#ok sorry for generalizing i CAN actually rely on some people

[annakarenina]

people come and go but grief is constant and time is a flat circle

[sillyyuserr]

A longer, more in depth (9 parts all in one) terukane analysis, and/or everything i could find, compiled (one of my better pieces of work imo) ⭐️

Ok so it might be the fact that i ship them so i see a lot of things they do as possibly romantic even when theres no romantic implications, but the amount of times it feels like AidaIro seems to be implying that teru likes akane is getting to a suspiciously high number. Like lets look at this from a non-shipper’s pov (or at least try😭)

Item A: teru looking at akane

Without the context that he’s looking at akane, he genuinely looks like he’s showing something of raw emotion, unchanged by his “fake persona” but a genuine reaction. Looking at this picture at face value one would assume he’s big time crushing. I mean i wouldn’t say “omg hes so in lovveee!!!” But considering he doesn’t really open up to like anyone, i think this is definitely something??

Item B: them going together on a romantic outing

Yes i did make it sound much more compelling then it actually is but cmon man. The school festival is considered a “romantic event” and these two spent the entire time hanging around the school together. Giving the excuse that "it's our job being in the student council" (which i guess it is) but in reality it was because no one wanted to come with them.

Which i mean they also did technically go on an actual date together

nene is so cute here 😭😭

Item C: teru trusting akane more than anyone (?)

Teru likes talking to akane, trusts his intellect, and considers him someone he can rely on but doesn't like it when his whole world starts to revolve around aoi. My guy, that's jealousy.

He is shown to trust him and even show his back to him in multiple instances, knowing he wont hurt him, and he’s someone he can trust (lets ignore what happens on the literal next page)

Even being one of those “i fight alone” type of people. But when akane’s there, he’s never fighting alone.

Item D: not sure if thats whats happening here but im pretty sure he tried glazing akane even blushing n shit like ‘oh no mr judge im not guilty🥺💄💋’

And then got agitated when it didn’t work

Item E: akane knows teru better than we think

When kou and teru were fighting, the reason teru even walked out in the first place was because of the fireworks. And whos idea was that?

Akane’s. He knew he liked fireworks and that they’d lure him out of his room. And again, he was right they did it fact get him to leave

Item F: valentines day event

i dont think i even need to break this one down. Its a picture of JUST them TOGETHER posted on VALENTINES DAY. 2/14/24. THE ANNUAL HOLIDAY THAT CELEBRATES NONE OTHER THAN ROMANTIC LOVE. Also teru’s color being used as akane’s sparkles and akane’s color being used as teru’s sparkles kinda shows that AidaIro arent just showing us two characters, they’re showing us TERU and AKANE, TOGETHER. If it really could be anyone im sure they’d put them in a general setting, but with the paired colors i’d say that says otherwise. Some might say they’re looking at eachother

Okay warning, it starts to get a little unhinged past this point, read with caution

Item G: possible fruit symbolism

first off, this picture.

First lets look at hanako’s. We can see he has two drinks, both red + with strawberries, along with a red straw. While also being pictured near other red fruits.

In this picture, nene’s flower(s) are literally strawberry flowers, putting the association between strawberries + nene out there. Meaning the strawberries in his drink could be purposeful, along with the red undertones. (red being her eye color) (sorry for quality im on iPhone)

Moving on to teru’s, he has one drink, being yellow-ish with pineapple on the side, and chunks in the drink itself. Whilst his straw is orange, while also being pictured around a ginormous pinapple

And this isnt the first time we’ve seen him pictured with pineapples

This god awful picture unfortunately exists so im adding it as proof/evidence for my argument. (Oh and not to mention akane has green pants on so everyone’s a lil funky igs)

notice how as soon they got to his house his outfit changed? This is him when they got to his house (clearly in a long-sleeve shirt, not the hoodie)

this is him with akane + nene going on a date

All within the same chapter i think, but him changing outfits i feel like says something. Like we’re supposed to associate that with something other than aoi (them talking ab how to save her at his house) or his family. Like aidairo are shoving it in your face ‘disassociate teru w aoi!!!’ He even straight up left when they started talking ab how they missed aoi at the karaoke place. (More or so when he left they started talking but ykwim) Since nene is being associated with strawberries it leaves the only other person to be akane, this also making sense also because of the straw color. (The straw being orange; akane’s rep color being orange, as nene’s is red)

also the fact that fruit is literally associated with the queer community

Item H: triangles + queer symbolism

Quick history lesson, A triangle has been a symbol for the queer community, initially intended as a badge of shame, but later reclaimed as a positive symbol of self-identity. In Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, it began as one of the Nazi concentration camp badges, distinguishing those imprisoned because they had been identified by authorities as gay men. In the 1970s, it was again, reclaimed as a symbol of protest against homophobia, and has since been adopted by the larger queer community as a popular symbol of queer pride. More or so, the upsidown triangle. and guess whos ALWAYS wearing a fucking upsidown triangle

My guy has one for EVERY OUTFIT 😭

Item I: extras

This picture. Him holding akane’s shirt and aoi’s bag really shows that AidaIro REALLY doesn’t want us to know which one he likes 😭 if you’re confused, teru’s supposed crush is supposed to be ambiguous (options: akane, aoi) to the audience (basically just me and maybe a few others).

In the “kiss comic” part of the art book, not only are teru and akane’s on the same page, but they also look like they go together

Thats all i got for now (´-ω-`) MAN this took me like 5 different consecutive days. I wrote like 3 parts on one day, 2 more parts the next, and 1 more part today. 😭 hope you enjoyed and this re-gave you faith that terukane might be canon one day 😔 fake it till you make it

Feel free to comment and tell me ab anything i may have missed!! :3

[blackpearlblast]

hey, if my ask is insensitive or simply too much work/you dont want to give your opinion/energy thats ok, and im sorry for bothering you if it is. ive seen many jewish people say "from the river to the sea" is a dogwhistle/generally antisemitic phrase to use, but you used it in your golem art's text part(incredibly moving text btw.) im asking you bc you mentioned youre jewish and i thought you might have insight or thoughts to give on why you use it/what you think about the first statement about the phrase?

hi, yes, i would be glad to talk about my perspective on this! first of all, i do want to say that i think a lot of palestinian bloggers have already talked about this and their voices will always be what you want to seek out first when educating yourself. however, i do know the crowd of people claiming that "from the river to the sea" is antisemitic/genocidal has been very loud so i understand why you would want to hear a jewish perspective on it too. second, in order to explain why i think "from the river to the sea" is not antisemitic will involve me comparing it to actual antisemitic, nazi slogans and dogwhistles and talking about what they mean. so just a heads up for that before it comes up.

the full phrase is "from the river to the sea, palestine will be free!" i think a lot of times in accusations of antisemitism people leave off the second half of the phrase in order to claim it is calling for something else to happen from river to sea (like the expulsion or execution of all jews.) but that's just like, not, ever, a thing? that is said? you can tell the pieces of the phrase go together because they rhyme and also are said together by palestinians and allies near constantly. it's "from the river to the sea, palestine will be free." and i think all of the fearmongering relies on a good bit of ambiguity beyond that too. "what does a 'free palestine' mean? could it meant they want to throw all the jews into the sea?" - some zionist when i tried to look up the origin of the phrase in case there was anything really important i was missing that i should cover in this. there's like this idea that they can't really be asking for a free palestine, there has to be some kind of catch.

i think it's also important to look at the circumstances that this slogan was born under. the thing about modern day palestine and occupied palestine, on which israel tries to build itself, is that even though spatially the land stretches from river to sea, the people's experience of it does not. because of the apartheid system of checkpoints, ID-based restriction of movement, and blockades (in the case of gaza), there exist great gulfs in the land that are impossible or near impossible for people to cross. there can be a place a couple miles away, that due to lacking the "proper credentials", is more distant for palestinians living under apartheid than perhaps a destination a cross-country trip away would be for you. so i see the call for a free palestine specifically "from river to sea" to remove those gulfs and allow freedom of movement for everyone. i find very little of this has to do with jews, personally. the only connection is that the people who set up and maintain this system of apartheid happened to be jewish. and i hope that we would all agree that resisting one's oppressors- even if those oppressors are also marginalized and oppressed in other ways- is not a bad thing.

but it is true that many white supremacist/antisemitic slogans may focus more on the creation of a (white) nation than actually the jews themselves, since they have already established among themselves that a white nation has to mean no jews. so let's look at some of the more famous nazi rallying cries and how different they are from "from the river to the sea."

the fourteen words are most primarily known to be "we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children." wow! i guess we could find some superficial similarities between this and river and the sea, like if we really wanted to stretch it. but personally, there's a ton of alarm bells in my head that this phrase sets off while river to the sea doesn't. the emphasis of "we" and "our" when used in this way really implies an us versus them narrative. and here the ambiguity really is present and malevolent! a "free palestine" is a palestine unrestricted by apartheid and colonialism. a "secure existence" and "future for white children" is uhhh, what does that Mean. like, we Know what that means right. but they aren't saying it. we can very easily find people saying what a free palestine means if we listen to palestinians. please, please listen to palestinians. there are so many people talking about what their idea of a decolonized palestine looks like, but the basics are generally one state, for all people, with equal rights for all, and the ability for those who were expelled from their homes in the nakba and all of the many long years following it, to return.

"blood and soil" is even vaguer. but thankfully(?), nazis were very enthusiastic about explaining what the phrase meant to them. "blood" is the superior aryan bloodlines and eugenic values that they wished to propagate and the "soil" represents the land of germany and the desire to "reject modernity and embrace tradition" by leaving urban life behind and living in the idealized countryside. (see we got a twofer here!) the only possible connection i could make to from the river to the sea here is the emphasis on the land but that on its own doesn't feel significant to me. land and the place where you live is very important to all kinds of humans all over the world. and i think another particular aspect of "blood and soil" is the emphasis of how you are living on the land. it's not just enough to be able to live in your homeland with freedom of movement and the ability not to be killed with impunity by occupying soldiers (lucky you!), you want to live there in a state of racial purity exemplified by eugenic values. in general, in nazi slogans, there is a particular fixation with a society shaped to represent these specific values. the call is not for freedom from repression, from an actual occupying colony, but instead from the considered bad actors and impure values coming from within their society. freedom from having degenerates sullying their perfect aryan nation. there is a plea to be able to get rid of those who do not match their view of a perfect society. the plea for a free palestine is, so much, a plea to be able to keep their family members, their friends, the friendly stranger down the block. that is not a fascist ideology, that is the will to live. and though i am referring to the ideology surrounding "blood and soil" in past tense because i am referencing the coining of the phase, these sentiments and slogans are obviously (and unfortunately) alive and well today. though, there is a particular irony to white american neo-nazis chanting it on stolen land.

"they will not replace us"/"jews will not replace us" refers to the "great replacement" theory, that jews are orchestrating a mass replacement of white people with immigrants (specifically non-white, often muslim immigrants.) i do not think this slogan has even any superficial similarities to from the river to the sea. you could definitely compare this sentiment to israel's attempts to maintain an artificial ethnic majority, since in many ways the potential "solution" to the "great replacement" would also need to involve creating/maintaining an artificial ethnic majority. (this is obviously not saying that israel subscribes to the great replacement theory, but that the tactic of maintaining artificial ethnic majorities is shared between zionism and great replacement theorists, since both ideologies rely on a specific ethnicity being the majority in their country.)

dogwhistles like 88, triple parenthesis, etc. rely on being vague symbols so that only those who know what the symbols stand for know what they mean. (88=HH=heil hitler, the triple parentheses representing the supposed (((echoes))) of jewish influence throughout history.) "from the river to the sea, palestine will be free" is a complete phrase that directly names its cause. people who say "free palestine" want you to know they stand with palestine. i guess if you wanted to be going for the most bad faith reading possible you could say "free palestine from what?", to which every palestinian and everyone who has been remotely paying attention to what palestinians are saying would shout: "from apartheid, colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and currently, very open and deliberate genocide!" like, it is true that if you felt you did not glean every aspect and detail of what the people in the occupied territories are calling for, you would be correct! but they are answering this. they want to talk about it. the reason i do not believe from the river to the sea is genocidal or antisemitic is because i have been reading and listening to what palestinians are saying and none of them have said they want to kill all jews. they do not want genocide, they want to go home! they just want to go home. i don't know most of this was written pretty tongue in cheek because i was talking about nazi slogans and nazis are pathetic and even more pathetic when held up against a movement of people who are legitimately trying to fight against a great wrong that was committed against them, but i just get so sad saying this. they just want to go home. haven't you ever felt that way before?

in the end, words mean things, and even more importantly, the contexts they're said in mean things. and while it's true that antisemites do hide behind dogwhistles and vague statements for plausible deniability, the alternative meaning does have to actually be established somewhere for them to be effective. from the river to the sea lacks an established alternative meaning. fearmongering from people who refuse to listen to what palestinians are actually saying does not make sense to me as legitimate definitions of the phrase.

also!!!! i'm sorry this got so Fucking long, thank you if you actually made it this far! i intentionally used "from the river to the sea" in my artists statement because it frustrates and upsets me so much to see people making such a big fuss about it when actual antisemitism goes unpunished. like a lot of the phrases i talk about here were chanted at the charlottesville neo-nazi march in 2017 and while many people were deeply upset and angry at what happened, the jewish community was not rallied around even Close to as much as it right now. and with joe biden saying "if it weren't for israel, not a single jew in the world would be safe" at a fucking hanukkah celebration i just. i don't know. the push back against "from the river to the sea" has so much to do with backing colonial and imperial interests and so so little to do with our actual safety. the concept of our identities and safety is being weaponized against palestinians, and at the same time makes it harder to identify actual antisemitism. and that hurts.

[syyskirjat]

Sueños de piedra (ch1)

Okay, I promised (to myself) to check out whatever media won the ultimate obscure blorbo tournament ( @who-do-i-know-this-man (I wasn't sure whether to tag you or not but in the end I figured I might as well, hope you don't mind I guess))

Turns out that it's a guy from a 2015 Spanish YA fantasy book

And turns out there's a free sample available! Which is lucky for me because I'm currently very broke

Sueños de piedra by Iria G. Parente and Selene M. Pascual

I don't speak Spanish so I'm gonna rely on the translator quite a lot lmao (well I understand some Spanish actually, but definitely not enough to read a whole book)

The title translates to something like "Dreams of Stone" I think?

Once upon a time in a kingdom far, far away, a prince rewarded a wizard for helping rescue a young girl in trouble. Charming. Too bad none of this is true. In reality, the prince dreams of glory and revenge; the magician, with her spells not always being a disaster and the young woman in trouble, with fleeing from a past that torments her... and from the memory of the man she has killed. Once upon a time...

(Yes this is just Google Translate, sorry)

Okay so, prince, magician and a damsel in distress? Prince wants revenge for something, who knows what, magician is having trouble doing the magic, and the damsel is in fact a killer? Ok ok

The dedication goes as follows:

To all those who embark on a direct journey towards their dreams every day. May you always reach your destination.

Okay so Marabilia is a place? That's apparently also the name of this book series. Is this like the kingdom then? So it consists of three islands, two small ones and one big? Or is it supposed to be a continent? It definitely seems too small to be a continent

I know the blorbo is called Arthmael de Silfos so I'm guessing he's from the Silfos area in the north of the big island then. I can see what's probably a city called Duan and a forest called "Merlon Forest". We also have different towers around the big island, one of which seems to be called the Tower of Black Magic. (I didn't even need to use the translator for those yay xD)

Okay the first chapter is called Arthmael so I guess we're meeting our blorbo already, which is nice

— Let me make it clear: are you going to give my crown to a bastard?

Okay..... the very first line and I already think Arthmael might be a bit of a spoiled brat (I assume he's in fact the prince)

Apparently Arthmael just found out that he has an illegitimate older brother but I guess this brother's mother is noble anyway so it's legit? I dunno yet. Arthmael thinks this guy is blackmailing his father somehow and is already considering poison as a solution

And anyway, what kind of a name is Jacques for a king?

lmao, so much shade to all the kings called Jacques

Okay so Jacques's family is very powerful and loved by the people of Silfos and the king fears a civil war if he disrespects his claim to the throne. Alright. Kinda weird since based on Arthmael's thoughts, this society has a similar attitude to bastards as in European history, but okay then. I wonder if Jacques is even actually the king's son or is this some kind of a ruse?

Arthmael is very cheeky and even references his dad's love life directly to his face, his dad is not very happy

The king tells him to just be a good boy and hopefully they'll find him some crown princess to marry so he'll get a kingdom that way

I guess these different areas on the map are kingdoms then, that makes sense. They look like very small kingdoms but this is a small place in general.

Arthmael doesn't seem to mind this idea except that there's only one possible princess like that in Marabilia and that's Ivy de Dione. Not sure what's wrong with her.

Well, who knows? Maybe, if I wait a few moons, some other bastard, in Verves or Idyll, will come out from under a rock and come offer me her hand.

Somebody's very snarky, that's cute

Arthmael is very haughty about how the people have always known him as the crown prince and accepted him as such, Jacques laughs and asks what has he even done for the people. He's like well he hasn't really done much yet because he was planning to do things once he became king, but he's been supporting the local business (taverns) and employing servants (lmao). Also apparently there are some girls he's seeing...

Apparently Jacques's family are big traders and business people (despite being noblemen) and create lots of jobs, and also big on charity, so everybody loves them

Arthmael is jealous of how proud his dad looks when Jacques says this, and how he's never looked at him like that

Well, I guess you're kind of a little shit so it makes sense, Arthmael

— If the smartest thing is to become the idol of a few starving people in order to be king, I can do it too.

Oh my god, this little brat

He declares that he's going to be a hero, to overshadow the charity of Jacques' family, because heroes are remembered by history while philanthropist aren't

So he plans to become a storybook Prince Charming, saving damsels in distress etc.

Jacques finds this understandably hilarious, the king is not amused

Once Jacques leaves, the king again offers to arrange a marriage to Arthmael, specifically with the princess of Dione

I'm almost tempted. I have never been to Dione, but they say that their ships are the lightest and fastest, and that sailors come to their shores from the other side of the sea, speaking strange languages that only they understand. Who come from lands where women wear short dresses, if they wear anything at all. Places where war is so normal that, as soon as a child is strong enough to pick up a sword, they push him to the front lines.

Alright then, I see what he fixates on

Was there anything wrong with the princess then or?

Barbarians. I remove the thought from my mind.

Oh okay. What a charming young man /s

Dione is like right next to Silfos according to the map btw, is this like one of those neighbourly feuds?

Okay he says it's because he doesn't want a foreign kingdom, he wants to keep his home, which is fair I guess

The king is like what do you want me to do, kill Jacques and his pregnant wife? And Arthmael is just like yeah great idea, because he's a dumbass. The king is like wtf

Apparently Jacques' family is from that Duan city that I noted earlier, and his mother died a few days ago and apparently "her loss is greatly felt"

The king regrets spoiling Arthmael too much, and talks about how Arthmael doesn't understand anything about suffering or anything and only cares about girls

Arthmael is already considering faking his death to make them all feel sorry, because of course he is, he's exactly that kind of guy

He says he doesn't want to go try to charm the princess, he'd rather just go off on his own (also there's a whole bit about how only a man can rule Dione or something and the king of Dione won't accept his daughter to become a ruler)

His dad tells him no, just stay here and be a good boy, don't make everybody gossip about drama in the royal family

Arthmael is like hey you managed to hide your bastard son for years, you can hide my disappearance

They fight a bit more but then Arthmael just storms out, grabs a few things from his room and leaves

a change of clothes, a bag of coins, my sword, and my favourite cloak. I do not need anything else.

Okay then, good luck I guess

To be a hero you only need a brave heart. Or so they say.

I feel like you also need to not be a selfish prick but maybe that's optional

Okay end of first chapter!

Our blorbo seems like a real brat!

But I guess the point is probably that he needs to learn some lessons along the way, or something like that, idk. I'm sure there's a reason for why whoever entered him into the tournament likes him so much

I'm guessing the damsel in distress is not the princess? Probably? She wasn't called a princess anyway. TBH she's the character I'm currently the most curious about. The next chapter is from the point of view of someone called Lynne and I hope that's her. Could be the magician too though I guess? No wait, I think the magician is a guy. Altho idk maybe Lynne could be a guy's name, I don't fucking know.

I'm guessing that Arthmael will try to rescue the damsel so he can be a hero, because that's what heroes are supposed to do, but then it'll go wrong somehow? And then the magician will get involved somehow, I have no clue.

That's all my predictions I suppose. Altho I'm guessing that Jacques might turn out to be a villain somehow, I didn't get the vibe that he was particularly great either, just not as much of a brat as Arthmael, and it would then be something for Arthmael to do when he gets back home. Then again maybe the book will surprise me, who knows. To be honest, it would feel a bit like a cop out if it turns out that the guy he hates actually is evil, but it could be handled well, and it's not like I like Jacques either so far. He seems extremely sus too

No guesses as to what the title refers to yet, it could be anything

Idk, like I said, the damsel's storyline is the one that interests me the most rn, it might actually get me to read further (good job, blurb, you got me)

I still have a surprisingly good amount of the free sample left, there's actually nine chapters here, so idk, maybe I'll keep going? We'll see

I'm pretty happy with how much I was able to follow the text even on my own, altho I definitely had to rely on the translator. I would not have had the patience to try to translate all of this myself. But I definitely understood multiple full sentences! Yaaay xD

Apologies to fans of this book series, I hope I didn't seem too rude

[tia-amorosa]

Hi…

I thought for a long time about whether I should write a personal post again or not. But they usually get lost, literally. That's probably because hardly anyone here knows me well. But I'm writing this post to let off some steam and talk about the situation that's really bothering me at the moment. (sorry in advance for the long text)

I'm in pain. Every day, 24/7. Why? About 4 years ago I had dental treatment with a somewhat unfriendly, older dentist. The treatment was carried out under anesthesia. One of my wisdom teeth and another were pulled. And it may not have been done correctly, which is why I've been suffering from nerve pain on the left side of my face ever since. The pain is so extreme on some days that you just want to throw yourself in front of a car... or jump off a bridge. I've already visited neurologists in recent years, but unfortunately they couldn't help me. After the treatment at this dentist, I had another problem with a canine tooth (top left), which was then pulled. This is also a so-called eye tooth because it is exactly in line with the eye. This time it was a different doctor who had found that there was a small cyst on this tooth. So it wasn't wrong to pull it out. But since then the pain has only gotten worse. I have pain when I look (when I make a lot of eye movements), and the pain goes all the way up to my head.

The sad thing about the whole thing is that the pain is made worse by the fact that I work a lot with my mouth. Because I am severely disabled, I cannot move my hands and work with a special computer mouse that I operate with my mouth. My mouth is therefore an important tool that I use to write, write my stories and operate the computer in general. And it makes me... sad and angry that I am currently going through a phase where I am not making as much progress with my work as I would like because this pain is tormenting me every day. I've tried all kinds of painkillers, but none of them have helped at all. And I don't want to drug myself with any heavy stuff.

I'm currently trying to find a dentist who will continue the treatment. A lot of things need to be done, restoration, etc. I've already found a practice and asked them about it. A video consultation was supposed to take place last week. I waited half an hour in front of the screen and the loading bar until someone answered. After that I disconnected the connection. I then wrote an email to this practice. There was no response... I called them today and they said they hadn't noticed my email. OK, that can happen... Then they gave me a new appointment for a telephone consultation, also today. That was supposed to take place at around 2:20 p.m. Do you think someone called me? NO!

They seem to have forgotten about me. I was so angry... I'll call them again tomorrow and ask what's wrong with them. Above all, it is a practice that is well suited to people with severe disabilities. And I actually rely on sensible advice and treatment. They haven't even seen me yet. And I'm having real problems with my teeth at the moment. One of them is open and I have to be careful not to chew on the wrong side because otherwise more of it will break off. This will only put more strain on my nerves, I'm really fed up!

I wish we could turn back time, then I wouldn't have gone to that horrible doctor who started this pain. I wish I had found a better doctor, but it's difficult to find the right doctors in my situation. I'm also suffering from a urinary tract infection at the moment. It really hurts. I suffer from it often, but the pain in my face is just much worse. I can only do something on the computer on days when the pain is bearable for me. Before the whole thing with the first dental operation, I was incredibly productive and got a lot done. Now I can't even manage half of it. As I said, it makes me sad and angry. That's why my story is progressing very slowly at the moment. Sorry about that.

I hope I haven't annoyed anyone with the long text, but I just had to get it off my chest so that people might understand me a little. I would also like to write more, but my concentration is exhausted for now. I'm passing the time with Netflix, so I don't have to do much or think about it.

Now I wish you a nice evening/day. Greetings and hugs from me to you.🥰

[carriehobbs]

*running at vampire speeds into your inbox* future poly au? 👀

ok so i have actually talked about the future poly au and alina's relationship with adam briefly before, so some of this will be a rehash of what i've said in other posts (sorry!!). i'll link the posts when they come up 💕

boring stuff out of the way at the top: i want to clarify that when i talk about the future poly au with adam/nate/alina i don't mean it in a "it's an 'au' or a headcanon because it's not an option in canon, but if it was i would take it" kind of way. the future poly au is really firmly an au in my mind, and when i envision alina's future post-book 7 it's with a romantic relationship with nate and a platonic relationship with adam. i'm also not likely to ever write it (especially the how-they-get-together part), since i think doing it justice would require something far more expansive than i'm really prepared to tackle, so it mostly just exists in the form of little posts and jokes to myself here and there.

all that being said!

i'm going to start by talking about alina and adam's platonic relationship, which is part of their "canon" future relationship (the point of divergence between their "canon" futures and the future poly au is after alina becomes a vampire, so there's 10+ (ish, please don't ask me how old alina is when she becomes a vampire) years of relationship to expand upon first). their platonic relationship is the foundation of their relationship in the future poly au (and the future poly au actually originated when i was trying to understand their friendship better! i was thinking about how they felt about each other as they got closer and where that could go and then said "wait a minute!!" and the future poly au was born 🥰).

so to start: alina hates adam's guts in book 1. she really does not have a good word to say about him. for someone who generally tries to be a team player and collaborator as much as alina does, it says a lot that she takes just about every opportunity she can to fight with adam. over time (through working with him and through deliberate effort to get along with the guy she likes's best friend), her relationship with him starts to improve. in book 2, alina and adam mostly treat each other with begrudging (professional) respect and tolerance.

book 3 is where major shifts start happening. it's at this point that they start to really see each other differently. to bring up something i've said about their relationship before:

over the course of book 2 and into book 3 they developed this slow, learned respect for each other [...] these 2 people who are very different in their approaches to the world around them and their work who learn to appreciate and even rely on those very differences (adam's stubbornness becoming steadfastness, alina's naivety becoming compassion).

in book 1, alina saw adam as stubborn, callous, and generally unpleasant to be around. by book 3, she's able to appreciate the qualities that she had dismissed before: adam is persistent, direct, and precise. similarly, in book 1, adam thought alina was naive, irresponsibly optimistic, and unworldly. by book 3, he views her as compassionate, hopeful, and curious. he is steady and reliable, and she is loyal and kind, and in each other they find someone who they can always count on to show up for them (even if they disagree and argue the entire time). over the course of books 4-7 (i say, knowing that these books haven't been released yet and so i don't really know how their relationship will develop during those books), their friendship only grows stronger.

(by book 4, alina's starting to realize that adam is kind of actually her friend instead of just her work friend/her boyfriend's best friend. when he shows up to fetch nate in the first chapter of the demo, she's frustrated and annoyed that her day off with nate was ruined, but she's not frustrated or annoyed with adam. she's actually kind of amused by him being there and the way he tries to rush nate out, as it's so quintessentially him.)

not to talk about my own wips, BUT: the excerpt of the alina turning fic i shared the other day kind of displays how their friendship has grown over the years. there's familiarity and a kind of quiet ease to the way they interact with and understand each other. it says a lot about their friendship that alina goes to adam to complain and to seek reassurance when she's nervous.

(and, to go on about my own wips a bit longer: it's not explicit in this excerpt, and i don't think i explicitly state it anywhere else in the fic, but alina very specifically does not want to talk to nate about this problem. she doesn't talk to nate, or farah (her best friend), or morgan, or her mother. she specifically chooses to confide in adam because she knows that he will offer her the kind of support she wants in that moment. that line about how alina takes a big drink and then says nate is off with the kids? while what she says is true (he is with the kids and they have gone over things together already), that is alina buying herself time to come up with an excuse as to why she's talking to her friend and not her husband about her feelings.)

so after all those years, adam and alina have had the time to go from hating to respecting to appreciating to genuinely liking each other. only now do they have the unshakable foundation of their friendship off of which we can build the future poly au.

i view the future poly au as having multiple moving parts. the first part is adam/nate. in this au, adam and nate are kind of in love and have been for a while. for centuries, their relationship has been toeing the ambiguous line between romantic and platonic and is defined by a depth of devotion and understanding that only comes from lifetimes worth of companionship. crucially: they are not aware they are in love with each other. put a pin in this for later.

the second moving part is adam/alina. both adam and alina quietly (and secretly) have this moment that i described the last time i talked about the future poly au:

it would definitely be a slow creep of feelings for both of them [...], with a realization one day that you look at this person you know so well and the feelings you have for them haven't been solely platonic for a while. their love would be born out of a deep mutual appreciation and respect.

they both respond to this revelation (that they have feelings for their best friend's wife/their husband's best friend) by promptly deciding to try and distance themselves from each other and let the feelings go away without ever addressing it (which i described here, in what might be one of the first posts i ever made about the future poly au).

for alina, she's trying to avoid the realization that she has feelings for someone who isn't nate and, while she would never deliberately be unfaithful to him, she struggles with this attraction to adam even as she is determined to never act on it. i mean, she's been married to nate for 10+ years and they have 3-5 children (please don't ask me how many children alina and nate have. or their names. or their ages) and she's a vampire so they've been planning on living out the rest of their forevers together and suddenly she has feelings for the worst possible person she could ever have feelings for. she tries to manage keeping her distance from adam and hoping the feelings will die on their own without letting anyone (nate, adam, or farah) know that anything is going on with her.

for adam, i had to consider both how he acts on the lt route (or what i understand he acts like on the lt route - i've never actually played it) and how he acts on his own route. my understanding of a on the lt route is that (despite the fact that nate and the detective could be in a relationship, depending on player choices), adam is more expressive about his feelings for the detective than he is on his own route, where he constantly tries to push away the detective and deter them from pursuing a relationship with him. in the context of the future poly au, however, i think adam would behave more like he does on his own route than he does in the lt: in the lt route, even if the detective and nate are together, it's a (relatively) new relationship. it could still be ended (if it's even been started) and adam could, conceivably, end up with the detective. in the future poly au, nate and alina have been married for 10+ years and have 3-5 children. the ship has sailed on "getting with alina" (alina has already chosen and firmly committed to nate) and the betrayal of trying to steal his best friend's wife of over a decade is (arguably) much worse than trying to steal his girlfriend of a (few? by the end of book 7? who knows when you will have to choose in the lt) year(s).

the third part is how these feelings get revealed. on one hand, (based on my understanding of the lt) nate would eventually figure out on his own that something is going on between adam and alina. however, (also based on my understanding of the lt) nate seems pretty willing to deliberately ignore the signs he's seeing because he does not want to read them. what i think is actually more likely is that alina, upon finding out that her feelings for adam are not simply disappearing like she wants them to, would eventually confess to nate that she's been developing feelings for adam. she would not be pitching this as a "so maybe we should all date" thing. she would approach the conversation as a "i love you and would never be unfaithful to you, i don't know why i'm having these feelings for adam and i've tried to make them go away, what do we do about this problem in our marriage" thing.

the fourth part is how they bring adam into all this. the first option is that they go to adam together to try and talk about the situation. this will go poorly. there is no way on this earth that adam is going to admit to both of them that he has feelings for alina and risk interfering with their marriage. he will not be the reason that milton looks up at him with big brown eyes and asks "uncle adam? why don't mom and dad love each other anymore?". not happening.

the other option is that alina's confession prompts a brief awkward period in their marriage wherein alina feels guilty and nate tries to deal with this revelation and meanwhile realizes that, hey wait. he might be in love with adam too. in this version, nate and alina would talk for quite a while first about what they want to do about the situation they find themselves in. because they're both in love with adam, but does adam feel the same way? would they want to pursue something with adam? would adam want something with them? how do they maintain their friendships with adam if they bring up being together and he doesn't want to, or if they don't bring it up and just know that this is something between them? how do they make sure their marriage remains intact throughout all of this, and how do they minimize any (potential) fallout for their children (who all love adam and have known him their entire lives - adam is even milton's godfather!). they would ask all these questions and then (because this is the future poly au and not the future almost-poly au) decide to talk to adam.

if i can be honest, i have no idea how they convince adam to admit his own feelings for alina, or realize and then admit his feelings for nate, or then after that agree to be in a relationship with them both. i haven't gotten that far yet. i have to assume it involves a lot of initial denial, yearning, private conversations between nate and alina about how to handle the situation, and more yearning.

eventually they all kiss. and then everyone's happy forever and ever.

[bropunzeling]

☕️ fav fantasy books/series and what makes them so good and so For Jess. bonus for thoughts on what makes a less good fantasy fall flat

oh Boy okay alright!!!!

fantasy series i love/are excellent/peak For Jess: radiant emperor duology by shelley parker-chan (point: is it fantasy or just historical-ish fiction with some supernatural elements? counterpoint: i fucking love it and this is my list). the lumatere chronicles by melina marchetta. the daevabad trilogy by s. a. chakraborty. queen's thief my beloved!!!!! piranesi aka one of the best novels i read in 2020. tortall series by tamora pierce (but protector of the small quartet is the best of them).

honorable mentions: the raven tower by ann leckie; sharon shinn's elemental blessings series isn't like, as sharp as the top tier, but i really enjoy every reread; earthsea (but mostly the ones about tenar); it feels like cheating to say discworld but again: my list; the divine cities by robert jackson bennett; the stravaganza books were not quote unquote good but they did change my brain chemistry when i was 13; goblin emperor books (but more witness for the dead bc u kno me, i love a murder mystery). lotr would be here except i read them all once as a 6th grader and have yet to return. i still need to read the oleander sword but the jasmine throne kicked ass.

ok what is the unifying factor here lol. strong world building is very important i think; a real sense of a distinct place and culture/mix of cultures rather than Generic Medieval European City. there was a really good post going around that was like, where does the food come from (aka have you thought about how all of this actually works?), and a lot of these series think about Where Does The Food Come From. differences in cultural norms among different groups within the world AND from the audience. plots strongly rooted in politics/the inherent people-ness of people rather than everything relying on magic (not to say i don't love me some magic/divine plaything stories!!!! but they hit so much harder when the conflict comes from a place of innate human foibles). a dash of wonder and the inexplicable. if an answer is needed, it fits in the schema of everything else, but you don't feel the author trying to answer literally everything (when an author is sweating to show their work u can tell imo). most of these have at least one set of people where i want to see them kiss on the mouth, but most of the time that is not the Point; the best fantasy for me treats romance as a subplot/b-plot where it informs the stakes but is not the stakes itself. and ur basics of a good book in general: good writing, good pacing, et cet er a!

what makes them fall flat? world building inconsistency; new magic springing up because well, the author NEEDED it (aka those moments when you can see the seams lol); when the romance is the a plot (sorry but romantasy = not for jesses!!!!!); i think also authors get tripped up both by not planning ahead enough AND planning ahead too much when doing series (if you get a deal for one than one book you should have more than one book's worth of material; however if you can’t change and move then you can be stifled! see ursula le guin revisiting the gendered magic of earthsea in tehanu years later, or tamora pierce going oh shit there are normies in tortall in protector of the small). also this is a ME thing but i fuckin hate purple or twee prose. fantasy does not mean break out the thesaurus.

sorry for the novel. im gonna think of like six more books as soon as i post this

[austinslounge]

Girl I’m back lol so I just wanna say you answered really well to the anon upset abt AP and idk if this is a age thing because I’m Austin’s age and we’ve come from the height and dangers of insane paps and gossip magazines being on the shelf when your trying to buy your food in EVERYONES FACE, it wasn’t even about if you had a social or followed fan account pages it was just there and you had no choice but to read the heading lol so we’ve, my generation and older have seen the worst of it and yes social media is a beast in itself but 90% of ppl do not really care or live their lives by social media posts and reels, im not sorry we just don’t lol. All the drama that happened over the years with house hold names and look at them still fine and ok.

That anon should take some time like you said bc if you let it it will drive you crazy. I also don’t think it’s embarrassing for Austin at all, it happens more then we know it’s bc we’re fans of Austin and follow fan pages that tell us all the news that we really even know anything. But I could ask 1000 ppl right now in person what they thought abt it and I guarantee the % of ppl who actually know or care is very small and wouldn’t change Austin career or success especially when he’s wanted by so many directors.

I’m proud of Austin and I trust that grown man who’s been taking care of HIMSELF for a long time who’s been through so much to continue to make the best decisions for himself and I really hope and pray social media or so called fans never make him feel insecure about his choices bc honestly fuck yal and leave our mans alone 🙄 social media can be a tool for ruining people (and not always) but that’s usually ppl who rely on it for their success (aka influencers and such) and most talented actors don’t outside of promoting their things. Movies and actors were huge before social media and will continue to be so after.

Life is good and im sure Austin knows that and appreciates his life that he’s works very hard for.

Rant over 🙂

Thanks for your input on this girl. 😊

And yea, I'm around Austin's age too, so I do remember the days before social media lol.

Honestly? Most celebrities get hate online. It's sad, but it's just a fact. We can't control what people say about Austin online, but we can surely control what we choose to focus on and give our attention to.

I always say that an actor's work will eventually speak for itself, and everyone who is a hater will eventually turn to liking them. Austin is just going through a momentary hazing phase that a lot of younger, nice-looking, talented male (and even female!) actors go through as they get a lot of success.

I watch documentaries on lots of celebrities from the past, so I've seen media footage on how people used to treat Britney Spears in the media (when she was just a teenager! 😭), Leo DiCaprio also got massive hate when he was younger, etc. I even personally recall when Anne Hathaway was getting massive hate online, and everyone said she was "annoying" and a "pretentious theater kid".

Now look! Everyone loves Britney! Everyone loves Anne. Leo is regarded as one of the greats, and everyone coming up behind him in the industry wants to have a career like his. He might still get clowned online and in the media for his love life lol, but the point is, he's now looked at with respect. The same will happen with Austin, just watch and see. ☺️ He's too talented and too kind not to.

What it all boils down to is jealousy tbh.

Like you said, when you ask most real people out in the real world (those who aren't chronically online getting their minds poisoned by Twitter 🙄), people love Austin, and find him massively talented! Just the "Elvis" fandom alone loved what he did in that film.

I wish fans would take a break from social media and online forums and just talk to real people for a change. Preferably, people who haven't had their minds influenced by Twitter or TikTok. 😒

[starjasmines]

i resonate deeply with your post about radio breakup music, tho i'd go even further and say i'm very much done with music about love in general. i've vowed to purge my playlists of it and have delved into more and more obscure musics as the time goes, tho more often than not relying on mostly instrumental stuff. i think best case scenario you just make your own at this point. anyway, this is a lead up to a question - if you were a music writer person (assuming you aren't, haven't read much of your blog admittedly), what would you write about?

ive had a whirlwind few days sorry i keep meaning to answer this ask. under readmore bc i wrote a fair bit.

i kind of agree that im done with songs about love, i don't like to think about it but i don't necessarily mind it. i just can't really relate at all to songs about love/romance/exes or even get myself to care that much, and if a song's main draw is its lyrics then that won't capture me. if it's good in other ways then i don't mind. you can like a song for a million different reasons after all. but if it really bothers you then you do you.

ok if i was a songwriter i'd probably write about made up stories and made up people... ive always written a lot of short stories and i think a lot of those could transfer well to music, considering how many of them are based around a core power struggle or piece of imagery. i struggle with longer writing because i like to keep things short and vivid. so i've always thought my writing would probably be better put to music. i actually kind of want to write a short story with a companion music piece someday i think that'd be really fun. i also used to write poetry although i stopped that and i just got too embarrassed to ever look at it again. but maybe for the sake of songwriting i'd start again. i enjoy wordplay and sounds and all the little details of language a lot... theres a reason i studied linguistics in university. ive also always been into the idea of writing music, i used to try to write songs as a kid (they were bad). when i was taking lessons in music theory and singing, i used to imagine the process of writing some of my favorite compositions and i could not wrap my head around it tbh. it's one of my goals to eventually make music . but yeah to answer what subject matter i'd write about it'd just be little fictional stories probably. my life is not interesting enough to write about. long answer but it's something i think about a LOT.

[sweetnnaivete]

DISSECT SYBILL PLEASE

YESS OK !!! sybill is one of my favorite underrated characters she's literally SO full of things to talk about.

!! not proofread !!

i think she was raised in a middle class household trying to hold onto its former wealth / notoriety, particularly being known for their divination skills. however, i don't think any of them are actual seers. they may be able to read tea leaves or see crystal balls accurately, but sybill is the only true seer. from a young age she was made to help her family pretty much scam people — both muggles and wizards — by offering prophecies and protective spells. this, along with only having phony divination teachers, made her become the unreliable seer she is in canon.

she suffers from chronic night terrors, sleep paralysis, and sleep walking, but most of the time she can't remember exactly what happened, except that she was scared. this makes her never want to go to sleep, so she's always sleep deprived and relies on tea (she would only drink coffee in private — has to keep up her tea drinking perception !!!). she's known as a freakish loser, and only really gains friends later in her school years. this is mainly from how other people see her, but also because she's kind of pretentious and doesn't think other people are worth her time.

her eventual friends i think would include peter, xenophilius, and possibly some other minor characters that i can't think of rn !! but she's not really connected with any of them. she mainly smokes pot with them, and sometimes they have group trauma dumping sessions. xenophilius definitely ADORES her. i see him as being at least a year above her in school, and she would fascinate him sm i genuinely would love their dynamic. he'd see her as both a creepy little pet and the sweetest, saddest girl alive.

she was definitely bullied a little, but i don't think she really let it get to her head, so people kinda gave up on that. some of her bullies may have been the slytherin group (barty especially), james potter, maybe mary and marlene slightly? and just general gossiping and rumor spreading. but again, she didn't notice and / or didn't care.

she wasn't academically smart per se, but she was fairly people smart — she just dgaf lollll like in theory she could be very empathetic or whatever, but i genuinely don't know why she would be... she doesn't care about these people !!! this does cause very strained relationships with her family and the majority of her friends though.

BONUS PEBILL for the shippers out there:

i don't ship these guys that much sorry 🫣 BUT i have Thoughts.

i think they both teach each other something. sybill teaches peter to be more individualistic as well as showing how his friends aren't always as nice of people as he thinks they are. peter shows sybill compassion, and as a result she gets to be more in touch with her own emotions.

she would totally send him on little excursions in rat form to pick up gossip that they would later talk about. she would also LOVE to freak him out by reading his palm or checking his tea leaves, and then watch in glee as he was paranoid for the rest of the day.

i think if they were to actually date, they would be a very cute couple. she's the scary but secretly sweet and soft girlfriend, he's the friendly guy who shows her off to all his friends. she definitely influences him a bunch, and he will use any excuse to bring her into a conversation; ie, "i think it's going to rain" "i'll go ask sybill then 😊"

when she gets grumpy or upset or scared, he knows how to make her feel safe and comfortable, and when he feels frustrated or dejected, she can make him laugh.

guys wait i kinda ship it

[halfmoth-halfman]

I'm trusting you when you say canary is gonna have it light from here on out but I do wonder how the 141 will like react when they find out they betrayed someone so close and loyal like the one thing they're very big on is unconditional loyalty especially to family and to find out they did the very thing that they despise I'm excited to see how they deal with it I'm also excited to see how gaz personally will because he's been loyal to the end so I can imagine him being like " wtf guys this is what you did to my bestie apologize 😕😤"

but idk something in me say's some of them probably don't see what they did as wrong like I feel like someone is gonna deflect and be like " well shit we had reason to we saw it with our eyes" like that's an excuse especially since it's like... well what did you think he was gonna do let her parade the stage like a beaten potato? Ofc he lied to you and made her seem ok! He's a liar!! You fool

And I also think price knows this and won't put with anyone treating her bad from here on out and I can only imagine how shitty he feels like yo best girl just thrown to the wolves by your own accord because you fell for the same lies she warned you about (major trust issues see a therapist bro) like I'd die from guilt

Also he said something about "finding her" like dude where the hell were you looking?? And for a long time??? You didn't think to check the few places she mentioned or where graves was?? As if she literally didn't run away because she knew he would come for her and literally told you that she couldn't be there because of that and was in danger like??!?!??!!???!!!? Also going back to that no one followed her ?? No one tracked down the car ? And saw the scene?? Like there was to many things backing up her case for everyone to just turn on her especially after all that she explained even if it was a tiny bit someone was doing overtime to make sure she looked as guilty as possible

But yeah Sorry if this was mad long but I'm literally throwing up, chewing my nails, rocking back and forth, and kicking my feet this such a juicy heart racing story 🫶🏾🤍

that's actually going to be a very big talking point in the next few chapters because family's the most important thing to them, right? it's family above all else, the money, the business, everything. and a big part of that is because price doesn't run his business through fear and manipulation like makarov and graves, he relies on trust and loyalty which makes for a stronger crew. and now, here's someone who has been unconditionally loyal to them (moreso than some of their own people) and they've not only betrayed her but outright mistreated and punished her. that's going to cause some major in-house problems esp regarding gaz who has never once doubted her.

there will be talks about both sides, because yes, from their side it can look suspicious and there's just enough evidence for them to make that leap in deduction, but i don't think anyone would excuse what's happened just because of that. i think the bigger issue would be admitting that graves was able to manipulate them enough to think canary was a traitor, esp when so many of them think they're smarter than him.

i know we've all established that canary and ghost are gonna go through it™️, but oh man price. he's gonna need to have his own healing journey just from the guilt and the blame he's (rightfully) putting on himself. like to straight up accuse canary of lying about what graves put her through while she's sitting there trying to hide the bruises from him??? i can imagine he wouldn't stand for anyone mistreating her, but i also think he's gonna have a hard time facing her.

there'll be more on that and what the 141 was doing in general during those five months in the next couple of chapters, because you're right!! it's incredibly suspicious that no one found her, that no one tracked the car, or that looking into graves wasn't the first thing they did 👀

no worries, i enjoy the long asks and all of the theories and questions!! makes me feel like kicking my feet and twirling my hair 💜

[chibigaia-art]

how did you learn to draw? Would you recommend any classes or certain resources? do you have any tips, general or hyperspecific or anywhere in between, other than "just practice"?

sorry to bombard you with questions. I'm just a frustrated amateur artist trying desperately to improve, so I'm asking around some of the artists i particularly like.

I learned to draw by bashing my head on my desk for several hours, which means practice (sorry,) and also by staring intently at artists I like, trying to 'steal' how they draw some things

I never followed a class online, so I wouldn't be able to give out recommendations for those, and I haven't actually looked up an art tutorial online in years so I can't remember anything, but here's a few resources/general tips under the cut

RESOURCES

haven't used this myself, but my teachers during the first year at comic school mentioned proko as a good YT channel for beginners

quickposes - useful for gesture drawing, I acc use this one when I feel like I need to draw but dont have any ideas

I know some people use designdoll for poses as well, I never used it myself because I tend to use the csp models for that, but if you don't have csp, I think it's a good alternative

coolors - for color palettes

adorkastock - more poses! I don't check it anymore at this point but it was my first actual 'art landmark' when I was a kid and I needed to find some poses, I could always rely on their photoshoots

I'm not linking any tutorials because, as I said, I haven't looked up any online in 10+ years, but I used to watch a lot of speedpaints as a teen, and it should be fairly easy to find decent tutorials on YT at this point;

GENERAL TIPS

if you have a sketchbook, please don't let the internet make you believe every single page has to be a masterpiece, that attitude is gonna break you

not everything will be a hit piece and thats ok

when shading, avoid pure black

experiment with styles!

when inking, you shouldn't move just your wrist but use your elbow as well! also rotate your canvas, both when doing traditional art and digital

true to traditional and digital art as well - flip the canvas to see the art mirrored and find mistakes (for traditional you can hold up the paper to a source of light and look at it from the back)

use references whenever possible

what works for another artist might not work for you ( re my ink tip: I follow that, but I know a couple mutuals don't do that and their art still slaps and looks clean and crisp)

when drawing a full illustration with a background, work on the background perspective first and THEN add the character,, this should be basic knowledge but my idiot ass actually processed this info only a few years ago

learn how to use perspective grids asap, dont be like me

IF YOU DON'T WANT TO LINE YOU DON'T HAVE TO!!! be free

rule of thirds is always useful to keep in mind

I'm not super good at giving advice because tbh I don't think I'm good enough to give it, but I hope at least one of these things will help you out!

[theinfiknight]

ASKS BE UPON YE!!!!!

1, (post a pic of ur current favourite blorb) 4, 7, 11, 27, 35, 40, 49, aaaaaaaaaaaaand 56!

Ok ok I've put this off long enough

1) Selfie of me:

Me with the pals (the post never specified the selfie had to be irl)

4) What are you looking forward to

Weeerrllll, I might eat some real nice spicy korean noodles tomorrow and even better, I might get to read the Avatar Roku novel next week! Yippee!

7) What was your life like last year

Hmmmmmm, kinda bad actually. I had taken a gap year from college to try and start HRT but couldn't find a single psychiatrist willing to take me seriously. I was basically just rotting away in my room while also running around the city humoring people who were trying to psychoanalyse me with an archiac and invalidating framework. Things are a lot better now in comparison.

11) Are you listening to music right now?

Yeah! It's Keiran's theme from Pokemon scarlet violet. My favourite pokemon rival since N

27) Things I hate

Hoo ok. Brace yourself.

Power outages. Hot food that's gone cold. People who are thoughtlessly mean, people hating on something you like after you told them you like it. People who live entirely inside their own heads. Random old men for some reason being allowed to decide your life. The inevitability of entropy. The fragility of human existence. Stupidly low catch rates on pokemon (whyyyyyy does magby or mantyke or sudowoodo need to be nigh uncatchable). The after effects of colonisation that define my life. Planned obsolescence. Vanilla ice cream. The fact that anything you can think of has been done better by others before you. People who spread hate and fear on an industrial scale for personal gain. Stories that treat characters as archetypes or plot devices instead of people. Random old men for some reason deciding that people on the other side of the earth need to die and then directly causing their deaths and facing no consequences for it. Comphet. The way Fushiguro is being treated in jjk. The way Sasuke and Sakura were treated in Naruto. The trivialisation of super Saiyan god immediately after it was introduced. Wasted potential. Random chance. The lack of any sort of higher justice. The fact that you have to pay separately to access Nintendo online services. Paid dlc that costs more than the base game. The short lifespan of hard drives. Too much nutmeg. The fact that you can randomly lose abilities you've had all your life. The Police. JKR. The power parents have over children. The anime pervert trope. Gender essentialism. What the main continuity Marvel comic writers have been doing to Spiderman for the last few years. The inevitable enshittification to the point of unusability of every company we rely on for society to function. The stock market. The intricacies of punctuation. The desecration and reanimation of long beloved works of art for the sake of short term profit. Monopolies. Teachers who do not see students as people. Generative AI. The incredible height of the skill ceiling of today's industry standards. The power shareholders wield over public utilities. Authors who cannot or more often do not bother to write female characters as people. People who treat real world problems like thought experiments. The fact that scissors get gradually less usable with time. Doctors who can no longer see humans as anything but cases. The disproportionate power of the USA. Having to 2D animate. Guns(sorry, I know you like those). The oversaturation of absolutely everything. Surveillance cameras. Visas. The trend of making characters who had bad parents also end up as bad parents to their kids. People's egos. Games with chairs and benches that do not allow the player character to ever sit. Organised religion. The pokemon diamond and pearl remakes. Songs that require more than two hands to properly play on the piano. Airport security. Gender segregated queues. Things that were once free, now costing money. Social media algorithms. Myself.

So yeah. You asked.

35) Favourite subject

Mildly embarrassing because I don't have very much in depth knowledge on any one subject but I have surface level knowledge of many. So my favourite subject would be maybe Pokemon or well done high fantasy. Or really just any engaging story with characters that feel organic. Bonus points for a well thought out magic system, more points if the story actually has a message, and even more points if the writing is smart, funny and well thought out. Needless to say I consider Terry Pratchett to be the absolute peak of literature.

40) Favourite memory

Ooh this is a tough one. Hmmm.

The exact moment when you defeat Giratina in Pokemon Legends Arceus and you think the battle is over and then the flatline plays and the music changes into its Pokemon Platinum theme and it turns into its Origin Form and you're just there staring at the screen and physically yelling with excitement.

Apart from that I had some pretty good times back when I lived in hostel, staying up overnight playing smash bros with my two then best friends. I miss those guys and those times.

49) Where I want to be right now

Honestly I'd be entirely satisfied being exactly where I am now, only without the uncertainty ruling my life.

Aaaaaaand

56) Favourite foods:

Buldak noodles, naan and paneer butter masala, a good spicy burger with spicy mayo and jalapenos, anything chocolate based that's well thought out, chilli chipotle chicken rice bowl, nachos with salsa, a nice spicy paneer or chicken wrap, chilli mushrooms or baby corn, Lotus stem when it's prepared dry, underbaked chocolate cake with ice cream, a nice spicy salad, just chilli paneer/chicken in general. Also a decent pizza. Or a good spicy vegetable sandwich.

[tinamaetales]

You’re not sorry

“So you’re apologizing…..Ok, I don’t forgive you……No, I’m not gonna give you closure. You don’t get that. You have to live with the shitty thing you did for the rest of your life. You have to know that it’s never, ever going to be okay……I’m not gonna feel better and I’m not gonna be your prop so you can feel better” - Herb Kazaz, BoJack Horseman Ep. 8 Season 1 “The Telescope”

It has been five years since the last time I stepped foot inside my Psychiatrist's office and now looking back there's a part of me that screams I should have continued my therapy....but the thing is I really cannot afford it. And now, I have become messier than ever. My depression got worse and I'm just trying to survive each day. That's the keyword, trying. I used a lot of distractions though, good and bad. Good distractions are the music of my fave, iKON, and watching Miami Heat games. Bad distractions are spending an awful amount of time watching tiktoks of those who are as mentally ill as I am because instead of going to therapy we just rely on the internet to have some sense of belongingness especially when you feel like no one is really on your side. And I do feel that most of the time......I feel like no one truly understands and no one actually believes that I am struggling badly. I'm mentally unstable despite the fact that I do not have a proper diagnosis about my condition. I just know. Why? Because it's my mind and my body. I can feel it. For fuck's sake, I live with it.

What I noticed in our society is that it is easier to doubt someone who is vocal about their struggles instead of believing them and supporting them. It is easier for our society to gaslight someone into thinking that they are just allowing themselves to be weak instead of understanding them. And when someone decides to end their life, it's either people would finally get it and feel remorseful that they should have seen the signs or they would still say that the generation of today is just not mentally strong enough to handle life. And then there's another scenario, someone will be badly mentally fckd up that they end up being a horrible person then they will treat others horribly too. Hurt people will hurt people and so the cycle never ends.

As I mentioned earlier, I used a lot of distractions as I try to live each day. For someone like me who hates going outside and prefers to be alone, binge watching shows on streaming apps is a form of distraction. I’m not really picky when it comes to movies or series that I watch though, I just want the plot to make sense and not be over the top with so many plot twists and unnecessary “different” endings. One of the series I ended up loving is BoJack Horseman. 

BoJack Horseman is not an easy to watch show. Yes it started as a quirky show about a former lead star of a successful 90s sitcom but as it progressed, it showed the harsh reality of the entertainment industry and how not being held accountable for your fuckery can make you a monster. It's crazy because BoJack as the main character of this show is not likable at all (at least for me). Throughout the show you kinda cheer for him to get better and grow up but then he always ends up disappointing you. However, knowing his history, especially with the kind of family he has, you can't help but feel some empathy for him. I guess that's the thing about main characters, despite the flaws you still want them to become triumphant in the end because somehow you can see a version of yourself with them. But how long can a person tolerate one's behavior? I do not want to label myself as a good person because I know that I am far from that but there is a certain part of me that knows how to forgive especially if they are deserving. However, when someone refuses to be held accountable for their mistakes and refuses to see how toxic they are does it really make me the bad one here if I chose not to forgive?

The show has six seasons and 77 episodes but I did not feel that it was long because the execution of the episodes are great. There are a lot of episodes which make me feel uneasy about how close they hit home. But for this blog post I will be discussing two scenes from two different episodes because these two scenes are about the topics of accountability and forgiveness: The Telescopes from ep 8 of season 1 and It’s You from ep 10 of season 3. 

Have you ever met someone who is too full of himself? A person who obviously has issues in life but does not exert efforts in making himself become better and instead use their difficult past as an excuse for being a shitty person? A person who does not want to be held accountable for their mistakes and people around him tolerated him so he never learns? Well that’s my father. Also, that is who BoJack Horseman is. But if we are going to make this a competition about who is worse then my father is definitely winning this contest, unanimously. While watching the show, I cannot help but see parts of my father in BoJack Horseman especially in episodes “The Telescope” and “It’s You” Both of those episodes have confrontation scenes with a friend of BoJack (Herb in episode 8 season 1 and Todd in episode 10 season 3) who refused to accept his apology and want him to be held accountable for his actions. And I both agree with them.

For context, in the “The Telescopes” episode, Bojack apologized to his friend Herb for betraying him years ago. He chose to protect his career instead of standing with Herb. And he even further that betrayal when he did not contact him for so many years. Now that he learned that Herb has cancer, he decided to visit him and apologized and I like that Herb refused to accept such a self serving apology. The quote above was what Herb told BoJack after he apologized. I like the way he emphasized how BoJack is only apologizing now so he can have closure and to make himself feel better. Because horrible people do that. They will only apologize so that their guilt will not eat them up especially when their apology gets accepted. But the damage has been done, right? Just like what the famous saying states, the ax forgets but the tree remembers. What’s the point of accepting an apology if it does not make you feel better but will only make the jerk feel better coz “yey, finally!” their shitty actions were forgiven. Those kinds of apologies are self-serving. They ended up fighting and then Herb said this line (I really like this one, thank you writers!) “You know what your problem is? You wanna think of yourself as the good guy. Well I know you better than anyone and I can tell you that you’re not. In fact, you’d probably sleep a lot better at night if you just admitted to yourself that you’re a selfish goddamn coward who takes whatever he wants and doesn’t give a shit about who he hurts. That’s you. That’s BoJack Horseman” Now, that’s the kind of wake up call that someone like BoJack deserves to hear. He deserved those words because they are true, he’s a coward. He always blames others or the circumstances to make himself feel better instead of owning up to his mistakes. 

Another episode I mentioned here is the 10th episode from season 3 of the show and here is some context: Todd and BoJack had a confrontation. BoJack was mad that Todd did not want him to become a nominee for the Oscars and then Todd was mad that BoJack slept with Emily (the woman Todd dated). But honestly, I think it was really not the Emily thing that Todd was mad about but rather all the other things BoJack did, like when he sabotaged Todd’s opera, and they all piled up so Todd ended up bursting at that moment. BoJack said “I’m sorry, I screwed up” to which Todd replied with “You can’t keep doing this! You can’t keep doing shitty things and then feel bad about yourself like that makes it okay! You need to be better!” BoJack tried to reason out so Todd followed it up with “You are all the things that are wrong with you. It’s not the alcohol or the drugs or any of the shitty things that happened in your career, or when you were a kid. It’s you” This is another “calling out” that BoJack deserves because he just keeps on doing shitty things and then feels bad about it for himself but does not actually do things to make things right. At some point, as a friend you will just get tired of someone like him. And while there’s an argument about what led to this confrontation with Todd is not something that Todd himself should be mad about, I saw that scene as a way of having Todd as the “representative” of all the other people that BoJack treated badly. In that scene, he was being called out for a lot of things he did not just related specifically to Todd.

So now we start the discussion about my father. Actually every time I typed the words “my father” I felt disgusted. I hate being associated with him. I hate the fact that we share the same DNA. I just hate him. And before the moral police come here and yell “But he is still your father!” please hear me out first. A child will not resent or hate their own parent if the said parent was not horrible. And that’s my main issue. My father was a horrible person to us. Actually an entire year is not enough for me to tell the entire story of how horrible he was and why he’s the reason my mother, my sister and I are all fcked in the head now. He treated us horribly but always gave the reason that he’s older so he knows better. He always used the “parent” card and always used the “I provided you food, I sent you to school….” monologue as a justification to his behavior. He’s the kind of person that should have never become a parent and a husband in the first place. He’s a hurt person and he ended up hurting others too - he hurt us. His decisions in life always end up with the rest of the family suffering the most. He had this mantra that since he had it difficult growing up, his children should also not have it easy in life. The latest shitty thing he did is getting a housing loan that he cannot afford just so he can brag to his mother. And when he experienced a difficult time getting employment, I ended up using my bonuses and even acquired a loan just so we can pay for this house because he promised to pay me back once he gets another contract again (he’s a seaman). But then he never did. He was aware of this. He was aware that employment in his career would wither as he aged but he did not care. He still continued with that loan despite objections from us; hell, that jerk was even mad that we were telling him not to buy a house. And fast forward to today, I have no savings and I have a loan too. You might be wondering where he is? Back in his hometown, chilling. He can even sleep peacefully at night while snoring while me, on the other hand, is more mentally fcked up than ever. As I mentioned earlier, he did a lot of shitty things to us but that housing loan was just the most recent. So the “calling out” scenes from BoJack Horseman were some of my favorites from the show because those are also the things I wanted to tell him. I just wish I had the courage to do so.

My relatives are very much aware of this situation but they always tell me to just forgive him; easy to say when you’re not the one directly affected by his actions. They even have the nerve to give me lectures about how important it is to forgive and it makes me a bad person for treating my father this way. But am I really the wrong one here? He’s not even sorry. For years, he will do shitty things to us. Sometimes he apologizes but sometimes he does not. But in all those scenarios, he’s not sorry. I do not feel any sincerity on his part at all. But why is it that despite the fact that I’m the one who was wronged here, he’s the one who has people on his side while I’m the one being labeled as the bad one? I am conflicted because I cannot forgive. For a long time now, I tried so hard to find it in myself to learn to forgive not just him but also all the other people who wronged me but I really cannot do it. I cannot do it because I’m a tree that remembers every hit of the ax while the ax is living comfortably. Why am I the one who cannot have peace of mind when I’m the victim? I have been struggling with the concept of forgiveness for a long time but those confrontations from BoJack Horseman episodes are somewhat validating because it shows how I’m not the only one who cannot accept apologies. He’s not even genuinely sorry, so why would I extend the olive branch here?

X,

TinaMae

PS, There are a lot of things from BoJack Horseman that I would like to discuss and hopefully I find the time to write about them. The show is good, I highly recommend it!

[wilteddreamsofbaldursgate]

10. Editing and Formatting

So, you’ve written your first draft? Amazing. I’m so proud of you, and I’m so sorry to tell you that this is the point where writing becomes boring. Wait? You thought you’re finished now that your draft is done? Oh, well—it’s really not like that. Actually, this stage of writing is not only the most tedious but most time consuming, because now you have to go hunt for typos and bad grammar, redundant words and irregular spacing. It might just as well happen that you'll find yourself revising your finished draft yet again. I say this is tedious work, but you actually just keep improving your draft, which is a very good thing! Edit your work, constantly. If you read your draft and think “Actually, I could’ve written this or that a little differently, it would’ve sounded so much better!”: Change it, then, honestly—even if it takes half an hour. You’ll regret it otherwise. 

Example:

I edit my work in three stages: 

I read the entire draft just like you would read another writer’s fic. I’m not looking for typos and all that, yet, though if they’re obvious and easy to fix I do that right away or mark them for later. In this round, I’m checking for awkwardness or inconsistency. Things that sound bad or could be better. What really worked for me was being conscious of how I read. I’m aware not everybody has it, but I do have a reading voice, meaning: I hear a voice inside my head while reading. When I’m editing, I try to be very conscious of what that voice narrates. So when there’s a sentence and the narration in my head doesn’t match the actual words written on the page, I will usually change the sentence to what I subconsciously thought the sentence would be like written out. Pretending to be the reader and not writer of a draft can be very helpful, because you have to think about what a reader who doesn’t know the piece you’ve probably read X amount of times by now would expect. In 9/10 cases, my sentences improve.

In this round I re-read the entire draft word for word. Depending on how long my draft is, this can take forever. Now I really get out the magnifying glass and sift through my draft, hunting for typos and such. Nothing spectacular, just really tedious work, but generally worth doing.  

Repeat Step One, but this time I do it after I have copy and pasted my draft to where I eventually want to upload the piece— tumblr or ao3. I save the post as a draft and then re-read it. Two things happen: a) my draft looks different than on my writing program; this has me more alert. b) I see what my draft will look like to readers; helps me get into the reader-perspective. I’m always astonished to see how many more typos etc. I missed the other X times I checked for them! After I fixed them, I usually prepare my post for posting.

There are some online programs that can help you check for grammar and typos, but don’t completely rely on them—especially since free versions of them are not really made for creative writing projects. They just don’t get art, ok? What I can warmly recommend, though, are beta readers. They’re real people who get to read your draft before you publish it. They can help you check for grammar and typos and all the likes, but they can also give you wonderful feedback and tell you what you might improve story-wise. While your beta is more than happy to help you edit your draft, let’s talk about formatting.

Before you share your work with the rest of the fandom, you want to make it look presentable—polish it, so to speak. Your draft can be as good as could be, but it’s pretty exhausting to read a piece that looks bad and it will scare potential readers off. Here’s a very quick list of things you want to avoid:

You don’t want your draft to be one single, long paragraph. Line breaks are your friend. As a rule of thumb: If there’s a new scene (imagine a cut in a movie), you start a new paragraph. Same goes for dialogue—whenever there’s a new speaker, you insert another line break. 

excessive punctuation (e.g. “No!!!!!!!!” He cried.)

weird fonts (choose something that’s easy on the eyes)

overuse of highlighting or emphasising (bold or italics)

bad grammar and punctuation 

If you want to get a feeling for this kind of thing, open a novel and just look at a random page for a moment. There’s a pattern I’m sure you’ll soon recognize—try to recreate that in your own writing.

Next: Polishing your Post 

Masterlist

[yellowocaballero]

ok so im not very far into trigun (which. you convinced me to read/watch) but ive seen you talk about vash as a christ/messiah figure which. means im kinda obsessed with how you described his impact on the world in no name on the bullet (christ healing the lame, christ feeding the thousand... christ delivering his people from evil.) did you have any specific biblical references you kept in mind while writing?

i also think its super interesting how the fic seems to focus more heavily on healing as opposed to how (what ive seen of) trigun is a lot more gunman focused - is part of that influenced by how knives is a pacifist in a "cold turkey" way, or a choice on your part? i think it makes an interesting dichotomy, christ the gunman and satan the physician

I've gone my entire life without recommending Trigun to anybody, because I always felt it was too weird and ultra-violent and love-it-or-hate-it to actually ask people to watch it. Look at me now. Getting at least 3+ people into it. Boo boo the fool. Also I'm sorry that this response is so long skull emoji.

I'm ex-Catholic so you have asked the right question lol. Vash is very inspired by the Old Testament God. I have a strong mental image of him obsessing over the Noah's Arc story in his cute children's Bible. Sodom and Gomorrah is brought up again much later, in an extremely important way. Garden of Eden and Paradise, as the show does. The Plagues where every firstborn son dies. These is all imagery that Vash specifically evokes on purpose. Vash...uses the Bible to understand his own experiences and feelings and desires (that's the most neutral way to phrase it), but like a lot of people he uses the Bible/God partly as justification for his actions. God destroys cities for being sinful, and Vash is the closest thing to God this planet has, so he's entitled lol. God Complex McGee up in here.

And Vash's cult has no Jesus, because there is no forgiveness for humanity, and no way for them to be saved. Which is how you know that Vash's Jesus-ey actions as described in the story are very deceitful on a lot of different levels. Kind of like regular Vash lmfao - as I said earlier, he's VERY much also a messiah deconstruction. Vash is a pacifist partly because he needs it - he needs to be believed that people can be saved, that the world can be good, that nobody has to die, because otherwise the world is nothing but an endless parade of misery and death and his own suffering. It's about saving his own soul, and the memory of Rem.

For me, on a writing level: Cain and Abel, obviously. 'My brother's keeper'-ass mofo lmfao. It's more themes for me, though - redemption, salvation, forgiveness, original sin, sin in general, guilt, fate. Knives is pretty obsessed with all of these topics. I make fun of him for it. None of it's healthy. But Knives embodies a few other Christian ideals that I don't make fun of him for, such as the importance of good works and good actions, and dedicating his life towards helping others without the desire for a reward. There's also some subtle 'shepherd and his sheep' stuff going on later.

Re: the gunfights: can you IMAGINE Knives carrying a gun. He is WAY too proud of his own #biologicalsuperiority and #ultimatelifeform and #impenetrabledefense (literally Shadow AND Gaara-ass mofo) to rely on cheap human trinkets like guns lol.

The plot has more action than my usual (yay! - that was what I was working for lol), but it's based off the skeleton of the Stampede plot, which is genuinely a lot more space opera than Western and as such its action looks different. Turns out that when you remove the Gung Ho Guns from a story, there are a LOT LESS gunfights, lmfao (I don't know what kind of errands Vash sends the GHG out on, I am afraid to find out). So partly there's less gunfights because a) Stamp plots don't require too many gunfights, and b) without a Gunman (TM) there's no reason for the group to use guns to solve their problems if at all possible.

It's also just that, basically, Vash's plots are partly man vs self and partly man vs other. When a character is level 99, the tension of the fight scene isn't if they'll win the fight - it's if they'll win the fight under their self-imposed conditions. In Vash's case, the Q in every gunfight is 'can Vash win the fight and save people without compromising his principles?'. For Knives, he is so ridiculously OP that it's impossible to write a fight scene with genuine tension, and he doesn't care nearly as deeply about casualties. So the most engaging plotlines for Knives are entirely man vs self, which tends to shake out into a lot of trolley problems lol. That's the answer to your Q from a writing perspective.

So it's mostly a choice for plot/writing reasons. But YUP the dichotomy is SUPER JUICY, and the fun part of the story is reading the Ultimate Killing Machine be forced to do literally anything else than Ultimate Kill - to do the only thing he wasn't meant to do. Because doing what he was meant to do reduces him to a biblical figure instead of a person - it makes him just a devil, who's never exercised the free will God gave him, and as such can't be called sentient. It's not what Rem would want. And it's a very juicy juxtaposition to somebody who interprets his own meaning in life as a Christ figure as a divine compulsion to brutally murder orphan.