#im also in this category i have very strong opinions | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gammagoop · 6 months

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my recent fixation has been the wings of fire book series since ive been rereading it, which i feel is not very related to any of my other interests and so i havent posted much about it. but i literally have “post whatever i want” in my bio so i’m not going to let the whims of an audience stop me any longer

all that to say heres some of my series opinions in the form of tierlists

(not including 3rd arc bc i havent gotten there on my reread and i dont remember it very well)

character tierlist! (added the legends: darkstalker characters manually since they weren’t in the tiermaker version)

notes:

mightyclaws is my background character fave. category 10 glup shitto event

i need to do a long post on how much i love whiteout. another day

i realy like clay in the first book and if he retained the same level of depth throughout the series he would be in the top tier-- its just that his writing makes him so shallow in the rest of the books it makes me so sad :[ i was listening (audiobook) to hidden kingdom and like. 90% of his lines/actions were about food and the other 10% were about protecting the other dragonets..... i related so much to his anxiety in the first book and his empathy and his ability to see both sides of things... gah. sad.

jambu is also one of my glup shittos. i love his whimsical ass

foeslayer is a hard one for me because she never did anything wrong she's just..... not as present as i wish she was. she's treated as a very vital character with how many large plot points hinge on her, but she doesnt have much agency herself. its stated a lot that she's extremely important to darkstalker but in the legends book we dont see much of them interacting? idk. i like her but she always feels so uninvolved

the 'beat you to death (funny)' tier is just for characters who i like on some level but are also pathetic and worms. out of that tier i like deathbringer the best and mastermind the worst

tier after that are for characters who i have a positive opinion on but not really a strong one. anemone and sora are more complicated, but i do generally like them. i really just feel bad for them if anything. i think i like clearsight more than the other characters in this tier, but she's not in the 'wonderful :D' tier because i dont think she has a very strong personality

the 'conflicting feelings' tier is kind of a trainwreck because it means a lot of things

obviously riptide is the outlier since he hasnt done anything nearly to the degrees of coral, glacier, and albatross-- but i do have conflicting feelings on him. riptide is completely inoffensive, hasn't done anything wrong, i just dont like him because he has no real reason to be in the story. like you could write him out very easily. his only purpose is to be a love interest for tsunami which is like...... gh. dude. she doesnt need one. if she's gonna have a romance it should come naturally. not "wow this seawing is handsome and also he's the first one ive properly met as well as a guy do im in love with him now" like girl do better

coral and glacier both have done bad things and obviously have bad intentions but also.... theyre not the worst. bad but not the worst.

albatross is a victim of emotional abuse and even though that doesnt justify his actions it does explain how they could have been negated

next 3 tiers are self-explanatory. i forgot to put her on there but queen vigilance goes in 'the grime beneath my shoe'

actually no i wanna talk about scarlet and battlewinner: i think the thing that i like about them is their theatrics. they bot have such a huge presence, like a disney villain. whenever i read scarlet dialogue it almost feels poorly written with how over-the-top she is but. no other character talks like that. its just how scarlet is. and i think thats so good. whereas battlewinner's situation conceptually is just cool as hell. i love how she struggles to speak because of the ice in her throat, her rage, the way she's hinted at but her reveal is completely unexpected...... very very good

no one likes morrowseer

when im in an emotional abuse and classism competition and my opponent is queen lagoon 😧

ship tierlist! (made on ms paint since i couldnt find any good ones on tiermaker. turned out to be nice since i can mess with the placement more)

notes:

top tier is /j i just dont really like how tui writes romance

i was kind of against glorybringer at first for the same reason i dont like tsunami/riptide but honestly it grew on me. their dynamic is so fun

anemome/tamarin is good i just think tamarin could do better if she wanted to. but i understand the "i can fix her" mentality and i do genuinely think tamarin could help anemone

sunny/fatespeaker is kind of a funny concept but also i can totally see it

i genuinely forgot turtlejou was a thing in canon ... it does not make sense to me. who came up with this. in the words of my friend "forced heterosexual on both parts tbh"

i love turtle and peril as friends so so so much if i saw someone romantically shipping them i feel like i could get mad

smolder/thorn is like if glorybringer was bad. mostly just because thorn can do way better than him. smolder and vermilion should kiss each other and bond over being wimp princes who havent actually done anything wrong themselves but bow to tyrant relatives to avoid getting killed

i dont know if this will be an unpopular take but clay and peril is such an awful ship. i like them as friends, i think theyre great as friends, but a romantic relationship between them would be so deeply unhealthy considering their situation. peril would be even more dependent and attached to him than she already is, and clay is not the kind of dragon who has an easy time saying 'no' to things. it would not be a malicious relationship in any way, but it would not be good for them. peril needs to learn how to live for herself, not for the approval of anyone else

okay thats all for today friends. thank you if you read all of my mismatched thoughts if you did ^_^ i love talking

#wings of fire #long post #wof #masontalking

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ciaossu-imagines · 1 month

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hey girl! i’m so sorry to hear about your day being bad, with the etsy issue being the cherry on top. I hope youre able to vent about your job to someone in your personal life, since that can also help us feel a bit relieved. If theres anyway i can help, pls let me know! Like i mentioned before in our dms, i’m willing to commission a fic i requested for! Let me know what I need to do to get the payment/request processed!

For the ask prompt, can i request “How would you describe the sound of your muse’s voice?” for shouhei? I know we hear his voice in the anime, but because he’s a minor character (and im not the biggest fan of his jp and dubbed voice), i have a different view of how his voice would be like, so im curious what you think (especially since you’re really good with adding more life and details to characters)! Thank you!

Thank you so much! Really, I truly do appreciate it and I did rant on my break to a friend. I had to call them due to being so bothered by an ignorant coworker and a customer who hung up on me and then called my boss to lodge a complaint about me. To be fair, my boss was entirely correct to rake me over the coals for that particular mistake (turns out that, even if they’ve been screaming at you for 20 minutes, when a customer says that if you won’t give them their drugs for free, then they’ll see you at their damn funeral, the correct response is never ‘I’ll be there with bells on’ because that could be considered a threat). And thank you 😊 I really do appreciate that. I’m hoping to figure out how to allow everyone to pay for commissions now but we’ll discuss it when I get that solved!

Onto the question! I actually really do agree with you on his voice in the anime. I hate the dubbed voices overall, but his voice really did not fit him, in my opinion.

I very much see Shouhei’s voice being a baritone. I know that leaves a wide range within that category, so to narrow it down – he definitely sounds masculine but pleasantly so. His voice isn’t high and clear like a bell, but it isn’t deep, throaty, and gruff like a bass is.

I think it’s pretty in the mid-range between gruff and light, though his laugh is more tenor like. His laughter is high, clear, and almost bell-like. It’s the kind of laughter that rings through the air and brings smiles to others faces and he doesn’t really stop to consider his volume before laughing.

His speaking voice, though? Despite what some would think, I don’t think he’s a super loud guy. His voice is clear, and it is both pitched well and carries well but at the same time, he’s not obnoxiously loud in any way. You’ll hear him if he wants you too or if you’re quite close to him, but he’s not one of those types who you can hear aisles away in a store or anything.

He tends to have a bit of gravel in his voice right after he wakes up and whenever he gets a cold. It’s a throaty sound to his voice that makes his voice slightly deeper and raspier.

He’s prone to making small sounds based around his moods. When he’s happy, he whistles or hums. When he’s angry, there’s little grumbles and ‘tch’ing sounds. When he’s sad, it comes through in clearing his throat more than normal.

I don’t really have a dream voice actor in mind for him, because I’m not hugely up on voice actors, but there’s a couple characters that have the same kind of voice. Googling tells me it’s different VA’s though, haha.

He doesn’t really have a strong accent, but there’s certain words or sounds he’ll drawl out a bit more than they need to be. On top of that, he’s fond of using rural colloquialisms because they’re just so familiar in his head and he’s the sort of just sort of lets the words pour out of him.

#i am v v drunk right now #hope this makes sense #i adore you and appreciate your words

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c-orgiis · 1 year

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hi continuing under cut

so the gist of the series is that theres 10 prisoners being kept in a weird magic prison or something thats being kept by a single warden (es). the prisoners have all either directly killed someone or indirectly caused the death of someone with their actions (except for one character lol) and basically you as the viewer have to vote whether or not they should be forgiven for their murder (innocent/guilty) based on information thats shown to you through a series of music videos talking about them and their crime. the first round of voting finished so now its on the second round of music videos

i think the concept of the series is cool, like the music videos tend to be pretty vague and very heavy on symbolism so its fun to try and figure out what really happened based on the imagery in the music videos, and also the audience interaction of getting to directly have a hand in what happens to the characters

the problem is that some of the characters are like. well i get it the series is supposed to be like 'these people did FUCKED UP.shit... but should they be forgiven y/n answer NOW!!!' but i feel like some of the subject matter prrrrobably shouldnt be touched on for something like this 💀 i wont get too much into it but theres like two characters im thinking of where im like "should we really be voting innocent/guilty for this person i think they need therapy and not whatever this is" which is also probably one of the things the series is trying to get people to think about but. lol

anyway my worst gripe with the series is that theres a character named yuno that hasnt killed a single person directly or indirectly. shes there because she. gets abortions LOL and obviously she was voted innocent in the first round of voting because she hasnt killed anyone or did anything morally wrong on her part but the writer(s?) interpreted the 'innocent' vote in SUCH a weird and stupid way it brought down my opinion of the series LOL

i dont think all of the characters are treated in the same weird way yuno is i think some of them do fit the series' theme of moral ambiguity or whatever which can be interesting to speculate on but there definitely are a few characters where im like 'why are you even here lol' like theres a guy who started a twitter hate campaign that led to someone offing themselves next to a guy who harvested organs to save his dying wife like these two are nowhere near each other in terms of severity LOL

tldr i think some of the songs are good and some of the characters and their music videos are interesting but the verdicts still out on whether or not this series has good writing or not. im of the opinion its leaning towards the 'strong characters weak story' category

#corgi.txt #i do want to draw some of the characters but idk if people on here are normal about it so im a little scared LOL

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katnissmellarkkk · 2 years

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How do you view peeta’s childhood? If he was close with his brothers, how bad his mom was, how he was with his friends…

Ooooh! I love this ask 🤍. You’re kind of indulging me too much though tbh. Im going to overdo it with all my talking about this because I’m nothing if not a hardcore headcanon-er. If that’s a thing. 😁

Okay, so I’ll separate each question into categories 🤗. It’s gonna get detailed in here :

In terms of Peeta and his brothers, I imagine in the canon universe (so not my fic Candy Coal) that Peeta’s extremely close to Rye, his middle brother. I feel like living just above the bakery with his parents and being one of three boys, there probably wasn’t a lot of space so he at the very least would have shared a room with Rye, if not a bed (depending on how cramped things were). I headcanon Rye as the light, carefree brother, who’s very popular in school and has essentially all the same friends as Peeta, because he pretty much always brought his little brother with him in order to escape their hectic household for as long as they could. And that Peeta felt like the tag-along a lot in his life (because he literally was) and at certain points felt inferior to his big brother. I also imagine Peeta and Rye being competitive, in a fun way but deep down, there was some genuineness to it on Peeta’s part, always feeling a little bit like the loser because Rye always wins (hence, Katniss’ mentioning in the first book that Peeta was a strong wrestler because he came in second at the school competition. To his brother). I also imagine the friends Peeta had (as Katniss always describes him, when talking about seeing him around school growing up, as being surrounded by friends) aside from Delly, weren’t his real friends, they were only around him because of Rye and he lost them after coming home from his first games.

On the flip side, I picture Peeta’s oldest brother, who I named Wheaton (or sometimes Graham like the cracker) for any canon fic, being super quiet and standoffish and intellectual. The one least into wrestling but could fight if he gotta. I don’t picture him being as close to Peeta as Rye and they don’t have as many friends in common but I imagine Wheaton being the one Peeta turns to the most after their mother’s outbursts. Because he’s his eldest brother and the one Peeta views as the smartest. The one Peeta looks up to and values the opinion of the most. Katniss, in all my canon compliant fics, tends to feel like Wheaton was kind rude but Peeta knows he’s just not a talker like Rye and himself. I also headcanon that Wheaton was about 5 years older than Peeta and 3 years older than Rye so he was less of a playmate to Peeta and more so tried to teach him things instead. In my headcanon, Wheaton was maybe a little bit of a stick in the mud when Rye and Peeta would have fun.

Okay now that I talked your ear off about Peeta and his brothers y’all really are gonna regret this ask because I can TALK, y’all it’s time to get into my headcanons on his mother :

Okay so, her name is Gemma Mellark in all my stuff. For my headcanons on how bad she was to Peeta, I don’t really imagine she was like a Disney villain. I have a fic in my head called A Golden Melody which has no ETA at this point because I got so many balls in the air when it comes to fics that I cannot possibly add another but it’s in my head. Anyways it is literally just my version of the Second Quarter Quell Generation and it’s in Katniss’ mother’s point of view and in it, it explains that Gemma is abused at home and you know, it gives an indication to why she may grow up to be violent since Twelve isn’t known for helping children unlearn bad habits.

Anyways, my headcanons for what kind of mother she was to Peeta are highkey displayed in my little oneshot Chalk On The Blackboard. She loved him and sometimes she was an affectionate, nurturing mother but other times she would lash out or be in a terrible mood where nothing made her happy and therefore put her boys all on edge. She did feel remorse about how she snapped at them but she also was quite defensive about her actions too. Not going to win Mother-Of-The-Year but she cares for all her boys. In my headcanon she struggled a lot with self-image and self-loathing and she saw herself in some of Peeta’s qualities and it’s what a lot of the time caused her to lash out at him. Their relationship is tumultuous, especially as he got older, but deep down Peeta knows his mother loves him. Deep, deep down.

I actually don’t believe Peeta was that close to any of his friends outside of Delly. In my headcanon, I don’t picture him telling any of his friends about his mother hitting him or any of his other really personal problems. I feel like Delly is the only person Peeta ever trusted besides his brothers as a confidante and even then he was probably limited on times he wished to talk about it. I always imagine Peeta kind of lies to his school friends about any injuries or unhappiness and pretends to just be a quiet, confident, sometimes snarky kid in front of them. And again, that he is known more or less to a lot of them as Rye’s little brother.

Okay, thank you for sending this this was very fun for me probably more than it was for you reading it 😆. And just a disclaimer, I know none of the things I just said we’re actually canon but this is my detailed backstory for Peeta that I came up with for all my canon compliant fics 🥰🥰🥰.

#thg #asks 🦋#peeta mellark

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uter-us · 6 months

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Hello! I saw your post asking how trans people would define a woman, and gender in general. First I just wanted to say thank you for trying to understand different perspectives, in my experience I've not found many people on the internet who actively seek out the opinions of people they generally disagree with. So I genuinely appreciate that you're trying to understand us better.

But I would define "woman" as one of the two binary genders, which is typically but not always associated with being biologically female. And similarly "man" is the other binary gender, typically associated with being biologically male. But obviously that's just my opinion and it's true that a lot of people disagree on what they mean. And I think when a trans woman says that she identifies as a woman, what that really means is that she's just more comfortable being seen as a woman, and she feels a sort of kinship with other women despite maybe having experiences that are different than them. Same goes for trans men.

As for what gender itself is, I would say that it's socially constructed categories (because humans really like to categorize things, even ourselves). That's why different cultures sometimes recognize different genders beyond woman and man, and many cultures have such different gender norms.

I'm sorry for this being so long, and I'm sorry for sending it in an anonymous ask. It's just what I feel most comfortable with right now, which I hope you can understand. But, yeah, thank you for trying to seek out different perspectives. It seems that you're actually genuinely trying to learn more about the experiences of trans people and I really appreciate that. I hope you have a good day!

hey!! i appreciate your response so much!! youre very nice, and i appreciate you too for trying to understand other perspectives through reaching out :))

also please keep in mind i haven't slept in 24ish hrs which is a long time for me so this is more of a ramble than very succinct 👍

since it's through anon ask it might be a bit tricky to get your responses, but if you end up feeling like responding, i'm sure we'll figure something out haha but i am gonna ask some questions !

And I think when a trans woman says that she identifies as a woman, what that really means is that she's just more comfortable being seen as a woman, and she feels a sort of kinship with other women despite maybe having experiences that are different than them. Same goes for trans men.

okay so i see you point to two things that make a trans woman a woman and a trans man a man. the first one is about wanting to be perceived as either a man/woman. I am under the impression that what you are describing is some level of dysphoria, (or maybe more euphoria ?), but correct me if i'm wrong. I am gonna point you to these three versions of that post for a more thorough response w questions this definition or partial definition prompts-- the posts are kinda lengthy so be warned! but you can skim (if youd like) for the parts referring to perception and dysphoria. (again, working off little sleep so the links are a great help. but if you are having trouble finding anything lemme know and i will help!!)

curious what your thoughts are there!

the second part is about having a kinship with other women/men despite having different experiences. this idea is one i don't hear as often! if im working w the understanding that kinship means a strong (family-like) relationship, is that really enough to warrant a role in defining who is a woman/man? like there are people who fit both of these rules (increased+significant comfortability w perception plus feeling they have a kinship w said group), and we can still recognize they don't belong in that group. in my personal opinion that isn't enough for defining a woman/man (especially legally!)

im so sorry im being super lazy and tired, but in the posts i linked i talk about genders beyond woman and man, different cultures' gender norms, some questions about what gender as a social construct means to yall (vs the radfem perspective), and ultimately the role that plays in this type of conversation, so im gonna point you there again haha. if you want me to elaborate on anything dont hesitate to lemme know!

no need to apologize for your boundaries!! an anonymous ask works great :) and i apologize for the lack of sleep interfering w my response, i hope it wasn't disappointing!! still i hope my posts provide some insight too, but more importantly i really hope you check out the questions because i promise my goal isn't to j stand on my soapbox or info dump, i really appreciate any and all feedback/responses-- feel free to send another ask (if you feel up to any response!)

i really appreciate your message!! the kinship aspect was the most eye opening for me because i find it relatively uncommon to hear in my experience. your fresh perspective is well worth reading! thank you! be so safe and take sm care 🫶🫶🫶 (and lemme know if theres something i missed you want further clarification/comment/question on!)

#this is not the most indepth post ever....#in fact its very shallow....#but hopefully the links i sent can fill the huge gigantic enormous gaps i didnt write about.#i need sleep. ahhhhggghh #not j a reblog tag #read conversations tag

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criminologystudies22 · 2 years

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Working with Vulnerable & Challenging people - is it really so bad?

Now in my studies, if I have learnt anything it’s that no matter what path you may take after this course, you are guaranteed to be working with a vulnerable person of some kind. If you have no experience in this, it can be scary, the unknown is scary sometimes. But that’s perfectly normal, it’s how we develop our skills, and take in the knowledge given to us to put it into practice when challenged.

Did you know over a third of contract centres (34%) don’t even cover vulnerable customer training within their im induction training.

Say you finish this course, and move on to a job role which is in that category, will you therefore lack confidence?

Absolutely not! In my opinion, we have ALL been new to dealing with vulnerable/challenging people at some point, and from personal experience the best way to handle these situations, is experience. Sometimes being put on the spot, and challenging yourself, helps.

But how could we prepare for those less confident in almost going blind into situations and career paths?

Speak to your teachers, course leaders, anyone! They each will have a story or 10 of a time they handled a situation with somebody challenging if not vulnerable. Take their knowledge, and put it into practice. How did they handle that situation? Could you use their techniques in your situation? Take peoples advice and knowledge, you never know when you may need it.

Websites - Surprisingly, upon researching if there are any strong tips on websites, I was pleasantly surprised. Though, they’re very factual and by the book, still very correct nonetheless.

“Be Careful of the Vulnerable Customer Label

Before we go into how to best handle contacts from vulnerable customers, it’s first important to stress that vulnerability is a controversial label.

The vulnerable tag is one that we impose upon our customers and one that some vulnerable customer groups will challenge. After all, a customer who doesn’t think of themselves as vulnerable may be a little embarrassed or even offended if they feel that they are being singled out.

With this in mind, it’s important to train advisors to always be respectful and caring when handling contacts from vulnerable customers, while also creating training objectives around this principle.”

This was something I found extremely important. If you’re dealing with someone whom you deem ‘vulnerable’ of any kind, definitely do not make it obvious or patronising to that person that you see them as a vulnerable person. Even if they obviously/evidently are, for whatever reason, remain as calm, and professional as possible, and try your best to treat them as you would anybody non vulnerable. Definitely do not directly state to that person, that they are vulnerable.

Look up examples of vulnerable customers. What could be an obvious vulnerable person to you, may not be to somebody else. Which is why it is so surprising such a high percentage of work environments don’t offer training on the subject. Sometimes being vulnerable isn’t something you can physically see, sometimes it’s a mental/emotional state, or a personal situation.

Some tips I found:

Ask the customer their communication preferences.

Why? They could be using their phone as they believe it is their only option, make them aware if it is not.

They could have hearing or sighting difficulties, how could you help? These are things such as live chats, braille, even adjusting letter size on their correspondence.

Clarify an understanding- If you’re giving factual information, or information of any kind, it helps to ask the customer if that makes sense, or if there is anything they require you to go over again. Something what could make a lot of sense to you, may not to somebody else. Sometimes it’s a case of re phrasing, or repeating, take your time.

https://www.callcentrehelper.com/dealing-vulnerable-customers-135486.htm#:~:text=%20Meeting%20the%20Needs%20of%20Vulnerable%20Customers%20,relate%20to%20them%20better%20and%20home...%20More%20

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astrohae · 3 years

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A Dragon’s Greed

pls don’t yell at me about my unfinished series. im trying. take this instead.

dragon king!bakugou X courtesan!reader

gnc reader as per the usual

Focus. You scold yourself. You're here to entertain, not to wordlessly flirt with the princess's fiance. But what can you say? You've always had a type, and barbarian warlords fell right into your favorite category. The fact that he seemed utterly entranced by you, well that wasn't your fault. Every time you turned your head over your shoulder, you caught his eyes over your half veil and he never looked away, not even for a moment.

The princess didn't seem happy about this, sat next to the king, and huffing when her attempts at catching his attention fell flat. Serves her right for always bullying you and being such a spoiled brat.

Though, to be honest you wouldn't wish marriage to Bakugou Katsuki, the King of Dragons, merciless warlord, upon anyone.

Sure he was attractive and rich, and powerful, but you'd heard horror stories of what he had done on the battlefield.

When Bakugou started looking to new lands to conquer, you country's king had offered up his daughter like a sacrificial lamb to the barbarian in order to forge a treaty and protect his people through political marriage. King Bakugou's sexual conquests were nearly as infamous as his military ones, but he had never married or officially named a consort. The princess would be the first.

The king had sent a huge wedding procession of gifts and treasures to the high court of the Badlands, and along with it the most talented entertainers and artisans they had to offer. As the most talented dancing courtesan in the capital you had no choice but to travel with the caravan, so here you were. Performing a sword dance for a bloodthirsty king who kept looking at you as if you were a meal. It was an ego boost for sure but you were also scared.

When your performance came to a close, you bowed and quickly escaped when the princess had successfully stolen Katsuki's attention. Your face was burning under your veil and you fanned yourself in the cool stone hallway to calm down. You were hoping that the king would forget about you after a few more performers. but you hadn't even been out of the main hall two minutes when a servant came to fetch you.

"His highness requests your presence."

Your blood ran cold and your gulped. Oh gods, you had offended him hadn't you? He was going to kill you, probably behead you right there in the middle of the banquet himself-

You were thinking yourself into a panic when you returned to the banquet hall, eyes downcast now. You bowed, kneeling on the ground and hands clasped in front of your bare midriff.

Faintly you heard a scoff, and then the music stopped. You felt yourself go even more still, eyes darting around to see what happened. Unable to tell, you lifted your head slightly to see the king sauntering his way towards you. He had stepped directly over the table, spilling wine all over the princess in the process.

You quickly bowed your head again and tried not to hyperventilate. You didn't want to pass out now.

Two surprisingly clean leather boots entered your vision and on instinct, you looked up. King Bakugou was even more attractive up close, obviously built for battle with strong chords of muscle littered with scars, a sharp jawline and a head of unruly blonde hair.

"Did I say you could look at me?"

"No, your majesty." you squeak and quickly look back down.

Bakugou crouches to be level with your and grips your chin roughly, forcing you to meet his scarlet gaze.

"Did I say you could look away?" he grumbles this time.

"No, your majesty." You feel conflicted, unsure if he’d be more offended if you averted your eyes or just kept looking at him.

His eyes rake over your body again before coming back to yours.

"What's your name, pretty thing?"

"Y/N. I'm a dancer in my king's court." you answer, praying your voice doesn't sound as shaky as you feel.

He doesn't say anything but lets your chin go and rises to his feet. You rub the bottom half of your face, thinking it might just bruise. Bakugou isn't done with you, though and grabs your wrist, hauling you up from the floor. "What-?" you start to ask but a red-eyed glare has you clamping your mouth shut. The barbarian king drags you with him, right up to the high table. He lifts you over the table as if you weigh nothing, and sits you down on his lap. Right next to the princess. The banquet hall continued to steep in silence until Bakugou looked up.

"Fuck are you all looking at? Get on with the feast!" he yelled, and the music and chatter started back up.

"Your majesty, shouldn't worry with commoners-" she starts and Bakugou growls, actually growls so menacingly, you feel your own blood run cold.

"If I wanted your dumbass fucking opinion, I'd ask for it. Shut the fuck up."

Once he was sure the princess was properly cowed he turned his attention back on you. The arm wrapped around your waist holding you against his was warm against your bare skin.

"Pour me some wine." He commanded and your started before shakily lifting the pitcher and pouring some into his goblet. You hadn't it off to him carefully, and he quickly knocked it back before signaling for you to pour another.

"Most king's with a lick of sense wouldn't let a treasure like you out of their sight, so what are you doing in my court?" Bakugou asks.

"His Majesty decreed that the most talented entertainers accompany Her Highness to Your Majesty's court, for you entertainment and pleasure." you answer, handing off the refilled goblet.

Bakugou snorts at your measured and obviously practiced response. You night have heard him mutter 'toothless old bastard' under his breath, but you can't be sure.

"Give me a strawberry.", he gestures at the plate of fruit no six inches from him and you barely manage not to roll your eyes. Warlord or not, royals will always be royals, you think and pick up one of the berries.

The dragon king open his mouth and allows you to place the fruit on his tongue before biting into it. His ruby red eyes don't leave yours for a second, gripping your wrist when your try to pull away. Some juice trickles down your hand, and without breaking eye contact, Bakugou laves his tongue over your skin licking up the trail of red. He eats the rest of the berry, lips catching on your fingers before the lets your hand go in favor of picking up his wine goblet again.

"My entertainment and pleasure huh? I'm entertained, but I don't know about pleased..." he says, smirking into his goblet.

"Is there anything I can do for Your Majesty?" you manage to ask, brain still reeling from the whole thing with the strawberry.

And you walk right into his trap.

"Yeah, I can think of something..." he starts before leaning closer to you.

His hat breath fans against your neck for a moment, letting your get squirmy and nervous before continuing.

"Fucking you until you cry all that pretty makeup off... Then I'd be real fucking pleased." he says with a predatory smile spreading across his face.

You squeak, face heating under your veil as you try to formulate a response. You have no idea if the princess heard but if she did-

"Y-your majesty, I don't think-" you start but Bakugou cuts you off by grinding his hips up into yours.

"Good thing you don't need to think to take my cock." he muses.

The princess, appears to have reached her limit of watching her fiance flirt with someone else right in front of her.

"Your Majesty! I understand that this is a political marriage but I will not sit here and be humiliated and witch you proposition a commoner in front of me!" she exclaims.

You're a little surprised at her outburst considering the environment, but you guessed everyone had limits.

All chatter and music in the hall ceased for the second time that night. Bakugou pulled his face out of your neck to glare at the princess.

"You can fuck off for all I care. Your side wanted the fucking treaty, I don't have a problem with saddling up and burning your shitty country to the ground tonight." Bakugou stated, his anger growing with each word.

"King Bakugou those words could be taken as an act of war. " the diplomatic envoy from your country, stands and approaches the high table.

"What the- Did you idiots forget where you are? You're in the heart of the Badlands, in the court of Katsuki Bakugo, barbarian warlord and King of Dragons. This is my fucking kingdom and I'll do what I very well fucking please. And if I want to fuck this courtesan on the table right in front of your perfect little princess, I will. " He snarls and all you can do is sit there and pray he doesn't actually follow through on that threat.

Not that you'd hate it, seeing the look on the princess's face as you got fucked by her betrothed. Hah, serves her fucking right for always being such a brat.

"But I'm not a cruel king. I'll marry this one, and you can keep your silly little treaty." Bakugou says and both the diplomat and the princess scoff.

You balk, looking up at King Bakugou in surprise. He's going to what now?

"You can't possible expect the princess to be content with being on the same level as a commoner, even as a consort-" the diplomat starts to protest, which is quickly cut off by Bakugou's harsh laugh.

"You're a country of fucking dumbasses? I'm not marrying your brat of a princess, dump her off on some other poor bastard. I'm marrying Y/N instead of her. They'll be my consort. Won't you, pretty thing?" He says, looking at your for your answer.

"Say yes, treasure. I'm rich as fuck, I could give you anything you want. If I can't buy it I can take it. There's nothing I can't do. You wouldn't lift a fucking finger with me, I can promise that." he boasts to you and you know this.

King Bakugou is an unstoppable force. You had a hard life as a commoner, as a dancer. You weren't a servant but always being at the beck and call of nobility, dancing for them until your feet bled, until you fainted from exhaustion.

You deserved to be greedy, just like the man holding you in his lap.

"Yes, I'll marry you." you answer, and Bakugou smiles wickedly.

Good, he likes greedy. It's one of his favorite traits.

He turns his head back to look at the diplomat and princess from your home country. The diplomat looks like he's sweating buckets and the princess is so angry you think she might start breathing fire.

"So, do we have an agreement? Y/N for your protection?" he asks.

"Y-yes your majesty." the diplomat stutters at the same time the princess protests.

"We do not! How dare you disrespect me so openly, you filthy little wench-" she starts, only to be silenced by the sight of Bakugou pulling his sword. He points the tip at the princess, visibly seething with rage.

"Shut your worthless fucking mouth before I shut it for you." he growls.

Fear takes over the princess' face and she stumbles back behind the diplomat.

"Oi, don't piss on my floor or anything, fucking cowards. Show some respect to my new consort. Bend the knee and I'll forget this transgression." Bakugou orders.

While not officially married yet, he's bestowed the title of consort upon you and now you outrank the princess. In fact, you outrank nearly everyone here, sans Katsuki, who is your equal. The diplomat and princess wordlessly fall into a bow, and the nobles from both courts follow suit.

"Alright that's enough groveling for now. This banquet is over, I'm retiring to my bed chambers. If you need me, don't." Bakugou gruffs and stands up, once again easily scooping you up into his arms.

"I'm going to rip this pretty little costume to shreds, and pump and heir into you tonight, goddamn it." Bakugou murmurs in your ear as he carries you though out his(your) palace.

"I like this one..." your protest weakly as he kicks a door open, throwing you onto his bed.

He grasps the waistline of your costume, easily ripping the silk to shreds with his bare hands.

"I'm buy you forty just like it, now spread your legs, Consort." he orders, licking his lips.

"I didn't get to finish my meal earlier." He hums and you squeak in anticipation.

"Cute. Let's see how many cute noises you can make, huh?"

@hanji-is-life i hope you enjoy!

#bakugou fanfiction #bakugou kastuki #bakugou x reader #bakugou x gnc reader #dragon king bakugou #bakugou imagine

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thesuperiorlokiseries · 3 years

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Hi im so freaking happy about this rewrite i just got a lil query um Loki is going to be Aesexual does that mean he doesnt care about sex or that he is against the idea of it or is even maybe disgusted by it ? im sorry if i coming across as ignorant ?/ rude i most defiently not against loki being aesexua but just kinda want to know what it means for loki to be aesexual as idk in my own head i guess i always thought of loki o f being willing to sleep with almost anyone nd am lil confused thnku rw

No, Loki is not going to be asexual in the rewrite; he's going to be bisexual and aromantic. This makes him allosexual aromantic, or alloaro for short.

Asexual and aromantic are sometimes confused with each other, but while asexual means not experiencing sexual attraction, aromantic means not experiencing romantic attraction. They are not the same.

To answer your questions, here's a broad overview of several things:

Asexual people (as well as people of other sexualities, for that matter) can be sex-favorable (like sexual activities or the idea of it), sex-indifferent (don't have strong opinions on having sex or the idea thereof/are indifferent/don't care) or sex-repulsed (find taking part in sexual activities or even the idea of it undesirable/repulsive). Note here that this is an oversimplification of all three terms. Rewrite Loki is likely sex-favorable.

Being asexual is a sexual orientation and has nothing to do with one's views on the acceptability of the sexual activities of other people. For that, the terms are sex-positive or sex-negative, wherein (to oversimplify) sex-positivity is essentially the belief that all sexual activities between two or more fully-consenting adults are acceptable, whereas sex-negativity is the belief opposite to that. Sex negative people may believe that sex is only acceptable after marriage, between a man and a woman, be anti-sex work, and so on. Sex-favorability or sex-repulsion has nothing to do with sex-positivity or sex-negativity, and people who are sex-repulsed may be staunchly sex-positive. Rewrite Loki is obviously not sex-negative.

Action is not the same as attraction. Being asexual does not mean being a celibate. Asexual people don't experience attraction, but that doesn't mean they cannot have had several sexual partners for other reasons. Likewise, aromantic people can have had multiple romantic partners. Loki is not asexual in this rewrite, but even if he was, there's still nothing stopping him from having slept with a lot of people.

People don't necessarily have to be asexual to be aromantic or vice versa, although there's plenty of people who are both aromantic and asexual (referred to as aroace). Alloromantic asexual people (alloace for short) experience romantic attraction but not sexual attraction. Allosexual aromantic people (alloaro for short), on the other hand, experience sexual attraction but not romantic attraction.

However, both 'asexual' as well as the 'aromantic' are identities as well as spectrums (ace-spec and aro-spec respectively, collectively known as aspec, a term which is also shared by autistic-spectrum people) which not only include people that don't experience attraction at all but also those who experience limited attraction, i.e. demi and grey people (as well as several other microlabels). Both spectrums are incredibly diverse meaning there's a lot of ground to cover to be fully inclusive of everyone within it, but if you want to know more, the split attraction model is a good place to start.

Loki being bisexual is canon in the series, and him being either bi, pan, or some other label under the multisexual category is canon in most other interpretations of him including the mythology. The rewrite's Variant Loki will be bisexual in accordance with this, although this may or may not hold true for other variants of him. Meaning yes, Loki is sexually attracted to men, women and nonbinary people (but not romantically attracted to anyone).

While him being aromantic is a headcanon we're adding from our side with no particularly solid canon basis, it's something many of us latched on to when he admitted thinking (romantic) love isn't real in episode three of the canon show. And when the series decided to shove the amatonormative bs that was canon sylki down our throats the very next episode, we decided to go along with our aro Loki headcanon both out of pure spite as well as out of a desire to have more arospec content in a fandom that heavily lacks it, because while aro rep in media is scarce as it is, it is also immensely scarce in fandom spaces, and since several writers of the rewrite happen to be arospec, we wanted to fill that void.

The fact that the aro flag is green and black and the alloaro flag is green and gold really doesn't help.

#sorry if that was too long of an answer #long post #the superior loki series #loki series rewrite project #the superior loki asks #not the superior loki series #asexual #aromantic #loki

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annoyingbeardmentality · 3 years

Text

judging one punch man characters on whether or not I think they would smell bad

im very stoned but i feel like some of these dudes would STANK (in no particular order)

Saitama

dude seems like he would bathe regularly but also the superhero costume does not look breathable AT ALL. i think the superhero fit probably smells more than he does

Genos

u know when ur behind a particularly old car in traffic and all you can smell is car exhaust? he probably smells like that so i would put him in the STANKY category

Mumen Rider

hes too polite to go out without at least deoderant on. but he also be riding around on his bike all day so he probably overdoes it. not quite stinky but not NOT stinky.

(more under cut bc i dont want this to be an abhorrently long post)

Garou

THIS GUY WOULD SMELL SO BAD ON GOD !!!!! as a character he cool as hell but??? he would STANK like straight bo i dont think he knows how to wash his clothes i declare thee STANKY

Sonic

i feel like he doesn’t brush his teeth. like dude bathes regularly, but his breath probably REEKS sorry not sorry bro

King

tbh???? he seems like he showers. he might not b that strong but at least he probably got proper hygeine

Metal Bat

this guy’s cologne wears cologne. it’s probably axe too, but nobody has the mf nerve to tell him that it DOESNT SMELL GOOD BRO

anyways thats all the ones i have strong opinions on fight me in the comments

#one punch man #opm #one punch man season 2 #saitama #genos #Mumen rider #garou #speed o sound sonic #king #metal bat #king opm #THIS DUDES STANK

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theonlygamergost · 3 years

Text

Nature’s effect - Fd!Au

This fanfiction is based on the Family Dynamic au made by @antarctic-bay ctic-bay if you would like to know more, go check them out!!!

Also please bear in mind that the things written in this might not be canon!

This fic was corrected by the lovely @im-default

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Techno started working at the local vivarium and finds out that nature can change and calm even the most hyperactive people, just like Tommy

I did a poll on the Fd!au server about who my next fic should be focused on and Techno/Tommy won, so here you have it!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Warning! Swearing

Enjoy~

“I’m sure they’ll love the flowers! Thank you and have a nice day!” Camille waved the last customers off and started cleaning the counter of the rotten leaves and flowers that she had cut off the last order, Techno was kneeling in front of a shelf busy applying tags on products.

“Techno are you almost done with those?”

After saving some flowers from Wilbur’s room, Techno had taken a liking to tend plants and gardening in general, the local vivarium owner Camille had taught him many tips and tricks that made him a perfect employee for the job.

He was pretty hyped for his first day at work, well... it was more of a trial per se, it was a test to see how he would react to the human interactions and how fast he could get the hang of the profession, which went great in his opinion:

Camille was great at explaining how to take care of the plants and wrapping the pots for gifts, she was so elegant while she passed the ribbon around the wrapping paper Techno almost tripped by getting distracted while looking at her.

His job in the magic home of plants was pretty simple: water the plants that weren’t irrigated automatically, check for parasites, diseases, or rotten leaves, restock the expositive plants and help costumers for whatever they needed, and of course, if he didn’t know what to do, just call Camille or any other employee for help.

“You did great today Techno! The old couple you helped earlier seemed very satisfied!” Techno blushed at the compliment since he couldn’t handle them and ended up stuttering, “T-thank you…”

“There are still thirty minutes before we need to close… Are you free to stay a bit later? I can show you how the irrigators system works and where the shelves outside go when closing the shop” He froze as he took his phone out of his pocket.

There where multiple messages coming from none other than the gremlin, and the last three (out of probably twenty all saying “I am bored” and “Answer pig” ) where what caused the strong reaction:

Gremlin

YOu are working at the plant place, right?

Gremlin

Big P and Big W won’t be home till late

Gremlin

Im bored so im coming over

Oh no…

Oh no no no-

“Um... Camille? My brother is at home alone, can he wait for me here until I finish?” The kind girl did not hesitate for a moment, “Absolutely! Not many customers arrive this late so there will be no problem!” Techno released the breath he didn’t notice he was holding, texting angrily back at Tommy, cursing at him to wait until he answered before taking initiations.

Just after he learned how the irrigation system worked, a familiar red and white t-shirt popped into view, “If you want Techno, you can ask your brother to help you take care of the greenhouses, it’s an easy job and you said he was bored at home yes?” Techno nodded and thanked the owner of the vivarium, he walked up to Tommy, who as soon as he saw him, burst into a laugh.

“BWAHAHA!!! WHAT ARE YOU WEARING TECHNO?!” The pink-haired boy looked down at his outfit, which consisted of his school uniform, a pair of green rubber boots, and a cute green apron with a daisy onto it. “What are you laughing at Tommy?” his younger brother was holding his stomach, wiping a tear off of his eyes, “The apron! It’s so- Pffffff-!” Techno sighed, shaking his head, “You are an absolute child… Phil wears an apron when he cooks too and so does Tubbo when he is in art class! How is it funny to you?! It’s a simple piece of clothing!!!” He turned around hoping Tommy would follow, there was no way he was giving him a pair of scissors so a watering can should busy him enough to avoid boredness.

“Hey! I’m not a child! I’m a big man Technoblade you should know” he puffed his chest to look high and mighty, “And how do you not find aprons funny big T?! They are like a little skirt… ok fine ignore me then” noticing how Techno wasn’t turning around nor paying him attention, he followed him to the greenhouses in silence looking at the number of plants and flowers that were littered everywhere.

As soon as Techno stopped he handed Tommy a watering can full of water that he almost dropped, “WHOA- what the hell man?! This is heavy!” Ignoring his brother's complaints, he adjusted his glasses and grabbed a pair of scissors, “Water the third and fifth row, don’t get the leaves wet, pour it directly on the soil and-” Techno turned to face him, “Don’t make a lake in the pot, stop watering as soon as you made a slow circle around the plant” As soon as he finished talking, he kneeled in front of the first plant of the first row, leaving Tommy with a heavy watering can and overcomplicated instructions.

“Don’t make a lake and don’t do this a-and don’t do that gne gne gne… Ugh what a pain in the ass” Tommy started to do as Techno instructed, but as time went on, something in him changed, going from a grunting face and not caring if he poured too much water, to a more relaxed expression, softly moving the leaves aside so water wouldn’t get on them.

Techno didn’t notice this change at first since he was too focused on removing dead flowers and leaves, but when he looked up to check if the gremlin was doing ok, he stopped himself from talking when he noticed that Tommy was crouched down, holding a ladybug in his hands.

Techno smiled at the sight of his brother becoming calmer when in contact with nature, he was so cute…

Quickly snapping a picture and sliding his phone back in his pocket he walked up to him, kneeling as well. “What’cha looking at?”

Tommy didn’t bother looking at his brother, his eyes were fixated on the small bug, “A Ladybug… it has five spots… Does that mean it’s five years old?” Techno softly chuckled, “No, that’s a common misconception Tommy, the spots are to warn predators that they don’t taste good, a self-defense mechanism” Tommy looked up at Techno and back to the ladybug, “But why five?” the older brother spotted another one of the small creatures, he waited for it to walk on his finger and held it close to Tommy’s one, “It represents which species it is, look- they both have five spots, meaning they come from the same category” Tommy added nothing, too absorbed into admiring the small bug pacing around the palm of his hand, instead, Techno placed his one back on the plant, snipping away a molded leaf, “Farmers believe that if they find a ladybug with less than seven spots means that they’ll have a good harvest, the contrary if it has more than seven, it’s only a folk legend though” Tommy decided to follow suit and moved his hand closer to the plan, allowing the small red and black insect to go back on the plant it came from.

“C’mon, your watering can’s empty, let’s go fill it up” The blonde boy smiled and nodded, grabbing the empty plastic container and following his older brother, looking at the variety of flowers and plants the greenhouse sheltered.

The rest of the time spent tending to the plants was calm and relaxing, nature really changed Tommy since he didn’t say once that he was bored or he never tried to start an argument, he looked at peace watering the small plants, kneeling to smell the flowers and making sure they weren’t diseased.

“Do you want to cut off the brown leaves? You look like you want to look at the plants a bit closer, I can water the rest” Tommy was surprised when Techno held in front of him the pair of scissors, he hesitated for a second, making sure that his brother was confident in his decision, but all he got from Techno was a soft smile.

Tommy remained in this unusual state all the way back home, let’s say that this moment of… “peace” was ruined when Wilbur came home and showed Tommy the picture Techno took of him behind his back.

#technoblade #tommyinnit #wilbur soot #ph1lza #fd!au #fd au #fanfiction #my fanfiction #writing #my writing #mcyt #sleepyboisinc

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theunconcernedembalmer · 3 years

Note

what’s the issue with elisop? is it just bc you hc aesop as ace? im so concerned by seeing ppl adamantly opposed to mlm/wlw ships but im also genuinely curious about why you dislike it and other lgbt ships so much lol

hmm. that is a strong accusation, n i find it just a bit odd. are you new here? or perhaps you are taking personal offense at my dislike towards a favourite ship of yours and using the lgbt argument as moral high ground?

whatever the case may be, i thank you for asking. if u r truly looking for an answer, its below the cut n it is very very long. mind u these are all my personal opinions n i am in no way policing how others enjoy ships. just in case this wasnt clear; i dont wish to start discourse on this blog, especially since my takes are probably... unpopular.

firstly i would like to address the “disliking lgbt ships” bit, because this has very strong implications in itself. i have nothing against lgbt ships. i enjoy them, even. if the two characters have chemistry between each other, i ship it. however, the moment characterization is broken for the sake of romance, i lose interest. this is generally my stance on ships in general, n this applies for both straight n lgbt ships.

the ships themselves are fine. however, i do have issues with the ship dynamics, so ill let u in on that.

i want to touch on mlm ships in particular; i believe u are familiar with the top/bottom dynamic that is rampant in these kinds of ships? (i wont deny that this dynamic can be found in other types of ships, but for arguments sake i will be focusing on gay ships because i feel that this occurs more commonly here) its such a popular dynamic that is prone to stripping the personality from one if not both characters, only for them to be reduced to being dominant/submissive. for a character to be pigeonholed into a stereotypical category based on... preferred sexual positions? its just downright insulting, never mind the larger more problematic implications of it. top/bottom is not indicative of someones personality, by the way. flattening multi dimensional characters into these stereotypes is so so so insulting.

unfortunately this is The Most Popular portrayal of just about any gay ship around. ive seen it being used everywhere in so many fandoms n it just about becomes apparent to me that ppl come to stories looking for a Ship. not the stories, nor the characters, just a ship. while id like to say theres nothing wrong with that, keep in mind not everyone is just looking for 2 characters that look pretty next to each other. if i ship something, i see interesting n meaningful interactions between 2 characters, which is so often not the case once u bring in the top/bottom dynamic. why is it so popular? because somehow this is what ppl like from a gay ship n hence it sells. ppl want the drama, characterizations be damned. ppl want to see the big kiss that happens in the end, n maybe the sexy parts that come after. characterizations be damned.

so u can say im a little wary of gay ships when they cross my feed. hell, as a joseph aesop shipper i see this trope everywhere n im pretty disappointed as well. small tangent but i feel like this is the reason why zh0ngli n ch1lde is so popular in g3nshin. i try to see the appeal, i really do, but after a long while of analyzing their respective characters i dont think they have as much chemistry as ppl think they do. dont even get me started on how incredibly ooc they make either of these very interesting n unique characters in ship portrayals. all because of the top/bottom dynamic that ppl want to see. i say this for that particular ship, but this is pretty much the case for a lot of ships out there, n the latter part is painfully true even when the 2 characters do have potential between each other. ill say it again im disgusted by the blatant disrespect to the characterizations if all ppl ever want is 2 pretty puppets to mush lips together. cos thats what theyre essentially reduced to this way.

n its so obvious to see when an artist subscribes to this rhetoric, because u can so clearly see it in the way they draw their characters. the “top” generally has sharper features to go with their “dominating personality”, while the “bottom” has disturbingly softer, feminine, dare i say sometimes child like features “to submit”. n thats where the uwu soft gay trope comes from, i believe. which, in case u still dont know, i hate with a burning passion.

so again for ppl with impaired reading comprehension, im fine with ships, including lgbt ones, but the moment u break characterization for the sake of the ship, im not that okay with it. u want to do it for a short crack comic? fine. but if thats the only way ur portraying the 2 characters then im immediately wary of ur content. ill still look at it cos usually the art is really good, but im very very wary. so im not “adamantly opposed”, just very critical of how the ships are being portrayed. if other ppl want to enjoy their ships like that, sure. just dont expect me to join in on something i dont agree on.

now id like to address not shipping “because i hc aesop as ace”. for ppl who are new to the blog (hello there), im an ace in a romantic relationship, so thats definitely not the reason i dont ship elisop. its more of being in a relationship has largely shaped my views towards romance as a whole. even before i met my boyfriend, i hated the romance genre in stories n media. most of it comes off as incredibly forced, especially those love triangles they seem to love putting into teen novels. thats one reason why i stopped reading when i was younger, but i digress.

did i partake in shipping when i was younger? i did. for a gay ship too (if anyone really wants to know, its kurotsukki from haikyuu. at least this was one that i can remember, i was mostly working on my 20 odd ocs for the longest time). i also used to write little short romance ficlets that i never posted anywhere cos i hated (n still do hate) my writing. but writing romance when u dont have experience was really just a way of projecting n probably a way of coping for myself, not that i knew at that time. but after i actually started a relationship with my boyfriend (whom i love n cherish a lot thank u very much), i began to see how much all these have skewed my views towards romance n have actually done some harm to our relationship. the bullshit that the general media feeds u constantly doesnt help in the slightest either.

quick topic shift to elisop in particular (about time, right?). i already stated that i only ship characters if i sense chemistry between the two personalities, n if u have seen the part where i dont ship elisop then u must have seen how agonized i am over not being able to have a concrete personality for eli. that is the main problem i have with elisop: eli does not feel like a solid character to me. n that is a huge problem, because if he doesnt have any defining characteristics besides being mild n nice, then he can be whoever i want him to be. (i have done this in my exorcist comics, i will admit this. n the fact that i can just do that... it really does not sit well with me personally.)

n that is dangerous.

back to young me doing lil ship things. i think its also pretty safe to say when u really do ship 2 characters, chances are u kinda really relate very very hard to at least one of them. that very quickly can turn into projecting, n shipping therefore is not “exploring the relationship between 2 characters” n it becomes “my preferred dating simulator 101″. of course this isnt always the case, but at least it was for me, n subconsciously it might be for lots of ppl too. n since this is ur mental playground, u call the shots, n there is no consequences if u slightly (or even entirely) alter one or both personalities to fit ur desired narrative. n u wouldnt even notice or know, cos ur blind to ur own biasness.

we bring our perceived notions into real life, im sure u know that. so when ur partner does not become that perfect knight in shining armour, or when they get upset at things that u do (which is a very normal thing by the way), n u think (very subconsciously), That isnt what my otp would do, something is wrong here (nothing is wrong, actually its just ur skewed perception of a stable romantic relationship). why wouldnt ur otp do this? because u are both halves of ur otps, there is no hidden secrets between them (apart from the pining part but thats irrelevant), n again they have been altered to fit ur preferred narrative.

a real relationship requires a lot of communication between parties, because newsflash, liking someone doesnt mean that u have to like every single thing they do, they will make mistakes n it will hurt u, n guess what, the reverse is also true. if u do go with absoutely anything that they would do with 0 objections whatsoever, ur not crushing on someone, ur idolizing them, n that power imbalance is detrimental to a relationship. these things are not obvious to ppl, especially when the whole climate is hell bent on getting into romantic relationships by a certain age or some bullshit. communication is key n is pretty much the only way to solve relationship issues, because the other person has a lot that u r not seeing n vice versa. as similar as 2 ppl can be, i doubt u can have 100% the same thoughts on all things. i dont make the rules.

so in ur mental playground u focus on the fluffy parts, maybe there is communication, but rarely is there any meaningful conflict. thats unrealistic, n if u bring that mindset to an actual relationship, thats not going to end well. i say meaningful conflict, because yes, generally u shouldnt have conflicts with ur significant other. but inevitably when ur with each other for long enough, u will realize that there are habits that u must change in order to be with the other person. habits that are harmful to the other person directly, or harmful habits towards yourself that indirectly harm the other person. these are meaningful in a sense that if left alone, it will manifest into larger problems that will harm u, the other person n the relationship as a whole. its meaningful to the relationship.

all these is made even worse if ur neurodivergent. maladaptive coping practices, self sabotaging behaviours, inherent disabilities. all these must be adjusted n addressed. im so incredibly thankful for my boyfriend for being incredibly patient with me when working all these out, n it has not been easy for me to work on myself n all my problems, n im still not done working on them. this aspect is often not explored in romance in general (or properly), n there is a very good chance i would have still been stuck in the unhealthy mindset of “this isnt like my otp, maybe we’re not meant to be”. because loving someone is a choice. no one is made for each other, it is a conscious choice made between 2 ppl to make things work. this is how arranged marriages work, i am told, n i do see the appeal, not that it actually does appeal to me culturally.

special mention to the kurotsukki ship, cos from there i found a very, very good fic that explored their relationship before n after getting together, n it actually showed aspects of this problem in the incredibly slow burn of (at that time) 20+ chapters. it was just one fic (n a very good one at that, i believe it was called Leviticus), but it had a lesson i never thought i needed to learn, n learn it i did, with a lot of help from my dear.

this is also probably the reason why i dont really want to delve too much into romance now. i know its a lot of work, n everything (mostly) that the media feeds u is really false advertising, but ppl eat that shit up n so it remains one of the most popular genres to date. im just very wary that if i do start on a romantic story, i want to be able to show it in a way like that fic did, the truths of relationships, because i dont want to make something that sells, i want to make something that meaningful to me, if a little indulgent. n that also includes being very careful in how the respective characterizations will change in a relationship. almost too careful now that i think about it, but its not something that i mind. i was never one for romance from the start, n now im very careful about shipping because of what happened to me persoanlly.

okay enough about me, lets talk about aesop. in any au u put the character in, the essence of the character must remain despite the change in environment. so lets say we have ur typical modern au. dead mom, check. shitty mentor doing illegal stuff? also check. autistic boy with social anxiety? we’re good to go. all these have implications on aesop as a character, n while ppl are aware of this, again the way they go about portraying it can go, in my personal opinion, very wrong. ppl who immediately woobify aesop completely because he has autism annoy me. ppl who reduce him to uwu soft boi cos he has social anxiety do not know how the disorder really works n as someone who has that i hate it to the core. ppl who do all these for the sake of ship have lost my respect. its insulting.

remember the top/bottom dynamic? not that elisop is completely free from that (even if i dont know much about eli, to put him in either one of those stereotypes feels very insulting to his character. i wont even say anything about doing it to aesop its so upsetting), but its not entirely made up of either. but now i want to introduce another trope i am very wary of, which is “i can fix him”. im sure u guys have seen the meme going around poking fun at this trope (for those who havent, its along the lines of “u can fix him? well i can be his worst nightmare”) n no doubt yall would have seen it n gotten sick of it in some forced hetero romantic bullshit. we have one damsel in distress with a saviour that solves all their problems just by existing n being romo with each other.

remember “my preferred dating simulator 101″? this is not mutually exclusive n from my point of view this is dangerously close to this trope. lets be real, if it was actually a thing that all ur deep rooted trauma magically disappears if someone were to waltz into ur life, we would want it. definitely. no painfully dissecting ur own problems n constantly facing them head on. real life states that this is not the case, but it will not stop us from dreaming. n so this trope is born n lives n will go on.

(finally) pulling aesop n eli into this, at least in my mind, u have one severely traumatized boy with lots of issues n u have this. nice mild guy who can be anything u want him to be. i hope u can see where im going with this, n thats the direction i see some elisop heading towards (i dont read a lot of elisop to be fair). if u came from my eli character talk, i mentioned that it is incredibly one sided. this is exactly what im talking about.

putting it all together in case u havent already, aesop is the damsel in distress, whose problems magically disappear because of elis godly kindness n little to no work on improving himself, n they lived happily n gayly ever after.

can u tell how much that does not appeal to me.

never mind the butchering of character that inevitably happens somewhere somehow, the unrealistically perfect themes n implications of this trope makes me so viscerally uncomfortable. this is, of course, due to personal reasons, n i definitely see the appeal of this dynamic because i would probably have been interested in this once upon a time as well. but as i am now, with everything i have explained up there n everything i have been through, i would politely rather not.

n its difficult to think of another dynamic, because of how little i know about eli apart from him being this saint, which easily makes him a candidate for being aesops trauma panacea. never mind aesop rarely, if ever, does anything for eli as a character in return, n its so damaging to buy into this rhetoric, where a person like this who would solve all ur issues no strings attached exists somewhere in the world. they really dont. a relationship has to be mutually benefitting, or it will be draining n disastrous. maybe u say, Oh its nice to imagine it once in a while. n yeah, i agree, except once in a while is a little difficult to keep track of n that is sort of what happened to me. id rather stay as far away as possible from this kind of unrealistic fantasy, i just got this shit sorted out with myself n my boyfriend.

i have some other reasons, but theyre more personally problematic, so i wont go into them here. but this is mostly n generally why i do not ship elisop romantically. if u do, u do u, and have fun, but again dont expect me to join u. thank u for coming to my ted talk, this took a lot longer than expected.

#mun rambles #its me the mun #unconcerned ramblings #posting this now cos this is a question ive been getting #although this has been worded in the most unnecessarily passive aggressive way possible that i do not appreciate #im wary about all u so called social justice warriors championing this n that liberal idea when all u want to do is stir shit #thankfully i dont have much experience with this but just passively seeing all these ppl run their mouths is getting very annoying #but just know that i will not tolerate any of that bullshit here. because if u really do care about ppl as much as u say u do #then why r u attacking ppl period #ur really just hiding behind a righteous excuse to harm people. thats disgusting. i dont want u here

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peachcitt · 3 years

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okay, so style reference you say? I'm 👀

YES STYLE REFERENCE I SAY

this is going to be. a very long post i think with probably a lot of tangents and probably with a lot more thorough explanation than you could ever want but. here we go

because all of my theory/explanation posts end up So Long, i like to organize myself by keeping myself to a structure, and i also like to think if i put stuff in sub categories with bolded titles, people reading can skip ahead to the stuff they want if they're low on time or don't feel like slogging through everything. so here's the structure of the official Peach Style Reference Narrative

1. Early Days - how i started writing, my early inspirations, origins

2. Current Days - discussions of current style references plus examples and comparisons, discussions of original content versus fan content

3. Future Days - where i expect my writing to grow, trajectories i want, conclusory thoughts

without further ado, let's get into it!

1. Early Days

like i mentioned on the discord server, ive been writing creatively for. a very long time. i just turned 20 (like. literally today. we love to see it) and that seems very young, but i remember writing creatively when i was maybe six or seven, and before that i played with dolls a lot, which meant every day i was creating little narratives for myself. in addition to this - and this is probably why i started writing so young - i was (and am!) a very avid reader. i was that little jerk in elementary school reading chapter books and going into the older kids' section in the school library because i'd already mentally surpassed the books in the section meant for kids my age. so, basically, ive been writing for maybe 13 or 14 years at the least.

when i was young, my favorite books that i remember trying to copy in my own stories were: the magic treehouse books, harry potter, and percy jackson.

the magic treehouse

i honestly could not tell you which magic treehouse book it was, but i remember reading a specific magic treehouse book where the magic lady that left the treehouse for the kids sends the kids (jack and annie??) a note in distress, and she didn't get to finish signing her name because whoever had gotten her had interrupted her. it had been printed in the book with the ink on her name running.

i could not tell you anything else that happened in that book, but i can tell you that at some point in time soon after i read that book i started writing a story with an interrupted letter just like that. i loved the drama, the mystery of it all. i wanted to do something that was a little scary like that, a little exciting.

harry potter

harry potter isn't much of a style reference, but it was a huge impact of my childhood. truth be told i kind of hated the books when i was really young because i grew up watching the movies, and when i tried to read the books when i was in elementary school, the teenage angst that hits about book 5 simply Did Not make sense to me. i also find the language of harry potter to be super cumbersome, and sometimes it feels to me like the books are long just for the sake of being long. they have a huge cultural impact, but i feel the same way about harry potter's style as i do about dickens. cool and interesting, but, like, could you get to the point already? (and also my opinion of j.k. rowling has steadily been growing worse and worse over the years, for obvious reasons. harry potter is nostalgic for me, but i can't look at it now without thinking about it critically, which really lowers my opinion of it)

however, you could probably call my first fanfiction a harry potter fanfiction. i started it when i was maybe six or seven, and it was a rewrite of the chamber of secrets with my childhood best friend as the main character (she didn't know about it, i just had her as the main character because i thought she was cool). i of course never finished it, but harry potter probably did a huge part of planting that seed of magic in me. everything i want to write included some form of magic - although my perspective on what can be considered magic has steadily expanded over the years.

percy jackson

of all my childhood "style references" that still influence me to this day, percy jackson has got to be the biggest. for starters, it's magic. second, it's main themes are about friendship and family - things that i like all my stories now to always include. third - and most important - is the narrative voice.

in terms of narrative voice, percy has a huge personality. he's witty and snarky, but also very thoughtful and poignant. a lot of my early writing was in first person, and it's probably because of percy. also, percy jackson was the first fandom i really got into, and it was the first media that i started officially writing and posting fanfiction for. percy's voice is so clear and hooking, and i wanted to be able to write something funny and real like that.

also - chapter titles. the original pjo series is famous for its weird and hilarious chapter titles, and even though i didn't really start writing fics or stories that were long enough to need chapter titles until a while later, i loved the idea of putting in a chapter title that would make a reader laugh, or maybe even make a reader feel a little apprehensive about the events to come.

but back to percy's narrative voice. i loved that style, almost conversational, so much that i started thinking like it. when i wasn't doing anything, like walking home in middle school, i often found myself narrating my life in my head like percy would, trying to find that humor and spark in my every day surroundings. i still find myself doing that very often, but not necessarily in the classic pjo style. now i narrate everything in my head a little differently, but that practice narration in my early days really helped my shape my voice, i think.

other series i read when i was younger include: a a series of unfortunate events and the name of this book is secret. i don't remember seeing a lot of influence in my early writing from those books, but i definitely think the styles of those books hit me a little later, which i will talk about in the next section.

but, yeah. these were the big three of my childhood. i also read a lot of ya romance, children's mystery books, princess stories, and various types of fantasy, which i think you could probably tell from the genres i like to stick to now. except i don't write a ton of mystery because, as much as i admire the complicated plots, im not sure if i'd have the patience to plan all that out.

in terms of the rest of the genres, a ton of my earlier writing included classic ya romance and fantasy tropes - chosen girl, love triangles, angsty overpowered teens, etc etc. even though those kinds of stories are not necessarily the kinds of stories i want to write or read now, i think my early writing of those kinds of things was really valuable. it's kind of a dirty secret with finished or unfinished works generally considered 'cringe' - often that writer is a new writer, or they're trying something new, or they just haven't found their voice yet. all of those things are perfectly okay and normal, and a lot of people in the writing community preach that kind of thing, but i don't necessarily see people cutting new writers slack in actual practice. writing "overrused" tropes isn't cringe, it's normal, and, besides, what trope isn't overrused? people have been writing and telling stories for thousands of years - nothing is really new. what matter is that someone new is telling the story, and that's what makes it valuable.

so, yeah, a lot of my childhood writing is cringe to me now, but i wouldn't be where i am without it.

with that being said, let's actually look at where i am now

2. Current Days

im going to break this section down into two parts, sort of: original fiction and fanfiction. because i think both of these things have become really important to me, and i don't believe i personally could exist as a writer without one or the other. it's a symbiotic relationship.

we'll start with fanfiction.

my relationship with fanfiction is relatively positive in online spaces: i write what i want to see from media that i like, and i have fun doing it. i also get some comments on my fics by lovely people that detail exactly what they like - some even go so far to talk about narrative style, voice, or tone - and that's really helpful. generally, i see fanfiction not only as a fun hobby and vent space for my strong positive feelings about certain media, but also as a place for me to try new things, experiment, and earn positive feedback.

i don't often share my original fiction online (and if i do, never at the same scope as my fanfiction), so i don't get that same opportunity to see what "works" with readers. fanfiction gives me the space to see that, and i apply new knowledge ive learned to my original fiction. that's what i mean by a symbiotic relationship.

in terms of specific style references for specific fics (which is what i know you probably most want to see), i'll try my best to pick them all out and give specific examples.

those benevolent stars and i am the messenger by markus zusak

in my favorite book list, i saw you mention tbs, so i'll start there. to be honest, i had no idea what my style reference for tbs was when i first saw your tags, and i almost didn't think there was anything specific. style references are a bit sneaky like that - if you've been referencing for someone for a long time, it becomes less of an intentional reference and more of just a you think, so it gets harder to tell.

lucky for this post, i just finished doing my yearly reread of zusak's i am the messenger, and as i was reading, i noticed a few spots where i was like wait hey i remember doing that.

for starters, iatm has been my favorite book for about six or seven years now, so i would say that some aspects of my style certainly comes from zusak because of how much i love iatm but also his other books. zusak has this huge talent for writing short, punchy sentences that convey so much in just a few words, and i think i've ended up trying to do that in my own writing. often, in my writing you'll see fragmentary sentences such as "He stopped. Blinked. Looked at her." that's not from anything specific, but i know ive written something like that maybe a million times over. zusak doesn't do the same thing - often his fragments are jam-packed with imagery in a way that mine aren't - but there's a thoughtfulness in his fragments that are in mine, too. a sort of pause. a hint that there's thinking happening in the narrator or a certain character. for example, i did a quick flip through of my copy and we have:

"We stare across the table.

Just briefly.

At each other." (I am the Messenger, p.144)

so you see how my common sentence fragment of "he stopped / blinked / looked at her" tracks with a fragment like this? i like the way zusak broke up sentences to make you dwell on them a little longer, consider the importance of each section, so i started doing that wayy before i wrote tbs i think.

also, at the time i wrote tbs, i think i was in the process of, or had just finished doing my reread of iatm, and, like i said, zusak loves imagery. tbs is a very imagery-heavy fic. tbs was influenced by a lot of music - a lot of the scenes have very specific pieces of music that i wrote imagining the tone and vibe of. iatm also references a lot of outside media sources, mostly music and films.

there are a couple of scenes in tbs that i think i wrote specifically mimicking or accidentally referencing from iatm. for example, we have this scene in tbs:

"It was almost like he could feel Marinette’s eyes on his back, steady and gentle. 'But you still love her.”

'Yeah,' Adrien said quietly, 'I still love her.' His eyes moved along a streak of purple that bled into a dark blue. 'I hate her a little bit, too.'

Marinette was silent.

He turned around, giving her a smile." (Those Benevolent Stars, chapter 3)

and this scene from iatm:

"'Do you hate me, Ed?'

Still stupid with bubbles and vodka in my stomach, I answer. Very seriously.

'Yes,' I whisper. 'I do.'

We both smack the sudden silence with laughter." (I am the Messenger, p. 233)

obviously there are differences, and i don't think i did it on purpose, but the interaction is very similar. i love the gentle intimacy of that scene in iatm, that weird complication relationship between the main character and the person he loves, the hurt, the brushing it off with laughter. so i wrote a scene that incorporated those things

zusak is also really good at writing moments of quiet into his books that aren't necessarily important to the plot, but are still important. if you've ever read that ghibli meta post talking about the 'quiet' between scenes in studio ghibli scenes, meant to give both the audience and the characters space to breath, it's like that. nothing in iatm is not imporant - it all serves a purpose, even the quiet moments, and i try to do the same thing. there's moments like that in tbs i think, like:

"Marinette gave him a small smile before turning back to her ice cream. Adrien tried to eat his ice cream a little faster, licking up where it had dripped onto his hand.

They were quiet for a while longer, and Marinette finished her ice cream. She leaned back on her hands and looked up at the dark sky, littered with stars.

He could see them all in her eyes, too." (Those Benevolent Stars, chapter 3)

and in iatm, you get scenes like:

"Our feet dangle.

I watch them, and I watch the jeans on Audrey's legs.

We only sit there now.

Audrey and me." (I am the Messenger, p.120)

so i definitely think tbs is a very i-am-the-messenger/markuz zusak-inspired fic. there's a lot of zusak's quiet, and there's the pieces of zusak's style that i've picked up along the way that really shine in tbs

tomorrow and this body's not big enough for the both of us by edgar cantero

ive talked about cantero a few times recently, but, as you've probably noticed, in relation to my fic called 'tomorrow.' i wrote tomorrow pretty soon after reading this body's not big enough for the both of us, and i used tomorrow specifically to experiment with cantero's visual writing style. in all the books by cantero ive read, there's this kind of hyper-awareness of a film gaze - how a certain scene would be shot on a camera, dialogue as script writing, and other things like that mixed with prose. i thought it was fascinating, and after finishing this body, i really wanted to play around with that idea. so i wrote tomorrow keeping in mind a "film gaze." for example:

"Two figures sitting on a rooftop, silhouettes. The moon hovers over them carefully, a crescent afraid to break the silence. One of the figures takes a breath, looks up into the sky at the hesitant moon, and he sighs. He closes his mouth again." (tomorrow)

versus in cantero's work, where we get descriptions like:

"And then, like a high-heeled coup de grace, she arrived.

She paused briefly outside the door, her hourglass silhouette cast upon the glass panel with the fresh shiny vinyl letters" (This Body's Not Big Enough for the Both of Us, prologue)

the tone of the two excerpts are very different, but there's a very visual sense to both of them, like they are being described from a shot in a movie rather than a regular work in prose. in tomorrow i also work a lot with specific camera imagery - saying where the camera goes in the scene, what it focuses on - and this body doesn't do this too much, but cantero's meddling kids does at least once that i remember.

regardless, after finishing this body, i wanted to try my hand at the visual structure that cantero uses in his works, so i really leaned in to the idea.

chat noir's white french man hit list for feminist purposes and grasshopper jungle by andrew smith

this is, as of right now, the most recent fic on my ao3, and i started it the literal day i finished grasshopper jungle. i think you might be getting a theme here - i read a really good book, and then immediately after i start writing something. the easiest way to get inspired as a writer is to read.

chat noir's hit list is a fic that is very much aware of the fact that it is a story being told - you don't know by who or for what real reason until the end, but it's a self aware sort of story. it's also very snarky and sarcastic, and it expands past just the confines of its own story; it's about chat noir and his hit list, but it also talks in depth about emilie agreste, chat noir's relationship with ladybug, and his relationship with himself. this is very much the kind of thing that you would find in an andrew smith book - grasshopper jungle is a story being told to you, and it's also about more than just the original pieces of the plot. the narrator tells the story that expands past regular confines of the story he means to tell - he's telling the 'history' of his life and his town, but he also talks about his great-great grandfather, the origins of the ketchup his girlfriend's dad eats, and what's happening in other parts of the country as he and his best friend are hanging out. the line in chat's hit list of "stars exploded, the sun did not, life continued on" was very much a grasshopper jungle and andrew smith-inspired line.

at the end of adrien's narration in chat's hit list, he says:

"It should be mentioned at this point in time that this story is not over, although I’ll stop telling it here.

So that’s the story of Chat Noir, who is also Adrien Agreste, who was very much a normal boy, except for the fact that he wasn’t. It’s a sad story, but it is also a happy story, and it is highly confidential. I’m sure you understand." (Chat Noir's White French Man Hit List for Feminist Purposes)

and at the end of grasshopper jungle, as the main character is closing out his narration, we get:

What I have written here is not the history of Eden. It is the history of the end of the world. All real histories will be about everything, and they will stretch to the end of the world.

The end of the world started when Andrej Szczerba slid into the cold sea as his boy, Krys, watched and wept and drifted closer and closer to the United States of America.

Nobody knew anything about it." (Grasshopper Jungle, p.382-3)

It's not overtly similar, but the structure is the same: recognition of the end, short summary of where we started and left the story, tag phrase that was used prior in the work. when i was writing the end of adrien's narration, i didn't mean to mirror grasshopper jungle so closely, but sometimes things just happen that way - honestly, so many of the things i do in my writing aren't intentional, they're subconscious. when i make a conscious choice, it's related to plot or to a new strategy im applying to style or voice that i'm not used to, but a lot of the things i do fly under the radar in my brain unless im purposefully trying to piece them apart like i am here.

i will say the meta-story of chat's hit list was pretty directly inspired by grasshopper jungle because i love meta stories, and i like using opportunities to put them in. i just love the idea of reading a story of someone telling someone else a story, which is what the two books by andrew smith i've read have been, and i think that's just fascinating, which is why i used it here.

ive gotten a couple of comments on chat's hit list that liken the narrative style to pseudonymous bosch's the name of this book is secret and lemony snicket's a series of unfortunate events, which i thought was really interesting, because i was purposefully trying to make the voice an impression of andrew smith's voice adapted to the tone of ml, but i could definitely see their reasoning.

andrew smith, like i mentioned before, likes specifics - what exactly people were doing at certain times, where a specific bottle of ketchup came from, etc. from what i remember of the name of this book is secret and a series of unfortunate events, i remember the descriptions included in those books chock full of highly specific, snarky details that aren't truly necessary, but do a whole lot in terms of adding a certain flavor to the narration. i won't try and look up examples from unfortunate events and the name of this book, but here are a couple examples:

"See, the thing about Emilie Agreste, formerly Emilie Graham De Vanily, is that she was what could be generously called a ‘radical.’ Born in 1969, like most amazing and world-altering things, Emilie Graham De Vanily grew up in London alongside her twin sister, who is a nice enough woman and who is not really that important to this story, and she was raised with the firm and gentle hands of people who had witnessed war and cruelty and had found that they did not like at all. Emilie Graham De Vanily grew up learning about the true history of England, which is not a very nice history, truly, and she grew up knowing that people with white skin like her were historically not all that great. That, historically, was a very radical thought." (Chat Noir's White French Man Hit List for Feminist Purposes)

from chat's hit list, and this:

"In 1905, being seventeen years old made you a man. In 1969 when hungry Jack fought in Vietnam, seventeen years old was a man. My brother, Eric, who was somewhere in Afghanistan, was twenty-two.

Krzys Szczerba came across the Atlantic with his father. They planned on working and earning enough money so Krzys's mother, brother, and two sisters could come to the United States, too. People who did that were called Bread Polacks. They came here to make money." (Grasshopper Jungle, p. 68)

from grasshopper jungle. once again, obviously very different, but you can tell im playing around with that same feeling of giving a surplus of facts in my narration in the same way that andrew smith does. you can't really tell in the grasshopper jungle excerpt, but oftentimes the surplus of 'facts' serves almost a comedic effect, which is definitely something that you can feel in chat noir's hit list.

[REDACTED] and six of crows by leigh bardugo

as a reward for sticking around through this, i'll give out something fun here. the current long fic that ive been working on recently has proved to be very bardugo-inspired, particularly six of crows-inspired.

in six of crows, bardugo gives us action right off the bat and then integrates flashbacks into lulls of action so that there's never truly a dull moment. i found [REDACTED] to be a fic where i wanted to use flashbacks in a similar way, so that i would get something like:

"She doesn’t stay for the whole parade, but she stays for enough of it. Nothing unusual happens, just like always, but she still makes cursory patrols around the city, ending up at the Eiffel Tower, just like always. She sits on the railing way up at the top, and she crosses her ankles, swinging her legs back and forth and humming softly to herself as she watches the sun set.

'Little kitty on the roof, all alone without his lady,' he used to sing when he’d gotten back to their meeting point from patrolling his half of the city before her. It was just a silly little song, one that he’d clearly made up for himself."

It didn’t hurt until he’d been akumatized, and she’d seen that one version of the future - the one where he’d destroyed the whole world because of Gabriel Agreste. She’d seen him then, a lonely figure in white, humming his little song to himself. Who knows how long he’d been like that before she’d been transported to him, how long he’d been really and truly alone. (REDACTED, chapter 1)

and in comparison, we get a lot of scenes in six of crows like:

"Kaz leaned against the ship's railing. He wished he hadn't said anything about his brother. Even those few words raised the memories, clamoring for attention. What had he said to Geels at the Exchange? I'm the kind of bastard they only manufacture in the Barrel. One more lie, one more piece of the myth he'd built for himself.

After their father died, crushed beneath a plow with his insides strewn across a field like a trail of damp red blossoms, Jordie had sold the farm. Not for much." (Six of Crows, p.205-6)

bardugo uses most of the flashbacks during a time in which the main characters are on a long sea voyage, which means they have a lot of time to reflect on their pasts and what brought them to these situations - it's a smart way to fill the empty space of the sea voyage and to really dwell on how important the voyage is. in a similar way, i chose to use the flashbacks in dull or lulling moments in the events of the story, ones in which marinette lets her mind wander or sees something that makes her remember something specific.

however, here's a situation where you can see me adapt the style into something that makes more sense for me, personally: in my excerpt, the tense changes between the current events and the flashback events, while in bardugo's excerpt, the tense stays the same at a comfortable past tense. when i was writing my fic with the flashbacks, i thought the constant, sometimes abrupt, switching would get confusing, so i made sure to always have a clear line using the past and present tense that readers could consciously or unconsciously take notice of.

so there are a couple of instances within some fairly recent fics i have that have specific callbacks to specific books. there are a whole bunch more, i think, but these are the ones that ive played around with intentionally the most recently or the most often.

3. Future Days

based on my recent rapid experimentation in fics (the most recent four fics on my ao3 have been very experimental in comparison to most of my works), i really anticipate a lot of growth in my overall style. ive been having a lot of fun experimenting and throwing in things that a few years ago i would've never even thought of, so im really excited to see where that might lead me, style wise.

i think as a writer there's always room for growth and learning, and that kind of growth and learning comes from not only practicing writing, but also reading. i cannot stress enough how valuable and impactful reading is on writing. considering ive been trying to read a lot more than i have been in recent years, it makes a lot of sense that ive been making a lot of weird decisions and learning more about what i want to see in my own writing.

honestly, if you ever want to know about any of my other fics, or you want to see how this kind of thing translates to my original works, just shoot me an ask! this post is already long enough, so i think i'll go ahead and end it here, but just know you can always ask questions<3

thank you so much for asking me this question and letting me indulge, and thank you for reading!!!<3<3<3<3

#ask #miabrown007 #writing #writing meta #writing style #writing style reference #my writing meta #this took. actually i will not say how long this took because i do not want to hurt myself that way #just know that this took a while. did it need to? fucking no absolutely not you didn't ask for something this long i did this to myself #this is why i didn't answer this for a couple days btw i wanted to take time to actually sit down and write down a thorough post like this #for you and i didn't have the time when you first sent it #technically i should not have had the time today but that sort of thing doesn't count in the middle of the night #happy birthday to me im giving myself a super long meta post where i info dump about some of my favorite things #also you did not. you did not ask for writing or life advice and yet i also gave that. im sorry it just happens i don't know how to stop #im so tired. i have class tomorrow (today) my cat's being a little piece of shit. we love to see it #thanks so much for asking this and i seriously mean it when i say you can ask any time #i obviously didn't go over the majority of my fics and most of this was done off of memory alone #(in terms of my own fics. the books i had to flip through to find the quotes i wanted)#so if you have any more questions about a specific fic don't hesitate to ask!! that goes for everyone btw #anyway now i have to pay attention to my cat and then go to sleep goodnight love y'all

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sanstropfremir · 3 years

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what do you think makes someone have good stage presence? do you think it's something that can be taught or something one just naturally possesses?

i read your answer to the other ask. and re. super m, i like lucas. don't get me wrong. he's very much a hong kong beauty that i love (sm is really missing out by not putting him in more editorials).

but in terms of stage presence, he isn't a standout to me? maybe that's because he's in a group with, in my opinion, two of the best performers (taemin + kai). i put him in the same category as baekhyun. like you mentioned, he doesn't stand out but makes up for it by screaming. but for lucas, he's not the best rapper or vocalist and isn't given a lot of lines.

also, what do you think about nct's infinite concept? this is a bit random but wanted to group together since we're talking about nct members. nct2020 was a whole mess for me (as someone who absolutely LOVED nct2018 concept wise and thought maybe, hey this could work). watching nct2020, it seems... asjhdakjhlgds for a lack of better words. like if i was a member and wasn't taeyong/mark/ten/lucas/doyoung, i would be :/ there's definitely a reason why sm pushes them the most because they're just better in capturing the audience. the other members feel like glorified background dancers.

in my personal opinion, stage presence is how well a performer can convince the audience that they are alive, and that they belong there. the stage is an artifice. it isn’t real, nothing you do on it is real, all performance is just that: performative. a human being’s natural state is not on a large platform being stared at, obviously anyone put in that situation is going to find it difficult to act in a natural way. why do you think people hate public speaking? why stage fright is a thing? those of us that can make it over that initial hurdle of being looked at have dual challenges; we as the audience know this whole scenario is fake; what makes it real is our willingness to be convinced that it is real, and the performer’s ability to make us believe that it is real. a huge part of this is making their bodies move and respond in a way that we recognize. this includes making facial expressions. it also includes exuding the confidence that you belong on that stage. that we should be looking at you. this is no place for timidity or nervousness. yes, i do think this is something you can learn, it’s acting and anyone can learn to act. do some people have an advantage over others? absolutely, it's the same with any skill. are there some people that despite being on stage for years never learn? also yes. i don’t think it's a ‘you have it or you don’t’ scenario, like with all reductivist binary statements, it belittles the effort of the people that work extremely hard to get where they are. this is the fallacy of mozart***; those with a high level of natural talent cannot coast by just that talent alone - a true artist is dedicated to pushing their own boundaries and skills regardless of what others deem you as. no one is born a genius, but we all have predispositions that, if applied cultivation, can become fully fledged ‘genius’ level skills.

i’m gonna put the rest of my responses under a cut because i got extremely deep in the weeds on that one, whoops.

i can totally see why lucas and baekhyun would fall into the same category for you, that's valid. obviously a lot of how effective someone’s stage presence can be is pretty subjective. my standards have a slightly different skew than the average kpop fan, since my life has been working and making performance for over a decade. yes, lucas doesn’t have the same presence as taemin or kai, and yea he's not the best rapper or best vocalist by far, but i think he carries himself extremely well despite that. he's got advantages from the start; he’s the tallest in the group and he’s pretty, but the few times that he is in center i am absolutely paying attention to him. ‘im the other one chilling with them other ones’? no idea what the fuck that means but i absolutely believe him. honestly i can't even remember any other parts of that song. if sm ever decides to give him more parts i think we’ll see a uptick in his skills. he really knows how to work a camera; his expressions and body language are already really strong and he exudes confidence like an overeager puppy.

i think nct’s infinite concept is ridiculous and a bit disrespectful to the original members who’ve done the lion's share of the work building the brand. obviously i understand why sm did it, when you have an established brand that you can keep plugging new members into you essentially never have to take the risks involved with debuting a new group ever again. plus with nct’s whole.....new culture + technology thing, they’re primed for any of the weird awful tech updates that are inevitably coming in the next decade. no shade on the girls in aespa, i just find the idea of debuting a girl group with overly sexualized ai robot versions of themselves into a world where the boundaries between idol and fan are already constantly violated uhhh...........distasteful. to put it mildly. i also think the concept is disrespectful to the new members that constantly get added in; because they get added into a system that has a clear working structure based on those original members, who are going to be in every iteration ever. because they’re the proven selling points. at least when you debut a totally new group you’re giving those idols a clean slate. any of the new nct boys will never really have a chance to truly establish themselves outside of that context. plus they will forever be plagued by exclusionist stans. if you’re lucky and charismatic and pretty like lucas you might get the chance to get beyond that (he made it to superm after all), but for pretty much everyone else? anon you said it not me.

*** i know this is not actually what the mozart fallacy is. hence the wording change. but as far as i'm aware there isn’t actually a name for this phenomenon so i'm calling it like how i heard it first described, which was using mozart as an example.

#i am absolutely not tagging this as nct because i value my life #a good example of an idol with the fledgling start of a good stage presence is felix #hes pretty hes got a unique skill and hes clearly dedicated to being an idol #hes just young and SO nervous that you can feel that he's never quite settled on stage #its been fairly obvious for kingdom i think because its a new experience but even in skz music show stages you can see it #give him a few more years to shake the most of those nerves and grow some more confidence #and he'll be even more of the powerhouse than he already is #i feel like maybe i didnt cover everything i wanted to here but for the life of me i cant really figure out what to add #i know i talked about acting and dance a while ago but i dont think ive ever fully elucidated exactly how much of kpop is acting #(the answer is all of it)#but yea tldr everything in entertainment is performative and everything performative is acting and acting isnt real #art is fake #dont believe anyone who says otherwise #every time i say that i get a flashback to my tutor's face when i said that to her in a tutorial #and i instantly knew no one had ever said that to her before #my grad school experience has just been continually questioning and upsetting the contemporary art school standards #ANYWAYS #kpop question #kpop analysis #text #Anonymous #group analysis

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