#people should already know someone can explore themes without having a personal connection to them

[cowboy-robooty]

primal fear

[artisticxlly]

Some (actually a lot) of my thoughts on Kagehina; the theme of soulmates

Disclaimer: I am still somewhat new to posting in this fandom. Someone might've posted these same exact takes already (I'm not well-versed in Kagehina analyses). This is just my pure brainrot (also unfiltered, so this doesn't have a ton of structure, just a collection of thoughts)!

As I'm getting more into this ship, there are a lot of things that make me emotional about them.

A thing some people point out when it comes to these two is that Kageyama's backstory is shown extremely late in the manga as a 'protagonist' (or at the least a very essential character). You can argue whether or not it's done well, but for me this is perfect to demonstrate a full-circle moment, as not only did Kageyama find this person that Kazuyo promised would find him, you as the reader only get to realise that now as well.

And adding onto that, in my opinion it also contrasts nicely with Hinata, as his backstory is shown from day one, it is one of the first things explored in the manga. It starts and ends with them, so to say.

About their backstories: As someone who is very much invested in Kageyama's whole arc of 'king of the court', here is a speculation of how he actually got to that point.

Maybe this is a bit obvious, but losing someone like Kazuyo is devastating. And at the time, Kageyama would struggle with making new friends. He always stands out in those flashback panels as someone who carries a passion for volleyball like no one else (at least for his childhood) e.g., he gets made fun of for not owning any video games.

At its core, that intense interest in volleyball is what connected him and his grandfather so deeply.

It makes sense for Kageyama to desperately dig his nails into that remainder of Kazuyo, to train more and more, chasing that feeling of connection to someone he was actively grieving.

And another point would be this famous panel:

"If you get really good". And Kageyama takes his word for it, because really, his grandfather would be one of the people he trusts more than anything. And he practices until exhaustion, until he can't, because he wants to have a relationship (no matter the nature) like that again, wants a deep connection that he gains through his passion for the sport. He wants someome to find him.

I think Kageyama would reach a point where the amount of time he invests into training would be both physically and mentally unhealthy.

And perhaps, that's what also leads to him having no compassion for the people who don't share the same fire as him on the court (which is honestly a bit of a common theme for Haikyuu and its characters). He'd probably doubt a person who is like what Kazuyo described exists.

And then Kageyama and Hinata meet for the first time one the court.

The first time you read the chapter, without knowing Kageyama's backstory, it's moreso framed that he is insensitive, a bit of a jerk too. You could even go as far as to interpret the line as "what have you been doing until now?!" as Kageyama thinking that Hinata should've just practised harder, especially when he later goes on to say that Hinata should get "better" if he truly wants to stay on the court for as long as possible.

When you reread the chapter after going through the whole manga though, these lines make a lot more sense, and - depending on your perspective - are a peek into just how taken Kageyama is when faced with someone who has an equal drive as him on the court.

"what have you been doing until now?!" turns into "why havent I met you sooner?" and "get better" turns into "get better (than me), so we can find each other again" (As Kazuyo promised Kageyama).

And actually, Kazuyo's promise doesn't become fully realised until they're both on the court again, now in different teams.

That's why the flashback to that line is used then, not when Hinata and Kageyama first bond together in Karasuno. Not when they make it to nationals. No, when they're in different teams, after you see Hinata go through a whole lot of development away from Kageyama, then the promise is finally fullfilled. You could argue back and forth which one of them ended up being "someone better" but the point is that they found each other again because of it. Doesn't even really matter that they're on different sides of the court.

That's their arc, at least if you focus on Kageyama's backstory.

In general though, they are characters that continue to parallel each other, over and over. The amount of which is honestly almost absurd.

One of the biggest ones is just how much time they invest into practicing. The manga makes it a point with both of them that the people around them don't have the same energy as them and get tired out while those two continue (like maniacs /hj).

I mean, they even like the gym for the same reason, they're fond of the smell (which makes me mushy I won't lie, these goddamn weirdos /aff).

Another one is that they both want to play as long as possible. During the first chapter of the manga, this whole theme drags through the whole chapter, as they both talk about competing to get to stay on the court longer than anyone else.

A last one, that I just find funny, is that their numbers are ALWAYS one apart and sometimes even the same as in previous teams, EXCEPT for their third year in high school.

Junior high 3rd year: 2 and 1

High school 1st year: 9 and 10

High school 3rd year: 2 and 5

Adlers/Msby: 20 and 21

National team (2021): 9 and 10

Ali Roma/Asas São Paulo: 20 and 21

Like it's not funny, how much these two share even before knowing each other. And yet, despite all the similarities, they don't immediately get along in the way you'd think. There is this weird tension where they meet, they immediately get into an argument, too. But there is nuance to it. Izumi points it out actually, that Kageyama took Hinata seriously. The rest of the people there didn't think much of Hinata and his team, and yet Kageyama seemed to have this 'innate' sense that Hinata wasn't someone you should underestimate.

And they fight again, when trying to get into Karasuno, when they're in Karasuno, etc. etc. But it's never them genuinely disliking each other, it's just bickering at most. And as you read along you grow very fond of that aspect of them.

Maybe it is an overused word, but I don't think you could make it any clearer that those two are written to be soulmates.

Anyways, those are my thoughts! I'm obviously not normal about them, but I hope someone else can agree with these takes ^^

[kookieswan]

Red Light - Tea and Crumpets

Nightmare!Hoseok x Psychologist!Reader

Word Count: 2.2k

Genre: Horror AU, Monster AU, Psychological horror, kind of angsty? A little fluff? Idk?

Warnings: Jimin. Talk of biting off appendages, blood, bad language, all the good stuff. It should be noted that this story will contain themes of horror/psychological horror and also explore obsessive behaviors and codependency. Many characters are morally gray. Please be warned!

Summary: Gearing up for your second session with Jimin, things seem to be going surprisingly well until a surprise visitor arrives.

Notes: WOOOOO more Jimin finally (and another character teehee). This takes place a few days after Dripping Clouds!

This Part 28 of the Red Light series. Find the Masterlist here ♥️

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“Jimin, it’s good to see you again. I’ve been informed that there’s been a number of happenings since we last met?” Walking into the room, you plop down with as much elegance as you can muster into the chair that sits in front of Jimin’s cell. He’s curled around himself, eyes in slits as he pokes his tongue out to wet his lips.

“Nothing you need to worry yourself with Doctor. Just a few minor inconveniences that came about. Blame those bastards if you’d like.” Jutting his chin out, you turn in the chair to see two guards peering in. Raising a brow, you gesture for them to shut it without a word, glare intensifying when they don’t make much of a move

There’s a sudden violent slam, causing you to flinch as the guards finally getting into gear. Turning back towards the reptilian Nightmare, you see that his tail has stretched out, now smooshed up against the wall. Well… At least they’re gone. Giving Jimin a small smile, you dig into things as carefully as you can, pulling out the incident report folder Williams not so gently shoved into your hands.

“Let’s see here… You bit someone’s finger off, managed to break some of the most expensive equipment that’s kept down here, called Dr. Williams a ‘piss baby’…?” It takes everything in you not to lose your mind, your lips making an odd shape as you cough to hide the laugh. You really wish you could have been there to hear it.

“All very fucking warranted considering the situation I think. But hey, what do I know? I’m just a man kept in a cage.” Sighing a sympathetic sigh, you adjust your papers and pen, knowing that he’s right. They’re all right honestly; being kept against their will is a horrid thing. They’re not humans, but they’re sentient. They’re people, and they deserve better.

“Although I cannot personally connect to it, I understand where your anger is coming from Jimin. I’ve been sent in today mostly to reprimand you, but that’s not what I’d like to focus on. If you cooperate, that would make both of our lives a lot easier.” You think he gets that though; he’s already been a lot more docile than he’s been in the past. Jimin shrugs his shoulders with a sigh, inching forward a bit until he’s relatively close to the wall. You write down that you gave him a thorough talking to even though you certainly did not.

It’s quiet as you jot down some more quick notes, a moment of time you take to look the Nightmare over again passively. He’s definitely the least human looking in appearance with his tail, not even wearing a top, just going completely bare. You wonder if it’s odd to think that his scales look almost pretty in the light.

“Well? Ask whatever you want to ask Doctor. I’ll answer the best I can.” This makes your raise a brow. Not only is he being relatively docile but he’s also letting you do what you wish. A curious thing, but it leads you to believe even more now that your initial meeting was more of a front. That, or he was just extremely pissed off.

Jimin raises his hands up, tongue poking out yet again to wet his lips…? Or perhaps to smell the air. Twirling you pen, you wait for him to reply. He smirks a little as he speaks, though there’s a bit of caution on his voice.

“Don’t look so shocked. I’ve heard some things along with what you’ve personally told me. I don’t want to be on your bad side, and it’s not like I can leave.” So maybe he knows of your relationship with Hoseok? As far at you know though, he’s had every little interaction with any of the other Nightmares. You hum a little, tugging on your skirt as you ponder his words.

“I already know why you’re causing an uproar; it’s because you’re angry. Angry that you were stolen away from your life and locked in a cage. So, instead of exploring that, I’d like to look into your background.” It’s something you haven’t asked the others yet, but you wish to ask them all. Starting out with Jimin might be the best way to tackle that he stares for a minute before giving in, a bit of a hiss in his words.

“There’s not much to say. I was a wanderer, never really settled down anywhere after my life began. I had no ties I guess is what I’m saying… So plucking me up out of a back alley in New York was easy for those fucks.” New York? Quite a large city, an odd place to be if he were to look like he does now. It’s likely he took on a more natural form, but then again…

“I killed from time to time, never caused a fucking massacre though. I still have no idea how they found me out; I blended in pretty damn well when I wanted to.” You don’t know how they found out either. You don’t know how they go about capturing Nightmares, but they’ve got to have some sly way because they’ve managed to capture the others and they’re certainly not dumb. Deciding against leaving a paper trail, you store away the information.

“So you chose to try to integrate yourself into the human population? For at least some of the time?” He had to of blended in somehow. Nightmares can take on grotesque forms but many chose to blend in to get closer to their prey. Jimin tilts his head back, looking toward the ceiling.

“Yeah. I liked to go out, liked to party and have fun. I liked to get high, liked to find a good fuck. I liked it all, and now it’s been taken away from me so I can be ‘researched’ and tested on.” So he was just living his life like any other young person. It makes you frown; Jimin is the newest patient here, sure, but you also think he’s the youngest out of the group. Perhaps you’re wrong but he can’t have many years on him, not with this mindset.

“… Have they hurt you at all?” Jimin looks far away at first before focusing back in. He slowly shakes his head, and a sigh of relief leaves you. If any of your Nightmares get taken down there, it’ll be the day you turn into a Nightmare.

“No. Even if I’ve been having some issues, I’ve been trying to be a good egg. Sometimes there’s yelling from the guards but that’s about it. They don’t like when I spit in their faces.” You’d imagine not since his spit seems to be acidic. There wasn’t a mention of him burning anyone’s face off in the report though thankfully.

“You don’t mind having a room to yourself? From what you’ve said, I would guess you like company. I don’t want for you to feel completely isolated or lonely.” At this Jimin scoffs, tail whipping out behind him. He can scoff all he wants but something tells you that he craves more, that he really craved attention… Perhaps that’s why he acts out. Down here though, it’s not going to get the best response.

“I like the company of my choosing. I’m not sure the other Nightmares and I would get along. I can be a little brash as I’m sure you’ve noticed.” You’ve already made a mental note to keep him and Yoongi separated. The other three would likely be alright with him, but his anger mixed with Yoongi’s ruthlessness… No thank you.

Before you can continue on, there’s a knock on the door. Turning, you see none other than Taehyung Kim popping his head through the entrance, bright boxy smile on his face as he spots you. You can hear… a sob..? From outside the door before Dr. Kim slams it shut behind him.

“I hope you don’t mind Dr. _____, I wanted to sit in and observe one of your sessions. Well, that’s a lie. Williams wanted to but I told him to bugger off in much nicer words.” You don’t doubt he did. If there’s anything you’ve learned about his man, it’s that he doesn’t care about consequences. Mostly because you don’t think he faces any. Gesturing for him to come in further, you shake your head.

“Not at all Dr. Kim. I’m sure Jimin doesn’t mind either?” Glancing at the Nightmare, he’s not even looking at you. His eyes are trained on the other doctor, slowly looking up and down as if sizing him up. Interesting.

“As long as you don’t try to cut my fucking tail off or something, you can stay. Too many of those other douche fucks like to get handsy.” Taehyung shakes his head, thankfully not interested in cutting any tails off. Looking down at your mostly blank notes, you decide to change things up for now. The past is something that can be revisited another day when Dr. Kim isn’t present.

“Now, is there anything you’d like to talk about specifically? Anything troubling you?” You’re curious to see what happens if you give him complete free reign of the situation. Especially now that you have an audience, and an apparently relatively powerful one at that. Jimin looks back toward you finally, eyes narrowed.

“You’re the only psychologist down here? There aren’t any others?” You’re sure there are others, just none that you’ve met. You’ve only had the terrible displeasure of meeting all the other doctors and scientists on this floor.

“I’m the only one on this floor specifically. I don’t see to any other Nightmares, only the ones on level 13.” You don’t see it but you’re not sure if you could handle more. Five seems to be the magic number, one for every day of the week to focus on. Jimin just nods, eyes sliding back to where Dr. Kim stands next to you.

“What about you?” The man adjusts his glasses before walking closer to the clear wall. So close that they’re face to face, Jimin staring in what almost looks like disbelief. You still don’t know exactly what Taehyung’s position is down here but it’s obvious that he’s very comfortable with Nightmares.

“I see to all the floors technically, though I usually stay in the deeper levels but I became bored. As I’m sure you can guess, I’m not from here originally, but I craved change. So here I am.” Bored… It’s not that shocking. If you were to guess based on what little you’ve analyzed, Dr. Kim isn’t used to being told no. Instead, he used to free reign and being able to do what he wishes without question. Jimin snorts loudly, hand slamming up against the wall, clawed fingers scratching the material.

“That’s why you came here from tea and crumpet land? Wanted a change in scenery? Wanted to rule over this shitshow?” Well, they seem to be making fast friends. Jimin’s mood is quickly turning sour, and you know the rest of this session will be going no where but south. Oh well, you got to know a little bit more about him at least.

“Tea and crumpet land hasn’t been home in a while. Let’s say I’m up here for number of reasons; a new doctor and a new patient being a few of them. Color me surprised when I heard we got ourselves a competent psychologist and a pretty pet snake.” Avoiding the question is one way to go about things. You can’t help but to wonder too, most of the other Doctors seem to be from the states although you know there’s other facilities scattered. Jimin hisses loudly, face nearly smashed up against the wall as he spits his words out.

“I don’t think pet snakes usually have terribly homicidal thoughts about their owners.” Dr. Kim hums, raising his hand up to meet Jimin’s. The Nightmare stares back in a mixture of anger and confusion, quickly ripping his hand away and backing up from the wall.

“But apparently small little Nightmares do… I’ve decided that I like you very much. Try not to misbehave Jimin, I don’t want to be seeing you on the deeper floors.” With that, the doctor turns around and looks your way. You stare back at him, not really sure of what to make of the interaction. It was odd… And also revealed a lot about both men.

“Dr. _____, when you’re done I’d like to have a word with you. Nothing extreme, just a few things I’d like to discuss. Pip pip cheerio for now.” An overwhelming urge to laugh is back, this one a single strangled giggle as Taehyung exits the room. Looking back to Jimin, it’s apparent he won’t be giving you any more information today.

“Well… if there’s nothing else, then I’ll-“ The snake man cuts you off, voice not nearly as angry as you though it would be. On the contrary, he sounds almost… Delighted? Happy?

“I want him at our next session.” And then it clicks. He craves attention even if it’s not positive. Maybe Taehyung’s attention wasn’t positive but it’s got to have been better from what he’s been getting. Giving him a nod, you can only begin to imagine the bargaining you might have to go through with the eccentric doctor. The things you do for your patients…

“Consider it done.”

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Tags: @parkdatjimin @sugarflywme @pamzn @mizz-kraziii @hiii-priestess @winkii @noonas-magicshop @xuxibelle @lookhere-2seok @m1sss1mp @jukoo @thickemadame

(If you’d like to be tagged, send an ask/comment. All I ask is that your age (18+) is somewhere on your blog! 🌸)

[lpsgirl109]

Give me the full rundown on ghost phin, every single detail you can think of.

So I already went through the basic concept of the AU in this post but I'll use this as an opportunity to further explain Phin and Harry’s relationship here and why I decided to make it a thing

So when it came to choosing the character that would be able to see Phin, I ended up torn between Miles and Harry. Miles is an obvious choice of course, but ultimately I didn't go with him because 1. That feels too easy and I wanted Phin to interact with someone who didn't know her prior 2. The AU also serves as a rewrite of sm:mm and semi rewrite of sm2, in which Miles is still dealing with the trauma of losing Phin like that, because as we all know it pisses me off to no end that the events of sm:mm are pretty much not mentioned at all aside from some easter eggs that you can go the entire game without ever finding. And Miles being able to see Phin immediately after she dies sort of throws off any chance of exploring how he's coping with losing her. So she gets thrown to Harry

I went with Harry not just because I like him, but because I've always drawn connections between him and Phin as characters and the roles they serve in their stories. Both best friends with Spider-Man, end up becoming enemies, in the end sacrificing themselves for Spider-Man. Obviously their situations are very different but you get the idea. They're fun to work with here because of how many similar themes they share. They lost a good chunk of their lives that they should've spent enjoying themselves, Phin losing the last of her teenage years devoting herself to taking down Roxxon, Harry losing 2 years of his early 20s in a box. There is also the whole thing of dying young that I mentioned in the last post. It's very interesting to me to see Harry, guy who believed for a long time that his life would be short, interact with someone who died at 18. They're very similar in that way it makes them fun to write

Their friendship is something I sort of view as an older brother little sister type relationship. It's a lot of teasing and messing with each other, but they do genuinely care for each other and grow pretty close over the course of sm2. Phin pretty much attaches herself to Harry upon meeting him, and like why wouldn't she. He's the one guy who can see her. And he's not really opposed to this but it is something he needs to get used to. But once he does, they bond pretty quickly. Harry sees a lot of himself in her for aforementioned dying young thing. He also feels pretty bad for her, he knows she didn't deserve all that mess, especially at such a young age. Phin is happy to have a friend after so many months, and she finds Harry to be a really fun person to be around. His cheeriness and general carefree attitude is something she needs, as she tends to be a lot more pessimistic most of the time. He helps her turn her focus away from more negative things, and he teaches her that while she has every right to be angry about how her life turned out, she shouldn't let it weigh her down so much. She deserves happiness in her weird little afterlife, something that's much easier to achieve when she has a friend at her side. They care for each other a lot and generally just want the best for each other

There's more that I think I'll keep hidden for when I turn the AU into a fic, but this should satiate the Ghost Phin fandom (like four people) for now. Funny ghost and funny goblin. They are besties

[w-ht-w]

Stop Trying To Google Your Way Into A New Career (And What To Do Instead)

all you're doing by searching through Google is finding out what other people think about other people's career changes. You're arming yourself with information at a high level, when your career change actually exists in the low-level detail: the things that make you smile every day; the ideas that pique your interest and get your mind racing; the major world issues that leave your blood boiling and your heart aflame.

It's only by taking action and seeking out that sense of resonance – that 'wow' feeling you get when you're inspired and engaged – that this kind of problem starts to unravel.

Let's be clear: I'm not arguing that the internet is the enemy when it comes to your shift. There are a thousand ways to use Google to your advantage as a career changer, and that number is multiplying every day.

The problem arises when the internet becomes your primary go-to mechanism for tackling your shift; when it overtakes other methods that are ultimately more productive.

Next time you're feeling tempted to Google your way around your career change, ask yourself: could I do something more active instead?

So what should you be doing instead?

1. Try out your idea in the real world

What's the smallest way you can actually do something related to your career-change idea? Getting your hands dirty is the best way to find out if something resonates with you.

Considering becoming a personal trainer? Find a friend who wants to take on their health and offer to work with them one night a week for a month.

Dream of becoming a writer? Start writing to a deadline – articles, short stories, whatever takes your fancy. Try on different writing styles and imaginary audiences to see what works best, and to discover what it's really like to have to 'create on command'. This way, when an opportunity raises its head, you'll know if it's likely to be a good fit for your skills and preferences,

[Simon] had been interested in mindfulness and meditation for a long time. He had ideas about starting to teach, but wasn't sure how to break into it, or if he'd even enjoy it once he started. He chose to test out his idea in a small, low-risk way by offering to teach a single session to his colleagues at work. Not only did his colleagues love it, he also discovered he had a natural talent for sharing his passion and started to explore other ways of doing so. 

By 'trying on' a career idea, you'll discover far more about how you could fit into the role (and if you even enjoy it) than you ever would by reading about it online. Is your idea of the job just a pie-in-the-sky perspective on what it might be like, or is it really a good match?

2. Have a conversation with a real person

What do you really want to know about your career idea? What are the nitty-gritty details that you simply won't find out online?Seeking out people who already do the work you want to do is the quickest (and most fruitful) way to honest, balanced and ultimately useful information.

Ask if you can shadow them for an afternoon, or even simply go for a coffee to find out more about what they do all day.

Once you've made a connection and spent time with someone, you'll have access to both their network and their affections. An authentic conversation with somebody makes them far more likely to want to help you out, whether you're qualified for a job or not. 

Who knows who (or what) they know? Maybe they can put you in touch with a colleague who's looking for an assistant (quietly, without advertising it online), or let you know about an amazing organisation you've never heard of.

Cat (pictured) had no concrete idea of the next role she'd like to shift into, having left a brand management role at a multinational consumer goods company.

She spent time researching some areas of interest she had in mind, using books, online courses, podcasts, and TedTalks. This helped her clarify the general theme or area that she'd like to shift into – rural development and economic empowerment. But what really gave her career change momentum was reaching out to people in her network to ask them if they knew about opportunities or organisations that existed within this area ...

[quickdeaths]

is there a specific character archetype you enjoy writing the most? what inspires you when making your ocs? what genre do you enjoy writing in the most? (Hey Bryn, you got any of that OC brainrot? I need to spam your askbox with that good brainrot. It's leaking out of discord!)

is there a specific character archetype you enjoy writing the most?

I did already answer this, but I prepared a second answer just for you, Rae. This should be of truly Zero Surprise to you, but I like characters who are emotionally closed off about their own feelings and eventually open up. This doesn't always look like same, I think. Just on this blog alone, I would say that Shinobu is closed off where it's obviously coldness and general discomfort with emotions period, while with someone like Izumi it's more anxiety and feeling like a burden on other people and not wanting to drag people down with her issues, and with Tsubasa, it's a veneer of "I'm funny, I'm cool, I'm laid back and chill, I'm not damaged, I'm not sad, I'm totally fine, let me take care of you, pretty girl, I don't want you to worry about me."

I think in general, it can be hard to be open about your feelings and it's easy to build up walls and mechanisms that keep you from having to think about them and frankly, I put my characters through the goddamn wringer sometimes. So, then the questions of "how are they dealing with this, what coping mechanism are they adopting , and how, ultimately, are they going to try and take those walls down and turn those mechanisms off in service of connecting intimately (whether that's romantically or platonically) with another person?" just naturally follow.

what inspires you when making your ocs?

Depends! Sometimes it's to be a foil to another character (either an OC that a friend is writing, or more rarely, a canon character). Sometimes (often) it's a situation where there's a hole in the canon, or some idea that I think would have been interesting but wasn't explored. Sometimes I am simply gripped by Pure Spite at some piece of canon that I hate and a powerful drive to change it in some small way. Increasingly, other people that I know in the RPC are the biggest inspiration, and not in a "I want to design a character like X's character" way, but rather a "I want to design a character that would have interesting interactions with X's character." That's kind of how the DR OCs were all made, since they were originally designed to do things with my girlfriend's Discord DR OCs.

The things I try to keep in mind are like, A) is this character different enough from what I already have to justify existing? B) is this character grounded in the world that they are inhabiting (or if they're fandomless, are they grounded in the genre or macro-setting)? C) Is there enough here that I am going to be excited to write them for weeks, months, or years? D) Are there ways for other people (IC, and OOC) to meaningfully impact the direction of the stories?

The process can be a little different every time, but it's broadly things like coming up with an aesthetic, coming up with the themes of the character and what their struggles are, and then checking them against that little checklist above. It's not always possible, and these dorks end up surprising me sometimes, but I try to have a full image in my head of who a character is and what they're about before I write them with another person.

what genre do you enjoy writing in the most?

Well, I do like slow burn romance ehehe... It's hard to pick a "Favorite" though. Speaking of "genre" rather than "setting," I really enjoy character-driven stories that have romance elements, but also skew a bit more realistically in terms of time and realistic(ish) depiction of obstacles and pitfalls. I love angst (not all the time, a little can go a long way, but romance without angst is like food without spices for me). I like fantasy (although is that a genre or a setting or both?) but a specific kind of fantasy, at least when it comes to writing. I like supernatural/paranormal/whatever a little bit, but definitely in a more grounded and realistic way. I actually love horror and run a ton of horror TTRPG games, but I don't think I'm necessarily good at it in pure text mediums.

As like a big overarching thing, I would say that I do like writing romance when it makes sense and is mutually desired, and more generally, I just like writing stories with deep characterization, some kind of relationship, and a development of both that relationship and those characters over time.

[moipale]

the maddie-jack-vlad college trio make me literally insane. NO they aren't that deep in the show but so be it! we are all in the building-upon-canon's-barebones-foundation trenches, alright, and the college trio/family breakfast dynamic is my hill to die on

cos like. what an insane premise to start with, first of all. 3 people, potentially the ONLY three people ever, pioneering a niche almost-pseudoscience together in college. young twentysomethings with probably zero funding to their name and a batshit dream to follow. and as it turns out their science is legitimate, ghosts are real, and their first (that we know) proof of it all is literally enough to murder 1/3 of them.

vlad masters gets an ectoplasm facial & next thing he knows is he's hospitalized, he's half-dead, and his best friends, the only canonical connections he has have completely abandoned him. the accident happened and they dropped trow and ran. & vlad spends twenty excruciating years stewing in that abandonment. (idr if twenty is canonical but it makes sense given how old danny and jazz are)

and thats all just backstory! the college trio's relationship is already smoldering ashes by the time we get to it; we only actually see the long aftermath, where vlad is obsessed with the fentons and they act like they never abandoned him. it's such a compelling premise, with so much room to explore all three of their characters and motivations, and canon SPITS ON IT by dumbing down the consequences to "vlad is a big bad villain with a homewrecker complex." the college trio is deeply compelling to me in the sense of what it could and should be & there are a few particular points that i will truly die on a hill about:

a) vlad's anger/betrayal should be directed at both the fentons, not just jack. regardless of what or who actually caused the accident, they were both there, and both contributed to the proto-portal. more damningly, though, they both left him alone for the years afterward. they even went and got married, cementing their bond and leaving him all the more alone by comparison.

b) maddie and jack should have reason/motivation for abandoning vlad, and they should each be different. no friendship can be walked away from like that without strings attached. for that matter--when vlad hosts the reunion, the fentons attend without a second thought, even after leaving him so long ago. why? have they been thinking about him as much as he has thought about them, these past twenty years? (yes!!!!!!!!! there was no closure to what happened! of course he has haunted them! look what they did!)

c) the fentons should FIND OUT WHAT THEY DID. in any iteration of their story--whether vlad is danny's villain, or he's just a man, or he reconciles with the fentons--i think that jack and maddie should learn the consequences of the portal accident. i dont say this out of malice. vlad is, in most iterations, a bad person, in more ways than can be attributed to his half-death. and the portal accident was an accident. these are true things. it is just so deeply, deeply narratively compelling to have them find out. they made a mistake, they left it behind, it has dogged their thoughts for twenty years, and--oops! it was always as bad as you feared it was, in fact worse! you killed someone! you killed your best friend! the potential for themes of guilt and betrayal and preventable tragedy make me off the wall fucking bonkers.

im enamored with the college trio's story because it is so messy and so tragic and it has so much potential, whether flavored as enmity or friendship or any variation of romance (especially family breakfast). augh. ive written three fics about them already with a fourth on the way via invisobang and i am nowhere near done exorcising the thoughts they've stirred

[aestherians]

Choice or Chance?: Exploring voluntarity and categorization in the otherkin and therian communities

Under the cut is the full script for my Othercon 2021 lecture, in which I examine the way we categorize nonhumans based on the perceived amount of choice they had in their identity and how this practice is detrimental to both questioning people and our community as a whole. At the end, I propose a new way to define otherkind and otherlinkers to hopefully move our community forward.

Reading time: 30-40 minutes.

The focus of this lecture has changed a bit since I started working on it. My earliest idea was to discuss the grey area between otherlinks and kintypes - in fact one of my working titles was Grey Zones and Silver Linings. And I still plan on talking about this, though not in the way you might expect. I originally wanted to argue that those who found themselves in this grey area should be able to choose how they wanted to refer to their identity, but the more research and thinking I did, the more I realized that this would still leave a bunch of people torn and confused and wouldn’t solve any of the greater problems in our community. It also seems like such a water-is-wet statement with how the conversation has developed… and you know me, I’m only happy when I’m starting controversies.

So I went looking for the root of this whole categorization debacle.

The nonhuman community, as we know it, didn’t always exist, and though we often say it has roots in elven communities from the ‘70s, that’s only half the truth. While the Elf Queen’s Daughters and related successors such as the Silver Elves are the earliest known organized nonhuman communities, they’re by far not the only pioneers.

Because nonhuman identifying people have always existed, and our numbers have always been relatively small, some of us ended up grouping together without even being aware of the other groups that existed. And of course, all these independently formed groups ended up with their own cultures and traditions and philosophies.

Mailing lists, like the Elfinkind Digest, were generally open for anyone to join and read. But they also weren’t widely known or easy to stumble upon for folks who didn’t already have an interest in these kinds of spirituality and identification. This resulted in a culture where people’s self-identification was generally respected, and they would only be questioned if they made extraordinary claims.

Compare this with the newsgroup Alt.Horror.Werewolves, which was open for anyone to access on Usenet, and which was originally created as just a place to discuss werewolf media. On AHWw, the therians (or ‘weres’ as it was back then) would frequently have to defend their existence against strangers who just found them by coincidence. This would lead to a culture more focused on appearing respectable, which in turn would lead to grilling of new members and shut-downs of “fluffy” topics.

Other independent groups, such as Alt.Fan.Dragons, which was centered around dragons, or Always Believe, which was centered around unicorns, had their own cultures as well. For example, AFD generally accepted dragons from modern fiction, which would not have been tolerated on AHWw.

The Silver Elves is another semi-independently evolved group of elves, fae and similar beings that still exists to this day. They only represent a fraction of our community, but for today’s discussions I find their writings very illustrative. They’ve written about choice of identity on multiple levels. For starters, they believe a lot of elven spirits have actively chosen to incarnate into human bodies. More provocatively, and more interesting to me, they’ve stated multiple times that simply wanting to be an elf means you are an elf.

This is in contrast to the therian community on AHWw, where there was a big focus on involuntary shifts and theorizing on why some people were born with and animal side. I think it’s reasonable to assume this focus on involuntary experiences is due to the werewolf narrative that the community stemmed from. In werewolf media, a person’s wolfish side is rarely, if ever, a choice, while in new age and spiritual communities, like that of the Silver Elves, there’s a greater emphasis on choice of spirituality and subsequently on choice of identity.

It wouldn’t be right to say that every therian back then shared the same idea; however, the idea that involuntary shifts are a core trait of therianthropy does seem to persist in the AHWw’s userbase. Nearly all introduction posts include a line about involuntary shifts. Another idea that repeats itself is that the therian either had a “sudden awakening” or “just always knew” they were animalistic; contrasted with the Silver Elves’ idea that simply wanting to be an elf is enough for you to be one.

-

There are two main ideas about origins that seem to persist in all of this: That one is either born nonhuman or becomes nonhuman. Both are equally true. The ‘born-this-way’-narrative is quite a bit more common than the ‘becoming’-narrative, though that’s not to say that the idea of becoming nonhuman is rare, or even all that controversial in most communities - with a few caveats, that is.

The idea that one can become nonhuman tends to rest on the idea that what we become is outside our control. On the more metaphysical side of things there are stories of people being spiritually transformed into an animal after encounters with an animal spirit, or of having a shard of a god put into them. And on the more mundane side, there are stories of imprinting on a species during early development, or of taking on the experiences of a character after being engrossed in a piece of media. Most people I’ve talked to don’t have a problem with these ideas of ‘becoming’ as something outside your control.

What really gets people’s goat is when someone describes specific choices they’ve made on their journey, which ultimately led to their nonhuman identity.

This finally leads to the theme of this lecture: The topic of choice itself and how we categorize others based on the perceived amount of choice or chance there’s been in the development of their identity.

Questions I’ll discuss include: What kind of choices do we have regarding our identities? What the heck does ‘choice’ even mean in this context? And how does the idea of choice (or lack of choice) affect the way our community functions?

There are many kinds of choices that we inarguably do make on our journey of self-discovery. Probably the first universal choice is to undertake the journey and to seek out a nonhuman community. Choices that naturally follow include choice of labeling - whether we want to call ourselves otherkin, therian, fictionkin, nonhuman, and so on - and the choice to accept or reject whatever feelings caused us to seek out a nonhuman community in the first place. In this line of thinking, being otherkin is a choice - you choose to label yourself as otherkin. However, the feelings, on which you base your decision to label yourself, are not a choice. The feelings that pushed you towards the community were already there.

Another choice that follows pretty naturally in this line of thinking is the choice to strengthen whatever connections you already have. This is something I’m intimately familiar with, as I’ve been doing it since I awakened as a bison. Before I even became aware of my species identity, I knew I was nonhuman. I’d been having simultaneous bison and gnoll feelings for a few years, but couldn’t separate them, and had, without much introspection, decided that I must be some weird kind of wolf. I think a lot of us with uncommon theriotypes have gone through a phase like that.

However, one day I experienced a very strong flashing image - basically a flashback - of being physically a bison. The vision was so vivid and tactile, I immediately knew what it meant, and for the next few weeks I ignored every experience that wasn’t quite bison in nature, and just examined the recognizably bovine feelings. This helped strengthen my bison identity, and in total my questioning process only took around 2 months.

Though I’ve settled in my identity as a bison, and I’m comfortable referring to myself as a bison, I never quit reinforcing it. While I didn’t create the original bison-like feelings, I’m very conscious of the fact that I do choose to connect every trait to my bisonhood that I can. Whether I see the traits as a cause of my current bisonhood, or a result of it, things like being stubborn, preferring physical fights over verbal ones, and even liking the taste of those Beanboozled jellybeans that are supposed to taste like grass… all these traits, that any human could have, are things I connect to my identity as a bison.

I’ve experienced some pushback towards this idea from a few therian communities. A very common rebuttal I’ve run into in introduction threads and grilling threads (which, introduction threads should never be grilling threads in my opinion, but that’s another story)… a very common rebuttal to considering these kinds of traits part of your nonhuman identity is: “Isn’t that just a regular human thing?”

I have so many problems with that question, I’m honestly not sure where to even begin. Yes, those traits are experienced by humans all the time. I think some of the only experiences in the community that regular humans don’t experience are, perhaps, species dysphoria and shifting. But if your identity began and ended with having dysphoria and experiencing shifts, it would hardly qualify as an identity. Treating an identity like just the sum of its parts, rather than a whole and complicated construct, is reductive and it doesn’t just hinder discussion, it stifles discussions.

I don’t know, maybe I’m the odd one here, but my whole nonhuman identity can not be encompassed by my horn dysphoria or the fact that I sometimes feel more like a prey animal than an apex predator. My identity is so much more than that. It’s how I view the world and how I view myself in relation to the world. It’s how I react to things, what I like and dislike, and what I want out of my life. When you envision an identity in this way, as a way to describe who you are, rather than a summary of every individual thing you experience, you absolutely will see some overlap with humans, like it or not.

Another reason I dislike the question “Aren’t those just human traits?” is that it’s often asked in communities where the consensus is that you were born nonhuman, and that your identity is somehow more real or ‘valid’ if it can be corroborated by childhood memories.

While looking back at your childhood and seeing how your current identity might have formed or changed throughout the years can help paint a picture of the identity as a whole, that kind of reminiscence should always be secondary to what you are currently experiencing. Your identity is not based on the fact that you played dog when you were a toddler. Pretty much every human child has played dog or been obsessed with cats or wished they were a dragon. It might be related to your current identity, but if those were your primary nonhuman experiences you would hardly consider yourself nonhuman, nor would you find a home in the community.

No, your identity is based on who and what you are right now, and what you’re experiencing this moment. The validity of your identity should not be judged based on the number of times you pretended to be that creature in kindergarten. Your kintype should be determined based on your current experiences. And if your current experiences include things that humans can also go through, that should have no impact on the validity of your identity.

-

Alright, back on topic: Hopefully, we can agree that there’s no shame in strengthening your connections, reinforcing what traits you already have, and in drawing connections between a nonhuman identity and seemingly human traits. Which is a nice segue into a statement that might ruffle a few feathers:

Linktypes are typically based on preexisting traits that are reinforced to fit a certain narrative or ideal. A copinglink or an otherlink is rarely if ever pulled out of thin air. You just can’t craft an identity from nothing. Yeah, crazy, I know?

This parallels otherkin identities, which, as I mentioned earlier, are based on preexisting experiences and connections that one chooses to give a name and to strengthen.

The process of becoming a linker usually starts with recognizing certain traits that one either wants, or already has but wants to reinforce, by focusing them through a linktype. For example, wanting to become better at handling stress can be difficult to accomplish on its own, but is made easier by thinking about what a specific character or animal would do in a stressful situation.

But you can’t just establish a connection to any given character. There needs to be a resonance between you and the linktype, and if you don’t already have that resonance with the character, it’s impossible for you to craft an identity around them. And in that sense you could easily argue that there is an involuntary aspect to linktypes.

Once the prospective linker has recognized a connection with a character, they will begin the process of reinforcing the identity, which can include anything from writing fanfics in 1st person to wearing clothes reminiscent of the character to asking people to treat you like the character. All things that an otherkin or fictionkind might do when first establishing their identity.

A key trait of linking is that a linktype should fade away once you stop reinforcing it… Linktypes are supposed to go away if you just ignore them and push them away long enough. They’re built to be temporary.

However, a significant number of linkers or former linkers have talked about their linktype becoming an inseparable part of how they view themselves - even the ones who might be able to force their linktype away would at this point become completely different people if they did so.

In other words, their linktype has become an inherent part of who they are as a person. This integrality can appear regardless of how much effort they put into creating the linktype in the first place, and regardless of how nonexistent the linktype was before they created it… What I’m getting at is that some people describe creating an identity from scratch by their own choice, which later becomes an irreversibly ingrained part of them. It’s an experience completely contrary to the idea that we are born nonhuman. I’ll refer to these people as ‘linkers-turned-kin’.

There are a few regular rebuttals I’ve seen to this idea: That linkers-turned-kin just had a late awakening. Or that, perhaps, they felt compelled by their inner true species to seek out the identity. Or even that they were actually born nonhuman, but just didn’t realize until later.

All these rebuttals are disrespectful of the linker-turned-kin’s experiences and intelligence. I won’t even try to hide it: They make me angry. The rebuttals ride on the idea that the born-this-way idea of nonhuman identities is a fact rather than a common belief. I know that for a lot of people the born-this-way narrative rings true. I see you and I am not trying to invalidate your beliefs. Instead, I want you to acknowledge that others may not have the same belief as you. For several people in our community otherkinity is an identity that develops in response to certain traits they have - for some, those traits are inherent, something they’re born with. For others they’re traits that developed later in life, or that were worked towards. And I want to argue that, for some, these traits were expressly chosen.

The reason these arguments against linker-turned-kin make me so angry, aside from the fact that they’re built on the idea that linkers-turned-kin don’t understand their own experiences, and the assumption that your idea of how nonhuman identities work trumps someone’s lived experience… Another reason the arguments make me so angry is that they prescribe more importance to the why than the how of our identity. When you define otherkin by the way our identity formed, you’re basically saying that the cause of otherkinity is more important than the experience of otherkinity.

-

We can’t talk about this without also exploring the community’s animosity towards psychological beliefs.

Through my years in the community, I feel like I’ve had to handhold some folks through the concept of religious tolerance. I remember a little over 4 years ago someone on tumblr asked me my opinion on fictionkind - it would be another 2 years before I had my own awakening, so my response was basically that I was fine with fictionkind, though I didn’t understand their experiences and the only way it could fit into my own worldview was as a psychological phenomenon. Even after my awakening, the latter still holds true. My fictionkinity is primarily psychological. But yeah, somehow my statement that I didn’t believe fictionkinity was caused by past lives got twisted into me saying that fictionkind were all just roleplayers.

Rereading the whole debacle that ensued, this twisting of my words had little to nothing to do with my own personal beliefs - it instead exposed a widespread antipathy towards psychological otherkin. When I have talked about my current experiences as a gnoll, my shifts and my flashbacks and my hiraeth, people generally accept it without a second thought. But when I mention that I believe it’s caused by various psychological phenomena, I have on multiple occasions been told that it must not be a real identity. Some people have even treated my parallel life as just an elaborate fantasy, rather than something that’s completely real to me. I have, word for word, been told that there’s no way I could identify as a nonhuman, or be another species than a human, without believing I have a nonhuman soul. A direct quote: “To say “I am fae” when [you] don’t believe in fae is illogical.”

What I take from these kinds of responses is that a subset of people within our community take it for granted that whatever beliefs someone has about the origin of their identity are objectively true, rather than understanding that our beliefs about our origins are just that: Beliefs. Whatever conclusion we’ve reached based on our experiences, reincarnation or imprinting or something else entirely, and no matter how much we believe in it, it will always be a belief and never a fact. I’m fully convinced that my bison identity is caused by a past life, and that my gnoll and Ben 10 identities are caused by various psychological phenomena. But if that doesn’t fit into someone else’s worldview, they have all the right in the world to explain it away however they want. I have friends who believe my bison identity must be caused by something psychological, and I have friends who believe my gnoll identity must be caused by something spiritual. That is their prerogative.

It doesn’t matter how people make sense of my nonhumanity, as long as they’re respectful towards my own experiences with my identity and don’t try to impose their beliefs on me. If you have to quietly believe that someone really has a faerie soul in order to accept that they’re really a fae, so be it. As long as you don’t try to deny the reality of their current identity. As long as you don’t try to claim that they aren’t really nonhuman, just because they have the quote-unquote “wrong” beliefs about their origin.

There is another, more recent and more prominent, example of the animosity towards psychological otherkin that comes to mind. I will not mention the term itself for fear of people harassing its creator. For the purpose of this lecture, I’ll refer to the concept as “nonhuman by birth”, which is essentially its meaning. If you know which word I’m talking about, I ask that you please don’t mention it in the chat. If you need to know, you can DM me. Also, don’t misunderstand this as me hating on people with past life or soul beliefs. Remember, my own bison identity is based on a soul from a past life.

So, last year a rather old community member on tumblr coined a term, separate from ‘otherkin’, to refer specifically to those who believe they have a nonhuman soul. Which wouldn’t be a problem in and of itself. After all, terms like animafidem and cerebrumalius have been around for half a decade with no issues. However, “nonhuman by birth” is specifically described in its coining post as a “less bastardized” alternative to the word ‘otherkin’. What this post describes as “less bastardized” is spiritual experiences, and specifically those spiritual experiences that are based on soul transfers and reincarnation. Essentially “nonhuman by birth” defines all other beliefs as bastardizations of what otherkinity is supposed to be. All beliefs, including spiritual beliefs that aren’t based on souls or past lives, psychological beliefs, beliefs of becoming nonhuman, beliefs based on magic, neurological beliefs, and archetypal beliefs… None of these are quote-unquote “true otherkin” according to the “nonhuman by birth” concept.

The word thankfully never gained much traction off tumblr, but I have seen individuals use it, and it always, without fail, makes me feel unwelcome, and unwanted. Not because there’s anything wrong with a strong belief in past lives or souls, but because those who choose to use that label specifically believe themselves to be the only true nonhumans. Because the term itself is not based on a respectful, individual belief, but on what its coiner believes to be an objective fact. Because this subset of our community has an almost-evangelical conviction that all nonhumans have nonhuman souls, and those who don’t have nonhuman souls are not nonhuman.

And like I mentioned earlier: The cause of otherkinity can affect the experience a lot. That’s why we have these discussions in the first place - we come together due to our similarities, and we try to understand each other and ourselves by discussing our differences. And this is exactly why proclaiming any version of nonhumanity as the One True Kind of Nonhumanity is so damaging. It completely stifles any exchange of ideas. It makes it impossible for us to understand our differences, and it leads to more and more narrowly defined subcommunities that all believe themselves to be more real than the others.

To define is to limit. We need some limitations, otherwise a dog is a cat and no words have meaning. But we need to be extremely careful where we want those limits to be, otherwise we end up with a community where psychological otherkin are bastards, and only those who are born with nonhuman souls are really nonhuman.

-

The next thing I want to discuss is subjective truth… Subjective truth is one of the most important concepts to understand and really internalize if we wanna have fruitful discussions and respectful experience sharing. In short, a subjective truth is something that is not real because it can be proven to exist through scientific measurements but is instead real because a person experiences it as real. If I make the claim that tea tastes better than coffee, for example, you cannot refute that simply because you think coffee tastes better. We have to understand each other’s experiences and accept that we experience the world in different ways. It’s equally true to say that coffee is better than tea and that tea is better than coffee. This is what I was talking about when I said that the “born-this-way”-narrative and the becoming-narrative are equally true.

So, how does subjective truth apply to this discussion?

A phenomenon in the community I’m sure we’re all aware of is kin memories. If you’re somehow not aware of them, in short they are images, episodes, sensory information, and similar experiences that are thought to stem from another life, usually a past life. They have all the qualia of a memory, except they didn’t happen to the body currently recalling them. These experiences, though, are not restricted to those who believe their nonhumanity stems from a past life. They aren’t even restricted to spiritual otherkin. Plenty of folks with psychological beliefs, mixed beliefs, and other beliefs report the exact same experience: Images, episodes, and sensory information that does not originate from this world or from this current life.

For decades there’s been a lexical gap in the community to describe these memories that aren’t memories. Which is where I can’t avoid tooting my own horn a bit. I have an extremely rich and detailed parallel life as a gnoll, from which I can quote-unquote “recall” events, people, traditions, names, and so much more. It’s all integral to my nonhuman identity.

However, because I believe it all stems from some deep unconscious part of my brain, and because it feels like a parallel life, not a past life, I never felt right calling these things memories. So almost two years ago at this point, I undertook the quest to fill that lexical gap. And after looking through dozens of obscure web pages and dictionaries and articles, I found something useful: The word ‘noema’. Noema is a rarely used Greek word that translates to concept, idea, perception, or thought. And I’ve been very happy to see the term catching on in my corner of the community, where it’s often used as a broader alternative to ‘memory’.

In philosophy, a noema is defined as “the perceived as it is perceived.” At first this might sound a bit vague or esoteric, but when looked at through the lens of subjective truth it suddenly starts to make sense. A subjective truth is something that’s real just because a person experiences it as real. A noema is the perceived as it is perceived. So when we’re using noema as a substitute for memory… when we’re discussing memory-like experiences in the community and we explicitly refer to them as noemata, instead of referring to them as memories, the actual cause of the noema is then irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that it’s in one way or another perceived as a memory. When talking about noemata, it’s completely and utterly irrelevant if they’re real in any objective way - the only thing that matters is that the individual experiences the noema as real. Essentially the word ‘noema’ makes the cause irrelevant, so we can instead focus on the experience alone.

And I think the fact that this word has caught on (at least on tumblr) hints that our community might be moving in a positive direction. I at least dream of a community where we care a lot less about our origins, and a lot more about our actual presence in the world.

-

I had a conversation with a friend a few months ago, about this community-wide worry about the origins of our identity. And just to reiterate, I’m not saying your spiritual beliefs are irrelevant, because they can be really important when forming a whole picture of your identity. I’m more so saying they can be a bit of a distraction. In my opinion, the whole discussion about spirituality vs psychology is a red herring. Most of us didn’t seek out the community because we had certain spiritual beliefs. We sought it out because we felt not-quite-human, and it was only later that we reached any conclusions about why we feel nonhuman.

So, my friend and I talked about the role this discussion of origins plays in our community, and we reached a few interesting conclusions. For starters, it’s really upsetting to some folks to have to earnestly consider the idea that reincarnated souls are no more real or ‘valid’ than psychological imprinting, or any other non-spiritual beliefs for that matter. That’s part of what started the whole ‘nonhuman by birth’ idea I mentioned earlier. And it seems this uncomfortableness stems from a place of insecurity.

At the risk of offending some folks, I’m gonna draw a parallel to the trans community. In the trans community there’s a discussion of origins that parallels the one in the kin community and is likewise an attempt to draw lines between the quote-unquote ‘real’ trans people and the so-called transtrenders - which are supposedly people who pretend to be trans for clout. Those who attempt to draw these lines proclaim that being trans is a medical condition that they wouldn’t wish on their worst enemy, and one that’s marked by intense dysphoria and stress. They’ll also regularly state that being trans is only real or ‘valid’ because it has been proven through MRI brain scans that some female-assigned people have supposedly male brains, and vice versa.

(And just to make things clear, those brain scans are not real. It’s malicious pseudoscience spread by people who want to ‘cure’ transness by preventing trans kids from being born.)

But I think this attempt at validating your identity - in this case with science - stems from a dislike of one’s own traits, or more likely from the outside world’s dislike of those traits. When certain trans people try to prove themselves more valid than others in the eyes of the public, it’s not because they just hate those they deem ‘not trans enough’ - it’s because they’re afraid of being rejected by the rest of the world. These people are basically saying: “I didn’t choose to be trans. This is how I was born, so you have to accept it because it’s unchangeable.” It’s a cry for acceptance in an unaccepting world. And all this is not to say that some trans people aren’t born trans; I really think most trans people have a narrative like that. I’m more so trying to get across that, someone else’s narrative of choice should have no impact on your narrative of involuntarity. Both are real ways to experience being trans. And in many ways, having a narrative of choosing to be trans is necessary for the community, because it closes the doors for eugenicists who would try to eliminate quote-unquote “the trans gene”.

Viewing transness as a purely medical phenomenon where you need to meet certain requirements to get a trans diagnosis is a really reductive way to look at identity. Like I mentioned earlier: An identity is not just the sum of its parts, and it cannot be summarized by being forced to feel dysphoria. The fact of the matter is that we don’t know trans people are real because we have brain imaging technology, or even because certain people meet the medical criteria for having gender dysphoria. We know trans people are real because there are real people who identify as trans. We should be able to trust that people are trans when they tell us they are. And I think we need to look at nonhuman identities the same way.

Before I move on to the conclusion, I want to explain why this topic has become so important to me. A couple of months ago, after a good year or two of introspection, I realized I had created a hearttype. Not a kintype, but nonetheless an equally integral part of how I view myself and engage with the world. And changing something so fundamental about myself sent my thoughts racing.

When I was a kid I picked up a fear of spiders. It wasn’t bad enough to give me panic attacks, but it was bad enough that I couldn’t pick up a spider and carry it outside, even though I could do so with other bugs. I was around 10 years old when I decided that this was dumb, and I wanted to change it. So as a tween I quickly started on my own exposure therapy, looking at photos of spiders, reading about them, photographing them in nature, and after several years it had gotten to the point where I barely had a reaction to seeing them. But as I continued on, getting used to the idea of holding them and touching them, something changed in me.

Where I had previously felt fear, I started to feel admiration and love and a sense of familiarity. I wanted to surround myself with these animals, I wanted to work with them, and I started spending a not-insignificant amount of money on terrariums. And now, after more than a decade of rewriting my own thoughts and changing a mild fear into a love so deep it affects my sense of identity itself, I feel confident saying I created a hearttype. It was not an easy process. Like I said, it took more than a decade. Changing your entire mindset like that can’t be done with just a snap of your fingers. But evidently, some people are able to do it.

Though I have to add that, even here, it’s very easy to argue that there was some level of involuntarity. I already had an emotional response to spiders when I was scared of them. I don’t think I could form this kind of relationship with something I’m completely indifferent to, like, I dunno, a Toyota or a Marvel character. You can’t really form a relationship from nothing. And I appreciate this argument, because it really highlights just how confusing the entire concept of choice is, and how it doesn’t make sense to define ourselves by our lack of choice, when we can’t even define what counts as a choice.

But yeah, realizing that I created a hearttype, an identity that at the time was considered involuntary… realizing that I didn’t just play a part in creating this identity, but that I did create it, period. It sent my mind spinning, and I couldn’t stop thinking about what else might be possible. If I could create such love in myself, could I also do the opposite and tear down my own hearttype and recreate the phobia? Not something I want to test. But I think I could. And which other identities could be created like this?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the creation process has no impact on the nature of the identity itself, and I ended up posting a really controversial thing on tumblr. In hindsight I understand why some people got so pissed off about it, but I still stand by those thoughts. I’ll read it to you in full: “Theoretically I probably could force myself to not be otherkin. But it would take a decade or more, the way my hearttype creation did, and it would require constant work throughout those years. However, I see no way I wouldbenefit from that work, the way I did when I unintentionally created a hearttype in the process of getting rid of a phobia. It would just rid me of a part of myself that’s intrinsic to how I recognize myself. That’s not something I in any way want - and because I don’t want it, and because the choice would have to happen continuously on a timescale I can barely comprehend, I couldn’t make that choice in practicality.”

A very long and very complicated discussion came out of this post that I’d need a whole separate lecture to recap. But a few important ideas were developed, which I need to mention here. For starters, when discussing shadowwork and the Jungian archetypes, Jasper accidentally coined the term ego alteration. Through that discussion we ended up defining ego alteration as the process by which you proactively alter your conscious mind, your self-perception, and your thought-patterns. It’s not something to be taken lightly, as you’ll essentially be changing your sense of self by it. And it’s also not something everyone has the ability, desire, or drive to do. To integrate something into your sense of self, or to remove something that’s currently a part of your sense of self is serious business, and, like my hearttype creation, is something that should be thought about on a decades long timescale. I don’t have time to get in-depth about it here, but to consciously change your identity and your sense of self is definitely possible for some folks, and it’s nice to have a name for the concept.

Something else that came of that discussion is my own thoughts about how we define otherkin. The most common definition I’ve seen is “to identify, wholly or partially, as something nonhuman on a nonphysical level, by no choice of your own.” … I suggest we drop the last bit.

Okay, it’s a bit more complicated than just deleting a few words. In order to drop the “by no choice of your own” bit, without losing the meaning of otherkinity completely, and letting kin for fun take over, we’d need to rethink that entire definition.

Instead of defining otherkin by the amount of choice we had in the formation of our identity, I suggest we define otherkin by how integral our identities are to us. It was briefly mentioned on in one of the other panels (though I forget which one), but a pretty big source of conflict is that kin for fun just don’t understand the gravity of otherkin identities. If we define otherkinity as something that’s inseparable from who we are as individuals, it would not only make it clear to kin for fun that this is, well, not for fun. It would also get around the problem of people who worry that their identities might be invalid because they’ve made certain choices.

Your otherkinity is inherent, and by that I mean you would be a fundamentally different person if not for your kintype. At its most basic level, your kintype is what you recognize yourself to be. It’s the kind you belong to, rather than, or in tandem with, belonging to humankind. You kintype is an intrinsic part of you, and even if you could get rid of it, it would fundamentally change who you are is a person. If you chose not to be otherkin, you would also choose not to be you. In that sense, I suppose otherkinity is involuntary, in that you yourself can’t choose not to be otherkin, because as soon as you make that choice, you aren’t you. Though you could also argue that it is a choice because you wake up every day and choose to be you. And thus, the topic of choice leaves us running around in circles like it always has.

Being otherkin… being otherkind has never been about being forced to feel species dysphoria. It’s about being of another kind. It’s about knowing and recognizing humankind, and accepting that, in one way or another, that does not describe us.

And all this is not to say that copinglinking shouldn’t be a concept, but we need to rethink that as well. From the very few copinglink writings that exist, one topic I’ve seen several times is the idea of copinglinks becoming inseparable from you. This is not the point of links, and those who do go through a change like that find themselves more at home in the kin community than the link community. I don’t want to impose myself on linkers, but if we want these two words to make sense and have a use, we need to redefine both. I suggest defining copinglinks and otherlinks by their lack of integrality or by their ability to be dropped when necessary.

The line that has been drawn between otherkin and copinglinkers doesn’t help anyone as it is. There are far too many nonhumans who straddle the line, who feel torn between either community, or who only call themselves linkers because they feel pressured to do so. There are far too many nonhumans who don’t feel like they have a community they can call home.

So, I’m gonna propose a new and much more inclusive definition: To be otherkin is to identify as something nonhuman on an inherent or integral level. There you go, clean and simple. No more caveats or nested sentences.

[foryoumyheroes]

Otaku

[Bakugou + Todoroki] are in love with the anime character [Name]. 

A/N:  Gender-neutral reader  Crackish?? 

Bakugou Katsuki: 

He’s sort of picky with the genre, be it fantasy, horror, shonen, but his favorite character has to be a super cool, super powerful one. No excuses. 

You know, the type of anime character that’s probably introduced through a silhouette of them posing dramatically with their notorious group whose image is teased throughout the first few episodes/seasons. 

He goes pretty hard for All Might, and he’s definitely the same for your character. 

Reads the manga (but he buys it super secretly, like in a hoodie at night and the cashier probably thinks that they’re being robbed until he brings the entire [Series] collection to the register). Watches the anime the moment it’s broadcasted, reads metas and watches youtube videos that talk about conspiracies/analyses of your character. 

NO ONE CAN KNOW THOUGH. 

He’s taking his anime phase to the grave. 

For some reason gets super aggressive when you’re being flirty or being shipped with another character?? He hates all the scenes that tease any potential romance between you and other characters. asdfgj He’s like, “No one is good enough for [Name]!!! Except for me.” 

He even tries to think up ways he can legitimately square up with them LMAO. Like he wonders how he could defeat your potential S/Os in a fight but y’all are like ,,, anime characters SO WHY DOES IT EVEN MATTER LOL 

“Three-sword style?? Tch, I’d fucking blow that bastard to bits.” 

“Who’s this Gaara of the Sand looking ass and why is the author getting so bold.” 

He even tries to think of how well your abilities match up with his own Quirk, this dork. 

THE LENGTHS HE WOULD GO FOR YOU.

If you were a real life person and your dislikes are lets say spicy food or loud, overbearing people, Bakugou would be like, “Tch I’m right, they’re wrong. Shut the fuck up!!!” But if his ultimate wifu/husbando has those dislikes he would be like, “Omg...😳😳 opposites attract...👉👈” 

He honestly tries to be a low-key fan (as in, not be a fan at all to outsiders), but if one day during class Kaminari ends up saying that in [Series], you’re the weakest character in your group/squad, Bakugou would get super angry. 

“Hey, Dunceface!! It’s so fucking obvious that you’re an anime-only fake fan, so don’t talk as if you know shit!” 

Bakugou is those “um actually” ;; fans 

Bakugou is a manga reader, so by the time your introduction scene or Ultimate Attack scene is being aired he becomes super OOC. He’s hyped for it for days, incredibly nervous at how the animators handle the scene. 

By the time he watches it?? 

THE ANIMATION!! THE VOICE ACTING!! YOUR COOLNESS!!! PLS ORA ORA HIM IN THE CHEST!! HE’S BEGGING YOU! IF YOU’RE GOING TO UNISON RAID WITH ANYONE PLS LET IT BE HIM!! 

He’s legitimately sweating buckets by the time the episode is over. A whole-ass fire hazard. 

Probably knows how to play your character theme on the drums. 

Omg but if your character dies/is hinted toward dying/or the most recent chapters ends with a cliffhanger where you’re fatally injured he will become legitimately depressed. 

Like holes himself in his dorm room for a whole day without contacting anyone and with the blinds drawn type of depressed. 

When he comes to class the next day with eye-bags and is slouching and his classmates think that something horrible has happened, it’s probably only Izuku who knows what’s going on. 

He’ll say, “You’re upset about the most recent chapter of [Series], right? I know it must be hard for you right now.” He’ll give Bakugou an officially licensed rubber strap of your character and Bakugou will just ;; cradle it in his hands softly. 

In complete seriousness, your character is probably someone who is strong physically, but publicly rallies for things like, “Failure is fine.” Your character arc would probably explore what it’s like being not good enough or feeling constantly disappointed, so he feels comfort in your character. 

Todoroki Shoto: 

In comparison to Bakugou, he’s probably a more low-key fan unintentionally, but goes just as hard. 

Buys all of the merch, limited-edition or not, has your picture set as his phone lockscreen and homescreen, has a little acrylic charm of you on his phone, follows several fanartists that draw your character on social media. He buys enough merch that his room looks like a glorified shrine. 

It’s canon that he reads manga, but I headcanon that he’s even less picky with his genres and willingly reads things like slice-of-life or shojo all the way to shonen or adult fantasy, so your anime could come from any possible story. 

Your character is probably someone who is sweet and kind but has a traumatic character backstory. 

He probably ends up thinking stuff like, “If [Name] was with me, I would never let them get treated like that.” asdhj he’s a dork too. 

Unironically dramatically quotes you during battle and thinks that it’s still badass because he’s a teenage boy in his anime phase. 

Doesn’t get into debates with people who don’t like your character. He’s like, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion :)) even though they’re wrong. >:(.” 

If you’re from a sports/competition anime he’ll try to learn all of the rules, and even try it out for himself (if it’s not fighting) but he finds out that he’s... not very good at it. That doesn’t make him any less amazed though! 

If your character is from a different culture with different customs and traditions, he’ll even learn more about them outside of your anime! 

Forces his siblings to watch the anime with him. They don’t necessarily have to, but the Todoroki household has one big TV and he hogs it all the time watching your anime over and over. 

Natsuo is begging him to watch something else and Shoto will just pout angrily from the other side of the couch.( ￣＾￣)

It’s so jarring because he doesn't look or appear like a hardcore anime fan, but sometimes he’ll just butt into conversations randomly and talk about you. 

Like you know those tumblr Naruto posts that talk about it as if it’s some sort of Renaissance literature. That’s Todoroki. 

[”Man, they’re so hot--!” 

“You want to see someone hot?” Todoroki asks with a perfectly straight face, and he’ll just... turn his phone around and show them a picture of an anime character.] 

When his dad tries to set him up with someone else: “You think they’re my type? Do they watch [Series]? Do they know what true friendship is?? Do they understand pining and love the way [Name] does?” 

Endeavor: who the FUCK is [Name]. 

Gets into fanfiction because of your character and series. He’ll just be reading on his phone during break times at school and everyone thinks that he’s being so well-read but he’s just reading pure smut with a straight face. 

Doesn’t mind when you’re shipped with other characters necessarily but he is super picky. If your character is hinted toward a potential romance with another character that’s pretty crass and doesn’t necessarily treat you well but you’re sticking together through the power of friendship, he won’t ship it. 

He’s just like “[Name] would be so much happier with someone else like me.” ://// 

And if your character goes through something traumatic or terrible during the series he’ll be so sad, like soooo sad. :((( Deku would probably be comforting him on the couch in the common room and everyone is concerned because he looks like he’s mourning a lost pet, but it turns out to be over some anime character pshhhsdfh. 

Deku would just be patting his shoulder trying to console him and Todoroki’s just sitting there with a big frown on his face going, [“But they’ve been through so much throughout the anime already...” 

“I know, Todoroki-kun, I know...” 

“The author can’t do that to them... It’s just not fair.”

“I get it,” Midoriya says mournfully.]  

Plot twist: They like the same anime character 

They’ll probably find out when they have to retake the license exam together. 

Todoroki will just take his phone out during off times and Bakugou’s eyes looks over because it’s drawn by the noise but then his head just snaps to the side when he realizes its a little charm of you, like, he’s going to get whiplash from that. 

“What the -- is that [Surname] [Name]?!” 

Like they have never really hung out together before this, so when they both first realize that their favorite character of all time is [Name] they’re left ,, just standing there ,,, pointing at each other like the spiderman meme.

At first they’re both inwardly excited because FINALLY someone cultured and with taste. They spend the entire time talking about your stats, your attacks, your post-timeskip character design, and your personality, and then they delve a little bit deeper and then they realize ,,, oh. 

Bakugou says that you don’t belong with the dumb protagonist, you should be shipped with someone strong, confident and loud, but Todoroki is like noooooo they deserve to be with someone that treats them gently. 

They connect the dots. 

[“Bakugou, you aren’t compatible with [Name]. It says so in their trivia page.” 

“Says you! They won’t want some bland-ass pretty boy! They would want a real man!”] 

They’re such fanboys ;;; they do realize that you aren’t real, right asdfghj?

One day Kaminari and Sero separately invite them to an anime convention, but they both say no and that they have plans or “something better to do” that day. 

Then Bakugou and Todoroki both turn up to the convention at the same place because they both reach for the last limited edition [Name] figure and they just stare at each other wide-eyed (ʘoʘ╬) like that. 

They start verbally fighting each other over the last figure and then physically fighting each other andddd then they get kicked out of the convention. 

Izuku ends up swooping in and getting the last box. 

[ramzawrites]

Prologue - Nature God!Reader - Learning how to fly

GN

Pairings: none

Characters included: DreamXD, Eret

Warnings: themes of abandonment

Series: Yes! Planned are at least two more chapters for now!

Summary: Y/N was a god. Just like their mother Demeter they are also responsible for nature, though Demeter neglected to teach them. So when their mother suddenly disappeared it was Y/N’s time to step up. Unfortunately DreamXD was there and his idea of teaching them on how to take care of the realm left them with more worry and fear.

Words count: 2322

Authors Note: Honestly I didn’t expect this to go this way! I wanted to jump straight into this but now I’m here with a prologue. I am only planning to write a few more chapters and this will mostly concentrate on Y/N talking with memebers of the dsmp and trying to give them a chance to heal. Even if all they can offer are words of encouragement. Maybe the others can do the same for them :]

This will probably end more open ended and is meant to be like a thing to write for me to explore characters and their pain when I feel like it

Special thanks to 🌱🌟 anon who let me use traits from his OC for the Reader!

The wind picked up. The flowers bending and pushing against Y/N’s body as they laid alone in the field. The petals softly petting the exposed skin. Caressing them and calming them down as choked sobs escaped their lips. The usual blooming flower crown on their head now brown and grey. All the color faded.

The sun was shining bright and yet the temperature suddenly dropped significantly. The air turning into a sorrowful howling. The leaves of the trees rustling, the sound of it crying out.

Something was wrong.

Something just vanished, no someone.

Someone important.

And Y/N felt it. It was like all the warmth in their body just disappeared. A hole in their heart. A love gone that should be there. Suddenly alone in a world that should yell out love to them. A world created for them but the soul of it just left.

Between the sobs, the cracking of the leaves and sound of the wind, there was a thud. Steps that scrunched up the grass and the few flowers that sadly grew in the wrong place.

The person who just appeared moved around Y/N. Standing next to them. His head moving above their body, casting a shadow on their face. Yet they refused to open their eyes and just kept on crying. Tears running down the side of the face into the grass. Breathing was difficult as they wept.

Y/N didn’t need to open their eyes to know who was standing above them. The aura alone gave them all the information they needed.

It was a cold aura, something foreign and yet it made them feel safe. Feel protected and seen.

There was only one with an aura like that. DreamXD. A fellow god. The only god Y/N knew besides their mother and themself.

“Y/N.” The End God spoke. His voice calm. Emotionless but with purpose. He wanted to talk.

Their body still shaking, Y/N sat up and begun rubbing the tears off their eyes. Opening them up to see DreamXD, his cracked porcelain face staring down at them at an angle. It surprised Y/N to see that his hood was down, which was a rarity for him.

“Uncle XD- I- She is-“

He nodded which stunned Y/N a bit. DreamXD wasn’t really experienced in emotions and the like but this felt, close. He sympathized.

“I know, Y/N. Demeter is- your mother is gone. Not dead but she will be gone for a while. I’m here to tell you that. I made her promise to tell you. To make sure you are alright. Teach you.”

For a moment Y/N just stared at their hands as they wrung them. Dropping them in their lap, tears still slipping down their cheeks. “I felt it.”

“I would be surprised if you hadn’t. It must feel horrible. The world, the nature already feels empty without Demeter but you must have felt it tenfold. I can see it on you.”

While Y/N suspected that DreamXD knew definitely more than he let on it also made them self-aware of their own situation. The flower crown on top of their head that decorated their hair was an extension of them. Their emotion on display via these flowers and right now they looked withered. Dead.

Y/N stood up in order to try to be more on the same eye level “What happened? Where is she? Where is my mother? Can I help her?”

It took a moment before DreamXD answered. It was difficult gauging what his thought process was even if Y/N was a fellow god, they always had problems with that. Demeter on the other hand could almost always tell what DreamXD was thinking about. Probably a result of them knowing each other for eons but Y/N only knew him for a few decades. They were a young god after all.

“She is-“ he paused “She is resting. After creating a miracle she never took the chance to rest. Now her body forced her to. Demeter will be back. It will take time but she will return.”

Apalled Y/N shook their head “What?! Uncle the realm needs her! Nature will wither without her! I need her! She is my mother! Why did she leave me alone! Why didn’t she tell me!”

While their first thoughts fell on the problem of; what happens to nature if the nature god disappears, their mind soon dove back on the fact that their mother was gone. Usually they were surrounded by her love but that just suddenly vanished and they didn’t know how to deal with the situation. Their mother was their everything.

For the first time in their life, they felt alone. Truly alone.

DreamXD shook his head “It was inevitable. That she didn’t tell you was her choice and I can’t say anything more about that but the realm will be fine. You are still here. A god like her. While she took on the responsibilities of caring for the realm on her own you two are connected. The powers she holds also flow through you. It is time you learn how to fly, little bird.”

Y/N’s hand flew towards their lower lip, nervously holding it between their fingers only to drop it again so they could talk “H-How? I’m sure you can feel it too! It’s empty! It’s like her soul left this place. She had such a good sense for everything. I don’t know what to do! I don’t have the same sense for the place that she had!”

They were rambling. This came out of nowhere. Demeter promised them that she would always be there for them. She promised to always be there and ease them into their shared responsibilities so how did it end up like this?

They just vanished without telling them anything. Just dropping them into the cold water and DreamXD probably knew everything but he wouldn’t tell Y/N and they knew they couldn’t get it out of him. He was known for being incredibly loyal and dutiful after all and if he promised Demeter not to tell Y/N then he won’t.

White hands came out of DreamXD’s cloak, moving slowly up and down as a sign for Y/N to calm down “You don’t have that sense yet because Demeter wanted to give you a life similar to that of a human. Therefore she neglected to teach you earlier in life and instead gave you a life close to that what she considered human.” There was some judgement in his voice “Now, the first thing you have to do is find a connection to the realm. The emptiness you feel? You have to fill that yourself.”

“How?”

“I think it is time you visited the place proper and not live in this pocket dimension created by your mother. Here, I’ll show you.”

He then stretched his hand out towards Y/N. It was weird having him here like this. Y/N liked him and saw him as their uncle but he was still a bit aloof at times. Whenever Y/N wanted to play games with him it took him a few moments until he understood what they wanted from him. But he was willing to learn and amuse them.

Y/N hesitated a bit before they put their hand into that of DreamXD’s but when they did they were a bit surprised with how warm they were.

DreamXD then used his free hand to open a portal up via a flourish of his hand. The portal seemed to be made out of liquid night sky. It moved and hummed full with energy.

That’s when it hit Y/N “I’m not ready. I can’t do this.”

“I’m sorry.”

And with that statement he just stepped through. His grip on Y/N strong and pulling them along into the cold liquid, if they liked it or not. They closed their eyes. Scared and still overwhelmed by the sudden emptiness their mother left behind.

It surprised them with how fast the coldness of the liquid passed. The emptiness that allowed them to travel between realms. They made it to the other side.

The birds sounded different. That was the first thing Y/N noticed before they opened their eyes. And as they stood there, eyes still closed DreamXD didn’t remove his hand. He held on.

After moments that felt like minutes Y/N opened up their eyes and looked around. The two stood on a mountain that gave them free view of what they would describe as a destroyed city. Holes as deep as they could be. Buildings half build and half destroyed. Remnants of places people obviously used to live in.

“What is that?” Y/N asked. Their voice weak and wavering. Either from nervousness or from the crying.

DreamXD turned to them “A place I have watched from time to time. Your mother too, though she watched more than she interacted. She was too busy with you to talk to them and here is the place where you will learn more about this world. The world we all help to keep up and protect. Our role as gods is to uphold the rules of this realm and sometimes sow seeds so it runs smoothly. We don’t sway the mortals. If they try to break our rules we will act but the mortals just live. That’s what they do.”

“I never- I don’t know what to do. Do I talk to them? How does that help me to connect with the nature? I don’t understand.”

“Look around. Demeter’s work is everywhere. The wood that their homes are built with. The crops that they need to survive. You can talk to them and see how they live and since your mother put so much emphasis on letting you live similar to them, maybe it will help you understand your mother better. I can help only so much. This is not my domain. It is somewhere else. Maybe I will see you one day there though I hope not.”

He wanted to remove his hand after his explanation but this time Y/N didn’t let go. Scared of him leaving. He was the only thing that was close to family.

“You can’t leave me. I wouldn’t even be able to go home. This is crazy!”

As a response DreamXD relaxed his hand and strengthened his grip again. His free hand went back into his cloak and came out with what looked like a green eye in his palm.

Y/N looked at it curiously and as DreamXD moved it closer to them they slowly moved their hand up to it. Their fingers carefully touching the cold, glassy looking eye. When DreamXD didn’t move the eye away from them, they carefully took it into theirs. Opening up their other hand to look and hold it between both of their hands.

“Put this on your clothes. This will let me see what you see. Hear what you hear. If you need me, call me.”

They just shook their head “Why? Why can’t you come with me? I’m scared, uncle.”

He sighed “I can’t really help you with this, besides, you are a god. There shouldn’t be a thing that can scare you. Your body and powers are that of a god but your mind is that of a human. Demeter tried raising you as one and it shows and she- She failed her own responsibilities and now we are here. I am sorry little bird but this is how you will learn to fly.”

Not even giving Y/N a chance to answer, he immediately moved his hand around and dove into the familiar black abyss that appeared. Y/N tried to follow him but the portal closed before they had the chance.

They felt absolutely alone beforehand but this? Stranded, alone and scared in a world they only heard stories from.

Y/N couldn’t help themself and dropped down on the ground. Once again crying. Tears streaming and in between sobs they yelled out for their mother and uncle. This felt so unfair. No, this was unfair!

Not only did their mother just disappear out of nowhere, dropping a huge responsibility in their lap but also DreamXD, whom they considered family as well, just stranded them out here.

Why? Why can’t they just continue living how they used to? Maybe Demeter would help them to work on their little home. Expand it or rearrange it. Together they would try to draw and laugh whenever something came out funny. Or Demeter would teach them everything and absolutely everything about a particular flower or animal.

Though Y/N’s favorite thing was always when Demeter would tell them of old stories of hers. Humans she has met over her lifetime. The humans that made her fall in love with the mortals so much. So much so that she gave her own child a human name and tried to give them a human life.

A god raised like a human. That was what Y/N was.

Overwhelmed by everything.

“Hey, are you alright? Can I help?” a deep voice suddenly appeared behind them.

When Y/N turned around their eyes fell on a person with fluffy hair and wearing sunglasses. A crown resting on the head. They also wore what Y/N suspected to be an old royal gown. It looked a bit dirty and battered. For some reason this made them sad. Instead of fear they felt sadness for the stranger though this soon switched back to fear when the person moved closer.

“I- I’m-“ Y/N begun to stutter out but their mind went blank.

Worried the human knelt down so they could see Y/N better and was on eye level.

“Hey, hey. It’s alright. I’m not going to do anything to you. What’s your name?” their voice was soothing. It also helped that they sounded genuine.

“Y/N. I’m- I don’t know where I am.”

“Nice to meet you, Y/N. My name is Eret and you are at the remains of what used to be L’Manberg.”

[virghogh]

Guessing NCT's rising signs: Huang Renjun as a Cancer rising

Welcome to my first post where I write all about why I think this idol is X rising sign! I don't know how many of these I'll do because it heavily depends on how confident I feel in my guess of their rising lol for Renjun's rising sign, it's something I've been sitting on for a loooong time just to see if anything else comes into my head. At the end of the day we really have no way to know for sure, even if the idols gives us their birth time it still has to be taken with a grain of salt! But it’s still fun theorize and to test your skills while learning at the same time. So for now I feel pretty confident sharing my thoughts on Renjun as a cancer rising.

Let’s ✨explore✨ why:

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧long post! *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

✦ Before I even decided to look up his chart layout, there were 2 characteristics of Renjun that initially led me to think he’s a Cancer rising. His eyes and his physique. His eyes aren’t necessarily as big as idols we’ve seen with moon in 1st, but they’re still very notable features of his physical appearance that he’s very well known for. They’re bigger, soft and dreamy, and sometimes look like he quite literally holds stars in his eyes. The biggest physical feature though is his, well, petite frame. Next to his eyes, renjun is also really well know for his smaller build. It’s even a well known inside joke amongst NCT, they all him “big shoulders renjun” (lol) because “for a guy” his shoulders a on the smaller side. Both of these physical attributes can also be identifying characteristics of cancer risings.

✦ So, in general I think he is a Cancer rising. But if we want to be more specific; I do think he is a 3rd decan Cancer rising which is the Pisces/Neptune ruled decan. I initially chose this because his house and planet placements just make so much more sense to me when the rising is in the 3rd decan (I'll get into that below), but after reading about the 3rd decan I also think it fits his personality really well! With the Neptune and Pisces influence, he's more on the open side of Cancer rising but more notably, 3rd decans are a lot more inclined to art/creativity and sometimes, music specifically. These people also have a very dreamy attraction about them. He also has his Venus trine ASC which can further add to this kind of creative vibe he gives off, but is also drawn to! It emphasizes the importance of aesthetics, art and creativity in his life. If you've never been on Renjun stan twt then you might not know that a lot of his fans see him as this incredibly dreamy and ethereal boy (as they should) and I can see why!

*:･ﾟ✧house and planet placements *:･ﾟ✧

Scorpio moon, Sagittarius Pluto in 5th:

✦ yea... just yes. Okay but actually, if you read my NCT Dream Hexaco x Birth Chart analyses, I talked a lot about his chart already because I really like it. As someone with a Scorpio moon, I can't help but be really interested in how his plays out. And I have to say, I am quite attached to this theory because I think his scorpio moon in 5th just. makes. sense. I'm not going to go much into the descriptions of the placements, I'm mostly going to stick to the house influence. We know that Scorpio moons have really intense emotions, they internalize everything and are just highly sensitive people to their environments. Renjun has been incredibly open about his mental and emotional struggles ever since being a kid. I've honestly never heard an idol talk about their struggle like he has. He even opened up recently about how a few years ago he had an art therapist that really helped him and lowkey changed his life. I feel like a lot of this can be reflected in his 5th house. The house of creativity, expression, creation. His 5th cusp is also in Scorpio. 5th house in water tend to be really drawn to arts and music. Having a Scorpio moon, a moon sign that can be quite guarded, in a fire house can also explain his readiness/openness to share his emotions and art. Also let's not forget his chart ruler is his Scorpio moon in 5th! What I've wrote above are big themes in his life, which we've seen.

✦ As for the Pluto in 5th. Because his 5th house is in Scorpio this would mean the 5th ruler is in 5th. I know it might not make sense at first because it's pluto and pluto is misunderstood. But it makes perfect sense to me. Pluto in 5th is a deeply passionate and creative placement. It bring so much energy to this house, and can even create a borderline obsession with themes of this house. With creating and expressing. But I could also see having this and his scorpio moon in this house bringing so much energy, it just kind of adds to the confusion and intensity of a scorpio moons emotions and processing abilities, like, emotionally overwhelming. Scorpio moons always need an outlet and they usually figure that out the hard way at some point in life. The outlet can vary based off the chart, his is without a doubt connected to his art; whatever that may be to him.

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Aquarius Uranus in 8th:

✦ This part is brief because it's more of like, additional details to what's already in his chart. Something that is really well known about Renjun too is how much he is into space and aliens and stuff like that. He, once again, has been very open about it lol on variety shows I've seen him light up every time its briefly mentioned and he'll comment on how much he finds that stuff interesting. The 8th house is weird, it can manifest in a lot of different ways. The biggest point here for me is that the house is in Aquarius with Uranus here. I know someone with this placement too and, while they're open minded to astrology and tarot etc. it's a bit more focused on logic. I can't say for sure because I don't know him, but he kind of strikes me as the kind of person that would fight to death over aliens existing, but draws the line at astrology lol. I actually do think he would be open to astrology and tarot, but he'd need the right introduction to it. Anyways, yea this placement to me explains a lot of his interest in space and things we don't understand. He's expressed his curiosity in it. I think a lot of this is coming from his Scorpio moon and Pisces mercury/venus which is why I think it's just additional support.

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Pisces Mercury/Venus in 9th:

✦ THIS HOUSE right here... so much to say. Firstly, Pisces in 9th is probably one of the main culprits for his creativity, deep thinking and curiosity in the world. And more importantly: his imagination. I've mentioned this a lot when I talk about renjun but, he's very well known for his creativity, but I want to make it clear that there is a distinction between creation and imagination. His imagination is truly... on another level. Well, planet actually since it's pisces! Again, amongst fans it's really well known his imagination is just so unqiue. This is less about the 9th house and more about the fact that he has 2 pisces placements but it still affects it lol. He's very open about his imagination and speaks about it so naturally. He shared his drawing of a bird, hybrid, thing? and how it's an animal that steals your dreams in your sleep. Anyways, Pisces in 9th aren't necessarily the travelers we'd see with an air or fire sign here, but they like to travel mentally. He's also talked about how he's just in general a very curious person and you can tell his thoughts probably travel far and wide in his down time.

✦ What's really interesting to me about this house is his mercury is here and Mercury in 9th is a very specific kind of placement. It almost always guarantees an interest and talent in learning languages. I don't know if languages are necessarily a passion for him but he definitely is interested and cares about learning language and other cultures. He also did pick up on Korean and English with ease. Which also reminds me that, he actually was exposed to Korean at a young age because I'm pretty sure he went to a bilingual school (chinese and korean). This is also a big deal to me because planets in 9th, especially sun/mercury often indicate very early exposure to languages or other cultures... so yea that checks out. This can also be proved by looking at his IC in Virgo, which puts the ruler in 9th. His mercury is also sextile Jupiter. I also wanna comment that he has his Mercury in the 5th degree, I'm not great at degree theory yet but that feels significant to me. Of course we cannot forget his absolutely angelic voice. Renjun is also very well known for his stunning vocals. Not only are Pisces placements musically inclined but Pisces mercury are known for their sweet voices.

✦ As for the venus is 9th, I feel like I have more to say on his venus being in Pisces because that's where so much of his artistic creativity and imagination come from. But venus here adds to a lot of what I've written above, adding to his curiosity of the world. What I find most interesting about venus in 9th though, is it brings another inclination to art! He might really like art from different places in the world, or just exploring all types of art being very open minded to its different forms etc. Venus here also brings ease to language learning, and these people will naturally have other cultures and people from them as a big part of their life. I feel like, in general it's not surprising at all to me that as a foreign member (being from China), that he would have 9th house influence! It can often manifest as like.., travel, other languages, cultures and parts of the world etc. are just very naturally a part of their life. Some people never really contemplate life overseas or in another country. But for 9th housers, it's never not been an option. His 9th house influence can also make him a great teacher, mentor and just overall supportive person. We've seen some of this in the content he's made with NCT. Like trying to teach his members chinese with Chenle, except he was taking it way more seriously lol but was so supportive. He's also tried to get Jeno and Jisung involved in his art making, but keeping the process very open and fun.

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Aries sun, Taurus mars in 10th:

✦ This is the last part I'm going to cover because it is really just the icing on the cake to finish this up. The 10th house is considered pretty important when looking at celebrities/idols because it's very likely a lot of what we see from them is their 10th house influence. In the chart model I'm using for Renjun, it puts his MC in the very last degrees of Pisces, so there's a chance it's in Aries but either way with his sun and mars here they are still playing a big role. So for that reason, I'm opting for Pisces MC. I also think Pisces MC fits though because first it puts the ruler in his 7th house. Meaning he could really benefit and work well in something that involves a group! Because it's Pisces in Neptune, it also adds to his very ethereal vibe and how people just seem to love him wherever he goes. He's very magnetic and can come off as artistic and sensitive. He's known for being dreamy, unreal, artistic, sensitive.

✦ Again, we know he has an aries sun and taurus mars so I'm not going to explain them here, just how they affect the house, but having his these here makes so much sense to me too. Having planets in 10th also influences what kind of "vibe" people get from you, and what you're "known" for. Mars and Sun bring similar energy of being well known for for energy, drive, and even stage presence. Not being afraid to be on stage, being good with attention and spotlight. He's known for his kind of playful and childish behavior at times. He is charismatic, bold, brave, happy and upbeat. With the sun, he is again known for his creativity and creations and also self-expression.

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Thank you to anyone who read all this. I don't really expect many people to because I'm mostly writing this for my own curiosity and to finally just put this theory out there! Anyways, stan Renjun best boy <33

Thoughts and feedback are always welcome <3

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[flightfoot]

When trying to craft a character-centric story, one that revolves around developing and exploring a character and their personal story, it can be a challenge. That challenge gets even harder if you want to introduce a decent-sized supporting cast, and a limited amount of space in which to do all of this. 

Do you:

A. Focus as much as possible on 1 or 2 characters, the main protagonists, and have most other characters exist to further their stories? It allows for the chosen characters to have the maximum amount of development, since so much screentime is devoted to the them, but leaves all the other characters to pick up their table scraps, development-wise, only existing to serve the leads.

or

B. Give all the characters separate stories and arcs, maybe not as fleshed out or long as the protagonists, but enough that you get the sense that they’re their own characters and have their own stories, that you can care about them as well. This one is favored by a lot of longer stories and series with ensemble casts. It comes with some downsides though: less screentime can be devoted to everyone’s individual journey, and while one person’s facing their inner demon, going through their conflict, the other characters’ development is put on hold. Furthermore, it can make the narrative feel disjointed, less streamlined. It works well for an adventure story, but not always as well if the work revolves around a central theme or message that the different characters’ journeys are supposed to help convey.

Reading Trials of Apollo, I realized that there���s another way to achieve some of the aims of A, with having a central theme and message conveyed through character arcs, especially while developing a singe central protagonist, while not relegating other characters to only serving that protagonist’s story - at least directly.

Have the other characters’ stories expand on some similar themes to the main protagonist’s story.

That way, the side characters can have their own stories and development while still furthering the protagonist’s character arc.

For instance, in Trials of Apollo, Apollo learns from various other character’s struggles, realizations, and development, even though those characters didn’t exist FOR him - indeed, many of them are previous protagonists who are simply developing further from the decent amount of development they already had. Not that they’re the only ones, there are some characters who debut in TOA who he learns from as well. But it helps to illustrate that while these characters have arcs that parallel and inform his, they don’t exist to serve him.

Spoilers for Trials of Apollo below the break.

Book 1: Meg... Ok Meg’s is an outlier, since she’s Apollo’s partner throughout the series, and her entire arc about coming to terms with her adopted “father” being her abuser and breaking free from him is a very close and obvious parallel of Apollo’s own arc of breaking away from Zeus.

Book 2: Lit and Calypso. Lit feels like he doesn’t deserve the second chance and kindness Apollo, Jo, etc show him, especially since he tried to murder them all. Honestly Lit’s story parallels Apollo’s mostly in how other people react to him with kindness even when he’s done nothing to deserve it, and in how he became fiercely protective of his new family as a result.

Calypso parallels a different aspect of Apollo’s journey. She’s ALSO a mortal immortal like he is, just let out of the golden cage of her island, and struggling to cope with the change. 

Book 3: Jason and Piper. Jason’s more direct, with specifically tasking Apollo with remembering what it’s like to be human, since he’s certain he’ll die. At least, he’d rather die than let Piper do so. He doesn’t WANT to die, but he makes peace with his mortality if it’s to protect his friends.

Piper’s dealing with insecurity and uncertainty, not knowing who she is or how to connect with her roots. Hera’s meddling with her love life leaves her uncertain how much of her initial attraction to Jason was real and her own choice, and with also trying to figure out what her being native american, being cherokee, means to her, she’s feeling very lost. Piper’s left wondering who she is outside of what others expect her to be, and who SHE expects herself to be - an identity crisis that Apollo becomes very familiar with.

Book 4: Frank and Reyna. Frank reclaims his destiny, setting light to his own greatest vulnerability in order to save the camp, something that should have killed him... and yet doesn’t, setting him free instead. It doesn’t make much sense from an in-universe lore perspective and seems almost hand-waved, especially with Apollo’s speculation that by willingly facing death the way he did, he took charge of his own destiny and made his own fate, which undid the whole “tying his fate to a stick of wood” thing. It makes a LOT more sense when seeing it as foreshadowing and further theme-building for Apollo’s journey, for how he had to take control of his own destiny.

Reyna’s also been dealing with other people’s expectations, especially about her love life. That she needs to or should get together with someone, that they’ll “heal her heart”. It’s something she struggled with throughout HOO as well, especially with feeling as lonely and isolated as she did and needing support. The ending of Tyrant’s Tomb had her realizing that she doesn’t need to conform to anyone else’s ideas about romance, that she can figure it out in her own time. It doesn’t reflect as directly on Apollo’s arc as some others, but it follows the same “reclaiming your destiny and being who you are regardless of other people’s expectations” theme.

Book 5: Lu. She cared for Meg, but didn’t help her escape before this point, instead just helping make her time with Nero more bearable, try to make things better where she could, like by faking Meg’s “kills” of various people Nero wanted dead. But she didn’t quite have it in her to take Meg and run, not yet, since Nero had been her benefactor for centuries at that point. She knew it was wrong, but she couldn’t do it - not yet. And while Apollo didn’t trust her at first, he DID understand her not standing up to a tyrant on whom she depended, since he didn’t stand up to Zeus often either. 

There’s more to these character arcs of course as well as additional characters with arcs that parallel Apollo’s own, but these are the main ones that I hope get my point across. Having other characters’ arcs parallel the main protagonist’s arc in some way so that the protagonist can learn from them or have some particular theme explored further can be a very effective way of showing character development for a wide range of people without sacrificing the main protagonist’s own development time or having those other characters’ merely serve the protagonist’s arc.

[aspoonofsugar]

Your Power...Your Theme

This post is born because of @waywardtravelerfart asking about a comparison between Semblances (Rwby) and Quirks (BNHA).

In general, I am not a hardcore BNHA fan, though, so I decided to drag other magic systems in this comparison.

So, I will be comparing...

1) Semblances:

2) Quirks:

3) Nen (HxH):

4) Abilities (BSD):

5) Magic (WHA):

Body and Soul

1) & 3)

Pyrrha: Aura is the manifestation of our soul. It bears our burdens and shields our hearts. Have you ever felt you were being watched without knowing that someone was there? With practice, our Aura can be our shield. Everyone has it, even animals.

Nen and Semblances are very similar ideas. Both have their root in the concept of aura aka life force and are trained through specific exercises that are based on martial arts.

More importantly, they are manifestations of a person’s soul.

This is why in both series they are linked to one’s individuality:

Ren: A common philosophy is that a warrior’s Semblance is a part of who they are.

And both Nen and Semblances grow and evolve with the person.

At the same time, both stories focus not only on the soul, but also on the body.

In HxH Gon and Killua must train their bodies just as much as their nen. No matter how much stronger their auras become, they would still be left defenseless if they forget about basic training and if they do not take care of their bodies.

Similarly, Huntsmen and Huntresses in Rwby have both Semblances and Weapons:

By baring your soul outward as a force, you can deflect harm. All of our tools and equipment are conduits for Aura. You protect yourself and your soul when fighting.

Weapons are linked to personalities just like Semblances are:

Ruby: Just weapons? They’re an extension of ourselves! They’re a part of us! Oh, they’re so cool.

It is only through the combination of weapons and semblances that one becomes strong and whole.

In order to experience humanity to its fullest, one needs both a soul:

And a body:

In short, Semblances and Nen are representative of the Soul. They are a physical projection of it. Moreover, they need to be completed by the Body to properly work.

4)

BSD abilities are similar because they clearly symbolize characters’ coping mechanisms.

They are linked to people’s personalities and their effects are highly variegated and impossible to explain through biology alone (for example, a character is able to materialize a whole room in another dimension).

At the same time, they seem to have some physical properties.

For example, it is possible to create artificial abilities and to implant them into people. The process has yet to be properly explained, though.

This can be compared to the research on aura made in Rwby.

That said, this specific research is framed negatively by the narrative because it is an attempt to control what it should not be (a person’s soul).

Similary, in BSD, such experiments are criticized as well because they violate human rights and are an attempt to weaponize abilities, which is an ongoing topic explored by the story.

2)

Quirks are instead framed as the result of biological evolution. This creates an interesting inversion compared to the other stories. Quirks are not simply physical representations of a character’s psychology, but they are a part of the reason why that character develops a specific coping mechanism.

Toga is attracted to blood because her Quirk is about drinking blood, so she naturally likes it.

Shigaraki’s destruction traumatizes him because it leads to his family’s death.

Touya’s weak constitution makes his power difficult to use, hence he develops self-hurting tendencies.

5)

Finally, Magic in WHA is something that exists outside the characters.

It is not something people are born with, but an art they can master through study and dedication.

Its origin is still unknown, but it is explained that it works thanks to specific materials:

And even human blood can be used to strengthen it:

In short, Magic is a human art that makes use of specific natural resources and a specific knowledge to create several effects. In a sense, its logic is similar to both art and programming. It is similar to art because the witches need to exercise on drawing and to be creative on their approaches to things. It is similar to programming because they must use what is basically a specific language made of symbols to create different effects.

So, Magic is not linked to a person’s soul in the way other magical systems are, but a character’s personality still emerges from the kind of magic they specialize in. This is something unavoiable... after all this is how personality works in real life as well... we all have different approaches to problems and beliefs that will emerge in our art and in our jobs.

In conclusion, all these magical systems are connected in different ways to characters’ personalities, to their flaws and to their symbolic roles in the narrative.

In these metas, there are some examples of how this happens for HxH, Rwby, BSD and WHA.

Power and Privilege

3) & 5)

Nen and Magic are similar:

With enough training, both powers can be used by everyone.

However, both HxH society and WHA society choose to keep them secret because the damage that could come from sharing this knowledge is potentially devastating.

That said, both stories also show how there is hypocrisy behind this stance.

HxH does so in an indirect way.

Nen is supposed to be secret, so that dangerous people can’t use its power for wrong reasons.

However, many hunters are not really moral people. If anything many are violent and ready to kill. The exam itself encourages these tendencies since it does not punish murderers. Moreover, it turns out that very dangerous people already know about nen:

WHA explores this theme more directly:

The secret behind magic creates inequality. Magic could be used to help much more people, but it is limited by the law that imposes witches to keep the secret and forbids them from using magic to heal.

The result is an unjust society and a paradox. Isn’t there another way to use magic that it is less elitarian?

2) Similarly, quirks create inequality in BNHA. However, the mechanisms behind it are slightly different.

Not only people without quirks are discriminated, but also people with specific powers are considered less than others.

This happens either because the power is considered weak or lame or because it is considered a villain power.

In other words, BNHA society nurtures a simplicistic and black and white vision of quirks and people. This leads to some being discriminated for their quirks and to others being excused of everything because of their abilities.

4) In BSD, we have a similar yet partly opposite situation.

Ability users are mostly dehumanized and weaponized by society.

Basically the series explores how society makes use of its more vulnerable members and objectifies them.

So, in BSD having an ability is not really a synomim of privilege, but it is rather something that can set you apart and make you a victim of your country or your organization.

Because of this,the characters struggle to both accept their powers, but also not to be defined by it.

1) Finally, the case of RWBY is interesting because even if society is founded on privilege and inequity, semblances are not really a pivotal part of it.

It is much more common for people to be discriminated because of their bodies (like the Faunus) or their social status than for their semblances. Surely, cases like those exist, but they are not particularly explored by the story.

This might be because semblances are just one of many factors that determine a personal’s stance in society. Moreover, it is not even that clear how much common people know about semblances and aura. I would not say it is exactly a secret, especially because semblances can manifest themselves in a variety of situations. Still, it seems to me that they are mostly aknowledged and accepted by common people, but not exactly pursued or studied.

Symbolically, semblances are linked to an ancient magic that has been forgotten by people. This could tie with why some people, especially in Atlas, have been dismissive of them to an extent. Whitley dismisses his own and is not interested in developing it, while Watts is one of the few characters who fight without a semblance.

It might very well be that human technology and dust make so many different effects possible that a semblance, even if important for a warrior’s own strength and individuality, is not really the only factor that determines the place of a person in society.

In conclusion, all these power systems are linked to privilege in different ways. They are used to explore social inequality or parts of the society that are either repressed or not aknowledged.

Choices and limits

1) 2) & 4)

Quirks, Abilities, Semblances and their limits are not chosen. You are born with them and the most you can do is to try and overcome the limitations or to come up with clever ways to use your power.

You can train your Quirk, so that it becomes stronger.

When it comes to Abilities instead, characters usually must train to control what are potentially dangerous powers.

There are also abilities that help other people to control their powers and modify how these powers work. For example, there is a character whose ability is about summoning a fighting avatar. However, to do so, she needs to be called on a specific phone and it is actually the one calling that commands the avatar. Still, thanks to the influence of the above mentioned ability, she becomes able to summon the avatar at will and does not need the phone anymore.

Finally, in the case of Semblances, you need to meditate and to train your semblance, so that it can evolve. At the same time, though, semblance evolution can happen also because of specifical psychological conditions.

For example, Ren’s Tranquility both activates and evolves not because of physical training, but because of stress (the first time) and emotional growth (the second). This is fitting because his ability has mostly to do with emotions, so it is telling that it evolves as he grows emotionally rather than physically.

Ruby’s semblance is instead a physical one since she is super fast. So it is fitting that it mostly manifests and evolves with her training at using it.

Finally, when it comes to semblances, you do not really choose how they evolve and what new effects you gain. They are mostly an unconscious part of yourself that grows with you.

3) & 5)

The kind of magic you specialize in and the nen power you are gonna have are things one chooses.

To be more specific, they are influenced from one’s talents, but then they evolve according to a person’s choice.

For example, the protagonist Gon has an aura which is particularly good to strengthen things, so he chooses to use it to strengthen his punch. Moreover, he really likes Jankenpon, so he comes up with a power that uses this game. It is a technique that creates different effects depending on what he chooses to “play” (scissors, rock or paper).

Similarly, Coco is good at drawing straight lines and this makes her good with basic magic, that she uses in original ways because of her thinking outside the box. Her teacher Qifrey instead specializes in water magic because he used to be scared of water when he was little and wanted to overcome this fear.

At the same time, both nen users and witches must face limitations.

Nen has limitations that are self-imposed and decided by the users.

Magic has limitations that are imposed by society and codified through law.

Nen works with the idea that the stronger the limitation you set, the stronger will be your power. Similarly, if you sacrifice something, you can obtain a more powerful effect.

For example, another character called Kurapika creates chains with different powers. One of his chains has the limitation to only work on the members of a specific criminal group. Moreover, if Kurapika breaks this rule, he’ll lose his life. Since the sacrifice Kurapika has decided is pretty extreme, that chain is basically impossible to break.

Of course, limitations do not need to be so extreme. The protagonist’s jankenpon is limited by the fact he says out loud the name of his technique and takes time to use it (both goes against him, since it gives his opponent time to prepare). In this way the power gets stronger.

Magic is a very dangerous force, so it is prohibited to use magic on people’s bodies. This includes the idea that you can’t heal bodies directly or that you can’t change the way you look. It also forbids people from using blood to make magic stronger and to put glyphs on a person’s skin.

These limitations challenge the characters and force them to think outside the box. For example, Coco wants to save her mom who became a stone. The best way to do so is  to use magic on her, but this is prohibited hence Coco keeps brainstorming about how she can do it and even thinks about breaking the law multiple times.

In conclusion, powers are often linked to the self and the degree of control and choices characters have on them is symbolic of which part of the self we are talking about.

In the case of semblances and abilities, they mirror an unconscious part.

A Quirk is a biological factor that influences one’s self instead and that everyone can try ot develop in a way they like.

Finally, nen and magic are a conscious part of the self that still mirrors unconscious tendencies.

Not only that, but abilties have limits that come from either outside the person or inside them.

POWER SYSTEMS AND THE FIVE KINDS OF CONFLICT

In stories, there are at least five types of conflict.

1) Man vs Self

2) Man vs Society

3) Man vs Man

4) Man vs Nature

5) Man vs God

The magic systems we explored are linked to at least three of these five types.

Man vs Self

Supernatural abilities are linked to a person’s interiority and personality. Often they are representative of the character’s flaw and their limits can be overcome only by the person’s growth.

Man vs Society

Power systems end up being influenced and influence fictional societies.

They can represent privilege or some wrongdoing in society itself.

Alternatively, they can be limited by society’s rules and imposed laws.

Man vs Man

It is not uncommon to have special powers used in fights. In this case, they become symbolic ways to explore characters’ relationships, themes and different value systems.

This is something that BSD, HxH and Rwby do a lot. WHA has had less fights as for now, but it is definately something that has come up and will come up more in the future. Finally, I am not too much into BNHA to comment on the series, but I would be surprised if it is not the same there as well.

In conclusion, I do not really have much to say on the onthology of powers in different narrative worlds and tbh I do not think this is really what many writers think about when they design them. I think what writers focus on is how to make interesting powers that convey a character’s personality, can be used to explore the world and give life to entertaining fights.

[lesserfandomappreciation]

Is that Supa Strikers show really that great? Would I like it even if I don’t like soccer/football? (I’m asking because I’ve never seen it. In fact, your posts are the only reason I know it exists at all.)

Okay. Okay, okay I was going to work on requests during this meeting but then I saw this and I have many feelings on this show so you're getting an essay. Buckle up son. Brief History

For those not in the know, Supa Strikas is a series from South Africa that started as a futbol-themed comic in I want to say the early 2000s. It quickly gained popularity throughout most of Africa and today is published in Latin-America, South America, Africa, some parts of Europe and Asia.

Almost every continent has this comic. You cannot tell me that isn't cool and also very telling of how many people like this series.

Seeing the comic get so popular so fast, a TV show followed up in 2009 by the same name and is still going to this day. This series has been along longer than most presidential terms.

The show had a similar story with only slight character changes, and while the entirety of the 2021 season is already out, there are signs that they may be more coming out in 2022 so. Fingers crossed!

What is it about?

The story centers around Shakes, a young futbol player who has recently joined the Supa Strikas, a team based in an unspecified African country. The comic follows the team winning the Super League during different seasons, going around the world to find out new techniques, deal with teams that cheat and overcome their own inner problems as well.

The series differs from the comics in that we don't see Shakes' journey to becoming a Supa Strika and we don't get the official names for the characters either, only their nicknames. Wikipedia has their official names listed I think, but if anyone whose read the comics wishes to tell me, by all means do so.

It's a pretty straight forward storyline, with some good story consistency (characters who appear in one episode do show up again and are given consistent writing). Very episodic.

Why should I watch the series?

The series is fun. Sincerely, un-apologetically fun.

The main characters get good screen time and we get to see some fun, decently written personalities that act off each other well. The Supa Strikas is a team of himbos but different varieties of himbos and I love them for it. You do get the feeling that this is a group of people that cares for each other, not a group of characters just shoved together because the series said so.

The side-characters are also great. Some of them are a little one-note but many of them are just as crazy, if not more fun, than the main characters of the show. There's an American dude named Ninja whose entire gimmick is that he's a reality star fame-seeking dude straight out of Las Vegas and I love him. He's one of the tamer character concepts.

Coach. That is all.

There's a vast array of diverse representation. While the Supa Strikas team is the only team is they only team of mixed nationalities (South African, Jamaican, Brazilian, Spanish, etc) every team is representing a different country. There's a Brazilian Team, a Mexican Team, a Saudi Arabian Team and many others.

In connection - the Supa Strikas have players from around the world. Dancing Rasta is Jamaican, the captain of the team, an incredibly competent leader and very down-to-earth. You do have players that are a little stereotypical (North Shaw is an Australian who loves extreme sports, shocker) but are written in ways that you find yourself not minding.

It's funny. There's a lot of good moments both in writing and in the animation. As someone who got to study animation, I can say without a shadow of doubt that the team behind the character animations had no fear in pushing what they can do and making the characters feel fun.

Some of the stereotypes used in the show are used well and are written in a fairly respectful way. El Matador, a Spanish player, fills the stereotype of being a self-absorbed Spaniard. but he's also written to care for friends and to be very competent in other areas. Plus, there are other Spanish characters like Riano that are nothing like that and have distinctly different personalities. As a Spaniard, I found this to be a good writing choice. These jokes are seen less as insults and more like friendly barbs between most countries and it doesn't detract from the show.

The technology. It's a running gag that the tech used to train the guys is progressively more outrageous.

No forced romance storylines! There's no character moment where boy meets girl and then we're stuck watching this inevitable couple find reasons to not be a couple. It's nice to not have the forced hetero-normative relationships we see in a lot of other shows.

To that end, fantastic healthy male friendships! There's no "no homo" moment and the characters all have very good chemistry. Again, you feel like they're actually friends. They all have different dynamics too, so the friendships don't feel uniform and stale.

Good emotional moments.

Bromances for the win! Genuinely shocked there's not more fandom for it considering the sheer quantity of POSSIBILITIES of bromances and potential ships to work with.

It's 100% fine if you don't know anything about futbol. The show shows literally what matters, not every single little throw-in, and most times there's some world-breaking nonsense going on that distracts from that. There's literally an episode where the opposing team changes gravity on the the field to try and beat the Supa Strikas, the rules barely matter. I promise you, you don't need to know what "Offsides" means in order to watch.

The commentators. I love them both.

The episodes are varied in stories. There's ones about training, ones about exploring a different country, others where the opponents cheat, etc. There's an episode which is almost a murder mystery and I love it.

All the episodes can be found free online on Youtube on the official channel for the show. I love this creative team so much.

There's a lot of good writing choices!

What might I not like about the show?

Some people like episodic shows, some don't. For those in the latter category this may drive them away from Supa Strikas.

There's like. 4 female characters. I can see why they did that, but I can also see why that is upsetting (speaking as a woman who is very tired of the Smurfette principle). The humor may not be for everyone. That's more based on personality, because I think there's something for everyone, but there are jokes that I recognize fall quite flat.

In connection to that, the stereotypes. Like I mentioned earlier, the show utilizes and breaks some stereotypes very well. There's a character (Spenza) who is written to be the chubby comic relief that is also 9/10 times the guy who saves LITERALLY EVERYONE from trouble and gets recognized for it, for example. However, the entire Japanese team is a karate-based team with a Coach named Ura Giri who wears Chinese clothes despite being Japanese. The German team is just a military branch and, while funny, might be offensive depending on which German you ask. It can be detracting from the show.

There's some bad writing choices that can be rough, but they are episode centric.

What should I do?

Watch the show. Give it 2-3 episodes and if it doesn't grab you, okay! You tried! If it does, welcome! it's literally for free on youtube, Seasons 1 through the last number I can't remember. I watch it when I'm working on something because it's fun and gets me to laugh, you might watch it with a bowl of popcorn. Just do your own thing!

If you do like it though, come back, hit me up with talks and questions about it. Besides multydoodles I haven't found a lot of people who really are into it so come! Join us! One of us!

Hope this mini-essay helped out and that the show works out for you!

[life-rewritten]

LOVELY WRITER EP 2; THE PRICE OF AMBITION; SACRIFICE OF AUTHENTICITY, TRUTH AND IDENTITY

Okay Let's crack on. I'm annoyed at myself that it took me this long to finally calm down and just write this analysis out. Basically, because real life can be a b*tch and get in the way. But this episode also showcases how the reality of life can get in the way and make us lose our values, self and ideals. Lovely Writer has been this amazing experience so far; each episode I just want to shout out, at how real, meta, and deep this show is. It makes me so happy to see a BL show that has so much depth even it is not meaning to be, what I see from this show is incredible and I’m in love with it so far. If Episode 1 focused on putting on masks to get to achieving your aspirations and hiding yourself; Episode 2 hones down on that message and also shows our characters making sacrifices of their truths, authenticity, and identity in order to survive the environment that they’re in to make their dreams come true. This theme is both as painful as illuminating, it really exposes and brings up questions about a lot of truths about our characters, it makes them so much more real and human but also foreshadows and leaves hints about the obstacles that our couple will have to face. Also, it tackles this sinister feeling that the show has when focusing on the love story brewing, is the love real, is it toxic, should we be worried? Why is Nubsib so secretive and eery? But actually, just a full exposure to the message of the show? So, Let’s analyse episode 2 and the theme of sacrifice of Authenticity, Identity and Truth, and why this is a foreshadowing to the rest of the show up ahead.

Gene: Sacrifice of Connectivity and Relationships

This episode of Lovely Writer aka Nubsib was just as great as episode 1. Maybe even more disconcerting and layered. One because on the surface we see the love story of Gene and Nubsib brewing, Gene is being forced out of his comfort zone with a struggle, and Nubsib has laid out his plans to finally get his attention. On the surface we immediately start of with a typical contract living trope in the storyline, Gene finding ways to still have his personal space and focus on what he has to write that day but finding himself becoming more open and convinced to let Nubsib in and break down some barriers he has always had with the outside world. Especially with how his home is  so dear to him; is a safe space, that he doesn’t really want any intruder, or distraction wading in and making it uncomfortable for him. In a way Gene is so relatable; this what an introvert does, he protects his space and where he feels the freest from the clutches of people. He protects himself where he feels the most vulnerable because he’s afraid of being corrupted, used or hurt. It’s a metaphor, or well the house represents him because Gene is someone who for some reason does not like letting people in, you could say it’s his introvert nature, but it seems more than that, he doesn’t even let his own brother into his space, he doesn’t bother to really interact with people in any way shape or form, and each time he has to do so it’s full of anger and resentment at whoever is causing him to leave his space. Maybe he views people as obstacles to distracting or taking away his focus on writing, maybe he thinks interacting with people would cause a flood of insecurities to make him slow down with his writing, and ambition. We know he has distant friends especially like looking at Tum, there’s a friendly history with Tum from college bu even still with that, he’s truly okay with being alone and being without people. All he cares about is writing, all he puts his effort in is writing.  And that’s where this theme of sacrifice already starts to play in this episode and show in general. The reality of sacrificing things of importance in order to make it in the industry or to make your dreams a reality.

 For Gene, everything he puts his effort into is writing, it seeps everything from him: his focus, his time, his self-care, his sleep etc. He’s someone who’s just content creating and writing, it’s like that’s how he escapes the world and finds his own comfort, where he can be his true self. The house is a metaphor of Gene, because Nubsib has to find a way to enter into it, this isn’t easy to do but also we start to see him help make it even better, even more accommodating, even less chaotic. Nubsib entering ends up actually although forceful and uncomfortable; improving the living condition of Gene, he offers him back everything that his focus on writing and ambition lost him. He offers him the self-care, the food, the cleanliness, the time to do something else instead of always just focusing on his laptop, he helps Gene find a healthier way of doing what he’s already being doing. But also, he changes Gene’s perspective and knocks down a few walls, because he starts to realise that living with someone isn’t as bad as he feared: it’s actually the opposite.

So Nubsib does this thing where his actions lead to Gene coming of his comfort zone and discovering about life and people which in return helps him discover more about the authenticity of the story he wants to write. This is why it’s so easy for Gene, each time he’s challenged by Nubsib’s actions to get inspiration and have a clearer answer to what he wants to do with his story. Because that’s all he cares about even if he’s uncomfortable with writing a BL genre, he just loves to write. Because he’s always had this shallow mindset towards the genre, he never really focused on finding inspiration in the truths about the genre, in seeing where there could be more to the genre than what he thought it was on the surface, (a theme of this show) but once he meets Sib, his attitude towards writing becomes different because he’s starting to see that authenticity and see the other truths to creating a romantic love story.It also probably shows how inexperienced he is with relationships, I mean for someone who truly doesn’t want anyone near him, it would make sense again that that’s an aspect of things he chose to sacrifice to focus on writing before Sib no one’s really caught his attention and he’s probably not seen the point to it.  So, it is a fascinating look into these two’s love story already, although there’s a sinister feeling about Sib and his character motivations, we can already see how he’s affecting Gene even in his flawed, messed up ways. It’s nice to see that there’s a positive impact on the writer and it explores why it’s so easy for Gene to slowly let his inhibitions go and trust Sib and give his heart to him later.

 Nubsib knows how to get Gene to truly look deeper into himself and question his desires and needs and wants, even as he manipulates the situation in which he gets a kiss from the script reading, it’s more about how he does it. Although it’s manipulative it’s the question he asks Gene that ends exposing Gene’s question about the truth and authenticity and his own feelings that he actually puts into his writing when it comes to BL. As writers it’s only when you are using your honest voice and feeling truly passionate and connected to the story, is when you see that inspiration and words pour out. And for Gene that’s the issue, he’d prevented himself from being truly connected with the genre he was writing, he followed typical rules and ideas that he saw as basic and shallow but he never thought to embrace the writing process and truly relay his own opinions and ideas into a story. Once Nubsib asks him that question of how he felt when he wrote his scenes, Gene realises that the key to unlocking his story is being authentic and focusing on the feelings and not the tropes/rules in the story (another similarity with the show itself). I think that’s telling, again how Nubsib affects him even though he uses probably problematic methods to do so. In a way Nubsib just being his flawed self, is what Gene needed to grow and unlock more to understanding his self and his truth. The show also uses that to showcase again the theme of authenticity vs pretence or fakery,  because seeing their story unfold on the surface is tropey and forced/cheesy at times, but really there is a depth there to how they’re both affecting each other, although they’re pretending to kiss in the scene, there’s real feelings that have been unlocked since the first moment they locked eyes with each other, and although there’s a questionable part about the authenticity of some of the aspects of the relationship (Nubsib), the show isn’t running away from showing what these two have is real, automatic and in a way needed. So, it’s just layers upon layers of this idea of reality vs pretence in this show.

Nubsib: Sacrifice of Authenticity and Identity

Let’s talk about Sib because he’s such an interesting character when it comes to this theme of sacrifice. One because he’s someone who we are not sure we truly know, he’s hidden, he’s manipulative, two-faced, and secretive. It’s such a weird experience to see that what Gene is feeling is real and is helpful and needed, when it comes to Sib but it’s also scary because it leads to the question: is Sib a good person, does he have good motivation or is he just creepy? And in terms of sacrifice, it seems like he’s not losing anything to get his way and to be with Gene. But the thing I love about this show is again, the book/show is actually named after him (Its second name), Sib is actually the most important metaphor and message that is connected to the theme of authenticity vs fakery in this show. On the surface he’s someone who looks like he has everything, I mean it’s pretty obvious he has power and privilege over certain things (including wealth, the car he lies to Gene about is probably his) , the way he carries himself, and the way others bend to his will is hidden but it is hinted throughout the show. Tum has no choice but to listen to Sib and be ordered by him even though he’s the one who’s meant to oversee him as his manager. And Sib already had an audition prior to even meeting Gene in the other one, it was just for show, he had already been accepted into the role of Khin.

And it’s telling because he’s also good at playing this role of Khin who’s possessive and orders his lover around and tries to get what he wants with anger and power. Gene doesn’t think Sib would be good for this role because on the surface he sees Sib as someone gentle and naïve and slow, but ironically Sib is like Khin maybe without the problematic anger but from what we see or hear when he’s without Gene, he does order people around, he’s prone to disliking everything and having a sour face each time he’s in a situation with others. It’s only when Gene appears does his mask go on and he becomes this soft hearted, lost actor needing direction personality. So, the first sacrifice, if you can call it that about him is definitely his identity and authenticity to get to Gene. And at first, I wondered why this is a sacrifice because to me it seems like a great thing to get rid of if his character is anyway close to the character, he plays on screen Khin, but actually he’s sacrificing his power and control when it comes to Gene. There’s something about Gene that makes him want to be different. Something that exposes how he views himself. The reason why he becomes this act, is because he’s trying to be perfect for Gene, this exposes so many insecurities about what he thinks about himself, although it seems like he gets his way all the time, and his fans worship the ground he walks on, people let him do whatever he wants but it exposes that there’s something missing, something he had to lose to become this way. And the first one is identity/character, we’ve seen already the hints that this industry leads people to having to make sacrifices about who they are, to put on masks to get to where they want to go, to be put in a state of self-hate, insecurity about needing to change themselves for the worse to become successful. And although we’re watching him gain the success now, I think Nubsib is a product of that sacrifice of character/identity.

Perhaps the reason why he’s so cold and cruel is because he’s someone who was nurtured in a toxic environment that showed him how to get power by being that way, the reason why he’s calculating and manipulative on the surface is maybe because he had to always be this way to get what he wants. Whatever Gene is to Sib is opposite of whatever he’s had to go through, it’s clear he knows who he is, he’s determined to be helpful to him and show him he cares about him and needs him if we take his first words to Gene in the audition as foreshadowing how he truly feels about Gene. But whatever Gene did to make him want to sacrifice his riches, privilege, power, and control must have been something he desperately wanted to cling to, to grow and become who he was. Because for me it looks like Sib has always had to deal with the ‘pressures’ of being in the spotlight already, he’s already constantly followed by fans, (sacrificing his privacy, something that will end up becoming his biggest obstacle later in the story when he’s with Gene), he’s already prone to being objectified and pressured because of the effect this show will have on his fanbase and prior to the show

. His sacrifices point to the same ideas of rich privilege/pretty privilege where he’s probably been neglected, misunderstood, unloved although he comes from a great/privileged situation in others eyes and the way he’s had to get what he wants is to put on this façade of coldness and indifference, and also maybe that’s what he’s to attracted to in Gene is the authenticity that he can’t find anymore around him especially looking at how he interacts with Aey. It’s clear he sees him as someone who’s inauthentic, it’s clear he’s used to how the acting industry works and what they expect of him, so I can see him feeling like he’s surrounded by fakery and shallowness (like Gene thinks he’s also being forced to create and surround himself with, in his writing) and being so pulled to the fact that Gene feels real, and probably from their past, that’s what Gene always represented to him. Like maybe safety, maybe care, maybe authenticity. So that’s what I mean by him having to sacrifice his authenticity and identity for his own ambitions. But this is just my first theory about why he’s the way he is. Because what he’s had to sacrifice will come back to get him, it’s because of his lack of authenticity/truth to Gene that will cause him to lose him, it’s because of his lack of privacy that will cause him to lose Gene, it’s because of his pressures faced in the acting industry that will cause him to lose Gene. So yeh he’s an interesting character to keep an eye on because he’s not just a one-dimensional puppy that gets his way, he’s going to be a victim, he seems very intriguing and important to notice, especially since the novel/show is named after him.

 Hin: Sacrifice of Morality and Self

The theme of sacrifice starts being truly shown in episode 2 when we see Hin and Aey/Mhok. It’s an interesting switch from the tone of the show, where everything is loud, cheesy and full of sound effects (which are done on purpose because it’s to emphasise the comedy effect that the show is trying to use to hide its message), to immediately showcasing characters that are clearly not okay, struggling and dealing with the truth of their hurts and desires. We first are exposed to this by seeing Hin. The more we get to know his character, the more I am truly afraid of what they’re trying to lay out for him, because if it was me, Hin is going down a secret villain arc, mostly because I already mentioned he’s someone with a mask, he’s peppy and happy on the surface and eager to follow and be inspired by Gene and his success (which Hin sees it as), when he him self is struggling to be taken seriously with his writing. We see in episode 2, the sacrifice he has made to make this dream a reality, first of all he’s had to sacrifice financially living well, he’s not making money because he’s not being noticed, compared to Gene who is completely serene and well of because of the results of his own writing and creativity. Hin is struggling to keep up with the demands of reality vs his want to follow his dreams and ambition.

Another thing he’s sacrificing is also his family/ relationships, I mean by distance and choosing to follow his path, it’s clear he misses being with them and he misses having someone who is close to him, but he’s had to move to come to this situation to make his dreams as a writer come through. It’s all he wants, and it’s what gets him up from his mini depression in the episode, it’s what makes him gather his strength and proceed to write. And I know this feeling, the feeling of constant worry, anxiety, and depression that you’re not making your dreams happen, but the constant push to want to strive to make it happen because it’s all you want. The thing is, it would be great if Hin is just going to learn a different way in making his dreams a reality but this is a show that’s with the message that this industry corrupts and makes people sacrifice themselves in order to make it and get their ambitions, and as much as Gene and Hin could be close, I sense a brewing hostile thing forming between them, really in reality Gene is Hin’s rival, someone who clearly doesn’t appreciate how lucky he is to get to create these big BL stories that get hit after hit, someone who has his books being turned into a show, someone who’s being noticed but pushes every thing to not be noticed. In my opinion Hin would see Gene as someone who takes what he has for granted, coupled with the snark remarks, and cold closed of energy Gene seems to have sometimes with Hin? It just seems like it’s enough for him to react if worse comes to worse, if desperation reaches it’s limits, I just see Hin’s character choosing to become one of the sad realities of life and ambition in these stories, where he has to find a way to make it to the top no matter what.

It just seems like with the desperation growing and growing to be noticed, to be making money to survive, to prove to his family that he chose the right path, that Hin could snap. But maybe the show is just showcasing the reality of what people like Hin, Me, others have to go through when you chase after your ambitions, maybe it’s just a relatable plot that may end up having a good ending/ character growth, but just because of where the themes of the show seem to really be heavy on, I am going to keep an eye on Hin’s character. If I know Tee, he’s someone who has directed before a show where a character makes us love and trust him and seems happy on the surface only for him to be very warped because of the choices he chose to get what he wants (Lhong from TharnType) it won’t be surprising if Hin ends up becoming a plot twist villain. Sad but not surprising and would match with the reality/meta of the show’s message. 

 Aey; Sacrifice of Truth and Trust

Let’s put Hin out of the equation and actually focus on our ‘hinted’ main villain Aey. I keep saying he’s probably not a villain, but it is odd to hear Mhok say this episode Aey used to do bad things when he was younger and it’s nice to see him grow from that. With Aey, the spotlight on his character’s mask and actions is very telling, he’s someone who feels abandoned, hurt and betrayed. He’s resentful and he’s determined to make it. From episode 1 knowing the number of hardships he’s had to deal with to be an actor (like his queerness, his insecurities, lack of charisma etc) who’s as known as Nubsib is really fascinating and important to see. Episode 2 emphasises this determination again, he’s had to brave it and defy his family rules to choose to become an actor. He’s had to sacrifice his relationship with his family to try and make his dreams a reality. He’s had to put on a mask and become someone else on the surface to make his dreams a reality. And he’s had to sacrifice his own confidence, his own idea of self to please the fans and become an actor that’s successful. He’s even had to hide his queerness to fit into the industry, to be chosen. It’s through his determination that he overhears Sib talk about the audition and shows up, unlike Sib who’s asked to be placed in the audition easily, Aey has to fight to be seen and noticed.

You start to see this pattern with both Hin and Aey how they mirror and expose the privilege that Gene and Sib actually have in the industry though they don’t see it as that, well Gene doesn’t, I have a theory Sib also doesn’t but it’s ironic because from Hin and Aey’s perspective Gene and Sib are in amazing positions, are lucky and have it easy but they have to literally crawl and struggle their way out to make this dream they have a reality: to become noticed, to be taken seriously, to be successful in what they want to do. And Aey is 100% just like Hin is to Gene; a mirror character to Sib, he’s just as manipulative, just also sacrificing his authenticity, and identity to become better, to get what he wants, he’s choosing to become a wolf in sheep’s clothing just like Sib. And that’s why I like this show, the character’s mirror each other to showcase the hypocrisy, flaws and mistakes each character has. No one is a villain or a bad person per say, they just all have issues and are all humans but mostly are all victims in this industry.

Again, it’s the industry that is the main villain of the show. That’s incredible, and meta, and real. So Aey is someone who has this energy of someone who also feels unloved, neglected, and abandoned because he clearly feels hurt by whoever Earn is. I don’t know why people think she’s his girlfriend, he’s apparently gay so I don’t think so, but she gives me maternal vibes, she gives me older sibling vibes. Her story is that she also sacrificed her dreams in order to fit the mould of the family’s values and wants to survive. So she represents the opposite of Aey, she’s a reflection to his failures in his head if he doesn’t make it, she’s probably daddy’s favourite, or responsible, always doing the right thing whilst Aey is seen as a nuisance and her presence probably reminds him of that hurt and abandonment that heHi’s felt because of choosing to be who he is. For me the reason for why he’s not speaking to her is because he’s the one who’s been hurt or neglected by her, she’s trying to make amends because she knows she’s the one in the wrong and judging from her character introduction she either tried to make him stifle his wants and needs or she hurt him by betraying him in order to seem responsible and survive in life. So she’s also connected to the reality of the sacrifices people make to survive in the world and get their ambitions; the theme of the episode.

 it's interlinking to relatability of ambition, but it's also connected to the struggle and why people become who they become; flawed in the industry. And that’s why Mhok is so fascinating to this story, I think he’s a love interest to Aey, and mostly because the rules of this show is that the person who’s connected to exposing authenticity and making the other confront the truth about their selves is the reason for why love is needed and valued. Mhok is someone who knows Aey without the mask, he clearly cares and wants to do what’s right, he’s here to ensure that Aey is fine and doing well. Mhok is someone who is connected to Aey’s real self, past and hurts and he’s someone who is able to stop or call out Aey whenever he goes too far. So the question is what is Mhok’s actual ambitions, why is he doing all this for Aey/Earn, what is his goal? Right now I think he’s screaming jilted lover or he has feelings for Aey and this is how he protects him, there’s little hints he does care, he gets a little weird when Aey is flirting with Nubsib in episode 1, so he clearly doesn’t like Aey pretending or being close to Nubsib in that way. Either way he’s going to be playing the role of Aey’s calming influence/moral compass, the person who grounds him. For Aey to be so three dimensional already as a character, and maybe as a villain is again why this show is good, it’s deeper, it’s real and all the characters are fleshed out, and the plot is structured, planned and good.

The Price of Ambition

So we have this idea of characters who are making sacrifices;  very sad and unfortunately realistic sacrifices to get to their goals and ambitions, not only have they all sacrificed a piece of their authenticity to fit into this harsh environment, but they’ve had to regress their characters, their self, and mute their own voices to survive and reach the end where their dreams become real. Ambition is a real thing, we all want to get to where we goanna go, achieve our purpose, or fulfil our dreams, the reality this show portrays is true, it’s so difficult in this world to be successful and get to where you want to go, without losing your voice, without becoming full of insecurity and without feeling cold and vicious due to the abandonment, neglect and betrayals experienced during the journey. Life is never easy but at the same time, this show places a huge focus on being authentic, on still following your heart and fighting your voice to be heard, it also showcases the facets of humanity; how yes we can be flawed, we can be lost and we can become different to our values, but real self-love, genuine romantic love and hope can help us fix those things, find a way back to who we’re meant to be, but also succeed after all the effort and tries. There’s still positivity and a chance to make things right by confronting the reality of the situation, by finding our selves and knowing what we stand for. 

So, I’m not worried about Lovely writer being this toxic message of Nubsib manipulating his way and getting away with it, it’s more than just this surface BL love story, it really about watching these humane characters grow and learn. Nubsib is going to have to learn and grow and deal with truth of the industry before him and Gene can actually settle and get that happy ending, and they have a lot of trials and obstacles to deal with that will transform him, grow him and expose him to wanting to do better and wanting to take of his mask. Gene is someone who doesn’t like the shallowness and corruption of the industry and so he’s someone who’s going to go through his own journey and learn about how maybe it’s not just only the truth about the genre, I also think with a little bit self-discovery of knowing his truth and doing what he wants to do at the end. And I know this is really deep for me to be analysing this show, but I always knew Lovely writer would be relatable, and to be honest I’m shocked at how real it is, even though it’s still being disguised as a romantic comedy BL. Tee clearly had a goal of exposing and being as real as possible whilst still offering the joys and entertainment of a love story. This is all I could ever ask for in a show and a BL, I think it’s incredible where this show is going, and I can’t wait to see where things play out. Even if like the show didn’t mean to be this deep, and Nubsib ends up being like the devil or something, or this ends up truly being toxic, it was fun to see this show for now as a media piece that means something, that reflects something and makes you think about yourself, and your dreams, ambitions, and goals. And that’s something I’m grateful for.

[botwstoriesandsuch]

hey Kip! I’m sending asks into different writer’s askboxes, inquiring about cool themes/development facts/stuff the author wants to share about their personal favorite work of their own. What’s yours? :)

Ok so this ask is old and when I first got it I was like “dang I don’t really have a lot to talk about, what should I talk about I could those revalink headcanons the Kip Cut that turned into a working fic uhh hmm maybe I’ll just make something new to talk about real quick” and then I did and now there is a 12+ chapter Revalink fic in my drafts and I’m gonna talk about that now, whoopsie doopsie [click "j" to skip]

aHEM, OK so allow me to break out the primary school white board because yeah, I have a lot of thoughts and the oxford comma has not yet made it’s home into my brain. oh and spoilers for paraphrase. for both all of Chapter one and future events in later chapters, but it’s really nothing you couldn’t surmise from the AO3 tags

so I really wanted to tell the story of Revali and Link learning and struggling to love again after the less-than-fortunate events of Botw, but I wanted a...how you say...fresher, approach on the subject? Like I know we always say that fanfic writers writing the same tropes and stories time and time again is good because we eat that shit up--but at the same time I had asian parenting as was told never to half ass anything ever, no matter what. So now I'm gay and extra and have depression maybe and oh would you look at that @motherhyrule has dropped a beautiful revalink prompt right into my lap

Great so now that we have, that, I shall take you on the step by step process on how to make a :sparkles: story. So step one is to spend at least five to eleven business days for your white board to dismantle your genre and themes and work them around your character arcs. Luckily I have prepared one ahead of time

s*breaks out those laser pointers that uni professors use* So let's start with defining genre. As define because I HATE you, fuck you. I want you to suffer and writhe on the ground, motherfucker. How dare you think that I would give you nothing but pure predictable fluff, fuck you and yours

is the set of expectations that your audience has when consuming a piece of media

And the great thing about fanfiction is that unlike movies or book where the genres are more vague like, "oh it's a noir mystery genre. so there's a crime, maybe a murder, and a detective and a criminal." or "oh it's a teen romance. so there's some white people and a morally questionable six-pack 18 year old love interest that will be painted as desirable for some reason" BUT with fanfiction HALF of the work out the window, because as soon as you see those #revalink #aro sidon #zelpha #revali is an idiot and #found family tags you already know what's up.

Now what's so great about genre and expectation? Well the fun thing about it is that

I will use it to fucking break you.

... ... ...

<3 For example! <3

In Chapter 1: Holes, you already expect there to be revalink, you already expect them to be soulmates with the soulmarks and there's angst and yadayada ya. Revali and Link have to match because thatttss what this is all about, this is about them! This is about cute, little soulmarks and romantic words!

But whoooopsie doopsie [disney channel laugh track plays] they DON'T match anymore! Link's got a different mark! The number one rule of this entire genre has been broken whoooooooooooooooops. *ba dum tiss*

You might notice with a lot of my writing that I do this a lot, this whole..."oop but there's one little thing that's different." TebaSaki sick fic? Ok cool, but what if Teba burns an irreplaceable relic of the Rito champion to fight a wizzrobe first to characterize why his dumbass clicks with Saki. Mipha deciding to persue Link? Ok what if she chases after a dragon to externalize this conflict as she pierces it's flesh for a scale. Link fighting a Lynel? Ok but what if it's actually a sidlink angst fic in disguise and it's also world building on how Link deals with the bloodmoon that erases all of his efforts which is sort of similar to how his existence was erased from Hyrule 100 years ago mwaahahaha! Ok now that I say this outloud I think I just have a pattern of using fight scenes to externalize character growth. I like fight scenes...anyways.

I think another great thing about the realm of fanfiction is that with the tagging system, I can basically use a chekhov's gun sort of deal, without doing any writing. You know I'm gonna use that gun marked "soulmates" but you don't know when I'm gonna shoot it, and you SURE as hell don't know how.

And huzzah! One of the main points of conflict both drives the tension between Revali and Link, solidifies the unique genre and setting of this world, while also creating a new mystery that will carry over for the next few chapters.

Is Revali right in that Link's rebirth makes him destined for someone new now? What will Link do with the information that his soulmark has changed? Why did it change? Did Revali's change as well? How does anything fucking work right now?

And sure, you might be able to tell where things will end with them, but you sure as fuck will not know how because I HATE you. Fuck you. I want you to suffer and writhe on the ground, motherfucker. How dare you think that I would give you nothing but pure predictable fluff. I am not your goddamn fairy godmother, I will do as I fucking please. You will suffer as you fucking deserve, fuck you and your little tiny--

/j

Oh! But you might have noticed on my little planning whiteboard thing that there was a little T-Chart! For Revali and Link! That's because the next important thing besides plot (and in a lot of cases, including this one, it's argued to be even MORE important than plot) is

~CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT~

[to the tune of that history of the world video on youtube]

So yes, it's a little T-Chart outlining their character views in relation to the themes. And the great thing about themes is that they're not something you can necessarily predict in the same way you can with the genre and plot.

But now see, I'm very lazy so I'm just gonna plagiarize @hyrule-kingdom-updates thingy [that you should read btw] because they said my point quite clear enough

Now I don't really need to care about those points about bond and relationships and being understood, because I'm dealing with already established canon characters. I'm not some NERD who dabbles with entire casts of ocs who even cares about ocs not me that's for sure ahaahahaahahahahahaahahahahahAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH *cries in my orphaned WTTU fic* AHAHAHA*sobs*DONT FUCKING LOOK AT ME THAT WAY I SWEAR--

/j I love ocs

But the points I do wanna focus on is the idea that characters provide new perspectives on the theme, and that characters growth can be tracked based on their wants, lies, and needs.

So see, themes can be predicted the same as genre/plot because while you can have the same fanfic plots and tropes, theme will always vary!

Sometimes it's a journey of selfworth with Revali! Sometimes it's an exploration of trauma with Link. Sometimes it's about how you deal with the vulnerabilities of love with Mipha. Sometimes there's straight up NOOOO theme, and people just be fucking, and kissing, and baking, and having a good time. And that is totally fine too!

But I'm not a fucking coward.

I'm gonna weave in themes with my plot, because I fucking can.

I'm not a weakling like you.

Do you hear me, 2019 Kip? Do you hear me Demmers? Do you hear me Quill? I'm coming for your ass. You think you're so great, but I'm coming for you. Rest assured that your graves will be as deep as your sculptured pride--

Heeeere is that T-Chart again, plus more!

yyyyyYou might notice that Revali and Link are quite parallel, to paraphrase. Ayoooo, see what I did there? *dabs* I'm a genius. Anywho

They both start off the same way: 100 years ago they were in love and happy. Basically the equivalent of childish naivety. For the first time in their lives, life is whimsical and charming, and they make each other happy. In fact, it's almost a flaw with how they perceive this happiness. But don't worry! It doesn't last long!

You know what happens.

I think the chart is pretty self explanatory. Revali builds walls fast enough to give a republican a wet dream. Meanwhile Link makes every aromantic in the chat groan with his doubled down sentiments in the idea that his chances of being truly happy again are gone.

Now, I can't exactly describe the full on process of the inbetweens, and where Revali and Link are gonna go from here, because...you have to read it for yourself! Heehee...but something I did think was fun was how these character views on the themes are revealed. Because you'll notice that, I never give exposition. Ever.

Ok well, let me rephrase that. I never give exposition scenes. I will never give you a big LOTR fancy wizard scene explaining the ins and outs of a character's question or the world's magic or whatever. I'm a very impatient Kip, and I value efficiency. Nonono, it's all about multi tasking, baby!

Chapter 1: Holes is divided into three parts.

Post 100 Years - Medoh (Establishes Ghost Rev/Bonk Head Link's view)

100 Years Ago - Flight Range (Establishes old Revalink views)

Post 100 years - Mark (Develops Ghost Rev/Bonk Head Link's view in contrast to who they once were)

I think the way that you structure flashbacks is incredible vital, as it's a very quick way to characterize people without having them say stuff like "I used to be like you, until I took an arrow to the knee" or whatever.

And with the main structure of the chapters and the fic as a whole is focus on their characters, that means I can hide whatever other stuff I want in those scenes, becuase you're too busy absorbing the fun character stuff to realizing I'm giving you boring exposition. Like for example:

Post 100 Years - Medoh and Mark

Foreshadowing for the end of the fic

Set up connection to Medoh with Revali

Link has defeated Windblight

Link has been visiting Revali every night for the past few days

Link has already met Kass and presumably Teba

Link doesn't have the Mastersword

Revali's Gale is still an ability that needs master and practice on Link's end

And that's just some of the stuff.

And see, the only reason I can efficiently give all of this information regarding character, and even exposition, is because of the theme. The themes make everything relevant, and everything circles and encompasses one another, so there's absolutely no wasted space. I mean don't even get me started on how it's gonna be to characterize the other characters around this

I don't wanna talk about the other characters too much either because that's spoilers, but you can probably take a gandar based on my notes.

And oh my god this is just on the theme of the faults that come with "soulmates" and "true love" and all that, and how even magical destined relationships still require work and effort, and that no one thing or person solves all your problems. And that's not even TOUCHING the shit on trauma and scars. I didn't think it was even possible for me to talk about botw without touching on that, ha. Ah well, I've been talking for too long.

Revalink has a lot o' writing potential so das pretty cool yeah, I am excite