#thank you for playing!!

[charmwasjess]

3, about Dooku

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character?

Oh, great one! Thanks for asking! 

I think I’d say inconsistency. 

Dooku is an unreliable narrator who lies to everyone and himself. I love unreliable narrator characters. They’re endlessly interesting, it’s so much fun to piece together what’s actually happening through the lens of what they’re deluding themselves about. Limitless opportunities for the kind of dorky analysis I love. 

But when you have them set in such a vast franchise that struggles with general consistency, it’s hard to work out what’s a deliberate narrative clue versus what is simply content creators not paying attention to each other, making oversights, ignoring details in favor of the scene they’re writing… And Dooku’s storyline is pretty rotted through with these issues.

Even really big stuff, like his early fall to darkness. Dooku’s Sith ghost from the Yoda comic calls Yaddle his first kill. Yet Tales of the Jedi seems to imply Dooku at least did something to Sifo-Dyas by that point; surely a personal and significant murder. Did he not count that because he didn’t do it in person? So then how do we take Dooku’s claims in the Clone Wars that Sifo-Dyas was actively working with him and understood everything? Lying? But he says that AFTER Obi-Wan and Anakin have caught him red handed covering up Sifo-Dyas’s murder. So is that significant? They were working together, and Sidious still ordered Sifo-Dyas dead? But Dooku doesn’t think he’s to blame for it. Or he does, but he’s lying to himself? 

….Or more likely, all these pieces were written by different content creators who were making their specific scenes work and focused on that rather than presenting a coherent, consistent order of events. And okay, this is a pretty specific example about a plot I care a lot about because it’s my little guy, but the Clone bait-and-switch is kind of central and it’s a 20 year old plot at this point.

#of course my real least favorite thing is the damn random space racism Stover added into the RotS novelization but I think it's decanonized #if it's not please don't tell me #give me something for the pain and let me die #thank you for playing!! #I really am having a blast with these; I hope it's not annoyingly clogging anyone's feed #analysis so delicious to me

[tottmnt]

TMNT ask go!!! (ty for the ask as well, I'll get to it rn) 4? 15?

4. What version of Leonardo is your favorite?

my 2nd fave leo!! he is such an anxious baby and i adore him

15. Show us a piece of TMNT-related merchandise that you own

idk why this pic is so long 💀 but yeah this is a poster i got from the theater when i saw mutant mayhem!

send me an ask!

#thank you for playing!! #tmnt mutant mayhem #mutant mayhem #tmnt #may answers

[myreygn]

hey rey! i have a few different characters/ships for your ask game so feel free to choose which to do!

1. shin soukoku

2. dazai & odasaku

3. geto

4. kunikida

5. giyuu

hope you have a great day/night! (btw i’ll get cracking on your most recent request for lee geto and ler gojo 😉)

oh oh oh very interesting options! i'll see if i have something for these!

shin soukoku: Fever Dream (Palaye Royale)

can you see the words i'm up here trying to preach // no need to cry, you'll never find me trying to leave // i can see that you're in pain from your pale and lifeless face // so let go and float away

it just has this vibe of hey we're both tangled up in this net of lies that other people tell and wars that other people fight and maybe together we're gonna be strong enough to end all of this

dazai & odasaku: Savior II (Black Veil Brides)

and every word that came from you has carried me // so i'm trying my hardest to be what you made // like a court jester, my smile won't fade // giving it all, rising to fall to my grave // answer the call, living in thrall, you're the one born to save

is it not giving dazai right after oda's death?? just a little bit?? their relationship is so special to me actually i don't talk about them enough (also i was so close to taking loser baby from hazbin hotel i'm sorry 💀)

geto: Joan of Arc (In This Moment)

you can crucify, you can nail me to your cross (light me up, light me up) // you can find me guilty for everything you lost (light me up, light me up) // go ahead, blame me for your sins // go ahead and sacrifice me // i'll be your martyr, i'll be your joan of arc

is this a good time to tell you that i never actually watched jjk? 😭 idk if this fits i feel like it does from the little knowledge i have but you need to tell me if it makes sense i'm so sorry (also yey thank you for writing the request!!)

kunikida: Das Herz eines Drachen (Feuerschwanz)

du hast das herz eines drachen, glühend wie gold // flieg in die schlacht, so edel und stolz // du hast das herz eines drachen in deiner brust // kämpf bis zum schluss // und irgendwann wenn wir verglüh'n // halt ich es fest, weil ich es spür // dass dein starkes herz sein feuer nie verliert // denn dein drachenherz schlägt weiter, tief in mir

i feel like it's often overlooked how much the ada members admire kunikida and this feels like it fits his leader personality so well idk. i'm recommending this song a thousand times and here's a translation for you to make you consider listening to it lol:

you've got the heart of a dragon, glowing like gold // fly into battle, so noble and proud // you've got the heart of a dragon inside of your chest // fight 'til the end // and one day when we burn out // i'll hold onto it because i sense // that your strong heart will never lose its fire // and your dragon heart will keep on beating inside of me

giyuu: 99 Luftballons (Nena)

99 jahre krieg ließen keinen platz für sieger // kriegsminister gibt's nicht mehr und auch keine düsenflieger // heute zieh ich meine runden // seh die welt in trümmern liegen // hab 'n luftballon gefunden // denk an dich und lass ihn fliegen

yes it's german again my apologies and there's technically an official english version of this (99 red balloons) but honestly it's a pretty bad translation. it's a song about war being horrible and unnecessary and how we should strive for peace, the balloons being a metaphor for countries firing their weapons over every little thing, and honestly this part i put here reminds me of giyuu and sabito, or giyuu thinking about sabito post canon:

99 years of war left no room for winners // there are no more ministers of war and no more fighting jets // today i'm making my way around // i see the world lying in ruins // i have found a balloon // i think of you and let it fly

#thank you for playing!! #this was so much fun ahhh #rey answers #ask game #rey's moots #myst 🌌

[bleachbleachbleach]

17 and 19 for the writer's ask meme!

Fic Writing Meme!

17. What’s something you’ve learned about while doing research for a fic?

Most recently I learned a lot about steam locomotives! Last summer my co-blogger and I made a Lonely Planet travel guide about the East Rukongai Soul Train based on @recurring-polynya’s train post, where I had to look up a bunch of stuff about trains, and I recently wrote a big fic about the East Rukongai Soul Train, among other things. So I went back and re-learned what I’d already learned about steam trains, and then got very excited about deciding, based on those pre-established parameters, how many cars the train could pull and how well it would work for the environment it was traveling through and how fast it could go and what structural elements it might need in order to make the journey.

Very little of this information is meaningfully a part of the end result, and is mentioned only reluctantly by Hitsugaya in one scene; but the important thing is, the train doesn’t derail and it has enough power to make it up a peak of moderate elevation and therefore doesn’t need to factor into the narrative because *the train* at least, knows what it’s doing. 

I also learned that one of the last remaining functional historic 2-6-0 steam locomotives is being restored for use on the rail line near my mother’s house!! The tracks were laid as part of the original Continental Railroad in the mid-1800s by Chinese laborers and many human rights violations.

19. Give us a small teaser from one of your WIPs.

This is one of the oldest scenes from my current active WIP, and one of my personal favorites:

"What… was that?" Hisagi asks, a little gravel in his voice.

"Music," says Outoribashi.

"Yeah, but—" Hisagi pauses. "Is it… shikai?"

"It is music," says Outoribashi.

"Yeah, but—"

Yeah, but zanpakutou aren’t meant to be used for frivolous things, is probably what Hisagi has lost the words for. Zanpakutou are to be drawn only in battle. To do otherwise is punishable by censure, and sometimes imprisonment. It’s written on the walls in the Maggot’s Nest. 

In the 12th, zanpakutou protocols are loose at best, and most of Akon’s colleagues have little to do with their swords regardless of circumstance. For his part, Akon generally thinks of his zanpakutou as a tool among many, a perception that his sword is happy to share. And it’s not as though his captain’s experiments with his own sword are exactly normative. So it surprises Akon, the degree to which he shares Hisagi’s reaction. It’s a mild degree, but it’s not nothing. For Akon, that makes it statistically significant. 

"Music is generally not what swords are used for," he says. He cocks his head, inviting further explanation.

"A zanpakutou is not a sword," replies Outoribashi. "They are a manifestation of the soul."

Outoribashi’s fingers alight on a keening treble note. He lets it warble before dropping an octave and beginning the bridge anew. 

“And my soul is not a weapon.”

#thank you for playing!! #no brain just bleach #asks

[raz-writes-the-thing]

🍢🍥

🍢 Have you ever gotten hate on a fic?

Nothing publicly, no. I did get one hate message relating to my tags but that's it as far as I can remember.

🍥 What's your favourite fic you've written?

Oh. Hmm. I think I'd have to say Angel's Blood? It's one of the only fics (aside from the one in my WIPS rn) that I really actually felt like it was good as I was writing it. Second to that would maybe be Science Behind the Madness.

#thank you for playing!! #raz answers the thing #raz plays ask games

[xing-hua]

for the fic guessing game!

"It’s storming again, the conclusion to a luridly warm summer’s day."

ooohh i know this one! it's the first line of my first luckae fic, until i found you

(my first thought was actly one of my wips, but i was like that's not right it's not published at all 😂)

#thank you for playing!! #<33 #matadorofheart #杏花之信 #tbh i probably only know this bc i edited this fic 848583 times; and it marks the start of me being active in fandom again hehe

[sunshineler]

7, 8, 20

7. Do your friends know about your love for tickles? If so, how did they react? If not, what’s holding you back?

Some of them do! If we’re at that point in our friendship where we talk about sex and kinks then sure, definitely. If not, it’s admittedly not something I go out of my way to bring up

8. What do you wish you could change about the Tickle Community?

I absolute despise this idea of SFW or ‘non-sexual’ kink blogs on the rise. This is a fetish. It’s an inherently sexual medium when you get a sexual thrill out of it. We don’t entertain stupid bullshit like ‘SFW impact play’ blogs or ‘non-sexual feederism’ posts because they’re not real. All it does is blur the lines between appropriate and inappropriate, and there are enough monsters in the community without the rest of us enabling this behaviour

20. What is your greatest hope involving tickling?

This is going to sound so fake and sappy but genuinely I just want a partner who genuinely loves tickling as much as I do, because I sincerely do believe it to be a core part of my sexuality and a big part of who I am in a relationship

#rae rambles #rae answers #ask games #send asks!! #thank you for playing!!

[littencloud9]

12 & 21 for the music ask game? <3

hii <3

12. A song from your preteen years

- i promise i liked tate mcrae before she blew up on tiktok 😞 but this was the first song i listened to by her!

21. A favorite song with a person’s name in the title

- i LOVE all time low you should all listen to them. future hearts is my favourite album by them ever

send me asks!

#this ask game is my excuse to be annoying about every single artist i like. sorry #thank you for playing!! #asks #ask game #grace <3

[frostbitebakery]

for the ask game - 😅, 🍦,💔

Ooooh!

😅 What's a sketch or finished image you've created that you're a smidge embarrassed exists?

Hm, none. Tho, real talk: I feel a bit embarrassment over every single art. After I post them I can’t really look at them again. I’ve gotten better at it and have accepted that they’re all part of the process of me gaining experience as someone who draws. So they all stay up even if I feel embarrassed over them.

🍦 has been answered!

💔 Is there an image of yours that broke your heart?

Probably this one

FIHOTISS (Fake imperial husbands) started, as always, as a concept of what if, and then proceeded to break my heart when I talked with @elwenyere and the backstory grew more and more until we decided collab? Collab!

The thing about this version of Sithywan is that Obi-Wan is only pretending to have fallen. And Vader is his cruel self.

Artist Emoji Asks

#fan artist emoji asks #thank you for playing!!

[desertfangs]

For the wip word game: kiss

(yeah I’m transparent and out for one thing and one thing only 🤧)

Send me a word, if it’s in my wip document I’ll answer your ask with the sentence that it appears in

Lestat kissed him more fiercely, his fingernail digging harder into Daniel’s flesh. The pain shot down his arm, deliciously sharp compared to the softness of his mouth, even as Lestat worked his tongue with vigor. 

(I appreciate transparency so I gave you two lines. I have a note to make sure all the kissing in this is good on my next editing pass, LMAO.)

#thank you for playing!! #apoptoses #lestat/daniel #i don't know why their makeouts turn out so 🥵 but they just are that way #answers in the desert #wip guessing game

[ereborne]

for the wip game - ahhhh it is actually impossible to pick, i am consumed with curiosity about everything on the list ok ok ummmm refractive index or lay-on-the-floor-and-scream dot excel please!

I did lay-on-the-floor-and-scream for zahnie here, so we'll go with refractive index. Also known as “why do the different colors of kryptonite all suck in different ways, why is Tim fundamentally different people around his family and his friends, why would anyone make a pizza out of cauliflower, and other answers Kon absolutely cannot go another day without”. I am again putting the DC timeline(s) in a blender to make a more palatable story-smoothie!

Kon overhears Tim lying to Bruce about his home life, which is very cool (he heard Robin all the way in Gotham) and very uncool (he was not supposed to be listening to Robin while he was in Gotham) and very impressive (Rob lied to Batman! right to his face! and it worked!) and very worrisome (why is Rob lying to Batman anyway???)

Also Deathstroke has a crate of kryptonite samples, Bart keeps going missing, and Cassie keeps ordering inedible food for movie night. The usual problems.

Kon settles into the straw, absently tucking some prickly bits away with his TTK, and closes his eyes.  Why is hearing practice easier with his eyes closed?  Is it really or is that a—what did Bart call it.  Like sugar pills.  Oooh, sugar—it’s a little bit cheating, to go out for hearing practice but then only listen in on Ma and Pa in the kitchen right there, but—oh they are definitely talking about pie.  Sweet.  Heh.  Sweet.  Aw, he lifted his head towards the house when he was trying to listen to the kitchen.  Hearing practice half-fail.  He lets himself flop back down limp in the straw, TTKs a little more of it away from the back of his neck, ugh, and carefully stays put as he listens for Bart.  Bart’s always making noise, even when he’s still and quiet as he can be his heart still goes like a hummingbird, he should be easy to pick out.  Nope.  Nuh uh.  Nothing.  Kon keeps listening for Bart.  Behind him is uh, east—quick check, yeah, house there cows there road there Smallville out thataway, yeah, behind him is definitely east—so Bart should be to his right.  He tries again.  He just listened around for Smallville no problem, even clocked some cars on the road—and this is the middle of nowhere, so there aren’t cars for ages in any direction—so why can’t he find a juiced-up speedster heartbeat, theoretically actually a whole household of speedster heartbeats, to his right?  There’s a piece of straw jabbing him in the cheek.  He turned his stupid head to the right, ugh.  Uuuuugh.  And how is a little piece of straw still so pokey when his skin is invulnerable, anyway?  Rob would know, probably.  He wonders, just out of habit, just for a second, where Robin is now.  How is he, what’s he doing—and that’s when his stupid hearing decides to cooperate. 

#asks #goingsparebutwithprecision #thank you for playing!! #I feel like I end up with something oddly stream-of-consciousness every time I write a Young Justice fic #I guess that's just the way they are in my head though. those kooky kids and their chatter or something #it does make them unbelievably fun to write #also a fun fact regarding the title #the refractive index of a given medium is how much it refracts/distorts light passing through it #and I actually named the fic that because of Tim's tendency to code-switch his entire godsdamned personality based on whose company he's in #and then later realized I was going to need to develop more of an action plot to keep the fic moving and was like okay but what to do #and then after the title decided on various colors of kryptonite #so the main active plot of the story was inspired by its title! backasswards but this is how I function

[suguwu]

bee!! To me your trademark is 'lover be good to me' and the kind of prose that feels like the stars from howl's moving castle but in text form!💖

birdie beloved! lbgtm being my trademark is so near and dear to my heart and hello?? your description of my prose is so cute and such a huge compliment ahhhhh!! you are too good to me <3

what's my trademark?

#🪴.ask #birdie.🪷 #ask game #thank you for playing!! #i actually had a hmc theme for a while there based around the shooting star!!!

[therubyreader]

Trick or treat! <3

My first trick or treater!! 🍭🍬🍫

I give to you Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

🍬Trick or treat in my inbox for a random book recommendation🍬

#trick or treat #trick or treat with Val #thank you for playing!!

[bleachbleachbleach]

For the AO3 Wrapped Meme: Favorite pairing you wrote for this year? (non-romantic edition). I love the way your fics always have the most perfect interactions between pairs of characters, sometimes the usual suspects, sometimes completely unexpected combos, but something interesting and insightful always come out of it. My favorite was the time you wrote about Isane and Renji washing their socks together, but I'd like to know what yours is.

AO3 Wrapped Meme

Aww thank youuu! 🥺 I too am also incredibly fond of Isane and Renji washing their socks together, because I like Isane and Renji doing laundry together, but also because that scene determined what the structure of the entire fic was going to need to be, because if Isane and Renji spent 500 words washing socks, then Iemura would have to be here, and Hisagi too, and Isane can't just read a letter and reminisce, no, she and Unohana are going on a HIKING TRIP--

This year I enjoyed writing Hinamori introducing herself to Sasakibe via 18th century British literature; I enjoyed Orihime and Hitsugaya dealing with the Worm TV; I enjoyed the Hanbantai Players forcing interactions with others. But the first thing that came to mind is less a pair and more a triangulation, from D O N K I :

"Yes," Hitsugaya agrees. He'd spent a month in Nagano several decades ago, on his first solo deployment to the Living World. It had felt very similar to Junrinan, as his captain had known it would.

"Kurosaki-kun's father drove me there once," Inoue says. "Nagano, I mean. It's where--Well, that's where my family grave is. My aunt forced my grandparents to let him be interred there. But it was so far, and I thought I was going to take the train, and then a bus, and then walk, but--Kurosaki-kun's father drove me all the way. He waited outside the cemetery for hours, all by himself. He smoked a pack of cigarettes. And then he drove me home."

Hitsugaya tries to imagine Kurosaki Isshin driving a car.

At this point in the fic, Orihime’s been thinking about Sora a lot, because she’s thinking about the Winter War and thinking about going to Soul Society to train with Rukia, and just generally thinking about change that you can’t turn back from. And Hitsugaya’s been thinking about Hinamori. Orihime doesn’t know Hinamori, and Hitsugaya just learned that Orihime even has a brother like 5 minutes ago, but one person they do both know is Isshin (even if Orihime doesn’t know that they both know him).

From Orihime’s perspective, she’s telling this story in the context of “places she has been and why” and in the context of Sora, and her relationship to Ichigo, AKA the person she followed into this Winter War. For Hitsugaya, this story is one piece of what Isshin has been up to this whole time. And what he’s been up to is driving Orihime--a little girl whose brother died in his clinic, who is a classmate of his son’s--to a funeral three hours away, waiting for the duration of the entire funeral (probably thinking about Masaki, because what else would you be compelled to do when standing outside a cemetery for hours), and then driving her all the way back home. I think Hitsugaya finds a lot of value in knowing that whatever else might’ve gone down, Isshin is still out there offering quixotic energy to random kids he crosses paths with. 

I really like this connection as part of Orihime and Hitsugaya’s relationship to each other--as some other thing they share, outside of their present situation/impending war.

#thank you for playing!! #asks #inoue orihime #hitsugaya toushirou #kurosaki isshin #no brain just bleach

[needle-noggins]

AOE wrapped #29

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

WHAT A TOUGH QUESTION. I think it would have to be a tie between these two:

I won't be the calf frozen in fear fawning at the feet of the Knife that is all sharp edges, that has never had a soft spot that I could possibly touch upon no matter how hard I try to reach for one. (From Freaks of Nurture)

OR

This is right where she’s meant to be, here with him. All the pieces have fallen into place in their haphazard, clumsy way but something went right. The release of saying it, of hearing him say it back, feels like discovery. Like turning a page in the terrible book she’s been living through to find it was about love all along. It smoothes the edges of her fractured soul and fills the cracks with golden shining hope. (from Bluebells Ch. 8)

#thank you for playing!!