#theres so many characters i could tag but those are the big ones i think

[wiishopchanelboots]

The Books of Earthsea Illustrations from the complete illustrated edition, Illustrated by Charles Vess [X]

[cyberdragoninfinity]

If you haven’t gotten him yet for the ask game: syrus? Vehicroid time….

SYRUSSSS nobodys asked him yet but i will happily go off...

Why I like them/why I don’t: SYRUS TRUESDALE MY ACTUAL FAVORITE YUGIOH CHARACTER IM NOT KIDDING he's another one of those characters ive howled and wailed a thousand times about but god. i love him so much. character who resonated deep with me, he's such a good depiction of the sort of teenage self-consciousness neurosis an anxious terminally shy not many friends kid can stew in, and then he has a genuine character arc!! and it's a great one, one of the best in the show! he really is like the joey of gx and it pains me that people dont gaf about him half the time. he actually grows and develops and his dynamic with his brother makes me insaneo craayayayaayzaayy. also hes FUCKING MEAN AND IT'S HILARIOUS?!? YOURE LIKE 4'11" CHILL OUT i love him to bits!!! if i ever meet wayne grayson im gonna be in tears.

What I like about their appearance: honestly it's the glasses. i love the canon (from tag force) factoid that syrus changes his glasses when something big happens to him but nobody notices. I'LL NOTICE SWEETIE!!!

Do I prefer their dub names or original names? sorry im a dub name enjoyer 193489523984% here. "syrus with an S" is like absolute peak 4kids dub name its been stuck in my brain since 2006. im obsessed with it. like hell yeah man thats a syrus if ive ever seen one they were right.

OTP: WELL IM UNWELL AND MADE UP A SHIP FOR HIM THAT I GOT ATTACHED TO. SO. my kingdom for syrus/mana i think they could be autism4autism weird kids who match each others' freak so well. syrus deserves to be someone's lameass boyfriend. schoolbusshipping. fuck it.

NOTP: again not into jaden/syrus. but also if you ship him with zane i hope you explode ten thousand times

OT3: i dont think i have one for him??? hrm

Favourite card they use: POWER BOND. WAHHHH. i do also love the vehicroids theyre all SO so goofy. his little chevron cars.

Favourite moment they were in: will forever love his season 4 duel where he uses the cyberdarks and kicks that Jinzo guy's ass but honestly i think one of my all time favorite sy moments is the dub exclusive "YOU TRADED MY BED FOR A CARD." theres so many funny syrus lines this kid is hilarious

Least favourite moment: i dont think i have any moments that i just severely dont like with him but sometimes he is a little weird about women. stop that. sprays him with a hose

Something I associate with them: this post

[daedalusdavinci]

Superbat Fic Recs

every superbat fic ive ever read has been recommended to me, almost, bc the superbat tag scares the absolute piss out of me, so these are like. twice over recommended. i dont believe that theres such a thing as "in character" when it comes to bruce or clark bc theyve been characterized so many different ways, so i tend to rate how good superbat fics are entirely by how delightful they are to read (plot, writing style, fun dynamic, etc). that said here are some of the superbat fics that i find the most delightful

The Long Hangover

by CoffioCake

Clark knows he should take a break: His powers are on the fritz, he feels like shit, and Batman’s treating him like a liability. But Gotham's villains seem to have it in for Metropolis' Big Blue Boy Scout and Clark won't just wait around for answers. Batman might be the world’s greatest detective, but Clark Kent is one of the Daily Planet’s most tenacious reporters. This is definitely a job for Superman.

i love this one. its long but its got so many good beats- good plot, fun dialogue, fantastic levels of identity porn where you are just DYING for them to figure it out. i think a lot of superbat fics tend to prioritize batman and his family and cast too much, but this ones definitely about superman, which is a nice change of pace

Nor The Rain

by Romany (@romanyeva on tumblr)

Bruce decides it's time.

this ones short but its cute and so sweet. its been a while since i read it, but i remember loving the writing

Rescue and Recover

by OdosBucket

The bats have spent the better part of the past two months in captivity, and Clark is grateful to finally have them back, even if it will still be some time before any of them are recovered from the experience.

this one drove me CRAZY the first time i read it. i was so obsessed w the absolutely married dynamic bruce and clark have in this, and its good if you really like batfam whump

certain obscure things

by @liodain

Bruce seeks to mend in the wake of Superman's death. Fortunately, Superman doesn't believe in staying dead. Unfortunately, Bruce isn't certain how to deal with this—especially with how easily Clark slots into his life. All he knows is that an encounter with the Enchantress is definitely not the way to go.

im not a synderverse fan but it remains that some of the best and most fun superbat fics to read are synderverse. love what the girlies are doing with those old men. this one is really fun, particularly in how it handles bruces grief and what its like to grieve someone who isnt gone

fame is the bait (and the switch is your desolate smile)

by nowrunalong (@buffyfemslash on tumblr)

"Superman,” Wayne says emphatically. "Now there’s an interesting guy. The concept of wealth probably doesn’t even register to an alien who could throw a whole skyscraper into the sea if he was in a snit.” It’s almost hilariously ironic that Wayne is saying this here, in Clark’s place of employment, where Clark works ten-hour shifts to earn enough tip money to pay rent on a one-bedroom apartment. “He’s gotta live somewhere,” Clark points out. Or: Clark meets Bruce, and then Superman meets Bruce Wayne. Neither is entirely fooled.

speaking of synderverse. this ones also a lot of fun! its a lot of bruce being antagonistic in the beginning and clark being a total golden retriever, which is pretty on beat for the enemies to lovers type dynamic that i always see in synderverse fics.

I'm Not As Think As You Drunk I Am

by Mardiaz173

It was like living in the Twilight Zone. Everyone else believed fervently in Bruce Wayne’s reputation. He was a flirty, stupid, and entitled drunk whose only redeeming quality was his bleeding heart. And yet every time Clark spoke with Wayne, the man was clever, mischievous, and sober with an indecipherable ulterior motive. And no one believed Clark. Not Lois, not his parents, not even Batman.

bruce is such a ridiculous ass in this and its kind of hilarious. identity porn galore. its a fun read!

Send to All

by kerosceene

I, ___________________________, hereby acknowledge that this form represents my wishes should I contract phytoaphrodisiac-induced delirium (hereafter referred to as “PAID”) during engagements with or while apprehending Dr. Pamela Lillian Isley (“Poison Ivy”). - the bats have a sex pollen release form. because of course they do.

this ones really more batfamily and i just. listen. i think this is the funniest fic ever written, maybe. it makes me sob every single time. im not going to say anything else but you should just read it and trust me

[symphonic-scream]

Hello friends and fellow sufferers km bored so that means HC time

It's the P4 raising P5 au which I'm tagging under that name from now on I gave up on shortening it

Makoto took a long time to figure out zippers. So she'd be seen at school during recess running around with her coat open, claiming she wasn't cold. Haru eventually figures it out and until Makoto learns how, she does it for her

Kid fashion. Kid. Fashion. Ryuji with the plaid cargo shorts. The electric colours. Futaba with a shirt that says something cheesy about gaming. Haru with My Little Pony sneakers. Joker in little polo shirts with Featherman characters on them or something just. Yusuke with Lobster mittens. Ann with so many hair ties and GrL PowEr themed items. Makoto with the Buchimaru hat and backpack and belt and socks-

New Papa Naoto afraid to fall asleep with the baby because of the whole Rolling Over thing, so Rise constantly found him struggling to stay awake while little Makoto dozed off against his chest

Makoto's still afraid of the dark. So on stormy nights when her nightlight would lose power, she'd run into her parents' room and huddle between them. Rise would hum sleepily while finger combing through short brown hair, until the shaking stops, and Naoto would bundle his daughter against him, to hide her away from anything that could hurt her

God. They just. The little Shirogane family,,

Morgana is a normal cat in this, Akira finds him on the way home from school when he's like 10, so like about a year before Goro comes to Inaba, and Yu helps him convince Yosuke that they should keep him

Chie keeps bringing home the most mutt-ratchet fucking dogs. Yukiko can't say no when Ryuji and Ann team up with their Moma to convince her. At one point they have up to 4 mutt fucking dogs

Okay hear me out for this one. Ryuji and Makoto doin their usual thing, running around in the rain, before Makoto slips and it turns into shoving and muddy pushing on the ground

Ann, 12, sighs and shakes her head under the gazebo. "Ugh, those meatheads. At least Makoto's smart sometimes, right?"

"huh? Y-yeah, sure." And Haru, 13, averts her eyes because, something weird is happening in her chest. She's been feeling weird around her best friend, and it's worse when she smiles at her and holds her hand on their way to school. She looks up and, maybe it starts to click, watching Makoto laugh as Ryuji spits mud from his mouth.

Maybe, she's falling for Makoto?

On the other end of things, Makoto's kinda. Always known. Haru's been special to her for a while, there was no one moment. But she rambles to Ryuji about it, and to her Mama, and her Papa, even to Ann at some point. It's not as big a thing for her

They all eat lunch on the roof at Yasogami. Up there they can be as loud as they want, and no one really bothers them

Just. The older IT having monthly dinners together while Nanako agrees to watch the kids all together or something just. Laughing about the good old times, still together all those years later despite it all

And. Both Yoshizawa twins being alive. The crash injured both but they both made it.

OH. THERES ONE LITTLE GOOFY BIT I HAVE ITS

Futaba has a Minecraft girlfriend. It's Sumire. Neither of them know that they're friends irl it's. Supposed to be a little goofy haha thing

Oh. And the Thieves would all have different family names I don't think I mentioned which ones they'd all take

Like. Futaba Sakura, Yusuke Sakura, Goro Sakura

Haru Tatsumi, Makoto Shirogane, Akira Narukami

Ryuji Satonaka and Ann Satonaka

Yeah

[abcd-em]

Talk Shop Tuesday: because you are a marketing girlie, eye would love your thoughts on the idea of fanfic marketability as it relates to popularity/traction. It’s one of those things that’s rarely ever gets put into words (except to be derogatory) and is undersold as a part of what makes a fic “take off” I’ve known plenty of fantastically written fics that never get their time to shine just as I’ve know abjectly terribly written things become the most kudos and recommended fic ever.

How much of marketing are /you/ thinking of, if you’re thinking of it at all, when it comes to publishing a fic?

(And bonus: what’s the reason you think your underrated WIPs aren’t doing as well as the others?)

As the second person to ask me that, of course I can!!!!!

Fandom, as with any other community on the Internet, goes through trends of what they like to see and how they like to read. I'd argue that it's impossible to truly predict when a fic will 'take off' bc of this but there's definitely things you can assume.

The marketability of a fic rarely stops me from writing what i want (obviously there are exceptions), but its something i keep in mind when planning to ensure theres little hooks here or there. There's things that I know in the back of my mind, that I know almost for certain (for my writing and what's I've observed at least):

- kid fics will do well (or more low stakes, domestic fics)

- fast paced [blank] to lovers will do well vs. A slower burn (I could say this has smt to do with fear of fic abandonment and maybe attention span)

- MCD will not (at least in mcu petermj)

- platonic or character driven stuff can be a mixed bag

- etc.

Your fandom, your tropes, the bare bones of your fic (not the actual words just the vibes/direction) can definitely have an impact on reach and inevitable audience size - not forgetting that HOW ur fandom interacts with content should be considered. Example:

My Insomniac fics didn't get many hits bc it's a smaller audience (though i tend to find more of those hits also equal comments). From that, My Peter/Harry centric fic got more engagement and interaction VS. My peter/MJ centric fic - I knew this would happen when I was writing it BECAUSE the main thing talked about after the release of the second game was Parksborn. (Understandable I was also consumed by the brainrot)

Not to get SEO about it but tags and summary are also going to impact these things. Themes and tropes all have their own popularity innit. Your tags are there to give an overview (AND WARNING!!!) about the contents of your fic. Boiling all your plans down to the right tags will help it appear to the right people that WANT that kind of story, and exclude it from others. Your summary will also help with that (and from my experience main characters & romantic hook/tease is what gets most attention). This is probably where I consider marketability the most tbh and why I struggle so much with summaries bc why am I thinking of work when I'm writing fic???

But tags and summary definitely impacted Forever: there's a big tilt towards 'sadder' tags bc I want to be transparent about the topic. And the summary is very focused on Peter and Gwen (which is why I added the little line about MJ and Peter at the end).

The focus on Peter and Gwen also impacted the divorce AU. I didn't anticipate that fic getting as much traction as it did, but It wasn't until chapter 8 or something that it really began to take off.

Also. As with anything on the Internet. There's the 'right time, right place' effect where something just CLICKS, the perfect storm of a few small things that gets swept up to huge numbers and its difficult to pinpoint a single one.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: creating content for the sole purpose of marketability will make it less fun and kill your joy

Talk shop tuesday

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Alright, Im gonna read Queen of the Damned (which I inexplicably keep calling Queen of Darkness??? whatever) this weekend which is definitely sooner than anticipated considering how much the ending of The Vampire Lestat made me not want to continue, but idk, Im in the mood for it now for some reason. But before I do that, I wanted to do a little bit of speculating based on site-statistics

Basically, immediately after finishing The Vampire Lestat I went on ao3 and looked up how many fanfics featured Akasha for reasons that are now unknown to me. I think I wanted to figure out roughly how popular of a character she was within the fandom, or maybe try to gauge how important she would be in the series going forward (which, fanfic statistics are pretty terrible for that, especially when it comes to female characters, but I was beyond thinking at that point), but idk. I saw that there were 66 fanfics tagged as Akasha in them (with the book fandom tag, if you just look up her tag on its own its a bit more) compared the over 3000 fanfics tagged as just Vampire Chronicles, and then I immediately went to bed without thinking about it at all, its like that information just passed through me, and I only ended up remembering it a few days later and I fully realized just how little that is which got me speculating. And obviously I realize that fandoms have a tendency to severely neglect female characters, but ~1.7% is a pretty miserable ratio if shes actually an important character, and its not looking much better on the other fanfic-site I use, Fanfiktion.de, where the ratio is ~2.2 with 2 fanfics out of 89 (although to be fair, their tagging system is less detailed so. there might be a third one that features her but isnt here rn i guess). I was gonna look it up on ff.net as well, but I couldnt find a category for it, theres not even an IWTV movie category, its weird. Anyway, thats enough backstory for my weird actions, lets gets into some Akasha Speculations

1. she DIES in this book, and also, this is admittedly more of a hope than a prediction, she doesnt have a major role in any other books, I just dont like her conceptually at all and I do not want to deal with her more than necessary right now. She could maybe win me over if she turns out to be interesting or just a fun character or a good antagonist, depending on what her role in the story is gonna be, which I dont know yet, my main thing is just that I really really hate that thing where the lives of every vampire are tied to hers and I really really need that to turn out to be irrefutably untrue, and her dying would accomplish that best.

Also obviously her cringefail husband (whose name I cant even remember rn lmao) but this actually leads really nicely into my second speculation-prediction point, which is

2. Akasha KILLED her cringefail husband before emerging from her hole in the ground at the end of the last book, specifically she drank all his blood before setting him on fire or sending him out into the sun so now shes the world's most powerful most psychic vampire and shes gonna be the most biggest threat.

I couldve sworn I had way more speculations, but now that Ive written them down Im realizing that I really just had those two. But to atleast make it an even three and also because it just occurred to me that, if Akasha is this big world-ending threat, its likely not gonna be a thing where Lestat and his trio of fucked up exes are gonna team up against her or whatever. Like, I already know that Lestat is gonna be the pov character for this book as well because I started reading it on the bus and I read the credits and the dedication and all that but then I got to the first sentence and decided that it would be better to read at home instead (i previously briefly suspected that Akasha might be our first person pov for this one and I was really dreading it, so thank god thats not gonna be the case), and he and Akasha have pretty positive feelings towards each other, so I assume that their relationship is gonna play a big part of Queen of the Damnned, so my prediction is

3. Lestat is gonna be Akasha's little boytoy, which is an idea that actually excites me quite a bit. I have a little drawer in my brain where most of my favorite male characters end up thats labeled 'guys that I need to be put in a submissive position' and lets just say, Lestat has earned himself a VIP spot in there. Granted, the 'submissive position' I'd like to see this particular guy in is more along the lines of 'someone ties him up and beats him with a stick sexual style' but him being the submissive little boytoy of an evil living goddess doesnt sound too bad to me

The only thing thats kinda making me doubt that is the fact that I feel like if that was the case then there would be more Akasha in them to bash her and hate on her because she would be seen as "getting in the way" of one of the popular gayguy ships, but idk, I guess most of the fandoms Ive been in previously were centered around kids media or YA media or media thats atleast popular with teens, which might not be the case for this book series since it is adult so maybe this fandom as a whole is a bit more mature ? I dont really know and I guess Im not gonna find out until Im done with the series and start immersing myself in the fandom, which is fine by me. As Ive said in my previous post, I am open to talk to people about these books if anyone else is in the mood for that but Im having a really fun time reading this books without knowing anything so I dont want anyone spoiling anything for me

Anyway, thats the post. Since Im not gonna hunker down in a place with no internet access for 8 hours to read this book, I definitely think Im gonna do a thing where I periodically post my thoughts on here as I read, not after every chapter because that would distract me way too much, but maybe after every section or something. so yeah, if youve enjoyed my thoughts so far be on the lookout for that I guess

[faerunsbest]

I was tagged by @kimberbohwrites

When did you start writing?

Middle school? I cant pinpoint a time but thats about the tim i started going comics and scribbling down story ideas and plots

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

Yes i love horror and monsters and i love when the monster isnt the villain maybe its not the hero but its not what you should be fighting. I love the concept of love starting from respect and honesty. So far I actually have big long stories that result in romance that cannot become sexual., i don't think that romance is inherently sexual for all people or that it is the spine of romance. I think for some people it can be a huge bonding experience and for some its just revolting. I just want to write romance that has layers and feels tangible. I also want to write about bonds beyond romance. I think platonic love is also vital

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often? 

Ive not been around the shop long enough to be compared to anyone i don’t think but if I could emulate anyone, it would be Brom. I read that book krampus and half a page in I had to close it and just stare at the ceiling because it hit too hard. He's a huge inspiration because he's both artist and writer. And I feel like that's just outstanding. How can you professionally be both?!

Can you tell me a little about your writing space?

Um? Its wherever I can pull out my phone. lol I can be anything or nothing. Sometimes I want a million page notebook, sometimes its the busted part of a pencil and half a napkin. 

What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse?

?????????please help i have no clue here

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you? 

Rage

I underestimate the volume of rage a person I made can have but what I never understand until after the fact is how they handle that rafe that feeling. Do they tamp it down or let it take the lead? The other one is literally romance

On a personal level I feel like I offend myself because I'd rather eat vomit than risk romance but writing it is a whole separate beast. There's just so much that can be done and should be done for these relations and bonds and it can be thrilling!

What is your reason for writing?

If i dont write ill die i dont know how else to explain this. Theres just so much that needs to be said and all these journeys my mind went on without me 

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating? 

I love the one with explanation as to why they did or did not like what ive done, clarity without cruelty is wonderful to me

Explaining that you thought things were good or bad because one thing another mean a lot they're so useful. Also on that same page i love those unreasonable comments that make no sense because someone was just having so many feelings

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

I dunno its just kinda neat of you think of me at all !

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer? 

Dialogue, i love listening to characters talk and i feel like it shows. I used to focus a lot on the setting but that rather faded

How do you feel about your own writing?

Depends on the day if im honest. Sometimes i think im amazing sometimes i'm astonished with hope clunky and poor my skills are sometimes i just don't care

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write 

purely for yourself, or a mix of both? 

You cant tell me you write and never imagine what it might be like if someone 

discovered you and LOVED what you did. I do what i want and hope for the best. My favorite part is the interaction which is why rp is great it feels like a lovely skill sharpening challenge but also it kind of eats my brain. 

I really and with all my heart love writing and i love when other people love it too

---

am drank forgive any fuckery

[elliebell77]

i wanted to cook but i ran out of tags so ill be brave and put it here instead

i can see why swap won cause like. look at what they did to my babygirl. they slaughtered him. BUT but but counterpoint: i havent seen any actual blueberry content in years bro and maybe thats cause i stay in my own little bubble in the fandom but generally the only times i see blueberry is when he’s being made fun of.

I also see why Ink got a bunch of votes and i kinda agree (tbh they did ALL the star sanses dirty the feminization was INTENSE) but also technically isn’t ink *supposed* to be whatever you project onto him? He’s the blank canvas in my opinion, and he’ll act whatever way he needs to to keep people watching him. BUT I STILL AGREE THAT HES BEEN DONE DIRTY im just saying

Its hard to say anything about dream because my personal headcanons on him differ greatly from how i think the majority of the fandom characterizes him. but yeah no just everything i said about the star sanses kinda applies here.

I can’t say a lot of nightmare because. glass houses. im guilty of writing him too soft as well. But also the other reason i cant say anything is cause again my dreamtale headcanons are very different and i just dont like canon dreamtale in general.

I could say glass houses for horror too BUT i argue: the two schools of thought on horror (ruthless cannibal vs big ol gardener softie) i have always interpreted as pre and post/during recovery from horrortale. Though he’s also been somewhat infantilized and honestly not a fan of how he got turned into a complete uwu soft boi by some people. because i think post recovery horror is definitely compassionate but its not THAT soft you guys he literally is in a killer cult for a nightmare god

idk enough about fanon geno and reaper to really say. Actually idk anything about canon reaper either so i really really cant say lmao. And with error theres so many differing interpretations of him that its a huge mess (/nm) that like i dont even know whats canon and not canon anymore.

I will say CROSS shoulda gotten a lot more votes imo. I haven’t actually read xtale yet but i watched season one underverse and guys i was fucken shocked. like i have no idea xchara even existed or was even part of cross or whatever. I also always thought he was written too soft yknow? that man is a trained soldier so make him act like it.

Also killer. uh im sorry brother i don’t actually know anything about something new i swore i would read it or consume it or whatever form its in but i havent gotten around to it so im sorry about that. i do kinda vaguely know he has like other stages though and they seem to be CRITICALLY underutilized. Hes one of those characters where i can tell he’s gotten done dirty but i dont know enough about him to know exactly HOW

hey utmv fandom itz me again

(sorry if i forgot anyone, you should totally tell me if i did thumbz up emoji)

[guiltycorp]

@crimsongrimoire here: #okay honestly the last name part bugs me too#doesnt it STILL say on the wiki that a former alias was their last name#like what is your proof! cite your fucking sources!#literally somehow one of the worst wikis ive been interested in#so many sources of made up ass info are just like trust me bro#and the gross oversimplification of their dynakic#*dynamic jesus.#like idk you can prefer them platonically idgaf. just dont make shit up wholesale to sell a narrative that doesnt exist.#(...not to say klk enjoyers dont as well But. brother insisters are so much worse about it)#(so few genshin fans have reading comprehension at all fr)#its just such a mess. you can just Say you dont see them romantically. you wont die. i promise#no need to have 10 banners and 20 tags with posturing about how you want klk shippers to choke and die#when theres like Literally nothing Inherently Wrong with it#though people who say shit like 'yeah well it WOULD be hot if they WERE brothers so!'#you are not helping the cause#the 'making people mad on purpose for fun to make them look dumb' works so rarely and almost never over fandom nonsense#either way big agree op#fave#funnily this is the same kinda people who are all like AWWWW HIDDEN STRIFE WAS SWEET IT WASNT SAD AT ALL#and like completely misreading the tone of like All the letters esp those between kaeya and diluc#which is funny cause like Every post ive seen on the subject has been about Them and That part and how AWWW THEY KEPT I CONTACT?!?!#when.... the letters on both sides carry very palpable senses of tension from the wording and esp the brevity of dilucs#some very minor but painful details#and just in general all the letters in question like.. while it was nice diluc was getting support#it was in the WORST circumstance. its incredibly melancholy and bittersweet. like yes its nice to know everyone cares.#but also it was so avoidable. but also at the same time nobodys fault. even though both of them kick themselves for it#remembered my other point DILUC ONLY REPLIED TWICE. TO KAEYAS 9 LETTERS. THAT IS NOT KEEPING CONTACT!#there is no reason kaeya wouldnt have put any other letters from him with the others tbh unless theyre recent in which case#kinda irrelevant. thats not 'keeping contact' theyre in the same place now like Often.#ngl we have no indication if kaeya got those letters to him somehow or just left them for his return.

Literally like!! Genshin fandom has actually been one of the worse fandom experiences for me, and I think we can blame a lot of it on the game and its translation, but also it’s just so goddamn frustrating at times. That klc post was written before hidden strife but if anything the event further confirmed that their dynamic wasn’t ‘adopted siblings’ (despite eng translation as usual messing up everything including Kaeya’s opinion of their fight) and that Kaeya doesn’t view himself as a Ragnvindr. 

An AU where Kaeya would have been fully adopted could be potentially interesting, actually! Ragbros AU if you will. But for some reason people never really go for all the implications of that - how strongly it would influence Kaeya’s internal conflict and his abandonment issues, how Diluc would change his treatment of Kaeya, how differently another Ragnvindr progeny would be viewed in Mondstadt, would he succeed the Dawn Winery’s business, so many possibilities... But no, they simply take canon klc dynamic and twist it, ignoring all the discrepancies which point to a non-familial relationship. That tag is just one more annoying attempt at censure within fandom spaces, familiar to anyone who ever interpreted fictional relationships as homoerotic before (how dare you tarnish this beautiful brotherly or sisterly bond by your sinful delusions etc etc yawn). And big agree about Hidden Strife letters, they still represent the usual dynamic as is the norm for all those temporary events. But fandom sadly tends to go for extreme interpretations, either the characters totally hate each other or they are secretly totally fine and getting along splendidly... I guess maybe people are getting tired of this kind of one-sided relationship, so they want some kind of resolution one way or another, but I kind of like the place Kaeya and Diluc are in right now. It would be nice to get some more Diluc POV just to confirm whether he cares in a detached way or in a barely suppressed passionate & deep way, and/or if perhaps he does carry some hateful feelings towards Kaeya, but otherwise it’s just a really good starting off point for creating fan content.  Speaking only for myself, but it’s all the more bittersweet that there is a possibility that they won’t reconcile after all, that their paths might diverge, that their ideologies might already be irreconcilable without us knowing, that Diluc maybe doesn’t really care that much after all. With this in mind, positive outcomes such as reconciliation, a romantic relationship or a rekindling of friendship, are so much more impactful. 

[rouge-the-bat]

ruh roh i got big rambly too, ill use a read more to try sparing our followers 🙏

ough yeah, when i was going through gathering the names of everything, it was sooo annoying going from source to source to only find fragments of info, so i had to try to figure out some translations on my own- which im far from fluent in learning japanese, i barely have much of hiragana remembered, so i had to try to find accurate translations for individual words online, referencing multiple sites and crossing info with each other to figure out what would make most sense in the titles, and use what tiny bit i already knew to get everything.

yeah adhd has been kicking my ass for yeaaars. im hoping ill be getting a diagnosis within the next month once i get my testing results, then maybe i can finally get it wrangled and get back to creating stuff more 😓 and i actually only got into yyh a few years ago! i watched it i think in... 2020? or 2021? (i have no sense of time lol) bc my girlfriend recommended it to me- because she knew i would absolutely love hiei and kurama, especially hiei LMAO. she knows me too well. hiei is too much my type- as i said in my tags, hes literally just shadow. except way more of an asshole. and his sister is still alive JGKJDK. i actually have a whole post about how much theyre just The Same Damn Person, and i could probably still add plenty more to it. ill never get over duos that consist of edgy tsundere dorks and their pretty thieving partners that tease them endlessly <3 kurahi is just au shadouge to me LOL

so far the only yyh chars ive drawn have been hiei and kurama, surprise surprise lol. i havent done it too many times so far tho, but i have a million ideas in mind that i will get to EVENTUALLY. i have too many thoughts about them that i HAVE to get out someday.

ooo knitting!! ive never knitted before, but i got into crochet last year (i think?) and i love that. unfortunately my executive dysfunction is keeping me from getting back onto that tho OTL. designing patterns seems like itd be so cool tho :Oo id love to make some of my own patterns some day too!

yeah highkey i wanted to start ripping yyh frames just to admire hiei, get clean shots of kurama to make icons of, and for these yyh memes that i like making LOL. its also just very fun to look at how things were animated in the show and see the frames that are easy to miss. hiei is most defintely the absolute highlight for me though <3 once i get to ripping the frames for his episodes ill be taking so long just bc ill keep stopping to look at him LOL and yes HIS CLAWSSS i love his claws so much. also kurama is has such a natural grace to him, its always fun seeing his various movements!

i dont think tumblr would be very good for the way i want to format the transcript, would be very tedious and lacking if i tried. id probably just link to it on here, and try finding some sites meant for transcripts to put them on. id like to have it at the very least on 2 sites, in case one of the sites go down or some other issue happens. i just want it to be easily findable + readable! and im not familiar with making sites at all, but have been interested trying out neocities or somethin someday... so a potential option i suppose!

you can add credit to me for yu yu jukebox if you want to, but i dont mind either way! im just happy to see people enjoying my channel and mentioning it around :3 ALSO THE TRANSLATION....oh my god. its so nice to finally know wtf is going on with those chaotic dorks finally. hiei in particular adding so much chaos omg... fucking lil gremlin bastard. ranting and crashing shit in the background. AND HIS LAUGHS BRING ME SO MUCH JOY HES SO FUCKING CUTE.... AND HIS LIL NYA.... his voice makes me melt regardless of if its his sub or dub voice 😍

i also am losing my mind at him destroying a computer. another similarity he has with shadow LMAO theres a point in shadows game where other characters are trying to hack into a computer, and ask shadow for help, and shadows like hack? im good at hacking things [fucking chops it and destroys it] HCKZJJF but this bastard. i cant believe hiei put bread in his computer to toast it, and said its his so he can do what he wants with it. hes such a dumbass <3 and hiei challenging people on vocabulary... boy do you really think youre in a position to do that LOL kuramas the only one with a braincell in the group fr. tho i almost wonder if hiei was misinterpretting words or was fucking with everyone and confusing the hell out of them just bc he wants to be a bastard and fuck up the recordings LMAO. if its like that then itd look like he does have some sort of affinity for puns, which matches a headcanon of mine, but i moreso saw him as enjoying kuramas puns (but acting like he doesnt) than playing into them himself lol. love kurama piping in to ruin hieis challenge while also showing off his brains <3 SO him. also love that kurama is the main one trying to keep everyone on track. he knows immediately that this is going to be a disaster and is like ALRIGHT lets try to wrap this up as quickly as possible 😅

also yeah hiei and kurama are def BOTH to blame for my yyh hyperfixation, they are exactly the kind of characters and dynamic i fucking adore. they VERY quickly made it into my top favorite characters of all time along with shadow and rouge. im a huge kurama and rouge kinnie and am in love with hiei and shadow so im in DEEP with these bitches lmao

also a side note, idk if u had seen it already but i have a large ongoing yyh playlist linked on my pinned! i add more songs to it randomly whenever i find some that fit the yyh chars. tho tbh Most of the playlist is for kurahi, or individual kurama or hiei songs lmao. idk if fan playlists are ur kinda thing or not, but i always gotta plug it as much as i can bc [toots my horn] i think i have some very choice selections on there 😌 n i hope i can find people that enjoy it too hehe

What a small 'net! I saw a reblog of your normalize post, & your avatar caught my eye. So I figured I'd peek at your blog in case you had more shiny stuff to see, & noticed you encourage folks tag you in Kurama & Hiei stuff. I pinned in the back of my head that, after checking out your stuff, I should ask if you want a link to skit translations from the Dance Mix CD—then saw YOU'RE the one who made the beautifully-organized Yu Yu Jukebox! That helped me figure out what CDs I wanted to buy! :D <3

yoo hell yeah!! im glad that helped you out!! its always nice to see the things i make can be useful :3 and nice that my kurama icon is catching the eye of fellow yyh fans hehe!

yu yu hakusho is a huuuge hyperfixation of mine, but my adhd has been making me struggle with focusing on doing the creative stuff i wanna do (like drawing and writing), so ive been instead doing a shit ton of other things revolving around yyh- like collecting the music and making the yu yu jukebox channel, ripping frames to post and organize them on my sideblog @reikai-records , and ive also been working on making a dialogue transcript for the dub (still unsure where to put it online when im done with that tho, atm i just have it on google docs, not too far on it)!

i cant remember if ive encountered translations for the skits of the dance mix cd though, id def love to see that!

[faorism]

#give us sobriety in a series when they really couldnt do it with nate

i know this is a tag about hurley but excuse me that hurts

i don't even like nate but the idea that after his son dies he drinks, and then he builds leverage, he saves 4 people who are not himself, saves countless lives who are not his son. and he carves out a bit of happiness with sophie, but he still is this furnace of rage, this, he's still missing a piece of his heart

and you never get to see him recover, never get to see him live his own redemption, because his grief has killed him before he gets the chance

what i'm trying to say is this tag hurt me anyway what are ur thoughts on nate

[grief, alcoholism, canon character death, end of life illness]

i think about how they had those tall glasses for their whiskey in lr episode 1. they weirded me out, because it's so easy to over pour and (as hardison feels later) drink too much. surely they had to have a shorter glass, right? surely whiskey glasses? but i realized: no, no they dont. sophie has the liquor on hand for herself, when she feels most alone in her grief, to smell and remember the taste she associates with kisses with nate even though itd been two and a half years since nates last drink. (two and a half, not four as it could have been; the tears shed when nate had to give up his two year chip after his first and only relapse was horrendous. as was the weeks of his drunken stupor and the fighting until hurley was able to travel back to boston to help out. nate didn't have a chance to gain that two year chip again.)

i think about their last meal together as a full family—not that anyone knew that'll be what it was then. there was a lot they held back that night: eliot, parker, and hardison continued to avoid the topic of leverage international; and no one mentioned that the old man'd been jaundiced and clammy, even though eliot needed to prepare a separate, lighter meal after nate woke up with an upset stomach. hardison didn't point out the strain in sophie's eyes. yet even with all that they wouldn't say, they joked and laughed for hours like they'd just come off a gloat. 

they thought they had another few years. closer to a decade than not, maybe, with diligence and prayer, albeit with less comfort than preferred towards the end.

who'd expect that it wouldn't be the cirrhosis that did nate in but a heart attack? 

i think about how (gesturing to my characterization in it's a lot) peak nate was a bisexual disaster but mostly just an old mean queen. he brought a lot of snap to the group and a ruthlessness that caught the breath of his friends (and us, the viewers). i think his storyline was darker than the series warranted, but i also cannot see og leverage without it. this deep personal hurt, the kind of hurt that these corporate big bads are always doing; sam couldnt be (attempted to be) saved, and he was lost to the goliath that is greed and bureaucracy. nate broke over that in a way maybe only eliot can really relate to of the crew. nate changed. he changed and he drank and he was once the kind of man who went to chat with the accountants and remembered all their birthdays. now hes a man who can have a plan m.

i think about the peace on his face at the start of season five. the calm of the breeze on his face that is burned into my mind because it was so unusual for nate. i think of how much he must of spend so much of the time on his boat alone and thinking about, of all things, care. the thought of caring wounded him so often, but now, he crafted the world so his crew-and-family could go on, and his crew-and-love could find a new adventure with him.

i think him and sophie travelled the world. i think they met so many cool people and had a lot of fun and nate drank right up until he literally couldnt, and no one is a hopeless cause for sobriety but theres a way i think everyone left nate alone to his drink, and i think that's sad.

i miss nate more than i thought i would, and i love him more than i thought i would.

that's what i think.

[kaz11283]

I really like the prompt list you reblogged it’s got some good stuff. What about 37. “Because I love you god damn it!” with Loki if you are still needing inspiration.

37) Because I Love You God Damn It!

~~~~

The Secret Is Out

Characters: the Avengers Bunch, Loki, Thor, Clint

Warnings: Dirty words, slight angst

Summary: after putting your life in the line for a teammate you accidentally let a big secret slip.

Announcements: I will always need insperation and requests! They feed my soul! Haha. I'm not gonna lie. Im skipping back and forth on my requests though. I have a really good story line for one but its just so emotional(thats were Im hoping it goes at least) that I didnt want to write it tonight and put my self in a mood. So instead I guess im goimg with a form of anger? Meh. Anyways... I absolutly love love love everything from you guys! The reblogs, likes, and comments are amazing and I am very greatful for all the love I am getting!!!! 💚💚💚💚💚

Loki Masterlist

~~~~

The fight had been rough but not as rough as you were feeling in the moment. You had gotten serverly hurt and had been in the medbay for about a week now and you had a longer road ahead. There had been an explosion and instead of turning to run away you had ran toward one of your team members that had been to distracted to realize what was going on, you had successfully gotten him shoved out of the way but you had taken the brunt of the blast.

Now you were laying here staring at the celing trying to stay distracted as Bruce and Tony looked at your completely shaddered knee and the burns up your leg. Fingers crossed that they would have good news soon.

"Well as of right now kid your out of commission." Tony said helping you sit back up.

"Meaning?" You pulled one of the pillows down so that you could sit up without being uncomfortable.

"Meaning right now, the way it all looks, your gonna be stuck in the bed until it fully heals and after wards theres really no way to tell if your going to be able to work in the field again." Burce said looking at the xrays again. "And your gonna have to have surgery in order to put all the right pieces back in the right places, but we cant really do that until some of the burns heal or at least start to heal. Its gonna be a long drawn out process unfortunately." He sighed setting the charts back down and walking over to you.

"Fucking hell! You mean I'm gonna be pushing paper work? I might as well go work in a damn office with four white walls and a poster that says 'hang in there, its almost Friday'." You placed your head in your hands.

"Hey! At least our paper work is more exciting than just running numbers." Tony said placing a hand on your back. He had been like a fsther to you, taking you in when you didnt have anywhere else to turn except the streets. Your own family had abandoned you at a young age and you had been leaning toward a dark path until Tony. "Besides with your expertise you dont have to sit behind a desk, your fingers arent blown off, you can still hack into stuff I'm sure."

"Tony we had a deal when I moved in. No hacking but you would train me and I could actually do good. Now look at me."

"I said no hacking the good guys, and if I remember correctly you were the one jumping close to the bomb not away from. I hate to be this way y/n but the only one to blame is yourself on this one."

"He would have been worst off than I am if not killed. I think I did the right thing. Besides you would have done the same thing if you had been closer." You sighed.

"Honey the diffrence with that is I have a supersuit, you wear a skin tight, spandex one peice, that I'm not a fan of." He laughted. Bruce had went to go get you some more pain killers to shoot into your IV.

"Tony if I were you I would shut up. Your starting to sound like you might actually love me, might even say your starting to act like a dad." You laughed pulling him into a hug.

"Shut it kid, cant let the others know I have a soft spot for the hacker orphan kid i took in all those years ago now can I." He said kissing the top of your head. "Do you need anything else before the drugs kick in and you pass out again?"

"Yes, can you please bring me my phone charger, laptop, and that really fluffy blanket that you and Pep got for me for Christmas."

"Dont ask to much of me now."

"I wouldnt be asking if you would just let me stay in my room. I hate it down here. I wanna be were the people are." You were starting to get loopy from whatever Bruce had given you.

"Ok little mermaid, get some rest I'll get your stuff." He laughed walking out the door letting you fall into a restless sleep.

You didnt know how long you hade been asleep but you woke up with a groan trying to sit up so you could atleast stretch your back from laying in one spot for to long. You flopped back down dramatically with a sigh. You could sense someine else in the room with you, you always knew when he was around.

"You dont have to hide in the shadows Loki. Your more than welcome to keep me company, you should know that by now." You smiled as the prince walked over and sat in the chair beside you. You could tell he hadnt been sleeping, his hair was fixed as always but his clothes looked worst for wear. He had on a plain black shirt and a pair of gray sweat pants, both of with had wrinkles in them either from tossing and turning or from not being changed in a few days.

"Whats wrong? And dont pull that 'nothing is wrong dear. I'm absolutly fine.' Bullshit. You look horrible." You reatched out to grab his hand. What you and Loki had was diffrent. You didnt just see his as a friend, he didnt just see you as that either though. You had spent many nights sitting up with the silver tounge man many nights laying on the couch watching movies, reading, talking about each of your pasts. He knew more about you than even Tony did.

"I'm still currently trying to wrap my head around why you pushed me out of the way and took the blow when you had a chance of dying from it. You shouldnt have been so thick headed my dear." He took your hand and raised it to his lips kissing the top of your hand.

"Loki." You sighed rolling your head to look back up at the celing. "You would have been hurt alot wordt than I am now, that blast could have killed you."

"I am a god y/n, that blast wouldnt have caused me nearly as much damage as it did you." His voice raised slightly.

"Thats what you think. You think that because you are "immortal" that you can take anything thats thrown at you. That no one really cares about you, that you wouldnt be missed? So why not try to take a blow from a bomb? My god your so stupid sometimes."

"I know I can. Norns y/n I've jumped into space, been brain washed, tried to take over New York, gotten smashed around by the Hulk. I was raised with Thor, he doesnt really go easy on a person. What I'm saying is I dont understand why you, a mear midguardian, would sacrifice themselves for me. If anything would have happened-"

"Nothing did happen though. I'm fine-"

"You have steel sticking from your leg, theres no telling when or even if you'll be able to walk again, and there are highly server burns that will leave scares. You cannot sit there and tell me that you are fine."

"Your right it does suck that I'm jot gonna be able to pull off shorts or a bikini anymore."

"This isnt a joke y/n. You almost died!" He finally yelled.

"And i would do it a thousand times over if that ment saving your damn ass again!" You shouted back.

"Why though?! Why me y/n? I've done horrible things, killed people! My life is meaningless." Tears had sprang to his eyes as he looked away.

"Because I love you God damn it!" You stopped suddenly your jaw dropping at the admission that you hadnt ment for him to hear. His head jerked back to you.

"What?" Shock was all over his face as he stood to walk closer to you. "What did you just say?"

"Because I love you Loki Odinson. Because if you were to die I dont think I would be able to go on living. Because even if you see all the bad things that you've done I can look pass that amd see all the good that you are doing." You reached up placing a hand on his cheek and wiping away a tear.

"I love you too y/n. I have since the day I met you. The girl that didnt care what anyone said when she spent time with me. The girl that can see through every face i put on. I love you so much darling." He placed his hand on your face and leaning down gently kissing your lips.

It felt like you thought it always should you felt electricity run through your body and the two of you connected. It was like getting a breath after not being able to for so long. He pulled away smiling at you.

"What do we tell the others?" He asked laying on with bed with you being easy with your leg. He placed his arm around your middle and pulled you as close as he could.

"I honestly dont care what we tell them. They can figure it out themseves for all I care." You smiled lacing your fingers with his, you yawned placing your head on his shoulder closing your eyes.

"Sleep now my Dove, I will be here when you wake." He felt your gentle breath slow as you fell asleep, the rhythm you of your breath lulling him into his own sleep.

Tony and Bruce walked in the next morning stopping dead at the sight in front of them. You and Loki were still cuddled on the small bed sleeping peacefully.

"Should we wake them up?" Bruce asked looking at Tony.

"Na, let them sleep. Dont want to let them know that we know." Tony saod grabbing Bruce's arm and turning to walk back out of the door.

~~~~

Tag List:

@kgirardin

@sophlubbwriting

@supbeeches

@high-functioning-lokipath

[bitchapalooza]

Romano :)

First impression

Early fandom, I really did just jump right into fanon portrayal. Asshole. Conceded. Lazy. Ect. I actually disliked him. I didn't hate him, but I did dislike him to a degree.

Impression now

Oh no yeah I hate him, you guys should know this by now.

Jk jk, I love him, obviously! After actually looking into his character and analyzing it, he's complex and well written, when before I thought he was just a poorly written character. It's pretty obvious he has some serious issues to him, one of which could be intentional or unintentional emotional abuse from those around him or specifically from Rome— I say this because most of what he does, putting himself down and having low effort and cowering behind his brother/others during conflict, could be a result of such kind of abuse. You really don't get that way randomly. Through his interactions with his younger brother, I can tell he deep down wants to actually make a connection, its just he doesnt know how. Its in his nature, most likely learned nature, to push people away so as to not mess things up and lose them. But really he does want to get close to people. As shown with his interactions with Spain, both younger and older, and America.

Favorite moment

SO MANY TO CHOOSE.

Its a tie between:

Him asking Spain for fun stuff to do with the ladies, specifically bullfighting, and then Spain responding with saying he'll be the bull. I like it because it really does display how Romano's view and relationship with Spain has progressed since he was a child when he absolutely detested Spain. Thats growth :)

And then there's when Prussia reaches out to a crying Romano. He cheers him up and then they try to make a movie together. It doesn't work out but it was a nice character detail and interaction nonetheless!

Idea for a story

Oh I have tons.

I have a scrapped three part story for all three Italy brothers, each one focusing on one brother. The first part would have been Romano's. He and his brothers lost their parents to a home evasion gone wrong, to which they were hiding in Seb's nursary/shared bedroom(amongst all three of them) closet that was left alone(what would baby stuff be worth anyway?? It was an unspoken fact that his parents told the robbers they were away at their grandparents). It was Romano's self assigned job to make sure his brothers were then safe after the crooks left; his several months old baby brother and deaf little brother(I wanted to explore how to write a deaf character at the time). After all thats done, it shifts to modern day where Romano wakes up from the dream as described above, an indication he bears a great deal of trauma over it despite what he stubbornly says. I reveal he's a pediatric nurse and he's currently taking care of his grandfather with alzheimer's(again, was trying to explore things) while simultaneously dealing with his now rebelling teenage brother and preparing for Vene's return from a semester off from college. He also had his relationship with Spain to maintain, to which he also is looked at as a kind of father figure by Spain's six year old son. It was a lot to deal with for one person. The message for his story was supposed to be Mental Health First as his nelgected trauma would be a significant factor into why things were falling apart near the climax of the story before completely collasping then being solved once he takes that big step into recovery such as seeing a therapist and actually communicating with his family.

Unpopular opinion

I've already stated it all before, but Romano isn't stupid nor is he not creative. I believe he excells in science and math more, as well as astonomy as side hobby/interest. I think he's just better at sculpting than drawing/painting too. He clearly compares himself to, who he refers to, his more successful brother Veneziano, plus others around him and puts himself down quite a lot. So he most likely has imposter syndrome.

Favorite relationship

It kinda varies in context.

In canonverse, Its Romerica. @thatsamericano (hope you dont mind the tag) has a lot to do with why tbh. They just work really well together! Every canon interaction is like a hug to my soul! I feel as though America hypes Romano up A LOT. Like Romano sets out to do something but then gets anxious about it. So America swoops in and lists all the obvious pros and few of the cons just to make it seem legit(whisch it always is either way). Meanwhile, I think Romano actually keeps America grounded to reality? America is a dreamer and seems to act on impulse a lot. Romano is the opposite. Before America ever sets out to do something extreme that might not actually pan out, Romano might sit down and get him to talk it out and write everything down. Then they'd go through together and cut things so its more realistically reachable and doesnt end in America's dissapointment.

In a human au, its Spamano. I tend to like Spamano in the context of established relationship and just general partner stuff. I've never really branched out of this comfort zone, however. I think their personalities mix really well together. Its the grumpy one with the sunny one! I can see Spain being the early bird and making Romano a surprise breakfast before work begins. He probably gently wakes Romano too so hes still not so sleepy later on. Then theres Romano who's probably the type of partner who checks in on Spain on his schedualed breaks, when hes not also working of course. He just strikes me as the type who likes to know his partner's overall health and mood and likes to hear how things are going for the day so far, even if he wont admit it.

Favorite headcanon

Trans man Romano baybie✌

He's had top surgery already but he's waiting a little bit for bottom surgery. He's a little nervous and not entirely sure he's ready to go thru with it yet. But to combat his bottom dysphoria, he uses a packer or just lounges around the baggiest sweat pants he owns.

[edge-lorde]

the religion of the galactic horde

“You seem reluctant to help me. But I only wish to use your weapon to bring peace to the darkest corners of the universe. (Glimmer: Peace? If you activate the Heart of Etheria, there will be no one left.) Yes. No war, no pain. Old worlds swept aside, a new beginning for the universe.” --Horde Prime explaining his motivations to Glimmer

the horde in shera was definitely inspired by Christianity and uses a lot of its imagery, the most iconic being the baptism scene. it certainly gives off the vibes of a christian or christian adjacent cult, but what is its actual doctrine? i have some thoughts about that. 

first here are what i consider to be the 3 main differences between real christianity and the horde: 

Their jesus didn't ascend to heaven. He's still with them.

They don't have a larger creator god. They worship horde prime like he is a living god but they don't believe that he created the universe.

They have no focus on the afterlife

this is going to be long.

before i begin heres the sparknotes version of christianity for anyone not familiar. I am not evangelizing this, just think of it as LORE. 

Once upon a time there was a guy named Jesus. He was the son of the one true god, who both created everything in the universe, is everywhere and knows everything, and controls the afterlife. Jesus is god born as a mortal person, sent by god to teach all of humanity the errors of their evil ways so they can repent and go to the good afterlife when they die. There're two afterlives, a good one and a bad one, heaven is the good one and its run by god and his army of angels, which are divine beings that god can send to earth to do things. The bad one is called hell. 

Anyway, in his time on earth jesus was the only person ever to never do anything bad ever (called sin). He tried to teach people how to be good but was Too Good for this Cruel World and was killed. 3 days later he came back from the dead, proving his divinity. Some time after that however, he ascended into heaven without dying, telling his followers to spread the word because hes going to be coming back. Christians today are still awaiting his return. In the meantime, christians follow his teachings left behind in holy texts. 

The crux of christianity is to get to heaven when you die, and this can only be done by following the teachings of jesus christ, believing in god, and believing that jesus was the son of god. Its a given that everyone will do bad things at some point in their lives so you're supposed to pray to god and ask for forgiveness regularly and if you really mean it then god will forgive you. 

thats the basics. 

to my first main point from above, if we posit that horde prime is the jesus equivalent of the horde religion, because hes treated as a living god, his goal is to spread his philosophy throughout the universe, then in the horde religions jesus never ascended into heaven. this would be like if jesus in our world rose from the dead and just picked up where he left off, and never died after that and was alive today. that would be pretty good proof of divinity. 

to my 2nd point, theres nothing in the show that suggests that horde prime thinks that he created the universe. this means that he did not get his divinity from anywhere but inside himself, hes not claiming that hes the rightful ruler of the known universe for any other reason besides his ideas are the best. 

the 3rd point is that the show does show horde prime or the horde caring one bit about the afterlife, save for one line from wrong hordak.

"Brother, I hope you, too, are full of only love for Horde Prime and have no crippling doubt eating at your soul."

meaning that they have the concept of the soul. which is very interesting and ill get to it, but on the whole the hordes focus seems to be on the here and now. this is a huge departure from christianity because chrisitanity is all about getting to the afterlife. that is the reason that christians are supposed to follow christ and recruit as many people as possible to do the same, because if they dont, they or other people will supposedly go to hell when they die. i say supposedly because at funerals, even if the person who died wasnt a believer, in my experience no christian would ever ever ever insinuate that someone went to hell. 

but the difference still stands. following real christian ideology is supposed to have benefits for the individual in the afterlife, while in the horde religion salvation seems to only be found by submitting to prime in this life and being either a tool that he can use to further his goal of purifying the universe or by letting him remove you from it. 

on top of all that, horde prime has the hive mind, which he uses to control the thoughts of all his followers. this means that theres no room for a bible study, no need of a holy text at all in fact, and no room for interpretation. horde prime delivers orders to your brain directly and can tell if you think anything out of line. real Christianity does have the idea that a sin that you just think about doing is as bad as actually doing it, but in the horde these thoughts can be easily discovered and punished. 

the horde religion seems to me to be a strangely secular version of christianity with only the bad parts remaining; the control, the blind faith, the certainty that you are right and everyone else is wrong, the not questioning authority. with none of the good aspects like community, and good deeds. it is a cult in the truest sense of the word, a religion that begins and ends with one person only, that person being horde prime.

so, if you take horde prime out of the equation, what, if anything, would be left? 

i find the plight of the horde clones here to be the most interesting. we know that they do have thoughts about their religion, as it was hordaks belief that he could earn his way back into horde primes god graces that kept him going all those years in despondos, and wrong hordak is distraught when he discovers that horde prime lied about krytis. 

unlike both the chipped people we see in the show and real religious converts, the clones were born into this cult that values blind obedience only, and have no prior ideology or cultural identity to fall back on when they are taken out of it. 

so to answer this question, i must add some conjecture to horde primes backstory and how the clones see themselves in horde primes universe. I already wrote up a brief backstory idea for horde prime/the clones and have it posted on here somewhere. I'm not going to dig it up but you could probably find it in the #horde prime tag on my blog if you dig hard enough. 

To summarize it though, I have it as horde prime was once a regular (bad) dude who became a cult leader under the premise of preaching peace --> he becomes disillusioned with people and even his own followers because he doesn't actually like people, he likes manipulating them. --> this and the power of being a cult leader go to his head and he starts to think that he is the only person in existence capable of living a moral life and everyone else needs to be saved from themselves, the world would be a better place if he could just make everyone's decisions for them. --> he somehow gets a hold of the technology needed to set up the hive mind, be it by inventing it himself, stealing it, finding it, or being gifted it. 

I'll pause here to address the theory that horde prime was originally an eldritch being that simply possessed a dude who would become the template for the clones. I think there's enough stuff in the show that this is a valid read and might even be canon but i don't really care for it. For me, what makes horde prime a compelling villain is that he's a very human evil, so having him actually be an evil demon thing instead of a really bad but believable dude who got near ultimate power weakens his character. BUT, i’m not going to address it in my comic so i'll leave it open as to whether he's got that going on or not. If he is, the clones don’t know about it and neither they nor the other characters have any way of discovering it. IF he is though, it would happen here. I could see it being a cool idea for him to get the hive mind from the eldritch being that would then possess him and haunt his lineage for time immemorial as a deal with the devil sort of thing, but he has to be a bad person before that.

Anyway he gets the hive mind--> he gets all of his followers to chip themselves --> gets those people to chip everyone else on his home planet --> use his planet wide army to harvest all resources on the planet and build his first space fleet and take to the skies and start his conquest--> realize that if he is to succeed hes going to need to both become immortal and find a steady source of new followers because chipped people die eventually and he doesnt care about people enough to figure out a way to keep a self sufficient population of followers alive, he just wants people around to adore him and do his bidding--> invents his cloning system-->

and heres the big one,

his original body has to die so he can upload his consciousness into a new clone.  

and THAT, to the clones, would be the moment that horde prime becomes a god.

his reliance on the hive mind and vast network of followers are what give him his godly abilities, but just as the horde clones could not exist without being cloned from horde prime, so too could horde prime not exist as he does in the show without them. 

i see it as both a christlike sacrifice and a cyclical system of debt and sacrifice. horde prime dies for our sins, so that he might continue to purify the universe so that there will be no more death and more clones will be born, while the clone hes possessing has to essentially die by giving himself up entirely to become the new prime so all this can happen too, and to repay primes death. not all clones can become the next prime however, but all must be ready to die for him, hence horde prime having clone infantries despite also having robots he could send instead. 

i dont have clear thoughts about what the green goo is, but horde primes words about his brothers lending him their life force go along with this idea. the clones give him theyre life force, so he can give it back to them.

another interesting aspect of this is that prime always portrays himself as a brother to his followers, never a father as christ is portrayed as in christianity. i know this is from hordak and horde prime being actual brothers in the 80s show but ive seen this trope come up a few times in media before, where a man raises a kid but has them call him their brother instead of dad. it seems so deliberate. because a parents job is to take care of you, but a sibling, might take care of you sure, but thats not their job. its like hes deliberately trying to place himself on the same level as his ‘sibling’ so he can demand the same amount of respect you would give to a parent without taking on the responsibility to not... ya know... screw them over in the head? idk it seems very slimy to me. but that says more about prime as a character than how the clones see him.

and we still have the concept of the soul to fit in here somehow, and do they have an afterlife? im going to say no to the afterlife. theres just not enough in the show to go off of and everything that we do know about horde prime points to him only caring about himself in life. HOWEVER, there is nothing more quintessentially christian than the concept of hell and i think that will be of use here. 

since the creation of the clones is tied with the creation of their religion, this would put the clones themselves less as allegories of people who need to be saved and more as the horde version of angels. in my telling here, horde prime views all people who do not submit to his will as net negatives to the universe who have to be removed for peace to exist, so by this view the chipped people are the saved, the people that horde prime kills are the sinners, and his military campaign is one long apocalypse slowly working its way through the universe, with the clones carrying out his righteous judgement. but the afterlife isnt involved in this, so even if some chipped people are left alive, eventually they will all die out, and then it will be just horde prime and is clones in a perfect, peaceful starless sky, and thats what heaven is. 

getting to heaven is the main goal of real christianity and it is the same in horde religion, but heaven isnt a place in the horde cosmology, its a physical goal that has to be created. not all clones will make it to heaven of course, because most will die before they reach total destruction of the universe but the clones arent supposed to think of themselves as individuals anyway. they have to be willing to die for horde prime and die for the cause or be cast out and thats hell. 

i dont see prime as someone who would kill his own followers outright too often even though he could. plus they arent supposed to value their individual lives the same way normal people do anyway it doesnt seem like a real punishment, they need something worse than simple death to fear. so by my view hell for the clones is separation from prime. it can be in life or death. no matter how bad it is in the horde being on the outside of it has to seem worse, and thats where the concept of the soul comes in. when one is a part of the hive mine, their soul is with prime. they are not supposed to have a will or any thoughts beyond love for prime, its essentially the same as not having a soul but they think of it as being at peace. being cast out is to be never at peace and would be told to them as being the worst possible thing that could ever happen to someone because it corrupts the soul. 

“a lot of unpleasant things happen in the horde so just imagine how terrible it must be outside of it! you cant because i protect you from that. now get in the goo, this is for your own good” - horde prime probably 

this is why outsiders are so resistant to submitting to primes light and also why its ok to kill them, in the hordes view. 

so, to start wrapping thigs up, there is no horde without horde prime. the religion starts and ends with him. because he is supposed to be the only person ever to be able to make true moral and just decisions, without him is followers cant take any actions without worrying that they are going against primes will. since they have no holy text they cant extrapolate and try to figure it out either. its up in the air whether or not they are going to find a way to get the horde to make the jump from cult to regular religion.

its late i got to go to bed now

[moonlightchn]

~WHOLESOME WEDNESDAY~

Not to be a soft motherfucker but I've been wanting to do this again for a week now so I guessed I would try my best to fit as many of my thoughts here as I can without being annoying or tumblr fucking up plz bear with me heh but we know none of those are actually possible anyway so THERES THAT also this is fucking long wow ANYWAY

WARNING WORD VOMIT sjsjsjsj I dont even know what i wrote I'm sorry but I'm tagging yall anyway

Some of you I speak to on a daily basis, yknow? Like,, as admin. And its fucking insane because like- I don't know but like isn't it insane? sjajsjsj How fast some people come to grow in your heart and get under your skin and become so important for you. I think it's crazy. That in four months or so I've made more friends in here that in my whole life and I've learned so much about life and myself and I've gotten marked and some of you imprinted on my mind and heart forever. And like HELL I wasn't here when most big dramas happened but I was here for two very big ones and like??? idk it feels like all of us have been through shared crises and somehow grown closer sjajskwjs idk I'm weird and im sensitive today and I just feel like wow what would I be doing without all of you right now? probably studying. or scrolling Twitter in which I never spoke to anyone. or watching Instagram stories and getting sad over how all my ex class partners are still in contact and hang out and keep strong relationships while I just sit here. like, I know we all say this place sucks and we hate it and its toxic and don't get me wrong of course some people is fucking shitty and they take a toll on a lot of others but that like... it also happens in real life yknow?? but like in real life how many people do you think would actually idk sit with you through a panic attack or stay up with you till 8am or wake up in the middle of the night or rave with you or hype you up or have meme wars or send you daily jokes or just randomly tell you how much you mean to them or make posts asking where you are when you disappear or been gone for too long or make people that doesnt know you send you birthday wishes? like I'm not saying it doesnt happen but isnt it wonderful that it happens HERE with US where maybe out of 10 people only 2 know each other in real life? Isnt it wonderful that we're from all around the world? that you half of the time dont realize someone isnt from English speaking places because they're too good or even when they're not that good no one judges you because this is such an inclusive and wonderful place for people of all races and colors and sexualities and nationalities and body types and hair colors?

idk I'm just RAMBLING but like I wanted to let everyone know that even if we dont speak, even if we NEVER spoke, even if we're only on each others tag lists, or even if I was and you took me off or I took you off or if you deleted or if you have 817383 bots and you speak to me in all of them or only one or whatever PLEASE just know that I love you so much and I appreciate you and you're awesome and if you made some mistakes know that you CAN fix them you CAN learn and be better you CAN grow.

I believe that everyone is capable of learning and changing and everyone deserves a second chance as long as they genuinely show the intention of changing and bettering themselves. I believe that we're capable of forgiving and maintaining healthy relationships without hard feelings. I believe we all have goodness. I believe we all are small universes and we have stars in our eyes and supernovas in our brains and a million things to discover and I believe its funnier to be together than alone and I'm rambling again but like idk just yesterday I was sending someone a message telling them how maybe I'm fucking delusional and naive because who the fuck goes out on their daily saying "be skeptical. dont trust too much. always pay attention" but then after two days of talking with someone they're fucking platonically whipped and would sell their soul as long as they can see those around them happy? trick question I know many of you do too which WORRIES ME PLZ DONT PUT YOUR HEARTS ON THE LINE SO EASILY I drifted I forgot what I was saying oh welp

Anyway for some of you i have so much to say I could write endless paragraphs about you about admins and characters and life and wow I do speak a lot to admins sometimes I speak more to admins as admin that the characters and for some others I can only say a few things or wish you to have a good day some of you I only ever spoke to your character or we talked too little or never at all wow I say that a lot but like one thing yall have in common is that I love you so much even if you don't know me or dont care alright I dont care if you don't care I LOVE YOU and you can FIGHT ME if you dont wanna accept it smh I just want you to know that this place so many of you have been feeling is crumbling down or hurting them or isnt the same anymore is MY safe place too is a place where I feel comfortable and secure and I know, well decide to believe, that you guys would never do willingly anything to hurt another and yknow sometimes I just sit in bed and look at my account and I'm like wow I suck I should delete but then I'm like I could never do that to you I really couldn't because I've been told so many times I'm peoples safe place too and I would never want to take that away from you yknow

I mean I'm not gonna say we shouldn't pay attention to the bad things that happen because this is somehow our home and it's on us to protect it but I think that we shouldnt focus so much on it. because theres still so many good things that we overlook when we think of the bad or when we let things get to us or when we decide to act out of impulse and not think through stuff yknow

ANYWAAY what I'm trying to say is that I love you all so so so so so much and this is my safe place because you're here for me when I need it and I would never give you guys up for anything and like i have so many people for whom i stay daily and try my best and I hope that someday when you need a reason i can be that for you too because I've said this in private but I want everyone to know that this is my corner too and I will always fight for it and protect it so like we can all fight for it together whenever things get rough or you can leave me alone and maybe I'm being super dramatic and putting a lot of weight on this but I started overthinking like halfway and in just tthink that I want to keep yall close to me and my heart forever ok so stay safe and healthy and happy yeah fight for your happiness fight for what you deserve fight for what you want and don't let anyone ANYONE EVER take away from you your joy and your spark and your will to be yourself ok bye

[pocmuzings]

hello hi , it is g , ur friendly local neighbourhood hindu indian ( as in south asian  ) ! so a few people requested that i just make a guide-esque sorta thing on hindu  indian characters ! im not really good at guides , so instead , these are just little things i’ve noticed or picked up on that could really potentially strengthen the next indian character u ( pretty please ! ) pick up ! 

disclaimer : i am writing this from my perspective and it is NOT definitive , nor do i speak on behalf of all hindu indians  ! i am a 23-year-old bisexual cis female hindu indian , with one older gay brother, and a Train Wreck middle brother . my mother is from new delhi , and my father is from nairobi but has indian heritage ( not sure which part of india bc he’s an Engima ) . i have extended family in india and have visited india about 10-15 times throughout my entire life .

so firstly , im so glad u all are here and want to write more hindu indian characters ! please please do so !  i hope this helps , encourages u , and isnt too confusing !! 

psa : i need everyone to know that this is a very basic ‘ guide ‘ and theres a lot it DOESNT touch on or address bc i didnt want to get too Extensive and Detailed and have people Turn off and not Read it . this is just written in the terms of hopefully helping build  character / be relevant to characters a bit better that ive employed into writing my OWN hindu indian character creations !  but if u have any other questions pls reach out to me or any other indians in the rpc and im sure we’ll try our best to assist u !

FCS: 

one thing i’d really like to say is that its great to see fcs like dev patel  , deepika padukone and avan jogia picked up every now and then in rps , but there’s actually a LOT of other indian fcs you could be and should be using ! the main reason people don’t seem to know them is because they’re not ‘ hollywood ‘ stars per se ( it was a super big deal when pr*yanka broke out of bollywood and into bollywood but we don’t talk about her on this Blog ) . they’re usually bollywood stars and i don’t really see bollywood discussed that much in the rpc ! 

if you’re after MORE indian fcs , i have a tag of indian females here , and indian males here . the fcs on my blogs are also not ALL that exist . there are plenty of other blogs out there that post indian fcs , such as sonamhelps &  bollymusings !!! there’s also some really great faceclaim directories out there that include a LOT of indians with resources !

 unfortunately , i do not know of any trans indians or nonbinary indians but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist . indian cultures and beliefs are still quite Old School and not super progressive . india only just had it’s first wlw mainstream bollywood film released last year . lgbtqia+ issues are NOT really spoken about in india or within indian families at ALL , and if they are - they’re usually dismissed or reacted to Very Very Badly . ( again this isnt definitive and im sure and hopeful that some indians have had GREAT coming out stories and been accepted by their families but this has not been a common thing ive seen or witnessed from my cousins my age , indian friends , myself and my brother who are lgbtqia +  ) 

FOOD : 

we do eat with our hands and we eat like PROS with our hands . we can shovel it so easily and quickly . i don’t know how to describe it but you use the first three fingers of your hand to place the Food there , and then use your thumb to kinda scoop it off and into your mouth . this is NOT unhygienic because indians wash their hands very regularly and most of the time we aren’t actually touching our mouths to our hands ! 

indian food is MADE to be eaten with your hands for the most part . it is literally NOT practical to eat food with a knife and fork . here’s a really great article explaining things more in depth re: indian food and using our hands !

cows are seen as Very holy beings in hindu indian culture , and for that reason - there isn’t a lot of beef being eaten or consumed. sure , some indians DO eat beef but i don’t think its super common, but in my personal experience as a non-beef-eater this results in A LOT of me asking ‘ oh ,  sorry what sauce does that pasta come with ? ‘ ‘ oh those are beef sausages ? sorry i can’t eat them ‘ etc etc . beef is in a LOT of things , and this makes me very very careful and almost pedantic about what i do eat and ask about , food wise  !

indian food is seen as stinky by a majority of white people . it has a very very strong smell as im sure u know , and opening ur lunch box as a little kid to a Curry or Dal ur mum has made u ? one way street to being bullied . i also remember a time a real estate agent continuously told my dad nobody was interested in buying our house bc it smelled too much like curry,  despite my mum not having cooked curry in Weeks ( just say what u Really mean ,  bitch ! )

 indian curry exists but so does dal / daal . this is curry-like dish that is usually made out of lentils . so if ur going to talk about indian food and u know curries and samosas . . pls also bring up dals . and sabji ! ( sabji is usually just boiled vegetables plopped together . a lot of potato usually )

desserts are what we call Indian Sweets  . this is stuff that is usually very VERY sugary and a bit of an accustomed taste . theyre very colourful and LOOK beautiful but even i , for one , can not eat many indian sweets bc they are a Lot of Sweet and Sugar    . examples of indian sweets that u can google  : gulab jamun , burfi , rasgulla , jalebi etc . here’s a great link for more !

give me spiced food or give me death . literally . . put some cumin in . . put some garam masala . . put some chillies . . flavour ur Food for my Indian Taste Buds 

FAMILY : 

if you are the oldest son of an Indian Family . . congratulations . you are now the Head of the family and must carry every weight and burden alone . it is extremely isolating and taxing on you ( my dad is the oldest indian son , and also - so is my eldest brother , obvs ) . there is a LOT that is expected of you to do . you are expected to quite literally run the family and be the ‘ man of the house ‘ by yourself . 

if you are a daughter . . . even BIGGER congratulations ! you are basically a maid to every male or guest who EVER comes over to your house . you must be a Hostess , you must be in the kitchen cooking , serving snacks, bringing tea , and then washing up and basically waiting on Hand and Foot . you will not be included into a lot of dialogue or engaged in a lot of conversation and TRUST ME ! THAT WILL GRIND UR GOD DAMN GEARS IN THE 21ST CENTURY ! 

if you are a boys’ boy ( aka straight and Sporty ) , then congrats ! you get it the easiest : you are the favourite of every social event . the uncles and cousins love talking to you and dude-ing it up with you , and the aunts fawn over you and think you’re the Best Thing since sliced bread . sit back , put your feet up , and expect to be treated like a God. you can do absolutely no wrong . ( my middle brother is this to a T and listen . . he’s been in and out of jail for physical violence and ab*se for over 5 years . and family still FROTH over him . my teeth are gritted to dust thinking of this again ) 

indian aunties are lethal . they gossip like teenage girls . they will find out everything . they will bitch behind your back . they can NOT be trusted .

everyone is ur uncle or aunt, sister or brother . literally everyone . ur cousin ? no. thats ur sister . ur dads friend ? no , thats ur uncle . you will call them as such . EVERYONE is family .  

family is in general a VERY BIG THING in indian culture , too . ‘ what will it Look like to everyone else if we don’t all arrive together ? ‘ my dad usually asks dskjdfjn . it’s all about Looking Right and Standing As A United Front  . that being said , indian family has undying and unwavering loyalty for one another , they just show it in a very Weird way .

FASHION: 

female hindu indian formal  clothes are usually really embroidered to hell and back and this makes them very scratchy , uncomfortable, and HEAVY . you aren’t running anywhere anytime soon in a full blown lehenga or saree 

most ‘ modern ‘ hindu indian women do not wear full Indian Clothes all the time . some do , but usually it’s a lot of wearing a kurti tunic with jeans , or just normal everyday clothing . again , this is going to be different based on which parts of india your character is from , though ! 

usually , older women and married women  wear traditiona hindul indian clothing quite often . i know my mum wore a sari AT HOME everyday when i was growing up, until i was like 13 and took her shopping with me to get something Else to wear . 

bindi’s just stick right onto ur forehead but they do fall off a lot , especially when ur wearing makeup or sweating . again , you don’t need to wear a bindi everyday , unless thats ur preference . i usually only wear them for festivals . ( festivals means indian celebrations , not like . . coachella  ((which u should not be wearing a bindi to , if ur not indian fyi )) )

male formal clothes are usually just literally anything Formal and buttoned up for the most part , and u can get away with that , or you can wear a really nice kurta

indians wear white at funerals , not black  ( not sure if this should go in the fashion section but this entire thing is being organised into a Mess by now anyways ) . you CAN wear black to a funeral of course , but its common to wear white !

DATING ( tw’s for islamaphobia ): 

modern day indian / desi fuck boys exist and my god they are Something Else . hasan minhaj did a really good piece about this and explaining them to a T ( starts at 1:43 )

( THIS IS THE POINT THAT WILL MENTION ISLAMAPHOBIA AND HOMOPHOBIA ! ) basically according to Older  indians , ,  ur dating options  in 2020 go like this ( if ur a cis female like me ) : hindu indian men are god tier , white men are Not Okay But I Guess So Bc We Have To Accept They’re Everywhere , females / being lgbtqia+ is not Taken Seriously , and muslims are literally not even close to being an option or Accepted  . again this isn’t definitive but based on a lot of  indian media i’ve consumed and seen how they portray muslims in general as well as Dating Options , as well as talking to other indians  , both who are older / traditional and hold these ideals , whereas Younger gens generally do NOT hold these ideals  / actively are Against these backwards ideals.   i remember when i was in year 6 and had my first boyfriend . . he was a muslim and my dad FLIPPED the FUCK out  . it’s not even that i was dating someone / young / his only daughter . . it was mainly because i was dating a muslim . again , this is a very OLD SCHOOL and traditional way of thinking and it is NOT CORRECT .  pls don’t take this as a note to be islamaphobic if u write an indian character bc . . thats literally the opposite of what im trying to tell u here . 

yeah arranged marriages are definitely still a thing for us , even now in 2020

YES if u are an unmarried / single indian ( ESPECIALLY if ur a woman ) about to enter ur 30s . . ur in DANGER and u are the black sheep and theres probably something Wrong With You bc why are u still single ?

TRADITIONS / BELIEFS / SUPERSTITIONS :

idk if its just me and my family but we are SUPER superstitious . if you say anything like ‘ he hasnt gotten sick in years !’ immediately , everyone knocks on wood or their head . if you were planning on leaving the house and sneeze ? thats bad luck , stand and wait for five minutes then u can leave . we have a strong belief in drishti , or  alternatively : The Evil Eye  , and making sure we don’t invite it into our lives . a lot of our prayers are about warding drishti away .

the evil eye is kinda Complicated but basically its an ill-wishing upon an unsuspecting person . if somebody is jealous of you or angered by you , they may wish upon you or cast upon you the Evil eye ( or even just glare at u whilst ur not looking and thats Big Bad ) . 

a lot of older indians , like older people in general i guess , are not super progressive or Open . this isnt ALWAYS the case but older indians can be very very stubborn in their beliefs in what is Right and Wrong , Normal and Not Normal 

theres a LOT of hindu indian festivals and events ! tbh too many for me to even keep up with . but without fail at least once a year ill say to ONE of my friends ‘ oh sorry i cant make it . i have an indian Thing on that day ‘ and its usually about a festival , so pls be aware that there are a LOT of indian festivals and if ur writing an indian character , its perfectly understandable and Relatable for them to say they can’t make it to a party or hang out with their friends that night , for that very reason !

the main / most popular ( ? ) festivities  that i personally do celebrate every year without fail are : 

diwali ( the festival of lights , celebrating goddess lakshmi roaming the earth . in my household this is usually turning on literally every single light and lighting candles and fireworks / sparklers and saying some prayers , and eating a formal dinner all together !  )  

holi ( the festival of colours . celebrating victory and love . again personally for me , this was usually celebrated at the temple with all of us Kids running around throwing paint on each other ! ) 

rakhi / raksha bandhan ( a day of sisters celebrating their brothers . you tie a rakhi which is usually a bracelet / holy string around your brothers wrist , feed them some food , pray for their wellbeing and in return they gift you something . in my case, i usually get money from them ) .

navratri  / durga puja ( 9 nights and 10 days of celebrations but tbh u don’t have to do all the days . or i mean . . i don’t . i fast one day from morning to night and then i slide on over to boogie and dance dandiya which is literally the MOST FUN dance ever bc its based off some Historical Fight and u go faster and faster and keep going until ur absolutely SPENT bc u dont wanna lose ur place in the circle )  

there are SO MANY HINDU INDIAN GODS too . and so many prayers to all of them and to just general Life Wellness . chances are that ur character will know at least ONE aarti / gazal / prayer off by heart and have sung it at least 30 times in a monotone voice . the ones i know off by heart bc ive had to sing them 3000 times ? om jai jagdish hare , & the gayatri mantra 

GENERAL LIL THINGS I DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO CATEGORISE ( tw’s for skin whitening , colorism and classism ) :

( THIS IS THE POINT THAT NEEDS A TW FOR SKIN WHITENING AND COLORISM  ) lets hold indians accountable right now : we advertise SKIN LIGHTENING CREAM  . i think they finally stopped that earlier this year / due to BLM ( i’m not entirely sure / could be wrong ) , but thats literally how bad it is , that we would openly advertise and encourage people to literally bleach their skin rather than look darker . 

( THIS IS THE POINT THAT NEEDS A TW FOR COLORISM AND CLASSISM ) colorism is a BIG thing in india and usually linked to class . generally speaking , the people who are Darker Skinned are usually people who work outside / labourers or homeless even , and are therefore seen as lower class / bottom class . the lighter skin you have , the more privileged and advantaged you are bc ur seen as working a Good job out of the sun and having a home . it’s incredibly classist as well as just generally Fucked Up . why am i telling u this ? mainly so u understand the importance of using a dark skinned indian fc vs a light skinned indian fc which i know is hard , bc a lot of darker skinned indians arent in hollywood / have resources , but its still something to Think About .  

i have a long Ethnic name . literally my first name is 10+ letters , which i know doesnt seem that long Necessarily but its also a Super Ethnic name with e’s and and j and n . it Flows and Sounds very clearly different from a christian name . it is VERY important to me that my name be said Correctly because i’ve spent so much time having it said incorrectly or Westernised . i also know a lot of indians my age who ( like me ) have had to dramatically shorten their REAL first name ( which is usually also pretty long . not always , but it is Common ) , to fit their name into white people’s mouths better . please put some thought into ur indian characters name !

not all indians speak hindi ! hindi is one of MANY dialects within india . there is also tamil , urdu  , bengali , punjabi , telugu and SO many more , so pls research which part of india ur character / their family  is from bc hindi won’t always be the default language for them !

not every indian is hindu ! of course ur character doesnt have to be religious at all , bc if im being honest IM barely religious but my FAMILY is and this is smth u should think abt bc religion is a pretty big thing for indians . so even if ur character isnt hindu , they were probably raised with SOME religious beliefs . have a think about which religions they would have been brought up with ! there’s a very large percentage of practicing muslims , sikhs and buddhists too ! and even christianity !

WRITING WISE / CREATING AN INDIAN CHARACTER WISE :

the first step should be to consume indian media ! listen to indian music . watch bollywood movies ! theres SO MANY  out there on everyone’s netflix . if u want some recs , let me know and i can try my best to find smth for u ! if u want smth thats Hollywood-indian . . . Hasan Minhaj is great to watch , especially his episodes on indian culture / politics , and Never Have I Ever on netflix was rlly good / relatable for me personally as an indian growing up in a western society !

i would really really love to see more indian rep in general , but i’d also like to discuss the Stereotypes that ive seen indians portrayed as in mainstream hollywood media :

indian women as soft spoken and subservient beings who are abused by their husbands and have no say in anything 

heterosexuality within indian relationships and indian dating 

indian men as sleazy 

indians in general not being seen as Sexy or Sexual beings with any sex drive at all 

Stumbling , Stuttering , Nerdy awkward messes of men who don’t know how to interact with anybody they find sexually appealing

an indian character that everybody ( usually white ) finds Uncomfortable and Weird and is seen as usually the Butt of the joke .

 i think those mentioned above could be helpful in how to plan your next indian character and think about how to SUBVERT a trope theyre often portrayed as , or create an indian thats not stereotypical !

so what and who SHOULD you write ? 

an indian character who is proudly and openly gay , or bi 

a trans or nonbinary indian ( PLEASE ! ) 

an indian character with really super accepting parents and family 

an aromantic indian 

an indian who is focused on their career first and not their dating life 

a fuckboy / fuckgirl ( honestly . . i’d love to see it )

a indian character who is a party animal 

an outspoken indian female who takes no shit and is strong in every sense of the word

a confident , smooth talking indian businessman who is Sexy and Lusted After ( not in a gross christian grey way but just . i’d love to see indian characters seen as Sexy . not in a fetishy way , either , but just because it’d be a nice change in pace ! )

a character who IS traditional / religious but also very progressive and forward thinking in their beliefs 

honestly just any character that isnt whats mentioned above