#putting this in the tags because it's not relevant but someone might want to know
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
milfbrainrot · 6 months ago
Text
i feel like i type so much more than is reasonable when i do talk to people but i also don't get to socialize a ton so i just have soooo many words in me and if i'm like, tired or short on time, it is so much harder to restrain to the already-pushing-it point i can sometimes manage ;-;
#txt#i am used to posting long things that are essentially a conversation with myself because i either don't#want to bother others with certain topics or i just am used to anything i have to say really being... worth saying...#so i will sometimes go back and add more tags because i'm still thinking about it after the fact and the gap in time where someone#would have said something to prompt further thought is just. me continuing it with myself. bc i'm still thinking about it.#and then that translates into how i talk to other people where i sometimes feel like i either have too much to say without only#keeping what's of utmost relevant importance#(which is also due to me knowing if i don't say it Right Now Immediately i will forget if it does become relevant again)#so i am expecting people to read too much#and/or i then am not... listening to people? or i come off like im not listening to people?#even though i rly do try to be attentive i just forget sometimes to leave space for other people to talk because i am#used to only talking to myself so much lmaoo so i think i come off like i only want to Talk At people due to how Much i share#and sometimes i probably am not as attentive in convos as i would like to be but i try to be! i just dont know if the balance is there#but i also don't rly know how to be more concise bc of that mix of not wanting to forget and also not wanting to be misunderstood#and being so excited to get contribute etc#anyway there are also a lot of social things i HAVE been neglecting by accident i am so sorry if youve sent me an ask etc#and you've gotten silence i am getting to things slowly ;-;#i just mean moreover in active conversations the way that i act is like. i always worry i am doing something wrong all the time forever#and maybe i would worry less if i could put more of my thought dump energy into observing others more attentively#to get a better read on things lol#me coming back to this post as an example bc i had another thought:#i also type rly fast and my brain goes rly fast so while i do clean up what i say typically#others might find it more convenient to be more concise due to typing slower#whereas i don't think before i type i just type as i think one to one#i lose thoughts otherwise but Thinking Before I Speak is a lost art to me rip#but then if i am talking to people irl or on voice i am so much more reserved. i ramble a lot!!#but it's easier for me to fall back
7 notes · View notes
naomiknight-17 · 9 months ago
Text
My brother said something the other day about how no-one could prove if the current anti-Israel boycotts are actually making an impact cuz there could be other reasons people aren't eating at McDonald's or whatever
But besides the fact that there are many articles easily find-able online saying that the companies are aware of and feeling the impact of such protests, and some are even making some changes, I needed to make a point to him about why I participate in boycotts whether they're successful or not
But my brother tends to get annoyed and stop listening whenever I talk real politics, so I tried to make a really simple analogy
Let's say there's a man outside our house, and he is just beating people to death with sticks. Not people from our neighborhood, but still, people. We can't call the cops to stop him, because they think he's doing a great job. And we can close the blinds and ignore him, but he's still there and we know it.
And he has a big pile of sticks, so when one breaks he can get another to beat the next person to death with
So one day you have to go outside and the man turns to you and says, "Hey. Can you pass me a stick?"
And maybe it doesn't matter if you do or not. Maybe someone else will give him a stick anyway, or he'll get one on his own, or he'll start punching people
But I don't want to give him a stick.
And maybe I can't stop him, but I at least don't want to help him
At this point my brother tried to make a joke (because that's what he always does in every conversation) and he said something like "What if you don't give him the stick and then he beats YOU to death"
And I was like, "That's a great point, actually, because the Yemeni wouldn't let weapons shipments through their waterways so Israel bombed them."
And the analogy was broken but. I hope I made my point
Maybe I don't have the power as an individual half a world away to stop a genocide. But I at least want to not contribute to it
5 notes · View notes
grison-in-space · 1 year ago
Text
golly, I am being wordy today.
Via Metafilter:
Someone on MeFi tagged me in and asked me to chime in in my capacity as a rodent person, so here were my thoughts and observations:
First thought, looking at that video: that is no house mouse. Not only is the head wrong--too narrow at the back, eyes are a bit big--but that very clear countershading is not something you generally see on wild house mice. So what kind of mouse is it? If this was in the US, I would assume it was a Peromyscus (deer mouse) species, which often gleefully invade our homes, but do they have Peromyscus in Wales? In North America, this is relevant because deer mouse species often have very elaborated burrowing and pair bonding systems, and this looks like nesting behavior off the top of my head. What sort of mouse is this? The Woodland UK Trust suggests that this is probably a wood (or field) mouse: Apodemus sylvaticus. (There are glorious big photos there which can help you see what I mean.) Okay, I don't know that much about Apodemus spp. behavior, so what do we know about their nesting behavior? Well, I chased a couple of false leads, then circled back to find out what is notable about wood mice, which is that they are known to not only navigate by the use of landmarks, but to organize their environments to place small objects around their environments in order to make navigation and orienting themselves across their large territories more effectively! So this mouse is probably irritably putting things back in place as an aid to its own memory of where everything is and where it can most effectively pilfer snacks, nest locations, or other useful mouse items within its environment. That is, the mouse wants a tidy shed for exactly the same reasons a human might want a tidy shed: so it can find things it's looking for when it wants to! Wood mice, by the way, are human commensals and quite common in Europe and the British Isles, so this is in no way a refutation of the idea that this behavior might have influenced human folklore and ideas about house spirits or similar. Certainly wood mice, like any mouse, are unlikely to turn up a bowl of milk if there's one put out for it--although neither are house cats, which would certainly prey on them.
rather delighted, so I'm sharing this more widely over here.
6K notes · View notes
prettyiwa · 11 days ago
Text
Tumblr media
Relationship: Sakura Haruka x Florist!Reader Content Tags: First Meetings, Strangers to (eventual) Lovers, Wound Tending, Sakura is a good citizen, Hanakotoba (obv), Koi no Yokan, Everyone's in their early 20s, the use of epithets for Suo and Nirei until their names are learned, References to their nomenclatures Summary: A month after moving back to Makochi, you were saved from being mugged on your way home. After your saviors walk you home to ensure your safety, you can't help but want to repay their kindness by patching them up. Word Count: 2.7k
A/N: This idea has been haunting me since the beginning of April. It was supposed to be a little Ha-Ha funny joke between friends and it somehow snowballed. Thank you @owoasis for letting me talk your ear off about this and Haruka for the past couple months. Tagging @kweenkatsuki-fics because you've also been instrumental in this becoming a thing 💜 Kinda relevant: I see Nirei as becoming a school teacher, probably for elementary or middle school. By the time Florist moves to Makochi, he stopped dyeing his hair and it's his natural color.
Tumblr media
Illuminated by the street lamp, the maple tree that sits at the edge of your yard glows and you’re surprised by the reluctance that pulls at your heart at the sight, the signal of your impending separation. It’s been some time since you’ve felt so at ease with strangers, much less the odd trio escorting you home.
A glance to your left shows your two-toned savior more comfortable than he has been since dispatching your would-be muggers. The steady blush that dusted his cheeks is gone, though you’re somewhat crestfallen at its absence. You’ve grown a little fond of the sight, its easy appearance at his friends’ light ribbing.
Without effort, your lips shape into a smile as you slow, different from the customer-service one you’ve worn all day. “Well fellas, we have arrived,” you say, turning on your heel to meet their faces.
Eyepatch and Freckles both reciprocate your smile as they come to stop at the opening of your path while your savior brings his right hand to rub the back of his neck. Red stains his knuckles and you swear there’s some swelling.
Your smile fades and your brows stitch together as concern grips your chest. “Are you hurt?”
That flush returns, spreading across his cheeks as his hand freezes in its ascent. Bringing it before his face, he assesses his knuckles before flexing twice. Though he tries to hide it, you’ve been around your brother’s training long enough to know what to look for. The corners of his lips downturn and his face tightens imperceptibly before trying to relax—you can hear the words before he speaks them.
“Don’t worry. ‘M fine.”
Your eyes track the fall of his hand, its profile looking a little fuller than his left.
“Please let me help.”
The two behind him exchange glances but seem almost… tickled by the development, appearing to be in no hurry to return to their evenings.
“What—? No, it’s fine.”
“Sakura, don’t be rude!” Freckles objects, playfully chastising him as though they’ve done this song and dance hundreds of times before.
Pressing your lips together, you try to stifle your smile for another reason. Sakura? Is that his name, or a nickname? Certainly, if you were friends, his propensity for blushing might earn such a name from you. As it is, Freckles’ school teacher look and particular earnestness has you thinking it might be his name, which makes it almost feel like fate.
“Please,” you repeat, more emphatically this time. “It’s the least I can do after you put yourself in harm’s way for me.”
It doesn’t matter if he dropped your assailants with the skill of someone who’s done this many times before; they still brandished knives, meaning this stranger risked quite a lot on your behalf.
With a sigh, he relents, following you as you lead them up the path to your house. You gesture to the bench in front of your closed amado, satisfied to hear their diverging footsteps, entering the yard you’ve yet to turn into a garden. Flicking on the garden lights, you ask them to wait outside while you grab your supplies.
Out of habit, you’ve kept the first aid kit near your kitchen sink, and retrieving it has you remembering the countless evenings you’ve spent patching up your brother following his training sessions with your father. Moving to Makochi, you expected some incident or other given its history (even if your grandmother insisted things were better since the establishment of Bofurin eight years ago). Honestly, you wished you had left this life behind, but by the same token, you don’t mind that it allowed you to meet these three. As you prepare a bowl with ice water and epsom salt, you can’t help but be grateful for your prior knowledge.
Their voices carry in the silence, some comment about old habits dying hard and a sharp bite about how he couldn’t wait for the night patrol to act. Upon the sliding of your door, they fall quiet, allowing the calm of the night to settle in your bones as Sakura’s friends observe you with clear amusement.
“Thank you for sticking around.” Thank you for so much more.
Watching as you set everything up, he waits for you to look at him before joining you on the bench, precariously perched on the edge as though reluctant to make himself comfortable. When you hold out your hand, you half-expect him to hesitate.
“I-I wouldn’t have bailed after you asked,” he says, voice trailing off as he places his hand in yours. He turns toward your amado rather than face his friends, apparently unable or unwilling to look at either you or his friends. The calluses on his palm are similar to those you’ve grown used to, denoting years of martial arts experience. His hand is warm to the touch and his fingers twitch when you adjust your hold.
“It’s cold,” you warn, guiding both your hands into the cold water.
He hisses, nearly jerking his hand out of your grasp before stopping himself, the water coming to splash the bench. “Shit, that’s freezing!” His face twists in mild discomfort before morphing into something apologetic, eyes landing on yours. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”
Your laugh interrupts him and he relaxes, letting you gently feel around the abrasions on his knuckles. “It’s fine. I’m used to this.”
Glancing up, you find him watching from the corner of his steel blue eye, his blush spreading toward his ears as you make eye contact. Desiring to offer him a small mercy, you return your attention to his hand, bringing it from the water now that the blood has been washed away. It looked worse than it is, though there’s still some swelling—he was likely telling the truth when he said it was fine, but you’re grateful he allowed you to help regardless.
“It’s probably rude that I’ve waited so long to ask,” you start, submerging his hand once more to help reduce swelling, “but might I know the names of my saviors?”
“Ah, right!” Freckles steps forward just a bit. “I’m Nirei Akihiko! We probably should have introduced ourselves before offering to walk you home, huh?”
At least you’re not the only one who had a lapse in propriety (beyond their timely intervention, you’re glad these three found you, as calm and casual as they are).
“I’m Sakura Haruka.” His hand shifts in yours, fingers twitching where they meet yours, pulling your attention back. Not for the first time tonight, you’re mesmerized by his heterochromatic eyes, clear with pride and some other emotion as he lifts his chin a bit, looking at you head-on. Heat warms your cheeks under his attention, and it’s you who feels the urge to look away.
“I’m Suo Hayato,” he says, offering you an escape, something extra tucked into his perpetually genial smile.
It’s easy enough to return, to suppress your own fluster and provide your name. They roll it over in their minds, tasting the way it sits on their tongues, though they don’t speak it aloud. In turn, you consider their names, and your previous thought about fate comes to laugh at you.
“It’s nice to properly meet you all. Though…” They all pause and you feel the weight of their stares as you duck your head to hide your grin. “I have to say, it’s a little funny meeting the three of you as the new florist on Tonbu Street. From your names alone, I think you three are my new favorite people in Makochi.”
Suo graces you with a smile—genuine, this time, if you had to guess—and Nirei brightens beside him. Your eyes flicker to Sakura and you think that pink is becoming a favorite color of yours.
“Ah, so you’re the one who took over Hanami Flower Shop?” Nirei asks, pulling out a small notebook and pen from his pocket.
“I did.” After checking your watch, your fingers prod Sakura’s hand once more. “It was always the plan that I’d take over for my grandparents, but when my grandfather died last summer, those plans moved up. I’ve only been here for the last month.”
“That would explain why we haven’t run into you sooner,” Suo says. Sakura grunts, looking away by the time you look up.
“It would. The shop has kept me plenty busy.” Between establishing yourself and receiving Mother’s Day orders from nearly every family adjacent to Tonbu Street, you’ve scarcely had time for yourself. June looms ever closer and part of you worries how you’ll handle it alone.
A comfortable silence falls as you lift Sakura’s hand from the water, dabbing it dry with a clean towel. After a minute of watching you tend to his friend’s hand, Suo says, “You know, we used to assist with the deliveries for your grandparents.”
The implication is clear as he leaves the statement hanging. Despite your urge to check his reaction, you remain focused on Sakura’s hand, releasing it only after you’ve dried it to satisfaction. The way his hand hovers, awaiting your application of polysporin, makes you feel as though you two are old pros at this.
“So it was you guys who’ve been helping. They used to tell us that some ‘Furin kids’ would help out when they didn’t need to. You have my sincere thanks.”
“It was our pleasure,” Nirei says, his grin audible. “I’m sure we’d be happy to help you out, too!” A quick glance confirms the way he’s looking between Suo and Sakura, pressuring them to agree.
“Hey! Don’t volunteer us when you’re gonna be busy with the school!” Sakura barks, jerking toward Nirei as his hand closes around yours. Realizing what he’s done, he releases his grip and deflates, openly apologetic. “Th-That’s not what I— Dammit.” His eyes search your face, falling to your smile before he ceases his sputtering, and his hand relaxes in yours.
“You’re fine. I wouldn’t want to impose on you guys or assume any additional help.”
“It wouldn’t be an imposition. Right, Sakura?” Suo says, enunciating his name in a teasing tone.
Is it often that they prod and goad Sakura into action? If so, it seems to be something he tolerates. You tut as he moves his hand again, ceasing the movement, and though you keep your attention on preparing the wrap, you feel heat radiating off him, likely caused by another flush.
“I—! N-No, it wouldn’t be…” The words tangle on his tongue, tripping over one another while he formulates his response. He sighs as you move around his hand, wrapping his knuckles with gauze. As you secure it with tape, part of you wishes to grant him another mercy by keeping your attention down, but you haven’t that excuse anymore. As if waiting for you to meet his gaze, he speaks. “I… was actually lookin’ to help out last week, but I… didn’t see the ol’ lady around.”
“Oh.”
Again, heat sits high on your cheeks as your smile disappears, the thoughtfulness of his desire to help settling softly on your skin. He lets your fingers drag over his freshly bandaged hand for a moment. If you knew any better, you’d think there was something more to his words, but as it is…
“How unexpectedly courteous of you, Sakura!”
Sakura’s eyes snap to Suo and he half-rises from the bench, removing himself from your touch. Busying yourself with cleaning up, you try to contain your blooming attraction.
“Oh, shove off with that shit! I wasn’t tryin’—”
Your laugh rings out, interrupting his quick dismissal, prompting him to sit back down and look at you once more before his gaze falls back to his hands.
“They’re—you’re, I guess—busier this time of year,” he justifies, voice low.
“Between Mother’s Day and wedding season, business does pick up for the shop. It’s sweet that you thought of us.”
Despite his creeping blush, the way it climbs up his neck and deepens on his cheeks, he doesn’t look away from you, giving you a chance to appreciate him. In the low light of your garden lamps, you’re drawn particularly to the gold of his left eye. As you smile at him, he bites the inside of his cheek.
“I wouldn’t have much to pay you guys. I hardly have anything to offer thanks for tonight.” Nothing substantial, anyway. Nothing beyond— “Actually… would you three mind waiting once more?”
Giving you varying sounds of acceptance, you take your leave, gathering your kit and the bowl as you do. Nirei looks all too content while Suo smiles that smile at Sakura, eager to exchange words in your absence.
On your kitchen table sits a vase of campanula, perfect blooms that won’t make it into any of the arrangements that have been ordered. Though you doubt any of them know hanakotoba, the simple fact that you know will be enough. Quite literally another means of offering thanks.
After clipping them over your sink, you look up and meet the single California poppy left from your visit to Poppy Happy Square in the thin vase that sits on your windowsill. Clarity rings in your heart as you realize what has been lingering in the peripheral of your mind since first seeing Sakura’s golden eye.
With your flowers in hand, you meet the boys outside once more, gathered near your fence. Their eyes drop to your hands, surprise present in the widening of their eyes and the parting of their lips. Suo is the first to recover, offering you arguably the most gracious smile you’ve seen from him. He steps forward, hand outstretched to receive your offering.
“It’s not much, but I figured it’s the kind of thanks you might expect from a florist,” you say, passing him the white bellflowers.
Nirei accepts the purple ones with wide eyes, a ghost of a smile present as he turns them over in his grasp. Sakura can’t take his eyes off the remaining flowers, the pink campanula and the golden California poppy. You wait until he looks up, that spattering of pink present.
“Thank you for tonight.” Passing along the pink flowers, keeping the poppy as you try to find the words. It’s different from your previous gift, its meaning unrelated to your desire to gift it. Your fingers tingle where they hold the flower, the sensation spreading up your arms, anxiously dancing across your chest as you push it forward and say, “This is… Well, it’s because your left eye reminds me of one of my favorite flowers. I’d like you to have it.”
He takes it, fingers warm against yours for the briefest moment, unaware of the way the smallest brush of his touch sets you alight.
“It was a pleasure to meet you three. I hope to see you around town again,” you say, taking a beat, weighing their names in your mouth before breathing life into them. “Suo, Nirei, and Sakura—thank you.”
They warm, each looking at the flowers before returning to you.
“We’ll be certain to see you around,” Suo says, half-turning toward the street.
“It was really nice to meet you,” Nirei agrees, following.
Sakura lingers, still focused on the delicate blooms held between his fingers as he chews on his lip. His blush is present on his cheeks, spreading when his eyes meet yours, unexpectedly serious as his tongue stumbles over your name. Clearing his throat, he speaks it again, louder, though not without care, and that burning feeling behind your heart turns smoldering. “Thank you for patchin’ me up or whatever. A-and for the flowers.” His bandaged right hand comes to scratch the back of his neck and his eyes shift to the side. “See you around Tonbu Street.”
Your answering smile is involuntary, giddy and excited, only widening when his eyes flicker to you, catching sight of your grin before quickly looking away again.
“I’m looking forward to it.”
With a nod, he joins the others, offering you an awkward wave once his back is to you, his hand returning to the back of his neck. If not for the dimmed lighting offered by the street lamp, you might know for certain whether his blush truly extends to his neck, though you’re inclined to believe it to be no more than a trick of the light for now.
His voice replays in your mind, the deliberate way he spoke your name, and you feel it in your heart. Sakura Haruka has the potential to be someone important in your life. The edges of such a thought feel almost like an inevitability.
Tumblr media
Flower Glossary:
Canterbury Bell/Campanula: Gratitude, Constancy
California Poppy: Do not refuse me
(header credit)
Tumblr media
Hanakotoba Masterlist | Wind Breaker Masterlist | Next ❧
124 notes · View notes
am-i-interrupting · 1 year ago
Text
Affection | Vox x Fem!Reader
Tumblr media
Summary: Vox and Valentino get into it. Vox looks for a way to get payback and stumbles upon you. He didn’t expect you to actually care.
Warnings: sex work, a bit of a mommy kink
He was used to the petty yelling, the constant spats, even the object throwing. What crossed the line was when he had to replace his screen.
Vox and Valentino got into a lot of arguments, normally started by the latter instead of the former. This one was bad though. Vox didn’t even want to think about it but it was all that was on his mind.
He was angry.
He was angry because it was easier to be angry rather than something else, something more vulnerable. He didn’t want to and couldn’t afford to be vulnerable right now. He had to hold onto this anger so he didn’t go crawling back to Valentino.
Currently, he was at his desk, looking through documents about ads that were just waiting for Vox’s stamp of approval. He stumbled upon yours and he paused.
He recognized you. Why?
He copied your name into a search bar and looked at your Sinstagram profile. Flipping through the pictures, he found one of you at a bar and that’s when he remembered.
Valentino tried to contract you and you’d basically laughed at him. You’d tossed back a shot and then turned to Valentino, asking if he needed you to pay for it since he was clearly so desperate for new recruits as he was only preying on people too stupidly drunk to realize how bad of an idea it was to say yes. Oh, he remembered Valentino seething that night.
He approved your ad but he couldn’t get you out of his head. He opened the closed tag again as he actually read through your ad.
You were advertising music. Which, when say side by side with your Sinstagram made sense as he saw a picture of you with Verosika Mayday. There wasn’t really anything interesting on the advert.
He scrolled up to the top of your Sinstagram in order to look at them in order from most to least relevant. That is when he caught sight of a link in your bio. He clicked it.
He was brought to a website. He wasn’t sure what he expected but he did raise an eyebrow nonetheless. It was an escort sight. A home page that had you and several other people scantily dressed with a description of what every person and the services you offered.
Maybe he was being more vindictive than he thought because he immediately clicked on the tab that sent him to your page and booked a time with you.
It was far out, months away in fact. He honestly had forgotten about it until he got an email the week before asking if he was still available and inviting him to a pre-session consultation. Not willing to back out and have it potentially mess with his image, he made the time.
He logged into a video call several days later and was greeted with you in the middle of putting on your makeup.
“Well, hello, Mr. Vox,” you said with a soft purr. He replied with a formal greeting of your name. “You’re a busy guy and I’m a busy gal so I’ll keep this quick. This is just a little meeting for boundaries. I know it bothers some people to make them in person so I’ve found this to be an easier way.
“I’ll go first. No hickies, no bruises, no scratches, no cuts, no burns, just no marks. It might be pretty and fun in the moment but it costs me later. Not everyone enjoys having sex with someone who’s clearly had it with someone else not long before. It may be part of my work but people do like an illusion.
“I don’t do bondage where I’m the one tied up. It’s nothing personal, just a safety issue. On the topic of safety, if you bring in anything that could be used as a weapon. I’m done and you’re leaving. All I need from you is that pretty little body of yours and payment. I’ll provide the rest.
“On the topic of payment, I know you’ve already made your upfront payments for this little consultation. The rest can be brought when you come in cash. Any questions so far?”
He surprised himself by saying, “Not so far, no.”
You we’re far more thorough than he thought. He’d bought time before but it was never this professionally done, even by Valentino’s standards. Granted, with Valentino’s sex workers, there was really only one rule, payment upfront. He didn’t give a fuck about anything else.
You though? You had clearly given this a lot of thought on all parts.
“Good, I’m glad,” you said. “Those are my hard rules. Everything else is a little more flexible. So, tell me, what is it you want from tonight?”
“To have a good time.”
“Of course, we all want to have a good time, Vox, but I’m talking specifics. Don’t be naive,” you said. “I have full confidence you know better. Maybe it’d be easier if I told you what I’m best at.”
The lid of your lipstick clicked closed. You looked at the camera, looking at him directly on his screen by proxy, for the first time.
“I can do just about anything your cold, dead heart desires but I enjoy specific things more than others. I’m a bit of a dominatrix, I’d you will. I enjoy the power and control of giving people what they need instead of what they want. How does that sound to you?”
“It sounds to me like a very overlord thing to do,” he replied.
“Not there yet,” you said. “So, is that the role you prefer to play?”
“It’s one I play often.”
“Yes, I’ve gathered that but do you prefer it?”
Vox didn’t know why he didn’t just say yes. He should have. It went with his image to say yes and that’s why he was still agreeing to do this even though he and Valentino weren’t on the worst of terms right now.
He hadn’t crawled back to Valentino yet. It’d been one of their longer spells away from one another. Five months without even falling back into bed once.
Perhaps that’s why he said what he said. He was pent up. He hadn’t had time to unwind and the person he normally would go to for that he was still upset with. That’s the reason he’d go with anyway.
“It’s the role I play most often,” he said.
“But is it the role you like?” you asked. When he didn’t answer you smiled, a more genuine one than any flirty or sarcastic one you’d shot his way before. “Stubborn, I’ll keep that noted.”
“I am not—“
“You’re proving my point. Now,” you stood up and rummaged through a drawer he couldn’t see, “pick a set for me.”
For the next several hours, Vox felt like he couldn’t focus. He was nervous. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been nervous over a one night stand.
He left early, leaving his assistant with double the workload but he didn’t care. He just needed to be out of the building.
He took Vark out on a walk to pass time but it still went by so slowly. It took what felt like days for it to finally be time to leave.
He’d call it considerate that he left without his usual suit jacket, waistcoat, and tie but in reality, he felt so hot, constricted with them on.
He traveled through the cameras and arrived at the address he’d been given, not a single person having seen him.
He knocked on the door and that sense of security was promptly shattered when it opened and he heard someone say, “Holy shit!” in response to seeing him.
He glared at the offending person as he stepped in. He recognized them from being pictured on your website. They quickly spun around and continued doing whatever it was they were in the process of.
He was led to a room which when opened revealed you inside. You were wearing a shear robe that gave him a peak at what was hiding underneath.
“I was promised secrecy,” he said. “Not to be gawked at by the employees.”
“So you don’t want to be gawked at me?” you asked. You smiled at your own joke. “Everyone here is under contracted lock and key to not say a single word about what goes on inside these walls. You’re image will be fine.”
“Contracted?”
“You said I had the makings of an overlord,” you replied. “Why are you suddenly surprised that I have contracts? Don’t worry, I assure you they’re much more ethically sourced than your co-worker’s.”
He rolled his eyes.
“Speaking of,” you said as you took several steps towards him, “why are you here? I’d imagine you could have any of Valentino’s contracted cash free. Why waste it on me? I’m not exactly cheap.”
You held out your hand and he reached into a pocket to retrieve the other part of your payment. You swiftly began counting it.
“You fuck one of Valentino’s pets, you’ve fucked them all,” he said. “They’re all too scared to be any fun after a while.”
“As much as I know that’s a true statement—“ you put the cash in a drawer of the bedside table— “I don’t believe it.”
He felt his eye twitch. “And what exactly would you—“
“Why don’t you take off your shirt and lay on the bed?” You walked towards him and ran your hands up his torso. “Or I could take it off for you.”
You began unbuttoning his shirt and for some reason, it made him drop all his irritation. When you finished, you bent down and licked all the way up his torso. You kissed and nipped at his collar bone.
His hands went to your sides but you spatted them away. The shirt fell to the ground.
You looked up at him, like you were daring him to kiss you. However, when he went to do just that, you stepped away.
“On the bed face down, mister,” you told him.
He huffed. Despite his mind telling him to grab you and pull you in for a kiss, take you and remind you of who exactly you were messing with, his body followed your instructions.
The mattress dipped as you straddled him. Something popped open (he tensed), a bottle clinked as it was set on the table, and then the sound of you rubbing your hands together went through the air.
Your hands, warm against his skin and slick with oil, began to rub up and down his back.
“Why are you here, Vox?” you asked. “I’m not stupid. I keep up with the news. Did you think I wouldn’t notice that the day you made an appointment was the same day you updated your status to single again? It’s still single now so what happened?”
“Nothing happened,” he said.
“Uh-huh, and the fact that you visibly tensed as soon as I mentioned Valentino is just a coincidence,” you said. “Everything you say in these walls stays within them.”
“You’re the one who made the contracts,” he said. “You’re not under them.”
“True, but—“
You began to apply pressure with your thumb, grinding your thumb and hand in circles along his back.
“Oh, fuck.”
“—I also made them,” you said, basically repeating his words. “It means I place value in confidentiality.”
“Or covering you’re own— oh, fuck, right there— your own ass.”
“I could be.”
You leaned down and he felt toy trap his entire torso beneath you. He liked the feeling. He liked the feeling of you over him.
You got close to his face, “But I think we both know I’m not.” You moved back and he mourned the feeling as soon as it was gone. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. You’re just very obviously tense and not just physically.”
You punctuated your sentence by rolling the palm of your hand at the base of his neck before squeezing it lightly. He couldn’t hold back a moan at the feeling of some tension leaving his body.
You continued on like that in silence for a while. You were working out the knots in his muscles and he was basically putty beneath your hands.
He’d never been treated like this before. He had couldn’t remember the last time he felt loose. There was always some kind of feeling of unease he constantly carried.
He didn’t even know he needed this because he’d never known that he could have it.
You leaned to once again lay over him but this time he could feel the entire weight of your body instead of just your warmth. You wrapped your arms underneath his shoulders and placed a kiss to his neck.
“Are you alright to continue?” you asked him as you nuzzled against his shoulder blade.
“I—“ He tried to search for some witty or snarky remark to make but all he could come up with was, “Yes.”
You cooed at him and slipped your hands out from underneath him to rub his back as you got off him. “Using your words, what a good boy,” you said and he hated, hated how that made him feel so warm inside. “Can you turn around for me? Yes, good.”
He closed his eyes and refused to look at you. You laughed but it didn’t feel mean. That didn’t make him feel any less embarrassed, however.
You did a wider, full handed version of the back massage you’d given him to his front as you began to roll your hips against his. He couldn’t hold back a whine.
“Oh, so pretty,” you said. “Such pretty noises from such a pretty boy.”
“Fuck,” it came out weak and pathetic.
Well, it was fitting then because that’s how he felt, weak and pathetic. Such simply praise shouldn’t be so effective.
“How does that feel?” you asked. “Come on, be a good boy. Tell me. Tell me how to make you feel good, baby.”
You were kissing on his neck and shoulders now.
“Good,” he choked out.
You hummed against his skin.
He could feel his fingers flex. His arms moved. He stopped them. He wanted to touch. He should be able to touch. He should be able to do what he wanted. He was the fucking Vox, overlord and creator of the biggest tech company in Hell. He shouldn’t need permission to do something.
You grabbed his hands and brought them up to the knot of your robe.
“You can touch me, baby,” you told him.
A whine forced its way out of his throat no matter how much he tried to keep it at bay.
He opened his eyes and you were so beautiful, grinding against him like you were made to. He could feel his cock straining against his pants. He wanted them off.
He settled for untying your robe. It fell to reveal the deep blue set he’d chosen for you earlier that day. It was sheer enough to show off your nipples through the cross crossed pattern of the bra. There was a silver chain that draped between the cups and further framed your breasts. Some traps went around your torso as part of the garter belt which held up your similarly colored stockings. You looked gorgeous.
You laughed and guided his hands up to your waist. Then up to your tits.
“I love the way you keeping whining for me,” you said. “You’re like a little pup.” Your eyes honed on his neck and your hand followed your gaze. You pressed on his neck, just enough to add some pressure. “That neck of yours looks like it was made to be collared and leashed.”
“Oh fuck.”
You leaned closer to his face. “Would you like that, baby?”
His fingers twitched around your breasts. He rubbed his thumbs over your clothes nipples as a silent apology. “Please.”
“Oh, such good manners.” You applied more pressure to his neck, not enough to cut off his air supply. He arched into your touch. “But not tonight. Some other time, I promise. I’ve got a feeling I’ll be seeing you plenty, baby.”
You went to nip at his neck. His hands wrapped around to your back to hold you in place. Your own traveled down his torso and to his belt.
You undid it. You pulled down his pants but not his underwear. You slipped from his grasp.
You put your hands on either side of his bulge and ran your fingers over it. His legs spread open further as he tried to push up but you quickly put an end to that little action.
Your hands on his hips, you hovered your head over him. You licked a stripe onto the fabric. You began to suck him off with the barrier of his boxers.
He knew he was whining. His eyes wanted to screw shut but he kept them open, too transfixed by the visage before him.
Your own eyes were closed. Your hands, perfectly constraining his boxers, were wrapped around his hips. The tips of your perfectly manicured hands were digging into his skin. Your tongue lulled out and lavished him.
He could cum from just this alone.
However, as soon as the thought came to him, you pulled away.
“No, no, no, please, please, let me come,” he said, words flowing from his mouth before he could stop them.
“Aw,” you said with a chuckle, “begging so soon? How sweet. Don’t worry, baby, you’ll get to come soon. I’ve just got to see that little dick of yours first.”
The small bit of degradation mixed with all the praise made him twitch.
He’d never gotten any negative comments on his dick before. Rather the opposite, Valentino had tried several times before to talk him into at least faceless camera work but he didn’t want to think of the moth right now.
You pulled his underwear down to reveal his cock. It was length, a deep blue like the rest of him except were it was flushed vibrantly at the tip. He was already leaking pre-come. Milky white against his flesh.
You leaned over to lick it up. His eyes rolled back at the simple action.
Your smirked before you took him all your mouth at once. You slowly pulled up and let your teeth pull at the hood of his tip.
“Shit, shit, shit!”
He thrusted up into what was now just air as he twitched, his whole body convulsing but he didn’t come. He was on the verge though.
You shushed him as you stroked his inner thigh with your nails.
“Be a good boy for me and hand me the lube,” you said before you began sucking on the skin above his pelvic bone.
His hand went to your hair as he closed his eyes and moaned. It took him a moment to open them again but you didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t feel rushed.
When was the last time he hadn’t felt rushed while having sex? He couldn’t even remember. It was always about getting back to work as soon as possible or Valentino’s quick hits. It was never really about him. It was about getting rid of his boner or Valentino’s as soon as possible.
He liked this. He liked this feeling of. . . being cared for?
God, he was so fucking pathetic. He could feel tears filling his eyes as he reached for the lube on the bedside table.
“Are you alright, baby?” you asked. “Do you need to stop.”
“Fuck, please don’t.”
“Okay, we don’t have to stop. We can keep on going,” you said as you poured some lube into your hands. “You just keep on being a good boy for me, alright? You can cry if you need to, baby. It’s okay to cry, you know.”
That permission made it worse. He felt his face flush as tears began to stream down his face. This was pathetic. He was pathetic. He shouldn’t be crying. He’d rarely ever cried. Much less during sex, especially sex that he was enjoying.
“Can you bend your— oh, such a good boy,” you said.
You hooked his bent knees over your legs and pulled him into your lap.
You wrapped your hands, covered in warm lube (when was the last time someone had took the time to warm up lube before touching him?), around his cock and began slowly twisting your hands up and down. He couldn’t stop the weak thrusts.
“I’m sorry,” he said, repeating the phrase like a prayer.
“Shhhh, baby, it’s okay,” you told him, petting his thigh. “You take what you need. You’ve been so good for me. So good. You deserve it.”
“Fuck.”
He threw his head back against the pillow and then looked down at you. He immediately met your eyes, so soft and understanding. It made his stomach queazy.
He watched as his dick slowly was covered then revealed by your hand. It curved around him so perfectly, glistening with a mixture of lube and the pre-come he was leaking. You twisted your hand in just the right way.
You covered his cock and then revealed the head. You thumb lingered and smeared the pre-come at his tip. The point of your nail ever so gently grazed his hole and that’s what did it.
The lights flickered in the room as he spasmed and came. His screen went blank as he blacked out.
A few seconds later, he came to with you by his side with a glass. You tilted his head up and cupped your hand under his lips as you forced him to drink, any water that spilled was dropped in your hand.
You grabbed a cloth and wipes at his screen.
“Are you okay, baby? Was that good?” you asked and he could only mutely nod. “Good.”
You went to pull him into an embrace but stopped and looked down at your body. “Do you wanna clean me up or do you want me to do it?”
He followed your gaze and saw his come covering your torso, a bit of it even clinging to your bra. He leaned to lick it off you. You reclined onto the thrown of pillows and let him, stroking his shoulders and arms as he did.
He licked up to your bra and then was met with the rough contrast of the lace-like fabric compared to your smooth skin. He reached around and undid the bra. You let it fall and he licked where the come had been. Then he began sucking on your breasts.
“Oh, fuck,” this time it was you.
Spurred on, he reached down between your thighs and began stroking. You were wet, so fucking wet. His fingers slid through your folds with no hint of resistance.
He rolled your clit between two knuckles.
“Oh, so good for mommy,” you said as you continued petting him. “So good.”
He whined at both the praise and the title you had given yourself.
He began stroking you with a different purpose now. He needed you to come. He looked up at you, still sucking on your tit. He needed to see it.
Your breath quickened. Your pets turned into a tight hold. It was your turn to whine as your head rolled back and your mouth lulled open.
“So good! So good for me, baby, just like that,” you said right before you became incoherent. You groaned and moved up into his touch.
He went back to the tower feeling better than he could ever remember. The set you’d worn tucked into his pant pocket. You insisted, saying you had plenty of other sets. Who was he to refuse?
“Where the fuck have you been?” Velvette asked.
“Out,” he said as he walked passed her, in no mood for her screeching.
“For over two hours with your location turned off? You didn’t even answer your fucking phone,” Valentino said, voice raising to nearly as yell towards the end.
“Yes,” Vox said as he continued walking.
He heard Valentino laugh as he must have seen the lingerie set in his back pocket. “Were you really so busy fucking a hole that you couldn’t answer me? I hope they were good.”
“Better than you ever were,” Vox said before he closed his bedroom door, unwilling to let his lax mood be ruined.
A few months later, Vox was still going to see you. Absolutely hooked and you both knew it but so were you. You didn’t even made him pay but he still slipped money into your pocket or your bra so he wouldn’t have to face the fact that he was getting attached.
That was all thrown out the window when you released a new song. He wasn’t even halfway through watching the music video before he disappeared and found you, pulling you in for a bruising kiss and you knew exactly why.
The imagery in the music video was obvious. Pink smoke trying to creep into your studio only to be blocked, a deep blue body, TV screens everywhere. Then there were the lyrics:
I can give my babe affection without any type of infliction
You were just an intermission but I’m the center of attention
I’ve got him collared and leashed right where he needs to be
He’s down on his knees begging me with please
Better than any of his fantasies
Yeah, I’ve got his attention without infliction
371 notes · View notes
mrsbsmooth · 10 months ago
Text
Smut writing 101: What I wish someone had told me when I first started.
So a conversation with @queen-of-boops and @longbobmckenzie sparked this post. Sarah already wrote a list of tips for writing a villa fic which was really helpful and people expanded on it a lot, so we thought it might be helpful to share a few tips for writing smut from some of the writers that do it a lot.
This is a long-ass post, because I've learned a lot over the years. So right at the end, there's a mini how-to guide for how to turn your smut from IKEA instruction manual into an explosion of sexual tension.
In addition, I would love for others to add on to this. This fandom is horrifically talented especially in writing brain-melting smut, and this is just what I could come up with in a few hours. But I'd love to hear from other people and have them add on extra bits!
A few resources before we begin:
The Smut Writer's Dictionary
The Ultimate Guide to Writing Smut Fic [HIGHLY recommend sections ii (Reaction words), iv (sexy alternatives to 'said'), xii (generally acceptable slang terms) and xvi (Some do's and don'ts of smut writing).]
OneLook Thesaurus is much better than other thesauruses at suggesting words for smut (I've found).
Now, on to the advice!
Tip #1 - It's normal to find it difficult and cringe to write. Own it.
Smut can be intimidating. It can feel really cringe and awkward and you might feel like people are judging you for it, and you know what? Sometimes they are. Smut isn't for everyone, and not everyone wants to read it, and that's why ratings and tags exist on Archive of Our Own. But you shouldn't be ashamed of writing it. Smut is fun and awesome and people who do like reading smut often love reading it, and will absolutely eat up whatever you give them. So go nuts. Write what you want to see, write what you want to read. That's advice for everything, but it's especially relevant for writing smut. Because if you feel awkward, it can sometimes show through. Lean into it. Let it happen. If you make yourself blush, you’re doing a fucking awesome job.
Tip #2 - Writer’s block.
I've written hundreds of thousands of words of pure, unadulterated filth, and I still struggle to push into it sometimes. The leadup comes so naturally, the tension builds, they're kissing, they're starting to touch each other, and then-- writer's block. I stare at the page and tap my fingers and go... huh. Same with writing really effectual kisses, or writing orgasms. There's all this pressure to make it the best written orgasm that's ever existed in the English language and it really doesn't need to be. Just put something down. 
If your doc looks like this:She clawed at the wall, knowing she was coming apart at the seams, the pressure building inside her. He didn’t let up. [orgasm bla bla bla]. She took a deep breath. She drew herself off him. She turned around. And she fell to her knees. [blowjob and he's loving it].
Then your doc looks just like mine.
Tip #3 - Pick the right words for everyone’s bits. 
See the resource above for suggestions! People have very different preferences when it comes to what to call a cock or whether or not to use the word ‘cunt’. Adjectives, adverbs– there are so many different opinions. Like personally, I have to physically restrain myself from throwing a fic across the room if it uses the word hole but that is my personal preference, and I am massively in the minority there. But my advice is threefold:
Read widely to find out what you like,
Write what you like,
Know your characters. 
Language will vary by fandom, by character, and by setting, and it’s an opportunity to really solidify their characterisation by carrying this into smut. An arrogant fuckwit who’s bedding his mortal enemy in a fit of hate-sex might use ‘into her slick cunt’, whereas a sweet, wholesome guy who’s desperately in love might say ‘pushed inside her’. But the more you read, and the more you write, the more you’ll find certain words or phrases you’re more comfortable with. 
The more smut you read, the better understanding you’ll have of what you like. The better understanding you have of what you like, the easier it will be to write. 
Tip #4 - POV can help you
Picking the right POV can make your life easier. For example, I once wrote a M/M/M threesome. That fic ended up being my very first ever 'first person POV' fic. Why? Because it turned one set of ‘his hand’ into ‘my hand’. Made it easier to understand the logistics of ‘his hand on his waist’, etc. Maybe it's lazy, maybe it's genius. I thought it was a bit of both. 
Consider whose POV is going to be the most impactful. If you’re not sure, try writing a paragraph from each. You’ll figure it out quite quickly. 
Tip #5 - Dialogue
You don’t have to include dialogue in your smut, but it can really help with pacing things and showing when the ‘end’ is approaching. Anyone who’s ever read any of my smut ever knows I’m a huge fan of cutting people off mid sentence in smut dialogue. 
They start out with “Oh yeah? You think you can make me X?” And the other person goes “Sweetheart, I’m going to make you X so hard you don’t Y for a Z.” 
But then by the end it’s “You feel–” and everyone’s gasping “Oh, fuck–” and sobbing out “I’m so– I’m gonna–” 
To me, this helps to build pacing and tension and show without telling that the end is approaching. But honestly, that’s just me– I enjoy reading people being very vocal in smut, so that’s how I write them. If that’s not your thing, then don’t do it. Simple as that. 
Tip #6 - Don’t skimp on the finale
Orgasms are hard to write. We all know that. There’s all this pressure to write the best most explosive monumental earth-shattering orgasm that’s ever existed in fiction, and honestly, it probably won’t be. But you still need to give it the time it deserves. 
As an avid consumer of smut, there is nothing more frustrating than five pages of buildup, incredible smut, tension rising, rising, rising– and then the orgasm happens in two lines and they’re immediately having a conversation afterwards. This is, no pun intended, the climax of your scene. Give it a paragraph. Hell, give it two paragraphs. Give it four. The climax is something you can write in excruciating detail and it will almost always be better for it. You can decide whether they come at the same time, or whether one comes immediately after the other (personal fav so we get to read two orgasms. Yay! Two cakes!) You can hyper-focus on every single sense. Here are some examples for writing orgasms:
Feel/Touch
The feeling travelling through the character’s body/ zones: up their spine, through their thighs, ‘deep inside them’
Their partner continuing to thrust/move
Their partner’s grip on their body, or maybe a kiss
Fingernails digging into shoulder or raking down a back
Legs squeezing
Smell
Personally I think this works better for the leadup and afterwards, but if you want this in here you absolutely can. Pheremones, cologne, aftershave, perfume, sweat, hair gel– whatever makes them smell like them. 
Sight
Their partner’s face and get detailed! Lips parting, brow scrunched, eyes closed, face in beautiful agony, wax poetic as fuck about their partner's face! What is hotter than making someone come and watching their face while you do it!??!!?
Darkness (blindfolded 👀)
‘White light behind their eyes’ is a cliche for a reason (fucking love this one)
Seeing stars/heaven see above lol
Taste
Harder to put into an orgasm but salty skin, lipgloss/lipstick? Whatever you want really
Sound
Big one. Their partner’s breath or moan as they watch/feel character’s peak
Their own breath/moans (or lack thereof can be just as effective, a ‘sudden silence’ as their breath catches in their throat can work WONDERS)
Bodies slapping together (doesn’t always work but when it does it does)
External sounds, especially rhythmic ones. A train clacking or a club baseline could simulate a heartbeat/shockwaves that you could lean into.
Pick multiple senses and focus on them. This will fill up a good bit of your climax writing. 
But you should also let them come down from it! DON’T SKIMP AFTERCARE (or after-hate??)
Tip #7 - Aftercare!
I missed this so often when I was new to writing smut and I didn’t realise how effective it could be! I always just faded to black immediately afterwards because I didn’t want to deal with the ‘cleanup’. And you don’t have to go into detail, but at the very least, give them a few minutes– a paragraph or so after the sex. The immediate aftermath of the act itself when you can really focus on the relationship. 
If they’re mortal enemies who’ve just fucked and are now horrified? Have them panting into each others’ skin. Their breaths suddenly become sharper and more reserved. They pull back from each other. Someone glares or someone says something snarky or awful. Someone showing aftercare or affection here (or being particularly cruel) reveals a lot about their character.
If they’re deeply in love and it’s comfortable for them to do so, maybe let them just lay there for a second, enjoying the feeling of each others’ bodies and letting breaths fall warmly and smiles tug at cheeks. Soft kisses, laying in silence, affection, etc. 
If they’re best mates who just fucked by accident, have the silence be awkward and have no one breathe at all. It’s tense and awkward and one has to ask the other to go get a towel or something and the other is like ‘oh, yeah, um, right’. 
Don’t skip this! It can be so impactful!
Overall Tip - Beware the ‘IKEA Instruction manual’!
The #1 most common mistake, in my opinion, in writing smut is ‘Insert Tab A into Slot B’. It’s things like, 
He moved his leg A, she touched B. He lifted her arm to C, holding her D’s, before slipping down to cup E. She ran her hands up F, touching his G, feeling his Hs caressing her I as she lifted her J and draped it over his K.
When I read this, I’m not focusing on the smut. I’m doing mental gymnastics trying to keep track of what position they’re in in my head because I’m assuming that it’s important. If you feel yourself doing this, stop. Refocus. Remember whose POV you’re in. This isn’t to say you should never tell the reader what’s happening. Just make sure to break it up a little!
Balance actions with senses. 
Let’s say you start with a basic action. (The example is buildup to smut, not actual smut, but the idea is the same)
“His hand moved from her knee to her thigh.”
-> Instead of writing what they’re doing, write what they can sense.
“His hand moved from her knee to her thigh” becomes “She felt his warm hand slide from her knee to her thigh.”
-> Now, make the phrase active. Instead of ‘she felt’, make it a description.
‘She felt his warm hand slide from her knee to her thigh’ becomes ‘Warmth erupted on her skin as his hand slid from her knee to her thigh’.
-> Give it details, and draw focus to them.
His fingertips skimmed her inner thigh as his hand slipped from her knee and moved higher. The silk of her skirt gave way to the warmth of a coarse, rough palm. Her skin seared beneath it. But every other inch of her shivered with anticipation.
In three steps, you’ve gone from IKEA tab A to slot B to a pretty good section for building tension. 
Examples of writing senses:
What can they feel? - ‘She’d never been so pent up, so wired, so on edge, and every flit of his practiced fingers on her waist had goosebumps shooting up her spine’.
What can they taste? - ‘She could taste the sweat on his skin, the coconut suncream on his shoulders, the salt of the ocean on the hints of stubble at his jawline.’
What can they smell? - ‘Her forehead pressed to his, that smokey, heady cologne engulfing her; curling her closer in time with his arms around her.’
What can they hear? - ‘He watched her every move, breathing quickly, so she looked him directly in the eyes as she undid his belt. Belt. Button. Zip purring as she tugged it down towards her.’
What can they see? - “Then, they opened, and he was treated to the sight of her looking up at him from her knees. Her eyes said fuck me. Her mouth said fuck me. Everything about her. Fuck me. Fuck me.”
I hope this was helpful in some way. I really would love to hear any other tips and tricks that writers would like to add to this. Obviously Mo and Sarah are already tagged, but this is a full and open free-for-all.
Add your thoughts! Add what you've learned! Add what you wish you knew!
I'd love to hear it <3
180 notes · View notes
sabotage-on-mercury · 5 months ago
Text
I've never been one for New Year's recaps, looking back at the year's achievements (which achievements asks the imposter syndrom) and highlights, mostly because it forces me to look back at the year's low points as well. I prefer to sort everything away, nice and tidy, in the back of my mind, put on a smile and pray through gritted teeth that next year will be better - not out of conviction, but because it simply has to be. 
A few days ago, I stumbled across some lines from a fic I wrote a few months ago, and it stirred something in me. At the time I wrote it, I didn't believe a single word of it.
“Well, stay curious. And brave. You're not stuck where you are forever. It might take you a month or another seventeen years, but you will find something that keeps your soul alive. And it will be worth every minute searching for it.”
Sure, I was clinging on to life with a grim conviction that one day it wouldn't be so painful just to be alive. But that life could actually be good? Hard to imagine. 
For many years I never dared to look back, but today I feel brave enough to do so. 
And I see one of the darkest periods of my life. I see all the tears and panic attacks and hopelessness and anger. I see the days when I was sure I wouldn't make it to today. I see the wounds and scars that this time has left on me that will probably take some time to heal completely, if ever.
But there is something else that I see even more clearly. Little moments that shine as bright and warm as stars in the night sky.
I see the conversations with the most amazing people over tags, DMs, texts, phone calls, video calls that have brightened my days - and then the absolute joy of meeting my friends in person, being invited into their lives, going on trips, spending a wonderful time together, and the prospect of so many more visits to come.
I see moments of being brave, silly and irresponsible - and being highly encouraged to do so - and how that has given me my spark back.
And yes, I also see Good Omens, the comfort it continues to provide in spite of everything. And, of course, the amazing fandom, with its wonderful creators and creations that bring so much beauty to the world. 
I see the hours I spend writing, the joy (and agony) of bringing a vision to life, and the pride of actually finishing something - and then having people take the time to read my stuff and actually like it (still feels unreal). I see myself getting excited about new ideas that may never see the light of day, but that I still love telling to people who are equally excited about them. 
I see the people who have come to me for support or encouragement, who have made me feel helpful, who have made me feel like a relevant part of their writing process and their lives, which still fills me with awe.
I see the journey of finding love, for people, for experiences, for things, and loving them deeply. 
I'm standing here and I can say with certainty: I feel loved. And I'm so grateful for the ways, big and small, that people show it to me again and again.
I see all these people holding my hand and waiting patiently with me until sun rose again and beyond. And I feel at peace. 
And I can look back and embrace it all. 
So is everything all right now? 
No. I still have bad days, I'm still bitter about the challenges behind me, and I see the challenges ahead, and I know I have a long way to go, to create a life I want.
But I'm here. 
I feel alive.
I'm so, so happy to be alive. 
I'm beaming with excitement for the beautiful moments to come, however few or small they may be.
And it's worth every minute, every year I've spent looking for something to make me feel that way. 
So to all of you: Thank you.
You matter, to me, to the world, to someone in your life. 
Happy New Year!
52 notes · View notes
pastafossa · 4 days ago
Note
hey Pasta! I’m new to posting on AO3 and wanted to ask a veteran - I was inspired a LOT by you and TRT to start posting my own writing, and I noticed there’s an “inspired by” option. authors don’t find it weird when you reference them, right? like I would be flattered, but that’s just me :) is there any etiquette that I should be following or tips you have for new AO3 authors?
feel free to answer privately if you’d prefer! I hope you’re having a good brain day! 💕
HELLO FRIEND!
First I am SO so happy TRT could help inspire, I fucking love that, and it feels like a lovely way of keeping the chain going from the fic authors who help inspire me to start posting my stuff!
So I can only speak for me for the 'inspired by', but I have absolutely NO issue at all and I'm always super, super delighted when I get that AO3 email that says there's a new work inspired by mine! I can't think of any other authors I know who'd be weirded out by it either, if it helps. There's a reason that function exists on AO3. If in doubt you could ask of course, there's no harm in that either. But yeah at least for me I'm always incredibly flattered and happy that my work could inspire someone.
I'm also happy to share some AO3 tips and etiquette things I've learned over the years!
Etiquette Rules TM I've discovered:
Make sure you're only marking a fic as 'complete' when it's actually complete. Some folks are posting WIP and chapters and have it marked as complete because 'each chapter is done'.
Only tag your fic with things that are actually relevant. So even if there's a background ship that gets 1 line referencing it, I wouldn't tag that ship. You'll just upset the people who are (understandably) searching for that ship and read your fic only to find they get a single line.
No posting 'fic coming soon' or idea placeholders. I've seen this pop up more and more lately, and not only will it get your fic taken down, but it's considered a huge no-no in terms of AO3 etiquette.
This one is a little subjective, and you'll find a few debates about it, but generally speaking, the etiquette rule is that it's better to risk spoiling something if it means you're tagging the fic with relevant warnings and tropes, versus leaving an important tag out to keep things surprising. Examples might be pregnancy, main character death, or self harm. Not only are there people who are hunting for that type of fic (meaning you should be tagging it so they can find it) but it's usually considered rude to just let someone walk into that blind. If you really don't want to have any of those tags, use the 'Author Chose Not To Use Warnings' and then add a tag about how you're choosing not to tag things so that it won't spoil anything. Basically warn them that they could find anything inside the fic.
At the same time, don't blow the page up with 50k tags. That'll annoy people in the opposite direction. There's a fine balance. I generally tag: major relationhips and characters, the genre, major tropes (found family, slow burn, etc), any major triggers, and then a few flavor tags ('human disaster Matt Murdock'; 'watch me make up legal shit', etc). For anything smaller, if it's a trigger I just warn about it in the author's notes.
Do not link to anything like a Ko-Fi or Patreon or anything that involves money in the author's notes. Not only is it against the site rules but it's considered very bad etiquette.
Do not do not do not change your story's publication date after the fact to keep 'pushing' it to the front page, holy hell is that a big etiquette no-no.
Tips TM I've Learned:
Slashes between character names are for romance. & between the character names are for platonic relationships
Summaries can be a bitch to write, but try anyway! And whatever you do, do not put 'lol this is bad' or 'i suck at summaries'. I realize the self-deprecation makes it a little less scary, but you'll absolutely get less people reading (in part because if you imply you're bad, plenty of people will believe you and won't bother reading). Give people a brief sense of what's in the fic, or even a snippet from the fic itself!
Don't bother tracking Kudos-to-Hits too closely, especially as time goes on. Each reader can only leave a kudos once but every time they re-read, they add another hit to the counter.
Sometimes what does well and what doesn't isn't really logical. Over my years on AO3, I've seen fics that logically should do well (massive active fandom, popular ship, well written) have terrible numbers where fics that logically should do terribly (inactive small fandom, less popular ship, writing banged out in 30 seconds at 5 am) do amazing. So as you go forward, be prepared for occasional ???s in either direction.
The Tagging System is your friend, learn the tagging system, love the tagging system! The tagging system is both how the people who DO want to find your work will find it, AND how the people who do not want to read your fic can avoid it. As above, I've found that generally you want to tag the major characters, relationships, tropes, and triggers, because they are what people are either looking for (hooray! your target readership!) or avoiding (why would you want them to open your fic, see it's not what they want, and immediately back out?).
If you're writing your draft in AO3's text editor and saving it as a draft, PLEASE KNOW IT WILL EVENTUALLY DELETE AUTOMATICALLY, IT DOES NOT STAY THERE FOR MONTHS OR YEARS. Safer to write using something like ellipsus (what I use) or docs, or even your phone's note taking system.
Formatting is occasionally wonky when being transferred from one location (say, docs), to AO3's posting system. Always make sure to preview it before posting, to make sure all your italics and paragraph breaks haven't been fucked up. This is an issue that's been here for ages, we just deal with it at this point.
Those are the things I can think of off the top of my head, I hope they help! There's definitely a little bit of a learning curve when it comes to AO3 but it is SO worth it, there's nothing quite like it and it's been amazing as a writer to grow with it!
29 notes · View notes
accirax · 5 days ago
Text
Deciphering Gleamingtempest's DRDT Character Playlist
Hello!!! For those of you not in the know, @gleamingtempest recently posted a fan-made DRDT playlist with one song for each character in the same vein as the one @venus-is-thinking and I made a year and a half ago. Both because I was tagged directly and because it saddened me that I wasn't able to participate in the Tetro Pink one (due to not having watched Tetro), I, of course, wanted to throw my hat in the ring this time around! Although, because I want to get this post out quickly due to other obligations, I will be trying to keep this one relatively short and sweet. Relatively. We'll see how quickly that gets out of hand.
Thanks to Gleamingtempest for putting this fun puzzle together! If you want to play for yourself, make sure to give all of the songs a listen before reading my analysis.
Spoilers for DRDT through the end of Chapter 2, and CW for mentions of self harm and various ways to die.
I know I said short and sweet, but it wouldn't be an accirax post without a couple of disclaimers up top.
I saw that Pawsmos shared their own interpretation of the playlist in the notes of the original post, but I haven't actually read them yet! This analysis is all my own. I very much look forward to seeing what Pawsmos deduced after writing all this out, though ^_^
There will likely be some times in this post where I critique a song assignment, possibly calling it "a bad fit" or "not making sense," when that song assignment actually turns out to be accurate. Please understand that, in those instances, I'm not at all critiquing Gleamingtempest, their song choices, or their character analyzing skills. Most likely, I'm just calling my own logic or shots called bad. And even if I wind up disagreeing with some of the assignments, I still 100% respect Gleamingtempest's interpretations as different but equally valid to my own, and the work she put into making this playlist.
Obviously, Venus and I are the only people to have ever made a playlist analysis post like this (/j). But, if someone had made their own playlist analysis post, perhaps for Danganronpa: One Shot's official character playlist, I could imagine that they might have decided to include a number ranking displaying how confident they were about each assignment. That clever-yet-nonexistent person would have had a good idea, so I'm going to steal it.
(^I'm so sorry to everyone who hasn't read FF's DROS playlist analysis post, that bit was probably very confusing if you weren't caught up with the quote unquote lore 😅)
Okay, now let's go!
Alien by Lebanon Hanover: Levi Fontana
Tumblr media
Confidence rating: 7/10
Alien is a song about someone who feels like they'll never fit in with their peers, which certainly fits Levi and his lack of remorse towards... most things in life. Mentions of a "brutal town" (likely matching Levi's rough upbringing) and how "small talks simply have no relevance" (which could fit with Levi's admittance that he doesn't really care about anyone in the killing game) also feel fitting along those lines. Things like pondering if anyone would notice his disappearance and keeping a "delighted face" work a little bit less, but they're easy to overlook in service of the major themes and fitting vibe. Plus, for Levi, things like the delighted face and "laughing at jokes of you" could just be an exaggeration of the typical pleasantries people are supposed to display when chatting with one another.
I'm pretty confident that this is Levi's song, especially because I'm not completely sure which other song he would pick up if this isn't his. However, I know that Nico also deals with feelings of alienation from their peers, so I wouldn't find it too hard to believe that Alien is Nico's and I'm just missing signs of Levi elsewhere.
curtain call by KANKAN: David Chiem
Tumblr media
Confidence rating: 8/10
Apologies that this entry doesn't have any actual lyrics quoted in it; the music video itself seems to be the only source of English-translated lyrics online and I'm too lazy to skip around in the video and write stuff out :P
curtain call depicts a person who seems pretty detached from life and their perception of themself. They call themself meritorious and applaud themself for committing a "perfect crime" in one breath, and call themself a cynical puppet in the next. This matches up perfectly with David's ping-ponging "strategic evil genius" and "manipulative scumbaggy piece of shit" self-interpretations. The mention of being reborn near the end of the song also reminded me of the "secondary delayed introduction" from the infamous LGI MV.
Also, I mean... this song just oozes David energy all over it. The fact that it's called curtain call and mentions actors was already going to make me think of someone dealing with showbiz, AKA either David or J. The person in the video straight up looks like David down to the hairclips, and my choice of sprite in that header image was 100% intentional. And, furthermore, the character in the video puts on a mask around the 1 minute mark of the song that looks like the mask shown in Undead Enemy? Which I know that Gleamingtempest and I at least both believe is David's song on the official playlist???
The only reasons why I put this one as low as an 8 are that 1) 10/10 is only for songs that have been outright confirmed already, 2) the fact that I can't view all of the lyrics at once next to each other is making it harder for me to get a wholistic view, and 3) there are some other songs on which David could be kinda helpful, and if those are where he actually belongs then this could go to someone else. Not entirely sure who, though. J, maybe...?
Butcher Vanity by FLAVOR FOLEY: Veronika Grebenshchikova
Tumblr media
Confidence rating: 10/10
I've seen a lot of DRDT characters drawn in the style of Butcher Vanity's MV-- J (likely due to Hayley's wonderful cover), Arturo (likely due to Lucius' wonderful cover), Arei, Veronika, and, just now, Min, while I was looking for the two aforementioned covers! However, I've always been of the opinion that, of the DRDT cast, this song easily fits Veronika best. And, I know for a near-fact that Gleamingtempest agrees.
Tumblr media
Can't beat my memory on this o-- wait, fuck, you had Hu on Bitter Medicine and Teruko on TrusT here as well? Ohhhhhhh no, that's going to make the rest of my post really wrong. How did I miss that...?
Um, well, I guess I'll remain with my original assignments, since switching it now feels like cheating and reassembling so much of the playlist would take me a very long time, since I'd have to remake my graphics and fight all my original assumptions. You'll just see it reflected in the confidence ratings, I suppose 😅 This is not a bit btw this is a 100% genuine revelation)
Getting back on track, the mix-up of love and violence in this song perfectly fits our killing-game-stanning queen, and the frequent expression of others telling the singer to tame their impulses only for the singer to celebrate them is very reminiscent of Veronika dealing with her need for heart-pounding excitement. A horror fan would call a bleeding, cut-out heart an "aortic work of art," wouldn't they?
This is Home by Cavetown: Hu Jing
Tumblr media
Confidence rating: 0/10
Immediately jumping into an assignment that I now know is wrong, here's Hu with This is Home! Well, here we can take a look at where I went wrong. I liked this song for Hu because, even if she isn't as notably focused on defeating the killing game as, say, Eden or Xander, she's still someone who tries very hard to be a force of good in the killing game, and her desire to be of use to people made me see her as the type to promise to help everyone escape (even if she didn't have a specific plan).
While the lines about cutting one's hair and hiding one's chest have a pretty clear trans interpretation (and Hu is not canonically trans at this time), I found it natural to connect those things to Hu's known history of self harm. Although self harm and body dysmorphia/negativity don't always go hand in hand, I, at least, could picture a world in which the blades used to cut Hu's hair were misused for other purposes, which would perhaps lead Hu to hide injuries on her chest.
Lastly, I felt that the "get a load of this monster" section reminded me of Nico, while the "get a load of this trainwreck" section reminded me of David: two characters with whom Hu's characterization is tightly intertwined. Might just be a me thing, but when I assign songs to characters, I often let them have sections singing about other people when those characters are 1) related to the singer in a meaningful way and 2) doing something important, like attempting to kill Ace or blowing up the Trial. Here, I thought Hu might have been doing the same thing.
I was never super confident in this choice, which retroactively makes sense, because it was wrong. On my first listen, I wrote it down on my whiteboard as "Xander? Hu???" However, looking at it again, I wouldn't be surprised if this one is just Nico themself. That would make the trans-coded parts make more sense, and then the "get a load of this monster" section could just be Nico talking about their own perception. The "get a load of this trainwreck" could I suppose still be about David, but it would probably also just be about Nico and the star mention would be a red herring. I'm still not so sure that Nico would be the type to be committed to getting "us" out of here (as opposed to just getting "me" out of here), but perhaps that's just a difference in opinion. Or, maybe it really was Xander all along. Or someone else who I haven't even thought to consider yet! :O
Tongues & Teeth by The Crane Wives: Teruko Tawaki
Tumblr media
Confidence rating: 0/10
And, we follow This is Home up with another song that I now know is probably wrong, Tongues & Teeth! I still think it fits Teruko very well, though...
Tongues & Teeth's singer very clearly has poor self esteem. They describe themself as sharp-tongued, dangerous, destructive, greedy, and ruinous, and try to ward off a potential romantic interest(?) with depressing omens of their future together. However, they seem to have at least one soft spot deep down, as they acknowledge that, if the other person is truly willing to accept them for all of their faults, they too would be willing to enter a relationship.
Due to Teruko's luck, her "break[ing] your pretty things" and "wring[ing] you dry of everything" is both literal and accurate. If you spend a long time around Teruko, she believes that you will be negatively affected by her luck in some way. Such luck also caused Teruko to be distrustful and hurtful throughout the majority of Chapter 2, hence the sharp tongue and "not being a vessel for your good intent". I could certainly see her giving this warning to Eden or Min, or possibly Xander or Charles as well.
However, with the heads up that Teruko's song is very likely TrusT, I have to consider other options. Obviously, Mai is always a big mystery, and if she's another Lucky Student with a similar effect to Teruko, then she could have gone through similar things. Teruko is also far from the only character with self esteem issues, so this song could be attributed to someone like Xander, David, or Rose instead. Disregarding the rest of the list, I might pick Xander for this song out of those options...? See, this is why I decided to not totally rework everything, I don't know what I'm doing anymore ;-; (/lh)
Hello, World by Louie Zong: MonoTV
Tumblr media
Confidence rating: 9/10
Unless someone else is going really hard on the robot analogy, this is easily MonoTV's song. It's a song about a robot being brought into the world, and pondering its purpose and capacity for emotion. This mirrors MonoTV's scene with Teruko in which it reflects on what it was made for ("does a toaster know why it toasts?"). The little robot in the music video even looks like MonoTV, with the simple white face on top of a flat blue background.
There are a couple of students who suffer with feeling different from/less than humans-- David, Nico, and Levi, off the top of my head-- who could absorb this song. However, I'm not really sure what else MonoTV would pick up in the interim.
MonoTV getting a Louie Zong song, and Rose's official playlist song being Cartoons (which I think pretty much everyone agrees on)... ROSE MASTERMIND CONFIRMED?! (/j)
Waiting for the Joy by The Staves: Rose Lacroix
Tumblr media
Confidence rating: 6/10
I think this song fits Rose pretty well, I'm just shaken about most of my placements now so my overall confidence is low lol
Anyways! Ever since Waiting for the Joy opened on "I've been asleep for a week and I don't know / Where I've been," I had it pegged as an option for Rose. Then the song went on to describe a person who's trying their hardest but can't manage to find any happiness in their life, and... well, that certainly didn't dissuade me from my original Rose opinion. "Tell me what to do and what to do it for" is a highlight, as it mirrors the way that her entire artistic output is under the jurisdiction of the Spurlings, so that she can attempt to pay off her debt. "And my hair got long" also reminded me of Rose being able to call out minute distinctions in her physical appearance in the Prologue.
That being said, on the whole, this is a pretty generic song about depression, so it certainly could belong to any of our other sad folks of the cast. Still, the passiveness presented in this song makes me think of Rose, and her tendency to take a back seat in her own life.
Still Waiting by Sum 41: Xander Matthews
Tumblr media
Confidence rating: 4/10
It makes me giggle that Waiting for the Joy and Still Waiting wound up next to each other in the shuffle. It makes it sound like they're talking to each other :)
At a first glance, I think that Still Waiting seems like a clear choice for Xander. The punk rock sound is something that I associate with the Ultimate Rebel, and the way that the singer calls out the hatred and injustice in the world also feels befitting of that title.
However, when you actually take a look at the lyrics, the singer doesn't really... do anything about those injustices? They continuously ask if they're still waiting, but they never challenge themselves to take a stand about it whether their answer is yes or no. In fact, they keep saying things like "Can't find hope to believe in" and "We're in a war that can't be won," which seems to be the exact opposite of Xander's belief that major systems can be changed. On my first listen, I thought that the song would resolve with the singer deciding to fight on despite lacking hope in the world, but that resolution never came. There's no actual rebellion presented in the lyrics.
Ultimately, I left Xander here because I wasn't sure who else wanted it. Maybe David or Ace? But now that I know that a lot of my list is objectively wrong, I'm as unconfident as ever that this is correct. I guess I'm Still Waiting for inspiration to strike here :P
Death Anxiety by Bleeding Through: Ace Markey
Tumblr media
Confidence rating: 6/10
I mean, the title really says it all. Ace has anxiety, is dead, and had anxiety about the concept of being dead. What more could you want?
I like the way that the song mentions a lot of different ways that someone could die (flames, buried alive, cancer, one million knives, etc) and how that mirror's Ace's execution. I also think that, given the references to "walk[ing] with the dead" and "eternal sleep await[ing] me underground," it would really make sense for this song to go to one of our four (five?) dead options, which, again, Ace is one of.
That being said, in a killing game, surrounded by death on all sides, it would be pretty understandable for anyone to be worried about dying. "Every night I fear is the last with you" also strikes me as a little strange for Ace. I would have to imagine that line would be targeted at Levi, but even so, I don't think Ace would be willing to admit that so candidly, if he even felt that strongly about it in the first place.
If I were to hand this song off to someone else, it would probably be Charles, given his necrophobia and his greater proximity to/care for a couple of his fellow students. Still, the fear of death is one of if not the defining characteristic of Ace, which is what makes me think that this would land in his court.
Pollyanna (I Believe in You) by Catherine Warwick: Eden Tobisa
Tumblr media
Confidence rating: 8/10
This song is so cute, and pretty much perfectly encapsulates Eden's life philosophy! The song even acknowledges the Terukos of the world with the line, "You may say I'm a fool, feelin' the way I do." Pollyanna is about someone with a knack for finding the beauty in the world, and choosing to channel that energy into believing in the people around them. It even has a reference to time near the end, for all the Ultimate Clockmakers out there.
I'm fairly confident that this is Eden's song, but I wouldn't be totally shocked if she was assigned the similarly optimistic Shelter later down in the playlist, instead. I also noticed that this song is apparently from the Mother/Earthbound series, so, I'm not sure if I'm missing any context there? But I believe that I can get at least a couple of songs on this playlist right, and that's why I believe in this!
Carousel by CJ the X: J Rosales
Tumblr media
Confidence rating: 1/10
That 1/10 isn't related to any of the earlier shakeups; Carousel was sadly just my "process of elimination" pick of this playlist. Personally, I wasn't able to pick up vibes of any DRDT characters from this song, and I also didn't feel like J fit many of the other songs on the playlist. Thus, these two wound up together...? I'll try to defend my choice as best I can.
First of all, lines like "Perfect circumstance to write" and "You're a star, name your price," as well as the additional context of CJ the X being a music producer/YouTuber themself, made me associate this song with working in a creative and/or performance-based field. J fits both of those boxes. The line I highlighted on the banner image could also definitely be about Mariabella, as it's said with the same bluntness that J uses to insult her greatest foes.
However, that's about where my associations end. "Everything will be alright / Darling hold on tight" comprises many of Carousel's lyrics, but it's a placating sentiment that I don't think fits J's hotheaded tsundere nature very well. The whole second verse, the part about "Reminisc[ing] about your hand in mine" also doesn't have a clear target thus far in J's story. Out of the options, it would probably be Arei, but saying "You're too kind, I am a disease" about their relationship seems a little silly.
My other main contenders for this song were David (but I decided that I liked it better with David on curtain call and J here) or Whit (but the other song that I put Whit on didn't seem to match J at all). In the end, J and Carousel were the ones I turned into my dump stat. I think I'm just missing a piece of the puzzle with this one, so I won't dwell on it any longer.
TrusT by half alive: Charles Cuevas
Tumblr media
Confidence rating: 0/10
See, this one being wrong makes sense to me, because I actually wanted to give TrusT to Teruko, but I thought that Tongues & Teeth fit her so well that she couldn't possibly go here instead. Hence, I put Charles on TrusT as a sort of "lesser Teruko." So, I can kinda claim a partial victory on this one, at least :,)
Still, I think there was a definite argument to be made for Charles here. TrusT is a song about someone who doesn't want to trust in others, but ultimately is kind of forced to due to being in an actually healthy relationship for once. Trust is a deep ocean, but one that the singer knows that they're supported in. Trust is an old, tall tree, difficult to cut down and known for weathering the seasons. "How sweet, the taste of certainty / The gift you gave is safe with me"-- over and over again, they reiterate that, even though they're afraid, they've actually found something that they can trust in for the long haul.
While trust as a theme is more integral to Teruko's character, Charles appears to be farther along in his arc of learning to rely on and let his walls down around people. So, the assurance present in this song could have reflected that further step of growth. Similarly, I think that, at this point in the story, Charles is closer to having a true trusting relationship with Whit (or at least admitting to it; see Chapter 2 Episode 3) than Teruko is with Eden, or anyone else.
However, I'm just nitpicking to defend my initial assignment. I think that TrusT is an excellent predictive pick for Teruko, and that by the end of the story this will match her development to a tee. I just now have to figure out if I can shove a Charles-shaped peg into a Tongues & Teeth-shaped hole...
Bitter Medicine by The Crane Wives: Nico Hakobyan
Tumblr media
Confidence rating: 0/10
I just realized it was both of the Crane Wives songs that I initially messed up. I'm sorry, Crane Wives.
The beginning of the chorus is the main thing that initially drew me towards Nico. Letting their complaints die on their tongue so as to not draw any hatred towards them is Nico's main character struggle of Chapter 1 and the beginning of Chapter 2, so I immediately drew a connection between that occurrence and these lyrics. "Stolen sympathy / For all my worst mistakes" also reminded me of how Ace was blamed for what went down in the Gym, even though Nico was the one who was actually out for blood.
However, the whole "worst mistakes" thing fits with Hu's hidden quote super well, and I did think that "Don't look up to me / I'm not as tall as you think" was a little off for Nico. Nobody ever really looked up to them, and similarly, they never promised to get everyone out of the killing game, be a great emotional support, etc. Hu, on the other hand, does want others to rely on her, yet might feel guilty for asking them to do so due to her lack of faith in herself.
I do think that the titular "bitter poison" aspect fits Hu a bit worse than Nico, given that Hu's two biggest moments thus far have been 1) chastising Ace and 2) chastising David. That doesn't sound to me like she's "keep[ing] the worst of the words in" :P But, now that it's been pointed out to me, I do think that this is a really solid choice for Hu! On top of some very fitting lyrics, the general vibe matches her pretty well too.
But Not Kiss by Faye Webster: Whit Young
Tumblr media
Confidence rating: 3/10
This song has very few lyrics, and even fewer when you discount all of the "Yeah, yeah"s. Therefore, I am relying a lot on the fact that the song has "kiss" in the title to assign it to the Ultimate Matchmaker.
The best part of this song for Whit, in my opinion, is the "I hope you're okay" segment, which I highlighted in the banner image. It shows that, while he does care about others, he's worried enough about drawing out negativity that he chooses inaction. It's very "bitter things go down the drain" of him.
The rest of it... well, it's a bit of a stretch, but we know from Whit's profile that he's been unlucky in securing a romantic partner for himself. Whether that's just a facet of his personality or a hidden part of his talent, it's possible that his prior bad experiences with relationships would lead to him keeping someone he really likes at a distance, and thinking things like "You're all that I have but can't get."
However, Whit wound up here because I wasn't entirely sure who would go here in his absence. I think that Charles, Min, or David could have relationships that you could interpret as doomed romantic interest. Now that I've had a bit longer to think about the implications of Teruko TrusT, I think my overall shuffle might be
Charles -> But Not Kiss
Whit -> Carousel
J -> curtain call
David -> Tongues & Teeth
? (I didn’t double check that very hard.) Although then I have to get rid of David curtain call, which I liked a lot. I don't know.
Let me reiterate that I am having a fun time, though! I'm just struggling within that fun 😅 and hoping that I'm not coming off as too much of an idiot.
by x0o0x: Min Jeung
Tumblr media
Confidence rating: 2/10
I'm glad that I was already mildly aware of x0o0x's shenanigans before seeing this list, because the lyrics would have been really tricky to look up otherwise, lol. Anyways, this is going to be my longest entry, so strap in. Also, Genius Lyrics refers to this song as Slash, so I'm just going to call it that so that I have a word to use.
I was really struggling to interpret this song-- beyond just "I'm invisible at the train station"-- before I noticed that, on the Vocaloid Lyrics Wiki, this song was inspired by the Japanese horror story, "Kisaragi Station." Hilariously, I was already somewhat acquainted with the story due to the Garupa Pico episode, "Mashiro Station," but that's neither here nor there.
The urban legend follows a schoolgirl named Hasumi who accidentally falls asleep on the train home, and wakes up in a station she's never heard of before. The story is told through Hasumi's POV, posting on social media about her experiences. She tries looking around for people, but no one is there, and she tries calling for help, but no one can find the station on any maps. Eventually, she hears drums and bells, and finds an old man with one leg yelling at her from the train tracks. Hasumi tries to run away into a tunnel, injuring herself, and reports that she's found a person willing to help lead her to safety. However, said person wouldn't tell her where they were going, and started muttering mysteriously. The story ends with Hasumi saying that her battery has run out, and then she's never heard from again.
With that context, the lyrics of Slash make a lot more sense. However, I actually don't think that the lyrics are trying to be a perfect retelling of the story. I think that x0o0x is riffing off of the original structure to tell a new story.
In the first stanza, the singer arrives in the station, and someone comes out of it. Originally, I thought this was in reference to the one-legged man-slash-ghost, but he was on the tracks. Instead, this is a divergence point from the original story: Hasumi tried to look in the station and no one was there, but there are people in the singer's station.
Therefore, my interpretation of this song is not that the singer has arrived in Kisaragi Station, but that they're so afraid of being sucked into a story like Kisaragi Station that it impacts how they behave in regular life. If Hasumi's troubles started when she questioned the station, and she got injured when she was trying to run away, then the singer won't do either of those things, and instead stay completely stationary so that nothing scary can happen to them. In essence, the singer chooses to sacrifice their personhood by making themself invisible and avoiding talking to anyone to avoid the possibility of anything hurting or scaring them. They refuse to take a chance on anything.
That's why there's the lyric, "The truth is, I want you to come meet me." Unless this is just a horror fanatic who secretly wants to be abducted by a ghost (which I suppose would be fitting for Veronika, lol), there's no reason why they would want the ghost to approach them. Instead, I think this is something inside the singer knowing that all of the people around them are likely harmless, and seeking connection with them.
In the end, the singer gets what they want: for no one to acknowledge them, so they basically disappear, and no one will ever come to talk to them. But, once they're finally, truly alone, they realize that they should've stopped that with all they can muster.
For Min, I associate this with her relationship to Hope's Peak and/or XF-Ture Tech. Via the end of Chapter 2, it really seems like XF-Ture Tech was involved in the creation of the killing game somehow, which would make Min aligned with the very thing that ultimately killed her. Therefore, you could say that Min is a schoolgirl who wound up in a dangerous location (XF-Ture Tech), but was so afraid of making any of her powerful compatriots angry that she fully retreated into the inoffensive, obedient Ultimate Student to avoid any consequences for rebellion. However, in the end, she wishes that she had spoken up and made friends with her classmates, because the consequences of bending to the fear of XF Tech's wrath were just as bad or worse than what would've happened if she'd tried to lead her regular life.
Anyways, that's my very long-winded explanation for why I didn't give Slash to Mai! There's a very obvious interpretation here where you just put the mysterious, missing, probably dead girl on the story about a mysterious train station in which a girl goes missing and probably dies, but... well, there was another song I really wanted to give to Mai. I'm fully willing to admit that I'm probably wrong here, but in my heart, Mai has a different song, and Min lands here.
Alien Blues by Vundabar: Arturo Giles
Tumblr media
Confidence rating: 6/10
Much like But Not Kiss, Alien Blues doesn't have a lot of lyrics, especially if you don't count all of the "Na-na-na"s. I'm also not entirely sure what this song means in the big picture, but it has a lot of individual lyrics that fit Arturo well.
First off, "I'd do anything for you, Mrs. Highness" can obviously be about J. Now, we all know that Arturo wouldn't actually do anything for J, because if he did then he'd leave her alone, but it still fits with his devotion to celebrity. "My teeth are yellow, hello world / Would you like me a little better if they were white like yours?" fixates on appearance as a signifier for worth much like Arturo does as the Ultimate Plastic Surgeon. It also has the added benefit of talking about Arturo's mouth, something he's always kept hidden (potentially out of insecurity). The "I need to purge my urges" section I put on the banner makes sense with Arturo's feelings towards Felicity. He attacks Eden when she merely brings up Felicity's death to seize a violent outlet for the guilt he feels for letting Felicity die.
Yeah! I think this song and Arturo are a good match, but since I don't understand what the song is overall trying to say, I wouldn't be surprised if this was meant for someone else. That being said, I don't really have anyone else in mind for this song, or anywhere else I'd like to send Arturo, so...
Shelter by Porter Robinson: Mai Akasaki
Tumblr media
Confidence rating: 5/10
This is the song I really wanted to give to Mai!!! Thus far, everything we know about Mai points to her being an awesome person who everybody loves. And, she seemingly returns that love to everyone around her: the whole premise of the Bonus Episodes thus far is Mai spending time with and comforting her classmates, and the quote combo of "A girl with many friends" (Whit) and "Everyone confided in her" (Nico) proves that idea as well. Hell, Hu's quote, "A girl who wanted to keep everyone safe" is literally about Mai giving everyone shelter!
And, it's not like supporting everyone else is the only connection that Mai has to this song, either. Lines like "Have you noticed I've been gone?" and "And they won't need to know our names or our faces" directly allude to the fact that the singer isn't amongst the person/people they're singing to, just like Mai. The whole "you'll be watching over us / Until you're gone" part gets a little confusing in the pronouns-- it'd be cleaner for Mai if it was "I'll be watching over you / Until I'm gone" but the general sentiment of the lyrics still makes sense.
I'm very impressed that we've managed to have two incredibly Mai-coded songs (Shelter and Slash) on this playlist, as going into it I imagined that she'd be one of the hardest characters to hit. Instead, I'm just daunted by having to choose between them! As I alluded to earlier, I do think that Eden could take Shelter in Mai's place, but that would leave Pollyanna open, which is probably an even harder slot to fill than Shelter. Perhaps I should've put Min on Shelter instead, and related it to how she protected Teruko from becoming the first victim. But, this is the arrangement I went with, and I'm happy with it! ... For now.
Primadonna by MARINA: Arei Nageishi
Tumblr media
Confidence rating: 8/10
As someone who's been listening to Primadonna for... I think about a decade now? (yikes), I'm surprised that I never had the thought to connect the song to Arei before!
Arei's "being a girly girl is awesome!" mentality lines up perfectly with her calling herself a primadonna, and cutely claiming that "All [she] ever wanted was the world." She also embraces the duality of "I know I've got a big ego" and "I'm sad to the core, core, core," given how she acts with the others versus how she feels about herself inside. The song doesn't really reflect any of Arei's struggles with feeling like she's a uniquely and irredeemably bad person, but... does it need to? I don't think so!
While Arei probably could go in other places, I don't know who would take on Primadonna were she to move. I guess it would probably be either Arturo or Whit, but to me those feel like stretches. This one, in my mind, is not "kinda difficult."
-
And, that's the end of my analysis! This whole post turned out very different than I thought, given that I learned that four of my assignments were dead wrong partway through, but I hope it was still an enjoyable read! I also hope that that pivot didn't make what I wrote come off as me trying to argue with Gleamingtempest that her choices were wrong, because that was not at all my intention! I just thought that it would be more interesting to hear my original thoughts on how I would've assigned the songs than to fully conform to the correct answers and just reiterate what she was probably already thinking.
Thank you again for the fun puzzle, and I look forward to learning what the true full list is! Take care.
19 notes · View notes
pawpunkao3 · 3 months ago
Text
Grice's Maxims and Tone Tags
What are Grice's Maxims?
Grice's Maxims are four qualities that people assume speech to have. People aren't explicitly taught these rules, and might not be able to put them into words, but through conversations, many people subconsciously pick up on them. The four maxims are:
The maxim of quantity: everything you say should contain as much information as needed to get your point across—no more, no less.
The maxim of quality: everything you say should, to the best of your knowledge, be true and supportable by evidence.
The maxim of relation: the things you say should be relevant to the topic at hand.
Maxim of manner: you should be clear, brief, and unambiguous in your speech.
Combined, these four maxims make up the Cooperative Principle—the idea that people should communicate with the intention that the other person will understand them.
How do People Use Grice's Maxims?
When people communicate, they usually subconsciously assume that other people are following these four rules of communication. That means that people will assume what someone is saying to them:
Contains the necessary information
Is true
Is related to the situation
And is not meant to be confusing.
These assumptions are what allow some people to understand a meaning in a sentence that was never actually stated. For example, take the following conversation:
A: I'm hungry. B: There's bread and jam in the fridge.
The maxim of relation tells A that B is telling them about the bread and jam because it's relevant to them being hungry, and the maxim of quantity tells A that B believes this to be sufficient information. From this, A can guess that B is inviting them to take some bread and jam and have a snack.
However, sometimes, people don't follow these Maxims. They can do so either by violating them or flouting them.
Violating is when someone doesn't follow the maxims and doesn't expect the other person to realize. If A said "I'm hungry" and B responded "there's no food in the house" when there was, B would just be lying. They're not trying to communicate.
Flouting is when someone doesn't follow the maxims and assumes the other person knows it. If B heard A say "I'm hungry" and responded, "there's no food left in the entire world", they would be flouting the maxim of quality, because that's not true. However, they don't want to lie to A—they're trying to make a joke. Successfully flouting a maxim requires that the other person realizes that you are breaking the maxim on purpose.
What are Tone Tags?
Some people (most commonly autistic people) struggle to pick up on social cues (such as Grice's Maxims and their uses) that others just get instinctively. Tone tags can be thought of as a way of making those maxims explicit, rather than just implied, so everyone can understand the text and subtext of a conversation.
Tone tags are typically written with a / (forward slash) followed by a word or abbreviation that denotes a specific tone. Commonly used tone tags are /j (joking), /hj (half-joking), /s (sarcasm), and /gen (genuine).
Why do Some People have Issues With Tone Tags?
Not all tone tags map clearly to a specific meaning. Some tone tags aren't immediately recognizable as having a specific meaning. For example, a person might interpret /s as serious, rather than sarcastic.
Furthermore, some tone tags might have an ambiguous meaning even if you know what they are short for. "Half-joking" isn't just one tone—it could mean anything from "this is a joke with a grain of truth" to "this is truthful, but I'm giving you leeway to take it as a joke if you don't wanna talk about it" to "this is a joke, but it's not a very good joke".
Some people may feel they are overused. Some people may tag every or nearly every statement they make, which can make people who don't need those tone tags feel like they are being belittled, or make them feel pressured to use tone tags on every sentence, too.
Some people may feel they are underused. Some people may not use tone tags, causing those who can't read tone well to miss out on the meaning of what they are saying.
Not every sentence has one meaning that can be easily summarized. Sometimes, a sentence may have more than one meaning. For example, one clause of a sentence may be sarcastic or joking, while another is sincere. Or, a sentence may be intended to be innocuous to most people, but an in-joke to the writer's friends. Using tone tags can remove that ambiguity, or even destroy one of the interpretations of the sentence.
People can misuse tone tags. In the worst cases, bad actors might write a truly cruel message, but tone tag it in a way that suggests it wasn't meant to hurt. In this case, the tone tag isn't meant to clarify tone, but to obscure it to anyone who might hold them accountable.
Fixing Tone Tags with Grice's Maxims
In my opinion, the best way to use tone tags is to always keep the Cooperative Principle in mind, both when tagging sentences and when interpreting them. Here is what I think would be useful:
Quantity:
Every sentence CAN have infinitely intricate tones. That doesn't mean it should. Use the fewest tone tags possible to communicate the tone of a sentence.
DON'T tag the "default tone" of a message. For example, tagging a request with /nf (not forced) could communicate that you think that the default tone for requests IS to force someone to do something. Because of this, although /nf is a non-aggressive tag, overusing it could actually make a situation seem more hostile.
Likewise, you don't have to tag every non-sarcastic statement with /gen (genuine).
Generally, if you aren't intentionally flouting a maxim, you probably won't need to tag your tone.
When flouting the maxim of quantity by providing too little or too much information for comedic purposes, it can be helpful to add a /j tag. If you're flouting it because there's something you don't want to say, tell your conversation partner to leave you alone.
Quality:
Generally, people try to tell the truth, so I'll skip right to...
When flouting the maxim of quality by lying on purpose, you need to make sure your conversation partner knows that you're lying with a tag like /s (sarcasm) or /lie. In my opinion, a /lie tag makes jokes like these funnier!
Relation:
If you're bringing up something that is related to the topic, but it's not obvious how, you can add a tone tag to clarify how it is related.
When flouting the maxim of relation by bringing up something unrelated, tone tags like /j can help clarify that it isn't supposed to be—or, you can just say that you're changing the topic.
Manner:
When using tone tags, make sure everybody knows what each one means (not just what it stands for, but what tone it communicates).
If a tone tag is ambiguous, consider writing out the entire word, or describing your tone rather than using shorthand.
When flouting the maxim of manner by making a sentence that is ambiguous on purpose, you kind of can't use tone tags. But be ready for people to interpret what you said in a lot of different ways.
Final Remarks
Tone tags aren't your only tool for clear communication. You could always consider rephrasing a sentence to make the connection between things clearer (for example, "there's bread and jam in the fridge" -> "there's bread and jam in the fridge, do you want some?") or writing another sentence to clarify your tone.
If you're communicating with the goal that other people understand you, you need to use the tools that they can understand. Tone tags can be helpful for some people, but they might actually make things worse for others. The most important thing is to accept that no matter how clear you make yourself, some people will misunderstand you anyway. You can always clarify things after the fact, and laugh about it later.
47 notes · View notes
vestaclinicpod · 4 months ago
Text
Audio Drama Sunday - 9th February ✨
I’ve listened to loads of audio drama this week and had a fantastic time doing it!! 
🌲 @hellofromthehallowoods (179) WE ARE SO BACK BABEY. What an absolute FEAST of voice acting talent in this ep!! I was so excited to hear so many voices I recognised. Don’t get me wrong, jus because I love their VAs, it does not mean that I would trust any of these Indescribables as far as I could throw them… I saw a very interesting reference to the riddle posed to Penny and Friday on Tumblr! What do you MEAN ‘The watcher will bring it’??? Also, my goodness, Nik, the minute I heard Noptilnopt’s voice . . . you are in hugeeee trouble. Like, big, big trouble with that heart of yours…. 
🦋 @remnantspod (27) OH!!!! Oh my god!!!! Okay, but that makes so much sense!!! My heart immediately broke for little Ted with his fear and his scars ☹️☹️ It’s very interesting to me that Stephen Grenville appears to have killed Pauline at the end there. IIRC the last Stephen Grenville murder was the poker player? I thought that was the Apprentice posing as SG?? Man, I really need to just relisten to the whole thing to untangle all these red strings!!!
🧋 @hinaypod (35 & 35.1) Gosh, I feel like I learned so much Elder Lore in this episode!! I’m trying to tie all this back to the DJ In The Dark ep about the Williams Crypt but I might need to relisten to make it click! All I know is that I would give my life for Pocket and I think that’s a normal reaction. There’s still so much mystery surrounding J’s disappearance. Hearing how hard Dooley looked for him makes me SO SAD. 
🗺 @tales-from-the-low-city (15) This episode dealt with the chilling aftermath of the discovery regarding the air supply. I found the part about particular residents feeling guilty for even breathing really interesting. I can’t draw direct comparisons, but there are definitely elements of life (particularly in the UK) that so clearly are a result of the abuse of others and it’s hard to fathom what to do about that as an individual. The ending of the episode leaves more questions than answers, but I’m so invested in finding out what will happen next for The Low City!! 
🍾 @ameliapodcast (48) Oooh, it was so good to hear more about Jackie! As someone who also had a failed attempt at running away from home as a kid, this story really struck a chord!! (My parents did not put a tag on me, I just figured that hypothermia wasn’t the way I wanted to die). I can really feel some kind of redemption arc coming on for our CIA ladies and I’m here for it. 
💍 @forgedbondspod (7) Aw! They’re making friends! This Aphrodite/Ares pact about falling in love SURELY won’t be relevant any time soon . . . Surely. I’m really excited to hear from Apollo solely because I love hearing Leon in things hehe. 
🔮 @spiritboxradio (1.1-1.4) I’ve had such a fun time listening to these first few eps of SBR. Sam is endlessly endearing and I love the augury reports in particular! They remind me of a WTNV horoscope in a really good way! What a charming start to what I’m sure will become a firm fave!! 
Have a great week!!
24 notes · View notes
curmemini · 19 days ago
Note
hi hiii, i saw you complaining about bad owen takes and i wanna ask about your owen takes! What are the biggest misconceptions you see people have about him? What are some things that more casual fans tend to miss/not notice? What do you think of the normal owen and kizu owen split?
feel free to make this as detailed or as simplified as you wish ~☆ i just like seeing people talk about their favorite wizards!
OMG IVE been thinking about how to answer this for days IM SO EXCITED TO YAP!
I will start though that I don't have a lot about Kizu atm, because there's a LOT there but we really don't see Kizu!Owen very often. I know we're a tad behind on event translations, but.... I don't think he's been in an event or card story since Main Story 2 wrapped up, other than Owen's Walpurgis 4koma.... can we have a moment of silence for Kizu!Owen likers? I miss our sweetie. And more.. hi this is Cee after writing all of the below I got really inspired to start working on a handful of character essays so expect those in the tag at some point..
In terms of misconceptions, I think the biggest ones I see are that Owen is incapable of knowingly doing a positive thing. Or that he isn't capable of being kind, compassionate or merciful. (dodges rocks). I get why people who aren't total Owenheads come to this conclusion. It's easy to take what is said about Owen (and the Northies as a whole) as gospel, in fact, I think the Northerner's serve a really interesting role in the thematic relevance of prejudice against wizards. After all, in MS1, the reader gets one small look at Owen after the Calamity battle where he is with the other Northies plus Oz as an introduction, four lines of dialogue and then he is gone for forty-thousand words. While he is off-screen, we only ever hear negative things about him - Heathcliff says he's scary, Cain tells Akira about his eye and to not listen to a thing Owen says, the Previous Sage calls him maddening and creepy and basically every other character who talk about the Northies calling them the Worst Ever. Not a great first impression, and there is a lot of time for that perception to sink in and go unchallenged. And I'll admit, even after they officially make their debut at the party, the Northies don't go out of their way to challenge that perception obviously - why would they? after all, words are a curse and titles a burden; they've all carried the title of Northerner for so very long, can someone please write something about Oz's Balcony speech I think there are a lot of reasons for why Owen's role in the party was so fraught (and I go into them a little here although that post is more part-vent part-summary of an event card spurred by an ex-oomfs twt vague than proper analysis)
But it's not just how long that we are only told of the Northies vices or their lack of defense; even after their introduction and all throughout the stories, trusted figures, like the Twins (which trusting them is dubious...) and Oz, reinforce the idea of Owen being entirely malevolent and insane. Owen is evil because Owen is the Northern Wizard Owen. He seeks to twist your heart into a withering husk. But does he really?
I think the biggest misconception is that Owen's one and true goal in life is to cause chaos and misery, to reap untold amounts of violence. That's a goal he would never deny having, but he didn't deny killing Nicholas either, did he? This perception about what Owen wants (when he doesn't even really know it himself) puts on blinders, where the times that he is benign or even kind or compassionate get overlooked, over explained and twisted into wickedness by other wizards. Those words might be slightly too warm for him, but I know for a fact there is a case to be made for him being merciful and having a more nuanced relationship with killing and death than others would believe. I think there are many events which showcase the nicer parts of his personality (one of my faves is Winter 2022; his part in it is relatively small but it showcases a unique facet of his relationship with lies/truths as well as the gap between him causing misery versus, but we've seriously had so many banger events.)
But luckily, even if one doesn't want to scour through the backlog of miscellaneous events to see these traits on display (or are one of the people who only take Bunta's writing as law of the world), we see Owen act in contrary ways to the ideal of a wicked Northern wizard all throughout the main stories and anniversaries, in big and small ways.
In particular, I think in all of the excitement of the final showdown in the second Anniversary, the details that Bunta had written in regarding Owen's involvement is overlooked. They are, after all, small things compared to the great feats of magic that Akira is witnessing.
Spoilers below for anni2 for any anime-onlys or fandom newcomers, welcome and I hope dearly we get to see that animated one day.
First, and this is so important to me, throughout the fight, Akira states that Owen is keeping one hand on his hat to prevent himself from losing it. At this point, they have already made the transformation into their event outfits. As in most events, Anni2's clothes were tailored by our dear Chloe. Owen does have a bit of a fashionista streak (that's something I think can be missed too, that he has a genuine interest in style) but not to the extent that he is typically that cautious with his outfits. There have definitely been times he's allowed clothes to get ripped, torn or otherwise ruined. So him going to the effort to make sure he doesn't lose this accessory is noteworthy. After all, he does have other hats. While Owen is stated to be using a rapier in this fight, typically the stance used for it has the other arm lowered; as I understand it, that aids balance and power. Owen isn't using the rapier as a channeling tool, he is actively slashing at Oz with it. So, he is putting himself at a disadvantage by keeping his arm in that position. That is - Owen cares more about keeping the hat that was given to him by Chloe than he cares about giving 100% to a fight against the strongest wizard in the world, when he comes from a place where strength is the defining characteristic.
Then, ironically, this hat then serves as a way for Owen to shield his heart from the western wizard once the fight is over. As the fighters are recollecting themselves and going off to lick their wounds, Owen stumbles in pain. To everyone's surprise, Chloe catches him. This is a moment of kindness, but it is also a direct acknowledgement of Owen's current weakness. Yet, despite such a thing being a direct jab to any Northerner's pride, Owen barely lashes out at him at all. Even though he was irritated from the results of the battle, he simply stares, likely just as surprised as everyone else that someone would support him, then tells Chloe to leave him alone. Akira says an expression of hurt crosses Chloe's face and, seeing that, Owen pulls the hat over his eyes and looks away before disappearing.
Owen would have the entire world believe he loves misery of all kinds, loves being the cause of it. These negative emotions are the driving point of his magic and he certainly just used a lot of mana in the fight against Oz. So, why would he just walk away - not just walk away, look away - from a chance to not just push back against Chloe's kindness, but a way for him to generate negativity and "refuel"? An argument could be made that his lack of his typical wordy rejection, laden with insults, is just a consequence of the fight - he's tired, humiliated, not even desserts can lift his mood. Owen just wants to go and sulk.
I think if that was the case, this would be an isolated incident. But we see him look away from or react similarly to other's true multiple other times. He looks similarly irritated (or even guilty) in his affection story after he told Akira he hated them.
This post is getting pretty long so I'm going to wrap up quickly, but another incident happens during the fight that I think should be focused on more:
When faced with the opportunity to kill Arthur, and deal a horrible wound to Oz's heart by doing so, Owen hesitates. The wizard who doesn't care about anyone or anything, who is alone completely, who loves violence and bloodshed, who wants to see nothing more than Oz's face twist in agony has a chance to inflict utter despair upon many of the wizards in the manor
and he hesitates.
What a crazy good character. I could make an essay off of a single line of Owen's dialogue if needed, he's so seriously rich in layers.
Other things I think can get missed: his sentimentality (see: his efforts to keep his hat, but also how he has reacted when handed certain gifts (also talked about that above), the multiple times he's exorcised or otherwise helped souls move on (unfortunately one of my favorite examples is a now-deleted card story if anyone backed up his 2nd mahopa or would be interested in translating it..), the multiple times he acts as an impromptu teacher for the younger wizards. There's definitely more and I can expand on all of these but I'm getting sleepy... thank you for the question and feel free to let me know if i should clarify something or if im forgetting something major. THANK YOU FOR THE QUESTION!
16 notes · View notes
genderqueerdykes · 4 months ago
Note
Re: aroace tagging discourse
Speaking as an aroallo person, my (albeit limited) exposure to this discourse has been less "never tag reblogs with #aroace EVER!!!" and more "Every time I try to go through the aro (and even aroallo, for some reason) tag, a vast majority of the posts I see are more about aceness than aroness, and I'm tired of not being able to find posts that are relevant to my experiences."
Like, I don't care if an aroace person tags an original post or reblog with both tags, I'm just frustrated that I can't even find community with other aroallo people because the majority of aro people are also ace. Even the tags for aroallo people specifically is somehow full posts that are about asexuality and are therefore not something I can relate to. The aroace and alloace communities are huge, and that's great! I'm happy for them! But, just once, I would like to find a community of people who are like me without feeling excluded for being one of the only people who is aro but not ace (not that aces don't accept aroallo people, they do, but it's obviously hard to be in a space where most people don't want to discuss sexual or horny topics while being someone who ONLY experiences sexual attraction.) We're the fringe group of an already fringe group, and it's sad. There's not much out there that's designed with us specifically in mind. :(
hello there! thanks for taking the time to send an ask
unfortunately, i'm still gonna have to ask people to correct this behavior because it IS hurting other people for the sake of being self-centered and petty. i'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but the "aromantic" and "asexual" tags are for all asexuals and aromantics. as you stated, if you want stuff for just aroallo people, there are tags for that. i know there's not much content, but that doesn't mean that someone gets the right to make aroace people feel uncomfortable and like they can't even go into the two tags that their identity is comprised of.
if there's a lack of content in aroallo spaces, that is your sign to fill in that gap. making aroace people feel like shit for interacting with posts literally made for aromantic and asexual people is not the way to go to get more alloaro content and people to interact with. think about the inverse: would an aroace person getting mad at alloaro people and saying that it's wrong to reblog a post that's just tagged "aromantic"? what if the OP isn't alloaro? would that give them an excuse to harass alloaros?
unfortunately, friend, the behavior still sucks ass and it's not okay. again, if you want content made specifically for alloaro people, that tag is quite literally right there. if you're not seeing what you want to see, that is your calling to do it yourself. i know it might suck to hear that, but this really doesn't give anyone an excuse to make aroace people feel like shit for using the aromantic and asexual tags. they're STILL aromantic. they're STILL ace. and they're not getting upset at you that they can't relate to you. this behavior is really unfair. try to reframe your line of thinking.
the aromantic community is not owned by alloaros. it's for ALL Aromantics.
the asexual community is not owned by alloaces. it's for ALL asexuals.
i hope this makes sense. try not to take other peoples' identities seriously. i know how much it sucks to feel left out, but this is your sign to build a stronger alloaro community. if you want to see it, you have to put yourself out there and do it. complaining about a lack of content will not make some more magically appear out of thin air. i'm sorry if this is harsh, but this behavior hurts people. it cuts them deep. and it's not fair to assert that the aromantic tag is for people who aren't ace, and that the asexual tag is for people who aren't aromantic. it makes no sense and it's excluding people for the sake of being self-centered. please try to reframe your thinking. as rude as this may sound, you are not the protagonist of the aromantic community. i am not, either. none of us are
as an aromantic person on the asexual spectrum, it doesn't bother me in the slightest when i come across alloaros in aromantic spaces. i can't relate to them with regards to their sexuality, but we're both aromantic, and there is plenty of ground there. i have no right in telling them that they don't belong, they have no right in telling me i don't belong. this is a specific issue with specific aromantic people being acephobic, and specific ace people being arophobic. it's not an attack on you, it's being directed toward someone else, and it's not cool to think that they should deserve to feel isolated from their own community just because you don't relate. you can't relate to everyone in your community. diversity is key. we need general aromantic spaces to stay diverse. we need general asexual spaces to stay diverse.
21 notes · View notes
antisocialxconstruct · 8 months ago
Text
okay I've been thinking about this poll all day and. I have some thoughts lmao
Obviously we all know a tumblr poll is not exactly a reliable way to do a demographic survey and of course you're disproportionately going to get responses from active rebloggers because... the people who don't reblog aren't going to reblog your poll, are they? BUT I do think there's something to be said for the evidence that people currently active on tumblr are disproportionately people who have been on tumblr a long time, and trying to lay the issue of declining engagement at the feet of "new users" not understanding site etiquette is... well, flattening a more complex issue (gasps of shock and horror). So I've been thinking about other things that could explain the supposed issue people are identifying:
new users who don't know site etiquette: okay yes, I'll admit that it IS A Thing. I have seen the very very small sampling of people who recently joined and didn't think reblogging was "for" them for whatever reason--they think it's rude to reblog from someone you don't know, or they feel obligated to add something insightful to every reblog, or whatever else. But I also don't think people realistically operate under these misunderstandings for very long. All you have to do is use the site for a while and follow a few different people to realize no one else is abiding by those kinds of rules, and people who want to be active and engage with other blogs will start doing it pretty fast.
a lot of early users left: there have been a few waves of people leaving tumblr for various reasons, especially the porn ban and various other Bad Decisions made since then, and also some people just migrated to other social media sites that suited their needs better or aged out of their interest in fandom/blogging/etc. Some of the people who used to most actively use tumblr the way you think is "correct" may just not be around anymore.
shifting demographics: I know tumblr used to be almost exclusively associated with fandom, but you have to accept that there are a lot of people doing a lot of different things here now. Some people are treating it like a diary, or a dev log, or just a place to be really obsessed with something singular and niche. They may enjoy your work, but if it's not what their blog is for, they're not going to put it on their blog.
larger numbers don't translate 1:1 into more interaction: I can tell you this one from extensive personal experience. After a certain threshold, your follower count, the size of a fandom, the overall userbase of the site, none of it actually means a proportional number of new people engaging with your work. You will have a stable base of established fans/followers who have stuck around long enough to be invested, and an occasional new person who discovers your work and is enthusiastic, but for every one of those there will be five, ten, twenty tourists and casual enjoyers who might like to see what you make but don't resonate with it enough to directly respond to it. (Double that ratio again if you're asking for money.) Expecting all or most of them to make the switch to active fans will drive you nuts.
you're confusing interaction you want with interaction you "should" be getting: look. Nobody wants to hear this one. But is your engagement actually bad or are you just not reaching your desired audience? This could mean any number of things, if you're trying to build a presence or start a career, are you posting at peak hours? Are you posting in a way that's accessible to people? Are you using relevant tags, doing enough self promotion? It's grueling. People want to be so proud of how tumblr has no algorithm and no influencers so you have to accept that you're playing on hard mode. Alternatively, if what you want is a cozy, close-knit fan community, are you cultivating that? Are you engaging with other people's work with the energy you expect from them? Are you starting conversations and respecting boundaries? These communities don't just spring into being organically, they have to be fostered and maintained.
25 notes · View notes
aizawashuichi · 2 months ago
Note
If you still have it (and I know you do, you're not me, to delete things and regret later lol) please please post again that detailed presentation of wammy's layout and structure, please...
My greatest piece, so I can't delete it even under torture lmao. Since it was an ask, I included that part too.
Anonymous: Salutations. First off; I would like to thank you for humoring my questions, by far. Having been in the fandom (Death Note) for quite a while can be daunting at times considering how persistent everyone is on certain views that, more often than not, contradicts the canon itself, though I do not mind the originality. Some of the questions you might remember answering from me would be; 1. How unfair it is for everyone in this fandom to go full autobiography mode on Light Yagami but wrote a piss poor characterisation of other characters. 2. L would not enjoy fighting for Justice under Light's idea There might be more, but these two are the ones that I remember writing and asking. I rather enjoy reading your point of views. Being an avid Lawlight shipper myself (which you might found dissapointing, and for that, I apologise) I found it rather... boring that most, if not all, were very insistent that L would join Light's side if given the opportunity while writing him very, very poorly. I enjoy these two through the energy they emitted while actively going against each other. Not when they shook hands and went about it all the same like a carousel ride. Second: What is your opinion on the whole Wammy's House organisation debacle? On A and B? The whole Successor Programme? I don't like it. Having being nurtured the same as these children does, I absolutely resented it. Partly because of how harmful the product of the whole environment, largely because of how it reflects the morale ground Quillsh Wammy stood and what he believes in. I despise men in suits, even more so than people in orange jumpers or stripped, black and white outfit. (Call me E.H. I would like for us to be friends. Mutuals.)
Please, E. H., I would be honoured to be mutuals, but how could you betray me like this? Mid-message? Dropping a bomb of that size on me and my blog?
Seriously, though, I would like that. I will overlook this little flaw of yours, because not everyone can be perfect, and I will accept you with open arms.
Okay. Really dropping the act this time. You don’t have to apologies for shipping them, even though I suppose it was more ironic than anything. I already have mutuals that are like you. I filtered out the various tags concerning L/Light – there are a lot of variations –, and I am fine.
I will survive if I add one more… Hopefully — but I think, in this case, it is more of a “probably”, because you do seem to share some of my views on the whole manga/anime and that means we have some common ground, even though I believe that is not that difficult.
I am really glad you like reading my long-ass posts, because I do enjoy writing it. I actually was waiting for some kind of feedback from you, because, truthfully, I wasn’t sure if your opinions were supposed to be just published without any input from me or if you actually wanted me to say something.
I was both confused (didn’t understand why you decided specifically my blog, since it’s not that well know) and delighted by them.
In any case, I am happy to see this message, especially the last part. You are the first person on here who explicitly stated the wish for my friendship. I didn’t expect that at all. I’ve been told that I seem intimidating, and I still don’t get why, so seeing that someone isn’t put off by this, it’s a nice feeling.
I will now get to your questions, and the post is going to be long, because it’s on a topic that I am actually working on and wanted to do a post of my own, but felt like, “why would people care?”, so I am glad that you do.
PREMISE
I need to make a premise before, because I feel like this is relevant to understanding my opinion.
I would love to kick myself in the face every time I happen to mention it (even though I do so to help my motivation), because it seems that I bring it up so many times and it’s making me annoyed, like, “can this bitch (me) just shut the fuck up already?”. However, it’s important in this context.
I am writing a fanfiction about the Wammy’s House, during L’s years there. And, since I am doing this, my idea of the Wammy’s House is crafted in a way that can make my story work, but I do realize this, so I will try to eliminate all my OCs’ stuff (I think I’ll mention them), even though I still believe that some roles or events I have created can be considered plausible (not canon, of course), because they help explain some things that I noticed about L while reading the manga.
Another thing is that this is a work in progress and while I have an outline for the plot, a lot of things about the Wammy’s are still not definitive. So, everything I say is not set in stone. [This question also made me realise that I made a huge error when it comes to the timeline of my fanfic, which screwed up half of the outline, but thank you, I guess.]
Other than this, Ohba left a wide-open door for any interpretation of Watari and the Wammy’s, because he didn’t think too much about them. He just wrote them in for plot purposes and never developed them properly, so anything goes, theoretically, so maybe I will be a bit more lenient on both. I don’t deny the possibility of them being pretty fucked up, because I cannot say that what I think is completely backed by canon. To each their own, but since you have experienced a similar environment, I had to preface this, because my view on it doesn’t adhere to the reality of some of these institutions, and I don’t want you to believe that I’m oblivious to the real-life problems that occur.
I think I took more liberty here, because I had few things to start from, and I’m really fond of the idea that the people (Roger and Watari too) at the Wammy’s were like a family, with its ups and downs (more downs than ups – even in my fic, so I realise that not everything is all peaches and cream). It’s just the wishful thinking of my younger self that so desperately wanted to be part of that world, and I have a hard time getting rid of it.
I must also say that most of my choices regarding the Wammy’s structure and organisation is based on “gut feeling”/intuition. More often than not, I feel if something is right or wrong, even though I can’t pinpoint exactly what’s the reason for that. I just have the impression that something must be in a certain way, and if I don’t comply to this, it just feels uncomfortable until I fix it.
WATARI & ROGER
I want to start from them to explain exactly what I think of these two, particularly their past and what led them to create the Wammy’s.
Reference to another post I wrote – headcanons about Roger – but you needn’t to read it, since I am going to repeat it here, and it talks more about their relationship than the Wammy’s.
In my mind, Watari was both a professor and an inventor. The professor job needed to provide for him before his inventions took off and gave him enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life, since it seems that he was quite rich, even before L gained something.
So, together with Roger, who was his assistant, he was in close contact with different types of students and noticed the disparity between those who can study and have the resources and those who don’t have them but have the abilities to continue. Of course, they couldn’t intervene in the private business of these people. Instead, they discussed knowledge, intelligence, and the social economic situation of England (and later around the world) that didn’t allow young kids, especially orphans, to develop themselves and their abilities, since they didn’t have the means.
Not trusting the state institutions with their money, they decided to take matters into their own hands and had in mind to create an orphanage that had an internal school, so they can provide them resources and knowledge, without making them sacrifice any of those.
But then a dilemma appeared: “what if some kids can learn faster than others and we end up slowing them down?”
[learn faster than others – because “prodigy” doesn’t mean anything when it comes to orphans that don’t have resources or any help from adults.]
And from that dilemma, the Wammy’s House was born. It was a specific type of the institution they had in mind, which was meant for those who seemed more capable than others.
It’s said that Watari owns different orphanages, but they are not talked about like the Wammy’s, so it’s safe to assume the main difference is this one – what kind of kids are there and what they learn.
About Roger, I honestly think that the “he hates kids” was added to have some sort of comedic effect. However, if it was meant to be taken seriously, and I do consider it canon, there are two reasons to me:
He began to hate them, as he continued to work at the Wammy’s, because they pulled pranks on him. He’s not fierce – shown to us by how he responded to Mello grabbing him and how he stopped Mello from bothering another kid. He is quite passive and not confrontational, so I believe he was an easy target for the kids, and he grew to despise their behaviour and to be quite afraid of them in a way, because, while he tried to stop Mello, his attempt was shallow. I don’t think this is because he didn’t care, but because Mello was angry at him, and his explosive nature made him wary.
Romantic reason: the kids, and especially L, took Watari from him – before and after his death. Watari was too occupied with his work that he almost forgot what he and Roger had. That obviously pained Roger and he began to resent the situation and those who stole him and his attention. That would explain why their relationship grew cold, because we don’t see Roger communicate with Watari once, so it means that something happened that drove them apart – aka these kids got in between.
No matter what the reason is, Roger tries to be emotionally distant from them. I have this trope that I associate with him of the grumpy old man having to deal with a kid because of circumstances he cannot control, and he grows attached to them, wanting to protect them at best of his abilities. But this is my wishful thinking, but I believe he has those moments in which he thinks, “maybe they are not that bad”, and they then do something that makes him annoyed, and he’s like, “never mind”.
Watari is emotionally not present too, not because he doesn’t want to be involved, but because he is still an inventor before becoming L’s right hand indefinitely and full-time, so he has to fulfil that role and be involved in that community to promote his stuff, to develop it, and etc. Also, the Wammy’s and the other orphanages are relatively new in my opinion, because he first established them when he’s around 40-45, so a few years before L was born, and he has to make sure they all work as he wants to, and he has to make connections so he can find these kids to bring to the Wammy’s. So, he has a lot on his plate.
WAMMY’S HOUSE
Location
I have actually thought about this for a long time, and even wrote a post (after I finished this section, I noticed that I was repeating word for word what I had put here, so please, consider reading it for all the reasons).
Littleton, in the north-west part of Winchester.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
I know I’m kind of going the extra mile by doing this, but I’ve always dne it for every structure I had to write something about, so the Wammy’s gets a real-life location too.
The actual true reason for which I chose this location is because it’s near big fields, and I needed that for plot purposes, but even without considering that, it seems to fit what we know about L’s life there.
He played tennis – there’s a tennis court 20 minutes by foot from there. Relevant that it’s by foot, because I imagined that Watari couldn’t constantly leave the Wammy’s with L for long periods of time and multiple times a week. He had other affairs to attend to, aside from his responsibility at the Wammy’s. In my mind, during L’s time there, Watari was still working on his inventions, which meant he had to attend meetings and conventions and whatnot.
Tumblr media
A’s suicide – there’s a church where he can be buried. It can be reached by foot, so the kids could attend his funeral. I also have a morbid headcanon that B took his body from his grave. I also liked to tie the church to L hearing bells before he dies, so this closeness would make it possible for everyone inside the Wammy’s to hear them.
Tumblr media
Big space – because the Wammy’s seems to be pretty big by the manga panels we have, and I have a specific idea of how it’s structured, both its exterior and interior, so it was necessary to have many hectares available.
Tumblr media
Structure (New floor plans)
I made floor plans. I started this a while ago and never actually completed it, because the site I was using was infuriating, but I found an app, and managed to copy what I had done in the other one. I forgot to change the names of the rooms, because I created this to help me visualise the setting of my fic, so ignore them for now (I will point out some names there, just to explain one thing).
Tumblr media Tumblr media
It’s not definitive, because I still don’t understand where I should put their stairs – or if to put them, ‘cause based on Mello and L’s egos, they already think so highly of themselves that I don’t think they need a staircase to reach the first floor.
In my fic, I didn’t explicitly state where they are supposed to be. I’m letting the readers figure that one out for me, while I just stick to say if they go down or up them. The main problem is not if they should face or not the entrance, because they have to, but where the hell are on the first floor? My gut feeling keeps making me imagine them next to Lex’s room, but that doesn’t make sense and would be pretty ugly on the ground floor – they would be too close to the entrance, and I hate it. So, I’m just going to ignore it, until it becomes a problem, which I doubt because I’m the one writing this, and nobody is going to police every single detail.
[EDIT 2025: fixed it. They are a pair of stairs with landing halfway that merge from there in one staircase.]
The two unnamed bedrooms on the ground floor are for people that work there (cooks, cleaning people or the nurse) that can’t go home for reasons.
In my fic, one of the rooms is always vacant, because I imagine that the employees are near the Wammy’s, so they don’t need to stay there, and it became a storage closet, with all of things – costumes and decorations for all kinds.
It’s a pretty big institution. The size of the rooms might not give that away, but it’s big. It has high ceilings, and the classrooms and bedrooms are longer than wider, but they are still very spacious. When I write and imagine it, even it’s from the perspective of small children, I envision everything to be comfortable even for older kids.
I couldn’t add everything I think it has, so I’ll just list them:
A small football field on the left with two benches, so the kids can rest.
Some big trees next the corners of the garden and some bushes here and there.
A stone path from the main entrance to the gate.
A shed on the right, with all the gardening tools.
The interior might not coincide with the way it was portrayed in the manga panels, but I like to imagine that after A’s death and L’s parting, things got restructured and the internal organisation changed.
Internal organisation - from the year it was founded to 1993, so even during L’s years there.
I placed L’s arrival in 1988, when he’s about to turn 9, because L is shown to us to be in relatively light clothing in the one-shot “L: The Wammy’s House”, so it can’t be after 31st October. Winchester usually has a high of 11° and a low of 4° in November, and 8° and 2° in December, so I don’t see why he would be dressed up like that.
And 1993, because he says to Light that he has been in England for 5 years, which also means that he is not from there. I headcanon him to be born in Scotland, because it’s hilarious to think he has a Scottish accent that he hides. – “Bang! if Ah was kira, yoo'd be deid.” | “Looks loch someain drapped thes ceel phain in th' crowd earlier.” and so on. It’s so funny. And also, it kind of makes sense why he wasn’t in England before and why he knows standard English. He could also be from Northern Ireland, but he gives me Scottish vibes.
1993 is also the year in which I place A’s death. I don’t follow the timeline from Another Note, because I cannot imagine A and B being younger than L. I’ll talk about this later.
ENTRY
The first requisite for the kids to be brought to the Wammy’s is to show that they are more able than others (as in “able to learn to a faster speed”), and they usually are kids that were in another orphanage already. Watari managed to have a wide social network and, to me, he’s called by the people in charge of that institution (that could his, like he just owns it and is contact with the ones who take care of it) when they realise a kid’s ability. For this reason, rarely there are kids who are very young, and I put that the second requisite is that they have to be at least 5 years old, because the school inside it goes only from elementary school to high school.
Only in exceptional circumstances, the Wammy’s House takes on young kids, e.g., if they were in danger and the Wammy’s was the closest place where they could stay. However, after everything is settled (a matter of a few days), they are transferred to other orphanages administrated by Watari if they are that young. They still can come back, when they are older, but it’s a lot more work to look after toddlers or pre-schoolers.
After passing the entry exam, all the kids have their own personal folders with all their existing documents – birth certificate, medical records, etc. – that will be given back to them once they leave the Wammy’s House.
While the whole letter system became a thing when L appeared, the kids still have to choose their alias, because some of them surely have a troubled past and choosing a new name is a fresh start, as if the bad things that happened to them can’t reach them anymore inside those walls. Since making only some choose it would make them stand out, it was implemented as a general rule.
ENTRY EXAM
To enter the Wammy’s House, you need to take a test. Since every one of the kids that are sent here is with the idea that they are more able, the admission rate is 100%.
The exam covers different abilities: raging from knowledge the orphan should possess for their age to difficult stuff (this knowledge is chosen based on the national curriculum for students up to 18 years old), and it includes other scopes (e.g., musical, artistic, etc. – to understand if they have an inclination to something or if they are interested in that).
There is also a social part. Since they live into a community, it’s good to understand how to live with others. If you don’t pass this part, it doesn’t mean you get automatically excluded, but it can lower your position a bit.
There is an obvious fallacy, because if they theoretically know how to behave towards others, it doesn’t mean they employ that behaviour. In fact, most of the kids “know” how to act in a community, but they have some behaviour issues, and the higher they are in the grade system, the worse they are. I like the irony I created, so I’m keeping it in.
This exam focuses more on the thought process than the result.
THE GRADE SYSTEM
I created a system made by 6 grades + 1, which is called “Apex”.
All of them have a basic requirement in knowledge.
The first three (1 is the lowest, 3 is the highest) are more socially oriented and coincide with elementary and middle school. They mostly teach kids social skills, so they can work all together to get to a common objective, aka pass the grade. They focus on play, conversation, emotional and problem-solving skills.
When developing this, Watari thought it would be quite easy to pass it, but he was wrong. He found out that letting the kids try the test – which is, like, a presentation, a competition and a debate – every year created more hatred between them, so he had to add another year, so they could defuse these feelings and make them understand that cooperation is the best option.
The result here is not that important. The most important part is how they got there and how they all behaved towards each other, which should be inclusive. And, while the kids can maybe work better together as a class or big groups and pass the first two with ease, grade 3 is tricky. Not because the curriculum is hard, but because they need to find a person and trust that they are on the same page as them, but not everyone is eager to get to the new grade.
It never happened for someone of the age 13 to still be in the grade 3, so it was never a problem to “what if they remain there until they become 18?”, because Wammy’s existence is short at this point in time, and usually they find someone, but, in case it happens, Watari has a plan B and it’s individual classes to teach them what they should know at their age. They are still in grade 3 and they still have to do the debate with someone else, but if they pass it, depending on how much they have learnt, they can also do the exam to get to grade 5 or skip the classes about the things they already know, because the other three grades (4 is the lowest, 6 is the highest) are more individualistic. They don’t have to work with the others to pass it, so here is more important the result.
The last “grade” is not a grade, but a category. These are those who fulfilled all the requirements and are “free” to do whatever they want. It’s like they finished high school. They are not required to go to class or take some exams, unless they ask to get a degree or a master, in which case, if they need it, a professor is called to assist them and then, an external qualified examinator to test them and their knowledge. But, other than that, they are completely free.
CLASSES AND TEACHERS
Classes are semi-mandatory, and everyone is greatly encouraged to take part to them. Watari may even talk to those who deems more needing to go to them, which are usually those in the first grades, especially if they misbehave or show anti-social behaviour.
For the first grades, there is one teacher per grade for every subject, since the syllabus is not hard. They are of course specialized in those parts. This choice was made for consistency and to create a great bond with them, since having different teachers might throw off the dynamics that exist within the class.
For the other grades, since the topics are harder, there is a different teacher for subject.
School time is a bit different from the one for the public school:
Youth Month represents the start of summer break.
Classes are resumed in September.
They have all the other breaks like Easter, Christmas and so on.
The classes are from Monday to Friday, and every student has their own timetable that may or may not coincide with those who share their same grade – it depends on what they know already, determined by a test at the end of every quarter.  
ACTIVITIES
Youth Month
For this, I took inspiration from youth games in Italy, which is basically an event that promotes inclusivity, sport, healthy competition, and social relations.
It’s in May, and every Sunday there is a different activity in which pairs compete. There are two different competitions based on age: 7 – 12; 13 – 17.
In 1989, I put that:
May 7: three legs run.
May 14: relay race.
May 21: treasure hunt.
May 27: cops and robbers (the last game is divided into two big groups to give a chance to gain a lot of points for those who didn’t until then).
In 1990, the only change I made is that the third game is ping pong, since it was raining outside.
Holidays
Halloween and Christmas two are the main two holidays that are celebrated, because even though I believe that Watari is Christian and the Wammy’s has an affiliation to Christianity, I don’t think he indoctrinate the kids. That would go against the core of the Wammy’s in my opinion, because kids are supposed to think critically and accepting the existence of God without questioning it is not. They can always turn to that religion if they feel close to it, but it’s not mandatory. They don’t go to Church (imagine two old gay men having to make sure 30+ kids don’t destroy it every Sunday) nor celebrate other very Christian holidays, like Easter. They might have a feast, but it’s not publicly associated to the resurrection of Jesus.
This is a choice I made based on the fact that nobody showcases any belief in any type of supernatural entities. Mello wears a rosary, and it seems more symbolic than him actually believing and practicing the religion. I associate it to his mother, who I like to headcanon as a devoted Christian, since Eastern Europe/Balkans are very, extremely, to a worrying extent religious, to the point that people would rather go to church or call a priest home and pray instead of visiting a doctor to cure any kind of injury.
[Tangent about Church in Romania removed.]
Halloween:
I put that a few days before Halloween one of the older kids is appointed to go around the Wammy’s and take notes of what the kids would love to eat (candies) and what they want to dress up as. Everything is done in the realm of possibilities. Watari is going to buy the costumes he can find. Usually, they are passed down from one person to another, so during L’s years, there have been enough requests to have pretty much the ones that are more common, and the only change is to make them fit the new person wearing it. Kids like also to be crafty, like for a mummy costume, they are going to use toilet paper and so on. It’s more about the candies, because he needs to buy something they will like.
In the first part of the day, Watari calls some people to help him decorate the Wammy’s and carve pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns. Some kids give a hand, but the others are more preoccupied with their costumes.
The party usually starts at 17:30, after they take a group photo under the “Hallowe’en XXXX” banner over their head. They then play games and just do their things, while eating candies and other sweets. At 19, there is a feast. After that, Watari or Roger tell the kids some age-appropriate scary stories, and 23, Littleton has fireworks, but you really have to be lucky to see them, because it doesn’t have to rain, and it usually does.
Since trick and treat wasn’t popular in UK until the late 80s-early 90s, I put that the kids at the Wammy’s experienced it for the first time in 1992, both because Watari didn’t understand it and he was wary of letting the kids roam around the community, even if accompanied by those who are older.
Christmas:
I wanted to do something different. Watari doesn’t ask the kids what they might want, but tries to surprise them, so that he can make up for all the time he isn’t present, which is a lot. He buys the gifts and places them under the tree in the main hall. After the kids open them, they take again a group photo next to the tree and the kids have all their presents in their hand, showing them to the camera. It’s very cozy and calm holiday. They have a big feast, and the kids are let playing with their new toys. Then, they have some Christmas movies playing.
New Year's Eve:
Watari doesn’t prepare anything special, other than a feast. There are fireworks, that everyone can see from the garden of the Wammy’s.
Valentine’s day:
There are two types, for those older than 14 and those younger, because I think the Wammy’s is strict when it comes to romance (mostly about PDA), which is not that serious at that age, but it’s an important part of growing up and they cannot go around fearmongering that liking someone in a romantic sense is bad. That would defeat the purpose of the first 3 grades. If you can’t like someone in that way, then you can’t even get near them, as to avoid the possibility of that feeling to develop.
Generally, everyone gets chocolates and candies, but they are also required to write a nice card to someone else. This person is chosen by extraction – done by Watari, who can actually pretend that is random, but it’s actually not.
In my fic, they usually write stupid things, like “you are funny”, but some of them get someone they have petty rivalry with, and so they write backhanded compliments, because they can go to Watari and complain of the card, and the other person can just lie that they meant it, that it’s all in good faith.
Those that are older than 14 can ask Watari a gift to buy to someone, but of course, it’s fucking embarrassing to go and ask him that, so they usually just gift their sweets to that person and do a hand-made card for them, if they feel like it. Only those that are more brave go to him ask him to play a rose, a special card or something.
[Edit 2025: on 5th November, there's also Guy Fawkes Night. They do a little bonfire, with each kid burning an effigy of Guy Fawkes. If they are lucky, there are also fireworks.]
Stargazing
Tumblr media
I added this activity for the summer break, in which they all gather in a nearby field and look at the sky on some specific. There is also an astronomer called by Watari that can answer their question, but the reason for this was to let the kids feel a bit freer and not confined within the gate of the Wammy’s, especially the younger ones that can’t go to the recreational ground. They can play some games there, but usually they just lay on the ground and talk with each other. There is a telescope they can use.
Recreational ground
There’s a park near the Wammy’s – 20 minutes by foot, but they usually use bicycles to get there. Only those age 13 or up can go there. They can’t go alone, but always with someone. If someone age 11 or up wants to go, they need to be accompanied by someone age 15 or up, because those of 13-14 might not pay attention to them that much, even if they say, “yes, of course”. For extra measure, Watari has the numbers of those who live near the park, that can contact him in case something happens. Those under 11 can’t go there under no circumstances. I decided this because the roads that take to the park are not safe for riding bicycles and there is an age limit for doing that on the road.
Tumblr media
Other than the necessary stuff for riding the bicycles, they have a tag with the number of the Wammy’s and a bag with Wammy’s insignia on it, because I did create it. It was just a vision in my mind, but I did a draft using picsart and color, so here you go. It’s not well made, since the lines of the ribbon banner are not straight. The ribbon banner I took from Google was so bad quality that I could see each other pixels, so I had to draw over the border to make it more full. The first idea was to have a W with an H behind it, but I decided to do it like this, also because it has all the letters of Watari. Everything that is propriety of the Wammy’s House has this.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
SUCCESSOR PROGRAMME
Premise
First and foremost, I don’t like the idea of Watari being the one to impose it on everyone, without any regard for what they want to do, because I think he’s experienced enough with kids to know that you can just force them to do something. They won’t. You can coerce them by using violence and threats, but none of the kids that we know of showcase any sign of being physically abused.
It’s also important to note that not everyone in the Wammy’s is competitive. Mello is the only one who wants to be at the top. Mello and Linda don’t care, and neither does Near. He is just first, because he is that smart. However, this is after. Competitiveness is more prevalent in the system I had created, because being in the Apex means not having to follow classes or have to listen to teachers. That’s the prime reason for why people want to reach it. It’s not about prestige, because I don’t think the kids, especially younger ones, have that concept wired in them. And usually, as a self-preservation technique, people tend to either consider negative something they cannot reach/have and that opinion is automatically applied to those who can enjoy it, which makes them want to stay away from it so nobody thinks that of them, but if they had the chance to join it, they would take it in a heartbeat.
E.g., imagine someone that wants to go to a water park, but they find out that the entrance costs a lot or it’s far away. They are more likely to think, “well, it wasn’t that good to being with” or that it’s only for rich bastards or something, rather than accept that it’s just unfortunate. They will even talk badly about it to others. However, if they managed to get in, they would enjoy every second of it.
So, in this case, while advancement is okay, getting to the higher position is pretty much a curse, because if you act in a certain way that it’s redeemed rude, then the reason is considered to be your status.
In my fic, when A and B got in to the Apex, people started to have a negative opinion of them. They have always been on their own, but since they are now reserved AND in the Apex, then it’s because they think too highly of themselves and less of others, which makes people find them some times annoying, even when they are doing nothing wrong. They might still interact with them nicely, but that doesn’t mean they like them.
Secondly, the general theme of the Death Note is that people are responsible for their own downfall in a way, so I’m going to follow that when it comes to its establishment and organisation.
L’s idea.
Unlike others in the fandom, I consider A and B to be older than L (4 years apart), so the successor programme was first tasted out when L was living there. Decided this because I want him to see what he caused, and for the reasons in the post I hyperlinked.
I have a kind of specific yet not definitive idea of how L’s life before the Wammy’s was. I won’t write all down because I don’t think it’s that important. The only part that is, is the fact that he managed to stop a terroristic attack to get Watari’s attention, because “go big or go home”, and he was the one who decided to establish the successor programme.
Establishment
When he arrived at the Wammy’s, he wanted immediately to get down to business, and asked Watari to talk to the smartest people there: A and B, together.
L introduced the idea for “when I’m away”, as in “when I am taking a break” – because I imagine him to ramble about his career to Watari in the days they stayed together before going back to the Wammy’s and on the 8-10 hours long trip, and Watari pointed out to him that he needs to have time to play/free time, and L said that he was right, that he’d put someone in his place for that time, he’d teach them what he knew, because he was very good at it, he was basically justice itself for how many things he knew – but A and B took that as in “when he dies”.
It was in that moment that L took everything more seriously. They talked for hours. A and B asked him lots of questions about that project, the possibility of that to happen, and how to make sure that it can last for a long time.
And while the conversation started as more of an abstract idea, after L showed them what he managed to do, they were both impressed and eager to learn to be able to do the same. They too had an interest in solving riddles, and… C’mon, it’s cool to be a detective, especially one that was supposed to be the greatest.
They discussed the technicalities and decided not to limit themselves only to two members, so that’s how the successor programme was actually created. It was also A and B to decide their own names, because they said that, since he’s called L, they too should have they own letters, and, while talking, they said, “I would be an alternative” and “if you are that, then I’ll be your backup”, so that’s how they got them.
Basically, it started with L, but A and B became co-owners of this programme in a way, and L didn’t mind it, because they were older than him, seemed wiser, and he looked up to them in a way.
For the others, the letters were chosen in two different ways: the first smartest people there would be the first letters of the alphabet, while the others would have their own letter based on their real name, because five people were enough.
And I say, “smartest people”, but A and B advised L to look for other qualities other than that, because you can have someone that is extremely intelligent, but if they are extremely reckless too, then that detective persona is doomed to fail.
All three of them talked to kids in grades 4-5-6 and the Apex (in my fic there are other two people here) about this project, but they weren’t obliged to accept. They let L speak, who explained what they were planning to do, showed them what he did, and gave them the choice to accept or not. If they didn’t accept, they would ask them to not divulge the information they discussed. In my fic, no one actually says no, because they think it’s awesome.
In case they accepted, he granted them a wish, something that he would fulfil, so that, if they wouldn’t get chosen, at least they wouldn’t think they wasted time. It’s a quality I noticed in L, while reading the manga. I explained it in my long post about the characters: he compensates his actions, which I think it’s something he picked up as he started to be interested in solving cases (before he arrived at the Wammy’s), because he saw what criminals had to do after they got caught doing something bad, and wasting people’s time is bad.
So, everyone had a choice and L, initially, worked mostly with the first five people in the successor programme, but not immediately.
In my fic, there is the MC that tries to destroy him and his project, but even without her, it makes sense that he would take time, years even, to make sure this project can operate without any vulnerabilities. He’s far-sighted and took things more seriously, thanks to A and B’s inputs, so he wanted to create a solid foundation for this detective persona and the project.
However, he didn’t spend all his time over that, because we know he was into stocks. He is also a child, so he experienced a bit of his childhood: he participated in Wammy’s activities, played with the other kids, spent his time picking and giving up interests, etc. He even had tennis practices and tournaments, so it’s not like he just solved cases. He still did – smaller cases – but not all the goddamn time.
To me, he started when he was 12-13 to solve them periodically, but not publicly, just to have some credibility in the eyes England’s law enforcement, that could then recommend him to other national law enforcement, slowly building up his empire.
There wasn’t this urgency or this pressure to be like him. It was like a long-period plan that still had to show its fruits. L wouldn’t even tell all the members everything he solved – just the first five, because he would give them the case files to practice their skills.
ALTERNATIVE / A
So, he was older than L and participated to the establishment of the successor programme.
For the first years, he didn’t actually think to much about it, but as he was slowly approaching being 18, he started to have doubts about his abilities, because, as said before, L gave him case files to solves and he wasn’t able to get any of them entirely right. He still didn’t want to admit defeat and be a disappointment in the other eyes’, so he tried times and times again. This had an impact on his mental health, of course.
L noticed this change in attitude and told him that he can switch places with B. He had no problem with it, but A, instead of admitting that he wasn’t fit for the position, preferred to argue with him, damaging their relation.
The situation was really heavy for him, and since telling the truth was worse than anything else, his first attempt to leave it was by running away from the Wammy’s. That didn’t go well, because B, with a group of people there, managed to find him. A invented some kind of excuse, that he was being followed, and didn’t want to bring them to the orphanage. B didn’t buy it, and they too started to argue.
So, in that case, telling the truth was worse than death and he couldn’t bear the idea of being a complete failure, and killed himself.
That’s how I see how things went, more or less. And L was blamed for it. The successor programme was interrupted, and some of them decided not to participate anymore, even though they could always return, once and if it would be resumed.
L leaves the Wammy’s the same year, before he turns 14, which is important, because B kills a 13-years old girl by bashing her head, and that what I think he wanted to do to L (in my fic, it’s the MC, but whatever) at that time, but couldn’t.
In my fic, A’s name at the Wammy’s is Natal, because it means birth/birthday. And B’s name is Elioenai, which means “towards him are my eyes”. Now, this can have different interpretations: the “eyes” could mean the Shinigami eyes and “him” could be Natal, or L. I am not sure how much I consider him having the Shinigami eyes to be canon. It’s an interesting concept, but I don’t understand how that would be possible, like what led to that and what else does it mean for B? Is he part Shinigami? Or his mother had wild sex with a Shinigami, that then got some time of punishment by the King, because it’s against the rules?
I don’t know, so I don’t count them as canon, to be honest. Cool, but I don’t get it.
For me, Beyond Birthday means also “After Natal”.
BEYOND BIRTHDAY / B
I don’t believe he went completely insane after A’s death. In my mind, he was always kind of shady, ruthless, based on survival instinct and self-preservation. He had an attachment to A, but he had no problem to consider him also a tool that he could use and then discard, if he needed to. He loved him, but he always prioritized himself, at the end of the day.
If things went differently and A became L, that would not last long, because B would kill him so that he can succeed him, and nobody would question it, because they wouldn’t know what truly happened.
A’s death screwed up his plan and blamed L for it. He wanted to take his place, but he first needed his detective persona to be well established. He let L do the hard work to create it. A mostly gave some inputs to help him, while B supervised it, to make sure that everything was going according to his plan.
Since A was chosen as first successor, he couldn’t convince him to switch places, because he didn’t want him and L to have the impression that he really wanted that.
He honestly believed that L would be the first one to crack, because he was younger, but when A died and the project stalled for an indefinite period of time, he couldn’t take it. He planned his life to go in a certain way, but now L wouldn’t work as L anymore for an indefinite time, making no progress, and the project stalled, without any information on when or if it would be resumed? That made him see red.
If he couldn’t become L, then nobody deserved it, and he decided to impersonate L and ruin his career. If he had managed to kill himself in Another Note, while Misora still believed him to be L, then that would’ve had irreparable damages to L’s credibility, and L would’ve needed a lot of time to get that trust back.
That’s one of my interpretations of the LABB case, because I can’t really explain why B decided to that. We take for granted that the Another Note is canon, given also the praise by Ohba, but… It’s not. I have a hard time to consider things about L published after the manga conclusion canon, because they follow the fandom’s reaction. I consider the two one shots about Near canon, because Near has never had the same kind of fanbase L did and does, so it’s easy to not be influenced by what other people think.
In Another Note’s case, it’s written by someone else and, even though it might be weird to say it, it’s a fanfiction in my eyes, that Ohba considers canon because he is lazy, and couldn’t come up with any type of case L solved. He said that himself.
I pick and choose, basically. I could also throw Another Note out the window, with A and B, and pretend they don’t even exist, and I wouldn’t be “wrong” in doing so, but I like them, even though some parts of the novel leave me confused, because it contradicts the canon.
After A’s death.
I haven’t thought about this too much. I have just a general idea of the fact that the orphanage got restructured in some way, but don’t know what exactly changed. It’s just my gut feeling telling me that, as well as saying that the grade system got replaced by a simple graduation list, who ranked the kids based on points they gathered during the year by doing tests, and etc. Can’t go in-depth, because there is nothing here that I actually explored. It isn’t important in my fic, so I haven’t paid too much time to that. I might start to think about it in the future, but I still want to submit my answer.
It gets tricky when it comes to who decided that Mello and Near are meant to be his successors. It makes sense that it would be something imposed to them, but they seem to want it. Near takes on the title of his successor and even tells Light that he is that, meaning that he does not despise it. Mello clearly wants to be the best, and the best in his eyes is L, and I think this is due to the fact that L, during their time, is an established figure in the world and they want to be like him. He came from the Wammy’s, which tells them that they can reach that level of grandiosity.
In the “It’s not about justice” speech L gives, it said that some of the kids lose respect for him and keep their distance, so it is not mandatory for everyone to be part of the successor programme. Maybe even here, it’s catered more towards the best in the institution, so that position was offered to Near, Mello and Matt (third in line). Mello accepted for obvious reasons. Near because he likes to solve puzzles. Matt because, “yeah, why not”, but never believed that he would ever end up actually taking on that role, because Mello was in front of him. Here, they are not given letters in an alphabetical order, so there isn’t a first or a second for L’s position (it exists only inside the Wammy’s), and it ties well with what I said before about A and B. A felt like he needed to become L and couldn’t back down or ask for help, but now, who feels fit will take on L’s role and can also work with the other, without feeling like they need to do things alone.
I doubt L would make the same mistake twice and impose such job on them, without any regard for their opinion. Besides, I don’t think L believed to die that young, so while they taught them some important skills to be a detective, the idea was that they will become L later in life – 40/50s. Unfortunately, L died young and so even the successors were young.
Maybe it’s just naivety on my part, and the interpretation of the majority in this fandom of the Wammy’s House, Watari and the Successor Programme is more accurate than mine.
Of course, characters’ individual experience of the Wammy’s can be absolutely horrendous and they are not fond of the institution, but I don’t think Wammy’s House was born or became as something meant to create copies of L, especially because Near and Mello’s, as well as Matt and Linda’s, personalities and thought processes aren’t a carbon copy of his. They are their own people, in some way.
That’s all I had to say. I think I wrote enough to get a grasp of my idea of everything, even though there are some parts that I did not disclose or aren’t definitive. So, keep that in mind – I might as well wake up one day and decide to consider Wammy’s a factory of Ls, that resembles the common depiction of Hell in cartoons, but I highly doubt it.
Hope you like it. Let me know. And thank you for the ask, as always.
I kept thinking who you might be, based on when you sent the asks and my notifications around that time – maybe to find a correlation (e.g., you read something I wrote and thought of talking about that) – and I identified some accounts. Some of them are mutuals, that I can now exclude. The other non-mutuals that ship L/Light but have views that are different from yours. So, when I said that maybe I know who you might be, I think I was wrong, so I am quite curious to find out the truth.
Take care, E.H.
8 notes · View notes
lacefuneral · 4 months ago
Text
Guide for New Tumblr users from TikTok
hi. my name is jay lacefuneral. i've been using tumblr as my primary social media since 2011 so i know pretty much everything there is to know about this site if you have any questions. i've written a few guides previously, for reddit users and twitter users that have come here. i'm going to write another one! i will put information under the cut.
quick disclaimer. i have never used tiktok. i only know of it through general pop-culture osmosis and through using rednote (I joined it recently out of curiosity.) but i will try my best!
TAGS: (yes. this is section #1)
how do you tag? at the bottom of a post (whether it is an original post or a post you're reblogging) there is an area that says "add tags." you do not need to type the # symbol. just start typing. you can hit "enter" or type a comma (,) to end a tag/start a new one. each individual tag has a character limit, and i believe there is a limit of 30 tags per-post. you can use spaces! and many different symbols and emojis
tumblr tags are not used the way tags are used on any other website. when you reblog someone else's post, it is common to share your thoughts in the tags rather than commenting directly on the post. think of it like "whispering" or an "indoor voice" - it's more polite, and the commentary is usually intended for your followers. be aware that anyone (including the original poster) can read your tags on a post. so please do not be rude or traumadump in them.
because tumblr users communicate in tags so often, we've developed our own typing style. it's common to type in all lowercase and to use periods and dashes as punctuation instead of commas. or to. add periods. for random emphasis. you cannot use commas in tags (that's how you tell the website you're done typing the tag) unless you use "The Tumblr Comma" - a unicode character that resembles a comma but isn't one? I guess? tumblr commas are actually used very rarely because you have to copy and paste them. but here you go: ‚
you also cannot use quotation marks - so the trick is two apostrophes, like this: ''
aside from commenting, tags are also, naturally, used to organize content. if you reblog a post and want to find it later, you might want to assign it a tag or two. such as #star trek or #spock. now... tumblr's "search" function on blogs is kind of shitty and broken. but if you click on a tag on your blog, it will show you every post that you assigned that tag to - this method is foolproof and works every time. another way is to use your archive. i will explain the archive in a later section.
very important: posts that you reblog do not appear in the public tag search. which is to say, it's not like dueting on tiktok. for example, lets say someone posts a drawing. they tag this drawing as #art. you reblog it and comment "cool! here is a picture i drew too!" you tag your addition as #art. but if you look in the public tag for #art ... your addition will not be there. so if you want to reach more eyes, your best bet is to make your own original post and tag that as #art.
i bring this up because a lot of new users make this mistake. they find someone else's post on tumblr, reblog it, and add 500 tags for reach (whether they want their addition to get views or they want the original post to get views and they're trying to help the OP). but... it's like playing with a game controller that's unplugged. i hope that makes sense.
now... in terms of using tags for reach. please. do not spam-tag. tumblr users do not like it. it is against TOS. and you will get blocked (maybe even reported) if you're overdoing it. only tag what is relevant to your post, and don't go overboard.
NEVER tag posts asking for... assistance of a monetary nature. whether you are reblogging or making them. posts can get "shadowbanned" from tags. (something i'm trying to avoid with my verbiage in this post.) this will make it harder for users who are struggling to get the help they need. just reblog silently.
NEVER tag posts as... the acronym that spells November September Forember Worember. find your own, creative acronym for this. you can get people's art removed, their account shadowbanned, or even fully banned. i'll talk more about censorship later.
tags are also used to hide content for those who don't want to see it. you may tag a post with #bug for example, to help those with insectphobias. you can filter an infinite number of tags, blocking whatever content you need, in your settings. (settings > account > content you see)
NEVER tag posts as #epilepsy warning - only #flashing or #flashing lights. This allows our photosensitive friends to be safer in the tag talking about their disorder
SITE ETIQUETTE:
refresher of previous points: no spam tagging, no tagging things that will get other users in trouble. good? good. moving on.
if you don't reblog/make posts, your blog has no title, and you have a default icon, you will likely be blocked by other users because we have historically always had a bad bot problem. so fix these things pronto.
do not repost other people's artwork without permission. REBLOG is okay! please reblog, reblog, reblog! it's how our website works. "repost" here means "i saw someone's art, downloaded it, and reuploaded it in a new post, pretending it's mine." this is what to avoid.
some tumblr users also classify their gifs as art (as they take many hours to create and edit to look beautiful). tumblr has a built in "add a gif" option - and this is always okay, because it automatically credits the artist and links to the original art. if you want to use a gif not from there, please ask the original artist or at the very least credit them. but like i said, every gifmaker's opinion is different. in my case? my gifs can be used by anyone, credit or not. i do not care.
"LIKE" is the bookmark function. if a post with artwork is only "liked" - it doesn't go anywhere. other users do not see it. if you appreciate a post, and want others to see the post too, please REBLOG it instead. again, this is the preferred method of interaction on our website. we do NOT have an "algorithm" - more on that in a later section.
that said, please use common sense. if someone says something like "I'm having a bad day, i fought with my boyfriend" - that isn't something to reblog. a lot of tumblr users also treat the website as a diary, as it is a MicroBlogging platform. a "like" is a better way to show support in this situation. you can always "unlike" a post later to clear up your bookmarks if you wish.
do not send anon hate. regardless if you are in the "right" or not, it's viewed as cowardly and the userbase will not be on your side. it's middle school behavior, cringe. be willing to confront directly or block + move on.
you can comment on a post (in the comment area) if you have insightful commentary you want to add. or a joke you think is really good. the second is a gamble, though. maybe lurk a little bit first to get a feel for the sense of humor here
screenshotting other people's tags and adding them to a post is welcome, provided you feel that they are Funny or Insightful (as with the previous point.) you do not need to credit tags (although you can), and announcing them is viewed as... outdated. ("you can't just leave this in the tags!!" "this passes peer review!!" etc.) - it is better to not caption the tags, and let them speak for themselves.
"replies" on a post you can sort of do whatever? because they don't appear in the main body of the post. they're a bit like tags in that way. just sort of treat them like tags (be kind, be funny, don't traumadump). same etiquette with screenshotting + posting them.
most tumblr users are cool with people following them and reblogging a ton of posts in a row. like 90% of us. but some blogs don't like "reblog spam" so they may block you? idk man. i don't understand those people.
some tumblr users have a DNI (do not interact), which is a list of criteria of people they do not want to reblog their posts. this info isn't necessary to have (and is sometimes made fun of/controversial), but it does exist, so i mention it. for some people, "violating a DNI" is viewed as very disrespectful. so that's another reason why someone may block you.
two people following each other is called "mutuals." unfollowing a mutual is called "breaking mutuals" and it happens all the time. it really isn't a big deal unless you make it one. there's also "soft blocking" (blocking someone to knock them off of your follower list, then unblocking them) which occurs sometimes.
there is a lot of terminally online brainrot discourse on here. so tiktokers will feel at home! jokes aside, curate your online experience (by blocking, filtering content) and try to be kind to one another. and be aware that you will see some really, really bad takes sometimes. it's always good to take a break from tumblr if you're feeling frustrated.
seriously. tumblr users unfollow and block each other constantly and this is normalized. no drama comes from this. we love the block button.
most tumblr users have their pronouns in bio. please check bio before gendering someone. do not default to "they/them" for every user. it's bad manners.
don't blaze other people's posts, and probably don't blaze your own. if you must blaze a post it should be an image of a cute animal. it should not be your fanfiction.
if you post fanfiction, please do so under a readmore.
a "drowned post" is when a user takes a screenshot (usually of a take they disagree with) and reupload back onto tumblr to critique/make fun of it. because a screenshot may, accidentally, look like something the critic typed, an underwater filter is put over the post, so that it is clear what is screenshot and what is commentary. tumblr has built in photo filters, and the water is one of them, so it's accessible to everyone. i highly recommend the use of a filter so people know at a glance that you are NOT the one who wrote something insanely bigoted. because people not drowning (or otherwise applying a filter) their screenshots of text has resulted in miscommunication and fights in the past.
CENSORSHIP:
tumblr is not like other websites. you have significantly more freedom of speech here. but! there are caveats. this section will break down some website history and how it affects posting in the modern day.
tumblr once had NO censorship at all. this was a website you could go on and see d*cks. like everywhere. but then something happened. and apple threatened to remove tumblr from its app store. as a result, p*rnography was banned. but this implementation was sloppy. many entirely innocuous posts got falsely flagged by automated systems. and at one point, entire tags were banned (like #girl and #blue and all kinds of weird shit). many artists and s*xworkers fled from the website.
recently, tumblr has implemented a labeling system under the guise of reimplementing risqué content. but the reality is that this is a self-report system. by tagging your own posts using the content labels, you increase your likelihood of getting banned by staff. and if you report other people's posts as missing labels, it's like snitching on them. the labeling system is not your friend. instead, use creative tags. block tags you don't want to see. tread lightly. and look the other way.
now. you may be wondering. "jay, if you can type any word on this website, why are you writing in this way?" well. sometimes tumblr will decide to prevent your post from appearing in public tags, in a shadow-ban-like process. my creative wording and asterisks is to avoid this, and for this post to gain the reach it needs to help people. but know that the average tumblr user strings together paragraphs solely consisting of words you will not find in the bible. you will likely be mocked for censoring words/using "tiktok speak" unless you are doing it for a specific reason, as i am doing here.
also. be careful when discussing tumblr staff. lets just say the userbase isn't the biggest fan of our landlords. i will not be getting into that topic here. but be aware that participating in paid features is deeply controversial. things like blazing posts, buying merchandise, purchasing badges... other users may treat you unkindly as a result.
the TOS is not consistently enforced, but be aware that if you post risqué content it may be removed or you may get banned. you also may not. it's mostly down to luck of the draw and knowing how to post discreetly. again, i won't get into this topic further on this post.
but yeah otherwise say whatever you want here. just like, don't be a bigot. and be careful when discussing the website owners.
i highly recommend, if you are above the age of eighteen, to go in your settings and enable m*ture content. because a lot of innocuous content (especially about trans experiences) gets falsely labeled, thereby censoring it and hiding it. when you set to view this content, these posts will not be hidden from you. (settings > account > content labels)
HOW TUMBLR WORKS:
tumblr is a website that began as a platform that encouraged young professionals to write about their experiences and post photographs. like instagram i guess? but much more writing focused. a user's account was less of an Account and more of its own Discrete Website, with its own url and its own webpage that could be customized with HTML, CSS, and javascript. in this way, it was similar to geocities. it was a really weird, innovative platform that combined a lot of ideas.
when you create an account on tumblr now-a-days, you have to manually go into your settings and enable a desktop version of blog. (settings > blogs > (blogname) > "enable custom theme") then, when on a desktop computer, you can actually edit your blog with HTML and CSS. although, due to security updates, javascript is no longer permitted, and no links that have "http" - only "https" - are allowed in your code. here's mine:
Tumblr media
it was extremely common all the way through the mid-to-late 2010s to regularly update your blog theme, and for users to look at each other's blogs. but between the censorship debacle and the rise of mobile users, blog editing is sort of a dead art, and many newer users don't know that you can make these pages. i hope this practice comes back, if only to encourage tech literacy and creativity in the youth. learn to code today!
anyway, this history is why our usernames are called URLs. because they are literally web addresses. the more you know!
you know how i mentioned "archives" way up in another section, btw? because the tumblr blog search function sucks, another way to find posts is to go to yourblogname.tumblr.com/archive and search by date, post type, tag, etc. - it's genuinely awesome. you can also use it to look at other people's blogs. lets see what i was posting in June of 2013... yeah that seems about right for the era.
Tumblr media
tumblr differs from other social media in that it is, for the most part, entirely hand-curated. which is to say, for most of the website's history, no algorithm existed, and we actively reject implementation of it. yes, technically tumblr now has a "for you" tab. most of the userbase does not look at it.
the way you "make it big" on tumblr dot com isn't through hashtags. it isn't through trends. you make it big on tumblr dot com because you were half asleep one night and accidentally made a funny typo, and then your friend from Arizona saw it and laughed and reblogged it. and then five of their followers reblogged it. and before you know it 20 thousand strangers are now arguing with each other on your post.
...which brings me to my second point. "going viral" on tumblr is kind of a curse. your notifications get flooded, people bring bad takes to your posts, and overall it tends to be stressful for the OP (original poster). you don't join tumblr to Go Viral. you join tumblr to talk about fuck-all and maybe post art, and have a good time with friends. it's more like a bunch of people sitting on a porch chatting. and when too many people shows up it can get a bit weird.
you have two options should a post get out-of-hand: disabling reblogs (the post exists, but can no longer be shared), or deleting the post (the original post does not exist, but copies of the post can continue to circulate). or... you do both. disable reblogs, then the delete the post. the post cannot be shared, the root is gone... but it will remain permanently on the blogs who have already shared it. consider what option is most appropriate for your situation. and also consider adding an explanation in the replies. ("i turned off reblogs for now because my notifications are a mess. i'll turn them back on later" vs "i deleted the original post and turned off the reblogs because i accidentally shared misinformation" vs "i'm not in this fandom anymore and i don't like my old artwork, but i know other people do so i just deleted the original post while leaving the reblogs on so the work can still be shared by people who like it." - this will prevent people from pestering you asking you why you took the actions you did.
we have "communities" now but again, most of the userbase doesn't use them or even know how to use them. so i don't really have insight on those. i imagine they're like facebook groups but much more toxic. tumblr also tried a "group chat" feature a couple years back which was such a disaster that it got pulled.
...as well as Tumblr Live. we do not talk about Tumblr Live. or Tips.
anyway the authentic tumblr experience is shouting into the void (with proper tag use), following other users, reblogging their posts, and chatting kindly to them in tags/replies. don't try to "game the system" or whatever, just have fun.
VIDEOS:
while you can post videos on tumblr, it isn't the primary function of this platform and never has been, historically, so there's some things to keep in mind.
our video player is dogshit. it's very hard to use on mobile especially and videos will randomly mute all the time. we still post video, just know that it's not going to be the same as other platforms
tumblr's exact Video Limits are a mystery. any time you look at the FAQ it's outdated information. generally in my own findings, vids can be about 10 minutes long provided they aren't giant files. i recommend uploading in a compressed format like .mp4 with a low bitrate
tumblr will compress your videos after uploading so if they're already low quality they will look even worse. just be aware of that
tumblr has a video upload limit of i think 5 videos per day. there's also a limit of how much footage, timewise. i don't think it will let you upload 5 videos all 10 minutes long for example
when uploading a video, i recommend doing that on a computer if possible because mobile always gives me a difficult time.
regardless of computer or phone, save your video as a draft, don't just immediately post it. your video will need to upload and process and stuff and drafts are the best way to keep track of them. once a video appears in your drafts (or your blog, if you posted immediately), you will be allowed to upload another. but you can't upload a video while the first is still processing.
COMMUNICATION:
i've already touched on tags, commenting, and replies. but you can also communicate with a user in three other ways (RIP Fanmail). This includes Asks (you send a message, a user responds to it publically, usually), Submit (you send a message/image/link, a user posts it as a submission. so like, sending a jpeg of an orange to a blog dedicated to posting jpegs of oranges. you are contributing to the blog's content.), and Messaging/Direct Message/DM - same as any other platform.
You can have public DMs or have DMs only set to users you follow. With Asks, you can toggle whether or not to allow anon. My personal recommendation is to leave anon on UNLESS you get bullied/harassed/etc - then turn it off and leave it off for several weeks (long enough for the harassers to get bored) before turning it back on, if you want. Submit isn't really necessary unless you run a gimmick blog. Especially since you can now send images via ask for some reason. It used to be Ask was for text and Submit was for anything else. Now Submit is sort of an obsolete format for the average tumblr user.
SIDEBLOGS:
Another way tumblr differs from other social media? The sideblog. The first blog that you create here on tumblr will always be your "main" blog, and that cannot be switched. If you "like" a post, it will always list the username of your main blog. If you follow a blog, it will only display the URL of your main. However...
You can reblog, post, reply, and send DMs under a separate username. Externally, a sideblog is indistinguishable from a main blog (aside from the like/follow thing). It's common for users to create blogs for various interests. Maybe one is for posting original artwork, another is to post about movies, and another is to post highly detailed jpegs of men's thighs.
While some users prefer to not state their main URL on their sideblog for partial anonymity, a sideblog is generally used in good faith. It's frowned upon/viewed as cowardly to use a sideblog to deceive or harass other users.
If your sideblog gets banned/violates TOS, this will likely affect your main blog. If you're posting risky things on tumblr, you're better off using an entire new account, so as to not affect your main account should something go wrong.
Sideblogs can have multiple moderators, if you add another user and they accept. Just make sure you add mods you can trust.
IMPORTANT: Never delete a sideblog. There is a glitch that sometimes occurs that, when deleting a sideblog (even when selecting the correct option) you can delete your entire account. Instead rename, repurpose, and/or "password lock" the account to prevent others from accessing it. You can also remove yourself as a "member" (mod) of the blog, and with no mods the blog will cease to exist. Or you can orphan the blog by creating a secondary account (NOT A SIDEBLOG. AN ENTIRE NEW ACCOUNT), making that account a mod, and then removing your main as a mod. Basically... just don't delete. Do anything but. iirc this issue still has not been fixed in 2025. it isn't a case of "misclicking" as some people insist. you can do everything right and your account can still get nuked because it's a bug in the actual code
blocking and sideblogs is... a headache. if someone sends a rude message to your sideblog and you want to block them? you'll need to go into your sideblog settings and manually type in their URL. because if you just block them like normal, you'd only be blocking them from your main blog. which means they could be reblogging and saying all kinds of heinous shit on your sideblog's posts, and you'd never know. it's easiest to do this blocking process from a computer.
likewise, if you block someone's sideblog... you only block their sideblog. their main can still access you. so if you block someone, see if they list other blogs in their bio/pinned post. you may need to block two blogs.
blocking a main blog, however, blogs full access. so if Rude Guy bothers you on his main, and you block his main, he can't then bother you on Rude Guy 2, Rude Guy 3, or Rude Guy 4.
users are sometimes upfront about when they're using a sideblog but others aren't. so it can be tricky.
MANDATORY ACCOUNT/BLOG SETTINGS:
this is four screenshots; taken on a computer, not mobile, but most of the settings should be the same. what this covers: hiding your likes/follows, disabling algorithmic posts, enabling timestamps (VERY important especially for posts about world news), disabling AI scraping, enabling users to message you, shit like that.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
mandatory extensions for desktop users (well. not palettes. i use it because i like a pastel pink viewing experience. lol.):
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
MEMES AND REFERENCES:
the life cycle of memes and slang is rapid on tumblr, so it's a little pointless for me to try and talk about them because any information i write will be out of date. by the time a meme leaves tumblr and gets posted on twitter/tiktok/bluesky/reddit/youtube/instagram/pinterest/ifunny/facebook it's already long dead
that said, there are some mainstays:
"i'm bald" is often placed as the last option in a poll and it means "not applicable to me/choose not to answer/my answer is nuanced". it's in reference to a specific poll about hair (obv) where this was listed as the last option and people thought it was funny so we use in other polls now.
we love polls btw we use them to make characters fight to the death or do "design a horse"/"make a cake" type games. polls get very serious and people also sometimes do voter fraud and get in arguments about it. it's sports to us
"destiel news" is the phenomenon of announcing a major news story (like the death of the queen) by using screenshots of the homophobic love confession in supernatural. the idea is to piss people off by having them say "THIS is how i found out???" tumblr users make shitposts about major events in general in hopes of evoking this response. but destiel news is ubiquitous
"i think i hauve covid" is reference to a tweet on twitter and means "i'm ar*used"
"not to be a lesbian but" is a common reaction image/copypasta and it's self explanatory
spelling words wrong on purpose, incorrect/creative grammar, etc. is very funny to tumblr users. things like "ingredience" and "those feratu" linger in our lexicon
there's a lot of random old textposts tumblr users reference and it would be too hard to list them all, especially because they rise and fall in popularity. just know if someone's said something especially strange it may be a reference to an earlier post. not to self-promo but i run a blog called @goodposts where i archive posts i personally find funny (or Important) and some Tumblr Classics are in there. but also some of the posts are my own shitty posts so ur milage may vary.
we all know the president shoelace post but none of us actually use the code irl and it's a very dead joke at this point. there's a lot of dead jokes i could cover like vanilla extract, all or nothing, do you love the color of the sky, children's hospital, etc. - but i'd defer to Know Your Meme instead.
ummmm i think thats it. smiles
Tumblr media
if u have questions feel free 2 ask
10 notes · View notes