#did Not teach me critical reading skills lmao

[smallfrenchstudyblr]

ahh i should have clarified that i myself don't have a degree (yet). i'm not from an academically inclined background so when i didn't do well in my first two semesters of university (i failed some classes and only barely passed others), i got very discouraged and saw it as a sign that university is just not for someone like me. i then learned a trade and have been working in the field; but i'm interested in going to university as a mature student and i'm going to apply this year for a BA :)

still, precisely because i don't have a degree it really upsets me that someone who used the chatGPT shortcut is a teacher now. teaching high school students is an academic profession, and it doesn't sit right with me how common it is for teachers to say things like "i learned so much useless stuff in university; none of which i need as a teacher"; it's actually really frustrating. then why do you go to university/become a teacher? ??? ????? (i mean i know why, because it pays well here.)

in our country, MA/MSc degrees are required for a lot of positions, so grad school isn't quite as "you're here because you choose to be" but still.. his sentiment is basically, since he teaches high school students it should just be sufficient to be able to teach them, what’s the point of a thesis? like ok with that sort of logic i could have been a teacher with just a high school certifcate. i think tbh there is a wider discussion here about how people just don’t value knowledge too.

he also later said that he sometimes regrets not just paying someone to write it for him and save himself a lot of time and trouble 💀to me that is just the epitome of being so full of yourself. he has just decided that he has what it takes to be a teacher and making him write a thesis is a waste of time because of that. lmao??

also I would like to point out that this guy is not my friend, just someone i met through a mutual friend (and they’re not exactly friends either, they work together💀) i talked about this with my friend and she said that he isn't even the first person she knows who has casually admitted to using chatGPT like this. i guess they feel emboldened to casually admit to cheating because they know that their peers won't report them because that would then make them look like snitches

i'm sorry about venting like this to you; i just remembered that you spoke about the chatGPT problem before

Well first of all: fingers crossed for your BA applications !! Everyone got at their own pace, sometimes you need a few years to figure out how to best approach University!!

That is indeed upsetting that someone who does not value critical thinking and does not understand the point of research/research writing is teaching now. "I don't need it anyway/I did so much useless stuff at school/Uni" is such a dumb. dumb. Argument.

Like, I had to study German and Spanish and Latin and theology. I took the equivalent of AP biology and physics in school and learned how to use a soldering iron and identify rocks. I learned Roman Law, and company insolvency rules, and the procedure to contest a refusal to grant you a construction permit. During my PhD, I had to become proficient in advanced data-driven research methods and 2 different code languages. NONE OF THAT has anything to do with me job, whatsoever. I teach students about the International Court of Justice and some of them are Literature and History majors. I KNOW that their dazzling knowledge in embeddedness theories of international adjudication is NOT what will get them a job.

But it's not about the raw knowledge, it's about

1. Transferable skills: targeted reading, critical thinking, information gathering, writing for different audiences, time management, group work, self-reflection, project management, conflict resolution...

2. Learning how to learn: adapting to new situations, new rules and new logics; switching from one type of reasoning to another; picking up on new practices, new skills, as fast as possible, knowing how YOU best do that: on your own, with friends, listening, writing, visuals, with cues, independently, by teaching...

3. Putting your future work (and honestly, yourself as a person) in a broader context: knowing what the ICJ is to spot dumb and wrong info when you see it. Knowing that it MATTERS that we know different types of rocks, and therefore we should fund research on geology. Knowing quantitative research methods to know when they are used well and when it's bullshit. Knowing that Latin shaped some languages and not others, to understand the limits of translation itself. Knowing how 'generative' AIs work to understand that there is very little about them that is actually 'generative'.

I would evening argue that just being confronted with the sheer vastness of Things and Knowledge and Fields that are not yours has value in and of itself. It keeps you humble, aware that no matter how much you are knowledgeable on your one (1) thing, in the back of your mind, there is the knowledge that there is much, much knowledge you actually do not have and cannot claim to have. OR, in the wise words of Dan Olson on CryptoBros, to avoid being the kind of person that:

"assume that because they understand one complicated thing [...] all other complicated things must be lesser in complexity and naturally lower in the hierarchy of reality"

#this... was much longer than I intended it to be #no sorry for sending this in my askbox!

[buthowboutno]

buthowboutno's Unsolicited Writing Advice

Howdy fam!!

This is a post that i’ve been wanting to make for a while so!!! Finally fucking sat down and did it lmao

Considering we’re past the halfway point of ATWLP and over 125k words written for the universe, I thought I would share some writing advice and tidbits I’ve picked up along the way!! (especially for you baby writers out there) (we’re ignoring the fact that I only broke my five year writing hiatus like seven months ago)

ANYWAYS, ramble under the cut <3

--

Don’t force yourself to write linearly

If you’re dragging your feet along writing sections just to get to a certain scene in your head and losing motivation, just… write the scene you wanna write. This might be specific adhd oriented advice, but you gotta use your juices when you have them. 

I’ve recently posted a chapter that I wrote all the way back in November. Did I have to edit some parts in light of changes I made to the outline and the way my blorbos have developed? Yes, but that’s way easier than starting it from scratch and losing all of my ideas when the scene was first bouncing around my head.

Outline outline outline… but don’t be a slave to it

Sometimes all I can manage the energy for is a long series of bullet points outlining a chapter, but it makes it SO much easier to sit down and type everything out properly later.

I also find that having a main outline for my entire story helps me from falling into plotlines that I don't know how to get out of or losing motivation for a fic because I haven't figured out the end goal for my characters. It's easy to sit down and work on a chapter because, for the most part, I already know how it's going to end up.

Having said that, sometimes your characters are stinkasses and decide to completely break away from what you had planned, and that’s okay! Understanding how you can and cannot shove your blorbos around for the sake of plot is a part of learning how to be a better writer.

Don’t delete your writing!

Chances are if you hate a section, it’ll read a million times better after you set it down for a few hours. Us writers can be so incredibly critical of ourselves, but resist the urge to select all and backspace!!! If anything, leaving a section you hate allows you to come back and edit it into something way better instead of starting from scratch again.

If you have to delete a section that just doesn’t fit in the story anymore, still save it!! I have a bits and pieces doc that houses all my deleted scenes that have been revived in later chapters. You never know how deleted scenes might help you pad out future parts of your story.

If you’re a literature snob (like me) and want to just flat out improve your craft… you gotta do your homework

You will always become a better writer the more you write and for those just looking to get out some emotions or have fun, that is perfectly fine! Ignore me! You’re already doing fantastic, look at you go!

But if you’re the type of person to read a fic and be like… “wow, that was better quality than most published books. how do i get to that level??” this is for you

When you’re reading, regardless of what it is, make a mental (or physical!) note of the things you like and dislike.

 Ex: How does the author portray a certain emotion? How do they lay out the scene? What different aspects of characterization stick out to you? What’s the word choice like?

Never gonna bash on anyone who just wants to read for enjoyment, but when you start to exercise that muscle I /promise/ you that your writing will improve that much faster. (It really is annoying how the fucking rhetorical analysis skills they teach you in highschool help, but they do.)

Ages ago I went to this conference for young writers and in one of the seminars I went to, this pair of authors talked about this spreadsheet they set up to better lay out the aspects of writing they really loved or wanted to avoid in their genre. I think this is vv important when you’re planning out longer pieces of writing; you don’t want to get stuck in a trope you hate!

Watch critiques of books!

Booktube is super fucking great for this. I’m personally a video essay bitch, so I’ll sit and watch a three hour long video of someone dissecting a novel and giving a review. That shit will help you with everything from learning how to construct longer and cohesive plots to avoiding certain pitfalls that may turn an audience away from your work. 

Rachel Oates is one of my forever faves and Alizee is a youtuber that I’ve just recently stumbled upon but love all the same.

 I WILL SING THE PRAISES OF OVERLYSARCASTICPRODUCTIONS ALL DAY EVERY DAY.

They have really excellent videos that go into the different tropes and all the ways they can present in stories, whether it be good or bad. This helps you get familiar with the building blocks of a narrative and decide things like wanting to subvert a trope, build upon the popular ones, or even reject them all together. Fic is basically built on fandom-wide tropes, so I think it’s good to be familiar with them.

Just like artists, we gotta do our studies, too

Back when I was a infant writer (i.e. in eighth grade) me and my friends would find different writing prompts on pinterest and spend a few hours working on them before sharing what we wrote. Even if it's not for a larger work, it is /really/ good practice to describe scenery in a picture or come up with a character on the fly and explore how they interact in a situation.

It’s is the literary equivalent of drawing a hand instead of putting it in a pocket so you didn’t have to deal with it

Write messy! Write fast! Write garbage that you’re going to delete in five minutes! You’ll be surprised about the gems that come out of doing this. Literally some of my favourite lines have come out of a frenzied 10 minute keyboard mashing session.

Don’t be afraid of critique but know the difference between that and simply being hard on yourself.

 I think this is probably the biggest thing I’ve struggled with as I’ve gotten back into writing. Before I started posting, I had about five chapters saved up ‘cause I was agonising over making everything perfect. Do I see, six months later, things I know I could have done better? Yes, but! I wouldn’t have been able to grow or develop as an author if I didn’t take that first step of posting and moving on to other parts of the story.

There is a time and place for critiquing and editing your own work and seeing where you can improve, but you also gotta meet yourself where you’re at. We’re not going to be Shakespeare overnight. Getting better is a process, baby! Embrace the fact that if you’re embarrassed about your work years or even months down the line, that means you’re growing as a writer.

And remember stinkies, any creation is good creation. Don’t go comparing hits or kudos or likes and being down on yourself, the act of creation is an important part of the human experience!!! Even if the only thing you ever put out is a 100 word drabble about lightning mcqueen making love to bowser, i’ll be proud of you. 

Happy writing and get yourself some water <3<3

#atwlp #fanfiction #fanfic #writing #creative writing #rottmnt fanfiction #writing community #writers of tumblr #writer #writing advice

[metanarrates]

Sorry if this feels really sudden but was there any specific catalyst that got you interested in media analysis as a hobby? Or did it happen organically? Intensive dissection of art and information wasn't really a habit of mine up until I watched/read Hunter x Hunter for the first time, so I can firmly say "yeah this series is what got me to work on my critical thinking skills" but this of course means fandom was pretty crucial to my development as an individual... was wondering how common/unusual that is for those of us who participate in these spaces 🤔

I've always been something of an analyst! my grandmother was a preschool teacher who switched to being a high school english teacher, so she was a huge influence on me as a kid. she taught me how to read when I was 3, and she lived in my family's house on several occasions during my childhood. i LOVED to read and my grandmother was a very capable teacher, so she was teaching me about literary devices and such when I was literally around 9. my parents are very highly educated people who also like book and film criticism, and my siblings also loved reading, so I just sort of grew up viewing literary analysis as a tool to help me enjoy reading and writing more than I already did. character analysis was and is a common form of discussion around my family dinner table.

however, most of my childhood and teenage education was about literary analysis as a tool to emphasize what an author did well. I didn't get into media CRITIQUE until I was around 15 years old and discovered twilight criticism on livejournal.

to give you some background, I didn't have unfettered internet access as a kid. my parents believed it wouldn't be healthy for my development and heavily monitored my internet usage. my smartphone, when I got one, had its internet browser locked down UNLESS my parents disabled the parental locks on it. but when I was around 15, I became friends with a trans dude at my school who Loved tearing apart bad media. we would hang out and read horrible smut fanfiction while trying not to laugh as a regular activity. around this time, I figured out how to jailbreak my phone to allow me to browse the internet more freely, and in doing so discovered livejournal communities that were dedicated to in-depth critiques of certain media.

i was OBSESSED with those critiques. i had never seen comprehensive literary analysis used to explain why something sucked, and it was very exciting to my teenage brain. i reread certain critiques over and over again, just because the type of analysis going on was something I had never seen before. some of these authors were very educated and talked a lot about feminist lenses of analysis, racial lenses of analysis, etc. and i just wanted to learn more. I started reading critical essays on other works as a major hobby, and my friend and I would regularly discuss media critique. since then media analysis has just been a Huge interest of mine.

so as far as your question goes, i suspect my background is pretty unusual. most people I know who got into fandom did so as a kid or teenager. and I definitely did get into fandom in my late teens, don't get me wrong, but I had an ENTIRE background of literary education under my belt already by the time I became a regular denizen of the internet. fandom ended up not being very influential to my critical thinking skills at all lmao

#narrates #you can't imagine how it felt to my little 15 year old hater brain #to learn that there were ways to use analytical tools to seriously CRITIQUE art #it sounds stupid but I had always been taught as if critique was more 'unfounded' than praise #and since I could not easily articulate critiques before that point I went along with it #learning it was fine to dissect art critically? REVOLUTIONARY #that was around the time i really got into deconstructions btw. undertale was a GIGANTIC influence on my psyche #it was and still is soooo enjoyable to read a well articulated criticism. Esp when that criticism is in the form of a deconstructive story #and now as an adult i can admit some aspects of ut's deconstruction can be a little clumsy #but like. my god were my teenage years fun for me. it was like discovering a whole world of shiny new tools I could play with

[roboromantic]

y'know, one of the few good things about the church I grew up in is that there was a big push for us to fact-check things. If someone cites the Bible, we should look it up and make sure that quote actually exists - hell, the preachers would always pause after citing a verse and you could hear people flipping the pages of their Bibles to find it. I don't actually remember if other coc churches did this or if it was just bc of the main preacher we had, I'm kinda curious. Also do other denominations do this? I imagine statistically there must be some but idk how common that is

Certain CoC arguments (complete immersion of "adults" for baptism, no musical instruments in worship) rely on analyzing the original Greek of the New Testament, so at the very least the preachers did some research into that, however biased. Even back then my father used an app that let you compare different translations, though I uh. don't think that was something most other people did.

He also encouraged me to look up English words I didn't know in a dictionary rather than just ask him, and it was definitely in an "encouraging learning" way and not a "stop bothering me" way, so it wasn't JUST the CoC. But it's really quite ironic that this cult-like group actually helped to teach me one of the most important critical thinking skills, lmao.

like what prompted this is I saw this post a while back by a 16 y/o being corrected on some fandom lore stuff where they basically said "oh I'm gullible and don't really know how to research, and that's probably not gonna change XD" and I mean, they're just a kid. At their age I was still very much entrenched in the CoC so I don't exactly have room to criticize.

But if they don't know how to research information for a fandom they love, then I'm genuinely concerned for how they interact with a world of fake news, graphs and statistics distorted to look like something completely different than what they actually represent, search engines that give you ads ahead of and mixed in with actually relevant results, clickbait, and so many things that care more about making you emotional so you engage with their content more than they do about facts.

Odds are they're probably still in secondary education, so hopefully they'll be taught some researching skills that way? There's no guarantee that they are or that said education is any good though, and even if this person wants to get better at research on their own......well, how do they research how to get better at it?

and like. we already know a good chunk of people on this site don't bother to read beyond headlines or fact-check stuff, and their media literacy and analysis is abyssmal; they can't all be 16 year olds. It's a problem for people of any age and/or educational status and this is starting to sound like the paper I wrote on the problems with religious literacy in the US. it comes full circle lmao

OH RIGHT there's this other post of twitter screenshots that's like "google is HIDING other search engines from us" and then has a bunch of links to......academic sites? do they really expect people to use worldcat (which at least while I was in college was actively recommended) to find out when a movie comes out or what time a store closes or the gazillion other mundane things people google. Like just mention yahoo or bing or even marginalia, THOSE have similar functions to google. the links that person is listing are more along the lines of scholar.google.com. the OP has since left twitter so idk if they ever addressed that point

Anyway. I almost wish I could meet this kid and teach them how to do research but I don't know that I'd be any good at it. it feels like that xkcd comic where it's just something I've done forever so what seems like common knowledge to me still sounds intimidating to those who aren't familiar with it

#mostly unrelated but I was looking through my blog trying to see if I'd already posted abt that aspect of growing up CoC #and man. rereading stuff I wrote roughly a decade ago is just like. yeah shit's rough but past!me you are Extremely clinically depressed #and dysphoric. #It's astonishing how much better things got once those two things were taken care of and I am once again mourning the years I lost to them #religious stuff #hey. shitsite. can you fucking put the readmore in the first time I publish a post instead of deleting it and making me edit it back in

[your-local-grubdog]

I just saw a guide to writing but uh it sucks so I'm writing my own.

So from a hobbiest writer, here's my tips to writing good

1) Kill Your Inner Critic

Do it. With a knife. I dare you.

In all seriousness, being too hard on yourself gets you no where. If you're too scared to even start writing because you "need" to have certain skills, you won't get those skills!!! Something something "he was too afraid to fly so he never did land". Let yourself write badly!!! No one cares!!! Writing is a skill you have to learn by doing, studying the fundementals or whatever will only get you so far.

You will have weaknesses, and that's okay. I over think my plots of longer stories and my spelling is far from perfect. We're human. Make mistakes, learn, and keep going.

2) Read Other Stories

Read your favorite stories. See why you like them so much. Read popular and classic stories. See why they work and/or why they're still remembered. Read terrible stories. See why they don't work. Wonder how in the fuck this book not only got published but is considered a classic in its genera when the writer didn't even use fucking quotation marks or tags for dialogue meaning that you can't tell whats dialogue and what's not. Why the fuck did my proffessor make me read this, what the hell (based on a true story). Understanding what other writers did right and wrong from your prospective teaches you a lot. And personally, I feel a lot better about my stories knowing how low the bar is set sometimes.

Also reading fun. Gives you ideas. And would you trust a director who rarely watches movies? No? Think on why :)

"But what if I accidentally borrow from the story-" nothing is original anymore!!! You usually have to go out of your way to out right copy someone else! Keep tabs on your insparation if you're paranoid, but insparation is a good thing!!!

3) Take!!! Breaks!!!! Rest ya goof!!!

This was my biggest gripe with the post I saw earlier lmao. It said to write every day, even when its hard. To that I say BULLSHIT!

Write regularly, yes. You learn by doing, and so doing is how you retain that information.

But if you're burnt out or tired or just not feeling it? Rest!!! Forcing yourself to do your art is how you come to hate doing it!!! So let yourself take breaks!!! This applies to just about anything tbh, not just writing.

4) Write For Yourself

Write stories you want to read. It makes the process so much more enjoyable, trust me. Don't feel like you have to write about xyz just because it's currently trendy. If you wouldn't like reading about xyz, you probably won't like writing it and will burn out fast.

Write what you want to read. People who also wish to read it will slowly find it. Let yourself have fun.

5) Research is Still Good Though

You learn to write by writing, yes. But that doesn't mean taking classes, reading guide books, or seeing what advice ppl on the internet have is pointless.

Writing is also subjective though. Not only in "what I like is different from what you like" but also "what I do to make writing easier for me is different from what you do to make writing easier for you". Learn what you can, maybe someone else tried something you'd never think of! But if it doesn't work for you then it doesn't work for you.

Also research topics you want to cover but are unfamiliar with. Time periods, locations, desiease, hobbies, that stuff. Generally a good idea to know what you're gonna write about before you write it.

6) You Don't Need to Post/Publish Everything

Last but not least: do you not want to post a work? Then don't. You don't need a reason. It's okay to keep some works just to yourself or to a group of friends. Sometimes knowing no one else will see a certain work of yours is comforting, and makes it easier to work on said project. You don't owe the world your art.

Share what you want to share. If that means all your drafts, short stories, notes and finished peices? Okay. If that means litteraly nothing? Also okay. Your work is yours, do with it as you please.

#borb speaks #writing #writing advice #idk how to tag this as i dont post stuff like this normally lmao #I wrote this on a whim lmao #which is why its structured weirdly

[ariesjupiter]

Mitski Birth Chart Reading

This is just my interpretation based on Mitski’s birth chart and what I know of her music. Let me know if you have any suggestions of someone I should make a post on next! If you’re interested, I offer natal chart readings, just check my pinned post!

Libra sun: In terms of basic personality and ego, Mitski is focused on creating balanced, harmonic relationships. Intimate, one-on-one relationships are a major part of her identity. Libra is ruled by venus which represents love and beauty. After all, she is known for her lyrics relating to her romantic relationships. The lyric “I love everybody because I love you” is so profoundly Libra to me. She is friendly and charming. She sees herself reflected and other people and people see themselves reflected in her (for better or worse). Venus also rules the arts and Mitski is a natural artist in every sense of the word. Her music sonically is very unique, inventive, and creative as she experiments with mixing different genres. This is influenced by her sun in the 11th house. Sun in the 11th house also indicates an emphasis on friendships and memberships of certain groups and communities. It also indicates an importance of her hopes and dreams. Her sun in 3° explains why she is such a talented writer, communicator, and lyricist. Peak libra sun culture: “Young adult romance is the shit” (a real quote from the queen herself). And let’s not forget her iconic quote from 2016: “I’m a libra so my sexuality is essentially “you can really be any gender as long as you treat me like a princes.” Truer words have never been spoken.

Capricorn moon: Despite how personal her music is, Mitski is a rather private and reserved person, particularly when it comes to expressing her emotions. Also, Capricorn is associated with the father and she has been known to be especially private regarding her dad’s career. She is serious and intense with emotions but can sometimes get detached. The emphasis is on having control over her feelings. She is ambitious and a practical person. Her emotions are connected to her career. Those who do not know her well may see her as cold. In temperament she tends to be melancholic. Emotionally mature and wise beyond her years. Straightforward and honest with her expression. She is dependable, loyal, hard working, & realistic. Emotional fulfillment is often tied to achievement and success. Her moon in the 2nd house and 2° suggests material comforts make her feel safe. With the 2nd house being associated with venus, she is able to express her emotions in an artistic way. Could be protective over material objects. Sentimental. Music has a big impact on her emotions and mood. Peak capricorn moon culture: “I didn’t really feel anything. I’ve stopped feeling things for a long time” - Mitski, The Fader Interview, 2017. In all seriousness, I hope my capricorn moons are doing good.

Virgo mercury: Mitski is practical and detail oriented when it comes to communication and matters of learning. She takes the time to choose the right words to convey her thoughts. She is clear and concise. Mercury is in its sign of rulership here. Her mercury in the 10th house suggests that she will be known for her communication style. Has a lot of thoughts but is also organized. Analytical. Mitski likes making lists. Loves to give advice. Mercury is in 16° (cancer degree) and she has a soft spoken voice. Talks about the past and her roots (cancerian themes).

Virgo venus: In love, Mitski will assume a caretaking role and will gladly help her partner finish mundane tasks and chores. A devoted and faithful lover. Love is about the mundane and routine details of life. Love is about service. Acts of service tend to be virgo venus’ main love language. She wants to help improve her partner’s life. She is patient and observant. Values love that is simple and authentic. Appreciates a partner with whom she can have intellectual conversations. May have a tendency to be too critical on herself when it comes to love. Venus rules aesthetics & style and she tends to have a modest fashion sense. Mitski has voiced her interest in astrology and how she has asked people she’s interested for their birth times lmao. Her venus is in the 11th house, she treats a lover like she would treat a friend. In fact, romantic love probably equates to platonic love in her book. She has her venus in 24° which is a pisces degree, which explains this natural interest in astrology.

Gemini mars: Could be impatient because she moves quickly. Efficient. Has a lot of goals and likes to keep busy. She thrives when she talks to others and exchanged ideas. Likes to multitask. Very versatile. Probably has a flirty, bubbly energy when she’s attracted to someone. Attracted to intellect. Desire to see things from multiple perspectives. Gemini rules the hands so she’s skilled with playing instruments and writing. Likes to try new things. Witty and humorous. Could have nervous energy or fidget often.

Leo jupiter: The planet of luck and expansion in Leo is a big indicator of fame. Her jupiter is also in the 9th house and in 7°. Jupiter in the 9th indicates being born in a different country from where you reside now. Mitski is biracial and has lived in multiple countries growing up. She loves to learn, particularly about other cultures and ways of life. She is open minded, philosophical and values freedom and being independent. She attracts good fortune when she travels (touring!) and also when she focuses on partnerships/intimate relationships (7°). Combining this energy, Mitski attracts luck when she acts dramatically, demonstrates/teaches her knowledge, expresses herself artistically, shows her warm hearted and sometimes stubborn side, & takes chances, shows her bravery, and takes the lead. Be the Cowboy is big leo energy 🤠

Capricorn saturn: Mitski is responsible, practical, goal-oriented, and cautious. With saturn in the 3rd house, she probably had to grow up quickly and become mature at a young age. Capricorn saturn people tend to be very successful people. Strong willed. Tendency to be quiet and is a good listener. Could also be outspoken. With saturn in 18° (virgo degree), she’s very hard working but she may need to learn how to take a break and let herself rest and recharge.

Capricorn uranus: This placement also indicates that she goes after her goals and is efficient and practical in achieving them. Uranus being in the 2nd house shows that she could make money from being unique and groundbreaking. 2nd house also rules the voice! Her values are unique and she could be resistant to change them. Her self esteem could be in a constant state of flux and be tied to money. Her income could rapidly change, like maybe she did not get paid much but then suddenly she starts making a lot of money. Uranus is in 5° which is a fame degree. She’s famous for being authentically herself and very much an individual in the industry that can’t be compared.

Capricorn neptune: Capricorn neptunes are most likely realists. She is skilled at going after her dreams. Her dreams are practical and connected to themes of wealth, power, and control. Neptune in 3rd house shows a dreamy, poetic way of communicating. A very creative placement. Dreamy vibes. Could be elusive in communication, open for interpretation. Neptune is in 11° so this gives aquarian energy. Idealistic with friends and always searching for ways to achieve her dreams.

Scorpio pluto: Her power lies in her ability to analayze human interactions and be introspective with herself since it’s in the 1st house. She is very self aware. Mitski understands that life is about going through changes and she welcomes the ability to grow and rebuild. She has intense, deep emotions but has control over them and how she expresses them. Pluto in 16° adds a cancerian energy. Her strength lies in her ability to nurture and be empathetic.

Scorpio rising: First impressions of Mitski can be that she’s mysterious and secretive. A powerful and intimidating presence. This explains to me why she loves dressing in black. She probably has a strong dislike for anything superficial. She likes to get to know people on a deeper level and connect with them. She likes honesty and is probably very perceptive and intuitive. Privacy is so important to her! She has a lot of layers and wants people to unpack them, but it may take her a while to open up. She is powerful and has endurance. Her presence leaves an impact on people. Loyalty and intimacy is important. She’s not afraid to talk about taboo topics or scary, heavier emotions. Passionate and even a tendency to get fixed on or obsessed with something or someone. Her rising is in 15° (gemini degree) so she’s clever, curious, and thinks quickly. a little more flexible than a regular Scorpio rising would be.

Leo midheaven: People might see her as dramatic or arrogant. In the public eye, she was meant to be a performer. At her concerts she’s known for putting on a good show & includes interpretive dance and choreography. She becomes herself more when she’s on stage. The stage is where she shines. Has a lot of pride connected to her career. Reputation for creatively expressing herself and being brave and taking risks. Wants to be admired, especially regarding her career. Her purpose is to become a leader. Mc in 22° (capricorn degree) shows that she is a very hard worker when it comes to her career. She won’t let anyone stop her when it comes to achievement and success in her field. Another indicator of being at the top of her career and being publicly recognized for it!

TLDR: Mitski is a natural born singer, performer and artist. She is unique, talented, and an introspective writer. Being earth and water dominant, she balances practicality & stability with sentimentality & raw emotion. With all of her Capricorn placements, she is grounded and doesn’t let fame get to her head. Her chart ruler is Scorpio pluto in the 1st which means that major transformations will be a big theme in her life, especially regarding herself & her identity. She is always reflecting and looking at herself on a deep level.

#mitski #astrology #astro blog #astroblr #astro community #astro notes #astro observations #astrology observations #astrology notes #birth chart #natal chart #birth chart reading #natal chart reading #libra sun #capricorn moon #scorpio rising #celeb charts #aries #taurus #gemini #cancer #leo #virgo #libra #scorpio #sagittarius #capricorn #aquarius #pisces #working for the knife

[wickedpact]

A ranking of all the TTT stories in order of how much I liked them.

(Oh god this is so long)

1 My Mother's Axe

BABY ANDYYYYYYYYYYYY. Honestly this one had the trifecta of developing a character's motivations, developing a character's backstory, & developing their personality. The story starting out with Andy teaching Nile to use the axe was so charming and fun, and you could feel that chemistry they had in Opening Fire, the way they teased and bickered with each other so naturally. I loved the wedge between them on the subject of the axe, how Nile was perhaps a little too young to understand Andy's feelings about whether or not its the 'same' axe. I also love how the axe is obviously the symbol of the franchise and hugely important, but you never get a sense of exactly how important it is to Andy until you read the story.

I love the entire Ship of Theseus theme, and how it feels so natural that for Andy she has to get attached to the idea of things rather than the things themselves because she'll always outlive the things themselves-- the axe is symbolically her mom's axe, even if physically it isn't. And I love how she clearly clings to that concept so tightly. "This is the labrys she held in her hands...." IT GETS ME.

And the fact that this sense of BELONGING, of FAMILY, of CULTURE is so important to Andy that she clings to it (figuratively and literally) with both hands. And of course it's important to her, she spent so long alone that the woman doesn't even remember her birth name. That axe (or the idea of that axe) is all she has left of her mother and that family/culture she was born into.

PLUS on that note I love how Andy doesn't remember if her mom was her actual biological mother, but it doesn't matter to her. This woman was her mother in all the ways that counted. And how her mom BETRAYED AND KILLED Andy but Andy loved her so much that she avenged her and carried her axe for thousands of years. THOUSANDS OF YEARS!!!!!!

I also loved how the story transcends the timeline of the whole franchise and seeing Andy through the years. Loved seeing her with the varying squads and with varying axes. Also baby Andy was so cute. It was cool seeing her so young. like holy fuck. Andromache The Scythian, Immortal Warrior (but smol). Love that.

Also I think this one is one of the few ttt stories that doesn't suffer from length problems.

tldr: goddammit greg you've done it again.

2 Zanzibar and Other Harbors

Zanzibar my beloved. I've said before, but it's downright comedic how little regard there was for Joe and Nicky's character designs in this story. The same person who does the colors for the regular comic did the colors for this one too, and you can tell, every panel of this story was Beautiful.

Ik there was A Lot of criticism of this one (lmao @ how the fandom had no idea what was to come) but I thought a lot of The Discourse was a bit dramatic. I did think Nicky came off as a little oblivious to Joe's feelings in this story, but I've said before, I honestly think that was a 'tone not translating' thing. It felt like Nicky was nagging Joe for [checks notes] saving innocent people, but Joe was so amused by Nicky's complaints I really do think it was supposed to come off as teasing.

Plus I know the 'Joe running off into danger and Nicky reluctantly following' dynamic wasn't popular (I'm a pretty meh on it meself) but I did love how Joe's impulsiveness (if you want to call it that) was interpreted as heroism and not hot-hotheadedness. All of the examples Nicky and Joe talked about included Joe explicitly saving people. (and it also took A Lot for the nazi to actually provoke Joe).

I also feel like their characterization here was closest to the movie canon-- the bit where they hear the woman scream and Joe goes running in to save her while Nicky swoops in on Joe's heels to comfort her while Joe and the nazi were fighting reminds me of the train car scene. Joe had suggested First that they go find Nile because she needed to be protected, and Nicky later added that Nile probably also needed emotional support. Similar reactions.

But it was So Good, the themes of queer community and the enduring nature of queer culture are Not themes you see in media that often and it was such a delight how it was done. Also it's one of the few more modern TTT stories that has a completely valid excuse for taking place when it did. Chef's kiss.

3 Passchendaele

I love the Duality between seeing baby Andy and then seeing Mama Andy in the very next issue. This story doesn't have a ton of meat to it, but the entire concept of Andy adopting a war orphan straight off the battlefield PLUCKS MY TENDER LITTLE HEARTSTRINGS, and I think it's especially poignant for comic!Andy. I think most people wouldn't think twice about movie!Andy doing something like that but comic Andy is so hardened and almost cruel sometimes, and seeing that even for her the world hasn't beaten all of the compassion from her yet is SO!!!!!!! this woman contains MULTITUDES okay, she's violent and angry and tired and Done but she's also so kind and compassionate and THE STRENGTH OF HER!!!!! Also the idea of her and Yitzhak co-raising a kid together is so damn cute. It was #mysterious pre-Yitzhak-story but now it's cute. holy fuck. It's cute.

& the headbonk panel of her and Zeus lives in my heart. anyways.

4 Many Happy Returns

I Know people weren't thrilled about Booker being in this one, but I've developed a pet-peeve about that: this story was *not* booker-centric. Booker only exists in this story to the extent required to explain the importance of the gesture Nile makes towards him. If there was a story about Booker making some grand gesture of kindness to Nile no one would be saying it was Nile-centric. bc it wouldn't be! Booker exists in this story to explore Nile's kindness, its not about him. I saw that a couple times and it bothered me. anyways.

AAAAAAAAAA I loved this one, the art was beautiful, I loved how Andy Nile and Booker were drawn (like their comic selves but.. more looking like actual people). I loved Andy and Nile's Bants, how Andy wanted to jump right in and Do Violence but Nile was basically telling her to hold her horses.

I feel like I'm just repeating the post I made on this story a few days ago, but I LOVED how Nile's plan revolves not around violence or Cool Mercenary Skills but on Nile's own life skills (as she canonly did a lot of minimum wage job-hopping before the marines in comics canon). Her plan used her skills, not the skills of an immortal warrior, and HER SKILLS were in fact more useful for the situation! lov to see Nile's resourcefulness and planning skills.

AND HOW NILE WAS PROBABLY WATCHING BOOKER??? it's so Much bc 1.) nile knew booker A SINGLE DAY and yet he made such an impression on her emotionally that she had to keep an eye on him and 2.) she said in the movie she wanted Booker to get off free with an apology. Yes she's a member of the team but that doesn't mean she's necessarily going to follow orders like a good little soldier. I also love how she convinced Andy to go along with it. her HEART, her KINDNESS, her THOUGHTFULNESS, UGH.

5 The Bear

Honestly I have like no negative things to say about this one other than a.) character design issues which is less about the story itself and is more of a 'tog comic in general' criticism and b.) too short, but it was supposed to be a tease, so.

But I loved Yitzhak, I wasn't expecting to really like him at all but like I said in my other post, he tickled me. I love characters who are Kind™, especially if they have little reason to be so given their backgrounds. Chef's kiss. Lov him.

6 Bonsai Shokunin

I know this one was a little controversial bc of the outsider POV but whenever I see people upset about that they never point out that the Outsider Guy (the samurai) existed as a reflection on Noriko. His ideas are explained in the text to develop hers. The whole story follows how she gave mercy to a scared young man and in response he murdered Noriko, repeatedly! Who gave him the right to inflict such pain and suffering on the world? In his opinion, the lack of response from the gods was his permission. And for Noriko-- over and over again she dies and suffers because she gave mercy, which lines up with her ideas in FM about how it's their fate to rule mortals and if they don't align with that plan/fate/whatever then they suffer. It shows some background to those ideas and how they developed in her mind outside of Ocean Madness™. Additionally, his idea of 'the Gods have done nothing to strike me down so it's fine if I do these things' kind of explains how Noriko may justify her own morally corrupt actions-- she's died so many times and it's never stuck. Maybe if she did die any of those times, or while she was in the water, maybe that would've been a sign she was doing something right, or at least doing something normal. But she hasn't died. Fate isn't done with Noriko yet. And maybe there's a reason for that. In her mind, it's just not a very pleasant reason, is all.

There were things I was kind of meh about tho. I did kind of wish we saw something of Noriko and the team, or smth explaining the way she was before her dip in the pool-- personality, likes dislikes, etc. but it wasn't bad or anything. It was super vague tho, I had to read it a few times before I got what it was going for. Liked the art. Liked the bonsai metaphor. And of course I Respect the decision to use the 1300s (1200s? I don't remember off the top of my head) rather than using the last 200 years.

7 Strong Medicine

Honestly looking back, this one made me kind of sad because both this one and Bonsai Shokunin explored character's ideas on Fate and The Divine and how that intersects with immortality and I totally thought that theme would be continued, especially with Love Letters. But Then It Wasn't™.

Admittedly.... I had to re-read this one to remember most of it. I liked Booker's ideas on God, 'The conductor of the symphony just may not be very good at his trade' but the plot itself was kind of forgettable. Some fuckin cowboys try to kill a doctor (their second) because he couldn't save their sickly brother. Book tries to stop them, gets killed, and then comes back and kills them all before they get the doctor. Alright. I liked the artstyle because the characters were ugly in a similar way that leandro's are, but way more bearable.

I love the Irony of Booker concluding that there is no such thing as fate or destiny and nothing has meaning, AS HE UNKNOWINGLY SAVES MERRICK'S GRANDFATHER FROM BEING KILLED. Booker getting fucked over by life/god/destiny yet again. It also kind of explains about where the fuck hell Merrick's interest in immortal mercenaries even came from.

I originally had this one a lot higher and then I thought about it and moved it down like two spots.

8 Never Gets Old

I liked seeing Booker interact with his kid. And we got a name for the kid! Philippe was a little bitch though, he was a little obnoxious. I liked how Booker was so thrilled to experience a restaurant with his kid (and since we know he was there before, it can be assumed he went with all of his kids and yet he was so charmed each time). It fits with his line to Nicky in the moon landing story about how you don't appreciate beautiful things 'unless you have someone to share them with'. It was charming to see Booker interact with his kid, and to see him so happy. Also lmao @ Booker's big fat Ye Olde Crush on Andy.

However at the same time it was like.. of all the things to write about,,, I guess? Booker's Night Out...... alright. Especially since Book had so many stories.

I don't know, it was alright. The old man killing him really came out of nowhere, (but the 'Salut, asshole!' panel was funny tho).

9 How To Make a Ghost Town

I've hit a point where talking about these stories has gotten less fun. I liked this one but I felt like Achilles getting lynched was not really necessary for a story that was already tragic (a story that already involved Achilles doing a lot of suffering at the hand of bigots). When we first got the blurb for this story I thought it would be about Andy returning to the squad and making friends with Booker after losing Achilles and them butting heads on the idea of family and when to cut off ties. So a little bit of my underwhelmedness about this one might be just my expectations being different.

Honestly I was pretty interested in Andy and Achilles' relationship and I would've liked to see more of them-- like, what was their dynamic like? What did they love about each other?

But anyways Andy leaving and Achilles getting killed anyways feels so pointlessly tragic (which I suppose is the point..... I don't like tragedies) she left to save him and yet people killed him anyway. Meh.

I did love the bits about Andy wanting to have a domestic life (Andy and her multitudes again) and the little detail about how she buried her axe near the road but he buried his guns under his bed-- he was an escaped slave, he never had the luxury of assuredness like Andy did. It was a sad story.

10 Lacus Solitudinis

'You put this one above love letters crim??? how could you???' easy, lmao.

There was stuff in this one I liked. But to talk about stuff I didn't like: (I'll keep it brief, I know ragging on this story has been done time and time again)

UH, setting aside the 6 year cold shoulder between Joe and Nicky, I thought their chosen method of conflict resolution was... bad at best. Nicky's inability to talk about his feelings was also annoying, especially since the entire point of this story is a fight Joe and Nicky had, and yet we don't get both sides to the story, which is...... important? That fact is especially annoying bc in the absence of Nicky explaining his side of the story, it's absolutely a possible (and admittedly probably unintentional) interpretation of the text that we do get that Joe routinely resolves conflict between him and Nicky by simply cutting Nicky out of his life entirely until Nicky just. caves? Even if it takes years?

WHICH i could get into that interpretation and how fucked up i find it. but im not going to. out of restraint.

I don't know, I think there are a lot of interesting ways to go about this conflict but 'Nicky wants to kill a guy and Joe refuses to acknowledge his existence until he stops because he thinks Nicky is too much of a Good Boy to get his hands dirty like that' ('I wont watch as the world turns his (...) compassion into something ugly'. ) wasn't.. how I would've done it. (I mean you know Joe doesn't give a shit about what Nicky is doing in a moral way, because Joe doesn't even care or mention that Booker is killing those cops too. Joe only cares because he doesn't like the idea of Nicky changing in a way he finds undesirable.)

admittedly I've said before, I do like the emphasis Joe's reaction puts on Nicky's kindness. Joe has a complete inability to cope with Nicky simply Not Being Kind. It speaks to the steadiness of Nicky's compassion all those years. but still that fact doesn't make it the conflict feel worth it

hm. I said I would be brief and I wasn't.

oh well. basically I thought there was interesting conflict potential there but it wasn't done the way I would've liked, and the way it was done leaves a lot of disturbing (and again probably unintended) interpretations to lie.

What I did like? Andy and Joe having that pessimist/optimist dynamic. Joe nerding out about science. Andy not being impressed by The Achievements Of Man. I loved Booker needling at Nicky about his outdated slang and also trying to give him Older Brother advice practically in the same breath. I loved Booker giving The Worst relationship advice ever and Nicky being like 'I Will Not Do That, Ever, Thanks.' the family vibes were so good. The Joenicky vibes left a lot to be desired tho.

11 Love Letters

I talked about my problems with Nicky in this story (and Lacus Solitudinis). I don't know, the story isn't bad but I do hold a little bit of a grudge towards it because its very existence begs the existence of a solo Joe story and we didn't get one. If we never got this story, then we could happily count Lacus Solitudinis and Zanzibar as The Joenicky Stories™ and move on with our lives. sigh.

I remember when we first got the blurb for this story I was really curious about why Nicky specifically + the setting, and the answer kind of feels like 'the author had an idea for a story like this and saw ttt as a good enough place to utilize that idea'. Plus I was really underwhelmed by the Romantic Sentiment in the letter. If you look at it line-by-line, the majority of the letter is actually Nicky talking about how lonely and disturbed he is, rather than actual,, yknow,,, Romantic Sentiment. I mean, compare the van speech and this letter and this letter is just kind of meh in comparison. I liked nicky calling joe wise! and I liked the brief sun/moon metaphor! and otherwise it was eh. It didn't even have cute squad banter, which is why Lacus Solitudinis is above this one.

12 An Old Soul

Nun orgy. Nun orgy?????? Nun orgy.......

The whole story felt like a setup to have a nun orgy. Why did Booker have abs? Why did they do that to Andy's nose? ?????? the art was good at least.

nun orgy.

#tales through time spoilers #obviously #long post #seriously dont open that read more unless youre committed to scrolling past all these Words

[jay-wells-writes]

Training (Giles x plus size reader)

Oh my Dear Boudoir Anon, it took some time but I have something for you! and let me tell you that I hate it lmao. Like I love how the end went, but I am unsure about the beginning. BUT I am my worst critic right? Regardless I hope that you enjoy the story hun. 

Gif taken from internet, credit to the maker

It was hard to believe that in the year you moved to Sunnydale you made friends with a group of college students that fought monsters. Of course you made a mistake and hadn’t taken the warning your roommates had told you, about not going out at night. So your first night in a new town and you almost became vampire food. Naturally after being saved you became friends with the group of students known as the Scooby Gang. 

You knew nothing of fighting or monsters so you mainly stayed back at the Magic shop and did research for the group and ran the shop when Giles went out with them. Even if you couldn’t be a great fighter like Buffy, you still asked to be trained and Buffy gave that job to Giles. You should have known she would give the job to Giles, but when you learned it was him you quickly made excuses not to train. You couldn’t help but feel like it would be a waste of his time. And it didn't take Giles long to corner you and find out what the problem was.

"I just don't want to waste your time."

"I do not see me making sure you are safe as a waste of my time."

"Giles, take a look at me and then at the group. When you figure it out then come find me."

You hadn't even turned around before Giles was commenting back.

"How does your weight have anything to do with this?"

"It didn't dawn when I first asked that it would take years to train me. I am so out of shape."

Suddenly Giles was walking you backwards as he removed his glasses to clean them. A move you learned he does when he is frustrated or annoyed. 

"Your size has nothing to do with this, we start off small. We work you towards a goal then make another. Right now I would be happy if you just knew how to shoot a crossbow or any other type of weapon." 

Nodding your head once you took a deep breath as you looked into his eyes.

"Alright Giles. Let's do this."

~~

True to his word Giles started you off on weapons, while also teaching you simple stretches to help loosen your muscles. After about three months, to your surprise, you had become very skilled with a bow. You couldn’t help but be slightly disappointed that through all the training you hadn’t lost much weight. But soon you and the others started to notice that parts of your body were becoming firmer. And naturally you started to gain more confidence.

Coming through the back of the shop you looked around and saw that you were alone. Thinking that Giles was in the front you set down your things and removed your jacket so that you could start on your stretches. Getting lost in your thoughts you realized you had gone through your whole warm up routine and Giles still hadn’t showed up. Grabbing a bottle of water you headed to the front to see what was going on. A quick look around the shop showed that he wasn’t busy and when you turned to the right you saw him sitting at a table with his head in the books. You knew that Giles wasn’t someone you wanted to sneak up on, so as you made your way to him you made sure to speak loudly.

“A new big bad show up that I didn’t know about?”

Turning quickly in his seat Giles turned to look at you. Just like he did anytime he was off on time Giles looked at his watch before he took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes.

"No. No new big and bad. I just got a new shipment of books in and I got caught up on reading."

Leaning against the table next to him you tried to look at the title but Giles was quick to cover it. Because you had been used to rough housing with Xander you automatically reach across him to grab the book. Not even thinking about it as you reached across him, your chest ended up in his face. It didn't dawn on you at first but when you felt Giles breath on your chest you remembered that your workout outfit had changed from baggy clothes to sweatpants and a form fitting tank top. That gave Giles a birds eye view down your shirt. 

Trying not to pull more attention to an already embarrassing situation you slowly pulled back to your original position, and acted as Giles face wasn't just in your chest.

"Why are you hiding the title Giles?"

Standing up and gathering the book and a couple other things Giles began to walk towards the back as he stuttered slightly over his words.

"The book is… well it's about…. You know it really isn't that important. "

"Well we both know that's a lie. If it wasn't you wouldn't have hidden it's cover." Stopping suddenly you couldn't help but place your hands on your hips. "Giles! Are you reading porn?"

Spinning around quickly Giles gave you a brief fish out of water expression before he answered. 

"I beg your pardon! I would not read porn at the shop! NOT that, that's what it is." 

Deciding to pick on him some more you couldn't help but smile as you walked towards him.

"You were so reading porn. Just count yourself lucky it was me that found you and not someone like Xander."

Nodding his head in agreement you heard Giles mumble something about "Never hearing the end of it." Before he snapped back to the present and to you. "The book isn't about porn, but fae magic. Of course I should have known there would have been a descriptive chapter on the not so innocent parts of fae's."

"Ohh does it have pictures?"

"No it doesn't have pictures! I really don't feel we need to be having this conversation."

"Why?"

"Well because you are a young adult and I am your senior."

"Keyword there Giles, adult. I may be younger than you but I am an adult."

If you hadn't been looking at Giles face you would have missed the way his eyes shot down to your chest before quickly looking back up. Even though you pretended not to notice you could help but feel your heart racing at the look Giles had given you. Taking his glasses off, Giles rubbed his eyes and muttered something that sounded like "Yes, how could I forget." Before you could ask him to clarify what he had said Giles was holding his hand, that held his glasses out, as he spoke louder.

"Yes well. Shall we start your training?"

Training felt different today, at first you tried to chalk it up to finally learning some basic defense moves. That the tension was because of you both being in close proximity, but after about 20 minutes you began to realize it was because of what had happened earlier. Until today you never thought about Giles in any way, other than a teacher. Yet you couldn't help but realize how firm his body was for a man his age, how his voice sounded as he spoke softly into your ear, or how he smelled like the incense he sold at the shop. You weren't given any time to really think about it though because teaching weapons was different then hand to hand and this Giles was a bit stricter and he didn't give breaks as often as weapons training. Luckily you got a small break when Giles was called to the front of the store.

Sitting down on the mat you worked on stretching as you watched Giles walking away. You knew the tension was because of earlier and your mind was telling you to let it go. That it was a fluke but your body was telling you something completely different. It has been a while since anyone has shown interest in you. And even though what happened at the table was an accident, his second look and the comment he had made hadn’t been. Age was never an issue for you, in fact you actually liked your men older and you told yourself when you first met Giles that you wouldn't mind a night with him. The question was though, was there anything there or were you just imagining there was? 

By the time Giles had gotten back you figured out that you were going to play a little and see what happens. That if he hadn't been interested he wouldn't have taken a second look. 

"Sorry about that, sometimes I question myself on having Anya helping out."

Chuckling you stood up as Giles made his way back to the middle of the room.

"I have no answer and even if I did I would plead the fifth."

Smiling Giles moved so that he stood behind you. Standing closer he lowered his voice as he moved to place you in the hold you had been working on before being called.

"If you had an answer and pleaded the fifth I have ways on getting it from you."

That sentence alone almost had you wondering if Giles had put a spell on you to read your mind. And he almost caused you to slip up and fall when he tried to take you down. Instead you planted your feet and shifted the way he had told you. Grabbing his arm you stood behind him and twisted it upwards. 

"You can't get nothing if I am the one that's got a hold on you."

Suddenly in what felt like a second Giles had himself out of the hold and was once again standing behind you. With both of your hands pinned in one of his behind your back while his other arm was around your neck.

"Never assume to have the upper hand. Anytime you do that you end up in a position you can't get out of."

"I don't know. I think I can get out of this."

If you were asked about it later you would blame it on his quick breathing in your ear, or how your bodies were even closer together. But having guts, you never had before, you turned your hand slightly and placed an open balm on Giles upper thigh. You could feel him jump a bit, but he didn't release his hold. Instead of moving your hand any more you pushed your ass into Giles as your nails dug slightly into his thigh. You could feel his breath change as he brought his face closer to yours. 

"I am not sure this is a good way to get out of a hold."

Tilting your head back you couldn't help but close your eyes.

"Oh I wouldn't try this with just anyone."

You couldn’t help but shiver when Gile's voice turned slightly darker in tone.

"I should hope not. But please, tell me what you would do if someone was you in this type of hold."

Releasing your hands Giles brought his arm around your waist while he brought the arm around your neck back so that his hand now rested on your neck. 

"Who's to say I would want to get out of this hold?"

Just as you started to move your hand that was still on his thigh. Giles let out the breath he had been holding before pushing into you with his upper body. In a couple of steps he had you at the wall. Using the hand on your hip he turned you around and pressed you into the wall. Using the hand he had around your neck he tilted your head and brought his face towards yours.

"I am very close to casting a spell to see who you really are."

Resting your hands on his chest you couldn't help but run them up and down.

"I will submit to any spell you want. Just to prove I am not under any spell."

"Then what game are you playing."

"No games. Just after earlier I had to see if I was imagining things."

"You mean when you put your chest into my face?"

Laughing you shook your head as you brought one hand down to his waist.

"No. Not then. That was an accident. I am talking about when you took that second look. If you hadn't done that I would have acted like nothing happened."

Almost on que Giles looked down at the top of your breast, while his fingers danced across the top of them.

"I guess having them so close to my face made me realize how beautiful they were and I couldn't help but look again."

For some reason your insecurities came pushing forward and you said the first thing that came to mind.

"There is nothing beautiful on me."

Almost instantly the hand around your neck tightened and Giles pushed his body into yours.

"You are NEVER to say anything like that again. Do you hear? Never again."

Reaching up you lightly touched his hand as you spoke quietly.

"Giles, I am only saying things that have been said to me. And it's okay, it's the facts of life."

You didn't think Giles could get any closer but he did. Slipping a leg between yours he made sure he had your full attention. 

"Fools, the whole lot of them. You are beautiful y/n. Not just your breast, but all of you. And if I am being completely honest, I was looking at you way before today. Today is just the first time I am admitting it to myself."

You knew there was no fighting Giles on this so you just smiled as you ran your fingers down his cheek. 

"So what do we do now?"

Grinning down at you Giles quickly moved you so that you were pressed into his back once again. While his breath tickled your ear.

"Right now we are doing nothing. You on the other hand, need to get out of this hold. And if you can do it without any tricks……. Let's just say I have some ideas on rewards."

#buffy the vampire slayer #rupert giles #Giles x reader

[firelord-frowny]

sad blah blah

almost unanimously, people have only ever said extraordinary or at least good things about me. anyone who’s ever seen me do anything, whether it’s writing related, music related, performance related in general, or intellect, no one has ever reacted to me with “meh.” 

i went to college on a talent based scholarship that i barely even had to apply for. literally, immediately after my audition, i somehow wound up mentioning that i had missed the deadline for the scholarship application or something. the entire panel of judges FLIPPED OUT and basically demanded that i go complete the application right away because they wanted me bad. 

in my first semester, we had to work with some local ~professional artists~ in baltimore and one of our assignments was to complete some sort of art project that explored the concept of ~refuse versus environment~ or something like that. We were supposed to complete it over the course of a week and then bring it to our next meeting with the artist. i did my project ON THE BUS while we were on our way to that meeting. I scribbled a few stream-of-consciousy paragraphs about... something lmao i don’t remember. but i read it out loud to my group and then the artist spent like a solid 15 minutes gushing about how ~in all his years of being an art professor at some of the most distinguished programs in the world, he’s never heard such an elegant and artful take on blah blah blah~. 

the president of my university???? asked me personally to come and perform at his home for fancy events with other Important People like donors and politicians and researchers??? and like. this man had a whole “60 Minutes” special about what a critical role he’s had in using education to strengthen communities. this man sat at tables with obama while he was in office. he paraded me around to other Important People and talked about what an outstanding artist i was, my sparkly personality, my ~delightful wackiness~, blah blah. 

Not one, not two, not three, but FOUR professors who were all world-class musicians at a festival i attended, singled me out as particularly gifted. the kinds of shit they were saying to me in front of everyone did not get said to anyone else. 

when i was at Tanglewood, even though i fucking sucked because i clearly hadn’t practiced all the music, all my chamber coaches STILL made sure to let me (and the other people in my groups???) know that i was the more skilled player in the ensembles. I wound up having to sit last chair at one of the concerts because there had been some miscommunication that led to the directors thinking i was leaving the program (i was super homesick and had been asking my parents to come get me), and despite that fact, after the concert, the conductor - who had never even spoken a word to me personally - made sure to hunt me down in the crowd as everyone was leaving, and tell me what an outstanding player he thought i was, and that he felt lucky to have had me in his orchestra. 

i spent a summer at Summit Chamber Music Festival in upstate new york. the skill level among the students ranged from Laughably Inept to Why Aren’t You At The Curtis Institute. I was by FAR not the worst player there, but I also definitely felt like I was nowhere near the best. But the program director specifically, deliberately placed me in the highest level orchestra, surrounded by players who were fully capable of playing shit like paganini and weiniawski and whatnot. When he wanted to put together a small chamber group, he pointedly selected me to play 1st chair. My string quintet included 3 other string players who were lightyears better than me. Yet our coach frequently turned to me to demonstrate the ~right way~ to play a lot of the more difficult passages. And like... I was the 2nd violinist lmao. It’s almost aallllways the 1st violinist that coaches will ask to demonstrate stuff for the rest of the group. but he asked me. every time. our quintet was ultimately selected to close out the entire festival, a la Saving The Best For Last. The pianist in my quintet, according to his mom, thought i was incredible. this pianist was a bona fide prodigy and he thought i was incredible.

LITERALLYYYYYY everywhere I’ve ever performed, everyone has been so impressed with me. directors of major musical organizations have always made a point to get my name and contact info because “we’ll definitely be contacting you for more work.”  

Everyone who’s ever seen me teach violin thinks I’m uncommonly good at it. i mean, i’m no galamian, duh, but apparently i’m able to get students to sound better than the average teacher can.  

everyone who read my first screenplay claimed to be floored by it. i spontaneously read some of my prose at an open mic night and uh, accidentally snatched the show right out from under the featured artists' feet. 

I used to act???? and was pretty fucking good at it?? I starred in a small handful of local plays? i was cast in ~large roles~ in everything i ever auditioned for. 

my talents in visual art are decidedly Well Above Average. 

i have such a fucking long list of things people think are outstanding about me, and an incredibly long list of people who have bothered to tell me that i’m outstanding, and it makes me feel so fucking sad and frustrated bc like....

lmao why the fuuuUUUUCCCKKKKK does it continue to be so difficult to find anyone who feels like giving me any legit career opportunities?? Even when they’re aware that i’m available?? and willing?? 

i’ll have a 10 minute conversation in which a professor or a director or a coordinator is telling me all about how impressed they are by my skills at Whatever, and how i should do This and i should do That and i should go Here and i should go There and then they ask me where i’m currently working/what i’m currently doing, and i say, “oh, you know, mostly freelance gigs and lessons as i’m looking for full time opportunities,” and then they say “cool! good luck!” and leave. 

i feel sad and confused and delusional. if im so fucking great, why aren’t people reaching back when i reach out in search of a means to earn a fucking living?? 

i know the short answer is that i still don’t ~put myself out there~ and i give up too easily. but also like... i have BEEN out there. the total positive experiences i’ve had with influential superiors over the years have been plentiful and frequent enough that SOMEBODY should have wanted me to contribute something substantial to whatever programs they represent.

and since i feel like i must be delusional and that i must not actually be such hot shit and that everyone is lying to me to spare my feelings, it makes me not even want to try harder bc i’ll wind up discovering for certain that everyone thinks i’m trash. 

what do i have to doooooooo to find The Right Opportunity other than reach out to the same people who told me how phenomenal i am? i make sure Potential Employers see/hear me being fantastic. i apply for jobs in their organization if i know they’re hiring. if i know they’re not hiring, i at least convey that i’d be interested in possibly working with them. but nobody reaches back.

i’m so good at things and i feel like a fucking deadbeat loser lmaoooooo

maybe they don’t actually know that i’m fucking jobless??? lmao maybe they’re assuming that i must already be active in a real career? maybe i need to literally TELL them as they’re praising me, “i’m unemployed and i need a job, do you know of any full time opportunities you could point me to?” but i feel like people think it’s a ~red flag~ when a potential employee doesn’t already have a steady job??? but also... how the fuck is anyone ever supposed to get a steady job if nobody’s willing to hire them because they don’t have a steady job???

i feel Stupid and i think that whenever i finally get the fucking resolve to start therapy again, i’m gonna just show this whole ass rant to my therapist. 

[hereisisa]

I’ve finally got this book and I’m gonna share the story + all the new drawings.

I actually liked it. A lot. First post-F2 thing I enjoy tbh. I hope you will too.

It’s a long post so I’ll put it under a cut!

Let’s start with a weird thing....

I thought it was a pre-F2 book...but it calls Elsa and Anna “THE 2 QUEENS”, in this page it says the girls are busy with “THEIR KINGDOM” and Kristoff is called “her fiancèe”, and in another occasion, talking about Anna walking in a corridor of the castle the book says “the queen walks” so....maybe it’s not pre-F2 as we thought.

Curious, because here we have Elsa working in her office and signing all the papers she has to sign (AS IT SHOULD BE! LOL)

While Anna....well she's busy too:

Jokes aside, the book says something like “Elsa signs her documents and helps the villagers making sure everyone is happy” (aka Elsa spends time with her people! ;) Oh curious she doesn’t hate them anymore! ;) ) 

Olaf spends his day at the library, and everyone waits for the bell to ring the end of the day, cause they all look forward to game night!

Game night starts, and Olaf proposes “charades” as first game.

He’s very good at it, and Elsa and Anna explains him why they can’t play with him (because he uses his trasformation skills and he always wins).

Here’s mommies teaching their kid a lesson:

Then it’s Elsa’s turn to propose a game! Now I’m not sure how this is called in english. One person is the catcher and the others have to run.

She calls the game “stiv heks”, which is NORVEGIAN for “frozen witch” or something like that.

I love this dork.

She is also very happy to play, not shy at all. During all game night she laughs, smiles, and in several occasions I’ve read “Elsa happily agrees” or “she smiles”, or “she is excited to” etc...

Here Elsa explains the rules and then they start the game!

Kristoff says that the one who should play the witch is the last one to reach the courtyard, and he runs away. The girls follow but when Elsa is left behind she tries to “reach” them with her powers...

and this is the result:

Anna says Elsa can’t obviously play the catcher, as Olaf couldn’t play charades, so they look for new ideas.

It’s Anna’s turn now to propose her favorite game: chess!

Kristoff says they can’t play in 4, so Anna proposes TEAMS.

Elsa asks Anna right away to be part of her team. ;)

“Anna, tu te mets avec moi?”

“Anna, are you with me?”

And here we find out Anna is very good at chess, but also very competitive! Olaf thinks the game is too complicated, and everytime Kristoff makes a move, Anna criticizes it or gives him doubt like:

“Are you sure about this move? Do you know in how many moves I can win now?” etc...

Unfortunately she does it with her sister too LOL

Here Anna puts in doubt Elsa’s move: “we’re moving of 3 steps?? Really????”

Without even trying to understand her mistake poor Elsa puts the place to its original place. LMAO!

I love it cause I can totally imagine Elsa doing this.

Anna is really too good for this game, as Olaf was for charades, and Elsa was as catcher (in her own way, they all had a “super-power” who made them invincible).

So I’m glad Elsa’s magic isn’t painted as “not in control”, but the equivalent of Anna’s skills with chess or Olaf’s ability to transform.

They have to find another game and Kristoff proposes “The tree with 6 arms”:

You can tell by Elsa’s face how much she enjoyed Kristoff’ game. XD LMAO!

It’s like a human pyramid where the girls have to keep Olaf on their back/shoulders but because of Olaf’ “feet”, the game doesn’t work, and they all fall.

Elsa is ecstatic.

(kidding she’s all right ;) )

They decide it’s time for a food break, but Olaf doesn’t eat and goes to the library instead.

After the snack they try to find Olaf again but they can’t locate him.

They have the idea of turning the search into a game: hide and seek, and the girls say it was their favorite game as children!

But Anna loses Elsa too, who went hiding somewhere, and she goes to search for her in her bedroom. In her bed. Because...reasons.

She loses Kristoff too, and after a while...She finds them all in a hidden place in the library!

Elsa explains she has found Olaf, she liked his place, and decided to join him. Kristoff says it’s what he did too.

...and they all read together!

Since this is a kids’ book the lesson is...don’t play games where only one of you is good at it, and reading can be fun as playing games!

They’re together, at home, it’s perfect.

#Frozen 2 #BringElsaHome #elsanna #Elsa #Anna #Frozen #Disney merchandise #Disney books

[phairfantooooom]

Dancing with the Devil(s)

In which the brothers try to teach you how to dance (Read: WALTZ)

Mammon

hahahahaha

Oh is he just a ball of nerves!!!!

“Of course the GREAT Mammon can teach you how to dance!”

��I mean how hard can it be, right?”

He doesn’t know where to put his HANDS and his face is just constantly red. Don’t call him out on it he will just get more flustered and start stammering

HE CAN DO THIS DAMMIT

Lol no he can’t Fhskfhskf

He is very gentle and goes verrrryyyy sloowwwwllyyyy because god forbid he accidentally steps on your foot he would probably cry please give this boy a hug he gets stressed out easy

Levi

Mammon v2

He is so stiff and worried he is gonna mess up you gotta guide him a bit

Audibly counts out the beats and is staring at the ground to make sure he doesn’t accidentally hurt you

“Is… I-Is this pace okay with you?”

He actually has good form but he can never relax enough to show it off

His grip on you fluctuates between firm and loose cause he wants you to be comfortable and overthinks how you might be feeling

If he ever relaxes a bit there is a chance that you may hear him humming the melody of the instrumental piece that was currently playing

Beel

It’s like dancing with a big teddy bear

He doesn’t find slow dancing awkward or strange at all and doesn’t mind that his hands are on you

“If you start to feel tired, or your feet start to ache don’t hesitate to tell me.”

Finds dancing with you quite relaxing to be honest

Having you close and mirroring his steps reminds him of when he was a kid and he himself had to take lessons with Belphie

He tends to daydream while you both make your way across the floor, his eyes get a faraway look and sometimes you catch him staring at you with warmth in his eyes

100% would give you a kiss on the top of your head when the dance ended

And then promptly suggest going out to eat

Satan

Has “some” experience

That experience being from him reading books about dancing, he has studied it but never applied it in the actual ballroom this nerd i swear

Although you’d never know this unless he told you, because when he held you in his arms and glided across the floor you fully trusted that the guy had had professional partners before

He enjoys trying out more historical dances from the Baroque era and Renaissance period as he prefers the quaint and modest ways of dancing over modern-day practices.

Can and will twirl you and do complex moves on his part to show off and impress you

He does his best to bring out that charming smile of yours that he fell in love with

“If you want, I can make this an experience one you will never forget.”

Asmo

Oh boy

He is EXCITED

Waltz? Waltz??? “Why don’t I show you how to do the horizontal tango instead”

This boy WILL try to get in your pants at some point while teaching you

Spends less than half the teaching session showing you how to waltz and tries teaching you how to tango instead

Fucker puts a rose in his smug mouth and knows exactly how to work his body to get you flustered

He will dip you, kiss you, and take your breath away in more ways than one

Honestly one of the best dancers of the brothers if not the best

“Perhaps if you perform well enough I’ll give you a private dance…”

Belphie

I mean

The man is the Avatar of Sloth

You are leading most of the time and he is sluggishly following your footsteps while just laying his head on your shoulder

If you aren’t watching he will just straight up fall asleep and his body will go on auto-pilot and sleepwalk his steps

Despite the strangeness of it, he never weights down on you, as if his body regardless if awake or not was constantly trying to not to burden you

Eventually, if you go to take a break and sit down with him beside you he will lie his head gently on your shoulder while quiet murmurs left his lips

“Having you in my arms is one of the best feelings I’ve ever experienced.”

Holds your hand even after the session ends and has a soft small smile gracing his face as he gives you a kiss on your cheek

Lucifer

The Pride Dude

It strokes his ego that you came to him for lessons until he remembers that not many people in the house even know how to dance, and then he deflates a little

When you first start out you receive constant reassurance from him, and praise for accomplishing steps in the proper order

Graceful as hell, all his movements are calculated and he has an aura of professionalism around him

If you two are close he might even take his gloves off and hold you with his baRE HANDS It’s scandalous I know

He is a patient and kind teacher, but ONLY because he is soft for you

Makes sure that you have a good time (While still being professional with his teaching) If you try to tease him while dancing you can expect swift revenge

“What sweet punishment should I enact on you, hm?”

BONUS ROUND: The Unobtainable Quartet

Diavolo

Can and WILL sweep you off your feet with his skill

He acts as if its no big deal to dance with you, he’d make a show of it if Barbatos didn’t stop him. The man wants to show you off to the world cause he is so happy to have you by his side

He has been tutored in dancing since he was a kid and you can BET he will take advantage of it to impress you

Will reserve the most extravangent ballroom just to practice with you cause the boi is ExtraTM

If you aren’t careful he might try to sneak in a kiss during one of the times he twirls you

“You’d make an excellent date for my coronation... surely you wouldn’t mind being my partner for it, right?”

Barbatos

The elegant of the elegant

He knows his shit, he was the one who taught Diavolo how to dance

Probably the best teacher next to Lucifer

Also the biggest tease about it. He will not hold back his criticism, but will always provide constructive feedback that you can immediately apply in practice. Even when he corrects you he has this sly smile on his face as if he knew something you didn’t

Classy but also sneaky with his methods of teaching, its hard to get a read on what he is thinking until its far too late

“Surely you didn’t think I’d just teach you for free, did you?”

Simeon

The saving grace

Hasn’t danced in a long time so he is a bit rusty but he warms up quickly with you in his arms

Dancing with him tends to leave a warmth in your heart that makes you feel at home

While teaching you he also teaches Luke and god if that isn’t the fucking cute shit you have ever seen

Luke totally tells Simeon to make a move on you cause he is tired of seeing you two mutually pine for each other but not DO anything he doesn’t want to you end up with one of the wack demon brothers

Simeon asks you on a date after the session and Luke demands to come along as a chaperone

Solomon

"Oh? You're approaching me? Instead of running away, you're coming right to me?" 

"I can't ask you to dance without getting closer, you dumb shady crackhead."

Seems like he has only minimum interest in teaching you while internally he is like fuck yeah

He takes you to this little secluded spot that you didn’t even know existed and then you get to watch him cast enchantments

“It’s so we won’t be interrupted...”

O_o

Ensures that the lesson has a mystical spin on it and will make it it seem like you are dancing in the sky or on the stars and moon.

Surprisingly good at setting a romantic mood and will have you wondering just what the hell had happened after the session ended

“Perhaps next time I can teach you some more... intimate dances.”

--

A/N: jesus this took forevER also lmao so many fucking tags kdjfghsdfg shorter cause god so many characters

#Obey Me #Obey Me Headcanon #Obey Me Lucifer #Obey Me Mammon #Obey Me Leviathan #Obey Me Satan #Obey Me Asmodus #Obey Me Beelzebub #Obey Me Belphegor #Obey Me Levi #Obey Me Asmo #Obey Me Belphie #Obey Me Diavolo #Obey Me Barbatos #Obey Me Simeon #Obey Me Solomon

[the-gayest-tree-you-ever-did-see]

i’ve had family members who tested positive and were really sick, so i can’t imagine what it must of been like for you. it’s frustrating bc this whole wave could’ve been prevented with a more competent government.

i feel like the women do more of the running around and getting ready, so the dads and uncle zone is a lot more chill. maybe if one of my uncles wasn’t so creepy I’d hang out with them lmao.

haha, i haven’t read aru shah or finished the magnus chase series. i do remember really like alex and magnus at around book two. i heard they ended up together which is rlly nice!!

also shout out to uncle rick for having so many lgbt characters in his children’s/middle grade books. middle school me definitely benefitted from nico being gay.

me too!! they wanted a warlock and shadowhunter themed wedding 🥺 also having everyone there was so perfect. i do wish alec coming out was more focused in on in the books, instead of the whole clary and jace possible incest storyline. it would have been a lot more interesting.

also on the tollywood thing: you’re so right about low budget movies often being better. in addition to better acting, the stories are often better cause the directors are less formulaic. like some of the best telugu thrillers have actors and directors I’ve never heard of. also jathi ratnalu is one of my all time favorite telugu movies (go watch it if u haven’t! it’s good for when u need a laugh)

a tiny tree babe- you’d be like to below my shoulder 🥺🥺🌳

i.. i thought we were kissing for real this whole time /j

i guess we can kiss officially now *plays wedding orchestra*

mwah! (you’re stuck with me forever now <3)

- indi with an extra heart <3

exactly, modi didnt even do the bare minimum and somehow it's our fault for literally not having enough room to breathe? it makes me even more mad when i read articles from the us bc they clearly did only the basic research and dont seem to understand the extent of it, or they play it up like everyone in india is poor and thats why we're dying like ??? theres a reason this didnt happen before and theres a reason it is happening now. like use your critical thinking skills, they teach you that in first class.

definitelyyyy, if im with the women i get dragged into chores and spend the whole night wrangling kids and serving food to men who are sweaty from laughing so hard, but when im with the men, i can still have fun and chill, but also help out and be useful, and i get to pick the balance. most of my uncles are pretty creepy, but theyre always on their best behavior around me bc im from the us (not bc they want to impress me, but bc they want info on me to tear me down, essentially. they kind of hate me, but jokes on them bc i take and take the juicy gossip and leave before i have to give.)

the magnus chase series is probably one of my favorite books out of the stuff rick's written, and ofc alex has a special place in my heart. i really loved the way the whole series was written, you should read the third book if you can!! and aru shah will always occupy some corner of my mind, it's amazing!! indian rep, indian queer rep, everything is so accurate, and theres a telugu character, plus yk. monsters and dragons and magic and stuff. and chandra!! chandra is The Most god ever, he is So aesthetic.

no but actually, once i read nico's story i was like okay fucker (me) you have to figure this out, no running away and promptly broke down crying hysterically, but!! i came out of gay as fuck so its all okay in the end. plus seeing rick go from white protag, white antag, white heroine, black sidekick, and barely any rep in lightning thief, to an incredibly diverse cast of all different shapes, sizes, colors, sexuality, gender identities, socioeconomic backgrounds, familial situations, and on and on and on, it's just... im almost proud of him? even though he's like 57 lmao

ikr, i couldve cared less about who jace ended up with, and i was cool with whatever clary had going on, but as SOON as alec was in the picture my gay ass took the wheel and shoved any straight remnants of me in the trunk to die of oxygen deprivation. im so happy that the red scrolls of magic series exists bc it gave me literally everything i wanted.

omh yessss, jathi ratnalu is so fucking funny, i loved it so much!! that one guy who was like "if im the problem, then tell me, ill leave" every time (i think lol, cant translate telugu to english very well) that was sooo funny, i lost my mind at that movie.

😌 i am v v smol boi,,,,,,,,,, inside i am ginormous but outside i am. tiny

*wedding bells ring* do you, indiphannon, hereby take this bastard, treeman, to be the most annoying husband ever?

mwah! (i never want to leave <3)

ily indi! <3

#asks #indiphannon #the tree speaks

[radbutsafe]

ALL FUCKIN 35 OF THEM SKLNWESDJFPXO

I SHOULDVE EXPECTED THIS FROM YOU

1. From one to five stars, how would you rate your writing? (No downplaying yourself!)

A three! I think I’m mid range cause I ain’t terrible but there is still shit I gotta improve and grow in my writing

2. Why do you write fanfiction?

to manifest what canon won’t give me and to write more! (though yes it is mainly about the smooching and the— I’ll stop there LOL)

3. What do you think makes your writing stand out from other works?

Hm! My weird research details? I’m that “fun fact, did you know...” in my fics sometimes LOL! I plan on giving a penthouse for erina in a fic and I went through penthouse listings in Japan for floor layouts and locations💀 my research gives me inspo and depth to stuff I think I lack in comparison to others sometimes.

4. Are there any writers that inspire you?

In terms of fellow fic writers, one of them I can’t name here but she’s an inspiration with her exceptional gift for prose period and her lovely skill at comedy! I want to be as funny as her when I write, I love her ironic situational humor. Other fic writers are @takoyakitenchou, @royaldragonsevgisi15 who I always love sharing ideas with and motivate me to create more! For non-fic writers it would be V.E. Schwab, Leigh Bardugo, Oda, and Horikoshi! The last two may be mangaka, however they are writers as well to create their stories! The depth these creators have given their worlds and interesting characters theyve given life to are all what I aspire to be like!

5. What’s the fic you’re most proud of?

so far uh?? hm everything I’m currently writing are wips lol!! im proud of my wip that has been nicknamed ‘soma panics’ that is a multi-chapter fic that spans like probs 20 plus chapters maybe

6. What element of writing do you find comes easily?

dialogue! it’s so much fun! and character thoughts. I’ve said to people I may be better suited for script writing

7. What element of writing do you struggle with most?

I think it’s description, of like setting and showing action. also an expansion of my vocabulary LOL

8. Which character(s) do you find easiest to write?

erina! I think it’s because canon has shown us many of her different faces and range of emotion.

9. Which character(s) do you find most difficult to write?

SOMA!! chill ass mofo whos more carefree compared to the common shonen protagonist! for other shokugeki characters I’m not sure just yet because I haven’t flexed my fingers enough for the rest of them.

10. What’s your favorite genre to write for?

I guess I should say romance cause that’s what I mostly write LOL!

11. Who or what do you find yourself writing about most?

sorina and I try to get them to smooch eventually KEK and yeah it’s..usually romantic fluff lmao

12. Tell us about a WIP you’re excited about.

HONESTLY ALL OF THEM but “soma panics” is my brain child

13. First fandom you ever wrote for?

pretty sure it’s digimon....

14. What’s your favorite fandom to write for?

currently shokugeki no soma!!!!

15. What’s the weirdest fandom you’ve ever written for?

uhhhh I guess SNS? LMAO fandoms...all have their quirks to them.

16. Any guilty pleasure trope(s)?

characters cuddling!!!! or getting the urge to smooch!!!!

17. A trope you’ll never, ever write for.

unrequited love GOOD FUCKIN BYEEEEEE

18. Wildest fic you’ve ever written?

I have plot ideas thst can be wild potentially but so far nothing fits this criteria so far that I actually have written.

19. Do you prefer canon-compliant, AUs, or something in-between?

depends on the fandom, but if written well, all of it!

20. Gen fic or shippy stuff?

shippy 100% like I said I like smoochin

21. Favorite pairing to write for? (platonic or romantic!)

romantic is...*drumroll* SORINA! platonic, soutaku and erina and alice!

22. Do you listen to anything while you write?

Sometimes! There are times songs will be on loop and times I just shuffle a playlist. and if I’m writing in random bursts it’ll be with no music but it really does depend lmao I think music is when I’m forcing myself to write?

23. Do you prefer prompts and challenges, or completely independent ideas?

completely independent ideas, I’ve realized in the past prompts shoot me in the foot often unless I luckily figure something out. but I’m often driven by my own sporadic self interest with shitty ping ponging attention

24. One-shots or multi-chaptered works?

multi-chap I guess cause I can post without being finished LOLLL but tbh can I really answer? I haven’t finished anything.....

25. Have you ever daydreamed about side adventures/spin-offs from your fic? Tell us about them!

I can’t answer this question imo because I haven’t finished a fic yet so technically stuff could all fit in the one fic?

26. Is there anything you’ve wanted to write, but you’ve been too scared to try?

MYSTERY AND CRIME! I love the genre and I have plot ideas once a blue moon but I can’t dive in because I want to make details that work and reduce plot holes where suspension of disbelief isn’t as needed. I need to study it more (I need to study all the details for any of my fics imo to be confident sometimes LOL)

27. What’s the nicest comment you’ve ever received?

I don’t think I can say one comment was the nicest because I’ve gotten comments that have given me quite the smiles to my face many times! I know this is a cop out but it’s true!

IS WHAT I WAS GONNA SAY UNTIL REINA SENT ME THE FOLLOWING ON DISCORD LIKE TWENTY MINS AGO:

and also rad. i am never this vocal about my emotions like EVER but this needs to be said your fics are obviously far from perfect, as are mine and everyone else's. but the thing about your works is that they're so well-sanded that it's impossible to find any rough edges or faults in them in terms of cohesion to a plot. your cast is never OOC and the amount of effort you devote to developing your takes on the characters as accurately as possible is unimaginably awe-inspiring.

BITCH I WANNA CRY 😭

28. How well do you handle criticism when it comes to your writing?

I’d like to believe I take it often well to try and improve because that’s always my goal. if someone is rude lol that’s not constructive snd is unhelpful. If I disagree with criticism I’ll explain why !

29. Have you ever gone outside of your comfort zone for a fic? How did it turn out?

Not yet, but I have some plot ideas I think will let me test this.

30. Tooth-rotting fluff or merciless angst?

F L U F F.

31. Do you have any OCs? Tell us about them!

elliott fuji, a japanese-american award winning photographer who is erina’s boyfriend in ‘soma panics’ which..causes soma’s panic LOL he’s 30 with slightly wavy black hair. I still haven’t pinpointed his personality just yet...he kind of humble brags for sure an artsy fucker and flirts maybe I’ll make him a lil shy though. he teaches sometimes, and becomes an adjunct photography professor in Tokyo so he can be with erina.

32. Summarize a random fic of yours in 10 words or less.

a cook is unfashionably late in realizing his feelings.

33. Is there anything you wish your audience knew about your writing or writing process?

I am a slow. so slow. motivation who is she? I also write out of order, unfortunately a bit too often.

34. Copy and paste an excerpt you’re particularly fond of.

this should be for the fic ‘soma panics’ it’s either megumi or satoshi talkin to him rn, I’m leaning towards satoshi

“You thought she would always wait for you, didn’t you Soma-kun? To always welcome you home.”

Soma drags his palms down his face and groans. He doesn’t like this at all. He doesn’t shy from confrontation but this is a whole different ballgame. Soma doesn’t play any ball.

“I guess..?” Is his reply, because he thinks he isn’t sure how to answer that.

“You guess?”

Just being questioned again is enough to crack Soma’s pathetic facade as if it was dropped chinaware and he lets out the longest sigh.

“No.”

Coming home means coming home to Nakiri Erina too.

Nakiri Erina is his forever.

this is @takoyakitenchou’s excerpt she’s most proud of that I’ve written, which is also from you guessed it, the long fic soma panics

SOMA: I am, I mean I will be, I swear I will always come home to you, not spend as much time abroad, once I’m done with work I’ll come right back. I’ll make sure to message you. Nakiri, I’m in love you with you. Maybe for a really long time. You know how I say I dedicate my food to you? My dad—my dad said that the key to become a good chef is to find someone to dedicate your cooking to. A special someone. For my dad it was my mom, you know? For me it’s...

(this is a good piece of dialogue tbh so I am also proud of this)

35. Ramble about any fic-related thing you want!

I’ve mentioned it throughout this but the WIP I’ve nicknamed ‘soma panics’ is something I’m super excited to write, but it’s going on slowly...and almost completely out of order. out of all of my writing it showed off that particular habit of mine, along with “what is this, a shoujo manga?!” though the latter is currently being written chronologically now that I’ve posted chapter one and is pretty solid in direction. it was originally supposed to be a one shot but I got impatient and wanted to post at least something for the sorina / soueri fandom.

however, because ‘soma panics’ (I won’t call it that LOL) is my baby I want to keep true to my rule of refusing to post it until I have a draft of the entire fic finished and I’m satisfied with the main points pretty much. due to my writing out of order, I’m worried I’ll change my mind about scenes or want to reflect things in earlier chapters for later ones etc etc

I joined the SnS fandom extremely late, as season five was airing. I was a fan of the manga five years ago and dropped it because I forgot to check for updates when I caught up 😔 I really want to bang out the different fics and aus for sorina that I have before the fandom fizzles out entirely but tbh I’m writing for myself, I’m manifesting what I want to see and I’ll just share it with all my friends to read if no one else will. cause I’m slow broski I dunno what writing fast even is like LMAO I do really want to write faster though, so I can contribute more and let the words free from the discord dms....

#ask meme #ask rad shit #writing #writing by rad #fanfic #reina girl u put me thru it I swear lol #thank u for sending!! #ur amazing!!!!

[iluxia]

Unsolicited writing advice???

A ton of you have commented with such kind and complimentary words about my Naruto fic Hiding in the Leaves and its characterization through the shifting POVs. Thank you all! I’m gratified to hear that you’re enjoying it. Some are asking how I shift perspectives and still manage to keep the characters in line. Actually, a fair number of readers have asked for actual advice, so here we go. This is a lot of writing babble, I hope it makes sense but feel free to drop me an ask if anything is unclear! 

(1) I read a lot. I read all the time. Easily a book a day, maybe two days. And when I do, I practice critical reading—or as they say, reading like an editor, so I can pick at techniques other writers use. Writing is an art you learn largely by example. A lot of what I read influences what and how I write, so when I need to change my tone or voice to fit a different character, I usually read something that matches what I want my prose to sound like, on top of using techniques like changing tenses and playing with vocabulary choices. 

I recently had the chance to flex these writing muscles because I went from writing two very distinct human voices (Tony Stark & Stephen Strange) to writing an alien voice (Loki). It was fucking hard; those in the Marvel fandom might know what I mean. Tony and Stephen are both human, born and raised in America, with specific life experiences that inform their daily decisions and personalities. Loki, on the other hand, is an alien: raised in Asgard, stolen from Jotunheim, well-traveled throughout the Nine Realms, and moreover raised as a prince. Just stop and think about that. When your characters do not have the same experiences that you do, they’re bound to not have the same earthbound concerns that you do. Anthropomorphizing non-human (or even non-living) beings is an age-old practice, but to be faithful to his character, I tried my best to twist my writing voice into a different shape—a shape that more befits the prince of a realm that is somewhat humanoid but very different from what we know on Earth. And in order to do that, I did four things: 

I changed my prose from past to present tense; it sounds more immediate and assertive

I read three books, written in present tense, where the prose mimics what I imagine Loki would sound like in his own head

I made a huge spread of everything about Loki (both canon and my own orginal additions) that would inform his motivations, internal concerns, emotional responses, and decision-making processes

I drowned myself in Loki fanwork

Immersion is key! If you saturate your brain in a specific type of rhetoric or style, that’s what’s likeliest to come out of your productive process at the end. So controlling what you read/watch/listen to will help control your writing style too.

 (2) This further breaks down what I just said in the third bullet point above. Before I start writing from a specific character’s perspective, I’ll take the time to brainstorm and build that character from the ground up. This might take a day or two and includes a staggering amount of detail—just as much detail as mine or your life might comprise. Silly little things like favorite colors and foods, hobbies, dislikes. Oftentimes, if you’re a fic writer, this is easier because canon gives it to you. Those amazing wiki-pages exist to make your life easier in this regard. (Bless.) What canon doesn’t give you is where you can dig in. Go deeper. Pin your character down. Think about more serious considerations like emotional triggers, conscious motivations, subconscious motivations, coping and defense mechanisms. When hurt or under stress, are they the type to lash out or curl in? Are they the type to hold on to a grudge, or do they prefer to forgive and forget? Do they get hurt easily or do they have a thick skin? I imagine the character’s relationships in life, I rank them and network them in my head. Who do they run to when they need advice? Who do they like hanging out with when they’re happy? Who annoys them, who inspires them, who scares them, who do they want to be like? Even if these questions aren’t necessarily things you might discuss in your fic, it helps inform this person you’re writing about, so it helps you keep a clearer and more consistent mental picture of them as you go.

But most critical of all, I sit and imagine myself in their shoes and think of how they perceive themselves. That is a major factor when writing, because that’s what their head-voice will sound like. And if the story is written from their perspective, then that means you, writer, are writing in that head-voice!

Here’s a more HITL-specific example (I’ll try not to spoil too much lol):

Sasuke

How he sees himself:

Ordinary; not very impressive as a shinobi, but not absolutely terrible either – just ordinary

Average looking

A slow, impatient learner

Awkward with people, but polite and with good intentions

Emotionally stable

A good reader and listener

How he actually is from someone else’s POV:

Incredibly skilled for his age and level as a shinobi

Actually quite handsome

An intuitive learner, very tenacious and will keep at a task forever until he gets it just right; perfectionist much

Quiet, polite, notices a lot about how others act

Absolutely does not handle emotions well

Selective listener; sometimes only hears what he wants to hear

Rationales:

He’s surrounded by a clan of perfectionists and overachievers who constantly laud his aniki for being a genius while paying him no attention. Of course he thinks he’s ordinary.

No one ever compliments him for his looks in the clan compound, and what he sees in the mirror looks just like a younger version of everyone around him. Of course he thinks he’s average, even though he actually has looks.

Because he’s largely self-taught (except for when Obaa-sama teaches him), he thinks he’s slow. (Ever learned a new skill or maybe even a new language by yourself? I have. I can tell you that my perception of how much time I spent learning ‘basics’ was skewed.) He also holds himself to a higher than normal standard because that’s what gets him positive attention (or attention at all) within his family. Add the fact that Itachi was there blazing through everything before him, and it’s suddenly easy to understand why Sasuke thinks the worst of himself as a student. But he (and Naruto) are actually fast learners—we see this even in canon—and both of them boast high levels of natural intuition, or as I (the neuroscientist) likes to call it, pattern recognition. Some people are naturally better at this than others; there have been extensive tests done to show it. But we also know intuition can be trained, so the more Sasuke works at something, the better he gets, and the faster he learns the next skill—as long as the learning is patterned. Which is why Orochimaru, who has picked up on this trait, walks them through learning each jutsu in a stepwise manner every time.

Sasuke doesn’t have a lot of social interaction outside of his family. The Uchiha clan in this fic is very segregated from the rest of the village, so if you’re not active as a shinobi, you probably don’t get out of the compound much. Interacting with people probably intimidates Sasuke a lot so he feels awkward about it and reverts back to habits of politeness and silence that he was taught from childhood. That doesn’t mean that he’s not paying attention, however; Sasuke is naturally observant and remembers a lot about how people act (and not so much what they say). I have a theory about this related to the Sharingan but I won’t go into too much here because it would be a straight-up spoiler, sorry. :D

He thinks he’s emotionally stable because he doesn’t remember many incidents of severe emotional upheaval in his life. That’s because he hasn’t had them; apart from the whole thing with Itachi, he’s been fairly sheltered his whole life. But he actually doesn’t handle emotions well—something he’s about to find out soon enough—and for the same reason! He hasn’t been exposed to an extensive range of it.

Because he’s largely self-taught, he has confidence in his reading skills. He also remembers all of Obaa-sama’s stories so he thinks he’s a good listener. Well, he is—to an extent. If he wants to listen, he will. If he doesn’t, he’s just as proficient as Naruto at pigheadedness. (I think it’s an Uchiha trait too lmao.)

That was a lot, right? But you can see that if I’m writing from Sasuke’s POV, I have to keep a different set of pointers than if I’m writing from Naruto’s POV about Sasuke. The way I think of it is like changing lenses or shades depending on the light outside.

A few more techniques/guidelines I use:

Stay consistent with vocabulary. Orochimaru is far more verbose than the rest of them, Shikamaru right behind him, and Naruto uses shorter, simpler words. You can even assign particular words to a character, a word only they would use when referring to something. This applies to how your character addresses other people too, i.e. Orochimaru calls them ‘little ones’; Shikamaru calls his dad ‘oyaji’ in front of his peers but ‘otou-san’ in front of his sensei; Naruto is quick to give people nicknames and most of the time it sticks.

Watch the adjectives; different people describe things differently. Orochimaru uses more nuanced words that can mean different things depending on the situation and mood; Naruto thinks in terms of emotions, a lot of how does this make me feel; Sasuke is very visual and notices a lot of colors.

Use speech habits wisely; how your character talks should reflect their life. Just like accents, speech habits can tell a lot about a person. Sasuke always speaks politely because it’s how he’s supposed to talk at home, otherwise there’d be trouble. Naruto grew up in a poorer district and had no one to really teach him how to talk politely, so he’s very casual. Shikamaru cusses at age eleven because his parents and family are incredibly laissez-faire and honest around him, so he thinks it’s acceptable and normal (and he was never reprimanded for it).

Play with your tenses. Writing in past tense sounds and feels very different from writing in present tense. Depending on your character, one or the other might sound more appropriate. There are some expressions and figures of speech that sound fine when written in past tense but awkward when written in present tense, so that will end up inadvertently changing your prose a bit, which can be useful.

Read your work out loud. Cardinal rule of prose-writing. What looks good on paper doesn’t always sound good when read out loud. If you read it and it doesn’t sound like how your character talks, time for a vibe check. You might need to change a few words and move sentences around, or you might need a complete overhaul… an editor (and I mean an editor, not just a beta-reader) can usually help you out.

 A note about editors vs beta-readers:

There is a cardinal difference! A beta-reader is usually not professionally trained but should be experienced enough to point out things that aren’t right. In fandom, I’ve found that beta-readers mostly focus on a story’s general feel, flow and readability, sometimes character consistency, sometimes they point out typos and mistakes. An editor goes further than that. I’m fortunate to have Tria (aventria) who has edited my work for, gosh, 14 years now, fuck, we’re old! I call her my editor because when she goes through a piece, she will fix everything and make my draft bleed and I love it. (I actually get a little upset when she doesn’t fix anything, even if that means everything was good.) As an editor, she does a vibe check and looks for typos/errors, yes, but she also critiques the prose extensively. She can rearrange phrases or entire paragraphs for better flow. She will cut out entire scenes or make me rewrite them if they’re that bad. Like a copy editor, she looks at stylistic inconsistencies, grammar errors, and iffy word use. She’ll usually suggest or replace the offending word altogether. She has a lot of freedom with the work and can actually kick a piece to the curb if it’s really that shitty. She also questions plot progression, character development, and the relevance of a scene. (She’s made me cut out many, many scenes.) – That all being said, it’s not easy finding an editor, much less a good one. It also has to be someone you trust to have this much power over your work. It’s worth it, however, and my writing has gotten so much better because of the help.

If you’ve read this far, wow, thanks! You’re also probably thinking, “Shit, she takes this too seriously. It’s just a fic.”

I have… gotten into fights in the past before because of this. I feel strongly about the stuff I write. Just because it’s fanfiction doesn’t mean it isn’t a labor of love. I’m a perfectionist by nature, so that’s why I put so much time and effort into what amounts to ‘just a fic.’ And you know what? At the end of the day, writing it gives me satisfaction and happiness, so I will keep pouring into it as much as I can. It’s just a bonus to hear that other people are enjoying it too. (Yes, I’m one of those weirdos who intensely enjoy reading my own work…)

 Aaand the final point:

(3) I double-majored in psychology for undergrad and have by now accumulated thousands of hours of clinical hours spent using the theories and techniques I learned from those classes on real people. I’m also specializing in neuroscience, so a portion of my time is spent in psychiatry. Characterization was actually not one of my writing strengths at first, but I definitely noticed leaps in improvement after my clinical rotation started. People skills are just that: skills which are honed with practice. It’s amazing how much you learn about how people think and what make them tick when you interact with a whole spectrum of examples: from your neurotypical everyday well-adjusted person, to high-functioning neurotics and obsessives, to patients who have suffered complex stroke syndromes, to encephalitic brains burning under septic fevers, to druggies stoned so high they’ve breached the atmosphere, to patients whose brains are growing insidious tumors, to schizophrenics and catatonics and the depressed. My job also allows me the rare opportunity to interact with people from all walks of life. All I need to do if I wanted insight about how life is for soldiers who served in an active warzone, for example, is to hit up Bill at the ICU and ask for stories about Korea and the Gulf and Vietnam. Or if I wanted to know about how to survive the Rwandan genocide, I could sit down with Amida, who survived it as a barely-teenager with her brother and sister in tow while only “losing my innocence and an eye.” Or I could talk to Heather, who is building a life with her husband and two rambunctious children, for a perspective on the daily concerns and delights of a ‘perfectly normal and ordinary’ working mother. (Her words, not mine; Heather is amazing even if she eats the doctor’s lounge out of Tita Annabel’s cookies.) Anyway, you get my point. When I write, I almost always write about people, so it makes sense that a lot of my inspiration comes from people too. A lot of my original characters—and even some that are not—often speak with the voices and inflections of people I know in real life. You probably have people with interesting stories to tell in your life; you just have to work up the courage to ask and take the time to listen. You’d be surprised at what you learn!

A few helpful writing resources: (most of these are classics)

The Elements of Style by Strunk & White

The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman

How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and Charles van Doren

And more books that helped me get into people’s heads:

Hallucinations by Dr. Oliver Sacks

The Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon

Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon

The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo

Admirable Evasions by Theodore Dalrymple

I hope you got something out of that. Again, feel free to drop me an ask if you have any questions or want to chat!

#fanfic #on writing #fandom: naruto #answers

[blackhyena]

gothank you @slutteryingreen for tagging me to uhhh. do this deep dive i guess.

1. Do you prefer writing with a black pen or blue pen? black ideally but like, whatever’s there in practice? i seem to have got hold of an aqua blue bastard right now and i feel somewhat foolish

2. Would you prefer to live in the country or city? i love the country but i need to be in a city where everything is convenient and it feels like im part of.... something at least. the idea of being far from amenities is quite frightening to me given how paranoid i can be lmao

3. If you could learn a new skill what would it be? i know i already play guitar but i would like to be actually genuinely good at it rather than mediocre. i also would like to be better at doing makeup, and i’d really love to be able to make my own clothes alas i can’t even work a sewing machine

4. Do you drink your tea/coffee with sugar? i do not

5. What was your favourite book as a child? omg megan horrible histories is such a shout. i did love those dragonology/egyptology/pirateology books though i still have them somewhere cause im not throwing away QUALITY like that

6. Do you prefer baths or showers? showers 

7. If you could be a mythical creature, which one would it be? Oh To Be A Gender Non Conforming Vampire

8. Paper or electronic books? paper

9. What is your favourite item of clothing? my assorted flashy blazer collection

10. Do you like your name or would you like to change it? i mean.... it’s unusual, and i suppose that makes it feel very personal to me. but then also i love my nicknames/alternative names so much, i have genuinely considered changing it, but then i also like the idea of going by several variously

11. Who is a mentor to you? ummm. literally? my supervisor

12. Would you like to be famous and if so, what for?  i still daydream about being a musician, that hasnt changed since i was really small haha. though sometimes in my daydreams i am also a screenwriter/director maybe. i don’t know. id hate to be super famous though megan is on the money, gotta be niche

13. Are you a restless sleeper? hmm, i take ages to get to sleep but when im out i am OUT. as in people have to make sure im not dead out. 

14. Do you consider yourself a romantic person? in every sense of the word!

15. Which element best represents you?  this is probably just from astrology shit but i think air is also quite representative of me!

16. Who do you want to be closer to? oh to be close to someone! in this economy...

17. Do you miss someone at the moment?  SEE ABOVE. everyone!!!!!

18. Tell us about an early childhood memory: my two cousins arguing over who got to give me a horse-ride in my nana’s living room, meanwhile i’m crying in the corner begging them not to fight

19. What is the strangest thing you have eaten? oh take your pick! chicken hearts, ostrich, springbok.... all very delicious would recommend

20. What are you most thankful for? im very loved by my family and friends 🥺 even though i can get insecure and not realise it, it’s something i need to commit to heart more often. 

21. Do you like spicy food? yes but my body does not. doesn’t stop me though!

22. Have you ever met someone famous? ive met miles kane! and jason manford. and some randos from coronation street. oh and kate mulgrew. and lee mack, who was getting my train along with catherine tate. there’s probably more ive forgotten. 

23. Do you do you keep a diary or journal? lol NO but i do have a planner because if i didnt my life would have fallen apart completely by now. 

24. Do you prefer to use a pen or a pencil?  pen.

25. What is your star sign? libra

26. Do you like your cereal soggy or crunchy? crunchy... but i also don’t eat cereal. ive fully gone off milk (no pun intended)

27. What would you want your legacy to be? that i created something beautiful or though-provoking, or at least funny

28. Do you like reading, what was the last book you read? ahah if i didnt like reading doing what i do then id be FUCKED. i just finished reading the ebb-tide by robert louis stevenson!

29. How do you show someone you love them? i get them something nice... i suck at expressing it because i’m so nervous it won’t go down well. a gift does nicely to get around that.

30. Do you like ice in your drinks? i guess?

31. What are you afraid of? failing.... being forgotten.....rejection.... oh and wasps, hugely. bug sounds freak me the fuck out!!!!

32. What is your favourite scent? woody, earthy rain smells. and jasmine/honeysuckle too i suppose

33. Do you address older people by their name or surname? i... whatever they go by????

34. If money was not a factor, how would you live your life? my house would be so beautifully hideous and full of beautifully hideous clothes. 

35. Do you prefer swimming in pools or the ocean? pools, just cause i can’t be dealing with salt water in my nose where it has no business being

36. What would you do if you found £50 on the ground? i .... GUESS i would turn it in to see if anyone had lost it, but you can bet i’d be fuming

37. Have you ever seen a shooting star? no!!! i think i’m too short-sighted to pick most of them out. really mad about that actually why did you ask

38. What is the one thing you would want to teach your children? im not planning to have kids but i did come to a conclusion that, while formerly i would have simply told them to be kind, i would also tell them to be smart. because natural intelligence aside critical thinking is a GIFT and they should rightly question everything rather than taking it as gospel. 

39. If you had to have a tattoo, what would it be and where would you get it? urgh i know exactly what i would get and if covid/money/parental expectations truly were no object i’d be getting little fragments of cathedral architecture from all the cities i’ve lived in tattooed on my wrists.

40. What can you hear now? the garage door creaking open under our flat

41. Where do you feel the safest? at home, with a cat curled up on my bed.

42. What is the one thing you want to overcome/conquer? insecurities yes.... anxieties.... fears.... all that. i should get therapy probably

43. If you could travel back to any era, what would it be? it would not be permanent because i do NOT want to live without modern niceties but i WOULD go back to the eighteenth century/regency.... and just meet some people i’ve been reading about in the flesh, and see if they live up to the hype.

44. What is your most used emoji?  red love heart emoji....

45. Describe yourself using one word. odd...

46. What do you regret the most?  not sticking up for people being bullied at school. i know it was a self preservation thing at the time and i was a kid and didnt necessarily know better but like.... i wish i hadnt tried to distance myself from it, i could have been a lot more empathetic and made the world a bit kinder for people going through it, you know?

47. Last movie you saw?  belle! 

48. Last tv show you watched? succession

49. Invent a word and it’s meaning. you know when you give your cat a gentle shove and it rolls over dramatically onto its back? that’s tipcat. 

i tag @ceolfriths @wutheringdyke  @mycravatundone @colubride @renfield @goblinmarquess​

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