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fromtheashesofvalyria · 4 years

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They were both too young to know how to love.

Of course leave it to Harry Potter to be what drags me back into writing fan fiction. Apologies to people who follow me already since this is pretty different from posts I’ve done in the past, so feel free to ignore.

I just wanted to try and get some thoughts out about a fanfiction I’m currently writing, specifically the relationship between Harry and Daphne. Or the lack of one right now anyway. ;)

The basic background is that this is a soulmate AU with soulmate marks and empathy/semi-telepathy (I’m not sure what to call it honestly). The three main ships are Dramione, Ransy, and Pottgrass, and it’s a slowburn enemies to lovers starting from Goblet of Fire on. Emphasis on slowburn and enemies considering two of the involved are Draco and Pansy.

Before I started writing again, the only ones of those three I shippped/read fanfiction of were Draco/Hermione and Pansy/Ron. I originally picked Daphne because I’d read fics that had her as a character and liked her in them; after that I read two fanfics that made me really ship them, because the amount of ships I have due to fanart/fanfic is huge. (Previously I was, and actually still am, a Nottgrass shipper because I am a multi-shipper a lot of the time.)

I’m going to put the rest of my rambling under the cut.

So there are a couple different things going on here. The most superficial was that, when I had started writing, I’d been re-watching the Lizzie Bennet Diaries so I was a bit influenced by Pride and Prejudice when writing Daphne at first. Specifically the inspiration was Matthew Macfaden’s Darcy from the 2005 movie and Daniel Vincent Gordh’s William Darcy from LBD. (And as an aside Astoria was slightly based on Georgianna from the 2005 movie and Gigi Darcy from LBD.)

The inspiration became less strong the more I wrote, but her being standoffish/cold/rude to non-Slytherins (except Astoria) and the scene where Daphne tries to make a deal with Harry was inspired by Darcy's first, horrible proposal to Elizabeth. But that’s the shallower reason, let’s get into the meat of it, which is background vs appearance.

Harry Potter was orphaned at the age of one years old, was raised in an abusive family who didn’t even give him a room for ten years, had no friends until he got to Hogwarts, and was lied to by the Dursleys’ about what his parents were actually like. There were no pictures of his parents, he wasn’t told they were a witch and wizard, and he didn’t even know they were murdered. When he is told about his parents, he is given the romanticized view of James and Lily and their relationship. He thinks they were the perfect picture of soulmates, as he hasn’t been told that James was once a jerk that Lily really disliked. His first real experience of familial love was with the Weasleys and thinks of them as the best family in the world. Daphne knows nothing of this aside from the fact that he was raised by muggles; I don’t think she thought much about Harry at all outside of times parts of his adventures were found out by the school. Like the flying car incident. As she said in the fanfic, Harry just sort of existed to Daphne.

Harry is only fourteen years old at the start of the fic, and has only had a crush on Cho at this point, but he does know that he wants to have the real love and respect his parents had. He wants to have a family of his own that would actually be loving. He doesn’t want his potential future children to grow up without love. And, most importantly, he doesn’t think Daphne is capable of that.

What Harry knows about Daphne’s background is that she’s part of an old, wealthy pureblood family a la the Malfoys or the Parkinsons. (He wouldn’t know the term Sacred Twenty-Eight.) That’s pretty much it and would be about the amount of knowledge all the students from the other houses would know (except for Astoria, the Ravenclaw little sister, who is just as uncomfortable as Daphne when asked to talk about their parents). Harry is also generally dismissive of Slytherin house as a whole thanks to Draco and his gang; he thought they looked like a “pale and unpleasant lot'' at the Welcome Feast in first year.

Here’s how Daphne comes across to the kids outside of Slytherin: standoffish; doesn’t seem to talk much outside of class participation, and is often sarcastic when she does; doesn’t seem to have friends outside of Slytherin and the only non-Slytherin she is consistently genuinely affection towards is her little sister, and not everyone sees that; while not a member of Pansy’s gang is still known to be a good friend of Pansy’s, and is also close to Blaise who is seen as equally snobby.

(Speaking of Blaise, Daphne still wants to know why she’s the only one to get an insulting nickname like Ice Queen when Blaise and Theo are often just as anti-social towards the other houses as she is. In Theo’s case, more so. XD)

Of course, it’s easy to sympathize with Daphne when you know what her background is really like. Her parents, despite being soulmates, have an absolutely toxic relationship that their daughters had to witness: “Daphne Greengrass hadn’t been a fan of the soulmate concept for years now. She could even pinpoint the exact moment her disillusionment started: the night before her sixth birthday when her father finally told her mother that, soulmates or not, he had never loved her and had only married her out of both obligation to the bond and to the alliance with her family. This had then turned into a screaming match in her father’s study accompanied by the sound of glass being thrown at a wall.” This is just one incident.

Daphne was so used to her parents arguing (and to be really clear, I’m not talking about normal arguments couples have; I’m talking about full-blown trying to verbally/emotionally hurt the other as possible or just arguing to try and win against the other person) that she was already making it her job to comfort Astoria, who “was still a baby, and upset by it”. Daphne has grown up with a very dim view of romance and romantic love.

Now, Daphne does know that people can be genuinely in love. For all their many, many faults, Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy are devoted to each other. Pansy’s parents aren’t on the same level, but are loving/affectionate enough with each other. However, she doesn’t think love and happiness are guaranteed so it’s better to have something more solid like respect or trust. However, that is hard to get across to Harry because she’s grown up to think being emotional is bad/a weakness and it’s hard for her to open up to people she doesn’t know well. (Pansy was her first friend at five years old and is still her best friend up until this point; it’s also the reason her other friends are the Slytherins she’s known for years at this point. People she’s used to.)

She could have approached Harry differently, flirted, or suggested dating, or tried to be romantic but she would have thought of that as dishonest/manipulative. Because Daphne knows love isn’t guaranteed for soulmates. Because Daphne knows she’s not the most likeable person. Because Daphne isn’t sure she could love Harry and doesn’t want to lie about it. Yes, Slytherins are all about cunning and clever ways to get what they want, but this is one of the areas Daphne would not even consider something like that. For all her issues, Daphne does have some standards.

Self-control and (just control in general) is something Daphne clings to because her parents were often unpredictable and she had to create a sense of being in control of her life. Her father is not a warm or empathetic person and he looks down on people being too emotional. (Yes, this is supposed to be hypocritical considering he’d get into screaming matches with his wife.) He would be out of the house a lot for both work and to get away from his wife. Her mother was emotionally and mentally in a bad place for a long time and withdrew from her children a bit. She improved by the time Daphne was at school, but her favorite is clearly Astoria for reasons that will be expanded on later. Daphne tells herself she gets it because Astoria is her favorite family member too. (Also I just want to make this clear, Daphne and Astoria are close siblings who genuinely love and care about each other. Daphne is also Astoria’s favorite family member. Their relationship, as I like to see/write it could be another post though so moving on.)

This need for self-control also was because of the stutter she had growing up. She was already self-conscious about it and she was very aware that her parents (her father in particular) saw it as a problem, which stressed her out more and made her stutter worse. The more emotional she’d get, the more likely she’d stutter. Whereas the more comfortable she was, the less often it happened. Pansy already mentioned in one of her POV’s that she barely heard Daphne stutter around her after a while; not a huge spoiler or surprise, but it was the same with Astoria. One of Daphne’s pre-Hogwarts tutors was essentially a wizard speech therapist, so she had it under control by first year but it was still recent enough at the time that she was pretty afraid of slipping up at school. Also consider the fact that some students (not just Slytherins either, but from all houses) made fun of Quirrell's stutter, and he was a teacher. (Yes he was evil, and only pretending to have one, but they didn’t know that then.) How much worse would the teasing be for a first year student? So as her father told her, sometimes it’s better not to talk at all.

Harry doesn’t know any of this.

Before things really started in the fanfic, Harry’s one interaction with Daphne that really stood out to him was that time she was sarcastic to him in first year after his first Quidditch game: “You know my family made the snitches used at Hogwarts. Please try not to choke on another of them next time.” When fourth year started, she ignored him completely in the Great Hall, and didn’t help her friend in a way he didn’t recognize/understand.

The next day, Daphne sends him a note ordering him to meet her during lunch, after not acknowledging him in public. (As Harry says, she didn’t even write please. It also didn’t ask him for a date and time to talk, just told him to meet her in a specific location.) When he asked if she was proposing to date him, she “made a truly exasperated sounding noise” which definitely hurt his pride a little. She also tried to approach a relationship (not necessarily even a romantic relationship, just in general) with him, someone she has barely spoken to, like a business deal, which he thinks is a cold way to look at it and he loses his temper. However, it should be noted that she asked him why when he rejected her out of hand and well, don’t ask a question you wouldn’t want an answer to.

Later on he sees her picking on a second year for seemingly no reason. In reality, this is a girl who did something to her sister and Daphne doesn’t let things like that slide when it comes to people she cares about.

Now afterwards things get murkier because Daphne is wanting to freeze him out/ignore him, but he is the one to poke at her. The soulmate bond is like an outside force that pushes down on two people to try and force them together, which can be downright unbearable if you really don’t like the other person. Harry finds the pressure it puts on them very hard and is stunned when she acts like she’s not affected at all. (He’d feel better if he knew she was feeling it just as much as him. Sort of like how Hermione and Ron both take comfort in the fact that Draco and Pansy are having as bad a time with the bond as they are.) He’s already under stress from the situation with his scar hurting and Sirius leaving his hideout to come back to England because of it, now add on to that the stress of an outside magical force trying to bond him to a girl he doesn't like and who doesn’t like him. No, he’s not handling it in a great way, but he’s young.

And Daphne could always try and talk to him about things good (sending him a song through the bond to help him sleep when worry for Sirius was keeping him up) and bad (the incident with the second year), but she doesn’t try. Partly it’s out of pride, but largely it’s because she’s developed unhealthy coping skills that she doesn’t realize are unhealthy.

#self indulgent #fanfiction #pottgrass #dramione #ransy #lions among the snakes #i think getting my thoughts down like this helped my muse #might ramble about my fanfiction again sometime #can you tell I’m an over thinker

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animetrashlmao · 5 years

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Hi, I'm a huge fan of your work. Your style is just beautiful. If you are interested would you write about sasusaku married life...Sakura losing her memory and Sasuke helping her go through their history together and a clueless Sakura realising how much Sasuke Love's his wife I hope you find the concept interesting Much love from Germany

Sending you love from the US! Thank you for the kind words. I’m so sorry that this has been sitting in my ask box for a few weeks, it’s been a rough time lately😭 I gave this prompt my best shot in as short amount a time as possible, and I’m definitely rusty from not doing any creative writing lately. Still, I hope that you like it!

The room slowly comes into focus as her eyes open with caution, sensitive to the sunlight that peeks through the curtains of this unfamiliar room. Her head pounds as she raises herself up carefully into a sitting position, only noticing that she wasn’t alone when she feels a strong arm wrap around her middle to help her. She turns towards the smooth, deep voice that the arm belongs to, trying to sort out her thoughts.

“Take it easy,” he had said.

Why? Where was she? How did she end up here? The questions swirling through her mind only make her dizzy. Worried, mismatched eyes meet her own as she thanks him quietly. Sensing her reservation, he slowly withdraws his arm from her waist, assuring that she is comfortable first.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

Sakura watches as the man in front of her avoids her gaze, clearly upset about something. He was handsome, she noted mentally.

“You’ve been unconscious for four and a half days. You may have suffered a traumatic brain injury after sustaining a substantial blow to your head.”

She processes for a moment before her medical training kicks in.

“I’m assuming after stabilizing me, there should be some imaging right? Can I see the MRI and CT scan results?”

His demeanor seems to lighten up a bit at this for some reason. Sasuke was unsure of whether she’d retained her medical knowledge and figured it would be a sure sign of whether she’d suffered any memory loss. So far, it seemed like that hadn’t been the case.

“Yes, I’ll go get them now.” He leaves the room for a few minutes, returning with a nurse who carries a file in hand. She passes the file to Sakura while asking a few standard questions about her current state. They go through some basic motor function tests together before the nurse leaves them.

Sakura runs her hand through her hair as she turns through the pages of her file, reading the radiologist’s notes. As she brings her hand down, the sharp prick she feels on her scalp indicates that she’s caught something in her hair. Carefully disentangling her hand from her otherwise well-groomed hair, she stares at the ring on her finger.

“Huh. I wonder when I got this ring,” she muses, unaware that Sasuke is watching her. She turns her hand this way and that, allowing the light to catch the ruby at different angles.

“I gave that to you, Sakura.” She startles at both his presence and the response to a question she thought she had been asking herself. Slow to look up from her hand, Sakura thinks of all of the possible situations in which she would accept such a precious ring from a man she didn’t know.

“I must be a bit confused, considering the head injury and all,” she laughs nervously. “Why would you give me this ring, doctor?”

Sasuke’s breath catches in his throat as he pauses to process what she just said. She’s smiling apologetically at him, her eyes curious as she waits for him to answer. He realizes she isn’t pranking him, as Sakura is sometimes prone to do.

“I gave you that ring, Sakura,” he starts slowly, “because you’re my wife and I wanted to make sure that others were aware. I’m not a doctor.”

The shock that crosses her face confirms it for him - she really didn’t remember who he was. The sinking of his heart into his stomach is accompanied by the heavy weight of anxiety on his chest at the idea of her not knowing who he was. Instinctively, his fingers curl into a fist with anger at himself for letting this happen to her in the first place.

Her gaze travels from his face down to the ring on her left hand and back to him again.

“Are you sure?” Her voice was meek as she was visibly struggling to grasp at any memory that would make this revelation make sense in her head.

He nods before pulling a chair close to her bed. He points to her name in small text at the top of her brain scans, his finger resting under the name “Uchiha.” For a split second, Sakura thinks she’s looking at someone else’s file before reading her own name adjacent to it.

“Uchiha Sakura...” she trails off. “I definitely remember my maiden name being Haruno. So you’re Uchiha...?”

“Sasuke,” he finishes for her, hoping that hearing his name will help to trigger some sort of memory for her.

As he awaits her answer, the doctor cheerfully walks into the room, greeting them both.

“Good to see you awake, Mrs. Uchiha. You gave us a bit of a scare the past few days! Though I wish it were under different circumstances, I’m pleasured to make your acquaintance. I’ve read some of your publications on the effects of war trauma in children and would be interested in discussing some of the treatment programs you use at a later time. How are you feeling?”

“I feel okay.” Sakura absentmindedly turns her ring back and forth on her finger. She and the doctor begin discussing her condition using medical jargon that Sasuke has difficulty keeping up with. He begins to reach towards her, a familiar motion he often initiated between them to comfort her. His hand hovers in hesitation midway between them before he pulls back, afraid to push her too much before she was ready. He listens until they’ve finished discussing her condition, noting Sakura’s unease when the doctor mentions that she is free to leave with her husband after a few days of monitoring. She makes no effort to let the doctor know that she’s lost this part of her memory before he leaves them alone together.

Uncertainty hangs in the difficult silence that’s fallen between them. Where are they supposed to go from here?

“It sounds incredibly familiar,” Sakura starts quietly. “The name Uchiha, I’ve heard it before. I understand that this must be difficult for you and I’m sorry to put you through this if I really am your wife, but would you mind telling me some things that might help me remember? Talking about our....relationship is often helpful in these kinds of situations.” Always sympathetic and worrying about others even with memory loss due to a traumatic injury, she was absolutely the Sakura he knew.

“Sure,” he nods, “where should I start?”

“At the beginning, I suppose,” she says with a shrug and small smile. “How did we meet?” Her attention is focused solely on him as she studies the details of his appearance. Her gaze roams over his somewhat messy hair, noting that it covers his left eye, down his broad shoulders and strong chest, finally realizing that his left arm is missing halfway down his bicep. She decides to ask him about that later.

“We met when we were kids, studying in the academy together. I wouldn’t say we were close, but it was a small class so we knew each other’s names and relative rankings in class.”

Her eyes soften as she thinks through childhood memories filled with fields of flowers and mean little girls. “How lucky of me to say that I met my partner early on in life.”

He studies her quietly before reaching for her hand, hesitating as if to ask for her permission first. She looks down at his fingers near hers, abashedly raising her own hand, placing it into his palm. He wraps his thumb over the back of her hand, rubbing it gently back and forth across her skin. The motion comforts her as she waits for him to continue.

“We were placed on the same three-man squad as genin, along with Naruto. I was struggling a lot during that time, so I tried incredibly hard to keep you both at a distance. I didn’t want to form any bonds because I had decided to dedicate my life to fulfilling a mission for revenge.” His gaze moves away from her as he reminisces on those difficult times in his life. Sakura is patient, encompassed by his story. “But you were annoying,” he chuckles, as Sakura scoffs playfully, feigning indignation. “At first I thought you were just another girl who had superficial feelings for me like our other classmates, but you proved me wrong.”

“How did I do that?”

“On our first mission as a team, I thought that I was going to die. I couldn’t understand at the time why I had put myself in harms way, risking the loss of my vengeance in order to protect someone else. The first thing I woke up to was the sound of your sobs as I felt your weight on my chest. I still remember the pain I felt as you threw your arms around me when you realized I was awake, crying harder than you were before. That was the moment I knew that you truly did care for me, and it was when I realized I cared for you too. I can’t explain my reasons, but I knew I had to protect you, no matter what it cost me.”

His expression is sincere as he turns his gaze towards her, searching for signs of her memory returning to her. She ponders his words for a moment, her lips curved upward in the gentle smile he fell in love with.

“So did you also train as a medic? Is that when we started dating?” He does his best to hide it, but she notices his face fall just slightly at her question. She squeezes his hand gently, quietly expressing her regret. “I’m sorry, Sasuke. I can remember bits and pieces, the way I felt during these times that you’re describing, but the timeline is still fuzzy to me.”

He shakes his head, assuring her that it was okay before he continues. “I left the village in order to continue my training, because I felt that I wasn’t progressing quickly enough in Konoha. You tried to stop me the night that I left; you pleaded, made promises, cried, and told me you loved me. That rooted me in place, and if I’m honest, there was a moment that I truly did consider staying. I had become comfortable with the life and friendships I had built in Konoha by that point. Before then, I couldn’t remember the last person who had genuinely told me they loved me - maybe it was my brother, maybe it was my mother. But in the end, I couldn’t let go of the hatred in my heart that fueled my need for vengeance, and I left. That was the last time I saw you for almost three years.

“During that time, I worked hard to focus solely towards achieving my goal. Kabuto would feed me relevant information about Konoha from time to time, and that’s when I learned that you were training under Tsunade. I remember thinking it was a good fit for you - you always cared for others, you were one of the most intelligent in our class, and your chakra control was better than mine. I felt proud, but I quickly suppressed those feelings, knowing that any bonds I had would get in the way of avenging my clan.”

Sakura’s brows furrow together as she appears to make a connection. “The Uchiha massacre,” she says softly, “that’s right, everyone in your clan was killed. I remember now, hearing my parents talk about the boy in my class who suffered a great tragedy. That must’ve been when I became curious about you.” He watches the sadness creep into her expression as she reconciles with the idea of a child losing his entire clan in one night.

“Is there anything else that you remember?” He’s hopeful at this tidbit of information she provides, wanting to distract her from the feelings her empathy often engulfs her in.

“It’s not perfect, but I have some memory through the Fourth Great Shinobi War. I remember activating my byakugou seal soon after you had joined us, excited to be part of Team 7 once more.”

The corner of his lips lift up into a slight smirk at the memory of Sakura turning the battlefield into her personal playground as she uprooted the ground beneath their feet. “I always knew you were capable.”

The words of praise have her heart rate picking up speed as she remembers the surge of pride she had felt in that moment.

“So...how did we end up together?”

Sasuke runs his thumb across her fingers, watching as each one flexes downward under the slight pressure he applies before squeezing them slightly in his palm. He lays his head on her legs, looking up to see her trying to hide how flustered that makes her. She clears her throat to indicate to him that she’s waiting for an answer.

“You saved Naruto and I from bleeding to death after our battle.” He pauses to allow her time to think this over, wondering if she’ll remember all of the events leading up to that moment. The range of emotions that reflect themselves in her eyes tell him that she does; happiness when the war ended, fear when he announced his plans to take over Konoha, a tinge of pain when he had put her under the genjutsu, and finally overwhelming sadness and relief when she had found them lying next to one another.

“I had decided to travel after being forgiven for my crimes, wanting to see the world that I had blinded myself to for many years. We kept in touch through letters for a while, but I guess that wasn’t enough for you.” Mischief twinkles in his mismatched eyes as he continues, curious as to how she’ll respond. “You came after me one day, asking me if I’d let you join me in my travels. I objected at first.”

“Why is that?”

“Because...I had done enough to hurt you by that point. Not every part of the journey was easy or safe, and I would never forgive myself for letting anything else happen to hurt you on my behalf.” He averts his gaze to their intertwined hands that rest on her lap in front of his face. Sakura brings her other hand to rest on his head, running her fingers through his surprisingly soft hair, hoping to comfort him in his regret.

“I didn’t believe that I deserved someone with such pure intentions as company during this time, and honestly, I still don’t. I vowed to protect you through anything that came our way long before I gave you that ring, and I’ve unfortunately failed yet again.” She was in the hospital at this very moment, struggling to regain her memory of him, due to his own shortcomings. The irony of it left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Strands of her rosy hair tickle against his cheek as she leans down towards him to place a gentle kiss on his temple. “I’m okay,” she whispers. “I’m still here because of you.”

He turns his head to look up at her, finding tears welling up in her brilliantly bright eyes. “I’m sorry for worrying you, Sasuke-k-“

He gently removes his hand from her grip, only to replace it on the back of her neck before raising his head up to meet her lips with his own. Raising himself into a sitting position before he breaks their connection, Sasuke pulls her into his chest. The steady pulse of his heart against his skin was a welcome comfort to Sakura as her tears soaked into the material of his shirt.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” his voice wavers. “I’m sorry that I let this happen to y-“

“Don’t blame yourself. It was a mistake on my part. If you weren’t there, I wouldn’t be here right now.” She feels his grip tighten around her as she brings her arms around his chest. Familiar feelings of the comfort of home encompass her as she breathes in his scent. The rhythmic rise and fall of his chest against her cheek would always be her refuge.

“Don’t think that I could ever forget you.” She raises her head to look up at him, the curve of her lips complementing the warmth in her eyes. Sasuke’s lips are soft as he presses them onto her forehead, imparting his relief and gratitude to her before pulling away.

“Me either,” he promises.

#sasusaku #sasusaku fanfiction #sasusaku fanfic #sasuke uchiha #sakura uchiha #mine #my fic

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ckret2 · 4 years

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do you have any tips on writing ace/aro characters, so that they come off as natural n not forced?

I'm gonna assume you're coming at this from a non-ace/aro perspective, so like, lemme give a super simple quick-and-dirty trick, and then I'll give you a couple of caveats to it. Also every time I say ace/aro in this post I mean "ace&aro OR ace OR aro." The example I'm using for this trick is more ace-oriented but like, apply the same mental exercise to romance. Here we go, here's the trick:

Pretend you're writing inside the mind of an adult character in a series aimed at little kids.

On the surface that sounds terrible I know, but bear with me while I explain it.

If you're watching, like, Sesame Street? There are adult characters running around. Various humans, Oscar the Grouch, Bert and Ernie, etc.

None of these characters think about fucking.

Like, ever.

I know, this concept is jarring, because Oscar is clearly a freak, and we all have headcanons about Bert and Ernie—but like, realistically speaking, they live inside a show aimed at preschoolers, and therefore they never think about fucking. They think about taxes, they think about repairing broken home appliances, they think about the state of the environment, they think about great works of art, but they don't think about fucking. You can examine the thoughts inside their heads at any time and fucking never crosses their minds.

Now, this doesn't mean they're childish/immature/naive. I specified "adult characters" for a reason. (Which is why, say, Elmo can't count for this example; the reason Elmo doesn't think about sex is because he's a baby.) Oscar is the wisest person on the planet. Bert and Ernie are out there living adult lives—and Ernie's a bit of a dork, but he's clearly an adult with some goofy thoughts, not an adult with the mind of a child. The human characters on the show are all normal humans, and the only trait they have in common is that they all get along with kids or else they wouldn't be on the show. You could write any of these characters into serious adult plots, just age up the vocab a bit, and they'd work just fine.

These adults are also all living in a real-ish world, and all have adult educations and knowledge bases. If you removed these characters from the setting of Sesame Street to ensure there are no preschoolers around and like, asked them if they know what sex is, they'd be like, yeah. Sure. Obviously. They wouldn't be naive. They are probably all reasonably knowledgeable about sex, to whatever extent we can expect out of muppets.

But none of them think about it. None of them care about it. They don't not know about it, they just don't think about it. If a guest singer comes on with a low-cut top, none of them will even notice that you can see almost all of her cleavage. If someone shows up who they personally consider extremely good looking by whatever their respective standards are, they will admire that person's looks but not once think about that person naked. On Valentine's Day they will think about handing out chocolates to their friends, and not think about the state of their sex lives. Due to the fact that they're not naive, if SOMEBODY ELSE goes "got a date for valentine's!! Hope we'll be up late. ;)" they might go "oh congrats, gonna see a late movie? ...... oh no wait, I figured out what you mean, haha good luck."

They aren't clueless. But the nature of the reality they live in precludes sex from naturally occurring to them or appealing to them.

You can do ace characters like that. You can also do aro characters like that—this specific example is focused on ace because like, even toddler shows will show romance in the form of A Mommy And A Daddy Who Are Married or whatever, and I couldn't think of an easy broadly-recognizable example for romance-free settings. But you can apply the same "knows about it, doesn't think about it, doesn't care about it" logic to aro characters.

The advantage of taking that approach is this: you never have to focus on I wonder what it's like to never think about sex/romance? because it is, at least in my opinion, VERY easy to imagine the aforementioned characters never thinking about sex/romance. You don't have to stop and try to figure out how they interact with the world, because they just DO interact with the world, never thinking about the things they don't feel the need to think about.

A lot of times I see ace/aro characters written as somehow preoccupied with their own absence of XYZ feelings, or else mentally explaining/justifying why they dislike XYZ activities as if their orientations are something they thoughtfully reasoned out rather than something innate/unconscious; and in both cases I think that's a reflection of allo writers being preoccupied with the absent feelings or trying to come up with an explanation that makes sense to THEM for why someone would "decide" to have this orientation the writers themselves don't have an internal instinctive understanding of.

But the same writers would probably have no problem writing Oscar without sexual thoughts because it probably never occurred to them to give Oscar sexual thoughts in the first place. It's not something they need to think about and justify. They can just do it.

Now, here are the caveats:

- Of course you don't want to LITERALLY write ace/aro characters like ACTUAL characters from shows aimed at preschoolers. You can AND SHOULD have them be gritty and intelligent and willing to go commit murders or whatever, and can AND SHOULD have them demonstrate all the depth and complexity of a character in a Victor Hugo novel. This example isn't given as a suggestion for a basis of characterization, but just as a thought exercise to help someone I'm presuming is allo get into the mindset of what it's like to have a character who simply never thinks about sex or romance. "How to have a character not be thinking about sex" is all you should take from this. Please don't write ace/aro characters like you're writing to a five-year-old audience.

- Of course, ace/aro folks are all different. Some of them think about sex or romance a lot. Some of them find romance fascinating to think and write about specifically because they don't have an internal sensation of it—hi there, yours truly. Some of them are demi or gray and do feel sexual or romantic attraction once in a blue moon. Some of them aren't merely neutral to the topics, but actively repulsed, uncomfortable, hostile, etc, whether that's because of just an instinctive Ew Yuck reaction or because they live in a society where the topics (and sometimes the activities) are forced on people all the time and they got sick of it. Some of them are actively sad/wistful that they don't experience those desires. Some are very pleased with how they are but still spend a lot of time comparing/contrasting their experience of the world with other people's. "Completely oblivious and completely disinterested and completely neutral" is a real possibility, but only one possibility out of many, and it would suck if that's the only sort of ace/aro rep we get.

But—BUT—if you're new at writing ace/aro characters, particularly if you're still figuring out the very basics of how to write about them in a way that sounds natural, I still recommend this thought experiment as a way to wrap your mind around the very basic root level experience of what it's like to have a character that doesn't feel attraction. Everything else can be piled on top of that foundation later.

Because if you hop straight on to something complicated like "smut scene with a character who's ace but sex positive and into doing kinky shit," what you might actually end up writing is "character with a token line included about how they don't desire sex but think it's fun and then they spend the rest of the scene having extremely allo-sounding thoughts/reactions," whereas if you've already had some experience/practice putting yourself into the head of a, like, basic tutorial level ace character, it's easier to extrapolate from that and do things like go "well, this character is into kinky sex, BUT I probably shouldn't have them get aroused at the thought of seeing their partner naked, since their source of fun is from the act itself and not from a physical attraction to that person..." or whatever.

- If you want an example of a character who is definitely ace but who also definitely has weird sex, it's Oscar the Grouch. I will not be accepting criticism. You know it's true.

#asexuality #aromanticism #(I feel like I oughta apologize for putting this post in those tags specifically for the Oscar comment)#writing #anonymous #ask #m #(I also apologize for the fact that TUMBLR BROKE MY READ MORE)

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deathnoting · 6 years

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this is an extended special feature on how i’m doing! which is ??? complicated? i’m Going Through it rn. (cut for length/tmi. don’t read if you don’t want to know about my sexual/identity crisis?)

i’m technically only a temp at my great new job, and i only have it until january 5th, at which point i’ll probably have an opportunity to get a job somewhere else in the company, but it’s not too likely to be at my current location, which is the most desired one to work at

that’s not a huge tragedy, but it’s unfortunate bc 1) i live closest to this location (it’s only a mile’s walk from my house, if i worked at the downtown location i’d have to take the bus), 2) it genuinely is such a nice place to work and the perfect job for me and i’ll miss it/my coworkers and 3) i’ll miss one of my coworkers in particular

which is where the real trouble comes into play. i’ve got this medium to large sized crush on one of my coworkers which is complicated bc 1) i’m in a relationship (although i’m very transparent with my partner about what i want and i’m not & wouldn’t do anything underhanded or dishonest), and 2) my crush is a 46 year old divorced man with a kid. so!

it’s totally inconsistent with my self-perception! i can’t tell if i’m twisting good-hearted fatherly platonic banter into something romantic/sexual and if so: why brain? and if i’m not and this 46 year old man is kinda into me then theoretically i should hate that & find it worrying but that is not what i’m doing. my stomach flutters when i see him! we vibe so well! there’s a sense of coy admiration between us! i want him to like me but i also want him to feel guilty about liking me, or else it’s icky? i get especially excited about going to work on days that he’s there?

look i know this isn’t social justice-y of me. on the other hand i also think that determining what sexual feelings are appropriately feminist is a bullshit idea. women’s sexuality should not be held to rigorous moral standards. i’m a consenting adult & i should be able to feel whatever i want towards another adult without feeling guilty for it. on the other hand, i innately distrust older men who are interested in young women. basically if he doesn’t like me then i’m really fucking into him, and if he does like me i’ll feel validated but less into him?

& if you thought all that was bad, i’ve got a shitload more that’s worse!

this man i’ve got a crush on also reminds me almost excessively of one of the only other men (not just adult men but like? male bodied or identifying people of any age) that i’ve ever had any romantic feelings for. they almost have the same first name! (to make things simple i’ll give them aliases that correspond. current crush will be j and past crush will be jp) they’re roughly the same age! (jp was in his late 30′s, is probably like 40 now?) they’re both visual artists! they’re both weirdly magnanimous! i weirdly vibe(/d) with both of the same damn way!

and the biggest problem is that now i can’t stop fucking thinking about jp and analyzing my relationship to him, even though i haven’t seen him in about 2 1/2 years and haven’t texted him in close to a year until! yesterday! when i did text him! & at first i was just making really vapid small talk and then i called my ex girlfriend! yeah my ex girlfriend! and talked to her about it because she knows jp & knows my sexuality & identity issues and she was so cool about it and? has dealt with her mental health issues in such a way that she’s become a much more compassionate person and i had possibly the first conversation with her since i’ve ever known her (including when we were dating) where i felt like she was truly listening to and respecting me! which was weird and great! but also! after getting off the phone with her feeling a little more understood and less guilty, i texted jp a very honest: “look i’m digging through my unresolved romantic feelings toward you bc of this old dude i have a crush on who reminds me of you and sorry to be blunt and melodramatic but that’s happening!” type text

he told me he couldn’t unpack something that complex through text and to call him if i wanted to talk about it, bc he’s fucking 40! & texted him back in the vein of “whoa buddy i’m not that brave & the physical anxiety symptoms i’m giving myself even typing this out are too much to handle. there’s no way i’m calling you! hopefully we can have a conversation about this at some point in the future before one of us dies but i’ve got to work up to it!”

and if you think that’s bad!!!!! you don’t know anything bc you don’t know what my relationship/history with this dude was. he was the type of man (unlike my current crush, j, who, as far as i know, is universally liked and respected as a great and utterly non-creepy person) who got weird and creepy crushes on girls half his age and idealized them to the point where he made himself miserable mooning over his concept of a person who didn’t exist. you could easily call him a creep. i knew lots of people who thought he was a creep. i also knew lots of people who thought he was exceptionally kind and utterly non-dangerous (including one of the biggest rl sjws i’ve ever met - i say that as a compliment - who kept a list of creepy men in the city we lived in & who was roommates with jp and considered him the best roommate she ever had.) i don’t think either of these ideas line up with my view of him, which is that he was fucked up and strange and sad and creepy, but also generous and people-pleasing to a fault. i cannot list the number of kindnesses he did me without ever asking for anything in return. i know him to have had sex with someone he did not want to have sex with just to avoid making that person uncomfortable. he was morose and kind of pretentious fuckboy but also, he was my best friend in a city where i was far away from my home with no family and friends, without any real support system, who hung out with me all the time and drove me around and pretty much held me together through an awful break up and asked for nothing in return. i know that’s what you might expect out of a decent person, but not what you’d expect out of a creep. so which was he? i don’t know!

tbc because i want to write all this out but i’m losing steam & i have to go to work soon

this is literally helping me bc it’s like a diary entry

i have a lot more to say but i’ll say it later

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rmuldrake-blog · 7 years

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Twin Peaks Part 14 Coffee Time

Well here we are we are now 4 hours away from twin Peaks finishing “the return” story, the pile driver punches just keep coming.

So the episode kicks off with Cole calling the sheriffs department in Twin Peaks he is returning Frank Truman’s call, Truman is providing Cole information on the missing page of Laura’s diary. There a wonderful little scene between Lucy and Cole. I can only imagine was Lucy and Andy’s trip to Bora Bora would of been like.

We stay with Cole and the team for an explanation of the first Blue Rose case

Olympia, Washington, 1975

2 field agents investigate a murder in Olympia, Washington. (Cole and Jefferies)

They arrest Lois Duffy at a motel. They kick the door in after hearing a gunshot, there are 2 women inside. One on the floor dying the other holding the gun then drops it whe the agents entewr

The wounded women is Lois Duffy on the floor she speaks

“i’m like the blue rose” and then smiles then dies and disappears

The other woman is also Lois Duffy she doesnt have a Twin sister Albert comments.

While awaiting trail Lois Duffy swears she didn’t commit she hangs herself.

Tammy is asked what question should she ask she returns with

“whats the significance of the blue rose”

“blue rose does not occur in nature its not a natural thing, the dying woman was not natural, conjured, whats the word a tulpa”

Tulpa (Tibetan: སྤྲུལ་པ, Wylie: sprul-pa), nirmita (Sanskrit: निर्मित), or thoughtform, is a concept in mysticism of a being or object which is created through spiritual or mental powers. The term comes from Tibetan "emanation" or "manifestation".

“Good” Albert retorts.

This scene plays out very much like X files, so its probably why I liked it so much, The tulpa has also appeared in X file law in season 6′s Arcadia (the one where Mulder and Scully play house) and in season 10′s home again (the band aid man)

Cole enters the room with his thumbs up Coffee time

Diane is on her way but before that we get the window cleaner, Moving on quickly...

Then we get the bombshell, On the last night that Diane saw Cooper did he mention Briggs Cole asks, she doesn’t want to talk a bout that night, but Cole pushes her. She confirms that he did, Albert then spells out what has happened to Briggs and the ring that was found

The next part I was shouting at the screen over and over again in Doctor who fashion.

Diane’s half sister is Janey-E and is married to Douglas Jones everyone calls him Dougie. Shes estranged but last heard they were in Las Vegas.

So my initial thought straight away hit me, Cole Albert and Tammy have now asked about Vegas, Diane got that text basically asking as much, We don’t know which side of the fence she is sitting on but she did seem genuinely shocked when they asked about Janey-E could it be that things are starting to make sense to her now the pieces are falling in line?

Cole calls the Vegas office there are 23 Douglas Jones in the area, (why did they not mention Janey-E is anyones guess surely that would of narrowed the search a bit.)

“How are we going to find the right one”

“WILSON HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU THIS IS WHAT WE DO IN THE FBI”

Brilliantly funny my x file fandom also struck a chord albeit in a slightly different way.

““Thats why they put the I in the fbi” Xfiles pilot.

So were no more than 15 minutes in wow, so much stuff to mull over already,

After Diane leaves we get Cole bringing everyone up to date with the missing pages of Laura’s dairy, with the revelation of 2 coopers but after Cole’s first case I can see now why this may be more low key than I imagined it to be, A footnote in another Blue rose case. There are 2 coopers we now know what we are dealing with, but suspicions were probably already there this acts more of a confirmation to them,

Monica Bellucci dream, “Oh boy” Albert sighs and Tammy... well her look say’s it all.

So the dream:

Paris Cafe, the music is deliberately tense and suspenseful. Cooper was there but no face could be seen only his chin,

Monica was pleasant and had brought friends. While having a Coffee Monica quotes the phrase

“We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives inside the dream, .... but who is the dreamer”

Monica looked beyond Cole while he was feeling VERY uneasy. As he looks back we see scenes from Fire walk with me.

Cooper says it 10:10 February 16th. Cooper was worried about the day because of his dream, Jefferies appears and points at Cooper asking

“who do you think that is there”

Cole and Albert both hadn’t remembered that. Its seems to be a running theme I am picking up on at the moment. more on that later.

I don’t want to theorise too much but dreams are a kin to the lodges, are we seeing a guiding force to the final act or a we seeing some very timey wimey stuff going on.

So back in Twin peaks the boys are getting ready to go into the woods, sandwiches are laid on the table and Andy is having just cheese, Reinforcing the fact that he is a simple standard guy very plain non corrupted. well thats the way I see it especially with what happens shortly,

They arrest Chad and I can pretty much imagine the whole fandom punching the air, screaming yes. I did. I can only assume that because they all were leaving for the mountain that they wanted him out the way now.

Up in the mountain I had a very uneasy feeling, we had the hum but we also had Andy at the back and a bit behind them in a couple of scenes while they are walking, it gave us milliseconds extra screen time but it did feel like something was about to happen.

The listening post is gone Bobby remembers lots of machines and then we arrive Bobby laughing on seeing Jack rabbits palace. One thing to note here

The pan up the trunk is VERY reminiscent of the purple place before we see the Giant/Fireman and the birth of the golden Laura Orb.

253 yard due east with soil in their pockets we find Naido, Andy comforts her a vortex appears and he ends up sitting across from what we now know is the fireman. Andy is basically shown the entire history of the twin peaks story the explosion, Convenience store, GOTTA LIGHT, Laura’s death, Coopers ganger and even some future events (Lucy being shown something by Andy it would be funny if this was only a self fulfilling prophecy and there is nothing to the scene whatsoever ) Also included is the post where the kid got killed and the number 6 I have a feeling this post has been in the show before i’m guessing fire walk with me but not sure.

I feel that Andy must of been picked as he like cooper is not corruptible he is pure, plain like the sandwich no additions just who he is.

We return to planet earth, Andy is as confident as we have EVER seen him, he now has a purpose and he will do everything he can to complete his destiny. Naido must be protected and no one must know where she is.

Truman and Hawk are struggling to remember what happened, its a running theme throughout then whole show with Cooper, Cole, Diane, People in the bar, anyone who may of been close too or in contact with the otherworldly beings or supernatural vortex's etc,

We get an Andy and Lucy scene in the cells, a dog got lost and Lucy must have stayed the night Andy remembers that night too, Please don’t tell me Wally was conceived there Ha Ha.

Chad gets a lecture from Andy and we get a really bizarre guy mimicking everything, With blood or some other substance coming from his mouth, its a genuine WTF moment. I need to know more.

We find ourselves at the Great northern with Freddie cracking nuts with his distinctive green glove and finding out its James birthday.

It appears James is after another married woman (sighs), Renee, could that be the girl who was at the bar when he was singing. Also I have had the thought that is this scene prior to our first bar scene, James doesn’t know who is on. Surely you would know if Lissie was on? No?

We then get the green glove Iron fist story, Where did he start bleeding? it must of been terrifying to the doctor We also hear a lot of what the fireman had said, he has never spoken so much (off screen obviously), Freddie says London Town, when was it last called London Town the Victorian ages?? The fireman tells him that he will possess:

“the power of an enormous pile driver” we get the Jobsworth story and the cockney slang (i’m not a fan) of snapping his Gregory, (Gregory Peck=Neck), There is also a red card metaphor just in case you didn’t realise he is English, The fireman tells him to go to Twin Peaks to for fill his destiny.

James heads down to the furness’s we get the same noise down hear from up above in Ben's offices and a door, The whole scene seems to call back to Bob we see him in an area very much like this one i think in Fire walk with me if memory serves me right.

SOOOOO we come to Sarah Palmer, I can only guess it leads on from her boxing scene, no more drink needs one goes to bar.

An obnoxious guy tries to hit on her, which turns out to be a HUGGE mistake, once Sarah takes off her face we get spikes clawing out of her face a hand which has a blackened spirit finger (as discussed on the plane by Cole to Tammy) and then a smile worthy of the cat from Alice in Wonderland, once the face is back on we get a devastating chomp on his neck. Is Sarah aware is she possessed or is she in complete control, does she have that creature in her from episode 8, is it as i have been educated recently Babylon from the box has it taken her over, Is it even Sarah soo many questions its left deliberately ambiguous. Her final remarks, “sure is a mystery huh” is just chilling.

So we are back at the bar another 2 random people talking about getting high, (Twin peaks seems to have a really big drug problem), Then we come to Billy, This girl is supposedly the last one to see him, she goes on to tell the story in the kitchen she thinks her uncle was there she is not sure, Billy jumped over a 6ft fence got into the kitchen blood coming from nose and mouth, he’s looking really strange, they don’t tell anyone? (did they remember it at the time my guess is it just left there mind as these things keep happening.) and we also find out that he has been having a relatioship with her mom TINA, The moment we get her name ominous music comes over. The girl looks down and then asks “and then he just ran out again” its almost as if the previous question didn’t happen like she forgot, its all links in thematically. She also now doesn’t know if her uncle was there, where as before she thought he was.

There are Probing questions here “have you seen Billy”

“ive heard you were the last person to see Billy”

“Whats your moms name”

All these questions feel deliberate the others are lighter in tone.

To me this probably was the most intriguing part of the whole episode. what an episiode it was.

Who is Billy? Is he having multiple affairs, Audrey, Tina etc, Who’s the dreamer, Is it Cooper, Is it Audrey in a COMA, Whats that thing in the CELL near Naido and Chad? Who’s after Naido is it the experiment? Whats happening with Sarah? Is she polar opposite to Laura now? Is the fireman creating a force to protect the white lodge? There is a plan in place it seems.

We have a lot to get through in 4 hours, and its going to be glorious.

#twinpeaks audreyhorne jameshurley billy part14 cole cooper

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