#yes i am tagging the fandoms i draw for most often but i do accept from other fandoms as well | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ouyangzizhensdad · 3 years

Note

I love ur takes but I'm kind still impressed by ur persistent hate for cql. The novel is the base but all the medias adapted from it take a single aspect of the story and make it their own. Look at the manhwa, audio drama, donghua or the drama. I still dont know what ur issue with the drama is coz for a low budget drama with censorship they did everything they could for the novel fans (yes they recorded straight bit so if they had issues they will go straight but they are a drama)... yes they added a few things for the show to telecast it for the chinese consumption (they dont really need white validation unlike kdrama which has more ifandom). Both cql or winter begonia were handled very well and the dramas were overnight hits coz of the scriptwriters and directors keeping the novel story alive.

I think it's also coz u and most white fans of the novel or cql haven't seen anime and its live actions so u dont know that the live actions made in different periods of time change the story according to the area they're being released in... Itazura na Kiss has 3 live action dramas and all three are from different countries and different time periods so the way all three are adapted are alot different eventhough the base story is the same. If u want to follow the novel read that but if u want to enjoy the story cql, donghua, audio drama of MDZS and the manhwa are very nicely done. I hope just coz white cql fans have issues with the novel u dont spread hate for the drama that has made it possible for a relationship to be shown between two men. The asians arent as thick to think they're best friends, everyone who watches the drama knows that it's a gay love story

Hi anon,

There’s a lot in there and honestly I don’t think I can address all of your points. But I’ll try my best.

I have said many times that I do not hate CQL and that I enjoyed watching most of it. It was a fun little idol drama that wasn’t a very serious watch. At the beginning I even enjoyed the fandom for a little while. Now, yes, I do post a lot of content that is negative toward CQL and/or its fandom. But you may have noticed a few things though. My criticisms (or my moments of incomprehension) are always related to:

Specific issues I have with the choices it made as an adaptation

People trying to pass CQL, a cheaply-made idol drama, as a masterpiece. This is nothing personal against CQL: it has more to do with how it puzzles me that people don’t see to know what competent and good tv looks like. I have nothing against people praising the show, but they don’t have to act as it doesn’t have a lot of basic, technical issues.

the CQL fandom cross-posting everything, or bringing CQL canon and fanon into novel-specific discussions. People can mix and match the canons, of course, but it’d be a nice courtesy to be at least open about it so that people who want to stick to one canon may be able to do so. And it is frustrating because people like me have literally just given up on trying to read fics because authors are not forthcoming about which canon they are drawing from. That’s frustrating and a source of bitterness!

arguments that CQL is a stronger/more complex work of fiction than MDZS. Again, it’s nothing personal about CQL, it’s just mind-boggling having to explain something so fucking transparent.

arguments that CQL is better “queer rep” than MDZS.

absolutely whack takes from the CQL western fandom.

You feel that the screenwriter and director kept the story alive, and hey, that’s great for you. Yes, I’m aware that adaptations will change things. Analysing adaptations is actually partly how I developed a lot of my media analysis skills. However, I personally believe that the story that CQL tells and how it chooses to tell it fundamentally changes so much about the narrative, the characters or even the genre of the story that it does not keep the truly interesting and engaging elements of the novel. It might be flippant to say, but even if the production team were truly doing their best (and I do believe they did), it doesn’t mean they achieved what they set out to do--and some of it may just come down to a question of skills, as story-tellers.

Although I am white, I may not fit into the narrative you present since I have watched many live actions and animated series adapting a manga/manhua/novel. I watched my first jdrama 15 years ago, and to be illustrative, this first jdrama was Hana Yori Dango. In the past I’ve also watched many dramas that were originally japanese/taiwanese/chinese/korean and their adaptations. Hell, sometimes even adaptations that crossed to the western market. I assure you that I am familiar with a property being adapted at different times and in different countries and through different mediums. I’ve also interacted with the other adaptations of MDZS. The thing is, what this has showed me is simply that doing something differently doesn’t translate necessarily in doing as good of a job. Adaptations can fail, either by virtue of what they fail to do as their own work of fiction, or as adaptations of an existing property.

I’m not trying to shit on to what CQL may mean for chinese audiences or diasporic chinese audiences as well. When I point out the fact that Wangxian is just subtext in CQL, it’s not because I think “asian audiences are dumb” but because the reason why subtext may be acceptable under censorship is that it keeps a level of plausible deniability. Some people will of course recognise it for what it is, but some will simply not pick up on it or refuse that reading. I also do take pains to remind people how the flow of capital that allows for these adaptations to exist may have to do with how far the portrayal of the subtext is being pushed over any concerns for the original story or nebulous gay rights. I do find it interesting though that CQL is often presented in fandom discussions as this unprecedented occurrence in Chinese media, since there was very heavy subtext in earlier live action adaptations like Guardians or the side couple in Love H2O, just to think of quick examples.

But obviously anon, my more salty or bitter posts about cql seem to bring up frustrations, so if it is an impediment to your fandom experience it might be best to simply unfollow me. If you wish to stay for the novel meta and avoid these posts, I do tag them with either “brine corner” or “cql negativity” or “cql vs mdzs”.

#anon ask #cql negativity

32 notes · View notes

meikuree · 3 years

Text

list 10 different female faves from 10 different fandoms

I was tagged by @chocochipbiscuit for this ages ago but I’m only getting around to this now because I wanted to find a time when I could just sit down and GUSH about my faves with abandon... hence the lateness... thank you for the tag though, i love doing these things!! this got LONG because i am horrifically verbose, so i’m putting this under a cut:

1. aerith gainsborough (final fantasy vii): probably my earliest fictional crush/fave ever... one of my siblings used to let me watch her play ff7 when i was eight or nine-ish and i've loved aerith since then. i adore her because she's so selflessly compassionate and nurturing -- she's been through an incredible amount of loss and metaphysical loneliness (as the last remaining person of her race) but she still channels her energies towards Greater Causes and uplifting others! and she's still wonderfully modest and down-to-earth about it all and just a Thoroughly Good person in general... one of my comfort characters :,)

2. bethany hawke (dragon age 2): honestly i love all the women in the DA series & can wax poetic about them all in equal degree, such that sticking to one fave per game is in fact even harder than the time i had to sit for the final exams for my degree, but... bethany is probably one of my first picks. i've always found it interesting how she's in immediate senses the more pleasant of the two DA2 siblings to get along with and at the same time someone who is Good but willing to fudge her morals just this side of ambiguity a little. that sort of goodness that coexists with moral flexibility and understanding of practical realities is what draws me to her... basically Goodness With An Edge. also the fact that she is in fact very wise beneath her innocent/youthful exterior and Quietly Competent and is someone who gravitates towards mentoring others while in abject structural/personal circumstances in some storyline choices!! i have a type!!

3. furiosa (mad max fury road): i really love furiosa's story and the way her background and heritage drives the plot. the fact that she's tried to keep her heritage alive all these years... the way she derives her strength and identity from the community where she was raised by women... and then the moment she realises that her old community is gone always get me GODDDD. and then the fact that that moment catalyses one of the most profound realisations in the film afterwards, and leads to the protagonists turning around to revolutionise a violent regime afterwards!! it's all about the loss, and resilience, and quiet, stalwart persistence in spite of it all.

4. franziska von karma (ace attorney): i like hypercompetent characters. franziska is, in the narrative, a woman who was a hypercompetent child prodigy. but i don't love her for that; i love her for the development she undergoes afterwards when she learns to accept failure and become more emotionally measured in general (i think... it's been a while since i've played these games). i also find it very funny that she's mean and abrasive to everyone but has a soft spot for women and young girls like pearl and alternately CARES deeply about how they perceive her or goes out of her way to help them. #franziskaisalesbian anyone?

5. janai (the dragon prince): um, she is incredibly beautiful. honourable warrior who is deeply loyal to her sister and homeland and then learns to look beyond received narratives about racial enmity and hatred? i'm sold. i also love the development of her relationship with amaya.

6. ianthe tridentarius (the locked tomb): honourable mention to this horrible, gremlin girl for being the reason I picked up these books!! she’s a walking bag of moral transgressions and I Enjoy It So Much, IT IS SO REFRESHING. I also appreciate the fact that her particular brand of abhorrence is presented in the narrative free of moralitis, or sententious attempts to link it to gendered failings (e.g. the failure to embody ideal precepts of gender)... which is the treatment Evil Women are often subjected to in stories. Ianthe is Rotten, full stop, and there aren’t any notable attempts to graft an exonerative backstory over it, but also no attempts (yet) to unfairly penalise her for Garbage Moralistic Commentary. at the same time she’s not blandly, beigely villainous either; she is capable of a certain degree of care, however warped or fucked up its actualisation might be. she is complex! in all, a very delicious character. 10/10.

7. harrowhark nonagesimus (the locked tomb): breaking the one-fave-per-fandom rule for TLT because it is that special. I don’t regard harrow as a fave in the sense that I “love her with all my heart” like with aerith or bethany (gideon would take that place, actually -- she's the moral compass of the series!) — it’s more that I love the trajectory she undergoes in harrow the ninth. but I also really enjoy how thorny, difficult, and (morally, but not only) complex she is. I find the meditations on her grief, loneliness, and devotion in Harrow the Ninth comforting and beautiful, as do I the framing of her insanity/madness.

8. billie lurk (dishonored): oh boy, I love how jaded and embittered she is, and the way she's very flawed and human as well... the broad thematic flavours in her backstory of regret over committing ~irredeemable crimes~ and being haunted by your past, and dwelling within the grittier side of life are all very compelling to me! her perspective as someone who is Not A Chosen One and an anti-heroine is refreshing too

9. leliana (dragon age: inquisition): cheating for this one by counting this as a separate game from DA2, hah. she is immensely Intimidating and Cool, i love that she specialises in the domain of spymastery and subterfuge! she is also complex, but some of the things she stands out to me for are that particular brand of realistic, Rugged Faith she has, and the way she's clear-eyed about the sacrifices it takes and ruthlessness she has to wield in service of it

10. pieck (shingeki no kyojin): yes, the character i have written every single one of my 16 fics about in one form or another was bound to make it into this list somehow. honestly i DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY... it's all there in said fics! and there's too much to encompass in one brief answer. but: it's things like her quiet unassuming competence, the way she Takes Responsibility even when she could do the easier thing of resting on her laurels and/or succumbing to despair, her gritty resigned optimism, and the way she takes her obligations to others seriously & twines both ruthlessness and generosity within herself... she's a lot more complex than initially observed by many people, in my humble opinion, and there are still threads to her i’m teasing out to this date!

i’ll tag: @lightdescending @todustagain @kallistoi @leksaa90 @rose-gardens @acerinky @frumpkinspocketdimension @whiteasy no pressure!

#ask game #about me #meikuree talks

10 notes · View notes

casijaz · 4 years

Text

Well turns out the other post won’t be the last one.

Decided not to put anything under a cut but this post is tagged ‘long post’ so you can click on it at will. I’ve added shorter sections in (brackets) to put together the point.

It’s always been like this. In fact a couple of months ago I made a silly post about it. Please stop giving each other ass-pats about how not-racist you might be. Or how your one non-white friend says whatever you posted is not racist.

White people: Stop being performative allies.

My fellow peas of the seas, or individuals who aren’t white who interact on this western website: Being a poc is not a trump card to claim we can’t contribute to specific forms of racism.

---

I remember back when I was 17 I defended some (then not obvious to me) clearly racist art a white friend of mine made. I spoke to the people who came onto her art and told them they were trolling, they had to be. Spoke in all caps sometimes, had bolded stuff, all weird ways of talking with this demeaning or passive aggressive tone. I remember thinking ‘hey, do they know I’m a person of colour? They must feel silly! Here I am, a poc, who clearly says this is ok!’ But it wasn’t. In this instance the racist art depicted an indigenous person, and this was an instance of racism against indigenous people, and I am not indigenous. (Translation: Defending racism is bad, even if the people who say racism is bad might be mean to you.)

I also have defended white people who lived in a bubble of whiteness. I figured, well, they live in the bubble, or they’re young, and their actions weren’t coming from a place of malice because they didn’t know any better. (Translation: Even if you’re a nice person, your actions can still be bad, and you should acknowledge this.)

When someone points out to you that something is racist, you shouldn’t jump to a knee-jerk defence or being passive aggressive in acceptance of this fact. It’s a tough pill to swallow, but you’ll have to go through it. Remember this is not about coddling white feelings, it’s about the reproduction of white supremacy and racist ideologies in a multitude of settings. (Translation: Even if you don’t know anything about racism, or don’t think you’re racist, you could still be. Racism is not as simple as one action. It is a global structure that influences the world.)

Reproducing racist ideologies is something that people of colour can also be guilty of. This means that they don’t have the power to be racist (as racism is about a hierarchical power structure where whiteness is as the top, aka white supremacy) BUT they have the ability to reproduce (or repeat, mimic, etc) the racist ideologies that are prevalent all over the world. (Translation: Because racism is everywhere, everyone can do it, even if they don’t wish to.)

Yes, not everyone has the luxury of being able to understand English to a level that certain concepts come across. Which is why I’ve taken the liberty of adding tl;dr to the end of each paragraph to get that point across for my fellow ESL speakers. However not speaking English well enough can be used as another excuse for condoning racist actions by others. (Translation: Saying I don’t know better is not the solution to stop being racist. Trying to understand the other person is.)

The point is to stop making excuses. Stop defending the racist. Stop defending racist actions, no matter how small or big they are.

It is also not up to the people who are actually hurt by this to coddle you and teach you. If you wish to learn more please follow blogs that are specifically talking about these issues. Here’s one. Here’s another. Here’s a fandom specific one. Here are also my own posts about xenophobia and more xenophobia. Unfortunately they are heavy with academic writing but I’ll hope to make a simple English version of it one day. (Translation: Here’s helpful blogs for you to learn more from!)

---

As for the people of colour who talk about adding nuance, different perspectives, and how racism is complicated. Yeah. It really is. But whichever argument I see brought up about ethnic issues are still ethnic issues. That’s about xenophobia. I often talk about xenophobia and racism not being the same thing for a white audience, but I feel like maybe I’ve left fellow people of colour out of the conversation.

I’ll speak from my own experiences regarding this, because I could pull situations from all over the world but it wouldn’t be genuine nor would I be the expert. So. In my mother’s country we have many different ethnic groups who most of are not white (I’m pretty sure they make up less than 1% of the population), who sometimes get into conflict with one another. When they discriminate against one another, that’s definitely a bad thing. However when these groups fight both discrimination against ethnic groups and racial categories come to light, as the two are almost always heavily interlinked for people of colour. (Translation: Racism and xenophobia overlap and connect when it comes to people of colour.)

This country (Suriname) was colonised by western forces so it brought along a lot of strife. While no Surinamese person would probably refer to themselves in Suriname as a person of colour, when they are put in a Western context they definitely always do. When groups fight against each other they use both rhetoric imposed on them by western colonial forces (racism) and hatred for other ethnic groups (xenophobia). Because both groups are still groups of colour, they are only capable of reproducing racism, not producing it, as they have no power to in the structure of racism. (Translation: People of colour can discriminate one another with something they have power over, and reproducing racism.)

---

This entire conversation has also highlighted something that I’ve deliberately avoided in my previous posts, but my fellow black Tumblr friends haven’t, and that is the issue of anti-blackness.

Throughout all of this it seems like many different ethnicities have obviously come together and argue on different sides, but one side seems to be devoid of a certain race that has spoken up against these issues over and over.

When black people tell you that something is racist, your knee-jerk reaction shouldn’t be ‘but it isn’t, because I’m not white, and I approve of this.’ Going back to that story of 17-year-old me, I was not the racial group affected by the drawing. I was not offended, because it wasn’t my racial identity that was being mocked. When black people tell you that something is racist, you can assume that they’re telling you something is anti-black.

Don’t turn this a conversation only about the voices of people of colour when at the heart of the topic it’s been about anti-blackness shown by a multitude of people from different ethnic groups, white or not.

I’ve seen people act like they’re on the good side because surely they’re supporting people of colour who’ve told them that the side I’m arguing on seems to be ridiculous. I’m calling people names! Making assumptions! I’m stuck in a western perspective talking over non-western people.

Then turn around and they’re not boosting black voices. They’re not mentioning anti-blackness anywhere. I see MLK quotes taken out of context. They’re clamouring to reblog or create art depicting black characters or meta about them, while that art is either fetishistic or was proven to be made by a racist (who was proven to be so like 2 whole minutes ago).

(Translation: Don’t throw black people under the bus. Listen to us when we’re talking about anti-blackness. All poc are indeed not the same, so don’t treat it like it is.)

I hope this will be the last time I’ll talk about this. But I have a bad feeling it won’t be.

#anti-blackness #castriestalking #long post #edit: altered the link after anon suggestion

163 notes · View notes

strawberry-skies-xx · 4 years

Text

forget the bottle

C H A P T E R O N E

summary: Jaskier has always felt things on a deeper level than most, and more often, and he has gone through life this way. He has coping mechanisms, of course - drinking, talking, singing, etc. He can't be overwhelmed by his emotions all the time, after all.

After the mountain, Jaskier's coping mechanism is drinking. Turns out, there's something in it, and Nilfgaard knows exactly how to break the songbird.

words: 17097

tags: geralt / jaskier, yennefer, PTSD, post-s1e6, s1e6 fix-it, a fix-it of sorts, pyschological trauma, psychological torture, magical fuckery, mind manipulation, aftermath of psychological torture, emotional/psychological abuse, torture, nilfgaard, captured by nilfgaard, fringilla, fluff and angst, protective yennefer, yennefer ships it, idiots in love, love confessions, happy ending, solitary confinement

author’s note: alright, so here is the zillionth captured-by-nilfgaard fic in this fandom. and, yes, whenever i mention valdo marx + jaskier hate-fucking, i am passive-aggressively yelling at the fandom for not having more of it. it has massive potential, but i don't write smut. (aka, please link me to any amazing top/dom valdo and bottom/sub jaskier hate-fucking, i love it)

scheduled tuesday and thursday posting.

main masterlist | story on ao3 | next chapter >>

-0-0-0-

Jaskier felt too much.

He’d always felt too much. He spent his younger years raging at his parents, raging at the world, though he didn’t know what he was raging at, only that he wanted to get away, be free.

And when he was old enough, he went to Oxenfurt and learned - learned academics, learned the arts, and he flashed through emotions quicker than he did love. The world was new, the world was bright and big and bold and Jaskier wanted nothing more than to carve himself a place in it.

And he did. He went to an inn in Posada and met a white-haired Witcher, and he learned some more. Learned of the darker emotions - not just anger, but revenge, and not just sadness, but despair, oppression. The world was new, still, the world wasn’t quite bright anymore but it was big and bold and Jaskier still wanted to carve himself a place in it, by way of one grumpy, golden-eyed, white-haired Witcher.

So Jaskier went through the world, and he felt. He felt pain lance through him, sharp as any blade - pain of heartbreak, pain of rejection, pain of actual physical wounds. He felt happiness, like warm honey falling gently over him - contentment when he sat by the fire with Geralt and sang into the shadows, joy when he roused an entire tavern into singing and stamping with him and he danced between them all, singing his heart out to the world.

He also felt love, in a more permanent sense than he’d ever felt it. Love was…. a peculiar sensation for him. He fell into love hard, and fast, and deep - both literally and metaphorically; Jaskier did enjoy the finer things in life, and he wasn’t above flirting and taking everyone he met to bed, sometimes at the same time. He adored people, like soft warmth rising in him. Lust was sharp and primal, carnal in its intensity, and Jaskier sharpened it into something intricate, turned it into pretty words and meaningful looks and determined intent.

And he loved, loved with his whole being, loved with his entire heart. Jaskier gave a piece of his heart to everyone he met, and sometimes he took it back after a fleeting infatuation, sometimes it stayed with them and he yearned. Valdo Marx was one of those people - he had loved him as he did anyone, had ended up hating him, but Valdo was not a fleeting love. Jaskier still loved him, even if it was only for their sharp back-and-forths and the truly mind-blowing hate sex they had occasionally - Valdo knew him better than anyone, except for Geralt.

Geralt was different. For Jaskier, love shot through him like a lightning bolt - or, Cupid’s arrow. Sometimes it went out the other end and left, sometimes it stuck and bled and scarred. With Geralt, it had shot through him like any other person, except it had stuck, it hadn’t bled, and it hadn’t scarred. Jaskier loved Geralt, and he was never so selfless that he never wanted more of him despite having what he already did, but if he was truly forced to choose, Jaskier would have been perfectly content with the life he led with the Witcher, would have suffered through the pain of pining after him if he got to stay.

Jaskier hadn’t chosen, though. Geralt had chosen for him, and he had decided that he didn’t need him, didn’t want him, and Jaskier had granted him his oh so desired blessing, and left.

Heartbreak felt like needles, stabbing him, over and over and over, in multiple places, and when he thought it was done, he’d see something and he’d be pricked again, it would draw blood.

Jaskier had grown very good at coping with his feelings - he couldn’t go through life being overwhelmed by all of his emotions. He did this in all manners of ways - writing songs and singing them, putting on the optimistic act to simultaneously let out emotions while hiding others, and talking, constantly. One of his better - or, well, quite unhealthy but very effective - coping mechanisms was drinking, which was what he was currently using on the heartbreak needling at him.

He stared into the tankard of ale, which tasted more like piss than actual ale, and sighed. Even the damn ale reminded him of Geralt.

Maybe the Cupid’s arrow for Geralt had started bleeding. Jaskier wasn’t sure if it would scar.

He groaned and dumped coins on the table, ignoring the flirtatious looks some women were giving him. He would have accepted it at any other time, would have lost himself in pleasure, but he felt slightly dizzy and he wanted nothing more than to find someplace to sleep, without practically selling his body for it. He didn’t have enough coin for a room, so he’d have to sleep out in the woods. Which, dammit, was just like he used to do with Geralt. Minus the Witchery protection now, of course.

Jaskier’s head was thoroughly spinning by the time he got out of the inn, and he knew something was wrong. He was drugged, he knew what it felt like to be drugged, having been enough times that Geralt actually berated him for having to rescue him. He ran through in his head what drug it could be, landed distantly on the salty taste of the ale, and cursed under his breath. Or, maybe it was a curse. Jaskier’s head was too fuzzy to figure out whether it came out as an actual word or as incoherent noises.

He saw shadows out of the corner of his eye - black, large, vaguely terrifying considering the way he stumbled and couldn’t think straight. He was caught by two strong arms, Geralt flashing quickly through his mind before a voice that was decidedly not Geralt whispered in his ear, smooth and cruel.

“Hey, little songbird,” not-Geralt said. “We’ve been looking for you.”

“Fuck off,” Jaskier replied. Or didn’t. He didn’t know, his head was spinning and he felt a headache pounding and his limbs were growing slow and heavy, and the darkness dragged him down all too easily.

-0-0-0-

Jaskier woke up cold, and shivering, and very, very confused. He was laying on his side on a stone floor, feeling like he had been dunked in ice water - which, maybe he had, because his hair was dripping wet still and plastered to his face. His hands were behind his back, and at an experimental tug, they were tied together too. He wore nothing but his pants, and his bare shoulder pressed against the cold stone.

Jaskier cursed, both from his situation which had rapidly come back to him, and the very annoying strands of wet hair that had decided to plant themselves directly in his eye, and managed to roll himself onto his back with some effort. He lifted his head as much as he could and shook his hair out of his face, trying very hard to ignore the feeling of it plastered to his cheeks, his neck, just all over the place. He took the brief time to berate whoever had kidnapped him on hair care - honestly, did no one know how to dry hair? He liked to keep his hair soft and this was decidedly not the way to do it.

Of course, none of this was what he believed. He was ignoring the fear crawling up in him, feeling like spiders and making his skin itch, feeling like ice trickling down his spine and tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. If he focused on anything other than the fear, then he wouldn’t be overwhelmed. It couldn’t do anything.

Jaskier rolled himself back on his side in order not to crush his hands beneath him, and after a long, heated moment spent mentally berating whoever had kidnapped him, again, on the best positions for singing, he actually started singing. The lecture went on, still - every time his voice cracked very much not artfully, or every time he couldn’t pull in enough breath, he took a second to come up with some particularly creative insult in his head about calling him songbird and then prohibiting his ability to sing.

He ignored the feeling of spiders crawling over him and the feeling of ice trickling down his spine.

It was an undetermined amount of time, measured only by the fact that Jaskier got through eight songs verbally before he started shivering uncontrollably, and six songs mentally before the door opened and a woman in blue robes and two men in black Nilfgaardian armor strode in.

He gave a dry laugh, ignoring the spiders crawling and the ice trickling. “Nice of you to stop by,” he said. “You know, it’s a bit contradictory when you call me songbird and then put me in a position like this, which is very much not conducive to singing, let me tell you.”

The woman in blue robes smiled and walked forward. She reached behind him and tugged harshly on the ropes tying his arms, pulling him into a kneeling position, before yanking him up to stand. Jaskier met her dark eyes, sensed the crackling undercurrent of magic around her, and supposed that this was Nilfgaard’s mage. Or one of them, at least.

She held his gaze for a long moment, searching, before letting go. “Untie him,” she said, turning around and standing several paces back as the Nilfgaardian soldiers descended on him.

Jaskier stood still, finding his heart suddenly pounding and adrenaline racing through him. This was his chance - he could try to escape now.

The ropes dropped from his arms and he lashed out, landing a right hook in one of the soldier’s jaws and aiming for another in the other soldier, when the entire room popped and Jaskier found himself slammed into by a wave of magic. His back hit the stone wall hard, knocking the breath out of him, and he gasped, arching. The sorceress walked forward, cruel emptiness in her eyes, watching him like he was a bug pinned to a board. Which, he supposed he was.

He was always a bug pinned to a board, poked and prodded and seen as amusing by Geralt and Yennefer and now this damned mage. Gods, Jaskier hated being human.

“Don’t struggle,” she said, voice oddly serene. “It’ll only be worse for you.”

Jaskier scoffed, rolled his eyes and studiously ignored the fear threatening to overtake him. Sometimes feeling too much was a blessing, sometimes it was a curse. Right now, it was a curse.

“Why? So I can become your puppet and you can do whatever you’d like to me? I’d be flattered you think of me that way, if this wasn’t a kidnapping,” he retorted sharply. The mage laughed, amused, and Jaskier tugged against his invisible bonds. Something in him wanted to cry at the fact that they didn’t even deem it necessary to tie him up, he was so weak and human.

The mage didn’t respond - not to his question, anyway. Instead, she raised two fingers to trace along his jaw. “It’s better to get this over with now,” she said.

Jaskier paled, felt the fear rising in him. “Get what over with? I’d rather you don’t-“

Her fingers landed on his forehead and his sentence ended with a scream. He arched against the invisible bonds, feeling the searing heat crawl into his mind, flood it with lava, with blood and pain and misery. She dissected his memories, sharply cleaving through every defense he had, and he felt the magic ripping through his body harshly, tearing through his mind.

Jaskier slid into the wooden seat, bread shifting uncomfortably in his waistband - but that wasn’t important. What was important was the lack of a review, the golden eyes staring flatly at him and the two long, sharp, menacing swords sitting beside the man.

“Come on, you must have some review for me. Three words or less.”

“No,” he gasped. “Don’t- please don’t-“

He screamed again as she ripped through another of his memories, feeling tears start in his eyes and the feeling of fear inch up his spine, waiting for the opportunity to get past his defenses and overtake him.

“How’s my singing, Geralt?” Jaskier asked loudly, because oh he wanted to have this conversation. He was quite heartbroken from the Countess de Stael’s rude break off of their relationship, and he thought spending a good long while defending his singing with a loud, unrestrained sarcasm he hadn’t been able to use since he entered the Countess’s court would make him feel better. There was something freeing about being with Geralt, not having to tiptoe around the darker and dirtier things in life.

Jaskier gasped through the pain, shaking against the wall, mouth now opening wordlessly as he arched and the mage tore into memory after memory, pulling everything he ever felt, thought, said, did, into full view, forcing white hair and golden eyes into the forefront of his mind. She learned he felt too much, she learned he loved too much, she learned of the frankly embarrassing number of times he hate-fucked Valdo Marx.

And she learned he loved Geralt with a love more permanent than anything he’d ever felt before.

“If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands!”

The agony ended with that line echoing in his head and he fell limp against the magic holding him to the wall, gasping for breath and still feeling the echoes of the searing pain ripping through his head.

The mage was entirely unconcerned, standing and waiting with a blank look on her face until Jaskier caught his breath and sent her a glare. He growled - which, of course made him think of Geralt. Damn the fucking Witcher who stole his heart. “Are you done? Learned anything useful?” he snarled, truly not giving a fuck about whether he angered her and made it worse.

She traced her fingers along his jaw again, sliding them beneath his chin and raising his head, lowering herself down to look him in the eyes. “Oh, songbird. We learned so much. I'm going to enjoy breaking you.”

Jaskier felt the fear rise up in him, felt his breaths start to come shorter and tears fill his eyes, and forcefully shoved it down. He couldn’t let his emotions overwhelm him.

“Why do you want me?” he asked, uselessly. He knew why they wanted him - and he knew he couldn’t give them the answers they wanted. Geralt had discarded him.

The mage released his chin and stood up, not responding. Jaskier watched as she stepped back, flicked her fingers, and suddenly Jaskier fell hard to the floor. He gasped when the cold shocked through him, and the mage walked to the door with the soldiers. She turned back at him when he raised his head to look at her.

“The Witcher has something we want,” she replied, and turned and left. The door slammed loudly behind her and the soldiers.

Jaskier was left alone in the darkness, and the sudden drain of adrenaline from the mage ripping through his mind left him exhausted. He resisted the urge to cry; he kept up the dying hope that Geralt would save him, or he would escape, because they were the only things keeping back the flood of fear, and he knew if the fear and emotions overtook him then he would break.

For now, he curled up on the cold floor and let his eyes close, succumbing to the deep exhaustion and letting sleep take him.

-0-0-0-

The mage introduced herself as Fringilla, and the next time she came in there were the same two soldiers with her. Jaskier had searched his cell when he woke up feeling marginally better, though still freezing cold, and found nothing - it was pitch dark, so he couldn’t see, but he had felt every inch with his hands and there was absolutely nothing that would help him escape. He could barely find the door in the darkness.

The bright light blinded him and he covered his eyes as Fringilla and the soldiers walked in. He glared at them, backed away when the soldiers came up to him. They reached out and Jaskier laughed harshly, ducking out from under their arms. “Nope, no, I am not letting you touch me.”

Fringilla sighed impatiently as Jaskier kept dodging the soldiers, who did nothing more than walk steadily after him in the small space. He hated this, hated that he was trapped and couldn’t do anything other than run three feet from the soldiers and make himself look weak by prolonging it. They still hadn’t deemed him a threat enough to tie him up, for fuck’s sake.

Jaskier would have enjoyed taking apart that delusion, if he wasn’t freezing cold, half-naked, outnumbered, and with no weapon to speak of. He uselessly avoided the soldiers for several more minutes, until even he was growing bored of the game, and the only thing that Fringilla needed to do was raise her hand before Jaskier was stopping, freezing like a deer in headlights, fear flashing through him. The soldiers took that opportunity and slammed him against the wall, hands pinning his arms and legs in place.

Jaskier wondered if the display of sheer power against him was intentional, deeming him too weak for chains or ropes, but Fringilla smiled in such a way that it was instantly confirmed and Jaskier bit back his noise of annoyance. It was truly insulting, and hit something deeper in Jaskier that was still fighting, that kept up hope. He figured that was the point - if they could restrain him so easily now, what was the point of fighting? It would only be worse.

“Love,” Fringilla said, and Jaskier felt his stomach drop and his body go cold. If Nilfgaard wanted to break him, they certainly knew how to do it.

“It’s a peculiar thing, isn’t it? So volatile. It’s the only thing us mages can’t predict,” Fringilla continued, voice low.

Jaskier glared at her. “Shame. Thought you mages were all-powerful,” he snarked. Fringilla only looked amused.

“However,” she continued, ignoring his comment, “we can use it to our advantage.” And, yeah, that’s definitely not good for Jaskier, who squirmed just at the thought of what they could do to him regarding Geralt - because that was the only person he truly loved, really.

She raised her fingers, intent in her dark eyes, and Jaskier barely had time to protest, fear shooting through him, before cool magic washed over him like ice water, and he sank into darkness.

He saw the light first - saw the mountains in the distance, felt the clothes covering his back. Heard Geralt and Yennefer arguing below, saw Borch sitting on the ledge - and oh, fuck, this was the dragon hunt, he realized with a jolt of panic.

“Like fuck you didn’t,” came Geralt’s irritated voice, and Jaskier’s heart hurt just hearing it. He stood up, or, well, he tried to. There was a magical force pulling him down, forcing him to stay in the body of the Jaskier in his memories, the one who sat on the rock, and walked over, and then walked away. He wanted to cry, again, because he knew how this turned out and he could already feel the heartbreak needling at his skin, the pain of rejection lancing through him. He remembered how his dreams shattered like glass, and he cut himself on the sharp edges of them as he walked away.

He stood up, walked over once Yennefer left. Spoke without wanting to, felt the insistent magic tugging at him. “Whew,” he said. “What a day. I imagine you’re probably-“

“Dammit, Jaskier,” Geralt interrupted sharply, whirling around to face him, and Jaskier felt the needles of heartbreak start pricking him, stabbing and drawing blood. He was stuck in his memory’s body, though, so he was forced to listen, feeling the tug of Fringilla’s magic on his voice, on his body.

Geralt’s eyes were hard, burning with anger as he continued. “Why is it, whenever I find myself in a pile of shit these days, it’s you shoveling it?”

“Well, that’s not fair,” Jaskier replied, voice soft. It was just as painful the second time as it was the first, and back in the dark, cold cell, Jaskier was resisting the urge to cry. He didn’t want to relive this, it was too much for him to handle.

“The Child Surprise, the djinn, all of it! ” Geralt’s voice was harsh, everything about him was harsher and sharper and Jaskier was cutting himself on it, he was practically bleeding out with the force of the heartbreak ripping through him. He sang so many songs about Geralt, about him not being a monster, and Jaskier fought against the negative things said about Geralt with everything he had, but some dark, selfish part of himself whispered that maybe Geralt really was the monster everyone thought he was. He was certainly acting the part right now, hurting Jaskier in the most efficient, effective way possible. Jaskier was wrong when he said Geralt didn’t know how to use the blade of his words as effectively as steel and silver.

“If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands!”

Sharp pain lanced through him and Jaskier woke up gasping, laying on the cold floor. The cell was dark; Fringilla and the soldiers were long gone. Jaskier was alone.

Jaskier shoved down the tears, shoved down the fear and heartbreak and emotions threatening to overwhelm him. Crying was not one of his coping mechanisms. Drinking was, talking was, singing was. Not crying, never crying. Jaskier would not show weakness.

Well, he couldn’t drink. He had two options. Singing or talking. There weren’t many songs to sing that weren’t about Geralt - and he had just been painfully reminded of how he felt about him, thank you very much. So he curled up in a weak defense against the cold, and in a quiet, cracking, whisper of a voice, started to talk.

-0-0-0-

Jaskier had fallen asleep in the middle of some sentence about geography, some passage he had memorized from a textbook when he was at Oxenfurt. He didn’t remember it now; didn’t need to. All he remembered now was the surge of fear as the cell door opened and Fringilla and two soldiers walked in. Jaskier looked up, too exhausted to think about physically fighting as they dragged him up from his position on the floor.

He did fight verbally, though, if only because talking to someone to fight off his emotions was better than talking to himself. “In the old stories, the knights swept the princesses off of their feet,” he said. The soldiers started pulling him towards the door - he had a vague hope of escaping, though he felt like shit because he was being starved and really had to piss. “Does that make me the princess?”

Fringilla gave her signature, idly amused smile, the one that reminded Jaskier just how much he was a bug pinned to a board and surrounded by immortals who didn’t care for him. “You’re a bard, and nothing more. The place we’re taking you is not from the old stories.”

Jaskier frowned. “Shame. Oh, speaking of being a bard, why do you even keep me here? You already rifled through my mind, you saw Geralt abandon me. You know I don’t know where he is, or what he has that you want.”

Fringilla didn’t look bothered. “You’re still useful. You know the Witcher better than anyone else, you can tell us where he would go next. His patterns of behavior, the way he thinks. The best way we can ambush him. Or, if not, you’re good for bait.”

Jaskier laughed, and the sound was harsh and mocking. “He won’t come for me,” he said bitterly. “You’re delusional if, after looking at that memory, you think he would come back for me. He doesn’t care whether I live or die.”

Fringilla smiled. “You’re right. He doesn’t care about you, and he won’t come back. Whether you help us find the Witcher or not, bard, you’re still ours.”

It came so easily, so certainly, that Jaskier deflated in the soldier’s arms, staring at Fringilla with a sort of blank horror. She had looked through his memories, had seen everything he’d seen, and she was able to say with such smooth certainty that Geralt wouldn’t come back for him, and he was Nilfgaard’s now. It hit the same part of him that it had when they had so easily restrained him, the deeper part of him that glowed gold with hope even as the rest of him withered and broke.

They stopped in front of a simple wooden door that Fringilla opened to reveal a room with a tub, toilet, and sink. Jaskier turned to the sorceress. “You’re giving me time to clean myself up?” he asked incredulously. “Doesn’t that go against, you know… everything about torture?”

Fringilla smiled again, but there was something darker in it. Jaskier resisted the urge to shiver at the dark promise hidden in her tone and smile. “You’re going to need it, bard. You won’t come back here for a long time.”

Jaskier felt the dread rise in him, like being touched by ice, and the fear. He nodded, staying quiet, and went into the room, flinching when the door slammed and locked behind him.

An hour later, the door was opened and the two soldiers came to get him, just as he finished using the bathroom. Jaskier sighed. “I’m guessing you won’t pamper me as much anymore?”

Fringilla smiled in the same dark way when the soldiers pulled Jaskier through the hallways. “No.”

They got closer, and Jaskier thought he was immune, he thought he was still strong, but he thought of the pure darkness of the cell and the cold air and the sheer loneliness, and started struggling when he saw the metal door at the end of the hallway. The fear was threatening to overtake him, his breaths came shorter and his voice rose an octave.

“Are you really sure you want to put me in there?” he asked, while pulling against the soldiers, who forcefully manhandled him down the hallway. His heart was picking up, and dammit he shouldn’t be this affected after two fucking days, but here he was. Nilfgaard had better torture tactics than they were given credit for - Jaskier had a bitter feeling that the reliving the hardest, most painful ten minutes of his life factored into the reason why he was so scared. “I’m sure there’s another option, something much less… well, dark and cold.”

“Will you answer our questions?” Fringilla asked.

“No,” Jaskier replied automatically. He wouldn’t give up that easily, no matter how terrifying the cell was.

Fringilla opened the door and the soldiers threw him in. He landed hard on the stone, still in only a pair of pants because that was all the clothes he was given in the bathroom, and he barely had time to watch the sliver of light be sliced away by the door slamming before he was left in pitch darkness, the cold air already seeping into him.

Jaskier sat up and leaned against the wall. He sighed, very firmly refusing the urge to cry, and stared into the darkness. He couldn’t even see the edges of the room, for fuck’s sake.

He let out a breath that definitely wasn’t at all shaky, tilted his head back against the wall, and started to sing - about everything and anything, because he couldn’t give a fuck about whether the songs were about Geralt if it meant he was distracted from the pain of knowing this was all he would see for gods knows how long. After all, it was just another emotion to add to the pile, wasn’t it? Nilfgaard wouldn’t care if he broke down - fuck, they wanted him to break down. Some dark part of him wondered if it would be easier to break down, stop fighting; it was only exhausting him anyway.

“When a humble bard, graced a ride along…”

#the witcher netflix #geraskier #geralt of rivia #jaskier

15 notes · View notes

mrfunnybone · 4 years

Text

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; MUN & MUSE - MEME.

FILL OUT & REPOST ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm. TAGGED BY: Stolen from @battleshell TAGGING: @ladydreemurr @wdvoided @puzzlebones @flametendingbartender, @the-judge-of-bones @witchandateashop, and @bravest

MY MUSE IS: CANON / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless / complicated

Is your character popular in the fandom? YES / NO. [Some would say overly so.]

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom? YES / NO / IDK. [ somehow...yes? Apparently?]

Is your character considered strong in the fandom? YES / NO / IDK. [ Yes. Most players agree that Sans fight is one of the toughest in the game, and the Gaster Blasters do pack a punch.]

Are they underrated? YES / NO / IDK. [ Underrated? Certainly not. Overrated? Hmm..]

Were they relevant for the main story? YES / NO [Hot take, but as of now, there are no CANON facts 100% supporting the idea that Sans was tied to main story plot elements. If you took him out, the actual story wouldn’t change much, you would just go straight to Asgore’s fight. ]

Were they relevant for the main character? YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG. [ Sans is one of the main monsters that the MC interacts with, and acts as the Judge near the end of the game, which reveals a lot of unknown information to the MC.]

Are they widely known in their world? YES / NO. [ The scene in Grillby’s seems to suggest that, at least in Snowdin, Sans is well-known and well-liked.]

How’s their reputation? GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL. [ While fellow Grillby customers and a few other Snowdin residents seem to like him, he’s also seen to irritate other characters with his laziness, bad jokes, or shenanigans. Even Undyne admits that she’d fire him, but he always manages to do the bare minimum to avoid it being justified.]

HOW STRICTLY DO YOU FOLLOW CANON? — I do! Though I also offer my own spin on San’s backstory and my own interpretation of canon hints.

SELL YOUR MUSE! AKA TRY TO LIST EVERYTHING, WHICH MAKES YOUR MUSE INTERESTING IN YOUR OPINION TO MAKE THEM SPICY FOR YOUR MUTUALS. — Jokes in the face of nihilism and a juxtaposition to the field of science, Sans is full of contradictions in a fairly entertaining and interesting way. He appears to be incredibly intelligent, but talks and dresses like he’s any ol’ joe. He appears to have symptoms of depression but still acts fairly chummy. He is both one of the hardest fights you’ll apparently face and yet only needs one hit to be defeated. Sans apparently cares for nothing and yet also holds his brother in very high esteem. He appears difficult to get close to, yet he bonded with a stranger over bad jokes and kept a promise to her even though he never even knew her name. Sans can be defined by both what he is and what he appears to be.

NOW THE OPPOSITE, LIST EVERYTHING WHY YOUR MUSE COULD NOT BE SO INTERESTING (EVEN IF YOU MAY NOT AGREE, WHAT DOES THE FANDOM PERHAPS THINK?). — Sans is credited with far more than he’s actually due by the fandom. He doesn’t seem to really care for you, the player, like Toriel or other monsters do. He’s not a hero, past or present, like Gerson or Undyne. He doesn’t really help avoid the player getting hurt or captured like Papyrus does. He doesn’t push the plot forward and he doesn’t take action; as a character, Sans is purely reactive, and if he were the Main Character, that would be a huge flaw.

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO RP YOUR MUSE? — I first joined the Tumblr RPC as a Frisk RP Blog, way back in the day, and that was because I stumbled across a Sans RP blog that I found very interesting. This character that I had largely not put too much thought in during the game suddenly had a very complex narrative and I loved reading his dialogue (it didn’t hurt that the mun was clearly a talented writer). Eventually, I realized I wanted to try my hand at writing him too, and so I started my own Sans RP blog.

WHAT KEEPS YOUR INSPIRATION GOING? — you guys. The fandom, the artists, the other Sans/Undertale RP blogs, the fanfiction authors— when I start getting bored or stale, you suddenly present this indie game, and by extension Sans, in a new angle that draws me back in. Thank you.

SOME MORE PERSONAL QUESTIONS FOR THE MUN.

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

Do you think you give your character justice? YES / NO / I SINCERELY HOPE I DO? [ Some of my old favorites in the Sans RP game, I think, did a bit better job of consistently getting his character right. Still, I hope I give him justice too.]

Do you frequently write headcanons? YES / NO / SORT OF?

Do you sometimes write drabbles? YES / NO

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day? YES / NO [ Often! When I’m actively writing him, anyway.]

Are you confident in your portrayal? YES / NO / SORT OF? [ I am! Like I said, I think there have been others who did it better, but I wouldn’t say my portrayal is bad.]

Are you confident in your writing? YES / NO. [ Most of the time! Sometimes I get writer's anxiety, and it doesn’t help that Tumblr gets me at my rawest. I have no editor, my posts normally receive just a brief proof-reading, and I’m sometimes experimenting for the first time with a particular genre/scene/style. I wouldn’t point to all of my writing here as my best or strongest work, but I can write solid stuff.]

Are you a sensitive person? YES / NO. / SORTA. [ I wouldn’t say I’m sensitive in terms of people criticizing me, personally, but I am sensitive to other people. When something bad or unfair happens to someone, I usually feel upset for them. It can get very emotionally exhausting.]

DO YOU ACCEPT CRITICISM WELL ABOUT YOUR PORTRAYAL? — I would say so! In general, I’m used to critiques for both writing and art, as I’ve taken courses that incorporated both heavily.

DO YOU LIKE QUESTIONS, WHICH HELP YOU EXPLORE YOUR CHARACTER? — Absolutely!

IF SOMEONE DISAGREES TO A HEADCANON OF YOURS, DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY? — Not necessarily! I’m always interested in hearing different takes, but if someone said, “I don’t agree,” and didn’t follow up with an explanation on their own, I wouldn’t ask for one.

IF SOMEONE DISAGREES WITH YOUR PORTRAYAL, HOW WOULD YOU TAKE IT? — Kind of the same as above. I would be interested in hearing why if they offered up why, but otherwise, I’m not really going to ask because they don’t OWE ME an explanation. For example, I like a lot of books, and I don’t like a lot of books, and that’s not really a judge of their quality as much as it is my own personal taste. Number one rule as a writer, you have to learn and accept that your stuff won’t appeal to everyone.

IF SOMEONE REALLY HATES YOUR CHARACTER, HOW DO YOU TAKE IT? — I get it, haha. Characters that are hyped up like Sans are easy to get annoyed by. Even if he wasn’t hyped up, though, again, it makes sense that someone wouldn’t like him. Just like a book, a character can’t appeal to everyone.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH PEOPLE POINTING OUT YOUR GRAMMATICAL ERRORS? — Please do! It’s embarrassing when I catch them later, hahaha.

DO YOU THINK YOU ARE EASY GOING AS A MUN? — I think so! I try to be, anyway. Sometimes I worry I’m too casual with slipping into IM’s or commenting on posts, but so far I don’t think I’ve scared anyone off, so that’s good.

#TBT #|| memes ||#|| character analysis ||

16 notes · View notes

despairforme · 4 years

Text

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

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

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

Is your character popular in the fandom? YES / NO. ( Within the community my muse is? Fairly popular? But overall in the fandom a lot of people dislike him. )

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

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

Are they underrated? YES / NO.

Were they relevant for the main story? YES / NO. ( Apart from giving two surviving characters scars, he has no real impact on the story ).

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

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

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

How strictly do you follow canon? — I’d say pretty closely, in the sense that I don’t erase any parts of his canon, and I try to analyze and ‘ make sense ‘ of the different things he does in canon. There are some parts of his canon that have been re-written though. Like his relationship with Grimmjow, thanks to their chemistry. Oh, yeah, and Nnoitra is also alive in my canon. But other than that I try to keep him as canon as possible.

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals. — Oh gosh where to start... Nnoitra is a very deep character. He is typically disliked by those who only see his exterior, but there is so much more to him. He is brave beyond compare. He is not the typical ‘ pretty-boy-sassy-villain ‘. He is harsh, rude, violent, sadistic and carries a heavy sadness inside him. He has strong believes and won’t back down from anything. Ever. He is someone who doesn’t hold back his true self and while he can be very challenging to interact with - isn’t that part of what’s fun with interactions? That they’re not all supposed to be easy. And, of course, one of my favorite parts about my Nnoitra is the big modern!au story that I have created for him, where he has a completely different life, while still maintaining what I hope is a legit translation of his canon personality into a human!au. Another thing that makes my Nnoitra interesting - in my opinion - is that I’m in it with him for the long run. I’m here to build long-lasting relationships of all types. I’m here to write stories for him with others.

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?). Nnoitra is very difficult to get along with for most muses. He’s rude and sexist and also a bigot. These things really put people off, but I’m not going to water down my muse for anyone or anything. In canon verse he is very set on killing more or less anyone who approaches him, which can mean that a lot of interactions turn into fight-threads which some people aren’t interested in writing. He is also rather anti-social so.. Yeah, not the easiest to interact with for sure.

What inspired you to rp your muse? — I originally found my inspiration for him when I started drawing him way back in the days. I randomly drew him and got hooked on how inspiring he was to draw. I never experienced an art-block ever again. After over a year, after I had gotten into rping ( I was rping different characters ), I eventually wanted to try my hand at writing Nnoitra, and it’s been the best decision ever. Now I’m stuck with him forever ahahaha.

What keeps your inspiration going? — Nnoitra IS my inspiration. He is my muse. Definition of ‘ muse ‘: a person or personified force who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist. I can’t imagine not writing him. I never have a problem with inspiration when it comes to writing him, since writing him gives me inspiration.

Some more personal questions for the mun.

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

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

Do you frequently write headcanons? YES / NO. ( The inner monologue that I always write is filled with headcanons, but I hardly ever post ‘ headcanon posts ‘, because I don’t like writing meta - and I don’t like speaking for Nnoitra. )

Do you sometimes write drabbles? YES / NO.

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

Are you confident in your portrayal? YES / NO.

Are you confident in your writing? YES / NO.

Are you a sensitive person? YES / NO.

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal? — Yes and no. If I ASK for criticism, then I’m happy to receive any kind of criticism. However, if I’m not prepared for it, and get random criticism out of the blue, then eh, I’m not really into that.

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character? — Oh yes! I love headcanon questions! I always answer them IC, unless the question is specifically aimed at me, like: “toby what do you think about...”. I feel really flattered when people show interest in Nnoitra!

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why? — Not really. I don’t like discussing meta / headcanons about Nnoitra. If people disagree with my headcanons, they are free to make their own Nnoitra blog and do their thing.

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it? — People have different opinions and that’s fine. I would prefer that if people who disagrees with my portrayal just unfollow me. I take my portrayal of Nnoitra very seriously and put a lot of effort into it. However, if I ASK for criticism, then I am completely open for it and would like to hear people’s disagreements on my portrayal. In general though, I don’t like discussing it. I don’t like discussing meta or anything like that, because I’m not open to changing my portrayal of him.

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it? — If a mod hates Nnoitra, I don’t mind that at all. I don’t mind if they post hate-content about him either, as long as they tag it, so that I don’t have to see it. I don’t like seeing Nnoitra bashed in public. For example, I block blogs that post hate on him to the #nnoitra gilga tags on here. I just think it’s unnecessary and I don’t want to see it. My followers and mutuals are free to hate Nnoitra, and it can often be interesting to have your muse interact with someone who hates them / they hate, so I totally understand. Nnoitra is not a very likeable character after all, and people are free to hate him.

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors? — Absolutely! I am not a native speaker, so I am sure I make a lot more grammatical errors than I’m aware of. If people want to point them out to me, I see that as a favor to me.

Do you think you are easy going as a mun? — Yes, I think so. I’m chill even if I am very slow at answering messages. I always try to be kind and understanding and I hope people don’t feel intimidated by me even if I play a very mean character.

That’s about it, congrats for filling out!

Tagged by: @elxfi , @meishutori and @xyuuken ( thank you guys for tagging me, and thank you Snu for making this awesome meme! )

Tagging: @spottedsoftpaws , @trafalgar-bleedingheart-law , @xdiez , @tenyxshx ( tagging some people in the op fandom to get the meme going over there as well! )

#ᵃ ᵗᵒᵇʸ ᵖᵒˢᵗ ;; ooc.#[ this was a lot ahaha ]#[ very fun to fill out tho so thank you guys for tagging me! ]#longpost //#ᵍʳᵃᶠᶠᶤᵗᶤ ;; dash games.

14 notes · View notes

zenonaa · 4 years

Photo

💗 AO3 💗

Fandom: Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Dangan Ronpa: Another Episode, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fukawa Touko/Togami Byakuya Characters: Fukawa Touko, Togami Byakuya Additional Tags: transgender character, other characters too but they appear kind of briefly, Valentine's Day, some misgendering but never by the narrative, Happy Ending Summary:

'For Valentine’s day, Touko’s teachers would often task everyone with making a woven basket. It involves two different coloured pieces of paper, and after some cutting, folding and weaving, all that’s left to do is glue on a handle, made from paper or a ribbon, and voila. You have a heart-shaped basket, its main body a checkered pattern in a diamond shape and different coloured semi circles sticking out either side.'

A collection of Fukawa's Valentine's Day experiences.

Comments: Happy Valentine’s Day!

***

For Valentine’s day, Touko’s teachers would often task everyone with making a woven basket. It involves two different coloured pieces of paper, and after some cutting, folding and weaving, all that’s left to do is glue on a handle, made from paper or a ribbon, and voila. You have a heart-shaped basket, its main body a checkered pattern in a diamond shape and different coloured semi circles sticking out either side.

As for what goes in the baskets... well, chocolates. Initially, most children are not bothered with customs, so everyone gets everyone chocolate rather than only girls giving them out.

***

At kindergarten, Ishizaka-sensei brings in chocolate multipacks, and everyone in the class ambles about, dropping a wrapped piece into everyone else’s baskets. Touko’s basket is pink and purple, no blue, thank you, and no one thinks twice about that. When Ishizaka-sensei is distracted, trying to fix someone’s basket, Touko swipes a couple more chocolates from the table. Then she walks over to a table where her friend, Hiroto, is already eating some of his chocolate.

“H-Here, Hiroto-kun,” says Touko, holding out her hand. “For... For being my best friend.”

Without a ‘thanks’, he stuffs them into his mouth.

She smiles.

***

The burden of obtaining chocolates falls on students in elementary school. Fortunately for Touko, tomo choco tends to be inexpensive, and in class, Watamoto-sensei has them weave heart baskets. Yet again, Touko’s basket is pink and purple, pinned to the edge of her desk.

Occasionally, a classmate slips cheap chocolate into it. She mouths ‘thank you’s, but nobody lingers, already moving to the next desk, where they gift smiles with their chocolates.

A girl draws up.

“Pink?” the girl scoffs, staring at Touko’s basket. “That’s for girls.”

Then she laughs, drops a chocolate in, and prances off. Touko curls up.

***

“This is kinda fancy for tomo choco,” remarks Hiroto, peering into the woven heart. His eyes flit from the basket to Touko, who stands before him with her hands clasped together.

Only they remain in the shoe locker room, his kendo uniform in his duffel bag.

“It’s not tomo,” Touko starts. He interrupts.

“Aren’t girls supposed to give chocolates? Not boys?”

She winces. Straightens. Trembles. “I am a - ”

“Oi, Hiroto-kun!” calls a club member from the doorway.

Hiroto turns toward them. “Coming!”

He tips the chocolates into his bag and on his way out, tosses the basket into the trash.

***

Touko sits on her bed, her legs crossed. The mattress dips in the middle because the boards broke a few years back and because her heart is very heavy. She sniffles and fiddles with a sheet of newspaper.

His face stares up at her. Hiroto’s. Under a headline of ‘BLOODSTAIN FEVER SHIKOKU VICTIM NAMED’. Touko tears his picture out with her fingers even though she knows where she can find scissors. The newspaper quotes the eulogy she wrote for his funeral. She starts mouthing it off by heart, then breaks down sobbing.

Her bedroom listens but doesn’t provide any comfort.

***

Most students eat in their homeroom, but in Touko’s junior high school, there’s a nook under a stairwell on the east side of the main building that she retreats to. If the library allowed it, she would eat there, but it doesn’t, so she finds refuge here, legs tucked up toward her chest. Beside her sits her tray, indentations for mixed veg, rice and meat.

She opens her paper heart and reaches in. Something brushes against her and she jerks her hand out.

A stinkbug. Miraculously, it’s still alive. Touko watches it fidget on her arm and names it ‘Kameko’.

***

“Hey... Fukawa-san, right?”

She pauses in the hallway and looks around. It’s a boy, her age - she recognises him from a neighbouring class.

“Y-Yes?” she stammers, shoulders hunched.

“I was wondering...” He puts his hands in his pockets and gives a smile, drooping on one side. “... if you’ll see a movie with me next Tuesday?”

Her eyes widen. Tuesday is Valentine’s day. She places a hand over her heart.

“I... w-would love to!” she croaks.

“Cool,” he says, then shrugs. “When you work out the details, let me know, okay?”

Touko nods. He strides off, and she cradles her cheeks.

***

For three days and three nights, Touko trudges through magazines. Sifts through internet forum pages. Advice blogs. Remembers all the books she has read. Touko does all this because a boy asked her out on a date. In the end, she decides on a three movie feature and even watches them beforehand so she’s prepared for the discussion afterwards.

And so, thirteen years old, she goes on her first date, giving him a paper heart with chocolates inside.

Except, during the first movie, he sneaks out.

When she eventually leaves, she sees the heart scrunched up in a trash can.

***

When one of Touko’s mothers finally wrangles out the reason why Touko’s crying in her bed under her duvet that night, she tuts dramatically.

“What did you expect?” she asks, sneering. Touko’s blotchy face quivers. “It’s your fault for falling for such an obvious joke. Honestly, what sort of self-respecting girl would date a boy like you?”

Okay, so Touko changed a few details.

When her mother leaves, Touko opens her satchel and pulls out the crumpled heart basket. She trembles, then tears it into pieces, and she can’t hear its screams over the grating wail screeching in her head.

***

Come high school, Touko applies to an all-girls one across the country, and after getting a diagnosis and agreeing to send payments to her parents on a monthly basis, she enrolls. The Valentine Days spent there are unremarkable, which for Touko, are the best so far. She receives tomo choco and overhears her classmates babble about their plans.

“... we’re seeing a movie,” boasts a girl. Her friends swoon.

As for Touko, she spends that evening stumbling through alleyways, the local grocer’s lifeless face burned into her mind, stinging almost as much as the new tally mark carved into her thigh.

***

While attending Riverbank Girl's High School, Touko receives an offer to join Hope’s Peak Academy for her writing ability, and she enrolls there with the title of ‘Literary Girl’. Normally, she dreads Valentine’s Day, but as it approaches, she anticipates it with an excited quiver in her chest because of the student who sits in front of her in class.

Byakuya Togami.

Everyday, she stares at the back of his head. At first, they clashed. After all, what would he know about hard work? The real world? As a well-off heir, it seemed to her like he had everything he wanted handed to him. He didn’t earn her place, like she did. Didn’t fight to survive, like she did.

This is what she used to think.

During a skiing trip, their teacher paired them up, and she let slip her thoughts. Byakuya glared and weaved a tale of a young heir not expected to be anything. Who outperformed, outsmarted his older siblings in a competition, who were cast into obscurity. Exiled to be nobodies. And she stared at him, shivering, not just because the cold mountain air nipped at her.

“I had to be intelligent. I had to be strong. I had to be perfect. I couldn’t depend on anyone. I couldn’t allow myself to feel fear. I would become prey if I showed any weakness. I was, and am, in absolute control of my emotions.”

His words wrapped around her like a scarf and she started falling in love.

***

“I... I made you this!” Touko says, bent over and holding out a paper heart basket.

The world continues to bumble around the pocket she carved into the courtyard that only Touko and Byakuya are privy to. Outside their bubble, shadowy figures blur as they swim past and sound like they’re talking underwater.

Byakuya glowers at the basket. Even when pulling a disgusted face like that, it’s like the heavens sculpted him from their finest marble.

“Homemade? You needn’t have bothered,” he says, flapping his hand. “I don’t eat cheap stuff... I’ll direct it to my disposal crew.”

She blinks. Goes, “Eh?”

“It’s nothing personal,” he says dismissively, and her grip is so slack she barely feels him pull the heart from between her fingers. “I wouldn’t accept it from anyone. I will have children with women all over the world, handpicked from the elite, and I will marry the mother of the most worthy heir.”

He dismisses himself and strides off with the heart. Touko breathes in shudderingly. The world comes crashing back in, like gales during a storm. Her head dips forward and her shoulders shake, but no one passing by casts more than a cursory glance.

Then she cracks up laughing and throws her head back.

“S-Such honesty...!” she cooes, hugging herself, and a few people stop and stare. “It burns... It burns!”

A wide smile plasters across her face, consuming her, and even though the whole world exists around her, she fixates on Byakuya’s receding silhouette.

***

Last Touko saw the sky, it was as red as a cartoon heart and the blood that dyes the outside world. Now, it exists behind impenetrable steel plates, and her only skies are the black ceiling of her room and the blue paint in the indoor garden.

Touko spots Byakuya in the library. He sits perfectly still. She imagines cobwebs clinging to him like puppet strings.

“Byakuya-sama...” Her small voice carries. Byakuya doesn’t stir. That doesn’t deter her. She approaches. “I... r-remembered you didn’t want homemade chocolates, so before...”

Before this happened. The world ending. Your family being massacred.

“... I bought you these,” she says, holding out a paper heart basket.

She bought the chocolates months ago. When she returned to the school with them, she bumped into some of her female classmates, and after a bombardment of questions, she yielded. They had blinked and thought they were reminding her when they said it wouldn’t be Valentine’s Day for ages.

But, see, these were famous chocolates. Handmade by Ruruka Ando herself, former Super High School Level Confectioner. Touko’s search for Ruruka started a day after Valentine’s Day, and only with Koichi Kizakura’s help did Touko find her, as Ruruka seemed to have been blacklisted after her expulsion.

He accepted payment in the form of some of those chocolates, which Touko saw Jin eating earlier this very day.

Touko breathes. Byakuya doesn’t look up as she sets down the basket onto his desk, nor as she backs out of the room.

***

“BYAKUYA-SAMA!”

Touko’s scream rattles the corridor walls. The windows. Everyone’s teeth. Yasuhiro and Makoto jump. Byakuya simply winces. He keeps his head forward while the other two turn around. They all stop walking, however.

As Touko runs over, her shoes squeak against the polished floor with every step, and she skids to a halt near them in a creamy corridor in Future Foundation’s main headquarters.

Yasuhiro waves. Her smile wanes.

“Here,” she says, like a switch flicked off in her to make her voice dull, and she gives Makoto and Yasuhiro a pouch of cheap chocolate each. She lights up again when she holds out a heart basket for Byakuya.

His arms remain folded over his chest.

“You’re as persistent as threadworms,” he grumbles.

Yasuhiro raises a hand to his mouth, his eyebrows shooting up. “You have threadworms?”

“No, I don’t,” says Byakuya coldly.

“I know a cure for it,” Yasuhiro offers, and he receives a scowl from Byakuya.

“I don’t have threadworms!” Byakuya snaps. He extends a hand, but it’s to push away the basket. “And I don’t want this junk.”

Touko looks down at her feet. Her arms sag to her sides.

“Togami-kun, you’re way too harsh,” says Makoto, frowning.

“I’ll have it!” volunteers Yasuhiro, but when he reaches for it, Touko hisses and he jolts back, yelping.

“Tch, I’ll dispose of it myself,” says Byakuya. He snatches the basket and marches off.

Touko lifts her head and squeals happily, clutching her cheeks.

Makoto and Yasuhiro sigh simultaneously.

***

“... we managed to take back control of the radio tower,” says Touko, at a desk. “No casualties.”

The hotel room buzzes like there’s a fly constantly whizzing about, but really it’s the artificial lighting. It gags into silence only when the switch by the door is flicked off, but the absence of its sound combined with the lack of light always makes Touko’s skin crawl, like she knows a pervert is spying on her, so she keeps the lights on.

Other than herself, only Komaru ever goes into the hotel room, but Touko can’t shake off that feeling. In front of her, on the computer monitor, Byakuya gives a minute nod, regarding her with his chin propped up in his hand.

“Excellent work,” he says. Her face warms. The mask on his doesn’t crack.

“You can depend on me!” she promises. She salutes.

Byakuya continues staring at her.

“I can, can’t I?” he muses in a murmur, then he speaks normally. “Are there any supplies you want us to drop in?”

“A-Actually...” She wrings her hands. “There’s something I have to give to you.”

“Oh?” he lets slip curiously. His brow furrows.

“It’s Valentine’s Day soon,” she tells him, nodding. He shifts in his seat. “I wanted to give you something - ”

Byakuya shushes her by showing her his open palm. She falters.

“This isn’t the time for that,” he says.

That night, in bed, Komaru snoring beside her, Touko replays his words.

‘This isn’t the time’ implies there is one.

***

But, there almost isn’t.

Touko finds out he almost died when he mentions it casually in conversation.

“W-What?” she asks, eyes bulging. She shakes and so badly wants to grab him, like he might disappear at any moment, but he exists in digital form in the hotel room. Instead, she balls her hands into fists so tight her nails will leave glowing crescents.

Byakuya backtracks a little, having been about to move the conversation elsewhere.

“The building collapsed,” he says with a shrug. “Someone accidentally triggered a trap. No one died, thankfully.”

He breathes in, meets her gaze, and flinches.

Her voice fractures on his name. “B-Byakuya-sama...”

Just like that, he could have died. With no chance for her to do anything about it. No chance to say everything she ever wanted to say to him. His lips purse.

“For goodness sake, there’s no need to cry,” he says, but not unkindly. However, his tone doesn’t exactly ooze with comfort. “I’m unkillable.”

Tension continues to seize Touko’s body. He adjusts his glasses. Tilts back his head a little. Glares at her now.

“Also, you know, Naegi’s sister told me how your alter nearly had you go into space chasing that Towa brat,” he reprimands. “I’m the one who should be telling you off. You would have died.”

“But I came back,” Touko retorts. Her vision blurs despite her glasses. “K-Komaru told me... she said she reminded my alter of you, and she gave up and came back down.”

“Gave up?” Byakuya repeats. He shakes his head. “No. I think... that love of yours... gave you and your alter the strength to return. For so long, I thought feelings like that were a weakness... but... it’s a terrifyingly strong emotion, isn’t it?”

Silence, for a beat. Then he drags his voice back out.

“I knew I could trust you for that mission,” he says. “If I thought you would fail, I wouldn’t have risked sending you. Fukawa, I can trust you... for lots of things, can’t I?”

“Eh?” is all she can manage. Shock seals her tear glands.

His eyes flicker. A strange, new expression colours his face. He coughs into his knuckles.

“Well, it seems everything is in order,” he says quickly. “I have a meeting soon so... I’ll talk to you again then, alright? Same time as usual. Bye!”

He hangs up before she can get another word in.

***

Touko, Kyouko, Aoi and Komaru spend almost an entire day in the new Hope’s Peak’s kitchen. Silicon molds allow for mass production of chocolate treats, though it’s debatable whether more chocolate fills the pockets of the molds than that which covers the kitchen worktop surfaces and sits in certain people’s stomachs.

“Let me have just one spoonful!” begs Komaru, draping herself over Touko from behind.

Despite Komaru’s pleas, Touko doesn’t relent. She hunches over her bowl, hugging it to her chest, but no matter how much Touko wills sets of springs to emerge from her spine and propel Komaru off her, none manifest. Instead, Komaru swipes at the bowl again, missing.

“Come on! What if it tastes bad?” says Komaru. “Do you want to take that risk?”

Admittedly, that makes Touko waver. Komaru attempts another grab at it.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Kyouko remarks nearby, standing beside Aoi, and Komaru pouts.

After Touko writhes some more, Komaru backs off her. Touko huffs and twists her body away from them.

“‘F-Fine?’ It’s better than fine!” scoffs Touko, sticking up her nose. “I can’t give Byakuya-sama subpar chocolate. He deserves only the very best!”

She grits her teeth until they all nod and chorus their agreement.

By evening, their molds are stowed away to cool and set, and everyone present helps clean up. Touko buffs a counter with a cloth, focused on the same spot, and she doesn’t realise that Aoi has wandered over until Aoi suddenly speaks up.

“Are you worried about how Togami’s going to respond?” asks Aoi, and cringes almost immediately. “I mean... he’s not one to mince his words.”

Touko slows her buffing. Stares down at her clouded reflection.

One time, Byakuya told Touko that no matter the distance between them, his feelings for her would not change. Byakuya would not feel a thing. But like the streaks on the surface of the counter, she wonders about the cracks in his. Things he has said that like the marks on the counter, no longer were. Such as, he also said he didn’t value friendship. That emotional bonds were weaknesses. That he would stay with them only until they eliminated despair. Then he would be off, rebuilding the conglomerate.

Yet here they were. Still here. Still together. Like a flower, he bloomed, and she did too.

“I’m not worried,” Touko tells Aoi at the same time as her reflection.

***

“I... I made you this!” Touko says, bent over and holding out a paper heart basket.

The air prickles like an itch on the back of one’s throat begging to be eased with a cough, worsening the longer Byakuya’s living room holds its breath. Byakuya stares down at the basket, woven together with two colours, deep blue and purple. He takes it and rubs it thoughtfully between his fingers.

“I know you said you prefer store bought,” she says, straightening, “b-but...”

Byakuya’s eyes widen and her breath catches in her throat. His lips creak ajar but he doesn’t say anything.

“... I w-wanted to make something for you!” she blurts. Her hands squeeze together. She scrunches her face, but still looks at him. “I wanted to make you honmei choco! B-Because... I... love you!”

This isn’t news to anyone. Byakuya slips a hand into the basket and pulls out one of the chocolates. Specifically, it’s a tofu chocolate truffle in the shape of a heart. Each of the chocolates have been rolled in various powders, so they are raspberry pink, coconut white, cacao brown, or, like the one that nestles between his thumb and forefinger, matcha green. He examines it for a few seconds before popping it into his mouth. She puts a hand over her heart.

The rest of her vision softens, leaving only his face in high definition as he chews. Byakuya swallows.

“It’s delicious,” he declares, and she squeals, grinning. “Actually, it’s good you’re here. I wanted to show you something.”

Touko nods, but she’s too excited to take in what he’s saying yet. He walks to his desk. Opens a drawer. Takes out something flat. Something yellow and blue, like his hair, like his eyes.

She does a double take. Returns to reality. Feels a tremor ripple in her chest. “T-That’s...!”

He shifts the object. It becomes two. Three. No, there were always three, two were just beneath what she saw first. They are woven hearts. Two are the same colours, while one is purple and blue like the one she just gave him. That makes four.

“Those...” Touko steps back. “I t-thought you got rid of those years ago...?”

Yes. Those were all the baskets that she had ever given him.

“One would assume,” he admits. “I found two of these in my locker when we were renovating the school... without the chocolates inside, obviously. I remember I donated the first lot to a local shelter, but since then... I confess I have eaten them.”

For all the times she played this sort of scenario in her imagination, with rosy backgrounds and glittery highlights, when it happens now, her mind screeches to a halt.

“At the time, I didn’t understand why I kept them,” he says. “They’re just pieces of coloured paper woven together. I didn’t even like them. I hated them. The first time, I took the chocolates and left the basket in my locker, intending to dispose of it later, but by the time I came across it again, I decided not to throw it away.”

She presses her fist against her lips. “W-Why?”

Because he loves her. That’s what the voice in her head says. But she has to hear it from him. Byakuya studies the hearts for a little longer, then meets her gaze.

“There were times when my mind would stray to you, so in the end, I kept them until I had an answer as to why,” he replies. “It still happens. In fact, in more recent times, it has been happening more regularly. It can be incredibly annoying.”

He wrinkles his nose. His cheeks flush a delicate pink, but she barely registers it.

“W-What is your answer?” she asks, mind spinning.

Byakuya cocks his head.

“I thought it was customary for the man to respond to a woman’s Valentine on White Day,” he says.

She twitches.

“I... d-don’t mind...” she says, but it means a lot.

He heaves a sigh.

“Well, I suppose I’m already breaking a lot of old Togami traditions, so let’s compromise,” he says. “I will partially answer now.”

Byakuya puts the baskets down, walks over, grabs her shoulders and stoops. His lips press against her forehead. She sets aflame.

“But... the conglomerate...?” she mumbles, beginning to wonder if she’ll wake up, and hooks her fingers against his shirt.

Touko doesn’t wake up.

“Of course, I will still rebuild it,” he says, pulling her closer. “With you, it will be better than it has ever been.”

#togafuka #touko fukawa #byakuya togami #fanfiction #danganronpa #drae #dr3 #one shot

30 notes · View notes

toxicbolts · 5 years

Text

It has been more than four months since I left this blog.

I have had more than enough time to think. I mostly left this blog because of two main reasons:

1. Toxic environment that was making me unhappy, and yes, that includes mob mentality that is so so so prevalent in online activism. I was fed up, I am still fed up, and it drained my critical thinking skills to a point that I only did things or said things because others said it was the right thing to do. I consider myself clever enough to look for my own answers, without feeling that I have to feel continuously guilty about it or I’m idk angering the greater good. That having doubts is normal and human, that arguing and wanting explanations is the best way to overcome your own ideas and to become a better person.

I was raised to obey, and that was what I was doing here. Me engaging w people online like, arguing w them in kind of violent ways was another symptom. I almost got in legal trouble because of it

2. The “what happens next” feeling. Leaving or remaking most of my social media accounts meant losing contact with lots of people that I had considered close mutuals. And it also meant forcing myself to move on. I have had two jobs since then. Done an official language exam, and another statal one. I’m studying another degree right now.

When I left, I left my discord username and number here. I was even open for people to get my phone number if they wanted to. I really did want to leave an open door for anyone who wanted to contact me. I had to block a couple of people who did have an absolutely unhealthy way of treating me, and I didn’t have the patience to deal with it in a... well, patient way.

The thing is, I had more than 700 followers back then. Not too many, but more than enough. Most of those were mutuals. I felt liked. My stuff was reblogged often. I got asks almost every single day. I truly, truly felt liked, like I was a part of something.

The moment I had doubts, even if I was... open to keeping in touch, most of them disappeared. I still write, my ao3 has not been deleted, and my fanfics are in the tags I used to write for. The support is mostly... gone. And again, almost nobody contacted me after it all happened. I felt devastated, and I realised that what I thought that was something beautiful, meant nothing.

I mean, after reading this, I’m sure that most of you have forgotten about me. Or outright hate me now. That my follower count will drop again, that I’ll get hateful messages, if I do not get what I got back in the day, which was... well. Almost absolute silence.

The truth is, most cyber activists dislike... dissidents. I realised that the more vocal I was about my doubts, the less support I got about basically everything. The truth is that I was seen as a traitor back in the day.

But you know what, this is about my happiness. And I’m not going to let myself drown because of the need of doing the “right” thing, or the need to be liked and accepted. I have accepted I am a grey person, like every fucking body. And that it’s my turn to learn on my own, not to just repeat EXACTLY what a self righteous dumbass has said online because if I don’t, I’m a bigot according to whatever rules. And no, I’m not talking about political correctness, nor I have suddenly become an asshole. You all know exactly what I’m talking about, but you can pretend otherwise. Your problem, not mine, not anymore.

I’m not letting anyone ruin my life any longer. Yesterday I laughed sincerely in front of my abuser’s face, a famous Spaniard fanartist (who is also a bi activist and whose activism mostly consists in such complex statements such as “transphobia is bad” and “aw bigotry makes me sad”), who got no backlash even when many people know what she did to me. The one who is successful in fandom spaces because of her shitty drawings that have no feelings at all. The one who showed me better than any words how rotten both activism and fandoms are. A gal who is in her 20s, speaking like a goddamn teenager and rejecting the real world because she is nothing without online communities. Unhealthy, cold, and feeling at home in an empty world. I realise I deserve more than what she is, and what those spaces have to offer.

I deserve better. That’s why I left, and that’s why I now have a new tumblr with like 20 followers in which I post just a little about fandoms, in which I don’t give my personal info to every dumbass that thinks they have the right to know everything about me. I write what I want to write, being respectful but also not feeling guilty.

Do whatever you want with this post. Get angry at me, block me because of it. Take my experience and start creating your own. Whatever makes you happy.

What I do know is that I’m out of this hellhole and I’m not coming back. My discord is still there, even after four months of silence. I doubt that anyone who hasn’t talked to me in four months wants to do it now, even less after reading my post.

If it makes you happy, keep pretending to like people and patting them in the back ONLY if they say what you want them to say. Keep not caring about them as people, keep pretending you care about justice when you only care about looking good, about hurting people because you feel you’re rightful, because the world is evil and you have suffered so so so much. Keep being exactly like your tormentors, who also believed they had the right to hurt you. Being a dick to people who care about you is not going to undo what happened to you.

You have suffered a lot? Welcome to the fucking club. You still don’t get to be the one pulling emotional triggers now.

#i dont even remember my personal tag #but you know what #here it is #idk if im gonna queue it #again this blog is gonna be an archive #as a reminder too #that i shot the wolf in the fucking face #and that im ready to do it again #and again and again

143 notes · View notes

unattainabledreams · 4 years

Text

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥

Mun note: I’m gonna put this below the cut cause it’s a biiiig tag. But if you do read it, hmu honestly cause I’ve love to chatting.

And if you do it? Let me know! I love learning about people’s connection to their muses, new or old.

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

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

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

Is your character considered strong in the fandom? YES / NO / IDK (Mixed impressions depending on who you ask and how you ask it I reckon.)

Are they underrated? YES / NO.

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

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

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

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

How strictly do you follow canon?

OG Canon, By default, up until Zack’s canonical death, I follow canon very muchly. (That doesn’t mean I’m not open to earlier plotted divergence though!) If the overall plot ends with death, then I’m alright with that, I love the handing on of the torch from Angeal to Zack to Cloud. My goal is to never minimize that. But for interactions beyond the end of Crisis Core, I have two particular verses that I absolutely adore based on already established lore and my own head-canons for how Zack would continue.

OG Canon Remake Canon, while it’s nice for options and I don’t mind it, on a technical front I think it weakens the ongoing plot for other characters who then wouldn’t have been forced to grow so much themselves. I enjoyed the remake, but regarding Zack it’s not my cup of tea. I’ll write remake by request, but it’s not my default.

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutual.

His genuine care for those around him with unrelenting selflessness is both heartwarming -and heart-wrenching.

Zack’s journey from naivety about the world and events around him to recognizing the harm of the organization he’s been directly a part of. He grows in both substance and maturity as he’s increasingly forced to reckon with reality.

Chasing after an idea which is realized but not how he once imagined it.

While Zack is strong, he’s most certainly not the strongest. I enjoy playing with weakness.

Almost relentless optimism. How he pushes onward to continue trying to pick up the pieces. Additionally as such a genuine character and I hope that love comes through in my portrayal.

Look. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But on a personal my muse front, despite my love for him I love putting him in situations where I get to break him down to build back up again because that’s his strength as a character.

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).

His early naivety and blind loyalty to ShinRa. (IMO tho, you gotta have a ‘from’ in order to have a ‘to’)

Puppy goofy himbo dummy. (At least, that’s how some people see him.)

Almost relentless optimism.

Some feel he draws away from Cloud’s story.

Just-

Look again.

What inspired you to rp your muse?

Have you ever had a time when you’re watching or playing something and there’s just a character you really identify with like, not just ‘oh, me’ - but beyond that in an almost scary way? For where I was in life and what I was going through, Zack was exactly that for me, and I fell in love with how kept pushing through.

So that was four years ago, and I RP’d him privately within friend groups. Said friends of course moved on from the fandom and I just quietly always wanted to come back to him, there were so many things I’d come up with that I hadn’t gotten to using yet in writing.

So late last year when a friend decided to get into FF7 I made my blog(s) to join them. :3 I did go on hiatus when 7R came out to avoid spoilers as I didn’t have access to a console through the lockdown in my country to play, but I’ve finally returned. (And now you have like a million blogs shgjfjkasghfd.)

What keeps your inspiration going?

On a personal note, Zack’s been an intrinsic part of my life for the past four years. Even when friend groups moved on from the fandom in waves coming and going, he’s never really gone from my life because I live in a fairly small country and he’s one of two cosplays I’m known for here in con/geek circles. (I’ve even Cosplayed him for an official event! <3)

On a writing front, honestly, as I said before, I love the way he keeps on keeping on no matter what’s thrown at him. I don’t want his journey to end. I want him to fall again and again but also to conquer those shortcomings and rise stronger.

That doesn’t have to make him the strongest in body, but in mind that makes him a personal hero for me at least so he’s forever an inspiration. Despite the labels applied to his dream, (See my URL) the pursuit as such defines him admirably.

Some more personal questions for the mun.

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

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

Do you frequently write headcanons? YES / NO. (I have a terrible habit of keeping most of em in my head, but they do exist. I’m trying to get better at posting them casually. I know they're good at helping prospective RP partners work out openings for interactions. ;; )

Do you sometimes write drabbles? YES / NO. (Honestly this is usually what happens when I do try to do a HC post, It becomes a drabble incorporating it instead. Whoops?)

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

Are you confident in your portrayal? YES / NO.

Are you confident in your writing? YES / NO.

Are you a sensitive person? YES / NO.

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?

Criticism and Critique. Boy oh boy. That’s gonna be a pass, please.

Unsolicited criticism sucks. That’s not what I’m here for, nor many of us I expect. Miss me with that anxiety spike. I’ve done study in writing for films. I know a lot of technical stuff. But I also enjoy switching that off and allowing things to happen. I’m also a performer, and the the improvisational and spontaneous reactionary side is just as important as the plotted. I’m here for fun to explore what I want with other like minded people. Not for criticism.

‘Hey have you thought about ___’ - that’s okay. If we grow together, cool, that’s great! In fact, it kinda leads into the next question.

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character?

Yeeee! Please. Just be aware I’m sometimes slow with my inbox though I am getting better at this!

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why?

Unless it’s something that clashes between our two muses like a death or lack-thereof, or important shared-background things that needs discussing, I don’t think there’s much reason for it to be brought up. My headcanons exist for the general purpose of ‘without outside influence, this is my default.’ - that’s it. Sometimes they just aren’t relevant.

If it’s simply ‘I don’t like this this idea’ see the next answer.

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?

If someone does, please don’t tell me. You can go write him yourself or find another closer to how you perceive him. My portrayal is my own, and I don’t need to conform to your idea of what Zack would do or say. Neither of us need to waste energy on this.

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it?

If it’s my muse, fine. But don’t get aggressive at me about it. I’m also a Genesis mun, so I get the rivalry. But cool your jets.

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?

Sure. In fact please. Honestly, @ RP partners, I don’t mind if you quietly fix em yourself. Dyslexia’s an uphill battle. I’ll often edit posts after the fact if I notice my own mistakes, so sure. But @ Readers, please don’t get at my RP partners grammar. This is consent for my writing, not theirs. Though also don’t be a pick-apart grammar police just to get to me. Have some sense about it. ;)

Do you think you are easy going as a mun?

I can be very talkative. Honestly if that surprises you despite my choice of muses with Zack and Gen then gaia help you. So uh, heads up on that. If I haven’t talked to you yet, the key word is ‘yet’ - I’m just working out where to start or for something to react to.

That’s about it, congrats for filling out!

Tagged by: @lifedxbt tagged me for returning from hiatus so I should probably do this. :p Tagging: Uhhhhh, it big. Do if want? Yay. (It took me two hours)

#You got it (Tagged)#//I've had this stored in my drafts for weeks whoops #//That said I've mostly been on Genesis but wanting to make more of a push on here too <3 #//Say hiiiii #//This is a BIG tag tho so I don't want anyone to feel pressured #//But please take it if you've been itching to give some insight between your connection to your muse #ooc #//Oh yeah I need to make an OOC tag whoops

1 note · View note

obcreru · 4 years

Text

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme

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

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

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

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

Are they underrated? YES / NO / IDK

Were they relevant for the main story? YES / NO (not really, she helps the side characters more)

Were they relevant for the main character? YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG. (she’s helps from the shadows, but I don’t think she’ll want a spotlight unless it’s something she wants as well)

Are they widely known in their world? YES / NO (You either know her or you don’t.)

How’s their reputation? GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL (she’s a pirate, so...)

How strictly do you follow canon?

I do follow it sort of, but I will diverge canon for the sake of fun and character development. She is an OC, but I do use the events in One Piece to tell when she and her crew-mates are at a particular place in their own voyage.

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals.

She is a cute-type female OC, but will find a way to wreck your shit. She likes candy, sweets, collecting plushies and cats. She would like to talk about them with other people. She likes exotic pets and has kept a few (eel, snake and crab). They are really fun to fool around with.

Her epithet, Rusalka, comes from the way she usually kills devil fruit eaters. Humans are not usually fit to fight underwater, but Miyuki likes the thrill of it. She may or may not have a mermaid ancestor. Who knows?

She is, in fact, an amnesiac, however where others may get their memories back, Miyuki may never get those back. If she does, it will be through very painful revelations and decisions she can never take back. She may just have to go on forming her own identity away from the girl named Miyu...

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).

She can be flat, and I guess not much going for her? Miyuki is very clingy and her motivations are a few, not entirely complicated, or not explicitly shown. Much of what is known about her is in the meta, not so much told in her threads. There are quite a number of things I want to do to try to change that, but I do not think I have the confidence still to say, ‘I want this to happen.’ Nor do I have the confidence to pull it off.

She is not a nice person, she started out very resentful in the beginning. She matured, but she will always be haunted by her past as a child soldier. Unlike some of the main cast, she does not have any qualms with killing. She acts cute, but she is not entirely cute. She is young and thus very immature. Her emotional development is slightly stunted. There will be times and situations when she does not show empathy the way one should.

Do not forget there is a dark side to her, one that she is afraid of showing. She fears being abandoned or left behind. She is not above manipulating to get what she wants.

As for combat, dual-wielding is pretty overrated and thus boring. There are already quite a number of mercenaries in the fandom.

A few may think she is a rip-off, I guess?

What inspired you to rp your muse?

Haha, water and fire. Yeah. Originally, she was a Mizu Mizu no Mi user. However, as I thought about it over the years, I changed it. I was in my late teens when I first created her.

I tried roleplaying her in 2016-17? Took a break, lost touch of old friends before coming back again. I felt more inspired to be here because there were not as many people in the One Piece fandom rpc as there was before. My friends Val and Cain were watching One Piece together, and Val was considering going back to Michi. So, I followed them back here.

What keeps your inspiration going?

Music, drawing, other media, talking about her friendships and relationships with friends, and perhaps day-dreaming and coming up with ideas. I would like to talk about her more, but already I touched on quite some things...

Some more personal questions for the mun.

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

Do you think you do your character justice? YES / NO

Do you frequently write headcanons? YES / NO

Do you sometimes write drabbles? YES / NO

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

Are you confident in your portrayal? YES / NO

Are you confident in your writing? YES / NO

Are you a sensitive person? YES / NO

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?

I do, but when it is constructive and I agree with certain things. I may even take some suggestions for how to change things as well. At the same time, I will probably have to take some time off, because I still do not have quite the thick skin I may think I do? However, I do wish to think things through and analyze.

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character?

I would love questions and I think they help, but I do think that people point those questions to characters they are more interested in.

If someone disagrees to a head-canon of yours, do you want to know why?

I am curious, but at the same time if it is something I am proud of even a little bit, then no. Sometimes, I want to in my own little safe bubble the way others do? Other times, I am really curious and want to ask a person why they feel that way?

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?

It is fine, but after awhile it can get pretty annoying that I either need time off or that person does. If it gets to a point where I do not enjoy things and my partner does not either, then I will either unfollow for everyone involved.

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it?

I have my suspicions about the number of people that hate Miyuki, while I do not blame them I do feel disappointed. However, Miyuki is likely going to stay as she is. Without some of things that make her Miyuki, there would not be a Miyuki. She will grow, but on my terms.

Guess I would not take it well and will defend her to the death? Which I should, but would leave room for taking criticism.

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?

Yeah. I am not perfect and I know it. I may act like it, or give you reason to feel like I think I am.

Do you think you are easy going as a mun?

Usually, I think I am easy going and I may let you get away with a number of things. At the moment and due to offline things, I am often moody, lazy and lethargic.

That’s about it, congrats for filling out!

➸ Tagger: @museabyss

➸ Tagging: All of you. Go do it.

#-tapdances in thanks to Cain-#【ooc】🌊 emerge #【rp meme】🌊 what do you think of this?#questionnaire #long post for mobile #belated munday

1 note · View note