#post for them that articulates why i like them so much (unless you count the essays i write in my art tags) so it was nice to make this.

[cy-cyborg]

Tips for Writing and Drawing Amputees: Bandaged Stumps

When writing and drawing amputee characters, unless your character only just lost their limb, they don't need to wear a bandage over their stumps.

to be clear, eda's depiction in the show was fine, since she'd only just lost her arm and went (presumably) without any medical attention, but because the show didn't have much time to show her afterwards, I've noticed a tendency of the fandom to draw her wearing the bandage permanently, so that's why I'm picking on her for my example lol.

It's a bit of a trope at this point, and I think it comes from one of a few different places:

Amputees do wear bandages on their stumps, but usually only for the first 6-12 weeks post-amputation, sometimes longer if the amputation was a result of a burn. It's possible people saw this though and assumed it was permanent.

Most amputees wear a sock made of either cotton or silicone under their prosthetics to provide them with some extra padding. These socks, called liners, often stick out from the top of the prosthetic socket and could possibly be mistaken for a bandage from a distance.

Some amputees will wear compression garments for a few months to a few years after their amputations which could also be mistaken for a bandage from a distance. These garments are designed to stop swelling and reduce phantom pain, but they aren't bandages.

Stumps get cold easier because their circulation typically isn't as good as the rest of the body, so some amputees will wear socks over them even if they aren't wearing a prosthetic to keep warm, which again could be mistaken for a bandage from a distance.

This one is funny, but in my experience unfortunately, it's the most common: people think the end of an amputee's stump is just a perpetual open wound that never heals. Meaning to avoid "gore" it needs to be covered. I've met fully grown adults who believed this until I showed up to work/uni without my prosthetics or socks on.

People are uncomfortable with seeing an uncovered stump and so put bandages over it to avoid confronting their biases.

Some combination of these points.

But yeah, unless your amputee has only just lost their limb in the last few weeks, they don't need a bandage.

The ironic thing too, is that for most amputees, bandaging a stump is nearly impossible. I've been in and out of hospital since I was 1 year old and only ever met 3 nurses and no doctors/surgeons who could successfully bandage my stump in a way that the bandage would even stay on. This is because stumps are usually tapered in shape (meaning they are wider at the top, closer to the body, and thinner at the bottom), so gravity will pull the bandage off 9 times out of 10.

On a final note: it's ok to show your amputee's stump, it's not gore, there's no blood, it just looks like a regular limb that just stops early. In fact, if you are writing/creating anything for kids or that is likely to be seen by kids, I encourage you to show your amputee's stumps at least once. I used to work on a disability awareness program for kids, and I lost count of the amount of times kids were terrified of me, because they all expected my leg to be bloody and gory. For a lot of kids, I was their first real-life exposure to an amputee, meaning they'd never even heard of people like me, or they had seen an amputee on TV, but because the show went out of its way to avoid showing the person's stump, they assumed it must have been because there was "something scary at the end" that they weren't supposed to see (kids are surprisingly perceptive, they will pick up on stuff like that without you realising). And scared kids aren't good at articulating why they're scared, and would often say really mean or hurtful things to me. I knew not to take it personally and learned how to handle those situations, but not everyone is used to dealing with kids. For a new amputee (or anyone who's less confident in their disability), the kinds of things those kids would say could be absolutely confidence destroying. I never blame the kids, it's not their fault, but the whole situation could have been avoided if they had seen people like us before they had the chance to hear the wrong info. Good representation like this can be the difference between a kid crying, making throw-up sounds and calling an amputee "disgusting monsters" (all things I've had kids do/say) and them just being like "oh ok, cool."

#Writing Disability with Cy Cyborg #writing disability #disability representation #disabled #writing advice #writeblr #authors of tumblr #writing #authors #writer #on writing #writers on tumblr #writblr #writerblr #creative writing #character design #amputee #amputee representation #artists on tumblr #designing disabled characters #oc #oc art #ocs #original character #artists #character design tips #art tips #art resources #art reference

[strixcattus]

I'm supposed to be working on other things right now but I'm thinking about that question on the survey that asked about which ending you preferred/considered canon. And I'm about to say a lot of things that may or may not make sense or all be related to one another, and I'm not sure they'll come out in a parseable order, so I may or may not even end up putting this in the main tag. We'll have to see.

I chose the answer I consider best. Or, least bad. And not in a narrative sense—after the update, I like the scene of the "And? What Happens Next?" ending better than perhaps any other. But I chose the one that I believed led to the most favorable scenario after the end, which would be the loop ending. And I've got a post in my drafts, half-written, that explains in detail why I consider each ending to be a "bad ending" for the world or the characters or both in some form, which I had to put on a back-burner because I wanted to ensure I wasn't doing some sort of bad-faith reading on the Shifting Mound during my discussion of one ending, and even though with the benefit of distance I can see I generally wasn't I've never gotten back to it. To sum it all up, each ending requires you to trade away something the game's story makes you value (unless, I suppose, you come to hate the Princess and by extension the Shifting Mound, or the Shifting Mound and by extension the Princess, on a nonnegotiable level) in order to resolve the narrative, but the loop ending allows you to put it off ad infinitum. What you're sacrificing is the resolution itself. So you lose nothing, and gain nothing, and probably something really horrible happens to the world, but you don't have to think about that part.

But I consider the canon ending to be "There Are No Endings." Maybe it has something to do with it being the first ending I got. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I consider it the optimal outcome for the world—you sacrifice everyone who's unconditionally been on your side this entire time (Shifty doesn't quite count, since she wasn't present in the same way the Voices were) in order to maintain balance and surety. Maybe it just says something about what I value, and that unseen value says something about the endings.

Shifty's right. She doesn't get it right about what you, the player, feel and value (unless your values happen to align with hers—mine don't, but I know some people's must), but that's how people are. She says it—and normally I'd go sifting through the files or the game itself for when exactly she says it, but it's late and I have other things to do, so I'll just say she says it very early on—she says very early on that she cannot know your mind, because you are not her.

It's the same way as your final words to the Voices in the mirror. None of your options are poorly worded. If you expect the Voices to take the harsh truth gracefully, that's an honest mistake, because you can't know what's going on in their heads. Your options are to lie kindly, or tell them a truth that will make them hate you, because just as you can't see inside their heads, they cannot see inside yours, and they will assume you must have some other choice. You don't. But you don't get to articulate it. Lie or hurt them. Those are your only options.

But aside from that Shifty is right. I've seen people ask—and this was early in my entrance to the fandom, and I don't know how much discussion went around about it because I wasn't in the circle, so to speak, even less than I am right now, but I've seen people ask if Shifty could have killed us.

That's not the question to be asking. Of course she could have killed us. She can do anything we believe her to be able to, and if we believe her able to kill us, she can. She always could have killed us.

But she never would have, because she knows. She knows something as a god that you cannot know until you choose to raise yourself to her level—she knows that a universe without either one of you may not be a universe worth living in. She knows that she needs her counterweight. She may not value people on the same level you might, but she does not want them to suffer—she specifically wants them not to suffer, or at least not to suffer in a way she could have prevented. She is a detached god, not a cruel one.

She's right. She's forceful, but she's right, and she can't understand why you would rather be a person than a god, because she has never been anything but a god, and her Vessels are as much a part of her as your Voices are a part of you, but while you lived alongside your Voices as a person before cannibalizing them, she only welcomed her Vessels back upon their absorption. She does not know firsthand what it is to be a person, but she is right about everything else.

(I have to wonder if she is less cruel to her Vessels than you are to your Voices. Hers maintain their form throughout.)

And now this has me thinking—what if the Voices are you? Not in the way in which they're obviously you. I mean that you live your life, you make your decisions, and then you die. And then there is a new one of you. But the new one is not the Voice that has appeared in your head. The new Voice is the old one, fully realized into his own person with a personality you can no longer mold, just as the Vessels are not their own persons until you make the choices that make them into real people. The new entity is you, unmolded, without any personality save what you, the person who does not exist in this world, pour into it.

#slay the princess #I don't actually know how comprehensible this post is #someone tell me if even one point makes any sense

[babyiamperfectforyou]

IT’S YOU

Chapter 2

Pairing: Harry Styles x Reader

Warnings: Coarse language

Word count: 1.5 k

A/n: Here's part two, it's a little shorter than the previous part, but we might post another chapter sometime this week. Happy reading.

Xoxo,

G and M

Previous part l Next part

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"I don't think he would do something to hurt you on purpose", said Jenna.

"Why would you say that, Jenna?Have you ever seen him behaving in a civil manner when he's anywhere near me? I don't even know what I did to make him mad at me. I even thought he was pretty tolerable "

" And by tolerable, you mean dateable?" Jenna mocked.

"Fuck you! I hate him with every fiber of my being…" Y/N glared at her.

"Shoreeee..." Jenna trailed off.

"Shut up!!! Jenna… you know I'd never ever ……"

"Y/N, the meeting is about to start.The boss has requested your presence. " Gabriella Knight's voice cut through her ranting. Gabriella was a new joinee who worked under her. There were two more new employees, Fabiola Georgie and Aria Bennett, but they were hired to work under Harry.

"Be right there, thanks, Gabriella", she said.

"Come on, the meeting's about to start, we'll be late. I'll be right back." She told Jenna and walked towards her cabin.

When Y/N came out of her cabin with her laptop and notes for presenting her proposal, she saw Gabriella , Fabiola and Aria, talking and giggling together. When she followed their line of sight, she saw Harry walking towards them with a wide grin. He looked at Y/N and winked, walking towards them. "Hey ladies, had a good weekend?"

They were gawking at him. She glared at him and walked towards Jenna.

"They are literally eye-fucking him. And who does he think he is, flirting with them like that?, " Y/N was fuming.

"Let them flirt with him, what's it to you? Unless…." Jenna laughed.

" Right. I don't care. What's it to me anyway? Come let's go, the meeting."

—-------------------------

" In conclusion, the project proposed by Ms. Y/L/N cannot be completed within the timeline given by her. So I ask you to kindly reconsider the proposal." Harry articulated.

"But, Mr. Tomas, you don't have to change the whole proposal. I worked so hard for it . One could actually complete it by the deadline if they were to work hard, unlike someone who makes use of all his free time flirting with women." She deadpanned.

" Mr. Tomas, I don't think my love life concerns how I do my work. Now does it, Ms. Y/L/N? " Harry was irritated.

" Neither does mine, what gives you the idea that you can meddle in my life, Mr. Styles?" He was being a jerk and she wasn't having it.

"Hey, hey, hey, you two… Take it easy…" Steffin interrupted, laughing; he seemed to be enjoying the situation. He was wearing a black suit and a sage green button down underneath.He was not too tall, with broad shoulders .He had a stubbly face, with chubby cheeks.He was healthy, though a bit on the heavier side.His hair was neatly trimmed.

Steffin had inherited the firm from his father, who is now leading a peaceful, retired life in a Lakeview penthouse in the suburbs.

Steffin, even though he got the company from his dad, worked so hard and made the company as it is now.

Steffin and Harry were good friends. Though they met each other after Harry joined the firm, they became quite close in a short time. Harry’s ideas and hard work were an asset to the company, and Steffin liked having him around.

Almost everyone knew that whenever Y/N and Harry were in close proximity, there was a chance of an explosion. To be honest, everyone enjoyed it. But someone had to interrupt whenever it became too much. When Steffin intervened, Harry told him,

“I am always ready to straighten it out. Ms. Y/N is the one acting like a crybaby now.”

Y/N rolled her eyes at him, she was furious at his audacity. A crybaby?

What was his problem? She actually felt a bit hurt by his words.

No, she couldn't be. Why would she be hurt by his words? He was an obnoxious jerk who was hellbent on making her life miserable. She was never the one to give up, so she retorted,

“ Me being a crybaby or whatever it was that you said, is none of your concern, Mr. Styles. I still believe that one can accomplish the task within the deadline if they work sincerely.”

“Oh! So now you're accusing me of being insincere? What the hell is wrong with you Y/N?” Harry was annoyed.

Before the argument could go any further, Steffin interfered again.

“Enough. You are working in this company. You need to act professional. Now, I am not saying that you're unprofessional or anything. In fact, you both are the best employees this company has got and I would like you to keep it that way.

“ We are really sorry, Mr. Tomas. We’ll work this out, right, Y/N?” Harry quickly apologized.

Y/N was in awe to see Harry handle the situation well. He even apologized on her behalf. This can't be true. Harry fucking Styles would never, ever, ever apologize. Her trail of thoughts were suddenly interrupted when Harry extended his hand.

“Right, Y/N?”

Y/N was so busy ogling at him that she didn't hear a single word, so she just shook his hand. The mere contact was enough for her heart to skip a beat. A jolt of electricity passed through her and she felt like she was on fire.The touch of his rings sent a shiver down her spine. She had to try really hard to keep herself together. She nodded, agreeing to whatever it was that he just said.

“Okay then. It's decided.” Steffin was almost relieved.

Y/N was confused. She knew that it was her own fault for not listening to the conversation. She just gawked at Harry like those women. Why did he have to look so handsome? No, handsome is not the right word. Hot? What! Did she just confirm that he's hot? What is happening to her?

“Ms. Y/L/N, are you listening?” Steffin’s voice woke her up from her trance.

“Yeah… Yes sir, I'm sorry I was thinking about an alternate proposal which can nullify any loss of our money and labor.” She had to make something up quickly.

“That's impressive Ms. Y/L/N, SO, you both will be working extra hours from today.” Steffin gave her a smile.

“What! Both?”She was confused.

Steffin gave her a nod and started talking about the next meeting with The Henry Anderson Group . They were coming to the office to see the work and Steffin had to impress them so that the company could collaborate with theirs on a new project. It was a dream venture.

Y/N sat down. Harry might be hot, but that doesn't make him any less of a jerk.

“If you did not like working with me, why did you agree to it, sweetheart?”

Harry whispered in her ear. Good Lord, his deep voice was driving her crazy. How would it be to hear him talking in this voice while….Y/N , get yourself together, she told herself.

“That was entirely your fault, you just confused me with your”

“Charm?” He asked.

“Dumbness”, She said and did not spare him a glance. She could see those women trying to get his attention by batting their eyes at him. She didn't like it at all. Maybe she was jealous, after all. He did not look at them though. He was either oblivious to it or did not care about them.

The day could not get any worse for Y/N. She had a pounding headache. Might be the vodka, she thought.She just wanted the meeting to end. Harry took the spotlight again after Steffin made his speech. She was disgusted by the way those women were drinking up his words. Even Helena, who was supposed to be the girlfriend or whatever, of the CEO of Tomas and Sons, was drooling over him.Before concluding the speech, she felt his eyes flickering over to her and lingering there for a split second more. For some reason, the way he looked at her made her really nervous. It was kinda intimidating, but she liked it. He suddenly broke the eye contact and thanked everyone for listening.

At last, she thought.

The team from The Henry Anderson company, led by their CEO, had come to the office when they had their lunch break. She felt the headache taking over. In an attempt to somehow get rid of it, she went to the cafeteria to get a coffee. When she passed the restroom, she went in, to wash her face. The cold water seemed to do the trick. She was about to step out of the washroom when she felt a hand gripping her wrist. She was petrified and felt the blood draining from her body. Her legs went numb and her face turned pale. She turned around to see that the hand that gripped her belonged to…

--------------------------------

Feedback is appreciated ☺️❤️

Thank you 💘

Masterlist

Please let us know if you want to be tagged in the next chapter.

Taglist : @mendesblurb

[azems-familiar]

🦅 🥺 ❌ ✅ 💔 for the ask game.

Thank you!

🥺 is there a certain type of moment or common interaction between your characters that never fails to put you in your feels?

hmmmm. this one is hard to answer because it's so... like, vague? like i generally write character interactions to spark feelings of some kind, so it's hard to... idk, define any specific ones without a what feeling it sparks. probably some of my most emotional ones involve my Revan and writing her recovery arcs - same with Illitha, and a couple other of my characters who get really fucked up. so i guess the themes of recovery and healing that i really like to write at the end of character arcs tend to hit me the most.

❌ what's a trope you will never write?

a/b/o and mpreg are MAJOR squicks for me. i don't read them and i don't write them. i also am not generally a fan of bodyswapping at all, for reasons i cannot articulate, and i dislike bodysharing unless done in a specific way.

✅ what's something that appears in your fics over and over and over again, even if you don't mean it to?

oh god. uh. well my most used tag is Mutual Pining, and something i often write a lot of, sometimes without meaning to, is symbolism - i know that's vague but it can range from masks to names to lightsabers to clothes to [gestures vaguely]. surprisingly though i haven't actually written much of my favorite tropes? .... i do keep accidentally making my OCs autistic, does that count? OH! themes of healing! i like to destroy my characters emotionally (and sometimes physically too), but i never feel satisfied ending an arc on that note, so there are a lot of redemption arcs after corruption arcs and notes of recovery and healing and moving forward. half of these aren't written but they are In My Head.

🦅 do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?

weird mix of both, tbh. i used to be entirely a pantser, and full on planning has never worked for me, i don't write up entire outlines - but my writing process works best if i have someone to bounce ideas off where i can establish a direction for the fic through conversation and then develop the fic off that as i write. this is actually why my big mdzs fic stalled; despite the fact that i know where i'm going with it, i couldn't find a beta reader to help with fleshing out the details in between the major plot events, and so i've gotten... somewhat stuck.

💔 is there a fic of yours that broke your heart?

yes, but it's old enough i won't rec it here because i'm no longer happy with any of it - but at the time i wrote it it was very, very painful. of my more recent stuff... hm. i was absolutely sobbing while writing up this fic, which the first half of focuses on Ulic and Cay Qel-Droma's big confrontation on Ossus (yes, it says it's a WIP and it is, but the first chapter can be read as a standalone). i've also cried several times over the hp au, knowing where it's going to go and discussing some of the characters in it, but very little of the actual relevant stuff to that has been actually written and posted yet!

#asked and answered #thank you!! these were very fun

[zeynatura]

While this post was written after watching ep 5 of Extraordinary Attorney Woo is more of a personal vent so feel free to ignore specially if you’re looking for something about the kdrama.

Oh no, this episode made me realize why i am so affected by the recent ‘fight’ i had with my friends.

Autistic people can’t lie, well i sure as hell can’t and my word was questioned by my friends yesterday, it all started with a small argument about the reason why i did something that is too long and too specific to share here, but it is or i thought was harmless.

The event happened months ago and my memory isn’t reliable so i don’t remember most of what happened back then, what i do remember was my logic behind what i did and so i told my friends the whole explanation of what the thoughts running through my mind at the moment where and why i did what i did. And i was expecting my friends to just accept my reason and let it go but no, they were insisting that the reason was a different one.

And at first i was too taken aback because how would they know my reasons of doing things better than me? Seems impossible, right? Unless there were evidence that supported their claim but what i did (and i know this sounds suspicious as heck but believe me if you knew what i’m talking about you’ll think it’s stupid) left no evidence of what happened even less about why it happened.

So i asked them why they didn’t accept my reason and one of them told me that i’ve lied previously about some other topic so it wouldn’t surprise them to think i was lying again and another friend agreed. And that other topic is a technicallity, it’s about a specific term used for a specific action (again with the mystery, i know) my understanding of that term is different than that of my friends, so to me i don’t partake on what the term stands for but my friends think i do, and they know that our understanding of it is different and nobody went to go look up a definition of the term to reach a middle ground or something so everyone was kind of on their own, or more like they were on one side and i was on the other one. 

And it’s something like “skipping” and i think it only counts if i land on one feet while my friends think it counts if i land on both as well. So they think me saying i don’t skip as i land on both feet is lying, because they consider i do skip.

I told them again that our understanding for that one was different and wasn’t related to the discussion we were having at that second, and that same friend said: but it does, because i know you lied before so now i can’t trust anything you say.

And that’s where my heart broke.

Firstly because that was news to me, secondly because nothing i say is gonna “fix” it, i can’t make them trust me with articulated thoughts.

I was and still am confused on why would they doubt me? why would they think i would lie? why would i lie about it? it doesn’t make sense, i wouldn’t lie about something i thought was trivial let alone if it was something serious. To me lying isn't an option, i forget people can and do lie all the time.

I was completely speechless until i decided i had enough, i dont’t deserve to be treated this way and i’m about to cry, so i left, and i haven’t talk to them since.

And for the first time in a long while i felt lost, i didn’t know what to do, who to go to for counsel, because at moments like this i would have gone to my mom but she’s not here anymore, and the second best option would have been the friends i was running away from.

After that i just felt like a burden and didn’t want to bother anyone else so i just cried, and cried, for hours until i fell asleep.

Is not the first time i get into a misunderstanding with my friends but is the first time it has affected me this much, and partially is because i am in such a vulnerable state everything affects me x100, I was already a very sensible person now it’s worse.

I can’t help but wonder if all of this happened because i’m autistic and they’re allistic.

I still don’t know what to do, because i hate confrontations and i’m scared of loosing them, also i don’t think i can talk to them without crying and tomorrow we’ll have our dnd session and i am desperately distracting my mind from the issue by watching this kdrama but it indirectly reminded me of it and now i’m back to 0.

#super personal #tw death of a loved one #vent post #autistic #zeynatura #why would they trust their assumptions more than the word of a friend?

[impostoradult]

Media Market Research (and why its undermining all the things you love)

Trying to understand what is dysfunctional about Hollywood is an epic task, and the answers are like the stars – arguably infinite. Hollywood is dysfunctional for literally more reasons than I could count.

But market research plays a fairly heavy role in its dysfunction (IMO) and the time has finally come for me to add my professional two cents about this issue. (This rant of mine has been building for a while, FYI. Hence why it is so...comprehensive. There is a tl;dr section towards the bottom, if you want the high level summary)

*** For the last 4+ years I’ve worked in the field of market research, almost exclusively with major media makers like Warner Bros., NBCU, AMC/BBCA, Viacom, FOX (before Disney acquired them), A+E, etc. (this past year I quit the job where I was doing this work for a variety of reasons, many of which will become clear as you keep reading, but I am still listed as a consultant on the company website):   https://www.kresnickaresearch.com/who/ (Rachel)

And just for comparison, here is a Halloween selfie I took 4 years ago and posted on my blog, so you can see I am who I say I am. 

I know a fair amount about how market research on major media franchises is conducted and how it influences production, and a lot of these choices can also be at least somewhat tied back to the massive flaws in the market research industry and its impact. *** First, at the highest level, you need to understand market research in general is not well-conducted much of the time. Even the people doing a reasonably good job at it are VERY limited in doing it well because of financial constraints (clients don’t want to spend more than they have to), time constraints (clients want everything done as fast as humanely possible) and just the inherent problems within the industry that are decades old and difficult to fix. For example, all market research ‘screens’ participants to make sure they qualify to participate (whether it is a mass survey, a focus group, a one-on-one interview, etc.). So, we screen people based on demographics like race, gender, age, household income, to get representative samples. But people are also screened based on their consumption habits. You don’t want to bring someone into a focus group about reality TV if they don’t watch reality TV. They aren’t going to have anything useful to say. 

However, a lot of the people who participate in market research have made a ‘side-gig’ out of it and they know how to finesse the process. Basically, they’ve learned how to lie to get into studies that they aren’t a good match for because most market research is paid, and they want the money. So, a lot of TV and film market research is being done on people who don’t actually (or at least don’t regularly) watch those shows or movies or whatever but have learned how to lie well enough in these screening processes to make it through. And because of the aforementioned time and money issue, clients don’t want to spend the time or money to actually find GOOD participants. They just accept that as an inevitable part of the market research process and decide not to let it bother them too much. So, a fair number of the people representing YOU as a media consumer are people who may not be watching Supernatural (for example) at all or who watch a rerun occasionally on TNT but haven’t been watching consistently or with ANY amount of investment whatsoever. You can see why that creates very skewed data. But that’s just the tip of the skewed iceberg. *** Second, media market research is conducted in line with the norms of market research more broadly, and this is a huge problem because media is a very atypical product. How people engage with media is far more complex and in depth than how they engage with a pair of jeans, a car, or a coffee maker. There are only so many things that matter to people when it comes to liking or not liking a coffee maker, for example. Is it easy/intuitive to use? How much space does it take it on my counter? How expensive is it? Does it brew the coffee well? Maybe does it match my décor/kitchen aesthetic? Can I make my preferred brand of coffee in it? The things you as a consumer are going to care about when it comes to a coffee maker are limited, fairly easy to anticipate in advance, and also easy to interpret (usually). How people mentally and emotionally approach MEDIA? Whole other universe of thing. Infinitely more complex. And yet it is studied (more or less) as if it is also a coffee maker. This is one of the many reasons I decided to leave the media market research field despite my desire to have some ability to positively influence the process. As so often seems to be the case, I fought the law and the law won. I could never make the other people I worked with in the industry understand that the questions they were asking were not all that useful a lot of the time and they weren’t getting to the heart of the matter. They were just following industry standards because they didn’t know any better and none of them want to admit they don’t REALLY know what they’re doing. Which leads me to point 3. *** Most of the people doing this research don’t have any expertise in media or storytelling specifically. They are typically trained as social scientists in the fields of psychology, anthropology, sociology, or math/statistics. And many of them do not have any kind of specialization or education in media/storytelling beyond the English classes they took in high school and the one Media Studies course they took as an elective in college. Most of them have a very unsophisticated understanding of narrative structure, thematics, tropes, subtext, etc. They mainly think in terms of genres at the VERY broadest level. Also, not infrequently, they don’t watch or have much knowledge of the shows they are supposed to be doing research on, beyond what they’ve read on IMDb or Wikipedia or what is generally common knowledge. Unless they by chance happen to watch the shows themselves (which often they don’t) they often know very little about the shows they are crafting these questions about. Again, partly because they think it is like the coffee maker, and you don’t need to understand it in any depth to research it. (I know this must sound insane to you as avid media consumers, but that is the general attitude among those who do market research) There is such a lack of sophistication in how people in the business side of the industry understand media and storytelling. Most of them are either MBAs or social scientists and their training has not prepared them to examine fictional works with the kind of depth that people in the Humanities (who are specifically trained to study texts) have. Somehow, despite the fact that the Humanities is all about understanding texts, that is the one discipline they make almost no use of in the business side of Hollywood. And boy howdy does it show. *** Point 4 – average consumers CANNOT ARTICULATE WHY THEY LIKE THINGS. Particularly media things. I know this sounds condescending, but it is my honest observation. It is unbelievably hard to get people to have enough self-awareness to explain why they actually like things, especially things as mentally and emotionally complex as media. What typically happens when you ask people why they like a TV show or movie, for example? They will tell you what they most NOTICE about the TV show or movie, or what is distinctive to them about it (which may or may not have anything to do with what they actually LIKE about it). They will say things like “I like the genre”, “I think it’s funny”, “The car chases are exciting”, “I want to see the detective solve the puzzle.” Sometimes you can get them to talk about what they find relatable about it, if you push them a little. But often they leave it at either the level of literal identity (young black woman), basic personality traits (she’s a social butterfly and so am I) or situations they’ve personally experienced (I relate to this story of a man losing his father to cancer because I lost a close family member to cancer). But the vast, vast, vast majority of them can’t go to the deeper level of: a) Why X representation of a young black woman feels accurate/authentic/relatable and Y representation doesn’t b) Why it matters to me that X,Y,Z aspects of my personality, identity, experience get reflected in media whereas I don’t really care about seeing A,B,C aspects of my personality, identity, or experience reflected in media c) How and why they are relating to characters when they can’t see the literal connection between their identity/experience and the character’s identity/experience. (For example, many people have argued that women often relate to Dean Winchester because a lot of his struggles and past negative experiences are more stereotypical of women – being forced to raise a younger sibling on behalf of an actual parent, being seen and treated as beautiful/sexually desirable but vacuous/unintelligent, his body being treated as an instrument for a more powerful group to quite literally possess, etc. Part of the reason Supernatural has always been such a mystery/problem for the CW and Warner Bros is they could never crack the code at this level. Never.) Part of the reason they can’t crack these codes is average people CANNOT give you that kind of feedback in a survey or a focus group, or even an in-depth interview (much of the time). They just don’t have the self-awareness or the vocabulary to get it at that level. Let alone asking them to articulate why Game of Thrones is compelling to them in an era where wealth disparity is creating a ruling class that is fundamentally incompetent at maintaining a just/functional society, which is especially concerning at this particular moment, given the existential threat we face due to climate change. And the truth is, that IS part of what people – even average people – are responding to in Game of Thrones. But what they’ll tell you when you do market research on it is: they like the dragons, they like the violence, they relate to Tyrion Lannister being a smart mouth, maybe they’ll say they like the moral ambiguity of many of the conflicts (if they are more sophisticated than average). But the ‘Dean Winchester is heavily female coded despite his veneer of ultra-masculinity’ or the ‘Game of Thrones is a prescient metaphor for the current political dynamics and fissures of modern western society’ is the level you ACTUALLY need to get to. And most market research can’t get you that because the people ASKING the questions don’t know what to ask to get to this level, and most of the respondents couldn’t give you the answers even IF you were asking them the right questions (which usually you are not) And I’m not saying average people are dumb because they can’t do this. But it requires practice, it requires giving the matter a great deal of in-depth thought, and most people just don’t care enough about it to do that while taking a market research survey. (I know this is going to feel counter-intuitive to people on Tumblr. But you have to remember, you are NOT average media consumers. You are highly atypical media consumers who have far more self-awareness and a much more sophisticated engagement with media than the average person watching TV. If you didn’t, you probably wouldn’t be here talking about it in the first place) Point 4.1 – People also lie/misrepresent their own experiences to market researchers because they want to maintain certain self-narratives. You have no idea how many people would get disqualified from our surveys for saying they watched less than 5 hours of TV a week. And sure, that might actually be true for a few of them. But if you watch TV with any regularity at all (which most people in modern America do) you probably watch more than 5 hours a week. The problem is, people think it makes them sound lazy to say they watch 15-20 hours a week, even though that’s about 2-3 hours a day (which actually isn’t THAT high). People lie and misrepresent their behaviors, thoughts and feelings because it can be socially uncomfortable to admit you do what you actually do or feel how you actually feel, even in the context of an anonymous survey, let alone a focus group or a one-on-one interview. People want to make themselves look good to THEMSELVES and to the researchers asking them questions. But that makes the market research data on media (and lots of other things) very questionable. For example, one finding we saw more than once in the surveys I was involved in conducting was people would radically downplay how much the romance elements of a story mattered to them, even large portions of female respondents. When we would ask people in surveys what parts of the story they were most invested in, romances ALWAYS came out among the lowest ranked elements. And yet, any passing familiarity with fandom would tell you that finding is just WRONG. It’s wrong. People are just flat out lying about how much that matters to them because of the negative connotations we have around being invested in romance. And never mind the issue of erotic/sexual content. (I don’t mean sexual identity here, I mean sexy content). The only people who will occasionally cop to wanting the erotic fan service is young men (and even they are hesitant to do so in market research) and women frequently REFUSE to admit that stuff in market research, or they radically downplay how much it matters to them and in what ways. There is still so much stigma towards women expressing sexuality in that way. Not to mention, you have to fight tooth and nail to even include question about erotic/sexual content because oftentimes the clients don’t even want to go there at all, partly because it is awkward for everyone involved to sit around crafting market research questions to interrogate what makes people hot and bothered. That’s socially awkward for the researchers doing the research and the businesspeople who have to sit in rooms and listen to presentations about why more women find Spock sexier than Kirk. (Which was a real thing that happened with the original Star Trek, and the network couldn’t figure out why) Aside from people not have enough deeper level self-awareness to get at what they really like about media content, they also will lie or misrepresent certain things to you because they are trying to maintain certain self-narratives and are socially performing that version of themselves to researchers. *** Point 5 – Qualitative data is way more useful for understanding people’s relationships to media. However, quantitative data is way more valued and relied upon both due to larger market research industry standards and because quantitative data is just seen as harder/more factual than qualitative data. A lot of media market research involves gathering both qualitative and quantitative data and reporting jointly on both. (Sometimes you only do one or the other, depending on your objectives, but doing both is considered ‘standard’ and higher quality). However, quantitative data is heavily prioritized in reporting and when there is a conflict between what they see in qualitative versus quantitative data, the quant data is usually relied upon to be the more accurate of the two. This is understandable to an extent, because quantitative surveys usually involve responses from a couple thousand participants, whereas qualitative data involves typically a few dozen participants at most, depending on whether you did focus groups, individual interviews, or ‘diaries’/ethnography. The larger sample is considered more reliable and more reflective of ‘the audience’ as a whole. However, quantitative surveys usually have the flattest, least nuanced data, and they can only ever reflect what questions and choices people in the survey were given. In something like focus groups or individual interviews or ethnographies, you still structure what you ask people, but they can go “off script.” They can say things you never anticipated (as a researcher) and can explain themselves and their answers with more depth. In a survey, participants can only “say” what they survey lets them say based on the questions and question responses that are pre-baked for them. And as I’ve already explained, a lot of times these quantitative surveys are written by people with no expertise in media, fiction, or textual analysis, and so they often are asking very basic, not very useful questions. In sum, the data that is the most relied upon is the least informative, least nuanced data. It is also the MOST likely to reflect the responses of people who don’t actually qualify for the research but have become good at scamming the system to make extra money. With qualitative research, they are usually a little more careful screening people (poorly qualified participants still make it through, but not as often as with mass surveys, where I suspect a good 35% of participants, at least, probably do not actually qualify for the research and are just working the system). 

Most commonly, when market research gets reported to business decision-makers, it highlights the quantitative data, and uses the qualitative data to simply ‘color in’ the quantitative data. Give it a face, so to speak. Qualitative data is usually supplemental to quant data and used more to make the reports ‘fun’ and ‘warm’ because graphs and charts and stats by themselves are boring to look at in a meeting. (I’m not making this up, I can’t tell you how many times I was told to make adjustments on how things were reported on because they didn’t want to bore people in the meeting). (Sub-point – it is also worth noting that you can’t report on anything that doesn’t fit easily on a power point slide and isn’t easily digestible to any random person who might pick it up and read it. The amount of times I was told to simplify points and dumb things down so it could be made ‘digestible’ for a business audience, I can’t even tell you. It was soul crushing and another reason I stopped doing this job full time. I had to make things VERY dumb for these business audiences, which often meant losing a lot of the point I was actually trying to make) Point 5.1 – Because of the way that representative sampling works, quantitative data can be very misleading, particularly in understanding audience/fandom sentiments about media. As I’m sure most of you know, sampling is typically designed to be representative of the population, broadly speaking. So, unless a media company is specifically out to understand LGBTQ consumers or Hispanic/Latinx consumers, it will typically sample using census data as a template and represent populations that way. Roughly 50/50 male/female. Roughly even numbers in different age brackets, roughly representative samplings of the racial make-up of the country, etc. (FYI, they do often include a non-binary option in the gender category these days, but it usually ends up being like 5 people out of 2000, which is not enough of a sample to get statistical significance for them as a distinct group)   There is a good reason to do this, even when a show or movie has a disproportionately female audience, or young audience. Because they need enough sample in all of the “breaks” (gender, race, age, household income, etc.) to be able to make statistically sound statements about each subgroup. If you only have 35 African American people in your sample of 1000, you can’t make any statistically sound statements about that African American cohort. The sample is just too small. So, they force minimums/quotas in a lot of the samples, to ensure they can make statistically sound statements about all the subgroups they care about. They use ratings data to understand what their audience make up actually is. (Which also has major failings, but I’ll leave that alone for the minute) With market research, they are not usually looking to proportionately represent their audience, or their fandom; they are looking to have data they can break in the ways they want to break it and still have statistically significant subgroups represented. But that means that when you report on the data as a whole sample – which you often do – it can be very skewed towards groups who don’t make up as large a portion of the show’s actual audience, or even if they do, they don’t tend to be the most invested, loyal, active fans. Men get weighted equally to women, even when women make up 65% of the audience, and 80% of the active fandom. Granted, they DO break the data by gender, and race, and age, etc. and if there are major differences in how women versus men respond, or younger people versus older people, they want to know that...sometimes. But here’s where things get complex. So, if you are doing a sample of Supernatural viewers. And you do the standard (US census-based) sampling on a group of 2000 respondents (a pretty normal sample size in market research). ~1000 are going to be female. But with something they call “interlocking quotas” the female sample is going to be representative of the other groupings to a degree. So, the female sample will have roughly equal numbers of all the age brackets (13-17, 18-24, 25-34, etc.). And it will have roughly 10% non-heterosexual respondents, and so on. They do this to ensure that these breaks aren’t too conflated with each other. (For example, if your female sample is mostly younger and your male sample is mostly older, how do you know whether it is the gender or the age that is creating differences in their responses? You don’t. So, you have to make sure that all the individual breaks (gender, race, age) have a good mix of the other breaks within them, so groups aren’t getting conflated) But what that means is, Supernatural, whose core fandom is (at a conservative guess) 65% younger, queer, women, gets represented in a lot of statistical market research sampling as maybe 50-100 people, in a 2000-person survey. 50-100 people can barely move the needle on anything in a 2000-person survey. Furthermore, usually in the analysis of data like this, you don’t go beyond looking at 2 breaks simultaneously. So you may look at young female respondents as a group, or high income male respondents, or older white respondents, but you rarely do more than 2 breaks combined. And the reason for that is, by the time you get down to 3 breaks or more (young, Hispanic, women) you usually don’t have enough sample to make statistically significant claims. (It also just takes longer to do those analyses and as I explained in the beginning, they are always rushing this stuff). To do several breaks at a time you’d have to get MUCH larger samples, and that’s too expensive for them. And again, I want to stress, this type of sampling isn’t intended to sinisterly erase anyone. Kind of the opposite. It is intended to make sure most groups have enough representation in the data that you can make sound claims about them on the subgroup level. The problem is that it can create a very skewed sense of their overall audience sentiment when they take the data at ‘face value’ so to speak, and don’t weight segments based on viewership proportion, or fandom engagement, etc. Point 5.2 – Which leads me to my next point, which is that fandom activity that doesn’t have a dollar amount attached to it doesn’t make you a ‘valuable’ segment in their minds. One of the breaks they ALWAYS ask for in data like this is high income people, and people who spend a lot of MONEY on their media consumption. And they do prioritize those people’s responses and data quite a bit.   And guess what – young women aren’t usually high-income earners, and although some of them are high spenders on media, high spending on media and media related merch skews toward higher income people just because they HAVE more disposable income. Older white men are usually the highest income earners (absolutely no surprise) and they are more likely in a lot of cases to report spending a lot on the media they care about. Having expendable income makes you more important in the eyes of people doing market research than if you’ve spent every day for the last 10 years blogging excessively about Supernatural. They don’t (really) care about how much you care. They care about how much money you can generate for them. And given that young audiences don’t watch TV live anymore, and they give all their (minimal) expendable income to Netflix and Hulu, you with your Supernatural blog and your 101 essays about Destiel is all but meaningless to many of them (from a business standpoint) Now, some of them kind of understand that online fandom matters to the degree that fandom spreads. Fandom creates fandom. But if the fandom you are helping to create is other young, queer women with minimal income who only watch Supernatural via Netflix, well, that’s of very limited value to them as well. I don’t want to suggest they don’t care about you at ALL. Nor do I want to suggest that the “they” we are talking about is even a cohesive “they.” Different people in the industry have different approaches to thinking about fandom, consumer engagement and strategy, market research and how it ought to be understood/used, and so on. They aren’t a monolith. BUT, they are, at the end of the day, a business trying to make money. And they are never going to place the value of your blogging ahead of the concrete income you can generate for them. (Also, highly related to my point about people lying, men are more likely to SAY they have higher incomes than they do, because it’s an ego thing for them. And women are more likely to downplay how much money they spend on ‘frivolous’ things like fandom because of the social judgement involved. Some of the money gender disparity you see in media market research is real, but some of it is being generated by the gender norms people are falsely enacting in market research– men being breadwinners, women wanting to avoid the stereotype of being frivolous with money) *** In sum/tl;dr: Point 1 – Market research in general is not well conducted because of a variety of constraints including time, money, and the historical norms of how the industry operates (e.g., there being a large subsection of almost professionalized respondents who know how to game the system for the financial incentives) Point 2 – Media is a highly atypical kind of product being studied more or less as if it were equivalent to a coffeemaker or a pair of jeans. Point 3 – Most of the people studying media consumption in the market research field have no expertise or background in media, film, narrative, storytelling, etc. They are primarily people who were trained as social scientists and statisticians, and they aren’t well equipped to research media properties and people’s deeper emotional attachment and meaning-making processes related to media properties. Point 4(etc.) – Average consumers typically don’t have enough self-awareness or the vocabulary to explain the deep, underlying reasons they like pieces of media. Furthermore, when participating in market research, people lie and misrepresent their thoughts, behaviors, and emotional responses for a variety of reasons including social awkwardness and preserving certain self-narratives like “I’m above caring about dumb, low-brow things like romance.” Point 5 (etc.) – Quantitative data is treated as way more meaningful, valuable, and ‘accurate’ than qualitative data, and this is a particular problem with media market research because of how varied and complex people’s reactions to media can be. Also, the nature of statistical sampling, and how it is done, can massively misrepresent audience sentiments toward media and fail to apprehend deeper fandom sentiments and dynamics. There is also a strong bias towards the responses of high income/high spending segments, which tend to be older and male and white. Side but important point – Research reports are written to be as entertaining and digestible as possible, which sounds nice in theory, but in practice it often means you lose much of the substance you are trying to communicate for the sake of not boring people or making them feel stupid/out of their depth. (Because god forbid you make some high-level corporate suit feel stupid) *** What can be done about this? Well, the most primary thing I would recommend is for you to participate in market research, particularly if you are American (there’s a lot of American bias in researching these properties, even when they have large international fanbases). However, some international market research is done and I recommend looking into local resources for participation, where ever you are. If you are American, there are now several market research apps you can download to your smart phone and participate in paid market research through (typically paid via PayPal). Things like dscout and Surveys On the Go. And I know there are more. You should also look into becoming panelists for focus groups, particularly if you live near a large metropolitan area (another bias in market research). Just Google it and you should be able to figure it out fairly easily. Again, it is PAID, and your perspective will carry a lot more weight when it is communicated via a focus group or a dscout project, versus when it is shouted on Twitter. However, that’s merely a Band-Aid on the bigger issue, which I consider to be the fact that businesspeople think the Humanities is garbage, even when they make their living off it. There is virtually no respect for the expertise of fictional textual analysis, or how it could help Hollywood make better content. And I don’t know what the fix is for that. I spent 4 years of my life trying to get these people to understand what the Humanities has to offer them, and I got shouted down and dismissed so many times I stopped banging my head against that wall. I gave up. They don’t listen, mostly because conceding to the value of deep-reading textual analysis as a way to make better content would threaten the whole system of how they do business. And I mean that literally. So many people’s jobs, from the market researchers to the corporate strategists to the marketing departments to the writers/creatives to the C-level executives, would have to radically shift both their thinking and their modes of business operation and the inertia of ‘that’s the way it’s always been done’ is JUST SO POWERFUL. I have no earthly idea how to stop that train, let alone shift it to an entirely different track. BTW, if you want the deeper level of analysis of why I can’t stop rewatching Moneyball now that it’s been added to Netflix, the above paragraph should give you a good hint

#market research #Hollywood #media studies

[kpopfanfictrash]

fu-

Author: kpopfanfictrash

Pairing: Jungkook

Word Count: 1,983

Rating: 18+ (sexual imagery)

Summary: An accompanying drabble to Five Dates. This drabble takes place after the events of Five Dates and is Jungkook + accidentally teaching Namjoon’s child a swear word.

[ PART OF MY JUNGKOOK BIRTHDAY DRABBLE GAME ]

Staring at the phone held in his palm, Jungkook contemplated one of the most difficult quandaries of his existence, including that time you asked if he liked your new haircut.

The answer was yes, by the way. The answer was always yes, unless you hinted at no and even then, it was better to be safe than sorry.

Jungkook’s current quandary involved you but was far more serious than any haircut-related inquiry. All you’d sent Jungkook was a singular text. Five words, eighteen letters in total.

Y/N: the line is super dark [8:34 PM]

Re-reading the text, Jungkook felt utter despair. To anyone else, it might seem nonsensical, but you’d been trying to conceive for nearly three months and a dark line meant you were ovulating. This would be their third attempt at getting you pregnant; a feat certainly not helped by your irregular cycle. Ovulation tests at least gave a window of when you were fertile.

You’d tested yourself this morning and the line had been fairly light but that had apparently changed over the course of the day. Jungkook chewed on his lower lip, staring at his phone and unsure what to do. Based on what you’d written in your baby planner, he needed to drive home right now and fuck you.

Except, of course, he was currently baby-sitting for Namjoon.

Dejectedly, Jungkook plopped down on the couch. Namjoon’s daughter was around eighteen months now and had been asleep for nearly thirty minutes, but Namjoon and his wife wouldn’t be home for hours.

Shoving a hand through his hair, Jungkook let the strands fall where they may to glumly text you back.

Jungkook: I’m babysitting for Namjoon tonight, remember? ☹️ [8:36 PM]

Y/N: shit [8:36 PM]

Y/N: what time will you be home? I need to get up early tomorrow for that book drive ☹️☹️ [8:37 PM]

Jungkook: Namjoon said around 11 :/ his mom gave them tickets to an opera or something and they promised to make an appearance [8:37 PM]

Y/N: 11?? That’s soooo late [8:38 PM]

Y/N: you could’ve cum inside me twice by then [8:38 PM]

Jungkook: fuck, Y/N…. [8:39 PM]

His heart raced, leaning back on the sofa. Nothing in the world made him so hard so fast as the image of your cunt, stuffed to the brim until his cum dripped down the sides. Jungkook had been treated to the image often over the past few months and didn’t think he’d ever get sick of it.

The whole ‘baby planner’ thing had thrown a kink in romance, but Jungkook tried hard to ensure you lived in the moment. You were a planner at heart and tended to get caught up in how long it was taking, why you hadn’t conceived yet – Jungkook assured you these things took time. You may as well enjoy all the sex before you had an actual child to take care of.

A slightly dreamy smile crossed Jungkook’s face at the thought. He couldn’t wait to be a dad. It was part of the reason he baby-sat for Namjoon as often as he did. Namjoon was the first of their friend group to have a kid and, as exhausted as he seemed, Jungkook had never seen his friend so happy.

It was clear from the way he looked at his daughter and wife that Namjoon was entirely smitten. Jungkook wanted that with you – he wanted a family, another player on their team.

Forcing himself to stand from the couch, Jungkook began to tidy Namjoon’s place. The more distracted he was, the less he’d think about you spread out on the bed, cum dripping from the sides of your used pussy.

Jungkook paused in his cleanup, emerald throw-pillow in hand to squeeze shut his eyes. Fuck. Shaking his head, he opened his eyes as his phone dinged again.

Y/N: couldn’t someone else come and finish babysitting? :) [8:41 PM]

Y/N: jimin, maybe? [8:41 PM]

Y/N: or Seokjin? [8:41 PM]

Jungkook hesitated, but already knew the answers to your questions. Jimin was out of town and Seokjin had posted a story on Instagram about date night. Picking up a blanket and stacking toy, Jungkook exited the room to enter Namjoon’s apartment.

Apartment was a loose term; Namjoon and his wife had the entire floor of the building. Jungkook paused outside the nursery, listening to hear if anything was amiss. The door was open partway, allowing for light to spill in from the hall. Jungkook poked his head in to see their daughter snuggled under her blankets.

Smiling softly, Jungkook stepped in and placed the blanket on top of the rocker. He set the stacking toy in the toy chest and saw you’d texted again. Pulling his phone from his pocket, Jungkook shielded the screen with one hand to open the message.

His heart lodged in his throat when he saw you’d sent a photo of you sprawled on the bed, black lingerie on. A low, frustrated whine left his throat.

“Fuck,” Jungkook said sadly.

“Fuck?” garbled a tiny voice in the darkness.

Jungkook froze.

Eyes wide, he turned to see Namjoon’s daughter standing, tiny hands clutching the bars of her crib. She had just been asleep – when had she managed to do that?! As Jungkook began to panic and hope she hadn’t really heard, she let out a bright laugh and bounced.

“Fuck,” she said, clear as day. “Fuck!”

Jungkook slowly closed his eyes. He was toast. Namjoon’s daughter could barely articulate what she wanted for dinner, but now had the capacity to absorb swear words with ease.

“No,” he groaned, opening his eyes. Rushing forward, he dropped to his knees at her crib. “No, baby, no. We don’t like that word, right? It’s a bad word. You’re not bad! You’re good! You’re a super-sweet angel, who –”

“Fuck!”

Jungkook slowly hung his head. “We’re doomed,” he muttered.

Down the hall to the front of the apartment, Jungkook heard the elevator ding. Double shit – like he’d told you, Namjoon and his wife weren’t supposed to be home for hours.

“Jungkook?” Namjoon’s voice called from far away. “Where are you?”

Starting to panic, Jungkook lifted his head. “Okay,” he whispered, giving the toddler a pleading stare. “This is just between you and me, right? Right?”

All he got in return was a round-eyed look and happy coo, so Jungkook had to hope that meant yes in baby-speak. Jungkook heard footsteps in the hall.

“Jungkook?” Namjoon poked his head into the nursery, squinting at the darkness to find Jungkook on the floor. “What’re you doing?”

Jungkook hastily pushed himself to his feet. “Nothing!” He beamed widely at Namjoon. “I just thought I heard her moving, so I came in to check and –”

“Fuck!”

Jungkook stopped in his tracks at the word happily chirped behind him. Namjoon’s eyes widened in horror, his gaze darting to his daughter who stood in her crib. Jungkook, also wide-eyed, stayed where he was.

Slowly, Namjoon returned to Jungkook. “Was that…” He sounded strangled. “What did my daughter just say?”

“Uh…” Jungkook gave him a weak smile. “Funk?”

“Fuck!”

Jungkook squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m so sorry,” he groaned.

“Did you…” Namjoon inhaled. “My daughter can barely speak in full sentences and now one of those sentences is going to include that?”

Before Jungkook could respond, Namjoon’s wife appeared behind him in the hall. She wore a flowy, floor-length dress and crystalline earrings. When she saw Jungkook, she waved.

“Hi, JK!” Her smile widened. “Thanks so much for baby-sitting. Sorry we’re home early – the opera was such a bore. I convinced Namjoon to leave as soon as his mom saw us. I missed my angel,” she sighed, entering the room to cross to the crib.

Jungkook reached out to stop her, but before he could –

“Fuck!”

Namjoon’s wife halted, blinking in surprise at the crib. Then, against all reason, she started to laugh. Both shoulders shook, her right hand coming up to cover her mouth and hold in her mirth.

Both Jungkook and Namjoon stared.

“Oh my gosh,” his wife laughed, bending over the crib. “Is that what you learned tonight, hm, pretty girl?”

Jungkook watched in total astonishment as Namjoon’s wife tucked her daughter in, smoothing her hair to brush a kiss to her forehead. When she straightened and turned, she seemed mostly amused.

Finding Jungkook, she arched a brow. “Your handiwork, I presume?”

“I’m so sorry.” Jungkook kept his voice to a whisper, not wanting to wake their daughter again. “It was an accident, I swear.”

Again, Namjoon’s wife grinned. “It’s fine,” she said, waving them into the hall. “Let me guess – Joon freaked, huh?” Her husband adopted a guilty expression. “She’s a toddler, she’ll forget this by next week. And if she doesn’t, then she’ll have something for show and tell when she starts preschool, huh?”

She laughed at their shocked expressions, reminded Namjoon to pay Jungkook for baby-sitting and then left to wash up.

Namjoon stood alone in the hall with Jungkook, who frowned. “Were you supposed to be paying me this entire time?” he asked, turning to Namjoon.

“I’ll get you a pizza or something,” Namjoon said stiffly.

Despite his wife’s words, he still looked somewhat pained and Jungkook’s shoulders dropped.

“I really am sorry,” he said again. “I know your wife said everything was fine, but I am. It was an accident – I didn’t think she was awake!”

Namjoon shook his head slowly, starting to smile.

“Ah, it’s fine,” he said with a laugh. As he walked them towards the front door, he glanced curiously at Jungkook. “What happened, though? Stub your toe on one of her toys?”

“Does that happen often?”

“More times than I can count.”

Jungkook laughed. “Nothing like that. I was just texting Y/N.”

Namjoon’s brows shot upwards. “Is something wrong?”

“No, um…” Jungkook rubbed the back of his neck. “Actually, the opposite.”

They came to a stop at the elevator and Namjoon turned to face him. He had an amused look on his face as he pressed a button. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah. We’re, uh…” Jungkook glanced over his shoulder. “We’re trying.”

Namjoon’s expression became almost comical. “You are? Shit, JK, that’s amazing!” Reaching out, he pulled Jungkook into a tight hug. When he finally let go, Namjoon grinned. “Damn, I can’t wait for there to be another dad in the group.”

“I mean, we’re only trying,” Jungkook hastened. “Y/N isn’t pregnant yet. She’s actually ovulating right now, which is why I was swearing. She wanted me to come home and – you probably don’t want to know all this,” he said, cutting himself off at the look on Namjoon’s face.

A look Jungkook read completely wrong, as it turned out.

“What are you waiting for?” Namjoon blurted as the elevator arrived. He practically shoved Jungkook inside. “Ovulation is no joke, man! Get the fuck home and put a baby in Y/N!”

From somewhere in the apartment, Namjoon’s wife called, “Language, Joon!”

Namjoon turned in surprise. “Really?” he called back. “I thought we could say that word now. You know, since the cat’s out of the bag? Anyways,” he said, returning to Jungkook. “Get out of here!”

Shaking his head, Jungkook stepped onto the elevator. “Okay. Weird, but thanks! And sorry again!”

As he waited for the elevator doors to close, Jungkook heard Namjoon leave and pulled out his phone to text you back.

Jungkook: coming home now xx [8:55 PM]

Jungkook: Namjoon and his wife hated the opera, left early [8:55 PM]

Jungkook: think there’s still time for twice tonight? [8:55 PM]

You answered almost immediately.

Y/N: I’ve always liked a man with ambition ;) love you. Hurry home xx [8:56 PM]

kpopfanfictrash, 2020. Do not copy or repost without permission.

#jungkook fanfic #bts fanfic #jungkook writing #bts writing #jungkook fluff #jungkook drabble #bts fluff #bts drabble

[rainbowsky]

Ask Policy

In the interest of ensuring I can answer as many asks as possible without making too many people wait too long, I’ve decided to give some guidelines for submitting asks. Some of this is just me setting healthy boundaries because I find a lot of asks I get are outside of the scope of what I feel comfortable with, but some of it is just meant to help simplify things for those wanting to submit an ask.

I am always happy to get asks from people so don't let this policy hold you back from asking a question. It's meant as guidance to help people frame their questions to increase the likelihood they'll be answered - and as an explanation for why I don't always answer every ask. Please don't feel intimidated or deterred by the policy.

This policy is subject to change and updates so feel free to check back if there's anything you are unsure about.

I do not answer every ask

I want to start by making it clear that unlike some other bloggers, I do not answer every single ask I get. It would be impossible for me to do that. I don’t have the time or the spoons, and I get a large volume of asks daily. However, I read every single one of them and I do my best to take what I read into consideration when deciding on what to post about, etc. so even if I don’t get to your ask, it will be taken into consideration.

There are also some asks I just won’t answer, some topics I won’t discuss. I will try to outline the primary ones below, to make expectations clear.

Timing of answers

Also, I do not always answer asks in the order they are received. That would not be practical. Some asks require research and thought. Some inspire ideas that take longer for me to articulate than others. Some are time-sensitive. All of these impact the timing of a response.

Someone asking me, “What makes you believe BJYXSZD?” is going to take me a long time (months, apparently) while someone asking me, “What time is the XYZ livestream happening tonight?” takes only a moment to answer. Sometimes I get fixated on tangents about DD’s hair and fashion and will answer several asks in a row about it, even though there are older asks in the inbox.

All I can say is, I try to strike the right balance between giving people what they’re asking for while ensuring that I enjoy being on Tumblr and don’t end up feeling like it’s a job I’m not getting paid for. Sometimes I will set aside my needs for the needs of the readers, and other times I will set aside the needs of the readers for my own. This is the best way I’ve found to keep that balance right.

Guidelines for submitting an ask

Please check my index post before sending an ask. Many common questions will be answered in those posts.

Please try to keep the total word count under 300 words.

If you are asking a question, please make sure it's stated clearly.

If you want me to comment on something you saw online, please include a link so that I can see what you’re referring to.

If you have submitted the same question to multiple bloggers, please be open and honest about that.

If you aren’t anon and want me to respond privately please make that clear.

Things I'm unlikely to respond to

Hateful, harassing asks are deleted without hesitation.

Asks that go beyond the word count will likely not be answered. I have frequently gotten asks in the 600-1,200 word count range, and it’s just too much. If you have a lot to say, I recommend starting a blog of your own. Now, if you have that much to say to me and you don’t care about it being replied to then feel free to send it in, but please understand that I will likely not post your ask.

Asks that speak negatively of GG and/or DD, or that frame GG or DD as rivals or in opposition to each other, will be deleted. Such messages tend to be anti messages, and I won’t let my blog be a platform for that. If you have a good-faith question relating to that topic please be careful how you frame it, and understand I might not be willing to post a response.

Asks that are obviously copy pasted to multiple bloggers I will not answer unless there's a clear reason why they want multiple perspectives, and only if that has been stated openly in the ask. Spammed asks will be deleted.

Asks that just repeat or affirm what's already been said are less likely to be posted than ones that add something new to the conversation.

Complaints about what other people are doing online are generally referred to my post about fan wars. That’s not because I don’t care how you feel. I do, and I know how frustrating the fandom can be. I tend not to respond to those asks because I don’t want to fuel those thoughts and feelings in others, or to be a platform for spreading negativity and anger about others (and that includes solos). If you really want to talk about something relating to fan wars, try to find a way to frame it that won’t violate those principles.

While I am always happy to get fic recommendations, I have a policy of not posting fic recs to my blog. I cannot be a platform for promoting anything I haven’t yet read. I have gotten some recs that fall outside the type of fic I’m comfortable with. However, if I like the fic you recommend, it might end up on my rec list.

Asks regarding other ships, other fandoms or other artists besides GGDD are outside of my purview. My focus is on GGDD and things immediately relating to them.

Asks about time-sensitive things that have passed. For example, asks that people sent me about a live event as it was happening, which referenced things that would have made sense if read at the time but make no sense now or feel out of place after the fact, are unlikely to be responded to now.

Topics I am working on at the moment

Here’s a list of some of the ask-related posts I am currently working on, in case you are wondering whether to ask about a certain topic. If your ask hasn’t been answered you might want to check back here to see if it’s on the list.

What makes you believe BJYXSZD?

An update to my timeline post.

The BTS is fake/fan service.

Oversexualization of GGDD, especially on Twitter.

Why do solos dismiss GGDD’s relationship?

Will GG and DD ever come out?

If your ask hasn’t been answered

If your ask hasn’t been answered and

It’s been longer than a few weeks

It’s a topic I haven’t already covered (refer to my index post)

It isn’t on the list of topics I am currently working on (above)

It isn’t on the list of topics I won’t respond to (also above)

then there’s a chance it’s been lost or that I just haven’t had time. If it’s a question that really matters to you then feel free to resubmit as long as your ask meets all four of the criteria above.

If you do resubmit, consider rephrasing or reframing your ask to make it clearer and easier to answer.

I can’t guarantee I will get to it any sooner, but I will do my best.

If you don’t have time to answer all asks, why not close your inbox?

Some bloggers close their inbox when they are getting a volume of asks beyond what they have time to answer. I suspect they do that because it works for them and for how they go about things. That approach would not work for me or for how I like to engage with the fandom.

To me there is a huge value in being able to respond to asks about issues and events as they arise. It’s important to me to be able to discuss things that are currently happening, with input from readers as it is contributed. Closing my inbox would prevent that.

A lot of asks can be answered quickly. Yes, I could close my inbox and limit my answers to the longer, more time consuming asks that are lurking there. If I did so, I would ironically be answering significantly fewer asks than by leaving it open.

I also try to think about it from the ‘do unto others’ perspective, and in terms of what I expect from other bloggers when I submit an ask to them. I regularly submit asks to other blogs and when I do so, I never expect a response. I might hope for a response, of course, but I don’t expect it. I understand that people respond if/when they are able, and there might be countless reasons they wouldn’t get to my particular ask. I hope that readers can feel the same way when submitting an ask to me.

Can I message you privately?

Yes you can, but if you are messaging me to ask me a question or tell me something that might be of interest to other readers, please consider sending it as an ask so that it can be shared with everyone.

#ask policy

[shadow-scenarios]

I see requests are open!! How about Joker, Skull and Fox reacting to finding out their PT girlfriends are hiding an injury that's bleeding from battle but she didn't want to look weak so she's trying to hide it? Dx

Hello Anon!!

Hope you like this request. I don’t have much to say, so I’ll get straight down to it. Have a nice day!!

Post Writing Note: I accidentally started out as gender neutral so if you see any they/them I’m super sorry.

- Nexus.

Joker { Akira Kurusu }

✧ From his insightful nature of other people, Akira immediately notices that something is off, no matter her own persistence. He never pushes her to tell him what it is unless it becomes particularly bad or to the point where he can see the bleeding.

✧ Once he finds out, he does not seem to be all that angry. Just... Disappointed. Disappointed that he could not protect her from harm, disappointed that he let her feel weak. As he takes her up to the attic to patch up any wounds, Akira finds the first aid kit that he uses for his own injuries & expertly patches any injury up.

✧ Sitting her down, he asks why she would ever feel as though she were weak. All of the contributions to the Phantom Thieves she made were more than enough & she even had the courage to stand up to society, risking her personal safety for the sake of justice. For a moment, he recalls a memory in which she pushed him out of an attack that could have been fatal. After hearing her reasoning he pulls them into a warm hug to communicate what he is feeling because he cannot articulate it.

✧ Every few days he will check up on her injury to make sure they are changing any needed bandages & that it is getting better. Though healing in the Metaverse can speed up the process, it does not prevent injury carrying over into the real world.

“ You’ve protected me from Shadows so many times. Everything you do here is a huge contribution to the team, even if you don’t think so. You aren’t weak, there’s very few people that are even able to summon a Persona. ”

Skull { Ryuji Sakamoto }

✧ Perhaps Skull’s habit of checking out his significant other in their Metaverse outfit paid off this time, as he noticed her rubbing an arm, which was rather unusual. She never seemed to have any habits like that. Even in battle, she would hesitate to use that hand if needed & she seemed rather weak. Something was definitely wrong.

✧ In the Safe Room is where he confronts her. Even if she is rather persistent, his concern would override her refusal & it would eventually lead to her eventually showing him what they were hiding. A series of bloody lacerations along the arms, presumably from where a Shadow had attacked with blades.

✧ Instantly he calls Queen or Panther over to heal her. Though they are effective in their methods, Skull makes sure that she is properly patched up. Only the best for his girlfriend. Afterwards, he asks why she would even thinking about hiding an injury that must have been hurting so much, especially in such a dangerous place like the Metaverse.

“ Look... I ain’t good with words but I know that Joker wouldn’t keep puttin’ you on the front lines if you weren’t super strong. Hey, even if you aren’t, we can work on it together! My leg still isn’t in the best state so we can always start with some runnin’. ”

Fox { Yusuke Kitagawa }

✧ It takes a little while to Yusuke to notice but with some input from the Phantom Thieves on how she was acting, he eventually notices the little things: The coloration of her skin; The way she slightly stumbled around school; Ensuring that her legs were always properly covered.

✧ After school, he offers to take her to his place. Although the dormitories in Kosei are rather small, it is cozy in a sense that the place looks lived in, with paint pots & brushes littered all over the place in some sort of attempt at organised chaos. Leading her to a chair, Yusuke makes sure she is seated before he asks why she has been acting so conspicuously.

✧ Hearing out these self deprecating words seems to be physically painful & he flinches dramatically seeing the injury on her leg. Though he is not well versed in medicine, he has seen enough of what Queen & Panther do in the Metaverse in order to patch her up a little better for now. Later, he takes her to them to see what they can do.

“ Strength is a fascinating concept, as we all have different skill sets. Queen is talented with mass rejuvenation, Joker has so much variety that covers our bases. Even myself... I am swifter than most. You fit into this team perfectly & I must admit that I find myself stunned by the talent that you possess. Never call yourself weak, for I see someone who is ready to fight with all her heart. ”

Word Count: 750

Publish Date: 22.10.20

#{ joker } #{ skull } #{ fox } #persona #persona 5 #persona 5 imagines #persona x reader #persona 5 the royal #persona 5 royal x reader #p5r #akira kurusu x reader #akira kusuru #ryuji sakamoto x reader #ryuji sakamoto #yusuke kitagawa x reader #yusuke kitagawa

[heyitsani]

Another Dream

Omega!Dick Week Day 6: Accidental Pregnancy

Word Count: 1841

Rating: Teen and Up

Warnings: Mpreg and Robincest (obviously)

Pairing: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd

Summary: Jason is in Brazil when a call about Dick collapsing while out on patrol with Damian comes in.

Notes: This seems like it’s going to be angsty, but it’s really just a fluff piece filled with love.  

Reminder: Day four’s story is being posted today as well because I didn’t want to spoil this one.

You can also read this on AO3 here

“Hood, come in.”

Jason cringed when the sound of Bruce’s Batman voice came over the comm line he had promised to keep on while he was out in South America with Artemis and Bizarro.  It had been years since he had gone on mission with them, but when they had called asking for help Dick had told them Jason would be there. And despite Jason pointing out that he could make his own decisions, Dick still insisted he go.  Gotham was covered and Bludhaven was good with just Nightwing, but he could call for backup if the need arose.  And James was thirteen, more than capable of looking after himself while Dick was out patrolling the city.  Even though Dick promised to have someone come stay with the teenager while he was out just to calm Jason’s worried.

So, Jason had reluctantly agreed.

That had been almost a week ago and though Jason still worried, the multiple times a day both Dick and James contacted him was enough to get the job done.

“What can I do for you Old Man?”  Jason asked, landing a kick to the chest of one of the thugs in the warehouse he and Bizarro were currently clearing out while Artemis took care of the kids that the scum had been gathering to sell.

“It’s Nightwing. You need to come back as soon as possible.”  Jason froze for a moment before punching the man in front of him and knocking him out cold. A glance toward Bizarro told him that the clone was finishing off the last of the men so Jason could focus on Bruce in his helmet.

“What do you mean ‘It’s Nightwing?’  What. Happened.”  He demanded, drawing Bizarro’s attention as the last guy went down and they were surrounded by silence.

“Birdie okay?”  Jason waved a hand to his partner to ask him to hold on the questions for a moment.

“Flamebird was patrolling with him while Superboy stayed with Jamie.  Nightwing and him were breaking up a bank robbery when Nightwing just dropped.  Red Robin picked the pair up and are headed to Leslie as we speak.”  No reasonable explanation for the drop.  No ‘he had been hit by a bullet’ or ‘he took a nasty punch to the face’.  Just he dropped.

“I’m in fucking Brazil, B,” Jason growled, starting to ziptie the thugs as Bizarro gathered them in a pile for the authorities to apprehend.  “It’s a ten-hour flight!  Unless you have a teleporter on hand.”

“No, you just need to get on a plane.  What airport are you near?  I’ll get your ticket set up.”  Jason spat out their location and he could hear Bruce typing into the computer on the other end.

“Birdie?”

“I don’t know, Bizarro,” Jason admitted carefully.  He knew that even though they had had minimal contact, Bizarro had fond memories of Dick. The clone also knew how much Jason loved Dick and that was enough to love him in his own way.

“You have an hour to get to the airport that’s twenty minutes away, Hood.”  Jason gave a grunt of acknowledgment.  “Do you have an earpiece for the flight so we can contact you once we hear more?”

“Yeah, I’ll set it to the same frequency.”  Bruce confirmed before signing off with a click and Jason lifted the face plate of his helmet.  “Let’s get to Artemis and then I need to run.”  Thankfully, he had all his needed documents for flying already on his person. But would have to have Artemis and Bizarro bring back his other gear when they came back to the states.

“What the Batman say about Birdie?”

“What’s this about Nightwing?”  Artemis called out from her spot next to a group of children.  A group that held a larger number than Jason had assumed, and it made him want to go put some bullets in skulls.

“He collapsed while on patrol with Robin.  They airlifted him to the hospital and B got me a ticket to fly home.  I need you two to bring my gear back when you fly back stateside.  I have to run,” Jason explained as they got closer to the redhead.  The woman looked him over thoughtfully before nodding. Jason removed his helmet the rest of the way and handed it to Bizarro before checking his ID and passport over, zipping his jacket closed to hide the emblem on his chest.  The guns and other various weapons went next and Artemis easily placed them on various spots in her gear.

“This is the close of this case.  We will be heading stateside within 24 hours.  We will contact you as soon as we are in Gotham.”  Jason nodded as he handed over the last of the items that would have him flagged on the flight before thanking them both.

“Just go to Birdie.”

Jason stormed through the front doors of Leslie’s, barely containing his strength so he didn’t break anything.

“Jason!”  Tim stood from his spot in the corner where he was apparently working on his laptop.  “He’s fine!”

“Then why didn’t B say what was wrong?  I’ve been waiting for almost half a fucking day, freaking out on a plane and trying not to be arrested for agitation.  Where is he?” He didn’t bother waiting for a response, pushing through the doors that led to the back.  He had been in this clinic enough times to know his way around.

“Ah Jason, Dick is in here with Bruce and your son,” Leslie waved him over as she stepped into the hallway. “He is fine, Jason.  I promise.  But he asked to keep the issue between me and him until you arrived and that is why you have not received word.  Bruce is, as you can imagine, quite beside himself,” Leslie filled him in as Jason walked quickly toward her and paused at the door.  He took a moment to look through the small window to see his husband sitting up in the bed with a smile on his face, their son curled up next to him on the bed.  Bruce occupied a chair next to the bed and he certainly looked irritated from the way he held himself.

“Jay,” Dick sighed, smiling at the sight of Jason pushing the door open and coming inside.

“Papa!”  James jumped off the bed and bounded over to Jason and immediately Jason picked the boy up into his arms.

“Hey Little Bird,” Jason hugged his son as he walked over to Dick’s bedside.  Leaning down, keeping James in his arms, he pressed a kiss to Dick’s lips and took a deep breath.  Something about his scent was different.  Not bad, and definitely familiar, but different.

“Bruce, James, would you two mind leaving the room for a moment while I have a discussion with Dick and Jason?”  Jason watched Bruce scowl, but James let himself be set down and headed for the door, almost like he already knew what Leslie had to say.

“B really, once Jay knows, we’ll tell everyone.  Just let me tell my husband,” Dick coaxed Bruce into leaving.  The older man sighed, but kept the scowl on as he walked out of the room. Jason shook his head before looking back to Dick and taking his hand.

“What’s wrong?  I have been freaking out since Bruce called and I need someone to throw me a bone here.”  Dick chuckled and Jason looked at him, ignoring Leslie.  If he had to describe the way Dick looked and how he smelled, Jason would say happy.  Maybe a little nervous, but definitely happy.

“You might want to sit, Jay,” Dick waved to the chair next to Jason.  Though he was suspicious, Jason took the advice and sat in the chair without releasing Dick’s hand.  “I’m perfectly healthy, there’s nothing wrong with me.”

“Then why did you collapse on patrol?”

“I’m pregnant.”

Jason’s world came to a halt as he processed the information. Pregnant.  But they had decided after James they weren’t going to have another.  It had been too hard on Dick’s body.  He had been miserable and sick the entire time, bedridden for the majority of the final trimester.  And the labor and delivery had been worse.  They had almost lost both of them and Dick and Jason had both agreed, James was enough.

“But…”  Jason tried to form words, attempting to articulate the mess in his head.  “When? How?”

“My last heat, when James spent the week with Dami and Jon?”  Jason remembered that.  Almost four months ago.  He had assumed Dick would be due for a heat when he got back from his mission.  “I had that infection before that, and the antibiotics had nullified the suppressants.”  Jason looked over to Leslie for confirmation and she just gave him a wide smile, nodding her head.

“But we didn’t know? With James you were sick at a month. You’re how many weeks now?”

“He’s almost eleven weeks,” Leslie finally spoke up and handed over a familiar image.  An ultrasound image of the baby in Dick’s womb. Jason carefully took it and stared down at it.  “She’s a little on the small side, but all the tests say she’s perfectly healthy.”

Jason’s head shot up to look at her.  “She?” He choked out.

“She, Jay. We’re having a daughter and she’s being a hell of a lot nicer than her brother was,” Dick pulled his attention, smiling brightly at Jason.  Jason’s turquoise eyes bore into Dick’s sapphire ones for a moment before he surged forward and kissed the other man breathless.  He could hear Leslie chuckle before excusing herself from the room.

“I was so fucking scared when I never heard anything about your condition on the plane,” Jason admitted when he pulled back just enough to speak and look into Dick’s eyes again. “But this…god, Dickie.  I didn’t even realize I wanted this.”

“Me neither, Little Wing,” Dick admitted as he placed a hand on Jason’s cheek.  They had both been okay with just having James.  It had been thirteen years since their son was born and neither of them had even mentioned another kid.  “We’re never going to hear the end of it, though.”  Jason frowned.  “I’m almost in my second trimester and neither of us noticed.  And now that I know, it’s so obvious that I have no idea how we didn’t realize.”

Jason pulled back as Dick pulled down the blanket that was covering him and tugged up the black t-shirt. And yeah, there was the bump.  How they had managed to not notice that was beyond him.  Placing a hand on the slight swell, Jason sighed.  Now the familiar twist to Dick’s scent made sense.

“We should tell James before everyone else.”  And Jason completely agreed.  “Go get him?”

“Yeah,” Jason agreed, pressing a kiss to Dick’s stomach and to his lips.  “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Grinning, Jason pulled back completely and headed to the door to get their son so they could tell him the good news.

#omegadickweek #omega dick grayson #omega nightwing #alpha jason todd #alpha red hood #nightwing #red hood #artemis of bana mighdall #bizarro #red hood and the outlaws #damian wayne #damian wayne is flamebird #jon kent #damijon #tim drake #bruce wayne #batman #batfam

[simpstar123]

Party || Ethan Payne

Requested - No but requests are open ✨

A/n - istg I'm gonna start posting more than once a month. Soon. Hopefully.

Word Count - 1,188

5.27.20

The party was crowded as hell, which was to be expected with a group of friends as big as the Sidemen's. The seats were filled at all times and Y/n was getting tired of standing and milling around after already having chatted with all of her friends. She finally gives up on waiting for a seat and decides to chill on her friend Ethan's lap. He jumps when she first sits down, then relaxes a bit when he realizes it's her. Nobody around the two of them pays any attention at all, each of them caught up in their own little worlds.

"Alright love?" Ethan asks, resting his hand on one of her legs casually, causing her to stare at it for a second. She smiles and looks up at him.

"Yeah, just tired and needed somewhere to sit," she replies, draping one of her arms over his shoulders.

"You know you can always sit here," he says, winking and trying to sound more confident than he actually feels. She laughs and adjusts her legs to be a little more comfortable.

"Well, I'm not opposed to that offer," she says, sipping her drink as she looks around. Ethan chuckles, trying to play off the blatant flirting. His face heats up as he thinks about the short exchange. Then he nods quietly to himself and follows Y/n's gaze across the room. She's looking at Simon Minter, of course.

"You fancy him?" he asks, praying that he doesn't sound stupid. She raises her eyebrows, looking back and forth between Simon and Ethan for a second.

"Nah, he's cute but not my type. Besides, he's got a girl, and I'm not that type of bitch," she explains as she locks eyes with Ethan. He thinks it over while nodding.

"So what is your type then?" he says simply, again trying to sound more casual than curious. She shrugs, taking in his features for a minute as she thinks.

"I don't know, tall, funny, attractive," she says, catching his eyes again and then looking down. He fake yawns and rolls his eyes.

"That's pretty basic innit? I feel like that's what every girl says," he replies, pretending not to be bothered by any part of the description. Obviously, he's not very tall, although he does believe that he's funny and attractive. He silently hoped that the first one wouldn't cancel out the other two.

"Yeah, I guess. Most girls literally just want whoever they want. I don't even have a specific type, to be honest," she adds, trying to read his reactions. He nods again and runs his hand through his hair. The action succeeds in temporarily distracting Y/n and she smiles at him a little bit afterward.

"So you don't care if a guy has muscles, a good trim, or style at all???" he says incredulously, taking his own features into account. She bites her lip and holds back a laugh. It was pretty obvious that he was hinting towards himself, but there was always a chance that Y/n was just reading too much into it.

"That too, I guess, but it's not a huge deal. I tend to judge people based on their personality anyway," she replies as she begins running her hand back and forth over Ethan's muscular shoulder. His breath hitches in his throat and she laughs softly, but otherwise pretends not to notice. She watches him nervously run his hand through his hair again, and she glances at his outfit, which is nicer than usual for the event. She smiles and runs her own hand through his hair, causing him to stop in his tracks completely.

"Are you just saying what you want girls to notice about you?" she says curiously, continuing to smile innocently. She rests her hand on the back of his neck as he chuckles nervously, then shakes his head.

"No," he replies softly, "Why would I do that?" She rolls her eyes playfully at him and shrugs. Then she runs her hand through his hair again and leans closer to him.

"I mean, if you want to ask if you're my type you could just say it," she laughs, watching his face turn red. He looks away in an attempt to hide it from her and begins rubbing the back of his neck, trying not to think about the way she was touching him just a few seconds ago. He wants to speak but nothing will come out. Being as nervous as he is, he can't figure out if she's messing with him or if she's genuinely flirting. He opens his mouth and closes it again, wishing he knew what to say and how to say it.

"What was that?" she asks out of the blue, locking eyes with him. His eyes widen at the sudden question. Of course, he had tried to speak but failed. However, Y/n obviously thought he'd spoken. She leans towards him again.

"Sorry, it's pretty loud and I didn't hear what you said," she says. He shakes his head and takes a deep breath.

"Do you want to get out of here?" he suggests, preparing himself for rejection. She backs up slightly and raises her eyebrows again.

"Not like that, unless that's what you want to do. I meant like, to get away from the noise and just talk," Ethan explains quickly. She nods and stands up, pulling him to his feet behind her. Together they walk out the front door and start heading down the street.

"So, were you trying to say something earlier?" she asks, turning to face him. He puts his hands in the pockets of his coat and shrugs. A million thoughts start bouncing around in his head. Should he go for it? Should he keep his mouth shut? He knew he'd be left forever wondering if she liked him, so he chose to take the fall and make a move.

"Am I your type?" he says with his chest, instantly being filled with regret. A smile spreads across her face and she looks down for a second before looking back at him.

"I've never met anyone who is more my type than you are," she replies happily. Ethan momentarily loses the ability to think straight, feeling his heart pound in his chest.

"Are you being serious?" he asks, trying to contain his excitement. She giggles and nods.

"Of course, Ethan," she says, "I thought you'd never figure it out." Ethan laughs nervously, wondering what else he'd been oblivious to during the year-long friendship the two had shared. He pulls her into a tight hug and she returns it, only pulling away to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. Despite the cold nighttime air, his face burns from the contact as they move apart.

"So, are we? Does that make us...?" Ethan says, wishing he could just say boyfriend and girlfriend, or couple, or something, but he finds it difficult to articulate his thoughts. She just nods in response and kisses him again.

"Does that answer your question?" she asks.

"Yeah, wow. Yeah," he replies breathily.

#fanfic #ethan payne #writing #sidemen #ethanxreader #behzinga #beh2inga #behzingaxreader #sidemenimagine

[dekusheroacademia]

The Shippers Survey: Comments

I just wanted to share some comments I got on the survey on ships in BNHA. You can find results and survey here at this link.

First of all, thank you so much to all the nice comments! There were so many sending hearts or thanking me, or being curious about the results, or even wishing me a good day. It was so lovely!!

In this post I would like to share some comments that, in my opinion, were pretty important (in a fandom setting). Many were different variation of these ideas, and many people agreeing with the sentiment.

After, I will just sure some cute short comments that I liked.

And then I will share... the bad ones, with my answer. So the good, the cute and the ugly.

So let's start with the good interesting comments:

THE GOOD

any fandom has their toxic/hateful parts, it’s too simplistic to say “this fandom is x” because it all depends on where you go and who you interact with

I like to keep an open mind and hear everyone’s opinions on why they ship what they do and just their opinions in general. Even if I don’t ship two characters, I can still respect people who do. Unless it is just plain awful/illegal.

I might not like all ships but I will never openly hate on someone for liking one even if they like a ship I hate. I will always respect others opinions.

If you don't like the ship, ignore it

Ship and let ship

I think something people should remember in the fandom is that people are allowed to like/dislike things (character, ship, season, etc) that you personally like/dislike. Somebody’s opinion on fiction shouldn’t be a personal attack/offense. Somebody’s opinion also shouldn’t dictate what your opinion should be too.

I want to articulate about not selecting people who talk about ships or make fun of specific ships. Like it's not up to me how people decide to consume media and what part of it they like to discuss, this case being ships. Which is fine. I believe people can talk about whatever they like or don't like, as long as they're not hurting or attacking anyone and taking it to the extreme. Yes, even the ones that dislike a ship. I agree to the "just talk about what you enjoy" notion to a certain extent, but I also believe that it is human to express what about a piece of art upsets you.

I love MHA, it's amazing! personally, I enjoy being in this fandom, it's mostly creative and funny people! But there's a part that's hateful, toxic, that ridicules other ships, and hates on headcanons, and that's the part that I don't like. We have to respect each other. If someone for example ships HagakurexDeku, which is a rarepair, the fandom shpuld just respect it and not send hate :C or if someone headcanons Denki as a trans man, that should be respected. because headcanons =/= canon

THE CUTE

Nothing in particular, but I'm excited about where ochako's character development and her relationship with deku is going, after the recent chapters.....

Baku squad is the best thing that ever happened to me

Read MHA vigilantes (My answer: I am!! :D)

togas got them anime thighs

I feel as though I shouldn’t have done this, none of my opinions are very strong (My answer: Absolutely not! Every opinion is important in polls and surveys. This is just a silly one, about anime, but even outside fun stuff, in real life surveys and polls, each person counts!)

THE UGLY

There are some comments now that I would like to answer to.

- Anon Comment: Fans need to keep away their delusion and headcanons away from the canon manga.

I think this is very interesting. It looks like some fans seem to consider negative the "thoughts" of something. Just the existence of something is immediately put into the toxic category. Any fandom is built on canon, and people have the most fun when they have the freedom to interpret what they see in it (ex. literature analysis, anyone?). Headcanons is not a bad word, but delusions is, and I think this comment was both petty and not realizing that toxicity is in action, not in "having a thought/enjoying a fandom in a certain way".

- Anon comment: You kind of associate the ship with its fans, so if the fans are toxic, you end up disliking the ship

Nothing wrong with this comment, just - I really feel you! I do that too for many ships. Some ships' spaces are difficult for me to navigate because of that.

- Anon comment: I HATE when people make comedic MHA posts that are supposed to be general (MHA fake quotes, MHA as vines, etc.), but constantly include non-canon ships. I came here to laugh at actual MHA, not your TodoDeku and KiriBaku fanfiction.

Here is another comment where the toxicity comes from the action of sharing and enjoying something, instead of actually doing something toxic. I think it is pretty telling of your own... attitude, if you feel that something bad comes from people harmlessly enjoying something you don't like. You should ask yourself why.

- Anon comment: I don’t like when gay shippers ship weird things and then other people hate on the anime because of the toxic and gay shippers

"Weird thing"? If you think being gay or shipping something gay is weird, congrats, you're the toxic one.

- Anon comment: Don't harass hirokoshi to make your ship Canon :)

Don't worry. This never actually happened, it was mad up by a youtuber to hate on shippers. Don't spread misinformation without double checking where it comes from.

- Anon comment: Not homophobic or anything. Just the gay ships don’t feel right.

Congrats, you are the reason why every time someone tells me they have been accused of being homophobic but they are not... I start to wonder if they actually are homophobic.

If something same sex doesn't "feel right"... you're homophobic.

- Anon comment: Your toxic fan question is so loaded, what is the point of that question?

That's a great question! The toxic question was there mainly to see what everyone perceives the fandom as and if there is an overall negative attitude towards it or positive attitude towards it!

#bnha #my hero academia #ships #ships survey #meta

[fizzingwizard]

Episode 6 was AWESOME. Finally it really and truly felt like Digimon Adventure!!

This episode plus the last one makes me eat my words of despair over the blandness of episode 4. I’m counting that one as just a miss. I’m hoping that it doesn’t bode for the tone they’ll take with all Sora episodes though. Sora’s easy to overlook because she’s already kind, brave, and responsible - the main things the other kids need to work on. Still she never bored me in old Adventure. I only ever wanted more of her and that was my hope for 2020 Sora. Her intro episode wasn’t a great start, but guess what, she got to be pretty darn cool in this episode, and overall the tone of this ep was such an improvement on ep 4 that I’m back to thinking we will absolutely get a modern, cool girl Sora who rocks her spotlight episodes in the future. Pray with me friends.

By the way we finally got some decent animation in this episode. So I took gratuitous Taichi pics and I’ll post a couple to start us off bahahaha

Okay, so this was the much-awaited MIMI episode. Heck yeah. It’s called “The Targeted Kingdom.” Who is the queen of the kingdom, I’ll give you three guesses, eh what’s that Mimi? like WOW you got it on the first try!

More below!!

^ So I’m not quite sure what’s going on here. I think Sora is standing on Taichi’s back and Piyomon is helping lift her (them?) up into the trees so Sora can look around? They are trying to find the way to the ocean. This seems like the most awkward way possible to go about it but you do you kiddo...

See, Adventure Taichi would be making jokes while this is happening. 2020 Taichi is thinking about The Big Picture, at least as much of it as he knows of. He’s turning into such a pensive type. Yamato’s gonna have to work hard to keep his lead brooder status.

Also I was thinking... there’s a few times in this ep, and more in others, where I feel like the animators don’t show us enough... Idk what to call it, movement? The fall out of actions? Like why don’t we see them climb into the tree? Why are we zoomed into so close when they fall out? Later during the big fight scene, there’s stuff going on that could definitely be shown in a clearer, and also cooler to watch, way. My theory of course is it’s all budget issues but what a bummer.

The kids’ first intro to the bottomless pit that is a Digimon’s stomach. They have no food (seriously? in that pack of emergency supplies Sora brought by pure happenstance there is NO food??) so they go... steal some. But they don’t know they’re stealing.

Not that SHE cares.

Mimi: Bahaha... you’ve fallen into my trap! *cutest maniacal laugh ever*

^The trap

There is another trap that comes later in the ep and I’ll just say here. It’s some Jessie & James level shit. Way to go Meems!

ugh soooo cuuuute I want twenty

Introducing... Queen Mimi! Yes, Queen. They’ve upgraded her!

Honestly, I love how she’s introduced as royalty, but she’s dressed as a cowgirl. No one would ever ask Mimi to pick just one theme. Like her kimchi fried rice with whipped cream and strawberries, Mimi is not afraid to mix genres!

Like I said, the animation in this ep is a cut above what’s it been recently, which is a relief. And everyone’s appearance is so much like Adventure that I wonder why they changed anything xD But I’m just so grateful everyone kept their unique eyes. It was the one thing I missed in the animation of Tri, even though I wouldn’t have wanted high school kids to have baby eyes. But the eyes really highlighted each character’s individuality. Glad that’s still a thing even if not every animator pays attention to it.

Taichi & Sora: Were those your fruit trees? Uhh sorry? My Digimon was close to death and we were starving...

Mimi: You will starve again unless you learn the meaning of the law!

that’s a little les mis interlude for ya youre welcome

So Mimi arrived in the digital world, separated from the others, and immediately became Queen of the Tanemon. I SENSE A TREND.

Mimi doesn’t come across as ditzy and selfish as she did in early Adventure. I am not sure if that side of her’s been erased in favor of simply making her reluctant to fight because she’s soft-hearted, or if we’ll see her self-centeredness appear later on. I hope so. Right now the 2020 story is very focused on the plot and not on the children’s growth, which is a huge departure from Adventure, but I don’t think it will remain that way. I hope not at least. But I do think it’s possible that they’ll rewrite Mimi to be a bit less self-centered and/or airheady, and I’m not exactly against that. After all, post-Adventure Mimi showed her cool side more when she was willful or opinionated, and I’m on board with more of that in the 2020 show too. A better balance would definitely be a good thing in Mimi’s case.

She kind of made me think of Sailor Moon in this episode, lol

GASP! We are all Chosen Children! Mimi immediately says NOOO WAY i’m queen of the Tanemon!! But not because the Tanemon are catering to her every whim (they’re not, as far as I can tell! Though they did make her a throne!). Because she honestly feels a responsibility to look after them. Again, pretty different from old Adventure.

Pocket Koushirou returns and Taichi tries to absorb him into his brain!!

Taichi: *grunting* HNNNNGGGG!! Give me me your curiosity!!!

Koushirou: Are you Vademon!?!?!

Koushirou shows video footage from the human world that shows the effect the power outage is having. Though it’s not a complete blackout yet, some places like hospitals have already lost power and are in trouble. 

Mimi sees her grandfather, the president of Tachikawa Industries, on the TV helping people in trouble. VERY DIFFERENT. VERY COOL. I approve

Koushirou also points out that there is INDEED a time lapse between the human and digital worlds. I’m not exactly sure how different the time lapse is from old Adventure. At first, I thought it was much smaller, but thinking about it... given how slow the video from the human world was moving, it might be sizable. But I don’t think it’s as big as old Adventure. At any rate, Taichi and Sora figure out this means Mimi was on her own with Palmon and the Tanemon village for longer than they realized.

Also makes me wonder just how much time Yamato’s spent in the digital world...

Mimi feels torn between wanting to help her grandfather and needed to protect the Tanemon village! Naturally Taichi suggests they work together!

And a Tanemon rudely kicks him in the face!! Just kidding. But it was too cute not to cap

Mimi brings the waterworks like three or four times this episode.

Mimi: Alright! You work for me now!

Taichi: ...??? Okay I guess????

Yes, Princess or Queen, Mimi is still Mimi <3

So they join up and uhh... get ready for war I guess??

I MEAN HOW CUTE IS THAT

So this is the second Team Rocket trap, a giant hole in the ground. How did they dig it? How did the build that raft two eps ago?? Inquiring minds want to know

Greymon is surprisingly limber for a chubby dinosaur.

Taichi does what he does best in battle scenes: stand in immediate danger and look up a dinosaur’s bum.

OGREMON MAKES HIS BIG APPEARANCE IN A MIMI EP. I totally called it last week. Okay, technically he already appeared in episode 5... but we barely saw him okay! He uses Soundbirdmon (who may indeed not be sentient?) to mind-control other Digimon to find and apparently kill?? the children. Ogremon honestly sounds kind of mind-controlled himself but not sure. If he is, it’s a different kind of control. He may just talk like that because he’s an ogre and not very articulate...

I guess I capped this because CUTE CUTE CUTE

So speaking of rushing into immediate danger... Not only is Sora right in the middle of the right, she’s HANGING OFF BIRDRAMON’S LEG. This show is SO not promoting child safety hahahhahaha

Cute Taichi. Cuter still - Taichi and Sora tag teaming it. PLEEEEEASE give me more of this!! I want nothing more than for Sora to join Taichi and Yamato as a heavy-hitter. I always headcanoned her that way growing up. Let Sora kick ass 2020!!

^Palmon’s method of rescuing Mimi... effective, yet questionable

Capped because Cute.

Sora and Birdramon take down the blue bird digimon (sorry... forgot its name... will likely forget the name of every other Digimon not from old Adventure as well. i am a senior citizen). Taichi cheers for them and says “You nabbed the best bit from me!” SO CUTE. Come on, they are the best team!!

Meanwhile, Palmon: *screams bloody murder*

Mimi: Palmon! Noooo!

Episode 6: Palmon friggin DIES

I mean she is like glitching in and out. So it totally FIGURES it would be a Mimi ep that tells us “yeah kids we’re not Pokemon!” I mean. Keep watching...

Mimi recalls being all alone in a strange world when she meets Palmon. Btw they totally revamped the Pyokomon Village for this Tanemon village, I dig.

EVOLUUUUUTION!!

Boxing!!! Cactus!!! Eat this Precure!!!!

While Togemon takes out Drimogemon, Greymon rushes in to protect the kids from Ogremon...

... AND FREAKING SAWS HIS HORN OFF.

Like I said. THIS AIN’T POKEMON, KIDS.

Isn’t this actually darker than old Adventure? I mean I guess at least no one dies (I think? uhh...) and I suppose that’s less dark... but sawing off body parts... Idk man... I’m down with it, I just don’t know that it’s any nicer than old Adventure... hahahaha

POW! Err, Drimogemon’s drill ain’t looking too good either...

More waterworks as Mimi tells Palmon she loves her, and Palmon says it right back. Foreshadowing for Mimi/Koushirou tiffs in the future!? It was lit last ep that Koushirou tried to say he loves his partner and choked on it. Something tells me these two are gonna butt heads again ;)

Ugggggghhhh so cute I can’t staaaaaaand ittttt

Mimi decides to go with Taichi and Sora and leave the Tanemon village, Idk, I guess they’ll be safe now???  at least they won’t be targeted for having a human child among them.

Also I like her leaf bag. The Tanemon totally made it for her.

We end with Ogremon gripping his broken horn and fricking sobbing. This... does not bode well.

I want to hug him

so cast your votes, who gets the first hurt/comfort scene with Ogremon? Will it be gentle chastisement from Mimi while she patches him up with stuff from Sora’s pack? Or will it be Jou and the toilet paper you know he brought even if it makes no sense?!? hahahaha

I give this ep a 7/10 WELL DONE. That’s what a Digimon episode should be. Very close to VERY VERY GOOD.

I missed the trailer for next week so have more gratuitous Taichis instead.

#digimon adventure 2020 #digimon psi #psi spoilers #fizz watches digimon 2020

[tb5-heavenward]

Prelude, I am COUNTING on you to write a post-finale series for TAG. You write the boys soooo well, you know their voices as if you were related to them and I must know how it all works out now that Jeff's back. Like, is Scott still in charge or does Jeff become the lead again? Do any of the boys (read: John, because we love him) have a hard time with the change? Are Pen and Ink official?! Who is the spy in the GDF?! What does Jeff think of EOS?! Who really is the Mechanic?! I need to know!!

okay well, boy, well okay

full disclosure, as of this answer I still haven’t found the mental energy or brainspace to watch the latest and lastest ep, which is a sad but accurate commentary on how far this show has fallen in terms of importance in my life, because I remember the early days of staying up til five in the goddamn morning, with fuckin hola vpn doing all manner of evil via my IP address, just to watch the latest eps live on ITV. But times change, and times have changed so much that I’m no longer awake at 5AM anyway because I have to nurse a one year old back to sleep, but instead I have to be in bed by 11:30 at the latest so I can walk a six year old to school. Times change.

Anyway, that personal note aside, as far as my writing goes, my major projects have always been a magnification of the aspects of TAG I find the most interesting. Heavenward dialed that lens in on John and EOS and the intensity of their relationship, Harvard likewise focused on John and his most fundamental nature, and these days TA’s focal point is on Gordon/Penny as a couple and the way that all of the relationships both within and without this family ripple outward and overlap and interfere with each other, like a handful of stones thrown into still water.

I’ve been pretty transparent about how I feel re: TAG and the way its latest season went, and the problem with me taking the metaphorical cueball of TAG’s canon and trying to bank a post-series fic into the corner pocket is that I fundamentally disagree with the arc that canon’s taken, pretty much from the end of Season 2. Right up to the finale of S2 there’d been nothing I couldn’t manage to work with, barring a few mental tweaks and adjusted details here and there, but S3 just went so buck fuckin’ wild compared to what I would’ve done, storywise, that to try to write past the end of it is fairly untenable for me personally. 

And while those are all interesting questions, I’ve already addressed a lot of them. The spy in the GDF was a literal fucking rando in a goddamn raccoon burglar mask with a walkie talkie in hand. That is how far the writing had fallen, because if you want a couple of those questions answered right here and now, the mole in the GDF should have been Colonel Casey. And who the Mechanic really was should’ve been was Casey’s son, kidnapped and brainwashed and leveraged against her by the Hood, because that’s a poetic and perfect and poignant level of betrayal---Casey betraying IR as a mother who loves her son, as much as those boys ever loved their father.

Anyway. Here’s the bigger problem I have right now.

(TA spoilers-ish below the cut, a loose discussion of the map of the rest of the story, leave this unread unless you want some insight into my process re: currently unanswered but fairly obviously rhetorical questions and the overall arc of the story)

What the finale does do is makes me ask a fairly critical question about the work I have ongoing now, and makes me wonder if I might want to make it into the venue where I explore what I would’ve done with the series’ larger plot (ie: see above re: colonel casey). talented amateurs is, as mentioned above, fundamentally a fic about exploring relationships within IR. TA is my homage to the art of the slow burn, only I’ve done it bassackwards on account of the pair of them fell in love and promptly slept together within the first five chapters of the work. TA also started as a straight-up mood piece, just something to explore what that moment of an initiated relationship between Gordon and Penelope would look like. Needless to say, it blossomed, and now about 200k later, here we are.

In the same manner that TA wasn’t initially intended to be the behemoth it’s become, it was also at one point a question whether the thrust of the plot would concern Penelope’s pregnancy. Obviously it does now, and the works that follow it will continue along that essential arc---that’s the fundamental three act structure of this story, the three trimesters of pregnancy.

But ever since it started getting serious and started making itself apparent as my Next Big Thing, its been teetering on the knife’s edge of the question: Do I want to bring Jeff Tracy into this? Do I want to overshadow the future of IR with the spectre of its past? Do I want to bring him back?

Because the thing with TAG is that, if you’re the sort of person who can perceive the fundamental shape of an overall story---even one as disconnected and disjointed as TAG’s was---it was always transparently apparent that one day they would find their father. It was the series’ biggest macguffin and it’s kind of like, invisibly woven into the tapestry of the narrative. I can’t even quite clearly articulate why it always seemed so obvious---probably simply because they open the show by searching for that last desperate trace of him, but there was never a doubt in my mind that one day that would be the resolution of that question and the ultimate expression of the boys as IR. Their father wasn’t dead and they got to save him.

So it seems like any fic taking place in TAG’s verse must have that truth baked into it---their dad isn’t dead. He’s out there somewhere, alive and findable. I think the question of where could be more compellingly and believably answered than by “he’s been fridged in the fucking Oort Cloud for eight goddamn years” and I think as a writer I could take the bones of the show we’ve got and craft a more interesting version of that story. TA is a Season 2 AU in the same way that hwd is a Season 1 AU, and as far as canon is concerned, it doesn’t consider anything from S3 to be true. In TA, the Hood is still in prison and he’s going to stay there. Havoc and Fuse and Rigby don’t exist. The Mechanic is the biggest unanswered question, but also no longer IR’s problem. As far as TA’s cast is concerned, their dad is dead as a goddamn doornail.

And maybe that would be the bolder move. Maybe he could just be dead and that’s the deeper and more interesting and more poignant thought. What I can’t decide about TA is whether or not I want it to catch a case of Plot. It’s a double-edged sword, because on the one hand, the interpersonal happenings of this story are easily as interesting than anything like an actual high-stakes narrative about their father being alive could be. But equally I know I could tell that story as well or better than the actual writers actually did, and it seems silly to pretend that I’d ever do it elsewhere, though it would be a hell of a thing if I did, and I only know that because I’ve done it already.

Anyway. I’ll know in about ten chapters or so. Til then the coin’s still in the air.

#ta meta #Anonymous

[thespeedyreader]

The Oxbridge application process

Hey, stxdywarrior here! I’ve recently just applied to Cambridge University to study English, and I wanted to share my tips and experiences to help you if you’re interested in applying. First of all, if you’re applying to Oxford or Cambridge, that’s great! They’re both amazing universities, and applying is going to be challenging but so rewarding. I have no doubt that you’ll excel, whatever you want to do.

Please share this and add to it if you wish to!

A quick note: While this masterpost is general, I have to stress that lots of these tips may only apply to humanities subjects. I don’t have much to say about the sciences, I’m afraid. If you are applying for a science, however, I still hope you can find some great content in here for you.

UCAS application

Okay, first thing’s first: the application itself. Applying to Oxbridge is different because you have to have your UCAS form sent by October 15th (while everyone else has the luxury of waiting until January), and while that sounds stressful, it’s a great feeling to get it done early, trust me. And this means having applied to ALL your chosen universities, not just Oxford or Cambridge.

Another thing that’s different about Oxbridge is that they’re collegiate universities, so you’ll have to choose a college. Or, you can choose to make an open application, meaning you’ll be assigned a college later by the university. Don’t stress too much about this stage - people choose certain colleges for all sorts of reasons, and they’re all good anyway. I chose my college because it was small and had good student wellbeing services.

Because the deadline is so early, I would recommend you start thinking about your personal statement by Summer, so that when you get back in September, you can hit the ground running. Here are a few tips I have for your personal statement:

 Get all the help you can. And by this I mean: ask everyone you know who might be helpful to have a look over it. This means teachers, family members, classmates, and anyone you know who’s recently been through the same process you are going through.

That being said, make sure all of the opinions don’t leave you at see. I found it really hard when one person was telling me one thing and another was telling me the opposite, but I learned to balance my OWN judgements with other peoples’.

Don’t worry about the character count until your last drafts. Make sure you nail the content first.

It doesn’t matter how many drafts you have to get through, as long as you save all the drafts. I think I got through like 14 drafts?

Don’t JUST write it for Oxbridge. What I mean is, the other universities on your list matter too. So even though Oxbridge don’t care much about your extracurriculars, that doesn’t mean you should ignore them.

It isn’t about quantity, it’s about quality. Even if you’ve only done a few things, if you write about them well, then they’re still just as impressive.

A tip not everyone hears is that the universities want to hear about your personal response to things. Don’t just say you read a book; say how it made you feel, and why you were interested in it. Use phrases like ‘I was fascinated by’ and ‘this intrigued me’. I’m serious.

Remember that your personal statement is literally the hardest piece of writing you have to do. It’s easy to feel daunted by it, but there are plenty of resources out there to help.

Supplementary Application Questionnaire (Cambridge only)

If you’ve applied to Cambridge, you’ll soon get ask to do the SAQ. This isn’t a big deal, but it’s quite a long form to fill out, so it’s best to do it carefully and start early. You’ll be asked things like what modules you’ve studied in your a levels, and you have to include a profile photo of yourself. At the end, you can also write an additional personal statement. This is optional, but just for reference, my one included some things I’d done that I hadn’t included on my personal statement, and I related them to some of the specific modules on the Cambridge course.

Entrance exams

Depending on which subject you’re applying for, you may be asked to sit an exam. This will be typically registered through your school or college, and it’s important to make sure you sign up before the deadline (which will be set by your school). The exams happen around late October.

As I was applying for English, I took the ELAT (English Literature Admissions Test). In the ELAT I was given six texts (poems or novel excerpts), all linked by a theme, and I had to pick two to ‘compare and contrast’. So there was no set structure, and I couldn’t strictly revise for it. In terms of preparation, you can find past papers, and it also helps to do language analysis of some unseen poetry just so you’re used to it. You will NEVER be tested on things you don’t know; they’re more looking for the way you form and present an argument.

Essay submission

Depending on which subject you’re applying for (mainly humanities), you may be asked by email to submit essays to your chosen college. I was asked to send in two essays that I’d done in a school setting (I got to choose, whew), and I needed to print four copies of each (no idea why) and get my teachers to sign it to prove it was my work. The essays can’t be edited.

One thing to note is that, while Oxford usually let you email them, Cambridge are still in the Dark Ages and will only receive them by post. So if you’re applying to Cambridge and are a confused millennial like me, who literally never uses post, I’d get the essays in early.

Another thing is that my college constantly emailed me reminders about the essay deadline, so unless you live under a rock you can’t miss it.

The interview

As the final stage of the application process, you will (hopefully!) be invited to interview. They’ll let you know by email in late November. Cambridge typically invite about 80% of applicants, whereas Oxford invite less, which I think is about 50%. So if you get an interview, congratulations! And don’t panic. People say it’s the biggest factor in the process, when in reality the universities treat each part of your application equally.

Interviews are done differently by each university. In Oxford, you’ll be asked to stay at your college for a few days, because not only do your college interview you, but your application is sent around other colleges, so you could be invited to interview at another college at any time. (Sorry I can’t shed more light on this, as I didn’t apply to Ox.) In Cambridge, you only get interviewed by one college, and you have the option of staying overnight or just going for the day.

How to prepare:

While you don’t need to go overboard with this one, do read a lot around your subject in the few weeks beforehand, so that if they ask, “so, what have you been reading lately?”, you’ve got a lot to say.

If you have the opportunity to do a practise interview, take it. My school organised one for me, but even if your school doesn’t, find someone - like a teacher - who can do it for you. Even if it’s them just grilling you on your personal statement, at least you’ll be used to articulating your arguments in an interview setting.

If you sent in essays, make sure you read over those essays beforehand. They asked me about one of mine.

Map out some generic questions that they might ask you. For English, for example, I researched questions like, “is it better to read a play or see it in production?” and “what’s the difference between literacy and literature?” and even “what is literature?”

You’ll be notified by email the professors who will be interviewing you. I’d recommend looking them up (they’ll be on your college website) and finding out what they specialise in.

Read over your personal statement as many times as you have to. They’re very likely to ask you about something on there.

This sounds cliche, but PLEASE look after yourself before the interview. It always takes place right at the end of a really busy term, so watch out for colds and things (I’m telling you this because I was recovering from a chest infection when I interviewed, and had only just got my voice back RIP)

The interview itself

If you’re doing a humanities subject, you might be given a source or written extract to look at before one of the interviews, and then they’ll discuss it with you. I’d bring lots of highlighters for you to annotate. (I was expected to just be given a poem for English, but I actually got a poem AND part of a critical essay. Go figure.)

No one cares what you’re wearing. I mean, wear sensible stuff, but there’s no need to try to hard.

This is a bit random, but my teacher told me to make a list of all the things I love about my second choice university the night before, to remind myself that Oxbridge isn’t everything. Believe it or not, it worked.

You have to expect to be put on the spot, and this means on-your-feet thinking. I heard they can smell a rehearsed answer from a mile away.

When you’re waiting to interview, you’ll probably meet loads of other applicant like you. It’s up to you whether you chat with them or not - I know some people like to keep themselves to themselves to keep their focus, while I personally loved getting to know people, as chatting helped me stay calm. Either way, everyone’s in the same boat, so don’t worry.

If you’re like me, and easily get distracted by social media, I’d recommend staying off it for the whole day if you can. I did this, and it helped me protect my mental space and keep out negative thoughts.

Some of your interviewers might come across as a bit scary. They might also disagree with everything you say, which can be off-putting. Try not to worry too much if this happens - stand your ground.

When you make an argument, be prepared to justify it, but also, if you want to change your mind, do it. The interviewers are looking for a teachable mind, not someone who’s right all the time and knows everything, so show you have an open mind.

Once the interview’s over, all you have to do is get some well-deserved rest and wait! Try not to overthink how it went, because in reality you have no idea. Some people think they did awfully, but end up getting an offer, so.

The decision

Okay, here’s the truth: Oxbridge is not the be-all and end-all. It just isn’t. Your worth and intelligence cannot be defined by an institution.

For when you’re waiting for a decision: think of Oxbridge as a bonus. This is what I did: I had another university as my ‘first choice’, so that Cambridge was just an extra.

If you don’t get an offer: You will be so happy at wherever you decide to go instead. Think of it as Oxford or Cambridge’s loss, not yours - hundreds of applicants who are very much smart enough to get a place don’t, and that isn’t because they aren’t good enough.

While it’s okay to feel disappointed, it’s best to focus on the amazing learning experience that applying has been. You’ve shown yourself that you can handle all that while still maintaining your priorities and sense of self. So you should STILL be proud.

If you do get an offer: Congratulations! Party time. Except it’s not time to party just yet, because you’ve still got to get the a level grades to secure your spot.

I hope this helped! Don’t hesitate to ask me anything else you want to know.

Just tagging a few people who have been through the same process/have asked about it: @rebeccaravenclaw @littlebitofstudy @lesbianlondongrammar @sectumsempracurse

#oxford #Oxford University #cambridge university #Cambridge #education #ucas #uni #university #masterpost #oxbridge #uni applications #applications #Oxbridge applications #studyblr #stxdywarrior #original #studying #english #english literature #english student #english studyblr #a levels #a level studyblr

[experimentalmadness]

Cin Vhetin Ch. 8: Judgement

Chapter Summary: Din and Zethu are out on assignment and things get tense. 

In which absolutely no one talks about their feelings and everyone is still firmly in the enemies to lover slowest of burns moods. 

Pairing: Din x OC/Reader (however you prefer to read it)

Masterlist: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7

Ao3 Link

It’s a long one, folks just an fyi. Feel free to swap over to the Ao3 link if it’s easiest. And please lemme know if you are liking this story. :) 

***

Zethu was still expecting a trap.

She had raised all kinds of hell when the Mandalorian had stated point blank they’d be taking his ship and leaving her’s behind. But in the end she relented. It made a kind of sense she didn’t much feel like arguing over. Two ships were always more noticeable than the one. Besides if the Mandalorian didn’t intend to take her back to Nevarro to claim what’s hers, she could always kill him. 

Zethu shifted herself awkwardly into the seat behind the pilot’s chair. Her ribs hurt. Her face hurt. Her bones hurt, but she kept her mouth shut tight. Maybe the bounty hunter was just waiting until they were in deep space before blasting her out the airlock. Maybe he was waiting for her to let her guard down just long enough to slip a vibroblade between her cracked ribs. She fidgeted, hating everything about this entire situation. 

The Mandalorian seemed oblivious to Zethu’s distrustful stares boring into the back of his helmet. He took them up and out of Nevarro’s atmosphere and Zethu gave one last mournful look through the viewport at her lovely Lancer. She let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding when they reached the relative quiet of space. 

The Mandalorian began punching in the coordinates in the nav computer to make the jump to lightspeed. Zethu braced herself as space warped around them. Normally she enjoyed that initial rush, the flow of energy as light and time distended and contracted. Now all she noticed was how it aggravated her injuries. 

She’d be trapped on this ship for at least a day. 

No way out. 

Something moved against her leg. Zethu jolted and immediately regretted the action, holding her side. She tried to lean forward to see what had brushed against her, seeing one tiny green claw batting at her calf. With one eyebrow raised she reached down and was rewarded with a childish giggle as she held the kid up by the collar of its little brown robe. “Don’t look now, Mando,” Zethu snickered, “but we have ourselves a stowaway.”

Zethu laughed at the double take the Mandalorian immediately performed. “What the—you’re supposed to be with Cara!”

The child offered up what Zethu was certain was an articulate excuse, but alas, it was in baby nonsense. She set the child down on her lap. “Sneaky little bug, aren’t ya?” 

“Get down from there.” It was extremely satisfying watching him gesture for the kid to leave Zethu’s lap. 

“Aw, I’m not about to hurt the kid.”

“Now,” the Mandalorian clarified. 

Balancing itself precariously the kid hopped down from Zethu’s lap, trundling over to the Mandalorian and hopping up onto the console instead. Still chuckling to herself, Zethu cautiously stood up from her chair, stretching out bruised muscles. The Mandalorian was mumbling quietly to the kid, huffing something about “what am I going to do with you?” and “Cara is gonna lose it.”

So she was surprised when he suddenly snapped his attention back to her as she made her way out of the cockpit. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Uh? Clearly not out into space?” With that she dropped down the ladder into the ship proper. 

It wasn’t much. Neither was her ship either if she was being honest. She tapped a few slats and prodded obviously sealed closet and storage spaces. Punching a few buttons revealed a veritable armory. She whistled as she surveyed the blasters before the doors were suddenly shut in her face. 

The Manadalorian was at her side, kid swaddled in one arm, the other jabbing accusingly at her. “Don’t touch anything.”

Zethu backed off innocently enough, slumping down and sitting up against the opposite paneling. The kid squirmed out of the Mandalorian’s arms and went toddling back over to her. It seemed to be interested in examining the buckles on her boots. “You know I have no idea why the imps want this little bug. Gonna be honest though, they also failed to tell me I’d be going up against a full blown Mandalorian when I took the job,” she grinned. “After Raydonia I upped my price. They were...not happy.”

“Who do they say you’d be after, then?” he leaned against a crate and even through the helmet Zethu could tell he was watching the kid closely. 

Zethu shrugged. “Just some hunter who reneged on a deal. Think they were afraid standard mercs would back out if they knew. You guys do have a bit of a reputation, you know.”

“Still gonna collect?” 

“Yup,” Zethu said without a moment’s hesitation. “I also have a bit of a reputation, Mando,” she winked. 

“So,” the man crossed his arms, “what’s the plan for Coruscant? I wouldn’t advise going in blasters hot.”

“Hah! Not unless we wanted to get arrested by the Republic. No, I got a little germ of an idea. If your friend’s info was correct and you can get me into the tech center I might be able to draw out Gedos without firing a shot. At least until we get him somewhere more secure.”

She ran a gloved finger down the kids’ long ear. It giggled, wiggling its head and playfully batting at her hand. She didn’t much want to think about Gedos Sal, or what was going to happen on Coruscant. 

“The other Offshoots who saw you wanted you dead,” The Mandalorian pointed out. His modulator gave him a similar flat affect to his voice as Zethu’s own once did, but he hadn’t put in any of the regulators she had done to tune the emotion out. She heard his curiosity...tinged with a bit of disgust. Honestly, his judgement of her life was getting tiresome. 

“Gedos won’t.”

Your parents would be proud of you. She was eight years old again, dirt-faced and bloodied as she kneeled, bent over in electro-stocks, hands and neck shackled by the sparking blue electricity. Remember you’re the best of them.

“His mistake,” Zethu snapped. “It’s to our advantage. We get him secure, we get him back to Numidian—”

“And then we settle this.”

Zethu stared hard at the tinted visor of the Mandalorian’s helmet. “Yeah. Once and for all.”

***

Din couldn’t remember the last time he had been near Coruscant’s orbit. Flying into the heart of the former Galactic—now Republic—space was not the norm. Sure, hunters made the trip all the time in search of marks and the galaxy’s biggest city had a fairly lucrative underworld, but it was no place for a Mandalorian. He glanced over his shoulder at his reluctant companion and saw Zethu Desh looked equally concerned as she stared hard out the viewport. She probably wouldn’t want to come this close to the Republic either. 

The Crimson Dawn operative had called her a terrorist in Arkanian space. It didn’t take a particularly good imagination to wonder what she could have done to be slapped with that crime. Sedition against her own people and murder were the other charges leveled against her. She clearly had little love for her kind. But whatever her flaws at least she fought like a hell of a warrior. He could respect that.

Din brought the Razor Crest in for a landing and his dislike for Coruscant rose tenfold. There were no good hiding places to land out of sight. The massive city rose up before them complete with traffic, skyscraping spires, and neon sign postings. He swore under his breath.

“Head out to the Works,” Zethu mumbled into her hand. Her face was pressed into her palm as she rested facing the viewport. 

“The what?”

“Abandoned factory district. ‘S quiet there. We’ll have a bit of a walk towards the city proper but it’s better than paying Coruscant landing prices. Less noticable too. You wanna go east from here.”

Staring at her would not determine if she had an ulterior motive for the landing site, and Din didn’t have another viable solution to refute her. Shrugging, he took her advice and headed east, keeping his altitude as high as he could to avoid possible sensors or trackers. Who knew what the New Republic had installed in the atmo to count incoming ships. He traveled at Zethu’s directions until the skyline leveled and a trail of black smoke entered the sky. 

Fire and ash gushed from pipes across the surface and rusted over factories dotted the landscape. Din took the Razor Crest in lower, doing a quick scan and sensing no living heat signatures. In the end, he decided on landing the ship in the shadow of one of the larger factory shells. There was plenty of flat available surface nestled between the abandoned structure and the massive pipes. 

“Alright,” Din swiveled in his seat. “You are going to stay here in this time!” He pointed at the child who had once again, despite his insistence, found its way onto Zethu’s lap. 

“Sure, keep the kid in the ship on one of the biggest cities ever. It’s not like its known to wander off, right? That sounds like a great idea,” Zethu mocked. 

She had a point. He hated that. “I’m not taking the kid into a fight.”

“If we do things right there won’t be much of a fight,” Zethu stood up, gently placing the kid back on the ground. “The little bug’ll be fine. More than I can say for leaving it here on the hope it doesn’t disappear without a trace.”

“Didn’t seem to care for the kid’s well-being when you were trying to blast us out of the sky months ago.”

Zethu only shrugged, a sharp-toothed half grin appearing on her face. “Not trying to do that today, though am I? Honestly, Mando could we try and stay in the moment?” She dropped out of sight down the ladder. 

There wasn’t much for it. He gathered his weapons and the child and disembarked. Instantly, Din was glad he hadn’t left the kid behind. The Works were a vast, ashen-covered district with trap after trap for a small womp rat like the kid to get lost in. And it had a terrible habit of trying to sneak out. They’d have to work on that. 

Zethu hadn’t been kidding about that walk back to the city. Without a speeder or an air taxi it took the three of them well into the early evening to bridge into the underbelly of the city proper. “How long do you think a work day is here?” Din asked. “Any chance of Gedos still being at the tech centers by the time we could reach them.”

“Fair point,” Zethu shrugged. “Luckily we got plenty of options for a stake out.”

“What? No. I’m getting us a speeder and we’re heading back to the ship.”

“Like hell we are!” Zethu laughed. “I don’t know about you, but I’d rather sleep in a bed.”

“Zethu!” but she was already walking away, hands in pockets. “Zethu!” with another curse he chased after her. “Maybe this will come as a shock to you, but I need to keep a low profile.”

She rolled her eyes at that. “You’re on Coruscant, Mando. No one cares who you are or what you do, or where you came from. Here, you just let me do the talking. And give me the kid.”

“No.”

“Look, I’m not gonna—”

Din drew his blaster and pressed it none-to-gently into ribs he knew were still heavily bandaged. “I said no.”

Zethu batted the blaster away, but backed off, glaring at him and rubbing her chest. “Fine,” she growled and Din heard her curse in Arkanian. 

They picked up an airtaxi without an issue, heading in no particular direction, but Zethu seemed to have a vague idea of direction. Din wanted to ask her when the last time she had been on Coruscant had been, but Zethu didn’t seem to be in the sharing mood anymore. And she had been right about one thing, no one seemed to be paying them any serious attention. 

His armor caught a few curious glances, but for the most part the city was teeming with folk just trying to reach their destination. Most never even bothered looking up from where they were driving or walking. Zethu continued to steer them on. They rose a few levels in the planetary city, but not too high. Judging from the decor they were still in the seedier underbelly, and that was fine by him. 

Din was in danger of getting completely lost but Zethu brought them to a dimly lit hotel where a female Rodian greeted them in her language. As Zethu promised she did the majority of the talking. 

“A room for me and my partner, please,” she said. 

The Rodian said something that made Zethu laughed. Admittedly his Rodese was a little rusty, but he was positive they were talking about him. “What? No, you think he’s a real Mandalorian? Trust me, friend, you don’t want to know what he had to do to get that armor.”

At the Rodian’s response Zethu reached into her pockets for a handful of credits, sliding an appropriate amount over to the receptionist and, with two fingers, sliding a few extra back. “A tip,” she winked. “We were never here.”

The Rodian responded with a little bow, taking her extra credits. “Hah! Exactly, city’s so big all types of people come this way,” Zethu said with another big smile as she gestured for Din to follow her to the lift. 

The minute the doors sealed she let out a breath and the jovial expression on her face melted away. “Rodians are so easy,” she said without malice or much of anything at all. Those colorless eyes held no visible animosity, but there was a hard line around her mouth. All business again. 

The lift let them out in a suitably comfortable space. The child, as if sensing they were in a relatively safe area, wriggled free of his grip and wandered into the room, climbing up on one of the two beds. “This’ll do,” Zethu shrugged out of her crimson jacket. “I’d say make yourself comfortable, but I doubt you will.” 

Neither was she. She wouldn’t stay still for a moment, checking cabinets, drawers, and thoroughly shaking out the bedsheets. Looking for possible surveillance? Hidden weapons? Probably both given their shady location. “You know I’ve always wondered, do Mandalorians actually sleep with their helmets on?” she sniggered as she finished her sweep.

“While you’re here? Yes.”

“You’re funny, Mando,” Zethu winked as she unlatched the transparisteel screen, leaning out onto the miniscule balcony. The sounds of the city filtered into the room, speeders and hawkers, droid whistles and a steady thrum of music playing in one of the many clubs of the Undercity. “Never really had an excuse to get to know most of my marks before.” 

“You seem to know your way around. When was the last time you were planetside?” Din ignored her attempts to rile him up. He meticulously laid out his arsenal on the edge of his own bed, shifting the kid away from the rifle and vibroblades each time it waddled too close. 

“Eh...long time. Works good on Coruscant if you can get it and not upset the local mercs, but I prefer living in the Mid to Outer Rim,” Zethu wasn’t looking at him, content to sit herself by the balcony ledge and stare out towards the city. 

“Away from the Dominion.”

At that her gaze did snap back to him. She glared hard for a moment, before a little of that anger seemed to slough off as she gave a large sigh and roll of her shoulders. She leaned her head back against the screen. “Yeah. Away from them.”

“A terrorisim charge must make getting bounty work hard,” he counted the rounds of ammunition he still had, hearing Zethu’s hateful laugh. 

“You know for some crime syndicates it makes them give me a higher starting offer. When most people hear of you evading the Arkanian Dominion for two whole decades word gets around.”

“When people hear you kill your own without hesitation I imagine that gets around, too.”

“Oh fuck you, Mando.” Din had never heard such malice from the merc before not even prior to their marathon fight. He turned around half expecting to see her ready to fling herself at him, weapons out, but she was still sitting patiently by the balcony, only her face showed the real wrath. Her body was poised and still. 

“I got the terrorism charge slapped on when I blew a couple of Adascorp facilities sky-high. Didn’t even know about it until I saw my name show up on someone’s datapad. House Adasca never leaves loose ends, but screw ‘em. Screw the damn Adascacorp, the Dominion, and every. Single. Arkanian, left on that iceball wreck of a planet. You don’t get to judge me, Mando. I was born in a dark, abysmal mineshaft with Arkanian overseers so harsh they wouldn’t even let my own mother off her shift long enough to give birth to me. That’s how much an Offshoot miner’s life is worth where I come from. We were genetically invented to obey and scrap and bow to our Arkanian masters. My parents tried to incite the miners to rebellion. Some great uprising of my Offshoot brethren that would “unite us all” or some absolute spacejunk. All it got was them shot by a firing squad while the rest of “my” people went on like nothing changed. I stole a freighter first chance I got. Should never have let anyone else on it. But some people in my mining crew found out. Said sure, why not. Better than going into the galaxy alone, right? Serves me right. Second we get spotted by Dominion ships half of them are blubbering about maybe we should just head back and ask for forgiveness. I wasn’t going back. So I shot the three who begged. That’s my big crime against my people, Mando. And I’d do it again. Survival is everything. What sins have your Mandalorians committed to stay alive that you get to judge me for mine?”

Din had nothing he could say to that. Zethu’s eyes never shifted from him, never flinched. The wind tousled her silver hair across her face as she shook her head at him, turning to stare back out the window. She took a deep, controlled breath in and it was only then Din saw how tight she had been clenching her fists against her lap. 

“I hate this damn planet,” she said quietly, the anger leaving her voice bit by bit so that she sounded smaller...sadder even than Din would have guessed possible. “You can’t see the stars here.”

#The Mandalorian #Din Djarin x OC #Din x oc #Mandalorian x OC #long post #Cin Vhetin #in this house we get absolutely bonkers carried away with fics that were only supposed to be a few chapters but is now a fucking novel #;_;