#counterproductive but i really like these versions of them lots

[dapper-nahrwhale]

[ID several pictures of headshots of jean grey from x men, the first from wolverine and the x men and the rest from the x men blue comics, the has a short bob and in the comics she has bangs with longer strands in the front end ID]

short haired jean appreciation post waaaa i loooooooooveeee uuuuuuuuuuu

[lurking-latinist]

How to Suck Less at Summaries

Probably almost anyone who's ever posted a fic to ao3 or a platform with a similar interface has been hit by that moment of panic, breaking in on the euphoria of having finished and polished a fic--"what do I put for the summary?!"

So much so, that "I suck at summaries" in the summary box has become something of a cliche. It's very understandable! You've already put all that work into writing the fic itself, and now you have to write ANOTHER thing with its own set of conventions and expectations? No way!

And I want to start by saying that that's absolutely fine. Fic writing is your hobby, your creative endeavor; you're not obligated to do anything in it that you don't want to. You can leave the summary box completely blank--ao3 will let you--and there's no reason you shouldn't, if that's what you want to do! If you're happy with your summaries, please don't change them. There's no wrong way to do summaries. This is your invitation to ignore the entire rest of this post!

However. My impression is that an awful lot of people aren't happy with their summaries. They would like to have summaries that catch a reader's attention, that fit common patterns, or that give a good representation of the fic; they're just not sure how to accomplish that, or what readers might be expecting. And the good news is that writing various styles of summaries, like other kinds of writing, is a skill you can improve--and that there are some tips and tricks that can help you write the kinds of summaries you may want to write more quickly.

How do I know? Well, on top of having read I don't know how many fics, I've published 200 of my own, with all different kinds of summaries. (In fact, writing this post is my treat to myself to celebrate publishing 200 fics!) So I have a lot of trial and error experience to draw on. I'll be using my own summaries as examples (plus some hypothetical examples), because I don't want to be nitpicking anyone else's!

I'm going to throw in a cut now because this is gonna get long.

What do you want to accomplish with your summary?

That's the first question you might want to ask yourself. And the answer really is up to you! The name "summary" suggests it's supposed to be a sort of short version of your story. That's one option. But summaries are often used to accomplish various other things, too: some of my favorite summaries don't really tell you anything about the plot of the fic, but instead give you a glimpse of the writer's style or lure you in with a question. It can also fill organizational purposes like commemorating the reason the fic was written (although author notes can also be effective for things like this).

Most fundamentally, I tend to think of the summary box as a place to manage your readers' expectations. I want them to have some sense of what the fic they're about to read might be like, and I want to present that in a way that highlights why it might be appealing to them. Of course, what I write won't be appealing to every reader--and an effective summary, plus accurate tags and ratings of course, allows a reader who won't enjoy what I have to offer to quickly keep scrolling and find something that fits their tastes better. But the way I think of them, summaries are really mainly for readers who will enjoy my fic if they decide to open it. A summary for a fic is like a pretty package for a gift: the gift is great in itself, and the nice gift-wrap makes it more eye-catching and more fun to open!

Sidebar: This "managing expectations" thing is, I think, the reason why authors sometimes add notes in the summary like "I'm sorry if this sucks" or "this is my first fic, it's probably terrible." I completely understand where this comes from--you don't want to make your readers expect some kind of genius literature and then only have something to give them that you yourself are still insecure about! But I really do think they're generally counterproductive. On the one hand, that kind of negative self-talk will tend to undermine your own confidence and make you more insecure about your writing, not less; on the other hand, they can subconsciously prime your readers to notice weaknesses and issues that they might otherwise not even have paid attention to! That doesn't mean you have to pretend you think your writing is perfect; very few of us do think what we post on fic archives is perfect. There's nothing wrong, even, with a note like "this is my first fic" or "this one is a bit experimental, I'm not sure how I feel about it" or "this wasn't written in my first language" or even "this is an old fic and I don't think it represents my best work anymore", although I tend to put that kind of commentary on craft in the author's notes rather than the summary, but that's just me; there's no rule. As an example, when I recently published my first fic in the Hornblower fandom, which has a historical setting I wasn't previously very familiar with, I thanked my beta for helping me avoid "historical howlers" and added "any remaining are my own responsibility." That made me feel better about potential mistakes in research by showing that I was aware I might have made some. I put this in an author's note at the end of the story. But, for the sake of you as a writer as well as me as a reader, I'm asking you--please don't start out our reader/writer relationship by telling me it's terrible! Give yourself a chance to shine. Even if there's a lot you're insecure about in your fic, there's something you love--maybe it's the premise, the ship, even one particular line--that makes you want to share it with the world. Use the summary to highlight that. As your reader, that's what I want to know about!

Anyway, now that you've decided what you want your summary to accomplish, there are a couple of very easy ways to fill the summary box that you might want to consider--if they make sense for your fic.

Just quote the prompt

When I write prompt-fic, often very short, I frequently just quote the prompt itself as the summary. An example would be my 3 Sentence Ficathon fic archived on ao3. Since the challenge in this event is to write a complete fic in only three sentences, a summary wouldn't be much shorter than the fic itself! So I just do summaries like

For reeby10's prompt: "Doctor Who, Clara/Twelve, unforgettable."

(Gaps)

This can work outside of prompt memes, too. If you're doing a monthly challenge, for instance, something like

Flufftember day 21, 'breakfast in bed'

might tell your readers all they need to know to be interested in your story and know what to expect.

Set the context

For some fic, the most important thing you want your readers to know going in is something about the fic's context. For instance, with drabbles I sometimes use the summary as a place to sneak in information about setting/what's supposed to be happening that I didn't have room for in the drabble itself. For Susan's Twist, a 100-word drabble, I set the scene in the summary:

Susan is grooving to the latest chart-topper of 1963. But for some reason, the song makes her grandfather uncomfortable.

which meant I didn't have to use any of my 100 words explaining "Susan was listening to the radio, when..." Since Susan's Twist was inspired by someone else's Tumblr post, I could also just have referenced that post in the summary. But in this case, I chose to phrase the premise in my own words in the summary, and cite the Tumblr post in the author's notes (I also tagged the OP when I shared the fic on Tumblr).

Flower Children is an example of a drabble with a not particularly effective summary where I could have used this strategy quite effectively. The summary is just

Neither of them wants to fight.

which is all right, but which doesn't do much to set up the (admittedly cracky) Eighth Doctor/Dalek Oswin pairing that motivates the fic. But then, I've always felt like I didn't have quite as much of an idea as I'd like about what the context for this fic is supposed to be. Maybe I'll write more about them sometime.

Setting the context can also be useful for summaries of AUs. Very often, what draws people into AUs is the AU concept itself.

For instance, the premise of my story te quaerens, Ariadna is that the events of the audio Zagreus go differently and the Doctor remains possessed by/transformed into Zagreus. So that's what I said in the summary:

The Doctor is still Zagreus, but he and Charley find ways to keep going.

In this case, the summary is accomplishing more than one thing; it explains the concept, but it also indicates a bit of the story's tone--it's fairly optimistic given its premise, and it's more about how their relationship evolves than any particular plotty event.

With setting change AUs--especially in familiar AU settings, like a coffeeshop, high school, or fantasy monarchy--often what readers will most want to know is what roles the characters are filling; in other words, how the translation from canon to AU has been made. For instance, my story Warmth is already tagged as a coffeeshop AU with the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan, and Adric, so the summary indicates that it's told from the perspective of Tegan as a new employee:

Unexpectedly stranded in London and looking for work, Tegan finds a place where she just might fit in.

If she had been a longtime employee or a customer, that would have changed the story's dynamics, and I would have wanted the summary to reflect that instead. I could have also added that the Doctor is the shop's manager and Nyssa and Adric are the existing employees, but I decided to let the story itself reveal that in this case.

With someone's planted a bath bomb in the matrix, which is a retail AU inspired by an incorrect quotes tumblr post, I just stuck the whole tumblr post in the summary box:

Romana: When you work at lush and a customer comes in and bites the soap because they think it’s cheese… this happens way more frequently than you think. Leela: If you stopped literally presenting soap as deli food this wouldn't happen. Narvin: Who goes into a bath store and thinks something covered in glitter is cheese? Brax: Who goes to the store and just takes a bite from the cheese? ~incorrectgallifreyquotes.tumblr.com

I might do that a bit differently now--maybe more the way I handled Susan's Twist--maybe something like this in the summary:

An uptight employee and a too-suave customer are making Romana's job managing a bath store way too stressful. Thank goodness--probably--that her best friend works for mall security.

And then I'd have put the tumblr post that inspired it in author's notes.

Thing is, though, that reflects my taste and what I think is effective now, but it doesn't mean I did it wrong the first time. People read and enjoyed the story, and it was fine!

Also I just showed this post to Moki and she said she thinks the first one's more intriguing. So that just goes to show, it's really a matter of taste.

This strategy is also useful for missing scenes and things like that. Something as simple as

While waiting for Z to return from the rendezvous, X and Y have a conversation.

can draw in readers very effectively, especially if X and Y's conversation was kind of obviously a gap in the story that they might already be curious about.

Use a quote

A surprisingly effective and straightforward way to create a summary is just to use a quote from the fic. I've seen tons of great summaries like this that hook me in immediately. I struggle with using it myself, because I want the line I quote to be powerful/impactful/intriguing and give some sense of what the plot is like and make sense out of context, and I don't often seem to be able to find lines like that in my own work. But I did for The Moon by Night:

It could not have been more than a day that we clung to the hull of that station full of troopers.

Since this is a space AU for a historical fiction novel, this line gives some sense of how the events of the story have been translated into space, and also shows the voice I'm writing in (I tried to follow the style of the original, which is first-person, which is unusual for me). If you can find a line like that in your work, it can be a great summary. You can even just put the first couple of lines of the fic, especially if you've already worked to make them an effective hook!

You can also use a quote from another source. Was there a line or moment from canon that inspired the fic? A poem or song that fits its mood? You can use the summary as a sort of epigraph. (I often use author's notes for this as well.) If your readers vibe with the quote that inspired the story, they're likely to vibe with the story as well.

I did something like this with Absent thee from felicity awhile. The title is a quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet, and all I put in the summary box was another quote from a couple of lines later:

…to tell my story.

This is so short and contextless, though, that I'm not sure how effective it was. It maybe only works if you recognize the specific Hamlet scene that it's taken from and have thought about that scene in the context of a specific episode of Hornblower. (I promise that, if you do, it's heartbreakingly ironic!) This could have been a good opportunity for me to do a double summary (see below), especially since the story is epistolary and I could've established its context. Although I did kind of like revealing who was reading the letter and when slowly over the course of the story.

Okay, but I do want to explain the plot

Right, so we've established that effective summaries don't have to be in that "back of the book blurb" format. But sometimes you want them to be. Sometimes the thing you're most excited about is the story's plot or events, and you want to communicate that to the reader. But you already wrote the story in order to communicate the plot to the reader; how do you condense it into a sentence or two? Here are some tips that may help.

Are you using familiar tropes? If so, just mentioning them will likely tell your reader not only what the plot is, but that (if they like that trope) they're likely to enjoy it. For instance:

A and B are trapped in a snow cave/ice planet/walk-in freezer and must huddle for warmth.

That particular one will also explain a bit about the setting, if you want.

Relationship status/development is also something that many readers want to know, whether it's a romantic or a gen relationship (e.g. characters becoming friends or realizing they see each other as family). For instance, if A and B admit their romantic feelings for the first time in that huddling for warmth story, you might add:

They get a lot closer than either of them expects...

I rather like ellipses at the end of a summary; I think they imply, sort of, "read the fic to find out the rest." I sometimes use them to soften a summary that feels a bit abrupt. I feel like this might be just me, though? So if you don't like ellipses, nothing wrong with ending that same summary with a period.

If you have a fic where the entire content is some emotional development between characters, the entire summary can easily be that too!

I don't really write smut so I don't have good advice for summarizing it, but I get the feeling this might be a relevant strategy for it?

What changes in the story? This could be a change in characters' attitudes towards each other, in the information they have, in their physical situation, or anything else. A story doesn't have to be about one single major change, but there's almost always at least one. (Or a change fails to happen, but in an interesting way: "five times Lois Lane didn't realize Clark was Superman" would be a perfectly intriguing summary!)

What demands are made of the characters? Many stories involve a character overcoming some kind of challenge or meeting some kind of test. A summary can indicate what that challenge is--and you don't have to indicate whether or how the characters meet it! This can contribute to a feeling of suspense, so that the reader feels they need to read the story to find out how the characters react. For instance, I summarized my story Journey as:

The Doctor and Ace need to stop a dimensional leakage to put a life-sucking entity back where it belongs. But to do so, they'll each need to protect the other in their own way.

What are their own ways? Do they succeed? The reader can probably guess that they do--but how? Their attention is caught, and they'll have to read to find out!

Some notes on format and style

Summary style is as personal as the rest of your writing style, so this is only intended as a mention of a couple of trends I've noticed.

Sometimes summaries are 'in-universe'--i.e. they describe the characters and what they do, without reference to the existence of the fic itself as a textual entity--and sometimes, like the "five times" example I gave above, they refer to the fic's format, characteristics, relationship to canon, etc. in direct terms. (For instance, the example I gave for a missing scene was 'in-universe,' but I could just as well have said "While waiting for Z to return during Episode 3..."). Either of these approaches are fine, although I personally tend to incline more towards the in-universe style unless I have a particular reason to use the other, such as in Differences of Opinion, which took a lot of metatextual explaining:

When I read enough easily-crossed-over stories, such as for instance the Age of Sail books that I have been reading lately and also spaceship stories inspired thereby, what inevitably happens is I end up with a nebulous meta crossover setting where they can all hang out outside of their respective canons. Here's one conversation from that setting.

I keep wondering if something more terse might have been more effective, and I could have put all that in the author's notes. But I really think that for anyone who would enjoy this fic, the metatextual complication is a big part of the appeal. So I put it in the summary.

It's pretty standard to write in-universe-style summaries in the present tense, even if the fic is in the past tense. "The characters do this and that," not "the characters did this and that." You don't have to, but it's what your reader is most likely to be expecting.

It seems to be quite common to have a double summary: one that maybe reflects the style and tone of the fic, and another, more matter-of-fact one that explains the plot. They're frequently joined by "or." I don't typically use it--maybe because I rarely have the problem of having too much summary--but if you do, this could be a great solution.

Spellcheck and proofread your summary extra. Whatever strategies you normally use to make sure the words in your story are the words you actually meant to write, it's a good idea to turn those strategies on the summary with special intensity. After all, this is your first impression on your reader, so you probably want to look as polished as possible!

These are just a few things I've noticed that I tend to think about when staring at that blinking cursor in the summary box. I hope they may help you, too, to feel like you have something to say in that moment!

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Danny thought the guy Tucker had dragged over to talk tech with was cute but there was something...off about him. He seemed nervous but not in a "a ghost is about to attack way" but in the subtle ways he checked the exits every so often or the way he made his body language purposely relaxed.

Sam would say he's just being paranoid since Tim Drake was the adopted son of a billionaire (and independently wealthy too) and Danny did not trust billionaires or wealthy people in general. Danny still felt something was off.

Seeing as Tucker and Tim were hitting it off he decided to leave them to it and continued to manage his own stall at the glorified science fair Bruce Wayne was sponsoring. Billionaire or not he really wanted that scholarship to Gotham University. He had pulled out the best designs he could make such as a fully functional portal gun, some variation of wrist rays that did different things and were disguised as normal watches, force field shield generators designed into bracelets, and even a modified version of of the fenton thermos that instead of working on ghosts it worked on physical matter such as chairs and other items...and it wasn't disguised as a soup container!

He preemptively put a note on it that it wasn't safe or designed for the containment or travel of organic beings.

He had some other things too, but these seemed to be the ones Tim were the most fascinated with. He asked a lot of questions to Tucker who happily chatted with him about the tech up until he asked a question Tucker didn't know the answer to and he turned to ask Danny.

Danny answered without looking up from the metal boots he was working on. They were going to allow the user to jump to great heights and deliver electrified high powered kicks. Tim then asked if Tucker wasn't the one who made these.

Tucker laughed and told him it was all Danny and jokingly mentioned that Dannys parents were evil mad scientists, hence his move to Gotham. Tim looked...alarmed. Danny pointed his screw driver at Tucker in warning, "What Tuck means is that I wanted to get away from the stigma of my parents being criminals, which is why telling everybody is counterproductive."

Tucker sheepishly apologized and admitted he had gotten carried away. Danny didn't think Bruce Wayne would disqualify him for having crappy parents but hes been treated pretty badly for less. Tim made an excuse to leave which Danny took as a bad sign. Crap. But he still had some confidence seeing as his inventions had caught the attention of Tim and kept it for so long. That had to mean something right?

---

Phantom knew that Gotham was "Batmans" territory and he didn't like others interfering on his turf but there was something so unnerving about Tim. He needed to find out more. He may have only been in this dimension for a few months but something smelling fishy had the same meaning in all the dimensions he's come across before.

So when he phased into Tim Drakes apartment under the cover of invisibility and found the cold case files of several murdered individuals going back the last two years alarm bells started to ring in his head. Last he checked Tim was in no way affiliated with the GPD and shouldn't have access to these. Then he noticed he had jewelry matching what one of the victims was wearing in thier photo. The same antique necklace that was noted to be missing from the victims body in the report. Upon further investigation Tim also seemed to have the murder weapons for a few of the crimes as well.

Wtf.

Tim Drake was a serial killer.

---

Tim stared at the batcomputer. He now had no doubt that "Daniel Nightengale" was some form of alias. It was a well crafted one he could give him that but after days of meticulous digging he found an inconsistency. Following that led to another and another until he finally had enough to unravel the lie.

Unfortunately it didn't give him a single clue towards the truth, at least not that he could see.

Yet.

All the same, Tucker didn't seem to realize the situation he was in. It was clear Daniel was dangerous if the gear he had at the presentation was anything to go by. Some of that stuff could give Bruce a run for his money.

Tim was sure Danny was up to something and would strike soon. Mad scientists usually have some sort of goal in mind after all.

---

This kicks off a period were Danny and Tim keep trying to stalk one another both in and out of costume. Both of them making flimsy excuses to escape one another- Tim because he's needed as Robin/Red Robin and Danny because he doesn't want to be murdered or outed as a "meta"

Jason finds out about both of thier suspensions by stalking them both as civilians and laughs until he cries. He then throws fuel on the fire by planting "evidence" that would point to Danny being evil/a serial killer such as hacking into dannys laptop while Tim is "visiting" Dannys apartment while he's away and making the screen show partial blueprints labeled "Death Ray Plans" only for the computer to crash when Tim tries to click on it, thus erasing everything.

He messes with Danny in a similar way, planting fake bloodsplatter in Tim's kitchen around the sink and watching the metas horrified face via Tims security cameras that he hacked into before later breaking in to clean it back up before his little brother got home.

Jason doesn't think he's ever had this much fun.

[fumifooms]

Hi hi! I'm sure you have loads of asks to get through. But if you may, we talk a lot about Chilchuck and Marcille (as we should 'cause they're great!), but since you've mentioned that Laios is your fave char, I would love to hear if you have any takes on Laios and Izutsumi's dynamic. I feel sometimes like she doesn't really like him...? It's funny but I also feel bad for him sometimes. ^^;;

You can’t ask me this and expect me to not drop everything else I’m doing. Little did you know they are my brotp. They are so special. Izutsumi gets along more with literally everyone in the party, but their relationship was so narratively important. They’re a really underrated and overlooked dynamic! I’ve had them as a topic at the back of my mind for a while, seeing someone else interested was all the push I needed gdbdg. This isn’t super long though, their issues with each other and lil arc is surprisingly brief and easy to summarize.

Laios & Izutsumi : what’s their deal with each other

For me one foundational train of thought for Izutsumi & Laios is, well. I read this awesome smart post deconstructing how Izutsumi’s beef with Laios is because she only just broke free and wants freedom without having someone ordering her around, and that’s sort of her whole character arc, isn’t it?

Isn’t Izutsumi’s picky eating a reflection of just that? In a life where she was a slave, she could at least control what she chose to eat and not eat. But then you might wonder, why did the narrative want her to grow out of that? Simply put, Izutsumi has a contrarian streak, one that is often extremely counterproductive. We saw that especially near the beginning, with how hard it was to make her work with them as a team. The issue is that now that she is free, she needs to not block out others by habit, to not lash out and refuse the healthy things in life, the people who want good for her. And that’s something that’s addressed in the succubus chapter as well as the fight against the ice golem, that she shouldn’t insist that she can do everything alone and fight against any team effort.

I love how onesided the Laios izutsumi dynamic is. He stays away from her generally, like doesn’t interact much, but he wants the cat pats… Which Izu made clear she did NOT want. And Chil is the only one in the party to not really see her as a cat for most of the story really, as shown in the relationship chart. He’s well meaning and wants the best for her, but he crowds her and doesn’t understand her at all. But he reallyyy wants to get along with her.

On the other hand, Izutsumi’s very existence and identity gave Laios an immense amount of hope that Falin could be brought back and still be herself and live well, even if she still had part of a dragon’s soul in her. I think that’s a lovely way to contrast the way that Izutsumi hates herself as a beastkin and her body, while Laios is like "Thank you, your existence as you are is the answer to all my worries" AND he super likes monster bodies and beastkins so it’s like. I think part of her hostility to him, besides feeling like he doesn’t understand her perspective and is maybe dismissive of what his party members want (which would remind her of Maizuru to some degree probably), is that he says all these good things about her being a beastkin, and it’s so jarring with her own version of herself that it raises her hackles and she reacts negatively, especially with how flippant and eager he is about it. But yes like, this is their first meeting!! Beyond his interest in her as a beastkin because of his monster hobby, Laios is just so very grateful for her and chooses to put his trust in her.

That’s interesting too, how one of the first things she asks about upon meeting them is why the hell they would want to rescue Falin even if she were to stay as a chimera-beastkin and still have the dragon soul in her. It’s her asking "Who would want to stick with a beastkin?" thinking that there’s something fundamentally wrong with having two souls and it making you unlovable. And their differing views on monsters do make them clash

But ultimately he chills out about her, which ironically enough shows in the way that they don’t interact much- He gives her space, and accepts that the beastkin may not like him. BUT at the end of the day they have an incredible bond of trust- Laios asks Izutsumi to kill him if something goes wrong with the Winged Lion. Not only is that sort of an intimate request and act, but that means that he leaves it up to Izutsumi’s judgement as well to know if it went wrong and when to act. He doesn’t only trust her skills but also her decision making, despite how tough they’ve been on each other in the past. He’s giving her the ultimate role, the go ahead to make or break their plan and be the difference between saving or destroying the world. And the last tidbit of info we get on their relationship in canon is when she hides behind him because she’s shy- Certified having befriended the cat moment. She trusts him and sees him as a safe person! And by saying that she’s shy, he’s showing that he did end up understanding her and how she is.

No matter the rocky parts of their relationship, they still have a strong foundation to it and were great allies and road companions, one of the few persons that had each other’s back when it mattered the most, both for the world and for their personal arcs. And post-canon, well…

He’s accepted that she needs space and whatnot, and meanwhile she’s accepted his interest in monsters and taken it in stride 😌 They end up having this familiarity with each other and even if there’s still a bunch of emotional distance imo and they never really got into the nitty gritty with each other not like her with Chilchuck or even Marcille, they see each other. They nod in greeting and respect each other from afar……. But also still tease and chat familiarly up close and if she offers him the opportunity for cuddles he will take it. You know, if it’s not her just falling onto him because she’s sleeping she has no respect.

Siblings behavior… If you know my take on the general party dynamics, I love thinking of Laios & Izu’s dynamic as him being an older brother figure where they have a love-hate relationship. Siblings rivalry. I have a bunch of funny little doodles I’ve wanted to make with them for months, the prompts for which are in the screenshot put below. But yeah like you know, they’re protective of each other but in that very critical way as well, truly forged by being stuck with each other for a while and having to come to understand and accept how the other is. Strife with conflict, but ultimately sticking with each other through thick and thin… Siblings siblings SIBLINGS SIBLINGS SIBLINGS. Sigh I just want them to cuddle on a couch and she purrs while simultaneously being snide and mean to him, they are so… Izutsumi is the character ever

Oh, which! While I’m here, I always recommend this fanfic about the two of them interacting and Laios treating her like a cat, it’s just fun and lighthearted. They’re suuuuch an underrated duo

If I find more Laios & Izu moments I think are worth sharing I’ll just add it onto this I think. We shouldn’t be too hard on him he was raised by dogs so cats are a whole other language to him but also, so wild to me that he never tried to engage with her on a cat level properly like where is the hissing at the catgirl and the cat taming moments, he sucks at socializing with cats smh smh.

I want to do an analysis of queerness in Dungeon Meshi with relationships and social norms and stuff and Izutsumi’s arc is gonna be central to that too. Her relationship with EVERYONE is SOOO GOOD AND IMPORTANT AND COMPELLING. But I guess this is where I leave it off for now, I hope I’m not forgetting any point I wanted to make hmmm

[mytchthemyth]

Monkie Kid Thoughts Pt. 2

OK, I just realized I didn't fully explain why I think Nuwa would've wanted to keep Wukong in the dark about MK, so I'm typing this up. Part 1 here.

Wukong would definitely be pissed about some poor kid being specifically created as a tool/pawn for a god, even if that god has good intentions. I don't know if he'd care about his birth stone being used, but he'd definitely be even more pissed finding out the kid is also meant to have his exact powers and to master them all at a pretty young age (especially when factoring in how long it took Wukong himself to learn and master all of his powers)

As previously stated, I just don't think Wukong would've actually been a good father figure. Whether it be due to him not knowing how to care of a small child or him obsessively trying to preemptively take care of all the bad guys before MK ever has to, making him mostly absent for MK's childhood, or something else entirely. When MK meets Wukong in the show he had already been living alone on Flower Fruit Mountain for centuries. His adult people skills are horrible, there's no way he'd be more successful at taking care of a child. And MK potentially growing up to hate Wukong would be counterproductive for Nuwa, considering MK's fanboying over the Monkey King in the show made him very knowledgeable about Wukong's powers and very selective parts of his past. (Idolizing Monkey King also makes it easier for Wukong and MK to do training together, and it allows MK the chance to actually be a better, more heroic version of Wukong right off the bat.)

Like I said in the last post, giving Wukong to MK would probably end up alerting all of the villains that Nuwa made MK to fight prematurely. "What's that? Rumors are going around that Monkey King has a kid?! And that kid can also do everything Monkey King can despite being like, 12?!! Send all the henchmen immediately! Spy on Flower Fruit Mountain now!" It would just ruin everything and make MK being a secret weapon of sorts pointless.

Growing up on Flower Fruit Mountain would be a pretty lonely experience for MK. Sure, he has Wukong and the little monkeys, but he wouldn't get a chance to really experience culture or people. He wouldn't have a best friend like Mei, and he likely wouldn't grow up to care so much about helping people and being there for his loved ones. MK is able to step up and be a hero because of all his connections, and Wukong's lack of connections as resulted in him becoming less heroic over time. Even if Wukong successfully raised MK in secret, MK would probably just turn out as a miniature Wukong. The world barely survives with just one of him running around!

This isn't to say Nuwa never wanted MK and Wukong to meet. On the contrary, I think she probably wanted the two of them to develop the kind of relationship they have now. I just think she knew that there was a right time and place for the two of them to meet, and that was not right after MK was born. I think she was always planning on dropping him off with Pigsy, Sandy, or Tang, but things didn't go exactly as planned when there was outside interference. So instead of being able to slowly get a feel of his powers as he got older, MK couldn't access them at all and didn't realize he had any powers until he grabbed the golden staff.

I'm pretty sure MK has pretty much lived the life Nuwa wanted him to, but now his power is reaching new heights that he can't handle due to...whatever went wrong. And while he had a good childhood and has a great support network, MK was never prepared for all the shit he's gone through, and it's all becoming too much for him at this point. MK just wants to go back to his happy, simple life, but everything's changed too much for that. He's changed too much.

We've seen the mantra of "embrace your destiny" crop up a lot over the show, and it's always been by villains in a negative light, but I think it's something MK will genuinely have to do in order to become more "whole". He has to accept what he is, who he has become, and what is expected of him. He has to "embrace" his destiny first, and then he can rebel against it. He can decide his future for himself, but he's not going to be able to do that wholeheartedly unless he accepts himself first.

[emotionallychargedtowel]

Chu chu chu*; or, intimate scene tips from the Kiseki cast

(Note: See reblogs for another pairing that used the same strategy and for super helpful info from @nibupei; also this post has been edited to replace the screenshots with slightly better versions)

I don't usually watch a lot of BL-related stuff on youtube, but I've still got a bad case of Kiseki brainrot and there's a bonkers amount of Kiseki-related material on there and a remarkably high proportion of it has English subs, so I've been perusing it. I saw something I found really interesting in one interview that I thought was worth sharing here, particularly since I'm sure there are others who, like me in most instances, don't typically look for BL info there. According to the title, the interview is related to a photobook, I assume one made for/about the series. You can find it here if you want to check it out for yourself. The part I talk about below starts around the 7:44 mark. A big thank you to the fan who subbed this for the rest of us, who as you can see from the watermark goes by abbyloveslove.

The thing that caught my attention was about Nat Chen's and Louis Chiang's process for intimate scenes. I'm always a total nerd about this kind of information, especially with regard to Taiwanese BL folks since people in the industry there have developed such a strong tradition of effective practices. The gist is this: prior to filming scenes involving kissing, you have to do blocking, check lighting, and so forth, so you have to get in position as if you were kissing your scene partner. But it's not actually necessary to kiss them and, in Louis's view at least, it would be counterproductive to do it at that point. So Louis and Nat came up with a substitute action. They'd do sort of mimed smooches, but with their own special a Taiwan-specific sound effect.

It's a bit hard to tell who's speaking here, what with the image quality. So I'll specify who's talking when. Speaking of which, these are just screenshots of a rather blurry video so apologies for any and all aesthetic shortcomings.

So, first Nat's speaking...

then Louis...

(he does a little shimmy here that's hard to capture in a still image)

and Nat again.

And then Louis sums it up.

After watching this I noticed that in one of the behind-the-scenes bits that are strung together into one long thing on Viki, you can actually hear someone going "chuchuchu." It's hard to tell who's speaking because of the angle and some staff wearing masks but I think it might actually be their director in that instance.

So there's your intimate scene nerd moment for today. Chu chu chu.

*Per @nibupei in the reblogs, this should actually be Romanized as "jiū." I recommend checking out their response in full. Just putting this here because some folks are still interacting with the original post who might find their notes illuminating.

[fic-recommended]

Shyan Fics

more to be added, if I feel like adding

—————————————

I’ll Crawl Home – carrieonfighting

(16,024 words / 6 chapters / Teen and up)

Tags: Demon!Shane, Angst, Non-Linear Narrative, bc im PRETENTIOUS, Protective!Shane

"Shane was almost unnerved by how quickly he’d settled into this body, this name, this life - his friendship with Ryan was the most time he’d spent with any human before, and yet the man fascinated him."

Wow. That’s all I gotta say. I started reading Shane/Ryan fic because I had a weird dream and went looking for comfort fic to ease the edges of my mind. I stumbled upon this fic and was so fucking blown away. I was drawn in because of the demon!Shane tag and the way this story is charted out is insane. It’s nonlinear (there is a liner version tho I’m strongly against it). Just ohmygod read this fic it’s insane and hurts so good.

I’m Gonna Keep You in Love with Me (for a While) – beethechange

(21,847 words / 1 chapter / Explicit)

Tags: fake married, also real married, friends to husbands to lovers to ???, Las Vegas Wedding, possible dubious consent due to alcohol consumption, Anal Sex, Hand Jobs, Oral Sex, Rimming, just assume most of the kinds of sex are present here, probably more Celine Dion than you were hoping for, they say "fuck" a lot, also "dude" but I don't make the rules okay, Bedsharing

Shane is pacing around the hotel room. It’s not a huge room and Shane’s legs are long enough that he doesn’t have much real estate to pace before he has to swing back around for another loop.

“Can you stop?” Ryan asks. “You’re making me dizzy.”

“Okay,” Shane says finally. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re just going to—we’re going to be married. The only way out is through.”

“Um,” Ryan says, because this plan strikes him as counterproductive to their shared goal of not being married.

To me there are the big two when thinking of Shane/Ryan fics. That is to say the others aren’t amazing but two gutted me in a way I was not expecting from I ship I don’t even ship. This is one of the two and fucks sake it hurts me but in a way I really like and neeeeeded. (The other is the one above this)

Muscles Better and Nerves More – beethechange

(26,301 words / 1 chapter / Explicit)

Tags: Bodyswap, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Getting Together, First Time, Pining, Slow Burn, Masturbation, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, Anal Fingering, Body Horror, Rituals, Swearing, Sexy Shame

“I’m serious,” Ryan says. “Don’t go fucking up my body. I want that shit back in the same condition I left it.”

“The same condition—Ryan. I’m not spending hours in a gym every day so you don’t lose muscle mass.”

“I want you to treat my body with the respect you would a national park. Leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but memories.”

***

A certain meddling Voodoo Queen of New Orleans thinks Ryan and Shane need some new perspective on life. After an inadvisable ritual deposits Ryan in Shane’s body, and Shane in Ryan’s, the ghoulboys pursue some soul-searching and self-discovery to put things right. Sometimes in a sexy way.

I have found out while reading this fic that I am also a sucker for bodyswap!au. Something about learning to love someone completely while seeing (and being lmao) all of them is so intimate and endearing to me. Plus there’s dumplings in this fic and that is just sweet sweet poetry.

If you can find a way to love me, it’s all right – varnes

(11,232 words / 1 chapter / Teen and up)

Tags: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Psychic Ryan

When Ryan was a kid, he fell into a pile of bricks. They were playing hide and seek, and he thought he had the best hiding spot: high up in a thickly lush tree, his knees drawn to his chest so that he’d blend in. But the branch broke. He hit his head and doesn’t remember much of what happened after that. When he woke up a few hours later, the sun was setting, and his friends were gone, and his parents were calling for him, their flashlights swinging across the grass. There’d been blood on his bangs.

Anyway, now he can see ghosts.

Kind of.

Look, he’s not great at it.

--

Or: Ryan, personally, has three lists: “NICE GHOSTS,” “GHOSTS I DON’T FUCK WITH,” and, “IDK, SPOOKY STUFF.”

Oh my goddddd this fic is so sweet and so owie. At first I was skeptical because the fanon is that Shane can see demons or ghosts or whatever. But having it be Ryan???? So owie in such a good way. Other then this fic being the masterpiece that it is, I’m going to convince you with one sentence: Ryan has a cat with a ghost in it that demands Taco Bell. That’s it baybee. Read it or you’ll regret itttt.

BFFS Get Married For A Week – Ryan and Shane – aspookycryptidsock

(18,108 words / 8 chapters / Explicit)

Tags: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fake Marriage, Friends to Lovers, Oral Sex, Hand Jobs, Pining, Mutual Pining

"As I was saying," Curly continues with a pointed glare in Ryan's direction. "It's my honor to join the two of you in unholy matrimony. The rules are simple, you'll live together, plan one date each, and cherish each other. Til week do you part."

I first read this fic years and years ago. I don’t know how it happened but me and my best friend found it while being at a library and we went feral reading it before their mom picked us up. It’s my origin story to the ship. This fic is my first love and my baby gorl. Shane is intense in a way I lovelovelove. Ryan is dumber then a pile a bricks amen.

Body Farming – shiphitsthefan

(7,251 words / 1 chapter / Explicit)

Tags: Season/Series 04, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha Shane Madej, Protective Shane Madej, Omega Ryan Bergara, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mutual Pining, Scenting, Multiple Orgasms, Knotting, Daddy Kink, Size Kink, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub Undertones, Filth with Feelings, Community: bfukinkmeme, Multisex Omega

Failed suppressants and a surprise heat: the worst of cliches, and here Ryan stands, living the trope on location with the alpha he’s hopelessly in love with. Even worse, they’re spending the night in the famous Bell Witch Cave, completely alone and with no way to contact the outside world.

Ryan knows he can survive and keep his preheat a secret, as long as Shane will stop being so protective and concerned. After all, it’s not like Shane wants to bond with him.

Right?

Your honor I’d like to state my case by saying being horny on main is bc I’m silly goofy and I never meant no harm. ABO fuck or die in a cave? Fuccck kkkk y e aaaa

Por Favor, Sweetheart – carrieonfighting

(7,859 words / 1 chapter / Teen and up)

Tags: Kid Fic, Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Accidental Baby Acquisition, ryan dadgara, and shane dadej, Original Baby Character - Freeform, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, You Have Been Warned

Two dorks raise a baby and don't even realise they're doing it together until it's too late

Alternatively, Ryan Bergara is Trying His Best Thanks

Ryan gains custody of a baby and is strugggglinnnggg until a Sasquatch comes and helps <3. Ain’t nothing says romance baybeee then an actual baby.

daring it’s a faded notion – varnes

(28,760 words / 5 chapters / Explicit)

Tags: Paranormal shenanigans, y'all remember that trope where people can't be more than 5 feet apart without Suffering?

The sun is too bright and Ryan’s whole body is alight with something that is eating him all the way up from the inside out, but he keeps his eyes open and he makes himself look, and he tells himself that once he finds Shane, he’ll think about it. Once he finds Shane, they’ll make a plan. Once he finds Shane, and only then, he’ll let himself have the thought he’s been swallowing down like bile since he came to: that they didn’t fall.

They were pushed.

OR: Ryan and Shane get cursed by a ghost, and now they can't be not-touching. It's ... not great.

Ghosties don’t like the no homo and said ummm yeeeeet!!! Into the Grand Canyon then the ghoul boys kiss???? Makes me go hubba hubba

Collide - needywitch

(35,310 words / 2 chapters / Explicit)

Tags: Pining, Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Eventual Smut, Slow Burn, Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Happy Ending, Getting Together, Falling In Love, Biting, First Time, Dirty Talk, Love Confessions, Rough Sex, Shane Madej Has a Big Dick

Ryan is desperately in love with his best friend.

Owieeeeeee. This one made me cryyyy. The prose of this fic along with a healthy usage of the word jaunty made this fic deeply emotional as well as made me want to cry when they kissed. Very excellent

A Perfect Piece of Ass, Like Every Californian - beethechange

(25,706 words / 3 chapters / Explicit)

Tags: entirely self-indulgent PWP, smut with feelings, Threesome, Birthday Sex, Oral Sex, lotta ball stuff here folks, so i hope you like balls, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Sexy Air Traffic Conducting, Vaginal Sex, Voyeurism

“Happy birthday, Shane,” Sara says. “I got you a Ryan.”

“Th—thanks?” Shane says. He looks at Ryan and Ryan just looks back, weirdly impassive, giving nothing away. “But I’m pretty sure I already have a Ryan in this model. What’s the return policy?”

“Not like this, you don’t,” she says, raising her eyebrows meaningfully. Out of the corner of his eye Shane can see Ryan bring his hand to his mouth, stifling a snicker that he turns into a cough. Oh, he thinks.

Oh shit.

I’m not gonna sit here and pretend that this fic is morally correct but Shane/Sara/Ryan fic is what I needed and it blew me away and it is the best smut thank you goodnight

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #169

Today I played more Elden Ring. A few of my friends popped by to say hello as I toodled around while being a total derpasaurus rex on a lovely horned horse named Torrent. Torrent is wonderful; I don't know how or why he puts up with my clumsy ass, hahaha! But I do like to feed him lots of treats when I can, so maybe that's a little something.

There was a dragon terrorizing a place called Agheel lake; it made it really hard to get around. With Torrent's help, I was able to make it so that there is no longer a dragon terrorizing the lake. I also temporarily removed some bullies who were blocking off a bunch of roads for unknown reasons. Of course, the bullies come back to life anytime I rest. But still, a moment's peace is a moment's peace.

Really, I'd just like to explore this world unhindered with Torrent. I'd like to listen to the stories of the people who wander around. I meet a few friendly faces, but… most everything in this world wants to kill me, and I think that's kinda sad because it's such a beautiful world with very dramatic geography and lots of interesting creatures to observe!

I wonder if you'd like looking at this world. There was a place called Stormhill and you know what? I bet it would be an AMAZING place to fly a kite, if my character could have a kite. But there are no kites. Instead, there was this big machine called a Golem that came out of the ground, and it tried to kill me with its giant axe, and that was very inconvenient, so I broke the machine until it stopped moving. Hopefully the road will be a little safer for other travelers; having a giant hostile machine pop out of the ground like that was very surprising!

There was another giant, hostile machine that was shooting big ol' arrows at me as I tried riding along some road. So I broke that machine, too. What kind of person builds giant, hostile machines and then leaves them unattended, anyway? It seems very irresponsible! Also in this world, there are all these folks who think that nobody gets to use the section of road they're on except for them, and I don't think that's very nice at all. I try to put a stop to that nonsense in the only way this game lets me; no one can be reasoned with, it seems.

…I do try to avoid fighting when I can, though. There are these guys called Wandering Nobles, and the unarmed ones don't try to kill me, but they do seem terrified of me for some reason. I usually leave them be; I think they're undead, so they're clumsy, slow, very uncoordinated, and not especially bright. But sometimes, they get ahold of a torch or a sword or some magic spell that they can derpily swing around, and then they think they're some Hot Shit™, and when they get like that, they won't leave me alone.

I would like to say to them, "Guy… my dude. C'mon. Please just chill. Please stop swinging around the sharp pointy thing - you're gonna hurt yourself. Seriously bruh, I just got rid of that very murdery dragon over there, and I promise that you are not stronger than a dragon; can't we just be cool? Let's just be cool, okay?" But I can't say that, and so they do not chill, they do not stop swinging the sharp pointy thing, they continue to be VERY not cool, and they will chase me if I try to run, which is counterproductive, so all I can do from there is "axe" them very politely to stop.

I think I might stop playing this game, though. There are a few unsavory aspects of this game that I had forgotten about. One of them is the situation at a place called Castle Morne. The context and story is complicated, but the short version is that there are living things called "Misbegotten". I hate that they're called this, so I will call them "Crucible-Touched" instead. The "Crucible-Touched" come from something called "The Crucible", and that is, essentially, a "primordial form of the Erdtree". I have no idea what that means, other than the "primordial form" still having something called a "Death Rune", I guess. The "Erdtree" is, essentially, the "Crucible", but with the "death" part of the life cycle removed. Though my interpretation might not be exactly right; the lore is a little hard to understand, admittedly, and lots of it is left intentionally vague, and there are mistranslations. Weird things sometimes happens when you try to translate old-timey Japanese into old-timey English.

Here is what the "Crucible-Touched" look like:

The lighting in this picture I found on the internet is weird, but don't let it fool you! As you can see, they have it all! They have wings to fly with, claws to defend themselves with, nice big jaws to eat with (as someone with a small and misshapen jaw, I envy this a little...), efficient legs to walk, jump, and run with, good feet for even weight distribution, opposable thumbs to build and manipulate objects with, good, smart, sentient brains to learn stuff with, strong and agile muscles to enact their will, cute little chubby faces, and they're soft and fluffy with their feathers and fur!! Literally, what is there not to like??? I cannot find anything wrong with any of this!! If there is a flaw in this living thing, I don't know where it is!!

So the people of this world think of the "Erdtree" as a refined "Crucible", and they also think that anything that comes of the "Crucible" is inferior, tainted, impure, and reminiscent of devolution. These "Crucible-Touched" were once seen as divine, but that changed once the "Crucible" became the "Erdtree", and then all of a sudden they were seen as bad, rotten, filthy things, and subsequently treated like slaves and abused horribly. And it really sucks, because there is one guy who is "Crucible-Touched", and his name is Hewg, and he's absolutely delightful and brilliant and really good at what he does. It doesn't make sense to me that he gets treated as less than a person. It's not right. I don't like it.

So the "Crucible-Touched" at Castle Morne revolted. Tired of being enslaved, abused, degraded, and tortured day in and day out, they lashed back at their tormentors because their only other option was to try to go out on their own into a world that is a death trap. The end result of that is that they'll either be killed by something that hates them just because of how they were born, or they'll be hunted down by the people whose abuse they're trying to escape from. In my world, it is said that the first duty of a wrongly-imprisoned person is to escape. As such, slaves must escape bondage and abuse by whatever means that are available to them - that is the way of things. As such, I have absolutely no interest in fighting the "Crucible-Touched" - none whatsoever.

But I do have an interest in delivering a letter written by one of the escaped nobles of that castle, who I guess had no idea how horribly the "servants" were being treated. It's complicated. I want to deliver the letter, but the "Crucible-Touched", who I have no quarrel with, are hostile to me on sight, which is natural; goodness knows how many decades they have of being mistreated by humans, and they have no way of knowing that I mean them no harm. The letter is from a young woman named Irina to her father Edgar, who is the commander of the castle. Irina just wants Edgar to forget about the castle and go live peacefully with her somewhere else. But Edgar is going to want the sword that was stolen by the leader of the "Crucible-Touched" before he will leave to go be with his daughter.

…But… I have no interest in killing a justifiably angry living thing over some stupid sword. I'd much rather negotiate for the sword - the "Crucible-Touched" get to keep the castle in exchange for the sword and letting Edgar go be with his daughter. Seems like it should be a fairly simple exchange. Kinda like this:

"Hey there, Mr. Uprising Leader Dude. It's cool. I'm cool. We're cool. Everything's cool. I just wanna get that Edgar guy outta your hair; he and his ilk were total poop-waffles to you and to your brethren, and that sucks and I hate it and it never should have happened, and I'm sorry for all the suffering you've endured up until this point. Things in the world are all fucked up because of the Erdtree, and it's really unfair and you have every right to be upset; nobody should be making you suffer for the nature of your existence. But he ain't gonna leave until he's got that sword. So how about this - you gimme the sword so I can give it to him, and you get to have the castle and Edgar goes very far away and nobody bothers you or your kin ever again; you can turn this place into a safe haven for others who are Crucible-Touched, and if anyone tries to bother any of you here just for existing, then you just gimme a holler and I'll come a-runnin' to help fend off any ne'er-do-wells who are giving you problems. Deal?"

Unfortunately, this game does not allow for anything other than fighting. And… if you complete this questline, Irina ends up dying, and Edgar ends up going insane. So essentially, if I try to get the abusers away from the abused, bad things happen. It is better if I do nothing. But then if I do nothing, there is still suffering. And… I guess it just kinda… seems futile.

My "big bad power fantasy" is to be able to help everyone and to come up with peaceful solutions to things. I had forgotten in this game just how seldom it's possible to do either of those. Even if you do try to help in the ways that are made available to you as a player, it usually ends up in tragedy anyhow, and that's… really not a whole lot of fun for me.

I wanna fix it. It shouldn't have to be like this. The "Erdtree" gives "order" by oppressing a whole heck of a lot of different kinds of living (or unliving) things and by suppressing free will and perpetuating cycles of trauma, and it ain't right. But then, if you break the Erdtree, everything dissolves and there is no such thing as comfort or joy anymore…

…I think I'm all done with it. I'm gonna choose a different game, because this one is depressing, and the world I live in is already depressing enough as it is; my planet is already dying and there's tragedy and cruelty everywhere you look and there's absolutely fucking nothing I can do about any of it because I am just one insignificant voice in a sea of 8 billion voices, with not a lot of resources at my disposal, and living in a body that most people think is on the lower end of the "worth" spectrum. I am nothing and no one in this place, and my voice doesn't really count for anything.

...Given this, sometimes I wonder why I even bother to keep writing, because I can't imagine anything will come of it. But I'm going to keep at it anyway, because... what else is there that I can do? I can't do nothing. I have to try. I have to care...

Anyway, all of that is why it's necessary to keep looking for the sparks of joy and beauty in everything, no matter how small those sparks are, or else the sheer weight of the despair in this place will crush the life right out of you and extinguish the light in your eyes. In short: I don't need my temporary electronic escape from reality to thematically resemble real life; it kinda defeats the purpose, ya know? I want to be able to DO SOMETHING about the suffering around me, and if not even the make-pretend space will allow me to do that, then what's the freaking point??? If I wanted to feel helpless and unable to do good things, I can just read the damn news. At least then I don't also have to become increasingly skilled at very difficult make-pretend combat in order to chase that nihilistic feeling of futility.

Guess I'll end this one here. Maybe tomorrow I'll try to create something. I don't know how I manage to feel so busy and so idle at the exact same time, but here I am doing it anyway, and trying hard not to get too caught up in the guilt of it all. I know I'm overwhelmed, but it's hard to pinpoint why exactly. Hm.

Well anyway. Do stay safe out there, won't you? Please remember that you're a person no matter how you were made. Those "Misbegotten" are NOT misbegotten, and I hate that they're called that. And you're not misbegotten, either, okay? Please do your best to know that. Do everything in your power to understand that you are a good thing. Because… I am still here because of you, and I like to think sometimes like I am a good thing. On a good day, anyway, I can sometimes think I am a good thing.

I love you. I'll write again tomorrow.

Your friend, Lumine

[batw1nggg]

Same anon here who brought up that stuff about Nagito's contempt for the Reserve Course being intensified in the simulation by misinformation. For a number of reasons I'm much more accepting of the premise of literal brainwashing than other fans. In fact, controversial opinion, I actually think it is a more logical and coherent premise than the idea of Class 77-B all becoming terrorists of their own free will.

Now just to be clear I do agree that the idea of insta-brainwashing via a Despair video that Junko had all along is daft. Since on top of it being kind of anticlimactic, it retroactively means she was sitting on an "I win" button the entire time in DR1. But to summarize why I don't think the idea of literal brainwashing is an unreasonable premise, it mainly comes to three points.

The first is that the precedent for brainwashing technology had already been set in the DR universe. DR1 established that it was possible to precisely erase targeted memories. DR0 took that to the next extreme by showing it was possible to create a new persona through that same technology. UDG established that helmets to mind control victims existed too. So the idea of Class 77-B also being brainwashed is far from outlandish in the setting. In fact I accidentally predicted the V3 twist before reaching the end. Since I initially assumed they would have gone through a more visceral version of what was done to the V3 cast (though possibly with some other nastiness like sensory depravation and solitary confinement).

The second is that...well, the premise of Junko indoctrinating them one by one into a cult sounds deep and clever until you seriously think about it for like 5 minutes. The timeline simply doesn't work. Junko would have maybe 10 months tops to pull something like this off. And making matters worse is that she's in a separate class, and has a whole lot of other shit to prepare in the year leading up to the Tragedy. Manipulating Yasuke and Izuru, arranging for the school council massacre, getting Monaca and the Warriors of Hope on her side, and all the while keeping up appearances as a member of Class 78. A class who were implied in the DR1 photos to be abnormally tightknit by Hope's Peak standards, like Class 77-B was with Chisa and Chiaki.

I've seen plenty of headcanons for how she'd go about it. And yes, stuff like the Twilight Syndrome incident could help things. But that only applies to about a third of the class. And overall just about every explanation I've heard treats Junko and Class 77-B like they exist in a vacuum. With none of the other people at school noticing that anything is off. Which is just nonsensical. DR0 shows a lot of the events right before the Tragedy from the perspective of people like Kyoko, Yasuke, Makoto, and Jin. And NOBODY seems to think there's something kind of off about Class 77-B, or brings up that Junko seems to spend a strange amount of time around them. Makoto of all people would be just the kind of person to try and bond with some of his senpais. And the Ultimate Detective not seeing any signs of bizarre cult-like behavior among the school's students is pretty absurd.

Not to mention that it requires that while they're still at school the Remnants never behave in such a way that's counterproductive to Junko's plans. Like Teruteru is briefly alluded to in DR0. Now am I really expected to believe that someone like him, who presumably would already be part of Junko's cult that late into the timeline, wouldn't already be doing some fucked up shit? Like increasingly creepy sexual harassment or violent mood swings? Same for people like Hiyoko, Nekomaru, Akane, Ibuki, and so on. This premise requires them all to be good little robots and rein in the Despair antics until after the riots spiral out of control. That's a level of subtlety that many in Class 77-B just don't have.

And finally...I'm sorry, but no. You can't have it both ways. You can't have the Remnants be fully responsible for carrying out their misdeeds of their own free will. And then have them be rehabilitated and redeemed via the Neo World Program. Using targeted amnesia to rehabilitate criminals is unethical to an absurd degree. If you're going to say "These people deserve a second chance", then you're going to have to commit to doing things the hard way. Detain and rehabilitate them with their memories intact. Literally the only scenario where something as extreme as the Neo World Program would ever be remotely justifiable would be an equally extreme scenario like a subject having been subjected to literal mind control.

So yeah. That's my controversial take. I disagree with DR3's depiction, but think the Remnants being brainwashed as more than just a figure of speech is perfectly reasonable. Mainly for pragmatic reasons related to story consistency, due stuff like DR0 not only doesn't have any hint of Junko secretly running a cult, but makes a lot less sense if we assume that's going on offscreen. But also for some ideological reasons too. Plus the alternative requires a level of competence and manipulative brilliance that it wildly inconsistent with what Junko showed in DR1. There is no way that someone who could convert all of Class 77-B with the constraints listed above in such a short timeframe, would be so easily thwarted by stuff like Sakura's sacrifice and Makoto's rallying speech at the end. In fact Class 78 should have all gone completely mad after a year in isolation with her if she was as brilliant as some fans hype her up to be.

OK WAIT NO NO NO i didnt mean to imply that junko should like. Run a cult or something. i agree with all of these points, i think that TOO personalized of manipulation would be unrealistic. the way dr3 did the brainwashing seemed lazy and anticlimactic for junko but also junko is smart and wouldnt put in all that unnecessary work for a class she doesnt care about.

youre right that brainwashing and mind altering does consistently show up throughout danganronpa, but i do also really really wish we couldve seen it be pulled off in a slightly more personalized manner. i used mikan as an example in that post but i didnt mean to imply i wanted them to show junko doing that to like. Everyone. i just personally wish they wouldve taken the “the brainwashing takes advantage of your personal desires and hopes” thing a bit farther somehow. like elaborated a little more

i dont have a clear vision of how danganronpa 3 shouldve ended. i think i’d be a lot more on board with the brainwashing if theyd just. Done it a little better, made it more climactic, made the scene more intense or something idk. it’s just so obvious to me that dr3’s ending (and dr3 as a whole but especially the ending) really seemed rushed and careless. we BARELY even get to see the remnants while theyre despaired, with the exception of komaeda. which SUCKSSSS SO BAD i wish they couldve at least incorporated THAT. like for dr being about the apocalypse we dont really get to see much of. The Apocalypse. outside of udg.

and ohhh yeah the forcefully inducing amnesia on a criminal thing is a point i never even considered. youre totally right there i have no comments to add about that

To Conclude. it does make sense that the brainwashing had to be done and i do admit that it is consistent with dr. But Also. It was Anticlimactic and the way they wrote it seemed half assed to me

[flowersbark]

Holy shit. Okay. Hi. I’m also a csa survivor. I’m legit so desperate for anything sort of recognition on this issue I’ve been having for almost 2 years now. https://www.tumblr.com/flowersbark/740288973409288192/fellas-is-it-a-proship-to-project-cocsacsa-on

It relates to this post, except I am going to get EXTRA personal on this.

Tw for r//pe, gr///ming, Self-h//rm, and csa (obvsly)

Okay so I also really really reallyyy don’t like proshippers, I am hypersexual, and I have zero access to any sort of help atp in my life. Now that I have those things out of the way right now, I am essentially in a dilemma a lot like that post. One major problem, it’s not me JUST wanting to project, it’s me wanting to BE in that spot of the victim again for some reason. And I mean like srsly getting assaulted again and all that horrible stuff. Like, i THINK these ideas, thoughts, and urges I have are called “intrusive thoughts”?? But I’m not sure. I’m disturbed by them regardless.

This has been so frustrating to deal with bc first of all, I’m not a victim to gr//ming, second, yes, I am a victim of csa at a young age, and third, I find myself having some sort of YEARNING to be hurt in such a way. (Not cocsacsa, just to not let things get mixed up btw) I have looked around on the internet for so long about this issue and I find NOTHING on it, like, am I just going crazy? Am I trying to cope with it in the worst way possible? Like, I genuinely don’t know, and it drives me mad because on one hand, I have this massive theory that it’s a mental attempt of “self- h//rm”, and then on the other hand, it’s a bizarre extreme version of yearning for touch and affection, but I’m just so unsure because I can’t find any other personal accounts of anyone else!

I acknowledge that your post wasn’t about this oddly specifc scenario, and I’m so sorry that this is so out of pocket, and possibly even counterproductive (idk) but as another csa victim, would you be able to offer some sort of insight? Is that something I can even ask for on here? It’s okay if you can’t, or don’t want to, I fully understand if I just never see a response to this. I really hope things get better for you and that you’re a having at the very least, a decent day regardless. Thank you.

Also p.s., sorry for not being able to answer that question, I myself am also uncertain on a definite answer for that. Like, the most I can say is that I think it’s okay to explore unhealthy dynamics, so long as they’re both acknowledged as bad/unhealthy/traumatizing things, and not put out to the public since people can take/look at things and get weird and nasty🤢 (so generally just used in a private and secure setting)

HI !!! uhh

first off, yes you can ask for advice, insight, anything. thats why i made this blog, other than to just vent to strangers. second, thank you for giving me your opinion on the csa proship situation.

i do think what you're going through are intrusive thoughts, and i get those a lot too. especially about going through what i did again, or worse. i also fucking HATE those thoughts, especially because my mind makes it by people i know irl, especially classmate im close to. it makes me feel disgusting and like im sexualizing and making my classmates horrible people when they ARENT. intrusive thoughts arent a reflection of who you are, theyre a reflection of who you DONT want to be, thats why theyre so disturbing.

again, the almost yearning for it is intrusive. it's also a trauma response. like how people who are used to being mentally abused will seek out and be with people that will treat them like that, its kinda like that. its not a good way to cope, but its not the WORST. as the absolute worst would be repeating the cycle.

im sorry if this doesn't help, its kinda just my word vomit with no revisions,, but i hope it does. it gets better, i promise. keep going.

[lawlietscaramels]

alike to you, i have my own death note oc :D if it's okay, would you tell us more about yours? i'm genuinely curious how they fit into the story and their role in it altogether.

Miss Rie // 1429

keyo I'm going to squeeze you like a stress ball or something you're awesome and you better tell us all about your oc?!?!? :DD and it is SO okay rr I'm gonna ramble. cw torture mention, mental health issues, manipulation and other such traits.

　★━━─・‥…━━━☆

Relationships, Lore So Far, Personality, Strengths, Weaknesses, Trivia

Relationships

She's aligned with Team L!! of course dnsjhd

Rie and L have a funny relationship because they've worked together for a while and seem close but aren't together (as far as the TF know at least. I'm not sure yet to what degree her relationship with L has progressed at the time the anime is set). but everyone who meets them goes: "a girl in love and a man who's apathetic"

She actually likes Light a lot, because he's a nice guy, when he's not Kira. would be friends with him in another life.

When it comes to 「Kira」 whoever they may be, she dislikes but understands them. She knows that there are problems in the world and a lot of them stem from "evil people", but she doesn't really believe in purely evil people, and also realises that Kira's methods are counterproductive.

Rie does NOT get along with Misa. she can tolerate her but only in small doses. She's always kind to her, though this is mostly so she can try to get information out of her.

As for the rest of the Task Force: Likes them all. She never met Ukita though cause she introduces herself a while after L does in my current plan. Thinks Matsuda is a little naïve and Chief Yagami is blinded by his love for his son.

At the moment I'm thinking Rie isn't an orphan but lived somewhere near Wammy's House when she was little. She loooves annoying Near, Matt and Mello.

Lore So Far

there's a lot of unrefined stuff, what I have here is likely to change

I mentioned beforehand she works with L for a few years before the Kira case. she actually spent a lot of her life tracking him down, basically just to play with him/annoy him because... she's just an ass like that. So eventually she was able to contact him and they played a Game of cat and mouse, detective vs detective (I have a minific written for this that I might share. also Rie's not quite a detective... kinda a vigilante? not sure how to explain)

my current plan is she ends up getting stuck in a situation like Light was, where L suspects her for a case (she hacked into his database and deleted all his files) and has to work with her and keep an eye on her. I'm considering that she purposely got caught bc she was in trouble with more dangerous people, but maybe L catches her because, well, he's the world's greatest detective and the dangerous people just encounter Rie later

she's eventually cleared of suspicion because she wasn't involved in the cases she wiped, she just deleted them to be annoying and win the Game. Rie sticks around to annoy L for a while but then in come the dangerous people!!

the reason for this isn't fully fleshed out yet, but she gets herself kidnapped and once they realise she worked with L they try to get information on him out of her (through torture pretty much). this bit is the bit I'm probably least happy with, I want to work on it more. but in the end her stomach gets cut open, she escapes and collapses/gets rescued, and L realises he can trust her.

Rie goes to various countries and does her own thing for a few years, occasionally assisting L on cases, before she comes to Japan for the Kira case

there's so much Kira related stuff that I think I'll make another post sometime haha.

but that is the simplified and unrefined version of her backstory!

Personality

a proud feminist!! because come on death note needs one. (I know I said earlier she likes Light and dislikes Misa but the way he treats her ticks Rie off)

honestly can be very annoying on purpose, like a sibling

that said she's a good person overall, has done suspicious contract work and whatever, but she loves people and she really cares for everyone in her life

energetic 50% of the time, asleep the other 50%.

Pretty analytical but definitely has and expresses emotions. Probably INTP but I'm not great with MBTI tying.

a sore loser. But instead of trying to win, she will just give up if she knows there's a chance of losing. that way she can tell herself that it was her decision and thus, she won.

Loves her friends + family and has a somewhat motherly vibe

Strengths

she's the smartest woman in the world!! because honestly it is a crime that all the smart people in death note are men and hey, it's kind of cool to make an oc who's the anything-est in the world. (I wouldn't say she's REALLY the smartest, she just has a fairly wide skill set and is intelligent. maybe the highest-achieving)

Well she hacked L's main databases so I think you can tell she's good with technology

Her major in uni was psychology! Criminal and maybe abnormal psych, that is. also has dabbled in sociology and neurology. Rie knows a lot of languages.

a good baker (this may be the real reason L didn't have her killed).

A cheerful presence, good at raising morale and making L seem more approachable and likeable to the Task Force. usually optimistic.

Weaknesses

I know I just said she's optimistic, but this is because she makes a conscious effort to be. Rie's got a lot of anxiety and worries, and struggles with several mental health issues.

Her pride is as bad as L's ego. Actually, she'd claim it's worse.

When she gets angry she gets ANGRY. will straight up punch someone in the face and yell for hours.

bad at processing her emotions in general actually

Rie has attachment and abandonment issues I think. also because of the whole torture thing she's got some pretty bad PTSD.

She can be really rude/blunt. claims this is unintentional.

physically pretty weak, too.

SOOO MANIPULATIVE! like she's a detective and she kind of has to be so to make the most of her psychology knowledge and get info out of suspects, but this will often seep into her personal life. "let's perform experiments on our friends and coworkers to increase efficiency!"

Trivia!

Everyone on the Task Force thinks she binge drinks coffee. It's actually hot chocolate

Rie has a cat! her name is Synonym, nicknamed "Sin"

her favourite flowers are hydrangeas, bluebells, and roses (she's got a literal guns and roses aesthetic going on). Her favourite trees are wisterias and her favourite animals are either otters or elephants.

She's autistic (totally not because I'm autistic and can't write a neurotypical character)

Rie is actually just an alias. I'm debating on, if she lived near Wammy's, she might have met L and this would be a nickname derived from her middle name. but then I have to explain the "woah memory loss!!" in the whole database/suspicion incident. so, it's probably just a name that she likes. or maybe she shortened her own middle name.

The full alias is Rie Takamura. She also goes by Hina Suzuki (Japanese equivalent of Jane Doe) and 1429 (fourteen twenty-nine).

SHE LOVES CASINOS. her theme song would probably be "Joker and the Thief" (or maybe not, but it's in my playlist for her). Rie's very careful not to let herself get addicted to gambling but gosh she loves going to a casino, pretending to be a dumb girl, and counting cards until she can sweep the table off its legs.

lowkey a mad scientist (mostly social-scientist but still.)

　★━━─・‥…━━━☆

I'M SO SORRY I just realised pretty much none of that has to do with DN canon which is kind of what you asked about akdfhsfhrghiwg I'll without a doubt do a part two sooner or later though

𝖎𝖋 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖑𝖎𝖐𝖊𝖉 𝖎𝖙 ˏˋ⋆˖⁺˖⁀➷ 𝖕𝖑𝖊𝖆𝖘𝖊 𝖗𝖊𝖇𝖑𝖔𝖌 + 𝖋𝖔𝖑𝖑𝖔𝖜

character ©lawlietscaramels , ©dailyreine , ©riexliet. Though Rie has been inserted into Ohba Tsugumi's Death Note universe, her design, character, and non canon related storyline are all my own original work. Do not steal her design, claim her as your own, use her for “inspiration” — it's flattering but it often ends up a copy, feed any part of her (story/art) to AI, or do anything else unethical or immoral.

[gayofthefae]

Made this post then realized something about El and Mike's dynamic

Like many of the various platonic party member combos I thought about, they matched up in some very important ways that others didn't but not others, which were filled by other members of the party instead. And I was thinking about El as a friend to Mike, like any other party member is, and how this even aligns. The wording I used in that post for them for their combined archetypes would be:

protective bubbly unsure emancipated abuse survivor girl & fiercely loyal and caretaking closeted queer boy who doesn't know himself

And the key thing I noticed when I went to write that out is though they have many importantly complimentary and aligned features like "protective" and "loyal", "abuse survivor" and "caretaking", there is an important one they shouldn't have in common:

"unsure" and "doesn't know himself"

Regardless of your sexuality opinion, it is canon that Mike is figuring himself out and doing a lot of self reflection as he grows. And El's arc has been about her learning her likes and dislikes elevating into security in her own decision-making. And these two people can have a great relationship at every other point. And these two people can have an even better relationship at the other side of those arcs...

but they started their relationship as "unsure x doesn't know himself". She was not secure in her decision making and he was still/pre-figuring out who he was. Sometimes people like that figure it out together, but they didn't. And as we continue to get more specifics like how he wants to be needed and she needs to not need anyone, we find that the direction of that growth can't grow together in this situation.

And because of that, maybe we could argue their romantic relationship could have gone differently had it started after they knew themselves better but (firstly, isn't that all first loves?*and wasn't that Steve's point) that also would have meant those other factors like "caretaking" and "abuse survivor", or even ones I didn't mention like "protective" and "closeted", "bubbly" and "doesn't know himself" (not knowing yourself can be scary and even if lightness isn't a solution, it can be helpful coping).

Because at the end of the day, this is simplifying a story. They aren't real people, they represent them, and really only represent them in order to represent complex situations. So there is no "what if" in a story where they only exist for their situation to be demonstrated. Aspects of their archetypes match up in very important ways that you would not sacrifice at the time that they met, and aspects combined in counterproductive ways. So they grew separately from each other and once they find that growth alone or with other people, they can truly be the most compatible versions of themselves and remain close in between by also not expecting or forcing themselves to align in ways they can't assist each other in.

[esther-dot]

Hi, i sent that link for more reference about the subject. The more the merrier, right? And i think it's always nice to appreciate the efforts of all the meta writers, old and new ♥

Curiously, the other post from 2017 you linked (by princess in a tower), was written after the convo in the link i sent (marydri was princess in a tower old url).

Have a good day :)

(Continuation of this convo)

I genuinely do believe “the more the merrier” which is why I always attempt to link to posts if I know where I first heard something, but I’m also reluctant to go too far into the “crediting” idea because the last time this came up, it wasn’t a celebration of what the older Jonsas had written, but an attempt to make a newer Jonsa meta writer feel like crap. It wasn’t used to include, but was a deliberate attempt to discredit and just kinda, exert ownership of ideas and prevent people from taking things in new directions.

As a Jonsa, a fan of a ship that only exists because fans decided to come to their own conclusions and offered new readings on characters and dynamics, even reinterpreted themes of the story, you have to understand just how off-putting and counterproductive that behavior seems to me. I want every jonsa to feel heard and appreciated for their efforts, for them to enjoy the fandom, which is why, when I’m active, I do my best to both boost newcomers and link to older metas, but prior experience with this works cited idea has made what I consider a pleasure, a real minefield.

Fandom is all about how we inspire each other to create, it isn’t just about the source material. A comment sparking a meta, a meta inspiring characterization for a fic, a fic inspiring art, I’ve seen all of that and think it’s a beautiful thing. So no, I don’t think that’s “curious,” I think it’s perfectly normal for a comment to inspire someone to write a meta. I’ve tagged people in asks to get them to write about an idea, had other people then write metas about it. I like it! Also, ifeas grow in unpredictable ways, and we’re all engaging with our beloved book or show via different mediums and on different websites and in many different languages, so choosing to assume the best of each other’s motives is necessary, and I’m wary of anything that discourages people from engaging. We don’t know which meta someone else has read. For a while, I read all the knew meta, this year, I haven’t even tried to keep up. Sometimes not being credited isn’t an exclusion, it’s simply because you weren’t part of the journey for that specific individual. I’ve seen people come to the same conclusion following very different paths a lot in fandom! And generally speaking, I’m really not sure how “ownership” of a parallel or of a theory works? Waymar’s death foreshadowing Jon’s or that he’ll lose an eye or that we’ll get romantic Jonsa, all are offshoots of the basic “these guys are described the same way,” but I’d think it a bit odd for the person who first noticed the parallel (years before it became a Jonsa thing) to feel ownership over everything that came after.

An infamous example of the futility of theory ownership is the poor blogger who came up with a Sansxn version of the Ashford theory which Jonsas looked at and said, “you do not know what to do with this but we do!” and ran with it, and they’ve been trying to squash people jonsa-ing it or speculating about Sansa x Aegon ever since:

You get the idea. It’s a great theory, I don’t like the original ship, but kudos for op for noticing the parallels. They saw something, someone else saw it too. Many, many people ran with it. It’s inspired a general “Jon is the last suitor” or specific, “Jon will literally go to the tourney” spec in our fandom. I’ve read lots of stuff about it and enjoyed it all. However, I don’t assume everyone who writes about the Ashford Tourney is stealing from the op. I genuinely think a lot of fans didn’t even know where it (potentially) originated, and I certainly don’t think the original goal of the theory (Sansa ends up with the Hound) precludes reinterpretations.

Anyway, I absolutely make an effort to credit Jonsas whenever I can, but having witnessed what I have within our fandom, and seeing how other people treat Jonsas because of this stuff, I’m resistant to getting bogged down in this issue. I don’t want fans to feel like they can’t post about Waymar without someone vague blogging because they weren’t credited. I’ll gladly read a dozen posts talking about the Waymar -> Jon -> Sansa wildly in love -> Jonsa idea and love each and every one of them. I enjoy reading different takes on the same idea. It takes nothing away from those who have already made up their minds about what it means, and sometimes, the new post words things in a way that clicks with a new audience which is something we all should appreciate. It’s all upside imo!

[my-castles-crumbling]

hi cas 🌟

the moral support you give your community with this help boxes / asks is truly astounding, i admire you so much for it and i think it's incredible how you managed to create this safe space, not only for you but for other people as well <3

having said that, i too come looking for advice 🙈

explaining the whole story would take waaaay too long, so the tl;dr version is this: i'm not a very social person to begin with, i've always struggled with keeping relationships and forming deep meaningful bonds, but for the past few years the closest thing i had to a "best-friendship" was with this one group of female friends from university. we used to live all together in a student residency, but back in november i had to move out, and ever since then i've had the feeling that our relationship completely deteriorated. we still all live in the same (small) town, we're all doing the same program so we have all classes together but we still never really see each other outside of academic settings (eg lectures or exams). i know they see each other all the time because they're still living all together and i've been feeling very left out.

about a month ago i finally snapped, so i tried addressing this issues i was having with one of them, and she was incredibly understanding. we had a long conversation about how we both felt about the situation and by the end we had agreed to both try our best to be more involved in each other's life.

except a month has passed and....nothing really changed. i still hear very little from any of them and we still only ever see each other if we're doing exams together (which happens, like, once every couple of weeks, and the whole time we're either stressed or concentrated, so there's not really time for catching up). we're currently going through my university's exam period so i really understand how we're all busy with school, but still...i wish they made an attempt at involving me more.

so now i'm wondering if i should try and address these problems i've had / i'm having with all of them instead of just the one friend. we'll all go back to our homes in a few weeks (we live all scattered around my country), and next year we'll all be on different year abroad programs so the next time we'll be together all in the same town will probably be in about a year (not counting the one week vacation we're going on this summer, but it won't be just us girls then).

what do you think? would it be counterproductive to rise the problem now? i'm afraid of how they'll react with me addressing it so ""late"" and that it could potentially ruin the little relationship we currently have.

thank you for whatever you will answer <3

Hi! <3

So first off, I have to ask..you seem to say a lot about how they aren't including you...but have you asked them to make plans? Reached out to them? I think with friendships, it's a two-way street, you know? You can't place the blame solely on them if you haven't really reached out either.

That being said, yes I think you should say something. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to mend fences. Try to be honest, but not accusatory, and tell them how you're feeling. I think it's best to try to fix it before you all go study abroad. As far as you waiting this long to address it, if they care, they'll be happy you said anything at all! And it they're mad you brought it up- take it as a sign that those friendships aren't worth keeping. Either way, it's worth it to know and fix what you need to fix.

Good luck, I know you can do it! <3

Naming you late anon

[capricioussun]

what is fell papyrus' biggest obstacle in becoming the best version of himself?

His inability to self assess, without a doubt.

This is a problem consistent with all Papyruses imo, but it’s quite possibly the worst/most difficult to deal with for UF Papyrus. He struggles a lot with a personal sense of self, and isn’t really even aware enough to realize that, which causes, as I’m sure you can imagine, a lot of conflict when he‘s influenced by two (or possibly more) contradictory “goals”.

In general, I hc all Papyri as being…impressionable, of their surroundings and the people they care for, and due to…a lot of things that happened in his past/early childhood, UF Papyrus specifically wound up with an overactive sense of responsibility. He feels overly responsible for…like, everything, and constantly assumes the role of “problem solver” any time he comes across a problem he feels could impact him/the people he cares about (which…is most problems).

Aside from obvious reasons why this is unhealthy on its own, it becomes especially counterproductive when partnered with the fact that, despite how “malleable” his personality can be, at his core, there are some traits that are inherent, most of which are…rather “good” or “innocent” things, like his desire for companionship, his compassion for others, the genuine belief in the greater good. While those things can, and are impacted by his surroundings, it’s very difficult to fully and truly uproot or damage them. So in a world like underfell, he has essentially been raised and influenced by ideals that are the polar opposite of things lying at his core.

And that’s only just the first inception layer of complicated for him. The lines only get muddier and muddier as time goes on and his pool of people he cares for grows. Yes, there are tiers, for example, he would choose his brother over Undyne and Undyne over the Dogi, etc if pushed to it, but overall, he becomes influenced by all the people in his life. This causes a considerable amount of internal conflict, since he desperately tries to be…what he thinks he needs to be by everyone else(that he cares about)‘s standards.

So…when left to his own devices, like, for example, on the surface, after everything slowly becomes lower stakes for them, as the people he’s tasked himself with being caretaker/loyal to start “needing” him less, well, it can be a very difficult balancing act for him. Without a solid influence (be it good or bad) in his life, Papyrus struggles to understand what he “needs” to do. What his purpose is. And…I supposed “relapses” into simply looking to be as “useful” as possible in whatever ways he thinks he needs to be.

This is why being ambassador or something similar would be such a double edged sword for him - while it would be good for him to feel important and have a lot to do to keep him busy, it would be all too easy for him to slip into a sort of…unhealthily codependent relationship with his work.

At the end of the day, he always assumes if something in his life isn’t working out the way it should be, it’s somehow some fault of his own, to varying degrees, and if he wants to fix it, he has to fix “himself” in whatever ways this applies. This is a very unhealthy and even dangerous mindset, especially for someone as genuinely kindhearted as Papyrus, as he could so very easily forget about his own health and wellbeing for the sake of others’ (or a cause he’d believe worthy of it).

His lacking self awareness is the biggest roadblock in meeting his own goals, ironically, considering his main goals are…essentially always meeting his own goals. But, as the saying goes, you cannot feed others from an empty basket, and since he also doesn’t ask for help (it’s his responsibility, he can’t burden others with this), he can’t really see or learn how to identify this flaw in his own thinking. It’s one of his biggest fatal flaws, and can lead to even heavily self destructive behaviors in extreme enough circumstances (and unintentionally hurting/“burdening” those he’s trying not to in the process).

[semper-legens]

4. Bookshops and Bonedust, by Travis Baldree

Owned: No, library Page count: 332 My summary: Viv is an adventurer, a fighter with a local band of ruffians led by a man named Rackam. They're on the trail of a necromancer - but when Viv is injured in the fight, she's left to recuperate in a town called Murk, where little ever happens. Bored, Viv finds herself drawn to the local bookshop; which is strange, given that she's hardly a reader. But the adventure she seeks finds her nonetheless. There's a strange man in grey, a creature made of bone, and a mysterious book that Viv has to tackle. Could it be that all she was searching for was here after all? My rating: 5/5 My commentary:

Legends and Lattes! I found the original book to be incredibly charming when I read it, to the point that I immediately went out to buy it from my local leftist bookshop. This is a prequel, focusing on Viv's past adventuring career before she had her heart set on running a coffee shop. As with Legends and Lattes, this isn't focused on the high fantasy adventure and combat kind of narrative that your traditional fantasy novel might be. It's about weirdos finding each other in cosy little shops and the relationships between them; the nature of the work they do, and the services they provide to their community. And honestly, as someone who works in a library, this one hit so much closer to home for me. Because it's about books! Books in fantasy-historical settings are seen as luxuries for the rich, and many characters will be illiterate - books are a waste of time to them. But here, books play a vital part in this community, and are a key means of the relationships that blossom over the town.

Let's talk about Viv, first. Our protagonist, Viv here is a lot younger than the Viv we eventually see in Legends and Lattes. She's focused on her career as an adventurer, focused on strength and healing even when her actions don't make a lot of sense in that regard. She's constantly stretching what she can do on her injured leg, and asks the town doctor to give her a particular remedy that will help her heal faster, but cause her immense pain. She tries to keep her body strong and limber for when the mercenary crew respond, even when this is counterproductive for her. Her stay at the tavern is paid for, so she doesn't need to earn money really. She's trying so hard to fit the mould of what an orc and a fighter should be, which is of course setting up for Legends and Lattes, when she ends up running the coffee shop. This is a much less certain Viv, but she's still recognisable as herself, just an earlier version, which is nice.

Speaking of, let's talk a little about prequels! This book is an interesting one, mostly because of the ways in which it sets up Viv's arc in Legends and Lattes. A huge theme of this book is not quite being the right person yet, not quite being cooked yet. Viv and Maylee almost have a romance, but both of them come to the conclusion that they haven't quite met each other at the right time. They're going up a mountain - Viv is coming up, Maylee is coming down, and they're meeting in the middle, just for a moment. It's bittersweet, but the character stuff going on with Viv serves to highlight it. We know Viv's not quite matured yet, because we've seen her mature self and she's a lot more settled in herself as a person. We know the end of this path. Or, at least, its destination. And that's a really interesting piece of metacommentary to make in a prequel like this!

But primarily, this is a book about found family. Viv finds a circle of people who she becomes very close to during her short time in Murk - friends and lovers alike, from all kinds of backgrounds. Something that's a theme both here and in Legends and Lattes is that the people Viv surrounds herself with are generally not humans, and often tend not to be humanoids. Viv herself is an orc, and that is something that causes friction between herself and humans a lot of the time. They assume she's dumb muscle, but while she's beefy as hell she has other interests - like reading, for one. Dwarvern Maylee, ratkin Fern, homonculus Satchel, gnome Gallina - they're all really fun and engaging characters, and none of them really falling under any stereotypes of their race and profession like you often see in this style of D&D-esque fantasy. Were I to talk about each of them individually, we'd be here forever. Suffice it to say that I love them with all my heart, especially pottymouthed Fern who just loves books so much, but is an absolutely hopeless saleswoman. She can pick the perfect book for you, but you have to walk through the door first! I relate, is all.

Next, more books…but this time, they're being eaten.