#i'm so sorry you probably were not actually asking for this novel of a response

[ms-demeanor]

Sometimes college professors like to hop on my posts lamenting the sorry state of syllabi these days and joke about how they haven't thought that far ahead in the course themselves, or talk about how they struggle to complete a schedule for their students.

With all due respect, that's your job. If you can't do your job, you should have a different job. If you need help, ask your colleagues or your department chair or *someone* because I know that professors aren't given a hell of a lot of education on how to educate, so you probably *need* help.

But every single time I make one of those posts I get anywhere from ten to thirty messages, replies, reblogs, and asks say "oh man, that's exactly why I had to drop out of school; I couldn't keep up with the assignments because I didn't know when they were due until the week they were due."

I have been a college student in three separate decades, and "not having a schedule of assignments in the syllabus" is new to my experience. That shit didn't fly in the 2000s or 2010s and I think it likely has to do with professors being overly reliant on apps.

AT A MINIMUM your syllabus should have:

Contact information (including preferred method of contact) for the professor

Office Hours

Grading Policy

Assignment schedule.

Your assignment schedule doesn't necessarily need to have the exact page numbers of every reading or a full assignment sheet for each project, but it should have things like:

December 1st - Major Project 3 second draft due December 9th - Quiz 10 December 12th - Major Project 3 final draft due December 15th - Final Exam

If you end up presenting a more thorough schedule with readings and homework later, that is acceptable to present a week or two into the semester but it is absolutely insane to me that students these days don't know what homework they're going to have to get done over Thanksgiving break during the first couple weeks of class.

If I had three professors at once who didn't give me a schedule, how on earth would I know if I was going to have to read three chapters of a novel, take a midterm and turn in two stats homework assignments, and complete a history research paper the same week that I'm planning to travel to see family? If I'm aware of this from the beginning of the semester I can make sure not to pick up extra shifts, or I can plan to leave a day later to accommodate the midterm, or I can start working on the paper early to complete it before the due date but if I don't know what's going to be due when, I'm going to have a big problem.

If you don't give your students a schedule you are communicating that you don't care about their schedule, and that you think it's their responsibility to contort their life (and their job, and their other classes) around your class, and honestly my advice to students in that situation is "drop in the first week and pick up another class". That's actually part of why I recommend signing up for one more class than you can really manage - if you get a professor whose class looks like it's going to be a disaster because they don't have a schedule, you can bail before the withdrawal period and get a refund for the class.

I'm only in one class this semester but the professor's response has fully dropped me into "Fuck it, I guess I'll fail" mode and I don't even know if I can pull myself out of my current D grade because I don't know how many assignments we have left in the semester.

This is a shitty way to run a class. If you can't do better than this, you shouldn't be running a class.

[mxtxfanatic]

Repayment but Not Just Repayment or a Meta on the Wen Siblings' Sacrifice

Wen Qing and Wen Ning's sacrifice is probably one of the most under-discussed topics in the fandom. A few have tackled it from the viewpoint of debt—which is true and valid—but I will be coming at it from the angle of love, because although there is a debt that ties Wei Wuxian to the Wen siblings, it is inseparable from the genuine affection they each hold for him. Let's start with Wen Qing's last words to Wei Wuxian:

Wen Qing interrupted him, “I’ve never really said such things to you before. But now that it’s today, there are indeed a few things I should say. I really won’t get a chance to say them after this.” ... Wen Qing, “I’m sorry. And, thank you.”

—Chapt. 77: Nightfall, exr

Throughout the novel, characters seem to have a negative response to being told "I'm sorry" and "thank you" in serious conversation, as both seem to imply a tie of debt and accepting ownership of the debt. Jin Ling refuses to thank Wei Wuxian for saving his life or apologize to him for being disrespectful despite all the life-saving. Lan Wangji has a negative reaction to Wei Wuxian thanking him in many different scenes in the novel, so much so that Wei Wuxian comments on the fact that a lot of their bad separations were precipitated by Wei Wuxian's thanks. Even here, Wei Wuxian has a negative reaction to Wen Qing's words, especially as they come at the end of her speech about how the repayment she asked of Wei Wuxian has unintentionally led them all down a path of no-return. But Wen Qing isn't using it in this way.

As discussed here and here, the Wen siblings actually love Wei Wuxian outside of the circumstances they find themselves in. They do not tie themselves to him because of debt but because he has proven himself to be honest and genuine in a way that the other cultivators they had previously come up against had not. At the same time because of the debt, the relationship between the three is fraught with things that cannot be said lest they be misunderstood. Wen Qing never verbally thanks Wei Wuxian for bringing her brother's consciousness back; instead she treats his wounds and helps put together a family banquet in his honor where she even personally serves him food and alcohol. Wen Ning never verbally thanks Wei Wuxian for rescuing his family and bringing him back; instead he continues to act as his physical protector in both of Wei Wuxian's lives. Neither of them apologize for having implicated Wei Wuxian in the plight of the Wen remnants, as that would have been incurring another debt that Wei Wuxian would likely not accept. However, when the tentative stalemate with the cultivation world is broken with Jin Zixuan's death, none of that matters anymore. They are all at the end of the line and must make a choice: throw Wei Wuxian to the wolves or sacrifice themselves. They choose to sacrifice themselves in the hopes that it will spare Wei Wuxian:

Wen Qing’s voice was calm, “Wei Ying, we both know. Wen Ning is a knife, a knife that scares them, but also a knife that they use as an excuse to attack you. If we go, without the knife, they’d no longer have an excuse. This entire thing might finally be over.”

They can finally say what they want to say, which is that they appreciate what Wei Wuxian has done for them, that they see all that he has sacrificed, that they are willing to match that level of dedication, and that they, too, are willing to risk themselves to protect him as he had been doing for them for up to a year, now. For once, the "thank you" and "I'm sorry" isn't meant to emphasize a debt-repayment relationship. It is meant to liberate Wei Wuxian from them.

[skaruresonic]

Remember me? To start off: I'm sorry about triggering some terrible and mentally painful memories when I went off about how I felt about the state of Flynn criticism. I never intended that. I wasn't defending or, heck, even trying to invite discussion about Flynn's rabid fanatics anyway. I could've chosen my words better, but aside from the detractors' mentalities, I meant to focus on Flynn ONLY. And I have nothing against your or their fan fictions. I do fan fiction, too. I just noticed what seemed like extreme shilling surrounding their exposure. I don't aim (and never did) to change minds about the dude, but I find the constructiveness of the critical discourse has been long lost.

Fitting that I received your ask on the first-year anniversary of my visual novel.

And I have nothing against your or their fan fictions. I do fan fiction, too.

Then why bring it up? What does "and your fics aren't even that good" add to the conversation about another writer's work?

I just noticed what seemed like extreme shilling surrounding their exposure.

Ah. There it is.

Look, I'm going to be brutally honest with you. But before I do, I want you to know I'm not angry with you, just annoyed - and perhaps angry in general at the overall situation we're in.

Honestly, the current climate is reminding me of the time antis gentrified Half-Life and caused the old guard to disperse. Everyone in our mutual circle is drifting away from Sonic in some form or another because it's such a toxic cesspit, and what's worse, they blame us for it. Would you want to stay in a situation like that?

Anyway, I have no patience for "you keep shilling your work" anymore because that standard only seems to apply to us. If we held everyone else to that standard, this entire Chili's would be revealed as hypocrites in an instant.

The fic mocking is not an isolated event. I've seen it happen over and over again, for years. Folks mocked Crusher's fic and OCs on TV Tropes. Folks mocked Darklight's OCs on Twitter. Folks sneered that we were too stupid to comprehend storytelling, and once someone said "none of them can even draw."

They can never leave it at "their criticisms suck." No, they have to make things so much more personal than they need to be. In the absence of an actual argument, they call you names, say you deserve all kinds of punishment, including but not limited to death and rape. Crusher had to delete hundreds of threats from his inbox. So please forgive me if my patience has waned paper-thin.

Folks feel the need to knock us down a peg because they think it's "warranted" on the basis of "we have egos." Which is a riot when, again, everyone on social media shills their work. That's what fandom does. You cannot throw a rock in here without hitting someone who thinks their AU improves on the games. I don't know why IDW is so sacrosanct that saying "I could probably do better" is considered blasphemy.

Whether or not my friends shill their own work as being "better" than IDW or whatever else is irrelevant. IDW staff are professionals (or should be, anyway); what do they care if some rando thinks they can do better? Besides, have you heard Flynn's recent grumblings about how he's tired of having the same conversations about his work since he was in high school? Why does he keep answering questions he doesn't want to dignify with a response? Why does he sound so miserable for someone who essentially Won the Game(tm)?

People telling you your work sucks a couple of times, yeah, maybe you can chalk that up to trolling. But when damn near everyone takes the excuse to hit below the belt, you start to feel less like "don't feed the trolls" and more like you're deliberately being targeted as a punching bag.

And I'm sorry, but I have no patience for that stuff. Take whatever umbrage you want with the state of criticism these days, but leave the fic out of it. That's all I ask.

[wilcze-kudly]

Beifong babies ask like you asked <3

I feel as if the person I’ve seen you least talk about is Huan. Do you have any thoughts on him, either in relation to Kuvira or his interest in art? I’m sorry I can’t be more specific rn, my brain is…very frazzled. as expected 😭

I actually have SO MANY thought about Huan, I just never had the time and place to file them away. I've always liked Huan, and thought he could've been an incredibly intriguing character with a lot of potential. I can confidently say he probably was concieved primarily as a gimmick character, a bit of a jab at 'edgy', modernist artists. However, Huan has a lot of potential as a character and an exploration of themes.

First of all, Huan is interesting becaus he is one of the few "pacifist" benders of the show. This is especially intriguing due to him coming from a family with such a prominent amount of bender fighters. I wonder if he ever felt pressured to be a fighter too, or if he feels inadequate due to following a different path.

I personally like to think that Su gently pushed Huan to be fighter too, when he was a child, due to her own upbringing, which I imagine had Toph valuing her daughters careying on her legacy. But Huan was too much of a tender and sensitive soul, and didn't like the idea of destroying or fighting. I like to think he spent a lot of time with Aiwei, who nurtured his individualism, talents and hobbies. I like to think Aiwei was the one to help convince Su to let Huan pursue his artistic interests.

Due to this, Huan and Aiwe were always pretty close when Huan was growing up. So I think Huan ended up absorbing some of the Red Lotus' teachings about individuality and freedom.

For some reason, I think Huan would be a good big brother to his younger siblings. He cares a lot for Opal, Wei and Wing even if he doesn't show it often. I think for most their lives he just kinda let them do their own thing and was pretty antisocial, until the shit with Kuvira happened. Huan was one of the only people to see how affected Opal and the twins were by the betrayals of Baatar Jr and Kuvira and the danger their family was put in. He also felt srather guilty when his little siblings were out there risking their lives while all he could do was evacuate.

This motivated Huan to step up as a big brother and try to 'defend' them from Suyin trying to 'fix' the family and Baatar and Kuvira.

I also like that he seems so good with kids and enjoys spending time with them. Its a sweet. And it seems like it makes sense that he would value Ikki's childish doodles, since children just playing with colours and shapes is a very pure form of creativity.

Huan's relationship with freedom of self expression and individuality is also domething that caught my attention, especially in relation to Kuvira's regime and especially his infamous "crushing my individuality" line.

Sure, this line is objectively really funny, and pretty memeable. But let's add some context that adds themes I'm 78% sure weren't intended.

I've spoken at length about how Kuvira draws heavily from the Soviet union. I've also probably mentioned how my high school had a focus on humanistics, particularly Polish literature, although what I'm about to discuss extends far beyond Poland. And one of the 'eras' of literature and art that stuck with me the most was the period of time when Poland was the Polish People's Republic, essentially under the thumb of the Soviets. For creativity, it meant what you might expect. Basically, a mandate on almost every piece of music, literature and visual arts to be essentially Soviet propaganda.

I, as you may guess, dislike the time period with a passion. But some of my favourite novels and works of art have come about as a response to the danger the Soviets posed to creativity. It's fascinating to see what creators chose to bend the knee and alter their works to go through rigorous censorship, and what creators chose to resist, often getting blacklisted if not worse.

Many wrote bleak, heartwtenching stories about the death of art in the Eastern Bloc and how it impacted society as a whole. The emptiness of the propagandised happiness, the false idols of theatre and movies, the cheapness of it all, the ridiculous censorship that often contradicted itself.

I think Huan, being an artist could've been a very good vessel for exploring these concepts and storylines, especially with how self expression and creativity is still often censored and attacked irl, most visibly by conservatives in the USA. [Damn I asked for asks on the Beifong babies and weilin to escape the shitshow across the pond yet here I am]

We are especially entering a new era of war on our rights to express ourselves as different groups begin to try to control and restrict how we create and consume content in the still relatively new medium that is the entire internet. This could be something poignat to have been touched on.

These may be concepts that would be difficult to explore in a show like tlok. But atla was able to allude to the concept of propaganda and Huan was the perfect vessel for a mini storyline like this. Exploring Huan's identity as an artist and creator would be a huge benefit to the show, judging by how many people in the fandom have their own creative inclinations and how tlok as a show encouraged us to follow in Korra's footsteps to push through diversity to achieve freedom and enlightenment. Why should self expression by seperate from that equation?

Anyway :/ those are my Huan thoughts which kinda poured out due to how much I've been stewing in them lol. Thanks for the ask I always love recieving them especially if they have something to do with the Beifong Babies. Today was a rough day and I appreciate the distraction and chance to ramble.

[areyouwell]

Holy fucking shit dude. I just finished reading your phobophobia fic series and it was absolutely jaw dropping. The way you write in general is amazing, but your usage of words, the way you write reader, the way this reads like a whole fucking book, the foreshadowing (get it.), the plot twists... everything, it was perfect. This like- genuinely changed my life and is now in my top five favorite works of written creative media. This also hit so hard because I've also recently went through something traumatic where I started doubting my mind and memory and I felt reader when she was upset about that, I was having the same thoughts. This story was absolutely phenomenal. Im planning on going thru all the chapters and reblogging them all, I was too busy craving the next chapter to interact 😭 but this seriously deserve SO MUCH MORE ATTENTION. SO MUCH. I've been craving and an angsty, lengthy, logan x reader fic since August, when I got into his character. This was everything I wanted and more. You slayed the fucking boots down.

sorry for yapping so much girl i just needed to get it out I texted all my fic reading friends about this fic 😭💗

YOU ARE THE SWEETEST <33333

im so embarrassed to say how long it took me to get the foreshadowing joke i feel like the unfunny court jester ;–;

BUT, thank you so much!!!!! i did some research after reading this ask and found out that Phobophobia is longer than the original ACOTAR books (each book, not altogether) which is WILD to think about, it did not feel that long when i was writing it. so congrats those who stuck with it and read the whole thing, you've just read the equivalent of an over-average wordcount novel 👏 average novel wordcount is between 70k to 100k and Phobophobia, not including the oneshot, was 146k... GOOD JOB TEAM <3

i think one of the most gratifying parts of writing fics and posting them is to almost keep a chronological log of how writers have improved over time. comparing Phobophobia to like, my first ever fic (on a different blog) is so crazy. im so blown away by the reception to the fic as well, and so honoured to be in your top five, FIVE, favourite pieces of written creative media. i. am. CRYING. five is a very small number and im there? me? little can-barely-keep-herself-together-and-cries-when-she-has-to-go-to-work me???? deceased. on the floor. ascended.

as thrilled as i am you were able to find kinship with Firefly, and relate to her character, i sincerely hope you're doing okay now, and i'm so sorry you went through something traumatic that had you doubting your memory. whilst i haven't personally experienced doubting my own mind and memories, i can only imagine how terrifying it must be to lose faith in something so integral to our lives, and whilst i'm over the moon i could accurately portray a person's reaction to such a thing and that i could perhaps provide some companionship in feeling such a way, i truly hope you're alright <3

i have another just as angsty, actually probably more angsty long-fic in the works at the moment, which i think will be just as long, perhaps longer than Phobophobia (oopsies) and im so excited to start sharing that with everyone as well :D

PLEASE DO NOT APOLOGISE FOR YAPPING!!!!! i might have to put it in my rules that nobody is allowed to apologise for yapping. yapping apology rights REVOKED. i am a certified yapper. fluent in Yappanese, some may say, if you couldn't tell from the length of my own response :') in fact, you slayed the boots down with your yapping. Graduated with distinction from the University of Yapford, congratulations <3

[catbountry]

Hi, I'm the one who made the Respawn of the Dead page on Fanlore. I'm sorry about the misinformation about you being an admin and it's fixed to be accurate now to say you were just a mod.

And I'm sorry about not disclosing that you've since distanced yourself from that site. Thats now in there too. I respect you as a fic writer both for your fic (loved the TF2 Harlan Ellison and Steven King-inspired ones) and because it's impressive that you've kept your username for so long. I think that literally everyone who's been online long enough can theoretically be "canceled" on the Internet if everything they've ever done was connected to only one pseud, including myself. Fandom's honestly a minefield that doesn't take to cultural changes at all. The culture of, say, 4chan, Tf2chan, those things, it's so different compared to today. Same with Kiwifarms when it was just known for being the CWCwiki. One day, the culture of social media will be just like those, and I think being able to own up to who you were then to compare with how you are now, as a better person, is a respectable skill to have.

I don't know everything you've done, (I know some of the Vade thing and some of what's on the receipt blog,) but it seems some Fannish people just see "Kiwifarms" and think you're supporting the site as it is currently, which wasn't what it was back in the 2010s. I tried to be very neutral since I figured TF2 Tumblr/Twitter would find my article first, but now it's more positive on you and your body of work on there. I'm sorry that the article brought up old wounds, hopefully all misinfo on it is fixed now.

Wow, I actually wasn't sure if I'd get a response. Thank you for being so considerate, for enjoying my fic, and being so understanding. I used the same pseud for years because, well, I'm proud of Respawn of the Dead, warts and all. I don't want to distance myself from it and I'm okay with it being my legacy. Also I'm just absolutely lousy at hiding myself. If I changed my name, people would figure out it's me, so I don't really bother.

If you don't mind, just for the sake of fandom oral history, I'd like to expand upon the period of Medic being a Nazi in fandom. This might be interesting to you as somebody interested in TF2 fandom lore.

Medic being a Nazi was assumed by a lot of fans, due to him fitting a bunch of "Nazi mad scientist" tropes. This remained the case until fans went to Valve's headquarters and straight up asked an employee if he was, to which they were told "no." And then people stopped writing Nazi Medic (for the most part) because it wasn't canon. People still made art but again, we did not know the horrors that the future had in store for us.

It really is wild to think how drastically things have shifted politically online since the late 2000's, when nobody could have predicted that being a Nazi would be anything but the most fringe of fringe, and these people would be regarded as internet sideshows to be gawked at and trolled. Also, Respawn of the Dead was written around the time Inglorious Basterds came out, so there were a lot of sexy Nazis or repentant Nazis in certain fandoms at the time.

There was a TF2 fic, I believe it was called Do No Harm, that legit had Medic working in a concentration camp in a position where he felt like he had to work there or he'd be shot, and he ate human flesh given to him by an evil, Aryan Nazi OC. I don't know if the author distanced herself from the work, because she did re-work it to make it into an original novel that she sold on Amazon. I absolutely could not see anything written like this now that wasn't some kind of dogwhistle, but the author was pretty progressive, actually. So much so we had a fight while I was in my anti-SJW phase and she did not appreciate me bringing up the things she wrote about that emphasized the humanity of a Nazi character, who in all fairness, did deflect in her story. I'm sure she's probably put a lot more distance between herself and that story in the years since, given the way things have gone since Trump's presidency. I wouldn't know, though, since we don't talk, and haven't in nearly a decade.

The person who wrote that is probably forgotten by anybody who wasn't in the fandom at the time, even though she was known for this fic and it was praised almost universally when it was being updated. But she was not the only one doing this. I cannot emphasize enough just how far in the past Nazis felt to us. At the time, being a Nazi was a stupid way of thinking that would never come back outside of attention-hungry edgelords co-opting its imagery, especially in America, an allied nation that loves using Nazis as villains in its media. If you told any of us in 2009 that fascism and white nationalism would make a comeback in America, we would not have believed you unless you were counting neoconservatives and evangelical white Christians as Nazis, and while I think a lot of those people are now pretty much that nowadays, back then it would have been a little bit of a stretch. But the thing is, the white supremacy on an institutional level was always there. We didn't really notice it until it started being pointing out, and at the same time, a bunch of fuckin' white nationalists and neo-Nazis just started popping up all over the place because someone with blue hair and pronouns told them a video game character having her titties out was bad or something. I'm still not entirely sure how that escalated that quickly, but Jesus Christ. It's a shame "clown world" got used mostly by right-wing people online because the label feels pretty apt and also applies to them a lot more. There is something deeply pathetic but also kind of hilarious about filming yourself letting a gas stove burn, or shooting cases of beer to own the libs.

I think most people that used TF2chan are pretty progressive now, a lot of them have come out as some flavor of queer, and the use of "-fag" as a suffix is frowned upon in the official TF2chan Discord server as being incredibly childish and cringey. We were all young adults but clearly we had a lot of growing up to do. I think it is important to point out that a lot of this edgelord shit done at the time, while hurtful and not cool, was done by a lot of people who hadn't figured out who they were yet, and weren't really bad people. Dr. Tanner, who was actually the first person to write a TF2 longfic and beat Respawn of the Dead by at least a few months with the first version of The Lessons (which is gone now), got cited by name in an interview with an old TF2chan user for being really racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic, only to completely turn around once he came out as trans. I think a lot of this behavior kind of functioned as a shield, because there was still a separation between the internet and real life. Now, there's more people on the internet with less websites people visit, and fandom spaces where everyone is an adult are harder to find. Everything is very politically charged now. The right-wing is further to the right than it was even when I was a teenager and a young adult during Bush's presidency, which given that we got into two forever wars under his administration, is insane to think about. It doesn't feel real, but it is.

So yeah, that's why nobody writes or draws Medic as a Nazi anymore, and that's a good thing. Sorry for the tl;dr.

If you have any questions about old TF2chan and TF2 fandom, I'd be happy to answer them.

[6okuto]

NIA OMFG SO ABT THE DATING APP POST U MADE (replies could not handle the novel I am about to impose on you)

the way I am so in love with iwa but he’s the epitome of not my irl type 😭 gym bros and their bland responses to hinge prompts scare me and I feel that he would have the exact profile you were talking abt. his redeeming quality would be like. a dog.

SAME WITH ATSUMU AND IT PAINS ME. PHYSICALLY PAINS ME BC THAT IS MY HUSBAND.

Bokuto would be the exception to the gym bro thing bc he is also a himbo and it shows (in the best way possible) and no one can resist that.

half of hq would not be my type irl and the other half that would be?? I’d be too scared to try to match cause they’re. gorgeous??????? Hello???

HOWEVER Akashi’s profile would totally be like cafe date vibes, libraries and very just. CALMING AND NICE AND I’D DO THE SAME AS YOU. The only thing is I think his prompt responses (I’m on hinge so this is the only dating app format ik) wouldn’t really give you tooooo much to work with but it’s ok no one can be perfect.

I think kuroo’s would be like super bf material tho. Like the kind of profile that you’re certain gets a lot of interaction and makes you wonder if he’s even active on the app anymore LOL. also gives good responses, he’s just slightly dorky but it’s so endearing and it adds to the appeal of his profile.

I think suna’s would be super chill with like humorous undertones and I’d probably end up trying to match with him bc of that. he gives gooddddd responses that are genuinely fun and non repetitive. he’s also not dry if you end up matching.

yk what no I’m giving atsumu a chance here. his prompt responses are. interesting to say the least. dry. he comes across a bit cocky. but his pictures don’t if that makes sense??? like he comes off as a genuinely sweet guy in his photos and videos. maybe I’m just too soft for him and I’m projecting, this is embarrassing.

I wanna add something abt oikawa but I genuinely cannot think of anything other than his photos would be insanely aesthetic and pretty. responses need a bit of work and his opening lines come off a bit strong but. it’s okay. he’s perfect and can do no wrong imo 🤷🏻‍♀️

ANYWAY SORRY I JUST GOT EXCITED AND WANTED TO SHARE. YOU SHOULD TOTALLY DO THE SMAU, I WOULD EAT THAT UP!!!!!

HAIII REV!! EXACTLY. exactly. i'm sorry but not even a dog is enough for me i'm like Omg little dog and then don't match I'm sorry hajime.. Bokuto... my cutie pie naoooo 😭😭 i'd like to hope he'd answer the prompts cutely/in a funny way but i still wouldn't think we'd match well and skip him... BUT!!!! I think if they replied to one of my prompts i'd reply...?! < girl who Never Ever matches first Ever. like there's a photo where their smile looks very cutesie and i'm like Why not!

Akaashi. 🙂teehee. my favoritism i'm sorry everybody. he doesn't really have photos of himself so he has to ask friends for some and there's like one photo that's dimly lit where he's smiling with fluffy hair that would make my jaw drop and tears form in my eyes i'd want him so bad. one of his prompt answers would be like. a joke about how tired he is with all the work he has. something kind of basic But i love him so it's ok. for me specifically i mention my dislike for HTTYD 3 and i think he'd reply and be like wait you're so right can u explain more or something like that and I would Start Crying tears Of Joy PLEAASELEAASE PLEAPSAPPSLEPLEPA

omg kuroo. i understand. i actually first had the idea he looks kind of dorky (/affectionate) but he has a couple good photos and a meme and it's like Oh he's so real for that. also he's totaallyyy somebody who does an audio prompt 😭 it's something fawking stupid /Affectionate and i'd show my irls and we'd be like wait he's kinda cute while we laugh BJSHFBJSD there's also a group photo somewhere on there ! and maybe a video where you can hear him cackling! silly guy...

suna would have a stupid ass block text meme somewhere on his profile LOLLL there's a photo where he's in his room in the dark but i can also imagine he has one with good lighting outside that's one of the few he has... he Would be funny! he's all lowercase until u say something that gets him to laugh and he goes LMFAOOOOO WAIT and it's like Yes I got a good grade in Hinge. BFJSHBJSB

ATSUMU! totally has a pic where he's showing off his muscles or spiking But also wait he looks kind of cute and dorky in this other photo and also his prompt responses are funny this is crazy? I UNDERSTAND!!! maybe it could be like... he's not someone you'd swipe on initially but he sees Your profile and tries to switch it up to cater to you before replying to one of your prompts LOL. and maybe there's a pic of him helping samu make onigiri or just... something kind of domestic that makes u go oh alright he's nice?!

HMM OIKAWA.... also a volleyball pic somewhere. maybe with a medal or trophy of his LOL. but he can take good selfies Unfortunately smhhh /j so you're like aw fuck... i think i'd be like oh you're out of my league or Not my type but if that kind of guy replies to one of your prompts...Would you not be a little curious to see how that convo goes. he's good looking enough that he could just like people's first pic and move on but You're special and Funny and he's Curious okay!!!

THANK U!!! HTANKYEWWW I LOVE THINKING AND TALKING AND SHARING AND HEARING IDEAS IT'S SO FUNSIES NEVER APOLOGIZE 2 ME! i have So many smau series ideas bouncing around in my head i've never tried but if i ever do this one...U will b the first 2 know.

[nacricissa]

I made another vampire....

He likes to chew on bones...

I-....THis is so horrible of me 😮‍💨

Do you by any chance know if he could get some nutrition from the bone marrow?

I'm so sorry 🙁👎

I gotta continue.

When does it disappear?

I am trying to figure out the timeline for its decaying.

Any who this novel might end up darker than I thought I mean I knew it was going to be dark...But damn...The thought organ is thought organing.

I'm so sorry if this is too far 🫠

The straightforward answer is probably. As I'm assuming you know since you asked this question, your blood is produced in the bone marrow. However, most of it pretty immediately goes into your bloodstream, though there will still be some residual proteins which have been made but haven't been shipped yet. The main cell type that actually stay put in your bone marrow for any length of time are the immune cells responsible for keeping a record of invaders that your body has previously faced (B cells). There are also a lot of things in your blood at any given time that are not produced in your bone marrow (hormones, oxygen, medications, alcohol, bloodborne pathogens, etc.) so depending on what is the essential part of your blood a vampire actually needs for nutrition, it may or may not be found in the bone marrow, and may or may not be in any relevant quantity. Would probably still taste good, though, even if it wasn't nutritionally beneficial. And according to Procopio Et al (2018), the timeline is very dependent on environmental conditions (the drier the bones, the better the preservation, this is why we have so much evidence of what the Egyptians were up to 6000 years ago, the place is just really dry so things don't decompose much). They note that the rate of decay is generally most noticeable in the 1-4 month range, with levels reaching their minimum at about 9 months, and their experiment was conducted in England so it was pretty rainy. The methods they used were measuring the proteosome, so really interesting to me I'm glad you sent me in this direction.

[nectardaddy]

sunflower and marigold but specifically from ur hcs!!

also im sorry it took me so long to ask you ur response got buried :( but I HAVE A VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION I WAS HOPING U WERE IN A SUGA MOOD

if you guys teach at the same school, do ur students know abt ur relationship? or is a secret thing? how do they react when they find out? do you guys come and bother each others classes or keep it just for yourselves? any and all details are welcome pls talk as long as u want

also also i have another one not related to teaching

if you guys were to spend a night out, what would it look like? do u get fancy or is it casual? what are you doing? how long are you out? is it a one activity thing or a bunch of stuff together? how often do you go out? once again any and all details okay thank you

self ship asks !

get ready for a novel molly ily

I just did sunflower here

marigold - what is your favorite picture, video, and/or moment of your f/o?

ok this may be cheating but I have multiple ok- one picture I adore is us graduating college together <33 (he had more chords than me and no I'm still not over that- fucking overachiever uGH) but a picture that is us in our adult lives now that I love is one that probably hinata or his friends took of us. at a bar and completely unwarranted but the way he's looking at me molly <333 moment is hands down when he told me he was going to marry me one day in college hehe

ok now onto the teacher stuff!!

yes we do work at the same school!! and I know wild youth is both of us being 5th grade teachers, but I genuinely see him teaching younger grades like 2nd or maybe even kinder instead (god speed to him could never be me) the little kids don't give af about us but my 5th graders are NOSY and ask wayyyy too many questions about it. it's not that it's a secret per say but we definitely don't talk about it much. usually he leaves it to me to tell my students if I want to because 2nd graders don't care at all like "ok cool when's lunch??" so he just stopped telling them lmao. usually depends on the class if I tell them or not, some kids I know will ask WILD questions so I may not say one year but it depends! I also think it's cute that most would've had him in 2nd as well!! some kids that really enjoyed having him will stop by his room on the way to mine and ask <33 like "how was your weekend??? what did you guys do??"

ok non-teaching related stuff!!

a lot of our outings are super casual! keeping to wild youth, I think we would do something similar and go out on friday for a drink and just RANT about the school week to get it out of system. but straying away from teaching stuff, we LOVE a good winery or museum!! art museums when we're not exhausted are always so fun!! and sometimes we may go thrifting as well!! (we barely do this. we can't be trusted to not spend a lot of money.) we'll do maybe one fancy date a year?? it's also expensive so we'll probably save up for it so we can actually enjoy ourselves (teacher salary woes I'm crying) so we mainly stick to casual!! we also love hanging out with his hs friends! whenever hinata or noya are in town you can bet we are 10000% going out with them! asahi may come over sometimes too (not the biggest fan of him character wise but he is wholesome and I do love that) he's like us and likes to keep things really casual and we'll usually all end up getting hammered a side note for getting hammered: hinata and I have most definitely have drinking competitions where he ALWAYS thinks he can out drink me (he can't) and suga gets so peeved at it lmaooooo like "why tf do you encourage him????? he's a light weight and YOU'RE NOT YOU KNOW HE'LL GET BLACKOUT??"

[oh-my-damn]

So sorry about the long ask im about to submit! I know you may not post because your asks are getting repetitive but i just need to rant. I just want to thank you so much for unpacking how unhealthy all of this bullshit is, hopefully it opens some eyes to how problematic every aspect of this situation has been thus far! I sent in a long ask to Maddy earlier this morning (more like a novel ranting about this lol) but it sounds like assholes are harassing and bullying her again so asks are understandably off right now and mine may have been lost in what sounds like a mountain of hate that is wrongfully being sent her way.

I'm just so soured on Chris at the moment it's even ruined his characters for me unfortunately (hopefully that's not permanent lol). This all just has such predatory undertones in my opinion. Especially the video from yesterday, and the seemingly very intentional power imbalance, it's all very questionable to me. In that chin video in particular he seemed very mean spirited and almost malicious if that makes sense, almost like he wanted to humiliate her. And like you said in a previous post and I touched on I'm my ask to Maddy, everything we've been told has been a lie to sell a narrative, it's all so disingenuous now. The whole I grew up around women, I'm a feminist, looking back it's such bullshit. The whole copy and paste milestones and moments from woman to woman proves that too. To my mind, there's only two conclusions to draw from that, either you think women are all the same and are not in fact complex human beings with their own desires and interests and so you copy and paste! Or you don't like or care enough about women as people to even consider their interests and all that matters is what you want to do and so you copy and paste. Either way its gross to me. Real or pr doesn't matter to me anymore, I'm staying for the implosion because I've sunk enough time into this for it to feel like a waste to bow out now. Either way I don't think I'll ever look at him the same way again.

The chin video - I can't watch that video with grimacing. The way he pans off and bursts out laughing at the end really does it for me. She is unaware of what exactly is going on, seemingly, and doesn't know what it looks like. To me, her laugh sounds more awkward and hesitant but she's going along with it because he's laughing and thinks it's funny. But then when she says "I don't know what to say" and he pans off, his laugh sounds almost mocking, more like he's laughing at her than with her.

And I think that's the point for me with those two videos. He's not posting her saying or doing something funny on purpose. He's not posting a video of her in a cute moment, for example, getting ready for her movie premiere and he captures her humming along and he thinks it's adorable, he's not capturing a genuine sweet moment that happened organically between them. All of the videos he posts are things done to capture a video (scare, chin, mario), almost setting her up like a little fucking doll to make content on her expense, BUT those last two, they were not filmed because she's funny.

They were because she was doing something not purposely funny that he finds funny at her expense. Even the end of the mario video, if you watch it back, you can tell he actually isn't the one filming. Someone else is.

At the end of it, there's a another mans chuckle, and if you listen carefully (I was wearing headphones) when she loses the game and covers her face, you can HEAR Chris turning in the direction of the person filming and laughing at her, to him, where this third person then chuckles in response before ending the video.

To the naked eye, the videos may seem endearing and them "having a good time" but a lot of it is also him laughing at her for looking stupid or making a mistake, like not being able to play mario, a video we know she doesn't like (probably because she thinks its embarrassing, in some way. We all know how it can feel when people are watching you do something and you fail at it. If you feel completely safe, it's not scary, but if some part of you wants to impress said individual, it can be terribly embarrassing).

That's not endearing, it is not cute, and especially not with everything else taken into account, like the fact that he holds all the power in their relationship, and right now, he also holds all the power in how she is portrayed to the world, because she doesn't have any social media herself. So all the GP knows about this girl is what he's putting out there.

The feminism point is spot on. I remember in Jenny's book, she mentioned how her "head exploded" because he wouldn't stop talking and that he would care so much about the issues he couldn't accept any situation where he wasn't right about it. So in translation: if she told him something about what it's like to be a woman, he would argue with that and try to mansplain what it's like to be a woman and why all men should be feminists. It's talking about feminism in a healthy way turned on it's head because the conversation still ends up being about the man and what a great man he is, for being a feminist. I've experienced it before and her words rang so true to me, I could picture it immediately.

I'm the same regarding bowing out. Right now I also just want to be able to offer a space for all of you who send me asks (more than I can keep up with) while still trying to keep some semblance of the fandom I used to love. So I still adore his characters, I don't want to cut ties with them, and in some parts I still like the Chris we used to know because a small part of me still hopes it wasn't all a ruse, that some parts of that were the real him, and that right now he's having a meltdown because of turning 40 and not being at the point in his career and life he had hoped he'd be. Desperate men do desperate things.

It's not an excuse though, and I hope people remember that regarding this whole con thing; it's another desperate move on his end. He's losing control and he absolutely hates it.

[a-room-of-my-own]

I recently got in quite an argument, well more like a fight, with a couple of probably ex-or maybe not, who knows- friends over this whole Palestine and Israel situation; simply cause I said that I feel for the civilians from Israel and for stating that Hamas are the bad guys...and like they were all "so you don't support Palestine? You're pro genocide?"...are people really this dense? And they kept going on about holding Israel responsible and kept mentioning how many people from Palestine died, and how long it's been happenning, etc... In the end I gave up and told them they're free to think whatever they wanna about me; we were never close anyway.

But it got me thinking; I keep seeing those same arguments: if you're not saying you're pro Palestine then that means you're against them and you're pro genocide, people making fun of those that are for both sides, people saying Israel should be held responsible--and like what is that about? I mean, I know what they mean by that but they never really mention what those responisibilities are when asked, again I know, we all know what they mean, but they should just come out and say it outright--, they keep going on and on how "it's not about Hamas, people use them as an excuse to be pro Israel and against Palestine", and many other similar arguments; and I'm sitting here like, are people really that dense? I mean, I dunno how to quite put it, but they all seem to be looking at it from the black and white, us vs them lense, and some even make me think with the way they're speaking about it--and tell me if it's just me--as if they're living in some YA Dystopian novel and I can't help but wonder do they even think about what they're saying, or are they just saying what they think makes them look like good people? Are they even looking at this from the human perspective? Or is this just their way of showing the world how good they are?

Ahhh sorry this got long.😅 But yeah, I'm just tired honestly.

I think for many it’s exactly what you described, most people I hear having very polarized opinions on the subject don’t really know it and never took the time to read about it. I can’t even say I know it well, just that I know the history of the region well enough to understand it’s a very complex conflict.

In the past other conflicts were used as symbols of West vs South, but they all ended. In my country - and others - what would be now called the woke left supported the USSR, president Mao, the Red Khmers, Castro, Che Guevara (this one they still do - though no Che Guevara fan knows what the guy really did) etc because they were supposed to be these great freedom fighters against the Capitalist West.

When they understood what these people had done they discreetly dropped them and moved on. It was never actually about supporting a country and its plight for freedom but simply about posturing.

Funnily enough in the 2000s many of them came out as neocons and publicly supported George W Bush’s wars. 9/11 was so traumatic for the West that they suddenly remembered what it meant to support armed militias that vowed to destroy it.

I think the same is happening with Israel. For now people feel safe enough to advocate for ethnic cleansing. But if one day terrorists in America used the same arguments to butcher American people in their homes, none of them would cheer the « Resistance » now, would they?

[liketwoswansinbalance]

Hey, can I get being the Best friend or close Friends With Rafal or Rhian ( Or maybe both? ) maybe the reader is a childhood friend or something. The gender can be whatever or whichever you prefer.

That's if you are comfortable writing that. 😁

My apologies. I wasn't really planning on taking writing requests of this type since I'm not currently interested in writing reader prompts. At times, I sort of view most readers as a blank slate rather than a character themselves, unlike the way an OC or a canon character would have a more definitive personality.

Thus, determining reactions by the reader would be difficult unless I gave the reader a defined personality I chose and made up, which might not align with what you or others want from a self-insert. Sure, I suppose I could fill in the blanks myself, and give the reader traits, essentially making them closer to an OC, but I'm not particularly interested in writing an SGE OC at this time either.

So, overall, I think I'd have a bit of a hard time with the vague nature of this request/anticipating what the reader "should" be like since it doesn't really give me a "plot" to work with, just a blank "character," if you understand what I'm getting at. Sorry if this is at all unclear.

That said, when I originally said you could address characters directly (in this post), perform actions and get them to respond, or give them information or a query to react to, I am open to writing Rhian or Rafal responding to a friend-like gesture or a what-if of some kind, say, what if a reader gave Rhian and Rafal a gift as a friend. This would give me enough specificity to more easily work with.

It's just that I don't plan on representing the asker/reader as anything much further beyond an entity, as if they were the bringer of content/information or the doer of a deed.

In a lot of cases, a typical response might take a form like this:

What would happen if I/you/the reader did/gave/said [this] to the brothers?

And the response would be the aftermath of that action/prompt, usually, written more passively, so as not to involve the reader/asker/doer/whomever:

Q: What would happen if Agatha were given a bouquet?

A: She would sneeze because of her pollen allergies.

Or, alternatively, an answer might look like this:

A: Agatha: [sneezes] Thank you for the flowers, but I'm afraid I'm going to hand them off to Sophie instead. She will appreciate them more than I could.

So, in conclusion, you could "do" something, essentially, perform an action/impart a (potentially dramatic) piece of information, but I won't usually take requests the type of relationship you're requesting. Yet, feel free to send another ask, if you have anything in mind that I might actually write.

For further clarification, what you could probably expect to get from a non-reader request is something with more focus on the character(s) involved and their reaction to an item/action/question posed.  This would mean the focus inherently won't be on the doer of the action (the reader/asker) whether it's on themselves, as a person, or on a relationship with the canon characters.

Overall, I simply don't plan on establishing new relationships with non-canon characters in the case of asks, and I'll only tend to work with new events/novel scenarios/prompts, involving existent characters and relationships.

Most likely, I'll try to keep to some form of canon (or if specified, my fics), as far as characterization or relationships go, depending on what an ask requires. While I think the idea of the brothers having a best friend is sweet, it doesn't really fit with my (very subjective) sense of their characters. Albeit, Rhian might be open to having a friend outside of Rafal.

So, to sum this up: I don't (usually) take formal writing requests or those involving a reader, and I'm sorry if I had ever been misleading about this before. (When I wrote dialogue or scripted scenes for other prompts, it was because I was given a premise/writing prompt that actually contained a "plot"/inciting incident/central concept of some kind, and chose to make the characters respond to events/information/other content within what I interpreted, sort of, to be the bounds of canon or the particular hypotheticals.)

None of my previous asks have been complete stories (they tend to be scenes or snippets) like the nature of this request seems to suggest(?), and I'm tempted to say this is because a relationship is a state of being, not a singular event, and such a thing could require much more development or the invention of a self-insert's "character." Also, honestly, I'm not an expert on reader-inserts as a genre, so I might not be the ideal person to ask.

However, again, if you would like to perform an action or give me dialogue of some kind, addressed to the brothers, I'd (usually) be willing to let Rafal and/or Rhian or anyone else from canon respond to such a gesture or events, if the gesture isn't by you or another hypothetical person with a major role.

So, apologies again, but I don't plan on taking requests that involve readers in the vast majority of cases, yet what I will write are Rhian and Rafal (or other characters) responding to concrete things or scenarios, usually in the context of their already-existent relationships, unless they otherwise happened to meet someone from canon they did not previously know.

Basically, these conditions would exclude a new, blank-slate relationship since I can't be absolutely sure what a reader-insert should be like, to successfully align with an asker's tastes, and simply don't have an interest in writing this type of dynamic at the moment.

Finally, if you or anyone else would like me to clarify anything they didn't understand (sorry if anything was explained too circularly), or if anyone has more questions on what I am generally willing or not willing to write, please don't hesitate to ask!

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Hi, how are you? First of all, thanks so much for your blog, because of you I started "Jeweler Richard" and "Moriarty the Patriot". And I love both of them. Since this last 3 years, I've lose interest in het romance and already drown in BL & GL manga/manhwa (especially BL). But those two stories that you recommended are very different than BL series that I read until now.

I also read in your blog that you're an ace. Can I ask hiw do you know that? Sorry for the sudden ask. It's just I lived in a country that anti LGBTQ+ (even in my family). I'm mid 20s but have no desire to have sex or romantic relationship with anyone. Eventhough I loved romance fictions and my hobby for the past few years are reading romantic fanfics. I love reading or watching other people's relationship but I don't want it for myself. Am I ace? What's the different between ace and aroace?

My mother for the past 20 years (since divorcing my father) never again in a romantic relationship, doest it mean she's also ace? Not that I can talk about this things to her, she's very strong in a religion that she truly believe that everything LGBTQ+ related must enter hell....

Sorry for this long ask, @seeingteacupsindragons , do you belive that I want to learn LGBTQ+ because of fanfics and danmei novels that lead me to love BL manga/manhwa....? Weird right?

Hi Anon! I had to pull this in to Word to write up a response because there’s a lot here, and I wanted to give you a good reply that really addressed things you have to say.

To start: I’m glad you found things you like through me! Yay! Both series are obviously very near and dear to me. Neither are BL, either, so that’s probably why they’re so different: they don’t have to confine to those genre conventions, because they…aren’t BL.

Anyway, wanting to learn about queer stuff because of fanfics and danmei and BL and manga and manhwa and fiction more generally is…

Actually pretty common.

I know a lot of people who started their exploration of their own queerness that way…and that includes me. It’s probably the most popular, accessible, and easy for teens to get ahold of, form of queerness or at least some sort. Or at least it used to be; it does seem that’s starting to change a bit with social media becoming more common. But it’s the first place a lot of people even saw something besides heteronormativity and the gender binary, or at least the first place they were expected to properly think about it (especially with things like Sailor Moon being censored in the US and likely other countries), and it’s popular around the ages people start to question this kind of thing.

Aromantic and asexuality are related, but separate concepts (for a lot of people). Aromantic means experiencing romantic attraction to someone rarely, never, or only under specific circumstances. Asexual means experiencing sexual attraction to someone rarely, never, or only under specific circumstances. “Ace” means “Asexual.” “Aro” means “Aromantic. “Aroace” means someone who is both.

As for how I know I’m ace…well, honestly, when I first encountered the word and definition I was like, “That’s what it is???” because I knew myself already by that point. Aro took a little longer for me to settle on, just because romantic attraction can sometimes be a little trickier to pull out from other things than sexual attraction often is.

And aro and ace are larger than simply not being interested personally in being in a sexual or romantic relationship, although those are for sure pretty common signs. And being interested in them in fiction when they have nothing to do with you is also reasonably common.

To help maybe explain some of this with characters you know, at one point, Tanimoto has a comment about how not experiencing a thing (romance) is different from thinking it has nothing to do with you at all, and I think that’s a pretty good explanation: you can be single and not interested in a relationship, but there can be reasons for that other than simply not being attracted and being entirely outside the…concept of wanting one with someone. And in volume one, Shimomura recognizes that the way Seigi calls Richard beautiful might be the same way a person calls Mt. Fuji beautiful and compares it to his own experiences, and I appreciate that, because he’s recognizing the existence of non-sexual and non-romantic attraction. That’s a really ace-affirming moment, too. That’s what being ace feels like often.

I don’t know your mom, and couldn’t say what she is. I have heard of some older people realizing they were ace or aro once their kids came out and they realized it was…a thing, just the same way when their kids might be diagnosed with something and they realize their experience wasn’t actually typical. Her not being in a relationship for 20 years could be for a lot of reasons, and it doesn’t necessarily mean she’s ace.

I don’t know if you’re ace, either. That’s a label only you can pick for yourself. Maybe it resonates with you! Maybe it doesn’t. But it’s really up to you, not me or anyone else.

[thischarmingand]

Book ask: 9, 16, 17!

Ok, this is super funny. Both you AND @straydog733 asked me for the exact same numbers.

So now that it's been a day since I accidentally deleted my first response let's try that again...

9. Did you get into any new genres?

Arguably, cookbooks, in that I read two of the purely as texts this year: B. Dylan Hollis's not very good (sorry!) Baking Yesteryear and Max Miller's excellent Tasting History. Both of them are essentially Tik Tok/YouTube books, but while Hollis admits he's neither a historian or someone who... actually knows how to bake... Miller clearly loves food history and knows how to do actual research and... write words coherently (again, sorry!)

Miller's book also doesn't consider America from 1890 onward to be the be-all, end-all of history (a thing about Hollis's book which strikes me as extra strange when you remember he isn't American!), and the recipes sourced from ancient Asian and Latin American history are particularly cool.

16. What is the most over-hyped book you read this year?

Hmmmmm. Probably the 1/3 of In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune that I tried? I don't know that I'd call that specific book super overhyped, but I'd argue Klune himself is, and as a new release it's a little more buzzy than most of the stuff I read. It's also super boring. Fascinating behind the scenes drama with his sensitivity readers, tho. (So much yikes that this man puts out into the universe and... simply could not!)

17. Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

I feel pretty fortunate this year that I read a lot of things that I expected would be good and then were instead great. Stephen Graham Jones' My Heart is a Chainsaw not only made the case for turning the Lake Witch books into a trilogy, it retroactively made me like the first book of the bunch so much more. Grady Hendrix's How to Sell a Haunted House is for me the best work he's done to date (evil puppets are honestly such a good device for trying to unpack the baggage your parents leave you when they die, metaphorically and also in the literal evil puppet sense). Wolf in White Van is the first John Darnielle novel I've read that feels like it actually achieves what it sets out to do with all the ambiguity and artifice. Allison Rumfitt's Tell Me I'm Worthless scared the shit out of me and made my cry and hasn't left my brain yet. And Lavendar House is a rare modern queer historical fiction book that manages to properly address the psychic damage that period-typical homophobia would do to a protagonist without being a primarily queer suffering story (and the murder mystery is pretty decent too!)

[anniesfarce]

so co-mod and i have played this game a few times with the cpds characters, "guess who but with vibes." (insp by this video) each of us will pick one character and ask the other yes/no questions about their "vibes" to determine via process of elimination which cpds character the other has picked!

we've played this a few times, but i thought i would share the first round we ever played, and maybe you can play along? (we played by having a full list of the characters up and striking them out as questions eliminated them.)

we originally played this going back and forth with questions, but for readability's sake, i've separated his character and mine, so you'll only see questions and responses about one character at a time. i've also edited this to fix typos as well as condensing and eliminating some of the chatty bits.

first character

L: would this person post minion memes unironically?

R: yes i think so

L: for reference, i took out 3. would your character, after walking into a door, deny it ever happened?

R: no

L: they wouldn't deny it?

R: yeah they wouldn't deny it, i don't think

L: ooh tricky. i took down two. i just feel like i'm making the wrong decisions here. would this person talk during a movie?

R: ahh i'm conflicted about this. i think yes.

L: two down

R: oh no that's seven down for you??

L: wait but if you were conflicted...

R: you're almost there??

L: i'm doubting my final two ngl but we'll see. we'll just have to see if i'll have to start over from scratch or something. in the video once both have guessed wrong, they reveal who and figure out where they went wrong. if you've picked jonathan i'm rebelling. would your character pick flowers from a neighbour's garden?

R: i think so. yes.

[L was ready to make a guess, but we decided that you can't ask a question and guess on the same turn.]

L: can i tell u my guess now

R: okay submit your guess :)

L: is it max

R: no :(

L: aw man. who was it?

R: mine was annie

L: aw MAN. i'm pretty sure it was the movie bit that did her in

R: oh yeah i was conflicted on that. but i felt like on balance she probably would talk during a movie. not in theatres though just like at home lol

L: oooh good point. i actually did start thinking jonathan might. i was like hm well i didn't think jonathan would but also he might...

R: hold on i want to know who did you eliminate for the minion memes one

L: ha ha um trevor robert and chris

R: you were very right ha ha

second character

L: ur turn

R: would they break into a petting zoo to pet the animals?

L: no i don't think so

R: conflicted because there are some people i'm borderline on if i should cross them off for that lol i'm just like i could see them doing this but i don't think they would just do it spontaneously on their own. unlike Certain Others. you're still ahead of me, i knocked off two. would this person ride a bike to work? regularly, i mean.

L: no. i think literally the only person this would eliminate is jonathan (jokes)

R: lol well i've eliminated two so i guess our feelings differ. i hope the person i eliminated was not the person you are thinking of! maybe this is a bad question but it's all i could think of: would this person smoke?

L: hmm no

R: was sort of hoping you'd say yes :/

L: sorry

R: i still have a whole three people left in the mix ha ha would your person enjoy a jane austen novel?

L: yes

R: i have it like 75/25 rn

L: okay u can ask me another question or just guess, whatever's fine with u ha ha

R: okay... is it sandra

L: yes

R: YES

L: gg

R: gg!!!! that was hard!

L: was it jane austen that tipped ya off?

R: of course it was, i was trying to eliminate robert tbh

L: ha ha i'm surprised robert stayed in for so long

R: and annie has not struck me as a jane austen enjoyer, but i thought Maybe

[lies-unfurl]

sorry, this got so long, i definitely got off topic to cry about stevebucky and sambucky and you did not ask for the novel length of this 😬

okay, I finished that silly little book. I can appreciate it for the fact that we finally have some more exploration of bucky’s character signed off by marvel but I went into this without having read the blurb (my own fault) and so to discover it was an AU, I started reading it before I sent you that ask, was kind of disappointing. I really wanted to love this but the way bucky was portrayed in here almost felt cartoonish and wildly out of character, more a bumbling idiot than the sharp, responsible buck we know and love, and you couldn't really tell bucky was seventeen for the most part, he almost felt like a twelve year old kid in the way he acted. 

it’s also intended for a young audience so I guess this is why that 1941 plotline had to be dragged out for so long. I do think it’s funny that the entire “who the hell is bucky” moment was with an actually confirmed lover in this book, which kind of confirms stucky was romantic, if you squint. maybe not. and oh my god, steve!! he was there for like two minutes, but I loved that quick little interaction they had. 

(and I mean, I can get behind the au thing of it all but how in the hell did bucky survive cryostasis and the torture without the supersoldier serum? 😭I KNOW it’s a comic book based story, but still)

I loved this book for the 1954 storyline, god. the reason why even wears the mask to begin with broke my heart all over again. the last two chapters and his mission in riga really sealed the deal for me. so, if anything, I’m glad I read this book for those chapters. the last two chapters were so good.

mostly I just feel resentment towards the mcu for sidelining bucky’s character for years. there is so much potential, or was, I wasn’t a fan or even aware of the cap trilogy back in 2014 but having watched ca:tws now I felt like, okay, after this it’s finally time to explore bucky’s character more in-depth. I felt like this was the set up to finally tell bucky’s story. and why didn’t they? he’s one of the most beloved characters ever. it’s crazy to me how homophobic those marvel execs must have been, they saw sebastian stan and chris evans had a little too much chemistry and were like nah, we can’t ever let those two be seen on screen together for longer than five minutes. and I love stevebucky, I do. but I didn’t expect marvel to ever go there. just a movie exploring bucky’s life as the winter soldier from 1945 to 2016 and after. his friendship with nat, those years on the run, wakanda, maybe. I’m so glad fanfic exists bc it definitely fills that void but I kind of feel bad for sebastian bc he clearly had expectations and wants for that character that he never saw fulfilled. the state of the mcu just makes me want to scream, thinking about tfatws feels like a fever dream now knowing that in cap4 and thunderbolts the writers will just “forget” this show ever happened. forever mad that they never hired good writers after cap2 who actually cared about these characters and narrative coherency.

this book just made me want to reread not easily conquered and dive back into the steve/bucky tag for good wwii fics. these characters had so much potential! and they went nowhere with them! I think on a panel in 2018 cevans joked about a potential tv show or something where they could dive into steve and bucky’s lives in the 40s and then immediately said it’d be impossible to make this show.

No worries anon, I'm happy to hear your take on things! And I do largely agree with you. The teen Bucky section wasn't nearly as strong as the Winter Soldier stuff. In the comics, you can see that young!Bucky struggles with being impulsive, at least partially because he's driven by this desperate need to prove himself. In the book, he was just like... kind of dumb lol (and also weirdly sexist at first, in a way that was probably realistic for the time frame, but still very off-putting).

But the 1954 chapters are much more compelling, especially towards the end. I kind of wish it hadn't been a YA novel, because I think it could've leaned deeper into the sort of slow-burning horror aspect of the Winter Soldier gradually realizing that he doesn't know who he is, and he can't trust any of the people around him. Like you said, the last two chapters were gripping, probably the highlight of the book.

As for everything else... lol, yeah. I've resigned myself to the fact that the MCU will never live up to what I want it to be. Which is a franchise that like... actually cares about its characters lol. Instead, it's more interested in expanding, creating new properties to milk dry and then move on, only occasionally giving us crumbs of the stories that roped people in in the first place. I'd love a WWII-era show, or really anything that gets into the backstories for Steve, Sam, or Bucky. And I think it could be really cool to tell those stories in some of the animated shows. But I also don't think that's going to happen lol.

I think you hit the nail on the head by calling TFATWS a "fever dream." I will be seeing C4 and Thunderbolts, and I'm glad to get new content, but... tbh I would be more excited if I believed we'd get a Sam and Bucky reunion down the line. Unfortunately, I'm not super optimistic that'll happen.

But! That's what we have fandom for, at least.