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tree-obsession · 1 year ago

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Gold and Red Text in Penacony

So, for some reason, I have decided to torture myself by creating a theory that will likely have some plot relevance??? but not totally sure. it has popped up a bunch of times and seems to confuse a lot of people, so I'm just putting together what I know! feel free to tell me if I missed something, as I haven't done many of the side quests yet...

Anyway, spoiler warning for 2.0 trailblaze mission and possibly some of the side quests?? idk proceed with caution! I don't read many leaks so I doubt there's spoilers for that but tell me right away if there are any!

Alright, so the first time we see different-colored text in this mission is during Acheron's first meeting with the Trailblazer. According to this twitter thread (credits to user mobnermal, NOT me) Acheron's dialogue will change, depending on the gender of the tb and how we respond to her queries. She also says towards the end of the convo something along the lines of "It feels like multiple different versions of you were talking to me, saying a different thing each time".

So, I'm not entirely sure why she's lying, or even if she's doing it intetionally. It does seem like there's some aspect of "different possibilities within the Dreamscape" happening- almost like the Dreamscape itself is changing the tb's answers/Acheron's questions. But again, we'll get a bit into the dreamscape later.

2. Aventurine's final convo with the tb, and then Black Swan later.

My screenshots were failing me so hard in this quest lol.

Anyway, as far as I know, these two are the only ones in this mission who use gold text. It's mostly used to highlight the word "truth", and according to the wiki and playthroughs I have watched this dialogue doesn't change- only Acheron's red seems inconsistent. I find it interesting Black Swan put quotations around it, and I have no idea what this could imply. I assume she knows something we and Aventurine don't about Robin's death, which seems to be what they were referring to during this part.

As to how that "upends everything"... I don't know what the implications of her death are. It's implied by the npc who raised Robin (can't find any screenshots- I didn't take any, but it's dialogue from an npc in the Golden Hour) and Sunday and Robin's dialogue in the very beginning- the one where they were "shades"- that Robin's voice may have some special quality that could mind-control/ brainwash people to some extent. This is a bit of a tangent, but may point out why the gold test is so important- the new Harmony trace mats match Robin's design very well, and are part of the Order. The Order's- Ena's- symbol is an eyeball, which can be found in a lot of places on Penacony, but most importantly Sunday's clothes. Judging from what we know of Sunday's control-freak-esque personality (sorry dude ):) it's possible he or someone else in The Family is using Robin's potential powers to brainwash the people of different factions. If you choose the alternate ending, everything wraps up a bit too nicely, and nobody seems to want to leave Penacony after that. Tb never finds out about Robin's death in that ending, either. There's a lot of implications there that I don't want to get into for this post, but basically- The Family is orchestrating something, probs pinned the blame on the IPC in the bad ending (since otherwise why would hoyo tell us that?) and then brainwashed everyone to never leave. Why? No idea! But it does explain why Robin's "truth" (in quotations, because Black Swan's dialogue does imply Robin's not dead) is so important to the plot.

That was a bit of a tangent, lol. Going back to the first sc, I find it interesting Aventurine is the one to tell us this, and if we're going with the idea that gold=truth, that just tells us Acheron's most certainly an Emanator, no matter what the Dreamscape does. Why they choose to have Aventurine reveal this, especially with the first instance of golden text- that's still up in the air. However, something I want to throw in is that there was a theory floating around Twitter comparing his eyes to the eye behind Ena in their official art. They are identical- even the gold outline on Ena's eye matches his eyeliner. Since it's implied in his conversation with Sparkle his eyes are a defining feature of his race, Sigonian, and that their civilization has been taken over (I'm not clear on details) or fallen apart somehow- akin to how civilizations under Ena's rule fell apart after their death- there may be some relation. Also, Aventurine was sent to Penacony specifically, which Topaz questioned- this may be why Diamond sent him. It implies a lot of plot relevance for him later, certainly!

3. The really, really ominous text you can get from a side quest.

If you go to the Reverie(Dreamscape) VIP lounge teleport beacon and head to the wall, you find a broken Clockie surrounded by purple bubbles. If you haven't done this quest yet- do it now, I really can't explain all this! search up a guide- there's a couple good ones on youtube. you do get a sticker!

anyway, some screenshots of the tape's text (cw for slight gore, explosions, screams, overall very ominous and vague tour-guidey stuff):

sorry for the text overlap lol, this was very inconveniently sized for screenshots.

anyway, yeah! possibly the most unnerving thing in the game so far (aside from those lost text stickers...). but, as you can tell, I'm gonna focus on the gold and red text. fair warning, I don't really know what to make of this, but I think there's some connection...

first, gold. this is, if we go off what I previously thought, the "truth". My current theory is that this gold is true of within or outside dreamscape- in other words, the dreamscape cannot alter that thing in the gold text. It's there, regardless of how the dreamscape screws other things up. The "truth" in the dreamscape isn't necessarily reliable, since dreamscape seems to fuck with everything, but gold is apparently truth, so we're sticking to that. That means that bloodshed, mind-opening (?), and pressure-releasing (???) is... true? It's kind of interesting- the other things in gold we've seen are statements with meaning, and this... kinda isn't. However, it could imply this is actually what's happening in the Dreamscape. Some kind of deranged, creepy thing that the dreamscape/ the Family is doing while everyone else is on this cool-looking vacation. I have no idea why that line, of all the lines, is gold, but it's certainly not something someone trying to make Penacony look good would say! That's all I know.

Not much I know about why the red one, specifically, is red either. Are the instruments/music fake? That's certainly a recurring motif in Penacony, between bands in the Golden Hour and Robin being a songstress, plus Ena's "Beyond the Sky Choir", their exclusive faction, which fell apart upon their death. Something about Ena being swallowed by XIpe will certainly be brought up later, I'm almost totally sure. It's also interesting it gets cut off by static, without even finishing the statement(I think). I have no idea what to make of these- I just needed to point out the similarities between this tape and the dialogue.

Also, the tape itself is suspicious. According to Woolesley, there are multiple, appearing all over the Reverie (Dreamscape) and sometimes even messing with the Dreamscape.

First of all, why the hell is he telling us this very classified-sounding info? Also, he literally might pop up next to you- it's inevitable that you give him the tape at some point, really showing how The Family is cracking down on these.

Also, who's making these tapes? Why are they leaving them around the Dreamscape if they know it'll be taken? What's with these side effects/corrupting? And what's the relation between the tapes, Acheron, and Aventurine/Black Swan- are those things revealed in the tapes things only those three are aware of, or care to tell tb? It's really weird, especially since they're apparently in Clockie statues? Also, why tapes even- the tapes themselves seem corrupted(or censored?) weirdly, judging from the lines, and also just... why would anyone make these? Someone against the Family presumably wouldn't do rebellion in such a way, and someone within would have no reason to create this at all- is the Dreamscape itself making it? it's the only thing using both red and gold text...

there's probably some connection to Clockie, since that's who is most likely talking in the tape... and that's the statue we found it in too. Clockie is sus in a whole host of ways- don't even get me started, but I'm not sure how they relate to this theory just yet.

I have no idea. The tape is super creepy, but things probably will clear up a bit in 2.1!

tldr/clarification(sry for rambling so much): red text = lie/subjective/ easily changeable, to the dreamscape at least

gold text= "truth", dreamscape is unable to change it(?)

ena probs will have some lore relevance along with Robin, who seems to be the center of this "truth" for the moment

the bizarre tape is very mysterious and questionable, with nothing solid that we know about it- however, it uses both red and gold text, which automatically makes it suspicious even beyond what it's saying directly

what the hell is the family cooking up? i don't know, but it's probably not good! (for us, at least)

thank you for reading this lightly-proofread, very rambling theory/speculation- you are an angel for making it this long!

edit: so number one- I've added a reblog to this post- plz check it out, it has some other details from the Chadwick quest. and also, there's this Youtube video that mentions the red text in the beginning! It has a very similar idea to mine, but the thing it mentions is not an option I made (I accepted Acheron right away lol, so I didn't grab this detail). And the entire vid is pretty cool, so you should see it!

#penacony #hsr #honkai star rail #trailblazer #hsr theory #honkai star rail theory #bizarre tape #hsr 2.0 #acheron #aventurine #robin #black swan #the family hsr #ena #xipe #the reverie #dreamscape #clockie #clockie hsr

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storkmuffin · 6 days ago

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Hello! I literally just came back to Tumblr after a several year hiatus because of the tiktok drama, and stumbled across your posts. It's been really fun to see your thoughts, especially getting a bit of cultural context here and there has been wonderful! You've written a lot about what you like about each member, but I'm curious about how you feel about their relationships with each other, especially as a baby atiny. I find their interconnected friendships really interesting, even outside of a shipper context (and I am curious about how you feel about that as well!) I have always had a huge weakness for found families lol

Hi! Welcome back :D Thank you for reading and commenting!

TLDR for what follows: I take a much harder, colder stance on the 'found family' narrative they keep pushing with Boy Idols than perhaps befits an Atiny about Ateez, but I do have my reasons.

I take the view that first and foremost, Idol groups are business working groups. I'm a little bit (okay, a lot) skeptical of what's presented as 'family' and 'friendships' among these people, generally speaking, because Kpop Idols are just following Korean norms of social interaction for coworkers.

Hopefully this isn't boring but I need to just use myself as an example: I am the 'leader' of my working group of 5 people in my department that has about 70 people in my Korean company. I report to 3 levels of bosses but mostly they let me 'run' the group. My one group-mate is the same age as me, the other three are younger. The woman who's the youngest (our maknae, though not by a lot) - she's a baseball freak. The rest of us dgaf about baseball, but whenever we have our monthly 'bonding' lunch (obligatory, by the way - I'm given a monthly budget that I have to spend eating with this group, all together), all of us take turns indulgently asking her about baseball news, and ooh and ahh and pamper her in her baseball speeches. Do you see what I mean? This is just how we behave. It probably looks like family, to a Westerner, but truth be told, we are none of us actually friends.

The fact that Hwa and Wooyoung have both called their CEO Father freaks me out, by the way. Absolute heebie jeebies, though this too is a feminist, gendered thing. Sexual harassers pre-MeToo always said they'd 'forgotten themselves' because they felt like they were 'family' with the woman they raped or molested. It sounded just as insane in Korean as it does in English, but that was an accepted excuse until it totally wasn't.

In addition, one of the requirements of Boy Idols is that they provide emotional succor to their almost entirely female audience (I am organizing my thoughts and what I've learned through research about why this is for another post). Korea is an exceptionally family-focused society, but that is often exploitative and terrible for women. (Which is why so many women keep saying they don't want to marry and form families - the potential personal burden is ruinous.) So Boy Idols showing what a 'family' can look like when nobody is a woman - when even the 'mommy' or the 'bossy big sister' or the 'baby sister' is all men - and are shown to always, in the end, get along, is the non-sexual equivalent of BL fiction, which I think functions to let straight women 'escape' from misogynist heterosexuality and enjoy the concept of male sexuality in an ultimately quite straight way. Boy Idol groups being 'found famliy' gets you to enjoy the nice things about a voluntary family completely denuded of even the possibility of misogyny, because women just don't exist in the story at all.

Further, because so many megastar Idols have committed suicide in recent years, and because the people who were in training for years and ultimately didn't make it also tell nightmare stories about their lives, it's become necessary for Idol groups to advertise that they are not toxic workplaces. So I see the 'miraculous getting together of pairs of friends to make a successful kpop group!' mythos as part of that counter-narrative, as well. My bet is that the 연습생 world, like any sort of prep situation in Korea, is fucking hostile. It has to be. In the normie world of just college prep, people don't share notes or pretend to be civil or anything other than competitors. Your failure increases my chances of success, type of deal.

Part of the Ateez self-narrative about how they came together to me also just seem pretty typical of people who are in the performing arts in general, as well. The School of American Ballet takes in little kids to train them, and if they manage to make it through many cuts over a number of years, they then debut with the New York City Ballet or American Ballet Theater, where they will compete against and/or partner with each other until the end of their usually short (like 10 years or less) careers, trying to get to the 'top.' The kpop Idol industry follows this system of 'growing' its own artists, often in boarding schools or specialized institutions, just like ballet dancers. It looks different because the cultural context is different, but the essence is the same.

I've seen all the K-Atiny flutterings about, THIS IS FATE and stuff, but given that K-Pop Idol has really specific physical requirements, it makes sense to me that as they got older, the kids who were really determined to do this as a job and also were not kicked/ flunked out would eventually all meet and some to become friends.

The fact that Mingi followed Yunho, and Wooyoung followed Yeosang to this small venture that had never launched an Idol group before can be seen in two ways, I think. One is that they are best friends, in a pure, childhood way. It's so sweet and moving that it doesn't feel quite real, and doesn't fit with how you expect people who in essence wanted to be child stars and then rock stars to be like. It makes them very lovable.

But, just to be the ultimate cynical bitch about it, the paths Ateez took may have more to do with the fact that Mingi-Yunho and Yeosang-Wooyoung are the tall and short versions of being 2% Off the Idol Standard, to my Korean eyes. These two sets of friendships may have come from sharing the same problem - of being almost, but not quite, 'right' or 'ripe' for debut.

Mingi and Yunho, despite the fashion for tall Boy Idols, seem to have not made the cut to become 연습생 (prep students? how do kpop international fans call this?) at any of the big houses nor get recruited off the street. And that makes sense - Mingi is in the 짐승돌 (Beast-Idol) mode, which has fallen out of fashion for some time, and Yunho suffers from being too standard and initially appears indistinct as a result.

Yeosang and Wooyoung seem to have fallen into a different kind of 연습생 hell - good enough to get a spot, do well enough not to get kicked out, but not have enough of what it takes for a 'big house' to include you in an actual group that will debut. Yeosang often being a mild person who doesn't react in a lightening fast way would have disadvantaged him for sure. Wooyoung is so handsome but like, if you compare him to say, Felix of Stray Kids, he also looks just so manly, which would have made him difficult to place. To drop out of Hybe 연습생 to try out this thing with KQ, which had never done it before speaks of a certain desperation.

Other than HongJoong, who did a really weird and unusual thing of making a company build a program around him, the 99z were all up against a fast approaching deadline of aging out of being able to debut, since they have a hard stop at age 28 each, and one of the key ways to cultivate a hardcore Korean female fandom is to have them participate in 'raising' you. Can't do that if you debut at 25, you know?

Almost 7 years later? First, they've achieved wild success, together, when none of them were necessarily the most likely to succeed, and they definitely are NOT with the company most likely to successfully launch an Idol group. That's gotta be great for bonding. Second, only the eight of them can actually really understand wtf that life is like - the hardships or pains that come with what otherwise just looks glorious. Third, all the psych studies agree that singing together and dancing together with other humans makes you love them more, and feel more bonded and more belonging, and doing singing and dancing together is these people's full time job. Fourth (sorry the cynicism is back), if they can't make it work within this group, they will have a hard time pursuing show business careers in the future. You have to have 'good character' as an Idol to not be decimated by the anti-fans, and an essential element of 'good character' in the Korean style is knowing how to be a good member of a collective. And fifth, what KQ and Ateez are doing vis-a-vis each other (Company v Contractors) as well as inside Ateez is a sort of positive-reinforcement of Mutually Assured Destruction with all this family talk. They're family and brothers and the CEO is their DAD and their producer Eden is their big brother so ... when the 7 year contract deadline rolls around, KQ shouldn't stomp on Ateez, Ateez shouldn't stomp on KQ, and the members should not go for broke as individuals. I think that's part of it.

#I wrote too much again #so I hope this doesn't turn you off completely #but I have been thinking about this and you turned on a geyser with this question.#also I am making a lot of this up from very scant context clues and short exposure #so there's that disclaimer for you #kpop idol industry meta #ateez meta

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gothcsz · 3 months ago

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Hi, big time fandom lurker here! For real I rarely pull up into people's inboxes, just out here on main aka in my office cube at work being secretly horny and occasionally telling my absolute favorites thank you so much for all you do. So I wanted to say the latest Unscripted Desire fucked me up so bad. I loved it. As you said, you really locked the fuck in bestie. Frankie in the Ghostface mask was the Halloween version of a Christmas miracle, so I guess just a Halloween miracle? Going to take me a second to recover from that. And really just everything about Javi. Him basically groveling but being still being Javi. I died when he said he's not popping a pill to get hard like out of principle or something and also not giving reader more out of principle, too. It is all so Javi coded! You write the BEST Javi and you're just an amazing writer in general, hope you know that, always so excited whenever you post anything.

Also, hopefully this is not annoying, but I would lowkey be remiss if I did not ask. Have you ever read Roommates by @punkshort? It is a pornstar!Joel series. I only point it out because I fully think you deserve a goddamn Pulitzer for best pornstar!Javi and she deserves one for best pornstar!Joel. No clue how that award works, but it should work that way. She mostly writes Joel so you two probably are not familiar with each other's game, BUT both UD and Roommates WIN pornstar trope in this fandom. Seriously. I would actually fight anyone who says otherwise. Nobody has done it better and I seriously doubt anyone can do it better than you two! I think pornstar!Frankie is still available for the taking though. ❤️

hey diva (gn) ! you're so real for the being horny at work bc like... same 😪 omg thank you so much what the hell !! this is so nice of you to say, i'm like doing backflips at my desk right now no joke !! i def understand the whole lurking thing, it can be kinda intimidating to interact but i finally pushed myself out of my own head and now here we are 🧍🏽‍♀️ DJHFJAKSDFHKASDF

please don't get me started on ghostface frankie bc i will slip into a tangent he's so hottttt it makes me want to peel my skin off. just picturing his voice saying the line... lord have mercy im bout to bust (rip leslie jordan) a HALLOWEEN MIRACLE INDEED! A TREAT IF YOU WILL!

dude i freaking love writing javi like his character is so interesting to me and honestly the type of character i gravitate to when it comes to writingggg and even then i still feel like i'm being a little too ooc sometimes so i have to brainwash myself with narcos clips lol arhghggh so happy to hear that you like my portrayal wtf you got me all flustered, gracias bebe i really appreciate it 😭 and that you're into my writing style too ughhhh on my knees for you rn 🖤

i really wish you guys could look into the dossiers i have in my brain abt this world (or any of my aus tbh) CAUSE LITERALLY OUT OF PRINCIPLE!! so much i could say but yes, we are on the same page.

not annoying and unfortunately i have not read that fic but now you've just given me something to binge this weekend so THANK YOUUU omg not the pppfu (pedro pascal pornstar fic universe) ikdr @punkshort i was unfamiliar with your game 🫦 and every other pornstar au out there we really out here in this subgenre killing it lol pleaseeee no fighting let's leave that to the fictional characters, we're lover girls (gn) out here.

but not seriously someone take one for the team and give us single father pornstar!frankie doing it to provide for his kid ofmgmfgmfmgf

(me to me when i ramble: we do not care)

#📞 next caller!#i reread this a billion times thank youuuuu #also i think i replied to everything... hopefully... if not just bring that ass back on to my inbox and yap away

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leiawritesstories · 1 year ago

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1778 (My Soldier Boy)

Rowaelin Month, Day 28: Wartime Sweethearts AU

A/N: this might just be the most American thing i've ever written lmaooooo 😂😂 so here's the context: the fic is set during the American Revolutionary War, which took place from 1776-1781. Rowan is a soldier in the Continental Army (the American side) and Aelin is the only daughter of a Loyalist (sympathetic to the British) family. and they're star-crossed lovers, yay!! posting this partially as a lil birthday treat to myself but mostly for you, hope you enjoy :))

Word count: 2.8k

Warnings: archaic language (i'm a nerd lol), mentions of war, old outdated traditions, mentions of battle, brief mild angst, flirting

enjoy!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

16th July 1778

Heart of my heart,

I write this in secret, barely able to make out my letters by the faint light of this single candle. I apologize for the sloppiness of my script; my governess would have a fit if she were to see this chicken scratch. Of course, I would then retort that she ought to have taught me to read and write in near darkness, as that is the more useful skill these days.

A few words, my love–we are leaving in three days.Yes, leaving! Mother has only said that it was what she and Father thought best, given the current…unrest. I am perfectly capable of reading the unspoken words. We are leaving because they fear what our neighbors might do while we sleep. We are leaving because the English are so hated here. We are leaving because nobody has seen or heard from my brother in months. Nobody save me, that is. I know where Aedion went, and I know what he is doing.

If you love me, Rowan, please send word that my brother is safe, that he is well clothed and has some form of roof over his head. Please. It will calm my nightly worries at least a small bit.

I do not know where we will go, only that we cannot make a scene of our leaving. We must pretend that we are only going into town like we typically do, except that our cart will be full of our belongings, rather than grain and butter to trade. I suspect we shall attempt to head east, towards the port at Baltimore, and from there we shall attempt to book passage on a ship. Father seems convinced that returning to England is the best course of action.

I do not want to leave.

They do not know that, nor do they care. It breaks my heart to admit it, but they do not. They expect me to keep quiet and obey. I have heard them discussing the possibilities of our lives once we return to Mother’s family estate in England–marriage. My marriage. To some titled landowner’s spoilt son, who gives not a whit what I want or who I am as long as I can give birth. I refuse to subject myself to such a fate.

Rowan, my love, I write this both as news and as a warning. I will not silently accompany my parents in their hasty retreat. I cannot abandon my brother in the middle of a war, nor can I leave you, the other half of my soul.

I will be waiting for you, my love. I swear it.

To whatever end,

AAG

Heart in his throat, Captain Rowan Whitethorn marched in step with his regiment up the muddy road leading into Baltimore. The bustling port city was largely unmarred by the war that continued to rage on, continuing to serve as major sea access for traders and soldiers alike. As he and the men that called him their leader entered the city proper, Rowan breathed a short, soft sigh of relief. They had two weeks of leave, unless they were called back into battle, and he fully intended to use those two weeks to the fullest.

“Enjoy your leave, men.” He saluted. “We shall regroup here in two weeks.” The blue-jacketed men broke ranks and ambled into town, most of them probably dispersing to the nearest pleasure house for a good strong drink and as many hours with a woman as their few remaining coins could buy. Rowan didn’t begrudge them their pleasure.

After years of war, they all needed whatever solace they could find. As did he.

Fingers instinctively wrapping around the small, precious bundle of letters in his jacket pocket, Rowan strolled towards the calmer part of town, the residential section not so crowded with soldiers on leave, traders, merchants, shouting vendors, and all the rest of the noise, chaos, and diverse cast of characters that populated a thriving shipping town like Baltimore. He glanced at the street markers as he walked, searching for the one with a blue stripe painted around it.

There.

Pulse hammering louder than gunfire, he turned down that street and walked past tidy clapboard houses interspersed with the occasional grocer, butcher, baker, and seamstress. He was certain every single one of the handful of people he passed could hear his thundering heartbeat, but none of them had said anything to the young man whose ragged blue jacket marked him an officer in the Continental Army who was walking up their quiet street like it was perfectly normal for him to do. One motherly lady had simply offered him a smile and a “thank you, son,” which had struck him right to the heart.

He emerged into a busier street, full of shops and taverns and public houses, the businesses bustling but not crowded with soldiers and sailors like the cheaper taverns down by the wharf were. Eyes scanning the signs, Rowan walked up the side of the street. The building he was looking for appeared suddenly in front of him. A brightly painted kingsflame flower adorned the pub’s wooden sign, its carefully wrought petals the work of a singular artist. An artist Rowan knew as well as his own heartbeat.

With his heart in his throat, Rowan walked into the pub. Immediately, a peal of soft, faintly raspy laughter caught his ear, and his attention snapped to the bar at the back of the softly-lit, cozy space. Behind the well-worn oak bartop, her golden hair tied back with a blue rag that he recognized as his own old shirt, stood the woman who owned every last shred of his heart.

Aelin Galathynius glanced over towards the door, and the whole sky lived in her vivid eyes.

Tin clattered against the bar.

Surprised grunts arose from a table full of stocky, gray-haired farmers.

And with a rush of air and a strangled gasp of his name, Aelin was in his arms, tears glittering in her eyes, warm and solid and real and clinging to him as if her life depended on it.

He was here.

Rowan was here, whole and healthy and standing on his own two legs in a much-patched blue jacket and dirt-stained trousers and battered boots, and his eyes were on her alone.

Aelin flew across the pub floor and all but leapt into her soldier boy’s arms, clinging desperately to him as if he would vanish unless she held him tight. She buried her face in his shoulder and drew in a deep lungful of his scent, the faint trace of mountain pines clinging to him even beneath the layers of sweat and grime. Hot, salty tears of joy leaked into his shirt through a tear in his jacket’s shoulder.

She felt his deep, familiar chuckle rumble beneath her ear. “Why are you crying, my love?”

“I’m crying,” she sniffled, raising her head to meet his adoring gaze, “because you smell so bloody awful that my eyes are watering.”

He tipped his head back and laughed, loud and unrestrained. “God above, I missed you.”

“I missed you more,” she returned, tracing her thumbs along the sharp juts of his cheekbones. “Every day felt like the longest one yet.”

“I’m here now,” he murmured in the soft voice he only used for her.

With tears pooled in her eyes, Aelin leant an inch forward and kissed him, her soldier boy, with all the pent-up fervor of the last several months. She’d been so terrified when her parents announced that they were leaving the Colonies, afraid that she would be uprooted from the life she’d come to love and forced to marry some stuffy lord and shut away in a manor house forever. The very idea that she would be forced to leave Rowan, her love, and Aedion, her brother, without knowing whether either of them would make it back to Baltimore unharmed was enough to disrupt her sleep. She had hardly dared to hope that her desperate escape plan would work until she stood on the pier and watched her parents’ ship depart without her on it.

Every long day of pouring pints of beer for rowdy sailors, handsy soldiers, and disruptive drunken no-goods was worth it to have her soldier boy back in her arms.

“Where–ah, Rowan!” Breathless, Aelin poked him in the ribs, pretending to disapprove of the promising way he kissed her throat. “We’re in public.”

“Let’s fix that, shall we?” He set her down onto her feet, caught her hand, and grinned. “I believe I need a bath, my love. Could you help me with that?”

“You are incorrigible,” she laughed. She pecked a quick kiss on his lips and led him out of the pub and down the streets, turning into a quiet neighborhood and leading him up the front steps of a tidy little brick cottage with a blue front door. “Please be kind about the mess.”

“I’ll show you a mess,” he whispered into her ear, far too tempting for his own good.

She flushed, her cheeks staining bright pink. “Rowan!”

“Aelin,” he mimicked. They were safely inside the house, so he looped his arms around her waist and pulled her flush against him. “I’ve been dreaming of you for months, love.”

“And you’re going to bathe before you act out any of those dreams, my love.” Giggling, she ducked out of his embrace and led him down the short hall to a washroom. “The tub is full, but it might be cold.”

“I don’t care if the water is cold.” He shrugged off his jacket and stepped out of his boots. “It’s a hell of a better bath than we get in the army.”

She sighed fondly. “I’m still going to boil some water.” He made to protest, and she placed her fingers over his mouth. “Ah-ah, soldier boy. Let me spoil you. Besides, the hot water is half for your filthy clothes.”

“Fine,” he acquiesced. He shed the rest of his dirty, worn clothing and climbed into the tepid bathwater, groaning quietly as he sank into a proper bath for the first time in too long. “Join me, love.”

“Soon.” She kissed his forehead and dropped a washrag and a bar of soap into the tub. “When you stink a little less.”

His playful growl followed her all the way out to the front room.

Following the bath–where she had indeed joined her soldier boy and taken his mind off the weight of war for a few moments–and a hearty dinner, Aelin exchanged her regular blouse and skirt for a soft cotton nightdress, braided her hair, and settled into bed with a lantern lit on the side table and a novel in her hands. Rowan was in the washroom; the faint splashing of water indicated that he was scrubbing out his uniform like he insisted he wanted to. So she opened her novel to the page where she had last left off and lost herself in the tender romance unfolding amidst the pages. She was so absorbed in the novel that she didn’t notice the mattress shifting as Rowan climbed into the bed and settled down beside her.

His soft, low chuckle drew her out of the novel-world. “Good story, Ae?”

“Wonderful,” she murmured. Reaching the end of the chapter, she placed the bookmark, closed the book, laid it aside, blew out the lantern, and tucked herself into his side, her head against his chest.

“I missed you,” he whispered after a peacefully quiet interval, stroking one hand idly up and down her back.

“And I you.” In the faint moonlight, her eyes met his, months of pent-up yearning and uncertainty glossing their turquoise depths. “I am sorry I didn’t write more.”

He soothed her worry with a gentle kiss. “I would likely have found you before your letters found me. ’Tis the life of a soldier.”

She hummed in agreement. “On that note…when did you last see Aedion?” Her older brother, whom she loved dearly but whose rashness she did not ignore, had vanished from the Galathynius home early last spring, leaving no indication of where he was going or why. Aelin alone had an idea of what he had gone to do, because he had confided his wishes to her. He had gone off to be a soldier in the Continental Army, but his unit were scouts, which meant that he could be anywhere between Philadelphia and Yorktown.

Rowan exhaled a long, controlled breath. “The last time our paths crossed was in September, at the camp outside Newport. He mentioned going south, but no details.”

“South.” Aelin rolled the idea over in her mind, forcing herself not to consider the harsher implications. “Was he…how was he?”

“Healthy, as far as I could tell, and tired, but so are all of us soldiers.” Rowan ran his hands along Aelin’s tense shoulders, encouraging her to relax. “He said to give you his love and that he’ll do unspeakably horrible things to me if I hurt you.”

Aelin laughed. “Now that sounds like Aedy. Too protective for his own good, he is.” Idly, her touch trailed along the slope of Rowan’s shoulders, tracing the new scar that slashed from his right shoulder down towards his pectoral muscle. “Tell him that I will return the unspeakably horrible favor if either one of you does anything stupid.”

“Indeed I shall.” Laughing softly, Rowan pulled Aelin flush against his chest, her heartbeat atop his, and kissed her. She sighed into the kiss, threading her fingers into his overgrown hair.

“I don’t want you to go back,” she murmured after they had separated.

He swallowed thickly. “We both know I must.”

“I know.” Her voice was a fragile thread. “I’m keeping you all to myself for the next two weeks, though. It’s only fair.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I love you, my wildfire.”

She smiled tenderly at him. “I love you too, my soldier boy.”

Mid-November, 1778

Aelin,

I apologize both for the shortness of this note and the fact that it took me so bloody long to write it. There is something I must tell you, and I can only hope that you hear it from Rowan rather than me and my paltry excuse for a letter.

We are marching to Savannah. Intelligence has it that the Redcoats intend to advance upon the city, and we cannot let the stronghold go without a fight.

I cannot promise that I will be able to write for any amount of time, and as much as I hate to do this, I leave you all my affection. I will stay as safe as possible, that I can promise. The moment I am able, I swear on my blood that I will come to you, and if possible, that I will bring Rowan.

Stay strong for us, dear sister.

Yours,

Aedion

The short note had reached her in late January of 1779, after three and a half months of ever-increasing tension and worry spurred by the grim reports coming up from the South. Before he left in mid-November, the same time Aedion’s letter was dated, Rowan had revealed that his unit was headed to Savannah to reinforce the troops already there. He had been confident that, with the extra reinforcements, the Army would be able to stave off the British–if not all on their own, then at least long enough for the shipment of French troops to arrive.

Just before the New Year, the newspapers reported Savannah’s defeat.

Since then, all Aelin had received was silence. No letters, no notes, nothing listed in the papers, no weary soldiers showing up on her doorstep. The fact that Rowan’s and Aedion’s names remained out of the papers was but a small measure of comfort; all too often, fallen soldiers’ names never made it onto the listings.

The cloth tying back her hair was black now, the only outward sign of suffering she would allow herself. The people who came into the pub noticed her quiet demeanor, the way her usual vivacious cheer was dampened, and passed quiet condolences to her across the worn oak bartop–a squeeze of the hand, a mourning mother’s shared tears, a word of comfort, a “thank-you” from someone who rarely spoke those words. It lifted her spirits a bit, but not much.

Every night, she trudged home to her quiet little house, cradled a small watercolor portrait of Rowan–done a year ago, it was the only portrait she’d ever convinced him to sit for–stared down into his painted face, and refused to let her captive tears fall. Though her heart and soul ached for her soldier boy, though her sleep was disturbed by nightmarish imaginings of what could have happened or could be happening to him, she refused to let her tears fall until she knew his fate for certain.

If nothing else, she owed him--and the child just beginning to stir inside her womb--that fragile hope.

~~~

TAGS: please lmk if you want to be added/removed or if tags don't work :)

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#my writing #rowaelin month #rowaelinmonth #rowaelin month 2023 #rowaelin #aelin galathynius #rowan whitethorn #rowan x aelin #rowaelin fanfic #rowaelin fanfiction #throne of glass #throne of glass fanfic #throne of glass au #revolutionary war au #american revolution #happy birthday to me

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mustluvcatz-reloaded · 3 months ago

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The following is going to be a combination vent/whine post. I'll put it behind a read more for sanity's sake.

Alrighty, here we go. I've asked on Facebook and in Facebook groups. I've Googled until my eyes crossed (not hard to get them to do that these days, haha), Nobody ever has an answer OR, if they do, it''s not a helpful one. SO - does anyone have any clue/leads/ideas on where an adult with NO children can get help with basic things like new underwear, socks and bras? AND, on top of that, if there is anywhere that will help an adult with NO children with Christmas? It seeme like everything is for those with little ones OR there is help for older adults but not in my area.

I'm so frustrated. I can keep us fed, I can keep a roof over our heads, I can keep the lights on, I can keep the internet on (eh..for the most part, lol), I can keep the cat fed. Laundry, toilet paper, etc., - good to go. But clothing? It's been about 4 years since I've been able to get myself new underwear, socks or a bra. The church up the street used to have free clothing - I don't mind used clothes, I DO mind my old sweatpants falling down because they're stretched out. Holey undies, broken underwires. Bleh. Christmas, I can make the boys snack baskets, it'd just be nice to be able to get at least one thing.

I'm also going to have to try to save a bit of money. My youngest and his fiance finally set a date: Feb 14th, 2025. My baby is getting married!! (They've been engaged for a couple years.)

One last thing: I'm making it next years mission to get my eyes taken care of. I have to, this is ridiculous. I don't know to work it all out but damn, I can't do anything anymore. Read a book? Nope. Work on crafts? Nope. Puzzles? TV? Work on new stuff for TS2? Nope, nope, nope. I've given up walking anywhere if it's sunny because the sun totally blinds me, even with my sunglasses. I can be on my phone and laptop for a bit at a time thanks to high contrast and being able to zoom. I cook and clean mostly by feel.

Any ideas, any leads. Please share them with me! I may not reply but I will definitely read them!

#real life #mlc checks in #today was laundry day #the wind about blew me away #just a bit of randomness there #lol

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c-cw-f-saeko · 11 months ago

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tell me your name (tesso and seonhee headcanons 2/3)

they moved out of the way so i could take a picture of mt. fuji -> loose recreation of this image

hi !! i thought i’d finish this tesso and seonhee (separate and together) headcanon masterpost. it covers their individual backstory, how they met and how their relationship grew.

btw i made another headcanon masterpost about the liumang here 🤩 it wouldn't be a bad idea to read it before this one !

i warn that this is the ultimate yapping session LOL so it's long and very image heavy OOPS! there are more than 30 images, i wanted to add more but will stop there for now. check the bottom of the post for some straightforward headcanons (and a TLDR).

also, please pretend the entire timeline makes sense.....i won't beat myself over ageless characters not fitting 100% with documented events 😭 (imo seonhee is 34 and tesso is 37 currently) nvm my guess for seonhee but tesso is surely 37

also, the two fics i wrote heavily tie to this (don't mind the last one). i won't say you need to read them to understand, but i recommend reading them (BC I COOKED!) it'll be linked when needed.

- wang tielin

not completely accurate because he shouldn't have his scars but i'm too lazy to re-do the texture from scratch... sorry tielin 💔

birth name is wang tielin

born in japan. lived in the countryside with his uncle for the longest he could remember.

vowed to his childhood friend to live on the straight and narrow no matter what (hahaha)

a promise to keep was to become rich and share with their family when they grow up.

went to school just because, but had no plans nor dreams in particular. never stirred trouble.

was always kinda bland, but made an effort to become and dress "cooler" after coming to kamurocho (look at the fit please 😭 it was definitely a phase). this is part of the stuff tesso left behind (including his real name). would've preferred no one he knows today met him during that time.

zhao tried time and time again to make tesso show him pictures of him when he was younger but tesso claims to have none. zhao even got seonhee on the task and was ready to put down a good chunk of cash to make it happen. unfortunately for him, tesso was a nobody that truly came out of nowhere according to the geomijul (seonhee just lied 🤩 sorry tianyou).

-> long before the liumang

he came from some city in the country side where nothing really happens. his aunt and uncle took care of him and sent went to school. he was expected to take on his uncle’s restaurant since he was helping out from time to time and that’s what his uncle wanted anyway.

how can i put it… as long he found a way to feed himself and have a roof over his head, he didn’t have a goal to attain (like a goal career or whatever). he had no aspirations as in “i guess i’ll live” 😍

though, he had a close friend called liwei. they spent most of their time at school and outside together doing whatever. unlike tesso, liwei had big dreams of finally making it out go the “boring” countryside and establishing himself in a big city, becoming the wealthiest person of his family to provide for his parents. he had a passion about going to especially kamurocho because it was the complete opposite of their current lives. tesso's response to liwei was mostly -> “i support you!” he kinda admired liwei for having determined ambition.

-> a bit before the liumang

though, liwei ended up getting killed because a hit was ordered by a bunch of strangers on seemingly the wrong person. not a lot of clues were left behind, but tesso was adamant about it being a mistake since the two of them always swore on being on the straight and narrow (ironically).

so, tesso decided to leave his hometown in the countryside to find out what happened, who killed liwei and how the mix-up happened in the first place.

it lead him to many big cities (like kamurocho) though he navigated a bit clumsily with his words (talking a bit too carelessly about “i’m looking for such such that killed such and such, not knowing the type of place he was getting into), tesso ends up getting jumped by the local chinese mafia at least twice 😭 the clues he finds leads him into yokohama and bro gets jumped again 😭

all to figure out the true culprit was guys from yokohama's chinatown and going up front to them was the worst idea ever. instead, he joins the liumang (at first for refuge as outsider chinese people were vulnerable to trouble between seiryu/liumang and liumang/chinatown). then, in hopes of giving another meaning to his life and eventually seek justice for liwei’s murder.

-> in the liumang

won't go too much in detail here, but tesso ends up being recruited personally by zhao as a liumang officer through a fight - given the exploit of him being able to scratch his jacket with his claws (and zhao scratched his face across his nose and cheeks with his sabre 😍)

- sakura, the number one hostess

long ago in kamurocho, seonhee used to be an hostess called sakura. remnants of the jingweon mafia rejected by mainland and local koreans (that later formed the geomijul) survived the best they could with low-level information dealing. they used cabaret clubs to get info out of the local population.

moving left and right with her mother, it was lucrative enough for her to be able to fend for the two of them — even if it was temporary, she would be doing it until they’d be able to find some sort of stability.

eventually, the cabaret club was disbanded due to more prominent gangs taking over kamurocho, basically forcing the geomijul out of the city (to later end up yokohama).

in the move, the geomijul was very unstable; most members falling into despair as they were forced out of of home one more time.

seonhee was one of the few people to step up to rally the remaining people together. if they were wavering in the faith of surviving their predicament, the geomijul wouldn't even survive. she did everything she could to make sure fellow members wouldn't walk astray and find them a new home.

being one of people that proposed lodging the geomijul between the seiryu clan and the liumang and reprise their information dealing activities. it was through her sheer determination and in the success of securing the geomijul in yokohama that seonhee was made leader (despite being that young and a woman) jumping over all the oldheads.

fun fact, after leaving the cabaret club, she vowed to herself to never do that type of work ever again.

- meeting for the first time in kamurocho

bro came dressed like that to the luxury club 😭 first timer spotted!! fresh meat here!!!!!!

one promise he made to himself was to realize one of liwei’s dreams, no matter how futile it was. so, he gathered most of his money and decided to light it up for one night in kamurocho in his honour. he ended up going to the first cabaret club he laid eyes on - the one owned by the geomijul.

given the way he was dressed (lol) and the fact he had never been in the city before, seonhee (the number one hostess at the time) was tasked of tending his table. she usually handled the most "suspicious" customers.

that's what she thought at first, but past their initial talk, she really did find out he was just young random dude trying out the cabaret clubs for the first time.

“is it your first time here?” “yeah, there isn’t stuff like this where i live” and so on. funny enough, he turned the conversation back on her a lot so she could ramble about the city and the type of work she did (life in the countryside is boring and uneventful anyway). it caused her to indirectly talk about the geomijul — tesso couldn’t know, her words still applied to the cabaret club dynamic. “the streets are competitive so we are working hard to stay on top!” and how teamwork was the most important thing at the end of the day, etc.

they had a good time talking and tesso was glad to find out city girls were so friendly. he had the impression that he’d be eaten alive, but he was doing ok so far.

he touched briefly on the real reason he visited kamurocho (thought to himself it would defeat the purpose to not mention it). though, seonhee was smart to not make him linger on the subject by proposing to toast in his honor. tesso agreed, he was there to celebrate and she had made the right call.

[sorry for the lack of continuity here but i can't being myself to write more atm. will evetually expand that part into a fic.]

- meeting for the second time in yokohama

tesso was always one of the officers zhao relied on the most. for example, he was leading the men sent by zhao after nanba through the city.

so, after mabuchi's overturned coup-d'etat and seonhee taking over the liumang, zhao named tesso as the most reliable man under him and could definitely provide great support in mending the geomijul and liumang together - zhao assured seonhee she could rely on tesso to bridge the two factions.

seonhee was quick to recognize tesso right away, thinking hard about where she had seen such a familiar face before - and the options were very little. it didn't take long for her to realize that it was the same guy she met at the cabaret club years ago. she thought about playing it cool and pretending they never met before, "he probably forgot anyway" and it's not like she looks exactly the same as she did. but she couldn't really shake off the possibility of him remembering. still, she plays it off in front of zhao

for as long as tesso remembers, the geomijul was a very secretive organization and most liumang didn't even know who the boss was and what they looked like. so he rolled with the assumption of having never met them before. so, of course, when he officially met seonhee for the first time, he didn't recognize her. at least at first 😭

- the underworld post mabuchi

because of fusion of the underworld, there was a lot of re-structuring to (such as combining certain cashflows, identifying businesses to assign new leaders to look after them, etc.) it was challenging especially after mabuchi basically left the liumang in shambles and with a lot of defecting members.

tesso helped out sorting out the mess with seonhee personally; it was easier to go through everything with someone that new the ordeal from top to bottom (thanks to zhao). the little time they had was dedicated to fixing the whole organization. at that time, seonhee relegated a lot of leading responsibilities to joongi while tesso did the same with his subordinates.

that's all it was; hours in a corner of the geomijul (usually in the middle of the night) sorting through hundred of files.

at first, it was awkward. tesso had never seen who led the geomijul before and the reality was very far from this expectations. starting at the fact he didn't even thought the geomijul had a woman at its head because of the rumours running the liumang. a detail zhao never bothered bringing up before they met.

zhao's funky and malleable nature was replaced by something more rigid, stern at times but always stood on business. it was different, but tesso went along with it. her style was definitely gonna bring the liumang and geomijul back on its feet.

still, he spoke to her with the same clumsiness as he did with zhao. distant in his words, just like a subordinate should be to its leader. she didn't mind, especially when she did most of the talking anyway.

that's how their routine was at the start: meet, sort documents, leave — there wasn't anything else more to it.

but, something didn't feel quite right.

the more he heard her talk, the more he was sure to have met her before. the words she used, her tone... it felt so familiar. and he had plenty of time to think about it. there was no doubt, she definitely was that girl from the cabaret club...

he kept it to himself and vowed to pretend he's mistaken. the last thing he could do was to bring it up first and be wrong. he would continue to behave the same as he ever did. given their circumstances, he could assume she had left her old life behind as well.

though, irony seeped from his pores, it was stronger than him. the coincidence was a bit humorous; the two of them meeting again with different names and under these unlikely circumstances. he kept his stun under wraps - or at least tried to.

from lingering gazes when she wasn't looking to the way she held herself, tesso recalled the selfless woman he met long ago in kamurocho. despite the heavy facade she always wore, she played it off well, how, in the midst of her words, always passed others before herself.

even with her bolder style, and it's not like she changed much: she was still as beautiful as ever and had that unwavering aura fit of a born leader.

perhaps, he had made his realization too obvious.

ever since zhao presented tesso to seonhee, she knew they had met before. thus, sat quietly with the intent of pretending she was someone else. however, tesso's demeanour changed out of the blue. he seemed a bit more awkward and careful in his words.

though, seonhee resigned on pretending. "tesso? is that how you call yourself these days?" shortly followed with his real name. she asks, chuckling a bit. perhaps, he could've picked something more subtle. he did abandon his birth name for this alias he wasn't really sure whom give it to him. but it doesn't really matter. it just meant was a completely different man now.

it was a bit ironic; they are able to have to shy laugh about it, the ice is starting to melt between them.

- the bridge between the geomijul and yokohama liumang

overall, the union between the geomijul and liumang was welcome by its members. given the situation they both were in - one left without a leader and the other very vulnerable to outside threats. it was worth leaving residual animosity behind and cooperate for the sake of keeping yokohama safe.

so, antagonists to seonhee taking over after zhao were far and between - mainly geomijul oldheads (like seo hancheol 😍 rip bozo) and the few remaining mabuchi enjoyers (like zheng because yes in this timeline bro didn’t get banished out of yokohama).

so, not only did tesso assist seonhee in the merge of the two groups, but he kinda became for the liumang what joongi is for the geomijul: the first commander under the leader and first rep for the liumang. so, in case of trouble or any reference needed from geomijul members, they could ask him if needed. tesso is known to get along with younger folks (canon) so it helps a lot!

overall, the underworld is structured like this:

- factions subordinates (tesso and the geomijul)

yeona calls tesso liumang oppa 😭 she's the one that got tesso to read manga

i feel like yeona would get along well with these two LOL she can get info on joongi from tesso since they work on another level (joongi hides his cringy side from his subordinates). also, she tends to tease seonhee a bit about not being single anymore 😭 in a little sister-big sister type of way. bc like it's not like they ever announced anything, but yeona just picks up on vibes like that 😭 there's banter between seonhee and her, but it's in good faith!! there are so little women in the geomijul, so yeona made sure to stick with

"seonhee unnie, that's your boyfriend isn't it?" she didn't say that, but her eyes kinda did 😭 yeona always knows when something is up about her big sister. this whole exchange happened while tesso was reading his notes LOL 😭

well kinda... because now that seonhee is taken, han-sama (joongi) can stop worrying about seonhee's relationship status.

- advisor to advisor (tesso and joongi)

"Tha- That's not possible! She couldn't have a boyfriend! Some random man from who-knows-where!?" (direct canon quote istg 😭)

"some random man from who-knows-where" that's literally what tesso was to joongi for awhile.

of course, he knew tesso was one of the closest subordinates of zhao. but he wanted to dig out his history as much as he could before even asking zhao about it. surprise came when he didn’t find much out of the geomijul surveillance system — there was no way to know for sure how nor when he got in the city. however, joongi was adamant about not asking seonhee about it just yet.

sure, tesso and seonhee never announced they were together (for a very long time). but joongi picked up the smallest changes of seonhee's demeanour and her mannerisms. she tried her best to conceal it, but nothing went past his eye. and it was very clear to him... seonhee was indeed dating that random man.

at first, it was veiled concern but joongi believed seonhee could do better. he thought seonhee could aim for someone more or at least just as good looking than him (im sorry LOL but exhibit A) and someone as refined as her and not so… contradictory in looks and personality (tesso looks rough with a lot of distinctive features but is rather simple). so, first impression wise, it was off to a rocky start.

despite being the two most important members of the geomijul and liumang, joongi and tesso didn’t really get along. tesso thought joongi was arrogant and preferred dealing with his subordinates instead (like yeona with whom he was able to work well with).

“don’t mind han-sama. he’ll get over it eventually…” tesso still has no clue what she means by that

the impression of tesso and joongi not getting along wasn't setting a good example for the fellow geomijul and liumang members. while tesso was unsure about the whole thing, joongi struggled moving on for a bit. even seonhee wasn't sure of what was going on between the two.

it took yeona telling on joongi's business back to seonhee for her to set the record straight. no one knows for sure what she has said, but their short discussion was followed by a shy apology from joongi, blaming the geomijul's eternal lack of trust of others for his behaviour and vowed to be as reliable as ever. actually, that was a move from seonhee where she wouldn't let a reason so petty cloud joongi and tesso's relationship further. it was better if tesso didn't know (lol).......

in joongi's opinion, there was too many red flags or dubious points about tesso and couldn’t figure out where nor when they even met (as seonhee never mentioned him before). so, everything came to him as a surprise.

deep down, the hurt joongi felt was because seonhee didn’t tell him about it first when they shared pretty much everything. he took it as a sign of being unworthy of her trust. understanding it didn’t come from malice, joongi slowly opened up to tesso - it was iffy at first, there was still moments when he was a bit rude despite him. it took time, but joongi trusted seonhee in her decision and agreed that tesso wasn’t so bad after all (“albeit a bit goofy and doesn’t have a presentation as neat as I do”). all that mattered at the end of the day was seonhee’s wellbeing and she seems happy. bro got over himself…

- relationship ladder

(i'm not gonna extend myself too much on this but) the particular thing about them is how the closer they got, the place to work on business changed as well.

this is the fish shop next to eomoni's vow 😭

it started at the corner of the geomijul but surely became eomoni's vow (which is just my first fic LOL) - right at the time when the city was as calm as ever and the liumang and geomijul were combined together. members were more comfortable walking the streets so the need to remain miles of tunnels under the surface wasn't as needed.

still, they usually met in the middle of the night to work on stuff, but just end up eating and drinking the hours away. they got in the habit of playing mahjong against each-other singing karaoke on rare occasion (amongst other things).

next location is qing jin.

omg bro with the three piece suit 😭

it's upgrade from eomoni's vow since the top floor has a dress code 😍 you have to be put together to get in there so dresses and dress shirts are a must.

tesso debated for awhile before inviting her. it was a bit of a bold move, but he knew qing jin would be more of her taste (more spacious, luxurious and an entire different palate) AND it was still very private.

tesso actually picked the artwork (see the tomato picture below) and the room divider is from lin lin

they went a few times, and that was then tesso told seonhee about zhao's apartment complex and eventually advanced the idea to share a spot there. won't go over the details again LOL but you get the idea 🤩

knowing she'd be coming, tesso leaves her sweets 🥹 he's usually more busy on foot (you know assassination quests 🤩), but will drop by before she does if he has other stuff to do for the day.

seonhee definitely spends more time there since she doesn't have to be out carrying missions out on the streets and enjoys the privacy. it's seemingly normal when compared to the gloominess of the geomijul and restaurant row.

- trip to kyoto

this is basically the fic i wrote last year - tesso and seonhee go on a trip to kyoto. (PLEASE READ IT I COOKED!!! 😭) the fic in a nutshell:

i am kidding of course

despite being a higher ranked officer with more responsibilities, he’s always stuck at the “uhhhh taking some time off like that kinda feels unfair” but was bullied convinced by zhao to take some anyway. yokohama had been peaceful for awhile now and his subordinates could run well without him around for a few days.

so take the bullet train to osaka only to come back three days and four nights later. notably, they visit the nonomiya shrine (the shrine of love woooooooohooooo, no it is actually!), tesso dedicates her a poem and they stay in a machiya.

funny enough, i managed to make 3d models pretty close to the original drawings (iykyk) so it's fun!

pretty!!!!!!!!! 😭

- miscellaneous

funny thing they do -> rock paper scissors and they talk to each-other the native tongue of whoever wins for a day. seonhee tends to win often; she's just built like that.

during yua's first year at seiryo, tesso and seonhee attended the parent-student meeting together in place of her uncle (yua's legal guardian at the time). to meet sawa-sensei (yes she lived).

negative trait

tesso : can be too passive | seonhee : lacks humility

positive trait

tesso: dependable | seonhee: diligent

strength against the other

tesso: resistant to dominatrix energy | seonhee: resistant to tianyou

their weakness coming from the other

tesso: her cute mannerisms | seonhee: him calling her a specific petname (b......ba......omg i can't [dies of cringe])

serious complaint about the other

tesso: sacrificing health for the sake of fashion | seonhee: sleeps too little

unserious complaint about the other

tesso: lacks stamina | seonhee: grandpa mannerisms at 37

random quirk

tesso: can fall asleep anywhere | seonhee: rarely laughs from her the pit of her stomach

karaoke?

seonhee: enjoys anything from koda kumi | tesso: either tone deaf or decent, nobody knows… won’t do anything more than adlibs

hobby they got because of the other

tesso: skincare | seonhee: gardening

seonhee enjoys growing tomatoes, amongst other things. on his part, tesso grows nappa cabbages somewhere on a rooftop in restaurant row (mostly for kimchi ofc).

hobby they don’t share

tesso: shopping | seonhee: running

hobby they tried together for the first time

dancing (thank you yagami)

seonhee is pissed bc yagami made them do something really hard as a tryout. it's not easy, but it's simple at least so they managed!

thing they do when sick

tesso: eats lemons like oranges | seonhee: drinks tea with every single aromatic she can find (ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, peppercorns, etc.)

last thing they fought about

seonhee being frustrated at tesso’s reluctance to take over the liumang, leading her to talk ill of zhao’s ways of leadership. though, seonhee is too proud to apologize first and they didn’t talk to each other for two weeks. even zhao and saeko picked up on the fact they were kinda avoiding each other.

one thing they struggled with

(especially tesso at the start) treat each-other on equal footing. he was kinda confused at how to behave, whether to be or to not be subservient, like.....

not that it was his second nature, but that's what he used to for the longest time. so, he didn't mind at all.

seonhee was a bit frustrated at the need to spell it out, but it was better that way. at least, everything was clear between them from that point on.

for zhao's costume party [i'll write about this later? maybe?]

(actually seonhee convinced tesso but) they did matching costumes of leon kennedy and ada wong from RE.

TL;DR: i think there are moments when seonhee shares more of herself to someone on equal footing, moments where she's more vulnerable and has room to step away from her idolized self.

i think there are moments when tesso has to put himself first, moments when he must learn to not overextend himself at his own expense.

despite the unlikely circumstances and complicated conditions, i think they would be able to do that together. tesso and seonhee are polar opposites on so many things and i think they can learn a lot from each-other.

i'll make another post with all different outfits they had soon because the volume of models i made 😭

next headcanon post is either going to be ichitesso on dondoko island or yua.....idk yet........

and yes in my book miku was on dondoko island LOL

and before you ask, yes i smoke crack! thank you for coming to my ted talk!

#tessohui #tesso #seonhee #domain expansion #mental institute!!!!!!!!!!#also please dont think im a joongi hater #hes just lame af for how he is towards seonhee about her dating..like bro.....shes not gonna let you hit please stop #also he called ichiban ugly so................bruh............#other than that hes cool #im mentally ill #there are so many more things i wish i could convey #but i kinda hate writing #also this is not very fluffy? i think?#i shouldve written more i literally cant #im sorry #this has been in my drafts for a month at least #han joon gi #zhao tianyou

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olderthannetfic · 1 year ago

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Okay first as a disclaimer... Yeah I guess my first disclaimer was unnecessary I'm just paranoid and stuff

But on to the follow up I might not have explained myself properly or given enough context or my question was incoherent? But for context while I do like plenty of canon ships, my favorite ships tend to be MxM ships of characters who don't have canon female love interests. My fandoms tend to be fujobait/card game anime plus video games. (Honestly I kind of feel like the guy you called 'some fuck' in your answer tbh lol (Hopefully I'm not as obnoxious and arrogant as them though)).

Anyway the stuff I was mostly thinking about was stuff like the Ike/Soren defenses and the Ash Ketchum shipping wars. (Although I only read that instead of participating) But from your answer and thinking over it I realized that I had actually seen a good amount of Hassel/Brassius hint finding etc but I didn't realize it was the kind of stuff I was thinking of (probably because they weren't being defensive or worried about homophobic attacks). So yeah the kind of stuff I was asking about does exist but I just didn't realize it.

Anyway on the anti stuff... I feared that people interested in this stuff disappeared because they became antis but fortunately it seems that's not true.

Anyway thank you for the answer and apologies for any inconveniences and vagueness in my asks.

Ahaha. Really, anon? Your whole preamble was pure canon het shipper from big US TV circa 2005 in its tone.

Now I'm even more confused about why on earth you think you and I have beef.

I think the basic answer to some of your questions may be that:

Yes, people who like all kinds of things exist.

But if you're looking for shippers of something very specific, 99% of media and ships never generate A Fandom™ in the Destiel/Sterek/Drarry/etc. sense. Canon, not canon, slash, het: doesn't matter, most are small.

Have a look at that other recent post about what percentage of AO3 fandoms are what size.

Guys from "fujobait" who don't have canon female love interests seem like... not actually canon ships?

This just seems like the same speculation and looking for confirmation that all the other m/m shippers are doing unless they're into MDZS or Jordan L. Hawk novels something.

I'm not clear on what sets what you're talking about apart from... just the average shipper on tumblr.

I don't know much about the social dynamics of Pokemon or Fire Emblem fandoms except for a vague sense that FE has the usual modern fandom full of young idiots harassing each other problems.

People do move on from particularly unpleasant fandoms... but... mostly, people just move on from everything and usually quite quickly.

The only fandoms people stay and stay and stay for are those that are generating a huge volume of new material, usually fan-made, often in the form of novel-length fic. And even then, it takes a specific fannish personality type to stick to one particular ship or fandom for ages. There are people still shipping those two dudes from The Professionals and nobody else, but they're a rare breed.

I still don't understand what you were asking in the first place.

Someone who knows these fandoms, explain????

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batsarebetterthanpeople · 1 year ago

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im so sorry to send you this but im confused. i thought izzy hands was obviously homophobic while i was watching the show but now people on the internet are telling me that calling him gay and homophobic is a conspiracy theory. i want to trust my instincts on this as a queer myself but they say it so much i think im starting to believe it. i know literally none of this matters but its genuinely bumming me out. maybe we all just have slightly different definitions of homophobia?

I would love to answer this for you. Your instincts are correct. Izzy is gay and homophobic. You should trust your gut on this because it's important for you be able to identify guys like Izzy irl if you're someone who might be on the receiving end of homophobia.

What happened is that back in June of 2022 everyone fully agreed that Izzy was one of those repressed gay men who's internalized homophobia rotted his soul and became externalized. We wanted to put him in a jar. We all interested in how this weird little freak got this way. Then everything changed when the canyon formed. Since then it has been a mad dash to beat the allegations. Unfortunately an actor has validated them in a way that makes me really wonder about him frankly, because he seems to be operating under the impression that people are saying that Izzy is a "homo sex is sin" Style homophobe when nobody was saying that, what we were saying is that Izzy is incredibly weird about and hateful towards feminine men and he believes that Stede is corrupting Ed with his foppishness, which is still homophobia it's just a different brand of homophobia than the religious right's obsession with the mechanics.

Tbh tho I don't actually care about that actors' take because he's not a writer, he has a history of not being very good at reading the subtext given that he fully didn't realize it was a gay show for half the episodes, and David Jenkins has liked multiple metas on twt about Izzy being a homophobe so I'll trust that lol. The only consequence that Con O'Neill being publically wrong has had for me is that people occasionally do an unearned victory lap when he says something.

But also I low key sometimes feel incredibly unsafe knowing that there's a substantial group of people who claim to be queer and against homophobia but who can't understand that the whole subplot with Lucius in episode 5 and the thing with Ed in episode 10 is laced with bigotry against feminine gay men. I don't think admitting that means you have to think it's his only motivation or that it's contradictory to the read of him being attracted to Ed and Lucius or with the concept that he's mostly just power hungry, but it does sort of mean that I have to move through the world knowing that there are people in my own community who would fully blame me if something happened to me. I don't fucking like it. That's why I get so upset about this so publicly. It's like so what happens if I get attacked but the guy calls me a namby pamby or a bitch instead of a faggot. Are you gonna be like "well we don't know~". It's just an uncomfortable thought. I don't understand why they're so desperate to beat the allegations either, like he's fake. People who have experienced things like what Ed and Lucius went through at his hands are real. The argument that gay people can "do something to (someone)'s brain" is written into legislation trying to ban trans people from public life. Nobody wants you to stop liking Izzy we just want you to stop saying shit that's harmful

And I don't necessarily think that everyone who chooses to put more emphasis on Izzys obsession with Ed wouldn't be able to identify a hate crime, I just have seen more than one piece of meta that goes "Izzys not homophobic he just thinks Stede is a mincing fop who's corrupting Ed with his frilly whiles there's nothing homophobic about that" and I just have to block them for being homophobic themselves because what else do I do with that? When I vague post about this shit I'm talking about specific ass things that I've seen that have made me feel very uncomfortable and unsafe not generic canyon trends. I just really feel like we need to calm down about Izzy. Like you can feel empathy towards a gay guy that hates himself and write a bunch of fic about him getting laid without deciding actually he did nothing wrong and everyone who can see that that's not true is making shit up to oppress *checks notes* people who like a fictional character. I don't get why that's so hard to do.

#the izcourse

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miitarashi · 1 year ago

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IM A HADDOTIN NON SUPPORTER TOO LIKE TF IS WRING WITH SOME PPL😭😭

ALERT: this post is basically me hating the ship,but! It's my account and opinion,i didn't mean to offend nobody,if you don't like,don't read.

OH??? YOU ARE A NON SUPPORTER?????

YOU! I LOVE YOU BEAUTIFUL PERSON THAT I DON'T KNOW NOTHING ABOUT!!!

But,making things clear here.

It's a normal ship. There's a lot of ways for a relationship like this happen and be health so i don't spread hate,i just scroll away when something like this happen to show up.

I hate it for mostly because it's almost

EVERY

FUCKING

WHERE

You can't normally search for Tintin content without seeing some of those. I just want some photos of my precious boy and best friend/father together you know? But it's difficult because there's A LOT about this ship.

Oh,and people assuming every single act of affection between them as a lover thing. This. This makes me want to commit war crimes-

Like bro??? They can hug like normal friends too you know??? I remember seeing other account talking about the tibet adventure. One of my favorites because showed Tintin's relationship with haddock beautifully. That even when Haddock didn't believed he still followed his friend and was more than willing to sacrifice himself for him. I cried bro.

But then,it's reconized as a love story??? God give me patient because if you give me strength i'll kill for fun.

Even so,i normally keep it for myself because it's kinda of idiot to go and hate something that you literally can just scroll way and go on with your life. Damm,i didn't know how much i was needing to vent about it lol.

Just to finish it properly. My dear unknow person,feel more than welcome and safe to be a non supporter on my blog,i'm really happy to have other peoples that think the same! 😌❤️

#the adventures of tintin #tintin #tintin movie #captain haddock #archibald haddock #the adventures of tintin 2011 #tintin 2011 #Haddotin people be aware #it's not a post for you all

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claudiajcregg · 7 months ago

Text

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by @mihrsuri. Thanks, Lil! I feel like I've answered these in the not-so-distant past, and might have accidentally ignored one or more tags. Oops. I need to check the Mentions tab and check it out!

(I also started writing this… earlier this week, and forgot about the tab. Sorry this is so so long.)

01. how many works do you have on ao3? 24 fics, though one of them has eight ficlets… So some would count it as 31. (It's still 24.)

02. what's your total ao3 word count? 167,815 words

03. what fandoms do you write for? TWW.

04. top five fics by kudos?

maybe everything's just turning out how it should be

(big gulf here)

say it's here where our pieces fall in place

just your smile lit a sixty-watt bulb in my house that was darkened for days

nobody knows how to get back home

we could be the way forward and I know I'll pay for it

05. do you respond to comments? Yes! I try to get to all of them, and feel bad when I hoard them (because they're lovely) or they slip through the cracks. (I tend to wait some time before replying to the comments on my most recent fic, so if anything comes in later, it might be immediate or two months late.)

06. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I feel like I always struggle with this answer because they're mostly hopeful endings! Which is just my perception and now how it is. Tempted to go check what I've answered in the past.

Most recently, I think what if the way you hold me is actually what's holy has that 'right person, wrong time', on borrowed time vibes. But maybe not! My go-to answer always feels like my post-Portland Trip fic, don't want you to go but I'll be okay, because it feels so final and bittersweet then.

07. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Oh, which one should I pick? I think the Cali/Jan 22nd fic from earlier this year (oh, and I will be with you to feel the California sun) is just pure happiness, tbh. Memoir fic (still you never took your hand from mine) also feels like a saccharine, sweet ending! (Could've also picked the literal wedding reception-set fic, lol.)

08. do you get hate on fic? No! Luckily. If I have, I don't remember. I've gotten a weird comment or two, but those weren't about the fics. So no!

09. do you write smut? Nooooo, of course not. (This is the last time I'll beg you to read on main and that's under a cut lol.) Up till now I could say it was mild scenes in yet-to-be-posted fics, which remains true, but I posted a literal smutty fic last Friday, lol. I'm proud of it and myself, for getting out of my comfort zone, and while it's flopping I'm glad those who've read it liked it!

10. craziest cross over? This is the question that undoubtedly makes me go “lol I've definitely done this before.” Because I always joke that I've already seen the craziest canon crossovers on screen. That said, I haven't personally written one, and don't have ideas.

11. have you ever had a fic stolen? No? Sometimes I wonder if some ideas have been borrowed but wouldn't say stolen.

12. have you ever had a fic translated? No! Maybe one day I'll do it myself. (I don't think there's demand for it/Spanish-written fics in this fandom.) (Once again, I'm sure that this answer matches the previous ones.)

13. have you ever co-written a fic before? Sounds fun! No. But anyone interested? hmu.

14. all-time favorite ship? In what sense? I cannot choose, but at the same time… We all know.

15. what's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I don't like putting this energy out in the universe. It's one thing to post (that's probably a long list) but actual WIPs that are worth it? I want to believe I'll get to them eventually. (But. Unfortunately, the answer is many of them.)

16. what are your writing strengths? Internal world? As in, I am “good” at describing the internal world of a character. idk.

17. what are your writing weaknesses? I write in my second language. I feel like everything's a weakness. (World building, descriptions, dialogue.)

18. thoughts on dialogue in another language? As long as it doesn't take the reader out (and makes sense in the story), 👍 I might have peppered in some Spanish in some of my writing but it feels wrong somehow.

19. first fandom you wrote in? Bones.

20. favorite fic you've written? I cannot pick a favorite child. I can affectionately call them flops because they mostly are, stats-wise, but there's something about them that I love. And I feel like some of my favorite stuff is what's not yet posted! Because it stops feeling “mine” once it's out there.

don't want you to go but I'll be okay · Portland fic · my automatic answer because I felt it was special the second I finished it. So many things came together (that quote, particularly).

we could be the way forward and I know I'll pay for it · St Augustine, a precanon campaign fic ·(Any of the first four (posted in 2021) is super special to me. This one was another one I knew would be special. And it has big “there wouldn't be this if there hadn't been you” energy.

your love is a secret I'm hoping, dreaming, dying to keep · (3+1 fic set in the last third of S7, ft the press corps) · Taylor sang KOMH on N2 because she loved this. I just know it. (I just really love secret relationships/working around that S7 period so much.)

nobody knows how to get back home · itsotg missing scen) · I just like it a lot, and it's also a good candidate for angsty ending. When did it get so many kudos?!

maybe everything's just turning out how it should be · big block of cheese 2008 · felt disingenuous not to include the fic I always knew I wanted to post, even if it's another early one. It's my most popular by a huge margin, and I'm glad.

I so wanted to add fics like the Cali one but this always depends on my mood! So this is the answer that might always change haha.

Shoutout to some unposted ones that I love but won't get published. Or others perpetually in limbo, like the two big multichapters (IM and S5 pregnancy). I feel like some of my best stuff is in What Once Was Ours (the IM AU fic I wrote in 2021), or the S5 Pregnancy AU (which I hope to finish this summer! And I want to start posting once I feel like I'll make that deadline)… And I'm currently really fond of one I've started to call “demons that you know raise hell worse than a stranger.” Coming to you soon, if I get my crap together!

#mihrsuri #ask games #20 questions for fic writers #are there ''easter eggs'' in here. maybe.

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crplpunkklavier · 2 years ago

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I'm rereading Exorcism (now that its finished! yahoo) and I love Kitty Poes sm shes such an interesting characterrr would you wanna tell me about your process for developing her? ig I couldve DMed you but I myself love a chance to rant publicly so here you go lmao. I am unfortunately only on chapter 14 (though I got further than that last time) so if you wanna be spoilery just give me a warning and I'll read it later >:3c

kitty my best friend kitty

i think i can go over this without any spoilers past chapter 14! you have already seen her big arc and i am sooo happy people liked her <333

so! i've never mentioned this to anyone before, but kitty is a bit of a riff off of one of my oldest OCs. when i was about 18, i was big into katekyo hitman reborn, mostly because i was even bigger into organized crime as a general topic. catalena foggia was the youngest of four, and after a rival family took out her parents and all three of her older brothers (you know, the sort of backstory you give people as a teenager) she very grimly stepped up to the throne.

now whenever i need a female character with a "hello, i Run This Place" air about her, my mind goes to catalena, who of course was called cat by all her friends.

and i knew that i wanted a character like that as klavier's manager. generally, whenever i get to make OCs for my aa fics, i try to make most of them women if they aren't already implied to be men by canon like the rest of the gavinners, since aa refuses to have adult female characters that don't die. the gavinners started out as a bunch of teenage guys, the music industry is tough as nails, LA is horrible..... nobody but cat could've done it, man.

the whole dutch connection sort of happened on the fly. i knew i didn't want to call her catalena foggia, even if nobody but, like, the two irl friends i still have who knew me at 18 lol, knew of that oc. it was still important to me to differentiate, because this wasn't cat, this was a new oc who was very similar to and inspired by her. i remembered that kitty is a valid first name, so i went for that, because i like to think i'm funny. :^)

once you reach the end of exorcism, you'll find a little gdoc with bonus content i left in the end notes there, which among other things contains explanations for all the pun names i've used in the fic. including kitty's, but i'll reiterate here: the reason i stuck with a cat theme was that klavier gavin, in my mind, is absolutely a golden retriever, so i wanted to give him a manager/babysitter who is a cat. a big cat. kitty is short in stature, but i mention her lion's mane of hair often enough in the text, so, u know.

that's also part of what i wanted her to be. yeah, she had to be tough simply for the industry and for the fact that she was managing teenagers for a while, but i also knew that i wanted to give klavier friends, and people in his life who really care about him, and will stick with him through all this. kitty is lawfully loyal: if she doesn't agree with something, she has no trouble walking out, but once she actually takes to someone like she took to klavier, she will be fiercely protective. i never mentioned her age, but i imagined her in exorcism to be somewhere in her mid to late 40s. she's seasoned, she's experienced, she's capable - she's what klavier deserves!!! that's what i wanted. kristoph and daryan are so painfully incompetent, when it comes down to it. klavier needs people in his life who know what they're doing.

so, i wanted a big little lion lady for my dog boy. i sort of just clicked through my various dictionaries for a while looking up different cat terms in different languages to see if any of them sounded enough like a last name, and that's how i landed on poes. only after that did i decide to make the dutch conundrum A Thing.

thank you for asking about her <33333 enjoy the rest of the fic, feel free to keep me posted about ur reading experience too :3c

#extraterezi #exorcism tag

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beardedjoel · 16 days ago

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happy 5k celebration julie! i saw your response to someone asking if IRL peeps knows about smother and was super inspired by what you said. i don't post fics but experimentally write for myself to get things out and read a LOT lol nobody really knows though, not my bf or friends. honestly dunno if it would be that big of a deal, esp w/ bf, but just i'm dumb about my own shame and fear of embarrassment *sigh* anyway i've seen ppl ask their faves that question before and your response rly inspired me, thx for being an icon. i thought i'd drop some ask game stuff in here! 🍓🛼🧃🌿🧩 congratulations again on 5k and one year of smother! i really adore your blog and writing sm.

hi friend! i'm so so behind, but i'm trying to tackle some more of my celebration asks. i'm sorry it took so long to get to this. thank you SO much for your kind words and i hope that maybe you've been inspired to share more about your writing to someone in your life since you sent this! 💖

these question choices were so fun! i'll answer under a cut 😇

🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction?

i dabbled in it years ago but never got very into it, but i've always on and off written little stories etc since i was a kid! they were romance self inserts basically and so cringe but everyone has their roots! i started reading pedro character fic in 2023 and thought wait i want to write some self indulgent shit and hence closer was born 😂

🛼 ⇢ describe your latest wip with five emojis

😭🙏🔥🏃‍♀️⛰️ heheehe (my wip is 22k long so this is the best i got)

🧃 ⇢ share some personal lore you never posted about before

this is a tough one hmmm. i think people are surprised usually to find out i was engaged at 20 years old and i broke it off like 6 months before our wedding and it was messy and shit but it's always a wild story to tell!

🌿 ⇢ give some advice on writer's block and low creativity

i struggle with this for sure. but honestly, usually my best advice is to step away. if it's not flowing, it's not flowing, as hard as that is to accept at times. i'll focus on other things like a book i've been wanting to read or a tv show. and sometimes i listen to certain music to try to inspire creativity and try to match the vibe to whatever i'm trying to write. but mostly, i just end up having to ride the wave!

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

i don't think too many immediate nos for me! but an obvious one that i think i see a lot of people say is using y/n and that's a big no for me. also, i would immediately exit if it was rpf for sure. i would consider exiting if it was older woman/younger man pairing 😂 that just does not do it for me.

#ask

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zephfair · 2 months ago

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More Fic Writer asks! #1, 3, 11, 12, 17 annnddd 30 for a story of your choice ^_^ Enjoy!

Thank you so much the ask! I appreciate you!!!

the last sentence you wrote

This is from my Raven Cycle Hallmark Christmas movie fic that will probably never be posted but like I said in a previous ask, it's my holiday emotional support fic.🤣

“Dick,” a low, gravelly voice growled down at him. Gansey hid his wince from the cold voice as well as the chill of lukewarm coffee soaking through his cashmere, and most probably, the black shirt of the brick wall/man he ran into.

“There’s no need to resort to name-calling. I was about to apologize for spilling on you,” Gansey said, pulling himself straighter but it only brought the man’s stubbly Adam’s apple and chin into focus.

“Fuck, no, that’s not...” then a softer voice—a tone that brought back memories of green fields, the smell of hay and cattle, the tug of a boyish hand in his, days filled with laughter—warmed him in an instant when it said, “Gansey? Is that really you?”

3. how you feel about your current WIP

Oops, this is the one I answered here about that holiday fic that I am trying to work every single Hallmark Christmas movie trope into.🤣

11. a WIP you’d like to finish someday

I have one more Bleach fic that's been halfway done for years. I'd like to finish it just for completion's sake. And I have a bunch of Raven Cycle fics that I still open, read, and then close because the magic fic fairy has not visited me and finished them. Unfortunately. 🥲The two that haunt me are the Mr. and Mrs. Smith AU and the Sugar Daddy AU. I want them to just be exported directly from my brain onto the page without me having to actually type, you know?

12. a trope you’re really into right now

My bedtime ritual includes curling up in bed with my iPad and rereading some of my favorite Ronan/Adam fics. I am always in the mood for a good AU that's either romantic comedy or just romantic with always a happy ending. No dark themes or angst for me please.

17. talk about your writing and editing process

I wish I had more of a writing process tbh. I don't have any energy these days. I plan fics and get all this great dialog and plot while I'm driving on Saturdays, but when I get home, I'm too wiped out to even write a word. Sometimes I scribble down an idea or a phrase that will hopefully jog my memory about the witty conversation I'd imagined. (Spoiler: my memory doesn't like to jog anymore than the rest of me so much of my imaginings are lost.😂)

But when I'm actually writing for real, I try to just keep the flow going. If I get bogged down in a scene or want to add something that I'll need to check on, I just put a placeholder. I don't want to interrupt myself when I'm in the zone, so to speak, and I can always come back and look up or fix that section later.

When I first get a fic idea, I do try to write down the outline as it comes to me and those snippets of conversation that I can hear clearly.

I'm guilty of only performing minimal editing. I know my stuff could definitely benefit from a beta reader, but it's been years since I've had one. I'm always on the lookout for basic spelling, grammar and punctuation errors but gah, they still sneak past me. I know I tend to be verbose so I do try to cut when I can. I keep a file with some of the things I cut, if I really like a passage or a phrase, maybe I can use it again someday where it will fit better.

But in the end, writing fanfic is mostly for me. I adore and crave the validation, for sure, and I'm sure with a beta and much care, I could create a better story. But right now, I don't edit as strictly as I should because I might really love that paragraph, and I'm going to leave it there anyway. For me.

30. share a fic you’re especially proud of

I answered this before and said my Bleach tentacle smut fic lol, but I'm actually proudest of my earliest Da Vinci's Demons stuff. Nobody outside the minuscule fandom has even seen the show, but I was in a strangely good writing mode those couple years, and I think I wrote my best "writing," with pretty turns of phrase and actual plotting and pacing. And smut, always smut.

Thank you so much for the ask, lovely! 😘💖💖💖💖💖

#darknightfrombeyond #thank you so much!

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batsplat · 2 months ago

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i just remember something i meant to ask ages ago but why did Valentinos relationship with Honda end so bad like was he already wanting to switch bike for the 2004 season or was he happy to stay at Honda if things didn't go sideways. Cause I know why he left Yamaha for Ducati, i just haven't found definite sources and reasoning for his Honda to Yamaha switch. (also while i'm here I am going to start a vale career watch once I finish Marcs (upto 2019 atleast i dont think im ready for the honda dark years just yet so i'll make myself feel a little better by watching Vale who will also be joined by Dani, Jorge and Casey)) so excited to watch caseys 2007 season when I get to it, i'm Australian and i've always been aware of him i saw an advert of his on my train the other day so that was fun this ask got so sidetracked sorry, but i'm definalty going to go over your race rec tag but i'll probably just end up watching whole seasons cause i like having the context of things if something in a previous race is going to set up tension in later races.

okay, so this is MOSTLY covered in the sete post. which I understand is a bit long lol so I'll try and give the sparknotes version here. he was getting kinda miserable at honda! winning felt too routine... the way he frames it is that he didn't feel like honda particularly appreciated his efforts and thought it was mostly just their bike doing the trick, not the rider. he talks about it in this autobiography excerpt - he felt like nobody was really getting enthusiastic about his victories anymore, that it was just expected of him, and honda didn't really give a shit if it was him or someone else doing the winning. throw in the press who were also giving him a tough time in early 2003... it just wasn't fun anymore. valentino needs stimulation, he needs challenges, he wants to feel like he's part of a team and he wants to feel loved by that team (and love them in return). it's partly an ego thing and partly just... a question of passion. winning felt too easy and it felt like it had lost his meaning - like it was just a job

and y'know, yamaha did actively court them. which even valentino at the beginning was deeply sceptical of... even though he already felt dissatisfied with honda over the winter of 2002-03, switching to another manufacturer just felt like competitive suicide. he was also being courted by ducati - and even though it doesn't seem like he seriously considered that, until quite late in the season it looked like he might go any of three ways. iirc ducati was willing to throw a particularly obscene amount of money his way lol. but in the end, valentino felt that ducati would be much like honda in their disconnect from its riders and their refusal to listen to them (gosh, could someone not have read his own words back to him in 2010). yamaha was willing to build their whole team around him... and it was also just a special challenge. it'd be something new!! valentino isn't really built for easy domination I reckon, like he just has a trigger in his brain every 2-3 years that starts making him a bit restless idk

and yeah, I always think watching full seasons is well worth it!! there's some seasons that really live and die by the complete storylines, the sense of tension and build-up - especially the first half of 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2008 don't work anywhere near as well without context I reckon. and obviously I'm a massive casey fan... though I will warn you that for reasons entirely unrelated to casey, there is a massive drop-off in average race quality between 2006 and 2007 lol. I'm actually intending to go back over the winter break and fix up my casey race recs list because it was the first I did and quite casual when compared to the later ones - I thought I could do that one without consulting my notes, which in retrospect was a bit high on the hubris and I feel like I want to do that one justice. casey's actually already a really fun presence in 2006!! it doesn't show as much in the results because he'd often drop back or crash, but you see quite a lot of him - including the first few fights with valentino. he has a very pedro-like rookie season if you want a cheap and easy comparison... results are a bit worse on paper but the vibe is quite similar, including the spectacular early season form that trailed off for various reasons. but I do have a lot of fondness for 2007, even if it has some absolute howlers. qatar, mugello, catalunya, assen, donington and estoril the highlights as I recall. still wish we'd gotten casey/valentino with a continuation of the 2006 engine regs and just like. dogfights galore featuring those two... but on the plus side, I suppose laguna 2008 wouldn't have hit quite as hard if it hadn't been such a contrast to everything else happening during that time

#i think this is an ask i didn't save from my inbox into my drafts and then the website crashed #and then i never got round to actually answering. this has a tendency to happen #also man i do feel a teensy bit bad about the ask response rate but genuinely the inbox is so full.... lads it is intimidating #//#brr brr #motogpnewbie #clown tag #batsplat responds #i actually have an odd fondness for early 2008 like i quite like them as comfort watches to put on in the background #just felt like such a time of possibility... all the aliens fighting it out. all these open storylines #the alien era wasn't all bad but it didn't quite deliver what it should have really #and there's no way around it that after 2008 it got progressively worse. 2009 is already a step down but after that...#i do feel quite bad like u get casey doing such a big open innocent grin at valentino and ur like. t minus three on laguna #i mean casey had already moaned a fair bit about valentino in the press by that point but it's like. it's a complicated vibe idk man #AND i will say i feel like journalists have overcorrected in talking about how boring the alien era is vs the current stuff #not many last lap battles but they had overtakes for the lead!! i promise u

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