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nanami-says · 4 years ago

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Part IV (3/5): Chapters 40~44

Chapter 40

[Mai to Miwa]

“Maki? She’s worthless”

She actually calls her “just a small fry” here. Which imo is more dismissive than just outright derogatory like in the official release.

“An iai technique huh? That’s strange. I have the advantage in terms of reach. She’s probably looking to disarm my cursed tool and create an opening.”

⇒”An iai [technique], huh? On top of that there seems to be some trick to it. With our difference in reach… rather than myself, she’s probably looking(...)”

Not mistranslated per se other than the “there seems to be a trick to it” line, which imo shouldn’t have been simplified to just “that’s strange”. But the original showed Maki’s thought process better.

“She broke it with her leg? Why is she negating her reach advantage.”

⇒ ”She broke it?? With her thigh?? You’re getting rid of your reach advantage here??”

Again, the meaning was all there but some of the characterisation was lost. Miwa sounded so frantic and full of disbelief here, haha.

[After Mei states that Maki should get promoted at least 2 ranks ASAP]

“I agree but her family seems to be getting in the way”

⇒ “I think so too, but you know, the Zen’ins keep getting in the way. It stinks, right”

More casual speech overall in the original, also Gojou’s more colourful language got a cut again.

MM:“Heh… I don’t understand connections not based on money”

G:“And you’ll always be a cheapskate.”

I get why they went with “cheapskate” here, as the word Gojou originally uses would be accurately translated as “miser”, which’s the kind of word most people would have to check in the dictionary. (I know I had to.) Nevertheless it’s interesting to me how Gojou basically alternates between super casual speech and much less common terms like this one. He seems to like wordplays in general?

“Anyway, I can’t help but notice the video feed around Yuji seems to be a little inconsistent”

⇒ “Leaving that aside, the video around Yuuji keeps on cutting off for a while now, no?”

Again, meaning is there, the characterisation - sort of I suppose? But he was being more casual/straight to the point in the original.

[In reply to Gojou’s question whose side she’s on]

“Whose side? I’m on the side with money, of course. There’s no value in something that can’t be bought since you can’t exchange it for money.”

“Which side? I’m an ally of money, of course. Because there’s no value in things that cannot be exchanged for money. For you see, it cannot be exchanged for money."

I know it sounds like she’s repeating herself but that’s because she actually is. She’s literally saying that there’s no value in something that can’t be turned into money PRECISELY BECAUSE it can’t be turned into money lol. Also, imo “on the side with money” kind of muddled the nuance a bit. Other possible translations for "exchange" include "replace", ”turn into”.

Gojou in reply to above.

“I wonder how much!”

Actually closer to, “[I wonder] how much did you pile up”. The actual phrase is just “just how much did (...) pile up/stock”, so you have to supply the subject by yourself.

“I’m not sure what you guys have planned but Yuji’s different now”

⇒ “I don’t know what you’re scheming but Yuuji won’t be killed so easily anymore”

Again, the basic meaning is there but a lot of subtler nuance got lost.

(jp)

[Explanation on how the school can tell which side exorcised which curses during the competition]

“Talismans are placed on curses released in the area. When a curse is exorcised, the corresponding talisman also disappears. Using cursed energy, we’ve made arrangements for the following -- exorcisms made by the Tokyo school will be indicated with a red flame, while Kyoto’s will be blue. Maki is also participating, so we’ve made sure her exorcisms are marked red as well.”

When I read this for the first time in English, I found this explanation rather unclear. No wonder I did, as it omits vital details such as the original mentioning "recording cursed energy in advance" which imo seems to be pointing to them registering samples of all students' energy.

And then the Maki line adds that since Maki is there too, exorcisms performed by UNRECORDED forces will be marked red as well. And that's why later on the teachers weren't able to immediately discern whether the sudden destruction of curses was done by an outsider or not.

“All those one-on-ones. Did they forget the main objective?”

⇒“(...) Everyone’s waaay too disinterested in the game.”

“Main objective” sounds kinda formal and imo that wasn’t the nuance for the line.

[Nobara to Nishimiya]

“Got down here, you stupid witch!!”

Actually “you shitty witch”. Nanami would be proud ;;

“How dare you hit my sacred face.”

I like their take on this but it’s hilarious in the original because the word she uses literally means “your countenance”, as in you’d normally use it to respectfully refer to someone else’s face, definitely not about your own. And then she adds a “go-” prefix, which further ups the level of reverence haha.

“A scar on the face can be a good thing for guys. But not for girls.”

Not really a mistranslation, but I love the original wording with its juxtaposition of a scar on the face being likened to an "order" for a man and a "blemish"/"defect" for a woman. It adds so much more depth to the line.

[Nishimiya after she points out how unfair the jujutsu world is towards women compared to men]

“And Mai has to deal with even more discrimination than that”

Actually something closer to ”irrationality”, “unreasonableness”, “unfairness”, “derision”. Discrimination was the translators’ interpretation of that, I suppose.

Chapter 41

[About Inumaki’s technique]

“Cursed speech is words with spirit. Essentially, it’s infusing sound with cursed energy”

...They translated it the other way around (“the spirit of words”) in ch. 33… Needless to say, this is still the same technique and still the very same term being used. I’d be leaning towards the more commonly used translation of “the spirit of language”.

“However if you’re not sure it’s coming… you’ll be in a constant state of unease. Protecting your head is difficult as it is”

⇒ “On the other hand, if you don’t know if it’s coming or not, you’re constantly distracted. Even though protecting the inside of my head is already something I’m not used to doing”

Not really mistranslated but I wanted to propose an alternate translation, especially for the second part.

“Inheriting the Zen’in family cursed technique is reserved for the privileged. Every other jujutsu sorcerer starts at a level much further below. And even within their family, some women aren’t treated equally.”

⇒ “Unless you inherit the Zen'in family's cursed technique, you start out as a sorcerer from a losing position. And for women, some of them are not even allowed to stand on that starting line"

Just an overall different meaning for the whole fragment. After all, it’s not like you can control who will inherit what technique, even if you’re from one of the three big families. Also it was about women being discriminated on a more fundamental level.

“Can someone who thinks that curse Yuji is an ally really understand?”

⇒ “How about you try thinking hard with that head of yours that can even mistake [that] curse for a comrade?”

Written with “Itadori-kun”, read as “[the] curse” - there’s no reason for Nishimiya to call him “Yuji”. Also she actually says 仲間/nakama here, which, as I stated before, I personally prefer to translate as “comrade” in the context of jjk. The official release seems to alternate between “ally” and “friend”, which are rather distant terms imo. I’m not sure either what’s their basis for when they go with “ally” because they also used it when Gojou was talking about raising a future generation of strong and bright comrades in ch. 11 (refer to part II).

[Nobara in response to above]

“Does that mean we have to forgive the unfortunate no matter the circumstances? And if someone is blessed with a fortunate life, do they deserve to be ridiculed?”

⇒ ”So if someone’s unfortunate, they’re free to do whatever they want? Then what? If in turn a person is [more] fortunate, you’re not gonna be satisfied unless you can talk behind their back?”

In the original Nobara speaks in shorter sentences and uses rather simple language, which imo really conveys how angry she is about Nishimiya’s words. It wasn’t really a philosophical conversation.

“Have any of you ever stopped to consider the person behind the curse you’ve condemned?”

⇒ “And have you people even thought what kind of a person the idiot that you’re trying to curse [from now] is?”

Not “condemn as a curse” but “that you people are cursing”! Huge distinction imo.

“What do I care about whether someone’s perfect or if something’s fair? Is your life just a job?”

⇒ “Are you obliged to stand up to [things like] ‘perfection’ or ‘unfairness’? (...)”

Lit. “where’s the obligation to live up to”. Emphasis mine! Nobara wasn’t saying she doesn’t care whether someone is perfect or not, imo the nuance was more that there’s no need to force yourself to try and meet people’s expectations/standards.

“Boys versus girls? Give me a break! Just shut the hell up! I love dressing up and being beautiful! I love being strong!”

⇒ “Boys this, girls that? I don’t give a damn! Just do it all by yourselves if you wish! I love myself who dresses up beautifully! I love myself who [always] strives to be strong!”

I know fandom loves the “I love being beautiful! I love being strong” line - it definitely is short and impactful! But I actually really like the nuance that “strive to be/remain strong” has because it implies Nobara’s constantly putting in effort to improve herself and get stronger. Also the nuance of “I love myself who’s all those things [and more]” (emphasis mine) rather than simply “I love being those things”/“I love the act of”, even though to an English speaker the former may sound a bit awkward.

[Mai saying she can’t contact Mechamaru after his fight]

“It’s not a good sign if he was forced to use his finishing move and this is the end result.”

⇒ “If it’s like that [that we can’t contact him] despite him being forced into a corner to the point of having to use his finishing move, then he’s probably lost”

This was Mai speculating Mechamaru has most likely lost if they can’t contact him despite him having used his special move.

“I need you”

⇒ “If you’re not here, we’re in trouble”

Rather than Mai needing her personally, this was her reiterating Nishimiya’s importance to the team. (Same phrasing as in ch. 35.)

Chapter 42

[About Maki and her family]

Y:“But why wouldn’t they want someone so strong?”

N:“They don’t wanna accept someone they’ve already rejected. They’re stupid that way”

⇒Y: “Wouldn’t a jujutsu family welcome a strong sorcerer with open arms?”

N:“(...) Because they’re stupid/idiots.”

Slightly more informative for Yuuji’s line in the original imo. Let’s not forget that Yuuji’s still super new to the jujutsu world, so he’s not really familiar with its inner workings. Imo this line had such a nuance.

“So we have to win this event. You better put your life on the line!”

Not incorrect as much as it's just so much funnier in the original because she tells him to put enough effort to die one more time lol (emphasis mine).

[Maki to Tokyo team, telling them to focus on the competition rather trying to make her look good]

“Don't’ worry about me”

⇒ “Don’t think about unnecessary stuff”

Imo this showed Maki’s personality better.

[Mai to Maki, in her head]

“You thought you could get the jump on me? While keeping your distance as well?”

⇒ “So what if you’re in my blind spot. Aren’t you dumb to put distance between us”

This was more about it being advantageous for Mai, a gun being her weapon, if Maki gets farther away from her.

“I knew it! Maki has something I don’t”

⇒ “I knew it… Maki has a talent I don’t have”

How a single exclamation mark can completely change the meaning of a whole line. Yes, it is “I knew it” but as in “I understood it”, “I felt it”. It’s not some revelation about the fight itself, it’s the beginning to Mai’s retrospection about herself and Maki and their approaches to life that follows after. Also, it literally says “talent” there, not to mention the line gets repeated word for word at the end of the same chapter for emphasis before the conclusion is given to Mai’s musings. (Gege seems to like this particular trick a lot, huh?)

”Did you hear about the daughter of the Ougi?"

Hmm, I tried googling the phrase with “Ougi” in it just to check if it can have some hidden meaning but found out even Japanese fans weren’t sure about the exact meaning of the word. Probably a name, either of a person or of a place.

[Mai thinking about Maki]

“You were always so carefree. I hated it. You just kept moving fearlessly forward into the future”

⇒ “I hated how you were always boldly pushing your way towards the future as if you had no worries/unease”

Imo a slightly different nuance for this line (which’s just a single sentence). “I hated how” could also be “I hated you for” and other translations for “pushing your way to” include “plunging forward”, “pushing on”.

(jp)

[About Mai’s cursed technique]

“Unlike creating an object inside a domain, objects created with cursed technique: construction will not disappear after the spell is finished. However, an immense amount of cursed energy is used, which has a harsh effect on the body”

⇒ “Unlike materialisation of an innate domain within the barrier that occurs in ‘domain expansion’, objects once created with Construction Technique will not disappear even after the technique has finished. That’s why(...)”

Ever wondered why domain and domain expansion related stuff is impossible to understand? Well, here’s why. They only left “inside a domain” out of the whole explanation... “Materialisation” was actually “realisation” but I thought the former would be easier to understand. Also it literally says only “realisation of an innate domain” but imo it could be also interpreted as “inner domain and things within in”.

(jp)

“Maki has something I don’t. Kinda like Mechamaru’s Heavenly Restriction but the opposite. You were supposed to be born with a cursed technique but you traded that in for superhuman physical abilities. This skill was shunned by the Zen’in family. And it’s an ability I don’t have.”

⇒ “Maki has a talent I don’t have. (...) A talent which didn’t get appreciated in the Zen’in family and which I didn’t possess”

Like I pointed out earlier, this is the conclusion to Mai’s retrospection about herself and Maki and some of its effect was, in the original, achieved by repeating the line about Maki’s talent that Mai didn’t have, and by further expanding on it here.

Chapter 43

[About Kamo’s attack]

“A trace of blood on the arrow fletching. Like I thought, Kamo’s technique defies physics”

⇒ "The physics defying trajectory [of the arrow] was because of Kamo-san's cursed technique after all"

More informative in the original, I’d say. The arrows themselves are (and look) normal, hence double the wham i suppose?

[Megumi about Kamo’s Blood Manipulation Technique]

“The ability to control whatever touches his blood”

⇒ "The ability to control his own blood and whatever is stained with it"

Why would they skip the "the blood itself" bit…

[Kamo about Megumi’s Ten Shadows Technique”

“A cursed technique passed down in the Zen’in family”

Just to be clear, it’s actually specified here that it’s “one of the techniques”.

[Kamo about his technique]

“I can manipulate blood beyond its form or motion”

Once again sounds a bit like a more general explanation. “To manipulate blood means (...)”.

[After Megumi calls him out on doping]

“Very good. Although I don’t appreciate the negative connotation”

⇒ “But I’d prefer if you stopped with the vulgar phrasing”

Simpler, more direct language here.

[After Maki’s taken off with Miwa’s sword in tow]

“Mai’s sister is gone. Well, that makes sense. I’m useless without my sword”

⇒ “Mai’s older sister has gone somewhere. Well, it was a correct call as I can’t fight without my sword”

The phrase used here that got translated as “I’m useless” while can indeed mean something similar has the nuance of “to not be useful [in battle]” . So although it’s not incorrect per se, I’m not sure if I’d go with “useless” myself, especially because it comes with tandem with “correct call”/”good decision” wording. She DOES literally say she’s useless later on though.

“We’re a little disorganized after all”

Not incorrect per se but imo the original line might’ve had the nuance of “we’re not monolithic [as an organisation]”.

“Use this scent and whistle to control it. If you can, make it kill Itadori”

⇒ “This scent and whistle were used to train him [this cursed spirit]. If a chance arises, use it well and kill Itadori”

I’m not sure if this can be interpreted as it being JUST the curse itself that’ll do all the work.

Chapter 44

“- Why does everyone torment mother?

- Because she’s a broken mistress”

Closer to “dissolute”, I think. Also the word used for “mistress” can also mean “concubine” and “kept woman” but it’s apparently also an old expression for “close female servant”. It’s hard to say which it could have been without more context but it’d actually make a lot of sense if it was the last one, especially given the fact how Kamo is one of the olden jujutsu families, and very traditional at that.

“Then why do you favour me? Why did you deceive me into becoming a heir”

⇒ “(...)Then why did you take me in and lie about me being a heir”

I may be wrong but it doesn’t sound like they deceived Kamo himself but rather, everyone else. The word used also means “falsify”. “Favour” here is the same word as for “patronage”, btw.

“Then as the heir to the head of the Kamo family(...)”

It’s just “the next head” here, possibly an allusion to his plans for /after/ he becomes the clan head.

[After Kamo praises his growth as a sorcerer]

“Why are you acting all familiar with me?’

⇒ “What’s with this sense of comradeship you keep on showing?”

Not incorrect per se but I found the phrase he used interesting. Also means “fellowship”.

“I intend to kill Yuji Itadori”

“By principal Gakuganji’s order?”

“No, this is my decision.”

⇒ (...) “No, this is my personal/individual judgement.”

Emphasis Gege’s. The word does mean “decision” as well but imo “judgement” (as in “call”) fits better here.

“As a member of the Kamo and the big three families, I believe it is the right decision. You should also understand it. (I must play the part of the heir to the Kamo family)”

⇒ “(...) I consider it a correct call. It’s something you should be able to understand as well. (I must conduct myself as is appropriate for the heir of the Kamo family)

Lit. “think it’s(...)” for the first bit. Imo “you should also understand” could imply that Kamo’s trying to convince Megumi here but in the original it’s more him appealing to the common understanding he feels must already exist between them because of their similar positions within their respective families. Also, wording his inner thoughts as “must play the part” was imo giving off a wrong impression.

Cont. from above

“You and I are the same”

Not wrong but the original has the connotation of “the same kind”.

“He’s saying some scary stuff”

Skipped “all of sudden" here.

(jp)

“(I’ve never thought of myself as doing the right thing.) Actually, I’m sorry. I don’t care if I’m right or wrong. I only believe in my conscience. I will follow my conscience and save people. If you disagree with that then, let’s agree to curse each other.”

⇒ ”(...) No, I’m sorry, that is incorrect. It’s just that I believe/have faith in my own conscience. I will help/save people the way my conscience tells me. So if you’ve denied that, then there’s nothing left but to curse each other.”

Again, like in ch. 9 (refer to part I), the nuance here was actually that Megumi will save people BASED on his conscience. Here it’s literally “I will save people according to my conscience” (emphasis mine), which imo heavily implies that he will choose which people to save, as had already been indicated in ch. 9 as well. This is a huge distinction from the way he’s been (mis)portrayed in the official release as just wanting to save people because that’s what his conscience says or because he thinks that’s the right thing to do. (That’s Yuuji). Also, the way they phrased it as basically “let’s agree to disagree” was imo way too mild. And it wasn’t just “if you disagree” but “if you contradict/negate/renounce”.

“A shikigami! It was still around?!”

Not sure but given the context it might’ve meant “so he still had some left” instead.

Cont. on next page

“He used a wounded shikigami as a decoy!”

⇒ “He used a shikigami at the verge of being called off as a decoy!”

“This uses too much cursed energy, so I can only summon it once”

⇒ “This eats a lot of cursed energy so I can only summon it solo”

Lit. “a shikigami before the release/dissolution” for the first one. Coupled with Megumi’s reply, which was “as a stand alone” instead of “only once”, imo the whole thing meant that Megumi called the frog off intentionally.

[Megumi about the elephant shikigami]

“It only recently surrendered to me.”

⇒ “I’ve only exorcised it very recently”

Seems like they confused “to exorcise” (調伏) for “to surrender” (降伏)...The word he uses here is the former, it also means “to unwish”!

Btw, “surrender” is actually used later in the manga when Getou’s curse manipulation is discussed in the Gojou’s Past arc (ch. 73).. So to me there definitely seems to be a distinction between those two terms and which techniques they apply to.

[to part iv (4/5)]

#jujutsu kaisen #jjktranslation #jjk #jjk translation #jujutsukaisen

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adultingautistic · 4 years ago

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help? rambling! sorry for that thing.

(saw in the ask-section: so written today as of the 20th of August in the year 2020)

Hey,

No idea how to approach this. Though first things first: English is not my native language and I have some trouble with languages (even my native) [mostly speaking and writing… and understanding (the hearing part but sometime also the meaning part) – okay I just can’t language – sorry] and this thingy here will be long, again – sorry Though I learned to understand written english just so I could read more fanfictions (‘cause the ones in my native language didn’t satisfy me anymore) - spend a whole summer just reading stuff in english and now I *need* to read everything in english and watch things in their native production language (synchro is weird af) and if possible with subtitles (books: if it’s the authors native language; otherwise both languages (german and english) would be translated and then it doesn’t really matter, most of the time anyway)

WARNING: Messy, chaotic and about 2500 words long. Sorry. and it isn’t proof read and some sentences could be… not a sentence

I think I might be autistic / have adhd ? not sure, going to someone (professional) is not really an option as that would take at least 6 to 12 month to even get maybe a appointment… and it involves a lot of social interaction that would stress all people – even those that don’t have to think about *every* interaction they have with eachother… like no planning or thinking about what you have to say or can’t say and what’s appropriate? Like that is a thing – always wondered how most people got through life when everything is so damn hard. It is apparently a thing that isn’t so quite normal… lol*

Okay, most of the time (that I remember) wondered how that worked for everyone else except me – how they get through life thinking all those things, or well… don’t thinking all those things like HOW?!? Why can you “people”? and I learned it’s important if you’re a girl or not; so yeah, girl here. Followed adhd / autism stuff for a few month / weeks and now again for the last days (it’s an on and off thing). so yeah, I can relate to so much on like everything. Long time I thought, nah, can’t have it: good in school (more so when I was younger but never actually bad), finished school good (though could have been better, if I had studied once (like for my oral exam, I opened the document that should help us learn one whole time, the morning of the exam so yeah, not good at that; brain just goes, heard it once, why should I read this information? Can’t really recall it but while reading I “know” it, so WhAt Is STuDyInG?)) anyway (at this point I would have deleted about everything but like 3 or 4 sentences because… rambling. Sorry, but I think it is important what’s actually going on in my brain; I know it’s hard to read lol) considering all those things I read here (and on other blogs and stuff), I would explain so much about what’s going on in my life (I made a document where I collect all that stuff but it’s redundant sometimes and really messy; try to make a short list with most important things).

Like as a kid, it took me longer than other kids for this social stuff (not like it got “everything”, just enough to communicate more or less lol) or I was so freaking focused on rules; one example is at the train station, there is this line to indicate where you should wait for the train and the other side is where you’re allowed to step once the train is in the station – I lost it, when that rule wasn’t followed (never really big, loud but I was really upset – you know, I learned that it isn’t “allowed” to act out in public). Another thing, I would always get the adults (or kids) around me to speak to others: I mean, I wanted ice cream? Couldn’t order it (still hard to this day – I’m 19 years old btw) or any other basic interaction stuff – I mean I broke every connection to my best friend (in 6th grade, so I was like 10 or 11) because he broke a rule while playing “hide and seek” like yeah, one rule one time while playing and I didn’t speak to him for like 6-7 years (met him at driving school again lol) and I still have his book because I didn’t want anything to do with him anymore (now it’s just awkward to give it back).

As I was younger I loved reading, couldn’t get me away from it – now not so much lol (books or reading in general is so hard sometimes… most of the time) – but that is more like: I lost myself in the books and was super focused on it – now I “don’t have time” as in I can’t really read a book if I don��t have theoretically the whole day and night – cause if I have to do stuff later “there is not enough time to read a book” because I could get lost in it and miss stuff and 5 hours is like 5 minutes, right? (that is a part of “time blindness”, am I mistaken? – never really related to that on a deeper level but the longer it think about it, the more stuff comes to my mind that could be part of it lol / like I always at least try to) get ready when I want to visit my grandparents, it’s like a ten minute walk so I need at least 45 minutes to prepare. Example: want to be there at 14:00 so I should go to the bathroom around 13:15 the latest, bathroom always takes long ‘cause I get distracted, so I then somehow get going around 13:50 – spoiler: I need more like at least 15 minutes not less then 10 to get to my grandparents by foot – and where is the time? I got out of the bathroom somewhere before 13:40 most of the time – I do the exact same things every time and sometimes I’m like: oh, it’s like 13:25/13:30, why would I think I need so much time to get ready? And then most often I need longer – and no, then I start to got even earlier (bathroom is like the first thing in the routine I do before I have to leave the house) and somehow it is now 13:45 and I just leave the bathroom – HOW??)

Okay, MSWord tells me, I have written like almost a 1100 words and haven’t even looked at my 11 page document – sorry (can I even write that many words in an ask at tumblr?)

Another thing I found is RSD – of my god (I usually don’t like to use it like that but omg), that explains so much – don’t want to write too much (missed quite a few “too”s I think lol hope you understand anyway) – I really react so intense to small, constructive criticism and I didn’t (don’t) understand why; and question everything; I remember everything I did wrong (so many “small” things but I’m such bad at human sometimes) and the feels and oh no, I didn’t even do something wrong, my coworker/sort-of-not-really-friend told me how I could have slightly improved what I did: I’m such a bad human, I can’t do anything right and they won’t want to have to do anything with me again – thank you brain, not helpful. One other thing was, like I asked for one weekend of and I wasn’t allowed to take it ‘cause they planned to or already shifted an event (couldn’t really focus on that) to that weekend and I didn’t know it and when they said “no”, in that situation I could have lost it, I was almost in tears (you do not cry in public lol) and thought, how could I even ask that and be soo egoistic (along the lines of that).

This next one is just the text copied from a post but that is like exactly what it is for me:

“I literally thought all the symptoms were the default way a brain works, so you’re telling me some of you can “choose” what to pay attention to? Like, if you know you absolutely have to listen to and remember something you just “can” even if you don’t like it?

And if you’re at a restaurant and three other tables are having conversations you don’t just automatically absorb everything they’re saying?

And if you know you have to do something within the next hour it won’t just remind you of a different subject entirely which reminds you of another different subject entirely and you don’t just take you three days to remember the original thing you were doing????”

so true lol.

Found another post with autism signs in adults (that my have been missed as kids), I took out everything I don’t really relate to (like 5 or 6 things lol):

- may constantly rehears conversations or interactions

- may feel as though you are always on stage

- may have a few close friends, not many acquaintances

- may struggle with other people breaking rules (RULES ARE ABSOLUT – HOW CAN YOU BREAK THEM?)

- may often fidget, chew, tap, or other repetitive behaviors

- may get more or less upset at something than is “appropriate”

- may struggle to adjust when plans change without warning

- may have routines that don’t seem to have a real purpose

- may struggle in situations that are unfamiliar

- may be a very picky eater with few preferred foods

- may struggle with noises, touching, or sensory input

- may struggle to process visual or auditory information

- may struggle to settle body down enough for restful sleep (though I now have a weighted blanket and that’s soo awesome, it really helps at least a bit (don’t wake up that often at night anymore))

- may struggle to keep track of a fast conversation

- may take jokes very literally, and not understand teasing

- may miss sarcasm or subtleties while others are speaking

I understand teasing, I can more or less successful tease and be sarcastic but I’m not sure if people are teasing me. I do not prefer to communicate via text or email. It is still very stressful for me - a telephone is also bad (tone and stuff, not understanding the words correct and not even seeing the other person and in person is also bad – so no to communication and/or interaction lol)

I could provide example for everything but I’m at around 1700 words and just no.

Didn’t really mention sensory stuff, another post I found: “basically, your day-to-day sensory input shouldn’t be causing you distress. sounds wild, i know, but it’s not neurotypical for the stimuli (be it sound, touch, visual, etc etc) you encounter on a day-to-day basis to make you unhappy. also, if busy shopping malls or crowded parties consistently cause you distress or agitation, that’s a neurodiverse thing. it sounds strange, but apparently but yeah, it’s normal for most people to expect to be comfortable in their day to day surroundings.”

Like on one level, I knew it couldn’t be quite “normal” to be always uneasy in “normal” day to day surroundings but like, I can’t understand how people can not find it hard to be in such environment (I heard some enjoy it even, like HOW?).

Random interjection ‘cause I wanted to say something to thing from the beginning: * “Allistics do not “prepare” in order to socialize. They do not have scripts. They do not write them, memorize them, or use them. They just magically know what to say. “ yeah, wow, didn’t realise that for a long time, and it is really magically. But somehow they can; I still ask my mom to help me write emails (more or less important ones) ‘cause it’s hard and she’s always like: “we do it so often, why do you still need help, just write” – not helpful and we didn’t do it actually ‘cause it is a complete different situation now lol every new email is a new thing… I need to think about what to say to the cashier every damn time I’m in the supermarket lol; if I don’t have to talk, someone else orders for me (they thinks I’m lazy or so, I don’t know but it’s so hard and you know what to do, so you can do it lol)

And that executive dysfunction thingy also explains a lot – I mean, I like languages, I’m just not good at that speaking/hearing the words thing – still, I learn Ancient Greek as a sort of hobby (I mean, I learn it for so long now, it’s too late to stop, that would be weird and it is really interesting, just really hard) and I needed like 7 hours to do the work (like, got out of bed, got breakfast, started the computer and did like 30 minutes of working, then did some stuff on the internet for like an hour and then ate my forgotten breakfast, then did some more browsing (I need to do the work cause I have to send it to my teacher this evening lol) some work for like almost an hour, some more phone, a bit of work – and so on. I did some work (but like so many people would have done more or needed less time lol) – anyway I know I really need to work on the language and I just… don’t. arg, that sucks so much, every week I think, I could start doing things on Saturday and then everyday a bit so I have like six days to do some work and every time it’s Thursday and I’m like, lol 10 hours for doing a weeks work. And it’s not like I could focus for that 10 hours – except when I can but sadly it’s almost never on the things I *need* to do. Anyway if my parents hadn’t provided dinner, I wouldn’t have eaten more than breakfast today – anyways sometime I want ice cream or other stuff and I just… can’t do it like I’m sitting here for an hour now, I’m so freaking bored and I just want ice cream but do I move? Nope, and doing something to not feel bored? Nope. I also mean to get my thingy for my wrist ‘cause I have some problems and typing hurts but lol, nope. An example as kid would be I needed hours to dry myself after a shower and just sit on the floor in my room doing more or less nothing or playing (I now a have strategy but yeah)

So, yeah, sorry; I think it’s quite possible that I’m autistic / have adhd, both or so – am I making things up and this is just my mind going a bit wild? (also, I’ve done some online “tests”; most of the time I get like ¾ of the maximal points, but at least always more than half the full points)

Sorry, it’s a messy, long thing but I need a bit of an advice or so – just, like “yeah, could be possible” or “nope.”

Thanks if you made it to the end! 20.08.2020

PS. could write so much more in my mind but nope. i think one can get my point. otherwise just ask me

PPS. actually talked with my grandmother about it, lol, she said, it would explain some things she wondered about lol (never thought i would talk in real life with someone about it but i really needed to talk about my thoughts and then i couldn’t shut up and i was so worried but she is kinda cool with it? though she doen’t really know anything about the topic except what i told her so yeah. i acually have no clue how to approach my mum (even if it isn’t autism/adhd or so, i think i have to talk about how i tick a bit lol) (sorry, just had to write it a least lol)

so sorry, needed a part two (cause brain is stupid)

Okay, part two (I’m so sorry) (now it is the 21st of August 2020)

There is so much more I can write about: sorry, again like 1300 words.

Like, special interests – I have no idea; as I kid my teacher had to regularly remind me that I have to leave the classroom for break – cause I was so into my book that I didn’t hear anyone leaving the room or the bell; now I can get really invested in some fanfictions (if I have like five days for myself and nothing to do, it is like 3 books without a break) and I’m at a point where I don’t find (good) new stuff and read the same fanfic again and again (I know exactly what will happen and still love it), sometimes I don’t read it for like a few weeks or month and then like 5 times back to back. I absolutely love Doctor Who (but I’m not excessively obsessive or so and don’t know that many facts just some), just can ramble for a few minutes (okay, everyone who would listen speaks German and my main input for Doctor Who is English, so hard to translate that and stuff). Well back to books: I love them; even though I can’t properly focus much these day, I love them, I need them: but why? I hate that when book covers changes or the side of the book like it’s: publisher, name of book, author and the next book is like name of the book, publisher, author and all is mixed up or the symbol of the publisher is slightly different: why? Can’t it be consistent? Why??.

Routines, rituals and stuff. Yeah, I have for example this one street (they repaired the street but there is a small crack now), I have to cross it on the side that is where the street crosses another and then the last 3 steps have to be on the other side and the fourth is stepping on the sidewalk (I really can’t do it any other way and I hate this one car that always blocks the crack a bit – it shouldn’t be standing there ‘cause it’s almost directly in the crossing lol) when I still was going to school, my way home was very specific and one time there was a building/construction site (just some repairs or work on the pipe lines in the ground) and the first time I saw this I was stressed after a long day of school and almost lost it right there and then, because I couldn’t walk my normal way (and yes, at home I cried at bit); for the next few weeks my way back home was hell. I have some specific routines for the bathroom and showering (though most people have that, right?). I have to pack my things and then my stuff like keys and such in the same way every time. When I need a walk I have like two (or three) routes I can take and I have to do them and almost can’t change them after I started (I can though it really throws me off and I don’t feel really well after that). One time – cause Covid-19 and stuff – you need to use a shopping cart where I live in order to enter the supermarket (so you keep more distance) – so, I went to the market by foot and had everything planned, shortly before I am at the store I realise I don’t have a “chip” (thingy you need to use the shopping cart; don’t know if you know what I mean) and I lost it – my plans and routine how I go shopping to that market (if by foot) was ruined – went back home and cried and raged like for an hour (went later again, cause I really needed stuff and I couldn’t leave that thing open, that also feels… not good – had to finish the walking “round”: to the store, store, back home)

One thing I mentioned before: sensory stuff; yeah, not a fan of “loud” noises (it isn’t always the loudness but more the number of noises). Water in my face (nope, hate it, never under the shower and like a sponge or so is horror (like everywhere on my body), just clean water is okay (but please, I can’t have had soap like right before on my hands)), lights is a day to day thing (though if I’m tired / close to what I think is sensory overload, either the room I’m in gets like darker or lights up so much it’s not tolerable anymore (then I know, I really, really have to leave the room and not see or hear anybody anything anymore)), and food, yeah (everything has its place on my plate and please don’t touch), I’m a really “picky” eater and I absolutely despise like cooked or baked fruits (some vegetables too) (they feel soo weird in my mouth… and taste bad… but the texture alone is… really, really bad) (if I wait a bit more, I could think of more but you get the gist I think)

One thing that throws me off: Since I’m 14 years old, I do some stuff with youth groups like mostly work in the church as a volunteer (like in the (school)holidays going a vacation with a group and such things) – I needed like three years (I was and still am seen as shy, mostly) to really “lead” a group (I really am good at imitating the others that can lead a group, I think) and now after I finished school and am doing a “Freiwilliges Soziales Jahr (FSJ)” (voluntary social year) (basically I “work” for a year in a social job (sorry, no idea how to explain it in English) and get not much money (that’s the volunteering-part, but ‘cause I work full-time (38.5 hours a week on paper), I get a bit of money)) – and now I applied for studying for working in a social job – can’t really explain it but important is that I would/will have to work with people and stuff, like my job is to create/plan activities for people (like for example, a meeting every week for old people, free-time activities for teenagers or so). On one level I somehow like that working with people (as long as I know what I do, I had time to plan and everything happens more or less as I imagined/planned), on another level I absolutely… well not hate it… but it is really taxing for me and sometimes I really question myself but then other people say, do it, you’re good at it – and I’m like: yeah? I sometimes feel terrible and have no idea what’s going but okay, good that you don’t see that?! Am I not totally awkward and what? Still, have no clue what I would do instead of that lol (sorry, explained that whole thing real bad; just ask, if something is unclear)

So, two options: either I fake everything I wrote before that last thing and how would that work? Or I’m really good at faking that last thing and how? I have no idea and yeah, I had to write that – can both work? Like, it’s not like that I’m always (really) comfortable doing that social stuff but on the other hand, a bit adrenaline and anxiety makes the life more fun or something like that (and it’s not like, yeay, one time a certain situation managed and the next time I can navigate that somewhat same situation, nope, it’s like nothing ever happened before and that’s… annoying?)

Sorry again to bother you. Thanks for reading

21.08.2020

PS. I will probably think of something new every few hours but that’s enough for now I think lol – sorry

PPS. And sorry for my bad English and explaining… language is hard (not like I could write it better in my native language lol)

_______________________________________________________________

First, I will never, ever, ever judge someone based on how good their English is, whether English is their first language or not. People communicate the best they can, and that’s all that counts, and it does not matter if it’s “perfect”.

So I can’t address every detail you brought up, because this was a LOT! I did read all of it though, and the general impression I get is that you’re right, you probably have ADHD, and possibly autism as well, though I am not a doctor and I can’t diagnose you.

You asked a few times if you could be “faking” it, and the answer to that I can say for certain: No, you are not faking. What you told me here are your life experiences. I just read a story of “How life is like” for you, and it was not fiction, this is your real perspective about how your brain sees the world. This is not fake. This is who you are, and I felt what you wrote was very open and honest, the exact opposite of fake.

Sorry, it’s a messy, long thing but I need a bit of an advice or so – just, like “yeah, could be possible” or “nope.”

Based on your experiences that you shared, I’d say it’s more than likely you have ADHD. You talk often about trying to complete a task and losing your focus before it’s finished:

Anyway if my parents hadn’t provided dinner, I wouldn’t have eaten more than breakfast today – anyways sometime I want ice cream or other stuff and I just… can’t do it like I’m sitting here for an hour now, I’m so freaking bored and I just want ice cream but do I move? Nope, and doing something to not feel bored? Nope. I also mean to get my thingy for my wrist ‘cause I have some problems and typing hurts but lol, nope. An example as kid would be I needed hours to dry myself after a shower and just sit on the floor in my room doing more or less nothing or playing (I now a have strategy but yeah)

This is all very suggestive of ADHD. You also had some symptoms that could be autism, but it seems like the ADHD is more prominent for you and is affecting you more (keep in mind, I’m only a stranger on the internet, I could be totally wrong).

I’m really happy that you were able to share these thoughts with your grandmother, and that she was open to listening to you about them, even if she didn’t have all the facts.

I know you said it would be a long wait, and very difficult, to get an appointment with a professional. But I do really think you should be tested for ADHD. Maybe your grandmother can help you talk to your mum about it, or maybe your grandmother can make all those phone calls for you (because believe me, I know how difficult it is to make phone calls, they are just as hard for me). Even if you have to wait a year, it would be worth it to know- and also, because in the case of ADHD, there is medication which can help you. So it would be really worth it for you to get that, even if you have to wait a long time.

You’re obviously a very detail-oriented, thoughtful person, and I know that you’ve studied this subject inside and out. You’re not faking, you’re not making it up. These are your experiences, and they are the truth, and you deserve to be tested if you want to be.

#actually autistic #actuallyautistic #ADHD #submission

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uncloseted · 4 years ago

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Hey so I need some advice I accidentally said the n word and not I have no idea what to do because I apologized and now I’m being bullied for it.I don’t know what to do now

I’m going to be honest. I’m a little hesitant to publicly post an answer to this as I’m not a POC and I feel like regardless of what I say, I’ll simultaneously get in trouble for being too harsh and not harsh enough. That said, I do believe that this question comes from a place of earnestness, and so I feel like not answering would be the wrong thing to do. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’m not an expert on this matter or someone who experiences racism on a day to day basis, so if I fuck up here, please be kind when you let me know.

All that out of the way, I’ve got to admit, I have some questions about this situation. How exactly does one “accidentally” use a racial slur in their day to day life? I can’t speak for everyone, but racial slurs are barely even words in my vocabulary, much less ones I use frequently enough that they might “accidentally” slip out in everyday conversation.

What was the context around this “accident”? Are you a POC? Is English your second language, and your first language has a word that sounds similar to the n-word but isn’t? Do you come from a culture that doesn’t have the same loaded history with the n-word, which you were unaware of until you said the word out loud? Were you asked by a teacher to read a passage in a book that contained the n-word, and you didn’t realize it was in the passage until it was too late? Were you trying to say a different word and the sounds came out wrong? Those are the only cases I can think of in which I feel like the use of the n-word can reasonably be called “an accident”, and some people might feel that those are being generous. The context of the incident matters and impacts what you might do about it. (Also, just for the record, “I didn’t realize you still can’t say it if it’s in a song”, is in my opinion, not “an accident” or morally permissible.)

My next question about this situation is: are you really being bullied by people for having said a racial slur, or are people expressing their hurt or disappointment with you in a way you don’t like? As a rule, I’m a pacifist, and I take a hard stance against bullying. But I sometimes find that what people in positions of privilege call “bullying” is what everyone else calls “being held responsible for your actions”. I’m not saying that’s necessarily the case in your experience, as I don’t know who you are or what this situation looks like from your perspective, but I would try to think about this from the perspective of the people who are “bullying” you and see if you can, perhaps, understand what’s motivating them to do what they’re doing.

Then on the subject of apologies, did you really apologize, or did you say some version of, “sorry you’re offended”? An apology should be given from a place of remorse. It shouldn’t come from a place of expecting forgiveness, wanting to be let off the hook, or wanting to be absolved from guilt. A good apology requires a clear “I’m sorry” statement (not an “I’m sorry you’re offended”), an expression of regret for hurting the person, an acknowledgement that you know what you did was wrong, an empathy statement acknowledging how what you did hurt someone else, a promise or plan to do better in the future, and, potentially, a request for forgiveness. Apologies should not include anything that can be construed as an excuse for your behavior. However, the phrase, “I did x because...but there’s no excuse for...” can go a long way.

All that said, even if your apology is completely “right”, nobody is obligated to forgive you for hurting them because you apologized. And apologies are more than just words; they’re actions to show that you understand the error of your ways and are working to be better in the future. Maybe this is an opportunity to take stock of the implicit biases you might hold or to consider how you can be a better ally to the Black community in the future. Learning how to be a better ally is hard. It often requires putting aside our preconceived notions about the world and definitely requires putting aside our egos. But I think it’s a worthwhile pursuit.

I’ve said this before on this blog, but I’m no fan of cancel culture. It has a lot of (forgive the phrase) “problematic” belief patterns that I’m not interested in supporting (although I will forever support Natalie Wynn’s video on cancel culture). I do think a lot of people get unfairly treated for mistakes that come from a place of ignorance or carelessness and not malice. I believe that people should be given the opportunity to grow and change as they learn new information about the world and how it works. But the key here is growth. Sometimes when a person does something “cancellable”, whether on purpose or by accident, there are other people who will never “un-cancel” them. That’s just kind of how cancelling works for some people. However, for the vast majority of people, I think seeing personal growth goes a long way in terms of getting them to forgive. The other thing that will help is time. Inevitably, someone else will do something equally or more cancellable than you did, and for the most part, people’s attention will probably shift to them and you’ll be left alone.

I know that all this probably isn’t the answer you wanted from me. Maybe you wanted me to tell you that everyone makes mistakes sometimes and that’s okay (and it is), or that if you just say the magic words people will stop being mean to you (there aren’t any). But the world is a complicated, nuanced place, and I don’t want to gloss over that with empty platitudes. I think the more we start recognizing nuance and are okay with admitting our own mistakes and shortcomings, the more we can improve ourselves and the world around us.

#Anonymous #effys-closet #effys closet

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armsdealing · 4 years ago

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@themercifulmother sent: ciro: 8. + 26. // emile: 19. + 23.

character development questions / accepting.

CIRO.

8. where and when do they seem most and least at ease? why? how can you tell?

ciro, especially older ciro, has a tight grip on his body language, so it's actually hard to tell when he's displeased or pleased by something, or when he's comfortable/uncomfortable. at least, when he's playing the role of advisor, and when he's around other made men. he's got reputation for being truly unreadable, for seeming perfectly okay with a meeting's resolutions only to turn around and tell salvatore that he thinks lowly of the terms of the prospective deal or the dealmakers themselves. he will seem unruffled by someone's aggressive behavior and, once that person is out of earshot, or simply has calmed down, he will pointedly criticize it. such a skill is invaluable for a consigliere, for a lawyer, and as salvatore's business partner.

he does not like surprises, though. he can work with them, will do well with them, but he does not like them. he does not like things being hidden from him, either, since they make his work much more difficult than he considers it should be. there's a breathable tension in the room whenever ciro realizes there's a crucial piece of information that he does not possess. he has argued (privately) with sal whenever he feels like sal has hidden something from him, and it's likely one of the few rare times sal could have seen ciro aggravated. it's not easy to tell unless you know ciro when this happens, but: he turns very still. hardly blinks, his gaze downturned when he is making direct eye contact. talks very coolly and keeps things brief and to the point.

he also does not like snakes. when he was younger (late teens), he was bitten by an asp viper during a trip to italy. a half hour of unbearable pain and some antivenom later, he's all good and healthy, but developed a fear of snakes. not a phobia: he can be near one, provided it's in its enclosure, but he'd rather not. he will avoid looking at it.

talks about sexuality also make him uncomfortable. it does not matter how accepting of it you might be. when he was young, even talking about girls was the one masculine ritual he never quite mastered (he was good at violence, at sports, at money -- but not vulgar conversations about women and sex), and his involvement was minimal, only the right amount necessary to keep suspicions of his own personal inclinations at bay. he claimed to be old fashioned, that he was raised to be respectful, a good catholic, a good sicilian. truth is, he was uneasy as fuck. and he's very tight-lipped about being gay even nowadays. you can chalk that up to both his stifled environment growing up and the fact that he's private by nature.

he's most at ease when things are business as usual. when he's on his own or with the company of someone he is close to (sal, delores, his wife), but not talking about business. you can tell because of the ribbing, and the rambling manner of his speech. he's more expressive, more colorful with his language, but still keeping his impassive disposition.

26. how do they view and feel about relationships, and how might this manifest in how they handle them, if it does?

he views relationships (friendships, family, spouse) as some of the most important things on earth. money and power is really all in service of what you can provide for your loved ones. someone who is powerful, but alone, without strong connections to anyone or anyone -- does not remain powerful for long. as a result, ciro is loyal and unwavering when it comes to his relationships. once he has chosen you as part of his small circle of friends and loved ones, he will pretty much kill for you. he will lie for you in court. he will bury a body for you and make sure it is never found. he will do anything in his power to keep you safe. moreover, he will ensure your loved ones are safe as well. for example, when sal goes to prison, ciro visits him on a consistent basis, but mostly he makes sure delores and the kids are doing well.

all this being said, he simultaneously believes that emotions and sentimentality should not cloud one's judgement, and how one feels shouldn't have a say above the logically better decisions. his loyalty is airtight, but so is his sense of pragmatism, and his tendency to look for the long term solutions rather than instant gratification. when someone he cares about is hurt (like, for example, his children) or threatened by someone, he goes about solving the problem in tranquil, meticulous manner. make no mistake, though: it is not any less cutthroat than simply walking and beating the assailant up over it.

ÉMILE.

19. how do they behave within a group? what role(s) do they take? does this differ if they know and trust the group, versus finding themselves in a group of strangers? why?

émile is an introvert who can pass very well for an extrovert, albeit at the cost of his energy. it also vastly depends on whether he trusts the group and the nature/purpose of the group itself.

he can effortlessly take the role of a leader, deciding what is best for the group and calling the shots, bringing people together and making sure everyone is doing well. this tends to happen with people he does not know much; he is the one that takes initiative primarily out of a lack of trust for others' leadership skills -- and because he is very independent and very intolerant to others bossing him around. it's also the sagittarius in him speaking -- sagittarians make good leaders because of their excellent organizational and people skills. at his best, émile is generous, broad-minded, optimistic, and charismatic enough to make people side with him and agree with him. he's also a great listener and protector.

but he can also easily take the role of the lancer/right-hand man. in order for this to happen, he needs to trust the leader greatly, and he will challenge them constantly. he is not someone that blindly follows others: he will act as a great complementary force. he will also appreciate not having to be in the spotlight all the time.

23. how do they respond to difficult social moments? what makes them consider a social situation difficult?

because of the add, émile suffers from emotional dysregulation. ed is a term used in the mental health community that refers to emotional responses that are poorly modulated and do not lie within the accepted range of emotive response. he also suffers from rsd, or rejection sensitive dysphoria, "an extreme emotional sensitivity and pain triggered by the perception that a person has been rejected or criticized by important people in their life".

as a result, émile does not deal with criticism well, or perceived slights (at himself, at his family/relationships), or rejection. he can easily become irritated and that irritation can quickly evolve into intense anger. when he was a child, this presented itself in the form of aggression: while mostly well behaved, he would waste no time snapping back at other boys/bullies when they threw mean comments at him, or lashing out at teachers for criticizing him. he would get into fights just to prove himself as not one to be tested. he did not deal with being scolded by his parents well, either -- he would pretend not to care, but that shit would sting. on more than one occassion, he would cry. he would continue to act out.

he got better with age. more mature, less likely to respond to provocation. he had to set an example for his siblings -- he had to help his parents with raising them, and be a good older brother. still, he worried about being overly sensitive. he would get stressed out very easily, angry very easily, and sad very easily, prompting him into impulsive behaviors. then just like that, these emotions would disappear and be replaced with apathy. he sought out hobbies to help him with that, took up exercise, running, boxing.

nowadays, more self aware and with medication that helps him modulate his emotions properly -- he still considers situations when someone is mad at him or disappointed with him especially difficult, just because of how much it hurts him to be in that position. however, he has tools to deal with it, and not let it overwhelm him. he overthinks a lot, but he has turned it into a good thing. now émile tries his best to solve problems via words and effective communication.

#* ciro.#* emile.#answered ooc.

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venus-says · 4 years ago

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Kamen Rider Ex-Aid Episodes 01-15

Press START button.

Ex-Aid is one of those seasons that when you look at it sounds like something that shouldn't work. I mean, putting doctors and video-games together? Is this what, a Dr. Mario live-action, an adaptation of Surgeon Simulator, or an actual Kamen Rider season?

This odd combination of factors always made very skeptical about this season, there's also the huge anime eyes in the helmet that never sat well with me too, but this concept combo always seemed pretty wild to work. But then I watched Gaim, which also had an odd combination of themes, and I saw that those odd concepts mixed together can be doable and be something fun so I started to look forward to the season. But even with the excitement, a small fear started to linger because as I started seeing more and more of Kamen Rider and seeing more of the community I always saw Ex-Aid popping up as one season that everyone thinks it's top-notch and well... the last time I saw a highly acclaimed season in the fandom I hated it so the chances of that happening here again were there.

And you know, I think my fears became reality and I feel like I'm having another Drive experience here. Maybe not at the same level as Drive, I feel like Ex-Aid got me less angry and annoyed, but this season really didn't click with me. I see that it can grow on me because after episode 11 I started enjoying it more, but the general feeling for these 15 episodes and this movie was... meh? Like, I don't like most of the characters, I have a serious problem with the comedy, and there's something in the dialogue of this show that really tickles me off. I also don't like how CGI heavy this show is, and most of the CGI looks horrible.

One thing that really pushed me off at the beginning was the structure that wasn't very interesting, we had 4 episodes to introduce the riders, 4 episodes to give a power-up to each of them, and 2 to introduce a shared power-up and defeat the first general of the villains, and I felt like I came out of these without that much story, it felt like they were just going through a checklist of toys they had to sell and not actually telling a story. It's only from episode 11 onward that it starts to feel like this show has some sort of plot.

I also don't like how this starts similar to a Rider War thing, with all riders competing to see who cleans 10 games first and gets the most Gashats, but they make all characters out of the main one be completely hateful so we have no choice other than root for him. And like, it's okay to give us jerk characters, but you gotta give us something about them so that we can hang on, you don't need to make them redeemable or anything but you gotta have enough for us to love hating on a character otherwise it's just annoying.

Going back to my weird dialogue point, probably one of the things that I dislike the most is how there are times where they don't seem like real people talking? Like, the image I have when seeing the dialogue is that a bunch of old men in a writers' room sit down thinking "what will sound very trendy to hit off with the kid gamers", "what's a young people language we can put here" and they think they're being very smart and clever, but just sounds odd as hell, especially with the gaming aspect and the catchphrases (that at this point in this franchise I'm already tired of them because most of them aren't even charming anymore).

Another thing that doesn't sit well with me is just how special they make these characters be when there's no necessity for it. Like, being an actual doctor is already special enough, you don't need to have your main rider be extremely good at games to justify the gaming motif, you don't need the secondary rider to be a famous prodigious surgeon to install a rivalry. I mean look at Kiriya, as far as I can't remember he doesn't have any special trait and yet he manages to be interesting and stand out on his own. Heck, you don't need to have Emu be patient 0 of the gaming disease when you already have him being really good at video-games and when you're starting to add another element to him with a possible second personality, it's too much for a single character RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING. It's not like we're seeing those characters evolving into becoming special, they're already special and we just have to buy it. Of course, there are still routes that they can go with that will make the show more interesting, like for example they can do something with Taiga and Emu and their game addiction/obsession and that can be really great, but all this special feeling since the beginning really bugs me.

I think since I'm already here let me talk about the characters. Emu is a precious kid, there are times in which he kinda gets under my skin, but I overall like him. I especially love that he works as a pediatrician, in the beginning, especially considering this is a kids' show, I like to have this idea of doctors being heroes in the mind of children because they really are (despite the health care system in a lot of countries make it looks like they're villains). Other than him being extra special there are two things the show does with him that I don't like, the first one is that after the first arc is done they make him leave pediatrics to start doing surgeries and while I understand that as an intern that's the normal course and he probably has to go through different areas before choosing a specialty, but I feel like that was done just to hone more the rivalry with Hiiro and I don't really care for that, I hope he's back at pediatrics later on because I feel like it's what makes more sense for him and for the target audience of this show. The other thing I don't like is his personality change when he "starts a game" because it never felt like there was much of a change in any of the cases, they just make a gust of wind and he shows a grim for a few seconds, but nothing changes. And seeing that this is a plot point they want to explore it annoys me that they never made that play out before, it's bringing something up when it's convenient and saying that they had a basis for that but the basis is a single small thing that was never brought up to attention before.

Moving to Hiiro, I Hate Him and that's all I have to say. And I hate him even more because the show put him in a relationship where he was very cold and dismissive of his significant other and still they want to make us sympathize with him, they frame it as "the girl left because she didn't want to bother your studies" instead of "she left you because you were a jerk". But of course, they can't make that because then they wouldn't be able to make the stoic character they want so much, they would have to make someone who's trying to become a better person after he lost someone important that he didn't give the proper attention to, and that's much harder and they don't want that. UGH, I hate this man so much.

Taiga. Taiga is... interesting, I like the concept of someone who worked at CR before but lost himself to addiction, that's a great plot point. It's sad they don't do much with him and we end up with another obsessive jerk. Still, don't hate him as much because I can see the potential for them doing something very cool with him, but as of now, he's in the pile of hate.

Kiriya was probably my favorite character of this cast, it was really fun seeing him go from a mysterious man lurking around to someone who looks very deceptive, and all the journey of him investigating the truth as the episodes where going, and seeing his credibility be questioned but he never gave up despite that, it was all very great. Do I think it was a cheap move to kill him before he could tell the truth about Emu? Yes, I do. Because this is something we see everywhere, it's not a new trick. But I still felt his death, and if they don't come up with a way to revive him somehow I'll give this show props because it was a bold move to kill off a character during the Christmas special.

About Genm, and all the villains for that matter, I don't have much to say. I don't get them, I'm not curious to understand them, thus I don't care for them. It's interesting that the powers of the riders end up coming from the main villain? A bit? But then again, if you have all of these powers and you're handing them to people who oppose you, it seems like it's very counter-intuitive. At least they have the excuse that he's gathering data from them, but if he never recovers those gashats, is he really getting the data he wants? I don't know, everything about him and the villains seems very odd. But for what's worth, he almost killed himself to gather data for a zombie game and that was pretty wild so I guess that counts? About Graphite and Parad, I don't have anything to say, don't really care for them.

This leaves us with the side characters. Asuna/Poppy, I wanna like her but sadly I don't. If she is the "token girl" of the season, I'm at least glad she's not a romantic interest and that she fills in as a support role, but still, don't know why she can't just be a regular nurse that goes a little crazy sometimes. Though I guess if they had gone this route with her she would probably become Kiriko 2.0 and that's also bad so... There's the Director of the hospital, and I just hate him, I hate that they make someone who's supposed to be the leader of the hospital sooooo stupid. And he's stupid at all times, he doesn't even get the treatment Jun had in which he was there for comedy but he also had his moments where he was serious and those moments were pretty good. This dude is just here to make his eyes pop and drool over his son and I hate that. Mr. Minister should've chosen someone better suited for this job. And last, there's Nico who just seems like another jerk I don't like, but I'm holding on talking about her because I think I've only seen her for 2 or 3 episodes and she appeared very little so I can't say much about her.

I intended to talk about the Dr. Pac-Man movie, but they actually integrated that plot in the show in a much more flashed out way this time around so I feel like it would be redundant to talk about it since the bigger points I would have to make were already touched on. But let me say, what a mess of a movie. Like, there was no reason for Wizard and Gaim to be there, like how did Gaim even get there in the first place? This movie would be much better with only Drive, Ghost, and Ex-Aid, because they actually had a decent plot going around there that connected very nicely. But it's still a cross-over movie and they make a lot of things I hate about these cross-overs, the awful rider forms are there, there was an awful huge CGI battle scene that looked ugly as hell (though props to them for making this fight happen mid-way and not at the end), there was that scene were the riders started to speed-run through their old forms that were also pretty awful because I could barely understand what was going on in the scenes, all the mess that every rider cross-over movie has. But the thing that annoyed me the most this time around wasn't even that, was Ghost being Ghost again and putting another countdown to doom into Takeru and bringing Akari in this hell with him, and having ANOTHER fake-out death for him at the end. GOSH, THIS ANNOYS ME SO MUCH, LET THIS DUDE LIVE, STOOOOOOP.

And before wrap-up let's talk about what everyone loves, the designs.

This is probably the group with my least favorite designs EVER in this franchise, I'm sorry. I get, they're taking inspiration of different game genres, and the different forms are like they're leveling up, and in concept, I like that but in actual looks, only a very few of them get to pull it off. To begin with, I don't even know what those belts are supposed to be, they look way too busy and I can't define what that shape is.

The Level 1 forms are a mistake. I know, it's Mario before he eats a mushroom, it's still ugly as hell, and I hate that when they grow to their Level 2 forms the head of Level 1 goes to their back like a backpack. In terms of Level 2, I wasn't a fan of Ex-Aid's eyes at first but the design grew on me a lot, I love the colors and how vibrant it is, I also like Genm's because it's just a color variation and it looks good so... Kinda wish his hammer arm stayed as a hammer all the time though, makes Brave having a sword less special. And speaking of him, despite hating his character, as an RPG fan, I do love his design. Snipe, on the other hand, is an abomination. That thing on his right eye that is supposed to hair? What the fuck Kamen Rider, you can do better. Well... at least he's not just a bike, I guess. Thinking about it now, I should've known that Kiriya would end-up dying when his level 2 form was just a bike, that was a major red flag. At least he looks cool.

Sadly Level 3 starts to make everything look ugly again because the power-ups are attachments and they usually go only in the upper body making everyone look like an ice cream cone. I don't think there's a single Level 3 design I like, all of them look awful. I think Shakariki Sports and Jet Combat offend me the most, but all of these can be thrown in the trash. Together with the shared Level 5 power-up, gosh talk about an awful form, it's so bulky, and that dragon head looks so ridiculous, I think the only Level 5 that works is Brave's because in the end it just looks like he's branding his sword, but everyone else looks awful, in special the Full Dragon form.

The Level 10 forms are fun because I love Genm's zombie version, black and white is an easy combination but it works so well, and this dude looks so freaking cool, also NO BACKPACK HEAD! Also, he has a much better belt than the others, this should be the design for all the riders, it's not very big, it's easily recognizable as a portable console, it just looks good you know? But then we have Ex-Aid's Level 10 and he's chibi ex-aid again and he looks awful, thankfully this form is just a set for us to get Level 20 Left and Right that is a concept I love and definitely my favorite suits out of the ones for this season so far. Would I like it better if there wasn't the shoulder piece with Lv.10's head? Definitely, but I still love these forms. I personally love the right side more because after all we already have a light blue rider on the team, but I also think the bright orange with blue accents looks more appealing and stands out more than the blue with orange accents. The last form present in these 15 episodes is Para-DX's Puzzle and Fighting game forms, and I hate the puzzle form, it's really ugly, the fighting game form works way much better, but the back of the helmet being Puzzle's head brings it down a little.

And that's it for this post. Not gonna lie, considering how much I didn't enjoy this show at the beginning, I'm very surprised by how long this post is. I think it's a sign I'm invested so I'm hoping we'll have only good things from here on now. If you have anything to add, please share your thoughts in the comments down below. Stay healthy, stay safe, never stop resisting, thank you so much for reading me rant for so long, and until the next time. See ya in the next game.

#Kamen Rider Ex-Aid #kamen rider

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bleepbloo · 5 years ago

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Reaction to The Lovers of the Fallen Tower (Part 1)

I am beyond late, I know, but better late than never right?

I am a little spoiled on the episode on some of the general things that happen, but not the how. So be prepared for ramblings and mind going off in different directions, and also we got so MUCH WORLD-BUILDING!!

Keeping that in mind, I hope y’all enjoy this!

So, off the bat, Olala is very cute. Not much else seems to be needed to say in that regard. She also handles people who died very well, but that’s only because she hasn’t experienced it happening in any relation to her.

I don’t doubt that’s going to change when she realizes- or if someone makes her realize *looks at Sir Caroline, who is the exact kind of person to tell a child her family is dead* - that her family, her Sisters, died by the Kite’s hand.

On the subject of Death, if the Queen didn’t call all the journeyman knights because Miller as a town was slaughtered, I will genuinely be surprised. Arum seems to be surprised twice by Olala; once when she mentions that she’s from the Garden of Death- which he recognizes - and when she mentions she’s ‘half-monster’.

Arum seems to handle kids well, which- doesn’t bug me, necessarily, but it does raise the question of how. He’s been pretty hard-core ID’d as a hermit, both by analysis and the narrative itself, so while I doubt that he’s been around many children, it does lead me to think the Keep wasn’t the only one to raise him? I mean, the way he handled Olala is very different than how the Keep obviously raise Arum; he set boundaries, rules where the Keep indulges, he (tried) not to dump his baggage on her where the Keep sings and talks about everything, he sent her away to the Keep when he needed to have a grown-up conversation with Rilla- that speaks of someone who was taught by someone else. Or he could be just good with children, I’m not holding my breath here

Also, wow, Rilla did not handle anything well, but I mean. Who can blame her? A three person relationship is way different from a two-person one, and while they’re all talking to each other, they’re not communicating. Damien’s more or less committed treason - burning letters from ‘his true home’.

Does that include any letters Angelo might be sending??

How long has Damien been burning letters??

Do his parents even know he’s alive???????

I’m very concerned by this, if only because like- speaking from some personal experience- it can be very jarring to realize that you don’t have the same support network you thought you did, or that because of who you are now cannot coincide. Of course, Arum doesn’t understand it because 1) Hermit, 2) he’s always been accepted by his home, if nothing else.

They’re all having a bad time of it.

Still, shoutout to Damien for being a good person and deciding that he needed to be here to defend the child, and did it despite the communication issues with Arum and his own internal issues.

Also, Arum gets annoyed by the Citadel’s renaming of everything, but I have to wonder if the Southern Frosts has it’s own renaming of things?

Because, for those that don’t remember, what Rilla and Tal saw as a sea-shell, Caroline explicitly saw it as a court-house. Which says some interesting things about the Southern Frosts and how they correlate to the monster view of things, and how the Citadel quite clearly deviates from this by renaming things.

I’m going to chew on that thought in a different post, but for now it’s worth noting.

In that moment, where he asks to watch it again, he’s exactly the kind of person who would depress watch a show that makes him happy. And it’s done very well how Damien and Arum aren’t really talking to each other. At all. When Damien mentions he’s never heard that moniker before, he says it gently to Olala, not to Arum at all, and when Arum responds, it’s to tell Rilla to tell him.

Which, man. I’d lose my goddamn mind if I had to deal with that on a near-daily basis. (Also, it’s clear that despite Damien’s status as knight, he stays within the Northern border, and that there’s REALLY not a lot of visitors from the West, which kind of shows that despite the quite large amount of land there is in the world, people - of the West, South, North, and ESPECIALLY the East (if there’s anyone who lives out there)- don’t travel much, which contributes to the xenophobia of the North & South at the very least!)

I’m going to chew on this more - between college and life - but it’s clear that the West is something of a united front, at least where Olala was from. They allow monsters to visit and live with them, use magic and science hand-in-hand, are both in a place of death and yet holds so much life (fungi)- it’s literally the middle ground between the North and the South. Also, really glad that the Arum finally mentioned the entire North being called ‘the Second Citadel’ so I can stop referencing that one time early access content was allowed for all patrons.

It’s also interesting that a place has emotions, but then, magic. Which we still don’t know how it works really.

Also, I should mention that when I heard the name ‘emotional resonator’, I thought that it was going to- locate an emotion and fixate on it, drawing it out like a fish on a fishing pole.

This was not that.

“Increase the anxiety-”, y’know what, I had to pause here, and say that you shouldn’t try and increase the anxiety of a place, ESPECIALLY NOT IN A PLACE THAT’S STILL VERY AND CLEARLY TRAUMATIZED!!!!!

This just proves that while Rilla and Arum have high INT, they both - together- have a very low WIS. And Rilla proves that she’s Marc’s sister by impulsively going when the experiment has been run.

Parapet of the wilds. Hm. For those that don’t know, a parapet the part of a wall or a tower that stops you from falling off the top of a building. Then a two of the wilds, nine of some sort of mirror or snail (the East? Sage Helicoid??). Also, I want to take this moment to apologize for the length of this- school has kept me busy so to talk like this is very nice, except I’m still in the middle of it and I’m sure there’s going to be more to come.

Poor Olala, caught in the middle. This is DEFINITELY NOT what Marc had in mind when he left Olala in the care of Arum.

And, ah, the building does have a type. Conflicting lovers.

Hm, so towers can be used to get magical currents.

There’s also a story, called Babbalon, where, together, all of humanity was working together to ascend to heaven. And it was working, which made God, worried, so God broke the tower, and cursed people to have completely separate languages from each other so that they could never again get so close to Heaven. Considering present circumstances, with humanity and monsters, the same metaphor works here.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there was one on the side of the world to the West, East, and South.

Also, I have to wonder when Pix and David are- they clearly lived at the Terminus for a few years before everything went boom, and they were building the Bridge- aka the Fallen Tower - prior to getting attacked. I’ve wondered if it’s before or after the First Citadel fell. I mean, it’s probably before, but how much before?

Also, jesus Rilla, this- I know you want Damien and Arum to get along, but using it TWICE like this WHEN ARUM EXPLICITLY STATES IT’S *DANGEROUS* IS A BAD IDEA! Of course, she does it anyway.

AND NOW WE GET CONFIRMATION THAT THERE ARE LIGHTS OFF THE EDGE OF THE WORLD, and also a name Zin? That’s going to come up again, mark my words. Every significant person in the world/story - Queen Mira, Sir Damien, Sir Absolom, David, Pix, Senator Calin(?mentioned by the nameless monsters at the end of the World)- everyone who has some sort of name, and I do mean name, is going to come up again. It happened with Queen Mira, Sir Damien, Pix, David, it’s going to be brought up with Sir Absolom soon, mark my words.

Anyway, point is, Pix saw lights!

Even if it’s like- Plateau's, where each land mass is separated by degrees of going down, or like, the Citadel Plateau’s is separated from the land mass below it, there’s still SOMETHING out there! I’m very excited for it.

And, oh, it was just minutes after this that Pix and David died, wasn’t it? Oh.

And oh, GOd. She’s looking for answers in the wrong place. She’s looking in a two-person relationship- her situation and theirs are- so far from different that it’s like looking through 3-d colored glass with just one eye.

Their species are at war, and that- like it or not- still affects their relationship.

I mean, I get it, but also, there are other things that could’ve been attempted first.

Oh god, poor Olala. She’s stressed out, by the anxiety and by the machine and by everything that her body is literally changing out of stress! Honestly, mood, but also, huh. It means that who- or what, depending- these memories belong to, is also resonating with Olala.

And the Bridge, destroyed. This IS STILL NOT BIDING WELL FOR WHEN WE ACTUALLY GET TO THE TOWER CARD. I am going to keep harping on this until I’m metaphorically black and blue.

I don’t know if it’s the memory of the person or the machine glitching/repeating out on itself, or some combination thereof(you know, like a panic attack), but this certainly explains the description of the next episode.

Also, I love how Arum is so unimpressed with Damien’s ‘one miracle’, because functionally Arum(in D&D terms) like a Warlock to his Keep’s patronage, can create some thousand miracles and things that have never existed before, even though it’s still super impressive that Damien was even able to do the ONE miracle.

Damien, when he isn’t being a xenophobic dingus, is actually quite smart.

And that’s the end of the episode, part 1.

Also, the names at the end of the Episode fucking kill me, fucking superb you funky donators.

I’ll soon be back, with Part 2 reaction. And then we get to munch onto some good, good theories.

#second citadel spoilers #second citadel #bleepbloo thoughts

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sanjisock · 6 years ago

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Fuck, Marry, Kill (or, how Usopp becomes the best matchmaker of the sea without really trying)

ao3

It’s a classic , Usopp said. Any pirate worth their salt would play this at least once , he said.

Sanji would say he’s around eighty-percent sure Usopp just made this game up, but Sanji is always eighty-percent sure Usopp made something up just by principle alone. It certainly doesn’t help Usopp’s case that Nami is grinning wide beside him, notepad and quill in hands.

“So,” Nami echoes Usopp’s earlier question cheerfully, and her smile is way too beautiful and magnificent for the words that come out of her mouth next: “fuck, marry, kill. Who’s your pick?”

There are rules to this stupid game. Actual fucking rules . Not even the world government kind, the ones they break on a daily basis anyways because, hey, pirates. These rules are the kind that forces you to pay Nami a hefty amount of Berries if you break them, which, on the deck of Sunny, means nothing short of Serious Business.

Nami had taken to the game with surprising interest as soon as Usopp told her about it, but then again, she talked about it with the same tone she uses when she’s going to swindle a lot of money from an unsuspecting poor fellow (read: Zoro), so maybe this isn’t much of a surprise at all.

The rules, pinned next to the spice cupboard and right under the dishwashing duty roster, are as follows:

A crew member must be picked whenever possible.

Only one name is to be given for each category.

If, and only if, one has come up with a legitimate reason not to pick a crew member, it has to be someone they’ve met, known, or at the very least, heard.

Choices are based on pure objective reasoning and any FUCK/MARRY shall not be interpreted as anything resembling interest or, worse, intention to pursue. This means you, Sanji.

The same applies to KILL. This means you, Zoro.

Individual answers are confidential and worth B500,000/answer, or 10% of your last loot, whichever is higher.*

*) Payments are to be made in cash to Nami.

Really, it shouldn’t have been a surprise at all. Sanji thinks he saw her eyes turn Berries-shaped. He personally thinks she still looks beautiful, and tells her as much.

She tells him this doesn’t excuse him from the game, and expects his answer by the end of the week.

Sanji is the first victim by elimination — Chopper is out of the game because he is young, innocent and, ultimately, not human, Zoro is sleeping like the oaf he is, Luffy doesn’t seem to have figured out that the thing below his belt is useful for something other than peeing, and the others have left the ship to explore the newest island they’ve just docked at.

Sanji silently wishes the marines would start attacking them just so they could distract Nami and Usopp from the shitty game.

It’s not that Sanji wants to ruin what is — Nami’s expensive fine notwithstanding — ultimately some harmless fun. Sanji has never had problems going along with the crew’s antics, and between declaring war on the World Government and punching a royalty so hard they call a marine admiral after you, this one is far from outrageous by any means. He doesn’t think it’s physically possible for him to give Nami a no for an answer, either.

It’s just that... he doesn’t actually have an answer.

He’s a romantic person by nature. He likes to make everyone happy, and when that doesn’t work out, he likes to make everyone he gives a shit about happy. He does preen from the more... feminine attention, but between the bustling customers of Baratie, entering and leaving as they please, he never learned how to pick favorites.

Nami points at rule number two.

Usopp suggests he should just pick Zoro for MARRY, because they already fight like an old married couple anyways.

Sanji threatens to put Usopp under KILL and break the fifth rule, exactly in that order. Usopp has enough self preservation instinct to shut up really fast after that.

Brook has never heard of the game, which gives more credibility to the Usopp-Made-This-Game-Up Theory, but it’s not like there’s stopping them at this point, so Sanji fumes and glares, but in silence. Usopp smartly stays quiet.

Brook asks if Nami would show him her panties if he puts her under MARRY. Nami clocks him in the skull.

He settles on Zoro for MARRY.

“What,” Sanji says, stunned.

“Well, Zoro-san is a disciplined, reputable swordsman,” Brook explains, “and any decent swordsman would make a responsible husband.”

That...probably makes sense in Swordsman-Speak, or whatever language people like Zoro, who substitutes normal greeting with stabbing and slashing, speak in. Whatever. Sanji is civilized , and will not bother to even try to understand.

Brook can’t name anyone under KILL. He is, however, curious if anyone wants to pick him, considering he’s already dead, yohoho, skull joke!

Nami groans and hits his skull, again.

Franky has heard of the game, but he can’t pinpoint where he’s exactly heard it from, and Sanji suspects it’s from Usopp.

Franky also puts Zoro under MARRY. Franky is so not on Sanji’s list of favorite people today.

“Not you too,” Sanji groans, scandalized, because Brook is approximately a billion years old and therefore would understandably consider Zoro’s neanderthal values desirable, but Franky is, like, the future . Cyborgs are essentially sentient robots.

Franky shrugs. “He’s a super dude, his fights make great shanties, he can help me carry the ship materials —”

“ I can help you carry the ship materials,” Sanji interrupts, and wonders how his life has gotten to a point where he’s trying to compete with Zoro for Franky’s hand in marriage.

“ And ,” Franky presses, “he won’t chew me out for burping on the table after dinner.”

Sanji’s eyes twitch at that. Well. In sickness and health, sure, but that? That’s just barbaric.

“He’s a great dude who breaks the Sunny’s railings once a week,” Sanji points out, switching his strategy. If he can’t win, at least Zoro should lose, too.

His strategy backfires as Franky raises his eyebrow at him and asks, “Speaking of, didn’t you break the front railing yesterday?”

Franky puts Sanji on KILL for that.

Sanji considers smashing his feet through the railing again, just because he can.

Robin immediately picks Zoro for MARRY, because blah yadda blah bushido code, something something gentlemanly, yeah, yeah. Sanji mentally apologizes for tuning her out, but if he has to listen to beautiful Robin-chan talking about Zoro being a good husband, Sanji won’t be able to resist arguing, and that just won’t do. He isn’t about to question a lady’s decision, however irrational. Nobody’s perfect after all — not even Robin.

She also puts Zoro under KILL for ruining her flower bed last week when he accidentally dropped his oversized training weight (which is unnecessarily huge and totally an overcompensation for something ), and he falls for her all over again. Robin really is perfect.

She then tries to clarify whether normal Franky and Cyborg Franky count as one.

“Uh,” Nami says, confused, “would it even make a difference?”

“Nami,” Robin says as she leans forward, chin in hand and a mysterious smile playing on her lips, “the hands make all the difference.”

Robin puts Cyborg Franky under FUCK. Sanji blinks.

Usopp grimaces.

Nami has a distant look on her face, the kind of expression that guys wear when they witness other guys get hit in the nuts.

They pointedly don’t ask , and back away from the room slowly.

The final tally is:

Sanji gets one flattering FUCK (he hasn’t found out from whom, and honestly, considering the available options of Usopp, Luffy and Nami, doesn’t want to take his chances), Robin gets two (Nami shiftily avoids everyone’s eyes for this one), Cyborg Franky gets one (Franky opens his mouth to question the specificity, turns beet red by his own realization, and promptly closes it), and Zoro gets one ( ew , is what Sanji would like to say, but Sanji is man enough to admit that Zoro can get it, considering those abs and deltoids he keeps flashing due to his unexplainable aversions to clothing. Fucking caveman).

Zoro gets a whopping five for MARRY.

That’s literally all the strawhats, minus Luffy (who probably doesn’t even know what marriage is), Chopper, Zoro himself, and Sanji.

What the actual fuck .

Sanji succumbs to curiosity and pays Nami his ten percent.

Zoro put Sanji under KILL, he finds out.

It’s not a surprise. Hell, it’s the most predictable thing coming out of this game—the sky is blue, water is wet, and Zoro puts Sanji under KILL. Whatever. Sanji still hasn’t decided on his list quite yet, but he is certain he’d put Zoro under KILL, too.

Nami asks him if he wants to know what Zoro’s FUCK and MARRY are, and Sanji politely declines because he just doesn’t care which random chick Zoro wants to do the deed with and not because the way his stomach clenches oddly at the thought, really . It’s probably that beautiful marine lady that always tags along with Smoker — Tashigi-chan or something. Zoro always acts funny around her, even when the others never noticed. He’s an open book to Sanji like that.

Sanji walks away and doesn’t give it a second thought.

Bastard.

He gave it a second thought.

And a third. And a fourth. And damn his shitty traitorous brain to hell, a fifth.

By the time lunch rolls around Zoro and Tashigi are married with a quaint little dojo at the foot of a mountain and blessed with three bespectacled, green-haired children Sanji can’t even bring himself to hate because they’d smile just so when their Uncle Sanji makes their favorite apple pie.

Not that there’s anything to hate. About Zoro and Tashigi-chan, that is. Well, there’s always something to hate about Zoro because he’s Zoro , and Sanji would probably nag him a little for receiving the affections from such a beautiful lady like Tashigi, but there’s absolutely nothing deplorable about the idea in general. They’d get along swimmingly anyways, probably spending hours and hours just talking about shitty swords and other sharp, pointy things as their three children play in their backyard overlooking a beautiful deep blue sea, the setting sun painting a warm backdrop on the wooden walls of their dojo.

He blinks as his train of thought crashes and derails into a nearby mental chasm.

He blinks again, just for good measure.

Holy fucking shit, he has a problem .

“Marines!” Usopp yells from the crow’s nest, and Sanji wakes up, eyes still bleary, to three marine ships surrounding Sunny, cannons loaded and aimed towards the deck.

Be careful what you wish for, he feels like telling his past self.

He rushes to the deck to get a clearer view on their enemies, and hell , he’s convinced the universe finds pleasure in finding new ways to fuck him over because he sees Smoker on the helm of the largest marine ship.

And if there’s Smoker, there’s —

“Shit,” Zoro mutters from beside him, and Sanji only needs to follow his gaze to see Tashigi walk up towards the helm to stand beside Smoker. Because of course Zoro would notice her immediately. There are roughly a thousand marines on three of these galleons and she’s the first person Zoro sees. Great. Awesome. That would make a romantic story to tell their three green-haired children.

God damn it. His brain really needs to stop with the children already. He considers going for a check up with Chopper just for this.

A thousand bloodthirsty marines prove to be a good enough distraction from Zoro and Tashigi’s imaginary children, and soon Sanji is lost in the rhythm of the fight, almost enjoying it. He kicks a marine on the back of the head, does a spinning kick to immobilize another ten, and jumps aside to avoid a gunshot —

Only to find himself face to face with Tashigi.

“Black Leg —” Tashigi says, immediately taking a fighting stance, but Sanji is faster.

Before he knows it, he finds himself kicking the two guys guarding her, lifts and drives his right leg on her sword and into the cabin wall right beside her head, effectively pinning her to the wall. Sanji doesn’t kick women, would never harm a woman, but anything around her is fair game and he feels almost guilty for trying to wrestle a loophole in his own principle.

He needs to do this, though. He has to. She’s a marine, his enemy, a threat. And… there’s something he needs to know.

He blurts without thinking, “fuck, marry, kill. Who would you pick?”

Tashigi starts. “What?”

He thinks he’s blushing, but he figures if he wants to avoid embarrassment the ship has sailed a long time ago so he says, “out of the strawhats. If you had to choose, who would you fuck, marry and kill?”

Tashigi narrows her eyes and pulls harder on her sword. “Are you joking, pirate?!”

Sanji is stronger, though. He pushes her sword deeper into the wall. “I’m sorry, mademoiselle, but I don’t joke about this.”

Tashigi wears the expression of someone who wonders what kind of life decisions she’s made that has led her into this situation, which is something Sanji can relate with. “Well, fuck you , pirate. I’d kill you .”

That’s fair, Sanji supposes. “And marry?”

She opens her mouth, stops herself from saying at least three other different curses before turning an interesting shade of red.

She mumbles her answer.

“Yes, Tashigi-chan?”

“Don’t call me Tashigi- chan ,” she snarls, much louder, before muttering again, though Sanji can hear it this time, a low, shy, “well, that swordsman of yours did save my life back in Punk Hazard.”

Tashigi blushes brighter, and Sanji knows a lost cause when he sees one.

Zoro and Tashigi have four children this time in his head, three girls and one boy, and it sucks, so fucking unfair that everyone wants to marry Zoro, with his stupid hair and stupid face and stupid everything. What’s so good about him anyways? The moron doesn’t even have depth perception . He doesn’t deserve all these beautiful girls, wouldn’t even be able to cherish them and treat them with love like Sanji would.

Who’s to say that they would know him either? Zoro’s a moron , after all, and he probably only has, like, three sets of expressions. Sure, Sanji can read his tics, knows the way Zoro clenches and unclenches his left hand when he sees a potentially strong opponents, the way Zoro would rub the back of his neck when he’s embarrassed — but these girls don’t know that. He doesn’t think anyone knows that, and without knowing the real Zoro, how could they make him happy? Would they know how to find him when he gets lost? Would they cook him his favorite food every day? Would they love him as much Sanji does —

Wait.

Sanji pauses.

And.

Breathes.

Tashigi has started protesting now, demanding her swords to be returned now that she’s gone along with his ridiculous demands, but it all sounds so distant now, because.

He loves. Zoro.

Sanji inhales. Then exhales.

He loves Zoro .

He sees it again, the dojo at the foot of a hill overlooking the beautiful blue sea, but this time the dojo belongs to Zoro and him , and two of the four children have blonde hair, and the sea outside is All Blue. The imagination seems so vivid because somewhere along the line that has become his dream , a future he envisioned as clearly as finding All Blue and witnessing Luffy become a Pirate King.

Fuck, he’s in love with Zoro.

“Shit,” he says heartily. “I’m in love with Zoro.”

“What?” Tashigi says, perplexed. Sanji hopes it’s because she can’t hear him amidst the cacophony of gunfire, swords, and bodies hitting the floor.

He lowers his leg and steps back, still in shock by the revelation.

Tashigi is looking at him in confusion, or at least he assumes she does, because he’s no longer paying much attention to his surroundings. How could he, when he’s just come to such a huge revelation about himself, holy fucking hell he’s in love with Zoro —

A passing marine takes the chance and stabs a sword through his lungs.

The last thing he remembers is choking on air, mentally laughing at the fucked up irony of living on a ship surrounded by endless seas just to meet his end by drowning on dry land. He thinks he saw flashes of metal, of Zoro’s stupid green hair and stupider face, torn apart between anger and concern, Sanji’s name for once stumbled out of his lips — but Sanji is pretty sure he imagined this last part up. He is a romantic fool like that.

He blinks himself awake to the familiar smell of Chopper’s infirmary, the oddly soothing mix of medicine and sweets. He tries to sit up as far as his bandaged torso would allow, and when he catches the orange of Nami’s hair his heart warms but doesn’t flutter. It hasn’t been, he realizes, for quite some time.

He really is in love with Zoro. God damn it.

“Sanji?” Nami says when their eyes finally meet, and she hurriedly stands up, “oh my god, you’re awake, I need to wake Chopper up, Chopper —”

“Don’t worry, Nami-san,” he says, catching her wrist just in time before she rushes out of his reach, “I’m fine. Let our doctor sleep for some time.”

“But,” she says, but it’s a token resistance at best, as she’s already sitting down again. She tugs his grip lightly at that — a small, playful movement — but he feels the pull reverberate through his arm and to his chest, jarring him into a coughing fit.

He thinks he’s coughed up both of his lungs before a glass of water touches his lips. It takes him a few gulps and a couple more deep breaths before he realizes Nami is rambling a guilty “oh my god, Sanji-kun, oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

He clears his throat and tries to give her his best smile, “please don’t apologize, Nami-san! A beautiful face like yours shall not be marred with unnecessary worries.”

Nami sighs, but it’s fond. “You were unconscious for a whole week,” she says, squeezing his shoulder, “let me fuss over you for a while.”

Sanji whips his head towards her in shock, mouth hanging open

“A week,” he echoes. No wonder he feels so sluggish. He thought it might have been the medicine, but apparently he danced far too near to the grim reaper than he was comfortable with.

His gaze drifts to take in more of the infirmary, afraid that he’s missed more important details like not remembering an entire week of his life . For the most part everything seems to be in place, large shelves filled with Chopper’s neatly-arranged medical books beside his work table, with complicated looking medical appliances situated more at the corner of the room, near the door. His gaze eventually falls on the small bedside table and he does a double take.

Zoro’s katanas — all three of them — are leaning against the foot of the table. Sanji frowns; it’s rare to see them without their owner, and rarer still to see them being parted with so voluntarily, away from the swordsman's sight.

“Yeah, Zoro was here,” Nami answers the unvoiced question as she notices what he’s been staring at, “been by your bedside all week, actually. We had a roster, just in case you —” Nami pauses at that, looks away and — did her voice waver at the end there? “You know. Anyway, didn’t even need the whole roster thing in the end because Zoro just wouldn’t leave. Stubborn man. Just his luck you woke up when he took a bathroom break; serves him right for growling at me when I offered him to switch on the first day. He looked like he was ready to gouge his remaining eye out and leave it in the infirmary if it meant keeping an eye on you, science be damned.”

Sanji blinks, again, at the story. There’s a weird tug at this chest. He lifts his hand up to touch it, and it feels warm, from the inside.

“It’s frankly kind of cute, how he’s been acting like a mother hen,” Nami continues, and her smile gains a mischievous edge as she adds, “or, you know, like a worried husband.”

Sanji wants to say something to that, but Chopper probably gave him some strong stuff because his tongue feels heavy and he can feel the strong pull of sleep dragging him back to unconsciousness.

He sees darkness at the edges of his vision, and doesn’t think at all as he says, “yeah, he would make a good husband,” and eyes already closed, he sees the house at the foot of the hill and mumbles, “I’d marry him.”

Chopper’s medicine really is strong.

The next time Sanji opens his eyes, there’s a cottony rasp on the inside of his mouth and dread looming at the back of his mind. It’s reminiscent of days when they partied too hard and he drank one too many glasses of liquor, but worse , because he remembers every single word he said to Nami.

He considers asking Chopper on his stance on euthanasia.

It doesn’t help that the person sitting beside his bed is not the ever-beautiful, ever-wonderful Nami, but the last person he’d rather see after his accidental confession. He has no doubt that Nami has told Zoro everything — has told everyone everything — and while his body has mostly recovered from the injuries, he’s pretty sure he could still die from embarrassment.

He sits up on the bed, scrambling for an excuse, “Zoro —”

“You almost died,” Zoro interrupts before Sanji could even finish his sentence, and takes Sanji’s hand in his. “Don’t you dare do that again, Shit Cook.”

Sanji stares at their hands, and wonders if Chopper’s medicine is even stronger than he thought. “What does it mean to you?”

Zoro shrugs. “You know what,” he answers vaguely.

Sanji doesn’t , though. Zoro shifts in his seat, looking away, seemingly embarrassed by his own words, and Sanji is left wondering what the fuck is happening. Zoro is the type of person who gives brutally honest and oftentimes insensitive answers. He doesn’t give cryptic, vague answers — that’s more of Sanji’s department. “What?”

Zoro pulls his hand away, and Sanji hates how his own hand feels very cold all of a sudden. “You know. Our answers for Usopp’s stupid game.”

Sanji would rather take another sword to the chest than to continue with this conversation, so he does the cowardly thing and practically leaps out of the bed. “I’m not in the mood to talk about that.”

Zoro is faster, though — Sanji is blaming all the medicines in his bloodstream for his slow reaction — and manages to catch Sanji by the wrist. “Where are you going?”

“Away. Out.” He pats his pockets with his free hand, but doesn’t find his cigarettes, unsurprisingly. Fuck, he needs a smoke. “In case you forgot, I haven’t been out for a week from this shitty room.”

“Seriously?” Zoro growls in reply, tightening his grip. “That’s all you got to say? Didn’t you pay for my answers? Nami told me you — if that sea witch is lying again —”

“I told you not to call Nami-san like that,” he replies, almost instinctively, feeling more and more agitated by the turn of the conversation. “What the fuck are you talking about, brainless mosshead.”

Zoro glowers at him, face oddly serious. “Did you or did you not get my answers for the stupid game?”

Sanji is going to lose it. Is Zoro seriously trying to rub this whole thing in his face? The fact that Sanji wants to marry him, even after knowing Zoro only puts him under kill? Knowing that Zoro doesn’t find him desirable in any way, that he’d prefer having three wonderful well-mannered kids with a beautiful marine lady?

“You put me under KILL!” He yells, unable to stop himself. “If this is your way of telling me you want to kill me, drop it. Way too roundabout for your style, Marimo. And just in case you’re wondering, no, I didn’t bother to find out who you want to fuck. Or marry.” He looks away, trying not to choke on his own heart. “Happy?”

Zoro’s eyes widen comically at that, and he loosens his grip on Sanj’s wrist in surprise; Sanji doesn’t miss the chance and kicks him on the chest.

Zoro flies out of the infirmary through the door with a satisfying bang , and Sanji relishes his victory for a moment before growing reluctantly concerned as Zoro doesn’t get up from that. Surely he didn’t kick him that hard, did he? He jogs towards the dust-covered body on the deck, and finds Zoro with his head in his hand, mouth twisting into a hysterical laughter.

“Stupid cook,” Zoro says as soon as Sanji’s close enough to hear him, “are you jealous?”

Sanji growls, and pointedly doesn’t blush. “I’m going to kill you.”

When Zoro drops his hand and looks up, he doesn’t look like he’s making fun of Sanji, though. He looks surprised, and even almost… hopeful? “You are jealous.”

Sanji has about a thousand retorts to that, but all of them die in his lips as Zoro tugs him down by the hand, pulling him to crouch right in front of Zoro. Their faces are really close like this, and Sanji can’t look away.

“Cook,” Zoro says when Sanji doesn’t say anything, “Nami said you put me under your MARRY. Is that true?”

Sanji refuses to answer, but the way he looks away and blushes like a fourteen-year-old is probably a good enough answer for Zoro. Zoro laughs, tightens his grip on Sanji’s wrist and pulls him into a kiss.

Sanji’s life needs to have fewer twists before he dies from heart attack at the tender age of twenty-one.

When they part, Zoro doesn’t lean away; presses their foreheads together instead, his hand large and warm on the nape of Sanji’s neck. There’s a big grin plastered across Zoro’s flushed face, the kind that Sanji only sees whenever the swordsman comes across an alcohol he likes, or wins a particularly hard fight, or — as Sanji begins to understand, heart hammering in his chest like it’s trying to escape — whenever Zoro is really, really happy, apparently. And to think that Sanji is the one who puts that smile on Zoro’s face —

“I put you under MARRY, you dumbass,” Zoro says, though his insult doesn’t carry much weight, considering the stupid grin still wouldn’t leave his face. “Put you under everything , Cook. Kill, fuck, marry — the whole deal. Because that’s how far you’ve messed me up — you idiot, stupid, annoying, oblivious Shit Cook,” he presses another kiss, chaste and light and all too quick, leaving tingling sensations on Sanji’s lips. “I am in love with you.”

The words rattle against Sanji’s ribcage, his heart threatening to burst from his chest. His face feels warm all over, and he’d look away, except for the fact that Zoro’s hands are gently cupping his face, thumb rubbing absentmindedly against Sanji’s cheek.

“You’d make the shittiest husband ever,” Sanji tells him, because Zoro might be the love of his life — and ain’t that a thought that could make his heart miss a couple of beats — but he still wouldn’t miss a chance to tease Zoro.

“Yeah.” Zoro simply agrees at that, laughing softly. “I’d be your shittiest husband, though.”

Sanji doesn’t find a reason to argue with that, heart jackrabbiting against his chest, and simply leans for another kiss.

10.

By unanimous decision, and with some heavy censorship by replacing FUCK with SLEEP, they decided that Chopper is at least old and human enough to know what’s going on with the game.

“I’m not happy at all that you decided to finally include me in the game, bastard!” Chopper said with a happy wiggle, his hooves clapping together excitedly.

He puts Zoro under SLEEP. Literally. Chopper thinks Zoro makes a great pillow, and a great sleeping partner because he doesn’t move around.

Chopper purses his lips at MARRY.

“The idea of human marriage is still foreign to me,” he says, explaining his silence, “there are too many factors involved in human marriage. For us reindeers, all we look for in a mate is one who can provide us food.”

As if on cue, Zoro throws a large fish onto the deck. There are three large slashes on its belly, crossing through its gills.

Chopper picks Zoro for MARRY.

Sanji resists the urge to bash his head repeatedly on the ship mast, and doesn’t go through with it only because Zoro leans in and steals a kiss from him, effectively blocking his path.

Bastard. Shittiest husband ever .

#opfanfic #zosan #roronoa zoro #sanji #one piece #easily the longest fic on this account. please take it AWAY from my hands

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anendoandfriendo · 1 year ago

Text

Profile for Aster (Prototype)

"Look, I’m a little busy right now, could you please come back la – ah, so you wanted to talk to me about that? I guess I could explain the difference once more between the two substances, but only once more. Please pay attention this time. I do not need you killing yourself because you decided now was a good time to space out."

Aster and Astellaryx are probably more like fire and water: they seem more like opposites until you realize fire and water make steam. You wouldn’t really expect them to get along, until you do, and the dynamic that’s created still looks a lot more unstable and has a lot more movement than either of its components. It’s extremely hard to follow either of the twins, but more so Aster, who is the brains behind the scenes.

Aster has a tendency to take what most people would consider way too much time to accomplish his plans, and his curiosity is generally more idle curiosity for his surroundings. Observation is key to planning, which can come in handy both in naturalistic and metropolitan environments. Or, as he puts it: “I prefer case studies but, well, in a pinch I guess I don’t mind a bit of experimentation,” when asked.

This is especially true when someone as, ah, excuse him, bullheaded as his sister is in his presence on a regular basis. At this point, he isn’t even surprised by the actions of his counterpart. He is just glad his sibling didn’t set the entire casino on fire, or just randomly grab him and get everyone in the building killed, that one time he got himself kidnapped by another organization. It’s Astellaryx he’s talking about. She can take care of the both of them just fine, so he probably shouldn’t question it too much. She had decided kidnapping him right back would be a better plan than letting him bide his time and make his own escape, much to his chagrin.

It’s not like he’s super weak; he is a cow demon after all, just like Astellaryx. He just prefers to stay silent and step in only when things look bad enough, and Aster just discovered a new way to clean off all of that damn blood on her clothes, please, it won’t be like last time where he burned a hole through the sleeve okay he promises so the poor bastard who has earned Aster’s ire is probably in for quite the fun time when Aster takes them in for one of his study ideas!

The “experimentation” in question that Aster varies but is usually – yup, you guessed it – toxins and poisons, with a live test subject being preferred. This is the part he often leaves out when answering the question “what do you learn about in your free time,” or anything similar. Normally it’s something like a bird or a rodent, but considering he has very likely made some minor body modifications on himself for shits and giggles (much to the chagrin of his now-obliterated village...the exile is now permanent he supposes), it is not beyond him to do the same for the unwitting test subject should they attempt take advantage of Astellaryx’s dumbassery. The same will go for friends if he ever obtains them. They don’t need to know about this though. :))))) Everyone is safe and happy as long as they are under his metaphorical wings. :)))))

He keeps a notebook on him at all times which contains many many diagrams, formulae, random notes he’s scribbled over time, experiment ideas, observations he's made about other individuals, and more. He would probably be quite lost without it as he tends to be forgetful at times, and it functions secondarily as a personal diary (Aster will not admit to this). If you squint a little you can see notes about his personal feelings in the day-to-day; a small flag (transgender flag) design is often doodled into the margins of the pages. Some of the diagrams in the notebook are about the facial expressions and body language of several different species; this is dismissed as “needing to know about the anatomy" of his "subjects,” but in reality this has saved him from many bad or even just really awkward situations...he would really rather not remember those thank you very much.

//// This was about as far as we got before we realized we should probably check the session zero notes and...yup, there it is, several lines we can't cross that we would have if we kept writing with this particular Aster. \\\\

#OC: Aster (prototype)#Rusanyas OCs...or are they?

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eledritch · 6 years ago

Note

So reading all of you amazing works as well as following the content of other lovely Sheith shippers has inspired to finally write some fan fiction and contribute too! It’s been literal years since I’ve written anything though, and of course the story that got me really excited is going to have to be a multi chapter monster. As the master of long and complex fanfics, any advice for beginners?

Good!! I believe in you.

Sure, why the heck not :’) been awhile since I made a big writing tips post and I feel like I have some new things to offer since the last one. I don’t know if your fic is gonna be an AU or canon-compliant, but since my specialty is long and complex multichapter AUs, this is mainly gonna be about that.

First, you can check out my ‘writing tips’ tag for my own tips and tips from others on tumblr: http://saltyshiro.tumblr.com/tagged/writing-tips

The most important advice I can give to you as a writer is to READ. I don’t read nearly as much as I used to, but I still try to when I can. Reading was what gave me the inspiration and knowledge I needed for worldbuilding, which is a vital part of not just AUs, but any long and complex fic. You need to be confident about writing the world you’ve stuck your characters in. You have to know that world better than anyone.

More often than not, books aimed at children actually have better worldbuilding than books for adults. There are exceptions to this (a lot of sci-fi, like Dune & The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, for example, as well as dystopian fiction like The Handmaid’s Tale), but some of my favorite worlds remain those from children’s books. They include:

The Ever After in the May Bird & the Ever After series

The absurdist and time-period defiant world where anything goes (as long as it’s unfortunate) of A Series of Unfortunate Events

The Other World in Coraline & London Below Gaiman’s adult fantasy novel Neverwhere

The world populated by various small animals like mice, rats, and squirrels in Redwall by Brian Jacques

The medieval kingdoms of Goose Girl by Shannon Hale

The eerie surrealist circus world of The Palace of Laughter by Jon Berkeley

I’m also currently working my way through the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson, which is some INCREDIBLE worldbuilding in a high fantasy setting.

So what do all of these have in common? Well, contrary to popular belief, I don’t think you have to go Full Tolkien and write a brand new language as well as six thousand maps for your world. Nope. None of that is required. All that is required is that you LOVE the world you created. Love the heck out of it. Even if it’s a shitty world. Doesn’t matter. It’s YOUR shitty world.

The more you love this world of yours, the more you’re gonna want to write about it, and the more reluctant you will be to let yourself drop the project. The pitfall many fanfic writers (and writers in general) fall into when writing long works is that they get burnt out and tired of their own story. You can’t get tired of your story if you keep adding to the world and finding new things to love and explore within it.

Worldbuilding reflects onto your characters, too - people are in many ways a product of their surroundings, after all. If your world is shitty, then your characters might end up a little shitty, too. But - and here’s the clever thing about this - because you love your world so much, and because your characters are an integral part of that world (they should be, if they’re your protagonist/villain/etc), you end up loving your characters, too. It feels like a betrayal if you stop writing their stories, and the world you’ve created should at this point feel almost like a real place, albeit within your head and your imagination. And when that happens, writing about your world and characters doesn’t feel like a chore or an obligation anymore. It feels like an adventure.

That being said, human brains have limits and it shouldn’t ALL exist in your head. You gotta take notes, do some doodles and simple maps if you’re into that, and also use resources made specifically to organize worldbuilding. I tend to just use good ol’ fashioned pencil and paper, but I’ve heard this tool is pretty good for digital organization:

https://www.notebook.ai/

Additionally, don’t be afraid to uh....“borrow” from other worlds that have been made before. The sooner you understand that everyone kinda steals (respectfully) from everyone (i.e. the lion king is hamlet; romeo and juliet is heavily inspired by the greek myth of pyramus and thisbe), the better off you’re gonna be in worldbuilding. You can, and unavoidably will, use worlds you’ve read about and/or experienced in the past in your own worldbuilding. It becomes a patchwork of your own, and once you have a base for your world, it becomes increasingly easy to add onto it and expand with more original ideas.

It can also be helpful to do a ton of research. Say you want your world to somewhat resemble Victorian England. How are you gonna know what that was like? Watch movies set in Victorian England to understand the aesthetic and speech. Watch documentaries to get a more factual basis. Read books set in Victorian England for the language and the societal ideas. Go on a Wikipedia or Google deep dive - almost always, you will end up in a much more interesting place than you expected. Listening to music can also be super helpful to get into a particular tone you want to see in your world, or can help you find the tone if you’re not sure what you want yet. I have playlists for most of my stories.

And, finally, understand that there’s always room for growth. I know my worldbuilding can be better than it is, so with every new story, I strive to make a more vibrant, vivid, lovable world than before. And guess what? Usually, not only does it work, but I also enjoy myself while writing more.

The key to long and complex fics is genuinely enjoying what you’re writing. You may be able to bullshit and slog your way through a shorter fic, but not a 200k monster. Another important key - know where your story is going to end up.

You need a goal to work towards. Maybe it’s a scene you’ve been wanting to write since you came up with the story. It doesn’t have to be the ending, but it helps if it is. You should know the ending by at least the middle of the story. I’m pretty sure I’ve written stories where that wasn’t the case and I was just flying by the seat of my pants, seeing where my world and characters took me next...which is a valid way to approach writing, but riskier, and ultimately rather frustrating when writing fics since you can’t exactly go back and insert foreshadowing for the ending you didn’t know was coming, lol.

I find late-night brainstorms best for figuring out how I want to end stories. I’ll open up a word doc, think for a good while, and then just start typing. Type it out stream of consciousness style. It doesn’t need to be a good explanation of the events, it just has to be an explanation. (This is also helpful in long stories for writing down reoccuring elements you don’t want to forget, such as slang, societal titles, a promise a character made to another than they really need to bring up again sometime...)

For example, here is my stream of consciousness brain-spew for my fic Seal It With A Kiss (this did not all end up happening quite like this, but here it is, warning for nsfw mentions lmao):

Witch Classes: Apprentice, novice, journeyman, master/magus, archmagus

The Wastes – western desert wasteland, Keith is from Blackwater, three days’ ride from the Citadel. It’s bordered by the River Acheron to the west, on the other side of which are the lands where Keith’s father lived with his first wife. The ocean is to the north, with the island of Cobao directly south of the Citadel.

The Citadel – centrally located, perched among Asphodel Peaks, near the lowland Oscuran Woods. Capital, Altea City, is three days’ ride to the east. Shiro’s grandparents live to the south on the shores of Lake Lucanus, a major fishing outpost bordered by the Dalterion Swamplands to the south.

THE VOID: mysterious dimension (or entity?) accidentally opened by witches eons ago (oops), which created Hell and unleashed demons/monsters/old gods (Voidborn). It is made up of what witches call infernal magic – a powerful and supposedly corrupted/corrupting form of quintessence. The Void is largely unknown and inaccessible to humans. Few return, and those who do are always changed by it.

HELL: Thought to be a reflection of the Void on a more physical/less abstract plane. Hell is made up of many pocket realms, including Daibazaal (one of the largest, ruled by the Galra), and Stratonikeia (ruled by Hecate). It is populated by Voidborn, who carve out sections of it for themselves in warlord-esque fashion.

Neither Hell nor the Void are inherently “evil,” though most witches consider them so, and they are dangerous. While the most well-established Voidborn rule with law and order, many other parts are lawless chaos centered around power struggles, and all Voidborn are morally gray to an extent.

VOIDBORN: Despite their vast differences, all Voidborn derive power from human souls & quintessence. Often generalized as demons, Voidborn are secular beings with no “holy” counterpart (i.e. angels), however, they come in many forms:

SPECTERS: generally the weakest Voidborn, they lack corporeal form and often “haunt” areas with histories of death, grief, and bloodshed, frightening humans and feeding off of their fear.

MONSTERS: a large and varied group of Voidborn, not as intelligent nor powerful as demons. They are the mostly likely to directly attack/kill/eat humans and are often hunted, with trophies of their heads displayed outside remote villages to ward off other monsters.

OLD GODS: a more rare group which often overlaps with greater demons; old gods can be benevolent if appeased (i.e. through ritual sacrifice, favors, offerings, worship, etc). They define territories for themselves and over time can become deified by local peoples, since old gods have been known to protect their lands and the people within them in exchange for worship.

LESSER DEMONS: more intelligent than monsters but less powerful than greater demons and old gods, they often rely on contracts and trickery to get their way. They are known to be petty, cruel, and ugly.

GREATER DEMONS: highly intelligent and powerful, they are dangerous beings who chiefly use contracts, torture, manipulation, and possession to take power from souls, which they crave more than any other Voidborn.

*Haggar has been cloaking Keith from Krolia so she cannot find her son since Keith went to the Citadel*

Shiro was captured by Haggar, who experimented on him (gave him the arm, which is powered by infernal energy/Void quintessence and began to corrupt his soul/erode it) and used him as a gladiator, until she managed to capture and slay Kurobasanir, whose quintessence she combined with the remnants of Shiro’s soul. His soulless, empty body was left to fight in the arena as a kind of robotic killing machine, while Shiro’s self became entangled with Kurobasanir. Because Kurobasanir was dead but Shiro was alive and so determined to stay alive, Shiro’s soul (primed with the Void energy which allowed him to stand up against Kuro) took control, though he gained Kurobasanir’s memories, abilities, and personality, while losing/forgetting his own. However as time passes with Keith, Shiro’s subconscious (ironically the only part of him which is still conscious/knows who he is) begins to break through, making him more ‘human’ as he starts to remember who he is/have doubts that he is really Kurobasanir.

He is unable to shift into any other human but Shiro, falls in love with Keith (demons are supposedly incapable of love), experiences sudden surges of emotion/nostalgia and feels protective towards Shiro’s family/horse/possessions/etc, is mostly unaffected by spells that should exorcise or defeat demons, and acts differently than the original Kurobasanir according to the late incubus’s friends. Because Kurobasanir was a sadist, but Shiro is not, so when he fucks Keith in front of the other demons, they know something’s up because he’s not hurting Keith at all.

What he doesn’t remember/know, though, is that this whole thing is a trap set by Haggar in order to lure Keith, who is a cambion (half demon, half human) to her so she can experiment on him in her quest to gain immortality so she can stay with Zarkon forever without surrendering her soul/turn her own soul into a demon’s essence. Because cambion, once mature, are effectively immortal and have a soul, while still retaining dormant Void magic within them which allows for their immortality and more demonic qualities. They are also extremely rare, and Haggar only knows of Keith because Hekate (Krolia) was her mentor and mentioned him.

So when Keith and Shiro go to find Shiro at the Samhain Tourney, Keith sees Shiro’s soulless body fighting and goes to break him out of his cell in the intermission; Shiro, not recognizing him/caring about him/trained to kill on sight tries to kill him, Keith is horrified and unable to bring himself to hurt Shiro, so he is saved by Kurobasanir, who realizes the situation fully once he comes face to face with the body that was once his, realizing his (Shiro’s) soul has been transferred into the incubus’s.

Before he can tell Keith this, though, Keith is captured by Haggar (who he recognizes as Honerva) and the two are separated. Keith cries alone in his cell, thinking Shiro is gone for good and also thinking Kurobasanir betrayed him and/or will be killed or tortured, leaving him utterly alone again. Lots of time passes and Keith realizes Haggar is trying to break the bond between him and Kurobasanir, because they’re both trapped and the contract must be sealed via sex. So Keith is in agony (and very very horny) because he can’t touch Shiro, and the contract is on the verge of breaking (and causing a great deal of pain and harm to both of them, since it was broken against their will) when Hekate/Krolia shows up, kicks BUTT, and bc she’s Mom of the Year, rescues Keith and brings him to Shiro while explaining on the way what happened. She also mentions that Keith’s father left because he was fulfilling the contract Hekate had with him, which was that because he was infertile she would bear him a “human” son (Keith), who would be blessed by her and live a happy/prosperous life, but in exchange Keith’s dad would only get sixteen years with his son, and then Hecate would take his soul.

As it turns out, though, Hekate/Krolia grew pretty darn fond of Keith’s dad (he’s a human teddy bear hedge mage unfazed by demons, what’s not to love), so he’s just chilling in Hell with her and had planned to come back and tell Keith the whole story, but when he returned Keith had gone off to the Citadel & Haggar was hiding Keith from Hecate.

So Keith and Shiro reunite and they’re so desperate for each other that they basically end up fucking while escaping (Keith is VERY EMBARRASSED but Krolia is like boi I am the mistress of dark magic, I don’t care, get that demon dick, proud of u son. Plus Shiro does his best to hide Things), cue a very wild scene in which both Keith and Shiro are kicking ass while fucking, since Shiro has regained his powers and Keith is Restored By The Power of Shiro’s Dick. Amen. Hallelujah.

Thankfully they finish up by the time they find the Holts, who were being forced to do alchemy stuff in Haggar’s lab. Haggar’s druids attack them, but Keith, who has read up on Honerva’s magic/theories, and Krolia, who mentored Honerva and is now pissed at her bc she tried to use Krolia’s son for her experiments, defeat the druids and are about to destroy Haggar’s research. Then Haggar bursts in, and in a desperate attempt to save her life’s work tells Keith that she can separate Shiro’s soul from Kurobasanir if he spares her/her work. Shiro is actually the one who hesitates, since he thinks Keith deserves much better than him and should have him fully human, as he appeared in their future together. But Keith has made up his mind – he loves Shiro in any and every form, and he’s done with Haggar’s shit. Furious at the thought of what she did to Shiro and planned to do to him, Keith’s magic creates a massive explosion which destroys the lab as Krolia uses one of Haggar’s traveling crystals to take them all away from Daibazaal.

Krolia takes them to her realm of Stratonikeia, a much more chill part of Hell. Because it’s Samhain and everyone is partying, Hecate’s palace is hectic and full of drunk demons and debauchery bc demons just wanna have fun, okay? Krolia makes sure the Holts are given safe accomodations so they can rest up and receive treatment before returning home. Meanwhile, Keith and Shiro are very shaken and Keith is weak from using so much magic to destroy Haggar and her lab. He and Shiro manage to escape the party and get to a balcony or something, where Shiro tearfully apologizes for everything, saying he understands if Keith wants to break ties after their contract is over, and that he wishes it didn’t have to end like this. Keith is quiet, then tells him that nothing is ending, pointing out that apparently he’s also immortal, and that technically Shiro gets his immortal soul in return for completing the contract. Shiro misunderstands, panicking and assuring Keith he will not take his soul and will leave him alone, but Keith cups his face and says he wants Shiro to have him forever, because he loves him, and never stopped loving him. Disbelieving but hopeful, Shiro embraces him gently, and when they kiss Keith begins to show his demonic characteristics (little horns, glowing eyes, tail, reddish scales).

Epilogue – Keith and Shiro get married. In Hell. It’s beautiful. They also have the most romantic, tender, kinky demon/cambion sex ever. They’re in love and together forever :’))

I hope that helps, dear!! Best of luck in your writing endeavors.

#ask me things #writing tips #siwak #writing #worldbuilding #Anonymous

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ckerouac · 6 years ago

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On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

With everything going on in the US right now, I know I’ve pointed out this book in the past, but it’s high time to do it again. If you’ve never read it, I highly recommend Timothy Snyder’s ‘On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century’. It’s a small book, maybe 100 pages, that was published in response to the 2016 election about lessons we should take to heart about holding on to democracy.

Snyder is a historian and Holocaust scholar and really knows his shit (I highly recommend his ‘Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning’). And I recommend that everyone read through a copy of ‘On Tyranny’, but if you haven’t, here are the 20 lessons for safe mental keeping.

DO NOT OBEY IN ADVANCE: Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.

DEFEND INSTITUTIONS: It is institutions that help up defend decency. They need our help as well. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions do not protect themselves. They fall one after the other unless each is defended from the beginning. So choose an institution you care about - a court, a newspaper, a law, a labor union - and take its side.

BEWARE THE ONE-PARTY STATE: The parties that remade states and suppressed rivals were not omnipotent from the start. They exploited a historic moment to make political life impossible for their opponents. So support the multi-party system and defend the rules of democratic elections. Vote in local and state elections while you can. Consider running for office.

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE FACE OF THE WORLD: The symbols of today enable the reality of tomorrow. Notice the swastikas and signs of hate. Do not look away, and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.

REMEMBER PROFESSIONAL ETHICS: When political leaders set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become more important. It is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers, or to hold show trials without judges. Authoritarians need obedient civil servants, and concentration camp directors seek businessmen interested in cheap labor.

BE WARY OF PARAMILITARIES: When the men with guns who have always claimed to be again the system start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of a leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.

BE REFLECTIVE IF YOU MUST BE ARMED: If you carry a weapon in public service, may God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no.

STAND OUT: Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to say or do something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. Remember Rosa Parks. The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken and others will follow.

BE KIND TO OUR LANGUAGE: Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. Make an effort to separate yourself from the internet. Read books.

BELIEVE IN TRUTH: To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis on which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.

INVESTIGATE: Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what’s on the internet is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate propaganda campaigns (some of which come from abroad). Take responsibility for what you communicate with others.

MAKE EYE CONTACT AND SMALL TALK: This is not just polite. It is part of being a citizen and a responsible member of society. It is also a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down social barriers, and understand whom you should and shouldn’t trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.

PRACTICE CORPOREAL POLITICS: Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.

ESTABLISH A PRIVATE LIFE: Nastier rulers will use what the know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware on a regular basis. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble. Tyrants seek the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have hooks.

CONTRIBUTE TO GOOD CAUSES: Be active in organizations, political or not, that express your own view of life. Pick a charity or two and set up autopay. Then you will have made a free choice that supports civil society and helps others do good.

LEARN FROM PEERS IN OTHER COUNTRIES: Keep up your friendships abroad, or make new friends in other countries. The present difficulties in the United States are an element of a larger trend. And no country is going to find a solution by itself. Make sure you and your family have passports.

LISTEN FOR DANGEROUS WORDS: Be alert to the use of the words extremism and terrorism. Be alive to the fatal notions of emergency and exception. Be angry about treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.

BE CALM WHEN THE UNTHINKABLE ARRIVES: Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. DO NOT FALL FOR IT.

BE A PATRIOT: Set a good example of what America means for the generation to come. They will need it.

BE AS COURAGEOUS AS YOU CAN: If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, the all of us will die under tyranny.

#us politics #timothy snyder #on tyranny #i feel like everyone should have these pinned to their mirror #if only to help when you look at yourself in the morning and declare 'not today satan'#or that may just be me #but i know that i've changed a few things for myself since the first time i read this book last year #and i encourage you to do so as well

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awakeneedsasleep · 7 years ago

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Hi friends. I need a rant, so life update(? long rant?) under the break

So, about two weeks ago, I went to a gynecologist to get a second opinion. I had been diagnosed with PCOS by my endocrinologist, and we wanted to get a second opinion from someone who was as knowledgable about the female reproductive system as they were about hormones generally. Anyway, long story short, the gynecologist agreed with the diagnosis, so I’m going to have a little more medical stuff done before being prescribed medicine for it.

For those of you who don’t know PCOS is basically a disease that translates into a car wreck of hormones, leading to a variety of symptoms from insulin resistance to weight gain to male pattern hair growth and baldness to severe acne to infertility. Not everyone has the same symptoms, not everyone expresses them the same way.

But what (excuse my language) pisses me off about the whole thing is pretty much everything about it. Weight gain is a symptom of the disease, but losing weight is a “helpful step in reversing the disease”. If that was used on any other effing disease, it would be laughed at. Do you have a broken bone? Well, making the bone not broken will help that condition. I’m sorry to hear about your cancer, but have you tried not multiplying your cells uncontrollably? And so weight loss is half of the PCOS community. I understand. People are doing their best to follow advice. More on this later

Second, even though the above symptoms are the most commonly talked about, every time I bring up other symptoms that were bothering me in the first place, like fatigue and depression/anxiety, I get “Oh yeah, PCOS can cause those too.” I get it. Hormones do a lot of things. But maybe we should be looking at different car wrecks and classifying them a little differently from each other because they have some fundamental differences.

But no. There’s no cure for PCOS. Instead, people try a variety of different drugs that all frankly suck, and keep experimenting until the PCOS doesn’t affect your life as severely anymore. The two most common drugs are birth control and metformin.

People know birth control. It’s the thing that is hard to match to a person in the first place, can cause weight gain and all sorts of fun hormonal side effects, and it’s conveniently currently on the table for not being required in health care plans. Thanks Mr. President.

Metformin is a diabetes drug that improves insulin resistance, allowing the sugars in your blood to more easily enter your cells. It’s often correlated with weight loss, and up to a third of people experience severe digestional side effects, including nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. A THIRD.

Those two drugs-plus occasionally a low carb diet and exercise are the standard medical procedure for this disease. And why is this half-hearted attempt at a cure considered good enough for the medical community? I’m sure it’s not because it’s a disease that only affects women. Goodness. I’m sure there’s no way we could actually figure out what’s going on...

Except that it also affects fertility. Which, if you’re a woman with PCOS who wants children, I know that it’s hard and you are going through stuff and it’s good to have a community. But fertility is the most studied thing about PCOS. Let’s forget about the teenage girls who have been feeling awful for years and don’t want kids, or the whatever aged women there are just wanting to not have beards or bald spots or be exhausted or depressed or however the PCOS is tearing their lives apart. No, we’re going to focus on how women can get pregnant. So anywhere that I’m trying to find a community that has tips for women trying to talk to doctors or employers or find the energy to get up in the morning and do all the cool things they want to do, instead there’s women with PCOS fitblrs and women documenting their journey trying to get pregnant with IVF or whatever.

Unless you prefer alternative medicine, which suggests you cut gluten and dairy out of your diet completely, start taking supplements and herbs, and read extensively about bullshit including but not limited to “inflammation” (not that an organ is inflamed, just “inflammation”) “leaky gut”, “detoxing” and other nonsense. And this stuff is what makes me hat the fitblrs. It’s not that they’re trying to lose weight, it’s that its filled with this New Age, non-scientific nonsense that has shaky foundations at best. Sure, the B vitamin, Vitamin D and iron deficiencies have a decent basis (but supplementation doesn’t necessarily lead to curing/managing the disease), but the rest of the crap is just stupid.

And yes, I’m angry and negative. And yes, I know I should probably start thinking about therapy again because I shouldn’t be this angry about this kind of thing. But I’m also grieving. It’s not about kids or whatever, but I don’t feel in control of my life anymore. Now that I’ve been home, I’ve been not vegetarian, which was fine, but now I’m having to make even more refinements to my diet and fix a diet that wasn’t terrible to begin with. I have to start exercising to show my Mom that I’m taking all of this seriously and I am actually trying to follow doctor’s recommendations.

And what makes me most angry of all is not that I have to do all this, but the fact that there are people out there drinking like they don’t need their liver and doing all sorts of drugs and stupid stuff and eating whatever they want and not caring a whit about their health and doing just fine, while I’m doing a lot of things right (I know I’m not a perfect specimen by any means, but I do a lot of work) and I still feel like crap more than I feel like a person. And right now, I don’t know who I would even believe if someone could figure out what was the matter with me. I’m so effing jaded right now

And I hate it.

I hate it

I hate all of it.

#pcos #personal

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xtrafreelancers-blog · 5 years ago

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Following up with Clients — a Guide for Freelancers

Staying in touch with past clients is the best way to grow your freelance writing business. Learn why and how in this easy to follow guide.

As a writer, you’re selling yourself in a market where the supply is higher than the demand. Whether you’re pitching for a job on a freelancing site such as Conyac or trying to get published in the New York Times, the best way to increase your conversion rate is to follow-up.

However, for us writers, this often doesn’t come naturally. After all, you’re really a kind of artist, and you’d rather focus on your craft, right? No worries — this guide will help you get a handle on this essential part of growing your freelance career.

What is a Follow-up?

A follow-up is simply correspondence after the initial contact. Whether the person prefers to communicate via email, some kind of messenger app, or the telephone, it’s essential to keep in touch in the right way.

We’re human, and we forget things. We’re also busy. We all have someone we’ve been meaning to get back to. Well, our prospects and past clients are no different. A follow-up serves to remind them that they’ve forgotten to contact us. It also shows them we care and are keen to be of service.

Following-up on Freelancing Sites

If you’re sourcing clients via a freelancing job marketplace website, there are two scenarios where you should be following up; prospects and past clients.

1. Following up on Pitches

Platforms such as Conyac have a marketplace where clients post job briefs and freelancers pitch to get the job. The best clients are the ones who are experienced. You can see that they have a long track record of positive feedback from other freelancers. They know what they want, and they know how to communicate it clearly. They’re also reasonable people and will treat you with dignity and respect.

The flip side of this is that they are very selective. To win their business, you will need to take the time to read job briefs and tailor your pitches carefully. Just copying-and-pasting a generic template without customizing it won’t work.

Even if you’re the best person for the job, often other candidates will present themselves better. In this case, one way you can stand out is to follow-up with the prospect. However, usually, platforms don’t allow you to message the prospect unless they have first initiated a message thread with you. Thus, be sure to add an appropriate call-to-action at the end of your pitch to encourage them to do this.

And, it goes without saying, to calibrate your tone and approach when following up. Don’t just say, “Hey there — any updates? Can we do this?” Try to think about what might be going through the prospect’s mind and follow-up with something to assure them that you are the best choice.

Of course, be sure not to pester them too much. Calibrate your frequency according to the situation. If they’re not planning on making a choice for a month, but just wanted to post the job and wait for applicants, then perhaps following up weekly would make sense. If they are going to select someone soon, then consider following up daily. Go with your gut feeling as to what is an appropriate frequency. You want to appear keen and ready — not desperate or annoying.

2. Following up on Inquiries

Some freelancing sites allow you to set up listings for specific services. Conyac is one example. If your service is in demand and your listing is compelling, you may receive inquiries. Beyond responding promptly, in the right tone, and providing all information the prospect asks for, you should also make it a habit to follow-up.

A prospect may change their mind or find another option. However, now that you know who they are and that they had an interest in one of your service offerings at one time, you can try to follow up. Of course, nobody wants to hear from someone who is pushy, so calibrate your approach. Find an excuse to get back in touch and perhaps provide them with some new information.

3. Following up on Past Clients

In most cases, you’ll end up just doing a small one-off task for a client. If both sides left each other with good feedback, then it makes sense to try and keep in touch.

Winning new business takes much more time and effort than getting work from past clients. The way to do this is to follow-up, but you need to do it in the right way. Below are four approaches that you might use on a case-by-case basis. For them to work, you first must have a sincere interest in your clients and learn a bit about them.

Random: If you stumble something that makes you think of a client, let them know. They will appreciate your thinking of them, and if they have suitable work, you will get it. A prospect of mine was spending a lot on video ads running in the subway. I took photos and emailed them sharing what a great impression they were making.

Timed: Perhaps your client had a specific date in mind when they would use your writing in some way. Add a reminder in your calendar to follow up with a note to ask them how things turned out. For example, I edited a pitch deck for a client whose first language wasn’t English. I followed up, and they said it helped them a lot.

Monthly, Quarterly, or Half-Yearly: On a set date, check-in with clients to ask if they have more work that needs to be done. You might just catch them at the right time. The optimal frequency will vary depending on the client, their situation, and type of work.

I’d suggest a combination of all of the above. My current gig, working for Xtra, Inc. is my best ever. I landed it by keeping in touch with two of the key decision-makers for years. They brought me in for some coaching and consulting gigs. And, I now work for them on a full-time basis (still as an external contractor, though).

Following-up With Publications

Seeking to get published and paid for your writing? Pitching to publications can be tough. However, if you just send your pitch and wait to hear back, you are limiting your chances significantly. Your original pitch may have got lost in the shuffle. Or, the publisher’s needs may have changed. Following up can get you a job that may otherwise have been lost.

The time you should wait before following up will vary. If the pitch is time-sensitive, consider following up within 24—48 hours. If not, perhaps after 10 days—2 weeks.

Use social media to your advantage. If the person to whom you are pitching manages the publication’s social media, perhaps you can stay visible to them by regularly sharing their posts and commenting on them. This behavior can’t replace following up directly about being published by them, but it can help. Of course, your overall social media presence needs to be appealing to them, and your engagement shouldn’t cross the line where it gets annoying or feels like stalking.

Tracking Prospects and Clients

One of the keys to becoming a successful freelancer is keeping well-organized. When it comes to managing relationships with clients and tracking pitches, there is no single approach or tool that works for everyone.

Simple and free online tools include Google services such as Contacts, Calendar, and Sheets. If you want to step things up, a task manager such as Asana or Trello might make sense. Later, if you outgrow these tools, consider CRM (customer relationship management) tools that are designed for freelancers and solopreneurs such as Less Annoying CRM (funny name!) or Nimble.

It’s Not All About Money

Working as a solo freelancer can be lonely and isolating. While there are various steps you can take to alleviate this, one more thing is forming meaningful relationships with your clients. Of course, you can’t cross the boundaries of being professional. And, if you’re on a freelancing site, their Terms of Service may prohibit exchanging direct contact details. Nevertheless, within these constraints, you can still show that you care.

I’ve hired many freelancers over the years, and the ones who came across as caring about the work they did for me, and whether or not it contributed to my success stuck in my mind. The ROI from dropping a note to clients is great, but that is not the most abundant reward. When we reach the end of our lives, the good relationships we had will mean the most to us.

________________________

Written by DLKR

Cover photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash + edits

Originally published on Xtra.blog

#freelancing #freelancers #FreelanceWriters #FreelanceWriting

#freelancing #freelance writing #freelancelife #FREELANCE #writers #clients #solopreneur #freelancer

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oyevans · 7 years ago

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Reasons James Potter wasn’t likely a “f***boy”

Neither Lily nor Snape allude to this in either The aftermath of the Whomping Willow Incident when Snape is listing how great everyone thinks James is.

“Let me? Let me?” Lily’s bright green eyes were slits. Snape backtracked at once.

“I didn’t mean — I just don’t want to see you made a fool of — He fancies you, James Potter fancies you!” The words seemed wrenched from him against his will. “And he’s not . . . everyone thinks . . . big Quidditch hero —” Snape’s bitterness and dislike were rendering him incoherent, and Lily’s eyebrows were traveling farther and farther up her forehead.

“I know James Potter’s an arrogant toerag,” she said, cutting across Snape. “I don’t need you to tell me that. But Mulciber’s and Avery’s idea of humor is just evil. Evil, Sev. I don’t understand how you can be friends with them.”

(Deathly Hallows, The Prince’s Tale)

and

“Apologize to Evans!” James roared at Snape, his wand pointed threateningly at him.

“I don’t want you to make him apologize,” Lily shouted, rounding on James. “You’re as bad as he is. . . .”

“What?” yelped James. “I’d NEVER call you a — you-know-what!”

“Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you’ve just got off your broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can — I’m surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it. You make me SICK.”

(Order of the Phoenix, Snape’s Worst Memory)

Yeah, so no mention of any girls. But the only girl he has any interaction with in this scene–or any of the few flashback–is Lily. I can understand Sirius since on Pottermore it had him briefly said by Remus to Tonks (although bitterly due him wrongly assuming she fancied Sirius) that ‘He always got the women,’ but James isn’t Sirius–yes, they were best friends and have things in common but not all friends are exactly alike or even uphold the exact same standards. If James had been a f***boy (bloody hell, I hate this term, so I’ll use brackets for the most part), Snape would have so said something to either Harry or Lily (as a reason why he’s awful or the like).

He was raised by Fleamont and Euphemia Potter who died at an old age even for wizards according to Rowling, so let’s say they were between sixty to eighty at the very least when James was born, meaning they were between seventy-five and ninety-five when he’s fifteen. Meaning James was raised by parents who were born between 1880 and 1900. No way would they tolerate their son going around disrespecting girls–no way would they not know (both James and Sirius are too loud for their own good). If anything James Potter would be courting girls.

He looks like Harry minus a few details (nose, scar, eyes, blah blah), meaning he has about the same level of attractiveness as Harry. Yes, Harry has quite few admirers and quite popular ones as well (Ginny, Cho, went to the Yule Ball with Parvati, was asked a few times to the Yule Ball–although, might have been due to the fact that he was a champion and the-boy-who-lived, kind of like when he was The Chosen One and got sent a love potion). Yet we don’t really see anyone asking Harry to Hogsmeade on a regular basis.

Lily Evans would not date anyone who was a [insert term I hate here] at any point. Lily who demands respect and broke ties with a friend who couldn’t respect her would never date a player.

[insert term I hate here] are guys who don’t respect women, basically a guy who sleeps around with girls and breaks their hearts. But we know James does respect Lily.

“LEAVE HIM ALONE!” Lily shouted. She had her own wand out now. James and Sirius eyed it warily.

��Ah, Evans, don’t make me hex you,” said James earnestly.

“Take the curse off him, then!”

James sighed deeply, then turned to Snape and muttered the countercurse.

“There you go,” he said, as Snape struggled to his feet again, “you’re lucky Evans was here, Snivellus–”

(Order of the Phoenix, Snape’s Worst Memory)

Lily Evans, calls his bluff. As soon as she demands that he takes the curse off he does, even when she asked him to let him down prior he does as well (albeit Sirius does curse him, not entirely James’ fault). Yes he asks her out in a idiotic manner, but that further supports my idea. Not to mention defending Lily even after she rejected him James Potter is an idiot when it comes to Lily, Sirius even says that James couldn’t help but show off whenever she was around–not when girls in general, but specifically Lily–f***boys aren’t known to have serious crushes and James at the latest liked Lily pre-dating from fifth year until seventh (that means about two years he fancied her before they started dating). This is not [insert term I hate here] behavior.

When would he have had time? Let’s assume he got a reputation during fourth year (when he’s fourteen/fifteen). He was learning to become an animagus, actually became an animagus, had Quidditch practices, was canonically in detention quite often, had homework like any regular teenager (and probably did it considering McGonagall didn’t really complain about that aspect), I’d wager that he was a lot busier than Harry and that’s excluding both their seventh years.

White, rich boy does not equal to a f***boy. Not every guy wants a quick shag, just like every girl doesn’t want a one-night stand at the ages between fifteen and eighteen (which is basically what will happen with a player).

This is the UK we’re talking about. The average age of loss of virginity in Britain is eighteen right now–source 1–the average Brit has five different partners in their lifetime (as of 2000)–source 2. And the average age between the 50s and 80s was 20 to 22–source 3. Therefore, it’s just as–if not more–probable that James Potter was a virgin than him not being one.

One of James’ top personality traits is his loyalty. So doing that to a girl–even if he wasn’t cheating–wouldn’t be a James-like thing to do. He’s passionate and loyal to those he loves, so I honestly don’t think James would decide to sleep with anyone unless he actually cared about them.

Harry stared at Wormtail for a moment, then back at James, who was now doodling on a bit of scrap parchment. He had drawn a Snitch and was now tracing the letters L. E. What did they stand for?

Again, this is not the behavior of a boy who goes around disrespecting women by sleeping with, then dumping them.

So again, JAMES POTTER IS NOT A F***BOY.

Why it matters?

It’s demeaning to James’ character, just because a guy is handsome and rich doesn’t mean they go around sleeping with any girl (and what does that say about the girls at Hogwarts?). Yes, James was popular, but so was Harry, so was Draco Malfoy (I have yet to encounter anyone calling him that term).

ES: Was James the only one who had romantic feelings for Lily?

JKR: No. [Pause.] She was like Ginny, she was a popular girl.

See, even Lily was popular, yet no one accuses her of sleeping around or Ginny or Cho or really any other popular girl character we encounter. As a young lady, I think it’s important not to hold so many double standards if we don’t want men holding them either. We shouldn’t generalize a group because some people in the group do a certain thing.

Not every foreigner is a terrorist or lazy or can’t speak the country’s language or lacks education.

Not every popular girl sleeps around, just like not every popular guy does.

#james potter #hp #this is so important #i will defend this until the very end #why is this even a thing #reblog to support a dorky james #potter that is respectful to women #padfootpost

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jewpacabruhs · 7 years ago

Text

so out of boredom i wanted to go in depth about something from a certain ep. in ‘the death of eric cartman’, from season 10, kyle calls cartman a “fat, racist, self-centered, intolerant, manipulating sociopath”. as we all know, it’s pretty easy to label someone a certain way, when in actuality stuff tends to go so much deeper than a couple of summarizing words. so i wanted to analyze each of those six titles that seem to follow cartman around.

1) fat. yes, hes overweight; there’s no denying that. it shouldn’t be included in this list of negatives, but kids are shallow.

2) racist. while there’s no denying he’s blatantly racist, i don’t think cartman understands the depth of racism at his age, and therefore it’s not genuine. none of the kids, except for token and nichole and maybe kyle, do. i myself was pretty racist until around thirteen or fourteen, because i’d been raised like that and i didn’t know any better. despite being jewish (granted, i didn’t experience any anti-semitism until i started to embrace my religion recently), i found harmful stereotypes about non-white people to be funny & often said them in jest, until i started educating myself and realized how harmful doing that was. unfortunately a lot of people don’t outgrow the racism they learn as children. point is, i think cartman doesn’t understand the magnitude of racism and it’s harmful effect on poc. then again, he doesn't care about any one but himself, and things that don’t directly involve him don’t concern him, so you can’t expect him to. but considering his recent pc arc, maybe he’ll mature a little. unfortunately, as of now, i think he just views making racist remarks as another thing that gets him attention. he’ll take any attention he can get, and negative attention is easiest to get. how to get negative attention? make everyone hate you. how to do that? display hatred towards everyone else.

3) self-centered. he’s most definitely self-centered. i think cartman got a very extreme case of only child-syndrome (general selfishness, bossiness, etc. i myself was an only child until twelve, and i was a goddamn pain to be friends with, i’ll tell you that) that was magnified by abuse and neglect from his mother. he’s developed a me-against-the-world complex. not to mention he’s very intelligent, and he knows it, which led to some intense narcissism (or perhaps that’s a front to hide his insecurity, because there’s been a couple of instances where cartman’s grandiose facade cracked and we got a glimpse of the vulnerable kid underneath). that intelligence, regardless of how little he demonstrates it on a daily basis, also alienates him from the rest of south park, who are airheads. and while i can’t deny he’s undeniably clever, and that’s a positive for him, his self image of his psychical body is all false bravado; he’s convinced himself he’s strong, attractive, and manly, when in reality he’s chubby, weak, fairly repulsive (albeit charming), and a little more on the feminine side, if we’re generalizing - he’s emotional, sassy, manipulative, and on a more psychological level, he cross-dresses, plays with dolls, and is, canonically, attracted to boys. he doesn’t like himself, even if he pretends he does. now, personally, i believe all humans are self-centered - at the end of the day, do we genuinely care about each other people’s trivial problems? then again, i’m a raging nihilist. regardless, cartman’s put up a facade of who he thinks he should be, who he wants to be. his use of derogatory language towards others (not the personal attacks, like calling kyle a filthy jew or token a black piece of shit or whatever, but the general ones, like “hey, f*gs” or “whats up, dickwads”, yanno), it’s all to make himself feel better about himself. to try to put himself on a pedestal, so he’s untouchable, and he does this by demeaning others. his use of the f word in particular, and i’m not talking about fuck, is likely internalized homophobia.

4) intolerant. ties back into racism - he’s intolerant because he thinks it’s cool. he thinks bigotry is badass, and he’s obsessed with his own image, similarly to stan, only stan actually has morals and a decent sense of wrong vs right. stan will do anything to make himself look good, but only in socially acceptable ways. cartman, on the other hand, has no concept of what’s socially acceptable, and merely does things to the beat of his own drum; whatever he thinks is right, in his own eyes, he believes wholeheartedly, and he practices what he, and he alone, preaches. he thinks that, by spouting hateful bullshit, he, again, is putting himself up on a pedestal, which is exactly where he wants to be (and likely thinks he belongs). have you ever met/talked to a bigot who wasn’t a raging narcissist? i haven’t. cartman also clearly doesn’t know how to be nice, as shown in casa bonita; hate is all he knows. it’s his defense mechanism, likely because, subconsciously, he’s afraid to let people get close. he doesn’t want emotional intimacy with anyone because he doesn’t want to be genuinely vulnerable (partly because he likely considers vulnerability as “faggy” or “girly”, and his ego won’t allow that, and partly because he doesn’t want the walls he’s built up to be torn down - no bey reference intended, i swear). the only people he’s ever really opened up to have been his mom and butters, and with his mom he usually wants something and he’s exaggerating. butters, i think he trusts to some degree, because he knows butters is a dweeb and he’s naive enough to not entirely understand the difference between cartman’s true(?) nature and his facade, considering his erratic moods. still, even then, butters has shared cartman’s secrets time and time again, which probably proved to cartman that he really cant trust anyone. anyway, like i said, i don’t think the intolerance is genuine, i think he thinks it’s cool and he likes how controversial his remarks are, because, like i said, to cartman, any attention is good attention.

5) manipulative. he’s definitely manipulative, that’s undeniable. but i don’t think manipulation’s inherently bad, honestly; if you’re smooth enough to be able to talk yourself into getting your way all the time, good for you. if your morals are so shaky that you’re able to walk on other people to achieve personal success, you’re probably gonna move up quicker in the world, and i can respect that. cartman’s realized this at a young age, and he utilizes his charm. albeit, he often uses his power for evil, but still.

6) sociopath. this is the one i wanna talk about thoroughly. people don’t seem to understand the psychological meaning of 'psychopath’ or 'sociopath’, or any other psychological diagnosis. i’m not an expert, but i’ve researched psychology extensively, so i’d like to think i’m somewhat of a reputable source when it comes to this sort of stuff. and while i hate to try and stick a label on a fictional fourth grader, it’s pretty fascinating to try. however, you should still take everything i say with a grain of salt. anyway, so, admittedly, on the surface you would think cartman was a sociopath. he lacks empathy and manipulates as necessary without guilt, and while i think he definitely displays antisocial and narcissistic traits, i don’t think hes a sociopath. if anything, he displays some symptoms of high-functioning aspergers (ironic, considering that one episode). as someone on the autistic spectrum, i hardly want him as an example of an autistic person. but he sort of reminds me of someone i studied extensively while researching criminal psychology - one jeffrey dahmer (the real one, not the south park parody version of him). dahmer was officially diagnosed with bpd and schizotypal pd, among others, but a few of the many psychologists he spoke to following his arrest diagnosed him with aspergers. dahmer’s personality would go from awkward, reserved, and gentlemanly, to cocky, aggressive, and cruel. this could’ve been the bpd & aspergers/szpd (which is, more or less, aspergers & schizophrenia smushed together) coinciding. a little personal input: i myself have been diagnosed with a lot of different shit by several different therapists, but my lack of empathy and aloof attitude have been persistent symptoms in each of the diagnoses. if i compare myself to a friend of mine who has bpd, we’re pretty damn different. but if mashed together, we’d roughly make a dahmer-like personality, i think - and possibly a cartman-like personality. see, cartman’s behavior is very sporadic and unexpected. his default tone of speech (which says a lot about a person) seems to be a sarcastic but detached sort of drawl, which reflects his laid-back and idgaf-esque manner. he’s easily agitated, in which case his voice raises, often in a matter of seconds, before he’s returned to his relatively calm usual demeanor. the anger usually doesn’t last, unless it’s a heated argument. when angered, he can be driven to severely injuring people, without a second thought, because he lacks empathy. he blindly follows trends if they make him look cool, although i don’t think he really has a concept of what’s cool, nor does he care, i think he just tries to blend in to some degree to avoid ridicule, and because he wants people to like him. he’s assertive and straight-forward, doesn’t care if he hurts feelings, and doesn’t concern himself with people’s problems or opinions, although i think he cares about what people think about him a lot more than he cares to admit. that’s another thing that’s interesting; how he’s hated by everyone, despite his need for validation, and his brain twists things so he thinks people like him instead of just tolerate him. it’s crazy. anyway, i dunno, not making diagnoses, just bringing up symptoms and possibilities. and that’s all. gnite.

#cartman #analysis #mine #txt

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