#(((ask me about characterization please i will make a whole fucking essay)))

[theokusgallery]

What do you think about middle aged sunflower ????

Okay I'm going to pretend I'm normal and didn't just have a conversation about it yesterday within which I had to restrict myself because of Discord's stupid character limit

Anyway. Gonna talk about fanfics briefly, because fics tend to get more complex with characterization.

A while ago, I got really into Marvel, and for two months I did nearly nothing except read spideypool fanfic all day and night. If you know anything about these two (that isn't from the MCU) (I hate the MCU, I hate it so so much, this is not who Spidey fundamentally is, he is supposed to be a friendly neighborhood loner loser and you Cannot just give him an Iron Man suit and a mentorship with Stark and intergalactic missions at 16 or however old he is in those movies when the essence of the character is that he is an average struggling teenager who just happens to get superpowers and fucks up a lot at the beginning of his journey and mostly works alone and quit the fucking Avengers himself) (wow I started rambling sorry. Ignore that), you'll know that they are both around... 25-30ish, currently. Something like that. The only other fandom that I read as many fanfics of was Ace Attorney, where depending on the timeline, they can be from 23 to like, 35 with a kid. So I'd say me being so invested in a ship with 16 year-olds is... kind of an anomaly.

I don't usually like the coming-of-age, teenage love stuff, and I honestly have never found a single sunflower schoolfic I liked (except Spiral of course but even then they're in college) because all of them tend to... infantilize both Sunny and Basil at great length. And also tear down anything that makes them interesting characters. I think a lot of OMORI artists (that includes writers) are very afraid of doing anything substantial with teenagers, despite, you know, the actual plot of the game, and as a result, a lot of the time most fics where the characters aren't aged up tend to be... incredibly boring. Of course there are some that are good — exceptional even — but in the end all I can think of is the huge gap in... quality? that sounds wrong to say about a creative thing... interesting-ness, let's say (a very personal and subjective concept), when I stopped reading Marvel and went back to OMORI. I stopped reading fanfics altogether because I just couldn't find one I liked as much as the average Marvel fic that I hadn't already read.

Maybe it's a result of the writers themselves being young? I know OMORI's fanbase is generally a lot younger than Marvel's, so that could affect it. I mentioned schoolfics because there's a lot of them and because they were mentioned in my rant yesterday, but it's not really about the fact that they're schoolfics, it's about the fact that more often than not, the setting is the plot, and since it's just your average highschooler writing their favorite blorbos into their own environment and projecting (which is very cool btw, 99% of my own writing is projecting), the plot is... basically nonexistant. It's boring. It's boring and the characterization is usually dull. But even outside of schoolfics, I think I stopped trying to read fics that start with Sunny getting out of the hospital after the True Ending for the same reason : it's often plain and plotless and boring. And, fuck, my favorite books and mangas and such are slice of life, I'm all for mundane plots! But there's a difference between a mundane plot/realism and just no plot at all.

(This is not, like, an attack of OMORI writers who make schoolfics or fics that start with the above mentioned premise, btw, I want to make that very clear. It's very much a personal preference. I think it's boring because all of the fics I read in Marvel had a very unique plot/premise is my point. And also because the characters were a lot more mature and complex. Different strokes for different folks)

I think that's what I'm kind of sad about. OMORI characters tend to be complex and morally grey in their own way, and people tend to forget about that because they're teenagers and obviously no one can do no wrong before the ripe age of 18. Children are all innocent and therefore cannot be more morally complex than cinnamon roll soft boys/girls (looking pointedly at Sunny, Aubrey and Basil. But mostly Basil). Also, I think people tend to straight-up forget that 16 year-olds aren't, like, 10? Of course they're not going to be as mature as grown adults, especially Sunny OMORI, Dissociative Amnesia World Champion, but like... When I was 16 reading OMORI fanfics, half the time I was like "a 16 year-old would not fucking say that". But also generally more mature characters are inevitably more interesting to explore to me because I prefer more mature themes — I'm simply extremely upset at the fact that people don't explore the complexity that's already there when they're 16, including the very mature themes that are already there.

TL;DR: I love middle aged sunflower, I love middle aged ships in general ! In fact, I will tend to prefer sunflower when it's aged up.

(... I probably should've led with that.)

#rant #cough. that was one hell of a rant #sorry as i mentioned i literally talked (read: complained) about this to two different people in the last week #i'm kind of insane about sunflower. very deranged. i have many thoughts about them. #don't ask me about characterization because I will make a whole fucking essay #(((ask me about characterization please i will make a whole fucking essay))) #ask #xxl1ghtxx #i am so sorry I spent half an hour writing an answer that shouldve just been 'I like them! :D' with a doodle #unfortunately I am not normal about sunflower and their age. #I NEED TO STOP OR I'M GOING TO RAMBLE MORE IN THE TAGS. JESUS #omori

[judyalvqrez]

the way people are once again removing all the nuance and moral greyness and complexity out of the last of us, but especially joel miller’s character is kinda concerning lol

#i told myself i wasn't gonna get into the discourse but i was reading through some of the posts and comments in the tlou tag and... oof #like i get it i could write whole essays about my feelings on this story and its characters and the ending ect. #but a lot of people are already getting annoyingly defensive of every single one of joel’s actions #literally stripping him of all of the flaws and complexities and moral greyness that make him such a great character #why are yall turning him into a clean cut selfless hero that did everything right like that's so boring #what’s most frustrating is how people are completely ignoring ellie’s perspective in all of this #some even just pushing her entire character aside in favor of joel #only bringing her or her trauma up when they’re trying to justify something joel did #and treating her like an accessory to his character when you should be reflecting how his actions are gonna affect HER #i hate to break it to yall but if you bring this highly romanticized version of joel into the next season #yall are NOT gonna have a good time #it happened once and it will happen again and i know the inevitable backlash is gonna be twice as bad this time that’s why im concerned #anyway those are just my two cents that no one asked for if you see me posting any type of discourse again pls shoot me lol #and please don't think i'm a joel hater either those people are just as annoying they're just in the minority i think especially on tumblr #why can't we just enjoy joel for the morally grey complex and honestly fucked up and tragic man that he is #it's like joel defender this joel hater that let's just be joel enjoyers #or joel lovers that'd be me because i love him with all my heart 🥺 #especially hbo joel like his characterization was so good he just hits different and honestly i prefer him over game joel #and i do enjoy the occasional ''joel is innocent/did nothing wrong' memes/jokes i think they're hilarious and ultimately harmless #(also the joel/abby memes but that's another story sjafhksaf) #this was more about the people writing almost whole ass dissertations or actively starting arguments in their fervent need to defend joel #okay im done lol #lucy rants #i tried to keep this little rant as spoiler free as possible because there's no way in hell im tagging this asjfknsa this was more for me #if you read this whole thing through the end: hi i hope your day was good and if it wasn't i hope it's great tomorrow :)

[swordfright]

please write that essay

I assume based on your timing that this ask is in reference to this post, in which case I'm sorry it took me a couple days to get around to answering! This is not gonna be super well-organized but here are my thoughts:

The lore tidbit about c!Quackity actually having WON the bet with Glatt is literally the best possible way that whole situation could have gone. It’s such a solid storytelling move and I respect cc!Q to the moon and back for confirming it, both because I think c!Q's actions after having won the bet are very in-character for him and also because this option is, simply put, more narratively satisfying than the alternative. I'll explain why I think that.

c!Quackity's whole character arc is about belonging and agency and, importantly, how the pursuit of those things can go wrong. When he first joins the server he struggles to find somewhere to belong and gets used by others. His later attempts to exercise agency in order to foster his idea of a safe and stable community (yes, I'm including Butcher Army here) largely end in disaster. So eventually, Q establishes his own country, his own place where he can control every potential element and risk factor, but arguably he does so at the cost of love and friendship and community, the things he wanted to foster and maintain and protect in the first place. His defining fears about community safety eventually become reduced to fears about personal safety. To me, it’s a very clear negative character arc. When Q makes the bet with Schlatt’s ghost and ends up torturing c!Dream for the revival book, the audience are led to assume it’s because he lost the bet and is still beholden to Glatt in this one final way.

The exact nature of his and Schlatt's relationship prior to Schlatt's death carries some degree of ambiguity, but it's pretty widely interpreted as an abusive romantic relationship, and I'd argue that canon supports this interpretation. They were engaged following the Manberg coalition, and we know their relationship was increasingly rocky during this period. If you subscribe to this particular interpretation of their relationship (which I do because again, I believe canon supports it), then this adds a certain weight and gravity to Q's bet with Schlatt's ghost. The bet becomes a horrible postmortem extension of this toxic relationship that has deeply left its mark on c!Quackity, and Q losing the bet puts him in a vulnerable position both psychologically and literally. He is still beholden to his shitty ex, despite having put him in the fucking ground. That's a powerful motivation to get the book and be done with Glatt forever --- so it makes sense that when Q started torturing Dream for the book, many viewers automatically assumed it was because Q lost that bet.

Personally, I never really liked that assumption, because I feel it lets Q off too easy. It's too convenient an excuse. It dismisses the horror and cruelty of Q's deal with Sam by allowing Q the plausible deniability of desperation, characterizing the torture as his final desperate attempt to escape Schlatt's legacy, i.e. “My abuser made me do it, I’m still being threatened and coerced, I’m not culpable for my own actions!” (Which isn't even a justification that c!Quackity himself would ever use, so it's frustrating to see viewers fall back on it. The c!Quackity woobification in this fandom is much worse than the c!Dream woobification but let's leave that discussion for another day.)

But then (BUT THEN!!!) we find out that no, c!Quackity didn't lose the bet, he actually WON. He didn't want that book for Glatt, he wanted it for himself. He tortured Dream for this reason and because he enjoyed torturing Dream, and it’s an amazing anti-reveal because it pulls the rug out from under you but it also makes perfect sense given the sort of person we’ve watched Q becoming over the course of the past year’s worth of lore content. It’s about cycles of violence! In a story that has been about cyclical violence from the beginning, this is a natural conclusion for Q's character arc. DSMP is a story about building as an escape, and escaping what you've built. And ironically, this reveal makes c!Quackity a perfect foil to c!Tommy because Tommy is an abuse victim who, in a lot of ways, strives to be better than his abuser (hello I realize this is a controversial opinion but whatever this is my post) and Quackity is an abuse victim who intentionally strives to out-do his abuser.

Finally, Q winning the bet with Glatt is like, the only option that carries any kind of narrative catharsis. Because if he’d lost the bet, it means that despite Q's tireless efforts to gain agency, he never truly succeeded and is still being used as a pawn. Which is boring imo! It’s literally “area man ends up exactly where he started," which can be a compelling arc but it's not the most compelling possible arc for this particular character in my incredibly biased opinion. Whereas Quackity having won the bet gives his character arc direction. The arc then becomes “area man strives against all odds to achieve agency, succeeds, forfeits humanity in the process.” Area man escapes cycle of abuse only to perpetuate it. Which I personally like because I think it's interesting!

It may not be an uplifting arc, but it’s an arc! It starts in one place and ends up somewhere else. It has momentum! Even though this reveal technically reflects “poorly” on Quackity’s character (idc lol he will be my forever babygirl no matter how many times he violates the Geneva Convention), it’s a plot twist that respects his character so much more than the alternative. There's only so far you can take a story about a guy being powerless. It's much more fun to tell a story where the powerless guy finally attains the agency he always wanted, but at a great personal cost.

(Coincidentally, this is also the reason I wish c!Wilbur's finale stream had ended not with him leaving c!Tommy but with him asking Tommy to accompany him to Utah and Tommy rejecting his offer. But I digress lmfao I'll be bitter about that storytelling decision on my own time)

Anyway, I think @elmhat phrased it really well when they said "We care about Quackity because of his choices." Not just what happens to him, but how he decides to react.

#i realize i didnt cite any sources here #sorry its late and i'm too tired to go hunting for clips BUT #if you want me to cite any of my claims then just shoot me an ask and i'm happy to track down the clip for you! #c!quackity #quackity #dream smp #dsmp #dsmp meta #hope you enjoyed my essay anon #hmu if you want elaboration on any particular point

[dottores]

Hi Cat👋 ! So, here’s my essay that I promised lmao. (I kinda jump around and talk about different scenes out of order so be prepared)

First off, I really fucking love that you give us both Ran and Rindous POVs and I enjoyed seeing Rin’s POV this time. Since we didn’t get his POV until now, at first I was having a harder time sympathizing with him but now that we get to know his feelings and thoughts directly, I’m just so sad for our boys. Both of them want to hate you but can’t, the scene where he didn’t even hesitate to ask for the hit on us to be called off really got me, cuz he could get himself into some deep shit for it.

I like that Rin is portrayed as being very observant I feel like that is a common HC for him that I personally like. But my god he thinks he knows someone so well cuz he’s so observant but it was such a shock when we no longer act like how he thought we would, making us seem like a stranger almost. This is probably a far stretch but I feel like Rin being observant and making the observation when we were all young that Ran already quickly had a soft spot for us makes me feel like even if Rin developed feelings for us (when we were younger), he wouldn’t act on it so Ran could get his chance.

Jahsdlfakjsdfha Rin getting jealous of how close Hanma gets to us fucking sent me, I am dying to know how Ran felt about how we didn’t even move or push Hanma away (I have a thing for guys being jealous/possessive of us can’t you tell? Lol)

That cliffhanger tho, Rin instantly noticing fear on our face (a good scene to show that he still “knows” us). Really makes me excited to see if Ran or Rin do anything, I really want them to but I feel like that would just spell trouble for all 3 of us showing that we know each other. But considering that Ran already has an idea that we’re in trouble I feel like if either does anything it would probably be him.

The flashback scene in this chapter was superb, it gave such good context as well as more hints to things that happened that we haven’t seen yet. But my god Ran going feral for us had me like hnnng 😍. I feel like us taking a big risk in lying for the brothers would be a turning point for Ran and his feelings for us, at the very least him trusting us more. Also, our uncle is shady af he had plans for us the whole time and took advantage of our desperation to help the brothers to get what he wanted 😒.

Ooooh Senju possibly being like idk a spy, she seems like she’s only with this group for ulterior motives. Makes me wonder if maybe she’s trying to use them or stop them, either way looks like we have an ally on the inside. 🤩

Even tho we don’t get our POV during the auction scene I completely loved how we were portrayed as cold and ignoring the brothers, completely understood it was for their own safety to act like we don’t know them. But doesn’t get translated to the brothers, again something crucial going over their heads cuz they’re so emotional over us.

Lajshdlafjk we threatened South?! Please tell me we threatened him in person, I want that for us so bad lmao. 🤣

Clarifying questions, so the way I understand it Munich is a place but we use it to refer to the terrible accident so that we can talk about it discreetly?

So, I know I already gushed about how great you write dialogue but like I think it stems a lot from the fact that you characterize the brothers and other characters so well. Like no one feels OOC and everything they say and do feels like it would be cannon. You’re just such a good writer I love your content so much and LDA is my top most anticipated fics, I’m always so excited when you post! 😍🥰

HELLO MY LOVE 💜💜 imma put it under the cut cuz this got long

I WAS SO CONFLICTED AS TO DO ANOTHER RAN POV OR RINDOU cuz i saw so so so much potential for a ran pov in the flashback but then i was like ?? i have to do rindou cuz i haven’t had one of rindou yet and this could show off how close he used to be to us and also he could get inside ran’s head without it actually being his pov, and i was really really tempted to do a pov from both of their viewpoints but then i went just with rindou cuz 🤭 ion wanna give everything away for ran yet

YES i love that hc for him, he was so like ?? when he was finally realizing that he couldn’t read us like he used to and it really REALLY stung. also 🤭 spoilers i cant say anything about that ;)

NAW CUZ YOU KNOW RAN WAS ON THE VERGE OF LOSING IT LMAOOOO his temper was already on the verge of snapping and then he sees that bullshit and he’s like 😐 aight. we’ll see more of that next chapter 🤭 and if whether or not they do anything about the new guy ;) (i also have a thing for guys being jealous hehe)

this was my favorite flashback besides the first chapter’s flashback (i feel like that one will always be my favorite) and it really was a turning point for both of them AND us—yes feral ran 💜 our lil baby who pretends he doesn’t care about us but then loses his mind when someone threatens us, we love him

hehe our uncle 🤭 he’s gonna be fun to start getting into to

SENJU, she’s in a complicated position hehe, i’ll get into it eventually but it probably won’t be for a few chapters.

and YES sobs, we’re sitting there thinking that they still at least know us well enough to realize what we’re doing but we don’t realize just how much we’ve changed over the years and that they dont 😭 and plus on top of all of the emotions they’re going thru rn they’re bound to misread

YES LMAO there’s gonna be a flashback about the south situation hehe

and yes !! munich is how we refer to the incident that took place 6 yrs ago ^.^

and you are literally the sweetest i love u sm i hope u know that this 100% totally made my day—my biggest fear is mischaracterizing them or making them ooc LMAO 😭

#my asks #series: little dark age

[ms-all-sunday]

❤️ and 💖 for the ask game

thank you anon for enabling me (ask game here)

❤️Which character do you think is the most egregiously mischaracterized by the fandom?

this is an interesting question because (pural talk) it honestly depends on who my fictives are collectively more annoyed about that day. some of us care about our characterization less than others.

i can tell you for sure that the character that annoys us most when mischaracterized is nami and its the slightest stuff too.

the two main ones, her caring too much about being seen as a slut negatively, people reducing her down to sanjis crush (which is her presence in 99% of fanfiction). she isn't given as horrible of a treatment as she would be a few years ago, but i do think people automatically dismiss her as a character especially in fan content and dont realize how sexist that is.

we can deal with mischaracterized zoro (there isn't any expectations to disappoint in the first place),

usopp there isnt enough fanfiction for us to get annoyed about his mischaracterization, (make more fanfiction and especially more porn with him in it, please)

the objective answer to "most egregiously" by rate if nothing else is monkey d luffy,

and sanji is also pretty egregiously mischaracterized but there's naunce to that. i hate when certain people who have a negative opinion of him write him, and idm positive mischaracterization of him by people who obviously love him. its complimentary. and tends to be inoffensive. (feeds his ego)

unless they're making him "harmless" or ignoring his flaws for the sake of making you feel sorry for him (which happens a lot with male abuse victims. the uwuification of it all. see: how people treat nami and sanji differently)

💖 What is your biggest unpopular opinion about the series?

oh i have a lot of unpopular opinions. but its mainly about the fandom... about the series overall,

(i'm knocking 'harem reading is intended' off the list because that's cheating, i have a whole essay about that on my carrd which i should update after skypeia)

(i'm also knocking the fact i like one pieces depiction of queer people and the ambiguity in that depiction not being a flaw off the list, thats cheating too)

i like punk hazard. people dont fucking like punk hazard for some reason. i like punk hazard. i think it combines pre and post ts really well and has some great characterization along with a cool plot. it has some of the funniest jokes in the series (i love nami and sanji taking care of the kids) and for the most part smoker and tashigi are welcome as players. it also has kinemon. and doflamingo foreshadowing, and i love kinemon and i love doflamingo. its easily one of my favourite post ts arcs.

#modposts #asks #unpopular opinion ask game

[mspaintp7ague]

quite thankful i dont have a lot of dysphoria cause my mom thinks hrt will give me heart problems or some shite 😐 like bitch please you do realize cis men just have that much t and don't go around dropping dead right

my doctor is chill on the whole thing she's just bein weird. there's a trans health center pretty close to us but nooo she doesn't want to go there and check out the actual medical resources and opinions on the matter. oh and she's also antivax but just for the covid vaccine. yes i am still not vaxxed for covid fml

tldr. im gonna be Busy after i turn 18

fr tho she really is just being stupid. i don't ever want children so idgaf about losing my fertility. idgaf if it would actually kill me tbh the world is going to shit anyway and i doubt i'm gonna amount to anything. thing is literally no one thinks hrt kills you. she needs to get off chinese 4chan fr

she lets me do what i want for the most part but is annoyingly stupid about certain things. yeah i don't like the government either but the vaccine that millions of people have taken is not going to give me cancer in ten years. she fr thinks people will start dropping dead eventually and "we just need to wait to see the long term effects" the mrna is reabsorbed in like. three weeks. how do you have this little critical thinking / trust in science

and she thinks men and women genuinely have biological differences to the point that gendered razors are actually important and you need a dick to wear boxers. fuck off mom let me buy some swim trunks. the razors i could care less about tbh cause she pays for them but still

ughh. kinda glad i'll probably commute to college cause rooming with someone would probably get awkward in several ways.

she also doesn't seem to believe in mental illness. which. while im self diagnosing and mostly guessing at what's wrong with me i am about 100% certain i have trichotillomania (hair pulling compulsion) because. yknow i fucking do that and have a giant bald patch on my head. and she will just be like "why don't you just stop?" and "use some self control" etc. recently i've decided to just stop showing her my hair (i wear a hat a lot) because it really just makes me feel worse and it's not her fucking business. she keeps asking anyway but i'm just gonna keep telling her no until it grows back. she literally can't do anything to help and only makes me feel worse about it

another thing i'm less sure about is the possible cyclothymia / mild bipolar i may have. i mentioned it to her and she thinks it's just mood swings, which, it might be, but this has been happening for a long time. so much in fact that i've projected it onto my ocs. plague as a character started off as a 'normal' mask of myself but gb (who was based off my irl appearance but. whiter) had two characterizations that i swapped between inconsistently. can u guess what they were. yeah. depressed/apathetic and extremely manic, deranged even. looking back i see the patterns of depression and extreme interest in media/characters/other stuff i've had. even if i would hide it irl i'd have weeks where i stayed up until 3 or 4 multiple days in a row just because i couldn't stop playing a game or reading or i just had this amazing idea and i have to write/draw it right now or i will explode. sleep is for the weak. etc. and then i'll have weeks where i can't look any of my teachers in the eye and am too tired of caring to shower or do laundry or anything beyond the bare minimum chores and wake up in the morning skip breakfast and walk to the bus stop contemplating if it's worth it to still be alive. at least when i'm excited i'll do essential stuff just so i can get back to the fixation again. it's so fucking stupid. "yeah sorry i havent worked on my essay in six weeks because i was too busy doing random shit and/or thinking about dying but was too pussy to actually do anything sorry"

that and the anxiety spirals. those were pretty bad for a while. like. someone told me they wanted to play games with me and i said yes. then they didn't reply for forty minutes and i just. kept thinking i did something wrong or misunderstood their message or otherwise fucked up but turns out they just forgot they messaged me. haha. yeah totally normal reaction there plague.

i can't tell if there's something seriously wrong with me or not but i don't want to tell my therapist about it because i don't want to get institutionalized or something. and my mom is anti medication too. yippee. maybe it's too much to hope some drug will make me stop having days where i can't fucking do anything for literally no reason but i don't know how to fix myself otherwise.

oh and i mentioned to my mom very vaguely a time where i overshared some suicidal thoughts and proceeded to spiral for like 5 hours straight over getting no response and ultimately dipped from a friend group for a while and now she wants to know the details. i literally told you i didn't even tell my therapist the whole story what gives you the right to know? huh?

i don't know if i'm normal. i feel like i'm not but i might just be overreacting and being edgy. i also have definitely have experienced impostor syndrome about several things in the past so i clearly can't trust my own judgement on either thing.

i also don't think i love my family. they don't really matter that much to me anymore. i think i felt something for them when i was younger but it's just not there anymore. my mom simply does not understand a lot of things and i think i see her on the same level as a friend, maybe. we talk and spend time civilly but there is nothing deeper there on my end. i've tried explaining it to her but i don't think she gets it. i really feel nothing more for her than for my school friends.

my siblings i've never been very close to anyway. i don't feel like i can talk to either of them about much anymore. with brother i can sometimes but i only reference certain stuff through jokes. yeah look at this funny stan blog i made for this vtuber that i've been thinking about nonstop for the last two weeks because i can't tell the difference between a crush, admiration, gender envy and aesthetic appreciation of his avatar. i'm so silly and not mentally ill at all.

there's no one who's an appropriate audience for this huh. ok. mental illness blog it is

[disaster-j]

Sorry for randomly crashing your inbox but just wanted to shout somewhere that Theory of Love is one of the best Thai BLs and I don’t understand why it doesn’t get more love and attention. It’s a near PERFECT execution of the classic friends to lovers romance narrative. Delicious angst, believable conflict and redemption, strong chemistry and characterization, great actors, solid production and an actually coherent script. But it gets less praise than demonstrably worse shows. I don’t get it!

First of all! Don't you ever apologise for giving me an opportunity to talk about my faves that's like the best thing ever 😤

Secondly, you are so right about this. It's something I've noted before, both wrt TOL and other queer romances, but they just don't get as much recognition for their quality and/or rep compared to shows and movies in other genres. It's the romcom effect. Something a lot of people have been pointing out for a long time, but most people don't want to acknowledge, is the fact that romcoms and any works that fall under the romance genre in general are constantly considered inferior to other more "serious" genres by both fandom and academic critics. There's this belief that pain and misery is intellectual and happiness just isn't. Which is the stupidest thing ever.

For as long as romance has existed it has been looked down upon as a genre and, like most things, this stems from misogyny. Because women writing about being loved and cared for the way they want to be in reality is apparently something to belittle. Women getting brutalised, violated, murdered in unnecessarily graphic scenes? It's intellectual, it's realism, it's art! Women being loved and cared for and having their sexual and romantic desires fulfilled? Oh please, read some real books 🙄

And as mediums of storytelling evolve to represent other minority groups, the same sentiments bleed into criticism of those media as well. Representing queer misery is art. Having queer people exist in a world where their main problem is unrequited love? It's fun but there's no "substance." As if representation can only be good if it focuses on the bad things done to us by society at large. I, personally, am sick and tired of this narrative. I don't want more artsy "intellectual" stories that are just 95% suffering with a bittersweet or ambiguous ending. I just want to see queer people be able to enjoy their queerness. It shouldn't be too much to ask for.

This is why Theory of Love is, and will likely always be, one of my favourite shows of all time. Not just because the story is really well written and executed, but also because they go out of their way to normalise queerness. By which I mean that every single character's sexuality is seen as just another fact about them. The narrative very pointedly never questions their sexuality, and depicts how it can be fluid in a very light, wholesome, enjoyable manner. Every single character truly enjoys their queerness and is accepting not only of themselves but those around them too. These people are queer, they accept themselves, their friends and family accept them, there's no pain related to coming out. It's freeing and it makes all of their lives so much better. And sure, it may not be the most realistic portrayal of coming out ever but gods isn't it so fucking hopeful? Don't you just watch it and think, damn the world could really be like this one day. I hope I find myself surrounded by people just like this one day. It's aspirational.

So yeah, TOL is one of the most well-written and well-executed thai show I've ever come across, and I could write a whole essay on how amazing the writing and execution is if prompted, but even if it wasn't isn't it enough that it gives us a kind of queer rep that is just completely enjoyable? Shouldn't it be enough to just have a silly story about same sex relationships? Why isn't that alone enough for it to be considered good, especially when it's a story that has touched so many of our hearts?

#anon ask #answered ask #theory of love the series #theory of love #tol #khaithird #analysis stuff #clearly i have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this #also im not kidding about having an essay in me about the writing in tol #there's just so much to unpack there #especially the way that tol explores the different kinds of love through each of the main five characters and their relationships with eo #and their love interests #but i cant fit that in this ask im afraid #also yes this is okay to rb

[grittyreadsfic]

hello my friends, one singular person asked for this weeks ago so i’m here with my most unhinged rec list yet: tk and nolan.

now, this one was hard to reign in, so i really didn’t. this pairing had maybe 230 fics in the tag when i first started reading hockey fic, and it’s now over 900, and i’ve read far too many of them, and that makes it so hard to parse it down. so i just...didn't!

so with that said, please enjoy so you want to get into tknp: a beginners guide to a classic case of idiots to lovers

i told myself that i couldn’t rec an author’s entire body of work but then i remembered this is my blog and i do what i want, so i did some consolidating. here’s a list of the quintessential authors for this pairing, you can start at any of their profiles and pick any of their fics at random, and it’ll be one of the best ones for the pairing, hands down.

therainbowsedge: i’d start with the summer camp fic, or the sex toys one, as both beautifully capture the true idiots to lovers nature of this pairing, but just top tier writing all around

manybumblebees: the wedding fic is so tender and port stanley is a classic, but literally pick any single fic and you’ll have a perfect tknp fic. i’m not kidding

jamesvanriemsdick: their tknp fics in their series are some of the hidden gems of this pairing (the tk heartbeat fic makes me LOSE it) but the delaware fic or the seattle fic…..there’s really something for every mood

catchascatchcan: start with era of gods because i could write literal essays on how it’s some of the best fantasy worldbuilding i’ve ever read, but then just read everything else on their account, including non tknp fics. you won’t regret it

hackysack: ao3 user hackysack has written one of two timeloop fics that i absolutely adore, and i thought about just calling that one out in particular, but all of their work deserves the attention

canary: nothing to prove was the first tknp fic i ever read and i was immediately hooked. all of their fics are a good starting place for the pairing, and just really give you a feeling for the pairing

and now, for the fic recs!

to be, despite it all by smudgedfreckles

summary: or, nolan patrick’s gender thesis, by travis konecny.

why i love it: there’s not a lot ofo nonbinary characters in media, even in fic, but this fic’s treatment of nolan and their path to figuring out their gender just feels so real and made me feel so seen. tk’s characterization is also just top notch, and it’s just a super sweet story about two people who love each other

last ones standing by makeit_takeit

summary: If you’re committed to finding your future spouse, reads the last line of the ad, and are ready to look at yourself and your love life in a whole new way, apply now.

At the bottom of the ad there’s a link, and Travis finds his finger hovering over the screen, lip still caught between his teeth.

“I mean,” he says very reasonably, speaking out loud to his empty apartment like some sort of possibly-crazy person, “just applying doesn’t mean anything. Maybe I just fill it out, and see what happens. It’s not like I’m really gonna get picked to be on TV, come on.”

He snorts out loud, just to show his apartment he hasn’t lost his grip on reality or anything; he fully understands how ludicrous that would be.

Then he clicks the link anyway, because yolo or whatever.

why i love it: what part of a married at first sight fic doesn’t make you want to immediately dive right in? the concept is fun, the execution is absolutely flawless, and it captures their dynamic so well while letting it develop naturally

motivation by connectknee

summary: Kevin knows when to back off, the article said. He knows just when to shut up and leave Patty alone, something Travis has never known how to do.

why i love it: the thing i love about this pairing is that tk is loud and in your face, and nolan’s more reserved, a little quieter, a little harder to read. this fic does a really great job of exploring how tk could feel like maybe he’s just a bit too much and is one of my favorites in terms of miscommunication

a tenderness grows by rusesdeguerre

summary: Nolan wouldn’t say that landing a job as the Philadelphia Flyers’ psychotic and probably clinically insane mascot was a childhood dream of his. Maybe tangentially: playing pond hockey in –30°C weather and pretending to be Sidney Crosby is practically a rite of passage when you grow up in Manitoba. That, and experiencing the distinct displeasure that is thousands of mosquitoes sucking your blood out when your father drags you on a father-son camping trip into the backwoods of the northern Canadian Prairies.

why i love it: this was the first fic i recced on this blog, and i stand by that decision. a fic where nolan is not only not a hockey player, but is in fact the person in the gritty suit? absolutely perfect, and so charming from start to finish

meet me at my window by springsteen

summary: Travis has lived in Philadelphia for a few years now, long enough to know there isn’t a major city in America where superheroes don’t destroy an entire city block trying to save humanity or whatever. He can deal with all the super-shit, but Travis did not sign up for getting woken up from a deep sleep because some fucker’s trying to break in through his window.

(5 times the super-villain known as "The Cat" breaks into Travis's apartment, plus 1 time Travis invites him in.)

why i love it: there’s a lot of things to love here, but the concept is just absolutely one of my all time favorite aus ever. it’s fun and charming and the perfect glimpse into a world where heroes and villains exist, and what it’s like just to be a run of the mill kind of guy existing in it. tk and nolan’s back and forth in this make it so engaging, and it’s such a top tier fic

body’s in trouble by cloudsandpassingevents

summary: “Oh, sorry,” someone says. “Didn’t know anyone else was here.”

Nolan freezes, then turns around very slowly. When he looks up, Nicklas fucking Backstrom is standing behind him in a hoodie and baggy sweats, holding the biggest bag of Swedish Fish Nolan’s ever seen in his life in one hand.

“Uh,” Nolan says around the pop tart between his teeth. “Yeah.”

What the fuck, his brain helpfully supplies.

why i love it: from nolan’s inner voice, to the way the author explores all the dynamics within the team, to the way they write the unexpected but actually, it kind of makes sense friendship between nolan and backstrom, is just absolutely fantastic. there’s a lot of moments that circle back and build on each other in a way that really just makes it super compelling

rhizomatic foundations by lighthousetowers

summary: Twenty days after he moves in with Kevin Hayes, twenty days – three months, five months, depending on how you look at it – after not talking to TK, TK shows up at the front door with a plant the size of a basketball in his hands.

TK grins. "Patty, meet Reginald." He lifts up the plant. "Reggie, meet Patty. He's going to be your new - caretaker."

"What the fuck," says Nolan, not moving a single muscle.

Or: That Nolan can hear the plant talk might as well just happen.

why i love it: this is probably my favorite magical realism fic just about ever. it’s fun and charming and a little weird, but in the best possible way. there’s such a wonderful narrative in it, and lighthousetowers always has such beautiful writing, and it really shines in this one. the dialogue and nolan’s characterization are also part of what set it apart for me as one of the best tknp fics

in the dark of any town by mengetpegged

summary: If the voice has an accent at all, it’s a flat prairie Canadian, with none of G’s French-Canadian softness at the edges. But mostly, the accent is just ‘pissed off,’ which TK believes is a default setting for ghosts.

“Who are you?” TK asks, and he doesn’t like how strained his voice sounds, doesn’t like the tinge of anxiety tinting the rise of his question. He tries to regulate his breaths—in through his nose, hold, out through his mouth—but it feels like he’s not getting enough oxygen, which makes him panic even more.

“Someone with a fucking migraine, dickhead,” the voice says. “So keep the lights off and shut the hell up.”

(or: Nolan Patrick, Hotel X Ghost)

why i love it: i’m usually not super into ghost fics, both the spooky kind and the nonspooky kind, but this one is a rare exception. it’s charming and fun and tender and it’s got some of, in my opinion, the best characterization of tk and nolan in any fic. the way the author writes their dynamic and their dialogue is just unmatched

lets_make_this_moment_a_crime.mp3 by honeydripping

summary: Travis meets Nolan at a Midtown show in 2002 when he punches Nolan in the face. He can’t help it, “Like A Movie” just goes off.

But he does feel guilty about it.

or

TK and Patty work at a bakery together. They go to punk shows to pass the time.

why i love it: idk if anyone asked for an early 2000s emo/punk/alt au but wow! i sure am glad it exists! really the vibes of this fic, as silly as that sounds, are absolutely unmatched. i love the structure with the music, the development of their relationship, and just everything about how the author wrote the setting (there’s this whole thing with tattoos in it that makes me feel absolutely insane)

you’re ripped at every edge by you’re a masterpiece by conformityissuicide

summary: “Ugh, look, this yoga teacher has it out for me, man. And I can’t go back there without at least having some of the basics down. I’ve got to win this battle.”

“Yoga isn’t really something you win at,” Hartsy starts.

Travis cuts him off, “You can win at anything if you try hard enough.”

+++

OR that time Nolan's a grumpy yoga teacher and Travis realizes he wants to bone him and prove him wrong about Travis' non-existent yoga abilities.

why i love it: listen, if you want tknp, at least one of them has to be an idiot, and this tk absolutely captures the obliviousness i love to see in him in fic. it’s such a great characterization of them both and such a great concept (and even better execution)

you form a terror pack (and i’m aware of that) by dalmatienne

summary: “Can I help you?” TK snarks, both eyebrows hiked up in a way that has earned her many elbow checks to the ribs.

The chick looks down her nose, long thick eyelashes fluttering. Red-bitten lips part to blow a florid pink bubble and TK can smell the chemical sweetness when it pops.

“Yeah,” she says in this monotonous voice that seems almost at odds with her bubble gum and neon skates. She jams her stopper into TK’s thigh again, literally inches away from where it’d really hurt. “Tie ‘em.”

why i love it: to be honest, i generally don’t read rule 63 within hrpf, but this one is just absolutely knocks it out of the park. the concept (i fuckin’ love roller derby), the characterization of nolan, the pacing, the rituals, the tone of the entire fic, it’s just all around a perfect read from start to finish

thrills and grills by bitter_leaf

summary: Travis can’t even begin to wonder what he did in a previous life to incur the wrath of this fucking cook. Travis thinks he’s a nice person, doesn’t conduct himself in any way that could be considered particularly dickish, and unless this guy has some sort of issue with hockey bros or people from the boonies, he’s not sure how he started shit without even knowing.

__

Patty has a vendetta. Travis just wants to eat his eggs in peace.

why i love it: honestly this is the enemies to lovers fic i’ve been waiting for. i remember seeing the reddit post when it first went viral and thinking it would make such a great fic premise, so stumbling across this one was just so wonderful. super engaging and fun and so hilarious to read!

nothing but room for you by fightingfuries

summary: When his agent tells him he’s going to be traded to the Devils, Nolan isn't sure how he feels about it. Might be easier if he was going somewhere farther away, like California or fucking Florida. Somewhere sun-soaked and foreign. Someplace so different from Philadelphia that he can forget he ever played for the Flyers, forget everything that happened there.

Or Nolan fucks up, gets traded, gets his shit together and falls in love. Not necessarily in that order.

why i love it: i cannot stress to you how much i love trade fics, and this one is one of my absolute favorites. the trade to the devils-so close to philly, still, but there’s more to distance than physical miles-was such an excellent choice and the split timeline adds so much to the narrative, and the emotions are real and messy and complicated in the best way

a couple of runaways (i’m glad you stayed) by overturnedgoal

summary: The person in the video he’s watching is super annoying. Some obnoxious holier than thou granola type who keeps talking about their environmental impact as if they aren’t driving a gas guzzler around, but the basic idea of living in a van, driving around wherever, camping all the time, just going hiking and swimming and seeing the whole country? It sounds pretty dope, honestly.

why i love it: i like to watch tours and conversions of vans/buses into tiny homes as a self soothing method, and this fic has the same impact that watching those do. it’s such a fun concept, and it’s so fuckin’ soft, and the dialouge between tk and nolan is just *chef’s kiss*

all candor and style in the crook of your smile by p3trichor

summary: It’s a photo of Nolan on his knees with someones’ fingers in his mouth, lips slick with spit. Travis flicks by it almost too fast and he’s only got seconds to decide if he wants to screenshot it, if he wants to just give up the ghost right then and there. Except Travis’s phone freezes momentarily and then the group refreshes, sidcros87, Bert59 and 14 others took a screenshot!

It’s gone before Travis even has time to process it and he already wasted his replay of the day on a stupid video of a stupid fish that Hayes caught.

Can you send me that screenshot Travis texts Bertuzzi before he can overthink it, his dick already stirring in his sweats. Tuzzi sends back the cry-laughing emoji and then the screenshot before Travis can be too annoyed at him.

Or, Nolan is being weird about Travis's break-up and TK is maybe not straight.

why i love it: i genuinely don’t think i have words for the amount i love this fic. it took me forever to actually read, but it’s absolutely one of my favorite fics, and it’s an absolutely riot to read. carter’s meddling and the presence of tyler bertuzzi both make it extra fun, in my humble opinion

#fic rec #rec list: so you want to get into tknp: a beginners guide to a classic case of idiots to lovers #fic: flyers #fic: tknp #men's hockey fic #hockey fic #men’s hockey rpf #hrpf #fic: therainbowsedge #fic: manybumblebees #fic: jamesvanriemsdick #fic: catchascatchcan #fic: hackysack #fic: canary #fic: smudgedfreckles #fic: makeit takeit #fic: connectknee #fic: rusesdeguerre #fic: springsteen #fic: cloudsandpassingevents #fic: lighthousetowers #fic: mengetpegged #fic: honeydripping #fic: conformityissuicide #fic: dalmatienne #fic: bitter_leaf #fic: fightingfuries #fic: overturnedgoal #fic: p3trichor

[tigerdrop]

Cringe is dead, talk to me about the funny half-life men and their relationship

okay here is my essay. it is titled These Guys Actually Like Each Other, and Gordon Freeman Is Just Kind Of A Dick*

(disclaimer: these are just my 2 cents. dont take me too seriously! im just some guy online who has watched this shit too many times.)

first things first. these guys actually like each other. this is a key aspect of their relationship. benrey, obviously and textually, digs gordon freeman - you dont flirt that heavily with guys you arent into, and so much of what he says and does is geared around making gordon crack up. thats pretty gay.

but the counterpart to this is that gordon freemans pretty fucking gay for benrey, too. you may say, “oh, but word of god says its not requited!” and to you i will say: bull shit. gordon is uniquely obsessed with benrey compared to all the other characters. if gordon didnt like the fucking guy, he wouldnt giggle with him and share in-jokes with him and bring him up every 5 seconds when benreys not around. thats concern, bro. thats worry. thats real shit

but i cant blame people for thinking that gordon freeman genuinely doesnt like benrey. benreys partially responsible for some of the worst things that have happened to him, the Arm Thing among them. and gordons very insistent afterward that he doesnt like benrey. he even goes so far as to try to kill benrey a couple times. to this, i must argue that gordon freeman is just kind of a dick.

lets talk facts here. canon. Lore. from the moment we hop into gordons shoes, we can see that he is a jerk to every npc on his way into black mesa. this is his default: a dude who just runs his mouth and says rude shit. he calls tommy a freak within 5 minutes of meeting him. he infantilizes the guy and barely considers him a real scientist. he doubts that bubby is a real name for like no fuckin reason. in “real life”, this is because its funny, and wayne is trying to make a funny half-life stream. in a textual sense, this is because gordon “hlvrai” freeman is a dick. this is the way he acts, consistently, throughout the series.

(brief aside: this is why the whole “gordon is a nice guy and a great dad” characterization baffles me. the way he actually acts in canon is, in short, bitchy and lacking in self-awareness. and i love that for him, i really do. it makes the moments where he just tries to be a nice guy stand out. but thats the thing: his intermittent moments of decency and kindness are not the whole of his personality! this dude kind of sucks most of the time!)

the way that gordons general asshole attitude extends to benrey is complicated. in fairness, benrey makes it his job to annoy the shit out of gordon as much as possible, and that warrants a negative attitude, but gordons pretty paranoid and ends up blaming benrey for nearly everything that happens to him, regardless of if its warranted. this is a pattern he exhibits both before and after the Arm Thing. its a little bit of a dick move! especially considering that, prior to the whole “betrayal” subplot (which was not exactly planned very far in advance), benrey is no more malicious or annoying than anybody else gordons having to travel with.

(okay, this is kind of a subjective evaluation, but still. my point stands that benrey is not any more of a hindrance to his progress than anybody else in the science crew, and neither is he particularly more violent or murderous. hell, gordon freeman has probably killed more guys than benrey. benrey just tends to get.......special treatment.)

all that said, i am still convinced that gordon really fucking likes benrey. please consider with me the following: it would be remarkably easy for gordon to just ignore him and do what he has to do, but he doesnt. he could stop engaging. he could stop thinking about benrey. he could stop bringing benrey up to the rest of the crew every time benrey leaves to do his own thing for awhile. but he doesnt. and, again, yeah, the extra-textual reason for this is “two guys are doing an improv comedy thing and bouncing off of scorpy is kind of the point”, but within the text it reads to me as gordon not being about to get the dude off his mind.

and this is in addition to all the times we see gordon being genuinely nice and receptive toward benrey! its in the little things: laughing the hardest and longest at benreys jokes. only ever reciprocating that stupid underwater “BBBBB” thing with benrey. trying to catch benrey when he falls, despite his insistence moments earlier that benrey should hop in the wack ass crystal generator and get hypermurdered. fondly remarking that benreys sweet voice sounds beautiful. his sort of flustered responses to most of benreys overt flirting. none of this is the way normal people react to a guy they hate. this is all fuckin gay to me, man.

its this combination of the outward insistence that gordon hates benrey with his inner eagerness to be around him and think about him and engage with him that gives off strong “repression” vibes, to me. for whatever reason - pride, embarrassment, resentment - gordon maintains a front of hating the guy and wanting to kill him for a lot of the series, but it doesnt gel with the way he fucking giggles and plays along half the time that benrey starts fucking with him. its a game, and that game is one of the only ways gordon knows to manifest affection for him.

(remember “oh my god, hes got a knife!”? that was the gayest shit i ever seen in my life. tittering like a schoolgirl while benrey chases him around like “im gonna get you haha”. insanity.)

the cool thing about repression is that you can have it manifest in a lot of ways! and this is where things like “headcanons” and “my own personal affection for repressed bisexual men” come in. a lot of how i characterize their relationship is an extrapolation of a lot of things like gordons canonical insecurity issues/anxiety, gordons whole anti-bootboy thing screaming “internet wokeboy who means well but probably has a lot of repressed baggage” to me, etc.

how do you get massive amounts of sexual repression out of what you see in canon, you might ask? well. if wayne would stop having gordon talking about being jerked off by the suit, or talking about chugging a 40-gal drum of potion and having to hold his piss, or worrying about being eaten by benrey the moment he sees benrey at setscale 10, maybe i would have a higher opinion of gordon “hlvrai” freeman and whatever latent psychosexual issues hes got going on. but here we are

i havent even touched yet upon how benrey feels about gordon. this one is helpfully made a little more plain by the fact that benrey very much wants to suck his dick in canon. (i dont even have to go into details. we all know.) but IMO the best part about this ship isnt just that they dig each other, but how. benrey gets overtly flirtatious in the second half of the series, but IMO his preferred method of flirting is just fucking with gordon: chasing him with knives, shoving him around in a bathroom, trying to get scans of his feet. but all in like a slapstick, giggly, fun-and-games sense, you know? at least when it works.

a lot of the time, though, it doesnt work out that way. he clearly just likes doing it whether or not gordon responds positively. which is, you know, Weird. not very nice. but also in line with the way everybody else treats gordon freeman. gordons kind of the universes chew toy in any given universe, and the same holds true here. hes kind of helpless......subjected to 4 demons attempting to make his life as difficult as possible. in a way its cathartic.

sorry. i got sidetracked. anyway, benrey very much likes to mess with him and unnerve him and demean him and i will be perfectly frank with you: that is hot. i have problems and illnesses and one of them is that i am a masochist who goes crazy for that kind of thing. calling gordon a “dirty lil boy” and telling him to “look at the mess [he] made” is some straight up kink scene shit.

i like to imagine that a lot of this behavior isnt caused just by the guy who played him wanting to be funny and antagonistic, but by benrey as a character not really understanding what constitutes “pushing a joke too far”. hes not human, and whatever he is doesnt have a very normative way of understanding the world around him, full of people who actually get hurt for real and die for real. benrey expresses what seems to be genuine surprise and distress after the Arm Thing, as if he didnt know that his actions would have serious consequences. and it doesnt seem to fully sink in afterward, either.

it reads a lot to me like hes used to video game rules and treating people around him like NPCs. if they get hurt, its no big deal, because its not real. he likes jamming random buttons on gordons interface and seeing what comes out. its probably a lot of fun for him, the same way that seeing a streamer or a youtuber suffer for our amusement is fun. its like, you know, in my opinion, gordons very cute when hes frazzled. hes also cute when hes laughing. pushing gordons buttons has a 50/50 chance of either of these things. and this is how he ultimately flirts with gordon: by pulling his pigtails.

but at the same time, benrey does legit care about gordon and knows some boundaries. benreys the one most often shooting at enemies to protect gordon, and he spent most of the last act trying to convince gordon to turn around and not fight him because they were friends (best friends, to be specific). he just lacks a lot of the emotional intelligence it would take to express the feeling of “he digs gordon and likes seeing his face get all red and sweaty regardless of the cause”. and gordon lacks the emotional intelligence it would take to express the fact that he doesnt know if he likes or hates benrey and hes scared as hell that its the former

because, lets be real. unironic benrey-liking is a sign of problems disorder. just look at all these words ive written about it.

can you imagine? this bizarrely powerful, non-human entity that can shrug off gunfire and grow to the size of a building has decided that youre his new plaything. benreys the bored guy booting up skyrim and fucking around in the console, and gordons the hapless favorite follower that hes taken a liking to. its a really fun dynamic IMO

after all this, its safe to say my title is a little misleading. the asterisk stands for * and So Is Benrey, Actually. they are both kind of awful dudes who thrive off of teasing each other and they deserve each other. and i am crazy about it. thank u for coming to my TED talk

#asky #careposting

[touchmycoat]

I LOVE YOUR PORN AU!!!!! LIKE SO MUCH - and i'm just. if you don't mind me asking, how - the way you flesh out the characters, their motivations, and feelings in every scene in such an eloquent way, and just little things here and there, a habit or an activity that adds dimension to who they are, and - your prose is wonderful. you achieve this addictive, engrossing narrative space that readers just absolutely melt into, and i have to ask - how did you develop your writing style? 1/2

what books did you read that formatively shaped the way you write? or you know, what did you do to improve your writing? i'm so in awe of how you world-built and established the porn au - like lqg & hc being national taolu champions?? how do you come up with that stuff? i cannot comprehend the amount of research and effort that must've gone into porn au, and i'm just so deeply thankful that you decided to share that with us. i apologize if i'm coming on too strong, but wow. thank you 2/2

--

oh my god please don't apologize, when i saw your ask i rolled on the floor giggling hysterically for a solid 15 min, bless your heart

part of the answer to your question—i've taken like, 8 years' worth of creative writing classes/workshops! there was also a transnational literary component to my degree so whenever possible, i took literature classes fksjdfksd so whatever you see and like is definitely the result of a lot of work. My writing from not even 10 years ago but like, 5? horrid, ridiculous, wild, cringe. The Porn AU itself is the second draft of a MUCH more lackluster piece.

about my writing style. gosh, you really know how to make a writer blush. "I like your writing style" is literally an instant kill LMFAO okay okay, the useful answer: my primary criteria for choosing what to write is, don't be obvious, be interesting. Fiction tells us to show, not tell, right? Poetry is about concretizing the abstract. Screenwriting says cut all useless lines. A lot of writing rules and advice—never start with the weather, avoid detailed descriptions of the characters, don't use adverbs, etc.—are all really about this exact sentiment.

I once took a seminar on writing for horror movies. The golden rule of the horror genre is Never Show the Monster, because whatever the audience is imagining is always going to be scarier than what you actually show them. There are obviously exceptions to this (to all writing rules), but in my mind, it's all the same principle.

LONG answer under the cut

So you start with building a scene. I approach it like essay-writing—I state my thesis for the motivations/main propulsion of the plot. "In this scene, LQG and SY are motivated to save Cang Qiong's porn production, so they have sex on camera." Then you build the sub-motivations: "LQG is also doing this because he's pining after SY."

I learned this "thesis-writing" from theater, specifically from writing 10-min plays. Theater is all about characters being driven by their wants and needs, and the reason I say 10-min plays in particular is because longer forms of writing will give you more leeway, but in 10-min, you pretty much need your character motivations established from their very first line. That's why you need that very clear thesis for yourself—if you don't even know what the character wants from the get-go, then you can't establish who they are, what they want, and where they're going to go in a dynamic and interesting way.

So this thesis drives EVERYTHING that happens in your scene, just like an actual thesis for an essay, just like topic sentences for your paragraphs. Once I do this, I have the emotional direction & narrative scope of how much this scene will cover, I have a sense of where it begins and ends. "Begin with the dynamics of their sex. LQG starts showing signs of his feelings. Reveal LQG backstory for exactly what those feelings are and why he isn't telling SY. The rest of the scene implies that LQG's feelings may not be so unrequited, but also sets up the fundamental problem at the heart of the whole fic—SY's inability to comprehend his own feelings." This is kind of my new thesis now. They're having sex; LQG pines; SY doesn't know he himself is pining.

Now it's time to manifest. This is the "storytelling" part, and the hardest lmfao.

Personally, my approach is largely shaped by my very cool screenwriting teacher, who hammered into us: don't fucking waste lines. The Golden Rule of screenwriting is that every line should reveal something new. I found my old writing kind of repetitive, especially on the emotional front, so this is kind of my editing mantra now—is this line either propelling the story or revealing character? If it's revealing character, is it a revelation that has to happen right now, or is it slowing the momentum of the scene?

But these aren't rhetorical questions! "Momentum" doesn't just mean tumble forward as fast as you can, it also means taking the time to draw the bowstring back further, so your next move has even more propulsion. That's why you get the little "LQG has been in love with SY..." cut scene in the middle of the fucking (at least, that's my reasoning for putting it there). Every line has to bring a fresh revelation that "proves" your thesis further.

That brings me to the details. You said you like the details I inject into the world-building, and honestly that's so gratifying to hear, because that means I'm successfully manifesting my intentions, y'know? "Every line has to bring new info" kind of sounds like a tall order, but the most effective way I've seen it done in books and onstage/onscreen is with these hyper-specific details. If you're writing a scene in which someone feels dirty, never have them just say that—have them say they want to take a shower. Show them running out of bleach again as they scrub down the stall after they wash. Begin the scene like "Steve always washes his throat first now." Then pack the scene with even more revelatory details: "Soap in hand, he heard the pipes above his head groan for a half note on adagio, and readied himself for the blast of icy water that always followed." Shitty shower, probably not rich, is likely a classical musician.

By the same token, I want to build LQG's character. The "Liu Qingge has been in love with Shen Yuan" section is the first insight we get into his background and perspective, right, so: I need to establish LQG's emotional context for filming this scene -> I can characterize him as a nut for martial arts in the same stroke -> so this takes place at a gym, beating up sandbags is a classic way of showing manly emotional distress -> so give me more details on this gym -> Puqi Gym, XL the martial god is obviously the owner -> how do I have XL & LQG a relationship beyond gym owner & client? They spar together -> I want XL & HC's position in this AU to mirror their god/ghost king statuses in TGCF canon -> how can I concretize their fighting prowesses in real-world details? -> they're martial arts champions -> what's an actual competitive martial art form that involves weaponry? -> wushu -> wikipedia Wushu, find taolu weapons sparring

(I just realized that in my songxiao daycare AU, Hualian are Olympic gold medalists by the same narrative logic laksjdnflaksjdnflsd)

So, that's the flow of logic behind my world-building lmao. It's all in the details. Leverage is one of my all-time favorite TV shows and the way they build their stories is super inspiring. If their thesis is "the rich and powerful take what they want, we steal it back for you," they manifest it in the most specific and concrete narratives: mine workers who like the work but are fighting for workplace safety vs. the money-grubbing mine owner who will blow up their livelihoods if it means a bigger payday; the little girl from Iraq with refugee status forced to be an accomplice to antique smuggling vs. international smuggler with a fetish for British royalty.

Last pieces of writing advice I've gotten: pay attention to the real world. A writing exercise we did was just sit in a public spot and make concrete observations on our surroundings. There are stories in everything!!! I learned to observe things like weird holes in the concrete (earthquake? drilling accident? bullet mark?), odd patches of moss or bird shit (look overheard: it's an AC unit dripping water for the former and nesting swallows for the latter), ladies in flipflops walking alongside ladies in high heels (excited mother walking her antsy daughter to the bus for the daughter's first job interview—the daughter's shirt collar is unfashionable and she's taking the bus, so there's a good chance the shoes were passed down, maybe from an office lady aunt. Maybe she's even overdressed for the interview, so will her outfit be an unintended source of tension once she gets to the interview? Is it a group interview, to make the comparison more stark?).

Also, write what you know. You know why SY is a video editor in porn AU? Because I'm a video editor. One of my more popular MDZS fics is set in a plant shop 'cause I worked in a plant shop. SL was First AD in Bachelor!AU 'cause I was First AD on a set once. Concrete details like the editing software having a split-screen, always answering questions about how often to water plants, and being up until 3AM editing call-sheets are the ones that will fully immerse your readers.

And if you can't do the actual things, just watch someone who is, listen to them talk, pick up lingo, and fake it. I watched like a 15-min vox video on fencing for the fencing!AU and a 45-min music theory video on the hospital pianist!AU (also I started learning piano sklfjnlsdjlfkjsd). Of course, I just finished reading a wangxian fic that had me going, "holy fucking shit, the author is literally getting their masters in a music program" so my 45-min youtube video ain't shit, but if you just need a little bit of character establishment, then it's enough to do the trick.

Anyways, tl;dr. Find the details, find the tension. Never tell outright what the tension is supposed to be, manifest it instead. Make the manifestation as interesting as possible, and if it's meant to be funny, make it funnier.

Sorry this turned into a fucking lecture lskjnflskdjnflskd but last thing, someone asked me before if I had formative authors, and this was the list I wrote at the time:

Angels in America (play) by Tony Kushner

The God of Small Things (novel) by Arundhati Roy

The Penelopiad (novel) by Margaret Atwood

“Litany in Which Certain Things are Crossed Out” (poem) by Richard Siken

Night Sky with Exit Wounds (poetry) by Ocean Vuong

Giovanni’s Room (novel) by James Baldwin (and then Go Tell it on the Mountain and then his essays)

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

And, ooh, now that I have this list I think I can even roughly sort it as such: Kushner, Atwood, Siken, and Salinger I really latched onto for their dialogue and very present narrator voice—same is true for Go Tell it on the Mountain. Roy, Vuong, and Giovanni’s Room, I think, are texts more representative of the kind of saturated figurative language I like, and emulate. Of course they all do imagery and voice and overall structure amazingly, but that’s the rough dividing line I’d draw.

But yeah James Baldwin is my fucking hero.

#long post #about me #writing #jesus sorry i spent way too long on this laksjdnflaskjdnflaskjndflas #but anyways i'm super grateful you gave me the chance to introspect and articulate all this #i'm exceedingly grateful too to all the writing mentors i've gotten to have #personal #these are the principles and rules i've learned and #i still definitely screw the pooch #on them #so you know this is just what's on my mind #this is how i school myself

[violexides]

fic recs (part 1?)

hi!!! so @n3tn0b0dy sent me an ask about fic recs, and i am stupid so it took me a few mins to like. compose myself and figure out what this is. i am definitely absolutely going to miss a few fics here, which is why it is a part one. i will probably keep this short-ish??? maybe go into more detailed ones later :eyes: 

(i am realizing i am going to write essays for these and for that i am very sorry)

something close to domestic, maybe by @mystxmomo (hi!)

definitely one of my favorite danganronpa fics, currently and (probably) forever. it’s a mature rated kamukoma fic, following an AU in which, instead of the remnants being captured and taken to jabberwock, despair sort of... fizzles out on its own, leaving the remnants of despair-- and the rest of the world-- to sort of heal with it. it’s in a series with another fic, that is in the same universe but following a different narrative with different central characters, and though it only has one chapter rn i highly rec that too. 

i like this fic for many reasons and to avoid prattling on, i will bullet point it.

- easy to follow. there are not overly complex structures-- not that that is inherently a bad thing, i also tend to love that style-- which makes it easy to digest.

- strong emotional impact. this fic has made me cry very, very often.

- really good characterization. mystxmomo is very good with characterization overall, especially with kamukura and servant, and that really shows with this fic.

- a compelling plot that still retains a slice-of-life format. i don’t really know how else to elaborate here.

- an idiosyncratic look into their dynamic. this fic explores kamukoma in the process of them healing, which is pretty distinctively different to a lot of kamukoma fics. obviously, this is not to shade those other fics, but, yeah. i really like it. 

okay sorry for rambling very much there, i really highly recommend it, it is a ongoing multichapter (i should have said that earlier i apologize) and the writer is also very cool. 

--

postscript by zombiekittiez

this is actually a series. it currently has three fics-- one that is fully completed (defy you stars), one that is a completed oneshot (supersonic man outta you), and an ongoing multichapter with pretty frequent updates (prince of a thousand). this follows a post-SDR2 storyline, with a lot of ships and dynamics within it, but heaviest emphasis on komahina. 

more bullet points! yay 

- the characterization is god-fucking-tier. this author is very, very good at characterizing these characters and i will not shut up about it ever actually. they feel real, and distinct, and flawed, and alive, and i love everything about it.

- good exploration of dynamics! i think the latter two fics especially shows this off really well. the friendships and relationships built are all pretty different from each other, but all feel like a pretty natural progression, sticking true to the characters, and feels very... real. which i like a whole hell of a lot.

- there are so many literature references and i am happy about it. there are also sparknotes-ish things at the ending notes of each chapter, which translates the quote, explains the significance within its own text, and applies it to the fanfiction. they are used in ways that make sense, too-- they don’t feel forced.

- the plot and plot building is SO fucking good. prince of a thousand has so many cliffhangers and i am very happy but also dying.

anyway, i really rec this series! be mindful of the tags and the ratings on some of the fics, but they are really, really good reads. 

--

absent mind by galaxyaqua

okay. this is a v3 oneshot rec, exploring pregame rantaro, as well as his relationship with tsumugi shirogane. it’s rated “teen and up audiences”, and. holy shit, okay.

- the writing style of this is GORGEOUS. i don’t know what it is about the writing style, but it feels so much like rantaro is talking, which is so fucking cool, and i love that so fucking much??? i can’t even explain it, but it is seriously super neat. 

- the EMOTIONS. this fic is so fucking emotional, honestly? it shows you this realistic, flawed, you could consider broken, character, shows them finding some hope, and shows the loss that comes with that. it’s so fucking incredible, and the lines have stuck with me even now, and it’s been a bit since i’ve last read. i think about the last couple lines especially a lot.

- these impactful one liners. holy shit. every line means something in this fic, and it’s so fucking cool and incredible, and i just??? holy shit??? i really love this fic???

i will say that this fic is sort of depressing in places, but i highly, and i mean highly, recommend. it is not a super difficult read, and it’s super, super fucking good. so i really recommend it. 

--

this sickness will save us by starrylitme // i believe this is @magioftheseas i am super sorry if it isn’t

okay. super, super fucking big content warning. this fic is a yikes, and the tags can sum it up a LOT better, but yeah. just keep that in mind. 

that being said, this is a really gorgeously written oneshot centered around soulmate au kamukoma, exploring the sort of... unhealthy aspects of their relationship. and i. Wow. okay.

- these fucking one liners. holy SHIT. i remember some of these scenes and lines so very well, and it does live in my head rent free. 

- the tone of this. the tone, and the mood created, is so fucking... i don’t even know how to describe it. terrifying? eerie? super fucking intriguing? it shows this shitty situation in an appropriately terrifying light, and it inflects so much emotion and connotation into the scenes, and holy shit. like, if i wanted to do a case study of incredible tonal work and diction and all, i would absolutely grab this fic.

- the characterization. while kamukura and komaeda are placed in a very interesting predicament, they still manage to stay pretty damn close to being in character, which i personally think is super remarkable. it almost enhances the circumstances too, ngl. 

- their dynamic. their dynamic in this fic is NOT healthy, and that is shown in full “glory”, in a very messy and dysfunctional and terrifying way, and i absolutely love it. it has a kind of realism to it, almost a cautionary tale but not quite, a sort of “this isn’t very good but it still feels grounded in realism”. and wow. Wow. it’s so fucking good.

mind the tags, but definitely rec this one. 

-- 

some scattered accounts i will gush about and if they have a tumblr account i will do my best to tag it. 

@kidcarma, same name on ao3. 

- okay, cam is just super fucking talented with characterization, and i adore all of their fics so fucking much? the way they characterize komaeda, kamukura, and hinata resonate super hard, and i just. really love their stuff. they are also absolutely wonderful so please support them do it why aren’t you doing it just kidding haha unle

@celestial-nova, celestial_nova on ao3

- nova is my best friend and i fucking love her, also her writing is fucking art. does a lot of naegiri and some stuff out of this fandom, but i seriously recommend her stuff. she’s really fucking talented and absolutely incredible and i adore her so very much. 

sinnohremaker on ao3

- their stuff is MAJORLY cathartic to me and they are also super sweet, love them a lot.

shutupnerd on ao3

- SHE IS REALLY TALENTED, I LOVE HER WORKS!! they are also super cool and i just appreciate her a lot fksdc,mxv, her fic “an account of events” is really good

@whatsupscythia, hinataisnothim on ao3

- i fucking love her writing, does some really good hinata prose, highly recommend it

----

i am ABSOLUTELY forgetting people, i am ABSOLUTELY forgetting fics, and i am ABSOLUTELY going to bash my head into a wall when i realize i have forgotten people, but uhm here is an impromptu list. i hope this was good? idk how to do fic recs. uhm yes support all these people they are dope

#fic recs #i'm really sorry for how long this is #i was functioning with half my head #i am very scared i like forgot something which is not the end of the world but #yeah i just. hng. there are definitely people i did not mention that i should have #i hope this is okay still??? aa??? i am nervous okay #also sorry it got shorter towards the end i developed a headache

[toxicpineapple]

Please give me your amami essay, I'd like to know the TEA! I was also gonna ask for the mastermind essay, but honestly I REALLY wanna hear your thoughts on his characterization (and your thoughts on his shitty fanon characterization)

HOOO BOY OKAY. this is good, it gives me an excuse to procrastinate on reading that new amasai fic on the latest feed. (note that i REALLY WANT TO READ IT, i’m just anticipating commenting and tbh the spoons,,, i lack them. it’s okay though i’ll get over it.)

so!!! let’s start with general attitude, because i think that amami’s is really unique. he’s a subversive character. in general i feel like that was the biggest goal with his character design and personality combination-- he looks like a total playboy, kaede even comments as much moooore than once. but he’s the absolute opposite. i’ll rant about that in a bit. i’ve already gone off on a tangent and i said i was gonna talk about attitude.

amami is laid back, but not to the point of complacency. y’know what i mean? like, he’s relaxed, but he’s on his guard, too. his speaking style is pretty casual (typically he’ll greet people with a “hey,” whenever he’s slightly uncomfortable he’ll probably say “haha”... this isn’t necessarily a canon thing but i like it when people have him talking in sentence fragments. ex. “forgot to grab my jacket” or “wanted to get a snack” sort of thing) and that’s just,,, the type of person he is. he’s casual. it’s remarkable considering how wealthy amami is-- though bear in mind, he still IS wealthy, so there are bound to be things he doesn’t understand about people-- that he can be so normal and like, down to earth, in a way. when people mess around with him he’ll probably just laugh it off.

to cite a fic i read once that had REALLY phenomenal characterisation, imo, ouma ends up dumping a bucket of water on amami’s head (on accident; there are some semantics and i won’t get into it but again the fic is really good and funny and you should totally read it) and amami just squeezes out his shirt and makes a couple cracks before walking away. (sorry this isn’t meant to be a “dumping love on fics” post but GOD that fic is hysterical.) he’s an enabler too, at least i think so-- remember that anthology chapter where kaede, shuichi, and kaito are trying to catch ouma and kaito sets an “amami trap” to stop him? all ouma has to do is flutter his eyelashes and go “pleeeaaase let me go amam~niichan!” and then he just. he does. what a fucking doormat i can’t believe him.

he’s like that though. i feel like big brother stuff is kind of his weakness. (and not in a kinky way alright i will destroy you. he might make a joke about having a sister complex in one of his ftes but he DOESNT that joke was just tasteless COME ON RANTARO WHFKLDSJFK) which brings me to his whole older brother thing, because like,,, YEAH. guy grew up with twelve younger sisters!!! and he remarked in his ftes with shuichi that they’re mostly step sisters, which means he just.... has a nurturing personality. i mean amami is somewhat conservative (if you try to come on to him during salmon mode you will be brutally rebuffed; amami tells u to keep your horny thoughts to yourself, though you shouldn’t be ashamed of having them) so i imagine he’s not the biggest fan of his father’s tendencies-- not that i don’t NECESSARILY interpret his father’s behaviour as him sleeping around.... it’s possible he just likes children and deliberately marries women who already have kids so he can take them... i mean it’s exceedingly decent to keep considering ur step children to be your children after a divorce so i have a hard time reconciling this common image of rantaro’s dad as some kind of player figure with the impression i got of him in my head but that’s just my daddy issues coming into play again so ignore me-- and yet he still considers all his sisters to be his sisters.

not to mention he feels a great deal of like, responsibility, when it comes to taking care of them. i find it impossible to believe that all the losses were his fault. you could ARGUE that the one he tells you about with his younger sister was to be blamed on him? but i mean, amami is a child. he didn’t even know his sister was following him out. sure he blames himself for it but there’s no real good way to blame him just considering that,,, he’s a kid. and he was so young-- he was obviously so young-- when it happened. so like, not to be all Good and Bad on you, but i do feel that amami is fundamentally a good reason. and you SEE that too, in the killing game. i’m certain he was on the fence about trusting that note he woke up with. would you trust it? he had no memory whatsoever of writing it, all he had were the words “ultimate hunt” and a map of the school to guide his way. i imagine he wasn’t even sure if he should do what the note said. but then ryoma started talking about sacrificing himself for everyone else, and rantaro probably thought, “well... if i have a way to get us out of here, even if it doesn’t work, i can’t just let ryoma sacrifice himself without having tried.”

rantaro is self-reliant too, i think. in the talent development plan mukuro remarks that she noticed he was injured a good number of times, but never said anything about it because she felt like he was trying to keep it under wraps. (note: good idea for an amami and mukuro friendship fic. must write. someone remind me.) i think amami kind of feels isolated from his classmates? either because he has these perceived notions of like, independence and whatever, not burdening anybody else with his problems (honestly not to go chabashira on main but wtf men ask for help c’mon i promise if you find a person who’s worth being in ur life they won’t treat you like shit for feeling ur feelings) or just because he’s not around a lot. i think amami is the type of person to invalidate his own problems a lot, or at least downplay them to others. he blames himself for all his sisters going missing, took the responsibility to find them all. you know the blow that’s going to be to his education? traveling around the world looking for twelve different people? and he plans to keep doing that!!! forever!!! ugh ;-; poor babey. but anyway i feel like he doesn’t want to tell anybody about his problems because he feels like it’s his thing to deal with.

i also believe that rantaro is a bit prideful. i mean, anyone can be prideful under the correct circumstances, and in fact there is a great deal of pride that simply isn’t addressed by the fandom in analysing characters and that makes me really sad because pride is such a SEXY character flaw but i’ll leave that alone for now. he hates being told to give up on what he’s doing. i mean everyone in his life has been telling him to stop looking for his sisters. that’s got to suck, but also, DAMN look at what his reaction was. this utter refusal to open up to anybody. shuichi’s ftes with him are spent pretty much just trying to get amami to stop squirreling around and actually TALK to him. amami asks shuichi at one point if he has any siblings and when the response is negative, amami immediately assumes that shuichi wouldn’t understand, would tell him to quit. just like everyone else.

(i mean, even with kiyo and mukuro, whose circumstances mirror his almost painfully at least in willingness to sacrifice stuff for their siblings, he doesn’t tell them what he’s doing, just that he’s doing it for his sister-- singular-- and that he would do anything for her. kiyo and mukuro!! out of ANYBODY, they would understand. in tdp they DO talk about it-- kiyo encourages him to keep searching-- as his friend...... fuck amaguji is such a good ship even if the implications of kiyo saying he wants to meet rantaro’s sister after he finds her bc she must be suuuuch a good person if he’s doing all this for her are uhhh not great-- and mukuro immediately understands when he says it’s to do with his younger sister. like, full stop. she just goes “okay” and goes serious. all at once. damn rantaro, mukuro, and kiyo really do be a power trio huh. i need to write more fic about them i miss them.)

this is more into baseless conjecture so take this as you will, but i also think rantaro is kind of,,, easily distracted lmao. he mentions helping out a village with a disease-- been a while since i’ve seen his ftes, sorry for any inconsistencies-- among other shit and like... bro what are you DOING. you have sisters to find. and he can’t be getting injured all the time, getting wrapped up with gang violence and all that, looking for people who were lost traveling. i mean sure, you could say they went all over the world and got wrapped up in all sorts of mess, but more likely they stayed in roughly the same area, waiting for him to come back. and also? i have a hard time believing his sisters were lost in these remote forest places people always put them. COME ON, who the fuck goes to some village for a vacation? a RICH person no less. i’m on another tangent. sorry. but yeah, i love the people who write rantaro as an absolute airhead. i headcanon that he has no way of judging the passing of time and thus is the absolute worst in the bathroom bc he sits there for twenty minutes thinking about the universe and then walks out like “:) ok ready to go” like wtf are you even doing there stupid akljdf anyway.

i think rantaro is softhearted and thoughtful. in his ftes with kaede he demonstrates an ability to look past what people show at surface level-- you can ask him about miu, kiibo, or kiyo and he’ll give u Good Fucking Insight(tm)-- and analyse their intentions more closely. and i mean this is just from a couple day’s interaction. he’s down to earth for sure, understanding when people are intimidated but also caring and observant. (his “talk about a first impression” line is so fuckaindgf.... good for his characterisation. i love romantic amamatsu but he so clearly takes an older brother role in those ftes, he’s really such a sweetheart,,,, hnadhfkj ;w;) rantaro is just. he’s patient with people. and selfless and kind. idk it’s all the good stuff. warm smiles and indulgence. all the way. probably lets kokichi steal his lunch.

THAT BEING SAID: i think rantaro also has a very serious streak. he doesn’t show it a lot but there are moments. he’s self-sacrificing-- i mean, obviously. he was the ultimate survivor, after all. some people hc that he got there by killing, or maybe everyone else in his game died but one person, but bro that doesn’t make any sense???? no. what happened was there were probably like three people left, and monokuma was like “one has to be sacrificed” and rantaro thought, welp. it’ll be me then. and i wouldn’t say the choice would be immediate because rantaro DOES has self preservation instincts-- he’s only human-- but i don’t think he’d have let anybody else make that decision. i think ultimately he would try to protect other people.

he can be scarily confrontational too. i do believe he’d usually only do it in the defense of others-- like, his base instinct is to protect. i read a fic once (oumami, unfortunately) where ouma was committing crimes and went to hide behind rantaro and rantaro instinctively moved to protect him, and that’s.... that’s good characterisation. point one to the oumami stans, point zero to me. motherfucker. (love u oumami stans, it’s just not my thing.) i really like it in fics when he’s stern, lecturing people for hurting other people, but i also think rantaro is too understanding to be truly unforgiving. like if two people got into an argument and one came out of it more hurt than the other, i don’t believe that amami would be unsympathetic to the less hurt one. i think he’s mature enough to take a look at the situation and go, well, okay.

i think he’d be TERRIFYING when angry. he’s patient, y’know? so it takes a lot to get him to that point. he’s really, ah, accommodating of people. puts up with a lot of bs kind of thing. but i imagine the best way to get him to snap is by hurting someone he cares about. and at that point: ur fucked. i’ve never written it before because i’m terrified of what i’d do with that kind of power but.... imagine the shuichi whump. holy god.

i’m NOT here to talk about shuichi whump (though i’m down to do that any time of day believe me) so i’m gonna like. shhhhiiiiiiffft.

i project on characters a lot so at this point it’s difficult to distinguish if some of my characterisation things are like, actually characterisation things? or just me venting, so like, take nothing i say as canon, but also,,, akdsjf we love a man who bottles up his emotions.

because rantaro just doesn’t have the TIME to be crying all over the place. he was probably a total wreck when he lost his first sister. and his second. and maybe even his third. but then he started to gather his composure, more and more. because if there’s anything that rantaro has in excess, it’s composure. the more losses he suffers the more of a shield he builds up. and the self hatred and the guilt and the blame and the responsibility are piling up and up and up, but god he hates it when other people see him sad, because he needs to be the strong one, he can’t just pile that up on other people. that’s not their weight to carry, and besides, he’s the older brother, he should be able to deal with his own problems. he’d just be burdening the people he cares about by letting them see his demons.

and then he doesn’t have any coping mechanisms because he never lets himself feel enough to cope, and when people get close enough to actually CARE about him, when people notice he’s upset or struggling and offer him help, he doesn’t know how to deal with it-- and god he hates lashing out at people but it’s so much easier to deal with the consequences of being mean than the consequences of breaking down. only conflict is scary when he’s one of the causes so he needs time to recover, and well, what better way to do that than to get on a plane or a boat and go look for his sisters? after all he’s wasting time whenever he’s just sitting around, they’re still out there and he needs to find them, so might as well just keep pushing himself to the limits, because it’s his fault they’re lost anyway...

something mukuro said to rantaro in the talent development plan stuck in my brain. like, initially it’s just a funny and cute interaction (rantaro even blushes and a blushing rantaro is a GOOD FUCKING RANTARO) but when i thought about it more i was like.... huh. hm. angst ideas. mukuro makes a joke about rantaro going over to her stand at the festival to flirt with her-- i think that’s the context, i know it’s play-boy related-- and rantaro assures her (as he always does) that he’s not that kind of guy, and mukuro agrees, saying she was just pulling his leg and that he seems like the kind of person who gets dumped because he doesn’t show his emotions enough. rantaro laughs, blushes, and says “haha, not touching that one,” and akdjfnnnnnn god mukuro you’re so blunt i love you fkdjf but wow. i usually have rantaro as not having dated anyone, just because i feel like he kind of hyperfocuses on finding his sisters? and given that he’s like sixteen (seventeen at the MOST) there’s not much of a timeline for when his sisters got lost. in my fic search i had to cram all the losses into a four-year period and damn that was rough. anyway i just don’t think he’d really prioritise romance. but that reaction implies that that’s EXACTLY his experience with romance, which makes a bit of sense because mukuro is ridiculously sharp, and also it’s,, it’s just sad idk poor rantaro. getting dumped because he’s like the emotional equivalent of a doorknob when it comes to his own feelings.

i do think rantaro is a bit cowardly. not in the sense that he’d shy away from danger-- i think he’d RUSH INTO IT HEAD FIRST because he’s a man or whatever, i know he respects women but he does seem to hold some of those very stereotypically masculine ideals of constantly protecting those around him, which is like.... ok toxic masculinity mcgee can u and kaito stop throwing hands every time u see each other ty-- but more in the sense that he avoids,,, confrontation. emotional confrontation just ain’t his thing. and i think he’d rather run away from it or otherwise find some way of ignoring it than try to address his problems.

he would, with that in mind, probably try to associate with people who don’t push the matter. kiyo and mukuro, for example. they both have a fair amount of baggage themselves so they’d probably be respectful. ryoma is lowkey enough that he just, he wouldn’t bring that shit up, that’s uncool. i also think rantaro would get along REALLY WELL with kaito, and i actually don’t think kaito would pull his sidekick stuff with him? just because in a way they’re kind of kindred spirits, and i think kaito would see an ally in rantaro before seeing someone to try to nurture, so they’d probably have some kind of a truce like, if you don’t force me to be vulnerable, i won’t force you. one of the reasons why i love amamota so much is because it involves the two of them growing to care about each other beyond that sort of unhealthy camaraderie and breaking down each other’s barriers and i just..... hhnnfhhdkfj they could be so good for each other but nobody wants to talk about thatjslfkj

you weren’t asking for my amamota mess lmao sorry anon i get sidetracked SO easily. but yeah, amami gravitates towards people who wouldn’t try to get him to be more honest with himself. and i honestly think the v3 cast would be pretty good about that overall, except for shuichi who is a detective and has a habit of sticking his nose in places it shouldn’t be, but i see no reason to write that out because amami’s ftes already display that beautifully. (well, that’s a lie, i’m absolutely plotting out a slowburn in my head already that involves shuichi stripping down his walls one by one, but forget about all of that rn we don’t need to talk about why amasaimota is my ot3.) also he is softer on childish people like ouma and himiko. ain’t nobody wants to TALK TO ME about how brilliant it would be if rantaro and hiyoko were friends because hiyoko has such problems in that department and he would take one look at her and go hm. i’m adopting her. and he’s so fucking patient and nice and she’d lose the will to make fun of him and i have to do ALL THE GODDAMN WORK AROUND HERE but it’s fine. at least i get to write it.

i’ve described the fundamentals of his characterisation pretty well by now i think. i have some throwaway headcanons, like uhh,,

he’s claustrophobic

plays the guitar and the ukulele

he prefers warm weather and perishes in the cold

high pain tolerance

he’s a Good Cook

doesn’t like sex jokes (they make him uncomfortable)

asexual (i do like a good demisexual hc at all times of day tho)

master of piggyback rides

does his own piercings

impulsive as hell

gets lost easily but can always find his way back

has a lot of scars from travels

hands are rough and calloused (again from travels)

morning person

smells like evergreen (you know i had to, you know i did)

Radiates Heat Like A Fucking Toaster Oven

good hugs

hates tying his shoelaces

likes being the big spoon :)

has a tongue piercing

i said “some throwaway headcanons” but i ended up listing way more than i mean to. i’ll make a separate list of my rantaro headcanons someday and talk about them all in detail but for now, uh, there’s that.

SO AS FOR THE RANTARO CHARACTERISATIONS I ABSOLUTELY DESPISE:

god where to fucking begin. actually i know exactly where to begin. it’s my least favourite one just because, like i said at the very beginning, rantaro is a subversive character. i mean i think he’s kind of a low hanging fruit when it comes to that. there are plenty of other subversive characters in the dr series but rantaro is like that. you expect a flirt and u get,,, a sweetheart. but then some people (usually the ones who ship him with female characters exclusively though i will see it on occasion in an amasai or oumami fic) decide to throw that out the window and make him a total playboy!! and listen, i have no problem with people who are a little flirty. we’re kids!! flirt ur heart out!!! and hey, that’s not what this is about but y’know what? so long as everything is safe, sane, and consensual, then yeah!! exercise your sexual freedom and sleep with whoever you want to!!! i don’t think there’s anything wrong with messing around a little, dating who u wanna and experimenting with ur tastes and preferences. if rantaro WAS a playboy, then there would be nothing wrong with that. i would love him just the same because he’s such a fundamentally GOOD character.

except that.... he’s.......... NOT. you slaughter one of the biggest aspects of his character by throwing away what matters to him and making him some hunky-deep-voice-dreamboat dude meant to sweep kaede/tsumugi/whomsteverthefuck off her feet. rantaro is one of those characters where he’s so blatantly not that kind of person, and it’s like. it’s an affront, almost, to portray him that way? and i do believe you should have the freedom to write what you want, since we’re in that age (aside from romanticised pedophilia and incest; that shit ain’t cute, i say this often but pro-ship DNI) where u should be able to take some liberties, but it’s just. hnnn. it’s so frustrating. rantaro does not know how to smolder! if he DID smolder, he wouldn’t even realise he was doing it. he doesn’t have people lying at his feet, okay? he’s too flaky for that. i wouldn’t say he’s unreliable but he definitely ain’t at school as much as he should be.

another one that i hate: st-stalker? what the fuck? that is not sexy that is creepy and weird?

another another one that i hate: yandere? what the FUCK??? that is not sexy that is glorified ABUSE???? the yandere trope is AWFUL bc you’re taking a controlling relationship and turning it into a fetish. NO. if he limits ur contact with other people, if he follows u everywhere, if he threatens ur loved ones, if he tries to control you, ladies and gents and nonbinaries, he’s not a yandere, he’s an abuser and you need a fucking restraining order. actually, people of ANY gender or sex can perpetuate this behaviour and IT IS NOT CUTE. I DO NOT GIVE A FUCK WHAT BOUNDARIES U SET IN PLACE, IF YOUR FREEDOM IS BEING RESTRICTED THAT IS ABUSE.

hate it when people make rantaro violent. hate it when people make rantaro a murderer. hate it when people make rantaro controlling. hate it when people make rantaro overtly sexual. some kind of sultry deep voice dominant kind of figure. dude, what the fuck? i don’t,, want to make any public comments about sex positions because i think that’s kind of Strange to just talk about on a post, but i do think that the way people portray him for their smuts is,,, idk it’s weird. i’m not gonna kinkshame u but like. :eyes:

i will however accept rantaro as a thrillseeker, or a highstrung rich boy, or a total space cadet, or a himbo, or a cryptid. these are all very good interpretations of the Mans. just, like. be wary of making him two dimensional. a good character is multifaceted. if you can take a trait that clashes with all of these and SELL ME ON IT, i will buy it. if u give me good justifications, or even just good writing?? then i will accept it.

the long and the short of it is, anon, he’s my favourite so i think about him a lot. i love writing rantaro. he’s just, he’s a Guy. y’know? He’s A Good Dude, If You’ll Give Him A Shot. :) we don’t get to see very much of him but i think that there’s plenty of material if you overanalyse everything, which, as you probably all know by now,,,, i absolutely do.

thank you for the ask, this was a delight to spend an hour talking about.

#amami rantaro #rantaro amami #abuse mention #long post

[friendofhayley]

ship history meme

Embrace your past and get to know your friends’ fandom origins!

Rules: Post gifs of your fandoms / ships starting with your most current hyperfixation and work backwards. (Bonus points if you share any stories about how or when you got into that ship! But not necessary!!) Then tag anyone whose fandom history you’d like to learn about!

Tagged by the most gorgeous, smartest, sweetest, and kindest person in my life @sightetsound​ <3 Sorry y’all, I have a lot of hyperfixations and I’m on NyQuil!

1. Katsuki Bakugo and Eijiro Kirishima, My Hero Academia - I literally can’t watch Season 4 until it’s finished because my heart will Explode if I’m left on a cliffhanger involving these too!!! (Unbreakable T.T <3) I don’t usually like animes but I fell in love with his trash bastard and his soft rock boyfriend by the villain’s attack in S1. It all started when I got a TikTok because a Very Hot Bakugo cosplayer was on there. (Literally, their rendition of Bakugo is just, umph. They have appeared in my dream.). As she got more popular he started cosplaying more of Class 1-A of MHA, and I kept wondering?? What the fuck is this anime about?? Why is there an alien girl?? I soon gave in and watched the show to gain context to this thirst trap. I have so many feels for these boys, even though I don’t post on them much here, and T.T

2. Alec Lightwood and Magnus Bane, Shadowhunters - I literally almost wrote my thesis because of this ship. I got into Shadowhunters because I was depressed in a foreign, racist country where I couldn’t go outside alone because old white men would corner me on the street, and everyone was talking about how Mike from Glee was kissing a guy at a wedding? Instead of partying during my study abroad trip, I gobbled down Malec content. And like who wouldn’t?? Harry Shum Jr. was playing a bisexual warlock?? And he had lines and a main character role??? An interracial couple where the characters are both POC?? Sign me up! But then I quickly fell in love with awkward gayby Alec and immediately knew how it felt to be in his shoes. (Disclaimer: I still haven’t finished the show because I don’t want their story to end, but just seeing their wedding scene????? Tears!!!!!!!!!! Both wedding scenes! I-) I just love how soft they look at each as they realize how lucky they are to be able to fall in love against the odds. T.T They deserve the world and all the warlock and shadowhunter babies and T.T This is just going to devolve into me crying so-

3. Stiles Stilinski and Derek Hale, Teen Wolf - I got into Teen Wolf to escape the hellfire that had become the Glee fandom around S3-S4. (Tbh it might have been Dereklei’s constant Sterek content on my dash that led me to give in.) Stiles was bi (through subtext) and definitely turned on by an older werewolf. What more could a depressed Gleek ask for? And listen - now looking back, Sterek is definitely gay Twilight - if Bella was snarkier, had a mental illness, and also a personality. Sterek was the ship to get me back into writing fanfiction and where I could read paranormal characters working through PTSD, ADHD, and other mental illnesses while fighting monsters and having unrealistic sex! I also love those future fics where Beacon Hills isn’t a Hellmouth anymore, and everyone’s alive and just living as one big found family. Truly, Derek deserves the world and I love him so much, and Stiles definitely agrees.

4. Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles, One Direction - If it’s a surprise that I’m a dark larrie, please read my bio. HL made me believe that love is real and exists and can last for years. I got into One Direction in 2011 through a Lilo fanfic, but as soon as I watched the Video Diaries,,,we knew. Louis has saved my life in ways I can’t describe and the songs that they’ve written for each other through their tough times are so inspiring to listen and dance to. Seeing how they’ve been dragged apart by management, Sony Entertainment, and the whole music industry as a whole even though they exist in glass closets is very disheartening to see. But their resilience that they show through their art (Only the Brave, Sweet Creature, If I Could Fly, and like so many others) is always there. If you want to fall in this rabbit hole, look at freddieismyqueen on YT and come inside lol. Larry is real.

5. Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson, Glee - the ship that got me on Tumblr! I didn’t start watching Glee until the summer before S2 came out. My whole choir was into it and I didn’t want to be “mainstream”, but Kurt was the first openly gay teen character that I saw on TV. When I heard a character played by Darren Criss, a musical theater YT legend from AVPM, I had to watch it. I ended up binging the first season with those Netflix DVDs during summer break (yeah remember when Netflix wasn’t streaming? lol). I watched every episode of that god-forsaken show the night of (or night after illegally, hidden from my parents) for that ship, and then me and my best friend would rant about it for the whole week: rinse and repeat. The episode they got together made me scream and I definitely put those Glee Rewind songs in my iPhone. (Fun fact: I used to cry at night because I wished someone like Kurt could love me like that because I heavily related to Blaine and his whole situation). I naturally stopped watching Glee the moment they broke them up and I’m still mad at their hasty attempt to marry them out of nowhere with no well-written getting together / make-up arc other than Jigsaw?? and a barn wedding?? As if Hummel would. What a trash fire. But dang, Glee fanfics have some of the dirtiest, kinkiest, forbidden fics out there. If you were ever on Glee_Kink_Meme on LJ, you know.

6. Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter - the ship that started it all, the big kahuna, the ultimate enemies to lovers for 90s kids. Drarry got me into the fandom world in middle school, where I basically lived on FFN and LJ while pretending to do my homework. I used to get ready every day by watching the same playlist of “The best Harry Potter videos on Youtube!” (curated by Ariel333Lindt, who was the only queer person I knew but lived in Eastern Europe, where I could see two gay people kiss and fall in love in the safety of my room through badly photoshopped videos. Please check out that playlist). I just love how each fic is a microcosm where they have to construct how magical systems work, the backstories of pureblood families, creatures, or just wizarding culture for the end goal of having Drarry fuck and fall in love! I love redemption arcs that take 200k to achieve, I love dark!Harry takes, and every single different damn take on Narcissa, Pansy, and Millicent - because deep down that’s the writer trying to come to turns on whether or not Draco should be redeemed to get together with Harry. (I mean we all know they’re obsessed with each other, book 6 anyone?) I feel like Drarry fics have the best worldbuilding and characterizations of these characters, and I just love those moments when Draco and Harry take a moment to take a breath together and realize how far they’ve come. No one else can understand how it felt to be the pariah or the chosen one, they both interacted with Voldemort the most, and they have the most history together. They should have gotten together! But I mean the author’s dead, am I right?

So that was a lot! Those are all the ships that impacted me that I still participate with. They have shaped me for better or worse, and have made me learn more about who I am and what I want (or don’t want) in a relationship. This was the most fun essay I’ve ever written on NyQuil!

I’m tagging @homosociallyyours​ because I really want to know your fandom story! Also @stozierbrak​ because I love you and must hear you gush about your boys. I’m also tagging @iamaqualady​ because you’re literally the most intriguing person I know and I’m glad we’re friends even though we haven’t interacted that much? ish? 

#tag #me #kiribaku #drarry #sterek

[mspaintp7ague]

quite thankful i dont have a lot of dysphoria cause my mom thinks hrt will give me heart problems or some shite 😐 like bitch please you do realize cis men just have that much t and don't go around dropping dead right

my doctor is chill on the whole thing she's just bein weird. there's a trans health center pretty close to us but nooo she doesn't want to go there and check out the actual medical resources and opinions on the matter. oh and she's also antivax but just for the covid vaccine. yes i am still not vaxxed for covid fml

tldr. im gonna be Busy after i turn 18

fr tho she really is just being stupid. i don't ever want children so idgaf about losing my fertility. idgaf if it would actually kill me tbh the world is going to shit anyway and i doubt i'm gonna amount to anything. thing is literally no one thinks hrt kills you. she needs to get off chinese 4chan fr

she lets me do what i want for the most part but is annoyingly stupid about certain things. yeah i don't like the government either but the vaccine that millions of people have taken is not going to give me cancer in ten years. she fr thinks people will start dropping dead eventually and "we just need to wait to see the long term effects" the mrna is reabsorbed in like. three weeks. how do you have this little critical thinking / trust in science

and she thinks men and women genuinely have biological differences to the point that gendered razors are actually important and you need a dick to wear boxers. fuck off mom let me buy some swim trunks. the razors i could care less about tbh cause she pays for them but still

ughh. kinda glad i'll probably commute to college cause rooming with someone would probably get awkward in several ways.

she also doesn't seem to believe in mental illness. which. while im self diagnosing and mostly guessing at what's wrong with me i am about 100% certain i have trichotillomania (hair pulling compulsion) because. yknow i fucking do that and have a giant bald patch on my head. and she will just be like "why don't you just stop?" and "use some self control" etc. recently i've decided to just stop showing her my hair (i wear a hat a lot) because it really just makes me feel worse and it's not her fucking business. she keeps asking anyway but i'm just gonna keep telling her no until it grows back. she literally can't do anything to help and only makes me feel worse about it

another thing i'm less sure about is the possible cyclothymia / mild bipolar i may have. i mentioned it to her and she thinks it's just mood swings, which, it might be, but this has been happening for a long time. so much in fact that i've projected it onto my ocs. plague as a character started off as a 'normal' mask of myself but gb (who was based off my irl appearance but. whiter) had two characterizations that i swapped between inconsistently. can u guess what they were. yeah. depressed/apathetic and extremely manic, deranged even. looking back i see the patterns of depression and extreme interest in media/characters/other stuff i've had. even if i would hide it irl i'd have weeks where i stayed up until 3 or 4 multiple days in a row just because i couldn't stop playing a game or reading or i just had this amazing idea and i have to write/draw it right now or i will explode. sleep is for the weak. etc. and then i'll have weeks where i can't look any of my teachers in the eye and am too tired of caring to shower or do laundry or anything beyond the bare minimum chores and wake up in the morning skip breakfast and walk to the bus stop contemplating if it's worth it to still be alive. at least when i'm excited i'll do essential stuff just so i can get back to the fixation again. it's so fucking stupid. "yeah sorry i havent worked on my essay in six weeks because i was too busy doing random shit and/or thinking about dying but was too pussy to actually do anything sorry"

that and the anxiety spirals. those were pretty bad for a while. like. someone told me they wanted to play games with me and i said yes. then they didn't reply for forty minutes and i just. kept thinking i did something wrong or misunderstood their message or otherwise fucked up but turns out they just forgot they messaged me. haha. yeah totally normal reaction there plague.

i can't tell if there's something seriously wrong with me or not but i don't want to tell my therapist about it because i don't want to get institutionalized or something. and my mom is anti medication too. yippee. maybe it's too much to hope some drug will make me stop having days where i can't fucking do anything for literally no reason but i don't know how to fix myself otherwise.

oh and i mentioned to my mom very vaguely a time where i overshared some suicidal thoughts and proceeded to spiral for like 5 hours straight over getting no response and ultimately dipped from a friend group for a while and now she wants to know the details. i literally told you i didn't even tell my therapist the whole story what gives you the right to know? huh?

i don't know if i'm normal. i feel like i'm not but i might just be overreacting and being edgy. i also have definitely have experienced impostor syndrome about several things in the past so i clearly can't trust my own judgement on either thing.

i also don't think i love my family. they don't really matter that much to me anymore. i think i felt something for them when i was younger but it's just not there anymore. my mom simply does not understand a lot of things and i think i see her on the same level as a friend, maybe. we talk and spend time civilly but there is nothing deeper there on my end. i've tried explaining it to her but i don't think she gets it. i really feel nothing more for her than for my school friends.

my siblings i've never been very close to anyway. i don't feel like i can talk to either of them about much anymore. with brother i can sometimes but i only reference certain stuff through jokes. yeah look at this funny stan blog i made for this vtuber that i've been thinking about nonstop for the last two weeks because i can't tell the difference between a crush, admiration, gender envy and aesthetic appreciation of his avatar. i'm so silly and not mentally ill at all.

there's no one who's an appropriate audience for this huh. ok. mental illness blog it is

[stonerbughead]

Maria watches friday night lights (#10)

Ahhh this season is so good, I’m not ready for it to end! This post covers the penultimate episodes: 3x11 - 3x12

-oh boyyy Lyla’s getting drunk to deal with her daddy issues. Real! Tho it is nice seeing Billy, Lyla, Tim, and Mindy getting along I guess? Sigh.

-HAHAHA poor Tyra being forced to throw Mindy a “tea party” bridal shower.

-let’s maybe NOT call your son’s 15 year old girlfriend a “minx” or a “plague,” Joe McCoy?!?!

-oh Matt :( taking out his anger and emotions about his grandma’s deteriorating health on his mom :( this is so hard

-oooooh this redistricting plotline is such an interesting shake up!! Holy shit these fully grown men standing around a table redrawing the redistricting line to “keep the Dillon Panthers intact” is truly wild.

-I really like this scene where Lyla breaks down to Tim about letting her mom and siblings move to California without her and feeling like she has no family now that Buddy has hurt her. I feel like too many teen dramas have a teen character’s family move away and never show it affecting them which feels wholly unrealistic.

-I have to believe Texas weather around semifinals time actually lends itself to dramatic pouring rain?? Bc I mean, it WORKS but this happened in S1 too right?

“He’s got to do what the coach tells him to do!” Thank you Katie McCoy. You need to get away from your terrible, controlling husband. Like, even when they win this dude isn’t happy bc it didn’t happen the WAY he thought it should.

-omfg I just gasped when JD’s dad called Madison a “tramp.” WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU

-and of course Tami and Eric are seated in the window of Applebee’s seeing the abuse happen and run out to help. You know who Tami and Eric remind me of (except they’re better): Kirsten and Sandy Cohen of the OC. It’s that “parents of everyone, moral compass of the community” trope. Honestly like, the only good teen drama parent trope. (To a similar extent I guess Mary and Fred Andrews’ play/ed that role on Riverdale)

“I think I’m okay here, hanging with my gal” - Tim Riggins is such a romantic boy wow. His pep talk for Lyla about going to college despite her dad’s bullshit was so precious.

“He hit my baby.” Oh pooor Katie McCoy, you need to get yourself and your boy away from your husband.

-lol when’s the last time we saw Gracie? Julie’s been absent this ep, she babysitting? Hahaha

-oh yes Tyra deserves this beautiful pep talk from her mom!!

-good on this show for naming what Joe McCoy did as “child abuse” bc YEP. Tami and Eric feeling awful about calling CPS (but being mandated to do so as educators) is such a real and well done conflict.

-omg Matt’s art portfolio!! He wants to go to Chicago for art! I just love the image of Tami, Julie, and Matt flipping through his portfolio ugh yes. Soft.

“It reads like a five page needlepoint pillow.” Lmao Landry and yeah, writing the college essay sucks.

“They have the biggest Van Gogh collection.” Saracen’s a man after my own heart.

FYI I left and Jeff gave me a dab that hit hard (I dramatically said it “killed me”) so the rest of 3x12 and the post was composed whilst I’m even more stoned than usual.

-wow Landry missing the bus the ONE time he drinks damn

-hey I’ve never seen this coach leading the chants on the bus before. Is this like his whole job

-awww Lorraine asking Julie if Matt likes art and she’s like, yeah he loves it! And he’s amazing at it. So cute. Oh wow both of them agreeing they don’t want to “hold him back from anything.”

-My heart! This show does such a good job of showing so many heartwarming dynamics of all kinds.

-ooookay Katie I get why you don’t want to be friends with Tami anymore....but like y’all need parenting classes, your husband is straight up abusive to your child. Also I’m scared for you, please leave that man

-OMFG Tyra lost her virginity at THIRTEEN? That’s so heartbreaking. Also everything she’s screaming about in the car needs to start going into this college essay. Omg is she gonna write about Jason Street getting paralyzed? Real. How many people in this town do you think used that in their college essay?

-Tim and Matt scene THANK YOU I am blessed

-omfg Tyra reading her essay out loud to Landry overlaying Tami and Eric on the field; Julie with baby grace; Saracen and Tim throwing the frisbee; the raucous Colette-riggins family in the car. Beautiful!!! Perfection.

-lol I saw the year 2008 on the game board and realized if this was fall 2008...I was a freshman in high school. JD is my peer.

-omg Joe McCoy has THE douchebag glasses. Classic child abuser am I right

-JD throwing a fit on the field is good fucking characterization bc you mimic what your parents do, especially when you’re a 15 year old kid

-OH SHIT SARACEN’S GOING IN AS QUARTERBACK FOR HIS LAST HALF EVER AS A HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL PLAYER??? The drama! The writing!

-YALL I am out here white knuckling it through this state game and I barely understand football and yet...I’m like wow really all you need to do to get me interested in a sport is make me care about the characters playing. Saracen and riggins are working so well together I cry

-damn what a way to go down. They actually turned the game around and a field goal is what made them lose :(

“I wanted everyone’s friends and families to be here tonight when I say this: I have never been more proud of a team than I am right now” oh Eric Taylor what a man

“There’s not a single person in this room who’s ever gonna be the same”’ wow I felt that

-Riggins always seems more contemplative in a Sherpa

#maria watches friday night lights #mine #friday night lights 3x11 #friday night lights 3x12