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c-is-for-circinate · 3 years

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Wait, isn't "anti" stuff more like "anti-pedophilia" and stuff? Like, you have a point about anti-porn attitudes, but from what I've heard just "anti" on its own means against stuff like kid porn and incest porn and legitimately f*cked up sh*t like that.

Okay! So this, I think, is actually a great example of what I was talking about, and a really useful thing to understand. (CW rape, child abuse, etc)

Smarter people than me have written much better essays about why policing thoughtcrimes is a bad road to go down, and I will probably reblog some of them next time they cross my dash for more context. What I want to talk about is the trigger mechanism, the ‘oh, this looks like danger!!!’ immune response in how we look at different kinds of porn, and how that applies to anti culture.

Here’s the thing: I am anti-pedophilia. I think that, for most people, that’s a stance that largely goes without saying! Adults who prey on children are bad. I’m also against incest; relatives who prey on their family members are bad. Above all I oppose rape. Sexual predation of any kind is bad. In fact, I’d say that’s the most important item on the list. There is plenty of room to argue about where the lines are between ‘adult’ and ‘child’ and how teenagers fit in the middle, and there’s plenty of room to get historical about the lines between ethically terrible incest, distasteful-but-bearable “aristocratic inbreeding” between distant cousins, and the kind of consanguinity that tends to develop in a small town where everyone’s vaguely related to everyone else by now anyway. The core of the issue is consent, and it has always been consent. Pedophilia and incest are horrific because they are rape scenarios where the abuser has far more power and their victim far fewer resources to cope, both practically and emotionally; because harm to children is, to us as a culture, worse than harm to adults, for a lot of very valid reasons; and because they constitute betrayal of trust the victim should have been able to put in their abuser as well as rape--but they are all rape scenarios, and that’s why they’re awful.

These things are bad. It is good for us to have a social immune response system that recognizes these things when they’re happening and insists we step in. That is a good thing to develop! It helps us, as a society. It can help the people being victimized. It’s the same reason educators and childcare workers in the US are all mandated reporters, why we do background checks on people working near kids. These things happen, and they’re terrible, and it’s good that we try to be aware and prepared for them. (Though obviously studies show we’re a lot less good at protecting the vulnerable than we’d like to pretend we are.)

The question is: why does that same social immune response trigger, and trigger so angrily, in response to fiction?

Anti culture is fundamentally an expression of that social immune response. Specifically, it’s that social immune response when it is set off by a situation that, while it has some similarities to the very bad real-life crime of sexual predation including pedophilia and incest, is in and of itself harmless.

If you’re instinct is to flare up in anger or dismissiveness because I’m calling these things harmless, I want to ask you to just take a deep breath and bear with me for a bit longer. What you’re feeling right now is an allergic reaction.

Humans tell and read and listen to stories about “legitimately fucked up shit” all the time. It’s part of the human condition. It’s part of how we process those things happening, not just to use, but to other people in the world around us. It’s part of how we process completely unrelated fucked-up shit, playing with fears and furies and insecurities that we all have, through so may layers of fiction that we don’t even recognize them any more, playing with power dynamics in metaphor and making characters suffer for fun. Aside from the fact that literally all stories do this to some extent or another; aside from the fact that drawing lines between ‘ok that’s good storytelling’ and ‘that’s too fucked-up to write about’ is arbitrary, subjective, and dangerous in its own right; aside from all of that, these stories are stories. All of them.

Even the ones about rape, about incest, about pedophilia. They’re words on a page. No real children were harmed, touched, or even glanced at in the making of this work of fiction. This story, pornographic though it may be, is part of a conversation between consenting adults. (And if a teenager lies about their age to consent, that is a different problem altogether.)

Stories in and of themselves, no matter what they’re about, are no more dangerous than a crate full of oranges. Which is to say: utterly harmless, unless all you have to eat is oranges, all day every day, and you find yourself dying slowly of nutrient deficiency--which is why representation matters. Or unless someone wields one deliberately, violently, as a tool to cause harm, and someone gets acid in their eye--which is the fault of the person holding the orange. And unless you happen to be allergic to citrus.

The key here is this twofold understanding: First, the thing that hurts you can also have value to others. Real, legitimate value. Whether you’ve undergone trauma and certain story elements are straight-up PTSD triggers or you just don’t like orange juice, that story, those tropes, that crate of oranges may be somewhere between icky and fundamentally abhorrent--but we understand that that is still your reaction. Even if you don’t understand how anybody could ever enjoy it; even if every single person you surround yourself with is as sensitive and disgusted and itchy about this thing that makes your eyes hurt and your throat stop working as you; that doesn’t make it true for everyone. That doesn’t make oranges poisonous. No real children were involved in the writing of this story. It is words on a page.

But, secondly: the thing that has value to others can also hurt you. Just because a story isn’t inherently poison doesn’t mean it can’t cause you, personally, pain. That’s what a PTSD trigger is: an allergic reaction, psychological anaphylaxis, a brain that’s trying so hard to protect its own from a threat that isn’t actually present (but was once, and the brain is trained to respond) that it causes far more harm and misery than the trigger itself possibly could. And no, it’s not just people with PTSD who sometimes get hurt by stories. There are many, many ways a story can poke the part of your brain that says, this is Bad, I don’t like this, I don’t want to be here. The story is still, always, every time, pixels on a screen and ink on paper. The story causes no physical harm. But it can poke your brain into misery, it can stir up your emotions, it can make you want to cringe and run away. It can make you want to scream and fight and go after the author who brought this thing into existence. It can make you hurt.

This is an allergic reaction. This is your brain and body, your reflexes and instincts, trying to protect you from something that isn’t really happening. And just like a literal allergic reaction, it can do actual harm to you if it gets set off. This is real. The fact that stories can upset you to the point of pain and mental/emotional injury is real, even though it’s coming from your own brain and not the story itself. There are stories you shouldn’t read. There are stories I shouldn’t read, regret reading, will never read, because they hurt me. That doesn’t mean they’re the same stories that would hurt you. That doesn’t mean they don’t have value.

And, finally:

If getting upset about stories is fundamentally an individual person’s allergic reaction, their brain freaking out and firing off painful survival instincts in the face of a thing that isn’t, in and of itself, a threat? Then the anti movement is a cultural allergic reaction.

Fandom as a whole has a pretty active immune system, which doesn’t mean we have a good immune system. We try very hard to be aware of all the viruses and -isms and abuse and manipulation and cruelty, both systematic and individual, that exists around and within our community. We’re primed and ready to shout about things at all times. The anti movement is that system, that culture, screaming and shouting and fighting at a harmless thing on a grand scale. It wants to stop that thing, that scary awful thing that trips all of its well-primed danger sensors, at all costs. It’ll swell up and block off our airways (our archives) if it has to. It’ll turn on the body it came from. It’s scared and protective and trying to fight, and it’s ready to fight and destroy itself.

Luckily, fans and fanfic and fandom and fan culture are a lot bigger and older than they often get credit for, and it’s not like these cultural allergies are anything new. We could talk about shippers and slashers in the X-Files fandom in the 90s. We could talk about the birth of fandom in the days of Star Trek. We could talk about censorship and book burning going back centuries. We survived that and we’ll survive this, too.

But god, does the anti movement my throat and eyes itch. Man is it irritating, and sometimes a little suffocating, to realize how many stories just aren’t getting told out of fear of what the antis will say. And that’s the real danger, I think. What are we losing that would have so much value to someone? What are we missing out?

#fandom #anti culture #anti-anti #I guess?#asked and answered #you are not WRONG or BAD or BROKEN if a story hurt you #but neither is the story #Anonymous #anti discourse day

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ekaterinatepes · 3 years

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Nothing but the Best

Author’s Notes: wow guys! Thank you so much for your support and for following this story! I never thought I would get so much acceptance so quickly! You are all incredible! ❤️

VIII.

“…he’s not in Japan, he’s gone to the Americas” Suguru arched his brow to Ijichi’s words about Satoru’s whereabouts “how come?” He asked “mission in New York, special grade curse in a school” Geto stopped on his tracks “New York?” He took off running to go get his phone without another word.

From: Suguru

To: Kitten

He’s in NYC! Get out of there!

You both agreed not to communicate through phone since Satoru for sure had his device monitored but this was an emergency.

It was 1pm in Japan which meant it would be around midnight back in New York.

“Fuck…” he didn’t have any time to lose, knowing Satoru, he had already found you. He had been there for about two days, plenty of time to locate Y/N.

Shit! He didn’t want Y/N to have to face Satoru alone. Well… so much for postponing his trip to New York.

“Shit!” Whispered getting in his car. He wasn’t about to let you handle Satoru on your own. Not that you couldn’t, oh no! Suguru was confident that if needed be you could hold your own just fine. But, you are his friend, someone who he loves. On the other hand, Suguru couldn’t just ignore what his own heart demanded. He didn’t want you to be alone anymore.

The past 6 months he had to stay behind just to keep Satoru from finding you but it was too late for that.

https://youtu.be/44mTGIotkWQ

youtube

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Each minute that passes feels like a lifetime… the clock falls off the wall…

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Defeated… that’s how Satoru felt now that he was finally able to face you. In his mind he pictured this encounter way different from this painful waltz of heartbreak.

He had been stupid to think you would jump in his arms, kiss him like there was no tomorrow and forgive him. He had been more like… delusional, thinking you would receive him with open arms (and legs) just because he showed up here.

Satoru thought you would see how hard he worked to find you, how much he suffered in your absence. He thought that would be enough to at least get a smidge of compassion from you.

Nothing was further from the truth…

You had always been a tough girl, stubborn, opinionated and bold. And fuck! He loved how you always made his blood boil with your passion! He could never get enough of you which is why he was so smitten.

But there was something different in you this time around… you had never been so… cold.

There was always a warmth that surrounded you at all times even when you were angry (specially then) a metaphorical and also a physical halo (not visible for non sorcerers) of luminescence that clung to your body enticing him and any cursed energy user to come closer. But now… standing here, before you. Watching you through his six eyes he saw that same halo much more opaque and cold. It was as if you had surrounded your heart with ice walls. A shiver ran down his spine.

What had he done to you!?

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Hold your breath… And pray for the world to end

Nothing's left… Some broken hearts will never mend.

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“Please… listen to me for 5 minutes and then I’ll leave you alone” (more like I’ll stalk you in silence and make you believe I left but I’m not gonna). Holding his hands in front of him as if trying to appease you, showing you he wasn’t hiding anything.

“You and I have nothing to talk about Gojo” your melodic voice was steady. Ouch… It hurt how you didn’t call him by his first name or any of the other cute and overly sweet nicknames you used for him; he haven’t heard you call him by his family name in about six years! No longer after you met you both were on a first name basis. He understood, it was a way of driving a wedge between the two of you, to distance yourself from him.

“There is nothing left for you and me to discuss… it’s over! Leave me alone” you stopped to take a breath trying to calm your heart.

“You know you technically are still a Gojo too… right? So it doesn’t make much sense that you call me by OUR name”. Yes, it was petty but he would be damned if he didn’t try and convince you to call him in a more familiar way.

She looked at him as if he was soft in the head for a moment “Sign the papers and forget I ever existed…” he had to cut you right there “NO! I refuse to forget about you Y/N! You are my wife! By law and by right you cannot just keep me away from you! I am not signing shit!” All those words tumbled from his lips faster than he expected. The rejection he felt for the idea of you never being with him again was making him lose his mind. You could not be serious! Could you? You couldn’t really be considering to move on… without him. (As if you hadn’t already done that).

“Just let me explain! Fuck!” running his hands through his hair in an exasperated gesture. “Please…” came a broken whisper, not a demand, but a request.

You straightened your back and folded your arms over your chest “you have 5 minutes and that’s it. At the end of that time I want you to leave and never come back!” Satoru nodded although he didn’t really agree to those terms but he thought if he continued to defy you it wouldn’t do him any favors to gain your forgiveness.

“I am sorry…” looking straight in your eyes started the handsome sorcerer, crestfallen and bleak “I know… I fucked up so bad… I know I hurt you. “ only words wouldn’t cut through the thick barrier you carefully crafted around yourself. You might as well be shielded by his infinity.

You looked at him with a mix of anger, pain and longing. You hated yourself so much for feeling your traitorous heart hammering away, getting lost in his crystalline eyes and deep voice. It wasn’t fair he held so much power over you.

“But I am fixing it Y/N… Sookie is not in my life anymore… I left her and haven’t been with her in a very long time, I don’t want anyone else but you…” assured the man desperately.

“How can you say that?!” You asked horrified “what kind of man are you that you would abandon your child!?”.

“He was not my son!…. Y/N. She cheated on me with someone else, the baby she carried was not mine. I confirmed that when the child was born…” admitted once more embarrassed about his stupidity.

Your expression was blank for the longest time, trying to process what Gojo had just said.

You blink a couple times, it’s almost as if he expected you to feel bad about his luck.

Fucking asshole! You knew he was trying to play the pity card with you but it wasn’t working.

“Well… I don’t care about your personal life, it’s none of my business” you reminded him. Satoru visibly flinched at the brutal retaliation. “let me finish! God damn! Y/N!” He felt like pulling out his hair.

“I know I fucked up so bad but please… please give me another chance… I will do whatever you say! Give you whatever you want just…. Don’t do this” he waited for an answer from you. He wanted to touch you and hold you in his arms, promise you he would take care of you and prove he was now worthy of your love.

“Goodbye Satoru…” you said turning around and getting ready to leave him standing there in the cold.

On instinct he warped in front of you and stopped you by wrapping his arms around your body, one went to your narrow waist and the other behind your neck pulling you to him.

Fuck it…. You already hated him, might as well give you a good reason.

He crushed his lips against yours in a passionate embrace. Your body froze in his arms and he took that opportunity to deepen the kiss, ever the opportunist he slipped his tongue between your lips and caressed yours, enticing you to taste him as much as he was tasting you.

It only took your brain a couple seconds to work but by then you were trapped. You tried to fight him, placing both your palms against his chest and pushing him away. Might as well have been pushing a fucking wall. Gojo fucking Satoru was the strongest living person for a good reason.

It felt like an anaconda embrace, the more you struggled the tighter he held you until you finally gave in yourself. A tear ran down your cheek by the time you started kissing him back. You both went from practically devouring each other, angrily fighting for dominance to sensually and tenderly exploring each other’s mouth with your tongues, little licks and nips until you separated. His forehead against yours, both of your breathing heavily.

Not a single word was exchanged. Both of you afraid to break the chasm of this frail truce.

—————

———> Chapter 9

@sleepyamaya

@cloudsinthecosmos

@jxvajxy

@satoruhooraaa

@my-reality-is-in-my-head

@dok-ja

@jscarlet06

@fiona782

@thatsharklovingwoman

@heichoustheoryofcleanliness

@syynnaaah

@shaylove418

@coldvillainess

@vampgguk

@sukuna1stwife

#jjk #jjkgojo #jjk satoru #jjk suguru #jjk anime #jjk fanfic #gojo angst #jujutsu kaisen gojo #jujustu kaisen #gojo x you #gojo saturo x reader #jujutsu geto #geto smut #jjk geto #geto x y/n #Youtube

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entamewitchlulu · 2 years

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Hey just asking tips on how making a good fan fiction or just a story in general Im what really on your opinion makes a good yugioh plot and whole story just curious of your prospective

Honestly the best advice I can tell you is 1) write a lot and 2) read a lot.

Fanfiction is really no different than writing anything else, except that you already have a cast of characters and a setting to work with however you'd like. So a lot of the rules for good fic writing are the same as the ones for good writing in general.

If you want to write good stories, you have to read a lot of good stories, and learn from them. Just like actors should watch plays, and programmers should play games, to figure out what works for them and what doesn't, you should read as much as you can, as widely as you can. Read fanfiction, read published books, read news articles and blog posts, read short stories, read long series, listen to podcasts, play D&D, roleplay, read classics, read graphic novels, read romance novels, play video games and pay attention to their stories. Any time you spend familiarizing yourself with storytelling is time well spent towards becoming a writer.

More than just reading, though, you should also take at least a few minutes to analyze what you read. I know to a lot of people that's gonna sound awful, like English class or something, but it doesn't have to be. Again, I'm not telling you to annotate everything you read. What I am saying is that if something in a story really strikes you, just stop for a minute. Think about it, try to think about why you like it. Did you like the vivid imagery of the line? Was it a really good metaphor? Did it do something really good to establish a character or a plot twist? You don't have to write a paper about it, but take a second just to think about it. Maybe keep a notebook where you write down your favorite quotes from the stories you read. In this way, things like overanalyzing fiction that we do all the time here on Tumblr is actually really helpful, because it's helping you dig into characters, into plot ideas and concepts, and learn from them.

And then the final step is really...I mean, you can't really get out of this one. You have to write a lot. You have to just start writing.

I read someone say once that your first million words is just practice. So if it helps you to think about it that way, please do. You don't have to write something earth shatteringly good your first try. If you're too scared of writing poorly, you'll never write at all. So write. Write bad stuff until the good stuff comes out. Write terrible poetry, write clunky dialogue, write too-long descriptions. You don't have to share any of it, but I do recommend that you keep it, so that you can keep track of what kind of a writer you've been.

Write things that are fun for you, even if you think they might be cliche, or silly. Write self-insert fanfic, write Mary Sues, write all sorts of things. Find a book about writing at the library and do some writing exercises. Write a journal. If something is too boring for you to write right now, then just skip it. Yes you can, even if you're a linear person (I am too, but forcing myself to skip scenes that aren't working and go back to them was the greatest thing I ever did for myself as a writer). Share only what you want to share.

If writing is something you want to do as a hobby, then you don't have to go any further than this. You can have a rich, fulfilling writing life just by doing those two things: reading and writing.

If you're really serious about writing, though, you might want to take a step forward and get some constructive critique. This can be in the form of a professional writing class or workshop, a close group of friends who proofread each other's work, or a family member you give your story to so they can look it over. Taking critique can be extremely hard, and that's okay. I fully admit that I left some workshops with my teachers in college and went out to the college green to cry. So if you want critique, look for: someone you trust to be honest with you, but not cruel, who is willing to meet you where you are and understand what you're trying to do with the story, and what will help you make it the best it can be, not what they think it should be. Then when you get critique, take a deep breath, examine it, and really think about if it makes sense for your work or not. Sometimes it doesn't, and that's okay. You can discard it. Sometimes it does make sense, and it feels bad to cut something you liked, but it makes the story better. That's okay too.

But honestly, critique is a whole other ball game, so maybe I'll save that for another post. I've already rambled on for quite a bit.

Really, in the end, the tl;dr is that writing a fanfiction is the same as anything else. It's about putting in the work, and finding what makes you happy to create. I can't tell you what plot to come up with, or what's going to resonate with you. I can suggest checking out some books on writing and outlining from a variety of sources (Save the Cat is a favorite of mine, but there's some very valid criticism of it as a system, so it's not for everyone's writing style). But I can't write the story that's all yours. You have stories in you and if you want to bring them to life, you can do it! I send you all the support and vibes in the world.

That was really long! I hope something of it was useful to you. If you have any other questions, I can always do my best to answer them. But in the end, it's up to you! Like all creative pursuits, writing is going to be very personal to you. There is no one right way to do it. So go out and just start doing it. You're ready now, even if you don't think you are.

#lulu answers #about writing #scar eyejolteon14

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themollyjay · 3 years

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The Myths of Forced Diversity and Virtue Signaling.

In my novel Mail Order Bride, the three main characters are a lesbian and two agendered aliens. In my novel Scatter, the main character is a lesbian, the love interest is a pansexual alien, and the major side characters include a half Cuban, half black Dominican lesbian, a Chinese Dragon, a New York born Jewish Dragon, and a Transgender Welsh Dragon. In my novel The Master of Puppets, the Main Characters are a lesbian shapeshifting reptilian alien cyborg and a half black, half Japanese lesbian. The major side characters include three gender fluid shapeshifting reptilian alien cyborgs, and a pansexual human. In my novel Transistor, the main character is a Trans Lesbian, the love interest is a Half human/Half Angel non-observant Ethiopian Jew, and the major side characters include a Transgender Welsh Dragon (the same one from Scatter), a Transgender woman, a Latino Lesbian, an autistic man, three Middle Eastern Arch Angels, and a hive mind AI with literally hundreds of genders. In my novel The Inevitable singularity, one of the main characters is a lesbian, another has a less clearly defined sexuality but she is definitely in love with the lesbian, and the third is functionally asexual due to a vow of chastity she takes very seriously. The major side characters include a straight guy from a social class similar to the Dalit (commonly known as untouchables) in India, a bisexual woman, a man who is from a race of genetically modified human/frog hybrids, and a woman from a race of genetically modified humans who are bred and sold as indentured sex workers.

Why am I bringing all of this up? Well, first, because it’s kind of cool to look at the list of different characters I’ve created, but mostly because it connects to what I want to talk about today, which should be obvious from the title of the essay. The concepts of ‘forced diversity’ and ‘virtue signaling’.

For those who aren’t familiar with these terms, they’re very closely related concepts. ‘Forced Diversity’ is the idea that characters who aren’t neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males are only ever included in a story because of outside pressure from some group (usually called Social Justice Warriors, or The Woke Brigade or something similar) to meet some nebulous political agenda. The caveat to this is, of course, that you can have a women/women present as long as they are hot, don’t make any major contributions to the resolution of the plot, and the hero/heroes get to fuck them before the end of the story. ‘Virtue Signaling’, according to Wikipedia, is a pejorative neologism for the expression of a disingenuous moral viewpoint with the intent of communicating good character.

The basic argument is that Forced Diversity is a form of virtue signaling. That no one would ever write characters who aren’t neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males because they want to. They only do it to please the evil SJW’s who are somehow both so powerful that they force everybody to conform to their desires, yet so irrelevant that catering to them dooms any creative project to financial failure via the infamous ‘go woke, go broke’ rule.

What the people who push this idea of Forced Diversity tend to forget is that we exist at a point in time when creators actually have more creative freedom than are any other people in history. Comic writers can throw up a website and publish their work as a webcomic without having to go through Marvel, DC or one of the other big names, or get a place in the dying realm of the news paper comics page. Novelists can self-publish with fairly little upfront costs, musicians can use places like YouTube and Soundcloud to get their work out without having to worry about music publishers. Artists can hock their work on twitter and tumblr and a dozen other places. Podcasts are relatively cheap to make, which has opened up a resurgence in audio dramas. Even the barrier to entry for live action drama is ridiculously low.

So, in a world where creators have more freedom than ever before, why would they choose to people their stories with characters they don’t want there? The answer, of course, is that they wouldn’t. Authors, comic creators, indie film creators and so on aren’t putting diverse characters into their stories because they are being forced to. They’re putting diverse characters into their stories because they want to. Creators want to tell stories about someone other than the generically handsome hypermasculine cisgendered heterosexual white males that have been the protagonists of so many stories over the years that we’ve choking on it. A lot of times, creators want to tell stories about people like themselves. Black creators want to tell stories about the black experience. Queer creators want to tell stories about the queer experience.

I’m an autistic, mentally ill trans feminine abuse survivor. Every day, I get up and I struggle with PTSD, with an eating disorder, with severe body dysmorphia, with anxiety and depression and just the reality of being autistic and transgender. I deal with the fact that the religious community I grew up in views me as an abomination, and genuinely believes I’m going to spend eternity burning in hell. I deal with the fact that people I’ve known for decades, even members of my own family, regularly vote for politician who publicly state that they want to strip me of my civil rights because I’m queer. I’m part of a community that experiences a disproportionately high murder and suicide rate. I’ve spent multiple years of my life deep in suicidal depression, and to this day, I still don’t trust myself around guns.

As a creator, I want to talk about those issues. I want to deal with my life experiences. I want to create characters that embody and express aspects of my lived experience and my day-to-day reality. No one is forcing me to put diversity into my books. I try to include Jewish characters as often as I can because there have been a number of important Jewish people in my life. I include queer people because I’m queer and the vast majority of friends I interact with on a regular basis are queer. I include people with mental illnesses and trauma because I am mentally ill and have trauma, and I know a lot of people with mental illnesses and trauma. My work may be full of fantastical elements, aliens and dragons and angels and superheroes and magic and ultra-high technology and AI’s and talking cats and robot dogs and shape shifters and telepaths and all sorts of other things, but at the core of the stories is my own lived experience, and neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males are vanishingly rare in that experience.

Now, I can hear the comments already. The ‘okay, maybe that’s true for individual creators, but what about corporate artwork?’. Maybe not in those exact words, but you get the idea.

The thought here is that corporations are bowing to social pressure to include characters who aren’t neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males, and that is somehow bad. But here’s the thing. Corporations are going to chase the dollars. They aren’t bowing to social pressure. There’s no one holding a gun to some executive’s head saying, “You must have this many diversity tokens in every script.” What is happening is that corporations are starting to clue into the fact that people who aren’t neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males have money. They are putting black characters in their shows and movies because black people watch shows and spend money on movies. They are putting queer people in shows and movies because queer people watch shows and spend money on movies. They are putting women in shows and movies because women watch shows and spend money on movies.

No one is forcing these companies to do this. They are choosing to do it, the same way individual creators are choosing to do it. In the companies’ cases the choices are made for different reasons. It’s not because they are necessarily passionate about telling stories about a particular experience, but because they want to create art to be consumed by the largest audience possible, which means that they have to expand their audience beyond the neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white male by including characters from outside of that demographic.

And the reality is, the cries of ‘forced diversity’ and ‘virtue signaling’ almost always come from within that demographic. Note the almost. There are a scattering of individuals from outside that demographic which do subscribe to the ‘forced diversity’ and ‘virtue signaling’ myths, but that is a whole other essay. However, within that demographic, lot of the people who cry about ‘forced diversity’ see media and content as a Zero-Sum game. The more that’s created for other people, the less that is created for them.

In a way, they’re right. There are only so many slots for TV shows each week, there are only so many theaters, only so much space on comic bookshelves and so on. But at the end of the day, its literally impossible for them to consume all the content that’s being produced anyway. So, while there is, theoretically less content for them to consume, as a practical matter it’s a bit like someone who is a meat eater going to a buffet with two hundred items, and then throwing a tantrum because five of the items happen to be vegan.

The worst part is, if they could let go of how wound up they are about the ‘forced diversity’ and ‘virtue signaling’ they could probably enjoy the content that’s produced for people other than them. I mean, I’m a pasty ass white girl, and I loved Black Panther.

So, to wrap out, creators, make what you want to make, and ignore anyone who cries about forced diversity or virtue signaling. And to people who are complaining about forced diversity and virtue signaling, I want to go back to the buffet metaphor. You need to relax. Even if there are a few vegan options on the buffet, you can still get your medium rare steak, or your chicken teriyaki or whatever it is you want. Or, maybe, just maybe, you could give the falafel a try. That shit is delicious.

#writing #original fiction #media #representation #diversity #the war of souls #the hearts of heroes #The Master of Puppets #scatter #transistor #the inevitable singularity #mail order bride

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ginkgomoon · 3 years

Text

Gavin’s Old Days Date- Analysis

I received an ask just then about this date and so I’m typing my heart away at 2 in the morning. It didn’t really fully sink in to how much of a good date Old Days was until some time had passed, with the way how I looked at Gavin back then different to how I saw him now. This date brought back so many emotions and memories- especially when it’s such a well-rounded story with various hidden meanings and references which enabled me to have something to analyse!

This date circulates around Gavin and MC’s high school history in the span of days Friday and Saturday- on that fateful day when Gavin wanted to give the letter, to the night he waited for her.

It also has a circular storyline structure, from when MC first dreams of Gavin that catalyses following events. But something we also have to note is that the whole entire time until the very last few minutes- MC is ‘dreaming’.

The turbulent flow of time and space stunned me, and countless doors opened before me one by one.

The memory fragments poured in, and those images reflecting me and Gavin flew past quickly.

He turned his back to me and walked away, his white shirt fluttering in the wind, almost engulfed by the increasingly denser mist.

I shouted his name aloud and ran desperately, wanting to catch up with him, but the corner of his shirt was like wind that couldn't be grasped, dispersing between my fingers.

His figure became increasingly blurred as he was farther and farther, finally disappearing completely in the narrow field of vision.

Standing in the void, I seemed to have lost all directions and motivation forward.

Until a gentle breeze with a familiar fragrance blew the fog away.

There seemed to be dazzling sunlight piercing through the clouds, and after the mist dissipated, a completely different space-time appeared before me…

This part of MC’s dream is like a metaphor for Gavin’s sudden leave. The mini fragments of her memories and the information that she knew now compared to back in high school come together to try to form some comprehensible picture in her mind, which in this case- her dream.

(Which probably was helped by the presence of Black Cabin with the ‘“doors”. But I could also argue that it wasn’t, because this isn’t supposed to be the first time MC enters Black Cabin. Then again, dates differ from the main storyline.)

But just like how MC is Gavin’s North Star, without him, even she is lost and directionless. They both need each other. As they are each others’ mystery, they are each others’ answers.

“This uniform and medals are my beliefs, with you guiding me in the direction forward.” -Go See Him

MC wants to reach out, not wanting Gavin to leave her, just like how he left seven years ago. Though even here, Gavin’s wind helps guide her forward- to meet him again in this time-space.

Dreams are still a big mystery to us. Some say it reveals our deepest desires and fears presented by our subconscious. By listening to it, we are able to guide our efforts in achieving and chasing what we truly desire whilst avoiding our fears. And if some dreams are based on truth, then it can easily foreshadow what we are about to encounter.

As MC finally settles in appearing at their old school of Loveland High, she sees Gavin.

Through the crowds, he seemed to be looking at the girl standing on the middle of the flag raising platform with a speech draft in her hands. Without realising, he crumpled the letter in his hand even more tightly.

The infamous letter.

Moments ago he saw me, he was so shocked that his pupils contracted slightly. He also slipped when he was about to jump down.

“Who are you?”

The shock in his eyes was now replaced by alertness and uncertainty.

Gavin clearly doesn’t know this MC- because in this time-space, she doesn’t really exist. As I said above, as dreams can be based on truth and our desires, MC feels like she could have done something to correct their relationship in this course of time. But at this stage between her and Gavin, she doesn’t know much about it because he never explicitly told her and she wants to know. This dream is a manifestation of that.

MC: “Excuse me, do you know MC? I am her cousin.”

MC also experiences being her own cousin such as in Time Subway’s Loveland High Noodle Bar and STF Drill Ground.

Gavin looked at me suspiciously for a long time, and finally nodded indifferently.

Gavin: “Oh, what do you want with her?”

MC: “How is she doing in school lately?”

Gavin: “I don’t know her that well.”

Gavin helps MC locate herself- her high school self- but when she looks back, he has already disappeared. She then overhears students talking about Gavin getting beaten up by a hundred people and becomes an investigator into his whereabouts.

The next part of the date isn’t from MC’s narration, which led me to believe that this really did happen in MC and Gavin’s own universe. The ‘truth’ of the dream.

*Beating up happening*

Random Kid Who Doesn’t Have Better Things To Do: “I heard that our school overlord is transferring to another school. Is that true? Since you are leaving, why can’t you be good?”

Gavin: “That’s none of your business!”

Random Kid Who Doesn’t Have Better Things To Do: “True, but after you leave, your beloved girl will no longer be under protection, right? Don’t worry I’ll take care of her for you. And I heard she’s our campus belle.”

Gavin (fiercely with an angry face): “What did you say?”

*More beating up*

MC’s POV begins.

Finally, I found the alley from memory.

Gavin: “You won’t get off so easily next time. Try getting near her and see what happens.”

Gavin leaves and even MC wasn’t fast enough to catch a wounded, bleeding Gavin. She racks her brains to try to figure out where he is, and finally comes to the piano room.

And BEHOLD- Gavin casually sitting on a ginkgo tree dressing his wounds.

Gavin (annoyed): “Why are you everywhere…”

MC: “Are you waiting for MC? She’s preparing for exams so she won’t be here today.”

Gavin: “...I wasn’t looking for her.”

Gavin reluctantly agrees to follow MC into the infirmary and she starts to help properly dress his wounds.

MC: “Are you not a close friend with MC?”

Gavin: “... I’ve just heard her name before. She’s got good grades and she’s very kind.”

MC: “Have you ever talked to her?”

Gavin: “Nope.”

MC: “Then how do you know she’s kind?”

Gavin: “Why should I answer your questions?”

He looked a little vexed, looking away with his ears turning red.

MC: “Sorry, I meant well. It’s just that she’s mentioned you to me. She says you’re not as bad as what people say you are. You helped carry her books and took her to the infirmary…”

Gavin: “I just happened to be around.”

MC: “Err, then you must happen to be around quite a lot.”

Gavin: “How do you know all of this?”

MC: “She tells me everything. We even look very similar don’t we?”

Gavin: “But you act differently.”

MC helps Gavin finish patching his wounds and Gavin is noted to be unwilling to stay with her.

MC: “I have one more thing to tell you. MC is a bit slow. She is not as good as you think, and will also be blinded by rumours…”

Gavin interrupts me coldly.

Gavin: “She’s a very nice person. What she thinks of me has nothing to do with anyone else. If you're here just to tell me these things, then I don't need to listen to you.”

Gavin grabbed his uniform, but a white object fell from his pocket to the floor.

It was a crumpled letter. Stained in blood.

I went to pick it up but the paper slipped out and I caught a glimpse of the contents by accident.

Gavin quickly picked up the letter and put it back without saying a word.

There was a flash of dismissal in his eyes. He tried to flatten the creases on the letter awkwardly.

(RIP LETTER. He even tried to flatten it. GAVINNN)

Gavin’s view remains the same in their own universe- “You can’t change other people’s opinions but you can change your attitude towards them. Don't let yourself be easily affected. You shouldn't envy me. You’re different from me. You're kind and thoughtful. That's what makes you, you. Besides, I’m not as free as you think, and I care about a lot of things.” -Company Footage [Chapter 3-7]

The scene around her changes. MC figures that if this is the memory of her and Gavin, then the most important thing was to find him.

MC’s mind fixates on the familiar bloody letter- recalling its words. MC then sprints to the school library.

The library looked a little deserted in the darkness. Looking along the rows of bookshelves, I finally found Gavin seated next to the window.

At this point, Gavin has been waiting a whole day for high school MC to meet him. She didn’t read the letter that had the time he wanted her to come.

He turned around and the moment he heard my footsteps, and the glimmer in his eyes suddenly died away again when he saw me.

I realised that on this day, he had wanted to say goodbye.

He just frowned and looked away, uninterested.

MC: “Are you waiting for MC? She might have misunderstood. Sorry, let me apologise for her.”

Gavin: “It has nothing to do with you.”

He paused and said in a self-mockery tone.

Gavin: “I knew she wouldn't come anyway.”

I’ve never seen Gavin like this. At this time, he was still so young and one could easily read his emotions.

Only then did I realise how he described his past as a mere “regret” was an understatement. He had to endure the long wait and the misery of being understood silently.

(It’s 2am and I’m crying.)

I mistook the farewell letter as a threat and threw it away. I never tried to learn the truth and misunderstood him. And still was protected and cherished by him.

I never felt so sorry and never wanted to blame myself even more.

If I didn't know all of this, if we had never met each other after we went in opposite directions…

MC: “Although I know saying these now is meaningless...You’ll be a very awesome person in the future, and you will stick to your belief and to justice. And you’ll also meet the person you want to meet. Even though she might not be great and always troubles you, you will definitely meet each other in the future. So…”

But when I looked back up, Gavin was gone.

As if back to the beginning of the dream, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t catch up or make a sound.

And MC wakes up. (Circular storyline- starts and end with a dream- starts and ends with Gavin.)

“Why did it take you so long to answer? Did you just wake up?”

It was Gavin.

MC: “Gavin… I….”

Gavin: “Why do you sound so weird?”

MC: “I had a dream about you.”

Gavin: “Was it a bad dream? Don’t worry, it won’t happen. By the way, I'll be at your place soon. I brought steamed buns and soybean milk for breakfast.”

Just like how he bought milk and bread for her at the infirmary after she fainted during a school sports event.

The moment I saw Gavin, I threw myself into his arms, crying.

His strong chest, the familiar smell under his collar. This was Gavin, the Gavin who would never disappear or leave me.

Gavin: “Why are you crying?”

He tried to dry my tears clumsily, but both his hands were occupied, so he had to move to the table and put the breakfast down while I hung onto him like a koala.

Gavin: “Tell me, what was your dream about?”

MC: “In my dream, you skipped class, got into fights, and ignored me.”

Gavin: “...”

MC: “You also said, ‘it’s none of your business’ to me coldly several times.”

He held back laughter and listened to my tearful complaint. Then he suddenly took my hand, and slapped it on his palm.

Gavin: “Then bully me back now.”

MC: “Gavin, have you ever thought about… what if we didn’t meet?”

He gave it some thought and nodded seriously.

Gavin: “Yes I have. If I wasn't there, would the girl get bullied? Would someone be looking out for her? I’ve also wondered if someone would fall in love with her or give her a love letter.... Would she like someone else? So, if I were to meet her again, I must hold onto her.”

He took my hand lightly, and kissed it preciously, his voice soft.

“And never let her go again.”

(The same hands that helped dress his wounds. CRYING.)

All this time Gavin had regretted not being able to give the letter to her in person, presumably with the fear of rejection from the one person he cared about. Even if Gavin hadn’t had a conversation with her or knew her very well, the interactions they have had together was enough for Gavin to form an opinion of her- a strong enough opinion that even he refuses to listen to MC’s ‘cousin’ (interactions like wanting to introduce himself in the library but MC dashes off LOL).

Wanting to protect her continuously from the students during the alleyway fight and waiting day and night for her also really does showcase his determination and the effectiveness of having a glimmer of hope from and for someone goes a long way, especially with a loyal man like Gavin.

Additionally, MC states that he was cold to her, which shows that even someone who claimed to be her cousin wouldn't melt Gavin’s heart with secondhand words. (That wall that he built up between him and MC of how he bats each question she asks with another question LOL.)

Even in front of Cousin MC, he wants to keep up that tough and unbreakable persona, the one that high school MC is more familiar with- until the very end when he finally has to come to the conclusion that MC is not going to see him. This therefore really does make him think that she didn't want to meet him. And in the storyline, he really did have to live like that, thinking that she thought of him just like how everyone did- until they met again.

But after all that Gavin had been through, he’s willing to cherish every moment he has with MC in the future. Not basing their relationship off of the failures, misunderstandings and regrets- but their hopes and dreams of a better future together.

“Before you… I lower all my defences.” -Gavin

#ITS 2 AM #ANALYSIS OH HOW IVE MISSED YOU #mlqc #mr love queens choice #love and producer #恋与制作人 #mlqc gavin #mlqc en #mlqc analysis

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breitzbachbea · 2 years

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End of the Year Review

I guess (?) I was tagged by @kitaychan - Thank you!

1. What fandoms did you create for?

Hetalia.

2. How many works did you make this year? Fics (posted on ao3 or tumblr or wherever), edits, gifsets, moodboards, playlists, fanart, vids, meta?

I don't think my historical musings for Hetalia AUs or Scenarios don't count as meta. Apparently I've added 4 new drabbles to the Drabble Collection, finished the last two drabbles for 'Tis but a scratch, published the last chapter and Epilogue of Italian Affairs, a new chapter for Herz auf Beat on Fanfiktion.de and published 7 One Shots (6 on ao3, 1 on tumblr). I've also wrote another TurGre One Shot and another part for The Amulet that are unpublished as of now.

3. What are you most proud of?

Finishing Italian Affairs and Part 4 of The Amulet (The Amulet is not yet published). I've been working on Italian Affairs since 2015 and to have finished it is a sensation that is quite hard to put into words. I've often been afraid I'd never see the day. It's such an achievement. And Part 4 of The Amulet, a story I've been writing and editing since 2017, was another thing I'd fuck up. But it turned out so incredible and gutwrenching that it really reminds me why I write and why I put so much work into it.

4. Any stats you wanna tell us about?

Between Me and the Goddess (and You) has a bibliography of 5 books :) (No but for real, I can't remember how many words I wrote this year or anything else).

5. What inspired you this year? Any specific works or creators?

I feel so bad answering this question because everyone else linked a bunch of people and their fanfictions (and I was among them), but there was only one fanfiction that truly inspired me. The İstanbul series by sadlygrove touched me deeply for personal reasons and it was so formative for how I approached the climax of The Amulet. It really put into words why this relationship is such a tragedy.

Aside from that, my inspirations were the usual - The world, its history and music. Maggie Kilgour's book "From Communion to Cannibalism. An Anatomy of Metaphors of Incorporation" really opened a third eye in terms of how to analyze and speak about my Like Father Like Son Series. Actually - I won't tag this person but you should check them out - it was @/catilinas cannibalism tag (Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed) that started the entire obsession with cannibalism as both tool for writing and tool for literature analysis. Truly inspiring - and now rereading my stuff is even more interesting, for all the unconscious Incorporation themes I've already included in my works throughout the years.

So yeah, I've used my term paper, which I wrote about the Bath curse tablets, for one drabble and I've read a lot of literature which left its mark on me. As did my trip to Palermo.

However, I do want to thank everyone who read my works this year, because it's still bonkers to me. @needcake (One day I will get around to read more of your stuff and maybe, maybe deliver some more neighbourhood AU), @shithole-state (I know I promised to get back to you on the ancient celts, sometime, my friend, hopefully), @fireandiceland @hetaari @kitaychan @i-declare-the-poland-rule @cunchishai @exi-stencil-ism @chaosintensifies.

I'm probably forgetting someone and I am very sorry for it. But it's so nice to see that people care! I feel almost bad that now I am already turning my back on producing content specifically for the fandom, when everyone welcomed be back in so wonderfully! But it's been great to meet you all and talk to you about certain things, about my writing and see someone else's perspective! If you ever left me a comment, trust me, it was the highlight of my day.

6. What’s a piece you didn’t expect to make? Why?

No Rest For The Wicked, because the the premise for this one was whacky as all hell for my standards (aka it felt super self-indulgent in its character selection) with a paperflimsy plot. But then I felt like going for it anyways, took a gamble ... and hey, other people liked it! And I've had one hell of a blast to write the different character relations in it, I'm very proud of the interactions and the piece actually helped me grow as a writer. (And I got to listen to Shimmy Shimmy by Takagi e Ketra ft. Giusy Ferreri on repeat for hours).

7. What are you excited to work on next year?

I really hope I'll get started on the rewrite of Irish Problems. Priority No. 1 right now is the last chapter of Herz auf Beat, which I also look forward to! As well as Part 5 of The Amulet, which then will also be finished! But man, I've got so many ideas for the rewrite of Irish Problems. I'm so excited to finally tell the story I've wanted to tell for years now. Like Father Like Son has been my life since at least 2014 (I started in 2013), so that's eight years I spent with these kids and their friends (and enemies). I just cannot wait to lay the groundwork for so many more adventures to come, for a complex but fun story with so many more characters. And to talk with people about the rewrite! The blessing of 2021 was that people read my stuff and finally, after years of isolation, I have more than three people with who to talk about my writing! It's quite freeing and thoroughly magical.

Tag some people!

I think everyone and their grandma already got tagged, but hey, if you see this and wanna do it - do it.

#beablabbers #writing #storie nostre #aph #hetalia #hws #It's been quite the year and I was so prolific #and I am so glad for everyone who joined me on this journey even if only for one drabble #but I also have to say I am so so happy now to work on my own things again #it's nice to be with the kids

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wisteria-lodge · 3 years

Text

lion primary (bird model) + slightly burnt lion secondary

Hi there! I’m a fan of your sorting posts, and of your kind and insightful way of supporting people in finding out more about themselves. So naturally I’d be very interested in your take about my own sorting, if you’re game! :)

I won’t talk much about my Secondary, because now that I’m starting to unburn my Lion seems very clear to me, even when my explosion-prone Badger model still tries to get in the way of that clarity sometimes. The more interesting riddle is my Primary. So far I’m operating under the working theory that I am a Lion with a very strong Bird model - or is it the other way ‘round?

The supposed dichotomy between “thinking” and “feeling” in many of the more binary personality models has always bugged me, so it’s no wonder this is the area where whenever I feel like I’ve decided on who I am (for now) a new question mark pops up (so much fun!).

If ‘thinking’ and ‘feeling’ doesn’t work for you as terminology, it might help to think of Lion as leading with subconscious reasoning, and Bird as leading with conscious reasoning.

Instead of trying to formulate a cohesive text, which would have gotten even longer, I’m putting together an associative list of thoughts and stories that kept turning up while I was trying to figure out my Primary.

A very Lion primary way to solve a problem, not gonna lie ;)

- I think I got my Bird model from my father, who made quite an effort to teach me to look at things from all angles. As a child, whenever I got in a fight with this friend I had, he would sit me down and ask me to put myself in my friend’s shoes. It was hard, because a lot of the time my friend was being unfair to me and I actually could have used some support, someone to tell me that it was not okay to treat me this way. But I’m still immeasurably grateful for my father’s lessons, through which I’ve learned to understand peoples’ motivations and gained an understanding for the complexities of every conflict. He also taught me to doubt, to look closer, to not just believe the first thing I see, or want to see. To this day I still consider my ability to pin down the relevant factors of a situation before I make judgments one of my strengths.

That definitely sounds like a very strong, beloved Bird model.

- Whenever I had to write an essay at school or uni, I first had to come up with some aspect about the subject that I really cared about, even could be passionate about. (I am passionate about many things, so it was usually possible to find some connection to that.) Then I would use the essay to discuss this aspect in great detail, ending with a polemic flourish. I had the time of my life doing that; meanwhile the text would structure itself magically in relation to the issue I had chosen to focus on. Whenever I tried to write without such a focus, I’d get bored, stressed and the text would be of a much lower quality.

- Something similar happened in oral exams at uni: Only when I got the opportunity to bring a discussion paper (a few pointed statements regarding the exam topic) which I could then debate, I was able to recollect all the important details I needed for that. If I just had to report on the topic or answer questions, I often got confused, to the point of drawing a complete blank.

Linking things to emotion and passion - thinking with emotion and passion, basically - is a Lion primary thing. Especially if doing that makes you feel safe & comfortable & effective & happy.

- Even as a teenager I was very interested in philosophy, ethics and moral decision making.

I love teaching philosophy to teenagers. It’s the perfect time for it, they are so into it, and if it were up to me I would absolutely make it a required class.

I picked up certain philosophical ideas and concepts that I liked and integrated them in my belief system (yes, I know how very Bird that sounds).

I had my mind blown by Genealogy of Morals in high school, and I still won’t shut about Eichmann in Jerusalem. But what was so staggering to me in high school was… here are these ways of thinking that are possible and allowed. The fact that here they are in words in front of me made me a great deal more expansive.

Now that I think about it — I don’t remember adjusting my beliefs as in any way traumatic back then. The shift from a belief in the Christian God to Mother Goddess to my very own brand of agnostic paganism was smooth, natural.

Now that I think about it… I would describe myself as a mythic relativist (which is a term I just made up.) Systems of belief are metaphors, and they’re metaphors trying to describe and say something large and beautiful about what it means to be human, and what it means to live a good life. And since we are all human, they are all attempting to describe the same central, indescribable thing in different ways.

I feel this very deeply, but it took me a long while to be able to articulate it.

I constantly reevaluate, and I adapt.

You stop reevaluating and adapting, might as well be dead.

Still, there are some basics I’ve kept with me that just make too much sense to me to give up, and some that perhaps I keep because I just really like them and I’m kind of attached to them.

… somebody’s thinking with Pathos :)

- I’m a constructivist at heart, so that makes it much easier to tweak the content of my beliefs while staying true to the principle that we (socially) construct our reality, and (my take on this): that I choose what kind of world I want to live in, and according to that I make choices which are the most likely to create that world.

- At uni I attended a seminar about the development of moral judgment and action. What I remember most clearly about it is how much it bugged me that the other students didn’t seem to understand that morality always depends on the perspective. Even though I had definite moral convictions that I was ready to fight for, at the same time it seemed obvious to me that theoretically there could be a justification for every kind of moral guideline; it depended on your principles and the world you wanted to live in.

A human after my own heart.

I wanted to understand these different perspectives, not talk about empty categories like “right and wrong” or “good and evil” that meant nothing to me. I still feel that way.

Absolutely. I don’t use alignments when I DM Dungeons & Dragons. I mean, I can list evil *things* but that’s not the same thing as defining *being evil.* I want to know WHY these people did these evil things.

It just seems so impractical and complicated to base a conversation on those broad categories that don’t have any definition people can agree on instead of referring either to defined principles (in order to explain what good/ bad is *for you*) or consequences of certain actions, and whether you want them/ accept them/ don’t want them.

Oh that’s a fun discussion. Asking a highschooler to define “evil.”

(and then they have to figure out what moral systems Jigsaw, Pinhead, the Joker, and Bane all subscribe to.)

- Between “the Revolutionary” and “the Grail Knight”, I would love to be the former, but I’m clearly the latter. I’m someone who questions, not someone who knows.

Take my archetypes with a grain of salt, they are supposed to describe characters. (Who are different from people - but still useful, because they are attempts to describe us.) I actually want to write more about the differences I see between the way fictional secondaries are written and the way real-life secondaries work.

And just “knowing”... is dangerous. That’s how Exploded Lions happen.

There are a lot of causes I find worthy to fight for, but I haven’t committed to any one, which so far I’ve attributed to my Burned Secondary (How do I do things?).

Sounds about right.

If I’m honest, though, it feels a bit strange to really, really fight for anything. I’d rather contribute to the cause by keeping an eye on whether we stay aligned to our values on every level of the fight, not by storming sightlessly in front of some army. (I got polemic again, didn’t I? ;))

So after all this Bird talk, why do I think that I’m a Lion?

… that was the Bird segment?

- I trust my intuition. It has never steered me wrong, with one exception: My Primary burned for a time when I first understood the concept of privilege and internalized bias, which was coincidentally at a time when I also went through a lot of changes in my personal life. Like many people unaware of their own privilege, I had thought of myself as “one of the good ones”. I learned that even with the best intentions I could cause great harm without even noticing it. This then also happened to me in a relationship, when I was already confused, hurt and more than a bit burned. It seemed like I couldn’t trust my intuition anymore, but I also couldn’t figure out intellectually what to believe, because I felt mentally overwhelmed by all those new concepts, all of which put my previous convictions into question. Which Primary burned then?

Been there, done that, it’s brutal. It sounds to me like a Lion dramatically changing direction - that’s what I mean when I say that it *hurts* when a Lion changes their mind. Birds see their past selves that thought wrong as almost different people. “I wasn’t aware of my privilege then, now I am, and can take steps doing forward.” But if you’re a lion it’s like… I *should* have been aware, and the fact that I wasn’t says something terrible about my moral/emotional calibration, and THAT has to be put right.

- I felt like everything I had learned about the world and myself didn’t count anymore. My concepts and my strategies didn’t serve me anymore. So I started to rebuild everything from scratch, this time with less pride and more practicality.

Yeah. That’s some Lion recalibration. With a Bird Model, to help.

- Anyway, I trust my intuition. It contains my experiences, instinct and all my accumulated unconscious observations of the situation, and it’s very reliable. Usually I use it as an important source of information which I try to back up with data/ understanding, but when push came to shove and the apparent facts would contradict what my intuition told me, I would be unable to set my gut feeling aside. I wouldn’t follow it blindly, of course. But I would never just go against it either. If the voices of my unconscious and conscious mind don’t align, I keep poking at the issue until they do. If I absolutely cannot come to a satisfying conclusion, I go with my gut. Since I know it usually knows what it’s doing, I’ll find out the reasons for my feelings later. (Weird, says my inner bird who is busy compiling these examples.)

I’LL FIND THE REASON FOR MY FEELINGS LATER. What a perfect way of articulating what is perhaps the central experience of being a Lion primary.

- Probably I’m just both, you know. Some interesting lion/bird-chimaera. I like it.

I read you as a pretty clear Lion Primary, Bird primary model. But as always, the decision is very personal.

- I have a weird way of processing information: I read/ hear it, work to understand it, work to connect it to existing knowledge in my mind, then my beliefs, my existing knowledge and my feelings about it all wind around each other, grow into each other, some dissolve together, becoming a swamp which then nourishes the plants of new ideas and connections that grow from it.

You grok it. And that’s not weird.

I often can’t remember where certain knowledge came from. I can’t take it out of a memory shelf and tell you about it. I usually remember that I’ve read a certain book and whether I liked it / it influenced me, but I won’t exactly remember what was in it, even if it was important to me. Because all that information is already processed/ digested/ transformed into something new. It’s much easier to access my memory swamp intuitively than consciously.

and you seriously had like… any doubt that you were a Lion.

In intellectual discussions I tend to get stuck because I just can’t remember enough of the details (for my satisfaction), just my conclusions about the topic and how I feel about it.

I’m inclined to think that not accessing the details is either a secondary thing, or an entirely unrelated processing thing.

What do you make of all this? I’m very curious!

[On an unrelated note, I’d like to specify the compliment I made at the beginning of this post. I’m really impressed with your ability to pick up on what people need, not just what they say they want. As a counselor this is a skill I try to hone, so I know how difficult it is to not get too distracted by the story people tell and miss the more subtle cues. You have a powerful combination of perceptiveness, insight and so much kindness, which you use to effectively support people who have questions, are in distress or confused. You don’t generalize. You don’t judge. You see the people who talk to you. I love that you’re a teacher, because I can see you’re using the influence that gives you in a way that contributes to making the world a better place. Fellow Idealist, I’d like to give you a High Five for that, if I may. :)))]

I’m not sure I’ve ever been given a better compliment. Thank you.

#submission #sortinghatchats #lion primary #lionpri #bird primary vs lion primary #philosophy stuff

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dreamersscape · 3 years

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In Which I Attempt to Wreak Havoc Upon Panharmonium's Heart. Or Something.

Because I am an awesome friend, clearly, and possibly making people sad/verklempt is definitely an excellent way to (belatedly 😔 but I did start before the 15th!) celebrate Kakashi's birthday, right? ;)

I will admit up front that this is nowhere near as deftly structured and compiled as your Kakashi fanmix, @panharmonium, but that is precisely why I'm not even going to try to organize all these songs into individual playlists. Yet. Plus, I have a tendency to over-explain so this way I can better expound on why certain songs remind me of certain characters. Sorry that I sorta went a little... overboard?

Everything--except a few that aren't available on spotify, I'll link to them directly--can be listened to HERE.

What I'm Looking For - Brendan Benson | Kakashi → I may be a little biased with this one because it fits SO many of my favorite characters so well, somehow, but there's just something about the upbeat/tongue-in-cheek musical cues/delivery of lines such as 'I visit hell on a daily basis, and I see the sadness in all your faces' that just feels so Kakashi to me.

Happy Ending - MIKA | Kakashi → This is presumably a breakup song, but I enjoy it so much more in a non-romantic context (and the song itself isn't really boxed in with overtly romantic framing, so I appreciate that!). Anyway, some very important instructions IMO for listening to this with Kakashi in mind: everything before the bridge is about Kakashi up through his ANBU years, but when you get to the 'little bit of love' refrain, picture Kakashi meeting Tenzo, and then becoming Team 7's sensei, opening back up to Gai, adopting all the other leaf genin, assimilating Sai and Yamato into Team 7, and it keeps building with Kakashi gaining more and more loved ones to fill the hole in his heart, and then cry tears of joy with me! Just my personal suggestion. :D

Light - Sleeping At Last | Kakashi & Team 7 (/all his kids)

with every heartbeat I have left I will defend your every breath

→ I've seen this song used for ship vids and I'm all ????? about that because this is clearly a song about the love you have for your child! But I suppose if one of my favorite pastimes is aggressively re-interpreting love songs in non-romantic ways, I can't begrudge the opposite process... too much, lol.

Heroes - MIKA | Team Minato

your blood on me/and my blood on you/but to make you bleed/the only thing I wouldn't do/.../I wish there was a way/to give you a hand to hold/'cause you don't have to die in your glory/die, to never grow old

Long Lost Friends - Transit | Kakashi & Obito

how long/do you have to say that/this is not the person I used to know/you are not the person I used to know/.../because lately, you've been looking at me like you've seen a ghost/and isn't it obvious who's been missing who the most

→ What the heck! What the heck! What the heck! What the heck! What the heck!

Against the Voices - Switchfoot | Kakashi

'cause everybody knows/the hardest war to fight/is the fight to be yourself/when the voices try to turn you into someone else

Out of the Darkness - Matthew and the Atlas | Obito? Yamato? Kakashi? Itachi & Sasuke? Naruto & Kurama? → I'm a bit undecided about this one, or if I should just not worry about choosing one character and just let myself feel all the "inner darkness is not an innate characteristic, Danzo! They're just grieving/in a lot of pain, and they can find their way out of that dark place!" feels.

Save A Place - 1969 | Kakashi & Sasuke

so I'll keep away and save a place for you/and I'll only make the same mistakes as you/.../when all the blood all over your fingers is dried up/the pain will still linger

→ I'm not uber-confident in picking out really fitting Kakashi & Sasuke songs yet, but I hope this hits a lot of the right notes for you. :)

Thrive - Switchfoot | Kakashi

I'm always close, but I'm never enough/I'm always in line, but I'm never in love/I get so down, but I won't give up/I get so down, but I won't give up

→ See, it says right there that he's never in love! Not the crux of the song, and he's not always 'in line' either, but still! :)

Disarm - The Civil Wars | Kakashi & Obito

the years burn, burn, burn

→ I don't know how I keep collecting fictional relationships that work so well for this song, but literally every single line of this song hits so hard for these two?? Will never recover from this. (Also, I usually disregard when 'my love' pops up in the last line of the chorus, as the mood dictates. :) It's pretty incidental as is IMO.)

Renaissance - Paolo Buonvino & Skin | Sakumo & Obito & Kakashi & Naruto

let me show you one last time/let me show you one last sign/you can find it/I can't say that I can change the world/but if you let me, I can make another world for us/let me suffer all for you/make this vision all brand new/we can fight them/I can't say that I can win it all, [but] come with me and I will make my words stand tall

→ Okay, this is a very odd choice given that it's actually the theme song for a different show about the Italian renaissance (if you happen to see this, Mirjam, don't hate me!), but this could be IT! The "those who break the rules are scum, but those who would abandon their friends are worse than scum" anthem that's all about building a better world based on these principles! I really hope our sharing-a-brain talent translates to listening to this song in this way because I am feeling SOME KIND of way about this!

The Lament of Eustace Scrubb - The Oh Hellos | Kakashi → I really liked the song you chose from this album for your fanmix, so now I've feeling a tiny bit too on-the-nose with my choice, but I guess this is just a Kakashi album all around. 😆

Glass Heart Hymn - Paper Route | Kakashi(+ Obito) & Sasuke(+ Itachi)

memories as heavy as a stone/ I am empty, in my end you are my beginning

This Is Home - Switchfoot | Yamato & Kakashi (+ Team 7)

and now, after all my searching/after all my questions/I'm gonna call it home

→ All finding-where-you-belong songs are actually Yamato songs. True story!

Faust, Midas, & Myself - Switchfoot | Obito

you have one life left to leave/you have one life left to lead

→ Could this be any more perfect for Obito? It even has creepy-old-man!Madara!

Pluto - Sleeping At Last | Kakashi

Always Gold - Radical Face | Kakashi & Obito/Sasuke & Itachi/Naruto & Sasuke

all my life, I've never known where you've been/there were holes in you, the kind that I could not mend/and I heard you say, right when you left that day/does everything go away?/yeah, everything goes away/but I'm going to be here till forever/so just call when you're around

→ ...but mostly Kakashi & Obito because 'there were holes in you' 😭😭😭

Lemon Boy - Cavetown | Yamato & Kakashi → You already know the delights of this song of course, but I gots to be comprehensive. :)

Everywhere I Go - Lissie/cover by Sleeping At Last | Kakashi & Team Minato

danger will follow me now everywhere I go/angels will call on me and take me to my home/well, these tired eyes just want to remain closed

→ I chose the Sleeping At Last cover for maximum angst, 'cause sometimes it be like that.

Uneven Odds - Sleeping At Last | Kakashi

maybe your light is a seed, and the darkness the dirt, in spite of the uneven odds, beauty lifts from the earth

→ ...just like an earth style: mud wall :') Okay, okay, bad jokes aside, the seed metaphor of course makes me want to associate it with Tenzo, but this is clearly a Kakashi song!

Twenty-four - Switchfoot | Kakashi & Obito

life is not what I thought it was twenty-four hours ago/and I'm not who I thought I was twenty-four hours ago/still I'm singing spirit, take me up in arms with you/you're raising the dead in me/I wanna see miracles/to see the world change/wrestled the angel for more than a name/for more than a feeling, for more than a cause/I'm singing spirit, take me up in arms with you/and you're raising the dead in me

I'm Still Here (Jim's Theme) - John Rzeznik | Kakashi

and how can they say I never change?/they're the ones that stay the same/.../they can't tell me who to be/'cause I'm not what they see/.../and their words are just whispers/and lies that I'll never believe

→ Yeah, I might've accidentally imprinted on Treasure Planet as a 14 year old, and then someone made sure this song would forever live in my heart by making a fanvid of it with my favorite character from my robin hood show, but! He's still here!

See You Again - Wiz Khalifa (feat. Charlie Puth) | Kakashi & Obito/Team Minato

how can we not talk about family when family's all that we got?/everything I went through, you were standing there by my side/and now you gon' be with me for the last ride

→ I am being very unoriginal here, and there are in fact already fanvids made for these relationships set to this song (along with many others featuring different Naruto relationships), but I don't think I'll be able to rest until I translate the movie playing in my head whenever I hear this song now into an actually watchable format. After all, they have come a long way from where they began, and I intend to make that both as touching and ironically hilarious as possible!

Goodnight, Travel Well - The Killers | Kakashi → Admittedly, I got this idea from a magnificently crafted fanvid done for my robin hood show, but I genuinely think it would be really interesting to make something similar for Kakashi centered around the time he technically died but got better? I don't know how to explain it, but I think it fits quite well.

30 Lives - Imagine Dragons | Kakashi & all the people he's loved and lost → can be listened to here.

A Pound of Flesh - Radical Face | Kakashi

then today I wake up feeling easy/and find I'm on more familiar roads/I got a darkness wrapped inside me/but now it ain't so hard to let it go/so keep a candle burning in the window/I'm almost home

Hold Back The River - James Bay | Kakashi & life getting in the way of him being with his precious people (you may be sensing a pattern here) → @the road of life: Let! Kakashi! And his People! Hold! Each! Other!!! Also, 'tried to square not being there, but think that I should have been' is absolutely about Sasuke's defection and Kakashi adding it to his long list of undeserving self-recriminations.

The Fall - Imagine Dragons | Yamato & Kakashi → 😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

Shadowman - K's Choice | could work equally well for Kakashi or Obito, I think

any time tomorrow a part of me will die/and a new one will be born/any time tomorrow/I'll get sick of asking why/sick of all the darkness I have worn/any time tomorrow/I will try to do what's right/making sense of all I can/any time tomorrow I'll pretend to see the light/I just might/.../and doesn't it make you sad?/to see so much love denied/see nothing but a shadowman inside

Paint - The Paper Kites | Kakashi & Team 7

still there's a wound and I'm moving slow/though it don't show, though it don't show/I've got a hole where nothing grows,/how little you know, how little you know

→ A song for just how much Team 7 doesn't know about their sensei.

Always Find Me Here - Transit | Kakashi → ...most likely at the memorial stone. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (why am I like this)

Taste - Sleeping At Last | Kakashi

it’s bittersweet, it’s poetry/a careful pruning of my dead leaves/it’s holy ground, a treasure chest/I'm on my knees and only scratch the surface/like fists unraveling, like glass unshattering/we’re breaking all the rules, we’re breaking bread again/we’re swallowing light ’til we’re fixed from the inside

Help - Hurts | Yamato & Kakashi

take my hand and lead the way/out of the darkness and into the light of the day/.../'cause I know what I've been missing/and I know that I should try/but there's hope in this admission/and there's freedom in your eyes/.../I can feel the darkness coming/and I'm afraid of myself/call my name and I'll come running/'cause I just need some help

→ NO ONE TOUCHE ME.

Your Soul - RHODES | A mish-mash of Kakashi & Tenzo and Rin & Obito & Kakashi and Gai & Kakashi vibes? → So like, 'oh you know when you're alone/I'm holding on and on and on and on/to your soul' reminded me of your 'when you're all alone...the only thing you really think about is dying' 'but when there are two of you...the only thing you can think about is surviving.' and now kakashi - who just saved his life - is asking him 'did you want to die' and yamato is saying 'no' there are two of them and yamato wants to SURVIVE. tags as well as Gai's steadfastness as a friend, and 'I just wanna hold your hand' made me think of Rin's "Well then, I'm just going to have to connect the two of you." while holding their hands, and the sunlight/'soul shine'/'your light' motif is just A Lot in this song!!

7 Years - Lukas Graham | Kakashi → Alright, yeah, there are already approximately a gazillion pre-existing Naruto AMVs for this song and even one or two focusing on Kakashi, but they don't capitalize on all the angst possibilities in many of the lyrics or reach the fluff potential of 'will I think the world is cold or will I have a lot of children who can warm me [when I'm old]' and I cannot abide that!

Putting The Dog To Sleep - The Antlers | Kakashi & Sasuke → Okay, on one hand, this song is One Big Oof. But I do like the (potentially odd) way I've conceptualized it for Kakashi & Sasuke? Like, the first half is Kakashi going through all the tragedies in his life and getting lost in ANBU, but then in the second half it transitions to him wanting to prevent Sasuke from having to be as alone as Kakashi once was and they can face life together? It makes me emotional!

Trust Me - The Fray | Kakashi & Obito

I found a friend, or should I say a foe?/said there's a few things you should know/we don't want you to see/we come, and we go/here today, gone tomorrow

→ There are a few lines that call Tenzo & Kakashi to mind, but mostly it's Obito & Kakashi.

The Lightning Strike (What If This Storm Ends?) - Snow Patrol | Kakashi → I had to, right? My mindscape is a little murky/scattered about what specifically I want to think about when I listen to this, but obviously it has to do with Kakashi in one way or another.

Kettering - The Antlers | Team Minato(???) → Honestly not sure if this will make any sense, but yeah, vague team minato vibes?

Swans - Unkle Bob | Kakashi & Obito/Rin/Minato/Kushina/Sakumo → They should be by his side always!!!

Looking Too Closely - Fink | Kakashi → I honestly feel rather ambivalent about this one too, but I can't deny 'truth is like blood underneath your fingernails/and you don't wanna hurt yourself, hurt yourself/looking too closely' always destroys me because... well, you know. I love suffering. :(

Souvenirs - Switchfoot | Kakashi & Obito & Rin

wolves - Switchfoot | Kakashi

snowfall for the battlefield/roses for the father's sons/see them red on the ground:/bleeding/when the revolution came/we were more than hungry men/we were hoping for more:/bleeding/end. begin again./all of my world is collision and spin/hope is a world that has yet to begin/awaken, oh sleeper/awaken, oh sleeper/a new day begins

→ I wanted a wolf-related song too. :)

PRODIGAL SOUL - Switchfoot | Obito, Itachi, & Sasuke; just all them wayward Uchiha boys

Coming Down - Dear Euphoria | kid!Kakashi & his relationships

the shell/that I wore/it wasn't for fun/it wasn't to make you/stick around/it was for survival/it was what I've learnt/it was for the sun/.../our love has grown/our love has flown

→ Another one I'm a little unsure of whether it makes sense outside of my head or not, but I like the vibes?

Ghosts That We Knew - Mumford & Sons | Kakashi & Yamato? → Hmm, can I maybe submit this as a Kakashi-&-Yamato-just-need-to-mske-it-through-this-war-so-they-can-have-a-bright-bright-future song?

All Is Well (It's Only Blood) - Radical Face | Kakashi → ...he said as he's bleeding out or after he's thrown himself in the line of fire protecting someone he thinks is a better person than himself...

Bleeding Out - Imagine Dragons | Kakashi

when the hour is nigh/and hopelessness is sinking in/and the wolves all cry/to fill the night with hollering/when your eyes are red/and emptiness is all you know/with the darkness fed/I will be your scarecrow/you tell me to hold on/oh, you tell me to hold on/but innocence is gone/and what was right is wrong

→ In a similar vein to the previous song. But goodness gracious! Were they NOT straight up describing Kakashi here?

Amaryllis - Shinedown | Yamato & Kakashi → Just tossing this one out there, not sure if it will make sense or if it's a reach... but I like it?

lost 'cause - Switchfoot | Kakashi & Sasuke

are we a lost cause?/or are we just lost 'cause/we won't be the future we refuse to see?/and if I'm your lost cause/it'll be your lost 'cause/you won't see me as I am, the possibility/that I'm not the enemy

→ 214 feels. (And before and after that, but yeah.)

Through the Ghost - Shinedown | Kakashi & Obito

so many silent sorrows/you never hear from again/and now that you've lost tomorrow/is yesterday still a friend?/.../everything that mattered is just/a city of dust/covering both of us/did you hide yourself away?/I can't see you anymore/.../did you hide yourself away?/are you living through the ghost?/did you finally find a place/above the shadows so the world will never know?/the world will never know you like I do ... like I still do

Little Talks - Of Monsters and Men | Kakashi → Just Kakashi having little chats with his ghosts, totally the most heartwarming way to conclude this section. 😅

Sleepyhead - Passion Pit | Kakashi → Just kidding! Here's a slightly less morbid song for the Most Tired Boy Of Them All.™ (Random aside: this was my customary song to listen to on my walks to 8AM organic chemistry classes; I found it strangely soothing! On a different occasion, after a particularly long day for her, one of my roommates didn't have the energy to make it to her bed but nevertheless requested a lullaby from us. So I obliged by playing this song for her, but she didn't seem to gain the same peace of mind from it as I did. 😄 I know it's not my place to propose anything like this, but it does amuse me to imagine bookends!Kakashi in these situations, even though it's not OChem classes he has to go to.)

General/Miscellaneous:

Rise Above It - Switchfoot | Ensemble

don't care what they're telling me/we can be what we want to be/.../just because it's law doesn't mean that it's fair/.../don't believe the system's on your side/.../the curse is spoken/the system's broken; rise above it

→ I mean, how could I not think about Naruto when this song also has the lines 'hear us sing tonight like the last night on earth/we will rise like the tide/like dead men coming back to life/we are rising, rising'? It's fun to be literal sometimes!

Doorways - Radical Face | Allllll the traumatized children → Someone has to put all those tragic childhood flashbacks to good use, after all.

Ghost Towns - Radical Face | take your pick of Itachi, Sasuke, or Post-Kannabi-Bridge!Obito

there's no comin' home/with a name like mine/I still think of you/but everyone knows/yeah everyone knows/if you care, let it go

Blinding Light - Switchfoot | Hey, Hiruzen? You may have coined the phrase, "children are the king" but I don't think you truly understand it... (insert Princess Bride joke here)

hey boy, don't believe them/we're the nation that eats our youth/.../still looking for the blinding light/still looking for the reason why/still looking for the sun to shine/all my life I've been living in the darkest night/still looking for the blinding light/to take me higher and higher

Brother's Blood - Kevin Devine | EVERYONE → ...but certainly so much you could do with Itachi & Sasuke, Obito & Kakashi, Shisui & Itachi, even Hashirama & Madara! Sakumo's teammates turning their backs on him and saying 'I don't know one thing about my brother's blood'?!?! There are SO MANY ideas I have for this song! It gives me chills and makes my brain scream.

We Need Each Other - Sanctus Real | Ensemble → Already mentioned this one to you, but I have to include it here for thoroughness' sake!

Whispering - Alex Clare | the Hidden Leaf's lost/ostracized children/orphans

who will care for the falling?/who will care for the falling leaves?

So this is probably a strange concept to come up with and apply to this song, but the 'whispering, whispering, whispering' parts brought Konaha's virulent gossiping/passing judgement about others and often kids they don't even know problem to mind, too, and yeah?

The World You Want - Switchfoot | Ensemble → If I were to make a fanvid set to this song, I would definitely keep a broad focus, but I can't deny that the lines 'you start to look like what you believe, you float through time like a stream, if the waters of time are made up by you and I, I could change the world for you, you change it for me' FOR SURE has strong Obito & Kakashi/Kakashi & Tenzo vibes.

Red Eyes - Switchfoot | Ensemble, but definitely many dashes of Uchihas 😄 → I would like to thank Masashi Kishimoto for creating a world where red eyes are a Thing of Importance so I can one day make a fanvid using this song in not just the tired or teary bloodshot-red eyes way, but in a very literal sense too.

TAKE MY FIRE - Switchfoot | The Will of Fire → 'Cause I think I'm sooooo clever. 😄

Above The Clouds Of Pompeii - Bear's Den | various parent & child relationships → This obviously derives from the not-caring-about-your-female-characters problem, but it always gets me that all the single parents in the Naruto universe are almost invariably the fathers! I guess sometimes you can safely guess that the mothers are still alive/exist, but either way we hardly ever get to see them. :/ The one exception I can think of right now is Kurenai, but maybe I'm forgetting another conspicuous single mother. Anyway, I don't know if this helps or hinders more a potential Naruto fanvid for this song, but regardless, it still gives me feelings?

Who We Are - Switchfoot | Ensemble → It just makes me inordinately happy that the chorus for this song starts with 'who we are (in the fever of our youth)', you know? :D

Brother - Kodaline | all the friendships we can stuff in here and then some → Quite a well known song I'm pretty sure, but I love how many dynamics one could showcase in a potential fanvid of this. And, not gonna lie, 'oh brother, we go deeper than the ink beneath the skin of our tattoos' deserves to be used in some sort of Tenzo 'n' Kakashi or Team Ro fan creation!

Special Bonus:

Shake It Out - Florence + The Machine | Kakashi & Obito → I'm not sure whether I would have realized how well this works for Kakashi & Obito on my own, funnily enough, but then I found this fanvid of it (containing only scenes you've seen naturally!) and it hit me like a ton of bricks. It's so well done!

youtube

#I do apologize for all the switchfoot/other repeated bands or artists #I wanted this to be really varied but switchfoot just has my number I guess?#I'd like to say I got it all out of my system now since I'll likely have to do a part two at some point #but that's not completely true *rubs back of head sheepishly*#also all the mentions of fanvid creation are just because I've always been a heavily visual learner/how I process stuff #--ironic given my visual disability--#so I suppose when my brain gets attached to something that's in an auditory medium it still has to find a way to add in a visual component?#anyway I hope this 60+ songs behemoth of a playlist is not too overwhelming and that the musical styles are somewhat up your alley!#I swear I'm going to jump back into our Kakashi & Yamato conversations now!#turns out I really suck at multitasking sometimes /0\#kakashi hatake #obito uchiha #team minato #kakashi 'n' obito #kakashi 'n' rin #kakashi 'n' tenzo #gai 'n' kakashi #sakumo hatake #naruto uzumaki #kakashi 'n' sasuke #kakashi 'n' sakumo #kakashi 'n' naruto #kakashi 'n' minato #Itachi 'n' Sasuke #itachi uchiha #itachi 'n' shisui #yamato #tenzo #sasuke uchiha #sakura haruno

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everlarkbirthdaygifts · 3 years

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Happy Birthday, jbsaucy!

Happy belated Birthday, @jbsaucy! We hope you had a wonderful day back on the 16th, and that you celebrated in style! To bring your party back around, the lovely @mega-aulover has written a story just for you!

For this year, I am recently divorced and trying to get the nerve up to get out there. So I would like to request a 30/40s Everlark, post divorced meeting

Jbsaucy

Dear Jbsaucy I hope you had a wonderful birthday. I apologize for the lateness, and I hope you had a wonderful day. This prompt BTW was amazing and I had a great time writing it. It was a blast. Thank you to Norbertsmom for Betaing

Rated T

Title: OFF THE MARKET

-kpkpkpkp-

Divorce sucks. SUCKS.

Getting divorced sucks, being divorced sucked.

But nothing, not the tedious nature of dividing unwanted movies, the fear of root canals, or getting a speeding ticket, compared to dating. Dating, ladies and gentlemen, after being married for ten years sucked royally.

ROYALLY!

After my divorce, my attorney suggested I get a hobby or join a club. I really wasn’t a social person. Not much of a talker, and avoided any and all spotlights. It was this fear of the spotlight that originally brought me in contact to my now ex-husband, Darius.

My best friend Gale pushed me to do one of those karaoke nights. I panicked and ran straight into Darius. He thought I was cute, and I was grateful he went up with me to the karaoke microphone. He sang and I laughed. The rest is history; the marriage only lasted ten years. But I knew we weren’t right for one another, partially because Darius was a very sexual person, for me sex wasn’t important. I got more enjoyment out of getting my teeth cleaned. He found someone who revved his engine and I got the fica and dates.

Yup Dates.

How did that happen you ask?

Well, I’ll tell you I followed my divorce attorney’s suggestion. Preface-OUTSIDE OF A COURTROOM NEVER EVER FOLLOW YOUR DIVORCE ATTORNEY’S ADVICE.

With that warning sign, I digress. Taking a deep breath, I pinch the bridge of my nose. Wait for it... I joined a book club.

It was the only natural course of action. After our divorce I got all of the books. You see one of the things Darius and I loved to do was go to bookstores. We’d buy all of these books with the intention of reading them, and we never did. We had bookshelves filled with books from the 100 Must-Read Classic Books by Penguin. So after my divorce, I sat in my newly minted apartment with a box of wine and all of these books.

I was looking at the boxes, my divorce papers jutting out. Amongst them there was a note - with the name of a book club, the real 451 book club, with an address. I called them the Squad 451 or the Squad. The women were a hodgepodge of personalities; the right blend of sweet and crazy. There is Mags, the motherly type. She has boatloads of grandchildren. Then there is her neighbor Greasy Sae who runs a diner in town. I used to go to her diner as a kid and consume her mystery meat soups. The older woman is bawdy and half of the things she says makes me blush redder than a red bean. Next is Annie, a shy, slightly mad girl who is a librarian. Delly has the personality of the southern bell who wears pink and believes in romance. I’ve known of Delly forever; she and I went to the same high school.

Foxface, has one of those names with multiple consonants and vowels but prefers to go by Foxy or Foxface. She is freakishly smart and sometimes, I think she has blackmarket dealings because she’s so secretive. Then there is Effie, the middle aged, tightly wound woman whose book choices are as repressed as she is, like Jane Eyre. And last, but not least, is my divorce lawyer, yes the very same one who suggested I get a hobby, Johanna Mason who is, well, a sex fiend.

I started meeting up with them, and six months after my divorce, that’s when the ladies conspired against me and set up my profile on one of those dating websites looking for men, for me. I had no idea, and on my birthday, they presented me with their “gift.”

It was the gift you didn’t want, like a pimple on your wedding day or the runs before an important interview, or bad breath before a first kiss.

Greasy said that if I didn’t use my, well, feminine - looks around - petals. That they’ll dry up and turn into ugly petunias. I announced sex wasn’t important, and even friged Effie said a lady needed to literally, figuratively, and metaphorically, occassionally let her hair down.

I said NO.

I demanded.

I scowled.

Nothing helped.

They created a profile based upon themselves, and yet through describing themselves they pegged me. I was nurturing. I had a sexy edge. I was introverted, and yet mysterious. I was smart, honest, loyal and a closet romantic. But if you tell anyone that, I’ll hunt you down, even after I’m dead.

They split me up like a kid of divorced parents being schlepped from one house to the other. They set themselves up in teams and each team got to pick my dates. And everytime we met for a book club meeting, I was to dutifully report on the date. Based upon their success, a second date would be permitted.

It was a simple proposition.

I was naive. A stupid idiot, or as Bugs Bunny say’s, a maroon.

Because I hadn’t really ever been out there.

To be honest, I met Darius right out of high school, at my first college party, and we were married - okay it wasn’t a big wedding. It really wasn’t a wedding at all. It was a spur of the moment, we got drunk and ended up at one of those Elvis chapel impersonators. Annnnd bada-bing.

I never really dated, so I agreed with the book club’s plan, because how hard could dating be?

And thus began my nightmare.

I must state, or emphatically note, not all of my “dates,” were catastrophically bad. To be fair, most of the time I wasn’t interested. Delly said I wasn’t romantically pulled. Johnna said my engine wasn’t revved up. Greasy said if the man didn’t make me want to orgasam with a look, then he wasn’t worth my time. I posed this question to the universe: How in blazing blue inferno does a man make a woman...well you know, with a look? Was that even possible?

A hazy yellow fuzz enters my head and my mind wanders. I conjure up blue eyes and translucent lashes that never tangle.

Sigh.

…. (my brain just short circuited at the thought of large hands)

Earth to Katniss.

Okay sorry, I spaced out for a little bit, and their words spurred me on to continue my journey. And one year after my divorcce I had stories, no I have battle scars. To prove my point, the following are my top three worst dates. In no particular order.

Date Disaster # 1 was with an artsy type at a chique Italian restaurant. He arrived late, and was drunk, high, or both. Then fell asleep on his plate of bolognese. Yup, in his plate of spaghetti and meat sauce. I paid for my half, tucked my tail between my legs and left.

Date Disaster #2 was with a small man with glasses and a massive intellect who didn’t stop talking about flamingos. FLAMING PINK FLAMINGOS. My brain shut down. I didn’t hear the music in the jazz themed restaurant. I didn’t even taste the heat in the gumbo. The only factoid I remembered when we said goodnight was that flamingos were gray when they were born. I couldn’t even tell you how they became pink. The man was the human form of anesthesia for my soul.

Date Disaster #3 was a nice man. We laughed. And everything was going well. We ordered drinks, a cranberry and soda for me, the bartender special for him while we waited for our table. Turns out he has a milk allergy and the bartender special had milk. When we sat down at the table and we were talking about our hobbies, his stomach began to grumble loudly. He became pasty and then as the waiter brought out our appetizers, he threw up all over the place. It was a good thing that throwing up didn't bother me, but it bothered our waiter who gagged. Needless to say, I burned the outfit I was wearing.

Those were the top three...but there were more, just simmering to become the top one. And for a time I thought I wasn’t made to date. But the ladies had faith and they were really trying to choose nice, interesting guys. However, nothing, nothing that I could ever imagine could top my latest date.

I’m rushing along the sidewalk. I don’t want to be late, but at the same time, I don’t want to tell them how much of a calamity my latest date was, but to be completely honest, I don’t want to miss it. Tonight is also the night the group meets at Mellark’s. The friendly cafe style bakery with its rich and yummy pastries, both savory and sweet. It is my favorite place to meet. Squad 451 meets twice a month in different locations, including one of the two meeting rooms in the library, one of the community rooms in the Justice Building, and on our birthdays, we meet in a restaurant, but the bakery on Main Street is our favorite location. The Mellarks owned several locations. The flagship store was always managed by one of the original family members.

If George Senior, or the middle son Ryan Mellark is at the helm of the bakery, they allow us to cavort in the shop until close. When his older brother George Junior or their Mother Muriel was in charge, we tended to be quiet, relegating our conversations to the books. When Peeta is in charge, there are free cheese buns and chaos.

Please, stomach gods, let Peeta be there. I skipped lunch today because I had a deadline. I also forgot my wallet at home. Thankfully, my license was at the bottom of my backpack. I need food before my stomach eats itself. I am starving when I walk into the bakery. When I see Peeta, I stop. His blue eyes meet mine and my stomach flip flops. He gives me a slow sweet smile, before his eyes slide back to the customer who is ordering.

“Katniss,” Delly squeaks, waving frantically.

Somehow, my feet carry me over to the table and there is a plate of cheese buns and I thank every celestial being in the universe. His buns are heavenly. Sitting down, I take a napkin and snatch one. My mouth waters and my lashes close as I bring the cheese bun to my mouth. The smell of melted cheese, fresh bread, and the hint of dill, assuage my nose, before I bite into one of Peeta’s coveted flaky concoctions. The combination of the oozing cheese, the herbs and the buttery bread elicit a moan from deep within my being. These freaking cheese buns will be the death of me.

“Wow.” Peeta’s voice causes my lashes to fly open.

Peeta is standing near me with a cup of tea; his face and neck splotchy and red.

My mouth is full of delicious food, but I forgot how to chew.

Delly is looking between us. Her pale blue eyes quizzical, like when she’s trying to understand a concept or theme in a book.

“Okay, bitches,” Johanna says, slamming her brief down. “Where’s the rest of the motley crew?”

“Mags and Greasy just arrived,” Delly answers absentmindedly.

“Hey, Peeta, I need a strong black coffee.”

“Sure,” Peeta says, all the while staring at me. I finally remember to chew. “Here Katniss, your tea.”

Taking the paper cup, I can’t help feeling bashful. “Thank you.”

“Peet,” the girl behind the counter calls.

Whenever Peeta is here, the business is brisk. He is charming. He was always charming, even back in high school he was the most popular guy, not only because of his looks, but because he was genuinely nice. I, like all of the other girls, had a mini crush on him.

Looking over his shoulder he says, “I’ll be right back with your coffee, Jo.”

Now Jo is looking between him and me, but hers is a wicked grin, like right before she nails a sleazebag who doesn’t want to pay for his children. I quirk an eyebrow, clueless as to what has Johanna showing off her predatory gleam.

“Oh, it’s chilly outside,” Mags says.

“It’s colder than Rudolph’s balls outside,” Greasy says, her gruff voice is booming. Several patrons look at her. Greasy does not care. She’s well past her sixties and it’s her motto that she should live each day as if it was her last.

In walks Effie, Annie, and Foxface, and they all say, “Hello,” in unison.

The book of the month is actually a YA fiction called, The Fault in Our Stars, about teens with a terminal illness. I cried when Gus...I tear up once more...at the memory. But I know we aren’t going to discuss Hazel’s predicament with her parents.

“So,” Delly says, bouncing in her chair.

I can’t help but grimace.

“How did it go?” Foxface says. She has an accent, but I can’t place it.

“He looked like he belonged on one of those erotic books Johanna loves to read,” Greasy says, grabbing a cheese bun.

She’s not wrong. Gloss was a blond adonis, with slate blue eyes. And abs that have a flipping twelve pack, I ought to know, I counted them. The words are out of my mouth before I am aware of what I am saying. “He really does with a twelve pack,” I say drinking my tea.

“Did you say twelve pack?” Johanna sat up.

My eyes widen.

“Wait, why are you blushing Katniss?” Foxface narrows her eyes.

“Did you and he…” Annie trails off. Her doe eyes are wide.

“Did you have your first sleepover?” Effie leaned in.

“Or did you dry hump him like a horny-toad dog?” Greasy’s voice bounces in the bakery.

Peeta’s pauses , wiping down the counter and looks directly at me.

“NO!” My voice sounds half strangled.

Jo and Delly exchange a look. “Peeta,” Delly calls him over.

Oh, no, no, no, I say to myself, eyeing how quickly I can get from the back corner to the exit. It is one thing to tell the squad, it is another to have Peeta know. I think I can sprint around the chairs and clear the table near the door like an olympic hurdle jumper.

Peet walks over. “Hey Dells, can I get you ladies anything?”

“Katniss was going to regale us with her latest date,” Delly says.

“She’s going to tell us how she knows her date has Thor’s body.”

“You’re dating?” Peeta asks, looking at me intently.

He doesn’t know I am dating or rather, being raked through hot coals.

“Oh,” Foxface chortles. “She’s dating.”

“Remember the guy who was texting with his mother during the entire date,” Effie said.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Mags saids grinning.

“Only the part when he had Katniss talk to her, and it turned out she was psychoanalyzing her to make sure she wasn’t an ax murderer,” Annie said laughing.

“Or what about the guy who kept on mentioning his ex and cried through the crème brûlée,” Greasy slaps her knee, laughing.

I can’t help but laugh.

“Man, those are pretty bad,” Peeta says.

I hold up my finger. “No, those are tame.”

“Tame?” His blue eyes are sparkling. “You mean there are worse dates?”

Delly snorts. “Oh there are worse. I am so glad I am out of the dating pool.”

“Yeah, Gale just loves you,” Annie sighs.

Delly and Gale met when I joined the book club. And while I floundered, they fell in love and now Delly was pregnant.

My eyes shift to Annie. “It’s so much easier when you fall in love.”

“Oh?” I say.

“I met someone,” Annie says softly. “He wants to meet all of us.”

I wonder what type of guy would date quiet, shy, introverted Annie who sometimes says things that remind me of that song from those Freddy movies from the 80’s. I shake my head. Then I narrow my eyes. “Bring him to the next session,” I hear myself say. I want to meet this man, and make sure he will take care of my friend.

“Really.” Annie clasps her hands.

I nod, but I notice Peeta is looking at me with this strange gleam in his eyes. “Ah...yeah.” My voice sounds breathy. I frown, wondering why the heck I sound like one of those girls. You know the ones that always appear in the music videos washing cars and dancing on super yachts. Darius was fascinated by those girls, heck, his new girlfriend looks like one of those girls.

The women are chatting with Annie about the new guy in her life.

“We'll discuss Annie’s beau later,” Mags holds her hand in the air. “I want to hear about Katniss’ date.” Her white hair spills over her shoulder as she fixes me with a look. “So tell us, how do you know Thor has a twelve pack?”

Somehow or another I knew the scrutiny on Annie would be short lived. My time to shine would come, but when I open my mouth to speak I can see a conspiratorial glance between Mags and Annie. And it hits me that they chose this man, because he looked like Thor. I scowl at the women who set me up on this one. Mags and Annie both have a pink tinge to their faces. I would have expected this from Jo or Greasy, but Mags and Annie, well it’s INCONCEIVABLE!

I begin to speak. “He asked me to meet him at the edge of town, near route twelve.”

“Isn't that where Ripper’s place is?” Effie questioned, and she couldn’t hide her revulsion.

“Yup,” I said, popping the ‘P’, thinking of the bar that disguised itself as an eatery. It was a seedy diner with cracked linoleum floors, yellowing formica, booths that had patches, blinking lights, and rickety chairs.

“That’s where he asked you to meet him?” Mag’s sounds outraged. “That place is…is-”

“- a bedhaven for unsavory characters,” Foxface finishes.

“You're brainless,” Jo mutters darkly. "Ripper's isn't the type of place you can go to Katniss. You should have called me."

As protective as I am about my friends, so is Jo. She's tough on the outside but has a really soft center. It's what makes her a perfect shark in the courtroom. Not that Darius was a jerk during our divorce. He actually wasn't. Johanna was present at the restaurant where he announced he wanted a divorce. Johanna later said it was my face, the vulnerability I tried to hide was why she took my divorce pro-bono.

“I drove and brought my bottle of mace.” I know what everyone was thinking. The area in town where Ripper’s is located at, made the bad side of town look like a tourist destination. I didn't mind meeting my date there. I was looking forward to a basket of fries. Ripper's had amazing beer-battered fries.

I've been to Ripper's once. I was with Gale and Thom who needed to score fake IDs. I ordered the fries, since I wasn't there for an ill gotten identification. But let me tell you, those fries. Oh! Holy mother of fries, no other fries can compare.

Shivers!

I love food; it's why I'm a food critic now. What's so funny is that it was those fries that began my career as Buttercup, the elusive food critic. Back then I was Buttercup, the fussy eater. I blogged about them, no, I lavished them with love. I love my job. I can go into any restaurant, order anything on the menu, blog about it and get paid handsomely. And, most importantly, I can do it anonymously. Not even Darius knew I was Buttercup. He thought I was a boring housewife. Getting back to the fries, I wasn’t deterred from getting my fries.

“So then what happened?” Annie asked.

“He was there waiting for me. He stood up and smiled. And he's massive-"

"Just like a book cover," Foxface mutters.

"He said his name wasn't Anthony, it’s Gloss.”

“Gloss?” Everyone said at the same time.

“Yup.” I sighed. “It was a sign. I should've left." Damn those fries!

“So Gloss…" Peeta's sparkling eyes are on mine, his are an amazing hue of blue, like the indigo milk cap mushrooms. "Looks like Thor." He frowns. "Thor with the long hair or short?"

"Long." The women around me answered as one.

Peeta turned those gorgeous eyes back to me.

Thor isn’t my cup of tea. I shrugged to show my indifference. "Gloss was sporting the Ragnarok look, short hair with facial hair."

I swear I watch Peeta mouth, "short hair."

"Anyway, we sat at a booth. It was packed, actually." That should've been clue number two. Men at a joint like Ripper's at 8:30 on a Friday night, it was by the highway, plausible. But packed with just as many women. "The waitress who took our drink order could barely hear me."

"Was he nice?" Annie asks.

"He was sweet." Truthfully Gloss was a sweet guy. He talked about his mother in a positive way, even if she gave him the name that was another descriptor for shiny objects. "He was attentive too. He told me his mother worked in the makeup industry. "

"That doesn't sound too awful," Delly says.

"He sounds delightful." Mags pushes her reading glasses up the bridge of her nose. The gang is getting tired of the story and I hope they will move on to the reason we are gathered, discussing the book we were reading. I begin to reach into my backpack because I really hate purses.

"If he's so delightful, why did he ask you to meet him at Ripper's?" Johanna says in her cross examination voice.

I wince as I take out my book.

"Yes, you must explain." Foxface demands.

"It's not nice to leave us dangling." Effie levels a look at me that has me squirming, feeling like I was being summoned into the principal's office.

"I wanna know how you know Gloss has a twelve pack," Greasy says.

Peeta looks at me expectantly.

Anndddd were back. I sigh. Will he run for the hills when I tell him? Most likely.

"We were talking about dancing.” My voice loses all it’s warmth. “I don't dance."

This causes a rumble of laughter and giggles amongst the women. Peeta looks confused. Finally Delly wipes the tears from her face and gasps, “You should never dance. Ever!”

"That poor man’s toes,” Mags says, her shoulders shaking.

“Do I need to know?” Peeta looks between them.

“I don’t dance!” I growl. The group erupts into another bout of laughter.

“It was a scheme, a dirty underhanded scheme,” Effie says.

The guy I was supposed to date was a dance instructor. He used the dating app as a way to drum up business. When the women meet him, he pairs them with guys who were there for a lesson. He paired me with a poor man named Harry. My nerves got the better of me, because I don’t like to be touched. Harry’s hands were sweaty. Harry tried to dip me as per my date’s instructions. I tripped, and in the process his toes were crushed, and I ended up with a sprained ankle.

When I arrived in crutches to the next book club, well, that was one of those dates that simmers at the surface vying to be in the top three.

“Gloss didn’t believe me. He said anyone can dance. I told him no, and explained that there are people who are predisposed to fly in airplanes, and some who get motion sickness in a car. “

“What happened next?” Foxface asks, moving to the edge of her chair.

“He went to the jukebox.”

“Oh no,” Johanna mutters. “Did he end up in the hospital?”

“Is that how you know he’s got a twelve pack?” Greasy questions. The ladies, and Peeta are all staring at me.

I shake my head. Why couldn’t there be a rush of customers right now? It is calm and I know the odds are against me.

“Spill it!” Johanna demands.

“Well, he queued up a song and waited a beat, and then Lenny’s Kravits’ American Woman started blaring. Gloss started sauntering and spun and did the splits on the floor. Next thing I know, the women in the place go nuts. They surround him, like a rabid pack of wild dogs.”

“Wait, what!” Delly exclaims her pale eyes bright, she grips the book in her hand.

“That doesn’t happen,” Peeta says.

“It does to her,” Foxface said, her eyes shining with ferocity, like the eyes of those women at Rippers.

“Shut it blondie,” Johanna orders.

“Yeah,” Annie says.

Taking a deep breath I continue. “He started dancing...hips…” my brain flashing to his hips gyrating. “...jutting out and…”

“Ohhhhh yeah,” Greasy cackles.

“Gyrating, his hips gyrating,” Foxface gasps.

With eyes closed I nod. “His hips were doing that all over the place. He then jumped on the table and proceeded to rip off his shirt. He shouted my name and told me his next move was his favorite. He spun onto his knees and slid up in my face before dropping his drawers.” I lower my eyes.

“What,” Delly squeaked. “His pants?”

“It’s like Magic Mike,” Mags whispers.

I know the movie Mag’s is referring to. I’ve never seen it. “Yes.”

“Was he naked-” Foxface began.

“-or was he wearing-” Annie cut Foxface off only to be cut off herself.

“A G-String!” Greasy shouted excited.

I shook my head no. He wasn’t wearing anything, I can feel the heat burning my ears.

“Well don’t stop! What happened next!” Even Effie has lost her sense of propriety.

“As I looked for an escape. It’s then I noticed the poster on the wall, for the Slag Heap.” I pause and sigh, “Men’s Magic Friday Night Extravaganza, and Gloss was the headliner. I realized he’s a stripper.”

And the place erupts in laughter.

“What did you do?” Peeta asks.

My eyes connect with his.

“I slunk down to the floor and crawled my way out...drove to the hospital and made my sister administer a tetanus shot.”

“Can I have his number?” Johanna says laughing but her eyes are dead serious.

Peeta is smiling at me and I grab a cheese bun because they are as delicious as the man staring at me.

Eventually we do get to the book, and it’s a pretty good discussion. Peeta let us stay until closing. Mags and Greasy are the last of the ladies to leave. It’s just me and Peeta since he let the staff go home. I’m loitering because I feel like I need to explain to Peeta why I let the ladies talk me into dating.

I’m putting up the chairs on the tables when Peeta comes out.

“You’re still here?”

“Yeah.” I look down at my feet.

“Katniss.”

“Peeta.” We both say at the same time, followed by a nervous chuckle.

“You first,” Peeta insists, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Dating wasn’t my idea.”

“It wasn't?” He raised an eyebrow.

I shake my head.

“So what happened?”

“The ladies, they got me a year long subscription for my birthday, and knowing I wouldn’t go through with it, they choose who I date...until I find someone,” I can feel the heat rising from my neck and reaching my cheeks, “I like.”

“Really?”

I nod, incapable of speaking. I cannot stop watching the way he blinks, those darned translucent lashes that never tangle.

“Dating is pretty brutal.”

“Yeah,” I snort because dating is horrible.

“My family is constantly setting me up. I went out with a girl who sang through the entire meal. She chose the pasta and sang On Top of Spaghetti.”

“What?” I laugh.

“That was my dad’s doing. My mom’s choice was a lot scarier. She made me do an obstacle course and made me do it three times until I beat the time she wanted me to reach.”

“Wow.”

“I was dressed in dress slacks, a nice shirt, and a tie.” He deadpans, “I even had on dress shoes.”

“I am so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he shrugs.

I couldn't help but smile.

“Dating sucks until you find someone who makes you laugh, someone who makes dancing easy.”

He approaches or maybe it’s my own feet that carry me to him. But it doesn’t matter because when his arm slides along my waist, and the other cradles my hand, I have no fears. There is something familiar with him as I dance with him. A slow shuffle, that has the room spinning but none of it matters because I feel at home.

“Will you dance with me Katniss?” His voice rumbles in my ear and my heart is pounding in my chest.

His scent is a warm heady mixture of spices, dill, vanilla, and cinnamon.

“Would you go out with me Katniss?”

“Yes,” I answer, and just like that my dating profile goes up in flames. Ladies and gentlemen, I am officially off the market.

#everlark #everlark fanfiction #everlarkbirthdaydrabbles #everlarkbirthdaygifts #fan fic #by mega-aulover

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kithtaehyung · 3 years

Text

november 27th prompt: grey sky pairing: namjoon x artist!reader, university au word count: 1,164 (my hand slipped! these are supposed to be drabbles!)

The first time you met Namjoon, the sky was nothing but grey.

Leaves under your feet scattered in many directions as you made your way down a cobblestone trail. Fall was just about to surrender to winter, but the colors of the forest around you refused to follow suit and give up their autumn shades. Browns, oranges, and yellows mingled together like a symphony of color. It made you feel at home.

You ambled along the path to find a place to settle into and draw, and you remembered there being a bench just down the way. A smile slipped into place. You had been waiting for this moment of peace for days now. Drowning in practicals, essay research, and exam prep would do that to a person: a way to stay afloat was to think to the future.

When the wrought iron bench came into view, you frowned on instinct.

Instead of being unoccupied like the good bench it was supposed to be, it betrayed you by letting someone claim it first. And not just any normal person sitting on a park bench, but a guy that had both legs completely sprawled out across the length of the wooden slats. The nerve! Who did this person think they were?

You had two options at this point: leave, or leave. For one, you weren’t a big fan of conflict, especially with a pretty imposing stranger. One look at his muscled thighs made you gulp. Two, there were other benches. Well, maybe. You don’t remember seeing one on the way, and the rest of the trail was uncharted by you so you couldn’t say for sure if there was another one. Damn.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, were you wanting to sit?”

You almost laughed at yourself. While you were going through conflict-that-was-never-there resolution, this guy probably just saw you there metaphorically buffering. Your words sputtered out in bursts, “Oh, I mean, I can find another bench, it’s fine!”

The stranger shut his book with a snap and peeled his legs off of the seat. With a small sweep of his arm, he offered up the now empty space, “It’s yours. I was so engrossed in this story that I just made myself comfortable without realizing.”

“Okay… Thank you,” you whispered, tentatively making your way over. You hoisted your canvas bag onto the bench and sat down, not knowing if saying anything else was appropriate at the time. Were you supposed to ask about the book he was reading? You settled for just thinking that was the end of your interaction.

However, this guy thought otherwise.

“Are you drawing?”

You could’ve lied and said that you weren’t, but that would’ve been kinda shitty since you were literally clutching your sketchbook to your chest. Showing people your art was just not one of your top 20 things to do. “Umm, yeah,” you responded, drawing the words out, “I planned on it.”

“Am I making you uncomfortable? I’m sorry. I’m just really into art, so I always ask.” He rubbed the back of his neck and laughed. “I have a feeling that’s probably bad etiquette, though.”

He’s cute, you decided. Maybe even endearing. At least, for a guy that hogged park benches.

“Most people would mind that; me included,” you divulged, “But I’ll indulge you since you seem really interested.”

“Thank you,” he breathed, and his eyes sparkled even under the grey skies. “Namjoon,” he blurted, holding out his hand.

You shook it and told him your name in return, and he said it was very nice to meet you. He even repeated your name back to you, which signaled he was polite, attentive, or both. You liked that.

“So, umm,” you muttered, stalling while you leafed through your sketchbook while only having it partially open. “Here,” you huffed after deciding on a page with some rough nature sketches. The pages made a crinkling sound as you pressed both sides of the book flat. You used multiple mediums since the sketchbook you chose could handle many types, and the drawings you were showing Namjoon were charcoal. You loved and hated how unrelenting charcoal was to work with. When you used it for these sketches, you were going for contrast and it definitely worked.

“Wow,” Namjoon sighed, and you saw his hand almost reach out to caress the bent and worn paper. He didn’t, which touched you, but in that moment you were surprised to know that you wouldn’t have minded if he did. “These are beautiful.”

“You think so?” You found your face warming up despite the chilly temperature. Must have been the scarf you're wearing. “I kinda gave up. They aren’t finished.”

“I think that’s what makes them stand out,” Namjoon said, leaning in to get a closer look. He was a giant. You could already tell he was tall just by how he looked sitting on the bench. He towered over you. “These remind me of faded memories, or dreams that escape you as soon as you wake up.”

You turned your head towards him, enraptured by his words. In a moment of wonder, you searched his eyes without even knowing what you were looking for.

No one had ever even attempted to put your sketches into words. Not even you. How did Namjoon manage to give your mindless drawings life? Meaning? You actually felt a weight on your chest from his interpretation. How did it only take him two seconds to make your art seem timeless?

“I don’t… I don’t know what to say to that - thank you,” you whisper, your heart pulsing vibrantly. You practically tear your gaze from Namjoon to choose another set of pages to show him. You’re in deep already, already invested in what else he thought about your creations.

A collection of human studies was next. Unnamed bodies of all shapes stretched across the pages, sometimes overlapping each other in a permanent tango. Blue ink strokes conversed with black and red lines, and some forms were shaded and some not.

“Holy shit,” Namjoon whispered, and you almost didn’t believe him. The only reason you knew he was sincere was the inquisitive look in his eyes as they darted to-and-fro. It was like he didn’t know what to focus on first, like he didn’t want to offend any drawings by not giving his rapt attention.

As you stared at the same spread in your lap, you still saw it as another page in your book. Some drafts and studies you worked on one afternoon and then moved on from. Was he going to breathe life into these, too? Why were you wanting him to?

“You have a gift,” is all he said, and when you looked at him, he just smiled. “There’s a museum out there with wall space for you.”

The first time you met Namjoon, the sky was nothing but grey. But what you remember the most about that day was that it was the start of a very colorful life.

#namjoon x reader #bts reactions #bts imagines #november drabbles #namjoon drabble #bts drabble #ryen writes #member: namjoon #bts university au #first namjoon fic!#bts fanfic #namjoon fanfic #long post

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