#look man i still don't know what to call this guy lol but strike listed him as “kuro's demon” on that one popularity poll so i dunno lolol

[stabbystiletto]

😈🧥🐈‍⬛😮‍💨🧥🐈‍⬛

Kuro looked so cozy and comfy in that new artwork so I wanted to draw them in matching sweaters lolololol 🤣🤣🤣

also ponytail kuro is 1000/10 please strike just give us ponytail kuro just once in the manga please lol i mean he's had one in a few different arts now so i don't think it's out of the realm of possibility lolololol 🙏🥺🙏🥺🙏

[italeean]

Hello! ~

First things first, congrats for the followers milestone! You have such a lovely work and I'm sure your blog will only get bigger and bigger from now on! 🥰💖

Now, for the event (if it's still open), may I request ler!Levi and lee! Eren with the 10th prompt on your list? 👀 I'm quite sure I could hear Levi's voice when I read that, heheh

Anyway, wish you all the success in the world! And, again, congratulations! ❤

A/N: Hi!! How're you doing? 🥰 Thanks for the prompt, it was the first time I got the chance to write for aot and with a great pair!! (Fun fact: I like Levi, my sister likes Eren, I call my sister Brat and I have her saved in my contacts as Brat... the cycle is complete lol) I really hope you enjoy it!! Also... thanks for your compliments, your words were really flust- *AHEM* I mean, flattering >/////////< Anche il tuo blog è meraviglioso e molto interessante 💚🤍❤️ (You blog is marvelous and really interesting as well)

Drabble Event Day 10

"Jäger, did you make your bed this time?" Levi exasperated voice resonated through the house where the captain and the new recruits were hiding. "No sir, I didn't." The boy replied almost with no shame "And I don't see the importance of it, why should I make it if I'm gonna use it tonight? It's gonna get messy again..." He complained.

"For the umpteenth time, the order in someone's mind manifests itself through the order in their home. If there's no order here, there's no order in our brains. How are we supposed to think of a plan in these condit-" The older man laid his eyes on something he wished he hadn't seen. "What. Is. This?!" He was getting more and more furious by every second, facing the enormous pile of pans abandoned and completely dirty.

"Oh, you mean the pans?" Eren asked, a bit stupidly to be honest. "No, I meant the beams of the ceiling... yes of course I mean the pans you fool!" The shorter man yelled while flicking his subordinate's forehead. "I told you to wash these right after lunch, now it's gonna be a pain to make the dirt come off..!" He scolded the younger guy.

"But sir, there's no problem at all. We don't need these to make dinner and we'll have all the time in the world tomorrow morning to wash them." The brunette explained, whining a bit because he thought he was being reprimanded for a trivial matter. But for Levi it was the final straw.

"That's it you little brat! How do you like this?" With one swift move, he brought the recruit to the ground, pinned his wrists above your head and dug in his sides without mercy. "Wha- cahahaptaihin whahahat ahare yohohohou dohohohoing??" The teal-eyed guy squealed while letting out a string of childish giggles.

"What does it look like to you?" Levi scoffed, both annoyed and lowkey amused at the same time "I'm tickling you. Since we don't know when the enemy will make a move, I can't beat you to a pulp because you would waste your regeneration capabilities. However I won't let your laziness slide without a proper punishment, and this method seems quite fitting." He moved to his ribs with his free hand, watching the boy struggle and flail his legs pointlessly.

"Thihihihihis ihihihis ehembahahaharrasshihing!!" Eren whined, blushing at the thought of being tickled by the one and only Humanity's Strongest. It wasn't really the best way to work on his image and reputation as a soldier. "Good." The captain replied without saying anything else, focusing only on darting his hand all over Eren's torso, keeping him constantly guessing on where he would strike next.

"Ihihisn't thihihihis chihildihihish??" The brunette tried to convince the other to stop, but to no avail. "You call it childish now, but what if I go on until you cry? Will it still be childish then? Will it be better than washing some dishes?" Did Levi mean to tease him? The younger boy will never know, but it surely did the trick because he felt himself become ten times more flustered, and a bit panicked at the idea of being tickled for that long.

Unfortunately for him, the shorter man wasn't kidding. He kept his word and went on until he saw a tear run down Eren's cheek. Seeing that, he stopped immediately and helped the guy up. "Now do the dishes if you don't want the second round." He threatened the poor soldier.

The brunette immediately scrambled towards the sink, ready to wash all the dishes and even clean the kitchen and make his bed. Levi turned on his heels and headed to the door to make sure everyone was coming back with the wood they were supposed to pick. "Those brats..." He mumbled to himself, thinking about his time in the Underground, when he had to tickle the laziness out of his friends.

Hearing his superior mumble something, Eren turned around immediately, and in that moment he saw something he would've never thought to witness.

Was Captain Levi really smiling?

[redwinterroses]

I am glad you asked. :D

First, if a writer is using the characters' names every sentence -- they're already off to a bad start. Not every sentence needs to clarify which character it applies to, unless you're writing a "See Jane Run" book, lol.

Overall a good rule of thumb is a) don't repeat unnecessary information, and b) only write things that carry the scene.

So for starters, your readers should know who's in the scene, and you can trust them to have at least a little bit of intuition: not every bit of dialog needs to have a tag ("he said/she whispered" etc.) Now, that established: you do use names when doing otherwise would leave it unclear who's doing or saying things. Example:

George grabbed the lid off the pot. "Dang, that's hot!"

Laughing, Sean passed him a bowl. "Just pour the soup, moron."

"You're a moron."

"Says the guy who just grabbed the lid off a boiling pot."

Sticking his tongue out, George filled the first bowl.

It's clear who says what, and if we had just used "he" it wouldn't have been, but we also didn't have to dialog-tag every line. (ALSO. "Said" is not a bad word. Ignore all advice that tells you never to use "said." "Said" is an invisible word and unless you're putting a dialog tag on every line [which you Do Not Need To Do] people won't even notice it. Unlike "shrieked," "whispered," "hissed," "ranted," "whined," etc. Use those words when they'll have punch and impact. Not every dang line.)

But this isn't always how it needs to go.

For example. Let's say I'm writing about a strawberry-blonde elf named Diana and a human bard with black hair named Jerome. I could say:

Diana leaped to her feet, looking excitedly at the ravenette. "Jerome!" Diane said. "This is our chance!"

Jerome smiled at the strawberry-blonde. "Indeed," he replied.

Okay there are.... several issues here. First off, we don't need to clarify that Diana said the thing after we had her doing an action. Trust your readers! They'll know that a "she" here logically refers to Diane, as they know that "he replied" refers to Jerome.

Next, please strike "referring to characters by eye or hair color" from any lists. This is not good. It's not relevant 99% of the time (we'll get to exceptions in a moment) and also, pet peeve: "ravenette" does not mean black-haired. If you've gotta say it, just say black-haired. Ravenette means "a raven, diminuative" or maaaaaaybe "like a raven." Unless you're imitating an 1800s gothic poet, don't do this.

Physical descriptions used as character indicators/pseudo pronouns are clunky and take up space without telling us anything new. They distance the reader from the character by taking us out of the story and back into exposition land, and they generally repeat information we already know. We can tell our readers in chapter one that Diana has strawberry-blonde hair, and then we don't need to refer to her as "the strawberry-blonde" a hundred more times because our readers already know this. Just call her Diana. Or "she." (Unless it's relevant to the moment -- if she's not our POV character and we need to contrast her to, say, a black-haired beauty at the ball through someone else's eyes, that's one thing. But still, don't continually refer to her by something as shallow as her hair color.)

Exception: visual descriptions are valid to use as character-indicators when we or the characters do not know who that person is. For example, if Diana had been kidnapped by bandits.

She glared at the taller of the two men, who appeared to be some kind of leader. "What do you want?" she spat.

He leered at her, and nudged the filthy blond man at his side. "Ain't she cute," he said. "I like elves. All feisty, they are."

The blond looked uncomfortable. "Whatever you say, Gorm."

Ooooh look! Now we know the boss-man's name. From here on out, we probably should refer to him as either "Gorm" or "the bandit leader" -- not "the tall man" (and never just "the taller." Or "the older," "the younger," etc. That's a side note, but a lot of fics do that too. If you're going to use a comparative adjective, you at least still have to tell us what noun it refers to.)

Also -- did you notice how we never said Diana's name there either? She's the viewpoint character, so unless another person comes along that we need to clarify with, we can usually get away with just saying "she." The reader knows who they're reading about.

When you DO have two or more characters with the same pronouns in a scene, you gotta get creative. Again, readers are intuitive -- they can follow pretty well who's doing what as long as you make it clear. Generally speaking, if you establish which character is doing the thing, you can then use just the pronoun until you switch to a new character. For example:

Diana took the proffered knife. "Thanks," she said. "I was starting to get tired of the stink."

The mysterious rescuer smiled. "No problem," she said. "I'm Peony, by the way." She offered Diana her hand. "Let's grab some horses before the bandits wake up, and we'll get back to Jerome before morning."

"Jerome sent you?" Diana stood, dusting herself off. She wrinkled her nose at the mud stains on her pants, and resolved to buy new ones next time they found a decent tailor.

"Oh, Jerome and I go way back." Peony winked. Sweeping her hair out of her eyes, she motioned toward the horses. "After you."

There's never a confusion that Peony offers Diana her own hand -- not somehow Diana's hand. We don't question that Diana is the one wrinkling her nose, or that they're her pants and not Peony's. Or that Peony sweeps her own hair out of her own eyes. Sometimes you'll have lines where it's a little more confusing, but if it feels awkward in the sentence, always consider if you can re-structure it another way. Like,

Diana kicked her horse into a gallop, heart beating in her chest. "Hold on!" she shouted. Peony cast her a panicked glance, tightening her hold on the rampaging oliphant's saddle. Diana reached for her, grabbing the back of her tunic and yanking her down onto her horse.

Okay, that last line there? That one gets confusing, with all those "her"s. We COULD change it to "Diana reached for her, grabbing the back of Peony's tunic and yanking her down onto the horse." That takes care of a lot of them. Or, we could improve things even further by breaking apart the action, elaborating on things, and just generally stretching out the words so that it's clearer which "she/her" is being referenced at any given time. It's your story! Take advantage of all the room you've got -- there will never be a time when you simply cannot rearrange things to make it clearer for your readers.

It does takes effort. And sometimes a bit of verbal slight of hand. You may have to restructure sentences to avoid repetitive phrases and give yourself a good pace. (That's a large part of rewriting and editing.)

However, like the word "said," pronouns are invisible words. Names are not -- they jump out and say HI THIS IS ME. Use them sparingly -- they have power.

One final exception! Fantasy race and job titles. Again, you don't do this with your POV characters unless you're trying to remind the readers of something, but it IS acceptable to sometimes refer to, say, "the elf," or "the detective," or "the werewolf," or "the duke." Use them sparingly, but this is one exception -- mainly because it tells/reminds us of an important fact about the character. (You might also use, say, "her older sister," or "his father," etc, because that also communicates information about the characters and who they are to each other. But. Again. Use sparingly.)

...okay, I've rambled enough, but hopefully this is somewhat useful/helpful to someone out there.

Again! Read good books! Watch how professional writers do it! Imitate, imitate, imitate! The best writing teachers in the world are good writers.

Happy writing!

All I'm saying is, if a fic refers to characters by their physical attributes instead of their names or pronouns ("he smiled at the older" "the blonde laughed") when we know who the character is, and ESPECIALLY if the descriptions include "ravenette" or "cyanette" or other ridiculous words--

I'm clicking out of that fic so fast my AO3 history won't even register I've been there.