#<- half the time that's why stories fall in the wayside

[grapecaseschoices]

Have u played college tennis origin story by @/collegetennisoriginstory? It's really good! I know u said u don't like sports from a previous anon ask I saw (Im a different one btw, not the same anon) . I wouldn't go near any sort of sports with a 10 foot pole, but this game is genuinely really good. I highly reccomend it. :))

It is most definitely on my list actually 21345rewq Like I see it and I'm like I'm going to read it but then other IFs that are my preferred genre take precedent. But I promise, I trust and believe you anon! They're the same author as Merry Crisis right? That fell on the way side for me /embarassed. But I remember when it was out in it's early stages and I read it and it was SOO good. I need to get back to it

So yes, I'll check it out!! Ty <3

[magnus-and-the-dragon]

i am so goddamn sick of the cycle of ‘get interested in something’ ‘become OBSESSED to the point where it is the only thing u want to do / that brings joy’ ‘become overwhelmed by everything you are Not doing due to obsession’ ‘get over the interest only to be sad and bored’ rinse and repeat. it’s fucking exhausting. why can i not just like things. do things. have hobbies. without my brain having a meltdown!!! it’s ridiculous!

[luckycheesefoodie321]

Fourth Wing is almost unreasonably compelling as a story (SPOILERS)

While the plot twist is something you can absolutely predict, there is a kind of joy in knowing that it will happen because you’re so caught up in the lead up and the ultimate fall out.

I’ve always thought that tropes and cliches, while treated like a bad thing, when done properly, make for excellent storytelling.

Was it immediately obvious that Xaden, not Dain, was the main love interest and she would eventually fizzle out of her childhood crush on him? Duh.

Did I get extremely suspicious each time Dain touched her face after I realised their friendship was going the wayside?? Uh absolutely. I clocked that bitch a mile away.

With all his hesitation and emphasis on secret keeping, was I surprised that Xaden turned out to be working with the gryphon fliers?? Nah.

Was it unexpected that venin and wyvern were real?? No the amount of emphasis on that damn book being just a silly little book of folktales made me realise quite quickly.

Brennan at the end was a bit of a surprise, but after never ever seeing or hearing about his dragon, despite knowing about Mira’s and knowing Tairn was the bonded dragon of Brennan’s “friend”, it made sense.

The moment I heard about big scary black dragon not having a rider, I was like yeah that’s gonna be Violet’s. then golden feather tail came along and I was like but wait why the emphasis on new dragon if big dragon??? Then she got two so that was a fun switch up.

But did any of these change my enjoyment of the story??? No. My expectations were met in the best way and I was compelled to see them through the whole way. The satisfaction of knowing what will happen and having accurately anticipated it is where half the fun is. I don’t need nonsensical plot twists for no other purpose than shock value. It’s a well written story and a tight narrative.

What I for sure wasn’t expecting was not one but TWO and I guess technically a half sex scenes. I was fully expecting a cut to the next morning or the next hour or something. But nope. Just like any raunchy fanfic I was reading words like clit and cock and immediately had to remove myself from the living room to my bed room because my mother was next to me and I can’t be reading these things in her presence. Even if I am 25 years old.

So yeah. As expected. I will be waiting for Iron Flame. My first booktok rec turned out pretty well.

[rabbitr]

dawntrail thoughts (you know the ones)

finished msq so here are thoughts. spoilers under the cut

did i like dawntrail? eh.

dawntrail is perfectly fine as an expac. i didn't go into it expecting dawntrail to be able to top the shadowbringers/endwalker combo. but i also didn't expect them to fumble like that.

overall, dawntrail isn't bad! i like a lot about it. getting to explore tural, the competition during the rite of succession, new cast of characters, uh...... solution nine. i think you can tell which half i like more. solution nine and alexandria were perfectly serviceable, i just liked the slow and lighthearted pace of the first half better.

my major issue with dawntrail is that the first half (rite of succession) and second half (alexandria) don't feel very well integrated.

if you like the rite of succession, then all the interesting bits about tural's history and culture are thrown out the window once you get to alexandria. none of the characters you meet and see grow during the rites will travel with you and offer their insights in alexandria's state of affairs. except for a few, which well. i'll get to them.

if you like alexandria, then the rite of succession feel like a slow and meandering beginning. characters in alexandria don't show up until you slog through the rites, and then aren't given all that much space to grow. i don't particularly like the second half so i'm sorry that i can't say more on it.

in short, dawntrail's theme is "legacy". both halves deal with how people pass down their legacies - who will remember them and what will they be remembered for? the ideological differences between different parties about how they should be remembered drives the conflict.

while alexandria fits the story thematically and is foreshadowed fairly well, the transition falls flat. there's no good bridge between the two sections. i've seen some people arguing that its about wuk lamat's arc, that she needs to learn what happens when she can't make peace. but... not really.

wuk lamat definitely undergoes development during the rite of succession. it's somewhat subtle while also being fucking beat into your head with a sledgehammer, but afterwards she doesn't really... change as a result of going to alexandria. she doesn't really struggle with what she needs to do to keep peace. wuk lamat kind of resolves herself that some people need killing if her people want peace and her gripes are mostly that the people who need killing are her brother and a new friend.

the focus of all of dawntrail is on wuk lamat alone, with erenville and krile getting incredibly minor spotlights during alexandria. so when her development grinds to a crawl, it's noticeable. because erenville and krile don't change at all throughout alexandria.

we get to know erenville a little better. and that's it.

krile, despite being part of the impetus for us to even want to explore alexandria, is regulated to a bit part with a grand total of about one quest and a handful of cutscenes wherein she asks people about her grandfather and earring. i like wuk lamat, don't get me wrong. but why couldn't krile have shared the spotlight? in the endwalker patches, she talks about how she wants to go on this journey and that she can defend herself now. where was any of that?

speaking of scions. oh boy, the scions.

in dawntrail's need to focus on wuk lamat, the scions entirely fall on the wayside. not even in that the WoL's relationships with them don't come to fore, i mean, not even wuk lamat seems to get to know them. while i understand this is a time constraint (only so much expac), i would have rather... not had the scions there?

they don't really contribute much to the story except to play the brains to your and wuk lamat's brawn. towards the second half, it felt just like they needed an excuse to justify alexandria and explain it to wuk lamat, as well as making sure the whole cast is back together. like, did we really need a y'shtola cameo?

my major issue with how the scions were handled are that none of them got any sliver of the spotlight. i don't even mean in a character development way - they've all had their time already - i just mean. why not have wuk lamat expand on her relationship with them? most of the gentler moments are between the WoL and wuk lamat while the scions mostly follow the two of you around, occasionally solving academic problems.

but dawntrail focused so intensely on wuk lamat. which is fine! shadowbringers/endwalker and even the expacs before were pretty much about us, after all. that story's concluded. i don't mind that it's wuk lamat's story.

except the sheer amount of wuk lamat starts to get aggravating after a while. because i kept waiting for krile's story to start. or erenville's. and i kept waiting and waiting and ultimately in the second half was served a story mostly about wuk lamat still and... sphene?

let's talk about sphene.

i hate her. she appears to be a sympathetic villain, yet she is suspicious from the get-go, and her entire purpose is to serve as wuk lamat's antagonist. does she serve the plot well? yeah, no arguments there. do i feel sympathy for her? absolutely not!

furthermore, the confrontation with sphene appears to be mostly a bootleg version of shadowbringers' ending, a decision with utterly baffles me. like the writing team wanted to parallel sphene with emet-selch, except one of those characters was a through-line since before the expac dropped and remained relevant until the end of the story and the other one is sphene.

crucially, emet-selch is a villain that has roots in prior plot. the narrative is constantly pitting us against the ascians between the political intrigue, so when emet-selch shows up and gives us his motivations, it recontextualizes an entire group of antagonists who were previously just a generic evil shadowy organization. it feels powerful to realize that all the prior struggles are because of a sympathetic motivation.

sphene recontextualizes nothing and appears hollow throughout her screentime. she loves her people and wants to protect her people, and that gets driven into our heads over and over. it is possible that sphene is purposefully written that way - to show that as an endless, she's only memories and a vague motive, not a living person. but if so, then the emotional impact of her would have to lay in wuk lamat's relationship to her.

who as i stated, has a character arc that slows way down and does not really struggle with the fact that sometimes you have to kill some people to keep peace.

lastly, the writing itself started to grate. it felt like more than ever, the writers were reaching through the screen attempting to beat the themes of the story into my head. so many times, characters will just... say the meaning of the plot at that point in time aloud. or sphene being the worst offender, repeating that she wants to protect her people over and over like a broken record. (again, which could be the point. but wuk lamat does this too with her understanding others line.)

one of the best parts of the writing for me was during the trial with zoraal ja. he sees mirages of different aspects of legacy - what came before in gulool ja ja, what is now in wuk lamat and koana, and what comes next in gulool ja. and his next action rejects them all. it's a good scene! i just wish more of the writing was like that and didn't give me a feeling of being directly told what i should know about the story.

while i've mostly been critical of dawntrail, it's not awful. it's a fun romp even if i vastly prefer shadowbringers/endwalker (but who doesn't). wuk lamat and koana were fun to get to know, alexandria was interesting, and running around gathering aether currents lets me to look at some very pretty videogame landscapes.

would i play dawntrail again? no. am i going to continue thinking about whatever gulool ja ja and ketenramm's deal was? yes. why were they like that- //shot

anyways this has been a long rabbithole of something i will likely never think about again but wanted to exorcise. if you've made it this far down, feel free to send me an ask or something with your thoughts.

[ominousvibez]

So I originally published this post a little bit ago about how important it felt to me that Arin should remain without an element in Dragons Rising, because it would be such an interesting character arc to explore. But I also published that super late at night and it was more a train of thought, not something fully written, but I want to expand on this more.

Arin should not have an element, and here’s why.

(Runtime: 3:29:09) (JK I’ve just been watching hbomberguy vids for the last week)

When we’re first introduced to Arin as a character, he’s shown to be a huge ninja fan. He carried around Lloyd’s mask for God knows how long, too afraid to wash it in fear of damaging it. He wears it as a mask, too, when he tries to be just like the heroes he looks up to (which is a lil’ gross buddy). He propped the ninja up as these great heroes, and his optimism generally bounced nicely off Sora’s more pessimistic view of the world.

Arin grew up with the stories of the ninja, so it makes sense that he would try to emulate his heroes. And when he meets Lloyd, and starts training to be a ninja, well, it’s kinda his dream come true.

Other people have compared Arin’s character to that of a longtime Ninjago Fan IRL, too. He knows the lore, he knows the stories, he knows about the ninja. Sora, on the other hand, is the opposite, and a good representation of the new fans in the audience. She didn’t know these brightly color-coded ninjas existed until the Merge, after she ran away from everything she knew in Imperium, and she’s just trying to survive with her silly bestie Arin.

But then, Sora unlocks her elemental ability over technology—a new elemental ability, unlike anything seen before in Ninjago—and the story really begins.

Throughout the first season, it focuses a lot on Sora’s struggle with mastering her new abilities. At first she thinks it’s something that only their dragon baby Riyu can activate with her, but then starts to think that all her efforts lead to suffering, before finally coming full-circle and accepting them as her own, eventually unlocking her true potential in the climax of the second half of Season 1. BendoBricks on Youtube has a much better breakdown of her character arc, which I’d really recommend, cause I’m not here to focus on her.

No, I want to focus on Arin.

Arin—the long-time Ninjago fan’s self-insert baby boy who I would gladly kill for—is a great character, and despite being the POV character at the beginning of the first season, does fall to the wayside a bit when focus goes onto Sora and her character arc. Which is fine, don’t get me wrong—because Arin falling a bit to the side feels like it’s being done on purpose.

Imagine this. You’re a fan of this group of superheroes in your world, and you spend your days wishing you’d be like them. Or maybe you’d daydream about your parents selling you to these superheroes, or something. And something really bad happens, the world completely changes, and then you’re on your own, and those superheroes vanished.

You make friends in this new world, and you share these stories with your new friends! It’s great. And then one of those heroes comes back, and wants to train you and your friend to be heroes, too, as your friend has a superpower. Doesn’t that sound absolutely amazing!

You’re a prodigy, too—you’ve trained and taught yourself the techniques these heroes used, and they’re all impressed. But your friend has a superpower.

And you don’t.

This is the situation Arin is in. Everyone around him has an elemental ability. Sora, Riyu, Lloyd, Kai, Nya, Zane—everyone he basically associates with daily has this amazing power (or is a cute lil’ dragon). And he doesn’t have anything. Even though he’s taught himself how to use Spinjitzu, and has managed to unlock a technique where he can transfer that spinning energy to an item, he doesn’t technically have an elemental ability. It’s less impressive compared to other characters, especially the ninja, who have known Spinjitzu for like thirteen years. It’s impressive he’s learned it on his own, unlocked the key for it by himself, but in comparison, he doesn’t have a lot to set him apart from the other ninja other than the fact that he doesn’t have an element.

In my opinion, this would be a much more interesting route for them to take his character. Staying without an element.

Of course, it could later be found out that Arin’s a new elemental master of, like, momentum, or something like that, to explain how he picked up Spinjitzu so quickly and can transfer it to objects, but I think that would be the lazy way out.

Arin’s character acts as an amazing foil to Sora through Season 1. He’s a ninja fanboy, she kinda doesn’t care. He’s energetic, optimistic. She’s cautious and a bit pessimistic. Arin later gains oni-like horns on his ninja gi, and Sora is associated heavily with dragons (which I’ve heard is quite a duality in the lore, idk I haven’t seen the later seasons yet).

Sora is an elemental master, and Arin… isn’t.

Bits of a new character arc can be seen through S1 for Arin. In the last few episodes of the series, while Sora masters her element, Arin withdraws a bit from it all. In Episode 10, following the first battle in Imperium, he sits by himself, away from the others, and dejectedly tells Lloyd, “If you have all of them, you don’t need me anymore”, before it cuts to not just Kai, Zane, and Nya; but also, Sora and Riyu. Their conversation was less about Arin’s lack of an elemental ability, and more of Arin’s fear of losing others; they have a similar conversation in episode 20, where Arin laments his object Spinjitzu only being accessible when he’s literally scared to shit and how frustrating it is, and Lloyd comments on how all of the ninja had moments when they were scared, but they acted through the fear.

I feel like both of those scenes happening in the mid-season and season finale happen interestingly. For once, they center Arin by himself; he’s sitting aside by the wall, messing with a shuriken in ep 10, and he’s throwing the shuriken and trying to activate his object Spinjitzu in ep 20; but they both put him on the sidelines, away from others.

(Okay I know in ep 20 Sora is also by herself with her mech, but Arin is still aside, so my point still stands.)

The opportunity of a character like Arin not ever developing an elemental ability like the other ninja feels like something almost too good to waste. Before Nya became the Water Ninja (and when she was actually allowed to be a character and not just The Girl), Nya had interesting moments, such as developing Samurai X as a way to be a part of the team without actually being a ninja.

I think the ideal character arc for Arin would work similarly to Sora’s, but flipped, if that makes sense. Perhaps having him attempt to unlock an elemental ability, running out of luck with everything, and getting frustrated at his lack of worth, despite his skills with Spinjitzu, would be an interesting way to go for his character. Eventually he would learn that he doesn’t need to have a cool elemental ability to be a ninja; he’s just fine as he is. And maybe that can be what’s holding him back from truly developing his object Spinjitzu is that fear that he’s not worthy enough to be a ninja. He turns his lack of elemental power into his strength.

The DR writers have a cool arc they could give him, and I think they ought to go for it. I’m sure more about Arin will be revealed in S2, and he’ll have his character arc then. I just hope that the writers don’t take the easy way out, and give Arin a much more interesting character arc than the same “omg I have an elemental ability I gotta learn” that Ninjago has done multiple times already.

[plottingdaisies]

Dear Mrs. Cooper,

I was suprised to get a letter from someone from my mama's hometown. What with my family's rather sordid history there.

You do know what they say about me, right?

I was born of the union of my poor earthly mama and the Devil himself. They say he came to her in the wee twilight hours, promising a life away from toiling in the dirt and living off naught but rice and beans for her meals. They say mama took Old Scratch up on his offer to escape granddaddy's moonshine rages and grandmama's weeping spells, and in so doing, my mama, God rest her poor soul, doomed your little town proper.

That's what they say.

Some of them that's less spiritually inclined think pop was just a coal man, maybe even a railroad big wig looking to take up what land he could get his pristine, blood- covered hands on any way he could get it. The story changes based on whose mouth it comes from. Others take with the story that mama made a pact with Satan to save her own hide and leave the rest to rot by the wayside. The details are hazy, but all of them still spit after they say her name, like it tastes bad.

Well, they ain't all wrong. But they ain't all right, neither.

Don't know how he got his money. Could have been mining,  but there's an awful lot of iron that gets pulled from the ground in these parts for his kind's comfort. I thought settling mama's affairs was complicated, but dealing with his particulars is likely to send me to an early grave. In more ways than one.

That's the thing about it. What they don't say, don't know or don't care to know is that the matter is a little more complicated than that. Pops wasn't exactly human, but he wasn't the Devil himself, neither. Fond of games of chance he was, his shadow always looked wrong, like he was a good two feet taller than he actually was. His eyes reflected lantern light like a cougar in the night. He was just as dangerous too. But he wasn't the Devil. There's more than just God and the Devil out there, you know?

Mama didn't know any better. She didn't know anything other than good and bad men existed until much too late.

Ain't that the way of things? There's a perfectly good monster right there in the family portrait to blame for the state of things, but the finger gets pointed at the seventeen year old desperate not to suffer another beating, half starved, and in great need. Why blame the devil in disguise for using his tricks on a naive teenager when you can blame the woman? It's easier than looking someone who can fight back in his unnatural gleaming eyes. Imagine the kind of punch ol' Tennessee Phillips could pack and you can understand why it's easier to pick on little Edie Puck.

Not like she can come and speak in her own defense, anyhow. Well, not in the usual way. And no, not like them Fox sisters used to get up to back in the old days. I wasn't around then, but that medium business is all bunk. There's ways to talk to the dead, but it ain't pleasant. And it don't look like shaking tables and gauze shoved in your unmentionables.

It might not even be pop's fault that shit's gone sideways there, you know? From the outside, it looks like every other small town right now. There's even bread lines in the big city, if you believe the dreck they print in the papers.

But ... well, if what you say is true, it may very well be that daddy dearest left his mark on the town in more ways than stealing Edie away in the dark of the night. And it doesn't sit right with me to just leave it up to chance that what you're describing is just coincidence. The timing is peculiar, and knowing my luck, this falls under the particulars of managing dear old dad's estate, in a manner of speaking.

All of that being said, if you read all of that and still think it's a good idea to have the "Spawn of Satan" come and look into the frightening happenings around town, I'll come. Words don't hurt me none, but it won't do to put the good name of you and your husband at risk when you might be better off hiring a night guard at the farm to scare off the local hoodlum children.

If knowing that old bastard left me more than just his name don't dissuade you from hiring my services, and if knowing you're sure to get some sideways looks, especially from old Jody's kin, don't bother you, then I'll come look at things. Save your money. All I need's two square meals and a cot in the shed. Send your reply to the same address, and I'll be on my way before the next new moon.

Kindest regards, Tenny Puck-Phillips Supernatural Private Investigator

[dramioneasks]

HP FESTS: HP Call Me Daddy Fest (Part 2)

HP Call Me Daddy Fest 2023:

little kitten street by mossymiu - E, WIP - the very first time they meet, hermione knows she’s in trouble. trouble of only the cruelly sweet or achingly inviting kind.or: the modern au age gap ddlg fic

Heavenly Fire by ThorneKate for Hypothetically - E, WIP - The last time the Virent Rosa was seen, the wizarding world was on the edge of extinction. Now, it's chosen a new caretaker as a new war looms on the horizon and threatens everything she holds dear.Hermione Granger finds herself in an entirely different fight, and it could very well change the world as they all know it. [Hermione x Everyone]

Fill Me Up, Daddy by RoseDeVents - E, one-shot - Hermione and Draco are having a hard time conceiving, and their healer recommends a rather unorthodox method of treatment: Hermione should drink Draco’s semen every day for a week. How that is supposed to help her get pregnant, Hermione has no idea – but she’s willing to try anything to have Draco’s baby. The week ends with her having tried quite a lot of things, actually.Inspired by a true story the Internet forced me to see about Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker. Written for Call Me Daddy Fest 2023.

Making Their Heir by AuroraNyx - E, 2 chapters - “Sshhh baby”, he whispered as he leaned in close to her, trailing his tongue up the side of her neck; she tasted of sweat and sex and her scent was half of the heady fragrance that had made up his Amortentia in Slughorn’s 6th year Potions class. “You knew damn well that you were signing up to be our breeding slut." [Draco x Hermione x Theo]

Better Living Through Potions by Ceilidhchaos - E, 10 chapters -  Theodore Nott has never just taken what he wants. He's let his own desires fall to the wayside. All that changes when he finds an old potion recipe book of his father's. It's going to give him everything he's ever wanted and he doesn't care if he has to go Dark to do it. He is a Nott after all. DEAD DOVE! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK! MIND THE TAGS!

Cover my nightmares in gold by prima_vera - M, one-shot - Her ex-enemy, her step-sibling, her friend, her lover–he's all of that and more. And he's the only person who can turn the grey wasteland of her nightmares gold.

a paper anniversary by Stars_in_motion - E, one-shot - The one-year deadline to conceive a child is nearing for the enacted Marriage Law.With nothing else to say, she’s left with the rest of her half-truth. “I want a baby.”Draco blinks down at her once. Then twice. “You want a baby. With”—he hesitates through the question—“Me?”“Who else?” Now it’s her turn to be frustrated. “You’re my husband, aren’t you?”

Granger's Gamble by SaffronGin - E, one-shot - Hermione Granger thought she could antagonise her husband so she would be skillfully punished later.She didn't account for such a big audience- and she didn't expect the audience to participate. [Hermione x Everyone]

Cauldron duty by thatblondebitvh - E, 2 chapters - She held his stare, fire blazing in her eyes. “Detention for what? For smiling?”Theo whistled, nearly bouncing in his chair in excitement.Professor Malfoy slammed his palms at her desk and leaned so close they would share the same air if only she dared to breathe. “I will give you detention for breathing in my class if I want to. You’d do well to remember that, Miss Granger.”

The Weight of the Void by gloivy - E, one-shot - “And why is Hermione Granger from five years in the future so concerned with a curse that I am going to receive?”There is a long pause before she speaks once more. “Because the curse will stop you from ever siring an heir.”Hermione travels back in time with a single request—for Draco to fuck an heir into her.

prove it by harlowvera - E, one-shot -" Prove it," she begs. "Prove to me that you'll stay, that you'll stay with me. For me.""Tell me how, baby, tell me what you need and I'll do it. I'll show you how serious I am," he insists, gripping her face with a desperate, near-bruising strength. "Anything.""A baby," she gasps. "Give me a baby."

To be had by Miso (SaffronGin) - E, one-shot - Discovering the pleasures of sex was the most exciting thing to happen to Hermione Granger since finding out she was a witch. She goes to great lengths to get exactly what she wants, and to her surprise, three Pureblood Slytherins stumble upon her. [Hermione x Everyone]

When In Rome by Wanderingxfae - E, one-shot -  Hermione is partying with the Slytherin crew, and Veritiserum gets thrown in, and our girl admits she has a praise kink. Draco seeks to fulfill her dreams, and maybe start one of his own.

Today His, Tomorrow Yours by rockthecasbah18 - E, one-shot - Hermione Granger has been feeling neglected by her husband for longer than she’d care to admit. Is a baby really the best way to fix things? Draco Malfoy seems to have some thoughts on the matter.

The Fundraiser by Kal11915 - E, one-shot - Hermione must attend a fundraiser per her boss Draco…. Misunderstandings galore. Teasing and feelings all come out to play

When In Cupido’s Sights by chronophobique - E, one-shot - When her eyes flew open, Hermione didn’t think she could get more anxious than she already was until the only open eyes she met as she looked around were Malfoy’s.This couldn’t be happening.Cupido couldn’t possibly hate her so much as to pair her with him.OR the one in which Draco and Hermione find themselves trapped in a card game and are forced to pair up to survive.

The Bet by GardenAtTwilight - E, one-shot - Draco and Theo place a bet on who will be the father of their first child with Hermione. [Draco x Hermione x Theo]

Now my neck is open wide, begging for a fist around it by nyquilsquirrel - E, one-shot - “Believe me, you don’t want to find out what happens if you bite,” he warned. There was a mocking edge to his voice, almost like he was daring her to find out.Hermione pressed her lips together tightly, eyes glaring up at him, proud and defiant, even as tears skimmed her pink cheeks.Stroking his hard, throbbing length, Draco cooed, “You look so pretty when you cry.” [READ ALL WARNINGS]

The Scent of You by nyle_bd - E, one-shot - Draco comes home to a very horny Hermione and rewards his kitten with his cream.Written for HP Call Me Daddy Fest 2023. Prompt: Kitten's First Heat.Tagged as "AU Amortentia" because this work explores the association of olfaction with love and romance in a non-magical universe.

As It Was by smokyquartz - E, one-shot - The loss of time creeps up like ivy. It can be beautiful and full of life or it can poison and strangle like a snake. Three people find themselves wound up in memories - desperate to tear the vines away to start anew. But life has never been so easy.Somehow, it'll always lead back into the past. [Draco x Hermione x Theo]

A simple ask by princess_mousie - E, one-shot - Hermione asks her Daddy for a gift money can't necessarily buy and he will make good on his promise to deliver

Baby Mission by princess_mousie - E, one-shot - Hermione is determined to get her baby, but her mafia husband will need convincing...

This fest is ongoing.

[mortalghost]

My sorrows follow sparrows in unending menageries of grey.

As the sun turns bitter and hides away your mourning routine becomes life as if always.

Almost a year has gone and we're set to celebrate life, yet here we are remembering that you're gone and we weep as the story of who you are continues on in our lives. Yet my broken heart tells the tales of loss I never thought I'd be sharing all of this emptiness so soon and for so long.

My God. Why did it have to come to this? All of the nonsense of the world fell to the wayside as your heart held out for hope and my soul yearned for dreams of you becoming better and being here for us like you've always been.

Mom still falls apart without you here. Her world was with you, battling by your side. Making sure that every moment you were there for her, and she with you. It's like a part of her is missing.

Her other half.

I can't imagine how she feels but I know she would give anything to go back in time and make things right.

I, on the other hand, am faking it. I pretend to be strong as my world is dark and cold and I don't know where I am or where to go. I wish I could take back all of the regrets, all of the time spent away, all of the torment that you faced.

I miss you so much, Dad.

I love you.

Happy birthday.

Our first without you.

I wish this pain weren't here or that the tears I cried would wash away everything and I could wake up and this would all be a nightmare and you'd be alive.

With all of the love and admiration to you from your son...

-H. Murcia 4:46 PM 10/19/2022

[flowerbloom-arts]

It makes me sad that in general Moomin adaptations some characters just, disappear, I mean, I understand, there's not that much history for characters like ninny, primadonna and others, but idk, I kinda miss them and I kinda want them to take some creative liberty and add them more¿ idk

(her NAME is LA GOONA-)

You see, the thing is that both the books and comics tend to be episodic in nature. Characters come and go as the Janssons pleased, characters like Snork, Muskrat and Mr. Hemulen were only in Comet in Moominland and Finn Family Moomintroll then disappeared without an explanation and their roles were greatly inflated in almost all the animated adaptations in one way or another, Little My became a main-stay since day one of every adaptation even though she became a main character in the latter half of the books and a mere handful of comics, the Postman is a reoccurring side character in the 90s even though he only appeared in one Tove comic and atleast one Lars comic, I think? So on and so forth.

The reason why is so many characters show up and disappear is due to plot utility and Tove/Lars not bothering with explanations or epilogues for these characters, the franchise is essentially episodic from story to story despite the obvious time progression, even the comics have a stated time progression - Moomin Winter references Winter Follies as having happened a whole year ago, meaning the comics between those 2 stories happened within a year, and that's alongside the self-referential humor that became a thing when Lars was brought on to assist Tove with writing.

Many of the side character introduced in individual stories tend to be one-and-done, and so the stories move forward onto other things. Ninny got her visibility fixed and doesn't need the Moomins anymore, La Goona realized that her self-interest was harmful to the one person she mildly cared about and went off to become an entertainer for Emeraldo as he was for her, etc etc.

Characters like them don't need to come back, because what other stories are you going to tell with them within their simplicity? Although, Lars did enjoy bringing a few one-off Tove characters back into his own comics, like how Mabel became a reoccurring character whenever Mrs. Fillyjonk is involved even though she only existed for Moominmamma's Maid, or how he brought mr. Brisk, Fuddler, Jumble and Misabel in their own individual comic stories, or when he gave cameos to Ms. Fluffins for a plot point. But ultimately, most characters fall to the wayside because that's just how episodic series work, they come in, do what they need to do for a story, and then leave/disappear when the next story begins.

Now, if it were up to me on what to do on an adaptation, I would definitely bring a few of them back for another story or two, like checking on the cast of Moominsummer Madness for an episode or have a cast of Moominvalley in November cameo in earlier stories so their characters in MVinN feel more naturally tied to the rest of the show, or even have a few one-off characters cameo in the background/crowd shots before and after their stories are told.

But the staff for adaptations aren't me, Moomin 1969/72 did its own thing and their one-off characters always had a reason to leave, 90s Moomin was overly concerned with not doing what the previous adaptation did and stuck to the source material all the while pleasing the general media sensibilities of the time, and Moominvalley 2019 is so strained in its budget for character models that they have no choice but to limit its cast and even still they decided to keep season 1 characters like Emma and Ninny as one-offs. Alot of them are riddled with strange creative decisions for its characters, like the 90s series bringing back the Skier Hemulen and somehow making him the most out of character he can be, or MV19 creating ridiculous intrigue about Brisk possibly being Little My's dad because they couldn't think up another character to create daddy issues for her, but it is what it is.

I think it all comes down to the show's story structure and the utility of the characters, the source material was very utilitarian with its characters, and the adaptations tried very hard to reconcile with that while also adding more to its designated main cast. Neither are overly concerned with adding epilogues for everyone, once their character arc and purpose is over then so too is their presence.

Fandom is a great tool to fix this issue but guess what-

[wakinguponsaturday]

Almost a year to the day after first asking @its-sixxers if I could print out and bind Half Light (after figuring out how one actually does that), I've finally finished it!!!

She's 825 pages long, has some of the early pages warped from glue, and blood (?) staining the text block, and I am so excited to fall in love with Nines and Mary all over again. Thanks for letting me do this, it's been a really rewarding project and I got a new hobby out of it!!!

Please go read Half Light and everything else Six has written, she is immensely talented. Mary is my favourite character in Bloodlines bar none and reading her story endeared me to VTMB when the game itself did not. Six's Fallout works are also masterpieces, and I haven't checked out her newer stuff with Elder Scrolls but I fully intend to because even if I've never touched a Skyrim game in my life, I know I'm going to adore it too!

More info about the process under the cut.

SeaLemon was an invaluable resource starting out here because I barely know how to sew and I had no idea how to approach the actual construction of a book. I'm gonna plug her right off the bat because she's very beginner-friendly if anyone else wants to learn.

But before all of that I had to format everything in Word! Chapter by chapter I copied the text over from the downloadable PDF from AO3 and would scan through the fic to ensure the formatting was correct (italicization, bolding, paragraph breaks, etc). I'd do this for about an hour at a time over the course of a couple months, until I decided to do the rest of it all at once after one March night at 10PM where I decided to learn how to bind it all, because fuck it, why not. (Answer: I was freaked out about my upcoming departmental talk and this seemed like a good distraction).

Printing all of it just on regular printer paper (don't know if I'd do that again in the future, but it's what I had on hand) it ended up being 52 signatures, or collections of 16 pages (4 pieces of paper) folded in half. Pierced holes in all of those using an awl and an old phonebook to hold the pages open, and then used my old embroidery thread to sew them together. This part took me maybe two days because I was just so damn pumped about it lmao. I also don't have any kind of bookpress to weight down the pages, so I had made due with old textbooks and MCAT prep material.

It stayed this way for LITERAL MONTHS as I gathered all the other supplies - chipboard and brushes from my local craft store, PVA glue online, and by far the hardest part was fabric. I've since learned that you can make your own fabric using book cloth and basically anything you want (if I had known this book would have been coated in red silk I swear) but for now I just wanted to be sure it was something designed for this purpose, as the woman at Fabric Land assured me it needed something specialized. So binder's buckram! Took a while to find something local and the color selection was pretty limited, I was hoping for a dark red or a dark blue but the green was the best they had in stock. Took even longer to get here. And by that point I had enough going on that it fell by the wayside until uh.... last week.

I glued the spine, again realizing that maybe I should've just made my own bookpress but powering through with textbooks to hold things in place, and let that sit for a couple days to fully dry. Ideally it would be flat, but beggars cannot be choosers. Gave her a lil ribbon too.

Not pictured because I forgot, the final text block with black construction paper glued to it to form the inside cover (would probably use something thicker/crisper in the future, something more like cardstock perhaps?). But then it came to putting the cover together! And that was just cutting chipboard to fit and gluing it correctly onto the fabric, leaving gaps around the spine.

Let that dry, and then I glued the text block in and let everything sit for just over 24h, again with makeshift weights to prevent the fabric warping (it's the second book from the bottom).

And then tada! Finished book! (This one's from before it was pressed but it looks the same now)

All in all extremely cool to hold in my hands and I look forward to the next fic that makes me this insane. If I get permission to do The Sun Is Now Fading I might take a crack at that and make a little set! Follow your dreams and one day you too will be able to take notes in the margins of your favourite Vampire the Masquerade fic.

[vldkeith]

keithtober🔪🎃💢 week one: texas or japan🇯🇵

shiro wonders if keith might like to reconnect with family someday.

☕️ko-fi | 🔗read on ao3 - please leave a kudos on ao3 if u read this story (even if it's on tumblr!)

--

For the past hour, Keith’s been doing his monthly knife maintenance in the Castleship kitchen—sharpening it, polishing it, that sort of thing. Despite the tediousness, it’s actually a pretty serene exercise, and Keith has discovered throughout the years that he enjoys this time of working methodically almost as much as he enjoys actually using his knife. It clears his mind, resets him a little; that’s why he always does it at the end of the month, so he can get a fresh start going next month.

That might’ve fallen by the wayside at this point, though. Keith estimates based on the knife’s dullness that it’s been a month since he last cleaned it, but he has no idea if it’s actually the end of the month on Earth in any way that matters. He’s been gone too long to keep track of things like that, and there’s no way he’s asking Lance, the only one who is actually keeping track of things like that.

He swipes once more, appreciating the shhhing! sound the action produces, and manages not to stab himself when someone appears suddenly right in front of him and he jumps about a mile high.

“Holy shit,” Keith curses, scrambling to get a hand around the handle of his knife, which just clattered onto the kitchen counter. He looks up quickly, sees a tuft of white hair, large muscles, and skin-tight clothes, and blows a strand of hair out of his face, annoyed. “Don’t sneak up on me when I’m doing this. I’ve told you that, like, a thousand times.”

“Sorry,” Shiro says, not sounding very sorry at all. He cranes his neck forward, examining Keith’s progress on the knife, and nods approvingly. “Glad to see you’re keeping up with this even now, though.”

“I’m not that incapable of routine,” Keith grumbles, though the response lacks bite. Shiro can be an annoying brother-dad, for sure, but an annoying brother-dad is leagues better than no brother-dad, and Keith had gotten too close to the latter to ever truly wish for Shiro’s absence again. Even now, his sudden appearance comforts Keith.

They both stand there for a moment in amicable silence, Shiro’s eyes flitting absently from the tip of Keith’s blade to the handle, before Keith grows tired of not saying anything. Shiro must’ve come for a reason, after all.

“So…?” he prompts, grasping his knife and swinging it deftly back into its sheath at his belt. He looks at Shiro expectantly.

Shiro lets out a half-laugh, amused. “So what?”

“I know you didn’t just come to grade my knife maintenance skills,” Keith responds drily, raising an eyebrow. “So, what is it? Did I fuck something up again? Leave the training robots on?”

A brief expression of sadness falls over Shiro’s face, like he’s actually hurt by the insinuation that he only shows up to berate Keith, and Keith hurries to correct himself.

“It was a joke,” he mutters, casting his eyes down. “Sorry.”

Shiro’s face lights up again, and he chuckles, reaching over to shove Keith lightly on the shoulder. The action still sends Keith stumbling about 5 inches back, though, because Shiro will never know his strength. “It’s okay. Should’ve known you were just being crabby.”

Keith mouths crabby to himself, half-mocking and half-amused, but Shiro breezes past the subject quickly before he has a chance to properly respond.

“You were right, though. I did come here for a reason.”

Immediately, Keith’s guard is up, years of disciplinary action from people who weren’t even Shiro flashing before his eyes and constructing a shield of bricks around him. He trusts Shiro more than that, though, and makes an effort not to let them pile up too high.

He stays silent, waiting for Shiro to get to the point. Eventually, Shiro sighs, raising his human hand to rub the back of his neck. “I’ve just been thinking, recently, and I wanted to know your thoughts on a certain…proposition.”

It’s not like Shiro to be this evasive—he’s not direct in the way someone like Keith is, but he doesn’t tend to waste time on hesitancy and nervousness. Keith regards Shiro suspiciously, his anxiety mounting with every passing second that Shiro doesn’t tell him what he’s getting at. Is everyone okay? Is he going to leave again? Keith’s stomach clenches painfully. He wouldn’t…

“I was wondering what you’d think about going to Japan with me someday.”

The words stop Keith in his tracks, and he’s at a complete, utter loss for a moment. The connection is clear as day—he’s Japanese, Shiro is Japanese, so why not make a joint trip at some point? But the implication of family, of genuine connection, makes Keith feel warm and nauseated at the same time.

“For—For what?” Keith croaks, and curses himself for allowing his voice to sound so vulnerable.

Shiro shrugs, but the motion is cautious, with an eye always trained on Keith for his reaction. “I have family there,” he says, talking slow like he’s choosing his words carefully, “that I’ve been meaning to visit for a while. I’d like you to meet them. And…if you have family there, too, then I’d like to meet them as well. If you’re comfortable with that.”

The mere thought of interacting with his extended family overwhelms Keith so fiercely that he has to stare at his shoes for a moment to get himself back in order, to get the room to stop being wavy and out of focus. He’s not going to think about that right now. “Where is your family in Japan?” he asks instead, forcing the subject away from his own direct relation.

Shiro hums a little, considering the question calmly. “I have some cousins and aunts and uncles in Miyagi, but my grandparents moved to Okinawa when my parents were young.”

“That’s where dad said his family was from,” Keith replies without thinking, so struck by the realization that Shiro has a relationship with the same place Keith’s dad did that he forgets how much he doesn’t want to talk about his own blood family. “Okinawa, I mean. His parents moved there when he was a teenager.”

“Really?” Shiro’s smile is broad, if a little exasperated. He shakes his head. “Well, it makes sense, I guess. With the American military base being there.”

Keith nods, remembering the sardonic, bitter comments his dad would make about the Okinawa military base. He was no nationalist by any means, but Keith had always gotten the impression that he resented the American government for having such a permanent, all-encompassing presence in Japan, of making Okinawa a military base first and a city second in the minds of the rest of the world. Keith, anti-imperialist as he always was, shared the sentiment.

By the knowing look Shiro is giving him, Keith suspects that maybe he feels the same way, too. Bold move from two guys ostensibly still in the U.S. military.

“I would love if we could go back together,” Shiro continues, his face open and earnest in the way only Shiro can be. Keith tries his best not to look away from such a blatant display of familial affection; he’s out of practice with this sort of thing, and it’s not like he was even very good at it before Shiro disappeared, anyway. But having two father figures abruptly taken from him has taught Keith that it does nobody any good to reject others’ attempts to be genuine like this, least of all himself.

He swallows hard. Perhaps he should extend that philosophy to Shiro’s offer, rather than just maintaining eye contact. “I…” he begins, but he’s not sure what to say, doesn’t know how to go about discussing this without shutting down or running away. Maybe he should just express that? “I don’t—I don’t really know what to say. It’s—like, a little scary, thinking about going there. I’ve never had contact with any of my family there. I kind of got the impression maybe they didn’t like dad or approve of him.”

Shiro frowns. “You think? Did he do anything?”

“Besides getting an alien girlfriend?” Keith asks wryly, half-smiling. “Not sure. But it would make sense that he would kind of…pull back from family after dealing with what happened with Krolia.” Keith lets his gaze drop, just this once. “I mean, would you want to bring your half-alien kid who might freak out and go alien berserk at any minute to meet your family?”

“Well, that is kind of what I’m offering to do right now, Keith,” Shiro says pointedly, making Keith turn scarlet.

“Okay,” Keith stammers, looking anywhere but at Shiro, “but that’s—that’s different?”

Shiro gives him a doubtful, amused look, and Keith huffs, folding his arms over his chest protectively.

“…Are you sure you want me meeting your family?” he asks quietly after a moment. Shiro sighs and reaches across the counter to lay a comforting hand on Keith’s shoulder.

“They already know about you, you know,” he starts, voice soft but firm, “and they’ve been asking to meet you for a while. They’re thrilled that you’re Japanese, because that’s common ground, but they also understand that you’re important to me. That you’re like my little brother. For that reason alone, they want to know you. Mostly so they can send you otoshidama お年玉.”

A chuckle breezes past Keith’s lips at that, and he finally meets Shiro’s eyes again, allowing the smile to stay on his face. This might be the first time Shiro has told Keith that he sees him as family too, he realizes. Warmth flows through his body, the kind he hasn’t been able to feel in years. “I…guess I’d like that. Mostly for the money.” He mirrors Shiro’s language back at him with a smirk, and Shiro laughs, squeezing his shoulder slightly before letting go.

“Excellent.” Shiro claps his hands together. “First thing we’ll do when we get out of this space hell is buy some tickets to Japan, then. If you and Lance aren’t too busy planning the wedding, of course,” he adds cheekily.

Keith honest-to-god squeaks a noise of surprise, sputtering, “What—What are you talking about, we aren’t even dating, he hates me, you’re fucking insane—” until Shiro silences him with a wave of his hand and a chortle.

“For now,” he says with a knowing smile, before straightening up and stretching out his back. “Anyway, I’m off to get Hunk and Pidge away from the training robots. I think they’re trying to program them to be waiters, and we really don’t need the castle’s bandwidth dealing with something like that.”

He turns to go, and Keith opens his mouth to say goodbye, but he’s cut off when Shiro suddenly pauses right in front of the door and glances back over his shoulder.

“As far as your family goes,” he begins, looking at Keith seriously, “we’ll do that when you’re ready. I won’t push you. But, think about it. It might be good for you.”

Keith takes a deep breath, and nods weakly. “Yeah. I will.”

“Thank you.” Shiro looks satisfied. He presses the button to activate the doors, and they open with a whoosh! “Wish me luck!”

“Good luck,” Keith calls as Shiro leaves, settling his head in his hands and tapping the handle of his knife idly.

It’s weird to have family again. It’ll be even weirder to have extended family, something he’s never experienced before. But it’s worth a try.

And who knows? Maybe someday Keith can build himself a life with a primary characteristic that isn’t isolation. His thoughts wander, only a little lovesick, to Lance, and then to Hunk, Pidge, Allura, Coran, Adam…

It’s possible he’s built that life for himself already. If he gives it a chance.

Now that is something that is totally going to wreck his loner brand image.

☆ ☆ ☆

[duhragonball]

Duhragonba11

(That title looked cooler in my head for some reason.)

Hi, I'm Mike, and on December 21, 2012, I made the first post on this blog. It's nothing special, just a fandub video that always amused me. I didn't have any particular agenda with this thing, which is why I went with the name I chose.

I signed up for tumblr in 2011. Livejournal was dying, I had just moved to a new place and I was kind of looking for a fresh start. My main blog, @sodiumlamp, was my half-assed attempt to do a cool science themed blog. I thought you had to have a moody aesthetic on this site, because a lot of popular tumblrs posted black and white photos with wistful poetry and shit. I was burned out on """fandom""" and wanted to try to write something focused on a more general-interest topic. To be honest, I still want that, but it took a back seat as my priorities changed.

I created a few sideblogs, and decided the only thing I was missing was one for anime nonsense. It feels weird that I waited so long to go through with it, though. That first year or two on tumblr, I was kind of wary of the site, like I didn't know what to do with it, and I was worried I'd screw something up. Anyway, I broke my leg in the fall of 2012, and I spent about five months laid up at my parents' house. It was on the evening of December 20 that I made up my mind to set this thing up. Maybe I just couldn't settle on a name for the blog, or I wasn't sure I could post enough stuff to it to make it worth the trouble. My sleep schedule was a mess in those days, so it doesn't surprise me much that the first post was made in the middle of the night.

What really made this important for me was a post I made a few days later. I decided to just write about Raditz, and it got a lot of notes. Well, more than a hundred, which is kind of a big deal to me. There seemed to be an audience for this stuff, which led me to devote more and more time to this blog. Over the years, my other blogs have fallen by the wayside, and this became my main internet presence.

I don't think this thing is all that "big" in terms of popularity. I currently have 3957 followers, which sounds like a lot, although I usually only see 20-30 unique users in my activity reports. Still, it's a lot for me, and I'm grateful for it. I think things started to pick up in 2015, probably because of Xenoverse 1, Resurrection F, and Dragon Ball Super all starting up around that time. I got a lot of positive reinforcement from my audience, and that was a major factor that led to me getting back into writing fanfiction.

The Luffa concept was something I had been sitting on for years, but I never tried to write it because it seemed like too daunting a challenge, and even if I could finish a story like that, I wasn't sure anyone would bother to read it. But in 2015 I felt a lot more confident about giving it a shot. And people read it! They seemed to really like it! And in early December of that year, I even got fanart of the story.

(Art by @bluewavelengths)

It still blows my mind that this happened. It's eight years later, and I still find myself kind of averting my gaze when I look at this. Like, it's just sort of overwhelming. I really need to assemble some sort of gallery for Luffa art. I've got a folder with a lot of XV2 screencaps and loose drafts, and I'll run across this image from time to time and it always gets to me. Thank you, Nico.

So Luffa kind of took over a lot of this blog space from 2016 onward. I still felt like I should maintain some sort of general presence for an audience that wasn't interested in the character. I don't know if that makes sense or not, but that led me to kind of half-assedly liveblogging JoJo's Bizarre Adventure in 2017, which led me to three-quarter-assed liveblogs around the time I got to Stone Ocean and Steel Ball Run. That kind of set the stage for much of the stuff I do these days. Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z in 2019, Hellsing and Battle Tendency in 2021, and GT and Super in 2023. Well, I like to think I use my whole ass now when I liveblog these things, but I guess I should let history be the judge of that.

I'm not sure there's a coherent message to this. Honestly, I noticed back in January that I passed Year 10, and I thought I should really make a point of doing some sort of retrospective on the next anniversary, so here I am. I kind of debated making it a shitpost, or blowing it off altogether, but now that I've settled on revisiting the history of the blog, I feel like the common denominator here is that I can express myself and there are people who are interested in what I have to say. Every so often someone will tell me they liked something I wrote, and it's great. I'm not good at taking the compliment, but it's still gratifying to know that someone actually paid attention long enough to go "Yeah, he's got a good point." That matters. It matters a lot. If you're reading this, thank you.

I don't know what the future holds. I mean, I'm gonna keep posting stuff here, but for all I know Tumblr will get sold to Yahoo again and go out of business. In the short term, I still have fic work to do, and I've got a lot of messages in my ask box that I need to get back to. Also I'm gonna try to watch Evangelion next year, and reread Jojolion now that it's finished, and see if it makes more sense. Other than that, we'll see.

Serious question: Did I coin the term "Knife Lady"? Like, other people call her that now, but I think I may have been the one to get that started. Maybe I'm kidding myself, but it's fun to think about sometimes. I just don't want to steal fandom valor from the actual inventor of "we should all call that Saiyan 'Knife Lady'." But if it really was me, then that's pretty cool.

[superb-fox]

TEARS OF THE KINGDOM SPOILERS

I just finished the main story aka killed Ganondorf and... my god what a boss fight. The build up felt properly intimidating with the descending into the chasm, seeing the monsters, fighting his summoned army, then the veiny malice (I refuse to call it gloom) all leading into a throne-like malice platform that he was on. Then the fight, he felt STRONG and mighty. When he entered his powered up form and the health bar went all the way to the end of the screen? I out loud said “oh FUCK” like I FELT it. But... the transformation into the dragon felt... rushed? Like I felt like the boss fight needed another phase where he got desperate and tried to bring the cavern down or maybe chased you with a huge burst of malice like how he attacked you in the opener but this time you overcome it? And THEN it would feel like nothing he has is working and he gets desperate. This Ganondorf ESPECIALLY feels like he has too much pride to lose himself in a dragon form so quickly. But the dragon fight? Yes it’s kinda a glorified cutscene where I didn’t feel in danger but holy fuck! How can you not feel a rush of pure JOY AND ADRENALINE as you’re riding a dragon circling another and jumping off to attack it? It feels AMAZING, cinematic, and truly an epic conclusion. However... I’m really felt like I know nothing about Ganondorf. He’s just kinda... an asshole. An evil for evils sake kinda guy and that’s... just not good enough anymore. If he wasn’t so intimidating and smart it really would feel like a spoiled tantrum. “I WANT Hyrule, I want it! I want it now!!” as he stomps his feet. Ganondorf feels smart, manipulative, and strong but.. What about his motivations? Why does he want Hyrule? In OoT he was bare bones evil too but they mention a civil war. That’s motivation! Ganondorf lost a civil war so this usurping is his finding a new way to win! In WW he is a man tied to the past, he desperately wants to cling to something, they even imply jealousy that he was living in a dead desert while Hyrule enjoyed an abundant rich land! In this all we get is... “I want Hyrule because I do.” It’s not really that hard to give the man motivation. In his fake swearing of allegiance to Rauru maybe have it be personal? Like he’s jealous of Rauru’s power, his success, or anything? Maybe he feels threatened by the rising of a powerful neighboring kingdom? The Zonai were described as having powers so great people mistook them for gods, through Demise’s curse Ganondorf hates the gods, perhaps he feels the need to challenge Rauru because of that? It would also make it more personal with Link since Rauru gifted him powers, put his faith in Link, etc? All in all Ganondorf feels very half baked, he doesn’t feel like a character just a boss and that’s sad. With how they fleshed out Zelda and Link’s characters and so so so many other cool and fun characters Ganondorf falls by the wayside... Also this is a tangent but what about the Gerudo? I feel like the old Sage should have said something more about them defecting. Like we really don’t know why they went against him, they just did after he became demon king. I feel like a line like “We were ready to serve the Demon King but he sent monsters even after us. We then knew he was too far gone, and what we had to do.” would have gone a long way. They were loyal to him, willing to attack Hyrule but then when he got the stone suddenly they were on Hyrule’s side, explain story explain!!!

[ryssabrin]

finished kotor 2! that last like two hours of the game really drags lol. having a game where the combat system revolves around a party of companions and then having levels where you’re left by yourself can be fun and interesting but not for the entire ending of the game. i had to do the first phase of the final boss twice bc i slipped up right at the beginning of the second phase and died without saving. really annoyed when i figured out how much easier the second phase is lmao. for some reason my lightsaber attacks were just not doing any damage at all (they kept missing? no idea why) so all i could was slowly chisel down her health with all of the two offensive force abilities i had and rage every time she spammed the life drain ability. anyways. now that i’m done venting about that wow! the story was so good!

i think you can def tell it switched developers part way through bc parts of it feel very bioware and parts feel very obsidian. all of the companions have really interesting story hooks but either i sucked at progressing their dialogue or they’re just not written with much depth past a certain point. atton and kreia get a lot of focus and then mira gets a decent amount (but feels much less connected to the main story), but bao-dur, visas, mandalore and the droids get hardly anything. (why was hk-47 even there?) i did dantooine last so i didn’t see much of the disciple (slight blessing in disguise bc i was not expecting smellis to be in this game lmao), but he seemed like he might have had more focus than the droids. i know some of it is tied to your force alignment but still lol. loved what was there in terms of the character writing but a lot of it felt half baked, unfinished, or just missing key moments. there being no loyalty missions of any kind is very felt. i just barely managed to make atton a jedi right before the part of the game where your companions just aren’t there anymore.

if they’re ever able to remake the kotor games, the first one would be pretty easy to just one-to-one remake. add a voiced protagonist, dialogue wheel and proper character creator, beef up the gameplay and cutscenes (and flesh out the romances) and that’s it. but kotor 2 i feel like would need a full restructuring. the main story around the exile and kreia is so good. the way it digs into how different force users experience and relate to the force and how that affects them is good good star wars content and obsidian really nailed that. i wish sion and nihilous were more fleshed out and actually interacted with the exile more to really hammer home that idea and atton’s addition shouldn’t be locked behind figuring out his weird influence gains lol. anything that doesn’t tie in to that kind of falls to the wayside though.

i think it work better if it were less of an rpg. keep the player on their own for the most part with some story sections giving you different companions as uncontrollable npcs. you can keep the sections where the party splits up and you play as a diff character but have it be a set character with a similar moveset. keep the companions in set locations, maybe on the ship maybe not (mira really doesn’t have a reason to leave nar shadaa and mandalore doesn’t need to leave dxun tbh), and have them each have a questline. that would allow the player to engage with the companions as much or as little as possible and focus in more on the exile as a character and their interactions with kreia. the exile could honestly stand to be more of an established character with less player input as blasphemous as that sounds lol. keep most of the dialogue choices and the ability to play it light side or dark side but anything about the exile’s past should be set. and the planet order shouldn’t be variable. i followed the “best” planet order according to google and i didn’t like it actually lol. korriban should absolutely be last as it’s the only planet where you don’t get a companion, you fight sion for the first time and it has that whole optional vision quest thing. dantooine or possibly nar shadaa could be first and the other second with onderon third.

all in all i’m very happy i finally got to play this game and would be so stoked if it got a remake but i don’t think i’ll be doing a dark side run anytime soon lol.

[loisinherlane]

tell me for your bestie booster gold <333 and also lois lane!

<3 <3 <3 YES i haven't talked about booster in a while but he is my bestie. we are holding hands at panera.

A comic you'd recommend to get to know this character: So, possibly controversial, but Booster Gold (2007). What's appealing about Booster to me is the time travel, and I don't think any other series hits that in the same way. On the other hand... I also love his supporting cast here, and while I like the original series too, I think this one will always be my favorite.

A comic you would NEVER recommend reading for this character: Ugh. Fucking Tom King. "The Gift." While it's technically a Batman story, it's by far one of the worst Booster stories I've ever read.

A comic you would recommend reading only with the footnotes (aka after reading a bunch of other stuff): Ironically, Booster Gold (2007) again. I do think this series hits differently before and after you've read a bunch of other comics. It's special to me in both ways. I'd also recommend "Booster Shot" from Action Comics only after you get to ALL of his Postcrisis appearances (and half a solid grasp of the New 52/Rebirth, though not Booster himself necessarily). I just think it's a cute story!

A retcon that you wish would be reversed: Does the entire New 52 count? Bring back Rani! I think Booster could have a convoluted family tree, and that should include Rani.

A retcon that fixed a LOT of shit: I don't know if it fixed anything, but I liked that Michelle was brought back. I also like that Rip was made into Booster's son. I think it'd be fun if they could play off each other more without necessarily taking away from their own space as individuals. As much as I like BGv2, I do think Rip has gotten a little pushed to the wayside by virtue of having Booster as a father.

A headcanon extrapolated from all of your extensive reading because no one knows this character like you do: This is my insanity talking, but Rip's mom is the timestream. Or like specifically that one girl who appears at the end of BGv2 and is like turned into the timestream or something. That's why Rip has such a strong connection to time travel. Also, the Carters might be metahumans with time travel powers. Not in that they alone are the only people who can travel, but that they're very in tune to changes in the multiverse and timestream and by virtue immune to a lot of the effects, depending on how often they're exposed to time travel.

A pitch for their next solo (or team) book: BGv3: Bring Rani back!!!! No, but seriously, I just would kill to see the v2 cast interacting with Ted.

Now for Lois <3

A comic you'd recommend to get to know this character: Superman (1986) and all the accompanying runs (Man of Steel, Action Comics, The Adventures of Superman). I loved this era for Superman in general, but I think we get a real sense of Postcrisis Lois, and I love how she falls for Clark here. Also, I do think Superman Smashes the Klan has a fantastic Lois, but obviously it's not main continuity.

A comic you would NEVER recommend reading for this character: Never is a strong word, but the Silver Age Lois comics need to be taken with a grain of salt. It's the Silver Age. You know what you're getting into.

A comic you would recommend reading only with the footnotes (aka after reading a bunch of other stuff): Superman (2016) and Action Comics (2016). Rebirth Lois is fantastic, but I think getting to see her as a mom can undermine some of how you should perceive her earlier. I stand by that Lois should not want kids, so Jon, while her baby, was a surprise, so seeing her like this doesn't jive unless you know her.

A retcon that you wish would be reversed: The worst of it is over (New 52), so I don't actually have anything for her at the moment? Lois is a pretty stable character overall, so I don't have too many complains.

A retcon that fixed a LOT of shit: Bringing the New 52 Lois and Postcrisis Lois into one. Rebirth had a lot of problems, but I thought that was neat.

A headcanon extrapolated from all of your extensive reading because no one knows this character like you do: Lois's parents are divorced. Honestly, I don't care about comics that say something different. She has that energy, and I stand by it.

A pitch for their next solo (or team) book: Lois gets involved in what she thinks is a simple local crime story, which is somehow tied to the League of Assassins. She meets Talia. They take down bad guys. They kiss. They get coffee and plan play dates for Damian and Jon, who hate that their moms get along. Or do they?

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

I was going to make a joke about “Lotte is the only fan who doesn’t want their fanfiction to be canonized”.

But then I realized... I probably wouldn’t, either? And she’s talking like she Can’t Write in the first place (enjoying looking up to people for doing osmething She Can’t, which is a very sweet way to contrast her from Akko by the way).

But even as an adamant writer and lover of fanfiction myself, I would be too shy and skittish about having so many fans reading (and judging and criticizing) my stories.

Even though I KNOW I put more effort into designing my Raven’s-sibling fancharacter’s backstory to be canon compliant than the people who wrote Sons of Trigon. XP And I will FOREVER be bitter about that, but Titans 2008 sucked anyways.

I won’t lie, I felt SO very delighted when I found out that fanfiction is canonically canon in A Different Earth according to DC Comics.

But the fact that it’s my OWN PRIVATE Separate Earth is part of the delight. Yeah, I wish more people read my fanfics and shared the love I have for my characters and their stories... but my stories are written to please ME, not to please a Target Demographic^tm. (I mean, they’re basically All About my OCs with Raven co-starring in most of them. Honestly the rest of the team largely falls to the wayside. And so many of them are about rather mundane things compared to canon. Hell, I think there are only Two Canonical Fight Sequences! In a SUPERHERO fanfic!)

Not to mention, the debacle that would be editorial oversight.... Finding a publisher... Deadlines...

My mother has been pestering me for YEARS to get my writings published, and for awhile I thought I wanted that. But as it is now, I really just kind of... don’t.

I’d probably have to delete my fanfics to be able to legally share my Original World Conversions with a copyright stamp. And I don’t really want to do that. /o.o\ I LIKE being a part of a fanfiction community, and I LIKE that the people reading my stories already understand Raven on a level where I don’t have to explain Why Having a Half-Sister By Father throws her off balance for a WEEK.

Maybe when I have a lot more free time and a better grasp on escalation, I’ll consider publishing. But not right now.

So yeah, I’m with Lotte on this one.

(I won’t lie, I have some CRITICISMS for my fandoms’ canons, but I know I legitimately can’t write it better myself. Trust me, I tried.)