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vagrantblvrd · 3 years

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anakin doesn't fall to the dark side - meet the parents dinluke?

Yesssss.

Because all the AUs where Skywalker family drama is due to Anakin causing a diplomatic incident at a Fancy Dinner when he accidentally mortally offends someone who asks his opinion about sand, and not you know, the whole Darth Vader thing.

Also, the Jedi Order looking long and hard about that stance on attachment and other things because wow, okay, wow.

(But also, I must Drama a teensy bit, because yes.)

Obi-Wan enjoying the grandparent benefit of getting the joy of having Luke and Leia? But also watching Anakin deal with these little terrors of his and feels it’s payback for what he went through with just one of Anakin.

Leia who may have followed Padme into politics but everyone knows she takes after Anakin in temperament. Luke’s the one to follow Anakin in becoming a Jedi, but he’s more like his mother in temperament.

Ahsoka adores the twins, and is in fact one of their favorite partners in crime, and Anakin is like, pls, pls, stop turning my children against me,pls.

Also? Padme is kind of the worst because she’s taught them everything she knows about political maneuvering and the whatnot.

Anakin is convinced they’ll have the entire galaxy on its knees before them one day soon.

Anyway.

Luke who goes gallivanting about for reasons and after one gallivanting about trip he comes back all :DDDDDDDDDDDDD and *___________________________* and Anakin has no idea what happened other than Luke’s X-wing being shot down and him being stranded on some backwater planet somewhere for ages before the search party found him?

But when they found him he was just. Like That, and also holding this little metal ball in his hand, rolling it back and forth like it was a calming thing, little smile on his face.

Also, he went to Coruscant to speak to Yoda and only the two of them know what was said? But Yoda’s been even more insufferable than usual, livelier? Something.

(It’s a Thing known among Jedi that Master Yoda was changed when a youngling went missing years ago, kidnapped or something. Some say Yoda feels it was his fault, that the guilt still weighs heavy on him, but it’s hearsay and rumor.)

Anyway.

A few months after Luke’s rescue from that backwater planet Luke goes and gets in trouble. (He doesn’t know if the fact Leia is with him makes the whole thing better or worse? Between the two of them there’s hardly need for a rescue at all, but also the thing where they might finally take over the galaxy if left to their own devices so.)

Rescuing his kid(s).

Again.

Obi-Wan is suitably worried, but also amused as hell and really, Obi-Wan, Anakin was never that bad. Was he? Obi-Wan? Are you choking? You don’t sound well.)

Anakin and the others headed off to rescue Luke, and it turns into them going from place to place, chasing rumors and gossip and one one of these planets they run into this Mandalorian.

Flys an old gunship that looks like it’s on its last legs and wears beskar and also -

“Oh my,” Obi-Wan says, when they see the kid riding along in a bag the Mandalorian carries.

Anakin thinks it’s just the thing where the kid is clearly one of Yoda’s species, but Obi-Wan’s reaction is a little too much for somthing so simple, obvious.

Anyway, the Mandalorian tells them he can help them find Luke and Leia, and at first Anakin isn’t that thrilled about adding him to the rescue party?

But then the kid pulls out this little...trinket, charm, something Anakin and Padme gifted Luke as a child that he carries - carried - around as a good luck token, or at least that’s what he always says. (Ducks his head, sheepish little smile and Anakin and Padme like, aw, our kid is a dork like us,)

Point is, Anakins recognizes it, and the comes in like, my dude, connect the fucking dots, you’re killing me.

Which is how Anakin meets Luke’s ~sekrit boyfriend and his kid.

(Only not so much ~sekrit as Luke had plans to introduce Din to his parents and such, but the whole surprise!Dangerous Adventure thing happened first.)

Anakin being like >:( because protective parent and all?

But as they search for clues as to Luke and Leia’s whereabouts he gets to see just how concerned for Luke Din is, and how much he loves his tiny green gremlin kid, and Din’s overall skill and competence? Also, though, also. He’s smart, not just a blunt weapon, and he’s like oh, no, because he knows his son? But it’s not a bad feeling when he thinks it, just.

A little sad, wistful, what with Luke not being a kid anymore - he’s known that for a while now, but this cements the reality and all.

It’s not the surprise he thought it was when Anakin realizes he likes Din as a person, although it’s not like he’s going to say it, you know?

(I mean, he does because he’s not a complete bastard, but that’s not the point.)

They catch a break, catch up to Luke and Leia and Anakin discovers he really, really likes the way Din just absolutely destroys any baddies stupid enough to get between him and Luke, matches Anakin’s protectiveness and he’s like -

“Hey, once this is over we’re going to talk.” Smiles with perhaps too many teeth showing at Din’s confusion. “About you and my kid.

He can’t see Din’s reaction to that, because armor? But he feels this flare of !!! through the Force before it gets shoved aside in favor or getting to Luke, panic later?

And then!

Dramatic rescues and Anakin and Din decimating the baddies by themselves - Obi-Wan’s dealing with things like anti-air batteries and shield generators. Ahsoka’s making sure no one sneaks up behind Anakin and Din, but she honestly doesn’t have much to do in that regard.

And then!

Anakin is like, aw, man, I’m right here, when there’s the moment Luke and Din are ~reunited and Din is like, gos so, so still and Luke’s the one to press his forehead against Din’s because hey, hey, hes fine, he’s right here, and also hi, i missed you with them being separated even before Luke and Leia’s latest Adventure.

Still, Anakin lets them have their moment and goes to check on Leia, who gives them a look like took your time, didn’t you? But there’s relief in her eyes and she doesn’t say anything as he wraps her in a hug, calls her the nickname he gave her when she was kid and she laughs because it’s a dumb nickname dad, but it’s kind of their joke, and anyway, she had everything in hand, didn’t she? He’s just here for the cleanup.

And then! Some more!

It turns out Luke and Leia got wrapped up in some conspiracy nonsense, Palpatine’s followers who have been hiding in the shadows all this time and opportunity for revenge against the ~great Anakin SKywaler by targeting his kids.

Only the baddies miscalculated because they went after his and Padme’s kids, and everyone knows they’re complete terrors, you know? The worst.

After everything’s dealt with and they head home, Anakin is almost as amused as Leia and Obi-Wan at the way Din is all but glued to Luke’s side, that tiny green gremlin kid of his just as bad.

Anakin’s heart grows three sizes when he watches the Very Solemn exchange of the little metal ball Luke brought back with him that one time and the trinket/chram/good luck token Grogu’s been holding on to.

Valuable treasures trusted on one another’s safekeeping until they saw one another again, and Din is like. Freaking hearteyes over the two of them, because his family, and Anakin just sighs

Obi-Wan totally not laughing at him now that Anakin has no right to play the overprotetcive, disapproving father card on Din after everything he’s seen of the man and how he feels about Luke.

“Disappointed?” Obi-Wan asks, and he’s smirking as he does.

Anakin doesn’t bother with an answer because Obi-Wan knows the answer.

Something along the lines of no, and you know better, Obi-Wan, with a oh, Padme’s going to love him,because of course she is. He makes her son very, very happy, after all.

(Best, best thing, however, is Padme meeting Din, when they arrive home. Din nervous and worried because Luke’s told him about his mother, how terrifying she can be, a force of nature, and clear he adores her.

And Padme looking between Din and his son holding Grogu with this radiant smile. So in love, and easy enough to see his love returned, and everything she could have asked for for her son.)

#star wars nonsense #dinluke #anon #not!fic prompts #prompt fills #technically not a fic #vagrant fic #long post #Anonymous

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ask-artsy-oncie · 3 years

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So I’m kinda in a meh/apathetic headspace in regards to my mental health right now. Maybe it would be best to just let some thoughts out.

Firstly, I do want to apologize for making stupid, borderline inflammatory posts and throwing them out there onto tumblr dot com, I know that’s never the best course of action. However, I really, really do not appreciate anons sending vague “are you okay”s at me. If you’re not close enough to me where you can’t PM me (relatively) face-to-face, then I really wouldn’t like random inquiries about my mental health from you. Maybe it’s just because I don’t 100% trust anons (I’ve been here for a decade, I’ve seen some shit, can you really blame me?) but I think I ought to make myself clear on that. Are we clear on that? cool.

I don’t know... I’ve felt so lost and tired recently, moreso than usual.

I’ve always had a massive complex about annoying people, being too self-indulgent, not having good ideas or opinions or what-have-you. People who have known me for a while almost definitely know that. I don’t think it all necessarily exists in a vacuum, either I have a genuinely hard time coming up with objectively good ideas. Sometimes I’m just straight-up “head empty” mode. I’m also often really opinionated and sometimes intend to die on hills that people aren’t really meant to die on (or are even necessarily worth dying on). I can get way too wrapped up on meaningless things because my brain is too hyperfocused on this one thing, or maybe something I rely too heavily on for comfort is... I don’t know how to put it.... put at risk? Challenged? I have a lot of mental issues and real life issues, though I’m not claiming to be massively oppressed or anything, but I tend to cling to comforts a little too desperately. And I’m not just talking about like. Media. Just comforts in general. Sometimes I’ll spend too much of the day laying in bed. Sometimes I cling to old relationships or old forms of relationships or I constantly worry about the day I’ll inevitably no longer have the same relationships I have now.

I’ve known I needed therapy for a while now. I’m waitlisted and everything, but I need to go about actually choosing a therapist to see and I’ve been dragging my feet on that so I guess that’s my bad. I’ll get to it. Shit’s overwhelming, yknow?

Anyways I know I have a lot of these flaws and problems and I think my horrible anxieties about being too annoying and whatnot is just a really extreme form of self-reflection. Maybe. Not entirely sure. Maybe a therapist could tell me.

I get way too passionate, way too easily, and it’s almost always followed by a super intense period of shame, like, to the point where I’m desperate to isolate myself and destroy my relationships with other people, because then at least I’m actually trying to destroy a relationship by being a bad person, rather than someone leaving me for... I don’t know, being too happy? Caring too much? Talking too much? Just. Shit I have less control over.

I’ve tried putting a cap on it, suppressing everything. Trying not to indulge too much, trying not to be so happy and talkative, straight-up deleting messages I think might be too annoying the second I send them. Trying to be inoffensive through being unnoticeable. I’m trying to do that now, honestly. It’s why I joked about deleting my blog. All it does is hurt and make me go fucking nuts because I’m bottling up a lot in doing that, I know. I’m just not fully convinced I don’t just deserve to feel that way.

There are a lot of points in my life where I’m convinced that my best course of action in succeeding or keeping people from being put-off by me is to just sit down and shut up and draw what I’m told to draw. To just completely lose my agency in drawing. It makes sense, when you feel like you don’t have any good ideas of your own, you just illustrate others’. And there are many, many points where I have done this out of a place of love. Fuck, most of what I’ve drawn for Lolly’s writing has come out of a place of genuine love, not just for her work, but for her. A lot of what I’ve drawn for Bethany (for any REAL long-time followers reading this) has been like that, too. But there are also points where it honestly just feels like my only purpose is to be a tool through which others may visualize their whims. That if I dare inject too much of myself into things, they’ll be permanently ruined. And then there’s the shame I feel in having wanted to impart a piece of myself into a work - a demerit for being too selfish or self-important to deem my whims anywhere near good or important enough to be included.

I have so many ideas. So many opinions and thoughts and feelings and genuine insight that I’ve suppressed or deleted because I either feel like that’s what’s expected of me, or I’m straight-up told that my thoughts and opinions are bad and wrong. Like. Fuck me for having opinions on animated media levels of being shut-down. And you know, I’ve noticed something in the past decade of being an insufferable opinionated prick about things like that - that it’s actually easier for me to enjoy media when I’m allowed to be negative and critical of it. When I am allowed to just share my thoughts. And I don’t mean like, without being disagreed with, I mean like, in an environment where I’m made to feel like I actually can share these thoughts. When I can pinpoint and analyze what I didn’t like or what made me upset, it can be a lot easier for me to then move on and be able to focus on aspects that I genuinely do like. Like, holy fuck, it is SO much easier for me to pick-and-choose aspects of a certain sequel film that I actually like and feel comfortable saying I like than it was for me to do with the original, because I no longer have an incredibly toxic person in my life (or at least, in my life as much).

But that doesn’t mean I haven’t had this kind of experience since then, like. There are STILL things I struggle to move past because I have been made to feel like I just can’t fucking talk about them without being insufferable (sorry if I’m overusing that word - it just feels like the best word the feeling I’m trying to describe) or just straight-up ruining something for someone I care about. Keeping shit like this in does crazy shit to me, for real, and there’s still a large part of me that tells me “Fuck you. Suck it up. None of this shit matters.” Y’know? Because in the grand scheme of things, I know it doesn’t. And then there’s the shame that comes from having cared so much in the first place. It’s a fucking cycle. There’s some shit that’s just irreparable ruined for me because of this and that SUCKS.

I don’t like losing comforts. Fuck, I hate it, really. And I’m not talking about new comforts coming along and catching my attention as an old comfort begins to wane, I’m talking like. Destroying relationships, feeling SO MUCH shame surrounding a comfort media that it’s too difficult to enjoy it no matter how hard I try, or having too hard of a time disassociating a comfort with a horrible event or person. And it’s feeling like at LEAST one of these is starting to happen to me again and Good Gods it’s just. It’s so terrifying.

But who do I tell? When my primary worry is annoying or offending or hurting people? Y’know? I can’t just vent to one single person to this all the time, that isn’t fair. But it gets to a point where my brain tells me “No, you can’t talk to ANYONE about this because that’s rude and wrong and a true friend wouldn’t do that. There’s a reason why you can make any number of concerning posts, messages, private ramblings, whatever, and the people you’re closest to won’t ask you what’s wrong.”

And, yeah, honestly, I do think it’s true that the people I consider my closest friends won’t read this. I actually don’t believe the average person will read this, or at least get this far. I genuinely do just talk too much and it’s a lot for most people to deal with. Otherwise, I talk too little, and probably enter the “you should be able to read my MIND” level of expectations, which, of course, isn’t far. I understand, I swear I do, it just takes some time to come to terms with every time I get wrapped up in my stupid mental stuff. And I also promise that I try to give these people the same kind of response I want, y’know? I try to look out for any worrying behavior and try to offer an ear and help in any way that I can. I don’t think expecting the same in return is fair, I just worry about any of them being like me, and I’m willing to play to that if it’s necessary. I’ll break quiet streaks for that shit, y’know?

Honestly, these stupid quiet streaks are probably more unbearable for me than they are even noticeable for most people. It sucks. I just wish my mind was normal so I A) wouldn’t have these insecurities to begin with, because B) I would never end up exhibiting the behavior to warrant such insecurities.

There’s so much shit I want to talk about, to analyze, or explore, that I want to share with the world, or at least with people I love, that I probably never will because my stupid brain has already decided that all this stupid shit is better kept to myself where it can rot and be forgotten eventually. Which is fine, in the grand scheme of things, I guess, because I functionally have never really been the guy who comes up with ideas (at least, good ideas) I’m just the pencil, the one who I guess makes things visual? I can’t even bring myself to say “I bring the ideas to life” because that’s pretentious and untrue. These ideas are already alive because they come from brilliant minds.

I don’t even think it’s fair for me to call myself a character designer unless the characters are my own. Otherwise, I’m just following the directions of a much more competent conceptualizer (there’s a reason my characters barely have any... well, character). That’s the reason why I removed my unearned credit as the character designer for Ty from Swindle’s description, because I really don’t deserve that kind of credit. It’s why the asks about the designing process of Ty have been left unanswered, because, fuck, what do I even say? “I just did what Lolly told me to do, just like I did with all of Swindle. Please don’t give me that kind of credit, I know I falsely ascribed it to myself earlier, and I want to rectify that”? I guess I could have, actually, now that I’m typing this. But people always get fucking upset with me when I try not to take credit, even when it’s shit that isn’t mine!! So I don’t know what to do!! I don’t know what to fucking do!!! Because I just don’t fucking want to make people upset or unhappy!!!!!!!

I’m sorry, this post is too long and I’ve worked myself up and I’m no longer apathetic. I’m gonna go cry myself to sleep so big win for my complexion, honestly.

Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. I guess getting this shit out of my system is probably best to do in a big tumblr post no one will read.

I don’t want anons about this. If I can just ask one thing. Please.

#do n/ot reb/lo/g #rant #vent #long post #probably won't delete tbh #i don't know it's the most competent i've been about weird mind shit for a while now #so maybe it would be best to just leave it

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everlarkficexchange · 4 years

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Operation: BREAD (Bring Revenge on Everdeen to Avenge Dad)

Written by: @alliswell21

Prompt 23: Rumor: MrEverdeen crossed fence dividing Town and Seam, kidnapped Mrs Everdeen making her his common law wife. Years later, Mellark sons plan to avenge their father by raiding Seam and kidnapping one of Everdeen’s daughters for one of them to take as a wife! Does Katniss “volunteer,” does she escape, how do the 3 brothers decide what to do with her since they didn’t plan it all out well? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Rated: T for now, for language.

Author’s Note: So, I resigned myself that this prompt won’t be completed by the new dateline of May 10th, because believe it not, quarantining with the husband and children at home makes for a very busy day… everyday. I haven’t been able to write anything for days at a time, and everytime I come back, I reread what I’ve written so far, and find faults that need fixing and what I hoped to be a short story is turning into a long one shot because I’m incapable of keep things simple… and now I’m ranting about everything instead of thanking everyone— from the EFE administrators, to @567inpanem for the prompt, and y’all dear readers— and wishing all moms a happy Mother’s Day, even if you celebrate it on a different date in your country… and I a belated happy birthday to Katniss Everdeen and Also a happy Mother’s Day to her, because she deserves it… anywho…

Here’s is the very first part of this story, that can’t make up its mind on what it wants to be (it’s leaning into romcom territory right now), I’ll post all my submissions soonish (hopefully finished), and I apologize for any formatting defects since I’m posting from my cell phone, otherwise I’ll forget to post it at all.

Sorry this is messy! I love y’all! Stay healthy.

————

“Quiet, you morons!” Bannock… whispers?

Is that the right descriptor for the harsh, low sounds that comes from his mouth? I’m not quite sure, but I look at him sheepishly, since I was the one to trip on air this time around and nearly knock down a clothesline, poles and all.

“S-sorry…” I stutter drunkenly.

Rye shrugs, uncaring. Asshole!

Bannock glares at us with his bloodshot, angry blue eyes before turning around and creeping forward.

It’s a chilly night out, with no stars and just a sliver of moon casting minimal light over us, ideal to maraud and raid… if we lived any place else, that is.

If we were to find ourselves face to face with the flashlight of a Peacekeeper patrolling the streets, things could go anywhere from awkward to deadly, and I really hope we don’t have to find out how it’ll truly go. We’re wasted, outside our house after curfew, and facing our mother’s wrath would probably be as terrible as any punishment the peacekeepers would inflict on us.

The later option has me swallowing thickly.

I’m no coward by any stretch of the word… but I do enjoy being alive, so… yeah.

“Don’t mess around, no more!” Bannock chides.

As soon as Bann turns around, Rye mouths his words back, mockingly, and I wonder— not for the first time— how can my brothers be so immature? Bannock just turned 25, while Rye has the mind of a 13 year old trapped in the muscular body of a 24 year old man; leaving sweet, little me, the 21 year old baby sibling, to bring the rear.

Rye burps, mostly quietly, earning another warning glare from Bann. All things considered, I’m a little impressed at how stealthily we’ve been moving so far, being as enebriated as we are and all. But who knows? Maybe we really aren’t as slick as my alcohol soaked brain thinks we are, and I’m just too skunked to know any better.

“D’you think we’ll be back before father wakes to take care of the ovens?” Rye slurs a little, squinting his eyes at a cat trotting across the alley in front of him. A second later he’s frowning down at the cat, shushing it obnoxiously, as if it’s soft paws are the ones making the stopping sounds coming from his own boots.

Bannock shrugs, “Who cares!”

I’m about to raise my hand and respond that I do, I care, but Rye starts laughing like an idiot, already distracted by something else. We turn to catch him picking up a stick and throwing it at the poor, unsuspecting cat. As soon as the stick hits it’s side, the animal loses its balance, making it fall into a trash can, with a terrified cry.

It’s awful. And loud.

“Knock it off!” Bannock growls as quietly as he can. “You’re gonna wake up the whole town, asshole!”

The cat meows indignantly, climbing out of the trash. He jumps to the other side and it’s gone in the next moment.

I sigh, rubbing one hand over my face. “Guys, I think we should go back. I don’t think Father will approve of this.”

“Shut up, Peeta!”

“Yeah! Shut it, runt!”

I grunt in aggravation under my breath. “I’m serious. We shouldn’t be out here… at all!” I insist.

“Why did you come then?” Bann hisses.

“You dragged me out with you, jackass!” I counter, pointedly. Plus, I’m the least drunk out of the three of us, and I figured I should keep an eye on them two, make sure they don’t get hurt in this idiotic quest… but I don’t say that out aloud. “I still don’t understand why, are we stumbling across town in the middle of the night, risking getting caught outside after curfew.”

“You know why, Peeta! We’ve gone over it to death,” snaps Bann, twisting his whole body to face me and almost walking into a potted plant sitting by somebody’s back door. “Father doesn’t know how to take care of himself, let alone how to defend his honor!”

“Our hands have been forced, runt. We need to pick up the slack, that’s why!”

I roll my eyes at my brothers.

It’s true though. For the last 26 years, our father has been both the butt of every joke said in the streets of district 12, and the victim of a tragic cautionary tale, people somehow feel the sadistic inclination to bring up to us, Mellark boys, as if we needed the reminder.

“Geez… save it for Everdeen, Bann. Let the runt keep his head instead of chewing it off him!”

Bannock frowns. It’s not everyday Rye comes to my defense, which means he really must be hammered.

Cool! I love brotherly affection… even if given under the influence.

“Whatever.” Bannock mutters under his breath. “We’re here anyway.” He signals to the fence dividing our district into two unequal sections: the merchant quarter, where we live, and the Seam (our destination), the largest— yet poorest— side of 12.

It’s unclear why the government erected the fence running right through the district in the first place, but the effect of having a literal barrier separating everyone in our small district, couldn’t be any clearer: we have a huge social divide amongst our people, very distinct and hard to overcome. Both sides distrusting the other, despite there never being a tangible reason why.

Personally, I think the most logical explanation for the creation of the internal fence, was just sheer desire to create hostility and antagonism between the citizens of 12… maybe it’s easier for the Capitol’s long arm to control a podunk place like here, when there’s an unbridgeable social chasm between our own denizens; how can we band together to demand better treatment and fair representation from the mighty Capitol, when we’re fighting with each other?

Of course, I keep my opinion to myself, because speaking of such things is just a sure way to find oneself in prison, facing charges of public agitation and whatnot.

Bann cuts through my musings, “Alright… let’s find a spot to cross over.” He says determined and still very intoxicated.

The worst kept secret in District 12, is how some sections of the fence are too close to the houses in the merchant side. If one really wants to cross into the other side over the fence, one only needs to look for a low wall adjacent to the top links of the fence to climb on, and after that, it’s all a matter of gravity pulling you down. Its been done before too…

Everyone speculates that’s what happened the day our father fell into disgrace: A man from the Seam found a weak spot to exploit… and the rest is history. Never mind the fact that jumping the fence is a common enough hooligan deed; how else can teenage couples reach the Slag Heap at the edge of the old coal mines to engage in their secret affairs?

It only takes us a few minutes to find a brick wall circling the backyard of a random house, just two feet shy of the fence.

We climb it with all the grace of a pig crawling up a greased pole, but after much huffing and puffing, we manage— with great effort— to drag ourselves over the barrier. We’re sweating and swearing, but who could blame us for that? We Mellark boys are just too broad and heavy with muscle, add to the mix the fact that we’ve drank our body weight in white liquor right before Bann had the brilliant idea of dragging us out here, and you have an uncoordinated— mostly clumsy— sad excuse, trio of vandals.

Rye goes first, then I go; finally, Bannock splatters down like a bullfrog, falling on his ass. He’s disgruntled and I suspect in dire need of a nap.

“Come on!” He commands, dusting his behind sloppily.

We’ve been walking aimlessly through unfamiliar dirt roads and dark unpaved alleys. The place is littered with produce crates set upside down in neat circles every other road… I vaguely wonder if that’s what passes as a socializing hot spot here in the Seam, like the square with its concrete benches is for us in town?

Sometimes I forget how things can be so shitty on this side of the District. It makes my stomach twist unpleasantly with guilt, realizing I take certain privileges for granted.

About five minutes into our stupid intrusion into Seam territory, Rye speaks up.

“Dude… do you know where they live?”

Bannock’s head snaps up, clearly annoyed. “How hard can it be to find the Seam’s apothecary?”

Very, actually.

First of all, The Seam consists of row after row of seemingly identical shacks, in varying states of shabbiness, arranged in a huge matrix of sorts. Each row is made of three to five houses with a slim road in between the next set of homes.

For what I gather in my limited liquor-addled brain, each horizontal row has a designated letter, and the vertical street goes by number. Other than that, there are no other distinguishing signs, telling us where we are or how to find the ‘Seam apothecary’ as Bann inarticulately dubbed it.

Rye groans in annoyance, seeming ready to overrule Bannock and call the whole thing off, himself; but my drunk ass is too stupid to keep my big mouth shut.

“They live close to the electric fence. Right before the meadow. They probably have a fence-in yard, too.”

I wince, regretting my words right away. I shouldn’t have said anything, but like an idiot, I couldn’t help spilling out the small bursts of information I’ve gathered over the years on the Everdeens.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but the Everdeens are a bit of an obsession to me… for all of us Mellarks, really. Given our entangled past with them, it shouldn’t be so much of a revelation, but this thing between our families has been a nuisance ever since I can remember and while my brothers and mother use it as a focal point of hatred and animosity. For me, is a curiosity driven thirst for knowledge on everything Everdeen. Anything that could shed light on our sordid past, I would gobble up, trying to answer why something that has virtually nothing to do with me and my brothers, still haunt us everywhere we go.

Rye frowns. “Fence-in yard?” He looks around the houses we are passing, realizing none of those have fences.

“Goat.” Bannock grunts, nodding thoughtfully. “Good catch, runt.”

“Huh?” Rye is scratching his head, confused.

“The blonde girl,” Bann says with mild irritation.

People from the Seam have a very specific look to them: dark— usually straight— hair, gray eyes, olive skin… ‘blonde’, blue eyed and pale, is more of a descriptor for people from the merchant class, like us… like Mrs. Everdeen.

The poor woman must stick out like a sore thumb in here; probably the same goes to her merchant-looking daughter, Primrose.

“What about the blonde?”

“She makes goat cheese.” Bann huffs as explanation, but since Rye still looks like the concept is too hard to fathom, Bannock grunts, expanding. “She trades the cheese in town. Mainly with Father. Which means, Everdeen has to keep at least one goat for the girl to have access to milk.”

“M’kay… goat, fences, meadow.” Rye lists clumsily on his fingers, following after Bann. “Got it!”

We quickened our steps in the direction of the electric fence. I’m still kicking myself for saying anything when we reach the last row of houses before the meadow.

I really hope I’m wrong about them having a goat, although I find it hard to believe Primrose steals milk from other people for her cheeses. She looks so sweet and innocent.

Alas, I’m too clever for my own good sometimes.

The very first house in the row at the edge of the meadow, has a pen connected to the house on the strip of backyard allotted to them. A tiny but sturdy shed stands against the back wall of the house, and if my eyes don’t deceive me, I can barely make out the snout of a goat, peeking out of the narrow opening of the shed.

“This is it!” Rye crows excitedly, rubbing his hands together and licking his chops like a hungry, humanoid wolf.

“Yeah. Finally!” Grunts Bann, “keep your voice down, doofus.” his reaction, both frenzied and anxious.

“Let’s do this!” Rye’s smile is deranged.

“Great!” I hiccup with fake enthusiasm. “What are we doing?” I deadpan, staring at my siblings with all the aggravation I can muster.

My brothers speak excitedly at the same time:

“Taking one of the girls back home with us!”/“Beating the shit out of Everdeen!”

My brothers look at each other, perplexed, and go, “”What?!” At the same time.

“Fuck!” I groan to the skies, noting its near dawn. “You better be joking! We came all the way out here, and you idiots didn’t plan what you were going to do once we arrived?”

“No… I mean, yes! No. it’s simple,” Slurs Rye trying to stare me in the eye and failing miserably, “We’re dragging Everdeen out here. Then, we’ll beat the snot out of the bastard, and have you doodle the whole thing out for Father… you’ll finally use that art talent of yours for something we’ll all enjoy… not just you,”

“No, no, no, no!” Snaps Bannock. “We’re taking one of Everdeen’s daughters, bring her back home with us, and avenge father.”

“What? Why?” Rye whines much too loud and even I shush him. “I thought we were just gonna jump the bastard and rearrange his face a little,” Rye sounds disappointed.

Bannock answers right away, sounding like our mother when she’s chiding us for some thing or another. “Dude… the guy stole Dad’s girl! You know what they say about repaying a slight with the same coin and all that shit. It stands to reason, the course of action here is to take one of the girls home with us, sleep with her, and get her pregnant or something, then she can’t come back to her daddy.”

I throw my hands up in the air, “That’s it! I’m out!” My brain practically short circuits with the outrageous shit my brothers are spewing out of their mouths.

Sure, beating the lights out of an unsuspecting man in front of his house in the middle of the night is already crazy, but Bann’s idea to take a girl away from her home, it’s beyond preposterous!

Instead of lashing out, I turn around and stalk away as fast as my legs can carry me. I’m still tipsy, so I stumble a little, but I’m determined to leave.

“Hey! Where are ya going?!”

I get grabbed by the bíceps and pulled back to ‘hide’ behind a scraggly bush overlooking the house we assume is Everdeen’s. My brothers push me down by the shoulders roughly, until I’m sitting on my ass.

“The hell is wrong with you two?” I snarl, trying to punch and kick either one of them.

“Shut up, runt! They’re gonna hear you!”

“Good! Then someone will call the Peacekeepers over.”

“Wha— No! Why would you want that?” Rye whines.

“I didn’t sign up for any of this crazy shit!” I spit enraged.

“Dude, you can’t bail on operation BREAD,” Rye scrunches up his face.

“Operation Bread? What in the hell, is operation Bread?” I wrench my arms free from them at last, glowering up at both.

“Bring Revenge on Everdeen to Avenge Dad!” Rye says proudly, a lopsided smile brightens his face, and all I want to do is punch his nose.

“You’re insane!” I sputter.

“No… I’m cle-ver!” Rye grins, tapping a finger to his temple.

“Come on, Peeta. You know this needs to be done!” Bann cuts in.

“No! It doesn’t!” I argue. I still feel woozy from alcohol though, so it’s costing me too much effort trying to get up. “This is just insane, Bannock! What you’re proposing is just… heinous!” I hiss.

Bannock’s face hardens, “Nobody will see it like that.” He assures, “An eye for an eye, baby brother.”

“So what? We’re gonna kidnap and rape an innocent girl in revenge, and you think that’ll fix anything? Will it bring peace? It’ll help you get Madelynn’s parents to back off and let her marry you?” I’m so pissed off, I’m pretty sure spittle is flying out of my mouth. “It won’t do anyone any good! Not us, nor father, and especially not Katniss or Primrose!”

“Shut the fuck up!” Bannock flies at me, and all I have to do is lift my arms to shield my head.

Rye is an equal opportunity asshole most of the time, but in this moment, he’s the one stopping Bannock from breaking my face in two, and I’m very grateful for my middle brother manhandling our eldest for me.

“Rape is a strong word, runt.” Rye gasps with the effort of keeping Bannock from kicking my ass. But if the wrinkling of his nose is any indication, I think maybe my words are chipping away some of his complicitness in this mess. “Maybe, what Bann meant, was, one of us will… you know… spend time with the girl, and then… make her his common law wife or something?” Rye looks at Bann expectantly.

Bannock nods. Rye lets go of him.

We all stay silent, breathing heavily for a moment.

“Same coin. Simple as that.”

If the stories are to be believed, Sorrel Everdeen crossed the fence dividing the merchant quarter and the seam, kidnapped my father’s betrothed— Lily— and made her his common law wife, despite being common knowledge, that the woman in question was engaged to our father since they were very young.

It’s an old rumor, really, with no real way to fact-check the events that led to this moment in time, but there’s always been some nasty whispering churning around town; tales varying in height and perjury, sometimes scandalous, others depraved, always with add-ons and full of conjectures flavored by the speaker in turn, but never the whole truth.

The worst thing is that the stories die down for a while when something juicer comes up, but then resurface, like a persistent oily stain on cement… It’s been 26 years since the real events leading to the Everdeens controversial marriage took place, yet the old gossip mill in District 12 has waxed over and rewritten the sordid story through the lense of judgemental people over and over again, until even our mother has started to repeat the outlandish tales, as if she wasn’t an active participant of the story herself.

Still… “I just can’t!” I say both exasperated and grossed out. “We should just go home—“

I get cut off when the door of the Everdeen house opens spilling faint candlelight into the almost blackened-out street.

My brothers rush to huddle around me, crowding on top of me like a pair of boulders… or worse: a pair of sweaty, heavy, alcohol doused men. Disgusting!

The door of the shack closes softly and to our shock, a very angry looking Katniss Everdeen stomps in the direction of the sad excuse for a bush we’re hiding in.

“Hmm… guys… I think she sees us.” I mumble calmly, yet terrified. Katniss Everdeen, eldest daughter of Sorrel and Lily, is coming our way with fire in her eyes.

TBC on AO3…

#Springtime Edition 2020 #alliswell21 #567inpanem #prompt 23 #submission

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jimines · 3 years

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(cont.) Shouldn’t you be thankful that people are rb’ing and liking your creations despite the fact that tumblr is a lot less active nowadays? Man, even if it’s like 500 notes, that is a lot. Second of all, you’re a cc and I’m sure you have a considerable number of followers. Do you think it’s okay to act like this, where you’re talking really rudely in the tags? If someone has a large following, then they should use that platform to spread kindness and positivity.

ASDFGHJKL bro to me even like 100 notes is wild like... 0.0 the way I see it is like imagine 100 people looking at your work. AH. The ANXIETY LOL, but also really puts things into perspective for me. She really should have gone about everything differently or if she was going to be hurtful and rude she should've just stayed away from this site entirely T_T

↓ cont'd below the cut ↓

OOF, I hope no baby armies were so unfortunate LMAO. She had so many people TERRIFIED to speak up to her, she was the definition of a mean girl T_T I will never be able to wrap my head around why she thought bitching in tags, IN PUBLIC, was a good idea kgjhfdlkgh

Twitter is so much worse than Tumblr though, imagine that asdfghjkl Nic should just hangout there instead LOL as for annie, that's not my story to really confirm or tell haha

It is pretty insane to go around thinking no one is allowed to have any opinions that aren't your own LOL. So long as you aren't being hateful, I see no issues with someone not liking a song or a performance or whatever it may be.

She did definitely dumb herself down, and she did a lot of that to gain more followers. I love that the reason things are "dumbed down" according to google, like television for example, is to gain popularity. A LOT of what she did and said was about popularity. I didn't know or notice anything about her tags or anything before the big falling out, I never really had any opinions of Nic before then, but if I had I probably would've done the same and given her the benefit of the doubt. I've seen a lot of people blaming themselves for that but no one knew who she really was so it's no one's fault really.

LOL yeah no, just the fact that she came after me for posting icons yet people like jung-koook and jiminslight and whatnot (AKA blogs with bigger followings) did it too and Nic said fuck all to them? Really shows she was just annihilating "smaller competition" and trying to get in good with big blogs BAH.

OOF. That's all I can say to that, she really had the "I'm too good for you" vibe going on all the time LOL.

I never really thought about fanfics tbh, I don't typically share or rb them because I never read fics really nor do I often see them on my dash but I might now include fics in my tracked tag T_T everyone should be supported for whatever content they make. And you would think a fic rec list would be the perfect place to include more than just those that are well known, geez. If I made say, for example, a gif creators rec list or something, I wouldn't ONLY put "big blogs" and people that are already "well known" like? And I know she sees a lot of shit, she was online almost constantly too so she was no doubt ignoring those other fics and trying to seem "in" with the bigger blogs and shit. Ridiculous.

BRO when i found out she was a gemini i fucking died, I don't fuck with geminis dfjhkgldfhg I'm sure there are some good ones out there but I've come across several that have fucked me over so I do not trust LOL. And I heard about her "riots" actually, she also would post vague bitch-fests in her tags all the time when people wouldn't follow her back, complaining about her blog "being too trash" and how it makes her feel like she's "not good enough". There was one particular time she spoke to someone who didn't follow her back and their reason was because Nic just didn't post content this person wanted to see and Nic went into the tags of a rant post and made it seem like this person refused to follow her because her "blog wasn't good" or whatever. Completely twisted the story. Was quite amusing to read tbh LOL.

PFFF. That's so strange? What even. I always feel like, especially in Nic's case, the mutual thing is taken kinda too seriously lol. Idk I find it funny that she would bitch about people not following her back and then she outright put it on her about page that she wouldn't follow back UNLESS they messaged her. I-

I'm learning quite a lot from these asks LOL

#anon #replied💌#thanks for sharing anon #tw:negativity #drama #there are multiple parts to this as well so its below the cut #long post

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aaetherius · 3 years

Text

I wrote this all in the tags and then I realized how long it was and that tungle would probably cut me off so have an unintentional headcanon/ramble thing that was just supposed to be the little update in the tags on this post before I got carried away and I just do not know how to shut up, but, in my defense your honor I love him:

But it sometimes comes up because for some reason Lucifer gets manhandled quite a bit in threads (which is totally fine - for the most part you’re free to touch him/pester him/toss him over your shoulder if you’re capable of doing so and he generally won’t do anything about it, so long as this is one of his default/post wmtsb verses). But post wmtsb/his revival verses, Lucifer can be very openly affectionate towards the crew.

He’s a naturally very caring and warm person, but he never allowed himself to be physically or outwardly affectionate towards people when he was the Supreme Primarch (because people put him on a pedestal and thus shied away when he tried to reach out to them and by the time he created Sandalphon there was already this disconnect between himself and others so he was actually afraid to touch him. I imagine he did here and there when it was needed - he likely took care of Sandalphon’s wings/whatnot for a while, but even when doing so I also imagine he was very hesitant and his touch was very brief/hesitant/fleeting so despite the fact that he very much wanted to reach out to Sandalphon he felt as if he wasn’t allowed to, and thus kept his distance. Again, he was truly afraid to touch Sandalphon and uncertain of how he should interact with him, which likely made him come off as very distant despite not wishing to, but he also very much had this feeling of overwhelming loneliness about him. I can imagine there were countless times when he saw Sandalphon with his hair messy or maybe leaves tangled in it or his wings, and he would go to reach out to fix it and then stop himself because he felt like couldn’t/wasn’t allowed to touch him or that, if he did, Sandalphon would shy away from him as the others had, he was utterly terrified of losing him, which, obviously and ironically, resulted in his worst fear aka losing him to the rebellion where Sandalphon wasn’t aware of the terribly deep extent to which Lucifer loved/loves him because Lucifer himself wasn’t entirely aware of it either).

I’ve mentioned this before, but he’s extremely touch-starved. So, he wanted to care for people. He wanted to express his feelings towards them openly, but couldn’t (or felt that he couldn’t. The exception likely being Lucilius, of whom I imagine he was a bit more openly affectionate towards because, though Lucilius very much put him on a pedestal, his relationship with him was still different from the Primarchs who more so viewed him as this perfect, very out of reach being that they had to respect and could not be close to because he was their leader so they always tip-toed around him or were so quick to bow their heads when he came near or they would excuse themselves out of fear/respect for him when he tried to have a conversation with them. But even with Lucilius he was still hesitant because Lucilius, obviously, isn’t a very touch-feely person, but he likely tolerated it when it came from Lucifer because it’s Lucifer. So, he would show physical affection towards Lucilius, but it would still be a bit muted/not as much as he wanted to show him because he’s well aware that while Lucilius allowed him into his personal space, he wasn’t likely to return the gesture to him, and might not have been too fond of Lucifer’s doting - if he was, Lucifer is awful at reading people and wasn’t aware he enjoyed it/was comfortable with it so he slowly become more hesitant with showing affection towards Lucilius over time and, eventually, he stopped doing so because he didn’t want to upset him. By the time the rebellion had started he had really withdrawn into himself and had become very hushed/seemingly far away from everything and everyone).

So, upon being revived, and being a part of the crew, he’s still distant/hesitant for a bit, but as he begins to see more and more of the crew and how they interact with one another and how openly affectionate they allow themselves to be towards one another, he slowly begins to come out of his shell and allows himself to be affectionate towards others. This very much includes and is largely about purely platonic relationships (because let friends hug and kiss - though obviously this applies to romantic relationships as well where he is insufferably affectionate and terribly attached). So, he does tend to dote on others, especially once he’s comfortable around someone. And there are certain crew members he favors by default/is more comfortable around. For example, he utterly adores Lyria and will very much spoil her if allowed to do so (he’ll make her coffee-free lattes even though he knows Sandalphon would be appalled by the idea or brush/braid her hair, or help her with anything she asks for). He is incredibly grateful towards her for reaching out to, forgiving, and accepting Sandalphon, and for understanding him. So, he wants to repay her for all she’s done for Sandalphon in whatever way he can, so he’s naturally very friendly towards her (and he’s mildly protective of her, if someone upsets her in his presence or snaps at her/is cruel towards her, he will willingly defend and comfort her. He’s actually very paternal towards Lyria). This was mentioned in an old headcanon post, but Lucifer is very biased towards the people Sandalphon favors. Post wmtsb, he’s much more aware of Sandalphon’s feelings/emotions and is much better at picking up on them. He’s very in-tune to Sandalphon, and is very trusting of his judgement/him in general, therefore he tends to favor the same people Sandalphon does. This is all very unintentional on his part, he’s not actually aware of how heavily he allows himself to be influenced by Sandalphon, but because he has so little experience being around others, especially mortals, and actually being able to live his life independently (and thus doesn’t know how to), he’s fairly reliant on how Sandalphon reacts to people/things in order to form his own thoughts/opinions about them (again, in part because of just how deeply he values and trusts Sandalphon).

But, anyway, even in purely platonic relationships (which this post is very much almost entirely about), once he’s comfortable around someone he will be openly affectionate towards them. He’s very okay/comfortable with giving someone a hug, or a kiss on the cheek, or just holding someone when they’re upset/want to be comforted. He’s very willing to brush his fingers through someone’s hair, wash or brush their hair, or care for someone in general regardless of what care they need, he typically won’t shy away from it (even if there’s no real reason or need for it - and he’s more than willing to do so when someone is sick or injured). He’s very willing to let people lay their head in his lap as he sings to them, or lean their head on his shoulder, or just cuddle with him/share a blanket with him or whatnot (in other words, you are very welcome to let your muse manhandle him a bit/reach out and touch him - platonically (otherwise, obviously, your muse is open to do so romantically if we’re actively shipping) - without permission or anything because odds are, so long as this is post wmtsb, he’ll likely be okay and open to it. Let friends be openly affectionate and caring and loving towards one another my goodness it’s such good content). That being said, when someone else initiates affection towards him (kisses/hugs him, pulls him against their chest, runs their fingers through his hair - whatnot), he does become a bit hesitant, and is very clearly surprised most of the time. He’s incredibly used to being in the caregiver role (or being the one to initiate affection), so when someone else flips that around on him he’s often uncertain of what to do or how to react. He might even tense up because he’s so unused to it, but he will relax if he trusts the person after a bit, and then will very much melt into their touch. He does enjoy having affection returned or shown to him, but because he’s so unused to it he tends to be a bit shy/more withdrawn about it (but, as mentioned, if he’s comfortable with the person who does so, he will relax into their hold/touch and turn to putty in their hands because he is so so very touch-starved and having someone dote on him is really enough to make him visibly deflate and relax). In other words let people dote on Lucifer, he deserves to be loved and deserves to have friends who are openly willing to give him physical affection.

The only thing he dislikes or is very selective about (and this was also mentioned in another headcanon post, and very much post wmtsb related), is people touching his neck or wings or his side where the blade went through his core because it’s uncomfortable to him. He may not have scars there because he’s in a new body, but he still gets phantom pains from having his head and wings cut off and his core stabbed. He can very much still feel those sensations, and they tend to flare up when those areas are touched (he’ll visibly shudder/shiver if they are and will likely pull away, or he’ll stop someone outright before they can touch those areas). There are exceptions to this/people who are allowed to openly touch those areas and he’s largely comfortable with it (obviously Sandalphon is one of them, but Lyria is as well, mainly his wings in her case, as is Cagliostro given that she made his body so he honestly just tolerates anything she feels like she needs to do in order to keep him up and running - he might still shiver even in their cases, when the area on his side or neck is touched, simply because he’s so guarded about those areas that he’s even less used to them being touched so the feeling of warmth against them is very foreign to him, even more so than the rest of his body). However, another exception is all of the children in the crew (again, relating to his wings)! He actually has a soft spot for children, and adores them so he tends to spoil the ones that live on the ship when he gets the chance. He’ll very much watch over them/play with them. He makes for both a terrible and wonderful babysitter because he’ll let them get away with anything and everything, but he’ll also make sure they’re taken care of/safe/enjoying themselves. If left with them, he’s more than willing to take them on little flights around the ship, but he’ll often be found just with kids crawling all over him, poking or pestering him. He’s more than willing to let them put him in silly outfits or hang things from his wings (and more than willing to also let them sleep on/in his wings as well - they’re warm and soft so it’s a win-win), or play nonsensical games with them that he doesn’t know the rules for/anything about. And he’ll always have the brightest, but softest of smiles on his face when he’s interacting with them because goodness does he adore children (he also adores animals, as well - he can very much be found pestering Dante’s cats and will just let them use him as a scratching post without any complaints). Children (and animals) can more or less get away with anything when it comes to him.

Basically, what I’m saying is, let friends (or partners) love each other shamelessly and without hesitation. Let Lucifer openly dote on/show physical affection towards people, and let them do the same for him in return. Let him comfort and hold and touch others platonically/affectionately, and let others do so in return for him. Aka, feel free/don’t hesitate to let your muse be affectionate towards him and let them seek affection from him because he will happily give it in most cases. Also, let him babysit children and animals! Lucifer is kind and soft (so very soft) and very loving when he’s allowed to be, and he very much wants to be, but he sometimes just needs a little push/needs to know he’s allowed to be physically affectionate towards someone!

Can you believe I wrote all of this in the tags before rewriting all of it in the post itself.

#| ☩ Out of Time (OOC) ☩ |#{ I need to update Luci's verses a bit mostly his two revival verses I realize }#{ Since I have like no info on them and I realize it's confusing ghrufhkd }#{ so I will most likely do that today }#{ You're not getting much for his modern verse though I have plans :p }#{ rubs my hands together I have his modern verse backstory/whatnot worked out but no one knows what it is }#{ so I sit here and wait for the angst to creep in/when I have an excuse to reveal things cackles }#{ I got Luci's drafts down to a reasonable number so maybe...I will allow myself to meme hmmmmm }#{ I have so much Luci muse I always have Luci muse but hugdfhguk }#{ but I will maybe do some multi stuff before I reblog a meme }#| ☩ A thousand thoughts yet not a word to express them all ☩ (headcanon) |#{ a lot of this is about platonic relationships (obviously where Sandy is mentioned it's romantic) but other than the times I mention #Sandy in this post it's almost entirely meant to be about platonic relationships even though it can apply to romantic ones }#{ please please let friends love each other }#{ not all relationships have to be romantic to involve hugs and kisses and cuddles and physically caring for one another #I love writing deep platonic friendships where they can just hold each other when they're side or greet one another with a kiss on the cheek #because they're so important I adore them }#{ I'm so so selective with romantic shipping with Luci however I am also open to platonic things }#{ so keep in mind that Luci being openly affectionate towards someone is often not him being romantically interested in someone #{ in fact it very often isn't it's just him being a naturally caring and affectionate person who wants to care for and love others deeply }#{ and in that context when I use the word love in that sentence I obviously mean platonic and even paternal forms of love }#{ he cares about people so much and he just never really had the chance to be so open about his love before #so he wants to be now that he can even though he's a little hesitant about it from time to time because he was so withdrawn before #and he sometimes feels like he's not allowed to be close to others/like he's not really permitted to be a true member of the crew #because he's only there because Sandalphon wanted to save him }#{ but obviously Sandy isn't the only one who wanted him around/wants him to be there with them! }#{ He just thinks he is but the more time he spends the crew the more he comes out of his shell and really allows himself to just be }#{ And it's very sweet and it makes me soft okay }#{ Where I wrote side in the tags it was meant to be when they're sad oops }#{ Also when I say when I mention Sandy in this and that that part is romantic I am specifically referring to Noir's Sandy! }

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peachdoxie · 4 years

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It’s always an experience to look back at myself as an adolescent and realize how much of my behavior was influenced by the fact that I am asexual and aromantic but didn’t yet know that.

In elementary school, I mostly wore t-shirts and pants of some sort. They were vaguely feminine, but not very much. To be honest, I don’t think I paid that much attention to what I wore in elementary school, though I was obviously influenced by external factors. But in the fifth grade (age 10-11) is I think when I started to actively reject femininity. It definitely happened once I started middle school (11-14). I opted more for a gender neutral look rather than a masculine look, though I didn’t think of it that way - just “not girly”. This trend followed me into high school (14-18), though around age 15 or so I got over my “not like other girls” mentality, which was never super strong but definitely present.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to dress more femininely. There were times when I wished I could wear a blouse instead of a t-shirt and get a hair cut or something. I didn’t want to be super feminine and wear makeup or jewelry or whatnot, but the t-shirt look is hard to pull off and still be seen as mature and have people take me seriously as I grew older. I actually enjoyed the chances to look rather feminine when the circumstances allowed it – namely, dances at high school (until I stopped going to them entirely) and prom.

The problem was that I didn’t like the attention I got whenever I made a change. If I wore a nicer shirt one day, people would comment on it. If I got a hair cut, people would comment on it. If I did anything out of the ordinary, people would comment on it. And save for social situations that were intended for fancier clothing, such as school dances, I did not like the attention. At all. It was mostly from teachers and other female friends who were genuinely nice about it, not even unwanted attention from boys or men. It didn’t help that I went to a small K-12 school, meaning I was with the same 100-odd classmates every year and regularly encountered my old teachers. There were no good transition moments to make any changes besides summer, and even then I didn’t.

I used to wear my hair in a ponytail all the time – initially just to keep it out of my face, but then because I did that constantly, any time I would wear it down on a normal day, someone would comment on it. It got to the point where I would keep it in the ponytail all the time. It was somewhere past my shoulder most of the time. One day when I was 15, during my regularly scheduled hair cut, I decided to cut off enough inches to donate the hair and my stylist straightened my hair for it. It was cut to a bit above my shoulders. I wore it down the next day at school and got a lot of compliments about it. It made me so uncomfortable that I put it back in a ponytail the next day.

(I eventually got so sick of the ponytail and the way it made me look too gender neutral that I forced myself to get it cut short enough that I couldn’t put it in a ponytail and I just dealt with the discomfort until my shorter hair was normalized.)

It did vex me, back then, why I didn’t like any attention that focused on how pretty I looked whenever I made some change to my physical appearance. I didn’t think that it was because I didn’t think I wasn’t pretty and that’s why I didn’t like the attention – I was fairly aware of how body image problems in teenagers worked, and to my recollection, that never played a big role in my dislike of attention. I knew I had good skin and pretty eyes and did think my face was pleasing when I looked in the mirror. And rejecting femininity a bit helped me find solace in not conforming to beauty standards. I also must give credit to my mother, who was nothing but supportive and never pressured me to perform femininity, and neither really did any of the other adult figures that had a significant influence on me, which certainly helped.

As an adult who has studied queer theory and feminist theory, and who has reflected on my experience as a young acearo woman, I’ve come to realize how much my sexual and romantic orientations impacted me in this regard. It resolves the paradox of wanting to be more feminine-presenting to look more mature while simultaneously dreading any attention I’d get for making a change towards femininity.

To a younger me, any attention to my appearance when I presented even a tiny bit femininely meant that it increased the chances that a boy might ask me out. Not hit on me, but ask me out. It was one of the interpersonal things I dreaded the most during high school. I did not want a boy to ask me out because I knew I would say no because I wasn’t interested in dating. I was desperately afraid of making things awkward between me and whoever it was, because the boys that were most likely to ask me out (in my mind) were the boys I was close friends with. In my mind, knowing that a friend of mine in high school had a crush on me was a terrifying prospect – knowing that I had rejected them while they were still “in love” with me. The influence of media was definitely there, as I’d seen way too many Disney Channel TV shows and movies where the guy was rejected by the girl and it made things awkward. I didn’t want to lose any of my friends that way. (I won’t go into details, but my reluctance to date anyone did end up backfiring on me and I did lose a friend, though that was largely due to my own awkwardness on not understanding why I was so reluctant to date anyone.)

The romance part would have been okay-ish, but at that point I didn’t yet have a split-attraction model to go on and so, to me, any act of dating would necessarily involve holding hands, cuddling, and kissing, and possibly sexual activity, all of which I knew as early as age 11 that I did not want. And because I was repulsed by the idea of physical and sexual intimacy, dating was out of the question. I knew it was okay to not want to date anyone and to not want to have sex with anyone, during high school or ever, because my mother had raised me to think those are valid options (thanks Mom), but at the time, I didn’t have a concept of what being sex-repulsed was.

I think that made it difficult and uncomfortable for me to process the idea that someone could be sexually attracted to me. I wasn’t so ignorant to believe that other people were also repulsed by sex and I knew other people enjoyed sex, especially teenagers. But the mere idea that someone could view me in a way related to sex – even if they didn’t want to act on it – was so unsettling to me that I couldn’t stand it. I don’t think it was about being seen as a sexual object by boys, since those were easy to turn down (and I did have a few male classmates ask me out), but rather seen as being sexually attractive to boys I already had a good friendship with.

Also, while I was aware of homosexuality from a young age and had no problems with it, there were no girls out as wlw while all of this was going on, so it didn’t occur to me to be wary of their attraction. I knew as well that I wasn’t interested in girls, so – because my framework was “straight or gay” without a concept of asexuality – by default I must be interested in boys, and them with me. There’s also the gendered stereotypes of girls sharing everything with their girl friends, but not sharing emotional intimacy with boys. But most of my good friends were boys, and so if I were to be emotionally intimate with any of them, I’d have to date them.

Of course, I lacked the knowledge and self-awareness to figure all of this out until much later, and it took longer to come to terms with the relationship I had between femininity, others’ sexual attraction, and my own self-image (though none of that is static, nor should it be). I also lacked the awareness that the boys I was friends with who might be interested in asking me out might also not be interested in a physical and sexual relationship. I didn’t have the concept that an emotionally intimate relationship in high school could be anything but physical or sexual. I think a lot of it came down to the fact that I didn’t know how to process any potential awkwardness, but I wasn’t fully aware of my inability to process it, so I just avoided it as much as I possibly could. Looking back, there were definitely some contradictions in how I thought and behaved, but hey, I was a young and socially awkward teenager navigating an uncharted territory that I didn’t know was uncharted.

Besides being fairly vocal to my friends about the fact I wasn’t interested in dating (which I explained away by saying “I don’t want to be distracted by dating during high school”, such a typical excuse of non-straight folk) the best weapon I had against people finding me attractive was to downplay my appearance. And so I desexualized my appearance – or, rather, maintained the neutral appearance I’d had from elementary school and made it even less attractive to boys (at least, in the opinion of my adolescent self.) Any act of femininity that was noticed by a teacher or female classmate was something that could be noticed by a boy in my high school, which meant that they may be inspired to ask me out, which meant sexual attraction, which was repulsive and uncomfortable to me.

I hold no ill will towards myself for not understanding this when I was a teenager, and I don’t blame any of the authority figures or educators in my life for not helping me understand this. It’s likely they didn’t understand any of this themselves, and it’s not like I was fully aware of why I felt certain ways and did certain things either, nor was I very open about all of this either because I can be a rather private person at times. It’s also not like asexuality, aromanticism, and sex-repulsion are well-known things, let alone discussed frequently in books about childrearing and queer adolescents. It’s just another sign of how the hyper focus on heterosexual monogamy (also known as amatonormativity) in Western culture and society actively hurts queer people, especially when they’re young and aren’t aware that they’re not straight, or are but are struggling to come to terms with that (it also applies to non-cis folk, but that’s not relevant to my experience.)

Ultimately, I see my struggles with gender presentation and interpersonal relationships, and the stress they caused me, during middle and high school as a symptom of our culture and society’s failure in general to represent a wide variety of queer experiences – particularly outside of lesbian, gay, and trans identities – to young people so that people like me can better understand themselves. I can’t deny the fact that the social norms about dating and relationships in high school that I found in the media I consumed had a major impact on me, to the point where they sometimes contradicted how my mother tried to raise me. This post is in part a reflection on myself that struck me recently, but also yet another piece of evidence about how the lack of representation for ace and aro people actively damages our lives.

#wow this ended up getting long #anecdotes by peachdoxie #asexuality #aromanticism

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0poole · 3 years

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Humor in Writing

Most of the time I feel like dismissing what might seem like “faults” in writing because I haven’t actually made anything myself, and especially haven’t gotten any attention to what I make, but every once in a while something really ticks me off. Of course, I still try to take it with a grain of salt because of my lack of true experience in writing, but considering I’m hoping to actually become some degree of a writer I feel like it’s worth actually trying to explain what I think is a fault with things and why.

There always seems to be one specific thing that bothers me a lot when reading/watching stuff, and it’s the hard switching of tone from comedy to sincerity, or something similar to that, or vice versa.

Honestly, even though it sounds like the motive of a cartoon villain, I kinda think there’s too much humor in the world. It’s probably just entirely driven by opinion and preferences, but I feel like so many people are striving and looking for comedy that it hinders so many other things. I feel like, both in real life and in writing, having so much humor everywhere creates a pretty big gap between that tone and sincerity, which is pretty much always needed at some point. The big line between comedy and sincerity makes it so much harder, emotionally speaking, to feel good about the switch. I’ll try to explain…

First of all, this whole line of thought, even though I’ve been thinking it forever, was spawned by me watching Epithet Erased. Took me long enough, because I’ve seen some of the characters around and really loved their designs, but I finally watched it all, and I gotta say… It was interesting. Also, this is probably just going to be very ranty and opinionated but I will (hopefully) have something more valuable to say after. But, anyways, for one, it felt just barely too close to some of the premises for the stories I’ve thought of in various ways, but I guess that’s just bad luck on my part. Second, I feel like its humor really brought it down for me. Some episodes felt so long winded (although not necessarily “boring” I guess) because I felt like I got the joke they were trying to tell relatively quickly after they started it, but carried it so far. It didn’t help that, at least for a few of them, some of the characters felt like archetypes that I’ve seen a lot around the internet, or at least were simple enough that I understood what they were instantly, and when they are carried out through long character-focused moments it felt like nothing was happening. I feel like some of the characters are fine enough, even if I may not like them, but Giovanni and Indus were the two big ones that I thought had a little too much time given to them…

But more relevant to what I’m trying to say, sometimes the writing jumps way too far from the very comedic tone it’s trying to put out and into it trying to be sincere. The worst case of this was when Sylvie met Mera in the museum storage, and Sylvester tried to out Mera’s nightmares, only to see that her nightmare was the reality she was already in. With the scene change, and Indus becoming more serious with Molly, it felt like a good enough departure from the usual comedic tone to warrant the deeper motive of the character. But, then, of course, they had to trash the whole tone by adding the line about her also being afraid of ducks. There was absolutely no good reason to warrant that line and I will die on that hill. Not only was it just humor, but it was spontaneous “random” humor, and so on… I honestly hope people could just understand where I’m coming from there by how out of place it seems. I feel like the only defense they could use, apart from “just liking it,” would be that it’s comedic relief, but I genuinely feel like since practically the whole thing up until this point was comedy there was absolutely no need for comedic relief. The scene itself is like the opposite of comedic relief, like “Sit down and pay attention” or “Turn your brain back on” or whatever. The climactic point of the scenes before it were reached, meaning the sincere conflict there should be focused on, and apart from that one tiny little line it worked well enough. The fact that it was so tiny and insignificant is basically why I hated it so much. They literally could’ve just scratched it off of the script and only good things would have happened.

Something a bit similar happened before when Molly revealed her backstory to Giovanni. It wasn’t quite as bad, but when a scene goes from comedy to “my mom’s dead and my life sucks” you do feel the shift a little too quickly. I feel like it’s not as bad because it could just be Molly’s character, seeing the tragedy of her life as just sort of normal and not really that remarkable, meaning she’s more likely to just randomly bring it up.

But I definitely wouldn’t be going off this much about it if there wasn’t at least a little bit more. Zora was literally the reason I wanted to watch the show, because I saw a drawing of her a while back and thought she was just some random OC, but when I heard she was from this show I instantly wanted to watch it a lot more. I think the same thing happened with Molly, but I think I knew she was from the show to begin with. Anyway, Zora was the main character who I loved from the get-go and loved even more the more I learned about her. She’s such a perfect amount of diversion from being a generic cowboy in the little design details, while still being 100% cowboy material. Then, when I saw that her power was “Sundial,” or more generally just time powers, I loved it. The big thing that seems little conceptually is making her key term “sundial” instead of just “time” or whatever, because of how much it relates to her cowboy-ness, with it being associated with the “sun” people often associate with Death Valley and the Wild West and whatnot. Not to mention, it’s just a cool power.

But that’s kinda the thing, though. She’s so insanely strong. She could literally kill anyone on a whim. I don’t see how anyone could be cracking jokes in her presence. It’s kinda more general of a gripe, but when she aged up Howie it was borderline terrifying, and yet… right after, they’re cracking jokes again. It’s just so jarring. She could have literally reduced him to dust, and they’re so casual about it. I know Percy is supposed to be kinda blind to some obvious things, but I feel like even she could see the horror. That said, though, Percy is also one of my favorites. Her powers feel so natural yet interesting for what she is for some reason.

Frankly, the visual character designs alone for this show are all really good. Whether or not I’m into the writing, I can’t deny that the show kept me coming back just because it feels so good to just look at it, you know? The minimal animation, vocalized stage directions, and top-down scene view was really interesting to watch, since I’ve never seen it before, and seems like a perfect way to produce more content with less budget. It made everything feel super crisp and tidy, despite being animated so simply. Not to mention that the general lack of animation meant the few scenes where there was traditional-level animation felt really good. The voice acting was also amazing, (again not directly tied to the writing) especially when the voice actors carried their character and emotion from the scene into the stage directions, instead of just reading them out plainly. And, at the very least, the premise of the show is also really interesting (at least to me, mainly because I created 2 stories with a similar idea without even knowing anything about it. Simplified, specific superpowers are just perfect for character designing, you know?)

But I am kinda acting like the writing was bad, but it really wasn’t all things considered… I’m just not really into comedy, and when the comedy I don’t like is paired with writing and practically everything else I do like it doesn’t sit right with me. Considering this idea and some of the story beats were adopted from a DnD(-esque?) campaign, I feel like it’s much more fine. Frankly, I’m surprised I didn’t realize it sooner. Once I read about that, everything just fell into place. I’m not really into DnD either, though…

So, I feel like there are things to gain from thinking about this. While Epithet Erased is still on the mind, I feel like I’ve realized something about the juxtaposition of comedy and sincerity, that being that comedic characters can exist in sincere surroundings, and vice versa. Zora specifically could be one of these characters, because she’s so powerful that she probably sees everything around her as trivial, while the other characters have more sincere reactions to her obscene power. She could easily crack a sick joke that no one laughs at because she’s the only one who can find humor in whatever’s going on. By contrast, the thing about Mera’s fear of ducks was a product of the scene and not of the character, so it just ruined things. Nothing about it was made to be funny to the characters, it was made to be funny to the audience, even though the audience should be in sincere mode then.

Another character that I think works like this is Charlie from Hazbin Hotel, who is the sincere personality in a world of complete and total insincerity. She’s basically a more unique kind of straight man (despite being neither straight nor a man), who are always the grounding in comedic casts, like Squidward in Spongebob. I guess in sincere stories there are comedic relief characters, and in comedies there are straight men. You know, these are probably all things other people have figured out already… at least I can feel good knowing I sort of reached them on my own…

I think a good solution for stuff that’s primarily meant to be a comedy is to make it almost entirely comedic, at least with the inclusion of a straight man if needed. The big name that comes to mind is good ol Monty Python, the backbone of 14 year old boys’ humor style. At some point I realized why I like the humor of The Holy Grail, at least above other comedic movies, is that they don’t hold back at all. At no point whatsoever do they pull back the veil and put in a sincere moment. And, of course, since I can basically recite the entire movie from memory I think it did wonders. I think when it comes to comedies like this, trying to be too sincere at certain points makes it feel even less sincere than if it didn’t have the sincere moment at all. This might be a product of the 00s American family-rated live action comedies who all feel like they fall into that same boat, where the entire movie is hijinks, but then at the very end they pull that all back and have something really impactful happen, with the idea being having some shoehorned message about “family” or whatever. I can group so many movies into that category that it feels almost corporate how many there are like that, and because it’s both overdone and geared towards too generalized of an audience, trying to capture the comedy-lovers and sincere-lovers, it really just fails in both ways. Or, maybe people love them because they’re just barely bad enough to enjoy it in a so-bad-it’s-good sort of way. I dunno. If I wasn’t a little nostalgic for the time those types of movies might be my all-time least favorite.

But I’m a stick in the mud who hates comedy so I’m not really equipped to tell anyone how to do it right. Instead, I feel like there’s some seriously untapped potential in other forms of “feel-good” tones, like casual lightheartedness and just plain fun. I feel like those two things really work towards creating sincere stories that are still enjoyable, and not just one shot of sadness after another, while still having a dash of impactful emotion in them.

I feel like this is where Pixar really shines. People say “It’s not a true Pixar movie if you don’t cry at the end” because I think Pixar movies are great at making the audience lower their guard, and when the moment is right, hitting you right in your heart to make you feel the right emotions. For example, what I’d call my favorite movie of all time (for intents and purposes, if not for real), Inside Out, is all about emotional sincerity, where it’s trying to get across how it’s okay to feel sad, even though the world around you tends to say happiness is always what you want. For most of the movie, it’s a pretty casual romp around the inner workings of Riley’s mind, with some jokes thrown in (because it doesn’t have to be completely without jokes). I’m not really sure how to explain it, but the various jokes in Inside out feel like they’re sort of blended with the interesting workings of this fantasy mind-world, like the fact that earworms are just the little blobby workers in our minds sending the memory of the song back up to the control panel for the hell of it, or that our dreams are a product of a Hollywood-like place in our minds. These things definitely are there for humor, but something about them feels much more fun than just any kind of generic comedy.

Then, I feel like the most important thing about fun and lightheartedness is that they feel like they blend so much better with the sincere moments. Obviously if it’s too quick it’ll still be bad, but I think it’ll be much less bad than with comedy. Maybe you could think of it like a spectrum with pure comedy at one end and pure tragedy at the other, with fun and lightheartedness just barely crossing the midpoint towards the comedy side. Since there’s less of a gap between it and tragedy compared to pure comedy, it feels less jarring. Plus, it just feels more reasonable logically speaking, since comedy sort of puts up this insincere barrier to sort of suspend the disbelief that the events in question are supposed to be taken seriously, which makes breaking that barrier harder once it’s established. With fun and lightheartedness, there may be an expectation of it sort of maintaining itself but there isn’t as much to say there isn’t something hiding in the background. In Inside Out at least, throughout Joy and Sadness’ journey they are pretty determined to get back to the control panel to save Riley, but they’re for the most part confident they can do it (or, you know, just Joy’s confident), so they sort of interpret the world around them in a more casual light, but with that lower-level need still there. But when Joy falls into the abyss of forgotten memories and the hopelessness sets in, you feel it much more, because it was sort of already there to begin with, and it was just made perfectly clear at that moment. I think Bing Bong’s emotions during the scene also make it pretty emotional, since he’s being casual about his death while also being sincere about his sacrifice for Riley’s sake. Not to mention his inner sadness was outed while talking with Sadness.

I feel like if I were trying to write an actual essay I could probably phrase all this a lot better. I just think there’s a ton of value to lightheartedness in stories, as opposed to comedy, for the sake of “feeling good.” Pretty much all of my favorite things have that tone to them to some degree, like Wander Over Yonder, my for sure favorite TV show. It definitely feels fun in a way that can elicit laughs, but it’s not a lot like “This is a joke and you should laugh” most of the time (Disregarding the Evil Sandwich, my least favorite character in the show). I also think Steven Universe succeeds very well with that tone, creating an extremely comfy atmosphere when it comes to the less climactic episodes.

I also vastly prefer the lighthearted resolutions to the conflicts in lighthearted stories. Frankly, I am infinitely more likely to cry to a comfy and happy resolution than I am to the actual sad parts. I’m not really sure what it is about them, but I guess the characters finally being happy again after emotional turmoil warrants a happy-cry. I swear, if I think too hard about the scene where Riley finally admits her sadness to her parents and just sits in their warm embrace, I tear up. It feels so much better than hijinks-danger-hijink resolution.

But yeah, the stories I want to write the most will all inevitably have that sort of lighthearted flair to them, unless of course I choose to go more inherently serious with a story. There’s nothing wrong with that either.

With regard to the really big claim I made before about there being too much humor in the world, the themes of Inside Out, and what I said about comedy’s insincere barrier, I really think the world as a whole would benefit from valuing humor a little less. It feels like there are so many situations where people sort of want to maintain their good feelings with humor instead of more directly dealing with issues in a sincere mindset. For example, if people say something disagreeable (but not insane), It feels like too many people resort to making jokes at that person’s expense and not dealing with the issues directly. Obviously if someones saying some insane bullshit it’s fine, but when the more reasonable takes that are just barely put under the same umbrella as the insane shit are made fun of, it really deepens the trench between the people of different opinions. Of course, humor isn’t the only thing deepening that trench, but it really feels like one of them a lot of the time.

Apart from that, I feel like using humor as a way to distract from general negativity and negative emotions like what Inside Out sort of warns against can be pretty detrimental too. Obviously happiness can still be around, but putting up that kind of barrier between you and the necessary sincerity for emotion with comedy just makes the unpleasantness of the unpleasant stuff that much more unpleasant. I’m saying this one at least out of personal experience, since I have sort of developed to be too subconsciously against super sad and sincere real world scenarios. I haven’t personally felt too many of them myself, but I definitely feel myself blocking off some of my own emotional vulnerability, especially around other people. I can consciously talk against it, like I’m doing now, but I feel like it’s going to take a long time for that barrier to really break. Is humor to blame for that sort of thing? Maybe, with a dash of toxic masculinity and other buzzwords people often avoid for reasons I mentioned in the last paragraph.

Even though this one is much more unreasonably generalizable than the last two things, I feel like the popularity of self-deprecating humor across the internet also (probably?) takes a toll on some people. Obviously some people might just use it to their genuine benefit, but since it seems so common surely some people are putting on a self-deprecating face to get along, and eventually maybe even believing what they used to joke about themselves. Either way, it might be a product of an extreme departure from any kind of narcissism, making being self-confident and self-loving just that little bit harder for people.

But, while I’m not the most equipped to judge writing, I’m even less equipped to actually debate for the existence of all those things, so just know I’m kinda speaking with my heart and not my brain here. People obviously want and need different things, and I’m probably just projecting. Hell, maybe that’s me self-deprecating to not make me seem weird to everyone else. I dunno.

No matter what, all this reliance on humor really just shows who is and isn’t funny. Sometimes, people really need to get a grip. Frankly, I don’t think I’m that funny either, which is why I’ve kind of had the humor beaten out of me by one too many awkward silences after a weird joke in my elementary/middle school days. I guess that’s my cartoon villain origin story.

#rant #rambling #opinions #writing #humor #comedy #epithet erased #poole #etc

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dreadnought-dear-captain · 4 years

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You Asked, I Told

(Note, if this post shows up twice or massively delayed or just looks weird, it’s because it was flagged for adult content [??!] because I had a picture of Willem Dafoe’s face in a gif. I am not even kidding. Do with that information what you will. I’ve removed it and I still don’t know if/when this can be publicly viewed, I’m kind of lolling. So if you see a blocked out photo that looks like porn in your post, I swear it’s just a gif from The Lighthouse!)

Hello, amazing people. This weekend, I’m putting the final touches on my last draft of Baghdad Waltz Chapter 39, which will then go to the beta for one more round of edits. I imagine I will have the chapter posted in 1-3 weeks, which is close to record speed for me, especially since it’s around 30k words. I’m going to be talking about my writing process (at unfortunate length) for one of the asks, for those who are interested.

Please forgive me. I’m feeling quite verbose and a little squirrely. I blame living alone during lockdown.

It’s also Memorial Day weekend in the States, which is when we are meant to honor those who gave their lives in military service to this country. This is often confused with Veterans Day (November 11), which is honoring anyone who has served in the military and is no longer serving. This gets further confused with Armed Forces Day (rotating date, May) which is to honor those currently serving in the military. I know, super confusing.

There’s a wide range of opinions on how Memorial Day should be commemorated, which often involves gathering with friends and family for a barbecue or some other social activity. It’s the first major holiday after a huge holiday drought throughout the late winter and spring, which often makes people look forward to it immensely. Some people feel it’s inappropriate to celebrate Memorial Day with barbecues and fond social gatherings because it’s dishonoring the memories of those who can’t be here, people don’t take time to remember those who have died, people have no idea what the day is actually for, etc. Others, even some very vocal veterans, maintain that people died so that we could be here to celebrate in freedom, so why not relish this life we have? Many offer the caveat that it’s appropriate to at least acknowledge the purpose of the day, even if it’s just in a few minutes of quiet reflection.

Anyway, I offer this as a little food for thought for this upcoming long weekend.

(And in case you missed it, I posted a BW Timeline for your reference.)

Contains spoilers through Chapter 38.

[Takes deep breath]

I’m so glad that you are enjoying the read and that you’re finding it inspiring for your own work. I think my dedication to research for BW is threefold. 1) As this story evolved, I decided that I wanted to create the most realistic depictions of military, civilian, emotional, and physical life that I reasonably could. I will fully admit to lapses in this, deliberate and unintentional, because sometimes the plot just needs to go and I can’t wait around for a year-long medical discharge process for my character. 2) I’m in an academically stringent occupation, and because research is such a prominent part of my work life, it’s bled to my hobby. (IS THIS EVEN A HOBBY ANYMORE?) And 3) I get very easily and passionately obsessed with things and delight in getting “into the weeds” with a subject. Almost every research divergence usually takes me off track for at least an hour. And you will never catch me without an MTA subway map open in at least one tab.

But that wasn’t even your question! Sorry. Are you beginning to get a sense of why BW takes me so long to write?? I cannot keep my shit on track. As for the bibliography, YES! I plan to include that in my author’s note at the end. I wish I had kept better track of all of my works consulted over the past three years, but I will definitely discuss the importance of some of the main ones. I’m so thrilled that you are interested, and I’m excited to share them!

Thank you. This is such a kind thing to say, and I’m humbled and delighted to hear it, especially because our fandom is so blessed with some AMAZING fics. And asks certainly don’t have to be questions! I appreciate them all (except the flaming bag of dog shit ones, which I haven’t had in a while, hooray).

(Re: Chapter 37) Good question! I imagine Claire would want to keep the 1:1 conversation somewhat limited, as she is treating the couple as a patient rather than them as individuals. If anything, she might have somewhat superficially checked in to see if he was okay rather than dive into anything regarding the relationship with Bucky not around. That could be seen as a betrayal of trust to Bucky and could be interpreted as favoritism, which Steve craves and which Bucky is probably terrified about.

I am always pleased when people re-read and enjoy it or get new things out of it, even if it’s sometimes a re-read is a function of my slow-ass writing. I really want a story with good re-read value.

You make an excellent point about Bucky’s relationships. His friendship with Jack also had no real closure. Sometimes this is a factor of circumstance and sometimes it’s because of his avoidance, like a self-fulfilling prophesy almost. He’s learned that people betray you, either by hurting you or dying, so he creates conditions sometimes (often unwittingly) for things to go sour and end poorly, or he will simply make himself disappear so that he’s not hurt and doesn’t have to wait to see if he will be abandoned or betrayed. He’s not a guy who is good with goodbyes.

As for Thor, I totally see how it would read that way. I think Thor started out fishing for longer-term possibilities in a romantic relationship but then realized Bucky is really not a guy who is comfortable settling (which, as we can see, is true). As for why it seems more serious, one thing is that Thor still wanted Bucky in his life as a friend, possibly one with benefits. They have a lot in common, and it’s hard for veterans - and, more specifically, special operators - to find people in their lives they can relate to with these very intense life experiences. I wanted this to be a real relationship, but maybe not necessarily one that was bound to become a RELATIONSHIP. I think Bucky was very intriguing and attractive to him, and he very well may have struggled with his own vacillation between whether to take it seriously or whether to remain friends+. This can lead to mixed messages.

And we also have to remember Bucky’s notoriously unreliable narration, where he will see what he wants to see. Our perspective comes from him. We see the details he zooms in on, miss the one he ignores, view the relationship through the lens of his own contentious desire for a real relationship, even as he consistently demonstrates the lack of capacity and his fear about getting serious. I imagine Bucky has having an extremely poor ability to distinguish friendship from romance, and why wouldn’t he, given the most recent bit of history we have learned about him with Jack? He’s had a series of friendships become sexualized, and I think this affects his capacity to be discerning. Bucky’s radar for relating, whether friendships, romance, or potentially dangerous sexual situations, is terribly mis-calibrated. How confusing for him and for the people in his life. Of course, everyone is free to interpret the dynamics of any relationship however they choose. These are just some of my thoughts.

I really appreciate observations from the re-read! Thank you!

I watched the video and you are right! This is definitely a Bucky song. Bucky’s sense of self is by turns profoundly distorted and lacking in grounding, especially now that he’s not in the military. He’s been in a low key existential crisis since he was a kid and has turned to drinking and sex and war to fill this horrible void, and although I can’t speak for what the artists here intended, I certainly sensed those elements here for sure. (Also, what an interesting choice for a music video…)

Thank you for sharing! I’ll add it to the unofficial BW playlist in the author’s note, which consists of various songs people have associated with BW and shared with me.

Good question! I started off this story picturing the actors who represent the characters in the MCU, because I figured we’d be picturing that when we read the fic anyway (though my beta told me she doesn’t see them as the actors, more like artists’ renderings of the characters, which I find interesting). So when describing their physicality, I tend to refer back to the MCU, since this is technically an MCU AU. But the longer I go with the story, the murkier the resemblance feels to me, especially when I think about Bucky, IDK why. I have also been considering doing something more with BW after I finish it (i.e., converting it into a proper not-bajillion-word novel, sunk cost and whatnot), in which case I would definitely change the characters’ appearance, names, cut MCU Easter eggs, etc. So when I try to think of who these people might be in future iterations of the story, things get even more blurred in my mind when I imagine them.

I wonder how other people see them??

So, with regards to PTSD clinical teams, there is some variation across VAs in the system. Some focus more on military-related trauma, whether it’s war, military sexual trauma, accidents, etc. as a way of concentrating their services and managing supply and demand. From talking with providers in these kinds of systems, sometimes you just NEED a military-related trauma, but you can be treated for, say, a childhood trauma if it’s more pressing. Other VAs are very open in their criteria, and you can see them for pretty much any kind of trauma that qualifies diagnostically for PTSD (or sub-threshold PTSD) without question. That’s why I love the expression “If you’ve been to one VA, you’ve been to one VA.” That said, it kind of doesn’t matter what kind of PTSD clinical team is at the VA in Manhattan, because Bucky has so much military trauma that he would very likely qualify to receive services in any PTSD clinical team. They just might focus on childhood stuff (if Bucky actually let them, which is another matter entirely).

This is a great question! Thanks for asking.

I love a snarky asshole Bucky so much, and I’ve tried to temper this version of him with enough hard-earned genuineness to offset it a little bit. It’s such a tender balance with him, because if you back him too far into a corner, he’s going to let you have it. But if you give him too much space, it’s hard to pin him down and wring something honest from him. He’s definitely learned to use humor and sarcasm to deflect from painful or uncomfortable situations, and it’s a very adaptive short-term strategy that makes him both endearing and infuriating to others.

But ugh, yeah, shit gets so rough around Chapter 28/29. I don’t know how to feel when people have really strong emotional reactions to this story, because one part of me doesn’t want to contribute to the crappy feelings people may already be struggling with — especially in the times of COVID — but I don’t want to be afraid to dive into the hurt these characters are experiencing. That’s why I recommend checking in with oneself before reading to get a sense of how much emotional bandwidth is available to manage the immense problems of two people struggling so much. I also think that for some people it can be cathartic or otherwise not-bad maybe (?), based on the feedback I’ve received. I also really try hard to balance out the painful stuff with growth, even though it can be terribly difficult to locate sometimes.

In comments to folks, and here, I often talk about adjusting the ticks on your measuring stick for progress, where instead of leaps of progress over feet/meters, we may be observing things on an inch/mm scale. This story is my most sincere effort at a “recovery is not linear” narrative, which I think is so much more reflective of real life for a lot of folks than a straight upward trajectory. Humans are such creatures of habit, and the lessons these characters have learned through their lives about themselves, trust, relationships, and how to manage emotions are very deeply ingrained — often through traumatic means. These are the lessons learned the hardest, with the greatest perceived consequences for change, and it takes real courage for us to be able to try new things even once, let alone to establish a reliable pattern of behavior. This can lead to a lot of frustration for us as readers/writer, and I come from a place of this being okay, because we are encountering a parallel process with the characters, who are frustrated with each other and themselves about the same things. I do hope the pain/progress/joy ratios are not horribly out of whack most of the time. That’s another reason I like long chapters, because if this was just blips of sometimes terrible episodes in shorter form, I think it would be very challenging to not lose hope entirely.

But I’m so glad you’re finding the read meaningful, even if it’s sometimes painful and difficult.

(YES.)

And FINALLY -- (this is all soooo long, I’m so sorry.)

Oh, thank you for this question! My spreadsheet ended up getting too difficult to manage, and I actually had a small crisis six months ago about how the fic was going to end, because it just didn’t feel right. I had to scrap it and go back to the drawing board and really ask myself - what would these characters really do? Naturally, as a factor of their psychologies and circumstances, how will they bring this story to an end? Some advice I once heard about a “satisfying” ending is that it’s the place where there’s simply nothing more to say about the characters. There’s no more story to tell. I had to abandon all of my desires and ideas for a particular ending or concerns about making people sad or happy or excited or disappointed. I know that the only ending that will be satisfying is one that makes sense for these people. Anything contrived or backward-engineer-y wouldn’t feel right to anyone. I do have a couple of specific character arc things I want to happen, so I set those down as touchstones and said, okay, what would happen next? What would Steve do with this? And what would Bucky do with this? And what would they do with the thing the other person did? I take a very psychology and prior-behavior-based approach to plotting, almost all character driven. The rest is just figuring out what is supposed to go where and how to organize it.

I’ve converted everything to a Google Doc and have a very basic outline where I write plotty-plot stuff. I also have a “garbage dump” doc where I write certain lines I want to use or certain details I want to include somewhere. When I get into a new chapter, I’ll check the dump doc as I outline and write to see if I want to pluck anything from there. I have my outline open regularly to add to it. Sometimes I write scenes out of order, dialogue first, but that’s only if I really am excited about a particular scene and cannot contain myself. Otherwise, I write completely chronologically and have no buffer. I post things as soon as I write them.

As for your specific questions, I do have a “process” for getting into my characters’ heads. It helps to know them so very well and to have a firm sense of their idiosyncrasies and patterns of behavior. As you may have noticed, they repeat their patterns all. the. time, as humans do, but I also want to have them change their behaviors a little as things go and they progress. So I may wonder what they could do a little differently, why they would WANT to behave differently, and imagine what they would need to do to change their behavior. Do they need to take breaths? Do they remember the last time some shit went down? I really try to think of the “how” and “why” of every single action - from big blowouts to eye rolls.

So once I’ve figured out what they are going to do, I try to pinpoint the associated emotions I want to highlight. This is a whole separate process, because I have to think also about their internal versus their external emotional states. Steve, for example, will often have a discrepant inside and outside, because one of the truths about his character is that he is a chronic suppressor. There is also the issue of unreliable narration and interpretation of behavior. Steve might do something in a scene, but that doesn’t mean Bucky is going to interpret it the way it was intended. I have to think about their individual filters, which often reflect their internal beliefs about themselves. Bucky is more likely to read Steve’s actions as reflections of how BUCKY feels about HIMSELF (e.g., he’s disgusted by me because I’m disgusting) rather than imagine what Steve is really thinking based on his own experiences and beliefs about Bucky. I also attempt to convey some of the more second and third layer emotions that people have in situations, rather than only highlighting the primary emotion. Sad things don’t always just make people sad. Powerful emotions, for example, might make Steve feel out of control of himself, which could generate secondary emotions for him like frustration because he’s losing control. Part of the process in the construction of the narrative is also scrubbing what I’ve written for POV, because Bucky’s word choices aren’t the same as Steve’s, and in order to try to preserve the “voice” of each character, I often have to change the words I’ve opted to use, as well as the syntax.

So, as you can see, there’s a lot of layering that is happening all the time. As for the dialogue, I have no compunction about saying the lines aloud, “acting” them to see how they sound, to get a sense of what tone I want them to say things in. Now that I think of it, I do a bit of movement-based stuff, thinking about how people sit and stand, figuring how many steps it takes to get from A-Z, what it would look like to lean against something, how it would feel on the body, etc. I try to get the most felt sense of things as I can. If I’m imagining a scene, I try to put myself in the shoes of the characters to the point where I feel the emotions, just so I can know how it reflects in my body and my mind and behavior. I have more than once gotten drunk and drunk-written drunk Bucky then gone to clean it up later, as drunk writing can generate some great content I never would have been able to come up with sober, but the form, grammar, spelling, etc. is often rubbish. I also talk a LOT to my beta about all of this stuff, and I have certain friends and acquaintances in the fandom who are my consultants for various things.

So, I’m somewhat method I guess?? Is that a thing?? I dunno. It’s not hard to do when you live and breathe a story. It’s required a deep level of interest in - quite possibly an obsession with - the characters and their lives. I adore my characters, not in a self-congratulatory way, but because they feel so real to me. So it’s a joy to plan and write -- though I do hate first drafts with a passion.

OH - I also sometimes fast-draft chapters, which I did for 39. That is, write as FAST AS YOU CAN with no regard for how shitty the writing is. I wrote 10k words in a week, which was a finished fast-draft for me, and thus I had a very good felt sense of what was going to happen in the chapter, which felt amazing. It requires intensive outlining before, and nearly every word had to be rewritten, but one of the greatest frustrations of a story for me is having blank space ahead. Re-writing is way more fun than first draft writing. I have fluffed it up twofold with higher quality content, which I did all in less than two months…!!

-------------------------

Well, this is surely my most unnecessarily yammering YAIT in history. But I hope it at least conveys my enthusiasm for these wonderful asks! It’s so lovely to hear from all of you, even if I take an eon to get back to you. Hang in there, everyone!

@grimshady @hutchhitched @b0n3l3ssm1lk

(And thank you to @bae-buckyaboveeverything for the shout out. You made my day<3)

#you asked #baghdad waltz #asks

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passingthetime · 3 years

Note

27, 28, 36, 56, 86,

Thank you!!! ☀️

27: Are you afraid of growing old?

Terrified, one of my biggest fears actually. Not only growing old, but growing up too. I feel like I have only nine years left to live, like the moment I hit 30 I join the living dead. Most of the time I hope to die still in my 20s.

I'm afraid of my body, face and hair changing, but what I fear even more is losing that spark in my soul after a certain age.

I know there are people who stay young at heart till the day they die, but I doubt I can.

28: Would you want to live forever? How about for a billion years, a million, a millennium, a century?

A century or a millennium maybe, if my body stays the way it is. I want to experience so many things, maybe then I'd have the time. I probably have to see my parents and grandparents die anyways, and I don't want to have kids so I wouldn't have to go through the heartbreak of my children passing before me. As for friends - those come and go, we won't be in touch by the time they die anyways.

36: Have you ever met someone who had a very similar personality to your own? Did you get along?

Can't think of anyone super similar, but there's this one girl we are not too different with. We get along real well, but I keep getting mad at her for dumb things she does which I do too - like staying in an abusive relationship and whatnot.

56: What do you think about artificial intelligence?

Ooh I used to adore the topic! Both in the science fiction living feeling android sense and the more practical machine learning and stuff sense too. I still find both really cool - though not as obsessed with the idea as I was in early high school. As for exact opinions I'm not even sure what to mention here, there's just so much to discuss!

86: What’s your toxic trait? Are you trying to improve yourself and fix it?

I think I can be kinda manipulative? Like we go shopping with my man and I don't have money on me but I want something I won't go "heey, I like that, would you get that for me please" or something straightforward like that, rather throw hints at him and get all disappointed and grumpy when he doesn't pick up on it... (Talking about small stuff like chocolates here, nothing expensive!)

Also I tend to put myself down in hopes of others trying to cheer me up, which is bad for me and probably annoying at best for others.

I do definitely try to improve though, and I do think I'm making progress!

(Questions for 4:02 am)

#thank you #ask #ask thing #psihokracija

0 notes

theshinsun · 4 years

Note

1. as far as im concerned Kagami never left at the end of last game, that was an extended dream sequence... 2. i also totally agree with you that Kagami is prolly vers, if anything, and it was also MY PET PEEVE when people pinholed him into being a forever bottom at the peak of knb hype. 3. you keep teasing your long list of ships for Aomine PLEASE do him for the character thing lol. So far all your opinions are sending me into a realm of GOOD VALID VIBES

Omg thank you!! (I agree end of Last Game is not canon… or if it is he came right back the next year or smth I refuse to accept he just left forever. And I’m really glad to see the problem of Uke™ Kagami seems to be in decline these days… fewer people are writing for knb in general, but those that are seem to have an idea what a real gay relationship is or at least make him a fucking person and not a walking stereotype, and that’s encouraging to see).

Also thanks so much for sending Aomine! …Strap in for this character essay tho I’ve been known to never shut up about this boy once you get me started.

How I feel about this character

I honestly… can’t even explain it anymore or even try to justify it but Aomine has had a bigger impact on me than, I think, any other character I’ve seen to date. I don’t even know what it is, I do relate to him (and project on him *cough*) but like, there are other characters out there that I have more in common with, and I like his whole arc and aesthetic but it’s nothing revolutionary, so… your guess is as good as mine.

Whatever it is, I’ve been obsessed with this guy for over half a decade, and lately even as the KNB fandom falls into decline, my feelings are not they’re just getting stronger. His development over the course of the series is one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever seen, (that one bit at the end of the Touou/Seirin game with “I want to practice” and his later conversation with Kuroko hit me in the fucking chest every time), and I love how even though he’s portrayed as cold, uncaring and rude, it’s still understood (at least by anyone with some nuance) that that’s not what he’s supposed to be like, and underneath the distant, kind of dickish front, he’s hurting a lot. I’ve talked about the degree to which he cares about people before too, but I still have to give a mention to the ferocious level of protectiveness this guy has for his friends. I could go on about him for ages, tbh, and maybe someday I will write a for-real structured essay to try to get it out there, but the bottom line is I love this character, I have for a long time, and likely will continue to do so long into the future.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Okay here we go… I ship this guy extremely liberally, even with people he’s never interacted with (hell you could mention any random character and I could probably see my way clear to shipping them with him somehow, I’ll still try to explain my logic if I can). Prepare yourself.

Kagami (of course, AoKaga is the OTP and definitely the one I’ve devoted the most time to, they’re just the best together I’ll never get tired of seeing them figure their shit out over and over)

Kuroko (I may be AoKaga on main, but I’m still such a sucker for the tragic romance between these two, and sometimes it just hits me over the head like a sledgehammer how much I love their relationship. I’ve also got a lot of feelings for AoKagaKuro, they’re such a perfect trio and I need to invest more of my time in the OT3)

Kise (I was a bit late to the game on AoKise, but I definitely see it now. I love their dynamic and how imperfect their relationship would probably be, the complexity of it. sign me up)

Momoi (I don’t see a lot of AoMomo love anymore, but I’ve still got a soft spot for it, childhood friends are my weakness okay)

Midorima (they’re so different but that’s what makes it interesting, and I love the idea of neither of them knowing how to show/tell the other their feelings and being awkward stubborn shits together)

Murasakibara (they almost never interact but I just think they’d have such a soft cuddly relationship and be really chill together… lazy Sunday mornings sleeping in and hanging all over each other that kinda thing)

Akashi (kinda same as Akashi/Kagami, I think the difference between polished upper-class Akashi and scrappy city boy Aomine would be hella interesting… though I’ve also got some angst ideas for them as a couple, after how things went down at Teiko… abandonment and whatnot)

Imayoshi (I got pulled into this ship HARD by Lysapadin’s A Firm Hand series and now it’s no longer a guilty pleasure ship and is actually something I’ll talk about in the open, just… the power dynamic fuck me up)

Sakurai (I fuckin love the idea of an anxious Sakurai crushing hard on Aomine and not knowing how to tell him but when he finally plucks up the courage and prepares himself for imminent death Aomine’s actually pretty chill about it… plus they’d be adorable together tbh)

Wakamastu (you know it’s gotta be enemies to lovers. not just bc I’m intrigued by the love/hate relationship itself but if you look past the attitude issues these two would actually probably have a lot in common. also I’m really interested in how their dynamic might change with Wakamatsu being captain and all)

Susa (idk but there’s one throwaway line in season 3 where Imayoshi says about Aomine “actually maybe he likes you” and that’s enough for me. bring me the rarest rarepair my body is ready)

Kasamatsu (it wasn’t supposed to be SERIOUS but they got me. That moment in the Touou/Kaijo game where Aomine helps him up and “you’ve really done it now, senpai” is legit, plus these two would be such a good-looking couple, honestly.)

Mibuchi (give me the pretty boys. I have no excuse for this except maybe their interactions in my own damn fic again)

Nebuya (sometimes shipping can be as simple as hey I want them to bang right. also they’re both humongous dorks under their respective rough exteriors and I love them)

Moriyama (they bond over liking girls at first and then they’re simultaneously like wait a minute… more Touou/Kaijo ships pls)

Nijimura (I have this idea of them reuniting late into/after high school and Aomine still calls him captain out of habit and Nijimura’s like relieved and impressed to see how he’s developed since the mess at Teiko)

Himuro (they Never interact but they’d be so Petty and Snarky sign me up)

Haizaki (twisted, but I’m interested it’d be so unhealthy and awful bring it)

Hanamiya (even more twisted tbh but there is that moment where Aomine confronts him… and I’m here for hate sex just as much as your typical romance)

Inoue (who, you ask? I know he’s such a side character and no one remembers him, but he’s a big reason for Aomine’s downfall at Teiko and they seemed to be buddies before that, I’d be interested in some kind of reconciliation between them, or a romance, ya know whatever works)

And then we get into crossover territory… MOST of these are not my fault they’re just things I’ve seen and adopted for myself

Kuroo Tetsurou (someone made a moodboard for them, and now I can’t stop thinking about them in a relationship, like damn… it’d be such a beautiful mess I wanna see more of it)

Oikawa Tooru (I’ve seen art, and also the light. These two damaged angsty prodigies, one sharp as a whip the other dumb as bricks, but both of them sassy and nerdy as hell. I could see myself getting addicted to this ship if I took the time to write it out, and I just might)

Yamazaki Sousuke (can’t lie, they look good together. I’ve seen more than one art piece of them interacting and I have a Mighty Need.)

Matsuoka Rin (angry lonely talented boys finding solace in each other’s company? you know that’s my shit. also shark teeth and cop AUs hells yeah.)

Tanaka Ryuunosuke (I don’t know where the fuck this idea came from but I thought of Tanaka trying to pick a fight with “shitty boi” Aomine while in Tokyo and then losing his shit and here we are)

Terushima Yuuji (this one is purely physical… they pretty, I have no other reason, but also this absolute fuckboy, these two would be such a train wreck and I’m here for it tbh)

Yachi Hitoka (okay picture this Giant Terrifying basketball player trying to be less giant and terrifying to tiny shy Yachi and tell me you don’t just want to see that happen. I get Legosi/Haru vibes.)

I’ll spare you the rest of the ideas I’ve tossed around, because past this point it becomes pure crack (if it hasn’t already) but you get the idea. Throw a character my way and I can probably talk myself into it that’s the power this guy has over me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My non-romantic OTP for this character

K considering the List… it shouldn’t be surprising that I also consider this person a romantic candidate, but you know when it comes to non-romantic OTP it’s gotta be Momoi. Platonic or romantic, the way she’s stuck with him all those years and his obvious protectiveness and love for her and how (even though he claims to like big tits) he never even once starts to objectify her in any way, it’s so important to me. Momoi is Aomine’s redeeming factor when he’s at his worst, and she goes to bat for him even while he’s actively trying to shake her off and still tries to protect and help him when he refuses to accept it, even when it means they fight. (Also Kuroko saying “Aomine’s probably looking for you” after their argument puts to mind Aomine running through the rain calling Momoi’s name and that is just… pure). These two have the kind of unshakable long-standing friendship that’ll probably last them the rest of their lives, and no matter what context or form it takes, I can’t get enough of it.

My unpopular opinion about this character

I’ve harped on enough about the fandom’s portrayal of Aomine as a one-note asshole who doesn’t care before, so let’s see if I can change gears a little bit here.

I honestly don’t agree with… the persistent idea people seem to have of Aomine being a narcissist or obsessed with himself? Like yeah, he’s self-absorbed and egotistical, no question, this is not to say he hasn’t got those flaws and others besides… but that’s not the same as being like, physically attracted to yourself. Part of me suspects it was a “the only one who can fuck me is me” joke taken too far, so that now the idea of Aomine being in love with himself is just ingrained into the fanon culture, but if you look at the show itself, personally I don’t see it. If anything, I would think he’d have some self-loathing issues to work through (and that’s part of the reason he gave for skipping practice, he doesn’t want to be the way he is, and specifically says he doesn’t want to increase the difference between him and everyone else). But hey, that’s just my opinion. I’ll get off my soapbox now.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I mean he says he and Kagami are postponing their match, after their brief one-on-one when he gives him the shoes, and then we never get to see it… Tbh just more street ball with this guy would be great, since it’s what his whole style is based around. Even if he’s just playing by himself… or hell, maybe since he thinks no one at the high school level can beat him, we could get a scene of him trying to go up against adults. Maybe he still beats them and his despair worsens after that, but then it’d have more meaning, and at least we’ll have seen that he’s tried and is not just giving up before he’s seen all of what he could be up against in the future. Plus, picturing Aomine going five-on-one like Haizaki did against grown-ups and still slaughtering them is something I’d pay money to see.

#Answered #shin speaks #jesus h christ that turned out long #i warned you #thanks so much for sending my boy tho i was lowkey fidgeting waiting to talk about him #i cant help it #aomine daiki #knb #my son #long post

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thefanficmonster · 3 years

Text

Icy Fairytale

Boyinaband (Dave Brown) x Reader (Gender Neutral)

Warnings: Swearing

Genre: Fluff, Romance, RPF (Real Person Fic)

Summary: Falling in love is walking on thin ice in and of itself, but what happens when it's literal? Yeah that's right - two ambitious individuals fall head over heels for one another on the delicate icy ground of a Brighton ice skating rink.

Requested by @onceuponadie Hi! Thank you so much for your request! I'm so sorry for the long wait but I still hope you find the time to enjoy the read! Love, Vy ❤

No matter how hard I try, I can't tie the laces of my skates properly. I can't tell what's wrong with me today but I know something's seriously not right. To be perfectly honest though, I might have an idea or two as to why this is happening to me but I'd rather keep my mouth shut on the subject to avoid the intense blush and the flock of butterflies that will inevitably attack my stomach. And I can't have that many distractions while I'm on the ice.

Oh who am I kidding, my main distraction is always there, either in front of me or by my side. Sometimes even holding onto me for support.

Dave Brown is the name of it.

The name I was completely indifferent to when it was first brought to my attention.

It was a cold rainy day in Brighton, the town I was still on-the-fence about at the time. My trainer had been wanting to collaborate with a trainer from the UK for a while and had finally scheduled and arranged for the two of us to be able to fly out there and meet with him. I thought my trainer was ambitious, but this this new guy was a whole new level of ambitious. I could tell right away he'd be hard to please and I had no issue with that - I am and I always have been a goal-getter; I myself am hard to please and I've often been called an 'obsessed artist' by my trainer so I was beyond excited for this new extraordinary and challenging journey.

I just didn't know that the challenging part wouldn't be the skating.

After a particularly long practice session, once I was finally left alone by my trainers, I stuck around at the skating rink to wind down and feel the freedom of skating how I want and how I know I'm supposed to. Free like a bird gliding through the sky, not bound by any choreography or anyone's rules and opinions. That's when I'm most myself.

And that's when I met him.

The rink was closed and suppose to be reserved for only me and my coaches for the day but him and his friends - now my friend too - Joel probably didn't think much of the notice on the door considering they had waltzed in with zero idea the vicinity was booked.

I was too entranced in my own world to notice their presence by the seats. I only took notice of the fact I wasn't alone when Joel called out to me.

"Are we interrupting? Is this a private session or something? We can leave, sorry for bothering you."

While the other boy was talking, Dave remained silent, blending into the background and not drawing any of my attention to him. And yes, maybe I was supposed to turn them back, tell them to leave and whatnot, but I did the exact opposite.

"Private session's over, you can stick around, it's not a problem." I said, slowly gliding over to the entrance of the rink where the boys were now standing after they finished climbing down the stairs to approach the ice rink.

I stopped in my tracks rather abruptly as to not crash into them, stabilizing myself before offering them my hand for a handshake. "I'm Y/N. Professional figure skater."

I couldn't help but let out a little giggle when their jaws went loose, hanging open in surprise. They were quick to regain their composure, Joel being the one to accept my hand first, followed by Dave, both of them introducing themselves as they did so.

"Cool streak." I casually pointed at the red streak in Dave's hair, "I've always wanted to dye my hair but I'm not allowed to by my trainer."

He scoffed at my remark, "Your trainer? He's got the audacity to boss you around? Does he not realize how lucky he is to have a skater like you to his name?"

I was understandably taken aback by this compliment. I'm used to being given compliments after my performances in competitions, but I've never considered my unchoreographed skating as anything more than mediocre. It was surprising to receive such a positive remark, heartwarming nonetheless though.

"That's so kind of you to say, Dave, thanks." I'm still a long way from knowing how to properly respond to compliments - mostly cause I don't believe them - but I'd like to think I handled that one well. No, I know I handled it well considering Dave, Joel and I have been friends ever since.

As to why they were at the skating rink that day - they wanted to fulfill a New Year's resolution they had made at the start of the year: learning how to ice skate because apparently they were hopeless at it. And yes, they were - they got on the ice with me that day and were dropping like flies. I considered it a miracle if they were even able to get off their asses on their own. I had to pull them up a couple of times - a gesture they paid me back for with lunch afterwards. Following that day, only Dave remained determined to make his resolution count and he kept coming to the ice rink to practice (read: fall and get back up) and learn with my help of course. It's safe to say I've never laughed so much in such a short period of time and never have I ever established a friendship so quickly with anyone ever. I guess being someone's ice skating buddy is a whole different level of a friendship where the rules of a regular friendship don't apply.

I soon came to realize why that was...

Because I suddenly found myself wanting more than a friendship with Dave. It's ridiculous as hell, as all goddamn hell, but I couldn't and still can't help myself. It's these little subtle signs that shine through my behavior, all completely unintentional. The lingering hold meant to keep him stable on his skates. The firm eye contact when I'm trying to get him to focus on his balance. The little touches and hugs all gestures meant to congratulate him on his little wins like falling and managing to get to his feet on his own; managing to make three solid strides without sprawling out on the ice, etc. I must be the worst ice skating instructor ever - as Dave gained more balance and needed my assistance less, I found myself missing the times I literally had to hold him up, his arms wrapped around me and mine around him. I miss the times he held my hand to avoid falling and still fell, sometimes dragging me down with him.

And I'm only gonna miss those times even more after tomorrow because after tomorrow, I'll no longer be in the UK and I'll no longer be there to see Dave's successes and fails. I'll no longer have him be my distraction, the only distraction I've ever approved of and wanted around. I'll no longer have a chance to feed into the temptation of telling Dave what I feel for him. It's a temptation and a fear and excites me just as much as it terrifies me, paralyzes me just thinking of the outcome, especially when I know I won't get my feelings reciprocated. I won't get anything better than a soft rejection from him yet I still want to come clean.

Why, you might be asking - well, it's rather simple, actually. I think he deserves to know how special he's made these last few months. How much he's made me fall in love with this city and the UK as a whole. How much I enjoyed our adventures both on and off the ice. How much fun I had going sightseeing with him as my tour guide.

How much I enjoyed his company and how hard I fell for him in the process.

Today's the last day of 'class' for the both of us but I just so happen to be the only one who's aware of it. Yeah, I've been one hell of a coward and never brought up my inevitable departure despite having been informed over a week ago. Exactly, I had a week to come clean about more things than one, but I chose silence.

And boy did that bad decision come to hit me against the back of the head like a boomerang. A mocking and particularly painful one at that.

Get it together, Y/N. One of these news you'll have to tell him, he has to know you're leaving. And the other...

"Sorry I'm late!" The familiar voice coming in a breathy yell from somewhere in the darkness surrounding the seats awakens me and frees me from my mind's battle with itself. "The rain only makes traffic worse."

Now or never. Don't drag it out and keep adding salt to the wound!

"I'm leaving!" I say, loud enough to be heard clearly despite our distance. Also loud enough to cover up the tremble in my voice. It took a lot of power just to say that one sentence, I wonder how I'm gonna power through having to explain it to him.

"Jeez, did I upset you that badly?" Dave surprises the hell out of me when he steps on the ice, already in his skates which I didn't even notice him put on. I'm not surprised by that to be honest, I'm too caught up in my own thoughts and how I'm displaying them in my demeanor to notice my surroundings.

"N-no, I..." so much for covering up that tremble in my voice, "I have to leave the UK...tomorrow...I'm going back home for a competition and to, you know, get ready for the Olympics...I don't know when or if I'll be back but I was hoping..."

"What? When'd you hear about this? Why so suddenly? Is it that big of an emergency that they inform you literally five minutes in advance?" There are enough emotions in his voice to prevent me from looking at his face, especially his eyes. I'm afraid of what kind of hurt or whatever other emotion I might see there.

I bite the inside of my cheek, "My trainer told me last week...", I admit, gritting my teeth and cringing as my stomach ties itself is several knots that are causing me great discomfort.

There's a pause which I'm assuming is meant for him to collect all his thoughts and properly process them. I'm afraid of what he'll say when he does.

"So I'm the one finding out five minutes before your departure?" He finally asks, the tone of voice he uses making my heart sink a little.

Damn it, Dave I already feel guilty enough, this is unnecessary!

No, no, he has a point and has every right to be upset. Friends don't keep friends in the dark about things like this. About any things really.

Then why do you keep him in the dark about literally EVERYTHING?

This is what I was afraid of - getting the temptation of coming clean. I have nothing to lose after all, I'm leaving tomorrow anyway. I'll lose him one way or another.

"Listen, Dave...", I didn't think this through but I'll improvise it, that's a better option than shutting my mouth and not saying another word, "I was gonna tell you, I really wanted to, but I couldn't...I couldn't bring myself to do it. I still don't want to believe that I'm leaving. I love it here and just the thought of leaving it all behind...it hurts, you know. And 'the more people know the realer it is' is a real thing so I didn't want...." I stop, my voice cutting off completely as I find myself weak on balance. Maybe standing in the middle of an ice rink isn't the best setting for this conversation. "I'm being ridiculous and I'm stalling like a coward." I say that more to myself than to him but I don't let him speak. Instead, I continue my rambling after a brief sigh.

Dave, God bless his soul, stays silent and just looks at me with this curious gaze which is letting me know he's holding back for my sanity's sake, allowing me to take a breather and collect my thoughts before I express them to avoid misunderstanding me.

I inhale, finally ready to start talking, "Alright, here we go...Look, I don't want to end this...friendship between us on a bad note but I don't want it to end with there still being secrets between us so I'm gonna finally say what I've been wanting and not wanting to tell you for a while now. It's on you whether it'll be a bad ending to a good story or not, but I just need to get it off my chest, ok?"

He nods, not at all as hesitantly as I thought he would which is relieving to see, so I continue.

"This is gonna sound pathetic and downright laughable but here it goes - I like you, Dave. The kind of like where I see you as more than a friend and sometimes even wish you would see me the same way as well despite being sure you don't. And please, if you plan on pulling a pity act give me a heads up so I can just walk aw-"

My ramble is put to an end when Dave puts his hand up, pointer finger in the air and almost touching my lips as a gesture to shush me. I am typically one of the hardest people to shut up EVER, but now the words die down on their own as if they are even happy to be put to rest at his request.

"Y/N you are the most talented, most graceful, the kindest and most beautiful and smartest person I have ever met and yet you still also happen to be the densest and most ignorant when it comes to the people around you. You're a people pleaser, I've figured out as much, but goddamn it, you rarely know what a person actually wants. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, this could just be the case with me and an inability to show emotion which I haven't known about all this time, but still - if your dense ass hasn't noticed it yet I'll say it out loud for you and if you still find a way to misinterpret it, I'll spell it out for you in huge neon letters, got it?" He makes something barely alike a pause before sighing, "Y/N L/N, the most densest person in this whole word, you've had me star-struck since day one and I've only been falling deeper and harder in love with you ever since. And you don't have even the slightest clue of what happened to me and my heart a couple minutes ago when you said you were leaving. Believe what you wanna, but words have never crushed me harder ever before and trust me, that says a lot. So, before you go and think you have my emotions figured out, remember that I actually know how to skate."

That's A LOT to take in. It's got layers upon layers of questions followed by answers followed by even more questions that I'm not sure I'm prepared to ask or answer.

So he's liked me since the day we met? Love at first sight? Nah, that shit only exists in movies.

He was hurt by that? I hurt him by not telling him then I hurt him by telling him and I'll hurt him the hardest when I leave tomorrow. How am I supposed to not feel responsible for putting so much pain on him without even realizing it?

And wait - he knows how to skate???

"You can skate? Like, you can can skate? Like, you're not a hopeless case like you've made me believe?" I ask, one of my eyebrows shooting up suspiciously.

Dave goes from looking puzzled to cracking up with laughter within a second after hearing my question, "Oh Y/N, you're so adorable. That's what's got you puzzled the most out of all I just said?"

I narrow my eyes at him, folding my arms over my chest defensively, "Well the rest seems pretty cut-and-dry, if you ask me." I say sarcastically, earning another laugh from him.

It's only now that I notice how confidently he's standing on the ice - as though he's standing on solid, non-slippery ground which is far from the image I have of Dave while on ice. The uncertainty, the lack of stability, it's all disappeared from his still demeanor which now makes a lot more sense.

He smirks at me, "Does it now, densey?"

I frown at the nickname, "Don't call me th-"

He doesn't let me finish, instead presses his lips against mine, the contact making me lose balance on my skates. Luckily, he probably calculated this risk in advance cause his arms wrap around me instantly, preventing me from slipping more than an inch.

"Who needs to be held up now?" He asks, pressing his forehead against mine when we pull away from the kiss.

I keep my eyes closed despite the urge to roll them in playful annoyance, "Oh, shut it."

And he does so by pressing his lips against mine once again.

What will happen once I leave, I have not the slightest clue. Hell, I don't even know what'll happen when we pull away permanently and get off the ice we're standing on. But I do know what's happening right now - I'm kissing Dave Brown and nothing's ever felt this right before.

@waterlilypat @iwillboilyourteeth @insanedeathwish @onceuponadie @loraleiix @smiithys @rottenroyalebooks @goldenstarofthunderclan @cosmicstorm19 @lam-ila @sra-verissimo @marthebeeduosimp

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andillaskforthesea · 4 years

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jigsaw

/// When I was seven years old, my dad said something to me that to this day is the reason I will die alone. // I was like, ‘Dad, what do we all do? What’s the meaning of life? Why are we all here?’ // He goes, ‘Just imagine that your life, my life, everyone else’s individual life. Imagine all of our lives are like our own individual jigsaw puzzles. As we’re going through life, we’re just slowly piecing it together, bit by bit, based on experiences and lessons that we’ve learned, until we get the best picture, but the thing is everyone has also lost the box for their jigsaw. So none of us know what the image we’re trying to make is, we’re just confidently fucking guessing. So the best way to do a jigsaw, when you don’t have the image to work off, is to start from the outside, the sides and the four corners. // Now, that made perfect sense to me, because I was seven years old. I fucking loved jigsaws. So I was like, ‘All right, okay. So once you’ve got the stuff on the outside, what’s the main bit of the image? What we are all working towards?’ // And he goes, ‘Well, that’s the partner piece. You and this perfect person who you’ve never met before to come out of nowhere, fit your life perfectly, complete you and make you whole for the first time in your life.’ //

// We’re so trying to be an adult that some of us will take the wrong person, the wrong jigsaw piece and just fucking jam them into our jigsaws anyway, denying that they clearly don’t fit. // Oh, we’ll move pieces out the way, I don’t need this hobby, I don’t need this opinion. // Then five years later, you’re stood looking at a jigsaw you don’t recognize, being like, ‘Ah! There’s a fucking cunt in the middle of this.’ //

// Every relationship is perfect for three months. And here’s why. ’Cause after three months, that’s when you realize that nobody else is a jigsaw piece. // Everyone else on this planet is as deep and as complex and individual as you are, which means they too have spent the last 20 or so years of their life working on their own jigsaw puzzle, in the same way that you’ve been working on yours. // You can’t suddenly expect them to give up everything they’ve come to achieve to suddenly fit into yours in the same way that you’d be pissed off if they asked you to sacrifice everything you’ve done, suddenly come fit into theirs,. // You can spend five or more years with someone, and only then, be looking at the jigsaw and realize you’re both working towards very different images. // And in that moment, you have a very, very difficult question to ask yourself. // One. Do I admit the last five years of my life have been a waste? // Two. Do I waste the rest of my life? //

// I’m of the opinion that if you do not love 100% of who I am, off you fucking fuck. // If you do not love 100% of who I am, you do not love me. You love an idea of me, which you have falsely fabricated in your head, and it’s not my fault if I do not live up to those expectations. // You have to love the good with the shit, mainly because I’m 90% shit. You have to love 100% of me, because that’s what makes me, me. //

// My ex-girlfriend was without a doubt the single worst human being I’ve ever met in my life. // Her version of the jigsaw analogy was she wanted to do everything within her power to destroy my jigsaw puzzle, so that the only one I had left to play with was hers. //

// You have to learn to love yourself before you can allow someone else to do it as well. // If you only love yourself at 20%, that means somebody can come along and love you 30%. You’re like, ‘Wow, that’s so much.’ It’s literally less than half. // Whereas if you love yourself 100%, a person that falls in love with you has to go above and beyond the call of duty to make you feel special. That’s something every one of us deserves, and that doesn’t mean you’re not happy. //

// The worst thing you can do with your life is spend it with the wrong human being. // There are 7.5 billion people on this planet, and you found your soul mate 20 miles from where you live. //

// I understand there will be a lot of slightly older people in the audience listening to a 26-year-old talk about his opinions on love, relationships, whatnot, and you’re probably sat there going, ‘Daniel, you’re so young. You’re so cynical. I know that, darling, because I used to be like you. I used to believe the same things when I was your age. I used to be like, “There’s no such thing as love,” and then I met this one. And we’ve been together ever since, and it has been a journey. It has been work, but we loved each other so we did work it.’ // If that’s you, if that’s how you feel I hope you’re right. I really do. // Because I guess if you’re not right, I guess if you’re wrong // the only other alternative is that when you were my age, you were so terrified of being alone that you forced yourself to love someone. ///

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mortaems-blog · 4 years

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* taps mic * so, uh, is this thing on ? hello ! my name’s stevie, i’m twenty ( she/they pns, please ) and i’m writing out of aest ! [ bill hader vc ] i like true crime and pretending like i don’t have a million things to do outside of writing ! anyways ! under the cut you’ll find information about francesca ramorini, ezra kennedy and percy frazer ! u know the drill, like this & i’ll pop into your ims either here or on disc.ord to plot !

francesca magdalene ramorini. vampire. old.

full name: francesca magdalene ramorini. physical age: thirty-one. real age: six hundred and seventy seven. birthplace: milan, italy. birthdate: january sixth, 1342. nationality: italian. species: vampire. gender identity: cis female, she/her pronouns. sexuality: bisexual.

when i say she’s old, i mean old. francesca and her brother, domenico, are from 13th century milan, where their family were originally some of the most prolific hunters in italy. the ramorinis had been vampire hunters for years previous, but it was their parents who had really cemented the reputation as some of the best. the ramorinis were a big name in milan anyway, just because of how ridiculously wealthy they were. these guys are fucking loaded. they were very much the apex predator in the milani aristocracy at the time. naturally, the whole ‘we’re a bunch of vampire hunters’ thing is very hidden, concealed under the family’s reputation as the owners of what feels like an impossibly large international bank that funded chunks of the holy roman empire. with all that in mind, francesca grows up with absolutely nothing but opulence, and their parents really allow her to grow into her own woman --- strong, determined, with a mind for both family trades. there was never any chance of her just sitting round and being complacent in the predetermination of her life ; she’s always been headstrong, brave, intelligent and opinionated, too loud for her own good, a face to turn heads.

they have a younger brother, too, fredo. ( the name is very significant. ) as dom and francesca started to learn to hunt themselves, they’d often end up with fred tagging along, and for the most part that was fine. fred’s a bit of a weirdo, but having them around wasn’t so bad --- until one particular hunt. really, it’s no one’s fault ( despite a centuries-long running joke that it was fred that got them there in the first place ) ; it’s a case of wrong place, wrong time. anyways, francesca and dom were turned on that particular hunt and their entire world just kinda spun out, tbh. they were so accustomed to seeing vampires and whatnot as the absolute enemy, nothing more than a scourge to be wiped out --- but now they were part of that scourge.

francesca especially had a hard time dealing with the transition. everything she knew was flipped on its head, a life she once looked forward to reveling in lost in the blink of an eye, the sink of a fang. the transition isn’t easy, but she shoulders it regardless because it’s just part of life now. she gives up the life she was meant to have and forges a new one --- and she thinks she’ll hate it, but it turns out to be oddly freeing. she takes up art, learns to paint and sculpt from some of the greatest ; she learns more than she ever could as an aristocrat, becomes rather chameleonic about it all.

so, anyways ! she and dom are in louisiana now, in this massive fucking mansion that they wrangled ; francesca moonlights as any number of different jobs. she teaches a late - night art class, runs an adult ballet class ( she danced with fonteyn in the 40s ) --- she’s become incredibly comfortable in the life she’s built. falling into it all was easier than she ever imagined it could be.

anyways, fun facts:

she dresses so goddamn well. she looks good literally all the time, and she fuckin KNOWS it / francesca honey stop wearing expensive tailored suits everywhere ur going to make men insecure

won’t ever shut up about emily dickinson or georgia o’keeffe........ #ma’am ur crush is loud and painful

the hot aunt aunt at the dinner party who simultaneously judges ur decisions and encourages them

yet another ramorini casanova ... are we surprised yet ( no )

ezra riley kennedy. hunter. twenty - one.

full name: ezra riley kennedy. physical age: twenty-one. birthplace: hoboken, new jersey. birthdate: july ninth, 1998. nationality: american. species: human. gender identity: non-binary, they/them pronouns. sexuality: pansexual.

i need it known right fockin now that i would literally die for ezra . they’re my FUCKING baby and i won’t shut up about it

ezra was born to two former hunters who gave up the minute they were pregnant. it wasn’t a choice they were particularly willing to make, and despite swearing that they’d stop after having kids they never really did. almost immediately after ezra was born their parents were back out hunting again, leaving the baby with their grandparents. as such, ezra’s raised entirely by their maternal grandparents. they simultaneously teach them their family history ( an extensive hunting background, the expectations that sit heavy on their shoulders. ezra’s expected to carry on the family legacy the minute they turn eighteen, to learn how to hunt and kill. admittedly, it’s a shock to the system.

they’re not in much contact with their parents. they come home every so often, greet their kid and go straight to sleep. there’s very little real interaction / gets to the point where ezra thinks of them more as irritating roommates that come home late and eat everything than actual parents. their loyalty is to their grandparents, without a doubt.

ezra’s keenly aware that they’ve got no choice in their career, but they can’t help but want some kind of say in it. they excel at stem subjects in school, more often found in science labs testing hypotheses in their free time than anywhere else. they’re left alone more often than not, slipping through school without much of a problem until they’re sixteen and their parents die in the middle of a hunt. it’s a rude shock to the system, having to bury both parents at such a young age but they do it with tremendous grace and class. shortly after the funeral, they drop out of school to start hunting.

they’re jaded going into it, definitely. their only real image of hunters is the one they were handed by their parents --- of dark circles under eyes, chain smoking, swallowing bourbon like water, passing out, rinse and repeat. they’re determined to break that mold, to do something different but they won’t lie, they considered it at first. for their first few hunts they tried to imitate their parents, and it didn’t turn out well --- so, like everything else, ezra fits it to themself, and the rest is history. they develop their own style, and it works.

hoboken is too small, not enough for them so they pack up and move off to louisiana. ( they’d found an old journal of their parents’, with notes alluding to a wish to move to new orleans and despite not being close they figured it might be a good idea. ) they’ve been in nola for about a year now, and they’re growing to love it. they’ve always been a city kid, and there’s something about nola just speaks to them.

so, fun facts:

super good with technology. they fix shit in their free time, & they build computers n shit ?????

smells like frangipani and jasmine and ginger. they smell really fucking good for some reason

lots of denim and leather and yellow in their outfits. they’ve got one particular leather jacket for hunting, but they kinda started a collection

angelic in every single way possible

has a black cat, named salem. salem’s a good cat.

percy floyd frazer. witch. twenty - four.

full name: percy floyd frazer. physical age: twenty-four. birthplace: amsterdam, the netherlands. birthdate: february 12th, 1995. nationality: british. species: witch. gender identity: demi male, he/they pronouns. sexuality: bisexual.

percy ....... sighs. i love him so fuckin much

so ! percy is born to two english witches while they’re on holiday in amsterdam, a pregnancy that both parties had been hoping for ; their household was starting to feel awfully lonely, and a baby sounded like the perfect way to round it all out. naturally, though, nothing goes to plan --- his arrival puts ‘unwarranted stress’ on his dad, who cuts his losses and runs about a month after percy’s birth. bit of a dick move, but let’s move on. his mother, annaliese, doesn’t harbour any real resentment towards his dad for leaving ; she’d fallen in love with amsterdam on their brief holiday and was planning on breaking up and moving there anyway.

so ! for his entire childhood, it’s just percy and his mom, and it’s the best kind of childhood you could ask for. he grows up watching all the same movies as his mom, reading her books and just hanging around her 24/7. ngl he kinda had the coolest childhood ???? his mom loved to rent out her favourite bands’ old tour videos and there’s many an afternoon where the two of them would sit there and just listen to music together. their relationship is very similar to that of theo and his mother from the goldfinch, if that gives anyone a frame of reference.

he’s about thirteen when she finally sits him down, tells him about the magic that whispers a steady thrum in his veins. she tells him about the uprising, about the way magic has become outlawed, how he has to learn to restrain himself. it’s a lot for someone so young to understand, but he sits through it patiently, peppering questions here and there. he doesn’t seem particularly enthused about his heritage ( really, who would ) --- his mother barely holds back the tremor in her voice throughout the conversation.

the more percy learns about the restriction of magic, the more bitter and jaded he grows about it all. he doesn’t hate himself, nor his mother, hates the pureblood monarchy with such a passion it’s almost terrifying. he’s sixteen when he swears off magic, tries to quash it down the best he can. he point - blank refuses to accept that it’s part of him, and tries to find a passion that distracts him from it. that ends up being music, and he takes to it like a fish takes to water. the minute he picks up a guitar, it’s like his world makes sense.

they’ve been living in amsterdam this entire time, wasting afternoons in art galleries and bakeries. percy’s eighteen when he decides that it’s time to spread his wings and move away --- his decision is hardly precise, he throws a dart at a map and hopes for the best. it lands on new orleans, louisiana, and he just kinda goes with it. he doesn’t have much to pack up: a single suitcase full of clothes, another filled with books and dvds, and his guitars, that’s it. both him and his mom cry at the airport, but it’s happy crying.

so, anyways ! he’s been in louisiana for six years now, and he loves it. when he first moved he worked any number of casual jobs, but he’s settled into one as a bookseller in an indie bookshop. he writes film + music reviews for a number of online sites as well, so he’s got himself a steady lil income.

some fun facts:

dresses like an utter e-boy and i won’t apologise for it

looks n acts like an arrogant prick sometimes but truly....... sweet, kind, would do anything for the people he loves ( even if that number is small )

totally pretentious about his tastes. don’t start him, for the love of god

perpetually got his glasses on, perpetually holding an oversized cup of tea

has a collection of tiny little tattoos ( they’re all references to books / movies / music he loves )

i ............ love him a lot

#ofmintro #only took me 3 days..............

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incyas · 6 years

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ya girl moose is back at it w another child !! if u want to plot with this angel feel free to HMU and or just LIKE THIS and i’ll come to you !!

[ jameela jamil, cisfemale, she/her, 30 ] REAPER by SIA? whenever i hear that song, it reminds me of INAYA KAUR. maybe because they’re BENEVOLENT but also LOQUACIOUS. they’ve been living at mulberry apartments since DECEMBER of 2015 in 311 and have 1 ROOMMATE.

tw: suicide attempt & abortion !!

ok i just want to start by sayin that this bih is like........a mixture of an old character i’ve had for years and this new concept for a character i want to bring in so she’s like.....a mash up of ideas i guesS so ............i’m still figuring her out a lil but here we gO

starting w her background

she’s a first generation american born in manhattan. her mum is from pakistan & her dad is from india & they both attended columbia where they met and fell in love awww how cute we luv some heteros. her mum was studying accounting and her father architecture. they married right after graduation and found a place in manhattan to start their family

they had a lot of trouble getting pregnant but eventually they were blessed with a set of beautiful twins !!! dimah was born and then seven minutes later, inaya came too.

although the twins always got along v well, inaya kind of felt like the black sheep. she was never as smart as her sister. she was never as popular as her sister. she tried so hard to be liked and even though her & dimah were best friends, people always seemed to like inaya less.

because they were twins, they were being compared constantly. it was always “why cant you be like dimah? dimah does this dimah does that. dimah has good friends” blah blah blah. it was frustrating bc inaya tried so hard and.........she got nothing

it went on like this and eventually inaya got used to it and just....did her own thing. she figured she would never be as good as her sister so there was no use in trying to make her parents proud so she just stopped trying and tried to do what made her happy. it didn’t really work. in fact, it only made things worse.

she felt defeated. like nothing she could do would ever be good enough for them. she had friends that loved and supported her but her the disappointment from her parents’ weighed heavily on her heart and her self esteem.

suicide attempt tw !! she was only sixteen years old when she attempted to end her own life. she was found by her best friend who rushed her to the hospital where her life was saved.

after that her parents kind of realized how their words and actions affected her. (a little too late but still) and things started to get better. they were angry with her at first but hearing her explain how she felt and how they made her feel things started to click into place. she was a good kid, really. she never did anything wrong. she hung out with some questionable people but her parents started to recognize that she was just doing her best.

things were pretty ok for the next few years. not good, but ok.

and then, when she was nineteen, she noticed her period was late. it was VERY late. she took an at-home pregnancy test and it came out positive and she was absolutely TERRIFIED. her parents eventually found the test and absolutely lost their minds. they were okay with her hanging out with shady people and not getting perfect grades but the unwanted pregnancy was the final straw, it seemed.

and just like that, she was kicked out of her own house with no where to live. she ended up moving in with her best friend while she worked odd jobs to save up some money.

abortion tw !! with no money and no help to raise a child that she didn’t exactly want, inaya ended up getting her pregnancy terminated. it was the hardest decision she’d ever had to make and the choice still weighs heavy on her soul though she doesn’t regret it.

she & her best friend moved to baltimore for a nice change of scenery when inaya was in her mid 20s, finding a decent apartment for a pretty good price. they stayed there for a few years before eventually moving again to mulberry a few years ago!!!!

now she lives in mulberry with her best friend as her roommmate !!! she works as a freelance makeup artist while also being a beauty guru on youtube. though her job is somewhat unconventional, it makes her really happy and she feels very successful by doing what she loves and making pretty decent money for it. she hopes to start her own makeup brand pretty soon that is.....her ultimate dream

ok that got longer than i wanted but here is more abt her personality

she is......an absolute angel. the sweetest woman u may ever meet

the opinion’s of others are very important to her so she is always working double time to impress people even tho.......it ultimately just makes her unhappy

she’s way better off since she’s sort of lost contact with her parents but she still.......has that uncontrollable urge to please people no matter what

puts everyone else before herself

she’s very sensitive and very emotional. she takes almost everything super personally

just wants people to like her

100000000% the mom friend. will always be texting u to make sure you’ve eaten and whatnot. will over to make u dinner if u havent. makes sure ur drinking water if you’re drinking alcohol and will wake up at 3am to drive you home if she has to

just wants everyone to be safe and happy

wears her heart on her sleeve but doesnt want people to see her sad

she puts her entire heart and soul into everything she does

doesn’t stop talking tbh. she just.......doesn’t know how to shut up rly

just wants ppl to like her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

some extra tidbits !!

loves to bake

LOVES doing her friend’s makeup and honestly.......will give u a little makeover for free just because

halloween is her absolute fave holiday the bitch goes WILD her costumes are always over the top

loves horror movies

puts a lot of effort into her appearance. always wearing something flattering w her hair and makeup done

tall af but always wearing heels anyway bc she is............powerful

wanted to be a ballet dancer but she was told she was too tall so she quit

loves wine

falls in love 12 times a day tbh

my bi queen

she has a pet bunny named clover

i probably am missing quite a bit but.........come plot w me anyway :’)

#soundintro #love meeeeee

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yourprayer · 6 years

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Pop Culture owns my entire heart!! Idk if you’ve answered this before but do you have explanations as to why you chose the powers you did for the losers? :)

i haven’t and you have no idea how excited i am to answer this (:

this post contains spoilers about the direction of pop culture so if u don’t wanna know don’t read this!!!!!

+im tagging everyone on the pop culture tagslist just in case they do wanna see this and get this good info!

okay so basically the theme i have running is that all of their powers are based in their fears, basically my weird take on the pennywise/fear based concepts of the story. there’s no pennywise in the pop culture universe, but i did really want to play around with the loser’s fears and insecurities because they’re very interesting story plots and i love studying these characters! some of them are more straightforward than others but yeah here’s the rundown;

richie - richie develops the power to turn himself invisible at will, at first with excruciating pain but over time that goes away as he gains control. i chose this power for richie because in my opinion of his characterization his greatest fear is becoming invisible, having everyone forget or not see him. he struggles endlessly with feeling ignored or unnoticed; now he can become exactly that. his secondary power is going to be astral projection. this stems from, in my characterization of him, a constant fear of being unable to be where he’s needed. i think for someone like richie it’s hard to not be there for his friends, hard to be kept away from helping someone. his projections help him be there to witness, but not to act, which to him is a little worse.

mike - mike has pyrokinesis. it’s an easy conclusion to say it stems from his fear of fire, as his family died in a fire, but in the pop culture universe it was not his parents that died, but instead it was his grandfather, and it was from a fire that mike accidentally set. he blames himself for what happened, and fears the lack of control he has over fire and over other things. coming to terms with his power is very hard for him because he sees it as a curse he deserves.

stan - stan develops telekinesis, which is a direct manifestation of his mind power. stan is definitively the loser with the most intuition out of the group and an incredibly sharp person, but because of this he is also more acutely aware than he wants to be of the world around him and some of the shittier things it contains. it’s also an homage to the theory that stephen king wrote the losers as possibly possessing the powers of the shining.(i know matpat’s kind of annoying but tbh this video changed my life and i firmly adhere to it’s logic.) i chose telekinesis over telepathy because i wanted to lmao.

ben - ben becomes a weather manipulator, in a way that’s directly tied to his emotions. the biggest things i got out of reading ben’s sections in the book were that he was pretty devastated by his relationship with his father as a child, and that he had issues expressing his feelings in front of others. to me ben is a wonderful, kindhearted man who is always what others need him to be, but struggles immensely with being honest about what’s going on in his own heart. the idea that the weather changes as he feels makes him terrified because when people see the sky cloud over, they know exactly how he’s feeling, and he’s scared to be that open. the rapidly changing weather is also a reference to the fact that his childhood was so turbulent and things changed constantly.

bev - beverly is both clairvoyant and has psychic visions. she occasionally gets visions that are symbolic of experiences and powers the other kids are dealing with. they’re mostly for story purposes (foreshadowing and hints and whatnot) but are, as mentioned in a previous chapter, something she used to experience as a small child. i for one kind of believe these things can happen (i have a friend who’s family believed she was prophetic as a child and from what they’ve told me i think it’s true) so i included it. her clairvoyance is of a specific kind, basically she can touch people and see their thoughts/memories/intentions if she wants to. the first few times its on accident of course but once she learns control she can use it at free will. these were chosen because i believe bev approaches a lot of her trauma by burying it, and that being confronted with things prevalent from her childhood would deeply frighten her, like the sudden return of her visions. her clairvoyance upsets her because she frankly does not want to know what other people are thinking, since she spent so long in her childhood being told things like the line in the 2017 film “i know exactly what’s in those boys’ minds…” you all know what i’m gettin at.

eddie - eddie is able to manipulate plants/plant life and has extra sensory perception (esp). both are manifested mostly in plant life responding to his anger or distress, again tied to his emotions, and the esp is represented by a heightened sense of panic when danger is present. he can basically sense danger just before it’s supposed to happen, and his body gets a huge rush of adrenaline because of the sensation. this combined with his already heightened sense of general fear appears to most as an extreme panic disorder, which it basically is. there’s also a concept to do with bev’s vision in the newer chapter and the colors. when eddie has a sense that something is about to happen, it comes with a color that is tied to a person, so he knows who is in danger. all i’ll give away so far is that the bowers gang is red. this power upsets him because his biggest fear is his own fear, and the idea that it could get in the way of him being able to do anything when danger comes. the plant manipulation power is a representation of his need to grow, and his ingrained belief he’ll never be able to because of the stifling hands of his mother. he also kind of doesn’t want to grow, or face what comes with that.

bill - bill is a shapeshifter here, which is probably the power i’ll have the hardest time defending. it was largely chosen cause i thought it was cool lmao. but for bill its rooted in his desire to be the person everyone wants him to be, and the fact that that ideal person is constantly shifting and changing. georgie is alive in this au, and bill’s family life is a lot more whole. but bill feels an intense need to be strong for them, and the losers, and be the kind of man and leader they want. he is also struggling immensely with the transition from childhood to adulthood and what that means for his identity in the world. he feels himself so constantly shifting and changing out of distress and desire to be ‘the right thing’.

the powers of the bowers gang are based on mutual fears of the group as a whole towards the bullies, and are as follows;

henry - the power to absorb energy (think kevin bacon in xmfc) because the losers all fear that any effort to overcome their suffering at his hands is futile

patrick - shadow manipulation because the losers all fear the shadowy places in life, knowing the bullies could be waiting anywhere

victor - teleportation, for a similar reason, that idea that the bullies can be anywhere and everywhere

belch - creating copies of himself (think multiple man) because to the losers it always seems like there’s just too fucking many of them

(big thanks to hannah @reddiesetrichie for being a great sounding board for the bullies powers, i rlly needed help picking those

anyways yeah thats the lowdown on who has what and why!!! thank u for letting me ramble about this and i hope it gets yall jazzed up for whats to come

tagslist: @s-s-stutteringbill @gazeboseddie @misssiriusblack @mythgirl96 @crackhousetozier @reddieaddict @wincestklaine @beepbeep-losers @ayyyymichele @megelizabethvh @tapetayloe @flickerflies @ghostbustermike @i-is-gazebo @reddiesetrichie @wyttolff @gayzier @kaspbrak-is-our-king @mikedenbrough @28shoes @nicoperryy @kinghanscom @eddiecare @shadysandi @fyeahreddie

#prior.txt #answered #anon #popcultureverse #popculture info #this was so much fucking fun to get into thank u #i love my kiddos #hope yall are hype about whats coming down the line!!!#i also have a very special gift for yall after chapter ten u aint reddie #see what i did there #okay anyways #enjoiiiii

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