#first time including fanart remind me to do a post about it later because i am really happy w the solution i came up with
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bookshelfdreams · 5 months ago
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Hold Fast by hoc_voluerunt / @cuddlytogas
Stede Bonnet is free at last, and on his way back to his love. As "Captain Thomas Edwards", he'll learn a lot about sailing and emotional availability, and perhaps even make a name for himself as the man either brave or foolish enough to hunt the legendary Blackbeard. But rumour has it that Blackbeard may be the opposite of welcoming, if and when he ever catches up... Obligatory overly-long post-season 1 reunion fix-it fic, feat. slow burn reconciliation, more historical accuracy than you wanted, and plenty of piratical action.
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cow-legs · 9 months ago
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What are some of your favorite videogames? ♡ ♡ ♡
(extremely long post incoming lol turns out i have a lot of things to say on this subject)
usually i have too hard of a time trying to remember anything i like to have answers for questions like these but thankfully for this one i have answers prepared since this is something i try to think about a lot
realistically if i had to pick one single "favorite videogame" above the rest itd probably just, like, ocarina of time & majora's mask (i'm considering them to be one videogame because i said so, it;s a package deal), just on account of how much of an impact they had on me from an early age combined with just how often i Still go back to revisit them in one way or another, but this is just about the most basic boring answer a person can have for this question unfortunately
thankfully you asked for some of my favorites instead of just one so i can unveil my Actual list of favorites instead of the one that only holds the top spot by technicality and not because i actually like it "the most". all of my favorite games have such a range in style and quality it's hard to really compare them in any meaningful way
anyway
crypt worlds, space funeral, and off-peak are all pretty different games made by very different people but i usually group them together when talking about stuff like this since collectively finding them all back in the day at roughly the same time kind of shaped my perception of indie games as a whole which probably gave me a very weird and skewed perception of the media but who gives a shit really it's a perception i hold dear. (they weren't the first indie games i ever saw of course but they were the most personally impactful ones that made me go "holy shit, this is awesome, you can do literally whatever you want")
they've pretty heavily influenced my own games, too. there have been multiple times i've started a project and then days later realized "wait shit this is just space funeral again. i'm just making space funeral again but slightly to the left. fuuuck" which is a pretty good problem to have i think.
anyway,
gadget: invention, travel, and adventure is an old point and click game i found a few years ago that struck me by just how unique feeling its atmosphere is. strange looking people turn to you and say even stranger sounding things, the soundtrack feels like its having a nervous breakdown, the main character is given so few meaningful decisions/actions (read: basically none) by the people around them that it can barely be considered a game at all…it is a very fascinating experience, and one that i think back to a lot
i like Your Turn To Die a lot and am very excited to see how it ends, though i feel like i don't have too much to say on it here. one of those games that has me going "oh man i should draw more fanart for that one of these days" every time i'm reminded of it only to then remember that i Can't Fucking Draw right now lmao
myhouse.wad is something that extremely deserves to go on this list but a large part of my brain is telling me not to just because somewhere along the line i fucked up and became allergic to anything that has ever recently become popular & trendy on youtube because i don't want to look like a poser even though literally no one but me cares about where i hear about these things so i can only bring myself to include it if i also state that i played it BEFORE it was cool &all the streamers started covering it like some kind of shameful hipster. but for real though its awesome, very inspiring stuff. i wish my brain did not force me to want to distance myself from it for literally no good reason. fucking ocarina of time is on this list why is this the thing that makes you afraid of looking like a normie
i have a lot of appreciation for myst in a kind of "i've never played more than 5 minutes of this nor have i even bothered to watch a playthrough of it but i understand what you have done for me and the games i love that came after you" kind of way. i have purchased 3 different copies of it over the years as well as a copy of riven and i don't intend on playing any of them anytime soon. great game, probably. i wouldn't know.
i like a lot of kitty horrorshow's games but i don't really know what my favorite would be. lethargy hill is probably the one i think about most often though.
i like (the steam version of) dwarf fortress a lot and have been trying to play it more often. it is very funny having 80 hours in a game and still not feeling like you understand half the mechanics in it. figuring it out as i go along has been fun though. in a similar vein i also like elden ring a lot and despite being at over 160 hours on that one i still haven't beaten it. i need to get back to it before the dlc comes out but i stopped playing for so long that most of my muscle memory is gone…
for something much more recent than all of the above, absolutely perfect specimen is something really incredible that gave me a lot of stuff to think about, though it can be a little hard to recommend since it's extremely 18+ and has a whole big list of content warnings you definitely need to take heed of. extremely interesting work though, i like it a lot.
i'm running out of things to list off and should probably stop just for the sake of time even if there is more shit that deserves mentioning so i'll just end it off with CLONE ON NET YAROZE BABYYYYYY LET'S FUCKIN GO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 💯💪🙌💥💯💯
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teruthecreator · 1 year ago
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As someone who started reading Side Quest based on the fanart I saw and was blissfully ignorant to most of the problems you pointed out, I just wanted to thank you for your post. The thing that stuck out to me while reading that fic was the entire Toichiro rewriting. Every interaction he had made me so angry while reading and looking back I think a big part of that has to do with how out of character he's been. I had been partway through chapter 11 when I stumbled upon your post and decided to finish it through that new perspective. Tbh, I don't even think I would have needed it to ask myself wtf was going on because once it hit Reigen encountering Toichiro in the tower Toichiro instantly starts calling Reigen a slut. This chapter was already kinda slow compared to the rest because it was just a retelling of what happens in the episodes, and what was interesting about this fic when I first read it was the new scenes that were added, but simply adding unnecessary comments to a known scene and focusing on how Reigen doesn't have sex and doesn't know where he got these accusations from was very off-putting.
As for everything else, aside from not having dealt with anything like that and not immediately noticing how things were worded, I want to say I likely chalked it up to plot. I think I read a lot of things passively just to see what people write about without thinking too much about how they're writing about it. And maybe that's a flaw on my end, just being bored and randomly throwing a dart on a dartboard to consume more media regardless of what it is (mostly, I do have limits).
But I do agree that the author should be more ridged with her tags. I've written fics before and I always try to include every little things I can think of in the tags, even if that might get me less views or "spoil the story" because I'd rather everyone know what they're getting into instead of them getting surprised by it. When I first started reading I was surprised to see that it was labeled "explicit" even though none of the tags clued me into why it was written like that, unless the grooming was more intense than what my baseline thoughts on grooming are, but if said grooming does lead to anything more then it should be tagged as such.
Another thing that has been bothering me about this has been the fact that since chapter 9, the author has mentioned that "there is a fairly explicit scene, marked by <3... it's not just porn... etc." I can somewhat understand not fully tagging an unfinished work, since in my experience I didn't think I'd post a second part to one or I started posting without having the entire story fully fleshed out so things take a different direction than what I originally expected, but I always go back and make sure the tags are fully updated every time I post. The fact that this was mentioned and then nothing in the tags were updated was kind of strange. I skimmed through chapter 12 since it was posted yesterday to see if this scene was finally going to be put it, and low and behold I did see the <3. There's something about continuously reminding people to watch out for the explicit sign each chapter and then it not appearing until 4 chapters later. What's the point of unnecessarily making your reader expect this to show up after every paragraph they read only for it to be 40k or however many words away. Personally, I'd understand warning of this the chapter before it happens and the chapter of (or, you know, in the tags as well), but that far away feels like you're trying to string the readers who want to get to that scene along and just scaring those who are ready to skip it. I haven't read it so I can't say what the scene is about and how fair this warning is, but again being surprised about the fact that this fic has an explicit scene somewhere is something readers shouldn't have to deal with if tagged properly.
This turned out to be a way bigger reply than I originally intended, but if you'd like a few more screenshots to add to your collection here's all of the out of pocket Toichiro replies:
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first off, you rlly don't need to thank me for that post, but i appreciate it anyway :-) its something thats been on my mind for a while, and with its rapid popularity i was simply confused how people weren't seeing what i was seeing. i do wanna say that nobody should feel bad/guilty for reading this or liking it without seeing the content i mentioned. as i mentioned at the end of that post, people's personal experiences will inform how they consume media and what blindspots they may have, and i'm certainly not here to judge anyone for that. i Am happy to hear that someone who had been reading the fic was able to hear my criticism and consume the fic in a new light, so thank You for sending this ask!
you brought up a topic that i wanted to touch on but didn't rlly have room on the other post, but yeah toichiro's characterization throughout this fic is strange and Extremely ooc. it feels like she was purposely building him up to be the worst character in the story--a true villain, as it were. which is funny bc mob psycho doesn't even have true villains bc the show is about second chances and connections and trying again. but with the racism, plus the eugenics/creepy remarks, plus the overtly sexual manipulation and grooming, she turned toichiro into a kind of cartoon caricature of a villain. which was wholly unnecessary and, in fact, creepy! and not funny! and strange!
but the thing that annoyed me more than that was how she tried to walk it back. there are several moments where toichiro is calling out to his ex-wife in his sleep, asking for forgiveness and shit. which, for one, would not have happened at this point in the story. it is very explicitly shown through wd arc that toichiro's First moment of realization is when he's down in that basement area with mob, when he flashes back to his ex wife leaving and suddenly realizes what he missed. toichiro before this moment was not thinking mournfully about his wife. he wasn't thinking about his wife At All. he pushed the memory of his family out to make way for his plan, something that then becomes a key point to him accepting help from other people! so like. there's that. but Also having toichiro have these quiet moments of vulnerability feels like the author's way of rolling back her own characterization, which just makes the whole thing messy and hard to read. from the way she's written him, toichiro is NOT a character people should be empathizing with. he is a groomer and a racist and a creep and all of that together is like. a recipe for someone who needs to just be shoved off the face of the planet. but she works in these moments of "humanity" to try and bring toichiro back to where he's at in canon, likely so she can write out some kind of silent redemption (or hint at redemption) like how canon does. but in this case that redemption would feel gross because she turned his character into something so statically evil that it feels impossible to forgive.
and yeah, those quotes are absolutely ridiculous. like they border on comedy, but really they just sound awful coming out of his mouth. i know this phrase has been used a million times over but HE WOULD NOT FUCKING SAY THAT!
also to talk on the topic of tags (which i do agree with you on), i do find it strange that she refused to put ANY tags on the fic with the proper warnings for explicit content, but seemingly had the time to make that reminder each and every chapter. because in reality she really only needed that warning on ONE chapter--the chapter that has the explicit scene! but i do agree that simply tagging it would save her readers the emotional labor of having to keep an eye out for a sex scene they might not be ready to deal with. especially with the content of some of these later chapters (the ones ive seen, anyway), having the looming threat of an explicit scene could make some readers uneasy!!! (im talking specifically abt the chapters where toichiro is making moves on serizawa in an effort to manipulate him. i understand the author did mention in an authors note that this wouldnt happen, but i'd also like to point out that she HID THIS PART OF THE AUTHORS NOTE. so you had to make the decision to "spoil" yourself just to see if someone was going to be sa'd or not. which i think is wrong; an author should always prioritize the safety and comfort of their readers above any potential "spoilers")
and to wrap up with one last thing, just a more general thought: i think there is a difference between content that includes dark topics in a thoughtful way and content that includes dark topics in an edgy way, and this fic definitely leans towards the latter. a lot of these outlandishly mature topics are treated like throwaway jokes or shock value items, which feels inappropriate when we are dealing with topics of such weight like racism, transphobia, child impregnation (again. What.), etc.. i am not trying to police people on what content they are or aren't allowed to talk about--i am saying that, if your story NEEDS to have this content in it (which i would argue that here it doesn't), then you need to treat it with the care it deserves to be treated with. if not for your own sake, then for the sake of your readers. at the end of the day, i just want people to be safe out there
thank you for sharing your thoughts with me, and thank you for being so respectful <3 have a wonderful day!
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mfpeace · 3 years ago
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@justbeingedgy @weird-colombian-gurl You asked me to elaborate on the "Ches already has a kid" theory in the notes of that one mf analysis post (which I really liked, go check it out!!), so that's why I'm making this one, cuz notes are a bit too restricting for what I want to talk about!
Though next time think twice before asking me to talk about something I'm interested in, because you never know when you're gonna wake up lovecraftian horrors!! :DDD you'll see what i mean when you press read more :))
So, I'll say it right now - this post is largely inspired by the second story highlight of this Instagram user (sorry, I don't know their name, only that their Instagram handle is dee_girl_metalfamilyfan), it's in Russian though, so keep that in mind
Alright, so I'll break this theory into two parts: the first one will be all about Ches, and the second will be about his potential child (spoiler: you might've seen her!)
Without any further ado, let's get to the Ches part:
1. The creators said that they're gonna explore Ches' character in the second season. Obviously, it doesn't mean anything on it's own, but just wait.
Dima: Let's talk about the second season a little. Of course, the seconds season will show development of the old characters, as well as new ones. That's in short. As you see, Ches looks a bit different here.
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Alina: Yeah, we'll show a bit more about Ches at the ages of 18 to 20. His past. We'll reveal a bit more about his complex character, as much as it's possible.
(The source of the translation) Also I think they also said at one point that adult Ches will get some character development too? But that's probably a given, considering that we wouldn't see his youth if it wouldn't have affected him in the present, flashbacks without any relevance to the overall story don't sound so good
2. Not sure about this one (we don't know how much in character it was) but I can't not mention it.
Alina: Actually there was this one fanfic that I really liked. I don’t remember what it was called, but it was about Ches having a daughter, which is a cool topic. It was relatively in character and truly interesting. It’s great when people focus not just on sexual relationships of the characters, but also try to look at their development. That was a really interesting one. That’s it.
(UnityCon '19)
3. This one's a pretty big one, in my opinion. So, this is what they said on ArtWave '19:
Dima: Ches also has flaws.
Alina: [to Dima] Don’t spoil stuff.
Dima: His flaw is that he's very... irresponsible, let’s say.
So, maybe, just maybe, Ches does have a child but he, you know... left them? As the Instagram highlight from the beginning say: "he might be irresponsible enough to leave his child, and he's probably irresponsible enough not to use any contraception" (rephrased, not the exact quote)
4. Alright, so, the only mention of this one I can think of right now is the aforementioned Instagram highlight. The Metalfamilyfan says:
I contacted Korg/Корж, (admin of @ metal_yama [and I believe one of the organizers of the Metal Family Meetup in Moscow]) and she asked Alina on one of the meetups: "if Ches were to be a father, what kind of father would he be?"
And she said: "The kind of that would say "kid, look at that birdie over there!" an then he would run away"
Someone's words are not the perfect source, but they did tag Metal Yama and from what I know they didn't disagree with what the author of the page said. if anyone has anything to say about this (disprove or definitely prove what I said) feel free to do so in a reblog, notes, DMs, send me an anonymous ask, or in any other way you feel comfortable with
5. Ches has literally been through the same thing, and we know how important the theme of the cycle of abuse is in Metal Family (or, in this case, the cycle of neglect? Abandonment? Idk)
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You managed to hide your PREGNANCY from me! AND you've been hiding the child from me for a whole year!
YES, because you would've insisted on aborting him!
AND NOW I'M INSISTING ON PUTTING HIM UP FOR ADOPTION! OR I'LL LEAVE RIGHT NOW!
6. Here we can see Ches with a blonde girl. Nothing too special, probably just a one time hook up. He doesn't seem to be interested in her, and she seems to be annoyed with him.
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But wait...
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What is this?
Like, it doesn't even matter if there's actually a punk/rock/whatever band named MOM or not, I just think it's pretty weird to put it in this particular drawing of Ches and this random woman who is implied to have slept with him. It's not integral to Ches' character as, for example, Korol i Shut is. It's just... there. For some reason.
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Alright, now, finally let's get to the second part of the theory: who is, exactly, his child?
The short answer is, according to this theory, her:
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First, let me list every single instance of her appearing in canon (and by canon I mean everything made by the creators. Even with this definition of canon it's not much, I promise): The screenshot you can see above on the left (it's a screenshot from the second season and it appeared here), an instagram story posted by Alina (above, right), and two drawing with a lot of characters where you can spot the girl which I'm gonna call her PinkHair or PH for short, I'll mention them later I feel like I should mention this, comparing the sources of the images and the dates when they were posted, it's safe to assume that the screenshot in the classroom has the latest and final version of her design. The red hair most likely doesn't mean anything
1. Alright. So. we've seen Dee and PinkHair in a classroom together, so they're most likely related in some way, or at least they know each other. Their exact relationship doesn't matter here, because all that matters here is that they're related story-wise
Let's look at the first image. This is the banner of the main Metal Family channel. Ches is near Heavy (they get along quite well and I'm sure Heavy aspires to be like Ches in many ways), Dee (we can see his classmates/friends near him, they're all about his age), and we can see people related to Glam on the left side of the image (including Ches!), and Vicky's - on the right side (notice how the hell sign is also there)
Now, I'm not absolutely sure about this one, but it's still kind of weird - look at the image on the right (it's from ArtWave 2021 btw) - wouldn't it make more sense to put PinkHair near Dee? Also, Curiously enough, not only is she not close to Dee on this image, but she's also standing next to Ches.
Though this whole thing could be explained by art theory (too many small things in one corner of your drawing isn't great composition wise lol sorry PH) but I still can't quite skip this point
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2. Remember the "MOM" lady? Fun fact, she has the exact same pearl earring that PinkHair has on the screenshot.
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3. I'll put all similarities with her supposed parents in this point: Mother: * She's also pretty uh.. glam? for the lack of a better word? Or feminine in a traditional sense, yeah I think that's a better way to put it. Like colors they prefer to wear for example, and jewelry. Characters like that aren't common in Metal Family * She's gotta be a blonde. I can't imagine her being anything but blonde. If she manages to maintain that hair color as a brunette I'm just straight up assuming her character arc is gonna be killing God because these kind of people are capable of anything. I fear them with every fiber of my being. * I can't say for sure because of the shading, but it seems like they both have gray eyes, and she also has darker skin compared to most MF characters. Though, it's likely that Mom just applied a lot of fake tan Ches: * We know that Ches for sure has darker skin * AND grey eyes * There's also some possible personality similarities but I'm not sure if you can compare a child to a parent they've never really known in this way
That's about it, I suppose, I hope there isn't that many grammar mistakes and logically unfinished parts and whatnot in this post I forgot to edit lol x) I'm not sure how to end this post other than to remind you guys that almost all the points in this posts are inspired by the "тупая теория" highlight on the dee_girl_metalfamilyfan's Instagram page, so go check them out and subscribe, they post Dee x The Quest Girl fanart and and always credit the artists. Without them this post would be much, much shorter.
Thanks for reading this post, please feel free to let me know your thoughts on this post <3
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kageyahma-remade · 4 years ago
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Whisper of the Heart and Haikyuu!!, both being feel-good stories about personal growth with a foundation of interpersonal support and self-care, how very special places in my heart. Whisper of the Heart’s storyline of two people inspiring each other to pursue and improve in their crafts and Haikyuu!!’s focus on human connection and relationships, specifically revolving around Hinata and Kageyama’s relationship, led me to realize that there are A LOT of parallels between Shizuku & Hinata, and Seiji & Kageyama.
Shizuku and Hinata are the protagonists of their respective stories and therefore undergo the most growth. Shizuku sets a goal for herself to finish her novel by the time Seiji returns from Italy, and Hinata aspires to be good enough to beat Kageyama, the “King of the Court”, declaring that even if it takes ten or twenty years, he will do it.
Seiji is very good at making violins and has high aspirations that will take him elsewhere on the globe to improve. Kageyama is hailed as being a prodigy setter and has a strong drive to become the best there is. (I think the moment these parallels clicked for me was when I realized that their aspirations brought the both of them to Italy: Seiji to be an apprentice violin maker in Cremona, Kageyama playing for Ali Roma). They have worked hard for what they love and their goals have been set for a long time, in contrast to Shizuku and Hinata. Shizuku and Hinata acknowledge they need to catch up; Shizuku says “it must be nice to know what you want to do with your life. Me, I just go from one day to the next” and Hinata, having started playing volleyball later than Kageyama (and playing in a proper team even later), learns along the way what he wants to do and HOW best to do it
Seiji and Kageyama start farther ahead in their personal progress but give Shizuku and Hinata the inspiration and the means to start theirs. They create a place for them to use their talents -- Kageyama using his precise setting to make use of Hinata’s incredible speed/jump height/overall natural athleticism, Seiji being a part of Shizuku’s connection to Baron and part of her inspiration to write. They open up their viewpoints to a world they could have never seen without them.
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And these relationships spark passion and drive and inspiration between every individual. Kageyama makes Hinata promise that he will meet him at the world stage one day. Long before Shizuku even noticed him, Seiji admired her talents and checked out dozens of library books hoping she would see his name on the cards. They excel on their own but with Shizuku and Hinata there, they can become even greater.
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These relationships are about having someone around who makes you want to be better, who makes you want to dig deep and learn about yourself and go through the hard work of improving without the glamour and glory. I got into it briefly with this post but there’s a whole lot more i want to talk about (especially after seeing this beautiful piece of fanart by hazwqste !)
i got carried away and this got super long so i’ll be going into this in more depth (and including haikyuu manga spoilers!) under the cut:
First of all, they meet and get off on the wrong foot, and don’t get along very well.
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They get to know each other and are soon able to fully express themselves around each other and allow each other to excel at what they love. Seiji shows Shizuku Baron’s eyes twinkling in the light and the violin he made, Shizuku excitedly tells him about things feeling like they came from magic or a storybook and even sings the lyrics she wrote when Seiji plays Take Me Home, Country Roads on the violin. Hinata and Kageyama have a love for volleyball in common and once they figure out how to put their skills and abilities together to make their freak quick attack work, they practically glow with excitement and become almost inseparable. 
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An event separating these two pairs act as catalysts to their growth (Seiji to Italy and Kageyama to the week-long All-Japan Youth Camp in Tokyo), because Shizuku and Hinata realize how far behind they are and how much they have to work to catch up. They even have similar running sequences that express their fear of being left behind.
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Shizuku and Hinata both express the desire throughout their stories to be at an equal level to Seiji and Kageyama. Shizuku tells Yuko, “He wants to find out if he’s talented enough. Well, so will I! ... if he can do it, so can I!”.
One example of this with Hinata is that he wishes to complete the new quick attack during the Tokyo training camp arc so he and Kageyama could be on equal footing: during the Inter-high preliminaries, Hinata an Kageyama’s freak quick attack was something that was uniquely theirs, but it was something that Kageyama controlled. Heck, even Coach Washijo tells Hinata, “Without Kageyama as your setter, I can’t say I see any worth in you.” Hinata expresses a desire to evolve, to be able to pick his shots and stop closing his eyes, to learn from the best in the prefecture and work on everything he needs to improve on.
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Shizuku and Hinata set off to go on journeys of their own to improve: Shizuku writing her novel with only Yuko and Nishi knowing, and Hinata in the ball boy arc and Brazil arc. They work hard, but realistically go through periods of doubt.
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Here I noticed even more parallels between Shizuku and Hinata: Shizuku ends up skipping dinner, staying up late, and letting her grades slip while she works on her novel. Hinata has a history of not taking the best care of his body -- he practices all the time and needs to be reminded to take a break. He doesn’t start fully paying attention to the food that he’s nourishing himself with until he’s denied food at the Miyagi select rookie training camp. And he has a bad habit of not changing out of sweaty clothing and not wearing a jacket when he should, which leads to -- you know.
They feel discouraged and alone and end up thinking about Seiji and Kageyama’s hard work.
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But they learn the importance of balance and self-care and soon feel okay again with wonderful scenes where a mentor figure brings them food to comfort them.
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Most of Whisper of the Heart and Haikyuu!! are told from Shizuku’s and Hinata’s perspectives. However, the inspiration taken from Seiji and Kageyama does not go unreciprocated. In fact, even before they met, it’s like Seiji and Kageyama had been waiting for Shizuku and Hinata. Kageyama’s grandfather tells him at a young age that if he gets really good, someone even better will come find him. And it’s not until he gets to high school that Hinata tells him, “I’m here!”. It’s not until 6 years after that that Hinata is able to match/surpass his skill level and they have their fateful rematch to decide who will stay on the court the longest. Seiji hopes Shizuku will notice him a long time before they properly meet, and he waits right by Shizuku’s window right when he returns from Italy. They work hard because of Shizuku and Hinata, too. It’s almost like fate brought them together and keeps them together even when they’re apart.
For as long as they have known each other, these relationships have made them want to work hard in their respective crafts and really think about how to best nurture their growth -- whether the reasons are to become the best of the best, to beat the other at the world stage, to prove their worth in something they choose to pursue, or to follow their aspirations to the other side of the world
until finally,
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they meet each other again
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after a period of being apart,
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ceaselessly waiting for each other and inspiring each other
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and becoming better people because of it.
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floraone · 4 years ago
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So tamagooo posted this fucking spectacular Mamoru fanart yesterday that included Mamoru in scrubs with a bunny mug that reads "usa" AND IT OWNS MY HEART NOW.
ANYWAY my friends made a prompt out of it in their prompt-challenge and this is unbeta-ed and not all that creative but here you go this is what I wrote for it:
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When Rina first started her residency at Juuban General Hospital, she hadn't much taken note of many of the other residents. Most residents here came from Keio, she and a handful of others came from Waseda, and she'd learned along the way that college boys were super annoying and super not her thing most of the time and really didn't bother.
While she had worked her ass off in medical school, had worked so hard in the first place to even GET into medical school and pass the rigged higher bar in place to keep many women out, she'd been so deeply disappointed at the way so many guys in her classes were just... not. She had excelled at every step of the way and pushed at sexist walls that were made of steel. And yet, Waseda had been full of stuck up rich boys that slacked off and gotten where she'd fought so hard to be, and then felt scared of a woman who knew as much as they did or, god forbid, more.
It had been infuriating, and it had made Rina not want to date again.
So when she'd seen Chiba Mamoru drive into work in a flashy red foreign Alfa Romero two weeks into their residency, out of breath and with his hair terribly disheveled as he rushed through the door just barely in time, she'd rolled her eyes and thought she knew all there was to know about him.
It wasn't until rounds half a year later that her view of him fundamentally changed.
Rina hated rounds. Not because she didn't know every answer the chief of medicine ever asked, but because he never asked her.
Usually, when the Waseda boys around her wouldn't know an answer, they'd try to talk their way out, say some very vague and always-accurate non-answer to save face and the Chief of Medicine would press his lips together and yet let it go.
And so Chiba Mamoru's reaction surprised her so hard she almost physically recoiled.
"I don't know," he'd answered easily, confidently. And if that hadn't been shocking enough, he kept talking. "But I am sure Sato-san will know the answer, why don't you ask her?"
Her eyes blew so wide she lost control over her facial muscles when, for the first time, the Chief of Medicine's eyes landed on her, and only after his searching gaze had roamed over the faces of quite a number of boys - boys who were all silently looking at her, too. (And...didn't the Chief of Medicine even know her name?!)
She was so shocked it took her a moment to speak, and when she looked back at Chiba, his eyes were growing alarmed too, as if he suddenly got worried he'd accidently thrown her under the bus and not helped her after all, and that reaction was all the confirmation she needed.
Chiba Mamoru was helping her. He had been confident she knew this difficult answer.
"The lack of joint inflammation and abatement of both digital and abdominal pain in the patient speaks for a misdiagnosis. I suggest testing for fibromyalgia instead," she shot out once she finally got her bearings.
The room was completely silent after that.
But of course she was right. And she could answer every last follow-up question, even when he made it harder and harder, and the Chief of Medicine, in the end, looked impressed.
"Sato Rina, yes?" he asked to confirm, leafing through his charts.
He definitely knew her name after that.
And the way Chiba Mamoru smiled smugly afterwards - not at her, but at the Chief of Medicine - left her even more perplexed than she'd already been.
It didn't let her go.
"Why'd you do it?" She asked him hours later when she found him in the break room, pulling a mug from the little compartment that read 'Chiba' and pouring his coffee.
He didn't react to her informal address, only to the sheer puzzlement in her words, and shrugged.
"You remind me of a friend of mine. She's a Todai med student.  She's as brilliant as you," he said easily, and lifted his mug to his mouth. It was pink. There was a bunny on it, and the word 'Usa', and yet he'd clearly marked it as his in a way no one else here marked their things. It steamed.
"I think you both fight the same battles sometimes," he said with a kind expression, and Rina tried to collect her jaw from the floor.
She really couldn't believe herself when her mouth opened and she started to dig for information before her brain had the decency to consent to it.
"A friend...?" she asked, and then immediately blushed in a way she had not blushed since middle school.
But he didn't even notice. He just looked at his girly mug fondly and then he beamed.
His smile turned brilliant. Blinding. "One of my very best ones, yes."
He exuded a level of sheer happiness that was quite frankly almost overwhelming.
It only came to her later that night, as she walked home exhausted in her blue scrubs completely wrinkled, that it had been the first answer in six months of daily rounds he hadn't known to answer correctly.
And she'd watched him, then.
He was impeccably friendly and polite, and yet he seemed to slip through the seams of conversation among the staff most of the time. But he didn't seem to mind at all. He kept to himself, and yet he did not seem lonely in the least.
He was terribly good with kids. He knelt down to their level and smiled that blinding smile. He had a Sailor Moon key chain. Sometimes, there were roses on his socks. And every day he would over-use that pink mug as if he didn't get enough sleep, and clutch at it throughout the day when it got long and tiresome.
It were small glimpses that were so endearing it puckered in her chest.
Until one day she had a patient with the most curious hairstyle and a smile even brighter and more trusting than that of Chiba Mamoru. Even when she was bleeding and in visible pain.
Tsukino Usagi.
Chiba Mamoru was one big breathless and disheveled mess when he burst through the door where he wasn't supposed to be, completely out of it.
His hands were trembling in a way she'd never seen anyone tremble and yet still talk through it somewhat calmly when he begged her to be careful with this particular patient, and told her with shining, trusting eyes that flitted so very uncharacterically agitated around the room that he wouldn't trust anyone with her but Rina.
It was a few months later that Rina had started dating again. Chiba Mamoru had proven to her that there were other boys out there than the Waseda boys she knew.
There were those that weren't scared of a woman with a brain, those that drank coffee out of pink cups with their girlfriend's name on it, and who lost all countenance when this girlfriend was in pain.
She wanted one of those.
---
Anyway I think a Mamoru who met Tsukino Usagi when he was 17 and grew the rest of the way up with her would be a quietly happy person in the long run. She brought out all the good parts. Happy good parts people would be drawn to that are there because of her.
Also I really like all those Asanuma-like situations where an outsider is looking at our babies and slowly starts to get why they're the OTP🤷‍♀️
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thethirteenthcrow · 4 years ago
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The Shyan Shipping Society Writing Challenge ✍️💕
Hello dear shippers! 
My name’s Zhalia, a fanfic writer on archive of our own. you might know me from my stripper!Ryan au, or the cinderella au or from the many comments i leave on your amazing works.
Since October, i’ve been hosting very lowkey writing challenges on the Shyan Shipping Society Discord server. and i figured, i’d let good ol’ tumblr get a piece of it!
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this is a fun lil' challenge to practice your writing with random prompts!
(shout out to @helloitsvehere​ for making the amazing header here and sorry to keep bugging you on it but it looks really amazing now darling <3)
✨RULES✨
✧ the challenge is held at monthly, we don't want to pressure anyone too much and we want to give you enough time to work! on top of that, the minimum amount of words for this challenge is 50, which is a very low bar, it's no school, this is for fun!! also don't worry if you miss a month.
✧ from the day we set the prompt, you have one month to meet the challenge. with this, we request a chapter or a start. if a prompt inspires u to write more than a oneshot or one chapter, feel free to expand as much as you can outside the challenge! everyone is requested to post their submissions on the same day (so say we start at october 1st, then you're only allowed to submit your submissions on october 31st, no sooner). We then hope to announce the new prompt on, for example, november 1st to continue the cycle, but it may differ at times.
✧ There are no specifications to your writing. you may write however you like, a story, a description, a poem, anything is allowed. you're free to write in any rating, be it G or E-rated. we prefer M/E of course, cause we're thirsty like that. if you’re an artist, you’re free to join too! more elaboration in the FAQ below :D.
✧ if you have ideas for prompts, please DM me on Discord or mail me on [email protected] ! i love to hear em <3 (keep reading for more information on the challenge)
i can’t wait to see all your lovely works! i’m really stoked to see and chat with you and learn all that’s going around in your wonderful minds.
much love, 
Zhalia💖
✨FAQ✨
o   What is the Shyan Shipping Society (Server)?
The shipping society is a discord server owned by @bradpistachio​ where a bunch of shippers gather to chat about anything: their lives; the boys; other fanworks like fanfics and fanart; annoying antis; we have a writing lab to talk about your own works, and much more! The server is filled with amazing artists like madamecrimson, @helloitsvehere​, @pizzacastella​, sonzaishinai and many more. The server is an active and welcoming community. In the server, I also roll out the updates for this challenge and answer all your questions. Will we see you there?
o   Do i need to join the server to post?
It's not required! The server is a lil' bonus, a place where you can talk with fellow shippers about anything, but also where i will be reminding you of the challenge. We have handful of channels dedicated to this writing challenge, so it might help you out. It's also easier for me to follow, and whenever you have questions i will reply faster there than anywhere else. But, again, it's not necessary.
o   If i join the challenge once, am i required to join every month?
Most definitely not! You're free to join and leave whenever you want. Sometimes a prompt doesn't inspire you, or life dragged you away from writing and that's completely valid! This challenge is supposed to be a fun way to motivate you to express yoursef through your art, but it's not school so don't ever feel pressured :).
o   What tags do i include, what are the ratings we work in?
There are no required ratings and/or tags for you to use. In general, the prompts are all focused on Shyan, but if you'd like to add Standrew as a background relationship, feel free!! If the prompt is Watcher-oriented, but you feel like you need a bit of that spice that Curly brings with him, i encourage you! On top of that, you're free to choose whichever ratings you feel fit best. Personally, i mostly live off of M- and E-rated fics, but if you're uncomfortable with graphic descriptions of anything, and would rather keep it a fluffy G-rated fic, then knock yourself out! I believe you know what's best for your work!
On the shipping server, the prompt will have a set of recommended tags, these are ideas i'd write the prompt in, but they aren't mandatory. If it says 'friends to lovers' but you'd rather write 'established relationship' then feel free! It's your work after all.
o   Is there a minimum and/or maximum word count?
There is a minimum word count of 50 words right now, to show that you're seriously participating (i mean, wouldn't want "he smiled, they kissed, they fucked, the end" as a fic, right?). Your work does not have to be finished in order to fulfill the prompt, you can write one chapter, or one paragraph and edit it later when you have more time. If a prompt inspires you enough to write a long fic about it, don't feel pressured to finish it within a month! Take your time!! All we ask is for you to have written a start, and post that to the collection.
o   i am no writer, but i’d love to make art for this in another way, is that possible?
Of course! originally the challenge was only made for writers, because the server was filled with a majority of writers. however, over the past few weeks we’ve had a handful of artists join our little community as well, people like sonza and @berakangkang​. Sonza has blessed us by filling the October prompt as well, so if you’re an artist and you’d like to participate, please join! we love love love your art. honestly. the server goes wild on fanart. 
o   When do i post my submission?
Everyone who joins the challenge, posts their submission on the same day. This is the last 48 hours of a month - CET timezone. The next prompt will have been rolled out a day before we open submissions, so you can get familiar with it for a day or two before starting on it.
o   I don't think i'll reach the deadline, now what?
You can contact me privately about this through our discord server - for fast replies - or via my email ([email protected]). I will open the collection for you so you can submit it later. Keep an eye on the deadline though, a challenge won't be reopened a month after the deadline.
o   I have an amazing idea for a prompt, where do i submit it?
On the discord server, we have a channel named 'prompts-and-ideas' where some of these prompts even came from, you can submit them there and @ me so i'd know it's for the writing challenge.
If you don't have discord or don't want to join the server, you're free to mail me your idea with Shyan Shipping Society Prompt Idea as subject! I look forward to your ideas!
here’s the link to the parent collection on Archive Of Our Own, where you can always find the new prompts for the next months, and where you can post your work once i open the collection.
i can’t wait to see your works! i’m very excited to see what you all can come up with <3
ps,
this is the first time i host a writing challenge like this. i’m still learning my way around ao3′s function to make prompt meme challenges, and there may always be little bugs in the system, because i have but a small brain. i rely on carl-bot to remind me to post and open submissions and everything, to keep it running smoothly. i am trying my very best to make this fun for everyone. also i crave feedback, so if you have any comments, complaints, ideas, critique, please hit me up!!
oh and yeah i am very inactive on the tumblrs because i don’t uh catch the vibe of this platform but i’m trying. i’m trying. 👉👈
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obsidian-aurora · 4 years ago
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As I’m about to dive into the events of 227 in my fanfic, I thought now is a good moment to take some time to reflect on the past year.
Words:  1,086,764
Chapters:  131/?
Comments:  2206
Kudos:  4065
Bookmarks:  350
Hits:  161449
If you can believe it, I started writing this fic almost a year ago now.  I’ve written the equivalent of a novel a month this whole year! Nuts. I watched The Untamed for the first time over a year ago.  My soul was captured by the light that I saw in Xiao Zhan’s and Yibo’s eyes when they looked at each other. And I haven’t stopped believing in the power of love since then.
Sounds corny?  Yeah, kind of is.
It’s hard to imagine that when I started writing this fic, the Special Edition hadn’t come out yet.  There was only the official BTS on the Tencent channel to watch - as well as a pile of interviews and fanmeetings.  There were no secret Discord groups, I didn’t even have a Twitter account.  I had this old blog of mine on Tumblr and an old AO3 account that I dusted off to start writing some fanfiction again.
Did you know I’m a self-published author?  Oh yeah, for years I wrote nothing but my own novels.  You can check them out here at lillybirdsong.com
I thought to myself, I’ll just write a short fanfic over the course of December.  I’ll publish it in January and rid my system of this bug I’ve got and then move on.  Now, a year later and I still can’t stop writing about these boys.  What is it?  It’s all about love.  It’s about the belief that against all odds, whether it’s living in a society that doesn’t support LGBT individuals, whether it’s struggling with management companies that don’t support you in your own careers, against all odds Love Wins™.
Or does it?
I’m about to embark on writing the 227 part of the fanfiction and I thought it was really important for me to remind everyone that what I’m writing here is not a bible, it’s not a biography, it’s a piece of fiction that’s my own personal interpretation of what might have happened.  I’m saying this because it’s soul-crushing to imagine what might have taken place behind closed doors, the conversations that would have happened, the thoughts that would have spun out of control.
I mean, I just remember my own journey.  Some of which is documented right here on Tumblr.  I wrote one of my first artist blogs when I hit 50 chapters on Yizhan in early Feb.  I wrote a post when Xiao Zhan fans first started calling out AO3 for hosting inflammatory material. I wrote a post when I considered whether this fic should be abandoned. I wrote a post when Coronavirus brought me back home on a plane way earlier than expected.  I wrote a post in April when I completed 80 chapters, and at the end of May when I completed 100 chapters.
I’ve gone a bit dark on Tumblr since I moved to Twitter where there’s a lot more BJYX interaction going on, but Twitter is not a good place for a long post so I’m once again spilling my thoughts here on Tumblr.
Writing about 227
As I start to write about this, I’m going to pick and choose which rumours I will write into the story and which I’ll discard.  Because let’s get real - there are a lot of rumours out there, and no one except those people intimately involved will know the truth of the matter.  I do choose to believe some of the malicious rumours.  And so I will include some of them.
Don’t start a war in my comments section. I beg you.  I’ll just have to end up moderating my comments which I never wanted to do.
Disagreements within the fandom
I’ve noticed more and more “extreme” behaviour within the BJYX fandom.  I feel like ever since the “secret” BTS (which are mostly the same as what we saw in the official BTS just longer cuts) have whipped turtles up into a frenzy! And when someone has a different opinion or when someone likes to spout theories about what their small interactions might mean in the context of the bigger picture, that can cause harm.
So I’m saying right now - everyone’s entitled to their own points of view. No one knows the truth but the ones involved.
Don’t bring your disagreements to my fic.
Respect in public spaces
I have also stated this on Twitter but I want to put my 2 cents here as well.  I’ve also been uncomfortable lately with the amount of public discourse about body parts, about sex positions, really really intimate things. If you want to write fanfics or draw fanart to explore these interpretations, I say go for it! That’s appropriate because it’s within the realm of fantasy. But when it comes down to really speculating about what’s going on in the private lives of these two men we love so much, I personally would rather those conversations be relegated to private spaces - Discord, WhatsApp.  Not Twitter and Tumblr. So you’ll notice that I’ve unfollowed and even blocked some accounts recently that cross a line I’m not comfortable with.
When I do that, it’s not about you, it’s not a personal attack. That’s just me not being comfortable with the content that’s being created in the space it’s being distributed. If you want to chat with me about it, I’m very open to having that discussion in DM. I’ve been called a hypocrite for my views given that my story is an explicit one, but in my mind there’s a clear distinction between me publishing a story on AO3 and people discussing their real private lives in public spaces like Twitter.  That’s just my point of view and I mean no offence to those that feel the opposite.
As usual, I always have my finger on the trigger to take Yizhan down the moment it causes harm to the boys in question.
Other interesting things I’ve done lately:
I’ve been publishing some Fanart.  (See the pic at the end of this post as an example). Follow me on Twitter @ObsidianAurora to get the latest as I usually post things first there. I’ll try to remember to post things here as well.
I started a YouTube Channel. It’s called Queer Stories and it’s my space to talk about all things queer - video games, TV shows, and yeah sometimes even how harmful it can be to assume you know someone’s gender identity, whether they’re feminine or masculine, and that this has nothing to do with a person’s sexuality. This video I made in the context of BJYX/LSFY/ZSWW and Yizhan.
I opened a Patreon account since some people wanted to know how to support me. I have been jobless since our visual effects studio closed down in May and I’m starting up a new job again next week (finally!) but if you want to contribute for the work I’m doing this would be the way.
Be Kind.
I’ve rambled on for quite a bit now so let me end it here. Let me just say please be kind. Be kind to each other. Be kind to those who disagree with you. When you’re tempted to lash out, consider the other person’s point of view first.
Remember that what started this was love. Not hate. Don’t give in to the temptation to participate in fanwars. Remember the love.
Thanks for listening to my Ted Talk.
~Obsidian Aurora~
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zukoshotleafjuice · 4 years ago
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The funniest thing about june teasing katara and zuko about being a couple is that she just sees a pretty girl and an attractive guy, both looking almost the same age which immediately makes her go "you two must be a couple" and it just reminds me of zvtara shippers, you know what i mean? I'm convinced one of the reasons a lot of ppl ship them is bc of their looks. katara being the female protagonist and also a pretty, smart and powerful girl & zuko, despite not being the male protagonist, being the most attractive guy in the gaang. Boom, a "bomb ass ship". It is worth to recall that "people ship zutara bc they projected onto katara and had a crush on zuko". And if they say they don't ship them for that reason, then it's bc they read too much between the lines in every interaction they have. So, back to june, she didn't even care if they had chemistry or if they were friends or anything, she just straight up teased them about being a couple lmao. Because in all honesty zvtara can be an appealing ship in anyone's eyes but THAT'S IT, it doesn't go further than that. I can be testimony of that😅Before even watching the show i was like june, one day i saw a zk fanart and was like "wow aren't those zuko and katara from atla? They look so good, she's gorgeous and he's hot" i already knew kataang was endgame and that mai was zuko's love interest but seeing zuko and katara together was pleasing to my eyes. However once i watched the show for the first time (2 months ago i think) i realized there was really no romantic chemistry between them, nothing, literally nothing, i mean, i wasn't even waiting for the zvtara content in the show that made ppl ship them so much, i was actually very neutral about ships, i couldn't care less about them, but i still realized nothing was happenig between them and that it was obvious since book 1 ep 1 that kataang was endgame. Zuko and katara were two teenagers from opposite sides of a war that tried to kill each other multiple times and when zuko changed sides they developed a completely platonic relationship. As i said, people either ship them because it's an appealing and aesthetically pleasing ship (water/fire, enemies to lovers, opposites attract, the common red & blue ship) or they just love reading too much between the lines, OR BOTH, because they were so thirsty about it they ended up convincing themselves there was romantic tension between them, that they liked each other and that zvtara was scrapped when it was never planned in the first place. Not to mention the reasons why they claim zvtara should've been endgame are based only on symbolism and things they have in common that are just so ??? Random. e.g. (i saw these on a post on facebook and the comment section was hilarious, it was full of ppl being sarcastic about it & making fun of it) saying they should've been canon bc:
1. "They both lost their mothers at a young age" (?)
2. "katara was good but had rage in her heart and zuko was bad but had good in his heart so it was like yin and yang, and that was the main purpose/topic of the show" (?)
3. "they both had alter egos (painted lady and blue spirit)" (???) this one sounds like saying maiko was canon bc zuko worked in a tea shop and mai worked in a flower shop😂
4. "Zuko was the only one who supported katara in taking revenge on her mom's assassin" (?) if you ask me, that just proves zuko is not right for katara, he led her to do something she was gonna regret later (not trying to hate on zuko, i love him, and since i love him i acknowledge his flaws. I understand why he thought it was the best thing to do, he's an impulsive and resentful boy (he would've done the same if it was his mom) and he noticed how thirsty katara was for revenge, ofc he wanted to help her + he wanted her to accept him and thought it was the right thing to do in order to gain her trust, but it wasn't) unlike zuko, aang tried to make katara come to her senses and do the thing that was best for her: forgive and let go, and it was basically what she did at the end. She didn't do what zuko expected her to do. She did what aang expected her to do. She didn't forgive her mom's assassin, but she forgave zuko, and she didn't do THAT thing she (and aang) knew would regret later. Aang knew katara and what was the best thing for her to do.
5. and the most ridiculous one, "they both saved each other's lives in the final agni kai"(???????) and the funniest part is that it was followed by "WHAT MORE PROOFS DO YOU WANT???". Honestly wtf did ppl expect? Did they expect zuko to stand there and watch katara die? Did they expect katara to just stand there and watch zuko lay on the floor & die? And this has been said a million times and i am going to join and say it once again: zuko would've done that for ANYONE from the gaang, he would've done the same for toph, sokka, suki and aang. Because he learned to care about them. As for katara, she would've done that for anyone too wtf she healed aang once too and even brought him back to life. (I wouldn't be surprised if zk shippers used that as a parallel for romantic zvtara proof bc they're just like that💀)
There were more "reasons" but they're just so stupid and taken out of context like "they care for each other" & "katara was the one who encouraged him to talk to his uncle" like yeah that's what friends do. Basically all zvtara shippers do is REACH.
Also, i just can't see it happening. I like the enemies to lovers trope, maybe if the writers really intended to make it canon, i would have been down for the ship, it would've been interesting to see how it developed, but,, they didn't, and later i came to the realization that if it would've really happened, it would've been so... weird. Time to bring up the "colonized and colonizer ship" and how some ppl feel uncomfortable about it. Besides the fact that a relationship between zuko and katara wouldn't have worked (they're incompatible af, katara is a girl with a strong character and zuko is a guy with anger issues that takes everything personal, they'd be at each other's throats 99% of the time) it's just weird to think that katara would choose to marry a man from the fire nation, the nation that caused a big war that traumatized her, the nation that took her mother away from her. Imagine katara ruling along with zuko a nation she despised for years. Fire lady katara doesn't sit right with me, and i'm sure it doesn't sit right with a lot of ppl as well. I don't see katara doing that, and yes, i know she forgave zuko, but still, she would've never done that 🤦🏽‍♀️ i think it would've been so OOC tbh.
Another thing i laugh my ass off at is when they say "zuko should've chosen katara instead of mai" as if they were ever in a relationship for zuko to say "ok imma choose katara i wanna be with her". As if katara was EVER an option for him. They never showed interest in each other, what's not clicking?????? And zuko only had eyes for mai, not to mention that despite zuko and mai had a rough relationship, no girl would've dealed with zuko's bs better than mai. Can you imagine katara dealing with zuko blowing up over everything? Because i can't. Also people saying things like "zuko deserves someone who is always there for him and listens to him" (and ofc they're talking about katara) like, ok, you hate that katara is aang's "therapist" but you want her to be zuko's therapist. Logic? Where? And I do remember mai being a supportive gf and trying to cheer him up multiple times. Did they watch the same show as me?
Zvtarians try to play the victims about how they were "robbed" bc some voice actors shipped them and from what i've read people who worked for the show suggested to go for zk, but that's stupid, it doesn't count as "they planned it but scrapped it, we were robbed". The only word that counts are the creators' voice and they have stated they were always rooting for kataang, so no, you were not robbed.
People are just so in love with the idea of zuko and katara together they really convinced themselves it was likely to happen. Honestly zvtara it's a fine ship as fanon but ppl ruined it for me and what i hate the most is when they ship it and hate on aang and mai at the same time and make them look SO bad to invalidate kataang and maiko. Saying aang is abusive and mai is toxic is complete ✨bullshit✨ and lastly, it's ridiculous when they say the creators were cowards for not making it canon. They're cowards for not fulfilling your greatest childhood wish? Something they never planned? It is THEIR show. If you hate sm how things turned out then quit atla once and for all and go find another show that you know is gonna give you what you expect,,, it's tiring that they've been crying about it for 15 yrs , like, i joined the fandom recently but i can imagine how tired old atla fans must be of this.
OK so I have a lot of thoughts about this and firstly,,,anon I appreciate the dedication that it took for you to write  this, and I agree with many of your points. However, the attitude I have on this blog towards Avatar ships is far more neutral than what you’re saying.
Ultimately, romance is not and never was the focus of Avatar. Romantic development was always secondary or tertiary plot, and the entire show was far more focused on platonic relationship development. My attitude towards shippers on here - including Zutara shippers - is that people can ship what they want, as long as they’re respectful of each other and of the other characters that “interfere” with their ship. End of the day, shipping is irrelevant to the core of the show. 
People shipping something because they find it aesthetically appealing is honestly,,,fine. Personally, I think it’s reductionist, but I don’t care if you do because everyone has the right to enjoy media however they want to. 
That being said, we absolutely should call out racist or problematic tropes that we see, including ‘fire lady katara”. I also agree that it’s upsetting when people bash other characters in order to further their ship, as much of the bashing is also pretty racist and/or misogynistic. Calling that out, however, is separate from calling out every single person who happens to enjoy certain ships. 
“She didn't do what zuko expected her to do. She did what aang expected her to do. She didn't forgive her mom's assassin, but she forgave zuko, and she didn't do THAT thing she (and aang) knew would regret later. Aang knew katara and what was the best thing for her to do.”
I understand where you’re coming from, but I honestly disagree with this take. Both Aang and Zuko were approaching the situations from their own life experiences, but Katara didn’t do what either of the boys wanted. She chose her own path, by both sparing Yon Rha’s life but also refusing to forgive him. The episode is about Katara and her personal trauma and its focus should not be on her relationships with either Zuko or Aang. 
When I make posts such as this, it’s less about hating Z*tara and more about how this fandom focuses all its attention on romance and shipping, to the point where if you acknowledge a relationship’s importance it’s assumed you pair the two romantically. I don’t read Zuko and Katara’s relationship as romantic (for reasons that it would take too long to explain here), but their relationship development is extremely important, the two of them share tons of parallels and the final Agni Kai marks the culmination of both of their character arcs. Yes, Zuko would have taken the lightning for any of the characters, but it’s thematically important that it was Katara. None of this inherently means it’s romantic, but refusing to acknowledge the significance of the relationship between them is equally reductionist. 
This isn’t an attack on you, anon, and you’re 100% allowed to have negative feelings about a ship. But at the end of the day, it’s not worth getting this worked up over. If I were you I’d focus more on creating/consuming content for a ship you like than bashing ships you don’t!
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theresa-of-liechtenstein · 4 years ago
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an art by em year in review!
2020 was frankly awful but, on the bright side, this has still been a year of firsts: the first year i’ve consistently done art, the first year i actually intentionally explored different art “styles” (frankly i’m still hesitant to call them styles, if only because nothing’s changed except the way i outline and color), and the year i bothered to figure out autodesk sketchbook
some unsolicited commentary below the cut
january: i’m amazed that’s theresa like GIRL u are unrecognizable. so blessed that she moved past her fiona from shrek phase ❤️ i still like the tiara though that took ages for me to do
february: ah yes, the meme picture of the 13th doctor and sacha dhawan master that made me slightly famous on twitter (we don’t talk abt it.) it’s still funny but the inconsistency in line thickness is. oof. i’m glad i caught that later on
march aka when it all went down: first lineless art! barbara is so cool like wtf,,, i remember not touching the first doctor’s run initially bc one of my friends back in c*tholic sch**l had something against him (i literally don’t even remember what at this point) so naturally, not having had access to streaming services at the time, i thought he must not be too good but then i watched it during the phase of the pandemic where everything seemed like an early spring break and barbara reminded me of my favorite english teacher so i—this isn’t even about the art at this point wtf. anyway this took me a long time and really helped me understand layers let’s move on
april: another lineless! this time theresa! the jewelry is literally the same as january’s portrait lol but i switched the dress. i don’t know why but i’ve always gravitated to having her wear blue green. i’m trying to break out of it though. anyway i thought she looked too orange but i had already finished so there wasn’t much i could do about it, but looking back it doesn’t look so bad. only thing i’d fix is that i can’t see her nose if i squint (same issue with many of my other lineless drawings, so i should really get on that)
may: oooo hello aileen, otherwise known as the politiciansona! (god i’m never typing that again) tbh i think this ones a step back from the progress i made in march and april with regard to lineless art, and it shows; after this i started gravitating toward line art again
june: you can see that here! i tested out two new brushes and decided to ditch the realism bent i was treading towards, and i still think it’s really cute! ALSO apparently i didn’t realize eyelid creases were a thing til this month,,, no wonder everyone used to say all the people i drew “looked asian” they just all had monolids apparently
july: the infamous hawaiian shirts cp fanart. i was supposed to color in carolyn’s sunglasses but by the time i noticed i had forgotten to do it, the post had blown up so...i just didn’t fix it. anyway that’s the most people i’ve drawn at once and it was a labor of love
august: here we see the proto-notions of cp characters being filipino in my head, starting surprisingly with herc. my reason being him saying “what a ridiculous dog” about snoopadoop in ottery when he and carolyn meet up. like no “hello, how are you, are you doing well?” he just goes straight to calling snoopadoop ridiculous. that’s got the most filipino vibes. this was verified by my dad
september: ah yes, the politicansona again. i included this one bc i liked the detail work i had put in on the robes,, no i won’t provide context i’ll just say that was for practice,,yes just for practice,,stinky bitch fuck ofF
october: i really liked this picture when i drew it and i even put it as a widget on my phone screen but honestly i’ve fallen out of love with it,,, there’s a lot that just looks awkward. looking back i think this is the point where i realized it may be time for a redesign (reconceptualization? is that even a word????) of the cp fam
november: my first work with my new tablet! otherwise known as theresa doesn’t know how to cook (may be projection idk). anyway it was good practice for expressions. yes that’s a ratio test behind her, because i thought it provided maximum comedic value and also i loved that part of single variable calculus
december: i think this is the best thing i’ve drawn this year. and since this year is the best i’ve been yet, this drawing is probably the best i’ve done so far, ever. i returned roaring to my lineless art and improved my coloring by using references instead of the preset colors in the app. like those are better skin colors. so much better. it makes me choked up a little, because that’s what my skin looks like. that’s MY skin color. i used to be so ashamed of being darker and loved winter bc i looked more light skinned in winter but now i’m so proud to be morena, even when my fam in the philippines are shocked that i’m not pale and skinny like american actresses (i’m not joking my father’s godmother literally said “why,,, are you dark” and i was like “....sun.”) and drawing barong tagalog is so special to me because all the representation we get are crumbs. CRUMBS. if we see someone who looks vaguely southeast asian, let alone wearing a translucent shirt, we go WILD. so this is also one of the most self-indulgent things i’ve ever drawn because i drew carolyn like family. THAT’S MY MATERNAL GRANDMOTHER’S FILIPINIANA. THAT’S MY PATERNAL GRANDMOTHER’S HAIRSTYLE. i never met my paternal grandmother and everyone tells me i look like her. so filipino carolyn looks a lot like her, and also maybe me. and it means so much and hfhrheheuejeh this was going somewhere but uuuuhhhhhh i’m crying looking at my own art it feels so silly but here i am!!! i love being filipino!!! i love cabin pressure!!! i love herc and carolyn!!! filipino herc and carolyn loving each other!!! yeah!!!
happy new year. here’s to getting out of one dumpster fire and being told to put out another. stay safe, happy, and healthy. and let’s do this with love.
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khrrarepairweek · 5 years ago
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Frequently Asked Questions
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I’m curious, what is this week all about?
KHR Rarepair Week is a fanweek dedicated to the many rare ships of our beloved manga/anime series, Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
Awesome! So what exactly do I have to do?
Anything you can think of! As long as it is your original work, it will be gladly accepted.
Do you like writing? Fanfiction is the air we breathe!
You’re savvy with editing? Gifs/graphics are a delight.
You’re an amazing artist? Fanart is our lifeblood!
Perhaps you have a lot of ideas, or maybe a list of songs that remind you of a certain rare pair? Headcanons and fanmixes or AMV’s are always welcome! So are songs, cosplay, moodboards and any kind of other fanworks!
Again, as long as it is original (not reposted… that’s a no-no, tsk tsk), then anything under the sun is possible.
However, if a certain post happened to inspire you, then we say go for it! Just remember to credit the original poster, and please do make sure that the inspired work is an original one as well.
Alright, let’s do this! *has completely no idea what to do/is overwhelmed with a lot of ideas* Uhmm, help?
Fear not, dear one! We try to provide a list of prompts that might help guide your creativity. .
Next to that, if you have no idea what pairing to write for, we have a list of suggestions right here: x  (Please note: this list was compiled in 2018, please cross-reference this with our list of the current top 10 AO3 pairings before starting to write. The top ten changes from time to time).
Remember: The prompts are just your guides, and doesn’t have to be followed to a T. If you’re inspired by something else, then go for it! Everything is also subject to your own interpretation, so have fun playing with them.
Aw, bummer. I don’t think I’ll be able to do all of them. Is it alright if I skip a day or just choose a particular day?
It is most certainly alright! Don’t worry, it’s a lot of days and a lot of prompts too! No need to feel pressured.
Just Keep Calm and Rarepair On!
(Alternately) I want to do all of them, but I won’t be able to post it on the day itself! Can I submit/post it beforehand?
As much as possible, we are encouraging creators to post on the day of the given prompt, in their most convenient time. Also, Tumblr has this nifty little thing called ‘queue’, which lets you schedule a post, so you might want to consider that option. But, if both are not feasible, then please tell us so, and we’ll make accommodations. However, please know that we will post it on the day the chosen prompt was scheduled.
But I love both of the prompts! Can I submit more than one work a day?
Of course! The more KHR rarepair content, the better! Just make sure to label/tag/link properly so we’re not reblogging duplicates. We suggest including the prompt used in the body of the post, so we can also identify where it’s supposed to go in the blog’s tagging system. Feel free to do multiple pieces for one day/prompt!
Are NSFW entries allowed?
We accept NSFW submissions, but as we want to make this blog and this week accessible to all parties, we won’t directly be reblogging these submissions. Instead, we’ll post a list of all NSFW submissions made to each prompt at the end of the day. You are, of course, strongly urged to post your work to the AO3 collection, regardless of whether or not your works are SFW.
Please make it a point to label/tag NSFW and trigger-warnings appropriately.
(This is to ensure that no one accesses NSFW content without knowing exactly what they’re walking into. Or accidentally reads any work with content that could potentially trigger/upset them.)
I have my own blog though. Can’t I just post it there?
It’s your work, so of course you can post it there, silly goose! Then we are going to reblog it from there.
The purpose of this blog is just to collate all the works, so fans would have a go-to place if they want to see/check out the works again.
Basically, this blog exists for archiving and posterity’s sake.
*squints eyes* Are you sure you’re going to reblog it?
We will, promise. Scout’s Honor! We have to ask you to follow the tagging guidelines properly though.
Our tracked tag is #khrrarepairweek2020 (or, in case of a mini-event, the appropriate mini-event tag mentioned on the prompt post), so please make sure that they are within the first five tags of your work.
You may also link the blog directly, in the body of your post.
But, should it happen that we missed your post for some reasons, then feel free to send us a message, and maybe a link so we can reblog it.
But what about me? I’m too shy to post it in my own blog (>_<) Can I submit directly here instead?
Sure! The submission box is open just for that. :)
This is all so interesting, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to fully participate, but I really do support your cause. What can I do to help?
Thank you for the interest! Reblogging the announcement post whenever you come across it would be very helpful in spreading the word and recruiting more people to join our cause. Please help us signal boost as much as you can!
What counts as a rarepair?
As we only accept rare pairings, it’s logical this would come up! Our definition of rare pairing is as follows: any pairing not in the top ten pairings on AO3. That means we do not accept entries with these pairings:
Gokudera Hayato/Yamamoto Takeshi
Reborn/Sawada Tsunayoshi
Superbi Squalo/Xanxus
Hibari Kyouya/Sawada Tsunayoshi
Gokudera Hayato/Sawada Tsunayoshi
Dino/Hibari Kyouya
Hibari Kyouya/Rokudou Mukuro
Sawada Tsunayoshi/Xanxus
Rokudou Mukuro/Sawada Tsunayoshi
Reborn & Sawada Tsunayoshi
Everything else, however, is fair game.
Do threesomes count or are you just accepting "pair" pairs?
Threesomes are fine and so is poly and/or harem!
I was just wondering for this rare pair does it have to be romantic ships or can it be like platonic ships as well?
We accept all kinds of ships for this event, including platonic and aromantic! The content we’re attempting to generate aims at fics that have interaction between characters who don’t always interact with each other, so all kinds of interaction are lovely. How explicit, inexplicit, ship-py or not you want to make this interaction is up to you.
If I already have a work in progress, can I add it to the collection regardless of how long I posted it on AO3? Or does it have to be a brand new work for the rarepair week?
This is a perfectly valid question, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to say no. Mostly because, while we’d love to have your work, this week was started because all of us wanted to generate more content for rare pairs in the fandom. Meaning linking works that have already been posted or are WIPs defeats the purpose.
However, we’re happy to have offshoots of a previously published work, or a WIP! Meaning, if you’d like to write and submit a separate one-shot set in the same ‘verse as your WIP for the week, we’d be glad to have it.
I’m writing fic for my entries, are there any word count restrictions? 
No, entries can be however long you want. You could have a multi-chaptered fic, or write one-shots, whatever you like! The goal of the KHR rarepair week is creating more content, so don’t feel the need to set the bar high if you don’t feel like it! A 100-word drabble? More than enough if that’s what you want to do!
On the Topic of OC Ships In the 2018 event, we allowed Canon Character/OC ships. At the time, there was no definite conclusion that us mods could come to so we decided to allow OC ships and would revisit it at a later time. We mods have finally come to answer.
We have chosen to define the following:
Rarepair – a pairing between canonical characters that is not popular.
Popular – in the top ten relationship tags on archiveofourown.org
Canonical Characters – a character we know at least the following 1) their name, 2) their appearance 3) the tiniest bits of personality and ideally 4) history. A loose rule of thumb: Can you google them and find canonical information? If yes, then you’re good.
Based on the definitions above, we regret to say that OC Ships are not allowed. And as always, crossover ships are allowed. (Crossover characters fit our canonical character definition, despite them not being from KHR)
We hope you’ve learned enough about the event! If you still have questions, just hit the ask box and we’ll get back to you as soon as the mods are able! :)
We would like to thank the lovely mods of @kurodai-week​ for allowing us to use their FAQ as a base!
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tomiyeee · 5 years ago
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finished the story quests for bl3 (but barely any of the side missions yet) and i got...Opinions(tm)
(sorry if this doesn’t cut on mobile! also if you want to hide spoilers i’m tagging all my bl3 posts as “bl3 spoilers” so ny’all can blacklist it)
in no particular order:
i honestly wanted to give gearbox some slack and try my best to like this game bc i know people had probably unfairly high expectations for this game given all the build up, but they really just kept letting me down in everything but the graphics
said this before but overall, the characters are all Quite lackluster
^^ tyreen and troy included. adding the word "bitch" to every sentence does not automatically make it funnier
that being said, i super love their backstory + relationship with typhon/nekofeyo-whatever
the character designs are equally boring. moxxi was the only one who got a real improvement imo. lilith and maya are okay. rhys...i dont think i have to explain. lia...i dislike her hair; the black felt like it balanced out her design better and the white streak was interesting and cool but full white just looks bad tbh. zer0 feels less sleek and more bulky which doesnt fit him much. tina lost her pretty color palette and cute outfit. where are all the bright pretty color palettes in general???? there are other colors besides brown and black???? use them?????
ending of pre-sequel: “you will need all the vault hunters you can get” me: “ooh does that mean all the vh’s from previous games are back? i can’t wait to see everyone meet each other! :D” bl3: only nine of them come back, 3 of them die, the rest are involved in maybe one mission at most
boss fights. super. boring. and tedious. i mean this could be partly because i was playing on ps4 which made it extra not fun but if the only reason the fight is difficult is because they have a lot of health...it's not fun or challenging. i want fights like handsome jack with interesting mechanics. i want fights like angel with emotional impact. i want fights like the pre-sequel final boss that i forgot the name of with variation that isnt just "now they have an attack that shines bright lights in ur eyes, covers the whole arena, and can knock you down in one hit im looking at you traunt and killavolt". tyreens fight was the only one that i somewhat enjoyed because of this. all the others were just like "ughhhh again?"
im really enjoying melee amara playstyle. taking out badass enemies in four hits is my jam. this is just my fallout 4 playthrough all over again babey heck yea
typhon just wanted to be a good dad!!! he called tyreen starlight which is adorable!!! he did the best he could and tyreen hated him for it!!! i don’t blame either of them for that tbh, it makes sense from both their perspectives. tyreen definitely should have been more understanding, but she’s a dick so :/ (not saying this is a writing flaw, just a character flaw)
hammerlock needs higher standards in men but i really appreciate the undeniably in-your-face "fuck you" to all gamer dudes
i really. hate. how little the player character seems to matter in the story. in pre-sequel the vh's all had unique dialogue AND npcs would respond, sometimes even with character-specific lines. even when it was the same across vh's, it still felt like the npcs were interacting and speaking directly to them. the player character felt like a character of their own, rather than just a vessel for the player to do quests and kill enemies with or an errand runner for the important characters. i thought that was the direction they were going in with bl3 too but this just feels like bl2 only worse. there’s a separation again between you and the story and it feels like you’re just watching things happen. now ur not just a silent protagonist, but instead your a speaking protagonist who gets completely ignored. whats the point of including unique dialogue if it's not even acknowledged beyond an "uh-huh, moving on"?
sometimes the logic just feels kinda dumb. the twins killed/disabled maya and lilith in a heartbeat, they can literally disintegrate the most powerful beings in the universe, but the vault hunters? absolutely not. they must fight them for 40 minutes and then die.
after the fight with troy, no one even touched tyreen. there's no way they could have thought "yup she's definitely dead, no need to shoot her in the head or anything just to make sure. we didn't do anything to even hurt her, we just assumed." turns out she's 100% alive and gets up to start the apocalypse. who'da thunk! i know they wanted the end to seem more dramatic but it just seems stupid that they could have stopped tyreen like 5 missions earlier had they even the slightest bit of common sense.
lilith was one of the biggest threats to tyreen and troy's whole plan. of course they should leave her alive and simply steal her powers. let's kill the monk siren instead.
i know they didn't include this to give all players a fair experience instead of favoring sirens, but it kinda sucks playing a siren character and it's just completely ignored outside of ur action skill. tyreen and troy are sapping siren powers left and right, but they choose to leave you with yours. when you enter the eridian place with typhon tannis starts glowing because it has "something to do with sirens". what about the one standing right next to her? this applies to bl2 as well...jack i would willingly charge ur vault key for u pls why do u take lilith instead :'(
oh yeah speaking of tannis! i LOVE that she got angels powers. for some reason it just makes me really happy. maybe it's bc i think it's sweet that part of angel survived. maybe it's because it makes for cool fanart. maybe it's just cool. idk. also like that we got a solid explanation of what angel's powers were (influence over technology). i always thought her having control over it in bl2 might've been cuz it was hyperion tech and she had access to it same as she had access to the satellite from bl1. it wasn't super clear since it seemed like she could also materialize things like the ammo during her fight.
that also reminds me: all the dramatic reveals in this game felt kinda badly done.
the very first one with zer0/katagawa. like the whole time i was walking around looking for him i was trying to think why he might've turned/something must have happened to him or rhys. everyone was saying it was undeniably zer0. i finally meet him and take one look at his bright ass maliwan armor and its like. really. you couldnt have made it anymore obvious that thats not zer0. and then his helmet gets knocked off and surprise! it's not him. i totally didnt already figure that out with one glance 10 seconds ago. (maybe even earlier when you got glimpses of him around the building but i always missed it cuz i was looking at the fish tanks n shit)
also the tannis reveal. she was speaking to me in the same way that only known siren characters could. weird unexplained things were happening and seemed to be related to tannis. i wonder if she's a siren? surprise! she's a siren.
tyreen and troy knew about the great vault through some unknown means. typhon was talking about having a son and a daughter who he told stories about the great vault. typhon calls tyreen his daughter a while later and lilith acts surprised like honey ur a little slow, i figured that out several lines ago.
basically i'm not saying they were so obvious that i knew from the beginning of the game; i only figured them out a little before they were outright stated. but it was enough that it kinda ruined the effect and the characters acting surprised only when it was blatantly spelled out for them just made it annoying.
i feel like most of this is pretty negative, but i don’t mean that i hate the game and was miserable playing it. it was honestly okay...like i said i wanted to like it, but gearbox hates me specifically and killed/ruined all my faves just to spite me sooo...*waves hand back and forth in a sort of “ehhh” gesture*. i think my opinion on bl games from most to least fav would be: tftbl, bltps, bl2, bl3, and bl1. so it’s not the worst, but deeefinitely not one of my faves. i mean jack’s not in it (or if he is he doesn’t have a big role) so it’s already at a huge disadvantage. the ending was ok, it was all dramatic n stuff and it kinda makes sense i guess, but it was just about as okay as the rest of the game really. i don’t hate it but it’s not great either yknow?
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aelaer · 5 years ago
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Whumptober 31: Embrace
And somehow I've completed every prompt for @whumptober2019 with this final one here. Even more crazy, I basically completed NaNoWriMo with this series, only, you know, in October. The Google Doc all my fics live in for this series is at 51,299 words with the following fic's completion. Considering I was absolutely not attempting the challenge when I started this, I'm counting that as a complete NaNoWriMo, even if it does include a lot of the author's notes in that word count. Doesn't matter, it's still my writing!
So thank you very much to the mods for putting this together, because I would have never come up with all of these stories (which includes three series) otherwise.
I'll have the full list linked on my "bingo list" post, and the works have been slowly going up on AO3 for easier reading (and AO3 is only about a week behind at this point) - all the links will come probably in the next week or so. I'll reblog it when it's ready.
This one is the last one in the "demon" series within these prompt fills. If someone told me on the 2nd that my experimentation in first person would lead to this I wouldn't have believed them because I wouldn't have thought I was crazy enough to do every prompt while working a full time job on the freaking fly. *shakes head*
The series: Part One: 20 - Trembling Part Two: 22 - Alt 6 - Lost Part Three: 25 - Humiliation Part Four: 29 - Numb (and fanart(!!!!!) from dragonnan here, tw blood/wounds)
31. Embrace
Christine looked up at the Sanctum doors with a soft frown. Out of all the times she had been to Stephen's weird new home, this was the first time she could remember that she was coming without an advance notice of any sort.
The thing was, though, that after that… that thing (she really didn't like to think about it too much) over three months ago, Stephen had been acting odd. And even if they didn't tend to see each other more than once a month (and sometimes not even that), they kept in touch fairly consistently through texts. She knew he used her as a bit of a remaining connection to the so-called real world and she was happy to provide it. Besides, it was fun to share hospital gossip with him.
But for a while he had been very limited in his conversation until he stopped replying entirely two weeks ago. She texted Wong to see if he was especially busy "being a superhero" but he assured her that it's been relatively quiet since "the demon issue" (ugh, she really didn't want to think about it).
So here she was, come to figure out why the hell he was suddenly ghosting her.
After a moment of hesitation, Christine ascended the two steps up to the doors and firmly knocked upon them. After waiting for thirty seconds with no response, she bit her bottom lip and looked at her purse; maybe she should text someone, see if anyone was available—
Suddenly, the door opened… but she couldn't see anyone on the other side of it.
Magic house, right, she thought dryly as she stepped in. She knew a little bit of the weirdness that encompassed Stephen's new home, but generally speaking the building had acted like a proper, regular building every time she visited (and, to her own credit, she never went into any of the rooms that Stephen told her to leave alone. That made perfect sense to her, but apparently not everyone had her common sense, at least according to Wong).
Long story short, this was different.
"Uh, hello?" she called out into the empty foyer. "Stephen? Wong? … anyone?"
Yeah, it was completely empty. This was… this was definitely unusual.
Still, she had been at his house— the so-called Sanctum— enough times to remember where Stephen's study and the library were, so she decided to search those two rooms. Since the house had let her in, she figured she was more than welcome to.
If she wasn't, well, she'd blame the magic house.
She ventured first towards the library, careful not to touch anything sitting on the shelves or hanging on the walls. Even with her familiarity with the Sanctum, many of the items in the building's collection continued to look rather otherworldly or just felt outright wrong to her.
(Christine had learned early on, maybe her second or third time within the Sanctum, that they had a surprising amount of dangerous things on display for aesthetic purposes. At her remark about that, Stephen had pointed out that they didn't exactly have any children within the Sanctum to worry about. Wong later said that having magical items on display was a fantastic litmus test to weed out any really idiotic and self-destructive novices and apprentices, though that the test had somehow failed with Stephen. Stephen had flipped the bird at that remark, but she had seen it was in good nature, and it definitely made her happy to see the somewhat reclusive man making friends with his new cult.)
The library doors were closed. She knocked, then tried the handle; it opened and she peeked into a library that still looked like it was stuck somewhere in the nineteenth century. It was completely empty.
Now that she thought about it, it was a little weird she had yet to run into anyone. While Stephen's new home was rather empty the first few months he was there, it did not become uncommon to see the occasional passerby, though only a few people stopped to talk with her when she was with Stephen. When she really thought about it, she couldn't actually remember the last time she hadn't seen other people in the Sanctum.
Weird.
Christine shut the library doors again and started towards Stephen's study. It was closer to his bedroom (which she only knew because she came over to bring him soup when he had to cancel a meetup because he was sick, thank you very much), so she went up a level and headed there.
Stephen's study door was closed, too. She knocked and heard some sort of noise just beyond the door. Christine waited, but when nothing happened, she knocked again. "Stephen? It's me. Can I come in?"
Silence. She frowned and tried the door, but it didn't budge. "C'mon, Stephen. Even if you don't want to see me, at least reply to me." Even though she tried to pretend to be genuinely unbothered, the silent treatment did sting. He was meant to be a friend, after all.
The knob on the door jiggled and it opened, but all she saw in the small gap was shades of red. Why was the Cloak opening the door? Was Stephen hurt? At that alarming thought, Christine pushed the door fully open, the Cloak sweeping aside to give her full access of the room.
Stephen was… Stephen was sitting in the air, meditating, it looked like. Her shoulders relaxed when she saw he was okay, but her lips began to downturn as she stepped a bit closer. There were dark shadows under his eyes and it appeared like he had lost a bit of weight. Didn't Wong say that things were currently calm and uneventful? At the moment, Stephen looked something like he did after the alien invasion in 2012, only somehow worse. (She had, of course, seen even worse than this, but she refused to think back on the months after the accident. He was a different man, a much different man now.)
Christine took a couple steps back so she didn't startle him when he came back from wherever he went to when he was meditating. "Is he okay?" she whispered to the Cloak. It still astounded her how communicative the fabric could be.
And she really didn't like how it down-turned to bow its collar, only to end up shrugging its shoulders in a gesture that spoke of uncertainty. Her frown deepened and she went back to watching him and, finally accepting that he might take a while, asked the Cloak, "Are there any books here in English that are safe for me to read?" The Cloak tapped at several options, and she picked one at random to read.
It turned out it was about souls, of all things. She had keyed in that they were very much real things after… after everything that happened with the world in the last few years, but beyond that she only had a vague grasp of what it was, or what she thought it was, from the occasional visit to church as a kid.
The first five pages of the book were both incredibly dry and fascinating at the same time. It reminded her of many medical textbooks; no wonder Stephen was so good at this magic stuff, if this was the tone of the material in all his books. Christine settled down into a rather plush loveseat and got comfortable; her record for waiting on Stephen to "come back" was forty-five minutes, and during that wait Wong had proved to be surprisingly entertaining, funny, and kind. If anything, getting to know him better had made Christine feel a lot better about Stephen's very strange (hah) new role in life.
This time it was just after twenty minutes when she heard Stephen say in clear confusion, "Christine?"
She looked up from the book; he was now standing and his expression matched his tone. She offered a smile. "Oh, there you are."
"What are you doing here?"
If she didn't know him better, she might have been a bit miffed by that greeting. However, she did know him, knew him very well, and he sounded honestly puzzled. Still, she was more than happy to respond to bluntness with bluntness. "I came here to see why you're ghosting me."
Stephen looked startled by the accusation. "I'm not ghosting you— or certainly not intentionally. I've been too busy to check on my phone in a couple weeks."
"No, you haven't," Christine countered, and her comment surprised him so much that she was able to continue without interruption. "I asked Wong if things were busy and if you all were overworked with your jobs. He told me it's been so quiet that he finally got to catch up on the last two seasons of 90 Day Fiance and the newest season of Botched, and I still can't believe he enjoys trash TV so much."
He blinked and shook his head. "I knew you two talked sometimes, but— but that's not the point." He walked over to his desk; the Cloak followed him halfway before stopping in the middle of the room, and turned from him to her, and then back to him. He rounded the desk and flipped through several pieces of paper, looking them over as he said, "It's been quiet, yes, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been busy. There is always work to be done and I just don't have time for other things."
She narrowed her eyes at him and placed the book down before standing. The Cloak was again facing her as she took a couple steps forward. "Other things like the occasional break? Talking with friends? Sleeping?"
Stephen narrowed his eyes at her. "I've been sleeping just fine, thank you."
"Stephen, I can see the dark circles around your eyes from here. You're not hiding it from anyone."
He blinked and quickly strode over to a small mirror on the wall, back to her. "Fuck," he muttered under his breath, but it was quiet enough in the room to hear. When he turned back around, the bags were completely gone and he looked fully refreshed.
Christine gaped. "You're using magic to hide your exhaustion? I can't believe you!" Actually, on second thought, she could very, very much believe he would do something like this. As one of his friends, he drove her absolutely insane sometimes.
"I do what I must," he retorted. "I am still relatively new to my position and there is entirely too much to do and learn, and I cannot show any faltering to the students of Kamar-Taj."
"What about your peers?" she retorted right back. "What about Wong or, or any of the others, these Masters? Does anyone know what you actually look like or what you're putting yourself through?"
"There is no need for them to," Stephen answered, lips pressed into a thin line. "Now if you'll excuse me, I do have work I need to do, as enjoyable as this little conversation has been."
Christine recognized that biting sarcasm a mile away. She pulled out her phone and looked for Wong in her contacts.
"What are you doing?" Now he sounded alarmed.
"Telling Wong that you need a damn babysitter," she snapped.
She managed to type a couple words of her text before she heard sparks and then a golden rope wrapped around her right wrist. It didn't hurt, but its sudden appearance caused Christine to drop her phone in surprise. Her eyes shot up at Stephen, who looked just as shocked as her by its presence in his hand. A beat later and the magic rope was gone and Stephen was stumbling backwards, clear horror in his eyes.
Okay, that was… not good he did it in the first place, but clearly he realized that and looked on the verge of panic. She pushed the issue to the side to talk about later and instead addressed what was in front of her right at this moment. "Hey, hey," she said slowly, calmly. She left her phone on the floor and took two slow steps forward. "It's okay, Stephen. You didn't hurt me. Not even a mark, see?" She lifted her wrist to show him. "It's alright."
"That was not alright," he said. He made it to the back wall and leaned heavily against it. "That was not alright at all."
"I am not angry at you," she answered slowly in a slow, calm voice. "Everything is okay."
"No it's not," he gasped, as if struggling for air. He slid down the wall until he was sitting, and Christine finished crossing the distance between them to sit a few feet away. He stared off for a moment, then met her eyes. "I could've hurt you."
"You didn't," she reminded him.
He shook his head. "But I— Christine, this is why we can't— I can't see you anymore. I only bring danger whether it's through my own actions or due to who I am."
"You are not completely yourself right now," she reminded him gently. "You're clearly exhausted, and even then you caught your temper immediately. That's a vast improvement from a few years ago." He snorted in self-derision, and she pressed on. "As for who you are, I've known for years that there might be risks. I'm okay with that."
"I'm not," he whispered.
She offered him a small smile. "You don't get to decide who wants to be your friend, Stephen. And I know you and your level of stubbornness, but you know I can be just as stubborn if I want to be. And you're worth the effort."
He closed his eyes and shuddered. "I'm not so sure I am."
"You are," she retorted a bit more strongly. Lips downturned in thought, she considered his words. "Is this about that… that demon thing that happened three months ago?" Come to think of it, that did about match the timing when he started seeming a bit off, at least in texting habits.
Stephen pressed his lips together. "That should have never happened. I failed to place basic protection about you and it was a gross oversight on my part."
"Congratulations, you're human," Christine deadpanned, then softened it with a small smile and added, "no matter how much you'd like to think otherwise." He took another shuddering breath and leaned his head back against the wall. In the corner of her eye she saw the Cloak hovering, as if anxious. And she definitely understood that feeling.
But this, this was a start. "Stephen," she said softly, "I think it's time you told us what exactly happened after you got me back home." He stilled, and she couldn't quite read him, but she said, "Please, Stephen. Let your friends back in." She reached out and laid a hand on his calf.
Again he shuddered and, after a moment, he slowly nodded. She gave him a small, encouraging smile before offering her hand. He took it and together they got back up on their feet.
She led him to the loveseat and had him sit down. She sat beside him and asked, "Is it okay if I have Wong join us? Or will that be too hard?"
Stephen closed his eyes and again pressed his lips together, but a moment later responded, "You can call him. He probably deserves an explanation as well."
Christine gently squeezed his forearm, then stood up and went for her dropped phone. She abandoned the text and tried calling Wong instead.
He picked up on the third ring. "Christine," he said in greeting. He didn't sound surprised (she wasn't sure if he ever allowed himself to sound surprised), but she'd like to think that he at least knew she wasn't calling for no good reason. They texted, not called. That was what they did.
"Hey Wong, are you busy?"
"Not with anything I cannot finish later," he replied. "Do you need something?"
"Not me," she answered, walking back to Stephen. He had his head bowed. She placed a supportive hand on his shoulder. "It's Stephen. He could use another friend here, if you don't mind."
A pause that, again, she couldn't read. "Certainly," he answered. "Where are you?"
"In his study. And um, if it wouldn't be too much to ask, could you make that tea of yours?" He made really good tea.
"I can," he answered, and with that he hung up. Succinct, as always.
"He'll probably be here as soon as the tea's ready," she said as she sat back down beside him. "I like his tea."
Stephen slowly nodded. "It's very good tea," he muttered.
Christine peered at his face. "Are you going to wear the mask around him?" she asked.
He exhaled, long and slow. "Not much point if we're having this conversation, is there?"
"It's okay to be human, Stephen."
He shot her a grim smile, and slowly the mask that covered his exhausted face dissipated. The Cloak closed the distance it had to the couch and hovered at Stephen's side.
A couple minutes later, a portal opened straight from the kitchen and Wong floated a tea tray into the study before following it in. The golden sparks disappeared behind him and he turned to look at the two of them on the couch. He stared at Stephen for a moment, then exhaled. "I suspected something," he muttered, almost as if to himself. He let the tray settle on the table in front of the loveseat and summoned the chair from the corner of the room to sit across from it, and from them. Wong settled in the seat and poured out three mugs of tea, keeping Stephen's only partially full. He gave them both their cups wordlessly, then sat back and looked at Stephen with silent, but unjudging expectation.
The man in question huffed as he grabbed the mug and took a short sip. "Now all I need is a blanket to get real cozy," he muttered.
The Cloak, in turn, twisted its way between Stephen's arms and legs and settled across both his and Christine's laps.
She laughed softly at his slight frown at the garment and patted the red fabric on her lap. "Good Cloak."
They fell into a patient silence after that, both Christine and Wong quietly drinking their tea as Stephen gathered his words. She could see his struggle in his small microexpressions that she had only learned after knowing him so well after so many years. Wong, she suspected, could read him nearly as well, if not equally.
Eventually he cleared his throat and began to speak. "In return for Christine to get back safely to Earth, I agreed with the demon Mephisto to play games of his choosing for the next twenty-four hours…"
Christine listened in growing horror as he described each game, seeing how this creature had somehow known about Stephen's innate need to protect and rescue innocents and how he dangled souls that, no matter their decisions, he would certainly see as people taken advantage of in desperate, awful times. Throughout his recollection she occasionally looked at Wong; the man's expression was completely frozen in a soft frown. She had a feeling that it was a mechanism to keep the absolute horror off his face. Goodness knew that she was doing her best to appear supportive and sympathetic as opposed to absolutely horrified.
It only got more difficult as Stephen's account went on. By the time he finally got to where he was let go back to Earth with the six souls he managed to save, her free hand was gripping the Cloak so tightly that she felt that she might rip through it, were it not the Cloak.
"I've replayed those hours time and again in my head," he muttered as he stared down at his shaking hands; the quivering had incrementally increased throughout the tale. "All I can think about is all the ways I could have done more, done better, saved more innocents. It was only due to his whims that I was able to save any." 
"Oh, Stephen." She leaned towards him and, without asking for permission, engulfed him in a large hug. She felt the Cloak wrap around her side and she was sure it was pressing against Stephen on the other side.
She felt him let go for a moment and indulge in the embrace before pulling away, and she let go and gave him his space again. She watched him as he looked up to Wong, who had managed to keep his amazing poker face with only the slight frown throughout the conversation. "Wong," Stephen started, "I couldn't— I couldn't bear telling the other Masters about my failures in my first real test as Sorcerer Supreme. And I promise you, I've been doing everything in my power to bridge the gaps that remain in my knowledge and power so that I may be more capable in meeting such threats, whether I have the aid of the Vishanti or not."
Wong exhaled and clasped his hands together. "The experience you call a failure, Stephen, is what all of us consider a success," he started. Stephen immediately opened his mouth to argue, but Wong quickly said, "Let me finish, and try to listen to my words and not the doubt that plagues your mind as I speak." He leaned forward. "When you first left with the demon that refused to name itself, we thought it a lesser one that a sorcerer of your caliber could deal with, even on its own plane of existence. Any one of us present would have been able to, though it would not necessarily be easy. It was with that thought in mind that we left you with advice rather than protests, though Master Hamir was correct in his suspicions that the demon was unusually more powerful than those we've encountered in recent memory.
"I know you have been doing a lot of research on demonology, Stephen, and what information we have upon the greater demons known as the Hell-Lords. There is a reason that, despite thousands of years of collecting knowledge, what we know of them is so little. Hell-Lords are very powerful due to the number of souls they have attained over the uncounted millennia in which sentient, reasoning lifeforms have existed. They gather more souls to be ever the strongest, but they are not desperate for every sentient being they come across. Hell-Lords are unlike lesser demons in that they will kill if they don't think the person's soul is worth the effort."
Christine grabbed at the Cloak again and looked again to Stephen; he, in turn, was looking at her with a tight expression.
They both turned to Wong as the man continued, "Had we known this was one of the Hell-Lords, we would have done as much as we could to stop you, perhaps even by force— though I doubt that would have worked in our favour. So we would have seen you off and declared you dead, more than likely."
Stephen's brow furrowed. "Dead? Immediately? Why?"
"The last time a Sorcerer Supreme fought a Hell-Lord within their own domain and lived was the first one in Agamotto. The last time anyone encountered one was the Ancient One in Germany at the end of WWII. From what I understand there were three Hell-Lords present in the spring of 1945 in that country, but as they were upon Earth's plane, they were manageable. Facing one in its own dimension is unprecedented in modern history. That you were able to play its games with enough wit to not only survive, but to also bring back six souls that would have otherwise been lost, is a great victory."
Christine watched as Stephen's gaze fell to his hands, still trembling. "It did not feel like a victory," he mumbled. "Each test, each game I failed in some manner."
Wong shook his head. "Each test was specifically designed to take advantage of what Mephisto would consider your weaknesses, though I assure you your passion for the soul of the individual is considered one of your greatest strengths by all of us." Stephen lifted his head in surprise, but Wong continued on. "Consider this: if it had been Hamir in your place, one of his tests would have involved something that would give a person with two hands a distinct advantage. If it had been Minoru, you know there would have been something with spiders." Stephen's lips twitched upward, and Wong raised his brow pointedly. "The point, Stephen, is that this demon is known as a deceptive trickster. He twisted his so-called games to place you in the worst possible position and keep you in a position of doubt."
"Out of all of this, what I do find concerning," Wong admitted, "is that he knew you so well. It is possible that he has been watching you for some time."
Stephen's brow furrowed. "Why would he do that?"
"It is hard to say," he answered. "Demons are soulless creatures with no concept of time beyond the souls which they trick and enslave. It is thought that some have some greater perception of the wider multiverse and their realities; it is possible that Mephisto has some small knowledge from that."
Christine did not like where this conversation was going, and there was still one rather important thing to address at that time. "I think what you should get out of this, Stephen," she started, "is that you are most certainly not a failure. You can't be so hard on yourself."
He gave her an imploring look, as if willing her to understand him. "I have a great responsibility to this world and I cannot—"
"No, she's completely right," Wong interrupted. "Kamar-Taj calls for devotion wholly to defending reality, but you can't do that if you're half-dead from exhaustion."
"I'm not—"
"You wouldn't be using glamour if it wasn't an issue," Wong pointed out, and Stephen had nothing to retort to that. "And," he added, "the occasional lunch or ice cream break is not only permitted, but encouraged to retain one's sanity and reminder as to why we do what we do."
Stephen gave him a long look. "Are you saying you do it for ice cream?"
"And so that reality TV may flourish unhindered," Wong replied, and Christine quickly covered a surprised laugh. "If there are indeed areas you believe you may be lacking in knowledge, all the Masters will be more than willing to assist you, though I feel that you are equal if not more knowledgeable in most fields. But we can talk about that tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? Why tomorrow?"
"Because you look absolutely awful and clearly need to sleep for the next twenty-four hours," he retorted.
Stephen frowned. "I'm awake and functioning."
Christine wrinkled her nose. "Barely. Get some sleep!" 
The Cloak lifted itself off their laps and waited expectantly beside the study door, causing its keeper to make a face at it.
Wong stood up and walked over to him, offering him a hand. "Listen to your friends. We can discuss more details about what happened and where we need to go tomorrow, but for now, you need to rest. No matter what you have been telling yourself, you do deserve it."
He hesitated, but for only a couple seconds before taking Wong's proffered hand and letting his friend hoist him up. "Don't let me sleep too long," Stephen muttered.
"You're sleeping for the next week if you have to," Wong retorted.
"I can get some drugs that would do that," Christine quipped as she got to her feet.
"No need; we have spells that can do the same, but thank you for the offer all the same."
"You're both terrible," Stephen moaned as he trudged to the door. The Cloak fit itself snugly across his shoulders.
"You're welcome," she said in return, and he glanced at her with a soft, but very warm smile that still made her heart do things that it shouldn't do, all these years later. Damn that man. "I'll text you."
"You'll hear from me," he promised, and then he turned and let Wong and the Cloak usher him towards his bedroom for some much-needed sleep and, for the first time in a long time, a peaceful time of rest.
—————
(Anndddd the series is done! Wooow. Whoda thought this was going to be a thing, because I certainly didn't.
You can take the headcanon that Wong is an enthusiastic fan of trashy reality TV shows from my cold dead hands. Definitely inspired by my two co-workers I work with the most, though I have had the occasional reality TV show binge watch.)
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terato-onlyfangs · 5 years ago
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/Rules remake
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Hello, I'm Dusy, I am the person behind the Muse. I am 19, later to be 20!
This is a side blog, so I'll follow or like on my blog @the-goblincore.
I also have an art blog! @goblinsareus
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Please read my roles first, much appreciated if you do.
My muse, Emiel Regis is obviously over 18+ and possibly 500+ or 700+
I like to discuss the plot at times but I sometimes swing it.
And it's totally fine to send me starters.
I've only seen the Netflix series and played The Witcher 3. So I'm sticking to the blood and wine DLC.
Multiverses are fine!
Really not into rping NSFW. MAYBE I'll write NSFW headcanons but that's still on a thin string for me.
Please tell me if you have any rules and triggers. And tell me if I'm godmodding.
I prefer to see your rules first anyways.
Myself, I have a heavy fear of pregnancy and childbirth.
And I do not put up with rape, slurs, suicide, and underage sex.
I'm okay with gore and violence, alcohol consumption, cursing, mentions of abuse, and angst.
And I'll tag trigger warnings. I'll just use _____tw or tw____
And if you're uncomfortable or stressed out, please tell me. I will understand 💛
I'm fine with freestyle, I just kind of yeet myself. But any kind of writing style is fine.
Please don't worry about paragraphs too, or bug me if I'm writing too much or too little. Also take your time :>
I'm fine with story plots, fluff plots, angst plots, or just simple character interaction.
I'm open to all story genres.
For shippers, Regis is single but I'm fine for x OC, x canon character and x reader roleplay.
Or hell for fanfiction and imagines.
But I do not promote unhealthy relationships.
Grammar and style don't bug me. Though please spell things right, I know myself I might spell things wrong but I try not to. But if I have, please shoot me a message.
Also if English isn't your first language, then don't sweat it.
I'm fine with short-term and long term roleplaying.
Will use Ooc and Ic
Though ooc is more crack or jokes.
I have a god awful memory, so if I forget to respond to a thread or so on, please just gently remind me.
Please be 18+ up, just not that comfortable rping with minors.
I'll have my spells where I'll be gone for some time so I'll post hiatus and if I'm open or closed on requests, etc.
Regis is fine with any gender and race. Love for all!
But please send in oc references.
If your rp blog is a side blog, and you don't want it in the ask just put @/place your rp blog url here/ or just shoot a message.
I can't always follow back, the app is a mess and it won't let me follow others back. ú-ù
I can be selective, and here's why. I have bad depression, anxiety, and ocd.
So if you're involved in fandom drama constantly, a map/ pedophile, nazi or nazi sympathier, not lgbt+ friendly (including people who dont support ace and pans) then I'm going to say no.
And do not put me in drama, or anon hate. I will block you.
If you're known because of past drama but bettering yourself, then you're welcomed here.
I'm not my muse! Though I love his character, we are not the same person.
Personally I don't use icons, might use gifs but don't feel like you have to or if you're not allowed to.
If I forget anything, might it be in the rp, canon plot, rules, etc please tell me.
Requests and asks are all okay!
▶Out of character will be like this:
/Hey! Or /Hey!/
Totally fine with roleplayers advertisements/ shout-outs. And I don't mean just for myself. Just send an ask and I'll post.
Fanart too! Hell I might make fanart for you.
I lean more to asks and reblogs then messages. But messages are okay.
I can also rp as different canon characters for the rp. Yet I can get overwhelmed if I rp too many characters at once.
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I take art requests and fanfiction requests, rules up above count with these requests.
Now not to godmod I use dice for fighting, a d&d thing. 20!
You can use this as dice rolling:
https://rolladie.net/roll-a-d20-die#!numbers=1&sides=20&length=1&last_roll_only=false&totals_only=false&start=false
(Only for none planned out fights I'll use the die)
I love criticism, it helps me to improve. And I'm willing to give out criticism if you ask too!
Anyways I hope you all have fun!
your local cryptic, Dusy
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enchantedchocolatebars · 5 years ago
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Good Omens Chibi Headcanons Part 1
Headcanons for if Aziraphale had his own little chibi. (Got inspired by cute chibi fanarts I saw on here made by artists with the usernames asunnydisposish and kimmigawa.) THANK YOU TO @luna-sheep FOR READING THIS FOR ME!👍 For space reasons, these headcanons are going to be split into three parts. First is Aziraphale, second is Crowley, and the last ones will interactions between both of their chibis. I’ll post the second and third ones later and link them all in each post.
Part2: https://enchantedchocolatebars.tumblr.com/post/186898556182/good-omens-chibi-headcanons-part-2
Part3: https://enchantedchocolatebars.tumblr.com/post/187062920297/good-omens-chibi-headcanons-part-3 
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Chibi Aziraphale:
• HE'S THE CUTEST SMOLEST MOST GOODEST ANGEL BOY EVER!!!😇👼❤️❤️❤️
• You can thank Aziraphale’s heavenly influence for that!
• The chibi gets little reminders from Aziraphale to be happy and to think positive.
• Chibi Aziraphale is happy to have formed a friendship with Aziraphale, and is very glad that both he and him get along so well!
• Aziraphale enjoys reading to him.
• Chibi Azi wishes the humans would invent books in his size so that he’d be able to read them.
• Chibi Aziraphale likes fictional characters such as Winnie The Pooh, Molang, Pusheen The Cat, and Moomintroll.
• Aziraphale takes Chibi Aziraphale to St. James park to visit the ducks by the pond and feed them. At first, the sight of the ducks frighten the little angel. They were much more bigger than he was! W-What if they tried to eat him?! Noticing the scared look on his small friend’s face, Aziraphale kindly reassures to him that the ducks were merely just water birds who enjoyed bread, and that the tiny celestial being had absolutely nothing to be afraid of. He even shows the chibi how to properly feed the birds by placing a crust in his hand and allowing him to toss it at the nerby drake who caught it immediately. This makes Chibi Aziraphale beam in delight as the two angels spend the rest of the afternoon giving food to the ducks.🦆🍞
• As a reward for helping him around the bookshop, Aziraphale miracles Chibi Aziraphale sweets.
• The angel had a love for food similar to his bigger counterpart. Chibi Aziraphale’s favorites include crepes and sushi, (of course) coffee cake, raspberry cream pie, and shortbread cookies.
• He’s not aware of it, but Aziraphale does indeed spoil his chibi at times.
•  Aziraphale likes to dress his chibi up in 17th and 18th century male doll outfits/attire. (Imagine a clothing montage of Chibi Aziraphale trying on/wearing the outfits and looking adorable in them all while classical music plays. Aziraphale would squeal at how cute Chibi Aziraphale looks in each outfit, telling him that he looks like a wittle gentleman.)
•Chibi Aziraphale loved wearing the outfits when he and Aziraphale had tea parties. It made him feel fancy! The chibi's Harry The Stuffed Rabbit plush would also be at the tea party as well, dressed up in a 17th or 18th century outfit that was similar to his.
• I can see Aziraphale getting his chibi a pair of round lenseless doll glasses. There! Now he looks nifty too!
• Since he’s become fairly good at it, Aziraphale shows his chibi how to do the gavotte! It’s really cute to see the two angels both have ridiculous pleased expressions on their faces.
• Chibi Aziraphale really likes this song! Everything about it was just so pure and divine. (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TWps8vw8oCo) Imagine during a cold, winter day Aziraphale happily knitting his miniature pal a sweater near a warm fire place all while this plays in the background on the wood metal gramophone sculpture.
• Aziraphale finally has a little assistant for his magic act!
• Chibi Aziraphale loves Aziraphale’s “magic” and was easily impressed by it, believing it to be real! His favorite trick had to be the ‘pull the coin outta the ear’ trick.
• Aziraphale gets one of those really big old doll houses for him (you know, something similar to the Astolat Dollhouse Castle) to live in so that he had a place he can feel at home in and be in control of.
• If someone or something new scares him, Chibi Aziraphale would quickly hide behind Aziraphale’s leg similar to how a timid child would hide behind their mother.
• At night, after Crowley drops him off at his bookshop, Aziraphale goes inside and immediately heads to the back room to check up on Chibi Aziraphale. He had miracled the angel sheets of paper and a pack of crayons before he had left to keep the little guy from being bored while he was away. When Aziraphale walks inside the room, he spots Chibi Aziraphale asleep on his desk. The chibi was nestled up near his Harry The Stuffed Rabbit plush and several sheets of paper and crayons. Aziraphale simply smiles. “Aw, he’s sleeping.” Just when the angel was about to attend to the papers and crayons that were on the desk, he notices a drawing on one of the papers. He picks it up and takes a look at it. It was a drawing done by Chibi Aziraphale! It was an adorable childlike drawing of Aziraphale and Chibi Aziraphale smiling with a heart above them. On the top of the picture the words “Friends Forever” was slightly sloppily written in crayon. Seeing this beautiful artwork made Aziraphale’s face melt into an expression of pure joy and happiness, tears welling up in his eyes. He sets the lovely art down on the desk and gently picks up Chibi Azi without waking him up. “You’re so sweet.” he softly whispers to him before walking over to the chibi’s doll house to get him to bed. As Aziraphale tucks the tiny angel in, Chibi Aziraphale smiles in his sleep and snuggles underneath his little blanket. Aziraphale can’t help but smile sweetly once again. After that, the principality returns to his desk to take care of the papers and crayons. When finished, he catches up on some late night books. Tommorrow he plans on finding a safe place to keep the drawing that Chibi Aziraphale drew for him.
• Aziraphale and Chibi Aziraphale have a sorta almost parent and child relationship.
• Chibi Aziraphale didn’t look so happy today. He seemed pretty sad in fact. The angel was currently sitting on top of a book that was on Aziraphale’s desk with a glum look on his face. Aziraphale sees this and now makes it his duty to cheer his little buddy up! Let’s see, he knows that Chibi Aziraphale really likes it when he performs fake old timey human magic, so, switching into his magician outfit that he wore at Warlock’s party, he tries doing just that. He does the basic tricks like the card trick, pulling Chibi Aziraphale's Harry The Stuffed Rabbit plushie from his hat trick, and even the coin trick, but it doesn’t seem to change the small angel’s gloomy mood. As a final act, Aziraphale makes a “pie” (which was really just a paper plate filled with whipped cream) “vanish.” (vanish as in he basically just shoves the “pie” in his face, pieing himself.) He then is all like “ta da!” and does the whole jazz hands thing. Chibi Aziraphale looks at him for a moment before laughing. Aziraphale then starts laughing too.
• While he does like Aziraphale alot and was pleased that the both of them were really good friends, Chibi Aziraphale does get…slightly envious of Aziraphale sometimes. Mainly because of his size. Because Aziraphale was so much bigger than he was, he didn’t have to ever worry about getting accidentally or purposely stepped on, he could reach for a book on the book shelf and read it without any problems at all, and he could eat all the crepes and sushi he wanted whenever he wanted. It’s not fair! How dare that angel be big enough to do all those neat things! (It’s meant to be a cute jealousy though so it’s nothing too serious. He still loves him.)
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greenteaafter12am · 5 years ago
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I need to gush about Good Omens and Neil Gaiman for a bit
I’m currently all about Good Omens right now. The show came out over a month ago, and I’m watching it again for a 4th time. There’s a new season of Stranger Things. I LOVE Stranger Things! 
 ...But I also kind of wanna watch Good Omens again. No, I really do want to watch it again. Then perhaps, I’ll start season 3 of Stranger Things.
I was a fan of the book first. It was one of my favorite books immediately after the first time I read it. I reread it, and I don’t reread many books. 
I was a fan of Neil Gaiman before that even. I discovered The Sandman through a fanfic. So, to give you a better picture, I was Tina Belcher from Bob’s Burgers back in high school. I was socially awkward, really into boybands, aroused by everything...you get the idea. I was reading fanfic one evening where the author wrote the Backstreet Boys into Gaiman’s* Sandman/Endless universe. I wish I could find the story again because, from what I recall, the author did an excellent job capturing Gaiman’s characters and setting. 
The story got me interested in The Sandman series and Gaiman’s work in general. I don’t remember which I decided to read first, but I do know that I was immediately hooked. I was going to use the cliche of Alice going down the rabbit hole, but no. Instead, let’s say I was Coraline unlocking the door. I went through the door to other worlds. Beautiful, bizarre, brilliant worlds. And each tale is, and the way it’s told, is so unique. Reading American Gods is a completely different experience from reading Neverwhere or Stardust. 
I watched an interview Nick Offerman (another amazing human) did with Neil. Offerman recounted the time he discovered Neil’s work. I can’t recall the exact way he worded it, but he described how Neil speaks to those of us who are a little bit weird. Wow. Nailed it. 
I’ve heard people describe Prince and David Bowie as artists who showed us that it’s okay to be weird. That’s what Neil is for me.  And through Neil, I found other comic books. I’m now completely obsessed with all graphic novels. I dove into more fantasy, sci-fi, and horror. These interests helped me find my community of other weirdos.  Now, through Good Omens fandom, I’m finding my community of other weirdos who are also queer! The book is one of my all time favorites, not just from Neil’s work, but of all the books I’ve read (and I’ve read a ton!). I was stoked when they announced the TV series. I’ve said for years that Good Omens was the one I wanted to see adapted the most. I lost my mind when the announced the casting. I was already a fan of David Tennant from being a Whovian. Being a fan of genre fiction, I’ve seen Michael Sheen being awesome and scene stealing in lots of films (his performance in the Twilight films is my personal favorite). On top of this, Neil’s book to film adaptations have all been superb. Stardust is one of my all time favorite movies, Coraline was spectacular, and American Gods was near perfect**. I was so ready for this! And it did not disappoint. In fact, it’s now my favorite miniseries and book to film adaptations. In just a little over a month, it’s also become one of my “comfort food” shows.*** One of the main reasons for all my re-watches is David Tennant as Crowley and Michael Sheen as Aziraphale. They brought my favorite book characters to life. There are amazing posts here on Tumblr that show all the small, delicate choices these actors make in just a few seconds of film. Not only are their character portrayals perfect, they have chemistry that’s off the charts. In the books, Crowley and Aziraphale’s relationship was pretty ambiguous to me. It was clear they cared for one another, but that was it. In the show, however, I can feel the love these characters have for one another. It’s sweet, it’s romantic, and it’s so wonderfully queer!  On top of that, it’s a queer romance that DOESN’T end in tragedy! (Seriously, can we be done with the “Bury Your Gays” trope?)  My sexuality isn’t something I’ve fully embraced. I was out in college, but not to my family. I don’t think I’ve ever been out at any job I’ve ever had.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence the Good Omens fandom is mostly LGBTQIA. We don’t see many romances like this in genre fiction, especially between genderfluid/non-binary characters. It’s helping many of us feel seen!  And we see each other. We’re not alone.  This year for Pride, I went out wearing bi pride flare. I posted bi-pride photos and memes on social media, where all my family could see.  Neil Gaiman, the book, the show, and the fandom led me here.  So thank you, Neil Gaiman. Thank you, Terry Pratchett. Thank you, David Tennant and Michael Sheen. Thank you everyone who put this amazing show together. And thank you, Good Omens fandom.  I’m not quite ready to share any fanart or fanfic. But for now, I’d like to contribute this Spotify playlist I’ve been working on: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3YzKhN2Z8r4Guu5f4IYEOH?si=jmEeFtHgSIOfSlWnMZ-S-A These include songs from the shows, songs discussed by Neil and the fandom, and just songs that reminded me of Aziraphale and Crowley. It’s still WIP (haven’t figured out which Tori Amos song I should include yet).  Off to watch Good Omens again. * Sorry, I change a lot between referring to him by his first and last name. I’ll come back and edit later. **I’ve only watched season 1. I’ll watch season 2 eventually...but maybe after another rewatch of Good Omens ***All my other comfort shows are Michael Schur comedies. Speaking of, I read Neil saying that Crowley would probably be a fan of The Good Place. YES.
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