#But like think about the reaction in that context and it probably makes sense unless of course it doesn't

[kanmom51]

Those little touches that scream intimacy

Skinship is a thing.

BTS show physical affection with each other, they hold, hug, touch each other in ways that would perhaps raise an eyebrow for some, but within their cultural context are not a sign of ‘more’ than friendly affection and closeness.  Although, I do have to say that BTS do stretch the boundaries on that one too.  Some of the touchy feely is beyond what you would expect it to be among grown male friends in Korea as well.  But they did grow up together, in a sense, and although it’s a little more than usually accepted, it still is not an indication to anything more than a very close friendship.

But JM and JK, they have these moments.  Two types of suspicious moments.

These moments when they pull back on the touching, the almost touching or touching but just... barely. Those moments where you are sitting there and screaming at the screen (in your mind) “fucking touch him already”, which presents as highly suspicious considering how close those two are on the one hand and how tactile they are on the other.  

And then you have these moments where it’s more, it’s suspicious, it’s not something that you would expect between just friends.

So I thought I would put bring together, in one post, some of these moments.

Moments they do something, touch, almost touch, behave in a way that makes you go “this doesn’t look like something ‘just a friend’ would do”, or “heck, those two must be really intimate for this to be happening”.

j 14 interview

I guess I started with a big one. What is it they say? Go big or go home? Whatever JM was doing there with his wiggly wiggle finger during that interview was not something just between friends. It just wasn't.

BV1 footsies

No matter how close you are with your friend, him playing footsies with your crotch is not something you would allow him to do, well unless if you are not "just friends".

BV2 footsies

Here it's JK's reaction. If it was ok for a "friend" to play footsies, if said footsy playing did absolutely nothing for him, we wouldn't be seeing that reaction from him. That gulp. Man. He was hit hard, probably in the full sense of the word, lol.

Footsies BV4

Less about JK's toesies just lightly touching JM's leg and more about the physical reaction the two of them had that followed. Suffice to say that the room was getting real hot for the two (which is also why JK running to put on a big covering coat was pretty funny).

BV3 cuddles

Do we need to explain here?

It's not only the fact that JM is touching JK in these more intimate areas, it's the lack of reaction (well almost lack of reaction...there are those reactions that you just can't help) from JK.

Rose Bowl of course.

No matter how much people will try to twist this up, it takes a special level of intimacy to take someone's sweaty dirty ear into your mouth and suck on it, for 4 seconds straight. And then end it all with a light kiss on the ear.

hickey

I guess this one is a given too. I've heard the stories about brotherly neck sucking and nope, I do not buy that. Not one bit. No matter how the story is told, JM put his mouth on JK's neck, exactly where JK's mole happens to be, and sucked on it hard enough to bruise it. Yep. Not something you do with a "just friend".

Btw, love the editors captions. *in pain*, lol.

This one

And this one too.

And this one too.

Oh, and this too.

It's about being used to be in that kind of proximity. Muscle memory. The lack of an initial reaction, and only pulling away at the very end. And it's not for a skit or game. It's all them. That smirk on JK's face in the 2019 TMA's and the BV2 moments, priceless.

Same day as this, btw, just if you weren't aware of it or just forgot.

It's definitley not this

Or this

Just saying.

Festa 2020 karaoke

It's not about the touch, more abut JK's reaction to it.

And how can I leave this last one out?

JK just moving that pesky crop top aside to caress JM’s waist/hip skin on skin, a little smirk on his face when he moves in, JM mostly non reacting although if you do look closely you can see a tiny little smile there towards the end when JK starts playing with his fingers on his bare skin.  This screams of two people who are physically intimate.

Feel free to add more examples. Maybe I'll make a part 2 for this one too.

Happy pride month.

#Jikook #Kookmin #Minkook #Jungkook #JK #Jimin #JM #Jikook intimacy

[definetelynotavampire]

Oooh sorry if you've already shared them but I'd love to hear some Nikolai headcannons you have!

My Nikolai theories/ headcanons

I have been waiting for someone to ask me about this :D

(also spoilers for Gogol's "The Overcoat")

1. Born with an Overcoat

In his speech about true freedom he goes on about wanting to „fly like a bird“ and to „not be bound by gravity“. I know he also meant this in a mental/ emotion-bases sense but it got me thinking... is he stupid? His ability is tailor cut for this? By all means, he should be able to fly.

His ability can manipulate space and by extension also gravity (to some extend), thats basic physics. He even uses this to save Sigma when he fell off the sky casino – Nikolai reduced the gravitational force on Sigma by manipulating space.

This got me thinking - Couldn’t he technically fly if he adjusted his portals, so that one is on the ground and the other is in the sky/ under his feet?

Well, why hasn’t he done this? - Because his ability is limited by his Overcoat.

Which is strange, why is his ability affected by something external? Is he lying? Is this a mental thing? Can it be any Overcoat or just his cape? If it’s really a necessary part of his ability, then either it’s not his own and someone else made this restriction for him or his Overcoat is part of him - he was born with an Overcoat . Personally, I think it’s both.

At this point I decided to look up the source material, and by that I mean I read the wikipedia article about „The Overcoat“...

The main character Akaky is described as „being born in undress uniform“ and that basically, since the day he was born, his future was already decided. This obviously plays into bsd’s Nikolai's arc of freedom/ not following a predictaple path. But still it’s a funny simile.

Like I said, my theory is that he was both given the ability and that he was born with it. This seems like an obvious contadiction unless you say Nikolai is, like Sigma, a product of the book.

In conclusion i think that the Overcoat/ his ability is both his freedom and also the very thing he has to ‚overcome‘ in a sense.

2. Nikolai is self aware

This is kinda like a continuation from the first theory. I think it would make so much sense for his character, that he knows he has a set role in the story, especially when you look at his desire for true freedom. Maybe I just like the tragic irony, that no matter what, he can never get to that point.

Anyways, if we assume he’s self aware, his actions and idea of sanity is much more interesting. What would you do if you know your actions and emotions are pre-written? I have no idea, but whatever Nikolai has going on seems like a pretty valid reaction to me.

Also what does the conversation with Fyodor mean then? Is the book a God symbol? Why does Fyodor know? Is he older than the book? Is he affected by it?

2.1 This is a bit silly and I’ve talked about this before. Nikolai teleports his right eye to observe everything like a movie. Where he himself is, again a character. This fits well within the theme of his depersonalisation.

3. His Freedom in the context of „The Overcoat“

The obvious comparison is, of cause, „Nikolais obsession and desire for freedom“ and Akakys’ obsession with the Overcoat that he wants. Further than that i have honestly no idea. Akakys irony is that, after he gets the overcoat, it is taken from him immediately and he dies but I’m not sure how that could translate. What i mean by that is, i don’t want it to because i want Nikolai to get a good ending. Which would probably mean an ending that he chooses for himself. Okay thats basically also not very good… well shit... ._ .

4. The silly headcanons

4.1 Nikolai has no idea what an overcoat is, that’s why he wears a cape and calls it his Overcoat

4.2 Nikolai and Ranpo are brothers, i have no reason for this besides it’s funny and i like them both.

4.3 Nikolai does not know how to use public transport because he always teleports everywhere

4.4 He has a disney princess hair care routine (for obvious reasons)

4.5 He has very normal hobbies

5. The "Is it really silly tho?" headcanon (yes it is)

5.1 „We all came out from Gogol’s Overcoat“ - a quote by someone, idk by who

Nikolai is, or will be the author of the book. Idk how or when, but at one point he makes a decision about abilities or ability useres and it affects everyone. Maybe that could be his moment of freedom, because it would be a paradox if that decision wasn’t truely made by him. And then it’s something like he burns the book so abilities and everyone created from the book is gone. I can see that happen.

okay these are just the things i could think of rn, there are probably more ._ .

#ahaha tysm for asking #:'D #bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd headcanons #bsd theory #nikolai headcanons #okay idk the differnce between a hc and a theory #bsd analysis #bsd nikolai #bsd nikolai gogol #nikolai gogol theories #okay now that the thoughts are all out of my brain i can finally think about something other than nikolai #perhaps #garlic rambles #but also #garlic thinks

[yutaleks]

Other incest tropes

So I think I’ve touched on this before in this ask and this ask.. like what’s the appeal of the incest trope and each subset of incest trope.

I think to answer specifically why siblings is more palatable than other subsets of incest trope, you probably have to think about what goes into each one. A lot of the incest fics you read are typically short pwp without much context for why this is happening, aside from close proximity/mutual attraction. If you took away the verbiage of “brother/sister” or “niichan/oneesan” etc the fic would read just like any other roomates fic or best friends fic. Like I said it’s easily digestible. Even if you don’t like incest trope, you could probably read the fic, replace the word brother/sister with roommate or friend, and more or less nothing would change. It’s usually not done with nuance. In cases where there is more to the story, there’s usually some sort of trauma happening to either character. And in the positions of siblings, usually the trauma/response do not feature a power dynamic. For example, if you both have abusive parents, then you confide in each other. Gender dynamics aside, you both share the abusive experience. Or, if one person is going thru a traumatic event, the other sibling comes from a place of equity (you were both born by the same parents into the same circumstances). It’s like there’s another one of you around to soothe and comfort you. Aside from gender/age difference (ie older brother vs younger brother), you are relatively equal in this way to your brother. This also makes the romance between you relatively palatable compared to parent/guardian and child.

I think I touched on this in the previous ask I linked. But other types of incest like parent/child or another older relative, that equity I just talked about doesn’t exist. There’s inherent power dynamics which makes people generally uncomfortable (think about how people are uncomfortable with teacher/student or boss/employee, etc.). Not only is it immoral because it’s incest, but the older party is also morally failing you. They have a responsibility to be the adult in this situation, and they are doing something grimy and gross by betraying that sense of responsibility/trust. Like if you were raised by your parent and then when you’re an adult they engage in sex with you, that’s a betrayal of your established relationship and them being your caregiver. Did they raise you just to groom you and have sex with you? Did they feel attracted to you since childhood? It’s more than just a sibling, where you have been close in age and did not have that level of responsibility to each other. (Unless they raised you, which complicates the relationship). There’s just more levels of moral failings when a guardian is the one engaging in this behavior, and I’m sure that turns people off. I also touched upon this before, but most people have either very good or very bad relationships with the adults in their lives and do not want to imagine this scenario knowing their experiences.

And writing a fic where it’s your biological parent/guardian x reader is not easily to do as pwp; it requires some explanations for why it’s happening, and typically those kind of situations make people uncomfortable. There’s no way your parents would have raised you from a baby and then as an adult suddenly feel an attraction to you without something very critically wrong happening. And many people don’t want to read that.

Easily disgestible incest scenarios are usually step-relatives who didn’t grow up with you, or estranged relatives who meet you as an adult. Those kind of scenarios are easy to explain, and do not typically cause a guttural reaction in people because they can very easily understand a strangers to lovers scenario. Think of it as just strangers to lovers with a sort of uncomfy title attached. People can handle “sort of uncomfy”. There’s no trauma there. Nothing morally wrong happening besides overlooking a technical title. It’s easy to digest and easy to overlook.

Anyway. I think it’s the power dynamics and age gap that turns people off of other types of incest.

#ϟ asking aleksandria #cw.incest

[oneatlatime]

The Winter Solstice part 2: Avatar Roku

This episode opens with a complete cul de sac of a conversation. I guess it was for character development? We already know Sokka and Katara are ride or die, but I like the idea of Appa getting to express opinions and be understood and listened to.

My thanks to this guy for moving the plot along.

Zuko is back to being an asshole. And he was so much more interesting last episode.

Zuko is only 16? I thought he was at least mid-twenties. He's in charge of a whole ship at 16. That's an alarming notion.

You know I haven't even met this firelord guy yet but something tells me that Iroh is right and Zuko is giving him too much credit. I'm kind of impressed by how much of a shadow the firelord character is casting over the show without even being introduced yet.

I don't get Katara's point here. It's too dangerous is exactly the reason they're there? It's a killer line but I don't think it makes sense? Also what is with their faces here? Sokka's poor teeth.

This asshole. I was hoping he was a single episode character. He's so good at being a villain that he undermines Zuko as the main villain. Although judging by the reaction of the guy on the left, Zhao's villainy is not typical of fire nation military. He's unusually evil. Also since when is Zuko a traitor? And why does Zhao wear a toga outside of his armour?

Going above the cloud ceiling actually made it worse. Did not see that coming. I have no knowledge of meteorology or whatever the relevant science is, but if they're high enough up to be above the cloud ceiling, shouldn't it be getting hard to breathe?

How. You know it's a good thing that airbenders were all monkly before they disappeared because I think they're all secretly one man armies.

Zhao is a butt, but he's a clever butt. Zuko probably would know more, although in this instance I don't know that he does? Unless that villager he kicked through the door told him. Actually that's probably why Zuko was so close on their tail. So yeah, Zhao is a clever butt.

I know the feeling buddy.

I know that feeling too.

Sokka very solidly being relegated to comic relief in this episode.

Surely if the temple was abandoned it wouldn't be so well swept? Or lit?

Airbenders once again being a one man army.

I was about to point out that there was no way they could know where they were going, but the show beat me to it. Points for self-deprecation.

Avatars can bend magma? Would that be earth bending? Or firebending because of the heat? Or waterbending because it's liquid? Actually, can water bending bend all liquids, or only water based ones? Could waterbenders bend oil? Can anyone?

I know as little about vulcanology as I know about meteorology, but wouldn't it be kind of hot walking there?

This sage's speech here is really well done. Worldbuilding, plus one hundred years of historical context, plus real world consequences to both the Avatar's disappearance and the firelords who took advantage of it. Of course the avatar never appearing would have consequences. Things have gotten warped. Also interesting that the sage uses the word 'hope.' What were they hoping for the next Avatar to do? Were the sages originally against a fire nation war? Were they hoping the avatar would appear and defeat the fire lord who started the war before it really got started? Has this 'Aang defeats the firelord' plan been in place for 100 years?

Sokka not being relegated to comic relief after all! I'd love to know the context of Sokka's dad inventing fake firebending and then feeling the need to pass it on to his son too. A party trick? Actually that would be pretty tasteless (or pretty gallows humour) given that they're southern water tribe.

How is this bridge still standing. Also pretty.

Sokka and Katara proving that they share a brain. Both a good plan, and a good save. Seeing them bounce off each other is always fun.

Momo has the most adorable sneeze!

"What took you so long?" Never has a rebuke been delivered in a more friendly way.

What is with the stairs in this temple? First Zuko can sneak up unheard, then Zhao and a whole crew/platoon/brigade/whatever shows up without anyone noticing? Is this temple carpeted?

So Aang has a maximum of about seven months to learn three other elements to a high enough standard to be able to defeat the firelord and whatever armies he brings with him. No pressure.

BADASS!!!!! You guys are screwed!!!!!!

Lava bending! Magma bending? Badass bending!

Momo saves the day! Did not see that coming!

This whole sequence is so good.

Zhao does not see nuance. Kind of satisfying to see that all the Fire sages are royally screwed. That's frankly quite realistic. Remember in school when one kid misbehaved so the whole class had to miss recess? Same energy from Zhao. Makes sense too: dictatorial empires are not interested in mercy or fairness.

I love the lighting on Zuko's boat. Very yummy textures.

And just like the southern air temple, this one also makes the correct decision and ends on silence.

Credits tell me that one of the voices this episode was done by someone with the abominably badass name of Clement von Frankenstein.

Can you believe these two shots are from the same episode? So pretty.

Final thoughts

I honestly forgot that this was part two of a two part episode. It was pretty much 1000% standalone.

This episode is also good. I think I preferred part 1, because the fire nation in general does get on my nerves a little. Part 1 had Zuko and Iroh being alternatively stupid and badass, which was fun to see. But I'm finding increasingly that Zuko and Iroh are not at all representative of the fire nation in general, and the fire nation in general annoys me. This episode is still really good, and it set up a whole lot for the rest of the season, but it also had Zhao the butt, so points off for that.

Sokka fell hundreds, if not thousands, of feet and is totally fine with it to the point where it never gets brought up again. As Sokka, or as Sokka's sister, I would have had to lie down for a bit after that.

Seeing Aang and company with the addition of the fire sage work as a team is fun, and I like how much understated yet important work Appa and Momo had to do this episode. Appa got them there safely through a hail of flaming whatever-those-were, Momo played Aang's shadow behind the firebending door and retrieved Appa when the temple was sinking, and Appa got them out of there again. They would be so lost without Appa.

There really wasn't much Katara this episode. There wasn't much Sokka either.

How are Aang and friends going to get out past the fire nation blockade again? How is Zuko?

The fact that Zuko is only 16 is something I'm going to have to turn over in my head for a bit. Learning that rattled me. I would say at first that he doesn't feel 16, but looking back at previous episodes with the knowledge of his age, I'm going to have to reevaluate all those times I called him an ass. Maybe he was just being 16. It feels crazy to put a 16 year old on a globetrotting manhunt and in charge of a ship, but this is a world where the Kyoshi warrior ladies are led by a girl Sokka's age, and a pair of teenagers are escorting a child avatar across the world with no adult supervision. Some of this is cartoon logic - it's a kids' show, so the heroes will be viewers' ages or close on, but also, every time I catch myself wondering where the responsible adults are, I have to remind myself that the war ate them up. I thought before this episode (when I thought Zuko was older) that it was a reflection of the state of the war that the fire nation had adults fighting while the other nations were reduced to relying on children/teenagers, but finding out Zuko is a teenager too puts a whole different spin on that. Seems this war has been universally destructive.

Zhao was determined to arrest Zuko (again, why is Zuko a traitor suddenly? Is it because he won the duel thing?) but the (bad) fire sages didn't try to stop Zuko; in fact they worked under his command. So I'm guessing Zhao's opinion of Zuko isn't the fire nation's opinion of him? Actually, is there any indication that the fire sages knew who Zuko was when he showed up?

This episode had good fights, lots of pretty heavy plot stuff and exposition stuff, both for what's coming and for the past and present state of their world. Not much in the way of humour, which makes sense given the subject matter. This episode could have devolved into an infodump, but it didn't.

I'm happy to see how consistently this show is sticking to the idea of consequences that can't be handwaved. Avatar disappears leads to fire sages losing hope. Fire nation going to war leads to previously non-partisan group getting twisted into serving the nation, to the point where they become the enemy of their previous purpose, which can be done to them partially because they have lost hope. Related: that one fire sage did not have to go against his fellow sages and his order's bastardised purpose. He could have taken the easy path, especially since the fire sages' purpose was changed long before he was born, probably. That's some impressive strength of character, to be loyal to an idea that basically died out before you were born. Given Zhao's general nature, all of the fire sages would have been arrested at the end of the episode regardless of what happened because Zhao had to have someone to blame, but that one sage couldn't know that. He's had weeks to come to a clear-eyed decision to betray the corrupt principles of his whole order/career/role. And he does! Good for him.

Now we have our ticking clock for the rest of the season. I loved what Roku said about how Aang will be able to learn the other bending styles because he's done it before. It establishes this permeability and connection between Aang and Roku, and maybe other avatars too. It kind of drives home that Aang isn't just a fun kid (although he absolutely is and I hope he never loses that), he's also something greater, bigger, older. He's like a cosmic entity, or a semi-divine being. And thank goodness he is such a goof, because a cosmic entity or a semi-divine being with unmatched and unmatchable skills and power that was also wrathful, or prideful, or any other negative quality, instead of a goofy happy peaceful kid would be apocalyptic.

That being said, this connection to Roku also goes kind of dark: how much of Aang is Aang? How much is an avatar an individual, as opposed to the sum of avatars that came before them? Can you separate the incarnation from the avatar? Will Aang ever get to belong to himself?

The fire sages are mostly quite old, and the last avatar was during their grandfathers' time. Is there anyone alive who remembers what it was like to live in a world where there is an avatar active? Bumi is very old, but he's Aang's age, so assuming becoming the avatar is something that happens when you're born or soon after, Bumi probably won't remember the last avatar. There was the old man from last episode that recognised Aang's airbender tattoos or clothes. Maybe he remembers the previous avatar? How closely do the last avatar dying and the air nomads getting wiped out coincide?

For that matter, even if Aang saves the world and gets reinstalled globally as the Avatar, does anyone know how to operate in a world where he's present? How do you address an avatar? Are you supposed to invite him to political events? Is he supposed to have a say in nations' internal conflicts? What is the avatar office and responsibilities in the human world? Is there even space for, or a need for, an avatar anymore, beyond the obvious 'defeat the fire nation' angle? What if, over the last century, people have taken over covering what were originally avatar responsibilities? Do those get given back to Aang? Are there any jobs that can only be performed by the avatar that have been left hanging for 100 years? How much clean up is Aang going to have to do? How many spirits like the black and white spirit from part 1 have been rampaging unpacified for a century? Are there whole swaths of the world made uninhabitable by unhappy spirits?

All the above questions could apply to a world that hasn't seen an airbender in a century too.

Also imagine how much it would have sucked being alive during the time when Aang originally should have appeared as the Avatar. Every new fire nation atrocity would have you thinking "surely this is the last straw that provokes the avatar into coming out into the open" and then, year after year, fire nation atrocity after fire nation atrocity, no one ever comes. I'd be so bitter.

The fire sage bringing up how long Aang has been gone made me think of something else: are Aang and Bumi the only people still living who know what it's like to live in peacetime? Everyone born in the last 100 years has been born into war. Forget about remembering how to live in a world with an avatar, or any airbenders, does anyone remember how to live in a world at peace?

Which makes it so fitting that it's Aang - one of two people who remember peace - that is being set up to defeat the firelord and if he does (rather, when he does - it's a kid's cartoon, the good guys are going to win somehow), it's going to be Aang, in his role as Avatar, who will be ideally placed to guide the world into transitioning to being at peace. I feel like it would be a different story if an avatar forged in war was being tasked with ending the war - for one, probably a much bloodier story. There's something quite poetic about one of the last people who remembers peace being the one destined to re-introduce/grant/give it to the rest of the world.

Looking back on what I wrote, I think I said more about random tangents that this episode made me think of than I said about the episode itself. Obviously it got me thinking. I guess that means it was good?

#atla #avatar: the last airbender #avatar roku #avatar the last airbender

[ae-neon]

Reading Throne of Glass (4-9)

Again. I'm nitpicking, it's just how I enjoy a lot of my media. Overall I'm still giving the story a fair chance. (Except the Nehemia plotline)

Chapter 4

Really great opening paragraph, like honestly so good.

Proof sjm once understood that starvation would decrease breast size. Also proof that misogyny rots the brain cause god forbid Nesta didn't look hot enough for Cassian to fuck during her depressive breakdown.

Sorry, back to tog.

This chapter is great, amazing even.

Everything from Celaena falling asleep on the floor cause the bed feels too different after her horrible year in the mines

-> her reaction to sunlight and the small bits of hope she has

-> her figuring out a way to kill Chaol every 15 minutes.

-> her solemn reaction to the fact that no one else would be leaving the mines in anyway except death.

The scene with the dogs was nice. I like the interaction and characterization going on between these 3 main characters.

The scenery and worldbuilding is good too. We have Ellwye, the West, Wendlyn, The Witch Kingdom, the East, Endovier, Ardalan and Rifthold all mentioned and somewhat defined within narrative context. No info dumping, just small relevant tidbits.

Okay so Celaena is 18, Dorian is 20, Chaol is 22.

It's almost shocking how reasonable sjm used to be.

Celaena's a little crazy but it's fun sometimes. She says she's trying to get under Chaol's skin but she's the one saying he's not very nice and being bothered when he doesn't engage with her.

22 is much better than I thought. But he honestly has to be not only the best swordsman in the country but also a very high up, well connected young lord to be Captain of the Royal Guard.

Me and Celaena locked in, fr. She clocked him as a Lord.

Also characters with a strong sense of justice >>>>> another 5 points for Chaol.

Top tier chapter overall.

Chapter 5

The forest scene is cool. King Brannon. 2000 years ago. Fae. Hope this plays a big role.

If the Fae are just gonna be dudes who run around the same as humans (with pointy ears and magic) why make them immortal? I don't think sjm really comprehends the concept or how otherworldly it really is.

She knew plenty about this forest, knew that the denizens of this place had once been faeries: gnomes, sprites, nymphs, goblins, more names than anyone could count or remember. All ruled by their larger, human-like cousins, the immortal Fae—the original inhabitants and settlers of the continent, and the oldest beings in Erilea.

Just say Elves, I beg of you

Okay but surely the King of Ardalan, aka Dorian Senior, banning magic and making it disappear is an act of magic itself? Like unless bro is god, the simple act of banning magic would not erase its existence.

The King of Adarlan had outlawed it all—magic, Fae, faeries—and removed any trace so thoroughly that even those who had magic in their blood almost believed it had never really existed, Celaena herself being one of them.

This all just happened within the last maximum 30 years. She herself just told us Fae are immortal. How the fuck would they forget they ever had magic? There are humans old enough to still remember.

"It had been a while since she’d contemplated the gifts she’d lost, though the memory of her abilities haunted her dreams." okay so it's happened only in the last 10 years??? That means everyone still remembers. Why not just write that Celaena could barely remember instead of implying it was a common thing.

Still really like her descriptions of the forest and of the faeries.

I'm guessing gnomes left her flowers. We'll probably never see them again.

Chapter 6

Icy rain kept them company for four days, during which time Celaena was so miserably cold that she contemplated throwing herself into a ravine, hopefully dragging Chaol with her.

Her dedication to murdering him is quite endearing, I fear

The weather hits for me rn because it's autumn here too.

...the Crown Prince pulled out of line and came trotting toward them, his dark hair bouncing. His red cape rose and fell in a crimson wave. Above his unadorned white shirt was a fine cobalt-blue jerkin trimmed with gold. She would have snorted, but he did look rather good in his knee-high brown boots. And his leather belt did go nicely—even though the hunting knife seemed a bit too bejeweled.

Dorian the fashionista

Okay wait. The castle is half stone half glass... Can you just see into the castle? How did they even build that. If this was wheel of time or something I'd assume it was a modern skyscraper being seen through the eyes of people who didn't understand that. But there haven't been any other clues to suggest post apocalyptic fantasy stuff... Idk how I feel about this

The writing continues to be good. Celaena's dreams are pretty disturbing and her moment of quiet contemplation while staring at the greenish glow of the glass castle was really solemn and grounding. I think her thoughts about putting kingdoms behind her would have really hit if sjm revealed her identity and still had her refuse to rule.

"She wasn’t fated for anything. Not anymore"

During this scene the weight of her life experiences so far - running from her burning home at 8, losing her magic, being taken in by a man she couldn't trust, being made to murder for a living, being betrayed (most likely by that same man) and ending up in a slave mine - feels real, feels like it's made her truly lonely.

Still, the image haunted his dreams throughout the night: a lovely girl gazing at the stars, and the stars who gazed back.

Okay so why didn't sjm give Feyre a moment like this if we're supposed to believe Rhysand is her destined true love.

Chapter 7

There's a sense of life in this story thats really missing from acotar. Rifthold has flags and sigils and trumpets announcing the Prince's return. The horses smell, the city smells, the spices from the market smell, the river smells. Like there's a world here and it's tangible.

Acomaf really is the grave. And stans act like it's her magnum opus. No wonder sjm doesn't talk to them.

From bearded peddlers to servant girls carrying armfuls of hatboxes, everyone paused as the flag-bearers trotted proudly ahead, and Dorian Havilliard waved. They followed the Crown Prince, who, like Chaol, was swathed in a red cape, pinned over the left breast with a brooch fashioned after the royal seal. The prince wore a golden crown upon his neat hair, and she had to concede that he looked rather regal. Young women flocked to them, waving. Dorian winked and grinned.

Nobody in Velaris or the Hewn City or Illyria gives a fuck about Rhysand like this lmaooo

Now that she noticed, there were countless chained slaves working the docks, lifting and sweating, holding parasols and pouring water, eyes on the ground or the sky—never on what was before them. She wanted to leap from her horse and run to them, or to simply scream that she wasn’t a part of this prince’s court, that she had no hand in bringing them here, chained and starved and beaten, that she had worked and bled with them, with their families and friends—she was not like these monsters that destroyed everything. That she had done something, nearly two years ago, when she had freed almost two hundred slaves from the Pirate Lord.

I get what sjm was trying to do but the White Woman Energy™ is off the charts. It's not about you and you being seen as bad. Decentre yourself from the slavery narrative, please and thank you.

Kinda disappointed Celaena didn't spot any other spies or assassins lurking about. She was strangely unobservant for once.

Spears erect, they held rectangular shields, and their eyes were dark beneath bronze helmets. Each wore a red cape. Their armor, while tarnished, was well crafted from copper and leather.

Actual description of uniform and weapons rather than just "Illyrian leathers" "Illyrian knives/swords" BUT why does the description sound like Roman soldiers when we're clearly in a renaissance-esque fantasy time period

No, okay, I don't like the literal glass castle on top of a stone castle. Celaena agrees.

Dorian: you won't compete as yourself, we'll keep it a secret.

Dorian at the entrance to the castle while nobles and guards are welcoming him back: WELCOME CELAENA SARDOTHIEN

They were each armed with a sword, knife, and crossbow, and though they’d been alert while their captain passed by, she knew a crossbow wasn’t exactly a light weight to bear for hours on end. Celaena crept to her bedroom window, pressing herself against the marble wall, and glanced down. Sure enough, the guards had already strapped the crossbows across their backs. It would waste precious seconds to grab the weapon and load it—seconds when she could take their swords, cut their throats, and vanish into the gardens.

Smart, and even adding to her character weight and credibility. She surveys the room, makes a weapon and categorises what she could use to kill. Legit feels like a competent assassin.

Even the clothes are so much better than in acotar. What happened to sjm??

“He has a big heart, His Highness.” hahaha Dorian is apparently out here hoeing, I respect it.

Not the literal throne of glass.

And then there was the matter of Dorian’s sapphire eyes—not even his mother had his eyes. No one knew where they came from.

I hope this matters

The conversation between Dorian Snr and Dorian Jr is loaded with politics:

King Dorian I is a conqueror

Dorian II doesn't want to inherit the empire.

The younger brother isn't really a threat, neither of them take Hollin seriously.

Ardalan is in active war against Wendlyn

Why call Celaena a witch if the race of Witch exists. Why not just call her a snake or temptress or something

Dorian wants to kill his dad. He just like me fr.

Chapter 8

Okay. Chaol has an eagle shaped pommel on his sword. Dorian's sigil is a wyvern. The guy Celaena ends up with can turn into a bird I think. Rhysand, Cassian and Azriel have bat wings. The love interest in Ccity is an angel. SJM has a thing for wings, yes?

Tamlin not having wings is more proof of Feylin not being endgame than anything else you can point to in the text.

Chaol is giving the assassin a tour of the castle... Is he stupid??

The competition begins tomorrow??????

“I don’t understand why you refuse to enter the glass addition,” he went on. “There’s no difference between the interiors—you wouldn’t even know that you were inside it unless someone told you or you looked out the window.”

I lack the visual imagination to understand what the fuck is going on with this building. It really just sounds like a skyscraper

A clocktower made of black stone. Something like you'd see at the Gates of Wyrd. Hmmm. King built a spooky magic tower thing around the birth of his son. The same king magically made magic disappear.... The gargoyle on the tower points to a tile in the garden with a symbol on it. It's feeling very Da Vinci Code rn

A library... I miss Nesta.

The letter exchange between Celaena and Dorian is better than anything in acomaf. I said what I said. Including it for proof:

Your Highness—

It has come to my attention that your library isn’t a library, but rather a personal collection for only you and your esteemed father to enjoy. As many of your million books seem to be present and underused, I must beg you to grant me permission to borrow a few so that they might receive the attention they deserve. Since I am deprived of company and entertainment, this act of kindness is the least someone of your importance could deign to bestow upon a lowly, miserable wretch such as I.

Yours most truly,

Celaena Sardothien

Celaena beamed at her note and handed it to the nicest-looking servant she could find, with specific instructions to give it immediately to the Crown Prince. When the woman returned half an hour later with a stack of books piled in her arms, Celaena laughed as she swiped the note that crowned the column of leather.

My Most True Assassin,

Enclosed are seven books from my personal library that I have recently read and enjoyed immensely. You are, of course, free to read as many of the books in the castle library as you wish, but I command you to read these first so that we might discuss them. I promise they are not dull, for I am not one inclined to sit through pages of nonsense and bloated speech, though perhaps you enjoy works and authors who think very highly of themselves.

Most affectionately,

Dorian Havilliard

What happened to Sarah, when did she abandon romance?

Also. Again. This is supposed to be kept secret but she signed her name??? And Dorian responds "my assassin" any courier or spy would have had them by the balls before the day was done.

IS THAT KALTAIN??? Her ladies are idiots.

Ahhh, classic YA girlhate

Chapter 9

Super short chapter.

Aww, Chaol.

----

Overall I'm still enjoying this more than I expected.

Again what happened to sjm? This love triangle is building so well.

#ae read #throne of glass #sjm critical #celaena sardothien #dorian havilliard #chaol westfall #ae read throne of glass

[paradoxcase]

Chapter 19 of Gideon the Ninth

I mean, of course the Locked Tomb exists to ward society from some sort of eldritch undead monster, that's just like, the vibe, but I'm dying to know "what Harrow had done", here. Unless Gideon just means Harrow reanimating her parents, but I didn't get the feeling that Gideon was actually afraid of them

So we do have guns, they're just very old and no one uses them anymore. I did see the post about why it's dumb to have guns in space, but like, I have a lot of doubt that there would be no context in this universe where guns are useful anymore. Supposedly we have the Cohort going around killing people on planets they invade in order to generate thanergy, logically there must be people or aliens or something living on those planets in the first place to be killed, so they probably have somewhat reasonable atmospheres where guns are, in fact, useful and probably more effective than swords at killing stuff, not to mention that gunpowder-propelled projectiles probably have other uses besides killing people, as well. And as for the argument of "this is dangerous, so they wouldn't do it", well, history is full of humans doing incredibly dangerous stuff even though they knew full well it was dangerous, like I mean, we just had tin can submarine implosion happen, just for example, and I really do not see us getting significantly smarter about this, as a species, even after 10,000 years. Also, the goal of this is to kill people, and from what I'm hearing from comments here, it doesn't actually matter that much if the people who are killed are the aliens or the Cohort members

More body-sharing? Is this like the endgame of becoming a Lyctor, the necromancer and the cavalier just sort of fuse into a single person?

Gideon seems very vulnerable to people being nice to her, probably because most people have been shitty to her most of her life, and even Aiglamene's praise was a very grumpy sort of praise. So she warms up very quickly to people like Magnus and Dulcinea without doing a lot of critical thinking, and kind of bluescreened back when Harrow was praising her earlier. Meanwhile, Harrow seems to just not trust anyone at all for any reason, even or especially if they are being nice, which seems like a reaction to a slightly different kind of abuse. I thought originally that this might just be a result of the whole space feudalism thing, but like, Abigail isn't like this, and the other necromancers don't seem to be quite as paranoid as Harrow

Sometime between the end of the bone construct fight and now, Harrow has gone from "you are great at fighting but I still hate you" to "I don't hate you and we have to work together", it has been, I think maybe 24 hours at this point, given that Harrow thinks it will be the morning again after they sleep for eight and a half hours. Possibly this is to do with the dire implications that she was talking about at the end of the last chapter (she even mentions Magnus's death here), now she is now serious about doing this the right way, with Gideon helping, and unlocking all of the doors the proper way, and not hating each other with the fire of 1000 suns, and being able to trust each other, and not running off to go solve the puzzles on her own. She's not even like, qualifying it anymore, and saying stuff like "I still hate you by the way, I just really want to become a Lyctor"

I feel like these two paragraphs are backwards. Is it just me? At first I thought the second one must be talking about them going back to the room they found the next morning, since it logically should come after the first one, but no, it appears to be them going back to their rooms to sleep. I feel like this would make more sense, be less confusing, and also be more effective if the first of these paragraphs came second and ended this section

So, as expected, "Gideon" does in fact refer to someone else. Is this Gideon one of the original Lyctors? Is this Gideon the person denoted as "G." earlier?

#the locked tomb #gideon the ninth

[ceterisparibus116]

Law question!

Is "what counts as reasonable" (as in how a reasonable person would act/reasonable doubt etc.) something that people in the legal world have different opinions how to interpreter? And could those disagreements lead to a case going to court instead of being solved without needing to go to court?

I just found it fascinating that a lot of things (right?) seem to depend on the reasonability of it. Which do makes sense that such a sentence needs to be there, but also doesn't it make the law - a very objective-presented thing - a bit open to... subjectivity?? But it's also really good because you do need to consider the circumstanses and context of things when rulings are done. Right?

I know nothing about law, but the implications of reasonabilty fascinates me and I want to know more!

(Also, I may or may not have started to ponder it because I tried to write a scene where Matt and Foggy is sleepdeprivied and studying for finals and I wanted them to talk about something law-adjacent...)

THIS IS MY FAVORITE ASK EVER BECAUSE YEAH.

Law is all "we're so smart and everything is defined and our arguments are so precise" and then "but what is a reasonable person?" absolutely smacks you in the face.

So the "reasonable person" standard (RPS) (which, fun fact, used to be the "reasonable man" standard and I'm thankful we've moved beyond that) is considered an objective standard, meaning that it doesn't matter if any specific person thinks or feels a certain way, based on their unique knowledge, feelings, experiences, etc. (that would be subjective). This mythical "reasonable person" who supposedly represents all of us is recognized to be a "legal fiction" (which is where, for legal purposes, we act like something is true even when we know it's probably not true).

This objective fact is one that must be determined by a fact-finder: aka a jury (unless a person waives their right to a jury trial, in which case the judge will be the sole fact-finder). So in reality, the "reasonable person" is whatever a jury of 6-12 think.

And yes, cases will absolutely go to court just because each side believes that the RPS will turn in their favor.

For example, the crime of stalking, in my state, has objective and subjective elements. The subjective element is that the victim feels alarm or annoyance. The objective element is that a "reasonable person" in the victim's situation would also feel alarm and annoyance.

So if a stalking case went to trial, the victim could take the stand and testify for hours about how truly alarmed or annoyed they felt, and maybe the jury would even believe: "Yep, this person was definitely alarmed/annoyed."

However, that's not enough for a conviction - the jury also has to believe, "A reasonable person who experienced what the victim experienced would also be alarmed/annoyed."

So the prosecution will argue to the jury why a reasonable person (read: the jury) would definitely feel alarmed/annoyed in those circumstances, whereas the defense will argue that...well...you can imagine how ugly those arguments can get, essentially saying that the victim is lying or crazy or overly emotional, etc.

All this raises some serious questions. What if the defendant is a male, and the victim is a female? Would a jury of women be more likely to imagine that a reasonable person would feel alarm from a male stalking them, yet perhaps men would feel that a reasonable person would not be alarmed by another man stalking them? We deliberately moved away from the "reasonable man" standard, but in cases like this, should the jury actually be instructed to ask, "What would a reasonable woman feel in this situation?"

(If you want to see a fascinating yet unofficial illustration of this, watch this youtuber's reaction to the movie Hush, and then read the older comments or watch his response video which highlights some of those comments. Admittedly, part of the youtuber's reaction is colored by him viewing the situation as purely fictional, but he also acknowledged that the movie failed to properly situate him in the protagonist's situation - in other words, the movie failed to help him see the objective reasonableness of the protagonist's subjective feelings and reactions.)

You can imagine other areas where this is discussed. Should the jury be asked in cases involving children about what a "reasonable person" would do, or what a "reasonable child" would do? Or in cases involving a Black defendant and police, should a jury ask what a "reasonable person" would feel or do in that situation, or should the jury ask what a "reasonable Black person" would feel or do in that situation? What if the jury in this case is all white?

And where do we stop? What traits are relevant or not? Even if we can all agree that gender and race should be factors in the RPS, should we also consider sexuality? Should we always consider sexuality, or only in certain cases? Should we consider religion? Should we consider mental illness? Should we consider everything a person might include in their tumblr bio?

And arguably, if you take that too far, you end up with a bunch of laws that are almost impossibly vague to interpret. Like, if I want to send a person a couple of notes, do I need to know all the possible traits of my would-be victim (their age, their race, their gender, their sexuality, their religion, their mental illnesses, etc.) to determine the likelihood that a reasonable person in their shoes would consider my behavior to be stalking?

Additionally, you risk opening the door to some scary prejudice. Like, if a hypothetical person is 18 years old, Black, trans, female, gay, and autistic...would the standard applied to her be different from a person who is 26, white, cis, male, straight, and neurotypical? Would these different standards really make things more fair? How would you safeguard against prejudice?

It gets very sticky. This is one (of many) reasons why I prefer criminal law. See, the RPS does pop up in criminal law, usually with crimes like assault and stalking; also with certain defenses, like self-defense, which requires that a defendant's actions in self-defense were objectively reasonable. However, most criminal charges don't involve the RPS.

For example: did you operate a motor vehicle? Were you intoxicated? Okay, you committed a DUI, case closed - the jury doesn't have to worry about reasonableness at all.

Anyway, the short answer is: you're absolutely right and you've hit on one of law's dirty secrets that, if scrutinized too closely, causes a lot of dominos start to fall. It's very fascinating, especially as we as society become increasingly aware of intersectionality and the ways that subjective experiences correlated with group identity (like race, gender, sexuality, religion, etc.) can influence a person's view of what is objective.

And yes, Matt and Foggy would absolutely debate this incessantly, either as part of their studies or to procrastinate from studying, and if you do in fact write this, please tag me in it so I can read it!

#legal #asks #ask me things i'm friendly #seriously thank you for this ask #i cackled maniacally when i received it #long post

[likebreadandwine]

Glad it was worded respectfully enough to warrant such an informative response, lol. It's just one of those cases where another person's experience is so different from my own that I honestly can't help but inquire about it and compare notes, so to speak

The way you described flirting is particularly interesting because, on the one hand, I feel like that's an approach that a lot of us take on the internet. There's a general, mutual understanding that we're all going to be more openly flirty and teasing with each other in kink spaces than we otherwise may be in other contexts, with the added footnote that it probably won't go anywhere beyond that most of the time unless there's mutual interest and actual effort involved (some of us understanding/respecting that more/less than others). And, I think a lot of us do tend to enjoy 'performing' to varying degrees, enjoying "the audience's reaction", as you put it. It's fun to feel a little thrill yourself, but it's just as fun to know you've pushed someone else's buttons too

On the other hand, flirting is often understood as the lead-in to more intimate activities, be they sexual or sensual. Though, in my book, it's hard to find satisfaction in one without the other. Sexual intimacy works for me when there's an understanding that it's supported by sensual and emotional intimacy, otherwise it feels...cheap? Not that sex is cheap or that people who just wanna fuck are lesser creatures in any way, it's just rarely something that I crave on its own because it's not the only thing I crave (even when I'm browsing kinks, I almost always gravitate towards things where two people/characters are really into each other). Likewise, while sensual/emotional intimacy is incredibly important to me, I'm wired in such a way that having no sexual intimacy behind it would be like biting into a burger and finding out that it's only buns with nothing in between. Those buns could be some 10/10 bread, but it's just not a burger without everything in between

So, hearing that a lot of this sort of stays 'surface level' for you is certainly interesting. I'm sorry that the one situation you mentioned ended so poorly (especially since feelings are definitely a lot harder to understand and communicate at that age), but that example does beg the question, have you ever looked into what demisexuality entails and do you think you relate to it in any way?

you're totally spot on re: online kink talk/flirting. we're all a bit more open and teasing here than we might be in other contexts. the confidence I've built here has also translated to my encounters offline—I've become kind of a bold flirt lol.

it sounds like sexual, sensual, and emotional intimacy are all tied together for you, which makes sense! (excellent burger analogy.) they're not linked like that for me.

to address your question: I don't identify with demisexuality, because on those rare occasions I've felt some kind of physical attraction to someone, it was immediate. I felt it the day we met, not after developing an emotional bond.

I used to identify as grey-ace, and I think that label makes a lot of sense for me: I experience some kind of physical attraction, albeit rarely, and I'm clearly pretty involved in this sexual kink space, including actively teasing and encouraging folks. I would say I'm sex-neutral: I'm not really interested but I'm not repulsed either.

so why don't I use it anymore? well, that person I mentioned—that was the most I'd ever been attracted to someone. if we were in the same room, I wanted them to be touching me (and when they did touch me, it was like warmth spreading across my whole body and sparking fireworks under my skin). plus, I was totally in love. we shared hobbies and friends and interests, we had deep conversations, we had good banter. and I still had no interest in having sex with them. not even in fantasy did I want it.

which, to me, suggests I straightforwardly do not experience sexual attraction, and the fastest way to communicate that is just to say that I'm ace. are my feelings nuanced and complicated? totally. but a more specific label isn't going to capture those nuances.

#so in summary: #demi as a label is not a good fit #grey ace is a good fit but I don't love it #and ace feels just right :) #asks and answers #anonymous

[shizuostrans]

do you think izaya is transphobic for calling him shizu-chan?

ANON I AM SO SORRY FOR ONLY NOW GETTING TO YOUR MESSAGE AFTER 3000 YEARS. Not so chill events have transpired lately and it's made me scattered enough that I kinda forgot. :X *aheeem*

I should probably clarify that my trans Shizuo theory is not in any way tied to Shizaya but like... what’s presented in canon. Where they explicitly hate each other despite Narita bending so far backward to underline it that their reasonings make very little sense. So I'm going off that, with a heavier emphasis on the novels which paints their relationship in a lot less "playful" way than in the anime.

STILL, I don’t think Izaya would be purposely transphobic. Don’t get me wrong, he says some truly despicable and uncalled for things to Shizuo, like the p*do thing, but I honestly believe Izaya doesn’t know.

He vocally hates knowing shit about Shizuo, and the majority of the time he only wants to know enough to do his business without him interjecting. The other times where he is interested in figuring out what's going on with Shizuo are because he's focused on orchestrating plans to take him down or much less often use Shizuo to his advantage (in spinoffs and their early years anyway). I think it’s pretty common for the fandom to think Izaya knows everything about Shizuo, but that’s not quite true. He knows a good chunk about him from all their time together and keeps tabs on him, sure, but gathering intel to get a leg up on Shizuo isn't the same as getting to know him.

What I mean in this context is that it’s easy for Izaya to pick up on the frailty of Shizuo’s masculinity and even easier to pick at it to get a reaction out of him. On the surface it’s a straightforward answer – Shizuo is a personified brutish male power fantasy and suffers from a deep set case of male fragility. There’s nothing too surprising there or worth looking further into. More importantly it's a weakness of his, and it seems fitting for someone as juvenile as Shizuo to be pissed over something equally juvenile. Their relationship revolves around seeing the worst in each other, and any other reasons why Shizuo could get riled up by being called a girly nickname an old classmate referred to him as aren’t really considered.

The last thing imaginable for Izaya to want to do through the main series is humanize Shizuo (or vice versa) when dehumanizing Shizuo is the very foundation for his hatred. He wants to know what makes him tick, not why it does because there’s little point in figuring out the mentality of a monster. Things like his childhood, his life journey, and his gender identity (moreso if Izaya himself is trans) are all surefire ways to do so. Unless Shinra blabbed about it or he heard it secondhand, it’s not something he would actively dig into or have the desire to? Maybe before he met him, but Shizuo has a knack for stockpiling unbelievable rumors, both credible ones and ones that aren’t. He has a whole thing about not being apprehended because everything he is and does is unbelievable to other people, and that includes Izaya. He didn’t believe most of it either until he witnessed it firsthand.

Shizuo also has a rather uhh effective way of dissuading people from outing him or bringing doubt to their claims by instilling the fear of god into the general populace. With the looming threat of bodily carnage if anyone tests his microscopic tolerance threshold. Naturally. It’s practically in the users’ guide to Ikebukuro, and it tracks that using that infamy to identify himself to keep people from picking fights with him or even looking at him funny doubles as a way to cement it into people’s minds. Of being known as the strongest man in Ikebukuro rather than the previous identity he was known for. He weaponizes his own identity, and it adds another layer to his dependence on violence to solve his problems. ANYWAYS.

Do I think Shizu-chan is a type of deadname for him?

Yes. Insisting someone you have a hostile relationship with call you by the name you want to be called when it hasn't been respected for seven years is pretty much that.

Do I think Izaya calls him that to deadname him?

No. Izaya calls him Shizu-chan because he believes Shizuo’s a monster with a stupidly fragile ego, not because he’s a transguy who’s insecure about how people perceive his masculinity and identity. And boy does that man have the fragilest sense of masculinity that I will 1000% get into in the future.

#shizuo heiwajima #izaya orihara #durarara #drrr #shizuoposting #trans shizuo hours #IF they were on amicable terms and shizuo had an understanding #that embracing femininity doesn't actually emasculate you or invalidate your identity it could be different #ALAS that is what aus are for

[blorbologist]

Do you think it was in character for Percy to give/make a gun for Mister? Even if Matt said he’d made toy ones for his kids, when you consider Taliesin saying he was content to never make a weapon again, what do you think? I mean unless, Matt talked it over with Taliesin, then… *shrug* I guess that works out.

Hi anon!

So, first of all - I have a lot of faith and trust in Matt to want his friends to be happy. They wanted to go go Whitestone to see their past PCs and the new de Rolos, so he went along with that. He's a good DM and facilitates telling the stories they want - and part of that would include having a good grasp on the characters.

He also likely had a good idea of a few things that might come up. I mean, we as a fandom certainly did: potentially seeing the quarter elves (Gwen included) and their ages, Percy and Vex's reactions to Delilah and Laudna, how Percy might be curious about an aeormaton... and, yeah, the gun angle was pretty obvious too!

I'm certain he either checked in with them on character sticking points, reread his notes for the Tal’Dorei Reborn campaign guide (I doubt what we got in the book is ALL he was given for the PCs) or reviewed important episodes (I noticed a lot of his behavior was similar to Percy's interactions with Syldor, his reaction to 'the Meatman'/Scanlan trying to get a gun from him, how he broke the news to Cass that Delilah was at a ziggurat). Probably some combination of all three!

And the difficulty lies in the fact these characters are *complicated* (said in the tone of Percy in the Search for Grog)! They don't have many hard, fast lines because they're all human (well, mortal) and their responses change with context. It's been thirty plus years - guns are everywhere, and ones so terrible he likely stays up at night fearing what they can do. A little toy gun - not even something he'd personally use, no improvement on existing designs - hardly means much at all in this modern Exandria. If Fearne had opened asking for a gun? Fuck no, goodbye, get out. If she had tried to steal one and Vex 'passive perception better than a dragon' 'ahlia saw? Likewise, big trouble. But Fearne just contributed to dealing another solid blow to Delilah. She proved she abd her friends could be trusted and were here out of genuine love for their friend. His kids are safe, his wife is safe, there’s a dead rat named after him. Sure, why not, tweaking a child's toy he made some time ago sounds reasonable right about now.

(Because he's not making a new gun from scratch - he's tweaking a pop gun intended for the use of his children. I'm sure Percy had enough sense to design them in ways to minimize the 'MOTHER, FATHER, WOLFE SHOT ME IN THE EYYYYEEE' 'FATHER HE SHOT ME IN THE BUTT ALL DAY IT WAS AN ACCIDENT BUT HE DESERVES IT' *general wailing from the younger two that the game dissolved into chaos*)

And, see, the thing is: Matt hasn't been afraid to say 'no, you're not getting this, it would be out of character' before! Travis (playing a Charisma caster and the Nein's face!) rolled a natural twenty to ask for Holy Avenger from Kima. On a meta level it would have been fitting and fun for him to have the sword, especially given Grog gave it to her in C1.

Kima scoffs at him! And gives the sword to Yasha instead, because lesbian wavelengths or something and it was *incredible*. Point being - if he/Tal thought it would be absolutely against Percy's wishes, he would have made that 21 a 'no, but he can do this for you instead'.

Also, Percy has a powerful 'little shit' instinct. He made a sodium teakettle bomb just to win a contest, and "if they have something nice that makes you feel inferior, we can just take it", and gave Grog a sword he knew was cursed. Though guns are a touchier subject, he's made these pop guns for his kids, added some to Doty and trained the Riflemen on how to make more and their ammo.

Frankly, I think the idea was too facinating and chaotic to pass up.

(And flaming monkey shit is likely far, far less dangerous than a bullet.)

#critical role #critical role spoilers #cr spoilers #critrole spoilers #cr meta #critical role meta #cr percy #percival de rolo #percy de rolo #fearne calloway #little mister #de rolo family

[horizon-verizon]

What makes me laugh about Nettles and Daemon's fan logic is that he thinks that if Daemon hadn't slept with/made her, he would have let Rhaenyra kill her. Like, Daemon would have no problem letting Rhaenyra kill a poor innocent girl, because Daemon is an evil man. The logic of these people, my god...

I'm sorry, "made her"? Like he was her dad or that he raped her?

As for people thinking Daemon would allow Rhaenyra to execute Nettles without having slept with Nettles or having some sort of romance with her maybe their way of using his "family first" character trait against others. Rhaenyra is family in nearly every sense of the word while Nettles can't be proven--reliably through just text, bc the text by itself alone doesn't lead the reader into thinking that she is his bio daughter....context does, though--that she has any blood relation to him, but the text/his reactions do suggest that they had some sort of bond. So they may reason that there is no way that the bind could have been just platonic if there was no blood b/t the two.

Perhaps they are right about there being sexual relations but they went in the "reverse": instead of them being bound by blood from Daemon's sexual relations with someone in the past, they think he's having sexual relations with Nettles in the present.

It also uses the already-there idea that he was incapable or very unwilling to form any sort of bond outside his own family, which admittedly, he wasn't (willing). I happen to think that because Nettles was so young, of a lower class and of the lowest, and a girl, Daemon didn't really see her as a threat even with Sheepstealer (she only rode him for a year or so) + their being alone on a mission + her own obvious bravery and sense of loyalty softened him up towards her to allow for such a bond + his already having lost 4 children/"real" family (Visenya, Jacaerys, Lucerys, Viserys [II]; the last who everyone thought was lost at sea). But the bio-daughter theory is getting more and more attractive to me.

Daemon, I think, wouldn't go out of his way to prevent--in general--the deaths of kids or women or whatever specifically during wartime. At the same time, I do not think he goes out of his way to destroy children's/women's lives to feel in control or take pleasure in that. For him--what I think--it's likely this: "It's war, people are going to die and unless there is a strategic way of going out of one's way, there's no point in looking out for the small person, I gotta focus on us [his family/the blacks]". Is this compassionate? Hell no! Is this altruistic? God no. Rather it proves how self-interested he is. But it doesn't show any exceptionality to his moral code, from your typical aristocrat, either that would justify the idea of his being the "ultimate" evil in this particular story.

Rhaenyra, throwing her party making her youngest V boy son her heir, mimics Aegon II's throwing a party for the death of her other son Lucerys while the coffers are dry--probably thinking she needs to show her/her son's prestige and might as well as take some sort of revenge against her brother. No, she wasn't thinking of the smallfolk as much as we know a leader should, mainly thinking about safety & how to obtain and maintain control for herself and her kids. However, I don't think that people should have ever made the mistake of thinking that she was this person or that this was a story for that in the first place. that's Dany's arc, not Rhaenyra's. Rhaenyra grows up in a very privileged (classwise) position, and like Sansa, will likely grow with some royal pride as well as use that pride to make up for the misogynist attacks/undermining used against her. Think of Elizabeth I and Catherine the Great. (Intersectionality is a blessing, y'all. but just remember that Rhaenyra's class and Queenship put her on more of an edge over Nettles, who definitely did nothing wrong or even could be told of doing something suspicious. Rhaenyra was misogynoirist towards her.) Like Daemon, the smallfolk's well-being is not at the forefront or even a primary concern. And she's probably thinking--sometimes when maybe it's at the back of her head...maybe--that she is better for these people in the long run anyway, compared to her brother...which she wouldn't be totally wrong about but again her primary reasoning for going for the throne has always been because she wanted it and her father named her as heir AND she faced harassment from the greens. "So they might as well continue on, give it all they got".

Again, this is what I think these two would be like. And coming from those askers who kept giving me "reasons" why everyone should hate Rhaenyra or see her as exceptionally evil and who would--either in the same Tumblr or other social media accounts, usually men--express how they do not care about the human race so much as their own families....seems hypocritical.

#asoiaf asks to me #daemon and nettles #daemon targaryen #nettles #fire and blood characters #daemon's characterization

[anghraine]

Elizabeth, you inspire me. A while ago, I ranted to you (and asked for your advice) about my wish to major in Literature, if you remember me. I just wanted to tell you that every time I lose my motivation, I come back to your blog and just get inspired to be like you. Btw I'm getting myself prepared by familiarising myself with some of the things that might be challenging in the long run, and I'm finding myself quite frustrated with the History of English Literature. Any advice for that?

Belatedly, thank you very much! That's a lovely thing to say.

With regard to the history of English literature, that's a very broad topic. Maybe it seems more so to me because I've always tended to focus a lot on particular subjects I find compelling, and I pay probably less attention than I should to the areas that I don't specifically study or want to study—nearly all my undergrad and master's literature courses were in early modern, eighteenth-century, or nineteenth-century British literature, because I had a lot of freedom of choice and those were what I was interested in (I managed to arrange things so that I took eighteenth-century literature five times, for instance).

Apart from Tolkien classes, I think I've taken maybe three twentieth- or twenty-first century literature classes ever (the only one I much cared for was a bell hooks seminar). So I often don't weigh in on discourse around most twentieth-century literary controversies because I genuinely don't know much about them. On the other end, I've taken late medieval English lit classes but I don't know much (or care much) about early medieval literature. I've taken enough survey courses to have a general sense of most periods, but that's about it if they don't fall within my range of interests.

So I'm probably not the best person to give advice on studying English literature broadly because I did my best to specialize as often as possible, as early as possible. The only advice I can really give about English literature as a whole is to try and take it piecemeal.

This doesn't have to be breaking it down into the traditional periods of things like medieval literature, early modern literature, etc, but I would be wary of sweeping generalizations about trends or about what English literature is or what its history looks like unless the evidence is incredibly strong and you're familiar enough to evaluate it.

The attempts to create large-scale narratives often leave out the specific details that make literature interesting, and also often leave out details that are inconvenient for those narratives, the voices of marginalized people, genres the generalizer doesn't personally prioritize as much, etc. A lot of accounts of the history of the English novel do all these, for instance.

When you're looking at literature, IMO the most important thing is to look at the specific details of the particular work you're reading, before you try and fit it into any of these grander narratives or even engage closely with those narratives. Afterwards, you can dig around for context, you can learn things about the era or the literary moment that clarify things in the text, you can look at others' interpretations and learn from them, but I think it's generally better to experience your own unforced reactions to texts as much as you can before you start looking at surrounding material.

#literary critics sometimes forget they are not actually historians and act like the value of literature #is primarily historical rather than paying close attention to the literary elements of specific pieces #the grand narrative becomes everything #there is a place for discussing trends but it shouldn't be in a way that flattens texts' details as literature #or their value as literature #particularly if the perspective is supposed to be literary #so i would actually argue against preparing too much except in reading texts with an eye to detail #anon replies #respuestas #nice things people say to me #ivory tower blogging #long post #anghraine babbles

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

some observations made while editing this fic that i started in 2016 and last touched, idk, 3 years ago? a little less? a little more?

i was able to articulate to myself a while ago that when i'm stuck on a story, there's an extremely high chance that i've fucked up something i already wrote, and specifically there's an extremely high chance that i've fucked up by getting things to a point of greater resolution/clarity or emotional positivity than i've yet been able to earn. but like. WOW is that ever true here. a LOT of stuff that has been tweaked/moved/straight up cut has fallen under "he shouldn't know this yet" or "this scene should not end as happily as it currently does." it's funny because when i started this story i remember i was like "i'm just gonna write a super self-indulgent plotless romance story where i just write whatever feels good and don't worry about it." but like. because i am me. this was not physically possible for me to the degree i was attempting to execute it.

similarly, another thing i was like "let's just relax and not worry about this!" about was leaning into, basically, "this is the way this moment would be written in a fanfiction written by a neural network," and guess what else wound up often on the cutting room floor! or, like, heavily edited. like, adam still has a very strong reaction to ronan saying his name at what feels like a potentially charged moment but well before anything has Happened. but it no longer reads "fuck, hearing his name in ronan's mouth did crazy things to his pulse, to his hands, to his mind." and, like, what's funny is that - i wrote that originally because i do enjoy reading that kind of self-indulgent hyper-romantic all feelings all the time fanfic style! like, authentically! but in my own writing i see it and i can't abide it, it needs to go.

i kept the homoerotic creek wrestling scene, though. #yolo

i still think of myself as a show-off, but i've cleaned up a lot of sentences that very transparently read to me now as me not trusting my writing to come off Good unless it was ornate or complicated or deliberately strange to a sufficient degree at all times. i still love a baroque sentence and even more a whole bunch of them stacked on top of each other, and kinda wish i had a fic on deck that would let me really indulge in that direction again, but this is also definitely a shift i have experienced over the past couple years in the magicians fandom - i've become much more comfortable with simplicity, largely because i've just like come to believe after three decades where "good at writing" is by an extremely wide margin the most consistent compliment i have received in my life that if my writing sounds good to me it probably sounds good to other people, and if it doesn't, that's simply not my business. i think these days i have much less of a sense of having something to prove every single time i sit to write down anything. (this is also the shift i have perceived in taylor swift's songwriting post-reputation, which i choose not to interrogate too deeply.) i think it has helped also to read some stories with prose that, like, would be composed of sentences i would formerly think of as too "simple" for me if i thought of them, but reading them in the context of these incredibly good (funny, sharp, moving, gripping) stories has helped me really appreciate the power of concision and simplicity in the hands of someone really fucking smart telling a great story, broaden my conception of what good writing is, and made me more flexible in thinking about the match between style and story, and interested in being more deliberate about that. (oh, and - it also helped to at one point have had an idea for a story i felt VERY passionately about writing and could tell was going to be REALLY long, to the extent that i knew if i didn't calm down about making every paragraph a cut jewel i would never finish it, and i really wanted to finish it, lol.)

all that said, definitely a Thing in this editing process has been that this story bears the marks of whatever i was writing like over the course of like multiple years, and if i wanted to be more of a perfectionist about it i would probably do a couple read-throughs just to make sure i'm keeping to a consistent register. but i don't, so i won't!

the last time i fucked around with this story, i went through it taking notes trying to see if i could articulate for myself what the fuck it was all about. i made some not entirely successful hypotheses, but i guess that process helped because now the central issue of it feels....... maybe not the clearest it could be, lmao. but clear enough that i'm like, ok, this is a story, not just a Series Of Words.

but, i mean, it is to be clear a story with the plot "nice things happen to adam parrish, and he has like eight whole heart attacks about it." it's like, thirty thousand words of that.

related to the stuff above, i've gotten better at not overstaying my welcome by overwriting the end of the scene, but that's probably the place i tend to get most stressed about it and am most prone to getting in my own way. (mostly i feel like my experiences with fic and nonfiction are pretty different, but this is a place of overlap - more than once i've drafted an essay where i really hated the ending i'd written and then had an editor save it by being like "actually i think you already wrote the last paragraph and then for some reason just kept going after it?")

complained about this already but as someone who thinks of like, fanfiction dialogue specifically as something that tends to flow pretty easily for me, it is harder than i would have thought getting ronan lynch to talk about his feelings in a way that feels in character, because of how he never does that in canon ever! i had a couple spots where i made him a little more mush-mouthed or less self aware, but overall i'm like. whatever. i didn't create this problem. it's not my fault.

i definitely don't remember what the fuck the deal is with any of the ley line shit in the books and i am absolutely not going to look it up. also sorry to noah who appears once and then vanishes because i just couldn't deal with ghost worldbuilding at any point in this process.

oh another change i've found myself repeatedly (though not 100% consistently) making is having a character go from "he thought/wanted to say blah blah, but didn't say it" to just having him say it. i think i more consciously want to write scenes that are dynamic instead of like Tone Poems About Feelings Where People Are Talking (although those still have a place!!!!!!! imo), and also am less afraid of having someone say something strong enough to elicit some kind of reaction from the other person. that's DEFINITELY specifically a shift that comes from writing a long magicians fic where my goal in all dialogue scenes was to make them as unhinged as possible and to resist giving myself a safety net by never crossing any real lines. now i think it's fun to have someone just say something and then force myself to figure out what happens next.

when i hit publish this will probably be the closest thing to a straightforward romance i've ever written, because it's about two people having feelings and hooking up and having more feelings and really not a whole lot else, and the romance element of it is central in a way i don't usually do. this is in retrospect probably one reason this extremely simple story has taken me six and a half years to write! but also maybe this means there is hope for the divorced quentin AU yet....

anyway. i actually think i might get this thing up while it's still technically 2022 - i've got a scene and a half left to write, and while if i wanted to hold myself to higher standards about it i would probably want to marinate on the actual ending a little longer after having tightened up the first 25k, i don't so i won't. it would be the longest thing i posted this year, which would be kinda funny. part of me feels like i should chapter it bc it is going to be like 30k, but a bigger part of me wants to be Free, so. we shall see!

#writing tag

[self-loving-vampire]

Separate from the whole atomization discourse I am just wondering what it is that I do that makes it so easy for me to form the bonds that I do considering all of the things that are working against me.

I am:

Visibly autistic. I have strange interests that a lot of people don’t care about and am weird in lots of ways.

Largely lacking empathy. I’m not cruel at all but I do find it difficult to understand emotional reactions that are different from what I would experience and other people’s emotions don’t transfer to me.

Kind of antisocial, but at least direct when I do want to interact with people and not shy at all. I’m not super interested in meeting normal people.

Physically disabled to such an extent that I practically never leave the house unless I have an appointment somewhere.

Narcissistic in a really shameless and transparent way. This probably pisses some people off.

Passively using a “Stay away from me” aura at A-rank. I can come off as very unapproachable and intimidating on here even though I’m pretty calm and polite.

Just not very charismatic. In fact, I don’t think truly general charisma even exists and the stereotypical examples of such tend to include people I would be averse to on some level.

Now, I do have some virtues as well. I have no cost or difficulty with regards to comforting my friends, I can be very pleasant for a specific type of person to be around, and I try to provide for and support those I consider my allies.

I try to be a river to my people, and in hindsight I do have a lot of things in me that make it less surprising that I end up at the center of social groups and indirectly guiding the actions of everyone around me. 

I’m often the one making a sincere attempt to cheer people up, invite them to talk/participate, and generally rope them into my own interests. Other people’s emotions may not reach me, but I do value their well-being enough to put in the work to help them out. 

With my closest relationships in particular I am fully united with my loved ones in terms of goals and values. If they want X then X will become my purpose as well. We may have different personalities and backgrounds, but are essentially a single unit with a shared health pool. Even without empathy, our hearts are one in such a meaningful sense that it would not be an exaggeration to say that master gave me my life and it is intrinsically tied to him.

For over half a decade now a lot of people I have met shared the fact that they are understandably envious of how intense and deep this bond is and wish they had something like it pushing them forward.

But to be honest I don’t think it’s really entirely tied to anything involving my current personality. 

My past self is so different from me that I straight-up treat her as an entirely separate person, and she did not really struggle with forming close bonds online either despite initially being kind of averse to the idea. In fact, she was the one who first met the friends who saved me, including master.

So, several possibilities come to mind:

1- This is all significantly easier than most people think it is, unless they have some other type of disorder even more troublesome than the stuff I deal with.

2- I somehow selected for a very specific type of social circle with much more favorable traits than what people assume to be the whole of online nerd communities.

3- It’s all just because I’m extremely attractive and make people horny. I did in fact notice that people are significantly more friendly to me in contexts where they see me as sexually or romantically available.

4- I am once again an ultimate being chosen by fate and just got impossibly lucky to such a degree that it might as well be called reality-warping.

#long post

[dumb-hat]

Tagged!

@thefreelanceangel smacked me with this thing, and I happen to be sitting here, looking at it, right at the moment when I'm both restless and bored and can't think of anything to read or do, so... yeah, okay, why not? Been a bit since I've done one of these things.

1. Are you named after anyone?

 Kinda.

So, the original plan was to name me after my father, but it turns out there was another guy in town with his name, and Dad, like... he hated that guy, and the thought that people might meet little baby me and think that I was that guy's kid just grated on him, so they named me after his best friend, but gave me Dad's middle name.

2. When was the last time you cried?

I don't remember the last time I did a whole-ass, full-on cry, but I probably furrowed my brow and tried to stoically choke down a swell of tearful emotion while watching fucking Ted Lasso yesterday.

Same thing with Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 the other day.

It used to be that like, I'd get fairly emotional about real life stuff, but not so much with media. Sure, it would have an effect on me, but that effect just didn't, like... go anywhere, if that makes sense. These days though, if I'm being honest? I will almost cry at the drop of a hat.

3. Do you have kids?

Nah. The cats are enough.

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

I think I use, like, a normal amount of sarcasm, whatever that is.

I really appreciate sarcasm, especially well-crafted sarcasm. It doesn't take much to just, I dunno, meanly say the opposite of how you actually feel about something, but good sarcasm can be an absolute delight.

When I was younger, I did an awful lot of the former, all the while confusing it for the latter. I won't say I always get it right now, but I try to do it less as a knee-jerk reaction, especially around people who might not know me as well... But I can't help it, and sometimes I show my ass.

If anything, I'm more likely to lapse into bathos than sarcasm.

5. What sports do you play/have you played?

Tee ball and coach pitch when I was a little, tiny kid. I was really bad at it, but Dad wanted me to do it, and it meant I got to hang out with him, even if I was terrified the entire time I was out there.

That's it, unless you want to count a few summers during/right after high school where my friends and I got really into Ultimate frisbee and started a league with teams and shirts and everything.

I, uh... I for one would rather not count that, if that's alright.

6. What is the first thing you notice about other people?

Honestly, it really just depends on how I meet them, you know? Is it an online thing? An in-person thing? A party? A concert? A convention? Work?

I guess I could say that I get a pretty strong gut reaction to people right off the bat, no matter the context. I'm pretty good about giving myself room to adjust how I feel, but there's definitely a quiet, ongoing vibe check that I notice first thing, if that counts.

7. Scary movies or happy endings?

This feels like a false dichotomy.

For years, I thought I didn't like horror, but then I realized that I had just been convinced that I didn't like horror. Turns out, I really like it, I'm just kind of specific about it.

I like happy endings, but sometimes I'm put off when things are just a little too pat, you know?

So, uh, yeah. I like both. This doesn't feel like an either/or for me.

8. Any special talents?

I kinda wanna say 'no,' but that's not really a fun answer, is it?

So, okay. Here's a fun one: One day when I was like, 17 or 18, I was sitting at my grandparents' computer, waiting on something to download for a class project, I saw one of those... Oh, I don't know what they're called, like... one those, uh, letter spikes? You know, it's a spike that sits upright on a desk and you impale letters on it?

Yeah. One of those.

Anyway, I saw it there, and I still don't know why I did this—chalk it up to that ADHD impulsiveness, I suppose—but I took the thing and just, like, slid it into my nostril. I expected resistance, but didn't really find any, so I just kinda, you know, kept going.

I slid the thing in—straight back, mind you! Not up!—until I felt it touch the back of my sinus cavity. It wasn't long before I was showing this off to anyone I could, using progressively more impressive-looking nails. I started keeping a nose nail handy just so I could do the impromptu human blockhead thing on demand at parties and stuff.

Uh, does that count?

9. Where were you born?

Nowhere good, I tell you what.

10. Do you have any hobbies?

I do a lot of tabletop RPG stuff. I'm coming up on session 8 of an Exalted game, which is a lot of fun. I ran tons of it back in the day, but I haven't touched it since like, '11, but it feels good to be running it again. Feels kinda like home.

I play some video games, too. I find that the interest is always there, but the actual doing of it waxes and wanes, and boy, is there a lot of waxing right now. Just... a lot of fun stuff coming out. Lots I want to play.

I, uh... should probably log into FFXIV sometime soon. Get caught up. Take screenshots. Roleplay. Sort inventory. Manage retainers. Anything, really.

Honestly though, I really love making terrariums. I always thought it was kind of neat, but I started watching terrarium videos on YouTube as kind of a Bob-Ross-Moment-of-Zen-Unwind-and-Destress kind of thing while I was working a super-stressful job, and then it just kind of turned into my pandemic hobby. I love it, but I haven't made anything in a while, since I'm low on a few supplies. This is a good reminder to change that, though!

11. Do you have any pets?

I do! Two cats and a leopard gecko. The cats are 17 and 11. The leopard gecko is... at least 16, but could be years older than that, as he was kind of a rescue situation. He's slowing down a lot and getting really fussy, so I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit worried about him, but I reckon he's had a good run.

12. How tall are you?

5'10? 5'11? Depends on my posture, I guess.

13. Favorite Subject in School:

Depends on what kind of school we're talking about.

In grade school, it was usually science, sometimes social studies.

In high school, I took whatever *-as-literature classes I could, but my favorite classes were probably actually World Cultures and Sociology.

In college, I double majored in Anthropology and Linguistics. My favorite class was probably Sociolinguistics, but I was pretty good at Phonetics and the Anthropology of Science Fiction course I took as an undergrad was a ton of fun.

Okay, I guess it doesn't actually depend. Most of that can be boiled down to "I like people, and I like words, and I like what people do with words."

14. Dream job?

As much as I'd love to be pithy and say something like "I don't dream of labor," Baldwin said it better than I could ever hope to.

I don't think I have a dream job. I just kinda wanna do stuff and then have time to, like, not do stuff, you know?

That said, as I get older, I do find myself daydreaming about all kinds of things that feel like they'd be fulfilling now, but didn't even cross my mind when I was in a better position to do something about it more easily.

For all the time I spent staring at the architectural mock-ups in the halls at college, I could have at least taken an intro class, right?

I spent a large chunk of my life thinking I had no interest in making things or putting things together before realizing how much I loved the thin line between frustration and cursing, and elation and satisfaction that comes with repairing something, just because I was told that wasn't the kind of thing guys like me did. Also, uh... Having a half—or even quarter!—decent set of tools (rather than whatever you can find around the house) really, really helps.

So, yeah. I dunno. I'm getting older and still figuring out what I want to do, which is kind of a pain in the ass for an old guy that's long past all the college and "What do you wanna do when you grow up?" part, but I guess that's alright.

Wait. No. I wanna be a garden hermit. Surely, that's still a thing somewhere, right?

15. Eye Color?

Blue.

I'm not tagging anyone because... I dunno, I don't wanna. But hey, feel free to steal this and do it and tag me back so I can see it. That sounds like fun.

I've got an OOC blog over at @justlikethefish. In theory, that's where I talk about stuff like this. In practice, it's mostly like, cats and memes, and the occasional two-sentence post about whatever tabletop game I'm running, or whatever. Oh, and just about every Calvin & Hobbes post I come across.

#Tagged #OOC

[foxymoxynoona]

sasha should really talk to jk in korean it's not fair for him to talk in english all the time! I've always thought that if you live in a foreign country then you have to adapt, it's not up to the locals to speak your language, it's up to you to make the effort.

I don't mean to offend English speakers, but all those I met expected me to speak English when they were in my country

This is a sort of multilayered one!

I admit i had a gut reaction at first because I'm used to in the states, people treating immigrants who don't just instantly have English fluency really shitty, which isn't right, and I do think that should apply to people who move to other countrie and are learning/trying (which she is.) But there are definitely some layers here:

Sasha needs to learn Korean fluently because she is living and working in Korea long enough where it will be useful to her and those who interact with her, especially if she may be staying there longer than school.

Sasha and JK should discuss what makes sense as the language of their relationship. Does he learn English? Does she learn Korean? Is it both? There are lots of things that could influence this like a. where they live, b. who can handle the mental strain of communicating primarily outside their first language, c. other circumstances that might make one choice make more sense (Sasha is living in Korea, yes, but also Jungkook says he wants to learn English because of work, so they sort of both have a compelling additional reason to learn, which I decided means their answer is "both")

Specifically for English, a lot of times English speakers do assume that everyone should just learn English as primary, so I totally get why that jumped out at you. That has not been the case with Sasha in her life though; it's not even her first language and she does learn the native language when she lives somewhere (remember she is fluent in several languages.) She's even learned some Italian for her friends boyfriend, despite never living there. So she isn't just being shitty and making a demand here, she's just going along with what he offered in the beginning until she saw the clear reasons to switch (namely that she agreed with her friends that the prior language arrangement wasn't working)

To that end, in case it doesn't come across well in my writing, she does study Korean, but I think has been shyer to badly use Korean in front of Jungkook and his friends (due to not wanting to look dumb) than in other contexts. She mentions she has some classes that are entirely in Korean, some of her students only speak Korean. Now that she got really serious about her language study and does speak Korean to him pretty regularly, I had tied to convey that her vocabulary and sentence structure are decent, showing she's probably been more able to communicate in Korean for a while than she put to the test with him. She just previously chose the path of least resistence (since JK insisted he was eager to speak English), and now agreed that it was time to flip it and try to speak Korean more! Maybe that gets lost in writing though.

I realize this was long, turns out I had a lot of thoughts too haha based on my own experiences and experiences in my familar of dating across a language barrier. At some point in the story, I will no longer clarify whether they're speaking English or Korean unless it's specifically important because they're just fluently conversing and that will be SO MCUH EASIER for everyone.

#flux #asks #anonymous