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asimpleram · 2 years

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Hello!! Hi!!! Just gonna uh. Pop in and ask if you’ve got any dgs thoughts. Maybe susato in particular because my brain is incapable of not thinking about how capcom did her a wee bit dirty etc etc but that’s most likely me being snippy 💀

Hopefully this doesn’t seem weird out of the blue and all but I’d love to hear your thoughts!!!

OK I HAVE THOUGHTS ON BOTH HOLD ON. BUT ITS GONNA BE TOO LONG TO TALK ABOUT BOTH SO I JUST GOT RID OF MY GENERAL DGS THOUGHTS

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Now you asked for my thoughts on Susato:

Susato is probably one of my favorite characters in the whole game. She’s so unique to most assistants (most games try to have the quirky upbeat assistant which often gets the “Maya clone” label, and even if I think that’s dumb and not the characters fault but the writing team and Capcoms fault for its mysoginistic writing choices, and also ‘Maya clone” is a dumb thing cause they are different), but she’s far more mature (we will get into that one..) but still has her various quirks, her very fun moments and she’s really fucking cool.

She’s great! She has so many cool little hobbies, such as martial arts and how she loves the Sherlock Holmes stories and is a little fan girl, how she genuinely has a big interest in law, and is really smart and just such a pleasant character with all her fun details. How she dresses up as a boy to save a friend and how loyal she is. How she has done stuff like tamper with a crime scene and evidence despite being so well versed in law. Augh. Her interactions with others are so fun; she should throw more ppl it’s funny.

Okay now that I’ve gushed about her. I feel like she is done dirty in the game. In terms of things that she goes through vs how much time she gets to spend on it vs other characters? Like her father left for england when she was born and had to shuffle back into her life 6 years later, her brother died and her literal idol FAKED HIS DEATH?? And she grieved him and he wasn’t dead her blorbo from the books just lost his still alive injured body in Hong Kong. Her father fakes an illness making her spend a month an a half on a boat for him not to be sick. That same brother was gonna take her to England on his assassination mission. What was she gonna do when he killed a man?? Idk!! She goes through it!!

And yet. And yet it’s like. Ah yes Susato our forgiving queen who doesn’t have any harsh angry feeling to anyone. Wow! So kind! Like I feel like she deserves to be angrier and meaner cause she gets a lot of things done to her that the male characters get to have moments about? Fucking absent parents is an ace attorney staple and it’s just kinda like. Well let’s brush it off now and let her kinda hang out while we talk to someone else! And I think there’s just some issues with the writing in general I did see a post that I will never find again. That made a good point how some of the later reveals would have been better if it were not Ryunouske who was the one to be confronting ppl or finding/revealing certain bits of info but do to Main Characterisms. And it might have hit harder if it were Susato or even Asogi due to familial ties in the story. I wish I could find the post they lay it out better

And I’m not gonna pretend this is Just a Susato problem cause alot of female characters tend to get the short end of the stick in ace attorney games. Think of the trilogy! Maya and Edgeworth go through very similar traumas and yet the writing let’s Edgeworth go through it while Maya doesn’t get the same treatment. She’s the assistant she doesn’t have time to grieve her absent now dead mom. She’s making quips and eating burgerramen!! Same happens with Susato.

But overall I Love Susato. I have a few post canon AUs where she finally gets to have her issues be front and center. They aren’t fleshed out they are just a few drawings ideas I have that work and my dumb wrist issues have been preventing. I complain a lot but I do love her DEARLY… best assistant. Best Dgs character. Underrated by everyone

And if you have other thoughts please tell me id love to hear them. These are just my thoughts but if you have some thoughts I didn’t notice. Please go ahead!! Thank you for asking :D

#I was gonna do both thoughts on Dgs and Susato but it got TOO LONG…#sorry I realize how much I complain about work. it’s just my job is taxing

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doctorbunny · 3 years

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MILGRAM theory time: Haruka!

This isn't going to go super in depth (famous last words) but there's a few heavily debated parts of Haruka's MV I want to share my findings/thoughts on because I think this is my new special interest and during my quest to get best boy's song to 1 million views I have been looking over his first MV with a fine tooth comb so to speak.

Disclaimer: As the Jackalope said in the "This is the MILGRAM" trailer, we don't necessarily know everyone's crime from just the first video, its possible that a lot of things will be re-contextualized in the second MV, however I am not psychic or bilingual and thus will only be working with content released before August 20th 2021 and translated into English (which could cause some language/cultural details to be lost on me as translation is not a 1 to 1 process).

TW for discussions of ableism, child abuse, murder and animal death. Also this is really long so sorry to all the people that follow me for non-MILGRAM stuff

Firstly, I want to start on the topic of Haruka as a person. He is disabled. He does not have 'the mind of a child' (although he is 17, making him legally a minor in both North America and Japan). He is not just 'child-like'. And he is not mentally ill (well he might be, in the sense that many disabilities like Haruka's have strong comorbidities [where a person has two or more conditions but neither directly causes the other] with anxiety, depression and PTSD, but usually when I see people talk about him 'struggling with mental illness' they go on to refer to aspects of his disability). Sometimes on tumblr, people like myself, will see canonical traits written into a character and identify them as being traits associated with our disabilities/mental illness and headcanon them as such. Sometimes this even involves saying things like "It's basically canon!" Although we understand that these characters were probably not the result of a writer intending to write a disabled person. When I say that Haruka is being written as a person with a neurodevelopmental disability, I mean the writer intended to write a disabled character and wrote them in a way that they wanted the audience to pick up on. As an autistic person (which is one of many neurodevelopmental disorders and also something I probably didn't have to specify because who else would be writing an essay about a series they got into a few days ago at 11 o'clock at night) I really like how Haruka has been written so far. There's definitely some parts of him that have been exaggerated so abled normies can pick up on his disability (namely how his MV 's main motif is really child-like drawings) but the writers also included a lot of smaller details I appreciate like how it is noted he avoids eye contact when talking to other people and is depicted as nervously pulling at his sleeves in official artwork, or how he says he finds his prison uniform (which has tight straps) 'relaxing' and when he gets nervous/tense, he will dig his fingernails into the palm of his hands. (These last two potential being examples of 'self stimulation' [aka stimming] where a person seeks out specific sensory stimuli in order to help regulate their nervous system/emotions, in this case the tight uniform creates a comforting, secure feeling [you may have heard about some people preferring to sleep under weighted blankets for this reason] and digging nails into his palms sounds uncomfortable/painful but is done in an attempt to deal with a greater sensory discomfort caused by the situation/environment) I also appreciate the depth he is written with, he struggles to communicate verbally but in his MV and interactions with other inmates is shown to have insecurities, opinions and a consistent thought process (this is all basic character stuff but unfortunately not always present in disabled characters)

Also I want to add that (in terms of what we've been shown so far) Haruka did not kill anyone because of his disability/mental illness. Disabled people are not inherently more innocent than abled people. But there is no disability/mental illness where a symptom is that you kill people and real people have to live with the stigma when you speak carelessly and suggest things like "Haruka is the kind of mentally ill person who kills people as a cry for help" 🧂 (or at the very least real people have to read BS like that and cringe). TL;DR Haruka is less child-like and more onion-like (as in, he has layers) 🧅🧅🧅

Now is the actual theory stuff, oops:

Every prisoner in MILGRAM is supposed to have committed murder in some way, obviously considering Yuno just had an abortion (which i personally do not consider an act of murder) whilst Mu literally stabbed someone to death, this definition is stretched a bit. But it is not agreed upon yet who Haruka killed/how many people he killed or why he killed.

In his MV he is shown to have chased after his dog into a forest, seen something off-screen, then beaten something into a messy pulp with a rock. Some people think the dog is a red herring and that Haruka actually killed his mother/the girl from the fireworks show/his brother. I do not agree.

First: I believe Haruka when he says he doesn't have a brother. The MV literally starts by Haruka looking in the mirror and then switching between the him now

and a really similar looking younger child who just so happened to be a key feature of his memories (I don't have the vocabulary to explain it but its like cinematic parallels that establish this is the same person at different points of their life)

Its not impossible that this is Haruka's secret younger brother, but i think its unlikely. I saw someone saying they had to be different people because Haruka looks less happy than the child but like, most 17 year olds are less visibly happy than when they were 7 (or however old the child is meant to be). Life happens.

So when Haruka is shown pushing the child around and eventually strangling him, this isn't meant to be literal (homicide or suicide), but a representation of how conflicted Haruka feels about his younger self, who may have committed the murder (if you've ever been kept awake cringing at memories of something you said in the past and wishing you could go slap some sense into your former self, this is like that but 10 times more self loathing). The lyric "I am always repeating yesterday," implies he might think about this specific past event a lot.

Moving on, its pretty well accepted that Haruka's parents were abusive in some way and Haruka internalised a lot of it: he constantly apologises, he says in his interrogation questions that his one wish come true is that "[he] want[s] to be loved" and describes in his MV how when he couldn't find the words he was looking for ("you're unfair") one of his parents "would get angry at me and say “You’re hopeless.”". He seems to know its unfair but also still says he 'loves' his family, possibly mistakenly believing it is his fault, but also showing an awareness of his situation (and how his parents might behave).

Now, the MV is stylised in a way that makes certain details unclear, but there is one clear detail showing that Haruka's dog was killed

This is the first close up of Haruka and the dog. Haruka's mother is just out of frame supervising, but they look pretty happy. Notice how the puppy has a silvery chain for a collar. Somehow, this dog gets out of the house but only Haruka is shown chasing after it (whether his mother was searching elsewhere or didn't bother following her disabled son into the forest is unclear). Either way, young Haruka is now in the forest, unsupervised.

By the time he finds the dog, there is already blood, suggesting it was initally attacked by something else.

is this a sigh of relief from a boy whose finally found his beloved pet or a jealous weakling glad that nature took its course and he is finally free of that meddling mutt stealing all his mummy's attention? /j

I think this shock at the discovery that 'there is blood on his hands' could imply that rather than literally getting the blood from his dog, Haruka has seen his already injured dog and realises that if the dog got out because of him (he is previously shown to be aware his parents seem to blame him for everything) then he is the reason his dog is injured/dying and will be blamed for it. (this scene plays over the lyrics "It’s fine, though it’s really not It’s really fine, though I don’t really think so When I tried to understand it, You’ll make that disappointed face again" suggesting he is trying to avoid making his parents disappointed and letting the family pet escape into danger is something that could make them very disappointed)

now we get into rock murder (this is present-day Haruka implying that this is either: not how the scene really played out; the writers really wanting the audience to know that this was Haruka's doing and not someone else's; or this turns into a separate incident that happened much later [although note that the red sky and blue moon is the same as when young Haruka first appears at the start])

b the corpse is beyond mangled now, but its clearly the dog because the silver chain collar is still there, to the right of the body. (circled in red for your convenience :3)

My hypothesis is: Haruka didn't set out to kill his dog, but upon finding it injured (we don't know the severity aside from bleeding and also it not being able to run away from Haruka kneeling down above it w/ a big rock so it could range from treatable with a lot of vet help to already on death's door, TBH I don't think Haruka would know the difference) He knew he'd be blamed for this; made into a villain who let the poor puppy come to harm. He panicked and killed the dog out of some idea that it would make him the victim here (since he'd be found crying over a dog corpse, which might make a parent go comfort him rather than getting angry about what could've happened to the dog). This is over the lyrics: "I cried, I screamed I wanted to be a pitied and loved weakling I was in denial, I was in denial I just had to make sure I’ve become a victim, I’ve become a victim" (there's another theory that he was also jealous of the dog, which could work here too, since this is not some calculated plot; rather its a rash decision) This ties in with his Japanese song title (translated as Weakness) which is a play on a phrase sort of like "The strong eat, the weak do not" to become "The weak are eaten by society" or "The weak eat each other to survive" [once again I am reminding everyone this is based on second hand information from the youtube comments section (from users mitchki and Alphaistic) because I do not speak Japanese] This second meaning (The weak eat each other to survive) makes sense under the reading that Haruka killed his dog in order to 'survive' making his parents disappointed for the dog escaping.

Miscellaneous points:

We don't know where Haruka's necklace came from yet, it must be a gift since the most expensive thing he's ever bought was cotton candy. The younger child in the video isn't wearing it and neither is his mother or the girl in the purple dress.

Haruka's home seems quite big, at the start we can see a large flower garden outside the window and there's a forest in walking distance. This might suggest his family is quite wealthy

Haruka probably did go to school at some point as homeschooling is not a legally accepted as an alternative to public schools in Japan. (However it is estimated that up to 5000 families homeschool, this is uncommon) A lot (about 62%) of Japanese schools apparently have a 'special needs' classes and there are about 505 schools focused on educating intellectually disabled students (although I do not know which sort Haruka would've needed as whilst intellectual and development disabilities can be comorbid they aren't the same). Now, if children aged 7-14 don't go to school, their parents receive a fine, but its possible that if Haruka's parents are wealthy, they just paid it to avoid sending him to school. (This might imply they wanted to hide him or were generally ashamed of him in some way) However high school education (for students over 14) is not legally required and its likely that even if Haruka went to elementary/middle school, he hasn't been around people his own age in at least 3 years. As he seems quite lonely and glad that the other prisoners give him attention.

I don't think Haruka's parents are divorced and if they are, its not his father who left. Haruka mentions in the 30 questions that he thinks he disappointed his father. But still includes him as part of his family ("My father and mother and me"). A theory I've seen is that his father was disappointed by his son being disabled and left. but developmental disabilities (especially in non verbal and semi verbal children like Haruka) can be diagnosed before the age of 3, so I feel it is unlikely that Haruka would bring up his father if he left that early in Haruka's life

All MILGRAM prisoners have covered one of DECO*27's older vocaloid songs (DECO*27 is a well known producer who composes the music for MILGRAM) Haruka covered 'Two Breaths Walking' (https://youtu.be/puXLfVWrz2Q) which is about a boy's first relationship and how his mother's jealousy set him up for failure as the relationship becomes toxic (specifically it has some very funny out of context lines like "Whose breasts are you sucking on now?") so yeah, mommy issues: the song (Also: some people say in the song, the boy kills the girl at the end, but this isn't literal, TBW is the first of a trilogy of songs about the same relationship, it is followed by Android girl then Two Breaths Walking: Reloaded and the story resolves with the couple reuniting as adults and getting in the relationship again, although its not necessarily as abusive as before, its still implied to be codependant ending on the line 'We should live like oxygen tanks, sucking breathe from the words each of us exhale, until our last breathe')

In all seriousness, the scene where younger Haruka is walking through the city with his mother but it keeps repeating until older Haruka pulls the younger one away might indicate an attempt to focus the happier memories of his parents (since this is also over the lyrics "Why is it breaking? Tell me why? Please don’t change If I tried and couldn’t say it, You would get angry at me and say “You’re hopeless.”" which depict a worse scene) I think both his parents are still physically present but have become far more emotionally distant, not giving him as much attention, which exacerbates his loneliness from not having any friends his own age to talk to

And if one of his parents did leave? I think its likely his mother since she is shown disappearing out of his reach after the dog-incident (inferring she got angry/disappointed in Haruka anyway) This could also be where he got his necklace from: Its something his mother used to wear (although this is 100% a guess) and that's why its shown to be important to him

This one is just me, but i didn't realise until a rewatch that when Haruka is watching the younger him and the girl running together, the background has fireworks. Haruka mentions fireworks being a key memory to him so I wonder if this was one of the first/last times he got to make a friend...

On three separate occasions in the interrogation, Haruka mentions not liking animals. Despite this, he is depicted as sleeping with a rabbit plush and on his birthday art (I'd include that too but tumblr only allows 10 pictures per post, so here's a link) he is standing next to a giant blueberry and strawberry cake with two bunny themed biscuits at the side. Through my experiences of seeing Japanese fandom art on pixiv, sometimes rabbits are used to insinuate a character is cute and timid in fanart.

Meaningless details: Haruka sleeps with his necklace on; he sleeps on a bed and not a futon; at first I thought he woke up holding his plush's hand but his hand is merely next to the toy; and considering the state of the pillow and blanket, I wonder if he moves a lot in his sleep or if the is just because in this case he seems to be waking up from a nightmare about the dog incident...

Final note: I've spent so many hours writing this I don't remember if i was building up to any big finale or not but I hope you enjoyed reading this! Feel free to add on in the comments/reblogs.

#haruka sakurai #milgram #milgram theory #001 #text post #essay #long post

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youstupidplonk · 3 years

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Gene Hunt being a COMPLETE Hypocrite in Ashes to Ashes Series Three

I’d like to preface this by saying I really enjoy series three, I love the shift in tone to the darker, more supernatural side and I love the growth we see everyone go through. HOWEVER the more I think about Gene’s actions (and specifically his interactions with Alex) the more I get annoyed at the hypocrisy of it all. Spoilers under the cut. I’d also like to apologise if this is confusing / hard to read / just doesn’t make sense. It sounded good in my head but when it came to writing it down I really struggled.

So the main thing that Gene is hypocritical about is calling Alex out for not trusting him in regards to what happened to Sam Tyler. The only reason he has any reason to think she doesn’t trust him is the fact that she’s looking through old files, and he gets word of that through Keats. Keats is also the one who pushes Alex to find out more, the one who pushes Alex away from Gene. This can be paralleled with Gene and Jenette in the series two finale,which I’ll come back to.

There are several things to unpack here. Number One, Gene knows that Alex knew Sam in some capacity before he met her. They have a conversation about it in the first episode.

Gene: Sam?

Alex: Tyler. I knew him.

Gene: Poor sod, that explains a lot.

Alex also has a conversation with Ray about Sam in the first episode, along with mentioning him to Jackie. So it’s known to the other characters that she and Sam knew each other. Gene also draws attention to the similarities between the two, most notably in the fight he has with Alex in 2x08.

Gene: First Sam Tyler and now you. Why do I always attract the liars and the weirdos?

This is followed by him threatening to kill her and ultimately him shooting her. Let’s remember the first interaction they have after Alex’s shooting is him slapping her across the face. It wouldn’t be a massive stretch to think that he could have done something to Sam, even though Alex’s gut instinct is that Gene is innocent.

The second part of this is that Keats is the one who reports to Gene that Alex has been talking to Manchester and Gene believes him, however whenever Keats gives Alex information Gene tells her to ignore it. That Keats is a lying tosser, or words to that effect. Essentially Keats can only be trusted when it suits Gene to trust him.

Thirdly, the parallel between Gene and Jenette and Keats and Alex can’t be ignored. Both Jenette and Keats come into CID with the intention of driving a wedge between Alex and Gene, however Jenette is much more successful than Keats, even though she and Gene spend less than twenty four hours together and Keats is trying over the course of several months. This gives rise to an implication that Gene almost doesn’t want to trust Alex which is cemented after he hears the tape. Although being upset about the tape isn't unjustified, shooting her is. Even threatening to shoot her when every other officer (including Ray who doesn’t even like Alex that much) is ready to defend her.

In addition to this Alex gives Gene countless opportunities to explain himself in series three and despite his reluctance or just downright refusal to talk about what happened. Ray and Chris’s unease around the situation and the accusations from Bevan in 3x05.

Bevan: The only difference is you got away with it [murder]

Alex REFUSES to give up on him or stop trusting him. Even in the series three finale, when she talks to Keats before leaving for Farringfield Green she still trusts him and doesn’t believe he could be a murderer. The only time that faith wavers is between her finding the body and finding the warrant card. Even during that time she admits how much she believed in him. We also see her consistently stating her belief in Gene’s innocence, throughout the series (right up until the series finale), in contrast Gene joins Jenette in down talking Alex almost as soon as she arrives in his office.

Jenette: Does that DI of yours notice those eyes?

Gene: She’s a little bit too in love with herself.

I could maybe forgive this if it was said in the heat of the moment after hearing Alex’s tape, but it isn’t. It’s just casually dropped into conversation when he has no reason to think badly of Alex (other than her obsession with Summer, which she later tries to explain to him). The only possible explanation (which isn’t canon confirmed but is popular in fanon) is that Gene and Alex sleep together at some point between 2x07 and 2x08 and because Gene is emotionally repressed this is his attempt to convince himself he doesn’t care. Even if this is true it would only reinforce the trust Alex puts in Gene throughout 2x08, only to have it thrown back in her face. Gene seems to do a complete 180 between episodes 7 & 8 in terms of how he feels about Alex. She is the only member of the “inner circle” of CID whose loyalty isn’t tested by Gene but by the next episode he seems to have no respect for her.

Not only that but Gene gives her ONE chance to explain herself before he decides she doesn’t deserve his time or a place on his team. Even though Alex doesn’t dodge his question and tells him the truth, he still reacts with anger. It could be argued that he is angry about everything that has happened over series two (Mac and Chris) and the idea of Alex being bent is the final straw, but in the aftermath as mentioned, Ray comes to her defence. Ray, one of the most misogynistic of the team and arguably the most loyal to Gene defends Alex. If Ray and Chris mean as much to Gene as he makes out they do, it seems wrong that he wouldn’t take Ray’s opinion into account. It is also mentioned earlier in the episode that Alex isn’t well, both in 2008 and in 1983. She has just spouted lots of nonsense in Gene’s office, but he doesn’t consider that it could be down to ill health, he gives her one chance and that’s it, not even relenting when she cracks the case. This makes Alex’s patience with him in series three all the more jarring.

The main difference between the two I think comes down to their faith in each other. Alex knows there is every chance Gene won’t understand the truth, but she still trusts him. It could be argued that Gene couldn’t tell Alex the truth in series three because he doesn’t remember and that he gained his memories gradually until they arrive on the hill. However the other characters (mainly Ray and Chris) know that Gene wasn’t involved in Sam’s death. Ray even mentions that Sam went against Gene’s advice and that’s how he met the accident. But I believe he must have remembered enough to know that he didn’t kill Sam, or at least if he didn’t remember use the evidence provided by those around him and also what he knew about himself, the only reason I can think of for not using the latter is that Alex’s shooting made him doubt whether it was the kind of thing he was capable of doing (even though Alex’s shooting was an accident), but Chris and Ray would both confirm he didn’t kill Sam.

Alex doesn’t want Gene’s entire life story, the inner workings of his mind (ok that might be a lie), but after witnessing him burn all of the evidence she collected from Manchester and having him dismiss her concerns and curiosity, all she asks for is the confirmation he isn’t a murderer, which given the fact he nearly killed her isn’t completely unreasonable. She doesn’t want him to talk about the emotional intimacies of his relationship with Sam, all she wants to know is that he didn’t kill him. Gene doesn’t give her any kind of answer, but she still trusts him.

I’m not sure if this makes sense (it sounded good in my head), or if I’ve covered everything I wanted to but these are my thoughts on Gene and Alex in Series two and three and why Gene’s hypocrisy bothers me.

I could probably write a whole separate analysis on Gene and Alex through the course of the show, if that is something people would be interested in, but that’s another can of worms for another day.

#ashes to ashes #a2a #alex drake #gene hunt #character analysis #Keeley Hawes #Philip Glenister #this is so long #I'm so sorry #also I rewatched the 2x08 fight for this #which is arguably my least favourite scene in the whole show #apart from Alex being mean to shaz #galex #alex drake x gene hunt

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not-wholly-unheroic · 3 years

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On the Origins of Hook: The Complicated and Often Contradictory Backstory of a Villain

The story of Peter Pan has been told and retold in writing, on the stage, and on the big screen countless times, yet in the original storyline, we are thrust into a world with a pre-established (and presumably long-standing) relationship between its hero and villain with little information regarding their pasts. So far as the audience is concerned, Peter and Hook have always been a part of the Neverland...yet as evidenced by the many retellings that attempt to answer the question of these characters’ origins, clearly, people want to know more. Barrie, however, leaves a great deal to the imagination and while he tackles a bit of Peter’s past in The Little White Bird, there is significantly less information about Hook in his writings, and much of it is up for debate, as Barrie arguably contradicts himself.

In terms of canon (which for the purposes of this article I am limiting to Barrie’s final published version of the novel), much of what we know about Hook can only be inferred from a few brief passages. In the initial introduction of the pirates, Barrie gives us the following description of Hook:

In the midst of them, the blackest and largest in that dark setting, reclined James Hook, or as he wrote himself, Jas. Hook, of whom it is said he was the only man that the Sea-Cook feared. He lay at his ease in a rough chariot drawn and propelled by his men, and instead of a right hand he had the iron hook with which ever and anon he encouraged them to increase their pace. As dogs this terrible man treated and addressed them, and as dogs they obeyed him. In person he was cadaverous and blackavized, and his hair was dressed in long curls, which at a little distance looked like black candles, and gave a singularly threatening expression to his handsome countenance. His eyes were of the blue of the forget-me-not, and of a profound melancholy, save when he was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red spots appeared in them and lit them up horribly. In manner, something of the grand seigneur still clung to him, so that he even ripped you up with an air, and I have been told that he was a raconteur [storyteller] of repute. He was never more sinister than when he was most polite, which is probably the truest test of breeding; and the elegance of his diction, even when he was swearing, no less than the distinction of his demeanour, showed him one of a different cast from his crew. A man of indomitable courage, it was said that the only thing he shied at was the sight of his own blood, which was thick and of an unusual colour. In dress he somewhat aped the attire associated with the name of Charles II, having heard it said in some earlier period of his career that he bore a strange resemblance to the ill-fated Stuarts; and in his mouth he had a holder of his own contrivance which enabled him to smoke two cigars at once. But undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron claw.

From this, we may be able to draw a few conclusions about who Hook was before he came to the island. (1) He was likely a sailor, if not a pirate, BEFORE he met Peter, given that he had previous interactions with “The Sea Cook”--that is, Long John Silver. (2) He was alive and most likely an adult by the mid 1700s, as in Treasure Island, Billy Bones--a former crewmate of Silver’s--has the date 1745 in his log and the dates 1750 and 1754 on his treasure maps. (3) Hook’s hairstyle and fashion is similar to that of Charles II, whose reign ended with his death in 1685.

We are also informed by John that Hook was supposed to have been Blackbeard’s bosun. Blackbeard was born somewhere around 1680 and may have been a privateer earlier in his career at sea, but he didn’t actually take up piracy until 1716 and had only a very brief reign of terror before he was killed off the coast of North Carolina in 1718. Assuming Hook was meant to be Blackbeard’s bosun after he went pirate, this gives us a pretty narrow window of time during which Hook might have interacted with him. And, if we take the comment about the Sea Cook seriously, then Hook must have been pretty young at the time he worked for Blackbeard, given that there is a twenty-seven year gap between Blackbeard’s death and the earliest date Billy Bones offers in connection with Silver.

Hook also uses words and phrases such as, “Pan, who and what art thou?” which would seem to indicate that he is from a time period centuries before the Darlings come to visit. (“Thee” and “thou” had pretty much completely fallen out of common use in English by the late 1700s/early 1800s.)

So far, so good. The dates might make it a bit of a stretch, but we can pretty comfortably say that prior to Neverland, Hook was a sailor--and probably a pirate--during the 1700s, was likely born in the late 1600s, and was possibly a related to Charles II, who had many illegitimate children. This possibility fits nicely with Barrie’s statement that, “Hook was not his true name. To reveal who he really was would even at this date set the country in a blaze.”

We don’t know much about his parentage, however, except that Hook’s voice cracks when he is speaking to Smee about mothers regarding the neverbird’s refusal to leave her eggs even after the nest falls into the water. Whether this is because he was close to his own mother and is lamenting her loss or he had a rather indifferent (or even cruel) mother and he is lamenting his own lack of a loving childhood is up for debate, though the official sequel, Peter Pan in Scarlet--written in 2006 by Geraldine McCaughrean--favors the second interpretation. (Again, however, for the purposes of this article, I am only considering Barrie’s published novel as canon.)

We also learn that Hook attended Eton, a rather prestigious school for boys between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. Assuming Hook completed his schooling there and was, therefore, at least eighteen by the time he joined up with Blackbeard, it would place his being born somewhere close to 1700. Assuming his interaction with Long John Silver was, at the earliest, probably around 1745, and that this interaction happened prior to his visiting the Neverland, it puts Hook (physically) at approximately age 45 by the time we meet him in the book, give or take a bit.

There are two potential problems with that timeline, however. (1) In Barrie’s original novel, only Peter stays young forever. The boys can technically grow up, and Peter “thins them out” when they do. (Decide for yourself whether that means banishment or something worse.) If this is the case, Hook shouldn’t still be alive or, even if the aging process is slowed down, at the very least, he should be an old man, given that the Darlings visit in the early 1900s...making him at least two hundred years old. (2) Near the end of the book, when Hook is trying to convince the boys to join his pirate crew and John asks innocently whether they would still be loyal subjects of the king, Hook responds with, “You would have to swear, ‘Down with King George!’” John (and likely the audience) assumes here that Hook is talking about King George V, who would have been the present king of England at the time the novel was published. If this is the case, how does Hook know who the king is? Has he been able to leave the island and find out this information? Or is Hook, perhaps, from a more modern era than we suspect? Cleverly, Barrie leaves this question open-ended, as Hook could just as easily have been referring to King George the First, who ruled England from 1714 until 1727.

As for personal hobbies, we know only that he loves flowers and plays the harpsichord--an instrument that was once quite popular but which had fallen out of favor by the 1800s, replaced by the piano.

The rest of the information we get from Barrie about Hook’s origins comes primarily from his “Hook at Eton” speech, delivered in 1927--many years after his original play (1904) and novel (1911). And here’s where things get interesting (read: contradictory). Because he wrote the speech so many years later, as a sort of afterthought, and because of the inconsistences with the novel, I personally reject this information as canon. Nevertheless, it is Barrie’s take on his own character and, therefore, is worth at least considering.

In this work, we are told that Hook not only attended Eton but also--at least briefly--went to Oxford. This in and of itself poses no major problems for the timeline suggested by the novel. What DOES pose a problem, however, is the fact that Barrie claims to have been in contact with Hook’s “Aunt Emily”--apparently his closest surviving relative--and has been in search of possible photographs of Hook during his time there. This would indicate that Hook MUST be from a much later, more modern era than the book suggests, as photography didn’t really come into fashion until the mid-1800s, and even if “Aunt Emily” is quite old (and she is likely a good fifteen to twenty years OLDER than Hook if we assume she is near in age to one of his parents) at the time of Barrie’s supposed meeting with her, she couldn’t have reasonably been expected to have been born before the early 1800s, placing Hook’s own birth nearer to the 1850s. While some of the information in the novel might be explained away to fit with this date (his choice of dress and hairstyle, for instance), he could not possibly have interacted with Blackbeard or Long John Silver. In fact, he could not have been a pirate--at least, not in the traditional sense--at all, as the Golden Age of Piracy (1650s--1730s) had long passed and the Age of Sail ended in the 1860s. Because of this inconsistency, some have argued that Barrie may have intended Hook to be a more modern man who essentially became trapped in a child’s fantasy land. He became a “pirate” only AFTER his interactions with Pan--that is, he took on the role of a villain because that is how Peter and the children imagined him--and that John’s assertions about his interactions with Blackbeard and Silver are merely rumors that the boy has heard.

Setting aside this apparent contradiction in the timeline, we DO learn some other interesting facts about Hook. For instance, Hook’s blood (which was said in the novel to be thick and strangely colored), is specified as having been yellow. This, along with his appearance having been described in the novel as “cadaverous” has lead some to conclude that Hook was likely rather sickly as a child. We also learn that Hook enjoyed the Lake poets and strawberry mess (a dessert), collected keys, performed well in sports while at Eton (though he did not like water sports as he rather surprisingly hated the feeling of water on his skin), and played the flute. We also learn that he was politically conservative and was probably never in a romantic relationship.

There are a few other bits of information about Barrie’s idea of Hook that can be found in the early manuscripts for the play, which feature “deleted scenes.” One such manuscript--the earliest, I believe--can be found here. (Though good luck with reading it without going cross-eyed because Barrie’s handwriting is BAD.) However, I think this post has gone on long enough, yet we are still left with many unanswered questions. But perhaps this is what Barrie intended all along. Perhaps, fittingly, we are ultimately left to fill in the blanks about this villain of the Neverland with our own imagination.

_____

Thanks to @katherinenotgreat for asking me to do a post on Hook’s origins. Thanks also to @concordia-cum-sinistro for your input. Feel free to add your own information regarding the original manuscript drafts, as I know you are more familiar with them than I am.

#peter pan #captain hook #captain james hook #james hook #jm barrie

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creacherkeeper · 4 years

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Welcome to the tOH fandom!! What do you think of ADHD! Luz (and maybe Eda too!) and autistic!Amity (and maybe Lilith as well)?

thank you!! okay listen this show is so so good for ND headcanons WEIRDOS GOTTA STICK TOGETHER and im like *cries* yea

adhd luz is great. i love it. she’s eager and never runs out of energy, strong emotions & very expressive, can definitely act immature for her age (i saw something saying she’s 14 but idk if thats canon?), has a hyperfixation on learning magic & her azura books. her inability to choose a magic track i would argue could be read as indecisiveness or decision paralysis. and sometimes her own feelings cause her to miss cues from others (like with eda, amity, & king at the carnival). even the way she has to learn magic works as a metaphor - the way other people learn doesnt work for her so she has to adapt and have accommodations (something to draw on). we also see a few instances that suggest she’s not good at reading how trustworthy people are

im totally down for adhd eda but i think i like autistic eda better. she has unusual style (the ripped dress, big earrings, gold tooth - not to mention the times she puts on ‘human fashion’). her speaking voice is unusual too, but is often at a flat effect (absolutely not a dig at the actress i’ve had a crush on her since i was like 9). special interest in owls & weird human objects. learns differently & thinks outside the box, but is still extremely gifted as a witch, she just has to do things her own way. uneven motor skills - very powerful witch & good at sports but also like, just fumbles her staff all the time. seems to get along better with demons (king, hooty, and i’ll count owlbert here too) over other humanoids. did NOT fit in at school. has trouble connecting to and empathizing with people, often says rude things whether she means to or not. tends to show affection through gestures (training, making the cloak) over words or physical affection. does NOT understand why she should have to follow the rules (school, witchcraft, society at large) because they seem arbitrary to her

also - not an nd headcanon and FAR from a perfect metaphor - but my chronically ill ass was just sitting there like 8O SHE HAS TO TAKE HER MEDS OR SHE’LL GO INTO A FLARE and i was just pretty excited about that

jury is still out on lilith for me. i can see autistic lilith though. she’s got flat effect, dulled emotional expression, gifted in her craft, trouble seeing eda’s pov, seems to be low empathy, and from what we see may be fairly gullible. i need to see more screen time from her before i make it an Official Headcanon though. 100% up to hearing other peoples arguments about this

amity is a little harder for me but here’s my headcanon (cw child abuse)

she very well could be autistic. i didnt get a strong Vibe from her one way or the other. but her behavior, to me at least, seems to line up a lot more strongly with childhood trauma. specifically parental abuse. granted we haven’t seen much of her parents yet, but that’s the vibe i got and i’ll explain why

amity is extremely driven and perfectionistic, but it does not seem like she’s self-motivated. it seems like she’s trying to live up to her parents high and strict expectations of her. she wants to be friends with willow, and then later luz, but she can only keep the friends her parents deem are worthy - theyre controlling of her social interactions far more than is normal. she has very low tolerance for her own mistakes, and gets extremely upset when she’s embarrassed or gets into trouble. to me that’s a thing a kid learns at home - mistakes are a big deal (and could be punished in some manner). she’s very awkward at trying to make real friends, which makes me think she doesnt have good role models & her emotional development was not prioritized. in the beginning we see her bully people and gee wonder where she learned that. when she’s training, it’s not her parents or even lilith who are training her - its her older siblings who she doesnt get along with and dont even seem to be on the same track as her? so even though expectations for her as a witch are extremely high, the actual adults are neglecting to help her

when both lilith and eda cheat at the covention duel - amity doesn’t get upset at lilith. she gets upset at luz who is not an adult and is an easy target. lilith and eda are really the ones that embarrassed her, but she doesn’t feel she can get angry at either of them and takes out her emotions lower in the pecking order. we also see that she quit grudgby forever because she accidentally hurt her teammates - which makes me think her anxiety & guilt in general is pretty high. when she does decide luz is cool, she gets Very Attached Very Fast which can definitely be a trauma thing - here is a Safe Person i am now incredibly invested in. when they go into willow’s memories, she’ll do anything to keep luz from seeing how she hurt willow, probably because she’s afraid luz will be disappointed in her (and what? abandon her for not being perfect?) and even her parents in the memory are just shadowy figures and not real people. her biggest fear (which, yes cute gay stuff was happening) is being rejected, which makes me think besides the grom there is an actual threat of that in her life

so ALL IN ALL yes some of these things overlap with autism & i definitely wouldnt argue against an autism headcanon, but to me this just is so strongly childhood trauma stuff that i personally wouldnt hc autism until i know more

also LITERALLY ALL THE CHARACTERS ARE ND thank you for coming to my ted talk good day

#owl house #toh #toh spoilers #luz noceda #eda clawthorne #eda the owl lady #lilith clawthorne #amity blight #nd headcanons #you: owl house nd hc??#me: *cracks knuckles*#Anonymous

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heterophobiclanwangji · 4 years

Text

Stupid Sexy Shizun

(an unnecessarily long post about Shen QIngqiu, romantic storylines, and dangerous fanon)

I see a lot of varying characterizations for Shen Qingqiu, especially vis a vis his allure to the other (typically male) members of the cast. Frankly, I do think the entire thing is funnier if a lot of people are in love with Shen Qingqiu, who only really recognizes Luo Binghe (and even then only after nearly apocalyptic levels of drama), and I’m willing to believe that he is unwittingly attractive for the following reasons:

he unintentionally falls into suggestive situations (the Skinner incident with the immortal binding cables, the Huan Hua Palace Water Dungeon, also with immortal binding cables For Some Reason, the succubus incident with Liu Qingge, etc.)

he may fall into improper/informal forms of address (for example, calling Binghe by name the first time they meet, rather than Luo Binghe or any of the previous Shen Qingqiu’s, er, nicknames)

he doesn’t always understand physical boundaries the same way as other characters (yikes @ the scene in one of the extras where he gives Binghe spiritual energy via skin-to-skin contact and fails to understand how/why that would be inappropriate, and potentially the situation with Liu Qingge cleansing his meridians, although I have reservations about that)

he tends to objectify people, which makes more sense when you realize he’s evaluating them based on his understanding of their characters and function in the original plot and cataloging differences, but reads differently to people who don’t have that context (which is almost everyone) (he makes internal comments about how hot a lot of the characters are, and I feel like he stares at people, but I can’t remember a specific incident for this; in conversations, it comes up in lines like “even if something bad happens, it won’t happen to you,” or “I knew you would definitely win,” both spoken to Binghe--at this point Shen Qingqiu doesn’t know Binghe very well and still sees him as The Protagonist, but to Binghe they just seem like heartwarming moments of security and belief)

he has trouble enforcing platonic guidelines to his relationships due to his fundamental belief that no one would find him attractive, be it romantically or sexually, and therefore sees no reason to draw that distinction (not going to cite specific incidences for this, it’s more of a recurring combination of his low self-esteem and lack of self-awareness, which I may talk about later in another post).

however, some reasons I have seen in fandom that do not seem likely based on my understanding of the plot and characters (although I will be the first to admit that I do not remember every single detail of the novel or extras, and that Shen Qingqiu is not the most reliable narrator to start with) are as follows:

fan language (technically possible, no indications given in canon, and you cannot convince me that Mr. I-Named-This-Poison-With-No-Cure-Without-A-Cure, Great God Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky had the patience and wherewithal to research or create a comprehensive fan language)

owning and using slutty, slutty inner robes (this would require the cutthroat, inscrutable original Shen Qingqiu to own such robes in the first place, I don’t remember any canonical references to improper dress aside from instances where he has been disrobed--the Skinner incident, Huan Hua Palace Water Dungeon, and his QingSi treatment--, and Shen Qingqiu has a healthy paranoia about governing his appearances so people won’t realize he isn’t the original goods; yes, the Peak Lords suspect him of being possessed anyway, but to my knowledge their reasons centered around his personability and investment in his students rather than robes or hair ornamentation)

eating suggestive foods (this one is slightly debatable. again, he doesn’t see himself as someone people would find attractive, so I can’t discount the idea that he would inadvertently eat something in a suggestive manner. however, I saw someone have him request dishes involving aphrodisiacs, and I was like, WACK. He probably had a cataloged index of the different weird plants and monsters of PIDW before his transmigration and ranted excessively in the comments about all of the pointless precursors to papapa, up to and including creating different plants/animal organs that have the same or better effects and then yelled at Airplane for not keeping better track of his own inventions. This is the guy who saw Liu Qingge under the effects of succubus poison or whatever and immediately knocked him into a cold bath. you won’t catch him slipping that easily)

enabling Binghe to get away with suggestive/improper and sexualized behavior while he was still a teenaged disciple. I think this one really gets to me because that narrative of the virginal innocent Shizun and his perverted disciple is the exact view that the outside world has of their dynamic, as represented by the fragments of The Resentment of Chunshan that we see in the extras. People see Binghe as a depraved monster (he is a demon, after all) and make insinuations about his treatment of Shen Qingqiu’s corpse during the five years between his death and resurrection. For contrast, the crux of the novel is Shen Qingqiu realizing that Binghe is hurt and insecure and desperately begging to be loved. In the extras he even goes through some of Binghe’s memories and remarks about how, contrary to rumor, all Binghe did was keep his body from rotting while he searched for ways to revive him. I won’t say that Binghe wasn’t a teenage boy and never did what teenage boys do, but the extras showed us that Binghe would rather throw himself into a cold lake than act inappropriately towards his Shizun, and I can’t remember him making any sexual advances until after Shen Qingqiu came back to life. In canon, Binghe is ill-informed and generally bad at sex, which doesn’t speak to me like someone who was just waiting for the right moment to strike.

I will read a hundred fics about Shen Qingqiu inadvertently causing people to fall in love with him, but a lot of fanworks try to make it about a physical allure rather than his personality and the ways in which he feels comfortable interacting with other people. People respond to his kindness and his feelings of duty and honor, and it makes me feel cheated to see interpretations downplay characteristics of his actual personality, especially when it degrades the characters around him, too. Yue Qingyuan feels protective of him but generally listens when Shen Qingqiu tells him not to draw his sword, and in canon he gave Shen Qingqiu enough space that he was surprised by the extent of his grief when Binghe was in the Endless Abyss. Liu Qingge is also protective of Shen Qingqiu and is involved in getting Shen Qingqiu’s promise to remain with Cang Qiong Mountain Sect before the Maigu Ridge incident, but doesn’t stop him from leaving when he decides to go. Binghe makes some questionable choices, but his anger and insecurity are understandable even without the rampant communication failures and the influence of Xin Mo, and the end of the novel shows that Luo Binghe is willing to leave if that’s what Shen Qingqiu wants.

Sometimes fan interpretations get really intense about this, as if Yue Qingyuan, Liu Qingge, and Luo Binghe would catfight over Shen Qingqiu. Granted, Liu Qingge and Luo Binghe are willing to throw down at any given time, but the main romantic development comes from Shen Qingqiu treating other people with respect and receiving respect in return. While people do try to influence Shen QIngqiu’s decisions, the ultimate choice is his own.

One of the points of the novel is that people matter and their choices affect not only themselves but the people around them. I don’t care if Shen Qingqiu is some kind of accidental sex god, because his choices and especially his decision to care about other people give Yue Qingyuan, Liu Qingge, and Luo Binghe each something they didn’t have in the original storyline: Yue Qingyuan gets a chance to explain himself and his failures, and is relieved of his burden of caring for Shen Qingqiu; Liu Qingge gets to live and see his little sister grow up; and Luo Binghe gets to be loved and cared for.

As for Shen Qingqiu, he got to choose his own happy ending.

#scum villain #shen qingqiu #scum villain meta #bingqiu #svsss #svss #other characters and ships to a lesser extent #sorry yue qingyuan and liu qingge #me when i was most of the way through the post: wait am i a luo binghe apologist???#i keep a 'luo binghe did some things wrong' sign next to my 'the misunderstandings in scum villain make sense actually' sign #i feel like i got. way too passionate about this #i do not expect this to get notes #my posts

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foulserpent · 4 years

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any tips on getting followers invested in your characters?

make a lot of content and post a lot of content and write about them a lot. engage with other people and Their characters!! be approachable and genuinely interested in interaction. also in my case i wouldnt know but i feel like part of it is the level of interactivity i have. like a lot of the characters i have were a collaborative process, and even the Serious Major Characters have things that were just suggested to me by someone sending an ask and i drew it. its not like ill just draw/canonize ANYTHING, but im open to it and enjoy that component. i know on my end it makes me happy when i discuss something with someone and they later integrate it into their character

caveat: its probably wayyyyy easier to do with a series like the elderscrolls where theres a big subset of fans devoted to OC making so theres a precedent for it. and also i DO have a large follower base that i started up with (been on this blog for 8 years), but the vast vast majority of people who engage with my content rn are newer followers, so i honestly dont think the follower base is what does it. like for real some people who i KNOW for a fact have like 1/10th the amount of followers i do get just as much (if not more) actual engagement

and i dont think any of this will work if you arent having fun with it. im hyperfocused bc autism so im having a blast putting out content every day (tho i do take breaks) but if youre forcing yourself to i dont think it will be as great.

#so like the answer is like 'make stuff and talk to people'#which is unfortunately kind of hard to do for most people #im able to do this bc autism hyperfocus like i wasnt trying to get a lot of people hooked at all i just #did my shit with no shame and people got engaged over time #anon

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carrywolfy · 3 years

Text

okay i will explain the drama

lol im bad explaining things in english because google traslator messed up things but is neccesary to say also im bad at making rant because im not big fan making rants because all bad arguments i did before

i bit copy paste this on my latest deviantart jounal but some changes to be undertandable i know people will block me or doesnt be agree at me but im gonna be honest at this and without fear all everything i saying is truth

Disclaimer: im not harrassing or attack users i just telling about the biggest drama i made on the Leopets site (a fansite dedicated to old school neopets) also please dont attack me because im telling the truth and all the mistakes i made ,please do not think that I am a crybaby because I am explaining honestly and sincerely and also you ask "why you blame yourself?" uff long history but i hope people understand, apart this is not an attempt at sentimental manipulation it is only an explanation of what happened to me.

probably no one will forgive me or they will not understand but I don't care and it's worth saying this, because it was my fault that I caused drama to the Leopets site that I did ... why? there my cases:

well im sorry to say this but is neccesary to say It because is very important, is for my content that I did before, wow wow wow what? yes is truth because i was navegating in tumblr quiet and searching "leopets" to see what happend until suddenly I saw a post about what happened in that community and they did not lie and this I have to tell is true .. I was a mental illness yes i feel idk what i turned because i before did "zoophile" art and not only i was made porn being minor (well i really make nsfw art at 14 years old in 2016) although it is one of my worst mistakes i made well why? because i was super curious lol... at first time i get disgusted but the second time i was goin to like it blah blah blah oh yeah i was pervert before.. but that's not what matters because well past things lol, Suddenly the user began to give evidence about my content that I did when I was 17 years old before being adult and one of my cringy nsfw art i made before being 18 when thinks is rapist because the "tears" part but well i was thinking "okay is just tear pleasure" but i think dont work and looks like more rapist than tear pleasure, but man is made before being changed but well, because of the content I made now they think I'm a pedophile and a zoophile and i understand and im pretty sure they doesnt forgive me because all the bad things all i made the life, when thats why i need changing my content and no-longer make ilegal content , Maybe that is not an excuse but you must understand how guilty and responsible I am, it is also my fault that I made the admins allow pedophiles,babyfurs and zoophiles and that I understand, also of course now I must mature and be a good person.

speaking explicitly about my content, good sorry for saying this and I hope you do not attack me for doing this and I must be honest with you which one according to the post (please do not attack or insult her because what she says is true) she mentined about my cringy non-human x human stuff i did before specially neopets and kirby (and some other fandoms) when Currently I no longer do human porn or anthro x feral (well I'm fine with human x human, anthro x human and anthro x anthro now ) but is necessary to tell why In fact, I thought that fictional beings are sanpient, I mean intelligent beings that many do not know, but I thought that it would be also that if it is fiction and the puffball part i have a explaniation how can make more sense most likely they are alien beings since they can interact with other people and do things that humans do, even all aliens are different in appearance and power and sometimes they also live with humans as we saw in animated movies or science fiction (im actually dont do making canon characters i mostly do my adult fcs and legal i mean vainilla only) , what did a mental sick go to, but it is time for me to change, besides that I put the link to my FA page for some reason, what I did went very wrong and I don't know why I didn't delete my FA account before but well it's my fault and my mentality yeah im dumb.

Speaking abouts my stamps yeah i before again i was pervert and most my stamps are bad...really really bad and i did mostly nasty stamps im sorry but i know was terrible (i plan to deactivate my old deviantart account) so yeah i before If I used to complain about people who do not like the content +18, which I currently respect those types of people because no everybody have same taste or have same thing, so im sorry for all these persons how get offended i was dumb yeah but is not your faulth,is my faulth well yeah also all the accounts i actually using are not NSFW account because im changed now well i dont stop make nsfw but i wont involving too much of that when mostly im actually make sfw art now . But the actual problem is on my cringy stamp about "I love c*ntboys" because i before doesnt know what is trans man and i was wrong saying "c*ntboys" because again before I did not know what transgender people were until I discovered that it was sorry in fact it was one of my worst mistakes that I made also that I no longer use the term "c*ntboy" now I only use the term "trans male", "trans female" and "intersex" well i hate most my stamp i made in the past and my previous account of deviantart because im suck make stamps ,mostly bad argumented and I regret having done it

speaking leopets drama i was thinking what i have done because after reading that user post when i prefer to not naming and I prefer that you investigate for yourselves but I warn you not to harrassing, insult or attack the user and she was right, although if I only made things worse but hey I'm not going to give up I felt bad and I kept thinking about bad things that I did all these years that I can't believe so I had to control myself and try to do the bad things that I did again, and is my faulth to ruin the Leopets community because my bad content i did before and my mental sick thingy,when im not longer a sick person now and im stopping making zoophile and pedophile stuff yeah... And I suggest most of the members of Leopets will not be satisfied with me but they have to know the truth about me, clarify if you and the other members of Leopets, if you are reading this I do not blame you, remember that I know as I said several times I am responsible for the page ending like this and this is a message for the admins, please do not accept more pedophiles or zoophiles since you have to know what to do how to detect one even if they do that disturbing content (like i did before) , Maybe no one will agree with me or forgive me, well if things are not solved just by apologizing but you have to understand the person who converted me and I hope to change (I am changing slowly) I promise you that I will not make illegal content again, also if it was It was a mistake to do it when I was a minor, although I was not the only one but i had some friends from other communities also did it at those ages, I know that I will not return to leopets due to the disaster I made and my reputable content that I made, although if I regret everything, believe me in 2015 when in that year I did not know leopets, I used to steal characters from other artists, even from 2014 to 2015 I traced drawings of others These artists, which later I did not do it again and I regretted it, even in 2015 I was homophobic before because I complained about gay ships because of an ex-friend of mine who was actually toxic and that made me pay attention to him and I regretted doing it, of course I had many bad moments that I did and really if it is terrible what happens, and again I do not blame them, sorry for all the things that I have done but I did not give up since I will begin to evolve a better version of me to leave behind the bad content and my repulsed behavior I did and move on to my changed content which by now will be good and more interesting (im actually mostly sfw art now), also the only bad thing i didnt is babyfur well thankfully but the rest oh god...

also yes i was Kacheekawaii34 in Leopets and i was feeling guilty to all things i ever done but well yeah i got banned on leopets because the drama i caused, also to all leopets member I am not playing the victim or manipulating sentimentally, I am only explaining the truth what happened to me and believe me I am the cause of the problems that occurred in Leopets as well as I said a true im a guilty and sometimes toxic, i dont blame people on leopets when i dont want admins let hiring pedos,babyfurs and zoophiles when again im goin to change and forgotten all the bad things i made,I know that nobody wants me not to return to Leopets but my decision is to grow up and admit my mistakes that I made.

And one more thing to know is that we are not all the same, we are all different, I mean, we all have different tastes and different things, if for sure I will have no defense and everyone is going to humiliate me for everything I did wrong but it is necessary to know that We can all change and leave behind all the things we have done before and follow our future, even we can all make serious mistakes since effectively nobody is perfect in this world, everyone is different and we are humans and we know humans make mistakes , and im sorry i acted as sick person but i promise wont act like this again

Sorry if some things are terrible explained or repeated, it is that it is super difficult to explain this and if you already know what happened to me and if it cost me a lot to write it but it is necessary to say this the truth about me and surely as I said nobody will To forgive but .. the safest thing is that they must accept my new changes that I will have and I will not be the same as before, now I will be a respectable person and I will not do that repulsive content again and believe me everything that explains is necessary to understand and read this , It was a long time, unless almost not the same thing happened to me like with Nicchi / Blackout, the creator of the well-known fnaf fangame "Dormitabis" to which he turned out to be a pedophile to which he made the reboot of that fangame be canceled after that the team found out what happened with the creator of the fangame towards repulsive things and end up abandoning him (in addition to the fact that the creator left the internet after this scandal) well after talking about this I hope it improves me and I know Feel better since I learned from the things I did and I already had a lesson

well see ya!! and i hope the next year i be better now and changed

#leopets #we are humans and we make mistakes #im suck yo explain yeah #i hope feel better

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motherhenna · 4 years

Text

Writers Rants: Backstory

How to Smoothly Integrate a Character’s Past into the Narrative

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If you are even remotely interested in the process of writing, then you’ve probably heard this phrase at least a hundred times over: show, don’t tell. Such a vague sentiment, but hell if it doesn’t pack a punch. In fact, it’s probably one of the only “rules” of storytelling that ought to be followed as closely as possible and as often as possible—at least in my opinion. But what, exactly, does it mean? In layman’s terms, show don’t tell is a simple recommendation: that authors should actively illustrate a concept rather than passively explain it. Why? Simple. One leaves the reader more room for interpretation and draws them deeper into the action at hand, and the other just…well, tells them what to see and what to feel in the same way a set of DIY instructions describe how to make a quirky set of kitchen lights out of mason jars. While yes, you got a straightforward idea of what to expect, did you actually have fun reading it?

These basic concepts are important to understand if you consider yourself a writer of any kind, as they function as the foundation for a) improving your prose, b) strengthening your characters, and c) forming a flowing narrative that will catch and keep readers’ attention. And naturally, this also applies to the art of exposition.

Most people with even a cursory knowledge of telling a story know that characters should never be blank slates. If you have any desire to portray even a facsimile of real life, you have to put at least some effort into fleshing out the main characters. And when I say ‘flesh out’, I mean do more than just describing what they look like, a laundry list of personality traits, and what they’re wearing. I’m not going to go into this process deeply, as that’s a matter for another think-piece entirely, but it’s a starting point for the more convoluted parts to come. What I’m building up to is that your characters need a backstory, especially if they’re the one(s) through whom we, as readers, experience the story, i.e., the point of view (POV) character. This applies to both first- and third-person limited narratives, unless you’re going for a more anonymous / incidental narrator, like Mr. Lockwood in Wuthering Heights.

Now, these backstories don’t have to be a strict, detailed, chronological transcription of every year in that character’s life (though doing so certainly doesn’t hurt!) Rather, you should write it much like you would describe your own life if you had to plot it out on a timeline. At first, just stick with the most essential elements: where and when in history they were born, whether they have siblings or present family, and a simple list of significant events from various periods in their life. What specific things have most influenced who they are as a person, for good or ill? Next, it’s time to look at the family, since nothing impacts an individual more than how they were raised and how they were treated during their formative years. Were their parents present during their childhood? What was their parents’ relationship like before and after your character’s birth? Are they natives of the country in which the story is set, or did they immigrate—and if they immigrated, why did they do so? All of these and more are, to me at least, vital to developing a well-rounded and realistic character. I’ve even gone so far as to type out entire timelines for each character as well as their parents. Personalities, quirks, trauma—these are all just as hereditary as one’s genes, though this doesn’t mean that this inheritance has to be through blood. Nature vs. Nurture: they’re both equally important in the formation of an individual.

…So, what to do when you’ve finished all that? Do you dutifully transcribe it into the first chapter of your story? Absolutely not. Copy it into a separate document window and keep it there. A large chunk of this is for your benefit: most likely, less than half of it will make it into the written canon of the novel, and for good reason. All of that detailed history isn’t for the reader, it’s for you to use as a framework. Some of the most powerful elements to realistic characters are the unseen, the implied: all the hidden little things that lie just under the surface, but are never fully visible to the naked eye.

What a lot of inexperienced writers may not realize is that everything doesn’t always have to be stated unequivocally through dialogue or info-dumps. How often, in real life, do acquaintances explain upfront that this specific behavior they often exhibit is a result of how they were abandoned by their father and raised by an emotionally distant mother? Most people don’t psychoanalyze everything, nor do we ourselves do it to others—at least not often! Plus, it’s boring. Getting to know characters over the course of a story should be comparable to meeting a new friend. You find out the surface things at first, but pick up bits and pieces along the way that hint at what lies deeper inside. Little by little, you learn about their family, their hopes, dreams, fears…not always directly, and sometimes even in spite of their desire to keep up a front of normalcy.

With all this said, I think it’s become clear where I stand on backstory: it should be subtle, woven gradually into the narrative rather than stated by the character themselves or described by an omniscient narrator. Not only does this make the process of reading about it flow better and progress more naturally, it’s also far more interactive. Instead of being told why a character acts the way they do, the reader can catalogue said character’s actions, motivations, dialogue, and the way they interact with their surroundings, gradually putting the puzzle pieces together for themselves. In a sense, it’s almost a reward for those who read with a careful, inquisitive eye, and can be just as satisfying as solving a mystery before the detective does in a murder mystery.

I’ve used—and will continue to use—a lot of metaphors in this section because it’s the most thorough way I can to explain this process and why it’s so important. That being said, I approach backstory in the same way I might organize a scavenger hunt. It’s not about a treasure map, but rather an ongoing set of little discoveries without which the ultimate prize can never be found. But in keeping with this analogy, why would anyone want to take part in this if a) they’re just given the prize’s location outright, or b) don’t really care about the prize anyway?

When you’re straight-up told about character’s backstory within the first few chapters, there’s no groundwork for investment. Why should I care about this character’s history if I don’t even know them yet? Investment is a gradual process, and ought to be an interactive process too. One of the best strategies of implying backstory without stating it directly is illustrating how a character reacts to specific triggers. Yes, you can tell the reader in the character’s introductory paragraph that he was almost killed in a house fire as a child, which still haunts him to this day—but how else can you impart this information more effectively and poignantly? For some examples, he might…

Be too frightened to turn on the stove.

Avoid any type of matches or aerosol at all costs.

Get anxious when filling up his car at gas stations.

Constantly check and re-check the smoke detectors throughout his apartment

Panic when he smells her neighbor’s lit fireplace.

Why would we need to explain to readers what made him this way when we have all the evidence we need to figure it out for ourselves? Of course, there’s nothing wrong with, later on down the line, this character actively opening up about this trauma to a friend or therapist, as this is only natural and also supplies us with details we would have never known otherwise. This just shouldn’t be the first way we find it out.

Another efficient and interesting approach to gradual backstory incorporation is through dialogue. The way a character responds to nosy questions, criticisms, or simple observations tell a lot about the kind of people they are and how they’re coping (or not coping) with potentially painful parts of their personal histories / insecurities. For example, Character A can ask Character B, “Why don’t you want to go out tonight?” In truth, B is trying to back out of these plans because she can’t fit into a dress she was supposed to wear for the party, and is trying desperately not fall back into the pit dug by the various eating disorders she has suffered from since adolescence. She is afraid her friends will want to take group pictures, or remark on what’s she’s eating or not eating, or notice the extra pudge in her stomach. She remembers how her mother would chide her for eating second helpings when she was young, or all the times her ex called her fat. But B is not going to be capable of explaining all of this to her partner. So how does she respond?

1. “I just…feel tired all of a sudden…but don’t let me keep you from going. I don’t want to spoil your night.” Implication: saving face—she doesn’t want to reveal her real insecurities, so she uses a physical illness as a cover story.

2. “What’s it to you? If this stupid party so important to you, then you can just go without me!” Implication: defensiveness—she is uncomfortable being vulnerable, and lashes out instead.

Now obviously these are just two examples of a plethora of different responses a person might have to a question like this. But what matters is that each answer should give the reader some sort of information as to why said character reacts the way they do. And these reactions don’t have to have traumatic roots, either! Perhaps, because Character C’s older sister always encouraged them to stick up for and respect themselves, C is able to take that positive reinforcement and pay it forward, inspired to protect others who may not know how to protect themselves. Positive change ripples and spreads just as much as negativity, and should never be discounted just because a character has gone through their fair share of tragedy, too.

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In short, there is nothing simple or easy about creative writing—there is so much nuance involved in every aspect, though that shouldn’t discourage newcomers from experimenting and taking everything step by step. There are no absolutes in writing, and every rule can be challenged, so take what I say with a grain of salt. But still, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of backstory when developing strong characters, nor how much more natural a narrative will feel when these things are integrated with subtlety and grace. Your characters should never be objects, concepts, or a means to an end: if you want to make them seem real to your readers, then they must first seem real to you.

...And real people all have their own stories: to find them, all you have to do is watch and listen.

#writing tips #creative writing #writing advice #I wrote this like six months ago but forgot to post it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯#motherhenna

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darklingichor · 4 years

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Carry On by Rainbow Rowell *Major Spoilers*

I wrote a little about this book last month, but I want to write more. This is one of those books that has been lingering in my brain so what follows will be long and rambling.

Now, I haven't read Fangirl I've been pulled more toward action adventure and humor in my fiction, for a while now. Hmm, I wonder what could have happened a few years back that would cause a Pacific Northwest liberal to feel the need for escape? Just one of those things, I suppose.

I need to read it, if only because I wrote Harry Potter fanfic for years and sort of lost myself in it right after high school.

Anyway.

I've heard people calling Carry On an HP knock off. I don't get this. Simon Snow is obviously Fangirl's Harry Potter. That makes Carry On more of a tongue in cheek homage to HP and stories like it as well as something of a love letter to fanfic writers.

A lot of the main characters start out as your standard for this type of story. "The Hero", "The Mentor", "The Damsel", "The Enemy", "The Unspeakable Evil."

Through the book it becomes clear that our hero is well meaning but ill-suited for the role that his mentor thinks he place him in. The mentor is shown to be unhinged. The damsel is sick of screaming and doesn't want to be in the story at all. The enemy is love sick for the hero and dealing with the puberty from hell. The unspeakable evil, isn't. Its just an unforeseen byproduct of the mentor's plan, in which, the hero, is a pawn.

The book plays with archetypes and I read some of them as being fairly meta about their expected place in the story.

Agetha, especially, seems to know her role and resent it. She's who is saved by the hero, whether she likes it or not.

Baz is so certain of his role as "The Enemy" that until his role flips, he's sure his destiny is to be killed by the person he's in love with.

Simon knows his role so well, he's on auto pilot as a defence mechanism. He's either going to die, or he'll get a stock Happily Ever After. He doesn't even allow himself to think too much about what really matters to him, because he knows his life isn't really his.

I would have loved this book because of everything I wrote above, but add to it the nods to fan contribution? It was enough to make me remember my old ff.n login!

I don't know if Rainbow Rowell researched fan fiction but I figure she must have.

I mean, the things I saw played with and reshaped in Carry On, are fanfic tropes. Rowell took things that grew out of fans having fun with their favorite characters and made them canon.

Main character going out with an exchange student, pop culture references, evil good guy, and:

Four words: Draco is a vampire.

Sure, not every fic that used these were the best, but so what? Many were sincere.

What better way to go to Hogwarts as a person raised outside the UK than to live though an OC in an exchange program?

It was weird that no one in the wizard world listened to muggle music, watched movies or TV. Even the muggleborns? I'm sorry, but I was in the same age range as the characters. In fact, if Harry were real, he would be three years older than me. You can't convince me that there were not at least a couple of muggleborns who were sending an owl a week to remind their parents to tape Friends or My So-Called Life.

There were a fair few stories where Dumbledore or even Harry turned out to be evil. Even before we found out Dumbledore wasn't a saint. It can be fun to play with expectations and Dumbledore was too perfect for too long.

The vampire thing? I mean, why not? Either Draco or Snape. It fits enough for a fic, and you can get some fun stuff out of it. Besides Hogwarts allowed a warewolf, why not a vampire?

The point is, this book reminds me of some goofy fics I read but also reminds me of some that I sometimes have to remind myself aren't canon, because fan fiction can be amazing.

Example: It has been years but I still remember a great fic that someone wrote about Uric The Oddball's years at Hogwarts. I don't remember much about it off hand but I do know that if I re-read HP, when Uric is mentioned, I think of this story like it is something that is actually in the history of the series. (Dude, I googled "Uric the Oddball fan fiction" on a whim. Popped right up: Uric the Oddball and the Wild Hunt by Ariana Deralte. Guess I shouldn't be surprised! Maybe I should read it again to see if it's still as good as I remember).

So yeah, Carry On is so not an HP knock off and has a number of things that I think make me like it more.

The first one is diversity. It is very nice to have it explicitly said in the text that characters are of different ethnicities, sexualities, and abilities. Watford is a far better representation of a population than Hogwarts is, outside of fanfic (It wasn't there, people wrote it in).

Then there is magic itself, it comes from somewhere it's in the environment, it has to do with celestial alignment, people give words power to channel that energy.

That brings me to something that made me adore the world building here.

The actuality of Simon Snow's universe is that Mages cannot exist independently without the Normals. Without the Normals giving weight and meaning to turns of phrase, rhyme and songs, the Mages couldn't do what they do. Add to that, this means that magic is ever evolving and the Mages must learn about and be a part of, to some extent, the Normal world. This makes Mages who look down on Normals seem even more ridiculous.

I also think this book handled romance better than Harry Potter. I don't know what it was but the relationships seemed awkward and strained in HP. Maybe it was because most of it was shoved into one book, like Hogwarts's water supply was spiked with hormones? I don't know.

What I do know is that even though Simon and Agetha are going through the motions of being together in this book, they still feel like two people who have been dating for a long time.

We don't get a lot about Penny and her boyfriend, but the way she is described talking about him reminds me of how my best friend would talk about her boyfriends when she was visiting me. The way she would go on, you'd think that he was on the moon instead of 90 miles away. I bought that Penny and her boyfriend enjoy each other's company.

And the biggie. Simon and Baz

I almost didn't read this book for two reasons. First: Vampire main character. I love vampires, but I lived through the deluge of Twilight, True Blood, and Vampire Diaries, not to mention that every other book seemed to be about vampires. Even though I didn't watch or read all of them, I just got vampired out.

Second: I have never been one for the whole "enemies to love interest" thing. The Harry/Draco pairing never spoke to me. Not that I never read fics that managed that ship well, it was just not my favorite, probably because I just never liked Draco. I tend to prefer romances that are built on friendship (Remus and Sirius dated each other at some point, and nothing can convince me otherwise).

All that being said, I like the Simon/Baz pairing.

I like that Baz freely admits to the reader that a lot of his tormenting of Simon is pigtail pulling.

I like that Simon is more or less: "I like a guy? A guy who was my nemisis? That's new, let's go for it."

There's none of that "Hate turns to love" shit that I personally can't stand. None of the "I am evil, yet his light draws me" or "His darkness is so seductive"

Baz isn't a villain needing to rethink his position. He's a slightly snobby guy with a lot of family pressure, who is in love with a dude who has been set up as opposition, by the adults in his life.

Simon isn't a good guy wanting to be bad. He's a guy who is following the path set out for him without giving context to his feelings with thought, because he doesn't think. So, when Baz doesn't show up at the first of the year, Simon knows 3 things for sure:

Baz is his enemy

His enemy is not there

He feels very uneasy about it.

Why?

See numbers 1 & 2

This equals out to "plotting" in Simon's mind because that's what enemies do.

It doesn't dawn on him that he was actually missing Baz and that he has romantic feelings for him until later

I also like the interaction between them. Again, I buy that they like each other. The simpler moments, like sharing food, or being flirty. It also makes sense that Baz is so nervous and guarded about the relationship. It fits that they would bicker and argue while trying to figure every thing out.

The relationships feel authentic.

In fact all of the relationships between the characters feel authentic. The sibling relationships between Ebb and Nicky, I know siblings that close. The interaction between Baz and his little sister, I know people like them too. The Friendships; in my opinion, too few friends in fiction are depicted messing with each other or being lovingly annoyed by each other.

I've known my two best friends most of my life. Not a day goes by where one of us doesn't say something that if it was said by anyone else, it would lead to a fight. Said by us, it's funny, or at least something we can't argue with.

So I related when Baz's friend complained that he had wasted his childhood hating Simon now that Simon and Baz were no longer enemies and Baz said: "What else were you going to do with your childhood?"

I spent my 20's with my friends seemingly taking turns crashing at my apartment. I spent most of my time ossulating between wishing they would go home and being glad they were there.

So at the beginning of the book, when Penny won't leave Simon's room? I saw myself in the way Simon felt about it.

That authentic and relatable quality was what I really liked about the quiet - if not Happily Ever After - then the Attempting Normal For Now ending each character got.

Well, as normal as you can get with a story involving mages, vampires and powerful Elton John songs.

I am a dodecahedron of geekdom, btw and the classic rock side jumped up and down clapping hands at all of the music references (and giggled when Carry On was fallowed by Wayward Son which will be followed by Anyway The Wind Blows).

And now we come to the reason I have not read the sequel even though it is sitting in a bag with the rest of this year's Powell's haul.

From what I have read, Wayward Son is, at least in part, about what happens after Happily Ever After and ends on a cliffhanger.

After Happily Ever After with a cliffhanger and no release date... Yeah, that will drive me crazy. I haven't even read the second book and I'm already thinking about the third. Aw man! Who dies? Who breaks up? Who becomes evil?

So, even though road trip stories are right up there with time travel stories as one of my favorites, even though I love the idea of showing a character battling depression, even though I love these characters, period; Wayward Son will stay unread until I run out of new books to read, or the next book's release date is close. Whichever comes first, because I want to think of the characters in their quiet ending ending for a little while.

#Carry On #Books #book #rainbow rowell #spoilers #four #book blogging 2020

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lcnguor · 4 years

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THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

My muse is: canon / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless /

Is your character popular in the fandom? YES / NO.

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom? YES / NO / IDK.

Is your character considered strong in the fandom? YES / NO / IDK.

Are they underrated? YES / NO.

Were they relevant for the main story? YES / NO.

Were they relevant for the main character? YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG.

Are they widely known in their world? YES / NO.

How’s their reputation? GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL.

How strictly do you follow canon? — Since she is an OC with her own lore I would say pretty much . Of course there are some heres and theres and she changed a lot from the first time I dragged her out of the void of my head . I originally wanted to make more of a gag character but ended up taking too much of the screen if I’m honest . but of course , since there is many other lores and crossovers are a must , some things change once or twice .

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals. — Nora is a mentor character , supportive and most likely to be the ace under the sleeve like a Kisuke Urahara from Bleach or Sinbad from Magi --- you know there’s something fishy but there is a charm that even thought they are slidding in the background for the main character , their relevance is vast . As a mentor characters , she would often help with insight , understanding of complex things , giving moral lessons and giving others a sense of security whilst also making sure to throw hints about a doubious nature . Keeping a character around her to keep their feet on ground while never shooting down their hopes and dreams .

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?). — She is not approachable unless you have enough guts to -- perhaps even looks intimidating or hard to come up with something plausible to make the meeting more natural . And honestly , she looks like a mainstream angst character at first glance --- even I myself believe this and start having second thoughts ... :laughs:

What inspired you to rp your muse? — An old project I had archived in my closet of memories (?). She was the main , nameless character of a journal about , well , her and the emotions she had to deal with in the everyday . I will be seriously honest ... it was a self insert :blushes: after all it was like a personal journal I was doing on my darkest days . But after that , she became Sable -- the first character on her own -- who also served as a mentor ( but the story was much more dark , seriously ) and then just came to this . I even used the pre-prototype name lol . The idea was to put the whole story into a RPG pixel game or a short comic series where she ( Sable ) and the protagonist would wander around a city called “Nobody’s Home” , a place were people with “thats” ( what now are called Stalkers ) got dragged into and either confront their emotions and solve / comes in terms with them or get eaten by them ( a metaphor for suicide or dead by mental illness ) . The story was more or less about Sable teaching Nona ( the genderless protagonist ) about different mental states , issues and others and helping people solve them so they can return to the real world . Needless to say , the story ends with Nona returning after coming in terms with their condition ( funnily enough , the protagonist had a bunny shaped emotion ) while on the other hand Sable stayed behind along with her closest friend , who she question why he keeps being around if he could return himself , to what he replies he doesn’t want to leave her alone esp since she can no longer return --- hinting Sable committed suicide but by sheer will power remained there to help others to deal with what she couldn’t . Voez , the friend I mention , is even Victor from her current lore . Haha , I like recycling I guess . When I came with Nora , it was mostly to kill time and altered her base story a bit since the original plot was way to close up to make an interaction .

What keeps your inspiration going? — How well received she became , I know it sounds a bit ... uh , bad . But I honestly never expected people to like her . heck I even have my doubts about myself liking her haha . plus I know it’s not easy to deal with a character with a somewhat meta power ... I still struggle from time to time but I’m managing and having the support I have atm is something that keeps me going . I love plot a shit lot . I love to come up with ideas with others . To expand what I already have . besides , there is so much I haven’t write down yet that is about her lore but I’m a bit insecure yet . I guess I’m too used to forums where everyon follows a general plot haha ... old habits die hard .

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice? YES / NO / EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Do you frequently write headcanons? YES / NO / 50-50

Do you sometimes write drabbles? YES / NO, I HATE DRABBLES.

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day? YES/ NO.

Are you confident in your portrayal? YES / NO / .... UHHHH

Are you confident in your writing? YES / HAHA NO.

Are you a sensitive person? YES VERY MUCH A LOT / NO.

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal? — I haven’t got any so far --- which honestly surprises me because well ... there is so much that can bother people . as I said , I received a lot of support and praise , which also surprises me haha ... I won’t deny I would love to hear what people think , even if I later end up riding the anxiety train to the moon but it’s also a way to grow up , I believe . god ... I sound like nora Uu

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character? — I absolute love this and need this . It comes easier for me to make a 20 word pages of information about stuff if I’m asking specifically about it . even add explanatory drawings with it lolol since I’m kinda bad with words . besides , showing me interest on a character would just fire the heck out of me to keep going . I mean , everyone likes to get some curiosity and a chance to develop more their characters , canon or not .

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why? — I would for sure . I’m not smart and I actually do a shit ton of research --- but even so I can miss a lot of shit people would say <nah that’s not how it works> and that would be helpful as heckie . but of course , needing the why also would tell me if the person disagreeing is doing it with a solid ground or just because they are being a piece of crap . I’m really tired of tumblr mentality and shitty people who aren’t mature enough to act decently .

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it? — you cannot like everyone or have everyone like you either . I don’t really care much ... esp since nora is an original character . if it constructive critisism , okay -- I will take it , but gimme a solid reason other than “ your character is / is not ... “ and then give a crappy critique because she doesn’t fit your agenda or standards .

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it? — you are fucking free to unfollow me and ignore me for the rest of your life . I really don’t get the point of hating on the internet just because and keep promoting your hate just to be a pain in the ass .

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors? — I fucking wrote in my rules that people are even fricking free to fix my grammar and english because holy heck , even to this day I still do some ugly shit . I’m dumb , help ...

Do you think you are easy going as a mun? — ehhhhhhhhhhhhh, kinda . I take everything with water . whenever it’s of ideology , people as it is , characters ... I am quite tolerant and try to keep the “okay this person thinks this way , fine .” but as long as nobody crosses the line where they try to spoil it for me or others , I get super bitter . I love OOC , getting to know the one behind the character makes me feel more secure about coming to them and just rambling about plots and hcs and whatever idea got in my mind . but if I see someone and , forgive me god for misjudging , see them as a person that will put me on my nerves -- I won’t even try . as for the friends I have and those who don’t know me as much ... I am obnoxiously sporadic and have a lot of ups and downs very often . one day I could be talking 100 words per second others I will just take a fucking week to respond . honestly , I had mined my social skills for two years plus several other irl stuff previous to that , so I’m always a bit too anxious around people , esp people I REALLY like . I’m insecure as heck , if someone is vague ( just because , idk , it was a lazy day for them ) I think at least 10 different reason why probably that person hates me now . I’m a bit dumb 26 year old baby .......... but I’m very aware that is completely on me . I’m a mess....... so , what was the question again ??? ... I , yeah ... it’s a kinda . but I try , at least haha.

That’s about it, congrats for filling out!

Tagged by: @skyvar herself Tagging: y’all , cowgirls and cowbois . i hate tagging bc i forget urls :finger guns:

#mik talks #ᴍᴜɴᴅᴀɴᴇ ᴛʜᴏᴜɢʜᴛs » misc.#ɪ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴀ ɴɪɴsᴡɪᴛᴄʜ » games.

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fountainpenguin · 5 years

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T.U.F.F. Reflection

Now that I’m done with “T.U.F.F. Puppy” I thought I’d condense my overall thoughts into a single post (minus my Keswick thoughts since we’ve already established that I like Keswick).

Action isn’t really my genre, so “T.U.F.F.” wasn’t my favorite of the four Hartman shows, but I’m glad I was finally able to watch it. There were some interesting characters, episode plots, and dialogue that I enjoyed and I look forward to figuring out whether I can add the show in my united Hartmanverse timeline.

“Guard Dog” was hands-down my favorite episode. “Kid Stuff,” “True Spies,” “Bluff Puppy,” “Organized Crime,” Dancin’ Machine,” “Doom and Gloom,” “The Rat Pack,” “Legal Beagle,” and “Happy Howl-O-Ween” are up there too in no particular order. “Love Bird” was also good and was totally worth the season and a half spent setting up the “Bob” joke alone.

I did appreciate the commitment to animal puns. I kept expecting them to run out, but they kept up throughout the series.

I really enjoyed some of the T.U.F.F Agency’s rules, such as not attacking criminals in the presence of children, and the laws protecting members of endangered species. I thought those were played very well.

Interesting worldbuilding details: The animal people visit the vet instead of the doctor, animals that need to hibernate do indeed hibernate in winter, the hospital maternity ward has a place for mothers to gather together and incubate their eggs, and Dudley is able to eat large amounts of chocolate despite being a dog. Dudley’s mom seems to have trained him to obey the usual dog commands since his coworkers sometimes tell him to Sit, Stay, or Heel and he listens instantly. Mousetraps, pesticides, and flea collars are legally sold and no one questions the morality of this.

However, when Dudley’s flea collar made the Chief ill, the Chief was taken to the hospital in an ambulance and healed. It would seem that targeting “pest” species this way is legal, but if someone calls the police or hospital, the “pest” is treated like any other patient. The line might be drawn along a border of indirectly killing another animal by setting a trap versus hunting them down and directly attacking them.

Speaking of fleas and morality, can we talk about the Keswick-Chief relationship because I want to talk about the bloodsucking parasite and the three-hearted alien, please.

And speaking of aliens, Keswick joining the alien-hunting club in the hopes of meeting girls will never not be funny. Never.

There was some excellent subtle worldbuilding in the background, like hamster tube tunnels between the buildings, the hamster tube monorail system in general, and these beautiful multi-species restrooms:

Similarly, I always enjoyed seeing the characters’ animal sides come out in small ways, like Dudley curling into a ball to sleep, fetching things, and dropping into a crouch when he’s upset. Also good: Touched-starved Chameleon using the “I’m cold-blooded” argument to demand snuggles.

I really liked how Snaptrap and the Chameleon had day jobs (running a dance studio and hosting the evil shopping channel respectively). Those were excellent, consistent details that really helped flesh them out. Snaptrap teaching Kitty to memorize dance moves through crime-related mnemonics was super cute.

I enjoyed the snippets of backstory we got from the villains, but I’m always interested in more. I felt the Chameleon was extremely rounded and well done, Snaptrap was mostly rounded but grew dull and repetitive quickly, and Bird Brain was flat and super predictable the majority of the time.

So, I’d have liked to see a larger pool of villains. There were only three major villains throughout the series and their associated henchmen, followed by the reoccurring antagonists: the F.L.O.P.P. members (who were generally together and basically count as one), Quacky and the Sharing Moose (who again count together), and the Caped Cod (I don’t count the Weasel or Jack as reoccurring). The reoccurring villain pool felt like it only contained “six” villains and I’d have liked a few more (especially since the Chameleon and the Meerkat were the only reoccurring antagonists I was actively fond of).

Also, the Caped Cod might be the most annoying cartoon character I have ever seen in my life. It’s not usual for me to actively dislike a character, but he successfully annoyed me. A lot.

I’m kind of disappointed in the lack of lady villains. Zippy was merely Birdbrain’s tagalong and didn’t really do anything evil herself, while R.I.T.A., Snowflake, and Katty appeared for one episode each (two of them appeared early in Season 1 and were never seen again).

In fact, there just weren’t a lot of girls in general (Kitty being the only one to appear consistently) and I found that a little strange. Some behind-the-scenes lore digging revealed that Snaptrap and Larry are brothers-in-law, so I’d have liked to see more of Snaptrap’s sister / Larry’s wife.

To be honest I’m a little miffed the fact that Snaptrap and Larry are related by marriage wasn’t ever mentioned in the actual show, because those two are at each other’s throats constantly and it’s kind of something I’d have liked to know.

Continuity was a little hit-or-miss throughout the show. I did appreciate when background details remained consistent (like Dudley having his new house and new bed in later episodes after he obtained them), but things written in later episode scripts didn’t always line up with previous scripts and it bothered me a bit. On that note, though, Keswick having a fear of drowning despite having gills is something I find hilarious.

I had some issues with Dudley’s characterization over the course of the series. Early on he was obsessed with being helpful and did everything enthusiastically, including paperwork (to the point that his thoroughness with paperwork drove everyone crazy). He was constantly on edge, quick to jump to conclusions, expected that villains to show up at any time, and was completely unable to relax on vacation. Later episodes directly contradict this by portraying him as lazy, ineffective, and forcing Kitty to do his work for him. I suppose it’s reasonable that he grew bored of his job over time, but I found him more difficult to like. If I ever write him, I’d most likely be drawing inspiration from his early characterization.

Similarly, Kitty was shown early on to love relaxation, and her greatest weakness was that she was easily distracted by stereotypical cat interests like yarn, birds, and fish. In later episodes she loses interest in fish and the “easily distracted” weakness was dropped. She is also portrayed as a workaholic who refuses to calm down despite loving to relax in the beginning. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being a hard worker and I would have believed it if this episode had come first, but I’m not a fan of how she and Dudley flipped personalities so completely that they basically switched characterizations by the end of the series. As with Dudley, I’ll probably favor Kitty’s early characterization if I ever write her.

So, those are my initial “I have now binge-watched this kids’ show” thoughts. As I rewatch “T.U.F.F.” episodes over time I might find new things I like or new things that bug me, but this is the hot-off-the-press general reflection. Not my favorite, but it was interesting and I’m glad I watched it. I’ll look for places in my united Hartmanverse worldbuilding where it can fit, though I’ll likely be less of a stickler for canon with “T.U.F.F.” than I am with the others since the cartoon physics are so extreme.

At this time I’m thinking I’ll write a one-shot (or maybe a three-part short story) that will allow me to explore some of the darker aspects of animal people world we couldn’t have in a kids show. Specifically, we’d be delving into predator-prey interactions, the legalities of hunting, and the flea-and-host relationship Keswick and the Chief seem to have going on behind the scenes because I’m super predictable. As I said, Action isn’t my genre of choice and I’m more interested in exploring the worldbuilding and character relationships.

I won’t write any major stories for this show like I’ve written FOP ‘fics, but I’d like to write a bit about the “T.U.F.F.” world and characters just to mix things up in my writing life. I’d say expect some Keswick backstory for sure, because he’s fun. He’s really fun. I might also write a bit about the Chameleon, possibly by combining Chameleon POV with a Larry x Snaptrap’s sister wedding story so we can get a look at that relationship too. Since Snaptrap and Larry have such extreme conflict throughout the series, I think that would be fun to delve into for a warm-up one-shot someday.

We’ll see how it goes.

#Riddle watches TUFF #Spy dog show #Special Agent Mutt #Lonely lizard #Kitty the good cat #Mostly true blue gadget guru #screenshots #Puppy Love #Cruisin For a Bruisin #Til Doom Do Us Part #Guard Dog #Share a Lair #More character tags later as I think of them

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moondriftingold · 6 years

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sup! this post is gonna be about bits of background for the organization in my bnha au! if you write any of these characters or are interested in writing any of these characters, please don’t feel like you have to stick to this in order to interact with me in this au. this is really just me playing around, and figuring what compliments my saïx in this verse the most! this is also stuff already discovered through idle chatter with friends! it’s just really what i would reference in threads or interactions, if saïx is ever talking about one of them.

saïx & axel: picked up by xemnas at 14/15 just as they were about to take their entrance exam into UA, they (then known as lea and isa) were brought into a half-formed organization with blackmail and false promises. originally intended to be experiments for xemnas’ and vexen’s theory on the manipulation of the heart and free will, they were released from their lab-rat status and brought into the organization as full members once they proved their loyalty.

saïx: xemnas’ second in command and virtual leader of the organization, saïx stayed close to his boss and quickly gained his trust in order to rise through the rankings. truth be told, he’d kill him if he could, and maintains no true loyalty. saïx and axel retain their plan to eventually overthrow him, and make this organization their own. he has a powerful transformative quirk that can quickly decimate enemies, and because of this, he doesn’t have to fight often.

axel: the organization’s most efficient assassin, and one of the most deadly villains in all of japan. the rings of fire that he leaves behind at crime scenes are a stamp of his presence, and his signature in the underworld. ruthless in his actions, axel is the best at what he does, and he does what he does in support of his best friend.

luxord: a gambling addict who’s never lost a game, aside from the one he had against xemnas (which was rigged in order to get him to work for him, but luxord doesn’t know!), and now he works under xemnas/saïx to repay his debt. his quirk is called “luck of the draw” —- it’s about bad luck and probability! he believes highly in superstition and in fate, and uses specific decks of cards with different personal meanings. he was one of the first brought to the organization.

demyx: their resident thief, he specializes in information brokering. saïx feels like he spends more time making sure demyx doesn’t get into trouble than he’s actually worth, but the brunet somehow always manages to pull through in the end. saïx gives him a hard time but he doesn’t hate him; he just wishes he’d listen and apply himself more. demyx has a water-based quirk that he activates by manipulating water in the atmosphere or in objects around him, like plants! he often makes silly little dancing figures out of water to entertain himself.

larxene & marluxia: the organization’s resident sassy gay fucks that take names and kick absolute ass. larxene is a fucking pain to work with but she’s efficient, and she cares about getting results and being respected, so saïx gives her respect so long as she gets him results. marluxia is a troublemaker that saïx would honestly rather have gone (he may look to axel to ensure that), but he’s also very good at his job, and he knows larxene likely wouldn’t stay without him. despite his personal distrust of marluxia, he knows that he’s a valuable member of the organization and treats him as such.

xigbar & xaldin: original members of the organization, scouted directly by xemnas. saïx doesn’t trust them as far as he can throw them simply because of that fact, and also for the fact that because xemnas directly scouted them, they don’t entirely feel the need to listen to what saïx says all the time. which is a complete and total piss-off, because he’s the boss when xemnas isn’t around (and he’s not around often). their quirks are pretty much the same as their canon abilities, and they even have support weapons to match.

xemnas: cryptic evil man that saïx wants to absolutely throttle for getting him and axel involved in all this BULLSHIT when they were just KIDS

ill probably have more later but i’m uhhhh tuckered out seeya

#OUT.#VER : BURNED BUT NOT BURIED.#this isn't all of the characters but im.. tired #luxord's is my favourite oiehwdhjbewfef GIV ME THE GAMBLE MAN

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krshush · 6 years

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6, 10, 12, and 19 for merit?

:’D

6: What kind of media would (or does) your character consume? This includes books, tv shows, video games, and movies.

HMM... In canon, he’s tried reading quite a bit, has books at home-forest that he’s all but memorized by now, but now that he’s out in the world, he ends up picking weird and interesting and probably incorrect history books, or skimming through Reverence’s own smut collection. He tries to learn abt the world around him, but with varying success. He enjoys music, but he couldn’t name a song for you if he tried, he only knows what the notes sounded like.

in a (well, the) Modern AU: he listens to lots of music of varying genre (anything from the Hazards of Love album, to songs that play in the club like Disclosure’s Latch, the AM album, and much more), has gone to some real ritzy art galleries & museums... there’s probably not a lot of time of TV/show themselves, nor games however... I remember me and my fellow players talking abt who our characters would main in Overwatch, and I joked Merit would be hilariously bad at Hanzo, but still plays him.

10: Does your character have a particular way of talking or acting?

Yes, though I might drop the particular way of talking when I play him sometimes depending on my personal feeling that session...

Merit always has this vaguely posh and polite way of talking, years and years of learning wordplay and the ways of his fae kin in twisting words. He infrequently uses contractions, says please every other time, and sass is covered either subtly learned sarcasm or biting dryness.

In ways of acting, this sort of politesse follows through too as his default state: head held high, back straight, a grace to his movements... though, a lot of this is at odds with his tendency for being tactile and touching people or gesturing with his hands often. And just because it’s his default state doesn’t mean it’s what he’s like always either-- since having to stay “Incognito” among mortals, he’s made sure to shrink back, try to draw less attention... As if his flower-covered hat and pretty purple vest don’t undo that right away anyways, but don’t inform him of that.

12: Does your character have any addictions, allergies, diseases, illnesses, disorders, or disabilities? How does this affect their life?

Uhh, no immediate allergies I can think of... unless you count iron and the way it slowly burns him because of his fae blood.

No addictions per se either-- he had a bit of an issue w/alcohol to cope with the way Winter makes him feel for a time as an older teen/real young adult, but managed to wean away from it before it could have been called an addiction-- that said, he still tries to stay away from alcohol entirely during winter lest he go on some bender that makes him feel worse later. His fondness for sex could be, but isn’t, possibly more for my sake in not being sure how to address such and not wanting to in a D&D game.

Diseases, illnesses, or disorders... Technically just a vaguely magical variation of Seasonal Affective Disorder, really. ...His work for Lord Kilan and the way that contract and the fae laws themselves hang over him might be a source for more distress in Merit’s mental state, but nothing I could name offhand like the way winter affects him.

Winter affects the entirety of the fae, especially those on the edge of mortal and wilds, and Especially Merit with his mortal blood bond. He becomes tired, disconnects from things around him, his hair and skin literally dull and cooler and the light in his eyes that usually signal his cheery nature goes. The later in winter it is, the longer he just wants to sleep. He can still mostly stay awake smile and laugh and interact, but don’t expect much from him beyond that during winter days. This fog lifts after midwinter and comes spring, but it also comes back just the same in late fall.

19: What words would your character use to define themself?

As he’s said once in-game and is listed in the description on his Pinterest board: "Me? I'm just a pretty bastard with a magical bow and some spells. I'm not exactly a fighter."

Words individually though? Beautiful, charming, unsubtle (rather, in-game he’s said numerous times that he isn’t a subtle person), simple (which is debatable)

#OC Merit #writing the individual words reminded me I think I tried sending a ramble abt Val+Merit for OC Week #can't remember if it sent right tho rip #rangerofpelor #An Answer

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