Although I liked the episode, it was the best so far and got me invested, I need to rant about something...

First let me just say that I don't hate Arajin at all. He's a fun character despite his bullshit. I criticized him in the past but I know that Bucchigiri is a comedy and Arajin is allowed to have flaws 'cause he's a dumb teenager. That being said, he was so fucking horrendous this episode. Usually he's annoying but it's more in an unserious way than anything else so until now I found him kinda unlikable but I liked how he was different from other shonen protagonists.

This episode, his attitude didn't make sense. We saw how he somehow got friendly again with Matakara (Matakara more enthusiastic than him), but they were back being on good terms at least. He even helps making the welcome back party for Mitsukuni, teaches Mata how to make gyozas, etc. Like overall, he cared enough to want to help him whether he considers him a friend or not. Arajin also knew how important Mitsukuni coming back was for Matakara, last ep he realized that it hasn't been easy for him and he showed some concern.

So yeah, Arajin still acts like a dumb teenager with a crush, but his character development was slowly growing. So in episode 8, suddenly all that happened before don't seem to count in his development. Arajin learns that Mitsukuni got stabbed and might die, but his first reaction is annoyance?? He's clearly irritated and uncomfortable, and later dismisses Mata's pain, pretends that he only cares about Mahoro. We expect him to be a little more shocked than that, even if he doesn't know how to act or what to say. His reactions are mostly insensitive to the point that he acts like he's the victim and everything is Matakara's fault for making him feel uncomfortable about the situation or idealizing him, instead of idk say some kind words to Matakara like a normal person. It wasn't the time to unbag all that on him, but at least he confessed everything to him...

The thing is I don't understand this change in his character's arc, especially after everything that happened at the beginning of the episode. It's sudden and doesn't make much sense at this point of the story. It's true that Matakara should have tried to get to know the new Arajin and stopped holding on to this perfect vision he had of him, but it's not proportional to what Arajin is doing to him. His brother is dying and he has no comfort from the person he considers his best friend. Like I understand that Arajin feels guilty, has his own trauma and whatever, but this is not about you bro, not everything's about you. You can't have tantrums when someone close to you (even if he's not as close as before) is going to lose his brother and all you do is giving him your emotional bagage and even more pain. I DON'T GET IT.

Ok rant's over, but yeah I was pissed about this even though I loved that episode! I like how realistic Arajin can be, but this is not logical at all to me. Yeah, it's probably on purpose for an eventual confrontation between Arajin and Matakara, but it was very sudden, the pace and writing are all over the place with Bucchigiri. One moment it flows well and the next we're going back and forth. It's so frustrating, just make your point already!

I'm living for the drama though and still curious about it all. I want more of Ichiya and I do find Matakara and Arajin's complicated relationship interesting. Looking forward to the next episode!

This one's kinda cute and somewhat deep though, so if you'd skip it's ok.

talking about the relationship (how I feel with you, How I feel w/ this relationship)

(I had this concept saved just for fun, which is basically Ashton and virgin!reader getting together after long years of friendship, but I'm still unsure if I ever would write it. But I do have a scene which goes well with this:)

"I really don't know why we haven't done this before," Ashton's words were quiet now as he slowly moved the hammock back and forth with his foot. "I mean... we've known each other for years. You would think at least once we would have made out or something."

"I guess the timing just wasn't right," you shrugged a little, curling into his side, his arm wrapping around your waist. "We were both in different relationships. I think we just didn't think about each other like that. Like-- something more."

"It did actually cross my mind. You and me. But you seemed content in your relationship with Ben, and I didn't want to, y'know."

"It wasn't all that perfect," your finger traced patterns over the back of Ashton's hand as you talked. "That's why we didn't last longer than that."

"But that gave me the chance to finally ask you out, and what a surprise!? We are now here, together," Ashton's smile was bright, eyes sparkling even in the fading lights. "You know, maybe it's the hormones talking, but I have a good feeling about us. I think we will last for a long time."

"Because we were friends before being anything else?" you quirked an eyebrow, making him laugh a bit as he kissed the top of your hair.

"Maybe that. Or because our zodiac signes sync up or whatever other bullshit. I don't know. I just know that I love this feeling when I'm with you. It feels really special, in a different way. Not like my other relationships."

"I wanna tell you something..." your eyes searched him, uncertainity in your voice. "It's... it's something I want you to know about me before we dive deeper. I know I can trust you, if not because of our relationship, then because you are my friend."

"You can tell me anything, of course," now you had his full attention, not like he didn't hang onto every word you said in the past couple of days.

"My relationship with Ben ended because we-- we couldn't move forward in it. Together. Because I wasn't always comfortable with him, not like with you. And... that created walls between us. And uhm... we never... so I'm--"

"Y/N?" Ashton blinked at you with big eyes, until a sigh left your lips and you let it all out.

"I've never had sex with Ben. I'm still a virgin."

......

[And technically the fic goes into Ashton helping her exploring whatever she is comfortable with and whatever she likes. Not teaching(!), just helping her in her own journey, at her own pace etc.]

favorite and least favorite mono ships? can be canonical ones or not

ohhh this is a staple one i'm surprised i haven't been asked about it... i'm actually not that much of a shipper in general (at least i feel like i'm not?) since i tend to cater more to one-sided feelings, ambiguous relationships, and straight up toxic bullshit LMAO i think i will only really ship wholesome stuff when it is a dynamic i like that has already been through a lot...

my top one is a little niche but might be suicidemaster/princess beauty. if you haven't read acerola bon appétit please do....

now onto the main cast:

suruga->hitagi is what actually got me into the show (hence my handle as you can guess). the fact that it's unrequited is what truly makes this one work for me. the desperation. the jealousy.... the fact that hitagi probably isn't even straight and that's not why it's unrequited LOLLLL, i like to think they actually did kiss in middle school... maybe even... several times.....

ougi->suruga i'm really fond of. ougi got their name from tsubasa (a play on the kanjis "hane" 羽 and "ougi" 扇) but also notoriously from being suruga's fan (ougi means fan in japanese). their dynamic is so much fun. the audio commentary for hanamono is 2hrs of ougikan banter and it's the best out of all of them, you can watch it on youtube. also, i looove when ougi is secretely vulnerable and acts out to hide it. chef's kiss!!!! requited ougikan to me should be very slow burn. i'm sitting on my ass waiting for nisio to release the damn devil part collection novel already......

nadeko/tsukihi, as an ambiguous relationship. all of nadeko's friendships are really weird (except for her friendship with yotsugi), it's like she doesn't know anything about boundaries, what's toxic or not, etc. because she's never had a real, normal friendship before, and tsukihi is insane, half fire sister half bully. i really want to see more of it ; tsukihi seems to be overshadowed by most of the cast and i think this would be a really good way to explore her character more, especially when nadeko goes insane (be it her killing dozens of snakes alone in the mountains, or her turning into a god)

nadeko/yotsugi is very cute. going back and forth on whether i like them as just besties or as yotsugi having a crush on nadeko... i just think it's adorable how seemingly apathetic yotsugi has been as a corpse doll (and whenever she's expressive she just has a really bad attitude) yet she really really really genuinely loves nadeko

hachikuji/yotsugi, also very cute. i don't like it as much as nadeko/yotsugi but i've actually drawn it in the past

i wouldn't say i ship it but i enjoy how koyomi/hitagi is portrayed. it's really refreshing. i also think it's so funny how nisio makes koyomi out to act like some kinda dom daddy in kizumonogatari when he's in the gym with tsubasa (until he chickens out) and yet he settles for *checks notes* hitagi?

speaking of kizumonogatari i actually like koyomi/kiss-shot. tiny guy/giant cuntress is always a win. i do not care for koyomi/shinobu though, i love shinobu and i know she's essentially the same character but the whole loli thing is a huge turn off for me, especially since it's not just her appearance that has regressed, even if not as much

tsubasa->hitagi is good and it's the entire reason i'm going to be reading nekomonogatari white at some point HAHA

hitagi->kaiki deishuu is so interesting and i want to read more about it.

koyomi/ougi is always nice to see! but i don't like it when ougi doesn't have the upper hand. also imo there should be more koyomi/male ougi (i'm a firm believer that koyomi likes women exclusively but with ougi it's different okay!)

i wish suruga/numachi rouka and their history had been explored more, that being said i've only watched the hanamono anime. i also plan on reading the novel for this one!

i don't actively ship kaiki deishuu/oshino meme but whenever i see monogatari yaoi it's always these two (or meme/koyomi) and it cracks me up and since i have nothing but respect for fujos and old man yaoi i wholeheartedly salute this ship. my personal take on it is they probably got shitfaced in college at some point and meme offered him 2000¥ in exchange for a blowjob

more specialist big brain time but is ANYBODY going to draw spicy izuko/yozuru or do i gotta do everything around this damn house.

now for the ships i don't like :

karen/koyomi. do i even need to explain why. i personally don't like karen all that much which doesn't help. i don't like tsukihi/koyomi either but i feel like it's not as common

tsubasa/koyomi usually really doesn't work for me because it's always very much like... ... ... ok sorry i don't know how else to describe it but it is so. straight guy projection? tsubasa being so passive and "in need of protection" or whatever. it's just very boring i don't care about it. i would probably actually like it if someone who knew how to spice it up drew or wrote it but for the most part it's just a straight guy redditor ship.

suruga/koyomi. i do think that suruga flirts with koyomi canonically, but like with tsubasa, my main issue with this is who the shippers are and how it affects their perception of the dynamic. for the same reason, if done tastefully, i feel like i could enjoy it. before anyone tries to remind me she's a lesbian: i'm a lesbian and i'm fine with both bisexual and lesbian interpretations, though it does leave a bad taste in my mouth that people ship the lesbian/bi girl with the harem MC, so my first reaction is to get defensive whenever i see it in the wild

that's it i think! you can probably ask me my thoughts about any ship directly if you actually like reading my thoughts about this stuff

If you’re willing to share, what sorts of changes are you going to be making to Fedallah and the other Asian crew members? (I’m reading Moby Dick for class right now, and Melville’s racism blindspots are really interesting)

hello! this is an excellent question, and one which i’m constantly in the process of wondering how to address.

melville’s racism is rampant in moby dick. even as he tries to write consciously abt race & capitalism, he still perpetuates racist, orientalist, etc stereotypes and beliefs, with all his characters of color. queequeg hardly ever gets to speak for himself, and instead is spoken over by the white narrator. the three officers, all white men, get introduced with backstories and personalities and nuance, while the harpooners, all nonwhite, are introduced via reductive stereotypes and descriptions that center almost exclusively on their “exotic” bodies. the officers all get last words, final soliloquies, as they die, and the harpooners get no such respect. ahab & fedallah’s filipino crew are regularly described as demonic and referred to with pejorative anti-asian language. pip’s suffering as a Black character at the hands of a white supremacist is treated as some divine revelation, & pretty much exclusively is used to further the (ostensibly) white ahab’s anguish.

and fedallah himself — a textbook orientalist caricature of a ~spooky exotic persian man~, whose prophecies and ~satanic~ tendencies plague and doom the narrative.

(putting under a cut bc this got long)

i’ve tried to deal with much of melville’s racism through my comic by expanding on the gaps — like you said, the blind spots — that melville left. queequeg, tashtego, and daggoo all get to speak for themselves and to each other; they exist beyond their relationship to the white characters; i’ve tried my best to deliberately ensure the cast of the pequod is diverse and full of characters of color as whole & non caricatured & authentic as i can. this includes the filipino stowaways who we later discover are ahab & fedallah’s oarsmen.

i’ve mentioned this a bit in the past, but i’m trying to draw a line between moby dick’s watsonian or in-universe racism (stubb being a racist dickhead to, well, everyone, but especially pip & fedallah), vs it’s doylist or out-of-universe or authorial racism (melville calling queequeg a s*vage and referring to pip as “bright” in the way “blacks” are bright). so while i’ll keep the fact that stubb is a racist asshole, i’m not going to treat queequeg and pip the way melville did. characters in moby dick: or, the webcomic (henceforth MDOTW) are racist, but hopefully, if i’ve done my job right, the narrative itself is not. 

i’m not going to get this right every time, but i’m hoping i’m doing an okay job.

fedallah specifically is...difficult. he is also deeply personal to me as a persian person & someone w zoroastrian roots in my family. the stereotypes to which melville reduces him are ones that i’ve directly dealt with in my life.

some things i can do to fix fedallah are simple: design choices such as getting rid of melville’s stupid matted hair thing & giving him a proper & period-accurate hair covering, etc. some are more difficult — the things that make fedallah a racist caricature (ie the mysticism and prophetic bullshit) are also the things that mark his role in the plot: his prophecies are important foreshadowing, and they do come true.

some of the things i have done to mitigate this:

-- the design choices i mentioned earlier . no more fucken weird visual orientalist caricature. he is a person and will look like one jfc

-- fedallah is not the only middle eastern character in MDOTW. i have made a very deliberate and conscious choice to cast ahab as nonwhite, particularly a middle eastern man. (i’ve waffled back & forth abt the specific ethnicity, but). i read an essay ages back called ‘the question of race in moby dick’ by fred v. bernard which made the case for reading ahab (and ishmael, tho that’s not the point of this post) as mixed Black, and since then i’ve had trouble reading ahab as white. i’ve talked a lot about how the take of ahab as just “privileged dude leading everyone to their doom” is sort of the most boring one for me; it’s certainly a valid reading of the text, but not particularly interesting. what’s more interesting to me is how the world in which ahab lives is legitimately an awful one — violent and colonialist and capitalist — and how ahab tries in his own deeply flawed ways to fight that world. in what ways is ahab’s rally against the white whale a rally against whiteness itself, and capitalism and colonialism and all these systems that have caused his trauma etc etc? but i digress — my point here is that i personally get even more from this narrative by casting ahab as nonwhite. i’ve made him swana as a persian person myself — i don’t feel equipped as a nonBlack person to tell this specific story about ahab if he were Black — but also because there are a lot of things about ahab where him being arab or persian makes a lot of sense. one of them being his relationship with fedallah, certainly, but also the way he describes religion, his relationship with fire (slash the worship of fire) etc etc lend to this. this also means, back to the original point, that fedallah no longer has to bear the burden of sole representative for this group of people. it allows the two of them to feed off each other. it also allows another dimension to their relationship — how does ahab know fedallah? why does ahab trust fedallah so much? well, the solidarity of being two persian or two swana people in this hellscape of USian whaling certainly is a compelling reason

-- and along those lines, making fedallah more of a person than just a vessel for spooky cryptic nonsense. sure, stubb and flask might not-so-jokingly speculate on how he’s the devil in disguise and keeps his tail tucked into his pants, and sure he might make a weird comment about how ahab can only die by rope on a ship full of hempen rigging, but what else is he? does he care for ahab? are they friends? what does he think about the white whale (bc we know what starbuck and ahab and stubb and etc etc think about it)? what is he gaining or losing from this? can i put him up as a foil against starbuck — the voice of reason, begging ahab to turn back — vs him seemingly egging ahab on? almost baiting him to continue? who is fedallah beyond his prophecies? does he believe his own prophecies? is there a way i can depart from those prophecies even further, and not have to rely on them so much to push the narrative forward?

tl;dr to answer your question, what am i changing about fedallah? oh god. hopefully lots of things. hopefully enough.

hi~! i’m 𝑒𝑣𝑒 (s/h) 21+, i’m a little late to posting an intro, because if timezones are going to do anything, it’s whoop my ass. most of what you’ll want to know can be found on his pages, but below the cut are some good old-fashioned bullet points about incidental superstar, commercial model, pretty boy, and true north’s “4D” lead vocal, 𝑐𝘩𝑒𝑜�� 𝑑𝑜𝑦𝑒𝑜𝑛. i don’t use d-scord much, but if you really, really want/prefer to, i can absolutely give it to you; i’m generally 🆗 with using tumblr to get the job done, though. like this to let me know you’d like to plot! either way, i look forward to writing with all of you! :-)

personality

doyeon makes friends pretty easily; he doesn't have any pretenses about the sorts of people he wants to hang out with, and the only real requisite is that they're honest. however, he does admittedly tend to be drawn particularly to people with a certain quirk or oddness, or even misery, about them.

as a friend, he's loyal and unafraid to call people on their bullshit, which is why he appreciates reciprocity in honesty. he enjoys a bit of back and forth banter, platonic flirting, etc. he's a playful chap; it's how he shows affection. skinship is case-by-case, but never off the table. he's down for most things and is pretty much a must-call in a heist situation.

his love language is time spent, so he's likely the sort of friend to be happy doing as little as accompanying his friend on an errand run or sitting next to them while they both do their own thing. he's an extrovert, (or an ambivert, at least) and that alone probably justifies it in his head. some time is better than no time, especially when you look at how precious of a resource free time is in this line of work. he's a carer, he cares. don't mention it.

on the other hand, he likely makes enemies just as easily. his candidness is as charming as it is potentially grating. he's not shy about his opinions and it's not impossible that he's rubbed people the wrong way in doing so, and equally possible that he's joked around with someone too "roughly" and ruined their opinion of him by being an asshole. he's moody and unpredictable, so he definitely antagonizes people on his worst days, or even just when he's bored.

he's vaguely polyamorous in the sense that it's entirely plausible that he could earnestly, deeply be in love with multiple people, but he probably lacks the actual emotional maturity to enter a polyamorous relationship without getting jealous / it ending in disaster; he’s very stingy about the people he loves.

that being said, his genuinely romantic (that being relationships that go beyond the physical) endeavors probably happen few and far between. he's a hopeless romantic, but his whole thing is that he loves the idea of being in love, even loves dating, but he wants to make sure he's with someone that's worth the emotional energy or the inherent risk of ruining everything.

he'll absolutely flirt, though.

facts

his older sister is a backpacker who's traveling the world, but she’s also pursuing a law degree, so he's a little annoyed about her going the extra mile to be a woman of the world and free and well-traveled, too, while he rarely has agency over what country he’s in at any given time span; but he also still thinks the sun shines out of her ass after spending his whole life following her around like a puppy.

his mom is a pastry chef, his dad is a chef and the co-owner of a cafe somewhere in seoul, and they’re both textbook perfectionists, so his whole way of rebelling against that is by being slightly obscure and following his whims. which backfired a little bit, because look who's an idol!

contrary to what you might believe based on him being the way he is, doyeon thinks kpop is at its best when it's unapologetically happy, and weird, and all that other fluffy stuff, so he's a legitimate fan of groups that do cute surreal concepts.

he crochets! close friends of doyeon have absolutely received various crocheted items as gifts at random! he especially enjoys making hats and scarves.

he has a stuffed animal he's been sleeping with since birth that he's torn up literal hotel rooms to find. like, it's that serious.

he's a big handyman in general; if you need someone to help you build furniture or fix a leaky faucet, or anything, really: he's your man. he's great at putting things together.

he is entirely too cute for a man his age, but he's simply. like that. by design. sorry, bro’s a cutie patootie.

talent-wise, i'd say he's very well-rounded and capable of picking up just about any skill. his baseline is generally above average because of how long he’s aspired to be in this line of work, so when he applies himself, he's really exceptional. the problem is that he rarely does. he’s like a gifted kid who moved up into a curriculum that required him to actually study instead of coasting by.

he's very by-the-books in terms of being an idol and is the first to be like "😣 guys, i dont know about this..." if something steers too close to a potential scandal, but still winds up in the mix half the time, anyway, so.

reigning light-weight champion of fan service.

he's bi. historically, his taste in women is truly milf-coded women and his taste in men is big idiots, but he's open to all kinds of people. he falls for men most often, but has been interested in women often enough that it can’t really be written off as incidental.

he's an optimist, but he is also constantly fighting for his life, so it might not even be working.

his favorite movie is scream (1996) and i feel like that says a lot about him somehow.

he is in a constant state of having to remind himself that someone asking about his hobbies doesn't warrant a soul tie

he's like a nesting animal, just picking up bits and bobs and trinkets because he thinks they look neat. he's buying postcards from every country he goes to, to make a collage someday.

he's kind-of a dick when he's in his feelings; vindictive and spiteful on the worst days (like, cause strife in your marriage vindictive-and-spiteful), but he also tries really hard to smooth things over after the fact, because consequences for his actions are scary.

generally speaking, he wants to diffuse any tension, awkward or otherwise, and keep everyone comfortable, if he can, because he really just has no idea how to resolve conflict as a third party, so he'll play jester if he has to.

sometimes you can just tell that he was spoiled as a child. even though he tries to be better and conscious of that sort of thing, he definitely has his moments.

his idea of flirting is probably just staring at you until you realize that he's in love with you. it's really obvious when he's into someone, but it's also entirely plausible that he's simply tripped and fallen into every relationship he's ever been in by pure luck and circumstance and good old-fashioned boyish charm.

he's the polar opposite of shy, so he's one of those people who's friends with people you wouldn't even expect him to be friends with. like, what do you mean you're friends with a 40-year-old street vendor in srilanka, doyeon? how did you even meet that man?

his aesthetic is very atemporal-but-vaguely-early-00s techie who just sort-of throws things on in the morning, and makes it work somehow; he prefers headset earphones over airpods, unless he's on a run or something.

he's got a decently projected voice when he's singing, but his speaking voice is like a third of the volume unless he's yelling.

100% “babygirlified” by his fanbase.

he acts shamelessly but he is actually really easily embarrassed. you can tell because his ears get super red, as much as he’d like to play it off, but he does well on variety shows, because of this willingness to kind of sacrifice his image for the sake of a good tv moment.

very flexible for no good reason.

he's got a master's in domesticity, somewhat of a clean freak.

you could probably drag this man to hell, if you made it sound fun enough.

Misc Ep 1

Hello! This is about the pilot of Yellowjackets, and ONLY the pilot of Yellowjackets. I have not seen beyond the first episode, at all, and know NOTHING about this show. Please do not spoil it for me.  Things that are spoilery in nature, for me, include: saying things like  “Just wait!!” confirming or denying anything I put forward, outside  information about the cast interviews or creator statements, leading  questions like “Do you think “blank moment” means anything?” etc. Remember  that Y’ALL HAVE SEEN THE SHOW AND I HAVE NOT. This informs the way you  talk about things relating to the show. Just be really careful is all  I’m asking. Also: If there is LITERALLY any stance I  could take on this show or character that would make you upset, please  just fucking block the tag

If you WOULD like to discuss the show and my takes on it, the Discord is right here! I don’t go there, so it’s a great place to get every emotion out.

Please thank @sailorsunspot and @moonlight-frittata for backing this odd way of doing a liveblog, and remember my tip jar is always open!

I think the expectation is that you’ll be more interested in the whole idea that these girls end up hunting each other for sport or ritual or whjatever, and, the first episode seems to imply, fucking eating each other. I do think that’s great, and all, as a consequence ofd things, but what I’m mostly into is something that, luckily, at least in this pilot, the show seems into as well: How do these girls become this thing? How does a human being break down? What is it about fear that brings forth ritual, how does ritual sometimes cover or cleanse violence, what is it about humanity that needs ritual as a way of getting both closer to and further from our actions? 

We know this from the get-go. We’re shown this before we get to know any of the girls, before we get to know any of the girls, before we get to reflect on how nice and normal and accomplished we are. It’s not interested in rubbernefcking at normal people becoming something difficult, becoming something that bridges the gap between the new world of a sort of sterilized tribalism, and an old world very obvious and, daresay more honest, level of violence and tribalism. We’ll see if I still feel like that’s part of the discussion in a few episodes. Everything is hard to tell from a pilot.

How do i feel about Natalie? I’m not sure, I don’t really know enough about her. I have a couple mild worries, but I don’t actually have a BASIS for those, when I think about it. All I have is vague vibes, and it’s absolutely unfair to judge something off of a vibe I have based on OTHER narratives. So, I reserve judgement. I definitely want her goddamn Porsche and rifle, that’s for sure. The show, I think, I hope, wants to tell us something with her story. That she percieves a threat and jumps to violence--we see that in the flashback with her, as well. Natalie’s first impulse is to strike. This is not new and this is not news, and maybe, takoing this back to Shauna, it’s showing how MANY of them have never managed to move forward from the person they were while they were a Yellowjacket. 

I had a girl like Laura Lee on cheer squad, and it may not surprise you to know we had a contentious relationship at best, as I often took to sighing and snapping gum while she led prayer. 

Misty. Misty! I was so fucking sure when we saw her in the pep rally we were going to get all that dumb bullshit about how everyone is SO MEAN to the poor nerdy one blah blah wah wah. But no! It’s much more realistic than that. They just don’t want to be friends with her. They ignore her. I love that moment when Nat sees her and then she disappears, because she’s not an entity to them, she’s just a fucking ghost. She’s a nothing. The show takes pains to show that she DOESN’T fucking know how to act socially. She’s the kind of cruel where she would happily sit and watch a rat struggle and drown. When she’s an adult, she’s bitter and vindictive to people who try her. Even a sick old woman. She’s not a nice or good person, and I love so much that the show is like, IMMEDIATELY when we see her as an adult, “If you were looking for an innocent little gumdrop rainbow sad nerd, Misty ain’t it” and that actually will give me space to LIKE Misty. 

So much of the team dynamic feels so authentically like whoever was writing this did time on a high school girls’ sports team, because this is genuinely one of the only things I’ve ever seen that reminds me of cheer, which was far far more “Tell Cersei. I want her to know it was me” than everyone holding hands and gay kissing and doing it each other’s makeup (It was also that though. Life is complicated) I love that they get into an absolutely bitter fight the night before they leave at the bonfire. Truly enjoyed it. (Tag yourself, I’m Van grabbing another beer before we all have to talk about our feelings.) 

By the by, that whole huge it out bullshit in a secluded part of the party is definitely a shade toward their time in the woods, and Jackie’s approach and i know I basically already went into it, ut I definitely have to mention it again. 

Double by the by: Putting a pin in the whole “best things about each other” for the end of the seasons and I’m hoping someone reminds me because I think we will come BACK to these qualities and see them either revealed or destroyed. 

((I want everyone to keep something in mind in regards to this blog and this is going to sound like a general, common sense post (and in a way it is) but it's also hi I'm in your house, whispering into your ear, telling you to call ga//amestop and ask them if they have bat//tleto//ads---, blah blah, basically it's personal too:

With me, regardless of blog or content, both communication and engagement go hand in hand. Communication and engagement needs to go both ways.

I love posting and reblogging memes and calls and will continue to do so but you folks---old mutual or new mutual doesn't matter---need to take the initiative yourself sometimes too. Be enthusiastic. Be spontaneous. Be proactive. I don't want to ask people to write with me all of the damn time nor do I want to chase after people all of the time because if I have to do that constantly over and over again it starts feeling incredibly one sided even when it isn't (because ofc people have lives, specific interests, anxiety, and whatever else which are all things that I deal with myself and I understand how that can stop someone from doing something, but that's how it feels especially over an extended period of time) and I don't need to explain how disheartening and draining that can be.

My seeming to interact with only one person---and for both of my blogs it's @magioffire and we all know that---it's not because we're being stuck up, elitist or whatever inane and incorrect term people want to throw at our feet it's because we engage and communicate. The give and take between us (both from an ic and ooc standpoint) never feels imbalanced or even transactional (I really hate using that word but, again I gotta stress this, that's how this makes me feel) and I have never felt like I needed to chase them down for an interaction or had to fight for a scrap of their time---which feels like a feat bc Blair has a lot of people scrambling at their door---and I cannot tell you how huge that is. That sounds like a huge sweeping thing to say, I know, but I mean it in all of the little ways too. I could post some stupid bullshit on here; not a starter or a meme just a little random muse thought or observation, and 100% of the time here comes Blair telling me what they think or adding on to it or just...whatever. They're here for both me and my muses for the big and small things, whenever I've asked and, more often than not, when I haven't (or couldn't) and that's incredibly important. It's that kind of stuff that makes what we have special and that's putting it super lightly. And yes, our relationship both as friends and as writers has developed over a long time, and we did click immediately that's true, but there's never been any doubt to cast upon the work and effort both of us have put forth.

And this post isn't to say that I'm demanding constant or immediate attention from you all---because, again, we all have lives, health issues, etc, etc, and all of that takes precedence over a hobby as I've said before and will say again and again---but....put some effort into it when you have the capability. Yes, like the calls that I post or send a meme in, absolutely, but also message me on your own and ask a question or shoot a muse a random prompt or just @ me in a post. Show me some enthusiasm and engagement on your end because right now it feels like I'm doing all the work all of the time and that's tiring. I'm tired of handing stuff to people all of the time---I'll keep doing it, obviously, because I need and want to engage on my end and love throwing stuff at people and providing opportunities---all I'm asking for is understanding and reciprocation.

If you can't reciprocate for whatever reason? Tell me.

If you're unsure about something, no matter what that something is? Tell me.

If you need help or even a specific kind of accommodation in order for us to start interacting or continue interacting? Tell me.

Don't just assume that I don't want to write with you or that you can't ask me for things. Don't assume that I'm being a snob or whatever else just because I seem to be paying attention to a certain mun full time because do you know what that actually is? That's friendship. That's effort. That's me giving back what I've been given. That's me reciprocating the enthusiasm, love and creativity that I've been handed, nothing more. There's nothing unobtainable or gatekeep-y about that either, you just need to be earnest and forthcoming with me and I can assure you that I'll return the favor in kind.))

I think Jodie Whittaker's series struggled for a few reasons. One of the big ones in my opinion was they didn't know how to handle companions for a female Doctor. See we've pretty much always had the Male Doctor, Female Companion combo. And that's worked really well for the format. But then we had a gender switched Doctor, and didn't know how to deal with the companion. Because if you stick to a female companion, then it's two women in the TARDIS and bellends start going OHHHH IT'S A WOMAN'S SHOW NOW, and as much as its bullshit and people from all genders like it, it's still often thought of as a "boys show", so you can't make it into a completely "girls show" because think what it will do to the ratings! So you've got two girls, how do you balance it out? Add a boy in. But then the boy is out numbered by girls, and while sure you can have 7 avengers on screen with only one of them being female and call that equal, and sure we've had plenty of male, male, female trios in media and who be considered neutral and fine, two women and a man is basically unheard of outside of love triangles. So what do you do? Throw in another man.

So you have a Doctor that is right from the off thrown into a situation where she's trying to establish herself as a character, while behind the scenes the writers have decided that they need to play a complex balancing act of not making her an angry-woman stereotype, decide to go down the chaotic but soft and awkward route, but while she's doing that we've also got to get to know 3 other companions at the exact same time (no slow ticking up of companions once the others are established and clear to the audience like we have seen with Rose-> Rose and Jack -> Rose and Sarah Jane and Mickey -> Martha -> Martha and Jack -> Donna -> Donna and Martha -> Donna and everyone else who has already been set up -> Amy -> Amy and Rory -> Amy and Rory and River -> Clara -> Clara and Danny -> Bill -> Bill and Nardole -> Bill and Nardole and Missy).

It all adds up to the characters all fighting for screen time and the script kind of feeling like either pass the parcel of who gets to say something in a given scene so you don't forget they're there, or who takes the lead while the other two fade into the background. It makes it hard for them to really grab the audience enough before their "character episode" I.e. Yaz's family history episode etc for you to care about finding out about them. Instead of the quick back and forth, 1 2 1 2 exchange between a Doctor and their companion in which each line from the companion builds their character and their relationship with the Doctor, you have dialogue going 1 2 1 3 1 4 etc to make them feel involved so none of the companions really build, they're just... there. Fighting over who gets the funny one liner or the clever realisation of what's going on or whatever.

With the series after, as much as it had it's own problems, we saw a slight improvement with primarily having Yaz and Dan as the companions. There were other side characters coming in and out but they were the core. You already knew Yaz, and she was the strongest characterisation of the previous companions, and then there was just Dan to get to know, and there was some good establishing of his character done first.

All in, I think too many characters vying for attention was a major hit to how well Jodie's series worked, and I think it majorly set her back. There were some story lines that could have been great and really memorable, but lost their umph because we weren't hooked on the characters enough to want to see what happened to them or how they reacted to the situation. And it's a big shame.

Blair seems to run away from Dan. From watching the show I always felt she was scared to go there with him. When she liked Chuck she was in denial at first if you remember. When she isn’t nervous and puts on a charismatic act like she did with Louis, it’s easy to see she doesn’t actually have strong feelings for the Prince. Guys Blair like freak her the fuck out at first Imo.

Denial is Blair's default setting when anything comes up in her life that deviates from The Plan. The Plan meaning: yale degree, marriage to nate, 2.5 children, life as a pillar of society matron, ues royalty, etc. etc. And then, when that The Plan falls through, she's floundering for a while, and chip was of course no help, and with Louis, there was an opportunity for another The Plan. But, as you say, she leaves him in Paris because her feelings weren't that strong, and when they reconnect, it's after she and Dan kiss and freak out over said kiss. He offered an out and she took it.

but it's more than The Plan. Blair, our rich imagination, dreams in classic Hollywood girl, lives like a heroine, like her story is already predetermined. She rewatches Audrey's filmography over and over because she "likes to know how things end" she knows how her story is going to end. And then she meets the Writer Dan, and really gets to know him. and he transcribes her story and shows her that she can change her ending and that scares the shit out of her, because if you live your whole life believing one thing to be true, it's pretty damn terrifying when you learn that it isn't, that it doesn't have to be this way.

and combine all of the above with the emotional place Blair is at in season 4, after chip, after putting her entire soul and body into loving another person and having that gift thrown back in her face. setting herself up to get hurt again, it's too much.

another element of unknown is that Dan himself is an unknown quantity to Blair. he doesn't play games, he doesn't hurt people just to hurt them, he wasn't brought up in ues and doesn't feel the same gravitational pull to it that she and everyone else she's ever loved does. it's the Inherent Sincerity of Dan Humphrey. and that gives him 1: the capacity to really and wholly love her, and 2: the ability to deeply and wholly wreck her, but because he doesn't hurt people as part of a game, when he does (because that's really how she thinks, when, not if), it'll be for a real reason. and, given how blair views herself through the lens of her past loves, she'll deserve it.

WHOA okay got carried away there, but blair has fears that are real to her, and her warped logic makes it very easy for her to justify keeping dan at arm's length, but that's what makes the mutual pining so delicious, and so gratifying when they finally get together.

been going on for a while but I've been thinking about a Thing and you've given me an opening to talk about it here so: By 5x16, when Blair finally admits to having feelings, she immediately says post-admission "whatever this is, it'll have to wait." Waiting is her default setting, you could blame her back and forth with chip for that, because s4 was all about this bullshit of "we have to wait and build our lives before we can get back together" bc he couldn't handle a girlboss winning or whatever, but it goes even further back than that.

in s3 she has to wait to settle in at nyu until she's "powerful" and she has to wait on that plan to help chip with his real estate crisis of the week, and before that, nate says they have to wait to be together until he breaks up with his girlfriend (which is objectively respectable, but to blair, it's just more waiting), and then when they were together the first time blair's waiting to have sex for the first time defined her entire s1 arc.

waiting defined her relationship with nate, and the theme continued all the way until she's standing in a hospital lobby in front of dan humphrey. and she cares for him and she wants him, but waiting is her default setting, and there are so many reasons to keep holding off, but then he says something not one of her exes even thought to ask: "but what if I don't want to?" and it's not pushy, or manipulative, or -- I can't think of a better word than assholery at this juncture. it's soft, and a little pleading, like "haven't we waited long enough for something good? haven't you? you've been lonely too long. you do deserve flowers for once in your life. don't you see? you don't have to wait anymore."

and that's what I call Romance(tm)

how did nancy feel when steve told her he was fine with them splitting? while he tried to reassure her it was okay, was it actually? what was she feeling in that moment?

Long answer incoming :)

I've spoken before on the subject of Nancy not feeling very comfortable with more abstract sorts of thinking which would include things like putting a name to her own feelings, which is important context for how she feels about not only this moment but the entire s2 arc of her and Steve's relationship, even her and Jon's. When it comes down to it, Nancy is smart at logical, structured plans & action – solving a puzzle, however convoluted, setting up traps and looking ahead to the possibilities, etc., all are well within her skillset. Outside of battle-readiness, she has trouble trusting herself because she just isn't very well-suited to emotional analysis; she can't always tell what she's feeling. Sometimes, in fact, she doesn't feel what she's feeling and only will be able to realize the full brunt of it after the fact, much later on.

So, when Murray says "you don't love Steve", and even earlier when Steve says "you said our love was bullshit, etc.", and so forth, she does not find her own thoughts or feelings trustworthy – they are malleable and gullible and shift according to the lens she views herself, which often times is that of other people's perspectives. External forces have often been what drives her self-perception, good or bad, because it's the only way she can make sense of more complex internal wants, fears, desires. So, knowing this is how Nancy's brain works, knowing this is the way she makes sense of things and that other people's opinions often color her own, it makes, firstly, a lot of her actions regarding her personal life make a lot more sense, but also gives us an idea of what she felt when Steve later assured her of their breakup being okay.

Firstly, the word breakup or the concrete idea of them splitting wasn't used before this moment, in her mind, so even if she felt that they had moved irreparably past amends, she wasn't in the mindset necessarily that everything was cleanly done. I say this because I think that there's something to be said about the way Steve and Nancy, do, after all, are at ends during this period of time in terms of misunderstanding each other – the way Steve treated Nance throughout their relationship after Barb was largely not what she needed, but it wasn't bad, either. He worked as a salve, whereas she wanted the wound to be exposed and acknowledged. Steve knows even if just instinctively, because I doubt he'd have the ability to vocalize it, how Nancy thinks, and the fact that saying things were okay would potentially just make things okay. That's his strategy overall, I think, and it extends even to this moment. Steve saying "it's okay" gives her this sense of permission and closure, assures her that they're done, and that he's not upset. Which is all fine and well. She should want it to be over, and she should be, and is, grateful that he says so and is trying to make it okay.

Nancy sees things through the perception of others, through their reactions –  but what happens when that disagrees with her own feelings, on a deeper level? Even if she can't define those feelings, she still has them. Murray might say she doesn't love Steve, and she might think that must be true because he and Jon are probably better objective observers than she is, but that wouldn't change the fact she loves Steve.

Steve says it's okay, Nancy knows it's not. But Steve said it. So it must be true, and he must feel that way, and this is their closure, this is the moment the door's been shut. In the moment, she feels a sort of twisting of her stomach, a dread weighing on her chest where she ought to feel a sense of relief. But Steve said it. So she realigns her perception of those feelings, makes them relief, colors this sensation lighter and "for the best". You don't love Steve, and you do love Jonathan (that you could love both of them and have a complicated idea of love, that maybe some love is platonic and some is romantic and some is a third strange thing that you can't quite name, those are diametrically opposed viewpoints – you love one, you do not love the other, that's how this works).

It's truthfully not okay, she just doesn't have the words to describe that sensation, and she certainly doesn't have the argument. And what does she want, anyway? Because she's not sure if she wants them to stay together, even if she were able to pinpoint that she does still love him. And wouldn't loving him require her to not love Jon? This girl has two friends left, she's going to lose one of them inevitably, how could she possibly make that choice herself.

This is such a long jumbled response, but I guess the answer at the end of the day is very complicated because she has trouble feeling those more truthful things and tends to bury them for the truth as seen by others. I think there's a sense of dread and uneasiness, disguised by relief and gratefulness. I think there's also a deeper set sensation of appreciation that Steve knows her well enough to know that she couldn't say this herself. She would not make anything definitive. He would have to be the one who chooses for her, and he made the choice in such a way that didn't leave her utterly alone. I think he does this because he loves her, deeply, and before all else wants her to be alright.

I go back and forth between thinking if Larry are still together or not. Lately I feel like they're not because of Louis ending it with Eleanor (her being Harry's proxy), pushing his dad image so much and now making it really clear that LT3 might not be factual. The change in atmosphere in the fandom makes me think it too, that others have noticed a change. Harry stopped wearing the peace ring too. What do you think? If you do think they broke up when do you think it happened? I know you said before around Fine Line. But did they get back together and break up again? I don't know.

anon 2: Louis posted a selfie today at the same time as Harry's show and I feel like he's throwing shade at the gold stars who have been saying that his recent pics in LA are old (they're not) and he's secretly in Germany with Harry. I really feel like the past several months in particular he's been trying to get rid of Larries. At his LA premiere there's a vid of a fan asking him to sign a Larry phone case and he doesn't look happy at all, but Larries ofc are making excuses.

******

Posting these together since they're kinda related!

Anon 1, I've talked about it a fair bit, but for real, nobody has any idea, no matter how many gold stars are out there crowing about how "loud" these two are. If you're asking for my own personal opinion, yes, I think they were together and super hot/heavy in the early years, but since ~2015, it's giving me on again/off again vibes, trying out the whole open relationship thing at least once, living through just a real hot mess of a situation, quelle dramatique, etc. I mean, I listen to the last 4 albums these 2 have put out (and that last 1D album, while I'm at it), and there are zero hoops I have to come up with to prove to myself that things are a-okay because a) they're chaotic human beings, and b) sometimes things just aren't.

Anon 2, are people still pulling that kind of magical airline fantasy bullshit??? I didn't see the LA premiere vid, but jesus, I can imagine, like, it's creepy enough if they're together--what do you think he's gonna do, start weeping in #larryisreal on the floor in front of you? Secretly signal to you with his ao3-trademark fond face? And if they are NOT together, wow, the layers of ouch to just try to ignore it and move about his day. He (and Ariana Madix) are made of tougher stuff than I am, I'll tell u what

TW: Mentions of Grooming/Pedophilia, Sexual Predation, Suicide, use of an abuser's name, etc...

I know I have not been on Tumblr as a Genshin fan artist for long, nor do I even really have a following, but I want to go on the record of how appalled I am by Tighnari's former ENG VA's, Elliot Gindi's, actions. Tighnari was one of my favorite characters in Genshin. (I know how to separate character from actor so Tighnari technically still is my favorite character but he will be benched until they rectify his casting. This is beside the point). I am going to go at length about why Gindi's actions are inexcusable. Be warned my words may be graphic.

One of the biggest parts of Tighnari that appealed to me in the first place was his personality and by extension, the life to the character that Gindi was able to bring forth with his lines. But as a voice actor, of course he would know how to act. Many, including myself, fell for his awkward and goofy persona he wanted us to believe. And so the news left me feeling betrayed, shaking with rage and feeling like I was about to vomit - it physically hurt. If that was my reaction as a regular fan, I cant even begin to fathom the pain that the victims felt and are undoubtedly still feeling. I have the upmost respect for those who came forward despite the painful memories that would resurface, the victim blaming they could face, and also his moderators that helped make it public despite the risks, having been so close to that monster.

As a content creator, you have to set boundaries between you and your fans. There will be fans who form strong attachments to you and it is your responsibility to stop these parasocial relationship from happening. Not actively feed into them and using them to your advantage to gain sexual favors from fans, especially underage ones. Gindi broke all of these rules for his own personal gain just because he was "horny". Taking advantage of someone's naivety and claiming friendship in order to make them trust you just to take advantage of them is grooming, regardless of if they are underage of not. It applies to really young adults too. Whether he knew someone was a minor or not (which I do not believe, he definitely knew), he's still a groomer because he knew they were young regardless and used that to his advantage. His apologies and claims that he thought he was being "safe and consensual" mean nothing. The screenshots prove that what he knew what he was doing was wrong and yet he continued anyway out of personal greed because he was on a power trip: plain and simple.

And as this world continues to grow harder to live in, depression and suicidal ideations have never been higher. We don't need people like Gindi who will use threats of suicide to manipulate his victims into staying and suffering at his hand even longer. Not to get too personal, but a relative's friend committed suicide at the start of the year. IT. RUINED. THEM. I've seen how suicide affects those who are close to those who commit it. To use suicide as an ultimatum to continue abusing victims is FUCKED UP beyond belief. You "didn't think through the severity of that"? I call bullshit. Gindi knew what he was doing to to ensure maximum mental anguish to ensure he got want he wanted.

This post is already really long so I will wrap it up. This man is a grooming egocentric manipulator. He's not sorry for anything other than that he was caught. He should be in jail and away from the public so he can never hurt anyone again. I hope that hole in his wall swallows him up and sends him to hell to burn for what he's done. If you still support him after what he has done DNI. If you try to defend him, I will block you. I will not play games with anyone who wants to excuse or support the depraved crimes he has committed.

ok i have a 70% serious question omfg

is there any possible way to ask/suggest that someone who's unskilled at a thing to stop trying to give ~helpful advice~ to someone who's highly skilled without sounding rude/dismissive/arrogant/etc??

omfg like

there is a Particular Person who STAYS commenting on some of my violin stuff with absolutely wrong and useless bullshit like ~remember, you don't need to press super hard on the string for pizzicato~ which is just?? BLATANTLY AND UNEQUIVOCALLY FALSE AND LITERALLY ANYONE WHO'S A HALFWAY DECENT PLAYER KNOWS THIS, but overconfident ~amateurs~ be parroting that shit all the time because it's what beginners are taught so they don't put too much strain on their joints/ligaments/muscles/tendons before they've built up enough strength and endurance to handle it long-term. And most of these overconfident amateur players, I guaranfuckingtee you, continue to believe that ~beginner~ technique is Correct In All Circumstances, hence why they never improve, hence why they confidently butcher difficult pieces, hence why they feel perfectly empowered to go forth and ~teach~ other amateur players the same bad techniques and false information.

and i legit find myself feeling angry??? when some such person, in all their mediocre glory, posting all their lil videos of themselves being loud and wrong as they butcher a piece that's HELLA above their paygrade and play not one single note in tune or even with good tone quality, shows up on MY demonstration of a properly executed technique with some ~It Helps If You [thing that doesn't help]~

so far i just have been ignoring those kinds of comments but given that i have a really fucking personal beef with shitty players who are even shittier teachers who con people into paying them money to teach them, there's a bigass part of me that wants to call them out directly and suggest that they actually go and learn a fucking thing or two about legitimate violin technique before they have the goddamn gall to go tossing unsolicited ~advice~ at Actual Professionals, LET ALONE taking people's money to ~teach~ them all that Wrong Bullshit.

but despite my upsetness and my desire to make shitty teachers aware of what they need to improve on before they should feel comfortable taking anyone's money, i'm ALSO hellaaaaaaaa non-confrontational and am averse to initiating any kind of interaction that seems like it may result in a soured relationship or hurt feelings or just cause someone to look at me in a negative light on account of me being, idk, elitist or arrogant or condescending.

i just

want!

to be able to tell someone directly that their entire understanding of violin technique is based on the most basal, rudimentary aspects of beginner technique and is not just inadequate for, but also damaging to the pursuit of learning advanced technique, and that they're doing everyone who ever has a ~lesson~ with them an AWFUL disservice and are undoubtedly setting them up for total failure and that the fact that they even felt comfortable trying to offer ~technical suggestions~ to a player who is blatantly LIGHTYEARS beyond their skill level is a glaring and troubling indicator that they truly have absolutely no genuinely useful knowledge or understanding about classical music full stop - not just as it relates to violin technique. (bc let's be real, if you play SO BADLY that exactly 0 notes are in perfect intonation and your string crossings are jacked the hell up and your left-hand-articulation is a weak, garbled SHITSHOW and you somehow still manage to think you're doing it right, you're not just a bad player - you're also very probably tone deaf, and definitely have shitty taste, and your musical deficiencies are way more profound than just being a poor violinist.)

but all those words sound mean no matter what order i put them in or what synonyms i swap shit out for :(

As a baby gay I don't want to put any pressure on myself or be limited by labels, though I understand the need of people to feel that they belong somewhere, and I strive for queer representation in media. Problem is unfortunately there's so much toxicity in platforms like tiktok, and everything is immediately categorized, everyone has a readymade perception for everything gay, relationships etc... And while Im so happy to start discovering, all this toxic cloud has made me anxious and upset, like im missing out on something.

baby it's fine, you're completely normal! first thing you want to do is delete tiktok immediately, or at the very least get away from Gay TikTok: getting muddled in discourse and identity bullshit and little boxes is genuinely harrowing for the soul of anyone, let alone a baby gay in the process of figuring themselves out.

i came out at a time where tumblr lgbtq discourse was at its peak, and i still suffer the effects from that; tiktok and twitter take those ideas and make them tenfold, giving way to a whole new generation of baby gays born embroiled in discourse and too busy arguing the meaning of fucking placiolithsexuality or whatever instead of focusing on what really matters in life.

most of the people discoursing about queer shit online do so because they have no real life outlet for their queerness, and as such have a very limited idea of what a queer person or a queer relationship looks like: ignore them and carry on being yourself, you're perfect as you are!

it's perfectly fine and normal to not want labels, especially if you're a young teenager - and i don't want to make assumptions, but you definitely strike me as one! call yourself whatever you want, experiment with sexuality labels and pronouns and presentation or whatever you want as safely as your environment allows you to, have fun! i remember when i was 12 i would call myself fluid and every day say "i feel lesbian today" "i feel bisexual today" and so forth, which is very cringe in retrospect but was also just me playing around with my potential orientation.

queer representation is always and inevitably a mixed bag in most media: i have to say the gay media scene looks far more vast, if far more soullessly corporate, today than when i was 12 (i latched onto glee and later skam like a baby to its mother's breast), so you can easily find the silly teen romcom just as you can find the heavy existential horror movie.

i personally don't look out for Queer Representation In Media anymore, i just watch and read what i want and some of the times it ends up being some variety of queer or queercoded (i engage with a lot of older, so often less explicitly gay, media), but i totally remember being a baby gay and wanting all the representation i could get my hands on. my advice is watch what you want, look up "cute gay romcom" or "gay arthouse horror" or whatever genres you prefer to find some reclists, and don't be afraid to branch out into foreign media!

lots of love honey, i hope i was of some help to you! let me know how things go, have a great day <3

the fanfic asks are so good, can you answer all of them? jk. (unless...) pls do these if you want to: c, f, h, k, m, t and also the one you really want to answer but nobody has asked yet

Oh, okay, that's a bunch ^^'

C - What member do you identify with most?

Member of what? What an awkward phrasing. I'mma hope it means character, so: Charité's Martin Schelling. My boy is just permanently So Done With Shit, and for all his dry snark really frightened of showing genuine feelings. He has, like, maybe five people in this big wide world that he actually cares about, but those few are so very precious to him. Also, he doesn't emote all that much unless he's alone with someone he cares about - or really, really pissed off.

F - Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

You know, I've looked around my writings, and I can't find one rn. Which is weird because it's not like I dislike writing dialogues. But I did find an overview of "planning what these people are saying to each other in this scene" but written in script form and abbreviated humorously, and while I still gotta make an earnest chapter of it sometime, I kept it because it makes me laugh a lot. If you wanna take that instead of an actual fully-fledged dialogue scene, let me know and I'll share that.

H - How would you describe your style?

I always think it's a little dry because I don't do much of what a friend called "rhetoric clutter" (amazing, considering my tendency for too many adjectives and slightly too long sentences); it's rather unrushed telling of what's going on, something for relaxed, calm reading. That includes not being very good at action scenes, but I was told I do excellent fluff. More focus on body language and tone etc. than feelings tho; I was also told that my writing doesn't try to tell the reader what emotions to feel, and I hope that's a good thing?

K - What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?

Writing down a fictionalized story of Sporus. He was a young catamite of Emperor Nero, castrated, forced to play a female gender role, called by the name of Nero's dead wife, handed over from one Emperor to the other, suicide before he was twenty - the semi-historical record of his life is awful enough tbh, and my story isn't rectifying much of that. Sporus gets some more agency, a few moments of sweet, sweet comeuppance, and positive relationships, but all the terrible stuff still happens. It's quite a downer.

M - Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?

What if Tatort Kommissar, but werewolf? I don't do that Alpha-Omega bullshit, but it admittedly does give me the chance for some dirty jokes at the expense of Thorsten and Sebastian.

T - Any fandom tropes you can’t stand?

Love Triangles. That are played for drama, that is, not for exploring polyamory and the different ways we love different people. I know some people love the back and forth, weighing the upsides and downsides of either option against each other, but it doesn't really do anything for me. I guess that's why I never warmed up to the likes of Austen and the Brontës - call me philistine, it is what it is.

Bonus of my own choosing: X - A character you enjoy making suffer. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. As a literary character, obv, not the historical Goethe - I blame @fanpersoningfox and their "Referendare und Liebe" because their Goethe version is always kind of lofty and above it and super not-even-fazed-by-your-shenanigans, so when I write Goethe, I enjoy having him flustered and facepalming and spluttering because I want to see the little idiot off of his high horse. *sigh* I love him.

Okay, well this is going to be different from my horny weeb content but I don't know where else to post it...

TW: Mental Health discussions, trauma dumping (possibly), General Angst

if you are not in a good headspace to read this, don't. please - Take care of yourself, I'll be back to my regularly scheduled shit posting after this brief message.

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Okay -

To make a long story short, I'm.. I don't know what is going on anymore. I feel like a shell of myself, an empty husk.

To clarify;

these last few months I have been back and forth about being an absolute shell of myself, In November I lost my job without any real reason - Not to worry though, I started a new job this past Tuesday, this will come back up later.

I also have been in a relationship for the last, almost 6 years (again, this comes into play shortly)

Now, none of you know who i am, or what I am like outside of this chaotic website, which is why I'm sharing it here. I have been slowing spiraling and I have no one to talk to about it so I'm going to scream it into the fucking abyss and hope that works.

This last week while it should've been happy and refreshing, has been absolute bullshit and hell in a handbasket. I've been feeling some type of way about my relationship for months now - Am i comfortable? you're supposed to feel like roommates after the initial honey moon phase, he's just not the affectionate type, Etc. The more time I spend online the more i don't find myself 'awwing' at couples, I feel jealous, unloved and unwanted - I'm 24, I should know that EVERYONE on the internet is only going to show the best side of themselves, and I do.. so I can't help but find myself confused over all of this. I've noticed I've pulled away from him, not becuase I want to necessarily. Heres the thing, I know he cares - He wouldn't have been there for me through half of the things he has been if not, but at this point I feel cared for - not loved, and only cared for out of obligation.

On top of this, I feel like my strongest assets are not knowing how to communicate with people effectively and by proxy, pushing those people away.

I feel like the fights I get into, both with my partner and my friends, are due to lack and breaks in communication in tone. Which is definitely something I need and am trying to work on.

In this last week I have gotten into, verbal disagreements we'll say, with two of the people in my life, on the same day and ever since then, I've been foggy mentally.

So, lets wrap back around -

I started my new Job this past Tuesday, it was fine - however due to my fucked sleep schedule from being out of work for 2 months I had been up since 12am and I had to set through training from 8:30-5. I was fucking tired and ready to just crash, however that same night content that I had been waiting on dropped, now something to note - My partner and I have a 2 bedroom apartment, one we use as an office- I get very loud and obnoxious when I see things I enjoy, which he doesn't like to listen to me scream (which is fair) so I told him, possibly rather harshly to admit my own fault, to give me a few minutes becuase I knew I'd be screaming (from excitement) or he could put his headset on, and That pissed him off and other than some hurtful words we didn't talk much therefore ruining both any appetite or enjoyment for the content I was watching, never the less I tried to do both and regardless, my night was soured regardless.

Moving forward from that, I trauma dump on one of my friends - she was so gracious to listen and I would like to be clear, I am in no way trash talking her or this situation. I know she may see this (If you do, Hi I love and appreciate you, I promise) I just... Need to frame the situation. She listened, gave me advice and tried to make me feel better, in turn I came across as an absolute dick, misreading a conversation and upsetting her causing her to log off for the night.

5 days later, I can't shake either of these incidents and to them, life is back to normal, and here I am - Screaming at strangers on the internet for someone to care.

I don't know what to do, I feel like a cornered animal with no outlet or way way of escape - I just, I want to fall in love with being alive again and I feel like that is the worlds hardest ask - I'm slowly shutting myself out and down..

There is no way to wrap this up peacefully, light heartedly, or humorously. There are so many other things I could add to this, and while no one is going to read this - It's gone on for long enough. So, I'll end it here.

Moral of the story; Take care of yourself, try to love yourself first and maybe things will turn out okay for you.

to whoever may see this, I'll always be here for you all if you need someone to that, I promise.

Sincerely,

Ghostly