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6blackfilin9 · 3 years

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I love your Anko fanart! Tell me, what are your views/headcannons on Anko X Kazuku?

hThank you so much for the ask, finally I can answer it

here is my big thank you for the waitng

In a nutshell, the shipp was created by accident while me and my buddy were working on our first Naruto AU in 2019, where Kakuzu and Deidara survived their shitty plotholes end eventually ended up in Konoha

Yeah

so, the shipp’s birth date is july the 1, 2019

anything like classy, aristocracy kind of tension-filled passionate gothic romance with playful, psychological games & hurt/comfort vibes with slight scent of rivalry is KakuAnko

Basically, they are: a very, very old man with absolutely horrendous background who’s trying to finally have his mother*cking 10 or 30 years of peace, and a rather young lady with a rocky youth who’s being good & noble yet has very strong antihero tendencies

You know, I think they do have potential, since, in fact, they seem to be very similar, at the core

They are both very pragmatic realists, the people of logic and reason, yet if Kakuzu’s irritability doesn’t affect him a tiny bit due to his ideal self-control, Anko’s can lead her to quite bad places, sometimes. They put their interests in the first place, and even though she tries to attach them to Konoha’s, she still has ‘personal’ things (I’ll write ‘bout it lower*). Their mindsets are so complicatedly organized that, at some point & way, it prevents them from having many close people, and makes them very hard to see through and predict

Both of them are very flexible & adaptive, independent individuals with similar outlooks on plenty of things and high intellectual level. They clearly can find plenty of traits that they would highly respect and adore in each other

Here I will speak mostly for “why and how” kind of things, bc both of them are terribly tricky to accurately figure out. But there will be some headcanons too

So, there are still some odds about them, due to the strong difference in their occupation, like, in plenty of cases they are really tricky to be brought together, because:

- Of the job

In original, Anko is a Konoha’s special jounin, and she is very dedicated to serving the country. Independently of whether she likes her job or not (depends on the plot), she orienteers at the people, at society’s gain from her work. So, accordingly, in any other AU her job is somehow connected to civil service, whether it’s something police-like, connected to science, or something like CCG in Tokyo Ghoul

Kakuzu, on the other hand, is a hitman and a persona non grata in literally all the five big countries, Konoha too (which makes it barely possible to bring them together in the original universe without hard complications or heavy drama. But still possible). He orienteers on his own gain alone, but, depending on the job, it can include others’ gain, too.

This detail makes him a saint once he holds supervising position in some company or any high position in the government (the better the working conditions of the staff now- the more money in the prospective), and the sheer nightmare once he has it on the opposite side of the law. Him as a mob boss is a complete different topic for discussion, but to get the point, in this case, the trouble isn’t him increasing the level of criminality (its rather vice-versa), but taking hold of too much control in the high and underground structures. Even as an ordinary hitman he’s rather tricky, since everything depends on the case

In most of the stories, they come to some sort of compromise, and how hard it is to reach it depends on how shitty his job is and how attached they are to each other at the moment

Like, in the above mentioned Shippuden AU and Harry Potter AU (which I also wrote with my buddy) everything went like clockwork, because there they are both more or less on this side of the law, in Tokyo Ghoul AU (which I also wrote with my buddy) it is a bit more complicated, with her being in-law and him being very much outlaw, in the Avatar AU (which I also figured out with my buddy, but we never happened to write it) it is also pretty smooth, with both of them being outlaws and then jumping out to the glory after all the shit is done, but in another Shippuden AU of mine, this all would be just a motherfucking bloody disaster

- Kakuzu is actually a hard nut to get attached to anyone

He lived too long to be truly afraid of anything, though. Its mostly because he doesn’t really need to get attached to or become close with someone to satisfy his need for communication. The man can get along with anyone once he wishes to, he can have countless acquaintances and plenty of buddies, but he doesn’t have many comrades and barely can call anyone a friend. Because he is used to lose everything and everyone he ever had or happened to have, because of his inhumanly lengthened lifespan.

It requires time for him to get used to the person, and then, eventually, in some cases, spend plenty of it to get attached

Plus, for him, due to his profession, each close connection is a really great responsibility for him. In most cases, he’d think twice of weather he is ready to take it or not

Though it of course has the personal factor, too

In Anko’s case, she has a grand privilege by being a very intelligent and keen woman, not just in cognitive plane, but in emotional, too. High emotional intellect is actually a rare trait, so she automatically stands out of the crowd for him. Even though it won’t guarantee his alliance, it will grant her his high respect and some sort of sympathy

- Kakuzu is, technically, an asshole

He does have his moral compass, which includes a great amount of common social morality, but he also has that “I am working” state

Even though Kakusu has a set of professional principles, and he still acts accordingly to what he thinks is right, one and the very same situation can be solved diametrically different once the context changes from working to casual and vice versa

This, and him being very independent and quite antisocial, makes the degree of assholeness depend on various factors

This can lead to major conflicts of interests, and if they are possible to have any compromise or not is strongly attached to the circumstances. After all, both are very, very prideful and dignified people

- In other words, the only major issue for them would be morality questions. It’s possible to make the case acceptable for Anko, since both of them ain’t truly squeaky clean, along with Kakuzu being willing enough to watch his borders

- She is provident and doesn’t really need a lot of money on a daily basis, which is much of a joy to him lol

- *they both seek for the stable ground, first of all

Taking in consideration the life conditions Kakuzu had in his youth (despite war state, he still stably had family, friends, grand respect from everyone, home, warmth and food) and how terribly he was torn out of his secured social environment, I believe what he seeks through all his bounty hunt and other money-connected manipulations is stability. Sustainability he had back then. The only way to have it in the conditions of our existent world order is to have money (and a very good mind and luck)

Anko has indeed much more altruistic motives, yet it’s still not that simple. It seems to be, on the first sight, yet considering the “Orochimaru related cases” and her very wayward behavior toward them, it’s clear she keeps her own motives and needs in mind oh so well. The service she has is very well payed, it allows her to do what she likes or believes is right, and to have the living conditions she finds comfortable. And only here, relying on the made sustainable basis, she does what she does

- Thus, they both illustrate the principle “first help yourself, next help the other” just right

- She knows she can keep an eye on him, yet it’s clear for her that her influence isn’t borderless, as well as telling him off some stuff is kind of a not wise thing to do. So in the majority of cases, she never interferes

- This is not common, yet he can actually change some plans if the situation is serious and the compromise can’t be found. He is that kind of person who works on a further prospective, and in this context, this would be the relationship with his loved one

- While Kakuzu is quite conflicted and has very reserved controversial persona, Anko is both controversial, conflicted, and sort of two-faced, on top of that

She is a very sincere, cheerful and humbly honest human being, yet she has some darker natural traits of her character that became rather strong with age and traumatic experience. Cunningness, guile, ways-depend-on-the-case and a bit of ruthlessness, that is. Moreover, she has some unsolved personal issues, which makes her even more twisted.

Like, remember the time when she confronted Orochimaru during the exam? And Kabuto, on the war? Getting rid of them is indeed beneficial for Konoha, but it’s clear that for her it is personal vendetta in the first place. She wouldn’t have tried to do this alone, otherwise, because these two are rather dangerous ones, to say the least.

She uses greater good to cover her real motives (even though it is not truly complete bullshit), and seems to have a terrible habit to keep silence about really important things, which makes her quite prone to lying, in some cases

And sometimes it very badly pisses Kakuzu off, since it makes her prone to doing useless but dangerous shit too

Yet this not any kind of separate hidden side, it is integrated into her personality, and coexists with her bright one. That’s where her violent humour comes from, for example.

But Kakuzu, on the other side, is completely monolith individual, yet sometimes his mindset can create contradictions when it comes to something important to him. but it's another topic

And seeing these layered constructions, and motives, they can pretty finely predict each other’s behavior. Not super-neatly, but they for sure see the basis. This is what helps Kakuzu to prevent Anko from doing some stupid shit, sometimes

- Anko has a role of an indicator for the people who don’t understand and see the changes in Kakuzu’s mood sometimes, since she usually reacts quite openly. Yet, when she has the same unreadable mask of cold, or one of guile, it’s a nightmare for them

- They prefer the non-verbal way to show their feelings, even though Anko is obviously the more chatty one

- They don’t say things such as “I love you”, or other sensual stuff like that really often, believing it to be some sort of cherished words that shall not be spelled mindlessly

- Anko isn’t majorly into PDA, but she fancies it much more than Kakuzu does. She has her whole moments of studying something with her hands, whether it’s a hand, scar or face. He’s more into passive display of affection, like wrapping an arm over her waist or leaning to her or something of this kind; they can allow themselves to (not sexually) kiss in public though

- She knows he doesn’t like to walk hand in hand due to considering it a youthful thing, so there are times when she intentionally walks holding on to his sleeve; generally they walk separately in order not to bother each other, but sometimes they walk arm in arm (like an old Victorian couple lol)

- Being older and wiser, Kakuzu eventually upholds some kind of mentoring position, yet he never considers himself any kind of a teacher or master to Anko, believing her to have a good head of her own. He is just insightful enough to break something through to her or give a word of advise

- This, combined with his highly powerful demeanor, also makes him have the leading position in their relationship

- Anko respects him much enough to fortify this, entrusting with plenty of life questions (like organizing the family budget), even though they make the majority of decisions together. Mostly because he is truly wise and highly experienced individual.

- This makes him one of the very few people Anko would actually listen to and take their opinion in consideration

- So basically they have equal relationship with some tendency to patriarchal order

- And it is, really, mostly economically-based disbalance, with him earning much more than she does

- Yet they never have any financial-based issues, since both of them keep in mind and respect the contributions of each

- There is major power play here, too. He has the absolute might, she has seduction. Anko loves how he makes her want to submit to him, let him have all the power, so she likes provoking him. And she knows he adores it, loves the subtle control she has over him

- They don’t have conflicts in their everyday life. Each knows how to avoid pissing one another off

- He cherishes her playful demeanor, her intellect. Combined with her cunningness, it allows her to rival him, in social sphere. The way she constructs her phrases, the way she speaks, mimics, moves, how bewitchingly it suits her feminine snaky features makes his blood boil and heart melt

- Both of them, actually, have rather specific kind of dry, dark humour. Kakuzu’s is very cynical, satirical, quite often menacing and subtly demeaning; Anko’s is very sarcastic and quite dirty, even gruesome and rather violent

- Sometimes they “fight” verbally as a form of a play. In some circumstances they may sound pretty vile, so some unobservant people mistake this for display of hate

- In general, Anko is the one to heat things up with her playful demeanor, which can include provocation and rivalry, and Kakuzu is the one to keep this energy in borders, accumulating it up to much more intense states

- They both put the comfort in the first place when it comes to household. Everything must be cozy, useful, silent and super clean

- Yet they are both very unpretentious and modest, really

- She absolutely adores when he is showing his serious, severe side, or powerful demeanor. She finds it incredibly suitable for him. She also likes how his real age is sliding out in this or that way. Like, even though he has rather young face (that of 37-40 y.o.), his eyes give away that he’ve seen oh so much more than it seems; the grumpy noises and grunts he makes, the lazy attitude in movements and the way how rapidly he finds a comfy pose once he has a chance to take a seat

- They are both rather patriotic, yet while in the most stories Anko’s feelings mostly lay towards the country she lives in, Kakuzu’s more often lay towards some places, so called small motherland.

- Kakuzu actually could be a source of deep, strong admiration and delight for her, despite all of his bullshit. The unbreakable will he has, mighty burning heart, all the wisdom, talents and mind. Being sent to fight god damn Hashirama, clearly a genius of his times, financial & management genius at the least. And, still, after all the hard times he’ve been through, he maintained the very strong sense of dignity and nobility, even though slightly twisted due to the profession and abnormal lifespan

- And the very same things can serve as the source for her chagrin: with all those traits, he could have been so much more rather than a criminal. With all the gifts he’ve got, he could have been of great use to society. He’s much easier about this, since his prospective is much wider and embraces decades (and in some universes even centuries) instead of months & years, and he knows that he’d be switching sides throughout his life, being on this and that side of the law, yet he still is a bit uncomfortable once it’s brought up

- They are deeply into science, which makes them atheists. He’s into medicine and human biology, she’s into chemistry and reptilian biology; both of them are nuts for physics, history and psychology

- They solve complicated physical and mathematical problems together time to time. She is the first one to have tea-breaks due to losing her temper over it, he tries to figure things out right until you can sense the smoke coming off his head

- Actually, they do have a stumbling stone aside from job & morality complications. And this is Anko’s attitude towards Orochimaru

What she does is basically ruins her life very-very slowly, maintaining the issues she has and planning to make him pay for all he’s done

Kakuzu knows exactly what is really going on with this attitude and why, but he can’t really do anything about it. Like, he knows he can’t make her change her mind or put something into her head

All he can do is really nothing but try to explain how those things are working, and even this option is basically a landmine field for him. At some level she does understand that he could probably be right, yet she just refuses to go back on her mind. And this is actually really dangerous, so at some moments they can fight quite badly about it

- He’s scared shitless to lose her, though; especially like that, even though he knows clearly that he will, anyway, sooner or later

- he knows that losing loved ones ends up with sheer disaster for him, yet he isn’t afraid to pay such a high price for those six, five or four decades of being with her. Because these decades are that of a paradise ones for him. Wife and family, as well as stable job, incomes and life conditions, are some sort of physical definitions of sustainability he craves. Especially family, yet it’s far ahead to plan

- The fact that he will have to bury her one day makes her rather depressed, as well as the knowledge that the only thing she can really do about it is to try to bring him as much happiness and comfort as possible before she dies

thank you, i'd say more, but it's too much already

#my art #naruto #naruto shipuden #akatsuki #naruto akatsuki #akatsuki kakuzu #kakuzu #naruto anko #mitarashi anko #kakuanko #they are very entertaining disaster

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iturbide · 3 years

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Ok so I've been stewing on this concept for awhile but. Ok so we got regular Naga who chose humanity, then F!Naga who degenerated, but what if there was a Naga who chose *Tiki* over both her responsibilities to her tribe and humanity, but ultimately this backfired bc both groups felt like she abandoned them and in the ensuing conflict she lost Tiki to them? I imagine this Naga would be super bitter about both dragons and humans and not believe in either anymore bc both are equally reprehensible in her eyes. That being said, in her travels around the world she finds Grimm when they're still a baby and chooses to raise them better than her peers were. btw REALLY love all your stuff 💕

I’m so glad you enjoy the stuff here because there is a lot of it and it’s all text walls so I really appreciate the people that read all of these words.

But this concept is something that I can 100% get behind as an off the wall AU I mean holy WOW

We’ve seen Naga’s that chose humanity over everything, including her own people (Fallen!Naga), we’ve seen Naga’s that tried to take a middle route and ended up favoring humans anyway (regular!Naga), but a Naga that actually chose Tiki? One who decided to roll the dice and let her daughter grow up normally? That’s something that we haven’t seen yet.

Given that Naga is the chief of the Divine Dragons, she might not go so far as to forsake even her people over her daughter, but she would place her daughter’s safety over humanity. The destruction of Thabes would likely still occur since that was a matter of Duma thinking humans posed a threat to the remaining dragons (though with Tiki still awake, he had even more to protect, since I still believe it makes sense to place Duma and Mila’s exile after the Dragon War, meaning dragon births have almost completely stopped), but this would end up being an even bigger disaster for dragons in the long run than in the regular!Naga continuity.

Here’s the thing about the regular timeline in Archanea: when it’s set up in a certain way, lots of things end up having a cause and effect relationship. For example:

Because dragons spent a very long time being the effective rulers of the land, when humans began to spread and develop, there were many mixed feelings among the different tribes: some felt disdain for this new weak creatures (Earth Dragons), others felt curiosity and of them and sought to encourage their development (Divine Dragons). This directly predisposes humanity to favor those tribes that aid them while fearing those that don’t.

Because of the threat degeneration and its side-effects (like falling fertility rates) posed to dragons, the Divine Dragon tribe encouraged their fellow dragons to adopt dragonstones to stave it off; the aforementioned disdain held by other tribes led them to resist and directly caused the Dragon War as degeneration ran rampant among those dragons, leading the Divine Dragons to seal them in the Dragon’s Table.

On a related note, because Naga chose to make Medeus -- the last surviving Earth Dragon who had chosen to use a dragonstone -- the guard of the Dragon’s Table, he got to witness humanity’s mistreatment of dragons in the centuries after, directly fueling his hatred and the eventual decision to found the Dolhr Empire.

Because of the vicious war that provided ample evidence of what happened when dragons degenerated, Naga made the difficult decision to put her infant daughter Tiki -- a miracle birth, given the falling fertility rates among dragon kind -- to sleep for fear that if her powers went out of control even with a dragonstone, the damage would be catastrophic.

Having born witness to the war between dragons that wrought havoc across the continent, humans decided they needed a way to defend themselves; in Thabes, this led to the Senate allowing Forneus to conduct his experiments that eventually gave rise to Grima.

By the same logic, the Dragon War decimated the Divine Dragon population; on hearing that humans were trying to create something that could fight dragons, Duma -- already hailed as the Kingshield owing to his defense of the tribe -- elected to raze the city where the weapon was being created to preserve what was left of the tribe.

This, in turn, led to his falling out with Naga and his exile with his sister to Valentia, and we all know how that went.

Even if she didn’t do it intentionally, the vast majority of Naga’s actions related to and surrounding the Dragon War could be construed by humans to be in their favor. That apparent favor by the Divine Dragon Naga led them to enshrine her as a goddess.

This view of her as a goddess, coupled with the pact she forges in her conflict with Grima, eventually leads them to establish a theocracy known as the Halidom of Ylisse where the “divine right of kings” is associated with her brand.

Everything is related. Which means that one little change throws events into chaos. In the normal timeline, humanity saw Naga seal her own daughter and exile her best friends and decided that she was staunchly on their side; by not sealing Tiki before the events at Thabes, even if she still exiled Duma and Mila, humanity would have reason to remain wary since there are still very powerful dragons that remain in the tribe, which puts them at risk. Given that Duma destroyed their one potential means of defending themselves, humans might plead with Naga to eliminate any remaining threats to them -- and when she refuses to do so, knowing what it would mean for her daughter, the last of the Divine Dragons would suddenly find themselves beset by humanity...and in spite of their individual strength, what few remained would be hard-pressed to take on so many humans, armed and armored and working together.

Naga likely would not be revered as a goddess in the eyes of mankind: instead, she would be considered just another powerful draconic threat. Losing Tiki, likely to captivity by humans, would be a devastating blow for her, and one that ultimately leads to the dissolution of the Tribe and the scattering of all the dragons that remain. Naga would likely do her best to retreat from humanity, since they were responsible for taking her daughter -- which could very well lead her to the ruins of Thabes, lost to the sands and long uninhabited...where she would find the odd little dragon crying in the labyrinth. She lost her daughter, true -- but she would do her best to protect that strange little one, in hopes of keeping the tragedies of the past from recurring.

#answered #anonymous #fire emblem #naga #au speculation #also bonus points if tiki eventually ends up with medeus #because for some reason that concept is amazing #medeus looking out for a little divine dragon #since the rest of his people are gone and she was suffering #while naga looks after a weird mutant baby dragon #because he was alone and she'd already lost her baby #medeus founds dolhr solely as a safe haven for dragons #because he has a kid to look after and she doesn't need to be dragged into war #naga and the baby might land there eventually too in their wanderings #so dolhr gains a massive defensive boost #naga's reunited with her baby #grima gets a playmate #and dolhr becomes a safe haven for all dragons defended from mankind

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verotms · 4 years

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。· . ˙ ☀ ⌈ taylor hill + cis female + she / her + the wayfarer ⌋ yo , have you meet that POGUE , 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚 𝐤𝐚𝐭𝐬𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐬 , yet ? — no ? well , to give you a little heads up before you do , they’re a TWENTY-TWO year old, CON ARTIST & WAITSTAFF AT THE COSTON CLUBHOUSE and have been living in coston for TWO MONTHS . since i’ve known them , they’ve reminded me of 𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐢𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐢 𝐭𝐨𝐩𝐬 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐚𝐧 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬 , 𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐬 , 𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐠𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐡𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞 , 𝐞𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐟𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐩 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐬 , 𝐠𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐠𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 . usually they’re quite 𝑣𝑖𝑏𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑡 & 𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 but just make sure you keep an eye out for them around town because i heard can be quite 𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑐𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 & 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑡 as well so here’s hoping they aren’t the ones to undo this whole peace pact they have going on this summer . but just between you & me , i kinda hope it all falls apart . the rivalry keeps this whole boring town interesting .

gonna make these some short bullets to speed up the process bc i just want these DONE AND OUT

vero was born to a teen mom in some buttfuck florida town that had nothing going for her , they were pretty much just them two doing what they could with what they had . they lived in a little greek neighborhood and young veronica spent most of her childhood being handed off from babysitting neighbor to neighbor pretty free range while her mom worked full time to try and finish school and provide for her kid . literally the definition of “ it takes a village . “

when she was about 4 , her mom decided she wanted a change of pace and spent all of vero’s college fund set up by her grandparents to buy an rv . it was a move that got her cut off from their support and left vero with a childhood that , while the instability would show its later effects , led to her having the time of her life .

her mom took her through the entire US , homeschooling her and making money off of conning whatever poor sap gave her the time of day . it was an example that she always told vero to ignore , “ we only do this because we need to , “ but built a foundation that the impressionable child would never be able to let go of .

they stay put long enough for vero to get high school knocked out , though it’s at five different schools over the course of four years as her mom can never hold an honest job down long enough to keep them stable . at the pushes and prods of getting to know her heritage , her mom begrudgingly hauls them back to florida the summer after vero finishes high school and reintroduces her to a family she hasn’t seen in nearly 15 years . at the question of wanting to know her dad , as it turns out , he was the child of a formidable oil family in southern florida that had come into quite a sum of money . vero , against her family’s wishes , reaches out to him in an attempt to figure something out about herself and her background , and to her surprise , he’s actually excited to meet her .

he has a whole other family but he asks just for a little patience while he figures out how to tell them everything . he’s kind and generous and pretty great of a dude for having never known he had fathered a child with a simple hookup he had had in his youth considering they went to different schools and she ghosted him afterwards . vero’s truly ready to settle down for once and start a life with the family she had finally gotten , until her mom reaches out in dire need of money after crashing the RV following a night of recklessness . vero , getting a cold slap to reality of the life she had grown up knowing , realizes she’ll probably never be suited for the lifestyle her dad wants her to join him in , and relapses into what she knows . she steals a sizable amount of money and other things from him , disappearing in the middle of the night from the home he had opened up to her and drops off enough money to her mom to help her get by — making this the last she ever sees of her .

she buys a beat up vintage hatchback and hightails it out of florida , spending no longer than 6 months in any given place . she works small odd jobs and spends her days lounging in the sun and spending nights performing raggedy 90’s karaoke covers and pouring shots into the mouths of random bar - goers , charming the pants off just about anyone who gives her the time of day , usually making off with their wallet or earning herself a sugar parent for a week or so who lavishes her in gifts . it’s not a lifestyle she particularly enjoys , to be honest ; her dream would be to be an artist and own her own trinket store to occupy her time , keeping her for once in one place . but swindling people is all she knows , and part of her identity is the freedom of having nothing to tie her down — admittedly , a lifestyle she doesn’t see herself letting go of any time soon .

so here she is in coston , taking up a job in the swanky coston clubhouse where she gets hit on by more older men with money than she knows what to do with . she spends her afternoons on the beach chatting up whoever glances her way and spending her nights in a shoddy beat up apartment she pays on a month by month lease . two months isn’t much by normal standards , but she’s feeling herself grow comfortable in coston in a way she hasn’t felt in many places beyond that — something the kook / pogue divide threatens to ruin for her and send her packing promptly the moment something goes wrong .

personality wise , vero has a rather laid back , enthusiastic personality and is the type of talker who could sell ice to a snowman . astute and observant despite a hippie - dippie disposition , she gives the illusion of no attention payed while she’s secretly analyzing where in your pockets you keep your wallet , how often you look at your phone , what your insecurities are , etc , and figuring out exactly how to capitalize off of that . though she’s opportunistic , she’s got a heart enough to not take advantage of most people in precarious situations — though her judgement has definitely been skewed before :(

serial liar and never gets called out for it bc she never stays in one place long enough kkwjherjwr but lies about simple things like what her plans are or if she’s already had lunch literally just lies for no good reason ? just has this unhealthy concept that if she tells people everything about herself she’s gonna get screwed over somehow so she wants 2 be the one screwing others over first ? trust issues ig

not a bad person if she would stop just being unreliable lmao ! she’s truly very easygoing and has a natural disposition that wants to make those around her feel good , very nurturing in a sense ? if y’all saw hustlers — ramona , looks out for others and makes them feel important but at the end of the day she’s looking out for herself almost exclusively . it’s not that she wants to be selfish , if anything , she wishes she could feel secure enough to let herself stay close to people and put down roots . she’s just had a pretty shitty experience letting people in and doesn’t want to subject herself to the unknowns of investing in other people . despite being pretty detached and emotionally uninvested , she has a warm , calming demeanor that balances out even the most combative of personalities .

idol is 90’s gwen stefani ( she has a early no doubt cover band that performs at a local bar on friday nights just for her to have something to do KWJEHRJWER ) and twiggy , her apartment is full of those little beaded door things that hang in the doorway , will braid her bangs out of the way when working on a project and looks a whole ass mess , is a pretty talented artist and bases her work , whether paintings , sculptures , or sketches , off of her experiences traveling , has a minidoodle she picked up off the road somewhere in georgia named tate who goes everywhere he can with her .

#coston.intro #* ╰ . 𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑎 𝑲 . : intro .

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gritsandbrits · 5 years

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Why I hate Carlie Cooper (Spider-Man Rant)

So I've been going around sites such as CBR, Reddit, Tumblr and Deviantart to see what people's opinions were on Carlie Cooper, and the results were mixed at best. As many other fans of the webcrawling hoodlum, I have my share of gripes with her character and this chapter explains why Carlie is the absolute worst Spider Man love interest.

Sour Introduction

Carlie was introduced too soon and too quickly, just after OMD. The travesty already left a sour taste in our mouthes, but when she was introduced showing Mary Jane the door, this scene not only spat in the face of MJ fans and Pete x MJ shippers, but also made the rest of us go, "QUESADA!!!" This made the replacement girlfriend thing very obvious. Marvel made it clear that MJ is gone and Carlie was here to stay.

Notable character traits were ripped off from other love interests

Many readers caught on that the core traits Carlie displayed in her time in the comics were established within previous love interests. Keep in mind, two characters sharing similar attributes isn't wrong. My own OC, Lucy, shares Urusla Ditkovich's love of baking and apparent shyness, and having powers like Sophia Sanduval, but other than that she is nothing like the latter two in terms of personality, looks and personal history. But this is not about my OC.

Carlie has aspects that are blatantly ripped off from other love interests, and they happen to be their good or recognizable traits. This may or may not be intentional on the writers part but merely a product of trying and failing to develop her as a character. Let me run down the list for you.

• Nerdy, adorable and the supposed "regular girl": Debra Whitman

• Dark past involving some serious daddy issues: Mary Jane Watson

They couldn't have given her mommy issues or problems with authority figures in general. To be fair, comic books are drenched with characters with daddy issues. Cyclops is the walking example.

• Idolized within the comics and sometimes praised as "The One" for Peter: Gwen Stacy

As opposed to in fan's memories, some point out that Gwen Stacy hated Spider Man. That's another sad thing about her death: she died hating the guy she loved.

• Dad was a cop: Gwen

To justify Carlie's relationship with Gwen, they made her dad a cop. Later it was revealed that he wasn't a cop nor a good man for that matter. This goes back to the daddy issues thing as we are supposed to feel bad for her, but it came across as cheap and not genuinely tragic as MJ's abusive past. Also, Carlie has a missing mother like Gwen.

• Served as an informant on the force: Jean DeWolff

Whereas Jean had an interesting dynamic with Spider-Man, Carlie's dynamuc seems forced in, rationalized as sharing his love of science. Everything Carlie does could have easily been solved by Spider Man or any of his allies, even Greer Grant.

• Peter vs Spider-Man conflict: Black Cat

Carlie was briefly torn between Parker and Spider Man after discovering the big secret. It took Felicia decades in real time and a few years in comic book time for her to accept Parker but by then he had already moved on to MJ and BC decided to move on as well.

• Fell in love with Parker persona: Gwen, MJ, Sophia from Marvel Adventures

Gwen hated Spider Man though, but she fell in love with Peter. MJ preferred plain old Peter and accepted Spider Man. Sophia played an active role in both Peter's civilian and superhero lives and used her mutant ability to talk to animals to help.

• Personality included being a tsundere: Gwen, and Michelle Gonzales before she went nuts

• Had an interest in science: Gwen

NOTICING A PATTERN HERE!?

• Friends with Harry: Gwen Stacy (again)

• Was depicted as blonde and began with a minor crush on Parker: GWEN STACY!!!

Wow is it just me or do the writers at Marvel lowkey want to resurrect Gwen Stacy? Damn, just let the lady rest in peace!

• Pushed as Peter's intellectual equal: Debra (give us two points for Debby)

• Supposed to have a fun, sociable personality: MJ

Did I mention that Carlie at one time was depicted with red hair with a very similar hairstyle to MJ? They weren't even trying to be subtle with the replacement thing.

• Loves both Spider Man and Peter: MJ also an inversion of Black Cat who only really likes Spidey (she was kinda getting along with Peter but that never took off)

• Went from meek and submissive doormat to assertive and optimistic action girl: Betty Brant

• Named after a particular person given the context behind it: Joe Quesada named her after his daughter

From what I heard, Joe's daughter was around three years old when he shat out OMD. That is very creepy, as if he wants his toddler to be with a fictional character that bad.

When Doc Ock impersonated as Peter after his supposed death, Carlie was the only cast member out of the whole Marvel universe to correctly figure out that Doc!Peter was a faker.

Mary Jane and Aunt May were used to villains dressing up as Peter (and even beat up a few of them), but for some odd reason none of them could figure out the Dcotor Octopus was posing as him.

Depsite MJ being his main love interest and Aunt May having raised him from a kid, they could not have told the real Peter from an impostor.

THE FANTASTIC FOUR AND THE AVENGERS COULDN'T FIGURE IT OUT DEPSITE WORKING WITH PETER FOR YEARS!!!!!

Yet is was the great detective work of Ms. Carlie Cooper that was able to determine that Doctor Octopus was using Peter's body to do some bad things. You know, like a villain.

Speaking of the Doctor, Dan Slott often used him a lot in his stories to the point that fans believe that Doc Ock was becoming a bit of a Villain Sue. And their arguments were sadly proven right later on, but back onto Carlie...

The way she did this was by following Spider Man's money trail to see how he could afford expensive equilment and minions (excuse me, employees) and it leads right to Doc Ock.

The simple fact that one of Spider Man's smartest foes was stupid enough to not cover his tracks showed that something had to be altered just to make Carlie look good. What was that something? Taking basic common sense out of the Marvel Universe so that Carlie could play Miss Marple!

When Carlie got infected with Goblin Serum and turned into Monster (the lamest villain name since Menace), she was the only person to ever resist its brainwashing effects. She gets some scars around her eyes but is otherwise fully cured and that experience is enough to make her leave the world of Spider Man forever.

In the story arc Spider Island, Carlie broke up with Peter just because he didn't tell her he was Spider Man. Alternatively MJ got closer to Peter, which made fans everywhere sigh with relief. This also proves how very little Carlie seems to care about Peter's side of the story.

Also in Spider Island she used her new powers to play around while MJ used hers to actually help people. When a supermodel is better at heroics than a police officer/forensic scientist, then you know something is wrong.

Mary Jane stayed with Peter when she found out, in fact she already knew it was him but didn't confront him because she didn't think of herself as a good confidante and feared Peter would lie to her but she understood why.

It was implied in the comics and stated by old writers that, had Gwen not been killed off she would have eventually found out about Peter being Spider man and stayed with him; they would have even gotten married.

Carlie managed to pop up in other Marvel titles such as The Punisher even though she was irrelevant to the plot, and the writers claim that she was "the sanest member of the cast." This was after her irresponsible antics during Spider Island.

Character shilling when not appropriate

One of Carlie's major problems was how she was pushed as being perfect for Peter without getting to know him. It became even more egregious when other characters started pushing Carlie as perfect, such as Auny May and Harry Osborn.

Mary Jane told Peter that he needed to hook up with Carlie, which was awkward coming from a woman who was married to him for twenty years.

Peter himself couldn't stop gushing over how perfect Carlie was for him, and he spent a lot of time in angst over how undeserving he was of their lust - I mean love.

Everyone, from Harry Osborn to Black Cat said that Carlie was perfect for Peter. I get Harry because he was friends with her, but Black Cat???? The real clencher was that Felicia didn't even know who Carlie was at the time.

No wonder she turned crazy at the end.

SPEAKING OF CRAZY!

Characters personalities were changed in order to make Carlie a total saint

For example, Michelle Gonzales (another hated Spidey Love Interest) used to be a regular old tsundere. Sure she had problems of her own as a character, but once Carlie was introduced her aggressive trait was exaggerated to violent extremes and Michelle begins abusing Peter. If that's not enough she eventually gets RAPED by the Chameleon of all people. The same Chameleon who got his ass beat by Mary Jane and verbally pawned by Aunt May for impersonating Peter.

No matter how Marvel tried to say it, no matter how bitchy she was, Michelle got raped and Chameleon got off scot-free.

I mean he didn't force himself on her just shapeshifted as Peter and had sex with her. Apparently shapeshifters can't be charged with rape as long as it's consensual.

In The Many Loves of Spider Man, Gwen Stacy was presented as a worry wart which goes against her original characterization as a proto-Tsundere. Carlie was presented as a gutsy young girl, which made her look smarter than the supposed science girl Gwen was.

Gets mad at Peter for the dumbest reasons

When Peter had to go on a mission for the Future Foundation (aka the Fantastic Four), he told Carlie that he was going out of town for Horizon Labs, the place he had worked for before becoming Tony Stank 2.0.

Naturally, Carlie found out that Peter had lied to her and during one of her roller derby competitions, ends up beating up a rival skater so badly that she was suspended for the rest kf the game. Afterwards, her team took her out for a drink to calm her down and she gets drunk and goes to a tattoo parlor.

Deciding to get back at Peter, she decided to get an Osborn tattoo, more specifically a Green Goblin.

This was the man that murdered her childhood friend, Peter's first girlfriend and first true love (and to some fans his only true love).

This was the man that ended the Silver Age of Comic Books.

This was the man who killed innocent people just to get what he want.

This was the man who subjected his son and other people to so much pain, misery and sorrow because of his actions, some of which he still had yet to answer for.

But yet.....

You decide to get a tramp stamp of Green Goblin all to spite Peter because he lied to keep you separate from his superhero life?

I'm surprised that everyone who ever did a rant on Carlie never brought this part up. This woman would go as far as to taint her own friend's memory by getting a tattoo of her killer, all just to spite a guy she barely knew for not even a year. And this guy loved her friend.

When Peter finally told Carlie the truth, she broke up with him in yhe most melodramatic way possible. She claimed that his life was a lie and that his Parker persona was "just a suit."

She was also upset that Mary Jane knew about it, even though MJ and Peter were friends far longer than she knew Peter, and he trusted MJ with that secret. Eventually, Carlie accepts the Spidey persona, leaving her with a good reason to hang out with Mary Jane.

I have problems with the above scene because Peter lied to protect her and to keep her out of a very dangerous lifestyle. Yet, she does not want to hear his side of the story and the writers fail to persuade the readers to sympathize with her. This scene also shows that she is a complete and utter hypocrite. She can keep secrets like the identity of the new Wraith (and unlike Vin and Ray she doesn't turn the new Wraith over to the police), yet Peter cannot lie to her for very good reasons.

Featured on "Many Loves of Spider Man" - when Carlie and Peter had not hooked up yet.

At the time Carlie was still a minor character and not engaged in a romance with Peter. Yet for some odd reason she was featured on the cover with characters people grew up with and came to love.

Carlie was not featured in s single comic yet was immediately pushed as one of Peter's many loves. Debra should have been here, or Betty since she was his very first girlfriend. And how come it's called Many when the cover only has four? 🤔

Closing Statements

The positives of Carlie is that she was shown a lot more capable of handling herself in dangerous situations than MJ and Gwen, and even willing to pick up a gun. But MJ was never a traditional damsel in distress; the lady took boxing lessons from Captain America for God's Sake! OG Gwen was never a fighter in the first place and to be honest, she was supposed to be a tsundere. She had a personality, and no matter how people say that Gwen was a boring character who deserved to be killed off, she wasn't in need of no saving while she was alive.

Okay except for that one time.

Others say that Carlie was being unfairly judged because she wasn't like Mary Jane. In contrast, Sophia Sanduval wasn't like Mary Jane and people love her (assuming they know who she is). Sophia is regarded to be one of the best Spider Man love interests. Ursula wasn't Mary Jane and people love her; fans who watched the original trilogy preferred a Peter x Ursula romance because MJ was that bad. There are even people who watched Ultimate Spider Man that started to ship Aya with Peter based on a few ship tease scenes, and she wasn't MJ.

On Quotev, AO3 and right here on Wattpad, you have dozens if not hundreds of Peter Parker x OC fanfictions, many that are amazing and written by pretty talented people. OCs aren't canon in the first place, but the OCs I'd seen (talking about the well-defined ones here) aren't MJ and I have not seen one negative comment about OCs or their creators. In fact people love them because they demonstrate how you can have a unique and relatable love interest without copying canon characters.

Final Statements

Overall, the problems Carlie have are she has inconsistent characterization, tries so hard to be the Perfect Girl for Peter, and she is irrelevant to the plot. If you take away her core traits she just ends up being a flat, boring character.

In conclusion, Carlie is a textbook case of Relationship and Black Hole Sue, and should be used as an example of what not to do when creating love interests. The key is to develop a character over time and not spending so much on making her (or him if any of you prefer same-sex pairings) the perfect girl/man/whatever for Peter or whatever random character you plan on shipping with.

Anyways, that's all I have to say about Carlie. Yeah it was a lot of words but I wanted to show and tell why so many Spider Man fans do not like her. It's not that she replaced Mary Jane, it's because she tried way to hard to be so many different characters and her general unlikable attitude and the subtext behind her whole creation.

Thanks for whoever took the time to read this mess of a rant.

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ukulelewrites · 5 years

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Veritaserum

A/N: my first nct dream fic!!!! this has been in the works for 5 months now bc i kept getting sidetracked with other fics and miscellaneous personal affairs but here it is~~~ i hope y’all enjoy!

Pairing: NCT Dream’s Jaemin x Reader

Genre: Fluff/Slytherin!Reader x Hufflepuff!Jaemin AU

Word Count: 5.4k

Veritaserum: "Three drops of this and even You-Know-Who himself would spill out his darkest secrets."

Don’t you ever feel like the universe ever just looked down on you and went, “fuck you, Y/N?” This was definitely one of those days.

See, you were mindlessly walking back to the Greenhouses since you had to ask Professor Sprouts an extremely pressing question regarding the cultivation of peaches for a certain potion you were concocting. Simple stuff really, no way you’d get harm doing something as simple as walking, right? Wrong, 100% completely wrong. Just as you turn the corner of the corridor leading to the Greenhouses, a sudden force comes barreling right into you, knocking you off of your feet and falling backwards onto the floor. The last thing you saw before screwing your eyes shut was a blur of peachy hair. Your back comes upon impact with the floor, and you could feel the weight of your barreller on top of you. However, your mind comes to a rushing halt when you realized that there was also something brushing against your lips very softly before the feeling is gone. Your eyes snap open when you hear a murmured apology, and all you could catch of your first-kiss-stealer’s appearance was his peach-colored hair and his yellow & black robes flowing behind him.

“What happened to you?” your best friend, Donghyuck asks when he spies you storming through the Great Hall’s doors and towards the Slytherin table. The moment you sat down, you slam your head down on the dining table and let out an obnoxious groan, earning a handful of curious glances from your peers. “Okay, Y/N, what crawled up your ass and laid its eggs?” Donghyuck doesn’t even look up from his mashed potatoes when he asks, already used to your dramatics. You give him a grunt in reply. “I swear, Y/N, with your dramatic ass, I’m surprised the Sorting Hat didn’t drop you in Gryffindor,” he says with an eye roll.

“That’s not a nice thing to say about us Gryffindors,” Mark pouts, arriving at the table just to check on you. Unfortunately for Donghyuck, he caught the Slytherin boy’s remark.

“Just look at them!” Donghyuck scoffs, waving his fork in your general direction.

“What’s wrong, Y/N?” Mark asks. His brows furrow in concern. You lift your head from the table and gave the upperclassman a pout. Donghyuck just scoffs.

“Don’t give my boyfriend that face,” he huffs. You stick your tongue out at the brunet.

“I lo...ss...day,” you mutter.

“What’d you say?” Mark asks, leaning in closer. Donghyuck does too.

“I los...my...irst...ss...day…” you say again, this time just a decibel louder.

“Yah, Y/N, how can you expect us to comfort you if we can’t even hear what you’re saying,” Donghyuck snaps. Mark hits his shoulder and sends him a warning glare.

“I LOST MY FIRST KISS TODAY!” you yell, causing the entirety of the Great Hall to snap their head towards you. “Great,” you mumble, trying very hard to sink yourself further into the bench, “just great.”

“Who would kiss you?” Donghyuck snorts, earning another hit from his boyfriend. “Fine, who kissed you?” Right when he asks, a certain peach-haired boy walks into the Great Hall; this time, however, his hair is much more mussed up, dirt and grass stains his shirt and cheeks, and the yellow and black robe was no longer draping his body but carelessly thrown over his shoulder. You freeze up once your eyes land on him. Your two friends quip their eyebrows at your odd behaviour before following your line of vision.

“Wait, hold up,” Mark starts, “are you telling me—”

“Na Jaemin claimed your virgin lips?” Donghyuck hisses. You quickly lunge forward and cover your best friend’s big fat mouth with your hand.

“Shush it!” you snap, your voice barely above a whisper. “He might hear you!”

“I can’t believe you let the biggest flirt in the entire school kiss you?” Mark questions, “Like, Y/N, our beloved cynical snake, let the smiliest, flirtiest boy kiss them? And it was their first kiss too?” The poor Gryffindor sits down for a second to process the overwhelming information. “Wow, that’s actually wild,” he utters.

“It wasn’t like I purposefully let him kiss me,” you mutter, suddenly becoming way more interested in your soup.

“Are you trying to tell me he accidentally kissed you?” Donghyuck teases, but at the notice of your miniscule nod, his eyes widen. “Oh shit, how’d that happen?”

“Muffliato,” you mutter, waving your wand under the table. Once you ensure none of your fellow housemates were eavesdropping, you retell to Mark and Donghyuck exactly how a certain peach-haired Hufflepuff stole your virgin lips.

“Think he knows what he did?” Mark asks. You look over to the Hufflepuff table. Jaemin has the sleeve of his dress shirt rolled up and his tie loose; he was currently in the middle of recounting some anecdote from Quidditch practice to the flock of yellow & black-robed girls situated around him.

“I doubt it,” you snort, “It doesn’t matter anyway; it’s just a kiss.”

“You’re a filthy liar, Y/N L/N,” you curse under your breath. Ever since the incident, you have been spying that cursed, albeit beautiful, boy much more often. Like, you knew you share classes with him, but now you find your eyes wandering towards his direction during Herbology and Charms and Potions.

“Y/N L/N?” Professor Flitwick’s voice breaks through your reverie, “May you go ahead and demonstrate the proper motion for Aguamenti? It seems that a certain group,” he sends a pointed look towards Jaemin and his friends, the party looking significantly singed, “seemed to have forgotten what we had learned in our previous lesson.”

“Of course, Professor.” You get out of your seat and stand in the center of the room. Your eyes flicker across the room for a second, briefly making eye contact with Jaemin before focusing back to the wand in your hand. You will your face to stop getting so hot after realizing exactly how intently the peach-haired Hufflepuff was staring at you. “Aguamenti,” you state, moving your wand in a fluid motion, mimicking the movement of the waves. A gentle stream of water spurts from the tip of your wand and into the potted plant placed on Professor Flitwick’s desk. The class gives you a polite round of applause, and Professor Flitwick beams at you.

“My pansies are quite happy they’ve finally been watered,” he jests, “10 points to Slytherin for Y/N’s excellence in the Augamenti charm!” His eyes then flicker back to the Hufflepuffs’ side of the classroom. “And I advise you,” he says looking pointedly at Jaemin, “to follow Y/N’s example the next time I ask you all to demonstrate the charm. Class is dismissed!” You gather your books and parchment into your bag and catch up with Donghyuck at the door.

“I think your 10 points just put us in the lead for the House Cup,” your best friend cheers as the two of you made way towards the Quidditch field; he sits on the bleachers and works on homework while you whiz around on your Nimbus 2001 and run drills with the rest of the Slytherin Quidditch team. “Now just continue being the giant ass nerd you are, and we might finally kick Gryffindor off of their 3-year win streak.”

“I thought you told Mark you weren’t salty about them winning last year?” you ask, turning towards your friend and quirking a brow.

“Sometimes, little white lies won’t hurt the relationship. It’ll only preserve it,” he says sagely, “Plus, you’re always complaining about how they win everything, so don’t pretend you’re not plotting to steal the House Cup away from them this year.”

“Well-”

“Y/N!” a voice rings out from behind you, promptly interrupting your sentence. You whip your head around to see Jaemin running up towards you, his yellow and black robe billowing behind him. Immediately you tense up.

“Hi, Jaemin,” Donghyuck greets. The Hufflepuff gives him a nod of acknowledgement before turning towards you.

“Can I ask you something?” he asks you.

“You kinda just did,” Donghyuck interjects again. You glare at him, and he simply raises his hands in surrender. “Fine, fine, I’ll leave. See you at the field, Y/N.”

“What’s up, Jaemin?” you ask, trying to play it at cool as possible.

“Um, well,” he dips his head, and you’re faced with a mop of peachy hair. When he looks up at you, his face is adorned with a boyish, shy smile. Jaemin rubs at the back of his neck before he asks you, “Can you help me with Charms?” You’re taken aback by his question. Mainly because you were surprised it wasn’t about the accidental kiss the two of you had shared. He must’ve sensed your hesitancy because he immediately spoke up. “I know we aren’t close, but you’re the best in our N.E.W.T level class, and I’ve been struggling a lot with the technical side of it. I figured you would be able to help me?” he pleads.

“I guess I can?” you reply, “I can’t today since I have Quidditch practice, but I’m free after dinner to help you.”

“Really?” he beams, “That’s awesome, Y/N. Thank you so much!” Jaemin’s smile catches you off guard because you never thought any guy with pink hair could look that beautiful. “I’ll meet up with you after dinner!”

“Watch out, L/N!” your team captain, Yuta, shouts from above you. However, his warning was absolutely useless when a Bludger comes barreling into you and knocks you to the left. The Quaffle you had in your hand went falling towards the ground. “Time out!” Yuta bellows, and the entire team flies back towards the ground.

“You alright, Y/N?” Hyunjin, a fellow Chaser, asks once everyone reached the ground.

“Yeah, sorry for being distracted,” you apologize, “I just had something on my mind.”

“Well get your head in the game, L/N,” Yuta barks, “We have a game this Saturday against Hufflepuff, and they’ve actually been good this year. I’m not about to lose our Quidditch Cup streak to them.”

“Got it, Captain,” you reply, mounting your broom and heading back up.

“God, that looks like it hurts,” Donghyuck mutters as he peers at the blotch of red that mars your right arm.

“It’s definitely going to leave a bruise,” Yuta chimes in as he plops himself down across the table from you. “Now, Y/N, I have some ideas for drills next week and-” Your captain stops talking to glare behind your head. “What do you want?”

You quirk a brow at Yuta, and he juts his chin forward in response. You turn around and find yourself greeted by the yellow and black tie of a certain Hufflepuff.

“Uh, I just wanted to see if you were still down with meeting up after dinner?” Jaemin asks, trying not to waver under your captain’s glower.

“Yeah, there’s an empty classroom we could use on the 2nd floor. Just meet me there,” you reply.

“Awesome! I’ll see you later then!”

The moment Jaemin settles back down at the Hufflepuff table, Yuta kicks your leg from under the table.

“What’s that for?” you snap, already fed up with the number of bruises accumulating on your body.

“I can’t believe you’re flirting with Hufflepuff’s Seeker! Right in front of my salad too!” Yuta exclaims, exaggeratedly gesturing towards his plate.

“We weren’t flirting,” you reply, “I’m just helping him with Charms.”

“But if you don’t help him with Charms, he’ll fail and won’t be able to play in the upcoming match!”

“Guaranteed win for Slytherin,” Donghyuck chimes in with his mouth full of cake.

“And this is why we’re considered the ‘evil’ House,” you mutter, not even sparing your friends a chuckle.

“Fine, but if we lose the game this Saturday, it’s on you.”

“Yeah, yeah, Cap'n, it’s on me.”

“How did you do that?” Jaemin exclaims as he watches water flow out of the tip of your wand.

“It’s the same thing Professor Flitwick has been trying to teach you for the past week though?” you say with a quirked eyebrow.

“Well, yeah, but I don’t really pay attention in that class,” he mutters at the end of his sentence.

“What do you pay attention to then?” you prod.

Jaemin averts their gaze. “I, uh, well, I just watch Yukhei shove copious amounts of Bertie Botts’ Every Flavor Beans in his mouth and pray he doesn’t die of sensory overload,” he pauses to run his excuse over in his head again before nodding, “Yeah, that’s what I do.”

You don’t believe his excuse at all, but you ignore his horrible lying skills and revert your focus back onto the task at hand. “Anyways, the trick to perfecting Augamenti is to make sure your arm motion is fluid. Even if you tense just a bit, the charm won’t work 100% like you want it to,” you explain, demonstrating for him again the motion. He stares in awe at the steady stream of water flowing from your wand and nods in understanding. You train your eyes on Jaemin’s form and pick up his mistake instantly.

“Uh, is something wrong?” he asks, shifting awkwardly under your gaze.

“Here, let me fix something,” you reply before moving towards him. You take his arm and position it just a bit further outwards and nudge his right leg forward a bit with your foot. Once his stance was correct, you take a step back to look over his figure again. “Tsk, you’re still too stiff. Loosen your muscles a bit, Jaemin.” He does as you instruct, but you could only grumble at how off it looks. His shoulders were slightly hunched over, and his arms were too tense. Your eyes drift meticulously over his body and your spirits dampen further when you see his locked knees. Taking matters into your own hands, you place your palms on his shoulders to slightly push them back. You then trail your hands deftly down his arms to loosen them up, trying especially hard not to notice the toned muscles that flex beneath your fingertips. Before you could even think about kneeling down to address the knee problem, Jaemin unlocks his knees. This time you notice the adorable flush dusting his cheeks.

“Well,” you awkwardly coughed, “your stance is right. Try the spell now.”

“Augamenti,” Jaemin says smoothly, producing a stream of water from his wand. “Woah!” he exclaims, “I did it!”

“Looks like my work here is done. Goodnight, Jaemin,” you state, turning around to leave.

“Wait, let me walk you back to your Common Room.”

“You want to come down to the dungeons? Even with curfew starting in 30 minutes?” you ask, quirking a brow at him.

“I can’t just let you walk back by yourself! That’d be rude of me!” he exclaims.

“I’m pretty sure I can handle walking by myself,” you say, trying to ward off the smile threatening to form on your lips.

“Still…”

It didn’t matter how many times you tell him that you were completely capable of walking to your Common Room by yourself, he still trails behind you, chattering away, and pulling laughter from your lips. You were enjoying his company so much that you didn't even notice the two of you already standing before the entrance.

“Morior invictus,” you say. The entrance opens up, revealing the long hallway leading to your Common Room. “Well,” you say, turning back towards the peach-haired boy, “Good night, Jaemin.” You want to smack yourself at how smitten you sound.

“Good night, Y/N. Sweet dreams,” he says softly. You watch as he turns around and runs back the way the two of you came from. His sweet voice still lingers in your ears, making you smile even brighter the more times you replay his words in your head.

“Ugh,” you snap out of your reverie, “He’s not even that cute.” You pause for a second to collect your thoughts before breaking the silence, “Don’t lie to yourself, Y/N. He’s extremely cute. The cutest, smiliest-”

“Who’s extremely cute?” a voice speaks out from your left, causing you to jump back.

“Donghyuck! Don’t scare me like that!” you scold.

“Anyways, who’s extremely cute?” your best friend goads while wearing a shit-eating grin.

“Not you, you toad,” you jest. He sticks his tongue out at you in return, and you just huff and start walking towards the stairway leading to your room.

“Is it a certain cotton candy-haired Hufflepuff?” Donghyuck asks nonchalantly, matching his step with yours.

“It’s actually peach-colored,” you reply absentmindedly. However, you catch your mistake quickly and whirl around to face your best friend with wide eyes. “Wait, actually-”

“Aha! I knew it! You do like Na Jaemin!” he exclaims.

“Donghyuck, please, I swear keep your voice-”

“Mark owes me unlimited butterbeers for a month now! Heck yeah, high five, Y/N, couldn’t have done this without you!” He cheers and holds out his hand for you. However, you could not find it in you to share his joy.

“You can’t tell anybody. Do you understand me?”

“Why not? It’s no fun to keep secrets,” he teases. “Speaking of that, when are you gonna tell the guy?”

“What?” you look at him in horror, “Never!”

“Aw, c’mon, Y/N. He obviously likes you too!”

“You’re shitting me, right?” you deadpan, “He absolutely does not!”

“Why did he ask you to help him with Charms then?”

“Because he’s failing Charms? And I’m the best in the class? Donghyuck, if he was failing Potions, he would’ve definitely asked you.”

“But, he didn’t have to walk you all the way back to the Common Room,” Donghyuck retorts. You don’t reply. “Heh, I gotchu there, didn’t I?” he teases, earning a smack to the head from you.

“I’m going to bed,” you deadpan, “And I’m promptly ignoring you for the rest of the week.”

You rush down the corridors towards the Great Hall while pulling your Quidditch jersey over your head. “God, I can’t believe I slept past my alarm,” you grumble, already dreading the earful you were going to get from Yuta upon your arrival. You barge through the throng of first-year Hufflepuffs and rush towards the Slytherin table, snatching the piece of toast out of Donghyuck’s hand, and plopping down next to him.

“You’re 10 minutes late, Y/N,” Yuta comments.

“Well, Hyunjin isn’t here yet, so I don’t see the problem,” you retort with your mouth full of food. Donghyuck silently hands you a glass of apple juice which you accept gratefully. However, you catch him eying you warily mid-chug, so you place the glass down and send him a questioning look.

“Are you still mad at me?” he asks.

“I’m not mad, just annoyed with you,” you reply, picking up the glass to chug down the rest of your juice. Donghyuck just hums in response, but you notice the mischievous glint in his eye. “What did you do?”

“What?” he feigns innocence, “Nothing! When I have ever caused you any harm?”

“The time in our first year where you turned my morning apple juice into orange juice, the time in our second year where you chucked a Quaffle at my head while I was trying out for the team, the time in our third year where you shoved a-”

“Okay, I get it! But, you know you love me.”

You open your mouth to give him a snarky response, but instead you reply with, “Yeah, I do,” much to your own surprise. “Huh,” you muse outloud, “I guess I’m in a good mood today.” Donghyuck just nods along, and Yuta rolls his eyes at the two of you.

“Finish your food, Y/N. We have a game to win today,” Yuta states before getting up and heading towards the Quidditch pitch.

“Nervous, Y/N?” Hyunjin asks as the two of you mount your brooms.

“Yeah,” you reply, frowning at your honesty. You never show people your nervousness. You’re gnawing away at your lip when you catch Jaemin’s eyes staring at you. You shoot him a small smile, and he beams right back before mouthing the words, “Good luck!” A sudden giddy feeling bubbles away in your stomach, and you could not help as your smile widens. However, you quickly remember you’re about to compete in one of the most important Quidditch games in your life, so you revert your attention back onto Madam Hooch. The moment she threw the Quaffle into the air, you fly towards it and easily gain possession of it before volleying it to Hyunjin, who was already racing towards the goalpost. A Hufflepuff Chaser named Felix tries to intercept your throw but gets knocked back by an expertly hit Bludger.

“Hell yeah!” you cheer when Hyunjin scores the first goal of the match. He sends you a smirk and a nod towards Yuta, who was smugly swinging his bat. Your celebration is cut short when the opposing Goalkeeper chucks the Quaffle back into play; however, you weave your way through the throng of Hufflepuff Chasers, narrowly dodge a Bludger, and catch the ball with ease. Hyunjin prevents any opposing Chasers from stopping your flight, and you score yet another goal for Slytherin. A cheer echoes throughout the pitch. The game continues with both sides scoring until the scores were neck-in-neck; Slytherin was only leading by a 20 point margin. If Jaemin catches the Snitch before Ten, the Slytherin Seeker, did, your team loses the match. You grit your teeth and lean your body forwards, keeping your eyes trained on the Quaffle currently in Felix’s hand. You’re just a hair behind him before you feel something whiz past your ear. Your eyes widen when you realize the Snitch fluttering in front of you. With a quick motion of your hand, Hyunjin assists you in body-checking Felix, allowing your third Chaser to catch the Quaffle and fly back towards your goal post. Hyunjin follows suit to ensure a Slytherin goal, while you pause to look for Jaemin and Ten. Soon enough, the two boys come barrelling through the pitch towards the direction of the Snitch. You curse under your breath when you realize Jaemin has a slight speed advantage over Ten.

“What to do, Y/N?” you mutter before it dawned on you. Slow Jaemin down. You knew Bludgers couldn’t be targeted towards him, and you couldn’t physically slow him down, but a little bit of heckling never hurt anybody. You zero your focus on the peach-haired boy and fly towards him.

“Jaemin!” you call out, not even sure if your plan was going to work. He falters for a second, head perking up at the sound of your voice, allowing Ten to gain an advantage in the pursuit for the Snitch. You could practically see Jaemin kicking himself over his rookie mistake and refocusing his energy on the Snitch, but you are persistent. “You know, you wouldn’t have lost the Snitch if you just brushed your perfect hair out of your eyes,” you taunt. However, horror dawns on you at the realization of your words. What the hell did you just say?

“Wait, what did you just say?” Jaemin throws back, but his attention doesn’t waver.

“I said your hair was perfect just like the rest of you!” What the hell are you saying? You couldn’t stop your cheeks from heating up, and you had absolutely zero clue why you couldn’t stop your mouth from saying the dumbest things.

“You think I’m perfect?” he asks, slowing down just a little bit. You don’t know how to respond, but your mouth moves before your brain could stop it.

“Yes.” With those words, you mentally kick yourself and fly back towards the Chaser action happening above you, arriving just in time for Hyunjin to throw you the Quaffle. You push back the odd interaction with Jaemin to the back of your head and throw the ball through the goalpost, earning another 10 points for Slytherin.

Suddenly, Madam Hooch’s whistle rings through the stadium, and you hear the Quidditch announcer, a seventh year Ravenclaw named Doyoung, call out, “And Ten claims the Golden Snitch, earning 150 points for Slytherin! With a game of 210-50, Slytherin wins the match!” A thunderous cheer roars from the stands as your Housemates rejoice in a landslide victory, ensuring Slytherin’s spot in the House Cup finals.

“Hell yeah we won!” Yuta cheers the moment all team members touch the ground. “Who knew Ten could overtake a youngster like that?”

“We’re not that old,” Ten retorts, wrinkling his nose at the idea of being one of the oldest on the team. “And I couldn’t have done it without Y/N being a little shit towards the guy. Who knew Jaemin had such a weakness for our star Chaser?” He shoots you a shit-eating grin.

“Shut up,” you mumble, “I’m the one that has a crush on him.” You freeze at the sudden confession, and your team does too. “Oh my fucking god, why can’t I keep my mouth shut,” you groan.

“It’s like you’re always telling us the truth, Y/N,” Hyunjin mentions, “Like this morning, they told me they were nervous. For the first time in my entire life, Y/N told me they were nervous!”

You mull over his words before the realization hit. You suddenly recall a lesson from Potions a week ago.

“Professor Slughorn, what is that?” you ask peering into the cauldron that sat upon his desk. The liquid inside is so clear that you could easily make out the scratch marks at the bottom of the pewter cauldron.

“It’s Veritaserum, you idiot,” Donghyuck chimes in, “Supposed to be the strongest truth potion. Three drops and even You-Know-Who would spill his darkest secrets.”

“Voldemort?” you ask with a quirked brow. Nobody calls him that anymore.

“No! Yuta, of course,” your best friend replies with a wave of his hand, “I always wonder where he disappears off to after curfew.” You shrug in reply, deciding to just head over to your seat as the rest of the class filed in. As Donghyuck answers every single one of Professor Slughorn’s questions like the snivelling know-it-all he is, you focus on doodling in your notebook. Somehow you were able to draw a quite perfect peach.

“Professor, how do you brew a Veritaserum?” Donghyuck asks, pulling your attention away from your parchment.

Professor Slughorn raises an eyebrow at him. “Considering how highly regulated it is by the Ministry, it is not in my best interest to let you know until your seventh year N.E.W.T course. However, you can expect it to be extremely laborious.”

“Is there no way to learn how to brew it, professor?”

“Well, the steps are written down, but those potions books are all in the restricted section of your library. We don’t want any students accidentally conjuring up anything dangerous,” he says with a chuckle. “Why do you ask, Mr. Lee?”

“No reason, professor. Just a little curious, that’s all,” Donghyuck replies smartly, and you snort at his words.

“Oh my god,” you say in horror. He did not. He absolutely could not have. But knowing how brilliant your best friend is in Potions, he most definitely had. You pull away from your team and march towards the stands. The moment you caught sight of him you bellow, “Lee Donghyuck! Get your ass down here now before I invert your ears!” He freezes under your glare and turns to his boyfriend for some sort of backup, but Mark just shrugs and walks off, leaving Donghyuck to defend for himself.

“I cannot believe you would pull something as irresponsibly illegal as pouring Veritaserum in my apple juice! Donghyuck, you idiot! How could you ruin something as sacred and holy as my morning apple juice?” you yell at him under the stands. A strong Muffliato charm keeps any peers or professors from eavesdropping on your tirade. Donghyuck withers under your voice.

“Sorry, Y/N, I was just tired of seeing you pathetically pine over that Hufflepuff, so I took matters into my own hands,” he mumbles.

“By drugging me?” you screech.

“You weren’t being honest to yourself or him, and it is so obvious Mr. Cotton Candy Headass likes you too! So I figured why not? I’m good at brewing, so I gotta use my powers for good!”

“How can you still be so arrogant at a time like this?” you mutter.

“But am I wrong?”

“...No”

“Well then, looks like you have someone to talk to,” Donghyuck says suddenly, pushing you out from under the stands, and making you slam into the body of an incoming person. You look up and see Jaemin peering down at you.

“Y/N?” he asks, “You alright?” You immediately back off of him and send him a sheepish smile.

“Sorry, I should really look where I’m going. Anyways, good game, I gotta go!” Before you could create any real distance between the two of you, he reaches for your hand and stops you.

“We need to talk.”

“Ha, what do we need to talk about?” you ask, chuckling awkwardly.

“What you said today on the field,” he states, “Look, I don’t know if you were just messing with me to win or if you were being completely honest about what you said.”

“I was being completely honest,” you say bluntly. Well shit, looks like the Veritaserum still has some effect.

“Oh wow, really?” Jaemin asks. He ruffles his hair a bit, and you notice the flush creeping upon his cheeks.

“You know, you’re really cute.” He sputters at your comment. “Like, your hair is the same shade as a peach, and when you blush, your cheeks also turn the same shade as a peach, and it honestly makes me want to pinch your cheeks and cover you with kisses. Oh my god, I can’t believe I just said that, but I also can because I’m under the influence of Veritaserum and-” Jaemin takes short strides towards you before cupping your cheeks with his hands and leaning down to capture your lips with his.

Your eyes flutter close at the contact, and you felt him smile into the kiss. When he pulled away, your eyes stay closed for just a couple moments longer before opening to drink in Jaemin’s face post-kiss, blushing cheeks, starry eyes, and all. He smiles gently at you and presses his forehead against yours, eliciting a shy smile from you. He then runs his thumb along your lower lip before whispering, “Even better than the first time.” You look at him questioningly before the meaning of his words sank in.

“You knew I was the person you kissed after barreling into me?” you ask, pulling away from him slightly.

“I could I forget? You have like, the softest lips known to wizarding kind,” he teases.

“Why didn’t you say anything beforehand,” you pout, “That would’ve saved me all the embarrassment on the pitch.”

“Well, I heard a very scary Slytherin complaining about how I stole their first kiss, and I prefer living, so I decided not to bring it up.”

“Then the Charms thing?”

“I actually was failing Charms. I guess fate wanted us to be together so much it made me bomb my last essay,” he jokes. “Plus, I started noticing you around more and figured why not get to know you better. Who knew I’d end up falling for you?” He says the last question so nonchalantly you don’t even notice it until you catch the teasing look he sends your way.

“Shut up,” you mumble shyly, “I have many likable charms.”

“Yeah, I know,” he replies before wrapping his arms around you tightly. “Now, if this Veritaserum is still working, what exactly do you like about my perfect hair?” he teasingly asks. You glare at him, but before the answer could bubble itself out of your mouth, you break from his embrace and run towards the locker rooms. Jaemin chases after you, but stops himself so he can watch on in amusement as you struggle to keep exactly what you liked about him to yourself.

“I’ll get it out of you, Y/N! Even without the Veritaserum!” he calls out.

“You probably will!” you reply, shortly followed by a, “Oh my god, Y/N, shut up!” Jaemin laughs at your adorableness before retreating back towards the stand where he spied Donghyuck lurking. Maybe their sudden “friend-in-law” status could help him procure some Veritaserum, you know, for emergency purposes; definitely not for getting the exact reason you liked him out of you, absolutely not.

#nct #kpopwritingnet #nct dream #nct jaemin #na jaemin #nct dream jaemin #na jaemin imagines #na jaemin scenarios #jaemin imagines #jaemin scenarios #nct imagines #nct scenarios #nct dream imagines #nct dream scenarios

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laurent-ofvere · 5 years

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how do you write fanfic? i don't have problems with original fiction but i struggle with characterization in fanfic. i have an idea for a capri fanfic but every time I go to write it, i get so frustrated bc it seems like everyone is out of character, like i haven't cracked the code on damen or laurent. and if they're OOC then what's the point? idk i love all your fics and you seem to have them down pat, do you have any advice?

its so funny you aay that bc i have no problem with fanfic but i struggle with original fiction (not that ive actually tried yet but the reason for that is How)

im going to be honest, characterization is not something ive ever really strived for. ive always just /felt/ the characters and wrote them as they came to me, and it seemed to work out. im relatively confident in my characterization but im sure there are people who’ve read my fics and thought it was wildly ooc which is fair, bc ive read fic that gets high praise that i personally find to be ooc, so its all just such a personal thing. i dont often consciously think of following character rules or anything, like a bullet point list of “this is how a laurent pov should go”. say damen- hes not someone who’s emotionally in touch with himself and he doesnt even think of his emotional state. ive gone with that in some fics but a lot of times i just went “eh” and didn’t really shy away form him being introspective (which is technically ooc) but then in other ways i felt that i heavily maintained characterization, and thats just how i found my balance.

so even tho i mainly just write what comes naturally to me, here are a few random tips ive tried to gather:

let the plot play out in your mind and then apply it to canon- its easier to picture how they would act when its in a canon context that you’ve already been given. fanfic example: high school hate sex. think about that in canon, how did their interactions go when they hated each other? what was the vibe? what qualities did damen reluctantly like about laurent in the beginning that you could tie in here? how did laurent clap back to damens sass, and how throughout canon does damen show his anger and animosity (to laurent and others)? have that conversation with yourself and visualize it in a different setting. watch it play out like a scene, then write it.

simple but straightforward: what would ____ do? dont think of it as a fic, think of it as meta or a chat about characters with a friend. how do YOU think laurent would react to that hypothetical? why do you think that? well, what if x happened instead, would he still do that? work it out in your head with the way you see them responding, sort of like daydreaming about an au.

this might be odd but maybe try working off an existing fic. pick a fic that you like and agree with characterization wise and play with it, sort of like a fanfic of a fanfic. say i have a fic that you think is well done, try and keep the fic going, a scene or a conversation. try and emulate the dialogue or the way the characters are generally acting/reacting/posing etc. keep on expanding on it and “copy” it, for lack of a better term. it might snap something into focus.

#asks #writing advice

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gurguliare · 6 years

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Anyway I finally finally finished the TM post-mortem so have one last rundown

Really loved: Signet’s stupid relics runway show, Ali describing the Mirage/Splice resolution as “the most amazing Gift of the Magi fuckup,” and, oddly, Keith’s reflections on anarchism, though idk if enough of that made it legibly into the season---which is one of the ways Gig was underserved, I guess.

I also enjoyed and appreciated the discussion of TM’s utopianism as monumental artistic challenge. I obviously have criticisms wrt execution and I disagree with some of their analysis of TM’s failures and shortcomings, but I thought everyone was refreshingly honest about the sheer scale of the task, in a way that I often missed during the series proper---when the tone sometimes tended more toward “we’ve set ‘depicting a utopia’ as our goal, and of course we share a coherent (static) vision of what that entails, and know exactly how to get from here to there.”

I was dissatisfied at best with the conversation about redemption vs rehabilitation. I might be more convinced by the distinction if Austin had ever stopped saying “sin”... which, among other things, helps to selectively blur together abuse and other forms of violence. (I’ve given up on even dreaming of a world in which FATT covers its ass better in re: Christian-centric, frankly Catholic-centric readings of both morality and faith, and maybe it’s for the best that they lack the wherewithal to mask that.) That said, I think it’s very striking that Even Gardner’s violence and militarism seems dealt with in-story almost exclusively as a form of trauma and a thing that happens to Even Gardner, while Fourteen’s history with Castlerose is discussed (up to the time of the finale) almost exclusively in terms of Sins Fourteen Committed. I’m not saying those framings are ~flipped, but the ratio does seem off. Even has a fuckton of choices at every step of the way and experiences basically no material repercussions or visible change of heart, other than “once there are no Advent people left I’ll stop targeting Advent.” He’s also, notably, “brought back from the edge” by a played-straight romantic relationship, for some reason. Fourteen has like... half of a narrative about turning bad habits and even obsolete ideas to constructive ends, and half a narrative about reclaiming agency once safely away from your abuser, even at the cost of losing access to huge swathes of your life... but it’s an arc that goes so unacknowledged or unseen by the other characters that it never connects back up to the idea that, well, bound up in the problem of rehabilitation is the problem of forgiveness---or if we don’t like that language, then acceptance. It’s never clear on what terms Fourteen is judged and reintegrated into their community, and how and where their self-image aligns with others’ view of them.

Which is very, very lonely, and raises huge questions for me about the whole issue of Fourteen as ~disability representation and specifically as a test case for what terminal illness might look like in a utopia. It is just not clear what anyone’s goals were, as far as showing Fourteen supported in a systemic way and not just on the level of relationships. It’s very odd. I’m still puzzled by Jack and Austin’s remarks on this, especially the focus on what Jack had or hadn’t done with Fourteen in play. Literally every NPC (who has a stance on the issue at all) responds to Fourteen with undisguised horror at their memory dysfunction---the most sympathetic version of this is a lecture about integrating assistive technology into their daily routine! and the least sympathetic is the point-blank statement that Fourteen not remembering who they’ve killed is worse than killing those people in the first place. Like, what the hell? That’s a vision of morality that is entirely premised on repentance, and on the idea that expiation for a crime only comes with appropriate helpings of guilt. And it never really receives an in-universe challenge.

It was also weird to me that Grand didn’t come up at all in that part of the discussion. But then again it seemed like no one wanted to comment seriously on Grand’s arc in general; maybe Art was making really sad faces on the call or something. It’s a shame though, since you’d think it would be a good opportunity to go on some bullshit about “salvation NOT through good works,” or rather, salvation definitely through good works but everyone feels a little weird about it. Three bombs? Three bombs?

Finally, it is important that I dissect all remarks on shipping. I was a little perturbed by the discussion of Fourteen/Tender; I thought Ali’s IC reasons were perfectly valid but I found Jack’s slightly suspect, because I don’t think, uh, “this person flirts all the time but is too busy dying to pursue new romantic projects” really jives---either with Fourteen’s profound, active engagement with others (more active and deeper engagement the longer the season went on) or with Jack’s stated goal of presenting a dying person who, without being embroiled in regret or bitterness in the face of death, still loves their life. Obviously I don’t think romantic relationships are a requirement for that, but the blanket statement that Fourteen is Not That Person gave me trouble. Also, I just don’t think you can drop the “platonic relationship representation is so important” line in there without a LOT more unpacking of the pros and cons of that---who are the characters involved in that relationship, and are they people for whom nonsexual relationships are a top-of-the-line representation deficit? Also, is nonsexual vs sexual really the paradigm you want to cleave to here, in a discussion of the chemistry between an internet goddess and a hunk of data?

I’m a hypocrite though bc when they got to echogrand and went on about how it was important that Echo’s arc not center on romance I was like RIGHT ON

...

Okay. One more thing. Janine shooting down Signet/Blueberry; I was fond of this, though I obviously do not care about her opinion and will continue to do what I want---I don’t like “parental” as the trajectory for a dynamic whose foundational moment is the younger weaker party saving the older, that doesn’t do it for me. Of course children can save their parents, but they shouldn’t have to, and that certainly shouldn’t be the pattern that defines the relationship. And for Signet and Blueberry I think it really is; Signet offers Blueberry apologies, Blueberry offers Signet things Signet actually needs. That’s not parental. Nevertheless, I was fond bc it made me think about what a wealth of fun mentorship dynamics this season offered otherwise---with Tender and Morning’s Observation, and Fourteen and Sho, there are these really precious internal movements, or moments of slippage, from distrust to empathy and from faith to disillusionment, that I treasured as real, organic, slippery pieces of character writing and of writing about growth... My favorite example of this is when Morning’s Observation is FURIOUS with Tender after the fucking... rooftop debacle early on in the Wind’s Poem arc. And then again, more seriously, later, after he’s been essentially abandoned and has to save the day by drawing on parts of himself he wanted to give up. That feels like a moment of roleswap between “guardian” and “child” that is presented as appropriately bittersweet, pivotal, and rupturing, and which therefore preserves the logic of the original relationship even as it expands it. And I also love Grand’s awkward interference there, haha... esp in the context of Grand managing to disappoint Morning separately later on, when by that point it’s lost most of its oomph just because Morning has learned not to have expectations of these fucking geniuses. Which is its own mixed result.

(I wish there had been a bit more followup with Morning in the finale, actually, I don’t think he really got resolution on some stuff and I think “happy at the Brink with his moms” is more avoidant copout than anything, though not implausible or unreasonable avoidance from a character perspective. But like, the fucking... part in the Feast of Patina where it becomes increasingly apparent, throughout Morning’s glad monologue, that he did, in fact, do many of the same things as Grand? He betrayed former allies for an enemy faction in the name of convenience! That’s not all Grand did, but it’s not nothing. And everyone has to fall back on “but the Advent Group are fascists! Morning didn’t turn coat and join fascists!” when it’s like, well, would he have, if they had offered him spaghetti?

Not that I think Morning’s and Grand’s choices are remotely equivalent. But it was a very funny parallel for them to try to wriggle out of on the fly, and I wish they hadn’t---I wish they’d leaned into Morning’s lingering doubts, which would if anything have served to highlight that he does have good reason to stay. It’s just that those reasons don’t cancel out the doubts.)

#friends at the table #twilight mirage #ok i said last but i already feel another post boiling up in me about some comparisons austin made between c/w and tm but #i think i'll save that #for another time.

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juunshua · 6 years

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No pls I love rants on music, especially vocal techniques (had a couple of classes, quit because of life in general, most of my expertise is on the piano side anyway), and would really, seriously love to hear your thoughts on the members vocals (although I do understand that this is time consuming to do) just wanted to say that there's no need to apologise for ranting, we all wanna hear you speak anyways :)

sorry this took forever to respond to! akdjf youve went to more vocal technique classes than i have so maybe you might know more than me ahaha! tbh i really want to formally learn vocal pedagogy so i know what im listening for and what im not. like having that professional opinion alongside telling me ‘ur wrong’ or ‘ur right’ i really want that so i can solidify my learning in a sense…ive been doing that kind of through youtube videos and stuff but still idk. omg ur a pianist? please i love you automatically now so idk why but i’ll probably just summarize in units? and like maybe short comments about each member or more than one member or something idk. under a readmore bc it got longwarning: i am no way, shape and or form a professional.

hht: im going to start with hht…tbh i have another name for hht haha its called ‘baritone team’ alsdkjf isnt it a coincidence (not really) that all of svts baritones ended up in hht…thus is the fate of most baritones in kpop sadly :( they either get pushed to subvocal or to the rapper position even if its not what they want initially bc of their like natural (basically) biological disposition of not being able to hit, with the same kind of ease, high notes that tenors can…like tbh tenors cant hit those notes ½ the time either but its less obvious bc theyre tenors…that made no sense lasdj…in relating to current events though heres a classic example of baritone (vn) vs tenor (sk) singing in basically the same high note range but vn has to go into falsetto while sk is trying to mix up there…both of them arent really singing it well (laskdj fmaybe sk is a bad example bc he has a good approach to his voice…but like nonetheless that isnt a healthy sounding note from either of them) but its less obvious with sk bc hes a tenor and more obvious with vn (well maybe the falsetto vs mix also had to do with it but like idk a bari who would want to mix that high ljldkajf). anyways in terms of technique, no one in hht team particularly stands out. All of them tend to either sing with their throat or sing with lots of air in their voice, which isn’t particularly healthy but also to be expected from rappers. tbh rappers i find tend to be more throaty, i think why in this group they also are airy is because of wz lol and his vocal directing. within the entire group though (like not just hht), ww has my fav vocal color and i tend to think from within hht, he has the most potential to become a decent vocalist. its mostly (like 95%) because of his continual expressed desire in singing (it makes me think that when he does actually get proper vocal lessons he would take them very seriously and be very disciplined about it and tbh that just goes above everything else) but also because of that one performance of city escape (here) ? and it sounds really pretty and the range that he’s singing in that song is starting to be in the higher part of a baritones register too. and in some of his other vocal performances too, whenever he is in the range where he doesn’t have to mix, his approach to his voice really isnt bad at all. i say he has the most potential but that doesnt mean the other hht members cant become awesome vocalists they can if they put the right time and effort into it. pt:the rest of the units are composed of all tenors (at least from what i know) btw so yeah all of pt are tenors. again in terms of technique no one particularly stands out. they all seem to approach singing similarly but with putting emphasis on different things which makes them sound different….actually upon closer inspection most of the members of the entire group (not just pt) are like that laksjdl….well maybe with the exception of sk. anywho…jh pushes air a lot which is why you get those like ‘hiccups’?? idk how else to describe it but an example is here. like do u hear how his voice rises at the end of a lot of those notes? hs also gets those same hiccups. jh is also quite nasal, and probably the most nasally member within the 13 members when it comes to singing. nasally voices are my number one pet peeve rip thats why my fav jh singing moments is when hes singing in his comfortable range and esp when its words/syllables that force him to place his voice not so much in his nose (ie this part in my i). being nasal is not really as damaging for the vocal chords as much as it is the individual not really placing the voice in the correct, most optimal place. he also gets really tight on higher notes esp when hes trying to mix that high. same with hs (you can hear the both of them sounding tight in the habit perf i linked to earlier). also jh has tongue tension but im not sure if thats a reflection of him trying to sing in kr…him and hao are probably at a disadvantage when it comes to singing because of the fact that they aren’t singing in a language that theyre comfortable in/fluent in. when it comes to hao, when he said in the seasons greetings video that he was working on singing but no matter how much he practiced, he couldnt improve, that made me really sad :( because that basically means is that the vocal lessons he is getting arent actually good vocal lessons…unless he expects results to happen in a week (which sadly no it takes months upon months). ur vocal chords are a muscle so they take time to develop (like when u first go to the gym u arent going to try and lift the heaviest weight right? or run at the fastest speed or whatever u have to build urself up to that slowly). and then he also compared that to his dancing which he said he could get better at by doing over and over? but its the same when it comes to dancing like u cant be improving dancing if u learn the wrong choreo or the wrong ways to dance a specific type of dance right? like no matter how much u practice a wrong choreo its still going to be that wrong choreo…so if u sing with bad technique no matter how much u practice u arent going to get better u’ll just develop bad technique. but yeah singing with correct technique should yield some results eventually (i can attest to that). anyways im biased and i really want to hear hs get proper vocal lessons bc i find his vocal color sooo pretty i literally listen to campfire like 90%for his part in the chorus (and the other 10% is cheols rap aldjsf)….i also think he hovers around being able to support or maybe its my biased ears talking who knwos… i didnt really talk about dn but hes kind of along the same lines…maybe a bit more dependent on his throat than some of the other members in pt…which kind of makes sense bc thats what rappers tend to dovt: ok js and wz are both similar in how they approach singing i think its kind of obvious too with how much they sound alike at times. oh yeah wz probably has the highest vocal range within the group idt anyone in the group can go higher than him (not that it really matters when it comes to vocal technique but its a neat tidbit of info). jh for one has a lot of tongue tension (just like jn) when he sings and is kinda nasal (not as much as jn but still there). just like the rest of the other members in the other units, these three dont support either. we can finally talk about support when we talk about sm…although his supported range isnt too much he does have that basic down…he gets super throaty though when hes outside his supported range. he does that same hiccup thing that hs/jn do. he hasn’t shown the ability to resonate but at least he can support. despite singing a lot of the groups high notes, he hasnt developed a connected head voice, as far as im aware of. technique wise hes really similar to a lot of the main vocalists in groups that debut these days. but ok NOW SK aka the member who has the best vocal technique. he supports consistently and he has resonance too its so beautiful and wonderful to listen to like esp since a lot of kpop group vocalists that debut these days for some reason dont really want to resonate. its so nice to listen to his voice. like hes fooling around here but still manages (what i think is) a resonant F#4? (not the high note he holds out, its like the note he sings before he slides up) and if that note isnt resonant then it is at the very least supported very very very nicely. heres a really pretty g4. tbh i really want to hear him start trying to conquer the fourth octave like what a good day itd be if i could say ‘yeah sk can sing up to b4s with good technique’ like thats kind of hard to do but definitely attainable! and he has the potential for sure! i think within the fandom hes really quite overlooked for some odd reason that i cant seem to figure out why. he definitely has the healthiest voice, at least his mixed register for sure. he seems to prefer mixing over head voice for whatever reason when it comes to high notes so honestly speaking i havent paid much attention to his head voice but i wouldnt be surprised if it wasnt connected considering how much he doesnt sing in it…but tbh the fact that he mixes pretty decently is amazing in it of itself. CONCLUSION: with proper vocal guidance and technique ANYONE can become a decent singer.

#anon #replies

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hycrans · 6 years

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( the cuteST )

a bitch is Tired rn after pulling my usual shit, aka staying up until 5am for no reason only to wake up three hours later to watch bts run, so excuse the seeming lack of enthusiasm lkfdsjglk. hey i’m jules, i’m 20, canadian, and my current means of life rn are chocolate, the x files ( iM LATE IK SFGDJLK ) and 3am you in me listening parties with myself rip !! it’s been almost a month since its release, i need to Relax dammit. i’m a uni student who just got off for christmas break and in love with sowoo so you don’t wanna know the agony that came with picking one over the other without a bit of help. you can hmu on d*scord at HAPPY S*OKJIN DAY#2030 ( don’t.. call me out for not having an updated name since his birthday’s passed, i’m not v bright pls ) if you’d like and this is so boRING, it’s like the life is sucked out of me omg. anyways hyeran, a whole.. other positive muse bc jesus, how many of these do i have rn ?? this is so out of hand man, but nonetheless here’s a bit abt the brat:

- ̗̀ JEON SOMIN, CISFEMALE, SHE/HER ̖́- – have you seen YUN HYERAN? people’ve said the TWENTY TWO year old has been running around the streets of jeju lately, which is odd because aren’t they a BARISTA/MUSIC PRODUCER during the day? anyways, i know they’re known to be EBULLIENT and TRANQUIL but recently i’ve heard they’ve been MAGNANIMOUS and DIFFIDENT, but i could be wrong. ( jules / 20 / gmt-3:30 / she/her )

EDIT: i somehow forgot to mention that she’s.. not sure where she is on the lgbt spectrum but she knows she’s Not Straight JFGDSLKJGK but she’s panromantic so yeah sgjkdl. i’m a whole mess today, i’m sorry lol

yun hyeran, a daegu native with an older and younger brother, an ambivert and an all around baby

tbh i don’t have much of her bg figured out, that’s always the last thing i get to so rip

buT she became involved in music through her father, who studied it in uni and ended up becoming a music instructor with a focus on piano, flute and vocals

her and her mom.. also her older brother, didn’t have the best relationship when she grew older, which seemed to die altogether when her parents divorced and her mom left. but her and her brother’s still exists, it’s just that he’s a bit of a toxic influence on her and she tends to distance herself from him

went to uni in seoul to pursue music like her father ( a daddy’s girl too like ) and found her way into the world of production !! by junior year, she’d transferred out of her original program and majored in that instead and has loved it ever since; she recently graduated

moved to jeju island bc an aunt lived there when she was young and she LOVED to visit, made a few friends there and would always whine abt the next time they could all go see her aunt again. so it made sense for her to live, at least for a little while, in one of her favourite places

she also adores said aunt, her dad’s sister and the maternal figure she Deserves, so she came partially to see her more often

for the time being, she works full-time as a barista at the café just a block from her cute little studio apartment while looking into internships at record labels for her to take on a little further down the line ( no rush bc it’s already quite competitive and she’d rather enjoy what she has going now )

she’s also making something of an income as the creator of an acct on youtube and soundcloud for her music, something she’s had for abt two years now

she’s not even close to making it big yet, and she doesn’t mind if she never works for a moderately to highly popular label — though she should if she wants to get by

among the aesthetic, lo-fi music crowd ( one of those yt accts with a livestream for certain playlists that go on for hours, rip ) where for the most part, it’s personal faves mixed with her own works, and has a substantial following as of now. but has an interest in experimenting, with mashups ( as a lover of them ?? i couldn’t help myself sgflkdsjg ) for example, with a small fear of how that change would be received

this is so short iK, it’s a little infuriating if you ask me ljkgdfjls

in terms of her personality and other things:

she’s a very loyal person, v e r y. while like i said, her relationship with her brother is Not Great, she hasn’t completely given up on him. maybe for the time being, but her being someone who’s open to the idea of people changing for the better somewhere down the line, leaves a bit of room for her to possibly change her mind if he does enough to allow her to consider it

so she can be a bit of a doormat in some cases, it all depends on how she sees the person that determines if that’s the case, but she generally won’t let you off if you’re being dumb/an ass to someone or if she gets advantageous vibes from you for example ( given she can.. be a little naive and is a p gentle soul ) so.. idk fgklsj good luck to the 99% ig ??

she does have a slight dependency on others despite her thinking all signs point to the opposite, and even though her and her mom never rly had a good relationship she still reels from the neglect/abandonment some days so handle her with Care if she deems you a close pal,

spontaneous tbh, moving to jeju was a little last minute on her part, for one

she’s a little reclusive when focused on something, if she tells you she’s working on a track, it’s essentially a head’s up that you might not see her for a couple of days depending on how soon she gets it done — lowkey that bitch™ who makes up an illness to her boss, so she wouldn’t even show up for work if it’s more than just her fucking around

bc admittedly, a lot of what she posts is fucking around and liking it, her more thought-out and effort packed projects are hidden away on her laptop

a bit insecure with her work and just her general disposition ?? those first few points above mess with her a lot and leave her disheartened so.. my poor child

v strong overall, takes people’s shit and if it gets to her, she gets over it p fast. doesn’t dwell on much and will be courteous to you even if she’s declared you too toxic to stick around 24/7

isn’t exactly one to get angry ?? she’s basically just disappointed or annoyed at best 99% of the time, it takes a lot to get her beyond that

positive, ugh. maybe not sickeningly sweet, but still. kinda explained parts of it above and i’m 95% gone mentally rn, gotta spare that for other little details gsjklf

a cute bean who wants the best for everyone and is also clumsy as absolute fuCK

uhhh

plays piano and bass guitar ( you don’t know how tempted i was to say clarinet bc of jiwoo gjflkgds )

prob had some kind of little amateur rock band with a few music majors and took up bass for the hell of it lmao

loves animals, leans towards cats or big dogs. corgis and those little spaniels get a pass tho

speaking of, she has a cute little calico kitten ( i’m shit with pet names so that’s tba rgkjls ) who she Loves, her baby !!

sweater, ball cap and basic t shirt junkie

those glasses somin’s been wearing a lot of lately ?? hyeran wears them too but.. actually needs them, not even close to a fashion statement

doesn’t don much makeup unless someone’s dragging her to a party or something

thaT’S when she looks a little more like a classy early twenties bitch.. which lbr, is hard enough when adulthood is a whole Train Wreck for the most part LGFJSDL

not a heavy drinker, but the textbook definition of a lightweight so.. she’s always praying for anyone who has to deal with her dgfjklsfg

lattes are her livelihood

a bit of a hopeless romantic, god help her

her favourite subject in school was literature/writing and reads quite a bit on her breaks at the café

favourite music genres.. it’s easier to say what she doesn’t like/finds boring, which is prob country and some aspects of edm/pop, not into punk/metal either

these are super basic but.. i’ve gotta get myself together for the day so this’ll do for now i hope ??

so if you’d like to plot, im me here or on d*scord ! i prefer the latter personally, but whichever’s easiest for you. i have a list of a few of the specific wcs i have in mind ( for the time being, catch my lazy ass avoid listing all the basic ones and revising a few i have on an old blog ) for hyeran up now, which you can find here, so just lmk if any of them appeal to you !!

#╳┊: — bitch you’re gonna die ! •「 ooc. 」#islandintro #so uh yeah #this is messy GKFLDSJDG i apologize #at this point i might just add those additional long plots in the form of an ooc bc formatting on a page?? a Pain #.. basically too lazy for my own good rip

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myprofessionalpractice · 4 years

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a few virtual tours, a few real tours

In this strange and unusual time of lockdown for the world, one of the biggest losses to culture and society is that of galleries and museums. They are widely visited daily, across the globe, allowing generations of people to learn about and appreciate works of art and aspects of history.

Despite this, we also live in a time where people can connect very easily online. Although some people often find this tiresome or useless, instead believing people should go out and see the world for themselves, it has proved insanely useful with current events: many galleries and museums have found a new way to use this to their advantage.

Seeing as we cannot make it to our Design Connections event and talk to artists and practitioners about their current work, I thought it would be enlightening to look back on some of the works I’ve seen before that are of historical and cultural importance, and perhaps discuss why this is and how it came to be. Also, with the additional help of some of the virtual tours now on offer online, I can take a look at some works I have yet to see, and examine those too - perhaps offering insight on why I wish to visit them.

London, April 2018

One of the most well-known galleries in the world is The National Gallery, situated in London’s Trafalgar Square. It is home to many renowned artworks by lots of famous artists. I have been a few times, most recently in April 2018.

I love the National Gallery not only for the art it houses, but for the architecture. It’s one of the best places in London just to sit, maybe near your favourite painting, and watch the world go by as tourists skim past art by some of the most renowned artists in the world.

Every month the National Gallery list on their website a ‘picture of the month’, one picture from their gallery, to spotlight. April 2020′s picture of the month is one I actually took a picture of myself, in the same month two years ago. It is Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s Lake Keitele, painted in 1905 as he was recovering from malaria. Lake Keitele is in central Finland, and Gallen-Kallela, a Finnish artist, was captivated by the view. He painted it multiple times.

The painting is captivating, too, a mix of bright reflections and dark, sombre shadows. The National Gallery website writes that “strips of steel-grey zigzag boldly across the surface of the lake. They capture the effects of wind moving across the water and the currents beneath”. Gallen-Kallela imagined these to be down to a passing boat. The artist expressed his love of Finland through art, in a time when Finland was trying to gain independence from Russia.

Below is one of my favourite paintings of all time, displayed in the National Gallery. It was painted in 1889 by Vincent Van Gogh, one of the most famous artists of all time, and is called A Wheatfield, with Cypresses. Whilst a patient at Saint-Paul de Mausole, a psychiatric facility in the south of France, Van Gogh painted several versions of the same wheatfield. The one at the National Gallery is the final version.

Arguably, the vast majority of Van Gogh’s artworks have captured the hearts of the world, long after his death. He paints rhythmically, with swirling brush strokes that capture the movement of nature. This particular painting boasts this effect beautifully; vincentvangogh.org notes how the Cypresses stand vertical and contrast the many horizontal aspects of the work. They also note more contrasts, such as the contrast of warm colours versus cool, or sky versus land. One quote of theirs I particularly enjoyed: the work is dubbed “restless beyond measure”, which is a common feature in Van Gogh’s work. This is a perfect example.

Athens, September 2019

Athens is home to the Acropolis, and subsequently the Parthenon, which is probably the most iconic imagery associated with Ancient Greece. It has been a source of endless fascination for centuries, across the world.

Athen’s The Acropolis Museum is a much more recent museum, opened in 2009, filled to the brim with Ancient Greek artefacts excavated from the Acropolis itself. It was purpose-built to house everything found on the hill and surroundings, and there are plenty of them.

In fact, the whole of Athens seems dedicated to its history, as even the Metro stations exhibit artefacts dug up in their construction.

The Acropolis Museum is built over yet another archeological site, an ancient neighbourhood complete with a drainage system and bathhouses.

Much of the floor in the museum itself is made of glass, allowing the endless stream of visitors to view the site beneath. At the entrance to the museum there is a large drop where the remains of a bathhouse are in view. There’s also a walkway under the museum where visitors can tour the archeological site, and it is incredibly odd but also kind of touching to be immersed in ruins where people actually lived, thousands of years ago.

The Acropolis Museum, as by name, is a museum, rather than a gallery. However one area of the museum, the Archaic Acropolis Gallery, is full to the brim with sculptures and statues. Archaic refers to the period from 8th century BC until the end of the Persian Wars, or around 480 BC. This period saw immense changes in Greek language, society, art, architecture, and politics, due to the increasing population and usage of trade.

The exhibits in the Archaic Acropolis Gallery are beautifully presented on large white podiums. It is strictly no photographs, so I took none of my own (the one below is from the museum’s website). This way of exhibiting offers tourists a way of viewing the artefacts from all sides. The gallery is lit mostly using natural light through giant windows, and as the light shifts outside, the way the statues can be viewed changes too.

Also open is the museum’s Parthenon Gallery, seen below. It houses many of the famous Elgin Marbles, which were originally part of the Parthenon and other buildings on and surrounding the Acropolis. Most of the Marbles were removed (or stolen) by Lord Elgin who moved them to England in 1812, where they were bought by the British Museum. There has been much international pressure for them to be returned to their rightful place, especially now the Acropolis Museum houses the rest of them, but this is yet to happen. The Parthenon Gallery in Athens leaves spaces in the exhibition for the stolen pieces and displays casts of others, so it’s easily visible where the originals should be.

The sculptures once displayed on the east pediments of the Parthenon tell the tale of the birth of the goddess Athena, while those on the west depict a battle between Athena and the god Poseidon to determine who would be the patron deity of Athens (LiveScience). Although the Marbles themselves and the stories they tell are beautiful and important to Ancient Greek history, much of their coverage and popularity worldwide is down to the repatriation debate.

I adored Athens. I’ve had an interest in Ancient Greece since I was very young, and of course the capital city is the best place to visit for this purpose. It was such a joy to walk alongside the Acropolis, or to turn random corners and see a part of ancient history in the middle of the street.

Many people share this with me. For an incredibly long time Greece was the leading nation in politics, art, philosophy, society and culture, as well as the birthplace of democracy. Athens, as the country’s capital city, was an obvious epicentre. History.com write that “over the centuries, the Acropolis was many things: a home to kings, a citadel, a mythical home of the gods, a religious centre and a tourist attraction.” All this has led to a fascination among historians and tourists alike.

The Parthenon has been standing for over 2,000 years. It has obviously deteriorated over time, but it’s still there, and is now being renovated in a multi-million euro project. It is visible far and wide in Athens, and is an iconic symbol of not only Greek antiquity but ancient history as a whole.

It’s no wonder why the Acropolis Museum is so immensely popular. Stacked full of artefacts and pieces of history, it’s like stepping into the past.

The museum is part of Google’s Arts and Culture galleries project and therefore can be visited online, too.

Paris, January 2020

The Musée de Louvre is one of the most famous museums in the world, and for good reason. I loved wandering the halls on my trip to Paris, even when the fire alarm went off for a solid twenty minutes and not one person left in haste (truly, truly French).

Like the Acropolis Museum, the Louvre is more of a museum than a gallery, and there are hundreds and hundreds of artefacts at the Louvre. However, one painting is the Louvre’s pride and joy. People visit the museum specifically to see Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, easily the most famous painting in the world. There is a carefully guarded and staffed queue system you must stand in to view the painting up close, and even then it is behind bulletproof glass (in 1956, somebody threw acid at her!).

The Mona Lisa is a perfect example of an image or painting captivating the world, and is clearly of great historical and cultural importance. Plenty of people before me, with far better knowledge and understanding, have tried to describe why exactly the Mona Lisa is so popular. Encyclopaedia Britannica’s article “Why Is the Mona Lisa So Famous?” theorises there is no single explanation, but there are plenty of reasons why the painting draws thousands of ardent admirers daily.

Clearly, the painting is very realistic and displays great technical ability. There are plenty of technically good paintings, however - in fact, the Mona Lisa is surrounded by them at the Louvre, and in the many galleries of Paris.

It could be the painting’s journey that proved it to be so popular. It became more and more well known as it travelled around France, first in the court of Frances I, King of France and part of the royal collection. In the French Revolution the collection was claimed as the property of the people, and it was only after a period in Napoleon’s bedroom that it was given to the Louvre.

The mystery of the painting’s subject has allowed the public to project an identity onto the Mona Lisa. Scholars theorise the portrait is of Lisa Gherardini, wife of the Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo, but there’s no proof of this as no record of a commission can be found. The speculation surrounding the painting is as much a part of culture than the painting itself.

It’s even possible that the Mona Lisa is possible because in 1911, it was stolen by Italian immigrant Vincenzo Peruggia. He was tried and imprisoned before he could sell the painting, which proved impossible due to its popularity. The ensuing media frenzy cemented the portrait into popular culture, where it has stayed for over a century.

Subsequent tours of the USA and Japan have helped it gain worldwide fame, as well as pop artists using her likeness to challenge what it means to make art and worship it. With the emergence of computers and the internet, the Mona Lisa began to be endlessly reproduced and again rose to immense popularity, to the point where I asked my sister, who has no interest in art, to name a painting - her reply was, naturally, “the Mona Lisa”.

In all honesty, the Mona Lisa is obviously part of history and I am very happy to have been able to visit her, but the Louvre is so expansive and full of interesting and beautiful things that she might even have been a little underwhelming. After all, you can't get too close, and she is behind glass. Perhaps more interesting was the painting she is facing, if only for the sheer size of it. The Wedding at Cana by Paolo Veronese (1563) depicts the biblical story of the Marriage at Cana, at which Jesus turns water into wine. It is the biggest painting at the Louvre, yet one which people often miss, what with the excitement of the painting it faces.

The Venus de Milo is also housed at the Louvre. It is an Ancient Greek statue thought to be the work of Alexandros of Antioch. It is believed to be a depiction of Aphrodite, but could also be of the sea goddess Amphitrite. Amphitrite was venerated on the Greek island Milos, where the statue was discovered in 1820. The statue was built from two blocks of marble and is comprised of several pieces all joined together, fixed with vertical pegs. The Louvre writes that this was common in Greek sculpture, especially in the Cyclades around 100BC, when the Venus de Milo is thought to have been sculpted. The statue is named after the Roman name for Aphrodite, ‘Venus’, and the island of Milos. Her arms were never found.

The Smithsonian note that the Venus de Milo is the most famous sculpture in the world, and “after the Mona Lisa, the most famous work of art in the world”. Despite many sculptures like it, and most sculptures from this period looking incredibly similar, she is immediately recognisable due to her missing arms. It’s probable that with her arms, the Venus de Milo would be way less popular.

She is posed in an ‘S’ curve, a feature traditional in Ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. The technique allows a more realistic distribution of weight. My Modern Met theorise she was likely “colourfully painted and adorned with jewellery, though no pigment or metal remain on the marble today”. The Louvre acknowledge that holes remain where the statue was originally adorned in metal jewellery.

Bradley Weber, Wikimedia Commons

Bob Duggan writes in his article “How the Venus de Milo Changed Female Beauty” that female nudity was not common in art and sculpture in Ancient Greece, whilst male nudity was common due to the lack of clothing in sport and competition. It wasn’t until 350 BC that Praxiteles began to sculpt the female form, and even then, the sculptures were rarely nude, instead draped in fine clothes that hinted at their outline. Venus de Milo comes way after Praxiteles, but clings onto this trend with a draped lower half.

Like the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo has become a staple of classical art and an iconic representation of sculpture and Greek antiquity. It can be found everywhere, including one particular episode of ‘The Simpsons’ in 1994.

Screencap via Tumblr.

Also like the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo owes much of her popularity to modern art and propaganda: in fact, a specific propaganda campaign by the French in 1821, when it arrived at the Louvre. They were incredibly excited by her arrival, as the British had just bought the Elgin Marbles ripped from the Parthenon, and the Apollo Belvedere was returned to the Vatican. France were in need of an exhibit from classical Greece and, like magic, along came the Venus de Milo. However, the Venus de Milo was actually sculpted half a century after Greece’s classical age, and the Louvre's director Forbin allegedly hid her base to hide this fact.

The Art Minute write that “surely, the Venus de Milo is idealised: the features on her face are symmetrical, her breasts are small, her hips are wide, and her body is fleshy and soft”. She is the perfect example of beauty in Greece’s classical era, much changed from then to now, and offers us insight into female beauty in Ancient Greece. This was clearly their ideal if the goddess of love, beauty and sexuality was sculpted this way.

The article also says that “her twisted posture invites viewers to walk around all sides of her magnificent figure in order to see every curve and bump in her lovely form”, describing exactly what it’s like to be in her presence. Venus de Milo is 6′8″, and this affects her presence greatly also. Speaking from experience, it truly affects you to turn the corner and see her towering above you, knowing you are in the presence of part of history.

The Louvre was one of the best places I’ve ever been, and certainly one of my favourite things in Paris. It was a real bucket list moment. If you’re not lucky enough to visit the Louvre in real life, you can do it through a screen too.

Musée d’Orsay

I didn't have time to visit the Musée d’Orsay when I was in Paris, but it would be first on my list if I were to return. It houses the largest collection of impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, and subsequently is home to many of my favourite artists and paintings.

Google Arts & Culture have many virtual tours available, and the Musée d’Orsay is one of them. I was delighted to find out you can essentially stand in front of some of the most famous paintings in the world, only from home, maybe in your pyjamas with a cup of tea.

Above is The Ballet Class (or La Classe de Danse), by French artist Edgar Degas. Degas is famous for his depictions of ballerinas, as over half of his works contain dancers. The most notable of his works is the sculpture Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, the original of which is exhibited in the National Gallery of Art in NYC. Although Degas is a noted Anti-Semite and objectively cruel person, when it comes to his work I deploy a philosophy of separating the art from the artist, as I have always loved his delicate portrayals of young ballerinas in their studio.

The accompanying information given with The Ballet Class by the Musée d’Orsay reads: “more than the stage performance and the limelight, it was the training and rehearsals that interested him. Here the class is coming to an end – the pupils are exhausted, they are stretching, twisting to scratch their backs, adjusting their hair or clothes, an earring, or a ribbon, paying little heed to the inflexible teacher, a portrait of Jules Perrot, a real-life ballet master”.

This painting is captivating perhaps due to the theory of voyeurism. As the viewer, we are looking in on a scene captured from real life, without the people in it having any knowledge we are there. We have an insight into a practice most people don't see, especially people like me who cannot dance at all.

One reason why I've always wanted to visit the Musée d’Orsay is to see some of the paintings by Claude Monet. Many, many people hold Monet in high regard, listing him as one of their favourite artists, and I’m among them.

Monet bought a house in Giverny, France, in 1893. From then on, the house and its gardens became his main source of inspiration, mostly including the water lilies he planted in his water garden. Many of his paintings focus on these - the series consists of around 250 paintings - and they have become his most famous works, displayed in museums around the world.

The above painting, Blue Water Lilies (or Nymphéas bleus) focuses on a very cropped, specific area of Monet’s water garden. It features few details, instead using a very abstract brush stroke and instead using colour to hint at shapes and forms. The Musée d’Orsay write: “never was the artist's brushstroke so free, so detached from the description of forms. A close-up view of the canvas gives a feeling of total abstraction, because the brushstrokes are stronger than the identification of the plants or their reflections”.

As well as this, the gallery also suggests why the painting, and those much like it, are so captivating: “the viewer has to make a constant visual and mental effort to piece together the landscape suggested in the painting”. The paintings that we really have to think about are often the ones that stick in our minds.

Although I will make it my goal to see these paintings in real life too, I found them through Google Arts & Culture’s virtual tour.

Musée de l’Orangerie

Also the home to many paintings from Monet’s Water Lilies series is the Musée de l’Orangerie. Although the museum displays works by other artists like Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume, they are most famous for their Monet collection.

As part of his Water Lilies series, Monet painted several murals. During the 1920s, two oval rooms were built at the Musée de l’Orangerie to house eight of them, and they are still there today. The above is The Water Lilies - Morning. Together, the murals show the passage of time through the day. The light shifts and changes throughout all eight, as the museum notes that “as of 1886, Monet became more interested in representing his garden according to the rythm of light variations”.

Monet’s wild popularity may be down to pure aesthetics. He painted beautiful paintings, beautiful scenes that were pleasing to the eye, using colourful palettes and free and loose brush strokes. It could be that the water lilies themselves aren't the reason why the painting are so popular. Monet ‘zoomed in’, as such, on the water itself, cropping the edges and removing the image of any horizon or skyline.

Thames and Hudson say “the works become less and less about constituent elements and orientation, and more about the energetic gestures of paintbrush and pigment... there is no frame, no single resting place for the eye, only an immersion in planes and passages of colour”.

There’s an element of freedom, and clear adoration from Monet for his surroundings, which maybe we share with him whilst viewing. The artist himself said “the water-flowers themselves are far from being the whole scene. Really, they are just the accompaniment. The essence of the motif is the mirror of water, whose appearance alters at every moment.”

I toured the Musée de l’Orangerie and the Water Lilies murals using the same method as done previously, here.

More to See

If you too are stuck indoors in 2020, or are finding this post in the future and enjoy sitting looking at paintings from the comfort of your own home, you can find lots of other virtual tours below.

The National Gallery, London, UK

National Portrait Gallery, London, UK

The British Museum, London, UK

Vatican Museums, Vatican City, Italy

The Uffizi Galleries, Florence, Italy

Picasso Museum, Barcelona, Spain

The Guggenheim, New York City, USA

The Museum of Modern Art, New York City, USA

#review

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jamiekturner · 5 years

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Everything you need to know about skeleton screens

How do we know that skeleton screens actually work?

Years ago, I wrote about Designing for the Appearance of Speed, outlining some impetus and methods for creating the illusion of short page load times in apps and on the web.

Shortly after that article was published, I had amazing conversations with fellow designers and engineers, largely around a single question — “how do we actually know that skeleton screens work?” A valid question — no definitive studies exist to validate the efficacy of the pattern (which, to us, seemed to make so much sense).

Skeleton screens in different shapes and sizes are seemingly found everywhere across the web and apps — anywhere humans are forced to wait.

But do they actually work?

🔬Research summary (TL;DR)

Skeleton screens (as splash screens), when used to indicate that a screen is loading, are perceived as being shorter in duration when compared against a blank screen (our control) and a spinner — but not by much

Skeleton screens should not block gradual content loads (real content should replace skeleton objects immediately when the data is available). The vast majority of skeleton screens in use today are splash screens, and not skeleton screens in the original way described by Luke Wroblewski.

When designing skeleton screens, I recommend using motion to further decrease perceived duration time

Skeleton screens that leverage motion that moves from left to right (e.g. a wave or shimmer like animation, much like Facebook or Google uses) are perceived as shorter in duration than skeletons that pulse (opacity fading in and out)

Skeleton screens using motion that is slow and steady are perceived as shorter in duration than skeleton screens that use fast or rapid motion

The sample sizes in this study are too small to conclude anything definitively, but they do provide useful hints as to how we could design waiting experiences

Skeleton screens: an overview 💀

Luke Wroblewski first coined the term “skeleton screen” in a blog postadvising that designers eschew the use of spinners (typically a graphical element that is animated rotating on its center point) in favour of visual placeholders. He referenced work he had done on a native mobile app called Polar, specifically around excessive wait times reported by users when loading the app’s web views. Initially, spinners were used to indicate that a web view was loading in. Luke said it best:

“We had made people watch the clock… as a result, time went slower and so did our app. We focused on the indicator and not the progress.”

To mitigate focus on the loading process, versus the actual content that is loading, Wroblewski introduced a novel new design pattern — the skeleton screen. In his own words, they are “essentially a blank version of a page into which information is gradually loaded.” These visual placeholders were shown by Wroblewski to be light grey boxes that appeared instantly in areas where content had not yet completed loading.

Shifting our focus to the content being loaded, and away from the actual loading itself — an almost Dickensian red herring. But what’s the actual impact?

Explicit loading paradigms

Initially, spinners were used in the Polar app to communicate to users when the web view was pulling from a server. Let’s be clear here: in his post, Luke isn’t picking on the common place practice of using spinners — instead he is commenting (perhaps indirectly) on a natural human tendency to detest idle time, and the need to manage human perceptions.

Spinners and progress bars are explicit loading paradigms in that they focus the user on communicating a loading period and, more often than not, are blocking user interaction until a layout has loaded enough to be useful.

Common loading paradigms on the web and in apps today, from left to right: a custom loading animation, a spinner, and a progress bar.

Skeleton screens defined

Skeleton screens are blank pages that are progressively populated with content, such as text and images, as they become available (i.e. when network latency allows). Grey or neutral-toned filled shapes, commonly called placeholders, meet the user instantly upon user interaction with calls to action or links. The placeholders (the so-called “bones” of the skeleton) are then replaced with the actual site content, and the illusion is complete. That’s what skeleton screens do: create the illusion of an instant transition.

Skeleton screens in the wild

Facebook

Facebook’s newsfeed loading state in 2018

LinkedIn’s Home Feed loading state in 2018

Google Drive

Google Drive’s partially loaded state in 2018 — notice how skeletons are used in the Quick Access slots

YouTube

YouTube’s home screen loading state in 2018

Commonalities

All of these examples above employ common visual design approaches:

Use of motion within the skeleton objects

Skeleton objects are light grey or neutral in color

Facebook, Linkedin, and YouTube seem to be using skeletons as splash screens, whereas Google Drive uses a spinner for loading its primary folder structure, and skeleton objects for the Quick Access slots

My makeshift testing booth in downtown Vancouver, BC, Canada

The study 🕵️‍‍

The study is comprised of two primary phases:

The first phase pits a common loading paradigm (a spinner) directly against the skeleton screen approach, and is described in more detail in the section titled “Paradigm vs Paradigm”.

The second phase investigates variations on skeleton screens, gauging the effectiveness of each variation. I planned this study before knowing fully the outcomes of the first phase, as my assumption was that the skeleton trend would continue regardless of its assessed efficacy, and I wanted to see for myself what would be optimal in my own work. See the section titled “Implementation variables” for more on this phase of the study.

Previous studies

Little research has surfaced that shows the effectiveness of skeleton screens at reducing perceived queuing times. Viget released a 2017 study that speaks against the touted value of skeletons when compared to spinners and a blank screen (spoiler alert: skeleton screens performed the worst in terms of perceived duration of time). Yet even with the Viget study in hand with seemingly indicative results, I wanted to take things a bit further.

Testing principles

I wanted to test skeleton screens as much as I could on a physical mobile device, as that best represents the “half-focussed” state that most of us are in when we’re on our mobile (half focussed on the device, and half focussed on traversing the streets or eating a bagel). I also wanted test participants that (preferably) did not work in the tech industry. So I took to the streets of downtown Vancouver and got to work talking to locals of all ages, genders, and life situations.

In the second part of this study, I leveraged testers on UserTesting.com (sadly because the weather had turned and it was becoming increasingly unpleasant to sit and wait for research participants outside).

Paradigm vs paradigm

Hypothesis: displaying a skeleton screen will cause humans to perceive a loading period as being shorter in duration.

Methodology

In considering how to best approach participants, I realized that past tests I had attempted against this hypothesis were rife with issues that could be easily mitigated, namely that:

Interrupting the test participant to collect an assessment by asking questions is disruptive

The questions I asked tended to be repetitive, as I ran 12 individual tests with each participant and needed to ask questions after each “round”

The order in which I showed each loading paradigm and duration was manually randomized, which was exhausting to keep up over the course of an entire day of testing

To mitigate some of these issues, I decided that an app on a physical phone, presented to the test participant to complete on their own, was the best solution. Preliminary user testing of the testing app proved positive after several iterations and refinements.

Once I approached a potential test participant on the street, I asked them to complete the tasks as instructed on the device and assured them that they could stop at anytime to ask any questions or rest. Once they completed the test, and offered any open ended comments on which paradigm they preferred, a donut was offered as a reward and my participants were sent on their way, happy in the knowledge that some odd fellow was on top of testing different loading methods with strangers. Hurrah! 🍩

126 total unique individuals were approached on the street from varying backgrounds, primarily from non-technology oriented backgrounds. The sample size was 80 individuals who have all had experience with mobile devices.

The testing app📱

The app was written in the Swift programming language and was loaded onto an iPhone 7 (this is the form factor I felt would feel comfortable in most hands). When the participant completed their test, the results were sent to a Firebase database from where I could pull daily results into a CSV (comma separated values) file for analysis.

Participants were asked to read the instructions presented in-app, and take their time when completing the presented tasks. Before beginning the tests, I ran the participants through a really quick warm-up, so that they knew what to expect. Here’s what our participants had to do:

Press a button to begin the test

Wait while observing a skeleton, a spinner, or a blank screen

Observe the loaded page state

Finally, they’re transitioned to a last step, where they answer two questions — how long did they feel the page load took in seconds, and how did waiting for that page load make them feel?

They would repeat this test, 8 more times (for a total of 9 total tests per session)

I also asked open-ended questions at the end to collect more qualitative observations. I usually prompted this conversation by asking “of the different ways of loading a mobile page as you saw today, did you have a favourite?”

In order to mitigate any bias, where seeing one pattern before another might skew the perceived duration, the app automatically randomized the order in which the different loading paradigms appeared.

The app also randomized the actual duration presented for each loading paradigm, so the duration didn’t seem as if it was progressively getting longer, or shorter.

Participants were asked to complete nine different tests (three different durations for each of the three loading paradigms)

A screenshot from Sketch, of the testing app.

Results

When testing skeletons versus spinners and our blank control in random order, the skeleton performed the best in terms of perceived durationwhen shown to people using mobile devices (see the below table for a summary of the mean test results for a sample size of 80 individuals). Actual durations shown to these participants were randomized to prevent them from interpreting a progressive increase in duration. Our blank control performed worst overall.

Results measuring perceived duration (how long the participant felt they were waiting for).

Results measuring emotional reaction (how the participant felt after viewing the loading method).

Skeleton screens also performed best on the emotional level, with participants being the most happy with skeleton screen loads, and least happy overall with a blank screen. After viewing each combination of duration and loading method, participants were asked to measure how each viewing made them feel using emoji, with 0 = Very happy, and 4 = Maximum frustration. Here’s what they were shown after each test:

After viewing each combination of duration and loading method, participants were asked to measure how each viewing made them feel using emoji.

Analysis & interpretation

When skeleton screens are used between page loads on mobile devices, the perceived elapsed time (duration) is shorter when compared to a spinner or a blank screen. In some instances, the skeleton is equivalent to the spinner, such as in our 5.5s duration tests, and indeed the superiority of skeletons over spinners is minor. One might hypothesize that different presentation methods of the spinner might affect results significantly. In our tests, I used a spinner that I thought was generic and looked most native to the platform (iOS in this case).

In both dimensions (perceived performance and emotional impact) using any loading indicator is superior to a blank screen.

Implementation variables

Hypothesis: the visual presentation of skeleton screens will cause humans to perceive a loading time as being shorter in duration.

I began hypothesizing how variations on the skeleton could affect perceived duration early on in this investigation (before I had results on whether skeletons were more performant than spinners).

Early hints that the visual presentation of skeleton screens could affect perceived duration came from sources such as this 2010 study (in this study, progress bars presented with a “ribbing” animation proved superior in terms of perceived wait duration). Further reading can be done on the contrast of objects and how they impact human perception of speed.

Methodology

In order to determine the effectiveness of any particular visual presentation of skeleton screens, I spent time to collect the most popular approaches currently used in the market. Here are some common approaches:

Static placeholders

Pulsing placeholders (the opacity of the skeleton objects transitioning in and out slowly)

A wave (or shimmer) animation (varying between moving from right to left or the opposite) overlaid atop the placeholders

With the weather turning outside (I had done all previous tests outdoors in downtown Vancouver, BC) I turned to 80 unique mobile devices users on UserTesting.com in order to test these implementation variables. Participants were from a largely North American audience and were asked to conduct the tests on mobile devices. To conduct the test, I mocked up a mobile product page for a make-believe footwear brand to make the comparison seem like a real-world example.

Participants were shown one presentation, then another immediately after. The order in which I showed each presentation method was flipped in each “set” presented. For example, if I tested a static versus pulsing skeleton screen, the first 10 participants were shown the static version first, and the last 10 were shown the pulsing version first instead. This was done to mitigate any concerns that a bias may arise from seeing one method before the other.

The participants were not told that the duration of each example they saw were exactly the same duration (all durations were 5 seconds in length). Upon viewing the two presentation methods, the participant was asked, “of the two page transitions you observed, which page transition was faster?”

The tests

I sequentially layered the implementation methods in order to move from macro variables into micro variables. Here’s the order of tests I went through:

I started by testing static skeletons against skeletons that pulsed, in order to determine if motion (or lack thereof) had an impact

Then I tested a pulsing animation against a wave (or shimmer) animation

In the third test, I pitted a quick wave transitions against slow and steady wave animation

Finally I tested a left to right motion, versus a right to left motion

An example of a pulsing skeleton load

An example of a slow and steady wave animation (otherwise known as a shimmer)

Results: Static vs animated skeletons

60% of test participants guessed that the animated skeletons represented a shorter duration. Sample size: 20 unique testers

Results: Pulsing animation vs wave animation

65% of test participants guessed that the wave animation represented a shorter duration. Sample size: 20 unique testers

Results: Quick vs Slow and steady wave

60% of test participants guessed that the slow wave animation represented a shorter duration. Sample size: 20 unique testers

Results: Left to right wave animation vs right to left

68% of test participants guessed that the left to right wave animation represented a shorter duration. Sample size: 20 unique testers

Analysis & interpretation

The results from this grouping of tests is indicative but not conclusive by any means. What might throw some flavour into these results is that, when speaking aloud about why they decided the way they did, test participants were fairly indecisive when it came to more nuanced tests (for example the quick versus slow wave test). However, when it came to tests that were more obvious to discern (such as the pulsing versus wave animation test) testparticipants were decisive and fully convinced that one was shorter in duration than the other (even though the durations were all consistent across the board).

How should we design skeleton screens?

The key role of motion

While further study of the efficacy and effectiveness skeleton screens is needed, this exercise has provided us with a few clues as to how we can make the most of this unique pattern, namely:

Designers should prefer a wave effect (or shimmer, much like Facebook uses) over a pulse

Motion should not be so fast as to draw attention to the skeleton objects (slow and steady, like found in the Google iOS app is optimal)

Designers should prefer animation that moves from left to right (it would be interesting to see if RTL reading cultures would interpret this differently)

Use of dominant colors

The use of dominant color based skeleton objects is a unique method of providing future context to objects that are loading, as if to imply more acutely the future loaded state. Google Photos uses this pattern, as does Pinterest.

Google Image Search uses dominant color placeholders.

Skeleton screens are not splash screens

Before we dove into the details of this study, I mentioned that the vast majority of skeleton screens implemented today act exclusively as splash screens. When designing loading experiences, strive to progressively load content, replacing skeleton placeholder objects with content like real text and images as soon as they are available. Luke Wroblewski (the early pioneer of skeleton screens) speaks about this in detail at the 2018 Conversions at Google. Luke calls this “gradual content loading”. Future studies should compare a true gradually loaded skeleton with other loading indicators, while leveraging a larger sample size.

Afterwards: on time perception

Allow me to be real for several thousand milliseconds here: why would the mere perception of a site or app loading several hundred milliseconds faster, prompt such a deep personal investigation into something seemingly innocuous as skeleton screens?

As part of the generation that inserted 13 floppy disks to install Windows 95, you would think that the LTE and fiber connections we enjoy today might make me nostalgic for simpler times, times when I could head to the fridge for pie while waiting for my favourite Geocities web page to finish loading in all its animated GIF glory.

But alas no.

I am as impatient as teenagers on the bus complaining about the 12mbps load of their Instagram feed. I cringe when the animation of a mobile navigation stutters along at sub-30 frames-per-second. I wonder why the payment terminal at the grocery store takes a full 2 seconds to actually get ready before I can tap my watch to pay. Our world and the society it hosts, now moves faster than large swathes of our species can process. Does it seem to you that our perception of time is accelerating beyond our ability to acclimate? You are not alone.

Delving into how humans perceive time in the context of the pace of technology around us, has been an enlightening experience. But I am also filled with trepidation. As Peter Conrad best put it, “Modernity is about the acceleration of time”. From pure personal observation, the truth of this seems self-evident. Our culture’s patience thins daily, our walking pace has seemingly quickened to near jogging speeds, and our waning tolerance for all things even mildly idle in nature has given way to an entire industry of productivity pundits. This very article grew from my own personal awe as I beheld our collective impatience.

In this human rebuke of slowness will undoubtedly arise new anxieties and irrational impulses. And perhaps new ways to stanch our fear that time is slipping from our grasp — as we sit and quietly contemplate skeleton screens.

With gratitude

This study would not have been possible if not for the hard work of my friend Karl Schmidt, an iOS developer who volunteered to code up an app to automate collecting results from research.

Thanks to designers Jaybe Allanson, Mitch Lenton, and UX researcher Ben Cole for their guidance in collecting data used in this study. Special thanks go out to Michael Chung and Nikki An for reviewing ahead of publication.

The post Everything you need to know about skeleton screens appeared first on Design your way.

from Web Development & Designing https://www.designyourway.net/blog/user-interface-design/everything-you-need-to-know-about-skeleton-screens/

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adambstingus · 6 years

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5 Directors That Should’ve Stopped After One Movie

Some filmmakers are like marathon winners; they stay consistently strong and fast for an inconceivable amount of time, and when they finish, you are left inspired by their existence. And some directors have careers like my performance in my second grade’s three-legged race. I fell at the start, busted my nose open, and writhed on the ground for a while as my partner walked away from me. The following five directors did similar things in their own metaphorical three-legged races. What began as a burst of glorious potential devolved into something hideous and often embarrassing.

Zack Snyder With Dawn Of The Dead

Zack Snyder has always been the Mountain Dew Code Red to Christopher Nolan’s iced coffee. They both direct grand adventure movies, but while Nolan’s philosophy is that of the kid in the back of the freshman year writing class with the scarf, Snyder’s is frat bro existentialism. Snyder is pretty great at examining the darkness that lurks in the hearts of men, but only when those men are grunting at each other, “HOLD ME BACK BEFORE I LAY THIS MOTHERFUCKER OUT, DUDE”-style. In any other case, it’s a toss-up. For example, in Watchmen, he totally got the plight of radioactive superman Dr. Manhattan. But the only female on the team, Silk Spectre, was shot like she was in an impromptu Axe Body Spray commercial.