#anyway this is probably a bit philosophical and pretentious

[strawberriesinmoominvalley]

anyway i think we as people need to become more comfortable with others identifying in conflicting ways. or just having any mildly conflicting traits. it is implicit in the nature of us as humans.

my actions are significant because they impact others. my actions are insignificant because we live in a massive universe where i don't matter. if human life in itself resides within being simultaneously significant/insignificant then it's no surprise we contain multitudes

#we are not schrodinger's cat! we do not have to be in a box to exist in two conflicting states! #idk where this came from #i'm just a bit tired of people trying to put others in a box and making them stay there #and i get it. i'm autistic. i like clearly labelled things. i like everything being easy to understand #but that is not the nature of life. even myself i am both autistic and adhd and have conflicting states #and we don't have to understand why people are the way they are #we can just move on! life is large and immense and we are small and that is incredible! #there is no permanent self and that is so cool! we are so free! why should we limit ourselves? #anyway this is probably a bit philosophical and pretentious #i just want to exist and not be questioned for it #you don't have to understand me. i don't have to understand you #ramblings

[concordefliesinmyroom]

introduction !!!

hii !!!! my name is Violet. i am a really big fan of art & whatnot (basic). i have been taking on a little bit of a personal challenge 2 listen 2 at least one new album every day & ive been working on that challenge for about 1.5 years now !!! i looove talking about art and sharing my thoughts and 4 the past year or so i have been posting all my thoughts and media analysis and whatnot onto my Instagram story, but i have always wanted 2 start posting my thoughts somewhere that is more.... permanent, i guess? bc Instagram stories expire after 24 hours yk. anyways. i finally made a Tumblr blog !!!!! i am COMPLETELY new 2 Tumblr. so i apologize in advance if my blog is like informal or not very "good" quality by Tumblr standards or whatever else i will get better !!!

here is what u can expect from this page:

i am going to post music reviews/recommendations most likely, as well as film & literature & all of that stuff. whenever i see a piece of media that interests me enough 2 want 2 talk abt it im gonna use this blog 2 share my thoughts !!!!

i also am really interested in philosophy, i am only just now formally getting into it, but i have been thinking about that sort of stuff and asking questions like that 4ever. erm. i wouldnt call myself a philosopher bc that feels pretentious but i aspire 2 be a philosopher eventually. ill probably post abt that sort of stuff as well. i am also VERY interested in sociology, psychology, anthropology, political science... pretty much anything like that. i just love learning about things in general EVERYTHING is so fascinating 2 me but especially humanity.

i am a bit interested in politics as well !!!! i dont like to use any labels 4 my political ideas bc i feel like those can be limiting & contribute 2 close-mindedness but if i had 2 describe my alignment in any way i am probably pretty far-left. although i am completely open 2 hearing everyone's ideas!

i might also post about other things as well, im not sure yet !!!

some info abt me:

i am a girl, so, she/her pronouns ig !

i am 16 years old (well im 15 but i turn 16 in two weeks)

i am a member of the LGBTQ community

my handle on most social media sites is yourdadcosplay if u want 2 follow me anywhere else !!! (i dont do cosplay or anything~ when i was 13 i heard some guy on tiktok say the phrase "your dad cosplay" and i thought that combination of words was super funny so i made it into my username on instagram and then it just kind of stuck. and i use that on everything now. only reason i didnt use it 4 my tumblr is bc i didnt want ppl 2 think my blog was a cosplay blog or something idk)

my favorite music artists r: Black Country New Road, Kimya Dawson, Death Grips, Xiu Xiu, and Car Seat Headrest !!!!

my favorite album of all time is Ants From Up There and my favorite movie of all time is Everything Everywhere All at Once, both of those pieces came out in the year 2022.

my favorite book is the manga Goodnight Punpun by Inio Asano, and its actually the book that made me fall in love with literature.

im currently working on creating my own website!!! i dont know anything about HTML though, so it will be a long process.

i dont believe in astrology rlly but i am a Gemini.

my iq is 122 or something around that i dont remember the number i just remember im in the 93rd percentile

i am an INFP

boundaries:

i do try my absolute best to be open-minded and tolerant towards everyone's ideas and beliefs; even those which i disagree with. i actually encourage ppl who disagree with anything i say 2 challenge me or discuss/debate with me. that being said, if u r not willing 2 have a civil and open-minded discussion with me, and if ur only interest is arguing, then i will ask u 2 pls leave me alone. i love talking 2 ppl who have ideas different than my own, but i do not wish 2 engage in any immature internet beefs or anything of that sort.

pls, 4 the love of god, if u r the type of person who gets offended over every little thing; if u r more concerned with petty discourse & things that have no significance 2 any real-life problems; if u lack media literacy; or if u r otherwise just unintelligent, then PLEASE dont interact with my page.

i try my absolute best 2 be a good person. if i ever do anything that u find 2 be morally offensive (this is not just if i say something that makes u feel a bit of angst, but if i say something that u feel is actually problematic.) or if we r interacting directly & i make u uncomfortable, PLEASE TELL ME! i hate it when ppl have problems with me that could easily be resolved but they just dont tell me. it makes me anxious.

also, pls note:

just because i talk about a certain piece of media or art or literature on this blog does not necessarily mean that i agree with the ideas expressed in that blog or even that i like that piece. i try my best to think 4 myself and i do not take all of the ideas that r expressed 2 me as the absolute truth. just because i read any given book does not mean that i necessarily agree with its ideas; the same goes 4 all of the topics i discuss here.

as a large part of this blog is abt media discussion & whatnot, i want 2 say that i am absolutely open 2 any art. and i will not avoid any piece of media just because it is allegedly problematic.

most of this page is dedicated 2 sharing and discussing my ideas on various topics like art, philosophy, politics, and such. i dont think that im going 2 be posting or saying anything that is incredibly morally offensive or anything, and 2 be honest i dont even think my ideas r particularly radical or controversial, but, if there ever does come a time when i might have a potentially controversial idea, i wont hesitate 2 share it. im not going 2 censor myself or sugarcoat my beliefs on this blog just 2 avoid discourse.

all of that being said, this blog is not 2 be taken 100% seriously either. i will talk abt serious topics on here, but i like 2 laugh as well! u should not assume that anything i say is 100% serious or 100% satirical. that SHOULD be a given, but on my Instagram account, i have had a worrying amount of interactions with ppl who got mad at me 4 things bc they assumed i was serious when i wasnt or vice versa.

ok, that is all !!! thx 4 reading !!!

#introductory post #first post #death grips #xiu xiu #kimya dawson #musicposting #girlblogging

[silverslipstream]

Happy WBW! Today's is incredibly niche, but what does your world's gratitude look like? Are large acts of thanks required or scorned? Do most people find it polite to express thanks? Or, if that's a little much, how about your characters? What are their feelings toward giving and receiving gratitude?

Hey Tori! Sorry about not answering most of your asks for the last while. I promise it's not you! I've been a bit jumbled with work and projects, and I don't really have a running WIP anymore, so... yeah. But anyway, let's rip out a few random characters of mine:

Cooper Wright is one of those foolish little chaps who SUCKS at receiving gratitude and compliments, but gives them out incessantly. He'd probably thank you profusely if you passed the gravy at dinner. If you thanked him in return, he'd probably stammer some shit about 'just being polite, no need for thanks'.

Aketh Thrawle would probably show their gratitude by making your upcoming death only rather painful. Their response to gratitude? Probably assuming you're trying to negotiate or wheedle something out of them, and immediately assessing your threat level. They are not a nice character to encounter!

Nicolas Renaudin loves giving compliments and expressing gratitude, in his weirdly philosophical and indirect way. It probably comes off as weird or pretentious, but he's just absent-minded and a bit zany like that. Also, he views gratitude as transactional, so he'll probably thank you for thanking him. Should I mention that this guy is super-hooked on future drugs and transhuman ideology?

Tanith Lowe isn't an easy person to thank: unless you know her well, she'll probably just scoff or brush it off with a curt "No worries". Get through to her as a friend, though, and you're going to get someone who's receptive and genuine. The same goes for giving gratitude. It's not her fault, her culture's just not used to things like 'gratitude' and 'generosity'.

#worldbuilding wednesday #wbw #writeblr #writers community #my writing

[i-like-his-charm]

Is it snobbish to say that Patrick McGoohan fans seem to be a little more clever than most obsessive fans? Probably. Or maybe snobbish isn’t the right word. Possibly “egotistic” or “pretentious” would be more on the mark. Of course, there is the chance that we’re all really stupid and I’m just another stupid person that thinks they’re clever. Nah — we’re all very quick-witted ;-)

It’s just that I wander from blog to blog, plus I’m in FB mingling with all the fans, and so many are funny in that dry and smart way, with little quips and side comments that make me chuckle. But you know what? I think that you have to have a few brains to enjoy something like The Prisoner. And maybe even to get some of the nuances in Danger Man. After all, he didn’t exactly go around killing every bad guy and bedding every woman like most “heroes” do in TV shows and movies. He had delicate tastes in many ways and you could see a slight distaste in his face when he was at a party or a club and some vulgar person approached him. He often pulled away even though he was wearing a smile. Again, so cat-like, his body language betrayed him. (Good acting.).

He had this way of smiling when nobody else would have smiled. I noticed that he often smiled at the most dangerous moments and it seemed almost incongruent but it was as if he was saying to himself, “Okay, I got this…” almost as if he was stepping into what he was made for. And, along with the smile, came this certain way of coiling his muscles. (I’ve gotta put on my Danger Man videos and see if I’ve got this correctly in my memories because we watched the show every night until we had watched every one of them and that’s when all these little visuals struck me, but especially his habit of smiling at the oddest times.)

My favorite smile, in a way, was the smile he’d give to women he clearly did not care a bit for, and the feigned interest he’d give them. Like in one show there was a silly older woman who was putting on a play and he pretended as if he thought that was quite interesting (with his nod and raised eyebrows and stiff but warm smile). He really poured it on when she happened to come back to the house at a moment when he was about to be killed by a bunch of thugs and she interrupted the action. At that point he asked her to give him a ride home and appeared to be extremely interested in everything she had to say until they got about a block away and he hopped out to go back and tend to the bad guys.

In the Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove (I always remember that one because it’s one of my favorites so I’ve watched it 3-4 times), he has that face when he is first interacting with the woman who turns out to be the nurse at the end (and one of my favorite scenes is her coming at him with the hypodermic needle at the end… thank you JMC - my favorite videographer - for introducing me to that scene in one of my favorite videos LOL I saw that video before I saw the episode ;-) )

Anyway, I’ve gone from fans to smiles… Darn, I met to stick to fans but I’ve been thinking about his smiles, a constant source of contemplation for me. One would imagine that I sit and swoon (and maybe I do a little bit) but, truly, it’s more a contemplation. Probably similar to what philosophers do as they sit on benches and contemplate trees. Naturalists admire what God has created out in the world, the trees, the sky, the birds and animals. I love looking at people. They don’t all have to be as handsome as him. I love looking at all sorts of people. I love seeing people smile. I really do. But PMG’s smile is one that has so many different aspects, it betrays so many emotions and sends so many different messages, that it is truly something to spend time figuring out… contemplating, analyzing. And that, I intend to continue doing :-)

#john drake #the prisoner #prisoner #danger man #no. 6 #number 6 #patrick mcgoohan #McGoohan #that smile #sexy smile #his smile #nobody smiles quite like him #not exactly a fake smile #Youtube

[irandrura]

Terra Ignota

Over the last few weeks, I read Terra Ignota. I read all of the three published books so far: Too Like the Lightning, Seven Surrenders, and The Will to Battle.

Every review of Terra Ignota I have ever read is wrong. Or rather, every review of Terra Ignota I have ever read takes an extremely different perspective to my own, to the extent that I genuinely don’t understand how the author could have concluded that.

So as not to keep anyone in suspense, my perspective on Terra Ignota is that they are surprisingly trashy books, in a world that doesn’t make very much sense, but that doesn’t matter because the heart and soul of these texts is over-the-top soap opera drama. I think they are probably bad, and they outright offended me at several points, but nonetheless they drew me in enough that I wanted to keep reading. There is merit in that.

 If you’re the sort of person who cares about spoilers, this is your only warning.

As I said, I don’t understand most of the reviews I have read of these books. I simply don’t.

 I don’t understand the view that the writing itself is poetic and beautiful. Palmer has some good phrases from time to time, but overall I don’t find the prose particularly amazing. This is a very subjective point, so I won’t belabour it.

 I don’t understand the view that the books are a masterful triumph of worldbuilding. From my perspective, the worldbuilding is actually kind of half-assed, and more importantly, Palmer does not seem to actually care about worldbuilding that much. It isn’t her priority. Reading the books I found myself constantly asking “How does X actually work?” or “Y sounds totally insane, could you explain how it makes sense to me?” or “Z seems like it clashes with X, please resolve this contradiction for me?”, and Palmer never answers those questions for you. If I want some more explanation for why, say, a global transportation system serving billions of people is run without oversight, from a single private residence, looked after by a man well-known to be suicidally depressed… nope, I’m not getting that. If I want some context for how hive-switching works, or how it interacts with crime, not happening. Even minor questions: in The Will to Battle, our heroes talk to a band of criminals involved in human trafficking, and I immediately wanted to know what human trafficking means in a world where borders have been abolished, geographic nations have been abolished, and every place on Earth is just a short taxi ride from every other place. This is the sort of question Palmer does not answer or even acknowledge.

 And I don’t actually buy that she’s interested in the questions that I see raised when the books are spruiked to me. Are you intrigued by the question of what the world would look like if every individual could choose their own government, their own law code, unconstrained by geography? I’m intrigued by that. It sounds interesting. But this is not a question that Terra Ignota is actually interested in. It seems like it should be interested in it, and I read enough breathless expositions of how cool the hive system is that I expected Terra Ignota to be interested in it… but it’s not. If you’re interested in, say, the question of whether a permanent exit option would make absolute dictatorship more humane, as in the Masons, then I agree that’s interesting – but it is not a question that the text of Terra Ignota takes any interest in. The big worldbuilding questions raised by the hives are all window dressing.

 I don’t understand the idea that Terra Ignota is a brilliant depiction of utopia. I want to acknowledge straight off the bat that I may have a bias here, because Terra Ignota’s world is premised on the, well, genocide of people like me, or at least the forcible suppression and exile of people like me, but I don’t think it’s only the fact that I’m openly in defiance of the First Black Law. Rather, I note two things here. Firstly, it’s hard to see whether Terra Ignota’s society is actually utopian because we spend so little time in it. We do not see how ordinary people live in this world, or what makes it wonderful. What Terra Ignota spends most of its time on is the scheming and backstabbing of the dozen most powerful people in the world, and everyone outside that little circle barely exists in the text. (Abigail Nussbaum noted in her review that Terra Ignota’s world never really feels like it has more than a few hundred people in it, and I agree.) It’s hard to convincingly argue Terra Ignota is a utopia or a dystopia, because we never meet the whole population. We meet a small handful of amoral nobility as they play out a space opera Game of Thrones. That’s certainly entertaining, and I give Palmer credit for making it fun to read, but it’s not really an investigation of utopia. Secondly, where we do see glimpses of the world outside the parlours of the ruthless rich, it…honestly seems rather conventional, and rather like the 21st century. People work fewer hours a week, taxis are much more efficient, movies have smelltracks as well as soundtracks, they go to the Olympics, apparently the Oscars endured the collapse of all nations and religions… but there is little in this world that seems radically different to our own. It’s all minor, incremental bits of technological progress. They’ve eliminated poverty, which is good, but I usually expect something more radical from utopia than that. What do people actually do in Terra Ignota that’s different to what any upper-middle class American might do today? Other, of course, than not go to church, call everyone singular they, and wear tracking devices.

 I don’t understand the idea that these books deal with deep philosophical or theological themes. Like the hives themselves, it’s all window dressing. The narrator Mycroft is obsessed with the 18th century, and so is a bizarre anachronistic brothel that somehow every major world leader attends (cf. worldbuilding being weak, the world only feeling like it has a few hundred people in it), but they don’t do very much with this. Mycroft imagines Thomas Hobbes occasionally butting in, but his imaginary Hobbes has little to say beyond "Hi, I’m the guy who wrote Leviathan!” The characters reference Diderot and de Sade and Voltaire, but usually only on the surface level, and when they do try to go deeper, they often get the references wrong. The same for the theology. My point is not that Terra Ignota is bad: just that it isn’t really that interested in the political philosophy or the theology. It uses 18th century thought as an aesthetic. Deism, miracles, proof of God’s existence, how gods might communicate, etc., are not the questions that occupy the text. Ada Palmer is not a theologian.

 But all that said, I enjoyed Terra Ignota.

 I want to emphasise that. I enjoyed Terra Ignota! I am not saying that it’s bad! I’m just saying that it was not what everyone told me it would be.

 Terra Ignota is a book about a bunch of very powerful, very horrible people, who all apparently go to the same brothel and are interested in the same wacky theories about human nature and God and so on, lying to and betraying each other. I think Palmer is really interested in the characters. Mycroft, our pretentious narrator who by the end of book three is genuinely losing his grip on reality and writing hallucinations. Jedd Mason, the madman who believes he’s God, but is probably just the delusional product of a radical set-set experiment. Caesar, the iron-proud absolute dictator seeking to do his duty by his ambitious, power-obsessed hive. Dominic, the sadistic sexual predator who nonetheless worships Jedd with fanatical devotion. Carlyle, the kind and compassionate philosopher-in-residence who inevitably gets tortured and abused. Ojiro Sniper, the freaky sex doll who nonetheless seeks to become the Brutus to Jedd’s Caesar. Apollo Mojave, the dead-but-still-influential space wizard who sought to cause a world war for stupid reasons. And so on. The characters are generally well-drawn and interesting enough that I want to see what happens to them.

 I should emphasise Palmer’s achievement in making me want to know what happens to these people, especially because they’re all so unsympathetic. Carlyle and Bridger stand out as the most truly sympathetic characters in the novels, but by book three, the former has been captured, tortured, and now limps along, dead-eyed and broken-spirited, in the train of one of the resident sadists, and the latter has quite reasonably gone “Screw this” and used his immense psychic powers to delete himself from the book. But most of the core characters in this drama – Mycroft, Saladin, Jedd, Sniper, Ganymede and Danae, Madame d’Arouet, etc. – are mad, evil, both, or otherwise extremely unsympathetic. It is to Palmer’s credit that I want to know what happens in the war anyway. The most sympathetic of the political leaders in the text, Vivien Ancelet and Bryar Kosala, spend most of their time fruitlessly begging for peace. While they, perhaps alone of the leaders, have genuinely laudable intentions, it has been clear from the first book that neither will be permitted to achieve anything notable. The only people to barrack for, in Terra Ignota, are those noble if compromised few who seek to avoid a war – and who we all know will fail.

 Book four, it seems, will finally be about the war that the first three books have been setting up, and even though I frankly want all three sides to lose – the Jedd faction, the Sniper faction, and Utopia are all deeply unpleasant, albeit in different ways – I am sure I will find it extremely entertaining to see how this all collapses.

 Do I recommend Terra Ignota? I don’t know. If you want detailed, thorough worldbuilding, sincere contemplation of deep philosophical questions about theodicy, politics, and human nature, or a stirring vision of a possible utopia… no. Do not read it for those things. It does not have those things in it.

 But it does have a scene where the prime minister of Europe body-tackles the Olympic president through a plate glass window and they land in a pile of people having sex mid-orgy, while the media broadcasts it worldwide.

 And that’s excellent.

[mallahanmoxie]

warning: long post ahead

i find watching extraordinary you so interesting in like... philosophical terms (i know it sounds pretentious but also in my defense i love roowon’s face too okay) bc all these awakened characters are faced with the fact that they are not real people and react so differently to it. like think about the gravity of this statement. they’re deliberate fabrications. and like depending on what spiritual school of thought you subscribe to, all equally valid might i add, this doesn’t necessarily have to make much difference. just replace god with a writer or tier them up however you like, it’s whatever.

what i think is crucial for these people though is that there are actual bits in their life in which they are forced, actually forced, to act out against their desires. there’s no... consent at all. like, free will out of the window. here you always have a choice, whether you like them or not, and it’s your responsibility to make it. but there? you cannot even move if the writer doesn’t want you to and you have to be aware of it as it happens.

dan oh’s struggle is pretty clearly set in relation to this. she is fighting to ascertain that her life has meaning and that she creates it by herself. she takes a very practical approach to this, i think because her stakes are higher than most characters but also just because of her personality, and accepts what the limitations of her world are right until she realizes she can break them. and her game plan changes. (this is why haru is so important to her too)

haru and do hwa are simpler, i think. haru does question who he is and what he is there for, but he finds his meaning in dan oh and risks his own existence to help her (maybe bc he Knows, subconsciously or not, that this isn’t the only world he’s existed in) because what does it matter? what does he have here? not a family. not a home. only dan oh and this school and the friends he might make in it. she is the only path he can follow.

do hwa is appropriately shocked but he gets through it pretty easily, as dan oh points out. he is a practical person too, accepts the inner workings of this world and fights within his own storyline to change what he doesn’t like. but he likes his life, you know? he’s content with what he has. he just thinks his stage self is lame and he would like to be with juda. but tbh she’s like... just a girl, you know? his life is fine without her (not that it’s not also a struggle).

which brings me to baek kyung because he’s like.... the opposite of that. i have the theory that the characters with the hardest lives have the most trouble adapting, as is reasonable (and this does include juda if the spoilers are true*), and boy is baek kyung having trouble. his life is difficult. his dad is shit, his stepmother clearly hates him and his mother is dead because he’s the unlucky motherfucker that got stuck with the tragic backstory. i don’t know how to drive the point home that if i was the one who discovered that my mother had been taken from me to fill the angst quota of a mediocre writer’s story and on top of that had to be stuck with a bastard like his father, baek kyung’s reaction would seem cute and mild. 

so not only is baek kyung carrying this clearly unresolved grief over his mother and grudge against his own life, he then becomes aware and discovers that the only person whose love has been a constant in his life for over ten years** does not actually care for him at all. think of how this looks like to him. dan oh, who he has memories of — fake memories — telling him for a decade that he loves him and always will, doesn’t and on top of that is actively working to make it so that he is driven out of her life as soon as possible (that’s not what she’s doing but that is probably what he’s seeing)

on top of that, he went through the process of self awareness completely alone. at least dan oh had jinmichae to clear stuff up, but baek kyung had nobody and they kept at it with their bits of none of this is real and none of this matters anyway which to him would be the same as saying he is not real and he doesnt matter. certainly mustn’t be the first time he’s heard that but doesn’t mean it won’t hurt anyway. by ignoring the status quo of the story, what are do hwa, dan oh and haru doing but “making a fool out of him”? goodness it’s probably not even the first time they do this.

this is why i think he’s having so much trouble distinguishing what’s real and what’s not in stage and shadow. he’s cherry picking for his own convenience. he rejects the parts he doesn’t want, like his family, but he doesn’t know what to make of the ones that he does, like dan oh. are all those memories real? and if they are, why don’t they matter to her like they do to him?

to be fair i don’t think he actually does love her, not yet. he doesn’t seem to know her enough. but she’s the only thread that matters. much like haru, she’s the only thing that gives meaning to his life because she’s the only thing he’s willing to accept as real. he’s trying to hold onto things that other characters reject because it’s the only thing he has that validates him. if he doesn’t, then everything he’s gone through will truly have been for nothing.

which is why it’s so infuriating for him to see her pine over haru and that missed chance to change things without him***. it reinforces that he’s not enough, like his dad’s probably been telling him forever, and that he has no chance of breaking through that. and baek kyung lashes out, he chooses his anger —  now that he is able to choose —  the horrible ways of his character, because that’s all he knows, that’s the way things are. not only in his house but in the story. no matter how hurt he made dan oh feel, she always came back to him. but this dan oh won’t because she has finally the choice, much like him, not to put up with his bullshit. and he cannot cope with that.

* [spoilers] if its true that juda’s personality changes after she awakens, like the smirk might imply, no wonder she’d be totally done with these stupid rich kids pulling her around like a rag doll. i have half a mind that she’ll react indignantly and curse the writer for not making her rich too. of all these dumbasses she had to be the poor one? for what? and also, if dan oh and haru are trying to change what might be her happy ending, which is the only she’ll accept, you can for sure say she’ll lash out against them. but this is all speculation.

**i maintain his brother is sketchy and if he wasnt its not like baek kyung cares whether he loves him or not. if he does love him, then his brother clearly does nothing about it and i think baek kyung moves through action and not promise so he wouldn’t respect his love anyway

*** “i can help you change the story” means please don’t drive me out as well. he doesn’t care for the story changing — think about his character: what fuck does he give about a nameless writer’s will?  — he cares that it leaves him behind. he just doesn’t know how to articulate that. i don’t even know if he knows that’s what he’s getting at.

#extraordinary you #WOW #i did Not mean for this to turn into the baek kyung manifesto that this might read as #it's also super long #but anyway yeah the characters that have more at stake here have a more complicated relationship with the story #i wonder what will happen when juda and namjoo awaken as well #i also want to clarify if it doesnt come across that i dont condone baek kyung's actions #i could see it on stage bc he doesnt control what he does there but he DOES in the shadow #and its his responsibility to behave like a decent human being in it #at the end of the day he brings his own downfall — nobody's gotta put up with him being an asshole #this doesn't mean i can't feel bad for him though #he really needs a mentor #i told yall it was two yards #but u liked that post so here it is

[funkymbtifiction]

Hi, I was wondering how do you determine someone else's hogward house without them taking the pottermore test?

Hogwarts, not Hogward, I don’t know what I’m typing today.

It’s probably your keyboard. I had to type something on someone else’s yesterday and it took me twice as long because the keys were all in a slightly different configuration. :P

Anyway, on to figuring out other people’s Hogwarts Houses. It’s not an exact science but each house has basic things that make it stand out, so you focus on those and make generalizations. The Pottermore test can get it “wrong” (it put me in Slytherin and I had fun being there, but I’m a Ravenclaw first ;). So..

Hufflepuff: people who are generous, kind, pride themselves on being honest, and who look after other people in some way that requires hands-on activities more than intellectual ones. If you want someone to help solve a problem, a Hufflepuff will do the actual work involved in fixing it, whereas a Ravenclaw will philosophize, a Gryffindor will attack whatever it is that’s upsetting you, and a Slytherin will figure out how you can make your problems work for you. These people tend to be good-natured and morally upstanding, hard-working, and responsible. Think of Cedric when you think of a Hufflepuff.

Ravenclaw: people who value their own intelligence through constant learning. You might think mostly N’s will wind up in this category but it’s not true, some of the most prolific bookworms who read extensively are SJs and Ravenclaws. These people pride themselves on being smart and may or may not have their ego tied up into that identity; some can be haughty and pretentious, others can be down to earth, but they strive to be “something more” than wise and they are careful. A Ravenclaw will think about the root of your problem and offer advice that tackles that, instead of just the surface fixes. Luna is an airy Ravenclaw, if you want a more serious one, think of Klaus Baudelaire.

Slytherin: people who are ambitious, hard-working, and determined to succeed, who know what they want out of live and strive for it. People often focus on that part of the Slytherin and forget that most of them are also family-oriented – they will guard and protect their families and their beliefs. (Narcissa Malfoy chose her family over Voldemort.) They can be somewhat traditional in their principles, but always want to build something, a legacy they can stand on, and they use their cleverness to do it. Mary Poppins is a classic “good” Slytherin.

Gryffindor: people who drink of the cup of life with great enthusiasm and show courage under pressure. I know a great many globe-trotting Gryffindors. These people are quick to leap in to defend their friends, quick to champion a cause, and courageous in who they defy to do it, but can also be impulsive at times. A Gryffindor is characterized by their courage. There are tons of Gryffindors to look to for examples – ranging from Elizabeth Bennet, who defies Lady Catherine and says her courage always rises at attempts to intimidate her, to Harry Potter himself.

How I categorize my friends: the generous, sweet, helpful and mild-mannered ones go into Hufflepuff; the zanier ones who know a little bit about everything, who either value their own intellect (sometimes with good reason, sometimes not ;), or voluntarily prioritize learning go into Ravenclaw; the self-reliant, family-oriented, and ambitious people go into Slytherin; and the globe-trotting, impulsive, adventurous, bolder friends go into Gryffindor.

- ENFP Mod

#question #hogwarts houses #hogwarts #ravenclaw #slytherin #hufflepuff #gryffindor

[loreweaver-universe]

Since The Wishing Chamber is 99.9% never getting made, here’s some info about the (admittedly PG-13) Pokemon fan-game I plotted out ten years ago.  Lots of details and accumulated art by (off the top of my head) Alanahikarichan, Mopomoko, Zaerosz, my younger sibling Vic, TeddyBara, and NightFlowerLuv:

--Centuries ago, a local trainer, the most powerful in the realm, decided to try to capture the most powerful legend the region told of: Rayquaza.

--All this did was piss it off.

--Eventually, unable to stop Rayquaza’s livid rampage through battling, she went with plan B: Underneath the tallest mountain in the region is an ancient chamber.  In this chamber, Jirachi makes its home.  If you make it through the crumbling ruins and survive the trip, you get one wish--but there can only be one wish at a time, and if you make a new wish, the old one gets undone.  Said trainer wishes for Rayquaza to be sealed away, then takes the key to the Wishing Chamber and carves it up into eighteen pieces, which are slowly distributed amongst what would become the region’s Gym Leaders.

--Set in a heavily forested region with a massive lake to the west, rocky mountains to the east, and snowy ruins to the far north from when Rayquaza went on that rampage.

--I’ll talk about the plot another time, since this turned into a character design post.

--There are eighteen Gym Leaders, which can largely be fought in any order; the region is laid out like a web, with the starting city in the center.  You have to beat eight gyms to reach the endgame plot, and gym leaders have nine teams depending on whether you have 0-8+ badges.

--Gym Leadership in the region is something of a line of succession; the key fragments are passed on to the person that leader most trusts to take up the mantle.

--The Water leader (and this post was inspired by seeing the Galar Water leader, so we’re starting with her) was a self-made hostess who brought herself up from waitressing all the way to being the most famous, uh...what’s the word for rich party-throwing person?  I can’t remember.  Anyways, her name was Marina, she owned an underwater ballroom at the bottom of the lake, and she wore a Milotic dress:

--The Rock, Bug, and Grass leaders were a mother and two daughters, scientists all of them; the mother, the Rock leader, ran a preserve where revived fossil pokemon were studied in an environment replicated to the best of their ability.  She was the Gym Leader Posse’s team mom, even to the leaders that were significantly older than her:

--The Bug and Grass leaders were sisters and rivals, out studying the biology of the pokemon in the southern jungles.  The Grass leader was the older sister, a cheerful earthy type with vine tattoos and a bandana styled after...some Berry or other, I think it was Sitrus?... whose back ties stuck up to look like leaves:

--The Bug leader was the younger of the two, and more grumpy and pretentious.  I mean, just look at her:

--That’ the Ice gym leader, who’s a goofy old janitor at a fancy ski resort in the north.  He’s on par with the two other strongest trainers in the region.  He  just likes things quiet.

--The other two top leaders are Dragon and Fire.  I don’t have a picture of the Dragon leader that wasn’t drawn by a really horrible former friend, and so I won’t be sharing them here, but she’s a philosopher who wanders the eastern mountain ranges--in fact, you’d have to actually track her down in order to even talk to her, let alone have your battle.

--She and the Fire leader had a bit of a free will/determinism split that twenty-year-old Loreweaver thought was quite clever, as twenty-year-old Loreweaver often did, that would play into a binary choice you had to make at the end of the game that would determine which final boss you faced and which of the pair would die saving the other from Rayquaza.  The Fire leader, who’d have been the region’s Champion if the region was structured that way, is a professional explorer who’s the leader of a large adventurer camp in the snowy ruins of the north; they keep Fire pokemon around for warmth and heating and general quality-of-life, and he finances expeditions into the centuries-old ruins to uncover the weird, warped results of the battle and the wish.  When you fight the Fire gym, he actually is the door guide, and he wanders with you through the battles, eventually taking you to a stuffy older fellow with a mustache; when you beat the older guy, he turns to the actual Fire leader in exasperation and asks him to quit pretending, and after a short exchange (which, as he was somewhat a response to the crappy Fire rep in Diamond/Pearl, includes the final lines “What were you expecting, fire puns and a red afro?  These are the big leagues, kid!  Show me what you’ve got!”) you fight the real deal.  You may recognize him as the pathological narcissist writing this post:

--He and the Ghost leader are both descendants of that original, powerful trainer, and are based on myself and my sister Jade.  The Ghost leader, as opposed to Fire’s outgoing, adventurous, burn-myself-at-both-ends lifestyle, has secluded herself in a small cabin in the mid-east forests, because she has the ability to see and speak with departed Pokemon spirits above and beyond the ones strong enough to manifest as Ghost-types...and she’s got a cult following her because of it, who are clustered around her home and act as her “Gym”.  She’s got a ghost Pikachu following her, and she looks like this:

--The Electric and Fairy leaders were a pair of circus performers.  The Fairy leader is a classical circus strongman, who likes to make people feel good about partnering with the pokemon they like rather than what they think others will like:

--Meanwhile, the Electric leader was a stage magician who used his pokemon for magic tricks and was visually based on Ray Narvaez Jr, because I’m a huge fan:

--The inside of his cape is a starfield-pattern, and I’m still really proud of that design decision.

--The Fighting gym leader runs a physical therapy center that caters to both humans and pokemon:

--The Poison leader likewise doesn’t have any art of her that wasn’t from that awful ex-friend, but she runs a chemical processing plant in the starting town that doubles as a home for abandoned Poison-types, who help reprocess dangerous chemical waste into stuff that can be recycled and reused rather than left to gunk things up.

--The Flying leader doesn’t have any art of her at all, but she’s a late-fifties gray-haired recluse who lives in a half-mansion-half-eyrie halfway up one of the eastern mountains.  She hates people, and will make you do increasingly convoluted and pointless fetch quests for her until you get one of the other leaders you’ve beaten to come give her a talking-to.

--The Steel gym is a three-person family, a band; a twelve-year-old girl as the guitarist, the heavily-tattooed mom as the drummer, and a tall, lanky, nordic-metal dad with long blond hair and a Metagross aesthetic as the lead singer.  They also run an orphanage.  I don’t have any art of his final design, but here he is back when he was beefier:

--The Ground leader doesn’t have any art of him, either, but he’s a Bill-Nye-esque children’s scientist who works in the swamps in the western side of the region.

--The Dark gym leader in a Chinese man, a self-made entrepreneur who finances small businesses in one of the region’s larger cities.  Part of the application process is having a battle with him; you don’t have to win, but he decides if you’re trustworthy based on your bond with your pokemon.  His color scheme is specifically based on Umbreon:

--The Psychic leader was a college professor who used his pokemon to help figure out when his students were struggling and what they weren’t getting about the material:

--And the Normal leader was just.  Joey.  Youngster Joey.  He moved here from Johto.  He’s a pokemon breeder now.

ANYWAYS IT’S AN OLD IDEA I’LL PROBABLY NEVER GET TO MAKE I HOPE THIS WAS INTERESTING

#bloggin #inbetween #pokemon #fangame #pokebloggin #lore writes #the wishing chamber #sisweaver

[bearingwater]

Aquarius Sun, Capricorn Moon: A Devoted Personality

Responsible and practical, the Aquarius Sun Capricorn Moon personality makes for a great judge of character and down to earth decision maker.

People with their Sun in Aquarius and their Moon in Capricorn are usually optimistic and authoritative. They are among the most practical and down-to-earth individuals, and they want originality above anything else.

The Aquarius influences them to be individualistic and independent, while the Capricorn makes them ambitious, cautious and a little bit conservative.

Aquarius Sun Capricorn Moon combination in a nutshell:

Positives: Perceptive, playful, and faithful.

Negatives: Hesitant, forgetful, and irascible.

Perfect partner: Someone who will accept them for the odd person that they are.

Advice: To balance work and personal life by being more organized.

They are calm, persistent and determined. These natives calculate methodically and judge soundly when they need to find a solution to a problem. And the same qualities will help them succeed at almost anything they encounter in life.

Personality traits

Aquarius Sun Capricorn Moon people know their path in life so their emotions will never interfere with their ambitions. Because they can’t rest, they need to be active no matter if it’s about business, profession or personal life.

Responsible and serious, these natives will be successful at everything they will do. Their inner-self is even better than what they allow to be seen in the public.

They are good leaders and can deal with many people. And they will manage to still keep their individuality. True activists, they believe in the human rights and in dignity.

They don’t want more than they have worked for. Remember that it’s the ambitious and realistic Capricorn combined with the imaginative and prudent Aquarius. This means the native of these signs will be either little geniuses or completely insane individuals.

But the fact that they are stable and practical will never change. The respect they have for themselves neither. Fearless, they will always express their opinions, plus their code of ethics and convictions will never allow them to ever do wrong.

As humanitarian executives, the Aquarius Sun Capricorn Moon natives are friendly and always fair play. And the more they achieve, the more they will strive for power and financial gains. They will come up with new ideas and break the conventional even if they have great respect for tradition.

There are only a few other people who match them in intelligence and conversational skills. Their cold logic is one of their greatest assets. They can analyze and administrate everything because they aren’t emotional and see things objectively.

Charming, exciting, friendly and philosophical from the Aquarius’ side, they are at the same time very independent. Detachment is something that characterizes Water Bearers most times.

Coupled with the Capricorn’s coldness, this can become a problem when they want to form relationships with others. While they have many friends, there are only a few to whom they are loyal to.

Capricorns give marriage a lot of importance, Aquarians don’t care that much about this issue. That’s why it can be complicated for this Sun Moon combination native to be in a couple for too long. They simply can ‘t settle.

The Aquarius Sun Capricorn Moon individuals take responsibility for their own mistakes, but when other people are wrong, they are starting to lose their patience. The fact that they’re humanitarians will never change.

Being confident and free makes them wonder why some people have psychological problems. Compassion and tolerance are something they need to learn because their ambitions and eagerness to gain recognition can consume all of their energy.

It’s rare that these natives allow emotions and prejudice to rule them. They need to observe for themselves before jumping to conclusions. But they are pretty much stubborn to accept opinions other than their own.

They can even be fanatics about their convictions. Sociable, these natives never seclude in isolation. Everyone knows their positivity and cheerfulness hides great determination.

The Aquarius Sun Capricorn Moon natives give high importance to friendship but choose the people around them thinking at how these can improve their image and social status. It’s difficult for them to obey rules. That’s why many people will criticize them.

They have the sense of community and want to help with whatever they can. Able to read into people, these Aquarius people are good judges of character and receptive creatures. They are doers and their signs suggest they can convince people to do whatever they want them to.

No time for cuddles

People born with the Sun in Aquarius Moon in Capricorn combination are more interested in observing how things are going from the sidelines.

Not that they aren’t sociable because they are. It’s just that they don’t like being part of things and are more focused on achieving their targets rather than being part of the team.

They will commit to the person who will accept them for the odd person that they are. They don’t mind the idea of a family, but they need to be left alone and free if they are to resist in a relationship.

Their partner needs to know them very well. He or she should know when to insist and when to let go with these people.

Moon Capricorns like organization and rules. They can’t live without having structure and feeling safe. They will be the CEO both at work and also at home. They don’t mind committing and being the ones, their partner depends on.

But they are definitely not the lovers for those who are looking for emotional deepness and to cuddle. They keep their own emotions in control without even struggling.

They don’t need anyone in their life, so it’s possible they will forget about their partner sometimes. But this only means they are truly in love with someone. It’s not like they need that person in their life.

The Aquarius Sun Capricorn Moon man

The Aquarius Sun Capricorn Moon gentleman is likely aiming high and will wish to become the President, the State Attorney or even an astronaut. He’s determined and dignifying enough to do these jobs anyway. Not to mention what a hard-worker he can be.

But if he won’t meet the love of his life at an early age, he will become sad and frustrated when older. He will spend many days inside and wonder if life’s worth living. But deep inside, he’ll know all his efforts will be repaid.

He’s aware he’ll get what he dreams of, and things will suddenly start to seem more tolerable. This guy can never lose faith. He will worry, just like anyone else, but he will never doubt himself.

That’s why the Aquarius Sun Capricorn Moon man will be successful in his career. Authoritative, he may talk down to people. He can’t help himself from feeling superior. A natural born leader, he will probably become the leader of a company from a young age.

He will treat everyone nicely, and his partner will be his for a lifetime. But he expects the woman of his dreams to be as well ambitious. Also, this girl has to be composed, stable and honest. There aren’t that many women who can make him happy because he’s pretty pretentious.

The Aquarius Sun Capricorn Moon woman

The Aquarius Sun Capricorn Moon lady will join many causes and protest each time she feels things aren’t right. Many will think she’s irresponsible and childish, but she actually isn’t. She only has an enthusiasm others don’t have.

Intelligent, this girl will always look for people and situations that inspire her. She’s independent and perfectly capable so no one can make her decisions for her. If someone’s too slow to catch her, he or she will be left behind.

She’s too busy to stop from her way and explain others different things. She really knows what’s going on most of the time.

This is not at all the type of woman to blindly follow a man and not to have any opinion. Because she doesn’t wear silk and satin lingerie doesn’t means she can’t be feminine.

The Aquarius Sun Capricorn Moon woman just doesn’t care about the way she looks that much. But she’s very keen to keep her self-respect and how she influences people.

You will probably find her taking courses of self-development in between her children’s school and football practice. Because she likes to be of help and doesn’t mind noise, this lady will most likely have a large family.

Those who can’t understand her generosity and humanitarianism will not be paid any attention by her. She doesn’t like people who are self-centered anyway.

Her big heart is appreciated. If only she could be more romantic because otherwise, her cold judgment will help her identify her soulmate. Pretentious, she wants a man with a good career, talented and kind.

#aquarius #capricorn #capricorn moon #astrology #zodiac #sunmoon

[jojotier]

I’ve been working on Understuck, I swear

(WIP down below!)

= = > JOHN: Derail the plot in a thematically appropriate metacontextual roundabout way

Yeah, let’s abjure the hell outta that one- you can’t keep escaping the plot forever, you know.

One of these days, it’s gonna come right back to you. No way out, no sunshiney break in the clouds- fourteen chapters is way too long to be going without a bit of bloodshed from the main heroes.

> Nah. That’s where you’re wrong, buddy boy.

Okay, so now we’re here for some reason. Starting off a chapter this way isn’t my first choice, or I mean your choice if we gotta stick to our narrative style guns, but it’s the cross we got so we gotta take that shit downstream for a good ol’ college try.

Your name is SAMUEL JOJO TIER. It used to be something different, but you’ve been doing a lot of rebranding- personal, professional, if you can call writing some stories that some people seem to really like professional. All part of the process of growing up- you start off a long ass crossover when you’re a nigh rosy cheeked impressionable FoB fan of sweet sixteen and wouldn’t you know it, now you’re nineteen. Like an actual adult. With adult things to do. Adult friends. Adult interests. You might even think calculus is a little fun now. What the fuck.

Anyway, this whole pretentious interpersonal interlude wherein the author starts talking directly to the audience like some arcane trickster apparently doesn’t translate well “over text. You could probably like describe the exact room you’re in or even what you look like, but that sounds like a bunch of boring exposition and you don’t want to do that.”

“Silence.”

…….

“You think for a moment and then realize you are narrating out loud like some kind of tool. Which is to say, I’m narrating out loud like some sort of tool.” You say to no one, or to everyone, or to half of everyone- something something meaning inherent in the lies of everything. There’s some philosophical nothing or other about the fourth wall, but this is already kind of dumb and overly pretentious. “Thanks, asshole.”

You stare at the word document for a moment as words appear and waver. Then, with the mighty sigh of every college student with five essays due the next day, you continue, “Since I mean, technically this style is supposed to give the reader the sense that they can reflect themselves on the action? Or something? IDK man.” I’m still getting the hang of the fact that there are apparently quotation marks slithering off your words like cheap confetti.

“Listen, let’s just keep this short. I don’t wanna waste your time, or mine, and I don’t feel the need to do an excruciating recollection of the last 90,000 or so words.” You say, settling back down in your shitty computer chair while it squeaks dangerously. Stupid goddamn artifact of furniture.

“If there’s one thing I retained from Undertale,” You say, fingers poised over the keys, “it’s that no one has to die. So that’s what I’m keeping up here. No one here’s about to die.”

Unless you’d like that, I mean.

“I mean, everything else about the Undertale and Homestuck universes are meshing pretty well, y’know?” You say, waving off the feeling of something slick and dark crawling up your arm. “So it was hard to choose between their methods of uh…. Character dismissal. You’d think that it’d be better to mesh that all up too, y’know? It’s like… central to both.”

But sometimes, you have to make a choice.

“And I choose not to let anyone on the main cast die. That ain’t my style, y’know?���

Except for all those times it was your style… but those are for other projects, so they don’t count.

“Exactly. So no need to worry, dude- sorry for interrupting your reading and junk.” You say, rubbing the back of your neck. “You just looked kinda nervous.”

About what, though? About the idea of a child dying? What about all of them?

“But y’know, that ain’t my business. I’m just here to write.” You say, tipping your head back to look at the ceiling partially illuminated in the dim light of the room. “Yup… just me, writing all this out.”

Alone. No one else, you swear.

You choose to ignore the orange hand slowly reaching towards your shoulder. Which is to say, I choose to ignore the orange hand slowly reaching towards your shoulder.

This time, you don’t get a happy Medium.

#understuck #meta #my writing #wip #sfw #im working on this i swear this isnt like an april fool's joke #hjfkvvbhkj #maybe i shouldve waited for tomorrow but hjkfvjbjv im excite!!

[calleo-bricriu]

Finally, FINALLY, the author uses detail. Sort of. In some parts. But mostly not.

Continuing on...

Right, so, chapter 7, surprisingly doesn't have a time skip.

It's just Mizpra on the train with some long author monologing about how evil and twisted she is but he never really explains how or why just that "to kill, destroy, cause misery, and produce unhappiness was her life."

For a change he's briefly nice to her by saying she's clever, talented, and almost a genius but then goes on about how not really because she's selfish and gross.

"She did not understand or realise that she herself was the product of the last feeble efforts of exhausted ancestors." Wow.

Paragraph about how Mizpra is basically evil because she doesn't want to get married or have kids or have a sex life or any of that and it goes right into Leigh knowing that all because Leigh, being a genius, enabled him to realise it.

Why are we even talking about Leigh? He's not on the train.

Long paragraph about how children born to women with "nervous exhaustion" (again, not really a real thing) or to older women were basically trash that nobody should want and also makes for...infertile children somehow. This author is a doctor. A medical degree holding doctor, just in case you'd forgotten.

Few more pages rambling on and on about why Mizpra is evil and that only serves to make me still feel a bit bad for her because, so far, she hasn't really done anything all that terrible; the worst she's done so far is humiliate a student for wearing a corset and marry a guy for his typing abilities.

He keeps bringing god into it but, in all honesty, after reading seven chapters of this book he's convinced me that if one does exist it sure as hell isn't merciful.

Psychic conditions mean you can't have reasonable children.

Oh! Finally we get a description of an Evil Thing she's been at! She took a course on bacteriology which, whatever that is, would probably make her better at being a doctor than Leigh, for the sole purpose of sending Leigh's entire family contaminated mail. Cool initial thought but germs spread so she could also inadvertently cause an actual plague.

Her lab has a bunch of mouse and rat cages but, for some reason, they're not in there; they're in the bread. Comically poking their little heads and tails out of the...bread that I sincerely hope she won't eat.

Some descriptions of a bunch of dying rabbits in other cages that had all been infected with whatever disease she was working on.

Cotton tipped tubes are not going to contain pneumonia, diphtheria, typhoid, cholera, 'blood poisoning', or tetanus (sorry, lockjaw) and she really shouldn't be keeping them like that.

Oh, but this is common and "bacteriologists" just carry them around willy-nilly like that because they're--I mean, honestly, it's probably because constant low level exposure has given them immunity so, inadvertently discovering how vaccines work while not knowing that's what's happened.

We find out that, for some reason, she's particularly focused on killing Leigh's kid which is odd because there has never been much mention of her disliking that particular child, just all children. Also, it's 1901, just wait, he's got a pretty high chance of dying before the age of 10 anyway, especially living in a city.

She's a near genius level "bacteriologist" in the plot at this point and can't figure out how to spread diphtheria.

Air.

It spreads through the air.

Just powder it up and mail it along.

Or coat some baby toys with it, I guess that's the route we're going.

All right, so we've got the Baby Murder plan underway. It’s better than a few other Baby Murder plans I’ve heard over the years but, since we’re not even half way through the book I doubt Baby Murder Attempt #1 will fail.

A few scenes of her very nearly getting off to watching her lab animals die while also thinking, in a bizarre level of detail for this book, of a baby dying. Getting a little weird there, Mizpra.

How is it this author can detail that and detail all the ways the alb animals are suffering but couldn't be bothered to add any details to anything else?

Diphtheria doesn't need to enter through a slight wound, Mizpra, it just has to be present. It's very easily airborne and will also likely spread to anyone else that walks into that house until everyone is dead and they use fire as a way to clean the building.

So she goes out, gets a rattle and a whistle, goes back to her lab, files the whistle so it's likely to cut the kid's mouth then applies the "venomous bacilli" (Diphtheria is not venomous...) onto it all and wrapping it up in steralised cotton which would definitely have killed a lot of the diphtheria on there but, 1901 and nobody knows how infectious disease works.

Mizpra, we now find out when some professor addresses her as Dr. Newcomber, does, in fact, hold some sort of doctorate degree. Good for her.

He takes her back to his office and tells her, what amounts to, "Please stop leaving dead animals all over the lab, it's rude to the other students."

Long lecture about how she's coming off as kind of really fucking creepy by doing that and by being pointlessly cruel to the lab animals, she basically just rolls her eyes and asks him if he's done talking yet.

Which made him decide to fire her. She asked him again if he was done talking, and he went. off. on her for how careless she was in the lab and how thoughtless she was in regards to the other people that also had to use the lab which prompts her to start--reading--poetry out loud.

For whatever reason, despite being in Colorado, and despite Professor Ridge not being German she decides to start calling him "Herr Professor" then says goodbye in...French.

His farewell was, "There are no women of genius; the women of genius are men," so at this point, I'm kind of okay with him maybe getting diphtheria as well for that.

It hasn't been mentioned if she mailed the diseased baby toys yet but, they're all going to California now.

On to Chapter 8.

Back in New York with Obera.

There is no e in dachshund, a dachshund that is being mishandled by Obera's kid who still does not have a name, or, rather, his name hasn't been told to any of us reading.

Oh.

"Leigh, Jr." which is normal enough for about two seconds until you read on and the rest of the sentence says, "or, as he was called, Mops". The servant from the place in Hamburg gave him that nickname and that's just what we're going to call the kid now I guess.

Mops.

Obera has gone from the creepy child like girl in the "fascinating toque" to "proud and handsome in the full bloom of matronly womanhood" which is equally creepy sounding just in a different way.

Leigh is, of course, still a published author now and people love him for some inexplicable reason. I still sort of want to backhand him, he's so pretentious and doesn't even have the intellect to back it up.

"Leigh now counted his friends by the hundred". Sure.

They get into an argument about Leigh being a dick at work and Obera reminding him that he really needs to stop doing that shit before he ends up fired again and of course he lectures her on how her silly woman brain couldn't possibly comprehend his genius behaviour.

Can we just skip to the "infect the entire house and possibly city block with diphtheria" subplot here? Because I'm definitely more interested in that than I am in listening to this idiot wax philosophic and say nothing at all for dozens of pages on end.

Not yet? Okay.

Oh! No, few pages further and the diphtheria soaked toys have arrived!

Obera, having some good sense, was super suspicious at receiving a box addressed to a 3 year old, just sort of locked it in drawer to think about what the hell it might be. She assumes Mizpra sent it and that it’s probably poisoned or infected with something which I’d normally say is intuition but, she would have no way of even beginning to think Mizpra had the skills to do that (let alone the access to materials) so we’re going to go with metagaming here; Obera is clearly reading the story along with us.

Anyway, she sends the package to Dr. Bell so maybe someone else will be getting the diphtheria. Just doing a quick look up, in New York around 1900, the average fatality rate for diphtheria was--1,227 deaths in 1901, which is about a 15% rate, of the 7,726 cases reported in Manhattan and The Bronx, which is the area these people are living in.

So, her plan was kind of bad from the beginning; it had a 15% success chance IF it got to the point of infecting the kid.

Pneumonia, tuberculosis, and cholera would have been better, more likely to kill the kid choices. Cholera usually knocks over young children pretty fast.

Or just poison. You have a lab, you probably can easily get cyanide.

Not telling you how to go about your baby murdering plans here, Mizpra, just saying you're not exactly picking the ideas with high chances of success or doing it with any subtlety since they kind of immediately figured out it was from you and probably contaminated somehow.

And on to chapter 9!

Dr. Bell, probably being a real doctor, ran some tests and explained the results to Obera which, of course, made her faint immediately. She does that a lot.

So as she's sort of starting to wake up she starts screaming over and over that Leigh needs to kill her; her being Mizpra. Fair enough response to just finding out your sister in law tried to infect your entire family and specifically your child with diphtheria which had an--admittedly low death rate but still a 15% chance of it.

Leigh, in a surprising moment of clarity asks the other doctor if he knows what she's talking about, he says yes, then Leigh goes with, "NO TIME FOR EXPLANATIONS!" and tries to do medical care things on Obera.

Eventually  he goes with, "Okay yeah, I'll kill Mizpra for you."

Dr. Bell, the only sane person in the room, tries to talk him out of that and apparently a pulse of 120 is something we should know the meaning of.

So he's gonna lock himself in a room and not drink just to see what happens. What happened was he stayed awake for three solid days and that's it, only it took several pages to say that because we're supposed to feel sorry for this guy.

Several pages of a rambling story about a morphine addict not part of this story.

More pages of Leigh being mad at religion for no reason whatsoever.

Charlie listens to him ramble about how much he hates religion for the rest of the chapter then tells him he's such a well educated genius and leaves.

#Finally some DETAIL as to what some of this plot is #so #murder cw #violence cw #child death mention cw #animal torture cw #animal testing cw #hp rp #books

[moonwaif]

Snow Over Insomnia: ch. 1

Pairings: Gladnis, promptis

Theme: snowed in

Summary:

Once a year, Shiva blesses Insomnia with snowfall. This year's snow day finds four friends in transition. There's Noctis, who's trying his best to enjoy freshman year. With his best friend Prompto enrolled at a different college, it hasn't been easy. When a particularly controversial lecture puts Noctis on the spot, he says some things he regrets. Can he make amends before their friendship freezes over?

Meanwhile, there's Gladiolus, who's finding it increasingly difficult to deny his feelings for coworker and friend Ignis Scientia. The appearance of a mysterious figure from Ignis's past might just be the sign that it's time to come clean. Will Gladio make a move, or will he let the opportunity melt away?

PT. I: 10:12 hours

It was a good thing Noctis had remembered to mute his laptop before class started, because he received his first message from Prompto just twelve minutes into the lecture.

Prompto: brrrr! Freezing my a$$ off this morning

A selfie instantly followed: Prompto in a warm jacket and white beanie, grimacing up at the camera with a steaming coffee cup clutched in his gloved hand.

Noctis: heh. nice pic. whatcha drinking?

Prompto: mocha moogle latte. Yummm ;P

Noctis: all that sugar is gonna give you a headache

Prompto: hahaha yeah, probably. but i need some caffeine. i couldnt sleep all night thinking about that presentation!!!!  ｡゜(｀Д´)゜｡

Prompto: so we still getting snowed in tonight?

Noct's smile widened. It wasn’t often that Shiva graced the arid landscape of Lucis with her affections, but at least once a year, snow fell on the city of Insomnia. Sometimes it was a few flakes, sometime just sleet. On rare occasions, such as the one predicted by Insomnian weather channels on this particular day, it was a blizzard.

Noctis: heck yeah! hope you're ready to binge some King’s Knight.

Prompto: ugh am i ever. so ready to chill after getting this presentation out of the way…

Noctis leaned back in his chair, brow furrowing. He cast a quick glance at projector screen down at the front of the hall: a slide about the Lucian civil war.

Noctis: y? U nervous?’

Prompto: yeah

Prompto: stomach hurts

Prompto: p sure im gonna throw up

Noctis: relax, prom

Noctis: you've been practicing a lot, right?

Noctis: you're gonna be great

Prompto: dude you have no idea what id give to hear you say that rn

Prompto: i wish we still went to the same school

Prompto:  ｡゜(｀Д´)゜｡

A dull, tight ache formed in the center of Noct's chest. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, the reply coming slower this time.

Noctis: me too.

Prompto: yeah...

Prompto: too bad my best friend has to go to a fancy schmancy ivy league school for geniuses (¬‿¬)

Noctis rolled his eyes.

Noctis: im not here cuz im a genius, prom

Prompto: his majesty is sooooo modest ;)

Noctis: srlsy

Noctis: im like most of the ppl here. average.

Noctis: the only genius ive met so far is specs

Prompto: lol youre just saying that to make me feel better

Noctis: nah. youre way cooler than like half of the people here

Prompto: ♥‿♥

Prompto: too bad i cant afford the tuition lol. id kill to have iggy as my teacher

Noctis glanced up from his computer. From his own seat in the center of the hall, Ignis was just a small figure behind an even smaller podium. Still, Noctis had to admit that Specs was definitely in his element at the front of a classroom. His fitted grey sweater, crisp collar and perfectly coiffed hair were every bit the image of the up-and-coming academian. The freshmen in the front row hung dreamily on every elegant gesture of his gloved hands as his voice rang out through the hall, crisp and clear as water. He said something that sent a murmur of laughter through the rows of desks. Noctis smiled.

Noctis: yeah its not bad

Prompto: duh!! hes probably way cooler than all of my professors combined

Prompto: anyway, g2g. Gonna try to run through my presentation one more time before class starts

Prompto: (;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`)

Noctis: dont worry prom. Youre gonna kick this presentation in the ass.

Prompto: thanks dude

Prompto: catch ya later

Noctis let his gaze linger on the final message, Iggy’s melodic tones lilting in the background. He tuned in long enough just to get the gist of the topic (ugh - still on the Lucian civil war). He turned his attention back to his laptop and clicked on an open tab, which took him directly to Prompto’s ChocoGram feed. There weren’t any new updates, but that didn’t stop him from smiling as he reviewed some of the earlier posts: Prompto getting ready to dig into a steaming, greasy pizza; a #tbt selfie featuring the baby chocobo they’d helped rescue during their summer road trip to Lestallum; a prank-selfie with a drooling, sleeping Gladio. Noctis chuckled. He’d been there when Prompto had taken that one. Even Gladio had agreed that the shot was just too good not to share.

He continued scrolling. A bunch of people Noctis didn't know, probably at a party; a filtered, black-and-white shot of a glistening, neon lit alley; a selfie with some guy Noctis had never seen before; a picture of the school’s mascot, tagged #gocactuars; Prompto wearing glasses…

Wait a second.

Noctis scrolled back to the photo of Prompto and the stranger. “Hanging with the coolest TA around,” read the caption. Tagged: #whenyourfriendhasthesamemajor, #collegelife #insomniaboys.

Friend, huh?

Noct’s eyes narrowed. He silently listed off any names he’d heard Prompto mention over the past semester as he analyzed the man’s features: platinum hair; a strong chin; sharp, intelligent eyes whose color he couldn’t quite discern through the ChocoGram filter. He let the cursor hover over the smug, obnoxious grin. A tagged username appeared: “Ghiranzenator.”

Before Noctis could really stop to self-reflect, he was scrolling through Ghiranzenator’s feed. It was the kind of content you’d expect from a twenty-something with a pompadour and generic good looks. Gym selfies tagged #fitnesslifestyle; poses in scenic, well-known locations captioned with thought-provoking yet totally irrelevant quotes (ugh, so pretentious). He wondered how Prompto even knew this guy. Was he the TA for one of Prompto’s classes? Did they have mutual friends? If so, why hadn’t Prompto mentioned him before? But now that Noctis thought about it, like really thought about it, he hadn’t really heard Prompto say a whole lot about any of the new friends he was making at school.

Wasn't that kind of weird?

A crumpled wad of paper plummeted through his thoughts, ricocheting off his forehead. Noct's head snapped in the direction it had come from. His eyes were met by a vision of Gladio, squeezed into a desk barely large enough to accommodate his lanky frame.

“Pay. Attention,” he mouthed, cocking his head in Iggy’s direction.

Noctis scowled. That was the one downside of having his bodyguard disguised as a classmate. Gladio was just all too ready to make sure Noct behaved like a good little student. The plus side was that Noct had at least one friend who could commiserate with his suffering.

Like now, for instance. A fan club member from the front row was monologuing, earning exasperated looks from his classmates. Noctis and Gladio exchanged a few muffled snickers.

“Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us, Cleetus,” Ignis cut in, his voice laced with a strain so barely audible that Noct and Gladio were probably the only ones who even picked up on it. “As you have noted for us, it is quite interesting that most rebel demands would be considered centrist by modern standards. However, we should recognize one deconstructionist philosopher whose theories remain polarizing even to this day.”

Ignis went to the next slide. A portrait of a wide-jawed man with a face only a mother garula could love brooded down from the display screen.

“Oh great,” Noctis muttered, drawing a confused look from Gladio. “Not this guy…”

"Regulus Invicta," Ignis continued, "is remembered as one of the strongest advocates for freedom of speech throughout the history of Lucis. However, what is less commonly remembered are his persistent demands for the de-establishment of the monarchy in favor of what we would now refer to as a democratic socialist republic. Even during the Lucian civil war, Invicta was a controversial figure. At first his philosophies were embraced by the deconstructionists, who sought to overthrow the Lucis Caelums in favor of a fragmented nation-states ruled by regional noblemen. They were less in favor of his leanings toward a democratic socialist republic. Despite this difference of opinion, Invicta was one of the few intellectuals of his time that insisted on the right of deconstructionists to espouse their ideals without punishment or censorship. Unfortunately, this insistence, combined with his involvement with radical circles, led to his eventual imprisonment. He would die of consumption shortly thereafter.”

A hand shot up - the same wind-bag from before.

“Yes, Cleetus?” Ignis’s smile was tight.

“Professor Scientia, as you were speaking I couldn’t help but remember an essay I came across in the Lucian History Journal the other day. The article was about the evolution of Lucian collective memory of the civil war.”

Gladio chuckled. “Oh boy. Here he goes again. This guy really can’t stop himself, can he?”

Noctis wasn’t laughing. He wanted Ignis to get back on topic and finish explaining why Invicta and the deconstructionists were wrong.

“According to the arguments propounded throughout the essay” - Gladio actually snorted at this point - “collective opinion regarding Invicta and the deconstructionists split after Lucis became a constitutional monarchy. Invicta was distanced from the deconstructionists and by means of propaganda -”

Bells went off in Noct’s head. Propaganda? What was this guy trying to get at?

“ - and state sanctioned school curriculum -”

Noctis gripped the arms of his desk, knuckles whitening.

“ - Invicta gradually became celebrated as one of the fathers of free speech. Meanwhile, his links to deconstructionists were covered up, preventing further instability to Lucian society while conveniently appropriating the parts that aligned with contemporary values.”

He paused for a breath. Ignis stepped out from behind the podium, quick to seize back control of the conversation.

“Your statements indicate a very post-modern interpretation of the historical records, Cleetus,” he remarked politely. “It’s interesting that you bring up social instability. Although not as commonly espoused today, there are ideologues who from time to time self-identify as deconstructionists. However, they are often ridiculed by both leftists and conservatives, rarely gaining any political legitimacy. In this way, the general public remains largely unexposed to contemporary deconstructionism outside of the occasional satirical representation on late night TV shows or the funnies.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

There was a rustle as heads turned in Noct's direction. Ignis adjusted his glasses.

“Is there something you would like to share, Prince Noctis?”

Shit. Gladio slid down low in his seat, muttering something that sounded a lot like, “Smooth move, Noct.”

Noctis cleared his throat. His cheeks felt like two flames. “N- not particularly.”

“Very well.” Ignis returned his attention to the slides. Noctis averted his eyes, only to be met by the expectant gazes coming his way from the next row down. His gaze happened to fall on Cleetus, he shot him a particularly snide smirk from over his shoulder.

Something in Noctis snapped.

“It’s just that, you said ‘satirical.’”

Ignis stopped mid-sentence. Scandalized whispers rippled throughout the hall. Gladio was actually facepalming. Meanwhile, Noctis’s cheeks somehow managed to get even hotter. He felt the need to continue.

“I just thought - well, it sounds like you think those depictions are kind of inaccurate, or something.”

Gods, he was sounding extremely upset and defensive right now, wasn’t he? What had happened to all that training in diplomacy and public speaking? Embarrassing.

“Satire is merely a genre, your highness," Ignis demured. "One that hyperbolizes a real-life topic or theme with intent to criticize, ridicule or expose. We may identify this genre from a neutral standpoint without either validating or condemning the arguments contained within the work itself.”

Noctis schooled his expression so it’d look like he’d understood this last bit.

“But you said the satirical representation is the only representation people see. Doesn’t that imply that there’s another representation that most people don’t get to see?”

“There normally is more than one side to every story,” Ignis said lightly, and his lips curved in such a smug, handsome grin that Noctis could have chucked his laptop at him.

“Yeah, but sometimes one side has better evidence than the other one. Shouldn’t that also be part of the discussion?”

He was pressuring Ignis to agree with him, to say that the deconstructionists were “wrong” and the monarchy was “right” and therefore Noctis was right, too. That the deconstructionists were just radical, terrorist nutjobs whose hogwash theories did more harm than good, so why even bother discussing them at all? Noctis knew it. Gladio knew it. Most of all, Ignis probably knew it.

So why were they still disagreeing?

“Indeed. However, the objective of today’s lecture is merely to review the deconstructionism as an historical movement. I will leave the evaluation of the ideas espoused by said movement to all of you in your term papers.”

A smattering of chuckles. Oh yes, how adorable, how clever. Noctis opened his mouth to let loose another retort when Gladio nudged his foot.

"Let it go," he mouthed with a slight shake of his head. Noctis grit his teeth with an audible “tch,” nails biting into the surface of his palms. He deliberately avoided Gladio’s gaze, instead fixing his attention on his laptop. The Ghiranzenator taunted him from the other side of the screen, all chiseled jawline and knowing smile.

Noctis closed the laptop with a ‘snap.’

PT. II: 13:00 hours

“I was too hard on him, wasn’t I?”

The words were out of Ignis’s mouth before Gladio had even stepped through the door. The office was tiny - more like a closet, really. Gladio tossed a small paper bag onto the desk and pulled up a seat, careful not to spill the coffee in his other hand.

“What’s this?” Ignis asked, peering owlishly from behind his computer. Gladio handed over the coffee.

“Thought you could use a pick-me up," he replied. "And nah; Noct is tough. He gets worse from me during an average training session.”

“You’re just saying that,” Ignis mumbled, raising the cup to his lips and taking a sip. “Mmm, Gladio, this is delicious. Thank you.”

Gladio crossed his legs, leaning back with a pleased smile. “Heh. Thought you’d like that. And no, I’m not just saying that. Noct is pissed off, but he’ll live. Try some of the scone.”

Ignis reached into the paper bag obediently. “I should have waited until after class,” he muttered. “Or warned him about the topic before hand.”

“Yeah, that probably would’ve helped.”

“I just don’t want to allow him more special privileges than I already have! How am I supposed to prepare him for his future responsibilities if I keep treating him differently from the other students? Can you imagine, just last night he actually asked me to check his homework!”

“Did you?”

“What do you think?” Ignis snapped. “We live together for Eos’s sake, of course I did!"

“Yikes. How’s the scone?”

Ignis scowled. “You really must stop bringing me sugar. This is why my skin is breaking out.”

“One bite won’t hurt, prince charming.”

Ignis broke a off a tiny piece and popped it into his mouth, but not before shooting Gladio a glare.

“Relax, Iggy. Just give Noct a little time to cool down, think things through. He’ll come around.”

Ignis gave him a doubtful look. He took another bite.

“At least this scone is palatable.”

Gladio flashed him a cheeky smile. “Does that mean you’ll raise my grade professor?”

“I’ll consider it. After all, for an auditing student you do have unusually consistent attendance.”

“Someone’s gotta show up and keep the crown prince in line. Who better than his protector and professional babysitter, the royal shield?”

“Pity you have to sit through my lectures. I imagine it’s dull.”

“Nah. You’re way more interesting than the profs I had during my undergrad.”

‘A lot easier on the eyes, too,’ he thought. His gaze lingered on Ignis’s full, rosy lips before silently flickering away.

“There’s no need for flattery, Gladio. It’s not like I can actually give you credit for the course.”

“Sorry. Guess your little front row fan club is wearing off on me.”

Ignis reddened. He took a hurried sip of coffee, obviously stalling. Gladio grinned, letting himself indulge in the rare sight of a flustered Ignis.

“If the students show enthusiasm,” Ignis began, once he’d finished composing himself, “it is merely due to the engaging nature of the subject.”

“Oh, right. Lucian history makes me blush and squeal, too.”

“Did you come here for the sole purpose of force feeding me scones and distracting me from my work?”

“Why, is it working? Just kidding,” he added quickly at the stern look he received. “Actually, I thought we should touch base on our lovely royal charge’s training schedule over the Solstice. Iris has been bugging me about plans. She wants to invite the entire Amicitia clan over for a get-together.”

“Let me pull up my calendar.” Ignis swiveled in his chair, facing the computer monitor. Gladio contemplated his profile, thrown into sharp relief by the glow of the LED back-light. A million potential lines ran through his head. ‘It should be illegal to be so gorgeous.’ ‘You ever seen an angel up close? Because those cheekbones are high enough to graze the heavens.’

“Got any plans for the Solstice, Iggy?”

“I’m hoping to finish drafting my thesis proposal,” Ignis answered, with a light click of the mouse. “I’d also like to try my hand at a leiden sweet potato casserole. See if I can get Prince Noctis to eat something other than meat for a change.”

Gladio snickered. “Good luck with that last one. By the way, what’s your thesis about again? Food politics - “

“ - with Duscae as a case study for increased multifunctionality in agricultural policy making, yes.” Ignis spared him a brief glance, eyes crinkled with amusement. “I’m impressed you remember.”

‘Course I do,’ Gladio thought dismally. ‘I’ve Moogle searched every article you’ve ever published.’

Fortunately, he was spared the need to reply. One more click of the mouse, and Ignis was tilting the monitor in his direction.

“There we are. So, which dates does Iris have in mind?”

“She’s really got her eyes set on the day of the Solstice, as well the day right before and after. She needs me to help cook, put out decorations…”

‘Basically all the stuff we used to do when mom was around,’ he thought.

“I see. Why don’t I just make a note on my calendar for now? We can continue meeting as planned for the next two weeks. When it comes time, we'll evaluate how Noct is doing. Perhaps it won’t even be necessary for us to meet over the week of the Solstice.”

“Thanks Iggy. I appreciate it.”

“Certainly. It’s imperative that you spend quality time with your family over the holidays, uninterrupted.”

His smile was sad. Of course; Ignis didn't really have any family around to celebrate with. Gladio jiggled his knee, hesitating.

“H-hey, Iggy,” he began cautiously. “Y’know, if you don’t have any plans for the Solstice, you’re always welcome to - “

“Ah, Ignis! Just the man I was looking for.”

Ignis stood as two people Gladiolus had never seen before entered the office. The first was an attractive, bespectacled woman with golden hair swept back in an elegantly casual updo. Gladio, always the gentleman, rose instantly to his feet, pushing in his chair and squeezing back against the bookshelf in an effort to free up some space for her in the tiny room. She was followed by a pale young man who stood shoulder to shoulder with Gladiolus, which was a rare enough occurrence. What was really odd was Ignis's reaction. He blanched as the man entered. Then he was turning away to face the woman, almost as if he'd never even noticed the other visitor at all.

“Dr. Trepe! To what do I owe this pleasure?”

Her lips curved in a perfect cupid’s bow. “Ignis, dear, how many times must I remind you? Call me Quistis. Anyway, I was just giving Prince Ravus a tour of the department.” She gestured toward the man beside her.

Oh - so that’s why he looked familiar. Gladio had often seen the royal Nox Fleuret duo on magazine covers or on TV. Ravus cut a striking figure in person, with his wintry complexion and dual colored eyes. He seemed to resent being watched, interrupting Gladio’s examination with a peculiarly frigid glare.

“Prince Ravus will be joining our department as a research scholar next semester,” Quistis explained. “Your majesty, Ignis is a grad student and TA in our department. As you may be aware, he also serves as the royal advisor to Crown Prince Noctis. He’s quite the feather in the department’s cap.”

Gladio beamed, eyeing Ignis with pride. What he saw surprised him. Iggy’s shoulders were tense, his face frozen in a mask of false politeness.

Something was wrong.

“Thank you, Dr. Trepe. As it stands, I’ve already had the good fortune of making Mr. Scientia’s acquaintance.”

Gladio’s eyes snapped in Ravus’s direction. His expression was unreadable, but his tone of voice suggested that whatever fortune had been at play was anything but “good.”

“Indeed.” Ignis mustered a weak smile. “I’m honored his highness remembers me.”

Ravus flinched, the movement so quick it was barely perceptible. Gladio glanced between them. Whatever vibe was going on here, he didn't like it one bit. He asked the question before he could stop himself.

“How do you two know each other?”

Ignis gasped. “Oh, by the six - where are my manners? Dr. Trepe - “

“Quistis.”

“Quistis” - Ignis blushed - “and Prince Ravus, please allow me to introduce Gladiolus Amicitia, Prince Noctis’s sworn shield, as well as one of my dearest friends.”

Gladio’s chest swelled until it threatened to burst. He crossed his arms, lip quirking up into a satisfied smirk.

'Dearest friend, huh?'

“I see,” Quistis murmured, tapping her chin. Her eyes ran up and down Gladio’s frame with an openly appraising look. “I apologize for interrupting your discussion, Gladiolus. I doubt we made a very good impression.”

“Meeting a colleague of Iggy’s is never an imposition,” Gladio assured her. “Especially not when that colleague is as elegant and beautiful as yourself.”

Quistis blushed, blue eyes sparkling behind her spectacles. “I never imagined the royal shield was such a charmer. You’ll have to bring him around more often, Ignis.”

There was a momentary, infinitesimal fracture in Ignis’s facade. “Yes, well, I daren’t keep his majesty any longer," he said quickly. "I’m sure you’re both quite eager to continue the tour. Prince Ravus, it truly was a pleasure seeing you again. I look forward to our collaboration in the coming semester.”

“As do I,” Ravus snapped, his words laced with such venom that even Quistis sent him a mildly startled look. “Dr. Trepe, shall we?”

“C-certainly. Gladiolus, it was a pleasure. And Ignis, we’ll be seeing you tonight at the reception, won’t we?”

“Of course. The Grand Hotel Insomnia at six o’ clock, correct?”

“Not exactly ideal weather for an event, is it?” Gladio interjected, frowning. “The roads are supposed to freeze after seven.”

Ignis dismissed him with a breezy laugh. “Yes, well, you know what they say Gladio - the show must go on! Until tonight then, Dr. Trepe...Prince Ravus.”

He bowed at the waist. Gladio rushed to follow suit, but not before glimpsing the pain that flashed across the prince’s strange, distant eyes. Then he was gone, sweeping off down the hall without a word of acknowledgement. Quistis rushed after him. Gladio waited until he no longer heard the clicking of her high heels before he spoke.

“What was that all about?”

Ignis began fussing with the papers on his desk. “Dr. Trepe was introducing the newest addition to our department.”

“Who you just happen to already know.”

“Is that so odd? You and I often cross paths with royalty in our line of work.”

“Uh-huh.” Gladio approached the desk, leaning over and splaying both hands across the surface. “So, you gonna tell me how you two actually know each other?”

“I don’t see that it’s any concern of yours,” Ignis replied, voice unusually clipped. Gladio ignored the sting.

“I’m just curious - y’know, as a dear friend and colleague. Why so defensive?”

Ignis slammed down a folder, nostrils flaring. “Fine. Spring 752. I did a semester in Tenebrae. Prince Ravus was a student at the university. We made acquaintance.”

“And?”

“And what?”

Gladio shrugged. “Dunno. Just thought I sensed some hostility between you two.”

“Enough, Gladio!”

The outburst stunned them both. Gladio took a step back. He ran a hand through his hair, trying fiercely not to look as hurt as he felt. After a long moment of silence, Ignis heaved a sigh.

“Forgive me, Gladio. It’s just a rather...unpleasant story, if I’m being honest. I wasn’t expecting to meet him like this, and...I’d rather not talk about it all just yet.”

Gladio chuckled harshly. “Why are you apologizing? I’m the one being the asshole here. Sticking my nose in your business. But if you ever do feel like talking about it, or there’s any way I can help...just let me know.”

“Thank you, Gladio,” he said softly, and the smile he turned on him was so full of warmth and relief that it hurt to look at.

Gladio hurried to change the subject.

“You sure you’re good to go to this reception thing? Ravus will probably be there, too.”

“I’ll be fine. I merely need a moment to compose myself. I do apologize I won’t be able to join you at the gym today. I was quite looking forward to showing off my new gains.”

He wiggled his eyebrows. Gladio snorted.

“Save it for next time, hot shot. But seriously, Iggy - the roads are supposed to get pretty bad tonight. Call me if you need a ride.”

“Certainly; I’m sure Dr. Trepe would just love it if you popped by.”

“Iggy.”

“Don’t worry; I promise I’ll behave myself.”

“You better. Don’t wanna go setting a bed example for Noct.”

Ignis’s smile fell. Gladio rolled his eyes, reaching for the half-eaten pastry on the desk.

“Talk to ‘im,” he said through a mouthful of scone. “Better yet, feed him and then talk. He’s always in a better mood when his stomach’s full.”

“Oh Gladio.” Ignis shook his head. “If only I could be as certain as you are.”

‘But I’m not certain,’ Gladio thought to himself. The uncertainty followed him as he took his leave, wandering through the empty halls of the department alone. Noct could be stubborn, and Ignis had a tendency to cave in. Hopefully they'd be able to come to terms without too much of a fuss.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he didnt see the figure rounding the corner, hurtling straight at him. He barely managed to come to a stop before they collided.

“Whoa there!” he exclaimed, stumbling backward. “My bad, are you - ?”

The charity in his voice withered and died as he looked up into the face of the passerby.

Ravus Nox Fleuret.

“Ahem. Pardon me, your majesty.” He stepped aside, the polite gesture a reflex after so many years as a retainer. Ravus, however, stood quite still, eyes fixed on Gladio intently - almost as if he were measuring him up.

Gladio’s jaw clenched.

“There a problem, highness?”

Ravus looked away, making a soft, dismissive noise in the back of his throat. He strode past Gladio with his nose held high, sharp footsteps echoing off the walls like a hailstorm. Gladio’s eyes narrowed, gaze following him over his shoulder. The uneasy feeling was back, creeping up from the pit of his stomach like clutching vines.

Whatever history Ravus and Iggy had together, Gladio had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t the good kind.

He tore himself away with a sigh.

“Forget about it,” he muttered firmly. “Iggy can handle himself. It’s not like you have any say in the matter, anyway.”

Still, it was a good thing he kept a spare set of clothes locked up at the campus rec facility. He was gonna need an extra challenging workout today.

TBC...

#gladnis #promptis #prompto argentum #noctis lucis caelum #ffx #gladiolus amicitia #ignis stupeo scientia #fanfic

[maggotmouth]

      yo, it’s nora ( gmt, she/her) i’m back on my bullshit. sorry for dropping finn and cecily i jst.... wasn’t feelin very in their headspace. 

anyway bridget matusiak is a certified mess™ so have fun with that, she is an angry queer punk(?) maybe altho her identity …. i guess like everyone’s …. is very fluid…. she is very fickle and prone to change….. very impulsive and acts how she feels in the moment a lot i guess….. but also very grounded in her morals and ethics. film nerd. works at bowling alley. shakes hands. says “roger that”. yet somehow very cool™ and hip™. anyway like this or message me for plots. here’s a pinboard if u think those are groovy.

( nora. 23. gmt. she/her. ) it might be HER SOPHOMORE year but I still think BRIDGET MATUSIAK looks exactly like MARGARET QUALLEY and sometimes I think the FEMALE is actually them. Of course I’m wrong, as they're TWENTY and studying FILM while living in AUDAX here at Lockwood. The ARIES can be rather CANDID and GARRULOUS, but also kind of FICKLE and ERRATIC. Their most played song on Spotify was NOBODY REALLY CARES IF YOU DON’T GO TO THE PARTY by COURTNEY BARNETT, so I think that says a lot. 

bridget n her mum alice were more like sisters growing up, probably because of the closeness in age. alice should’ve known that you couldn’t have a thirteen-year-old-daughter at 27 without everyone knowing you’d been one of those girls who gave it away fast as a hot potato, and maybe bridget should have known that she’d inherit more than her mother’s wide eyes, that things had a way of circling back, that at fourteen she too would lose it on the floor of a swimming pool changing room, soggy back, poka-dot nylon pulled down to her ankles. 

her parents met in high school. her mother alice was a roman catholic -- uneducated in matters of safe sex, mother mary around her neck, bras hanging over wooden crucifixes -- and willing to give it to the first boy who seemed interested enough, gift-wrapped or not. 

i say they met in high school, bridget’s dad wasn’t actually in school, they met at the high school. he was the father to a girl down the road. alice knew nothing of the girl besides her name and the few encounters in the corridors facing a stoney stare that screamed homewrecker. it only happened once, but once was enough. soon the pitter patter of tiny feet sounded along the hall of the home for wayward women, alice’s parents having thrown her out as soon as they knew a child was growing in her womb.

gilly (referred to as junior) was born two years later, the son of a mechanic and handyman named gilbert “gilly” senior, who - while a slow-witted man -- was likable enough. alice, gilly bridget & junior lived in a colorado trailer park and whenever she wasn’t at school bridget would be in gilly’s workshop doin her homework surrounded by parts of exhausts.  was raised in a workshop basically.

like her mother, bridget fell pregnant barely out of her gingham print dresses, hair in two plaits down her back, teddies still lining her bed. unlike her mum, she was not box-shipped out to a home for fallen women but rather booked into a clinic, given a pill, just like taking your vitamins.

her mother flaked out when bridget was around fifteen and junior was twelve, leaving gil to adopt the two as legal guardian and raise them in the forge. she’s lived with gilly ever since. they’re not sure where their mother went. some say she rededicaed herself as a virgin and joined the convent in penance for her sins. some say she works in a las vegas strip club and sells pills to minors. 

a withdrawn child, bridget was selectively mute for 2 years (so girl has perseverance) n during that time her diary became her best friend. when she went mute she communicated exclusively through passive aggressive post it notes.

she’s a strident feminist, an activist for human rights and animal rights, a vocal vegetarian and an all-round soapbox sadie. catch her in the quad shouting about human rights through a megaphone.

aesthetic: cuffed jeans, thrifted or stolen. white converse, more grey tbh through years of wear. crop tops and plaid shirts tied round her waist. a long green trench coat with loads of badge pins for alt-rock bands and independent films. red denim jacket, also covered in badges n pins. smudged mascara. glitter smeared over cheekbones from the previous night. cigarette smoke shrouding you like a veil, the red string of a thong peaking out purposely from jeans, roller blades, cut knees, not eating your greens, smiling with a mouthful of blood, and piercing your own ears with a safety pin when your dad wouldn’t take you, kate moss posters lining the walls of a teenage bedroom, thumb holes poked through the cuffs of your sleeves, feet pounding the earth until your soles bleed crimson, sleeping in a cherry lip balm and scrunchies to keep the wild locks from your eyes.

an aspiring screenwriter. she has a very image-based view of memory and experience. always doing a screenplay or shooting film. her style has a lot of catholic iconography (think virgin suicides styler or baz luhrmann’s romeo + juliet if it was done on a super 8 camera) bcos catholicism is one of the few things she remembers about her mother. she’s never actually tried to find her mum / find out about her, jst…. occasionlly channels that energy into her work.

hypersexual and kinda manic-deppressive (though not diagnosed) probs bcos her upbringing was a bit unstable, she started life in a house that was literally designed to rehabilitate “fallen women” and she was a looked after child for a while when the adoption papers were still going through... struggles a lot with feeling unwanted, especially since her grandparesnts refuse to acknowledge her existence cos she was born outside of marriage..... so she craves feeling wanted,, like despite being a real women’s rights activist ad hating objectification, at the same time to bridge there’s nothing better than someone sizing you up with hunger in their eyes

she’s queer, but i guess she favours women, and is incredibly vocal in her support of the lgbt+ movement. often at ralleys. has done a face-sitting protest. really is that bitch

there’s a degree of anger for anger’s sake in bridget. she likes passionate, angry music – particularly garage rock, punk and riot grrrl. she loves the slits and skinny girl diet. viv albertine inspired her to take up bass guitar.

working two jobs to pay for uni currently !! works at the bowling alley polishing the shpes and fixing the bowling lanes, and also is a burger flipper at mcdonalds. a lot of her time is spent in the record store, plugged into a set of headphones, head-banging in the corner to a scratched record. music, for birdie, is a form of escapism. that and dropping acid in parking lots lmao.

massive film buff. is majoring in film at uni also spends a lot of time at the movie theatre n probably has like a season ticket. is one of those pretentious film nerds who’s like “what do u think of goddard’s work?” but also just really into shitty horror movies

she spends her evenings in downtown bars willing away her boredom, trying to find something that’ll jerk her out of apathetic lethargy. she toys with the idea of becoming a stripper — it certainly pays better than fixing bowling lanes — but she lacks the energy to dance for several hours a night. 

she loves b movies and slasher flicks. at parties, she’ll occasionally try to make a horror of her own, on a super 8 camera in someone’s basement, very paranormal activity, but she’ll inevitably get bored, or too drunk and give up, like she does with most things in her life. she lacks drive and motivation. she’s bright but there’s no hunger in her.

writes shitty poems on the back of napkins and quotes dead philosophers she’s never read. romanticises herself a lot. like will be standing there in a ripped t-shirt and her undies smoking a cig like “hmmm… i bet someone is falling in love with me right now”

is vegetarian for environmental reasons but snorts coke at parties ?? sis, it don’t add up

loves dirt. ate a worm once because someone dared her too. shamelessly disgusting.

she’s slightly obsessed with true crime, up late watching documentaries on the manson family murders.

she’s fickle and enigmatic. one moment she could be your best friend, the next, she’ll behave like a total stranger. bridget’s unpredictable because she’s still unsure of her own identity, frequently flitting between different characters, like snake skins, before she grows bored of being bubbly and eager and becomes spiteful again. her core personality traits are probably forthright, impulsive, restless, thrill-seeking, selfish, melancholic.

an awful person, really

feel free to im me if u wanna plot, here are some plot ideas i stole, or, like this post and i’ll hit u with a message!

#tw hypersexuality #lw:intro #tw drugs

[ohitsjustfee]

Lovely

I have never liked the phrase “I love you more and more each day.” It’s so unrealistic and selfish of me to be bothered by this phrase, but I am. I can’t help it. I have to be honest with myself. I feel like this phrase implies that love is fluid, and that love can be added and subtracted. One could argue that it’s a cold fact that love can wane, but I hate it. I hate that fact with a burning passion.

I want love to be an indestructible part of us all. 

“I love you fully.” When I love, it feels at full capacity. The person becomes the center of my world. I have my own interests and identity, don’t get me wrong, but I have no shame in holding someone above myself. I don’t feel like I’m betraying my gender by cleaning up after someone. To me, it is all a part of making love. I make love to a man when I hold the screen door open so he can more easily unlock it and let us in. I make love to a man when I fix his cup of coffee in the morning. I make love to a man when I order him pizza, and scratch his back because I suck at massages.

When it comes to romanticism my perfectionism can be my downfall. I know more than anyone that I am flawed. I have an addictive personality. I have an anxiety disorder. Sometimes I go through depression spells so severe that I feel like running into traffic. Sometimes I wake up from nightmares having just vividly seen some of the most gruesome and horrifying imagery a subconscious could conceive of. I have to continuously remind myself that I am worthy of love, or I will sabotage it. It’s taken me many years to learn to stop sabotaging love, and it will likely remain a work in progress.

Philosopher Alain de Botton has stated that the worst thing you can do to someone you love is show them your full self. We expect too much from partners. He believes that romanticism is a new age concept. Marriage used to be something that was a matter of convenience, child rearing, a pragmatic partnership. For sexual fun there were mistresses. For regular fun there were hobbies. Now we expect our partners to be completely sexually fulfilling, have and raise our children, maintain finances with us, keep their areas clean, and be our greatest confidant. That’s a lot. Alain argues it’s too much. He argues that the romantic period ruined us, in a sense. We expect too much from each other.

As smart as Alain is, I’m going to have to disagree with him on romance not being an innate part of human nature. I have always been fascinated by ancient graffiti, and that is all you really need to turn to to prove his theory invalid. Scribbled across the wall of the preserved-by-tragedy Pompeii is a phrase, written 2,097 years ago, that translates to “If you are able, but not willing, why do you put off our joy and kindle hope and tell me always to come back tomorrow? So, force me to die since you force me to live without you. Your gift will be to stop torturing me. Certainly, hope returns to the lover what it has once snatched away.”

All heart broken people are poets, and to romanticize is to be human. There was no romantic period that corrupted us. We simply have reached the comfortable place on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs where we can enjoy it. We don’t need cold and pragmatic partnerships. As long as we have food in our stomachs and medicine in our cabinets we can chase this whole love thing. We can spend years yearning for it, dissecting it, philosophizing about it, and beating ourselves up over it. 

I have always been a Tina Belcher type character. I don’t remember a time where I wasn’t fantasizing about love or dwelling on it. I would walk home from school my freshman year of high school and take a break on this bench along my trek. I’d sit there and think about my first boyfriend, turned first ex-boyfriend. I’d wonder where his love for me went, and how it was even possible for love to die. My passion for him died a slow, slow painful death whereas he seemed to move on with ease. I put him on a pedestal I thought I’d never be able to remove him from. 

A few weeks ago I decorated cookies with his step son, my nephew’s best friend. Life is truly funny. 

I guess that explains it all. I saw a man’s passion for me die very early in my life, and now I can’t stand the concept. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to be a dramatic little twat about it. If a man were to tell me he loves me “more and more each day” I’d take it as it was intended, to be high praise, but in the pit of my stomach I would feel this pang. For when I love, I love fully, and I have the privilege of being a spoiled little poet about it. Romanticism. It’s innate within all of us isn’t it?

My passion for passion has caused me great harm in my life, but I can’t imagine a life without it. It has almost killed me, but it also has made me feel more alive than I’ve ever felt before. My first kiss was skillfully awful, but it sent me home on a cloud of sunbeams. I didn’t feel my feet as I moved, I floated. I laid in bed at night and felt the electricity shoot through my body as I re-imagined his kiss on the corner of my mouth. I still to this day think about laughing with my ex-girlfriend as her tiny Asian ass picked me up and held me like a baby. I think about her putting her cold foot on my stomach and how we would fall over laughing constantly. I think about how beautiful she looked when the wind whipped her hair, and those long skirts she used to wear. 

I think about when this lovely man kissed me, and the shock I felt at a man’s lips being so soft. I think about when I was with a terribly unlovely man, but was so in love that I wanted to scream it from the mountain tops. I think about love.

I’ve had the great privilege and horror of being built, broken, and remolded again and again by love. I need it to stop being this fluid thing. I need it to be set in stone that I love a person, and that person loves me, fully, lest I go insane from it and bore you all with pretentious poetry (let’s be honest, I probably will anyway.) 

This was a heavy post, so I’m going to leave this on a lighter note. This is one of my favorite pieces of graffiti from the ancient ruins of Pompeii, left on the wall of a brothel: “ Weep, you girls. My penis has given you up. Now it penetrates men's behinds. Goodbye, wondrous femininity! “

We’ve always been clowns. Lovely, loving, romantic, poetry writing clowns. And we always will be. 

I’m sorry I haven’t been streaming lately. I’ve been overloaded with work as the holidays draw near, and suffered a depression spell a few weeks ago that left me sort of wanting to isolate for a bit. I hope to stream today (Sunday). If I am not graced with your company, I want to wish you the happiest of holidays in advance. I’ll ramble at your sassy asses later. 

 “Do you recall it's name As it suggested beck and call? This face and heel Will drag your halo through the mud Ash of Pompeii Erupting in a statues dust Shrouded in veils Because these handcuffs hurt too much “ - Cicatriz Esp, The Mars Volta

#love #pompeii #ancientgraffiti #romanticism #philosophy #alaindebotton

[fumbles-mcstupid]

@ anon: tumblr ate the actual ask when I tried to save it as a draft, so, awesome, anyway a screenshot of it from my activity page is the only remnant I have of your ask so it’ll have to do. Thanks for sending it, tho! Admittedly headcanons aren’t my forte since they almost always devolve into fic ideas or pseudo meta, but I’ll do my best

- Alan ends up philosophizing a lot around Billy, because Alan Grant definitely, 100% uses philosophizing as a way to deal with his strong emotions, and he has A LOT of strong emotions around Billy, and Billy would think it was pretentious except for how soft and sincere Alan is when he talks

- You’d think I’d get tired of imagining Alan taking Billy out to a nearby hill at night at the dig and looking at the stars, with Alan pointing out all the visible constellations and explaining their background, and other little facts, but nope, never. There’s like, a tension between them before they get together, with neither of them saying it but thinking how romantic it is, and then once they get together, knowing for sure that’s what it was the entire time

- I’ve got like, two conflicting but plausible ideas of how they reacted to each other when they first met, like either

Alan isn’t immediately caught up in Billy’s charm, and Billy realizes this, so it just makes him work a little bit harder to get Alan’s attention and approval, or

Billy is one of the very few people that Alan finds genuinely charming, and it surprises him how incredibly easy it is to fall into step with Billy, and Alan lets him into his heart faster than anyone before

Like, either way, there is definitely something special going on that’s pulling them together, and before they know it, they’re a constant in each other’s lives

- One of the reasons they get along so well is that they both can be... kinda mean. Alan demonstrated this in JP1, and Billy looked like he wanted to murder the Kirbys after he found out they were frauds. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they are definitely good people and try as they might they just can’t find it in themselves to truly hate the Kirbys bc they recognize that desperation and willingness to do whatever it takes to save those they love, BUT at the same time, they’re absolutely the type of couple that will gripe about people they don’t like behind their backs, and maybe sometimes to their faces. Alan has a reputation of being grumpy and a no tolerance policy for idiots, but Billy is honestly the exact same way, he just can cover it up better with his charm when it suits him. And then complain about it to Alan, later.

- You might not expect great cooking skills out of Alan just by looking at him, but I think Alan has spent quite a few years of his life living by himself, and when you live alone, you either eat crap because you don’t care and no one’s there to judge you, or you end up making good meals because you’ve got time to practice and there are plenty of cooking shows to watch. So I think, by the time he’s living with Billy, he’s got a lot of good dishes he makes and typically does like to cook for them both. Billy on the other hand, probably not so good in the kitchen at the beginning but competent enough after living with Alan a while. (I mean, Alan liking to cook maybe solidified as a headcanon of mine after watching a video of Sam Neill make a shepherd’s pie. Maybe. I stand by it, tho)

- Alan and Billy definitely have a weird sort of competitiveness going on, where Billy will try to do physical tasks to make it easier on Alan, and Alan resents it because he’s not so old he can’t do it, and he’s maybe lowkey trying to prove to Billy just how fit he still is. And it’s like, fine sometimes and Alan doesn’t mind, like when Billy was carrying his bag after Alan got back from his trip because he’s in love with Alan a nice person and an absolute gentleman, and then there’s times like here with the parachute on the island

(x) (x)

where Alan just goes for it and Billy is right there to help and like, it’s great teamwork but I can definitely see times at the dig where there’s something heavy that needed lifting and Alan sees Billy coming in hot to take care of it and quickly makes an attempt that puts him out of commission for the rest of the day (and Billy spends the entire time both fussing over him and laughing)

- Even though this is a headcanon that slash--y and I talked about a million years ago, it bears repeating because it remains very strong and true in my head: Alan is definitely an early riser and Billy sleeps in late whenever he can and is super clingy and always tries to keep Alan from leaving the bed (he succeeds sometimes, for at least a little while)

- I think Alan is more open with Billy after the island. Like, it was sort of a lesson for Alan, in a way, because maybe Alan feels like some of the things Billy did there (taking the eggs) he wouldn’t have done if Alan had spent more time talking to him about his previous experiences and how he really felt about what happened there, not just the vague statements and occasional complaints about InGen. I get the feeling that there were a lot of things that Alan hadn’t ever discussed with him and that Billy never asked him about because he saw how Alan hated it when other people did that. So maybe he realizes how much it would help both of them to really talk this time and share how they felt (and HOW THEY FELT)

#Alan x Billy #billyalan #Alan Grant x Billy Brennan #Jurassic Park III #JP3 #thanks again for sending this anon! #I really do appreciate it #even though it's been sitting in my inbox for months #so sorry #I just wasn't in a good place to answer it yet #I love these two and will truly never get enough of them

[leapwriter]

25 Questions Tag

And thanks again to @falling--in--place for the tag! :D

This is ridiculously long so I’m putting this one under the cut.

1. Is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

I don’t think so.

2. What work of yours, if any, are you embarrassed about existing?

I have a few…early works that should probably serve out their remanding days as kindling. There were also some fanfics from my old FFN days, but those have been deleted for a long time.

3. What order do you write in? Front of book to back? Chronological? Favorite scenes first? Something else?

I write the scenes that grab me first. Whatever feels “important” — key scenes, the things that inspired that piece in the beginning, the ones that I can’t ignore go first. Then the rest of the story is built around those. It’s a bit like being a detective — I follow the clues and from there figure out what happened and how we got from once place to another.

4. Favorite character you’ve written?

How do you pick a favorite child....I’m going to cheat and say it changes all the time (which is true).

5. Character you were most surprised to end up writing?

I usually end up with at least one surprise character per wip -- random unplanned characters who fuck with my plot are a tradition at this point.

6. Something you would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late/complicated to change now

Nothing, really. In old works I’ve moved past the point of wanting to mess with them without a complete rewrite, and my current wips are still very much in the messy first draft stage, so I don’t doubt most of it WILL change at some point.

7. When asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?

On the internet? Enthusiastic. In real life…not so much. I’m always nervous about people I know offline finding my blogs.

8. Favorite genre to write

Fantasy! Specifically urban fantasy but I have my roots in high fantasy. Horror is also fun.

9. What, if anything, do you do for inspiration?

Go for walks if I can, if not pace in circles or take a shower. Movement helps me think. But for more traditional “inspiration”, moodboards, music playlists, and stuff like that.

10. Write in silence or with background music? Alone or with others?

Silence and preferably alone. I have a hard time filtering out background noise so I struggle to write with music or even people talking.

The playlists come in when I’m daydreaming or brainstorming ideas.

11. What aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?

Er…all of it, probably? Hopefully my ability to write nuanced, well developed characters though, as that’s my favorite part of writing. I’m a character driven storyteller, so I really hope I’ve improved at least SOME in that area haha.

12. Your weaknesses as an author?

Adverbs. My habit of starting things and then abandoning them when they stop being “shiny and new”.

13. Your strengths as an author?

I like to think it’s writing angst, or emotionally tense situations, or just…tension and conflict in general. It’s one of my favorite parts of the writing process, anyway.

14. Do you make playlists for your work?

Yeah, usually when I’m supposed to be writing or working on something else…

15. Why did you start writing?

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

16. Are there any characters who haunt you?

Just the dead ones ;)

Kidding, kidding. Probably all of them when I’m not writing them.

17. If you could give your fledgling author self any advice, what would it be?

Purple prose is not your friend. Whipping out the thesaurus just to put in fancy words for NO REASON does not make your writing better. Not everything you write has to sound like a dramatic, gothic horror novel that got dipped in 7 layers of pretentious pseudo philosophical ramblings.

18. Were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? What were they?

When I was a kid, Harry Potter was a big influence. During my early teen years was the first time I started looked at writing more analytically — picking it apart, thinking about themes, and word choice, and phrasing as something to consciously do, not just…let happen.

Harry Potter was my obsession at the time, so it was the first work of fiction I started “taking apart”.

A bunch of epic, high fantasy novels, for better or worse... (The Wheel of Time was like...a big deal for me in high school)

And a WHOLE lot of fanfic writers. Fanfic had a huge formative influence on me.

19. When it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timelines, ect.?

Haha…outlines. Yeah.

Um, sometimes I scribble stuff down in like 10 different word documents, on my hand, and on that napkin I picked up and shoved in my pocket, but then usually forget about those notes or misplace them when I need them.

Outlines are great in theory, but I never use them in practice. When I’m smart, I dump all those ramblings into one scrivener folder so I can at least find them but…I am a chaotic, disorganized writer.

So I guess the answer to this question is: I don’t. I just jump into things blindly saying, “I’ll figure it out when I get there” and hope for the best.

20. Do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?

Both. It just depends on what I have time to do.

21. What do you think when you read over your older work?

I get that it served its purpose, but it still makes me cringe a bit to read the really old stuff.

22. Are there subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?

Yeah, but if it’s something that makes me super uncomfortable I just avoid writing about it. I want to enjoy what I’m writing, not have to force myself to get through it.

23. Any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?

I don’t know, what counts as obscure? Maybe?

24. Have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

Er, lots of medical/first aid stuff, murder related things, a variety of weapons. I tend to forget things pretty quickly after I’m done though, so I probably don’t remember half of that stuff now, unless I’m still using it haha. 

25. Copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of.

Mmm. Me and my writing are not getting along at the moment, check back later.

Tagging: @mukur0writes and um @damawrites. If you don’t want to do this, feel free to ignore it!

#tag game answers #I thought I posted this already but I guess it was still in drafts #oops