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ineffable-suffering · 7 months

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Why Aziraphale is an unreliable narrator

Part 2: The Story of wee Morag

This is Part 2 of 3 total metas. Here are:

Part 1, in case you want to read about my analysis of the Story of Job first

and Part 3, in case you're impatient and want to jump ahead.

Fair warning though, for the sake of understanding some of the references, you're probably better off reading this chaptered meta chronologically. However, every part should work just as well as a standalone! I'll do my very best to make it so.

Alright, off or on you go beyond the cutty cut!

I'll start this second part off with a very brief summary of the main take aways and points from Part 1, which go as such:

Memory, as opposed to a third party's narration, is not a factual, objective retelling of a story or event. It's mingled and mangled with emotions, imaginations and exaggerations, projecting both the feelings and impressions you had back then as well as those you might have now in the present time back on whatever it is you are remembering. (Which is why we need to put everything that Aziraphale is remembering into the context of what he might have felt in the past, as well as what he's feeling right now.)

While this doesn't mean his (or anyone's) memories are lies, it does mean they're a very subjective and sometimes factually distorted representation of what actually happened, which, in our case, gives us a lot of subtext and a lot of not-there furniture to figure out and look at.

So, let's continue with S2E3 and the Story of wee Morag. We start our flashback with a scene of Aziraphale writing his diary entry on the 10th of November, 1827. Immediately, it's firmly established that this is once again not an outside-point-of-view narration, but rather what Aziraphale remembers and wrote down.

One thing that immediately stuck out to me here, is how helpful and kind Crowley is to Elspeth, pretty much from the very beginning when they meet her in the graveyard. Not only does he take on a Scottish accent so she won't perceive him as English (as she does with Aziraphale), but he also helps her drag the barrel that has the fresh body in it and, in the end, even pulls it all by himself while Elspeth simply follows behind them. Here's a rather poor-quality picture, for reference:

Now, we know that despite not showing it very often, Crowley has always been very fond of the humans and never really put himself on a pedestal simply because he's an immortal being himself. He likes humans, just like Aziraphale does. But, just like this story will tell us, Crowley knows that on top of liking humans, you can't just put them into boxes of good and evil and expect them to always do what is supposedly the "right" or "divinely good" thing to do. (Which is what differentiates him from Aziraphale in the way he understands and treats them, as we're shown in this minisode).

Him immediately and unspokenly helping Elspeth with dragging the barrel therefore might also be a first sign of a tiny projection from present day Aziraphale, as opposed to what Crowley might have actually done (probably just walked beside her, like Aziraphale) because he has the knowledge that Crowley really was so very kind to her in the end, wasn't he? And that he's kind to humans in general. ("Not kind! Off my head on Laudanum!" Sure, babe.)

Most of this minisode, in my opinion, is actually there to establish how Aziraphale's view of morality and good vs. evil used to be quite flawed and elitist –– and how Crowley has always been there to gently nudge him towards questioning his black and white view of heavenly right and hellishly wrong. That's why I think there's not as many hints in this minisode about Aziraphale's memories not being an accurate portrayal of what happened, as there are in the Story of Job or the magic show in 1941. (And, fear not, the latter will definitely be the most hint-heavy one). Alas, there's still a few bits and bobs in the Story of wee Morag that stuck out to me, that make a brief yet good case of the whole unreliable narration thing.

First of all: The way Aziraphale describes all of it in his diary is so different from the way we see him actually remembering it. It's almost like he tried to write this entry (and possibly all of his diary) as a bit of a thrilling short story, with himself as the main character. Which makes sense, given the fact that he adores books and would certainly be keen on dabbling in the art of capital-w Writing himself. It's yet again hinting at the fact that sometimes people (and angels) try to polish and bedazzle stories (and memories) to make them seem more exciting and adventurous, often to distract from the not-so-fun parts of it.

Like when Aziraphale's diary narrates:

"It was with heavy heart we arrived at Elspeth's destination. I was determined to thwart her monstrous plan!"

... and yet we see Crowley and Elspeth casually walking down the alleyway, very obviously not heavy-hearted in the slightest, while Aziraphale nervously scurries on behind them, very obviously not determined to thwart. (Timestamp-wise, it's around 17:38 in S2E3, in case you want to see for yourself.)

We get another cinematographic/auditory hint at the fact that Aziraphale's memory is heavily influenced by what he's feeling that very moment, when Dr. Mister Dalrymple –– FRCSE, thank you very much –– shows him the tumor he removed from the seven year old boy. You can see the shock and horror on Aziraphale's face once he learns of this child's cruel fate. We then proceed to hear Mr. Dalrymple's voice grow sort of echo-y and far away as the sad music swells up and drowns out his voice almost completely. It's awfully similar to what it feels like when really horrible news are broken to you and you dissociate and drift into a state of shock. Here's the clip of it, so you may listen for yourself:

It's clear that this is a very subjective portrayal of what Aziraphale is going through during this part of the memory. He's deeply horrified and saddened about the little boy having passed away so early in life – and we hear and feel this shock with him. Through him, because this is his memory. Whatever it is he's feeling and thinking, we're feeling and thinking it too because we're seeing it through his lense.

Another (less sad) hint at a possible exaggeration is the abnormally deep hole Crowley makes the two graveyard watch keepers fall into. I'm pretty sure he's very much in charge of his miracles, making this random slip-up seem a little silly – which is why I'm also pretty sure the "Might have slightly overdone it on that hole" is a wee bit of a meta hint at this just being another one of Aziraphale's dramatic bedazzlements of this story. For the *flings feather boa around neck* drama!

You know what else might be exaggerated? Hm, I dunno, maybe Crowley growing into the size of a tree for no apparent reason. Sure, yes, he's pretty high on Laudanum which is making him a bit loopy. But apart from that, it does seem an awfully big cinematographic euphemism for him being the metaphorical (and, once again, for the drama of it) literal bigger person in this scenario. He's the one who ends up saving Elspeth and who manages to secure a safe life without poverty and grave robbing for her. While Aziraphale was so tangled up in his own moral journey and main character-ism, missing that wee Morag was seconds away from death already, Crowley is the one who actually ends up growing stepping up for the human in need and saving them for good (pun intended).

In a way, it might just be Aziraphale's view of/feelings for Crowley in this very moment. Watching the demon outgrow what, according to Aziraphale's heavenly logic, is supposed to be a foul fiend, bestowing evil upon humanity – and growing into someone who does the exact opposite and saves Elspeth instead. Another larger-than-life character development, in Aziraphale's eyes. Literally.

Let's switch back to the topic of the diary entry one last time, so I can make my final point of the this minisode's unreliable and a smidge over-dramatic narration of Dr. McFell. If you pay close attention, Aziraphale starts the entry we're all getting to experience with: "Last month, Crowley and I both happened to be in Edinburgh." Which means it didn't actually happen on the 10th of November, but rather at some point in October, 1827. Once we see Crowley get hydro-pumped back to Hell after rescuing Elspeth, the minisode ends with, presumably, the last sentence of Aziraphale's diary entry: "And that was the last I would see of Crowley for quite some time."

Take my hand and let's look at where the furniture isn't: This very clearly means that Crowley couldn't have been gone for more than a month, at best. Read again: "It happened last month and that was the last I would see of him for quite some time." This, albeit indirectly, clearly implies that when Aziraphale had sat down to write the diary entry, he had already run into Crowley again. Otherwise his phrasing would have probably been more along the lines of "... and I haven't seen Crowley since" or "... and Crowley has yet to return from wherever it is Hell's currently keeping him".

What's the point I'm trying to make? Good question. I guess my main point of storyteller Aziraphale being a bit over-dramatic in his narration is simply backed up by this, since A Single Month would barely pass as "quite some time" for an immortal being like him. And yet that's how he puts it, in his little Confidential Journals of A.Z. Fell, Vol. 603.

And another point that has absolutely nothing to do with the topic of this meta (but I'm still gonna make it 'cause this is my memory post): The meeting at St. Jame's Park in 1862 that so many, post-S2, took to be their first run-in after the Story of wee Morag, actually wasn't that at all. They saw each other at least once only a month later, as Aziraphale's diary lets us know. Which explains why he wasn't very surprised or concerned when he met Crowley in London, 1862. If there really had been 35 years in between those two events, the first one ending with Crowley being sucked back Downstairs to receive more than three decades worth of hellish punishment, wouldn't Aziraphale have been at least a tiny bit worried or more interested than:

Just saying.

Alright, let's string this inflated hot air balloon of a post back together so we can outline some invisible furniture. This time with only two humble points:

Crowley through Aziraphale's lense Backed up by how we are introduced to Bildad the Shuhite in the Job minisode (suave, cheeky, smart, passionate in shoemaking and obstetrics), it's growing quite clear that Aziraphale's memories and impressions of Crowley are very fond and impressed ones. He sees him as someone who's not only witty, funny and cool, but also as someone who has figured out way sooner and faster than him that nothing's ever black and white. Not God's plans and not the human's choices either.

Aziraphale as a bit of an exaggerating adventure author With the direct parallel we get of inkslinger journalist!Aziraphale in the present day, it's quite apparent after this minisode that Aziraphale's memory is not only deeply influenced by his emotions, but that he also tends to have a bit of a dramatic touch to him. Although, you gotta give it to the guy: A month without seeing the love of your life, even if said life is eternal, can indeed seem like "quite some time".

Well, would you lookie here, we've reached the end of Part 2! What a journey it was. I hope you forgive me for the fact that I drifted off-course a few times. I just can't seem to reel in my silly little observations, even if they've got nothing to do with the point I'm trying to make. But hey, doesn't that just make me a little bit like Aziraphale's storytelling, in a way?

I'll let you be the judge of that.

See you in Part 3! And in case you haven't snuck a peak yet: here's Part 1 again.

Ta!

#good omens #good omens season 2 #gos2 #go2 #good omens 2 #good omens meta #ineffable husbands #aziraphale #crowley #good omens analysis #aziraphale is a storyteller #but not a very accurate one #story of wee morag #my own meta #aziraphale the Drama Queen #shakespeare who #unreliable but beloved story teller aziraphale

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wifegideonnav · 2 years

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the importance of pov and kiriona gaia as gideon nav’s imperialist aspect

others have already made some really smart posts about how kiriona is gideon when she’s lost everything and everyone that made her who she was, and how even in the first two books, gideon was this terrifically sad creature who was disguised by the fact that she was her own narrator.

but I want to expand on that last bit, because yes. kiriona is a gideon who has lost everything, who has had to make tough decisions to survive, who has had to adapt to being primarily around her father (a manipulative asshole) and ianthe (ianthe). but this is also the first time we’re getting to see gideon from a perspective other than her own.

we’ve always known that gideon is a beautifully unreliable narrator - see her complete understatement of the fight before harrow opened the tomb, where she neglects to tell us that she almost killed harrow with her bare hands - but I think that for a lot of us, the introduction of kiriona was when we first felt that.

now, nona is not an objective narrator either (lmao). and she does actively dislike gideon (which is fascinating, and which I could go on about for several posts). but she does offer an outside perspective on gideon that we have, up to this point, been lacking.

because… yeah. sometimes, like anyone, gideon’s kind of mean. we know she’s a good person - her goodness is in many ways one of the central drivers of the plot - but that doesn’t mean she’s nice all of the time. it’s just that when she’s being mean to crux, or ianthe, or even harrow we can say, well that person deserved that. but the truth is, gideon has lived through the kind of hell that very few people could survive with any kind of goodness and softness left intact. she didn’t live through it, in fact. she’s just kind of… existed through it.

I saw another post point this out, and I want to reiterate: gideon’s goal, her whole life, has been to join the cohort. when we first meet her, we’re like, ok, makes sense, that’s the only ‘out’ available to her. and we kind of forget, even as we learn more about the empire, that what gideon wants to join is this actively and horrifically violent imperialist force. when we get to nona, and we meet hot sauce and her gang and joli and the angel and even the edenites, we expect gideon to have kept up with us somehow, to reject the empire. we want her to be one of the “good guys” (goodness in the tlt universe is another longass post I want to write…).

but gideon doesn’t reject the empire. because, crucially, she IS the empire - she is its heir, never mind the fact that that doesn’t really mean anything when the current emperor is immortal.

what I am trying to say is this: kiriona is gideon when you take everything from her, and then replace it with her father and everything he represents, and then take a step back.

that step back is crucial. it is what allows us to remember how imperialism - and by extension, or by metaphor, cruelty - works. gideon becomes cruel because she is in proximity to cruel people, AND because she is not in proximity to us.

THAT is what Muir is saying with kiriona. even the most kind, good, earnest protagonist can become a tool of evil in the right circumstances: and those circumstances include perspective. gideon, like it or not, is currently actively choosing to be a tool of empire. and if we were in her head, we might be able to - or we might be tricked into - accept her justifications for why she’s doing it.

the perspective shift is what allows us to see gideon as she - currently - truly is. it is no accident that this is when we get the outside pov. Muir allows us nowhere to hide; we have to confront what gideon has become and by extension what she always has been.

gideon nav is a good person, and I fully believe that in alecto we will watch her reject her father; I fully believe she will get to be a hero. but in order for that to happen, she - and we - must first undergo radical change and growth in terms of her worldview and attitudes. kiriona is not gideon’s final form. but in the same way that john is described by harrow as having aspects, kiriona is the aspect or facet of gideon that embraces cruelty, that perpetuates empire.

Muir tells us: even the most beautiful-hearted, trod-on girl in the world can become a tool of empire. but I have no doubt that in alecto she will tell us: this is how that girl can destroy it.

#does this make sense???#i don’t usually make Serious Meta Posts like this lol but this is important to me #op #tlt #tlt meta #the locked tomb #nona the ninth #ntn #gideon the ninth #gideon nav #kiriona gaia

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chibsandchill · 1 month

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A sea of longing

Fandom: Saltburn

Pairing: Felix Catton x fem!Reader

Warnings: Unreliable narrator (Felix), grammatical and spelling errors, mentions of Greek mythology, Felix sometimes pays attention to his lecturers, dreadfully short

Summary: Felix shares a sweet moment with you in his dorm.

Masterlist

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One of the last things Felix expected to miss when he started uni was his mother’s bedtime stories, the bizarre tales she spun instead of prayer. One of her favorites was the story of Echo and Narcissus, a tale wroth with obsession.

‘You’re a beautiful boy, Felix’, she told him often enough, though her tongue was far too loose for her own good when she’d had a glass (read: bottle) of wine, ‘but it’s far better to have others admiring you instead of wasting away in front of a mirror’.

A… spin on a cautionary tale, he was sure.

Still,

he found himself in that story.

Felix couldn’t remember life without you. Perhaps there had never been. He was sure that even in all of his previous lives he had you. Or rather, you had him. Two halves of a whole torn apart by someone who envied their bond far too much. Their Juno. Only, Felix took the part of Echo and Narcissus both, he longed and longed for you, sometimes even when you were with him. He’d scream and scream and his desire would echo right back in a constant cycle of desperation. Nothing could cure the want that had dug so far in him that there was no separating Felix and his need to be closer to you. To be with you. He was drowning in the sea of longing; a sea of you, chasing every bit of you that he could reach,

even if in the end he could only grasp the edges of your reflection.

“Hey, where’d you go?”

He comes back to when you brush his hair away from his forehead, letting your fingers linger on his skin. The smile is instinctual, an act so deeply rooted in instinct that just the mere mention or allusion to you forced it on him.

Felix grabbed your hand and brought it down to rest on his shoulder before covering it with his own.

“Go? How could I go anywhere when I’ve got a girl as pretty as you in my lap?”

You’re so close he can feel your chest rumble when you chuckle. “Flirt.”

His lips brushed against your shoulder as he moved to rest his forehead against you. Warm and soft, like always. You smell faintly of his soap and the laundry detergent his mother insisted on. There’s a scar there somewhere from when you spent the summer at Saltburn and he’d gotten so happy to see you that he bit you.

Hard.

One of the happiest days of his life.

You smiling at him from over the brim of your book in the fields, the hint of metallic blood sticking to his teeth, the sun shining down on you both, gauze wrapped around your shoulder, and a constant reminder of his love for you.

He wondered, not for the first time, if you’d let him do it again.

He’d let you do it in a heartbeat, would tear his shirt off and present himself, and you could pick whatever part of him you wanted. Though, he’d enjoy it far more than you would. And he’d leave it uncovered,

he wanted it to scar.

A mark of him on you, a mark of you on him.

An echo of an idea branded into him since childhood; a constant need to be closer. It hurt to be apart from you. It hurt to be pressed against you like this and that be the closest he could get. If he could he would burrow himself under your skin, press himself into your heart. He would mend the rift, press soft kisses against the weeping wound until his lips fell off. Press himself against you until there was naught but his warmth left fading from your skin.

Your fingers scratch against his scalp.

“Is it the exams?”

“No. I’ve just missed you, s’all.”

A smile tugged at your lips. “Hm. If you say so.”

“I do.”

Silence fell over the room again, and Felix basked in your presence. You were his own personal sun and he tried to leech off whatever warmth he could before he was robbed of you again. The precious moments where he could have you like this – when you were all his and he was all yours – were far and few inbetween, and each time the hunger in him grew and it got more difficult to let you go.

“‘missed you too.” You mumbled and you gave him one last heavy blink before your head lolled back into his neck. Your breathing evened out and his heart skipped a beat as the ring on your finger came into view.

He couldn’t wait for the day when finally he wouldn’t have to let go.

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Taglist:

@nowitsmissing, @khxna

#saltburn imagine #saltburn #saltburn x reader #felix catton imagine #felix catton x reader #felix catton #felix catton x you

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verycharismaticdragon · 9 months

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Okay, so I went a lil overboard with a reply to LBH criticism over at @controversial-blorbo-bracket, and I figure 4.5K words that probably should be put under a community label are a bit too much for a reblog, so I'm posting it separately.

CW for general discussion of sex, and for rape mention (assumption of rape is discussed and rebutted).

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You know what, I was going to reply to this the usual way, you know, 'oh look at that, another person with surface level reading who hates binghe!' because fr every single binghe disliker has the same talking points - which, you know, individually were long discussed (and disproved) by ppl in fandom - but then I was suddenly hit with a spoon beam so now I'm writing a long-ass answer.

Starting with the most glaring, this sentence:

Their dynamic ended up coming off more as SQQ tolerating this unmanageable man-baby and letting him fuck (and hurt him in the process, and then cry about that, more than SQQ himself did) him just to get him to shut the fuck up sometimes, like giving a toddler a biscuit to appease them.

has clued me in to the largest thing anon has missed. Remember how I said "surface-level reading"? Let me explain. There are great many avenues for analyzing a book, especially one as crunchy on a meta-level as svsss (you'll see what I mean by that later).

But the most basic thing - the LVL1 if you will - is asking yourself the following questions: (1) whose POV is the book written from? (2) is that POV omniscient or limited? (2.1) are there cases where the POV character doesn't know something we, the reader, have inferred? (3) if it's limited, how reliable is their narration? (3.1) are there cases of their actions not aligning with their narration? (3.2) are there reasons for them to lie to themselves and/or the reader?

For SVSSS, the answers are: (1) mostly Shen Qingqiu's POV; (2) limited; (2.1) e.g. he doesn't know what's going on in Luo Binghe's head (we'll get back to this more in-depth later), most notably not realizing Luo Binghe is in love with him for good 2/3rds of the book; (3) unreliable; (3.1) think him insisting he is fine when he's clearly grieving post-Abyss - which we can see both from other characters' reactions, and from stray thoughts that he himself has and then dismisses (eng.edition chapter 4: "No! Bah! Shen Qingqiu mentally slapped himself. Who are you calling a grieving widow?! Whose husband died?! That's not something you should just say--you're really getting worse by the day.") (3.2) off the top of my head: the trauma SQQ is going through, with his two coping mechanisms being 'not thinking about it' and 'making light of the situation'; internalized toxic masculinity - as in, the idea that it's shameful for a man to have emotions; internalized homophobia - as in, being unable to examine his attraction to men (evident from very early on, actually) without having a knee-jerk 'it's wrong!' reaction.

To sum it up: Shen Qingqiu's POV is limited and his narration is unreliable. What does this tell us? That we should take what he says in the narrative voice with the grain (or like, a spoonful) of salt, and that it's worth to close-read him. Don't just believe him when he says something; look for evidence!

Going back to anon's words, saying that SQQ appears to just 'tolerate' Luo Binghe tells me that you have not caught SQQ's lies at all.

(cont. under cut)

SQQ is, pardon my language, fucking obsessed with Luo Binghe - just in a different way than Luo Binghe is with him. He is constantly thinking about Luo Binghe even when the latter is not around! (Contrast it to how he thinks about his family from his og world like, 3 times over the course of the book, despite loving them.) And when LBH is around, SQQ can't go a page without mentioning how incredibly beautiful he is! (And then blames it on Luo Binghe being a protagonist, like, of course the protagonist is the most beautiful person in the world, that's natural!.. We later get the POV of a literal author of the world, btw, and he says he wrote LBH as a conventionally beautiful prettyboy type, and his own ideal man is completely different. Which is how we know that SQQ going on about LBH's radiant showstopping obvious-to-anyone beauty is really only his own opinion that he's trying to sell to us as a universal truth.)

And, speaking of LBH's crimes anon mentions (I will not be calling them 'warcrimes', sorry, none of the very few less-than-moral things he does can be classified as that) - you may notice that, for both actual things LBH did and for things SQQ attributed to him mistakenly, those never changed the way SQQ feels about Binghe. He thinks LBH killed his kinda-friend and still jumps in to sacrifice himself to save LBH's life. He sees the guy LBH mutilated, and is disturbed by that... but still continues to protect LBH. Gives him a lil forehead kiss like 20 minutes later.

Oh, and let's not forget the scene where SQQ is punished with a hyper-realistic dream of original LBH tearing off his limbs, and his reaction to that is "I need to see my Binghe asap immediately like rn, I need my cute version of Binghe to feel better about this."

This all is to point out that SQQ continuously fails to be normal about LBH. That's a feature! That's what makes their relationship fun! "Clearly you are perfect for each other pls dont involve anyone else in whatever the fuck is wrong with you" kinda situation.

But you must look through the cover of SQQ's misdirections for it - like again, trauma! toxic masculinity! internalized homophobia! It's difficult for him to admit his feelings even in his head, but he is getting better about that. In Mei vs Ge extra, SQQ admits he wanted LBH to push a little more about them sharing a bed and that he would have agreed. And is kinda put out that LBH simply accepted his refusal. Then in Deep Dream extra, SQQ is literally the one to jump LBH. And in Wedding extra, he almost manages to look directly at the fact that he's very happy that LBH is proposing to him! So yeah, he is getting better at admitting it too. But honestly, his feelings about LBH were always really intense. In different ways over the course of the novel, but he adored LBH from before he transmigrated, and that adoration never lessened, despite everything that happened between them. You just gotta look at his actions and not his 24/7 mental stand-up routine.

All right, next, in the same paragraph the previous thing came from, I'll abridge and highlight for relevancy:

Their dynamic ended up coming off more as SQQ tolerating this unmanageable man-baby and letting him fuck [...] him just to get him to shut the fuck up sometimes, like giving a toddler a biscuit to appease them. And it came off very gross, especially in the epilogue, when Luo Binghe was blatantly manipulative about that, pushing and cornering Shen Qingqiu into doing more than he already was, and using his tears to his advantage, in a way that was clearly in the text not unintentional.

...Listen, for someone claiming to hate how one-dimensional LBH ended up, I'm seeing a distinct lack of effort at actually understanding the character. Luo Binghe's teary act (in the moments when it is an act, because there are also many moments when his tears are genuine, we'll get to that later) is, first and foremost, for Shen Qingqiu's benefit.

Shen Qingqiu admits it himself that he finds it easier to be "frank" with Luo Binghe who is "willing to cling to his legs and throw a tantrum to seek comfort" (Return to Childhood extra). It's the internalized toxic masculinity and homophobia thing again. It's actually pretty interesting how he rewires his brain from its knee-jerk reaction of "homosexuality wrong" by mentally comparing Luo Binghe to a girl - like calling him Bing-mei, thinking he's acting "like a lovesick maiden", etc. God I want to study this man like a bug. Anyway, yeah, the point is that LBH acting cute and whiny helps SQQ be more comfortable with giving affection to a man, something that he struggles with because of his personal issues.

And Luo Binghe, while not aware of the exact nature of SQQ's issues (having grown up in a world where homophobia doesn't seem to exist), does understand this - that Shen Qingqiu’s thin face and pride make it difficult for him to show emotions. And it's not something LBH intrinsically knows either; he has to figure it out (not without help, everybody say thank you papa Airplane), confirm it for himself (the "But other than hearing Shizun crying..." - "Who was crying?" - "Other than hearing someone crying, [...]" scene comes to mind), and then accept it as truth (which he doesn't seem to fully do until at least the Maigu Ridge, and Shen Qingqiu outright saying "I do it for you and only you!" - if not even later.) It takes him time to learn how to work with this knowledge too...

And, to be brutally honest, how blatant and over the top he gets with the act is entirely due to how SQQ keeps rewarding the behavior.

Now... you might consider this a conjecture, given how we only get the tiniest glimpses into Luo Binghe's mind - in the rare moments the author shifts out of the primary POV. But fortunately, one of those moments can be used to prove that Luo Binghe is not, in fact, "pushing and cornering" Shen Qingqiu into doing things Shen Qingqiu doesn't want to do.

The moment I'm talking about is in the Mei vs Ge extra: Shen Qingqiu, having agreed to "do some exploring together", sees LBH's giant 🐓, goes "absolutely not" out loud, and attempts to give him a handjob instead — which also doesn't go too well. Bringing us to (LBH's POV emphasized):

No matter how calm Shen Qingqiu kept himself, he couldn’t stop his expression from twisting. Luo Binghe had secretly been paying attention to his face the entire time. At this moment, he carefully said, “Then, Shizun, how about… you do it?”

LBH is attentively watching SQQ's reactions to figure out what he's thinking and feeling. The moment Binghe comes to the conclusion that SQQ is uncomfortable with bottoming, he offers to let him top. Notice how he doesn't start crying or whining to get his way, when it's something that might be a genuine hard line for SQQ?

And it's actually the same in the Regret of Chunshan extra: when SQQ shot LBH's idea down, LBH "looked a bit disappointed, but didn't push the issue". Yes, later SQQ will say LBH was "putting on a pitiful act"; but if you read the scene carefully, LBH did not do anything but look a bit disappointed - and SQQ just walked himself into feeling bad about refusing completely on his own.

Now, when does Luo Binghe use crocodile tears then? Well, the answer seems to be: when it's about small things. Like wanting to do it face to face (after they've already agreed on both sex in general and on who will top), or begging SQQ to call him 'husband' (after they have gotten married). Ultimately inconsequential things, and, likely, things that he suspects SQQ is avoiding only because of embarrassment and not anything more serious.

So, to sum up this section: Luo Binghe's crybaby act is for Shen Qingqiu's peace of mind first and foremost, and Luo Binghe does not actually use it to coerce Shen Qingqiu into anything he wouldn't be willing to do. LBH is not responsible for the fact that Shen Qingqiu has no bottom line when it comes to him and can't handle seeing him even minorly disappointed, let's be real.

Okay, last thing from that paragraph (yes there's another thing):

and letting him fuck (and hurt him in the process, and then cry about that, more than SQQ himself did)

See, with the way anon describes it here, I can't even tell which scene this references, but luckily I have a rebuttal for both options.

Like, is this about the Maigu Ridge? Aka the scene where LBH is not in his right mind (literally hallucinating, among other things) - and then comes back to consciousness to see that he, by all appearances, had brutally raped the person he loves with all his heart? No fucking wonder he starts crying?!.. And to clarify, he did not rape SQQ, because SQQ had given informed consent here. If anything, there was nobody in that scene less consenting than Luo Binghe himself.

Or is this about the scene in Mei vs Ge. Which is like. Entirely on SQQ, who decided to keep quiet instead of telling LBH that it hurts. Like, whatever that was about! It's only, oh, one of the major themes of the novel that hiding your feelings and struggles is bad, and will hurt not only you but people who care about you.

...Btw, if someone not in fandom is reading this with increased befuddlement for why those two are having so much painful sex. Well, aside from the scene where LBH is tripping balls because of a cursed sword, and the situation is forced by the literal will of the narrative (more on this later), our couple are two adult virgins with no sex-ed, and one of them is in possession of (canonically) the biggest dick in the world. Given those factors, it would be weirder if they were able to have flawless sex right away. (And it's a meta-commentary, something we'll also get to later.)

Speaking of the cursed sword, it's somewhat amazing that anon says all this

Why did they make him become this? I understand what he went through, I'm not asking about cause and effect, I'm saying the effect could have been so much better and more realistically (in my opinion and from my personal experience with trauma) written. I'm not saying he couldn't be burnt or bitter or jaded, nor that he couldn't be clingy or overly emotional or manipulative, I just think it could have been done better, and I HATE what his character became for the second half (realistically, most) of the story.

and completely fails to mention that between LBH's return from the Abyss and the end of the main story, LBH's actions are severely affected by a cursed sword that amps up his emotions with the express purpose of destroying his mind. Seems somewhat relevant to why his behavior isn't written as a realistic trauma response? And instead as a trauma response amped up to eleven and set on fire? And that's without even getting into LBH giving himself supernatural brain damage as a form of self-harm. Which uh. doesnt simply map onto any irl concept really.

Continuing from this, I think it's time for me to expand on one of the points from earlier: about how Shen Qingqiu doesn't know what's going on in Luo Binghe's head for most of the novel. It will be tied to this particular bit of criticism on anon's part:

I feel like the author utterly assassinated his character in the 2nd half of the novel (ever since he came back from the abyss) and turned him into a one dimensional caricature of himself, and I HATED IT.

What I want to suggest here is tied, once again, to how Shen Qingqiu’s POV is limited and unreliable. So, a new batch of questions: (4) is our understanding of other characters' actions affected by the limited POV? (5) is there a particular reason for the author to keep other characters' motivations opaque to the POV character? (6) can anything be gleaned by reconstructing other characters' perspectives?

The answer to (4) is a yes so resounding the POV character himself admits it: "First, he'd thought Luo Binghe was unbelievably cruel and evil, then he'd thought Luo Binghe was unspeakably strong and bright." (ch.21) Shen Qingqiu has the very same problem as anon does: he sees Luo Binghe as one-dimensional, making assumptions about how he's supposed to act - instead of trying to understand what's there.

Which leads us neatly into the answer to (5): people making assumptions about what's best for the other person instead of asking them what they need, and hurting them as a result, is also a major theme, present in many relationships throughout the novel! And that's only half of the answer.

The other half will require us to go a little meta. You see, BingQiu's relationship, among other things, are meant to echo the relationship between the reader and the character. The reader loves the character, but they are also the reason for their suffering - as for the story to go on, the character must continuously face more and more difficult obstacles. Shen Qingqiu both loving Luo Binghe and causing him unspeakable amount of trauma is meant to mirror that. Shen Qingqiu's expectations for how Luo Binghe should act, and attempts to fit him into one or the other archetype, are also, yknow, reader behavior.

And... are we not also readers? Are we not expecting Luo Binghe to act a certain way (for example, when I first read the novel, I fully expected him to keep being a classic ML: to swallow all his grievances and keep being unquestioningly and ardently devoted to MC. Which, once articulated, is such an unfair expectation!), and feel it's "character assassination" - to borrow anon's words - when he does not adhere to the role he's supposed to inhabit, based on our idea of his personality and place in the story?

So: is there a reason the author seems to deliberately make Luo Binghe hard to understand, irrational, or one-note, to both Shen Qingqiu and us? Making it harder to sympathize with him? For example, can it be commentary on oversimplifying complex characters to just their role, or just one aspect of their personality...

As for the answer to (6), I ultimately want to leave it for you to try it out and decide. I'm literally the person who wrote a 90k character study fic to try and figure out the minutiae of Luo Binghe's post-Abyss mental state, so my answer is I think obvious. He has a lot going on!

Which kind of brings me to another of anon's gripes:

And actually that made me really sad because I wanted to enjoy it so much, because I LOVED the beginning, and I love Shen Qingqiu, but the evolution of Luo Binghe and the refusal to let him KEEP evolving inescapably ruined the story for me. He was insufferable, and I kept hoping he would grow and get better, but he just never did.

Look, I simply cannot agree that Luo Binghe did not grow and get better; it just largely happens at the very end of the main story and in the extras. I know anon has missed that, since they missed the more obvious things like Shen Qingqiu being obsessed with Binghe right back and Binghe using the pathetic act to help Shen Qingqiu feel more at ease, so I'll get to that in a bit. But first, I want to make sure we are on the same page about everything before that.

The part of Luo Binghe's arc between the Abyss and the Maigu Ridge is a downward spiral. He's going through the corruption arc, just as the original version of him did; the narrative demands it.

And it's not like 'the narrative' is a nebulous force here; there are literal actors of its will in the story, the System and Xin Mo sword. Like, in particular, the Maigu Ridge sex scene is a perfect example of how those two actors push Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu. The System literally withholds a key item that can help Luo Binghe regain his conscious mind until Shen Qingqiu has sex with him - you know, until the demands of the narrative of a romance story are fulfilled. And Xin Mo literally corrodes Luo Binghe's mind so that he acts like the original version from PIDW, because the truth is, SVSSS Luo Binghe would rather die than actually force himself on Shen Qingqiu. (Binghe's first reaction to seeing what he'd done is to ask "Why didn't you kill me?" and like. understandable. im crying also)

Oh, right, I promised to explain how bad sex is meta, this is a good spot for that. You see, it's a commentary on the 'flawless first time' trope, and also 'sex is a cure' trope. The author posits that two virgins having sex would naturally be awkward and not magically good. And that having sex in a highly stressful situation where one of the parties is not in control of their faculties would naturally be really fucking bad, and also not magically good.

But back to narrative demands. The point is, Luo Binghe simply cannot get better until "the story" ends. He can't heal while the world around him is literally deadset on dragging him down to become a bloodthirsty, sex-obsessed tyrant. The only thing that saves him is Shen Qingqiu managing to get them into the happily ever after zone by the skin of his teeth. There's a reason the main story of the book ends with: "The story circulating through the world might already have ended. But the story between you and me has only just began". 'The story circulating through the world' is the narrative the characters were trapped in; only once it has ended can Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe be allowed to go free, to actually live their lives and be happy. (This novel is very meta, I'm telling you.)

All right, now, back to how Luo Binghe actually did grow and get better! We're almost to the end! I fear to see how long this post is, at this point!

Now, I could be pointing out specific details, like Luo Binghe letting SQQ be brought back to Cang Qiong because he thinks that's what SQQ would want - when his whole breakdown before was about how he couldn't keep SQQ with him. Or I could be reminding you of the second section of this post, and saying that Luo Binghe learning to bypass SQQ's embarrassment by playing cute is actually also character development, even if you didn't like it.

But I think we should go for the heart of the issue. You see, yet another prominent theme in SVSSS is toxic masculinity. It's baked into the setting, with the "original" book our MC transmigrated into being a heterostraight harem novel; it's something our MC struggles with, when his learned toxic behaviors screw over both himself and the person he loves; and - most important to our current topic - it's the chief source of tension within Luo Binghe's character.

Literally, there are even names for two polar axes of his personality in the story: Bing-ge (ge=big brother), coined by in-story fandom to describe original Luo Binghe of PIDW, and Bing-mei (mei=little sister), the nickname SQQ comes up with specifically for "lovesick maiden"-acting Binghe.

"Bing-ge" side, of course, represents toxic masculinity. Extremely obviously in OG!LBH's case, what with him being the protagonist of 'male wish fulfillment and misogyny: the novel', but if you think about it, SV!LBH also demonstrates toxic masc behaviors, starting post-Abyss and up to Maigu Ridge. Noticeably, exactly when he had Xin Mo fucking him up - Xin Mo in general is symbolic of the "original" narrative, pushing SV!LBH to replicate the OG's behavior. And also it's a sword. The symbol of toxic masc version of the narrative is. A sword. RIP Freud you would've loved Scum Villain.

But what does "Bing-mei" stand for, if we detangle it from SQQ's 5D chess with his own sexuality? We know Bing-mei cooks and cleans and gives waist massages. We also know Bing-mei shows affection freely, and isn't embarrassed to cry, and has a sensitive heart. A man who is caring instead of controlling, a man who is not afraid to be vulnerable and emotional... Bing-mei side is meant to represent the healthy / soft masculinity.

And Luo Binghe's arc is rooted in the struggle between healthy and toxic sides of masculinity. What I think is tripping up a lot of people is that he starts at the healthy place, in his "white lotus" days. He is caring, he is affectionate, he shows the full range of emotion.

Then, the world comes for him, and he falls (or, yknow, is pushed) into toxic patterns of behavior. He hides his vulnerability, the only show of emotion he allows himself are outbursts of anger, he tries to control the person he loves... and thus hurts people around him and himself. His breakdown at Maigu Ridge is about thinking he can never be good enough, no matter what he does - see, the very idea that there's some level of achievement that can make a person unequivocally lovable is a toxic masc mindset!..

But the thing is, him breaking down here - admitting that he can't "win", showing the messy, undesirable, emotional side of himself - demonstrating that he can't be the Bing-ge version - is what opens up a path for him to communicate with Shen Qingqiu. Giving him the genuine connection he needed, that Bing-ge could never have. And thus allowing him to destroy the toxic-masculinity-representing sword.

So, the evolution path the author charts out for Luo Binghe from there on is him growing into the healthy masculinity patterns. Starting with, again, putting caring about his partner above controlling him and letting SQQ be brought back to Cang Qiong. Which SQQ didn't actually want, but we've already covered that he's his own kind of freak(affectionate). And continuing to try to do better by SQQ and listen to him (eg the whole SQQ refusing to share a bed and LBH acceding so easily SQQ was left reeling, because he was planning to agree once LBH pushed). And learning that he can show emotion and be validated for it (see Return to Childhood extra with its "if you are unhappy, say so"). And accepting that he doesn't need to be perfect to be loved (the guy faceplanted trying to propose and still got his man...). And, hell - count 'doing his best to learn how to pleasure his partner in bed' with this as well!

So, once again, as a closing note: I simply can't agree that Luo Binghe doesn't grow and evolve. You just have to let go of your preconceived notions of what his character should be like, and learn to see, understand, and appreciate what's there. The same arc Shen Qingqiu, his most faithful reader, goes through.

For a book as meta as SVSSS, that's obviously no coincidence.

#cw rape mention #(assumption of rape is discussed and rebutted)#luo binghe #bingqiu #svsss #svsss meta #scum villain's self saving system #scum villain's self-saving system #mxtx #danmei novels

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netherfeildren · 8 months

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Joel

A Fear of God story : Series Masterlist

Pairing: Joel Miller x OFC

Summary: The thought sounds on the anvil of your mind every night at four am on the dot, the song of grasshoppers and slumbering, fatherless children singing around you; I am lost, and if I read a little bit confusing, it is only because I am confused amidst the battleground of my grief, and it is difficult to find my way back now that he is not here to guide me.

A/N: this was only written for myself, but i’ve decided to share with you, as well. if you’re a fear of god reader please know that this isn’t part of my official story line, and again — only an exercise for myself, but as this is written about birdie i’ve decided to include it as a part of the birdie’s house anthology. i apologize for any confusion or emotional turmoil this might cause, but rest assured that i’m desperately hoping to have something else up for birdie and joel for his birthday and that i plan to continue to write for them after that as well.

Content Warnings: Character death; Grief/Mourning; Description of death/injury; Unreliable narrators

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 2.1K

Read on AO3

JOEL

The billboard said “The End Is Near”

I turned around, there was nothing there

Yeah, I guess the end is here

Phoebe Bridgers, I Know the End

The week before it happened, you watched a pack of wolves take down a moose. Old and stalwart and with a sort of strength only an animal that stands apart from all others in the hierarchy of nature can hold. Something unrelenting about a creature like that, that was made all the more shocking for the way the wolves had surrounded the old thing, tricked and felled the beast that for so long had stood solitary and unmoving.

There were so many things you knew about Joel after all these years. He was a father, a husband, a brother, a friend. Once he’d been a monster. Everything about him had been red. He’d tried not to cause harm. He’d failed more than he’d succeeded.

He had loved you. You think, more than any creature had loved another in all of man’s history. Or… at least sometimes it had felt like that. He had made you feel like that.

He is killed in the seventh year of your life together. Only seven little years which seem like nothing in the face of everything. Nothing in the face of the destruction of the whole world, and then the rebirth of it right here in this farm house in Wyoming, but which you know, no matter what they might seem like in the aftermath, were really everything, the only time that has ever mattered.

You remember that sometimes when you’d look around the kitchen table, the girls sitting around laughing and screeching and raucous with so much joy it seemed imaginary and untouchable, it felt like the whole world was sat existing around that oak table he’d made for you. The whole world right here at our kitchen table, Joel.

You remember the last time you heard his voice, right before he went out into the frigid snow to look for Ellie: Don’t you love me, Birdie bird?

Oh, shut up. And then whispered right into the reddened sea shell of his ear, Here is what I see in your eyes right now: myself, reflected back at me – more love than has ever existed before in all history. And then his laugh – you’re laughing and when you laugh I want to carve the face of the world in your image. Lena zooming by your legs as you kiss for the last time, a blue ribbon in her hair.

Half a century from now, no one will remember us, but I will never forget you.

Remember the first time we met? Bated breath and racing heart, and the sound of the rest of your life ringing in your ears.

Remember the stitches in your palm? The first time I took you inside of me and all the times thereafter? When you pulled our first daughter from my body – and then the two others? Her first birthday? The countless birthdays after that? Remember the endless happiness so intense it was almost painful sometimes? Remember how much I love you?

But of course, he cannot. He’s not here anymore, and nothing hurts worse than the memory of joy when you’re living through grief. The thought sounds on the anvil of your mind every night at four am on the dot, the song of grasshoppers and slumbering, fatherless children singing around you; I am lost, and if I read a little bit confusing, it is only because I am confused amidst the battleground of my grief, and it is difficult to find my way back now that he is not here to guide me.

They’d hurt him so badly. Fractured him in a way that not even your hands could mend, your years of study and practice futile in the face of such destruction. He’d fought hard, he’d tried to get away. This is the least comforting thing you could ever imagine.

What does it do to a person to be confronted with the inequity of their purpose? To have worked tirelessly for so many years only to fail when the moment was most dire.

Fracture of a different but equally devastating nature. And that moment of final realization, that there was nothing to be done – his bones had carried him for so long, you rest now, we’ll be okay, whispered into his mangled ear, half a chunk missing, savaged. You did good, Joel. You did good, my love.

The sound of Ellie’s voice telling herself over and over and over again that he was okay; he’s okay, he’s okay, he’s okay.

And she’d said to you: I wasted so much time being angry at him, for what? For loving me too much? For keeping me alive? For making a decision that now, with the clarity of age and a child of my own, I would have made exactly the same way? I wish I could walk in his shoes through that hospital all those years ago. I’d take his exact same steps – not a single pace different. And now he’s dead. And all that anger was for nothing. And our reconciliation feels so fraught, so meaningless in the face of all that time now. No matter that we’d had years after to be together, to be a family. All I can focus on now is the time lost, the sight of his crushed skull, the night I pushed him away before you, his face full of pain and regret. And the sound of his screams at the end.

Ellie tells you: I remember the sound of his screams better than anything else. The sound of him screaming out for me, for you Birdie – Birdie, Birdie, my Birdie. Begging for help, but actually, I’m not sure, she says. I’m not sure if that really happened or if my nightmares imagined it.

[I still think of you on your birthday. I’m sorry for everything, she thinks, when she lays in the grass with her sisters and looks for shapes in the clouds without him now. I only see you in the spaces between them. And she asks God why He didn’t work harder to save him. And He spits in her face and asks why she didn’t do the same.]

So, there are still our children. There is still Ellie. This family you’ve gifted me. The whole world abandoned here at our kitchen table. How can death exist when that exists? How can your death exist when they’re still here?

Don’t stop to think. Don’t interrupt the scream.

And you tell yourself, no this wasn’t supposed to happen, but the universe laughs and grips you by the throat; the gladiator scream goes on. Salt the earth, there’s nothing to return to.

And yet… that isn’t true either. Four little faces look up at you. Three sets of his eyes.

You were furious at the sun the day after he died. How could it just continue to rise as if nothing had happened?

And after all that, it is like this: You scream for seven days and seven nights.

You don’t get out of bed for thirty days.

You cry every single night for a year.

This is different. A strange and terrified sort of place. What does it mean to lose the basis of your entire existence?

And Ellie? Ellie, Ellie, Ellie, Ellie, Ellie. What is Ellie going to do without him? How is she going to be okay? The sound of her cries: Don’t let me be alone. Please, God, don’t let me be alone. I never wanted to end up alone. You need to make sure she’s okay, you need to take care of her the way that he would, the way that he’d want you to.

Ellie loses her mind for a little bit. After your thirty days in bed, she calls her turn, tells you and Dina that she’s leaving, that she’s going. That she’ll bring you back a vengeance you could never want and lay it at your feet, and you cup her chin gentle in your palm, and ask, What does it matter now, honey? Connie’s voice ringing in your memory. He’s gone now, what difference would it make?

She tells you that he would have done it for her, and you cannot refute such a claim. He would. He’d do much worse. He’d turn himself back into that monster we both know he had inside of him.

“So I need to do this.”

And you tell her: “I’m begging you not to. Me, who belonged to him, who knew him in a way no one else in the whole world did. I’m asking you not to. I’m still here. The girls are still here. We need you. We need you as a reminder of him.”

“You’ll remember him anyways,” she tells you, which is true.

“But you’ll make the memory all the better,” And so she does not go, for a time.

Ellie stays, and you have a funeral surrounded by the people of Jackson who respected a man who was good. A man who took himself for a monster for so long, even though he never said it out loud, but you knew, you saw. All that time apart, all that fear, fear, fear, the very fear of God struck into his heart, afraid of what he was, of what the world and a little girl with green eyes more than thirty years ago had made him into, but then, look at what we’d turned around and made together.

And you whisper to the apparition of him in your dreams: Joel if you were a monster, surely it was some sort of divine monstrosity.

So many people leave remembrances at the gate of the farm, the whole of Jackson. His brother, holding you up gripped beneath the elbows so as to not frighten your children, and Ellie is crying but trying to pretend she’s not, which somehow makes it worse than if she were to throw herself at the base of his coffin and howl.

You give her his jacket after that, and she smells like him all the time until the day she doesn't. Until the day it’s been so long since the last time that he was alive that his scent fades and leaves forever. She wears that jacket everywhere, to work, to hunt, to bed. Leaving her wife, leaving her family, leaving her sisters, leaving you because eventually she does – leave, and she wears his jacket. An inevitability like so many other things in life, you’re unable to keep her forever, and for a time she does go.

And you will never forget him, you will never move on, you will never stop telling your daughters about him. He lives on in them. And you wonder why it is that no one ever talks about the physically intimate aspect of grief? Of missing your person and wanting them and needing them, and your body physically craving relief from that singular person and never being able to achieve it fully ever again to completion like he could give it to you because he’s just not here.

He was, in every way, all that anyone could ever be.

I cried every single day for a year. The day I stopped, I put him inside of a drawer within myself and was never able to move myself to tears again.

Seven years since then, and you go to his grave for what you tell yourself will be the last time, recognize the lie for what it is, a single slab of carved stone, and you think, he doesn’t belong here, even still after all these years, and yet this is the only place he will ever be again.

He should have been made into a redwood, the tallest thing in the entire world. Let him be a tree. You’d climb and climb and climb, like that night with Beth, so long ago you can barely remember the sound of her voice most days. You’d climb, and he’d protect you one more time like he had so many times before.

Joel, years ago, when we were first married, I had a strange dream: I’d had to walk down a staircase that led far beneath the earth. As I traversed it, I had to move through all of our happiest memories, the births of our daughters, the birthdays and celebrations and the long nights together, dinners, breakfasts and laughter, lazy afternoons at the lake, in bed together, still endlessly fascinated with each other despite all the times we’d found ourselves in that exact position. But when I reached the end, I’d be able to come upon our worst moment, see what it was in preparation, perhaps, for what would come to pass.

I feel as though I have finally reached the bottom of that staircase, and part of me would like nothing more than to have never begun the journey down, but had I not, then I would have not lived through all the rest of it. And in the end, that was worth everything else.

That last night again, in my memory: Don’t you love me, Birdie bird?

Close your eyes, he whispers, it’ll be worth it, the last taste of his mouth.

My eyes are still closed.

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

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#FoG fic #Joel miller #the last of us #joel miller x original character #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller angst #the last of us fanfiction #character study #ellie williams #joel miller character study #ellie williams character study

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anthurak · 1 year

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So I’ve been thinking about the whole theory of ‘Poly-STR’ that a lot of the fandom seems to have started latching onto recently, particularly with the revelation/confirmation that Summer and Raven were a LOT closer than anyone (aside from Rosebird shippers) thought.

And the funny thing is, I don’t think anyone really appreciates the fact that the theory of Summer, Taiyang and Raven having been in a polycule is actually built on an incredibly shaky foundation.

See, let’s consider for a moment where the theory of Poly-STR comes from; that this ship wasn’t created all on its own, but is simply the latest interpretation of a Summer-Tai-Raven dynamic that we’ve known about since Volume 2 when Yang explained her family backstory to Blake. That Raven was Tai’s first love and the two of them had Yang together, only for Raven to vanish without a trace. And sometime afterward, Tai got together with Summer and they had Ruby together. And sometime after that, Summer left on a mission and never came home.

Now if you’ve been with the fandom since Volume 2, you should know that there have been a number of different interpretations and developments of the dynamic between these three over the years; That Summer is Tai’s second love who stepped in after his first love Raven ran away. That there was some kind of outright love-triangle with Summer and Raven rivaling over Taiyang. And most recently, that Summer, Tai and Raven were in a polycule.

But here’s the wrinkle that I don’t think anyone is really appreciating:

This whole idea of a Summer-Tai-Raven dynamic that the fandom has been drawing all these ideas/ships from is based almost entirely off of YANG’s story that she told to Blake back in Volume 2.

And it is becoming very clear, especially after this latest episode, that Yang’s knowledge of her parents and family is in fact EXTREMELY flawed/limited. Even as early in the show as Yang’s very conversation with Blake in V2, we’ve known that Yang seemingly didn’t even know that Raven was her birth mother until AFTER Summer vanished. Then in Volume 3 we and Yang learn that Qrow has actually been in on-and-off contact with Raven for all these years and even has a pretty good idea where she is. Then when we learn about her bird transformation and portaling semblance, it becomes clear that, far from being ‘gone without a trace, never to return’, Raven has been around quite a bit and keeping an eye on Yang, and likely Ruby as well. And it’s pretty easy to guess that Qrow and Tai almost certainly KNEW about this, and DIDN’T tell Yang or Ruby.

Then in Volume 7, we and Ruby learn from Qrow that neither he, nor Tai, nor even Ozpin has any real idea what Summer’s final mission was even about. As Qrow puts it, this wasn’t an ‘Oz secret’, but a Summer secret.

Now at the end of Volume 9, we get a glimpse at just how little Ruby and Yang REALLY know. It turns out that Summer deliberately lied to nearly ALL of her friends and family about the true nature of her mysterious mission. And it turns out that Summer and Raven were FAR CLOSER than Yang or Ruby ever had any inkling of. With Summer apparently trusting Raven above all others with helping her on this secret mission, with Raven herself acting much friendlier with Summer than she has with ANYONE else we’ve seen.

Basically, I think all that we’ve seen calls pretty much EVERYTHING Yang told Blake about her family past during Volume 2 into question. You know, that very same conversation that the fandom has based much of, if not almost their entire perception of the Summer-Tai-Raven dynamic on?

Remember that RWBY has at this point a long and consistent history of both unreliable narrators and mentors/leaders/parents concealing VERY important information from their kids/our heroines. So should it really be so surprising there is a LOT that Ruby and Yang are wrong about concerning their parents and family?

It’s why I find it so interesting to see how some people seem so convinced about something like Poly-STR being a thing.

Like when I hear people say things like ‘Tai and Raven were definitely a couple’ or ‘Summer was definitely Tai’s second love’ or ‘Tai is definitely Ruby’s father’, I can’t help but wonder; ‘Are you sure? Are you really sure?’

Simply put, I don’t think much of the fandom really appreciates just how IN THE DARK we really are concerning the details of Team STRQ and what was REALLY going on before Ruby and Yang were old enough to fully remember.

#rwby #rwby rambling #rwby analysis #Team STRQ #Summer Rose #Raven Branwen #Taiyang Xiao Long #Qrow Branwen #Ruby Rose #Yang Xiao Long #unreliable narrators #rosebird #rosebird parents theory #why yang is an EXTREMELY unreliable narrator #not her fault considering she had to have been something like FIVE at the time #in which i MAY be pissing off the poly-str shippers...

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dipplinduo · 4 months

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I love your writing style so much!! Do you have any tips for new fic writers?

Awww, thank you so much!! <3

I feel like there's a ton of things I could say, but I'll boil down what has helped me most to keep in mind, and I'll throw in some examples from the fic to better illustrate what I'm trying to say:

Remember that you're essentially helping the reader paint an image in their head - especially with action and scenery. If you have something specific you want to convey, assume your reader has no idea what the image in your head is and put that detail in. I do that a lot with Kieran/Juliana physical interactions.

If you're writing in a character's POV, remember that you're writing in their perspective. Their perceptions and thoughts are going to be limited and colored by their own judgement (all narrators are unreliable in their own ways!!) Sometimes another way to bring a deeper connection to your character's POV is to describe things the audience already knows if it's new to the character (e.g. a recent example I have done of this in S&S D is by spending time describing Chargestone Cavern. I know the readers are familiar with it, but it was Juliana's first time experiencing it. It also showed how beaten down she was from her sickness because her scenery utterly floored her once she did register where she was. Meanwhile, Kieran is unfazed since it's more of a familiar environment & he's more numb to what's around him in general, so we don't get any of that romanticized language or much acknowledgement about the scenery at all from his POV.)

On a similar note in the unreliable narrator category: if there's something you want to convey to the audience only from a character's limited POV, make the detail suggestive enough for the character to note, but not suggestive enough to the character for them to give it much thought (i.e., maybe it happened to quickly, maybe the character doesn't know something important that is already established, maybe the character makes an incorrect judgement call, etc.) Recent examples I've done of this include Drayton kicking Crispin under the table to go along with his setup of getting Juliana to call Kieran "Kiki" (Juliana was somewhat skeptical, but didn't give it too much thought) and the end scene of Chapter 6 when Kieran encountered Ms. Briar (since Kieran was literally compromised, we only get the snippets he was mentally present for. Kieran has already been established as having a debatable visual perception given what's going on with him, and the specific detail about Ms. Briar not being around when he awoke on a Saturday in an empty office hallway was deliberately designed to rile up the audience and call for speculation. Was she really there, and left? Was she never there at all? Giving your readers the chance to theorize and make sense of breadcrumbs can give your fic more momentum and make it more enticing. Your audience will have a reason to want to continue to the next chapter because they want to know what happens! And this can also apply to fluff, btw.)

On a related, personal bias and perhaps somewhat diabolical note: I also think some of the best storytelling is a bit of a give and take. Give your audiences the expected satisfying wins at times, but also don't be afraid to cop them out and take them somewhere else than they're expecting to make a stronger or more impactful point. I love doing this (sorry not sorry ;D) - whether to make a moment more cute than you'd expect or to pull at heartstrings and create more emotional investment for a character (e.g. there was a reason we got the Kieran/Sweet Applin moment right before...welp, rather than at any other part of thus far). Mostly because I think it's a more fun emotional journey as a reader!

If your character is experiencing an emotion, don't just tell the reader that they are. Describe how that emotion manifests in them to the degree of its intensity, and remember that emotional experiences are often somatic and can look different from character to character. One technique I use to further emphasize this is to use certain diction depending on the narrator (i.e. the language used to depict Kieran's experiences of embarrassment has some differences compared to how Juliana's is described when she feels it; that being said there is deliberate overlap I put in from time to time in the way they think to show some of their likeness.)

Make sure you're having fun and writing things you're feeling passionate about! I, for one, have enjoyed doing this via interactions with readers & the community. Receiving feedback and hearing about what my audience is thinking is very helpful in both constructive and brainstorming kind of ways, and some of my favorite moments have been built around learning more about my audience/having a sense of what should be improved or expanded on. That being said, it's also important to stick to what you know you want to stick to if it's something you're confident about - even if it's different than what people might be expecting or hoping for. At the end of the day you are the writer and this is your story. You always get the final say-so. I also tend to keep this integrity in tack by limiting my awareness of what other fic writers are doing with related ideas so I don't feel unconsciously influenced in any way when I'm actively writing (I very much dislike doing this, but feel it helps me).

Wishing you the best luck in writing!! And happy to talk one on one, too. I'm no expert by any means - writing is more of a hobby and this is just some things I've learned along the way. I always appreciate learning from others too and I guarantee you that you have your own natural instincts that will be great insight for me and many others!!! <3

#asks #my fics #this was an awesome question

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wardenofthecoast · 1 month

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Skyrim and Civil War

You know, there are ways to make good morally grey conflicts, but Skyrim's Civil War is not one of them. However instead of talking about how undercooked it was (it was), I want to talk about the underlying concept of it. Sometimes just saying "add more content" isn't a reasonable critique when it comes to a product that needs to come out (there are graveyards of games that never stopped developing).

The issue with Skyrim's civil war -

It puts a lot of emphasis on Talos, a god that tbh I don't think needed it and wasn't referenced until the third game. IDK this is more personal but I'd prefer Talos just be a hero-god of Cyrodiil/Skyrim you know? (Oh that guy who conquered you all and forced you into his empire, which some of you are old enough to remember? worship him pls)

It's morally grey, but in the "I hate both of these options way". There historical precedents for a nationalist movement opposing imperialism, and there are precedents for rebellions occurring from princes or nobles who want take power. However the conflict feels more like neoliberal democrat versus libertarian republican, aka I hate em both and the difference is minimal. It's like if someone wanted to do the US civil war but they really thought it was about states' rights. It's like Braveheart but worst.

It's both the impetus for the plot (the dragonborn prophecy) and shows up in the main quest, but ONLY if you don't interact with it (too much). And there's incentive not to, as it provides a cool quest that is optional and you can remove a jarl or two you don't like depending on how it goes. Otherwise you can really ignore it, and you're standing with any guild or city isn't really referenced except when the new Jarl takes over.

It's an excuse for chuds to make stormcloak memes after they're done making Morrowind slavery memes.

OK i know what I said about content but yeah the gameplay aspect isn't great with one or two exceptions (the siege of Whiterun and Solitude/Windhelm). The lack of say and options as a nation's folk hero truly shines here. It's like if during the US civil war Jesus showed up, killed the devil and then everyone said "thank you but we need you to blackmail a secretary".

You could make it work. There's a phrase the comes up in the game, Season Unending, which the nords used to mean war. You could put an anti-war theme or something regarding the cyclical nature of violence, even if people didn't agree it would be saying something. Personally, I'd use the 30 years war as inspiration - a religious and political conflict about an empire with multiple actors, all of which causing mayhem to the countryside.

Here are my solutions which don't involve any additional content, but instead changes/removal.

The Civil War ended at the beginning of the game. You see Ulfric die, his forces are scattered and the jarls with him are left picking up the pieces, but the Empire doesn't have the funds to restore control nor pay its soldiers. This helps explains why forts are ruined and the high number of bandits - they are soldiers/deserters looking for a payday. It also creates a narrative of trying to see who Ulfric Stormcloak was using unreliable narrators and maybe a bit of tragedy for a guy who thought he was The Guy (but in fact You're The Guy).

The Civil War ended years ago. Same as above, but make it more tamed. This would be the closest to just removing it entirely.

Make it a rebellion and have the player be a part of it. It would be so interesting a contrast to be against the empire after four games directly or indirectly aiding it. Now you could either try to do something thoughtful about revolutions and violence and the character of that rebel army, or you could just do Braveheart, but either way people would probably be more invested in it.

Don't let us join either side. The Empire's rulers claim the title dragonborn, and having some shmuck say he is would not be in their interest. Ulfric claims tradition and his power of the voice, not saying but implying a connection to Talos, and so he would not want you as a threat to his power. Have both groups be awful, and hammer home how these nobles might all claim to be different, but they slaughter the peasants all the same.

These aren't perfect solutions, and tbh the quality and quantity of the writers on board a project are going to impact any idea. But still, I think I'd prefer these options than what we got in game.

#skyrim #the elder scrolls

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polizwrites · 6 months

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Cutting the Strings

This is a fill for today's @fictober-event prompt: "No, you won't understand, ever." (tweaked slightly), along with my @bingowinteriron Unreliable Narrator and @buckybarnesbingo Never the Fall that Kills You squares.

Fanfic - Fandom: MCU/Marvel Rating: General Pairing: Steve & Bucky, Tony & Bucky Tags/Warning: Post CA:WS canon divergence, Avengers Tower unreliable narrator, psychological manipulation Thanks to @rebelmeg, @somesortofitalianroast and Meg in the BBB Discord server for the brainstorming help!

Tony knew what manipulation looked like – after all, it had been happening to him all his life. First Howard, who couldn’t stand the idea of having a son more brilliant and talented than him and had therefore picked apart every effort of Tony’s, magnifying any flaw and dismissing any creative effort.

Next came Obadiah, who had groomed his best friend’s son to be selfish and shallow, caring only about himself – and damn it if he didn’t nearly succeed. Natasha came along later - pretending to be his assistant and confidante, only to stab him in the neck.

Fury wasn’t any better, of course - even if he was skilled at staying one step removed from the day to day, hands on work. Some days Tony wondered about the film clip from the trunk Old One Eye had handed over; whether it had somehow been edited or manipulated and in reality, Howard was talking about something - or someone - completely different.

This all meant that when he saw how Steve alternated between treating Barnes like glass and going into interrogation mode – peppering him with reminders of the way things used to be between them – well, it got under Tony’s skin.

“Barnes, how about you come down to the workshop with me?” Tony broke in, tired of hearing Steve say “Don’t you remember, Buck?” for at least the third time that evening.

“Why?” Steve asked with a frown.

Tony resisted the impulse to roll his eyes; “I want to take a look at that shiny, shiny arm of his.” It wasn’t a lie; Tony had been fascinated by Barnes’ prosthesis since Steve brought him back to the Tower three months after the shitshow in DC.

Steve’s frown deepened, “Tony, I warned you –” he said sternly.

“I don’t mind,” Barnes interrupted. “In fact, it hasn’t been working quite right since … well … you know.”

“Aw, Bucky,” Steve replied, voice tinged with guilt, “why didn’t you say something?”

Because you don’t let him get a word in edgewise, Tony ached to reply, but wisely bit the words back. He watched instead as Bucky shrugged, then winced. “Dunno. Guess I’m not used to speaking up.”

Tony bit back a grin at Barnes’ reply; given Steve’s hangdog expression, it would have only made things worse. Instead, he made a gesture towards the elevator. “After you, sunshine.”

Barnes raised an eyebrow at the moniker, but stood up, saying “See you in a bit, Steve.”

They entered the elevator together, and as soon as the doors closed, Tony said, “He’s not going to understand what you’ve been through. Not ever, I don’t think.”

Barnes’ lips twisted wryly. “And you do?”

“Not to the same extent,” Tony answered, “I mean, I didn’t have someone sending 1.21 gigawatts of electricity through my brain when I started asking questions about my mission, or shoving me into a freezer when they were done with me, but I do know a little bit about being shaped and wielded for other people’s purposes.”

Tony grinned at Barnes’ snort of surprised laughter. “That was pretty damned blunt, Stark.”

Tony spread his hands in mock-surrender. “Figured you were tired of all the tiptoeing.” The doors to the elevator opened, and they both stepped out into Tony’s sanctuary.

“Steve means well,” Barnes sighed, “and from what I do remember, he’s always been like this.”

“I haven’t known him as long as you,” Tony replied, “but I gotta agree. And it’s probably none of my business, but it feels sometimes like he’s trying to mold you into the buddy he remembers from way back when - whether that’s who you want to be or not.”

Barnes looked away for a moment. “I guess it’s like they say, ‘it’s never the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end’.”

“That sounds like some sort of Russian proverb to me.”

“Probably.” Barnes huffed in frustration. “ I’m still not sure how much of what’s up here,” he tapped his temple, “is really mine. And there’s plenty I don’t really want to remember, for that matter.”

“A team at SI is working on something that might help with cutting those strings,” Tony replied. “Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing - basically taking a traumatic memory and replaying it in real time so you can make it come out a little different.”

Barnes gave him a small smile. “Sounds like something out of a sci-fi pulp magazine.”

Tony gestured around, “Welcome to the future, my friend.”

#shameless self promo #fanficlet #fictober23 #day 23 #Tony Stark #Bucky Barnes #Steve Rogers #writing stuff

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copperbadge · 1 year

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HEY SAM! Finally bout all three Askaz-Shidvalakia books (pretty sure that's right, feeling very much like Eddie now) and I'm 3 and half chapters in (counting the prologue as a chapter). I don't think I see much mention of him in general questions, but do you have ideas about Chef Simon/expand on him more later on in Fete, or do you have a side story/mini fic planned for him? I don't know what it is, but I really like him (along with the mains, of course. Bouncing between Eddie and Alanna as my fav right now, but Jerry just appeared so who knows).

I honestly wanted to wait to get all three once you announced LATT just so I'd have all three at once, plus I knew I would need the literary mental boost as winter kept coming, and I planned to get them around Christmas then I forgot then like--just a few weeks ago I remembered they existed again and bought them before I forgot again. Just like I hoped it is perking me up a bit as I'm going through a bit of right now, so I'm happy I waited. So far I'm really loving it, thank you so much.

HEY YA :D You got close with Askazer-Shivadlakia! :D It's the spirit that counts. It's not like it's going to be mistaken for somewhere else, anyway :D

Why did I name this country an eight-syllable name? Why would I do that to myself? Mysteries. In any case I'm glad you're enjoying them :D I think you might be a Jerry fan in the end!

Simon doesn't show up a lot in the books following Fete, although I try to work him in there when I can. He does have his own book coming eventually, probably after Royals/Ramblers, although possibly a bit further out, depends on what catches fire for me. The idea is that the book will be partly traditional narrative and partly essays from his recipe website, which show him to be...I wouldn't call it an unreliable narrator, but perhaps a not entirely truthful one :D

Simon's book is currently called The Chicken Salad War, and is about him discovering a rival in a chef who has moved to Fons-Askaz and is drawing a lot of attention for their cooking. He ends up having to plan a food festival with said rival chef, during which time of course they fall for each other. The food festival culminates with a competition to see who makes the best chicken salad, although I won't spoil who wins.

I'm still working on who this rival chef will be; I haven't pinned down much, not even gender, though I'm leaning male. It's fun coming up with a story for Simon -- he's been with the family for a long time and known Gregory and the others basically their whole lives, so he has a lot to talk about. :D

I had advertised my services as an elite personal chef through exclusive channels, and had a number of offers, but the Shivadh king's offer swayed me because of what he told me when we met: that he had only a passing interest in gourmet food, and that he was hiring the best chef he could find not as a status symbol or from personal desire, but as a gift for his wife on the occasion of their fifteenth wedding anniversary. I was deeply charmed by the idea of such a gesture, especially explained in the king's excellent if Swiss-accented French, and pleased that he was also willing to hire my brother Hugo to serve as palace sommelier, a position which had previously gone unfilled.

King Michaelis and his wife Queen Miranda had a little boy of four, and the family had recently suffered a tragedy which meant they were also sometime-caretakers of a young girl, their son's cousin. I knew I had chosen my new job correctly when, on arriving in the kitchen for the first time, two solemn little children were waiting to greet me in prattling French, with strong Provencal accents gleaned from their mothers, who were of the Askazer side of the country, which borders on that region.

#shivadhverse

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bunn-iiii · 11 months

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some killjoy hcs for my like... versions of them? or maybe AU of them? I'm not sure-

FABULOUS FOUR:

Jet Star: she/her, he/him, xae/xaer. Was born inside the city but he and his mom fled to the Zones when he was really little (like 3 or 4). She is definitely a boygirl, girlboy, girlfriendboyfriend, and that boyfriend who looks like a girlfriend that the Killers were talking about. Absolutely has both a mom voice and a dad voice xae can do. Eye patch is star shaped for aesthetic reasons. Only writes letters in glitter gel pens. Father figure goth girl (no you don't get any context). Tired a lot and probably has a sleep disorder but it's not confirmed since she lives out in the Zones. Usually seems stoic or angry to others but the 'joys that know xaer know that's just xaer resting bitch face, though xae can be quite mean at times if need be. Has the most medical experience but can't really help much outside of stitching wounds up, disinfecting, and bandaging. Often looks very disheveled for no particular reason. 19 years old.

Party Poison: they/them ... just a bit of a enbywhore, just a little bit. Hides their feelings a lot since they view themself as the leader, "makes up for it" by being overdramatic to annoy people. Sassy. Has nightmares a lot due to the trauma of making it into the Zones in their early teen years. If you ask them to turn down the music and don't give an actual reason as to why they should (like overstimulated or have a headache) then they'll just respond with "LINE?? SORRY I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER HOW SHINEY THIS MUSIC IS!". Found family sucker, made their own out of the Fab 4 (and also sort of the 109 radio crew). Unlabeled. Has definitely kissed a 'crow just to catch them off guard so they could dust them. Or kissed a crow for fun just because they could. Kobra Kid is their brother. Would be the unreliable narrator. They have dyscalculia, which doesn't come into play very often in the zones but is why Jet is the one who handles all money transactions. Supposedly a prophet? their night terrors turn out to be sort of prophetic. 18 years old.

Fun Ghoul: Uses all the pronouns, every neopronoun, every binary pronoun, doesn't really have a preference. Completely Zone kid, born and raised. Feral little guy. Has a bit of a sweet tooth (a nack for explosives). Running away from the consequences of xer actions. Burnt off their fingerprints on one of their experiments. Really smart but acts dumb because it's fun to trick people (they are a little dumb though). Cartoon character energy. Sniffs people??? Nearly goes cage mad every other week due to understimulation (which is why her finger prints are burnt off). Sharp teeth that they shaved to be that way after they got bored of blowing up things one week. Sometimes Jet will take them driving or racing to keep cake entertained. Possibly bisexual?? Bites people as a love language. Somewhat violent and is prone to throwing bombs to let off steam instead of yelling at people. Gets into fights every so often that Party has to break up. Probably has a fair amount of hearing loss due to being dumb and exploding things without ear protection. Around 17 years old (clouds exact age is unknown since xei never kept track and don't really have paperwork due to being born in the Zones).

Kobra Kid: he/him, they/them, ve/ven/vens/venom. Silent violence type. Either non verbal half the time or just doesn't want to talk. Left blood in your Valentino white bag. Has memory problems which is why the Fab 4 often take a lot of photos so ve can remember. Just a little bit crazy, but more so protective. AUTISM. Special interest is snakes currently since he found a book on them. Got the vodka taken away from them after they tried to chug it on a dare from Ghoul. Mood swings, often rages out and joins Ghoul in blowing things up with bombs. Has a hard time crying though, it's really tough to get them to cry which they both love and hate. Cat energy. Owns a katakana cause why not and also ven is super cool so of course. Has Pathological Demand Avoidance (or what some people with it call Pervasive Drive for Autonomy which honestly I like better) and isn't aware of it, Party has found quite a few work arounds from trial and error from living with him as his primary caretaker for a while. 16 years old.

109 RADIO CREW:

Dr Death Defying: he/him, but has grown to not care as much what is used for him. Keeps insisting that he's fucked up from the war and that he's dangerous but really he's like a dad for everyone. Wears silly patterned socks a lot. PINK GUN! Has lived through a lot including multiple assassination attempts. Pan, but is extremely defensive??? Pro-respect women fr "It's okay to murder but it's not okay to disrespect women.". Raised Show Pony and Cherri Cola for the most part, being the two's biological uncle. Way too avid music listener, when he's not running the radio station he's finding new music (and sending Show out to get said music). Hasn't actually lived through a lot, he's died multiple times but he's friends with the Witch, her being an old friend he knew before she became the Witch, so he ends up getting revived. Iron deficiency, which eating the food that they can get out in Zones has not helped in any way, is the main reason he uses a wheelchair (along with joint pain and such). He has a couple different wheelchairs, including one that is all terrain which he can pop a wheelie on but he refuses to go out as much so it doesn't get much use. Taught the 109 radio crew and the Fab 4 sign language and holds classes for 'joys wanting to learn it. Around 36-38.

Show Pony: they/them primarily but uses a few neopronouns (which I've yet to decide on). Weirdly obsessed with water for some reason, any safe (or even not safe) body of water they've probably jumped in. Definitely has danced in the rain like a crazy person. Memory problems and often forgets things they've said more than things they've done. When they were younger they were a fairly shy kid, after a while they had a sort of personality change. Paints their nails a lot, sometimes paints others as well. Feminine in the way a gay guy is feminine but also they're enby. Pushes their heart shaped sunglasses down their nose so they can look over them like an annoyed librarian. Has probably been deficient in a lot of things before and sometimes just lays on the ground when they feel sick because it's the only thing that seems to help. "The power of friends and GUNS!". Likes to tease people, especially cis guys, because they find it funny when they get angry and frustrated. Does the exact same thing to 'crows because seeing a crow lose control and try to kill them while they do barely anything to dust them is entertaining. Also a bit of an enbywhore like Party. They got given their first pair of roller skates by Dr D when they were 10 and now barely take them off. When they aren't wearing their skates they sometimes trip over their own feet because they still have the motor memory of skating. 19 years old.

Cherri Cola: he/him, they/them. They pirated their gender from BL/ind, they call themself illegally male. Mixed emotions kinda of person, looks angry when they're not. Definitely get angry while also appreciative, tough love-ish. Also prone to just… crying for no reason? can also fake cry really well which he uses to confuse 'crows. Pathetic little dude, coughing blood and then asking if he looks good. Kind of a bitch but that's okay. Punched a wall once because he was "full of love". Eating ibuprofen like it's a snack (much to the dismay and concern of Show and Doc who often try to hide ibuprofen bottles so they won't take them as often). Gets mad and slams his fists against a table or punches a wall and doesn't think about how much it would hurt until after he's done it. 17 years old.

#also yes some of these are collected from other people-#there's a lot more for the characters these are just some random things #i also tried not to describe physical stuff just yet because i haven't decided on a lot for their designs #besides Jet's eyepatch being a star because yes #ttlotfk #danger days #fabulous four #party poison #jet star #fun ghoul #kobra kid #dr death defying #show pony #cherri cola #i really need to write more for cherri cause they're the most work in progress out of all of them

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fivepointpalettes · 1 year

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Pallets like this v

With long names and such!

My sincerest apologies for how long it took to compile this list. I tried to pick out the ones which were either significantly longer, or were... particular, one way or another, for lack of a better word. I tried to avoid song lyrics and such, but with some of them I couldn't help myself.

Hope you find these sufficient!

Looking through my older posts, this type of longer caption was a relatively recent development, but I nonetheless tried to pick ones that might work for you! I originally tried to sort them by topic, but there were so many... you can probably guess the point at which I have given up. I’m sorry. There were just so many.

Sorry I didn’t Realize People Like You Have Feelings

She Was A Girl He Was A Traffic Cone

You Must Have Real Self Confidence Mortal To Attempt Flirting With Something All Holy

Just Friends But We Kiss Sometimes

Let Your Tender Hands Rip Me Apart

Let Me Be Your Unreliable Narrator, Baby!

Focus On Me (Ignore The Blood)

I See You Everywhere See You Everywhere See You Everywhere

Prove That You Love Me And Reanimate Me

Stand Still As The Darkness Grows Roots In Your Mind

The Lack Of Self Esteem I’ve Felt Since I Learned How To Read Or Write

Not Great With People But Pretty Good With Milk

Lost In Your Eyes Never To Be Found

I Saw The End Of The World In Your Eyes

I Touch You And My Hands Burn My Hands Burn My Hands Burn (What Have You Done)

What Are You Doing In My House / Now Now I Don’t Usually Make It A Habit To - Stop Yelling - Break Into People’s Homes But As You Can See Sometimes I Do

Well First Of All I Am Positive What You Did Is A Criminal Offense / And Second Of All Why Didn’t You Invite Me

Once Again I Am Forced To Ask What In The World Did You Bring Into Our Home / What Do You Mean What Did I Bring It’s Very Clearly A Radioactive Waste Barrel Don’t Pretend You Don’t Know That

What’s A Little Murder Between Friends

Hey Quick Question Are We Really About To Commit Arson?

Does This Taste Expired To You Too?

It’s Even Smaller On The Inside If You Can Believe That

Only One Thing In This Room Is Edible And Good Luck Figuring Out Which One It Is

Your House Has No Anomalies But I’m Reporting You For Bad Taste In Art

I Think I Know What A Rat Looks Like

How Many Rains Will It Take Before The Ceiling Starts Leaking

I’m Sorry I Chewed Through Your Walls But You Must Understand I’m Calcium Deficient

Please Be Mindful Of The Evil Yoghurt Demon In The Freezer

Who Put Strawberries In The Bathtub

Who Put Strawberries In The Bathtub Again

This Is The Third Time Someone Put Strawberries In The Bathtub Who Keeps Doing This Please Stop

Of All The Things You Could Be Doing Why Are You Romancing Soda Cans

Soda Cans Are Great I Love Accidentally Spilling Liquid On Myself

It’s Not A Good Cake But It’s Not A Bad Cake Either (As Still It Is Cake)

Scallops Reside Where My Brain Should Be

Date A Girl Who’s Secretly A 20 Meter Long Man-Eating Centipede

Being In Love And How It Sucks Sometimes

Wish We Could Go Out For Coffee But You Hate Me And I Hate Coffee

Do You Remember When You Told Me That You Love Me When You Told Me That You Love Me When You Told Me That You

I Loved You I Did So How Did We End Up Like This

This Will Hurt You More Than It’ll Hurt Me - And That’s Okay!

I Need You To Understand That I Really Do Want What’s Best For You - And That Simply Isn’t Me

Father I Do Not Wish To Consume The Cough Syrup

The Doctor Tried To Check My Heartbeat Only To Find Out I Don’t Have One

American Girls Scare Me

I’m Always At Least A Little Bit Scared Hopeless And Frustrated

The Annoying Whisper In The Back Of Your Head

The Shadow Out The Corner Of Your Eye

Can You Help Me Find What’s Wrong With Me

Too Old To Die Young And Too Young To Just Die

Plunge Head-First Into A Worldwide Panic Attack

Unexplainable Excruciating Pain That Started Suddenly And Will Never Go Away

Wasting Your Life Feeling Like An Underperforming Tool In Someone Else’s Hands

An Unhealthy Relationship With One’s Own Identity

Men Like Us Aren’t Supposed To Feel These Things

Men Like Us Die Alone Because We Think We Deserve It

My Body Is A Craft Store

My Lungs Are Full Of Ink

The Tall Faceless Lad Out The Corner Of My Eye Who Watches Me Sleep While Pointing At The Door

Peeling An Apple Just To Eat The Skin

Biting Into A Rubber Ball Like An Apple While Maintaining Full Eye Contact

For Sale A Set Of Gold Teeth Never Used

I’m Just A Normal Functioning Member Of The Human Race And There Is No Way Anyone Can Prove Otherwise

Visual Representation Of The Sound A Rainbow Makes

The Man Whose Hands Are Always Covered In Melted Butter

The Girl In A Blue Dress That Lives In Every Village Ever

The Boy With A Mouthful Of Chalk

I’m A Weirdo Who Likes To Eat Chalk

The Magical Princess’s Strawberry-Scented Battle Axe Of Infinite Bloodshed

Although You Are Yeay Smsll And Your Kind Have Existed In The Universe For Only A Shore Tihe You Are An Inportant Part Of Sohething Yery Large And Very Bcavtiful

A Friend Is Someone Who Belieuse In Gon Euen When Gon'ue Ceased To Belieue In Gonrseif

How To Completely Disapp8ar Be Found And Never

Your Smile Toasty As Yarm As Spiver

My Face When Face When My F When Facle The Fwhen Thface Mey Face Face When My

The Breathing Part Of Who Knew By The Correspondents

Can You Imagine If Los Angeles Was A Real City

Tower Cranes Are My Favourite Animal

When I Was A Small Child I Held An Iguana Once

Ed Sheeran Is My Enemy He Looks Like A Hot Dog

I Hate Citations Why Can’t You Just Trust Me

A Classmate Of Mine Once Borrowed One Of My Pens And Then Decided It Was Such A Good Pen He’s Just Gonna Keep It

Sconce Doesn’t Sound Like A Word To Me But It Is One

Spells Mom With An O To Confuse People Trying To Guess My Nationality

The Parasocial Relationship I Have Formed With The Duolingo Cast

Sorry That Your Rant About How The Game I Like Ruined The Whole Series Forever Didn’t Make Me Like It Any Less

For The Longest Time I Was Convinced That Pocky Was A Wooden Stick Covered In Chocolate And People Were Eating It Purely For The Anime Aesthetic

My Girlfriend Said I Eat Corn Weird Which Now That I Think About It Would Explain Why I’m Consistently Covered In Butter

Wishing To Rant About Fanfiction But Not Wanting To Show How Much Of A Nerd You Secretely Are

The Eye Lips Eye Emoji Face Fills Me With Unbridled Rage

When I Was A Child I Was Afraid Of Eating Mars Bars / Because I Thought They Had Fish Food In Them

The Frankly Terrifying Clip Art I Found When I Googled Champignons

Doctors Say You Need A Consistent Amount Of Sleep To Be Healthy So I Consistently Sleep For 4 Hours A Night

Whether You Qualify As A Beach Or Not Depends On The Amount Of Sand You Have Consumed In A Lifetime

Only The Floor Candy Can Sustain Me

I Am Irrationally Afraid Of Paper And Plastic

Tainted Love But The Clapping Is Replaced With The Law & Order Sound Effect

Softer Cleaner And Fresher Clothes For The Low Cost Of Your Firstborn Child

What Will It Take For You To Give Up Your Humanity And Become One With The Night

The Price Of Wisdom Is Bad Grammar

The Eternal Dance Set To The Sweet Melody Of My Out-Of-Tune Guitar

Been Hiding From Myself Since The Last Time I Died

Don’t Aspire To Be Average You Can Go So Much Lower

My Heart Was Stolen By A Blue-Haired Angel With Piercing Eyes And A Penchant For Singing

Lonely Sewer Cryptid Looking For Love

With All Due Respect Sir This Is A Plum

You Call It Birth I Call It Escapism

Falling In Reverse Just Means Getting Up

The Privilege Of Being Born Somebody Else

The Act Of Balancing A Bottle Of Juice On Your Head

My Favourite Ride In The Theme Park Is A Bench

They Stole My Blood Today

Me And My Lungs Love You

On The Outside I May Look Like A Regular Man But On The Inside I’m A Japanese Spider Crab

My Head Is Full Of Froyo

Seychelles Flag But The Colours Are Out Of Order And Now Also Inverted

Slam-Dunking A Toaster

Chugging A Bottle Of Body Wash

Grandma Stop Touching The Stove \ No Need To Confirm It’s Not On

I Found God Inside An Apple Core

Some Days I’m Afraid I Will Cut My Eyes By The Sight Of Glass Shards

Look At Her Go Biting Everyone Who Comes Near Her Like A Champ

I Apologize If You Found Finding This Place Difficult But You Must Understand I Am Currently Evading Detection And Arrest For Crimes Undisclosed

God’s Gift To Women (Promptly Returned)

Getting Hunted For Sport With Your Good Friend Bates

So Good At Sleeping I Could Do It With My Eyes Closed

Your Teeth (Hand Them Over)

An Overemotional State Projected Upon The Unsuspecting Public

What If You Could Glow In The Dark

You’re As Beautiful As The Light Reflecting Off The Teeth Of The Moon

Why Are You Sleeping In The Algae Pond

Write Your Love In The Blood Coursing Through My Veins

Please Relieve Me Of The Dreams Plaguing My Every Waking Moment

And If You Thought It Was A Threat It Might Have Been

Find Yourself In The Patterns On The Wall

The Horrifying Ordeal Of Having Loud Neighbours

Putting On A Show To Seem Alive / When I Don’t Feel Alive

Time Has Stopped Passing A Long Time Ago

Once Again A Cold Rainy Winter Gives Way To A Cold Rainy Spring

Here’s Cheers To The Man Who Stole My Heart Away

Please Stop Eating Bugs It’s Weird

You Made Me The Villain Of Your Story Darling Now Own Up To It Won’t You

If Someone Tries To Shoot You Simply Tell The Bullet To Leave You Alone

She Drowned Jupiter In Her Martini Glass

The Sort Of Love You Only Feel When Drunk

It’s Past My Bedtime And I’m Thinking Of You

Say The Apples Seem Strange This Year

The Man Who Looked At Me So Sweetly In Soft Flavours Of Deep Beige

Oh Baby Don’t You Know Our Sort Is Locked Out Of Heaven

There’s No ‘You’ In 'My Cup Of Tea'

You Have To Stop Making So Many Enemies

Now We’re Cooking With Lasers

Middle Of The Night Yet You’re Wide Awake Thinking About Waluigi

You Have This Power Inside And It’s Frightening

You And Me And The Aquarium Between Us

I Don’t Know What This Is But It’s Not An Avocado

Wish Me Luck Honey (I Couldn’t Ask For More)

All The Things You Did Before You Did Them

You Ought To Stop Eating Spiders It’s Creeping The Guests Out

It Sure Is Wet In Here I’ll Tell You What

I’ve Been Chugging Poison Waiting For The Day You Inevitably Take Me Up On My Offer And Take A Proper Bite Out Of Me

Keep All Body Parts On The Inside Of The Vehicle At All Times As Failure To Comply May Result In Having Them Unwillingly Removed

Drowning In A Coffee Cup (What An Awful Way To Go)

Do The Trees Bite Where You’re From

My Overconfidence Is Astounding And It’s A Surprise I’ve Never Been Killed

I Understand Where You’re Coming From But Where Did You Get The Gun

Have You Found Yourself Or Your Loved Ones Suffering From A Case Of Empty Eyes

We Wouldn’t Be Here If SOMEONE Didn’t Spill Ketchup On The Sheets

Tastes Like Hot Sugar On A Sharp Knife

As You Can Tell By The Yellow Filter We Just Entered Mexico

You’re Telling Me He Died From The Mould? And What Did The Mould Do, Stab Him?

One Of These Beans Tastes Like Cola And The Other Tastes Like Black Mould

Next Time Maybe Don’t Go Into The Forest At Night Hm Buddy? Just A Thought

Well That Was A Little Unnecessarily Brutal Don’t You Think?

Tender Words And Hellish Screams

Too Cool To Sleep At A Reasonable Hour

For A Place Called Silent Hill It Sure Is Horribly Noisy

Smoke’s Water And We’re Water Therefore We Are Bleach

Your Love Tastes Like A Heart Attack

Pixy Stix and Broken Bones

You Smell Like Nonsense With A Hint Of Melancholy

Crying Because Cats Are Cute And Deserve The World

I’m Sick But The Bags Under My Eyes Are Sicker

I Live In A Room With No Windows

I Haven’t Left The House In Months

Don’t Stand So Close To The TV Lest The Static Claims You

Forever Dizzy In This Lonely World

Day 243 The Wall Effigy Started Talking To Me

I’m Not Happy Unless I’m Miserable

Summer Lasts A Week At Best But My Dedication To Sweater Vests Is Eternal So Look Me In The Eye Little Teacup And Melt If It Bothers You So Much

Chicken Nuggets Heat Up Faster On The Higher Shelf Of The Oven Because Of Their Proximity To God

It’s Summer (Hot Weather Turns My People Violent)

You Can’t Just Ask A Guy Why He’s In Love

Seeing The French Everywhere Might Be A Side Effect Of Something And I Have Yet To Find Out What But It Could Be Asbestos

Remember When We Would Stay Up All Night Reading Fanfic On Our Phones

What Do You Know About Being Divine

Couldn’t Believe When You Said You Were A Deity

When I Was A Child I Thought / That The Word Rainbow Had Eight Letters / And That One Of Them Was D

Who Needs Sleep When I Can Just Drop Dead For A Rest

I Don’t Check My Email In Fear Someone Tried To Contact Me Via Email

I Saw A Bumblebee Today And It Was Huge Really Absolutely Massive

Mid-Performance Chainsaw Solo

I Want To Drown In Your Swimming Pool

Feelings Of An Almost Human Nature

Can’t Let It Slip That There’s More To Me Than Little Old I

Manual Therapy For Anxious Hands

A Sense Of Failure Wasting Away And Never Living Up To Your Full Potential Unable To Get Things Done And Putting Everything Off Because You Are Scared Of Progress

He To Whom The Cake’s Dedicated

You’re Quite Pleasant But The Pleasure Is Mine

What Dropping A Large Bag Of Coal On Your Foot Feels Like

I’m One Of Those Annoying People Who Would Rather Use Fifty Commas Than Shorten The Sentence

Seeing The Future In The Tear Stains On Your Cheeks

Do You Ever Feel Crowded In A Lonely Room

I Want To Eat Eggs Whole Shell And All

Adopt Your Enemies To Establish Dominance

I’ve Existed For Thousands Of Years Before Gaining Sentience

You Are A Dream In A Crowd Of Nightmares

Get Your Shoes Off My Bed You Animal

Do Not Invite Me To Your DnD Party Unless You Are Ready To Accept The Consequences

Too Good For Heaven Too Bad For Hell

I’m Not Above Eating Off The Floor

I Distinctly Remember The Time He Stayed With Us

I Know I May Look Like A Real Person But I Am Actually Not A Real Person At All

When It Comes To Near Death Experiences I’m An Expert

Your Skin Smells Like The Last Days Of Summer

I Never Learned How To Write

God Wouldn’t Have Wanted This / But This Isn’t About God / It’s About Our New Dish Soap / Now Available In Supermarkets Near You

Do You Remember Your First Time Tasting Water

You Know How Sometimes An Unwanted Guest Comes Over And You Do All You Can To Make Them Leave While Remaining Polite

Fizzy Brained Children Are So Troublesome

I Forgot What The Antagonist Of Legend Of Zelda Was Called And For A Good Moment Thought It Was Gandalf

You’re The First Descendant In A Line Of Workaholics Utterly Convinced Your Willingness To Sacrifice Your Own Health Determines Your Worth As A Human Being And Promptly Working Yourself To Death To Provide Unto Others What You Never Had A Chance To Understand You Deserved Yourself

I Am The Mirror In Which You Can See All The Evil In The World

So Far Throughout My Life I Got Mildly Electrocuted On Three Separate Occasions

Asking My DM Friend To Put A Light-Emitting Crab In Our Game

Leaving The Fridge At 3 In The Morning

Pepsi Makes My Teeth Go Numb

Peach Yoghurt Tastes Better With Whipped Cream

Thinking About Him (The Enlightened Prophet)

There’s A Strange Man Hiding In The Fruit Aisle

My Brain Operates On Frequencies You’ve Never Even Heard Of

The Curious Desire For Overwhelmingly Vivid Symmetry

My Computer Chair Broke So Now I’m Stuck Here Leaning To The Right

People Ask Me How I Manage To Think Of You Everyday And To Be Completely Honest I Never Know What To Say Because It Feels So Natural

Pepsi Running Through My Veins

What Flavour Is Your Mind

Sorry My Dad Said I Can’t Join Your Cult Today For I’m Grounded

Squirrels Ate My Will To Live

Being Told I’m Allowed To Make My Final Class Project About Any Topic I Want Awakens A Demon Inside Me That Makes Me Subject My Classmates To Only The Finest Of My Obscure Interests

Standing In Front Of Me She Quickly Undressed Confessing Her Desire To Cause Me Physical Harm And Needless To Say I Was Baffled But Nonetheless Intrigued

You Love Them Now You’ll Hate Them Later

The Only Thing Greater Than My Ego Is My Impostor Syndrome

Don’t Try To Tell Me How I’m Supposed To Breathe

Why Is There Fish Bait In The Fridge Again

You Scream Ancient Curses In Long Dead Languages And Perish Surrounded By Friends

The Subtle Taste Of La Croix And Gentrification

The Cons Of Being My Friend Greatly Outweigh The Pros

You Are Who We Say You Are Because Public Opinion Beats Self Worth Every Time

Angels Lost Their Charm When You Walked In

Some Days I Feel Like A Lobster On A Skateboard

Make Yourself Comfortable We’ll Be Falling For A While

Bleed Your Soul And Blind Your Eyes

You Can Stay At My Place But You’ll Never Find Me There

Had A Dream Today That Hastur Was A Canon Character In Deltarune (I Woke Up With Enough Adrenaline To Bypass Anxiety And Respond To My E-Mails)

Murder And Other Expressions Of Love

You Locked Me In A Cage And Threw Away The Key And When You Found Someone Better I Was Left To Gnaw On The Bars For My Freedom

What Do You MEAN There Was A Fire

Cough Syrup Flavours According To Tumblr User Darkangelofglory

A Little Weirdo Driven By Consumption

Does A Straw Have One Hole Or Two

I Want That Coca Cola Limelight

Clouds Did Not Exist Before 1997

More Dish Soap Than God Intended To Exist

Some Days The World Is Too Bright To Function

Sometimes I Look Up The Last Minutes Of A Movie I’ve Seen Before Because I’m Not Ready For The Emotional Investment Of Going Through The Plot’s Ups And Downs But Crave The Gratification Of A Happy Ending

My Companion Looked In Horror At The Scene Unfolding Before Our Very Eyes Before Finally Saying Out Loud What We’ve All Been Thinking / Did He… Did He Steal Her Teeth?

Give Me Salvation I Swear I Won’t Bite

Your Love Has Brought Me To The Point Of No Returning

I Can’t Get The Bees Out Of My Teeth

Open The Fridge Dear (I Promise I’m Not In It)

Please Don’t Lick The Walls

Two Egg Yolks Six Teaspoons Of Sugar And A Tablespoon Of Cocoa

Go To Sleep In The Morning And Wake Up At Noon Only To Go Back To Sleep Till Evening And Wake Up Full Of Regret And With A Headache

The Infinite Game Or The Inevitable Disappointment Induced By The Terminality Of Things And Its Ability To Ruin One’s Enjoyment Of The Thing In Question

If A Mushroom Can See Itself As A God So Can You

I Sold My Lungs On The Black Market

This Man Shoved His Face In a Tub Of Soap Bubbles - What Happened Next May Surprise You

A Sort Of Soft Paste Which Tastes Like Perfume

I’ve Nothing But Contempt For Fahrenheit

The Little People At The Bottom Of The Ocean

When I Grow Up I Want To Be Fruit Juice

You’re Being Hunted (By Me)

He Kinda Looks Like He’s Sucking On A Brick

Crying Over A Chicken Nugget

Slide-Whistles You To Death

All The Personality Of A Collapsed Lung

The Burning Fragrance Of Cleaning Supplies

The First Time You Scraped Your Knee Falling Off A Bike

Go Ahead And Floor It Luv

A Toast To Our Special Little Brand Of Sin

Dunks You In Tea LOL

Sipping Sunflower Oil From A Wine Glass

Even The Mushrooms Mourn Losing You

You And All Your Money That You’ve Stolen From The Poor

Where Do You Get Off Poisoning My Tea

The Man Of Wine And Cigarette Smoke

#Long Post

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