#this random reminder that fandom and these other worlds i write in exist and are waiting for me😭

[jamesunderwater]

do the people who leave comments on my fics when they aren't even newly updated know they are making my day?? cause I need them to know

#its not just a hit of dopamine or something its also like #it's such a blessed unexpected interruption to my day to day reality #this random reminder that fandom and these other worlds i write in exist and are waiting for me😭 #like!!!! yall MAKE AUTHOR'S DAYS #truly the work of a hero #ao3 #fanfiction #fanfic authors

[spaceangst]

narcissism (is not) at its finest: stina heks

we return! shoutout to finals for absolutely draining me, and this semester in general for being the worst on record. nevertheless, i’m back with more kotlc psychoanalysis.

stina is a character i’m basically neutral to, so it’ll be a lot easier to stay objective with this one than it was with the fitz analysis. 

with that, i present to you:

stina destry heks.

stina is a character we’re first introduced to in slurps and burps, and admittedly, she doesn’t make a great first impression. her explanation for why she hates sophie doesn’t entirely hold up either, but i’m willing to write that off as teenagers being teenagers bc, well, that’s what we do.

no, what stands out about stina is how her character is what biana could have been and a role fitz would be best suited to at the moment. she’s talented, but not as talented as the main cast. this is intentional, of course, to show the power of sophie and her friends in regards to a reference point, but stina doesn’t just take it at face value. 

she’s a respectable character for how willing she is to stand up for what she believes in, but she tends to miss the point just as often as she makes one. she’s a double edged sword, if the blades were pointing at each other. for the most part, her actions cancel out. 

the only real unforgivable facet to her personality is her attitude and sense of self superiority in regards to dex. for someone whose parents should have been labeled a bad match, she’s all too comfortable mocking him for it and making him uncomfortable with his parents match status. the obvious would be to say, ‘oh, well, she’s projecting her insecurities on dex. she doesn’t want her parents to be a bad match, and she’s running from the truth.’ in which case, as much as i’d want to agree with you, i think it takes a while for her to get to that stage. it’s only in stellarlune, when she’s faced with glimmer and the aria family history, that it starts to dawn on her, exactly what her privilege is.

with regard to the plot, stina’s existence is simple. she makes it personal. 

yeah, the people of the lost cities are apprehensive about the black swan and sophie, but that’s not personal. that’s an abstract notion, and one that we’re told. stina is shannon showing us that it’s not just these random elves that we’ve never met, it’s the people around sophie too. the fandom is quite comfortable in bashing on sophie as a character, but stina is the very manifestation of sophie’s old life⎯being made fun of for being herself. and sure, sophie’s incredibly powerful, but stina manages to get under her skin in a way that no one else can. stina keeps sophie in check in terms of society, not in the interspecies and political way the council and black swan do, nor the familial way grady, edaline, and even alden and elwin do, nor the way her friends do. stina is a reminder that sophie is an outsider and that her presence changes the careful balance the world maintained before it acknowledged her existence.

and in that sense? stina is brilliant. 

sophie plays right into the trap shannon sets with stina⎯she doesn’t understand stina’s family history, not more than she’s heard from rumors. likewise, stina doesn’t understand anything about sophie. and the thing is, neither of them want to. they might tolerate each other as a part of team valiant, but there is an understanding between them that they aren’t friends. this is a line neither of them will cross and it’s the strongest characterization between them.

stina’s skills come from her ability to manipulate a situation⎯which does not necessarily make her manipulative⎯but it’s easier for her (and keefe and oralie) because she’s an empath. 

how else do she and marella go from:

to this:

ignoring sophie’s inflated sense of self importance (that may or may not be correct) in that second moment, stina has this persuasion to her that’s hard to ignore. she’s really a perfect balance, with her father in the black swan, her mother breeding unicorns, and herself as a powerful empath in team valiant. she’s everything sophie could have been, don’t you see? 

what stina really is, and what i assume shannon has created, is sophie’s true foil.

stina heks.

the more you think about it, the more it makes sense, i promise. initially, it seems to just be an opposite situation, but looking at the two “sides”:

dex is the child of a bad match → stina’s parents evaded being a bad match marella used to be sophie’s friend → marella is quite close with stina linh used to be closer to sophie → stina calls linh her friend often in stellarlune grady and edaline rehabilitate animals → so do vika and timkin sophie led her friends into the black swan → timkin kept his family out of it sophie’s biological mom is an empath → so is vika

they’re set up not to complement each other, but to show readers what sophie could have been, had she not been different. 

the only thing that really bothers me is how quick linh is to side with her, after the compassion she shows towards sophie. i get that she’s protective of her twin, and this could very well be me projecting how much i wanted to like linh to how disappointed i was with her, but considering linh has been ostracized in society for her powerful ability and previous inability to control it, it seems weird that she’d be so quick to befriend stina, knowing that tam and linh called sophie different (in a positive light) in neverseen. 

i can’t say it’s some enemies to lovers type beat between the two of them, because it’s never insinuated between any of the characters barring the love square, but it is an anomaly that kind of just. shows up in stellarlune? 

anyway.

i think an analogy for stina and sophie is, a possibility. to borrow from everything everywhere all at once, it’s quite like stina is someone sophie could have been, if she fit into the society she was supposed to be a part of. and sophie could have been stina, if she’d let the power get to her head and the privilege shine through instead.

in other words, the black swan were very smart for giving her a human upbringing. we’re mean enough to humble each other, on occasion. 

overall, stina is a plot device, and she’s a character that the story could live without, especially considering the greater focus on her in more recent books leading to the plot being spread thin between so many characters. what she isn’t however, is something the story doesn’t benefit from. the story⎯and sophie⎯are grounded by sophie’s existence, and make things much more personal.

#stina heks #kotlc #sophie foster #keeper of the lost cities #kotlc discourse #shannon messenger #keefe sencen #fitz vacker #stina destry heks #k talks too much about kotlc #kotlc psychoanalysis #stina heks psychoanalysis

[waterparksdrama]

I’m begging for a Fandom track by track pls

ok ok i've been delaying it for a while so why not for you anon. i have a lot of personal opinions about this one so it's probably gonna be way more biased than other track by tracks lol

cherry red - an intro that gives off this sort of dreamy epic 80s vibe if you weren't paying attention to the lyrics much. he uses a lot of color imagery entwined with the happenings of their relationship to lament it at this point and begin this cycle between mourning the relationship and getting caught up with living with being perceived by the public eye all during this. it's a good intro and i like the instrumentals - 8/10

watch what happens next - see this is one of those songs i'd like better as a song if the message didn't age badly and didn't make cringe really hard. the first lines already Aged. a criticism of fan consumption of their music and their place in the scene as rockers. blah blah blah awsten wants money and doesn't like the need for the rock scene to undersell themselves for approval but also i think some of your expensive clothes are ugly as shit awsten so what now. not to mention the poorly aged second verse about hiphop and genre mixing (specifically with a jealous dig at old town road) considering the other factors associated with hip hop and how the soundcloud emo rap scene of the time slowly evolved into the "emo revival" we see today that bolstered parx's current relevancy tbh (they opened for my chem and are playing wwwy fest this year hello). but anyways as a song it's fine; the sassy guitars pull more punches than the lyrics end up doing and maybe i'm proving the point of the lyrics even if they're poorly aged but god shut up sometimes awsten - 5/10

dream boy - this is legitimately the only fandom song i can listen to regularly LMAOOO. i heard this in public before because they put this on radio disney it was terrifying. anyways back to the song. it's a poppy song about fan expectations and how awsten exists differently in fans' heads than in reality. i think this is one of the few songs that i think hit the mark of satirizing fans completely bc. i won't lie i do this completely whoops (i'm an rpf writer and run this blog what else do you expect of me). i don't think some fans realize the irony of using this song against each other whenever some awsten related drama comes up considering they usually have an even more warped view of him but. i digress. also justice for glitter times your pre chorus will forever live on here... - 8/10

easy to hate - another song about the breakup hence all the color imagery and apparently originally a friendly reminder song. not much to note here; it's a catchy little song that plays with some of the elements he used to write about ciara in the past to get this anti love song. i guess you could argue the chorus could also apply to parasocial relations hence the music video and everything but yeah. fine song. intro synths remind me of an old ringtone. - 7/10

high definition - i get the ode to imogen heap's hide and seek with this song and i can appreciate that but for me it's just so...eh. lyrically it's a song that follows awsten's struggles with trying to find love in a post-ciara world. there's some interesting lines here and there but nothing truly hits for me and sometimes i think about the lyric "now i'm canceled, i'm whatever" at random times and cringe.

not to mention the extreme cringe i get from what he said about the song in the rocksound track by track:

There’s a song that’s all, ‘Back then hoes didn’t want me, now I’m hot hoes all on me’ [Mike Jones’ ‘Back Then’] – but not in like a bragalicious way. It’s an, ‘I’m like really lonely, I hate all of this’, kind of way. It’s like that.

why. you do not have hoes. shut up. get ready for more of awsten's white ass making cringey rap references bc there's one later on none of us are gonna like. i think i have personal beef with this song bc i had a sign for wwdff at my show, he looked at it, and then he did this in complete and nothing else. - 4/10

telephone - a love song (about some girl he never talked to at a target). considering he has all this written about a person he made up traits in his mind, it makes sense why all the true love songs by parx are probably just about the concepts of people that aren't technically real if you think about it. musically, its piano riffs takes its cues from 60's pop before evolving into this sparkly fun chorus. tbh it's just fine to me and i used to think the obsessive love song thing about a stranger was weird but now i've written 10x more messed up fanfic about him so i can't even judge that too hard. blah blah can also tie into themes of fan perception and falling in love with a concept once again yeah i think it's just a fine song. i just like when otto says the ending at live shows. - 6/10

group chat - this isn't even a fuckin song. and according to the genius lyrics page this is what it means:

He strongly implies that the song is about fake friendships between famous figures, where people may often pose as friends purely for the sake of sharing it online. This phenomenon that has grown more rampant in the modern world as those in the public eye partake in this practice as a means of boosting popularity on social media. This also occurs within the music industry itself, when companies chose to featuring artists purely to maximize the buzz surrounding the song.

i'm just more focused on the fact that this is the first time otto's been mentioned by name in the parx discography and it wasn't even by awsten. isn't that fucked up. - n/a (not a fuckin song)

turbulent - i can distinctly remember my first time listening to this with my friend after choir class and we both came to the same conclusion: the song was stupid except for the ending when he stopped singing. this is still how i feel about the song. that opening line is so goddamn stupid and i still don't think patrick stump knows he's in this song or who waterparks is. did you know if ciara didn't like fall out boy as much he probably would've compared himself to ryan ross and brendon urie? nightmare. this is one of the songs i pit to at live shows because when you pit, you don't actually listen to the song. it has better energy live than it does recorded but i'm not rating the live version though. i think the production is much cooler than literally anything else in this stupid song with it's breakcore beats and random dogs - 5/10

never bloom again - remember when awsten teased this song for years saying this song would be the one making people cry and now years later no one talks about it that much. "all the girls in los angeles look like you from a distance", honey you date the same blonde clone with different mental illnesses every time i don't know why you're so surprised at this. i think there are some interesting lines here and there, i just feel like its strengths are staying simple in its verses because the chorus feels kinda corny with the extra stuff on top of everything because of that cervini style of big production. - 5/10

i miss having sex but at least i don't wanna die anymore - i miss when this title leaked and we thought this was fake. i hate this song and everything it stands for i'll just say it. the true beginning of awsten using annoying blunt lyrics out of fear of being misinterpreted because media literacy in most places has gone downhill and it's supposed to be honest by making fun of what fans want of him as well as airing out his relationship in a way. god he sounds so annoying in here and i get that's supposed to be the point but goddddddd. musically it's just some pop folk song but none of you care about that i know you want to know the other stuff. this song is probably the start to the end with it going viral on tiktok and beginning the divide between fans that became fans through the scene and fans that found them through tiktok. i fucking hate this song and its impact on parx today and the fact that it's their most popular song and a mainstay of the setlist will forever make me bitter because they have so many better songs and also christmas is more popular on tiktok and he still refuses to play it because he is a pussy - 0/10

war crimes - ok back to songs i can stomach. a driving song about awsten dealing with his peers in the scene and his isolation with his real friends being back home in texas while he moved to la. along with this, he still has to balance his feelings with the breakup all while being perceived by the public. it mostly deals with awsten truly having to become independent of all of these things and stand up for himself (no i still don't know who the coke thing is about there's too many people). musically, it shifts a lot of different ways from the light chorus to the more brooding verses. good song. - 7/10

[reboot] - he's white boy rapping again. this is never a good thing. it's literally just a breakup song again shocker. throws a lot of digs at ciara with wordplay that i can't really hear unless i read the lyrics because it sounds he's scatting. i just remember this song bc i remember he made a whole deal about how he was trying to avoid being misogynistic on this album bc of the subject matter (specifically calling girls a bitch) and then he used the chew toy metaphor to indirectly call her a bitch anyways. yeah. i think some parts of the production are interesting specifically the stuttering halts in the second verse but other than that. whatever. - 3/10

worst - i remember when the original demo leaked because it was around the same time of the felony steve mixtape. it was a weird time. has some of the Lyrics of All Time and i mean this in a bad way. remember when i said awsten makes some cringy rap references this is one of the ones i mean:

why. why. why. this is not a line that works when you're white. i think the chorus in the album version sounds more interesting at least production wise. does that mean it's a good song? no. this is a song that makes me hold the bridge of my nose and go "oh god why this is clearly something you wrote in the moment" - 4/10

zone out - a chiptune reprise of the dream boy chorus. awsten says that putting it at this point in the album is meant to come off sarcastic, but to me i feel like it sounds more defeated than anything. more of a "what now?" moment. i like it, sue me. - 6/10

i felt younger when we met - the beginning and ending to the cycle of his relationship with ciara and his fans watching. here, he mourns the things he misses about her and the things he did for her. it's the emotional core of the album combining the heavy electronics strung throughout the album with the big guitar led chorus leading the album back to the beginning because things just don't stop at that point. it's a great closer that does its job of being the emotional crux of the album of losing someone you end up making up and missing over and over - 8/10

i'll be honest with you i haven't listened to fandom in full since it actually leaked in 2019. i brushed off the album at the time because me and my friends had our own little drama with awsten (and his la friends who aren't even his friends anymore ironically) because he was tiring. trying to preach ideas and people that would do the same things he hated because he was away from his real friends back home. i was tired of what he was trying to come off as.

nowadays i'm still tired of him sometimes, but i think his time offline has made the idea of him more palatable; when he's not trying to quip with the sardonic teens that make up his fans today, it's easier to remember him as a person. when he's not online, he's probably buying groceries or having lunch with a friend, working and writing music in his apartment or a studio.

it begs the question on an album named fandom (that doesn't call out its fanbase nearly as much as deal with the emotional turmoil of a breakup) on how we perceive each other and how that can come crumbling down when reality hits. i can try and compartmentalize awsten the ideal and awsten the reality in my head, but do most people even realize that divide should be there?

it's probably the thing to comment on considering the existence of this blog, the way it lives in surveillance from both fans and the band + associates themselves because we say things that aren't nice but are true or just straight up fuck around for fun. the fourth wall between fans and creators grows more blurred and blurred with each day. there's something to comment on this about cycles of hypocrisy from everyone on all sides but i'll leave it at this: whatever we do on here, whether make a joke or point, becomes some fodder for spectacle in the same way awsten posts on any of his accounts. it's a cycle.

i won't lie, i still think this album sucks. most of the songs just don't hit the mark for me or are just straight up embarrassing and half the time i want to shake awsten and tell him “you are not kanye west, you are a bitch ass white boy from cypress”. however as an album, it does feel like one big piece all puzzled in together. it loops from beginning to end.

and the cycle keeps going on and on..... - iz

#i can't promise most of this makes sense but. it's here #track by track

[piningprecussionist]

(Not an rp ask)

What is your opinion on chau x kim? I'm not a shipper of it myself but I heard it was a proship since knives is 17 but also I saw she was 18 in the comic so I'm not sure where to stand on it honestly. But I'd like to hear your opinion about it !! Sorry if this is a bit of a random ask (ーー;

You're completely fine!! Do not even worry about it.

So, yeah- When Scott first meets Knives, and I'm not entirely sure how much time passes between then and when they start dating, it was *literally* her seventeenth birthday, as I am reminding myself reading back over these panels presently. And then at the start of book six, the first time we see (real, non-dream,) Knives, she has apparently been eighteen for a week!

Now, I'm going to preface with a little something before I go further into this: I am totally fine answering this ask and others like it I think! but, I will note, I do get like a (not fun) physical sensation in my chest- partly anxiety (lol) but also something else I think- thinking about them like 95% of the time- it's gotta be like. Handled The Right Way, if that makes sense. Let's get into it.

So, first off, I'm just gonna re: some of the stuff relative to this I've posted here before- both nonrp and rp, since I use RP to develop my read on Kim and shed some light on how I see things I guess!

These clips come from this ask (and reblog) here!

This rp ask here, which is simply too difficult for me to get in a good screenshot I feel, so I recommend just checking it and the tags for it out- I will share my Bonus Commentary reply though:

This ask as well! Tags less pressing, but still provide a little insight.

And this is probably a dumb inclusion if I really want to make a pseudonym to post fics under, but. I have posted my (very early) thoughts on the SPTO sparks scene to AO3 before, so- (and before going into this- I did remember that Julie and Gideon have that sparks scene after the fact!)

And here's the Barely Anything Lines hinting at the ship that I had in that fic that I used to justify that blurb, while we're here:

I think I've gone over my feelings a little bit in the discord as well, and there might even be more rp stuff relative to it, but I'm not going to go back and get any of that honestly- at least, not right now, or unless requested, since I don't really feel like it's necessary, if it does exist. This gives a pretty good glimpse in I'd say- especially that second to last one there.

So. Yeah.

Used to ship it; have expanded my horizons since then. I don't really want to knock it because like... for some people this is a legitimate life experience for them- one that might have even turned out well, miraculously. And there also a lot of minors in this fandom evidently, so like, any other baby gays out there just wanting to Project for a minute? I feel that. Sincerely I do. It's not the wisest choice but better to read fanfiction about it than go out and actually make out with a 23 year old, Gods forbid. (Genuinely felt sick thinking about that; fucking gross. Any minors out there: Please Make Good Choices. Look out for yourselves. Begging you. There are too many freaks in this world- I promise you whoever you're thinking of probably isn't the magical exception.)

But there are definitely things to consider about them that are very interesting to me, still, so like. I'm in this weird state of conflict; I don't know if it's just me being like "it happened, you can't escape it" or having been desensitized/some sort of Brainwashed by how many times I had to use Knives in the game to quick heal- maybe something else but I just don't feel like flaying myself open like that unprompted for just anyone- but like. Oh man.

Sorry, gathering/writing this that feeling like went away but came circling back for this last bit, it seems. Which makes sense I guess. I feel like I'm setting myself up for a Pyre right now eugh shfsgkjfhjg

I dunno. I'm not gonna lie and pretend like I know it to be some big formative ship for me in my early teen years, but it was kind of important in finally coming around to realizing how queer I was, I think. My memories of the time are fuzzy, but it would have been one of the things- there were likely larger ones, my current obsession could be recoloring my past here so I'm trying to acknowledge that.

But there is like. A dynamic that is posited by them that is also one I'm a really big sucker for. More so now than I was then, so I find myself grinding my teeth about that a fair bit at times.

I definitely still really like it as something unrequited no matter what I think; I like the idea of Knives having a really big crush on Kim, genuinely. I think it's cute and funny as hell for how uncomfortable it would make Kim, who's just trying so hard not to be a fucking creep while this ray of sunshine hangs off her- something she absolutely does not deserve (in her eyes.)

I'm obviously more partial to Kim resisting any advances made at her, but I can understand so, so badly why someone might be attracted to the idea of Knives managing to thaw some of Kim's frigidity with that. Ugh.

If they work for me, I think they'd have to work for me after Knives is gone at college for a bit. Kim would need to know Knives for longer than she knew her as a minor- and they'd have to be FRIENDS in that time, quite strictly. Kim would need to not feel (intensely, because frankly, she would unavoidably feel this way at least a little no matter what,) like she was a fucking groomer going into it, basically. I don't know what I think past that.

You know, I'll put my feelings like this: with the exception of a fic I saw recommended to someone that intrigued me, I have managed to resist reading any/many fics featuring them, despite it being a large majority of the wlw Kim fics that exist, and also kinda just Kim fics generally. It's kind of Insane, especially considering how much Kimona SCREAM at you from the pages of the comic itself- but I digress....

I've been working on this for like over an hour now I think so I really should cut myself off. I am like,, too hungry and mildly stoned to be rambling off about this maybe. If you want more concise/specific thoughts, I recommend prompting! I can try and channel the responses easier with a bit more direction, maybe?

...

actually another thing real quick- I like. Do not know that I could ever feel comfortable, truly, consuming content for them, not knowing if the OP has good intentions. I just Do Not trust people, largely, so that's just like. A little thing. Idk. "Death to the author" or whatever but I am still allowed to feel personally uncomfortable ya know! I don't want them taking my silent observation as like,, passive acceptance in the event that they were. Idk if that makes sense, I need to go eat already, I'm hitting post before i drag this out to TWO hours

#w oof. that was a doozy. mostly just on account of how long ive been working at it #but yeah. they fuck me up in some sort of way idk man. i cannot stress enough how much i want to bite people that are freaks about knives + #+ btw. like Going For The Throat I Need You To Bleed Out And Die want to bite people. so even considering it casually i find myself feeling #+like i am a massive hypocrite with the word scrawled in blood across my back or something. but im just a starving gay sdfjkhjsd #and i love Kim So Much. Denying myself Kim content is Actual Hell. and I have persisted. #(i mean. i also probably read some of this stuff back when i was a teenager. so. idk how much im really denying myself. but it's the + #+ thought that counts right? right?? hh... i likely dont remember any of them anyway so. it should totally count.) #ooc #txt #glitterminionking12 #am i really gonna put these in the tags.... hhhh yeah i guess i am #if any of the people that know me read this and can see i am shooting myself in the foot here please slap me in the discord i'll understand #i might just be having a Moment #sp comic #spvtw #spto #kim pine #knives chau #possibly the only post- unless i get asked about it more- that is gonna get the ship tag for them i guess? what even is their ship name... #ship stuff #no seriously what is their ship name im sitting here blanking i dont know how to tag this for people that dont wanna see it. or do i guess #knikim #sounds kinda like knick-em in my mind so im doing that for now #since starting to type any of the ones i thought of doesnt make a suggested tag pop up or anything #if there is one someone please tell me maybe and ill tag it #long post #headcanons #i guess? #spvtwtg #forgot that one

[thattimdrakeguy]

Every time i see someone try to defend James Gunn, they just repeat what he said while acting like it's genius. And it reminds me of apes eating their own shit.

like thanks, luv, really fucking putting in the man power to add to the conversation

couldn't give less of a shit people might like it, 'cause have you seen the dc fandom? they'll eat anything as long as it vaguely looks like something they may or may not like, or at least something in the peripheral of what they like

and it isn't a crime to like stuff, but it also isn't a crime to not like stuff either, honey bunch

but fucking hell. over a thousand likes on tweets that are saying absolutely nothing of merit. and i am so confused

No shit he's only going to be saying shit people want to hear.

And I'm some Snyder Cult bastard, I don't think I liked any Snyder DC movie all the way. Most of them were severely lacking.

but so many of james gunn's decisions are still wack as fuck

like how many of zack snyder's decisions are wack as fuck

James Gunn's skipping how many robins? and i know, he says he'll have all of them, but fucking hell that's so ridiculous if this universe is supposed to last awhile. all those stories that you can take inspiration from, critically adored stories that have immense cinematic potential

and james gunn's bright idea IS TO MAKE A BASTARDIZED ADAPTATION OF A STORY THAT ONLY WORKED BECAUSE OF VERY VERY SPECIFIC SITUATIONS THAT HE IS PURPOSELY NOT GONNA HAVE

that is one of the stupidest things i've ever heard in my life. the fact i haven't seen more people say that sounds ridiculous is baffling me. because while i can sometimes get why people wouldn't sometimes with many other things i say, i cannot with this. it's like he's TRYING to make a shitty batman movie. or at least an insanely disappointing one that let go of the gold he had literally right in front of him

i'm not asking for a word by word, panel by panel recreation of a story. JUST USE THE OBVIOUSLY PREVIOUSLY EXISTING FANTASTIC WORK INSTEAD OF COMPLETELY MISUNDERSTANDING WHY AN okay at best STORY WORKED

and he's going to have all these random movies, but not include characters that would be important to the greater DC world?

and he got the guy that directed a flash parody and pretended it was a serious movie to do this batman movie? when he made batman look like the Dude from Big Lewbowski and talk in a way that didn't even resemble Batman? and made all of his problems seem like a joke?

also while they're making sequels the critically acclaimed Batman movie, that people are more likely to look more forward to, because even though i didn't care for the movie, it at least looks like some cinematic effort was put into it enough to be an enjoyable watch that doesn't make you question your life choices because of how stupid it is. it's a lacking movie to me, but at least i feel like the people involved tried in a way that didn't feel like a child writing a fan fiction

'cept maybe a teenager, with kurt cobain inspired batman

i don't have to take a side to decide shit is wack as fuck

many thinks, are incredibly wack

i am a human being with a brain, i can look at things and figure out that shit looks like it's going to be total garbage, and will at best only be a good movie if you know jack shit or have no standards

just watch and talk about shit like human beings. i don't care if you like it or not, because you know what saying falsified bullshit about a guy you don't know or like, looks like? like you're a fucking maniac

like it

don't like it

but why is it so hard to people act like people? i keep avoiding anything DC related on my recommended trends on twitter, then i have a moment where i hope for the best, and every time, it's just garbage everywhere

it's not difficult to consume things in a world layered with shades of gray.

this black and white bullshit is fucking infuriating and makes it real hard to enjoy anything, when you have an echo chamber of dumbasses clamping down on it on the internet

i'm not even asking people to act like well-mannered gentlemen. that would be boring, and i feel people should be free to express their emotions as long as they aren't hurting anyone

i'm just asking them to think a little harder before they say the dumbest shit imaginable

james gunn is the guy who made one of the main points of guardians 3, that heroes don't kill people. while every appearance of the characters is them killing people, because they deserve to be killed.

like i'm not making a plea about the importance of the death penalty

but giving an obviously highly dangerous person, who has the potential to dismantle the fucking universe at least a smackrel of a chance to get out, is fucking stupid

it's stupid

superman letting lex luthor live, because he's just a man, and hasn't done anything to that extreme, may make that make sense

having batman not kill because he's worried he won't stop killing himself gives us an interest character perspective

giving the villain who still has a chance to be better, a chance to get better, allows that moral to be a thing

but letting the heroic murderers let the guy that killed conceivably BILLIONS AND BILLIONS, UPON BILLIONS OF PEOPLE DIE BECAUSE HE WAS JUST A TICKLE UNPLEASED

IS

STUPID

i'm not trusting that mother fucker to make a whole universe work. when his movies before have only worked, exclusively because they were allowed to be their own things in the corner of a universe, where they hardly have any meaning to the rest of the world, besides a relation to the big stories big bad

he is a good film maker. i like most of his movies

but fucking hell. it's not insanity to insist the guy who has shown he makes bad decisions so far, may be making bad decisions. even if in the end the decisions may not be AWFUL

it doesn't mean he's doing a good job in the slightest

i'll give the fact he isn't bringing back the whole justice league a break, because we just had a justice league and maybe time will be good

but his other decisions make him look like a moron to me

[cloudsspoke]

Random talks about the Arg NT 🇦🇷 : part 2 - Football & KPop, when my 2 fandoms collide

This is another random Argie talk, but before I get to write about them, first I want to mention my other fandom (outside football), which is KPop, as a prologue.

Yesung from the KPop group Super Junior is my first KPop bias, when I first fell into KPop hole circa 2013 (though I never call myself ‘ELF’, am just a ‘Cloud’, a Yesung-fan). It’s only after I became Shinhwa fan (4 years later, back in 2017) that I ended up 'left' football fandom.

Quick introduction about Shinhwa, they are the longest KPop group that ever exists, the one with no members changing, and never disbanding either. One of the reasons I love them badly is because the bond between members. The way they get closer with each fight (the members fought a lot, and I talk about real fistfight), at the same time use excessive skinship method (kissing, hugging, cuddling, getting naked together, having a bath/poop/pee together) to strengthen the chemistry, and it's been like that since their debut, back in 1997-98. The chemistry which makes the 6 of them a really good pairing, either in a form of a duo (15 OTPs) or a trio (10 pairings consisting of 3 members).

In 2018 this group celebrated their 20th anniversary with packed schedules, that's the major reason I skipped World Cup (other than all my faves played badly; The Dutch didn't even qualify, Germany's early exit and Argentina made you question the coach 'Why???').

After World Cup ended, obviously I still didn't bother to watch football (club-wise, I'm a fan of United and Juve since 2003/2004) because Shinhwa took away all my free time, considering so many stories they've had within that 20++ years and I was obsessed to learn everything about them.

But in the midst of busy fangirling over Shinhwa, somehow, I managed to watch Copa America 2021 semifinal, although I couldn't recall anything about the match, or the players, but my old tweet reminded me that I did watch La Scaloneta unconsciously.

Fast forward to this Qatar World Cup, tbh I only started to watch La Albiceleste until they played against the Netherlands (I need a good night's sleep more than football, so mostly just watched the highlights), and when they advanced to semis I watched their Prime “Camina a Qatar” docu-series, and just like that I am trapped.

It's like, initially I came to see Di Maria (my love since 2008) but ended up stuck with the rest of them. And just like years ago when I ditched football for KPop, now it's the other way around.

Call me crazy but I can't help to feel/think La Scaloneta bears several similarities with Shinhwa.

The way the Scalo boys bonded thru truco games ((jackstones, in Shinhwa's case)), barbecues, drinking mate ((for Shinhwa it's soju or beer)), and using profanities as a way to show affection, not to forget Scalo boys also give kisses and hugs, being playful/cheesy to one another (both IRL and on their SNS), every players is shippable (OTP material, I say), their brutal honesty and willingness to protect and defend the team, Scalo boys just remind me of all the things I love from Shinhwa.

And tbh I don't think I've seen a football team/group like this before ((maybe in the good ol' days of Barcelona. I read my old diary, and there I wrote 'this team is like family, no selfish/individualistic players at all)). But a good thing like this sometimes, unfortunately, doesn't last long, no matter how sure we are that these boys will stay solid like this forever.

This, I learned the hard way from Shinhwa. Even with the 6 of them spending 20++ years together, I used to be so confident their friendship will be eternal, that nothing can break the members' bond, turns out I was wrong cuz time and situation changed it little by little.

(Until today the group Shinhwa is still not disbanded yet, but they've been on hiatus since the pandemic, and only came together twice during the event of their members' weddings.)

Now let's go back with La Scaloneta. The way I see it, it all started with a good internal relationship between players, coaches, and AFA's long-time staff. That positivity, combined with Scalo's ability as their coach, helped them to play well on the field and won some games. The victories then generated public support in which boosted players' morale, till they had 36 unbeaten games, and earned 3 major trophies in just 17 months.

Post World Cup, now they are superstars. All eyes are on them. Enzo already stirred something between him, Benfica fans, and Chelsea fans with his transfer rumor. Lautaro scores a goal for Inter and toxic people won't stop talking shit about him because of his performance in WC, all the while praising La Arana Alvarez. Then there's this growing public opinion about Macca being too good to play for 'small team' Brighton, Dibu too good for Villa, Moli Rodri should leave Atletico, etc.

My question, when there’s a thin line between ‘supporters’ and ‘haters’ since people are so easy to judge, and so quick to switch sides, will that stuff affect them?

Today they all can say it's a healthy competition among players about who gets to play and who stays on the bench. But will tomorrow they say the same too? Especially now they are separated for a while, focusing on their club with each of them pursuing different goals, will they keep the chemistry intact once they back to Ezeiza, or will they start to act more individually as time go by?

That's why the more I fangirl over them, the more I actually feel anxious about the future of Scalo boys (especially if/once Leo no longer there), simply because I want to enjoy this happiness for a bit longer since it's only fair cuz we’ve suffered for a long long time.

#World Cup 2022 #La Scaloneta #Argentina NT #Fandom mash-up #KPOP #Yesung #Super Junior #Shinhwa #Angel Di Maria #What surprised me the most is that football fans can also be toxic and dramatic like KPop fans :( #I hate fanwar I hate people who started fanwar I hate people comparing people/stuffs #Football #I want to enjoy La Scaloneta while it lasts #I hope nothing can ruin these muchachos #p.s Yesung is real madrid fan #random arg talk

[softlyapocalytpic]

Having lots of thoughts on Steelheart at the moment and decided to share some here-

I’ve really struggled a long time with posting any of my work onto the internet. For a lot of reasons, but one of them being that the stories I wanna write and tell for Fallout specifically are ones I know that very few will be interested in.

I work in social media at the moment and just being in fandom as a writer and looking at the numbers means that I know ahead of time what will “do well” on tungle dot hell or on ao3. I know what’s popular!

If I wrote Steelheart from Butch’s perspective and focused on their romance and made it more about him I know it would be at least slightly more popular- and its made me really insecure. Is the story I’m writing worth writing? Is it interesting? Would it be better to do just that?

(Please note that I do love stories that do all that as well, and this by no means a critique or shitting on them. If anything, the fact I love them so much makes me more insecure about my own writing choices.)

But, Steelheart isn’t Butch’s story. He’s the love interest, and won’t even become a perspective character until the latter half. He’s so important to the story and it wouldn’t be the same without him! But this is Amy’s story. It always has been, but I struggle constantly with whether or not it’s worth telling.

And I have to remind myself constantly of why I’m writing it. Amy’s story is just a piece of a bigger hole. Her story sets up Leo, gives context for his existence, because down the line he’s going to become a major character with entirely his own plot and story! Her story sets up Sunshine, in ways that I’ve been cagey about, but would be remarkably obvious (I think???) if anyone just. Looked at the random shit I’ve posted about them both.

And I COULD’VE told her story through flashbacks, through the stories that other people tell about her. In some ways, thematically, that would’ve been more impactful. The Lone Wanderer is a myth, a legend, a hero who very few truly knew and understood, but her story is already so heartbreaking and tragic. The hand she gets dealt is so DUMB unfair and it felt... bad? To make her just a footnote? Just a stepping stone to other heroes rise?

Because she means a lot to me- she’s the character whom is probably most reflective of my internal feelings. She’s a protector, a caretaker, even if she isn’t the same kind I am, and she struggles with feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders. When I’m in a bad spot writing out Amy’s own bad internal feelings lets me vent it out, and I have the knowledge that she always gets better. Even if her fate is ultimately a tragedy, it’s always been one that’s supposed to be marked by hope.

And yeah, numbers shouldn’t matter. Working in social media has made me almost too aware of how to get the good numbers and I hate it. I wish I wasn’t. I wish I could just write my stories because they make me happy, but it just... isn’t the reality.

Because writing and art doesn’t exist in a vaccuum! If no one stops to go “hey this is neat” it fucking hurts! And I don’t really blame people it’s just-

It hurts and is frustrating. Because I know what would make people pay attention, but I refuse to compromise my vision! I’ve been working on this world and these characters stories since fucking summer of 2017. Steelheart is one part in at least a four part series that explores so much of the world of Fallout because I ADORE this world. I have barely stopped thinking about since I got into the fandom and I just hope-

I just hope one day my love for these stories gets reflected back at me? I’ll probably have to learn to live without that but. It’d be neat. It’d be cool. It’d be chill.

I recognize that this might sound whiney or “hey come look at my fanfic because you pity me” but its really not supposed to. I kinda just, wanna voice this on my blog because its my own space. I don’t wanna just hold my thoughts to myself just because other people would take a lot of this in the wrong way.

TLDR; I really love Steelheart being fromy Amy's perspective and focusing on her journey as a person, but I'm super insecure about it because I think everyone would rather just here about her love story with Butch!! Which is super important to her growth as her person (and I really love romance as well), but I also I hope people like the other parts of it too ;;

#astra rambles #I will do my best to not get extremely anxious #about posting this #and I will instead Be Okay #manifesting this for myself #I'm okay by the way and work on chapter 2 is going well #these are just things that circulate in my brain a lot

[hanzi83]

Just Another Random Mental Check In (That no one asked for)

I figured I would do another mental check in for the sake of it, I think I am actually kind of liking writing blogs again over doing some of the podcasts, I mean it might be easier for the remaining of my following to actual follow along with, like would you rather waste time over accumulated rants over several days to just be put out there where you have to suffer through my stuttering, where some days it really gets bad, or would you rather a more direct message in written where the most you will have to deal with are run on sentences, suspect spelling etc, sometimes when I do the blog and certain words just stutter out and I struggle to spew it out, sometimes it feels like that scene in Bruce Almighty, where Jim Carey is fucking with Steve Carrell during his news broadcast, I know, I know, a 20 year old movie reference, and on a dated blog site that is deemed uncool because the new hard hitting shit is on substack, this is just a blog going off of vibes, but since world war 3 is trending, again, it feels every other day for the last 6 years that has happened. I keep thinking every day we are getting there sooner rather than later, you can just see how people and institutions are positioning themselves and how every day there is more trauma porn and if it is not that, there is more promotional corruption where we spend the discourse pointing out the hypocrisy of that institution and public figure where they become more cartoonish, you know people used to reduce me to just being a Howard Stern Wack Packer, and it is hilarious to me how much everyone, who used to at least sell themselves as being a respectable human being partaking in society, have now become a complete parody. It is why the entertainment world, while it still makes money, most of that shit is in the political discourse now, and anything exciting about celebrities is the real life drama and comedy shit that is happening. I feel we have manifested all our favorite entertainment and now we are getting the real life version of this entertainment, I have to remind myself of that since I am not watching every single movie and television show released because sometimes I hate missing out and caring about wrestling more, when that fandom has gone to complete shit. But maybe getting exhausted of these things is a good thing, I don’t need more entertainment in my life, I have a lifetime worth to consume and perpetuate tropes in my personality from absorbing this shit since I was a kid, I just observe how the discourse goes and what repeated tropes get repeated and beaten into the ground. Speaking of beating shit into the ground, I wake up every day and it is another day of sports entertainment easing into a more fascist world. Like the world we were living in before all this didn’t have normalized fascism that existed but now it has reached another level with how sophisticated it is by manufacturing consent with the entertainment and sell out celebrities, we have wanted to reboot our society to reestablish attitudes and ignorance from the 90’s mixed in with some truth, but not realizing all that shit that used to mean shit on the surface has become inflated since there are advancements in the game now that we have to pretend doesn’t exist so we have the narrative of the establishment being more liberal and having a bias towards woke shit, so anyone who says anything anti woke, or pro Trump is seen as the “just an opinion” and “cutting edge” because ever establishment hack has kayfabed their hatred and dumbed shit down, so other alt media places can constantly use it to dunk on since that has been their personality traits for the last 10 years, where it meant a bit more, but now most of the shit online is MSM level funding going on, maybe they are using other currency since the dollar doesn’t mean shit anymore. Again let me clarify if the previous sentences were not obvious, I am not some expert on shit, I am a pretty dumbed down guy who would try to go to smarter people to see what their narratives are, and now I am at the point where I can’t trust anyone, like am I allowed to be alarmed about other corrupted governments and what they might do, and not do it under a US imperialism mindstate where discredited public figures who never address the long list of what the US has been built on, and continues to do, just continue to fear monger about other corrupted governments, I at least get out of the habit not to generalize all the citizens in any country because that doesn’t solve shit, and I think we make the mistake of looking at the conflict in a 80’s aesthetic of pro wrestling where it is country vs country when I feel the far right wing movements all over the world have some alignment, it is like the fundamentalism the US has helped perpetuate in other countries was just practice before they bring it to the US officially. It is basically like ECW and other promotions who oppose the WWE, but in my opinion WWE always needed other promotions to establish shit before WWE finally borrowed from it and brought it to their company and that is how I see the political world wit how this shit plays out, people who are snooty and think of pro wrestling as low brow, I mean they already dumb down entertainment’s influence in general, but wrestling has always been the ugly stepchild of showbiz, but there is a reason why these politicians and celebs have always been fans of it, maybe not because they actually enjoy the actual product, but rather taking notes on how to use the elements implemented for their own personal gain, trying to manipulate a reaction by saying what needs to be said, depending on the role you are playing. So I don’t know which stances to really have on the impending doom now because it is hard to know who is telling the truth, and who has an agenda, and I feel like lately I have more vitriol to the online contingent because MSM has already been established as being a joke and it has been clear but that is all the material for the online shit, other than some people who used to claim being a left person is now perpetuating on the “underground internet platforms such as youtube” that Tucker Carlson is the only one telling the truth. I can’t keep up with the complexities and specifics of who worked for what think tank, or what obscure faction they are a part of and I wish sometimes the smarter ones could actually dumb down the messaging to get the general public to know, because the dumbed down sports entertainment that has more of the new age fundamentalism/conservative shit under the guise of super political correctness is what is running amok, because you find the right guise for the presentation and apolitical people won’t realize they are taking a politically motivated message that has an agenda, it has always been a regressive agenda but once you start hinting at progressive shit, it feels like that is the overbearing agenda that is getting out of control, while I feel that has helped the default agendas that have always been in place now stand out, which is why anyone is praising Trump will be seen as someone who is brave since it seems everyone fucking hates him and they clearly have an agenda because they are focusing on his corruption. 

It feels like since the internet has become a lot more right wing with propped up accounts you have to cater to them for the entertainment or public figures to get some support and I feel the funded types online have made it seem they were calling out shit because it is neoliberal etc, which is a valid thing but it was not designed to get to a more progressive side, it was to bring in their own gimmicked right wing shit that people will not consider right wing since we give everything a cartoonish definition and put shit in a box. So now anyone who is not sharing the “liberal establishment” message feels like their message could never be compromised. It doesn’t feel we are in the business of actually exposing and explaining it because we insist on pretending we live in this regular world where the weird things going are just random acts playing out and we are just gonna compare it to whatever entertainment we watch, that is how committed we are to the entertainment, we have to pretend that saying there is organization into the imploding end goal and just the overall impending doom is some out there statement, and then these people from these alt media establishment like shows then pretend like anyone who thinks beyond the narratives presented are the ones who are insane, not the people who insist on playing their favorite television characters so they can give us gimmicked narratives so people can act out their sitcom dialogue and banter and then pretending the answers they have to countering the policies that the most wicked and corrupt politicians carry out, like this is not all planned to fall on its face. This is why I am not motivated to understand the rules that are advertised, literally everyone breaks the rules, there are inconsistencies, so why would I even learn the fucking rules. It is like when the wrestling world advertised traditional rules in their world, and trained you to understand what the standard protocol but then when the attitude era came, all those rules went out the window, and you broke stipulations.”Hey someone lost a match and said they would retire or not challenge for the title” but then crash television took over so those rules and stipulations didn’t even matter, and now I see that in politics. Normally when you are associated with a rapist, or a pedophile, you were kind of outcast from society, now you can just keep your high profile job and just exist for people to boo and hiss at you for. So it is my fault for looking at what is happening, but when I can’t have honest conversations about my concerns where this shit is going with people in my life, or people from my past etc, I have to rant and rave on social media. And that shit is dangerous because there are people who monitor me with great hatred and keep an eye on anything I say. Like I have stated, even if I come up with something that has legs, who is gonna give a shit because my message doesn’t reach the masses, everyday my followers list is decreasing more and more, but make no mistake dangerous people monitor my shit but if I am buying into your world of kayfabe, then no one knows who I am and I am a nobody so what threat do I serve, I am just some fatso rambling and creating bad AI Art while tweeting about wrestling and going on irrational proclamations of never watching the show again, and then I give back in. Again what threat do my theories serve if I am a nobody? You wanted this way. You get off on the fact that I am suppressed but then also then get upset that I don’t care how suppressed I am and continue to write down my thoughts, because I am supposed to feel isolated and neglected even online, like the people who run shit let me be isolated for the last 10 years for the last 10 plus years, but there was interaction going on with the Stern and wrestling fandom, but now they have made it possible to be isolated online and if I actually gave a fuck about my future, maybe I would be more insecure about it, although I am writing a blog at late hours of the night to talk about it so maybe there are some issues there, who fucking knows? 

It feels like the same tropes and discourse goes on and it will continuously be on loop until it all officially goes to shit, every day I think we have reached that boiling point but we just go back to business as usual, we manage to create more discourse that use the backdrop of valid systemic shit but gimmick it for other grifts and causes that gets focused on more so than the actual systemic issue. I know even this blog has probably repeated the same shit I have said before, but maybe the world has gone to such a shitty place where it is repeated shit nonstop that now I am going so insane that now I am repeating the same shit over and over and expect to maybe think that this one blog will magically just change shit by the luck of the draw and maybe we can expose and explain what is truly going on, and not this fake Project Veritas level of “exposing” shit, but actually exposing these narratives and getting people prepared for what is to come because as far as I can see, the far right has always had their messaging to seem anti establishment and they amplified it and then there was some progression over the years, they fear mongered about that kind of change while also connecting it to the shady shit the democrats would be doing since the right wing trajectory system will book the decisions and have their figure heads, so now the far right can take advantage of calling out an already flawed system, while advocating for their deeply disturbed propaganda, and they can use their public figures to manufacture a lot of consent which will persuade people to move more right because they can count on the MSM to cover sensationalist representation that the right then can weaponize. That is how I see it, I could just be like everyone else and be alarmed by Clarence Thomas getting donations which will serve as a gimmicked way of bringing more villains to the forefront, like it is hard to get shocked that a donor to him would be into Nazi shit and it is like we know what these people are, but we have to act shocked and then we have to talk in circles with people who always have to hammer home that just because someone has an autographed copy of Mein Kamf, it doesn’t mean they support it because they could be in love with history, but is there not any other shit in history that you could collect? When you get some politicians speaking out about it, no one will take it seriously, even if the message is good, like not going by what the rulings are when the right never goes along with a bunch of rulings, these people will normalize their bigotry and racism etc be allowed that freedom, but people who represent the left have to limit the answers on the surface, because much like pro wrestling it is only interesting when the villains keep winning. So after all of this shit they have done, when one limited politician wants something done about it, it will be shat  on, especially someone like AOC who is  sports entertainer but she can do and say good things even if it is limited on the surface, so if in my fucked up head I know the world is supposed to implode, then it is more complex than “They voted against the people’s interest” and then have people who have dangerous ties and permitted outrage to react and not disclose their ties to corruption and questionable unethical tendencies with who is bankrolling them it becomes harder to trust their call outs of the system. So any kind of change does have to come from within that helps the outside carry that shit on, because nothing on the surface now will ever get better and that is on purpose because the real work is being done behind the scenes. I don’t believe anyone is truly 100 percent anti establishment, as much as they want to repeat the same old tired catchphrases etc. It gets exhausting, I have made the mistake in being so disillusioned by the MSM over the last 15 years, that hearing actual criticism of US foreign policy and other fucked up laws they are passing to fuck over its citizens was refreshing to hear it because back when I was a kid, anyone who didn’t praise a country 100 percent were labeled horrible people, so yeah me and probably a lot others gravitated to something other than the status quo and now the same people who would bash the status quo, have now become status quo by today’s standards, because the same shit 10 years ago that may have sounded revolutionary doesn’t mean as much coming from people who are sophisticating their grift to become more right wing because instead of just saying “We are sell outs who want to be associated with the Hollywood types and hang out with very powerful people so we will act like the wokeness is getting out of control and use sensationalist shit to convince people who are supposed to be left to embrace a more far right leaning mind” look no further than Ana Kasparian and Cenk from TYT, I have been pointing out for a year or so that they are slowly finding their reason to now think wokeness is getting too out of control, they will complain about culture wars issues, but they will boast about how they are better than MSM they are, they have record for everytime they were right about things, but yet when you have video of Ana defending the term birthing person within a medical conversation, she then all of a sudden brings on this issue of people referring to her as a birthing person like people are really doing that in her personal life, and she is doing this while there are fucking laws being passed to fuck over those communities, she could’ve went private to anyone who she feels is reducing her to a body part like she claims, but she purposefully did that, and then she has a bunch of far right wing accounts defending her, Candace fucking Owens is defending her and she gets mad at other people in the leftist space for critiquing her, and these critiques were fair but one woman thought people were coddling her when Ana knows better, so Ana didn’t mind giving a shitty “hot take” unprovoked and now she can do the pro wrestling shit of “YOU PEOPLE MADE ME DO THIS” so she and Cenk can become shitty sports entertainers who are not even funny, I hope the talented people from TYT leave and call this shit out but Cenk/Ana are probably like mob bosses of their institution and they have been waiting to have a mutual meeting spot with Jimmy Dore, David Rubin and other far right wing grifters, they will never admit that, because one of the things about sociopathic cults and very fucked up people is they never admit what fucked up shit they have done or will do, and they have gotten used to people enabling their shitty behavior that if you point out what unethical shit they have done they will lose it and deny it because they are fucked in their head, I have that shit in my life, I have jotted shit down whenever I need to vent off what I need to say and whenever anyone in my life denies what they have done or what they have said, I look back at the comments time to time when I jotted shit down, on a spiritual level, they will never fuck with me despite having the hive mind behind them who have enabled their shitty behavior of putting me through mental fucking hell, and these people still think they can be part of my life, like I can be my best self with people who have worked hard to suppress me so they could make backdoor deals and put things in place in case I do get vindication, so they can be around me then they will cater to people who hate me so they can oppose me. These sociopathic cults have that level of thinking and I might not have the back up to be able to say shit in person because they have connections with law enforcement or whatever power Mr Stern gave them, and they can shut me down, but they still monitor what I fucking say, they compromise anyone I make friends with but I would rather be dead than have to be around people who will never admit their wrongdoings and still get to act like they are better because of their aesthetic, and I see how people want to justify that a lot more, and people who oppose me will oppose anything I stand up for. When I was falling for regressive right wing talking points sophisticated under the guise of “celebrity just giving their opinion” like they are not a paid propaganda tool, people who have hatred for me would want to be on the opposite side but now that I have caught myself mentally from going further into the cult of what would be another right wing shit, people would rather be on that side to be part of the regressive side, and the funny thing is these people in general want to be stars in their own right but any negative opinion or pushback towards them they lose their minds, if me pointing out calmly what people have done or said gets so much sociopathic and vitriolic pushback, how will you handle it when people call you out for your shitty beliefs depending which billionaire is paying you. I have to be subjected to people who have had a lavish and luxurious life and have secrets to keep from me, get triggered by me having the views I have even though they don’t have to be involved, you think when people read this, you think any of them will reflect? Or will they jump in a group chat and take turns mocking my stuttering and making shitty jokes for their echo chamber because they can’t face how much more horrible they have become and how much more elitist they have become. People from my past who were not there for me when I had no one, will make me come out and beg for them to be part of my life again so they can know how much money my family supposedly and allegedly have so they can try to take and take and take, but they excluded me from monumental moments so they could hang out with celebs and partake in orgies because that is how you get bought off, they sold their souls for the good time but yet still need me and get mad at me if I don’t want it in my life. I won’t be able to escape this and I won’t be able to escape more and more people turning to the right wing and align with this new fascism that has been forming and I would rather be dead than have to see people I respected become these shitty sports entertainment characters that don’t mean shit because the entertainment is watered down and yet everyone thinks they have to become one, that becomes the number one goal while the systemic shit becomes a backdrop. 

Anyways I know it is another blog that is all over the place, but when you have so many thoughts in your head and then old thoughts circulating in your head while you are still trying to process the fresh ones, my brain starts to malfunction. This is just a fatso in his  mother's basement venting about the world so pay me no mind, but sometimes I just need to get shit off my chest, I know my journal thoughts are monitored so I at least will try to put this shit out there for an official publishing . It makes my haters’ leg up of monitoring me feel less than if I am putting out these thoughts in the public sphere because the one thing they get off on is monitoring what I say and thinking I have no fucking clue, in fact as I write this, they are not doing anything overly transparent but I notice I am getting a lot more “junk mail” being spammed towards me, it is a little bit of a nuisance but just the mere fact they have to fucking keep this shit going, and look I got another notification for 2 more emails with the junk shit just popping up. It is small and little thing that are done to try to annoy me, they constantly show they can hack my social media, they have not done anything too bad with it, but just the fact that they can show they can do that shit, they even report accounts I never interacted with or even saw the tweets from. As I write this another mass shooting fucking happened and you know nothing will fucking get done about it, we will find ways to weaponize the political motives behind this, because it feels like factions behind the scenes have forgotten to tell the masses they have their shooters ready and people will not give a shit because the culture war issues will have carte blanche while more mass shootings fucking happen, the people who act like they are doing due diligence by pointing out about gun laws etc, good attitude to have, but those insiders know they are never passing any good good legislation, it has become clear so we will get mad at the villains of the week and nothing will get solved whatsoever. The world is constantly falling apart, and this is why 20 years ago, when I was even more dumbed down, I could envision what the world was gonna turn to, that was very early on when the war on terror started and it felt we were going to get a bunch of ignorant talking points on television, the only art form that I found didn’t make me feel like a piece of shit for being a Muslim was probably hip hop, but then in 2004 when people turned against Bush a lot more, it gave me some hope even though my understanding was extremely limited, but maybe I could see a grand view of this world just going to shit, like I had experienced this shit in a past life. And now I am stuck here, more people are dying and being oppressed, they limit how much you can help on the surface, I don’t feel I can trust people anymore who used to be close with me, I am rewatching old episodes of Sopranos, and wondering if this world is just a big fucking nothing. Nothing will ever fucking get better it seems, and in the midst of all of this horrible shit happening, you know what gets traction online? All the shitty sports entertainment personalities who try to get canceled and have these stupid fake debates so both their clicks can feel they are useful and fighting this great cause. Complete and utter horsehit, the most mediocre personalities can be propped up and it isn’t because they are some great talent, it is because they are willing to become a regressive shit head first while dominating left spaces and getting all the points before they turn into fucking heels.

#Hanzi Howard Stern Show 2023 Mental Illness Sports Entertainment fascism heel turns gimmicks pro wrestling opinion theories no facts

[serendipitous-magic]

What is your writing advice for young people who want to write fanfiction and original stories in the near future?

If this is just Way Too Much, skip to the end (#16). My most important piece of advice is there. I also happen to think #5 is pretty good.

-_-_-_-

1) Literally just write. Write whatever you want, and do a lot of it.

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2) You don’t have to post everything. In fact you don’t have to post anything. You can, don’t get me wrong, but it can be intimidating to sit down and think “I will now write something that other people will see and read and judge with their eyeballs.” Because that’s probably gonna lead to nerves and writer's block. Just write down the ideas that you have, the things you want to write, whatever’s in your brain that you want to explore and expand upon and make into something. And then if you want to, share it. Or don’t share it. I have plenty of half-baked ideas and documents and random story chapters and shit hidden away on my Google Drive that will never see the light of day, for a whole number of reasons. I wanted to write it but it wasn’t ~Spicy~ enough to warrant posting, or it’s only like an eighth of a good idea, or it’s like one scene with no story around it, or it’s just something incredibly self-indulgent I just wanted to write for my own enjoyment.

Point being, don’t write for other people. Don’t write so that other people can read it; write what you want, write for yourself, and then if you want to share it, do.

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3) You can pretty much ignore any and all of these for fanfiction. In fact, you can ignore pretty much any rules or guidelines you want for fanfiction. Fanfic is a sandbox. You don’t have to be a “professional writer” to post fic. No one expects you to be Stephen King or Margaret Atwood. Fanfic is just for playing in a fandom and having fun. If you wanna write a 50 chapter slow burn with very little plot aside from the OTP slowly getting to know each other, and no real stakes or central conflict, I guarantee people would read that. Really, fanfiction is the Old West of writing: lawless, wild, unpredictable, and free.

However, here are the rules you must follow:

-Separate your paragraphs. (I’m sure you know this already, but I’m gonna say it anyway just in case.) Do not post one big block of text. Make a paragraph break when someone new is talking, when the characters are in a new place, when a new event occurs that changes the scene, when a chunk of time has passed, and when there’s a major change in subject.

-I know it’s obvious, but... grammar, punctuation, and capitalization. They exist to make writing easy for readers to read, and more people will read your stuff if they don’t have to stop and try to figure out what you meant.

-Use tags and labels, as is possible with whatever site you’re using. Especially if you include possibly triggering content in your story. Again, I know it’s obvious, but it’s common courtesy. Bonus: tagging the themes and content of your story helps readers find it and read it :)

-If possible, limit the use of all-caps and exclamation marks / question marks. 99% of the time, one ! or one ? will do. If you overload the page with a lot of all-caps and long rows of exclamation marks or question marks, it hampers readability.

... That’s literally all I can think of. And, like I said, it’s all pretty basic stuff. You were probably rolling your eyes like, “Uh, yeah, Gwen, I know.” But that’s literally it. You can pretty much do whatever you want in fanfic.

That being said, here’s my advice for both fanfiction and original work...

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4) A quick and dirty rule for coming up with a plot, starting a story, keeping up pacing, or maintaining tension: figure out what dreams, desires, and goals are nearest and dearest to your main character’s heart (see #16). Then set up the main conflict to be directly in opposition to that goal. It doesn’t have to be in a tangible way, though it could be. But, if your main character wants more than anything to reach the ships on the southern coast of your world and sail to a new life, make sure the main conflict immediately prevents them from doing that - in fact, make sure to send them north. If your main character just wants to keep their loved ones safe, kidnap the loved ones. If your main character just wants to date their best-friend-turned-crush, make sure they think they have no chance - or, make them cocky about it, and make sure it makes Person B determined not to ever like them. You get it. Figure out what your character most wants, and then keep them from having that. Boom - your conflict now ties in with your character's motivation. It's like instant yeast for plots.

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5) If you’re anything like me, you want your first draft to be Good, despite all that advice about how the first draft doesn’t have to be good and it’s just to get words on the page, yadda yadda. And if you’re somewhat of a perfectionist (like myself), it’s easy to get stuck looking at a blank page because you don’t have The Perfect Words, and you want what you write to be Good the first time.

Here’s how I cheat that:

Instead of trying to write a Good First Draft from a blank page, hit the enter key a few times, skip a little down on the page, change your ink to red (or blue, or whatever - just something immediately identifiable as Not Black) and just thought vomit. Write whatever the hell you’re thinking, exactly as you think it. Don’t worry about it being readable, don’t worry about narrative flow for now, don’t worry about covering all the details, don’t worry about anything except either a) getting all the details of your idea out onto the page, whether that’s a lot or whether it’s just a sentence or two, or b) if you don’t have an idea yet, finding your way there.

Because this method is also very good for finding your way to ideas when you’re stuck in writer’s block.

Because of how human brains work, getting this stuff out onto the page - in all its messy, stream-of-consciousness glory - will likely spark more thoughts. As you write your original idea about the scene, it’ll likely spark more ideas. Creation begets creation. If you just start thought-vomiting your ideas onto the page, chances are you’ll think of more things as you go, and you’ll start filling out description or dialogue or tone or action or whatever, and pretty soon the scene starts writing itself.

Not sure where you’re going with the scene or which ideas you wanna use? Use a lot of ambivalent language in your “thought-vomit draft.” My pre-writing notes are chock-full of the words “maybe,” “perhaps,” and the phrases, “At some point...” and “...or something like that.” In this way, I don’t tie myself down to one idea; it’s just an idea, and I’m keeping it on the page in case I use it, but I might chuck it in the trash or change it or whatever.

And then, once your ideas for the scene (or story, or chapter, or whatever) are on the page, then go back to the top and start translating them into a “real” first draft. Use black ink, and start copy-pasting chunks of the thought-vomit up into the top part of the document and translating them into Draft 1. Separate out paragraphs where paragraph breaks should be. Add the correct punctuation and whatnot. Change “describe the lobby here - include potted plants, fancy carpet, blood stain, etc.” into an actual description of the lobby. Flesh it out, or condense, or whatever it needs. And if you’re still stuck, change back to red ink and ramble some more until you find a path that feels right, then plug that in. This keeps you from looking at a blank page, and it allows you to generate a kind of Draft 0.5, somewhere between a plan and a first draft.

You don’t have to use every idea. Like I said, jot down whatever comes to mind, put a “maybe” before or after it, and keep working. If the idea grabs you and you wanna keep expanding on it and exploring it, cool. If you just wanna jot it down so you don’t forget it and then move on, also cool. Red-ink draft / “thought-vomit draft” is your time to jump around in the timeline, add or finesse details at whatever point your brain moves to, etc. Don’t try to do it exactly in story order, because you will get tangential thoughts and ideas, and you will not remember to write them down five pages later when you finally get to taking notes on that scene. Trust me. On that note...

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6) Write everything down the moment you think of it. Seriously.

“I’ll remember it when I get around to writing that scene in a couple days / weeks / months (/years).”

You won’t.

Write it down.

Phone, journal, google docs - hell, my family regularly laughs at me for grabbing a napkin during dinner and scribbling thoughts down alongside pasta sauce stains.

And then, once you have it written down somewhere...

_-_

7) Consolidate your writing ideas in one place.

Maybe this isn’t really your style, and that’s totally chill.

Buuuut, if you’re Type-A like me - or if you tend to be somewhat unorganized and you know you’ll lose track of your writing notes if they’re scattered across multiple notebooks, journals, napkins, phone notes, etc. - having one consolidated document of notes is a life saver. I keep mine on Google Docs so I can access it, add to it, and look through it for inspiration anywhere at any time. When I have one of those Shower Thoughts that I jot down on my phone or on a napkin during dinner, I set myself a reminder on my phone to type it up in my Story Ideas document later.

(Or, if the idea I had was for a story of mine that I’ve already started planning / drafting / whatever, I put it in the document for that story instead of the Big Random Story Ideas doc. You get it.)

_-_

8) Have other ways to collect and save writing ideas, besides just writing stuff down. If you like Pinterest, make pinterest boards of your characters or stories or settings or whatever. If you’re big into playlists, make a playlist for your character / setting / story / etc. Or both. Or something else. I’m not good at drawing, but maybe you are, and maybe you like to draw your ideas. Whatever form it takes, having another way to save ideas and think about your stories is invaluable.

_-_

9) Some writers can just start writing with no idea where the story is going, and they just kind of figure it out as they go. I envy those writers. And I do that sometimes for fanfiction, where the stakes are somewhat lower and the audience is reading more for scene-to-scene enjoyment (and to see their OTP kiss) than for a Driving And Compelling Narrative.

But here’s the thing: especially if you’re just kind of starting out, writing without some sort of plan is really, really hard, and will likely lead you into a slow, meandering narrative that will likely frustrate you.

Even if you think you’re someone that just can’t write with a plan (and again, I have the highest respect for pansters out there - I don’t know how you do it, you crazy bastards, but you keep doing you) - even if you think “I can’t work with plans, they’re too prescriptive, I just want to write and see what happens -”

Try at least making the most skeletal of plans.

Even if you have no clue what 90% of the story is, yet. That’s fine. But you need to have some idea of what you’re building to, even if that’s nothing more specific than a feeling, or a turning point for your character. Even if your entire plan for everything beyond Chapter 1 is, “At some point, Charlie needs to realize that Ed was lying to her.”

This is where those Draft 0.5 notes come in handy. Because, more than likely, working on your current scene that way will spark ideas for later scenes, which you can put down at the bottom of the document and save for when they become relevant. In my experience, the line between planning ahead and making a Draft 0.5 is exceptionally thin. One can quickly turn into the other.

If you’re really, really resistant to the idea of planning ahead, that’s okay. It’s not everybody’s style. But for the love of all that is holy, write down your ideas for future scenes, even if you’re a person that doesn’t like to plan and writes only in story order, because you will not remember that idea once you get to that scene.

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10) You don’t have to write in order.

Here’s the thing: I’m a person that can only do my Draft 1 in story order (meaning, chronological order). I just have to be in that flow; I need to write in story order for me to best channel where the character is at from scene to scene, both narratively and emotionally.

But my Thought Vomit Draft is another thing entirely. By using the brain hack of putting my notes in red (or another color, it doesn’t matter) and going down to the bottom of the document / page and taking notes there, and then integrating them into whatever plan I have, and then translating them into Draft 1 once I get there in the story - by doing that, I can get my good ideas onto the page (and expound upon them and let my muse carry me and ride that momentum while I’m in the moment of inspiration) without writing out of order.

Maybe that’s just me. But if you’re a person who really prefers to write in story order, that could be hugely helpful to you. It is to me.

_-_

11) Emotion and motivation will do more for your story than technicalities of plot.

If your characters really care about something, and their journey through the (shaky or weak) plot is emotionally engaging, it will be a much more compelling story than a story with a “perfect” plot and unrelatable or unmotivated characters.

If your characters care about what they’re doing, and it means something to them, and their goals and actions are driven by dreams or fears or emotions that are integral to who they are, your audience will care too. If you have a perfectly crafted plot that hits all the right beats and has high stakes and fast pacing and drama - but your characters don’t connect with what’s happening in a way that’s deeply meaningful or emotional for them? You’re gonna have a hard time engaging readers.

When in doubt, prioritize character emotion and motivation over plot. Emotion is what drives story.

This power is highly exploitable. (Just look at pulp novels and shitty but entertaining movies.) You can even use it to glaze over plot holes or reinvigorate a limp narrative. Use it that way sparingly, though. It’s a band-aid, not a surgery. 

_-_

12) Evil villains are hard to write - mostly because there are very few truly evil people in the world. (There are a few. Billionaires and several big name politicians come to mind.) But by and large, there aren’t that many evil people. There are plenty of bad people, but bad people have some good in them, somewhere in there. Trying to write an evil villain is hard, because they often turn very cartoony.

Here’s a tip: it’s much easier to write antagonists who aren’t evil. Even if they’re bad people. Of course, there’s no reason you can’t write a villain that’s just truly evil - a serial killer, or an abuser, or a billionaire, or someone who legit just wants to hurt people or blow up the earth or stay in control of an oppressed population, or whatever. But chances are, it’s gonna be really hard to make them feel real, and even harder to create a plot around them that doesn’t feel forced or contrived.

Instead, try writing an antagonist / villain whose motivations and goals directly clash with your protagonist’s - but not because they want to take over the world or see people suffer. Write an antagonist who’s chaotic good, but whose perception of the situation is completely opposite from your hero’s. Write an antagonist whose only desire is to save people, and who will do anything to achieve that goal - anything. Write an antagonist who believes in the letter of the law, and will hinder and oppose the hero’s methods even if they agree with the hero’s motivation. Write an antagonist who got in way over their head and did some things they regret, and now they don’t know how to get out, and they’re doing their best but whatever they set in motion is too powerful for them to stop now.

Write villains who are human. Write a killer who thought they were doing the right thing by taking their victim out of the equation, who vomits at the sight of the body and sobs over the grave they dig. Write a government leader who truly believes she’s doing what’s best for her people in the long-term, even if it might hurt them in the short term, and is willing to endure the hatred and belligerence of the masses if it means securing what she thinks is a better future for her people. Write a teenage bully that thinks they’re the one being picked on by the world, and they’re just fighting back, standing their ground. Write a scientist who will break any code of ethics and hurt anyone he needs to - in order to bring back his baby sister from the grave, because he promised her he’d protect her and he failed. Write an antagonist who is selfish and self-centered and capricious - because in order to survive they had to look out for Number One, and that habit ain’t about to break anytime soon.

Write villains who aren’t even villains. Write antagonists who oppose the hero because of moral differences. Write antagonists who are trying to do the right thing. Write antagonists who treat the heroes with kindness and dignity and respect and gentleness.

They don’t have to be good. They don’t have to be Misunderstood Sweethearts who “deserve” a redemption arc. They can be cruel and nasty and dismissive and callous and violent and etc. etc.

Just hesitate before you make them Evil-with-a-capital-E. Because evil is hard to write, and honestly, boring to read. Flawed human beings with goals and motivations that directly oppose the main characters’ are much easier to write and much more interesting to read.

Ask why. Why is your villain trying to take over the world? What does that even mean? Are they trying to create a Star-Trek-like post-capitalism utopia, but they know that won’t happen in a million lifetimes, so they’re trying to do it by force? Are they actually super in favor of human rights, but they got very impatient waiting for the world to do anything about poverty and war, so they decided to take it into their own hands? Are they determined to fix the world - no matter the cost? Are they terrified and overwhelmed, but committed to see it through to the end? Or - maybe they’re just doing it on a dare. Maybe they don’t really give a shit about world domination, they were just a mediocre rich white guy who decided to fuck around and find out, and now he’s kind of curious how far he can take this thing. And now he’s kind of an internationally-wanted criminal, so he’s kind of stuck living on his hidden private island in his multi-billion dollar secret base, strapping lasers to sharks’ heads for the hell of it. Gross, selfish, uncaring, and dangerous? For sure. Evil? Depends on your definition. See, now we’re getting somewhere.

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13) It’s tempting to let the plot control the characters. It’s easy to drop your characters into a situation and see how they react. But here’s the thing: that doesn’t drive plot. In fact, it bogs down pacing. Instead, try to build you plot off of your characters’ actions and decisions. Let your character build their own situation. Not to say it should go they way they wanted it to go; in fact, usually, their grand plans should go to hell very quickly. But having the characters take action and make decisions, and letting the plot develop based on that, is much easier to make compelling than making a rigid series of events and then trying to herd your characters into them.

_-_

14) Having trouble justifying a character’s actions? Consider having them make the opposite decision, or having them approach the situation in a different way. For example: you need your character to go meet the bad guy, for plot reasons, even though there’s no way it’s not a trap. If the character goes, readers are gonna be groaning with their head in their hands, because c’mon man, that was really fucking stupid. But he’s gotta go, because the plot needs that. Two ways you might handle this: a) He knows it’s probably a trap. He decides not to go. The plot conspires to get him near the villain anyway. Or, b) He knows it’s a trap. But he needs to go, for (insert reasons here). So, he approaches it in an unexpected way. He brings backup, recruiting a side character we met earlier in the story. Or he arrives on the back of a dragon, because ain’t nobody gonna fuck with a dude on a dragon. Or he goes - early, and ambushes the villain. It may work, it may not. He may get himself kidnapped anyway. But it moves the plot along without having Stupid Hero Syndrome.

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15) This is a legit piece of advice: if all of this sounds overwhelming, literally just ignore it and write what you want. For real. Writing should be fun, and every single writer operates differently. If you’re sitting here like “I’m getting stressed just reading this,” just flip me a good-natured bird and get on with your life. I promise I won’t take it personally. Same goes for literally any other writing advice you see. Lots of rules and guidelines can very quickly make anything thoroughly un-fun. Just write. If you’re passionate about it and you do it for long enough, you’ll start figuring out the tips and tricks on your own.

_-_

16) Here’s the best piece of advice I can give you: know your characters. More importantly, know what’s important to them. Build their personality and decisions off of that, and build your plot off of their decisions.

I see a lot of character building sheets that ask a shit-ton of questions like “What’s their most prized possession?” “Do they like their family?” “What’s their favorite food?”

And while these are good questions, my problem with this type of character building is that if you start there, with the little stuff, you’re building on nothing. IMO, to make a truly strong character (not strong like Inner Strength, strong like effective), you need a strong foundation.

Here are the things you must know about your character:

a) What are their greatest fears / deepest insecurities? And I don’t mean “wasps” or “heights.” I mean the deep shit. I mean fears like “living a meaningless life,” or “turning out just like their parents,” or “that no one will ever love them,” or “being powerless.” You may say, “But they’re really scared of wasps! They fall into a wasp nest when they were little and got stung so much they almost died!” Great! That’s a fantastic bit of backstory. They should absolutely be afraid of wasps, and that should absolutely be an impediment later in the story. But dig deeper. What about that event actually scarred them? Was it the helplessness? Stumbling around, swatting at the air, not being able to do a single thing to stop what was happening to them? Was it that they were alone, and no matter how loud they screamed, no one was coming? Was it the bodily horror of feeling themself turn into an inhuman creature as they swelled up from the stings, unable to move their fingers or face normally anymore?

And don’t forget insecurities, because those factor in, too. Are they deeply insecure about their identity? Do they believe, deep down, that they’re ugly? Did they grow up poor and they’ve always been really touchy about that? Why? Dig deep. Figure out what really, really bothers them.

b) What are their hopes and dreams? What do they truly want out of life? What do they consider the most valuable to their experience here in this thing called life? Is it the freedom to forge their own path and be independent? Is it the approval of their family or peers? Is it a home? Is it knowledge, or understanding? Spiritual fulfillment? Is it deeply important to them that they contribute to their community, or protect those they love? What do they need in order to feel truly and deeply fulfilled in life?

Figure out those two things (each one encompasses several things, btw, you don’t have to stop at just one for each), and then use that to inform how they behave and the types of decisions they make within the story. 

It also informs character behavior and personality. 

Let’s say we have a character who’s afraid of helplessness. They’re probably gonna be the person that always wants to do something, try something, no matter how hopeless the situation seems. They’d despise just sitting and waiting, probably, because it makes them feel powerless. They might even be the person that makes rash decisions and acts impulsively and puts themself in danger unnecessarily, because in their mind it’s better than being at the mercy of fate. This is one way you could use a character’s personality to inform their decisions, which in turn helps to inform plot.

Or, let’s say we have a character whose greatest fear is being left behind or forgotten. We may have a chatterbox on our hands. They might be obnoxious. They might love the spotlight, constantly vying for attention no matter the situation, because deep down they’re so afraid that they’d be forgotten otherwise. Or, it may go the opposite way. They may be so afraid of people leaving them that they’re terrified of bothering people. They don’t want to do anything that could annoy people, anything that might give people a reason to leave them. They might be exceedingly polite, quiet, accommodating. A push-over, really.

These are two nearly opposite types of personalities, both stemming from the same core fear/insecurity. You can go a lot of different ways with it. But if you build on that strong foundation, you’ll have a strong character, and a stronger plot.

Likewise, the structure of your story can and should inform the design of these character traits. If you need your characters to team up near the end, it may be impactful if you give your main character a deep fear of commitment, an insecurity about being unwanted or left behind, and make them highly value independence and freedom. That could make their team-up for the final battle very meaningful. Conversely, you can use your character’s deepest fears and desires to help design the plot. Is your character deeply insecure about voicing their opinions or taking a stand, because of trauma they faced in the past? Make them face that. Build that into the climactic third act. Give them the big inspirational speech where they stand up and talk about what they believe to be important, what they think the group should do. And then design that character arc to run through the story, giving you more handholds and stepping stones, more pieces of foundation on which to design the plot.

In this way, character should inform story as much as story informs character. It’s a feedback loop.

Bonus: if you build your character and your plot off of each other in this way, it automatically starts to build in the foundations of that emotional investment I mentioned earlier. If your character’s decisions are based on what they most want and do not want in life, you basically have your character motivation and stakes pre-built.

Note: you need to know these things about your villain, too.

-_-_-

I’m genuinely sorry about the length of this, lmao. But you did ask.

Best of luck!

Edit: I forgot an important one:

17) Start when the scene starts and end when the scene ends.

What do I mean by that?

If your notes say “Danny asks Nicole out after school and majorly flubs it,” start the scene when Danny approaches Nicole after school. Better yet, cold-open the scene on “I was wondering if, you know, you’d wanna. You know. Hang out some time?”

Don’t start that morning when Danny goes to school, unless you’re gonna cover the school day in like one or two sentences. Don’t spend whole paragraphs going through the school day, unless it’s to cover other plot points first (in which case apply these same guidelines there), or if the paragraphs are there for a specific reason, like to illustrate how stressed he is and how it seems like every little thing is going wrong. Even then, trim the fat as much as possible. Expounding and describing everything Moment-to-moment is for the meat of the scenes, not the leading-up-to and coming-away-from.

Here’s my rule of thumb: study how and when movies cut from scene to scene. Movies have exceptionally strict, limited time for storytelling; they’re excellent examples of starting a scene when the plot point starts and ending when it’s over. If you can’t picture a movie showing everything you showed, start the scene later and end it earlier.

#asks #anon #writing advice #writing tips #writing #fanfic writing #fanfiction #character creation #plot development #character development #my advice #original writing

[starstruckkittensweets]

“Kisses in the Morning Rain” Pt. I

Fandom: Attack on Titan Pairing: Eren x Reader  Words: 5.1k 

Warnings: Season 4 spoilers, canon divergence, alcohol consumption (and the effects afterwards), Reader is a Titan Shifter, open discrimination against Eldians and Paradis, acceptance of death, blood and violence, references to depression, mentions of past romantic feelings, Reader is conflicted but tries not to show it 

A/N: This idea has been floating around in the back of my mind since October of last year when I made this post, but I didn’t get around to writing it out until earlier this month. So I’m guessing this can be my first official fic of 2022? (Not counting my Levi/OC story’s most recent chapters.) I realized early on that I wanted to write so much of it, so it wouldn’t fit into a single lonesome fic but rather a multi-chapter one instead. But I’m proud of this fic, and I’m glad I have most of it planned out already, I just have to actually write it! Also tagging the always lovely @flamingblinglove for encouraging me and asking me to tag her when I finally posted it! Also big thanks to @unadulteratedtreecrusade, @therealvalkyrie​ and @icecreamranwich​ (if you guys remember from way back when), when you fed into that random idea I had all those months ago about Reader being the War Hammer Titan and encouraged me to continue with it! Without you all, this little fic (and the upcoming parts) would not exist in the first place. With that said, I hope you guys enjoy! 

“Kisses in the Morning Rain” Masterlist

It’s raining again.

Not too much, just a light drizzle. Enough to make children giggle and their parents sigh in annoyance. You know the feeling all too well—of splashing in puddles as a child, and later grimacing at the droplets as an adult. Especially now; the sight of rain doesn’t sit well with you anymore.

You clear your throat, placing both hands on the railing of the balcony before you. The scent of morning air is strong, reminding you of fresh roses and singing birds. For a brief moment, it doesn’t even feel like you’re in Marley—Liberio, to be exact. Instead, you’re back in a place you only know in your memories, a place of bloodshed and violence—a place you once loved with all your heart.

Stop it, you scold yourself, shaking your head. No more of that. Not now.

No need to dwell on the past. Nothing good will come of it.

The sound of your name brings you out of your daze with a jolt. You turn your head, and a smile makes its way to your face when you recognize the gentle face of Fine, your younger cousin. Hanging off her arm is Alois, the youngest boy of the family, who urges her to follow him and play. But Fine keeps her eyes on you, stretching out her other hand.

“Come on,” she says with a smile, “Father wants to see you.”

Of course he does. But you put on a brave smile and take her hand, allowing her to lead you off of the balcony and into the mansion.

It’s been a few days since you arrived in Liberio. As head of the Tybur family, and the ruling family of the nation of Marley, Fine’s father is expected to make a speech at the upcoming festival, addressing prominent world leaders of countries around the world. The topic is classified to the rest of the nation, especially for those in Liberio—but it remains fresh in your mind, always at the forefront.

The rest of the children are roughhousing in the playroom. Fine shrieks and rushes over to them, with Alois still clinging to her other arm. Rico and Bruno topple over one another, while Gerta tugs at both of their shirts by the hems.

“Come on, don’t be like that!” She manages to wrestle Bruno from his twin, just as Alois begins swatting at Gerta. “Oh, stop it! I told you to be on your best behavior today!”

You can only offer a gentle smile in Fine’s direction, as you continue toward the hallway without her. She’s always taken on the burden of responsibility in her family; you suppose it comes with being the eldest child. You’re sure you would act the same way if you had siblings of your own.

The guards of the Tybur family are stationed along the gilded hallways, with two soldiers standing outside every door. Most of them stare straight ahead as you pass them by, but some of the newer, younger ones give you a sweet smile. It’s comforting, knowing not all of them see you as just an extension of your family’s power.

But you’ve grown used to it at this point. Most people only see you for the title you carry over your head, whether it be Tybur or Eldian. To the nobility of the world, the name Tybur brings hope and security. To the warriors among the streets of Marley, the name Eldian makes them scowl and wish you dead. Some of them excuse you for carrying the name Tybur; however, some of them aren’t able to look past that, and they condemn you with all the rest.

And after all you’ve done, you can’t say you blame them one bit.

Your uncle is waiting for you in the parlor of the mansion. Seated on the sofa facing the hearth, with his back to the door. A dangerous way for someone to hold themselves, with little regard to what’s happening behind them. But your uncle is a cunning man, well aware of everything going on around him.

He greets you with a smile, but you can tell it’s forced. He motions to the armchair adjacent to the sofa, and you take a seat at once, smoothing the skirt of your dress with your palms. At his subtle nod, the two guards stationed at the door bow their heads and slip out of the room, locking the door behind them.

“How are you feeling?”

You clear your throat, bunching your fists in your lap. “Well enough.”

He quirks an eyebrow, and you know instantly he can tell you’re lying. He’s been able to read you since the day you were born, ever since his sister held you out to him, swaddled in a mess of blankets. If there’s anyone in this world who knows you better than you know yourself, it’s Willy Tybur.

“Come on, answer truthfully. How are you really feeling?”

“…No better than I was yesterday.”

He sits back in his chair, arms folded across his chest. He’s right, there’s no point in lying to him. What do you gain from it? There’s nothing to be ashamed of, with what you’ve experienced in the past. Your uncle knows all about it, what you endured just a few years prior.

On that island of devils.

“Any news of the festival?”

He shakes his head. “The plan remains the same. We carry out our duties, till the end.”

Now you understand why he sent those guards away. Of all the people in Marley, the only ones who know about this plan are the two of you. You’re aware of your uncle’s true intentions when it comes to the upcoming festival in Liberio. And while you’re prepared to deal with the consequences…you can’t help but wonder if there’s another way.

“Are you certain they’ll send someone to attack?”

“No doubt in my mind. Commander Magath has already prepared his troops for battle. We have no way of knowing how they’ll attack, but our intel strongly suggests they’ll make an appearance.”

Of course. You wouldn’t put it past those filthy beasts to attack such a precious event. An event that intends to glorify Liberio and shine a light on the Eldians living there, seeking redemption for their cursed blood—all the while condemning the devils that live at the other side of the sea.

The island devils—the same ones you lived with for five years of your life. The ones you shared bread with; the ones you trained with; the ones you stargazed with in the dead of night.

Your throat tightens at the memories. The ones you used to love.

No.

You shake your head and stare straight at your uncle, who’s watching you intently. You have to be careful in front of him. There’s no reason to show signs of weakness or sympathy for the enemy.

There was a time you didn’t think of yourself as any different as those on the island. They had the same blood running through their veins as you did; the only difference was their home across the sea. And for years, you were convinced you were right.

But those days are gone. Over. In the past. There’s no going back now, not after what you’ve done.

What you’ve all done.

“…Can I ask you something, uncle?”

His shoulders loosen considerably. Despite the constant pressure and expectations that comes with the family name, he’s always been fond of the simple pleasures in life. Hearing you address him by such a title is one of them.

“Of course you can.”

You swallow and stare him in the eye, fists quaking in your lap. “Are you really planning to die that night?”

A heavy silence settles over the two of you. He lowers his head just a smidge—and for the first time in your life, you see Willy Tybur as a man who’s scared of death. Who’s scared of the inevitable, the promise of blood and war and loss. You see him as a simple man, cursed with the blood of Eldia. A respected ruler, desperately searching for a way out of this terrible war. And a father, clinging to the memories of his children’s smiles.

You don’t blame him in the slightest. If you were in his shoes, you would be terrified beyond belief, too afraid to even look anyone in the eye. That’s why you’re taken aback when he glances up at you, a calm smile plastered on his face.

“Yes, I am.”

“Auntie Greta won’t be pleased, you know.”

It’s a low blow, bringing up his wife—and the mother of their five children. You almost feel guilty, upon seeing the pain flash across his face. But if it’s enough to convince him to rethink this stupid plan, to find a way out of this mess and ensure that he doesn’t have to die—for their sake—you’re willing to do it.

“I know.” He sighs and stands from his seat, dusting his jacket as he does. “I hope she’ll be able to forgive me.”

“There’s still time,” you spit, and you shoot up from your seat to meet his eyes once more. “You don’t have to do this, uncle. You don’t have to die on that stage!”

Suddenly you’re pulled against his chest, with his delicate hands pressed against your head. The soft scent of lavender bathes your tongue, reminding you of the lavish life you were gifted within these Walls, despite having devils’ blood in your veins. An ongoing war between angels and devils, parted by a single salty ocean. A war that’s gone on for hundreds of years, with both sides screaming for it to stop.

A war you’ve already lost too many people to, on both sides—and now, you’re about to lose at least one more to the endless bloodshed.

“Commander Magath said the same thing,” he chuckles, and for a moment you wonder if he’s even talking to you at all. “If I don’t go out there, how will the rest of the world rally behind our cause? Those island devils must be disposed of, and if this is how we can do that, I’m more than willing to give my life for such a noble cause.”

This reckless bravery, the boldness of his words, the casual gambling with his life, and the hug that makes you feel as though this is really the end—it reaches into the darkest depths of your mind and pulls out a memory.

A memory of a boy, with a wide smile and bright green eyes.

“I’ll make sure to say my goodbyes to Greta and the kids before we leave for the festival. I suggest you do the same as well, just in case…”

You swallow hard once more. Worst case scenario: neither of you return home to your family, murdered by the island devils themselves. You know Greta and the kids will already be distraught over your uncle’s death; you have to return home for their sake, if not your own. You remember Fine’s gentle face, and your stomach swirls with something awful.

“Now go, get some rest.” He pulls away and heads for the door, leaving you trembling by the velvet chair beside the fireplace. “We all have a busy day tomorrow.”

He shuts the door behind him with a soft click—and not a second later, you flump back into the chair beside the fire, your face hidden in your trembling palms.

Not yet. Don’t take him just yet.

Willy has a family. A wife who adores him. Children who love him dearly. A niece who’s seen him as a father—ever since your mother died, you’ve looked up to him like he was the one who put the stars in the sky.

He has aspirations. Achievements. A life.

And all of that could be wiped out two nights from now, if he continues with this plan.

But it’s futile to try to reason with him. He can be a stubborn man—it’s something you’ve inherited from him, unfortunately. Once he sets his mind to something, it’s practically impossible to talk him out of it.

With a shaky breath, you push yourself out of your seat and head for the door, already thinking about what to say to Fine and the children if you return home from the festival without their father.

The day carries on as normally. Aunt Greta helps you prepare for the festival tomorrow, brushing your hair and picking out only the finest pieces of jewelry for you to wear. Fine continues to round up the kids, sending you tired smiles every now and then. You always feel a bit guilty for never being able to help her with them, since the majority of your time has been dedicated to remaining at your uncle’s side, preparing for your role as heir to the Tybur family. Sometimes you wish the issues at hand were simpler, so you could steal just a few moments playing with them and making them smile.

The rain is still beating hard against the roof when you retreat to your room for the night. You change out of your clothes and climb into bed, with the heavy blankets thrown over your head. But no matter how many times you close your eyes, you can’t seem to fall asleep.

The plan is set in stone. You heard your uncle confirming it with Commander Magath, just before dinner. Draped over the chair in the far corner is your outfit for the speech at the festival: a black dress with long sleeves and a high collar, with white lace sewn around the neckline.

Just looking at it makes you want to scream. A dress fit for a funeral, not a festival.

But it’s done. Your uncle’s mind is made up. The plan follows through, whether you like it or not.

With a huff, you pull the pillow over your head and pray the sound of the rain outside will lull you into a dreamless slumber.

The first day of the festival carries on as usual. A carriage comes by to pick you and your uncle up, and the two of you leave the gates of the mansion in the early afternoon, leaving the children in the care of your aunt Greta.

The festival is a two-day event. The first day serves to greet the visiting leaders of the neighboring countries, at a grand hall close to the center of Liberio. You’re less than pleased about attending; you’ve already had your share of elegant balls and fancy gatherings to last a lifetime. Nevertheless, it’s expected of you to go. Besides, you might as well keep an eye on your uncle while you’re there, anyway.

The dress your aunt picked out for you is actually one of her own: a dark blue shade with thin straps around your shoulders, with the faintest hint of lace around the hem. Before leaving the mansion, you decided against bringing a sweater with you, thinking that it would only add unnecessary layers to your already stuffy outfit. But now, with the slight chill fluttering in through the windows of the carriage…you’re starting to wish you’d brought it along.

The gathering is similar to all the others you’ve attended in the last few years or so. Gorgeous dresses, pristine suits, crystal glasses filled to the brim with wine. It’s not your favorite brand of alcohol, but it does the job and eases your nerves just a bit.

You swish the liquid around in your glass, as your uncle drones on and greets the people around you. Just looking at it makes you scoff. You’re ashamed to admit it, but you have a soft spot for the common ale they used to serve over on the island. It was warmer, a bit more welcoming than this kind of fancy wine.

With a roll of your eyes, you down the rest of your drink and hand it off to one of the server kids—a young blond boy with wide eyes. Not a moment later he places another glass in your hands, and you mumble a short thank you before turning to your uncle.

“I just need some fresh air,” you explain, and Willy brushes you off with a smile. You swallow another mouthful of wine and step outside into the cool night air, hugging your arm around your body.

It’s nothing you haven’t seen before. Your uncle is a master at these events—easy to talk to and effortlessly polite. It’s a gift, you’ve heard your aunt say about him, to be able to speak with so many different people as though it’s nothing at all. Of course, that’s where the Tybur family’s strengths lie: fostering healthy relationships with Marley and the other nations of the world, all through your uncle’s charismatic approach.

Yeah, you have to be charismatic for something like this. Without your uncle convincing the world to fight against the island of devils tomorrow night, the nation of Marley would not stand a chance against them in this war.

The wine glass trembles in your grip at the thought of tomorrow night. Something cool drips down your hand; a thin line of red slowly crawls down your wrist. You wipe it away in haste before taking another swig.

The taste of alcohol burns your throat. It’s disgusting, too pristine and smooth for your liking. But at least it numbs your mind for the time being.

You almost chuckle at the thought: what would the leaders of the neighboring nations say if they saw the heir to the Tybur family, drunk out of her mind on a balcony in the middle of Liberio?

But with a fuzzy mind comes a flood of memories, some pleasant and some revolting. Some that want to make you laugh until your sides hurt, and some that make you want to fling the glass right off the edge of the building. Or better yet, yourself.

It’s a phase. She’ll get over it, eventually.

The cold glass bites into your palm. A jolt of energy shoots through your arm—and for a split second, you nearly shatter it right there in your hands. But you rein yourself in just in time, and only the edge of the glass splits in half.

She’ll forget about the time spent over there, I’m sure. It must’ve been hard for her, surrounded by so many devils. Pretending to be one of them.

Laughter booms from the room behind you. It seems as though everyone’s having a good time, exchanging pleasantries and happy memories of their childhoods.

You don’t belong here, Tybur. You know that—it’s written all over your face. This isn’t really your home. So come back.

Your teeth chatter—is it the wind, or something else? It’s hard to tell.

I trusted you! We all did! And you’re just going to leave like it’s nothing?!

Warmth floods over the palm of your hand. Suddenly you’re staring at the ground, at the shattered remains of the wine glass, watching the red streaks drip from your skin.

“Lady Tybur, are you alright?!”

A pair of soft hands, much smaller than your own, cradle your injured hand in a towel. It’s the blond boy from earlier, the same one who refilled your wine glass. He’s careful with how he handles you, always keeping the towel between his skin and your own. As though he’s been given strict orders not to touch you.

Your head is swimming now, eyelids growing heavier by the minute. “I…I’m fine,” you manage to say, forcing a smile at him. “Thank you for your help.”

It doesn’t hurt, but you don’t exactly want to parade through the ballroom with an injured hand. So you keep the towel wrapped around it, clutch it to your chest, and bid the boy farewell. His hazel eyes are wide when you thank him, even more so when you graze your other hand against the top of his head to ruffle his hair.

Soft, almost fuzzy… It reminds you of something from years ago; you just don’t have the courage to say it out loud.

It doesn’t take you long to find your uncle. There he is in the center of the room, holding out his wine glass and leading a toast with the other guests. Your heel nearly catches on the linoleum floor, and it’s getting harder to keep your eyes open.

His eyes widen when they fall on your face, and then the towel wrapped around your hand. “It’s nothing,” you mumble at once, “I’m just feeling a little ill. I’ll wait in the carriage until the party’s over.”

He looks like he wants to object, but he knows better than to make a spectacle out of your injuries. Already it looks like some of the guests are eyeing your hand and whispering amongst each other. He knows better than to feed into public speculation like this.

“If you wish,” he finally answers, “but make sure you clean it well before you leave.”

With a hasty nod, you hurry out of the ballroom and down the golden hall, praying you won’t fall until you get to the washroom.

A few guards offer to help, but you brush them off at once. That would be a sight to see—the heir of the Tybur family, assisted by her family’s lovely guards because she can’t even walk properly.

The washroom is silent when you step inside—you’re alone, and you lock the door behind you as fast as you can. A gush of cool water sprays over your palm when you lean over the edge of the sink. The red wine slides down the drain with the rest of the water, leaving your palm looking as good as new, without even the trace of a scar.

Your uncle warned you about drinking too much during times like these. Too much alcohol isn’t good for your body; it fumbles with the Titan powers, dulling your reflexes more than usual. It’s a side effect of inheriting your family’s Titan, unfortunately. You’ve heard (and seen) the past users suffer through the same thing.

A shard of glass is resting at the bottom of the sink. For a moment you think about slicing your palm again, just to feel that flood of energy course through your veins. To feel that power in the palms of your hands again, ending it all right here and now.

No. The voice is firm in the back of your mind. Not yet. Not with so many people here.

You grimace, throw the shard and the stained towel in the wastebasket, and stumble out of the washroom.

There’s a window opened at the end of the hall. From the damp scent that clings to the air outside, it’s getting ready to rain.

The word makes you shiver.

A thousand droplets land on the roof of the tavern. The soft pitter-patter is almost enough to lull you back to sleep, if not for the beating heart against your ear. Your face buries into his chest, breathing in the warm, musky scent of the boy beside you.

His fingers trail down your bare back, soft and gentle and reminding you of home.

Not the home across the sea. Not the home at the base, where the rest of the cadets are celebrating. But the home you dream of having years from now, with a house in the forest and kids at your knees and Eren at your side.

He says your name so softly you almost miss it. You glance up at him, chin propped up on his chest, eyelashes fluttering through the darkness. He threads a hand through your hair, still frayed from sleep, before settling his palm against your cheek.

“It’s morning already, isn’t it?”

It’s hard not to sound disappointed as the question leaves your lips. The two of you had snuck out after the party last night, long after Mikasa and Armin had gone to bed. With what little savings you had, the two of you paid for a room in the nicest tavern Trost has to offer, to have a bit of privacy from the rest of the Scouts.

But now it’s morning, and you have to hurry back to the base before the others notice your absence. And gods forbid Captain Levi discovers you’ve left; you shudder at the promise of punishment upon returning to base.

Eren’s eyes are bright, even in the darkness. The sun hasn’t risen yet, but the sound of birds chirping through the light rainfall tells you morning has come. His skin is hot against your own—you can practically feel his Titan’s power coursing through his blood.

Devil’s blood, you remind yourself, and your eyes fill with tears.

“Shit,” he mumbles, sitting up at once, “what’s wrong? Was it something I said?”

You shake your head, chuckling weakly at how nervous he can get around you. You lean into his chest again, wiping away your tears, before pressing a kiss against his collarbone.

“Not a chance,” you whisper. “…I just wish this night could last forever.”

The thought makes you want to laugh. You’re kids, no more than fifteen and sixteen years old, at the front of a war neither of you asked for. Kids who spent all the money they had on a tiny room on the second floor of a tavern, doing nothing except crawling under the covers and falling asleep in each other’s arms. Kids who will surely die in thirteen years’ time—more like eight years, but Eren doesn’t know that. Kids who will never grow up to get married or have children or grow old at each other’s sides.

Kids that will never create the home you’ve dreamed of—the same one Eren reminds you of, in a little house at the heart of the forest.

“I want to live with you, when this is over.” The words burn your tongue on the way out. Tears stream down your face, hot and desperate and just wishing for a dream that cannot be fulfilled.

Eren’s hands stiffen against your back. For a moment you wonder if he’s going to reject you, to shy away and claim he’s not ready for something like that yet. You wouldn’t be surprised; sometimes it seems as though the only thing on that boy’s mind is revenge and fighting.

But then he leans in, his lips barely brushing against your own as he speaks, “I want to live with you, too.”

It sounds more promising than I love you. More intimate. More hopeful for the future. Almost as though the two of you won’t die, either tomorrow or sometime in the next eight years.

Live with me.

You twist your fingers in his hair and kiss him fiercely, the sounds of the rain and his heartbeat filling your ears.

It’s not long before Willy joins you outside in the carriage. The party is over quickly, in preparation for the festival tomorrow morning, and for his speech tomorrow night. Neither of you say anything the entire ride home; he even lets you retreat to your bedroom without a fuss once you reach the mansion. You’re grateful for that, at least.

You stare up at the ceiling throughout the night, stealing bits of sleep here and there, tossing and turning against the pillows. The rain keeps you awake. The darkness makes it hard to breath. Tears stain your cheeks and the sheets below.

His name is on the tip of your tongue. You haven’t spoken it in years, too afraid that someone would hear you. That someone would ask you who he was, and why you sounded so sad when you said his name. It happened once with Bruno, when he was no more than three, when he snuck into your room while looking for a place to hide from his brothers. You begged him not to say anything to his parents, and for the most part he’d obeyed. Since then, you refrained from speaking about him, even when you were alone.

But now there’s a crushing weight against your chest. Memories piling on top of each other, choking you and making it hard to breathe. Your blood thrums in your veins at the thought of him—both the Titan part and the human part inside you. Even after all this time, you still want him. His power, his warmth, his skin, his heart, his eyes—everything that makes him…

“Eren,” you whisper, with no one but the rain to hear you.

The weight eases off your chest just a bit. You whisper it again and again, until the pain becomes bearable, before sinking into a dreamless slumber, with his name still on your lips.

Everything’s on fire.

The people, the buildings, the stage—everything around you is burning down. Blood slips down your forehead, down your arm and staining your dress. The black dress your aunt picked out for you, so beautiful but sad. The perfect dress to wear to a funeral.

Tears burn against your eyes as you stare up at the monster before you.

The night began so simply. Willy took to the stage, voice booming throughout the crowd. Cameras flashed, people cheered. Fanfare played. Promises were made. War was declared.

And then the stage burst into splinters, a deafening roar shattering the air. You barely had time to scream your uncle’s name as he was plucked from the stage, blood spraying from his torn limbs as he slid down the monster’s throat.

Not a monster—a Titan.

Everything is dark. The people are screaming, desperately trying to escape the Titan’s wrath. You can hear the surviving members of the military screaming into their radios, calling for every single troop to return home to defend Liberio. The Titan roars again before smashing another box of seats closest to the stage—the one where the military officers had been seated.

The ground is slick with blood as you push yourself onto your feet. Clutching your arm and glaring up at the Titan, your skin already sewing itself up. But the cut on your forehead remains untouched.

The Attack Titan.

You knew the island devils would plan to attack during the speech—you just didn’t expect them to send him.

Your stomach flips. Staring up at the boy you once knew, the boy you once loved, and the boy whose heart you broke…it sends a powerful wave of rage through you.

“Eren,” you whisper his name hatefully now, and the blood drips down the sides of your face.

A burst of lightning floods your vision, as the Titan inside you comes to life.

#attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #eren jaeger #eren jaeger x reader #eren jaeger smut #eren x reader #eren x you #eren x y/n #aot x reader #aot x you #aot x y/n #attack on titan x reader #kisses in the morning rain #aot fics

[anonymousbeefriendfanfics]

Casimir with a Talkative MC

Fandom: Monster Manor

Characters: Casimir

Warnings: None!

Requested by: Anonymous

Prompt: I'm so excited to see you taking monster mansion asks hardly anyone seems to be paying it any attention! Could you do headcanons on how Casimir would reactor to an MC who will just chatter away, sometimes to him but mostly to themselves with really obscure/unusual topics?

Comments: Of course! I love this so much! I just randomly started thinking about this earlier today, so I thought it would be a good one to kickstart my new attempt at formatting! What do you guys think? Better than just answering asks??

I think Casimir is an ambivert, maybe bordering a little on extrovert. He's perfectly fine on his own, and he enjoys spending time alone for his hobbies because it's peaceful. But, given the option, I think he'd prefer to be around people. Specifically, around you.

He's been alone for a long time, so at first I imagine he'll get overwhelmed by it super easily. It's weird, having someone else around that can actually speak (and doesn't hide from him like Mimi does), and he doesn't know what to do with it. At all.

At first, you talking to yourself confuses him. Not because he's never done it-- he mumbles to himself all the time, when he's not yelling at the house or attempting to talk to Mimi. He's so unused to another person speaking in his presence that he automatically assumes you're talking to him, because well, that's what people do, right? The problem is, usually it makes little sense, because he doesn't understand half the words you're saying.

It doesn't bother him much, but as I said, it can get overwhelming. If he's already a bit frustrated, or you're talking really fast or loud, he'll often just quietly leave and go somewhere more peaceful. Don't take it personally-- he's lived in near-silence for hundreds of years.

After a week or two of living with you, he'll begin to get more used to your presence, and he no longer feels uneasy or agitated by your chattiness-- instead, he's found that he loves it. You're so cute like this, talking about the things you enjoy, and he finds himself wondering how it ever bothered him in the first place.

If you're just talking to yourself, he mostly lets you be, quietly listening to you talk. It's rather soothing, really, and he loves the sound of your voice. Even if he doesn't understand what you're talking about, he's perfectly content to just enjoy your company.

That said... please talk to him. He'll absolutely love talking about your interests with you! He gives you his full attention (you'll often have to gently remind him to actually work on the room because he's entirely forgotten about the task at hand.) He'll ask a lot of questions, and it's a perfect opportunity for you to delve really deep into the topic at hand, explaining all of the concepts and vocabulary he doesn't understand.

Depending on what it is you like, if you can bring him physical examples of it, he'll be absolutely over the moon. Hope the house doesn't mind you getting nothing done today, because all of your time will be spent showing it to him.

He's also a man of rather obscure interests, and he jumps at the chance to share them with you. He'll ramble for hours on end about his passions, and the way his eyes light up is the most adorable thing in the world.

It'll be a really good thing for the both of you! You're super enthusiastic about each other's passions, and you have long, in-depth conversations about the most random of topics. Small talk doesn't exist in this house. The only bad thing about it is that you're constantly at risk of losing sleep because you accidentally stayed up talking until dawn. Oops?

Seriously though, he'll love it. He probably has a bunch of journals that he writes in from time to time, and he has an entire section of books dedicated to you. He writes down whatever he remembers from your infodumping at the end of the day in the journal for that topic. He wants to learn about what you like, so he takes notes, and occasionally he reviews them to refresh his memory.

Writing Masterlist 🐝 Requests Open!  Tag List 🐝 

#beefriend-writes #casimir gévaudin #monster manor casimir #fictif casimir #monster manor #fictif monster manor

[charcubed]

Celebrities’ sexualities/relationships, and what not to post where

I’m going to make an all-purpose, general post about this topic, because it seems like there’s value in making one. Anyone who’s been following me here or on Twitter long enough has seen me address this before but often in specific scenarios, but y’know what... let me just make a general all-purpose post too just to lay this out for the sake of my own sanity.

We all know this is a thing: people like to speculate on celebrities’ sexualities and/or participate in “real person fiction” (RPF), and that’s been happening since the dawn of fandom. On some level, I understand why; it's exciting to think a celebrity might be queer especially if YOU are. We all want role models & we all want that to be normalized, etc... and sometimes it’s a case of “like recognizes like”; queer people can spot other queer people. But whether or not one is “correct” doesn’t matter, and either way, celebrities' lives are not for our consumption. They do not exist for our entertainment or speculation. This kind of talk can get out of hand very quickly in a way that ruins the lives of real people. 

So I am here to remind people to be mindful of what you say about celebrities, where you say it, and HOW you say it too.

For example: under no circumstances should you openly post things about celebrities’ sexuality or relationships on Twitter.

If you know this already, cool! Great! Good! Keep scrolling! But not everyone does know this, and either way, it’s always a good reminder–especially because people can get excited in the heat of a moment and these principles can easily accidentally fly out of the window.

Not all social media is “equal” or carries the same weight of potential real world consequence. Tumblr, for example, tends to influence little outside of here as long as the topic in question stays on Tumblr; AO3 fic stays on AO3, or at least it should. But Instagram comments or tweets do not exist in a vacuum or echo chamber the way people often seem to think, and often route back to the celebrities in question in harmful ways. Those platforms are open to the wider world in a way that can translate to very real consequence for the people being discussed.

What do I mean by that? A good example of how things can get unintended attention is what happened recently when memes about Misha Collins and Bill Clinton got out of hand, made their way to Twitter, and resulted in journalists writing articles that Misha felt he needed to address. On a more related note, recently Brie Larson made one offhand gay joke/reference in a personal Youtube video; it then trended worldwide and resulted in many articles too. There is now, unfortunately, high potential that she could be asked about and pressured about her sexuality in interviews in future. Did any of the people tweeting about those topics expect that to happen? Probably not, and yet it did. But these are good examples of how Twitter algorithms have vastly shifted, and keyword use is enough for things to easily and quickly trend outside of fandom’s intentions or control in ways that cause harm.

Putting any celebrities’ personal lives under a microscope, whether unintentionally or otherwise, is never a good idea. But it’s especially not a good idea when it comes to sexualities or personal relationships.

People will say “Shipping is just in the fandom! We know how to behave! What’s the problem? It’s never gone wrong before.” The problem is multilayered, but here are the main issues: the fact that nothing “bad” has happened before does not mean it never will. You can control your behavior, but you cannot control how other people–especially people who are new to your fandom–may or may not behave on the wider internet surrounding the topic of people's personal lives. Posting about it on main on somewhere like Twitter also inherently runs the risk of other outside parties seeing it, being like “what’s all this then?” and then picking it up and running with it further–whether that be ~haters~ or journalists.

People will also say “These celebrities know about this kind of fandom talk and they don’t care!” or “If the celebrities wanted us to stop this, they’d have said something by now!” To that I say: those are a lot of assumptions, when the only “assumption” one should realistically make is that we don’t know celebrities personally, we don’t know if they may or may not be actually closeted/unlabeled (which is their right!), and we don’t know what may make them uncomfortable while other things may not. The absence of "no" or "stop" isn't equivalent to "yes," nor is it citable as defense for questionable or potentially harmful behavior. Silence isn't blanket approval or consent, nor should it be assumed to be in any situation. Just because celebrities haven’t said in so many words “Please stop doing [this specific thing]” doesn’t mean they are automatically cool with whatever a fandom is doing, such as speculating about them or openly pointing out what they think they know about their sexualities or relationships. This includes posts on the wider timeline, or tweets and Instagram comments @ celebrities themselves filled with references or assumptions about their lives that are very not okay.

Even with something like Brie Larson’s situation... A celebrity making a joke or acting a certain way in one environment where they may feel comfortable or more relaxed–like a Youtube video, or a convention with fans, or anything else–does not mean that that celebrity expects or wants worldwide eyes on their behavior. And worldwide attention is what is always at risk on platforms like Twitter or Instagram. 

Ultimately, overanalyzing and calling attention to people’s actions is how people who are allies can be made to feel awkward, or how people who are queer get outed or forced into labels. I literally live in fear of the day when some random journalist starts poking around specific fandoms/celebrities, connects the dots that are out there and are seemingly easy to connect, and then somehow makes their sexuality a topic of interviews. Once it becomes a Topic, it becomes nearly unavoidable for them. That’s what happened to Lee Pace; it’s how many people are forced to come out. At all times, queer celebrities are a stone’s throw away from having to deal with all of that in ways no one should, especially as they get more famous. If you care about any celebrity you like to talk about, or if you care about the privacy of real people at all in the ways you should (especially potentially queer people), this should be a point of concern for you.

So, in conclusion: be mindful. If you must talk about celebrities’ lives on something like Twitter, do it without using their actual names to avoid keywords, because they trend at the drop of a hat out of nowhere and that can ruin lives. Avoid deliberate repetition in your phrases because that’s how accidental trends are made. And, better yet, honestly? Consider just keeping that kind of talk to Tumblr/AO3, and preferably to personal private messages. 

Your ability to fangirl/squee/celebrate a real person’s life is not more important than their right to privacy. Ever. This is not a petty topic and it is not “fandom policing” to say things like this out of concern. Acting from an abundance of caution is always the better way to go, because you lose nothing by being extra vigilant; the alternative of not being cautious enough comes with a high risk of negative consequence.

If we all just operate under the knowledge that talking about real people can translate to real consequences for real lives, and act with an abundance of respect/caution accordingly, then there will be nothing to worry about. And celebrities will get to live their private lives and (if this is applicable) be the authors of their own coming out journeys as they see fit, which is a right everyone should have.

From the bottom of my heart: just use both your empathy and your brain cells, please.

#celebrities #RPF #I logged on and I see people vagueposting about one specific actors' sexuality and my hairs stood on end #I know this post is long but I'd appreciate it if you'd reblog it #because this keeps coming up and it keeps BEING A PROBLEM and I am AFRAID FOR MANY CELEBRITIES #BUT ESPECIALLY A FEW WE SHALL NOT BE NAMING AT THIS TIME #please it costs $0 to be smart about this #I am once again begging people to be normal about this!!!!!! #char writes things

[lord-of-christmas-lights]

I could post regular Narnia headcanons...

Or I could post the continuation of this post and go into depth about how Eustace and Caspian are affected by deity Narnia. Welcome back to Inhuman Narnia 101 and it turned out just as long as the first one so buckle up.

Check out this post by @dorianviolet for another awesome version of Inhuman AU Caspian

Warnings for slight body horror mentions including blood magic stuff, slight religious themes and theological discussion towards the end.

Before anything: This AU directly contradicts canon a lot. I don't care, that's why it's called an AU. Some of it is deliberate, some of it is accidental. I haven't read the books in a number of years, so this is all based on the movies and general information I've picked up from fanfic and tumblr. Discussion on this post is welcomed, criticism and arguments are not. Thank you.

First off, here is the link to an exploration of Dragoning, the Eustace-centric fic I wrote about this. I refer to it repeatedly in this post so if you want the full thing, there it is.

Second, let's get into this. So in my last post, I talked a lot about Narnia, her general existence in this AU, and her motivations as a character. She wants the people in her world to be a part of her, and no one else. Some of this is a conscious choice, and some of it isn't. Eustace's changes throughout his time in VOTDT are definitely not purposeful. It was his greed that drove him to the treasure, it was his own "curse" in becoming a dragon. That was not Narnia reaching out to him and purposefully trying to mold him to her world. As such, he takes on more of an observing role.

Eustace doesn't ever actually directly address his cousins on the subject of their inhumanity, in this fic or in any other I write. He simply sees it, notes it happening, and moves on. Even in the sections in my fics where the subject of inhumanity in general is brought up between Eustace and one of his cousins, it's always about Caspian, the greater Narnian world, or himself.

"Eustace asks why, and Lucy answers. Narnia changes people, she says. It happens to everyone, but the closer you are to her Heart, the greater it is. I don't know where Dragons are. Perhaps closer than we realized. It's exhilarating, isn't it? Aslan will return us to normal though, at the end of our journey." - AEOD

I don't know why, but I don't like the idea of Eustace trying to directly address the Pevensie brand of inhumanity. That line above takes place after his UnDragoning, after the way he sees things has changed, and I see it as him asking what exactly has changed, you know, why are Dragons different than boys?

That brings me to how Eustace himself changes. Now, if he hadn't gone and turned into a Dragon, I imagine Narnia wouldn't have taken much note of him. He's a random human, stuck-up, not at all in line for ruling her lands, and just kind of exists without much else going on. She still would have affected him a little, as she does to all humans in her world but it would have been almost entirely spiritual with no physical changes. And then we got the greatest fuck around and find out scene ever. He becomes a Dragon.

I love dragons, always have, I have a very deep spiritual connection to these creatures, and as such, I have gone all out on worldbuilding for Narnian Dragons. Again, the quote from AEOD, "...the closer you are to her Heart, the greater it is. I don't know where Dragons are. Perhaps closer than we realized." In the Inhuman AU, Dragons were the first creatures Narnia (the deity) and Aslan made when they created Narnia (the world). They just really liked the dragon shape from other worlds and thought, "Hey wouldn't it be cool if our world was populated by these big fire-breathing lizards?" Now I don't actually remember how often Dragons are mentioned and/or featured in the books so I'm going with my idea that Dragons are a somewhat rare but not extinct species. They have to be created through magical means, often through physical transformation of people or objects, though there are a few known cases of natural-born Narnian Dragons. Eustace's creation was the curse on the treasure, though I don't see his Dragoning as a curse itself. As in, the curse isn't in the being a Dragon, it's in how the Dragon was created. So, Eustace experiences this accidental change into a creature that's closer to Narnia's Heart than pretty much any other being in Narnia. They were her first creations, forged from the fire in the Stars, and they are the closest to her magic. And that gets her attention.

Now, if you went and read AEOD, you'll have noticed that one of Eustace's biggest changes (aside from the obvious physical ones) is his vision. This is just a natural thing for Dragons, they are far more in tune with magic and the earth and everything than everyone else, but Narnia's special interest in him definitely amplifies the hell out of his magic sense.

"The people here say dragons see the oddest of things, and he has to assume it's a hallucination....He refuses to give into its whims, reminds himself it's just his imagination. Until Reepicheep comments on it." - AEOD. Following this quote, Reepicheep mentions to Lucy that her inhumanity is returning faster than Edmund's and Eustace has a total panic attack at the idea that what he's seeing is real. He sees what everyone else does, Lucy's stained fingers and Edmund's ability to manipulate words, but he also notices stuff no one else does like the stars in Edmund's throat and the echoes that follow Lucy's words. This is further cemented after his UnDragoning, where the extra stuff he perceived has vanished. Now the general idea in this AU is that the closer to Narnia's Heart you are, the more you know and perceive. Everyone can see some of the more obvious inhuman aspects of the Pevensies, but there are things that only Dragons, druids, Stars, and some other magic folk really close to Narnia's Heart see. I'm not going to get into an exact chart of what certain characters can and cannot see because that can change over time and such and I'd rather leave it mostly up to personal interpretation on what other characters do and do not perceive about the Pevensies and other such inhuman characters.

(Side note—I had to pause in the writing of this post here to go to my second meeting for an autism assessment and I think if I just showed the doctor my notes app and the inhuman/dark fantasy narnia tag on my blog, I'd get the diagnosis instantly lol) So anyways, Narnia senses Eustace becoming a Dragon and is like "Ooohoo what's this?" and starts sort of digging into him in the same way she does to her Kings and Queens. This triggers his already enhanced perception of Narnia (the world) to get even stronger, and this is when he starts seeing stuff like people's souls, Caspian's second heart (more on that soon), and looking at Lucy/Edmund/Lilliandil becomes almost painful because Narnia's magic is so bright in them. Aslan then UnDragons him, which Narnia really doesn't like btw, and Eustace is back to being a fairly average human.

This is where stuff established in AEOD ends.

Now I have so many ideas and half finished fanfics written out in my notes app about Eustace, UnDragoning, and inhumanity and it would be impossible to cover them all here, so I'm just going to go with the highlights. One of my favorite ones is the idea that after Eustace's UnDragoning, he still feels very connected to being a dragon. He's had this taste of pure inhumanity, and something like that doesn't just leave a person. There's a fic I read once long before I was fully invested in this fandom about Eustace and draconity that I will never stop thinking about and was actually the reason I started considering Eustace and Narnian Dragons in this AU. One of the really important things to note is that once a Dragon is created, they can never be uncreated. They can be UnDragoned, where their physical form is returned to whatever it was before their Dragoning (a rock, a talisman, a faun, etc) but their soul has changed on a fundamental level to that of a Dragon. Now for Eustace in my Inhuman AU, this manifests spiritually as a deep longing to return to being a Dragon. Physically, he experiences fun side effects like increased heat tolerance, nails that grow faster than normal, and because Narnia likes to meddle, a single ridge of scales along his spine. In some versions of my drafts, he stays at the end of VOTDT and experiences a slow Dragoning because Narnia's influence on him is that strong, other versions he stays but never quite returns to the Dragon he was before, and in yet other versions, he returns to England and loses that connection enough that physically, he will never be a Dragon again. As I said, Narnia is fascinated by him, she's never really had a human Dragon before, but he is still just a random guy who happens to be related to the Pevensies and as such, she doesn't invest as much time or magic into his inhumanity.

So that's Eustace. This is already such a long post but I promised to talk about both him and Caspian so here we go.

Now, in my last post I talked a bit about how Narnia (the deity) affects the other humans in Narnia (the world) to an extent, but it's nowhere near the amount she does to her Kings and Queens, and also this diminishes more and more the farther you get from Narnia (the country). Telmar is fairly close to Narnia (the country) but as we see in PC, a lot of Narnia's magic and spirit has been diminished by the time Caspian is born. Up until the awakening of the land during the battle, Caspian is essentially 100% human. However, this changes very quickly.

It's hard to pinpoint the exact moment Caspian becomes a King of Narnia. Is it when he refuses to kill Miraz? Is it when Aslan tells him he's one? Is it during his actual coronation? Yes, yes, and yes. I try not to pin it down to an exact moment. By the end of PC though, he's definitely noticing some changes in himself. I have an unpublished part 2 to an exploration of Inhumanity (my only other actually posted fic on this stuff) that I swear I will clean up and get posted soon that goes into further detail on the changes he's noticing at the end of AEOI. Some of the big ones include a second golden heart, seeing some of the life magic in the world around him, and a golden glow on his palms. He also slowly develops the ability to heal, though it's not always consistent. Magic takes practice, lots and lots of practice. In pt 2, the glow on his palms has gotten so bright and also spread around his head like a halo, and Lucy shows him how to conceal it so he's not impossible to look at, but because of Magic™ there's still a dusting of golden powdery stuff across his skin. His blood turns golden because Ben Barnes + golden blood is such pretty imagery, and like the others, it gets sucked down and absorbed into Narnia's Heart when he bleeds in battle. Also when I say he's got a second heart I mean he's got a second fucking heart. Ribcage shift and all. (His appearance doesn't actually change, it's more like a pocket dimension thing going on inside him, but he sure as hell can feel it happening). Having Narnia as a patron goddess just means you have to put up with a second puberty sometimes lol.

Anyways, there's a line in AEOI that I feel explains this stuff really well. "He cannot truly protect the land without becoming a part of it himself." Narnia changes her Kings and Queens because she wants them to be a part of her. Aslan doesn't really see these changes as necessary (in canon, a world without deity Narnia, they don't happen), and if the storyline we pick is the one that's the constant cycle of humanity and inhumanity, it's sort of a push and pull between them. Aslan wants the Pevensies, and by proxy anyone else who rules Narnia or experiences these changes, to keep their humanity, to stay as they were Created by him. Narnia, however, wants them to be as much a part of her as she is of them. It's very clear in both the books and the movies that Narnia (the world) is where these characters belong. In the end, they all come home to her (yes, Susan too because fuck Mr. Clive Staples Lewis). Caspian being anything less than fully inhuman is something she cannot handle. She is constantly having to recreate the Pevensies, reestablish her hold on them, only to have them return to England and become mostly human again. Caspian cannot be taken away from her, he is in this world by birth and she is going to do everything she can to shape him into the ruler he needs to be.

Once again, I would like to state that Aslan and Narnia are not opposing sides of good and evil. Gods cannot be defined by human standards, and to think either Narnia or Aslan completely in the right or wrong in this AU would be, well, an interesting standpoint, but really not the one I'm going for here. I'm not going to say it's a misinterpretation, I am very open to hearing people's thoughts on this AU, and everyone's going to see things differently. Just, please reread what I've written about them before you start making that argument.

Anyways, that wraps this post up because I have spent the better part of the past 6 hours writing this. I spent way more time on Eustace than I intended but it's just so fascinating to think about inhumanity from his perspective considering he's the only one in canon that actually was (briefly) inhuman. Again, if you got this far, congratulations! If you use any of my ideas mentioned here, please tag me, I am so starved for inhuman Narnia content lol.

#inhuman/dark fantasy narnia #caspian x #prince caspian #the pevensies #eustace scrubb #the chronicles of narnia #narnia headcanons #rambles of a hyperfixating kai

[me4ml]

Why don't you like Maribat? Why do you think it's a spite or salt ship?

This is presumably because of my Adrigaminette post or the whole Maribat being on the ship list thing.

Quick disclaimer: if you read/ship/write/like Maribat, cool! This is not an attack. This is me answering why I, personally, do not like it. It’s tagged anti, and salt, so it should be filtered. Please don’t harass me over it.

Another note before we start: a lot of what I’m about to write is based on what I’ve read, fic wise or meta, and I blocked off the Maribat tag and fandom a long time ago. It may have changed over there-I doubt it, and I have zero desire to go and look-but this is based on what I’ve seen and read about.

There are, principally, three reasons I can’t stand Maribat, why I think it’s a spite/salt ship.

1). I don’t like Damian Wayne.

2). I don’t like how Damian and the DCU are written in Maribat.

3). Maribat is a mutated salt fic.

If you want to see my reasons why, the rest is under the read more.

1). I don’t like Damian Wayne.

Damian’s not just my least favorite Robin, ranking behind any of the others who have born the name. He’s my least favorite Batfam sidekick overall.

Part of this is his introduction, where he’s a violent, murderous, arrogant, entitled, snotty little brat of a thug. Lest we forget, one of his first acts is to go out, kill a guy, cut off his head, stuff a grenade into the decapitated head’s mouth, and try to blow up Tim. This is his introduction! There are a number of other occasions, including how he treats Jon, his best friend, and the rest of his siblings.

Another part is that he believes that he deserves to be Robin simply because he’s Bruce’s son, and therefore has the blood right to be Robin, to become Batman, and damn anyone else, who are all pretenders. Doesn’t matter that those characters might have a right to become Robin, or the future Batman, he’s the bio son, he deserves it!

Additionally, Damian feels.....not unnecessary, but repetitive, in his actions/characterization. There are other characters who can perform pretty much the same way for whatever storyline is necessary, without including Damian.

Trained by an abusive family to be the best, as an assassin and warrior? Cassandra.

A killer who breaks the main rule of his mentor, which causes tension and strain in the family? Jason.

Incredibly intelligent and talented? Tim.

Damian isn’t unique in what he does, and while that can make him an interesting character, it can also make the focus on him unnecessary.

As well, so much of Damian’s actions and motivations feels like he gets away with stuff, in-universe, because he’s Bruce’s biological son, and so Bruce gives him too much slack, and out-universe, because the writers let him/the fans will defend him. He gets woobified, or leather pantsed. Which leads to:

2). I don’t like how Damian and the DCU are written for Maribat.

For all his (numerous) faults, when written well, Damian can be an interesting character. For example: How does he deal with being deeply insecure? By putting on a mask of arrogance and overconfidence.

Some more examples: How does Damian act like an actual child, when he’s never had a childhood? How can he be a hero, if he’s been trained to be a killer? Can he ever catch up to his siblings, or will he feel like they’re always better than him?

Damian’s sense of being Batman’s son, of being the heir to the Cowl, slams right up against the idea of the Batfam: that there are people who have just as much of a right to call Batman their father/father figure, people who are just as talented and skilled and capable as Damian himself is, if not more. Watching Damian develop, when he’s written right, is actually enjoyable; mainly because when it’s done right, it shows Damian actually progressing and growing, becoming more of a person, with friends and interests. Most times, seeing Damian with his pets can be adorable, same with when he hangs out with Jon.

Is he still a brat? Still sometimes a bit too much of a Demon, an al-Ghul? Yes, but that’s always going to be part of him, and as long as he’s shown to try and grow, or gets called out on that, it’s less of an issue (There’s a completely different rant to be written about how DC likes to chuck character development or backstory into the trash when it suits them for a new run. Damian gets hit with this, as does Tim, or they get handed the idiot/conflict ball, but not the space for it).

Maribat hurls this all out the window. Damian’s bad traits are all “fixed” offscreen-he’s developed, matured, gotten better, whatever you want to call it. It’s basically a writer’s hand wave to make Damian into the character who will be the lead of the story, perfectly suited for his main role of being Marinette’s boyfriend and utterly devoted to her every whim and will. He’s enchanted by her at first glimpse, and defends her against everyone who hates her, because no one can understand her like he can!

Uh, what? This is not Damian Wayne. Even at his best, he’s no broody boy, pulled from his “dark path” by the love of a gentle girl. He’s a Jerk with a Heart of Gold-emphasis on the Jerk. There’s a reason his nickname usually involves “Demon.” Is Damian trying to get better? Yes. But even then, he’s not the type to immediately fall in love. He takes a while to warm up to people, for them to earn his trust, and Marinette would not be like that?

Let’s say that Robin is in Paris for a case, he runs into Ladybug and Chat, and after they explains what’s going on, Robin gives them a stare over his mask, and goes “TT! What a worthless hero, I would have caught him already.” LB and Chat would probably want to deck him, and that’s before he keeps talking.

Same with if Damian transfers to the class, or they meet on a field trip to Gotham. Damian’s not gonna care about some random French teenagers on a tour, or if he was transferred he’s gonna be trying to figure out why his father sent him to Paris, and be focused on the mission, not making friends.

Of all of the Robins, the ones that would be the most likely to capture Marinette’s interest would be Dick or Tim, not Damian. He would remind her too much of Chloe, as Damian, and as Robin, he would be dismissive of Ladybug’s abilities, which would absolutely piss her, and Chat Noir, off.

In characters that aren’t Damian, no one seems to be written properly over in Maribatland. One huge example is that Marinette is so beloved, so pure, that she can make any character fall in love with her, and reform by her pure goodness, including a fic where the Joker-THE JOKER!-becomes her “Uncle J,” and pranks Lila on her behalf.

Uh-huh. Sure. Completely and totally something that one of the biggest, most sadistic twisted, notorious villains in pop culture would do. Maribat winds up worshipping the ground that Marinette walks on, cause she’s “Teh best evar!”

Which then leads to my third and final point:

3). The whole Maribat concept is a mutated salt fic.

Most of the themes you’ll find in Maribat? You will find in nearly every salt fic.

Maybe my biggest issue with the whole Maribat idea is that it doesn’t feel like a proper crossover, which, at their best, explore how characters from one universe and their rules would interact with characters from another universe, and the rules of that one. Putting ML and DC together is a rich opportunity to play with concepts in both worlds!

And yet, it’s mainly used to bash ML characters who the writers despise, predominantly Adrien, Alya, and Lila, with members of the class thrown in depending on feeling, and potentially even Marinette’s parents! The only “good” ML characters are the ones who are on Marinette’s side, usually Luka, Kagami, a Chloe who for some reason has been redeemed and is now Marinette’s best friend, and whatever members of the class the writer decides to throw in there.

You’ll notice it’s not called “MiracuBat”, or LadyBat and Bat Noir-it’s MariBat. It’s meant as a focus on Marinette, making her-the hero of the Miraculous Ladybug franchise, someone in-story in story who is incredibly smart and talented and the leader of her team, future Guardian-even more awesome.....by beating down everyone else around her.

Marinette is simultaneously treated as an beaten-up, beaten-down walked-on carpet, and the best person to ever exist ever, go who only needs a group of new, different, better people to recognize that and save her from the clutches of those greedy and ungrateful assholes! That doesn’t include the fics where she’s the unknown child of a superhero or supervillain, making her even more special.

It’s Chameleon salt, class salt, with pointy ears and a cape on.

Some specific examples.

Adrien: Adrien is a spineless doormat who prioritizes Lila over Marinette, or an entitled bastard sexual harasser, only fixated on Ladybug, or even both. Sometimes it’ll get worse, as Adrien will threaten or abandon Marinette if she steps off of his “high road,” and Chat will be a budding rapist, stalking or capturing Marinette after he’s learned she’s Ladybug, while ignoring her prior to that. He will, of course, have his ring stripped and handed off to Damian, who is the “true” soul of Destruction and so therefore a “perfect match” to Marinette’s Creation soul. Occasionally it will be Jason, or Tim, or Dick, but the key thing is that it’s not Adrien!

While Damian’s issues are magically fixed, Adrien gets no such courtesy. Adrien has been abused, just like Damian, and while Damian’s abuse is more extensive and extreme, abuse is abuse. If anything, if Damian met Adrien, he would probably see another abused kid, and want to be his friend/have his “adopt stray person!” Instincts go off. I can much more imagine Damian dragging a bewildered Adrien into the Batcave and yelling “Father I’ve found another one for you to adopt!” than I can Damian immediately hating Adrien, or Chat, simply for breathing.

We never see Clark taking Adrien under his wing, or Bruce, or any of the other Batfam; nor any of the other Justice Leaguers. We never see Selina try to fight Bruce over the kid, because he’s cat-themed, and Selina can train him, this one’s hers Bat, get off!

Adrien’s never treated as a kid, or given actual development. A major complaint among salters is that Adrien is treated as perfect and never develops, and in fic, rather than developing him, Adrien either remains static, with his flaws narratively exploded, or is developed negatively. He’s there to be beaten up on and punished by the writers, if not actually physically beaten up by characters in the fic.

Alya: the not-so-good friend, the cheap excuse for a journalist, the awful person who abandons Marinette for Lila and her “connections.” Never mind that Alya was Marinette’s friend from the beginning, or that Marinette’s chosen her multiple times for a Miraculous. One instance of questioning Marinette about Lila, and Alya’s a backstabbing bitch.

Maribat treats Alya as neglectful, bossy, domineering and submissive at the same time to Marinette and Lila respectively, and as a journalist, the worst of the worst. She’s played as a two-bit paparazzo, and once again, the DCU is used to punish her. We don’t see Alya get mentored by Lois or Clark-indeed, if they notice her, it’s with disdain or disappointment. Often, they’re crushing her under their heel, calling her not only a bad journalist, but a bad friend/person. This forgetting, of course, that Alya runs her blog as a hobby so far, she’s only a teenager, and that she’s had Marinette’s back against Chloe and Lila.

The Class: the dupes or allies as needed. Class salt levels depend on what the writer needs. If they’re pro-class, they’re all on Marinette’s side, aside from Alya Adrien and Lila. Chloe, for some ungodly reason, is “redeemed” nigh instantaneously, and often will become Marinette’s best friend, if that isn’t Kagami already. Kagami will drop Adrien like a wet tissue, never trying to reconcile him with the clas, or encourage him to stand up for himself, or if she does, Adrien, of course, will not listen.

If the writer is anti-class, whoo boy. Openly mentally, emotionally, physically abusive to Marinette, the worst gang of people you would ever have the displeasure of meeting, they all need to be in Arkham.

We never see any of the class make friends with the Batfam, the Titans, Young Justice-unless they’re on Marinette’s side, of course. There’s no Alix stopping Selina at the Louvre, for instance, or Max hanging out with Babs. It’s all based on how Marinette is treated as to whether or not the class is portrayed as being worse than the worst of the Rogues Gallery.

Wrapping it all up, Maribat has made me dislike the entire concept of a DC/ML crossover.

Even if someone had written an non-salt, in-character crossover, I don’t know if I would read it, simply because the well has been that poisoned.

#anti maribat #anti maridami #anti daminette #maribat salt #daminette salt #maridami salt #anti damian wayne #Damian Wayne salt #ml fandom salt #anonymous #ask answered #long post

[thedeadflag]

I’m so confused! I know it’s not your responsibility to educate me but in your post bringing awareness to the negative aspects of g!p fanfic you say

“Why do these g!p characters rarely if ever involve experiences reflective of trans/intersex women? Why are they so utterly cis and perisex-washed? Why do nearly all writers have zero idea that tucking is a thing? “

Doesn’t that answer your original question? The reason they don’t reflect those groups of ppl is bc g!p isn’t trying to represent those groups of people or else it WOULD be transphobic to limit them to one specific fetish right? it just refers to a canonically female character with the addition of a penis (I don’t argue the name “g!p” should be changed bc that’s a no brainer why that could be offensive). But the fanfic in general, how could it be harmful? I’ve noticed in my time reading it as a non binary person it’s given me great gender euphoria reading a reader insert where reader has a penis while being a femme representing person just bc that’s a reflection of my personal experience. I don’t see anywhere where g!p fanfic ever references or tries to emulate the experiences of trans or intersex people so how could it be offensive?

Sorry this is way too long I’m just very confused

I'm going to try and lay this out as politely as I can. It's after 3:30 in the morning here, so this could be a bit disjointed and rambling. More under the cut:

In real life, ~99.999999% of women with penises are trans women. Which puts us in a tricky situation of (A) being the only women with penises around for media involving women with penises to reflect back on, and (B) being in the lovely position of precious few people actually having had meaningful real life exposure to trans women, meaning (C.) all those stigmas and all that misinformation are going to purely affect us and it’s going to be uncritically gobbled up by the masses, since they don’t have any meaningful information to fill in the blanks with instead.

When we peer into the depths of femslash fandoms and see all these folks who aren't trans women writing about women with penises, and using cis women’s bodies as platforms for these penises, it’s the simplest thing.

I mean, some of those folks might actually be struggling and confused about why they’re into it, what the real appeal is, why they get off on it, why they might have some feelings about wanting a penis of their own…

…but from our vantage point, it’s really easy to gauge 99.99% of the time. We can generally see valid, legitimate yearning to have a penis pretty damn easily in a piece of art/writing, and we can also see when people who create this media are just hung up on a boatload of baggage and fetishization.

And 99.9% of the time, the creators are just hung up on a boatload of baggage and fetishization, and see trans women’s bodies as a perfect vehicle to tap into that, generally due to deeply held cissexist views that link us and our bodies and genitals directly to cis men, to maleness. As if penises are rooted in maleness and masculinity (which is absolutely not true).

And I have sympathy for NB folks (certainly TME ones who have reached out to me in the past about this) who might be struggling with that, but just because they’re non-binary, it doesn’t mean they get to appropriate our bodies and reproduce transmisogyny and trans fetishization in their attempts at feeling better. Shit doesn't work like that.

Because again, the only women with penises in this world, essentially, are trans women. Meaning any woman with a penis in media is a trans woman, implicitly or explicitly. Meaning that when people who aren’t us want to write us, intent doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter if it’s just the writer’s fantasy, it’s still going to attach a variety of messages directly onto us.

And more often than not, due to cissexism, those messages are linking us to maleness, to toxic masculinity, etc..

While I do want to believe they're a fairly small minority, a lot of NB folks in fandom spaces like g!p characters in part because they see penises as male and the rest of the body as female and think that duality is interesting and would be comfortable, and is a nice balance of “both worlds” or a nice position “between male and female”, but that’s a wholly cissexist, transmisogynistic view to have, and it’s one that absolutely cannot be supported without directing sexual violence against trans women and invalidating our entire existence. Certainly not all NB folks into g!p like it for that reason, but holy shit a fair bit of them do and it’s weird and wrong and fetishistic.

g!p emerged from the idea that women can't have penises, and drew on the transmisogyny and cissexism of tr*nny porn to structure that frame of desire and the core patterns and trends within these works. It's always been trans women's bodies being used as a vehicle, whether or not the writers of these fics are explicitly aware of it, because the trope itself still holds true to its original patterns and cissexism. It's not the name that's the problem, it's the content; changing the name would be a surface level change that wouldn't affect anything.

g!p objectifies women with penises (trans women). A woman with a penis is more than just a woman with a penis, but the use of the term and trope is literally to (A) remind people that women don't have penises, otherwise the g!p term wouldn't be needed if people actually accepted women with penises as women, and that (B) this is a story centered on a scenario where there's a woman with a penis, with key focus on that genitalia specifically. it's the drawing point, it's the lure, it's what everything is centered on. It is a means for folks to write lesbian sex while also writing about penis in vagina and getting off to it. It's also no surprise that the penises so clearly emulate cis men's penises in these works, that is by design.

As I’ve said many times before, if you’re only writing trans women’s bodies to showcase cis men’s penises, you’re not respecting the womanhood of trans women, and this ultimately has nothing inherent to do with penis-owning women, it has to do with (cis) men and their penises, because trans women are just being used as a vehicle to emulate them. When NB folks do the same thing, and imagining themselves as those g!p characters, they are ultimately embodying cis men, their maleness, and often toxic masculinity, in a way that feels safe and distanced enough for them, a shell that they often code as cisnormative due to their own unprocessed cissexism.

And trans women don’t deserve that.

You seem caught in the idea that if something doesn't directly perfectly reflect trans women, that it can't be linked to us., which ignores the long long history of media being used to misrepresent marginalized peoples and cast us in insulting, dehumanizing lights. You show a lack of understanding of the g!p trope and the long history of its usage across a few other names, even if the content and patterns remained the same. It shows a lack of understanding of tr*nny porn and transmisogynistic stigmas, which the trope draws heavily from.

I think we can all recognize that most 'lesbian' prn that's made does not represent actual lesbians, it's overwhelmingly catered to the male gaze. We can also recognize that this category of porn has led to a lot of harassment towards lesbians from cis men who at the very least want to believe lesbians are just like they are in the porn he watches, that lesbians just need the right man. Lesbians are being used as a vehicle for a fantasy that was created externally to them, and doesn't represent their realities.

It's the same kind of situation here. The way g!p fics play out overwhelmingly doesn't reflect trans women's realities, but they are inherently linked to us regardless, as we're the vehicles for those fantasies, as unrealistic and harmful as they may be.

g!p characters are built in our fetishized image that’s based on a deeply cissexist misunderstanding of us, of the gender binary, and of bodies in general.

I mean, when 99% of cis folks don’t understand how trans women tend to be sexually intimate… when they don’t understand what dysphoria is and how it works and how it can affect us physically and emotionally…when they don’t understand almost any of our lived experiences…then they’re not going to be able to accurately portray us even if they wanted to.

And I’ve read enough g!p fics where authors wrote those as a means of trying to add trans rep, but because they didn’t understand us at all, it wasn’t remotely representative, and it was ultimately fetishistic, even if there was an undercurrent of sympathy and a lack of following certain common g!p patterns there that differentiated it from the norm.

If g!p fics were at all about reducing dysphoria or finding euphoria, then it wouldn’t be explicitly tied up in the performance of very specific sex acts, very specific forms of misogyny and toxic masculinity, very specific forms of sexual violence and exertion of sexual power, etc.

But it is.

So the notion that creating g!p fics helps NB folks? Nope. It CAN certainly prevent/delay those folks from facing a whole boatload of shit they’ve internalized, and coddle them at the expense of trans women.

Because if it was really about bodies and dysphoria/euphoria, there would be a considerable push (allying with out own) to end our fetishization and to represent us in and out of sexual contexts with accuracy, respect, and care. Because they wouldn’t care what sex acts were performed and what smut beats were hit, they’d just want to see someone with a body like their ideal being loved, being sexual, connecting, being authentic, etc. Which very much is not the case in the overwhelming majority of g!p fics. That's what we want, and it's not what g!p writers want, it's nothing they give a shit about.

Like, a ways back I started doing random pulls of g!p fics from various fandoms and assessing them for certain elements to provide some quantitative clarity. I started on The 100 here, and did OuaT here. Never finished the 100 one since the results leveled out and stayed pretty consistent as the sample size grew, so I didn't really see the point in continuing any further after about 140 fics when the data wasn't really changing much at all.

Lastly, media influences people. I've read countless posts and comments from people who use fanfiction as a sex ed guide, in essence. Which is ridiculous, but I also know sex ed curricula often isn't very accurate or extensive in a lot of areas, so people take what they can get. Representation in media can be powerful, and when it overwhelmingly misrepresents people, that's also powerful. Just because fandom is a bit smaller than televised media, it doesn't make that impact any lesser, certainly not for those whose primary media intake is within fandom.

Virtually all trans representation in f/f fanfiction is misrepresentative of us. That has a cost in how people understand us, how people react to us, and how people treat us. Not just online, but in physical spaces, and in intimate settings.

I invite you to read that post you referenced again, or perhaps this longer one which is a response to a trans guy who seemed to feel something similar to you with this trope.

All I can do is lay it out there and try to explain this. It's up to you how you handle this. All I know is whenever there's a big surge in g!p in a fandom, trans women generally leave it en masse, because it's a very clear and consistent message that we're not valued, respected, and that people value getting off on us over finding community with us.

#g!p #creative responsibility #trans fetishization #trans representation #intersex fetishization #intersex representation #genitals tw #genital mention tw #intersexism #transmisogyny #fandom meta #long post #cissexism #t slur tw #media representation #media literacy

[chameshida]

I feel bad I haven’t contributed anything to LN fandom in a while so here’s some random HC of mine.

- Runaway Kid name is just “Kid”, that is his actual name but some kids do find it weird calling the other kid “Kid”, so they try to call him something else. “Runaway Kid” is the name coming up in sort of the mocking manner but Kid doesnt mind and wearing it like a champ. Mono is the one coiling the name “RK” in the version of story they get to meet (Unfortunately most of the time they don’t)

- In my simpler story/joke/meme, RK would fall prey into the simple “wimpy kind kid” characterization. But in the more serious story, RK actually share some characterization with Six and Mono. He is still kind but he’s more of a survivalist and realist too. But his “Kind but also feral” is on the different brand with Mono, in the way that Mono is more likely to kill than RK, RK is more likely to leave someone to die than Mono. Overall, RK is someone one who show and share kindness despite the harsh world but he is not selfless. he is also not violence and would rather run than fight.(he still got the weakass arm stregth too)

-Going to bring up Undertale for a sec, Neither Mono or Six would do the no kill run in the first playthrough lol. Six kills everyone but not actively seeking out enough to trigger genocide and she run from/ doesn’t kill Undyne. Mono accidentally kills froggit and some ruin monsters and Toriel but no one else afterward. (RK might suceed in pacifist Neutral the first time tho) pre-LN1-ending Six is not determined enough to do the genocide run, she would rather run from Sans and Undyne than fight them, and she wouldn’t go through all the trouble to seek out everyone to kill either as she just want to get out and survive. Post LN1 Six, drunken with power, However...

- During their Journey, Six’s actually being decent to Mono and not at all mean or call him names. However, after dropping him, it was then Six decided to dubbed Mono as “Stupid Mono” while dealing with her inner turmoil and guilt and that nickname stick after all is said and done.

- While their feeling is not at all romanctic, even in the friendship light it’s actually more Six --> Mono as oppose to usual fandom intrepretation. As Mono would act the same if it’s any other kid he finds needing rescue and befriend. Six however seem to have this ‘at first sight’ fixation on Mono and Mono only, that weird kid with paperbag who is all sort of weird but in the chaming way and shows her kindness. Six is smitten. Mono then saving and interact with other kid and she has this moment of mildly disappointed “Oh...” that it’s not just her Mono act this way around. (of course Mono still consider Six his bestfriend. and would risk life and limbs for her).

But in the end, Six act the way Six act (close off) and Mono is being super friendly towards Six so in the other kids eyes it is normal to view it as Mono--->Six. But Mono does view Six in the different light from other potential kids he’d come accross after she dropped him and not necessary in the positive way.

- Six is more popular and well-liked by the maw kids than Mono with the LN2 kids

- Six doesn’t experience unatural hunger again after getting Lady’s power. If she’s to maw down or cannibalize someone after that. It’s her usual feral antic driven by pure primal hate and anger rather than hunger.

-Maw arc(pfft) is essentially Six’s “Zuko alone’ arc

- Shadow six, despite being Six’s good side, does need to go through character developement and rude awakening arc lol. She isn’t off the hook. Vice versa, Six, although technically Souless, is not as Souless emotionally. She is still capable of feeling emotion empathy and character growth, she just missing a part of her which rattled her greatly. But if we ignore the terrible hunger acompanying her condition and she’s to go on without getting that part of her back, she can go on and develope into a better person of her own just fine without “her good part”. This is to say that while her missing her soul explain and effect some of her bad decision, it doesn’t make her not to blame for all the bad she did as she’s still capable of making a decision.

-Already mentioned it, but Mono knits and crafts and doing a lot of thing post Tower to make up all the lose activity he want to learns

- RK is fully literated (for kid his age, if the word is too complicate of course he wouldn’t know). Mono can read some but act like he knows everything. Six can’t read english but can read and write more Japanese than Mono read everything.

- Mono is the type who take “a few months old” very seriously remind everyone that he is older.

- Six always sleep curling up and never sleep on her back. Mono sleep mostly normally but he do like to elevate his feet. Usaully result in him putting his leg on his friends in his sleep.

- Six, although feral, is capable of being regal and proper when she need to be. The closest comparison to other existing character from other fandom would be Toph and Rukia(leaning more toward Rukia). If there’s ever a situation where they are to fit in as the well-manner kids, Six, surprisingly would fair better than Mono despite what Mono think(as he mostly only saw her feral side)She’s like the cat, even at the trashiest state there’s still a dignify and vain part, grooming and all. To sum it up, Normally Mono would be the cleaner of the two (clean hand, Goine EW and reprimmed Six whenever Six got too feral) but when put into a certain situation Six can fit in better while Mono street kids side start to show and he becomes out of depth.

- None of the kids voice has crack yet.

#long post #little nightmares #ln spoilers