Interest Check

concept: an alien race horrified by the idea of clothes

- You… you manifacture artificial skin? That you don over your own bodies? How utterly repulsive!!

-And instead of being rightfully ashamed of this practice you… pride yourselves on it?? You have performances dedicated to displaying weird varieties of it? You hold galas that are - for lack of a better term - ‘thinly veiled’ excuses for just such a performance?

-You try them on in specific stores and sometimes don’t buy them? YOU LEND THEM TO YOUR FRIENDS? You lend your weird fake skin to your friends???!!?

- What do you MEAN you have specifically designated sleep skin???

- An alien being forced to wear warm clothes because of the weather and begrudgingly accepting that it’s a pretty clever way of adapting to this crazy planet, THEY GUESS.

- Rebelling alien youths putting on sweaters to the absolute horror of their parents. So edgy.

Human bodies are strange and sometimes terrifying. A handbook has been constructed that is basically a staple on all ships called “Your Human Is Doing Something Strange But Don’t Panic, It’s Normal”. Here are some excerpts: 

Occasionally a human’s joints will make loud noises akin to popping or cracking. Stay calm, this does not mean that the human has broken a bone. Gases will gather at the joints in a human’s body and when pressure is applied will pop loudly. While unnerving, it has little to no effect on the well-being of a human. 

After they wake and before they sleep humans have a habit of scrubbing the bones protruding from their mouths with a flavored paste. Although it is strange, this habit is very important and the proper supplies should be provided on all ships. If not cared for properly these bones may rot and fall from the skull of the humans and it is an entirely unpleasant experience for everyone involved. 

Humans will sometimes experience an irritation or “tickling” sensation in their nose causing them to suddenly expel a large amount of oxygen from their body. This is such a violent process that they must close their eyes to prevent them from popping out of their sockets. It may appear to be painful, but is helpful and many humans actually claim that it is enjoyable and makes them feel much better.

It is recommended that anyone coming into contact with a human familiarize themselves with the many quirks that come with them to avoid future panic.

somethingcuteandwitty.tumblr.com 

To the man who reminds me of a diamond - a gem that shines bright, is multifaceted, resilient, and the strongest stone in the world:

Kim Seokjin. You are the metaphorical equivalent of a gem so precious, you deserve to be treasured by every inch that makes you who you are. 

Thank you for everything.

on fanfic & emotional continuity

Writing and reading fanfic is a masterclass in characterisation. 

Consider: in order to successfully write two different “versions” of the same character - let alone ten, or fifty, or a hundred - you have to make an informed judgement about their core personality traits, distinguishing between the results of nature and nurture, and decide how best to replicate those conditions in a new narrative context. The character you produce has to be recognisably congruent with the canonical version, yet distinct enough to fit within a different - perhaps wildly so - story. And you physically can’t accomplish this if the character in question is poorly understood, or viewed as a stereotype, or one-dimensional. Yes, you can still produce the fic, but chances are, if your interest in or knowledge of the character(s) is that shallow, you’re not going to bother in the first place. 

Because ficwriters care about nuance, and they especially care about continuity - not just literal continuity, in the sense of corroborating established facts, but the far more important (and yet more frequently neglected) emotional continuity. Too often in film and TV canons in particular, emotional continuity is mistakenly viewed as a synonym for static characterisation, and therefore held anathema: if the character(s) don’t change, then where’s the story? But emotional continuity isn’t anti-change; it’s pro-context. It means showing how the character gets from Point A to Point B as an actual journey, not just dumping them in a new location and yelling Because Reasons! while moving on to the next development. Emotional continuity requires a close reading, not just of the letter of the canon, but its spirit - the beats between the dialogue; the implications never overtly stated, but which must logically occur off-screen. As such, emotional continuity is often the first casualty of canonical forward momentum: when each new TV season demands the creation of a new challenge for the protagonists, regardless of where and how we left them last, then dealing with the consequences of what’s already happened is automatically put on the backburner.

Fanfic does not do this. 

Fanfic embraces the gaps in the narrative, the gracenotes in characterisation that the original story glosses, forgets or simply doesn’t find time for. That’s not all it does, of course, but in the context of learning how to write characters, it’s vital, because it teaches ficwriters - and fic readers - the difference between rich and cardboard characters. A rich character is one whose original incarnation is detailed enough that, in order to put them in fanfic, the writer has to consider which elements of their personality are integral to their existence, which clash irreparably with the new setting, and which can be modified to fit, to say nothing of how this adapted version works with other similarly adapted characters. A cardboard character, by contrast, boasts so few original or distinct attributes that the ficwriter has to invent them almost out of whole cloth. Note, please, that attributes are not necessarily synonymous with details in this context: we might know a character’s favourite song and their number of siblings, but if this information gives us no actual insight into them as a person, then it’s only window-dressing. By the same token, we might know very few concrete facts about a character, but still have an incredibly well-developed sense of their personhood on the basis of their actions. 

The fact that ficwriters en masse - or even the same ficwriter in different AUs - can produce multiple contradictory yet still fundamentally believable incarnations of the same person is a testament to their understanding of characterisation, emotional continuity and narrative. 

wow! i love these!

artingtiger giveaway

Everyone, thank you so much for your patience, as well as your support and love and hearts over the past week as I posted my art. I am completely blown away by your responses! To commemorate the fact that I’ve finally posted my backlog of work, as well as celebrate the advent of me finally quilling for fandom, I am doing a giveaway! One lucky winner will be able to choose one of the several pieces of artwork (choices will be posted below) that I have stashed away in my drawer, which will be framed and shipped to you. 

Your choices:

The rules for entry: 

1. Please fill out this one question survey regarding future commissions for quilling: https://forms.gle/Jnqy4QhDHbiDoi1J6. 

2. Reblog this post. 

The fine print: 

1. Giveaway is not sponsored by or affiliated with tumblr. 

2. You must be over 18 or have parental approval - the winner will need to give me your address, email address, and phone number (for customs if the winner is international).

3. Only one reblog will count.

4. I will pay postage to the winner.

This giveaway will close on July 18th, and I will post the winner on the 19th. If I can’t contact the winner, and they don’t contact me within 48 hours, a new winner will be drawn.

Thank you! ❤️

its weird to think horses were ever ‘prey animals’ because what fucking predator looks at a 8 foot tall ENORMOUS beast with pitch black devils eyes, terrifying teeth and extremely powerful legs and think ‘yeah lets go attack that one’

Headcanon:

everyone is happy

Reblog if you're a Ravenclaw.

gryffindor | hufflepuff | slytherin

We abducted humans.

To be fair, we abducted members of every new race. Abduct a small percentage of the population, expose them to some galactic prisoners, and we get a good idea of what germs, diseases, and viruses will make the jump between races. Do this over the course of a [roughly equivalent to a century], and you get a good idea of what there is, how quickly it mutates, etc. You also have the time to develop vaccines for any races that might be affected by the new race (including itself- we’re not heartless).

But we underestimated humans.

It was [roughly equivalent to four decades] into our testing of humanity. We picked up a human from his transport and placed him in a containment cell. He had some nutrients with him, and we picked that up too: less we had to feed him later.

But we underestimated the resourcefulness of humans.

Something went wrong- we think it was a door malfunction- and he escaped the cell. He disabled the guards easily (we suspect they were less alert than they should have been) and took their weapons. We locked all hatches, hoping to seal him in the laboratory wing. Unfortunately, he hacked the shipboard computer, gaining control of all systems. He made his way to the bridge, where he took the captain hostage. We offered him riches, technologies beyond human understanding.

But we underestimated the stubbornness of humans.

He was paid us no mind as he wrestled with the controls, as if on some quest. He punched numbers and figures into the console, and mumbled something about ‘being lit on fire’ by a superior. He set the ship down on the other side of the city from where he was picked up and opened the doors. We braced ourselves for a military confrontation, but it seemed like we were outside another human’s abode. He jumped out, carrying the nutrients with him.

We underestimated Domino’s 30-minute or free guarantee.

again, thank you all so much for supporting me!! whether you’ve been here since the very beginning or just followed me, thank you so much <3 rules and additional info are all under the cut!

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