#mostly because im not as good at editing longer pieces

[sexualizing-that-old-man]

This was gonna be a <2000 word thing

And then I wrote more and now it's like 3500 whoops

Lawrence had studied his fair share of etiquette books since he met Carylin. Books on manners and polite conversation, on how to walk and talk and eat, all nearly memorized in an effort to succeed in his newfound relationship. But he soon realized that his assistant didn't tend to follow the rules laid out in those books, nor did she expect him to. The volumes he read were less definitive guides to human interaction, and more a collection of suggestions, with some being far better than others.

But at the very least, they had taught the illithid some vocabulary that was new to him. And he was fairly sure from his studying that he was currently on a ‘date’.

Lawrence and Carylin traveled up the long road leading from the temple to the castle, under the comfortably dim light of the moon and stars. She walked along in her nicest dress and sandals, while he hovered an inch above the ground in his usual brown robe. Side by side, they might have seemed an odd pair, if not for Lawrence’s psionic power. With that, they changed from human and illithid to an ordinary couple undeserving of a second glance - or even a first, if he so wished.

None of the nobles or foreign envoys heading in the same direction looked too hard at either Lawrence or Carylin. But the reverse could not be said. As every purple robe and black tie passed them by, the human woman's gaze shifted. Her eyes bored into the other guests’ backs and wouldn't leave until they were far in the distance, or another target appeared.

“...Remind me what kind of party this is?” she finally said.

“A gala,” Lawrence replied. 

“Mhm,” Carylin nodded, though her actual level of understanding was dubious. “I just feel a bit underdressed, seeing all this fancy silk and stuff.”

She tugged at her dress, crafted of burgundy linen with a floral pattern. It could be considered fancy, perhaps, but only by a commoner. For the sort who were given invitations to the gala, it was woefully inadequate.

“I can assure you that no one will regard your dress as out of place, so long as they're within my psionic range,” Lawrence said, and recalling a suggestion from his etiquette studies, appended his statement. “I think you look rather captivating, for what it's worth.”

“Why, thank you,” his assistant said with a smile. “And you look as good as you always do.”

The illithid's tentacles twisted, unsure if he was being complimented or insulted. But the castle was looming high above, and their topic of conversation would soon be changed, from clothing to whatever lay within the sturdy stone walls. 

The guards at the gate busied themselves with checking invitations and bodies, making sure that no people or items entered that would do the royals any harm. Thankfully, their methods only searched for weaponry of the conventional sort. Lawrence’s brain, despite being more powerful than any blade or enchantment, was let through with a polite nod.

The pair walked into the entrance hall, and soon realized where the party was. If the noise and the paths of the other guests weren't good enough clues, the presence of barricades and guards blocking off every hallway but one would corral the bodies without fail. Lawrence and Carylin followed the crowd into the heart of the gala.

“...Wow.”

The illithid's hearing wasn't spectacular. Especially not in a room filled with footsteps and music and chatter, that was far too well-lit for his liking. But amid the distractions and overwhelming sensations, he thought he picked up what his assistant had said in a tone of hushed awe.

It was fitting. The ballroom they entered was massive, with a ceiling nearly as high as his temple's roof and a floor even wider. To one side, dark windows loomed over them, that during the day must've let in an abhorrent amount of light for an illithid. To the other side of the ballroom sat a raised platform, where the royal family sat and observed the event. And between the two, there was a scene that Carylin had aptly reacted to.

From above, magically created orbs floated and bobbed, casting light in a variety of hues down onto the guests. And they, in all their finery, danced. Their movements couldn't have been more synchronized if they were being puppeteered by an Elder Brain, Lawrence considered. Each body, whether native-born or foreigner, human or elf or something else entirely, moved along with music that filled the room. They swayed and stepped like men possessed, and the hypnotic swishing of silk and flashing of jewelry were nearly as distracting as the bright lights.

“So, is it too late to tell you I can't dance?” Carylin asked, turning to him. “I mean, I probably should have, knowing this was a party and all. I guess I just didn't think it would be such a…dance heavy party, y'know?”

“...I suppose I should've predicted such a thing as well.” Lawrence finally managed to tear his eyes from the scenery and looked to his assistant. “But that's as unimportant as our clothing, in the end. To these guests, nothing is unusual about our presence. To them, we're dancing along to the music just like everyone else.”

Carylin looked around, seemingly stunned to realize that nobody was paying them any attention, despite them being one of the only pairs not moving. The room simply danced around them as if they weren't there at all. No, not quite like they weren't there; more as though they were an unexpected, but not unusual, feature of the ballroom. The guests flowed around the two as a river would around a rock, and thought about them the exact same amount.

It was a simple task for Lawrence. During his time spent in the city, he'd mastered becoming invisible. Not physically invisible, but practically. If he wanted to disappear, he could with ease, from minds and memories.

“Gotta wonder how a guy who can't dance managed to get a couple invitations, though,” Carylin mused with a smile. “Bribes? Threats? Theft?”

“As head of the city’s Temple of Kelemvor, I'm a key figure of the community. It's only natural that I, and a guest of my choice, would be invited.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“...I had to push for it,” Lawrence admitted. “But not much.”

‘Convincing’ a human to change their mind with his power wasn't particularly difficult either. It depended on the particular person's level of disagreement, of course. Making a man lend him a silver piece wouldn't be much of a challenge. Making him hand over his life savings would be far harder. Between those two, asking for invites to the gala was closer to the first. Being a high ranking priest did help, though the priest in charge of burials was never going to be first on the list to bring to a party.

But even if getting the invitations had been a significant challenge, he'd have done it anyway. No amount of effort was too much for this: a date unlike any that his assistant had ever experienced. His only regret was not reading a book on ballroom dancing.

“It feels like we should give it a try, doesn't it?” Carylin asked, looking at the couples surrounding them. “Even if we can't be seen. Especially if we can't be seen. That's the best time to practice.”

Lawrence paused, taking a moment to realize what she meant and another to consider it. Then he nodded, and tried to study how the other guests were moving.

“I think it starts with stepping forward, like this- oop,” Carylin mumbled as she started the dance without Lawrence and promptly bumped into him.

“Let me lead,” he said, lowering himself to the floor and hoping his feet wouldn't leave a noticeable residue of mucus behind. “Just move along with me. I'll start out slow, and we can pick up the pace when we’ve mastered the basics.”

His assistant nodded, and the two began, with Lawrence taking the step that she had already attempted. It seemed to work - he went forward, and she moved back to give him room. In time, he supposed the rest of the dance would reveal its mysteries to them.

But it didn't work out so smoothly in reality. Lawrence, unused to human music and behavior and apparently dance, mixed up his steps and accidentally trod on Carylin's sandals multiple times, each with an apology. For the human woman's part, it was as though she had as little experience with her own civilization’s dance as an illithid, and she bumped into Lawrence even more often with a grunt of frustration. 

Since going slowly didn't seem to work, they briefly attempted dancing at the same speed as the guests, which was even more disastrous. Rather than easily showing them which steps to perform next, this only sped up the rate of stumbling and awkward apologies. Finally, both human and illithid stepped back, and agreed to give it a rest.

“I think I've got an idea,” Carylin said with a grin. “You’re using your powers to make people think we're dancing just like them, right? What if you made them think we're actually good? That we're the best dancers in the whole city!”

“There’s a reason I tend to use my psionic power to hide rather than stand out, you know. What if the guests are so impressed that they come to the temple and ask me for lessons?”

“Oh, just tell them to ask your girlfriend.” Carylin reached out and took his hand, placing her other on his shoulder and drawing close to him. “You can tell them she's a very agile and elegant lady who definitely doesn't dance like she has two left feet. Please?”

Lawrence abhorred making himself seen. To use his power to show off, to impress, it wasn't in his nature. But as powerful as his own mind-controlling psionics were, there was nothing that could convince him to do something quite like Carylin asking politely. 

And referring to herself as his girlfriend, for the first time.

He placed a hand on her waist, and reached out into the minds around them. Already, there was an idea implanted into every one: The pair beside you is dancing. Normally. Nothing to see here. Lawrence simply had to take that idea and tweak it. One by one, from the closest and most alert, to the most distracted and distant. Make it seem natural, like the crowd was slowly noticing something they had all somehow missed. The pair beside you is dancing. Elegantly, Beautifully. You can't tear your eyes away. 

He pushed. And gradually, the two turned from a practically inanimate feature of the room to the main attraction, with eyes drifting from their dance partners to Lawrence and Carylin. Even the tone of their indistinct chatter had changed, though he couldn't make out anything specific.

Evidently his assistant could, as she giggled and looked around at the whisperers, then leaned in with a conspiratorial murmur of her own. “According to the elf behind you, we're the best dancers he's seen in his life. And he looks pretty old, so I bet that's a big compliment.”

Judging from that comment, Lawrence may have pushed too hard. But that realization came late, as the noise around them quieted - not from the cessation of whispers, but from the halt of dozens of footsteps. Pair by pair, the dancers stopped dancing, directing their entire beings toward watching the two they encircled. And as that inner circle stopped moving, an outer circle stopped to see what had caused the disturbance. More and more minds were crowding into Lawrence’s psionic range, almost more than he could handle. He knew the inevitable conclusion of such a cascade: eventually the entire room would be staring, even the royals. And eventually, he wouldn't be strong enough to keep up his facade.

The pair you're looking at is dancing. Normally. Nothing to see here. Nothing to see. Look away.

Carylin snickered at the surrounding guests, entirely unaware of the gravity of their situation. “You can tone it down a bit, I think,” she said. “I feel a bit guilty getting this much attention.”

“...Trying,” Lawrence managed.

Slowly, one by one, the guests returned to themselves, and to each other. The dance resumed before it could fully end, and after an agonizing couple of minutes, the ballroom was back to normal. Lawrence nearly collapsed onto his assistant, and this finally managed to impress upon the woman how much effort he had gone through.

There was always some effort spent, to do nearly anything in his town. To talk to someone, to exist within a human’s sight. But for his date, he had gone much further than his mind could manage. And he spent the last dregs of his psionic power just to make it out of the castle, as Carylin held him up and led him along.

“Are you alright?” she whispered to him, sounding nearly frantic. “Oh gods, I should never have asked you to-”

“Just…get home. Quickly.”

Even telepathic communication felt too draining. But fortunately, he didn't have to say another word as the pair rushed toward the temple. With the party in full swing, no more guests were heading up the road, and they made it to safety under the cover of darkness. First into the temple, then through the halls leading to Lawrence’s private chambers. And when the illithid was almost entirely exhausted, he gestured to his bathroom door.

For the last hundred feet, Carylin had been mumbling apologies over and over, like a magical incantation that would restore Lawrence’s energy. But they were close to an actual solution, which he pointed to with a single claw as he slumped against the bathtub. A glass bottle he kept on a shelf, just in case.

In case of many potential disasters - if the entire city was miraculously healthy, and there weren't any burials for months, or if he was finally found out as an illithid, and needed just a little boost to make his escape. Or if he foolishly overexerted himself, and could barely move.

Through hazy eyes, he saw his assistant grab the bottle and briefly examine it. She hesitated, evidently able to recognize, or at least guess, what was in it. But she brought it to him anyway, and tilted his head back, gently parting his tentacles and putting the bottle up to his mouth.

She carefully poured the solution of cerebrospinal fluid and liquefied brain matter down Lawrence’s throat. Slowly, he felt his energy being restored, and for the first time in years, he actually enjoyed the taste of a long-dead brain. Every other meal brought back painful memories of his first, but at that moment he only felt glad to be alive.

The bottle clinked against the floor, and Carylin knelt down beside him. Her legs were still tense, though, and when Lawrence looked up to her face, he saw her worry clearly. Neither an inability to read her mind nor an inability to recognize the finer points of human expressions could disguise that. Her skin had reddened, her eyes were bloodshot, her lips trembled. 

He'd seen humans in such a state before. During funerals, and before them, when he came to give loved ones terrible news. He saw it from the dying, when they begged him on their deathbeds for some grace. Especially from the ones who had never spent much of their time thinking about the gods, and wondered where they'd be when the sun rose the next day. 

Lawrence didn't have all the answers they wanted. He knew that bodies went into the ground, after he'd carefully removed their brains. But he had no idea where the important part of a person went. And it wasn't his business. He served Kelemvor - claimed to, tried to, at least - but he wasn't the god himself. His job was to comfort the soul before death, and he did. By reaching into a sorrowful mind, and implanting an idea.

Death is a part of life. But memories live on eternally. Remember the happy ones.

With a push, he'd turn a flood of tears into one of words. Stories about relatives, and friends, and loved ones. His psionic power, never meant for anything but subjugation, made the dead’s final moments peaceful, and the living’s bearable.

But for the sobbing figure beside him, he couldn't simply push away the sorrow. All he had were his words, tools he wasn't nearly as adept with.

“I hope you know that none of this was your fault.” Lawrence moved his hand an inch toward her before hesitating, and pulling back. “I was the one who brought you to a place I wasn't equipped to handle. I should never have even requested invitations. I only did so-”

“No!” she snapped, her voice rising and quickly returning to a shaky mumble. “You didn't do anything wrong. The night would've gone fine if I…if I just dressed right, and danced right.”

And then, in a volume so low he could hardly make it out, she whispered what Lawrence was thinking, and nearly said himself.

“I just…wanted to impress you. And I ruined it.”

Lawrence reached out and lay his hand on hers. She sank down to the floor and leaned her head on his shoulder, seemingly just as drained as he had been. The two sat together in a silence Lawrence didn't immediately know how to fill.

According to his etiquette studies, he had planned the perfect date. A beautiful castle, the ideal setting. The noble and powerful, ideal company. All it lacked was an ideal man, who knew how to act and talk and dance. One who didn't have to hide from the sun, or use psionic power to convince citizens not to murder him.

But it wasn't in an illithid's nature to admit fault, and he had already apologized more than enough. Therefore, it was the date, and the books, that were imperfect. All he had to do was find something that fit him.

“I will make amends for this night, I assure you. I'll find a quieter place, where we can-” he paused, realizing he may have thought too far ahead. “Of course, that assumes you'd even wish to try again. I understand if you're hesitant.”

“No, I…I'd love to.” Carylin looked up, her voice steady and her face slightly restored. “We can just stay in your room, next time.”

“Are you certain? It's not much of a-” Lawrence hesitated for a moment, hastily replacing a word he found himself unprepared to say, “-an outing, to remain at home. I'd imagine you'd rather be taken somewhere, to a tavern for a meal at least, if not someplace fancier.”

“Well, that does sound nice.” She smiled. “But I want us both to have a good time, and I don't want you to have to worry about hiding who you are. It's only a good date if everyone likes it, y'know?”

As Lawrence considered what she said, and resolved to make some notes of his own in his etiquette books, Carylin sat up a little straighter. Then she leaned close and pressed her lips against his skin, on the bony ridge just below his eye. A kiss on the cheek, if he were human.

She pulled back and wiped her mouth. “Er, sorry, probably should've asked first,” she mumbled with a newly reddened face.

“No, that's quite alright. You've provided me with one good memory of this night,” Lawrence said, and thinking back to the beginning of the night, appended his statement. “At least one, possibly more.”

Carylin grinned and stood from the bathroom floor. “Well, I've had a memorable night too. See you tomorrow, for work?”

“Yes. Perhaps an hour later than normal, if you'd like. I may need to rest awhile.”

“Gotcha.” She headed toward the door and out into his chambers, vanishing into footsteps that slowly faded away.

But before all was quiet, Lawrence thought he heard her voice. It was distant, and soft, so much so that he could hardly make it out. She didn't return to make sure he heard the message, though, and he suspected that was for a reason. His assistant had estimated the range of his ears, and didn't want him to hear her.

She didn't know, however, that an illithid’s hearing was mostly impaired by multiple sounds mixing together. When her voice was all there was, it was much clearer. And while Lawrence wasn't absolutely certain, he thought he heard the word ‘love’.

[nerdylittleguy]

just my rambling about the new alignment chart and poster, mostly in relation to Breakdown, but there's more in my head then Breakdown's arms spinning in circles. trust me im sane!!

i am going to add a 'keep reading' to keep the rest of you unsuspecting mortals saner than me! /lh

okay! so here are some notes i made throughout the day, edited to sound more coherent and structured because i was loosing my marbles today! (these are about the alignment chart btw!)

tarantulas... evil? i'd say true neutral or something because he just wants to be alone, not cause anyone any trouble. leave my guy alone he just wants to do science!!

skullcruncher... chaotic evil? has he even had a voiced line??

grimlock - well, we haven't seen him, either. maybe this hints at his personality? i haven't seen many grimlocks yet (bits and pieces of cyberverse, RiD2015 and G1) but he's always seemed more chaotic than lawful, or just in the middle. eh, what do i know?

the most lawful good character i can think of in earthspark is Optimus, or if you asked me to think fast and name an LG character, optimus would come before bumblebee, that's for sure. i've seen lots of people say - and honestly this sounds very likely - that optimus is being isolated from other transformers by GHOST, so they can manipulate him. perhaps that would/ will shift him away from LG?

before we get onto my main event - Breakdown, of course, anyone surprised? - i'd like to quickly say i'd love one of these for the humans!! it'd be cool i think. calling that agent Croft would be lawful evil, or even neutral/ true evil.

okay, fasten your seatbelts, you're in for a ride! maybe. a ride of my rambles!!

it seems that this chart, for better or worse, had defined the good-evil scale as an autobot-decepticon scale. fair enough, that could be the basic idea.out of the three neutral characters, we have one we've seen nothing of (however, grim still has his autobot badge, so he's not with GHOST. maybe he's more of a rouge from the autobots, not decepticons?), we have megatron (who switched sides onto the side of 'good' - autobots and later GHOST, but that's falling apart pretty fast ain't it?) and breakdown (whose heart seems in racing more than fighting).

based on that, the alignment chart could be:

good - autobot/ main characters who are obviously good

neutral - rouges, side-switchers and unenthusiastic fighters

evil - decepticons lmao.

alright, alright, but what about BD??

here's my line of reasoning: if he's dead, why has he been on both the new things released? there's a lot of characters missing from the poster - hashtag, nightshade (who's on the chart), jawbreaker and tarantulas (who, despite being put as NE, did the Maltos more good than breakdown.) etc etc. so, why put a dead man on these two new releases?

if whoever was making this alignment chart was just 'ticking boxes', so to speak, and needed a CN character, why breakdown? okay, so who else could be classed as chaotic neutral?

if our scale here truly is autobot - rouges/ side-switchers/ whatever breakdown's loyalty is - decepticon, who could be neutral?

it's kinda a short list, but here it is:

sky warp and nova storm no longer work for the decepticons. it even sounded like they considered joining the autobots, but (curiously sounding in episode 9/10) didn't for fear of ghost. technically, they're former decepticons who would take a better chance if it was presented to them. on the scale, that might be considered neutral. and they certainly have an air of chaos

laserbeak and frenzy, mostly for those same reasons. yes, they do currently (? well, last we saw, anyway) work for mandroid, but they're former decepticons and they're very chaotic. additionally, from a realistic point of view, they're more likely to be alive than breakdown. we didn't see their limbs hanging around, they're small, and laserbeak and fly. they'd get out of that brawl no trouble! therefore, if breakdown is dead, laserbeak and frenzy could have been placed in CN.

here's the conclusion i wrote down: Breakdown is alive! why would he be in the poster, and on the chart, if he's dead? what the heck would be the point of that?? especially becuase he's so popular...

oh? what's this? i haven't mentioned arms yet? well, i'd hate to disappoint. here goes!

in both the new images, one of his arms (the left one, which was seen hanging in mandroid's lair) is out of sight. unfortunately, my digging has lead me to the conclusion that the image from the chart is not new, it's from the moment when breakdown leaps, transforms, and attacks GHOST agents.

note the red lights underneath his torso, and behind the letters. apologies for the awful episode screenshot!

the angle and zoom on the chart made this hell to pinpoint, and i still don't feel perfectly confident, especially due to his head's angle - something just feels off about the images, but maybe if i'd pinpointed it better it'd make more sense. and obviously the above images are not perfectly pinpointed, but it was hard to find a frame where it wasn't all blurry! maybe someone can get a cleaner image?

the image from the poster, though, it's bugging me. he's literally a few pixels on it, but...

that other arm is bailing me out here! as far as i saw during ep 14, i didn't see him raise his arm like that, but that could be just me. also, here's a shot from later in episode 14:

it has paint scratches on, and because the poster-breakdown is a few pixels, i can't really see if there's scratches there, but there might be a little bit of discolouration in similar places. so, either the poster is like... an unused image, or the paint is there (painting... knockout?) or (so??) it is a new image. whoohoo! he'd... be alive, then??!!

and would it really be one of my rambles without a little diagram?

no i cant do proportions. next question--

anyway, i'm sure i've missed something, or made a massive leap, but it's been chewing away at my mind all day, so enjoy! feel free to point out stuff that i have missed/ assumed. thanks for reading :)

@transformers-earthspark, you seem to enjoy my madness. /lh here's more overanalysing!

(funfact: i have been rambling about this to my family. my dad joked about a wanted/ missing poster...)

the search continues i guess!

[blkkizzat]

ty for tag remi pookies! ❤

• started writing ?

in my ff.net days. hmm when i was super young like 2012? lol ive only written bits and pieces of things and quit for like years at a time. this is actually my longest stint writing consistently lol.

• started blogging ?

i used to be obsessed with working out and keto/paleo so i had a fitspo blog which had a crazy amount of follower, thank god that blog is now archived lol. but i was casually reading jjk fanfics on here from like may 2023 to aug 2023 when i decided to make my own blog and start writing!

• followers ?

5.1k, and honestly many more than i deserve for being such a slow writer and for not writing at least 3 of the 9 months ive had this blog due to school/illness/travel. i edit ALOT and rework fics 10x over so i really appreciate all the positive feedback and support my work does get especially since it skews longer (5k to me is a short fic LOL) and i be spending 30-40hrs+ on fics. i know people like reading shorter things but i never feel like my shorter works are as good as my longer ones (i really have to be in a mood to write something under 1k). so it means even more that so many of y'all do read the long-winded shit i put out. thats why i always try to respond back to every comment and answer every ask cause i want y'all to know how much i appreciate it!

• communication ?

i will honestly talk to anyone and everyone! i prefer discord but like chatting on here too. i will drop by others asks and i love getting asks and talking to anons. i hope no one ever feels too intimidated to talk to me cause im just a loser pervert dork like otaku!gojo lmfao.

• likes ?

i appreciate the likes but i love the comments and reblogs with tags, those really keep me going. you dont even have to say anything profound just "i liked this alot" and i would squirt with joy istg lmfao.

• requests ?

are currently closed. im such a slow writer that i closed them at the beginning of the month with a goal to get through the 20 or so I have by the end of the year LOL! But i love hearing your ideas, if you wanna send me ideas or just chat about a headcanon you have feel free! im always down to share thoughts.

• writing ?

writing has always come easy for me in the sense of i have a huge imagination. something pos that comes from my dissociative daydreaming lol, it really puts me in the space of the characters/world and ideas just flow. once i just started writing about my daydreams and stopped looking for "plots" the ideas just wont stop coming! i wish i were a faster writer because sometimes i feel like imma burst if i dont get something typed out lol. they nag me in the back of my head lol.

i am working on techniques to become faster though (mostly cause i sometimes i over edit) like just writing without reworking sentences or pausing to think of better adjectives and being ok with being repetitive until its time to edit.

• fics you’re proud of ?

a bumpy ride - ok this is my most popular fic lol but thats not why im proud of it, it was my first time in ages writing 'crack'/humor. People telling me they laughed from my writing is such a huge compliment omfg. like im not funny y'all im just crazy, i swear lmfaoooo.

ghostface!choso, because it was my first time writing horror and writing for choso. i wasn't sure if i could do it tbh. it took me out of my comfort zone but i really liked the end product and like im obsessed with killer choso now lmfao.

plug!choso, hello?!!? i can write angst?? i wasnt even intending to istg lmfao it just came out and the story took a life of its own. crazy.

tagging some of my fav writers, no presh ofc: @tonycries @ohimsummer @yuutx @bunny584 @triangularz @bakubunny

@081231 @hoshigray @screampied @ramonathinks @arlerts-angel @nkogneatho

+anyone else bc i know i forgot sum ᥫ᭡

Behind the scenes of a Tumblr Writer - Tag Game

Hey there, I love behind the scenes and since this is something that's rarely talked about, let me start the chain... if you feel uncomfortable with a question, just skip it. You can add some if you want as well.

Started writing: I wrote my first Harry Potter fanfic at age 10. Started posting around 15,16 years old. I'm now 31, so...

Started blogging: I started on a German fanfiction site around 2010/11 I think. Might have been earlier too, but back then I was mostly reading, no posting. I really started when I got into One Direction (very late, tbh)

Followers: Currently at 961, which is wild to me. I don't even know that many people IRL. I convince myself that half of them are bots tbh, so I don't freak out all the time.

Communication: The people I talk to regularly are: a few writers who answered after I constantly reblogged and commented on their works and a few people who commented and reblogged my work. Writing and blogging on here can be pretty lonely, depending on your personality and the time you're active (I'm from Europe and a lot of my followers seem to be living in Northern America, so there's the Timezone thing) ... And I found that the best way to strike a conversation is to reblog, comment, and to not be shy. I do wish I got more asks, though....

Likes: I actually filter them out. I have 793 original posts up at the moment. It doesn't give me anything to know how many likes a fic has other than to tell me which characters are liked more than others or maybe that one fic does especially well. My activity only shows me comments, asks, reblogs with tags, and answers to my own asks. I live for the tags and the comments.

Requests: I love talking to people about ideas. That's how I started the plotbunny game because I have so many ideas and so little time. And sometimes an idea just doesn't want to be written out fully. Requests are fun because YAY, I get some mail... but then I freak out because I don't really know how to write this NOW and then I freak out because it's been a week already, two weeks, wait, two months? I'd rather have suggestions where people tell me vague things like "I'd love to read something about this side character" or "Have you ever considered this character with a soulmate trope"? because then I don't have the feeling of failing the request when I write it a little bit differently.

Writing: I am a fast writer. I know that's one of my talents. I can churn out a oneshot of 1k words in less than an hour. People read slower than I write. That can suck sometimes because you've just posted this and you want to know what people are thinking but they're not as fast as you are. I do have a lot of ideas. I want to write constantly but my brain doesn't always want to. I am trying to respect that.

There are also certain things that I just feel wrong writing. I cannot write anything suggestive (I also don't like reading it) and everything past that gives me panic attacks. I can hardly write mean characters and jealousy feels so wrong to me that I cannot write it. I've also overdone it with the soulmark trope and now I feel like everything I write about it feels lifeless.

I write best in the mornings before going to work, but I don't have much time there. I don't need special music (but it helps), but I need to have at least some energy left and at best, no distractions. But I have been writing for over 20 years, so I will say experience helps a lot.

Tagging: @revasserium @shoulmate @lemurzsquad @screamin-abt-haikyuu @toomanygoldfish @satorisoup @emmyrosee @reverie-starlight @alienaiver and @writingsofanomnivore and everyone else who wants to join

[marichat-verse]

Mist Memories

Leo Valdez x reader for his birthday ahhhh (even though it's angsty) with a platonic/developing jason x reader cameo at the end (lmao im sorry i couldn't help myself 😭)

Based on this picture I found in pinterest + also [kinda] based on traitor by olivia rodrigo and omg i really recommend u guys listen to this edit because it reminds me so much of this fic that's been stuck in my head for MONTHS also kind of a run away with me prologue lol

Your POV

I nervously made my way across the forest until I reached a limestone cliff. I knocked on the iron door, not really expecting to get an answer.

My boyfriend has been shutting himself in Bunker 9 for the past few weeks. I stood there counting up to seven before knocking again. I knocked again two more times, until he answered in the middle of my last knock.

He removed his goggles and winced as sunlight hit his eyes. He'd grown thinner and paler, making the dark circles in his eyes more pronounced.

"Oh, Leo..." I reached out to brush a few strands of hair away from his face, but he moved away.

"What are you doing here?" He said in a monotone voice.

I moved to walk inside the Bunker, brushing off his hesitation to let me in. "I'm your partner, remember? And I'm really concerned because you're shutting yourself out lately. You know everyone's starting to worry about you. Percy asked me to check on you because you missed pegasus riding with him. Oh, and I'm pretty sure Jason's coming back from Camp Jupiter soon. I was hoping you and Annabeth could be with Piper while Percy and I hung out with Jason because it's been a little awkward since their breakup. Plus Piper wanted to tell you something—"

"Please," he said forcefully causing me to stop and look at him. "Just... Get out."

Normally, he'd shut himself from the world for a few days to work on an important project or because he was feeling really sad and he needed space. But this was getting out of hand. He had never locked me out of his life when I offered to help him. He was never this mean when he asked for space. I was not having this attitude of his.

"Okay, Leo. I tried to play nice. What is so important that you blow off all your friends for nearly a month that you can't even tell your partner, or maybe say hi to your best friend who's coming back from the other side of the country?"

He didn't say anything. He pursed his lips and avoided eye contact. I scanned he room for any signs.

It was messier than usual with all the crumpled paper scattered on the floor, especially on his desk. He could have been drawing up new plans. Something in my gut told me that something wasn't right. There were no new unfinished projects, indicating that he wasn't starting a new invention. Harley's helicopter lay on his bench in the same state it was weeks ago. Huh, not even his siblings could enter the Bunker.

I turned and Leo was already changing Festus' oil. I took this moment of distraction to pick up a few pieces of crumpled paper on the floor and on his desk. I had to process the words a bit longer—too long that Leo took notice. Damn dyslexia.

I heard footsteps speed up behind me, but it was too late. I read enough and got the gist of what he had been trying to do these past few weeks.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" He yelled at me. Small embers started to erupt between his curls.

I laughed dryly. "So this is what you've been up to?"

His fists tightened, further crumpling the paper in his hands. His eyes flashed with anger, despair and confusion.

I sighed and focused my eyes on his desk, not daring to look at him any longer. Under some pieces of paper were old photographs of him and Piper from Wilderness School. Yup, those definitely were the mist memories she had with Jason. I read the latest draft he'd been writing:

Dear Piper,

Remember the mist memories from boarding school with Jason? They were real, but they were with me.

I miss you. I miss when it was just us. I miss the night on the roof.

Yours truly,

Leo Valdez

I tried to keep my voice from cracking. "How long?"

I heard him sigh. "Three weeks."

I balled my fists. Tears started to fall and smudge the ink. I wiped them away as fast as they came.

"How?"

"In a dream," his tone softened now. "Hera came to me in a dream and told me to check an old drawer in Bunker 9. I found the photos and the memories came rushing back."

"How long were you dating back then?"

"Two weeks."

"Were you ever going to tell me?"

Silence; then a deep breath.

"No."

I shook my head in disbelief. "Why?"

"Because I knew you'd get upset like—"

"I meant why would you throw away months of our relationship for a couple of weeks of your relationship with her? And without even bothering to tell me? Gods damn it, Leo. We've been together since you've first arrived at camp. And what about those promises you made when we were sailing to Greece? You've been keeping these feelings away from me and you've been lying to me, making me believe that there's still something between us and—"

"Oh, calm down," he said with an annoyed expression and tone, which only infuriated me more, "it's not like I did anything were her yet! I didn't kiss her or tell her how I truly felt for her! She just got out of a relationship with Jason around the same time I had that dream. I had to figure out how to talk to her about it. I've been alone in this Bunker for three. Fucking. Weeks. I didn't cheat on you."

"Oh, and that makes everything better?" I countered. "Being in a relationship isn't about not cheating, Leo. It's about being honest and communicating with each other."

"Oh, like you've been communicating with me? After the war, you take go back to Manhattan for school, and you take a job. I haven't seen you much during the holidays because work has been keeping you in the city. And you won't tell me what you even do for a living!"

I took in a deep breath. "I told you I needed to have a life outside of camp! I needed to know first that I could handle myself in the mortal world as a normal human being. I needed this demigod part of my life to be separate as much as possible! I've been in two wars, Leo. I needed time to myself, too. And I was about to tell you guys in a few more days. But I guess now, I'm glad I've kept you out of that part of my life. At least I have an escape from all of this. And now, especially from you."

I took another deep breath and walked to the door, about to let myself out. I turned back again, both our tear-stained eyes meeting each other.

"If it makes you feel any better," I said softly, "I would've hated the idea of us breaking up. But if you really love her, if you really feel like you have this special connection to her and she makes you happy, then I won't get in your way. You could at least have had the decency to talk to me so we could have left on a good note."

He looked at me with wide eyes, clearly regretting his actions. I sighed and looked around the Bunker, possibly for the last time. Lots of memories were definitely created in this room; all just as grand and meaningful as the inventions they made here. But just like some of Hephaestus' contraptions, some of them were flawed and dumped in his scrapyard, no matter how much potential it could have had.

"Goodbye, Leo."

I sat on a rock on the beach that gave me a beautiful view of Long Island Sound. To my left, the sun started to set, casting an orange filter on everything. My heart broke, remembering how everything glowed orange in the Bunker. Leo always left the fires burning when he was working. The sunlight twinkling against the sea reminded me of how small bits of flame peaked through his hair earlier. I remembered how mad he was at me. Or maybe he was mostly mad at himself.

"Hey."

I jumped when someone sat—or rather, landed—beside me. I turned and smiled, seeing one of my good friends back at camp.

"Hey, you're back," I said weakly. "How long have you been here?"

He smiled at me, although he could maybe sense that something was wrong. "Half an hour, maybe? I saw Annabeth making plans to expand camp to have a city. She made me do an aerial inspection and I told her I'll get back to her tonight. That's when I saw you."

"Mhmm," I mumbled, not really knowing what to say. It was silent for a few minutes before I spoke up again, knowing he was just waiting for me to open up.

"I broke up with Leo."

His head quickly turned to me. I guess he wasn't expecting it to be that bad. "What?"

"Oh yeah," I laughed dryly. "Turns out the mist memories Piper had in Wilderness School with you? They were real. But not with you."

His eyes widened. "Oh... With Leo."

"He locked himself in the Bunker for weeks trying to write a letter. It was heartbreaking. Like, truly heartbreaking. He wanted to tell her how much he missed her and how much he missed them. Then he said how much he missed that night with her under the stars and... It hurt. Like hell."

"Oh," he said. "I guess Piper didn't tell me everything then."

"She knew all along?"

He shook his head. "Maybe not everything, but she told me she's been confused about her feelings lately and she'd been having visions or dreams of possible old memories that were messing with her head."

"I'm sorry about you and Piper," I said.

"Don't be," he said. "I understand her. It did hurt, though. But I think I can get over it some day. We're still awkward around each other, but at least we left on a good note."

I scoffed. "Leo couldn't even give me a good ending to our relationship."

"Hey," he said as he put a hand on my shoulder. "You're a great person, y/n. You've done so much, especially for him. It's his loss that he was stupid enough to let go of you."

"I know that."

"Do you really?"

"I do!" I said. "I'm a great person and I know that. But that doesn't mean what he did doesn't hurt me."

"I know," he said. "You'll find someone who'll treat you like the queen that you are. You're a great person, and I'm not just saying this to cheer you up. I truly think you're amazing."

I smiled at him. "Thanks, Jason. And you'll find someone great, too. Maybe not as great as me but, then again, who is?"

We both let out a laugh. The conch sounded in the distance, signaling dinner. I moved to stand up before hearing Jason speak up again.

"Hey, do you maybe want to just grab a couple of plates and eat out here?"

I smiled. "Yeah. That sounds good. I don't really want everyone else hounding me about the breakup right now."

I don't know how long it was going to take me to get over Leo. We really did gave something special. It was cruel how the universe gave me something so good, to make me have hope that something was finally going right, then have it yanked away from my arms just as suddenly as it came.

He never cheated on me, but that didn't mean he didn't betray every promise we made to each other. I should have known it was too good to be true. Life has always played cruel jokes on me.

Then again, who's to say that things won't turn out for the better, right?

•••

Tagging: @drvrslcense @bubblybubbubs @dreamerball @quteez @aesthetxcimagines @chasingpj @beingleft @wadewilsonsgreatestfriend

[atalana]

[copied over from my cr blog, also this is gonna get long, i’d apologise but im not sorry]

okay, so

this is a rant probably about 7 years in the making, bc when i first watched lok i had not done any music study, i had not done any composing of my own, my knowledge of music theory was at a primary school level and i still thought tv soundtracks were just made by one person composing a whole cache of music and then the audio editors pick and choose what track to place where

(spoiler alert that’s not how film and tv scoring works, i have now done a music composition course where we had to score a short film, among other things, and i have so much more respect for tv composers jesus christ)

but this one stuck out to me even way back then, bc me barely knowing what a leitmotif was was like “hey this one little refrain keeps popping up whenever bolin does lavabending, and i like it, i’m gonna see if it’s on the soundtrack”

it was not, and that’s sort of where i left it back in 2014, but i actually did a rewatch of lok pretty recently out of nostalgia, and then noticed it even more

and to explain why (and this is also a little bit why five’s stuck out to me in tua, i’ll get to that in another ask), let’s cover, leitmotifs, and tv scoring in general

so a leitmotif is basically just a short musical idea that represents something in a piece of music. when i studied motivic development we were encouraged to make that motif four notes or less, and then develop it into something longer (aka a theme), because if you can constantly come back to a really short idea while keeping the piece moving, that’s what makes a piece of music memorable

(you can ignore those rules on purpose but that’s a different essay)

so the most common way that a leitmotif shows up in soundtracks is to represent a character or a location - you play the motif when that character shows up or when you’re in that location and boom, the audience associates that motif with that person place or thing, and you can then use this to tell the audience things without actually telling them. for example, star wars playing the imperial march whenever someone does something darth vader related - darth vader isn’t on screen, but you can feel his presence, because his music is playing

and if we were a film score, where we have two hours to show one particular character’s development, great! we give them a simple motif, and then as they grow as a person we change their motif to reflect what is happening to them, until we end up with something that communicates on a subconscious level how much they’ve grown. we toss in as much symbolism as we can, and we have a really great soundtrack that’s instantly memorable

tv scoring, is harder. partially because of time constraints (have you ever composed half an hour of original music a week, and had to make sure it fits perfectly with every beat of what’s happening on screen? these guys have), partially because there’s a much larger focus on ensemble casts

so what atla and lok do, for the most part, is not score individual character motifs for everyone. this is fairly common in tv soundtracks, instead we score ideas, concepts, and feelings - these’ll come up a lot more and give you more information than just “oh hey this character’s on screen”

the avatar state, for example, has the strongest and most recognisable theme across both shows. i’m linking an atla track in here because it has the best example but you’ll know this shows up with korra too - and with particularly important moments for wan, for kyoshi, etc. they also appear in the opening of both shows, four strong notes that start and end on the same note (in the case of what i’m linking, it’s an F#)

the first part of this track is the more uncertain, pensive theme that comes up when both avatars are feeling doubt/worry/sadness, but then it transitions into the more recognisable four. worth noting though, those are both basically the same motif. if i write them out back to back, you’ll notice they both have four notes and start and end on F#. if i had to guess, four notes four elements, and it comes back to the start because the avatar is a cycle.

korra has a theme for when she’s fighting, but not an individual character theme. the airbenders as a concept have a theme, republic city has thematic instruments, as do some big name characters, like iroh and his tsungi horn (this is also a cross-series thing, he’s always playing it in atla, it shows up when zuko has to make big moral decisions, and when we first meet iroh in the spirit world in lok, it shows up there too, to let the audience know who this is before we properly see him)

so, if korra doesn’t get a single theme and instead has several for different aspects of her life, and mako and asami follow along with the mood of the story like all the other characters, the fact that bolin has a personal leitmotif at all, let alone a solid, developing one, is pretty remarkable!

now, granted, it mostly starts with book 3, before then he was like every other character, but it has clear symbolism through those last two books! and, initially i thought it was related only to his lavabending, since that’s most of when it shows up, but since my rewatch, i’ve started calling it his hero theme

see, when people wanna criticise mako and bolin, usually the comments they get are that bolin’s too immature and mako’s too serious/uptight. but like, that’s how they work, you can’t analyse either of them without the context of the other. since they were little kids on the streets, bolin chases his heart and mako makes sure they don’t die from it, that is their entire childhood. and neither would have got here on their own because mako wouldn’t take the necessary risks and bolin wouldn’t take the necessary precautions. (like. remove either one from the equation and they’d still be working for the triple threats bc s1 and their flashback miniseries make pretty clear that bolin got them out and mako kept them out)

and then book 2 proves it! because it splits team avatar up, and what happens? bolin is totally taken advantage of by varrick and used as a pawn in his evil plan and mako ends up in jail

so what’s book 3, to them? it’s, being able to find themselves without having that codependency. mako no longer has someone to protect, which is what he’s based his whole life around so far - bolin’s doing fine and he’s no longer dating either korra or asami. and bolin’s trying his hand at some of that responsibility (look at how he immediately adopts kai who is explicitly them but younger because he wants to be the older brother for once). most importantly, they find the rest of their family, and stop being defined by being orphans. they don’t have to be that singular piece of a puzzle, they can just be themselves. and that’s where bolin’s character really starts to shine, because that’s when they bring in the bending plot, and bending, perhaps more than any other character, really gets to the heart of who bolin is

if you want more of my thoughts on that i have an essay here, but tl;dr: bolin’s an extremely powerful earthbender, but he’s not a metalbender because metalbending requires you to double down on the earth characteristics and think like an earthbender, and bolin doesn’t, he’s too fluid for that, which is one of his major strengths, so of course he can lavabend

and finally - to his motif itself! (as a note, i’ve put all of these in the same key to show where it repeats, but there’s a variety of keys used in the show)

as far as i can find, it first shows up in s3e8, when bolin stuns p’li with this well placed shot

[Edit: it first showed up in the s2 finale, but again in a simplified version and again with him doing something heroic with earthbending, so we can still start the analysis here]

mako volunteers bolin for that job, because he knew bolin was capable of it. why? because bolin landed an identical shot earlier in the episode, after trying to metalbend, getting frustrated he can’t, and cheating with some extremely well aimed earthbending. it’s just a short refrain and you barely notice it, but it’s the first connection of this motif with the theme of bolin’s bending

it looks like this, and it’s always played on a trumpet, which is part of why i call it the hero theme, because, if you’re looking at music from a western perspective, trumpets were used to herald kings, and then used to represent military glory, and then when superhero themes started happening, they used trumpets too - it’s basically western music shorthand for hero these days

(it’s also symmetrical so that helps with the good vibes)

and he’s saving everyone here, so it’s linked to his bending, but it’s also linked to his heroism

it ties the two together, and they are tied together.

when’s the next time it shows up? episode 10, when the brothers are in prison in ba sing se, and bolin tries to metalbend them out. again, he’s doing this to save people, and this motif gets a few notes added on to the end in a raising pattern - they’re inspiring, but they don’t go anywhere. which is exactly what happens in the scene, because he’s trying to go about this in the wrong way. mako believes in him, but it won’t (and doesn’t) work

it appears in episode 12 when bolin saves everyone from ghazan destroying the temple, in a more fancy orchestral remake of the first version - it’s impressive, but it hasn’t actually developed yet, it’s just his discovery of it

the book 3 finale already has its own fucking amazing soundtrack, i love that entire episode’s score, but it gets its own moment there too, and the first real development!

because what we hear is not what we’ve heard before. we know it’s the same theme, because it’s using those signature trumpets, but it’s the second part of this phrase, the answer to the question supplied by the first one. why? because bolin’s figured out who he is and he’s starting to use it. it still hasn’t settled yet though, it’s early days and he’s still just turning ghazan’s lava back on him, so again, it raises, leaving it on a question mark

it doesn’t appear in s4e7 when he lavabends as a warning against the escaped prisoners, because he’s using it as a threat, not to help people. but it does later in the episode when he uses lavabending to save them from kuvira. and that’s when we get the first full phrase, question and answer

it keeps the first motif identical, takes out the first note of the second, and ties them together - except now it’s not open ended, now it knows where it’s going - it’s been three years, at this point bolin is confident in both himself and his bending

and then that phrase appears all over the place in the finale, because all bolin does is save people - everyone from the exploding building, he slows the giant mecha with lavabending, he saves opal, he slows the giant mecha again by collapsing a building on it, and most importantly, he’s the one rescuing his brother this time, instead of the other way around (though that one doesn’t get a motif appearance bc admittedly a fuck ton of other things are happening in the soundtrack at the time)

so to that question asked in book three - who is bolin when not next to someone else? well, funnily enough, we saw it in book two as well, just in a warped way, playing nuktuk. it just wasn’t truly him because it was created by varrick, and he needed to get away from varrick too. the question put forward by the narrative is who is bolin, and the answer given by the music is, he is a hero. and i don’t know why bolin is the only one to get a theme like this, but i think it may have something to do with the fact that, while everyone in team avatar has been a hero and saved people, he is the only one who has, from the start, solely been motivated by wanting to help people. he follows his heart, and his heart cares, about everyone. it’s been the driving force behind almost everything he’s ever done. and i love him so much

[omegawolverine]

Plesse tell me about queerness in the get down!!

okay okay queerness in the get down let's fuckn goooo

disclaimer: I havent watched this show in full for like 5 months at least, probably gonna get something wrong and/or forget some more important bits. also this wasnt proof read I just word vomited

tws: period typical homophobia, abuse mention, f slur use, bury your gays trope, overdose mention, mention of a creepy possible age gap (the age gap hasnt been confirmed so that's why its possible), cops

going from least to most prominent queer characters, let's start with mylene cruz!

so, from the beginning of this show she has an established romantic relationship with ezekiel (although the status of their actual relationship changes frequently throughout the show) and though this was a relationship she was hesitant to pursue, it is clear that she does have romantic feelings for him and if not for them both having growing careers in very different music genres (zeke specifically working in a genre that she repeatedly labels as bad because she thinks they're ruining records + that it isnt real music because they're using someone elses piece and rapping over it, that's not really important here tho lol) they probably wouldve had a much healthier, smooth sailing romance. that being said theres a few things that happen in the show that, while not explicitly clear, or even really good coding at that—to the point where you wont catch if you really arent looking for it (and trust me, I always look for coding, hers was just so little that it flew over my head until I saw someone else mention it)—are still cool to think about!

so, for starters, I wanna mention the toy box performance, which was performed by mylene and regina, who are best friends. that's all cool and shit, and you dont really think much about it...until you hear about the fact that the show runners purposely colored a lot of the scenes in that performance with the bi colors. like. the writers after the show ended basically said "oh yeah there was plans to make her coding more explicit, but our shit got cancelled soooo" and then dropped the fact that she was gonna be bi (or at least implies bi) in the series, which puts a new twist on a few things.

now, besides the bi coloring in the background of the toy box performance (which was mostly on scenes with her and regina, which involved a lot of uh,, lowkey lewd dancing. with each other. in very revealing outfits. wooooo), there's her music! I dont tend to read too much into this one bc, like I said before, her coding is fucking light and the writers themselves said they didnt really get to do much with it, but I think some stuff with her music is interesting. specifically how her, yolanda and regina's song set me free blew up because dizzee, resident (lowkey enby coded) bicon, got their song played in a queer club. also that the song was majorly important to dizzee and started playing literally right as he kissed a boy for the first time and realized "oh shit I like boys that's bonkers". also that the song can be taken in a gay way since literally the entire thing is about becoming your true self, fully and unapologetically, which is what both dizzee and mylene's entire character arcs are about. dizzee (and a lot of other queer people, apparently), heard this song about being set free and it resonated with them so much that they got that shit most of its popularity.

speaking of dizzee and mylene, they parallel each other a lot in the way that their arcs are about them realizing who they are, coming into themselves and no longer just letting people treat them like shit in a sense (dizzee starting to tell people essentially that they can call him weird all they want, they can make fun of how he acts, what he likes, how he dresses, etc. but he likes how he is and quite literally saying "it's okay to be an alien" as he has consistently compared himself to one throughout the show vs mylene learning that if she wants to be a disco singer she needs to put her foot down, not let anyone, not even the love of her life, not even her abusive father, stop her from achieving her dreams, etc. and continuing to pursue her career with or without their support). one more little parallel that I think is interesting is during I think s2 towards the end of the show is when dizzee and thor are shown together having fun with each other, painting all over the building and each other and are basically just being happy and in love together and then they have these clips of them being interspersed with clips of mylene at a party where she is starting to realize that if she wants to get anywhere she needs to be her own main priority and that she needs to put her career and her dream, which is what makes her the happiest, above all else if she wants to succeed. idk I just think how the show made these two into a weird parallel, accidental or not, is neat. maybe not an explicitly queer parallel, but I think at least how her music and whatnot helped dizzee, the main queer character in this show, blossom, is important.

moving on we got shaolin fantastic also known as "oh no your internalized homophobia is showing-"

so, heres a quick list of...interesting shao facts:

Consistently referred to as fag/faggot (shaolin fanfaggot is my personal favorite); he gets really defensive about this despite nobody actually thinking he's queer, it's just people being assholes to be assholes, and he is the only character consistently referred to using a slur, especially a homophobic one, especially for a "straight" character. dizzee, a canonically queer character, is called a fag less than shaolin is even though dizzee actively goes to gay clubs, has a not so secret dude he "hangs out with" and wont let anyone properly meet, paints his nails, wears less than straight clothes even by the 70s standards and is just all around the definition of fucking queer (and I mean like in the weird way, not the gay way). in fact theres only like once I can remember him being called a fag and it had nothing to do with him actually being gay it was literally just like thrown out there the same way you would call someone a bitch.

Has only shown sexual interest in women, yet refuses to have deeper relationships with women in general (possibly because of trauma but who knows) but takes his relationships with his "brothers", specifically zeke, very seriously

Tells zeke and zeke ONLY his real name when zeke was planning to stop being his friend bc shao more or less got boo boo, a like 14 year old black kid, arrested for selling hard drugs; he was clearly scared and trying to do anything to keep zeke around, literally chasing him down the street and hounding him until he got zeke to stop and argue with him

Kept threatening to beat up zeke in the end but couldn't actually bring himself to do so, instead saying that zeke is "fucking lucky" before walking away

Let's zeke get away with things that nobody else can, in general just has a weird soft spot for ezekiel that he shows with nobody else

when shao found dizzee with thor in a vaguely compromising situation (like they were just shirtless covered in paint sleeping next to each other but shao had also seen everything they painted on the walls ((which some of it was sus)), it was clear they had painted on each others bodies and dizzee had been routinely disappearing with this guy for weeks now yet not producing nearly as much art, at least, as far as we audience members know) he didnt judge him but instead, waited for him to get cleaned up and then told him something along the lines of "theres a reason why im so secretive blah blah blah [not everyone needs to know everything about me]", which, in context, kinda implies that he might be a lil. a lil homiesexual. jus a lil.

whenever even the possibility of zeke leaving him comes up he absolutely loses it. he has literally cost ezekiel life changing opportunities because he thought zeke would just up and leave him for them. this could be abandonment issues bc he's a severely traumatized character, and that probably does contribute to it, but it also is just not a reaction he has to any of their other friends just randomly dipping in and out of his life soooooo

generally speaking, this mfer has got either bisexual with a big hard on for zeke coding or homosexual with terrible internalized homophobia and still a hard on for zeke coding. either fucking way, that nigga gay. he gay as hell. gay as fuck man. there wasn't really much to analyze here tbh bc the coding is just so fucking obvious if you look for it or you are/have been a gay person who's dealt with at least a little bit of internalized homophobia.

also, just a sidenote, idk how fucking old shao, but I'm praying hes like at max 19 bc I'm pretty sure zeke is a minor in this show and shao definetly is not so the whole him being heavily implied to have a crush on ezekiel thing is kinda. oof. not oof if zeke is like 17 but any younger than that? OOF.

edit: apparently the characters are only supposed to be a year apart in age but i had no clue about that before writing this post and since shaos age was never actually stated in the show i naturally assumed he was an adult since his actor Looks Like An Adult. this is definetly on me to a certain extent, but i also never saw anything about this when trying to find our their ages so 🤷‍♀️ maybe i just didnt look deep enough, sorry!

now moving on to the main event...marcus dizzee kipling :]

so, first things first, let's talk enby coding bc him being bisexual was already confirmed!

um, to start off, I just wanna say I dont think this enby coding was intentional or even really coding, it's just moreso me being a dizzee kin on main and knowing as a transmasc enby he has very transmasc enby vibes. for example:

cool, gender neutral nickname that everyone calls him

paints nails various different colors

the whole wardrobe is just a transmasc enby heaven...fishnet shirts, jean overalls, jackets and cuffed pants galore, the big colorful pins, etc

gender neutral hairstyle (when I had my fro it was very sexy and made it easy to transition between hyper masc and vaguely fem, which is pog)

comparing himself to/representing himself consistently with an alien character (though this is meant to represent his sexuality, it could also double as a gender thing too, not neccesarily bc of the whole nonbinary alien trope but bc an enby who likes aliens might heavily identify or compare themselves to whatever their idea of an alien is, whether that just be a genderless entity or a motherfucker with fly style and no need to be perceived as anything other Wacky As Hell)

moving on from there, let's talk about how his queerness is presented to us and how, while it may be a really good piece of representation, especially coming from netflix, it still lacks in A Lot of places.

so, let's start with good things!

i personally really like the get down's queer rep with dizzee bc it's (for the most part) nonsexualized and very very soft, about dizzee figuring himself out and realizing there is a place where he fits in, and about two teenagers in the 70s falling in love over their shared passion for street art. it also features an interracial couple where both boys challenge stereotypes both about queer men and men of color, which is epic poggers and very sexy. this piece of rep specifically is very important to me bc I am a queer black person and even tho interracial relationships are mostly normalized now, I've still had people give me shit for primarily dating white people in a town that is...primarily white lol

mm anyways, I can also appreciate how in the get down, dizzee being represented by rumi the alien is not a thing specifically related to gender (as it often is) and instead is about his sexuality and just in general weirdness and how it has led to him being alienated amongst his peers, poc or otherwise. him seeing himself as an alien is not about just his queerness, which is important, it is about him being a queer black man who talks different, acts different, dresses different and is "soft"—he isnt a walking black male stereotype and he wouldnt have been seen as masculine back in the 70s by any stretch of the imagination. this can be relatable to a wide spectrum of queer poc, from queer black men currently who still have to deal with this shit or to people like myself who are afab neurodivergent mixed race enbies that have always been signaled out as weird and alienated for it. dizzee is god rep bc while he has a small part in this show, his parts are very impactful, hard hitting and show queer poc of all ages that they arent alone and that it's okay to "weird", you just need to embrace it because somebody will love you for you, as thor did for dizzee.

that being said theres um. some minor problemas here,,,

namely:

dizzee and thors first kiss

the lack of development this pairing got

the way dizzee was confirmed bisexual off screen, he never said the words himself, just showed interest in both genders

the way dizzee and thor were never even confirmed boyfriends or just fwb so most of the fandom just calls them boyfriends bc Why Not

dizzee was implied fucking DEAD??? AT THE END OF THE SERIES?????? AND THOR WAS IMPLIED ARRESTED?????????????

now, these might have been things that wouldve been fine had the show been given it's full run but it wasnt which is why we are now left with probelms.

so, from the top, let's go over these: dizzee and thor's first (and only "on screen") kiss was one that was shown in a montage of other queer people making over and doing other vaguely romantic/sexual things, one of those things being a whole ass naked titty being mouthed at, but the actual kiss...was just not shown? like they really did just say "yes they kissed <3 you know this from the context clues of it being in a montage with kissing, hickey giving and titty sucking <3 but no we will not show it <3" LIKE HELLO? I SAW A NAKED BOOBIE BUT NOT TWO MEN KISS??? HUH????????

also, dizzee and thor were both fucking high as hell during this bit like this isnt a terrible thing but it's also like sometimes you do shit when you're high that you wouldnt do sober and they just never kissed again on screen so like?? like idk that's not that bad but it does kinda irk me since they deadass got no other on screen intimacy after that unless you including painting on eacher other or sleeping next to each other on a shitty mattress but not touching at all during it bc they were both at opposite ends of the mattress like half way off it

so yeah, that was trash. then we got lack of development, which kinda goes with the "dizzee being a bisexual but he never says it in canon" thing cause like...okay dizzee was already sort of a side character from the get go like he wasnt the mc by any means, but he became way more of a background character as things continued until we basically only saw him for performances or when he was with thor, yet they got no fucking development as a pairing other than "dizzee realize he gay, he like thor, he and thor spend time together and ig probably do some gay stuff but we dont really know bc we only ever see them do graffiti together now" like?? tf am I supposed to do with that shit. answer. quickly. and then theres dizzee not being confirmed bisexual, which is just a running problem with shows literally doing everything to say a character is bi except for having the character just...say they're bi? which would be so easy? like a good way dizzee and thor couldve had some development is by thor teaching dizzee things about the queer community that he didnt even know existed, thor couldve helped him understand what being bi meant and helped him label himself and whatnot but instead we got an off screen confirmation that the writers had bisexual in mind when writing him. which is garbagé.

the whole thor and dizzee never having a confirmed relationship status is also a development problem cause like literally nobody knows if they were just friends who made out, maybe fucked, who knows, or if they were dating bc dizzee does give a love confession but a love confession doesn't mean there is a relationship, especially since thor didn't say he was in love either (as far as I remember, I could be wrong, plus whether or not that really happened or was apart of dizzee literally overdosing during a performance is unclear so 🤪)

and now for the biggest issue...bury your gays trope.

during the season 2 finale, dizzee and thor are chased by cops after they are found doing graffiti, one of the cops is able to catch thor while the other chases dizzee into a train tunnel and there is a train seen headed straight for him before the show cuts to black on a train horn. the show writers claim that if they had gotten another season, dizzee wouldve been alive but since they didnt and since that's essentially super fan trivia knowledge, most people dont fucking know that and instead had to watch a black queer teenager chose death over being fucking arrested by a white cop. on top of that, thor didnt see any of that shit because he was caught and the cop started hauling him off while dizzee was still being chased so thor literally has no clue where his friend/possible boyfriend fucking is or that he's likely dead in a goddamn tunnel all alone, unless you count the fucking pig that chased him in there who wouldve died too. this shows rep was so fucking good as far as most shows go on not having major fucking problems, on not being toxic and over sexualized, etc, etc. and then they just. killed a black queer teenager for no fucking reason. like it was literally the last episode ever, it would add nothing to the plot, it would just devastate fans and devastate it fucking did. I dont cry easy but seeing a character I identified with, who I had hyperfixated on, die because he'd rather that than be arrested is terrible. it fucking sucked.

so yeah. that's my all too extensive thoughts/analysis on the get down's queerness. theres definitely stuff I missed, or misinterpreted, or looked too much into, etc, etc., but this was a fun thing to spend time writing sooo yeah!! thanks for the ask anon, sorry this was just a big rambley info dump, but hopefully you get some enjoyment out of it since it took like 3 hours at least 😭😭 feel free to ask clarifying questions lol

[woolieshubris]

OKAY im going to preface rant with this- 1) i know none of yall know this game cuz while its popular enough to get a series, its not really popular enough to be part of the general consciousness 2) I've only played the 3rd and 4th installments, so I dont have an extensive knowledge on the series. What I'd want to see in Girls Mode 5 (Aka, style savvy 4, or new style boutique 4) 1) UPDATED TEXTURES. this game has been going on since the DS days, and they just port the old clothes into the new games to pad out the inventory. It's nice because it means you can pretty much move on to the new games with little to no regrets, however the textures on the 3ds XL screen, and emulator (because emulator is the only way to get HD screenshots lol rip) are really really nasty. It's super pixelly but not in a nostalgic way, and it clashes heavily with the newer textures and clothes, making it harder to coordinate outfits. The new game would be coming out on the switch, so the old textures would be even more noticeable when on a TV. You don't need to update the models itself, just the textures on the models. 2) KEEP THE MINI PLOTS. GM 4 has a really cute system with the characters, making it so a handful of them have reoccurring stories and plots! (Not every single one of the characters, because there are tons). I really like this, and it genuinely makes me play day after day. 3) FIX THE DAYS SYSTEM. GM 3 had a day system similar to animal crossing, where the stores and story would only update on a day by day basis. I liked the stores only updating once a day (made it less overwhelming to check for new clothing) but the story progression was longer. GM 3 did have less plot to follow however, so it made more sense. GM 4 has a day system typical of life sim games, where you go to sleep when you run out of tasks to do for the day. I like this system because it doesn't limit the things you can do in one play session, and it can make the story more engaging. It also updates the stores more often, making it easier to 100% and collect all of the clothes, however, it makes the game less engaging over time, and doesn't give an incentive to play day after day. I think a mix between the two could create a more interesting game, but I'm not sure how they would go about doing that. There are pros and cons to each system. 4) BRING BACK RAINBOW Rainbow was a character in GM 3, where by taking screenshots of the game and showing them to her, she would find and unlock hidden colors. I really like this mechanic and think it is interesting, even though it can be a bit tedious at times. Maybe a system where instead of you showing the pictures, she automatically tells you if you unlocked them + shows you the photo that unlocked it? 5) REMOVE OR CHANGE THE DESIGN CLOTHES The main gimmick of GM 4 was designing your own clothes. The game doesn't really push you to do it at all, and the clothes they have you design don't match the clothes already in the game. Most of these "customization" options in games aren't actually that useful and I personally just ignore them in favor of prebuilt pretty clothes. I think either changing it so that certain clothes can be recolored by you/dyed, or changing it so that you can recycle clothes into new ones would be interesting, and a good way to add the mechanic to future games. 6) CHANGE THE BUILDING EDITING SYSTEM. GM 3 and GM 4 both struggle with a clunky furniture moving system. The design is similar to happy house designer, however the menus feel clunky to navigate through and are overall more difficult to use. I think revamping it a bit to make it smoother would be the way to go. GM 3 had a dollhouse theme, and so changing the furniture and collecting new pieces was referred to as collecting miniatures, which I liked. 7) INCLUDE MORE STYLES OF CLOTHING. One of the biggest draws of the GM series, that brought me to it specifically, was the subculture themed clothing! They have punk/emo, classic/sweet lolita, gothic lolita, "retro", preppy, decora kei, and probably more. Adding more styles, such

as Mori, would be a good move for the series, and also a good way to market it to a young teen demographic, especially as dress up games become more popular. 8) REMOVE/CHANGE THE BOHO-CHIC ITEMS. A lot of the boho-chic items in the game are actually just culturally appropriated from native americans, which while true to the style it is trying to emulate, is a bit weird to see, and could cause controversy later in the line. This game is made by a japanese company and translated to english, so I understand why they are still in a game that came out in 2017 but still, it isn't a great look for nintendo. 9) ALLOW YOURSELF TO CHANGE YOUR PERSONA LATER IN THE GAME. In GM 4 and 3, at the start of the game, you get to design a character and choose facial features, skintone and height. You should be able to edit the character later in the game, possibly through settings or something. Fixed character customization is a bit of an outdated thing anyways, with most modern games allowing you to change your avatar as much as you want. 10) CHANGE ONLINE PLAY. Currently, in GM 3 and 4, online play usually consists of sharing the building and your personas outfit. I think there should be less of an emphasis of sharing the building, and more emphasis on sharing outfits, since that is what the game centers around. Obviously the boutique interior is the place you are going to see the most in the game, but focusing on outfits you have created makes more sense for the series and genre. There are more additions/changes to the series that I'd like to see, such as a larger male catalogue/allowing to pick a male avatar, a range of body types, LGBT rep, or disability rep, however, I know those are mostly too much to ask for a light hearted dress up game RPG made for a young female demographic, sadly. I think marketing the game largely to young teens on platforms such as instagram and tiktok, and emphasizing the subculture styles such as punk and y2k would be a great marketing strategy, especially since those demographics are flocking to online dress up browser games that have a similar focus. Promoting the shareability of the ingame outfits by having an easy/quick to use photo booth and an easy way to crop the photos/videos to fit a phone format would also be a great way to have the game spread through word of mouth. Of course, nintendo can kind of suck at marketing their games, especially more obscure titles like this, so I don't expect most or really any of this to happen.

[machinegunbun]

🤘-

What about reader is the manager/assistant and fucks up some bug career opportunity for them?

Mistakes can allways happen but that was something really big

Maybe even gets fired for it?

Fucked It +

TW?: Mostly angst but theres some very slight smut with readers S/O

A/N: Not to age the writing but Im writing this as colson tweets that he’s gonna play at the halftime show in the next few years. S/O= Significant Other. I wanted to keep it kinda gender neutral cause bi people exist i dunno. 

Word count:1.8k A little longer than a blurb, but just as dialogue-y

This year had been stressful, to say the least. There was the release of tickets to my downfall, and along with that the cover scandal, the bloody valentine music video, downfalls high, the snl episode. It was like every second of your day was filled with something, you rarely got the chance to spend time with your S/O.

That’s right, you had an S/O. Being Colson’s manager wasn’t your entire existence, although you’d seemed to have forgotten that recently. Their name is Devin, and they are not very happy with you.

They’d broken down in tears your first full night home, telling you how under appreciated they had felt while you were away. Devin had a life of their own too, though, and considering the pandemic at hand had chosen to go stay with their family to avoid the covid hot spot that was LA. You understood, and as much as you hated to admit it you barely even realized they were gone. You didn’t know what that meant, but you knew whatever it meant wasn’t anything good for your relationship, but, you loved them and you wanted to recreate that spark.

You wanted to put work into them, and you, and most importantly your relationship. You’d gotten through the emotions, but as for the spark there was only so much you could do thousands of miles away. So, you decided to put in the work and devise a plan. Your plan started about an hour and a half ago, beginning with a shower and ending with your favorite lipstick.

You love Devin and you want nothing more than to wrap them up in a soft blanket and kiss them on the forehead and take them on picnics, but you also wanted them to look at you and touch themselves. You could do one of those things in your current situation, and you felt both would help to replenish your spark.

You looked good too, dressed in your lingerie with your hair all done. You felt so unbelievably sexy just looking at yourself in the mirror, you wished they were here to witness it.

You stood in the doorway of your bedroom, your LED lights set to red, your phone set to start recording in 

3…

2…

1…

You tried your best to pose sexily in the small frame, arching your back and playing with your hair, slowly slinking down the wall. You were sure when you sent this Devin would be calling you within seconds. You checked the video, editing it to the length you liked and saving it to your camera roll.

Butterflies began fluttering in your stomach as you looked at your message app. You had seen Devin in so long, what if the spark had really gone? What if they didn’t want you anymore? Or what if they just didn’t want you right now, what if this wasn’t the right thing to do?

You took a deep breath, looking yourself in the mirror and quickly clicking through your messages, sending it before you could think too much and clicking your phone off. You moved from the bathroom, moving to your bed, staring at your phone and waiting patiently for a response.

After thirty minutes you gave up, too nervous to check if they’d seen it. You were cool.

Well, you were cool now that you had cried and and picked yourself apart piece by piece, ending up on the couch in a heap of blankets eating a family bag of your favorite chips to yourself. Family guy played on the TV, the episode only really meant to drain out the noise of your thoughts, and momentarily the bling of your phone. You would’ve missed it entirely if it weren’t for the flickering of your flashlight that you’d enabled to make sure you didn’t.

You rushed from your comfy blanket fort, spilling your chips on the way, your hand wrapping tightly around your phone. You turned it around, seeing that the notification that had popped up was only from Dylan, the guy that got Colson a place at the halftime show. 

Work, great, the thing that started this all. Was this the universe telling you it was over? You read on.

It simply said “Call me.”

Your eyebrow raised, considering waiting until tomorrow. You opened your messages, seeing that you had accidentally sent him the video of you in your lingerie. Fuck, thats why Devin hadn’t responded.

You opened his contact, calling him quickly, each ring feeling like needles being inserted into your brain.

“So I hope you understand why we wouldn’t want to be associated with that unprofessionalism.” He said, you’d zoned out through his lecture

“I understand, I do, but I hope you’d be willing to reconsider as this was a mistake on my part and not Colson’s. And seeing as this isn’t public I hope we can just brush this all under the rug and forget it ever-”

“I hear you, but I don’t think that will be possible. Mistake or not it was unprofessional on so many different levels

“But, sir-” You tried, your fingers thumbing over the buttons of the remote to mute the tv.

“It’s over, I’m afraid.” He responded, a beeping noise signalling the call had ended

Oh, nicer, you thought sarcastically, it wasn’t the universe after all, it was the manager.

Tossing your phone on the couch beside you, you retreated to your blanket fort, unmuting the TV.

Colson and the boys had been looking forward to performing at the halftime show since you’d met them. They’d been so excited when you told them you’d got them a spot. Although it was the last thing you wanted to do right now, you knew you had to break the news to Colson. 

You stared at your phone, willing yourself to reach over and call him, eventually drifting off into an unsatisfying sleep.

“Oh good, you’re here! Okay, so I was thinking for the halftime show-” Colson began, but you cut him off before he could continue

“Oh, yeah, about that.” You say, rubbing your head in hopes it would soothe the dull ache that had begun to rear its ugly head. You opened your eyes in time to watch the excitement drop from Colson’s face.

“I…” You began, not sure how to start “I fucked it.” You began to laugh, taking a moment to acknowledge how ridiculous the situation had really been.

“What do you mean?” He asks, knitting his eyebrows together in confusion.

“Devin and I are going through a bit of a rough patch with them being away and all, so I decided to try and,” You made a vague shimmy movement with your shoulders “spark things up a bit. You know the silhouette challenge on tik tok? I did that, but I got nervous when I sent the video and I was on the couch for like hours crying too scared to see if they even looked at it, next thing I know I’m getting texted by Dylan asking me to call him.” You paused, partly for dramatic effect and partly to let yourself laugh. You buried your face in your hands, Colson watching in amusement, eager for the end of your clearly hilarious story.

“I accidentally sent him my nudes. It was so fucking embarassing, oh my god!” You finish, looking up from your hands to realize no one else seemed amused.

“What’s that got to do with the halftime show?” Rook questioned.

“Oh, right.” You’d completely lost track in the midst of your rambling “He said it was completely unprofessional and he wasn’t interested in working with us.”

Colson remained silent for a moment, looking over to the other boys before responding “He isn’t interested in working with you.” Your eyebrows furrowed at this, looking between the boys..

“What’s that mean?” 

“This is the gig of our lifetime. I’ve- We’ve wanted to play the halftime show since… forever. This was our one chance and because of you we got booted out. And you were laughing about it.”

“I’m sorry, it was a genuine accident, I thought you’d find it funny. Some corporate guy saw my tits ‘cause my relationship is failing, if I don’t laugh I cry.”

 “You’re the one who sent him the nudes. This is your fuck up.”

“Yeah, okay. But I work for you, so by association he won’t work with us.”

“Then you aren’t a part of ‘us’ anymore.”

“Colson, seriously? It was a fucking accident. You’re being ridiculous.”

“Watch your tone, I think you’re forgetting you work for me. I’m a nice guy, but this isn’t my shit to deal with.”

“I’m sorry.” You repeated, your voice lowering. It was easy to forget Colson was your boss, he never treated you like an employee. There was more respect between the two of you than any boss/employee relationship you’d ever seen before. You’d never even seen him mad before today. You were genuinely lucky to have had this experience, to think that it was about to come to an end broke your heart.

“Is sorry going to get us this gig back?” The question was rhetorical, but you shook your head “Then I’m sorry, I can’t let this pass me up because of something you did.” Colson says, staring you down. You stood like a statue in your place, unsure whether or not you should leave. The tension in the air could be cut with a knife.

You took it upon yourself to make the decision to turn and leave, driving to the nearest gas station, where you sat in your car, crying in the parking lot.

Everything was fine and in the matter of a week it had all gone to shit. How did this happen?

You were in a happy relationship, and now they were living with their parents for who knows why and telling you they felt neglected. Your career was going amazing and you’d ruined it completely with one mistext.

You started your car back up, settling on the hope that maybe Colson and Dylan would come to their senses, and come Monday morning you would still have a job.

[aloera]

The ask prompt is too long to fit into an ask TT_TT but here's the doc for it docs(.)google(.)com/document/d/1yDI7iFRhOJ8ENv_IwZAo3rDSUqj80EiJROS10RzRbj4/edit

the lengths u are going for this,,, much appreciated you're very sweet!!!

prompts + answers under the cut!!

INTRODUCTION

Name: aloera

AO3 account: aloera

Fandoms you write for: bnha

How many stories have you written so far: 19

FANFICTION PROFILE

What's your favorite fandom to write for? hmm,,, used to do pjo and eah (ever after high) and eah was fun as fuck i will say!!! i think bnha is my fav mostly bc i made the most friends in this fandom :D

What's your favorite character/person to write for? bkg and kirishima!! cannot choose do not make me <3

Fic you'd want to improve? probably what we deserve? i rushed the beginning and the confession is a bit stilted imo

Hardest fic you've written? between lion and men -_- bc there is so much canon compliant stuff i've gotta write out before i get to the divergence and its HARD

Easiest fic you've written? come home to me!!! it happened so easily,,, no second guessing no writers block just vibes <33 was lovely i miss it

What would you say is the most "famous" fic you've ever written? also probably come home to me? its got the most interaction

first line of the first fic you've ever written and published. [not including my 2014 ffnet fics] "The bell rings, class starts, and Katsuki and Midoriya are inexplicably absent." from come home to me

Have you ever done a collab with another writer? yes!!!!! on two separate occasions and its so fucking fun i highly recommend trying it out its the best

Do you beta? if asked but honestly im a shit beta lmao

Do you like joining fic fests/exchanges? depends on what i have going on irl but in general yeah!!

FANFICTION PREFERENCES

Fluff or angst? definitely fluff

"OCs" or "Reader" inserts? reader inserts!! have been going ham on them recently

Blurbs or drabbles? blurbs!!

One thing you love about fanfiction i just. i really love slice of life romance?? and most media doesn't give you that bc its dedicated to plot and action and that's valid!! but fanfiction fills in the gap which is really nice

One thing you don't like about fanfiction most of the stuff i don't like is less about actual fanfiction and more about how people behave about it

What is/are your favorite fandom author/authors? IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE!!! TURN IT UP!!!

bnha: hiuythn, rae_tnub, Moniix, Ata_Lanta, wrunic, chezka, PurplePersnickety, surveycorpsejean, mahadevi, arxaris, deviance, Oceanbreeze7, MikeWritesThings, bonnia, wonhaebunny, dinosuns

voltron: hiuythn, Oceanbreeze7, DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee, arahir, dinosuns,

and honorable mention to loveclouds im not even in the haikyuu fandom i just love their fics So Much

these are just the ones off the top of my head i have so many favourites idc if i'm only supposed 2 have one!! die mad about it!!!

What is your favorite trope? secret relationship + relationship reveal til the day i die babie <3 <3

Least favorite trope? hm,,, probably just like. angst lmao i cannot stand 90% of it

A fanfiction cliché that you can't help but love? coffeeshop aus,,,, so good

Do you have a type when it comes to pairings? the otp where its like. piece of shit + himbo = love. ex. krbk, catradora, jade/beck

Favorite setting/au? hm,,, truly i cannot pick one KGKSJNHKj but i really like college aus!! and modern aus!! and roommate aus!!

Explain the meaning of your favorite line of dialogue you've written as if someone hasn't read it in context. “He doesn’t know,” Katsuki says, softly. “My timer stopped and nothing happened. He’s not mine.”

the line is from what we deserve!! it's a soulmate au where your timer counts down to the moment that you meet your soulmate!! bakugou's timer ends at USJ when he and kirishima attack kurogiri at the same time (impulsive kings <33) but kirishima's timer doesn't end until kamino because that's when he accepts himself as bakugous soulmate!! unfortunately, when bakugous timer has reached 0, he turned to see that kirishima's was still ticking and therefore believes that kirishima isn't his soulmate.

this line just,, idk. it's really sad. bakugou is such an action-driven character? if something doesn't go his way he Makes it go his way. he's got this insanely volatile quirk and he's got impeccable control of it!! but his love for kirishima isn't something that he can change and he's not going to ruin kirishima's chance of finding his own soulmate because he loves him and wants him to be happy. i really wanted to focus on how resigned he is? and how unusual that is for a character like him.

Favorite trope/genre to write? again, secret relationship with relationship reveals <33 fluff in general is my wheelhouse!!!

A trope/genre you haven't written but think would be a fun challenge? idk if this counts?? have been working on some dead dove concepts!! its super different from what i normally write so its a cool challenge

The one trope/concept you'll never touch and why probably cheating/infidelity?? it just looks,,, super difficult to write well and i don't have enough of an interest in it to try it out

Which do you prefer to write: longer or shorter fics? shorter!! low attention span gang <3

Ideal length to read? 5-10k?

Ideal length to write? 4-8k!!

How long was the longest fic you've ever written? control fraek is around 28k i think?

Have you ever written an AU? yeah!! i've done restaurant au's, soulmate au's, pro hero aus, and fantasy aus (general, not the bnha fantasy ending)

What's your favorite AU trope? hm,, probably when two people in authority are in a secret relationship? ceo's/uni professors/etc etc

Have you ever written smut? yeah!! was. difficult tho

What's your comfort genre? (the one you fall on most in writing/reading) fluff,,, hurt/comfort,,, fix-it fics with happy endings <3

If you were to start writing in other fandoms, which would they be? maybe jjk?? the characters are really cool!!!! fr i might go back to my ever after high roots i love the characters and setting so Much its so fun!!! idec if no ones into it anymore!!!!!

Is there a trope you think you could be easily recognized by in your writing? i've had people say they saw the mention of buff hagakure and recognized it was me so. probably that skdjhnksjd

WRITING STYLE

How would you describe your style? i tend to use shorter sentences and pretty simple words i think? and i gravitate towards lighthearted concepts that allow for ensemble casts and humour!!

Describe your style in three words romcom but fanfic

Favorite words to use when writing? the word reverent!! fuckin love including it!!

Dialogue tags or no dialogue tags? (she said, he said, they said, etc) dialogue tags!!!

Favorite dialogue tag (other than said, if you use them) again idk if this counts but "they said softly" is unmatched

Long sentences vs short vs a mix short <33

What colors would you use to describe your writing? hm,,, depends on the fic i would say?? control fraek is dark green to me?? kinda like a forest at night yk?? scary but there's still life there. sugar cookies is yellow like early morning sunlight, when it rains is yellowy-orange like a caution sign. not gonna list all of them cause theres a lot its just. do u get it? the colours change based on the vibe of the fic.

What song or music genre would you use to describe your writing? think. i am constantly trying to emulate that moment at the end of wasteland baby when hozier goes "im in love/im in love with you."

What kind of metaphors do you rely on? religious metaphors my beloved <33 they're just so pretty!!! i also love comparing stuff to water for some reason?? like that ocean vuong quote thats like "what are you now?/water." it goes hard!!!

What's something you'd say is experimental in your writing at this time? definitely action!! i have,,, no idea how to write it so anything i do is really just me playing around and seeing what works and what doesn't

Do you prefer to write by hand or to type? i've tried both!! personally i prefer typing because it goes way faster but i will say that writing by hand lets me get words down when i'm going through writer's block

What is your preferred place to write (notebook, laptop, cellphone, etc.)? laptop!!

What app/apps do you use to write (word, notepad, etc.)? google docs skjdnkjh its fine on desktop but mobile is,,,,, disgusting

Do you keep a notebook or file/notes page in your phone/device for notes on your writing? ngl i just have everything organized in my drive?? one folder per fandom and then sub folders for ideas+hcs, unfinished wips, and finished fics. multichaps get sub sub folders so i can organize outlines and drafts

Do you listen to music to help you write? yeah!! playlists organized by fic vibe :D

Where do you usually go to write (bedroom, living room, etc.)? mostly in my bedroom??? but moving around to different stops helps too i think!!

How long does it usually take for you to write? again this depends on what i have going on irl, how attached i am to the idea, my mindset at the time, etc!! i am,, the least consistent person skjnhdkjh.

What's your favorite font to use when writing? times new roman my beloved

Other writing habits? sometimes i'll write in the dark?? bad for my eyes but for some reason it gets the words flowing

CONCEPTUALIZATION

How do you conceptualize your ideas? (See specific moments like they're a movie, writing specific lines in your head, don't know until you put the words on paper, etc.) i tend to get inspiration from movies, books, poems, or other fics!!! sometimes one line just makes me go oh,, i want to write something like that,,, and then it helps me create an idea that makes me feel the same way?? i did this with control fraek!!!! i wanted a scenario where bakugou was cold and calculating and i was like hm. to do that he’d have to be focusing on something important. and from there i was able to flesh out the rest of the idea.

Which comes first: the pairing or the plot? with krbk its always always the pairing,, i'll be sitting there like wow <33 i love them <33 what if one of them had amnesia <33 (which, yes, wip!!) otherwise it's usually the plot!! and i slot in characters that i feel make sense

Have you ever used a prompt? yeah!! used a prompt for wlw week 2020 and it was fun as hell

Do you write around the story around a specific scene you want to get to or do you start from a plot idea definitely the first!!!! i almost always write like,,, a super messy scene thats 90% dialogue, keep it in my head, and then write the entire fic around that one moment

Do you find that you include a projection of some part of yourself in the way you write a character? a lot of the time when i write love confessions or love in general i'll have one of the characters think or say that the other person makes their head quiet? and it's because that's what i feel whenever i'm in love?? a quiet mind. i project on characters yeah but i think most of the projection actually goes to the way that i write love

Do you research some of the things you write deeply, partially and kind of wing the rest, or play entirely by ear (in this case, go with whatever base knowledge of the subject you have)? most of the time if i do research it'll be about the setting (ex. the izakaya in to have and to hold) or if i'm having the characters interact with an object that they like. need to know how to use (me, in control fraek: google. hey google. does someone die if they get shot in the foot??? no???? awesome thank u <3)

Have you ever had an idea for a story and forgot about it? lmaoo yeah all the time i'll find like 500-2k words of concepts in my gdocs like i do. not remember this at all

Is there a trope you think you could be easily recognized by in your writing? probably krbk secret relationship lmao

Are there concepts you've tried that turned out better than expected? yeah!! i fully thought the action in control fraek would be awful but it turned out not bad??? which im happy with

Are there concepts you've tried that turned out worse than you expected? again, what we deserve, i personally think it would have worked out better if i'd paced it slower and drawn out the pining but i. do not feel like going back to fix it so its staying the way that it is. pining is so fucking hard to do AHHHH i get so tired with it!!! im like just date already!!!!

PROCESS

How do you come up with titles? in rare occasions (literally. all my multichaps for some reason) the title comes after writing like .5 words of the first chapter im like YES this is it!!!!! sometimes i write the whole thing and pick out one line that fits (what i did with come home to me) a lot of the time i just. steal from songs or poems that i like

What's your favorite emotion to cause on your readers? i like making people happy!!!! love when people comment saying they're cheered up

What's your favorite emotion to write? lovelovelovelovelovelove

Have you ever cried or felt any emotion while reading something you've written? never cried?? but sometimes i'll rereading my hurt/comfort fics 4. yk. comfort

Do you write in order or whatever comes to you? in order!! unless i have a scene that i Need to write and i'll quickly jot it down so that i don't forget

Usual way you procrastinate while writing? ...doing asks like this, making playlists, discord, watching netflix. what don't i do smh

Do you outline or free write? i am. so shit at outlines. i mostly free write and write lil notes for stuff that i wanna add later

Do you set word goals or scene goals (scenes you want to include)? yes!! like i said i'll write loose notes for scenes that i want to add later!! it gives me something to write towards :D

What do you consider when writing your scenes? what goes into making the atmosphere and mood you want? to set a scene i do two things? the first is like,, the five senses bc that always sets the scene really well and makes it feel Real. i'll visualize stuff in my head like its a movie and write out what i would want to tell the set designer?? if the lights are low, if the space is busy, if it's supposed to exude comfort or not.

for putting forward the character's mood one thing i've found that makes a difference is sentence length!! long sentences are good for making a character seem flustered and nervous or not really in control of their emotions? good for love confessions. short sentences are good for when the character is focused on something or short on time. good for fights!!

What's something you never considered to include in your writing that you can't leave out now? def buff hagakure,,,, once i thought of it i was like. if i don't include this at least once in every single fic how could i look at myself in the mirror!!!!!! how could i face anyone!!!!

How do you start a story? establishing a fact about the character or describing the setting! option a is one single thread of gold, option b is between lion and men

How do you end a story? either by tying it back to the beginning or doing like a funny kind of closing??? option a is sugar cookies, option b is a godless society

How do you get out of writer's block? change something!! move something!! i go from typing to handwriting, moving from my bedroom to my living room, switching wips to work on something else!! i do sprints as well?? give myself like fifteen minutes to write something and sometimes 200 words opens up the way for another 2k. sometimes i'll just delete like 500 words and start fresh

Do you edit? or do you toss your writing out there? i edit!!! i'll go over it myself then send it to one or two betas (bee my beloved <33)

How do you edit? do you use spellcheck, grammar checkers, etc? bee is my grammar checker bc he is So Good with grammar. i use grammarly as well for spellcheck stuff mostly?? sometimes my edit process is just like "am i tired of looking at this!! yes <3" and then i post it

PROGRESS

Do you usually like what you write? yeah!!! i post stuff that makes me happy and that i'm fine with rereading!!! i write stuff for self-indulgence reasons first and foremost and i think my writing reflects that sjhnksj

Have you ever written something you didn't like but posted anyways? nope!! even what we deserve i LIKED even if i see a lot of room 4 improvement!! if i don't like smth it's not getting posted

Do you find yourself rereading your writing often? yeah!! the reason i wrote so much krbk secret relationship is because i loved it but i'd read all that there was so i just,, wrote more,, ngl its kinda nice being in a place where i actually like my writing bc i can write stuff that i want to see and really enjoy it!!

Can you tell us anything about your current WIP? sure!! i'm currently working on when it rains which is a fic where bakugou gets hit by a crying quirk!! i'm gonna be using it to explore So Much of all might's character and his relationships with bakugou and aizawa (and i think some people from his past!!)

Can you give us a sneak peek on your current WIP? “You did something. What the hell did you do?” Kirishima sounds pissed off. It would amuse Katsuki if he wasn’t fighting just to stay standing.

“Nothing he didn’t ask for,” Shinsou replies.

“K’ri… shima,” Katsuki croaks out. “‘S fine. Not him.”

His chest collapses back into the familiar dry heaving after that but Kirishima shuts up. He doesn’t apologize to Shinsou.

Kirishima’s a good friend, stubborn and loyal. He stands by Katsuki’s side like an attack dog, blocking him from the view of anyone ogling at his tears.

The last line you've written Ochako knows more than she'd realized. She knows enough to keep her guard up.

It’s not enough.

Open a wip. what’s the first line?

Katsuki wakes up feeling like absolute fucking shit.

INSIGHT

What's your favorite thing about writing? touched on this before but it's mainly just being able to write the things that i want to see and actually enjoy them!!! actually reread them!!!! i thought "wouldn't it be cool if bkg and kirishima owned a restaurant together" and then i wrote it and i like it enough to reread it!!!! being able to create content for myself makes me. so happy

How do you keep yourself inspired? this is gonna sound narcissistic maybe but honestly i'm just really excited about my ideas and where i'm gonna take them and the idea of "i'm gonna get to That scene" keeps me going through the entire thing. also my friends!!!! i'll talk to them about fics and their reactions keep me hyped up enough to finish!!!!

What is your favorite thing to write? just,, slice of life romance,,, stuff thats silly and makes people laugh!!

What do you think your strengths are in writing? i'm good with dialogue!! i do lil voice acting sessions with myself to make sure everything sounds natural and like it's coming from that character skhjnskj

i'm comfortable with my portrayal of love as well??? i spend a lot of time thinking about what it is exactly that i'm trying to get across and i think it turns out well!!

What are things you wish you could practice more? on one hand i wanna get better at writing angst on the other hand i dislike writing angst. do you see my issue

One way you've improved your writing since you began? characterization!! i think i've gotten better at writing characters that are all Different and bring different things to the table!!! i used to project a lot more and it would compromise the characterization because the character was like 70% me and 30% them? not to say that projection is bad but if you do it too much it just,, doesn't read like the character and from a reader's standpoint the narrative can become less compelling

One aspect of writing you're still working on? writing action!!! i. literally hate writing it but i write for a fandom about superheroes so. Unfortunately i gotta learn.

A piece of writing advice you've learned while writing saw this on another tumblr post but they said sometimes if you're struggling with a scene, the problem is five lines back. i've found that to be true!!!! sometimes u gotta delete a chunk and start a little ways back!! i did this with too busy being yours because i was stuck for Weeks and i deleted like 25% of what i had but it helped me actually finish it :D

A bit of writing advice you can't stand when people shit on show don't tell for being overrated lmao bc when u read their writing you can Tell

Something you wish you knew when you first started writing? ,,,,honestly i kind of wish i could know some of the stuff that i used to when i first started writing?? technically i'm better now but creatively i was must better when i wasn't stressing about whether anyone would like what i was writing. so i guess i wish i knew that i should keep that confidence? i kinda wish that i wasn't as insecure about other people's writing styles because i never used to be!!

Something you've learned in life that you apply in writing there's no point in feeling inferior?? writing one genre isn't better than the other. being in one fandom isn't better than being in another. the kind of language you use or the length of your paragraphs- none of that stuff like. matters. what matters is that you're having fun and happy with what you're creating!!!! enjoy other peoples writing but don't let it make you feel worse about yours :D

[twinsoftriumph]

@magicalballerinaprincess submitted:

Hhhihdfhg I don’t want to seem suddenly obsessed but it’s 2:20am and my sleep cycle is in shambles. This strikes me as something you’d like. I have a pet theory that the king cast out the elders from the court, isolating himself to his eventual destruction. however, the elders still all guide you towards the castle- even though they were thrown away, they still want to save the king from himself. And and and!! The king no longer physically exists, but sacrifices pieces of his soul to become skykids so he can fix what he messed up. It’s an endless cycle: The elders don’t know he’s beyond saving and the king doesn’t know they forgive him. Happy stupid in the morning, half past Ass AM, enjoy your Angst(tm)

omg well for starters please take care of yourself although i totally understand how it feels to not have a good sleep cycle 😭

i love this theory though!! and i myself have always definitely thought that there was some sort of rift created between the king and the elders mostly from tidbits of concept art like the fact that only he is corrupted and i believe it also mentions the elders corrupted his crown? AND LIKE i know that some parts of the concept art lore dont hold up in the current game but i definitely think this is a part that could!!!

ive never thought about the fact that the king could be sacrificing himself to restore the stars though :o in my mind i usually see him as just a entity that doesn't really have a 'human' conscience anymore, the storm itself etc but thats a really interesting take and would certainly also make sense! the elders and ancestors of the sky kingdom is working to help restore what they themselves once destroyed, i don't see why the king can't also be a part of that!

this is kinda getting into territory of personal rambled but it kind of reminds me about that one post about death, how death doesn't always have to be personified as merciless and greedy to take lives. rather, it simply embraces whoever dies when their time comes and those who defy death even to its face. and seeing as how the eye of eden represents death in the stages of life, it could very much parallel that kind of concept. obviously there are differences in that idea of death vs the game because every sky kid dies in the same manner, and it's not exactly pleasant; your life force is literally drained from you slowly until you reach your limit. but what im getting at i think is that considering their mission and the manner in which life exists in sky (not the same as human life, constant reincarnation), the existence of eden (while violent and accidental) is also very much a means to an end to achieve balance!

i'm sure that at some point the king was greatly revered as well..... the one who brought the power of the stars to their world, the almighty elder who gave each other elder their powers.. which makes a world where the elders wish to save him despite their history + the fact that he cannot be saved even sadder :(

edit: also i hope this makes sense LOL im not always the best at explaining my thoughts

[shuichi-saiharem]

Shuichi relationship hc's? Saimatsu, saimami, saiouma, saimota ect.

I've been trying to answer this all day but I'm just. Head Empty. the moment someone asks me my opinion i no longer have one kskgkfkskdk.

uhhhmmmm i guess i can try to answer it in a general sense? EDIT: OOP OKAY NOTSO GENERAL ANYMORE ALSO HOW DO YOU ADD READMORES ON MOBILE THIS FEELS LONG IM SORRY

-shuichi gets very flustered by pda, but actually likes it a lot (to an extent ofc) he won't initiate anything big (handholding, hugs, and a chaste kiss or two are about it in a majorly populated areas) but he'll go along with whatever his partner does for the most part. he trusts them enough to be confident to let them know when he's uncomfortable though.

-likes to be the big spoon every now and then, regardless of partner height

-pwease thread your fingers through his hair when you're cuddwing he wikes the it jskgkxks

-saimota funny: they're on a date and shu starts to get cold so kaito offers him his jacket. shu takes it and its like The Least Padded Piece Of Clothing He's Ever Worn. so now they're both cold but shu doesn't wanna say kaito's jacket sucks ass so he just toughs it out jajfvkjd

-shuichi's favourite game to play is the *sticks my hands down your neck* "look how cold my hands are* game. this pisses rantaro off greatly.

-speaking of rantaro, he's a heater so shu doesn't even need to borrow a jacket, he just leans into the guy; not relevant to this point but when artists draw shuichi in rantaro's shirt i fuckin love that shit good shit 👀

- I'm still thinking about that dancing hc post that i was doing rbs back and forth for a while ago. kaede tries to be a good dancer, she really is but it's a lot harder than it looks. shu probably wears shoes if they dance to protect his damn TOES. he's a (mostly) patient guy though so with time she improves!!! shu feels very proud at how far kaede has come and kaede just likes the way he looks at her while they dance (ITS A SOFT LOOK NOT A HORNY ONE NO ONE COMMENT ASS ON THIS POST)

-kokichi. gerblin. shuichi likes to hold him tightly bc of how small he is, yet never gets to because kokichi always insits on being the big spoon. he doesnt even want to be the big spoon he just refuses to let shuichi win. (but that doesn't mean he don't give in some times. kokichi can be the little egg yolk, as a treat.)

-gjgkkfskk... shinsai... i feel like i don't have a great grasp on korekiyo's character so i won't go into anything too much; but what i will say is that i feel like shuichi would be absolutely enamored by kork's many tales (real or not)

-shuichi behind closed doors is a very cuddly person, not to the point that it's like. If You Don't Hold Me And Give Me Attention Rn I'll Die, but u know. if he's sitting down with his partner he'll slowly over time intermingle himself with them

that's all i got

[its-jijii]

bsd girls

im gonna just uh.... warning. i didn’t expect this to be so long but below the cut is 6,745 words of me crying over girls in bsd. be warned, it is probably a long and hellish read lol. (no spoiler warning cause i think everything right now falls in realm of what has been shown in the anime)

okay hi i'm supposed to be editing photos in the car but instead i am going to rant now about how underrated the bsd girls are and why

starting out, the reason that they have so little content and attention is because there are so few female characters. in the armed detective agency the ratio of boys to girls was 8:4 (or 8:2 not counting naomi or haruno)

in the port mafia the ratio was 8:4 (counting elise)

the guild was 7:3

overall in the entire series (not counting gaiden or minor side characters), there are 40 males and 15 females*, which ends up in a ratio of 8:3. 

*counting characters if they showed up in multiple different scenes or had some kind of actual role in the plot

taking this further, the number of girls with an ability are even less. elise is an ability herself, and several girls do not have an ability, such as naomi, haruno, sasaki, aya, and gin. higuchi is unconfirmed to have an ability. teruko and agatha christie have named abilities but unknown details. in the end, that leaves us with a total of ~6 females whose abilities we know of and have played a part in the plot. that is considerably less than all the males in the series, whose abilities we mostly know of- or even if we don't know all of it- the girls are still greatly outnumbered by males present and relevant to the plot. 

now if we are to talk mainly about the girls relevant to the plot, there are so many reasons they should have more attention and recognition. i'm lazy so i'm just going to do them in order of who shows up on the wiki first ️✌️

armed detective agency

yosano is a wonderful character and in my top favorite characters. her personality is based strongly on her real life counterpart, who was an activist and feminist. yosano is a strong female character that has been portrayed correctly in my eyes. she is feminine, yet clearly very tough and assertive in comparison to more submissive characters or female stereotypes. 

she can definitely hold herself in a fight, and has proven to be near invincible due to her strong ability. she doesn't need to rely on it all of the time, which is what makes me like her so much. some characters depend completely on their ability in order to attack, but since yosano's is a healing ability, she is unable to use it to attack. as a result, she is simply a strong and capable character. she is often shown to wield large knives or other sharp objects, and despite her slim body type, she is clearly able to handle heavy weapons with ease and still be agile. many others (males specifically) tend to underestimate her and face the consequences. by either believing she is a weak female, or believing that her ability would be useless in a fight, her enemies end up in trouble when facing her. 

she is the armed detective agency's biggest weapon, with dazai landing in second place. her healing ability allows for any amount of reckless behavior or dangerous fights, because as long as her subjects are still mostly in one piece, she is able to heal them completely as if the injury never occurred in the first place. she even ends up healing her opponents after she beats them- she can bring them to a state of near death and then revive them as many times as she needs to get the information she seeks. she has no problems doing this either, as she is a doctor and is always in the face of injury and death. she knows how her ability operates, so she can stay calm in situations that would cause others to panic or struggle. she is both physically capable and mentally; there is little that can derail her, likely due to her past (vague manga spoilers mention). 

as she already went through the worst of the worst when it comes to having to use her ability, and how she felt about using her ability, she has become strong and overcome her reluctance. she believed her ability to be a curse and that healing others would only bring them unhappiness. when presented with the freedom to choose, to not be forced to use her ability- she became confident and felt okay about using her ability again. as long as her ability wasn't abused like it was in the past, she was able to heal her coworkers without feeling bad about it. in overcoming her fear and unwillingness to use her ability, she became stronger in other aspects too. on top of using her ability in moderation and for good, she stands up for herself and refuses to be dominated or controlled by others. she is a doctor through and through, as she will treat injuries of friends and enemies alike. she is against meaningless death, and believes in equality between men and women.

these are just some examples regarding yosano's strength, which i respect so much. in terms of backstory, she is one of the characters who has shown growth and determination. i won't invalidate the struggles of other characters, but i believe that her progression and character should be more recognized and appreciated. she contributes and helps out more than most people realize. in the series itself, she is a desired ability user because of how useful it is. in the end, yosano chose to align herself with good. she's good to herself, she's good to her coworkers and friends, she's even good to her enemies. and i love her for all of that. 

 next on the list is kyouka. i apologize in advance if this seems a bit scattered; kyouka is not among my top favorites, so i haven't given her a ton of thought beforehand. (aka i am completely winging this)

kyouka as a character deserves better, and while she has shown growth, she has more room for growth still. kyouka was unfortunately pushed into a very sudden and drastic change in her life, and as a result is pretty traumatized and still has to shake off her negative mindset and bad habits. unlikely yosano, she is still very young, and has not had very long to recover from her trauma. she went from living a peaceful and happy life with her parents to being forced into the mafia after watching both of her parents die before her eyes. demon snow, her mother's ability, killed kyouka's mother and then was passed on to kyouka. kyouka could not control her own ability, and was instead forced to become an assassin for the port mafia using her ability. with no control over her ability, and having no desire to kill, it's not surprising that kyouka hated demon snow and the port mafia. upon joining, kyouka was suicidal and begged for akutagawa to kill her. when he refused and instead used her as a tool and treated her like she wasn't human, her view on life changed considerably. she could not view herself as anything more than a killing machine, a mindless and disposable tool for the mafia. upon being treated with kindness, kyouka did not know how to act. she claimed she never left because she had nowhere else to go- other reasons likely included that if she left, she would be considered a traitor and killed, and that she believed that at least in the mafia she had a purpose and use to others, even if it was evil.

kyouka found it necessary to suppress any emotions she had, probably as a coping mechanism for having to commit murder that she didn't really want to commit. she wasn't loyal or invested in the port mafia as a result of her treatment there, so when given the option to leave, she accepted with little resistance. when questioned about things regarding the mafia, she also didn't resist, and ended up willingly offering the information in exchange for food she liked. 

through time spent with atsushi, kyouka has gradually grown from her original thinking and bad actions. in the beginning, she would instinctively use violence or other mafia tactics in order to get what she wanted or to defend herself. atsushi did his best to prevent her from doing that, and since then she has stopped immediately jumping to violence. she still struggles in expression emotions, but as akutagawa also stated, she has improved. she is no longer suicidal or hopeless, and feels like she has more use than just killing. she recognizes herself as a human, and that her worth lies in just her existence instead of what she can accomplish. it's okay if she doesn't use her ability, because the armed detective agency isn't about using abilities or fighting. they solve crimes and sometimes use force, but it is never required. like yosano, she has slowly begun to accept and use her ability. she recognizes that her ability, and herself, are not responsible for the death of her parents or the countless murders she committed. her ability was abused by the mafia, and her ability was given to her by her mother, though she didn't know that at first. after learning that, she has used demon snow in more reasonable situations such as defending herself, causing distractions, and using demon snow to escape situations. she hasn't used demon snow to kill anyone, and the most violent thing she has done is hold someone at knifepoint either with her own knife or with her ability. 

kyouka has grown, though it isn't a sudden extreme change like with dazai and yosano- and she still has some problems she needs to sort out- but she is improving. i tend to not feel for her much because of how little she expresses emotion or opinions, but as soon as she becomes more confident i will appreciate her for more than just being a cute and supportive character. i will always love character growth, and although kyouka hasn't taken big changes regarding emotions, she still has gone far and it deserves recognition. not to mention she is still only 14, but she is doing very well in adjusting to a different life. she didn't deserve any of the bad things that happened to her, so in that i can sympathize. she was not evil by choice like some are, so her decision to completely desert her future in the mafia in exchange for the armed detective agency is wonderful. she is near fearless but protective of those she cares for, and passionate even though it isn't shown well most of the time. 

 port mafia

moving from the armed detective agency to the port mafia, i will begin with higuchi. higuchi is another character i think is considerably misunderstood and underrated. on the surface, yes, she can be seen as obsessive and weird, but she isn't really all of that. i believe that a big part of the hate she gets is due to shipping reasons- she is romantically interested in akutagawa, which can interfere with other ships. as a result, they end up attacking higuchi and pointing out all of the perceived flaws in her relationship with akutagawa.

i do not believe higuchi's behavior to be creepy or bad, actually. to me, she more acts like a teen with a crush. she does not stalk or harass akutagawa, nor has she done anything terrible to him. the hate she gets for crushing on akutagawa is unreasonable to the extreme for me. upon introducing them both, higuchi is shown as being overly eager to assist akutagawa. as she is his direct subordinate and cares about him, it's understandable for her to not want him to be in danger, or simply trying to make his job easier. akutagawa as a person doesn't like help, so he sees higuchi as an annoyance and trouble. he treats her (and kyouka) how he was treated- he's abusive and unnecessarily cruel, though i believe that is also learned behavior from dazai. 

however, despite higuchi's over eagerness to help, she always has the best of intentions. in no way is she trying to inconvenience him or annoy him. she is just doing her job as a mafia member and helping her superior. i cannot understand the faults people find in that. i do not hate people for doing their job, even if their job is evil; it is just what they are required to do, and sometimes you can't fault that. 

her "creepy" tendencies can be narrowed down to stalker-ish and obsessive. it is true that she is interested in akutagawa, but that does not mean that all of her actions are purely from a romantic stance. she cares for him, so it is natural for her to want to protect him. it is understandable for her to be concerned for him- he is not in the best of health, he's reckless, and he refuses help. she wants to avoid him being injured or killed, and not just because she is interested. i believe she also simply respects him as a person, and as her superior. in the mafia, loyalty is a strong tie, and for higuchi, her loyalty isn't 100% rooted in the mafia itself. she is more loyal to akutagawa, but that isn't unusual either. dazai was more loyal to oda, which is why he left for oda's sake. akutagawa is more loyal to dazai than the mafia, so he will respond to dazai's calls and orders. the same can be said for higuchi. 

higuchi may be a bit overprotective, but again, that isn't a bad thing. she saved akutagawa's life when she realized that he was in critical danger and that the mafia would not do anything to save him. she bravely took on the task of raiding the enemies to rescue him while he was incapable of fighting back. she might have died had the black lizard not intervened, but she was willing to risk her life for the person she cared about. she also has implied many times that she does not feel that she is suited for working in the mafia, but she stays anyway because she loves akutagawa. again, that doesn't really pass into obsessive territory. if you are close to someone and love them, of course you would do these things for their sake. of course things with her seem more intense, but that is only because of their job. normally doing something for someone you love is maybe an easy task or errand. in the mafia, it can mean fighting a difficult battle in order to help your loved one(s). this is all circumstantial stuff that feels inadequately thought about. 

regarding her stalker-ish tendencies, i still do not understand where that comes from. the definition of a stalker is "a person who pursues someone obsessively and aggressively to the point of harassment". higuchi does not follow akutagawa around outside of work or harass him. at work, naturally she is with him a lot and doing things for him (it's her job). however, she does not know unnatural things like where he lives or even familial ties. when she passed him on her way home from work, she appeared excited and wondered if she could offer to drive him home. not because she wanted to know where he lived, but simply to do him a favor and potentially increase his feelings for her. she also debated inviting him for tea. to people who think that is weird, i have to think that they have not experienced many normal connections. to coworkers or not very close friends, inviting people out to dinner or for a drink is not uncommon. as it was night, it would make sense for her not to think "i should take him to a cafe" but rather think "i should invite him over for tea". she wanted to drink tea with him, spend time with him, and talk to him. if shops at that time so happened to be closed, it would only make sense to invite them over. i cannot see what is unusual or wrong about that situation. 

when she saw akutagawa meeting with gin, she misunderstood the situation, which again is a forgivable mistake. her thought process was not overly obsessive or weird; at first, she was jealous because she believed gin to be akutagawa's partner. from there, her overprotective side also kicked in- sure, gin could be his girlfriend, but she could also be a spy sent to kill him. not 100% of her malice at gin was because of jealousy, but she was worried for akutagawa too. when she congratulated atsushi on delivering a love letter to gin, it was both out of hope that she would have a chance again, and that akutagawa would be safe if gin was in fact a danger to him. later when she spotted gin, gin was startled and began running. higuchi picked up on her agileness and decided that she was definitely an assassin/danger to akutagawa. she was trying to harm gin, yes, but she did not know it was gin or that she was related to akutagawa. when she later learned that, she was very sweet to gin. she felt no real ill will toward her, but more concern for akutagawa taken a bit too far. i still would not say this is stalker or obsessive tendencies. higuchi is a misunderstood worrywart with a crush. i understand why some people think she is annoying, but at heart she is really just a caring and funny character. she does not deserve the hate she gets, and she also does not get the love and attention she should have. whether or not she "interferes" in your ship, you shouldn't dislike her purely on that and her interest in akutagawa. she is yet another powerful queen and she is trying her best. 

higuchi’s interests aside, she is still a great character. at times she is shown to be unsure of herself or relying on others, but i would say that she is still independent and capable. she does not need others to take care of her; she can handle a weapon fine, and she is brave and selfless in fights. she is not stupid, although her hesitation in some situations can be labeled as that. however, she does not need others approval to make decisions, and she is considered a high rank. i do not know akutagawa’s direct position in the mafia, but if she is serving under him, then she is still above the black lizard. as shown when the squad came to rescue her without her having to order them to, they do have a degree of respect and care for higuchi. she is ranked above them somehow, and that position doesn’t come with ease. they are in the mafia, and i imagine that rising in ranks is difficult. while we don’t know her backstory or how she came into the position she is in now, it should be acknowledged that she did something to get where she is now. 

 kouyou is another one of my favorites. she is a good example of what can be considered a traditional woman while still being powerful and capable on her own. we don't know a ton about her (especially about backstory), but there is plenty of things to appreciate about her. she is loyal, caring, and protective to those she cares for most, notably kyouka and chuuya. kouyou is one of the port mafia’s five executives, and she is another mafia member who worked to get her position. being one of the five executives is second only to the boss of the port mafia. she worked to get into her position, and it is a considerably high rank. mori stated that kouyou is one of the few people strong enough to be able to leave the mafia and live. despite wanting to leave the mafia in the past, she switched her loyalties along the way and now serves the mafia well. 

while golden demon is a strong ability on its own, kouyou is strong in fighting with her own sword. her appearance is deceiving, as she is not portrayed in an overtly threatening way. on the surface, she has no weapons, and her outfit initially gave me the impression that she is the type to refrain from violence or fighting. why would she get blood on her kimono, and how does she fight wearing high heels? (it seems that a lot of female characters fight in heels, which is respectable). however, kouyou is perfectly capable in fighting and defending herself both with her ability and with her own concealed weapon. considering kyouka’s tendencies and style of fighting, she was likely trained as an assassin under kouyou. it can be assumed that kouyou is a good assassin, as she certainly does not appear to be one. 

there is discussion of if kouyou works in a brothel, as her voice actor apparently speaks like one. if this is the case, then it is even more likely that she and her subordinates are trained assassins. there are several things also implying this as her job, which i have no fault with. she is good at what she does if she is one of the five executives. 

while kouyou may be overly negative and cynical, she is not a bad person. in the end, it seems she just wants the best for kyouka. while her idea of what is best is warped, that also cannot be faulted. she is thriving in the mafia, and she directly suffered the consequences of trying to leave. she is trying to prevent the same thing from happening to kyouka. while we can’t necessarily see growth in kouyou due to the lack of scenes with her, it can still be said that she has grown out of her initial plans for kyouka. while she likely still has the same negative mindset, she stopped projecting everything onto kyouka and encouraged kyouka’s freedom and happiness. she recognized that the best for kyouka was not necessarily staying with her, resulting with her letting kyouka go. she grew out of her possessive behavior and bad mindset and changed to do what would help kyouka and make her happy. in the end, she just wants kyouka to be safe and happy, which is a nice motivation considering her aggressive and violent nature toward enemies. 

 elise is going to be a short one due to lack of information and the fact that she is an ability. i do have to say that despite her existence and situation, none of that can really be helped. she is powerful as an ability, and probably is a pretty good cover for a lot of things. she can always be passed off as mori’s daughter, and her young and innocent looks do not give off any impression that she is dangerous or an ability. she has her own personality and opinions, and while they were mostly determined by mori, she is still capable of thinking and acting as she wants. it can’t be said that she is her own person, but she is certainly in charge. so far it does not seem that she is 100% bound to mori’s orders, so she is able to argue and get what she wants. a big portion of why i personally am not a huge fan of elsie is because she is connected to mori. but mori aside, not considering how he acts around her and treats her, i think she’s a good kid. she’s pretty normal considering that she’s an ability, in the mafia, and capable of murdering someone. 

 gin is an absolute darling and i will now tell you why. there is not a ton of canon content of her, so it is understandable that people are not really into her. in the first place, it isn’t clear that she is a girl until a good way through the guild arc. she has no ability, and no definitive backstory or personality. however, that does not mean that she should get so little attention. regarding the mafia, she is very good at her work. she is another assassin, and while her looks can be deceiving, it is also very clear that she is dangerous and deadly. right off the bat she is shown to be sly and fast, and capable of assassinating people very well. being a selective mute, she is very quiet and secretive. not talking means obviously that we cannot deduce her exact thoughts, intentions, and motivations, but based on other things we can guess some things.

to start with, despite her angry exterior, she is a sweet girl. she’s beautiful and considerate, and clearly cares for her brother akutagawa. in the past, she was the one who saved herself and akutagawa from being killed by the mafia. after joining, she rose ranks to be one of the three commanders in the black lizard. outside of work, she is still quiet, but is considerably softer and more expressive than when working. she does not wear a mask to conceal her emotions and reactions, and she is less apprehensive of speaking. she was considerate of katai when he confessed his feelings for her, not treating him in a rude manner at all. 

the thing that stood out to me most about her was how much she thinks about akutagawa. noticing he was stressed about work, in an omake she was shown to have gone around asking other mafia members for things to help him relieve stress. she found problems in each solution offered, and ended up choosing what she thought best. she sat down and had tea with him, which was very sweet and caring of her. she is not always cruel and violent, and her motivations are likely along the lines of her care for her brother and her will to stay alive and in a good position in life. she is not violent for the sake of violence; she is just doing her job and what she is good at. 

(i wrote a different analysis of gin here)

 the guild

to start with discussions of the girls in the guild, lucy maud montgomery is first. she has considerably more content than the others, but that cannot be helped, as she has more screen time than alcott or mitchell. montgomery’s motivations and feelings are pretty open, so i cannot say that she is misunderstood or ignored. she has attention, but i do think that she deserves more (as all the girls do). at least, beyond shipping material, there is more to her character. she has improved since her traumatic past experiences, albeit in a different way than atsushi has. in the beginning, her actions and methods were confusing and not explained. however, she was just another character doing what her job required, and what she required to live happily. to her, she wanted a place to belong, and the guild was that place. when faced with potential loss of her newfound home, naturally she was willing to go to any lengths to stay, including capturing and messing around with the detective agency. montgomery is smart and capable with a strong ability to back her up. her ability, while used for kidnapping, has many other purposes as it later shows. had she initially been on the good side, a lot more people would probably like her. she was purposefully made to look and act intimidating and mean, although that is just a front she puts up. after she can be considered a tsundere, although terms like that annoy me slightly. it is weird to simplify a unique character down to a few shared traits with a stereotype- let’s just say that montgomery is flustered easily and does not know how to deal with her emotions in a positive way. by that i mean that how she acts can be perceived as bad by readers and watchers, though that is not what she is intending to do. i think that montgomery is trying her hardest and while her methods are not the best, she is still a good person who is just trying to get along in life and make close connections to people. 

 margaret mitchell is another character i cannot talk very much about, as she has hardly appeared in the series at all. despite her outwardly narcissistic and snobby personality, i also do not think that she is all bad. her ability, which we have not seen much of, can be decidedly negative. we have not seen a way in which she uses her ability in a positive manner, but as we do know her motivations, i can still say that she is not trying to be a bad person or anything of the sort. her reason for joining the guild and attacking yokohama was to restore her family’s honor. as we know nothing of her backstory, i cannot say why this was so important to her, but it seems to be of noble reasoning at the least. a lot of characters have good intentions or motivation and just a terrible method of execution. mitchell is one of these characters. 

however, even if you were to dislike her purely based on her arrogant and rude attitude, it must be acknowledged that she is not terrible to those on her side. while threatening kajii and akutagawa, she was also shown to be selfless in defending hawthorne using her own body as a shield. now that she is stuck in a coma, hawthorne seems intent on helping and erasing her family’s debt for her, since she is incapable. that implies that she must have some kind of soft and nice side, otherwise i do not think hawthorne would consider her to be his loved one. we only saw her disintegrating his bible and arguing with him. aside from sacrificing herself, she must have done something to earn his affection and loyalty- hawthorne has gone very far in his attempts to save her. 

personally i think the reason a lot of people dislike her is her stuffy attitude combined with her appearance. her complaining of others not working while combined with her wearing an over the top large dress likely contributes to the dislike or indifference i see directed at her. she is very unlikeable on the surface, nor can i say that i like her at this point. 

 and lastly in the guild, i will be talking a lot about louisa alcott. she is the main reason i decided to write this long ass post. alcott is in my opinion, probably the smartest of all of the geniuses in bsd. there are different kinds of smarts, of course, and it is not too hard to sort them. dazai and fyodor lie mainly in tactician. they are wonderful at predicting enemy moves and creating plans. ranpo is also shown to be helpful in that, though his strength lies in solving mysteries and analyzing evidence. dazai is also good at solving mysteries and analyzing. mori is implied to be good at a variety of things- strategizing, logical thinking, effective manipulation, and leading. he is good at making things go his way, and good at doing what is best for his organization, even if that means sacrificing others. in general, there are many intelligent characters, but the “geniuses” tend to be labeled as fyodor, dazai, mori, and ranpo. i have never seen alcott included in that grouping despite her being debatably the best out of all of them. 

it must be noted that alcott’s ability is not the cause of her intelligence. rather, it simply furthers her abilities. i do not think that she would need to rely on her ability to be good at what she does; she is a very thorough tactician, and given extra time, can write out the most ridiculous plans i have seen. it is absurd how much she is able to predict and write about. “Little Women is an ability that allows Louisa to make time pass at 1/8000th of regular speed, but only while thinking alone in a private room.” nowhere does that description list that it furthers her intelligence in some way. from that, we can gather that she indeed can sit in a room for a few minutes or hours, and in real time weeks will pass. she can sit for weeks straight and simply think of and write every possibility. she can list every outcome, every action their enemies might make, all the action plans the guild can go with, and so much more. she can estimate the damage her plans provide, the likelihood of success, and compared to other plans she has written out, whether or not she would recommend it. she is shown to be cautious in her planning, since despite her seemingly ruthless plans, she always directs fitzgerald away from choosing the more dangerous options. that also shows that despite her listing very violent plans, she is against going with them and disagrees with the more violent options she came up with. 

i think it is amazing how much concentration and energy she has. sure, the other geniuses may be able to reason out how their enemies are thinking and doing- but alcott is a different level. she will write packets (multiple!!) of analysis and options. i do not know how much i can stress this. these packets are hundreds of pages, written in a few hours by her. with given information, she can predict up to how other people will react to given situations, and how to manipulate the situation for the best outcome for the guild. she was able to somehow predict the reappearance of kyouka when atsushi was attacked, and how exactly to get away with capturing atsushi while simultaneously eliminating kyouka from doing anything more against the guild. she wrote up to the very specifics how that situation would lay out, and all that fitzgerald needed to do in order to capture atsushi. call the police on them! how did she know the police would be nearby and that atsushi and kyouka would turn to them? hell if i know, but that is amazing as fuck and i don’t think that the others compare in any way to that. 

of course she does have boundaries, such as when chuuya and dazai teamed up against lovecraft and steinbeck in order to retrieve Q. i would say that she could not have planned that given what she knew of their personalities and how they would work together. even if they were past partners, logically it does not seem likely that they would team up, even in a dire situation. but they did, and to top that, chuuya used corruption. that was something that alcott did not plan for, likely due to lack of information she received. otherwise, she was able to take into account so many factors- timing, abilities, personality, and likelihood of events happening- and create functional and effective plans. knowing how Q’s ability works, she thought of a way to cause the most amount of destruction by combining Q and steinbeck’s abilities. personally, i would not have thought of such a method. it is brutal, but it did work out for them. most of the mafia and detective agency were occupied with dealing with Q’s curse rather than pursuing the guild. she had backup plan after backup plan. i believe that they were so detailed and complicated that without an exact copy of all of her writing, dazai and ranpo would not have been able to come up with a plan to counter what she was doing. they are good at guessing what can come next, but attempting to guess all of alcott’s thinking is impossible. to me, she will always surpass the other geniuses in the series, as she is the best of the best considering everything.

if comparing her capabilities to that of others, she covers almost all the bases. in terms of leading, mori is good because he is willing to sacrifice others for the sake of the greater good. alcott made plans that were willing to sacrifice all of yokohama for the benefit of fitzgerald solely. dazai and fyodor are good at guessing how the other will think. i would say that alcott can do the same, though on a much larger scale. given a longer amount of time, the others could likely come up with similar plans, but since they are not alcott, they cannot come up with her predictions that cover almost every base. her ability to slow down time and then sit still for technical weeks at a time thinking of every possibility is amazing. though we have not seen her solve any crimes, i would say that she is still very good at analyzing and using data to her advantage. 

brains and ability aside, i think that alcott is a lovely person. though she has severe social anxiety and is very bad at talking to people, she is very kind and loyal to those she cares about. again, she can be ruthless against her enemies, but who isn’t? when not considering her position as a tactician in the three way organization conflict, she is very good. she wants to do the best she can to help others, and despite her low self esteem, feels confident enough to present her thoughts to those she is comfortable with. unfortunately she only seems comfortable with a small number of people, but she is caring and giving to those few.

i apologize for the long rant on alcott. it feels kind of unorganized and sloppy, but i honestly have no idea how to properly explain my respect and love for this character. she is never talked about or drawn or anything, and she deserves so much more than she gets. once you get past that initial barrier of “she’s too quiet, she’s a pushover, her plans are cruel and violent” you will realize that is not always the case. in reality, when consulted she is able to provide good advice and solutions to problems. she was very against fitzgerald going with her more extreme plans. yes, she thought them up since she thought up every possibility, but she strongly advised against those plans for obvious reasons. 

 the rest of the girls i cannot say much about. aya seems very sweet and justice oriented, and i think i would prefer to see her as an actual character rather than the odd lovechild of dazai and chuuya. chuuya did not even really show up in the manga in that scene…… anyway, i do not know enough about teruko and agatha to talk about them properly. teruko seems overly violent, but i do believe that she is just doing her job, again in a kind of bad way. unfortunately, i do not know anything of gaiden, so i cannot properly discuss tsujimura. however, i have heard that she is a sweet girl, and i would like to read more about her. 

 in conclusion, i don’t feel that the girls in bungou stray dogs are properly appreciated for what they are. sometimes they are misunderstood, sometimes they are ignored, but no matter the case, i think that all the girls in bsd are wonderful. slimy men? yeah fyodor, dazai, and mori. slimy women? there are none. they’re all perfect. they have their faults of course but really, none of them are incredibly evil or anything. for the most part we know their intentions, unlike some of the guys i listed. and often times those intentions are not bad at all, even if they are executed in a bad way. they tend to not rely completely on their ability, unlike a lot of the males in the series. dazai, akutagawa, and atsushi are all good examples of characters who rely heavily on their abilities to do things. in contrast, most of the girls don't rely on their abilities or other people. their abilities help them, of course, but they are plenty capable on their own. some of them don’t even have abilities- higuchi and gin being prime examples- but they are able to fight and be independent. 

please give the girls in bungou stray dogs more care and attention. they are so fucking valid and i love them from the bottom of my heart

also!! i forgot to say but please reblog, dm, comment, whatever the fuck unpopular bsd opinions. i love a good rant™ and i have a lot of thoughts

[comicteaparty]

July 4th-July 10th, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from July 4th, 2020 to July 10th, 2020.  The chat focused on the following question:

What was an unexpected aspect of making webcomics you didn’t realize before making one yourself?

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

How much our comic and it's story we're going to change during the years of creation was the biggest and most jarring aspect for sure. There's scripts and thumbs that were all made before we ventured out to make GJS with paths completely different from what we initially thought we would take that have completely changed how we approach not only writing but reading webcomics too. Webcomics as a medium have the biggest connection to time, whether it be production or the consumption, they have this opportunity to exist and transform in the long hours it takes to enjoy and read them. It's honestly one of the biggest advantages imho. To see a story slowly unfold, listening to ur audience reactions, peer critiques, or new inspiration can make such a drastic and intense impact on a long form work- its both jaw dropping and humbling to be apart of!(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

For me it was the community aspect of comics. I knew a community existed on the reader side of things (comments!), but I didn't expect the creator side to be how it is! I don't know why, but for some reason I kind of always thought that all of us were sort of throwing our comics out from the void... I guess that was me looking at comics from a reader's point of view! But as soon as I started making comics, I started meeting people who made them too... and it's been incredible!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

@deo I never really understood what an internet community or internet friends were until I started making a webcomic

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah, I had been in (and quickly decided to not be in 0_0) gaming communities, but nothing really as wonderful as what I've found through comics. Closest I had gotten other than that was comments on social media

Shizamura 🌟 O Sarilho

Community definitely one of the big things, much like Deo pointed. I was kinda expecting to have get connections through readers, but it's much more with other creators, which is super satisfying in it's own way. Also gonna second Krispy's comment about how time affects how you see your story's past and future. A lot of things changed in the past four years that made my comic change as well and having so much time to think each individual scene allows them to be much more complex and interesting than they would when I first thought them through. Having the time really helps. This also kinda touches the topic of personal change too, which affects how I write and what feels most important to focus on and that's interesting to think about as well

eliushi [Keyspace]

How long things will take, the longer the story goes on! I started out being able to complete a page in 2h but then I found more I wanted to try on each page (colours, layout, composition etc) and even wanted to extend certain scenes. With 500 pages planned, I definitely thought I’d be farther along by now, heading into AWT’s first year anniversary in a month. That being said, I’m also enjoying the ride and it’s all thanks to the great community here and making connections with other comics folks/readers. I never expected to get comments and so each one has been a treasure to read.

Desnik

An unexpected aspect of making webcomics is how much people respond to them. I figured I'd be creating into a void but I met so many people as a result of publishing my dinosaur comic

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Ditto on the webcomic community. I didn't realize how far reaching it was to have a community that supports each other. And I've enjoyed meeting so many wonderful and creative people who raised each other up. Another thing I didn't expect, however, was how invested I got into my comic.(edited)

At first I was doing it mostly for fun. But the more I delved into it, the easier it was to get sucked into my story and want to draw it out. And as a result taking it a lot more seriously.

Desnik

yeah sometimes I miss my dinosaur comic even though I had some pretty good reasons for moving on. It was created out of desperation and evolved into something that made me feel good about myself

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

How much work and time it takes to keep a weekly update going with no backlog

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah same

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

For me, I didn't realize how much it would affect my life to make comics, and vice versa. In a weird way, I didn't know how interrelated the two were, or how easily life could interfere with my comic, or the inverse.

eliushi [Keyspace]

Making comics became a lifestyle for me

@Haruh2 (Colony Life) When I had no backlog I was updating every two weeks with 7 pages per update; so about 14h of work. But this is with a finished script. I am also told I work fast.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

omg

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

That's soooo much, Eli!

That's at least twice as much as I do (edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

For me, I didn't realize how much it would affect my life to make comics, and vice versa. In a weird way, I didn't know how interrelated the two were, or how easily life could interfere with my comic, or the inverse.

I hadn't realized how much I put myself into my comic! My friends who read it have all said that it's incredibly in my voice and reflects my opinions and worldviews Before I shared it with people I hadn't thought of it in that way at all

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

As an artist, I didn't expect how my comic production and mindset will change. Once I started comics, it brought out my ideas from thoughts to a physical form. I start to invest more time into it. Each project evolved through each chapter. How to balance script writing to a polished piece. I put alot of time and research in my works. It makes me glad to hear other creators do the same. I'm not the crazy artist who's wasting her time. One of the positive change was meeting other creators, how we give advice and receive praise.(edited)

eliushi [Keyspace]

The support has been amazing. It makes the work less lonely

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Fish, oh for sure! I didn't realize until recently how much my characters are all just facets of myself!

eliushi [Keyspace]

(I don’t work that quickly anymore and I’m making big changes to the format soon so it’s going to be a Transition)

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I've been in school with art students who never made comics, so when I came to CTP discord, reading comic discussions. It was comforting and fun. I enjoy the cooperation our group has, helping each other.

eliushi [Keyspace]

I like to commiserate about the unique challenges comics have

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Hahaha, yeahhhhh

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I agree, it's different from illustrations. Different approach(edited)

eliushi [Keyspace]

I am perpetually balancing time spent on a panel vs how much time the reader will spend on it

Vs illustration: lemme make all the details

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

Oh I agree, each panel takes longer than it takes to read it. Hence I dislike when readers call manga creators 'lazy'

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

how much time does it take to read one of my pages?

20 seconds?(edited)

haha

e.e

wait is that emoji supposed to be someone rolling their eyes??

i jsut looked it up

i might've been using it wrong this whole time

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Pacing

It's way different than in novels, and definitely came as a shock at the start

eliushi [Keyspace]

Yeah have to play to the strength of the medium. Still imagining AWT as an animated movie written from a novel, in the format of a comic

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Haha, same kinda

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

@eliushi [Keyspace] ah haha, that makes me feel better about my update habits, but thats a good goal for me to shoot for now that im learning a new way to make long comics specifically

cAPSLOCK (Tailslide)

I completely underestimated the amount of effort that would have to go into formatting, website design and maintenance, etc. If I got to do it again, a little more research beforehand probably would’ve saved me a lot of time and hassle.

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

I really overestimated the "if you build it they will come" aspect of webcomics lol. Like, you actually have to work to advertise your comic in order for people to read it. Nobody ever got hundreds of readers just from posting their comic onto some hosting site without doing major marketing work.(edited)

dako

yeah, I feel that

I've never really been an advertising type before my comic, im learning to just get used to it

Deo101 [Millennium]

I've not really done much advertising tbh, it makes me uncomfortable

dako

it feels kinda...embarrassing? might be too harsh of a word

i dunno

Deo101 [Millennium]

its just uncomfortable idk! i feel awkward doing it

dako

yeah, same ive done it a few times on reddit but i have to force myself

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

it does feel, odd..hell most of the time it just feels like i open the door to my house and toss a bunch of paper to the wind hoping someone can see it

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah, I dont know if ive done anything other than posting updates on twitter and talking about it in groups like this

and twitter is mostly just me talkin to people who already read it...

idk talking about my work without being asked first makes me feel like im inserting myself where im not allowed

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Self promo got MUCH less intimidating for me when I started thinking of it like: "okay, so my comic is made for readers like me, people who share my tastes. That means I only need to answer one question: what can I say to get me to check out this comic? I don't need to impress anyone else. I just need to appeal to me." (since "me" is my target audience)

Deo101 [Millennium]

mhm ^^

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

But take it with a grain of salt because I'm still not really promoing

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

exactly, thats why i find it hard to tweet about it most of the time, but i get the whole if i dont care about to talk without being asked no one else will either

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah lmao mood im like what would get me to read... hmmm... probably exactly what im doing.... I'll keep it up then :)

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

yea i get excited to draw out certain parts..but wouldnt want to just tweet about all the little tidbits of the story ruining it for others

Deo101 [Millennium]

sweats

dako

i made a whole side twitter for my comic cuz talking about it on my main intimidated me too much

it is my containment chamber

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

hm may do that, just to say i did it and to get my mind away from the thought

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

yeah same

Deo101 [Millennium]

My main is just whatever I want it to be idk. Its kinda for all my comics, since my comics are all I want to talk about

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

though my main is mostly just retweeting from my side twitter lol

Deo101 [Millennium]

it removes a lot of the pressure of like what if my followers dont wanna see this??

cause they wouldnt be here if they didnt wanna see it

cause its all Ive been doing the whole time

dako

thats a good point

i had my main way before my comic so most of my mutuals/followers dont follow for that

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

yea, it can feel abit disorienting when there is no interaction one way or another on anything you tweet (also if twitter has messed up and causes your tweets to not show up)

Deo101 [Millennium]

but yeah I dont really advertise cause it just makes me so uncomfortable >.<

dako

understandable

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I'm kind of somewhere in between. I advertise my comic mostly because it is all I wanna talk about, like Deo. But I also don't think it's gotten me many readers. Most of my readers came as far as I can tell because I was making something that appealed to them. (The whole "if you build it, they will come" thing.) Although, I really don't have a big audience, I do have an audience, and I am certain most of them came from me just posting.

I think it's determined a lot by luck, and also, how big your niche's audience is to begin with (and some skill tbh).

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah like I think "gay sci fi" is a p big niche so ive got a big amount of people I could potentially reach

which makes it much easier to draw people in

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I'm particularly lucky, I guess, that fantasy/romance has a lot of readers (also more competition, but...)

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah fantasy romance is a damn big one

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

eh i think im in an awkward void with my action/drama story (since im not doing romance drama)

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I just go with the mindset: "what makes my fantasy/romance different from the rest" and go from there.

Deo101 [Millennium]

mhm

tbh I dont think my sci fi romance is doing anything special?

but im having fun so :) I dont rlly care about that hahahha

dako

having fun the most important thing

Deo101 [Millennium]

its not my goal to make somthing mindblowing ^^ truley im just here for a good time

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I mean, LGBT+-inclusive sci-fi is pretty unique

I haven't seen a lot

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It's clear that your characters are people, and that's special, regardless of how common/uncommon

dako

think if i didnt love my comic as much as i do id have stopped a long time ago

Deo101 [Millennium]

thats true keiiii, thank you <3

also yeah its Sad that theres not more LGBT+ sci fi cause its like youve got aliennnssssssssssssssssssss you can do whatever you waaaaaant

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I knooowww

Deo101 [Millennium]

guess it shows what ppl want or something

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

yup

Deo101 [Millennium]

off topic

so to make it back on topic

I underestimated how much people would like gay sci fi GJKLAGJLAJLKAGJSLAKGJKL

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

One thing I learned specifically with my current comic... I did not realize how much difference the reader's cultural background would make in terms of interpreting my story.

Deo101 [Millennium]

!!!!!

I actually almost mentioned you in class once tbh keiii

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Big oversight, in retrospect

!?

Deo101 [Millennium]

saying "someone I know makes a comic which they noticed, it's interpreted completely differently just depending on cultural backgrounds" kind of a thing

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

like I would not have made the comic any different, but I would have approached the... presentation differently. Like, talk about it differently

Deo101 [Millennium]

cause we were talking about how narratives affect rt

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I guess another thing that was unexpected about making webcomics was... there are way more people with my exact tastes than I thought

Deo101 [Millennium]

and I was saying that I think the viewer's narrative affects art more than the artists narrative

I mean, the artists narrative obviously is what makes it so.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

In the eyes of the beholder

Deo101 [Millennium]

but interpretations and all that... yeah!!!

so. actually I might have offhandedly mentioned you I cant remember if I did or not

lemme check

I did! very like "second hand" offhandedly mentioning though ahaha

hope that doesnt make you uncomfortable GSKLGSJALGJLGK no one replied to me so e.e

in the class I mean

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I am super uncomfortable and offended !!!!!

j/k

Deo101 [Millennium]

hgjkghsjkagskajgdhsakgjhgjd

but... yeah idk starting out I truly just was making it cause I really love my characters a lot, the idea that other people would like them too is very unexpected :) in a good way

I also definitely didnt expect how important enviornments were e.e

didnt plan those well enough.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

that relatable feel

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I really desperately advertise my comic everywhere. I don't really know how to do marketing effectively though & I don't know if its working

eliushi [Keyspace]

I find what increased readership most consistently is still the feature aspect from the hosting sites. It’s really about finding the right readers/right readers finding you

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Same, I'm basically a rounding error away from being 100% reliant on the features for subs

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I don't think my comic has ever been featured on the hosting sites. My numbers have always been low on Tapas and maybe thast why

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yeah, features help a lot

I've been featured on Webtoon, but not Tapas, and you can really see the difference in readership there

Deo101 [Millennium]

Ive been featured on both, uhh in a couple of diff places, if you wanted a breakdown of how many readers i got from the diff spots and stuff ever just lmk im happy to share

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I've been featured on both. It certainly got people to check it out and even sub, but retaining those people (even if they've subbed!!!) is a different story. I think my story is just not the right type for the platforms, but eh, even if 99% of the platform users aren't into the kinda thing I'm making, 1% increase is still an increase.

Which is another thing I learned over the course of running this comic, specifically (since the internet has changed so much after my first two attempts). Just because the majority of your subs don't actually read the comic, doesn't mean your work sucks. Today's internet caters to casual users, and there's a bajillion factors affecting who's actually reading your stuff.

dako

i agree

my comic has never been featured on either, and webtoons doesnt have a guideline on what they pick but tapas does and my comic doesnt really meet their featuring requirements so i dont think either site ever will feature mine haha

so i gotta advertise on reddit and use twitter tags a lot

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Don't go too crazy with twitter tags; they can make people zone out and not look at your tweet.

dako

i try to use 5 at the most, i know too many is unpleasant to look at haha

Jib {WIP haha}

Oh huh, my rule of thumb is to use 1-2 on twitter and as many as I can on Insta but I’m no expert lol

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, IG seems to be where you want all the tags XD

varethane

Webtoon's algorithms are like turning a hose on and off lol

The difference between views and sub growth during periods of being featured vs not is stark(edited)

carcarchu

i've never been featured by webtoons but i've seen series grow from 100 followers to 10k overnight

not an exaggeration

varethane

I put my new comic on webtoon in november 2019, and in 1 month I crawled up to.... maybe 50 subs?(granted I only put up one episode and then paused for a bit)

Then in December I started updating it weekly and got placed in the new and hot section of the app

And bam, 6k subs

It last 2 weeks and then the section updated and all growth stopped, and subs went down by 10 or so over the next week

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

(Omg featured is like the new Daily Deviation goals from DA way back in the day!)

varethane

Until it got another feature on a different part of the website and went up another 2k. It was like playing with the handle on a faucet lol

dako

I got some pretty good growth during canvas week, but beyond that not really

I get 1-2 subs after an update if I'm lucky

varethane

I feel like their algorithms are very reliant on the regular rotation of features that staff have to do manuallt

Outside of that, discoverability is quite weak

Mostly because of the volume of comics on there

boogeymadam

same boat as vare. the only thing i know about webtoons features is they have stated a couple times one of their recquirements is consistant updating, so if u skip a week that disqualifies u for a lil while i imagine

varethane

I wonder what they count as consistent. I was doing every 2 weeks for awhile, but this month I'm gonna try weekly to see if it helps me earn more $$ from ads :U

dako

I wish there was more incentive for readers to check out the new section on webtoons and tapas

carcarchu

i have found some amazing gems in the new section

i swear i've seen stuff in featured that were not at all updated consistently

dako

I have too, there's a ton of good comics that get overlooked because they're not in the front page

some featured comics havent updated in months sometimes

varethane

I definitely would not have considered myself consistent at the time of the first feature, considering there was a gap of a month between episode 1 and 2 lpl

carcarchu

the consistently updating thing is more of a recommendation than a requirement i feel?(edited)

boogeymadam

ooohh good to know!!

varethane

I'm sure it cant be a hard rule, especially for comics that have just launched

boogeymadam

im just going off their canvas qna's from last year

dako

if it's actually a hard rule for staff to feature comics that regularly update they break that rule a lot

i also heard a bot picks up comics too

carcarchu

well i at least think the staff or bots or whatever at webtoons are doing a better job with features than tapas is

tapas is always pushing their premium comics way more than their indie stuff

boogeymadam

tapas needs to bring new comics onto the frontpage more often than it does, yeah

dako

yeah I agree

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I mean, I get why they put premium on the front page. But I feel more variety would help them because it's more interesting for the readers?

dako

I can't tell whats premium or not with tapas sometimes

boogeymadam

i do like that they've been asking stuff like this in the forums tho

carcarchu

more distinction would be helpful to me too dako

i don't think its as clear as it could be

dako

yeah, webtoons at least it's clear what is and what isnt featured or canvas

Jib {WIP haha}

Huh, anyone remember that really popular writing podcast? I forgot the name

Or have any recommendations I guess

Moral_Gutpunch

Terrible writing advice? It's sarcastic

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

is this related to the topic?

Moral_Gutpunch

It's a podcast about writing, so I'm going to say yes.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I think snuffysam meant the weekly topic for the channel

Moral_Gutpunch

Oh

Just for this channel, no. I'm too new to know that.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Please check #rules

Moral_Gutpunch

Sound more like someone forgot context than the rules

That's why I'm hardly here. I don't know stuff people who've been here for a long time know like podcasts or older comics(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Basically each of the channels under "CTP Activities" on this server has its own topic of the week.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

It's not a matter of being here for a long time or not. This channel is used solely for discussing the weekly topics, and such information can be found in #rules

Moral_Gutpunch

Kudos then. I came for creator babble only.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

For general webcomic creation-related advice (either seeking or giving) and such, #shop_talk usually is the place!

creator_babble is for answering the topic of the week

It's not actually for generalized "creator babble" despite the name.

dako

looks like they left

Jib {WIP haha}

Oh my bad, it’s been a while since I read the rules, I brought up the new subject

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Happens!

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

No problem, we were just reminding you all :)

Jib {WIP haha}

Ty for that then haha

dako

I think one unexpected thing for me is that no one tells you how crazy the highs and lows can be

well I guess people do but you really don't know until the highs and lows happen to you if that makes sense

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Oh God, that's so true

Burnout is way more dreadful than I could ever guess prior to experiencing it

Feather J. Fern

One unexpected thing for me was how many people I would meet because of my comic. It surprised me greatly that I found so many cool people through the comic community and made the friends I have made now. Love you all

rajmews

The unexpected thing for me was just how much you have to just...predict...what the market will want to read. Like even if you research a whole lot, and you draw really well, and have been doing art professionally, you can still strike out. It's a humbling experience, but being able to just let go of poorly received pages and move on and try things differently is a lot of the battle for doing a webcomic. It teaches you how to fail gracefully because...it's all a process of learning your readers better. Even if they're few at first.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

My major unexpected thing was how much my initial ideas change as I work through a page. Everything from the expressions, dialogue, and layout can change as I look at it and 'solve' it more closely than I did in thumbnails. There are pages I look back on and realize they are ENTIRELY different than what I had first sketched. And they're better for it. Allowing myself the freedom to edit during the artwork... it's created some majorly awesome opportunities.

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yes!!!!! Me too!!!

It's exciting thoufh

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Absolutely same

Could plan something out meticulously but then change it in the last 2 secs before uploading

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yup... I don't thumbnail much ahead of where I'm at cause of this(edited)

I thumbnail a scene at a time, and then usually I end up changing stuff halfway through ahahfjjdkskdkss

varethane

Same hat, haha. I often make changes at every stage-- even the thumbnails will often depart from the script. If anything, I wish I made even more changes-- I feel like my page layouts tend to be pretty standard, I do a lot of pages with the 3 rows of 2 panels each, and I want to break out of that more. But... well, that's a work in progress.

[tokkitchen]

[ kim doyoung, 25 ] did you hear? there’s a new addition to the hypehens family! [ tokkitchen ] was starting to get known for [ cooking/baking tutorials & challenges ] and i think they will hit it big this time around as a part of the [ kimcheese ] squad at hypehens. [ shin sunwoo ] is known to be [ cheeky ] and enjoys [ farming simulation rpgs ]. with their vibes of [ flour stained cheeks and freshly baked bread ] and a style that is unique, i think they are going to take the internet by storm!

hi there! this took me a hot minute, but i’ve finally got sunwoo’s page up and running! you can find the basics & background about him there. tl;dr he loves the culinary arts and overall is a genuine but playful person. for the love of god do not call him a flirt or be passive aggressive with him unless you wanna start some drama which i am 100% down for. you can im me on tumblr or discord (kupo#6438, my dp is a pikachu) if you’re down to plot! 

please note that any gif icons posted here and in future posts were made by yours truly.

here are sunwoo’s basics & background copied and pasted from my pages for your convenience.

Basic Information

⥼ Full Name: Shin Sunwoo ⥼ Pronouns: He/Them ⥼ Gender: Cismale ⥼ Birthday: February 1, 1996 ⥼ Age: 25 ⥼ Orientation: Bisexual ⥼ Relationship status: Single ⥼ Occupation: Creator & host of Tokkitchen ⥼ Residence: Seoul, South Korea

Physical Appearance

⥼ Faceclaim: Doyoung of NCT 127 ⥼ Hair: Black, medium length tapered short at the sides and the back, fringe clipped neatly but softly resting just below his eyebrows ⥼ Eyes: Walnut brown ⥼ Height: February 1, 1996 ⥼ Age: 25 ⥼ Height: 179 cm (5'10") ⥼ Build: Slim, very little muscle definition ⥼ Piercings: Ear lobes ⥼ Tattoos: None… yet ⥼ Clothing style: Overall casual to semi-casual and simple, prefers loose fits for pieces like sweaters, hoodies, and t-shirts, prefers fitted for pieces like denim jackets, varsity jackets, jeans, chinos, and sweatpants

Personality

⥼ Positive Traits: Warm, perceptive, playful ⥼ Negative Traits: Blunt, resentful, opinionated If you were to ask someone what Sunwoo’s most remarkable characteristic is, they would most likely mention how he treats everyone he meets like they’re an old friend. To some, that can be comforting, his easy smiles and laughs providing them a sense of security and acceptance. To others, that can be irritating: a stranger acting much too presumptuous and all too familiar for comfort. While Sunwoo does his best to be tactful and mindful of others, it’s undeniable that his personality doesn’t always mesh well with others. Sunwoo is not afraid to speak his mind whenever he finds it appropriate and necessary. He highly values improvement for himself and his loved ones. As such, he is the first to call out his friends on their bullshit, in the most loving way possible of course, seeing it as an opportunity for growth. Though he tries to choose his words as carefully as possible and his intentions are never ill, he can sometimes come off as a overly blunt, and in worst case scenarios, harsh.  In that same vein, Sunwoo never hesitates in building people up and often goes out of his way to compliment them, whether that be on their work or even on their looks, gaining him the reputation of a bit of a flirt. This is completely unintentional, as he’s not exactly aware of the way he holds eye contact with people a little longer than average, or the way his genuine tone of voice can slip into something more suggestive. He gets pretty offended if you accuse him of being a flirt and doesn’t really understand why he’s seen that way. He is an extremely genuine person, despite how he may come off. He always says what he means and hopes that other people will do the same for him. Consequently, he greatly dislikes people who are passive aggressive, finding it a waste of everyone’s time to fish out exactly what they mean.

Childhood

Sunwoo was born two years after his older brother, Shinwoo. His parents both worked at well known companies and earned good money, affording them an upper middle class lifestyle, but as a result were rarely ever home. Sunwoo did his best not to take their money for granted, understanding even at a young age just how much they had to break their backs to earn it.

Adolescence

His older brother excelled in school, earning straight A’s and getting into the first college of his choice. Sunwoo, on the other hand, was just a little above average and often felt overshadowed by his brother’s performance. This subsconsciously affected his work ethic. There would be times, for example, when he would just give up studying for an exam because he knew he wouldn’t be able to achieve the grade he wanted—that is, one that was comparable to his brother’s. Once he was old enough, Sunwoo got a job at local convenience store so he could earn his own spending money without bothering his parents. There, he regained some of his confidence and came to realize that his strengths lay outside of a rigorous school system. Still, he completed high school and decided to go to college, majoring in Business.

Tokkitchen

Sick of eating instant ramyeon for the fifth time that week, Sunwoo put aside his textbook and decided to look up simple dishes to cook. He fell into the metaphorical rabbit hole and found himself watching cooking videos for a few hours, landing on a few recipes that seemed simple enough to try. The next day, he went out to buy the necessary groceries and began cooking. His dish was… okay. It wasn’t completely awful, but it wasn’t spectacular either. Strangely enough, he wasn’t discouraged and vowed to try again the next day since he had leftover ingredients. The next day came, and this time the dish was light years better than before. Pleased with the results, Sunwoo continued to watch cooking videos online and improved his skills little by little. When he was able to perfect a pasta recipe, he invited his friends over to his apartment so that he could cook dinner for them—they would be his “first set of guinea pigs” as he put it. They were goofing around, and one of his friends took out their phone to record Sunwoo cooking. He began mimicking the narrative style of the numerous videos he watched, explaining what he was doing in an exaggerated soothing tone. It was one of the most fun nights he’s ever had. His friend sent him the video a few days later. Sunwoo watched it, cringing at the sound of his voice, but recalled how much fun he had filming it. He immediately began searching his college’s website for rentable video equipment, determined to make a cooking video, but for real this time.  After transferring and editing his very first video—"gourmet" meals using convenience store ingredients—onto his bulky, old laptop, he uploaded it to the internet under the username Tokkitchen, a reference to his apparently notorious resemblance to a rabbit. This was mostly for safekeeping—he knew his laptop was on its last legs and he only had so much hard drive space after all—but he also secretly hoped that maybe he would be able to capture a small audience. Sunwoo enjoyed making these videos so much that he went as far as changing his major to Film (his college did not offer a Culinary Arts major.) His technique and style improved significantly, and his viewer count steadily grew. It wasn’t nearly enough to justify doing it full time though, so after he graduated, he began the dreaded job search.

Present

After a year and a half of uploading videos, and just a month into the job search, Tokkitchen was suddenly an overnight success thanks to a video he had certainly not expected to be his claim to fame. It was one of his more casual videos: a half vlog, half cooking tutorial of caramel flan. Commenters seemed particularly delighted by his inclusion of footage of his three failed attempts at not burning the caramel and the resulting existential breakdown he had following them. He continued this model for his next video, and the next video, and the next video, and his channel views continued to grow exponentially. He has been praised by viewers for his down to earth personality and warm, atmospheric style.

[mooksie01]

With Teammates Like These, Who Needs Friends (4/5)

Chapter Summary: It turns out that the only thing worse than a tense first date in an airship... is an awkward first date in a haunted dust mine.

Or: In which Clover feels like a moron, Elm causes problems, and nobody knows how to deal with a crush.

Warnings: More swearing, canon-typical combat, SPOILERS for V7C3, light angst

AO3 Link: [X]

Link to First Chapter: [X]

Notes: THIS IS A REPOST. Tumblr basically blanked my first attempt at posting this a few hours ago. Hopefully this one will actually show up. 

Long chapter today to make up for the short one yesterday! I hope you all enjoy!

Please like, reblog, and comment if you like this chapter, and thank you so much to all of you who have been! Your support means the world!

(Just to preface, I haven't edited this chapter as thoroughly as I usually do, as I'm currently in the process of packing to go back to college tomorrow. I might come back later and give it another run-over when I have time, but for now, I'm sorry if there are any major mistakes or awkward spots in the chapter!)

---

Walking through the abandoned dust mines with Qrow, Clover can’t help but be… a little distracted.

Up until now, Clover had only ever seen the other man move in a manner so instinctively disconnected and introverted that he’d just assumed that that was how Qrow always was. Now, though, he sees that he was wrong before; beside him, Qrow marches forward, back straight, shoulders carefully held lax in preparation for any possible conflict, head high, and eyes shining with a startling clarity and determination that takes Clover’s breath away.

In short, he’s a vision and it’s a herculean task not to stare.

Still, Clover is a soldier first and foremost, and he doesn’t allow himself to be sucked in so much that he might lose focus on the mission.

After a few long moments punctuated by nothing but his team’s routine check-ins, Qrow speaks up, “Gotta say, ’m still not really used to working with other huntsmen in the field.”

Clover glances at him out of the corner of his eye, mentally jumping hurdles in an attempt to figure out what the best route to steer this conversation in would be. He decides to tread lightly--nothing too personal. “But you were on a team before, weren’t you?” he asks, as though he doesn’t already know. That should be safe.

Qrow sighs softly and his gaze darts to the ground.

Fuck.

Just kill him already.

“Long time ago…” Qrow’s voice comes out sounding gruffer than usual, “I’ve just found working alone tends to be for the best.”

Clover’s heart constricts in his chest. What is he supposed to do?! He’s already upset Qrow (twice, now!), how is he supposed to avoid doing it again?! He doesn’t want him to shut himself off from the Ace Ops just because Clover can’t stop sticking his foot in his mouth! Should he comfort him? He seems like he needs comfort. Fuck, he has to respond. What can he say?!

“Well, I think that’s a shame,” he blurts out, and immediately wants to punch himself.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, he is saved from having to ruminate over his social missteps when Qrow suddenly pitches forward, his foot catching on the uneven terrain of the cave floor underneath them.

Clover dives after him, seizing him by one arm and grunting with the unexpected strain of having to pull his partner back to his feet, then moves one hand to clasp his shoulder and make sure he’s steady. He is unsure if he has his skill or his semblance to thank for the feat, but he is grateful nonetheless to whichever it is.

He determinedly does not think about how this is the second time today that he has gotten the opportunity to hold Qrow close. Because that would be weird.

Once Qrow is standing again, they stare at each other for what feels like a long time, but is probably only a split-second. Clover feels like tiny nevermores are making a mess of his insides the longer he looks into Qrow’s eyes.

Then, those incredibly nice-looking eyes narrow into a slight glare and Qrow takes a firm step back. Rather than think about what he’s messed up this time, Clover decides that now would be a perfect time to report in to his team.

“Alpha, here. Give me an update.”

Qrow falls into step behind him as they proceed forward. Once again, the minutes pass mostly in silence but for the intermittent interruptions of their comms. Unlike Squads Bravo and Charlie, they see no sign of any sentinels or the target itself, but Clover has a feeling that they will soon enough.

His comm buzzes in his ear and makes a soft beeping noise, a signal that someone is contacting him through the Ace Ops’ private channel. Clover is about to answer aloud, but stops when a quiet series of taps and drags echoes down the line. It takes him a second to realize he’s being spoken to through morse code. His heart starts racing. They almost never use morse code in the field. Has something gone wrong?

He listens closely.

“ ....  ---  .--  …  /  -.--  ---  ..-  .-.  /  -...  ..  .-.  -..  “

HOWS YOUR BIRD

He takes a deep breath in and steadily lets it out through his nose. Now is not the time to figure out if it’s possible to throttle someone through a comm line. Instead, he tries to discreetly raise a hand to his ear and respond:

“  ..  --  /  --.  ---  ..  -.  --.  /  -  ---  /  ..-.  ..  .-.  .  /  -.--  ---  ..-  “

IM GOING TO FIRE YOU

“Who are we firing?”

Clover startles, whipping his head around to look at Qrow. The other man stares impassively at him, a single eyebrow raised. Clover swallows hard because oh no, he’s hot. “Nobody. Well, Elm, probably.”

“What did she do?” Qrow asks, quickening his pace half a step until he is walking shoulder-to-shoulder with Clover again.

“Fooling around on comms during a mission. Don’t worry about it.” Clover stops walking, turning to face Qrow, who takes the hint and also comes to a halt. “How do you know morse code?”

Qrow shrugs, folding his arms over his chest. “Just a useful skill for a huntsman to have, isn’t it?”

Clover scrutinizes Qrow for a long moment, detecting that there’s something more to that. Unfortunately, though, he’s not Robyn, and he doesn’t know Qrow well enough yet to pick up on any tells he may have, so he just nods and they continue walking.

“Must’ve been something real interesting,” Qrow says after a few more minutes spent in silence, “to get you to blush like that.”

Clover’s steps falter. His face grows hot as he stares after Qrow’s retreating back.

Fuck.

He isn’t allowed to stew in his embarrassment for long, as their target suddenly phases through the cavern wall and appears right in front of them. Before Clover can even react, Qrow has already drawn his weapon and started shooting one-handed at the geist.

While Qrow keeps the creature busy, Clover shakes himself out of his stupor and speaks into his comm, “This is Alpha! We’ve engaged the target!” He pulls Kingfisher from his belt. “All squads head towards our position!” He extends the pole, and casts out the line, hoping to catch the geist by its ribs and haul it in before it can reach any materials to build a body out of. Unfortunately, his shot misses, the hook clattering to the ground just as the target darts into a giant chunk of ice sitting on the cavern floor.

Pieces of rock and ice begin to float into the air around them, pulled unrelentingly into the geist’s orbit. Clover curses under his breath and rushes forward, hoping to snag the geist and pull it out of its half-formed body before it can finish construction….

...Only to hear Qrow’s panic-filled voice echo from behind him, “Wait, stop!”

Clover looks up just in time to see a large metal beam tumble from the ceiling above. He raises his arms and takes a stumbling step back as it crashes into the ground just a few feet in front of him.

When the dust settles, he peers down into the hole it had made, taking the target with it.

Dammit.

He knows for certain that that beam would’ve done some serious damage if not for Qrow’s warning. He probably wouldn’t have died, but he certainly would’ve been out of commission for more than a little while.

Still, the target got away, and as Qrow runs to stand beside him, he reports in to the rest of the teams, “Target escaped. Last seen headed east.”

He shoots a sideways glance at Qrow, who is staring contemplatively down into the chasm, a strange light in his eyes that Clover can’t quite comprehend.

He looks back into the seemingly-bottomless darkness. Kicks a medium-sized stone into the newly-made pit in an attempt to get a rough estimate of how deep it goes. “Thanks for the call-out,” he says, suddenly remembering that he should probably express his gratitude toward Qrow for saving him an awful lot of injured leave. He props a hand on his hip and shifts his weight as the rock lands below. “That could’ve been bad.”

Qrow sighs heavily next to him, “I wouldn’t thank me….”

Clover is taken aback at the sheer amount of self-loathing and shame loaded into those four little words. He looks at Qrow. The other man is firmly avoiding his gaze, and the strange quality that Clover had noticed in his eyes earlier now registers in the back of his mind as guilt.

This… was not the Qrow Branwen that Clover had thought he’d be dealing with. Just a few hours ago, he couldn’t fathom a world in which such a famous huntsman would be anything less than confident and secure in himself, but it is becoming increasingly clear that that assumption couldn’t have been more wrong, as the intense self-contempt Clover hears seems to settle within a well-worn place in Qrow’s face and voice.

Qrow angles his upper body away a bit more so Clover can no longer see his expression. “My semblance brings Misfortune. Sometimes… I can’t keep it under control.” His voice gets weaker at the end of the sentence. His fists clench weakly at his sides.

Clover’s chest seizes with some unnamed emotion.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Of course Qrow had been upset this morning--his semblance was literally bad luck and here Clover had been, walking around with a bunch of good luck charms and making luck-based puns.

Reviewing the events of the past hours, more and more pieces fall into place. Qrow’s sudden shift in mood from playful to downtrodden after they’d run into each other, how he’d repeatedly downplayed his hurt feelings as “dramatics,” the way he’d said on the airship that he “couldn’t blame” Clover for--for what?

He remembers the way Qrow had gestured to his ensemble earlier. His world tilts on its axis.

Oh, Brothers, Qrow thought that Clover already knew his semblance and had been wearing all of his charms as some sort of twisted precautionary measure. To ward off him. A human person with thoughts and feelings.

Stupid, stupid, so stupid.

He shakes his brain’s attempts at self-punishment away. What’s more important at the moment is that he now knows what’s wrong, and that he can fix it, and Clover decides in this moment, a million thoughts running through his head, that he no longer cares about the other Ace Ops’ teasing. If hanging around Qrow from here on out is what it will take to boost this gorgeous man’s self-confidence, then that’s what Clover will do.

“That so?” Clover asks, as though he hasn’t been rethinking every single one of their interactions up to this point. When Qrow turns to look at him, eyes wide with shock, having obviously expected a far worse reaction, Clover flashes him the most reassuring smile in his repertoire (and that’s saying something, since he has a lot of reassuring smiles saved up at this point). “Well, hey,” he says, purposefully making a show of glancing casually at his scroll’s screen and extending Kingfisher, “don’t beat yourself up about it.”

(He hopes desperately that this remark comes off as encouraging, rather than callous.)

He pulls down what’s left of the metal beam that had almost crushed him, resulting in a small-scale landslide that just-so-happens to give them a way down with which to follow the target.

He turns to face Qrow, making direct eye contact with the other man, who seems to have frozen in place.

And hey.

“My semblance is good fortune….”

If he can get in a little flirting while he’s hanging around the aforementioned gorgeous man?

“...lucky you, huh?” He gives the other a wink as he speaks. Qrow’s eyes widen. Clover raises his eyebrows and turns away, watching Qrow until the last possible moment.

Well, that’s neither here nor there.

---

More Notes: And there we go! Only one chapter left in this part of the series! I'm glad everyone seems to be liking it so far, and I'm so, so thankful to those of you who have been so kind and supportive in the comments. You're all amazing! Lots of love, fair game rights <3

[beastly-redemption]

okay, here we go. 

for those following from my twilight works on ff.net, i want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. thank you for continuing to read, thank you for sticking with me through these years of writing, thank you for reading the roughest of my writing from way back when, thank you for encouraging me to continue writing, thank you for everything. thank you thank you thank you. 

thank you especially for coming back after my months long absences. 

i’m sure everybody knows that it’s hard to write, and for me that isn’t an exception. i’m also sure that some of you know that almost five years ago my mother passed away, that my mother couldn’t hold any longer, and subsequently ended her life as a result. I wrote the most during these early stages of grief, tossed every emotion and heartache i could into drafting these messy, oft tear stained works that ended up being accepted into some parts of this fandom. All of them are dark, intentionally so. And I want to be the first to say that I’d never had a plan for ending them because in my mind they would never end, because my pain would never end, either. These works would be something for me to fall back on when I was hurting and there was no other way for me to express it. That’s why in bloodshed Bella was always hurting, always finding something to break herself on because that’s how I felt, that’s why Rosalie and her have flirted around becoming a couple but never actually got around to becoming one because it was too happy of an ending, and again, there was no happy endings in sight. Bloodshed was created during the first few waking moments of my grief, of my guilt, and I think it shows. Blink and mouths only lying are other examples of my grief - hell, mouths only lying explicitly shows that Bella’s mom had killed herself. What I’m trying to say is I know these stories aren’t good because they either mirrored my everyday life or what i wished i had during these times of despair. 

What i’m also trying to say is that these stories cannot continue as they are. 

Nearly five years later, the gaping hole in my chest that my mother left is closed, not healed, not scarred over, but closed in the way that wounds do after being slashed open. The skin is still sensitive, and it still gushed open when I went and saw my mother’s grave three days ago for the first time in almost five years. But i’m better now, i’m in the healing process, free without bandages holding me together, allowed to walk freely with a new appreciation for life, when before all I wanted was to lay down and take the same fate as my mother. And thus, I’m not in the same place i was when i wrote these stories, i’m not able to finish these stories as they are written because i’m not the same girl that wrote them. I’m older, more experienced from coming back and piecing myself together, and as I go back and read something i’d written like bloodshed i can’t help but cringe away at that life of pain and blood. 

so, for this new year, i’m taking those stories down. 

Not immediately. Not now, but I will be doing so. I can’t have those dark works attached to my name anymore without it reminding me of a time where i couldn’t move from the place i was in, from a time where i fantasized about my mother somehow coming back to life. It hurts. However, this comes with the promise that I will try to edit these works into something that works better and put them back up for people who genuinely enjoyed whatever story they were reading. I’m going to try to do right by you all and give you a story you deserve to read. This will take some time, so in the meantime, if it’s my writing you’re interested in, I’ve started to put my original book ideas up on Wattpad (mostly because that’s the first place i could think to put it ) and of course they still feature f/f relationships but hopefully this time it also features something resembling a thought out plot. you can find that here . Right now, im writing about a girl who winds up in the fae world and falls in love with the Unseelie Queen. That sort of stuff. And if it’s fanfiction you’re interested in reading; I’m currently invested deep into the RWBY fandom with a heavy focus on Blake/Yang so if you want to read what i have up about them you can find that here 

(gosh, if you just wanted to watch me play some fucking video games every now and then, you can watch me do that here - i play with a friend of mine and we’re bad at video games. )

i felt like people deserved a reason, and i felt they’ve deserved it for many years now. so here it is. i love you all, thank you so much for even wanting to read something a deeply depressed girl had written so many years ago and even now, after all these years. 

I’m doing better, it took time, a lot of crying, a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of suffocation from the darkest depths i’d found, but i got better. I want you to know that if you’re going through something now, it will get better. but it will also take time. Because not only are you healing every day, you’re also learning to heal -- and that’s harder than hurting in the first place. but you can do it, there are people who love and care about you and you have to find them or lean on them if you’ve already found them. they love you, really. even if it doesn’t seem like it <3. I’m also here if anybody needs to talk, of course. Yes, i’m a stranger, but maybe it’ll be better talking to someone you’ve never met, you know? 

i know this is a long post so i’ll get on with it.

here are the stories i will be taking down and re-uploading eventually: 

Bloodshed: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11016868/1/Bloodshed

there’s monsters at home: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12793546/1/there-s-monsters-at-home

blink: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12520759/1/Blink

here are the stories that will not be continued any longer, and will probably be deleted at the time i edit those above: 

mouths only lying: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12435905/1/Mouths-Only-Lying

Ars Moriendi: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12562225/1/Ars-Moriendi

here’s the story i will be continuing to work on: 

destined: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13230892/1/Destined

again, thank you all so much. thank you for understanding, thank you for being here now and in the future. 

<3