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aegonbeingfakeisracist · 3 years

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someone (idk who) said that d&d gave margaery arianne's whole character (except arianne thinking that doran was passing her over for quentyn). the moment they said that it clicked for me. something about show margaery's behavior was familiar. it's interesting how beloved margaery is in the got fandom and how the asoiaf fandom is with arianne

Oh, god, that is so true! Book Margaery’s entire plot and character hinges on her youth and perceived innocence. She appeals to both Sansa and Tommen by being fun and approachable. She appeals to the masses in much the same way - buying from local merchants, giving a great deal to charity, making herself seen. Overt sexuality does not belong in the good queen image Margaery takes care to present. She’s young, sweet, pious, doing her duty to her family. She’s going along with her family’s plots, but not actively scheming for her own gain. All of this works because she’s sixteen. But in the show, they completely veered away from all of that.

Arianne being older enables her to be a more active character whose plans are independent - what she wants for herself, not just going along with what her family wants her to do without her own thoughts on the matter. She has plenty of strategies that she uses to do that. The obvious one is her use of seduction to get Arys on her side, but there’s also her genuine niceness. She appeals to Myrcella in much the same way as book Margaery appeals to Tommen and Sansa - words. Friendliness. I don’t remember if I ever posted this, but I remember writing something a while ago about the Arianne Cersei Margaery parallels as they pertain to these characters’ relationships with Myrcella, Joffrey, and Tommen respectively. In the show, though, Margaery veers way more towards Arianne than the book version of herself - older, more active in plots, way less focus on her as the cool older girl and more on her as a seductress.

I have to wonder how much of the love for Margaery and dismissiveness of Arianne comes from a) who they’re in conflict with and b) how much focus is on their flaws. For the first one, Arianne is not introduced until the fourth book. When she is introduced, it is really as part of a new conflict, not one of the existing ones. Strangely enough, even though the Dorne plot only makes sense because of connections to what happened outside of Dorne in earlier books - Myrcella, Arys, public sentiment after Oberyn’s death - it’s at first pretty damn isolated from what’s going on elsewhere. It’s shaped by those other characters and events, but it’s a whole new plot. The characters are new or so minor that they might as well have been new. Dorne is Arianne’s story, and when she’s introduced, it’s her conflict with her father and brother that first take centre stage, not the broader Martell conflict with the Lannisters, even though this is occurring four books into a series that was already juggling a lot of characters and plots, in a book that frustrated a lot of people for its shift in focus. I obviously love Arianne and Dorne, and A Feast For Crows is my favourite book in the series, but it’s also tough to deny that the structure of their introduction doesn’t do them many favours. I suspect that people would have been a lot more open to Arianne had she been introduced much earlier, when the various plotlines were first being established, so she felt like less of a departure, or if it had been immediately clearer how she connected to other plotlines. Contrast Margaery, who, in both the show and the books, is introduced earlier and whom we see working with her family and against first Joffrey, then Cersei, even as the Lannister and Tyrell causes are aligned. Both Joffrey and Cersei had been long established as villains opposing more sympathetic characters. So when Margaery and the rest of the Tyrells show up in King’s Landing, we get to immediately see the that conflict. There’s a sense of immediacy that’s not quite there with Arianne and Dorne, and one that gives the audience something they really want to root for. That’s not the sort of thing that’s the point of Arianne’s story, but it’s easy to see how that might play a role in audience perception of her.

Which leads to the focus on the flaws. Arianne’s story progresses extremely fast. A couple chapters of build up from other characters’ perspectives. One chapter of her executing a plan that ends with that plan failing. One chapter of fallout. Then in the next book, another chapter, again from someone else’s perspective, demonstrating the change since her failed plot. So five total chapters over two books. In her first substantive introduction, from Arys’s point of view, we see him wracked with guilt and Arianne manipulating him. It’s really not fair to pin all that on Arianne, given that she wasn’t the one that swore vows, but still, from the beginning, we’re shown the repercussions of Arianne’s actions by insight into the head of someone affected by them. Then we see her plan fall apart in a single chapter - Arys dies, Myrcella is hurt, Arianne’s friends are punished. There are immediate and brutal consequences. Then in the aftermath chapter, we find out that Arianne was operating on faulty information. Even though that’s not her fault, either, and Doran was just as at fault and had just as much to learn in that chapter - even though that chapter was a hugely cathartic moment of Arianne getting what she wanted and her father finally speaking to her at last - it’s so immediately clear that this could have been avoided. It’s just so much emphasis on Arianne’s flaws. The Tyrells - specifically Margaery - are not like this at all. The Tyrells come out on top a lot. They survive. They rescue the Lannisters from Stannis. Margaery becomes queen. They kill Joffrey. Margaery remains queen. There’s no real flaws or failures that really harm them - Margaery being arrested and put on trial isn’t a result of her screwing up or anything like that. The emphasis isn’t on their failings, it’s on their successes. And it does not help at all that we don’t see Margaery’s thoughts while seeing Arianne’s. Arianne is prone to self recrimination. She dwells on her flaws, keeping them fresh in the readers’ minds. But the Tyrells...they get bigger successes. No chapters from their perspective makes it easy to fill in the blanks with whatever readers want to believe. The slower pace means that there’s time to build up to their fall.

TL;DR: Arianne Martell is freaking awesome and the structure of the story works against her in terms of audience perception.

#A Song of Ice and Fire #Arianne Martell #Margaery Tyrell #sayruq #replies

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itwoodbeprefect · 3 years

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rewatched sga 1x04 thirty-eight minutes! thoughts under the cut!

this is an episode i already rewatched very recently, when i was wildly hopping back and forth through the show (but mostly in seasons 2-5), but i’ll watch it again now for context.

love the start of this episode, which is so in the middle of the action i always have a second of “wait, did i skip something?”

teyla correctly guesses that the bug that’s on john’s neck is related to the wraith! SHE is the one that makes the connection because SHE is the one that knows the most about this universe! THIS IS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT when i say that the expedition needs the athosians, oof.

also though, it’s both really great to see that teyla is (especially here, early on) so often the one with very important key insights that (help to) solve the expedition’s problem of the week, and honestly a little sad, because the earth humans just. don’t seem to learn from that to respect the athosians a little more, maybe, mayhaps. they respect teyla, yes, but (and i’m getting ahead of myself a little here because i’m expanding on bits of this after i’ve also already watched the next episode, which deals with the earth vs. athosian clash a lot) they kind of... only seem to take from all of her extremely valuable contributions that she as an individual can be an asset to them, instead of viewing it in a broader context. (but yeah, definitely getting ahead of myself here.)

ZELENKA. ZELUMPKA

kavan-ugh

this episode has a very cool format!! the jumping back and forth!! the bits of information we’re fed through people starting to give long explanations and then being cut off, making us puzzle it all together a little!!

throughout the entire ordeal rodney keeps being distracted by what is happening with john and that’s good on every level. just makes sense, because they’re in a tiny space, and it’s also potentially shippy, and it’s also just a sign that rodney most certainly does care - though at the same time also one of how early on this all still is, because i do feel rodney ends up getting better at working through a crisis. (though it’s also like. very often john who keeps rodney focused, so in that context it makes sense rodney keeps getting distracted if john is, uh, otherwise occupied. with, like, dying.)

teyla is wearing earth gear in this episode and i think that’s the first time we see that? but she does seem to have her own shirt under the jacket, which, idk, feels interesting. she’s putting on this uniform over her pegasus identity.

the elizabeth vs. halling bits where she denies his request for last rites for teyla (that’s not just coming from him, but from a group of athosians), even though the radio is totally free so they could have talked to teyla without obstructing the earth efforts at that moment... are always so uncomfortable to me. elizabeth says she doesn't want to make the people on the ship think they will die because earth people value life and will keep trying to save everyone, etc etc, and that’s fine but it’s. such a sad way for this all to go down. i love elizabeth most of the time but these bits are most definitely not my favorites - like, she’s in love with the ancients but she doesn’t have enough respect for the living pegasus culture to find a way to make this work for everyone. i never fully know if i think this is an interesting flaw in her character or if i just want to blame it on the writers, who have a certain perspective that elizabeth is now an unfortunate mouthpiece for.

(and getting ahead of myself again here, but then later after the rescue efforts paid off there’s THAT NOD she gives halling across the room and that’s just fdjkfd nahhhh. you did not earn that nod. you don’t have some cool understanding now, you were just disrespectful to him and his culture and his religion and this, now, feels a hair’s breadth from gloating over how your perspective was right all along, even though this outcome!!! does not mean!!! that it couldn’t have ended differently!!! and i do think elizabeth means well and is not trying to be a dick, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t. i have extremely mixed feelings about all of this.)

for a lighter thought, markham and stackhouse’s biggest roles in sga are the episode that they spend being dematerialized and i think that’s very iconic of them.

at one point john is talking to carson and is like “i need to move to help rodney with the mechanical problem!” and that’s so very john of him. he’s actively at death’s door and still doing his level best to be a control freak about a different life-threatening problem.

i PROMISE i’m not trying to rag on elizabeth (i do like her!!! when she’s not in this episode), but this quote, when she’s making a point to kavanaugh: “we are cut off from earth, which makes atlantis almost like a colony, doesn't it? (...) well i'm governor of that colony.” it’s just laden with so, so, so much oof.

anyway, this episode has a lot of team!!! gate team one!!! team cooperation!!! at some point ford is updating atlantis on the status in the jumper and he’s like “doctor mckay- [pointed pause in which he looks at rodney] doctor mckay is still hopeful he can come up with a solution” and then rodney GETS BACK TO WORK and that’s good, i like a lot of things about that and what it says about how these characters and this team works.

john comes up with the solution to his own near death experience, which is also very john of him. bonus points for the plan being one in which john dies. sets a trend for a surprising amount of the rest of the show, even though he doesn’t usually actually end up dead for a little bit when those plans are carried out, like he does here.

grodin, gosh, he’s so present in these early episodes, and it makes me sad that he’s one of those characters that just end up fading away eventually.

TEYLA’S RAINBOW WRAP AROUND SHIRT at johns bedside is !!!!!!! so good, omfg.

john, telling everyone what he was supposedly going to say when he was about to die: “take care of each other.” rodney, a little smug: “and indeed we did.” fdjkfd these lonely men are still adjusting to having a family, but sometimes they are very :D about it and that’s very cute.

#stargatezing #sga #*#stargate atlantis #love the episode hate the politics #though in a way it's like. a good primer for what follows

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rant-2-me · 3 years

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My mental state has just worsened over the days, though I'm not sure why, and I just feel so unmotivated and lacking any energy to practice any self care other than napping, and also feel anxious because I'm not studying enough.. feel like I'm just 1/4th assing my responsibilities.. And when someone asks me how I'm doing, sometimes I blurt out that I'm not fine, and the guilt I feel afterwards for making them worry, so I find myself withdrawing from initiating conversation with them, even though I really want to, and this makes them worry about me more.. I just don't know anything anymore, everything feels too much, yet I can't rant in a clear conscience without feeling guilty for bothering them, and thinking how I don't deserve to complain because they have had so much worse (yes I know pain is relative, but I feel so horrible, like a whiny child, who doesn't know how to be content with her blessings)......

Sorry I know it's a lot.. feel free to delete it if it's triggering or making you uncomfortable in any way... I just needed to get it out..

My lovely nonnie, im so, so glad you sent this ask. and got it all out of your system. yeah this sounds cheesy but like ive been there, with not knowing how to reach out—im proud you had the courage to send this ask. girlboss vibes.

also this ask took a while to answer and im so so sorry about that, but I didnt want to do anything less than the best for you, so let's just jump right in <[:)

Lacking motivation, god I've been there, but doing self care is super super important so here is a how-to, hon.

How to do selfcare when you’re not motivated to:

1. Be a little “gross.”

Gross is in quotes because it’s so subjective, but you undoubtedly have a few behaviors you consider kind of gross regardless. Now’s the time to do them without judgment. For me, that’s meant showering less, eating weird food combos (sometimes in bed), and letting my brows and mustache grow magnificently unruly. For you, it could mean doing something you normally judge yourself for or cutting back on activities you only do for the benefit of others. Now is not the time to allow “socially acceptable” behaviors to rule you.

2. Eat whatever the hell you want.

This should be a rule always, but I’m not going to pretend there aren’t societal, social, and personal pressures that go into why we eat what we eat. Try to shut down the voice that judges or polices what you’re eating right now. We’re in the middle of a goddamn pandemic. If dinner has to be some slices of cheese and deli meat eaten in front of the open fridge, so be it. If you have a lot of cravings and are snacking more than you normally would, cool. If pre-pandemic you decided you were going to stick to a certain meal plan and it’s just not happening anymore? Don’t beat yourself up.

Yes, what we eat is connected to our mental health, and I don’t want to discount that—but if the stress of eating healthfully is making you feel like crap anyway, whether that’s because you can’t fathom cooking or don’t have the means to shop for certain foods during isolation, just eat the sleeve of Oreos and try again another day. It’s okay.

3. And wear whatever you want.

Or, more realistically, wear whatever you can. Even if it means wearing the same ratty sweatpants for a whole week. Or month. Maybe you started all this out aspiring to get dressed every day to work from home productively, or maybe you have a whole collection of comfortable loungewear you feel guilty for not utilizing. Whatever arbitrary rules and expectations you’ve set for yourself, you can throw them out.

On the other hand, maybe you need to quiet the voice that tells you there’s no point in getting dressed or feeling presentable. If it helps, by all means, play with your look, wear awesome or weird outfits, do your hair and makeup or whatever activity might feel a little silly given your current reality. In the middle of a pandemic, nothing is a waste of time if it makes you feel good.

4. Use shortcuts to avoid creating chores.

In my first week or so of working entirely from home, I was baffled by just how messy my apartment got. How on earth were so many messes piling up when I wasn’t even doing anything but working, sleeping, and eating? I hadn’t realized it, but a lot of my small tidying routines had become casualties to the pandemic. And, it turns out, slacking on the little ways I pick up after myself every day (such as doing the dishes right after I use them) added up quickly.

Instead of forcing myself to stick to the same levels of tidiness that I used to maintain, I’ve found shortcuts. For example, I use paper plates and plastic cutlery when I feel too fatigued to wash dishes so they don’t sit in the sink for days on end. Or I stick to the same two “outfits” to avoid clothes piling up when I’m too depressed to put them away every day. If you can find a small way to go easy on yourself, even if it feels a little wasteful or indulgent or gross, it’s okay to tap into those shortcuts right now.

5. Be kind to yourself if your place is messy or dirty.

I won’t lie: I’m someone whose space impacts my mental health a lot. Typically, keeping my apartment clean helps keep my mental health in check and letting my apartment get gross makes me feel worse. That’s still true in a lot of ways, but to adapt I’ve been trying to be mindful and accepting of where I’m at. And it’s…helped?

It turns out that taking the pressure off does a lot to mitigate the guilt and some of the other negative mental health effects I usually experience. In practice, it involves a lot of talking to myself. Instead of seeing my apartment turning into a depression cave and immediately thinking, “Oh, God, I need to clean up, this is so disgusting, I’m a monster for living like this, of course I feel depressed,” I go for kindness. I think (or even say out loud because, well, desperate times), “Of course my apartment is a mess right now. I’ll get to it when I get to it. I can handle the mess for now.”

6. Accept your new sleep schedule.

idk anyone whose sleep hasn’t been screwed in some way by all of this. Anxiety, depression, fatigue, pent-up energy from sheltering in place, tech use, new work responsibilities, screwy schedules…pretty much every aspect of our new reality can impact our sleep. Some people are sleeping a lot more, some are sleeping a lot less, and some are cycling through both extremes. Oh, and the temptation of naps! It’s all there.

Trying to maintain a healthy sleep schedule during all of this is a worthy endeavor—and more power to you if you’ve figured out how—but there’s a good chance that it feels impossible.

By “accepting” your new sleep schedule, I don’t mean pretending it doesn’t suck; I mean doing what you can to be gentle on yourself about it. For me, acceptance has looked like watching some comfort tv and reading my favourite books at 2 a.m. instead of staying in bed and anxiety-spiraling about how I can’t sleep. Is it ideal? No way. But I’m not going to waste energy stressing about something I currently can’t control.

7. Give yourself plenty of room to do absolutely nothing.

I’ve given myself permission to do a whole lot of nothing. That includes getting rid of the pressure to be productive and practice self-care, yes, but in a broader sense, it also means not forcing myself to actively “adjust” every day.

Some days, I just need to do nothing but feel my feelings. Or avoid feeling my feelings. Or stare at the ceiling. Give yourself space to do (or not do) whatever you need to.

also, nonnie? my love?

Never feel guilty about telling someone who cares about you when you don’t feel okay.

People who genuinely care about you—and I’m sure they are many—will care if you aren’t feeling good, there are always going to be people who care about you, who want you to be okay, that’s why they ask, why people make rant, why “how are you?” is such a common question.

But if you do need to talk, but you feel like you’ll “burden” people who you do talk to, here’s a guide to ranting.

Guide to ranting:

1. Pick the right person. Someone who’s in the right headspace to listen to you, you could also pick someone who cares about you—if you’re anxiety tells you nobody cares about you, pick someone who “should” care about you in your relationship, e.g: a friend you’ve had for a long time, a friend who’s told a few of their problems, or friend you might not feel close with, but seems very kindhearted and a good listener.

2. Pick the right time to talk to them, so you can have their undivided attention. If they are busy—as most people will be with something—they’ll have a hard time giving you good advice and listening to you. Ask them when they are free, and then ask them:

3. “hey, can we talk? I’m not mad or you or anything, it’s just that I have been not feeling great, and I just want to rant to someone about it.” and “No pressure to say yes, you might have your own stuff to do deal with.” to make sure they are the right person to talk to.

4. It’s ok to test the waters. Start slowly, you don’t have to share everything at once if you don’t want to.

5. You never know how your friend will react to what you say.While you can’t know how they’ll react, just remember that sometimes people’s initial reactions may come from a place of shock, surprise or not knowing what to say. Their initial reaction isn’t always their longerterm reaction, it may just take them a little time to process.

6. Look for ways to take action. Don’t get me wrong, ranting can be amazing for you, but on its own may not solve your problem.

But maybe venting to people isn’t for you. No matter! There are other ways to get out emotions:

Ways to rant without talking to anyone

1. Cry it out— simple and rewarding. When the baggage is just too heavy to carry cry it out. It can help you ease the pressure and ease your mind to think straight after days of holding that frustration in.

2. Work out — easy and fun. tire yourself out and release all the frustration in working out! This is going to be so satisfying for you as you try and punch, kick, balance, lift, and breathe those frustrations away.

3. Clean & rearrange — practical and can be fun. we get frustrated by so many things and one thing that can truly help clear our minds is to have a clean place where we can stay and live for the moment to breathe. Clean your room, rearrange your things and you’ll be surprised by the satisfaction this brings — a signal of a new beginning.

4. Scribble — simple and fun. Make scribbles, doodles, drawings, take a pen or a pencil, and let go. It does not have to be “good” art or professional at all. Just draw whatever comes to heart, sunflowers or clouds or rainbows—anything.

5. Write it down — fun and simple. Let those words out of your head and just live in the moment.

How to fight the lack of motivation.

1. Don't fight the lack of motivation.

If you feel down or unable to muster tons of energy, let it be ok. Be easy on yourself and acknowledge that it's ok to have a dip, especially at this time of the year.

2. Once you have accepted your slump, get to the bottom of it.

Ask yourself, "What is the root cause of this sluggish feeling?" Go deeper than the obvious reasons. Is it related to work? Your personal life? Relationships? It might also just be the weather. Get clear on what areas of your life you're feeling the most resistance.

3. Dig into that area. What is not ideal about this aspect of your life? What would make it better?

Make a list of how you'd like your current situation to improve--and be specific. If you truly can't find a reason to be less than enthusiastic, then accept your feelings and let them pass with time.

4. Take your list of what is missing and go through it.

What is holding you back from being able to create the things that are missing in your life?

5. Get support for creating the life you want.

Do some research and find an expert to help you. Even though they love you, friends and family aren't objective enough, and they tend to give advice that is a reflection of their own life and insecurities.

6. Think of current habits that are contributing to a less-than-ideal life.

Maybe it's fear, laziness, or not having enough confidence. Pick one to focus on.

7. Address this habit over the next 2 months.

They say it takes 28 days to create a new habit, but this varies from person to person. If you focus on it for two months, you are sure to build the neural pathways needed to call it a new way of being.

8. Buy a book, read articles or do some research on this particular behavior or feeling.

Read about the common causes of this habit as well as the proven ways to bust through and work around it.

9. Create a plan around shifting your current habit.

Make sure that changing this habit ultimately helps you move forward in the area of your life that is not ideal. The energy from clarity, awareness and then action will immediately get you feeling more motivated, no matter what.

10. When all else fails: make a list of activities that excite you, and do one of them right now.

Talk to a fun friend, dance around at home, workout, watch a funny YouTube video, tackle something on your to-do list. Accomplishing something will give you a hit of dopamine in your brain. If you're too overwhelmed by your day, sit for five minutes and meditate. Put on some soothing music and breathe.

okay, that's all nonnie, I hope you feel the lust for life in your lungs, please have all my love, i hope this helped, this ask took a while, but it was worth if it helps

and if you need to dont worry to send another ask, if you like spam the inbox!! queen!!!

take care, much love my sweet honey, bye <3

—*putting daisies in your hair as they leave* mod peppermint <[:)

#mod peppermint #ask #anon #rant

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thedreadvampy · 3 years

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Can you elaborate on the Hamid stuff you were I comfy with? I’d love to hear your take on it

Ehhhh it was like...between Shoin and Hiroshima I really didn't like the kobold stuff and it seemed to be going kind of unexamined at that time (may have changed since, I dropped off early in the Hiroshima stuff largely bc as I say I have struggled to find time for actual play podcasts lately) how Hamid didn't seem to be feeling any particular compunctions around killing a bunch of kobolds then taking advantage of their loyalty, and in itself that's a very valid character choice because like, Hamid ISN'T a nice person and has always been kind of self-centred, that's sort of his whole deal. but what was making me uncomfortable was the degree to which Alex and the party were building a narrative where this didn't really come up as much as I'd like and where people were treating the kobolds as like, it being cute and funny how they were rushing around after the party and I felt like the threads of the, like, kobold self-actualisation and the character consequences of Hamid Cheerfully Doing A Mass Murder had sort of got dropped (and I imagine they've been picked back up since, and I understand the need for some fluff in the immediate aftermath, but it was just kind of sliding me off that those things felt like they were getting swept to one side)

And also tbh feeding into this is a broader issue that had been building for me for a long time, which is that I really don't actually like Bryn's play style as Hamid at all. By which I don't mean I have issues with Hamid as a character, but with Bryn as a player, so this is gonna rest a lot on My Reading Of Bryn As A Performer and My Reactions To The Show, it's not like a Bryn Is Bad And Problematic As A Person thing.

I think Bryn as a TTRPG player is really self-centred in a way that gets my back up - I think he steps on other player's decisions and space a lot and tries to kind of GM from the back, I think he sometimes struggles to let things develop that don't involve Hamid, and I think in particular Hamid very often talks over Azu and Bryn very often cuts off or interrupts Lydia and Helen (and to a lesser degree Ben) to talk about what Hamid's doing or what Hamid thinks or how Hamid can solve this with magic, and while having a loud/self-centred character is a Good And Fun character decision, there's a delicate line to tread IC vs OOC when it comes to being actively engaged and roleplaying out that steamroller character without actually steamrolling other players and dominating every session. and I can't speak for whether the other players feel steamrolled but as a listener I felt like Bryn had been dominating my experience for a long time to the degree that stuff like the Sasha and Grizzop Rome stuff was like...a huge sigh of relief to listen exclusively to characters who Weren't Hamid.

obviously Bryn isn't the only person who gets overexcited and treads on other people's play (James did it a lot, and that annoyed me even though I started listening to RQG because I like James Ross as a comedian) and this is something I do a LOT as a player even though I try not to - it's totally normal to be very focused on your own character and get really hype and jump in on everything you can get your character involved in. But with Bryn/Hamid it's SO constant, like it's been an issue for me since at least Prague but my irritation was constantly building with it especially as the story started being way more about Hamid even when (to me) it felt like it was initially built around Grizzop, Sasha, Azu, Cel or Zolf.

Like for example, I felt like it made sense for Cairo to be focused mostly on Hamid and Azu, but I felt like Alex in Aleppo, Rome and Japan had built in plots to give Azu, Grizzop/Sasha and Cel/Zolf respectively room to take centre stage (like Aleppo had the orcs and goblins which were pretty clearly set up to expand on Azu and Grizzop's backgrounds; Rome had magic dampening which should have given non-magic characters Sasha and Grizzop room to shine and again, was very much framed via Azu's family as well as Hamid's but I felt like only Hamid ended up getting a complete emotional arc wrt family; the Shoin institute was science-focused and provided a space for us to get to know Cel properly and catch up with Zolf who knows what happened in the time skip) and in all those cases I felt like Hamid kept taking up most discussions, jumping in ahead on dictating the direction, and kept Doing Magic At It until things shaped around him. Like I get that Hamid is insistent on Being The Leader as a character trait but again, that didn't feel as much like a Hamid decision as a Bryn decision (which for me meant Hamid's WELL ZOLF I HAD TO BE THE LEADER BECAUSE YOU LEFT speech kind of got my back up because. it had felt for months like both Bryn and Hamid had been very aggressively taking control of the party without giving anyone else a chance to get a word in)

idk it's like...I like Hamid in theory but he was taking up so much of every episode I was feeling a bit 'oh shut up' even when like...I really liked what Bryn was doing with the character? I was feeling very over-Hamided and so by the time we came around to the kobold stuff I was not feeling very charitable.

A big part of it is the dynamic that I feel like I'm hearing between Bryn and Helen specifically. He interrupts or talks over/for her a LOT with the result that Azu often gets sidelined, and that stresses me for a lot of reasons (mostly that even though she's been in the game for years I don't think the podcast really ever saw Helen getting the space to seem equally confident and authoritative about the direction of the game as the other players who've been in from the start, and she also just seems...generally quieter and less brash than the other 4 so she often gets drowned out) and like. I want to be clear I don't know Bryn or Helen and I don't know how either of them are actually feeling, this is about how it comes across to me personally with a big heap of projection. But I've always been really sensitive to situations where I feel like someone who's a bit shyer or more ready to cede space is getting consistently talked over or struggling to get a word in edgeways, and honestly that's a vibe I'm getting from Bryn's in-game interactions with everyone except Alex and James, to varying degrees, both in the main campaign and in minigames/oneshots.

Tl;dr aside from the kobold issue, Hamid's story makes me uncomfortable because Bryn's storytelling makes me uncomfortable, I don't think he's able to easily share control or cede time in the story to other players, I think he rides over other players and characters a lot, and as a result Hamid's story has (/had) taken centre stage increasingly throughout and so anything I found discomforting in that story was magnified in importance.

I also think Bryn is struggling to not be defensive of Hamid and like. that's a problem because Hamid is an interesting character to exactly the degree the story can make space to engage with the fact that he's kind of headstrong, spoilt and selfish to the detriment of those around him. Like I LIKE that I LIKE a flawed character but I need his player to be doing that with an intentionality and critical view that I just wasn't feeling there during/after Shoin and was starting to suspect might be partially less an intentional choice and more a reflection of the player (especially when Bryn seemed to be really struggling to NOT play those character traits in the Rome sidequest when he was playing a character who was Not Hamid)

and like. while the interrupting/steamrolling was the case with James as well, I think this is why it bothered me less - James HATED Bertie as a person so while both James and Bertie were both loud, domineering and tended to interrupt, it felt like I could separate IC//OOC in a way I was increasingly struggling to with Bryn and Hamid

#apparently today's the day I'm mean about Rusty Quill cast members #it's really not personal it's just hard to talk about something like ttrpg play style #without making some assumptions/personal comments on how people are coming across to you

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s-mething-mbti · 3 years

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Hiya! I just discovered your blog and was wondering if you could help try to type me (sorry this is pretty long)

1. I’m currently pretty torn between the intuitive introverts. I was able to narrow it down to INTJ, INFJ or INTP. I’m about 97.2% sure I use Ni. The only thing that’s giving me a bit of doubt is I find myself occasionally learning for the sake of learning which I’ve found is a traditionally Ne trait. Despite this I’m still pretty sure I use Ni as when I go down a rabbit hole and start learning for the sake of learning its always about a topic that interests me or is entertaining. I won’t waste my time learning about something I find mundane or drab. I resonate a lot with Ni’s “aha” moments where the correct answer simply pops into my head or a vision suddenly seems clear or a plot holes solution suddenly seems painstakingly obvious. I also resonate with starting out with a broader range of information/ possibilities and narrowing it down to one or two things. Another intuitive thing I highly relate to is living in the future. If almost never living in the present, and a constantly fixate on the future. I have a distinct, clear, and well thought out plan for the next 20 years (give or take).

Where I run into a bit of trouble is when I try to figure out which judging functions I predominantly use. It honestly feels like I use them all (though I know you’re only supposed to be able to use two well). For example I plan out everything, and set deadlines for myself. My desk often seems really messy to others especially when I’m doing art. This isn’t because I don’t value cleanliness, but because it simply makes more sense to keep all my art supplies out rather than having to spend at least fifteen minutes taking them out and then putting them away only to take them right back out the next day. I set goals based off of easily measurable, external things such as time, or grades. I make daily to do lists that outline everything I’ll need to do in the day, and some stuff to focus on if I have extra time. With my to do list I also plan out the approximate time each thing should take. When coming up with a scientific theory, I take others opinions/theories and test them against each other, and current scientific laws in order to formulate the most probable theory. External opinions (in a scientific/ logical manner) mean a lot to me (I don’t really care about how people that aren’t my friends think of me). To me these things seem very Te. But then I’m always smiling and am a fairly warm person. I want my friends to be happy, and I want to help others. I despise emotionally driven conflict(though I love debates), and while I’m not afraid to disrupt it if it threatens my morals/ is promoting something blatantly wrong (factually or morally) I do really harmony. These seem like pretty Fe things to me. As for Fi, I rarely share my negative emotions, preferring to deal with them predominantly alone. While I may not talk about them much I also have EXTREMELY strong morals. If something is crossing them I’m not going to simply ignore it for the sake of harmony. While I tend to be private I do try to be as authentic as possible. My morals are derived by information I’ve collected and decisions I’ve made myself, rather than being derived by ‘the groups’ collective morals if that makes sense. To me these things appear to be very Fi. As for Ti, sometimes I enjoy learning simply for the sake of learning. The knowledge may have no practical use to me but if I find it interesting or want to learn about it I can devote hours to it. I try and come to the most logical/accurate conclusion possible, and when I’m offering advice I may offer additional advice that takes different variables into account. The truth is really important to me as well.

2. Reading. I absolutely ADORE reading(specifically fantasy/sci-fi/dystopian books or research/scientific articles about topics that interest me). For reference there was a period of time when I had some free time and I was reading 2 or 3 books a day? Read maybe 50 books in the span of 20 days? But yeah I absolutely love reading. Just he way the book sucks you in and deposits you and a completely new world full of wonder and disaster and ugh it’s just magnificent. And don’t even get me started on impeccable character development and eeee. The way rereading a book feels like you’re reconnecting with an old best friend or going back to your childhood home and *sobs*. I also LOVE trying to predict plot twists and character deaths. Most of the time I can predict things correctly and idk it’s really fun to just try and figure out what’s going to happen before the big reveal. And the rush of satisfaction you get when you’ve guessed something right- it also helps me brace for character deaths (sorta. For example I knew *the* death in the final empire [by Brandon Sanderson] was coming since nearly the very beginning [I had my suspicions since the moment vin was introduced] but I still sobbed when the character died. [a tad off topic but what caused me to cry wasn’t the death itself but another characters reaction to it. This is often the case I find. A death of a character I love leaves me feeling empty but what typically gets me to cry is the others reactions- for thus reason funerals usually make me cry. I should also add that I only cry when I’m alone. I’ve cried around people (that aren’t my parents) a grand total of 1 time.]

Uh and daydreaming. I’m almost always daydreaming. Ie. if my brain was a search engine or whatever one tab would be reality and I would consecutively have at lest 20 other tabs open. Some of then playing videos (daydreams) others supplying music(if I’m not actively listening to real music my brain cycles through songs I have memorized. Occasionally does this with book scenes too if I’m bored [yes, I memorize some of my favourite scenes, word for word, so I can play them like a movie in my head when I, bored) others containing random info (just me thinking random stuff) etc.

3. I guess how to solve some problems? Wether it’s a math or science problem, or an argument between friends, figuring out how to solve things has always been something I’m decently good at. Math and science just. Make sense. And then with issues between people I’m good at looking at different perspectives (even ones that I don’t agree with) and playing out different scenarios/ possible outcomes of different approaches. This lets me come up with a solution that will successfully solve the problem with the least amount of negative ramifications involved

4. Hmm maybe being present? I honestly feel like life is passing me by and I’m just immobilized on the sidelines. Im so far into the future that I kinda forget to actually *live* every once in a while.

5. Honesty? Truth? Morals? These topics are all really interesting as they can be kinda subjective. The line between honesty and cruelty is so small. What is truth? Cause while yes, we have some set truths (such as the earth is orbiting the sun) so many ‘truths’ are simply subjective and completely depend on ones perspective. And morals my goodness. The stormlight archive is a really fun series that plays around with things like what is justice? And honour? I won’t get into it now but it brings up so many really interesting questions regarding morals.

6. Perspective . I think perspective is such a fascinating thing. Just. Different opinions. Seeing the world through completely different lenses. Interpreting the same thing in utterly different ways. When toying around with an idea I find it really fun to try and imagine opposing perspectives. While I can find different perspectives really interesting, they can also well... get on my nerves to say the least. Sometimes someone perspective is just? So blatantly wrong? And has absolutely no factual evidence backing it up? And part of me wants to just just scream and it would be so much easier if everyone just. Assessed the facts in front of them instead of making wild accusations or whatever without anything to support them. But yeah overall I think perspectives are really cool and they’re part of what helps to make the world diverse and life so much less interesting without different perspectives.

The future. I’ve found a bunch of my friends find thinking about the future stressful but if I’m being honest I find solace in thinking about the future. Having things planned out and knowing what I intend to do/ where I want to go takes off so much stress. I lowkey live in the future and I honestly cannot wait till it comes, and I achieve my goals. While I might be a bit scared the future excites me so much more than it’ll ever scare me.

7. Maybe add some more stuff about the judging functions and feelings and thinking etc . I absolutely adore science and math. I literally do math for fun. I’m currently aiming to get my PhD in astrophysics.

Not sure if this is relevant at all but my biggest (harmless) pet peeves are my grandmother’s door stopper (it always gets stuck in the door and then u can’t get it out and the door won’t close properly- I have an unhealthy amount of hatred for that thing AHAHJSEJKSMDJDJDJJ) and when people say some variant of “you did good”. Like nO NO YOU DID NOT DO gOoD. YOU DID W E L L (Anyways theres my little mini rant).

I’m my friend groups therapist (sorta). While I’m really not good with words and recycle the same three responses I always let everyone know that I’m here for them and they can talk to me without judgement etc. While I really don’t know what to say or do I try my best because I care about my friends and want to help them. I love them and so I want them to be able to be happy. Im always smiling (though this is more so because people don’t ask me how I’m doing when I look happy than because I’m genuinely happy. Most of the time I’m he farthest thing from that). I’m a pretty warm person who’s always happy to help, however I’m very introverted. I haven’t had a single conversation with the majority of people in my class (I’ve had a convo with maybe 5. Talk to 2 regularly. There are 26 people in my class). I never express negative emotions (with the exception of stress- I panic intensely in the 5 minutes immediately before taking a test as this helps me to completely turn off my nerves while I’m writing the exam. I may also make a joke or two about my negative emotions with close friends). I should also add that when making decisions I value logic more and think thinks through thoroughly, examining the pros and cons etc. While I take feelings and emotions into consideration when making decisions they’re more like an additional variable to consider rather than the main driving force that determines my decision. If I’m feeling really emotional and I need to make a decision I will postpone deciding until I feel more levelheaded. I’m really not impulsive in the slightest.

Thank you so much!!

INTJ

Living in the future rather than the present and your comfort in that sapce, your ability for and enjoyment of making predictions, your ability to really understand and try on different perspectives you don’t necessarily agree with, your focus on “ramifications” (aka future implications) while problem solving - this all points to high Ni.

You also show a Te preference - goals based on external metrics, to-do lists for daily tasks, logic based on the outer world (external opinion). When you said “While I take feelings and emotions into consideration when making decisions they’re more like an additional variable to consider rather than the main driving force that determines my decision” - that is a clear cut definition of Te over Fe preference.

Your tertiary Fi shows through here as well - willing to disrupt harmony if it upsets your morals, your morals being personally derived, needing to understand your emotions while alone. And lastly, your statement about “forgetting to live” from being in the future is pretty textbook inferior Se.

#ask #type me #intj #mbti #myers-briggs #Anonymous

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freezeriafan · 3 years

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Tbf emerys design has changed. She became a little pointier. She skinny cause shes a cunt and that sounds rude ik ik but like... gonna be honest SOME (not all ofc not saying all skinny ppl are like this) skinny people are cunts in a way unique to skinny people who are cunts - amii

I was gonna say that that Skinny brand of C*ntiness stems from the fact that they are thin DELIBERATELY, e.g. they go on whack diets bc they are afraid of gaining weight bc they think it's bad . Honestly they are victims of a broader society in that sense, to give them body image issues like that - but you dont really want to sympathize w them bc they are a middle aged woman who is vocally rude and judegemtbal to anybody w a little meat on their bones and Ugh . Shes of a generatuon so part of you feels like "she cant help it and shes on her way out anyway let's just deal....." but UGH idk. She shouldnt be so mean abt it .

Anyway back to the ask . UM . I know exactly what you mean . Sharp in an unwelcoming way . I KNOW what u mean abt the tits.

I love that you have a solid image of emery and it makes sense bc it matches her personality but this suxks for me bc i give Quinn all the sharp edges and drawing them on the same page ..the lack of visual variation Will bother and bore me . But it's fine bc I'll just be that one person in the fandom who draws her completely different even though she already has a good design LOL what ever ..

I seriously know wht you mean I can SEE the sharp ankles above the crocs that her feet barely fill . Wig . THANK YOU for this info

#emery #Really glad that emery is your oc and not mine bc if i had to make excecutive decisions regarding this and choose a body type #i would not be able to choose and i would lose my head . this is awesome Thank u for your service

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eveningclouds · 3 years

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tlgad anon idk if u will see this coz u sent this this morning but i have ur mssg belowww i just copy/pasted it so i could put it under a readmore and also respond to it w more ease :P

I personally love tlgad because she’s telling someone else’s story, but she connects it back to herself in a way that’s unexpected but really fits. I don’t mind self-references— in fact, I tend to prefer the more obviously personal songs because nobody else can write them. The story-telling is top notch, and the build up during the bridge to “and then it was bought by me” is just perfect.

i think we both agree that it’s interesting how she ties the speaker’s story to that of someone else!! i also appreciate the storytelling aspect of this song. i think my issue of it has more to do with the mechanics (i don’t think it utilizes repetition as well as it could, for example)

Also, I love how subtly it deals with the topic of sexism. The Man is great, but since the sexism in tlgad isn’t the main focus (or it is, but it’s within a greater story) it has more of an impact, at least for me. Like, the way Rebekah is judged for marrying into a rich family or already having a failed marriage (“how did a middle class divorcée do it?), and how the town is constantly criticizing her but masking it with a compliment (“the wedding was charming, if a little gauche,” “their parties were tasteful, if a little loud”). Also, their insults to her: they call her mad and shameless, the latter of which is a word often used to describe women who don’t try to conform to society’s expectations. And the Bitch Pack— which was a real thing Rebekah’s friend group called themselves. The town uses that name as an insult, as you can hear in Taylor’s voice as she sings. They can’t stand that she’s bringing all her city friends to this exclusive area. They mock her for her use of finances: “blew through the money,” “losing on card game bets” (not that she’s playing cards, not that she’s gambling, but that she’s losing). You just feel their judgment throughout the entire song, without Taylor ever saying “they judged her.” And yet, Rebekah doesn’t stop. She embraces the Bitch Pack name, she keeps filling the pool with champagne and swimming with the big names. She even bites back at her judgmental neighbors (dying the cat dog key lime green). But neither is she painted as a crazy woman without feelings: the line about how she can be “seen on occasion, pacing the rocks, staring out at the midnight sea” evokes feelings of grieving contemplation, especially once you’ve heard hoax (“stood on the cliff side screaming give me a reason”). It’s affecting her even if she doesn’t want to show it. When Taylor shows up at the end, it’s as if she’s keeping to Rebekah’s legacy. It’s actually very similar to The Lucky One from Red— she’s telling someone else’s story (this time that of a celebrity that came before her) before connecting it to her life during the bridge. However, in The Lucky One, Taylor wishes she could follow in her muse’s footsteps (“you took the money and your dignity and got the hell out”) but can’t, because her name is up in lights— she’s been ensnared by Hollywood society. In tlgad, she’s not trapped anymore: instead, she follows Rebekah’s example of rejecting it all and having marvelous time ruining everything.

agreeeee w all of this; i especially like what u said about the gambling & the bridge!!! i’m very gnsjdfhjfdaja about. the way taylor talks about & writes about feminism tbh but this is def one of her better ones considering the topic imo

i think this is what i mean by self referential though, where it sort of ... requires? you to have a broader understanding of the artist’s discography/album in order to understand the song. i think that that’s def sth rly cool & i love when songs build off of each other, but i think that this song specifically is markedly weaker when listened to in isolation compared to the other songs off of folklore because it is so reliant on external context. idk if this makes sense because i just finished writing an essay for another class and i’m tired ndsfjdjkfhd...like i feel as if there is a difference between personal songs (i love those too!!) & overly self referential songs which risk either being too on the nose or weaker out of context ykwim

This turned out much longer than I intended lol. I love this song— I literally printed out the lyrics and annotated it like poetry when it first came out and have done a close reading on the bridge for the fun of it. It’s so good. But thanks for coming to my Ted Talk 😅

thank you for writing all of this it’s so cool 2 hear peoples’ opinions on songs!!!! & omg...ur mind...i really appreciated reading this, i loved ur insight on the feminist aspect of the song & the way you connected it to the lucky one because i never considered the latter (& will def relisten to that song again)!!

#i Do like the song it does a good job of a lot of things (which i talked abt in a previous ask so i didn't say again #so as not to be redundant)#mail #taylor swift

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spnfanficpond · 4 years

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January 2020 Pond LiveChat Recap - Writing RPF

We had a great time chatting with Taylor, @impalaimagining! Thank you so much for joining us and sharing your thoughts and experience!

Our topic this month was Writing RPF, and we talked about the legal, moral, and emotional aspects of writing about real people. A rundown of the chat, as well as general Pond news, is below the cut!

We started off the chat with the legal side of things, most of which was covered back when we talked about Monetizing Fan Works back in May. Here are the related links that were brought up:

Wikipedia: Legal issues with fan fiction (The section dealing with RPF is near the bottom under Right of Publicity.) Boiled down, RPF has to deal with a celebrity's Right of Publicity. Famous people have the right to control the commercial use of their name, image, and likeness, sometimes even their broader identity or persona. Most states’ laws on this only apply to uses for commercial gain. So, don't try to get paid directly for RPF, and you're safe.

From NPR: We Stan: Real Person Fan Fiction Comes To Life. This is a fascinating discussion about RPF, the legalities, and how it’s been changing in recent years. This argues that basically since “fiction” is right there in the name, RPF is inherently more legal than regular fan fiction based off of characters. No one is trying to say that the real people involved are actually doing these things, it’s just fiction.

Goodreads Genre: Fan Fiction - Real Person Fiction. When I was researching, this link came up, and I clicked it, not knowing what to expect. Finding that Fan fiction, much less RPF is on Goodreads was surprising to me. (I thought Goodreads was only about books that could be purchased and didn’t touch “unpublished” works, but I guess not?) What I found most interesting was exactly how many of the titles listed on that page are J2-related. There are more J2-related titles than all of the others COMBINED. As a fandom, we rock!

The discussion started with most folks saying they hadn’t considered the legalities of fan fiction, or RPF in particular, when they began writing. Their first concern was just getting the story out of their head and onto the paper. Also, since no one was getting paid for it and it’s so popular, no one questioned the legalities. Also, since it’s fiction, there’s no defamation of character.

@mrswhozeewhatsis (Michelle): Most people know that I generally don’t read RPF, unless it’s an AU. Way way way back, when I first started reading fan fiction, I used to read the occasional RPF. Honestly, before SPN, I never really liked an actor enough to want to know more about them. (I've been burned by some jerk actors in the past.) One of the first RPFs I ever read was from Jared's POV, and it contained a scene where he was on stage at a con, and detailed his thoughts. I forget what the inciting incident was, but suddenly he was thinking, "Great, now they're all thinking about how big my dick is," and it made him spiral. Something about that stuck with me, to the point that I cringe every time I see Jared on stage and anything remotely sexual comes up. That's pretty much what stopped me from reading RPF. I have no problem thinking about how big Sam's dick is, but I can't ponder too much about Jared's dick, or I can't look him in the eye when I see him at cons!!!

Taylor: I definitely think there is a very fine line to be walked when you write RPF, and I generally don't cross into the area of writing from an actor's POV.

Q: Is that how you keep it separate so you don’t stare into their faces at a con during a photo op and think about the smut you wrote about them?

Taylor: It can be hard to keep it separate sometimes but it's actually very easy in the moment of a split second photo op. They move so quickly, I don't genuinely think I have ever had the time to consider the things I've written about them while I was talking to and hugging them!

Q: Anyone else who doesn’t read/write RPF, do you think that the whole not being able to look them in the eye is an internal thing for anyone in your life, or just celebs?

@manawhaat (Mana): For example, I have A. FUCKING. LOT. of sex dreams. With tons of people, celebs and people I know in my real life... and I don't want to say that it's jaded me as far as thinking sexual thoughts about people, but in a way it kind of has. I don't have that moral dilemma of not being able to look Jared in the eye after thinking about his dick. Taylor: I completely agree. I think writing it has made me kind of impervious to it bleeding into my daily life. I see Jared and my heart goes ohmygodwelovehim first and in person, then later when he's not around is when the wowowowbutwhatabouthisdick comes in. Michelle: I don’t think I could write about anyone in a smutty way. Just characters.

Q: I wanted to talk about 'characterization' of rpf. Do other rpf writers out there think of the people as characters and treat them that way, or do you humanize them? Idk if that question makes sense but it's along the same lines of keeping them separate.

@fogsrollingin (Alex): I cast them in other stories when it's rpf. I always write rpf AUs with only a couple exceptions. We know their onscreen mannerisms, so making them astronauts terraforming a new planet with evil aliens on it is like "oh easy". Taylor: Characterization is huge for me. If someone writes an actor outside of the way they portray themselves, it's impossible for me to read. While we don't know these people personally, we know how they act outwardly and in the public eye, and that's enough to get a good idea of the kind of person they would be. Michelle: I have no trouble reading AUs, because it's just another character who happens to look like and have the name of one of my favorite actors. In AUs, they're characters. If they are actors on a show called Supernatural, then it's too humanizing for me. Taylor: See, Michelle, my mind can't separate it to that degree. If I'm reading about someone named Jared who looks like our Jared? It's Jared. AUs give me a lot of trouble, to be honest. Both writing and reading. Alex: I feel like it's no different than if Jared did a scifi movie during his summer break from spn & it's so low budget they just kept his real name for his character name.

Q: Do you feel differently reading ship RPF than reader insert RPF?

Michelle: Most of the RPF stories I read are ships, but I do read some reader inserts, too. It’s not an intentional choice either way. Alex: I don't feel differently about it, rly. I know I prefer reading ships over reader insert but that's just my personal jam. Mana: I have a hard time reading ship rpf mainly because I like the versions of my ships that I've built in my head, so when someone deviates from that it is a little turn off for me. Like, your version of Cockles is not the same as my version, which is totally fine, you do you, but it isn't gonna tickle me the same way ya know. so when I get into like non-mainstream ships it's extra difficult to find writers who represent them in the 'right' ways. Taylor: I feel that way about pretty much everything I read, and I think that has a lot to do with the whole characterization piece of it. I know that my idea of and the way I portray Jared or Jensen is probably a million times different than the way other people, including my readers, think of them. I try really hard to make sure the way the actors come across is "right". Mana: I think the one big piece of characterization is kind of using the way they have presented themselves as a moral compass. Obviously they don't present their whole selves so there's always wiggle room and areas where you are free to project your ideas of them into the fic, but that's also the trickiest area and where so many people drop the ball. Taylor: YES. So, so many people take that wiggle room and take it leaps and bounds beyond what is public (fandom) knowledge.

Q: How do you feel about RPFs that support certain theories about the wives being beards and such?

Mana: I try to not write anything that would feel as if I'm slandering anyone, etc. I wouldn't want to write a Jensen x reader fic where Danneel cheats on him and that's how they get together. If I mention it at all I just say that they've peacefully and amicably parted ways. If I don't mention it then they simply don't exist in the timeline. But never anything negative about anyone, especially the wives. @girl-with-a-fandom-fettish (Kaisha): I don't write smut (only read) so I have a very different interpretation on a lot of the things being discussed. I tend to stick with non-AU, sister/daughter!reader insert RPF fics because I don't feel creative enough branch out beyond that. I feel the same as Mana, and I actually won't read fics that are based on the premise that someone cheated for the storyline to work. Alex: I'm okay if ppl deviate far into fantasy realms tho. As long as it's not too support a real life conspiracy theory about the actors, if ppl wanna write it & others like it, all the more power to them. I mean as long as you're like "I killed the wives during the zombie apocalypse in my fic but I love them in real life please don't kill me" I'm like "cool". Taylor: I avoid bashing fics or beard fics. Admittedly I have one where Jensen and Danneel never got married, but they still had a daughter together and Danneel hid the kid from him until her 5th birthday. That doesn't feel like a bash/slander fic to me because I'm not painting anyone as a bad person - things just played out differently.

Q: The person who suggested this topic mentioned “how to write your first RPF.” Any suggestions?

Michelle: Have Mana finish it for you! (The only one I’ve ever written, she had to finish for me!) Alex: My first rpf was a ballerina!Jared & yogi!Misha romcom. It was so goofy! Taylor: I don't know if I can even answer that question. It literally just poured out of me when I started. I took the tiny little idea I had in my head (my daydream, as it was previously and so aptly named), and put it into words and it ended up being a 10 part series. Mana: How to write your first rpf: READ RPF FROM A LOT OF DIFFERENT WRITERS. find what works for you and for the people you're writing about. do a couple of trial runs with shorter fics. you have room to play, but try not to stray too far from what they've presented themselves as in real life. Kaisha: For me, when I wrote my first RPF (which was also my first fic), I was in a mental place where I was watching a lot of con videos and reading a lot of sister/daughter fics. It was more "I need an outlet for how I am feeling right now and I don't have anyone to talk to"...so I talked to the image of the boys I had made in my head from what I saw of them online.

Q: Does character shipping affect the RPFs you read? Like, if your OTP is Destiel, do you mainly only read Cockles?

Kaisha: I will read almost anything that's related to one of the Js, either RPF or SPN. But I don't have strong ship feels one way or another that changes what I read/write for RPF. Taylor: I don't know if character ships have any kind of effect on RPF ships. Because there are a lot more people involved in cons than we see on the show, and cons are my primary source of RPF inspiration. Like, we see Henry, what, twice in the show? But Gil McKinney is a whole other story. He's all over the convention circuit (or at least he used to be) and also all over fandom twitter. It just feels easier for me to write RPF because I see these actors in my real life, interacting with other real people. I have interacted with them, which makes things feel a lot more real than writing about two hot fictional dudes from my TV screen. Alex: I'm definitely up for Sam/Dean as much as I'm up for J2. Oddly tho it's Mishalecki at real life con panels that's gotten me totally happy to write/read Mishalecki.

Q: (From Taylor) The piece of RPF I struggle with the most is bringing events from the actors' real lives into my stories. Writing about Jensen and the brewery, about their kids and stories they tell about them at cons, that's where my already grey area turns even more grey.

Kaisha: I am right there with you Taylor! My fic started as mostly the reader and JJ interacting and then I remember the twins existed, too. And with my new fic I am trying to figure out if the San Jac and FBBC will work in or not. Mana: I'm interested in this, because I don't seem to have that issue or gray area. It just doesn't exist for me and I'd like to hear more about it from you guys. Taylor: It's so hard haha. I have something coming up that deals with Jared being arrested and of course I didn't post it before that whole event went down so now it looks like I'm taking that part of his life and twisting it for my personal fiction needs. Which feels kinda (adult word for "not good"). Kaisha: For me the gray area thing is because I want to write a believable story. A believable story has realistic details and if I am ignoring or overlooking things that my audience knows to be true, I feel it takes them out of the story. Mana: So it's a case of omit it entirely or commit to it entirely? I ask in regards to like FBBC and the kids. Do you feel differently about incorporating those aspects into your fics? would you be more comfortable writing about fbbc than you would the kids? Or does that gray area cover the same on both? Kaisha: The same thing goes for when I beta read something. A detail that I don't remember or agree with will take me out of the story and send me on a research rabbit trail to know if the author is correct with what they said. I want to stay in the story as much as possible and I want that for my readers too. That's probably a good way to differentiate it. If I state in the A/N that J1 only has 1 kid, then I don't have to consider what year the story is occurring in. But if I tell you it's non-AU, well then everything that is happening in our universe should be happening in my story (otherwise, it would be AU, even to the slightest degree). The kids vs. FBBC thing I think could be very personal on which someone feels more comfortable with. I say that because I know ABSOLUTLEY NOTHING about alcohol. Kids on the other hand I get. Taylor: For me it's the same. Just, actual concrete aspects of Jensen's life are harder for me to write about. Because then - again, just for me - that feels like writing from their point of view, which is something I try to avoid.

Q: Do any of you read/write RPF outside of SPN?

Taylor: SPN is my only fandom. Michelle: I tried to read fics from other fandoms, and just couldn’t get into it. I might be getting sucked into The Witcher fandom, though. Haven’t found any Geralt fics that really align with my image of him, though. Alex: There are CW network RPF AUs I read. Taylor: I feel like, as SPN fans, we have a wonderful privilege and incredible pool of writers to choose from when we want to read. I don't know, because like I said SPN is my only fandom, if any other fandom has this level of talent or dedication.

Q: Have you ever read an RPF fic that changed the way you viewed an actor? Or given you a sense of gained insight into their lives?

Michelle: That's actually why I don't read “canon-compliant” RPF, actually. Because then I might think that idea is real, and won't see that it's not, even when proven wrong. Like, maybe Jared actually loves it when we think about how big his dick is? But I can't stop thinking that it embarrasses him and makes him uncomfortable because I read it in that one fic. Kaisha: @crashdevlin has a Jensen x reader series that also heavily features Tom Hiddleston. My view of Tom has forever been changed because of her story! Michelle: My brain is very malleable. Sometimes, I'm so open-minded, my brain falls right out. I have to be careful what I let influence me. Kaisha: It wasn't something that I intended to happen. Crash just wrote a very compelling character and I think my opinion would have been altered no matter who it was that she used as the face. Taylor: I've never read anything that has changed the way I view the actors. I've certainly read things that have given me new ideas about the things they enjoy (bitey and/or rough smut), but nothing that's changed the way they appear in my mind. I think the biggest part of all of this is just remembering that all of this is 100% FICTION and should never be taken as reality in any way, shape, or form.

To close out the chat, Mana requested fic recs! Here are the recs that were mentioned:

Michelle: If you're into serial killer AUs, There's a J2 AU in my AO3 bookmarks that's genius. Adoration. The other RPF bookmark I have is called Beholder. Jared runs an animal shelter, and Jensen is a homeless man with a TBI who gets dumped at the shelter one night.

Alex: My favorite rpf fic is Tails by keep_waking_up. Werefox!Jared & kitsune!Jensen law enforcement murder mystery AU.

Taylor: One of my favorites to read is by @thecleverdame: Modern Technology. (Jared x reader) This is unfinished but it's quickly becoming one of my favorite Jensen-things I've ever written, AND IT'S AN AU!!! Rockabye. Also, there’s You Saved Me (Jared x Reader). And have a J2 x Reader for funsies! Something is Happening

Kaisha: This is my favorite RPF. Underneath verse (series) - J2 - Jensen is the undercover FBI agent sent to take out Jared, the boss of Chicago. #Self-promo, but I am pretty proud of this one, too: Nanny, Sister, Daughter...Family (Jenneel with sorta daughter!reader)

Mana: Here’s the Cockles x Reader fic that Michelle and I wrote: Rumor Has It And, of course, (Jenneel x Reader) Fools In Love.

Feel free to reblog with your favorite RPF fics!!

Also, the February LiveChat info is still TBD. Feel free to send in your topic ideas and suggest guest speakers!!

General Pond Updates and Reminders

What we’ve got cooking up next: Not much, at the moment, since everyone is busy, so we’re just trying to keep up with the day-to-day at the moment! Our to do list is still long, though, and will not be neglected forever! Next up is organizing the tagging system on the blog to make it easier for readers to find the stories they’re interesting in and for writers to find the help they’re looking for!

Reminders:

Angel Fish Award nominations are accepted all month long! No need to wait to tell us how much you liked a fellow Fish’s work! IF YOU HAVE SENT IN A NOMINATION, BUT HAVE NOT RECEIVED A PRIVATE MESSAGE CONFIRMING WE RECEIVED IT, WE DIDN’T GET IT. Be sure to use Submit instead of Ask!

Don’t forget to submit your stories to be posted to the blog! When your stories are on the blog, then they are easier to nominate for Angel Fish Awards!

Say hi to December’s New Members and January’s New Members! (If we missed someone, let us know!)

Check the Pond CALENDAR to see when Big Fish will be in the Skype chat room/discord general channel and other Pond and SPN events are happening! Know of something that’s not on the calendar, send us an ask or submission with the deets info details! The calendar offers a lot of features, such as showing you when things are in your own timezone! Since we’re an international group, that’s a definite plus!!

We’re getting lots of requests for more Big Fish, lately, but so far, only one applicant! If you know someone you think would be a good Big Fish, tell them to apply!!

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sunsetsover · 4 years

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Hey! Im very excited about Bens new storyline. I know a little bit about the deaf community but not nearly enough and I would love to learn more through this storyline. Im just worried that in my excitement I might say something stupid or disrespectful due to my lack of knowlegde. Ive seen you post about that so I was wondering if you could tell me what to look out for and especially some tips on how to learn and understand more. Thank you in advance!❤ I really hope they do the storyline justice

hey!! first of all let me say that i realize that maybe i was a bit TOO defensive the other day so i don’t want you (or anybody else) to think that if anybody fucks up and says something a little off i’m going to completely bite their heads off lmao (although that said i do still stand by everything i’ve said)

also i’ve gotta be honest idk much abt the deaf/hoh community either! i’ve got to learn too!! so if you’re looking for information in that sense i’m unfortunately not the person to come too :-(

however i DO know what it’s like to be disabled and specifically what it’s like to have a disability that affects amd changes your whole life and limits what you can do both now and in the future. i won’t go into details but my disability affects my left leg, which ofc affects my mobility. thankfully i can still walk, but there is no cure or treatment for what i have. there was also nothing that triggered it - no accident or person to blame, it just Happened - and so it was a case of my life seeming normal and then one day it hits you that your life is completely different from everyone else’s and that it’s never gonna be the same, which i imagine may be similar to what ben is going to be going through (whether it’s temporary or not, if he doesn’t KNOW it’s temporary something like that is completely life shattering).

anyways now i’ve realized you Did Not Ask let me get actually answer your questions

literally the most important thing u can do is just listen to disabled people and don’t talk over them!!! this is the case with literally any kind of thing you don’t know abt/experience urself, u know? the way you would listen to and learn from a poc talking abt their unique experiences as a poc, or a muslim talking abt their unique experiences as a muslim etc etc, listen to and learn from disabled (specifically deaf/hoh people, in terms of ben’s sl at least) when they speak!! if they tell u something u said is wrong or a little off, don’t get defensive. just do ur best to listen and learn!!

don’t feel too bad if u do fuck up lmao we all fuck up we’re all learning we’re all trying to be better you can’t possibly know everything, u know?

specifically in terms of ben’s sl, just don’t reduce it down to ‘omg think of the ballum content’. like it’s ok to enjoy the sweet moments this sl might give us obviously lmao but don’t forget that it’s bigger than that, both to ben as a character and in terms of deaf representation !! like !!! a disabled lgbt character!!! that’s a big deal!!!

basically just don’t reduce ben’s suffering to angst porn, u know? bc what u gotta remember is that yeah ok ben isn’t real but he IS a representation of what people have been through and are going through. i’m not deaf or hoh so i won’t be able to relate to that part of it either, but i do know what it’s like to have your life drastically altered bc of a disability and how hard it is to cope with that and accept the way that your life has changed like it’s hard and u get angry and upset and push people away and go into denial and breakdown and think you’re dealing with it only to breakdown again and if ee DO do a good job of it (which judging from last night’s ep i’m hopeful abt!) then they’ll show at least some of that, so just try not to reduce that very real pain and struggle that people experience to ‘omg but callum’s gonna look after him tho’ you know what i mean??

this might be one that’s just a personal opinion tbh but like... just try not to enjoy ben’s suffering too much??? like i know some ppl really revel in angst n i get that but at the end of the day this is a bit TOO real to be like ‘omg i love it when breaks down’ ygm?? like ofc i’m not saying don’t enjoy the storyline for what it is but i know as someone who has been thru very similar suffering i KNOW it’s gonna rub me up the wrong way if i see people ENJOYING seeing ben upset or suffering. idk i feel like im not articulating this very well but i think it goes back into the whole angst porn thing like it’s one thing to like and enjoy the storyline and another to enjoy seeing ben suffering, does that make sense??? like just don’t let what ben will be going thru become angst porn basically

remember that all disabled ppl are different and things that upset/offend me might not upset/offend other ppl and vice versa

also i’m not deaf or hoh so they might have a different opinion on stuff and if so you should always listen to what they say over what i say bc obviously they’ll always know better

try not to worry too much, i’d say that as long as you’re not viewing this sl solely through the lens of ballum or being outright offensive or derogatory towards the sl or ben’s disability bc it’s not what you want or it might affect ben/callum’s relationship then u should be alright?? but the fact that you even took the time to send me this message and ask what to look out for tells me that you’re clearly a conscientious person who’s heart is in the right place which is the most important part so!!! i wouldn’t be too worried if i was u!!

plus my ask is always open if u have any questions!! obviously i can’t answer anything in terms of deafness specifically, but if u have any questions abt disability in a broader sense i’d be happy to answer them for you 💖💖💖

#anon #question

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fireeaglespirit · 5 years

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@fireeaglespirit @viviane-lefay i do worry sometimes with the stories I write if things might be too much for you. To be fair I dont think in any fanfic Ive ever written anything too explicit but now Im so conscious of other people’s viewpoints and being inclusive that it is a concern. Ultimately I write what I want to/need to but I am aware it might not be for all tastes hence always trying to follow ratings etc.

Replying here so it doesn’t cause any problems with OP, etc..

Ohh. I’m sorry if this worried you.. tbh this was very random and I wasn’t even thinking about fiction when I rb this. This one reminded me of a few times I went out with friends and colleagues and I just felt starkly asexual, lmao

About my tolerance regarding sex and explicitly in fiction, I’ll be honest with you…

There’s hardly anything I could say I wouldn’t read about. I just don’t feel ‘triggers’ or anything of the sort, no hard feelings when it gets to fiction and I value your will to be conscious of other viewpoints but its practically impossible to cater to all tastes like you said, so don’t worry about it much… there’s always someone out there who will feel offended and others who will fiercely love it.

As for myself, I’m very tolerant to sexual content in fiction, idk? I don’t seek it out particularly but its not a deal breaker either.

I know some asexual people are less tolerant, I usually just get a ‘meh’ feeling whenever those subjects are touched in much detail, idk some works do get nasty and bothersome because of much detail involving sexual practices so I just give up on them or put them aside when they bring me no joy but I gladly consume material with sex on it as long as I like some aspects of it. Also, I’m good at ignoring or glossing over things I don’t like in fiction… when I read explicit scenes with intercourse it does nothing to me and my eyes focuses on the sentences I loved such as regarding the feelings between the characters and subtle interactions instead of the physical/carnal aspects of it, and this makes it all worthy it.

Even so, some works might become overwhelmingly depressive or repulsive so I might put them aside even if I enjoyed an aspect of it or I might just skip through them and this happened recently to a series of fantasy books I tried to read which were actually really good but they were so overwhelmingly and unnecessarily dark and had an horrid oppressive atmosphere towards women an sex so I just felt no joy reading them? Its not like I was traumatized by its tone but it felt like a chore and I couldn’t care about it further and no character inspired me whatsoever that the world could change for the better, so I dropped them.

But its not like I’m judging it, I just feel weirded out to some things and I just imagine the kind of mind that takes upon themselves the chore to write a whole series of book which has nothing but suffering and misery in them, especially concerning women, lol. We already had this shit in history and still have in some places in the world so I kinda feel like its not interesting for me to read about it in a fictional setting, especially if I don’t feel like the writer is going to challenge the setting.

But I’m aware most people are much more sensitive… these things can be horrid for those who are more sensitive, and perhaps my own asexuality protects me from feeling it fully as I don’t even think of myself as a being capable of partaking in this (weird, I know), so I have problem even projecting.

But I did felt really strongly for the way women were oppressed absurdly and had their agency completely obliterated, so that sparked a sort of empathy or kinship in me which made progress in such book a chore…

You got my point and this just illustrates a bit my relationship to fiction and things that irk me since you were interested in my opinion… I have another example of fantasy book with lots of sex in it:

I read asoiaf even thought its full of sexual stuff but I don’t feel joy at these parts, yet the work is so good on other themes that I ignore it for the most part… but even so, recently I’ve read F&B and it was kinda overwhelming on the sexist aspect with myriads of female characters turned into child brides and raped and dying at their childbirth repeatedly it just got very tiresome and repetitive near the end, because there where almost no counterpoints to it, unlike in the main series where the situation is dire for women but we have characters challenging it more often and idk. F&B just lacked on that front.

So, this shows a bit my sensitivity towards sex is more related to sexism and the feeling that women are confined to their reproductive aspects: motherhood, childbearing, marriage, sensuality, etc.. I don’t have a problem with sexual intercourse per se as you can see, but that’s from my unique point of view and I know some asexuals are more repulsed towards it, but you asked my opinion…

So, if its consensual sex: its not my cup of tea but I don’t feel like its a deal breaker…

Just to give you a positive sex example: when I see an OTP of mine getting to the point of having sex I think its pretty sweet, like when Jon and Dany consummated their love on that boat… I was happy for them, for all that it means, the symbolism between the union of ice and fire and just two characters which I love dearly, finding happiness and comfort in each other. What’s not to love about it??

This is a rare stance I can say I saw a pair I ship get to that point xD

I love shipping as you know, but its more about the psychological aspects and potential for character development and even when I’m reading fanfic about my OTPs I enjoy more the angst and symbolism than the ‘hot’ parts which usually just makes me go ‘meh’ (again).

So this makes me say: when sex is the focus of works I could feel like I’m too asexual for this, even if it regards an OTP, it just doesn’t have a very exciting effect on me or I’m not explicitly interested in this part of a relationship, when so many other things caught my eye… sometimes subtle interactions and dialogue and and gentle approximation (touches, caresses, kissing, etc..) is so much more exciting for me to read about than the ‘thing’ itself, lol.

To sum it up: when its there just for p*rn or even worse, shock value it just makes me go ‘meh’ or ‘ugh’ or ‘uhh why am I even reading this?’

This reminds me of Vivi’s take on the ‘hiero gamos’, in this case I just say I might even enjoy the theme as long as the scenes involving sex are meaningful and passionate and the aspect I value the most about them are sublime and platonic instead of carnal but I’m aware the carnal aspects are very important for the characters and the audience so I also worry when I get to show my stories people will think they lack sexual content ^^ I get you.

Now that you know my feelings towards sex in fiction, to a broader sense I just wanted to say..

There’s no way to guess people’s sensitives but it doesn’t mean you need to walk on eggshells afraid to trigger people all the time, hell no! I’m all for freedom of creation. At least around me there are no metaphorical ‘eggshells’.

Everyone has their own set of opinions which makes them unique, not just me, I mean… even so I will let my snowflake syndrome show but I’m quite peculiar if you could say, so I sort of grew a strong ‘carapace’ towards the world as I deal with people with completely different views and values on a daily basis which might make me have inflamed political opinions while at the same time, I’m very flexible and forgiving when it comes to fiction in general.

I don’t expect much of the population to be like this so I’m also self conscious when it gets to writing my own stuff because I know people can feel very strongly about it and you’ve seen the way fandom reacts to minor things and bash creators when they perceive flaws in their work… I’m just not a judgmental person, its not in my nature. I just ignore things in fiction if I don’t like and I became even more relaxed over time in regards to this all, lol I nearly reached a ‘nirvana’ as I don’t even feel strongly negative feelings in regard to this.

Snarky and bitter comments from time to time? Yes… but no hard feelings. RL needs my hatred, lol so I don’t have it to spare with fiction any longer.

Anyway, on an unrelated sub note… as you might have noticed, I don’t feel comfortable about current fandom trends and specially policing, and with reason as this gets very serious and quick with literally ‘wave chain reactions’ of hatred sparked apparently from nowhere. I hope people could create more freely instead of the political correct police and restraining of creativity we have now. It was good for a while and I’m all for diversity and change in status quo (for the better), but I think this has gone too far and I perceive a lot of rigidity in fiction right now due to fear of fandom backlash we have creators afraid to make their thing and afraid it isn’t ‘inclusive or progressive’ enough… so they bend themselves endlessly until fandom ‘approves’ them, but even so someone is bound to scream and say the work is offensive and the cycle of hatred is restarted.

I know this reply was like a huge egocentric monologue and I strained with non related issues at the end, but you asked my thought on this so I tried to convey it with detail.. including things related to the perception we have concerning fictional themes and I just kinda had to vent at some parts of it.

etc…. This doesn’t mean I forbid judgment from others or criticism or that I forbid people from harshly criticizing works of fiction, just that sometimes it gets more harmful than beneficial and scare people off, and I felt like saying that.

Anyway,,, just want to say nonetheless I find it very sweet and considerate that you are taking different opinions in mind while writing, but you don’t need to worry at least from my part, and I don’t think you ever got even close to being explicit in your writings so there’s absolutely nothing to worry about.

#beyond-far-horizons

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rorykillmore · 5 years

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just out of curiousity (u can answer this whenever) what do u think ur characters would do on denny 2.0 ?

lucille might go settle down in victorian london because ultimately, there’s just some things about that kind of environment she prefers more, although that said i think she’d be a surprisingly... modernized presence there. there are a lot of elements of modern life she’s gotten attached to and won’t feel like abandoning; in fact, i think she’ll even keep her modern style of dress. this also gives her the opportunity to get involved in some more supernatural stuff, which she’s always been more inclined towards. so who knows what might come of that! just when she thought she might be free of all that silent hill-esque bullshit,

siobhan is probably gonna stick to living in the southwest because that’s just become home to her, at this point. she’s not giving up her saloon. but her role as a bounty hunter will probably mean she gets to travel a lot -- and it’d be cool to use this opportunity to give the denny guardians a like, specific cause to tackle maybe?? i’ll talk to fate and giz at some point but maybe we can have them get involved in the situation in the southwest where all the Mounting Outlaw Tension is, because then they have to choose between doing the Right Thing and... using the opportunity to take a shot at the mld, who rocket and siobhan at least have always hated. idk. maybe at some point they can also get stranded in our potential Prehistoric Location because i feel like that would really give raptor red the chance to shine. and maybe have siobhan and rocket have to rely on her a little more?

actually... it depends on my muse level for her but. if i want to do a bigger plot with siobhan she’s a good candidate for “gets captured by the organization and loses her powers”, because lifting the curse is! something she’s been trying to do the whole time she’s been on denny! but having it happen in this way would be really... hard and complicated for her and maybe allow her for some kind of arc where she decides she wants to get her powers back on her own terms, to keep being a guardian and keep doing good.

sara will be interesting because. well i guess it depends on what we decide but as things stands now i don’t really think it makes sense for “time travel” to be a feasible thing on New Denny, at least not outside a set period of time (like seasons? idk). so that’ll be a HUGE adjustment for not just her, but for all the denny legends. compared to what they’re used to, they’re very tied down. i think she at least will still stay on the waverider and travel around because she’s just... not built to settle down anywhere. maybe she and the legends will revert to more traditional (if setting-specific) vigilante work? because they have experience dealing with Historical Threats. and the organization itself definitely seems like something that would be on their radar.

my cats are honestly gonna be a pretty boring answer for this because i don’t think they would like. have much interest or even an entire capacity to understand what’s happening in the outside world, and are content to stay in the southwest and do their thing. so their plot stuff probably won’t change that much, barring like... nightcloud perhaps retreating to the outside world for a little while after tigerclanplot.

dolores will, unless something pretty major changes, probably be staying in beacon heights still. although i think... depending on what we ultimately end up going with for it, there’s a high possibility that she’d be interested in the Futuristic Location and establishing a bit of pull there. god imagine if there are like, any kind of robotic elements in play in whatever setting we choose. dolores stages ANOTHER revolution,

but yeah some of her plot stuff would probably depend on that... she’s also a tentative candidate for like? rifter government stuff if we set that up?? though if she got involved with that she could also be a source of conflict for it because her stances on certain things might be pretty intense, so it’d be interesting to see what happened with that.

sophie-anne is gonna go stay in chicago, i like, instantly decided. she’d LOVE it. it’s the 1920′s!! much less boring than the present >__>,

yeah but she’s probably just gonna move her club over there, although it might take on a slightly more... subtle exterior. in true speakeasy style (but also because like... it’d be a lot less safe in that setting to be so openly ‘yeah nonhumans are great!’). honestly she probably runs the risk of having a very complicated relationship with the local organized crime --

actually if i want to give sophie the opportunity to do something... more actively shady, maybe she could deal vampire blood to them?? and in exchange they don’t fuck with her or her club, but she also turns a blind eye to them going after and abducting other rifters.... hmm....

camille is gonna stay in metropolis. she’s not about this wacky stuff,

but actually giz and i were throwing around ideas and we thought the interesting thing about this plot/settings shift is that... these individual locations are, by their nature, just more isolated from one another than what denny’s used to. they all have their own things going on, their own separate cultures and communities. and that makes information and communication more important than ever. so i’ve already been weighing ideas for the daily planet becoming this more... overarching news station that tries to keep people in touch and connected and informed and just, taking on a more active role in general, which could be really interesting?? maybe they’ll work more closely with the mld, which gives me the opportunity to plot more camille/felix stuff and that’s never a bad thing.

regardless it like... gives camille cause to travel a lot (which is cool because i think a lot of my characters in this context might be more interested in staying in one or a couple of locations) and just get involved in a lot of potentially unconventional stuff and i’m really here for that! she should get herself, like... a travel buddy.

sly actually might be free roaming it for awhile, although... i really want to get someone involved in the Pirate Stuff if we do that. and he seems like a great candidate for it. he was actually a pirate for a little while in the third game and he was kind of great at it. taking after henriette! it might also give him the opportunity to do some broader plot stuff i’ve been searching for for him, like... he could get involved in combating/stealing from the organization-employed pirates of the era, or maybe if we do the thing where the cure for whatever the experiments do is hidden somewhere around here and sly finds out about it he could be a kind of like... guide for people who are looking for it?? who wants to go sailing with sly

more importantly, who wants to join sly’s pirate crew,

susie... i’ve actually not entirely decided what i’m gonna do with susie yet. mostly because there’s a lot of shady stuff going on that she’d have overt knowledge of, but i... don’t know how much she’d want to get involved? maybe i could do stuff with like. her giving people she’s friendly with more subtle nudges towards The Truth. or maybe if someone wants to do a “my character loses their memories” plot and needs an eventual fix for it, i could offer susie for that. idk.

she might settle in our 70s/80s european location because lbr that’s just home for her. maybe this’ll spur her into opening up a dance academy or something like she’s been thinking of?

cordelia is probably gonna get moved over to st. denis (or a little ways outside of it) if that’s our new orleans standin. which... makes for some interesting conflict becaaause i’m not sure the people around there would be as... you know... accepting of witches as people in modern day new orleans are. it’s gonna put her more on the defensive and potentially create some more conflict between the coven and the public which... could definitely be interesting

and she’d be very agitated by the idea of the organization and them catching and experimenting on people too so, she may be one of my characters who gets more involved in that. she’s also, apart from dolores, another candidate for Potential Government Stuff because she’s already in a position of authority and i just feel like she’d naturally be very good at something like that. makes for more accessible plotting with her, too

alana is still gonna be involved with mld stuff of course which means... well! her schedule might get a lot busier with all the mld is dealing with. but also that she might get to work with a more diverse array of characters if the mld expands their ranks.

i think she’ll definitely be involved with organization-related stuff to some extent, if... indirectly, at first. because the mld, of course, is going to be dealing with all these emerging threats. actually as a profiler, maybe alana can be one of the people who start connecting the dots re: how a lot of these things are connected?? it really depends on how some of this stuff plays out but...

what else she’ll get involved in, i’m not sure because i still wanna potentially do things like the murder mystery plot with her, so she might be more subplot designated... idk! we’ll see!!

and then villanelle. well. once she starts to accumulate a fair amount of money on denny (which... probably won’t take her too long, given her, well, specific talents), villanelle is probably going to go live it up in 70s/80s europe too. especially if we settle on paris. she’d LOVE that.

but also... fate and i have been talking about plots for her and fox, and we’ve been tossing around an idea where... they both get picked up by the same employer (she’s an assassin, he’s a mercenary, there’s plenty of overlap) and then things start to get increasingly skeevy and fox starts to question it a lot while! villanelle doesn’t care! because why would she? and that creates a lot of conflict and tension between them and ultimately maybe fox at least gets through to her in the context of “don’t let these people use you”. its an enemies-to-friends(?) plot, basically, but my point being prior to this we were just gonna revert to using some random npcs or something but now... if fate’s game, having fox and villanelle accidentally end up working for the organization that’s targeting all these rifters could be hugely interesting, i think

there’s a lot of potential there

#thanks tony!!#honestly im still thinking a lot of this stuff through but #im p excited about the ideas i Do have #cuts dennys lvad wire #fizzlep0p

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unproduciblesmackdown · 6 years

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you know, i’m actually a sort of quick tempered? hot tempered? person, and only recently am i like oh wait that’s alright. obviously sometimes its a good idea to take a breath first, but not being infinitely patient is okay and it’s not even necessarily bad being irritable. and it’s a lot better to maybe speak too heatedly every now and again and be able to be like “hey sorry” afterwards is better than eternally having to shove being angry down and never using your voice and not telling people if you’re bothered by something

also anger isn’t even nearly always bad. never being angry shouldnt be an ideal imo. like, to never have to be angry would just be really impossibly lucky. and to not have a capacity for anger is like ??? the full spectrum of emotion is best. each one has their purpose and place and effect

and there’s another thing going on where tbh when you’ve been abused longterm, usually you have to learn how to be angry. an abuser deserves to warrant anger, yet uses that anger as “justification” for further abuse. standing up for yourself is just framed as inciting conflict, as if conflict in and of itself is a violence. see: when this is used on a broader scale, like say an organized violent intent is met with defense, and the defense is blamed for wrongly causing conflict. anyways. your own anger isn’t allowed when you’re abused. and you can’t even show anger at something other than your abuse, if you wanna be “safe”—although there’s no rules which will always protect you—b/c you constantly have to be attempting to keep your abuser/s placated and in a good mood and not draw extra attention to yourself.

and what’s a big mystery to me why people seem to consider the two options for someone’s who’s been wronged to be “forever actively planning the ultimate revenge to destroy those who wronged you” and “total and permanent forgiveness of those who wronged you.” like ffs i’m not forgiving everyone i’ve ever met, and yet that’s not really a huge effort? if you’re in a good relationship with someone, yes, you’ll both need to forgive each other various things inevitably and probably somewhat often. everyone is gonna wrong everyone else. but that’s a good relationship—some things can be intolerable. you can choose you don’t want a relationship to continue. you don’t have to forgive everything, and it’s not like that’s equivalent to being continuously simmering with rage. like, the people i won’t forgive? i usually don’t even think about them. the anger i have for them is more of a matter of fact, it isn’t like i have to feel its full extent every time i think of it. its something i Know. and i don’t feel i need “revenge.” i need these people out of my life, and that’s what i have. don’t tell people they have to forgive their abusers. and abusive behavior doesn’t even always only occur in a personal relationship. you can even Not Forgive people who you’re still like, friends with and shit, if “forgive” means “forget about something and always say It’s Okay about it.”

basically “not forgiving” doesn’t have to mean “holding a grudge every waking moment of your life”

and you know, anger can be and is a good thing. anger is a gift, anger is power. anger is what you feel when you’ve been treated wrongly. by people or tbh just by life. anger means you know you deserve better than what you got.

and obviously not ALL anger is golden. raging all the time over minor inconveniences? probably not good. some total ass going on a power trip at someone in customer service? cis dude’s rampant entitlement and inability to parse and deal with their emotions and translating all that into anger-fueled violence? not good. but that kind of anger isn’t derived from someone knowing they deserve to be treated like a person. it’s the anger of someone who believes they inherently deserve more than other people, who they consider lesser, and thus react to that expectation not being fulfilled.

and you know, people talk about anger being exhausting? it can be, if its being felt in full as an emotion without end. but tbh that doesnt mean a righteous anger is bad. it means that people need breaks from their stress, whether that stress is necessary or not. people who have to deal with stress regularly, e.g. on the job, ideally should be making sure to specifically set themselves apart from that at some point every day to relax and recharge and get some time outside of that framework.

and like, not everybody gets to do that, and lots of stress longterm does take its toll, and thats not currently unavoidable and that is totally shit. like, idk, when people talk about needing to Log Off for a bit simply because the news feed is too stressful. and that’s totally fine, being able to destress is good, see above. but that’s a luxury and a privilege. for every headline, there’s people who are living some disaster, or can’t stop thinking about this awful thing for a minute even if they tried. of course that’s bad for them. but they can’t just separate themselves from what’s going on, because they don’t have a choice, it’s happening to them, it affects them directly or too closely. and that’s not something theyre doing wrong. its a further way something wrong is being done to them.

what else am i talking about here. hmm. anger can give you energy and power. and it doesn’t have to be driven sheerly by pain, even if its caused by it. that pain comes from an infraction of justice, ideals, values, etc. anger can be that belief in and desire for justice/ideals/values. it can be a sense of defense/protection for yourself or others. it can be strength and the drive to stop the pain that necessitated the anger in the first place.

what else am i talking about! hmm. i dunno. don’t tell abused people they need to learn to stop being angry to heal or whatever. “lack of conflict” isn’t the highest ideal or sole indication of a truly good, healthy situation. anger can be great

#bbbbb long post

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bartsugsy · 7 years

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I hope the use of Seal lyrics was intentional Lo (I mean I'm pretty sure it was lol) cos "my power my pleasure my pain" distracted me from the great meta (to be?) post you were making! But back on topic I feel you on all the unresolved shiz, I just don't think the show think anywhere near as deeply into it as us! I do think more effort is put into Robron (and Coira) then other couples which translates into longer story arcs, so there's still hope.. pleasure and pain... lol!

oh, yk i just can’t resist throwing nonsensical song lyrics into things

the show definitely doesn’t think about this shit as deeply as we do because… well, they’ve got other characters to worry about and we’re all out here like HERE’S 200 WORDS OF META ON THE SIGN IN THE BACKGROUND OF A SCENE WHERE ROBERT AND AARON ARE MAKING OUT

(i say we but that was me. i did that. I DID IT AND I STAND BY IT)

sometimes i do think though that… even if yes, ok, OK FINE, none of these scenes were made to withstand the level of in-depth scrutiny we put them under and no, i never needed to write a 3000 word essay on the confusing characterisation of rebecca white when she’s clearly, in the crudest terms, more plot device than representative of an understandable human and as such it’s all just sort of futile, but… sometimes, just sometimes, i think the bigger picture ideas aren’t actually necessarily off base

ok and i just got this ask from another anon, so hopefully neither of you mind, but i’m going to put this in here, because this ties in to the point i’m going to attempt to make (that’s really just me validating my inability to be succinct and my love of meta) lmao:

anonymous asked:

but i think - because its a soap - robert and aaron are never going to resolve any of their issues in a satisfying way. because if they were resolved and dealt with then the show wouldn’t be able to use those issues for drama. so i can’t really see their reunion addressing any of the january stuff tbh

on some level, i agree with you. i totally do. on another, broader-picture level, i think that… i think i’ve been surprised by the level of cohesiveness in the storytelling for aaron and robert - like, it’s not the most tightly constucted thing in the world by any means, and this is obviously coming out of me coming from the glee fandom, where we had literally no cohesiveness ever and so i’m probably just over-impressed by even the most marginal attempts to write a meaningfully constructed longer form story, but… but i think, given that it’s a soap and given how much content they need to produce and given the inconsistent treatment of a lot of the characters on the show, aaron and robert’s relationship does get a decent amount of care put into it, on the whole, and sometimes that’s visible in the storytelling - like sometimes, a scene will happen that just sort of… slots a lot of things into place and calls back to meta we’ve been writing the whole time and… idk. like, you really do just need to look at rebecca as a character and compare the writing for her over the past year with the writing for aaron and robert, who have much more consistent traits and motivations.

i think this is why i like writing meta for this show. because sometimes there’s a pay off, where the show will specifically highlight things we’ve been talking about and examining and make them explicitly canon. it’s super satisfying. the heavy handedness works (for me) for this purpose. it’s like taking our meta and saying to everyone ‘oh hey, that thing you were reading into is exactly what we were going for’. and the general audience will do this as well - everyone will have an opinion on what’s happening beneath the surface of some stuff, it’s just that they might mention it off-hand to someone they’re watching the show with whereas we sit down and spend three hours typing up an argument to support it based entirely on how we’ve interpreted that last three years of canon and then use it to try and convince people to feel the same way lmaoooo. it’s awesome. but those bigger picture ideas that maybe aren’t called out specifically

like… don’t get me wrong, i don’t believe in the idea that they’re going to call back specifically to the january argument and take a big, in-depth delve into why that specifically happened and why it was some sort of turning point that they ignored in favour of being together and how that ultimately went wrong… i can’t imagine that’s happening lmao, that’s absolutely what our meta is for (which is fine). like… i don’t see them calling back to the specifics in any meaningful way (at most we might get some dialogue parallels bc the show loves those, as we know lmao)

but like… ok, some of this is going to come back to how early on did the show know they were going to break aaron and robert up, in all honesty. we know that iain has been intending to get rid of the whites… probably since the time he started? going by the interviews he was giving at that time? we know rebecca was brought on with some sort of plan in place for her character (to get in between robron lmao). obviously we can sort of… like, chicken or the egg, what came first - lucy announcing she was pregnant and them realising that rob and aaron would have to get married quickly, or iain deciding to go max feeling exploitation and get two weddings out of robron? this is all random extrapolation on events we know, because we can’t pinpoint when it became clear to them that they were going to do a wedding, followed by a big break up, followed by a big reunion and culminating in another, ~~~~real (so to speak)~~ wedding. but at some point, that would have been firmly in their plans.

the january argument -

ok. ok fuck it let’s meta the january argument even though i literally said i wasn’t going to and that i wanted to wait until they got back together idc i don’t listen to me she doesn’t know what’s up

the reason i love the january argument so much as a turning point within the larger overarching story they’ve been telling is because it works so well as this big flashing harbinger of doom that the boys both ignore - it’s built up specifically from problems they have been having since right before they got engaged

and look, i wanna write meta about all the arguments they have firstly from the reunion until ssw and then from in between ssw to the january argument, because i think the stuff that takes place when rebecca is in the village is very pointedly building towards what ultimately happens in january

and i think it’s clever because when you watch it for the first time, the fact that aaron is ultimately driven to violence and puts kasim in hospital and then ultimately gets arrested is what you’re left thinking about - it totally draws attention away from the things aaron and robert are saying to one another and the way that their argument(s) echo previous fights they have had around rebecca and aaron not understanding rob’s bisexuality and rob’s tendency to lie and scheme and rob’s defensiveness around his schemes and how much he has changed and is trying to change vs how much aaron needs from him and just… the ways in which they’ve been slowly falling apart.

(and ok at some point i will write my actual meta where i actually quote the dialogue instead of making vague references to it, although i usually feel like it’s a safe assumption to think that you guys know where i’m sort of pulling these ideas from when i talk about this shit - specifically, stuff i want to talk about includes the things aaron has said about rebecca and robert’s interactions with her, the moment robert talks about his scheme as something that is no longer about andy and absolutely about the money, aaron’s understanding of the robecca kiss, rob talking about how aaron can’t be happy and that he screws things up (which is horrible foreshadowing for kasim), rob yelling about aaron walking away from arguments and not recognising the change rob has made and the way that rob literally brushes his kiss with rebecca under the table, aaron literally saying that he doesn’t like the person he is around robert because of how things have played out with rebecca ec. etc.)

anyway, they just… i’ve fully written about this before, but the kasim stuff acts as a distraction both for robert and aaron - who, before aaron’s arrest, are having a tentative conversation where rob is gently pushing for them to still go to vegas to try and work things out and aaron is absolutely not convinced. after aaron gets arrested and then gets released, the next scene they have is aaron trying to give robert an easy out and robert point blank refusing - over the course of the three episodes, from aaron getting arrested to aaron giving the police a new statement, rob makes multiple references to fighting for their relationship even if aaron doesn’t think it’s a good idea - literally says that he’s not going to stop fighting for them, which is important but also sort of conveniently skims past the point that this argument didn’t occur in a vacuum and at no point have they faced up to what happened to bring them there between the two of them.

when, during the reveal, aaron says that rob was the one who pushed for this, you can sort of see where he’s coming from in a sense. i think aaron’s impending sentencing also made it harder for them to focus on what the real issue was (or rather, made it way easier to ignore, because they were too busy being terrified of losing one another) - but even then, rob decides to throw a surprise wedding because in canon we know that aaron is panicking about leaving robert and losing him completely - which is ultimately what happens, both exactly in the way aaron feared, but also not at all because rob’s motivation to cheat is, as we all know, entirely about aaron (or rather, about both rob’s feelings for aaron and rob’s horrible decision making/tendency towards lashing out impulsively when confronted with things he doesn’t know how to deal with like a normal human and fucking up his and other people’s lives in the process). aaron’s fears that rob would want someone else were unfounded but those fears also sort of led him to underestimate how much of a toll his getting sent to prison would have on robert and so, in the most perverse and unexpected way, his fears about what robert would do given rob’s behaviour up until that point, ended up being spot on.

all this is to make a point that the january argument played a massive role in robert and aaron getting married the first time round and also led them both down a road where they were distracted from what should have been the ultimate sign that things weren’t working and thus didn’t take the opportunity to fix it, rather let things get dangerously and disastrously out of control. i remember a lot of the meta around the time of the jan argument pointing out that things hadn’t been resolved and that they would be resolved at some point - i saw a lot of people talk about an immediate resolution. i think my instinct was that it would take them a little longer - maybe a month max, but that things would be worked out before the wedding. the fact that the wedding wasn’t legal was like this big red herring - it made us all believe that the only reason they’d have a second wedding would be to legalise things. but oh, oh no, no - little did we realise at that point that the whole first wedding was just another distraction (a very beautiful and romantic distraction, but a distraction nonetheless). the first wedding wasn’t a random break from the misery they’d had between that point and ssw, it was a symptom. once again, robert finding a way to push through their issues, to make it more about their love and the fact that they want to be together, and aaron following because that’s what he wanted too - neither of them wanted to deal head on with any of their shit.

uh, taking things right back to my original point of ‘how much of this will we actually see resolved when they get back together’ - i mean, it’s difficult to say? because on the one hand, it depends on what story the show wants to tell with them next and on the other, it depends whether they want to sort of just brush their issues under the carpet and pretend they never happened (worst case lmao). i think, though… i mean, i don’t know, i actually genuinely don’t want to speculate at all on what we’ll ultimately see because down that road leads madness and also an inevitability that we’ll all get it wrong, as we did before with both the jan argument and the purpose of the first wedding, for instance. i think, particularly because it is something i’m looking forward to, i also don’t want to put any expectations on it, really? i’d rather just watch it as open-mindedly as possible. which is also why i want to wait until after i watch it until i really write my meta around this break up, because then i can sort of shape my opinions about what we’ve been shown and where they’ve taken things. i don’t want to try and assume they’ll deal with x or they won’t deal with y or they’ll have them do this or whatever.

having said that!!! that doesn’t stop us from looking at what’s been done so far - the wedding, prison and the ons happened over six months ago now, so we’ve got enough distance from it to say that… look, rob and aaron had so much misery and so many problems from ssw onwards and they ended up going through a massive break up. so big-picture wise, it’s logical that all that misery was intentional. it wasn’t just fuelling the andy plot or whatever, it was there as a build up to ultimately splitting aaron and rob up and making it last a while (even if they hadn’t decided at that point to actually break them up - it’s chicken and egg, they would have known what they’d put them through up until that point and understood that this could realistically ultimately lead to a break up). the january argument wasn’t resolved because it couldn’t be, because that would be counter-productive to the eventual plan of separating them. the first wedding was rushed and not legal and the reason for it being held was literally LITERALLY bc aaron was afraid rob would cheat - because again, that wedding wasn’t going to be the one that lasted. there had to be problems there.

basically - yes we absolutely put more thought into this shit than the show does but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the thought we put into it is… wrong? or will lead to us not feeling satisfied? because the way that things have gone wrong with robron so far have led to a break up. it feels like a safe assumption that they’re not going to go through a massive break up again after they get back together at the beginning of 2018, so on some level somewhere, it seems like a safe assumption that we’re not going to have rob kissing his ex to get money, or aaron doing a miserable 6 week prison stint, or robert knocking someone up etc. basically, i guess what i’m saying is… the pain wasn’t for nothing? it was there to play a function in the story and while i doubt that aaron and rob are gonna get back together and the show is gonna be like ‘ok well their problems are fixed now so that’s nice’, they’re going to be writing with a different eventual goal to the one they’ve had this year?

this wasn’t even ur original question i just took this to an entirely different place lmao. sorry. i guess what i’m trying to say is i’m not particularly concerned about getting a final resolution on rob and aaron’s issues, but the writing for them will change as the direction of their story changes, so. the reason i’m waiting is more because i’m waiting for that direction to stop being “keep them apart” and start being “get them back on track and prove they can be together”. which is sort of… the next step? i guess? regardless of whether or not they have problems (and it’s a soap so u know they will), the story needs to shift from a break up to a big second wedding - the one that you assume will last more than a month (because they’re not stupid - they know there’s only so much you can wring out of a thing and they’re already pushing it). so… yeah. that’s what i mean when i talk about this particular storyline wrapping up.

i could just keep that last paragraph and delete the rest and you would still have your answer but im obviously not going to do that.

#answering anons #....im on my mobile so this isn’t going under a cut im so sorry #i’ll fix it later #long post #meta #god damn @ myself pls shut up for once

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midotakaism · 7 years

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okay, it took me a while to write everything down, but here are my thoughts and reactions to the last 19 days chapter!! (an alternative title for this could be 'how to make people regret asking about your thoughts')

anyway, it's been pretty hard for me to put some order to my thoughts, because im just!!!!!!! so in love with this chapter!!!!!!!! it’s been a whole day and im still such a mess, there are noises coming out of my mouth but they’re not human, and i can’t find the right words to express how i feel because this update wAS TOO MUCH FOR MY POOR HEART

i think this might be my favorite tianshan chapter, tho it’s a very close tie with chapter 185, and im afraid i've been kinda all over the place, but hopefully it makes sense!! (putting this under a cut because it's really long and there are some pictures)

i already mentioned this here, but let me just say it again because guan shan looks SO GOOD and so comfortable in that tank top, i really love how the black&white combination creates such a nice contrast with his red hair!! and not to look too much into things, but i like how old xian makes sure to give him a spot of yellow/orange in his outfit most of the time (either his shirt, or his bag, or his bracelet [rip, you will always be missed], or in this case his underwear). also for some reason i really like guan shan’s arms?? so this is probably my favourite outfit for him!!

this is me reading too much into stuff as usual, but it’s interesting to me how in these past few chapters guan shan has no problem holding he tian’s gaze when they’re having a sort of confrontation, but the second he says things like ‘go away’ or ‘don’t look for me in the future’, suddenly he can’t look at he tian anymore, as if he wouldn’t be able to tell he tian those things if he looked at him, or as if he is afraid that he tian will realise he is lying and that he actually doesn’t mind having he tian around

IS HE TIAN TRYING TO PUT HIS HAND ON GUAN SHAN’S HEAD OR PINCH HIS HAIR (or something like that) EITHER WAY IM SHOOK (i get overwhelmed by the smallest things, yes)

i have to be honest, im a bit sad we didn’t get to see the family dinner, mostly because i think it would have been a great opportunity to learn more about the characters while also having the chance to add some comedy stuff in the middle of it (plus, i really wanted to see he tian and guan shan’s mom interact), but i really can’t complain about how things turned out because this chapter is just so perfect and beautiful AND THE TWO OF THEM PLAYING BASKETBALL TOGETHER IS LIKE A DREAM COME TRUE SO THANK YOU OLD XIAN

it makes me laugh how he tian is so eager to go play basketball with guan shan that he was about to drag guan shan to the court without having a ball and with guan shan wearing flip flops THAT’S SO ADORABLE AND HE TIAN LOOKED SO HAPPY BOY STOP MAKING ME CRY PLS

also i love how guan shan didn’t want to play at first, but when he decided to do it he took that very seriously, so much so that he clearly must have went back inside to change into sneakers and probably retrieve the damn ball, and then rolled up his pants so they wouldn’t get in the way

IM PRETTY SURE IT WASN’T NECESSARY FOR HE TIAN TO BE SHIRTLESS TO PLAY BASKETBALL THO @ old xian pls give us a break, we just had guan shan being shirtless for three chapter, this can’t be good for our health (jk i love it, even if it’s terribly distracting)

i forgot to mention this, but i LOVE that in this chapter we're starting to see how well he tian is slowly coming to know guan shan, at least on some aspects: back in chapter 155 guan shan told him that he was going to contemplate the idea of doing as he tian said only if he tian rolled down that small slope, and it looks like he tian remembered it and found the right thing to say to make guan shan actually consider to play basketball with him

on that point, it's pretty obvious that in the end he tian offered to do whatever guan shan wanted if guan shan won because he was confident in his own ability to win, and with good reason since it seems like they played more than one round and he tian won them all, but still, i wonder what guan shan would have asked if he had managed to defeat he tian, especially since im sure that in the end he wouldn't have asked he tian to stay away from him (see the second point!!), but probably something a bit more….on the line of rolling down a small slope, apparently!!

i can't believe he tian actually looked guan shan in the eyes and said 'this exaggerated expression isn't bad', jesus christ, like not to be that person but he tian is definitely into dirty talks and describing to his partner how good they look while he fucks them IM SORRY BUT IM JUST STATING FACTS HERE

my reaction upon seeing this panel......

.....literally was to say OH MY GOD out loud and walk away from my computer for a while before coming back and being like SON PUT THAT TONGUE BACK WHERE IT CAME FROM OR SO HELP ME i know you want to taste him so badly BUT PLS CONTAIN YOURSELF

again, not to be that person but he tian has an oral fixation #confirmed

HE TIAN CALLED GUAN SHAN 'LITTLE MO' AND IT EMOTIONALLY DEVASTATED ME i don't think i will ever get over this, it's just so playful and affectionate aND THIS BOY IS JUST SO IN LOVE I CANNOT DEAL (it also sounds like he tian is acknowledging that guan shan is shorter than him and this messes me up)

it's interesting tho that he tian is still not calling guan shan by his name, we are closer to it compared to 'don't close mountain', but he is still using a nickname, so i can't help but wonder when he will say guan shan's name (he did ask 'your name is mo guan shan?' when he first learned it, but you know, it's kinda different than using it in a normal situation)

LISTEN

THEIR FUCKING SIZE DIFFERENCE IM SCREAMING like, i wish i was exaggerating when i say this, but no, i literally buried my face into a pillow and screamed for a while when i first saw this, because i take my size differences very seriously, and tianshan is not particularly prominent, but it's perfect in all the right places, like in the way he tian is slightly taller than guan shan and has broader chest and shoulders, but a smaller waist AND I KNOW IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE BUT THIS MAKES ME EMOTIONAL

i mentioned chapter 155 before, and thinking about it again, the panel where they fall down in this last update reminds me a lot of the one where he tian grabbed guan shan and they rolled down that small slope together back then, except that this time he tian is keeping guan shan close and not letting him go, and it probably wasn't meant to be a parallel, but looking at these two moments you can actually see how much has changed between them in such a short time, and it really leaves me in awe

[takes a deep breath] i know i reached the point where im supposed to talk about the last panel, but like………..HOW!!!!!!! because real talk, i look at that panel and i lose any ability i've ever had to do words, i just IM SPEECHLESS THAT PANEL IS SO BEAUTIFUL I WANT TO HANG IT IN A MUSEUM THAT'S WHERE IT BELONGS!!!!!!!! seriously, i am so in love with it, i love their position, i love the way he tian is burying his face into guan shan's shoulder/chest, i love guan shan's expression, i love how their hands are placed, i love he tian's balled fists as if he's trying to keep himself from touching guan shan, from hugging him, i love how he tian is asking to stay like that just for a moment, I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT IT!!!!!!!

i actually wish it didn't mess me up so badly, because there are so many things to talk about, but i can't put down the right words. there's such an incredible softness and vulnerability in he tian in those last few panels that ends up permeating the entire chapter, and it's so touching and heartbreaking at the same time to see he tian asking for that moment of closeness, of comfort, to realize just how much he wants to close that gap that divides them and how deeply he feels for guan shan. i also find beautiful and very significant that guan shan allows him to have that, because to me it just confirms that he is slowly figuring out that he tian is sincere in his intentions, that he doesn't have an ulterior motive, maybe even that he tian has feelings for him, and the way he reacts to this side of he tian, to these emotions, is very different from the way he normally does, which just shows how he is slowly starting to fall for he tian too

(i wasn't sure about adding these last two things, but oh well, in for a penny.......)

this is just a personal feeling i had, but in the light of this update i went back to reread the past three chapters and……..there's been a sort of…….desperation in he tian's actions throughout these chapters, like……showing up at guan shan's house uninvited, giving him the earring, asking guan shan on a date (more or less), lingering a bit more by playing basketball with him, burying his face into guan shan's shoulder and staying close to him.........and i mean, he is in love with guan shan and wants to be with him, but-- idk how to explain it, it feels like he tian has been trying to buy himself as much time as he can, committing guan shan to his memory and giving guan shan something to remember him by……..and before someone says anything, no, im NOT saying that something terrible is going to happen and that they're going to be separated, i just find it interesting that all this happened after jian yi was kidnapped and he tian saw how devastated zheng xi was. again, im not saying he tian is going to leave, or that he wouldn't normally do those sort of things with guan shan, because he would, but maybe what happened to jian yi made him look at guan shan and think something like 'what if he disappeared? what if i left now taking for granted i will see him tomorrow and ended up not seeing him ever again? would i remember him ten years from now? would he remember me?', and he just needs a moment to reassure himself that guan shan is warm and solid and real and that he's not going anywhere

listen i suck at predicting what old xian will do next, i just accepted the idea that i will always be wrong (tho that doesn't stop me from theorizing), but i would honestly pay old xian to continue this moment and not to drop it like they usually do, but even more i would pay FOR IT TO BE A PARALLEL TO ZHENG XI AND JIAN YI IN CHAPTER 164 with he tian asking guan shan if he really finds him disgusting because i need some sort of talk between them and that would be amazing (just give me a different ending and no assault pls;;;;;;;;)

ANYWAY HE TIAN IS IN LOVE WITH GUAN SHAN OKAY BYE

#19 days #tianshan #he tian #mo guan shan #listen #i don't even know what to say anymore #i just apologise for myself #i honesty don't know why am i Iike this #and the funny thing is that i probably forgot something #okay im going to shut up now #(also sorry for any mistake i made i haven't reread this and i feel Ike it's really bad)

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