#ncamferdam

[gimme-tea-bitch]

favorite book you read as a school assignment?, what is the first meme you remember ever seeing?, what made you laugh the hardest you ever have?, favorite historical era? (also, feel free answer whichever ask you really wanted someone to send)

I want you to know that this first one is literally the main reason i reblogged that post, LOL!

My favorite book from a school assignment is actually "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak! It was the summer reading thing they make you do here in the states when I was in like 7th or 8th grade. And I was an angry, shitty little kid and was very angry about having to do it and procrastinated until the like, last 2 weeks, when I was going on vacation. So I just picked a random book from the list they gave us and lo and behold, it was this one!

I'm not gonna lie, this book changed, and greatly improved who I am as a person. I wasn't a great person then, and I think had I not read this book, I would've likely been a much worse person now. See, The Book Thief is about a young jewish girl named Liesel and her life during WW2 though the town and the story as far as I recall, are fictional. And it's very heartbreaking. But it's also very beautiful. Her life is full of such heavy loss from the very beginning, and loss is a reoccurring theme of the book.

What "The Book Thief" did is it taught a cruel child perspective, and compassion. See, Liesel meets many types of people throughout the book, from her adopted parents, one of which she loves, and the other she hates. It shows an annoying schoolmate, a mayor's wife who seems like she's a part of these horrible things that are happening around Liesel. But the most important thing it shows is that none of them are what they seem. The surrogate father isn't a saint. The surrogate mother isn't needlessly cruel. The wife isn't the monster she seems to be. This book blew my mind and wrecked my heart in the 3 days where I binged it in the woods. It taught me that often times who we see on the surface is very much a facade, and it's not fair to judge people for only the things we can see. Just, it's fantastic, and last time I read it I was 18 and it still brought me to tears in the middle of my english class, so, there's that.

It also has probably my favorite depiction of the character of Death. As a sort of exhausted being that carries these souls, not for any grand reasons, but because someone should. Because these were living people and they deserve that kindness.

Now that my essay about THAT is done, Lol.

First meme was probably, "you kicked my dog" on some meme website back in 2007.

I honestly couldn't tell you what's made me laugh the hardest. I've definitely had many moments where I was laughing to the point of physical pain.

For the historical time period, I wanna say something like ancient greece, or the viking era, or medieval times because I like their aesthetics or mythology, but honestly, it's probably now. As much as the world is a pretty constant nightmare, there's also just, so much amazing stuff out there. Media, writing, art, music, people. I've met some of my closest and most important friends through the internet. Some of the most impactful things in my life that really helped me grow happened within this last century, so it's like, yeah, as bad as things feel sometimes, i'd still say now.

Thanks for asking! And more importantly thanks for making it through all that XD

[akari-hope]

Honestly, I just want to bandwagon on calling you a nerd in your ask box. So, hey nerd, how would you recommend someone who’s intimidated by the scale of Kingdom Hearts get into the franchise?

i love people just going "hey nerd", good trend

and honestly, i'd say if you're interested, just start with the original kingdom hearts 1 and see how you feel about it. it's definitely a lot to take in, and not everyone wants more than the first game, which is fair! while i think it’s one of (if not the best) game series out there, it’s certainly a bit of an acquired taste, and all the different titles and seeming lack of coherent order can be super intimidating.

kh1 though is kind of free from all of that. obviously later titles add more to it, but the first kh had to stand on its own, and does so extremely well in my opinion. it has an extremely strong aesthetic, and its story strikes a good balance that’s uniquely its own brand of weird, but still approachable. if you fall in love with the first game, odds are the rest of the series will have something to offer you. but just the same, if you don’t end up liking it, no harm no foul.

some more detailed rambling about how you'd get your hands on it and what order the series should be played in under the cut.

unless you've still got a functional ps2, odds are you'll be picking up the 1.5 remix, which has kingdom hearts final mix, re:chain of memories, and a summary of 358/2 days. don't worry about the "final mix" and "re:" stuff - final mix is identical to vanilla kh1, just with some small additions. and re:com is just a ps2 remake of the original chain of memories, which was on the gameboy advance, but it covers the exact same story. the only part of the 1.5 remix i don't love is the fact that you can't play through 358/2 days, which is my personal favorite game in the series. but again, unless you have a ds or 3ds handy, that's the version of the game you're getting.

i think most platforms at this point have 1.5 for sale pretty cheap. think my japanese copy of 1.5 + 2.5 for ps4 was around $25? it's a good deal if you know you wanna play through all of what's available. i think ps3 is the only platform you can currently buy 1.5 and 2.5 individually on. if you’re playing on ps4 or xbox one, you’ll be getting the 1.5 + 2.5 combo. but again, they’re not too expensive in general and at least on ps they go on sale fairly often.

if you wanted a full list of the games in the order you should play, generally the order they're in on the 1.5, 2.5, and 2.8 remixes is pretty good! but for clarity, that's:

1) kingdom hearts 2) re:chain of memories 3) 358/2 days (will be a summary film, unless you can play the original ds game) 4) kingdom hearts 2 5) birth by sleep 6) re:coded (will be a summary film, unless you can play the original ds game) 7) dream drop distance 8) 0.2 a fragmentary passage 9) back cover (a short film summarizing lore from union x) 10) kingdom hearts 3

despite only 3 of them being numbered in a traditional order, none of the games are really spin offs or unnecessary. even the most recent addition, melody of memory, which is a RHYTHM GAME, has story-related content. but only the ones i listed are necessary to have a full grasp of kh3. the only one i’d really argue you could skip is re:coded, but even then you’d at least need to read a summary of the game. of course, that’s if you’re invested lol.

but yeah, my advice would be to just pick up kh1 and see how you feel first!

[adoras-last-braincell]

I'm probably a little late to the party but I'm loving the steadily growing resume these asks are revealing. Can I ask what type of engineering you teach? I'm an aero so I got really excited when you said you were a professor

Hey, awesome!! My degree is in electrical and computer engineering, and I spent some time working for an aerospace company before I started teaching. I’m at a two-year college, not a university, so it’s a lot of intro courses--the most advanced one I teach is calculus-based circuit analysis.

[seasinkarnadine]

Not gonna lie, I may be looking forward to the party at the TaiPan about as much as Season 5 at this point. Also, I was watching one of your art streams last week, and I started wondering about how your drawing and writing influence each other. Obviously you draw a lot of scenes from tdii, but does it go the other way? Do you start drawing independently of the story but then in the process create a scene or imagery that inspires your writing? I'm no artist, so hopefully that question makes sense

and like Season 5 I am RADIO SILENT on the Taipan party....cough. I’m working on it. I promise it’s coming together, folks.

Hmmm not...usually? The writing comes first because that’s the heart of the story...Well. Alright. The IDEA comes first, and that’s pretty amorphous. I don’t generally draw something if I don’t have some sort of story or background for it, because the story is what’s fun for me. Hope that answered your question!

[johannas-motivational-insults]

I’m a little late for this, but 11. What’s a fanfic idea you haven’t done yet? And I have a slightly modified 6. Is there a detail you’re waiting on bated breath for readers to notice, and if so could you give the vaguest of hints in the correct direction? I want to take a crack at it, which will give me a good excuse to reread, lol

Hmm well there’s the post-canon first time fic, which I did start writing but it got waylaid by Hail Mary, whoops. And another fic set in the same universe as that one, Solidarity, and The Sting in My Eyes (a loose series) where they go up to Prime’s ship and Catra finds her mask. And... is now a good time to announce that I’m working on Satisfaction sequel? ;)

As for 6, I honestly can’t think of anything right now, I’m super tired. It kinda changes chapter to chapter anyway. Instead I’ll give you a few random facts that have yet to show up in Hail Mary but are established in my head:

Lonnie’s last name is Williams and her jersey number is 23

Catra works at Denny’s (and yes I tried to work in a joke about a free birthday meal in chapter 4 but none of my attempts fit)

Catra’s father was of Puerto Rican heritage (his parents moved to the States a few years before they died), and her mom was mixed European. (I’m thinking primarily Irish and Welsh, possibly some German thrown in there, but she wasn’t really aware of her heritage as her great-grandparents immigrated in the 1800′s. She was basically from a generic impoverished white family.)

Adora’s mom was a mix of Norwegian, Welsh, and Scottish, and the last name Grayson came from the Scottish side. Her father is an unknown entity but I headcanon him as still alive and unaware of Adora’s existence, or at least unaware of the fact that she’s his. Her maternal grandparents are still alive and aware of her existence, but she was born addicted to heroin and they didn’t feel they could take care of her and their troubled daughter (who got clean and relapsed several times and eventually died of an intentional overdose when Adora was 14), so they gave her up to the system hoping a better family would take her. They were, of course, unaware that she’d turn out to be autistic and that would torpedo her chances of getting adopted (along with the drug history, obviously).

On a less heavy note, the green-haired and brown-haired side cadets are named Devon and Alycia in this universe, and they’re dating. Devon grew up in Thaymor and knows pretty much everyone there, and this leads to some interesting social encounters at Entrapta’s party. (Yes I’m bringing back my hot OC, shhh...)

EDIT: Oh! And yeah, this is in the tags of the fic and I think I’ve mentioned it on my blog, but it’s only been hinted at so far in the body of the story: Catra has undiagnosed ADHD. She kinda half-assed self-diagnosed it and is bitter that Adora gets accommodations for her ADHD because she’s officially diagnosed. Adora got diagnosed for several reasons:

It was more obvious with her because she struggled a lot in school, while Catra was better able to compensate for the scattered focus with her genius-level intellect

Adora was already diagnosed with ASD and they’re known to go together

*hurk* white privilege, i.e. hyperactivity is more likely to get written off as a behavioral disorder for POC

Weaver wanted to get it looked into with Adora because she’s the one that matters to her, while she just saw Catra as a brat (mostly because she’s a dick who writes people off, but also because Adora was a pretty even split of the inattentive and hyperactive types, while Catra skewed more hyperactive).

Related, Weaver put both Catra and Adora in gymnastics when they were 5 because they were bouncing off the walls and driving her to drink (more). Adora was clumsy af but had fun jumping into the foam pit and goofing off. She did it for a couple years because she liked spending that time with Catra, but gave it up when it started to get more competitive and she found other sports she liked better. Catra was much more coordinated and took to it easily, which was the only reason Weaver put any effort into her for the next several years. She quit as a pre-teen because the emphasis on feminine presentation made her really uncomfortable (i.e. triggered some serious gender dysphoria) and she hated the pressure to stay skinny, as she wanted to bulk up.

So yeah, if you figured out Catra has ADHD without seeing it in the tags or on my blog, you’ve already done some great detective work. ;)

Fanfic Day Meme

[johannas-motivational-insults]

Another one for the comment hall of fame from @ncamferdam, who as usual keeps picking up on the tiniest details and their implications. Having someone who engages so thoroughly with and basically writes meta about your fanfic is such a privilege, one I don’t take for granted. Thanks for your brilliant thoughts, friend!

[johannas-motivational-insults]

Noelle added an instrumental to both Catra’s and Adora’s playlist, and it’s title is part of a T.S. Eliot quote: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” Basically, everything you learn allows you to see where you began in a new light. All I’m saying, is I think you’ll have a lot of material in the “Catra and Adora see their childhood for what it was” category to work with in the future

Please! I hope we so see more of young Catradora, as has been hinted. Even moreso, yeah, they need to talk and gain an appreciation for each other’s experiences growing up.

[johannas-motivational-insults]

I feel like "The Specialist" would be closest (relatively-speaking). You write about a lot of stuff, but you've owned the "angsty Catradora-Shadow Weaver dynamic" niche for as long as I've been around. Throw in elements of "The Novelist" as well and you've got a decent picture

Yeah! Like that’s not a trope in the traditional sense but it defs is a theme/concept I specialize in, so I was kind of thinking that too. Also I have long been a rarepair writer before Catradora. And lol yes I am almost the novelist too except my characterization is on point and probably the thing I’m proudest of and I detest fics that adopt the characters in name only. If you ignore that part it fits.