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plutoswrath · 3 years

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✧ astro notes and titbits ✧

part 1, part 2 x

- a common misconception regarding the South and North Node: it’s not the mission to abandon your South Node, it just represents what you already learned and brought with you here on earth and should be expanded. The Lunar Nodes represent a constant seek for balance, South and North Node should both be equally integrated in ones life.

- regarding North Node: the North Node is more an uncomfortable placement as it pushes us towards what we don’t know and have a hard time understanding and integrating in our life, even though we desire it. The North Node is impulsive and aggressive in its desire and thus, on the negative side, can equally lead to trouble when blindly followed.

- when looking at our own, or even other aspects, especially the harsh ones, we always have to consider the age of the person. As you grow into your placements over the years, we then can have the abilities to handle conflicting energies within us better - this is not only an encouragement to people with harsh aspects, but also newbies who might get intimated by their own and others placements!

- a Quincunx (Inconjunction) can be even harder to resolve than a Square. While a Square can find common ground in the modalities at least, the Quincunx comes from completely different sides and can manifest as unknowingly doing the same mistake over and over again, while the individual wonders why it always hurts. At the same time, it can seem like the only option left for them, even when they know it’s not the optimum. Quincunxes can go under the radar as well, since they are a small aspect

- this a fun thing I recently did with my own and other charts: If you were born too late or early and you happen to know the approximate delivery date of your birth go and calculate that birth chart! I found myself lucky to be born two weeks later than expected asdfghj

- when you have Aquarius/Uranus touching your ascendant or any house that is about self expression and/or the public it could give you a very scattered energy; you might be flipping on and off energy wise and people could have a hard time keeping up with you or adjusting to your flow of energies. This can also result in a lot of different ‘phases’ the individual goes through, or in equally getting passionate about something but then losing interest 3 weeks later

- A very common trait that a lot of Pisces Ascendants have are the droopy, watery eyes and often times pointed features on the face/a rather pointed face shape

- Taurus, Sagittarius and Cancer Ascendants could stretch features of the face/the overall face shape. Sagittarius is ruled by Jupiter and Cancer is exalted in it: both of these signs can be prone to easily gaining width, Sagittarius and Cancer also can indulge a lot and thus can lead to quicker wheight gaining. Taurus, being the bull, can give the individual a rather wide, squary/boxy look, but always very sensual and serene with Venus being it’s ruler

- some thoughts on Ceres: Ceres is an asteroid that tells us equally about nurture and destruction. Ceres was Persephones mother, as much as she loves to take care of her lovely daughter, she sometimes doesn’t know the limits and when to stop - once what she loves is taken from her, she can leave a path of destruction behind her and become deeply obsessive. She can cross boarders and break rules for those she loves. Ceres is a mother archetype, responsible for harvesting, she is not only directly linked to nature, but also a good representation of mother natures extremes

-> Also: Ceres can give you insight about the relationshio between a mother and a child. I would recommend looking at your synastry with your mother figure. It can give you additional information to your parental relationship despite other very telling planets, such as Moon. Look where their Ceres touches your chart and what aspects they form

-> Ceres in synastry can also show you where your mother figure was most present, what they cared for most and maybe even where they were overly critical/concerned, protective or didn’t care for you at all.

- some thoughts on North Node an karmic connections in synastry: links from one Nodal point to the other don’t always have to indicate a karmic link that has a major impact in your life. Think about it: All people that are born around the same time as you and have their NN in ~ 10 degrees to yours will conjunct it, but does that mean we’re all karmically connected? It’s more likely these people all share a similar karmic life path, sharing the same soul mission. Most likely the really big feelings and influences are when the Lunar Nodes touch the inner planets/angles, as they have an almsot immediate and very direct influence on the other

- those with Mercury square/conjunct or opposite Mars/Uranus are the ones to accidentally say something they shouldn’t have if they are in a flow of speech or just really comfortable

- Venus square/opposite Uranus often go against social norms or revaluate them, so this could give them naturally the image of a misfit and provocateur even if they don’t actively intent to do so. Their ‘out of the norm’ behaviour/attitude could leave many people irritated. This also can make them suffer from a lot of misjudgement in their life, as people could put them in a box constantly

- having a water signs in an earth or air house can make the individual a huge advocate and humanitarian, especially when it’s in inner planets or when Uranus/Neptune in Pisces are in an air/earth house

- This might be a quiet controversial thought for some, but I am a social studies student so just a little food for thought to everyone: let’s look at the heteronormative use of astrology, aka women = Venus, men = Mars, and I am not talking about energies, I am talking specifically about assorting a gender to these planets. Venus and Mars will both show up in someone when pursuing a person of interest and developing feelings. But now think about parts of society trying to raise women as ‘the harmonizer’ and men as the ‘conqueror’, because these are the often associated traits with these two forms of gender. Back at astrology, let’s look at the archetype and temperament of Venus and Mars. Venus is the represent of unions and forming connections thus standing naturally for harmony (mostly that is), and Mars is the fighter the pursuer and represent of raw sexual energy aka life force. If people believe that the association of Venus to women and Mars to men is true, maybe look a bit closer into the environment you grew up in and maybe you can see that it’s a consequence of heteronormativity. Chances are, Mars and Venus would be looked at equally, or only preferred in insights if an individual conciously is more attracted to ‘masculine/feminine energy’ - again, regardless of gender.

- Basically: Astrology is defenitely not free of the negative sides of society and interpretations should be scanned of our own bias as best as we can!

- I noticed that people with profound Mercury, Uranus, Sagittarius or Aries/Mars influence in their chart are the ones to watch YouTube videos in 1,5 x speed. The nervous and impatient energy inside their chart wants either to spend less time on a YouTube video (trying to watch 10 minutes in 5) or feel like how most people talk and the videos flow are just too slow (chances are they wish they could do that irl too asdfgh)

- Pisces with profound Mercury influence (especially in inner planets) can give the possibility for a very quick to judge individual - and usually they are very expressive with it as well, either in accidental, small gestures or by openly showing their thoughts through facial expressions or quick reactions

- that being said, people who have strong Pisces influence in their chart, especially those with Ascendant/Pisces in 1st, usually give their first thoughts away with their facial expressions. Their eyes do reflect their inner nature a lot, more so than Cancers and Scorpio do since these are naturally more guarded and hesitant when it comes to self expression in new environments

#i had to get this out of my head or else i'm forgetting it - again - only to remember it three months later #own #astrology #zodiac #zodiac signs #astro notes #astro observations #aries #taurus #gemini #cancer #leo #virgo #libra #scorpio #sagittarius #capricorn #aquarius #pisces

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beau-tee · 3 years

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── Adam. Fluff! HCs

Warning. None, just me writing I guess.

Author’s note. It’s almost 5 am for me, I’m too excited to sleep. I need to practice my english probably incorrect grammar here and there,, so this too long. Just I love too much this beautiful man

愛. Adam despite his laid-back personality is an absolute gentleman, sweet and very protective when it comes to you, like a charming prince. He’s not a very touchy person at first but he becomes affectionate with you. He genuinely enjoys spending time with you though he isn’t clingy he is protective over you and will worry about your safety and well-being. Especially if you are careless, clumsy, or weak in which case, he can be a little bit fatherly towards you, feeling the need to take care of you. Of course, he’ll always make sure you’re taking care of yourself; that you’re eating enough and eating healthily, that you’re getting sufficient amounts of sleep and exercise.

愛. His kisses are deliberate. They’re gentle and sweet, it always feels right. Adam’s kisses last longer but are still gentle and in bed they can get a little more feverish and aren’t limited to just your lips. Eskimo kisses. The Father of Humanity invented them and you cannot tell me otherwise, probably because it requires less effort. He’s more a man of action than words and he’ll try his best to encourage you and support you when he can tell you need it. He’s also the best for raising your self-esteem. He’s always there to help boost your confidence if you need it. Adam seems to find happiness in simple things. He tends to approach things lightheartedly and this helps you if you are pessimistic or who sometimes can be a bit down.

愛. Adam loves to sit with you in peace and be completely comfortable together sitting in complete silence with stolen kisses and touch. Adam gives off an aura of serenity and it’s really comforting without him even trying to be. There wouldn’t be talking, just sitting side by side, enjoying the quiet and warmth your body radiate. And let him play with your hair. He can feel the stress melt away from you as you melt in his arms as his fingers twirl your locks. When he does it is always so gentle, his gestures are so delicate, you can relax every time he brushes you, you can fall asleep sometimes. Cain and Abel enjoy it too! Adam felt his somnolent little one start to nod off against him. He wrapped his arms around him and cradled him softly against him, stroking his head. And your hand stroking the blond hair of your cute Abel who lay on your soft lap, sighing blissfully, causing you to laugh.

愛. He is very considerate and observant and remembers a lot about you and is nearly perfect at coming up with presents for you which he will surprise you with gifts at random times, but especially any time he thinks you need cheering up. Mostly are simple gifts whether it’s flowers, your favourite food, or that pretty dress he saw you eyeing the other day at the store. Loves when you bring him lunch. Adam thinks your food is the most delicious thing ever. Especially when you can sweeten those sour apples of Eden. When you are baking he does enjoy helping you decorate your cakes and cookies though. Also with Cain and Abel stealing some a bit when you’re two not looking.

愛. He doesn’t mind PDA and enjoys holding hand, hugs and kisses kind of enjoys it if you are a bit clingy or touchy. Adam is quite direct. He may not seem like the type to say ‘I love you,’ but in fact, he can say it often and very matter-of-factly, no matter who’s around to hear it. Adam has no shame. He just doesn’t care what others think, he likes to hesitate to rest his head on your shoulder or he’ll come and he’ll lay his head in your lap without a word even as you are busy. Adam doesn’t get jealous very easily at all. He’s chill with everybody, he knows you love him and he has no reason to be really jealous, so he’d it’s not necessarily jealousy if someone was genuinely trying to piss him off. Adam will outright call the other person out, reminding them how disrespectful it is to mess with someone else’s partner. He thinks communication is key in a relationship. He’ll always talk to you if something is bothering him and he’ll expect you to do the same. And if you’re ever uncomfortable, no matter the situation, he’ll be there to help you.

愛. Adam like spending time with his children playing or teaching them things especially anything dealing with animals but even just different things in general like helping them learn to walk or talk or explaining how things work. Just imagine the small proud smile on his face at his son first steps. Adam and his sons rarely argue he is the type of dad that his children could talk to about anything, knowing that he won’t judge them and that he’ll always love them. If one of them would misbehave from time to time, but it might be a rare occurrence since Adam would be the type to talk and always explain why he is saying “No” rather than just say it and expect to be obeyed. M!AU；Adam is the most ‘cool’ dad. Like all of the kids at the school admiring him when he comes to pick his children up. They all just think he looks so cool and strong. But very gentle with the kids.

愛. Adam is not a morning person. He prefers to sleep in, especially if is with you. But always the only exception is when his family needs him or goes to job. Especially if you wake up earlier than either on needs you need just let him hugging and holding you from behind while placing his chin over your shoulder while wrapping his arms under your waist. Mostly Adam stays up just to make sure you fall asleep soundly and he’ll tend to watch you but not in a creepy way. He just likes to take in your beautiful sleeping face and bask in the fact that you’re actually sleeping with him. This makes him realize that you both trust each other fully and that’s when he’s the most comfortable falling asleep when you’re safe and with him. It’d be wonderful and I bet he’d be adorable to wake up next to him. That’s my fantasy.

愛. Adam loves animals. He talks to them all the time. Probably more than he talks to everyone else combined, except for you, of course. He’d love to have a pet with you. Very possibly a bunny. But anyway there is always a bird accompanying him or a small field mouse determined to following him. Adam would much rather read a book with you or go for a peaceful evening stroll. One of his favorite things to do is walk around nature with his family. Would enjoy taking his sons on long walks, carrying one of them on his shoulders, and talking about life. You two are holding his hand all the time, and the short man was rubbing his thumb over your soft hand. You only let go of Adam’s fingers when you wanted to see something up much closer, like the little birds perching on the branches to get closer to Adam and lean towards you or pretty butterflies. You slightly laugh blissfully with your cheerful voice expanding on the environment, which made the scenery most charming.

愛. His voice is absolutely beautiful. He’s amazing at telling stories to keep you entertained. Whether they really happened or not, Adam has plenty of stories to share. He’s spent plenty of time on his own and he’s needed ways to occupy himself. He also likes when you make flower crowns for him and watching you gently weave them into his hair before running your nails down his neck and shoulders. Abel loves to make you flower crowns. He will find your favorite flower and he will sit there for hours trying to make you the best possible flower crown he can come up with. Cain will act like he doesn’t care at first, but quickly practically demands that his brother teach him so he can do it for you too. This two are adorables! One downside though is that they will want to bring home the bugs and little animals they find. But once a time they brought home a skunk.

愛. Adam really enjoys it when you lays on top of him or lays with their head resting on his chest. Your head laying on his chest, and with his arms around your waist, head snuggled up against his chest his hands intertwined with yours. When he’s on your breasts it’s always super comfy for him and being able to hear your heartbeats. He also likes getting to hear it speed up every time his fingers brush against your sides and the small of your back. Adam loves hugging you from behind no matter the height difference, he just enjoys holding you close to you. Adam is a perfect cuddler. He’s strong, warm, and all-encompassing. Adam can kill for you. He doesn't need a reason to protect you and he will always love you. You definitely don’t have to worry about someone getting hurt because he’ll always protect you and your beautiful smile.

#shuumatsu no valkyrie #record of ragnarok #snv adam #Adam #snv adam x reader #adam x reader #adam x you #Cain #Abel #snv x reader #snv x you #SNV HCs #fem reader #reader insert #Platonic #Fluff #aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh it’s so hard to write platonic hcs for baby koji n jack #Beau. Writes #Beau-tee

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cqlfeels · 3 years

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@lansplaining encouraged me to finish this random meta nobody asked for, so let's talk about Meng Yao, Meng Shi, and 孟母三遷 (mèng mǔ sān qiān), a proverb about good parenting.

A warning: this is super long (even for me!) and is less quality meta and more my ADHD brain jumping around a maze of loosely related ideas. Proceed with caution!

Let me start by briefly going through why I decided to write this, because it’s important. In haunting Meng Shi’s tag in my starvation for Meng Shi content, I’ve multiple times come across the idea that Meng Shi pushed Meng Yao too hard, that she should’ve been more careful with teaching him to seek his father’s approval at any cost, and that she was too naïve. I’ve never reblogged this kind of post because 1) I personally think it’s rude to go out of your way to ramble about how much you disagree with someone on their own post and 2) if this was an isolated incident I wouldn't care either way, so I didn’t want to direct this rant at anyone in particular. It’s more to do with a tendency, primarily (as far as I can tell) from fans who haven’t had much contact with Chinese culture, to oversimplify Meng Shi and make her relationship with Meng Yao slightly disturbing, and I think part of it is due to CQL basically cutting out her entire storyline (so fans simply don’t have info about her to assess her fairly) and part is due to misunderstanding what a good parent is supposed to act like in the context of Ancient China.

[Of course, Ancient China is not a very useful historical concept, not any more than “ye olde Europe” - things change a lot based on time and place - but you know. It’s fantasy. Extremely broad trends are okay in this case.]

Anyway, the idea behind the posts I mentioned is, basically, that Meng Shi (usually through no fault of her own) is to blame for Meng Yao’s obsession with power, since his desire for approval was inherited from lessons she taught him. Just to start with, I’d argue that Meng Yao isn’t power-hungry as much as he craves security and respect, but that’s a different meta. Let’s assume that she really did teach him to be Like That. Was she wrong to do so? I’m not looking for “does that make for a happy, well-adjusted childhood?” or “would you raise your own son as Meng Shi did?” - I’m trying to figure out, would she have been considered a bad mother in the context of the society she lived in? I don’t think she would’ve.

It is surprisingly hard to find texts about the obligations of parents in Ancient China. Their main obligation is to raise filial children, but I feel like that’s not very useful: whether or not parents are good parents, children are expected to be filial, so a child being filial really says more about the child than about the parent. Maybe the parent completely missed the mark and society at large was what taught the child to be filial!

We can assume, of course, that parents were to raise good people, and that by learning what a good person looked like, we could figure out whether the parent was successful, but once again, I feel like that’s pinning things on the outcome, not on the process - the best of parents can end up with an awful kid and vice versa.

While thinking about all this, it took me a frankly embarrassing amount of time to remember the story of Mother Meng and Meng Zi, but once I did, it wouldn’t leave my mind - in part because the Meng here is the exact same Meng of Meng Shi and Meng Yao (yay! fun if useless parallel!), and in part because this is a story about how a woman can successfully raise a son by herself.

Okay, so important note: one of the most influential ancient Chinese thinkers is Meng Zi (孟子 Mèng Zǐ), who is known in the West as Mencius. If you've never heard of him - he's perhaps second in importance only to Confucius. When Mencius was still a young child, his father died, so he was raised by his mother, who is usually known only as Mother Meng (in Chinese, 孟母 Mèng Mǔ.)

Mother Meng's story is told in Biographies of Exemplary Women (列女傳 Liènǚ Zhuàn), which for around 2000 years beginning around the 18th century BCE, was the most commonly used book used to educate women. The book is divided into sections, each one showing a different way women could be honorable and good. Mother Meng's story is told in the Maternal Models section (母儀傳 Mǔ Yí Zhuàn.) The story has a few parts, some of which I'll quote, always from Kinney's 2014 translation.

Before I go on to quote it, though, I'd like to establish that Mother Meng's story is so, so famous that even if Meng Shi had never read this particular book, I'm almost certain she would've been familiar with at least the outlines of Mother Meng's story. I'm not cherry picking a suitable chapter from the book, I'm literally going with the most famous story in it because Meng Shi would be most likely to know this one if she knew no other story.

Okay, the first part of the tale takes place when Mencius is a young boy and Mother Meng is a widow raising him.

The mother of Meng Ke of Zou [a different name for Mencius] was called Mother Meng. She lived near a graveyard. During Mencius’ youth, he enjoyed playing among the tombs, romping about pretending to prepare the ground for burials. Mother Meng said, “This is not the place to raise my son.” She therefore moved away and settled beside the marketplace. But there he liked to play at displaying and selling wares like a merchant. Again Mother Meng said, “This is not the place to raise my son,” and once more left and settled beside a school. There, however, he played at setting out sacrificial vessels, bowing, yielding, entering, and withdrawing. His mother said, “This, indeed, is where I can raise my son!” and settled there. When Mencius grew up, he studied the Six Arts, and finally became known as a great classicist. A man of discernment would say, “Mother Meng was good at gradual transformation.”

According to the translator's footnote, "gradual transformation" is "a childrearing technique, whereby a child is morally formed through daily exposure to correct models of behavior."

From this story comes the proverb 孟母三遷 (Mèng Mǔ sān qiān) - "Mother Meng moved three times." It's come to mean that a parent - especially the mother of a male child - should spare no efforts to provide an environment that will give their child a good education, paying particular attention to what models are surrounding them.

I'm sure I don't need to say if Meng Shi was at all familiar with this proverb (and she would probably be), she must have been very stressed out over literally raising her son in a brothel. (Here I must mention sex workers in ancient China were often essentially owned by the brothels, so literally "moving three times" wasn't really an option for Meng Shi even if she could miraculously pick up another trade.) Meng Shi did however at least try to surround Meng Yao with the accomplishments appropriate for the son of a cultivator:

Xiao-Meng, are you still learning those things lately? [...] The things your mom wants you to learn, things like calligraphy, etiquette, swordsmanship, meditation… How are those things going? [...] His mom’s raising him as a young master of a wealthy family. She taught him how to read and write, bought him all those swordsmanship pamphlets, and even wants to send him to school.

Meng Yao actually talks a little bit about “those swordsmanship pamphlets” in the only time in canon he directly shares memories about this mother:

Lan XiChen, “Your [guqin] skills are also considered quite fine outside of Gusu. Were they taught by your mother?”

Jin GuangYao, “No. I taught myself by watching others. She never taught me such things. She only taught me reading and writing, and bought a handful of expensive sword and cultivation guides for me to practice.”

Lan XiChen seemed surprised, “Sword and cultivation guides?”

Jin GuangYao, “Brother, you haven’t seen them before, have you? Those small booklets sold by the common folk. First jumbled sketches of human figures, then deliberately mystified captions.”

Lan XiChen shook his head, smiling. Jin GuangYao shook his head as well, “All of them are scams, especially to fool women like my mother and ignorant children. You won’t lose anything by practicing them, but you definitely won’t gain anything either.”

He sighed in a rueful way, “But how could my mother have known this? She bought them no matter how expensive they were, saying that if I returned to see my father in the future, I had to see him with as much competence as possible so that I don’t fall behind. All of the money was spent on this.”

See what’s happening? Meng Shi cannot physically take Meng Yao to cultivators, but she spares no efforts in giving him the closest thing she possibly can -- figuratively, we might say she moved three times.

Of course, these booklets don’t work, but as Meng Yao says, how could she have known this? The cultivation world is very closed off - think of how the entire Mo household gathers to see Lan juniors, and how Wei Wuxian mentions once that “Cultivation families, in the eyes of common folk, are like people favored by God, mysterious yet noble.” Not just noble, but mysterious. That tracks, too - I mean, they live in inaccessible households and mostly leave to night hunt or visit each other, neither of which is an activity that would allow commoners to get much more than an occasional glimpse of them.

Now, if Meng Shi doesn’t even know that a pearl for Jin Guangshan was just a trinket, if she doesn’t know even the wealth of a major sect, how can she read booklets and decide whether that’s genuine cultivation or not? All that she sees is a chance for Meng Yao to be surrounded by the ideas and skills of the people she wants him to emulate - cultivators - and therefore she does everything she can to get him that chance. Mother Meng moved three times.

Okay, but maybe the argument is not “Meng Shi shouldn’t have pushed Meng Yao to cultivation” but rather “she should’ve pushed him, just not too hard." To that, I present another tale from Mencius' childhood:

Once, when Mencius was young, he returned home after finishing his lessons and found his mother spinning. She asked him, “How far did you get in your studies today?” Mencius replied, “I’m in about the same place as I was before.” Mother Meng thereupon took up a knife and cut her weaving. Mencius was alarmed and asked her to explain. Mother Meng said, “Your abandoning your study is like my cutting this weaving. A man of discernment studies in order to establish a name and inquires to become broadly knowledgeable. By this means, when he is at rest, he can maintain tranquility and when he is active, he can keep trouble at a distance. If now you abandon your studies, you will not escape a life of menial servitude and will lack the means to keep yourself from misfortune. How is this different from weaving and spinning to eat? If one abandons these tasks midway, how can one clothe one’s husband and child and avoid being perpetually short of food? If a woman abandons that with which she nourishes others and a man is careless about cultivating his virtue, if they don’t become brigands or thieves, then they will end up as slaves or servants.” Mencius was afraid. Morning and evening he studied hard without ceasing. He served Zisi [a great scholar whose grandfather was Confucius] as his teacher and then became one of the most renowned classicists in the world.

Notice that Mother Meng moved three times to ensure Mencius would have the highest of aspirations - to become a scholar. But just aspiration isn’t enough. Not by any means. Now that Mencius is actually studying, Mother Meng is willing to take an extreme action to ensure he's taking it seriously. Mencius doesn't have a father to smooth his path to success. He has to learn that aspiring to greatness isn't enough. He'll have to put in the effort as if his life depended on it. And if he doesn't persist in his hard work, everything he's done thus far will be useless. Sounds like a lesson imparted on young Meng Yao, doesn’t it?

A lot of fandom rage towards Meng Shi would apply to China's Best Mom Contender, Mother Meng. She gives her son big dreams, and teaches him how to go about achieving them in a society where failing is easier than succeeding. Yes, it's fair to say that Meng Shi taught Meng Yao to refuse to settle for anything less than being “Jin Guangshan's son, a respected cultivator.” Yes, it's also fair to say that she probably didn't allow him much time to play like children his age did. But unfortunately, in the world of MDZS, poor children probably wouldn't get to play anyhow, the difference is that they'd usually be working, not studying. Studying is a privilege! It’s a privilege Meng Yao could not afford but was given to him anyway, through his mother’s many sacrifices. We can even say that while she was alive, Meng Shi was trying to ensure Meng Yao would one day have a better life, at the expense of a fun childhood - and that's very Mother Meng of her, whatever our modern Western sensibilities might have to say about that.

Finally, I’d skip other tales (which show Mother Meng and an adult Mencius) and go straight to the poem that ends the Mother Meng section:

The mother of Mencius

Was able to teach, transform, judge, and discriminate.

With skill she selected a place to raise her son,

Prompting him to accord with the great principles.

When her son’s studies did not advance,

She cut her weaving to illustrate her point.

Her son then perfected his virtue;

His achievements rank as the crowning glory of his generation.

I’d like to focus on the last verse - “His achievements rank as the crowning glory of his generation.” All that Mother Meng wanted was for Mencius to not completely ruin his life, but he became great. You can so very easily see a parallel with how Meng Shi hoped Meng Yao would be a cultivator but he became Jin Guangyao, Chief Cultivator, styled Lianfang-zun, one of the Three Venerable, hero of the Sunshot Campaign.

Of course you can say “Jin Guangyao did many Very Wrong Things to get there, though!” Which, sure, okay, fair point. How many and how wrong depends on which canon we're discussing, and your own interpretation, but there’s no version of the story in which Jin Guangyao is 100% an innocent child uwu. But blaming that on Meng Shi is just... straight up weird? I don’t see anyone going “If Jiang Fengmian hadn’t adopted Wei Wuxian, he’d never have dared become Yiling Laozu!” and that’s pretty much the same logic. Would street kid Wei Wuxian have invented a new type of cultivation if he had never been taken in by the Jiang? Probably not, but raising undead armies is very much not something Jiang Fengmian could’ve predicted. In the same way, how could Meng Shi have predicted that teaching her pre-adolescent son “You are the son of a cultivator, act like one and earn your place in society” would’ve ultimately resulted in innocent deaths? How could she predict “You’re not destined to having the same horrible life I did, you can get something better than this” was a bad thing to teach? I quite honestly don’t know.

Finally, I'd like to point towards a much flimsier evidence that Meng Shi did great as a parent. And that is Meng Yao’s love. Nie Huaisang at some point comments Meng Shi is someone who Meng Yao "cherishes more than his life," and I think his assessment is correct.

Even putting aside the fact he built a whole temple to get his mother to reincarnate into a better life, and even putting aside how he refuses to flee the country without her remains, there's still crystal clear evidence that Meng Shi must've done something right. Because a lifetime of people using his mother to bully him doesn't seem to have made Meng Yao resent her. Had their relationship not have been very strong, odds are he'd feel bitter and/or ashamed of her. That doesn't seem to be the case. He's attached to her even decades after her death.

I want to be very careful with equating mutual affection with good parenting, though. When I was a rather rebellious teenager, my mother (in typical Chinese fashion) used to say that parents and children don't have to love each other as long as they're dutiful to each other, by which she meant that a parent-child relationship isn't informed by warm and fuzzy feelings, but by whether you'd be willing to do anything for each other. Specific to my case, she meant "I don't care if it makes you hate me, you will do as you're told because that's what's best for you." (That may also be the reason why people more familiar with Chinese culture see the Jiang family less as outright abusive and more as #complicated, but that's another meta.)

Whether your kid wants to hug you every time they see you is of no consequence to traditional Chinese thought - raising them to be the best they can is all that matters, because at the end of the day, you won't be around forever, but you can definitely set up your kid's life so that it goes smoothly and virtuously. How that's accomplished varies depending on many factors, but to have the goal be "I want my child to love me" rather than "I want to raise my child right" would've been considered selfish as hell.

So even if all that Meng Shi had given Meng Yao had been stern lessons about the need to go get his birthright, she would've still have been considered a good mother!! In fact, she would've been doing everything she was supposed to do, under extremely difficult conditions! (Remember the importance of environment? That Meng Yao grew up to want to be a cultivator despite having probably never even met one speaks wonders about Meng Shi's childrearing powers!!)

But just based off how over the top Meng Yao's filal dutifulness is, I'd go a step further and say that even as she did the impossible, she was also loving enough to inspire genuine affection. This is complicated because children who have present fathers could expect their mothers to be tender with them. The first century BCE text 禮記 Lǐ Jì or The Classic of Rites says that:

Here now is the affection of a father for his sons - he loves the worthy among them, and places on a lower level those who do not show ability; but that of a mother for them is such, that while she loves the worthy, she pities those who do not show ability - the mother deals with them on the ground of affection and not of showing them honour; the father, on the ground of showing them honour and not of affection.

But when the father figure is lacking for any reason, the mother must abandon her tenderness because someone must guide the child, and without a father, the role falls to the mother. A single or widowed mother had to be very careful to not smother their children with affection and raise useless, spoiled kids, or so it was thought. (The presence of Qingheng-jun and Lan Qiren is why Madame Lan can be so affectionate with the Lan boys, by the way - if she was raising them by herself she would've been expected to be much more practical. AUs where she just gets her kids and runs away could do very cool things with this idea. But I digress!)

Where was I? Oh, okay. Because Meng Yao seems to not just respect, but actively miss her, it seems that Meng Shi somehow managed to deal with her son on the ground of both honor and affection, to paraphrase.

So basically, all things considered, it seems not only would Meng Shi have been considered a great mom (if people could look past her being a prostitute, anyway) but she also went above and beyond the bare minimum. She truly spared no efforts on any front to make sure her son had everything your average gongzi would have - someone to teach him and someone to love him, access to education and confidence in his birthright. That she couldn't actually make him a cultivator, that she couldn't actually raise him in a proper home with no one being cruel to herself or him - that's immaterial. Even Mother Meng couldn't control what her neighbors did, only what she taught her son! The key point is Meng Shi tried. She did everything she could to educate her son right. You couldn't ask more of her, and quite honestly, you should probably be asking less.

Of course we can't err on the other extreme and say she was Perfect. Given MXTX only ever writes flawed characters, we can safely assume that if we'd known more about Meng Shi, we would've seen many flaws. Indeed, just the fact she didn't teach Meng Yao the guqin when he apparently wanted to learn it might point to some conflict we don't know enough to speculate about (maybe she focused too much on cultivation when Meng Yao's interests lay elsewhere? Maybe she wasn't able to sufficiently shelter him and he felt it'd be a burden to ask her to teach him anything? Maybe maybe maybe, go wild with your fics.) Nevertheless, I would never hold a female character to a higher ideal than a male character - if the male cast of MDZS can be a hot mess and still be admirable for what they're trying to do, then so can Meng Shi.

At the end of the day, when I look at Meng Shi - and I've made myself a document with all the references to her in the novel canon so I could easily contemplate her life and character - all I see is a woman every bit as determined and resourceful as her son, willing to do everything it took to raise her little boy into the sophisticated and ambitious man he became.

Finally, here's a fun little parallel that I'm 100% sure was unintentional but I still love. I said Meng Shi couldn't have moved three times. She couldn't, but I think maybe she taught her son he was worth moving three times for. Qinghe Nie. Qishan Wen. Lanling Jin. Isn't that super fun to think about?

Alternatively, tl;dr: Oh My God I Can't Believe We're Blaming Women For The Actions Of Their Adult Children In The Year Of Our Lord 2k21, Meng Shi Was Doing Her Best, Chill!

#drinking game #take a shot every time i say 'finally'#this post refused to let me get to the end of it lol #i think because i'm extremely salty about fanon stage mom meng shi #(to not say tiger mom meng shi which crosses into outright racism. but i'm giving people the benefit of the doubt)

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phoenixyfriend · 3 years

Note

I personally would *really* like to know more about Mace's intro to General Obi-Wan, and how Anakin and Obi-Wan interact in the mind space now. That's got to be so weird, right? Though I bet it's VERY useful when the kids are having some emotion or issue that they can't quantify or explain, or that they don't want to explain: ask the grownup versions and they'll be able to say what's going down. But I mean, in mind-space does OW & A's relationship average out into 'very affectionate (cont)

(cont) brothers who are *very* invested in each other's well being? (They can have the Dad conversation of 'please eat your veggies' from EITHER direction!) I'm imagining, just, a lot of lounging on each other. Mace is introduced to the older versions via meditation and the first thing OW does, even before saying hello, is stroll over to A, sit down, throw his legs across his lap and lean into his side. Also, imagine A coming to OW for advice in meditation, and Ben going to A for advice IRL.

My favorite part of the Jedi Babies AU is what adult!Obi-Wan's relationship with Anakin is like in the meditation-area, is what I'm saying. Followed by how the mini-versions of Soka and Ben act out in real space. The whole thing with them very seriously researching local law so they can hold accurate trials with their stuffed animals was adorable, and I loved how foreboding and mystic Ahsoka came off in the Dooku conversation.

I went back and re-read a bunch of the Jedi babies posts and I have to admit, this: "He gets headaches if he tries to think like an adult for too long, so he shifts between “Master Kenobi, helping Anakin figure out how to fix the world” and “literal child who just wants a nap and cuddles.”" actually probably answers all of my questions and means that adult!OW's relationship with Anakin is probably much the same, just. Still with more cuddles. And prob. with better communication/ less criticism.

OKAY SO (human) babies are like. Wired to require human contact. It's a chemical thing. If you hold a baby, the baby's body will make oxytocin and stuff like that, and the baby will be happy!

(And also not die. Babies can absolutely die without enough physical contact.)

So IRL/waking Soka and Ben are in a position where they constantly crave physical contact, because they are So Damn Young. Obviously, the main provider of that contact is Anakin, and each other, and Shmi, so they're pretty quickly accustomed to being really, really tactile with 'Dad.'

This transfers to the adult shared mindspace, in that they're so used to hugs and cuddles with Anakin that they all just kind of... drift together. The shaping of that physical contact isn't the same, for a variety of reasons, but there's a lot of leaning against each other, Soka lying down with her head in someone's lap, Anakin and Ben making sure their shoulders touch when they sit down, etc. When meeting Mace, they sit so that Anakin's got his arm over Ben's shoulders, which isn't that weird of a position for two adult men who consider each other brothers. They're less tactile, if only because adult General Kenobi can't crawl into Anakin's lap the way the kid version can, but there's still skinship and shared body heat and hugs. It's only weird if you remember that the older of them is currently the slightly creepy eight-year-old you met half an hour ago.

They are undeniably family in every manner, though. That part is never in question.

It's a little weird, moreso for Ben than for Soka. She's gone from little sister to daughter, but she's still 'younger female family member, who views Anakin as a loving authority on account of being an older family member.'

Ben's gone from parent to child, and when a solid 98% of his time is spent as the child, but the history is that of being the parent and being the one with advice, it's weird. They still mostly manage to make it work, though, because meeting up in the mindspace is usually done only for strategizing and whatnot, and gets less and less necessary as they get older. Soka's headaches-when-I-try-to-think-with-my-full-history taper off by the time she's about eighteen, physically; she’s actually two years older than she was at the point of time travel, by that point, but she’s got thirty years of memories so her brain needs a wee bit extra time to grow to hold all of it. Ben... I want to say early twenties for him, because he's got so much more to process.

By that point, they're... not quite who they were, but they're not exactly fresh new people, either. It was never a case of whether or not they'd 'meld,' because they were never really separate, just unable to access everything and limited by the wiring they had. As they can process more and more, they think with some of their old methods (e.g. critical thinking on how to assess propaganda, strategy patterns to approach a battlefield, rebuilding habits for lightsaber usage that they remember in theory but don't actually feel natural yet) in tandem with learning new ones from their new environment (e.g. learning Mandalorian battle logic, Tatooine survival priorities).

There's like. A whole thing in my brain about how Mandalorian, Tatooine, Jedi, Coruscanti, and Shili cultural and logic patterns interact.

WORD OF NOTE: I was an international business major who focused on intercultural communications and marketing. I'm thinking about these in terms of like... Hofstede's cultural dimensions and that whole thing where (I can't remember the actual term) a proper sentence in Russian looks like a run-on in English because the way we structure things looks completely different, and the way information is supposed to be presented when written in order for a person to optimally process what they're reading is completely different due to how we're all trained to learn, and when you pair that with the child psychology aspect of also learning new languages with adjusted neuroplasticity while slowly regaining access to full adult memories as time passes in which you have familiar but completely different cultural values that you now have to reconcile with the things you've learned to consider important with the people who are raising you--

I have a lot of thoughts on this sort of thing.

To put it lightly.

#anakin skywalker #ahsoka tano #obi wan kenobi #ben kenobi #disaster lineage #star wars #the clone wars #time travel #de aging #Anakin and the Jedi Babies

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buckyownsmylife · 3 years

Text

Them - Chris Evans Smut

The one where Chris is your professor.

Warnings: smut, professor au, reader is a postgrad student, so no underage business, but definitely some age gap, reader is very clear about what she wants here, lots of dirty talk

Chris’ P.O.V.

Looking out of the window of the fancy bistro I had been waiting on, I just couldn’t believe my luck. Y/N, the woman I had been thinking about for the last three months, that one that had made me accept this stupid idea of a blind date to try to get over her, was standing just outside the restaurant, looking from side to side, clearly waiting for someone that was nowhere around.

I pondered over what to do, weighing the consequences of what I truly wanted, but in the end, I said, “Fuck it,” and jumped out of my chair, explaining to the host that I only needed a minute.

“Fancy seeing you here.” I knew I was grinning from ear to ear, but that was just the effect she had on me. When her eyes widened as she took in who was talking to her, I had to laugh. “What? Not used to seeing me in more casual clothes?” I was convinced her chuckle was enough to end wars.

“I don’t think that can be considered casual, Professor Evans,” she said, but with the cutest teasing smirk on her face. Right. There was a reason why coming out here to talk to her could possibly bring severe consequences to my life. She was my student, after all, and even though she was pursuing her PhD and we weren’t currently in an academic setting, her politeness served to remind me of the distance that remained between us.

“Well, I’m not sure I could consider what you’re wearing casual either, but I must say, sweetheart… You look beautiful.” I took pride in the blush that spread through her cheeks, making her almost as red as the dress she was currently wearing. Fuck if I didn’t want her desperately.

“Thank you, sir.” I was convinced she knew about the effect those words had in me, but then again, it wasn’t like I could call her out on it. Clearing my throat, I decided to change the subject before I brought more difficulty for my own situation.

“So, what brings you here on this delightful friday evening?” I forced myself to look away from her as I spoke, mostly because I felt like I’d been staring for too long. But I’d happily look at her for as long as possible, if I didn’t fear for what she’d think of me.

“I’m guessing the same thing that brought you here, Mr. Evans.” To my raised eyebrow, she simply responded with a shake of her head, her delightful giggle going straight to my pants. “C’mon, you’re dressed like this, on a friday night, and waiting for someone in a bistro? You’re obviously on a date!”

Well, I was most definitely impressed, but that didn’t serve to distract myself from the disappointment that pierced through me at the realization that she had dressed up so pretty to go out on a date with someone other than me.

“If that’s the case, then where is the lucky gentleman?” That seemed to be the wrong thing to ask, by the way her beautiful face fell. Immediately, I felt terrible for being responsible for sucking the light out of this woman.

“Oh… I guess he’s not coming. I’ve been waiting for him for at least an hour, it was supposed to be a blind date. My friend thought he’d be perfect for me or something. Guess he didn’t agree, huh?” She tried to chuckle, but the fact that she couldn’t meet my eyes was enough to demonstrate how embarrassed she was by the whole ordeal.

“Sweetheart…” I itched to touch her, to pull her body to mine and comfort her anyway I could, but she continued to avoid my eyes, keeping up with her own monologue almost like she couldn’t physically stop.

“And the worst part is that I can’t stop thinking about how he probably walked in, saw me and decided to go home. God, this is mortifying. Why am I even telling you this?” At that, she finally looked up to find me looking back at her, and whatever it was she identified in my gaze at last made her stop.

“Come eat with me,” I offered, not even thinking about what I was saying, although capable of admitting that it was all I truly wanted. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, but she wasn’t able to structure a proper sentence, looking up at me with those big bright eyes.

Y/N’s P.O.V.

I didn’t know what to say. I was completely taken by surprise by his invitation, but I couldn’t really say it made me uncomfortable. I wanted nothing more than the chance to spend some time with him, away from the university environment.

It was no secret that he was attractive, of course. I knew that, but it wasn’t because of it that I wanted the chance to share a meal with him. It was for all of the little things I’d managed to learn over the course of our meetings, the bar trivia he liked to share randomly over cups of coffee when it would make more sense if we were sharing a beer. It was the fact that his mind fascinated me, and I’d never met anyone who had captivated me so much, so easily, in such little time.

Even with so little to go off on, he occupied my mind. And perhaps half of the attraction came from the taboo of it all, but I couldn’t deny that it was there. I wanted to get to know him better. I wanted to say yes. Didn’t I deserve it, after such a lousy night?

“We shouldn’t,” I decided to remind us both, but he only smiled, reaching out for my hand. The touch surprised me even more, but I found myself accepting it easily, even smiling as I looked up at him from underneath my eyelashes to see an answering grin in his handsome face.

“No one has to know. Come on.” He tugged me in the direction of the restaurant he was in, apparently, some place definitely fancier than where my date was supposed to happen, and with a curt nod towards the greeter, he quickly took me to the table he’d been occupying before pulling the chair for me.

Such a simple gesture, not at all romantic, really, but it sent butterflies all over my stomach, and I bit my lip to stop the giddy giggle that wanted to break free. “Thank you,” I recognized, and he only flashed me another perfect smile in return.

“It’s my pleasure. Would you like some wine?” He gestured for the waiter, his eyes barely leaving mine before returning to me again. “It’s okay if you don’t. Choose whatever you want, I’m usually more of a beer guy myself, but with this being an italian restaurant and all…”

I waved his fears away, rejecting the menu the waiter was offering and pointing to the glass of wine that was sitting in front of Chris. “I’ll just have the same, please.” The waiter nodded, already turning to grab me a glass when my professor called him over again.

“Wait! Just bring us the bottle, would you?” I raised an eyebrow at him, a smirk making its way into my face. If there was one thing I had already learned about the man I was about to have dinner with, was that he loved to be teased.

“Planning on getting me drunk, professor? That’s not the right way to keep me quiet.” His eyes grew big at first, before he caught on to the teasing nature of my comments, and then he laughed, a hand going over his chest as he threw his head back and closed his eyes, fully in the moment.

Chris’ P.O.V.

Fuck, this was exactly what I’d hoped for when I took the chance and invited her over here. She was just so damn *funny. I was thrilled to have this opportunity to spend some quality time with her.

“Oh, believe me, sweetheart. I really don’t want to keep you quiet.” Shit. It was only after it was out in the open, and her eyebrows were raised high, that I realized just how weird that sounded, given the context. “I didn’t mean it like that. What I meant was, I really want to hear you.”

By now, she was pressing her lips tightly, clearly trying not to laugh about my awkwardness, so I saved her the trouble by breaking into a fit of laughter myself. “That’s okay, Professor Evans. If it makes you feel any better, I really want to hear you too.”

… Was she flirting with me? The idea caught me by surprise and sent a jolt of thrill up my body, making me sit up straighter in the restaurant’s chair. I pressed my lips tightly together in an effort to suppress my laugh, and looked up at her from under my eyelashes.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she teased, and it was my turn to raise my eyebrows.

“Why not?”

“It makes me nervous.” The answer surprised me. I never considered that I could affect her in any way, much less that one, and so I found myself leaning in her direction, my elbows on the table so I could talk more quietly and she could still hear me.

“Why are you nervous? It’s just me. We’ve been alone in smaller environments than this one,” I reminded her, watching with delight as she giggled but avoided my eyes, opting instead to play with the glass of wine that had by now been delivered to us. I knew she was thinking about the tiny office we shared and all the times we had to ignore this sexual tension as it filled the air between us. When her eyes met mine, the mischievous glint in them was unmissable, and so I braced myself for her answer, knowing it would definitely be something as out of the ordinary as herself.

“Yes…” She started, leaning closer to me and lowering her voice, and while I was sure I didn’t want to miss one single word of what she was saying, it was impossible not to look down at how her breasts threatened to spill from her dress. “But this time it’s harder to ignore just how much I want your cock down my throat.”

I was stunned to silence for a minute, staring back at her with my mouth opened as I felt my cock unmistakably harden at her directness. This was so different from the reserved and polite woman I had to work with at the university, and if that one was already enticing, I had no words to describe the minx that stared back at me with deviousness in her eyes.

“Well, now I feel bad,” I settled on saying, eyes dropping to her cleavage before meeting hers again, making sure she saw just how hypnotized by her body I was. “And here I’ve been, picturing you on your knees all this time.”

I *knew she was hot and bothered by my comment, it was pretty obvious by the way she fidgeted in her seat, squeezing her thighs together, I was certain. There was nothing I wanted more than taking her away from here, and just… well… *take her. Preferably more than once, but it didn’t even have to be on a bed. I wasn’t sure I’d hold back enough to get her close to one, even. Especially when she stepped it up a notch, her heeled foot caressing my leg under the table as she whispered, “I think I made a smart choice when I decided to wear this dress tonight.”

Inevitably, my eyes fell to her breasts once more. It was obvious that I agreed, but still, I licked my lips to be able to agree, “Yes, I’m very fond of it as well.” The corners of her lips twisted up, a clear indication that I’d fallen right onto her trap.

“I’m glad you liked the choice. Wanna know why I’m happy I ran into you while wearing it?” I just nodded, dry swallowing at the thought of what she was about to say. “Because I can’t wear anything underneath it.”

My knuckles turned white as I held onto the edge of the table, practically urging myself not to leap out of my seat. “Careful, sweetheart…” I tried to warn, the months of restraint and tension taking a toll out of my patience and control. “You should think about what you’re saying. *Pay attention to what you’re asking of me. I’m not exactly great at resisting something that I want. You have to be sure,” I murmured, eyes never leaving hers as I watched her breathing grow more laboured.

She let the silence simmer the anticipation between us, until I felt like *I was about to collapse.

Y/N’s P.O.V.

“I think I’ve made my desires clear.”

That was all it took for him to dart out of the chair, fishing out his wallet and throwing some bills on top of the table before reaching for my hand. “Come.”

I followed easily, body buzzing with excitement as I accepted this first touch from a man I believed to be unreachable only a few hours before.

Nothing was said as he directed me towards his car. Once inside, I took advantage of the few seconds it took for him to reach his own door and took a deep breath, both to calm my nerves and take in the delicious scent of the familiar cologne that seemed to be ingrained in the vehicle. How many days had I spent clenching my thighs as I tried to focus on my research because his scent took over our tiny office? Too many to count. But now he was right here, ready and willing to take care of the mess he made of me.

A shiver went through my body when he finally made his way inside the car, and instead of turning on the engine, fixated his gaze on me. It was heavy with lust and primal need, that much I could recognize - mostly because I knew those two feelings all too well when it came to him.

“I’m going to kiss you now.” It wasn’t a question, and immediately after he was done speaking I was already leaning over to meet him halfway.

Chris’ kiss was nothing like I expected it to be. While I imagined a gentle lover, he was more on the eager, almost desperate side. I was surprised how much I liked it that way. He took control of our kiss so easily, it made me feel small and under his spell. Like I’d do anything he wanted me to, just as long as he kept devouring me like this.

I lost myself to the kiss, to *him, to the taste of wine and something that was undeniably just him, but then a hand fell on my lap and I gasped, instinctively opening my legs to feel more of his touch. It made him grin, but he didn’t stop kissing me, instead cradling my face between his hands before returning one of them to the spot that was throbbing for him.

“I just really need to feel you, only for a second,” he whispered against my lips, and I could only nod, too lost in his eyes to care about the implications of his words. “Maybe if I have your taste on my lips I’ll feel motivated enough to drive all the way home, instead of just taking you right here.”

Needless to say, paired with two of his fingers curling inside of me before they were gone and wrapped by his lips, the fires of desire had grown to such heights I could no longer control them. “Hmm… Delicious,” he hummed, dark eyes opening to meet mine only for a second before he was turning the engine on. “Let’s get out of here.”

Chris’ P.O.V.

The second we were inside my apartment, I had to unbuckle my belt and curl my fist around my member - that’s how badly it hurt from the lack of attention. At least I wasn’t the only one desperate to get things going, her dress was on the floor just as I sat back on the couch, moaning both at the feeling of my jerking motions and the sight of her naked body.

“Come here, Miss. Y/L/N,” I instructed, beckoning her over while keeping my other hand occupied with my cock. “Isn’t this what you wanted? Join me.” She didn’t seem to need any further invitation, small frame quickly making her way over to where I was sitting before she dropped to her knees in front of me, right between my thighs that she held to support herself.

“God, you’re sexy.” She smiled up at me from underneath her eyelashes, hands reaching out to take my member from me before she began to lick at my already weeping head, and I had to take a deep breath in order to control myself. “Fuck.”

She was a tease, alright - but that much I knew, already. Instead of immediately starting to suck me off, she opted to get acquainted with the taste of my cock by licking it like a damn ice cream cone, until every inch of it was wrapped in a coat of her saliva and I was trembling underneath her attentions, hands curled into fists in an effort to let her keep her own pace but desperately wanting to gag her on me.

“You taste so good,” she teased, but it did sound more like an absentminded comment. It was just my need that made me believe she was doing it on purpose, trying to get me to break, but I wouldn’t let her win.

“Put it in your mouth, then. I promise I’ll give you more to taste.” If I had been worried I’d scare her away with how open I was about what I wanted, the smirk she gave me assured me it was well received, just as the way she finally wrapped her perfect lips around the head of my cock, tongue swirling over it briefly before starting to slowly suck more of it.

“Shit, yeah. Just like that. Swallow that cock, darling.” She did just so, all the while making sure to keep eye contact with me, which only added fuel to the desire I felt for her. I knew I couldn’t resist for too long, so I reveled in the feeling of her warm mouth, the sloppy blowjob easily the best I’d ever had, before I pulled her to me, making her climb my lap so I could fill my hands with her fantastic ass.

“God, I’ve dreamt about this ass,” I groaned, palming it and using it to rub her pussy over my member, that twitched at the slight contact, making us both gasp. “And this pussy…” the connection was obvious. Of course I’d imagined it too, but the little mynx wanted to hear it for herself.

“Did you think about it at night?” She asked, taking control of the motions I could no longer direct as she rubbed her wet cunt over my member, making me growl on her ear.

“At night, in class…” Maybe I should have felt embarrassed to admit it, but as it were, I didn’t. I couldn’t, not when it was the truth, and not when she was right here, ready to sink down on my cock, looking at me with those sinful eyes. “You have no idea what you do to me.”

She bit down on her lower lip to stop the grin from taking over her face, I could see that, but it didn’t stop mine as I watched her rub the head of my member between her lips before finally starting to sink down on it.

“Fuck!” My head fell back on the couch, and I had to hold on her hips to keep control of myself, but still, she was being too slow. Opening my eyes, I saw by the smirk on her lips it was purely to tease me, but two could play at this game.

“Keep going,” I ordered, slapping her ass before sinking my fingers on it again, for good measure. She gasped, momentarily losing control and falling further down, which was really all I needed to fuck up into her until I bottomed out.

“God, you’re so big!” She really did know how to get a man going.

Y/N’s P.O.V.

Once I relinquished the control to him, there was really nothing else I could do but to hold on tight and enjoy the ride. He fucked me like he was trying to cherish every single second of this act we were sharing, probably conscious that we’d never be able to do this again.

“Such a fucking great pussy,” he groaned, fingers now probably bruising my skin as he used his grip on my hips to force my movements to match his. “I bet I can make you even louder.”

I hadn’t even realized I was screaming until he said that, feet raising to the sofa so he could find even more grip to fuck me silly. “Hold tight, sweetheart.” My hands slipped from his shoulders to the back of his neck, as I tried to keep my chest glued to his despite the brutality of his movements.

It didn’t take long for his thrusts to lose their rhythm, and I was dancing on the edge of my own orgasm too, watching a single drop of sweat make its way from his hairline until his jaw, where I leaned down to collect it with my tongue.

“Fuck.” His eyes met mine, holding my gaze hostage as the next words that fell from his lips brought me to my release. “Oh God, please tell me you’ll be mine. I need to know I’ll be able to have you like this whenever I want. Please.”

The aftershocks of my orgasm, paired with the way my pussy clenched around his member, milking his own release, had him cumming as hard as I had, eyes closed tightly and beautiful mouth hanging open as I tried to catch my breath and not lose the show at the same time.

“Do you mean it?” I had to ask, once both of us were able to speak again, still tightly embraced and deeply connected. I could feel his cum slowly seeping out of me and into his own lap.

“Of course.” His eyes searched mine for any inkling of my own feelings in regards to the revelation of his. “You’re worth the trouble it’ll be trying to keep this under wraps. Besides, Professor Stan had mentioned he’d like to seduce you, and I can’t imagine having to watch you be with another man.”

A giggle and a kiss sealed the deal, but we renegotiated the terms of our agreement a dozen of times before finally falling asleep wrapped in each other’s embrace. Thank God I was stood up today.

#chris evans smut #smut #chris evans #my fics #chris evans reader #chris evans x reader #chris evans reader insert #chris evans reader inserts #chris evans imagine #chris evans imagines #chris evans blurb #chris evans drabble

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felassan · 3 years

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DA4 Lead Producer Scylla Costa’s BIG Festival talk, “Challenges of Dragon Age production during the pandemic”, can currently be rewatched on YouTube here starting roughly at timestamp 8:57:02 after a lil presenter blurb/intro. It’s 1 hour long. When it was streamed live, there was an English translation ‘voiceover’. There isn’t in this vid, however I want to post the link for Portuguese speakers, and also it’s neat for everyone to be able to see all the slides he presented with for themselves in context.

I don’t know if an English-language version will get put up so I’m sharing the notes I took during the talk below, in case anyone’s interested and because I might as well since I wrote them. The rest of this post is under a cut due to length.

Edit: Found a place to re-watch the English version of the talk

(Quick note: I didn’t note down everything, mostly things that caught my interest, so this isn’t exhaustive, and when I was watching I was real tired, so pls bear that in mind and don’t take these notes as bullet-proof 100% accurate gospel or direct quotes. If you watched it and think I’ve written down something wrong/misunderstood, let me know and I’ll fix. Also if you’re a Portuguese speaker and I’ve gotten something incorrect or missed something important etc, again just let me know.) **

** Edit: I’ve now gone through my notes while watching the talk again. I’ve filled in some of the gaps (although they still don’t cover everything said) and so forth, and now I’m no longer worried about there being possible errors in this post.

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For some context, this slide contained the breakdown of the talk’s structure. Bear in mind there are other slides present in the talk than the ones I’ve posted here, I didn’t include caps of all of them, just ones which were of note to me.

In the talk, chief Producer Scylla goes over challenges of DA4 production during the pandemic. He discusses the adaptations - necessary skills and learning from remote work - and he ponders on the future of teamwork.

After the launch of ME3 he became a producer, all his MMO and other experience helped a lot. He was on DAI for 3 years and MEA for 9 months, then Anthem. Today, on DA4, Scylla and another Lead Producer were the heads of the whole project, and there is his boss is the Executive Producer Christian Dailey.

^ the usual AAA game development cycle (brief introduction)

AAA games are games that are launched for several platforms simultaneously.

In BioWare’s case, the pre-production phase of the game development cycle can have from 5 - 30 people, and up to almost 60 people when they’re just about to go through the gate to production.

In the pre-production phase, they go through the game’s concepts and prototypes and start developing systems. They seek the game’s concept and focus, and its key features. They do lots of market research. In the case of BioWare, all their games are strong in narrative, so they have lots of tools related to game narratives and supporting the development of a narrative (cinematic design, dialogue system etc) that get focused on in this phase. Other parts of the team such as writers and cinematic design need these systems to do their own roles.

In BioWare’s case, the pre-production phase through to launch can take 4 - 6 years, but it does depend on the size of the team during development.

With regards to Dragon Age 4, they were coming close to the time when they would shift from pre-production to the production stage when the pandemic hit.

During the production phase is when the development of content and features takes place, with the systems mostly already existing from the pre-production phase. A few new systems may be developed in this phase. In the production phase is when things start escalating, and the team really starts growing, to like 2- or 3-fold the prior pre-production phase size.

(DA4 is currently in the production phase.)

In the alpha phase, features have to be fully implemented and systems all have to be running / working. All the game features should already be in the game by now. They test from pre-production onwards, but this phase is when they run heavy technical tests with lots of players trying to play at the same time. In the beta phase, the idea is that you should now have full content and that now you’re balancing it and running more and lots of different tests with players before launch. There are final tweaks and then the final launch, when in the weeks prior to launch, all the different business units and areas e.g. marketing team, technology team, publishing team, get together once a day and all of the game’s issues are reported and brought to the table to be prioritized. Then they decide the next steps re: these issues (this is known as ‘the war room’).

After the launch there are usually patches like day zero patches and other patches, this being standard industry practise. The last stage is the new content stage where there are DLCs and a game with more content.

On March 12th 2020, the team gathered to review the DA4 story in the new office. Everyone was very excited. (They had spent over 10 years in their last building and had noticed that with the team growing they needed more space. In August 2019 they found the new studio in the city center.)

Anyway that evening, they got an email from the CEO which contained instructions and said that due to the pandemic, they should from now all start working remotely. They had known that this happening was a possibility so they had been planning on how to have all the devs working from home, but initially less than 50% of the devs were able to work from home successfully/efficiently due to various issues e.g. you need a VPN to be able to log in remotely to do your job normally, varying home office setups. The day after this, the office was basically deserted, except for Scylla, the IT infrastructure people and one or two odd devs.

Scylla was part of the team that was working on allowing the devs to work from home. They first started looking at the short-term changes they needed to make to allow this.

“First, take care of our developers”.

When the pandemic first hit, their and Scylla’s [as Lead Producer] first priority was to look after the devs. Many of them are parents (schools and day-cares were shut, children were studying from home), others have relatives living with them, others have other personal circumstances which of course need to be taken into account when it comes to assessing what needs to be taken into consideration for this new scenario. So, they looked at each dev on a case-by-case basis in order to evaluate, speaking to each one and asking them what they could do to support them.

One of the first changes/adaptations they could implement was flexible working hours and flexibility around deadlines. Generally speaking the devs got a lot of support, EA was really good and really supported the devs especially in the first months of the pandemic (and they are still supporting them). Initially not all devs had suitable office spaces at home, some were working from the living room from laptops or at the kitchen table. The whole covid situation basically just happened over night and nobody was really ready to deal with that change. So their first step was to enable their devs to work remotely. As a producer, Scylla’s main task is to communicate with the team such as via a number of daily meetings. He doesn’t depend so much on powerful hardware.

“Enable developers to work remotely”.

This slide shows some of a BioWare audio team. Different teams have varying and specific needs in order to do their jobs and therefore in order to do them remotely. For example, the audio team need good-quality speakers and amplifiers, while the lighting and art teams need other specific equipment such as tablets and large screens. So there was a lot of work they had to do to go through each dev to understand their individual needs and what needed to be done for them. ‘Could they download the builds? Did they have the right performance [tech-wise]? Could they submit their changelists, their codes to the server?’

Some devs needed a more powerful internet connection as it would take 6-8 hours to download a build (some devs live rurally). Some needed a lot of cable, as they were working far away from their routers (sometimes up to 50m). As time went by things got better and better.

The chair devs work from is also important; a kitchen able chair etc is not suitable to sit in for long-term desk work, possibly leading to health issues like back ache and blood circulation problems in the legs.

Every 3 months they had money given to help devs buy new mice, keyboards, monitors - anything they needed really in order for their office setting at home to be improved. For a while, because lots of people [generally, in society] were needing and buying them, it was quite hard to buy things like webcams and microphones.

On mid- and long-term changes:

In terms of DA, we have to look at this from 2 perspectives, the change in the personal and the professional environments.

As a consequence of working from home, people tend to be less active during the day (even in an office, you go between meeting rooms, up and down stairs etc). Physical activity supports life quality and therefore work quality. Scylla noticed that he began to feel listless and such, and found that he needed to change his routine that he had initially developed when he started working from home, for example; having a normal start time (as in, have a semblance of structure in your day as if you were still working in the office site), get dressed at the normal time, not having meetings over lunch etc. This wasn’t just him, lots of other devs encountered this and had this experience too. Devs which adapted faster had better productivity and became more productive faster.

Scylla bought a stand-up desk which he can raise up and down, and at meetings he would be delivering a talk while standing or even while walking on a treadmill. Other devs also got stand-up desks. He tracked his body’s data on a Fitbit. These sorts of things helped improve physical and mental wellbeing. Other devs did similar things, like starting going out for jogs or began practising yoga. Essentially, everyone needed to make changes to their daily routine in comparison to what they had been doing prior to the pandemic.

The pandemic has been a thing for over a year now. In their location, every couple of weeks a new restriction is put into place or a rule is changed, and every two weeks there’s a new thing that you can and can’t do. Scylla also started moving around his property. He worked on his desk, fixed it up and painted - taking up a new hobby. Other devs picked up new hobbies too. These are good ways to be active and also to be somewhere else, i.e. to break up the working day and not be spending it all in one home office-type location. Scylla found that when he made these sorts of changes to his routine to improve his lifestyle, the data output by his Fitbit as indicators of his health/wellbeing etc improved, e.g. number of steps taken in a day, heartbeats per minute while at rest. As stated many of the other devs went through a similar process.

On the professional side of things:

They had to improve remote delivery of builds. Accessing things from home as a dev requires a VPN. They need to download a build every day and then upload it to the server after making their changes to the game. They had to work with infrastructure and research other tech, such as streaming tech to allow remote console access, in order to better facilitate this process. For remote access, they also had to work on adapting communications channels.

“Adapting channels of communication.”

In this slide, the team are working on the storyboards. Before you can implement motion capture & performance capture, you have to ‘run the storyboards’ like this. These are small illustrating drawings which reflect the drafts and are meant to quickly reflect the intention of the scenes that are to be built. Before the pandemic, the team would go to meeting rooms like this, sit down, talk and interact in person. After the pandemic, the question became ‘How do you do this over Zoom?’ You can, but it’s not quite the same; it’s harder to see peoples’ expressions, some people are embarrassed speaking over Zoom etc. Therefore they had to adapt their communications systems, and unlearn the ways in which they developed before in order to relearn and learn new ways of communicating.

Slack was a tool that they adopted on this front. Communications channels can be confusing on Slack, so there was a need to develop structure. For example, how quickly should someone reply (as a recommended convention for the purposes of work)? They had to define the process/procedures for the channels so it was clear for the team as a whole how it would all flow (this is important especially if you have a team with say 30 people or as a whole hundreds of people). Before the pandemic, they had stand-up meetings where they’d go around in a circle every morning and talk about their activities - what they’re going to be working on, any roadblocks they had encountered etc. The question arose ‘How do you replace these?’ They ended up doing Slack messages at a certain time of day and updating their statuses with some details on what they’re working on and color-coding (green - fine, yellow - need help, red - busy/blocked out).

Another issue that they faced was unforeseen - the number of meetings that devs were having really shot through the roof. When there wasn’t a good structure of communications channels, any conversation would become a meeting. Everybody began scheduling meetings left and right, and at the end of the day they would have little time left in which to actually work on their to-do lists. Hence, they had to work with the team to really analyze and be very pragmatic. ‘Which meetings needed to happen? Which didn’t? Is a specific meeting really necessary? Which meetings should be recurring? What can be done over Slack?’ This guideline had to be given to the team to help, and it improved things a lot. The number of meetings decreased a lot and they got more effective. For example, by making sure to set an agenda for meetings beforehand, and by having meeting notes (then a dev who didn’t really need to be at a meeting could skip attending and just quickly review the notes output after instead). They also decreased the standard length of meeting times from the default Outlook blocks of 1 hour and 30 mins to 55 mins and 25 mins respectively. This 5 minute change gave devs time for things like bio breaks (also 4 hours in a row at a computer in a home office with one meeting after another just isn’t good for a person).

“Adapting p-cap and mocap”.

On content:

From a content point of view, the most difficult thing in terms of the pandemic was adapting p-cap and mocap (performance capture and motion capture). They hire actors and it’s a large studio. The pandemic meant big limits to what they could and couldn’t do. The actors had to be masked and 5 meters apart in distance (although it doesn’t look like it in some of these shots due to angles). Also there could be no other person around in the studio - only the actors. The directors instead would ‘patch’ in remotely on big screens (you can see this in the second photo in the top right).

Before the pandemic, they felt that they wouldn’t be able to do p-cap or mocap properly remotely, as the directors would usually stand right next to actors giving guidance on their performance. The techs would also usually be near. But they adapted! The keyword is adapting, changing process. It’s harder and it’s different, but it is possible, and people start rethinking what is possible. What was said to be impossible before now is possible.

P-cap differs to mocap in that it also captures voice and facial expressions.

On the future of work after covid:

There will probably be more working from home and more flexibility for workers e.g. being able to work say 3 out of 5 days from home. It does depend on what a dev’s specific job is however. For example, the audio engineers require lots of specialist equipment and said equipment is of higher quality and quantity in the office. So, depending on role, devs might be working more often or less often from home.

Another development is that lots of devs are moving house. In lockdown etc people started reassessing what’s most important in life. Some are moving further away from the studio to get a cheaper rent or for example couples who both needed an office space to work from home from but their current place only had one area. Others are moving closer to nature for a better quality of life, and still others have other different reasons for doing so. Over 10 devs that he knows in fact have recently moved, including Scylla himself.

The pandemic changed certain skills being used by people on a daily basis. Scylla used as an example of this one of his soft skills, being able to tell from looking/interacting in-person with someone if they are stressed out. Obviously it’s less easy to tell if someone is stressed out when you’re remote, so you adapt different ways of checking in with people in the new situation. To continue carrying out his role as Lead Producer, he began checking in with his team pro-actively on the new comms channels and asking how they were doing.

Also, now that companies are more open to working remotely, there is going to be increased competition for hiring devs. They saw both sides of this coin at BioWare. They were able to hire devs from many places that they couldn’t hire from before e.g. Montreal, Vancouver, the US, as there’s less need for devs to relocate to Edmonton or Austin. This opens up opportunities to hire really intelligent and skilled people that they would not have had access to before.

Question and answer segment:

The pre-production phase has been concluded. They’re in the production phase.

They are not giving out a lot of details yet but Scylla is really excited as a big fan of the whole series. He thinks that with DA4, they will have the opportunity/possibility to launch the best story out of all DA games. He feels that the characters they’re making are amazing. He’s dying to say more but can’t.

When you work from home you need to keep your team as productive as possible. During the pandemic, when people started working from home, they noticed that some people became more productive and some people became less productive. They were analyzing it on a case-by-case basis so as not to make assumptions. They were interested in seeing what they could do to help. At the beginning of the pandemic, they were looking at the devs as people and seeing what they needed.

Production of DA4 still needed to continue during the pandemic because they want to be able to launch the game.

This slide shows a writer. Writing is an example of a role which is more able to work from home easily.

Their productivity did go down in the first month of the pandemic. After adaptations, some people then became more productive than they were before (this was role and personal situation-dependent, examples of this being artists and coders who were able to art and code at home without being interrupted, thereby being able to produce more). Covid has affected productivity in general, but this is part of our new reality. They have adapted and adjusted some deadlines. They have enough data (Scylla LOVES data) now to understand how long it will take them/how long they’ll need to launch the game. They have always had historical data for this purpose, but they’re doing more of this sort of thing now to ensure that they are doing things at the right time.

Remote hiring opens up the door to more talent joining, so if someone has talent geography will hold them back less. Some companies though may choose not to hire people from other countries due to labor issues, cumbersome legal aspects, time zones. But even in such cases there are activities for example that can be carried out while the rest of the team is asleep such as testing or working on the build, or there are cases where those companies still will want to hire a specifically/highly talented person even in spite of the potential legal aspects and so on.

On mental health: People were affected. There is the mental, physical and social impacts of the pandemic situation on people. EA supported them during the pandemic in terms of their mental wellbeing, there are specific companies (services offered, speaking to a therapist) that they can contact if they need something or help. EA had always been good at supporting them with this sort of thing but this has improved further during the pandemic. Another change was that they could/can take a couple of days off if they needed/need to because of the pandemic e.g. to take care of children, who were obviously not at school at the time. As a producer he had to be very mindful of all of this. How much they were monitoring peoples’ wellbeing really went up during the pandemic.

A question that was asked - in terms of DA4′s storybeats, is there anything in there that they decided to change due to the pandemic as it wouldn’t be sensitive or appropriate to include anymore, for example a plague plotline or something? Scylla’s answer is that DA and ME are games in which they try to have narratives that are relatable, which include things which people will identify with, so that players understand what characters are going through etc. Nothing in DA4′s plotline/storybeats has been changed (in the frame of this question, relating to the pandemic), as it didn’t have anything in it that could be specifically or a directly connected to a pandemic-type situation or anything. Of course the DA story has Blights and the Taint, but these are different & fantastical things and existed long before the pandemic situation. So this wasn’t the case with DA4 and there was no need to change anything, but this has happened to other games where they decided to change a storyline due to a strong correlation with something in the real world.

There were then concluding/closing remarks. The message he wants to send is that a crisis will always spark opportunities. Look at a crisis and try to see how you can grow.

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[☕ found this post interesting or useful? my ko-fi is here if you feel inclined. thank you 🙏]

#dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #video games #covid mention #long post #longpost #wanted to write these up properly and post them yesterday but wasn't able to #mass effect #anthem

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nanowrimo · 3 years

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5 Tips for Finishing Your Novel

April’s session of Camp NaNoWriMo is drawing to a close, and you might find yourself nearing the end of your novel. If you need some tips on writing and polishing the ending of your story, author Derek Murphy is here to share a few! Plus, you can check out the rest of our novel-finishing resources on our #NaNoFinMo page.

You won NaNoWriMo and have a 50k collection of scenes and sentences, but how do you clean it up and get it done? How do you make sure it’s finished, satisfying and enjoyable? Here are 5 powerful strategies for finishing your novel and some helpful writing tips that will push you past the finish line.

1. Give it a satisfying resolution.

In order to have a powerful story, your book should probably focus on a main character’s change or transformation. There’s an inner war, a.k.a. the character’s emotional healing, and an outer war: the conflict that forced the reckoning. If it’s a purely symbolic internal realization, you can mirror that with actual conflict in the real scene: the breaking of a dish, a fit of rage, a sudden ray of sunlight (or a storm… this should not be pleasant; It’s a breaking point and spiritual death/rebirth).

You can clarify the moment of change by setting up an illustrative contrast, a before and after, that shows how those internal changes have resulted in real-world consequences or benefits. Each character’s unique challenge will match their personal weakness or fear. The price for victory is the one thing they have so far refused to do, or something they cannot give up or bear to lose.

Make sure your protagonist has gone through a transformative struggle to arrive at deep insights, knowledge or awareness. Find a way to deepen the incidental scenes so that they become instrumental to a deeper purpose, leading towards an identity-shifting event.

The plot is what happens, and it’s important. But you can make it more dramatic and meaningful by making sure you demonstrate how hard it was and what it cost. It matters, it is remarkable, because it forced your protagonist to change.

Your conclusion might include:

Physical tension as allies perform a tug-of-war battle against resistance, that shows how difficult this struggle is, and how much force is required.

The consideration phase, as characters are tempted last minute or the price for victory is revealed: the sweet memories that give them awareness that this fight is worth the cost or risk (you need to show them making the choice, knowing what they will lose).

The final flashback, as the full backstory is revealed so we can see exactly why this conflict is so difficult or meaningful for the main character.

2. Add (unresolved) conflict.

Your story is made up of the events and scenes, where something happens. Each new event will push the characters further into the plot. Slow scenes where nothing is really happening can be red flags, so the first thing to focus on is increasing conflict, drama, suspense and intrigue. This is what creates urgency. The full reveal, demonstrating why THIS challenge is so difficult and powerful, should happen just before the final battle or resolution.

You want to make sure every scene, especially in your conclusion, has enough conflict. I recommend these three:

Outer Conflict (threats): Challenges or obstacles that prevent the character from achieving goals.

Inner Conflict (doubts): Moral struggles, decisions, guilt or shame, anger.

Friendly Fire (betrayal): Strong disagreements between allies or supporting characters.

You want to extend and deepen the potential conflict, without resolving it too easily. The biggest destroyer of conflict is conversation: when your characters just sit around and talk to each other. Most conflict involves a lack of information, and a desire for clarity. A lot of conflict is perceived or imagined.

The most important information needs to come last, and come at a great price. The information that has an emotional impact, and influences their actions and decisions, should be big reveals at dramatic peaks. A surprise or twist should be treated as an event: each scene is leading towards a change or new piece of information that provokes the protagonist to respond.

3. Fill plot holes with character motivation.

After you’ve made sure that “what actually happens” is intriguing (opening questions and raising tensions without resolving them) you can focus on making sure the plot holes are filled, and characters are properly motivated – these two things are usually adjacent.

You can find and fill plot holes by asking:

Why are the characters doing this?

Why does any of it matter?

Basically, readers need to respect the main characters enough to care what happens to them, so their choices and actions need to make sense within the given information. If there’s a simpler, easier solution, readers will get stuck up on “why didn’t they just…”? To fix plot holes and gaps in logic or continuity, or make the story go where you need it to, you can add urgency, fix the mood of the scene (bigger stakes require bigger justifications), show characters in a weakened mental state, or raise concerns but have them dismissed, with an excuse or justification.

You need rational characters to make plausible choices that lead to dire consequences. You need show why they don’t do something easier, or nothing at all, or why they face clear challenges, despite potential obstacles.

They’ll also require a deeper motivation, for why they’re willing to put themselves in identity-destroying conflict, rather than just giving up or running away. Why do they stay in THIS fight, when they’ve run from similar ones? If they weren’t ready at the beginning, why are the ready now – what changed in them, as a result of your story’s journey?

Your protagonist needs to have a strong, consistent internal compass, and it needs to be revealed through incidents that establish their character. This is who they are. Without this reliable core identity, we won’t be able to tell a story that forces them to change.

4. Let readers picture your story with detailed description.

In the final stages of revision, you can begin improving the description with specific details.

It’s smart to start – or end – a chapter with a vivid, immediate scene. You want to leave readers with an image they can see in their minds, hopefully connected to the feeling you aim to evoke. You can close a chapter with a reference back to a motif or image, with a deeper or more reflective context; applying meaning to the metaphor. This will help readers feel engaged, be moved, and leave a lasting impact.

Vivid scenes are mostly a matter of detailed description, so add the specifics about the story environment. Be precise, not vague. Instead of “she put a plate of tea and snacks on the table” you can write “she gently placed an antique porcelain teapot on the table. I could smell it was Earl Grey from the scent of bergamot. The half-sleeve of Oreos and can of onion-flavored Pringles seemed incongruous with the fancy dishes, but I knew she was making an effort to welcome me.”

Focus on the sensations and feelings; but also zero-in on any potential sources of conflict or internal emotions or states of mind. In my example above, the host might be nervous or ashamed of her spread; or perhaps she has a degenerative brain disease and doesn’t notice the incongruity. Tensions are unspoken, potential sources of negative feelings. They hover in the background of your description.

Readers will remember the pictures you put in their heads, not the words on the page.

Description should serve and be bound to the story, not distract from it.

It should be squeezed into and around the scene action, when the protagonist is using or exploring.

Show what’s different, not what’s the same.

Leave space for readers to fill in the gaps, but get them started in the right direction so they aren’t surprised later.

Sidenote: be careful about your metaphors, analogies and similes. Each one will put a picture into readers’ minds, and it can quickly get overcrowded with imagery. You’re asking them to ignore your real scene and think of something else. Use them to confirm and amplify the scene you have, and limit distractions.

5. Prepare to publish.

Typos are bad, but perfectionism will ruin you. This section is about editing and proofreading, but I don’t have time for all that, and you don’t either. The real problem with a story is rarely the number of typos. A very clean book isn’t better if people stop reading.

You can solve a lot of common writing problems, with my big list of 25 common writing mistakes, and self-edit your manuscript to make it as good as possible. After that, a copyeditor or proofreader isn’t always the best investment (and it can also be the biggest publishing cost).

Instead, use an editing software (I like Grammarly) to root out obvious mistakes, but don’t dwell on the small stuff like perfecting every word or rearranging the commas. Spending a very long time wrestling a poorly-written manuscript in shape is less effective than getting something (actually) done to the point where you’re comfortable sharing it.

This may be difficult at first, but you can’t learn and improve without genuine reader feedback (from people who aren’t your mom or best friend; nor the short-sighted opinions of a self-proclaimed literature enthusiast). You need to find readers who enjoy your particular genre, and the sooner you find them, the more valuable feedback you can get.

Shorten the feedback loop: Get over the fear and focus on learning by getting feedback early and often. However, this doesn’t just mean joining a writer’s club: writers are brutal and might focus on trivial things. The safest bet is to make it public, on Wattpad at least. Or get a cheap cover and throw it up on Kindle, Draft2Digital or even your own blog.

Making it public is scary and vulnerable, but it’s better than letting the fear of messing up keep you from the brutal, necessary experience of allowing readers to tell you what they liked and disliked about your writing. Will some people be critical? Yes! But guess what, you’ll get negative reviews even if you’re a brilliant, famous writer. Those are inevitable. And the first negative reviews may teach you more about writing than 10 years attempting to self-edit, afraid of putting your book out into the world.

PS. You can use resources, like my 24-chapter plot outline, as a way to spot story gaps in your manuscript and improve the structure (especially if your book suffers from a “soggy middle.)

Derek Murphy has a PhD in Literature, writes urban fantasy and is the founder of the alliance of young adult authors. More recently, he’s started sharing writing tips on http://www.writethemagic.com

Top photo by Adegbenro Emmanuel Dipo on Unsplash.

#nanowrimo #camp nanowrimo #nanofinmo #writing advice #writing tips #finishing a novel #by nano guest #derek murphy

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definitely-not-a-wasp · 3 years

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I'm okay with a bunch of disorganized rambling honestly 😂. But if I had to narrow it down then I guess I want to know about main and side characters and how they compare to the original?

I know that tumblr is the Prime Site for disorganized rambling, but I have perfectionism issues. But that is a great question, nonnie, and I will be happy to ramble is a slightly less disorganized fashion.

When reading Maximum Ride as a somewhat-formed adult who discovered they enjoy English classes about 3.5 years ago, I noticed that JP, when writing, doesn't understand consistency. At all. Which means, in many ways, I have a free sandbox to work with.

Spoilers for my rewrite WIP, because I strongly believe that if a story would no longer be good if one had spoilers, then it wasn’t a good story in the first place.

I'm trying to keep the backstories the same, plus or minus the scientific method and a few characters (RIP my OCs. I want to bring you back so bad but it wouldn't fit with the thematic narrative). I've mostly kept their (starting) abilities the same, too. Without further ado, I'm going to introduce some WorldBuilding. (If I'm good at nothing else, I'm good at world building)

First off. Logically.

How are they getting Cable?

How are they getting internet?

How are they getting money to eat and stuff?

JP's answer: handwave it off. Sometimes you need to ignore logistics for the sake of plot. This is an answer I'd accept from an author that I like, such as Julie Kagawa, that makes amazing worlds, characters, and narratives that I will happily handwave a few things that wouldn't work in the real world. James Patterson, on the other hand, did not make any of that; he made a cool concept, some good rough-draft characters, and nothing else, and therefore this is an unforgivable sin.

Wasp's answer: They are not getting any of that.

Introducing Cottagecore.

The house is off the grid. Solar Panels and a wind turbine create electricity. They have their own well. They grow their own food, raise livestock for eggs, milk, and wool, and trap fish for meat. They get money through dumpster diving and pawning. They still have to steal half of the necessities they can’t make themselves. They do have a TV, but it can access about three channels on a clear day. Internet is only a thing when they go to the public library.

Giving the flock a background that’s heavy in farming and livestock rearing shores up the plot holes mentioned above, but in my opinion, ties the flock more tightly to the environment, thus giving them something tangible to lose when they have to leave the E-shaped house. Because they’re not just leaving a house and a safety net— they’re leaving their entire way of life with no promise of getting it back. It also gives them a tangible connection to the earth in case I want to actually pursue the global warming themes.

Main Characters

Maximum “Max” Ride (Birthname: nonexistent)

First off, I'm letting her be Latina, James Patterson.

In the original, Max was very much the headstrong, independent, action girl. Leaning into Strong Female Character (TM), but overall she had a strong, solid foundation and enough character consistency through the first three books for me to not have to just make an entire new character. However, I felt that she was, in some ways, a bit too Action-Girl and Strong and Capable. Yes, Max is incredible and competent, but she’s also fourteen. She’s a child.

In the rewrite, Max’s character is still headstrong, independent, capable, and sometimes not the best at listening to others. All of that’s the same. But she’s that way not because of girlboss energy, but because there’s no one else to do it. She doesn’t want to lead, necessarily. She wants to get some rest and let someone else handle the problems life keeps throwing at her. But she knows if she did that, the responsibility of leader would fall to Fang and Iggy, and she can’t ask that of them. She doesn’t want to place that burden on anyone else (Look, there’s a reason I chose Ayano’s Theory of Happiness as one of her signifier songs, okay?). Her narrative is very much centered around burden, and also around loss. She lost her cultural heritage when she was taken away from her birth family, she lost her childhood to being a leader, she lost a good deal of her friends to the school (RIP my OCs), she lost Jeb, and then she lost her stability. And she’s going to lose a lot more before the end of the story. So a lot of her character arc deals with learning that there are some things she can’t fix, some things that can’t be recovered. She can’t get the E-shaped house back. She can’t get her Little Baby Angel back, even after they rescue her. She can’t get her friends back from the school. And instead of working so hard to recover those or find something to replace them, she has to learn to live with that sense of loss and move on with her life without feeling guilty for leaving things behind. And she has to learn that asking for help and sharing her burden is selfish or weak.

Other changes I made that don’t necessarily fit into her narrative arc, but you asked for rambling so rambling you shall get:

Max hallucinates, because mental illness is also a prominent theme in the rewrite. She doesn’t have a psychotic disorder, but her C-PTSD causes visual/audio hallucinations, especially when she’s stressed or sleep deprived.

Max ends up having a Gender Discovery throughout the story and goes by He/She pronouns eventually. I don’t know when, but it will happen.

As far as genetic modifications/special quirks go, she can fly faster than the rest of the flock, but not 300 miles per hour. She averages about sixty mph with diving speeds of 240. She cannot breathe underwater or shut down her organs on command. She also has the Super Special Power to predict the weather, but that’s not because of genetics, it’s because she has chronic pain in her right arm that gets worse when weather fronts change.

Her favored weapon is her trusty rebar that she picked up from a condemned building. I think she’s going to name it eventually but I don’t know what yet.

Fang (Birth name: Gabriel Xue)

In canon, Fang is characterized in early books by being the “dark, strong, silent type”. He’s probably the most reserved member of the flock, to the point of falling into the Brooding Mystery Man trope in parts of the book. They care a lot, but they’re not the best at conveying that, especially with the younger members of the flock, and at times their high empathy leads them to making mistakes. Despite the high empathy, he’s often compared to a robot due to his lack of expression and external emotions.

Well, first change is that they’re not a man, so jot that down—

If Max’s narrative is centered around burden and loss, I would probably say that Fang’s is centered around humanity and moving on. None of the flock was treated as human while in the school, but Fang was more often than not treated like a wild animal due to “behavioral issues”, and therefore had and continues to have a difficult time considering themselves real and alive, let alone human. This manifests through a several different ways— where in canon Fang definitely had a ‘fight’ reaction, in the re-write they have a ‘freeze’ or ‘shut down’ instinct. They’re selectively mute for multiple reasons (including derealization, jaw pain, the fact that they didn’t learn how to speak until they were 10, and genuinely forgetting it’s something they’re capable of), a period of Cotard’s syndrome, and a tendancy towards self-loathing and self-sacrifice. In short, Fang is still halfway stuck in the mindset that most of the flock grew out of when they escaped in the school, and doesn’t know how to move past it.

Much of their character arc revolves around not necessarily seeing themselves as human, but learning to treat themselves as human even when they don’t feel like one (or even feel real), and knowing that just because they don’t feel human all the time doesn’t mean anyone else can treat them the same. They never start easily expressing their emotions, and they’re always going to be selectively mute, but they learn to accept that those aspects of themself aren’t character flaws or signs that they’re sub-human.

Other additions to Fang’s character include:

They don’t get their hair cut in New York. It stays long through the entire series. They have the longest hair in the flock by the end of the series, and they can wear it in so many styles.

Fang uses they/it pronouns because themes of reclaiming the weapons used against it and, more importantly, Gender.

They’re actually really good at spelling compared to the rest of the flock, because they and Iggy communicate with Print-On-Palm when they’re nonverbal, and they’re nonverbal for some pretty long stretches of time.

They and Max have... zero romantic tension. At all. There is none. The number of times Max calls them her sibling/little sibling in the first arc alone is staggering, and that will not change.

Igneous “Iggy” (Birthname: Jamsetta “Jamie” Griffiths)

I’ve talked about Iggy before. Canon doesn’t give us much to go off of, but from what’s shown, he’s smart, sarcastic, has sharper edges than Fang and Max, and also has a sizable ruthless streak. So that’s what I have to go off of.

The big difference between Iggy and Fang&Max is that Iggy has a much better memory of the School. Most of the flock have areas (months or years) that they don’t remember, or people that they’ve blocked from their mind, but Iggy... doesn’t. So he’s the one that remembers all of the other AVIAN test subjects that were old enough to have names and identities but died due to complications. Max might have the burden of leadership, but he has the burden of memory. And that has lead to both a massive fucking guilt complex, because why did he survive when they didn’t, and, as mentioned above, a ruthless streak that he doesn’t shy away from.

Which is to say, by the end of the story, Iggy has the highest kill count.

I love, love writing Iggy next to Max and Fang. I love writing Iggy next to Gazzy and Nudge. Because, I say this with all of the love of the world, but Iggy is not a good person. He is loyalty and love incarnate, and the world can burn down if he and his siblings are safe. Max and Fang will always try to save as many people as they can. They will wonder what’s wrong with them the first time they kill and don’t have a mental breakdown about it. They are good in a way that Iggy is not. He’s okay with killing Erasers. He’s okay with killing humans. He’s okay with killing people who might not necessarily deserve it, if they show themselves as a threat or are simply in the blast radius. He knows perfectly well that most of those Erasers he’s murdering are four and five and he is okay with that, because a lot of the AVIANs were that age when they died. (Yeah, in the rewrite it’s not Fang who has an issue with Ari; it’s Iggy who wants the 7-year-old wolf-boy dead.)

And this is, of course, juxtaposed with Iggy being really, really good with Nudge and Gazzy (especially in the beginning). Because, again, he actually remembers being a child. He remembers a lot of kids that died and is therefore fiercely protective of the kids that didn’t, as well as fiercely protective of the innocence that he never got. So he’s the one that cooks their favorite foods when they’re having a bad day, always makes time when they want to talk about something, and convinces Max to let them go to that toy store in New York because, yeah, he Max and Fang aren’t kids. They never were. But Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel can be. (And if he has to be a murderer to preserve that, then he’s perfectly okay with that.)

He and Angel don’t get along very well, though. The telepath doesn’t like hanging out with the person with the most clear memories of the school.

Other additions:

Iggy is trans and says trans rights

He also has paranoid episodes, because C-PTSD. Sometimes they’re very helpful. Sometimes they are not.

I actually decided that he’s one of the flock that doesn’t meet their parents. I know in canon he did, but I always found that very clunky because it didn’t add to his character. He was one of the characters who, until it was convenient for the plot, seemed to care the least about his family. I’d much rather give that to a character whose arc would benefit from it.

Iggy! Gets! Older Sibling Rights! Seriously, he’s two months younger than Fang, he is just as capable.

Iggy does not know braille because Jeb decided it wasn’t necessary for him to know. Iggy is also the best speller in the flock, because Print-on-Palm was the only way to talk to Fang for a solid year. Yes he mocks everyone over this.

Iggy is the only member of the flock that enjoys swimming and can take into the air from water. Everyone else in the flock is incredibly jealous.

Nudge (Birthname: Monique Robinson)

If Iggy is defined by his memories, Nudge is his polar opposite. She was seven when she left the School, but she has next to no memories of it. She is missing a lot of time in the first year she escaped. And that causes... a lot of things. It makes her feel disconnected from her older siblings, it gives her the ability to function in society in a way the other’s can’t, it lets her feel less grief over the ones that didn’t make it and she doesn’t remember, it makes her feel guilty that she doesn’t remember what she’s old enough to know.

Basically, in order for me to keep the character of Nudge as I saw her (more extroverted, not afraid of the world, fascinated with humans like her siblings aren’t, desiring to fit in instead of isolate), I had to put a little bit of distance between her and the flock. Of course, she loves them— that will in no way change— but she’s old enough that she should remember the school (and her dead friends) unlike Gazzy and Angel, but she can’t, and she very much fears forgetting the flock if anything happens to them. So she’s trying desperately to keep the flock close and wants desperately to experience the world at the same time, and doesn’t know what to do when she can’t have both. That’s her biggest character conflict throughout the series, along with that in-between area where she’s not quite where her older siblings are but understands so much more than Gazzy and Angel, and where she stands in that.

So yeah. Nudge’s journey is that in looking for belonging in the world, in her family, and in herself.

This is why she’s one of the ones that gets to find her parent, James Patterson.

Other additions include:

She never straightens her hair. Never. Her resources at the E-shaped house aren’t perfect, but she still has learned how to take care of her hair and has a few styles she cycles through.

She becomes the default person Max sics on people when the flock is trying to befriend them. Also their de-facto diplomat around strangers.

As in canon, she does take some time away from the flock to expirience ‘normal life’. This does not last long due to the stress of being separated from her siblings/not being able to help them and [REDACTED]

Nudge is... not the only person in her head. I’m not focusing on it much because she doesn’t actually know and neither does the flock (I don’t know if they ever figure it out during the series, either), but she has dissociative identity disorder. She’s not aware of her alter(s?). Her alter isn’t super aware of her, either.

The alter that I’ve developed is named Oxy and is not super aware of the outside world. In her eyes, she’s still seven and they’re still at the School. She would not recognize the body as her own if she looked in a mirror.

Nudge actually leaves the flock for a while to pursue her dream of living a normal life. She deserves it. She learns how to make muffins and the basics of software development. These things are unrelated.

Gasman (Birthname: No first name, surname “Falk”)

Honestly, writing Gazzy is kind of hard for me. Partially because I’m not great at writing kids, and partially because I feel like he’s a pretty surface-level character in-series that... isn’t super compelling in canon. But even if that’s the case, I try to treat all of my characters with respect, so here we go. In my rewrite, he escaped when he was four, which was half a lifetime ago for him, so his memories are ill-defined. Therefore, he managed to circumvent a lot of the trauma that the rest of the kids have, and not in the way Nudge did, which is by creating an elaborate blockage in her memories.

Which means Gazzy... really doesn’t know how to deal with all of this traumatic stuff happening. So much of his development turns out to be a coming-of-age narrative. Learning how to deal with the horrors of what his siblings grew up with. Learning the fears that they had the entire time. Losing his innocence when everyone around him never had it in the first place, and being so terribly alone because of it. Because, really, how can you explain such a deep loss to people who never had what he had? How can they help in a way that matters?

Also, relationship-wise, I’m slowly deteriorating the relationship between him and Iggy. Slowly. Or, changing it, at least. Gazzy hero-worships Iggy in-series, and for good reason, because Iggy is super cool, especially in the eyes of an eight-year-old, and especially when Iggy has taken care to cultivate parts of his behaviors to be child-friendly. Part of growing up is seeing the flaws in your heroes, and Gazzy has to learn how to deal with it. End of the series Gazzy is much less closer to Iggy than beginning of the series Gazzy, and neither of them are really okay with that, but they learn to live with it, because that’s really all they can do.

Notes:

I’m keeping the mimickry! It plays a bit of a bigger role because that’s how Gazzy learned to talk. I’m debating whether or not he has his own voice or if he just borrows the flock’s as he sees fit. He also uses it to scream really loudly and occaisonally burst the eardrums of Erasers.

At one point he cosplays as Jessica Jones. No you don’t get any more context than this.

He has a horrible sense of fashion.

I’m changing his name eventually because it sucks. He’s either going to change it to Gannet, Garrison, or Ivy Mike temporarily, and permanently to Zephyr. (I never said I was going to make his name GOOD, because he’s eight, but it’s changing. You’re welcome.)

Angel (Birthname: No first name, surname “Falk”)

It’s just... a completely different character, at this point. I’ve changed so many things about her in an attempt to make her consistent and act like a six-year-old and work in the whole “telepath before she has a solid sense of identity”, so it’s a different character. Also, I’m tired of writing coherently or in paragraphs, so have some interesting facts.

She has epilepsy! Super severe epilepsy! I think she might also develop juvenile MS in the future because her brain has so many scars from being a fucking six-year-old telepath. There’s no way she could get out of that unscathed.

She has more memories of the school than Gazzy, but only because she keeps accidentally reading the minds of Max, Fang, and Iggy. On a related note, she interacts with Iggy as little as possible.

The mind reading means that she has a hard time developing as a normal child with a normal sense of identity or reality. She can’t tell how much people are individual people and how much they’re just extensions of her. Conversely, she can’t tell how much of herself is actually her instead of the thoughts/opinions/identities of someone else. It’s... kinda fucked? But also super not-her-fault.

She’s albino because white wings. Also, because I thought it was cool. This also means that her vision sucks, though. Also she has the biggest straw sunhat and the most stylish sunglasses a six-year-old can have.

She’s responsible for Max shaving her hair off.

She has the highest swear count because I think it’s funny. She’s the only person allowed to say the fuck word in writing. Everyone else can only say ‘hell’ and the occasionally ‘damn’ but she can say whatever she wants for dramatic and comedic value.

She is NOT THE FUCKING VOICE, J*MES P*TTERSON.

Honorable Mentions

Jeb

I’m skipping Jeb because of how little I care about him. He’s a little bitch, next character.

Ari

STILL HASN’T BEEN REVEALED AS AN ERASER. I’ve been writing for 50,000 words and he’s over here saying ‘nope nope not yet, not dramatic enough’. He’s had speaking lines but has refused to make himself known to Max. I am so frustrated with this seven-year-old wolf-child that I’ve already considered how I would kill him, if I decide I want to kill yet another child in my writing.

So, my main thoughts for Ari is that he... really just drew the short end of the stick in every possible way. While Jeb didn’t sign him up for Eraser expirimentation, he didn’t do anything to stop it, and pretty much cut his losses when he realized this expiriment made a wreck of his ‘perfect, unflawed’ son, because Jeb doesn’t consider children of any species to actually be humans. So, Ari really hates his dad, which makes things complicated, because he also really loves his dad and really wants his approval.

Which means that he also really hates Max, because she’s the child that always got Jeb’s time and attention, even when Ari was human. I think, on some level, he knows that trying to tear Max down to a less-favored level isn’t actually going to help his situation— infighting for the love of an abusive parent won’t make them any less abusive— but he’s also seven, and his development is already severely stunted due to becoming an Eraser, and he doesn’t see ‘leaving ITEX’ as an option like the Flock does. ITEX is his everything. It’s all he’s ever known, and they tell him he’s doing the right thing, and he wants them to love him. He wants his father to love him. He knows that if he ever questions ITEX, his father will never love him. So it must be his older sister that’s ruining his life and being a horrible child, and once Ari drags her back down to his level, Jeb will realize who the best child is and love him properly again.

Ari, on an even deeper level, does care for Max quite a bit, because she’s his older sister and he wants that to mean something in a way that ‘Jeb being his father’ obviously doesn’t. He wants what she made for herself, and he hates the Flock because she loves them and obviously doesn’t love him.

Ari, if anything, is the product of neglect, and both loves and hates everyone who shows a chance of caring about him. And he’s seven, so he can’t notice these patterns, let alone break them.

So. Notes!

He doesn’t look like an adult. I thought that was gross and unnecessary. He’s seven, but he looks closer to thirteen or fourteen. Still young enough that he looks like every Eraser’s little brother, and the Erasers high-key treat him like it.

On a related note, he’s the only Eraser who can talk. The others don’t have the mental capacity or vocal structure to replicate human speech, but they can understand language (at about the level of a two or three year old) and are very good at nonverbal communication. This is why Ari managed to climb the ranks despite only having three years of “service” and also looking like a tween.

He doesn’t have an expiration date because that is SUCH a stupid plot point.

I’m giving him a chainsaw! I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but he deserves to have a chainsaw and GODDAMN I will give it to him.

Emergency and Gene

The OCs that I love and also killed pre-series. They don’t have any scenes, because they’re dead, but their deaths greatly effected Max, Fang, and Iggy, and they are very commonly referenced. Their voices are probably Max’s most common hallucination, to the point where she sometimes pretends they’re ghosts that she can talk to. They’re not ghosts. They’re dead.

Dr. Valencia Martinez

I’m actually keeping her pretty close to canon— loving, supportive, the type of person to take in a gsw victim with minimal questions. The difference is that rather than kindness fueling her actions, it’s incredible guilt. She has three goals surrounding Max: Give her as much support in any way she can, teach her as much about chicane culture as possible, and never let Max know that she’s her birth parent.

(She’s probably going to fail at AT LEAST two of those, but it’s the thought that counts.)

Notes:

She has a pet fox named Robin Hood that she rescued from an exotic animal salesman that got arrested.

I think I’m going to kill her. I don’t know yet, but it’s on the table.

Anne Walker

Y’know, the fake FBI Agent. Who’s not actually a fake in my story because I hated that plot point. She’s genuinely an FBI agent who put the Flock into pseudo-witness-protection in order to build a case against the Institute of Higher Living, accidentally got attached to her prime witnesses, raised them for a few months, realized a [SPOILER] and promptly had to let them get the hell out dodge.

I really like the Anne Walker that lives in my head. She is a VITAL part of the Flock’s development, their mental/emotional recovery, and adding to their safety net to fall back on. She serves them as their first adult role model, and is the first adult to show them what parent/child are supposed to look like from a healthy perspective. Though she has several fuck ups, she becomes someone that the Flock genuinely trusts and loves, which makes it all the more difficult for them to leave when [REDACTED].

Notes:

She and Max do butt heads initially, because Max is paranoid and also afraid of becoming uneeded. This ends up being incredibly important because Max needs to learn how to live and find meaning in life without being the designated Leader/Parent/Big Sister

Anne, at one point, sits the entire flock down to teach them about consent, which was something no one ever talked about with them before. She goes in talking specifically about consent in a romantic/sexual sense (because they’re fourteen and that’s something they need to know), but quickly turns into a full-fledged no, people are NOT allowed to do that to you, what the FUCK.

She’s responsible for giving the flock a laptop. It’s because Angel is online schooled (bc telepathy makes actually learning difficult) and was therefore provided with a computer.

Anne is also allowed to swear, but only when it’s funny.

Michael “Grey” Rivers

Aka Grey from the Sewers Aka GR3Y H47 Aka Mike from the Bronx Aka Gifted Child Syndrome Incarnate Aka Would-be-in-MIT-if-his-parents-weren’t-horrible. He’s my son, your honour.

Basically, his backstory boils down to him being a genius, getting into MIT at 14, his (horrible) parents wanting a perfect child who could “make it out” of the Bronx and represent his family/neighborhood/borough to the world. When he inevitably failed their expectations due to stress, a schizophrenic-spectrum disorder that completely alienated him from the rest of his support network, and refusing to take his psych meds because the side effects were horrible and they made it harder to think (and therefore pass his classes), they kicked him out. He fully intends to go back to MIT when he turns 18 and has control of his finances/scholarships/medication/therapy.

So that’s how the flock meets him.

Mike ends up in a very prominent support role for the flock both in technological persuits (helping them track their parents, helping them get information from ITEX, trying to disable Max’s chip and failing multiple times until it becomes a matter of personal honour—), in helping the older members of the flock figure out how to deal with hallucinations/delusions (because he’s actually been to therapy, unlike them), and in being one of the only people who talks to them and helps them without any ulterior motive. He’s not trying to build a case against ITEX/The Institute of Higher Learning, he’s not double crossing them, he’s not plagued with guilt. He just genuinely wants to help them, and they genuinely want to help him, and that’s their first introduction to a healthy, non-codependent relationship.

My many disorganized notes on Michael Rivers:

He’s from specifically Morris Heights, Bronx, NYC.

He would say that his last name is actually Rivera, but his grandparents changed it to Rivers so it would sound more English, and his family has been in America for so long that he doesn’t know much about any Latino heritage he may or may not have. He identifies as African American, not Afro-Latino. He’s just bitter that his family felt the need to change their surname to have better opportunities in New York.

Nudge aggressively befriends him pretty much the moment she meets him, bullies him into teaching her how to code, and he very quickly adopts her as his pseudo-little-sister.

His delusions in the book seemed to involve government conspiracies, but as that’s the one delusion that is proved correct in the book, I’ve decided it would be best if his delusions and reality intersected a bit less if I don’t want to write him having a manic/paranoid episode in the second scene he has screen time. So his delusions are more based on “none of this is real”, “someone is recording everything I do and setting me up to fail” and “my ill-wishes on people can and will come true if I dwell on them too long.”. Government conspiracies are one of things he is skeptical about because he thinks most conspiracies are either “CIA admitted to this twenty years ago” or “antisemitism”.

He’s taking online free college classes that don’t actually give him any college credit, but they have good information and help him feel like he’s working towards something. He plans to double major in computer sciences and electrical engineering, minor in marine biology. He’s wanted to join NOAA since he was twelve and he is nothing if not stubborn.

There you go. These are my characters, now. I have custody.

#maximum ride on main #Maximum Ride rewrite

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skaylanphear · 3 years

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Hi there! Do you have any advice on improving traction towards a fanwork/fic? I love writing—and it's not for notoriety by any means—but having validation and feedback also feels nice (I hope that's not conceited). What would you recommend to someone without a large audience/follower base? I do "advertise" on tumblr when my work is written/updated on AO3. How did your journey start? Thank you!

This is an interesting question and I doubt most people are going to like the answers, but here we go:

So, first and foremost, you need to be realistic about why you're creating in the first place. If you're doing work in a fandom that is older, where content has stopped coming out, or that is simply smaller, you're not going to get much engagement, period. There will, of course, be activity in these fandoms, but it will be far less and the people involved—while they may view your work—will be less likely to comment/spread it around simply because there's not much going on. So if you're creating in that sort of environment (which can be a really good environment if you're looking for something chill with no pressure), then you have to be prepared for low engagement, even if the people you do meet and who are willing to talk about your work are more regularly in your sphere. You can probably make better/closer friends in these sorts of fandoms, if you're willing to try.

But, on the other end of this, if you're coming into a huge fandom late, it's also going to be harder to wade through the massive following to get your stuff out there. For example, in both the Miraculous and Sk8 fandom, I started work pretty early on, when the shows were still gaining traction, and so my "name" as a creator gained traction parallel to that growth, as opposed to when I started writing in the Voltron fandom. With Voltron, I came in super late and so what few fics I had that did gain traction took a lot longer to get there because people already had their fav content creators in the fandom, etc. It's not impossible to get popular in this situation—far from it—but it does take longer.

You'll also benefit from having finished works early on in a fandom's lifespan, at least with writing. This is because there's less competition for views and so more people will be filtered to your work, initially. This means that you have a better chance of getting those comments and kudos. Having a finished work increases this engagement because people look for finished works before works in progress. Generally, the length of a fic doesn't matter much for popularity, so long as it's DONE. When I was writing in the ML fandom, quite a few of my earlier fics were shorter, and they compete in popularity with my longer fics, because people care more about having a finished story, not a long story. That's why when it came to Only Practice Makes Perfect in the Sk8 fandom, I worked hard to get that shit done, because it was the most popular story I had in the fandom and I decided—like an idiot—to make it a long fic. Which, yeah, means people probably love it/remember it more in the long run, but if I hadn't finished it in 2 to 3 months, I'd have lost considerable traction as far as making a name within the fandom.

This leads into one of the most important points, if not THE MOST IMPORTANT point in gaining an audience—consistency. If you do want to be a successful creator, you Have To Be Consistent. This is the most difficult hurdle for all creators, and it is oftentimes impossible to make happen. If you want to aim for professionalism, which a lot of fandom creators don't care about (which is fine), then consistency is how you get there. Nobody wants to read a fic or follow an artist who doesn't stick to creating what they start (RIP all my unfinished works and the people who left me as a result, LOL). Using my most recent works as an example, I very, very, very consistently updated Only Practice Makes Perfect multiple times a week. To the point where people got comfortable expecting it, which is the key variable here. When people become comfortable that you will regularly create content, they not only stick around, but will be more interactive with you and your work. Nobody likes the disappointment of getting involved with a work only for that work to rarely get updates. Most people don't have the attention span to care. I'll admit, if I read a fic that's not finished and the writer takes one week to update, then one week, then THREE weeks, I probably will, like, forget about it. That's just life.

The best thing you can do is schedule. And again, this is the HARDEST thing to do, because it holds the creator to a deadline. Most people who create in fandoms don't want that kind of pressure—and that's fine. I go back and forth on when I have scheduled releases and when I don't, depending on what I'm aiming to do. But if you to retain your audience, telling them that you will update a work regularly on such and such a day and such and such a time, it creates something for them to remember. If they're invested in your work, they will think, "oh, it's Friday, that means such and such is coming out with something new." But, with that in mind, you also have to commit to a schedule that people will remain invested in. Which basically means you can't put things out more than a week away from each other, unless you're really, really famous, lol. If I told people I was going to go on a two week update schedule, I would lose most of my audience. But a week is long enough for people to both still remember and anticipate. That's just how the scheduling of the world works. And if you're an artist that's working on a big project, then you have to share progress, or pieces of what you're doing on a regular basis. That's what generates "buzz" and keeps you relevant. And, yeah, that's a really hard schedule to commit to, because it's a lot of work. BUT this consistency is where you see people being successful. Popular youtubers may not have gained their popularity by being consistent, but most sure do retain it that way. And again, there are outlying exceptions, but they generally ARE exceptions.

Speaking of hard work, here's probably the second hardest thing to accomplish—you have to be prolific. Especially as a writer. You have to write A LOT if you want to gain an audience. And yeah, that means you have to work, a lot. I love my work, so I enjoy that "grind," and I also have developed a lot of strategies to work around writer's block and every other obstacle that tends to catch people up. I work in a very professional manner—I do outlines, and drafts, and plan. I do a lot of stuff that people who do this kind of thing for fun can't be bothered with (and that's fine), but that's because I find it to be what works best in creating an efficient environment. I'm also very, very NOT lazy, lol. I was raised in an environment where you have to work for everything that you want. My parents didn't buy me my first computer, or snowboard, or what have you. We were tight on money and if I wanted something, they couldn't help me—I had to get that shit on my own. And I also grew up on a farm, where hard work was a staple of how you did things. You did things the right way, even if it was the hard way. You can't cut corners and it's the same with this. If you want it, you have to actually do the work, that's it. Some people get lucky with popularity, most don't. Most famous actors didn't become well-known off their first efforts, they had to keep trying and keep working and then they have to continue to do that to stay relevant. So if that doesn't sound great to you, then you might want to not focus on your audience and just create because you enjoy it, lol. Sometimes that's what I do too, when I don't wanna deal with the pressure.

Moving on, here's another point that nobody is going to like. Simply put, you also have to be good at what you do. I think some people don't realize that I've been writing fic for over fifteen years. I currently have nearly 2 millions words worth of fics on AO3 and that doesn't include a majority of the stuff I've ever written. I practice A LOT. I write every day. And I'll tell ya, when I started out in middle school, my stuff was not good. But I worked hard, I ignored the hate, and I kept going. That is the only way you will ever get better at anything. There's no quick way to become a better writer, or artist. And a vast majority of people are only going to pay attention to your stuff if it's quality work. Getting to that point is a process, on top of then creating stuff that fits into popular molds. Not only am I good at what I do (and I don't care how arrogant that sounds—I've worked my ass off), but when it comes to fandoms, I rarely write "rare pairs" and "crack ships." Generally, if it's popular, that's where I am. That makes a big difference and I honestly don't have sympathy for people who write rare pairs and such and then complain about lack of engagement. You knew what you were getting into (it's mostly the Miraculous fandom that gave me this bitterness). If you're not writing what people WANT to read, then your audience is simply going to be smaller. And that audience doesn't owe you their attention, no matter how frustrating it is or how good your work is. I could be the best writer in the world, but if I'm writing RekixCherry fic, I have nobody to blame but myself when nobody reads it. BUT if that's your passion, and writing a certain unpopular thing makes you happy, then, again, you need to not be concerned with traction and your audience.

The last point I'll make is that it matters HOW you present yourself online. A good chunk of the well-known creators in any fandom are, simply put, older people. And those that aren't, and are able to connect with those older creators, have generally created a bubble around themselves of maturity and, like, of being nice, lol. A lot of creators are skittish these days, and if you're an asshole (anti) or fight a lot over stupid shit, you may get a bigger audience, but you will isolate yourself from other creators. And this is important because oftentimes it is your exposure to other creators that will get your work circulating. The reason I got popular in the ML fandom? I wrote a short angst fic and a really popular artist shared it/talked about it and the rest was history. But if I'd had a habit of being an asshole, probably wouldn't have happened. And, granted, I'm not saying don't voice your opinions, but if you're loud all the time, it does turn people off. Especially creators because they are oftentimes the ones being attacked. They don't want to pull more of that negative bullshit into their lives. I'll admit, when I was in the ML fandom, I was down for a fight, but then that's what people came to expect, and it probably did turn others off, and then when I didn't fight, or didn't think the way my audience thought I should, it, again, turned people off. It's really not worth it unless being that type of person IS your platform.

So, that's all the advice I can give, I suppose. And even if you do all this stuff, that still doesn't mean you're going to be popular. At the end of the day, the thing that I stick to is this—I do what I want, I love what I do, and I work hard. If I'm in a position to worry about all that other stuff, then sure, I do, but otherwise… There's no easy way to become popular and, quite frankly, it's better to just "live" working hard and being a decent person than it is to focus on all this bullshit. I've created a working environment where I function within these "points" quite naturally, so it's not something I think about (except for schedules, lol). Sometimes I get popular in fandoms, sometimes I don't. At the end of the day, it comes down to how much work you're willing to do, because you will always be giving more than you are getting back, so you have to at least enjoy what you're doing.

Seriously, just do it because you love it. And if the pressure of everything above is something you don't love (I like a good, high pressure situation, lol), then don't do it that way—it's not worth the grief.

#skaylanphear replies #anonymous

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thirstyfortaglines · 3 years

Text

My girlfriend will outlive me but that’s okay because I love her

Yanfei x Gender Neutral!Reader

1.5k words. Fluffy-ish writing with reader and Yanfei just talking. Tiny bit angsty since there’s some talk of Yanfei’s lifespan being a lot longer than the average human’s.

The rather loud bustling of the streets as the remaining day stalls became more loud in an effort to attract any last customers to their wares before they set up shop for the night was muted to the pair that strolled down its streets. Usually interested in the goods themselves, you and Yanfei had decided to pass on any actual shopping that particular evening in favor of simply taking in the environment of the harbor which was relaxing in its own way with the familiar clamor of the environment.

Despite instigating this outing, wanting to get out after finally finishing a particularly hard job, she was uncharacteristically quiet. For the last few days she had excused herself from the usual excursions around the harbor you two shared, the emotional drain from the child custody case she had taken on leaking into her non-work life. It wasn’t like you could have just told her to care less or to try and let it affect her less, Yanfei loved her work and her dedication and investment in each and every case was what made her so good as a legal adviser. The downside was just that in emotionally charged cases she tended to struggle a bit, the lack of a real definite cut and dry answer or compromise proving taxing on her as no amount of investigation would solve it.

Gently nudging her to catch her attention, she met your gaze. “Something weighing you down?. Even if we weren’t dating I’d still listen to you as your friend. You can always talk to me,” The offer hung in the air for a few moments, the silence bringing up concerns that perhaps it had sounded demanding.

Before you could fret too much, however, she responded. “In a way, yes. It’s a rather heavy topic so let’s discuss it at the end and just enjoy our evening out.” Yanfei’s tone was matter of fact, leaving no room for discussion on the matter for the time being. At least whatever was affecting her wasn’t doing so to the point where she was unable to compose herself quickly like she usually did.

Still not quite sure if she was really okay, you reached and held her hand like you normally did, giving a reaffirming squeeze to it which was reciprocated.

“Now come on, everything will close by the time you get to the stall if you keep on being this slow,” she pestered as she took the lead in moving through the street, letting go of your hand in favor of emoting while she spoke.

“We go to the night market, it’s just becoming sundown.”

“It’ll be well past morning at the rate you’re walking, and if we hold up any stalls who are nice enough to still be open by the time you make it there at that snail’s pace that would be a violation of the ordinance on stall times that requires they only be set up at their allotted time slots, of their own choosing of course.” She was evidently teasing you, her exaggerated nagging tone giving that away easily. As she turned back to make a face at you of mock exasperation at your still average walking pace, you surprised her by having moved right next to her.

“I’m not moving that slow and I won’t lose track of you. Not everyone in Liyue has bright pink hair and is even half as energetic as you.”

Unsurprisingly, she was only surprised for half a second at best before she had a retort lined up. As the two of you continued your walk, playfully arguing while pointing out various wares to each other and occasionally checking out stalls, the warm yellow of streetlamps slowly grew stronger.

It had quieted down for the night, or perhaps it was the place where the two of you had decided to settle at, a patch of grass on the terrace overlooking the harbor, by the time your legs had begun protesting and Yanfei had conceded to stop for the night and rest.

A warm kind of silence filled the air as you rested against each other, the kind that just settled unspoken and naturally.

“Regarding what was bothering me earlier, it was nothing much or perhaps it’d be more prudent to say nothing that will be of pressing importance anytime soon,” she began. Pausing before continuing, she looked at you for affirmation to continue and that you were listening. Not wanting to really verbalize a response and interrupt what she had going on any further, you nodded to indicate your attention. “While I have little fears of children or us separating and whatnot, unlike the case I just dealt with, it did bring some fears to light for me that hadn’t really come to the forefront of my thoughts before.”

She took an extra moment to prepare her words as she turned to fully face you. “There is no doubt in my mind that I would like to spend the rest of my life with you, our long withstanding friendship and now romantic relations a testament to that fact, the fears of your inevitably passing as my lifespan theoretically should far exceed yours are present.”

Yanfei raised her hand in a motion to indicate for you to stay quiet right as you were about to say something, she knew you too well and a small smile broke across your face at that despite the rather heavy conversation topic.

“However, I am not someone who is willing to let the upsides of life pass me by in favor of cowering in fear of what will happen. I’ve thought this through, though not much as the answer was already evident from the start, but I’d like to spend the rest of my life with you and even if that isn’t possible I will do my best. I hope you feel the same.”

Flustered at her words, you were at a loss of words for a moment. Upon seeing your reaction, Yanfei’s expression once again relaxed from the previous serious face she had been wearing, the same one she used to mask her anxiety during her work which was enough to betray her true feelings to you despite how calm she appeared.

“Yeah, I love you a lot too, which is what I’m going to assume that’s what you meant. I won’t lie, I have thought about it before but you’re right that it’s a long way off. Let’s just enjoy the time we have together, and I’ll be sure to make good memories for you to remember” Deciding to counterattack in light of her smug expression, you leaned forward and pressed a kiss against her cheek, the scent of flower perfume and the fried food stalls you had visited together mixed in a rather strange but comfortingly familiar way.

From there, the conversation naturally flowed back to what it usually was, ending with Yanfei standing up and brushing her skirt off.

“With that off my shoulders, I feel up to doing another investigation. I got a request for another case as I was exiting the courthouse earlier today and was already given the downpayment for it,” she began, the usual glimmer in her eyes back in full force which you were more than happy to see.

“Is it another case of false advertising at another stand selling trinkets?” you sighed, tone laced with tiredness that was only mostly fake. “I thought today was supposed to be resting as time off from your last case?”

“That was yesterday, it’s already a new day. The peace and prosperity of Liyue won’t stand without people there to keep everything in order.”

“It also won’t go away if you decide to take a day or 2 off.”

“Oh hush and help me find out what place was selling those frost jade crystals, I have a feeling they’re false as they didn’t seem to have cryo energy within them and the only really nearby source of them that’s reliable is shipments from Snezhnaya and whatever the traveller brings from the cryo enemies in Monstadt. Neither of those two have relations with the seller which is exceedingly suspicious,” she began, already involved and trying to get an angle on the situation. It was cute, but it’d be even cuter if she wasn’t already halfway down the stairs to the main part of the harbor while you had been distracted trying to figure out what she was trying to investigate.

“I’m hurrying up, I’ve got it,” you called out just as she turned around to probably call on you, mirroring how she had quieted you before when she anticipated your response. As you rushed to get off the ground and not fall down the stairs, you almost fell.

“If you die early from chasing after me and falling down the stairs I will personally not let your soul leave your body. Now hurry up and be careful, the sun is rising soon,” Yanfei teased, turning back around and sprinting down the stairs rather gracefully. Benefits of being alive for hundreds of years included knowing the exact architecture of Liyue Harbor and how to sprint down stairs without tripping it seemed. Sighing, you called out to your girlfriend as you ran after her though you were still smiling.

#genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #yanfei #yanfei x reader #mod rhubirb

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charming-2d-boys · 3 years

Note

Heyo! Love your writing 💖 from most to least, who in the adultrio is most touch starved and how do they deal with it in a relationship? 👀👀👀👀

Hi! This is cute and sad at the same time, but I'll make it all better and fluffier ✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧

Thank you for the request and I hope you'll like it! 😄

Warning: very long, a bit sad because of their pasts, some personal analysis based on common HxH knowledge, gut feeling and theories

A/N: literally poured my heart and soul, especially for Chrollo and Hisoka, because I feel really bad for what they had to go through and how twisted they can be, when things could’ve been so different

So the way I see things is as follows:

From the most touch starved to the least (they all are, absolutely, but the explanation will be below for each character):

Chrollo -> Hisoka -> Illumi

Why? Lemme demonstrate.

Chrollo

since he was probably abandoned at birth in Meteor City, he’s already missing the parents’ loving touch

Meteor City seems to be one of the harshest environments in the Hunter x Hunter universe, probably being second only (at least for me) to the Dark Continent, since that one is just nuts

because of where and how he grew up, he probably never felt anything... good, in terms of touching, affection, love etc.

Chrollo loved no one and no one loved him

not truly and not for what he is

but mostly for his looks, his power, the things he could probably acquire for them

the Spiders are the only ones who accept him as a leader and a friend, a mentor, but even so, they don’t seem that close

and he does seem like the type of person who craves it, so badly

especially after hearing about it, seeing other people do it and even reading all those romance books and poems

but he’s terrified of letting anyone that close to him and seeing him for who he is

not even he knows who he is for sure, so he is just really confused

and all those moments where he touched someone and even seemed like he cared were all lies

Chrollo actually doesn’t really get much comfort from doing it because it’s a total stranger and even though he’s the bad guy, maybe they are bad too

now, if he does get into a relationship, it’s going to be tough

he’s always searching for a catch, a lie, an ulterior motive

so you have to be very patient and actually take it easy

always ask him if he’s okay with what you’re going to do

he’ll always appreciate that and make him feel like he doesn’t have to act or lie or feel pressured into doing something he doesn’t want

if he really loves you and cares, he will slowly give in to the temptation and allow you to get closer to him step by step

maybe not immediately, but he’ll definitely start reciprocating and even initiating those affectionate gestures

and it makes Chrollo so happy when you respond positively because he needs some sort of validation that what he’s doing is okay, you’re comfortable around him, you accept him, you love him, you won’t hurt him in any way

if there’s anything that makes you uncomfortable, tell him, because there’s nothing more he hates than hurting someone he actually cares about

overall, in the end, he’ll be pretty affectionate and romantic with you because your affection, touches, intimacy, domesticity and love that you offer him allow Chrollo find a part of himself, a more human one that he most probably thought he didn’t even have

Hisoka

in Hisoka’s case, I’d like to mention the fact that he had his mother

for how long, we don’t know, but he was taught how to do some magic tricks by her

I do think that maybe they weren’t that close, but his mother could be somewhat affectionate at times

which is probably why he remembers the fact that she taught him pretty fondly

remember the fact that Hisoka doesn’t normally care about the past, so this must’ve been something pretty significant to him and still is, since he employs cards and magic tricks into pretty much everything he does

now, about how touch starved he is?

very

not as much as Chrollo, but certainly not that less either

like I said, he had a parent, his mother, so there was some family bonding and some motherly love (at least a bit), whereas Chrollo had nothing

that doesn’t mean that Hisoka isn’t touch starved

but he doesn’t really pay much attention to that

he probably has a lot of one night stands since he seems to be so... flirty and easily excitable and extroverted

maybe he really is shy, like he said? probably in a relationship and when he is vulnerable, but I’ll get to that in a moment

even with all the one night stands and his personality, Hisoka doesn’t really feel anything, at least not emotionally, when touching or being touched

only physically

and he likes it, but that would be it, he doesn’t feel any emotional connection to anyone

but in a relationship, an actual, real, romantic relationship, things would be different

Hisoka’s going to be flirty, teasing, even mean sometimes

especially when you actually seem to want to know more about him - as a person, his past, his hobbies, anything regarding him, not the persona he has made for himself

but, again, patience and don’t go overboard

it’ll feel like an intrusion

also, yes, touchy, very

but... it doesn’t really feel like anything more than something purely physical and if you tell him to stop, he'll listen and back off

it’s all about pleasure and if you get none, he’ll feel as if he did badly

so he’d rather not have to deal with that

just like Chrollo, he’s protecting himself and his heart

because pretty much no one wanted to be with him, but for the benefits he’d bring them

not that he really let others too close either - whoever did get too close and betrayed him died painfully, I know for sure

but you’d probably start breaking down those walls slowly, in time

he will share things about himself and let you witness it, but not too much and not too often

not really into talking about his past, but again, snippets, not everything

Hisoka’s scared that you’ll use what you find out about him against him

but once he realises that yes, he can trust you and yes, he can be himself?

all bets are off

touchy, flirty, teasing, but in a very... let’s say, lighthearted way, very focused only on the two of you?

the creepy flirting and whatever is reserved for whoever he wants to fight/kill

but with you, it’ll be a lot more romantic and affectionate

will absolutely love having you close physically and touching you constantly

feels recharged and happy when he’s close to you

will definitely be almost like a different person sometimes because he’ll allow himself to be relaxed and comfortable and vulnerable around you

Hisoka likes having someone like you to rely on and be able to talk to about his thoughts and fears (not many, but still), even if it doesn’t really happen that often

but, bottom line is, he trusts you, a lot more than he’s probably trusted anyone in his entire life and will be more honest with you as well

Illumi

for Illumi, I’ll have to say that it’s his family

yes, they trained him to be an assassin and was pretty much just a test subject for Kikyo and Silva since he is a boy and the oldest

but, still, he had a family that, in a way or another, was there for him, preparing him, helping him and providing him with whatever he needed and maybe even wanted

again, this is only my way of saying that he had some sort of contact with people who were close to him, especially from a genetical point of view, ever since he was a child and had help in case he needed it

because of all the torture and training he went through, Illumi is pretty much emotionless and immune to almost anything

he feels no real joy from being touched by others or touching them, and the only ones even allowed to touch him are his family and Hisoka, mostly because he’s persistent and they’ve known each other for some time

the only way he’s really been taught how to touch others is if he has to kill them, so you can imagine that he doesn’t really know what he’s missing on, compared to, let’s say Alluka or Killua, even Kalluto who were raised a bit more... lovingly

so imagine how it’ll be when he gets into a relationship with someone who’s a lot more touchy

he’d probably be pretty on edge and even appear threatening

but, explaining what you want to do in simple terms and your reasons should make him a bit more open, at least to the idea of thinking about this

of course, Illumi’s seen other people hugging, kissing, holding hands etc.

and he’s probably wondered why he never did that

but at the same time, he’s never really felt like he really needed affection in his life

until you came into it

when you started with small things (holding pinkies was something that lasted for like a month), he couldn’t really say that he saw the big deal

but at the same time, Illumi liked it a lot

when it came to hand holding, he loved the way your smaller hand fit into his and almost seemed like it was made for him and he could just keep you close and safe

other things, like hugging or kissing probably took a bit longer

his favourite thing to do has got to be cuddling because he just likes feeling like he can relax around you and also get his daily dose of touch, love and affection from one of the few people he cares about, even loves, and who he allows to touch him

and yes, he’ll slowly start touching you as well

something as simple as a brief hug before he has to leave just makes him feel giddy and he actually wants and needs more when he comes back to you

he likes feeling all those positive emotions, though he doesn’t really like that feeling of vulnerability, but he guesses that it’s only fair, considering the fact that you’re doing the same

to others, it might not seem like he’s changed much: the same emotionless face and the same ruthlessness as an assassin

but when he’s with you, everything just seems a lot more relaxed for the two of you and he can actually just breathe and know that he’ll have you by his side at the end of the day

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neversatisfiedwithlife · 3 years

Note

for the mostly likely to thing, i saw these questions on a glee page awhile ago, but if you want to answer them for cazzie that’d be great :p

1. Who spends almost all their money on the other?

2. Which one drives the car and which one gives them directions?

3. Which one gives the other a piggyback ride when they’re tired?

4. Who is the most affectionate?

5. Who falls asleep in the others lap and who carries them to bed?

6. Who wakes up first?

7. Who apologizes first after an argument?

8. Who is the nerd?

9. Who makes the other one laugh the most?

10. Who sleep talks?

11. Who hogs the blankets at night?

12. Who is the neat freak?

13. Who likes to surprise the other with random gifts?

14. Who buys the healthy food in the house?

15. Who has better music taste?

16. Who takes care of the spiders?

17. Who uses more nicknames

18. Who’s the little spoon?

19. Who suggests scary movies for film night?

20. Who gets jealous more often?

21. Who brings up kids first?

22. Who borrows who’s clothes more?

23. Who cries more during sad movies?

24. Who falls asleep on the other more?

25. Who says I love you more?

26. Who initiates kisses more?

27. Who initiates hugs more?

28. Who takes more pictures of the other?

29. Who leaves notes for the other one around the house?

30. Who gets drunk faster?

31. Who gets hit on more by strangers?

32. Who makes food for the house more often?

Most likely to:

(I love that you found it on a glee page! Anyways of course I want to do them!!!)

This is long so get comfortable besties😌 I didn't proof read so all mistakes are on purpose.

Spend their money on the other: Casey would spend a larger portion of her money on Izzie or just like on things they can do together. (I think Izzie would just be engrain to make her money go as fat as it can so she's more restrained or critiac about how/where she spends her money)

Which one drives the car: this one is simple, its Casey. Do we even know if Izzie drives? (Like ideally being the one who takes care of her siblings it'd help, but anyways. Yes Casey is the driver, I can see Casey love being the one behind the wheel. Also how she was with Sam I could see her as a back seat driver or like "why didn't you take this route" just asking stuff even if she tries not to. So in the end it's just easier to have her drive lol)

Which one gives the other a piggy back ride: we saw Casey lift Izzie up so I'm obligated to say Casey! (Okay so picture after a track practice Izzie is really exhausted; the work load of school and babysitting her siblings really hitting her that week. Casey offers her a piggy back ride, Izzie is skeptical at first, but Casey is so reassuring about it)

Who is the most affectionate: ooh this one is hard overall I think I'd say Izzie, Casey more initiates kissing, but Izzie just likes to be touching Casey. (While watching tv Izzie will have her hand resting on Casey's leg, or like sit close enough to where their shoulders touch, the way Izzie stretches out herself on top of Casey when they're in her bed. Izzie initiates hand holding)

Who falls asleep in the others lap: Izzie established cannot stay up for the life of her plus again we got the cazzie bridal style carrying scene!! (I think even more cuddled up to Casey she definitely can't stay awake, she'd just feel so safe and at ease. Lights out comes quickly lol)

Who wakes up first: Izzie is up first, again this is me seeing her as the caretaker of her siblings and not going on Casey's painful track running schedule. (Ik in that one episode Casey is up first, but casey was trying to avoid Izzie, anyways Izzie probably has to get her siblings up for school or just make sure they're fed and what not so I can see her generally being conditioned to wake up first.)

Who apologize first after an argument: I feel like this totally depends on the argument; who/what started it and what it's about. Generally both are good at apologizing and don't stretch out the argument (sorry if that's like a cop out and not a definitive answer)

Who is the nerd: Izzie without a doubt (i feel like she enjoys learning new things. Maybe she doesn't necessarily love studying school material all the time, but also I feel like maybe studying started as an escape or distraction from always being her siblings care taker and soon she just learned to love it. Or just loved knowledge)

Who makes the other one laugh the most: I say Casey, they both definitely make each other laugh but Casey takes it to another level. (Like when paige is at the door and Casey is like "do you think that's them here to kick us out in person". Casey uses humor to help Izzie unwind when she's too in her head about stuff.)

Who sleep talks: Casey, why do I feel like one of them actually slept tall? Am I hallucinating...what is happening. (Anyways I feel like Casey like if she had a nightmare or something she'd mumble in her sleep and like startle awake. Or of she's really stressed and overwhelmed she's in a more restless type sleeping state)

Who hogs the blankets: (I did answer this) But Casey hogs the covers, I'll add that Izzie is fine just curling up in a ball above the blankets and fall asleep. (Why did I have the thought they're doing laundry the blankets aren't dried yet but when they finally dry Casey finds Izzie sound asleep on the blanket less bed)

Who is the neat freak: I wouldn't say either of them are nec a neat freak, but I feel Izzie would want things in particular locations and Casey can just roll with it.

Who likes to surprise the other with random gifts: Izzie, though she doesn't spend large portions of her money she likes finding small things,knickknacks or like stuffed animals or just like a sweet, that will make Casey happy. (Having younger siblings that she actively has to care for has taught her that it doesn't matter the size of the gift or if it's sparkly)

Who buys the healthy food: Casey clearly didn't approve of Elsa's green stuff sticking out of the back so definitely Izzie. (Izzie enjoys her fare share of snacks but she knows the day has to be balanced with more than "empty" calories. She is patient though in finding the healthy stuff that Casey actually likes.)

Who has better music taste: I'd say Casey in that she would have a more diverse music taste, she'd expose herself to more genres and like eras of music (Izzie feels like a whatever is on the radio or popular on the music charts-this is not slander just vibes I get lol)

Who takes care of the spider: definitely Izzie (I can see her being the person who catches and releases it while Casey is just telling her to "squish it, squish it!")

Who uses more nicknames: probably Izzie, I feel like she uses a more diverse collections of nicknames for Casey. Just like whatever fits the moment. (Casey would just use Izz, dude and a choice pet name)

Who's the little spoon: IZZIE!!! Miss curl up into a ball and fall asleep, she'd definitely pull Casey's arms to wrap around herself.

Who suggest scary movies for film night: I think Izzie is the one to coax them into actually watching a movie, but Casey is actually the one who enjoys them more or is just less put off by them? (Casey totally teases her, never goes too far, about it before the movie.)

Who gets jealous more often: I feel like this belongs to Izzie, like she has more self doubt and insecurities about how much she deserves Casey.

Who brings up kids first: Izzie does, maybe they're studying and making useless conversations, they're on the topic of her siblings. (Maybe you'd thing dealing with kids all her life and an unsupportive mom would put her off; but I think it doesn't. I feel like Casey just genuinely never stopped to really think about kids. Or maybe she thinks she wouldn't be good with kids. Like yes shes amazing with Sam, but to her that's not the same. Izzie reassures her she'd make a great parent, if she wanted to be.)

Who borrows who's clothes more: I could see Izzie borrowing a shirt or hoodie to lounge in, but I dont see it regularly. (Also Casey I noticed wears like oversized shirts often so I dont think the fit of Izzie's clothes would satisfy her.)

Who cries more during sad movies: Casey does. It is something she will deny with her entire being, but it's her.

Who falls asleep on the other more: I'll choose a specific situation for this, not a general thing: when they're talking on the phone late at night I actually think Casey would be the one who ends up falling asleep. (Ik this probably meant literally but this is where my brain went)

Who says I love you more: I feel like Casey. (I feel like for Casey the environment she was raised in it just is easier for her to say it, or it comes more naturally. Izzie uses actions to show her love because sometimes the words I love you coming from her own mouth feel foreign).

Who initiates kisses more: Casey, I think she both initiates kisses and "steals" kisses more.

Who initiates hugs more: if I say Casey with no explanation you have to accept it!

Who takes more pictures of the other: Izzie takes more pictures of Casey (I can see Casey as the person who just loves to pull stupid(affectionate) poses that make Izzie laugh. Also idk I feel like Izzie would be less inclined to have her picture taken and Casey would respect that. They would definitely take pictures together inspite of that though because Izzie wants to capture every moment with her girl.)

Who leaves notes for the other around the house: this plays into the nicknames thing, I think Izzie would leave the most cute/ridiculous notes with like the most cute/ridiculous nicknames for Casey. (Ik Casey made the tarot deck but I can just visualize Izzie doing this lol, sue me.)

Who gets drunk faster: Casey. I see Izzie as the one who has more parties in her past, and ofc she drank so she has more tolerance. Especially being at clayton longer with the track gang and Nate 🤢 (Izzie having to take a drunk Casey home early because she can barely stand on her feet securely, this is when Izzie gets to drive 😌)

Who gets hit on more by strangers: I think Izzie, she gets hit on more by disrespectful men and Casey shuts that down right quick.

Who makes food for the house more often: Izzie, I think she totally loves cooking. She loves trying out new recipes and has a bunch of cookbooks.

#omfg this was so fun!!! like seriously akskapal!!!#THANK YOU SO MUCH ANON!!🥰🥰🙌#atypical #cazzie #atypical hc #atypical headcanon #casey gardner #izzie taylor #anon(affectionate)#long post

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