#it’s actually a very complicated and messy process with a lot of potential results but that’s above middle school science class | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

supercasey · 4 years ago

Text

TMA Child Avatars AU

Alright, so ever since I listened to the episode about Agnes’s origins, I keep thinking about an AU where a bunch of the other Entities, after realizing that it’s at least possible to create an avatar from birth, perform their own rituals and make a bunch of the future Archives gang. This AU has a lot of potential for angst, but since TMA is sad enough, I’ll probably mostly focus on the world building and fluffy/funny stuff (‘cus god knows I’m a slut for that shit).

To all my followers, I’m sorry I keep making kid AUs; I got told in like 2015 or so that I sucked at writing kids and it’s Never Left My Mind, so now I always wanna make stupid AUs in order to practice writing kids better (I also have an original story I wanna write soon with a ten year old as the main character, so yeah, I need all the practice I can get).

Anyways, here’s all I’ve got on the AU this far (explanation under the cut; a very long post is up ahead):

Character Backstories

Jonathan “Jon” Sims - Apprentice Archivist of the Eye

Jon is a very complicated story, at least from everyone outside of the Eye’s gaze. It was Elias’s idea to create him, and were it not for Gertrude getting lucky, no one but Elias, Peter Lukas, and Simon Fairchild would have ever known that Jon existed until he was ready to become the next archivist. Gertrude found out by pure chance when she accepted a live statement from one very frightened Delores Sims, who told the archivist about how a strange man had been stalking her ever since she found out she was pregnant. Out of completely nowhere, her husband died a month after she conceived, and even though it looked like an accident, Delores swore that she saw an arm surrounded by fog push him down the stairs. Things only grew worse for her over the next few weeks, as in the midst of her grieving her dead husband, Delores began seeing green, glowing irises out of the corners of her eyes, watching her every move as she lived her life, which was followed by the stalker in question appearing constantly in her dreams, always watching her from afar, an unpleasant and frankly unnerving grin on his face the entire time.

Suspicious, and finding the description of the stalker all too familiar by the end of the statement, Gertrude investigated Delores’s claims on her own time, going so far as to break into Elias’s office in order to dig up more information on whatever he was up to. No matter what her theories may have been, none of them were anything like what she found in his letters to his associates. Somehow, Elias had conspired alongside the Lukas and Fairchild families to find their heirs/avatars together, and Elias was the last person to acquire one of his own. Gertrude was unsure of the details at the time (and she still unfortunately is), but from what she could gather, the child growing in Delores Sims’ body was somehow touched by the Eye because of something Elias had done, and they would be born with the perfect framework to have the powers that an archivist learns over several years of training at birth! With no time to lose, Gertrude got back into contact with Delores, and after much discussion between the two women, she convinced Delores to come to her apartment when she eventually went into labor, and to give Gertrude the baby after they were born so that she could keep them safe from Elias.

The birth was meant to be done in secret, but the second the first contraction occurred, there was a knock on Gertrude’s door, Elias waiting for her on the other side with an unhappy grimace on his face. He came armed with a gun, and threatened to murder Gertrude if she didn’t allow him to claim the child as his own. Aware she still had many rituals to stop in the near future, and that none of her assistants were experienced enough to stop them by themselves, Gertrude reluctantly agreed to let him inside, but on one condition; the child had to be shared between them. Elias was abrasive to the idea of course, but he eventually complied with his archivist’s demands, not wanting to replace her so early on in her career. The sight of her stalker coming into the bedroom to watch her give birth unfortunately sent Delores into a panic attack while she was still very much in labor, making the rest of the birth a rather dangerous thing, but the child survived, leaving his mother terrified and shaking. Gertrude had planned on letting her go on her merry way after the baby was born, but Elias wasn’t taking any chances, and he shot her as soon as he deemed it safe to.

Since then, Gertrude and Elias have had dual custody of Jonathan- the name was Gertrude’s idea, on the grounds that it was a nice, proper name for a young man- trading him back and forth every other week. It’s been hard, especially with the adults he calls his parents wanting to kill each other, but Jon’s oblivious to most of the fighting right now, assuming his folks are just going through a messy divorce.

Martin Blackwood-Lukas - Adoptive Son of Peter Lukas

Peter ended up running very behind in the whole child avatar thing (a first for his family, something Simon reminds him of on a daily basis), and he really struggled with creating a baby avatar that would actually be able to “keep up” with the other young messiahs that were coming to be. Eventually he realized that his family’s usual method would take too long, so out of desperation he went to Elias and Simon for help. It was Simon’s idea that worked; he suggested that since the normal methods weren’t working, and kids usually don’t become lonely until they’re older, that Peter should try his own summoning ritual like the Lightless Flame did with Agnes. Peter was hesitant at first, but he gave in quickly, sacrificing a number of lonely souls to his entity in a well-timed manner, until finally, he found a small, swaddled baby in the midst of the fog; a supposed gift from the Lonely for his loyalty.

Peter was delighted by this discovery, and so were his colleagues, the men relieved that their hard work had actually paid off for once. After naming the little boy Martin- it was Elias’s idea, though he didn’t have much of an exact reason for the name, simply claiming that it “suited” the child- and before long, Peter began raising his newfound son much the same as he was; in almost total isolation, save for a variety of rotating nannies and caregivers. Unfortunately for Peter, this went horribly wrong almost as soon as he got started, as by the time that Martin was six months old he had accidentally forced five different nannies into the fog out of fear of them leaving like the ones before them had. With no other options available, and being able to actually leave the fog if Martin threw anymore fits, Peter was forced to raise his son by hand, which again went wrong, but for very different reasons, as to his shock, he became quite attached to his adopted child.

This evolved into Peter having doubt of the Lonely for the first time in his life, but he refused to acknowledge it for as long as he could. But he was finally forced to when, after Martin turned five years old, the rest of the Lukas family insisted on performing a test on the child to see how well Martin could handle the fog without any guidance. He had been inside the fog before of course, with Peter holding his hand or carrying him through the dense chill, but the family wanted to isolate Martin inside for a full month. This secretly scared Peter like nothing else ever had, but out of fear of what his family might think, he didn’t say anything at the time, simply watching from afar as his son was dragged into the fog and left to fend for himself. The ritual went wrong within the first week, Martin having a full-scale breakdown and nearly hyperventilating to death, and yet the family kept him in there for another week before the intervention.

The results of the test of course disappointed the other members of the Lukas family, who suggested that they simply leave Martin to disappear into the fog and look for a new, more sufficient messiah to serve their god. The news hit Peter incredibly hard, and despite his previous inhibitions and fear, he knew he couldn’t let the Lonely consume his one and only son. So, without telling anyone of what he was up to, he ventured into the fog, rescued Martin, and fled to live with his estranged ex-husband the Magnus Institute. Since then he’s been living with Elias at his house and avoiding his family at all costs, all while young Martin has grown up alongside the other entity kids and has struggled to figure out his role in everything, but at least he has his dad on his side through all of this.

Sasha James - Chosen Daughter of the Mother of Puppets

(Note: I headcanon the Mother of Puppets as a giant spider, so that’s how I’m writing her… sorry if this is inaccurate, but I’m only on MAG 152, y’all. Besides, I think this is cool af.)

Sasha was very much planned, even more so than Agnes was so many years beforehand. The Mother of Puppets had her minions gather hundreds upon hundreds of orphaned infants and bring them to her nest. She swaddled each every one in her webbing and kept them like this for several weeks, allowing them time to adjust to the webbing and adapt. Unfortunately, most of these children weren’t cut out for the Web’s influence, and while a few indeed held their adoptive mother’s mark, almost none of them were marked deep enough to become a fully realized avatar. The unsuccessful batches were subsequently sent off to orphanages across the world and replaced with new babies, this process repeating for years and years, until finally, Sasha was born. There was nothing special about her parents, yet she not only bore The Web’s mark, she seemed to have it embedded into her very soul. This, of course, was met with celebration from the Web, and plans were quickly made as to how to raise her moving forward, as no one wanted Sasha to end up like Agnes did.

Annabelle Cane ended up being the one chosen to home Sasha for the first few years of her childhood, and she was dutiful in her new, rather honorable role, as she not only cared for the child well, but she treated Sasha as her own, though she was careful to be seen more as an older sister than a mother to the girl; that role was, of course, reserved for Sasha’s real mother. When Sasha finally turned five, the Mother of Puppets announced further plans for the young avatar, calling on Annabelle to take Sasha to the Magnus Institute and give her to one of their hidden agents there so that she could learn more about how the Web uses it’s influence over other entities. This worried Annabelle, who wanted to keep the child near her and prove that she was the most loyal of the mother’s children, but she would never disobey a direct order from the being that had given her life such meaning. So, rather reluctantly, Annabelle gave Sasha to another member of the Web, watching from the shadows as this unworthy follower took the blessed daughter into the institute for further training.

This went wrong within only a few months. Gertrude ended up finding out who the Web’s spy in the institute was, as she had suspected that another entity was trying to control her from the shadows, and after disposing of the threat and searching their home for anything useful that she could use against the Web, she found Sasha. The archivist was tempted to kill the supernatural child on sight, but while she can murder her assistants and enemies without much remorse, on the grounds that it’s always for the greater good, killing a child is a very different story. So she took Sasha in, raising the Web’s child as her own alongside the Eye’s own prodigy Jon, all while trying to help Sasha control her slowly budding powers. The Mother of Puppets has been trying to get Sasha back ever since, enraged that the child is so close to her yet just out of reach, but with no luck, though there’s no telling how long that will last.

Timothy & Daniel Stoker - Dancer and Future Ringmaster of the Stranger

Both Tim and Danny are chosen ones of the Stranger, created as soon as their god had gained enough spare power to create them. Tim was born first, being the Stranger’s first attempt at birthing an avatar that might be powerful enough to help lead the Unknowing, but Gertrude interrupted midway through the ritual. By some miracle, Tim survived the ordeal, but he was left “incomplete” to some degree, leaving him simply marked and not fully connected to the Stranger. The entity’s followers ended up keeping him around though, both because Nikola Orsinov was too fascinated by the newborn baby to give him up, and because his parents wanted him to survive, but it was agreed that another attempt would be made, this time with more planning involved. Four years later, Danny was born, and with Gertrude too preoccupied to intervene this time around (and because she didn’t realize they’d try again so soon), the ritual went much better and created a far more suitable vessel for the Stranger’s powers.

After that, Tim and Danny’s parents died, fully succumbing to the Stranger’s transformation and leaving them orphaned. Not that their presence was strictly necessary after the kids were born, as Nikola Orsinov was more than happy to take over in most of the child rearing, genuinely growing quite fond of the two boys, particularly Tim, as despite his lack of supernatural abilities, she found him to be rather endearing, which is probably the closest she can get to genuinely caring about someone. Both brothers were raised more or less the same way, save for Danny being showered with more praise and being trained as a future ringmaster while Tim was mostly ignored and trained to be a dancer. Some followers of the Stranger feared that Tim might harbor resentment towards his little brother and try to kill him someday, but to their surprise, Tim only grew more protective of him over the years, swearing to keep Danny safe as he grew up to fulfill his destiny and help their family mold the world in their image.

Eventually though, when Tim was eleven and Danny was seven, Tim realized what was actually happening behind the scenes, and not wanting his brother to risk being sacrificed for the world’s destruction, he told Danny everything, leading to the young messiah to run away with him to London (they were raised primarily in Russia, but moved with the circus a lot, and were in France at the time that they finally ran away). There, Tim found the infamous Gertrude Robinson, who he knew had the power to stop the Unknowing, as she had once saved him from becoming the Stranger’s avatar, and inadvertently led him to having a little brother. Tim and Danny have since moved in with Michael, and they visit the Magnus Institute whenever they get the chance, as both boys have grown to become friends with the other avatar kids. You’d think that the Stranger’s followers would be furious about all of this- don’t worry, many of their acolytes are- but Nikola has laughed it off entirely and keeps insisting that the boys are just having a “sleepover” or are away at “summer camp” (in fucking January, apparently).

Melanie King - Cadet of the Slaughter

Honestly, the Slaughter wasn’t as into the whole “let’s make an avatar from scratch!” thing that the other entities’ followers were doing, but hey, sometimes child avatars just kinda wind up on your doorstep, ya know? Melanie ended up being found at about four years old, sobbing on her hands and knees outside of a burning hospital and calling for her mommy and daddy to come back to her, but no one answered her cries, and she was left to weep for quite some time before someone found her. The hospital, you see, had been overrun by the Corruption and promptly burned to the ground by the Desolation, neither of which bothered to stick around for some worthless child. Melanie’s parents were both inside when the entities clashed, leaving her orphaned and scared, and while Alfred Grifter, who had been on his way to a show with his bandmates at the time that he found her, had intended on just leaving her be, he saw the overwhelming rage and blood-lust in her crying eyes, and realized in that moment that she was touched by the urge to kill, just like he was.

Melanie was promptly taken in by Alfred Grifter and the band, who honestly had no idea what the hell they were doing. On one hand, Alfred knew that keeping a kid around was unbelievably dangerous for all parties involved, but on the other, he really didn’t want to leave Melanie all by herself, for fear of what she might do if left without any guidance from “people” who knew what she was going through, at least to some degree. That isn’t to say Alfred and his bandmates were all that great at raising her- they mostly just brought her to gigs and let her play on her Gameboy backstage while they started massacres- but they did at least try to give her somewhat of a home. It wasn’t until five years into this that some other Slaughter followers found out about Melanie’s existence, to which they told Alfred to give her to them for proper training. Knowing her life would be horrible with them, Alfred gave his ward a backpack full of everything she ever owned, a kid sized guitar, her Gameboy, and sent her on the run.

Melanie was scared out of her mind at first, having grown to see Alfred and his bandmates as her new family; she had already lost her parents, so why did she have to lose the band, too!? But there were no other options, she had to run, so she did just that, attacking any adult who tried to stop her along the way. She didn’t actually know about the Magnus Institute when she made her way to London, and Alfred didn’t tell her to go there or anything, but she ended up being spotted by Adelard Dekker while she was looking for a place to stay in the area. Seeing that Melanie was an avatar of some kind, Adelard managed to convince her that he was safe, and to let him take her to someone that could help her. He brought Melanie straight to Gertrude Robinson, who agreed to house the child since Adelard couldn’t, though she ended up letting one of her unofficial assistants (*cough* Gerry *cough*) take her to live in his flat so she wouldn’t be as easy for Elias to monitor/get ahold of.

Julia Montauk & Alice “Daisy” Tonner - Children of the Hunt

(Watch as I fuck with timelines so badly that the people who keep track of this shit will order a hit on me) The Hunt found both of their avatars in strikingly similar yet different ways; Julia was first, born from the womb of another entity’s follower, but bound for so much more than anything the Dark could give her. Years after her destined birth, Julia’s mother was viciously murdered by the People’s Church when she was just five years old, her father Robert Montauk going down the path of becoming a fully-fledged Hunter, and in the process he unknowingly marked Julia with his newfound entity, which in turn unlocked an unprecedented potential inside of her, not that it was fully realized until another tragedy struck her. This next tragedy, unfortunately, claimed Julia’s father. Mr. Pitch was mistakenly summoned, and in it’s rage, it destroyed Robert while he was in the midst of a sacrifice. The monster would’ve gotten Julia next, had it not been for the intervention of a nearby Hunter.

Trevor Herbert honestly didn’t mean to get involved, but when he witnessed a little girl screaming as she ran out of a house, a giant mass of darkness chasing after her, and no one willing to so much as call the damn cops, he knew he had to rescue the poor kid. In a flash he ran over, picked Julia up, and ran away with her to safety, managing to get her in his car (which he stole, but that’s not important) and drive as far away from her old home as possible. In the aftermath, Trevor had no idea what to do with Julia, since he had never actually wanted any kids of his own, but… well, he ain’t heartless, and that monster was still out there somewhere, just waiting to sink it’s cursed teeth into this young child’s flesh. Trevor ended up keeping her after that, becoming her adoptive father as he traveled with her around the UK, slowly but surely training her to hunt the same monsters that claimed her beloved parents.

You’d think that would be the end of Trevor Herbert adopting little girls marked by the Hunt, but nope, he just can’t catch a fucking break! He found Daisy about a year later, when Julia was eight and becoming more adjusted to her new lifestyle. Again, Trevor wasn’t really planning on going on any hunts at the time that this happened, he was just traveling through the area, but upon finding a bloodied up, terrified little girl being chased by a boy who looked possessed… well, it wasn’t like Julia wasn’t lonely, and again, Trevor isn’t heartless, and he sure as hell can’t let things go. So yeah, he kidnapped another child touched by the Hunt, even though this one actually had a living parent, and once again he took to traveling the UK with his adoptive daughters, secretly reveling in his new role as a father. Daisy, while scared at first, quickly grew fond of her new family, and even fonder of her new nickname after Trevor patched up her wounds, and noticed a flower-shaped scar on her back, prompting him to start affectionately calling her Daisy.

Yep, things were going pretty good for the family of three, but of course, shit eventually caught up with Trevor, not that he thought he could avoid it forever.

The police eventually caught wind of “Trevor the Tramp” traveling with two little girls who looked an awful lot like the missing thirteen and ten year olds Julia Montauk and Alice Tonner, and in his desperation to keep from getting arrested and having his children taken away, Trevor fled to downtown London in order to lie low for awhile and raise his daughters in relative peace, only ever going out for food runs and the occasional hunt. It was through one of these hunts that he ended up meeting Gerard Keay, the two of them chasing after the same book that had been summoning shadow people to wreck havoc on the city, and after a bit of back and forth banter over the campfire that was once a Leitner, Gerry convinced Trevor to move in with him so that the girls and him would be safer and actually have a home. Although he was hesitant to accept an offer he thought was too good to be true (also, he’s not gonna lie, he thought Gerry was a vampire when they met), Trevor agreed and moved into Gerry’s flat with his daughters, and has since helped Gertrude and her assistants with monster hunts.

Oliver Banks & Georgie Barker - Fetchlings of The End

Georgie and Oliver are an odd story, with the latter of the two having gained his powers as a mere toddler, being plagued with horrible, ghastly dreams that would keep him awake through the night, leaving him absolutely haggard by morning. His father tried everything to help Oliver through this torment- counseling, medication, bedtime rituals- but nothing worked, and before long, Oliver’s beloved father was claimed by his nightmares, dying of a heart attack that he couldn’t stop. Alone and misunderstood by everyone who tried to raise him, Oliver ran away countless times, coming across Georgie during his last attempt. He found the little girl to also be on the run for similar reasons, but unlike him, she wasn’t the least bit afraid. She wasn’t exactly happy, but she wasn’t a bawling mess like he was. Together, the two of them struggled to survive, relying on kindhearted drifters for support while they avoided the police until, at long last, something took pity on them, that something being a large, fat tabby cat.

As it were, the tabby cat- dubbed The Admiral by Georgie- wasn’t a normal cat in the slightest, and although it couldn’t speak, it’s intentions were clear; it was there to help these lost, orphaned children. Oliver was skeptical of course, but Georgie wasn’t about to look a gift cat in the mouth, so Oliver reluctantly followed the cat and his little sister to an apartment building, and from there, into an unoccupied flat. Since then, the two children have been living with Admiral in that very same flat, the cat providing them with a fully stocked fridge, warm beds, and running water. It’s still unclear what the Admiral is, but he seems kind enough, and is obviously quite protective of his newfound children, accompanying them on their outings and occasional visits to the institute.

Michael Crew - Prodigy of The Vast

Out of all avatars to be raising children for their entity, Simon Fairchild absolutely has had the most fun with it all, treating it almost like a fun game or pastime. He was the first (save for the Lightless Flame having Agnes, of course) to “create” an avatar child, and from minute one he was overjoyed with the results. A few years after news broke of Agnes’ origins, and the followers of other entities were all arguing over whether or not to follow suit, Simon didn’t bother waiting for anyone’s input or permission, simply throwing himself into the deep end and praying he could make his plan work. Seemingly overnight, Simon somehow acquired a baby later identified as the missing and presumably dead infant Michael Crew, who he referred to as Mike when he finally introduced him to his friends/associates. He still hasn’t told anyone how he even got the kid- not even Peter or Elias know what he did!- but by some means, he illegally adopted Mike and took to raising the kid like a duck takes to water; a bit unsure at first, but growing to love it fast!

When Mike was introduced to the rest of the entity followers community, many were shocked (excuse the pun) to see that the infant had a long, frightening Lichtenberg scar running down his right arm, his back, and his right leg, the scars glowing a bright blue whenever he took to the sky or, as Elias learned the hard way after accidentally annoying Mike by bouncing him on his knee for too long when he was a toddler, used his powers to electrocute people. Even with his child being such an oddity, even among other avatars, Simon took it all in stride, proudly bragging about Mike to anyone who would listen, most of these people being victims of the Vast, who were hardly able to hear Simon’s excited rambling over their own shrieks of terror. He usually also insisted on bringing Mike with him, even when he was a mere infant, though he at least kept the kid in a tight harness on his chest. In all honesty, Simon being such an excited parent was what kick-started a lot of other avatars to start acquiring their own child avatars, as he made it look so easy!

However, things weren’t always perfect, especially on Mike’s end as he grew older. Being the eldest and more or less “firstborn” of this new generation of entity-made avatars put a lot of pressure on him at a very early age, pressure which Simon tried to help him deal with by not acknowledging it, which unfortunately didn’t help in the slightest. Thankfully Mike started to feel less unsure of his place in the world as he reached his teen years, seeing as the younger kids were now getting all the attention and giving him a chance to breathe. Even now that he’s an angsty teenager, Mike loves Simon like a father, referring to him as such without hesitation. This, of course, delights Simon to no end, and makes all his peers low-key high-key jealous of the awesome relationship he has with his son.

Helen Richardson - Droplet of The Spiral

Not much was known about Helen when Michael first found her. After being sent into The Spiral by Gertrude on what he thought to be a suicide mission for the greater good, Michael was half certain he wouldn’t find anything but his end in that place. Instead he found a small, strange toddler where he was meant to find… well, he didn’t actually know what, but certainly not a baby, that’s for sure! With no one watching baby Helen, and therefore making him believe that she had been abandoned by The Spiral’s other creations, Michael had no reservations against scooping her up and taking her back to the physical world with him, where he was met be a very confused Gertrude Robinson. Michael wasn’t exactly keen on killing/abandoning a baby after he got out, so he and Gertrude brought her back to London with them in hopes of finding out more about the odd child. Along the way, it became clear that the baby was gifted with The Spiral’s powers, the giggly toddler continually screwing with reality, though she wasn’t aware she was doing so.

Back home in London, it took another three weeks of research, but Gerry eventually found out more about the child Michael had more or less adopted. Her name was originally Helen Richardson, and her father, a rookie paranormal investigator who had once been marked by The Spiral, was obsessed with the distortion, and was willing to do anything to become more than simply marked by it. He ended up finding a map similar to Gertrude’s, and a few years before she even knew it was possible, the father went into The Spiral and used his own daughter as a vessel for the entity, hoping she would be a good enough sacrifice to earn it’s favor. This of course ended in disaster, with the father “disappearing” while Helen absorbed The Spiral’s power, but seeing as she was so young, it couldn’t manifest properly, even after two and a half years spent trying to “raise her” within the deepest depths of it’s domain.

With research still being done on what to do about the child, and whether or not the team can remove her powers without killing or permanently injuring her in the process, Michael has agreed to take Helen in, secretly delighted to be raising a baby. With the Stoker Brothers already under his roof, Michael has his hands rather full with them and baby Helen, but the boys take her antics in stride, having learned quickly how to deal with the apartment they live in occasionally “growing” some new doors and changing color at random. Luckily for Michael, he has back-up in the forms of Gerry and Gertrude, who occasionally take Helen and the brothers off his hands for him so he can take a break/fix whatever Helen may’ve accidentally broken with her powers.

Character Roles in this AU

(Feel free to add your own OCs/other characters if you wanna do stuff with this AU, I’m just naming characters I know about/remember!)

Avatar Kids: Jonathan “Jon” Sims, Martin Blackwood, Sasha James, Timothy “Tim” Stoker, Daniel “Danny” Stoker, Melanie King, Julia Montauk, Alice “Daisy” Tonner, Oliver Banks, Georgie Barker, Michael “Mike” Crew, and Helen Richardson.

Avatar Kids Semi-Reluctant PTA Group: Elias Bouchard, Gertrude Robinson, Peter Lukas, Gerard “Gerry” Keay, Trevor Herbert, Michael Shelley, and Simon Fairchild.

PTA Allies: Basira Hussain (Daisy’s best friend and the local Normal Child™), Agnes Montague (Everyone’s emergency number for avatar child advice), Alfred Grifter (Just shows up to hang out with Melanie and cause problems on purpose), The Admiral (Guardian to Georgie and Oliver and occasionally the other kids; best babysitter), Adelard Dekker (Comes around the archives sometimes and always brings presents for the kids + assistants), and Rosie (Elias’s assistant and the only sane and sensible adult in this Chili’s tonight).

PTA Enemies: Nikola Orsinov (Tim and Danny’s “Mom” who keeps kidnapping Jon on accident), Annabelle Cane (Hates the institute and wants Sasha back), Jude Perry (Hates the kids but loves Agnes; worst babysitter), and Jared Hopworth (Nightmare flesh man that needs to fuck off; mediocre but funny babysitter).

Character Descriptions

(Feel free to tweak the physical designs if you want; I’m just going off my own headcanons, and seeing as my drawing skills are pretty shit, it’s not like I’m gonna be doing much art for this outside of writing. So yeah, go off with your own headcanons if you want to!)

Full Name: Jonathan “Jon” Sims-Bouchard-Robinson Age: 7 Birthday: October 26th (Scorpio) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Eye, Marked by Literally Fucking Everything Guardian(s): Alexander Sims (Biological Father - Deceased), Delores Sims (Biological Mother - Deceased), Gertrude Robinson (Adoptive Mother - Current), Elias Bouchard (Adoptive Father - Current) Appearance: African heritage with dark brown skin, worryingly short for his age, dark brown eyes that glow bright green when he’s using his powers, long black hair with a few green and grey hairbands tied in, constantly “borrows” Martin’s sweaters to wear, occasionally wears skirts but most of the time he wears slacks, constantly looks sleep deprived, has a very intense stare, and occasionally he can be seen carrying his stuffed moth around. Personality: You’d think he’d be a quiet kid, considering his entity, but no, he has Questions and he wants them Answered, goddammit! He wasn’t raised around many kids his age, being home-schooled by Elias and Gertrude all his life, so he struggles to connect with the other avatar kids. Is only close to the S1 gang at first, but he gets closer to everyone else over time. Idolizes Gerry and thinks he’s the coolest guy ever. Appears rather cowardly at a glance, but he’s braver than most people give him credit for. Would die for his friends/family.

Full Name: Martin Blackwood-Lukas Age: 8 Birthday: February 29th (Pisces) ((This one’s for you, Dane)) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Lonely, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): William Blackwood (Biological Father - Uninvolved), Edna Blackwood (Biological Mother - Uninvolved), Peter Lukas (Adoptive Father - Current) Appearance: Polish heritage and pale as a fucking ghost, average height for his age but growing fast, pretty chubby, covered head to toe in little red freckles, short and curly red hair, bright brown eyes, wears big round glasses, wears sweaters and comfy trousers almost 24/7, carries a backpack full of “emergency tools” wherever he goes, usually has a cup of tea in-hand, and sometimes wears a small sailor hat that Peter gave him. Personality: Incredibly reserved, much like Mike, but he’s been trying to come out of his shell more. He’s “Best Friends Forever” with Jon, and gets along well with Tim and Sasha as well. Fears Melanie and Daisy. He likes hanging out with the other kids, but he often gets talked over, leading him to withdraw for awhile if it’s bad enough. Adores his dad, and is so much braver than anyone knows. Incredibly snarky when he feels like it.

Full Name: Sasha James Age: 10 Birthday: November 18th (Scorpio) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Web, Marked by The Eye, Marked by The Stranger Guardian(s): Francis James (Biological Father - Deceased), Patrick James (Biological Father - Deceased), Annabelle Cane (Adoptive Mother - Uninvolved), Gertrude Robinson (Adoptive Mother - Current) Appearance: Mixed race heritage of African and Caucasian with dark brown skin, slightly taller than average for her age, long dark brown hair, wears big round glasses, sometimes wears a little make-up if she can get away with it, wears a lot of turtleneck sweaters and long skirts, always has at least one cobweb on her, carries around a stuffed spider that she brings with her to the archives every day, and she wears a headband most of the time. Personality: Easily the most level-headed of the kids, as she’s been raised around paranormal stuff the longest and is rarely bothered by the stranger things that happen. She hates Artifact Storage with a passion, but other than that, she loves exploring the institute and occasionally stealing Gertrude’s laptop to mess with it. Very tech savvy, and even more curious! Incredibly smart, to the point that she can even outclass Gertrude and Gerry with her quick-wittiness.

Full Name: Timothy “Tim” Stoker Age: 12 Birthday: August 3rd (Leo) Entity/Mark(s): Marked by The Stranger, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): Markus Stoker (Biological Father - Deceased), Olivia Stoker (Biological Mother - Deceased), Nikola Orsinov (Adoptive Mother - Uninvolved), Gerard “Gerry” Keay (Adoptive Guardian - Current) Appearance: Mixed race heritage of Latino and Korean with dark tanned skin, slightly on the taller side for his age, messy/spiky black hair that looks impossible to comb, dark brown eyes, is described as a “handsome young man” by strangers, has a very charming smile, wears a lot of Hawaiian shirts and shorts (even during the winter), needs to wear glasses but he refuses to wear them in the archives out of self-consciousness. Personality: Probably one of the brightest personalities of the avatar kids, Tim comes off as very cool and funny, but underneath all of that he’s rather paranoid, afraid that the circus will come and force his baby brother into becoming a monster. Protective of his little bro and the archive kids, but he still teases them to no end. Smarter than he looks, and isn’t afraid to break his cool guy persona to tell someone off.

Full Name: Daniel “Danny” Stoker Age: 8 Birthday: August 1st (Leo) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Stranger, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): Markus Stoker (Biological Father - Deceased), Olivia Stoker (Biological Mother - Deceased), Nikola Orsinov (Adoptive Guardian - Uninvolved), Gerard “Gerry” Keay (Adoptive Guardian - Current) Appearance: Mixed race heritage of Latino and Korean with dark tanned skin, about a head shorter than Tim, somewhat neat black hair that sticks up in odd places, eyes are impressively dark and glassy looking, slight gap between his front teeth, is described as being a “handsome young man” by strangers, wears a lot of tank tops and shorts as well as the occasional hoodie if it’s cold, and loves running around barefoot. Personality: A lot of people describe Danny as being a “smaller and cuter Tim”, but that’s just not true. Danny is a lot like his older brother in many ways, but he has a much more refined taste for adventure, constantly getting himself into trouble with Jon on the grounds of “exploring” or what have you. He idolizes his big bro to the moon and back, and loves hanging out with him alongside the other kids. More of a follower than a leader, but he doesn’t mind. Secretly fears the day that the circus will come back to make him into their future ringmaster.

Full Name: Melanie King Age: 9 Birthday: June 7th (Gemini) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Slaughter, Marked by The Corruption, Marked by The Desolation, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): Boris King (Biological Father - Deceased), Carrie King (Biological Mother - Deceased), Alfred Grifter (Guardian - Uninvolved), Gerard Keay (Guardian - Current) Appearance: Irish heritage but not terribly pale, rather short for her age, incredibly thin from malnutrition, short brown hair with the ends dyed bright blue, bright brown eyes, brings her leather jacket and her guitar with her everywhere she goes, wears a lot of pink/blue skirts and band t-shirts, wears black leather boots, has a lot of bandages on her knees and knuckles, and always has a camera ready to record things. Personality: Melanie is probably the most disconnected of the avatar kids (save for Helen), seeing as she only just recently joined the group, but already she’s beginning to befriend Sasha and Basira. She’s very protective of the other girls, and she keeps challenging the boys to fight her (only Danny ever agrees; he always loses). Secretly idolizes Julia and Daisy, but will never admit it. She sees Gerry as her big bro and Alfred Grifter as her adoptive dad; she misses Alfred more than she let’s on. Would stab as a warning.

Full Name: Julia Montauk Age: 13 Birthday: April 19th (Aries) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Hunt, Marked by The Dark, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): Robert Montauk (Biological Father - Deceased), Linette Montauk (Biological Mother - Deceased), Trevor Herbert (Adoptive Father - Current) Appearance: Indigenous heritage with dark tan skin, tall for her age, skinny enough to look malnourished, close-cropped red hair that gets her mistaken for a boy a lot, metal grey eyes, a scar runs diagonally across her right eye, often wears medium length skirts and oversized t-shirts, always wears athletic shoes, has a lot of scrapes and bandages on her knees most of the time, and has abnormally sharp canines. Personality: Before the deaths of both of her parents, Julia was considered rather normal for her age, being interested in horses, dolls, and dress-up games. After her mother died, she became more tomboyish, which only became more extreme after her father’s death. Since being taken in by Trevor, Julia’s been trying to act more like an adult in an attempt to seem less vulnerable, to varying degrees of success. She adores Trevor to the moon and back, and sees Daisy as her little sister. A bit standoffish around other children, but she’s got a good heart.

Full Name: Alice “Daisy” Tonner Age: 10 Birthday: March 15th (Pisces) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Hunter, Marked by The Slaughter, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): Greyson Tonner (Biological Father - Deceased), Antoinette Tonner (Biological Mother - Uninvolved), Trevor Herbert (Adoptive Father - Current) Appearance: Welsh heritage with cream colored skin and a light tan, average height for her age, short and shaggy blond hair, has a number of tiny scars all over her face and hands, has a huge scar on her back that Trevor has told her looks like a daisy, striking green eyes, wears a lot of sleeveless shirts and shorts, refuses to wear dresses or skirts, prefers to be barefoot, and has abnormally sharp canines. Personality: Is already rather hot-headed at her age, especially after her encounter with Calvin while he was being possessed by a spirit of the Slaughter. Even so, she’s protective of her newfound family of Trevor and Julia, and while she misses her mother, she believes it’s best if she stays where she is. She loves playing outside whenever she can, and will spend hours chasing after squirrels and rabbits if left alone for too long. A bit argumentative, but she gets along really well with Julia and Basira.

Full Name: Oliver Banks Age: 10 Birthday: June 14th (Gemini) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The End, Marked by The Hunt Guardian(s): June Banks (Biological Mother - Uninvolved), Isaac Banks (Biological Father - Deceased), The Admiral (Adoptive Guardian - Current) Appearance: African heritage with dark skin, has an array of pitch black freckles on his face, short and neat black hair that reaches just below his ears, ghastly grey eyes that look almost clear and turn black when he’s using his powers; used to be dark brown, worryingly thin from years of malnutrition, wears a lot of baggy and long-sleeved shirts, wears sweatpants, has boots on everywhere he goes, and he’s almost always shivering. Personality: The more distrustful of the “End Siblings”, the only person Oliver even sort of likes is Jon, and even then he’s still scared of him. Constantly fidgeting and yawning from both his paranoia and fatigue. Is protective of Georgie, but more out of obligation than friendship. Prefers to be alone, and rarely visits the archives. He knows something bad is coming, but he’s too scared to do much about it. In the end, he knows he’ll do the right thing, but for now he’s hiding until the bombs finally fall.

Full Name: Georgie Barker Age: 7 Birthday: December 9th (Sagittarius) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The End, Marked by The Hunt Guardian(s): Georgie Grounding Sr. (Biological Mother - Deceased), Sarah Grounding (Biological Mother - Deceased), Jason Barker (Adoptive Father - Deceased), The Admiral (Adoptive Guardian - Current) Appearance: Mixed race heritage of African and Indian with dark brown skin, fairly chubby, has an array of light brown freckles all over her arms, back, and face, has long and curly black hair done up in poofy buns using colorful hair bands, paints her nails all the time with different colors every week, cutest little smile you ever did see, wears a lot of ghost-related clothing (mainly t-shirts and jeans), and she brings her ghost backpack with her everywhere she goes (it has her stuffed leopard inside). Personality: Despite being an avatar of the End, Georgie has a very upbeat personality, having no time for her adoptive brother’s endless worrying and fearfulness. In fact, all her fear has been gone since she was little, so she’s never scared to explore something new and parade into danger! She’s very close friends with Jon (even if he’s distant sometimes) and best friends with Melanie, though she gets along with most everyone else as well. She may be a chipper person, but look out, she’s carrying more baggage than she let’s on. Loves The Admiral more than life.

Full Name: Michael “Mike” Crew Age: 14 Birthday: May 13th (Taurus) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Vast Guardian(s): Ramsey Crew (Biological Father - Uninvolved), Whitney Crew (Biological Mother - Uninvolved), Simon Fairchild (Adoptive Father - Current) Appearance: Caucasian and pale as a ghost, shaggy white hair that’s almost always wind-swept, strikingly pale blue eyes, smells of ozone and burnt hair, incredibly short for his age, very bony and thin, tends to wear a lot of oversized hoodies on the grounds that they make flying more fun, clothes are almost always pristine and clean, his back, right arm, and right leg are covered in a Lichtenberg scar that glows bright blue when he’s using his powers, permanent bags under his eyes. Personality: A very, very quiet kid, at least around strangers. He’s much bubblier around Simon, but otherwise he’s viewed as an “old soul” by most adults. He does have a sense of humor though, taking a bit too much pleasure out of sending people soaring into the air against their will, especially if they insulted or annoyed him beforehand. Secretly a bit protective of the other avatar kids, and has been known to take them flying if they promise not to let go of him when they do so. Nice kid, but don’t make fun of his height or he might just electrocute you out of spite.

Full Name: Helen Richardson Age: 3 Birthday: February 23rd (Gemini) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Spiral Guardian(s): Tiara Richardson (Biological Mother - Uninvolved), Dexter Richardson (Biological Father - Deceased), Michael Shelley (Adoptive Guardian - Current) Appearance: African heritage with dark brown skin (has the beginning patches of vitiligo on her face and hands), fairly chubby but Michael swears it’s just baby fat, has bright purple eyes with swirling yellow irises, has short but frizzy black hair that cannot be tamed, is often dressed in very colorful onesies and footie pajamas alongside the rare dress, and occasionally she’ll have a child leash vest on (though it often disappears because of The Spiral). Personality: She honestly doesn’t have much of a personality yet, being a toddler and all, but she’s a very giggly child, and loves nothing more than making Michael “be silly” with the use of her powers. Speaking of which, she has very little control of her abilities, and although she’s too young to understand their impact on the world, she still feels bad when she accidentally goes too far and gets Michael hurt. She adores Michael and Jon, and loves it when Michael brings her to the institute with him. Very playful and mischievous.

And that’s all I’ve got for now! I wanna write some fics for this at some point (particularly I wanna write a fic that has all of the kids’ origin stories in better/more detail), but for now anyone is free to fuck around with this AU, so long as you’re not doing too much shipping between the kids (hints at ships are fine, but they’re still kids, y’all) and ESPECIALLY not any shipping of the kids with the adults/guardians. Feel free to PM me or scream about this AU in the notes/tags; I’d love to hear people’s thoughts!

220 notes · View notes

ectonurites · 4 years ago

Note

My least favorite type of fic!Tim is when he’s portrayed as depressed/very mentally and emotionally unstable, but also at the same time as someone who is like lauded as being super dangerous/the most skilled or something like that?? Those fics where Tim is chugging caffeine and barely sleeping, but characters are still like “oh I wouldn’t wanna piss off Tim he is Dangerous” and that’s annoying enough but then there are fics that at the same time as that portray him as like on the edge of a breakdown. It’s very irritating even if I’m not sure I can articulate exactly why, it just really rubs me the wrong way. Like, I definitely do think Tim has some issues with depression and stuff, but in fics like those it’s treated more like a quirk sort of instead of a serious issue

LMAOO I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT i’m not a fan of that either. I’m apologizing in advance if I sound mean in any of this critique i’m about to give of that fanon version of him. I want to preface this by saying that people can write whatever the hell they want, like, they’re allowed to! And I’m not referencing/calling out any specific works here. Just trends. But I’m gonna bitch about some things I’ve noticed that annoy me, personally. (so again, not saying other people can’t enjoy this stuff! just. not for me)

so like sorry if im mean but this is just me ranting and also this is my blog anyways so:

(nobody take this as an attack on them please because it’s really not)

The problem is a lot of those fics seem to interpret Tim’s behavior in Red Robin (& especially like that last whole arc of his Robin run also by FabNic) as if that’s his normal, rather than the result of a few years of CONSTANT traumatic incidents pushing him to a breaking point (because while all the shit he went through with his Dad, Steph, Kon, Bart, and then Bruce dying was spread out over several years for us as readers, it’s regarded as like within two years in canon! It all happens when he’s 16 and 17. According to the Batman comic right after War Games, Jack was murdered only days after Steph died.

(Batman #634)

That’s a LOT to process for one kid jesus christ)

I love Red Robin honestly, I do, but it is about Tim at the lowest points in his life. It’s the grand finale of Tim’s story, and everything crumbles, that’s kinda the point! The end leaves him in a position to either rebuild himself or fall apart. It’s all about how he chooses to continue after this point!

(Red Robin #26)

The way he acts and the things he does in that comic should be regarded as such. He can’t live the way he does in Red Robin forever or he will literally burn himself out/become something unrecognizable, like, jesus it’s kinda even acknowledged in the comic when he thinks about what his potential futures would be if he keeps it up like he’s doing:

(Red Robin #25)

He sees himself as dead, as Batman (which he has countless times said he doesn’t want to be and at this point in his history almost every time he’s seen a future he became Batman in he had become a killer), or needing to retire and taking over an Oracle-esque role, likely because he exerted himself too much to continue.

When you look at him around this same timeframe when he’s not isolating himself/too deep into the mission and is instead working with his friends back on the Titans, you can see that he is starting to heal and work in a more positive direction. He’s choosing to work on coming out of this rough period by being together with his friends who he loves.

(Teen Titans (2003) #100)

Not to say that you can’t write about situations in which he doesn’t start to come out of it, but if you are doing so it’s something you should be taking seriously because that’s the idea you want to explore, not just acting like it’s perfectly okay or normal? (And again, there are a lot of works that do explore it in good ways, there’s just also a LOT that don’t)

Like, so much content I see just make any sadness and depression and tendency to over-work himself that’s rooted in his traumas (which! those do have a basis in canon!) into a quirky personality trait rather than a response to trauma. Acting as if he’s always been this way and it’s normal for him. That’s what bothers me. If people want to seriously explore the effects of all these incidents and how that plays into his ability to do his job as a hero, then hell yes do it! But when it all gets brushed off as ‘oh thats just tim, he just doesnt eat or sleep or feel any happiness but like its fine he’s just always been like that’ I feel my blood boil.

This also often strikes me as related/tied to fanon’s seemingly never-ending quest to make Tim into this victim of so many things he really wasn’t. They make his childhood 10x worse than it actually was (yes he was lonely because he was sent to boarding schools rather than having his parents around, but he was NOT just left home alone all the time as a child.

(Batman #441)

He snuck away during a school vacation week to follow Bruce one (1) time and to then track down Dick. This is established in his introduction story! PLEASE read Lonely Place of Dying!) and it just... going with those fanon assumptions as being true changes so much of how people characterize him!

Some people will also (not to call out tim/kon shippers especially because I literally am also one but) vilify the shit out of Steph and make their relationship out to be some abusive thing rather than just... a messy teen relationship between vigilantes because they had really complicated lives and baggage with one another? Which they both acknowledge they made mistakes in!

(Red Robin #10)

Or people will vilify the shit out of Dick in regards to the situation at the start of Red Robin, or literally just make anyone who Tim ever had a disagreement with out to be the bad guy despite the actual situations always being way more complex and multi-faceted than that.

And then on top of all that, aside from making him into this ‘im broken 24/7 and not doing anything to fix it also everyone around me is terrible to me’ type of character, because he’s a lot of people’s favorite, they also want him to be as cool and strong as he is at his high points. So they’re projecting all this stuff onto him that makes him what should be a barely functioning person but then also act like that’s fine and he’s able to be a dangerous badass on top of it.

Like I’m sorry but someone who is going out and actively acting as a vigilante like that which is incredibly physically taxing is NOT surviving on coffee alone and no sleep. That’s literally not possible, he’d fucking collapse. (And like, again, if you want to explore him pushing himself to that point, that’s one thing! but acting like he can manage all of that for more than a few days at a time/maybe while working on one really tough case is nuts!) and like, even canon can be a little guilty of this type of thing particularly since the New 52 (Detective Comics 2016 had more than a few references to him barely sleeping, but at least they also made references to him eating normally/healthily and he wasn’t completely self isolating or anything) (and also that comic had him be so self sacrificial he was ready to die to save everyone and only didn’t die because of Mr.Oz’s interference, he’s definitely not in his best place there) but usually it’s still within some realm of possibility.

Also like. The fanon ‘chugging coffee to survive thing’ just annoys the shit out of me because, like, yes there’s a few moments in canon where he’s under a lot of pressure and pushing himself further than he normally would and had some coffee (one of the only times I can even remember him having it on panel is... oh... during that last Robin arc I just mentioned a little while ago shouldn’t be where you source your normal characterization of him because it’s a very difficult situation that pushes him further than he normally would go! huh!) But the thing is like, people play it off for laughs, or like it’s a normal thing he would do at any time in his life! If you want to explore him pushing himself and using coffee as a crutch, like, there’s ways you can write it that takes it seriously, but almost every time I see it come up in fics it is like a core part of his personality and just ‘oh haha silly tim always with his entire pot of coffee he must chug every morning or he’ll die :^)’ And that bothers the hell out of me.

In general it’s just... people treat Tim so weird. They want him to be so many different things that he’s shown himself to be at different times for very specific reasons, except they want him to do all of it at the same time which just doesn’t work. A person can’t function like that, and it’s not even close to who he is in canon.

Again, people can do what they want, and this is just my opinion obviously, but yeah. My two cents on the matter. Read Lonely Place of Dying, read Young Justice, read his Robin run. Read his comics and get a feel for who he was before all the rest of his trauma, and see how he canonically reacts to it along the way. I know reading comics can be tough for some people but so much stuff just echo chambers and becomes barely recognizable in this fandom and it’s just... a shame when it happens with a character ya love.

#Anonymous

41 notes · View notes

beauty-of-sins · 4 years ago

Text

Alright, I think now is a decent time to talk about why I don’t necessarily like Catradora and why I’m in the small percentage of those who prefer Glimmer/Catra.

I wanted to wait quite a bit after the finale had passed to post this because tensions were running high between shippers for a bit after it aired(even though everyone knew the endgame it still somewhat spiraled out of control). I wanted to make sure it didn’t seem like I was shitting on an important moment for the lgbt community and let ppl enjoy themselves, while allowing myself to have time to reflect on why I was among the dissatisfied while everyone else was losing their minds.

Upon reflection, like most ppl who weren’t necessarily enamored with their relationship, it’s because I had a relationship very similar to Adora/Catra’s dynamics. This is not meant to demonize those who like the ship, but just offer a different perspective on to why some don’t like how their relationship turned out.

Now, one thing I hated, was how dismissive ppl were of those who were talking about their own experiences because it is an important factor as to why they didn’t necessarily like the way spop ended. And a lot of the issues they had with the ship had actually VALID points and most of the ppl talking about it.... were actually rooting for them to end up together. Their complex relationship is what I imagine drew many ppl into the show in the first place and actually is one of my favorites in lgbt media because of that. I liked how they showed the ugly parts- the codependency, the resentment, and the angst are all very real emotions that a lot of ppl have to deal with in both friendships and relationships.

Personally, I kept watching because I wanted to see how the writers would make something this messy and raw work. Keep in mind I acknowledge, if I didn’t have experience with those kind of toxic relationships, I probably would have been okay with the ending.

The seasons of buildup showing how much Catra was hurting Adora and how far she was willing to go to spite Adora for the resolution between them to be wrapped up that quickly and seamlessly just didn’t resonate with me and fell flat. I know a lot of ppl made some bold claims about how it was healthy now and I was like “????????” just because they kissed, had their love confession, and Catra finally felt guilty about the things she did does not necessarily mean everything is fine. Catra became a better person sure but that doesn’t mean their relationship just immediately became healthier by default. More than anything, I felt like both Catra and Adora needed to reestablish healthy boundaries and address their trauma for their friendship first before even heading into a relationship(I wished spop had like one more season for this) but that’s a conversation for another day.

When I think about post-canon I could not see Adora being able to call Catra out if she falls back into the same behavior, because yknow healing is a process and doesn’t happen overnight and it takes time to unlearn harmful behaviors. Like many I still felt joy watching these character grow and have a chance of a better future but it did leave a slightly bitter taste in my mouth knowing that the resolution could have been done better.

Now onto Glimmer.

Seeing Catra and Glimmer interact is such a breathe of fresh air to watch. Their interactions always left me on the edge of my seat because they didn’t have heavy history between them and yet their chemistry was insane. When I watched a lot of Adora and Catra’s relationship unfold onscreen, in the back of my head, I’m like they are going to makeup because they have to and not necessarily because it makes sense story wise. But Glimmer and Catra aren’t like that, they don’t have external motivations driving them so when Glimmer forgives her it actually means something. They aren’t being pushed to be with each other and as a result everything seems to flow more naturally. I loved seeing their interactions, and I loved seeing Glimmer go more towards her dark nature because you could see how really similar the two are. But the most important thing is that Glimmer does not back down to anyone.

When I think about what Catra needs, it’s not an Adora, who in general comes off as love blind and hesitant to call Catra out on her behavior, it’s a Glimmer who’s not afraid to call her out on her bullshit, and vice-versa, so they can grow and learn from each other.

I wished the show had given their friendship more time to grow outside of their time on prime’s ship because of how much they have in common with each other. They both had parental figures who they were trying to prove something to, they both had abandonment issues, and they are both capable of slipping into bad behaviors on the basis of what they believe is “right”. Really, the only difference between them is their upbringing and that when Glimmer goes down that dark path she actually believes she’s doing it for the better good of Etheria. Hell, I wish the show made their relationship even more complicated by just bringing up one conversation about Angella.

That was the moment I was waiting for the entire season and I was disappointed that it never happened. Hell, that could have covered what was missing, which was a person just not immediately forgiving Catra. Imagine how tense and heartbreaking that scene would have been with Glimmer holding Catra accountable for what happened to her mother and ultimately learning to forgive her because she sees how easily she could get to that point herself(which she did). It would have been 1000% more interesting than the Bow/Glimmer conflict and would have probably satisfied a lot of complaints about the Catra redemption.

They had so much potential together and their dynamic is just so exciting to dive into and explore and I wished the show had just allowed it to grow and flourish a little more instead of the overwhelming focus on Adora/Catra only to have the resolution be wrapped up in record time.

If you have different opinions, or think I missed something important to change my mind, or something else to add please do it respectfully. or be blocked

#catra #glimmer #glitra #spop #She-Ra #not gonna tag it as catradora out of respect #lord i know there is some MISTAKES but i know like three ppl are gonna read it anyway

58 notes · View notes

irikahkrios · 3 years ago

Text

i think i've posted about this before but it's on my mind again since i just did garrus' loyalty mission on my current replay.

so like, emmett blocking garrus' shot is one of the most important moments in my whole canon, especially with regards to my ot4 getting together. emmett brings thane and irikah on garrus' loyalty mission (emmett can bring more than 2 squadmates bioware has no power here), and them seeing him stand in garrus' scope, the same way irikah stood in thane's all those years ago (an action that resulted in 20 years of marriage and a kid lmao), is the catalyst for both of them fully realizing and admitting their feelings for emmett. it brings thane back to that first moment, that feeling of shock and awe and reverence the first time he laid eyes on the love of his life, and it reminds irikah that there's still good people in the galaxy willing to do the right thing and protect people, even those who might not deserve it. and for both of them it just really makes it hit home that meeting him was a new beginning, another chance, proof that they can recover and still have a life and happiness after everything they've been through, even if thane's illness means they don't have as much time as they would want. it's just very important.

and that's not even going into garrus' reaction to it?? i mean, it's his loyalty mission after all. knowing that he has someone who's willing to protect him even from himself, who would never give up on him and always has his best interests at heart, even when it means disagreeing with him and trying to show him a better way?? and on the ot4 front it helps him understand irikah and thane's relationship a lot better, he starts to understand part of what the two of them mean to each other, the chance to be better for your partner but simultaneously the chance to drag them down with you and the constant balancing act, the morally gray push and pull of their love and how it affects them both as people. and he recognizes emmett and himself in that description a bit as well, very different from the krioses but similar in a lot of ways, and starts to realize that the two of them could mean the same to each other as thane and irikah. hell, he thinks, maybe they already do and just haven't admitted it yet.

so, overall, this is an incredibly important moment in my canon and to my polyship. but. i have a problem.

essentially it's hard for me to picture irikah being there and not trying to stop garrus herself. like this is a woman whose most iconic, defining character moment was standing in front of a sniper's shot and staring him down with righteous fury, risking her life to protect someone she didn't even know. i know by this point she's changed in some ways and become more morally gray: she approved of thane doing freelance assassin work to support their family, and the circumstances that resulted from that have even forced her to learn to take life herself. but it just feels so strange to picture her watching this situation unfold and not doing anything about it, when it's such an obvious echo of her most establishing character moment.

i know there's potential for her to chime in throughout the mission, joining emmett in trying to change garrus' mind about killing sidonis, and that would help the situation feel more true to her character. but that makes the final scene come off as even more odd, because she's been actively arguing against it the whole time but makes no attempt to actually stop garrus from taking the shot when the time comes.

however, i think i could potentially solve this by really leaning into the back-and-forth between her and garrus (and even between her and thane, who is largely neutral but does believe that garrus should ultimately make the decision for himself). i could have garrus fight back against her attempts to help emmett convince him, calling her a hypocrite and saying that if something happened to thane or kolyat, he knows she would want to get back at whoever was responsible. she's done so much in the name of protecting the people she cares about, people who were all she had just like his squad was all he had, wouldn't she do just as much to take revenge if they were taken from her by someone? especially if it was a betrayal like this, someone she had known and trusted the way garrus knew and trusted sidonis?

thane, again, is mostly neutral and of the opinion that garrus is an adult who can decide for himself if he wants this blood on his hands, and being an assassin himself he has no issue with it being a straight-up assassination in a public place surrounded by onlookers (an aspect of the situation that irikah and emmett are both horrified by). he understands both points and agrees with both to some extent, and i can see him going back and forth a bit with irikah as well, telling her that if he lost her, he wouldn't rest until those responsible had paid (which, thanks to the unimaginative minds at bioware, we know to be 100 percent true lmao). he reminds her that the situation is complicated, just like their own situation. how many people have they killed to protect themselves, to protect each other, to protect kolyat? she shoots back, saying that killing in self-defense and the defense of one's spouse and child is different from premeditated murder, and he replies that it certainly wasn't self-defense when he stopped trying to work low-paying jobs he wasn't good at and went back to assassin work, reminding her that she didn't try to stop him from doing that because she understood that it was necessary for their family. he does agree that it would be better for garrus to not give into his anger and make himself worse, but his point is that it's not simple on either side. bad things can be done for good reasons. then again, bad things can also be done for bad reasons. but if garrus is capable of doing this and feels that it's worth whatever it does to himself in the process, let him make this choice and live with the consequences if he wants.

and i think all of this does start to hit home on both sides? i think all of them get a little bit more unsure in their positions as the mission progresses. basically it's like. it's a complex situation and they're all complex characters and under the circumstances i can see irikah backing down and agreeing to let garrus make the decision. but after the mission is over, i can also see her feeling a bit guilty that it was emmett who blocked the shot and not her, when 20 years ago she would have done it without hesitation. it makes her wonder, is she even the same person she was back then? if she isn't, is this a bad thing or maybe even a good thing? is it foolish to even assign moral values to it, and judge herself so harshly for the ways she's changed? is it irresponsible not to?

i dunno it's messy and it's interesting and i would love to explore how irikah and garrus are both characters who struggle with having a black-and-white view of the world but in slightly different ways, and how this influences their interactions and their relationship. personally i do agree with irikah and emmett (obviously, since i have emmett block the shot, making this whole discussion a thing in the first place), but it's like. y'know. everything is gray and character perspective is fun, if a bit frustrating sometimes.

#i'm starting to ramble in circles so i think i'll end the post there #irithemmus

7 notes · View notes

skybird13 · 5 years ago

Text

Why I Think Fair Game Works

So we’re coming up on the midway point in this mini RWBY vol. 7 hiatus, and I have a serious addiction to Fair Game. With no more canon content coming out for another week (😭), I thought I’d provide some self-indulgent rambling in-depth analysis as to exactly why I think Qrow and Clover work so well together. I’ll be pulling off of what we have in the show so far (because I tend to base my ships off of canon context), but I’ll also be making some reasonable assumptions regarding Clover’s character since we don’t have a whole lot on him yet.

[Note: I’m not really trying to sway anyone with this post, so if you don’t agree or don’t like FG, feel free to scroll right on by and have a nice day. I’m all for discourse but that’s not the point of this particular post. Make your own and invite me to engage and we can have a convo.)

That being said, and without further ado, here are my top reasons for being Fair Game trash. Be forewarned, this is loooong. Damn thing turned into a dissertation.

Reason #1: Clover is a source of stability

One of the biggest criticisms I’ve seen aimed at Fair Game (aside from the more inane ones, which I will not dignify with an acknowledgment on this post) is that Qrow hates specialists. And people are right. It’s one of the first insights we get into his character in his volume 3 debut episode, right after the fact that he’s an alcoholic. I completely agree that if these two men had met in volume 3 or even 4, there is no way they would have gotten along. Clover is a soldier. A military man. He goes by the book and, in his mind, there’s not a lot of wiggle room when it comes to doing things the right way (see: his conversation with Robyn). He would have driven volume 3 Qrow up the wall, and not in a sexy way.

But the fact is, Qrow has been through a hell of a lot since then. He lost Ozpin twice (once to death and once to the lies Oz himself told), lost his way and sense of purpose because of it, almost died on multiple occasions, fell into deep emotional darkness, came under the influence of the Apathy, and had to finally acknowledge his own depression and poor coping mechanisms, or lack thereof, as a result. Shit like that changes you in deep and fundamental ways and, while I would have loved for a bit more in-show focus on this transition, I think RT gave us enough to infer the rest.

Thanks mostly to Ruby, Qrow is finally in a place where he is trying to heal for the first time since we’ve known him. He started the show as an impulsive– albeit manipulative and brilliant (see: him baiting Winter into a fight)– alcoholic who had no problem whatsoever with getting under people’s skin. The only relationships he really seemed to value were the ones he had with his nieces and with Ozpin, and everyone else could take a flying leap. Now I can’t deny that there was a certain charm to that. It’s one of the reasons I think he became such a fan favorite so rapidly; a lot of us can relate to that desire to not give a shit. But the underlying implications of that type of behavior are, I believe, pretty damn dark and serve as the earliest signs of Qrow’s depression and emotional isolation. Consider: his only functional relationships were with people who were incapable of really knowing him on a deeply personal level. Oz couldn’t because he was the one to give Qrow a purpose, thereby establishing a certain power imbalance in their relationship, no matter how close they were (I love Oz despite his mistakes before anyone comes after me for that statement and have nothing against Oz x Qrow, these are just my thoughts). And Ruby and Yang couldn’t, and still can’t, because they’re his damn nieces and being the adult in a relationship with kids means you maintain a certain distance between them and any insecurities or struggles you might have. Anything else is just not okay. He bungled that in volume 6 but he has clearly been trying to re-establish that supportive adult role in volume 7, which is amazing all by itself.

This brings us to Qrow’s emotional and mental state at the start of volume 7. Again, he’s in a place where he’s trying to heal. I don’t know how many people can relate, but that place is friggin’ terrifying because it’s the place where you have to stop lying to yourself about your problems and commit to dealing with them. But it also comes with a weird level of mental… stillness? Peace isn’t the right word, but when you’re not constantly fighting yourself anymore, you are able to breathe a little and that’s worth a lot to someone who has been trying to suffocate themselves for most of their lives. I think this has a lot to do with his shift in outlook. He’s less antagonistic because it no longer serves to feed the self-loathing monster inside him. Or rather, he’s trying to make sure he doesn’t feed it. The fact that he comes into Mantle, gets arrested for doing his job, and doesn’t immediately get in James’s face, or Winter’s for that matter, attests to the fact that he has changed. Qrow isn’t the one to call James out on the embargo or the state of things in Mantle. Instead, he steps into a role that we have never seen him in: the gentle voice of reason. He points out that James doesn’t need an entire military presence to build and launch the communications tower, and when James reveals his plans to tell the world about Salem, Qrow doesn’t outright disagree or go after him for it (as he certainly would have in earlier volumes). He simply points out that Oz spent every lifetime he had keeping that secret and then lets James explain his reasoning (flawed as it might be).

In short, all that outward anger he displayed in earlier volumes was most likely a manifestation of the self-hate storm he had brewing inside. Now that he’s decided to try to move away from that, he’s different. Of course he is. It would be completely unreasonable to expect otherwise.

Enter Clover Ebi. By sheer virtue of being who he is, Clover provides a source of stability for Qrow that he both sorely needs and has severely lacked up to this point in his life. Healing is an internal and independent process for the most part, and Qrow is going to have to sort out his issues on his own, but having someone in your life during that process who is solid is invaluable. And so far, Clover has been nothing but solid. He has been the one to pull Qrow back from bad old habits (self-deprecation and self-hate regarding his semblance). He’s been the one to take Qrow’s semblance in stride and even to get him to joke about the whole concept of having luck, good or bad, for a semblance. And so far? He’s done all of this with absolutely no strings attached. He’s not like Oz, who needed Qrow to be functional enough to carry out his spying missions, and he’s not like Ruby or Yang, who reasonably need Qrow to be solid for them because he’s their uncle. Clover is the first person who doesn’t need anything from Qrow, and so he is able to offer the type of emotional support that Qrow has never received from anyone else. They’re not even official battle partners, despite them being paired quite a bit. The lack of strings, of ulterior motives, of complicated and messy ties, and even of familial bonds, means that Clover can be the solid one. He can be a safe place where Qrow can fall apart and put himself back together if he needs to, because nothing is going to cave in if he does. Qrow won’t be putting too much weight on his nieces or on someone who relies on him for information and support. He can lean on Clover without having to worry about any repercussions.

Reason #2: Qrow is a source of disruption

Now for the fun flipside of my first point. While Clover provides a source of stability for Qrow, Qrow has the very real potential to provide a much-needed source of disruption for Clover, thereby balancing out what we have gotten of their relationship dynamic so far.

Being a military man, stringent structure and unconditional loyalty to his superiors are likely major aspects of Clover’s character. We have enough in the show so far to assume that’s accurate about him even if it hasn’t been blatantly stated.

Clover carries out his orders without fail, to the point of arresting a bunch of kids and Qrow in Mantle for operating outside of official parameters. His conversation with Robyn is also extremely telling. He doesn’t have a problem with what she wants; he has a problem with how she’s trying to get it. He doesn’t believe that the ends justify the means and, in that same vein, probably also believes that institutions are there for good reason. He is the epitome of lawful good.

Qrow, on the other hand, has never operated within official parameters. He was a spy, for god’s sake, and therefore is intimately familiar with the inherent grayness of the world. He’s not someone who is going to see things in black and white, and because of this, he could offer a sort of push back against Clover’s blind loyalty to Ironwood.

Not only is Qrow not in the military, and therefore not bound by its restrictions and dictates, but he has known James for a long time. He, more than anyone, is in the perfect position to call James out on his crap, and he’s probably the one with the best chance of actually getting through to him. Not with the same aggression and vehemence he displayed in volume 3, but with more of a tough-love approach. I fully expect this to happen at some point (and will be very sad if it doesn’t. I like James and want him to snap out of all this).

So how does this relate to Clover? Well, it forces him to acknowledge that, military or not, always trusting that the people above you are doing the right thing or the best thing is never a good way to go. He would have to step back and re-evaluate his general approach to life, which is the core of character growth. Clover never questions authority (that we’ve seen) whereas Qrow’s existence has always been in stark contrast to it. If anyone is going to act as a catalyst for Clover’s potential evolution from strict military man to a more free-thinking, free-acting individual, it’s going to be Qrow. And I think the pieces are set-up for that exact thing to happen.

Obviously, we’ll have to wait and see where CRWBY takes this one (if they take it anywhere) but the potential for growth from Clover is there because Qrow has come into his life. One of the best things couples can do is challenge each other, and these two are primed to do exactly that.

Reason #3: Opposites attract for a reason

We’ve all heard the phrase, right? Opposites attract. Sometimes I think this statement falls victim to a lot of misunderstandings so let me clarify what I mean by this. I don’t mean their chosen routes in life (rogue and spy vs. structured military man), or their semblances, or even their different combat styles. I’m talking about the complementary nature of their personalities.

Qrow has always been a bit impulsive. It’s been established that he sometimes doesn’t fully think things through, or if he does, he doesn’t care about the consequences and is willing to deal with them (see: his battle with Winter again). Don’t get me wrong. The guy is brilliant. He baits Winter knowing it will give him the opportunity to pick a fight with James as well and call him on his shit. But I’m pretty sure he also does this knowing full well that’s all he’s going to get: a fight. He’s not going to convince James not to bring the full Atlas military presence in for the Vytal Festival by shouting at him. He knows this and does it anyway. In his fight with Tyrian, you can see more than one instance where he’s planning his moves so his semblance has the chance to work on his opponent, but it’s at the risk of his own safety as well (see: the roof stunt). There are plenty of other examples throughout the show. Qrow runs off instinct and momentum.

Clover, on the other hand, strikes me as someone who exercises a bit more caution in his life. He thinks through a situation before he steps into it and overall just seems a little slower to take action. This is true in combat situations, as the whole mine mission was meticulously planned out beforehand. You can also see this approach mirrored in the way the Ace Ops work on the whole. Vine and Elm definitely don’t rush in when they encounter Grimm in the mine, and while Marrow and Harriet might be a bit faster to go after the main target, they don’t do it without a fully formed plan. It’s not foolproof, obviously. Marrow does cut off that piece of Dust with no one there (that he knows of) to catch it, but the point is still valid.

This tendency to go slow and feel his way is also true in Clover’s personal life. In the truck scene, you can see him watching Qrow while he talks, gauging his reactions, trying to find the best way to reach him. Nothing he says is mere chitchat. It’s all meant to pull Qrow into a conversation, which Clover tries to keep focused on Qrow himself. His opener might be Ruby but he ditches that line of thought as soon as Qrow gives him the opening to do so and shifts his attention to where he really wants it to be: getting to know Qrow.

Then you also have Qrow’s penchant for falling into dark mental places balanced against Clover’s good mood and playfulness; Qrow’s willingness to be a little more open with his emotions and Clover’s tight emotional control; the fact that Qrow feels things fully and deeply while I suspect that Clover might have emotional walls he hasn’t learned how to lower yet; Clover’s ability to follow orders and Qrow’s ability to question. And that’s all out of only 3-ish minutes of total interaction between them so far. I think as the volume goes, we’ll only get more insight on the ways in which they balance and round each other out.

Reason #4: Shared semblances

So this has been the biggest kicker for people so far, and I’ve seen it as a point both in favor of and against FG. Some people theorize that Clover’s semblance might have some balancing effect on Qrow’s, making it much safer for Clover to be around him than it is for others. Others think that it might be more of a trade-off: good luck part of the time and bad luck the other part (I’m in favor of this). And yet others seem to see Clover’s semblance as a negative thing for Qrow, somehow dampening his own semblance or countering it to the point that it’s mentally or emotionally detrimental for him. I personally don’t quite see the logic behind this given what we’ve seen so far, but I’ll just make my point and get out of this debate because the truth is that we still don’t quite know how their semblances function together.

What we do know is that they are two sides of the same coin, and as such, are not nearly as far apart as they might have seemed at first. They both carry around luck semblances, which I assume is pretty damn rare. Almost every other semblance we have seen has existed more in the practical realm (Yang’s damage absorption, Blake’s shadow self, Weiss’s glyphs, Ruby’s rose petal thing, Marrow’s ability to slow time, Tyrian’s ability to rip through Aura, etc. etc. etc.) And then we have these two who operate in the realm of chance, something intangible and completely unpredictable. They are fairly unique in the RWBY-verse in this sense, and uniqueness usually breeds a certain degree of separation.

A ton of theories are floating around about how Clover’s semblance has affected him throughout his life. I’ve posited a few myself. We obviously have no idea what the canon backstory for Clover is, and while I do think it’s pretty safe to assume that while Qrow has dealt with ostracization because of his semblance, Clover might have experience with some sort of idolization or even over-reliance (which can be damaging in its own right) because of his, there isn’t a whole lot we can speculate on without more information.

So where does that leave us? With the scene depicted above. Regardless of how their semblances might play off each other or what these two have suffered (or enjoyed) as a result of them, one thing is certain: they understand one another. Qrow may not know what it’s like to be able to draw good luck to himself, but he knows what it’s like when his semblance does work in his favor and screws over an opponent. Clover, by the same token, probably doesn’t understand what it’s like having to constantly watch out for misfortune, but he most likely does know what it’s like to have his semblance flip on him and give the edge to his opponent. Additionally, them both having such similar semblances means that learning to look for signs of each other’s being at work won’t be much of a stretch for them. They would be able to adapt pretty fast to working together. Note, I’m assuming their semblances function in the same way and that Clover has no more control over his than Qrow does because it just makes narrative sense.

This puts them in the unique position of being together in their semblances, even if they’re on opposite ends of the spectrum. Qrow has not exhibited any jealousy or bitterness towards Clover because of his semblance, and Clover sure as hell hasn’t put any distance between them out of concern for Qrow’s semblance. They get each other, and after only half a season, they have developed a level of comfort with one another that already allows them to joke about it. An inside joke that no one else could possibly understand. And that is some powerful shit for two people who have potentially (one person we know for certain has) been isolated in one way or another because of their semblances throughout their lives.

Reason #5: Clover is new

Okay, if anyone partial to a different Qrow ship has somehow made it through this monster of a post, you might want to skip this bit. Because I’m going to make an argument for why bringing in a new character to be Qrow’s love interest is actually a good idea. This is not to hate on I//ronqrow or S//nowbird or any other popular Qrow ship, but it might annoy the shit out of you so… fair warning. I’ll keep it brief, though.

I think Qrow getting involved with someone who he has no past connection to would be insanely good for him. When it comes to James or Winter or, really, anyone else who knew him before this volume, there is a lot of baggage there. And I mean a lot. At this point in his life, Qrow is dealing with enough of his own internal shit that throwing external interpersonal baggage on top of that probably wouldn’t help him in any way. Sometimes, you just need to start over somewhere (especially when you’re trying to pick up the pieces of yourself and figure out how they go together), and Clover offers Qrow the perfect opportunity to do that. There are no preconceptions that Qrow has to deal with, nothing he has to make up for or prove. Clover won’t be hovering over him anticipating a relapse or using his past behavior to interpret his current actions, or wondering why he’s changed, or holding things against him. He can figure out who he is now without the pressures of who he was hanging around his neck. And that, like so many other things these two have going for them, is unbelievably powerful.

Reason #6: They already have the nonverbal thing down

This one is more for funsies than anything, but come on. They’re already communicating non-verbally?

It took me a while to pinpoint that expression on Clover’s face but I finally got it: his brows don’t lower in annoyance or anger. They furrow: the universal sign of concern. What exactly he’s worried about, I’m not completely sure. It could be any number of things at this point, from a hint that he’s not totally supportive of this particular order he’s getting (bringing Robyn into custody) to a concern that he and Qrow might be approaching a clash point (not so far, though if Qrow is going to be the disruptive force Clover needs, that point is probably coming). Either way, this look speaks volumes. I’m just not entirely certain how to read it yet.

But in the interest of keeping up on the analysis, note his answer to James. It’s not a “yes sir” or a “whatever you say, sir”. He says “we’ll figure it out”. Qrow looks at him and only then does Clover shoot him that sideways glance thing. Is he making it clear that he means to include Qrow in this? That he wants Qrow’s help? That he knows they’re all in a crap situation but the Amity project is stalled and they need to try something so they should at least try this? They’re communicating something here and just because I don’t know what it is yet doesn’t mean this is any less significant in terms of their relationship. This kind of thing only happens when you click with someone and these two definitely click.

Bonus: They’re just so damn cute together

If you made it through that nonsense, congratulations! Have some Fair Game goodness as a reward. These two are adorable together and you will never convince me otherwise:

#fair game #qrow branwen #clover ebi #lucky charms #fairgame #rwby7 #rwby #holy shit this became a thing #it's seriously a behemoth of a post #enter at your own risk #cute pictures at the end #analysis #maybe a little too much #i don't care this was fun #took me all afternoon but whatever #enjoy!!!

479 notes · View notes

phantomato · 4 years ago

Text

You Should Know Ch. 13 (Final Chapter) is Live!

[AO3 link here]

Y’all, this has been a journey! Thanks for reading along with me.

I didn’t know where I was heading with this story when I started it, but now that we’re through, I can suggest that you give YSK a chance if you want to read a soft, introspective take on tomione with older characters. There’s some fluff, smut, humor, and social commentary, and there’s no explicit violence. It’s not the most common way to represent the pairing, but I hope you give it a try if you’re into the two characters, all the same.

Spoilers and meta about the process of writing this story below the fold.

I can be honest, here: I wanted to write a happy ending. I did not have the constitution for an unhappy ending when I started this, and maybe more than that, even, I did not have the constitution to write a very unhealthy relationship between Hermione and Tom. I didn’t want to see her treated poorly. I didn’t want to write Tom as an irredeemable villain. Those stories have been told well before, but that’s not what I can offer. However, it’s sort of an absurd notion, right? A Tomione with a reasonably healthy relationship as the endgame? Especially without making it a time travel story, or an AU where he has no horcruxes, it’s going to require some suspension of disbelief.

I wasn’t interested in a reformed and repentant Tom. He’s interesting to me as a messy person. One prevalent norm for depicting his life is that he’s been a relatively successful leader of his terrorist organization since his teen years, and that was the first assumption I threw out. If we instead let him be this guy with tons of potential who never really took off after school, perhaps because he’s too unwilling to work within the existing systems of power, and he’s surrounded by wealthy and successful peers, he ends up being in a fascinatingly vulnerable state. I added the complication that he’s not so pretty anymore, fucking around with all that Dark magic, so that he’s in a suitable place to be responsive to Hermione’s first approach. For my Tom to work, he needs to still have access to his humanity, including his vulnerabilities, and having him facing the prejudices of the wizarding world / not being God-tier Lord Voldemort is important for that. He’s not a good guy—he murders, tortures, etc.—but even bad people enjoy physical affection or have to pay bills. I based a lot of Tom on myself and my partner so that he would feel real, and he is absolutely the character I relate most to in this story.

Hermione, likewise, I wasn’t interested in flipping her into a dark character, but I also didn’t want to write her as an angelic savior sent to purify Tom’s soul. I think I was a little less successful w/ writing her, to be honest—I struggle with her character for myriad reasons, including that I just don’t tend to like many depictions of Hermione, so it was a challenge to balance her negative traits in a way that made her interesting but not intolerable to write. I like the Hermione I wrote. I just also think she might tend toward a bit more of a savior archetype than I was hoping. Anyway, the key motivation for her was that she had to be a very normal person, despite her big brain. My Hermione is initially captivated by Tom because she’s already built him up in her head as this perfect guy, so when he shows interest in her and is a reasonable, if casual, partner, she becomes deeply infatuated with him. All of her acceptance starts from that place of already liking or loving him, and wanting to keep him in her life. It was important, to me, to show her as a very normal woman in those early chapters—lots of tomione fic has Tom explicitly stating that she’s “not like other girls,” and I find that concept as poisonous in fiction as I do in real life. My girl falls for Tom precisely because she is like other girls and cannot be expected to hold her heart separate from what appears to be a normal relationship. She’s invested enough to hold on to his companionship, even as she’s setting reasonable boundaries for just how involved they’ll be, and she doesn’t totally break down until he reveals his horcruxes. But by then, they’ve built up enough trust for her to eventually accommodate them.

The challenge was to write this relationship progression so that it wasn’t a toxic dynamic. Too much blind acceptance from Hermione and Tom becomes manipulative; too much concession from Tom and he loses his essence. There are so many decisions along the way in this story that resulted from long discussions with myself about what would actually be believable. The idea of starting a university, for example, was a major leap of faith for me, because I wasn’t sure if readers would think it was “enough” for Tom, but I’m so happy to see that a lot of people liked it. (It clicked for me as the right path when I thought about what became the dialogue: “Become Salazar Slytherin.” World domination isn’t the only form of power that I think Tom could enjoy.) And I really, really wanted no toxicity! One of my earliest planning notes from the story is that Hermione should always have the ability to walk away unharmed. Tom keeping her around through threats was not allowed.

I hope that the themes that come through, for readers, are acceptance and communication. It’s a story that meditates on the work it would take to build their relationship. It’s not particularly dramatic, there’s not much of a plot, and they’re very clearly versions of the characters that are slanted in a favorable direction for my aims. However, I think both Hermione and Tom are recognizable, and I’m really pleased with the slower pace that I think is afforded by their ages/life circumstances. If you read it, I hope you enjoy it!

#tomione #Tom Riddle #Hermione Granger #hermione x tom #tom x hermione #hpff #ao3 #ysk

12 notes · View notes

jewelthomasson · 4 years ago

Text

Art Reading Response:

⭐️Summary of Emerge pages:

🔸Ideas~pages 56-66:

In this section of emerge, Perini discusses the topic of ideas. Ideas are what change the world he states, which is definitely true!(56). Ideas come from everything and anything at anytime (57). But most of our ideas come from us being in a alpha state (57). A state where someone can be in a place of relaxation and peaceful wakefulness (57). Then Perini talked about through what we generate our ideas, he stated that it is from ideation (58). He goes to tell how thinking in the alpha state isn’t the only way to come up with ideas; someone needs to purposefully set time aside to think (58). And through this we learned that coming up with these ideas can only happen when we start our endeavors (58). Meaning procrastination will get us NO WHERE. And through coming up with ideas by actively starting projects we need to let whatever we were working on to sit so that our brain can take a break (59). This will help generate new ideas as the worker has to bring their mind to a refocus to start back up on the project.

🤔My Thoughts:

I think that this was very interesting to see that there is a specific name of where our ideas come from. The hardest part for me in this chapter was when Perini tells that we have to start on our projects in order to get ideas flowing. This is often so very hard sometimes because I put whatever off; and in the back of my mind I’m thinking, “I’ll have some good idea later.” And guess what?! Often I —don’t. This can be so very difficult and stressful at times. But as hard as it is I know I have to start my projects at some point. So, now I’m going to try to go into these projects wholeheartedly with the mindset that I can think of anything because I am not procrastinating and I truly want those good ideas.

🔸Master~pages 81-87:

In the master section of the emerge book Perini helps the reader understand how to master certain goals people have. He first states how nothing can come of anything if you don’t work (78). He then talks about how dreams are good, they help spark something in us, but if they aren’t acted upon then nothing comes from them (78). He states that mastery comes from experience; and as we master different things in life more doors will open (81). Overall, there are 3 stages of talent development (84). “#1 developing and interest in a field or domain” (84). “#2 honing technical skills in your field of domain” (84). And #3 mastery and artistry in your field or domain (84). And then Perini states how we can achieve all those things. He states that if we put in 10,000 hours of work with purpose, in whatever we want to succeed at, then we will become the master of that (84).

🤔My thoughts:

The concept of mastery is hard for me to wrap my brain around. Sure I want to be really good at certain things but, to me I rather be good at a lot of little things. Rather than be a master at maybe one thing. Does that just sound too lazy? I don’t know, but being a master at something sounds like way to much work. Like almost unappealing. I feel like if I committed to something to master it then I could potentially lose the love to do it. Maybe I’m just thinking this way because I haven’t truly tried to master something. But overall, right now it just seems kinda intimidating...😬

🔸Messiness~pages 100-107:

Overall, this chapter about messiness just goes to show that messiness can bring great break throughs for creatives. Perini states how fear paralyzes us (99). We come from a world where if you don’t win you fail or lose. But this isn’t the case for creatives. “Creatives view failure as a win-learn” (99). This can help the creative process because then one can be more open and not scared to fail. He states how if you are not willing to fail then how can you create anything new?(102). This is so true because artists are always revising and making things better by learning from mistakes. So with that—art is messy. Life can be—messy. But that’s not a bad thing.

🤔My thoughts:

I personally love this section. I love learning from my mistakes! That is how I know I am actually growing and learning. With that, I completely related with Perini when he talked about how art is messy. For me, personally, my first draft to anything creative is always super rough. Sometimes it won’t even look like the picture/image I was going for, but it’s a the start that helps me create my final product. Without that first messy step my whole process for the whole piece would be thrown off. So I need my messy failures. It truly helps me create my greatest works.

🔸Habit~pages 108-116:

This section talked about how to form effective habits. Perini states how we need to make habits making habits (109). Habits are good for our life and minds. Through this chapter Perini walks the reader through 7 steps to creating good habits. #1 create triggers. Triggers help us to take the thinking out of performing takes because they are an automatic occurrence (111). # 2 create rewards. By rewarding ourselves habits become more fun and enjoyable to do—which makes us want to use that habit again (112). #3 visualize. With those first two in mind we need to be able to visualize ourselves actually doing the habit so we know that it’s a realistic habit to strive towards (112). #4 add a village member. This simply means that it can be easier to make a habit effective if someone can keep you accountable (112). #5 repetition. By using repetition the habit can truly be formed because your telling your body to not stop and keep moving forward (113). #6 believe. Honestly, if you don’t have this one it all kinda goes out the window because if you don’t believe in yourself then why go to the trouble to make a habit that won’t be effective? And the last one, #7 renew the mind. This one holds everything together because as we renew our mind all of the others fall into place creating a healthy habit.

🤔My thoughts:

For me this was very helpful because often I find myself needing to create better habits just to make my life easier. The step that’s always really hard for me is the repetition one. Sometimes it can be very hard for me to stay motivated to do something I believe is best for me. Sometimes I don’t have to do much to be committed to a healthy habit but other times it seems like the hardest thing ever is to make my bed. Like why? It’s so easy. But that lack of motivation can seem to override it all. I think this is partly because I generally just skip the reward aspect. I think I can just be committed because if I think I can. But in reality I need those rewards to at least get me started. Wow this chapter just made me realize that. Huh 🤔 I guess I really need to read this today. Thanks Tina 😂

⭐️Summary of the video, “The Habits of Effective Artists:”

The video starts with the speaker sharing a personal anecdote of how he made a bet with his younger cousin. This bet completely relied on creativity. The bet was to receive 1,000 likes on his art station. And if he succeeded he would get nothing, but if he did not hold up his end then he would have to give $1,000 to his cousin. He put himself through this to get motivated because he would of had something to lose. He then gives 7 habits that the world class professionals use. #1 is daily work. We need to work on whatever we want to, to achieve a skill in everyday life. This will only be beneficial if the skill can be worked on everyday so that one can make a habit to achieve that skill they want. #2 volume not perfection. Being a perfectionist hinders because you are focused solely on specific things your doing; but if you do volumes of work then you can potentially close that gap of certain struggles. #3 steal. Our human brains are always built upon things before it. If you steal from one person then it’s plagiarism if you steal from many then it’s original because it’s a new complication of work. #4 conscious learning. Not everything is practice. Mindless learning is often bad because most mindless work doesn’t show progression. #5 rest. When removed from the art work you can have new ideas and see that things from new vantage points. #6 get feedback. Artists seek feedback from anyone. And this is often shown as one of the most crucial/important parts that can strengthen the art work. By having people express what ever they are feeling no matter how harsh the advice can be, receiving that feedback can help make the art great. #7 create what you love. By creating what you are personally interested and can make the work thrive in the best way. Overall, you’ll make better work because you have drive to complete what ever you want.

🤔What I thought about the video, “The Habits of Effective Artists:”

I found this video very insightful for how to truly become successful as an artist. I now have better knowledge of how I can strengthen my skills as an artist. For me it’s odd, I feel like I don’t normally follow along with any of these seven things listed. Which tells me that I need to start creating better habits to help my overall creative process. I’m glad he made this video because if I hadn’t of watched this I probably wouldn’t have known I needed to change. This video has really opened my eyes to see how being a good artist is about process. Up until now, sure I knew that, but for the most part I thought that people are just born with it. But now I realize that to achieve anything creative you need to cultivate good habits so that overall you can flourish in the art realm.

📸Image above:

#thecreativechristian #readingresponsepost #week10

1 note · View note

banashee · 4 years ago

Link

Part 12 of my @badthingshappenbingo

Square: “Gaslighting”

Please check out the end notes on AO3 or bottom of this post for trigger warnings!

*+~

Try to be kind to yourself

Bruce is running. He’s been running for a very long time, and he isn’t entirely sure if he only runs from Ross, the life he’s trying to leave behind and all the hurt - or if he is running from himself and the destruction he is capable of. The latter, he will always carry with him, no matter how far he makes it and Bruce is well aware of that.

He can’t get rid of himself and he hates himself for it.

He hates Hulk for being there, stuck with him and in him.

“Stop it! Stop hurting people!” Bruce is yelling at his reflection in the mirror, skin slick with sweat and his hands shaking. He hasn’t really slept in weeks, and if it wasn’t for the other guy, he probably would have dropped dead by now. He kinda hates him for that, too - for keeping him alive just to cause chaos and fear.

In response, Bruce can see his eyes turn green immediately - it’s too bright, to acidic, to be anything natural. Hulk roars inside of him, tearing at his organs and his skin, desperate to come out. Bruce wants to keep a tight hold on himself, but Hulk has other plans.

He changes right then and there, and then Hulk smashes right through the wall, running off into the night. Someone is screaming in fear as their house suddenly is met with flying rubble in the middle of the night.

“Stop it, you monster!” Bruce keeps thinking over and over in his head, but he is not the one in control right now, and soon his consciousness disappears for who even knows how long.

When he wakes up, he does so in the middle of nowhere and a tight fear in his chest. Even though he can’t see anything, he is sure that there is new blood on his hands, and he hates Hulk, hates himself just a little more.

*+~

“You are only ever hurting people!” Bruce wants to say out loud, but doesn’t. He can’t, because right now, he is stuck on the inside while Hulk walks free as he pleases.

"Hulk protect.” the big guy growls, as he pushes aside a solid brick wall like it’s nothing. They are on the run - again.

Bruce would have hoped he’d be somewhat safe here. But then Ross had turned up, and things have gotten ugly in record time. Hulk made an appearance and he hasn’t left since - he runs, faster and further than Bruce ever could on his own, and he breaks a lot of things in the process. Desperately, he tries to avoid thinking of the scared and shocked people who have the misfortune to cross his way.

Hulk is angry, and he is scared. He wants to protect himself, wants to protect Bruce, even though he resents him. Everything and everyone in his way is a threat, and Hulk treats them as such.

On the inside, Bruce wants to scream and claw his way out, but he can’t.

When he is back to himself many hours later, he will hate himself just as much as Hulk does - all he does is cause fear and destruction, after all.

*+~

Part of him didn’t think it would work out, but at this point, Bruce is desperate. He has long reached his personal breaking point, and he just can’t take it anymore.

The self hatred, his fear and loneliness, the exhaustion and the hatred for the other guy, it eats him up on the inside.

Bruce wakes up one morning, deciding it will be his last.

But when he stands on a mountain top with a beautiful view in front of him, he is too tired to pay it any attention. He collects his last bit of energy for this, and soon, he shoots the bullet - only for the other guy to spit it back out in a cold rage.

*+~

Things get considerably worse after this.

Bruce lives on the run for years, never staying anywhere for long enough to be known. He moves among people, and helps them with whatever illnesses and injuries he can, and they know and appreciate him for this. But no one really knows him. It suits him fine - less potential for lethal damage or heartbreak that way.

But Hulk holds a grudge against him for his attempt to end his, their life.

“Hulk protect! Banner hurt!” he keeps growling, but Bruce won’t hear it.

“No! You are the one who destroyed those buildings! You killed those people!” Bruce tells him, furiously. But as much as he hates Hulk for everything, he doesn’t want to look in the mirror anymore. And so he keeps running, keeps doing what he does - that is, until Agent Natasha Romanoff tracks him down in Calcutta and bring him back to New York, where much, much bigger things are happening.

“You saved my life.” Tony tells him later, and it’s the first time Bruce has been hugged by someone in a very long time. His skin feels like it’s tingling with the sensation of human contact, but he wants to melt into the touch.

He doesn’t quite believe it yet, but everyone keeps telling him the same thing.

Even more surprisingly, Bruce walks away from the probably messiest week of his entire life, which is saying something, not only with a group of highly skilled people who have his back, but also a satisfied hum in the back of his mind. Hulk is happy - but part of Bruce still can’t believe that he’s good for anything but destruction. A lot of aliens are dead because of him - but Bruce doesn’t dare count the human lifes that are lost due to him.

Hulk grows restless again, and then they’re back to their old patterns very soon.

*+~

Bruce sits in a chair that should be comfortable, but isn't really. He’s too tense, fumbling on the hem of his shirt while talking. The edges are already frayed and he is pulling out loose threads, but he can’t stop. Bruce is anxious as it is, and he needs to do something.

Talking about these things isn’t easy and if he’s entirely honest with himself, he didn’t think he’d have to deal any of it again anytime soon.

Bruce is good at ignoring things that hurt him - especially if it is no one else but himself that he ends up hurting in the first place.

He runs a hand through his already messy hair, taking off his glasses and wipes them on his shirt, furiously. Then he just stops, staring ahead and at a loss for any more words. He barely resists cleaning his glasses again just to do something.

The gray haired woman sitting in the chair opposite him takes this as an opportunity to talk. She is holding onto a clipboard in one hand, pen resting in the other. There are faint bite marks on the end of the pen - Bruce focuses on those instead of her face. He thinks it’s interesting, that even a Therapist can have any nervous ticks.

“Bruce, have you ever looked at what you just told me from an outsider's perspective?” she asks, and he shakes his head no with a short laugh.

“Not really. I don’t even like thinking about it from my own perspective.” After a short beat of silence, he continues, “I don’t get along very well with myself - or Hulk for that matter. However you wanna look at it. I’m trying to be better, to not hurt anybody or destroy anything. But I always do. And it’s bothering me.” he admits, unable to resist the urge to keep fumbling nervously with his hands any longer - he’s lasted a full minute.

“You see, that is your main problem I think. You said earlier, that you hate yourself and that you hate Hulk just as much, if not more. You try to be better to those around you, but have you tried to be kind to yourself? Have you tried to be kind to Hulk?”

This is the first time Bruce actually looks up and right into his Therapists face. She has gentle and understanding eyes behind those garishly colorful glasses he notices, and is completely at a loss. He wants to answer “Yes” desperately, but he knows it would be a lie. Mutely, he shakes his head.

Dr. Rivera waits for him to say anything, but she doesn’t. So she continues,

“Since the two of you share a body, things might be a little more complicated, I understand that. But it also means that you have been unnecessarily cruel to yourself and to Hulk. He wants to help, even when it is in his own destructive way. He protects the both of you, and he tries to protect other people as well, in any way he knows how. And so do you, and you end up fighting yourself half the time rather than any outside threat.”

It is true, and Bruce knows it. He hates the fact that this is true, but he can’t deny it - that’s not the point of him being here.

“All I can do is try and stay away from people and just help when I can - keeping my distance if possible - they get hurt less that way. But Hulk doesn’t and it’s just - he breaks things. People. All he can do is hurt people, and I don’t want this. Because he is me, and I am him. I’m tired of it. I’m just- so tired.”

Bruce is defeated, and it shows. He wants to crawl back into bed and not deal with anything anymore. But that won’t help him in the long run - he knows this. It’s the very reason he decided to get help in the first place, now that he is safe and protected by SHIELD and most of all the other Avengers - they’d hate to know how little he thinks of himself. They love both him and Hulk, and Bruce doesn’t understand why. He is happy and grateful for the support nonetheless.

It is on this very same day that Bruce looks at his situation this way. If Dr. Rivera had not pointed it out to him, he’d have never applied it to himself.

Gaslighting.

He hates that word with a passion, because it is just what his father did to him and to Mom all those years ago, and it makes his skin crawl.

But it is essentially what he did to Hulk - to himself - for a very long time. Twisting and turning intentions, implanting a false narrative until neither he or Hulk knew the truth anymore. As a result, they kept fighting each other half the time and deep down, Bruce knows that this is likely a big part of the reason why Hulk hates his guts so much. Not surprising, given that Bruce can barely stand himself on a good day.

He wants to laugh hysterically and curl up somewhere and cry both at the same time. But as it is, he thinks back carefully, and his hands keep pulling out the loose threads from his shirt again.

When he walks back to the tower later that evening, Bruce is exhausted. He can tell that Hulk is twitchy in the back of his mind and he really hopes that he won’t cause a Code Green that night. He is planning to sleep in the secured room in the back of his apartment tonight, just in case - just in case he needs to be stopped.

There is a long way to go for both of them and he knows it. Dr. Rivera’s words echo back in his head - “Try to be kind to yourself. Try to be kinder to Hulk.” and he knows she is right, but he is not willing to risk the safety of anyone else to do so - he’ll lock himself up. Just for tonight, he tells Hulk in his head, and he growls unhappily in response.

But when he steps out of the elevator, he is greeted with,

“Brucie, there you are! You’re just in time for movie night!” and an arm snaked around his waist. He finds himself unable to resist, and Tony simply pulls him over to the enormous couch, dumps him on an empty spot next to Thor and then settles down on his other side.

Bruce finds that he doesn’t mind that at all, and even the Hulk stopped growling now. He’s not… Happy exactly, but definitely calmer than he had been just a minute ago.

Maybe, just maybe this “be nice to yourself” thing is doable - it looks like it might be, as long as he’s got help.

Bruce nods off before the first movie even ended, and when he wakes up again in the middle of the night, he is cocooned in soft blankets and with warm and strong arms wrapped around him in a hug. He can feel the ends of Thor’s glorious beard lightly poking the top of his head and for once, he lets himself enjoy the sensation of being held.

Everything else he can sort out over time, he thinks, and falls right back asleep.

*+~

Square: "Gaslighting"

*+~

Trigger warnings:

- Mental health issues - Suicidal thoughts - Attempted suicice, not very graphic - Self hatred - Gaslighting - References to past child abuse

#banashee writes #bad things happen bingo #marvel fanfiction #bruce banner #bruce vs hulk #tw mental health issues #tw suicidal thoughts

3 notes · View notes

lisatelramor · 5 years ago

Text

A Sip of Liquid Courage (No Way to Take it Back)

AN: In December I took a trope list and a random number generator and tried to make myself some short fic prompts. This is the result of one of them ^_^;;; Not quite my usual sort of fic setup, but it works!

***

Kudo Shinichi was not drunk. In fact, he was entirely sober. The funny thing about having a group of people try to kill you that went by alcohol names, it kind of put you off alcohol for life. Although watching Mouri Kogoro make a fool of himself over the years had kind of helped that aversion along. So no alcohol to numb him to the ridiculous behaviors of people around him at events.

Honestly he didn’t mind too much. It’s kind of fun to know what people are like under the influence if only for hypothetical blackmail information. But when he agreed to come with Hakuba to a forensics conference, he wasn’t really expecting them to get invited out for drinks, let alone at a club. Shinichi was a bit out of place.

Hakuba knew one of the younger officers that invited them. And Hakuba definitely wasn’t as uptight or shy with a drink or two in him.

At the moment, Hakuba was flushed-faced and grinning at something his friend was saying. The relaxed smile was a nice look on him. He actually looked his age.

The song playing changed and the person Hakuba was talking to let out a whoop and grabbed someone from the group to drag toward the dance floor. Left alone, Hakuba’s eyes skipped around the table and landed on Shinichi. His wide grin became a little less wide, but no less warm as he scooted closer.

“Didn’t know this was your kind of thing,” Shinichi said when Saguru was close enough that he’d be able to hear.

“It’s not really,” Saguru said, “but I have enough friends who like this sort of thing that I’ve grown used to it.”

For a man that was more than a bit tipsy, he was still very articulate. But not perfectly put together anymore—Hakuba had run a hand through his hair at one point and his shirt was a bit rumpled from brushing up against bodies to reach the bar. Shinichi offered him a smile. “So you don’t have a secret love for dirty dancing?”

Hakuba snorted. “Hardly. Although dancing in general is nice. Do you dance?”

“Not like that,” Shinichi said with a nod to the grinding going on at the edge of the dance floor.

“How about that?” Hakuba said, with a nod for the wilder waving of arms and shimmying bodies moving in and out of each other’s space.

“Never tried.”

“Care to try?” There was something flirtatious in the way Hakuba held out his hand and tilted his head to the side, something the edge of challenging too. Shinichi was probably reading too much into it. Hakuba was just drunk and enthusiastic.

The moving bodies on the dance floor weren’t very appealing, but the genuine invitation was, so Shinichi put his hand in Hakuba’s. “Sure. Why not?”

“Lovely.”

Hakuba swept Shinichi out of their booth and to the loud crush of the dance floor before Shinichi could register how warm Hakuba’s hand was. Hakuba danced like someone with formal lessons who’d decided to throw them out the window—good posture and sense of rhythm, careful awareness of a partner, but moving however felt right instead of to any pre-set choreography. Shinichi moved with him, a laugh startled out of him as Hakuba gave them a spin, a hand still holding Shinichi’s own.

Shinichi had no idea what the hell he was doing. He almost elbowed half a dozen people and stepped on Hakuba’s foot at least once. He should have felt too sober and self-conscious to do this, but it was actually kind of fun. The room had an energy to it. The music might be too loud and the people too close, but they moved like one organism with the beat of the music and it was its own kind of exhilarating to be caught in the middle of it. Plus it was kind of hard to be too self-conscious as Hakuba had completely lost any of that a while back. When everyone else was drunk, the sober party was the least ridiculous by default.

The song changed, and the beat surged faster. Shinichi found himself pressed closer to Hakuba in an effort to not get too close to strangers, and Hakuba didn’t seem to mind.

He had a hand on Shinichi’s hip, probably helping him balance, and when dancers crushed them closer still, Shinichi realized that Hakuba was a lot closer than he’d thought. He had a happy grin on his face and Shinichi suddenly wasn’t sure what he was feeling.

He tugged Hakuba’s shoulder, nodding off the dance floor.

Hakuba went willingly enough, not taking hands from Shinichi as they somehow ended up against a wall in the far end of the room, not near their table at all.

“A bit too many people,” Shinichi said, having to speak loud to be heard.

Hakuba nodded. “This is better. I’m glad you’re here.”

“Er. Yeah.” Shinichi realized Hakuba still had a hand on his hip. Usually Hakuba didn’t touch anyone more than needed.

“I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about going to the conference with me.” Hakuba tilted his head to the side and his body shifted a bit with it. Shinichi shot a hand out but it seemed that Hakuba wasn’t actually tipping over, just shifting on his feet. Shinichi kept a hand on his arm anyway just in case. “Kudo-san.” Hakuba looked him in the eyes suddenly serious.

“Uh, yes?”

“I’m glad to have you as a friend.”

“You too.” Shinichi hadn’t realized that Hakuba considered him a friend. They spoke when they crossed paths on cases or Kid heists, but this was the first time they’d ever done anything together deliberately.

“And I’m glad you’re here now.” Hakuba’s free hand landed on Shinichi’s shoulder.

“…Yeah.” This was getting a bit too…intense. And Hakuba leaned in closer. Shinichi could smell the alcohol on his breath. “Uh, Hakuba-san maybe you should—”

“I’m really glad,” Hakuba said like he hadn’t heard Shinichi start speaking at all. Shinichi lifted a hand to Hakuba’s shoulders to get a bit of distance, but the next moment Hakuba’s face was right in his and lips pressed against his, messy and a bit off center.

Any words he might have found died in his throat. What the hell.

“Mm.” Hakuba hummed against his lips. Tilted his head to try again.

Shinichi unfroze. “Wait wait wait wait.” He pushed Hakuba back and Hakuba let him, blinking at him in confusion. “Hakuba-san,” Shinichi said firmly. “You’re drunk.”

Hakuba blinked again. “A little bit, yes,” he said reasonably.

It shouldn’t have been endearing, but it was and Shinichi couldn’t even feel too bad about the situation. He patted Hakuba on the shoulder, hoping it came across as friendly but not so friendly that Hakuba was going to try and kiss him again. They kind of needed to have a sober conversation about this, which wasn’t going to happen tonight. “I think that it’s time to call it an evening.”

“Oh?” Hakuba looked hopeful.

Shinichi snorted despite himself. “Not that kind of evening.” He tugged on Saguru’s hand, stepping away. “Come on. Let’s get you back to the hotel and sobered up.”

“I don’t think I’d be able to be this forward sober,” Hakuba said, following along happily enough. He was a little unsteady, but not so bad that Shinichi thought he’d have to dive closer to keep him from falling flat on his face.

“And that’s exactly why we’re going to go sober you up.”

Hakuba was silent, turning that over in his mind with a slight frown on his face as Shinichi said goodbye to Hakuba’s friends. They were halfway into the walk to the hotel when Hakuba, probably starting to sober up said, “I made a grave mistake didn’t I?”

Shinichi glanced back to find Hakuba looking at Shinichi’s hand around his wrist, still guiding him on the off chance Hakuba decided to try doing something spontaneous and potentially dangerous the way drunk people could do. The frown had become full-fledged and troubled. It was so far away from the open grin earlier that Shinichi felt a pang of guilt. Looked like he’d kind of ruined Hakuba’s evening even if he didn’t mean to.

“I wouldn’t say a mistake,” Shinichi said carefully. “You’re just more impulsive right now.”

“I did make a mistake then,” Hakuba said with heavy certainty. “Damn.”

“Hakuba, it’s fine.”

Hakuba said nothing, just followed Shinichi back to the hotel room they’d booked for the conference and accepted the glass of water Shinichi got him from the bathroom tap.

“Want to talk about it?” Shinichi asked.

“I think I’m going to be very embarrassed in the morning,” Hakuba said in a detached way that said he wasn’t properly processing emotions now. A pause, then “Kuroba is going to mock me mercilessly for having a type.”

“Kuroba?”

“A…classmate? Friend? Enemy?” Hakuba squinted at the ceiling. “Past crush? Is it really past though…? It’s a bit like those relationship lists with a check-box for ‘it’s complicated’ or ‘all of the above’.”

“Right.” There was a lot Shinichi didn’t know about Hakuba, and who Kuroba was only comprised a small part of that. “Feeling a bit more sober?”

“Unfortunately. I always have hated the crash.” He drank half the glass of water in one go and wrinkled his nose at it. “It’s so nice not to overthink everything for a while.”

Well, Shinichi could empathize with that. “Finish the water and get some sleep, Hakuba-san and we can talk in the morning.”

“Must we?” Hakuba said with a sigh, then, “I don’t suppose I could get one more kiss for the night?”

“Ask me in the morning,” Shinichi said, finding himself meaning it. He didn’t really look to men, but really, outside of Ran he didn’t find himself attracted to people in general. If he let himself look at Hakuba that way, well, he wasn’t un-interesting.

Hakuba nodded and downed the rest of the water. “Right. Apologies in advance if I try to run in the morning.”

“You’re not going to now?”

“Oh, no. I’m much too tired and not nearly mortified enough yet.” Hakuba collapsed face first onto one of the two twin beds, not even bothering to take any clothing off or get under the covers. “Goodnight.”

Shinichi snorted when he started snoring softly a few moments later. He wasn’t really sure what to do with the situation, but he honestly did find Hakuba a friend, so this wasn’t something they couldn’t work out. Shinichi took off Hakuba’s shoes without him even twitching before going through his nightly routine and climbing into his own bed. It was pretty easy to fall asleep, all things considered.

o*O*o

Shinichi woke up to muffled swearing and Hakuba clutching a stubbed toe with his eyes squinted in the light-sensitive way people had when they were hung-over. “Are you running?” Shinichi asked sleepily.

Hakuba froze. “Kudo-san.”

Shinichi sat up and stretched. Hakuba’s eyes followed the motion like he couldn’t help it. He also looked like he was terrified what was going to come out of Shinichi’s mouth next. Well, that wouldn’t do. “I don’t suppose this hotel room has a coffee maker.”

“Er. I hadn’t looked for one.”

“Hmm. Well I need caffeine. If you’re not trying to run away, we can get breakfast and talk.”

Hakuba relaxed in degrees, lowering his foot back to the floor. “…I’d like that.”

“Great. I cleaned up last night, so the bathroom is all yours.”

“…Thank you.”

Hakuba all but ran, taking clean clothing with him.

There was a restaurant attached to the hotel, so that could be their next destination. Shinichi still didn’t feel uncomfortable with what happened last night. He’d kind of thought he would, but if anything he was a bit curious how far the faint interest he’d felt during that kiss went. And, well… He sighed internally. He wasn’t in a relationship right now considering things with Ran had been more than a bit tense after he came back from being Conan. No time like the present to explore the full spectrum of his sexuality.

o*O*o

Hakuba was quiet until halfway through his first cup of tea. Then he just looked nervous. Shinichi sipped coffee—and this was good coffee—and waited patiently for Hakuba to figure out what he wanted to say.

“So,” Hakuba said finally, once the pinched look of a hangover headache was starting to smooth away. “Apologies for last night. It appears that I let myself go a bit too much and ended up inconveniencing you. And. Taking liberties with your person.” Hakuba blushed, not looking quite in Shinichi’s direction. “I assure you that such a slip of propriety won’t happen again, and I hope it hasn’t caused you any reason to regret our friendship.”

Hakuba, Shinichi decided, was kind of cute when he was shy. Not as much as when he was smiling unreservedly, but it made him look vulnerable and approachable a lot more than his usual confidence did. Not that he necessarily found confidence unattractive. “You didn’t ruin anything,” Shinichi said. “And I’m not mad. I was a bit surprised, but nothing you did upset me.”

Hakuba’s eyes flicked up and away. “That isn’t how most people respond,” he said a bit ruefully. “I admit that I’d hoped you would be interested in return, and that I invited you to go to the conference for less than pure reasons, but I honestly only intended to find out whether or not you’d even consider being interested in men last night. It’s just that I was nervous and the last time I attempted to determine this sort of thing it wasn’t…”

Shinichi blinked. “Honestly you seemed really confident last night.”

“I wasn’t thinking,” Hakuba said. “I can get… tripped up by over analyzing and second guessing and a few drinks tends to turn that part of my mind off. Unfortunately, a few too many drinks and I end up overconfident and impulsive and prone to giving into whatever emotional whims I happen to feel.”

“So it was a whim?”

Hakuba still couldn’t look at him. “…Not entirely.”

“Hmm.” So in other words, Hakuba definitely thought of kissing him before that night, he just didn’t have the usual inhibitions not to. Shinichi sipped at his coffee. “Well, last night you were drunk enough that I definitely wasn’t going to respond. Just saying, a drink is one thing, but that much alcohol is a different story. Now that you’re sober…” Shinichi shrugged. “I’m honestly not sure how I feel, but you aren’t unattractive and I enjoy your company. I’d be up for trying that kiss again.”

Hakuba stopped trying to avoid looking at him and stared. “I… truly?”

Shinichi shrugged again. “In all honesty, I hadn’t kissed a man before last night or even thought of it, but it could have been a nice kiss under different circumstances, so…”

“Oh.” Hakuba blushed again, faint pink along his cheeks. “Oh.” The shy look vanished as a much more confident smile crossed his face. “Well, then I’d like that. I. Would you be interested in a date? A proper one, not just me inviting you to things and failing to reveal my motivations.”

“I’d like that.” Shinichi smiled back.

The rest of breakfast went smoothly, conversation switching over to their hobbies instead of the usual routes of crime and cases, last night’s dancing opening a new topic to know each other better. And at the end of it, once they were back in their hotel room gathering up their things to leave, Hakuba drew Shinichi into another kiss. A much more hesitant and shy kiss, but no worse than the first one.

And Shinichi kissed back.

#detective conan #fanfiction #shinichi/saguru #my writing

6 notes · View notes

spiftynifty · 6 years ago

Note

How come it seems like lm and jds can talk more candidly about their intentions regarding other ships like allurance and even k/l but not sheith? I don't understand why they can clarify things like allurance and how it was there from the beginning or flat out state that they never intended for k/l to be a thing, but when it comes to the topic of shiro and keith they won't just clarify what they did or did not intend/want their relationship to be? I'm confused by it. :(

Ooof this is an excellent question and I suspect a complicated one.

First off, they can be candid about Allurance because 1) it’s a hetero couple (and therefore “acceptable” to executives and conservative parents) and 2) it was strongly implied and built up for almost the entirety of the series before they officially, canonically, became a couple. There’s no ambiguity there. They can be candid about kl because Allurance technically “kills” the ship by virtue of existing, but more importantly kl is the fanship that they have been directly asked about on more than one occasion and probably straight up badgered about it more times than we’re aware of. When your production studio gets blackmailed in the hopes of making k/l canon, that ship is being brought to your attention.

Also, Afterbuzz is run by kl fans who have anti-like tendencies. They angle kl questions in nearly every interview, and I was pretty miffed by the way in this interview they heavily, heavily implied that only Sheith fans hated s8 “because their ship didn’t become canon” and yet in the same breath talked about how Allurance wasn’t good and came out of nowhere (something JDS delightfully shut down). In the live chat for the recent interview, people from all ship alignments kept begging the hosts to ask about why SK’s friendship wasn’t included in the final season. In the saltiest tone you can imagine, one of the more vocal kl hosts decided to answer the question (”they helped each other grow and evolve and since they’ve done that, we don’t need to see their friendship anymore, it got lots of screentime in other seasons”) and never let the showrunners actually speak on it, instead moving swiftly to another topic that aligned more with the hosts’ own interests. It was almost like she was afraid of what the answer would be. Was she afraid they’d say “well actually, on the matter of that, Sheith was our intended endgame” or was she trying to save them from having to talk about something NDAs prevented them from talking about?

So why CAN’T they talk Sheith? I have a few theories. This gets long and a little rambly, so I’ve thrown it under a cut.

1) Don’t ask, don’t tell. Except for post-s7, the showrunners themselves have never been asked about Sheith’s relationship in an interview. I think most Sheiths were afraid of rocking the boat and potentially upending a SK endgame by drawing too much attention to it. We were/are definitely the quieter side of the primary vld ships and honestly most of us were not expecting our ship to be canon.

But vld ships and the ship wars are notorious across geekdom for vitriol and death threats, and the creators didn’t want to add any fodder to either side. In the middle of production it would have benefited no one for the EPs to say, “yeah sheith is meant to be viewed romantically” or “no, we can’t go back and change the story to make that true”. Either one would have resulted in an uptick of harassment from antis towards them, towards other fans. And nevermind the production side where DW/WEP weren’t ready for even a hint of m/m until right before s7 dropped. It was only AFTER they got the greenlight on gay Shiro that showrunners could finally be vague and say “some people will interpret [sk] as brothers, others will say it’s 100% confirmed they’re in a relationship”. Which is, in my opinion, a pretty interesting way to respond to that question. But again, if that interviewer hadn’t been brave enough to ask it, I highly doubt it’s something that the showrunners themselves would have ever brought up.

2) Sheith was actually intended to be romantic, but was blocked. We know now that Adam being greenlit as Shiro’s boyfriend happened right before (like a week or less) before s7 dropped. This was a show that had been in production for almost 4 years by this point, and the showrunners stated they picked Shiro to be their rep early on in the process. When they planted that idea in executive’s heads is anyone’s guess, as is when the proper fight for it began. I suspect their immediate team of directors, writers, and in-house producers were well aware and supportive, but kicking that up the chain was another story. I also have a suspicion that it wasn’t until season 6 was complete that the matter was brought up because greenlighting everything we got in s6 knowing Shiro was gay the whole time puts a lot of eyes on Keith.

And really, it was Keith who was the problem all along.

In every version of Voltron, Keith is the main protagonist. He’s the leader of the team, the primary “image” of Voltron, and thus, certain things about him need to be maintained. I’m not sure if this is sheer coincidence or not, but he is the only person on the team who stayed visually the same to his OG counterpart. All of the other paladins have gone from white dudes (and a white lady) to POC, or have had a genderswap. There is much debate about Keith’s race with people creating their own headcanons but ultimately Keith can pass as white. While the handbook states Lance is Cuban, Hunk is half black-half Samoan, Shiro is Japanese and even Pidge gets “Italian”, Keith is just listed as... human. Which is a surefire way to not upset fans who have HC’d him as POC while also not-NOT saying he’s white. Everybody “wins”.

In addition I’m confident a major stipulation of the OG Voltron owners (the “gatekeepers”, as a few of the VAs and the showrunners themselves have darkly alluded to) was that Keith could not be LGBT. We know now he was meant to end up with Acxa, a fact that was already obvious to many of us from their Weblum meetcute. But that relationship was never scripted.

Setting aside the fact that the OG Voltron owners (WEP) didn’t want Keith to be LGBT, I’m sure executives at Dreamworks would have struggled with the idea as well. Shiro stans can come at me all they like about this but Keith was always meant to be the primary protagonist of the show, of every version of Voltron, and making the main, masculine hero of a well-trodden, oft-rebooted franchise gay/bi would have been an ENORMOUS move for animation. Making him end up with the other main, masculine hero would have honestly broken the internet and the minds of countless conservative executives, and been a major benchmark not just for cartoons, but ALL media. Animation often trails behind TV and movies in terms of social progress because something something “protect the chillllldrennn”. And right now I’m struggling to think of a popular live action TV show, or movie, with an older audience, where the main masculine hero is lgbt, and in a relationship with the other main masculine hero. Feel free to offer me examples in replies but the fact that I’m struggling to think of anything is pretty telling. In short, if this revolutionary move still isn’t happening for the live action 13+ audience, asking for it to happen on a cartoon with a 7-11yo boy demographic is like asking for the moon. Keith couldn’t be gay, because immediately it would have been obvious to anyone that he was already very much in love with the other LGBT character on the show. Hell, it’s already pretty obvious in canon that this is the case, and dodging the question about his sexuality is dodging the confirmation that he’s in love with Shiro.

I’d like to believe that one of the solutions to the Adam Problem that was proposed was that KEITH ends up with Shiro, but they were laughed out of the office. The pair’s incredibly close bond aside, it would have been the absolute easiest fix production-wise. They already have their shared history doing most of the legwork, all that’d have to be changed is:

-adding Shiro to the L/K scene in 8x01, just sitting there as Keith encouraged Lance.-Re-recording a couple of Shiro’s lines in 8x05 to make him seem at least somewhat upset that Keith was kidnapped-Showing Keith and Shiro hanging out in the video episode. You could just use the shot of Keith and Pidge but replace Pidge with Shiro.

And the best part is, you could change just one or two of these and then do the wedding epilogue you always intended (but write something that doesn’t insist Shiro retired) but with Keith instead of Rando. Not to mention, there is a slight, slight possibility there was a S/K scene (or two) cut along the way. I strongly disagree with the theories that have floated around about the “massive edits” done to s8, but I think there could be truth to the idea that a Sheith scene was cut to make room for Crew Member, or an effort made to downplay the Sheith friendship that comes off way more intimate than any interaction Shiro has with [man]. It’s more likely that SK scenes never existed at all in this season as the showrunners had to cave to pressures to “have more action”, had no idea what to do with Shiro besides relegate him to a stiff cardboard general, and perhaps had to follow strict instructions about the kind of friendliness an out & proud gay man could show to the men he’d enjoyed good interactions with before.

All this to say, the Sheith battle is messy. It’s fine for the showrunners to say “getting the greenlight for Shiro was a battle” because it’s a battle they won that makes everyone look pretty good. It makes Dreamworks look like they Learned Something and are going to be more open to LGBT content in future properties. It makes WEP look not-terrible because they can add “allowed a character who wasn’t really an OG Voltron character to be gay” to their list of “generous” things they allowed for this re-envisioning of their property. It’s self-congrats all around.

Blocking Sheith has the opposite effect. It reveals that WEP is homophobic because they could allow Pidge to be a girl and Allura to be black but making the hero a non-straight man? That’s TOO FAR. It reveals that Dreamworks higherups are homophobic because they weren’t ready for two LGBT protagonists, just one plus a background character with 3 lines who is literally never named. No one wins, and to be asked about Shiro and Keith and be honest about it could potentially be the showrunners saying, “god, we wanted to, but we were blocked at every single turn”. And thus DW and WEP are the outed villains of the story.

3) Shiro and Keith were never meant to be read as romantic. The showrunners don’t say anything because there’s simply nothing to say. Sometimes the most incredible ships are happy accidents. Sometimes people genuinely don’t realize what they’re doing. I felt a little disheartened watching the AB interview because the way they talked about wanting to include more [man], or how they “hoped viewers would read between the lines” re:Shiro/Curtains, was so casual and flippant it was like they genuinely thought most people would be fine with Shirando if only there had been more scenes between them, as though completely severing Shiro’s relationship with Keith and instead only showing scenes of Shiro bonding with a new character would come off as a good move rather than a baffling (and somewhat hurtful) one.

I do believe that certain directors were absolutely fans of the pair and angled in what they could. Chris Palmer is behind the famous “shiro loves you baby” art and responsible for the eps that include Shiro’s gay panic, the Sheith hug, “As many times as it takes”, Shiro falling into Keith’s arms, and “We have to stop, Shiro’s out there!!” among others. Steve Ahn was the director behind 2x01, 3x01 with heavily grieving Keith, Blade of Marmora, and the episode where Keith screams Shiro’s name so loud he astral projects and then Shiro holds his hands over the controls. He also got really soft when he talked about the pair in an episode of Form Podcast (before JDS kinda hastily shut him down). And even Eugene Lee, he directed The Black Paladins which is an episode so Sheith I still can’t believe it’s real, and 7x01, the other episode so Sheith I can’t believe it’s real. All three of these guys were the original series directors, which is pretty inchresting.

But that doesn’t mean the showrunners were necessarily onboard. Maybe it was really important to them to show a positive male friendship since that never happens in media, just as they felt having Allura sacrifice herself was a powerful feminist move. However the thing I keep circling back to is JDS’ early interview about The Winter Soldier and how if he ever got the chance to do that, he hoped it would be in the future when things could be more progressive, hinting that he wanted to throw more overt romantic undertones if he himself ever got a fight like that to write or direct. It’s pretty interesting that he wrote the Black Paladins, which mirrors the Stucky fight in Winter Soldier so much that it actually rotoscopes one of Bucky’s moves. I’d also point out that JDS’ favorite characters are Shiro and Keith, and I find it impossible to be a fan of both and not also be a fan of how much they love each other, and how much that love straddles the line between romantic love and friendship.

This got long, but I hope it was helpful. The likely final-ever showrunner interview will be on Let’s Voltron sometime this month, and I do hope that now that the series is over someone is brave enough to ask them, “so... what was going on between Shiro and Keith? In a perfect world, what would have happened there?”. In a way it doesn’t matter though. There is always the risk of them saying “nothing was going on there” and us agonizing over whether that was a lie to protect their careers or bald-faced honesty in the face of an NDA or fucks-given that might have expired with their contracts.

But I think the best we can hope for is the same situation that happened with the Avatar creators and that live action movie: 3 years from now when the NDAs are well and truly expired, JDS & LM may come out and say, “SO, on the matter of Shiro and Keith, it’s time to come clean.”

#sheith #vld meta #voltron #askspifty #it's still wild to me that people say they're brothers #like really i have questions about your siblings if that's the case #Anonymous

188 notes · View notes

djservicebozemanmt-blog · 5 years ago

Text

Booking A DJ - What To Look For & Why?

joesdj.com

The single most usual concern that DJs are asked in the initial instance is "Just how much are you?" Currently every person likes value for money, but you have not even asked what solution they offer yet! Regardless of the common picture of mobile DJs being all the same, we are really different in our method to the work, as well as services can differ by some distance from DJ to DJ. If you get on a limited budget plan of say, $125, after that your option will certainly be restricted and also you might end up with a newbie or somebody with obtained and also messy devices.

Always appealing too is letting a friend 'take a crack at' ... a recipe for a vacant dancing flooring and a full bar! Cost-cutting is multiplied two-fold when talking of a wedding party. Not just one of the most essential day of your lives, however a day where you have actually most likely spent $500 on a cake, $2000 on gowns as well as matches and also unimaginable quantities on food and also beverage ... looks like incorrect economic climate to skimp on the largest part of the entire day, the event.

In short, do not simply reserve your DJ on rate!

A real professional or semi-professional DJ will certainly have invested years getting their songs, discovering exactly how to develop a dancing flooring ambience, be completely acquainted in wedding celebration etiquette as well as have a set to be proud of.

To offer you some concept of values, to employ a really basic DJ set-up (2 audio speakers, amplifier, CD decks, mixer and 2 light impacts) sets you back $100 per evening from my regional nightclub center. Add to that somebody's working time (6 hours on average) as well as take a trip prices, etc, you start to understand just how useful a professional DJ can be for your occasion ...

For weddings, aim to pay between $300 - $450 for a 7pm-12am solution. Birthday parties, wedding anniversaries, etc may be cheaper as they are less stress as well as usually shorter hours.

The Style & Web content

It appears so apparent to claim it yet I'm mosting likely to anyhow ... attempt to see your DJ in action prior to you book them. If it's not convenient, then listen from good friends that have actually witnessed the DJ's talents before. After all, recommendation is still the very best advert for any type of act.

It's always a truly good concept to talk at length with your potential DJ regarding your own songs tastes and what you get out of them on the night. Ask them looking inquiries about the sort of things they play, whether they take requests, just how they suggest to start/finish the process, that example. A DJ worth his salt will certainly pay attention intently and take onboard every one of your concepts, often suggesting choices to points he thinks might not work.

If you're theming the evening's entertainment, ensure your DJ knows beforehand ... this way he can be certain to lug the ideal songs for the celebration, such as a 70's & 80's Event or a Heart Evening. It also provides him a chance to pass the job on if the genre you pick is not his speciality. The even more contemporary DJs are additionally inclined to avoid playing uniqueness records, such as the Birdie Song as well as Superman. If you desire these consisted of (as well as you want to sit on the flooring as well as paddle an imaginary boat ...) it's ideal to examine first!

The DJ Gear

As every one of my DJ coworkers know, this is my soapbox topic!

So many times I have experienced DJs assembling some of the least expensive and also scruffiest gear you can visualize ... tossing it loosely on a folding table, wires tracking almost everywhere and also speakers hardly with the ability of audible sound ... and also yet still charging $300 an evening! They must wear a mask! In this day as well as age, the range of tools offered to us is incredible, and also at extremely affordable costs for good top quality; there are no excuses for a DJ's equipment looking or appearing negative in the 21st Century.

Right, tirade over ... without going also technological, advantages to seek are overhanging lights (nightclub-style relocating lights), audio speakers on stands (elevates the audio over the crowd to forecast it across the entire room) and a neat phase area set-up. Cables need to be stashed anywhere feasible and also the much better professional DJs have a classy cover or starcloth to surround their stand. When playing, the noise needs to be crystal clear on the dance flooring, both with music and the DJ's spoken voice.

In some circumstances the audio will not travel well to the rear of the space, however this can be as a result of the place's acoustics and not really a problem as guests will invariably desire someplace to conversation. A lot of DJs have a sound system to cater for up to 150 individuals pleasantly. If your DJ is not accustomed to your recommended venue, request that he takes a look beforehand, particularly if you have 200+ night guests. Quite often I have actually seen tiny amplifiers pressed to their maximum trying to supply to a large space ... and also it doesn't sound positive!

Finally on the technical side, a multitude of places nowadays are firmly insisting the DJs have both Public Liability Insurance and a certification of safety (RUB) for their electrical equipment.

The Business End ...

Once you have actually selected your DJ for the night, inquire for an agreement to authorize as well as concur a down payment (if one is not already requested). See to it you have actually listed all of your songs requirements and arrival/ending times to make sure that there is no complication on the day. I would also recommend a courtesy call a week prior to the occasion if your DJ hasn't called you, just to touch base and reaffirm details.

Mobile DJs have actually experienced a bad press for many years, when actually it's a really tiny minority of cowboys who let the side down. The majority of are hard-working, diligent music-lovers that will certainly offer you an evening to bear in mind! joesdj.com

youtube

1 note · View note

glowupandstuff · 6 years ago

Text

How to apply henna to hair

Henna is the powder obtained from crushing the leaves of the plant Lawsonia Alba. This powder when mixed with water has the power of dyeing both skin and hair. The plant is originary from the north of Africa, the Middle East and the southern parts of Asia (like India and Pakistan), which is why henna is such a big and visual part of those cultures. Luckily for the rest of the world, henna is now widely available in many different countries, so we can all benefit from all its goodness.

Natural henna dyes a dark red colour. There are also some other powders marketed as henna but claiming to be able to dye hair blonde or black. These products are usually mixtures of henna with other plants or with other artificial additives. That doesn’t mean you can’t get the benefits of the henna from those products; as long as there’s a percentage of henna in its formulation, you will get good results from it. But natural, pure henna should look red-mahogany once the process is complete.

The actual henna powder before mixing it looks greenish in colour:

You will need:

- Henna powder

- Warm water

- A bowl and a spoon to make the mixture

- Thick lotion, vaseline or oil

- Two old t-shirts

- Hair ties you don’t mind changing colour

- Latex gloves

- A shower cap

- Lots of free time

There are many different recipes all over the internet to prepare henna, but this is how I do it and how I’ve found the best results:

- To start off, my hair is curly-ish, but it’s also pretty fine, so it tends to get somewhat frizzy. In this moment, I wear it a little past shoulder length, and to coat all of it in the henna paste I use a bit more of half the bag of powder pictured abouve. There’s no exact quantities to this, but there is a learning curve. The first few times it will be messy and complicated, but it becomes easier with time.

- I mix warm water with the henna powder. The temperature of the water only makes it easier to dissolve the powder into it; it doesn’t serve any other purpose and it’s more conformable to apply it once the mixture is cold.

Some recipes I’ve read call for an acid (like lemon juice or vinegar) to “activate” the henna powder and also to leave the mixture to rest overnight before application. I have tried all those methods and some others as well, and I haven’t found a difference in result. So I prefer not to use acids as I find they make my hair even drier and I mix it the moment before applying because there’s no difference in the result.

Henna powder does not dissolve easily and you’ll probably find it clumps. The goal is to get a smooth paste, but that’s virtually impossible. The thickness depends on what your preference is. I usually make it the same thickness a greek yogurt would be, so once it’s on my head it doesn’t stream down my neck as much. If your hair is on the thicker side, you may want to have a lighter consistency so it reaches the roots of your hear more easily.

This mixture above looks super clumpy and it was quite so when I applied it. Do as I say, not as I do!

- Once the mixture is ready, you want to protect the skin you don’t want coloured. I like covering my forehead, ears, sides of my face, neck and upper shoulders in vaseline or thick oil, because I find this works better as a barrier rather than a lotion that could be absorbed into the skin, but all of those options are valid. Put on an old t-shirt you don’t mind having stains on. I’d very much recommend using latex (or similar) gloves. You are going to be working with your hands and unless you cover them, they will get stained a nice orange/red colour. If you decide to use your bare hands (or get henna in any other part of your body) they will get stained for a few days, but will fade eventually.

- Comb your hair out to make sure you don’t have any knots. Henna is best applied over not completely clean hair. You want to dye your hair, not your scalp, and being on second or third day hair guarantees there’s some of your natural oils covering your scalp so it doesn’t get dyed as much.

- Work in sections. I find it easier to start from the bottom and work my way up. I grab a glob of henna from the bowl with my hands and start applying it to each section of hair, starting at the roots to make sure they’re well covered and ending at the tips. If you have very long hair, you will benefit from tying up the sections of hair you’ve already done so they’re out of the way.

The first few times you apply henna is going to be super messy. You will get drips of henna all over you and all around you. But once you get used to it, it becomes a breeze. I have been dyeing my own hair for years and I make almost no mess at all. Having someone there to help you definitely reduces the difficulty, though.

- You will maybe find you’re left with some extra mixture once your hair is coated completely. Usually, more is more when it comes to henna, so just put it all in your hair and make sure your ends are well covered. On the contrary, just mix some more if you feel you don’t have enough.

- When you’re done, put on the shower cap and make a turban over the shower cap with the spare old t-shirt. The point of this is to keep the henna wet and warm, that’s when it’s the most effective and the red hues more apparent. If you have a towel you can hang around your neck and that you don’t mind getting stainer, by all means use it. The henna will at some point drip down your neck.

- Clean all surfaces where henna has dripped throroughly. This includes the sink, the floor, the counter top, sometimes even the walls (it gets wild) and all parts of your skin it has touched.

- Brace yourself for having to wait a long time. Most commercial dyes work in 20-30 minutes. But henna is no weak ass commercial dye. If you are blonde or have light hair, I envy you and you will only need around 1.5/2 hours for the henna to work its magic in your hair. If you are a brunette like I am, the recommended time is 3.5+ hours. When I want to dye my hair I make sure I have no commitments for the day, put it on in the morning and rinse it off in the evening. Hang out happily with yourself, watch a movie, read a book, prep your meals for the whole week! Just make sure you’re not dripping into sofas, chairs, etc.

- Once the waiting time is over, I like to rinse my hair with just water. At the beginning, I used to shampoo the henna out of my hair, but now I find it’s more effective to use just water until all the mud is out of your hair. Henna will probably dry out both your scalp and your ends, so I like to apply a thick hair mask from roots to ends and rinse it off once it’s made its job.

Results: As I’ve said before, henna will only dye your hair in the orange/red/auburn hues realm, but it really depends on what colour hair you’re starting with. If your hair is blonde or fair you will get a very intense colour that has the potential of making you look like a natural redhead, but once the roots start growing, it will be very noticeable. The darker your hair is, the less full-on dye job it’s going to seem and the more “I got beautiful red highlights all throught my hair, eat your heart out” is going to look. Using henna over bleached hair is no use. Firstly, because you probably want to use henna to avoid the damage of commercial dyes. Secondly, because henna just doesn’t work well over hair that’s been recently colour treated with commercial dyes, peroxides, etc.

The moment right after the henna has been rinsed off and a couple days after, the colour in hair tends to look very bright, but as the days go by the pigment oxydizes and the colour gets more subdued.

This is already too long, so I will write another post with the advantages and disadvantages of applying henna to hair and link it here ~~

ADVANTAGES OF HENNA

#mine #beauty #natural beauty #natural health #natural remedies #natural hair #natural hair dye #henna #natural hair care #natural hair color #hair care #hair style #hair colors #hair condition #hair dye #hair hacks #hair tips #hair health #hairstyles

5 notes · View notes

nmbhvacpros · 4 years ago

Text

Industrial Plumbing Tips On Maintenance

A commercial pipes system undergoes normal wear and tear particularly throughout business operation hours. Several local business owner do not maintain their pipelines, sinks, along with toilets quite possibly up until something no longer functions. To see to it that your business remains effective as well as useful, it is important to take your pipes seriously by working with a commercial plumbing technician. Listed below are some easy suggestions to help you lower the dangers of encountering business pipes problems. These will certainly assist you save a lot of frustration as well as potentially expensive pipes issues in the future.

Don't Disregard Minor Pipes Issues

A water leak can create also in the most innovative faucets, pipelines, or components after some time. A small leak can end up significantly boosting your water costs for many years. You need to focus on dripping faucets as well as minor leakages to stop it from becoming a larger issue. Obstructed Drains A messy overflow can easily be brought on by obstructed drains. Leaves, paper, grease, as well as food left overs among others can create blocked drains pipes. Tree roots can also penetrate drainpipe pipelines and result in blockages that can be rather tough to eliminate. Flushing the wrong stuff A few of the important things you need to flush down your toilet tissue and also human waste. But that is a lot easier stated than done, specifically when you are running a industrial business. In this situation, you have to inform your staff members as well as location shower room indications as to what should be purged down the toilet. If other points are flushed, they may trigger blockages, which can set off a unpleasant overflow or back-up in your bathroom. Constantly advise them to make use of water cautiously. You need to likewise guidance your employees to report any indicators of plumbing problem. Mount Water Conditioner The minerals found in difficult water does not just pose a risk to your health and wellness if you consume it however it can additionally hurt your plumbing system-- if revealed to it for a very long time. It is much better if you invest in a water conditioner to shield your pipes and also enhance your water quality. Know Where Your Turn Off Valves Are Situated In case a toilet overruns or a pipe bursts, you have to turn off the water as soon as possible to prevent additional damages. For you to be able to do that, you have to recognize where the turned off valves lie. Understanding this will aid you protect against the current problem from getting much even worse and also will certainly ease up the plumbing repair work process. Stop Frozen Piping One major pipes maintenance suggestion, especially during the winter season, includes preventing icy pipelines. Mounting insulation around your pipes can assist you take care of the issue. Call a plumbing contractor to aid you insulate the pipes to ensure that they are winter all set. Reduce Water Pressure A lot of the concerns that entail your industrial pipes can be the repercussion of the extreme water pressure. So reduced the water stress in case that is what your plumbing system requires. Never Ever Postpone as well as Fix The Trouble Early Minor problems have a tendency to become major ones. In case there is a leak in your restroom faucet, don't ignore it. You need to take care of it at first sight to prevent the issue from becoming more complicated and expensive to fix. Upgrade Your Pipelines Maybe your organization is located in an older structure as well as still have the initial plumbing pipelines. If so, it is rather optimal to re-pipe your industrial facility. Newer pipelines are less prone to harm and also are thought about to be much more secure. You might need to invest a bit today but it will definitely be worth it for the years ahead. Deal with A Trusted Plumbing professional In case your organization has dependable Florence plumbing technician that is responsible for maintaining the plumbing work at your business, then good for you. However, if you do not have a routine pipes expert, Pipes Specialists Florence is the company to head to. Having stayed in business for a long time, they have actually gained a online reputation of a trustworthy, reliable, in addition to very certified firm.

Call Plumbing Experts Florence if you need help in dealing with your commercial plumbing problems. You may reach us at (843) 536-4568.

Subscribe on Youtube

Plumbing Experts Florence Florence, SC 29501 843-536-4568 https://plumbingprosflorence.com/

0 notes

sociallyinsmmagency · 4 years ago

Text

PODCAST MARKETING ON SOCIAL MEDIA: THE OFFICIAL GUIDE IN 2021

The hardest part is over after you order the equipment, right? From there it’s all downhill?

Unfortunately, this is rarely the case. Buying the equipment and choosing a subject are actually the easiest part of the process and the most difficult parts…SURPRISE! Happen to be the marketing end of the project.

However, the good news is that podcast marketing doesn’t have to be difficult, complicated or messy. In fact, podcast marketing can actually be a lot of fun if you have the right tools, knowledge, connections and platforms.

We’re going to dive a little deeper into what podcast marketing on social media really IS and what it requires, as well as how you can get from zero viewers to a constantly growing network in a matter of months.

Let’s get the party started.

What is Podcast Marketing on Social Media?

Podcast marketing on social media makes that possible by driving brand awareness, connecting you with potential listeners and giving you a platform to deliver the right message at the right time to the right people. In essence, podcast marketing on social media is your ticket to fame if executed properly.

GLOBAL SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING CAMPAIGNS: EXPLAINED

Podcast Marketing on Social Media: Choosing a Platform

If you’re of the mind that joining as many social media platforms as possible is the right avenue, we’re here to tell you that it’s not worth it.

Instead, narrowing down the 2-3 platforms that your audience uses THE MOST and then using that as your main platforms will allow you to:

Spend more focused energy on making your presence on fewer platforms better,

Will allow you to learn more about each platform and use that knowledge to your advantage

It’ll give you an opportunity to speak more directly with your audience and make authentic connections without feeling stretched between too many possibilities.

Choosing the perfect platform goes back to what demographics your listeners will most closely relate to, as well as how niche your audience really is. Most podcasts will do well to spend the majority of their time on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, but if you will have a very specific, niche audience, it may be worth a brainstorm and branching out into more unknown territory.

Podcast Marketing on Social Media: Strategically Building Your Profile

Long before your podcast hits the stage and before the promotion efforts are going full-steam ahead, it’s important to make some quality time with your brand’s social profiles.

Most networks will feature platform-specific fields that you’ll want to fill out, but the majority of them will be the same.

We created a little cheat-sheet below so you can be sure you don’t miss anything.

Upload a brand or personal profile photo

Upload a cover photo

Add your website, (if applicable)

Create a tagline

Fill in the “about” section.

Include any certifications and awards (where applicable)

Filling out this information is crucial because it helps social networks bring you the right kind of listeners and helps interested listeners find you.

Podcast Marketing on Social Media: Content Creation and Direction

Yes, your podcast is creative material, but you can’t expect people to listen without knowing what they’re getting into. Not to mention that if you’re looking to experience growth, you’ll have to build out specific content around your podcast to keep people engaged, sharing and listening!

#1 Use Quote Graphics to Your Advantage

This one is powerful because it’s so shareable and relatable.

Did you have a special guest on your podcast that you can highlight with a particular quote? Was there something particularly enlightening or exciting about the information you shared in a recent podcast? This is the time to highlight it and get people interested in listening through colorful, relevant, informative content.

#2 Strive to be a Problem-Solver

If in any way you can provide information that saves people a headache, this is the time to do it. Making your listeners lives easier through shared information, tactics and tools is a great way to build loyalty with your audience and attract more listeners. AND it makes great content!!

#3 Leverage Popular and Trending Content

If you can find relevant, trending and popular content that’s easy to work into your podcast social content, you’ve hit a gold mine. Re-tweeting, sharing, re-purposing...it’s all game as long as you give credit where credit is due and DO NOT try to force something that doesn’t naturally relate.

#4 Giveaways Go A Long Way

Everyone loves an opportunity to win something. Get your name out there and host a contest or giveaway. You’d be surprised at just how effective it can be for building engagement, (which helps your other content!) and the only rule is to be careful how often you perform them.

You don’t want followers who are only there for the free stuff. 😏😉

#5 Get Creative on Each Platform

If you made the decision to execute your podcast marketing on multiple channels, it’s important not to get sucked into the “same content, same copy, different platforms” bandwagon.

You want to make sure your content sizing, wording and targeting are specific to the audience and platform, not specific only to your brand.

Get creative! There are ways to re-purpose the same images with different copy or vice versa.

#6 Create a Social Media Content Calendar for Your Podcast Marketing

If you’re making an editorial/content calendar for your podcast, then you already know how important and helpful they can be when it comes to content planning, organization and analysis.

A podcast social media content calendar will allow you to stay consistent by giving you a structure to work from so quality content can flow naturally and the content that IS published can be complimentary.

One of the best ways to quickly create a social media content calendar is to plan things out according to days of the week. We’ve created a sample podcast marketing social media content calendar below so you don’t have to waste time creating one yourself!

Even if you don’t want to choose a “theme” for each day of the week, creating social content in advance is the key to future success. It saves you time, saves you stress and helps you stay accountable to keeping things fresh, consistent and aesthetically pleasing throughout your feed.

Sample Podcast Social Media Content Calendar

Because sometimes brainstorming themed content is just too much, right? We’ve got you covered.

1. Monday: Post a quote graphic/sound byte/video from your podcast

It builds hype. It’s fun. It’s fast and it’s easily consumed content, which sounds like a green light to me.

2. Tuesday: Ask a question- get people involved

Asking questions and responding to questions is one of the best ways to build brand engagement and foster loyalty with your audience. Take advantage!

3. Wednesday: Share some relevant industry news

Who doesn’t love a little inspiration? Just make sure you keep it industry relevant.

4. Thursday: Inspirational quote

If your audience will find it interesting or informational, it’s worth sharing. Plus, it’s content you don’t have to worry about making!

5. Friday: Something about YOU, a guest/speaker/employee spotlight

Sharing something about yourself and your life puts a human dimension into your brand and cultivates loyalty. Even if it’s just a selfie, your audience wants to see the real YOU so make it happen!

6. Saturday: A behind-the-scenes glimpse

Who doesn’t love getting a glimpse of what’s happening behind the scenes of their favorite TV shows?? The same is true of a podcast. Giving your audience a glimpse of your studio or taking a picture of your brainstorming snacks are a great way to connect with your audience and let them feel like they’re a part of the action.

Of course, you don’t have to stick to this as a rule, but this should give you some wildly effective and engaging ideas to use for your own podcast marketing social media content calendar.

P.S Our team loves Sprout Social for content planning and scheduling.

Podcast Marketing on Social Media: Engaging With Your Audience

Magnet podcast social media communities exist because the social media manager created an inclusive, insightful, value-filled community where anyone could chime in, all questions mattered and the audience felt HEARD.

But how do you go about creating a magnetic community like that?

The answer is simple: engaging with your audience.

This can mean re-tweeting content and reviews, commenting, answering questions, asking questions, doing shout-outs, that type of activity. Your audience will EAT IT UP.

Live Q&As are particularly insightful and helpful for boosting brand awareness, driving engagement and traffic, and even helping bolster support for your podcast.

It’ll take time, but when you begin building a value-filled community, the rewards are endless. Your audience will see your brand for what it is and not just self-promotion which will often turn an audience cold faster than you can think.

A good rule of thumb is to make sure your audience:

✅Can do more than just see or read your content- they WANT to engage! And they want YOU to engage right back!

✅Can chat and talk freely with you, whether that means asking questions or voicing concerns.

✅Knows you care about them. Even just liking comments can go a LONG way, so be thoughtful and caring about the way you approach your audience!

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING BLUEPRINT FOR BUSINESS: GET RESULTS!

Podcast Marketing On Social Media: Staying On Topic

There is nothing more revolting than a podcast channel using their platform as a personal soapbox. Don’t do it. However much you want to, it’s NEVER a good idea and it costs much more than it’s worth for five seconds of emotional fame.

YES you do want your podcast to be your podium, but only for things that are RELATED to your podcast. If your podcast is about politics, then go full steam ahead chatting about who you’re voting for and why, but absolutely don’t bring religion, politics or any other particularly sticky situations into the podcast unless it is 100% relevant to your brand.

That being said, when it comes to important topics like Human Rights, supporting the people who need us the most is far more important than anything else, so stand up and stand strong! I can guarantee that in the end, your audience and conscience will thank you.

Podcast Marketing on Social Media: Promoting Your Podcast

When it comes to promoting your own podcast on your page, ANYTHING goes, so long as you’re not TOO promotional. The key is finding a balance between announcing new episodes, recapping old episodes and hyping future episodes WITHOUT taking away from the community feeling built on the overall value that you are striving to provide as a podcast creator.

Social Media Podcast Promotion Tips for Success

If you’re ready to knock your podcast promotion out of the park, we’ve got you covered with all the best tricks. 🎬

Tip #1: Building Hype

You know that feeling you get when your favorite TV show announces a brand new season? What about your favorite band? Maybe even YOUR favorite podcast has gotten YOU hyped up in the past with a perfectly timed creative all about the upcoming episode and who they’ll be featuring.

You can do the same thing for your upcoming episodes!

Posting quick sound byte teasers and announcements about future guests can be really exciting for your audience, especially as you continue growing and value-packing every podcast episode.

Sharing quotes from upcoming guests as well as snippets of the recordings are always great ideas, but use your imagination! Creative sneak-peeks are always exciting. 😍

Tip #2: Utilize Hashtags

When it comes to bringing in new listeners and introducing your brand and podcast to the world, hashtags are an incredibly powerful tool for podcast promotion.

But don’t overdo it. Stick to industry relevant hashtags as well as a few specific, branded hashtags so you don’t come across as spammy or irrelevant. Or, you know. Both.

Tip #3: Don’t be Afraid to Share More Than Once

After all, most people don’t pay enough attention to their feeds and end up missing a lot even after scrolling for a significant amount of time.

Posting a teaser a few days before, then a release post and then a follow-up post for those that missed it is generally the best plan.

Tip #4: Partnerships are Key

If you have the opportunity to do so, leveraging someone else’s audience for your podcast can be an extremely powerful podcast marketing and promotional tool.

If you’re a brand new podcast without a very large following, it can be even more powerful. All you have to do is work with another content creator whose audience overlaps with your own. PSA they DO NOT HAVE TO BE FELLOW PODCASTERS. Any kind of content creator will do.

And then all you have to do is give a little to get a little.

Ask for promotional content in exchange for promotional content. It’s easy. It’s effective. And did I mention it was easy?

Podcast Marketing on Social Media: Measuring Your Results

So you’ve created a podcast, found your target audience, created a podcast website, started promoting your podcast on social media and promoting your show in the most epic way possible.

Now what?

Analyzing your podcast marketing and promotional podcast efforts are ALMOST more important than the promotion itself.

Why?

Because not analyzing your efforts could be potentially extremely fatal for your brand. How will you know what’s working and what isn’t if you’re not regularly making an analysis of the situation and making “show notes” about what to change, what to keep the same and what to delete altogether?

Your podcast marketing strategy is the lifeblood of your business and it goes beyond uploading a great podcast and sharing it on social media. A big part of it is just simply analyzing your efforts across social channels and your paid ads where applicable.

As soon as you begin tracking your efforts, you can begin to adjust with the wisdom of KNOWING what truly needs to be adjusted and what just needs to go.

You can do this by measuring podcast to podcast, month over month, or even week over week, whatever works best for you.

Every social media platform has a built in analytics tool, so in the beginning you don’t have to worry about purchasing any special tools or software. Just make sure to keep track of what’s happening!

If there’s any one rule for analyzing your podcast promotion, it’s just sitting down and taking the time to do it.

RELATED: 5 SUPERB VIDEO MARKETING TRICKS FOR SOCIAL MEDIA

Frequently Asked Questions

Phew, you’re almost an expert.

Okay, but seriously. This section is just for you. It’s every question you really want to ask, but don’t know who to talk to.

How to Downloads Compare to Audience Ratings?

Audience ratings are subject to error quite frequently because they’re based on samplings from the general populace, hence why downloads, as a first-party data that reflects real user behavior is a much better way to measure success.

Are Podcast Ad Campaigns Effective?

Your ad platform will tell you what listeners are generated via ads and which are generated via organic posting and podcast marketing. As this is a case-by-case question, we would say YES they can be effective, but it depends heavily on your audience, the quality of your ads and the platforms in question.

What Are the Best Practices for Winning Podcast Ad Campaigns?

As a general rule, long campaigns usually have better results than shorter social media campaigns.

Test the waters with a short segment and see how your audience responds.

Use engaging ad copy and images! Probably the most important part.

Let Us Help You Take Your Podcast Marketing Game to the Stars

We’ve helped several brands take their podcast over the top with incredible results and we want to give YOU the same opportunity for success.

Our creative team will analyze and create the ideal social media strategy for YOUR podcast and help you promote, grow and take the entirety of your brand to a whole new level of success.

Are you ready to take the jump? We’re ready when you are. Click down below for details!

This post originally appeared at https://blog.sociallyin.com/podcast-marketing

#podcast marketing #build your brand #Sociallyin #market your podcast #marketing a podcast #market my podcast #podcast marketing services #podcast marketing strategy #best way to advertise podcast

0 notes