#me? projecting onto fictional characters? its more likely than you think

[xannerz]

been meaning to draw hector starting to re-integrate back into society, and his joy at overhearing some old coronan villagers speaking the dk's native language. quirin lets him know that a lot of people came here after edmund's order, trickling in over the years, and it's kind of staggering for hector to experience a sense of community again after so long.

[sehunniepotwrites]

WITH YOU | MK.L | THREE

SYNOPSIS. There are many things Mark Lee wants to do with you. He wants to walk you home. He wants to dive into the deep blue sea with you. He wants to go on a drive with you at his side. But mostly, this crazy, head over heels in love boy just wants to make it with you.

PAIRING. mark lee x fem!reader

GENRE. college!au, friends-to-lovers!au, tooth-rotting fluff, humor WARNINGS. profanity, sulky!mark because he failed his exam and lost a game, mention of (non-alcoholic) drinks, mentions of creeper guy that doesn't get a damn hint

WORD COUNT. 1.2k+

DISCLAIMER. This is work of fiction. I do not own the people/characters or concepts I have written about. You cannot translate or copy my work. © sehunniepotwrites, 2023

I. WALK YOU HOME | II. DIVE INTO YOU | III. DRIVE | IV. MAKE IT WITH YOU

Mark Lee having a bad day was a rare commodity. The athlete was seldom seen with his brown eyes aimed to the floor and a frown stitched onto his face. No, he was usually spotted with a bright sparkle in his irises, a grin that was way too wide for his small and handsome face, his hockey gear tucked in under his arm, and most importantly, you. 

Maybe that was the stark difference between Mark’s drastic moods. You weren’t present at the home game that just finished. On top of it being midterms week, an ultimate stressor on its own, you skipped out on today’s game in favor of finishing a midterm project with a partner that may or may not have been putting some moves on you. Hearing that news after basically bombing his Biology exam that was worth twenty perfect of his grade just added onto his sullen behavior. Instead of focusing on the game, Mark’s mind was void of the strategized plays and off the ice, floating all the way down to the campus library–where you were.

Mark really shouldn’t be upset. He should’ve been proud that you put your grades first instead of a game. After all, you weren’t a student athlete; this game shouldn’t mean a thing to you.  But it was his game. You were his lucky charm. You always have been and you always will be. 

Sure, others showed up to the games with his number painted onto their cheeks in their university colors and poster boards that displayed his name but they weren’t you. You weren’t the one in the crowd with the pretty, mismatched ribbons in their hair or screaming his name as he scored a goal. You weren’t there, drowning in his away game jersey like you usually were. You were drowning in school work with a guy that would not leave you alone. 

“It’s fine,�� you said. “I just have to stick it out until the end of the week and it’ll be okay. I notified my professor and we’re meeting up in their office so I’m not left alone with the guy.”

“Yeah but–”

“Go and score a goal for me,” you hushed Mark, pressing a manicured finger to his lips when he tried to push back. “Promise?”

Mark’s frown grew. “But–”

“Ah,” you replied, adding more pressure to his lips. Raising your free hand, you brought your pinky towards him. “Promise?”

Mark sighed in defeat, linking his pinky with yours. He shook your intertwined hands. “Promise.”

Knowing you won, you grinned. “That’s my Marky. Now, go! I’ll see you tomorrow! You’ll be fine without me.”

But he wasn’t. 

And it’s sad how reliant on you Mark became. Before you, he could fully function on his own. Now? Mark was seen with you more often than not. You were like an extension of him, something he couldn’t live without. His teammates and friends noticed it; Haechan wouldn’t let Mark go a day without teasing him on the ice. Johnny, who wasn’t on the team, often made a lot of noise during games to let Mark know exactly where the two of you sat. And Jaehyun, bless his soul, always explained the technicalities of the sport so you understood each and every play-by-play in order to cheer Mark on.

He wasn’t fine before, during, or after the game and all he could think about was you. Nothing else mattered but you. 

To top off this horrible day, they lost the game. There were definitely other factors that contributed to the loss but the most defining one was that Mark’s head wasn’t in it. He tried taking your mind off of you but quickly deemed it impossible. Even after he showered, lugged his sorry ass out of the hockey arena and into his car, his mind was still glued to the thought of you. Driving aimlessly around campus didn’t help and before he knew it, Mark’s hands fiddled with his dashboard screen until your number was dialed.

Two rings later and he heard your voice. “Hey,” you greeted, voice booming from the speakers. Your voice was soft unlike the other times you answered the phone–a lot gentler, like he needed to be approached with caution.

“Hi,” Mark mustered out before going silent again. All the two of you could hear were the sounds on the road.

“What’s going on?” you asked with that same soothing voice. 

You knew what happened. You weren’t there to witness the losing game but word travels fast. Johnny and Jaehyun called you shortly after the game, relaying an abbreviated version of the game while escaping the disappointed crowd. They made it known that Mark was off his game the entire time. Your friends made a light joke, saying it was because you weren’t there, and pointing out how he seemed different whenever you were in attendance. You brushed off their teasing but assured them you would check on your best friend. 

But despite knowing, you wanted the news to come from Mark. If he didn’t want to talk about it, that was okay with you too. You could practically hear him shrugging as he replied, “Dunno, I just wanted to see you.”

Noticing that Mark was so close to shutting down completely, you answered, “Well, I’m always down to see you. Care for a drive, Marky?”

He caught the sound of rustling from your ride and figured you were rushing to get ready before he arrived. The arena was a mere seven minute drive from your housing complex, not giving you much time to get yourself together at all. Prior to him calling, you were most likely nestled up under your comforter, adorning your favorite pair of sweats and oversized hoodie to keep you warm. Mark wanted to say that you didn’t have to change, but knowing his best friend, you’d probably ignore whatever he said. 

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I need.”

“I’ll see you in a few then,” you said with finality before hanging up the phone.

A few minutes later, Mark pulled up to your complex, only to find you already downstairs. You didn’t come empty handed, the drink tumbler he always used when he was over at your place in one hand and your tumbler in the other. He reached over the console to open the passenger door for you and you immediately slid in, handing him his cup. 

“Hey you,” you smiled at him before pressing a short kiss to his cheek. Whereas he caught you off guard the last time you went to the beach, his soft lips grazing against your cheek, it was your turn to surprise him. The action shocked him so much, he almost dropped the steaming drink in hand.

“H-hey,” Mark stuttered a bit pathetically, swiftly turning his attention to his tumbler. Bringing it up to his lips, he tasted his favorite comfort drink–hot cocoa with whip cream and marshmallows. The temperature was a bit too hot, the liquid burning his tongue after having a lick of melted whip cream, but he didn’t dare complain. He took another sip of it before putting it down and shifting the gear to drive. 

The drive itself wasn’t necessary to Mark, he already felt a bit better in your presence as you buckled your seatbelt. 

It’s you—you’re what he needed. You’re what he wanted. And you’re the one person that would always bring a smile to his face. It didn’t feel right to admit it to you now, not when he was just sulking in all of his sorrows. Maybe another time or place. But for now, Mark was content with you in his passenger seat and his hands on the wheel, ready to go anywhere as long as you were at his side.

AUTHOR’S NOTE. hi, it's been a while, hasn't it? i'm slowly writing again, starting with finishing all the drafts that have been sitting in my docs for a hot second! my writing style's change a bit so don't mind the stylistic changes (if you even notice it). i apologize it's short but i didn't have much planned for this one. it's just marky sitting in his thoughts.

TAGLIST. @johtenrecs @bat-shark-repellant  @bebsky @donutswithjaminthemiddle @suhnnyskhies @baekhyuns-lipchain @emmybyeakitty  @sokkigarden @iwishiwasthemoontonight @stvrrynight @ppangjae @luvenshiti @ferxanda @jenosuh​ @mxrcayong-main @lebrookestore​ @the-universe-in-you-jjh @planetkiimchi @hannie-dul-set @kdyism @lovesuhng

reply to this post or send an ask to be added to the taglist!

© sehunniepotwrites, 2023

[masochist-marmot]

I hate the Naoto gender discourse

TW: transphobia, gender dysphoria, Naoto Shirogane

First of all, I think it's entirely valid to read whatever you want into fictional characters. Art is meant to be interpreted and to evoke something in the audience, and while it's useful to consider the author's intent, it's just as valid to interpret the text on its own.

In Persona 4, the intended reading is this: Naoto is and has always been a girl who wishes to be taken seriously in her male-dominated field. She confuses these feelings for identifying as a boy, and it's up to our party to set her back on the straight path and accept her role as young woman. Rise is incredibly eager to chastise this "young lady" immediately after learning about the reality, and throughout the game we are helping her to be more comfortable with being a girl. This is quite straightforwardly what the text is saying.

How many fans (me included) see the text is this: Naoto displays signs of gender dysphoria and struggles with their gender identity. Even after you have talked them out of a literal gender-affirming surgery (performed by a mad scientist, because why not make it extra scary to boot), they continue to present as a boy. During the rest of the game as well as Naoto's social link, you and your party can continue to push femininity on them. They're forced into a swimsuit contest, where they refuse to show up on the stage, and Yosuke says he knew it would happen. If you want to date Naoto, you have to pick the options where you tell them you like them as a girl, even though you get more social link points if you say their gender doesn't matter. This implies that Naoto is more comfortable with the way they present now, but feels that they have to present more feminine if they want to date you (which sounds like heteronormative bullshit to me). It's probably not difficult to see why this would make some players uncomfortable.

Now to the point of this post: There's a big (or just vocal?) portion of the fanbase that will call you media illiterate or delusional if you bring up your discomfort with how Naoto's gender was handled. And I can't stand it. As I demonstrated above, I know what the text is saying and have a problem with it. Media literacy isn't just about recognising what is being said, but also why it's being said. And Naoto's character arc displays well intentioned ignorance and heteronormative values at best, and malicious TERF-like ideology at worst. I'm inclined to believe it's the former, as the game and the series more widely don't seem to have a malicious intent behind them, although they certainly have other uncomfortable parts (I could make a very similar post about Kanji).

So why do so many people have an issue with the trans Naoto reading? Well, in games like these, players tend to form strong emotional connections to the characters. I'm guessing that for a lot of people it's important that their waifu is, well, a waifu. (I'm personally too pan to understand this and will advocate using "waifu" as a gender neutral word.) I'm sure some of it is annoyance with the notion of the interpretation contradicting with canon, which is apparently law. People feel like you're projecting something onto the text and not getting the intended meaning. Which feels like a weird point, since everyone is projecting some of their own feelings onto any text. And then there's your good old transphobia that manifests as a myriad of rationalisations (including the one about canon being law). I usually try to understand where people are coming from, but some people can't be reasoned with.

I don't have a conclusion, I just had to get this out.

TLDR; Stop bullying people who choose to view a character through a different lens than you do, and please practice your empathy and critical thinking skills.

[hoarderheart]

“Bert and Ernie are gay” is such an insane line to be said specifically by Dean to Cas in a show where the queer reading of their relationship with each other is often shut down by other fans and the goddamn network itself, in a scene where Dean is weirdly obsessing over Cas’ sex life and virginity, in a conversation led by Dean, sparked by him using his previously established pick-up line on Cas.

It’s in the way that Dean says it, the way it implies that Dean had been ruminating on and possibly even debated with someone over this in the past, and came to the confident conclusion that, indeed, Bert and Ernie are gay. He knew it for certain.

It’s in the way that this was a dialogue from a time when Bert and Ernie being gay for each other was only a speculation, but never close to confirmation. At least not until much later, in 2018, when one of the former writers, Mark Saltzman, confirms the queer subtext to be deliberate��at least on his part, having modeled his writing of their relationship after his own queer relationship, only to be shut down by the network the very next day.

And it’s the way that—god—it’s the way that if Dean had said this then (and even now) within the fandom, or just in any setting with more pop-culturally adept people than a conversation with Cas in a dark abandoned house, and especially about a children’s show…he would’ve been called “fucking delusional”, he would’ve been told to “stop projecting your perverted fantasies onto these characters”, he would’ve been told “you’re just reading too much into it”. He would’ve been told all the things that destiel fans have been (and still are) told by the people who view any queer reading of Dean himself and Cas, of their relationship, and of the show as a whole as mere fan fiction, instead of something done by the show and its creatives with intent. Because that’s simply what it’s like to read into queer subtext in shows, queer subtext that is forced to be mere subtext by the same people who insists that they’re not there are all.

And who knows, maybe Dean have said this while in some sort of community for geeks. Maybe he was also in the trenches insisting that so and so characters are queer, though probably just not as much we are (he can’t worry about that too often since he’s got work to do and apocalypses to avert). Still, he very clearly has some strong opinions on many of the media he engages with, and is happy to express some of them. What he likes most, what he deems best, what he deems true. Swayze always gets a pass, Zeppelin rules, cowboy boots makes Dr. Sexy sexy. Bert and Ernie are gay. He clearly cares about this stuff because he’s passionate about it, just like how many of us are passionate about this show (among many others). It’s not far fetched to think that he’d argued about this before (and have been told he’s wrong).

This seemingly small comedic part of Dean’s dialogue says so much about him. It shows that Dean himself reads into and welcomes the possible queer subtext within the media he engages with, on top of engaging with other more explicitly queer media, like Thelma & Louise, which he giddily references in the same episode (specifically to compare his relationship with Cas to that of Thelma and Louise’s).

To me, that piece of dialogue is like a little hidden note written by the writers, put in a place where they know the queer fans would go to (where many others wouldn’t), saying: “We know you’re here, and we know why. We’re the ones who carved this little path and lit the guiding lights to this place, to what you see”. We know you’re reading into this very dialogue, and we want you to know that the conclusion you’ve arrived to are within our intentions for this story and these characters. 

In 2009.

[basilpaste]

Hey, can you tell us more about your arospec Isa headcanon? It sounds so cool, I'd love to have more of your thoughts!

oh gosh um. honestly its not a super fancy hc? and obviously its not like the intentional reading of his character, isa is a super romancey character i know this.

but i dunno! i guess its sort of me projecting onto a guy i like? ive always been really fond of the thing of 'aro[ace] character enjoys the concept of romance and likes the idea of being in love with someone'. ive got a handful of personal ocs who fall into this trope (shoutout phillie i never talk about you but i love you my aroace cupid) and i am also kinda that way?

isa really likes romance! as a concept! he likes tropey, cheesy, sappy romance stories! he likes talking about romance in theory! it feels like he could be the kind of guy who loves to think about these kinds of things, but doesnt really feel them himself? until he gets violently sidelined by a sudden wave of romantic attraction (or something close to it).

it works with how bashful about his own feelings he is too, i think. he can talk about dating and love in the context of fiction, but doesnt really know what to do when its him whos getting all the dokis. this also sort of circles back to how isabeau is willing to talk about other peoples feelings but not so much his own? like we know he goes to odile about his crush on sif instead of mira because he knows real life romance tends to make her uncomfortable? which is a Very Aro thing to notice about a friend i think but i digress.

he also calms down pretty significantly after actually getting his confession to sif out. hes more than willing to wait for their answer and doesnt mind the 'i love you, but im not sure if its in the same way'.

the way he ends up confessing at all can read aro-ish to me, too? like he fully spills his guts. he lays all of his emotions flat on the table and goes 'this is all of the stuff that i like about you!!!!!! i have catalogued in my brain all of the things i like about you!!!!!!!!!!!'

and an aside that doesnt matter but im still adding: the hate crush thing? im still not convinced hate crushes are a real thing actual people get. i know people say they do but i cannot actually fathom that. it sounds like confusing non-romantic emotions for romantic ones because theyre Strong Emotions. isabeau mentions having had hate crushes. yadda yadda accidental wires crossing.

wwweh.

[sexcromancy]

okay I need need to know what do you think about these new dramione fanfics that are repackaged into books

hi anon I think it's been like months since you sent this but I kept putting off answering bc I don't actually know that much about the dramione books. BUT ej @resemblingthegrave did send me a fantastic zine about them a while ago so I'm gonna answer pulling some from that. you also might want to go ask them this same question!

so first off on the popularity of the ship - I think dramione fanfiction is a very easy entry point for your archetypal Mostly Offline Young Woman Looking To Try Fanfiction. everyone knows draco and hermione and their relationship. and I can imagine it is an easy kind of bullying dynamic to project onto and fantasize about because, apart from the fascism, haven't we all been a frumpy nerdy freak bullied by some rich asshole? and don't we all want to eroticize the unpleasant bruises of childhood? etc. so like on that level I absolutely get it, although it has never personally appealed to me.

on the published fanfic angle - I am neither pro nor anti the existence of published fanfic, but I find it fascinating to examine. fanfiction, especially novel length au fanfiction, is really just a playground for ideas with some pre established characters and lore as structure. I've discussed this at length for alibooks.

onto ej's analysis: some quotes from their work. this is all related to the book manacled (i think being published under the same title) which is a handmaid's tale au where Hermione is imprisoned and raped by draco, and it's later revealed they have been in love the whole time and he's being forced to rape her by Voldemort. on the way this abuse is "romanticized" and portrayed in this context:

the majority of stories i encounter that are interested in portraying the minutiae of abuse still do so in a way that characturizes and flattens the abuser; he abuses because he is evil, cartoonishly so, or because of a childhood trauma that has set him on a path he is powerless to break out of. he is a paper cut out, a shadow on the wall. and i'm not saying that the fan fictions or romance novels under discussion are like. fantastically humanizing portraits of either abusive people or people who live under abusive conditions; but that is the space of possibility i feel being carved out here, perhaps more so in the interpretive lenses we bring to it than the actual text. i am hungry for authors who explore relations of uneven power and domination without losing sight of the fact that everyone involved is still fundamentally human; driven by needs and desires; not always out to cause harm even though they may end up doing so.

and on the broader context for these kinds of stories:

this is a really uncomfortable idea to me, and yet it feels true. to keep trying to rescue love by insisting on its purity and arguing that it ceases to be love the moment it comes into contact with a contaminent like objectification lets us off the hook; and it also belies a lack of imagination about for example the feelings of love and intimacy that can be shared through the prosthetic or vehicle of objectifying/being objectified. indeed, one of the real pulls of this genre is the allure of being the object; passive, perfect, not required to act, only to exist; not required to be responsible or accountable or to change or grow or give things up or exert effort or run the risk of making a mistake. we know that patriarchy works by producing subjects who value, aspire to, and eroticize patriarchal dynamics; and yet, as marianne noble writes, those desires are no less real for having been socially conditioned and rewarded.

I sometimes feel like the xkcd meme at this point when I'm talking about romance novels (the erotic potential of patriarchal violence is second nature to us hetromance scholars etc) but I do think ej articulated very well how tangled it can be. the importance of taking it on its own terms but also never writing off the violence. so I hope that's some interesting thoughts for you !

[the-real-rain-world-confessions]

I know that this is a real sensitive topic, so I just want to preface this by saying that I dont believe anyone who does this or disagrees with this should go to hell or is a piece of shit.

But like. Ive only ever seen people change the pronouns of Suns here. Literally. I /think/ that there are probably interpretations of other iterators that will change their pronouns as well, but I havent seen a single one. I think Ive seen maybe one interpretation that uses he/they because the user was projecting and stuff, and that's cool, thats fine. But from what Ive seen there is genuinely no reason given for changing Suns pronouns.

Not that you need a moral reason or anything, but a lot of this seems to just boil down to "I dont fucking care". Some people are absolutely just doing it out of ignorance or on accident, and they dont deserve to be dogpiled. Suns isnt talked about a lot in the game, and their pronouns arent mentioned much, so its perfectly understandable lol. The automatic default to male (even when gender isnt specified or is even outright denied (the vessels from hollow knight are a good example)) is a problem, but one that is much bigger than Rain World.

And OF COURSE it is much less of a problem when you are doing it to fictional characters that cant possibly be affected by it. Im not saying that we should all get up onto our high horses and slaughter everyone who disagrees, Im not saying that this should be focused on more than real life issues like actual people being misgendered. But this is a Rain World confession blog, so Im going to talk about Rain World.

Again, Ive only ever seen people change Suns pronouns. This part is mostly just me being emotional, but I am so fucking sick and tired of people separating enbys or treating them with entirely different rules than everyone else. The Scugs get all the pronoun headcanons they could ever ask for, but every canon iterator is left with the same ones they had in game, except, of course, THE ONLY NONBINARY ONE. Who is (from what Ive looked at) consistently rebranded as he/him. I think its understandable to imagine that Suns could be more flexible with pronouns or something because of their use of they/them, (after all, it is usually the more queer characters that get the pronoun headcanon treatment, no one really gives the token straight/cis person any sparkles), but when they are only given he/him pronouns (remember the problem of male by default?) it seems more like a case of queer erasure than someone wanting to put fun headcanons on a character they like. Please, someone tell me Im not being delusional. (again, im being really emotional about this, it probably doesnt make a lot of sense)

When I first played RW I was so happy that there was a character that just...used they/them pronouns. No one talked about how it was different, and they didnt use they/them because they werent human (agender alien problem), it was just a normal part of their identity. And on AO3 a lot of people seemed to follow this more? Like, all interpretations of Suns on A03 Ive looked at use they/them. But here its so much different, and I think some people are doing it innocently/being normal about it, but its hard to tell apart from the people who couldnt give less of a fuck about respecting pronouns. AGAIN, im not saying everyone who gives Suns different pronouns is HOMOPHOBIC EW GET CANCELED, just that this should be treated with a degree of sensitivity that I havent seen.

If you give Suns he/him pronouns, fine, thats great. But some are absolutely doing it because they cant stand the thought of their favorite character being queer. Im not saying its most people, or even a lot of people, but they are there.

Assuming that everyone who is the tiniest bit uncomfortable because of it is "exaggerating and too sensitive and should be dunked on" isnt true, and underplays casual homophobia.

Some people are probably way too sensitive, yeah. It might even include me, because seeing a character with a cool story and design and pronouns that I can relate to having those pronouns being headcanoned of the face of the fucking earth can feel like a god damn slap in the face. Ive tried to rein it in, sorry if it was unsuccessful.

Again, Im not trying to accuse anyone of anything, Im not gonna send you to hell, this is much less of a problem than real life queer struggles, I know Suns is a fuckin video game character lmao, and relating to/giving headcanons to characters isnt a blight upon humanity.

Please dont purposely misinterpret this, thats just spitting in the face of everyone who actually wants a discussion about this.

[If it seems like Im being very apologetic and anxious, its because I am. Might not seem like it with all the "fuck"s, but I am actually trying very hard to be clear and inoffensive in a way that invites discussion.]

This prob makes no sense lmao

.

[bogunicorn]

I honestly think I would be more willing to engage with harsher critiques of Veilguard if so many of them didn't seem to include projecting malice or cowardice onto the developers and/or frankly really insulting blanket statements about how people who don't agree with said harsh critique are only disagreeing because they have a child's sense of fantasy and don't like feeling complicated emotions with consequences in their fiction.

Both of them annoy me but the idea of someone looking at me, of all people, and saying "well you don't agree with me because you want a story that puts you in a safe bubble that's never sad or conflicted or realistic" is absurd. Like, no, I just think some of the basis of your analysis is kind of bothersome and flawed because you keep assigning motivations to strangers and then arguing with a guy you personally made up, and my willingness to suspend disbelief and engage with a piece of fiction on its own terms isn't proof that I'm a baby or a coward just because it would make you feel smarter if that was the case.

And there is a world of difference between "the story's perspective softballs X or pulls punches with Y", and "the writers are cowards who don't want you to deal with consequences because there's something wrong with them artistically and morally". That's fucked up, projecting malice onto someone you don't know and whom all evidence suggests (both by their own words the last few months and by past storylines they've written for Dragon Age) would actually probably agree with your critiques and agree that they'd either done things different or had been ALLOWED to do things different. It ALSO makes for less coherent critiques because some of your analysis is based off of, frankly, an underlying motivation that is literally just made up of your own personal projection of what other real humans were thinking (which conveniently fits the narrative you already want to spin), rather than interrogating the perspective of the narrative itself on its own terms, where all of the pieces are fully available to you.

Works of fiction carry unintended perspectives all the time, it's a whole thing, and you can engage with that without assigning cruelty or cowardice or malicious stupidity to a small group of real human beings that you do not know and did their job in circumstances that we as fans will never know the extent of. You have no idea if "the devs" as you conceptualize them are actually at fault for the things you have such harsh feelings about, or why that thing happened or whatever, because big media projects like video games have hundreds of hands on them and many people making decisions whose names we will never know because they're just not pulling PR duty or whatever.

And when it comes to other fans, unless someone outright states their feelings on something, you actually don't know if any individual person agrees or disagrees with you for a good or bad reason about something as subjective and low stakes as a video game. Imagining that anyone who enjoys something that you don't as a dumb idiot baby too stupid to see what you see is pretty gross.

I am, as ever, not saying that anyone must like or dislike something, or that liking or disliking something means you're smarter or stupider than anyone else. It bothers me when analysis in these spaces seems to reserve all of its empathy for fictional characters and leaves little of it left for the actual people that are in these spaces or made the work that's being analyzed.

[abnomi]

HI IM WYATT!! 🫧🧼🐡

im like if a fish was a guy and it and yeah

I'm nonbinary and a fan of soap. My personality develops at a normal human rate as well as my human mind. I'm a normal human age with a normal human life.

i like drawing! ✏️ check out #my art! 🎨 in the tags to see

i won't post explicit NSFW (anything graphically sexual in nature or anything with extreme gore), but beyond that one rule, i do not limit what kinds of topics i post about on here. i will trigger tag the generally sensitive ones, however!

i do not engage in discourse and i go out of my way to avoid it. this also goes for any mean-spirited kind of content! let's be nice to each other.

i don't recommend following me for one specific thing because i post whatever i want whenever i want to. im not an art account or fandom account im sorry!!! feel free to follow me for those anyway but dongt get mad at meeeee

i have heavy general anxiety, so please be patient with me! i tend to respond slowly and get overwhelmed extremely easily; not to say anyone owes me constant coddling or anything ofc!! i just think it's worth mentioning in case i start acting erratic or something HAHA. the more you know! 🪱 brain problems galore

feel free to talk to me either thru my askbox or messages! i love meeting new people and talking to my friends despite how anxiety may influence my behavior to indicate otherwise! i just need time. a lot and a lot of time.

my grammar sometimes is Bad because my brains is Goo Sorry... i struggle with wording things coherently :---( if i say something that comes off the wrong way, i apologize in advance! i am still learning

im a rampant lifelong selfshipper. been in the loving game for quite some time now. if you are an off-putting fictional character, youd best hope you dont cross paths with me.

OC x canon is one of my primary interests; i will probably post about it more often than not on here! if you have a common interest with a character i like, I'm more than okay with sharing! love for everyone Yay !! 🌞🌞🌈

I'm working on a fansite for character shrines but ummm its taking a while

"What does this silly fuck even do?"

Dont fucking talk to me like that. I draw sometimes and try very hard to make art! Unfortunately, the brain I'm using is kind of stupid and broken and it doesn't do what I tell it to do. Working on getting a new one, but it's just not going according to plan.

As for what kind art I tend to make, I'm very experimental with my work! Expecting consistency from me is a bad idea. I get bored of the same ideas quickly and bounce around a ton. I LOOOVE character design and character writing in particular!! i have so many stories and concepts, you have no idea. Anything character/story-oriented is a major favorite subject of mine.

I'm hoping to get around to game development, web design, animation, music production, 3d stuff, and more! Just need to kind of kick myself to the finish line u know

"Wow what concepts do you have in mind"

too many and theyre all unfinished, but I'm planning on making a webcomic! I ambitiously wanted (and still do want) to take on several massive projects that I'm not able to accomplish in my current state, so I thought a comic i can create on my own time would be much easier and a good way to start the road to self discipline... we will see how that goes.

I'd go in depth explaining all of my stories and characters but it sounds like a bad idea to put those here. I'll make a website compiling all of the information about them eventually i promiiiisee

"What do you like"

My interests fluctuate so often that i generally can't fully pin one down as if it's consistently present.

There's hardly any pattern in what I gravitate towards, other than the single qualifier of whether the piece of work contains a token character for me to latch onto who is outwardly antagonistic and/or bitter towards everyone in the cast. Everything else is mostly irrelevant in quantifying how much i will enjoy a thing. this isn't an end all be all, though!! its less of a rule and more of a pattern.

"Did you hear about how they're sending frozen ants to mars just to see what will happen? Just letting them defrost there and crawl around, an isolated ant society. I don't know who's behind this. I heard it from a friend, but I don't think I believe them, because who would do that and why?"

It was me. I was the one sending them. Watch your back. Don't ask this again

"My head hurts."

My head heuts too

"also can i kill you and your family"

Sure

[writingquestionsanswered]

I have this problem that finally showed up after many years, I'm a few chapters away from completing my book. After almost 5 years writing this through happy times and sad times, I'm finally done! Yet, I can't move on. Instead of being happy to finally complete my passion project, I feel myself grieving the eventuality. I spent years building my world, story, characters etc... and now I don't want it to end, I don't want to complete it. Suffering from success if you will.

Do you have any tips on this fear of completion? My book is set up as a stand-alone, so making a sequel wouldn't work.

Have you ever had this "completion grief" and if so, how did you move on from it?

Thank you

Dealing with Creative Grief When Story is Done

It's normal to feel grief upon completion of a story, especially one that you've been working on a long time and/or has been emotionally demanding. Here are some things you can do to help work through this feeling:

1 - Be Proud of Your "Baby Bird" - Your baby bird has flown your now empty nest, but take a moment to recognize the beauty of this moment... this project you've worked so hard on is now complete and ready to fly away. You've done everything you can for it, so now it's time to let it spread its wings and live a life of its own. As much as it's sad, it's exciting, too. And it's a huge accomplishment!

2 - Find Closure with Celebration - Many creatives find celebration a helpful way to find closure when a project is finished. This can be something small, like ordering pizza or enjoying a glass of champagne, or it could be something bigger, like having a nice dinner out with friends, or even throwing a little party. Having any sort of event to mark the occasion can help it to feel more final, but in a way that is happy and comforting.

3 - Start a New Project - With one project finished and out in the world, you may find it helpful to start planning a new project, or at least start thinking about one. Throwing that leftover creative energy into something new helps with that sense of emptiness, distracts you from creative grief due to the finished project, and heals your heart with enthusiasm for a new world, new characters, and new plot.

4 - Schedule a Future Visit - Sometimes it helps to plan to revisit the completed project in some way at a future date. That could be reading it at some point, if you're able to read through finished projects and enjoy them. It could be creating a collection of mood boards for the story and characters and sharing them with your readers. It might be doing a reading of the first chapter on an Instagram live, or--hear me out on this--writing a companion story. Now, I don't mean writing a sequel or even a story that you'd share necessarily, but more something for yourself, kind of like fan-fiction of your own work, just as a way to get into your story and revisit the characters and world. And truth be told, if you plan to do this--say on the six-month anniversary of when your story was finished--it will give you a sense of the story living on that will help you get through your grief now, but by the time you get to that point, you probably won't need to do it anymore.

5 - Wait for It To Pass - Of course the hard thing about any kind of grief is there's not a whole lot you can do to make it go away. For the most part, you just have to acknowledge that it's there and give yourself the grace needed to get through it. Most of the time, it passes more quickly than you might expect, and you'll be onto something new in now time.

I hope that helps!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[sicasole]

Why I Love Kpop (I think)

I’ve joked before that everyone who likes kpop secretly wants to be in a polycule, but like most jokes the more I think about that statement, the more truth I find in it. After all, kpop disrupts the way we think about homosocial relationships, and it often presents queer dynamics for its audience to ponder and sometimes even obsess over. Lately, (and by lately I mean for almost 8 years) I’ve been captivated by the question of why I and so many other queer people love kpop so much. The following is a stream-of-consiousness attempt at answering that question. I’ll be speaking from the perspective of a queer femme fan who listens to and watches mostly male idols, but of course I know this topic is richer than just this one dynamic. I don’t speak for all queer people or all kpop fans.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been listening to, performing, and analyzing music, but when I think about kpop, I’m thinking about it very differently than any other musical media. Because yes, kpop is about the music but it’s also about so much else. It’s about queerness and bodily autonomy and relationships both toxic and beneficial. I, like a lot of queer people, love fantasy worlds and characters because they present their audiences with beings who live outside the norm, people and places unbounded by logic and social constraints. They offer us an escape from a world that is unaccepting of our ever-expansive queer identities, and a vision of the possibility for a better one.

But kpop occupies this intensely fascinating space between fantasy and reality. Fans online talk about idols more like they’re fictional characters than real people, frequently speculating about an idol’s time away from the narrative their company puts out the way someone might headcanon a fictional character. These group narratives a company creates give idols an air of fantasy and mystery, allowing for this fan speculation to run amok on social media as they attempt to “fill in the blanks.” But kpop offers a grounding in reality that pure fiction cannot. Here exists a fantasy world you can really see and hear and walk through. These characters you project onto are actually real people.

So why do I love kpop? The answer changes almost daily, but lately I think it's because in many ways, kpop seems to be made to be enjoyed by queer people. The 20th century had gay men who were devoted to Judy Garland, and now we have the Jungkook lesbians.

Queers have always dominated fandom spaces. As people who are more likely to lack role models in our everyday lives, we’ll often turn to fandom media for guidance about how to love and how to be. I think “straight” mass media lately is obsessed with being “relatable” but queer people don’t usually relate to the narratives put out by the heterosexual media machine. This is why kpop is really appealing to members of the community. It’s overwhelmingly uninterested in being relatable, instead, it's aspirational. This parallels the queer self, who is often more invested in the journey of becoming than it is in running towards a more clean-cut goal like home ownership or a nuclear family.

But when I think about kpop, I also think about my own body and its autonomy (or lack thereof). I think about the performance of femininity. This feels a bit strange and vulnerable to admit, but a part of me has always been willing to hand over my body in exchange for love and devotion. This is the kind of transaction a kpop idol makes when they sign a contract. It’s easy to criticize when we see it put in front of us so plainly, but queer people (especially trans people) and those assigned female at birth have always been aware that they don’t entirely own their bodies or decide their actions.

Idols capture exactly the level of freedom I believe is currently possible for me because frequently as a queer person and a feminine person I feel like the only way I can be accepted and safe is if I offer up my body and self in a way that is sanitized and therefore marketable and commodifiable.

Queerness is more accepted today than it was even a few years ago, but there are still limitations to that acceptance. Queer people who remind the dominant heterosexual power structures of tropes and stereotypes are more accepted than those who are living their lives in active opposition to straight expectations. Of course, we know that stereotypes are oppressive tools used to dehumanize people, which is why the pressure many members of the community feel to censor their identities in order to fit into these tropes and stereotypes (while often done for their own safety) is especially demoralizing.

Kpop also relies heavily on tropes when it comes to constructing the narrative of their groups’ dynamics. We know that much of this is done to make the group marketable and commodifiable. But one positive is that a performative self can protect a kpop idol’s privacy from a world that demands celebrities provide their fans with an endless stream of details about themselves and their lives. In the same way, a performative self can protect a queer person from persecution.

This begs the question of how much someone can stand to perform an inauthentic self, even if that performance helps keep them safe. Lately, this is where I see myself most in the idol on my screen. Like me, I feel he is constantly engaged in a horrific balancing act, asking himself how much he can stand to inhabit a performative self for his own safety. Like me, I feel he is questioning whether an authentic self even exists and if it does, will its appearance cut him off from the audience’s love? Like me, I feel he is screaming for a way out.

These men have been locked into a performance their overwhelmingly queer and female fanbases are all too familiar with. Their personal and financial livelihood depends on their ability to appeal to their audience just as the safety of queer people is dependent on the way they are viewed by the domineering heterosexual power. The relationship between idol and fanbase is both symbiotic and toxic. Idols become what they think their audiences want, and this performance is terrifyingly reflected in the lives of their marginalized fans.

This is the point in my thinking where I ask myself what I even hope to gain from this line of inquiry. Is it some sort of twisted self reflection? Is it an unhinged brain-ego trip? Is there even anything here worth exploring? I believe (and hope) there is. I and most people who analyze media today are pushing back on the idea that someone has to be exactly like you for you to relate to them. On the surface, the male idol is nothing like me, but the aspirational nature of kpop media invites me to see him and myself as more hauntingly alike than I would sometimes like to admit. He is androgynous in ways I could only ever dream of, yet he is yearning like me. He is queer like me.

One of the pillars of anthropology (so much so that it’s almost become a cliche) is that its goal is to make the strange familiar and the familiar strange. To the untrained eye, kpop might look like a shallower reflection of our everyday world, one that’s even more image-conscious and subjugated by the demands of capitalism. It certainly can be those things, but when I look at kpop I see the current human condition distilled. Most of us alive today have been trained to constantly seek validation from those around us. Kpop is both familiar and strange because it reminds us of the ways we perform for audiences either real or imagined. It can make us uncomfortable because it shows us just how much we are willing to sacrifice to satisfy the demands of those audiences. In censoring ourselves, we become our own voyeurs and are left wondering who has more power, observed or observer?

So why do I love kpop? I’m not always entirely sure that I do. What I do know is that it’s not really about some fantasy of receiving affection. I don’t turn to idols for tenderness. I never wanted to feel loved, I just wanted to see something beautiful up close. I wanted to see someone who was suffering in the same way I was. I wanted to seek some unprovable personal truth, that perhaps this ethereal creature I saw on my screen was, in fact, just like me. Sure, they had a surface-level beauty I could never reach, but we were alike in all the ways that mattered.

And here I am now, with all of this behind me, wondering if I am (and continue to be) just some more than slightly messed up and lonely child looking for connection in all the wrong places. But then again, aren’t we all?

[adarkrainbow]

Do you think the way people talk and discuss Walt's "Classic Three" (Snow White, Cinderella and Aurora) is accurate or close to what happens in the movies? I mean, they are always referred as excessively passive, weak, only interested on their looks (vain? superficial?), useless, beauty being their only good quality... And I ask myself, when was the last time these people watched the movies? Snow White negotiated her stay in the house, Cinderella survived a life of pure abuse & orchestrated her own escape from the tower, and, while not very much is shown about Aurora, she was about to sacrifice her personal happiness for the kingdom's sake (something Philip didn't have in mind)that takes courage! They don't wield swords but they are much stronger that they appear, and while I get some of the critique, I hate the "strong only means kicking butt" idea, like, it's incomplete, and superficial, and it can be reductive & dangerous (for the girls, and for the boys too!)

I have talked about this before in many posts, and others have talked about this way better than me, so I'll try to break down my opinion in a quite short and concise way. And as usual, you probably won't be surprised to find me again, neutral on those topic.

On one side: people are unfairly criticizing and judging too harshly the "original trio" of Disney movies. This has been explained by many people on this website, so I won't expand on this too much, but indeed, there is a mixture of superficial viewing of these movies, of not-contextualizing them, of projecting modern-day values and expectations over nearly century old pieces, and of a general need to criticize and rant about everything (especially big corporations and the "classics" of culture - whenever something becomes a classic, a backlash awaits). Cinderella is a much more surprising and strong character than you'd expect. These movies do teach the idea that being strong doesn't mean simply kicking everybody and proving yourself to be a lone wolf (especially since there's a strong focus on friendship in those stories). The whole "the prince kissing Sleeping Beauty in her sleep is rape culture" is ridiculous ; especially since in the Disney version it was made to be a true love kiss, between people who were in love, and the whole context was the breaking of a curse ; AND the actual rapist-origins of the story are from a 16th century Italian fairytale nobody knew about until the Internet dug it up in the 2010s. Even today many people who invoke the rapist-story are unable to tell you who wrote it or where it comes from, because they just latch onto the idea "Oh yes there's a rape story." and that's it, no more research for them.

Heck, Sleeping Beauty is even surprising for its time AND for the Disney criteria by having elderly, non-attractive female leads who do more than the actual male hero and ultimately are the true focus of the tale - the fairy godmothers. Same things with Snow-White - to make the dwarfs the equal of the titular Snow-White, even more to focus more character development and screen time on them rather than the princess, and to give them unique characterisation and treat them as people rather than plot-props... This was BIG, this was not something usual, and this was a game-changer. Overall - I say the same thing for fantasy literature - a lot of the "new" or "modern" twists people expect from today's fictions are awaiting you in the past. Everybody complains about traditional fantasy not having POC main characters or not having strong female lead that is not sexualized - Earthsea had all those by the 60s and 70s, and it was just as influential on fantasy as Lord of the Rings or Elric.

However... Recognizing that a lot of the criticism is unfair and overblown, and that the backlash is ignorant and caricatural does NOT mean we should just blindly worship and naively accept those movies as untouchable, sacred relics that cannot be criticize. If there is a backlash, it means there is a reason for such criticism to arise in the first place, and we must identify why - to give back the problem in its proper proportions, and not in the exaggerated state we are offered today.

So... The other side - why is this Disney trio not fitting our modern world?

And the answer is very simple. They are heroines of 17th and 19th centuries tales, that were adapted for an early 20th century American mindset. They are bound to age or be unfit for the 21st century. Placing them back into context allows us to understand how great, good or groundbreaking they were in their time - but it does not mean they hold up to modern-day characters. Some elements of the Disney movies aged better than ever, some are still resonating today, and this is what gives them an "out-of-time" feeling. Yet... yet there is a reason why the "Disney princess" had to evolve and had to change herself to fit a new audience. Why did the characters of Rapunzel and Elsa of Disney had such huge success and were beloved by the masses? Because they were answering early 21st century needs, society and expectations, the same way the original trio did for their time.

A character like Aurora of Sleeping Beauty couldn't work today because she literaly is a paper-thin character that does nothing throughout the story and is truly more of a MacGuffin than anything. Oh yes she speaks, has a song, has feelings and emotions - and there is this very progressive idea of having Aurora be unhappy and traumatized by discovering her princess heritage, which aged very well! But the rest? She is a baby ; then she sings about being in love ; then she cries about not wanting to be a princess ; then she sleeps ; then she is married. The story is done and moved by the interesting characters about her, but not by her - Maleficent wants to destroy Aurora, Philip wants to save Aurora, the fairy godmothers wants to protect Aurora... I do not recall which feminist created this theory, but there is the test of the lamp. If you can replace a female character by a beautiful lamp, this is bad for you. And unfortunately Disney's Sleeping Beauty "succeeeds" at the test of the lamp, since Aurora's massively passive involvment in the story makes her a perfect fit. The king and queen create the most beautiful lamp you ever saw ; Maleficent angry curses the lamp to be destroyed ; the fairy godmothers are tasked with keeping the lamp safe ; later the prince discovers the lamp in the woods and wants to have it for his living room, so he plans to return later ; meanwhile the fairy godmothers return the lamp to their rightful owners the king and queen, while Maleficent captures the prince who returned in hope of taking the lamp ; etc etc... It does not change the story one bit.

Another, even more obvious example, of the "age" of those characters - Snow-White. Disney's Snow-White is the very embodiment of the "50s housewife" cliche, and thus was a perfect fit for this first-half-of-the-20th-century American society. In the Grimm story, the little girl enters the house, takes the food, goes to sleep, and upon meeting the dwarfs they make a bargain of chores in exchange of protection. In the Disney movie? She cleans the house all by herself, without asking anybody, just in hope it will please people. Which is a very "fairytale" move... But still is perceived badly as just the typical idea that "A good girl cleans up the house, that we ask her or not". The fact Snow-White also acts as a mother figure for the dwarfs despite being a teenage girl is... yeah it is questionable and there's a whole baggage of the girl existing as solely a future mother and a housekeeper-in-training. Let's not even talk of the infantilization of the dwarfs just because of their small size despite being clearly much older than her...

So yeah, I always take a neutral stance on things (except for a few stuff), and this is no exception. There is an unfair treatment of the original Disney princesses, definitively, and people are misreading the original movies... But when we take a critical look we also have to recognize that these characters were designed for a given society and a given time, and that now they made their time, we do not need them anymore and we can move on to other characters while fondly remembering them or taking inspiration from them. Erasing these characters would be stupid and absurd - but it is just as stupid and absurd to try to cling onto them constantly and to try to make them fit everywhere and anywhere (yes I am taking a jab at Disney and their perpetual recycling and their favoritism of remakes over new movies...).

.

[jessikeeandthemultiverse]

Pepper Ann Mind AU: a Pepper Ann AU that's interesting to me, but I've been indecisive as hell with its direction as of recently.

So this AU has went by plenty of identities; once it was Analog Horror AU since this AU came from a dream I had and that was what it was based on, then Video Diary AU since that would've been the layout of the story and the analog part wasn't that much of the story, and then Mind AU, its current name. Mind AU pretty much changed a lot from the original dream I had and is pretty much no longer what it was originally since I'm not so much of a creator of analog horror content in of itself and I didn't want to make it look edgy in a really bad way and cringe by accident (although I would DEFINITELY binge watch the shit out of a Pepper Ann analog horror series or at least something akin to something like that, that'd be cool as hell).

The thing the AU had consistent though was the idea of the conscience of PA be evil instead of helpful like in the original show to the protagonist. An attempt at a healing journey would occur to help the conscience get over the way she thinks and be helpful again. That was the plot I had going for, but I haven't gotten much far with the writing itself. Part of me felt pretty unsure and worried about wanting to go along with this story I had; the reason being it felt way too personal for me to just casually dismiss as "just fiction", so uh, you see, this may have been partly a vent AU.

This story was going to be inspired by a healing journey I had to overcome after cutting ties with an emotionally toxic friend (it's not the one I mentioned a month ago; this was the one before that) and I kinda feel uncomfortable projecting what could potentially be trauma onto these characters I don't own, even if I can heavily relate to these characters (especially with the title character), it just feels wrong to me looking back and if I were to ever project trauma onto a character, it should be at least one of my own that is actually MINE. As you know by now, I don't feel comfortable sharing much of my personal life online anymore unless it's absolutely urgent especially now that TWO people managed to take advantage of me mentally as a result of making myself so publicly vulnerable (one was WAY worse than the other, the latter of which was the making this sort of fanfic inspired by, so it would've been really dumb and immature in my personal opinion since the former did way worse things to me than the latter did), so I'm making sure it won't happen a third time by helping myself for a change. I could go into what this AU could've been another time, but I'll just go into what it'll be NOW.

So to make myself more comfortable with working on this AU, I'm thinking about making this a psychological analysis style type of fic. I don't know what the story will be about right now exactly, but the characters will still remain ghosts and it may still be pretty angsty in tone, but it'll be connected to the show rather than my personal struggles and it should make sense. Considering it's named "Mind AU" after all, I think these changes will make it more true to its name, and who knows maybe we'll get the whole cast as ghosts. I just want to be more comfortable sharing my work with this AU by changing some things around, and hopefully I can actually get to work on the story itself.

Oh and one last thing; I don't exactly know if I'm going to keep the conscience evil. I already have a story in progress that has an evil PA (which is XANAified PA from the Code Lyoko crossover AU; I'll explain more about it later) so thinking about it, I'm pretty much repeating ideas that already exist (or technically speaking here, have already been expressed and talked about). If I do keep the meaner-than-usual conscience though, don't expect it to be much. Like I said, I don't exactly know where I'm going with the new story as of right now aside from the fact I'm taking it on yet another premise but always follow any potential updates to this AU. Yeah.

[lurksunderthebed]

Funnily enough i had a long ass convo with one of the dudebros that just decided to drop by and comment how Ghost and Soap are NOT GAY!!! on one of the comment's that initially didn't even mention anything about them like that other than saying "they could have been friends or something more like romantic", and this guy just lost it. Problem with them is they wanna latch onto their "role" models so desperately it threatens their masculinity when someone dares to read these characters as anything other than cis het man.

Bear with me it's gonna be one long ass essay; The need to gatekeep a certain character because their views don't aling with how the rest of us choose to interpret them because according to them, their view is a fact but ours that's not aligning with their bias is a headcanon, make it make sense. Saying and seething that "Ghost isn't GAY!!!" isn't a fact, that sounds like an agenda to me because seeing Ghost as a bi/pan anything else doesn't count in the "manly man" category for toxic dudebros because masculine men only are allowed to dominate and bang women, right? It just shows how simple minded and uneducated the lot of them really are. Cannot fathom man and a woman having a platonic bond without saying "yeah they're polygamous, that's a thing in military for men to have side bitches" whilst defending fiercely Ghost and Soap as being anything other than "bros" because they feel attacked.

Don't get me started on the whole double standard issue either; it's very hot and cute when Ghost threatens Milena but it's disgusting and no no for Ghost and Soap who literally have an established bond between them and clearly care for one another. Same goes for Valeria, they were ready to pair her with Soap just because it was a woman and a man. A man has to bang chicks lol/ This philosophy is so tiring and dumb that it just shows you how a cis het man actually sees women. And i'd go as far as to say it implies misogyny aswell. Take that as you will. But this issue is present in every sort of fandom whose target audience is mostly basement dwellers that rely on their mums for a brand new GPU.

I think the whole thing has to do with projection. When it comes to people who lash out and get ridiculously upset about these sorts of things, especially about a FICTIONAL character it's cause they view it as an attack on themselves.

Which is all sorts of sad, because we're not talking facts here or canonical events, it's about how those fans see themselves in their fav characters.

As I said earlier, you could read into people's sexualities all you want. Aside from Laswell hilariously enough, there isn't any definitive proof of het/gay/etc in any character in 141. If there was, you bet my overly analytical self would find it and make a note of it for Ghost or Soap.

There's arguably more proof on Ghost being queer than him being straight/het which is the funniest thing. The easiest read is him being just not interested in people as a whole, especially with how much he doesn't really interact with others personally (outside of Soap).

Personally, I think when it comes to those sorts of people it's best to just leave it be. No amount of actual factual basis or any sort of reason will change their minds. Because it's not the characters in question that is the issue, it's themselves as people that push their own agenda into it.

Again irony at its finest. For all the people out there upset at those pushing the "gay agenda" onto these characters, it's really themselves pushing their own values onto them. Realising this would require more self reflection than most of that vocal fanbase actually have.

[spiteslucanis]

Hi! Rüdeger anon here!!!

Rüdeger's reaction at Andreas finding them at the library it very telling to me personally. He doesn't reject or distance himself from Mathieu or their relationship, implying to me that he might not necessarily feel guilt over their relationship, rather like you said fear over the consequences of being found out. That's not to say he's never felt guilty or the guilt might come in waves, (because I do think that in all likelihood he might) but I think what might actually worry him is the breaking of his vows rather than loving Mathieu. I also think the fact that monastic being separated from secular life is precisely why he is able to be in his relationship, and acess/understand his queerness. A lot of monks/priests/nuns do describe being "married" to God and I suppose in that sense there is a fulfilment and comfort if you are queer and part of the clergy, maybe not being able to be in a relationship with person, but being able to acess that same affection through God. I think Rüdeger would have a complicated but not entirely fraught relationship with his faith and queerness.

Personal hc: this is totally not projection onto a fictional character lmao. But I think Rüdeger could have OCD. Especially in regards to scrupulosity/routine/his anxiety. Someone needs to get him some St Johns wort stat!!!

I have a lot of thoughts/feelings about Rüdeger/Mathieu that I can't articulate rn but I'd love to hear more of your thoughts if you're willing!!!! I hope this isn't too much spam!!! ❤️‍🔥🕊️

hi! not too much spam at all, thank you for writing back! <3

I also think the fact that monastic being separated from secular life is precisely why he is able to be in his relationship, and acess/understand his queerness

good point!! i mentioned the monastery course i took, and as an atheistic (partially anti-theistic) queer person, it was during the first lecture that i really got why someone would want to join a monastic community (sorry if that sounds condescending, i mean it sincerely). like, it's entirely possible that if i were to have lived in a different era, i would've become a nun just to escape secular obligations of marriage/children/whatnot. obvi it would've been different for men vs women but still. and also co-signed on the rest of your points

re: ocd, i admittedly don't know much about it, so i'm sorry in advance if i say very obvious OR stupid things. but i'm curious if the daily schedule of monks, which would've by its nature been very repetitive/structured/consistent, would be helpful? like finding a sense of peace and stability in the knowledge that most days are the same. and that's another reason why the town riot is so hard on him - it disrupts these routines, displaces his place in the world, potentially triggers compulsive thoughts - hence why mathieu says he's "been deep in prayer" ever since they fled to the library. like he's going back to his routines as a coping mechanism (compulsively repeating the prayer, because something is wrong > if i do x y and z it can be fixed?)

sidebar since i went back to look at that scene again, it's so so sweet how, when andreas is encouraging him to sing to the others, he says "i believe in you and mathieu believes in you" :( they're in love your honour. in general mathieu being so comforting and gentle here gives me brainrot

if at any point you have more rüdeger/mathieu (or pentiment in general) thoughts i'd love to hear them! thanks again for sending these asks <3

[bluntforcefem]

2k24 writing in review: would you believe it. sauces again

author's note

doing my author's note BEFORE the main text of the thing this year, because: damn, it really is all sauces. i posted a sum total of two (2) things to ao3 this year, both for pretty niche medias, and while i'm very proud of them both (i hope we live to tell the tale is the longest thing i've written this year!!) i really hit my stride this year with original fiction, again. many characters featured in this year's writing-in-review belong to the lovely friends i play toys with - thanks to the beloveds for letting me knock around their guys for funsies, per usual!!

some fun statistics for the people at home: i wrote 52 fics for sauces that i would consider 'full-length' (or full-length adjacent) - 22 canonverse fics, 13 alternate universe fics, and 17 spectre-after-dark fics because this is the year that i got into writing erotica lmao. my sauces wordcount, not including a myriad of worldbuilding documents, comes out to about 91,237 words this year! that's fucking crazy. my total wordcount? 108,376. ALSO fucking crazy. i've already mentioned my longest fic this year, but my longest sauces piece (EVER!) was written this year: I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING, written in september, which finished at 6375 words. lots of big achievements this year!!

i've been considering uploading my original fiction to my neocities page on-and-off through this whole year. a side project i've been rotating is a wikipedia-style fansite for sauces (so that we can inflict our years-long improv rp series on other people) but even without that, i'd like to start getting my favorites out into the world one way or another (and i'd like for there to be SOME place to get context for them. sauceswiki one day maybe). no idea how much interest there'd be for that, but i digress! let's get onto the monthly highlights, which i'm putting below a cut because damn! they're long.

JANUARY

“la-ast time i ca-ame i brought eli, and we ha-ad to leave the aqua-rium part ear-ly! ‘cause li-ittle bi-ird was looki-ing at the fi-ish like they do the on-nes in the ri-iver at home and they di-idn’t wanna cau-use an incident.” if evan’s hunch about briar rose is right, he’s pretty sure declan’s middle name is incident, but he sidesteps that thought easily as they walk into the first exhibit. “i’m sure eli has more self-control than that,” he says instead, torn between amusement and resignation at the thought of eli perching on one of the exhibits and sticking a whole hand in. “ba-arely. they cau-ught a sal-mon when they go-ot home and ate it who-ole!” declan gestures with both hands, a sort-of this big motion. it is, he thinks, entirely too big to fit in eli’s mouth, but they look so genuine he believes it anyway. “i thi-ink we were bo-oth just hun-gry though. let me kno-ow if you wan-na get snacks!” 

excerpted from JAWS!, a sauces season two story about evan and dec going to the aquarium together

FEBRUARY

when they can’t sleep they go out to the hangar overlook and lean against the railing in the dim warehouse light. they haven’t seen retribution in full since the day the program shut down, but when they stand still and watch the dark, they can see the shape of it twitching, shifting, moving, the synchronized patterns of partners sleeping, scattered across the continent.

excerpted from so i'll take the night shift, a sauces pacrim au fic about declan in the five years between one war and the next

MARCH

he’s not sure what he’s expecting, when eli tells him they’re ready to explain and then takes him out on a flight. even with the snow blurring the sharp slopes of it, the crater is huge, the site of a meteor strike or the pit of a volcano. deep, too; about halfway down the snow gets sparse and then vanishes, inexplicable, and declan wonders if its warmer down there or if its something else, some side effect of the murky blotch of darkness where he figures bedrock must be. eli flies in a lazy circle around the perimeter and then glides towards the middle, landing on a stretch of mostly-clear stone pocked with sturdy lichens. declan follows, stumbles a little on the landing and shoots eli a half-smile when they catch him. “a hi-ike, huh!” “a good day for it,” they answer, matching his smile with their own, gesturing with their folded-up cane. “in more ways than one- but, y’know, can’t be too careful. would’ve gotten us out here yesterday, but i figured neither of us wanted to deal with flying in a snowstorm.”

excerpted from come with me to the mad stone, a sauces season two story about eli introducing declan to the void

APRIL

but more keep coming. eli cocks their head to the side, slides on a patch of sloughed flesh and catches themself on the wall. “where’s the spawner?” close your eyes. follow. but it’s packed. you’re not going to be able to break it. “i can handle a few zombie bites,” eli snarls, but the way vee stills around their neck makes them hesitate. “a few. how packed is packed?” [...] packed is packed. there’s only a moment’s hesitation before the mass of bodies throws itself at them, green fading into black into the hints of pale blue, fabric sewn together that doesn’t match, limbs fused and flesh melting together. it doesn’t look like individual zombies at all, anymore - just some kind of amalgamation, bleeding so thickly onto the cobblestone that eli’s steps splash. eli doesn’t have a moment to doubt that the void will handle the spawner in the center, doesn’t have a moment to recognize anyone in the crowd beyond recognizing it. they clutch the hilts of their swords tighter and let the magic run its course, flesh popping and disintegrating as they work through the horde. a sturdy heap of scaled limbs gets too close, screaming in static, and eli’s head knocks into the ceiling as they launch themself up, talons tearing at the heads and shoulders of everything below them before they land too-heavy on the spawner itself. 

excerpted from the ground needs to be fed, a sauces season two fic about eli & the void handling a broken zombie spawner

MAY

the old man gives them a name. gives them declan shepherd, princess of hyrule, and echo still can’t remember a thing, doesn’t know how they’ll fight the apparent calamity, still just putting one foot in front of the other and tripping every once in a while. but it’s like muscle memory, really. they’ll get to him. they’ll get back to him.

excerpted from and i'll always believe in you, endlessly, a sauces breath of the wild au fic about echo remembering declan. author's note: i have been feeling endlessly shrimp about this one in particular lately

JUNE

“... swallow.” her voice gets quieter, almost uncertain, before she lifts her head and snaps again. “and i don’t actually have any answers for you, loser. i have no idea why your stupid number is a timer, or whatever. like i said, it doesn’t work like that anymore.” she draws out the no, waving one hand dismissively. “and it doesn’t work like that here. shouldn’t. i’m not even really a reaper. i don’t know what to tell you.” neku watches her, but she doesn’t say anything else. “okay,” he says, after a pause. swallow looks at him, squinting. “yeah, i believe you.” “idiot,” she says again, under her breath. neku snorts.

excerpted from i see it swallow my time, a post-canon interstitial infinity fic about neku from between twewy & neo on the infinity train, and also mirror shoka (<3)

JULY

“but you’re not my type.”  his first lie, though he’d honestly expect someone else if they truly were a figment—a strange facsimile of 10, perhaps, or even something like the shepherd. it makes them laugh again, at least, loud and echoing against the stone, and it lights up their whole face. very much a lie, echo thinks, looking them up and down again.  “i could be,” they retort, clearly playing up their offense. their voice is still tinged with laughter, cheeks flushed as they wave a hand at him. “is this an interrogation or a dream, your highness?”

excerpted from show me my silver lining, a sauces royalty au fic about echo and eli meeting in a dream. author's note again: july truly was the month of the weird echo/eli fics

AUGUST

time to play, then. they lean back as best they can in their chair, the very face of unconcerned. “and who do i owe my timely rescue to, then?” “just your favorite kidnapping victim,” a familiar voice chirps. rose stills, and she laughs, nudging the hench with a boot to make sure they’re out before she circles over. “i’ve gotten pretty good at keeping my ear to the ground in the warehouse department! and who else do i find but my dearly beloved rescuer?” “‘dearly beloved’? high compliments, shep. i didn’t even think i was your second favorite.” shepherd snorts. she sets her rifle aside and stalks forward, confidence rolling off her in waves. “only by technicality,” she assures them airily.

excerpted from and iii get a little bit genghis khan, a sauces season two story about shepherd repaying the favor of rescuing echo's supervillain persona from a kidnapping

SEPTEMBER

Shepherd has the same dream every night. It’s been the same dream from the moment she crash-landed on Spectre. The water rises as she climbs a spiral staircase in unbroken darkness, lapping at her heels, always a little faster than her. There’s no escape even if she manages to beat it, she knows – the wailing gets louder as she climbs, unbearable – but she keeps climbing. The void rises. It overtakes her before she can see what’s become of the sun. Tonight – a red light cuts through the murk. She reaches for it as her lungs fill and wakes settled, steady, her hand wrapped around cold iron.

excerpted from I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING, a sauces season two story about shepherd accidentally picking up an artifact that pushes her to act on her worst impulses, and trying to kill declan about it.

OCTOBER

lucille shakes her head again, taking a step back. she loosens her grip, lets her hands fall to her sides, holding the axe in just one. “this is mine now,” she tells him, “and you can’t have it back. i don’t owe you anything.” “good,” echo answers, sharp. she stares. “you don’t owe them anything, either. not anyone.” there’s a tension in his shoulders, a distance to the way he looks at her—like he’s looking through her, talking to someone else. she doesn’t know what to say, so she just nods and turns away. he doesn’t stop her when she starts to walk home, her pace deliberate, carefully controlled. his gaze on her back itches. she doesn’t look back.

excerpted from take care, take care, a sauces canon divergence fic that asks, what if echo became a single father?, among other things

NOVEMBER

the void reaches out a hand and wipes off his cheek. its thumb comes away, coated in a mix of blood and tears. you’re starting to lose yourself, it says, and it sounds like eli, now, their voice from a facsimile of his throat. he shivers. careful, now. we were made from ghosts. the world is always hungry for another memory. declan reaches up, grabs its wrist, stares up at it unblinkingly. blood drips from his temple, his heart, stains his overalls and mars the embroidery, pools on the ground and disappears. his grip tightens. “i’m no-ot goi-i-ing any-where.” slowly, it wraps its fingers back around his. lips pull back. the shadow gains too many expanse-white teeth, a skeleton grin. aren’t you? he opens his mouth and the void floods in.

excerpted from i alone will make wrongs right, a sauces season two story about declan in a bad place trying to talk to the void while eli is out of commission

DECEMBER

shepherd unearths her face from the couch and turns to him, eyes bleary and ears flat against her head. fur climbs up her neck and the sides of her face, a patch across her forehead and down the bridge of her nose. in her boxers, he can see the rest of it, grown in thick across her body, almost complete coverage. “it’s ba-ad, huh,” declan murmurs sympathetically. “where’d yo-ou even ca-atch it?” “the crossroads,” she says. when he reaches out and pets a hand across her head, she shoves her whole face into it, the fur soft under his palm. “i didn’t know they even had it here, star, it sucks. so bad! i haven’t caught it since i was–” “fifteen?” declan laughs. shepherd blinks before she snorts and smiles back, lopsided. “go-od, that di-id suck.”

excerpted from the fever pitch, a goofy sauces season two story about catpeople catching a fever that makes them grow fur like kittens do again

FINAL NOTE

if you've read this far: thanks, first of all, i appreciate it!! second of all, there's definitely a lot i'm proud of that didn't make it onto this review (or we'd be here all day). if you want to know more about my guys or sauces in general or any of the fics these are excerpted from, i'm always down to talk shop. here's to another year of writing!!