not care. i’m just here to write and troll

reblogs + comments are wholeheartedly appreciated !!!

i don’t really answer anon hate. you’re gonna be talking to yourself and ignored. i’m not gonna be disrespected on my own blog. if i’m really bored, i’ll troll you with a meme.

don’t rant / vent to me in my inbox. i’m not a therapist and it could not only trigger me but my audience. asking for advice is fine i guess, but just heed my warning.

although my personality is a bit flirty, everything is entirely platonic! don’t take what i say serious lol, also i have dark humor so if you’re not with that, this isn’t the blog for you

don’t critique my writing unless you’re my beta reader. i didn’t ask and you’ll be blocked.

messages are only set for mutuals. if you have something you’d like to talk to me about, send me an ask and i’ll reply privately (or message you personally on my end)

don’t spam my inbox with asks. mutual or anon i will block you, it’s annoying & i promise i saw it the first time.

⋆ ★ WRITING.

before sending a thirst/req, please read the kinks im not comfortable with writing (scroll to see) — if you ask for a kink + trope, etc. i stated i won’t write, it’ll be deleted.

please keep your request/ask a few sentences short, not an entire essay. i’ll elaborate however i see fit. HOWEVER, i’ll make an exception if you have a fic idea you’d like to see me write. ex: “hi vegas! what do you think about … (specific au / character)” if it gets me motivated enough, chances are i’ll write it

info list of things i won’t write: stepcest & incest, pseudo-cest, scat, dub + noncon, pregnant s*x, kidnapping, peeing / piss kink, period s*x, somnophilia, ddlg, age regression, fisting, yandere, race play, vore, vomit, feet kinks, sacrilege (ex. priest! character), high school au's (teacher x student is a hard no: only exception—professor / college aus) free use, g4ngbangs, gl0ryholes, etc. (if i get asked asking for any of these kinks / tropes i will delete them.)

no, i don’t write for mahito.

again because this is a frequent question lol, i do not write smut for underage characters (megumi, yuuji, yuuta, maki, etc) please don’t ask me to age them up either !!

yes, i write for the women in jjk.

don’t request me something you’ve already asked another writer. it puts me in a weird position & don’t ask me to recreate something another writer wrote.

when describing reader, they’ll always be short or depicted as smaller than the characters i’m describing. also, i try to be inclusive to all readers. never in my writing will i describe specifics such as (body type, eye color, hair color, skin tone) unless asked. you’re free to imagine your reader how you want! <3

i never use (y/n) in my fics. nothing against it but i just stick to petnames!

if you have any questions about a kink, a req, etc. just ask me !!

i’d like to end this off by saying please USE PROTECTION !!! fiction is not real life, so please wrap it up or dip. also, consent is key <3 kisses !!!

[ethanwylan]

writeblr intro!!!!!

hello hello hello!

welcome to my new writeblr!

i am not new to tumblr, i’ve been a user for many years but have never fully ventured into the creative/writer spaces of this platform. but i decided that now is the time to put my silly words out there!

my name is ethan, im a 19 year old english major and former freelance writer. i am queer and trans and would love to follow more queer writers!

- currently, i am trying to get back into writing (specifically fiction) because i am not very well practiced right now

- AND (!!!!) i recently began brainstorming what might become my very first novel! i am in the very very very beginning stages but yeah! i wanted to make this blog so i could document the plotting/drafting process of my first major project!

- the idea is very rough right now, but basically its gonna be a speculative fiction/fantasy about witches and magic and haunted mansions and talking to ghosts and such! its very very much in the ideas stage so nothing set in stone, but i think if i share updates and stuff on here i can hold myself accountable and find motivation to begin writing this book for nanowrimo! (thats my goal)

- i mainly write poetic prose and personal essays and such these days, though like i said im looking to get into writing fiction: fantasy/mystery/magical realism/romance…. just all kinds of magical and beautiful fiction! i have experience in technical writing as well tho so yeah lol

- as i work on plotting this idea, i also want to use all those lovely prompts that are so abundant on tumblr to practice my fictional prose and just writing overall.

- i will most likely be posting some bits of my brainstorming/drafting process as well as any random stuff that i write to practice. so if you want to see anything like that, follow me!

i am totally down to hear all about your current WIPs and would love to build a silly little community of creative people!

if you’re a writeblr, i will follow back! i really want this blog to be a space for all things writing, and i hope you will join me on my journey :)

until next time,

- eeefhan (092423)

[bestanimatedmovie]

Choose your favorite!

Time to fly!

Vote in the other polls!

What fans say:

How To Train Your Dragon:

The message was just nice. I have a lot of nostalgia for it. I used to be a huge dragon nerd as a kid and dragons just weren't that prevalent in media here, especially not as friendly figures. I still love HTTYD and it's sequels nowadays.

It was one of my favorite movies as a kid and one of the few movies I watched that wasn't a barbie movie, it's just really cool.

Best movie featuring dragons period. The pure wish fulfillment fantasy of having a highly intelligent fantasy creature companion that can fly and doesn’t mind being ridden like a horse, therefore also the best execution of the dragon rider trope in all of fiction. Extremely funny, adding to the comedy is the fact that only adults have Scottish accents and all the teens have an American accent. So good that even its tv show follow up was decent by extension. The bit where Hiccup is trying to earn Toothless' trust and they start to work together changed me on a fundamental level.

I LOVE IT SO MUCHSHJKBSKHGDK I have a bone dysplasia which causes some bones to be a little bit more hollow and whenever I would feel a pain in my top back, 8 year old me was like ''woah I'm growing wings its my time to fly like toothless'' lol and it was always a dream of mine to fly. Weirdly enough I could relate to toothless because the "not being able to fly but you should be" felt like an allegory to a lot of my life! It gave me hope when he WAS able to after the help of others + the care he always needed + that mechanic wing thing made me feel like with the right ''recipe'' could help me get better too. My favourite scene is the first flight!! I love the animation for it, it makes me feel like im flying through the clouds too! The soundtrack is amazing too, I still cry to the songs.

I could write an entire essay about how much I love this movie, it truly is one of the best films ever made to me. Utterly flawless on both a technical level and a story-telling level. Not to mention the score oh my GOD the score of this movie changed my life. There are too many scenes that are so impactful, but the Forbidden Friendship scene has to be one of the best. Test Drive too.

This is literally my favorite movie of all time. This movie got me through the worst times in my life. It’s about love and friendship and all that lovely goopy stuff and it’s also fucking gorgeous.

THE cinematic masterpiece of our generation. On god.

This movie is an absolute masterpiece, the animation is pretty, the score is perfect, the relationship between Toothless and Hiccup is so sweet, Toothless is absolutely adorable. Definitely one of DreamWork's best films.

It's a beautifully animated movie about an unconventional viking boy named Hiccup finding his place in a world where dragons and vikings are constantly at odds, and how he changes the world around him. The dragon designs are unique and beautiful, and the vikings are larger than life and match the exaggerated setting.

Who on Tumblr DOESN'T want a dragon best friend I ask you. I would kill to have what Hiccup & Toothless have.

It does a brilliant job balancing tropes in a way that subverts and plays into them. There is so much in it for both adults and kids, it doesn't look like other animated films, it feels more grounded and in that realism it becomes so beautiful. The friendship in the film feels very real despite one of the characters being unable to talk! Forbidden Friendship scene is, in my opinion, the greatest scene in the history of cinema. The music, the lighting, the cinematography, the pacing, the emotions, it is practically perfect in every way. I could go on but I think ya get it.

God this movie defined my childhood and it's still so good when I rewatch it now. I'm guessing you'll have had this submitted a good few times bc it goddamn deserves it but. Hiccup is so relatable and !! dragons !! big cute dragons whose animation models are based on cats!! based fr

I have many fond childhood memories of this movie and in particular I loved how my cousin would "talk" for Toothless (cousin was babysitting us when we first watched the movie). Another thing is The SCORE. The music is iconic and awe inspiring to this day. That first time when Hiccup and Toothless fly together and it Works and the score absolutely goes HARD, I loose my breath every time. It's great. Also have you seen Toothless he's an adorable dragon and a badass, what's not to love?

Makes me cry every time because Hiccup and Toothless are such good friends and they love each other and end up as two halves of a boy dragon soulmate sandwich also the music is extremely good who doesn’t like dragons anyway.

It's the story of a beautiful friendship forming between a boy who doesn't fit in and a dragon who is the last of his kind. It's so cute. And it shows positive representation of disability, Hiccup and Toothless become disabled in ways that meaningfully parallel each other. Hiccup makes a prosthetic tail fin! And Toothless is just so cute!

The sound track is amazing

Honestly everything is phenomenal. It has a good use of comedy and an excellent story and character development. There are also countless beautiful and awe-inspiring scenes supported by an amazing score.

Up:

It is a very emotional movie about an old man learning to still enjoy life even though his wife died.

Such a beautiful film about loss

[symptomsofdeceit]

hihi!! :3 this is my first ever time sending someone an ask AND IM REAAALLY NERVOUS. gonna stay anonymous, because i'm a bit shy. also sorry if my grammar and spelling gonna be goofy, english isn't my first language :")

i found out about your game a couple of days ago and these crazy boys won't leave my mind ever since. i looove pathetic loser men and yanderes ❤️. demo is great!! your art style is soo pretty and i really like your character writing!!!! forgot that description said that there's two yanderes, so Nalis ending got me like 😳😳😳 OKAY THAT'S UNEXPECTED BUT SO DAMN HOT. Thaumo is so adorable! THAT MOMENT WITH FORK THO 😭😭😭 don't know which one of them is my fav so far. guess they have to fight for my heart so i could find out >:3 Tremo is so pretty!! ah, tired mysterious women are my weakness ❤️ also i feel sorry for Johnsoni, poor guy! #justice for Johnsoni, hope to see his sprite in future :"D i'm so eager to see what's awaits MC in next update. i know that game development isn't that easy, especially when you have to work irl. don't forget to take breaks from time to time, make an update at your own comfortable pace aand stay hydrated!!! your tumblr page and answer for other ppl asks about these weirdos is my food for now ❤️❤️❤️

SORRY THAT'S A WHOLE ESSAY LOL. just wanted to show how much i love your visual novel and characters! have some ideas for asks too, hope i will find the courage to write here again :"3 watch out Nalis and Thaumo, my future asks might be�� veery silly >:D

Hello, & I apologize for this reply being late! I appreciate the ask very much, & no worries on your English!! I think you’ve done perfect here :)

I’m so so happy that you’ve enjoyed my demo!!!!This entire message has me grinning at my phone so so hard. If you eventually do decide on a favorite between the two I’d love to know which one it is!! I hope you’re taking breaks + staying hydrated in your life as well, and thank you so much for all of your kind words (｡ŏ﹏ŏ)💕💕💕💕

You have no idea how much I appreciate your words, this means a lot to me!! I would really love to have you in my inbox again, so I’m mentally sending you all the courage I can ✨💪😤 silly asks are some of my favorites, I’m excited to see what you’d throw at the boys!

[neonfretra]

oughhhh oumblr post machine broke... i have made a post so long and dense that i can no longer even BREATHE her way without getting errors for inability to process post... i can edit other posts fine. i can post posts fine. i asked someone else, different account and device, to try it and its BROKEEEEE. epic highs and lows of text transcriptions of a 15 slide long portion of an essay <3 BTW the full slideshow is 52 mb . of 8 slideshows total. my madness <3

villain monologue below the cut <3

if you ever want to HATE a text editor try managing, editing, writing long form text in it <3 never a more infuriating experience in my LIFE i SWEAR!

a minor infatuation of mine is how tumblr rich text editor will handle different elements (ex. paragraph/regular, header 1, bulleted lists) where if you switch between them in a post frequently you might notice it is incredibly weird (compared to other rich text editors i use)!

when you create a new text block (excluding regular text) and then hit enter, it creates another line of text in the style of the previous text block (excluding headers). but when you hit backspace, instead of reverting to regular text, it deletes the entire line of text. if you want to revert to regular text you actually need to hit enter AGAIN. which i mean is fine but my muscle memory has ISSUE with it LOL

not to mention the fact that you cant layer multiple elements (ex. you cant have a bulleted list embedded into indented text). exception of fonts maybe, i dont use fonts at all, i have them disabled, i cant read them LMAO. i have not used ummm quotes as well

AND it breaks copy+pasting. tumblr disagrees with copy+pasting any text in any formatting besides regular LOL. if you use lists or indented text, you cannot paste anything from the block ANYWHERE within the post. you also cant drag and drop text on desktop and i dont like doing posts on mobile devices so yall on your own in that world. (did yall know the google applications i use dont let you right click -> copy/cut/paste? i dont. i dont know what they broke but they broke it)

AND this isnt even mentioning the fact that sometimes the tumblr text post editor just. lies. LOL? call her HTML the way white space (ex. spaces, blank paragraphs) does NOT matter. i put spaces between bullet points and they are gone. there are inconsistent spacings between text blocks because i copy+paste them and use the different text elements . and then they are gone. i somehow have indented bullet lists??? that i cannot recreate??? and also dont even show up in the public facing post???

AND this is also not even mentionin the fact that its very prone to breaking. like i cannot type into certain lines of text under fairly recreatable situations (IIRC, indented text block, press enter at the start of the text block to make a new block above the existing one, type a character and then delete it to make the new block blank. cant type into it again unless i click off and on again!) or the fact that i straight up cannot edit a post anymore. or the fact that its really common for me to run into errors where it refuses to save at all? or maybe im just stress testin it, im not actually sure how much im puttin into this poor thing? TBF this isnt a 30 image long monstrosity THIS time (which is the image limit on desktop, its 10 on mobile) so it breaks a lot less ^_^ for a copy and paste project. we living it up scrapbook style.

maybe neonfretra is hollerin about nothin. that post is absolutely broke as hell though. ^o^

[souryogurt64]

i watched your panic video essay and i really don’t think you came off too mean or hating on anyone discussed. i didn’t know much about the panic drama besides the very popular “we hate brendon poor ryro” narrative and so you gave me a much more nuanced understanding of the situation. you (rightfully) picked on brendon at times but i actually came out thinking more positively of him than i did when i barely knew the story before. i mean i wouldn’t say i like the man, and he strikes me as sort of egotistical and petty but not heartless and evil as i’ve seen him characterized.

learning about ryan ross and the sexism in attitude from early panic days definitely knocked him off the perfect pedestal of how people talk about him but also i can acknowledge that this was a teenager in the 2000s so of course he was a piece of shit. i don’t come out of the video hating him or anything and it never occurs like that was your intent in including that

as for pete, i already knew he was an evil businessman and misogynist prince of the aughts so like no surprise there. unfortunate for me im still not immune to that guy but yeah he is deserving of the critique and i don’t think you were too harsh. you were pretty fair in discussing his perception as a cutthroat mafioso vs just some guy. you complimented his disaster book.

i went into your video essay not know who the fuck this jmont guy is and came out not really caring beside briefly blinking at whatever he and pete had going on

anyways, all this to say i thought the video was great and both critical and fair

Brendon -- Throughout writing this essay and going through so much old Panic content it really reminded me why Brendon used to be a Tumblr babygirl and why I liked him, and made me like him a lot more. However, towards the end of the essay, when I started watching his more recent periscopes, I was reminded why this feeling has shifted loll

Ryan-- Ryan was a kid so its Not That Deep and I also just included that section so I had an excuse to mention the hayley williams thing. however I do think people have a tendency to like purposefully ignore this stuff, not just with ryan but with bandom in general. Ie "pete threw the first brick at feminist stonewall" etc so it's nice to have a reminder

Pete -- Yeah yeah yeah, he does not need any more attention

Jmont-- He is a band boy to me, I'm obsessed with all of this stuff and whatever weird relationship he and Pete had because I'm more obsessed with Pete's disaster book than I am with Fall Out Boy. However I recognize no one else on Earth cares about Pete's disaster book lol.

anyway ty <3333

[oatflatwhite]

Absolutely feel free to not answer but I was wondering how you grew more comfortable being aro/ace? I’m 22 and ace (maybe aro too idk) and I recently ended an on again off again relationship and I am questioning if I ever felt anything towards him in the first place. Im kinda scared bc I love romance but idk if I’ll ever experience it? I wish I was as secure as you seem to be. Thank u in advance 🙂

hey anon :) thank you for reaching out! it's a really hard feeling to come to grips with so i hope i can help in at least a small way.

id'ing as aroace has been quite the journey for me. i've known i was ace for the longest time, but there was a period of several years where i denied even that (thanks 2016 tumblr discourse). eventually i realised that certain feelings would just never happen to me and that was ok - because i could still have romance, right? well!

i think it was around 2021 i kind of thought hold on. i've lived 23 years on this goddamn earth and don't think i've ever had a real romantic feeling/urge for someone who wasn't a fictional character/someone i didn't "force" myself to like because everyone in high school has crushes, right? so i thought about it and just went oh. oh! and it almost felt as though a weight came off my shoulders. like, yes, i was fucking bummed to realise i would probably never fall in storybook love. but there was this sense of a burden i could unshoulder because suddenly i wasn't beholden to the need to find that love, you know? i could just. be me. and even though it might make me sad sometimes, it's enough.

since then i've been up and down about it, absolutely. i even had a brief period last year where i convinced myself i actually did like this guy in real life! through a comedy of errors i realised that romance in my head was fine but any kind of real life interaction in that vein made me sick to my stomach fr lol. (for real! he had to drive me home in my own goddamn car bc i felt so ill.) i still get upset about it sometimes too. i mean, all i write is romance. i read and watch a lot of romance too. romance is every fucking where and it is so ingrained to be a part of everyone's lives that to try and distance yourself from it in order to feel more comfortable not feeling it is. virtually impossible.

where i am right now, 26 years old, 10 years into my ace journey and about 3 into my aro one, is here: i like my life. i love my friends. i can't force myself into a feeling that i will never have. and maybe at times i will be lonely and sad about it, but building a community has helped so much. whether that's with other aro/ace people, or just your friends or family or anyone else you trust with this. because romantic love =/= personal fulfilment, happiness, success. we've just been told it does. it just takes work to make yourself believe otherwise.

and it's ok to be sad about it. but even if you feel lonely, you're not alone.

also, because i'm nothing if not a girl who loves a bibliography, i would recommend checking out these sources:

loveless by alice oseman

ace: what asexuality reveals about desire, society and the meaning of sex by angela chen

this essay by k.a. cook

and pinging a couple blogs with some good aro resources, though i'm sure there's more out there! @aroworlds @arowitharrows

[stanurines1mp]

Regrets

pairing: Ulquiorra Cifer x Fem!Gin's sister!Reader

type: angst

an: ignoring the fact that i start sm fanfics that i havent finished, here's another Bleach oneshot of one of my fav characters! i can write an entire essay on his character eheh. also, this is pretty short but im kinda lazy lol... its basically like the scene of him and orihime about the 'heart' but with a romantic(?) and angsty twist. so have fun and enjoy! dont forget to follow me on Tumblr and Wattpad! and share, like, vote, comment and all :)

warnings: angst (dont expect more from me), death, aizen (bro deserves a warning), gin (also deserves a warning but he's barely in here), reader is gin's younger sister, kinda rushed, blood (barely). i think thats all, lemme know if i miss anything! 

~~~

Following Aizen into Hueco Mundo was a decision filled with regret. Leaving behind your friends from the Seireitei was not your best move. But what more could you do when your older brother, Gin, had brought you along?

Honestly, what was he thinking?

But you couldn't deny him. You swore to stay by each other's side and this was not an exception.

So there you stood just a little behind him, fingers gripping tightly on the sleeve of his robe. Scared, you were barely peeking into the view of whatever Hollow Aizen had found interest in.

Ever since you set foot in this world, you were driven with fear, longing for a sense of warmth in this cold atmosphere. It's much too different than the Soul Society and the Human World. You'd do anything to get back to either one of those. But you swore to stay with Gin.

And Aizen was kind enough not to separate you both.

Until one day, he found your presence to be irrelevant and quite honestly a nuisance though he hid that fact with a sweet little lie of saying that he just wanted you to be safe.

And you remembered that day very well, too.

After all, it happened during a meeting with all the Espadas who swore loyalty to the God wannabe. Seated around the table were those 10 Arrancars and the traitors of Soul Society, including you.

"Y/N," Aizen brought the attention to you.

At this point in time, you had made yourself somewhat comfortable. Or rather, you've let yourself not get involved with anyone except your brother. So from your seat, your slouching back immediately straightened while your eyes widened. 

Your gaze lifted to meet the man, his soft orbs peering into yours. To the outside looking in, one would think he was displaying a look of warmth but you knew better than to fall for his manipulation. 

"Y-Yes?" You stuttered.

Sure, you were aware of his tricks. That didn't mean you weren't scared of him. 

"I have a very important task for you," he smiled. "I have informed Ulquiorra of everything and he is in charge of you."

"Wait, what?!" Your words slipped out, panic jolting your body as you looked from the man to your brother, your brows stitched in a silent beg for help. 

Before your brother could display even a shift in expression, your body froze in the chair. Your eyes widened, your lips emitting a hitched gasp. 

Aizen's Reiatsu was hurting you. 

Your fingers clutched firmly at the edge of the table. Your lungs felt like it was closing up, your airway narrowing as you gasped helplessly for air. 

"Are you denying me, Y/N?" His tone was silky smooth, an eyebrow raised condescendingly. 

Not without struggle, your head began to shake weakly as the brims of your eyes begin to well up with tears. Having enough of your suffering for the moment, Aizen lowered his Reiatsu and you gasped loudly as you could feel air flowing in and out of you again. 

"My apologies, Aizen-sama," you trembled, gaze lowering to the ground.

To that, he let out a pleased hum that matched his smirk. What a fucking sadist. 

So that's why you were currently stuck next to the 4th Espada, hiding in the Dangai while you waited to capture the human girl Aizen took an interest in. Honestly, some part of you hated yourself for being in such a position, forcing the same fate on an innocent girl who would do anything for her friends. 

"Inoue-san," you cleared your throat one day, knocking on the door. 

You pushed it open and saw the girl's sullen figure on the floor, gazing at the moon. She remained silent as she watched you enter. 

"How are you doing?" You asked, knowing it wouldn't bring any sort of comfort whatsoever despite that being your intention. "If you need anything, I'm at your service," you sighed. 

Silence passed between you two. Though expected, you took it as a sign to leave. Just as you were about to, she stopped you with a question. 

"Kuchiki-san told me about you," she said. "Why did you betray the Soul Society?" 

Her question struck you right at the pit of your regretful heart, making you stop in your tracks. 

With a sigh, you answered, "Just as you'd come here for your friends, I would do anything for my brother."

Refusing to prolong the conversation, you took your leave. Turning a corner as you head to your room, you felt fingers wrapped around your wrist. Holding you in place, Ulquiorra then appeared before you. 

"What do you think you're doing?" He raised his brows in question. 

Your eyes met his and you lowly exhaled. 

"Aizen-sama said that she's under our care," you reminded. "I am only caring for her." 

He let go of your hand, eyes still staring into yours. "You have no need to make friends with  her." 

A scoff slipped past your lips. "What are you?" You changed the subject, rather curious about something regarding the Arrancar. "Which part of Death do you signify, Ulquiorra?"

With your eyes stuck on him, paired with your question, he felt somewhat, exposed. His lips remain pursed, gaze peeling away from yours as he turned to walk away. 

"I do not see how that is of any relevance." 

"If I am to work by your side, I'd like to know more about you," you simply answered. 

Looking over his shoulder, he said, "As I said, I do not see the relevance." 

"I'll find out soon enough," you hummed, watching as he walked away. 

And with your future days spent closely with him, you actually did figure him out. 

You could clearly see it in his eyes, you actually wondered how you could have missed that. But you couldn't miss it anymore as each day passes by and he often visited you. 

It was odd but you had realized how frequently he came to see you whether it was to send you food or talk about the prisoner. You wondered if it was intentional but over time, you didn't seem to mind it. And maybe because now that you know him, you couldn't help the interest you held for him. 

You wanted to understand him. 

You wanted to understand why it was that you noticed his eyes changing since the day he met you. 

It seemed like you managed to reach that on an afternoon in Hueco Mundo. 

You were gazing at the blue sky, a smile tickling your complexion at the view that reminded you of the warmth back in Soul Society. But the one that sheltered you at the moment was nothing but a fake. At such a thought, your smile faltered. 

"What are you doing?" Ulquiorra's voice ran through your spine. 

"It's so heavy," you murmured. 

"What is?" 

You let out a sigh, turning around to see him. "My heart," you said. "It's full of regrets." 

He let out a patronizing scoff, "You humans and Soul Reapers toss that word around mindlessly. What is this 'heart'?" 

Your eyes flickered close for a moment but hearing his question, you understood him. 

And you understood yourself. 

And with a saddened smile, you reduced the distance with a question. "Do you not believe in the existence of the heart?" 

"I do not believe in things I cannot see," he began, taking another step. "Even with these eyes of mine that perceive all, I cannot see this so-called 'heart'."

"And that makes it not real?" 

His hand stretched forward, fingers aiming at your heart. 

"If I rip out your chest, will I see it? If I crush open your skull, will I see it?" 

The gap between the tip of his finger and the fabric of your dress over your heart closed with another step from you. His long nail threatened to puncture your skin but you did not have it in you to break your composure as you stared into his eyes. 

"Do it, then," your words silkened out daringly. 

You can see surprise behind those dark eyes, only aiding you to go further. 

"Rip out my chest. Crush open my skull. Do whatever you must to find my heart because I can assure you, it is real and it is there." 

You could see the slight tremble in his hand. With another step toward him, your dress let out a ripped sound as his claws penetrated through. 

"I have a heart that beats and with each passing second, it beats for you." 

Your lips parted in a slight gasp as you feel warm blood oozing out. Still, you let yourself be guided by your heart. 

"I am not afraid of you, Ulquiorra," you exhaled. "As I can see the emptiness in you begin to fill with the reflection of my love for you." 

Any changes of expression he tried to hide had failed terribly. But he was not the only one shocked by your confession.

It seems that you've let yourself fall for the 4th Espada. 

Maybe that would soon turn into yet another one of your regrets but for the time being, he let you go. 

His cold, empty demeanor had returned when he retracted his arm to his side. He began to walk away, leaving you a taste of his void and disappointment. But before he closed the door, he stopped. Over his shoulder, he looked in your direction but not really looking at you. 

"The human's friends have come to Hueco Mundo. My order for you is to stay in your room," he slurred out. "No matter what." 

With everything that occurred next, you still remained in your room. Why? 

Because he had asked you to. 

And you were meant to listen to him. 

So you ignored all the changes in Spiritual Pressure that occurred in Hueco Mundo to fulfill his order. But there was one change that you can no longer ignore. 

And with that worry, that fright, you ran out of your room. With all your strength, you flew upwards, past the fake skies of Las Noches and into the truth of Hueco Mundo. Landing on the ground, you stood up. 

And it was as if your mere presence had caused him to peel away his gaze from his opponent. His eyes that met yours were no longer those you saw during your first meeting. 

That emptiness that he signified was filling up. 

Just as your tears welled in your eyes, your lips parted in a frightful gasp, watching his wings begin to disappear. His hand, the very same one that bled you, lifted from his side. His fingers reached for you. Allowing your tears to fall, you cried as you ran to him, your own hand stretched out to grasp his. 

Yet no matter how fast you ran, you could never reach him. 

He was so close.

Yet so far. 

"I see it now," he said, stopping you in your tracks with wide eyes and parted lips. "I understand now," he said. 

You ignored the presence of the humans, only focusing on the fallen Espada. 

"Your heart," he let out, fingers beginning to close in an empty grip. "Has always been in the palm of my hands." 

Your breath hitched in your throat as you ran to him again, weakly struggling to reach him. 

But just when you did, his hand leaves you as it dissipated into darkened ash.

With a loud cry, you fell to your knees, our tears unabashedly falling to your cheeks. Your left hand clutches over your heart-

"Rip out my chest."

-while your right hand clutches over your head-

"Crush open my skull." 

As you were heeding his last order, he was heeding yours, providing you the sensation of actions you asked for. 

Yet another regret filled that heavy heart of yours.

[voiceofsword]

everyday i wake up and remember that Rinne got flustered when Shinobu genuinely told him that he was genius.... i have many crazyb scenarios floating in my head because of this info

its like. your telling me that all it takes is for rinne's unitmates to say ONE genuine compliment towards him to make him short circuit and lose the act ??? and your telling me niki has NOT taken advantage of this???? COULD YOU IMAGINE THE POWER HE WOULD HAVE IF NIKI JUST KNEW THIS INFORMATION???

i hc that rinne's unitmates (esp niki) will just randomly give him a genuine compliment just to see him flustered and be the one embarrassed for once, like some strange sort of karma or something

OK LOL THIS IS MY SECOND TIME WRITING THIS, I WROTE OUT A WHOLE ASS ESSAY AND TUMBLR DECIDED TO WIPE IT CLEAN....I WROTE LIKE 600 WORDS WITH SCREENCAPS AND EVERYTHING THE FIRST TIME and now its 1.5k words. 

ANYWAYS YES YES YES ANON.... I TOTALLY AGREE i think about this a lot.. asobi club my beloved. i also think the crazyb scenarios have SOOO much potential and i loooove thinking about stuff like this as well because its always nice to take the more outwardly confident charas down a peg. because why not. im a sucker for niki having the upper hand for once ❤️

now i will proceed to provide 500 examples and analyse them because i also think about this facet of rinne’s character a lot (the one that becomes timid when good stuff is said about him, or how he’s actually a Nice Person but covers that up as best as he can) and i would like other ppl to think about it a lot too. this is basically just a hc/small analysis dump post so sorry anon for you have opened the floodgates 

i love every aspect of rinne’s personality but this side of him, the one that grows so easily flustered around others when he’s caught off-guard, is the best imo. he doesn’t really show it around most ppl, only niki, hiiro, and kids (like shinobu!!) because those are the only ppl that bring that out, bc theyre so earnest, so genuine in their intentions, that rinne is forced to confront reality As Is instead of dance around the subject.

a lot of the cast is convinced that rinne is this unapproachable, eccentric, inconsiderate asshole (which is true, at times - he’s carefully developed this persona so if he wants people to see him that way, it’s what they see) but when they actually put away these boundaries a lot of the time ppl see that he’s just. some guy (a silly example of this is chill yellow where hokuto, tsukasa and keito try to enlist his help to help them ease into “villain” roles for their auditions, and when rinne sees their efforts he’s so bewildered by it all he puts his wild image to the side to be like what the hell? you guys are all freaks???)

gonna split this into several little sections but for example, with niki i think niki doesn’t realize he can take advantage of it because a lot of the time these advances from rinne are met with complete disbelief. granted niki doesnt really think to compliment rinne often, it’s usually the other way around. so when rinne is being completely earnest, unabashed in his devotion for niki, niki turns around and goes “what??? what?” like he cant understand that such nice words are being said to or about him. THIS IS A TOPIC FOR ANOTHER TIME THOUGH, we’re talking about rinne here…. sorry i am physically incapable of not making everything even a little bit about rinniki….

of course this grants rinne an easy way out: instead of addressing that he’s being fully serious and owning up to these feelings his kneejerk response is to be like “kyahaha, stuupid niki! i can’t believe you’d fall for that!” but we all know he’s dying inside. it’s obvious. there’s only so many genuine, loving remarks a guy can make towards his guy best friend before the audience starts catching onto the fact that maybe he’s not actually joking, and that his guy friend just has severe self esteem issues, and is also plain stupid (endearing). IF NIKI OPENED HIS EYES HE COULD HAVE RINNE ON HIS KNEES….. WE’RE ROOTING FOR YOU…..

that’s exactly what happens in this scene, and they go on to play bicker because thats. their love language, i guess???? they’re weird. i love them

also we all know how rinne reacts to niki asking to kiss him in hot limit. regardless of how you interpret his reply (whether hes upholding his hometowns customs, being shy, or trying to make sure niki is serious about him..) most ppl can agree that after all of his advances in main story and towards niki In General he was probably freaking out, but handling it very well

niki is simply too reactive to respond to rinne’s genuine comments and be calm about it… i dont think he realizes rinne truly means all of them and his view about himself is too low to just accept the compliments and when niki gets flustered, rinne gets flustered too, but unlike him becoming speechless like he does with other people, rinne combats it with humor, b/c this is the sort of thing he and niki are used to. this, however, is not how he deals with affection coming from other people…..

gonna attach the exact scene i think you were talking about here, but when compliments come from those younger than him, like hiiro and shinobu, his initial reaction is a lot different

i’m going to link the tl for nursery rhymes as the op does not want their tls reposted, but this is the exact chapter that i think you’re referring to, the interaction itself is at the very end in case other people would like to see.

rinne points out that there’s no clever retort to shinobu’s genuine compliment, that there’s no banter he can build off of to “defend” himself - so he’s left feeling shy, and exposed. ofc its not shinobus intention to make him feel bad and idt rinne feels bad, necessarily, it’s just jarring.

rinne has a very cultivated persona that he’s built from the ground up from the end of his solo career to his current career in crazy:b. there are times this mask “slips” and he’s brought back to a similar personality to the one he had as a child in flashbacks or himself as a 17 y/o in hot limit, where he’s more meek, quiet, careful with his words, not purposely inflammatory. usually, he’s really good at keeping up appearances! look at his reputation in ES as a troublemaker with a complete disregard for everyone around him!

but when he’s confronted by people who are more “pure”, who don’t question his intentions from the get-go, he is at a loss. rinne is good around most kids because there’s no sort of “prejudice” against him, for lack of a better term; the people that this sort of thing happens around would be 1) people he loves and trusts entirely, who have known him before this persona even came into fruition (niki, hiiro) 2) people who aren’t immediately defensive around him, who don’t see him as a bad guy and trust him inherently (shinobu, for example!! sora, too! i feel like asobi club is a perfect example of this, both the story and the club itself!)

now hiiro… rinne replies to hiiros compliments in a similar way to how niki replies to His, because there’s a deep trust there between the two even though they’ve been apart for several years, and there’s enough trust for rinne to shut hiiro down completely, and get entirely flustered. i think a lot of why he’s like this with him stems from the fact that up until now hiiro was unable to express his love for his brother, or namely, he wasn’t allowed to, because of how they grew up.

rinne’s used to loving his brother, caring for him, but not the other way around, because in their hometown they were both raised with the idea that hiiro is a “liability”, that his role was to be rinne’s advisor and nothing else. for that reason and many others, rinne left his town, both because he was sick of his lack of liberty as well as being told that loving his brother was wrong, that he had to treat the one person he treasured at the time badly, that he was meant to be a leader and nothing else.

rinne goes on to explain this several times during the main story, but this is my fav instance of it b/c it hits really hard

any type of love from or towards hiiro, in this case familial, is foreign to him. so when rinne goes 5+ years without seeing his brother and his brother eventually learns that being affectionate towards rinne is okay, he’s obviously going to be a bit flustered! he’s not used to it! and hiiro is very loud and proud about it too, which probably makes it even worse for rinne. AND EVERYONE ELSE.. hiiro is not the best at picking up social cues but that is ok. it’s like when you learn something new and want to keep doing it so you dont forget and because its exciting!! hiiro is learning how to love and rinne is happy for him but he’s not equipped to deal with that .

NOT A SCREENCAP FROM IN-GAME BUT I THINK ABOUT THIS VIDEO SO OFTEN… hiiro being excited to perform with his brother and rinne is so speechless at his enthusiasm he’s like y-yeah. I LOVE IT WHEN HE IS RENDERED SPEECHLESS!!!!! 🗣️🗣🗣

the very end of main story (ch5) is dedicated to rinne talking about how he’s been told he’s wrong his whole life over every little thing he does, and i think that provides such valuable insight as to why rinne is the way he is? and why he can’t respond to genuine compliments coherently. even tho he presents himself as self-assured and does whatever the fuck he wants at this point i still think he suffers from berating himself, and it shows whenever he’s being self-sacrificial and justifies bad things happening to him with “well, i deserve this”. even though he’s come a long way, it’s always hard to unlearn harmful behaviors learned from youth

i dont rly know how to end this off because i went on such a tangent answering this hc ask IM SORRY ANON…. if u wanted me to draw smth please send another ask idm at all i just had to ramble because i love rinne-kun very much. i think he deserves the world, and just like hiiro, he is also learning to give and receive love without restraint, just in a different way. in the meantime i will relish in him getting embarrassed every time someone says smth nice to him 🙏

help me

[eldrith]

HIYAA! It’s me, the new tumblr acc person who asked u abt the text thing on ur own intro post, and i was wanting to ask for some tips on writing?

Ok so hold on let me compliment u first cuz u are actually so amazing!!! i’ve been following ur stuff for a while now (not rlly, since like summer 24 but shh) and honestly ur writing is so stunning and beaand breathtaking and legit made me pull up the dictionary like every two seconds (mostly cuz eng isnt my first language), like if shakespear himself was reborn to this time and age i’m convived he was born as u, cuz ur talent is INSANE?? like AAAAAAAAAAAA

anyway now that i got that out of my system (not rlly, i could write an entire essay on how beautiful and amazing ur writing is) i was hoping to ask for tips on writing? like general stuff yk? also i heard that its good to have a few drafts ready for when u start posting so it wont take long to get content out?

ughh srry for the ramble im stressing😭 also i kinda giggled when u said my blog will def be cute cuz the aesthetic it has rn………. 😀 its far from cute lol😭 i still think its pretty :3

hi cutie! sorry it took me a moment to answer this i've been so busy!!

first of STOP IT bc youre so sweet (& if you've been following me since summer '24 then you've been here the whole time bc i made this account in july!!! <3) the dictionary part ahahaha i get it!!! you're so kind to say such things i appreciate you & im so happy you like my writing!!

dw about rambling i literally don’t stop taking ever. & i believe you that ur blog is SO cute!!!!

i would be happy to share some tips ! i obviously am not the best source bc im not a professional writer and to each their own – but here's a (very long im sorry) list of what i recommend:

in terms of tumblr,

having a 'backlog' of fics in your arsenal is a great thing. i think even a plethora of diferent wips can be a great thing too (there's 11 unfinished wips in my folder rn that may not see the light of day), even if you're a slow writer (like me). that being said, it doesn't have to be that way — sometimes i post things right after finishing them just bc i want to share it!!!

along that vein, i know a lot of my moots here have schedules or structuring to posts. alerting their followers or posting teasers before (i do like to do this often), or scheduling fics to be posted on a certain day/time. i think this is wonderful; though i haven't been able to keep myself to such a routine, and literally just let things rip whenever.

time zone reblogging is a good way to ensure any readers around da globe see your fic! you can figure out some of the main time zones and schedule reblogs of your fics for those times. i sometimes do this too!

create your post draft w/ title/headers/warnings & tags etc beforehand bc it is SUCH a drag to do when you’re about to post a fic!!!

again, people are for the most part very kind here; don't feel like you have to be churning out fics just to keep people's attention. your writing will be wonderful & they will (they WILL. or else i will Get Them) be grateful that you chose to share it!!

in terms of general writing, i actually have so many thoughts on writing and preferences, but i dont want to be insane on main so here's just a few things off the dome���

love your story!! i think people's best works are when they become deeply invested with their own plot/characters. it's why i chose to leave certain characters, because i was no longer loving/enjoying my stories.

withhold information from your readers. i am a huge believer in the theory of omission. this seems to be a bit controversial on here; but i personally am in support of Hemingway's iceberg theory. overwhelming readers with information is boring. let them use their imagination to keep them & yourself from getting burnt out, & allow them to see what they'd like to within those gaps.

write first & edit later. this is something that took me a while to get into the habit of bc i always feel the need to fix things immediately. but it helps the writing process to get out your thoughts and structure first, then fine-comb it after. it saves energy & time!!!

especially in longer fics, avoid logical fallacy — ie., arguments that do not have adequate support. if your characters are fighting and it is for a reason that is not believable (same with a larger scale, like war), then it isn't as realistic nor entertaining to read!!! (i could elaborate but i could write so much on all of this HAH)

USE THE FIVE SENSES. all of them. they are your friend for creating imagery and i use them all the time. this also helps to avoid white room syndrome.

speaking of imagery: make use of both literal and figurative.

literal — obvious & realistic description of anything. ex; describing how black the wings of a raven are. simple& makes a huge difference in world building. figurative — my favorite; words and descriptions that imply certain ideas & need to be interpreted. describing how shadows slither around corners; implying distrust or paranoia, thoughts of serpents, etc. (this is where you have to have faith in your readers — perhaps i put too much faith in them sometimes lmao.)

my favorite way to ensure a cohesive work is to always anchor a motif. i always write with a clear recurring element in my works (could be some device, reference of some sort, words/verbal formula) which appears habitually. in every piece ive written there is at least one motif & usually more (i could cite examples but im not going to rn). it’s my favorite way of conveying emotion & importance. it help sets mood — and ties your whole fic together.

George Orwell has written a lot about never using the passive where you can use the active... this is obviously a preference; i have read countless astounding fics here that write in the passive, but i personally find myself more engaged in active tense. you’re IN the story, not being told of it.

DO NOT USE AI BOTS TO HELP GENERATE YOUR WRITING. ai is incredibly harmful to art; i understand folks who have english not as their native language attempt to use bots to 'polish' their writing, although it is so incredibly obvious when it is used — because computers use patterns. AI CANNOT CREATE, it can only replicate. it can only steal. they use repetitive words, phrases, and structures; all chat GPT fics read, in one way or another, the same; and have a non-human touch which is ingenuine. writers are beautiful and unique because they are different, because we all have a different relationship with english and writing. i often wonder if my translations come out incorrectly because my mother tongue is not english (however i've spoken it basically all my life, so i acknowledge it is different); though i think the charm in authors is their choice in expression. i hope people are confident with themselves, no matter their perceived skill level. i hope they know a robot will take away their intrinsic skill and natural talent. i hope they know it is incredibly obvious when chat bots are used to generate writing. and i see it in this fandom all the fucking time.

writers on writing; ie., some sources that help me:

ray bradbury on: I’ve kept everything I’ve ever cared about since childhood.' or: why personal experience is integral to writing fiction. (1963)

anaïs nin on how the excess of emotion is essential to writing.

ten rules of writing by nietzsche.

vonnegut/kafka: uncertainty is the crucible of creativity. or: the shapes of stories.

writing morally grey characters (character depth)

donna tartt on the writing process: an interview (must watch!!! shes my god)

okay i am DONE yapping. i hope some of this helps & if u have any comments or questions or anything im happy to hear what u think!!