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#again not accurate to the cc's story i just wanted to write something
bonesandthebees · 1 year
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I see you need nice messages about Glass so here are some of my favorite parts of the fic: Your writing of Rocketduo is so good, they are often ignored in sbi/crimeduo-fics so I love how you incorporate them in most of your stories. They’re done so well too, they have real personalities and aren’t just there for the sake of namedropping or random background characters. I especially like how they defend Wilbur in the most recent chapter, they’ve spent so much time with him and despite him being an asshole to them earlier they really could be considered his friends at this point.
The way you’re writing Charlie makes me laugh. You’ve given him the perfect amount of weird and unsettling mixed with competence. Yes, he will ask to see your teeth and ask if you’ll get him bones. No, he will not be bribed. Quackity is great as well. He’s only appeared once but he has this gravitas about him that I can’t describe. We don’t know much about his character, but he is willing to work with the terrorist group under his casino, and that says a lot about a man. I love TNTduo interactions, and you really nailed it. The Pythia’s Prophecy was so funny, and then it was so clever to have them get Wilbur’s fingerprints from it. No way I could have guessed that was the reason Tommy brought him up there.
And the hypocrisy from Wilbur and slow realization from the group of his trauma is so wonderfully written. The flashback’s from the recent chapter did so much for his character, they were such great additions. I can’t wait to see how this all plays out, especially with how the group seems split in two. Don’t listen to the people who don’t understand your story, you’re doing a great job and there are so many people who love your work. I hope you have a better rest of the day 😊
god this ask just made me smile so much I even told my mom about it because I'm sitting with her rn so tysm!!
I'm so glad you like how I write rocketduo. I LOVE c!rocketduo so much and their dynamic was part of what compelled me to even make an mcyt blog in the first place. i love niki and jack so much (cc's and c's both) and their c! dynamic is so underrated. I love including them whenever I can, especially because it gives a unique switch up from the usual sbi + beeduo mix you usually get in sbi fics. also I just adore both of them as individual characters, so I try to keep them as accurate to their characterization as possible (while of course altering them for the specific au) bc again, they're so underrated. I'm having a great time with them in glass and I have plans to highlight them more as the story goes on!
charlie!! I have so much fun writing him. sometimes I worry I'm writing him too weirdly, but then I think about it and i'm like no... charlie slimecicle would want me to write him like this dsklfjdk. but I'm trying not to fall into the stereotype of infantilizing him either bc it definitely bugs me when people do that in fics. he's a really interesting and wacky character and I love just seeing what wild shit I can make him say. he's a great breath of comedic relief in glass for sure.
quackity my beloved. I love writing quackity so much you have no idea, especially his interactions with wilbur. c!tntduo is one of the best character dynamics on the server (besides c!crime of course) so I have a great time spotlighting them whenever I can, and I love how I've written him in glass so far. I'm really excited to show more of him as the fic goes on :D he's definitely an interesting character to show glimpses of
the pythia's prophecy was something i came up with off the top of my head and i was so proud of it lmao
the flashbacks in the most recent chapter were actually eli birdfeet's suggestions so shoutout to them for that! they gave me the idea in our dms and i was like holy shit you're a genius and i'm thrilled with how it turned out. the way things develop from here is definitely going to be very interesting :)
tysm for this again I'm already having a better day thanks to all of you guys pouring in with your kind words <33
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octoberheights · 3 years
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She’s very weak here; something is interfering with her control over her domain, and she does not know what it is that bars her from it. Her bond with her husband had severed upon his entrance through the world portal; without it, she cannot speak to him, cannot act upon the world in any physical manner. The only thing she can do, really, is watch.
And she does. She watches the little country collapse in a sea of explosives. Her husband kills their son in front of her eyes and all she can do is scream, but no one can hear her. His spirit slips from her fingers and falls into an artificial void she cannot enter. She mourns, untethered from her purpose, from her husband and from her son, from her home dimension beyond the end. Yet, this world is unfamiliar to her, and she’s always been inquisitive. So she drifts away from the reconstruction and explores. Tall towers, castles and fortresses, long twisting railways, and strange floating islands dot the territory amidst houses and shops and offices. She’s sure there’s more underneath the ground: little bunkers and escape routes and iron ore mines. This world is violent enough to warrant their construction.
Her son made a family here. (Did she know this, before? She can’t remember.) She meets his son and adopted brother, both very young and clearly traumatized by his death. She keeps an eye on them when she isn’t hovering around her husband, who’s found himself sedentary in his grief. They’re friendly and mischievous and prone to trouble. She wishes she could take them both under her wings, sweep them off into a den, and love them as they should be loved. Her grandson tries to find a new parent, but the man misses the signing, and her heart aches at the perceived abandonment. She watches the boy president fall between a rock and a hard place after her son’s brother is accused of making a mistake which is blown far out of proportion. She joins her grandson in protesting the boy’s ruling of exile, and she floats behind the boat as it takes her son far away.
He falls apart during exile under that damned man’s thumb. Had she retained her powers and her bond with her husband, she is sure he would have been annihilated the first day. Her boy lives, at the end of it all; he holes up at an ally’s home—but her husband is there, too. She’d been so busy fruitlessly trying to protect the young man that she missed the butcher army upheaval, and heart breaks for being pulled in different directions.
She cries, great, heaving sobs, on doomsday. Her family is tearing itself apart, and she can do nothing. Her little cub stops sleeping; she sings him lullabies from her youth but whatever magic he’d inherited tortures him to the point of insomnia. Her son and his friend nearly die at the mountain vault, and her husband doesn’t help them. Two months later, her son dies in the prison, with his head cradled in her lap, and she discovers that she can’t reach him either. It’s when he’s resurrected that she realizes that death is corrupted here; it is not a matter of what but who is interfering with the death system in this world. She’ll get to the bottom of this, for her husband and her sons and her grandson, and all the rest of the people who live in this strange land. 
Her eldest son is back. Last night, she’d grown a forest near her husband’s home, with power she’d siphoned from the multitude of beacons he and his allies had planted. It’s a start.
“Toil on, son, and do not lose heart or hope. Let nothing you dismay. You are not utterly forsaken. I, too, am here—here in the darkness waiting, here attentive, here approving of your labor and your dream.” You Can’t Go Home Again, Thomas Wolfe
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ruby-whistler · 3 years
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Why c!Dream should (and probably will be) redeemed
Hi! I’m bad with intros. You’ve read the title, so, let’s start with the definitions.
In this essay, we are considering the popularized definition of “redemption” instead of the classical one, which is, as per the Oxford Dictionary, “the act of saving or state of being saved from the power of evil; the act of redeeming.” That’s not however the way the word is used in fandom and media.
/dsmp /rp
The definition of redemption I’ll be working with in this essay is not forgiveness by the people who c!Dream has hurt, nor is it removing himself entirely from his past actions, but moreso the decision to change for the better and abandon destructive mindsets for himself and others.
A “redemption” in a narrative sense would be circumstances and a character arc that would allow that kind of healing and betterment.
I’d like to start this off by the fact that being “irredeemable”, in this sense, also doesn’t exist; redemption is a thing of conditions and choice, not of being allowed by someone else. You can’t gatekeep healing from people who seek it, just to be clear, and that even goes for people who have done terrible things.
Since I understand there is a lot of concern for c!Dream’s past actions, here is a post from people who are much more fit than me to speak on the matter, about the way in which they see a possible c!Dream redemption arc.
Another disclaimer, I am not going to be considering c!Dream only from the perspective of c!Tommy in this essay. c!Dream appears in other people’s perspectives and he himself has his own, unseen perspective. As a character, he is an individual person in his own right rather than just the antagonist of c!Tommy’s story, and so I do not have much concern for their narratives intertwining too much should this writing choice occur.
I’d also like to note that redemption is, in this sense, always a positive thing for everyone involved - someone who’s been prone to doing bad things in the past deciding not to do them anymore and try to change, or just simply heal enough to consider it, isn’t going to have a long-term negative effect in any of the characters, but rather the other way around. Healing is an unlimited resource, and the victims do not have to heal first for the person who hurt them to consider being better.
Here’s a well-written thread on Twitter that elaborates a bit to finish off this point, and let’s move on to actually talking about redemption in the context of the Dream SMP, and c!Dream specifically.
Why a c!Dream redemption arc is not only a good writing choice, but in this case the only good writing choice;
c!Dream, as we all know, has been subject to mental and physical abuse to the point of straight up torture by both c!Sam and c!Quackity (to different extents). He has been in indescribable amounts of suffering for the past 74 days at the time this essay will be published. That is six and something times the duration of the entire exile arc in canon.
Whatever the interpretation of his words in prison is, what is undeniable is first of all the fact his mental stability is absolutely crushed at this point, second that no human being could possibly ever deserve to undergo this, and third, his stay in the prison is showing off his humanity and making him out to be sympathetic.
Now, consider this; how would it feel if c!Tommy died at the end of the exile arc? Empty, there would be no catharsis to such an end, especially because of all of the hurt he’d gone through. Objectively, a bad writing choice.
Let’s compare, narratively of course, this situation to the prison arc. Even though I would never say one of them is “better” or “worse” than the other, since both are terrible and undeserved, c!Dream’s current state checks off all of the boxes that would make his death unsatisfying in the storyline; even if people want him gone, there would still be the dissatisfaction at the current build-up and why they even did it in the first place (it really wasn’t necessary to anyone else’s story to make him out as a victim, and yet they did) if they were planning to kill him off anyways. And since the prison arc is naturally meant to induce sympathy, even from an angst perspective it would simply not make sense within the themes and writing of the plot.
So, c!Dream can’t die, and he also can’t stay in the prison forever - the build-up must lead to something, which is logically a breakout. Great… what now?
Well, the Dream SMP prides itself in accurate representation of trauma and mental instability, specifically cc!Tommy and cc!Dream who have pulled it off incredibly during the exile arc.
Now, undoubtedly, after the prison, c!Dream is going to be just terribly traumatized- considering the writers’ past creative decisions, would it make sense for him to play the role of a dangerous, heartless villain in other people’s stories, while completely ignoring the logical fallout of what he’s been through?
In my mind, no. The most possible result is that cc!Dream is going to rightfully portray someone who’s been hurt so much he is broken, scared and tortured into submissions over months of agony and slowly stripping away of his agency, his dignity, his humanity. And that is… not going to be pretty, nor is he going to be in any way the same as before.
After everything, I’d be surprised if he can properly look at shears without shaking. That’s not villain behaviour, that’s the behaviour of someone who needs help.
Which leads me to another point, which is relatability. Believe me or not, there are people out there who heavily relate to c!Dream because they have been through things that allow them to see themselves in the character - abandonment, mental illness, etc. - or who have had destructive mindsets they have struggled to let go of in the past.
To them, as well as to the viewer, redeeming c!Dream could actually be a very good example, showcasing that anyone who has done bad things or has been hurt in the past can learn that it is possible to be better, to move on, to not be stuck in a loop but to actively seek help and then use that support to find the path to healing.
Making c!Dream a better person, who in a way, wins over his past, over his trauma, over the hurt he’s caused, and manages to actually get better… is inspiring, in a sense. It shows that you can abandon unhealthy mindsets, you can find a support group of people who care about you, you can make your life better simply by deciding to be better and then sticking to that, no matter how difficult the process.
This is why I believe that redeeming c!Dream would not be bad writing, but quite the opposite, and that the prison arc is an obvious set-up. Alright, but how does that work with the character? How could someone so widely hated mentally improve in such a seemingly violent and terrible environment? Would it even make sense within the context of c!Dream’s character so far? Well,
Why c!Dream has the capacity for healing and the Dream SMP the ability to provide it;
First of all, let’s remind ourselves that through c!Dream’s entire spiral he wasn’t ever directly given a chance to change. He was regarded as someone to defeat in order to accomplish a happy ending, or as someone who needed to be removed in order to achieve power on the SMP. Ever since the 16th, which is when the corruption of the character is the most obvious, there have been no attempts to reach out or to help him. I do not blame the characters for this - I am simply pointing out that since it has never happened before, we do not know how he would respond, and that, after everything he’s been through, any bit of kindness or compassion towards him will be a new concept he will have to learn to deal with somehow.
This point is especially driven home by the fact that both c!Quackity and c!Sam would often tell him he is a monster who deserves nothing but to suffer, and that what he’s going through is never going to amount to all the hurt he’s caused - basically removing any possibility for ever getting better (because by this logic, he doesn’t deserve support, and he doesn’t deserve to get better) from his line of sight.
He also hasn’t had a support system since shortly after the 16th, when his friends left him over c!George’s dethronement and made no effort to mend their relationship afterwards. c!Dream isn’t used to having allies and people on his side, but to being hated; again, wouldn’t that mean positive reinforcement could very well be all he needs to make the choice?
His bad mindsets - attachments are weakness, ends always justify the means, people will consider you a bad person no matter what you do - have been continuously proven right by his environment, even in prison. Any kind of subversion, plus an explanation as to why they are wrong, could be of great help to c!Dream.
Just another disclaimer; I do not believe c!Dream would change thanks to the treatment in prison, but rather despite it. His mental stability is non-existent at that point, and in order to get better he needs genuine emotional support from the people around him as well as to heal before he can redeem himself.
Alright, but… c!Dream has hurt a lot of people. Who would be fit to help him?
Let’s start off with the worst option and why it’s impossible the writers would even attempt this; c!Tommy.
c!Tommy has no responsibility to help or ever forgive c!Dream - not to say he could. The two, as it is, would drag each other down instead of helping in any capacity, and only make matters worse. The two of them shouldn’t even interact in the best case scenario - the best thing for both of them would be if they got enough healing and support individually that they could live around each other and not get their trauma or toxic habits triggered when interacting for whatever purpose of the plot.
So, if not c!Tommy (and c!Tubbo neither by extension), who could redeem c!Dream?
Well, he can’t do it on his own for sure. Being in nature with animals is nice, but further isolation from other people would merely help with the prison trauma, not with the state of his tendencies when interacting with others. He, once again, needs positive reinforcement from other people for him to heal properly.
There are two main options for this in my mind, and then there’s a few individuals he could also find comfort in, including people from both groups or those unaligned.
1) Kinoko Kingdom
From the people of this new country, c!Dream has never negatively interacted with c!Karl before, he has never hurt c!George and he hasn’t directly harmed c!Sapnap. Although the relationship with his old friend group could be difficult to rekindle, none of them have grudges against him that are too personal, and they have been canonically close friends since the beginning of the SMP, so it would be very much possible to rebuild burnt bridges. They’d be familiar, and with the addition of c!Karl they could be a good source of comfort for c!Dream after he either breaks out or is released from prison - just gotta convince c!Sapnap not to kill him first.
2) The Syndicate
From the Syndicate, c!Dream has never directly interacted with c!Nikki, and from what I know of her character she never seemed to be very affected by his actions - even doing his work for him when he was planning to burn down the L’Mantree. c!Techno is an ally who doesn’t have anything against him, and as for c!Ranboo, here is why I believe c!Dream being in the Syndicate could be positively influential on his character arc as well;
c!Ranboo and c!Philza have had a conversation about change, during which c!Ranboo made it clear he thinks everyone can change except for c!Dream; who, in his mind, is “too deep down the rabbit hole”. c!Philza replied that he thinks anyone can change if given enough time.
… you see what I’m getting at?
c!Dream has been implied to be an ally to c!Ranboo’s enderwalk state (or the state when he has access to his full memory), and hence would most likely not behave negatively towards him at all. While it might make it more difficult for c!Ranboo to deal with his own issues, it might also give him more motivation to get to the bottom of it as well, especially since he now has access to the person who, presumably, started this all. While this is going on, c!Dream would show himself in a much different light than c!Ranboo sees himin, which could lead to confusion, realization of the flaws in his own logic, and hence, positive character development.
Here’s a great post about why c!Techno as a character could be a great asset in c!Dream’s healing process & redemption, and why there is not much need to worry about him not knowing or finding out about c!Dream’s actions.
Of Kinoko Kingdom and the Syndicate, as far as I know, neither c!Tommy nor c!Tubbo have ever been directly involved with these groups, nor are they planning to.
Another important point to make is that, while c!Tommy needs to be kept away from c!Dream in order to heal properly, the same goes for c!Quackity and c!Sam in c!Dream’s case. While c!Quackity has high chances to interact with either Kinoko Kingdom or the Syndicate in the future, there’s an even higher chance, in that situation, that c!Dream would be offered protection, which is also important; there is no healing from trauma without the knowledge of safety, to some degree.
So, this was an essay as to why I think c!Dream’s recovery and redemption (one needs to come before the other, naturally) is not only extremely possible but also could be pulled off well and have a positive impact on both the characters, and the audience.
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hacawijo · 3 years
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SJM ACOSF Live Event Notes: Canada
I’m not Canadian but this is the stream that worked in my schedule lol. Also sorry if any of this is redundant, I didn’t want to leave anything out in case this is the first you’re reading about any of these lives.
NOTE: she specifically didn’t give confirmation about who the next book will follow, she knows, but she said her publishing team will probably want to find the right time to announce it! Thus, we can only guess for now what the NEXT book will be about.
SJM Live - 7PM EST. Wed. 2/24/21
Indigo — CA Live
— Sarah began writing this while writing the third book in the ACOTAR series. She wanted to look at what happens after, Cassian and Nesta’s chemistry made her want to write them first. “It was almost like writing fanfiction of my own stuff…”
— Accidentally pitched the sequels — wanted to tell the stories of all these other characters, wanted to explore the world, and what happens when the big battle is over, who makes a play for power. How will the Night Court involve or not involve themselves?
— World-building meets steamy romance - her two favorite things
— She knew from the start that Nesta was a lot more than you were seeing, she’s actually the one person who saw through Tamlin’s glamour. Someone who is closed off and appears as if she doesn’t care - but she does, and deeply, she just doesn’t know how to express it.
— Her own mental health journey informed her work on Nesta’s - things got worse for her and this was around when she started Nesta’s story over. She finally decided to go to therapy and started meds and coping skills and went on this journey that happened to be similar to what Nesta was going through. None of it is autobiographical though!
— Honestly going to cry about how she’s talking about Nesta, she didn’t need to be redeemed, she just needed to be able to understand what she had done and experienced and move forward.
— How do you face the things you’ve done that you’re not proud of and how do you face the people you’ve harmed?
— She’s come to realize that she has a giant soft spot for the tall goofy guys that seem tough but are big softies. She has a big crush on Gronk, which is hilarious. She described her husband as tall and goofy. She immediately loved Cassian and understood him more-so than some other characters.
— OMG this interviewer. “Tell me a little bit about their sex…”
— Her father is currently reading the book, Sarah begged her mother to take the book away from her father. There’s a big difference between her mother and her FATHER reading the sex scenes.
— BJ SCENE: Nesta’s sexuality is a way for her to express herself through her body and in a way she understands and is good at.
— Sarah wants to write in the sweet spot between really steamy and epic romance and epic fantasy and world-building.
— How does Sarah world-build? She actually builds it while writing the story, but starts with a vague understanding of the world - she wants to know how they get the fruit for their breakfast every morning, and all of those little details. She comes across little details that just live in a magical place in her head - she discovered the Weaver in the woods while she was in New Zealand.
— She was inspired by her own New Zealand hikes to write Nesta and Cassian’s.
— She takes notes on all of her experiences so that she can use them later in her books (i.e. when she has a fever and is sick she even takes notes so she’ll be able to describe that sensation accurately).
— Sarah loves world mythology and she loves the really messy, terrifying fairy tales and folklore - stories that taught survivalist lessons. The Scene with the kelpie is one of her favorite scenes she’s ever written because it took her to a place of primal terror. This scene was barely edited from the first draft, it has basically stayed the same since she initially wrote it.
— Yeah this interviewer is behind, she asks the mega-verse question again. Sarah took the scene out of ACOSF where Rhys sees Aelin, but she did confirm that he was talking about Aelin when he told people he saw a star - he saw Aelin but was spooked and didn’t want to tell everyone.
— She identifies with Nesta’s emotional journey the most, Sarah feels like she’s the most like Bryce (but her parents might say she’s like Aelin). It’s like a personality test, sometimes she feels more like a Feyre or an Aelin. They all have parts of her.
— Sarah pictures the fight scenes in her mind, but with Nesta’s book she actually paid attention to how someone builds those skills (her other protagonists were already trained fighters). She talked to her personal trainer who taught her a bit about swordplay. She went through sessions and she paid attention to where she was sore afterward and such.
— What would Nesta’s beast form be? Sarah says something feline, like a snow leopard with gold wings and iron teeth and silver claws. Mesmerizingly beautiful and dangerous.
— She’s currently editing CC 2, about to get edits back! She says a lot of the side characters will get their own subplots in the second book- it will open up the world a lot more.
— Writing through COVID was hard for her, she felt guilt going off to play in fantasy worlds when so many people were struggling with job loss and sickness. But now she can work and is grateful for that escapism.
— Plans for next ACOTAR: She has it plotted out in her head and knows exactly who it will be about and what will happen. It’s in the queue. She won’t say who it’s about because she thinks her publishing team will want to weigh in on when to announce.
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Note
I think part of the reason that there’s such a dissonance between what kind of character Matthew is ~supposed~ to have and what kind of poor traits shine through, especially in his treatment of Alastair, is not just because of CC’s poor handling of alcoholism (and, in my opinion, mental health issues and depression) but also because: Our first introduction to these characters happened a long ways before some major changes to TLH.
Namely… Alastair and Cordelia were basically white in CC’s original planning. There’s just no way around that. Their flower cards, where they’re not just whitewashed but purely white, prove that (and they STILL haven’t been updated, by the way.)
Also, Alastair’s hair: in CoG it was dyed blond, and CC wrote it off implicitly as a racism thing when she decided he was Persian (which I guess happened after the short story where we met Alastair and before TLH) , which would have been fine it if it was an arc written better. Except, I don’t think she realized that it would make Matthew’s comments about Alastair inherently and obviously racist, being a white author. And I doubt that it will be dealt with and named or even acknowledged outright in the final TLH installment.
Kind of the same thing with Cordelia. I’m not saying POC can’t have like red hair because obviously POC don’t come in a prepackaged set of five or six traits that are all configured randomly, but something has always rubbed me the wrong way about the way that CC writes the majority of her POC and especially WOC as exotic. I mean, Kamala as a character is to me a special favorite (even though CC did her dirty and didn’t do a good job portraying her character or intersectional identity) but I rolled my eyes so hard when she had lighter brown or “amber” eyes in canon or officially commissioned art. With Cordelia, I know CC once said she uses henna to redden her hair which is great for her, and I guess I have less of a bone to pick with that because it’s semi(?) realistic, but still. Also the fact that so much of her description as a beautiful person comes from her hair. Again that’s cool, and women of color should be loved wholly including being loved for the parts of them that they freely change (such as Cordelia’s hair) but… the proportion of the fixation on her hair as what makes her lovely rubs me the wrong way sometimes. I feel like it’s sometimes an out from CC making the ~scandalous~ decision that a woman of color can be beautiful because of the traits she is born with. Idk it’s just for me I had this long standing repulsion towards my colorings and my facial structure and white girls would tell me I was whiny about it and then I finally began to piece together things like “Eurocentric beauty standards.”
Going on a tangent slightly, but something else that bothered me was when Anna insulted Cordelia after buying her those dresses and everyone kinda treating it as a compliment? And just cause Cordelia, a fictional teenager, didn’t get mad about it doesn’t mean readers of color can’t see the underlying racism behind “Cordelia looks MUCH better in these dresses which are SUITED for her skin tone.”
I think that narrative could have been handled much better: if it was Cordelia picking out her own clothes as an act of maturity and self-realization and ownership, if Cordelia herself said (in a different way lol) “Damn right I can wear lavender ruffles if I want to and crimp my hair but I’m not going to let white fashion prevent me from outshining everyone because dark skinned women INVENTED jewel tones.” And I think some people will argue that Cordelia’s context makes this too self aware of a development but I would say that it would have been a powerful part of her development outside of her relationships, especially considering that she’s supposed to be a main protagonist. Full arcs for the win baby!
But even aside from all that what bothered me about Anna’s dresses was the fact that it was a white woman showing the “truth” or the “right way” or “saving” a woman of color, a trope which I don’t think CC intended but committed nonetheless. I think from a white author POV the thinking was “Anna is such a free bohemian who lives true to herself and she’s going to help Cordelia become that way too,” which irks me because I feel like that just worked against CC in terms of POC rep and also because that same ideology is used in an attempt to make Anna’s treatment of Kamala justified even though Anna as an out person, with racial and economic privilege and the support of an extensive and powerful family network, pressured and tormented Kamala into coming out.
I have a lot of thoughts on that relationship, mainly: it shouldn’t have been dragged out this long because from the beginning, Every Exquisite Thing, it was clear they were looking for different things. And if CC had left it at that and let them go on their separate ways after a week of knowing each other that would have been fine: Kamala can’t do an out and proud relationship and Anna doesn’t want secrecy, so they’ll develop on their own. And then later Kamala’s pursuit of Anna in the actual TLH books was I think meant to be a thing about “the lengths you’ll go for true love” but it felt forced. Honestly… It just feels icky. like this woman of color is just so hung up on this white woman who abuses her repeatedly and can’t handle her own misogyny and internalizations. And I hate that because both had such awesome potential! To me it’s less that I dislike Anna ( I’d need a whole other post to explain that) and more that I dislike CC for wanting so bad to claim sapphic rep but not wanting to put in the effort to portray it effectively- and pretty much all that entails is writing the relationship without acting like it exists in a pseudo-vacuum where the history and realities of interracial relationships and queerphobia don’t exist in the way we obviously recognize and experience.
And characters like Cordelia and Alastair are amazing and have so much potential; I think the true origin of the problems with their portrayal is that they weren’t really intended as POC or even queer representation in the first place. I don’t know if Cassie would have taken a different approach to her characterization had she known Alastair would be a brown gay man when she first introduced him, but I hope it would have at least made her more conscientious of the inherent application of colonialism and racism in her storytelling from that point onward.
I want to finally add that I’m not saying any portrayal of racism is bad. I’m saying that the racism in the story is not part of a conscious framework that critiques racism appropriately. I think CC wrote the beginnings of the narrative, decided she was going to develop the diversity point content, and then either didn’t look back at the older content to analyze it and the other (white characters) through a new lens of race and outsiderness and queer personhood, or she looked at it and didn’t know what to do with it, or looked at it and didn’t care.
Sorry this got so long! Thanks for listening.
- A.
I feel like CC handled everything poorly in regards to characters who had a lot of potential.
The fact that Cordelia and Alastair are both originally white and it's so obvious in the way every bit of racism is handled by the characters. Matthew's comments in CLS are very important and they should've been handled with the same severity that Alastair's words were. CC changing the characters to POC was a big decision and when she did so she should've went back and actually read her own material. I can assure you that it will not be handled in CHOT, my expectations for CC recognizing the importance and gravity in the words she writes regarding racism or any of her "implied racism" bullshit have gone to the ground.
Because while golden eyes are obviously so easy to write when discussing discrimination obviously racism is out of the question /j
THAT'S EXACTLY IT, women of color in these books are so pathetically rare that on the rare occurrence that she does write them they should all be given these features that aren't as common in POC and written as more beautiful because of those features. I read CHOG after I became more appreciative of my ethnic features but if I had read this a year or so ago? Or even if I had read it after just feeling insecure in general? It would've been awful. The implication is that the lighter features in POC are the most beautiful, with Cordelia's red hair being put on a higher pedestal than her dark eyes and Kamala's eyes being focused on more than her hair (because I literally went back and counted the numbers to prove it and it's exactly what happens.)
I'm sure Cordelia's hair is stunning, but it's the way that when she's described (or more accurately being sexualized) it is just her hair and body that is shown, not the color of her skin or the color of her eyes.
God the pastel thing pisses me off so much. It's not even that Anna tells Cordelia that she would look better in darker colors it's that she says it suits her skin tone. Implying that anyone with brown skin should be barred from wearing pastels. And Kamala? In the few times she is described, she's wearing dark colors or champagne gold, never light blue or purple or pink WHICH HONESTLY SUITS HER PERSONALITY. It's also the way that the dresses Anna sent her are described to be more revealing- it's weird. Anna barely knew her when she started dictating everything that Cordelia could put on her body.
“Damn right I can wear lavender ruffles if I want to and crimp my hair but I’m not going to let white fashion prevent me from outshining everyone because dark skinned women INVENTED jewel tones.”
I literally would have loved that. It recognizes that she doesn't need to follow these "rules" on what to wear but still shows her choosing what she wants to wear without making all the darker skinned readers feel like they can't wear a certain color.
I think what some people fail to realize is that these books are also aimed at upper elementary and middle school and a middle schooler with dark skin reading something like that? In a book with characters they love? It's going to be so harmful
Someone else mentioned that CC said Kamanna's relationship was complicated because Kamala didn't defend Anna: Defend her FROM WHAT? Literally what is there to threaten Anna?
These books are filled with tokenism and then praised for it. The idea of Kamala X Anna has so much potential but they're portrayed in such a toxic way. Throughout the last through books Kamala puts herself through so much guilt and regret and turmoil just for Anna to literally use her, blame her, and cast her aside. And it's so fucking annoying because it pushes this idea that this woman of color who was terrified and in an extremely vulnerable position is in the wrong for choosing her safety and presents them as guilty and shameful for doing such a thing.
I would disagree, the portrayal of racism is bad, because it is used at random points in the story and never brought up again, if you interduce racism take it seriously it's not the kind of thing you're meant to half-ass in a book thousands of people will read
I agree on everything else though, so much of these books are incredibly harmful and they are presented to a young audience so it's overall just a gross situation
Thank you for the ask though! I loved answering this, if you ever have anything else you're more than welcome to come back <3
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mcmactictac · 3 years
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Pt. 3! This one is slightly different, but here’s some songs that remind me of different groups/friendships from the DreamSMP! (These are all character based, not the actual CC’s!)
Wilbur and Tommy: No children by the Mountain Goats
This is one of my top Wilbur songs, especially during the Pogtopia era. Wilbur is just a shell of the person he was before and Tommy is forced to sit and watch as Wilbur crumbles. Both of them desperately need each other, but it just isn’t enough this time.
“I hope it stays dark forever, I hope the worst isn’t over. And I hope you blink before I do, and I hope I never get sober. And I hope when you think of me years down the line, you can’t find one good thing to say. And I’d hope that if I found the strength to walk out, you’d stay the hell out of my way”
An alternate, somewhat happier option is Two Birds by Regina Spektor. It’s looking at Tommy and Wilbur as two birds, and one wants to let go and move on, and the other one is stuck in the same place they’ve always been. I personally interpret Wilbur as the bird who stays on the wire, as it reminds me of how attached he is to his country and the idea of ultimately destroying it. He lies to Tommy and says he wants to “fly” too, but he is inevitably always going to end up in that button room.
“Two birds on a wire. One tries to fly away, and the other. Watches him close from that wire. He says he wants to as well, but he is a liar.”
Tommy and Tubbo: Things we Lost in the Fire by Bastille
After all the war and constant destruction Tommy and Tubbo have sat through; having died multiple times and watching the nation they built get destroyed? They have a bond forged where they have watched everything they love get destroyed, and had to move on and keep going even when it felt impossible. This specific song reminds me of the aftermath of losing their home for the final time, and having to find something new to fight for. It also covers both of their guilt over what has happened between the two of them, and how they both blame themselves for how things have gone.
“I was the match and you were the rock, maybe we started this fire. We sat apart and watched, all we had burn on a pyre. We were born with nothing, and we sure as hell have nothing now. You said, we were born with nothing and we sure as hell have nothing now”
Bench trio: Who we are by Imagine Dragons
What I like about this song is that it addresses their struggles and problems, but doesn’t make them seem helpless and incapable. They grow out of the trauma and force themselves to become stronger because of it, resulting in many other problems, but they certainly aren’t weak. They’re just kids dealing with problems the only way they know how.
“We were never welcome here, we were never welcome here at all. No. It’s who we are, doesn’t matter if we’ve gone too far. Doesn’t matter if it’s all ok, doesn’t matter if it’s not our day. Oh save us, what we are. Don’t look clear, it’s all uphill from here”
Tommy and Techno: Welcome home son by Radical Face
Listen I like to live in a world where this ended well so I will be picking a happy song for this first BUT I have included an angstier option below too. I saw a beautiful piece of fanart to this song months ago, and it’s reminded me of Tommy and Techno ever since. In a post Logsted time where Tommy is still recovering from his trauma, and him and Techno are learning how to be friends again. Neither of them are great with expressing their emotions in canon, and they demonstrate their feelings through actions (Techno giving Tommy a new disc as a present since he knows he loves them) This song is less about the lyrics and more about the energy it has going on, it makes sense when you hear it.
“All my nightmares escaped my head. Bar the door, please don’t let them in. You were never supposed to leave. Now my heads splitting at the seams, and i don’t know if I can-“
And an angsty option for the hurt no comfort enjoyers, Goodbye my Danish Sweetheart by Mitski.
This would take place in the middle of doomsday, with the fight between Tommy and Techno arguing about who betrayed who. We know now that Tommy blames himself for betraying Techno, which makes this fit even better. It’s the sharp pain of feeling like you are not the person you used to be, and not in a good way. You sit there and mourn the loss of who you were, and how you are not the person who other people love anymore.
“Now I lay as I study a blank wall, would you spare me your voice if I call? Cause you waited and watered my heart till it grew, you just grew a little smarter too. And I don’t blame you in you want to bury me in your memory, I’m not the girl I ought to be, but maybe when you tell your friends you can tell them what you saw in me and not how I turned out to be.”
Early L’manberg crew: Born for This by the Score
This song still has the passion, optimism and hope of a united group who believes they are fighting for what’s right. It has that sense of unity heavily tied in with passion that was there with early L’manberg.
“I believe, I believe we can write our story. I believe, I believe we can be an army. We are the warriors, who learned to love the pain, we come from different places, but have the same name. Cause we were born for this”
I might circle back to some of the characters from part one, as I have a ton of songs that fit them, and there are lots of members who have lore I am behind on so I don’t have an accurate idea of where their character is at! I have a playlist right now with all of the songs I’ve used so far, so once I stop doing these I’ll post a list with all of the songs on here, and maybe include some of my favourites I never got around to writing explanations for!
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bookwyrminspiration · 2 years
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omg you've read tmi? what did you think of it/opinions on cc being problematic?
Yes, I have read it! I've read a lot of things!
I'm not completely up to date with the shadowhunter universe and all the different series that have popped up within it (like the last hours series and the eldest curses and those things), so at the same time I'm not up to date with everything going on with Cassandra Clare as an author and what problematic things she's done. The word "problematic" is really vague and could mean anything from unthinking phrasing of opinions that sound slightly off to taking harmful action against minorities. So i'm going to have to look more into it to see what she's done before I give an opinion on her.
As for the series though, I haven't read it in a while but I remember enjoying it! I think the writing style caught me by surprise and threw me off for the first book or so, but I grew accustomed to it. I remember it feeling detached from the characters, like they were just in it and the world was speaking instead. I don't know how accurate that is and i'm basing this off of very vague memories so I'd have to reread the series in order to explain it better.
There are elements of the world I enjoyed, especially the magic users and the runes, the elements that offered something more than the human world. It's the kind of world that can transfer easily to a lot of characters, hence so many series about it where we can get glimpses of other people, but what ties them together is the universe they live it. it's a very specific yet versatile world. Of course it's always intriguing to see how different authors interpret the different types of species that are so common: vampires, faeries, and warlocks being the first to come to mind. Some stick more to traditional myths and have cunning creatures that are truly dangerous and mischievous, while others are looser interpretations and more fit to the world than their legends.
Though if you're looking for a "it was good/bad and here's why" you're not going to find that here. A general rule when it comes to me and books is that I don't rate them. I personally don't enjoy giving the overall story a number to judge how it is when it's really personal whether or not a story appeals to you, but a rating system feels more concrete. Some people like rating books and that's fine! Some people use ratings to judge quality, whether they'll read it, whether they like it, etc. That stresses me out and I move from book to book so quickly that dwelling on them isn't appealing. I had fun reading TMI, regardless of whether or not it was a good story. I would read it again and enjoy it!
As for Cassandra Clare, I've been vaguely aware of possible problems she has as an author regarding things like plagiarism and unhealthy tropes, but I'm really not qualified to speak on that at all. I don't doubt that there may be merit to these claims, but I've had enough experiences where I trusted too little information and staunchly supported the first side of the argument I heard without more investigation to take a stance on her being problematic. This is not to say she is or isn't, just that I don't have the information necessary to take an informed stance. I would instead be repeating others' information without taking the time to think it through and judge it myself to determine what my own thoughts are. I haven't read the books in years and haven't looked into it and I don't want to just trust my memory on this one. If this is truly a topic you'd like to talk about more in depth, just let me know and I'd be more than happy to put the effort in to find that information and make a more informed response!! As of now, I don't think it's necessary for me to know because CC and her writing isn't a part of my life aside from the books cluttering my shelves.
Even though I have memory of some of the issues--hard to forget Jace and Clary's brief dip into incest--that is just what I can remember and it's very surface level, so I'm sure there's a lot I am forgetting (not that it excuses it, but I want to be as aware of everything as possible and I'm not right now), so please forgive me for not really speaking on it.
If you read the story (I'm assuming you did seeing as you asked about it), I hope you enjoyed it! Stories like this are meant to be enjoyed, and it's important to think critically of the media we consume in order to form our own opinions on them.
All of my commentary on it in this response is through the memories of like 4 years ago when my critical thinking skills were very much so Not There, so I'm curious what my response to it would be now that I'm 4 years older. Maybe I'll find out!! I've been planning to do several rereads recently and I have a few new CC books I haven't gotten to yet, so might do a little refresher and then come back to this!!
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arofili · 4 years
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how’d u get into writing? like, writing fic and being part of the silm community, being Known, that stuff? i’m really new to being a silm cc and i’d love to know ur advice! also: how’d u build up the confidence to start posting meta/hcs? bc i have a Lot of hcs and meta ideas but also i’m really anxious abt posting them bc yknow anxiety is like that
these are some great questions, anon! I’m gonna go through them one by one :)
how’d u get into writing?
not to be like, super cliche, but I’ve...kind of always been a writer? as long as I can remember I’ve been telling stories, and when I was too young to read or write I would dictate them to my mom, who would type them up for me and help me choose clipart illustrations to accompany them. when I got old enough I would always be writing; I attempted my first novel at age 9, and while that never really went anywhere I did finish the darn thing and it had some pretty sophisticated plot twists for a 9-year-old!
like, writing fic
around the same time I got into fandom! I was deep into Warrior cats (like. really deep) and I believe I started writing my first fics when I was like? 10 or 11? my memory is kind of fuzzy on the order of things, but I know I got an account on the Warriors forums when I was 9, and that I was already posting my fic there when I made my FFN account. I believe I was 12 when that happened, but who knows. I haven’t the faintest idea of what happened with those forums, but uhhh pretty much all of my Warriors fic is still up on FFN lmao. you could probably find that if you want to but um...maybe don’t?
my first Big Fic was a self-insert of...my entire 5th/6th grade class into the then-current timeline of the Warriors books...well. I honestly think that might still be my most popular fic of all time l m a o though I try not to think about it because Hashtag Cringe. though as much as I look back on that time with a “yikes,” I am very grateful for the Warriors fandom in a way? that place was so accepting and encouraging of OCs, of AUs, of completely disregarding canon, of worldbuilding that is completely alien from canon - it was a fantastic sandbox to begin with, there were so many ways to write stories and practically all of them were accepted and had fellow fans invested in them!
and being part of the silm community, 
soooo I wrote Warriors fic until my freshman year of high school (wow sdjfhkdsjfh), which was when BOTFA came out, and I was absolutely wrecked by the ending and immediately started writing my own fixit fic. I was also super hooked on Kiliel! so that was my intro to the Tolkien fandom; and simultaneously, I joined tumblr, and, well, the rest is history tbh.
I honestly do not remember when I first read the Silm, but I kind of got into the more obscure parts of the Tolkien fandom through fandom osmosis, and I do have a vague memory of doodling the Finwean family tree in geometry class so it might have been later on in freshman year? that was also the same time I was having my Queer Awakening, and Russingon definitely contributed to me unlearning my internalized queerphobia, so probably around then.
anyway - queer awakening, tumblr, Tolkien, transitioning from FFN to AO3 - all of that was happening around the same time. I know I dipped my toes in the Silm fandom then, but I was still primarily a Hobbit fic writer focusing on Kiliel. toward the end of high school I kind of shifted to LOTR and (qp) Gigolas...but somehow the Silm fandom is the most active of the Big Three within the Tolkien fandom, and I was getting dragged further and further in.
it wasn’t until @backtomiddleearthmonth 2019, my freshman year of college, that I really dove into writing Silm fic! I picked some Silm-specific bingo cards and never looked back :D that was really not all that long ago but I am obsessed in a way I don’t really remember being even with TH/LOTR, I obviously cannot see the future but I anticipate hanging out here for a long time. the Silm fandom is great overall and there’s just so much material to work with!! <3
being Known, that stuff?
so I don’t really have a whole lot of context on how “well known” I am in the fandom?? definitely within the past year and a half or so I’ve noticed that I like, get asks like this, and get a significant amount of notes on my posts, and I’ve made a lot of fandom friends especially since I joined some Silm servers on Discord (hmu if you want invites; I’m on the SWG server and 2 general Silm servers and the Russingon server) this past year. and I have 3,000 followers as of this month - and while ever since I hit 1k I don’t particularly pay attention to my follower count I can definitely say that I have more engagement now than I used to! but it took me a long time to build this “audience,” I suppose; I’ve been around the Tolkien fandom since late 2014, so nearly 6 years of this, lol.
really the best way to build a following, in my experience, is to just post a lot of stuff. when I started making edits I got a lot more engagement, because for a long time I would post one every day! (I made them in batches and queued them; I didn’t actually make one every day lol...and now I’m too busy to do that, so I just make edits for events and whenever I feel like it) And I have [checks ao3] 145 works in the Silm fandom as of today - I’m fairly prolific! I’ve come to generally expect 3-10 comments on most of my oneshots, which is a lot more than I used to have back in the day. consistency and quantity are more likely to attract people to your work - and quality, of course.
also: how’d u build up the confidence to start posting meta/hcs?
I’ve been writing since I was very young, and I’ve been writing fic for like...11 years? I think? in that time I’ve produced a lot of garbage, but imo most of that was in my Warrior cats phase, so I came into the Tolkien fandom with confidence in myself and my writing. I’m also working on original fiction on the side (I hope to eventually become a published fantasy author, but right now school takes up most of my time that I don’t devote to fandom, which gives me more immediate gratification and also is just Very Fun) and I know I’m a good writer.
basically, I’ve been doing this for like...half my life, and I’m still fairly young, so I’ve had time to build up my skill and confidence and I know I’m only going to get better with time. you will get better with practice. like I said, I’ve written a lot of terrible stuff, and it’s only through sucking for a long time that I’ve gotten to the point I am now. and I am far from perfect; I know I still have lots of room to grow!
for meta and headcanons specifically, I started with writing fic, and then when I didn’t think I could stretch something into an entire fic I would just make a hc post. I have a vivid memory of writing my first meta in a notebook during driver’s ed because it was so goddamn boring and I had Thoughts about Tauriel and Thranduil!
in my experience, meta comes from having Opinions and wanting to share them and most importantly to back them up - you need to have sources! you need to have reasons! you need to have justification! otherwise it’s not meta, it’s a headcanon or an AU. which is fine!! I love hc/AU!!! but they are not the same as meta, and I’m a stickler for being accurate when it comes to meta. if you have sources and shit to back you up, that will help you build the confidence to share your meta.
sharing disinformation and passing it off as meta instead of just coming out and saying this is a headcanon/baseless theory/AU or whatever is such a fandom pet peeve of mine; it’s not bad for something to not be Accurate! you just have to have that disclaimer - and even when you’re writing meta, you’re offering an interpretation of the text, and you need to acknowledge that other interpretations also exist and are valid.
um. I hope this answers your questions? and sorry for basically word-vomiting my entire life story, lol. this post got long; the main reason I’ve written so much fic is because I really just cannot shut up for the life of me. sooo if you can tear of that filter of being shy and just. say shit. you can go so far~!
OH and one more thing - I can’t believe I almost forgot this - but part of being a writer is participating in the community. this is code for LEAVE A DAMN COMMENT IF YOU LIKE A FIC. that’s how I made most of my fandom friends before Discord! I follow @ao3feed-silmarillion and stalk that blog for new Silm fics; I read the ones that interest me and comment on them.
I know this is not really the most common way for folks to find fic but it’s so rewarding to interact with new fic, new writers, new commentors, new stories - you can find gems that don’t rise to the top of the kudos/bookmark lists; you become friends with your fellow writers; you can watch people grow and change; you support smaller content creators. yeah, you might not be getting Just The Best Stuff, but it’s so so so worth it!!
and if you make friends in the comment section of other people’s fic - I guarantee you some of them will go to your AO3 profile and check out your fic, too! and they’ll leave comments! this is a fic community, and that’s what I cherish about fandom most of all, tbh.
anyway - again - sorry for rambling so much, but I hoped this helped! feel free to send in another ask, or to come talk to me off anon if you’d like! and definitely send me your stuff if/when you decide to share it; I would love to support you!!! <3
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brightblueinky · 3 years
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Pardon me for the intrusion, but you're the only person I found who's still into CC and I have to ask: does the romantic aspect of Chrono's and Rosette's relationship seem lacking to you? Like I can see when Rosette starts to view him as a love interest (chapter 28), but I can't see when Chrono starts to view her as one. To me it feels like he only had an interested in Mary, and Rosette is just his very beloved friend; the kiss felt too sudden. I'm sorry, I just need a second opinion on this.
Okay I am so sorry I didn’t respond to this until now, I’ve mostly been using tumblr on my phone and using it to check a few blogs and occasionally the CC tag, and apparently tumblr doesn’t notify for asks on the mobile app? Or I’m not seeing it? Something. I have no idea how long you’ve been waiting for a response on this, so I’m really sorry! I hope you find this!
I think I need a reread of the manga at this point--a lot of the stuff I’m writing these days is going off of head canon which might not be 100% accurate anymore. So I’m just going to write this off the cuff. Gonna be a bit stream of consciousness! So this is definitely not a definitive opinion or even one I’ll always stand by, just how I personally feel in this particular moment.
So off the top of my head...
I think we see less things from Chrono’s point of view than from Rosette’s, which is part of what makes this tricky. This isn’t ALWAYS the case obviously (we see his sort of...PTSD dream flashback after Rizelle’s death, the flashback in volume 6 is basically from Chrono’s viewpoint since it’s mostly his memories, etc), but since one of the way the plot moves forward is the mystery of what happened in Chrono’s past usually the viewpoint is more centered around Rosette. I actually always assumed that Rosette was the only character that Moriyama would consider the protagonist until I saw that on a dust jacket for one of the books he said that BOTH Chrono and Rosette are (can’t remember which book, sorry! it was a fan translation).
Thinking about it, I think we see Chrono start to realize he has romantic feelings at the end of volume 6. I think that’s the first time he really, truly comes to accept his contract with Rosette as a good thing instead of just...the lesser of two evils, I guess? It’s when he goes “oh, yeah, I made the contract because otherwise she would’ve run off to solve the problem on her own, and I didn’t want to leave her alone.” I think that’s when he starts to really see Rosette as someone that’s on the same level of emotional maturity as him, too--earlier he occasionally teases her for being immature, but I think when Rosette tells him that she wants to share his pain, and Mary’s, that he sees how emotionally strong she is as a person and really respects that. Not that he didn’t see her as strong BEFORE, buuut like...he’d been so hesitant to share his past with Rosette until right then, and her response, I think, makes him realize how helpful having her support really is to him.
This isn’t really the same situation and is definitely my own personal reaction, but as I write this it makes me think of when I was dating my husband. I was initially terrified he was going to break up with me because I was bisexual--we both came from conservative Christian backgrounds and were homeschooled, and in the past he expressed homophobic sentiments--but I felt like I HAD to tell him because I couldn’t see myself in a long term relationship with someone I couldn’t be 100% honest with. His reaction when I told him was to immediately tell me he trusted me and cared about me, start to reconsider what he’d been raised to feel immediately, and he’s become one of my biggest advocates as I’ve come out to friends and family. Coming out to him was one of the best things I’ve ever done, but it was terrifying until I did. I can see Chrono having similar fears talking about his past with Rosette, and having a similar sense of relief and healing as soon as he realized how much Rosette is in his corner and how helpful having someone he can be open with actually is.
In the next chapter, Rosette holds Chrono’s hands to comfort him while they briefly talk about their current situation (Chrono being held in, uh, demon jail? and Rosette being taken off of her mission to find Joshua), then they both blush and get flustered when they realize what they’re doing. They babble small talk afterward while inner dialogue repeats Rosette’s promise to share Chrono’s pain, and Mary’s too. And then RIGHT AFTER is when Remington walks in and takes them to Aion’s old house on the beach so...that’s about it.
So I think the manga does show that, either right after he’s pulled out of his coma by Rosette or sometime in the aftermath, Chrono is starting to acknowledge that his feelings for Rosette might be more romantic. But it is VERY brief, because literally everything after that is two volumes of the big finale, taking place entirely over no more than 24 hours. Everything after that is rushing to tie up as many loose ends as possible--Fiore being Satella’s sister, saving Joshua, Joshua beginning to grapple with the gravity of what he’s done and been a part of and what’s been done to him, Aion and Chrono’s confrontation, the Order and the Sinner’s confrontation, Rosette’s near death experience, Aion’s motivations revealed, Chrono and Aion’s true relationship revealed, Azmaria finally coming into her own in terms of taking ownership of her powers, the culmination of Aion’s plans (and near-Apocalypse caused by it), the true nature of demons, the deaths of most of the Sinners, Shader’s defection, Joshua and Fiore’s relationship being somewhat resolved, Rosette and Chrono’s relationship being somewhat resolved...like holy shit there is SO. MUCH. THERE.
On top of that, I’ve got the Japanese reprints and while I can read basically no Japanese (HUGE GRAIN OF SALT INCOMING), I’ve pointed Google Translate at some of the omakes and from what I can tell, Moriyama talks in the omake in...volume 6, I think, that he basically had a whole other volume’s worth of story for the flashback that had to be cut! If I’m understanding it right, it’s like...from Remington’s perspective, and involves some Native American tribe or reservation that had connections to the Sinners, and the woman in charge of the orphanage Joshua and Rosette grew up in was a child living in a town nearby....
Basically, from what I can tell? Moriyama had a LOOOOOOOOT of background stuff he wanted to go into in the back half of Chrono Crusade that he wasn’t able to do for time reasons. I’m not sure if his editor gave him a deadline, or he realized it would be too meandering, or what exactly happened, but...have you ever heard the “iceberg” theory of writing? Basically, flesh out as much of the backstory as you can--know everything about the town your story is set in, the family of your protag and their relationships with them, what they eat for breakfast, just...every little minutia you can possibly think of, but most of that won’t get into your story. The audience will only see the tip of the iceberg, but knowing so much background about your setting and characters will help it feel more alive and inform your decisions as you write.
I think Moriyama had a fucking huge iceberg, basically, and I think he actually wanted to show more of that, but...couldn’t. So we get little pieces of art that reference this entire backstory for Satella we never see, and Aion, etc....that gets small nods but doesn’t make it into the manga.
And I think there’s a lot of things Moriyama wanted to give time to breathe in the manga but due to space limitations, couldn’t. So that’s why the second half of the manga literally takes place from Thanksgiving to sunrise on Christmas Day and is...the entire second half of the manga. He’s rushing to get in as much as possible while still letting the story flow as a story and sometimes...it’s not perfect.
So....I think unfortunately, yeah, one of the casualties of that is that we don’t get a huuuuuge amount of Chrono’s side of the relationship, because most of the moments that really shows that they’re heading in that direction is from Rosette’s POV. Other than the scene I already mentioned, I think you could argue that Chrono’s reaction to “the place that Chrono can go back to was decided 4 years ago!” might also be the first moment he starts to consider how important Rosette is to him, but that doesn’t HAVE to be romantic...Chrono’s reaction to her death (and then realizing there’s a chance to revive her) again emphasizes how important she is to him, but it doesn’t HAVE to be romantic...the kiss at the end is the only thing that really 100% says “Yes, this is romantic and not platonic” on his part. And...yeah. It feels a bit sudden. There’s some underlying hints before that but...I mean, I know about them because I’m obsessive about character growth and narrowed in on it in subsequent rereads, I’m not sure if it came through right away on my first read of the manga, and I even knew going into it that they were at least meant to be teased as a ship, so, yeah.
Also I briefly want to admit that as I’ve gotten older, the age gap bothers me a little more. Not enough for me to abandon the ship, just, you know, it’s something I acknowledge will turn some people off. I think Chrono, maturity-wise, is meant to be seen as...about 20. I think Moriyama mentions in one of the early omakes that that’s what he looks like in his unsealed form, we know that when he leaves Pandaemonium it’s right after his coming of age ceremony so he’s about what a demon would consider to be 18 in terms of emotional (and physical?) maturity, and especially since he’s been sleeping for 50 years since that period of his life he doesn’t have the experience that his age really indicates (which Aion blantantly points out near the end). So I’m not THAT bothered by it because I don’t think that Rosette and Chrono are actually that inequal in terms of emotional maturity but it’s still...there, and...I mean he met her when she was 12...so...yeah that’s a bit weird!! 
I’ve just gotten to where I shrug my shoulders and go “look, every ship in Chrono Crusade has something problematic about it, if you’re going to be a fan of Chrono Crusade you’re probably going to have to grapple with the fact that it’s messy and human and nobody is 100% good or bad in the manga, and that’s part of what I like about it, so, that’s cool, but it’s probably not for everyone.” It’s actually one reason why I’m kinda OK with CC not being as popular as some of its contemporaries because...some of the anti-shipper stuff I’ve seen online...oh boy.
So...I guess in conclusion, I think there’s stuff there in the manga to build up the relationship a little bit, but a lot of it is from Rosette’s POV and most of it is kind of subtle. I wouldn’t be surprised if Moriyama had wanted to flesh it out more obviously in the manga but the second half is stuffed full of wrapping up character arcs and questions and loose ends so it just didn’t really have the time to get as much focus. I really like the ship a lot, but a lot of it comes from analysis of the characters and how they relate to each other rather than it just being...canon. I’m okay with that, I’m the sort of person that will ship characters that never even meet just because I think the dynamic might be cool, but...I’m not surprised that not everyone would be into it, either.
And now I kinda want to make...a series of posts analyising the different relationships that are...either canon or teased in canon, see how much they’re built up, etc. Because this post makes me think a lot about Joshua/Azmaria and how confused I was by them apparently being married in the epilogue on my first read, and only seeing the hints Moriyama hinted about them possibly being a couple in the manga on subsequent rereads (and even then HO BOY it’s so subtle it makes Chrono and Rosette look really in your face aaaaaa). BUT I HAVE RAMBLED ENOUGH FOR THIS POST and, again, I need a reread. Maybe soon....!!!!
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oversimplify-it · 3 years
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Story Process Tag by @herpixels​
I was tagged by @dynastiasimss​ - Thank you so much for tagging me!! 😊💖💗 This will most definitely get a bit wordy because I’m terrible at explaining things concisely! 😂 Also, I’ll mostly be talking about my process for 2.B.A Grandmaster but I’ll touch on my process for Erin in San Myshuno too!
I’m also going to get tags out of the way up here so that no one has to scroll all the way through this ... absolute novel that is under the cut LMAO so I tag: @cyansimblr  @x-simss @matchacake and any other simblrs who wanna do this!! and feel free to skip if you want!
1. Your writing process My writing process is very, very chaotic, and changes with the wind... Erin in San Myshuno doesn’t really have a process, I just play the game and then put in some dialogue based on the events. None of it is guided by my hand at all though! 2.B.A Grandmaster on the other hand is written in part based on what happens in game and in part by my own creative vision. Most of the time, I let stuff happen, and then fill in the blanks in between events. I go in game, play Sims as I normally would (skill build, take care of needs, go out to venues, etc.) and then watch what weird and interesting things happen. For example, Augusta’s meeting with Xavier in the beginning was completely the game’s doing! He was the only one to show up for the Welcome Wagon event, so I rolled with that. Scenes like Kaitlin’s meeting with Maverick and those sort of things are planned by me, as they’re necessary to create a more full narrative! It’s like collaborative storytelling, but my “partner” is a game that is weird and random and crazy. 😂 After stuff happens in game and I get screenshots, I then actually write for it. I chose to write novel style for the series because - as some of my long-term followers may remember - I had another story that was just screenshots with dialogue on them? And it was very hard, LOL, it didn’t suit my workflow very well and I ended up dropping it after a month or so. I wanted 2.B.A Grandmaster to be something I could post consistently, and so I opted for a style that I was more familiar and experienced with!
2. Scene building For the most part, I just work with what sims gives me, but as I mentioned above, some scenes I actually go to the trouble of setting up. For those, I still use the sims animations mostly (I’ve used poses about 3 times in 2.B.A Grandmaster so far) but I do usher my sims around the "set” as I see fit. I build a lot of my own lots and locations for 2.B.A GM because I tend to get a vision in my mind of what I want and refuse to settle for less. 😂 One such case is the scene where Maverick meets up with Octavia--
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I made the alleyway we see here - it’s two entirely empty buildings sandwiched side by side on an otherwise empty lot in Oasis Springs. The only part I bothered to decorate was the alley itself because I knew I wasn’t going to use the rest of the area, but maybe we’ll revisit it sometime and I’ll finish the two buildings! I actually loved making this set and like how it turned out, LOL~
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Then I just have whatever sims are involved in a scene interact with each other for ages until I feel like I have enough screenshots to make a scene. I usually have a vague idea of what’s going to be said in any given scene - especially the ones I actually planned out beforehand - but I get some excess screenshots to be safe. I try lots of different interactions and pause like every few frames to get interesting expressions and stuff, LOL. Lots of “Complain about Cold Weather” and “Give fake bad news” ...
3. CC/Pose making I don’t actually make my own CC for 2.B.A GM specifically (I’ve made a couple eyeshadows but I don’t use them super frequently) but there is a scene coming up in the future that I plan to make poses for. I have a very clear image in my mind that includes a lot of subtle expressions and very specific things that I doubt I could find poses for, so I’m gonna have to brave the terrifying landscape of blender in order to make it a reality. 😧
4. Getting in the zone I don’t have any sort of “ok, show time” ritual like some people do but I wish I did, because my motivation waxes and wanes so unpredictably. Some days I just don’t feel like doing anything, and other days I edit and write for 5 posts in a row! I am always listening to something though, usually music, every once in a blue moon a video with lots of talking. 5. Screenshot folder
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UGH... 
6. Captions I don’t do captions on 2.B.A GM posts, but for my city living gameplay I do! I keep them simple, because I don’t want to make it too much work for myself. Erin in San Myshuno’s style of editing is 100% based around ease, because I wanted something to post often that didn’t put too much of a strain on me. Verdana in white, typically 35-40 px, with a gradient border. Each sim we encounter has a different gradient color, usually based on their outfit or just the ~vibe~ I get from them. Erin’s gradient is Hot pink to ... gee, what would you call it. Sonic the Hedgehog Blue LMAO-- I chose that gradient because that’s the color of the overlay, which I’ll talk more about in the next section!
7. Editing My two ‘series’ - and I use that term loosely LMAO - have different editing processes, so I’ll try to summarize them both. Basically, for 2.B.A Grandmaster, I touch up the saturation and brightness depending on the scene. If it’s evening in the shots, I usually won’t touch brightness, and if it’s night, I might even lower it a bit for more accurate lighting! Once that’s done, I blur everything but relevant elements of a scene, usually the character we’re following or who is speaking. I have to select the character from the background manually which takes a bit, but other than that it’s very minimal.
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My shots aren’t super glamorous, but I prefer simple screenshots and actually being able to keep up with a story schedule as opposed to what happened with my last story. 😬 As for Erin in San Myshuno, barring captions which I only do when I feel it’s necessary, it’s literally just an overlay on otherwise untouched screenshots. 😭 I would do more, but again, it’s supposed to be an easy downtime sort of series for me so~
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This goes over top all screenshots on the “Add” setting at 20% opacity. It brightens things up and softens them, as well as making the colors slightly more harmonious! If anyone wants me to go more in depth on editing, or maybe captions, please let me know! I’m happy to talk about it if it’ll help anyone, and I know that a lot of tutorials cover how to do stuff in Photoshop, whereas I use FireAlpaca (which is 100% free btw! It’s more of an art program, but not bad for editing) 8. Throwback!
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Oh boy, so this is one of my first posts on simblr. For starters, I didn’t know about camera mode at the time, so that’s the first thing I would change obviously LOL. 😬 The framing I did at the time was ... cute, but it makes the pictures feel kind of cramped and small in my opinion, so I did away with that for all of my later stories. Also, Amy and Gemma aren’t very well centered in this picture! Other than that, this isn’t actually terrible I don’t think, so aside from maybe blurring the background as I do on 2.B.A GM now, I wouldn’t change too much! Thankfully, I had observed other people’s stories before making my own on here for a little bit, so I wasn’t starting with absolutely no idea what to do, but I still think I’ve improved since I made these. 😊
This was a ton of fun!! If anyone has questions or wants more info on anything I covered in here, absolutely feel free to ask, and thank you so much if you actually read through all of this - I know I rambled for quite a while!! 🙏
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honkster · 3 years
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Okay so I did miss a few things
Mainly stuff that either I didn’t think were important enough to address or I just didn’t think of.
Let’s get to it.
1. Techno betraying Tommy.
2. Ghosty bois coming back.
3. Tommy and Quackity as ab*se survivors.
<_><_><_>
I try to be as un-biased as I can whenever I say “From a writing perspective”, I kind of disassociate and look at the story how I would write it if I had to. You know, purely analysing the characters without the attachment I feel for them as a viewer.
But I don’t have to do that to say that Techno is not going to betray Tommy.
I get the angst – oh do I get the angst. I’m a fan of angst, I used to write only it for a while.
But Dream. You know how much Techno cares about Dream?
He’d rather read his donations than not risk Dream’s wrath at avoiding the admittance of Tommy in his house.
Techno has shown that he cares more for Tommy than he fears Dream (Fear is probably the wrong word here. Neutrality as he bides his time until he can strike – much more Blade. Because no matter what, Dream is just a temporary ally to Techno, much like what he started to view Pogtopia as.) He is shielding Tommy from him, he is reluctantly reminded the he owes Dream a favor, he dismisses his role as Lycomedes in this myth that’s so accurate to the story. Not even once in the streams Tommy and Techno did together (and the subsequent Techno or Tommy solo streams) did it seem that Techno was even considering a Tommy and Dream meetup. Yes, the favor is looking to be another Chekhov's gun, much like the TNT under L’manburg, but whoever said it means that Techno will succumb to Dream?
When did we decide that Dream cashing in his favor with Techno doesn’t mean that the pig will take that chance to betray Dream?
When did we decide that Dream cashing in his favor with Techno means that Dream trusts Techno unconditionally and won’t try to betray Techno?
Dream and Techno are in a unique stalemate currently. Techno can’t harm Dream, not when he has creative mode, and for Dream Techno is far more useful as an ally. That favor that Dream is holding over his head? That is the one-up he has on Techno. Until, perhaps, Techno pulls a Spirit and decides that Dream doesn’t control him…
Is this better anxiety than angsting over Techno potentially turning Tommy in? :)
(Bonus: I’m pretty sure that Techno and Tommy are even when talking about betrayals. Tommy established a new government in front of Techno, Techno blew the government up. Techno isn’t going to betray Tommy because he’s still salty. Tommy was slightly petty when he huddled under Techno’s house, but he seems to have gotten over that and now it’s just sibling banter.
They betrayed each other and then were angry at each for it. They’re even, stop the angst.)
<_><_><_>
Another thing I keep seeing despite everything…
The Ghosty bois returning.
Schlatt through possession, Wilbur through some method Philza may find months after the moment he first wrote it in a book.
My answer is… What’s the point?
Okay, you bring back Schlatt. What’s he gonna do, re-establish Manburg?
As if.
So he possessed Quackity/Tubbo. Again, what’s he gonna do? L’manburg is not the same thing that it was before, when Schlatt and Wilbur first found their power. It’s not a place where words mean more than weapons, where no armor is worn yet wars are won. Since L’manburg’s pacifist dictators have died/been changed to more violent ways, L’manburg has adapted to the landscape of the server and become just like every other faction – fighting wars with weapons.
So again, what would happen if Schlatt returned, in one form or another? The moment someone realizes what happened, he gets taken down. No one likes Schlatt, no one is on his side, everyone would stab him in his weak heart and twist the blade to “just make sure” he is truly dead. No one will rally behind him, he will have no power. You don’t gotta worry about that ghosty boi.
Wilbur? Well, if we dive into meta and what the cc himself has said, it’s going to take more than just a totem of undying to bring him back. And from a writing perspective, Ghostbur needs to come to terms with himself. Him just forgetting the things that he did, the people he harmed and just being wholesome – that’s not the end of his arc. It’s not even the middle. Ghostbur has a long way to go to be at peace with himself and stop haunting the server, to move on to the afterlife.
Him being brought back to life, to return to what he tried to forget, and then most definitely being killed again, quickly or after he’s able to do more damage, returning to his Ghostbur form… Well, that can do two things.
1. It could, possibly help him come to terms with Alivebur’s actions, being so suddenly dropped into his life again and forced to confront the trauma of it all. It could, possibly, maybe, slightly start him on the path to being at peace again.
2. It resets his progress so far.
I know which option is more interesting, more… character-developing.
Sadly, that one is the less likely option.
More trauma doesn’t help deal with previous trauma. Things would have to go a very specific way for Ghostbur being brought back to life to be actually helpful to him. Ghostbur isn’t an amnesiac, not in the way where his memories were just given a soft reset and his only job is to find things that would help him unlock them again. He’s a ghost, no one can fully understand how he works and what he needs, and how he may act if he is brought back to life after being dead for so long.
Not even another ghost.
Who’s to say that Schlatt, if he ever appeared in-character, in ghost form, isn’t just as confused as Ghostbur? Who’s to say he isn’t “traumatized enough” for selective memory? Who’s to say that Schlatt hasn’t moved on like Ghostbur hasn’t been able to?
Wilbur’s not gonna come back soon, if at all. His arc, coming to terms with making L’manburg the way it is now, has relevance to the current events happening (especially since L’manburg’s death seems to be inching closer and closer, and Ghostbur seems to be only related to it, out of all the things in the server.) but it has very little plot-changing importance. Who’s going to listen to the ghost of the man that made this mess happen in the first place? Definitely not the people making similar mistakes to him!
<_><_><_>
Oh I don’t like talking about ab*se. I’ve had enough of Dream and his manipulation of Tommy, it’s why I hated the bastard so much.
But this? Quackity and Tommy having the same mixed feelings towards their manipulator, a deep hatred and also a deep attachment, resulting in just a lot of confusion whenever the bad guy in question is brought up?
Yeah I got nothing.
Mainly because Tommy and Quackity haven’t interacted in that way just yet. Most people, in-character, don’t realize what Quackity went through (that’s a problem for a lot of the characters though, how their trauma is almost invisible, but very loud in terms of their actions.) or at least don’t realize that Quackity wants Schlatt back. Cause no one wants Schlatt back – what are you, crazy?
It is definitely an interesting parallel. How both of them were manipulated, then suddenly left the manipulator, how both of them were introduced to different ways of coping. Tommy with Techno, someone who cares about him and is determined to get revenge on their behalf, someone who is just sensitive enough to realize that you shouldn’t do certain things when talking to the traumatized person. Quackity with The Butcher Army and El Rapids, being given an outlet for his anger and confusion, a way to hide the pain he feels and focus on something entirely else, something he can actually understand and not question endlessly as he slowly goes insane. A way to do good, to try and do good things for other people, or at least fight the bad ones, even though you are utterly baffled at what is going on inside you.
...I’ve been dancing around this for a long time but uh… From experience, both of those ways are valid.
Listen, listen. Facing your trauma, going on the tough path of healing from it and coming out a different person, one not affected by whatever was done to you – that’s good. That is a good recipe for moving on to bigger and better things, this should be the path taken.
But (not) realizing your trauma, and instead deciding to flourish in spite of your manipulator, becoming stronger than them or even fighting them (or whoever you blame for your trauma) head on and WINNNING, purely out of spite and anger that you were actually that weak or that you didn’t notice what they were doing to you, remembering the things that you thought were normal and now being horrified at what your life was like…
The whole SMP needs therapy. They all need to have a sit-down, and a talk, and come to certain conclusions about themselves and whoever wronged them, and repeat that for a few days (weeks, months maybe). They all need to learn healthy ways to cope.
But this is the Curse. The Author’s Curse.
Therapy is boring.
Yes, we love these characters. Because we love them, we would much rather see them healthy and well-adjusted, and ending the cycle of ab*se.
...But the SMP isn’t peaceful enough for that.
More from the writing perspective – the foundation of the server right now is violence. Endless, gruesome violence, it has become the number one way to deal with whatever is plaguing you. Talking has worked once (The Pet War (?) ending), but even then it was after extreme violence. And this will continue, because any other way of dealing with things has just become… irrelevant. Some people can only speak one language, and it’s not one that is healthy.
So not only do all of the people on the server need to be shouted at for being so violent, bullied into considering more peaceful options for things, but also the people who cannot or will not change their mind, because they have become delusional with their power and only believe in that singular language, must be eliminated.
It all comes back to Dream. It all comes back to more violence. The Curse cannot be broken.
But… It can be, if used properly, a way to at least eliminate most of the evil in the server.
You’d need a whole guidebook for that though.
And the problem wouldn’t be fixed.
That server reset’s gonna be a huge part of the lore!
<_><_><_>
And I know I may be coming off as aggressive here like “Oh stop making up headcanons that will never happen” but that’s not my intention because if I truly took that standpoint I would be incredibly hypocritical. I thought Techno was going to be this battle-hardened warrior, able to detach himself from everything in this world to focus on war – mans turns out to be the most secretly caring person in the server. I sometimes dismiss characters that turn out to be actually really powerful (Ranboo, for one. BBH and Puffy for three.), I’m wrong on a lot of things.
So honestly, if you have an AU for Ghostinnit or Ghostbo (Toast) or Dadschlatt or Dream redemption arc, or just irl AU, Harry Potter AU, Starinnit – fucking amazing. You play out your canon-divergent dreams you funky little writers/artists. I’ll stay over-analyzing stuff over here, don’t mind me! Your ideas are super cool, and you can bully me for not having any hcs and never thinking of an AU of my own. /gen
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octoberheights · 3 years
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Monday:
She’s started baking again. The other members of the Syndicate drop by sometimes to taste-test her recipes, and she shows them the progress she’s made in the construction of her underground city. They compliment the flower paths outside the city, the bridges and floating lanterns and the gorgeous high ceilings and furnishings within, the little subterranean forest and the waterfall, the decorations and details that make the cavernous space cozy. They see what she’s built and they praise her for it and it is exhilarating. She’s grown stronger day by day with the Syndicate in her corner; they pull her up to stand on equal footing with them, and when she expresses her concerns, they listen.
There are days, however, when she can’t bring herself to bake; on those days the heat of the furnace crawls uncomfortably against her skin and the knife block rattles in the corner with each item she sets down on the countertop. On those days she’ll climb. Buildings, mountains, trees—anything that’ll get her to a height where her lungs strain from lack of oxygen and the ringing in her head eases. She jumps, sometimes. They don’t know she does this. They don’t need to know; she’s strong enough to deal with that herself.
Yesterday was their leader’s birthday, and she’d left the party with leftover cake and cookies and brioche. Today is a good day; maybe she’ll share the cookies with Jack.
Tuesday:
He’s called the harbinger, the omen, the angel of death. Crows perform at his bidding and the great, lumbering bears of the north shake the ground as he directs them. He emerges from impossible battles with nary a scratch on his body. People across the earth have speculated that he’s a demon, or contracted with a demon, or one of the acolytes of the Blood God like the Blade. He likes to collect these epithets and rumors; when his crows perch on his shoulder to recount the news of the land or messages from his allies they update him on the tales they tell of the angel. They’re all wrong, in the end. Death herself graced him with her favor long ago to act as her representative on the mortal plane.
She’s been dormant recently; her absences had never affected him so strongly before, but ever since he’s entered this land, he’s felt weaker, more fragile. He watched his son destroy the country he founded with a haze across his vision, and then he killed his own son, and the act of it didn’t register until days later. Months fly by in a blur and the only person who can enforce any sort of focus is the Blade and so that simmering anger became his own and it fed into his own pain. There was something rotting in the land and it killed his son and he felt it his duty to purge it with the same TNT that destroyed his wings. He doesn’t regret it.
Today, he finds some measure of peace in building his training room. His son is back and everything is not-quite-broken and his body still aches.
Wednesday:
There are too many variables, too many uncertainties. He’s placed his fingerprints on too many projects and lives, and the guilt of his cooperation and his associations claws at his lungs. Dream, neutrality in the midst of war, Dream and his prison and the damned prison rules, Quackity, Las Nevadas. He doesn’t know what he considers his worst fuck-up: Tommy’s death, the torture he’d permitted in his collaboration with Las Nevadas, his betrayal of Ponk’s love and trust, or his inability to save anyone during the banquet.
The hotel stands as a testament to his failure to protect the youngest resident of the land. He plans detours around that plot whenever he travels between the bank and the prison; the little robot stationed by the hotel tells him the boy doesn’t come by anymore, and he knows automatons don’t feel emotions, but he grieves for it anyway. He sees his valentine walking along the wooden pathways and his heart aches to see the damage he had caused. He checks the prison’s security footage and he tells himself guilt has no place in his heart for what happened. He’s surprised the captain and the god and all the rest of the banquet victims still talk to him. But they do, and it gives him hope. His friends are back and free and even though one of them is trying to start a little scuffle with a god, today he’s having fun throwing weednip around and sliding down the pyramid with his closest friends.
The present’s a gift, and he intends on cherishing this moment.
Thursday:
He’s building a pub because Wilbur owes him a pint. He knows that man can’t be completely trusted, not now. Not since he died by his crossbow. But it feels good to be acknowledged as someone worth an apology, someone important. He has been abandoned and pushed aside and pushed into lava pits and into hell all within the span of a few months. No one cared. He hates it, he hates the way he’s been made irrelevant and a shadow of his friends’ stories. Even his plans for revenge had been inconsequential, unfruitful: the boy had lived and his accomplice had left him to brood in his own anger.
He’s held his grudges close to his heart and he’s let them fester and he won’t admit he’s tired of it all. If he lets go, then it all disappears and he’s really, truly dead, and if this is his afterlife, if all he can do is lag after the people he cares for, then it’s a fucking shit deal. So today, he’s continuing his work on the pub because he burned down his own home and because the hotel feels too sterile and empty, because he wants to have a space built with his own two hands where he can speak and someone will finally, finally listen. It’s not quite moving on. He’ll take it anyway.
Friday:
She tries to live by the code of kindness and reciprocity; that’s how she lived on the high seas of her youth, or so she suspects, based on the journal she found at the site of the shipwreck. Since the day she joined this land, she has made friends and found love and taken the young residents under her wing and vowed to fight against evil. She gives stacks of items to those who need them and she fixes up the holes in the road and offers therapy on difficult days.
The world isn’t as kind as she is. A country was erased from the map for grudges she still doesn’t understand, and no one will tell her the why discs, of all things, are so important. Two boys would have lost their lives to a monster she housed, had it not been for the money Tommy paid a mercenary for his aid. She mourned the loss of Tommy’s life as she fought to keep the hotel in his name, and when he requested therapy upon his resurrection, she was horrified at the effects of trauma he’d exhibited. The friends she’d tried to pull out of the Egg’s influence celebrated a young boy’s death and killed her son. And now this man has taken her friend’s turtle hostage for no reason she can comprehend.
She’s tired. She’s breaking; they’d presumed her kindness was a weakness and maybe it is. Today, she plans on destroying the red menace on the edge of her son’s land. It’s her turn.
Saturday:
He’s not sure how many sandstone blocks he’s carved out of the desert at this point, nor how many quartz chips and gold nuggets he’s pulled out of the Netherworld. The villagers know him by name and chat with him when he stops by to trade for emeralds and other goods. His hands bleed gold ichor from the opened blisters dotting his hands, and burns line the edges of his fingertips. Lately, his whole world is rushing by in colors of beige and yellow, green and white and blue. The color red started it, the scramble to build more and more—and it stopped it too, if only for a little while. Ponk asked him for permission to build on his land, told him it was a gift: a peace offering and an apology and a new beginning. It’s a silly build and it doesn’t match the aesthetic of the rest of his summer home, but it warmed his heart, to see the giant red refrigerator rising up from the top of the sand dunes for the first time. Ponk built it just for him. Quackity told him he was alone, and that he didn’t matter if he didn’t assert his powers like he did in the past, and he was wrong. Ponk stays, loves him for who he is now and not for the destruction he wrought.
He doesn’t know what to do now; his father destroyed the build for some grudge she holds against his friend, and he’s exhausted. He’s tired of being pulled into conflict. A vacation from all the tension occurring on his land would not be unwarranted, at this point—a few days, a week. It sounds relaxing—and he’ll do it, he’ll take a vacation, and he’ll tell Ponk that he’s in charge of the summer home later today. He has some packing to do.
Sunday:
He likes to splash around the pools and fountains in Las Nevadas when he has to visit. Sometimes he’ll climb up the needle and lean on the bannisters to feel the fresh air ruffling his hair and he thinks about jumping—the air turns hot and stale and the ground burbles up in orange and red—but his brother pulls him out of it, usually. Otherwise the place is boring. He’s not allowed in the gambling den or the club, so he hovers around the forests away from Las Nevadas when Wilbur and Quackity want to speak alone.
Today is one of those days. It’s fine by him; dealing with the two of them together makes him uncomfortable, with the way they push and pull him to their sides. The cigarette smoke lingering on their breaths remind him of the ravine, the explosions from the first war-second -Logstedshire-doomsday-nukes-prison. He’s escaped, for now. The air of the forest is crisp; he can spot flowers in the meadow ahead and he plucks them to form a careless bouquet. Alliums, lilies-of-the-valley, daisies; poppies and cornflowers and dandelions. He threads them together to form crowns and rings, places one on his head and cradles the rest to his chest to stash at home. It’s been a while since he’s made them; before he moved to this land he’d make them for his brother and his brother’s father, the dogs and cows and sheep around the farm. He feels like a child again and his lips twist at the bittersweetness. He’s found himself a bubble and soon Wilbur will barge his way in to speak of his loyalties and Dream and whatever the fuck he’s stormed up with Quackity, but for now, he’ll pick flowers and make chains and chains and chains that, for once, won’t drag him down.
  Monday’s child is fair of face.
Tuesday’s child is full of grace.
Wednesday’s child is full of woe.
Thursday’s child has far to go.
Fridays’ child is loving and giving.
Saturday’s child works hard for a living.
And the child born on the Sabbath day is bonny and blithe, good and gay.
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selfcareparker · 3 years
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LMAOO I WAS GONNA BRING UP FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLIDER BUT I WASNT SURE IF YOU WERE WATCHING IT HSKAJ (are you liking it? i know it’s only the first episode but ya know, another one tomorrow night- well tomorrow night for me, and did you like wandavision?? i loved it!!)
oh my goodness i’m watching lion king while writing this and i haven’t seen it in a while and i am..... emotional. but anyway, i love that streaming services think that imma pay for them while they charge $50 a month. like yes of course i have that kind of money and i am going to give it to you to watch tv 🙄 that $50 is budgeted to sims thank you. (ALSO SIMS!!! i’ll get to that in a minute) now see if i don’t google levidia right this minute LMAOO, not that i’m gonna use it.. just for the research...
AND HDKSHS SEND THAT CHAOS WALKING LINK LMAO i saw it for the third time with a different one of my friends and she wasn’t the best one to see it with? she literally was on her fucking phone and i was like ok whatever her loss not mine, and idk if you’ve read the books or if you’ve seen it by now, but by the end of the whole movie, after they’ve confirmed THE THING throughout the whole movie she asked the dumbest question and i’m like diD YOU NOT WATCH THE MOVIE, and i guess she didn’t. so. this sounds so vague but i don’t wanna spoil the movie for you just in case lol.
THE STORY LMAOO, so A DIFFERENT FRIEND LOL, like my oldest bff, we had a day together and we wanted to go see chaos walking. and i honest to God thought that no one would be seeing this movie. like NO ONE. every day, i checked the theater seating and no one was there right? plus i really wanted us to have the theater to ourselves. so we sit in the wrong seats, the row in front of us, STILL THINKING WE’RE ALONE. and then these 3 older people came in AND IM ABOUT TO SCREAM FHSJSH AND IM LIKE “are we in your seats?” and they we were like uh yeah, AND IT WAS SO BAD LMAOO , we’re moving and everything would’ve been FINE but my friend’s reclined seat was going down so slow and as it’s going shes LITERALLY SAYING ALOUD “awkward awkward awkward” so she thinks forget it, lemme just get up. HER BAG GETS CAUGHT ON HER CHAIR AND HER FRIES AND THEY SPILL ALONG WITH HER HONEY MUSTARD 😭😭 ALL OVER THE FLOOR! so i’m trying not to laugh lmao but those aren’t even our seats and we just made a mess, so naturally, i get on the floor and start cleaning it up with my napkins (this is going for too long) AND MY FRIEND IS STILL SAYING “awkward awkward awkward awkward” and i’m really abt to crack up bECAUSE LIKE SHUT UP HAHAHA and we’re cleaning it and shit and the oldest lady is gonna say “yeah you’re not gonna make an old lady get on the floor, are you?” AND I WANTED TO LAUGH AND SCREAM AT THE SAME TIME BC DID WE ASK YOU TO, NO, so then i had to get the manager and she helped us clean it, we got new fries and everything was fine, it’s just a crazy story bc LITERALLY WE COULDVE AVOIDED IT AND EVERYTHING BUT THESE ELDERLY PEOPLE HAD TO COME AND SEE THIS MOVIE😭😭 at least the gentlemen was nice.. he helped us clean. but then his wife was like “i aM nOt siTTiNg tHeRe” and at first i thought she was a teenager bc of her stink attitude but her husband was nice. and it’s not like we weren’t cleaning it up, we were!!! like i was so apologetic- anyway.
about sims! do you play console or pc? wait,, you already told me you play pc bc your computer was broken, i’m glad you can play now though :’)) litetally when i read in the tags that you’re playing sims !!!! and are you hyped for bunk beds? i have cc so i’ve had them for a bit, but they were glitchy... but i’m so excited we have them now! i should really play sims today...
GURL IM SO PROUD OF YOU 🥺🥲 i know you aren’t fluent in everything and you aren’t a linguistic genius LMAO but it’s still soooo amazing :’) here i am reading the captions while ur just going hahah, yea i tried duolingo but.... i didn’t stick to it HDJSH talking to you though makes me so interested because you know all these languages, not even studying them like that, but you have this foundation and ahh it’s just super cool. LOL YOU DONT SOUND LAME HAJA IM TELLING YOU ITS SO SO COOL, i’m loving this lesson btw oh my goodness- HSKAJS YOU THOUGHT I WOULD ALREADY KNOW THAT??? HDYSJHS MY ONLY ENGLISH SPEAKING ASS??? HAHAHAHHAH i find that word (Rindfleischetikettie- i’m not gonna write the whole thing i’m sorry) very interesting... like... wow. did you have to google that or did you just know lmao
OKAH THE WATER THING HDKDJDKS UR GONNA TERRIFY ME HAHAH OH MY LORD- first of all CROATIA 😍😍 but thinking about it like that, I WOULD FREAK OUT TOO HAHSGSG i never go that deep into the water, or if i do i have my dad with me lol and i kind of hold onto him bc ive seen/heard too many things about people being dragged into the sea. but i loveee the water (i wanted to be a mermaid soooo bad ohmigosh)
I DONT UNDERSTAND HOW ONE CANNOT LIKE MUSIC ITS AWFUL !! lmao yeah i haven’t even listened to harry’s his first album, everyone says they love it more. I WAS GONNA SAY IMMA LISTEN TO ONLY ANGEL BUT THE WAY YOU DESCRIBE IT HUHAHAH also i have never listened to anything by mgk (i actually had to google who he was IM SORRY😔) i’m tempted to listen tho lol PLEASE JUSTIN BIEBER- I PROMISE IM NOT LAUGHING AT U IVE JUSY NEVER HAD SOMEONE SAY THAT B4!! like i don’t know many people who’ve liked him bUT NOW IM GONNA LISTEN & the cardboard cutout- okay. 😭😭😭
oh my goodness to see the vamps live 🤧 TO SEE ANYONE LIVE PLEASE JJDGSHAHGD and little mix is so good oh my goodness- i actually haven’t been to that many concerts.. i was at my first one, elsie fest (it’s like a broadway thing really) in uhhh october of 2019, yea i took my mom for her birthday bc she loves darren criss and i’m obsessed with glee lmao OH MY GOODNESS YOUVE BEEN TO SO MANY!!! and those are such great artists 😩😩
LMAO UR FINE, hamilton is a musical that lin manuel miranda wrote and i think generally made? i’m obsessed, but basically it was on broadway and then recorded and put on disney+ ... idk i guess it counts a film bc it’s like a movie really cuz it was recorded but in what 2018 or 2016? i don’t remembers the date that is on disney+ but it’s strange how i got into it, a lot of my friends were obsessed and i was like uhh why? and while researching it and watching it, trying to figure out why people love it... i fell in love with it LMAO but the music is FANTASTIC and lin is incredible😭 but yes yes yes i loveeeee high school musical!! my dad actually took my cousins to see it on ice or something (i absolutely forget lmao) but i don’t know how people don’t know hsm. it upsets me.
OKAY IM DOWN TO THE BOTTOM HAHAHA (it takes me so long to respond, now i’m on lion king 2 WHICH IS SO GOOD PLEASE FHHSSHHSHSH) i could respond in chunks but i kind of enjoy responding like this? it feels a bit like a letter but if this whole thing is overwhelming i’ll cut it up lol
+ yes that was me about your fic and sleep and everything lol but it was so good😭 i don’t understand how you write peter so well like you have this ability to capture his.. everything? i’m crine. all the time. over your fics. & i cannot describe my happiness for youuuu :’) i’m so happy you’re writing again 🥺🥰 the thing about how you only want to write the long peter fic but you don’t know how to continue... i feel that so so so hard, i don’t think i told you but ughh i was so blah bc of that feeling of having pent up inspiration for only one fucking thing and not being able to write it. it’s so frustrating 😭
not to add more to this but i need to vent a bit? the situation is definitely different bc with your major it obviously requires for you to ya know, know english lol, but uhm bc i’m homeschooled ive been cheating on all my work SHSHDHSJ like i google the answers but i’m still learning! it’s just..... i find it so unnecessary, like going for an audition no one is gonna say to me “i want you to chanel the knowledge within yourself of the centripetal force of the circle that is the table on this stage” like tf??? there’s literally no point. i’m gonna be getting into voice lessons again soon and i’m already doing dance, AND i’ll be doing this summer camp program (more hamilton lol) and thinking about school is only making me stress more, like i haven’t been able to rehearse dance at all this week bc of it...... so
hahaha reading your tags, lonely anon would still be accurate HAHAHHAHA // another add: yea i love ur current theme, i’ve gotten used to “seeing you” like this, but anything will look super pretty :)) ALSO HOW IS IT STILL SNOWING THERE, i swear it’s getting warmer and warmer by the day here 😭🤧
these long ass posts, my gosh🥲 lonely lovely anon <3
Omg yes it does feel like a letter sldkdj and then the few days of waiting also make more sense okay i love this ❣️💕❤️💓❤️💞🧡💜💘(wtf)sksjhz
Dear lovely anon,
ALSKSJVKD yes i‘m liking falcon and winter soldier dlkdh i haven‘t watched the second episode yet but i‘ll watch it tomorrow! but i didn‘t watch wandavision........ eidislskks i was going to but idk i wasn‘t that interested in it and watching series is already too much of a commitment (what can i say i‘m a Sagittarius—🤧 (no i’m joking i actually know NOTHING about starsigns)) didjj that i couldn‘t force myself to watch it, ALSO i hate (idk if this is an unpopular opinion) when every episode is like a whole hour. i‘m rewatching an old series today (it‘s german so i won‘t even get into it) and the episodes are 25 mins each and i‘ve already watched 8 episodes today ridlndjdjd,,, and i feel like if the episodes were an hour each i wouldn‘t have gotten past episode 2 today like idk.... even if series had the same length in total, i prefer when the individual episodes are shorter idk why tho tbh (so yeah i already wasn‘t 100% convinced about watching wandavision so i just couldn’t make myself watch a bunch of 1hour episodes— i‘ve heard that it‘s good tho- but i‘m not much of a series person so. Dldkk (have we talked about this already??? sorry i don‘t remember what i said lol and i couldn‘t find my own post anymore so dkdjsh) (WAIT I JUST CHECKED THE WANDAVISION EPIOSRDES ARENT EVEN THAT LONG??? Okay wait i might watch it now - did you like it? let me know if i should watch it— why did i think they were 60minutes???)
okay another confession i‘ve never watched the lion king????? i mean i watched it when i was a child but i was too young to actually pay attention to any kind of plot i just liked the songs lol sldkdj i‘ve been meaning to watch it for years tho 🦁 (idk it just felt appropriate to put a lion emoji lmoaoo)
OH MY GOD THE CHAIS WALKING/CINEMA STORY AHSJSKKS😭😭😭😭 NOOOOO (very fitting that there was so much chaos when you were watching a film that has chaos in the title loool) and the “awkward awkward awkward“ SAME SKSKSLSKDJ, that‘s literally me 24/7 ahajshshhshshsh. Like i was so skdjdjdkdllsldksnsnsnsb while i read what you sent me djslslsjdjdbdn why are old ladies always so grumpy btw 🥲🥲🥲 at least the man was nice tho! and wait did i read that right... you have fries (which, to me, are called chips dusuusldk) at your cinemas?? (Movie theatres sorry sksjsh) we just have popcorn and nachos and drinks i want chips too when i‘m watching a film what😭😭🥺🥺🥺🥺
Also i still haven’t watched it so thanks for not spoiling it!!! (idk when i’ll watch it i’m so bad with films and even worse with series💀💀💀- same with cherry. i literally forgot all about cherry, i was SO hyped when the trailer came out like i’ve never been so excited about a movie... and then it came out... and i still haven‘t watch it like what‘s wrong with me???? Dkdjdjdjdklsl i feel like i‘m not gonna watch it anytime soon tbh, but i wanna watch chaos walking i just have to find the time
Okay and @ your other friend who wasn‘t paying attention like why are you even watching the film then???? but ok (omg this sounds so mean i‘m sure she‘s very nice but in this situation just like❔❔❔)
SIMS ahhh, BUNK BEDS, ahhhh sdljdjdjdkdkdldksj i actually haven‘t played it since the update 🤧🤧 i made both of my sims (enisa (bestselling author already, thank you) and michael (aspiring doctor)) go to university and bro it takes so long 😭😭 and you can‘t do anything else if you want them to do well so literally the last three times i played sims i was just constantly clicking their homework and computerd to write their assignments (i play it in german so idk what its called on the sims) and do their presentations and do them all over again so that they get better or whatever for HOURS, but imma play again soon
also i‘m living my fanfiction life loool, so i made my two sims neighbours (on the same plot tho but i made two small separate houses lol, i still wanted to control both of them at the same time but i made sure they didn‘t interact before i wanted them to skdjdjdk). and first they both experimented and got some experience in the love department you know (all genders, cause i have to live my sexuality even in a pc game slskdjh— wait, i‘ve never lived my sexuality irl like i‘ve done NOTHING nothing with guys nothing with girls (🥲) but maybe that’s why i want to do it even more in the sims) and then they met at uni and realised like hey we‘re neighbours and now they‘re together (but michael accidentally had an alien baby with another woman (who was an alien which i was not aware of) cause i wasn‘t paying attention like i said woohoo not try for baby like michael why is your pull out game so weak tf LSHDDHDJDJSKKDKSKDKS okay but making out and flirting and doing all the fun stuff in the sims turns me on way more than it should PFAHAHHAHSH) so idk why i told you this but I’m creating that neighbour!au in the sims lmaoooo
i did not have to google Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsübertragungsaufgabengesetz (just did it again😌 sisjshhs) but i might have mixed up the words überwachung und übertragung or i might have even forgotten a word skskks but in the end it doesn‘t matter (by linkin park- ok i‘m so sorry it‘s 2 am and i have a headache from having waveformers in my hair all day but i still wanted to reply to this now so sorry if i‘m not making any sense right nowbahahshah)
i wanted to be a mermaid too dldjdksksj like h2O and all those series convinced me i could be one like. i remember i‘d always go in the deep pool and attempt to swim like them in all the series with that wave motion i must have looked so crazy with my goggles as well dkdjsksöksj (i was like twelve but still)
so mgk has two sides one is hip hop/rap which is like ~~~~ idk he has good and bad songs, but his latest album is like punk pop snd I LOVE IT SO SO SO SO SO MUCH, so if you like punk pop I’d recommend his album tickets to my downfall (i don‘t blame yoj if you don‘t like it tho like about a year ago i would have HATED that type of music dkdkdkkd)🥴
Okay talking about music, there‘s this german rapper and he is... not a good person. he‘s literally a criminal and extremely sexist but to me he‘s still hot???????? he‘s even cute at times even tho he has tattoos everywhere and is like 6‘5 and is super aggressive but i see him and i‘m like 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰 my heart beats only for you💘💘💘💘and he released a new song today and i watched the video and i‘m wondering wtf is wrong with me 😃 (he did look particularly cute cause he was high so idk he wasn’t really aggressive in this one) 😭 so i thought i‘d share that LMAO IDK
(not saying tattoos aren‘t cute btw i LOVE tattoos imma get some soon, but you know he looks like someone your grandma would be afraid of (and in his case rightfully so💀)
okay wait i‘m getting so tired it‘s 2 am i think i‘ll have to do the rest tomorrow but i wanted to do it now😭🥺🥺 see you tomorrow
it is now 3:42 am and i couldn‘t sleep so here we go again
girl you can laugh at me for liking justin tho skskks i wanna laugh at myself idk, like i said i really really really liked him a few years go, basically my life was at least 50% justin and then he went on a break for a while and released an album last year which i hated 🥴 but this album is wow. (Still weird to me because it‘s literally the definition of pop and i don‘t ever listen to pop?) and it‘s so weird because i used to know so much about justin and had so many friends who loved him as well and now it‘s like I’m listening to someone new? Don‘t get me wrong i never KNEW justin and i never will and i‘m aware of that shahsh but yeah i used to be soooo used to him and it‘s like reconnecting with an old friend and you realise you don‘t know that friend anymore- like you don‘t know them anymore at all. I mean justin is weird nowadays 😂😂😂 so pls laugh at me tbh dskksjsjsh
awww it‘s so wholesome that you gave your mom tickets to the concert 🥺🥺🥺🥺 i gave my mum tickets for pink like 2 years ago and she loved it so much and i was like 🥰🥰🥰 (i went with her) AND OMG GLEE ok so unfortunately i barely remember glee, but i used to watch it too!!!! And it‘s actually on my list of series i wanna watch (again) so youre making me want to watch it even more (but like i said i‘m bad with series so 😩😩😩 who knows when i‘ll rewatch it)
When all this pandemic shit is over (let‘s be hopeful <3333) then you need to go to as many concerts as possible!!!!! i‘ve been to SO MANY and it‘s literally one of the things in my life i‘m the most grateful for, concerts are some of the best experiences i‘ve ever had in my life especially the ones that are in smaller concert halls where you can feeeel the vibe and everyone‘s energy (and that sounds awful thinking about it mid-pandemic 😐) anyway—
Okay omg you‘re absolutely making me want to watch hamilton right now like omg i WANT TO WATCH IT NOW but it‘s 4 am sodndkdldl
what you said about my peter fics🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺like omg i love these emojis they literally just describe how i felt when reading what you said so, yes, 🥰🥺 + thank you :) it really means a lot <3
and no omg i totally get the studying thing. like last year before i graduated .. was that last year? yes wtf omg okaykdjdj, so the last three months before i had my final exams we were just in a lockdown and we didn‘t even have online classes. We had nothing except one teacher who left our group chat (😭) because she was mad at us (?) and one maths teacher who did an online ““lesson““ once a week. he‘d ask: so does anyone have questions. us: . Him: okay, bye then. So. Yeah dndldldj. But we had one online test and it was in german and like i read the book wee were supposed to read? but the questions on the test were all unanswerable (is that a word?) and i had to google everything (got an A tho 🤪 but only because i googled everything so i was so scared that i wouldn‘t be able to get a good result on the final exam because what if i‘d gotten used to just googling everything and i couldn‘t do it by myself anymore? anyway it was all fine in the end but yeah at times i couldn‘t even study because i had so much anxiety about studying and yeah- like this whole annoying cycle. but you said you‘re still studying———- okay wait 👁👄👁 i forgot what i was going to say??????????????????????????????????????????????????? Like wtf. Is wrong with me? And i‘m reading what you wrote again and i just don‘t know what i was going to say? Like i get what you‘re saying obviously but i‘m like? Idk 4am brain ayeee, please vent more if you need to and elaborate further because right now i‘m???? Too dumb to respond to this right now wtf. I‘m so sorry lmao ddlkdjdjd what is even going on like i‘m sitting here open mouthed just like ? But btw the fact that you have Voice and dance lessons is like SO FUCKING COOL like oh my god that is sosososos cool wtf, i was thinking that when you first talked about it too
And “i want you to chanel the knowledge within yourself of the centripetal force of the circle that is the table on this stage” ODHDKSLDBDJDOFIDKDNDLDK
Yes i know about the weather dkdkdkjd but it‘s getting (a lot) warmer here too and where i live we kind of get a weird type of wind called föhn (which literally means hair dryer but idk if that‘d the reason why it‘s called that, i‘m too tired to think of whether it makes sense rn) and it gives me headachesssssss and the changing weather is also giving me headaches 😭😭😭😭 so this season right now is just headache season and i hate summer so i wish it would just snow again lmao (okay it‘s getting so late that it‘s early already snd i can hear this bird chirping so fucking loud wtf i‘m also getting a headache 🤧🤧🤧) but at least i can do my new theme soon (i hope it‘ll look good🥺 and omg thank you for what you said about my current theme- i always feel like i‘m so bad with aesthetics, i obviously like my theme but i feel like every single person on tumblr has a theme that is prettier than mine so it was very nice to hear you say that you love it👉🏼👈🏼 (i‘m so used to it by now that i actually hate it lmao so it‘s getting yeeted soon and i‘m making megan thee stallion my pfp 🤪 (if the graphics and shit works out skdjdjdj)
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migleefulmoments · 4 years
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"No one will ever convince me he made that statement, and if you listen to his ACTUAL words about that, he didn’t say he wouldn’t take any more LGBTQ roles." Darren literally said that the gay community would have his head if he took another gay role but somehow to tinhats like Cassie, that means the next role he takes will be a gay character. I guess Darren meant that he knows the gay community will try to murder him, but he has faith in his ability to avoid their attempts. They're such freaks.
When they make grandiose and sweeping statements like this, I feel the full weight of the disinformation campaign they all embrace. Cassie claims “When you listen to his actual words…he didn’t say he wouldn’t take any more LGBTQ roles” so we have to see if she’s telling the truth or she’s manipulating reality in order to soothe their anxiety and allow them to easily fetishize the gay version of Darren. 
What did Darren say? (You can read the entire Bustle piece (X))
“There are certain [queer] roles that I’ll see that are just wonderful,“ Criss explains when we speak at a recent event for Clorox’s What Comes Next in New York, a few days after he returned from an overseas tour with his Glee co-star Lea Michele. ”But I want to make sure I won’t be another straight boy taking a gay man’s role.“Although Criss says it’s “been a real joy” playing queer characters like Blaine, Cunanan, and Hedwig in the Broadway musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, he now doesn’t feel comfortable taking those roles, which is “unfortunate,” he says. “The reason I say that is because getting to play those characters is inherently a wonderful dramatic experience,” he adds. “It has made for very, very compelling and interesting people.”
One of the reasons they claim they don’t think Darren said the words is because they claim that print interviews are fake: 
12/18/18  ajw720 answered: 
I would like to see a video as well, nonnie, as I don’t actually think he said any of this shit. Print articles are never, ever to be trusted. They are generally fabricated.  
If you recall nonnie, D himself called out an article earlier this year (it may even be the one referred to in this piece of crap) for taking a quote of his out of context about his Filipino Heritage, likely as he was sick of being called white repeatedly.  Fact is, while he is able to correct the “white” narrative, he, at this time, is not able to correct the straight narrative so he can’t even defend himself when this utter nonsense is published in his name.
First of all print articles aren’t generally fabricated and most CAN be trusted if you vet them properly. Claiming  “ALL print articles are fabricated”- and therefore not to be trusted is a perfect cctrope because it gives them the out they need to label everything they don’t like-every single quote, every single story, and every single description as fake news. It’s the perfect strategy for ignoring everything Darren talks about that proves he isn’t Blarren- all the puns and sexual innuendos, all the crude comments, all the sweet things he says about Mia or his sexuality. All they have to do is remind their followers that it was in a print article and Woosh- it’s invalid. Trump is doing the same thing with his base-he’s grooming them to believe that the media is dangerous and that everyone fabricates stories about him. He calls them “the enemy of the people” so when the. NYT proves he laundered money for years through the Russian mafia or that he actively cheated during the 2016 election and is trying to cheat in 2020, his base will scream “fake news” and threaten to go all 2nd amendment on the rest of us.  
Once again Abby uses something to prove her point but misses the fact that it actually proves she’s full of shit- Darren did push back on the interview where he was misquoted regarding his Filipino heritage but he hasn’t pushed back on any other interview he’s ever given. We can see he’s capable of pushing back, he’s interested in making sure he is quoted accurately and yet we’ve seen no other example- the reasonable conclusion is that is because the other interviews weren’t misquoted.    
e Bustle piece and understand that he said he will no longer play LGBTQ characters. It’s clear that Darren has a far deeper understanding of the issue than Cassie and Abby.  Splitting hairs and claiming he didn’t specifically say he would never play a bisexual or trans character is stupid. What Cassie and Abby are missing in the article is this paragraph:
This conversation about straight actors being cast in gay roles is about more than just LGBTQ actors losing out on Oscars, of course. It’s about Hollywood missing an opportunity to embrace new talent who would better serve these stories. And over the years, actors like Criss have become more sensitive to these types of concerns. The Versase star understands that there is an added honesty to actor getting to play characters who share their identities. “The commitment to that drama is told in such a way that it can really effectively reach people’s lives,” Criss says. “I think that really is important.”
Abby gets her wish- there is an audio recording of him making this statement-albeit it was 4 months prior to the Bustle interview and he seems to have evolved his understanding of the importance of representation in those 4 months. In the Hollywood Reporter interview he said:  
“….But I do think about that now, you know, if roles come by that are LGBT leaning - I really think it would be insensitive to the gay community if I were to take another role. I think they’d have my head. You know, I would totally understand that. So I’m certainly cognizant of it. And while it is very tricky, I think the discussion and the questioning is really really important. And I think it’s good that we’re uncertain and I hope that we can find some kind of balance.” -Darren Criss, 8/26/18 
I am an idiot and can’t remember how I got the audio portion of the interview on to my blog so I have to refer you to my old post if you want to hear Darren say the words (X). 
I think you are correct- Darren is well aware the gay community will kill him but he doesn’t care because he has superpowers. 
EDIT** I found this charming comment from Chrisdare who is a “journalist” yet she knows nothing about journalism. I got in an argument with her once and she schooled me that journalists aren’t educated.and will say anything a publicist tells them too.  Whatever, Valentina,  Google should be your friend.     
Anonymous asked: It wouldn’t matter if you saw a video because you wouldn’t believe it anyway. You would say he was being forced to say it. Fact is CCers haven’t believed a thing
ajw720 answered:I believe many things nonnie. I also have a deep and fundamental understanding about hollywood works nonnie and that is something you clearly lack.
Further, if D was straight, i believe he would never allow them to portray him as an asshole.  D is an incredibly intelligent human being, he knows exactly how negatively the straight push reflects on him. and frankly, it would not be necessary if he exclusively slept with female persons with vaginas.
Have a nice life living in delusionville.    
chrisdarebashfulsmiles JCS shut the f** up. 
When we talk about articles and how they are made we talk about facts. I hate when you come here busting balls on professional stuff when you don’t know anything. You can’t even imagine all the shit we do as journalist
It’s not a matter of cc but the fact they are ruining D’s life and career. And if you are a fan you need to start opening your eyes and stop being an enabler. I swear you should feel guilty when he will come out because you helped keeping him in the closet.
Talk about dellusionville! 
**********Edit Edit *******(X)
chrisdarebashfulsmiles  Because there’s a power of attorney that allows RR and Ab to do so. To say something D has to prove that the article is harmful and he has to do it through a legal action. And this means breach of contract with all it entails like the two years of stop from signing an anything.
That IS NOT how “power of attorney” works.  But nice try- 10 points for originality and imagination! 
***Edit Edit Edit *********
Anonymous asked: An article you should read to help you understand how journalism works .tinyurl/com/y9s49tms. German Reporter At Der Spiegel Fired for Fabricating Stories “On A Grand Scale”. “I’m so angry, horrified, shocked, stunned,” Der Spiegel deputy foreign editor Mathieu von Rohr tweeted Wednesday. “Claas Relotius faked, he cheated on us all.” Journalists can’t just make up stories or publish falsities no matter how much you want to believe that is happening in Hollywood.
chrisdarebashfulsmiles answered: It’s amazing how is crystal clear that you never worked in a magazine or in a PR firm. I work since 2004 and I don’t need an article… I know how it works. We aren’t talking about WSJ and serious stuff. We are talking about gossip and showbusiness so don’t try to be smug because you are failing.
Have nice day/ night wherever you are. :) it’s evening here and I’m enjoying my free time.
bjpb8 Oh, my gosh who is this person. People thrive on gossip and “Rags”. IT SELLS. First begain with papers like En/quire, The Globe, etc. Then spread to SM with blinds. You think other magazines and papers do not want to make money. Everyone prints what sells depending on audiences. Embellishment is part of the trade. They want to catch your interest, which feeds right into what PR wants to sell! Tts a sybiotic relationship at best! It is just some are more talented at making what sounds like truth out of lies. Its called entertainment. You might want ro “read” about it.
The author of the Bustle interview has a master’s degree in journalism from CUNY New York so it is more like the wall street journal than it is the “website” you work for Valentina. Journalists have a degree in journalism.  Anyone can be a blogger - you’ve proved that. 
****Edit Edit Edit Edit *******
D/arren did not write that post! (X) 
12/19/18
ajw720 I have enough faith in Dar/ren Cri/ss personality and his respect and love for his fans to know that the comments attributed to him were not his.  I’ve seem this happen before…I’m sure many of you have, also.  Darr/en is stuck between a rock and a hard place right now.  When he finally writes a memoir about this time, he will let us know about his anquish, anger and remorse.  If one is a TRUE CC and Dar/ren fan, after years of roller-coaster rides via PR, et al…I will continue to take the advice of the person that runse THIS SITE.  “Trust the process…”
***********************************************************************
@geminess We have to trust the process and believe that C and D are working hard towards an ending to this absolute tragedy that is legally clean and does not jeopardize either of their careers.  
I believe in them, I cannot accept that D would ever willingly choose to represent himself in this manner and to continue this nightmare of a charade surrounded by utterly and completely vile, disgusting human beings.
Please, please, please may we be right.  I cannot repeat enough there is no alternative ending that is acceptable but D breaking free by ending this sham of an encage, severing ties with his inhumane team, and eventually coming out.  
And yesterday proved once again just how frightening the alternative is.  I would fear for his career and his life.  And it baffles and amazes me that anyone watching, even if you believe he is the straightest man alive, cannot see how harmful that article was.  It was like he used the LGBT+ community to win his awards and is now ready to dismiss them.
(X) 12/19/18
Anonymous asked: On the bright side, this means we’re coming to the end right?
ajw720 answered: Anon, we honestly don’t know, but we can only hope. If D extends his time with these assholes, it will be very ugly for him personally and professionally.
But logic seems to say that this article, the literally offends every fan but the blind and naive, is wholly unnecessary if in fact they are going to continue a professional relationships. And it did not just the fans, think about how many award voters they offended yesterday with that utter piece of crap.
Absolutely and utterly unreal. Hard to believe they are able to get away with working against their client at every turn.
Logic? One thing the cc fandom has proven in the last 10 years is that they do not understand or care about logic. 
12/24/18 (X)
ajw720 It’s interesting how there are such varying opinions on the “straight boy” article. And I think it comes down to 2 questions:
1. Do you believe D is a willing participant in his closeting?
2. Do you believe he actually said what the article alleges?
My answer to both is a resounding no (though he will be forced to validate the comments) and I have good reason to think this. But I certainly see why ones perspective is different if you answer one or both as yes.
This being said, no matter your answers to the above, I don’t see how it can be justified that he would dismiss b/laine in such a manner. And the timing, because I still think it makes him look like an ass and /or a coward as awards are voted for playing queer. And to repeat, I don’t think he should play queer again until his team is dismissed, so I’m not disagreeing with the premise, just the manner it was done, which again, I believe was without his consent.
Not posting to start a fight. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. I clearly am not afraid to state mine, which is very reasoned and based on a lot of information I’ve collected.
Just interesting that some very intelligent people, all of whom believe he’s closeted, can vary so much in what they believe.
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benhardyisdaddy · 5 years
Text
Royal Protection - Part 10
MASTERLIST 
(ooof hello ily im sorry) 
Word Count: 1,356
The figure became visible and you knew exactly who it was. Your heart fell as their face was lit up by the bright light above you. 
“Claire?” you barely whisper. 
Her face was twisted up with regret and fear. Tears were welt up in her eyes as she takes a step forward, causing you to flinch back. She stops and opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. You begin to shake as you feel your head pounding. You have so many thoughts running through it right now, you don’t know what to do. 
“I don’t understand what’s happening.” you say as you lean your head forward. 
“I’m so sorry.” she says fast. “I didn’t want to do this. Please believe me. It wasn’t my idea!”
Your eyebrows knit together as you try to wrap your head around everything that’s happening. 
“If it wasn’t your idea, then explain to me why I’m tied up to a bloody chair!” you scream out of anger. 
You were breathing hard and your face was red. You were beyond angry at the situation. Claire had slightly jumped when your voice raised. 
“He made me befriend you!” she explains. “He had this whole thing planned from the beginning!” 
“Who!?” you scream. 
“I can’t tell you!” she yells back. “I-I wish I could. I’m so sorry.” 
You catch your breath as you look down at the floor and feel yourself beginning to sob. 
***
“Are you sure that’s where the phone says she is!?” 
Ben’s sat in the driver's seat of the car as he speeds through busy traffic. He’s on the phone with Lucy as she correctly and accurately pinpoints your exact GPS location. 
“I’m sure!” she says nervously. “Ben, you have to find her. Please.” she begs. 
Ben tenses his jaw and nods. 
“Believe me, I will.” 
“Should-” Lucy drops her voice to a low whisper. “Should I tell everyone? They need to know. We have alliances in the states, they can be there to help you.” 
Ben’s quiet as he thinks for a moment. He nods his head to himself and exhales. 
“Yes,” he breathes out. “Tell them.” 
And with that, he hangs up. His phone is on route to an old abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere. Luckily, Lucy had gotten the exact address for it. Ben’s back seat was filled with a duffel bag filled with everything he needs for something exactly like this. He was trained for this. His heart broke knowing you were all alone and terrified with god knows who. 
He keeps thinking about what could be happening right now, which causes him to grip the steering tight. His knuckles turn white as he tenses up on the rest of his drive. He was angry at himself for leaving you alone. He was angry and knew this was all his fault. If he hadn’t of let his feelings get in the way, then maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe you would still be okay. 
***
“So us being friends,” you start. “It was all fake. You only did that for… What? This?” you ask as you look around the dark room. 
“At first it was an act. I was told not to actually like you, but I couldn’t help it. You were so kind and funny and nothing like royalty at all. You weren’t who I thought you would be.”
“And yet, here we are.” you say rolling your eyes. “Me texting you about everything and where I was - Was that part of your little plan?” you spat. 
Claire frowns and looks down. 
“I thought the plan would go away. I thought he would forget about it, but he didn’t. He’s so hell bound about getting this money.” 
Claire is close to you as she kneels down to be at eye level. You’re staring at the floor as you slowly move your head up to look her in the eyes. 
“This is all for money?” you ask, confused. “So when he gets his money, you’ll let me go?” 
“That was his plan.”
Your eyebrow raises up as the same question fills your head over and over again.
“Who is he?” you hiss. 
Claire slowly shakes her head and closes her eyes. 
“You don’t want to know.” she says as she stands up, turns and begins walking away. 
“Why not!?” you shout upset. 
Claire freezes and turns her head to face you. Her expression is so sad. 
“Because... It’ll break your heart.” 
***
“Did you tell them?” asks Ben to Lucy. 
“I did.” she says. “They’re furious. I’ve never seen them like that. The castle has gone mad with people running around. I’m terrified.” she whispers as she begins to cry. 
“I know,” says Ben softly. “I am too. Lucy, don’t worry. I’m gonna find her. Trust me.” 
“I do trust you. Just, please. Hurry.” 
She hangs up and once more Ben is alone with himself in silence. He’s trying to focus on the directions and turn at every road he needs to, but the thought of you is making it difficult. He drives several more minutes when suddenly ‘you have reached your destination’ pops on. Ben stops his car fast and looks around. It’s a two-story old abandoned warehouse factory. Some of the building is exposed to the outside world, while other rooms were still closed off. All of the windows were boarded up and the building itself looked hauntingly terrifying. 
Ben made sure to park somewhat far away from the building, not wanting anyone to spot him. He jumps from the car and opens the back door. He pulls out his duffel bag and unzips it. He pulls out his gun and a few of it’s rounds. He looks back to the building and quietly shuts the car door. He sneaks around the forest that blocks the building and creeps up to what should be the entrance. Ben freezes when he hears something in the distance. 
“Let me out!” 
It’s muffled and far away, but his heart jumps when he realizes it’s you. He looks around his surroundings and realizes it’s clear. He makes a break for it and holds the gun out in front of him, aiming at anything and everything. He turns a corner fast and holds it up quickly, but there’s nothing. Ben quickly takes his phone from his pocket and checks your GPS location once more. You’re not too far from him. 
“Let me go!” 
He hears you scream again. You sound so terrified. He puts his phone away and holds his gun up once more. He’s getting closer. You’re not on the top floor, nobody would be on the top floor. This building looks like it could fall down at any moment. He glances down at the floor to make sure he won’t step on anything that will make too much noise. He maneuvers his way around walls and feels like he’s in a maze. Ben walks by a door and stops. He hears something. It’s the sound of muffled cries and something moving around. 
He turns to face the door and aims his gun. Ben’s breathing hard as he reaches forward and gently twists the old rusted doorknob, allowing it to creak open. He winces at the piercing noise, but stops when he finally spots you. He stomach drops as he gets closer and realizes you’re tied up and now have fabric tied around your mouth, making you unable to shout out. Ben lowers his gun slightly and walks closer to you. When he’s visible in the light, your eyes go wide. Tears slide down your face as you attempt to say something to him. Your eyes go wide with fear as you shake your head and slash your body around. You’re screaming out something, but he can’t make it out. 
“It’s okay! I’m here now! It’s oka-” 
Ben realizes you’re not staring at him with wide eyes, but you’re staring at something behind him. You were warning him. Before he can turn around and aim his gun, someone had ran up and used an old crow bar to whack him in the back of his head. 
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itspileofgoodthings · 5 years
Note
Hi genius. I need to know where gorgeous fits into your thoughts on gc and komh. Loved that SO MUCH.
AHHH
I’m so glad you liked it!!!!!!
And thank you so much for asking! Because Gorgeous is one of the songs that I’ve talked about so much in random places that I wasn’t going to write a reputation breakdown post on it specifically but it’s nice to come back to it in light of my post today..
Basically I think Gorgeous’ placement before Getaway Car and King of My Heart is extremely right because it kind of warns you that both these stories are coming. I love Gorgeous because it’s full of such contradictions. Its surface is bright pink, bubbly, sparkling but it is full of restlessness, nervousness, and, the way I read it, a deep bitterness. I just- I don’t think she’s joking when she says she’s furious, when she sings “you make me so happy it turns back to sad”, when she talks about stumbling home to her cats and, despite the lightness, you can feel her loneliness, awkwardness, and just a hint of shame? Gorgeous isn’t about being like “omg you’re so hot” as much as it is about being deeply upset by another person’s existence- ocean blue eyes, looking in mine, I feel like I might sink and drown and die- to the point of sadness, to the point of anger, even though there’s still “all these circus lights and music playing loudly” (cc: @madamescarlette)
I personally think the only time a crush really does that to you is when you know you have no chance of it ever being anything more than one-sided. Taylor knows she has no chance with this guy, not because he’s out of her league but because she’s already with somebody and there’s a latent fury that runs through it because of that, something shame-faced and a little spoiled but also truly deeply wanting.
And in relation to Getaway Car and King of My Heart- I think Getaway Car happens as a result of Gorgeous, because she had to get out of whatever situation she was in. I think King of My Heart is where she immediately wanted to go in Gorgeous and the fact that she couldn’t is what makes her sad and angry. Because, again, Gorgeous isn’t just about seeing someone who is attractive and being like “must have”- it’s about seeing someone you know somehow that you WILL like, who is already yours but is clearly not yours yet, and is absolutely gorgeous and the sheer audacity of that ruins your whole night. :D
(Does this make sense? It was better in my head. But I hope you see what I’m saying!!)
Also my absolute fave moments of Gorgeous include:
1. you should take it as a compliment I’m talking to everyone here but you
this is embarrassingly accurate and i hate that she’s right, I hate that I know what she’s talking about, I hate it i hate it i hate it (but I don’t, it’s fantastic.)
2. if you have a girlfriend I’m jealous of her, but if you’re single that’s honestly worse
because SOMEHOW that is exactly what it’s like????? it makes no sense, reason is gone, rational arguments don’t stand a chance, this IS what it’s like.
3. the trifecta of sighs/scoffs after she sings about her cats. It goes from disgusted laugh to an exasperated laugh to this genuine sigh. THESE ARE JUST BACKGROUND VOCALS/PRODUCTION AND THEY SAY SO MUCH.
4. the whole effect in this song, so exquisitely described by @madamescarlette, as drawing circles around the person you like so you don’t disturb them with your presence but then absolutely being eaten alive because and if they DON’T notice you but then wanting to die and/or run when they do.
Crushes are terrible and wonderful and Gorgeous just gets that. 
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