#thanks for trimming it down :)

[dunmeshistash]

Every time you post additional information about dunmeshi's world, I'm amazed by how much thought and care Kui put into this world.

Ikr! There's lots, this much info usually makes me too intimidated so I'm glad most of it isn't necessary to understand the story, but if you want you can really get a lot out of the world building she made

In the story the info we get is so well spaced out, and after I was done I could sink into the extra content in my own time, I love it.

[lostinthesasuke]

do you think sasuke is religious or upholds his clan's religious practices? i was rereading and in the part where they go to resucitate the hokages orochimaru says "there's nothing left of the uchiha's nakano shrine", to which sasuke answers "the exterior doesn't matter" and it got me wondering

HI YES thank you so much for sending this ask. it's very close to me. elaborated a Lot under the cut but tl;dr - yes.

he is religious in the only way he remembers how to be. preserving Uchiha tradition and culture is deeply important to him. when he said the exterior of Nakano shrine didn't matter, sure he was referring to the fact that there was a hidden underground level... but it meant much more than that.

genocide doesn't just claim lives, it claims languages and religions and every facet of culture. konoha has been known to participate in the censorship and eradication of culture. this assimilation functions as an extension of genocide.

by virtue of being a survivor, i think sasuke feels an obligation to "carry the torch". since he was so young when the massacre occurred, it's likely a lot of practice and customs have been lost altogether. this is distressing to him. even during his character introduction at 12 years old, his clans "restoration" was first and foremost in his mind. to me this statement was never about re-population as many people interpret, but about justice, pride, and culture.

he feels as though the Uchiha name has been "tainted" and it is his responsibility to "purify" it. but what that means to him shifts over time.

the Uchiha clan's religion is obviously based on and deeply tied to the Shinto religion, just like the clan's jutsu and kekkei genkai. many Uchiha jutsu are named after Shinto deities.

this part i am not going to delve into too much yet because one day i will probably write a paper about it, but one of the tenets of Shinto belief is the importance of purity. Shinto practice and customs are regionally variant but the practice of purification is central. death is considered to be extremely impure. this context is deeply relevant to Sasuke's belief system and the way he thinks about himself and his clan.

it is likely that the uchiha religion is closed, evidenced by nakano shrine being kept a secret. sasuke not only has to contend with the fact that the remaining pieces of his culture are guarded and hidden, requiring the use of high-level dojutsu to decipher, but also that any of it may have been altered. the revelation that the stone tablet was altered in order to facilitate madara's manipulation and further subjugation of the uchiha was destabilizing. sasuke has to put the pieces of his religion back together with mostly his memories to rely on.

many parallels can be drawn between sasuke and the sun goddess Amaterasu. when she is betrayed by her brother Susanoo, she withdraws into a cave and plunges the world into darkness. Susanoo conspires to manipulate her into leaving the cave, and then binds her.

this gender reversal is sort of fascinating. Amaterasu and Susanoo contradict the popular notions about the sun and moon and the masculine and feminine. of course this reminds me of sasuke as well, because everything does.

sasuke is typically associated with the waning crescent, the phase just before a new moon, and itachi with a full moon. since sasuke is associated with the moon, the yin, and the feminine, it would logically follow that he would be passive like water; low like a valley. however, he subverts this expectation.

i believe this is a big part of why he makes so many people uncomfortable. he is fire and lightning and he is not a perfect victim.

after speaking to the kage and revealing the secrets of Nakano shrine, he resolves himself to burn the world down and be reborn like a phoenix. like the waning crescent before a new moon.

he is not "pure" the way itachi expects, kishimoto states, or many fans anticipate. he has strong convictions and he is confident. he is not apologetic and he is impossible to ignore.

the first time we ever see sasuke associated with the sun is after he learns the truth about the massacre. he leaves his cave. he sheds hebi and becomes taka, predator instead of prey. he is ready to spill as much blood as it takes.

i have many ideas about what Uchiha religious customs might look like, and many of them concern fire. the uchiwa fan that stokes the flames is their crest. they are seen as fully fledged members of the clan once they can perform katon jutsu. the shrine that houses the Uchiha's patron deity has eternal flames lit.

drawing from my own religion, one of my favorite metas draws a parallel between the Uchiha fire affinity and

אש תמיד (Aish tamid)

which means eternal flame. (sorry for line break, tumblr hates right to left languages). Aish tamid refers to the flame in the temple of Jerusalem that was always kept alight before its desecration by the greeks. just like the torches located in Nakano shrine.

the greeks attempted to hellenize and extinguish Jewish culture. they outlawed observance of Shabbat and circumcision, spat in the face of kashrut by sacrificing pigs in the temple, and even built statues of their gods within. the Jewish people rebelled against them and the flame was rekindled.

rebellion, justice, and pride in culture is in the spirit of fire. unending, always enduring. Sasuke and the Uchiha clan embody this, their crests always emblazoned on their clothes even at the cost of armor. from Madara's rage, to the coup, to Sasuke's revenge, justice is an integral component to the Uchiha ethos.

to me this is a really interesting contrast to the will of fire. the will of fire is the ideal of nationalism-- putting the state before the self. this idea is lauded as heroism. it was originated by the senju, no wonder.

meanwhile, the uchiha clan with their fire affinity and deeply spiritual connection to flame are seen as transgressors. they are seen as disruptive to the ideal of the "will of fire" due to their strong cultural identity. they refuse to assimilate into the dominant culture. they prioritize their love and familial bonds with each other over konoha's interests.

naruto wiki im going to kill you

they are labeled with the opposing "curse of hatred".

it is no surprise then that itachi was praised for his strong "will of fire" for carrying out the massacre-- putting the well-being of the state over the lives of his family. groomed into following the senju doctrine and abandoning his own culture. assimilated and outcast.

in modern culture Aish tamid is kept alight by the continuation of religious practice- praying and studying Torah keep the flame burning. "The exterior doesn't matter". the flame is already burning within Sasuke.

sasuke carries on whatever pieces of his culture he remembers, and he prays in the dark, and he thinks of his mother with her hands clasped at the kamidana, and he visits shrines often on his journey. he lights incense and he burns brightly. and he walks on.

[learn-and-yearn]

Gosh I need a slow handsy make out session with him /nsx

[strawberry-cowmilk]

me when I put on leggings and remember comfort is an option

[beaconfeels]

Talk shop Tuesday!

I have to ask bc I’m obsessed - what’s your thought process/how do you perceive and build your Stargent dynamics??

Oh Lucky my sweet human, I’m going to admit immediately that a very large chunk of my brain thinks this is just a call-out ask to make me admit I have no process. I know you wouldn’t do that, but also it would be very warranted if you did, just sayin.

So many people in this fandom, yourself included, have carefully delved into canon to explore and expand on characters in wonderfully logical ways and I am just over here like “head empty only vibes.”

However, I will try to put some words to the vibes. I think in the simplest terms, I’m drawn to them because I feel like they’re opposites that play off each other in ways I enjoy. The similarity between them of course, is that they’re both very traumatized people who have been through a lot of pain, but for me the intriguing juxtaposition is in how their various traumas and bad home lives played out in their lives and what that turned them into.

Chris to me reads as very disciplined. He has such a soldier mentality that he was willing to kill his wife when she was turned because that’s what it had been ingrained in him to do. Chris might not abide by every law, but he is a rule follower.

Then there’s Stiles-breaks into the evidence locker-Stilinski, who has never met a rule he didn’t want to defy. Like his home life, and his beautiful ADHD brain, he’s full of chaos and impulsive decisions.

Chris has a psychic weight to him. His sadness and trauma weigh him down, but he’s also grounded by his principles and what he believes about the world.

Stiles, even in the face of so much pain, has remained wonderfully incorrigible. He’s shredded his trauma with his sharp edges and shoved it down under a layer of sarcasm and mild threats to end people’s lives every ten seconds.

I think Stiles needs to be more grounded, and Chris needs to lighten up, and they give that to each other (in my head. Not in the show) I think they’re also two people who need more care in their lives, and they can give that to each other too.

Also, I’m a hopeless romantic, and I dunno why, but when I think about these two in my head, I can just see them being SO in love. Because Chris would torture himself about loving Stiles, but once he gave in he would be GONE because Stiles is stupid lovable when he wants to be, and he would make Chris laugh, which he desperately needs. I mean obviously in the few fics I’ve written for them it’s silly how sappy they are, but it makes me SO HAPPY. The show puts these two through hell, and I like putting them in cozy houses where they’re ridiculously in love and Chris calls Stiles “baby” a lot.

TL;DR I just think they’re neat and I want them to be happy and have lots of hot sex

[vulpesintuos]

in hindsight it *is* hilarious that my writing has went from "I have never stopped thinking about (and wishing I could replicate) the sheer hype of the RULES OF NATURE scene in metal gear rising revengeance" to "I'm putting an image in your head that this man has his hands deep in the other's ribcage and the beating of the heart you feel wet on your skin is a metaphor for emotional closeness. this is what kissing is like"

[tyrannuspitch]

What are your top 5 favorite books?

oh no this one's actually really difficult sjkjfsk

i'm very picky and i've had a bad few years for reading (2020-2022 i didn't read much, 2023 i read lots of new stuff but i hardly liked any of it, and in 2024 i'm *still* trying to get myself to reread things i know i like...) so. umm...

here is my list of favourite books from when i was a teenager, probably subject to change:

carry on (rainbow rowell) - YA fantasy romance, sincere love letter to the genre, and incisive genre deconstruction. the book that got me into writing fanfic, and the reason for my url! featuring a sad gay vampire and the worst chosen one ever to be chosen in a genuine and very well-executed enemies to lovers arc.

the raven boys (maggie stiefvater) - YA fantasy/romance/crime/genre-eclectic novel about a close-knit group of teenagers on a quest, and a prophecy that one of them will die within the year. hard to describe, but both very compelling and fun.

the darkest part of the forest (holly black) - YA fantasy romance about a town where humans live alongside the fae. a really interesting world and a great story intertwining a bunch of folkloric-feeling plot threads. also, this author's best work, imo, alongside her other standalone (the coldest girl in coldtown; about a vampirism epidemic.)

cuckoo song (frances hardinge) - quite an atypical YA fantasy about a changeling girl, set in (iirc) 1920s britain. grimy in an aesthetically pleasing way, and sort of horror-adjacent.

the secret history (donna tartt) - adult crime/mystery/litfic/founding text of the "dark academia" aesthetic. a group of intense, pretentious classics students murder one of their classmates, and we spend most of the book tracing back how/why they got to that point.

and here are five books which should be candidates for my favourite, but which i need to reread to be sure of my feelings about:

under the pendulum sun (jeanette ng) - gothic fantasy about missionaries trying to convert the fae to christianity.

piranesi (susanna clarke) - fantasy about a man with amnesia living in an infinitely large and impossible house.

the girl with all the gifts (m.r. carey)- a sort of dystopian zombie story, with an unusual amount of sympathy for the zombies.

rosemary's baby (ira levin) - horror about a woman being manipulated by a cult into bearing the antichrist.

we have always lived in the castle (shirley jackson) - gothic(?) novel about the remains of a family living in the aftermath of the murder of most of them.

so umm yeah. there's several hundred words to answer a very simple question skfdsjk

-> ask me for a top five list of anything 💛

[patchesjam]

the dish gumi made is soy sauce marinated shrimp! it's served raw. i found a video for you with english subtitles, but you can also just google "korean soy marinated (raw) shrimp" and recipes will come up :) here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJnpFHF7T78

i forgot to say this but i'm korean and can understand the language decently so i might be able to help if you have questions!

thank you so so much!! i will have to try this next week i think, ive never had raw prawns/shrimp before so would love to try it ohhh very exciting!

[lordsardine]

.

[gir-posting]

😑.........

[fictionadventurer]

.

[jennaflare]

ive been playing max gentleman sexy business lately and I saw there was a free dlc to completely uncensor certain drawings, so I was like oh cool I'll download that. But then I saw everyone was entirely pubeless so I changed my mind. Sad!

[organchordsandlightning]

shit okay so i've finished the lighthouse series finally and i love your characterisation of faroe in it so deeply. wanted to ask - thoughts on what a teenaged faroe would be like? having to interact with normal people and realising how fucking weird her family is, and whatever she remembers of her childhood. she's such a delight and she's such a menace. i wanna know what she'd be like when she's a little older

ohhh, i’m glad you enjoyed and you have absolutely activated my ‘can’t shut up’ trap card! teenage faroe HCs under cut

so I think my big HC for teenage faroe is that she gets really into painting as her preferred mode of art. I like to think arthur did teach her piano, and she likes it well enough, but it didn’t have the same emotional attachment arthur had for it. 

nobody can say exactly why this comes about, but john almost reverently describing every piece of art she made as a toddler/child to arthur probably had something to do with it. i also like to think that faroe’s brief time in the Dark World, and especially under the influence of Arthur-Wearing-John’s-Old-Yellow-Robe, has affected her, just a bit - just in that her dreams are a little more vivid, a little more memorable, and little more Out There (leading to John having a small breakdown one day when teenage faroe draws a stunningly good representation of Carcosa, right down to the throne room). she prefers landscapes in general, but the family portrait hanging in arthur and john’s house was definitely painted by Faroe for Arthur’s birthday.

as for personality! I think Faroe is definitely a ‘see an injured baby bird, bring it home’ type of person - and she definitely keeps the curiosity that she inherited from her father. while it was less worrying when she rarely went anywhere without holding onto someone hand, it definitely became more worrying when the adults stopped walking her to school every day. I really love the idea of Faroe’s investigative spirit starting with ‘I’m going to crack the case of The Missing Cookie so I can be a detective just like Daddy’ to ‘ope Faroe’s coming home close to midnight because she was helping a classmate look for a lost cat’. with three detectives in her immediate family, it’s never that hard to find her in Arkham, but doesn’t stop Arthur and John especially from being scared to death. they taught Faroe occult symbols at a pretty young age and Faroe always understood that that was the one thing they would not let her fuck around with. 

(I was also so close to including the idea that Arthur gets a seeing eye dog when Faroe is still a child, who Faroe names Goldie. Faroe takes to Goldie so much that they get a second dog just for her [’sweetie, I know you’re having fun playing with Goldie but Goldie has to work now’] - a little white Westie named Bones. this is 100% the adorable animal mascot Faroe investigates with.)

relatedly, I think everyone struggled a lot with Faroe’s growing independence, especially with how close her family is. like, I don’t think Faroe ever had a rebellious phase per se (that is, she was never like ‘fuck you dad I don’t play by your rules’), but she definitely leaned more into ... ‘I Know This Is The Right Thing To Do Why Are You Telling Me I Can’t Do This Because I’m A Child’, which is a lot more frustrating all around.

(still, parker remembers the last time he was called ‘Uncle Bark’ and shifted to only ‘Uncle Parker’ [except when she’s scared or upset].)

i think Faroe might have had a brief period where she became acutely aware (in the way that teenagers are) that her home life is Not The Norm (i used to joke that Faroe, as a child, would say ‘sometimes I stay with Daddy and Mr. John, who kiss, and sometimes I stay with Mama and Uncle Bark, who don’t’). while I don’t think that she ever got badly teased about it [everyone likes Bella, the lady who makes all the costumes for school plays, and everyone likes Mr. Yang, the guy who cheers all the kids on at the baseball game, and everyone is moderately lukewarm on Mr.s Lester and Doe who look kind of pissy but generally mean well], I think the first time Faroe tried to underplay her home situation (maybe she implied Bella and Arthur were married, maybe she pretended like Mr. John wasn’t her dad, per se), John -- unable to hide the emotions on his face  -- looked so fucking sad that even Faroe, at 14 years old, was like awwwwwww shit I can’t do that again. Overall though, I do think Faroe borders on being pretty popular among her class. She’s involved in a lot of stuff, Bella handmakes her clothes, and more than a few students in the school have had their family’s cases solved by the Lester/Doe/Yang partnership.

 as for what Faroe remembers, I would think (other than her dreams)  she doesn’t remember much of her time in the Dark World, or being dead. She doesn’t like swimming much, but that’s more along the lines of Arthur being too anxious to teach her as a child, and thus Faroe learning a little later in life. She remembers a happy home - though the duos lived separately, she remembers them being together so often that it seemed like they all lived together.  If she had an emotional problem, she’s more inclined to go to her mother (who sometimes talks to her as if she’s a fellow classmate, and not her daughter) or Mr. John (who seems to get things in ways that Parker and Arthur can’t). If she needs something done, it’s Parker (who seems to know every person in Arkham) or her father (who would move heaven and earth for her, in a way that makes Faroe a liiiiiiiitttle scared to ever have kids. Arthur, god bless, is a little intense).

however, I do think the truth comes out around the time when Faroe is a teenager. Faroe was aware for a while of things not seeming right: her father’s acutely visible scars and bright amber eyes, for one thing. Still, I think they didn’t want to tell her as a child, and she was easily enough distracted from any questions whenever she asked.

It’s only when she becomes a teenager that it starts to become unavoidable. For one thing, she finds Parker Yang’s obituary in a newspaper at the library. She reads the term ‘John Doe’ in a book and, uh-oh, that seems a little weird. And, um. What are all these ‘Police Searching For Arthur Lester, supposed murderer of Parker Yang’ news clippings in the library? And, hang on, if her mother is fifteen years younger than Arthur, then why do they have so many stories of growing up together?

and I think, at some point, they sit her down and tell her all of it. Not the nitty gritty details, not how Arthur got all his scars, but enough for Faroe to realize that most of her family - including herself - was dead, at one point. Enough for Faroe to realize that, oops, one of her dads used to be a god, and maybe her dreams aren’t just dreams.

and of course it’s a lot to take in, and there’s a couple of weeks where Faroe’s basically sleepwalking through life, but her family helps her through it. I think at the end of the day, the thing that helps her most is the thing that her Uncle Parker told her (and the same thing Parker told Arthur, way back when Arthur lost his memory): that no matter how the story went, she was safe and loved, and she had a lot of people making sure she always would be.

thanks for asking!

[cryoexorcist]

got a lot of drafts in the queue on this blog.

might try to tackle my mumu next while i still have energy, but i can't promise anything. but at least i have rps coming out!

[incalescentia]

closed starter for @greateststcr ( ♡ nic + blake )

ONE AND A HALF MONTHS LATER. Takeout boxes, empty champagne bottles, kissing on balconies — the result of Nicolo's apartment after the time Blake spent with him. They weren't his expectations for the trip, and he definitely did not plan on sleeping with her. At least the first time. There was the looming sense that none of it would last, which of course was true. Her train took her away a few days later. It was inevitable. Roughly a hundred miles separated their lives. Nothing about them could be 'together'. At least not physically. Plans to see each other again fell through due to busy work schedules, though they managed endless text messages and a few late night phone calls. There wasn't a definitive label for their relationship either. Not yet, and Nic wasn't sure if he wanted to keep it that way. What they were doing didn't leave him drowning in guilt anymore. That was a step forward, but the pressure of a title could be a recipe for disaster, despite hinting to Blake she could move to New York whenever she wanted over the weeks. It came off as flirtatious — an infatuated guy simply trying to impress the girl — but he was serious. Taking it slow has never been Nic's strong suit, despite how hard he was trying. Now Nic was stepping off a flight in a Connecticut airport. His mother pestered him every couple of months to visit. Usually, he would get her off his back by sending some silly gift that she can show off to her friends to prove her son, the lawyer, could afford nice things and she would be happy enough to let it slide. But things have shifted. There was a reason for him to come back. Feeling excited over this town was new for Nic as he played the role of a 'good son' for a few hours, one he had perfected, before slipping out around midnight. Not wanting to sound eager, he vaguely mentioned to Blake he may stop by for a few drinks with old friends since he was in town, not giving anything concrete. The bar she worked at wasn't far. Nothing ever was here. Familiar faces took up booths and bar stools. Nic didn't make it a few feet without being stopped by someone, faking niceties with a charming smile though everything in him screamed to find Blake. Nerves crept up again as he excused himself, feeling like he did at the wedding and when she stepped off the train all over again. Like a giddy teenager obsessing over his crush. He felt himself cringing at the thought. Until he saw her. Behind the bar, laughing while serving a drink. If she had spotted him, there was no indication so he took the opportunity to observe her in her natural habitat. Carefree, thriving. She looked happy to be here. It was refreshing to watch. "A shot of tequila and a lime, please, as long as it's not house," Nic stated loud enough to be heard over the music, leaning against the bar and grinning at Blake, gesturing with a hundred dollar bill. "I'll pay well for any special attention from you too, by the way." God, everything in him wanted to grab her and kiss her right there. "And I missed you."

[the-kipsabian]

How did you get into wrestling?

in a very non-traditional way compared to most fans im sure lmao

i think i was like. maybe 10 or 11? my brother got a ps1 from one of his friends and with that a bunch of video games - including smackdown 2. us being tiny beings living somewhere faaaaaaar away from americas reach we hadnt heard of this before, so we assumed it was another fighting game. a little bit of research and playing later we discovered oh my god its actually like. a real thing?? like an actual sport??

somehow, at the time, around here they were showing the weekly shows of wwe on satellite - something we didnt have cause lol it was a luxury back then and internet was a small circle for us (mind you this was in like 2005) so we didnt really have an access to much of anything yet. BUT it turned out my best friend of the time/my half cousin had satellite at her house. as some of our other relatives. so we begged and pleaded to get somewhere to watch stuff at some point (cause honestly we were just fucking intrigued like how is this real and what the fuck does any of this mean especially since sd2 wasnt a regular fighting game so it was. an experience) and i think it was that summer of 2005 when at some relatives house late at night we finally were able to watch an episode of raw (and i think also smackdown, they played the cut episodes back to back on friday nights which is. my beloved <3)

and honestly? a life changing moment

so like yeah i havent been able to let go in about 18 years since then lol. like said its not a very traditional way, most ppl just stumbled upon it or have friends introduce them (ive done this a few times tbf) or it runs in the family etc, but honestly i havent heard anyone else so far getting into this as a child through the games. its usually first the show, then the games, but yeah we did it backwards lol