#at some point i might make a post just detailing what exactly is going on to see if anyone has any advice
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AO3 Etiquette -UPDATED
Based on both decent and not so decent replies, I have made some changes to my original post below.
It would seem a whole new kind of AO3 reader/writer is emerging and it is becoming clear not everyone quite understands how the website community works. Here is some basic guidance on how most people expect you to go about using AO3 to keep this a fun community archive that funtions correctly:
As well as likes, kudos is for when the story was interesting enough to make you finish reading. If it sucked or was badly written, you probably left. If you finished it, you liked it - so kudos.
If you really liked it, you should try to comment. It can be long and detailed or a literal keysmash. Writers don't care, we just love comments.
No critisism unless the author has specifically asked or agreed to hear it (so use your notes to say if you want some constructive feedback). Even constructive critisism is a no-no unless an author note tells you it's okay. No, posting it online is not an open invitation for that. Many people write as a fun hobby or a way to cope with, among other things, insecurity and just want to share. Don't ruin that for them. I've seen so many authors just stop writing coz they can't handle the negative emotions the critism brings, and it's only meant to be a fun thing shared for free (pointing out tagging errors is not included in this).
Do not comment to ask the author to write/update something else. It's tacky and off-putting and will probably have the opposite effect than the one you want.
There is no algorithm, it's an archive. Use the search and filter function to add/remove the pairings/characters/tropes etc. you want to read about and it will find you the fics that fit the bill.
For this to work, writers must tag and rate stories. This avoids readers finding the wrong things and missing the stuff they want. I don't care how cringy that trope is in your eyes - it gets tagged.
The tag exception is if you don't want to tag a million things or spoil your story, you can rate it as "chose not to use warnings," and maybe tag the bare minimum.
Don't censor tags. How can someone exclude a tag if the word isn't typed out correctly? There are no content bans for terms so don't censor them.
If the tags are mostly content/trigger warnings, especially if they are things considered very fucked up or graphic, you might want to use "dead dove - do not eat" to ensure people know that you're not messing around with tags and what they get is exactly what you've warned them about.
Character A/Character B means a ROMANTIC or SEXUAL relationship of some kind. Character A&Character B is PLATONIC, like friendship or family.
Nothing is banned. This is an rule because banning one thing is a slipperly slope to banning another and another, until nothing is allowed anymore. Do not expect anyone to censor for you. Because of the tags system, you are responsible for your own reading experience.
People can create new chapters and sequels/fic series any time after they "complete" a story. So it's considered perfectly normal to subscribe, even to a finished story. You can even subscribe to the author instead just to cover your bases.
Do not repost stories or change the publishing date without an extremely good reason (like a complete top to bottom rewrite or an exchange youve written for going public). It's an archive, not social media. No one cares what's the most recent, only what fits their tag needs.
Instead of deleting a story you wrote if you hate it - consider making it anonymous or orphaning it so others can still enjoy it, without it being connected to your name anymore. If you still want to delete it, fair enough.
It's come to my attention that metaworks ARE allowed on AO3, which is something I wasn't aware of. So if you do post an essay or theory, please tag it as such so others can choose to search for it or exclude it. Art is also allowed.
The only reason this archive works is because NON ONE PROFITS. Do not link to your ko-fi or patreon or mention monetary gain in any way or you violate the terms and risk having your account removed. If anyone does link, it leaves the archive open to people claiming it's for profit and having the whole thing removed.
I KNOW there's plenty more I missed but I'm trying to cover most of the basics that people seem to be struggling with.
I invite anyone to add to this, but please explain, don't berate.
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That time Heisenberg stabbed Ethan with a rusty fencepost
Thanks to this one fic project that needed a pornographically detailed list of Ethan’s most memorable injuries, I've spent some time trying to figure out exactly what Heisenberg stabs him with when they first met. Working mostly from a free-camera version from youtube, I settled on calling a metal pipe with a square profile.
Tumblr: I was wrong. The reality is so much worse.
Having cracked the game files and installed my own free-camera mod, I tracked down the original asset for this thing, and, well...
No, really, this is it! Check out those matching cross-bars if you doubt me.
FWIW, it isn’t actually a spear. Those semi-mangled crossbars flag it instead as a spear-headed fence-post. (This may not be a distinction that Ethan would find very comforting after being stabbed with the thing, but there it is, regardless.)
In fact, if you poke around the cemetery area just outside the castle gate, you can even find the fence it presumably came from.
Look in on the cemetery near the church from the lane leading up to the Duke's shop beside it, and this is what you'll see.
It's not a perfect match (in fact, it's even worse viewed from the opposite side, because someone has clearly stuffed up the textures on different sides of the same asset). I'll also note that if you go back to this fence again after meeting Heisenberg, you won’t find any suspicious gaps in it where a post was recently ripped out. So I’m going to just go ahead and assume this particular piece was lying in a pile of surplus scrap in the cellar somewhere, and Heisenberg did not, in fact, drag the thing all the way there from well outside the whole damn building. I mean, at that point, you’re just showing off.
The fence post is, admittedly, pretty hard to get a good look at in the actual game. Unlike all the other crap Heisenberg already has levitating around him in this scene, the fencepost doesn’t appear at all until Heisenberg stabs Ethan with it. It actually seems to emerge at speed from between a couple of barrels at the back. But if you’re enough of a lunatic to play around with the various slow motion/rewind settings that came with the free camera mod, you can get a decent shot of it in flight, cleaning up any remaining doubt that this is the same asset that was used in game.
It even freaking spins in the air as it moves. FTR, yes, it does go in pointy-end first. And the whole fucking spearhead ends up buried in poor Ethan. (Please feel free to insert your own dick-joke here.) Those paying really close attention might even note that the blood on Ethan's shirt is present even before the spear hits him, but that's just going to be virtual-stunt-coordination having a normal one.
I can offer you no similarly definitive insight into why Heisenberg would think stabbing Ethan with this thing was a good idea. I can’t even tell you if he knew for sure that it was Ethan Winters he was talking to at this point (maybe he's just playing dumb, pretending not to recognise him. Or maybe he legit didn't know that Ethan himself had made an appearance until Miranda told him. Sure, he's already got that whole conspiracy board, but finding real pictures of this Ethan-guy is surprisingly hard.) But whether Heis was already testing out Ethan’s ‘interesting body’, or whether he’d just generally assumed that anyone who could survive a full lycan assault on the village wouldn’t be too seriously inconvenienced by a little stabbing, hoo boy was this one way to make a first impression.
I’m not even sure which of these losers is the bigger idiot here: the one who imagined Ethan might still agree to work with him even after inserting a very convincing imitation-spearhead into his intestines, or the one who never thought to seriously question how he keeps shrugging off injuries just as exciting as this one.
They probably deserve each other.
#Karl Heisenberg#Ethan Winters#RE meta#winterberg#Resident Evil Village#Resident Evil#RE assets#not to soapbox but that's also why the popularity of AO3's 'soft' Heisenberg tag makes me roll my eyes so hard#this dude is 'soft' like a fencepost to the gut
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Honestly? So much of Sonic Prime happens the way it does because Sonic is unabashedly, wholeheartedly neurodivergent, and I wanna talk about that in detail for several reasons
I think most people assume he has ADHD, and while I agree, I think they tend to leave it at "he's hyperactive and impulsive" when there's actually a lot more going on there.
For example, he lacks a filter. He says exactly what he's thinking, all the time, regardless of who's listening. I wouldn't be surprised if he does it as a type of vocal stim, considering that he talks to himself as much as he does to other people. Maybe he dislikes the way silence feels on his ears, too?
Something I noticed was that when Thorn gets on his case for this, asking if he ever stops talking, the way he says "eh, not really" sounds... almost resigned?
He could have easily said it in a more jokey way, but his tone (and the wide camera shot) gives me the impression that this isn't a trait of his that he feels especially positive about.
It's not cool or funny to him, at least not in this instance; it's just something he does, which further proves to me that it's more of an unconscious stim than anything else.
On the topic of the jungle world though, it also shows us a couple instances of him not being able to read others' intentions very well. Prim lies to him about knowing what the Prism shard is, and Thorn uses him to get to said shard - and despite how hostile they are, he takes both of them at their word.
He only realizes Thorn's intentions after she hits him across the clearing - not for the first time that day, mind you - and Sonic berates himself a little for not seeing this coming.
But it's not like this is the only time he has difficulty understanding intent; just look at his interactions with Shadow.
This is not the behavior of someone who understands why Shadow's picking a fight with him. He doesn't understand the implications of "you literally shook the world" because he doesn't know about the Weirder aspects of the explosion. In his mind, he just messed up a mountain.
Though I think his attitude implies another thing about his dynamic with Shadow that might explain why he was so quick to dismiss what he was talking about, which is. I don't think Sonic usually understands why they fight??
Shadow is a person of few words and Sonic has a hard time picking up on subtleties, that's a recipe for miscommunication already. And if Sonic's already predisposed to thinking that Shadow fights him Just Because, then of course he didn't take this particular instance seriously.
Though going back to "he only registered the physical effect of the explosion," Sonic is actually pretty consistent with understanding things that are tangible a lot better than anything else. Case in point: that One Palm Tree
His first reaction to seeing it presented as a gift is that it must be a trick. because he doesn't see the tangible point of the tree, and isn't enough of a symbolism guy to see the sentimental point of it, either.
Don't get me wrong, he is being insensitive here, but I don't think it's on purpose in any way. Look at his body language and expressions:
Even as he's getting on their case for being too sentimental, he's not unhappy or uncomfortable with them. He's just completely failing to recognize that this was supposed to be a big deal for them, so he's treating it way more casually than is appropriate.
Which is like. a classic social flub for neurodivergent folks
(Quick side note - this specific "huh" that he makes as Tails is flying away before Sonic realizes he's upset is a whole mood. I don't know how to explain it but this is Exactly what it feels like when you can sorta tell something's not clicking but you don't know what yet)
(Look at him. brain static)
I could go on with the detailed explanations but some of that would just be me repeating past posts I've made, so I'll leave it at "he is clearly not handling change well either" and link back to an example.
So anyway, this is what I meant when I said that so much of the show is impacted by Sonic being neurodivergent. It affects how we hear his thoughts as viewers, it affects his ability to understand and connect with his friends, it's why he dismisses Shadow, it's why he impulsively smashes the Paradox Prism, the list goes on.
And he's not stupid because of any of these traits, either. None of what I've described has to do with intelligence, but I've seen "Sonic is too dumb" as a reason to criticize the show, and that's just not what's happening here.
If anything, I'm actually really impressed with how well the writers have managed to portray a more nuanced take on what a character with ADHD would look like. Because he's not just being hyperactive and chatty, you can tell it affects how he perceives things too.
Which is a much bigger part of the overall experience, and it's really cool to see in a cartoon like this - and in the lovable main character, to boot! Who cherishes his friends despite his struggles to understand them! Why is it so good!
In conclusion Sonic is the ADHD king we both needed and deserved, thanks for coming to my TED talk
#sonic the hedgehog#sonic prime#sonic prime spoilers#analysis#meta#He might also have autism because there's a lot of overlap there#I mostly just went with ADHD because it seems to be the consensus#and it takes too long to specify that it could be either or both in the main post
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jax boyfriend headcanons
me when i make a headcanon post every blue moon... anyways, i watched the amazing digital circus and its safe to say... i love me some jax lol, also, i usually do nsfw headcanons as well however i decided to keep this sfw until i get some inspo on what to do with him spicy wise ;)
now this won't be as detailed as my feitan one (if you like hxh and especially if you're a feitan enthusiast then you definitely might want to check this out!) also, if you're looking forward to comissioning me to write (or draw) anything, dm me for now (i'll link my prices here when i get the chance)
warnings: tadc spoilers obviously but overall none so far??? jax just being jax and a bit of angst at the end, abstracting and all, you knew it was coming.
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how you first met
well for starters, jax will treat you just like he does everyone else, he's kind of an asshole and you may not like him at first, his cheeky and sometimes insulting remarks kind of either catch you off guard or rub you the wrong way, you get used to this behavior when the two of you confirm the relationship.
realizing he likes you
he is very conflicted with his feeling about this, he can't lie, the more he hangs around you, gets used to your personality, he doesn't know exactly what to do, he hasn't really felt any romantic attraction towards anyone since he came in from the real world, but something about you caught his attention, the others point out how weird he acts when they mention you, or better yet, when you're around, he's less... well, himself! after some time he kind of treats you a bit different from everyone else, he doesn't realize it but everyone spots it big time! he isn't as rude with you as he is towards everyone else, he might even give you a cheesy little nickname depending on what you are or what you look like (if you're shorter than him he might just call you shorty or tiny, if you're taller he'll probably call you skyscraper or giant.)
eventually, he confesses...
on a very special day, jax had eventually gotten tired of hiding his feelings, he had truly came to the realization that he liked you, like, a lot, one day he would go on to find you, and pull you to the side, and tell you... vaguely, that he liked you, you weren't exactly getting the hint, until he spat it out: "i think you're cute, and i want you to be my (partner), alright!?"
he was surprised that you said yes, knowing at first, you weren't exactly a fan of him, you said yes, you wanted to go out with him.. he didn't show how flabbergasted he was, always with his cool, composed expression, that smile and all. "a deals a deal."
you're his lover... now what?
so, pretty much everyone knows that the two of you are a thing, and he confident enough to make it clear that he loves you, enough time has passed for him to tell you that he loves and adores you, very much so.
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miscellaneous things
jealousy
when it comes to him being jealous, or more accurately; territorial, he'll get quiet, scarily quiet, his face is blank as he watches the person flirt with you, when you're not around, or on that day he feels particularly playful, he'll pick on them, and not in the usual way, straight up insults masked as a joke, don't forget, he also holds grudges, sometimes..
you abstracting
that day came, one of his biggest fears came true, you abstracted, he stared in disbelief as he watched, you looked at him with those eyes, you were not the same, and it was hard to come to terms with that, when cane puts you in the cellar, he can't help but shed tears, he doesn't wail (he saves that for later when he's alone) but it's something new for the others to experience.
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Happy when you're around | Florence Pugh
Paring: Florence Pugh x Reader
Summary: You're helping your girlfriend film her newest Cooking with Flo video, and help her with a Q&A on Instagram live.
Masterlist | Marvel masterlist | Words: 707
Florence was dancing around the kitchen, between the chopping of vegetables and stirring in pots. She was in the process of filming a Cooking with Flo episode. You were behind the camera making sure to get all the right angles to give her fans the best experience.
You loved how at ease Florence was in front of the camera, she had to be with her job of course but this was different. She connected with her fans, talked to them, even when her episodes weren't live and she couldn't see their responses or have a two way conversation with them. She never failed to find a new topic to talk about.
As a bonus Florence posted an extra story on her Instagram for her followers to send in questions, after she posted all the parts to the Cooking with Flo. She was nervous because she had never done this before, but she was excited when she saw all the questions come pouring in.
Florence wanted to answer the questions on an Instagram live. So, you suggested putting up a tripod to film her and to read the questions aloud from your phone, that way it was more like an interview. Flo thought it was a good idea, it eased her nerves a bit.
"Hi, everyone! I hope you enjoyed that little Cooking with Flo." She started. She knew how much they love the series, as they're always requesting more. "Thank you so much for all the questions you've sent in. My lovely girlfriend, behind the camera, will read as many of them out for me before we have to leave. I hope to answer as many as I can!"
You looked at Florence to give you the sign to ask the first question. Once she did you read one out for her. "Let's start off with a food related question, what is your favorite dish to make?" - "Hm that's a good one, I love so many. Honestly, I think my favorite thing to do is to create a dish from the leftovers we have. I get to be more creative and challenge myself."
You continue with the next question, "Are you working on any new projects at the moment?" Florence looks at you and smiles. "We just finished the press tour for A Good Person. If you haven't seen it yet, it's out in theaters now!" She plugs while making finger guns towards the camera. "But to answer your question, no not at the moment. I've had a busy couple of years work wise and while I'm very happy with that, I want some time with my girlfriend. So, I'm taking a couple of months off, and we're going to travel together. I've got some auditions planned before we go, so who knows after our trip I might have some new projects coming up."
You continue asking more questions, when you stumble upon one with your name. "Haha I like this one, I'd like to know your point of view on this. What is y/n like when she's filming your Cooking with Flo videos?" Florence moves her hands in a come here motion. "If you all don't mind, I'm gonna bring her in front of the camera for this one."
Once you sit down next to her, she starts answering the question. "Y/n is amazingly supportive behind the camera, and in general. She's very detail oriented and knows exactly what I want to show and when I want to give you all a closer look at something. Besides that I also have the cheesy answer, which is that she's beautiful behind the camera, and she always looks at me with the most admiring smile." You blush at all her compliments.
"That's because I'm always happy when you're around." You say while leaning into her more. She puts her arm around you. You see the screen filled with lovely messages from the audience and feel the smile on Florence's face. "We have to get going now, but I promise I'll answer more questions soon! Thank you for joining us and I hope you'll all have a wonderful day." With that you end the live and cuddle up to your girlfriend, before you have to get ready.
#florence pugh#florence pugh x reader#florence pugh x female reader#florencepugh#cooking with flo#florence pugh fluff#florence x reader
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so I swore I was not going to start speculating off of set images, but given the one's we've gotten of Dustin so far, I cannot help myself (plus it's fun). Still: none of the theories I've seen so far make as much sense to me as this being tied to Dustin's trauma and him having a Vecna Vision/Flashback, which becomes clearer the more you put the details revealed in the images into the context we've been given by S4 + The Duffers.
First, the images I'm referencing (TW: IMAGE SPOILERS):
Separately, these things (the basketball players, Dustin's hellfire fit being the same at both the grave and school + him wearing Eddie's rings + Mike's hair & attire) all feel a bit disparate...until you remember the things both Dustin is trying to cope with (Eddie's death + feeling like an outsider) and the Duffers have said re: Eddie and his effect on the characters (listen if you can, its only 3 min). Why?
Well, because we know for a fact that 1) Dustin and Mike were the ones who felt most aligned with Eddie given their being bullied—
—even though we spent all of S4 building the bond between Dustin and Eddie in particular, because Mike was in California with Will.
Similarly (and while I know it's not primary canon), we get this context from Lucas in Lucas on the Line, which corroborates Dustin's comment about Lucas "making all his sports friends" and feeling deeply betrayed by that fact—
—and even stuff about Mike's appearance "not changing" (pre-hellfire, in the moments he's still in S3/regressive conformist territory +not embracing himself)....something that Eddie talks about in S4 when he comments on the look Mike had when he met him.
(I've also already commented on that Mike's shirt looks a lot like the one El wears post Rink-O-Mania in S4—which plays a lot into the idea of Mike giving El a shirt that represents conformity to him (just like her being his girlfriend does, given he cannot be himself in front of her at all in S4).
Combining all of these things though—Dustin being the only one who is in the Hellfire shirt (while all the other extras look a very "S1 good suburban kid" I/ first day of school), Mike showing up (also looking like his 'conformist' self in contrast), Basketball players being on the scene (the people Dustin felt stole Lucas from him)...combined with him in the same outfit at the grave of the person he felt defended him from those losses and challenges in high school?
It's giving Dustin's grief / worst thoughts thrown back at him 100%.
Given that Eddie, who he lost in an extremely traumatic fashion is the one who said forced conformity (which Mike is showing up dressed as alongside Lucas's basketball friends) killed the kids—
—and now they are facing off with Vecna (and Henry by extension, whose says shit like THIS) on top of asking people to "join him" in his displeasure with the world when he 'takes their souls?'
On top of the fact that we KNOW for a fact there is time fuckery coming for us...and it's likely enough that it's 'now 'canonically 1986 (or near it), which is reminiscent of this moment (likely remembered and traumatizing for Dustin specifically)?
Yeah. Flashback / lead up into Vecna torture is exactly what it gives to me—the things causing the event / the moments that lead into the torture. Especially knowing the scenes shot first (aka now) are generally more SFX complex because they take the most time.
bonus: @magentamee also brought up some great points on this theory here!
bonus bonus: I wrote something on Dustin and standing apart from relationship conformity as early as S3 here and wrote up the relationship he has with nonconformity today, which I think plays into his feelings of alienation / what Vecna might pull him apart from his friends by showing him.
#analysis marie back with a vengance with only 6 pics smh#BUT I HAD TO MAKE THIS. IT WAS PULLING AT ME ON MY DRIVE TO WORK THE SECOND I SAW THE FINN PICS LMAO#st5 spoilers#st5 speculation#eddie munson#dustin henderson#mike wheeler#stranger things#st s5#my st commentary
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When the twisted wonderland anime comes out what are the things you hope they do better then what they could do in the game?
To quickly clarify a few things (so new readers and anyone stumbling across this post doesn't get the wrong idea): firstly, we do not yet have any confirmation on what the Twisted Wonderland anime will be about. Secondly, I have previously expressed that I would prefer the TWST anime to be random slice of life rather than another main story adaptation.
If we assume that the anime will be another adaptation of the main story, I don't think the anime staff has a ton of liberty in the alterations they can make to the source material. Book 2 is widely known to be the greatest example of Bad Writing in TWST, and it cannot exactly be swept under the rug since it's in the main story. I doubt anyone would be allowed to make massive rewrites to the script or to the series of events; the biggest changes we get are slightly compacted scenes in the manga and the light novel. For example:
Skipping lines that appear in the game. (Ex: in the Book of Heartslabyul, Ace does not joke about sharing a room with Yuuken.)
Combining scenes to save on time. (Ex: In the light novel, Yuuya and Deuce meet Leona for the first time not in the Botanical Garden, which is the case in the game. Instead, the mob student that broke the eggs meant for Ace's apology chestnut tart is a Savanaclaw kid that Leona shows up to reprimand.)
Adding slight details to fill in logical gaps. (Ex: Yuuya in the light novel is granted a NRC uniform by Crowley; the uniform is described to us, the readers. Yuu getting a uniform is never mentioned in the game.)
Continuing from the last point, new details can also serve to flesh out character motivations, backstories, and lore. (Ex: the Heartslabyul light novel informs us that Riddle faces social repercussions for his OB and almost got expelled from school; the Savanaclaw light novel sheds new light on Leona's motivations, and the same can be said of Riddle.)
So basically, the story (again, if the anime does end up following the plot of the main story) would be the same. What would make the anime different from the manga, game, and light novel is largely the medium in which it is presented. I have talked about this at length in a number of older posts, but here is one example of how the manga, uses visual storytelling (as it is primarily a visual medium). A manga chapter is usually limited in length due to it being physically printed and shared in a magazine alongside other manga; there is therefore a constraint on how long-winded it can be, and its limited pages must be used effectively. We need to think about the strengths and the weaknesses of each individual medium and how those strengths and weaknesses affect how it might slightly change how TWST I presented.
An anime is able to incorporate animation with sound in a 20ish minute time slot to tell a tale. It gets the same benefits of the game, but far more freedom of movement. There is, however, also a time constraint to be considered.
One complaint TWST often gets is that despite half of its core gameplay (I'm not going to count reading as gameplay) being rhythm games, the music the game has is NOT memorable. While the anime most likely won't have a ton of original songs, I hope that it can at least creatively incorporate some of TWST's scores as background tracks to fun scenes and make them more enjoyable that way.
The anime will also be able to... well, be animated!! We won't get just a static screen where a maximum of three characters are crammed onto the screen at once staring back at you. It's okay to have in the game to save on time and budget, but you have to admit it does get boring to look at after a while. But with an anime production, we can get exciting lighting and camera angles that result in cool animation! I hope that this will really help the TWST characters' stories come to life on the screen ^^
One scene in particular that I hope the anime will adapt well is the VDC/SDC performances of RSA and NRC. The game tells us that RSA's performance is clumsy and amateurish, but it still managed to capture people's hearts. The game also tells us that NRC was not able to perform at their maximum capacity because they were already physically worn down from dealing with OB Vil. I want to see these descriptions actually be realized on screen (the Rhythmic/Twistune alone isn't enough), as it could help us better judge and have an enhanced understanding of the situation. I know a lot of fans who, to this very day, still feel that NRC was cheated of the win and shouldn't have lost to such a lackluster performance from RSA, so I'm hoping that a fully animated version might give us more perspective.
#twst#twisted wonderland#twst anime#twisted wonderland anime#disney twisted wonderland#disney twst#notes from the writing raven#question#twst light novel#twisted wonderland light novel#twst manga#twisted wonderland manga#episode of heartslabyul#episode of heartslabyul manga#Ace Trappola#Deuce Spade#Dire Crowley#Yuuya Kuroki#Kuroki Yuuya#Yuuken Enma#Enma Yuuken#Leona Kingscholar#Riddle Rosehearts#Vil Schoenheit
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well it's been almost six months which I think is long enough to break my posting embargo, so, uh: guess what! I got liposuction lol. specifically hip/thigh lipo to quell some pretty wicked dysphoria that stemmed from having such a feminine silhouette… and I have to say I'm really, really pleased with the results.
tbh my initial plan was to keep things under wraps for good which is why I haven't said anything about it yet (and even as I'm typing this up I keep debating whether to post it or trash it)—partly because I was/am worried people might Act Weird about it and partly because I get a little embarrassed talking about bodygendershit in general. but here we are. one reason I do feel compelled to finally share, other than being super happy about how everything went, is that I haven't encountered a lot of discussions about body sculpting as a possible avenue of gender-affirming care (although, to be fair, maybe I just haven't been looking in the right places) and I figured at least one person out there would be interested to learn about what I did and where I've ended up so far.
anyway. pics/details under the cut—nothing even remotely risqué (or yucky), I just know that body image stuff is fraught + not everyone is eager to hear surgery talk.
to be precise: I got tumescent liposuction of the inner and outer thigh, plus this ultrasound thing to help the skin shrink. a different surgeon who I consulted (but ultimately did not go with for a number of reasons) said that even if I got the results I wanted from lipo, which he claimed was unlikely, the affected skin would look loose/baggy/weird forever... and that surgeon was wrong on both counts lol. my elasticity was great bitch!!!!
they didn't take out that much fat overall, only eight pounds or so, but it's way more about the Where than the How Much. my actual surgeon (who kicks ass btw) said lipo isn't that great for weight loss per se, and what it's really good for is sculpting targeted areas—so basically exactly what I did. six months post-op I actually weigh about the same as what I did pre-op, but the distribution has held steady; more weight goes to my stomach now and less, proportionally, goes to my hips since there are fewer fat cells in that area now. so my silhouette retains its new shape!
the overall change is admittedly on the subtle side, since I'm pretty short and have wide hip bones (and you can't change your literal skeleton) but it's still gone a looooooong way. the main thing I requested from my surgeon was "I want to fit in men's pants" and boy did he deliver.
also a good place to note that if you're in the las vegas area looking for a plastic and/or cosmetic surgeon—this guy is board-certified in both btw—then I absolutely have the guy for you. feel free to DM me for details. lipo is clearly his specialty (and it shows!) but he also does a lot of breast revisions/mastopexy (i.e., fixing implants that other surgeons did a bad job putting in), regular implants, and face work (particularly facial feminization surgery). one thing that sold me on this guy was an enthusiastic yelp review from a local stripper who said he hid the incisions for her breast lift in her armpits so none of her clients would notice that she'd had work done... a true master of his craft
okay you've scrolled enough so I'll give you what you're here for lol. I don't have many pre-op pics because I was obviously unhappy with how I looked and was not taking full-body selfies on a regular basis, but here's a few I took ~2 weeks beforehand:
these super thin men's joggers were my go-to dysphoria pants, to the point where I bought five pairs in different colors, but now they're so baggy on me that they have the opposite effect and make it look like I have wider hips than I do. so I retired them from my wardrobe...
...except not immediately because I had to wear compression garments 24/7 for the first three months post-op and these joggers were just loose enough to comfortably wear a medical girdle underneath them at all times, 110° degree temperatures be damned. (not that I was going out much for the first month since I was soooooooooooo fucking bruised and sore lol.) here's a few post-op pics in the same style pants:
(first pic is less than 24 hours post-op, about to go to my follow-up appointment, looking greasy as fuck because I wasn't allowed to shower yet; second pic two days post-op and also post-shower, thankfully; third pic is about a month post-op.)
so, like, CLEAR improvement already. I will not be posting pictures of my black-and-blue-and-swollen-all-over legs but considering how puffy I was from getting internally pummeled with a cannula it's wild that I still saw improvement literally as soon as I came home.
recovery was obviously not a blast in the moment but I got off easy, all things considered. I was supposed to get drains put in and was Not looking forward to that at all lol. the first thing I asked when I woke up after surgery was "how many drains?" because they weren't sure if I'd end up needing two or four, but it turned out the answer was zero. no drains!!!
I did have to lie with my feet elevated for the first two weeks straight, and had major bruising that receded over the first month (you could barely see my regular skin underneath all the mottled spots), but little to no nerve pain, no weird complications, and I was more or less back to normal after six weeks. also noelle took very very good care of me and was brave about injecting me with blood thinners so I wouldn't get clots and die :)
when I went into it I was fully expecting to get huge vertical scars up and down the sides of my legs (and had made peace with it!) but instead I wound up with four tiny incisions like this, each less than two inches long:
what's totally crazy is that the scars are basically Gone now. like even when I'm trying to find them I struggle to locate the ones in the front. I joked to noelle that if someone did an autopsy on me they might not figure out that I'd had cosmetic surgery, especially since the skin on my thighs is back to its normal color and texture. (in this scenario I like to imagine that it's dana scully giving me the autopsy and I'm in an x-files plot where instead of regular lipo I got alien lipo and mulder figures it out purely by accident.)
with lipo it can take up to a year to see the full results but I already feel so much fucking better in my body that seeing old pre-op pics throws me for a loop. and I can absolutely wear men's pants now—pants for short and stocky men, to be fair, but actual regular men's pants and not exclusively Pants For Men With Huge Butts And Legs. which is the only style I could even hope to fit in before. and even then it was a stretch.
big pic dump of shitty mirror selfies taken over the last few months:
:)
(also I really debated sharing this one but I already included it in the yelp review I left my surgeon so fuck it: here's a tasteful before-and-after in my undies where you can see my bare legs for easier comparison. left pic is one week pre-op, right pic is about five months post-op. including it as a link instead of embedding it in the post in case your boss happens to be reading over your shoulder at this very moment. also this is the one and only time you will ever see me stripped down on tumblr dot com so don't get used to it lol.)
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"Undeserving"
Hi! This was an expedited request by @mosshugs who asked that I go more into my headcanon of Astarion having ED behaviors. I want to preface this by saying I have limited experience with ED behaviors, and most of my experience and knowledge is from people I know with eating disorders, and I apologize if something I've written here doesn't feel correct for the experience.
So, BIG TW for eating disorder talk on this one.
If you'd like to have an expedited request, please check out the pinned post on my blog! (The masterlist can now be found under the tag freshimasterlist.)
When it comes to survival, it is difficult to foster nurturement, to find the strength to nourish even the smallest part of yourself. It is especially difficult for those who never had a nurturer, those who grew up without the protection of a mama bear, those who were ripped away from safety and forced into survival primarily, to find the strength to care, even if it's for themselves. While it seems like common sense, some part of you couldn’t ever fully understand the phenomena of nourishment and survival. That is, until you were faced with the conundrum head-on.
Astarion had somewhat perfected survival at this point, despite the fact that it was mostly not his choice. A more proper word choice might be endurance, the ability to persevere through torture despite your undying presence. Even now, he had endured all the way to the city, all the way to the legendary ‘Baldur’s Gate’ that you had been fighting towards for weeks. The two of you understood each other quickly, smoothly, reading each other like tea leaves. But, just like premonitions, not all of the details unfold as quickly as others.
Your vampiric lover had been feeding on you almost every evening since you found out about his little ‘secret,’ that he didn’t quite hide as well as he thought he did. Of course, it started when you were merely aquaintances, continued on when you were friends, and then turned into something more. Now, feeding on you is a romantic ritual of sorts, a sign of trust, a moment of recluse and safety. Safety is a word that Astarion is unfamiliar with, the feeling at least. But those moments he has drank from you, he has finally started to understand what exactly it means to be safe. That is, until he suddenly stopped.
You were waiting to face Cazador, a being who had now become one of multiple banes of your existence. Sadly, things on a wild adventure don’t necessarily schedule themselves neatly, which was making both you and Astarion jittery, anxious.
“We should rest soon you know. Plenty more villains to get around to.”
He isn’t fully listening, something you’re quite used to dealing with.
“I know.”
He’s more exhausted these days, moreso than usual. Everyone is tired obviously, but you’re more tuned into his energy than the others.
“Have you fed recently? It’s been a while since you’ve asked me.”
“Of course. How many people have I killed just today? Plenty of blood has been going around.”
He stands in the opening of the tent, staring off into nothing while you sit on the ground.
“You and I both know you don’t stop for long enough to get enough out of any of those fools.”
“And you take me for a liar?”
Astarion’s tongue is sharp, and he finally turns to face you.
“I take you for a liar, but not usually a liar to me. Now, come, drink some.”
You’ve had plenty of banters like this, where he has been difficult with you, but the night air doesn’t sit peacefully like on those nights. He’s not staring at nothing, but at the past, the future. He doesn’t bend to your whim.
“Really, my darling Tav, I am alright. Perhaps you should go to bed without me, I might be up for a while.”
Distant. He’s only distant when something is truly bothering him, just like he was in the beginning, just like he was when you met him on the beach.
“Astarion, why don’t you want to feed on me?”
Out of the myriad of things he doesn’t like, he doesn’t like direct confrontation from you. When it comes to safety, survival, nourishment, he likes to be elusive. He likes to hide from you, because sometimes you let him. He wasn’t allowed to hide before, when he was still living at the palace. Sometimes though, you can’t let him hide.
“Who said I don’t want to feed on you? Why, your blood is delightful! Delectable even.”
And there he goes, that slight seduction in his tone, a distraction.
“Then why haven’t you drank from me in days? Over a week at this point?”
Now comes the moment when he realizes there is no way out, that you’re onto him, that he can’t dance around it with his words any longer. He makes his way to be next to you.
“I… I’m not really sure Tav.”
A very rare occurrence, where Astarion sounds entirely clueless.
“What do you mean?”
“I, I mean I do want to. I’ve told you so many times before how much I delight at our feedings, I just-”
You give him a moment.
“I feel, wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“Wrong. Like it wouldn’t be right to feed from you.”
“Aster, I’ve told you how many times that I’m okay with you feeding on me. It’s even enjoyable at times! And besides, it’s good for you, and it strengthens our bond-”
“I don’t think any of that is what this is. And I do hear you, but this… this is different. Maybe it’s because we’re so close to confronting, him.”
Both of your faces change slightly at the thought of Cazador.
“Are you nervous? Because that seems entirely natural.”
“Well, yes. Of course I’m nervous, not that I would tell anyone else that. I think this though, is perhaps a feeling of being undeserving of something.”
“Like what?”
“Freedom, love, more than rats. I have wanted to feed on you numerous times, but I find myself being held back by this feeling of being… undeserving.”
“My dear, you are entirely deserving of feeding, especially on me.”
You move to comfort him, a light touching arm.
“I suppose it doesn’t feel that way right now. You know what I was forced to drink from before: flies, rats, other vermin. And of course, when you first offered for me to feed from you, I was so incredibly taken away by a luxury I was never given. Now though, I simply wonder if I should’ve ever had that luxury at all, or if I should have that luxury even now.”
“You are deserving though.”
“I don’t think that will fix it my love. I don’t know if anything that you say can fix this.”
One of the hardest truths of love, that your words cannot always fix their wounds. That sometimes, there are things you will never be able to heal by yourself.
“Then… how do we fix it? How do we make you feel deserving of feeding?”
He fumbles with his hands.
“Time? Patience? I don’t honestly know darling.”
You move a hand over to his wandering ones, hoping to ground him a little.
“Maybe, now that I know, we could at least try? Even just a little?”
There’s a hint of optimism in his demeanor, something you’ve seen more of over time.
“Alright then, we can try. But that’s all I can promise, an attempt.”
And so, he moves to prepare as you lie down, a much easier way to get your life’s essence taken. It’s a little more tense than usual, which makes sense following a conversation like that. There’s a moment where his teeth pierce your skin, and a piece of time where he does feed, and then there’s a sharp pull away. He seems almost nauseous when you sit back up. You cover the rip he just made on your neck with a nearby piece of cloth.
“I’m sorry, I just… I can’t tonight. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, you tried. That’s all I said right, that we should try?”
You move back over to him and wipe at a tear, one made from an apology he never should’ve had to give.
“Right. And maybe we can try again tomorrow?”
“Of course my love, of course.”
When the two of you lie down finally, there isn’t much said for the rest of the evening. You’ll never quite know exactly what he felt in that moment, what tasting your blood was like, how it made him ill and scared. One thing you do know is that you’ll be there again the next evening, and the evenings later, even if it takes a lifetime to repair that relationship with feeding from you. And maybe eventually, there won’t be that feeling of being undeserving anymore. Maybe one day, there will be nourishment instead of survival, but for now, you can try and make survival as nurturing as you can.
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A needlessly detailed analysis of Heisenberg's Conspiracy Board
One of the random details I was most eager to find in the RE8 game assets was Heisenberg's conspiracy board. (It's labeled 'strategy board' in the game files, but I think we all know what we're looking at here.)
The assets consisted of a base layer (below) with separate higher-res photos of Chris, Mia, Rose (with Ethan!) and the other three lords (clean versions of those last three, plus Heisenberg, can be found over here). The actual model is more 3-dimensional than you might think, with many of the photos displayed as separate 'flaps' that stick out from the base board (which does unfortunately make stitching together higher-res screencaps of the full board very difficult).
There are a few reasons why I wanted better pics of the board, but a real big one was catching an in-game glimpse of this one smaller photo on the upper right of some guy in sunglasses and going, wait, is that Wesker?
Having extracted the highest-res version of that photo possible... well, for that to be Wesker, he'd have to have come back to life and aged about 20 years. Which wouldn't entirely be out of character (he's come back from the dead at least once already, and even Chris is looking his age these days) but is really that who it's supposed to be? IDEK, and neither does this one Reddit thread I found discussing the same question.
There are a few other human-faces around the board ‒ mostly some mustachioed dude(s?) ‒ some of them entirely hidden under other photos on the finished board, but none I recognise. Presumably they're meant to be folks who are/were involved with Miranda or other bio-weapons research, past or present, and maybe they're characters set to appear in some future RE installment. But they may just be stock photos, thrown in to fill space.
But having finally posted this thing and come back to it again this morning, I'm looking at that one larger guy in one of those photos and going, wait, isn't that the Duke?
Goddamn, it is, isn't it? You can even see the lapels of his jacket and the curve of the wagon roof over his head. How did I miss that? XD No prizes for guessing why Heisenberg might think he's worth including on a conspiracy board!
Most of the rest of the board is covered with photos of various monstrous bio-weapons. Again, this is probably meant to represent a mix of Miranda's work and that of other bio-weapons manufacturers. Someone more familiar with extended Resi-canon than I am might even be able to identify some of these creatures, but none were immediately familiar to me.
Even the one zombie face below that looks almost exactly like a screencap from that first iconic zombie-reveal-scene from the very first Resident Evil turned out not to be (and yes, I checked both the original version and the remake), though it may still be meant to evoke that moment. The photo behind it, meanwhile, looks to be just a pair of soldats.
The other big 'notice me!' feature is, of course, the big map with 'BSAA Come!!' scribbled on it. The circled target location is the ceremony site, identifiable by the four huge statues, and the date at the bottom (February 10, 2020) is the date of Miranda's planned ceremony (tomorrow morning).
Presumably, this is supposed to be a map the BSAA themselves prepared for troop briefings, but no-one's going to get much out of trying to take this thing too literally. Realistically, the only reason "BSAA Come!!" is written in such big letters here is to let the player know at a glance that Heisenberg is clued in enough to be expecting a BSAA assault.
That's about it for really obvious features. There's not a lot else here that the casual viewer is likely to recognise or find particularly significant. But I'm way past 'casual' in over-analysing this damn game, and I can point out a dozen other features on this board that might (or might not) be awash with implications about all the juicy intel Heisenberg's got his hands on.
Basically, it's time to play my favourite game: Cheaply Reused Asset or Significant Callback?
See, much as I'd love for every last detail on this board to be dense with important lore, the reality is that the player gets barely a few seconds to look at this thing in-game, and so most of what's on it was probably thrown together in a hurry by some overworked member of the asset team without much thought. And nothing demonstrates this better than the fact that two different photo clusters (circled below) from the right edge of the board are duplicated wholesale as you move left across the board.
Someone's just copy-pasted these in their entirety, slightly reduced them in size, and assumed no-one would notice. The asset team is only human, and believes in working smarter not harder as much as anyone.
Then there's the fact that a number of other assets you can find on this board are actually posters advertising fishing equipment, which you can find around the reservoir, near where you pick up the boat key.
Why would Heisenberg include these on his conspiracy board? There's no good reason, they're just a convenient assets to fill in some space.
And then there's my all-time favourite random detail on this board ‒ a completely random photo of a bottle of Dulvey Beer, two bags of Half-Whole flour, and a carton of orange juice.
Now, maybe somewhere in these games, you can find these exact items arranged in this position next to never-before-found coded clue to the future of the series! But more likely, this is just the asset team making an inside-joke about asset recycling, using a picture of some of the most oft-reused assets in the game, on a board that's already covered in reused assets from elsewhere. (Look, I thought it was funny, even if no-one else looking at the board is going to get it.)
So, yeah, a lot of what's on this board means nothing, except that whoever made it had limited time and a lot of space to fill. And That's Okay.
But then we get to the stuff where I do really wanna believe its inclusion means something. For one, the board contains copies of both the mission briefing Chris' team is carrying when they abduct Ethan (the one you find by the overtuned truck), and Rose's BSAA-headered medical checkup report.
I already have this whole theory that that same medical report being leaked to Miranda might just be a major unsung catalyst for how she realised Rose's potential, and thus set all the events of the game in motion. So finding that the same report has made it's way onto Heisenberg's conspiracy board is a lovely bit of potential validation. Similarly, the implication that Heisenberg might have known about Chris' mission to Ethan's home before it even happened has some tantalising implications (or maybe he just found it out by the van where Ethan left it).
Rose's medical report isn't the only BSAA-headered document on the board either ‒ there's another on the top right (outlined in yellow) that doesn't correspond to any in-game asset I can find (presumably it wasn't actually needed for whatever it was created for). There's plenty elsewhere in this game to suggest Miranda has contacts in the BSAA feeding her all their secrets ‒ and whether Heisenberg got these reports from Miranda or independently, the fact he's got them at all suggests one hell of an info-leak.
Speaking of Miranda, you can find a couple of copies of some of her own research notes on Heisenberg's board ‒ this is the same asset used in her lab under the graveyard, where you can find notes about her experiments on 'Alcina D'. So that's another interesting file that it makes total sense Heisenberg might include on his board.
The board also includes a couple of extracts from that issue of The Dulvey Daily from Ethan's home, with the article about the closing of the Baker investigation. Realistically, this is likely to be another case of a random asset being used without much thought, but it does make sense that Heisenberg would have followed that investigation (and I can't help but loved that Heisenberg felt the Horn of Plenty article was worth including in his vast conspiracy-network ‒ I told you they were shady!)
You can find bits of a couple of Heisenberg's own Soldat-x-rays on the board too. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but they do look nicely sinister, so onto the board they go! (In multiple places again)
That's about it for assets I could identify. However, there are also a few photos from around the village itself on the board ‒ two of which were evidently screenshots taken from Ethan's own point of view, given that his gun is clearly visible in the bottom left of the screen in customary position. Objectively, this makes no sense, but it sure does add to that "someone's been watching you" atmosphere that any good conspiracy board should aspire to.
(I also feel like I should totally be recognising that doorway in the photo about the 'o' in 'mother', but can't place it.)
And for one final, bizarre detail, you may notice this weird photo of someone's feet appears in a few places on the board. And it's definitely the same photo ‒ the details line up perfectly, right down to the pin and that bit of string. But for some reason, someone's added a lace skirt to the feet in the example on the left.
You can't even see that skirt in the finished board (it's under Miranda's picture), but it amused me nonetheless.
Before we finish, have a few more close-ups on some of the other weird photos you can find on the board.
So, what conclusions can we draw here? There's a ton of detail on Heisenberg's conspiracy board to suggest he (or perhaps Miranda) has access to files from the BSAA and whoever Chris is now working with/for, that he's researched what happened at Dulvey and has certainly helped himself to Miranda's own files, if you'd like to read significance into what was included on the board. But there's also a ton of complete nonsense, so, you know, pretty much just RE lore operating as per usual.
I hope you've all enjoyed my little descent-into-madness while picking this thing apart.
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I was reading through the 'writing' tag on your blog, and came across your wonderful post about how you outline your novels using Cherryh's 'Shopping List' technique. My question is - how do you decide/come up with the 10 things in the novel? I have about 3-4 things I know must happen in my idea, and other random details about the world. But what is important enough to be one of the 10 things? And also, how do you generate your ideas for those 10 things?
...Okay, let's take this from the top. (And for convenience's sake, let's stay in the shopping-list idiom; it's useful enough.) (ETA: the blog entry containing the description of the Shopping List outlining method is here.)
Let's say you want to make a cake. ...This cake also being your novel.
To have a solid story (in the western-novel tradition, anyway), you need at least two things: plot and theme. The plot is what happens. The theme is the why of what happens, and (to a certain extent) the spectrum of thought and emotion that underlies that; the answer to the question “But what’s the book about?”* ...Think of this duality, for the moment, as the equivalent of having both liquid and solid stuff in your cake. You’ve got to have both or it won’t rise. A book with a plot but no theme has no soul.
So: you’re going to make a cake. What kind?
As an example, I’m going to ease myself out onto a limb here and equate “chocolate-chip devil’s food with chocolate buttercream frosting” with “epic-fantasy quest fiction with strong political, exoreligious, and quasiromantic components.” (A favorite for me, over time, as some folks will have noticed. I just can’t get enough of those chocolate chips...)
So how do you determine the ten things you need (or whatever number you like, but ten works for me) as major ingredients / sections?
Well, ideally from some familiarity with what has gone in other/similar cakes/works of fiction in the past. If you haven’t been reading in your chosen genre, you should be. This doesn’t mean you have to do what other people working in the genre have done. (Indeed, at all times you remain at liberty to “flip the punchcard” and do exactly the opposite of what everybody else has been doing, if that’s what suits you.) But they’ve set out possible recipes for you, so (as a beginner at this work) examine those recipes and see what’s in them that might be useful for you. Once you’ve been doing this for a while, you don’t need to go looking, just as an experienced baker doesn’t need to run for the recipe book every time they want to make a cake.
Naturally you can substitute ingredients, add some or lose some, when you’re creating something new; just as you like—while always making sure you don’t throw away anything routinely required/expected in your genre. (Such as the Happily Ever After at the end of a genre romance.) But certain basics must be in place, things that make what you’re creating recognizably A Cake, as well as your own additions and embellishments.
In this case, that could be:
For a cake: flour, milk, eggs, butter, baking powder, cocoa, chocolate chips, vanilla extract, seasonings, a little bit of salt (because without that, even the sweetest cake tastes just a little insipid somehow)
For a novel: a protagonist/pairtagonist (is that a word? It is now...), an antagonist (not necessarily a character: an antagonistic or stymie-ing situation that keeps the antagonist from easily getting what they want/need will do just as well. This is where at least some of the interior drama will derive from), a change in interior conditions that sets events in motion, a “ticking clock” or similar construct that means the desired result must be achieved within a certain time or before certain conditions change or expire, various reversals or hiccups in the flow of the story that will inject a sense of realism (because when does anything ever go perfectly smoothly...?), a crisis point at which everything assembled against the protagonist rises up to be dealt with, and the protagonist rises up to meet the challenge and deal with it; and finally a set of resolution events that (even if it doesn’t absolutely finish the story proper) brings about an end state that will leave you, and any theoretical reader, satisfied with the completion of the current story arc.
...Needless to say, this is an incredibly oversimplified take on the kind of strategizing needed when you’re creating the recipe for a novel that won’t simply collapse the minute you take it out of the oven. But starting simple is often best. The more you do this kind of work, the easier it gets.
Now: “How do you generate your ideas for those 10 things?”
There are a lot of possible answers to this, but the simplest is: Make them up out of nothing, as usual. :)
...This isn’t meant to sound like sass. You made up those first three or four things you came up with out of nothing, and now (because they’ve been there for a while, probably) they may well have started to acquire a kind of secret, temporally-based superiority in your mind—starting to feel somehow more valid than what needs to come next to fill in the gaps. This kind of creeping sense of validity-via-temporal-primacy is a commonplace when you’re in mid-process, and I invite you to ignore it.
Just insert those three or four things into your shopping list in (roughly) story-temporal order, and then spend some time thinking about what kinds of events could usefully come between / flow from them. Hints:
Events that could realistically have been caused by the ones you’ve got already, and could also realistically be seen as causal to later ones you’ve already established, are always useful. Ideally, you’re trying to establish a chain of events in which none of them look accidental, or coincidental (because readers are rightfully sensitive to plots that only work because all the characters are idiots, or keep having “lucky accidents”). What you’re working toward is an event flow that seems, when viewed in completion, inevitable: as it if couldn’t have happened any other way. You will almost certainly not achieve this easily, early on in your novel work, and maybe not at all. But it’s what you should be striving for.
Events that badly screw things up for the main characters are also always useful. Heroes do not become heroes by having everything go their way. Their heroism is achieved and manifested by having things go to shit around them again and again and AGAIN, and nonetheless still finding their way through all that shit to do what needs to be done. The lines attributed to the Confucianist philosopher Meng-tse (sometimes written as “Moshi” in Japanese) are a touchstone in this regard:
When Heaven is about to confer
a great office upon a man,
it first exercises his mind with suffering
and his sinews and bones with toil:
it exposes him to poverty
and confounds all his undertakings.
Then it is seen if he is ready.
So put your protagonists through the wringer. This is the greatest service you can do them.
A variant on this theme: Spend a little time thinking, “What is the absolute worst thing that could happen to these characters in this story / in this world?” And when you’ve figured that out, stick it into one of those gaps as a Main Thing—ideally one between the story’s midpoint and its already-planned crisis, if you’ve got that in place—and then start thinking about how to best exploit it to show how terrific your characters can become if you kick them around a bit. (Addendum: you are allowed to have one Absolutely Terrific and Beautiful Thing happen to assist your characters in recovering from this awfulness. Because they deserve it; but also, all invented worlds [if you ask me] should have beautiful things in them—things to long for, things that make your reader wish they could live there. And that you find beautiful, and worth returning to. You are absolutely allowed to keep yourself entertained, and emotionally refreshed, while you’re creating.)
...Anyway, take your time about getting those gaps filled in. It may take a little while: laying down basic story structure is worth not rushing, if you can avoid it. Once you’ve got them all in place, the secondary lists will follow more easily.
HTH!
*This is a hilarious oversimplification, but my job at the moment is not (as the saying goes) to explain the workings of the entire universe while standing on one foot. :)
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some interesting things to consider with chapter 13
Spoilers below and I might add more to the list soon.
Dragona's mispronounced name is a play-on Dragona's name and the word for trash. In Kanji, the first part of Dragona's name can be reinterpreted as JoJo (do-ra) and the term used for trash (gomi) is often used as an insult to call someone useless, shit, worthless, etc. So, Dragona is basically called "JoJo trash/useless JoJo" under the guise of mispronunciation. If we were to translate this into English, Dragona would be miscalled "Crap-ona" since Ds can be misread as Cs and Gs as Ps.
A popular drama known as "The Glory" became popular overseas around 2022 due to its story about a girl severely bullied by rich students ultimately gaining revenge. It was praised for the rawness of the bullying portrayed and it was based on a real life situation in 2006 where the victim of bullying experienced what was portrayed in the drama. What was not portrayed (I think) was the experience of the real life victim having their chest mutilated to the point of scarring.
Dragona mentioning about not wanting to live due to the circumstances reference Bruno echoing similar sentiments to Giorno before passing away. Both felt like they have nothing left to live until the Joestar gave them hope due to their actions.
Jodio's thoughts on why things happen reference Pucci having similar sentiments after Perla's death-- which leads him to reunite with DIO. While Pucci wonders why the knowledge he was forced to take in hurt him, Jodio wonders why the knowledge he was denied to have hurt him instead. We see how his quality of being methodical also has a flaw that explains him mentioning in chapter 2 how the "unfairness" of the world drives him mad.
To be blamed for the insurance payout and Barbara Ann being mostly a stay-at-home-mom means Jodio and Dagona's father must have been very high ranked to end up in such a situation while serving as a breadwinner of the family before his abandonment. Jodio and Dragona's father leaving is similar to Jotaro abandoning Jolyne for their safety. Both had to leave their children behind because otherwise their children will be harmed.
Meryl Mei's detail about school tuition is interesting due to McKinley High being a public school and initially thought to be an error. Remembering how Barbara Ann mentioned Jodio's academic performance earlier, she could have put him in a private school intended to bring his performance up, and that's why Barbara Ann mentioned school tuition. It makes me wonder if Jodio had just started going to public school; did he actually improve, was tuition ultimately too much, or did Meryl Mei manipulated things to put him in her high school so she could keep better watch on him?
Howler references King Crimson song "The Howler", which comes from an album trilogy (Discipline, Beat, Three of a Perfect Pair) that came out after the band's hiatus and known for introducing a brand new sound. Discipline features the song "Matte Kudasai", Beat has "The Howler", and Three of a Perfect Pair is yet to be referenced. There's a song in Beat called "Requiem", which caused the group to break up due to creative differences but later reconcile.
Three of a Perfect Pair has exactly 9 tracks with one side representing the New Wave style that Beat introduced and the other side representing the Industrial style that Discipline introduced. I got a whole post made about the albums here.
As a infrastructure group worth 50 billion dollars, they may have great influence over the community similar to that of Meryl Mei and branches that hire people for contract and whatnot. Is it possible that Usagi's father used to work for them? Is it possible that Jodio's father has some sort of connection to the insurance payout that Usagi's family currently live off?
Howler could be a play-on the Hawaiian world Haole, which is used to describe something not native to Hawaii, particularly foreigners. There are a few irl construction/infrastructure companies called Howler that are notably not from Hawaii. Given rich corporations' histories with exploiting resources such as land, Howler could be a company with malicious intentions towards Hawaii's lands.
The Japanese term used for "absurdity" can also be translated to "illogical", "nonsensical", and interestingly "unjust". When we see the characters mentioning absurdity, they could just not only be saying things don't make sense but things aren't fair or equal. It makes a callback to Chapter 2 more interesting.
ABSUЯD is a song written by Guns N Roses from their album Chinese Democracy, which was known to take a long time to come out and a rather very unpopular album due to how different it sounded from Guns N Roses' previous music.
#the jojolands#jjba#jojos bizarre adventure#jojo part 9#jjba part 9#jojolands#jjba jojolands#jojolands spoilers
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compiling EVERYTHING we know about fionna and cake
NEWS: EPISODE 1 PREMIERED AT SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON. There are no known recordings of the episode as streaming it was not permitted, however you can check my newer post for some described details (minor spoilers warning but nothing too big!)
WE HAVE GOT A SECOND TRAILER!
youtube
There was also be a half hour panel about Fionna and Cake, which brought us A TRAILER WITH A RELEASE DATE OF AUGUST 31! Starting from this date til Sept 28th, we will get 2 episodes a week.
youtube
MORE UNDER THE CUT!
The show is aimed at a young adult audience
There will be 10 episodes, each with a length of 30 minutes (most likely 30 minutes *TV* time, meaning the true length will probably be around 22 minutes)
It will be about multiverse hopping
Fionna is older and has a job in a different universe where everyone is genderswapped + human
It will, supposedly, premier on CN Canada in fall, probably after all of the episodes have already been released in September.
Prismo seems to be involved, according to the trailer (he's also apparently in the intro sequence)
An older version of Finn is in it! (As seen in the trailer)
Gumlee is almost certainly going to be a thing (as confirmed by someone who worked on it)
The entire intro/opening sequence was described as "going inside Simon's psyche" and it ending with Fionna and cake jumping out of Prismo's time room. Please note we haven't seen the actual intro sequence yet, just the trailer.
Fionna has a slight outfit change, she no longer wears a skirt and has shorts instead.
Simon also appears to be older — and judging by Finn's age in the trailer, it's presumably because this will take place between Obsidian and Together Again.
The most recent plot synopsis states that Fionna and Cake will be coming to Simon for help. An earlier plot synopsis said that at some point, they would need to rescue him
The synopses also state that they team up with him to help stop a new threat to Ooo that is tracking Fionna and Cake down to try to erase their existence
As seen in the trailer, we will be getting Simon and Marcy flashbacks.
Fionna's sword in the snippet also may have something to do with Ice Thing, as it has a pretty similar design
Cake's eye color has been changed to blue
According to Tom Kenny, recording Simon's lines for this was "the most emotional thing he's ever done"
Adam Muto is returning as showrunner
Hanna K Nyström, Jack Pendarvis, and Steve Wolfhard also return for this
The credits(?) theme of the series is the song that can be heard in the trailer
According to an attendee, a middle-aged Finn also appears in one of the episodes (as learned from a clip shown at the panel, also unavailable as of right now) and also says a light swear
This is most likely in the same clip as one where Simon is fishing and accidentally catches a monster, and Finn having to save him
Rebecca Sugar has returned to write two original songs for the series
It seems like Donald Glover is returning as Marshall Lee's VA!
According to Adam Muto, this show takes place about 12 years after Come Along With Me, making both Finn and Fionna around 29+
Jake gets shown a bit in the series, most likely as a flashback
Tree Trunks also gets a bit of screentime
Lumpy Space Prince/Princess is confirmed to still be voiced by Pen Ward
Adam Muto says they they don't know what a season 2 would look like, but it wouldn't be off the table
There will be a vampire episode (which will probably be where Marceline comes in)
The unknown enemy of the series might be the unfamiliar face we can see in this poster, between Marceline and Ice King:
NOTE AS OF THE NEW TRAILER: I will not be updating this post anymore. If I have any theories surrounding the new stuff we saw, I will be putting those into a separate post. The show premieres in 2 weeks!
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Book Openings I Love
Deciding how to start your book is an important and daunting question. I put together a list of book openings I love- and what makes them so good- to help brainstorm.
If you have any you'd like to add, please do! Let's keep this post ongoing.
1) Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
Anyone who read this book as a kid will know exactly what I mean.
'The Lightning Thief' starts with a warning to the reader to stop reading the book immediately and believe whatever lies their parents have told them. Otherwise, 'they' might come for them.
An adult might roll their eyes at this, but as a kid, you believe it. You find yourself wondering if what you're reading is true. It makes you feel like you're a part of this story- even if you haven't realized it yet. So, as you read on, you might end up looking for the signs and clues that this world of Greek gods and monsters exists around you in real life. The lines between fiction and reality blur, if only for a little while, and you become immersed in the story, because on some level, you can't help but want it to be real.
It also leaves you feeling that by reading this, you're doing something forbidden- something dangerous. Exactly the kind of stuff that gets your heart racing as a kid.
2) Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Life of Pi is one of my favorite books of all time, and the beginning has a lot to do with it.
"This book was born as I was hungry. Let me explain."
The book begins with an author's note that's not exactly an author's note. It begins as any author's note might- the writer explains how his previous publication was a bust, and that he took a trip to India to reinvigorate his creativity as he tried to write a new book that ultimately sputtered and died. That was, until he met a man who promised to tell him a story that will make him believe in God. The man then told him to seek out the main character, who is alive, and living in Canada. When the author does, he agrees that his story is indeed a story to make one believe in God, and commits to writing it down as a book through the main character's point of view, only with the disclaimer "any inaccuracies or mistakes are mine."
As they follow this progression, because of the way it's all structured, there's a good chance the reader might find themselves asking "Wait, is this a true story?"
The answer is of course no, and anyone who's read through most of the book would probably figure that out easily. However, if you get to the ending, you realize the question "Is this a true story?" has significant implications for the story's themes- and that makes them all the more resonant.
TL;DR: Life of Pi's beginning does the same as The Lightning Thief's beginning, only in a less obvious way that's far more effective on adults.
3) One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus
The premise of "One of Us is Lying" is that someone killed a boy named Simon, and that the people in the room when it happened- who just so happen to be the four POV characters- are the main suspects. The book then starts off my immediately putting the reader in the scene where Simon dies.
Now I'm not sure if this is a common mystery novel set up (I haven't read enough of this genre to know), but it's an effective one. This has the effect of getting the reader engaged in the story right from the get-go. Instead of passively reading the chain of events, the people who picked up the book are already going to be searching in between the lines for any clues on 'who done it.'
But not only is the reader looking all the little details in the scene, but they're also going to be questioning the POV of the person narrating the chapter. From the very start of the story, the reader gets immersed in several levels of tension that hook them and carry them through the rest of the story.
4) The Giver by Lois Lowry
"It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened. No. Wrong word, Jonas thought. Frightened meant that deep, sickening feeling of something terrible about to happen."
The first chapter begins with a scene of an aircraft flying overhead a peaceful community, and a child narrator who's overly careful about using the right words to describe things. The narrator's trait doesn't appear to be unique though- a quick flashback to a moment in his classroom shows that this tendency has been drilled into him, just as with any other kid. The reader immediately gets the sense that something is off. What that something is, though, is a bit harder to pin.
There doesn't seem to be anything nefarious going on, aside from maybe the mention of a citizen getting 'released' after the aircraft landed and everything calmed down. Only, later in that chapter, being 'released' gets mentioned twice again at his family dinner, as his parents discuss how their work went that day. But otherwise, the dinner seems to be a normal and mundane affair with an emotionally mature, functional family. Maybe a little too functional.
So, when Jonas decides that the feeling he's experiencing is 'apprehensive,' the readers start to feel that way too.
5) A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan
The preface and first chapter of "A Natural History of Dragons" does a great job of introducing one of the series's greatest assets: its main character.
"One benefit of being an old woman now, and moreover one who has been called a "national treasure," is that there are very few who can tell me what I may and may not write."
In the preface of the book, we find out exaclty who the main character/narrator is: a famous Victorian-era woman and accomplished dragon scholar, who's too old to care about being a 'proper lady' anymore. What's more, she's writing a series of memoirs about her life to satisfy the many adoring fans who have been writing her letters in hopes of hearing about the juicy gossip of her famous expeditions.
The narration oozes with personality from the very beginning, and that's before we even get to meet any dragons. Following this introduction, we get to see where her passion for dragon studies began: collecting little dragon "sparklings" as a kid. While her fictional readers would know these little creatures as commonplace in her world, the actual readers don't, since this world is as new to us as it was to her as a child. As such, the reader gets to share in her childlike wonder, and gets excited by the promise to discover the secrets of dragons right along with her.
#creative writing#writing#writers of tumblr#writers on tumblr#writing community#novel writing#writerscommunity#book blog#bookblr#books#writing advice#on writing#writer stuff#writer#writeblr#long post#booklr#books and reading#reading
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As I post about rereading SVSSS for lore and characterization, and about sometimes ignoring canonical details for the sake of whatever story I want to tell / explore in fanfiction for fun, I want to make it clear that I don't make these changes because I think it makes a "better story" or that I can write a "better story". I don't even like using the term "fix-it" for my canon divergence AUs that avert some in-universe tragedy, even if it is the "correct" fandom term in some cases, because I don't think that SVSSS is a story that needs to be "fixed".
(Honestly, a lot of my minor alterations to canon's details are because I can't remember what exactly canon is and can't always be bothered to hunt for one sentence (which I may or may not remember existing at all) across multiple volumes, especially when I don't always think strict faithfulness to canon is that crucial to the main concept of what I'm doing. I wrote PINTWILF and several other fics before the official English translations were fully released, when checking minor details was an even greater pain in the ass. Sometimes, I'm cooking without the recipe in front of me because I just want to eat.)
Like, I have criticisms of SVSSS, definitely. When I first started writing SVSSS fic, I was more frank about this (fond but less fond of the characters and world than I am now), and I've talked about things I wished the story expanded on more. I think it has flaws. I know those flaws are a dealbreaker for many people. But it's not my story. I can't tell MXTX's story better, because I believe that every author's story belongs to them and only they know what they're trying to achieve, even when I may personally think that the story might have been stronger if it had done something differently or I'm ignoring some minor detail specifically because I don't really like it.
It's awkward, sometimes, occasionally being told by someone that they enjoyed my fic more than the original story. It's very flattering (I can't pretend I don't have an ego) and I don't think anyone means any harm by this, people enjoy stories or don't for many different reasons (enjoyment is not necessarily an indication of quality and I think engaging with fandom can often be more fun than just reading a story on its own by yourself), but it is a little awkward, especially when SVSSS is not an English / western story. I have an advantage appealing to western readers. Reading a translation of the original story, I know there are details of SVSSS going over my heard, references I'm missing, nuances I don't recognize, even as I endeavor to keep learning. I personally enjoy some of my fics more than SVSSS itself because I associate them with good experiences and a lot of them appeal to me personally in some way or another (all of my favorite tropes! we all have favorite tropes!), but they are built on the back of someone else's original work on the other side of the world, and I want to be respectful of that.
I don't want to compete or fix. I'm not trying to compete or fix, I think I would fuck it up if anyone seriously set that task on me, and I don't think that's a good way to view anything. I want to explore and appreciate. I'll type up a lengthy post at some point as to why I'm generally not interested in concrit on my fics (honestly, mostly it's because I'm not interested in being told that a reader hates the present tense and wishes I would rewrite the entire story, which has happened to me before), but I hope that doesn't come off as disinterest in the original story or its cultural context, or as me thinking even a little bit that any of my stories are flawless and/or better than the original.
I want to make a "why would you put two bad bitches (compliment) against each other like this?" joke here, but I also want to be clear: I think MXTX is by far the badder bitch (compliment) in this situation.
(Turning off reblogs, btw, because this post skews more on the personal side.)
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How does jungkook perceive his fs the more he gets to know her? Like his first impression of her to when they know each other more deeply?
How does JK perceive his FS?
Since we already had a long post on how people perceive FS, I was thinking that I can just do this reading since we have a lot of people that are interested in these two on this blog! Enjoy because I'm getting the sense that this is going to be one hell of a ride on my part lol.
So I come back here after the reading, and I can most definitely say that that was one hell of a ride for me lol. Let me hand you all some virtual tissues. Here *tosses* Have fun! =v= Oh happy day~ Oh happy daaaaay~
Thank you, Aisa 🌸
First Impression: As always, JK is ultra fast with the cards, my gosh. Anyway, the first impression he has of them will be fairly straightforward and simple it seems. By the time JK gets to meet the FS (keep getting the sense that he will travel to the location where the FS is for whatever reason it may be), the FS will be someone successful in their field or at least someone pretty well off. As someone who admires those who are dedicated and passionate to their work and their crafts, this will catch his eye, and I think it'll start off as a sort of admiration from his part? But he will also feel that this person went through lots of heartbreak in their life to reach where they are during the time they meet. Maybe he'll overhear a conversation about something that happened in FS' life that makes him aware of the FS' life. He will again think that this person worked really hard to be where they are during that time. The FS, in his eyes for his first impression of them, is someone who may be a bit hard to approach and maybe even intimidating. Someone who is very good at reading people, and he'll know right off the bat that the FS is not someone who will take any load of bullsh*t from people because they know better. They can see through lies. Something about this first impression of the FS will make JK want to get to know them more. He'll feel attracted to this person upon first meeting.
Acquaintances: Okay so um, this is getting highly detailed and in-depth that I'm actually getting really surprised by the extent to which he's telling me what happens. But anyway, let's continue. This is when they're just acquaintances, so they know of one another but aren't exactly too close. So during this time period, it seems like JK might experience some form of heartbreak for whatever reason. It'll be a Tower moment for him, so it'll really shake him up. It also seems to affect his career as well. I feel that this is when the FS steps in. It seems like whatever happened, the FS figures out a way to help him in a way. I don't know when or how (seems like we aren't allowed to know), but this FS will help JK see the world in a different way. In the past and up until this point, he may have been a bit afraid to go against what was expected of him. He did things that didn't align with his values and thoughts. But through this Tower moment and experience, as well as meeting with FS during this time, it will help him reevaluate what he wants in his life, his future, his surroundings, and more. It's the Knight of Wands (JK) meeting the Queen of Wands (FS), so the FS will be a guiding figure for JK during this situation since they're more developed in the wands energy than JK (Knight vs Queen). So actually, I had to reorganize and redraw cards because he was saying too much and the energies started getting all messy and tangled up, but I remember that he said FS was "The Star" card and there was also a "Queen of Cups" card. This shows me that FS may have provided with lots of emotional support during his difficult moment. Remember in the other reading, I said that FS is someone who is easy to approach in the eye of others and also a quiet listener? I think FS wanted to help JK out even though they might not have been too close, and this in turn helped the two of them become closer. Now back to the point, how does JK perceive FS during this time? He thinks of them as "Four of Wands" and "The Lovers." Four of Wands represents pure happiness, joy, bliss, and celebration. "The Lovers," in the context of this situation, represents a relationship in which there is great communication and emotional understanding between two lovers. So I'm guessing that after they get close, their develop their relationship into a romantic one. This is also confirmed by "The Moon" card hidden at the back of the deck, and a bunch of other cards (emotions) associated with it. "The Moon" signifies secrets, keeping things hidden. There's also the "Two of Pentacles" which signifies the need to balance priorities, which in this case is his career and his new relationship with FS.
Lovers: So JK keeps explaining the situation rather than what he thinks about the FS, but it's okay. I think I understand what he's trying to say. When they are lovers, JK is represented as someone who is a true romantic. I see him being as supportive to FS as possible, trying to match their lifestyle and schedule (while of course keeping his own priorities straight; don't think that he's going to let the relationship affect how he does for his career; he takes his job very seriously). But anyway, in the course of getting to know the FS better through the relationship, he may realize some of the internal issues that FS has been dealing with one their own. This is absolutely mind-blowing because remember in the other post I said that the very inner circle is just the FS by themself and then there were the pair cards and I explained that they envision a future spouse/partner who is going to be just for them and know them even to their deepest core? This is exactly what JK is doing. JK will notice things that FS is going through. I see that FS may be having a hard time due to a "King of Swords" figure in their life. I see a "King of Wands" figure and then the "Queen of Wands" figure to the right. So essentially, this "King of Wands" figure is protecting the "Queen of Wands" figure from the "King of Swords" figure. It's crazy because the "King of Swords" is looking straight forward (at you), the "King of Wands" is looking straight to the left (you get the left view), and then the "Queen of Wands" has her body faced forward but with face turned to the right. The imagery confirms this. Whatever it is, I see JK protecting this FS very well. JK will help this person go against aspects of their life that they were trying to escape from or avoid for a long time. He will help them deal with their emotional issues. He will help FS achieve a sense of justice and also bring FS a sense of fulfillment. His emotions are overflowing for this FS and he really does truly care about their well-being. To him, the FS is his resting place, his home. He will feel grateful for the FS' presence during his hardest moments, for helping him become more in tune with who he truly is and who he truly wanted to be. For helping him walk forward into a future that he had wished for. This FS is represented by "The Empress," the maternal figure of the deck and the caregiver. I also see that behind the Empress is a Page of Cups that is hidden and protected. So this is making me feel that JK ultimately feels that even his more underdeveloped and childish sides, the hidden innocence that he had tucked away due to his reality - he feels safe showing all of his vulnerable sides to FS. I feel so much gratitude, appreciation, and love coming through here.
Spouses: Holy sh*t guys. This is absolutely stunning! So when they're spouses, FS is represented as the King of Swords rx. This speaks to me that FS is someone who doesn't outright aggressively speak their mind out, but they rather quietly express their thoughts and opinions. JK may also think that FS is someone who can be pretty indecisive and they need to time to work out their thoughts and to process different situations. Hidden under this card is THE WORLD and THE LOVERS guys. My gosh. "The World" card is the last card of the major arcana in the tarot deck guys. It's the ending. It's fulfillment, completion. And in a literal way, FS will mean the world to him. With "The Lovers" card coming out, he will see FS as his true love. Someone who he can communicate with at deep and genuine level. Someone who walked with him through his thick and thin, and someone whom he walked with through their thick and thin. There is also the TEN OF CUPS. My gosh. Can you hear me screaming? He regards FS as his ultimate happiness and fulfillment in life. The imagery of this card is also two spouses with children, so FS is someone that he would settle down with for the rest of his life, and he also envisions a future where he can create a family and live happily. Again, there is a repetition of the idea of "resilience.' Standing together despite hardships. He has lots of love and affection for his FS, and it seems like he looks forward to going on new adventures with this FS as well. And this last set of cards made me absolutely emotional. It came through real strong. "나의 힘듦과 아픔을 다 지나고, 이제는 우리의 행복한 새 출발." After passing my hardships and pain, it's our blissful new start. Holy. I'm going to cry guys. Cry with me *hands tissues*
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