#when writing characters you dont have to just go with whatever action seems most obvious or appropriate

[drawing-in-teyvat]

I want to talk about Genshin's newest ray of sunshine, Mualani 🐟 ✨️

I loved her inclusion in the first part of the archon quest (I was tempted to summon for her but after 2 trials I decided her playstyle is not for me RIP), and in contrast to what many people have said I think she's a great representative for the personality of Natlan as a whole.

Spoilers below for people who haven't played Natlan but want to:

One thing I've seen people complain about, aside from calling Mualani just another generic happy girl which I disagree with, is that she didn't respond strongly enough to the news of Kachina's death and failed resurrection. I guess they feel like the appropriate response would have been for her to cry and yell?

I think Mualani's response was actually incredibly realistic given what we know about her upbringing and the situation in the nation. When Mavuika brings everyone in to explain the situation Mualani does, in fact, become angry. She doesn't become emotional but her demeanor changes compared to what we've seen from her previously. Her response does come across as muted though, which I think is entirely intentional.

Think about the other most important event we experience with Mualani, when she showed us around the People of the Springs village. Everyone from her tribe is just as laid back and happy as her and it seems like such a carefree place right up until we're suddenly attacked by the abyss. This is a regular occurrence in Natlan! The nation has been at war for 500 years and these people are used to fighting for their lives. The important thing to note though is Atea: when we finally find out the truth that Atea will die soon how does Mualani react? She has the same kind of muted reaction that she does to Kachina's death. She isn't angry over Atea but she also doesn't get visibly emotional over it.

I'm pretty sure this is because, well....

That's what happens when you experience trauma over and over again.

When I watched the AQ and got to the part with Mualani finding out about Kachina I remember thinking, "Well, that's a very realistic scene." Because that's how I think I would act too, in that situation. When you've been through hardship from a young age, eventually you just learn that getting emotional gets you nowhere. You might get angry but there's no point in wasting your energy yelling or crying. I think maybe some people might not catch on to that nuance, but I found it to be a great touch and made Mualani feel like a realistic character to me.

The OTHER thing I think is great about her, and another thing I relate to, is that Mualani IS a happy peppy girl! But she's clearly CHOOSING to be happy despite the circumstances. That's why I think she's a great representative of Natlan. The entire nation is experiencing this prolonged trauma and yet it isn't the desolate war-torn wasteland that many gamers were expecting. It's arguably the most fun, colorful, and energetic nation so far. Natlan is CHOOSING to be a place full of life, and I think that's a much better direction for the developers to have taken it compared to the alternative! It's all very interesting so far BRAVO.

TLDR: Mualani is actually a character with a decent amount of depth. Her unexpectedly muted reactions to terrible events actually say a lot about her! Her personality also makes a lot of sense for the setting!

Also, she's a baddie. She's never died in war and even Kinich thinks she's no pushover 💪

[marunalu]

Hi! MHA 406 is almost bad for my taste because of Bakugou. But One thing!

AFO facial expression!!! Please analyze this!!! Please!!!

From now on I will just ignore EVERYTHING related to bakugou because it makes no sense any longer to get angry about it. Bakugou is horis pet character and the only character who truly matters to him. At this point bakugou is just the most horrible written gary stu character in shonen history and its clear that hori doesnt care about how shitty his writing of him is. Most of the mha fandom kisses bakugous ass anyway so the horrible writing about bakugous fake "death", his even more horrible written resurrecction and now in this chapter bakugous pain somehow making him able to create bigger explosions and making him faster just shows that hori can write whatever he wants about bakugou and the fandom will still eat this shit out of his hands! Like... I dont care anymore. So I will just do my best and from now on ignore this character as good as I can. If it will be suscessful is the other question, because horis writing of bakugou is just SO bad 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Anyway lets look at the actuall only intetesting part in this chapter. FINALLY we get a little bit more of afos and yoichis backstory and FINALLY we know 2ths name, because I was sick of calling him 2th all the time. My question is now is kudou his first or his last name? Because I think it would be weird if afo calls him by his first name. The only way this would make sense is if kudou once worked for afo and they were friends. Also interesting that we get 2ths name reveal before 3ths 🤔

Now I have the hope that we will soon get a little flashback "arc" or at least a few chapters dedicated about afos and yoichis past. Now about afos expression. Well LOOK AT MY MAN!!!

I LOVE how vulnerable he looks here. And its a smart move of hori to only show afos eyes (which for once dont look dead) again while the rest is in shadows. He doesnt want to reveal yet the utter despair on afos face when he realizes that his brother is DEAD! But you can clearly see in the way afos eyes and eyebrows are drawn how devasted he is. He is crying! To see the great demon lord and most dangerous super villain who ever lived with such an human expression is actually quite heartbreaking. It shows and confirms that deep down his demon lord facade is simply just a mask to hide his own human heart! Its nothing but an act to look strong and untouchable, so nobody could hurt him! Hori is showing us that, yes, this horrible bastard who did so many evil things to others is still a human deep down with feelings and emotional pain and who actually suffers. Thats how hori writes his villains and to me it was always pretty obvious that he would go the same route with his main villain. Afos demon lord facade is nothing but a coping mechanism to excuss his own evil actions and trying to distance himself from his own humanity.

This chapter confirms without a doubt HOW MUCH afo loved his brother. His only family! And the most interesting part is that afo wasnt even aware that HE killed yoichi. He was SEARCHING for him. He believed him to be ALIVE! Its his enemy who gives him the news that he murdered his own brother, but afo seems to be completly taken by surprise by this! There is just no way that afo actually REALLY tried to kill yoichi with full intent and backs up my theory that yoichis death was an accident or that yoichi sacreficed himself for someone else afo wanted to kill (like kudou and 3th) and then kudou took an injured yoichi to an other place where he died shortly after. Afo believed yoichi to be fine, he had NO IDEA his brother was dead! And it explains so much why afo is so obsessed with the ofa quirk. Its his only way to get yoichi back. The only thing that is left of him. His only way to make amends with yoichi and MAYBE even telling him that he is sorry for what he did!

He clearly still believes everything is kudous fault (what he is telling himself) like I mentioned already a few times in other posts. Kudou freed yoichi from the vault, filled his head with even more heroic ideas which in return made yoichi eventually even more reckless and putting himself in harms way. In yoichis eyes kudou and 3th are his heroes. What is the opposite of the hero? The villain! Lets remember that afo never called himself a villain while yoichi was still alive and even tried to put the blame on his followers when they did something horrible to others ("they did it on their own. I never told them to do it.") He was trying to keep his hands clean. But now Afo WANTS to be a villain, because in his mind its the heroes fault that his brother is dead! And maybe its not just that he wants to be a villain, but also that he believes he cant go back anymore. He crossed the line with yoichis death so to speak. He lost the only person that mattered to him. Why should he care for anyone else now? The world took everything away from him and thats the reason why he wants to destroy everyones happiness and future in return.

And if dfo is canon it could mean that inko and izuku were the first thing after 200 years afo cared about or even loved and saw as his last chance to leave his villain life behind him (him mentioning that he wants to retire). But then all might happend and izuku got ofa. Now there is most likely really no going back anymore.

[jesskasb]

Ok but which drv3 fic are you reading. And is it good so far

it's "amalgamate" by doctorhaifisch !! and it is good so far yeah! really elaborate answer under the cut, i went on about this for longer than i shouldve. sorry. ill take any opportunity to ramble about v3. :']

based on the hits and the amount of fanart ive seen of it, it seems everyone and their mother has read it... however ive been purposely living under a 2 bedroom rock for like 4 years so ive only gotten around to it now after seeing an artist i follow say it made them reconsider a few things about ouma and it made them like kaito and realize how intelligent he is and how fascinating his role in chapter 5 was— and i was like wow, that must be a based fucking fic! it took me years to see kaito more than just a loud guy with a savior complex, and now that im a huge fan of him, i wanted to see what kind of fic could open someone's eyes to his awesomeness.

i check it out *really* skeptically, mainly cause i dont trust most people's depiction of ouma. they either make him genuinely not give a shit about things and just be a terrible person for no reason, or they make him too emo in a way he simply isnt. the main reason i even gave it a shot despite never having read a v3 fic in the 6 yrs ive been a fan, is that it said that the tags say the whole fic could be interpreted platonically (#AROWIN) (god knows im not against oumota but i prefer them as friends by a really substantial amount) and the amount of research the author seemed to have poured into strike 9 poison and its real world pesticide counterpart. the art they attached to chapter 1 was really good, too, so that made me curious.

now im in chapter 10/20 and i can say with confidence ive been having a great time. its plenty obvious the author has a lot of love for all of the characters, and even though i thought i could gain no new opinions since i already love ouma and kaito's potential dynamic and everything to do with chapter 5, i ended up being very pleasantly suprised by himiko's depiction here! i cant say im too big of a fan of her, not due to any actual fault in her character but rather kodaka's failings to do anything actually interesting with her. in chapter 9, this author used her untapped potential in a really heartwarming way that i loved. similarly, i have enjoyed seeing their portrayal of kaito and ouma, and it seems there's going to be an arc for ouma to begin seeing his classmates not only as people whose lives are worth saving as much as any other, but to see them as friends and letting them become close with him. ive always been a firm believer that in a non-kg setting ouma could become super close friends with a small handful of people, but this fic is making me reconsider that— maybe its more! another thing im really enjoying are all the fascinating possibilities that the author is exploring for a world in which ouma lives to see chapter 6 and the consequences of his actions. him being there while people investigate his room? most amusing. its all stuff that happens in chapter 5 and 6 until a certain point— just enough to get these two chumps to live, and then... well, i guess ill see how chapter 6 turns out, but as of right now ive been super intrigued and entretained.

i do also have a couple of complaints, but theyre mostly pet peeves and no deal breakers so far: there have been a loooot of pop culture referenced but they all feel in line with stuff kodaka would write so whatever, the author uses italics way more than id like... in the chapters up until 9 there were constant descriptions of kaito seeing ouma as a Kid, and while that in an of itself is true (he is a 17 yr old) the context began feeling a little infantalizing and like kaito himself wasnt 17 as well. theres noticeably less of this in chapter 9 and what ive read of 10, or when theres references to them being kids it includes everyone and theres even a moment where kaito tells ouma theyre the same damn age lol. theres also been a bunch of moments that are clearly very indulgent of ship dynamics and inclinations im not too fond of (particularly between ouma and shuichi) but like i said, nothings been too much of a dealbreaker since the positives far outweigh the negatives!

im currently on a trip where i dont have signal most of the time so i got the epub of the fic to read on the downtime. im def gonna keep reading it, and im excited to see where its going despite some of the cheesy lines such as

(honestly i cant even complain. i dont care its a reference to the title of the game. he Would say that....)

i mean, really, it's such a good depiction of ouma. all his masks, his paranoia, his insecurities, his determination to stop the killing game, the way hes been helping the group while simultaneously remaining isolated, and the way his lies are an extension of his genius but also a constant tool to test his peers. i feel like i dont get to see all of these elements of him expanded upon so extensively like this fic does, and that alone makes me really respect what the author is doing! the word count may be scary but i think youd get something from the fic even if you only read like 5-6 chapters. so yeah in conclusion id recommend it if you give a shit about v3 and are interested in chapter 5 fix it fics LOL

[lovelandfrogman]

just saw that you saw the neptune theater production of ragad???? how was it!?!

YESSSSS it was so good!!!! sorry for the late reply, i just wanted to write out something detailed for this but didn't have the time!

id been planning to go for a while and i'm so glad it worked out! it definitely lived up to my hype, it was amazing!! ill give some very un-expert and very rambly impressions i had, but PLS let me know if you have specific questions about any details or scenes or choices :D

also i apologize im not a True fan of these 2 actors and i dont remember their names so ill just call them by their characters DHSJD

first off heres the set and playbill!!

i was kinda surprised because all the promo pictures seemed to show them wearing modern suits so i thought it was gonna be a modern setting, but it was just colorful old timey clothes! (sorry im not very knowledgeable on costumes, my main impression was just "oooo fun clothes")

oh one costume note is that one of them was wearing a green suit with a blue waistcoat, and the other was wearing a blue suit with a green waistcoat!

another unique thing about the production is it was split into 3 acts, like the script does, but most productions just do 2 acts!

i really enjoyed watching this, both ros+guil were super funny and the audience was laughing the whole time, even near the end like when guildenstern's breaking down, which i honestly enjoyed-- even when it's horribly tragic, it's STILL kiiinda funny. also i liked guildenstern's accent

in my opinion the acting was great all around, i kinda enjoyed the hamlet scenes and how they were acted seriously, since i'm always conflicted on if r&gad should make the hamlet parts serious or not! also guildenstern and rosencrantz's serious and emotional bits hit me so harddd (as in both of their monologues about death i guess)

there was a lot more use of obvious lighting and sound design than i feel like is typical for r&gad? but i enjoyed it!! i'll talk a bit more about that laterrrr

they also had some singing from the tragedians, once in their first entrance, and once replacing the ship noises at the beginning of act 3, which was very fun

one big difference was after the final scene w horatio, they blackout and go back to the initial positions and do a single "heads!" which was GREAT, i don't think i've seen anything else make the time loop that explicit??

ok and now just some rambling about interpretations

so part of me before the play started was like "i've watched/read/listened to this play SO many times, i hope it's not just boring and same-y and i don't realize anything new."

AND THEN. near the end of the first scene where ros+guil come across the tragedians. i was like HOLY SHIT and realized an interpretation that i've never thought of before.

(this might be a Super obvious interpretation and i'm just slow but whatever.) it occured to me that the moment that the tragedians are about to put on a play for ros+guil and the scene suddenly shifts to hamlet, it could be interpreted that the rest of the play is just the tragedians putting on one of the classics for ros+guil, and them getting "caught up in the action".

of course this doesn't make sense with Everything in the play, but it's SO fascinating to me and it recontextualizes a lot of stuff, like making it so that ros+guil are just fucking around backstage and onstage trying to figure out their roles the whole time in this play that's suddenly started around them.

also there's a couple choices that i think support this interpretation, like tending to switch to a warm stage-y lighting whenever scenes from hamlet are going on, and switching back to a cool neutral whenever ros+guil are "offstage".

plus, i think this happened a couple times but notably when hamlet is doing his "to be or not to be" speech and rosencrantz is trying to figure out how to interrupt him, there's this super interesting lighting effect where they have a spotlight on the BACK of the stage where hamlet is, and these lights near the bottom of the stage that give the impression of stage lights, making it look like the stage is reversed and hamlet's on the side facing the audience while ros+guil are upstage. IDK if that makes sense but i was like HOLY SHIT when i realized.

PLUS, im fairly sure all the actors playing roles in hamlet are all also tragedians, AND between each act, they had the tragedians doing stuff like moving the set, sweeping, etc, on stage, which was very fun..

ANYYYWAYY those are my thoughts :D not gonna tag this bc im embarrassedddd but feel free to rb and feel free to ask questions

[jenojaemssss]

nct dream as your boyfriend

nct dream x gn!reader

fluffy boyfriend!nct dream headcanons because it's 2 am and i'm all up in my head <3 also because i have no motivation to work on dont need it and am holding it off as much as i possibly can before finalizing it <3

lee mark

just the softest boy

we already know he really enjoys playing the guitar

so i feel like he’s the type to wake up at like 3 in the morning with a melody in mind

like he wakes up in cold sweat because he has such a good idea and he CANNOT forget it

he’d record a snippet of it and send it to you after he perfects it

but this is rare because he’d rather hear your reaction

mark isn’t the type to facetime; he’d rather just call you or just come over to see you in person

so a lot of the time you’d get an incoming phone call

at 3 in the morning

because he forgets the time when he’s immersed in his craft

and because it’s a phone call, he can’t see you squinting at your phone

but you’d try your best to not make it obvious that you were already asleep

and then he’d go on and on about how he was in the middle of writing something and thought about you

his voice literally just wakes you up because he’s so excited over his creation

“ready to hear it?”

and after playing it for you he’d have the widest, goofiest smile on his face

he’d be so proud of yourself after you give him a personal round of applause

but his grin doesn’t stay on for long because there’d be banging on his wall from his housemates telling him to shut up

this happened so often that they don’t even have to say anything, just forcefully tap their wall and he’d get the hint

usually then, he’d finally realize how late-or technically, early- it was getting

“ah shit, fuck were you sleeping when i called?”

and you’d just chuckle because he’s so damn cute

and then you’d remind him how much you love and enjoy his hobby

and how it makes you happy getting to listen to him play his guitar

“you do know you don’t have to pick up, right?”

but you’d just smile even wider and he could hear it over the phone and he’d smile too

your smile is so endearing to him

and when he was the reason you’re smiling, it sends him through the clouds

because how could HE be the cause of such a beautiful smile

“hey, baby?”

“yeah, mark?”

“i love you.”

and you’d giggle so hard because he still gives you butterflies

“i love you, too, mageolli.”

“bro, did hyuck teach you that?” he squeaks

another bang on his wall makes him jump and he ends up whispering to you for about another hour

huang renjun

this man loves to read, so whenever he’s reading a book he really likes, he’d annotate it with the intentions of giving it to you

sometimes he’d highlight funny things and write little notes like “this made me laugh and i thought you’d like it too”

so fucking endearing let me tell you

and when he comes across romantic lines, he’d highlight them in pink and write little notes on how it reminded him of you

when he’s done with the book and gives it to you, you’d find cute little highlighted portions with notes and messages directed for you

sometimes, he’d write you cute little messages on the inside cover, kind of like an introduction to his annotations

he’d also write a mini introduction to the content of the book, but in his own cute way

“i found this book really funny (those funny scenes are highlighted in yellow) and there were a lot of scenes where the interactions between the two main characters reminded me of you and i, so those are highlighted in purple”

and a bunch of other notes related to his annotations

the back cover has a mini summary and all his personal thoughts after finishing the book

“could they BE anymore stupid? he should have confessed to her when…” and many more angry-renjun reactions

there was one time he was reading pride and prejudice and came across this line

“in vain i have struggled. it will not do. my feelings will not be repressed. you must allow me to tell you how ardently i admire and love you.”

he was about to pull out his highlighter and smear the bright pink across it but pauses

and then he just slams the book closed because he remembers how much of an asshole mr. darcy was in this book

and how much he hated pride and prejudice

he was only reading it again because you asked him to read it with you

the two of you often picked out your favorite books and had the other one read it and discuss it with each other after you both finished

kind of like a personal book club

this time around you picked this wretched book and he was not having it

but then you pulled out the puppy eyes

he gagged in front of you and asked that if he’d read it with you, you wouldn’t pull that shit again

internally he loved it, he just doesn’t like showing it physically

anyways, after slamming the book shut he stood up from the couch but was so pissed off with the fucking book that he called you

“babe, why is lizzy so fucking idiotic?”

you’re just as confused as he is, but for a totally different reason

“i know we’re supposed to discuss when we’re finished but i just cannot read this book anymore.”

lee jeno

the type of boyfriend that has a really hard time expressing his feelings in words

so he’d show it in his actions instead

his love language is most likely physical touch

but at the same time he seems like the type to not enjoy too much physical affection in public

yet he still needs to be touching you: always

just small gestures to keep in physical contact with you

it reassures him that you’re still there

in public, he’d make an effort to hold pinkies

like he’d interlock them when you’re walking around the grocery store or just when you go on walks together

oh yeah, jeno really likes walks

like when the two of you are having a really rough day or when you’re both just not in the best mood, he’d ask to go on walks to clear your minds

it’s his way of telling you that he’s there for you

on the rough days, instead of holding your pinky, he’d intertwine your hands instead

and when you guys argue over things and he doesn’t know what to say, he’d leave the room for a bit so that you don’t say things you don’t really mean to each other

jeno is a good man, he was raised right

so he KNOWS when he’s at fault

and when he realizes what he’s done and takes all the things you say into consideration, you’d hear the sink running or the vacuum turn on

he’d clean your apartment for you as an apology

back to the physical touch aspect of him

rare *public* back hugs here and there but only around people he’s comfortable with

but when you’re alone??

he would literally CLING onto you, personal bubble does not exist to this man

wraps his arms around your waist when you cook or do the dishes, playing footsies when you eat, all of that

sometimes when you’re both on the couch doing work on separate laptops he’d make it a literal mission to be in physical contact with you

like even if it interferes with his work, he’s gotta be touching you

he’d have one leg thrown over your torso if your hands are too busy with something

it’s really endearing because if you moved at all, like even just a little and he wasn’t able to have a part of his body on yours, he’d start pouting

he’d reach his arms or legs out in a grabbing motion and not say anything

and then you’d have to reposition yourself so that the two of you would be able to work and he still be able to touch you

and his smiles, the fucking smiles when he gets to hold your hand after you guys finish working on whatever you needed to work on

his cuddles are top tier too, and he’d make sure you guys get at least 30 minutes of cuddles a day

lee donghyuck

the whiniest, most annoying (but adorable) boyfriend ever

like jeno, he needs to be in physical contact with you, but instead of quietly pouting or reaching for you, he’d YELL

“y/n! hold my hand!”

“but i’m typing-”

“babe, hold my hand!!!!” *intense pouting*

he normally drops it when he knows you’re actually busy, but when he knows you’re just watching a movie or something, he keeps pestering you until you hold his hand

and when you do, he takes the opportunity to POUNCE on you like he just deadass lays on top of you

and you let him because it’s actually really comforting having his weight on top of you

NOSE KISSES!!!!!! lots of those

and forehead pecks

it goes both ways, though, because he likes receiving those too!!!!! fairness!!!!!

he’s the type to play tricks on you, but never takes it too far because he doesn’t want to hurt you in any way

and he spoils you a lot

like not with materialistic things (though sometimes he does) but more with arguments and when it comes to picking what to do/eat for the day

he’s the type to always think before his actions, yet when he’s around you, all logic is thrown to the side

“you wanna go bungee jumping? bet!” (even though he’s afraid of heights)

he gets two of everything when he goes to the store; one for him and one for you

and when you first started dating, you got a bit shy because of this due to the fact that he’s spending extra on you

you felt bad he was spending extra money so whenever you were buying things, you followed his habit and do the same thing

and for the first couple months he’d say that it’s fine and everything but when you both got really comfortable around each other, he’d be really witty with his comebacks

“no, i don’t wanna share with you” or “pay me back then”

sometimes the casual, “no, you’re gonna eat all of it and leave me nothing”

soon enough, the two of you fell into the habit of buying two of everything wherever you went (besides the things that you both know the other person hates)

also, when you first started dating, a lot of it was just casually hanging out at a park or walking around a random neighborhood and getting food nearby

street food you can take on the go >>>> food from fancy restaurants

and also, when you first started getting snacks for each other and he didn’t know what you liked, he got one of everything

like for example, the first time you guys had a movie night at your place, he went to the store but didn’t know what brand of chips you preferred so he bought both kinds

(he learned that day what your favorite snacks and brands were and he remembered it forever)

na jaemin

HUGS!

jaemin is the king of hugs, like no one, absolutely NO ONE can beat him when it comes to hugs

they’re always so warm and he always knows whenever you need one

he’s kind of like a battery pack, so whenever you hug him, you feel recharged and energized

because all his hugs are full of love and you can literally feel it radiating off of him

“jaems, i need-”

you can’t even finish your sentence because he’s already engulfing you

“i know, baby”

sometimes you’d tease him and say things like, “i was gonna ask for some water” or some shit like that and he’d get all pouty

and when he’s about to let go, you just pull him into you more

so obviously, he’s another fan of physical affection

but unlike jeno and hyuck, he’s not quite the clingy type

he will give you your space and will not invade your personal bubble, but instead just show that he’s there by doing other things

whenever he sees that your water glass is half empty, he’d go refill it

would always ask if you wanted a snack

would feed you his food when you were busy working on your laptop

just little actions to show that he’s paying attention to you

you pick up on his habit and slowly become more tentative too

he’s also the type that shows the overprotective type of affection too

like, when it gets cold and he notices you shiver a little, he’d immediately take off his sweater/hoodie/jacket, whatever, and give it to you

or whenever your clothes seem to be bothering you, he’d offer you his shirt or pants or anything for you to feel more comfortable

he really enjoys cooking for you, so you’d have little cooking dates every once in a while where he teaches you a recipe or you teach him something

and it always either ends up in a disaster or a really appetizing success, no mediocre food in this household

the disasters are normally when you’re in charge of the cooking because you get distracted by jaemin’s crackheadery

he talks to the fucking vegetables and asks them how their day was before chopping them up, like what the fuck?

the normally tentative jaemin gets distracted because he’s making you laugh

he loves hearing you laugh, so he keeps doing what he’s doing to get to hear it more

so sometimes you forget you’re boiling something, you forget there’s something on the stove and shit starts spilling out

you’re both panicking and looking for the fire extinguisher

jaemin just ends up smacking it with whatever he’s holding and the flames go out and you both end up laughing and rolling around on the floor for the next 10 minutes

zhong chenle

can be the most evil or the most adoring boyfriend, there is no inbetween

like some days, he’d tease you to the point you ignore him while other days he’s all cuddly, snuggled up against you while hyping you up like you’re some sort of insta baddie

but a constant is that he will ALWAYS call you cute

you say something stupid? “cute.”

you CALL him stupid? “how cute!”

you drop your phone in the toilet? “cute.”

he has an obsession with that word, but it doesn’t really bother or annoy you because you really like hearing him say it

even when you guys play video games

you’re both beast at battle royale games, so you’re both constantly playing with one another

you guys normally don’t play when you see each other/ meet up because you spend that time doing other quality couple things

like bicker over what to order or where to get boba from for the day

so instead you guys normally play video games together at 3 in the morning after finishing up all your work for the day

whenever you’d knock down an enemy, you’d hear him from the other end of the phone shouting things like, “y/n that kill was so sexy!” (he picked that up from jaemin)

when you make noises after either missing or hitting your target, he’d chuckle to himself and mumble a little, “cute.”

soon enough you’re also picking up the habit and calling him cute all the damn time too

at first, he insisted that you stopped calling him cute because it was HIS line

“babe, i know i’m adorable, but stop calling me cute.”

“no.”

more bickering because he is so persistent

eventually got used to it and you two would have little squabbles over how the other is overusing it when you're BOTH doing it

not normally the type to be showing physical affection, but will cuddle when he’s sleepy

he feels safe when he’s holding you so he’s at peace and can fall asleep easily

he probably likes petting your hair when he’s the big spoon, and likes it when you pet his hair when he’s the little spoon

OMG WAIT he’s probably the type to have you lay on his lap (or vice versa) and just play with your hair (or have you play with his hair)!!!!!!!

like y’all are just chilling on the couch watching some basketball game and he just lays on your lap out of nowhere

“time for human contact!”

you’d just laugh and start combing your hand through his hair and he closes his eyes and ends up falling asleep

park jisung

the best friend type of boyfriend where the most couply thing you end up doing is going yo the zoo and feeding animals

he really likes when you guys go to the gift shop and play with the little toys they have

he’s super interested in the little things and is fascinated by everything big and small

you find that shit so cute and secretly take pictures of him staring at the miniature figures of lions

he catches on after seeing you changed your wallpaper to a picture of him holding a giraffe puppet and having it look at him

he holds your finger when you walk around so that you both don’t get lost

but his hands are really big compared to yours, so you switch to holding his finger instead and he physically melts because he thinks it looks so cute

i think your typical dates are the ones that involve a lot of walking around BECAUSE of the fact that you hold onto his finger

(jk, but like...he just thinks it’s really cute)

(so much so that it becomes a habit when you’re just hanging out)

(watching a movie? here, hold my finger. grocery shopping? here, hold it.)

you guys go to the amusement park often too

you hold onto each other’s fingers and wander around the park looking for rides that jisung can ride because he's scared of action

but you like roller coasters, and jisung always feels bad because you never ride them when you two go together

so one time, when there was one you really wanted to go on but you knew it would have scared jisung

so you decided to pass up on it because you didn’t want to leave him alone

but he was noticing how your eyes kept lingering on the coaster and he broke

“y/n, i’ll go on it with you”

and you’re shocked because you didn’t even say you wanted to go on it, like you just looked at it but he caught on

and you tried to brush it off and insisting that you could go on a ride you both liked

but he was so stern about it because he knew how much you wanted to go on it

i think he’s the type of boyfriend that normally gets over his fears when he is encouraged by his partner, and in this case, his form of encouragement was making you happy

he just likes seeing you happy in general

so internally, he’s hyping himself up while you’re cheering for him

and although he’s scared shitless, he goes through with it because he knows that this is a fear he needs to get over, so might as well get it over with while making you smile!

and so when it’s your turn to get on the ride, he gets cold feet, kinda, but you grab onto his hand, not his finger, and rub your thumb over it to reassure him that it’ll be fine

and it was honestly not that bad because he felt safe with you holding his hand the entire time

and when the ride finishes and he sees how happy you are, he thinks to himself that it was so worth it because you’re beaming

he makes a note

holding your hand > holding fingers

[sasukeless]

Lately I have seen a lot of posts call Naruto selfish for chasing Sasuke what do you think

hello anon i hope u know you just give me the perfect excuse to write a rant ive been iching to write so i apologize that i will make this so long

anyways back to the point. ive seen many people call naruto selfish for chasing dasuke and many other things that at this point i feel like they arent even reading the manga and just choosing what to niptick because they dont like his character and just want to have reasons to hate him. even if the reasons doesnt make sense but whatever.

this all reasons can simply debunked if u read the panel where sasuke himself asks naruto why he never gave up on him and naruto answers saying that he felt sasuke was in pain and couldnt just ignore it. now tell me how is it selfish of one person to not want to see the closest person in his life be sad? shouldnt everyone want their loved ones to be okay?

now here is where people start nipticking and saying stuff even if the story is telling other thing. because when u give that explanation ppl go and say "well but sasuke wasnt in pain" and thats just wrong in so many levels. saying sasuke wasnt in pain is just stupid and a braindead take when all sasuke's rage and desire of revenge borns because of the pain he felt for losing his family and clan and later for finding out his whole life is a lie and itachi was a victim of konoha's brainwashing. by declaring sasuke isnt in pain through the story youre down playing his whole character when its because of that pain he does what he does and hes valid for lashing out and wanting revenge.

and that leads to another argument ppl pull "naruto had no right to get in sasuke's business because sasuke was right". now the thing is just because sasuke is right, doesnt mean naruto's actions are wrong. people are so used to read everything in bad or good, black and white that they simply cant see both sides having reasons to be act the way they do. yes, sasuke was right for wanting revenge and justice thats obvious, but naruto isnt a villain for going after sasuke because he wants him to stop hurting and indulging in self destructive behaviors because before anyone tells me sasuke wasnt doing that, he was.

sasuke was ready to let his body taken away if that means he gets his revenge (yeah he killed orochimaru later, but he even states is because orochimaru has already taught him all he needs and doesnt have more to offer him so he doesnt see point in giving his body). naruto as a person that cares for sasuke obviously wont want this to happen, so him trying chasing sasuke and begging him to leave orochimaru is not smth he does because he's selfish but because he doesn't want to lose him. naruto also has never tried to talk sasuke out of his revenge on itachi btw in fact the two first times naruto comes to face itachi, before the true comes out, naruto seems okay w the contrary happening; when 12 year old sasuke arrives that hotel to fight itachi, naruto doesnt try to intervene until he realizes sasuke isn't strong enough to win against itachi. then later when he meets itachi post skip, naruto literally says that he wants to capture itachi so he gets to talk w sasuke. (basically giving itachi as a gift to sasuke just to get an audience w him lol). naruto only starts to want to stop sasuke's revenge when his revenge shifts to konoha and again, is sasuke right for feeling the way he does? yes, of course he does. will killing everyone in konoha where there still innocent people be the answer? no, it isnt. genocide isnt the answer. maybe if sasuke wanted only his revenge on the elders and to change konoha, naruto's reaction there would've been different but well thats not what sasuke wanted there so naruto wanting to stop this isn't wrong of him. now to the final plan, sasuke's revolution aka last time naruto gets in his way and again its because he doesnt think his plan is right and most importantly because he doesnt want sasuke to destroy himself completely. sasuke's revolution idea was uniting the village by making everyone hate him, he wanted to cut his last bond to be alone and fall into darkness. now tell me, how does this sound healthy from any pov? sasuke is completely right from wanting to end the system that exists, but his way to do it is literally a plan that ends with him being miserable for all his life by being alone which is smth that naruto doesnt want to happen. thats why kishimoto made the entire vote2 be about sasuke wanting to end his last bond/naruto refusing to let sasuke do that.

so no, i dont think naruto's chasing after sasuke is just him being selfish and disregarding sasuke's feelings. yes naruto has made mistakes because hes not meant to be perfect but him genuinely caring for sasuke and wanting him to stop being in pain is not selfish.

[antiloreolympus]

10 Anti LO Asks

1. Why is no one talking about one of the most stupid things we've seen in this webtoon thus far? I'm talking about the fact that H&P deadass pull a "I nominate Hades as an attorney to defend me in this case uwu" and the mf accepts (clearly the had it planned) although he is part of the jury.

Now, I don't have fast pass but I really hope this whole thing is forbidded by Zeus in the next episodes. It makes no fucking sense! Hades is not a lawyer, and as a god is not associated with law/justice (him being a king doesn't excuse this, he is there to "judge" not to defend the accused).

This really proves that absolutely nothing works against Persephone ever. She is able to get away with murder and have zero consequences for her actions, all while the smurf plays daddy with her, spoils her and defends her in court WHICH SHOULD NOT BE EVEN POSSIBLE LMAO.

From OP: It’s allowed because ‘loophole’.

2. I would like to add to what that person said about the characters looking too stiff. Literally that panel towards the end of ep. 179 where P said "I nominate Hades" is the best example of this. Wtf is wrong with her hand? It looks like a wooden doll with her arm extended like that. The only explanation I have for this (aside from the fact that the art style sucks big time) is that she's trying to imitate the art style on the ancient Greek amphoras (amphorae?), but even the scenes depicted on them had signs of natural movement, with the bodies looking much less stiff of course.

3. Anyone else wanna mention the backgrounds are also just not there at this point? Like she was already bad with this in the beginning but at least there was some sketch up lines to give the impression they were in a real space, but now it’s literally just blank voids of color and that’s it, and often not good use of color either (why is the above land pink while the underworld is blue? It makes it hard too tell what’s going on). There aren’t even establishing shots to at least give the readers an idea where they are and then becoming abstract about it, it’s all abstract and flat, which doesn’t help when the characters also are so lacking in character design and aren’t really doing anything pose or action wise. The world around them don’t even seem like actual places, it just seems like a set, and a very cheap one at that. It just ends up looking so boring in all fronts.

4. I don't know why it's only happening now but Persephone's eyebrows have started to piss me off lately. Why are they pure black? And when did they become so thick? It doesn't fit in with the rest of her fair and hairless appearance, it just looks like her brow artist did a piss poor job on them.

5. it honestly makes me sad looking at the first few lo episodes. were they perfect? god no, but at least the art was unique and had some actual thought put in it, but by around episode 25 or so you begin to notice the style is becoming less and less, until you have what it is now which is completely different, and not for the better. i know styles change and all, but this is a case where it got so much worse, losing its unique factor to look so generic and lacking instead. it make me sad.

6. Ive noticed LO fans dont seem to enjoy any other greek myth works, only LO. for example there's a huge overlap in PJO fans liking Hades Games and BoZ, and Hadestown fans towards TSOA, and so on and so on, meanwhile LO overwhelmingly don't even read other HxP stuff like Punderworld and openly hate stuff like PJO. They tend to only consume LO while claiming to be "big myth fans". It reminds me of Potterheads who claim to be big book nerds when they've really only read the series and nothing else.

7. its truly a testament to how bad the writing is from RS in that she honestly thought it was a dramatic twist apollo and artemis of all people were children to zeus, despite looking exactly like him and not like their mother. also, tbh, the fact hera humiliated leto and treats the twins like garbage, it is any wonder theyre being depicted so negatively in LO? theyre only used to prop up hades and p's "friendships" to eros and daphne. artemis is even the "bad" maiden. it's all so stupid.

8. the thing to me is no retelling of myths will be perfect, how could they be? but LO takes the cake at claiming its so researched and is the actual truth and is 99%+ correct (both from rachel's words as well as by her fans) with both refusing to even admit to any mistakes and refusing any critique, especially from greeks themselves, that's where the issue is to me. you cannot claim to be so well researched only to be upset when people notice the many obvious inaccuracies. that's not how it works.

9. there's a part of me that wonders why LO has never featured any MLM romances like poseidon, zeus, or apollo's many male lovers, but then i remembered she doesn't care about poseidon and both zeus & apollo are both evil to her, her made up WLW romances are terrible, and all relationships that cant be used to prop up hades and persephone are made cruel and abusive, so maybe that's a blessing in disguise that she's so bad at even remembering LGBTQ+ relationships, much less depicting them.

-----FP Spoiler/Mention-----

10. The whole trial thing just puts into perspective how much plot points go off the rails. I was actually looking forward to finally hearing from Demeter that Persephone IS a fertility goddess and them having a argument before the trial, but then it just left on a Clift hanger. And then oh wow Hades is being her lawyer, which??, pretty sure that’s not how that works but okay whatever he’s going against his brothers. But he doesn’t even make an opening statement because the other side does instead. And then Hermes shows up and his backstory starts and everything gets so muddled. I’m not an expert on court cases but seeing the witness be called up right after and the other side just make a bunch of shi up instead of stating a pathos but accurate opening statement hurts my brain. Not to mention the jury and people just speaking out at random? Like can Rachel just write something serious for once? Or at least somewhat accurate? Legally blonde had a better comedy court case scene than whatever this is.

[mgsdays]

Thank u for always being so sweet and insightful with your asks!!! i love you 🥰

AnYWAYSs, I wanted to ask you a question particular to the timeline of 19days. We have about 300+ chaps of current flashbacks and present time. Do you think, little by little, we will see more present time dynamics? I know this is the SLOWEST of slow burns and I’m wondering that maybe this is how OX wanted to write; maybe they wanted to show that the past is a reflection of their current present selves? Idk im just rambling here but I think that the past connects to their future selves; it explains to us WHY ZZX and JY have that dynamic in the current time, why MGS and HT still banter, etc. i think OX shows us flashbacks from the past to let us understand how these characters really FEEL about their love interest. its a very interesting way to show character development. I think all these flashbacks are building up to something- I don’t know what but they seem really important and we still dont know HOW JY and HT left so yah thats my theory. What do you think? Another question; how do you think MGS and ZZX will realize their feelings in the future time? A lot of the OX art, as you said, shows these boys comfortably loving their partners so Im wondering as well 🤔 We even see HT and MGS with the couple rings so will we see that too?? I hope we do :(( I think it makes sense that we’ll see them as partners eventually- I mean, we have seen a lot of character development till now with only 300 chaps. Little by little, I think we’re gonna get the end product ☺️

I just hope Im alive to see it happen!

Hey love! Thank you for the message, you were so sweet 😊

I am… more pessimistic about future chapters. More than you, in either case haha

I believe we are building up to the boys leaving, but I do not believe we will see much of a future where the couples have figured things out. I’d love to be proven wrong, just to make it clear, but I don’t think so.

I love your point about the past being a reflection of their futures selves. My theory is that the past chapters serve as a way for Old Xian to give us enough info to presume what happens in the future. Kind of a ‘fill in the blanks’ kind of thing. The past chapters show us the boys’ desires and fears and they explain the motivation behind the boys’ actions. The little snippets into their lives allow us to understand a lot about the characters.

They also give Old Xian a way to write a BL without ever really going there.

Chinese censorship is strong. I don’t think we understand the extent of it from the outside. Some BL authors have been sent to jail. There’s a news story from Nov. 2020 that Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, author of the novel for The Untamed, has been sentenced to 3 years. The details of the case, if true, were not disclosed and we don’t know if they were found guilty or not. A woman who wrote a gay themed novel was sentenced to ten years, that one we know for a fact. China allegedly decided to pull The Untamed from streaming services and to halt production of shows that were being made based on BL books.

This is serious deal. Nothing even happens in those stories. The Untamed is based in a romance novel but it completely removed all explicit romance references for the show. Nothing happens it was still pulled! (after it was done! You make zero yuans by censoring a show that already exists. And yet…).

It really sounds like China is cracking down on content that goes against their morality code. Imagine you’re an artist there. Would you risk everything to make your characters date?

For Old Xian, their art is their livelihood. They make 19 days for the exposure and then use their official platforms to post ads that they draw through Mosspaca Advertising Company. If Old Xian explicitly drew the boys in relationships they’d be risking that platform and could even be putting themselves in danger. (Sometimes Old Xian draws relatively tame art and still deletes and reposts an even tamer version. Old Xian is impacted by censorship. The exposure they have doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be safe. Imagine them drawing two explicit relationships.)

TL; DR:

Or, TL;DR: HT and JY leave before the boys have enough time to figure things out. The past gives Old Xian plenty of room to write a beautiful story without crossing censorship laws, and leave us to fill in the blanks about their future.

About how I think it happens, I answered earlier today about zhanyi. For tianshan, I think they get together without Mo ever confessing, exactly. In the future Mo has been aware of He Tian’s feeling for forever. Mo knows. I’ll die on this hill. He knows. When Mo really goes through puberty, really starts experiencing desire himself, I think all of his wants unavoidably circle back to HT. Mo would be somewhat aware of his own feelings for years. 

After HT comes back, one day Mo is just so tired of the frustration, the tension between them, He Tian’s years apart, everything, that Mo just kisses He Tian.

He Tian’s surprised for five seconds. 

Then he catches up. 

He pushes in until he has Mo pressed against a wall. Mo’s gasping, a filthy sound echoing low in the space between them, Mo’s fingers sink into He Tian’s hair for the trouble, pulling tight against He Tian’s scalp. It only spurs He Tian on, He Tian groans against Mo’s lips and presses in even harder- rest is history. Mo allows their dynamic to shift from there. 

I think the sexual part may be easier for Mo to deal with in the future than his own feelings. They stay in this kind of relationship for a long time. 

I imagine X many years into it Mo blurts out his love like it’s obvious, like they both have know about it for forever. I loved this text post. I imagine something like this, Mo says he loves He Tian while cursing He Tian out for whatever and saying a million other things. He Tian freezes in the doorway. He knew but still. Hearing it out loud makes his heart race in his chest. Mo loves him, Mo loves him, Mo loves him. He Tian would be whistling to himself the rest of the year. Mo would find it the most annoying thing ever.

(But, secretly, he’d like it. Mo would like being able to make He Tian feel this way, a warmth blossoming on Mo’s chest at the thought.)

[the-lad-system]

Literally no one would’ve joked about Cruella hating Dalmatians because her mom got killed by them if they just chose a different dog or had a person do it or-

Like stop saying that people are stupid or should actually watch the movie “because she didn’t hate Dalmatians because of that blah, blah, blah.” People are making fun of Disney’s poor writing choices. They put ‘subtext’ (that felt pretty obvious) in this movie that they didn’t follow through with. People are meming shitty writing choices and bad story telling. People aren’t stupid, that’s why they’re making fun of it; because when you have something in a characters past that links to something in their present in such a direct way, you either need to connect the two, or show why and how they aren’t linked.

Pretty much everyone who watched the movie knows that Disney didn’t intend for Cruella’s mother getting pushed off a cliff by Dalmatians probably wasn’t intended to be the push for her to skin them later, but we also know that it was stupid for them to use the breed of dog that she went on to use for clothes as the ones to kill her mother. That’s sloppy story telling; they presented an obvious (and really horrible) reason for her to do the things she did and then pretty much said “no, lol. she likes the dogs and just kills them later cuz why not- dont you all kill the things you love later on?”

They pretty much did a shitty version of Killmonger’s story from the Black Panther movie, where he set out to kill T’Chaka because he killed Killmonger’s father and then settled for T’Challa because he was the next best thing, but instead of actually having her parent being killed by x thing or group and that being the reason she set out to kill from x thing or group, they just had it there and had no justification for her actions. People would probably be making similar memes if they showed T’Chaka killing Killmonger’s father and then had Killmonger try to kill T’Challa but literally just because and not because T’Challa’s father killed his.

If you can’t understand that people are meming shitty writing and understand the actual plot and that there was apparently literally no reason for her to try to skin the puppies of the dogs she gave to Anita and Rodger, then you don’t get to call other people stupid for understanding the movie and still not liking what they did with it. Just say that you like the movie; you’d sound less like a Disney bootlicker and like you actually know what you’re talking about.

This script really feels like it was written by one person up to her mom getting killed, and then picked up by another person who hated that being the reason she skinned dogs and totally changed it. People are mad because Disney completely disregarded an idea that they created and should’ve either used or cut.

Most of us understand that she didn’t kill Dalmatians because they were used to kill her mom, we just don’t understand why they didn’t have a different breed of dog do it (or hell, even a person), because it makes it seem like she only did what she did in 101 Dalmatians because Dalmatians were used to kill her mom.

It was so pointless to make the ‘murder weapon’ used to kill Cruella’s mom Dalmatians, because that sets up the idea that that’s why she skinned them later down the line, when she gets her little glare in at the dogs and moves on. Disney brought up what could’ve been a somewhat interesting plot point and then abandoned it.

There really wouldn’t have been a problem if they didn’t use Dalmatians or if they just made her a different character that didn’t go on to skin the exact breed of dogs that were used to kill her mother. Hell, if they advertised it as a reimagining, there would still be a lot of people mad because they could’ve used a different character, but a lot of people wouldn’t think it was nearly as stupid. If you can understand the plot, you should be able to understand this. If you can’t understand that people hate the bad writing and somewhat nonsense plot (in regards to the murder and stuff), then you can’t call other people stupid for “not understanding the movie.”

You’re calling people stupid/haters/irrational/whatever for joking about that stupid plot point because we “don’t understand the plot” when you don’t understand what most people are criticizing.

They also skipped out on using her original backstory from the book, which could’ve been incredibly entertaining if they did it write or doing a backstory for one of their villains that could’ve had an interesting story. Disney missed so many opportunities, wrote a stupid plot that doesn’t deliver on what it said it would (being a backstory for Cruella and showing what she did what she did), and still somehow had their stans convinced that we just wanted to hate the movie and didn’t have a problem with a genuine issue with the movie and its writing.

Just say you want Walt Disney himself to rise from the freezer to fuck you and go.

[duhragonball]

For the Ask Game: Son Goku

Give me a character and I will answer:

Why I like them: Goku is the main character in Dragon Ball Z, an anime that I have enjoyed tremendously for over 20 years.  He kicks aliens really fast and hard, and he eats wolves and bugs and clouds, and he’s very cool and good.   

That may sound kind of basic, maybe even borderline sarcastic, but I’m not sure how else to put it.    I’ve gotten so used to liking Goku that it’s hard to articulate why.   

Like, okay, you know that one episode during the Cell Games, where he’s gonna pick apples from his favorite apple tree?   And he does the special karate punch that makes the apples all fall out of the branches without really hurting the tree?    In the dub, he says to the tree “Ready for one more round, old timer?”  Or something like that, and then after he hits it, he’s like “See?  That didn’t hurt a bit.”  I’m not getting the lines right, but you get the idea.    That’s some choice Goku right there.    He’s friends with that tree!   

Why I don’t: hE gAvE mOrO a SeNzU bEaN-- ha ha just kidding, but can you imagine not liking Goku?   Because of something he did in some horseshit fancomic that doesn’t even count?

Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of guff from people about Goku showing mercy to his enemies.   This is humorous to me, because I’d bet you dollars to donuts that they’re fans of Vegeta and/or Piccolo, and that only happened because Goku decided to have mercy on their stank asses.    “Well I like Vegeta because he kills people.”  He only gets to do that because Goku allowed him to live.    Best Green Dad doesn’t happen without Goku, period, end of sentence, new paragraph.   

I’m not a lore expert like that guy on Twitter who only watched DBZ Abridged, but here’s some cool trivia for you: Cell could have self-destructed and destroyed the Earth at any time.    It literally does not matter that Goku gave Cell a senzu bean before Gohan fought him, because Cell would have done the same thing no matter who beat him or how.     If Gohan had wiped him out quickly, that nucleus would have survived and regenerated, and he would come back even stronger.   The senzu bean just delayed the inevitable outcome, and not even by that much, because Cell wasn’t that worn out in the first place.   The whole thing with the senzu bean was Goku playing headgames with Cell and no one seems to understand that but me.   

But what about Moro, you ask?   Hey, come here.  

Closer.    No, closer.   

Listen to me.   I love you, okay?    But the Dragon Ball Super manga isn’t canon.   Hating Goku over something he did in Super is like hating Superman for something he did in a Mad Magazine bit.      

“Blargle blargle he doesn’t kiss his wife bad father, tournament of power--” I super mega don’t care about any of these ice cold takes.      Every day I go on YouTube and it recommends me the dirt worst Star Wars commentary videos.   “Maybe the SITH were actually the GOOD GUYS and the JEDI were the BAD GUYS!  Huh?  Did I just BLOW your MIND?   Be sure to like and subscribe!”  Every dope with a keyboard seems to think they can flip the script and pretend they’re some kind of genius.    “Thanos was right!”  “Magneto was right!” “Dr. Doom was right!” “Antifa are the real fascists when you stop and think about it!”  “Masks and vaccines are bullshit, COVID-19 is a hoax, but if it were real, maybe it’s the good guy in this situation!”

I didn’t mean to go off on a rant here, but the whole point of Goku is that he’s a pretty cool guy, and the hero of his particular adventure, and you see all these people trying to outsmart that somehow, like it’s not the premise of the character.   It’s like all those fan theories about how every show is really one character having a coma dream in the hospital.    It’s fake-deep, like when Will Smith’s kid goes on the internet and says something like “Water isn’t wet when you stop and think about it.”  

I’m not saying everyone has to like Goku, but I don’t get the hate-boner people have for him.    I don’t like cole slaw, it’s soggy and insipid and I don’t understand it, but I don’t go around trying to convince people it’s not made out of cabbage.  

Anyway, Goku’s awesome. 

Favorite episode (scene if movie): It’s hard to choose, but DBZ #248 always fucks me up.   I looked it up in my liveblog archive to get the episode number right, and the first line of that post: This one always fucks me up.

Moving on.

Favorite season/movie: In Dragon Ball terms, I guess this refers to the sagas, so I’ll go with Cell Games.    Goku goes into the battle with this flawed, touch-and-go plan, and it works.    He defeats perfection with imperfection, and it’s glorious.  

Favorite line: “What I represent can never be destroyed,” is one of the most metal lines ever uttered, anywhere.   It’s a threat and a moral lesson all in one.   

Favorite outfit: Two answers for this one.  

Shu’s outfit in the Fortuneteller Baba Saga was awesome.    I used to wear yellow T-shirts to work, so when I put on my blue labcoat I would see myself in the restroom mirror and think: yeaaaaahhhhhh.

I’m also big into Goku’s look during the Cell Games, classic orange outfit, blue shirt, with the Super Saiyan form ready to go.    That may sound obvious, since this is kind of Goku’s default look, but it takes a while to get all of this together.  For me, it was a big deal to see Goku in action as a Super Saiyan in his standard fighting gear, because the whole time he was SSJ on Namek his shirt was ruined.   Against Gero and 19 he was sick, but starting with the Cell Games, we get him fresh as a daisy, and it’s worth the wait.   Harder to stealth cosplay, though.

OTP: Gochi.   Come on.    I don’t even care that much about ships, but they’re adorable on the show, and the internet backlash against Gochi only intensifies my defiance.   

Brotp: I wrote a fanfic with Goku and Yamcha just joyriding in the desert, and that seemed pretty awesome, so maybe we need more of that.   

I dunno, maybe I’m giving this to Bulma.   They don’t get a ton of screen time together after a certain point in the show, but the bond between them is this really sublime thing.    In the same fanfic, I wrote Bulma and Goku interacting, and that was just a pleasure to write.

Head Canon: I think Goku being an alien orphan matters more to him than he lets on.   Early on, he knew he had parents but he didn’t know why they left him in the woods.   Pretty much every interaction he has with the outside world is about him being different.   Then he finds out he’s a Saiyan and all the Saiyans hate him for being weak and sentimental and so on.   He can kick all their asses, but that doesn’t make him any less of an outcast.   

I think becoming a Super Saiyan is a bigger deal to him than he lets on.   That moment kind of serves as this unspoken proof that there’s more to being a “true” Saiyan than Vegeta, Nappa, and Raditz ever knew.   That maybe, if his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great granny could see him, she might approve.

Unpopular opinion:

Yukio Ebisawa is underrated. 

A wish: I always wanted to see Goku style on Broly ‘93.   It seemed unfair to me that they kept bringing Broly back, and even teased a rematch with Goku in Movie 11, only to not deliver on it.    I wanted Goku to turn Super Saiyan 2 and Broly’d be all “oh noes!” and Goku would look at him and be all “Yeah.   What now, bitch?    That green shit won’t cut it anymore.”

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: I think my darkest fear about the Dragon Ball franchise is that it’ll get bastardized like Superman, where some giant multimedia corporation owns it, has no idea how to tell new stories with it, and refuses to let it lapse into the public domain.   I have no idea how public domain works in Japan, but “Disney Toei’s Dragon Ball KH” doesn’t sit well with me.    Hopefully I’ll be dead by the time that happens.  

Like, Rise of Skywalker wasn’t that bad.   But it did lead me to worry that they really have no idea how to make Star Wars work.    They got it right enough, but the part where Rose is going to stay and guard the base or whatever, it just made me realize they’re only guessing, and they just happen to guess right often enough to succeed.   And it’s not like you can jump over to some other studio and see how they handle a Star Wars movie.

5 words to best describe them: Ain’t nothin’ to fuck with.

My nickname for them: Geeko.    Ha ha, just kidding.  

[lucidpantone]

Reacting to reactions: Kynicole s4 ep1 (comments edition)

Okay, so you know when something comes out and you need to talk about it with other humans because you can’t hold it in?  This is me right now with the youtube comments on kynicole’s reaction video. I am about to burst 🤯.

**First and foremost lets thank kynicole for doing what most of us aren't willing to do for ourselves which is revisit the trainwreck that is wtFOCK s4.**

Disclaimer: This is long as hell

Ok so literally first comment I see is this:

People!!! Moyo from all the information we’ve been given as a fandom am pretty sure is not blocked. You know that saying, actions speak louder than words?Well let's analyze the actions of wtFOCK(particularly Rutgers) and Noa. I have asked sooo many people about the block question and I always get the same answer “I don’t know”. Which coupled with everything else that has played out tells me a lot. Ok firstly, we are all aware that wtFOCK is yet to comment on or even acknowledge s4. The newsmonkey article wtFOCK did after every season they skipped entirely after s4. You know what wtFOCK did do? They sent out Nora b4 s4 even ended to calm down the fandom. Oh lets send the WOC out to quell the screams from all the fans that are screaming at the injustice of giving this season to Romi(who was a way less experienced actor, who had no previous backstory on the show, who no one asked for, who was white, a legitimate model, and to put it simply didn’t work anywhere near as hard as Noa for 3 seasons). Anyways here is why I am pretty sure Moyo isn't block.

Think about everything we know about Noa as a human being the way he treats the fans, his demeanor and just overall vibe. To me he seems like a very nice person, he writes back to most of you guys when you talk to him. I saw him comment heart emojis to fan accounts that commented on his award acceptance the other day and you know what he said at the award “That the fans are the most important thing”. Now connect the Noa we know from his actions to his own words on the day the main was revealed:

To me this tweet implies whatever he is speaking about involved a choice and the chooser chose to make money over morality. Now lets exam Rutgers actions. He has never publicly spoken about the season and the reason I believe he doesn't speak is because any decent journalist is going to ask him to explain his casting choice. Also your telling me that if Moyo had been blocked after week 4,5,6,7,8 of having the fandom hurl insults at wtfock and also Romi calling a meeting they wouldn't have used their end of the season interview to confirm Moyo wasn’t an option to shut the fandom up? Oh and last week Noa accepted the award for wtfock and Rutgers posted Noa on his story??? Moyo wasn’t the main of s4. Wouldn't it make sense to have a main accept the award? Why Noa? Rutgers is not stupid. I don’t believe for one second that Moyo was blocked. What I believe is that wtFOCK’s leadership who happens to all be white men are to embarrassed to go on the record and say “yeah Moyo wasn’t block but we still didn’t chose him” and that instead of giving the season to Noa who worked his ass off for 3 seasons they gave it to Romi because they thought “her look” was more appeasing to advertisers. Her look was obviously what sold them on her because next to Noa we know who the better actor was and Noa literally landed a feature film to prove that. Anyways everyone needs to stop pushing this idea that Moyo was blocked because if you actually look at everyone’s actions involved its pretty clear to me he wasn't blocked and Rutgers and the team are refusing to confirm what to me is fairly obvious answer because they know they are going to get fucking dragged. Also whoever this commenter is they know what's up. I agree with everything you stated:

☝️☝️☝️Say it louder sis. wtFOCK bypassed Noa on purpose they chose to do what they did to him. I do genuinely believe they regret the decision now because from everything I heard I really do believe they wish they could go back and chose Noa but the damage is done. 

Next YT comment:

You know when early on in the season a bunch of POC said that this season was merely a platform to embolden and give free reign to those who already harbored racial micro-aggression 👇👇👇

Oh surprise, surprise..... this commenter sees no redeeming qualities in both black boys who in their respective remakes are written as being homophobic, with undertones of aggression and as bad friends. Oh and then this commenter points out how poor Moyo treated Kato. Bwahahahaha what?? Yea Moyo insulted Kato but he never accused her of being a drug dealer, or implies she has a drug problem, or racially profiles members of her community or manipulates her with saying I love you as a form of keeping her but Moyo treats Kato badly. GTFO!!! I am sure this commenter is a Mailin stan too and would say Ava isnt someone she would be interested in seeing main either. Wonder what all these characters have in common🤔. This type of commentary is what created the divide that still resides in the wtfock fandom to date. This shit is what tore the fandom apart and eventually led people to leave the fandom or take time off because people went for each others throats as the season got worse and those who defended wtfock at the beginning were eaten alive. Honestly tho I dont want to excuse people’s troublesome povs on race but wtFOCK’s decision to make a season where their white main never fully apologizes or owns her behavior with the appropriate language perpetuates a pattern of bad behavior so am kinda of not shocked no one came out with some insight on race relations after s4 if anything probably with less of an education then they began with because wtfock themselves peddled the agenda that its ok to silence people of color (as they did with moyo at the end of the season, he never says his piece to kato and stays with her) and Kato never takes ownership of her actions and states that her actions stem from some form of racial micro-aggression.

Final Comments reviewed:

I mean.... look I will always adore season 2 & 3 of wtfock. Nothing will ever change that for me but these people ☝️☝️are right. It takes a real fan to be honest with themselves and to me this is the worse season in the universe and it makes me so sad mainly because it could have been the most fearless, ground breaking season but wtfock made a choice. They literally had the opportunity to go big and do something that had never been done before and in the end they choked and paid the ultimate price. What a waste.......could have been amazing the had the perfect actor to main and they fucking blew it because in their mind Moyo wasn't an important enough story to tell 😞.

p.s. I noticed kynicole said at least half a dozen times in her video I still dont get why this wasn’t in Moyo’s pov? Literally said EVERYONE!!!

[tigerdrop]

ngl but you are legitimately one of my fav blogs around here i love your thoughts where are the 3 paragraphs you spared about benrey and gordons relationship unless u dont want to share it its ok anyway i just wanted to come on here to compliment you thats all

eheh ok well. heres an insane amount of words about Funy Half Life Characters

i mean like the thing i think about the most is how exactly they deal with, like, everything that Happened between them. like its benreys fault he got his arm cut off, man. even if (theoretically, in my personal headcanon) benrey doesnt exactly Grasp a lot of the shit he did that pissed gordon off (like ok taking the whole “what happened to your arm???” thing at face value, instead of as the (obvious) joke that it is? it makes me feel like he didnt understand the consequences of his actions as much as.....like.....somebody who Gets human shit would), they still gotta like talk about that shit eventually if they wanna get to know each other as anything more than enemies, or frenemies, or “dudes with a fragile detente in place who sometimes play video games and fuck”

and like.....i feel like the way benrey doesnt Get things isnt necessarily, like, entirely in good faith either......if that makes sense.....he seems like he deliberately doesnt Get things, and he can be kind of malicious about what he decides to wrap his head around and what he doesnt. like, hes deliberately obtuse, bu then sometimes hes actually obtuse, and i think that can be difficult to deal with as like......a real trait, instead of just a “haha funny improv character” trait.

his method of just completely dropping a topic if he doesnt know how to riff off it/make it funny (as an improv thing) is also something that is not super conducive to building a Real Relationship if you go full “death of the author” and interpret it as, just, not giving a shit about topics that dont interest him/are emotionally difficult

and gordon is like. Neurotic. hes anxious, hes depressed, hes got PTSD, hes graying at 27, etc. (okay like 2 of those things are just headcanons but whatever, they fit.) he probably isnt coping well with jack shit after black mesa! (and thats, yknow, how i write him.) before he can handle, like, a capital r-Relationship, he really needs to work on his own shit instead of fucking a dude with a massive crush on him. but, uhhh, too late, lmao. you work with what youve got. and, like, theres a lot of......working around each other that they would need to learn how to do if they ever wanted to be anything more than “friends with benefits who sometimes feel a certain way about each other”.

benreys got like that distinctly non-normative way of viewing the world and interacting with people (and, you know, i know that this is just a personal interpretation of an amalgam of behaviors primarily intended to be funny, but im already in this deep so why pretend like im not taking this a little seriously) and he also seems like he just gets a kick out of fucking with gordon.

and gordon thinks his off-beat behavior is so fucking funny, which is like, the foundation of why he likes benrey so much (and come on. weve all watched the same shit. weve all seen how much hes like “its not like im worried about benrey or anything but also oh god where the fuck is benrey”), but again, when theyre not, like, forced to be around each other by circumstance, that means that theyve actually gotta........learn to bend around each other. theyve gotta tear down whatever stupid acts theyre putting on and figure out how to just be Genuine with each other

and thats why i think it would take a good long while post-canon for them to figure each other out and really develop solid Feelings-feelings for each other. that shits hard. they clearly both like each other a lot but they also clearly love getting under each others skin (which is what i, personally, love about them). i like writing shit where theyre committing to the bit, right? putting on an act, playing the game.

being vulnerable is a lot fucking harder and thats why im starting that shit with benrey and gordon getting crossfaded and gordons Massive Emotional Repression being torn down and just letting all the bad feelings out. its gotta get worse before it gets better. benrey tried to kill him man. even if it may not have meant the same thing to benrey that it did to gordon, they still gotta, like, deal with it, man

anyway jesus christ im sorry this is way too long and probably doesnt even make sense but (shrug)

[flamingo-writes]

H-Hi, ummmm i wanted ask for smut tips. I’ve been having trouble writing smut and wanted to ask if you hadn any tips to give, i’m still new to writing so smut seems very difficult to write. THANK YOU owo

For obvious reasons, this is a question meant for +18 and I cant add a ~read more~ thinggy on mobile bcs tumblr app sucks like that. I'll do that when I'm on my laptop

Hmmm okay, let's see 🤔

When you start writing smut, it truly is scary, you feel awkward and feel very shy once you post it. You'll feel very self aware and uncomfortable, but dont worry, these feelings will fade away. As you keep posting smut, you'll stop feeling weird about it. So, be patient.

I think, one of the best pieces of advice i can give is to read more. In this case, read more smut. Read a lot of it. You'll find writers who you really enjoy how they write it. And try dissecting their work. (You'll also learn several ways of saying things, and you'll find out which words you prefer, which ones you want to avoid, etc)

Why do you like their smut in particular? It'll always come down to how they phrase it. Pay close attention at how they write it and try to imitate that. Dont copy+paste their words, just think about their style, what it is that you like it, and implement that.

There are many kinds of smut, there's more descriptove smut, filthy smut, soft/vanilla smut, and each writer has a kind if smut they feel the most comfortable writing.

Personally I write soft descriptive smut. Nit descriptive in the sense where you feel like youre reading an anatomy book, i really like to describe the atmosphere and the feelings, reason why I prefer writing soft smut. I have a hard time writing filthy smut because I have this urge of making it sentimental fjjsjsjd (yes, I am cheesy like that ok).

Watch porn that you like. But like, dont watch it just for the sake of the horny feelings. Look at whatevers going on, how wpuld you describe the actions happening, and how it makes you feel.

Smut feels more intense when you describe whatver it is the characters are feeling. The heat concentrating between their legs, they breaths shaking in anticipation, their knees suddenly feeling weak, the rising of their heartbeats, the arching of their backs, the goosebumps on their skin. And so on, and so on.

Thats everything i can think of rn, as itnis getting late and I am getting sleepy. Thank you for the ask!! 💖💖

Feel free to look in my writing tips tag to find more tips on sfw stuff, they can also be applied on nsfw writing as well.

[macklives]

session 81 end

wow, okay, first things first

AC!!!!!

shes so fucking cute holy shit i love her so much i dont even know where to begin??

i mean i guess its because im so used to troll snark and the way they just? banter constantly? seeing someone who is a literal ray of sunshine is so refreshing and wholesome and pure. god she’s great. shes a cat, she knows her stuff. she’s strong and theres also this guys???? who shes scared of?? and tells her what to do??? yeah no, idk who it is but let her make her own decisions lol

maybe its just over exaggeration or whatnot, and hes not bad but first impressions do a lot to me and right now the only thing i know about this guy is that AC needs his approval for everything. i guess ill see where that takes us. hopefully nowhere bad. but AC seems like she can take care of herself and knows how to be a good decent troll and i love her for that. wow it literally took me one dialogue to like her. damn, that was fast. jesus.

you know who else is great?

terezi.

yeah i know right. and that whole trial thing, which yeah i guess half the time i was confused by what the fuck is going on since i still cant grasp the idea of how alternia works, but i enjoyed myself with lemonsnout and how terezi roleplays and how much she gets into it. seeing a character that passionate about something is so sweet and nice.

god this was just a nice overall session

which i say, while i completely forgot about the banter TA and karkat got into

right, that happened. oh my god. they both literally stomped all over each other, dissed one another, still made up in the end because apparently thats their friendship and i guess it just works like that. depends on the friends you have, i guess.

its funny though, not gonna lie

and karkat as of now is just being a prick and honestly? 

like more than usual, which i guess is weird to say but i mean from present time to beginning of hivebent karkat. not that its uncommon for him to be a prick, he is, but seeing him go through the non-linear pattern with john is mmmmh interesting to say the least. though we havent seen his first trolling, just him constantly going “oh god what did i say, i was dumb” u know, not in those words but thats basically what he means. 

ooh im gonna analyze, i feel like analyzing right now my fingers have already typed so much as it is MIGHT AS WELL

and our candidate will be *drum rollll* karkat wow predictable (its below the cut because this is literally irrelevant now to the session)

okay, lets lay out the shit we have already. as i said before, the way he talks presently to john (meaning in the future) is so different than how he speaks to everyone now. of course the “i hate the world” personality is still there, and hes still just regular karkat, but karkat talking with john is patient to some extent and tells him what he needs to know for the game, lowkey kinda chills out once they started talking about movies or growing up as huh, didnt he say larvae or smth?

okay that whole grub thing makes sense now as i just wrote that but i am still confused as to what the FUCK that is implying because i dont think it crossed my mind this much, im repressing it for now until it comes up later. 

anyways, back to what i was saying. he was so DIFFERENT than the way he’s acting now which is bitch and moan and like? stfu karkat lmfao. i mean, its not THAT big of a difference in character, because i know he’s still his grumpy old self, and theres a lot of potential.. for growth? not sure if we’ll get it but i like to assume we will get character growth from these characters with fucking 8000 pages talking about them. but a story needs that growth and with karkat being just a straight up angry dude, in MY EYES, he should.. have growth, no? idk HOW he will grow, but im basically just taking what i have right now which isnt much but i analyze things for fun sometimes so let me be.

that being said, because its so early on, im not sure where homestuck is gonna go and i dont have much to go on but being in the psychology course shit happens when you have limited information and you gotta pin point what makes a person a person and how do they cope with things to grow further into life. many of my assignments involve limited info so honestly, not that hard.

but it is something that ive noticed, the way karkat is different as he grows which possibly means the whole veil thing happens later later on in his life and we havent yet seen that small growth become patience and not whining every time he doesnt get what he wants. but growth is common and it mostly likely happens to everyone, so its not like wow this is a surprise and a plot twist, more of something that i just wanna write for the sake of writing it. i hope that makes sense? i dont exactly know where im going with this. i just mean that im basically going to analyse karkat a tiny bit so idk how to otherwise explain it but you’ll get where im going with this as i type more lmao. 

anyways, so karkat literally said “pretend i dont think highly of my friend’s talents” as if he’s visibly trying to force himself from all emotions and bash on those who do (reference: “stop being sensitive, its repugnant” or whatever tf he said while TA replied with “hypocrite”) i take that as a key word. so honestly, while that was the smallest thing ive gotten from this session, its the thing im most curious about actually and i actually havent mentioned lol. because what ive learned in psych, which this is just common knowledge but i did an assignment on it so like?? could be useful?? is that people who hold off their emotions tend to hold off others as well, so there is no chance of mirroring each other. in other words, if someone is happy and starts to laugh and goof around with another, the emotions will mirror that other person subconsciously. like an addictive laugh. theres also another way to show mirroring, which is to mimic another person's actions, allowing another to establish a sense of empathy and thus begin to understand another person's emotions. in this case, im using TA and karkat as example. people who suppress emotions tend to see emotions as a bad sign and if somebody else portrayed any sign of it as well, they’ll basically say “gross what are you doing” because theyre so used to concealing it away, that they dont want others to think theyre into the whole mushy shit. so they pretend to hate it, pretend to not even be slightly affected by general sensitivity..

which basically means karkat is a softie, and even if he’s a prick right now, meeee thinks john, from earlier convos, is growing on him because john himself knows how emotions work and while i dont think troll culture does know much about it, considering the BLOOD AND CARNAGE thing, he is in fact growing and even if thats obvious, and you all know it, i am new to homestuck and am trying to see that for myself. its noticeable to some degree. he may always still be a jerk, but i am waiting to see how he slowly starts to accept things around him and to finally show what hes hiding inside. even if its just going up by a few percentages, i see its there and im hoping VERY HOPING he has the biggest character growth!

in other words, why else do i think this?? well nobody who watches romcoms can be that fucking aggressive. you need some sap in you to like it.

on that note, ill probably analyze alternia’s system and rules in another post later throughout these next few sessions because i feel it needs to be talked about and the way everything just.. is so different and doesnt seem right, you know?

thats it for now goodnight

[dessarious]

Writing Craft: The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing Ch2

AO3   Intro   Previous

The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing Chapter 2: Mastering Fiction’s First Rule by Jack M. Bickham

Okay so this is an article on ‘Show, don’t tell’. I hate this subject and not just because I’m bad at it. No one explains it the same way and a lot of what most authors do say is subjective. So what I’m going to do is try to summarize this author’s advice and then add on other pieces of advice I’ve found useful.

Alright so this is verbatim from the book pg 12:

The phrase “Show, don’t tell” is shorthand for this advice: “Don’t lecture your reader: she won’t believe you. Give her the story action, character thoughts, feelings, and sense impressions as the character would experience them in real life. Let her live the story for herself as she lives real life, by experience.”

Maybe this will help someone else but it’s got two glaring problems for me. First it’s still vague and yes he does go deeper in the article but I think most people have heard some form of this before. Second, it assumes that people experience things the same way and we don’t. If you’ve read any of my writing it’s obvious I’m not a visual person. I don’t describe settings or character’s physical appearance unless I have to and then as sparsely as possible. Why? Because that’s how I experience life especially in books I form a mental representation of a character in my head, not a physical one and it shows. However I know that other people want the visual, some even need it to connect with the character. So advice that I think is more helpful is to use the five senses. Again this is not my strong suit so I’ll try to get as much advice from other sources tagged onto the end as possible.

From Facts to Feelings

In this section the author explains that school and most work environments do not prepare you for creative writing. You’re expected to give facts without embellishment and with as little personality as possible. You’re there to relay information not entertain. Writing stories on the other hand you absolutely don’t want to lecture your readers.

“Fiction can only involve and convince and excite readers if it lets them experience the story world the way they experience real life: By taking in stimuli and drawing their own conclusions.” (pg 13)

This right here is what I have a hard time with. Partly because I’m afraid I won’t be able to give readers the correct stimuli to form the conclusion I’m going for and partly because it’s so much simpler to allow whatever character I’m writing to give their assumptions and opinions than really go into too much detail. Some people will call me lazy for that, but it’s more than I just never learned how to do it any other way.

The author illustrates his advice with an example saying that you don’t list off facts when you’re observing something, you observe with your senses, which is true.

First part of example: “Cloud cover is thick. The temperature is 64 degrees, the humidity is 42 percent, traffic on the highway is heavy, it’s late September, the postman is irritable today.” (pg 13)

Second part of example: “What you do is walk outside and see with your eyes that it’s gray and dim; you look up and see thick gray clouds; you feel the temperature with your skin … and relax, or feel warm, or shiver. If you breathe deeply and the air feels thick to you, you may conclude it’s humid. You hear the roar of cars nearby and conclude traffic is heavy on the highway. You see the postman coming up your driveway. Your eyes meet and you smile at him. His mouth turns down, his eyes squint and he glares silently back at you. You conclude he is feeling grumpy.” (pg 13)

I get what the author is trying to do, really I do, but at the same time there’s so much more you have to think about when adding details like this. However this can be a decent starting point to help you think about why you come to the conclusions you do rather than just focusing on those conclusions. Most of the time we aren’t consciously aware of the input our system receives so it can be difficult to break things down this way. My only advice is to study resources on description and body language and try to take some time to really focus on your surroundings when you can. Also try and focus on the things you don’t notice normally. For me that’s anything visual, for you it may be sound or smells.

Get Into Viewpoint -- And Stay There!

“The process of showing, not telling, can be broken down into four essential steps. They are: Selection of, and adherence to, a single character’s viewpoint Imagining the crucial sense or thought impressions that a character is experiencing at any given moment Presenting those impressions as vividly and briefly as possible Giving those impressions to readers in a logical order” (Pg 14)

And this is the point where it’s impossible for me to be objective. If this seems to make sense to you feel free to message me and I’ll take pictures of the article and send it to you so you can read it in full. As for me, this author makes far too many assumptions and takes to simplistic a view on writing as a whole for it to be of any use to me. The viewpoint thing especially bothers me because I can tell just as much from one character’s head as I can head hopping.

Divining the Dominant Impression

This for me is the only useful part of this article and it boils down to this; in order to show and not tell, and be as concise as possible, focus on the dominant sense. When you walk into a new environment what is the first thing you notice? Well it depends on the environment. If you walk outside and there’s road construction going on chances are it’s the sound. Walking into a bakery it’ll likely be the smell. Yes you want to use details from other senses to flesh it out, but it’s a lot easier to focus on one thing at a time.

Revealing Characters

This section basically tells you to use character actions to show their personalities rather than using the conclusions you make from those actions. It’s the difference between:

Carmen was sad

And

Carmen’s shoulders were slumped and she had tears in her eyes.

It’s good advice and another reason to study body language. Again, try to focus on the important part. If you’re trying to get across a character's anger you don’t need to describe his hair. Pick and choose what’s important at the moment.

When to “Tell”

“The data are objective and absolutely essential to reader understanding. The factual information is so fascinating that it may “sell” the story. (This is very rare.) The point is quite minor and we can risk “cheating.” Economy of words is vital at the moment.”  (pg 18)

Again this is overly simplistic and assumes a specific writing style.

That’s it for this chapter and because I know I suck at this part of writing…

Other articles on Show, Don’t Tell https://jerryjenkins.com/show-dont-tell/ https://blog.reedsy.com/show-dont-tell/ https://self-publishingschool.com/show-dont-tell-writing/ https://jerichowriters.com/show-dont-tell/ https://writingcooperative.com/my-golden-rules-to-show-dont-tell-f4d030eca8c9

And you can google others. Most of these say about the same thing but everyone is different and seeing things worded just a little differently can make all the difference on whether you can understand and apply it to your own writing.

The third link down is my top pick because it not only gives examples but practical advice to find places in your own writing where you can improve.

Again, I apologize for the less than stellar summary but I honestly can’t stand the way the author handled this subject.

AO3  Intro   Previous

Ko-Fi

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[missing-my-griffin]

I would love your insight because you’re smart and you seem like a pretty positive person. I’m a bit confused as to why E/cho wouldn’t see how Bellamy is in love with Clarke??? She’s a spy, right? Also, are we to believe he’s going to keep E in the dark even after sacrificing everything for Clarke for the 2nd time? Wouldn’t that make him feel guilty? It feels OOC. I wasn’t expecting canon bellarke, but it feels OOC for b/e to still together. It makes E look stupid and B look...a tiny bit mean.

Well firstly you telling me I’m smart and positive actually made me smile like an idiot so thank you!!

What a loaded question. I have two theories regarding Echo. First one is: Grounder culture is brutal, it’s about survival, it’s about war and strategy. She is a war spy. I imagine in that kind of medieval culture (which grounder culture is closest to), romantic love rarely results in fake alliances, or like.. messy war stuff. “Love is weakness.”, after all. Family love is the only important thing: and Echo’s got that figured out. Mushy romanctic love drama that weighs the tides in the big leagues?? I expect it doesn’t happen often. So she’s not trained in that. This explains why she doesn’t get it “as a spy”. Bc once it transcends “in love” and goes to “love”, it’s family, and again, that Echo gets. She knows how incredibly important Clarke is to Bellamy. She just doesn’t understand the nuance. And also: echo never reads people! She reads actions. Once Ryker was in she trusted him blindly, no suspicions, and once he showed he can’t be trusted fully, he was expendable, useless, a danger even. Eliminated. Echo’s never been anticipating people’s actions or intentions, she waits until they do something and then she assumes that’s what they are and continue to be until they prove her otherwise. Clarke leaves Bellamy behind and sides with the enemy? Clarke is a risk and must die. Clarke sacrifices it all to save Bellamy? Clarke is family. done.

So as to why she doesn’t get it as a person with eyes and a brain… which is also the second theory: she is extremely trusting. she’s the kind of person who’s incredibly straight forward with HER emotional relationships, there’s no ulterior motives. So she probably thinks of Bellamy as her boyfriend it’s as simple as that. Sure, his behaviour towards her has changed since they’ve been off the ring because she’s become more closed off, but it has nothing to do with Clarke because she’s like a sister to him, right?

Like… she feels secure in their relationship because the only thing she was insecure about beforehand was Octavia. She never suspected Clarke to be an issue, because she never knew about his feelings and their history- why? BECAUSE HE BASICALLY LIED TO HER. Why would E think that there have been more than friendshippy feelings? because I mean they’d been dating for a while and Clarke had been dead for a while before that and none of her family or Bellamy ever talked about anything “in love” related. (Even while Echo wasn’t in the picture romantically.) That’s very strange. Also Echo still treats Bellamy like her leader.. like she did Roan. And she doesn’t second guess or distrusts her “leaders”. And she’s also accepted Clarke as her leader. Clarke and Bellamy. Co leaders, like siblings. Of course they care about each other? Nothing strange going on at all.

Which brings me to my actual point: Bellamy isn’t a tiny bit mean. BELLAMY IS A TERRIBLE, LYING, EMOTIONALLY CHEATING BOYFRIEND WHO ABUSES ECHO’S BLIND TRUST. Dont get me wrong he’s still my favorite, and I get it… but oh boy does he need to step up his game!

Bellamy never told his gf about the girl he once loved, probably because even when dead he loved Clarke more than Echo, which sucks, so he couldn’t be open about it because it made him feel so guilty. Which.. he feels guilty ALL THE TIME. Dude is so pained. When he patted Echo’s back looking at Clarke, when he exploded at Clarke about how his family is all that matters to him bc he felt as though he betrayed them for Clarke, when he fiddled with Echo’s sword at the campfire in Season 5.. he hasn’t kissed Echo during a reunion since the beginning of S5. 

When he snapped at Echo because he was jealous of the Doctor with Clarke, when she cried and opened up and he looked at her with pity in his eyes, and guilt, and this stupid sense of responsibility. When the only time he kissed her was out of said pity because she needed someone. When he had that look on his face in the rover reunion scene in season 5.

Bellamy is a fucking mess omg. He is constantly on edge, like he seems absolutely unhinged, strung out, confused, in love, in pain. He’s in control half the time and losing it the other half. “We kill them all.” A petty, spiteful, angry “Maybe you haven’t noticed, Clarke, but I don’t need you anymore” Then, screaming at her not to leave him, because nothing makes sense without her, he’s an empty shell without her, has been for 6 years. And you know who helped him?? ECHO. Echo, who’s a good person (as long as youre on her side..), who “was good for him”. Echo, who he doesn’t really love. But I think he wants to. I think this is where the bad boyfriend stuff comes from. He loves Clarke and is constantly torn between being super scared of that and losing himself in it, and then there’s Echo who’s loyal and nice and safe. 

Lastly… I also expected a Becho breakup, but only in an A season bc B seasons are always so action loaded.. if that had happened, it would have gone “By the way let’s break up”, in between fighting and surviving and shit. Breaking someone’s heart sucks, and Bellamy owes Echo honesty and sincerity, so he put it off. And also… he probably doesn’t rly want to break up bc he wants to do right by her or whatever. His guilt is actually a factor I think as to why he HASNT broken up with her… he’s never loved Echo like she deserved to be loved, Clarke was always the one even when dead, so he feels like he owes a huge debt to Echo bc she loved HIM like HE deserved, and now he tries to repay her by living a lie. It’s twisted and stupid lol

But I know a breakup is coming. Because Echo deserves better than Bellamy. Bc he doesn’t love her, never has, never will. He has feelings for her.. but he doesn’t love her. I’m sorry. It’s obvious to even the most casual viewer, two of which have expressed their pity for E without me saying anything. And Bellamy, the damn main character, deserves a love story too. 

Ps this shot through my head while writing this so I made a thing for mrs Echo the blind one lol: