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oodlyenough · 3 years

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life is strange true colours review

the non spoilery part: i LOVED this game, my personal fave game this year and the first franchise entry since the original that has really resonated with or moved me.

it's a life is strange game through and through, so if you don't like slice of life episodes or bonding with NPCs, it's not gonna be for you. but if you like the franchise, or even if you liked the first game but haven't been interested in/liked the other two instalments, i recommend giving this one a chance. i think it got closer to figuring out the formula while still doing something new and interesting.

more detailed spoilers and opinions:

alex

holy shit i love alex? bisexual chad... my darling... i'm gonna be real, a lot of the trailers and promo for this game made me worried she'd be kind of a dull wallflower Soft Girl character, but she's not! she's so funny, and even parts of her characterization i initially thought were maybe a bit of a stretch ended up making sense as i learned more about her. she stole the show. i straight up forgot how much loving the protag helps enjoyment of these kinds of games lmao ... finally a reason to click on everything in the room: to hear what alex will say about it.

i thought her backstory exploration in ep 5 especially was wonderful and emotive and great. broke my heart and explained so much about her :( baby girl

plot/choices

i loved the mystery. i don't think it was quite as Mysterious as the mystery in lis1, but that was okay, i was still invested in solving it. i also got invested enough in the NPCs around the town to make all the exploration bits really fun. i loved eavesdropping on the sagas of the random NPCs like bald man and ice cream couple... just fun little touches and narratives to follow that i enjoyed.

i really appreciated this script not being afraid to shy away from some messier emotions, even if in some cases i wish we spent more time on them. for example: alex feeling a bit jealous of the other people in town that got to know gabe better than her/spend more time with him than she did. or charlotte hating ethan!!! my jaw dropped, i thought that was so good, what a messy but realistic response.

I'm not entirely sure what all the ramifications of different choices are at this point, fresh off my first play. i ended up getting only part of the council to stand with me (eleanor & duckie) while losing pike and charlotte.

i do wish we saw a bit more fallout or exploration of what taking away emotion DOES. i took charlotte's anger, and obviously it meant she didn't stand up for me in the council meeting, but where does she go from there? does she like... ever return to feeling emotions lmao... I also think we probably should've had the opportunity to do that another time, instead of just 2 isolated events -- I think Diane would've been a good candidate.

the romance

i romanced steph, ofc, but i was surprised during the game how drawn i was to ryan too -- i really liked that Drama of him being the one who cut Gabe free, as well as later the drama of him being Jed's son. UNTIL HE DIDN'T BELIEVE ME... that made me mad lmfao, i have to learn what to do to make him believe me before i play a Ryan route bc i'll kill him lmfao.

the steph/alex romance was sweet... it didn't really, like, Consume Me as a ship, but by the end of the game I was still "aww"ing at their moments in the flashforward. steph was more rounded and flawed than i thought she might be, which i really appreciated! i was worried they'd just make her perfect idealized gf, but she has a bit of a temper and is kind of tempestuous and stuff... liked it. loved her standing up for alex so fiercely and immediately at the council meeting <3 and my main reservation about her in ep 4 was that i wanted alex to stay in haven, so when she offered to stay i was thrilled LOL

one semi-complaint i had was that something i loved so much about lis1 was how max and chloe's relationship was central to the entire game and story, it wasn't some extra thing on the side, it WAS the game... whereas here, the romance routes, especially steph's, felt like sidequests. I wish they'd found a way to incorporate those relationships a bit more into the main goings-on. I also wanted to spend more time with either romance option to feel like I knew them better -- splitting the time between Steph and Ryan means that I came away feeling like I didn't get quite as much of either of them as I would've liked, vs spending almost the entire game with Chloe lol.

however, this ended up not really bothering me too much because I DID really like the core mystery and themes, the exploration of grief and Emotion, etc.

other characters

considering everyone knew going into the game that gabe was going to die, i was impressed with how they did it, and how they managed to get me attached to gabe in a mere single episode. it's a tall order to introduce a character designed to die, who your audience KNOWS is going to die, and still make them work.

i thought this supporting cast was ... maybe the strongest in the franchise? or at least, they created scenarios where i felt invested in multiple people in the town, and was genuinely trying to build decent relationships with most of them. duckie cracked me tf up, i liked eleanor and riley, even diane and jeb were good for their roles. (fuck pike. i signed ur stupid thing and left your emotions alone and you still won't do shit? ACAB!!!) the choice to stay in haven or leave was a little harder than i expected honestly, considering how quickly i let arcadia bay burn to the ground lmfao.

gameplay/etc

also i know the whole internet has been dunking on "empathy" as a super power since the game was announced, and i get that it sounds corny and looks corny in the trailers, but i thought how they did it was really cool. i wish they'd branded it "Mindreading" more than empathy tbh because a lot of the cooler elements of it are more along those lines... using her power to manipulate people, potentially taking people's emotions away and what that does to them... very interesting imo!

i really liked the memory feature!!! cool way to give us character exposition and inform the story while encouraging exploration. finally a collectible that like, expands the story, instead of chloe drawing butts on the wall and sean taking 10 years to draw something.

it's definitely the most evolved-feeling LIS game, which it should be, given it's the newest. graphics looked really nice, loved getting to see the characters actually emote, even if there are still some scenes that were a lil comically blank-faced -- usually NPCs. i actually noticed this with Jed the most, which in retrospect maybe was somewhat intentional?

i had a number of visual glitches, nothing major but a little silly, like T-posing Alex, npcs t-posing in the windows, etc. i'm sure they'll get patched out soon.

anyway... i rly liked this game, i'm excited for the steph dlc and finally feel like i have reason to be optimistic about future LIS instalments. hooray!

#life is strange #true colors #listc spoilers #lis spoilers #secrets of haven

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kaitosimp · 3 years

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Just some headcanons I have for what Kaito does with his classmates when they hang out 🌠

🍃 Rantaro 🍃

-Kaito always asks for pictures of Rantaro's most recent travels

-They share a lot of stories and knowledge, Kaito talks about space and Rantaro about all the places he's visited

-They bake, most usually it's always cookies

-Sometimes they just go outside and enjoy the silence, if it's getting dark they'll stargaze

-They plan a lot of beach trips

🎹 Kaede 🎹

-Kaede tries teaching him how to play the piano

-They listen to a lot of music, if they're in Kaede's lab she'll put in all the records/discs she has and classical songs she knows Kaito likes

-They talk about whatever comes to mind freely

-Sometimes they just walk around the school & courtyard

-Kaede always asks for space info cause she knows it makes him happy

🎾 Ryoma 🎾

-Kaito a l w a y s asks Ryoma to play tennis with him

-After the 100th no, Kaito gives up and just spends time normally with him

-There's a lot of silence on Ryoma's part, but Kaito doesn't mind filling it in

-They usually end up watching a movie

-Sometimes, on the rare occasions Ryoma sees that Kaito's feeling down, he actually offers to play tennis with him (which immediately gets Kaito happy)

🕸 Kirumi 🕸

-Kaito tries helping her clean and tidy up, but Kirumi insists on doing it herself

-Kaito always tells her he genuinely wants to hang out with her and that she doesn't need to do anything maid-ish

-They cook a lot, though it's mostly Kirumi and Kaito trying to help as best as he can

-Lots of tea parties and pastries

-Kirumi teaches him how to properly clean, while Kaito teaches her random space facts

🎨 Angie 🎨

-They draw & paint almost every time, it almost always ends in a paint war where they splash each other with paint and end up being scolded by Kirumi

-Kaito models a lot for her sculptures and wooden carvings

-They have conversations about their respective beliefs (though not too deep cause if the Atua stuff starts to get cult-ish, Kaito freaks out)

-Angie teaches him how to do a galaxy on canvas with different colors and techniques

-They like to swap coats for fun

💥 Tenko 💥

-It took a longgggggggg time for them to "hang out" properly (even now, its more like Tenko tolerating his presence for a good hour & if nobody else is available)

-A lot of the conversations is just Tenko complaining about men and calling Kaito a degenerate male, but Kaito's used to it

-They spar a lot in Tenko's lab

-They do competitive stuff, like races and who can do the most push-ups

-Tenko teaches him a few aikido moves

📚 Kiyo 📚

-It took a while for them to hang out without Kaito being scared a good 90% of the time

-Kiyo tells him a lot of stories, he refrains from sharing any that involves ghosts/demons/etc (though sometimes he can't help it), likewise Kaito tells him about important space findings in a historical aspect

-Kaito isn't fond of Kiyo's lab so they spend most of the time in the library reading, they go to museums every once in a while

-For Kiyo, hanging out with Kaito sometimes means just following and observing Kaito as he interacts with everyone, he likes to study his behavior

-They watch a lot of documentaries

🔧 Miu 🔧

-Kaito helps test out her inventions a lot

-They aggresively rock out to music, a lot of it is super dirty and sexual but Kaito doesn't care

-Miu takes him to a lot of parties & clubs

-They work on small projects and inventions together, Kaito's favorite so far has been a super realistic star projector that he always uses in his room (Miu ofc let him keep it)

-Kaito talks about the engineering part of his astronaut training so Miu feels more in her element during conversations

🐞 Gonta 🐞

-They spend a lot of time catching bugs outside

-Gonta teaches him about insects and Kaito teaches him about space

-Gonta lets Kaito name the bugs they catch, so far they're all named after planets

-Gonta gives him piggy back rides when they run around the school & outside, bug nets in hand

-They plan camping trips together

🎲 Kokichi 🎲

-There's always so much b a n t e r

-They do a lot milk puzzles and play any type of card/board game

-Kokichi always tricks him into watching movies that involve ghosts, which always ends up with Kaito screaming and pulling Kokichi into a bone crushing hug

-Competitions & challenges all day every day, they range from staring contests to races to 'try not to laugh' videos

-They pull a lot of pranks together (Kokichi always convinces Kaito to do 'em)

🪡 Tsumugi 🪡

-They watch a lot of action anime

-Cosplaying!! Tsumugi helps him dress up as badass characters or characters she thinks fit his personality and Kaito always has fun impersonating said character

-They play a lot of dancing games, Tsumugi always beats him but Kaito has fun regardless

-Sometimes Kaito helps her make her costumes in the sewing aspect, since his grandma taught him how to sew

-Tsumugi takes him to a lot of anime conventions, she made him his own superhero costume for him to wear (the costume is space themed and Kaito l o v e s it)

🤖 Kiibo 🤖

-They watch a lot of movies

-Kaito really likes hearing about Kiibo's functions and abilities

-They like to solve math & science problems

-If Kiibo gets any robophobia from the others, Kaito immediately invites him to hang out and do regular teen things to prove he's just as human as they are

-Kiibo uses a built-in photo feature to capture pictures of the night sky to show them to Kaito whenever they next hang out

🪄 Himiko 🪄

-Kaito helps her practice her magic tricks (whether it's being put in the actual trick or being her assistant), he also always asks about her magic

-Lots of cloud watching and stargazing

-They don't do psysical activity due to how Himiko is, but he does give her a lot of piggy back rides

-They take a lot of naps on the grass

-They eat a lot of sweets

🔪 Maki 🔪

-Maki trains with him to help him improve his self defense skills, this includes weapon training in case he's ever in an emergency and needs to use one

-They train a lot in general, though Kaito slacks off sometimes to talk

-They like to go to coffee shops and eat in restaurants

-It took a while, but Maki eventually let him play with her hair freely, so sometimes it's just a comfortable silence while Kaito tries to braid her hair

-They visit Maki's orphanage a lot, Kaito always tells the kids stories about space and being an astronaut

🔍Shuichi 🔍

-Training sessions almost every night, followed by lots of stargazing

-They have a lot of movie nights, they alternate between mystery/suspense and anything related to space, they also watch a lot of series together

-They like to read manga and comics

-Kaito takes Shuichi to the planetarium a lot and teaches him about all he knows

-Kaito always asks about Shuichi's detective cases and tries helping him if he's stuck, likewise Shuichi always asks about his latest astronaut training

#kaito momota #rantaro amami #kaede akamatsu #ryoma hoshi #kirumi tojo #angie yonaga #tenko chabashira #korekiyo shinguji #miu iruma #gonta gokuhara #kokichi ouma #tsumugi shirogane #kiibo idabashi #himiko yumeno #maki harukawa #shuichi saihara #danganronpa v3 #headcanons

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taeslovehandles · 4 years

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HOW I DO MY CHUBBY EDITS:

STEP 1: Well ofc we gotta find an image that is suitable for editing. The higher the quality of the original image the better - more realistic - it will look. I considered the strawpoll but every member besides jk had the same amount of votes so I decided to take an image with everyone in it! >:3

STEP 2: Now I look at the details and decide which elements are in the way and need to be taken out. (I won’t go into detail with photoshop tools because it literally would take me hours.)

This is one of the steps that can be considered to take the longest depending on how much stuff I decided to get rid off such as logos, items that will be in the way later etc.

As you can see the above image shows the original look of the boys clothing and the screenshot underneath my edited version. I got rid of all the disorted puma logos because they will look terrible later on when I stretch each body part out. (more to that later)

I also decided to remove the shoes around namjoon and the one Jin was holding. Simple reason was because you wouldn’t be able to see Jins hand anyway with a bigger body and it saves me time. Namjoons shoes were in the way and they didn’t fit my vision.

BE GONE SHOES >:c

STEP 3: Cutting the members out. In this step it’s important to copy your original layer in case something unexpected happens or you fuck up mid way. You may have noticed that my selection tool alignes perefctly with the boys bodies but not their head. (I use a selection tool, which only really works smooth if the background has a high enough contrast with your foreground objects - the 7 members in this case -! Otherwise I will have to manually go in and re-select, un-select, remove and attach all lines with my mouse and that takes me a lot of time to do - for one member alone -)

To explain it shortly: The original layer will always be seen because we will be using the background of the original (in this case the grey areas etc.) which also still has the original boys on them. Since we will be making them all bigger in size it doesn’t matter later on because we won’t see the slim version of them.

We will only size them up around their faces and ofc their bodies which means the hair won’t be touched. Therefore it’s unnecessary to cut them out properly as we will be using the hair from the original photo in the back and overlay it with this layer (basically the layer underneath)

*pats* I’m trying really hard to explain it in a way that makes sense but if you never used any editing program it’s hard to follow... and I am bad at explaining. xD

STEP 4: Now we will be cutting out each member individually from each other and put each of them on their own layer to move them around freely. This will help us later paint them all bigger without interrupting the member next to them.

Each filter only interacts with 1 layer which means, 7 layers with 1 member each, 7 times the work without messing up the other members in the process. (you will see what I mean later)

STEP 5: Now we will be going into the filter. It’s originally a smoothening tool which also works as filter (filter in photoshop basically means an extra window with more options that tool offers.)

We will be using the smoothening tool that works like a brush. Imagine having paint on a paper in front of you and you put your finger on the paint to spread it out and make the splosh larger. You won’t see the white paper at all in the areas you went over with your finger and the different colors mix together and still look natural. That is what this tool does. It used the pixel around your brush (finger) and copies them.

STEP 6: Now you may have noticed that in the original we only saw Hobis arm infront. If we would use our finger brush tool all we’d do is make his arm way too large. To avoid that I went into the image, picked the white of his shirt as color and painted my own belly in there. I grabbed Hobis dark grey colors and used them like the actual coat as shadow.

In this rough state I used another tool to soften the edges of the shadow to look more like shadows on the shirt. After that I copied some of the fabric from his back and placed it on his belly to make it fitting to the rest.

As you can see very well here, the smoothening tool only expands or shrinks areas. It is not getting rid of any spaces. You see hobis knee? Yep, looking weird. Which means in order to fix that we have to go in and cut his leg out and put it on an extra layer.

We go back into out smoothing tool and expand the leg without interrupting his other leg and boom.

STEP 7: After sizing all the boys up with the same steps I showed with Hobi we will now give the boys cute little double chins. Double chins are one of the easiest to do because technically we already got the perfect base.

We make their faces rounder and bigger, now all we have to do is to select their chin copy paste it onto a new layer and move it up. Resize it and make it smaller. We smooth the edges and blend it with his skin and tada, soft chubby chin <3

You redo these steps with each single layer. I took an inbetween screen to show my progress. Yes, yes it takes long lmao.

Sometimes the boys angle is really bad for me to go in and make their cheeks on the sides bigger without dragging their eye or mouth with me. Since Hobi had a better angle for his cheeks I copy pasted his and put it on JK. (You wouldn’t even have noticed that without me telling you :D <3)

I also went ahead and cut JK’s head out to drag it down a bit. Basically putting his chin over his arm which most of the time makes a face look bigger especially if we fake a double chin. Fat faces and slim necks are semi okay though.

It’s not really a “next step” but I do it because in my opinion it helps to make their faces look fuller. I go back in and grab the lightest color on their cheeks and color over their cheeks in a big circle with my selected color. I smoothen the edges and boom, they look fuller don’t they?

Chubby faces are more shiny in general because of all the fat in the skin as well as them sweating more which works perfectly here. Of course the main reason they appear “fuller” is the fact that a round shape does not cast as many shadows. A slim face like the boys have would have multiple skin tones in there.

You might have to squint here it’s a really small detail but it does wonders for the “realness” feeling.

STEP 8: For the last step we put all our layers in a folder, copy paste it and combine them into one image. I decided that the image was a bit too blue and wanted more of their rosy cheecks showing. I changed the color key for the entire image and made it a bit redder to archieve that.

and then we are done! I put my watermark on it and save it lmao. I hope you liked this little documentary of my process of editing. This took me 2 hours without writing this humongous post. Hope you enjoyed!

The finished edit will be posted seperately as well for you <3 I’d love to hear your opinion on this. Was it interesting?, did you think that is how it works?

I’d love to interactwith you all and talk about this :3 <3 *hugs*

#chubby edit #bts chubby edit #edit tutorial chubby #taeslovehandles #fat bts edit #chubby #fat #obese

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realitywarpinq · 4 years

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(reposting bc tumblr removed my post from the da tags and I’d really love to know other people’s thoughts on Thomas and O’Brien bc I wasn’t here when s1&2 were airing so missed all the fandom stuff)

I had a lot of thoughts about this and in trying to put them into words I had even more and yeah needless to say it got quite long so… anyone who wants to read some character analysis and my thoughts about why Thomas and O’Brien’s relationship played out Like That pls see below the cut!

I think if Siobhan Finneran had planned to stay on the show we might’ve got a better arc for the two of them. S3 to me plays entirely like, upon hearing she wanted out, jf scrabbled around for a way to make her exit organic because he hadn’t previously considered O'Brien ever leaving Downton. Then, for lack of something better, he discovered a great old plot unsticking device, Homophobia.

O'Brien displays two key ‘positive’ traits throughout three seasons - 1) loyalty and 2) the softer side of her that appears when looking after those she cares for/is sympathetic to (s1 Cora miscarriage - though ofc there’s a large element of guilt to that - s2 Cora’s spanish flu, Mr.Lang’s ptsd and s3 when Alfred arrives)

While O'Brien’s 'blood is thicker than water’ ideology towards the Alfred/Thomas situation makes sense for her character, I’ve always seen the progression of s3 as an absurd overreaction. I mean, while it would be frustrating that your friend was unwilling to help give your nephew a leg up in his profession it’s like… not the end of the world? And Thomas has a point - he worked hard for years to earn his position and Alfred barely knows where to put the serving spoons.

Thomas actively sabotaging Alfred’s work (ruining Matthew’s jacket) is definitely something to fall out over, but trying to have him exposed, fired, arrested and sentenced to years of hard labour???? Hello???? A Bit Much, perhaps??? Also, from whom do we think Thomas learnt to behave this way in the first place??

She’s a ruthless person who will use anything against someone to achieve her goals - in this case revenge and humiliation. To get Thomas to make a move on such an performatively masculine and heterosexual man is the ultimate power play. It communicates that even though they aren’t friends anymore Thomas still listens to what she has to say. She’ll always be the wiser of the two, like she’s been the puppet master behind their schemes, and as much as he thinks himself too smart to deign to help Alfred, she can manipulate him as easily as she would someone who hasn’t spent years as her accomplice (and should know exactly what she’s like and capable of.)

If Siobhan hadn’t been leaving the show this would’ve been the perfect “checkmate” moment for her. It’s the ace in her deck?? (idk anything about cards) it’s her final move. She’s clearly known about Thomas’ sexuality for years and this is her saying “See how easily I can use this against you? Exactly so get back in line.”

Of course then Thomas could’ve pulled out his trump card, the soap. And then O’Brien would choose whether or not to call his bluff, ultimately settling on shifting the power dynamic in their relationship to more equal footing - if it wasn’t such a terrible secret for her I honestly think she’d be impressed by his threat. She’d underestimated him and it appears he’s actually learnt well.

So, in this bad timeline in which she left the show, when Jimmy wants to put the issue to bed and she seems hell bent on seeing Thomas behind bars, that’s the part where it all seems excessive to me, stumbling into ooc behaviour.

But they had to raise the stakes in such an ooc way in order for the wedge between them to be irreparable because she HAS to leave. Since s1 they’ve been thick as thieves, and how do you break a bond that strong? Betrayal of the highest order, which is not something we’ve seen to such a degree from O'Brien until now. It’s vicious and unrelenting, and comes right after we’ve been introduced to a more empathetic side of her in s2. A backwards step for her character. It’s totally fine for characters to go forwards and backwards in their progressions as people, in fact it’s more realistic that way, but she runs away to India and is never seen again.

We know O'Brien has been at Downton a long time from the way everyone talks about her, and in explicit canon Thomas has been there for ten years at this point. So how could such a fiercely loyal person do such a complete 180 on the only friend she’s seemingly ever had, downstairs or up?

Because of this it’s only at this point that I truly cry bad writing. Everything up until then could possibly be worked out between Thomas and O'Brien - they’re both strong-willed, goal oriented people with very specific moral codes and loyalties, they know how it is; cross them and they have to get you back somehow.

It’s just a shame that Siobhan wanted to leave, really, even though I completely respect the decision.

I’m so curious as to where Thomas’ storyline would’ve gone if she’d stayed. Baxter never would’ve replaced her and he would’ve had at least one friend/ally during the conversion therapy/depression/social isolation storyline that led to *what it led to*, if they’d even decided to go down that route at all with Thomas still having someone on his side. I also wish we’d got to learn more about O'Brien as a person, seen the more human sides of her that we got glimpses of in s2. There would’ve been ways to do that without reducing or overdoing the antagonistic role of her character.

tldr; looking at their relationship in s1&2, I think the only reason it went wrong was because it had to. If it wasn’t for Siobhan Finneran leaving I think Thomas and O’Brien would’ve had some entertaining ups and downs but ultimately stayed friends or at least allies. Maybe they could’ve even helped one another achieve lives outside of service if the show wasn’t written by an upper crust Tory who punishes any of his working class characters who dare to dream above their station and repeatedly uses gay suffering as a narrative device ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#downton abbey #thomas barrow #sarah o'brien #rob james collier #siobhan finneran

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ofhoneyandrosepetals · 5 years

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Spooky Little Stories - Halloween special series (Tale II - Ubbe)

Pairing: Modern!Ubbe x OFC

Description: in this Halloween special series you’ll follow five tales, which one of them with a different Ragnarsson and a different pairing! A group of five friends travel to Kattegat in the last week of October to see if what people tell of that little town is true…

Every week a new chapter!

Warnings: swearings.

Word count: 2,214

A/N: due to Tumblr’s links problems, I’m not going to put here the link for my masterlist and my ask, but you all can keep up with the link for my masterlist in my bio!

No one seemed particularly bothered by last night’s events - except for me -, and Sam’s injury was, nonetheless, gone.

Like if it was magic.

Like if it was never there.

I cannot tell if it was a vision, if I was more drunk than I thought, and as I’m not one for Halloween, then definitely I’m not one for magical shit. But how else can I explain such a thing? Because, when I was considering that maybe I was indeed drunk and seeing things, I looked down at my thighs, where I tried to clean Sam’s blood out of my hands, and it was there, dry and dark, almost imperceptible.

When Halston woke up I tried to ask her in the most discreet way about last night, but all I received was “Sam’s a brat, nothing happened.”

Interesting fact: Sam’s blood was nowhere expect on me, which was pretty much a fucked up thing.

At 10 AM Bjorn showed up, telling us the guideline for today, but I wasn’t in the mood to stroll around with that guy in this place. I tried to make some eye contact with all of my friends, trying to see if anyone was down for an exploration by ourselves in downtown. Jule seemed to be a bit bothered by Bjorn’s lineup, so it was for her that I went.

“Down for some field research?” I asked.

“And by that you mean…?” She whispered.

“We could visit downtown by ourselves, maybe ask a couple of things…”

“What kind of things? Why?”

“I don’t know, this place is weird; don’t you think?” Jule took some time to respond, which made me think that she wouldn’t say a thing at all. She nodded.

“It’s curious, that’s how I can put it. Do you think it would be okay for us to split the group?”

“I don’t think the girls would care, sincerely, and Bjorn can’t force us to go with him more deep into the woods - by the way, what the fuck there’s there, anyway?, that he wants to show us so bad?”

“More Viking History?”

“Maybe. This place would be a goldmine for historians.”

“For people who believe in scary shit, too,” I can say that I felt something else in her tone, but I didn’t want to ask right away.

And so I announced our separation in this evening’s events and, surprise!, no one really cared. Bjorn seemed to be a little suspicious, but who am I to care about what that guy thinks?

Kattegat’s downtown was something between a little town from the 60s mixed up with a couple of modern elements, just to reassure that this was the year of 2019. It was so calm and desert that got me a little depressed, like if we were in the beach during winter.

Of course that me and Jule weren’t the only ones walking around the streets, but it was far more “empty” than I expected.

“Wanna buy something?” I pointed to some boutiques, but Jule didn’t seem interested.

“Souvenirs from this place? I don’t think so.”

“I thought you were excited to come here.”

“And I was, until last night.”

“Yeah, last night… it was something, but I guess it was a normal thing.”

“It wasn’t a normal thing,” Jule said very categorical, making me take a mental note.

“There’s not really much to see, huh?” Jule said after some time when I was already feeling tired of walking and cursing myself.

“Let’s see if we can find a good place so I don’t feel completely idiot and useless because of this idea,” I said out of my temper, trying to spot a good place.

And, as if some kind of great force had listened to me, there it was, right in front of us, a couple of blocks away - a bar. It was obviously closed, I didn’t even need to read the “closed” sign in the front door to know, but I could see through the windows and the dim light inside that there were people in there.

I grabbed Jule by her hand and went to the bar, opening the front door - that wasn’t locked, by the way.

“Get the fuck hell out of here!” Said the man behind the counter, throwing a towel to another man on the back door, but he couldn’t be seen - he was already gone.

“Excuse me…” Jule started and the man turned.

He was tall, strong, tanned, blonde with blue eyes - and pretty much like Bjorn, I’m afraid to say, even though there was still something different between them.

“Bar’s closed, ladies,” he said gently, but yet fierce.

“We know, but we’re just wondering if you don’t mind if we…”

“Asked a couple of things? Maybe?” I completed Jule’s sentence. The man raised an eyebrow, got a towel, three glasses and started cleaning them, tossing them on the counter. I grabbed mine and Jule almost lost hers.

“How can someone say no?” He said in a flirty tone, and all of a sudden I regretted my choices - but Jule didn’t seem to be bothered by the man’s attempt.

“Can we first know your name, please?” I asked.

“Oh, sorry. It’s Ubbe. And you are…?”

“Jule,” Jule said her name quickly.

“Ella,” I said mine not so enthusiastically.

“Tourists, I suppose,” Ubbe said, grabbing a bottle of whiskey.

“Just spending the Halloween’s week,” Ubbe raised an eyebrow - again -, but this time in curiosity; maybe even in judgement. Blue eyes never lie.

“Why would you come all the way here just for that?”

“And that is why we’re here for,” I said, meaning our presence at the bar at this hour of the day and our will to talk to him.

“Oh,” he said, showing way too much understanding of the situation. “You want me to start or do you want to find yourselves?” Ubbe took a sip of his whiskey. Jule didn’t touch hers - she wasn’t one for whiskey. I followed Ubbe.

“Maybe you could start at telling us what are the tales, exactly, and why do they exist. You know, every tale has a root - there’s this house in Los Angeles that was built by a doctor who was really a creepy, and lots of shit happened there, so obviously the house has the reputation of being haunted.”

“I understood, yeah. Well, I think our main shit is werewolves,” Ubbe started, supporting his elbows on the counter, looking at some point near the ceiling, behind us. “I cannot really say why it is, but it all leads to Fenrir.”

“Fenrir?” Jule asked.

“Loki’s child, you know? Norse Mythology?” Jule nodded. “My father always said that our family descended from Odin,” Ubbe said in a tone and looked at us to make sure that we knew who Odin was. “The All-Father,” he said to Jule. “But this town not only has Odin’s blood - it has Fenrir’s blood as well.”

“I don’t find a sense to this,” I said, getting a petty look from Ubbe. “No; really! I have no idea where you wanna get. Fenrir? Odin? Your ancestry? The next thing you’ll gonna tell is about the Ragnarok.”

“How do you know that?” I rolled my eyes. “The tales say that Ragnarok isn’t really what the old Norse folk thought it was. Of course it was the end of times, but the end of times mean people turning into werewolves, descended directly from Fenrir. They meant to be the most brutal, violent and bloody creatures, right before Fenrir himself. The end of times meant the rise of monsters.”

“So you’re saying…” I tried to get a conclusion.

“Ragnarok happened,” Ubbe took another sip from his glass. I laughed.

“So Ragnarok happened and Ragnarok is a bunch of werewolves?”

“Brutal creatures,” Ubbe said in a mocking tone. I was laughing with him, but it was only a momentary thing, because I looked at Jule and she was so pale that I thought she would faint. Last night’s events came to my mind.

“Can I have a glass of water? I don’t think Jule here feels so good,” I put my hand on Jule’s back, just to be careful and ready in case she falls. Ubbe brought a glass of cold water and Jule sat on the chair by the counter. She was slightly getting better. “Is there a… more realistic version of it?” I got back to the subject.

“You mean a more realistic explanation for werewolves?” I could feel the sarcasm in the air, coming so close. But Ubbe only shrugged. “Fenrir is back on his chains, Tyr still lost his hand and all the werewolves are running free. The old Norse folk were very… strong-believers in their religion. It just passed through generations. People just believed that this was truth, that it was the truth. Not many people are willing to dig it more deep.”

Ubbe touched Jule’s wrist with the tip of his fingers, asking through gestures if she was okay. She nodded and thanked for the water.

“Why’d you said that about Odin? What does he have to do with all of that?”

“Oh…” Ubbe seemed uncomfortable. “Nothing, it was just… In the old Ragnarok tale, they said that Odin was consumed by Fenrir, but we don’t know what happened to him in the werewolves’ tale. It was never said.”

“Maybe he became one,” Jule said. “Maybe he’s the leader of the pack.”

“Are you okay, Jule?” I asked.

“You’re Bjorn’s brother, aren’t you? I can tell the resemblance. And the name of the bar - same as the old village’s. Camp’s too.”

And that I wasn’t ready for - Jule turned out to be a better detective than I am.

“Yes, we… we’re brothers. Did something happened? You don’t seem… I don’t know…” It was obvious that Ubbe was feeling the same that me and Jule felt about Bjorn.

“Bjorn just scared us last night, it was nothing. Typical guy thing,” I said before Jule could say anything else, since she wasn’t looking very pleasant and I didn’t want to sound to Ubbe like those scared little tourists who thought they were seeing shit.

“I was supposed to help there this week, but I had some errands here that needed my attention. I thought it would be all okay there,” Ubbe meant the camp, but I was so sure that there was something else in all of this story.

“He got laid with our friend last night and thought it would be cool to give her a jumpscare in the middle of the forest in the middle of the night. I almost had a heart attack,” and so Jule said.

“Wait, so it was only Bjorn there?” Ubbe asked. We nodded. “Stupid piece of shit,” he slammed the glass against the counter. “Bjorn wasn’t supposed to be there all alone.”

“Why? Is that a problem? Is it so serious?” I asked, suddenly worried as hell.

“My brother - our brother - Hvitserk was supposed to back up Bjorn,” Ubbe noticed the concern in my face. “But...” He closed his eyes, trying to remain calm. “It’s nothing, it’s nothing serious. It’s just… I kinda got in charge of things when our father died, and Bjorn seems to ignore that and all of my younger brothers too. I just try to keep this place all held up. You see, we got a lot of business around, it’s a lot to take care.”

“Does any of your brothers help?” Jule asked, carefully.

“Only one, but he’s always absent. He makes things on his own way. It helps, but I would be more grateful if I knew what was happening, and how. I’m tired of taking care of brats.”

Jule touched Ubbe’s hand and, when I saw it, I couldn’t believe it, but Ubbe’s expression went immediately from extremely angry to very calm. His eyes were cloudy blue and his face was no longer red.

“This all smells weird,” Jule said the moment we got out of the bar. “His family descends from Odin, then Odin is consumed by Fenrir, that happens to turn humans to werewolves. What would you think, in the first place?” Jule was walking fast, gesturing wildly. “Bjorn’s his brother, Ella. I know you saw what I saw,” I stopped. Jule stopped ahead me, turning back.

“The blood,” I said.

“The injury.”

“You saw that too.”

“Yeah, I saw, and I’m freaking out. I have no idea how all those facts from Ragnarshit connect, but somehow they do, and it’s obvious that Bjorn isn’t normal, and probably Ubbe too.”

“But you liked him,” Jule was caught out off guard.

“I can tell that he’s different. He doesn’t like Bjorn.”

“It doesn’t mean…”

“Yeah, it doesn’t, but it does mean that he’s different.”

“So, just to be completely sure, and take note that I’m afraid of sounding stupid, but I really need to know.”

“What?”

“That you’re saying…” I gave Jule the chance to continue for me.

“I’m saying that I believe in the werewolf tale. I’m saying that I believe in all of that, even Odin’s ancestry.”

“And…?”

“And I’m concluding that Bjorn is a werewolf, and so all of his brothers.”

Taglist: @mblaqgi @akamaiden @dangerousvikings @oddsnendsfanfics @deepdarkred @irishhiggins @tinypuppysoul @kingbouji3 @i-war-s-boner @capitanostella @loothbrok @noaor @thehuntress26 @sassymcgonagal1651 @hoodirwin5 @attorneyl @collecting-stories @certainobservationwasteland @dreams-in-different-colours @3x5gurl @readsalot73 @action-adventure-and-cheesecake @titty-teetee @cutiedaij @austenkingmylady @ivarthesweetheart @golden-pickaxe @lokis-sunflower-anna @bill-istvan @cynthianokamaria @slut4hazeleyes @chinduda @hallowed-heathen @cherryblossombaby69 @paintballkid711 @bisexual-dane @fuckthatfeeling @youbloodymadgenius @huffelpuffers

#ubbe ragnarsson #ubbe's wolfpack #ubbe fic #modern ubbe #ubbe ragnarsson fic #ubbe lothbrok #ubbe lothbrok fic #vikings fanfic #vikings fic #modern vikings #elle writes

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schtroumpf-a-lunettes · 6 years

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under cut because long!!! this is roughly a discussion of like, children’s media (or something propped up as children’s media/parodying a kid’s show) being depicted with grimdark and/or mature content or w/e. I both agree that these ideas are often completely unoriginal and boring and stuff and bad. but also it can be done right and have plenty of merits. and in saying that, that’s not what my fic is trying to do as well though

I think I’m edging (relatively) closer to looking like a little bit of a hypocrite if I agree with the notion that portraying characters from children’s media in dark situations tends to be boring/unoriginal/edgy and I don’t know how to, fully express how much that I... well for one thing that’s not.. what I ever really want to go for. many of those kinds of portrayals are generally irreverent, wildly OOC, edgy for the sake of being edgy, purely for shock value. Sometimes the person doing it doesn’t rly know anything about the source material beyond the most basic surface level, and it furthermore can be boring if it doesn’t offer any meaningful commentary. ofc those things don’t usually intend to offer meaningful commentary, they just want the shock value of something like “haha the SMURFS but VIOLENCE/ADULT CONTENT, wild right???”, and they achieve that very basic goal, and it can be boring. it doesn’t tell us anything, it’s just, shock value and that’s it.

Ok I mean... it DEPENDS, sometimes (plenty of times) I actually find the Subverted Kids Show trope incredibly enjoyable, but like, hm. some ways of going about it are more tasteful than others. I guess part of that is personal preference though I do think there is a small amount of objective guidelines involved too

and you can still make insightful commentary on a text aimed at children through a Subverted Kids Show Format while having the characters be ooc! Robot Chicken smurfs (which I will discuss more in other posts) for me oscillates between making a surprisingly good commentary sometimes and mindless (but fun(ny)) scenes to, very tasteless/bad scenes that don’t do much imo. well its goal is to be funny and that’s it I guess, and it hits that goal some of the time

I guess the exact opposite of the surface-level shock value joke can also be super boring though. a text/theory that takes itself super seriously and tries to explain to you how Actually This Kid’s Show Dark! can possibly be even worse. e.g. “characters in kids show are just trapped in purgatory/it’s all a coma fantasy!!” or whatever. But I think, part of what would make a thing like that Bad is a fundamental misunderstanding of core parts of the canon and/or a... lack of regard for canon in the sense that you’re really willing to sit here and write of everything that the characters have ever been through as being Meaningless because it was all just one character’s dying memories? that completely robs the text of its power. Like saying Homer’s been in a coma since like season 5 of the simpsons. As a certain podcaster that won’t be named said because I have, a lot of bones to pick with them lol - there’s something so redundant and pointless about saying “everything that’s happening in this fictional show isn’t real”. what does it realistically.. add, kinda thing.

But I don’t think there’s cause to be automatically dismissive of anything that tries to.. approach children’s media from an angle where you can construct it as being just a little bit more sombre than it looks like on the surface or something? idk. because there can be worthwhile things to explore that make interesting commentary on the text, where you NEED to introduce less-than-happy concepts to derive them. (Sometimes the kind of commentary that deconstructions try to make is, not so good and misses the mark, although it’s not always the case.) there’s one argument against this which is like, Why can’t you just let kids have things? It’s not that deep. You’re trying to put a sinister spin on something when... it’s just not necessary. Why add to the darkness of the world. let people, especially kids, just have this bright and pure thing.

And I completely agree with that sentiment, honestly. The smurfs are good, happy, innocent, that’s the way they are and should be, don’t try to take that away from kids or people. Like 80%-90% of my enjoyment of the smurfs is all about that, I’m in full agreement, I just want happy little innocent elf society adventures and I’ll be happy. Although. It’s not like smurfs was always happy. there are plenty of tearjerker moments in the show, plenty of disasters and bad things happen to them (that they readily overcome by the end of the episode). and here I guess you also have to avoid patronising kids in thinking that only happy and nice stuff can be for them. as in, the smurfs does have really sad and upsetting moments but that Obviously doesn’t make it Not For Kids.

I think that in addition to that, slightly darker themes can be explored and exposed under certain extreme circumstances if smurf society was subject to it. And I think this in no way invalidates their tranquil, happy status quo and good nature as a society as we know it. Also it just so happens that my inspiration for fic happened to revolve around negative ideas instead of positive despite me, in fandom, just enjoying the positive/light-hearted usually (I think?). whoops. but these kinds of outside-of-canon things don’t do anything to the canon, canon stands as it is. I try my best to stick as close to canon as possible kind of, as a kind of canon purist, haha, in terms of characters and realistic reactions.

another thing is, for a positive kid show like smurfs, to have something really bad happen might seem off, but, one of the things I want(ed) to explore is “if x thing happened, how would the characters deal with it?” (I think this point will be, more pertinent to the next smurfs fic I have lined up once I finish the current one I’m working on. heh, heh, heh.)

I mean really bad stuff happened in the cartoon but it was never too extreme and it was resolved by the end of the episode normally. so for something long-term... yeah.

I also think occasionally I’ve done like. stupid smurf stuff that is kinda ooc over the years. and part of why is I think something happened where I was so anti-doing that that it kind of looped back around to the point where I Did it because, of course, I acknowledge how far-removed from canon it is that it therefore doesn’t mean anything, or something like that. and It Amused Me. and sometimes shock value smurfs at least done Somewhat tastefully is amusing to me too for that same reason because (if) it’s harmless fun or something

now this whole thing I’ve written up is mostly general thoughts and not actually much related to my fic. just, writing the fic has got me thinking about this kind of stuff so some of it is vaguely related. But fundamentally I don’t want my fic to be super dark. in fact, there are many very dark storyline paths that I could have taken which I actively chose not to, because those paths were not what I wanted this story to do. I just want it to be a fic where the smurfs experience a lot of hardship that they struggle to overcome, and I want to keep it very closely aligned to canon where I can, while other stuff changes, with.. time. Like yea there are definitely some dark elements though haha. But I’ve read some dark smurfs fic and haha.. don’t think mine really shapes up.

Like this whole post might sound like me being defensive or something, but it’s not because the premise of my fic isn’t “Edgy Grimdark Smurfs” or anything like that, and therefore that’s not a concept that I need to defend for my fic. and I don’t need to be on any kind of defense because nothing anyone else has said has prompted this post, haha. I didn’t set out to write Dark smurfs fic, I set out with an idea of some challenges the village could face and followed through with how I thought the village and its inhabitants would/could react to them, or some of the possible ways the village could react to them. And IF the results turn less-than-smurfy, I still follow up on them if I think it is realistic to the canon for it to happen and an interesting path to explore. Like I’m not really taking the world and adding/forcing dark elements in, I’m bringing out underlying currents that I already saw present when observing the society in the cartoon. Maybe I added some stuff to flesh things out, but the core ideas I bring out have basis in the cartoon imo. Anyway yeah like 70% of this post isn’t related to my fic, just kinda general thoughts type thing as I said lol.

Oh yeah also it’s like - I want my fic to still remain mostly in-tune with the show, I want to do my best with that. I don’t want darkness-induced apathy or for it to feel like it’s too far out of line from what is plausible. in-tune with the universe and the characters, but exploring stuff you wouldn’t necessarily pitch to young children at the same time type thing. And I’m not going out of my way to do that, moreso I’m not imposing that restriction on myself in terms of what I write. I’m tryin’ my best, haha. like, setting out to write grimdark fic is fine, but it possibly requires a different audience and authorial approach compared to what I feel is the approach I want to encourage for my fic. both approaches and writing styles are valid, just different type thing. I’d hate to turn people away if they’re not into grimdark stuff when it’s not what I was going for or w/e

#I don't want the fandom to judge me because like #I'm one of you!! I agree!!!! hahaha #take this I'm adding it to the queue and it's rly late lol so sorry if it's not so gr8 lol #just sum thoughts

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noussommeslessquelettes · 7 years

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Realistic ways to show a character is multilingual through dialogue (based on the things my family and I actually do):

Confusion with verb conjugation in English (almost exclusively with irregular verbs)

Purposely saying basic phrases/words in another language (hi, bye, let’s go, etc.)

Saying things in their native language with a bad English accent

Saying things in English with a bad native lx accent

Baby-speaking to animals/infants in their native lx

Mixing languages only with people who speak both languages--this could mean asking a question in one language and getting the answer in another, using one word from one language in a sentence otherwise constructed in the other, or switching languages halfway in a sentence (a notable one I used recently to my mother was “wanna дај ми?”)--done most commonly to shorten the number of syllables, and will only be used otherwise if the person doesn’t know/remember how to say it completely in one of the languages

Speaking non-English in public places with another native lx speaker as a means of privacy (also works the other way around in a native lx public place) Sidenote: this isn’t only done when discussing something private/embarrassing/etc., I do it all the time with my family simply because what I want to say is only for their ears and doesn’t matter to the other people around us

Teaching their non-native-lx-speaking friends words/phrases from their native lx (more often than not just to make fun of the pronunciation, English speakers have a surprising difficulty rolling rs lmao)

Accidentally slipping into their native lx when trying to speak another secondary language. Accidental slips into native lx from English (assuming the chara lives in an English language community) are incredibly rare, however accidentally switching between two secondary-use languages are embarrassingly common (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve slipped into Macedonian during French class, or how many times I’ve responded to my Macedonian grandmother in French)

Slips in English happen essentially in one of two scenarios. One: the speaking multilingual character is a child and “”accidentally”” slipped into another language (this happens all the time and is purposeful, but once again only younger kids do this to try and show off that they’re multilingual). And two: it’s a knee-jerk reaction, pretty much exclusively a single word/short phrase. An example that happened to me was when someone stepped into danger without realising and I accidentally yelled “watch out!” to them in the wrong language

Teaching people they’re close with sayings/turns-of-phrase in their native lx. After it’s been explained to non-speakers, they might use the phrase wherever English fails them

Trying to figure out words/phrases from a language of the same family using their language. I’m always using my French to try and decipher Spanish and Italian lol (ofc make sure the roots of the words are similar in both languages: the difference between Macedonian колена and Russian коленный is negligible, the difference between Spanish olas and French vagues is not)

Cursing, on occasion. I don’t usually curse/interject in another language unless I’m alone or I’m in my native lx mindset. So like, if I’m at home and thinking in Macedonian, I’d be most likely to interject in Macedonian, then if I’m alone (or I don’t think anyone’s listening) it’d be kind of a toss-up depending on where my head is, and if I’m around English speakers I’d likely opt for a “fuck” or “damn” rather than a “леле” or “ајајај”

Talking themselves through tasks. Ex. I always ask “кај си, кај си, кај си...” when I’m digging through my bag for my keys. Again, this is mostly just because it’s shorter to say that than “where are you, where are you, where are you...”

Tips and pointers for making the inclusion flow well with the story:

Use these indicators sparingly, especially if you’re not multilingual. People who already speak multiple languages will have a better feel for when it is/isn’t likely for language switches to happen, so my advice is that if you’re not sure, err on the side of caution, and it will be a helluva lot more realistic, as well as less of a pain for your readers to sift through.

If you need to provide translation, it’s likely that you’re overusing the non-English language. Listen, it’s great if you want to write multilingual characters speaking their native lxs, I love seeing representation of that in fiction!!! However, if I’m having to switch tabs five times a chapter to Google Translate, it’s gonna throw me out of the story. Moreover, to someone who does speak the language, it might throw them out of the story if they’re reading something that’s clearly been shoved into Google Translate and copypasted (and trust me it’s incredibly evident when something’s been Google Translated without being edited.)

Multilingual people only really speak their other languages to non-speakers they’re comfortable with. Unless I’m close to someone, I seldom ever use my other languages when speaking to them. The only times I really do is when I forget they don’t speak the language (like with my non-speaking dad bc I’m so used to talking Macedonian at home), or when I’m really struggling for a word with a close friend and only remember it in another language. I’ve seen it’s a common thing for a multilingual character to talk about non-speakers they’ve just met to their face in their language which is a thing... none of us do, honestly. There’s no point to talk to someone in our native lx if we don’t think they can speak it lmao.

Don’t be afraid to write multilingual characters who aren’t wholly/evenly fluent in their native lx. A lot of the time, people who are born and raised in English-dominant countries are a lot more fluent in English than their native lx. Really, if they character doesn’t have a non-English accent, it’s more likely than not that English is their strongest language, and given that they’d only practice their native lx at home (unless they’re taking formal classes), it’s likely they’re not as fluent as you’re imagining them. Honestly, most second-generation immigrants (or people who immigrated as infants) who speak a non-English language at home can hardly speak a phrase, and are a lot stronger at listening and understanding than speaking. In my experience, this goes especially so for non-European languages (if I were to hazard a guess this is either because of the differences between non-Euro language structure and English linguistic structure, or prejudice against languages that sound too “ethnic,” or likely a mixture of both.) However, this happens less in areas of higher concentration of a non-English (or, as is the case in Canada, non-official-language) language. For example, I live in an area with a higher Chinese population than the national average, and a lot of the second-generation children I see speak a dialect of Chinese with their parents as well as any other kids who speak it. In addition, make sure you decide how fluent the character is gonna be at the start, and make it consistent.

As with any other element of your story, if you want to do it justice you’re going to have to do a little bit of research into it. Research doesn’t have to be daunting, though: listening to songs in your target language is a great way to figure out how sentences are roughly constructed in that lx, digging up your old class notes if you have them can also do you a world of good, and there are shows like One Day at a Time (on Netflix) that provide really good insight to when and how multilingual speakers use their language. Like, I can’t force you to do extra work for your story--I mean you might not even find it worth the effort, which is fine--but if you really want it to read well then you have to research it. Hell, I wouldn’t write a story with hockey in it if I didn’t get some insight into hockey, and if I didn’t do my research then it’d be pretty clear to someone who does know hockey that I’m talking out my ass.

Aaaanyways this is mostly a personal reference but feel free to reblog/add to this if u like!

#reference #writing reference #long post #sorry this is super long lmao #also that all the examples are personal I just figured it'd be easier for me lol #this is also unedited so like it might read rly weird #squelette posts

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