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#honestly I was more focused on the art than the poem
fox-moblin · 3 months
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How long did it take you to write the poem for the sphinx? I decided to read it out loud before reading it through first and almost couldn’t finish. I was all choked up.
About 10 minutes
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oneshlut · 5 months
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Your writing is so good!!! I’m so happy to finally have found someone who writes for Flug! (And I feel like you capture his personality so well :,) ) Could I request some headcanons for Flug with a partner who gives him a lot of handmade gifts. From paintings or little sculptures, to poems/letters and songs. Basically a really artsy reader who just likes giving personal gifts to Flug! ^^ (and maybe even some to 505 as well, like handmade plushies) Thank you sm!
A/N: you are TOO sweet! i love hearing about how much you all love my writing, and flug is one of my favorites to write for!! i'll try my best to convey the reader's personality and all, thanksies for requesting! <33
Homemade Affection (Dr. Flug x Artistic!Reader) [Headcanons]
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Summary: Headcanons of Dr. Flug with an artistic S/O, who creates trinkets, paintings, letters, etc. as gifts. Extra meeting and confessing headcanons
Dr. Flug is hardly someone you'd describe as creative. His inventions were great! But the designs were.. well, practical, I suppose. They were made exactly how they were supposed to be, just to the extent for the machinery to work. So he had never put too much effort into designs when it came to his work.
His inventions also usually never had anything special added to them. Flug makes things exactly how they're asked to be made, and nothing else. He's a man of order and schedule, and honestly can't live without it. Which is why he forgets to add an off button to most of his inventions.
You, on the other hand, loved free-will. Especially when it came to your own creations, art, paintings, writings--everything! If you did care for order and all, you make sure to add your own personal color to your schedule. Doodles can be found all over any paper you're given, and in your spare time/all the time, you'd create plushies, sculptures, collages.. truly, anything artistic. Anything you were given, you incorporated some sort of pigment into it.
You had first met him when you joined Blackhat Org., for villainy and such. Surprisingly, you were a great addition to the company! Surprising to Dr. Flug, at least. Now, he's usually not one to judge, but you were practically radiating with color, so he kinda thought you were just a Demencia duplicate. Upon meeting you, he found himself pleasantly shocked.
Flug was intriguing to you. So incredibly different than you, yet somehow, you two clicked. He was a nervous wreck, yet somehow put together. Kinda like you! (jk)
The more time you spent with him, the more Dr. Flug got comfortable with your presence. When he was having a busy day, he'd sometimes ask you to do small things for him. You, most of the time, obliged. Unless you were busy as well--most likely busy painting something that doesn't need to be painted.
Confessions? Oh--yes! Right, right.. well, Flug kinda had this whole plan written out of how he'd admit his feelings for you. He would pace around his room for hours, mumbling incoherent, scrambled thoughts of what would be the uttermost perfect way to confess. He doesn't know what the term "Don't overthink it" means. His rambles, walking to nowhere, and planning usually came to a pause when you stopped by.
How ignorant he was, because as he was writing out a plan that reached to the floor, you were cooking up your own idea to confess aswell. Except, you weren't focused on making it perfect. You wanted it to seem like it came from you. Yup, you were writing a confession letter to Flug. And yes, it did have doodles all over it.
When Dr. Flug left his laboratory for a moment, you stood to leave. Not after leaving your letter there, though. When he returned, he was worried about where you went, before the letter caught his eye.
He chuckled staring at the small doodles that covered the page. Then he read what you wrote..
Oh. His bag immediately flushed a deep red.
When the two of you got together, you immediately started on little crafts to give him. Either for dates, valentines day, christmas, or any holiday! Maybe one day for your anniversary..
Oh, Dr. Flug adores them. Every little thing you give him goes on a shelf right next to his jet collection. He treasures them as if they were of his own creation--because they were of yours. Nothing will be able to beat the feeling of receiving a gift from you. His eyes never fail to light up at the sight of your artwork. Yeah, he's head over heels. Not saying he worships you like a god, but he definitely looks up to you.
That confession letter definitely wasn't your last letter. Occasionally, you'd write him notes or letters for him when you couldn't make it to his lab. Sometimes love poems! Flug definitely tripped over his shoes reading your first love poem to him. He still can't believe such romantic subjects that he usually saw in movies were being shown.. towards him, of all people.
If you wrote a song for him? Dr. Flug would cry. Sorry, no way around it, his heart would throb and suddenly all his love for you was just flowing out in the form of tears. Afterwards, if you gave him a recorded tape of the song, he'd listen to it daily. Sometimes on loop in the background when he's doing work. He'd get distracted often, though...
The plushies definitely tugged at his heartstrings, though. You once gave him a plush heart, and he kept it on his desk everyday. Until 5.0.5. got to it. Dr. Flug once checked up on him to see how he was doing, before seeing him sleeping soundly, cuddling the knit creation you gifted him. After Flug sent a photo of it to you, because he was practically close to breaking down due to how wholesome the scene was, you knew exactly what you had to do.
The next day, you came in to the lab with two small hand-knit stuffies for 5.0.5. One sunflower, and one little mini-5.0.5. You were proud with how they turned out! Part of you wanted to keep them because of how cute they were, but you knew they were a gift for 5.0.5.
As soon as Dr. Flug set his sight on the stuffed plushies, his heart immediately warmed up. It honestly baffled him that someone would do that for 5.0.5., but I guess you were a naturally kind person. He was so lucky to have you, he realizes. After wiping the slightest bit of tears from his goggles, he took them and put them carefully with the rest of 5.0.5.'s stuffed animals.
Dr. Flug will now occasionally ask you to help him with his inventions designs, spotting your eye for color and overall talent when it came to.. well, art.
The two of you work together well, as both work-partners and.. partners. Flug adores your colorful nature, and you adore his technical nature. You snap together like yin and yang, and Dr. Flug couldn't ask for anything more than who you are.
If things keep going the way they are, you may wind up soulmates.
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manhwa-reader · 2 years
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#50 List of 10 favourite manhwa ><
Hello ^^
Oh my god this time it's really been a very long time since I last wrote 😭. Yesterday I finished the last thing I had left to do from my degree. Now I'm officially graduated!! I'm so happy ><
Also this is post #50 and it's been a whole year since I started this tumblr. So I thought I should make something special. After thinking a bit I thought that I could do a 10 favourite manhwa list. I hope you enjoy it ☺️
First I would like to say that I've had a rough semester so I couldn't read many manhwas. Also, the website I used to read them had some problems and it doesn't update like it used to, so many manhwas that I would have read I couldn't read them.
Most of these manhwas are webtoon, let's start with the overview of the list:
After school for unrippen apples
Act like you love me!
The spark in your eyes
Romance 101
'Til debt do us part
A stepmother's märchen
Carrier falcon princess
Maybe meant to be
A whirlwind campus affair
Twilight poem
And now we'll do a quick review of every manhwa:
1.After school for unrippen apples
It's been several months since I started this manhwa and it has never disappointed me. There is comedy, romance and friendship. The story is set in the 80s and the emotions descripted by all the characters are sublime. If you haven't read it yet, trust me when I say it's wonderful ☺️
2.Act like you love me!
Okay now I bring you a great romcom ! We have a handsome and cute actor and a hardworking woman. Guess what? He falls for her first !! I love that 🥰 It's a very funny manhwa and the story only gets better and better with each chapter.
3.The spark in your eyes
Surprisingly I didn't post about this historical manhwa. The male lead is pharmacist who looks very big but actually has a very good heart. The female lead is the sun witch and as the name sounds she is very powerful. The plot is very interesting and it shows us the point of view and backstory of each character. I really recommend it !
4.Romance 101
It's such a cute and wholesome manhwa ! There are already more than a 100 chapters and yes it is so much worth it ! The romance builds up slowly but it doesn't get boring at all. The main character is very relatable which makes you loving her a lot. Without realizing you get to see the development of all the characters.
5.'Til debt do us part
When I read the manhwa it hadn't been officially translated yet to webtoon. It's a typical "from enemies to lovers". It's not really enemies, it's just that the characters didn't like each other much at first but when they get to really know each other they start catching feelings. I honestly enjoyed reading it a lot ><
6.A stepmother's märchen
This historical manhwa is so beautiful ! The main character is smart and strong. Even if she is young she is able to take care of all the children and give them all the love that they deserve. I can't wait to see how the story will develop. I root for her happiness and love ☺️
7.Cavier falcon princess
This historical manhwa is different but very nice. Lately there hasn't been many updates but the current chapters are great. It focuses more on the war but there is still romance. And I'm sure the romance will be worth the wait !
The next ones that I bring you are newer ones so I'm not sure if I'll keep liking them but for now I'm loving them :)
8.Maybe meant to be
I'm not sure what it is, if the plot, the characters or the art but it I've really taken a liking to it. The female lead is a tomboy but relatable woman. The male lead is a geek but sweet man. And they marry on the first episodes ! It awaits us so much fun 😂. At first I thought that they didn't look very good together but after they start getting to know each other you realize they make a great couple. So give it shot.
9.A whirlwind campus affair
This webtoon has a drama set but oh there is a lot of comedy too. The main character seems weird at first but you realize that she is a strong and nice girl. The art is very beautiful and the characters have secrets that with time they will help solve the mystery that surrounds the story.
10.Twilight poem
This pretty new historical manhwa is absolutely stunning ! The female lead is pitiful and the male lead for now is a jerk. But I'm sure he will end up being a good man. There is also supernatural stuff which makes it pretty cool. I can't wait to see more of this story and to finally see the female lead happy.
These are all the manhwa that I currently love.
Now that I have more free time I'll try to post a bit more.
I hope that you are alright ☺️
Bye bye ❤️
PS. I spent hours making the post and it got deleted so I had to do it all over again 😟. It was hard but anyway I hope you enjoy it ☺️
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redfoxline · 4 months
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ao3 wrapped [reader edition]
Do you know how many works your read this year? Around 2021 according to my AO3 history
Longest work you read this year? Didn't check but Once Upon An Eclipse by LeeRyder is likely the longest (a Genshin Ragros fic I highly recomment)
Shortest work you read this year (not including art published on ao3)? Not a clue I'm too lazy to check the 101 pages of my history to find out.
Do you have any works you read that are between you and your web browser? Nope, I'm shameless.
Did anything you read make you cry? I can DEFINITELY name a few. Angst is so tasty.
What's your absolute favorite works you read this year? Once Upon An Eclipse (quoted above) and Interlude: tightrope ballet, a wonderful Genshin fic focusing on Collei's and Cyno's relationship by Lilith-writes (the 3rd installment of a series I HIGHLY recommend), Into Esthar (a running FFVIII SxS story) and naturally Et au matin se fâne, a fantastic KavehxAlhiatham story written in French that has stolen my heart.
Did you read through any authors entire works? I certainly did: Shakekp (French) and their beautiful Genshin stories and Hazel-Athena with their incredible (and massive) collection of ZoroxSanji stories in the One Piece fandom.
Pairing you read the most for? AlhaithamxKaveh
Favorite rare pair you read works for this year? Surprisingly I don't think I've read rarepairs this year?
Largest fandom you read for? Genshin Impact
Smallest fandom you read for? Sasaki To Miyano
Did you as a reader receive any works as gifts? Nope.
What trope do you think you read the most of? The Getting Together tope. I even filter my search with this tag! xD
Favorite AU you read this year? Modern AU
Favorite canon concept you read this year? I honestly don't have an answer to that question.
Were your comments coherent or mostly screaming? Both (both is good)
Did you leave any comments that had to be in more than one part? Dude, even with my best effort the AO3 comment section limit is HUGE so obvioulsy no.
How many works did you bookmark this year? Around 80.
Did you read any works published before this year? Of course! Commented on it too. <3
Did you download any works? Yes! I like downloading stuff to listen to them as I do m chores.
WIP's or completed works? Both (Both is still good!)
Category you read the most of? Hurt/Comfort
What time of day do you read the most during? Evenings.
Where do you read the most? At home
Do you read on your phone or on your computer? Both although I think I use my phone more.
Did you do any beta reading for anyone? Nope.
Do you listen to anything while reading? Yes, I like some music or ASMR sometimes.
Did any line/passage stick with you after you read it? I can't remember which fic it was, but I think it was a KavehxAlhaitham's fic where the author quoted an Arabic poem with the following: 'You ask me if I love her to death. Speak her name above my grave and watch me be brought back to life'. A shame I can't recall the poet's name.
Do you have any works you think are required reading for (fandom)? No. Reading is a hobby and being part of a fandom is not a job. You don't need to have read/watch any specific works to be part of the fun.
Biggest surprise for you as a reader this year? Une fleur en ce monde qui n'existe pas by Shakeskp. I've stopped reading in my maternal language ages ago, whether it is in fanfiction or published book, and finding this little gem reminded me how beautiful my own language could be, up to the point where I wrote a little thing in French myself (and enjoyed myself immensely).
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vergess · 2 years
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(reposted because??? tumblr ate or deleted the first post???)
So. Lots of pain meds at the moment, so this is a little bit nonsensical, but, I have been playing the newly released video game I was a teenage exocolonist (available on steam, not linked because tag visibility) while I am laid up in bed.
Lots of opinions, basically all positive. There’s a specific thing I want to talk about in more detail, but this post got too long so I will just link a future post on the gender politics of nature, nurture, and future as presented by the twins Dys and Tang.
So instead here’s my Most Recommendable Qualities (mostly free of spoilers):
Native linux compatibility:
you know how I am about that. I cannot believe I’ve become the very linux guy I so hated when I was working retail…
Upsettingly beautiful art
2D gaming is my first love but man the medium has come a long way since needing a flashlight to play pokemon. Sometimes I forget how far, and then games like this pop up with the gorgeous art and expressive characters, and I inevitably find myself wondering why the “”“"mainstream”“”“ video game market (in as much as such exists these days) focused so obsessively on photo realistic 3D when inevitably a well directed art style is what matters most.
The backgrounds and environments in the game are all extremely lush, with a gorgeous, colorful style that if I had become an art critic instead of a writing critic I would probably have better terminology to describe. Like, uh. Water colors or some shit. Stained glass. It’s all very luminous fuck dude I don’t know, the closest I’m going to get here is to write a poem and I’m not going to write a poem where the fuckign developers might see it. I need to be sober for that.
Characters:
I’m a character driven asshole, we all know this. It’s why I read so much fanfiction and play so much melodramatic fantasy and spend several hours of my life openly sobbing about a single fucking issue of Sandman. So, you’ll understand when I say, "people keep recommending me dating sims and I keep bouncing off of them because the characters never Do A Thing,” what my major criticism of a lot of Large Cast Of Dateable Character games is.
None of those issues arise here. I’ve played a few runs now, making a conscious decision on each to focus on a specific character. One. SIngular. Except, the thing is, you can’t do that. Not in the sense that the game won’t “let” you. You could certainly just dump all of your time into skills and one character. And the timeline of the game would change to reflect your isolationism.
Characters you don’t interact with during runs have their own “autonomous” storylines written, and each divergence your player character makes has its impacts meticulous tracked to create different character experiences every time, even as each character holds very tight to a narrow set of repeating traits. This only further emphasizes the fundamental strangeness of the player character, as the only one capable of being fundamentally different across timelines.
Also all the dateables are just, oh god, SO cute. And, by the time they are capable of fucking, very fuckable. Extremely attractive designs. Honestly everyone is super cute. The whole cast is magnificently designed. And that includes…
Monsters & World Building:
First of all, let’s get the important personal opinions out of the way. I think I would fuck the antagonist….uh….commander, whatever his title is. He looks like a fucked up centaur and I’m into that. There are also Adequate Amounts Of Tentacles. If you’ve known me long, you know that is a high bar, but the game clears it admirably and with diversity!
The alien fauna are all very FUCKING COOL. There’s a bit of throwaway dialogue from An Adult (your dad?) that talks about expecting the planet’s ecosystem to be ‘more alien’ than it is, and I respect the space program’s attempt a tpreparedness but for me, the whole uhhhhhh. Situation. With regards to the alien animals is PLENTY alien, and SO satisfying.
If you’ve ever been like, “god, I wish someone who wasn’t orson scott card would do all the cool shit they did in fucking speaker for the dead” then by GOD is this the game for you.
Accessibility:
The content warnings are extremely detailed. I reviewed them all, and having seen several of the ones I was most worried about, I feel they accurately described the situations without spoiling them. I did end up upsetting myself rather badly with one thing which happened, but it is hardly the developer’s fault that I misunderstood the context in which the “teenage pregnancy” CW would apply. I personally want to specify that (IN THE ROUTES I HAVE SO FAR PLAYED) the pregnancy is a very wanted, safe, and cherished.
The game players very well on controller, which is a must for me. There are a handful of UI elements that I have not yet been able to access by controller, but I think this is more a factor of my being bad at remembering buttons than the game’s design. If you have a mouse, that will solve the issue entirely. My GF speaks highly of the keyboard and mouse gameplay.
Turning off screen distortions and weather effects generally made the game very visually understandable for me, with large, clear iconography. If you have significant visual impairments, I don’t know if this is a good game to play. Picking up items on the ground can be tricky in some cases and there’s nothing for eg a high contrast or greyscale mode if you need that kind of thing.
Stability.
It’s easy to forget that near-launch properties are supposed to be complete games that function well. This game is very complete (VERY, INTRICATELY, COMPLETE) and very stable. With as complicated as the sets of cause-effect-timelines are, I expected it to be much easier to create minor paradoxes in dialogue.
So far, the only time events have seemed to happen slightly out of sequence due to relationship progression or what ever else, was when I made a conscious effort to be as obnoxious as possible at one point just to see if I could make it misbehave.
I haven’t been able to make it crash from within the game so far. I’m hardly a Q.A. tester anymore, but I do tend to be pretty aggressive to my games, so I feel confident in saying it’ll run steady for you if you get it.
Politics etc:
The queerness is all very excellent, super queer in very believable ways, especially given the cultural aspects of the worldbuilding. Characters behave queerly outside of just all being bi-for-the-player. The trans characters were all extremely appealing to me with strong characterization that included but did not obsess over their genders. There are at least 2 trans teens in the player character’s peer group and 2 trans adults of very different ages and character types, and there’s even a cute little intergenerational trans solidarity bit you can get sometimes. In addition, of course, to the ridiculously complete gender personalization.
You would not believe how many games forget that “bro” and “cowgirl” are gendered terms, but this one remembers.
The racial politics are, from my perspective, adequate to not interfere with my gameplay experience. The human characters do consistently refer to the environment and native animals in very colonialist terms but they’re literally colonizing the planet so…. The point is, there is not a native people being eradicated, though there are… territory wars(? I guess.) with both wild animals and antagonist peoples.
If you’re particularly sensitive to colonial narratives, handle with care, but I felt the writing in the routes I’ve seen so far handled most of the issues well. Plus I mean. THe title. Is “teenage exocolonist” like. I think the whole “colonialism is a major narrative theme” ituation should be made clear by that.
In terms of the human diversity it’s pleasingly broad. There are characters of all ages, builds, complexions, races, personality types. There’s a massive range of disabilities both physical and mental, as well as plenty of fun sci fi accomodations.
I mean just among the dateables I can remember top of the head, theres:
ambiguously asian twins who really said Autism Has Two Genders,
ambiguously brown fat girl with developmental disability,
ambiguously brown Gym Bro (derogatory) who is, and this is true, literally named 'ambiguously brown
ambiguously white farmboy who has clearly been eating his space wheaties and also helps invent space cannabis with your dad
unambiguously black girl who looks the autism twins dead in the eye and said 'no autism has one gender and is me’
unambiguously white tomboy who goes full samus
A dog (human)
Hatsune Miku (gender neutral)
Venom (twink)
There’s something here for everyone, all of these characters are super fascinating concepts honestly. I know I keep harping on that but it’s true so there.
Scenario writing:
It’s a bit difficult to separate the player character writing from the scenario writing for reasons that rapidly become clear in the game. Both are very good, though, so that’s fine. The writing is just really very good.
The variations on the timeline that you are able to uncover through repeated play are fascinatingly diverse even as certain events remain immutable, and the whole thing really plays with the concept of time travel and the other-self so beautifully. Really one of my very favourite explorations of the topic already, and I’ve only seen… IDK 4 endings along 2 routes? And there’s 29 endings???
It’s very good. The point is that it’s very good you should go play it.
It’s on steam. It’s app 1148760 on steam and it’s very good, it’s definitely worth more than what they’re charging. I mean have you seen what a $60 console game looks like these days, and then this is like. $25 and SO very much.
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teddy06writes · 2 years
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Of Little Love Poems, Secret Admirers, and Anonymous Notes
requested by this anon: "Heyyy! I was just wondering if I could request something, if your requests are closed you can ignore this and get on with your day~ Can I request a secret admirer trope with Steven Meeks hehe, where he sends mc little notes coz he thinks she's way out of her league 💕"
{Ahhhhh okay I'm such a sucker for this concept- I litterally love this so much}
Steven Meeks x fem!reader
trigger warnings: none <3
Premise: You've been getting these notes for ages now, and sure, who ever has been writing them has caught your attention, but not nearly as much as the shy red head from your English class.
{any poem not labeled with a writer is mine :)}
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'To my lovely (y/n),
Shall I compare the to a summers day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate... --William Shakespeare (I couldn't resist)
I hope your weekend was just as perfect as you are, and I hope your week even better.
I wish you the utmost luck on ou- your next chemistry test, though I must say, I doubt you'd need luck.
Always yours,
An Admirer'
It wasn't the first note you had received, and you doubted that it would be the last.
They had began to appear, slid under the door of your dorm, a few weeks into the school year; Now it was almost November, and the soft red envelopes had become almost like a friend to you, greeting you every few mornings.
You turned the new letter over in your hand as you sat at your breakfast table.
"Another one?" Your friend asked as she slid into her seat next to you.
"Yup." Was all you said, quickly tucking the envelope under your plate.
She raised her eyebrow, "You know the more this goes on, the more I swear you almost seem disappointed to get one."
You shrugged, "I just wanna find out who it is... and I never seem to get any closer to figure it out."
"You don't wanna just find out who it is," You friend teased, "You just wanna know if it's Meeks."
Just at the accusation, you could feel your face begin to flush, "Shut up."
~~
'To my darling (y/n),
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul. --Pablo Neruda
Something about those words feel right, for you and me.
Only you aren't the dark- your far from it.
If anything you are the light, the beautiful, flickering candle and I'm simply a moth drawn to the flame.
Always yours,
An Admirer'
The words of the newest note seemed to echo in your head, even hours after you'd first read it.
Who had written it?
You had read and re read the lines, searching for some sort of message or hint, but still, you couldn't find anything.
Sighing, you tried to focus back down on the calculus worksheet Dr. Hager had given out to fill the last forty minutes of class. It was honestly the last thing you wanted to be focused on, and your eyes couldn't help but wander off your paper and around the room.
After a moment, your gaze landed on the desk next to you, and Meeks' own gaze quickly whipped back to his work. You barely held in a giggle as his face went red, catching his eye just enough to send him a smile.
Later, as you stood in the hall, waiting for your friend to finish gathering her things, you shuffled through your things, surprised to find a new slip of paper:
'Your smile is brighter than the sun, setting off a heat that's almost scorching, yet I'd gladly bear that heat to see it everyday. --Your admirer'
"Did he give you that during class?" Your friend demanded, looking over your shoulder, "He's getting bold!"
"Not in class, I didn't find it till I was out here for a minute- it could've been anyone!"
It was almost exasperating.
~~ So far, the presentations in Mr. Keating's class had gone well, Knox had written about Chris, Hopkins.... , and Todd's off the cuff poem had been incredible.
But now it was your turn, and as Mr. K called your name to go next, you decided you no longer liked presentations in Mr. Keating's class.
"Go on, Miss (y/l/n); dazzle us with your words!"
You took a deep breath, slowly moving up to the front of the class.
"'I don't really know you, not in the way that you know me, but I try to understand in the strokes of your pen, the little things you do, but until then, I'll read them over and over again.'"
You finished reading, making a beeline back to your desk before the class could even begin to clap.
"Excellent, Miss (y/l/n)! Absolutely brilliant!" Mr. Keating cheered, "Another perfect example of one of our main themes: love!"
You only nodded, barley registering his words; there was something about Meeks' expression as you returned to your desk- surprise- shock- and something you couldn't name.
~~ 'To my wonderful (y/n),
I see a sweetness in her smile, bright light shines from her eyes, but life is complete, contentment is mine, just knowing that she's alive --Our very over Knox Overstreet
A poem about me? I must say, darling, I'm flattered.
Always yours,
Your Admirer'
You hadn't stopped to read the note at first, instead peering up and down the empty hall; you'd heard the footsteps this time, but hadn't made it to the door in time.
But now that you had stopped to read the words properly, your heart seemed to drop.
He was in your English class-
He was in your English class!
That narrowed the hunt down to a group of 18 or so.
~~
You weren't sure whose dumb idea it was, yours, your friends, or Sticks. Someone had suggested it at your study hall table, you knew that for sure.
So now you were sitting up at your desk, in the early hours of the morning, attempting to catch whoever was leaving the notes.
You hadn't been up all night, instead waking up early, and checking to find no letter; hopefully today would be the day.
After a while, you heard careful footsteps making their way down the hall, and you sat up from your hunched position, listening as they stopped before your door.
Carefully, you stood up, moving over to the door as quietly as you could, and listening.
After a muffled sigh, a note was slid under the door, and you hardly stopped to pick it up before you pulled the door open.
Meeks' surprised eyes met yours as he stumbled back.
Your mouth dropped open, "You..."
"Me." He responded with a gulp, face flushing bright red.
The hall was silent again, until he began to stammer out an explanation, "I- i- I'm sorry- I just- I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable- or anything- i'm just not good at talking- like talking talking- and- and- oh god- I'm sorry-"
"Steven-" You cut him off, your own face beginning to heat up, "I'm not- mad or anything. I uh- I was actually hoping it was you..."
"Really?"
You nodded, reaching back inside to grab the box of letters off your desk, "I- kept all of them. Just cause- they made me feel seen, you know?"
He seemed to breath a sigh of relief.
After another long moment you asked, "Why- why didn't you just talk to me?"
"Because you're you... your pretty, and smart, and incredible, and its like you always know what to do and say and just... I'm not like that- I'm just me. It was easier to hide..."
Slowly, you moved forward, cupping his face in your hands, "I think your wrong. I like just you... I like you Steven."
"oh." He mumbled, quickly bridging the gap between you, and pressing his lips to yours.
You broke away from him after a moment, grinning, "No more fully hiding behind notes, okay?"
"Okay."
227 notes · View notes
itssleepyrabbit · 3 years
Note
hi! wow i super love your art and i don’t have enough dabihawks in my life 🥺 was wondering if you had any fic recs for them?? 💕💕
aah thank you so much!! 💕💕 💕💕
BOY IF I DO HAVE!! alright buckle up this might get long (most are fluff and SFW~ i’ll put a NSFW warning but be sure to look at tags in all of them!!)
Bed I made (lie in it with me) by  silverwordswrites
“Touya is in desperate need of a plus-one for his brother's wedding and Keigo is infinitely curious about the man who he was sure used to hate him in college.” 
-- the summary says everything and honestly it’s one of the most romatics dabihawks fics i’ve read.
On-going
He Doesn't Love Me by  Fatally
“Dabi doesn't love him. He's accepted that thorny truth, swallowed it down and let briars grow in his chest, drinking down his blood like water.Or: The one in which Hawks settles for pining for his entire life and doesn't realize Dabi's been staring at him the entire time, too.” 
-- I love pinning Hawks with a burning passion.
Completed
sweetheart, is that you? by  fuckendeavor666
“dabi and hawks say i love you (without actually saying i love you) in five different ways.“ 
-- This is my absolute fave dabihawks fic
Completed
Deck the Halls With Boughs of Folly by  DrAphra
“In which the League has acquired a new fancy mansion -with all the heating and food and plush beds they could possibly need - but they still prefer to spend the day out in the wilderness with just each other. Plus Hawks.“ 
-- Honestly all Aphra’s dabihawks fics are more than worth it but this one has a special place on my heart.
Completed
fuck, im so young - orphaned
“Todoroki Touya writes poems.
Words upon words of heartfelt confessions, letters of sing song fantasies, syllables of feelings he never got to say out loud.
When Todoroki Touya hits sixteen, he burns himself to death.
When Dabi hits twenty four-
He meets Hawks.” 
-- i don’t know how to explain but this fic it’s pretty
Completed
Feathers and Feelings by  Toboe1087
“Hawks keeps leaving feathers on his pillow, and Dabi's about had it.
(like hell he'd let anyone else have them, though)”
-- Dabi preening Hawks feathers is a blessing
Complete
(this is not a) swan song by  bittermoons
“"Who's your favorite, then?"
"Hawks." Touya doesn't miss a beat. "Definitely Hawks."
"What? Seriously? How come?"
"He has his flaws, but at the end of the day, he's trying to do good. It's something he always strives for. Dabi, on the other hand...if it weren't for Hawks, he wouldn't be a hero, that's for sure."
[Or: How a secret is revealed, and what comes afterwards.]”
-- Adorable no quirks AU with manga artist Touya and oblivious Keigo! Another author i adore pretty much all dabihawks works.
Completed
You can't trap the sky in a bottle by thyandra
“Letting Toga organize the accommodations for their trip might have been a mistake. This particular truth becomes obvious to Keigo as he opens the door of his hotel room for the first time. There, staring back at him mockingly, is a single, king-sized bed. It’s only by virtue of all the years spent perfecting his poker face around his adoptive parents, that he manages to keep his face straight. At his side, Touya clicks his tongue. “They must’ve given us the wrong key.””
--(no quirks AU) I really love they way Dabi and Hawks are written here i can’t express it in words and so so much pinning
Completed
A Tale as Old as Time by  EloFromMars, Gotcocomilk
“Dabi and Hawks are hit by the most improbable Quirk: both are yeeted in Fairytales land and have to rely on each other to get out of this.“
-- this was such a fun read omg
Completed
A Romance Written All Over Your Body by  minatsukinoamayo
//NSFW mind the tags!//
“Hawks is assigned to infiltrate the League of Villains in order to expose them. Hawks usually never fails a mission, but Keigo usually never falls in love, either.A story of how Hawks falls from grace to become a villain, because hero society has failed them all.
OR
5 times they're not in a relationship and 1 time they are.“
-- you know those fics you say “one more chapter” and it’s 3AM
Completed
it caught spark in your eyes by  youareoldfatherwilliam
//Mature - Implied Sexual Content//
“Keigo’s quirk is powerful, but sometimes it comes with unintended side effects.
Or: A 5 + 1 fic of five times the more…instinctively bird-like parts of Keigo’s quirk took over accidentally during his relationship with Dabi, and one time it happened entirely on purpose.“
-- I was screaming about this particular fic on twt the other day pls give it a read if you can it’s so so so good! Any fic that has Hawks with bird traits has a special place on my heart
Completed
The Others by  threesipsmore
//Mature - 2 sexual scenes, nothing too explicit but they’re there//
“"Skeptic's starting to think he’s more important than me,” Toga sneers, an acidic edge to her voice. “Making decisions on his own, sending out birdie without even talking to me first.”
She’d simply acquiesced to cooperating with Skeptic, but from day one the complaints had never stopped. In this tiny room layered with sushi and cakes, Dabi was forced to listen to her whining.”
-- You go birb, you get that man
Completed
Equivalent Exchange by  inexchangeforyoursoul
“Keigo blinks the blurry oblivion away from his eyes, although some part of it is oddly stubborn and to stay indefinitely. There's three things he's certain of: first, he’s alive. Second, just by looking at the bed and windows he can tell this is no villain hospital or torture room. Third: something feels wrong. Very wrong.
The silence… is deafening.
xxx
To obtain, something of equal value must be lost.
If so, what of a bird that has lost its wings?”
-- i had so many feelings reading i can’t physically explain them to you also PINK HAIR DABI PINK HAIR DABI
Completed
dabi's 5-step guide to being a better parent than endeavor by  twinkfrankenstein (orphan_account)
“A little voice inside his head whispered spitefully about how this was no place for a child, and how he was making a mistake and would only traumatize the kid, yada yada. He responded with an equally spiteful-
“Fuck off, its not like I planned to do arson today.”
(or: how Dabi becomes a good dad just to spite his own, realizes he kinda sorta maybe likes Hawks for realsies, begrudgingly admits the League cares and finally comes to terms with his protective side. Not in that order.)“
-- this legit made me laught out loud idk what else tell you
Completed
The Todoroki In-Laws by  aphrodaisyacs
“Over 10 years after the fight against the Paranormal Liberation Front, Rumi, aka the part-time hero Miruko and the proud wife of one Todoroki Fuyumi, decides it would be an awesome idea to create a groupchat with the significant others of the other Todoroki siblings.
Maybe things would be easier if its members weren’t two Pro Heroes, a former one and a rehabilitated villain, but…Honestly, where’s the fun in that?”
-- this is not dabihawks focused but it’s so funny pls
Completed
With Being Petty Comes Consequences by  CursedUndead
“"When we were saying fuck pro heroes, I didn't think you literally meant FUCK them," Tomura grumbles, kicking over an empty beer can.
"Pretty judgmental for someone fucking a pro twice their age," Touya says.
Tomura squints, and says, "Ten years is not twice my age."
Or, after spending Enji's money, Touya is forced to babysit for the number 2 hero to pay him back. Touya makes it his life's mission to fuck his new boss.”
-- this only has 4 chapters but i know it’s going to be one of my faves
On-going
The Truth series by  AmethystUnarmed
-- Hawks gets hit with a truth quirk and starts to be actually free by the power of love, friendship and a bit of crime <3
The last entry is on-going
and if we sit and count it up it's really not a lot by  sincerelysamedt
“Hawks finds a bento box in his messenger bag and almost cries.
"Is that a loving wife bento?"“
-- please PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD READ THIS ONE /sobbing noises/
Completed
steal your heart by  darlingest
//Mature//
“When infamous thief Hawks announces that he is going to steal the heart of Endeavor's son, everyone expects him to prey on Shoto Todoroki - nobody suspects Touya to be the actual target.“
-- Villain Hawks and civilian Dabi are my guilty pleasure and this one it’s so soft too i’m- djsahfdjkfhadf
Completed
darling, thank god it’s this universe we’re in (and you can annoy me as much as you please) by  juurensha
“ Todoroki Rei divorces Endeavor and moves all four of her children into a small apartment next to a boy with wings as red as the hair of her eldest son. “
-- This was one of the first dabihawks fics i ever read and, to this day, i come back to it when i feel i need the extra burst in happy feelings and check their other works too! Honestly all are such a good fucking read
Completed
504 notes · View notes
rustbeltjessie · 2 years
Note
13. How do you get out of a creative block?
I have lots of different tricks. They don’t always all work, but usually if I cycle through all of them I eventually land on one that works.
One of the things I often do when I’m stuck on a particular piece or project is just work on a different project. A poem is giving me a hard time? I’ll work on my novel. My novel isn’t working? Why not an essay! Or, I’ll work with a different art form entirely. I have writer’s block? I’ll make a collage. I’m having a difficult time making visual art? I’ll pick up my guitar and noodle around a bit. The point isn’t even to make anything “serious” or “good” in another art form, it’s that I’m still being creative but not actively working on the thing I’m stuck on. What tends to happen is that my brain is still working on whatever I’m stuck on in the background, but since I’m not actively working on it, it’s free to just sort of play around and often times that’s enough to jar whatever I was stuck on loose.
Other things that sometimes allow my brain to work out creative problems/blockages without my meddling are baking/cooking, making playlists, dancing, and even cleaning/reorganizing. (Honestly, thank g-d for writer’s block in that regard, because without out it my house would be even messier and dirtier than it is now.)
Getting out of my house helps a lot. Taking a long walk or a long drive, weather permitting, often helps me immensely. Sometimes it’s because something I experience on the walk or drive clicks things together in my head, other times it’s more like what I mentioned above—while I am focused on the walk or the drive, my brain is working on something in the background. It’s also good when I can get out of my house to write. In the Before Times, I wrote at cafes, diners, and bars whenever possible, but I haven’t had the chance to do that in over two years. Now, in nice weather, I’ll go to a park and write; otherwise, my mom has an art studio and when she’s not using it, I sometimes get to go there and write. If I can’t leave my house, sometimes just writing in a different room of the house than I normally do is enough of a change of scenery to get me past my writer’s block.
Reading can help. Not so much sitting down and reading through one book straight through (in fact, that can have the opposite effect), more like: reading an article here, a short story there, a poem or two there. All the different words and tones and ideas sort of vibrate against one another and sometimes spark something new or help click things together in my head regarding something I’m already working on. (For this reason, I’m usually reading three to six books at any given time and alternating between them.)
One thing I’ve started doing recently is writing about how I can’t write. If I sit down to work on a poem or other piece of writing and I’m finding it difficult to begin, either because I’m afraid I’m not good enough to write it, or because the topic is something that’s hard for me to write about, I’ll start by writing something like I can’t write this, this is too scary, this is too hard, and keep doing that until just the act of writing snaps me out of my block and I can get into writing what I actually wanted to write. And if I hit another block in the middle of writing whatever it is, I’ll go back to writing I can’t write this, rather than quitting. It makes for some disjointed first drafts, but that’s what editing’s for!
Finally, if my blockage is poetry-specific, I try writing a poem in a different form or style. For some reason, having to follow the constraints of a form can help stop me from overthinking the other aspects of a poem. And if all else fails, I compose a cento. When coming up with my own words and forming them into a poem is just not happening, I am still able to take other people’s words and collage them into a poem, and at least I’m still keeping my poetry muscles in shape, and eventually my own words will come back.
11 notes · View notes
demoiselledefortune · 3 years
Text
Post canon sangcheng fic recs for @runespoor7
(wooohoo that’s only 25 fics haha)
Silence by inberin
https://archiveofourown.org/works/17441771
a conversation in the snow.
Wonderfully nuanced characterisation. It hints at whole relationship and dynamic with a lot of delicacy.
Windrose by offlight
https://archiveofourown.org/works/18997546
Nie Huaisang is forced into a coma to stop his qi deviation. Jiang Cheng is tasked with waking him up.
There’s a lot of intriguing dreamscapes in this one, and I love Jiang Cheng (and in the background Wei Wuxian)’s desperation and obstinacy.
All the innocence we give by shamiran
https://archiveofourown.org/works/18864910
Learning to renavigate the ground between them is easier than Nie HuaiSang expects. It's also harder than he could have imagined.
Just a sweet story.
Taste the wine off your lips by ExNihiIo
https://archiveofourown.org/works/20129245
A light pat lands against his back, and a cup of water is pushed in front of his face. “Not even Zi Shi, and you’re already tipsy?,” asks a teasing voice, while a thin hand puts down the cup. Jiang Cheng coughs a little more, shaking his head, and sends a dirty look at his host. “I am not tipsy.” “Hm, and yet your cheeks are all red. What would your disciples think, if they saw you in this state?” “They’d think about running away while they can. I can break legs more easily than I can drink alcohol.” A smile curves the edges of Nie Huaisang’s mouth, and he closes his fan with a curt jerk, sitting across the table. He’s wearing lighter clothes, Jiang Cheng notices, compared to the ones he had during the Discussion Conference. Where those had been tight and rigid against his body, these now fall softly on him, the large sleeves sweeping delicately as Nie Huaisang moves to pour himself a cup.
I like the melancholy tone of this one.
The light of autumn: you will not be spared by crooows
https://archiveofourown.org/works/19901467/chapters/47138221
Nie Huaisang arrives a week early for the conference which will be held in Yunmeng to discuss the position of chief cultivator.
[Title is from a poem called "October" by Louise Glück!]
A bit funny, a bit melancholy
You can run but you can’t hide by ThirtySixSaveFiles
https://archiveofourown.org/works/21119297
Nie Huaisang has noticed something about the way Jiang Cheng takes compliments; Nie Huaisang has a theory, and he intends to test it out.
Just Huaisang figuring out Jiang Cheng has a praise kink. Established pairing.
Evening Bloom by dragonofeternal
https://archiveofourown.org/works/20958518
Jiang Cheng is spry and lithe well into his twilight years, living well off Wei Wuxian's stolen youth; Nie Huaisang's golden core, on the other hand, has always been poor- he blacks his hair with ink and dyes, hides the pudge of indolence and the wrinkles of age behind the latest fashions and the finest fans. Perhaps for their peers, finding the space to be vulnerable came easy, but for them it's taken this long to maybe think of letting someone in.
I have a big weakness for stories about old people falling in love and this is one delivers very sweetly.
Four Days in Lanling by Halotolerant
https://archiveofourown.org/works/21722695/chapters/51817036
Nie Huaisang looks at him. ‘You are confusing me, Clan Leader Jiang, perhaps I misunderstand, but…’
‘You didn’t misunderstand. You don’t misunderstand. You understand all of it.’ For six months Jiang Cheng has been mulling this over, and now with Nie Huaisang in front of him he can’t figure out if he most wants to knock him down or kneel at his feet. What he does is try and breathe. Clench his hands at his sides. ‘And now I am going to ask you to do something for me. You have to do something for me. You have to help Jin Ling.’
Ok so perhaps it’s misrepresentating to call this a post canon fic  since most of the action is mid-13-years-of-WWX-death but the fairly important framing part is post canon. Also it’s one of the best sangcheng fic out there and a must read.
Shadow eternal by rynleaf
https://archiveofourown.org/works/23162944/chapters/55439032
“You want me to distract the Chief Cultivator from the Annual Cultivation Conference, so you and other sect leaders can… what. Sign contracts without adult supervision?”
“If Jiang-zongzhu is amenable,” Sect Leader Ouyang repeats with a nod.
Jiang Cheng pinches the bridge of his nose. The pressure he felt building behind his eyes all morning is swiftly coalescing into a bitch of a headache. “Just what do you all think I’m capable of?”
Sect Leader Ouyang bows with a cheerful smile. “We have utmost faith in Sandu Shengshou’s abilities.”
-
In which a night hunt ends in disaster, Jiang Cheng catches a glimpse of Nie Huaisang's heart, and feelings are discussed after a certain fashion.
One that’s between sweet and angsty.
The way is shut, and we cannot go back by saltedpin
https://archiveofourown.org/works/23592523
One month since Guanyin Temple, and some people are coping better than others (or not).
This one is a mostly sad and bitter take on Jiang Cheng reacting to Nie Huaisang’s plot (and being very drunk).
Living memory by ghosthouses
https://archiveofourown.org/works/24827980
Once Jin Guangyao has left, he gives himself two indulgences. The first, a day to scream in his rooms made soundproof with a talisman. The second, a physical list written in code, to keep his older self, who will have let the pain dull with time, accountable for what must be done.
It has only two commandments:
He will die.  
and 
He will know.
Nie Huaisang puts it in his sleeve with the intention of keeping it with him at all times, to be added to but never reduced, a living memory of his task.
This and its prequel which you should also read is quite short but probably one of my favorite depictions of their dynamic (and probably one I find most plausible).
What’s Left of us by cangse-sanren
https://archiveofourown.org/works/24979081
“Well,” Huaisang tries hesitantly, “both of us seem to have a rather fraught relationship with things like older brothers and the concept of betrayal. And regret,” he adds as an afterthought. "Perhaps you just understand me more than most."
Yet another that dwells into Jiang Cheng reacting to Nie Huaisang’s plan. I really like that take although it’s barely shippy (and quite short).
Descending by lightningwaltz
https://archiveofourown.org/works/25296595
“I want to… to not be embarrassed.”
“To not be embarrassed during what?”
“During sex.” There. Jiang Cheng can say it. “In general. Also with you right now.”
“Very good.”
“When did you become so authoritative?” Jiang Cheng wants to sound irked, but can’t quite manage anything beyond nervous curiosity.
Very interesting fic and in many ways unusual. I’d say it’s hypnosis kink, but it’s much more character driven than that. With a context of established FWB arrangement between Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang.
Tell him that I miss our little talks by xiaolongbaobei
https://archiveofourown.org/works/25232023
the post-canon fic where Jiang Cheng becomes the Chief Cultivator, realizes that it's not too late to fall in love and learns to ask for what he wants
Longish fic exploring Jiang Cheng as Chief cultivator working with Nie Huaisang and slowly falling in love with him. I adore this one, and not only because I love fics that explore the idea of Jiang Cheng as chief cultivator.
Blind for Love by manamune
https://archiveofourown.org/works/25760272
Jiang Cheng is poisoned with an aphrodisiac and needs to orgasm repeatedly in order to flush it from his system.
The first person he thinks of going to for help is Nie Huaisang, who does what any good friend would do: he shoves his three decades worth of feelings for Jiang Cheng deep into the recesses of his mind, locks them up so he can pretend they don’t exist, and then fucks him so hard that he passes out.
Mostly a long smutty piece, but with a lot of fun character bits along the way.
A Tight-Knit Family by aldalin
https://archiveofourown.org/works/25500481/chapters/61862899
“Jing Ling, we need to talk.”
Jin Ling has too many uncles, and he’s about to get another.
Sect Leader Jiang announces his marriage to Sect Leader Nie.
A fairly different take, more focused on Jin Ling and Wei Wuxian reacting to Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang’s relationship.
A trip to Qinghe by Scorpiwriting
https://archiveofourown.org/works/26974741
An unexpected hunt forces Jiang Cheng to leave the Lotus Pier a bit earlier than he had anticipated, so he decides to send Jin Ling to Qinghe, for the sake of not sending him back to Lanling so soon: it turns into a learning experience for the young sect leader, who gets to peek into the life of the Headshaker.
or.
Jin Ling learns that not everything people say is true and that perhaps there is some merit to art. He also learns that loneliness is a dark beast and that his uncle should definitely do something about it.
Another one more focused on Jin Ling’s reaction to it. Honestly more of a gen piece about Jin Ling and Nie Huaisang, but an interesting one.
Silver bracelets on their wrists by mercurious
https://archiveofourown.org/works/25797715
“Can’t I find excuses to visit an old friend?”
Ok so this one is a bit fucked up in interesting ways. It combines Chief Cultivator Jiang Cheng and explicit longing about Wei Wuxian, and BDSM as catharsis. It’s a fascinating piece.
Welcome to love by amphigoric
https://archiveofourown.org/works/22412866/chapters/53549794
Desire, Jiang Cheng learned, flourished even in love’s absence. It surged hot and fast through his veins at the sight of Nie Huaisang’s spread thighs, marks still lingering from the last rendezvous they had. He felt it burning through his chest as Huaisang raked lines down his back, breaths coming in short, desperate gasps: “Jiang Wanyin, Jiang Wanyin, please, please.”
It’s a little bit clumsy at times, but also very passionate and intense in a way I still find compelling. Featuring a lot of self sabotaging Jiang Cheng.
When your stitch comes loose by heyninja
https://archiveofourown.org/works/27868454/chapters/68234434
Sometimes people see you for who you really are. Sometimes because you let them. Sometimes whether you like it or not.
A triptych of collisions between Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng.
Only the last part is post canon but it’s the most important part, isn’t it?
Peel your heart like a pomegranate by Izumi_silverleaf
https://archiveofourown.org/works/29458974
"It's an extraordinary feeling when parts of your body are touched for the first time. I'm thinking of the sensations from sex and surgery."
Sometimes you just need to read a very hot guro fic. It’s a weird fic but it’s a cool one.
If you give a Nie a cushion by LesbianLazerOwl
https://archiveofourown.org/works/29470236
Prompt: Long enough After Canon that everyone's mostly okay these days, Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang get drunk and wind up comparing masturbation habits; each is aghast at how the other spends their personal time.
Funny and hot
To Distraction by isozyme
https://archiveofourown.org/works/27763816
It’s the third night of Yunmeng’s kite festival celebrations. Nie Huaisang has come visiting, eager to partake in the food, the arts, and Jiang Cheng.
Jiang Cheng wants to forget. Nie Huaisang has some new lube and wants to see if he can put his whole fist in somebody’s ass.
Established pairing in which Nie Huaisang fists Jiang Cheng. It’s hot.
Safe in Your arms by Dragon_scribe
https://archiveofourown.org/works/30070503/chapters/74058315
In the aftermath of a night hunt gone (very) wrong, Jiang Cheng wakes up to find himself in the Unclean Realm. As he recovers from his injuries, he and Nie Huaisang grow closer and as time passes, their friendship begins to shift to something more.
Very sweet/sappy and hurt/comfort orientated, with a small bit of reconciliation dimension too.
47 notes · View notes
kyoupann · 3 years
Note
Please do more of the writing head canons. It’s really interesting to see other people’s ideas on the topic, so if you can be bothered, I would highly appreciate more, thanks bye <3
Y’all don’t know how happy I am to talk about these headcanons, they are my babies and I love them so much :’) thanks for asking g <3
Handwriting Headcanons
Same dynamic as before, try to guess whose handwriting it is before reading and tell me how many you got right! <3
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You can find the first post here (no need to check it tho)
Quick disclaimer: halfway through making my initial notes, I remembered I had one (1) single lesson of graphology in my applied linguistics class, but that was a year ago and some information might be off. I just thought it was neat to include.
Another quick disclaimer: I don’t know much about Hylian, but I like to think it has a similar stroke system to Japanese, so the pressure and accuracy of your strokes play a major role in your handwriting (among other things, ofc.) so there are some parts where I focus more on that
(First Row, from left to right)
Sky
Our first boy is mother hen! Believe it or not, he has the prettiest handwriting out of all of them! Sky: probably has nice, even elegant handwriting because Sun forced him to practice when they were little. In the end, that paid off because his handwriting is the prettiest one. There’s no pressure, but he is confident in what he writes that his lines aren’t thin. Mistakes? what is that? this boy has impeccable grammar and spelling. No mechanic errors to be found in his letters! I’d like to think that many of Hyrule’s classic/staple poems were originally written by the firt king aka sky child. Like, imagine, after a retiring from being a Person of Power (as the first ruler), Sky finds comfort in the arts: revisits his old woodcarvings and starts writing poetry about the world he still doesn’t fully understand. wowie. tldr: sky writes poetry and you can pry it from my cold dead hands.
This is what one of his letters would look like: 
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Next one is the one and only, our Hero of Time
2. Time
I’ll die on the “Time didn’t know how to read and write” hill. His handwriting is simple, not pretty but not messy. It has some grammar and spelling mistakes here and there. Can become unreadable if writing in a hurry, he sorts of forgets spaces between words are a thing/letters have different sizes and lowercase letters end up the same size as capital letters. I’m not saying he sometimes forgets to write articles: he just doesn’t want to. Honestly, he just has this dad-neat handwriting. He is a gentle dad and writes like a dad, if he puts too much pressure onto the paper, his handwriting become too sharp/angle-ish and ends up looking ugly. And as much as he would like to not care about it, in the end he does (:
Malon taught him how to write and it was quite the experience. At first he didn’t want to because he was ‘too old’ to learn and it was torture at first, but now look at him devouring his cowboy novels. 
A chunk of his handwriting: 
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*sniff* such a dad quote.
3. my mansss, your  4x1 deal at Target: Four
Look, my boy is patient! He could do some nice and fancy lettering if he wanted to. He was taught that handwriting and spelling said a whole lot about him as a person, you know, like a first impression kinda thing; so he always proof reads more than twice before sending ­a letter. Super rare grammar mistakes.
The faster he writes, the more slant his writing becomes. Under stress/ when not sure how to write things down, run-on sentences are everywhere and his handwriting is inconsistent in general (I don’t headcanon each part of him having completely different handwriting because handwriting becomes muscle memory over time. It’s just slightly different variations of the same, like idk  Vio’s handwriting is neater than Green’s and Red writes hearts instead of any dot/circle and no, I do not take constructive criticism on that, jk i do.) Adding on to each of the colours’ handwriting, I’d think Red and Green write with words slanted to the right( inclined), Vio is a mix of the opposite, so reclined and straight, and my mans blue a true neutral writes straight (kinda like Time’s).
The logic behind this is that inclined writing supposedly means honesty and need for giving (and getting) affection; reclined means, as you can probably imagine,  defensiveness and repression of true feelings, but also shows great concentration; straight handwriting means self-control, observation and reflection as well as distrust and indifference. But as complete being (tm), Four just writes as in the image example which is not too straight and not too inclined, and I believe that’s a good middle for him
HOWEVER, if I’m feeling in the mood for crack, I totally accept this boy to have the ugliest, chicken scratches-looking handwriting! :’D It’s just funny to think that someone like him, who has to be precise and careful in his work, can't write neatly to save his life. 
One of his letters would look like this: 
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Also I just LOVE how his hero titles look in this font ksksks
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and that’s
(Middle row, from left to right)
4.- Mister Bunny Boy - Legend
His uncle taught him how to write. I’d call his handwriting pretty and neat at a first glance, but he presses too hard on the paper, most of the time staining the back or the following page. Sometimes will retrace some words if he doesn’t like how it looks (which only makes it messier). According to my notes, a thick or strong handwriting represents determination/commitment.
As I also headcanon him to know many languages, mechanical errors are more present than grammar ones; that is, weird capitalisation of words. Punctuation is somewhere in between; uses too many commas when he should just cut the sentence. he mixes punctuation from two languages or more in writing when too distracted (or too focused, because, well, pressure.); when he writes for himself, he has almost no problem following said language’s punctuation rules. Also, this is just polyglot culture, and I’m projecting a bit, but when he forgets a word in the language he’s writing, he just replaces it with its equivalent in another language because we don’t care about fluency, but rather functionality. in this household (more on that in my language hc, ksksks).
An example of his writing:
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so powerful
4.-  Mr. Wolfman, howl me a song - Twilight
I don’t have much for him because 1) I don’t think he writes a lot and 2) he is a hands-on/visual learner, I’ll die by that. He only learnt how to write because Ulli insisted it was important and he was not about to disrespect his momma; he IS That Guy, but doesn’t really write enough to have neat handwriting.
Many people seem to overlook the fact that his house is filled with books and write him as completely illiterate (which if not explored properly, ends up feeling a bit disrespectful and full of prejudice, but go off I guess; and that’s on my core Headcanons for Twi); however, he sticks to simple sentences. Knowing how to read and understanding a text is different from knowing how to write them. Like, when we would see a semicolon and understand its position in the text, but didn’t understand the nature of it. Is this clear? idk i’m sorry. So yeah, boy reads a lot, writes very little.
As for his Actual Handwriting, as opposed to Legend, his handwriting is thiccc but not because he presses into the paper; he is just that messy, he has no sense of ink-flow-control, he does what he can with what he has. To the untrained eye, his handwriting illegible letters like v, n, u are very similar; when he makes notes for himself he does it in the form of doodles or small ‘icons’. But! He reads a lot, so he rarely makes spelling mistakes (: he is your go-to guy when you don’t know how to write a word.
An example of his writing:
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He keeps a journal, sue me.
3. My first born- Warrior
Okay, first off... I accept this is completely biased. I saw the idea and said “That’s True”. If you haven’t, please read Effective Communication; or The Lack of Thereof by htruona, a fic where the boys reflect on the language barriers between them. It’s incredibly funny and probably what made me start making these silly notes. So, if you’ve read that fic, you know where I’m going.
My man, Warrior, can’t fucking write. I mean, he physically can, but it’s very bad. Here’s the reason for it, tho, and it’s not his fault: Technically, he knew how to write alright but he joined the military and whatever note he had to write had to be concise or in the worst case coded. He mixes capital and lowercase letters. If we consider that he joined the military at around 15, his handwriting and grammar had yet to continue developing. Just think about how after summer break, your handwriting was always slightly worse than before because you didn’t write for an entire month. Now think what 2 years can do to that. Hmm, not cool, dude. He makes quick notes, when writing he’s all gotta go fast. he is the lighting mcqueen of writing; good for emergency messages, not ideal for love letters. His punctuation also suffered a lot, he only know full stops and commas and hardly uses them. A sentence for him is either one word or fifty without a single comma, no inbetween.
His hero title and an example of his writing.
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(Bottom row, or what I like to call “fuck cursive” row)
7.- Magic man - Hyrule
I’m basic and I do agree with the popular headcanon of he not knowing how to write because well, y’all know his Hyrule. He only knows how to write his name because that’s important, same with numbers. I don’t see why would he write/read except checking the roadsigns. (he can even use this as an excuse for getting lost frequently; he thought it said something different.) But I do think that because his habitual reading consists of roadsigns, his ‘punctuation’ is weird af and places full stops/points/periods at the same level of his words and his commas/question/exclamation marks below them. Yk, creative license. Sadly, I don’t have much about my magic hands man so here’s what his writing would look like if he actually wrote a paragraph:
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Man, I love Hyrule.
8.- Man, I don’t understand this boy -  Wild
Cursive? ain’t nobody have the time for that. He woke up and had to save the world in his underwear while not knowing how to read nor write.  He learnt during his journey and was taught by multiple people from different regions, that explains his inconsistent spelling of things and names for them. So Wild knows language variations for many items and uses them interchangeably (even if they aren’t exactly the same). Another headcanon related to writing/language skills that I’ve been thinking about is that if the shrine was able to cause amnesia, I’m sure there were other areas in the brain affected which leads us to language disorders such as agraphia and aphasia. But that’s a story for another day ksksksk
An example of his writing (after relearning)
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9.- The best of sons - Wind
I don’t have much for him and that makes me sad. Look, he’s a kid, doing kid things like stabbing dudes on the head. This boy was taught cursive by his grandma, but could never do it and no one needs it anyway. His handwriting is good enough for his pirate life, Tetra is the one to handle Official stuff, he just gotta sign. Spelling and grammar mistakes abound. He is still relatively young and can correct his handwriting if he desires. But same as Wild, with how many times he’s been thrown out and hit his head, I’m starting to consider some language disorder for him as well.
An example of his writing:
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aaand that’s it.
Thanks, y’all for showing interest in this silly thing uwu it was fun to finally talk about this. If you ever want to discuss ideas/headcanons(especially if they are related to language and culture), I’m your person (: I’m always happy to hear new headcanons. Feel free to add anything to this post either in a reply or in a reblog, I’d love to hear from y’all <3<3
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creatorofclay · 3 years
Text
Welcome back to observations with your favorite Kamski obsessed roleplayer. Last time, we talked about the actual location of Elijah's villa (boy was that a pain to dig back up too), the exact location of it on Belle Island. Today, it's time to discuss inside.
So, credit where credit is due, I want to thank @nock-and-bolt for their post about it that caused me to dig myself because, wow. I actually bought the game on PC and paid for the freecam (from otis_inf on Patr.eon) to dig because I am absolutely desperate. Hope you enjoy!
For my research purposes, I will be focusing on the parts of the rooms you don’t get to see normally, since the pool room and waiting room are explored enough in game... As well as a bunch of other things, wow this post got long LOL woops.
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Okay, so, first off, I have said this before and I will say it again. This place is UGLY. But, I don’t get modern design, so we will move on from that. Second, the place is literally aesthetic only, I swear to you. There are at least 20+ different chairs/couches that you can see just in the main parts of the house. There’s no reason to have that much sitting space unless you either host people a lot, which I highly doubt he does, or its for design and nothing else. It doesn’t even include what we can’t see on the other side of the house, its just the rooms we CAN see. 
Its not a place you live, this is like a museum. Or office or some showroom.
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The left side (facing the building) is the only part that I believe is the living space and it seems to be very small. But, knowing that Kamski has an appreciation for Japanese culture, and that I personally believe he’s absolutely a minimalist, this would make sense. He doesn’t need more than this small corner of the house for the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. 
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Roughly this size which, like I said, is probably enough for him. It would be the size of basically a studio apartment except more utilized because the living room and dining room are the other side of the house. 
But, moving on from the outside. Now, nock-and-bolt showed us what was behind the door that Chloe walks through in the pool room, but what I am curious about now is the farthest right door in the waiting area.
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I think I remember seeing concept art that made it out to be what looked like it could have been a room, there was a bookshelf behind the door. I always assumed it was a home office or something, and its what I personally have worked with in my headcanons. But, nope. Thats actually wrong. 
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Its just another hallway into this main living room. Which makes sense, sort of, if the kitchen and other things are on the other side of the waiting area. So you don’t always have to walk through the pool room to get to the other side of the house. But, whats super neat, that I love about this, is the stuff on the shelf here. Its just a few things but boy are they interesting. 
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A floral vase and a couple weird, modern art pieces. I really don’t like Elijah’s style, I can’t stress that enough here, but its again clear how much of a minimalist he is. But, there is also one more thing:
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What looks like some sort of Greek inspired vase the highest on the shelves. I did a bit of research to figure out what its supposed to be and what I could find seems to be referring to a nostos, which is “is a theme used in Ancient Greek literature, which includes an epic hero returning home by sea.” Which I only found from reading about Odysseus who was most known for his own nostos that took his 10 “eventful” years after the decade long trojan war, the subject of the Odyssey, one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer.
Crucial themes in the poem include the ideas of nostos (νόστος; "return"), wandering, xenia (ξενία; "guest-friendship"), testing, and omens. Scholars still reflect on the narrative significance of certain groups in the poem, such as women and slaves, who have a more prominent role in the epic than in many other works of ancient literature. This focus is especially remarkable when considered beside the Iliad, which centres the exploits of soldiers and kings during the Trojan War.
I am pretty sure the symbolism in the game is pretty obvious by this point, but this is just interesting because the vase is not something anyone would EVER see in the game. Its behind a door you can’t open, that never opens, and tucked away in the corner you would never see. But, it is still important for Elijah Kamski as a character. Assumed trials and tribulations, as well as the 10 year gap? Its just too coincidental. But, thats a whole other story honestly, and I don’t really know the most about Greek Mythos to be talking about it right now. 
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Some other small things from this weird house that I thought were interesting. Just textures really, but detail. The marks on the cellos may be my favorite because it means they’re being used. Probably played in that chair sitting beside them. 
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ALSO THIS? Theres one chair that isn’t pushed in equal with the others. ONE. Its literally like an inch out further than the other 7 chairs. Someone was sitting there recently. 
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Now, these are interesting. because they--
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--are literal tubes. I’m assuming these are for the androids. Maybe where they go when they aren’t in use or doing something. Or just. Charging? Stations? I don’t know, it could literally be a spawn point for them, but I think they are purposely placed and its interesting to me that they are placed like pedestals in front of the tv. Like he just likes to look at them standing there. Like a weirdo. 
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Now we have this door. This door that I thought went somewhere because I didn’t notice it from the outside before but. Nope. It just goes outside. 
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So I watched a video recently that was someone looking at $40 million NYC apartments and I realize what this door must be. Its the only way to get fresh air in this bitch. None of the other windows are made to be opened, anywhere in this villa. So, there has to be one. Its just weird to me that its at the far end overlooking the pier. 
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I just have a love hate relationship with this place. Its aesthetic, but the aesthetic is modern and weird. This place, what we can see of it, is not a living space. This is an office. What you show off to show how much money you have. I’m curious what this place looks like during the Kamski ending. All dark even though I think all these lights he has on are NEVER turned off. We shall see...
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Also when Chloe goes to talk to Elijah she stands at this door and doesn’t move until shes ready again. He’s spawned in the pool by this point. Sure, when she goes to open the door again, she appears a few steps back so she can walk up to it, but my heart wants to believe she was told to just stand there and make them wait LOL. 
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There was also a very human reaction from Chloe when Connor appeared to be standing in her way. I had stepped in so Kamski would start swimming and went behind the door to see where Chloe got the robe from (im sure she just pops it out of thin air because its just floating under the house) but she didn’t force him to step aside for some reason, like she has done before. She just... Waited there behind him.  She reached behind her head, rubbed at her neck, motioned like she was impatient like... “God is this guy really going to just stand there and play with a quarter or is he going to move?” She even tapped her hand a couple times against her thigh. It was.... Strange to see.
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In conclusion... Is there a conclusion? This is just a collection of things I discovered. If I find something else interesting, I will share. For now, thats all. uwu I went overboard and this is really long but.... I don’t call myself obsessed for nothing........
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thethirteenthcrow · 3 years
Text
The Shyan Shipping Society Writing Challenge ✍️💕
Hello dear shippers! 
My name’s Zhalia, a fanfic writer on archive of our own. you might know me from my stripper!Ryan au, or the cinderella au or from the many comments i leave on your amazing works.
Since October, i’ve been hosting very lowkey writing challenges on the Shyan Shipping Society Discord server. and i figured, i’d let good ol’ tumblr get a piece of it!
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this is a fun lil' challenge to practice your writing with random prompts!
(shout out to @helloitsvehere​ for making the amazing header here and sorry to keep bugging you on it but it looks really amazing now darling <3)
✨RULES✨
✧ the challenge is held at monthly, we don't want to pressure anyone too much and we want to give you enough time to work! on top of that, the minimum amount of words for this challenge is 50, which is a very low bar, it's no school, this is for fun!! also don't worry if you miss a month.
✧ from the day we set the prompt, you have one month to meet the challenge. with this, we request a chapter or a start. if a prompt inspires u to write more than a oneshot or one chapter, feel free to expand as much as you can outside the challenge! everyone is requested to post their submissions on the same day (so say we start at october 1st, then you're only allowed to submit your submissions on october 31st, no sooner). We then hope to announce the new prompt on, for example, november 1st to continue the cycle, but it may differ at times.
✧ There are no specifications to your writing. you may write however you like, a story, a description, a poem, anything is allowed. you're free to write in any rating, be it G or E-rated. we prefer M/E of course, cause we're thirsty like that. if you’re an artist, you’re free to join too! more elaboration in the FAQ below :D.
✧ if you have ideas for prompts, please DM me on Discord or mail me on [email protected] ! i love to hear em <3 (keep reading for more information on the challenge)
i can’t wait to see all your lovely works! i’m really stoked to see and chat with you and learn all that’s going around in your wonderful minds.
much love, 
Zhalia💖
✨FAQ✨
o   What is the Shyan Shipping Society (Server)?
The shipping society is a discord server owned by @bradpistachio​ where a bunch of shippers gather to chat about anything: their lives; the boys; other fanworks like fanfics and fanart; annoying antis; we have a writing lab to talk about your own works, and much more! The server is filled with amazing artists like madamecrimson, @helloitsvehere​, @pizzacastella​, sonzaishinai and many more. The server is an active and welcoming community. In the server, I also roll out the updates for this challenge and answer all your questions. Will we see you there?
o   Do i need to join the server to post?
It's not required! The server is a lil' bonus, a place where you can talk with fellow shippers about anything, but also where i will be reminding you of the challenge. We have handful of channels dedicated to this writing challenge, so it might help you out. It's also easier for me to follow, and whenever you have questions i will reply faster there than anywhere else. But, again, it's not necessary.
o   If i join the challenge once, am i required to join every month?
Most definitely not! You're free to join and leave whenever you want. Sometimes a prompt doesn't inspire you, or life dragged you away from writing and that's completely valid! This challenge is supposed to be a fun way to motivate you to express yoursef through your art, but it's not school so don't ever feel pressured :).
o   What tags do i include, what are the ratings we work in?
There are no required ratings and/or tags for you to use. In general, the prompts are all focused on Shyan, but if you'd like to add Standrew as a background relationship, feel free!! If the prompt is Watcher-oriented, but you feel like you need a bit of that spice that Curly brings with him, i encourage you! On top of that, you're free to choose whichever ratings you feel fit best. Personally, i mostly live off of M- and E-rated fics, but if you're uncomfortable with graphic descriptions of anything, and would rather keep it a fluffy G-rated fic, then knock yourself out! I believe you know what's best for your work!
On the shipping server, the prompt will have a set of recommended tags, these are ideas i'd write the prompt in, but they aren't mandatory. If it says 'friends to lovers' but you'd rather write 'established relationship' then feel free! It's your work after all.
o   Is there a minimum and/or maximum word count?
There is a minimum word count of 50 words right now, to show that you're seriously participating (i mean, wouldn't want "he smiled, they kissed, they fucked, the end" as a fic, right?). Your work does not have to be finished in order to fulfill the prompt, you can write one chapter, or one paragraph and edit it later when you have more time. If a prompt inspires you enough to write a long fic about it, don't feel pressured to finish it within a month! Take your time!! All we ask is for you to have written a start, and post that to the collection.
o   i am no writer, but i’d love to make art for this in another way, is that possible?
Of course! originally the challenge was only made for writers, because the server was filled with a majority of writers. however, over the past few weeks we’ve had a handful of artists join our little community as well, people like sonza and @berakangkang​. Sonza has blessed us by filling the October prompt as well, so if you’re an artist and you’d like to participate, please join! we love love love your art. honestly. the server goes wild on fanart. 
o   When do i post my submission?
Everyone who joins the challenge, posts their submission on the same day. This is the last 48 hours of a month - CET timezone. The next prompt will have been rolled out a day before we open submissions, so you can get familiar with it for a day or two before starting on it.
o   I don't think i'll reach the deadline, now what?
You can contact me privately about this through our discord server - for fast replies - or via my email ([email protected]). I will open the collection for you so you can submit it later. Keep an eye on the deadline though, a challenge won't be reopened a month after the deadline.
o   I have an amazing idea for a prompt, where do i submit it?
On the discord server, we have a channel named 'prompts-and-ideas' where some of these prompts even came from, you can submit them there and @ me so i'd know it's for the writing challenge.
If you don't have discord or don't want to join the server, you're free to mail me your idea with Shyan Shipping Society Prompt Idea as subject! I look forward to your ideas!
here’s the link to the parent collection on Archive Of Our Own, where you can always find the new prompts for the next months, and where you can post your work once i open the collection.
i can’t wait to see your works! i’m very excited to see what you all can come up with <3
ps,
this is the first time i host a writing challenge like this. i’m still learning my way around ao3′s function to make prompt meme challenges, and there may always be little bugs in the system, because i have but a small brain. i rely on carl-bot to remind me to post and open submissions and everything, to keep it running smoothly. i am trying my very best to make this fun for everyone. also i crave feedback, so if you have any comments, complaints, ideas, critique, please hit me up!!
oh and yeah i am very inactive on the tumblrs because i don’t uh catch the vibe of this platform but i’m trying. i’m trying. 👉👈
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im-gettingby · 3 years
Text
30 Days of Carry On
posted (and written by?) @captain-aralias
(I’m doing most of these at once because I said so. it’s long so under the cut)
1. Favourite major character
I literally thought — Simon no Baz no Penny no, Agatha!
I guess I will pick Simon, since I relate to him the most — or at least, my connection to him led me into the fandom.
2. Favourite minor character
I think we all know this one 🐑🐑🐑
I have written many a treatise on Lamb Rights. I’ll spare everyone now
3. Character you relate to the most
Oops— I already answered this, kinda. I relate to them in different ways: I relate a lot to WS Simon because he has abandonment issues and “kid who was told he was extraordinary and then grew up to be ordinary” issues. We also both have a “fix all the things for everyone” complex, too.
Baz — It took me a while to get into Baz’s head, but I would say, I relate to him because of his intense emotional world and tendency to see the world through an intensely romantic/tragic lens. But also he’s a Pisces. and I’d never do that like a Pisces does. (Sorry, not sorry.)
4. Which character would you like to go to lunch with?
SHEPARD obviously. I don’t feel the need to elaborate.
5. Favourite non-Snowbaz ship
Ooh! Probably Lamb/Baz or Simon/Shep or just...literally anything. Like, I will read anything as long as it’s well written. The weirder the better. (Within...legal and moral limits.) in my other fandoms I’ve been a big multishipper and there’s not a lot of options for that in CO - which is fine - but wholeheartedly support rarepairs :D
6. Favourite non-romantic OTP
So, obviously Simon/Penny and Baz/Penny are great ones, but I think the nearest & dearest to my heart is Simon/Agatha. The kind of siblings/unwillingly dating/weird exes dynamic and the way they both shaped each other’s lives is just so interesting. And while Simon & Penny are closer, Agatha and Simon represent their aspirational selves to one another. And the way that they were both tied to one another along with their gender roles/places in society and both broke away at the same time is just...mwah
7. Favourite Baz outfit
I honestly dress kinda like Baz. Anything involving a printed silk shirt or a floral brocade suit, so like, all of them? I love WS Baz, his fashion sense is so thoughtful yet fun. He’s so expressive with it — in the sense of both being guarded, being sexy, and playing with masculinity/femininity.
8. How do you feel about Wayward Son?
In case it wasn’t obvious, I absolutely love it. I mean, from a writing/narrative standpoint, I don’t think it’s the most elegant or engaging book ever written, but it’s just so raw and fresh. I don’t see many examples of an author trying to do what Rainbow did, which is build a complex emotional AND plot-driven story with so many characters and so much lore. I’m very excited for AWTWB.
9. Favourite scene from Carry On, besides Chapter 61
I like what the book does/sets up overall. Honestly probably the first scene, where Simon walks to the bus stop & takes the train and just thinks about his life and makes lists -- I love Simon. I know Rainbow said she thinks that bit is boring, but it honestly says so much about his character in a short time. (and he’s an extremely complex character!) Also, Baz’s dramatic entrance. Also, the chapter where Baz says “and I’m hopelessly in love with him” because it’s just so dramatic, and it comes out of nowhere
10. Favourite scene from Wayward Son, besides Chapter 41
Baz and Lamb’s journey across the Strip - vampire lore, jealous Simon, Baz getting to be his own character— it’s beautiful.
11. Remind us about something in canon readers might have forgotten about
Ahahaha um. Simon says he thinks Baz’s cousin Marcus is fit. That’s pretty funny.
12. What are your hopes and fears for Any Way the Wind Blows?
I don’t have any hopes because I don’t want to be disappointed - and that’s not a cynical thing, I just want to go into it with an open mind. (I’ll take a break from fandom and reread the books beforehand so I’m (more of) a blank slate) I guess just...interesting emotional journeys, whatever that ends up being. There’s a lot that Rainbow has to do in the book and I don’t think any one person could get through all of it -- that’s why we have fanfiction.
Fears? I don’t know. I think just...the series ending. Even though I’ve been in fandom for less than a year I just really love this fandom & the thought of that kind of eroding away is sad. But also I don’t think that will happen immediately, and change is a part of life. I’ve never related as much to Cath as I do now :’)
13. An unpopular/cracky opinion you hold
unpopular: Lamb is the best character; I don’t want Simon to get his magic back; both Simon and Baz should have other romantic options.
14. Something from your head fanon
Hmmmmmmm well. Just mean things about Baz really. Like that he’s weird looking, not that great at football, and actually has kind of garish fashion sense. (which is a self-roast as well - see above.) I just feel like Simon/fandom put him on a pedestal, and Simon’s an unreliable narrator re: Baz anyway. So I like the idea that Baz is this average looking kinda strange nerdy guy who is everything Simon has ever wanted in life.
And before you tell me that Baz was hot at Watford and Agatha was into him, have you ever been to a tiny boarding school? Standards get weird 😂😂😂 and Terry being into him — come on. The guy’s a violent pervert.
also - back to Watford being a tiny school. Baz doesn’t have much competition to be the star of the football team. (also, does anyone except Simon even think that he is?)
16. Favourite location other than Watford
Vegas!
17, Favourite location in Watford
I’m pretty bad at Watford lore/geography bc again, I’m way more into WS. Probably the floor in the Cloisters where everything happens the same way, just a day later. There’s a fic there, but I can’t wrap my head around all the time travel implications enough to write it.
18. What would be your favourite subject at Watford?
Any potions-esque subject because I loved chemistry lab. Latin because I loved Latin in school. Uhhhh I don’t like history class, so not that — maybe a literature course focused on the derivation of spells.
19. What would your magical implement be?
Ooh! This is a good one. I’d like to think it would be a weird body piercing. Or a belt a la Gareth. Maybe some kind of traditional south Asian jewelry, like a nose chain or mang-tikka or something. maybe a hat. like, imagine your magical instrument being a fedora and you just have to...wear a fedora all the time.
21. Favourite canon spell
Hm. Kiss it better? Candle in the wind?I should try to think of a non-horny one. honestly they’re all so cool and clever - I love the magic system in CO/WS.
22. What would your eighth year spell at Watford be or do?
Maybe something from a poem I love. That would probably be pretty but not very functional. Or a healing spell.
23. Who would you want as your roommate?
Agatha is uptight, Penny is passive aggressive, Simon is a slob, Baz is both uptight and passive aggressive.
Definitely Shepard.
24. Favourite item of merchandise, official or unofficial
My @subparselkie sticker
25. Favourite book cover design
WS. Oh, another unpopular opinion - I don’t like the kevin wada cover of carry on. their faces look so weird and the colors don’t work for me. I own the version with the blue and yellow cover art instead
26. Do you want a movie? If yes - any fan casts for the movie?
Probably wouldn’t want a movie! Because I am way too possessive of these books/this version of the story. And I am historically extremely disappointed by adaptations — I get upset with the smallest of changes 😂
27. If they made a movie, what scenes do you think they’d cut that you’d be furious were missing?
See above. A LOT haha
28. If you could ask Rainbow Rowell one question, what would it be? (If you have already, you can share if you like)
What is Lamb’s full name????? Is it actually Lamb Lambert Lamborghini the third???
What is Rainbow’s relationship with sheep and goats. Why are there so many references to them
29. Have you read any of Rainbow’s other books?
Only Fangirl
30. How did you get into Carry On and/or Carry On fandom?
I read fangirl & the pages at the end mentioned carry on, so I read that, and enjoyed it but I wasn’t obsessed. Then I read WS spring 2020, reread it a bunch of times, reread CO, freaked out about the cliffhanger/cool vampire stuff/unresolved sexual tension, had pandemic cabin fever, got on AO3, and the rest is history.
As @annabellelux knows, I wrote my first (published) fanfic after reading her amazing fic Drop The Game. and the first fanfic I read was @captain-aralias’ Greener Grass. I was so obsessed that about a month later, I searched through the AO3 tags for it, because I couldn’t remember the title or author but kept thinking about it.
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lady-plantagenet · 3 years
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if you’re still doing those: edward iv / elizabeth woodville for the ship bingo 🕊x
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I’m so sorry, this whole past week has been one massive mental breakdown and I have been finding it incredibly hard to do anything besides uni assignments and writing. Also, I have a lot to say about these two so I didn’t want to half-ass it.
Some Comments:
I don’t know if I told you this but this used to be my OTP, like years ago when I first got into this era and did not think/know much about Clarence and the others. But now it’s no longer the case and that’s not necessarily because it got replaced by gisabel per se but because I’ve always found it extremely hard to reconcile myself with the infidelity aspect. Even when I was more childish I felt a bit dissapointed in the fact that he didn’t appoint her (or Anthony) regent, like obviously now I understand why it was to an extent untenable politically, but back then my younger mind just saw it as ‘he trusted his brother more’, which kind of threw a wrench. So much for the ‘it’s complicated’ square. The problem with long marriages is that the delicious aspect tends to wane, and that can’t be helped in a 20 year long marriage! But obviously the 1464-1470 years taken into isolation... well... it was the epitome of delicious, sexual and romantic. You might find me pointing this out wierd given that I didn’t make the same remarks on Catherine of Valois and Owen Tudor who were also a pretty long marriage, it’s just that... in my mind they kind of stagnate age-wise even as they advance past their twenties because the whole narrative (historical and fictional) around them focuses on the first years of their union and the tribulations, whereas Edward and Elizabeth have a presence way past that as they were after all monarchs and never at one point left to live a quiet life and were no longer chronicled - so in that way they age before our eyes. And with that age you see the infidelity issue get worse, together with Edward’s greater promotion of Gloucester, his drinking, eating etc issues and it starts painting a sad image into my mind of like idk a love that at one point stopped being what it once was and could never again be - like the embers burning out? This turns the what could have been a obbsessive unhealthiness borne from passion into another caused by disillusionment? I don’t put too much stock into this, personally I feel the change in Edward was caused by other external factors and not Elizabeth herself eg Warwick and Clarence’s betrayals and deaths, the massive burden of fixing the previous administration’s mess etc. Nevertheless, Elizabeth on her own did not seem to be enough to drag him out of it and prevent some of his unhealthy habits. I do realise it’s a bit too much to ask for though.
Nevertheless, I do see them as soulmates, she seemed like one of the only people who could keep up with him in will and wit (though Jane Shore seemed quite a competitor in this regard) I’m not the type of person who thinks Edward was dominated by his lust, and I think based on that venetian letter (you know the Ziglio one XD) and the fact that it said that Edward loved her for a long time before marrying her, it was clearly a decision from the heart not the *ahem* codpiece. Also a part of the soulmate/star-crossed trope is the whole ‘they defied all odds, they withstood opposition’, and Liz and Big Ed are famously that. I would totally read fic for this but surprisingly there aren’t many! I honestly don’t know how come?? Like yes they do appear in a lot of histfics and the like, but apart from TWQ they are never the central focus, and even there we don’t get enough of them (which really irritates me). Some write me some!! I am intrigued by the pairing but extremely picky when it comes to how they are written because I have particular headcanons which I am fairly wedded to but do not expect they will be abided by. More in the pragraph below.
The Ship:
I absolutely can not stand portrayals of Elizabeth Woodville as a golddigger, much less some Marilyn Monroe type of bimbo. We know the type of beauty she had... a chronicler called her an excellent but solemn (or sthing like that) beauty where York in his letters to her for the marriage of Sir Hugh complemented her deep sorrowful look or such. She was a pious, economical woman who took her queenship extremely seriously and led a cultivated court, patronised literature and may have also written a poem herself (you know the one about Venus we spoke about). She was years older than Edward and on top of that a widow with two children of her own. I want to see that dynamic! I want to especially see how she drew Edward away from Warwick’s influences in order to put him on the path he was angling for: the statute of livery 1463 and the new sumptuary laws (that most famously restricted the length of piked shoes to 3 inches hhh) are very indicative of a king who (even before meeting her) wanted to install a strong centralised monarchy with a monopoly on violence and its laws. Not because of some rapaciousness on her part but because her and her family believed in him, experienced the exequies of war and wanted to put a stop to it. I want her to love Edward for putting an end to people like Warwick who caused all her family’s (and the gentry class as a whole) misfortunes and struggles, and in a way feel like she provided him with not only a circle of people who would help him realise this but also with a sort of family to soften the personal blow that he felt when part of his birth family betrayed him. I love the father-in-law becomes surrogate father trope (as I think you can tell) and I like to see Earl Rivers as that for him, hell you can take it even further and make Jacquetta as some sort of mother-figure for him as opposed to Cecily who apparently scorned the marriage and at that time seemed to side more heavily with George. I like to think under her influence she empowered him to act more ruthlessly in pursuit of his goal, but at the same time I think that while certain things were good in the long-term eg Clarence’s execution, (maybe Desmond’s??) they may have had a toll on the relationship later on. I headcanon Elizabeth as tragically hardened by the loss of her brother and father at Edgecoat and I think that may also have thrown a bit of a wrench into their love, given how she was faced with the violent consequences of being queen and afterwards with how Warwick and co. went free and she lost her chance of vengeance. I don’t think they were ever out of love though, especially judging by how she continued to be pregnant up to 3 years short of his death and the absolute trust he put in her. But I headcanon his attachment to Jane Shore as him seeking the light-hearted wit and lively banter that Elizabeth slowly started losing as the years went on and she became less vivacious and a tad more calculating and icy. I headcanon them as having a rift when it came to dealing with problems: she would keep on with her ministrations whereas he would just want to engage in escapisms. But the thing with the infidelity is that one should keep in mind that during that period relations would have to stop once the woman started showing, so Edward having affairs should not be read into too much tbh, perhaps it was more a type of addiction on his part like drinking and eating was - like all part of an excessive Epicureanism which he adopted to relieve himself of his stresses and sorrows (and boy were there many!), so not something that necessarily indicated he grew tired of her or whatever. Maybe she understood that and that’s why she didn’t make a fuss? But then again, the fact that there wasn’t complete faithfulness remains a personal impediment for me with this ship :// that’s just me personally.
Also the discussion we had about Mélusine and the alchemical elements and Edward IV’s own interest in such (which was used as ammunition for George when he accused Edward of engaging in dark arts to corrupt his subjects XD... yes I know très ironique)... made me headcanon him and Elizabeth bonding over this, and perhaps seeing their union as somewhat quite mystical. It would be something so interesting to explore and I think it’s a real shame that people nowadays recoil everytime they hear the word ‘Woodville’ and ‘Mélusine’ put together which is a shame because when handled delicately it could turn into something beautiful and it was certainly not a PG invention!
Also... those two have some bitchin’ fannart!
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So yes, this was quite the stream of consciousness... but I do have a lot of thoughts for this couple! They were my OTP for the longest time after all.
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vergess · 2 years
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So. Lots of pain meds at the moment, so this is a little bit nonsensical, but, I have been playing the newly released video game I was a teenage exocolonist (available on steam, not linked because tag visibility) while I am laid up in bed.
Lots of opinions, basically all positive. There's a specific thing I want to talk about in more detail, but this post got too long so I will just link a future post on the gender politics of nature, nurture, and future as presented by the twins Dys and Tang.
So instead here's my Most Recommendable Qualities (mostly free of spoilers):
Native linux compatibility:
you know how I am about that. I cannot believe I've become the very linux guy I so hated when I was working retail...
Upsettingly beautiful art
2D gaming is my first love but man the medium has come a long way since needing a flashlight to play pokemon. Sometimes I forget how far, and then games like this pop up with the gorgeous art and expressive characters, and I inevitably find myself wondering why the """"mainstream"""" video game market (in as much as such exists these days) focused so obsessively on photo realistic 3D when inevitably a well directed art style is what matters most.
The backgrounds and environments in the game are all extremely lush, with a gorgeous, colorful style that if I had become an art critic instead of a writing critic I would probably have better terminology to describe. Like, uh. Water colors or some shit. Stained glass. It's all very luminous fuck dude I don't know, the closest I'm going to get here is to write a poem and I'm not going to write a poem where the fuckign developers might see it. I need to be sober for that.
Characters:
I'm a character driven asshole, we all know this. It's why I read so much fanfiction and play so much melodramatic fantasy and spend several hours of my life openly sobbing about a single fucking issue of Sandman. So, you'll understand when I say, "people keep recommending me dating sims and I keep bouncing off of them because the characters never Do A Thing," what my major criticism of a lot of Large Cast Of Dateable Character games is.
None of those issues arise here. I've played a few runs now, making a conscious decision on each to focus on a specific character. One. SIngular. Except, the thing is, you can't do that. Not in the sense that the game won't "let" you. You could certainly just dump all of your time into skills and one character. And the timeline of the game would change to reflect your isolationism.
Characters you don't interact with during runs have their own "autonomous" storylines written, and each divergence your player character makes has its impacts meticulous tracked to create different character experiences every time, even as each character holds very tight to a narrow set of repeating traits. This only further emphasizes the fundamental strangeness of the player character, as the only one capable of being fundamentally different across timelines.
Also all the dateables are just, oh god, SO cute. And, by the time they are capable of fucking, very fuckable. Extremely attractive designs. Honestly everyone is super cute. The whole cast is magnificently designed. And that includes...
Monsters:
First of all, let's get the important personal opinions out of the way. I think I would fuck the antagonist....uh....commander, whatever his title is. He looks like a fucked up centaur and I'm into that. There are also Adequate Amounts Of Tentacles. If you've known me long, you know that is a high bar, but the game clears it admirably and with diversity!
The alien fauna are all very FUCKING COOL. There's a bit of throwaway dialogue from An Adult (your dad?) that talks about expecting the planet's ecosystem to be 'more alien' than it is, and I respect the space program's attempt a tpreparedness but for me, the whole uhhhhhh. Situation. With regards to the alien animals is PLENTY alien, and SO satisfying.
If you've ever been like, "god, I wish someone who wasn't orson scott card would do all the cool shit they did in fucking speaker for the dead" then by GOD is this the game for you.
Accessibility:
The content warnings are extremely detailed. I reviewed them all, and having seen several of the ones I was most worried about, I feel they accurately described the situations without spoiling them. I did end up upsetting myself rather badly with one thing which happened, but it is hardly the developer's fault that I misunderstood the context in which the "teenage pregnancy" CW would apply. I personally want to specify that (IN THE ROUTES I HAVE SO FAR PLAYED) the pregnancy is a very wanted, safe, and cherished.
The game players very well on controller, which is a must for me. There are a handful of UI elements that I have not yet been able to access by controller, but I think this is more a factor of my being bad at remembering buttons than the game's design. If you have a mouse, that will solve the issue entirely. My GF speaks highly of the keyboard and mouse gameplay.
Turning off screen distortions and weather effects generally made the game very visually understandable for me, with large, clear iconography. If you have significant visual impairments, I don't know if this is a good game to play. Picking up items on the ground can be tricky in some cases and there's nothing for eg a high contrast or greyscale mode if you need that kind of thing.
Good stability.
It's easy to forget that near-launch properties are supposed to be complete games that function well. This game is very complete (VERY, INTRICATELY, COMPLETE) and very stable. With as complicated as the sets of cause-effect-timelines are, I expected it to be much easier to create minor paradoxes in dialogue.
So far, the only time events have seemed to happen slightly out of sequence due to relationship progression or what ever else, was when I made a conscious effort to be as obnoxious as possible at one point just to see if I could make it misbehave.
I haven't been able to make it crash from within the game so far. I'm hardly a Q.A. tester anymore, but I do tend to be pretty aggressive to my games, so I feel confident in saying it'll run steady for you if you get it.
Politics etc:
The queerness is all very excellent, super queer in very believable ways, especially given the cultural aspects of the worldbuilding. Characters behave queerly outside of just all being bi-for-the-player. The trans characters were all extremely appealing to me with strong characterization that included but did not obsess over their genders. There are at least 2 trans teens in the player character's peer group and 2 trans adults of very different ages and character types, and there's even a cute little intergenerational trans solidarity bit you can get sometimes. In addition, of course, to the ridiculously complete gender personalization.
You would not believe how many games forget that "bro" and "cowgirl" are gendered terms, but this one remembers.
The racial politics are, from my perspective, adequate to not interfere with my gameplay experience. The human characters do consistently refer to the environment and native animals in very colonialist terms but they're literally colonizing the planet so.... The point is, there is not a native people being eradicated, though there are... territory wars(? I guess.) with both wild animals and antagonist peoples.
If you're particularly sensitive to colonial narratives, handle with care, but I felt the writing in the routes I've seen so far handled most of the issues well. Plus I mean. THe title. Is "teenage exocolonist" like. I think the whole "colonialism is a major narrative theme" ituation should be made clear bythat.
In terms of the human diversity it's pleasingly broad. There are characters of all ages, builds, complexions, races, personality types. There's a massive range of disabilities both physical and mental, as well as plenty of fun sci fi accomodations.
I mean just among the dateables I can remember top of the head, theres:
ambiguously asian twins who really said Autism Has Two Genders,
ambiguously brown fat girl with developmental disability,
ambiguously brown Gym Bro (derogatory) who is, and this is true, literally named 'ambiguously brown
ambiguously white farmboy who has clearly been eating his space wheaties and also helps invent space cannabis with your dad
unambiguously black girl who looks the autism twins dead in the eye and said 'no autism has one gender and is me'
unambiguously white tomboy who goes full samus
Venom but he's a twink now
There's something here for everyone, all of these characters are super fascinating concepts honestly. I know I keep harping on that but it's true so there.
Scenario writing:
It's a bit difficult to separate the player character writing from the scenario writing for reasons that rapidly become clear in the game. Both are very good, though, so that's fine. The writing is just really very good.
The variations on the timeline that you are able to uncover through repeated play are fascinatingly diverse even as certain events remain immutable, and the whole thing really plays with the concept of time travel and the other-self so beautifully. Really one of my very favourite explorations of the topic already, and I've only seen... IDK 4 endings along 2 routes? And there's 29 endings???
It's very good. The point is that it's very good you should go play it.
It's on steam. It's app 1148760 on steam and it's very good, it's definitely worth more than what they're charging. I mean have you seen what a $60 console game looks like these days, and then this is like. $25 and SO very much.
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mc-critical · 3 years
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I see you’ve read/seen a lot of interpretations of this story. I am only familiar with Magnificent Century, Falconer’s book and Kadin, written by Bertrice Small, whose books are very enjoyable if you don’t take them seriously. It makes me wonder, how do the depictions of Hürrem and Süleyman’s story you’ve read compare to each other?
Heh, I haven't seen/read all that much in its entirety. Aside from Magnificent Century, I've read Pavlo Zagrebelny's novel, Colin Falconer's book, Demet Altınyeleklioglu's "Hürrem", have watched "Hürrem Sultan", the Turkish 8-episode long miniseries aired in 2003 and am familiar with the brief summaries of some early plays of Hürrem's story, described in "Roxelane in European Literature, History and Culture".
As works of art, I enjoy all of these for what they are. There is stuff each of them did right and each of them did wrong in adapting this story in their respective formats. I understand the corners some of them had to cut (though Hürrem Sultan 2003 cut way too many corners), I understand (most of) the compromises they did in order to present their own themes and voice.
Say, Colin Falconer's book truly is a satire that I could never take seriously in terms of Hürrem and Süleiman, but it did something no other interpretation did plausibly enough in my eyes, and that is: showing precisely how Süleiman fell in love with Hürrem and fell out of love with Mahidevran. We got a decent presentation of what he likes in both of them and what does Hürrem have more of. Now, is it also because she somehow dares to enjoy sex unlike the other girls, aside from the other obvious traits of hers like giving good political advice, playing instruments and making him laugh? Yes, of course, because it's "The Sultan's Harem" by Falconer and I expect nothing else. But the process was at least gradual enough and we had enough of his feelings presented and enough chamber scenes that contrast both of them for me not to question it at all. With the other interpretations, something was missing for me - it was all either very forced and plot-convenient (like in DA's book, where Valide loved Mahidevran and YET, wanted to introduce Hürrem to SS and THEN telling herself she played no part at all in SS's falling out with Mahi, we also had Mahidevran that is very extra and taking no crap at all, beating her maids with a stick every time she got angry, and THEN we have her saying that she was never once jealous, never this temperamental since Hürrem, which is very unbelievable in her case, AND we have SS saying that he has never felt joy since the death of prince Mahmud from the book's equivalent of Gülfem, which... then what were you doing with Mahi for so many years, you unbelivable hypocrite?), either very sudden and not fleshed out at all (like in the 2003 series, where we had a literal 1 year time-skip the second after Hü entered the harem and then she went to SS's chamber and.. that was basically it, they became pretty much inseparable since then.). To be honest, Pavlo Zagrebelny hits way more marks in this, compared to all these examples, but the way the beating happened and its part of the falling even more in love process is... less than stellar. MC's problem is that the reasons he fell in love with Hürrem were far more implicit than explicit until.. season 4, basically, these precious scenes where they laughed together were reserved only for the first earlier episodes and then the "concubine arcs" came, which also did a lot to blur their "amazing love". The plays at least take the standard approach (love at first sight after Hü being presented to Valide and/or Hü winning him over), but yeah, Falconer's take takes the cake here, despite of all the negative implications.
All these interpretations aren't that big on historical accuracy, since while they follow the same framework, they are more than willing to detach from the known facts and/or chronology when the plot, themes and character motivations demand it. Pavlo Zagrebelny placed Bayezid's execution way earlier, when Hürrem was alive, for her tragedy to become even more heartbreaking. DA had Hürrem have an affair with a wealthy merchant in the name of Frederick (which happened.. a while before Selim's birth, of course, so there was some doubt Selim was Frederick's...) and Iskender Pasha's (their equivalent to MC Iskender Celebi) wife be infatuated with Hürrem. Hürrem Sultan 2003 for some reason had Mehmet be sent to Amasya instead of Manisa. Which is the most historically accurate?? Probably none. Hürrem 2003 and Pavlo Zagrebelny's book are pretty up there, however, because Bayezid's execution was the only time I recall they did some change, but I could be wrong. (at least that was the only glaring, major change) Hürrem Sultan 2003 was more of a documentary series than a serial drama, tragedy or the like and we could say it is more accurate in comparison to the others, but for its own 8 episodes it doesn't stand out as much. But, oh no, don't get me started on the plays, because they're more ridiculous than even Falconer. Like the one with the outrightly soapy twist where they have switched the children, so Mustafa turns out to be the son of Hürrem (she's even called Regina there!), but Hürrem learns it only when she had already played her part to kill him. Those are truly peak comedy! 🤣 The harem titles are a mess everywhere, though. And no version of the story, Zagrebelny's aside, gave Hürrem's haseki title the gravitas it got historically, with Mahidevran even being a Haseki both in the 2003 series and in DA's book, so fans, this isn't Magnificent Century's invention, thank you very much.
The portrayal of the various characters mostly depends on which side the writers are on and where they want to put nuance. Pavlo Zagrebelny, with his work being rooted completely in Hürrem's favor, has the rest of the characters aside from Süleiman very antagonized to mirror the toxic Ottoman system Anastasia (yes, Hü is Anastasia Lisovska there) has found herself in, but I think they're nuanced enough to be realistic, unlike the satirical caricatures and one-dimensional archetypes Falconer cooked up. Demet Altınyeleklioglu had more than decent characterization overall, despite of some failings here and there. (like her Mahidevran being a mixed bag that is guilty-pleasure material, Ibrahim's motivations being too vague at times, regardless of his depth and their Hatice being.. Aybige 2.0, which is also 2003 Şah Sultan, by the way.) Hürrem Sultan 2003 had a problem with this, because of its more documentary nature. It only shows the historical events in depth enough to say "Well, that happened!" and nothing more. Is it because they had to compress time or rush stuff when the show didn't succeed as much as they expected it would? Is it because they found themselves lacking time to flesh out the characters and put them through arcs post-E05? It is because they didn't want to touch the issue of Mustafa's death yet, so that's why it happened so ridiculously and came out of absolutely nowhere? Nobody knows. Still, I think Magnificent Century succeeded to have almost everyone get a glimpse of spotlight, while these interpretations were more focused on one particular story, giving much less attention to everything else.
Aside from Falconer's take, I liked all the Hürrems in the fictional interpretations I have read /seen. As I said, DA's Hürrem is perhaps the one I could see as the historical figure - both nuanced and realistic. She has been taught haremly manners back in the Crimean saray AND engrained in the life of the wild animals in the forest before that since the age of 14/15, which creates a juicy combination of wit, charisma, lost innocence and character depth. Her motivations are particularly interesting - what is driving her her personal determination to be remembered for what she is and what she does, not what she used to be, which is an empowering catalyst to her will to survive. We see how she does all these little steps to get to the top, detaching from her past as a result, and that is shown throughout the whole story, unlike in Magnificent Century, and she wants to do it, unlike Pavlo Zagrebelny's character. This determination of hers to become something remarkable is moved by all the trauma she had experienced and she constantly has to fight with the belief that one could never go past where they've come from. She, like Meryem Uzerli's Hürrem, is both emotional and smart. Honestly, her hypocrisy and the ways in which she manipulates could get to my nerves and I can't really root for her, like MC or Zagrebelny's Hürrem, but she truly is a fascinating character. Zagrebelny's character is also very sympathetic, with her getting higher and highter positions, but never forgetting where she came from, never forgiving them for taking her childhood away from her. Her story is probably the most tragic one right from the start, since the more she rises in the hierarchy, the more she remembers her own background and this palace truly feels like a cage for her, taking so much of her strength to keep it all together. I feel the funny side of her character is focused the most on out of all the interpretations, because of the numerous scenes she laughs (also because she feels cold and that's the only way she knows how to diminish it and lighten up the mood in the cold palace) and because the very first thing the harem remembers her with, is her laugh that contrasts with all else. Her ambitious hatred for Süleiman could be very overplayed, especially near the end, but I let it slide because it works more often that it doesn't. (and the most powerful poem in the book wouldn't have existed, if it weren't for her hatred for SS!) Hürrem in the 2003 series is fine, but underwritten, like literally every other character there except Valide Hafsa, but she is harmless enough and her best moments are with SS and that's a rare and precious thing to have. The plays have Hürrem portrayed mostly in extremes (with some nuanced takes here and there), but the ways some of them establish her character can be very unique and imaginative. (like the one in which they did that through an in-depth interview with her!)
Süleiman is... there, but that's to be expected, since these aren't his stories. The most fleshed out Süleiman is of course, MC Süleiman from our beloved Halit Ergenç. Whether we like him or not, he had a well-developed character arc and was very well written and deconstructed. Next to him is probably Zagrebelny's SS, but outside of his love for Hürrem, I feel he is characterized more through descriptions of his historical campaigns and of his actions for the state than dialogue. The others weren't as memorable, but I give 2003 SS props for not acting like a total douchebag after the beating.
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