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seakicker · 2 years

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MY HEAD IS SO OVERWHEALMED BY THIS MAN THAT I CAN BARELY DECIDED HOW I WANT TO GET BRED BY HIM PLEASE-

Ok first we have the classic: Bullboy Diluc and Farmer Reader. Where our boy is in his rut and is feeling soooo needy, but doesn't dare to show it. You look for him everywhere but when you finally find him, he is in tears and an extreme horniness. So you, as his owner, help him out- and guess what? A couple of months later your belly is swollen with two beautiful half bull babies.

In this one I think he would become sooo protective of you. Following you around the ranch, getting inside your house and MOST DEFINETLY trying to drink your breast milk all day.

You are cooking, cleaning, planting or just taking care of other animals and he is just trying to suck on your tiddies. Ain't he cute.

Second. This one is on the same topic but a bit different.

One Idea I had before listening to the infamous Cow x MMMM audio was one where reader is a half cow and Diluc runs a sort of Milk company.

The idea is that once you apply to the company you get a check up to see if your physical conditions can handle the work. If you do pass the check up you can be put in two groups, the first one is a more relaxed position, where (pregnant or not) you will be milked for as long as you wish to, or as much as the company requires you to.

BUT the second group is Diluc's personal favorite.

The breeding department. Where you will be held 24/7 in the company ground and bred full by the highest quality mates the company can find.

One particular day Diluc decided that he would personally do the check ups. (Just for the sake of the old times and to see if he finds any beautiful newcomers). He enters the room and there you were- A beautiful fur that seemed so soft, a plump belly and those beautiful breast, that he could swear they were the biggest he had seen in quite some time.

He enters, introduces himself and begins the check up. He couldn't help but get distracted whenever your chest moved a bit too much or your belly fell into the check up desk.

Once the check up was over, he confirmed that you had passed and were going to be moved to the breeding section. You seemed delighted by the idea and thanked him for his time and started to leave.

Little did you know that all along he had been holding his urge to push his cock into you and breed you full right there.

"Oh, Ms y/n?. I believe we could begin your trial right now"

He later proceeds to breed you for the next 4 hours-

Afterwards he orders his workers to take you to his personal chambers, where you will be staying for the rest of the week.

Anyways. Sorry if I took too long!!!!! I am not such a good writer but I think you get the idea?

-💎

OKAY SWEETHEART IM HERE TO ANSWER THIS NOW i’m sorry if i accidentally made you worry that you missed me earlier after u sent this!!!! i am here 😈

BOTH OF THESE IDEAS ARE SO PERFECT HNNFNFFN i remember you sending a deliciously long ask about that second idea some time ago that i need to go back and find now because when i first read it i was absolutely in love. oh to be diluc’s prized milk cow that gets the honor being hand-trained and personally bred by him… it’s no surprise, either. with as perfect and lovely as you are, diluc wouldn’t even begin to think of assigning you to one of the other trainers. he knows that he shouldn’t let his personal feelings and desires get in the way of work bc that’s just a recipe for disaster, but when he thinks about you being bred by another man/one of the farm’s bulls, it makes him jealous, if he should be so bold. it also made me think about the idea of diluc being a bull himself… a bull running a milk company and personally tending to the sweet little cowgirls he hires? hot.

it’s not often that diluc personally trains or breaks in any of the new cows, as he’s unfortunately just too busy to do anything more than a quick new-hire “quality check” most days, so you should probably consider it a privilege that he decided to fuck you and train you himself… how many other cowgirls get the bragging rights that come with spending an entire week alone with master diluc himself? not many!

#never apologize for the length of ur asks hehe i love all brainrot #whether it’s one sentence or one novel #spicy #cw lactation #cw hybrids #cw breeding #diluc ragnivindr smut #diluc smut #💎 anon #cow reader

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leupagus · 4 days

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Say what you will about Martin's writing style (and I've said plenty) but I do think he's got the White Walkers' mythos worked out for a future book and IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO NICE IF THE SHOWRUNNERS HAD DONE 1/100TH OF THAT WORK SETTING THEM UP

Gus: I am mad all over again that there was absolutely zero explanation given as to why/how the Night King operates or how his powers work or why he chose now to attack or ANYTHING ELSE

Gus: on the plus side it means I get to make up a whole subplot that, not to brag, I'm comfortable saying is at least as good as anything D&D could've made up IF THEY HAD EVER EVEN BOTHERED

Gus: but like - okay so craster's infant sons get sacrificed to the Night King, who them magics them into White Walkers as babies

Mardia: Yep yep

Gus: so does that mean there's a white walker nursery

Mardia: Omg

Gus: do they have to change diapers

Mardia: LOOOOOOOL

Gus: is there a white walker daycare center

Gus: how does the night king TEACH his lil adopted monster babies

Gus: is there like storytime around the - well not fire

Gus: does the Night King remember what it was like to sit around a fire?

Gus: does he miss being a human and all his rage at the spell the Children of the Forest put on him to kill the First Men has curdled his brain?

Gus: what was he DOING for like 8 millennia, just hanging out?

Gus: did he get really good at ice fishing?

Gus: DO THEY EAT?

Gus: where the fuck do they get their snazzy outfits from

Gus: are there white walker tailors

Gus: what's the currency situation

Mardia: Lololololololol

Gus: I'M JUST SAYING

#game of thrones #game of thrones motherfuckers #is there a white walker barber? some of those dudes have cute lil' bobs that takes maintenance #how did they learn to ride horses if they were turned at birth #again is there some sort of montessori school for white walkers #also why does the Children of the Forests' (Children's? of the Forest?) spell work on ALL life?#like wouldn't you have gone to pretty great lengths to control scope creep on this zombie spell #there's literally a one-sentence explanation of 'we needed to defend ourselves from men' ok but the Night King kills BEARS #not to mention a pretty big dragon #IDK maybe it just the *general stuff* right now but I always disliked the Night King as an enemy #because it combines two pretty shitty tropes: 1) the remorseless implacable evil who can never be reasoned/empathized with #and 2) the evil that the persecuted minority sekretly devised themselves to disastrous ends #plus the show isn't smart enough to pick a lane #the night king could be just a force of nature like a tsunami #OR he could be an angry vengeful creature twisted by his own creation - an actual CHARACTER #instead he's just an ice nazi from some terrible video game of the early oughts who smirks as he kills people #anyway dm me for the 2k backstory on the creation of the Night King and his White Walkers #winky face

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bittersweetresilience · 8 months

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it feels cosmically unfair that i think about writing all the time want to write all the time and sit down to write all the time and i come up with two sentences at best. there should be some reward system i think

#RAAAAAAAAAA #the thing is i know why i'm stuck it's because i get overly wrapped up in meaningless details of word choice and sentence structure #and i need every word to be perfect before i can move on to the next and that just creates an interminable cycle of being so slow to #progress i feel like even more like a failure and imperfect and respond by being even more intense about it #in spite of the fact that almost no reader is going to look at my work and go hey nice i noticed you used a word with an aesthetically #pleasing number of letters here as opposed to a word ending in t which would have ruined the flow and disgusted me forever #but it's not about the readers i'm the one who reads it and gets disgusted forever #and i know this does not matter but it feels like there is no conceivable way i could write something without it being perfect first try #fucking hilariously i edited the tags of this post for a good ten minutes because the spacing of the words was bothering me so i had to #find words with different lengths as replacements #RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA #anyway i'm doing wonderfully #this is about soulmate au i think maybe because it's so important to me i'm especially perfectionistic over it right now #brain can you stop it i'm on my hands and knees #also t is the worst letter invented hands down. no question.

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singsweetmelodies · 4 months

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and finally, my darling:

piarles + soulmates ❤️

digging up another one of my 5-sentence fic prompts from a year ago because i reblogged this post and haven't been able to stop thinking about it, so naturally i had to write something about it <3333

this is... not quite 5 sentences, LOL, but it did make me smile a stupid amount. hope it makes you smile, too ❤️

Charles is busy talking to JJ and Pascale outside the Alpine hospitality when his soulmark - a blue swirl vaguely in the shape of a heart, located just below his collarbone, where Pierre loves to kiss - starts to burn with a gentle heat, like it always does when Pierre is close.

"Are you charming my parents again, my love?" Pierre asks, wrapping his arms around Charles' waist from behind and hooking his chin over Charles' shoulder. "Careful, or they'll never let you leave. Maman has been asking after you for months - I think she loves you more than me. Hi, Maman, Papa," he adds belatedly.

Pascale raises one eyebrow, but she's still smiling, soft and fond. "You can't blame me for asking about the man who my son has pined over for half his life, and you especially can't blame me now that you two have finally found your soulmarks."

"Maman!" Pierre protests, and Charles can't see his face, but he knows he's blushing. "It was only about ten years, and I'm twenty-seven. That's not half."

"Just as long as you don't make us wait another ten before you officially make him part of the family," JJ says, and now Charles is blushing, too. "We've waited a very long time for this, you know."

"Okay," Pierre mumbles in the way he always does when he's flustered and trying to hide it. "Well, Charles was coming to visit me before you distracted him, so I'm going to steal him away now, if you don't mind."

"We don't mind..." Pascale says with a sparkle in her eye that reminds Charles of Pierre before a good prank. "... As long as you throw in a good proposal while you're gone."

"Okay!" Pierre half-yells this time, tightening his grip on Charles' waist. "We're going now, thank you."

"It was lovely catching up with you!" Charles calls over his shoulder as Pierre starts towing him away. "I'll see if I can come visit over the winter."

Then Pierre is pulling him into his driver's room and shutting the door behind them, pressing Charles lightly against the door as soon as it closes. "They're terrible," he grumbles, dropping his head onto Charles' shoulder with a dramatic sigh.

"Must be where you get it from," Charles teases, carding his fingers through Pierre's hair. He takes a quick breath before he adds, "Besides, I don't think it's that terrible. Wanting us to get married."

Pierre lifts his head slowly. "Charles," he says, and there's something in his voice that Charles can't quite place. "We haven't even been soulmates for six months."

"No, we've been soulmates for our whole lives," Charles counters. "We only officially found out this year, but I... well, you weren't the only one who was pining for ten years."

"Oh," Pierre says softly, like he somehow hadn't known. Idiotic, wonderful man - as if they don't fit together perfectly in every possible way.

The next thing Charles knows, Pierre is pushing him up against the door with intention. "You know," he says, pinning Charles in place with his eyes as well as his body, "there is a chapel right here, in Vegas. Say the word, and I will go there with you."

"We are not getting married in the Race to the Altar chapel," Charles says firmly, even as his heart skips at the way Pierre's promise feels. Unconditional.

"But we are getting married?" Pierre checks, his gaze never leaving Charles' face.

"Yes, please," Charles says softly, and Pierre's gaze goes dark, like Charles knew it would.

"Good," Pierre says equally softly, breathlessly, and Charles shivers. That is... definitely one of the perks of having your best friend as your soulmate: knowing exactly how to push each other's buttons.

Pierre ducks his head, and tugs Charles' fireproofs down just enough to press his lips against Charles' soulmark. Charles melts against him, like he always has since that night in Zandvoort when Pierre drank a little too much champagne after his first podium for Alpine and "accidentally" kissed Charles on the mouth instead of on the cheek, and just like that, both of their soulmarks appeared.

"I love you," Charles says breathlessly, and not just because Pierre is kissing his neck exactly the way he likes. He also says it because it's true. It's been true for as long as Charles has understood what love is.

Charles can feel Pierre's smile against his skin. "I love you, too," he replies immediately. "And, Charles?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm so glad it was you all along."

#P.S. - thank you for being *my* fandom soulmate; B. love you endlessly ❤️❤️❤️#🦑🏎️ piarles #5 sentence fic #(it's not 5 sentences at all 🤣🤭 but it's the thought that counts???)#(hehehe. <3333)#LISTEN. this fic is literally inspired by me seeing that post of charles talking to jj and pascale #outside the alpine hospitality in vegas #and just immediately thinking #“they are such a PART of each other's LIVES they are SOULMATES and they should get MARRIED”#aka a completely normal reaction which turned into a completely normal length of fic 🤣🤭#xD

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chenziee · 1 year

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Honestly the best writing advice I've ever seen and hold dear to my heart are "said is a valid word" and "just say their name twice I promise it's okay"

#especially the second one #it reads so much easier when you just say someone's name #over coming up with increasingly elaborate ways to call them to #it just #it's so much more natural #especially if you're writing in THEIR POV #idk simple is just GOOD sometimes #writing problems #katie thinks she's relevant #writing tips #obviously there are other important tips #like varying length of sentences and paragraph #the rule of three #and removing redundant words..#still struggling with that one tho #also overusing 'only' and 'as' but that's another issue ahahaha

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heyclickadee · 1 year

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Things about "The Outpost" that are still killing me:

1. That airstrip was huge. And by the time we see Mayday and Crosshair on it they've been walking across it for a while, at the rate they’re going. The TK troopers don't see them at first, but once they do, they gather, see this:

These two men, barely on their feet, clearly in pain, one of them unable to keep holding on to his crutch anymore, staggering towards them inch by inch, looking towards them for help--not a single one of the TK troopers offers any kind of assistance whatsoever. No one calls for a medic, no one rushes forward to carry Mayday. They all just stand there and watch. And when Nolan tells them to go, they do, because they probably don't see the clones that differently than Nolan does.

Yeah, Lieutenant Nolan is an asshole. He went from, "I'm probably going to dislike this guy," to, "LOATHE," in my book with a single line. He's a pathetic officer-wannabe who genuinely thinks of the clones as machinery he can push around and direct how he likes. He doesn't see the problem with kicking around someone like Mayday--someone who technically outranks him, I think--or the danger inherent in goading someone like Crosshair, because he doesn't see either of them as reasoning, emotion-having people who may just retaliate if pushed far enough. He's a snake and he deserved what he got. But his malice is more than matched by the TK troopers' apathy.

2. The way that there's ice and snow frozen to Crosshair's armor on the landing strip, and the fact that Mayday can't quite make it to the end of the tarmac, nor is Crosshair able to continue carrying him. They're both so cold and tired. They've both hit their physical limit and it would have been enough if anyone had cared to help.

3. Crosshair is--literally--stripped of everything that marks him as an imperial soldier or a soldier at all by the end of the episode, and most of it is stuff he casts aside himself. His CT number (in a way, when he gives Mayday his name), his helmet that he doesn't even look for (there as SO MANY good helmet metas out there, so I'm not going to get into it), his rifle (which he gives to Mayday to use as a crutch and doesn't retrieve when Mayday drops it), his backpack (I'm guessing it got too heavy so he threw it away to keep carrying Mayday), and even his armor, reflection mirror...sticker...things, and sidepiece (all of which are taken from him after he blacks out. I'm not real happy about the fact that the scientists at Mount Tantiss changed his clothes while he was unconscious). Of course, the last few function a little bit differently than they first ones do. The CT number, the helmet, the rifle, and I guess (?) even the backpack (though to a much lesser extent) are all Crosshair intentionally putting his imperial identity aside in order to help someone he sees as a brother and re-humanizing himself in the process. The last couple--the armor, the sidepiece--that's the writers telling us how vulnerable Crosshair is in his current situation.

4. The SNOW and the way it interacted with the CHARACTERS was just *chef's kiss* Credit to Joel Aron and the effects department, you guys knocked it out of the park.

5. Likewise, while I'm really glad The Bad Batch does list the names of the animators at CGCG who worked on each episode in the credits (because guess what--not every animated show does this. Sometimes they just list the name of the studio), I really want to know which animators were responsible for animating Crosshair this time around. Or at least Crosshair's shots, since the way I think it often works is that an animator will be assigned a series of shots and be responsible for animating everyone in those shots, because oh boy, was that a performance. Crosshair's animation has always been standout, I think partly (partly) because he's a character that doesn't actually talk that much, and says stuff he doesn't mean at least half the time, so there has to be a certain level of clarity and nuance in his performance for the character comes across the way the writers intend (and partly because being an ultra-expressive but taciturn bundle of emotions is a big part of Crosshair as a person). But the team working on this episode took something that was already great and kicked it up another level.

6. I want to know if Jennifer Corbett, the board artists, layout artists, the other writers, the directors, and others high-fived each other when they came up with the ice vulture symbolism and the rock-wings shot. I want to know if they knew we'd go crazy over it.

7. Mayday. Literally everything about Mayday. Mayday my beloved. *cries*

8. The look on Crosshair's face when he's about to pass out and sees the TK troopers coming still messes me up, because it's the closest thing we've gotten to a real smile (one that actually reaches his eyes) pretty much since he was teasing Echo in the med bay in "Aftermath." Crosshair's someone who's come across as to me passively suicidal since the moment he turned around after the droid fight in "Return to Kamino" and saw Hunter and the rest pointing their guns at him. Passively--meaning that he's not going to actually do anything, that he doesn't actually want to die, he’ll survive however he can, but that he's not exactly planning for the future, either. He'll just keep doing what he's doing until it (almost definitely) kills him. And. I mean. Crosshair's not stupid. He knows what killing Lieutenant Nolan means for him. I'm not saying that Crosshair didn't expect to wake up afterwards, or that he wanted to not wake up, but I am saying that he did decide that avenging Mayday and defying the Empire in whatever small way he could was worth dying for. And that he was very, very tired.

9. I'm so! Glad! That Crosshair's growth wasn't centered around Omega, Wrecker, Tech, Hunter, or Echo. We already know that he cares about them. Showing us the lengths he'll go to help a relative stranger instead and making that his breaking point does so much more to tell us that he's grown.

10. The thing that sticks with me most, though, is the fact that this episode wasn't just sad. It wasn't just unrelenting tragedy, or even like "The Solitary Clone," where overriding emotion of the whole episode is despair. I mean, yes, this episode is sad. It's tragic. You have Lieutenant Nolan's cruelty, you have the malice of the Empire, you have the apathy of the TK troopers, the dehumanization of the clones, the soul-crushing way in which Mayday and Crosshair find out that the clones were always going to be replaced, that inevitability, the futility (on one level) struggle that ends in Mayday's death.

But it's not just that. There's warmth, too. There's camraderie and a little bit of humor. Mayday, a survivor starting to see how pointless it all was, and Crosshair, who's so desperate for companionship at this point that he'd pack bond with a rock, snark back and forth at each other a little bit like old friends. Heck, this is the episode where we get the most profound act of compassion we've seen in the show so far. Mayday didn't have to disarm that mine and save Crosshair, but he did, and it matters. No, Mayday didn't make it, but Crosshair carried him through a blizzard for two days and made sure he didn't get left behind or die alone, even if he couldn't save him, and that matters. Yes, Crosshair's a prisoner now, but he chose to avenge Mayday, grab hold of his own humanity again, and told the Empire where to stuff it, and that matters. Kindness and defiance have their own meaning, even if they don't change the outcome. But the fact that this episode is more than just sad is, I think, why it's so harrowing in the first place.

#the bad batch #tbb spoilers #tbbspoilers #the bad batch spoilers #crosshair bad batch #commander mayday #lieutenant asshole #tw suicide ideation #this episoooooooode!!#back to the shambles I go #I’ll write a normal length post about this show when I’m dead #it’s either two sentences or an essay #there is no in-between

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lavinaigrette · 2 years

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I love the phrasing of, "the number of the latter is becoming sensibly diminished." Seward's like well he is getting rid of the flies like he said he would...

#someone tell jack that 2 sentences is not an acceptable length of podcast episode #dracula #dracula daily

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myalchod · 2 months

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oh I missed the 3 sentence fic meme, is it too late to chime in with a prompt?

if not, how about Silrah + spies & secret agents?

Ooh, I love this idea so much. 💙 Almost took it down a canon-variant path, but ended up going with a vaguely nonspecific no-powers setting instead. (Almost had one of them with the knife to the other’s throat too, but … well.)

“The young gentleman on your right,” she murmurs, “blue coat, dark hair,” and he hums acknowledgement as the turn of the dance gives him an unimpeded view of the man in question, squiring Andros’ junior ambassador across the floor, “is one of his,” and it could mean anything it not for the missive she’d slipped him at the start of the evening, when he’d bowed over her hand in the receiving line and made her promise him a dance later — a tactic they’ve used more than once since the outbreak of the war drew Eraklyon and Solaria, and the two of them by extension, into an uneasy alliance to combat a mutual threat. He trusts her as little as his king does her queen, in the bigger picture, but politics has always made for strange bedfellows, and his line of work is no less political for being conducted in the shadows — never mind that those shadows are at times as brightly lit as the grand Eraklyan ballroom, ablaze with candles for the winter solstice fête; never mind that his partner blazes nearly as brightly, glittering with gems at her throat and in her intricately upswept hair, when he knows she is as familiar with those shadows as he is, and far more comfortable there than here.

They will meet again later somewhere dark and quiet, furtive as lovers, for a conference of confidences and hushed whispers in service to the rulers and the realms they have both sworn their lives to, but for now there are eyes upon them and a game to be played, and so he twirls her across the ballroom floor and grants himself a respite from those duties in the warmth of her touch and the wryly knowing humour of her eyes, and tries not to think of the day when they may once again find themselves on opposite sides of a war, all this intimacy reforged to strike at each other instead; they have learned each other too well, in this erstwhile alliance, and he thinks — not for the first time — that she alone would know enough for her blade to find its way between his ribs, for how could it be otherwise when she has already pierced his heart?

[ send me another ] [ all fills ]

#saul silva #farah dowling #silrah #farah dowling x saul silva #fate the winx saga #charis writes #three sentence fic meme #asked and answered #au: spies #au: historical #is it just me or do these keep getting longer?#i love the challenge tho #both for length and for making my brain think in new and twisty ways #(yes the background greysha means basti’s the villain)#(make of that what you will)

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herawell · 1 year

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Not me eating drywall over the fact that Eiffel and Minkowski had 1200 days together and spent only 300 of them as friends.

#wolf 359 #doug eiffel #renee minkowski #wolf 359 spoilers #alia talks #i made a post about this about a week ago but i'm making another one bc i'm in my feels #take the length of the heph mission and subtract the first two years #the six months of being MIA #the four month rift over his jail sentence #other pockets of time here and there they were estranged #and you're left with only about a quarter of the mission #where they're physically in the same place #AND they're not at odds #which is incredible when you consider urbina once said that the show is about conversations between mk and E

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sysig · 21 days

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Incomplete exchange (Patreon)

#Doodles #SCII #Helix #Max Vyer #DAX #*throws idea spaghetti throws idea spaghetti throws idea spaghetti throws #So Max and ZEX changing places - what if that but This lol #It would also be funny to watch Max stumble around in ZEX's body lol but considering ''how'' ZEX got isekai'd...#Not much left probably :| Dark #Really I'm just fascinated by throwing the almost-dynamics into relief hehehe - DAX and Dex so similar! And Max and ZEX similar in some ways #How would DAX react to Max :3c How would Max react to DAX! One of them knows the other - at least at arm's length - but not the other!#Seeing a VUX ''in person'' would probably be a whole other feeling as well haha - there's a familiarity when he's inhabiting ZEX's POV #Still thinks he's dreaming because I mean - would the reality be any easier to swallow? No lol #I guess this would be a scenario before ZEX dies since y'know - DAX is here haha - unless this is some afterlife something???#Both Max and DAX /would/ be dead in that scenario - or would they?? Haha the grey area is the funnest to play in <3 #I think it'd be very interesting on DAX's end as well - obviously Max is very different from ZEX but if the language thing works both ways #VUX already have the translators of course but like - Max speaks very differently from ZEX he formulates his sentences very specifically #But if the way he attacks the words the way his accent moves the sounds around - if he speaks like ZEX but not /like/ him - s'interesting!#Would probably confuse the heck out of DAX haha he knows that voice very well!#By the transitive property would that make their accent space New Jersey? No that's too silly haha #I really love Max just dropping years and events out of the blue haha - very important! Written down! Kept track of!#A lot of things he doesn't pay much attention to but he's very careful with his dream data I'm love him <3 #I also had So much fun drawing his hands here hehe ♪ His hand expressions have quickly risen to being my favourite :D #ZEX doesn't express with his hands! Which means it's a Max-specific type of thing in his body!#Tells <3

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firestorm09890 · 7 months

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KHTober 2023 Day 5: New Outfit

Black exchanged for white. Low collar exchanged for high. The lack of gloves brought about a new (uncomfortable) awareness of what his hands were doing at all times, and the extra bit of fabric giving more weight to the front rather than the back had disoriented him more than he was willing to admit. The boots, at least, remained exactly the same.

Upon coming to his senses on the floor of the laboratory, Ienzo had wondered why, exactly, he had woken up in a fresh researcher’s uniform, complete with a grey sweater-vest and bright purple ascot, instead of the old, ill-fitting lab coat he was wearing when he had lost his heart. It ended up being something he mentally put in a box and resolved to avoid thinking about.

The worst part of the new ensemble was the ascot- occasionally, on rougher days, it would cause Ienzo (emotional) discomfort. Too tight. Too present. Like a hangman’s noose. Heart beat fast. Palms sweat. A feeling cold and harsh. And, so, he’d loosen it, but while that alleviated some of the visceral reactions, it did nothing for his mind, which, just like with the gloves, would register the open air and think they’ll all know something is wrong they’ll all catch your behaviors they’re all looking at you they know what happened they’ll know. And so. Back to its former position it went. Like nothing happened.

It was hard to adjust to the outfit change, after wearing the black coat for so long. Though, compared to everything else that had changed, this was relatively meaningless. (But it wasn’t, was it? Symbolically, an outfit change can mean everything.) Ienzo supposed he was grateful that he’d gone straight from uniform to uniform; having to decide how he wanted to present himself right after so much of his life had just been uprooted might have been the final straw for his poor, overemotional heart, and he wanted to limit the amount of times he cried in front of the others.

#kingdom hearts #ienzo #KHTober2023 #KHTober 2023 #my fashion sense is basically nonexistent so there was no way i was designing something but i remembered i can write stuff so #it accidentally got angsty.. oops!#that's what happens #it's wild just how much thinking goes into writing something even this short and spontaneous #like the sentence lengths in the third paragraph...#and the sheer amount of headcanons! hoowee!!!#yeah i dont think zexienzo is very fond of change #me writing #me post

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altraviolet · 9 days

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text comparisons because I think they're fun to do

I was watching lexi aka newlynova's latest video, this one here:

youtube

wherein she reads aloud text from two books, Powerless and Notes On An Execution, and says she's not really able to describe why the text reads badly in one and not the other, respectively. I thought it would be fun to write out the text examples and talk about what works and doesn't work. Full disclaimer: I haven't read either of these books and am going 100% on what Lexi has provided.

From what I can tell, both passages are a character describing another character- either directly to the reader, or imagining what she was like (because she's dead).

Lexi's own words on why she thinks the text of Powerless doesn't work:

...a lot of the writing is overly descriptive but not in a way that felt especially profound or well-written. It's kind of like, let's say the same thing, but again, and with words that start with the same letters and then that sentence will definitely be a banger but repeat it ad infinitem for the entire duration of the book and it's always very noticeable to me every single time. There's one passage towards the end that – it's not a spoiler – but I do think that it demonstrates pretty accurately how the writing style of the entire book was.

The text from Powerless, starting around 19:06 in the video:

She's scared. Scared of whatever it is between us. She always has been. That's why she chose to be my enemy, my rival, rather than let herself feel – which is something I'm not accustomed to myself. It's like a tangible tether between us, this consuming connection. I will her to meet my eyes, and when they do- Sparks. Electricity. Everything beautiful, everything bold, everything breathtaking – that is what I feel in her gaze. That, and terrified. Terrified of what she is doing to me. She is a vision, a nightmare, a dream. A grim reaper clad in black, come to steal my soul and my heart. I've never seen something so beautiful, so bold, so blatantly wrong for me. She is a devil. She is a deity. She is man's downfall in human form. She is my downfall.

Lexi describes this as “overt and over the top,” which is true. You can see what she means by the use of repetition. The character being described here is obviously very powerful, but the text feels tiring to read. I am not awed by this power.

Let's contrast to Notes On An Execution. Lexi describes the writing as fantastic and gives us context: the detective is thinking of one of the killer's victims. From 23:18 in the video:

As Saffy leaned against the backroom wall, Izzy's hair in her lap, she was transported into a hallucination that had stalked her for years now, a parallel universe that felt sickening, nearly fatal in its limitlessness. A highway, dusk. A flicker of long black ponytail. Izzy had died at sixteen, but she was older here: nineteen, maybe twenty. Windows open, air whipping hard, an old bluegrass song twanging from the radio. There would have been a boy, sitting in the passenger's seat – Izzy would not have loved him, not here, maybe not ever, but this wouldn't have mattered, in the hot flush of youth, his calloused fingers creeping up her thigh, the horizon bleeding behind the Adirondack peaks. In this almost-world – the substitute reality that lingered like a daydream – Izzy was never a pile of bones on the table. She was bright and golden, a blazing instant of mundane and perfect glory.

Even though Izzy isn't described as a devil, a deity, man's downfall in human form... doesn't she feel much more real? The Execution passage doesn't have short, quippy sentences, but it feels less exhausting to read.

I think there are two reasons for the variance in quality: sentence length and detail/description/specificity.

Sentence length

Sentence length variation is very, very important to the flow of a story. Consecutive sentences of similar length melt together. They drone on and on. They become monotonous. It's important to use a mix of short, medium, and long sentences together for good flow (unless you are going for some kind of effect, in which case, you need to be very deliberate about what you're doing).

Let's look at the number of words in each sentence in both excerpts. The first paragraph of Powerless has 4 sentences. The first sentence has 2 words, the next has 7, the next has 4, and the last has 23. So I'm going to represent that paragraph as 2, 7, 4, 23. Make sense? Here we go.

Powerless:

2, 7, 4, 23 10, 11 1, 1 14 3, 8, 8 14 13 4, 4 7 4

total words: 138

Execution:

36 3, 6, 13, 13 47 22, 13

total words: 153

So for a similar number of words, we have vastly different approaches to word count per sentence. Powerless's first paragraph actually has a really good distribution. Going from short -> long or long -> short sentences keeps things flowing. (Which should you use? You choose the approach based on what you're trying to highlight.) But following that, you can see how Powerless's consecutive sentences have the same number of words. 14, 13. 4, 4, 7, 4. This is what contributes to the "start-stop," "takes longer to read" feeling of that excerpt.

In contrast, Execution has very different word counts for consecutive sentences, with one exception. This helps its sentences flow much more easily through the mind. (There's a lot I could say about that first sentence using passive voice and a filter word and being 36 words long and still working nicely, but we'll stay focused!) We go from 36 words to 3. From 13 to 47. Down and up and down and up. Flow!

Detail/description/specificity

Details/descriptions and their specificity help ground the reader in your story. Making grand, sweeping statements without backing them up with details turns them into flat and meaningless statements. Details/description/specificity can be written in many ways. Word choice and sensory information are the first that come to my mind.

For word choice we can look at the verbs and adjectives that are used. For sensory information, we look for how the five senses are engaged within the text. Specificity is found in these details.

Verbs

[hopefully I didn't miss or misattribute any, I did my best]

Here are the verbs in the Powerless excerpt (I'm putting the contractions as "is"):

is, is, has been, is, feel, accustomed to, is, am, is, will, do, is, feel, is, is, come, seen, is, is, is, is

Here are the verbs in the Execution excerpt:

leaned, was transported, stalked, felt, had died, was, whipping, twanging, would have been, sitting, would not have loved, wouldn't have mattered, creeping, bleeding, lingered, was, was

I think it's pretty easy to see the difference in word choice here. Most of the Powerless verbs are from a single verb: to be. Almost all of the Execution verbs are unique. Many of the verb choices for Execution are very strong: whipping, twanging, creeping, bleeding. These all have visceral feels to them. So much more detailed and alive than is is is is is is.

Adjectives

Powerless:

[I'm 99% sure the things that look like adjectives in this excerpt, like the “black” in “clad in black,” are acting like nouns, which is why they're not in the list. Correct me if I'm wrong]

scared, scared, tangible, consuming, beautiful, bold, breathtaking, terrified, terrified, beautiful, bold, wrong

Execution:

parallel, sickening, fatal, long, black, older, old, bluegrass, passenger's, hot, calloused, substitute, bright, golden, blazing, mundane, perfect

Again we see repeated adjectives in the first excerpt and unique adjectives in the second. The adjective "beautiful" doesn't tell you as much about an object as "bright" or "calloused" does. This is what I mean by specificity: the more specific your word choices are, the more real the text feels, and the more the reader can ground themself in it.

It doesn't matter how many beautifuls you throw at a reader. They will never be as impactful as a single golden.

Sensory details

Powerless is severely lacking in sensory details. I guess we have these two:

"tangible tether" is the author telling you that something feels like it can be touched

"A grim reaper clad in black" is technically something you can see.

Execution is drenched in sensory details, mostly in its strong verbs. These are the ones that stood out to me most:

"Windows open, air whipping hard" somatic detail, you know the characters are in a car going fast, they can feel the wind

"old bluegrass song twanging from the radio" audial detail, "twanging" is a great verb here

"the hot flush of youth" somatic detail, abstract but very understandable

"his calloused fingers creeping up her thigh" somatic detail, the word choice makes this feel very creepy to me

"the horizon bleeding behind the Adirondack peaks" visual detail, the use of "bleeding" makes it quite striking

The text engages multiple senses with strong verbs, giving specific details to the reader, and allowing them to sink into the world.

So! There's my mini thesis on why the text of Execution is so much better than Powerless.

Let's be clear: there's a time and a place for sweeping, non-detailed, non-sensory-engaging, weak-verb-using prose, but... I'm not sure what that time and place are. Maybe... something really character-driven, and the character is meek as hell? In my opinion, you can make any non-descriptive batch of statements better with specificity and strong word choice.

What would I advise to improve the writing of Powerless?

-vary the sentence length. you can test your flow by either reading aloud or counting out the words, as above

-use strong verbs. avoid adverbs. you are allowed to use them, but a strong verb is always better

-insert grounded, sensory details. engage the senses! all of them!

-replace sweeping statements with details. for example, don't tell me the character is beautiful, give me examples of how she's beautiful (describe either her body or her convictions or her weapons, whatever it is that the POV character finds beautiful). don't tell me a character is a nightmare/devil/etc, give me examples of how she's powerful/evil/scary.

Homework assignment:

I've never seen something so beautiful, so bold, so blatantly wrong for me.

rewrite the above sentence. give me examples of the beautiful, the bold, and the wrong. make me feel each one. make them clash in a way that makes the reader feel as uncomfortable as the POV character feels.

Alright, I've been typing this up for quite a while. Let's call it here. Hope you enjoyed my write up! Feel free to send questions about this to my ask box. Hopefully I haven't made any mistakes identifying parts of speech or counting words.

Also, check out Lexi's video!

⚠️ quick side note: the portion of Lexi's video called "tragedy strikes" is Lexi explaining how a depressive state has affected her ability to read. she explains it with an incredible empathy for herself, saying that it too shall pass, and it was honestly pretty amazing to listen to because I've never heard anyone articulate depression in such a way. highly recommend! ❤️

#writing advice #sentence length variation #word choice #details #specificity #I don't know what to tag this #parts of speech #sensory details #Youtube

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suguelya · 4 months

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I am 100 percent with you on preferring the JP line in that cutscene if only because it does feel more powerful (and his voice is SO soft, which is something that frequently gets completely lost in the dub in general. Mamoru carries a much softer tone overall for Flynn, similar to how Yuri's playfulness and carefree vibe got lost in favor of the dub's aim for a more "cool adult guy").

That said, I was not even aware they left the whistle out!!! I haven't bothered with that sidequest because the outfit is readily available for free as DLC.

While I enjoy having Flynn present in the last battle, I wish they'd just had him look back up at the sky and say that right next to Yuri right before the very end of the cutscene (since imo that'd be the best placement for it). No reason not to stick that back in!!!

But removing the whistle is just an outright crime and I am owed a fee from the people who decided that for the devastation I've been inflicted with.

Big same 🤝

I used to be such a fan of the eng dub but tbh ever since I experienced the original japanese (back when we still called it the PS3 Version lol) I never looked back. The wording is so, so, SO much more layered and leaves little room to misinterpret subtleties and subtext. Like you, I've had many gripes about the localization because sometimes they just plain insert stuff that was never there in the first place - iirc Troy Baker admited that apparently they rushed the dub so hard, sometimes the voice actors themselves were asked to chip in for the translation...he said he loved that (I'll bet), but that might explain why so much of the OG english script was already full of weird phrasings and insertions...add to that the even more sloppy and lazy DE localization and you get only half of the richness of the original japanese.

Also yes Mamo and Tori *are* Flynn and Yuri more than anybody ever could be. Sam and Troy do a good enough job but I agree that Troy may have been directed to play Yuri closer to a traditional "cool bad boy", which is hilarious given how the original Yuri is a twist on that very trope. Unfortunately, Troy gave him this uncharacteristically cold/aggressive edge whenever he talks to Flynn that it makes it sound like he's always annoyed to see him, and it strips their relationship of so much of the softness and playfulness that Tori lends Yuri.

Anyway enough about me ranting because I could go on for about 10 more hours about this issue lmao. Honestly yeah they very well could've rearranged Flynn's cutscene to fit in there at the end, like hell if you can change the entire camera angles of whole scenes you can change that one background, no?? Knowing Tomizawa though that might have been more effort than he was willing to grant this remaster - won't be his last time.

Same for the wolf whistling!! They replaced it with a skit that is just as funny...

youtube

....but void of the insane flirting the original had. Idek why they went so far as to change it, it would've been less work to just leave it as it was 😭

#sorry for the length i just will never be able to shut up abt the translation #theres so much wrong with it #and when i say 'so much' i dont mean 'huge things' i mean 'a million tiny things that end up becoming huge in the big picture'#the most eggregious mistranslations to me were the ones where they shoehorned heterosexuality where there was none to begin with #like inserting estelle in sentences from yuri when she wasnt even in the original jp line #i know jpn loves to play w/ the implicit & the context but when yuri says to repede 'its gonna be lonely now huh' after the party separated #then he does not mean 'its gonna be lonely *without estelle in particular*' he means *without everyone* because he got used to them #and yet the tl makes it only abt her #or #the most unforgivable mistranslation of all to me #when they turned yuris response to estelle's 'id love to keep travelling with you' just before tarqaron from 'thanks same here'#to 'i feel the same way'#like ?????#that changes the ENTIRE conversation BECAUSE its all about the subtext #like it or not (and i hate it) but estelle does have some bodyguard crush on yuri there and this is the way she chooses to 'confess'#you can tell just by the way the scene plays out & how much it lingers on yuris very careful pokerface bc he has very clearly Understood #and yet does not reciprocate so he's being very careful what his next words will be so she Gets The Memo without having to hurt her feelings #and it works!! because iirc she does drop her head and nod a little as if she did get it and accepted what that he basically rejected her #so this isnt JUST some unimportant line #ITS VERY MUCH THEN MOMENT HE SAYS THANKS BUT NO THANKS #SO TRANSLATING THAT WITH 'I FEEL THE SAME' MAKES ZERO SENSE AS IT JUST DESTROYS THE ORIGINAL MEANING BY TURNING IT INTO ITS ENTIRE OPPOSITE #sorry im getting heated abt this again i just #f #even the scenario book interviews confirm that and put emphasis on it so this isnt just me reading too much into it for The Yaoiz #*thats* the subtlety vesperia deals with all the time and *thats* the subtlety the eng tl keeps chipping away at #i know the translators most likely had little direction to go off of so this isnt to dunk on them #more like the complete lack of communication between loc departements and the heteronornativity they resort to when in doubt #hell even higuchi agreed when i addressed this on twitter with him #dude knows #ANYWAY TUMBLR SAID IM EXCEEDING THE TAG LIMIT LMAO sorry for the huge rant i just. have feelings abt tov's loc

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