#<- look you were warned.

[dani-luminae]

I'm thinking about Wish again. So as the only Wish liker I know of, tell me what you liked about the story and also maybe some things you thought could be improved!

I would be honored! And it got long, so... below the cut.

What I liked:

I would die for Asha. She is so precious!

All her friends were so cute! I love that they were a tribute to the Seven Dwarfs. People complaining that the friends had no personality... neither did the Seven Dwarfs, really. I am so happy that they clearly accept Simon immediately when he returns after the spell is broken.

Dahlia specifically tho. She is always right there for Asha no matter what, trying to calm her and support her right before the interview, stalling with silly questions so that Asha can get into the castle for Sabino's wish, being the first to join in "Knowing What We Know Now" after Asha, and especially!!!! In "This Wish (Reprise)" when Asha is nearly defeated and pleading to the audience it is Dahlia who answers first! She doesn't even know if it's going to work, if anyone else will join, but she's right there pledging her wish with Asha because she cares about Asha so much!!!!! (Yes I might ship them. Why do you ask?)

I actually really like Magnifico as he is. He's a great example of a villain driven by trauma, with a great amount of charisma and genuinely entertaining to watch while also being so "love to hate"able. (The same cannot be said for a lot of stans.)

I love Amaya. Perfect arc. God I feel so bad for her but now she can rule as she sees fit, not playing second fiddle as an accessory to Magnifico. (I don't doubt that they love each other but there really was no repairing their relationship after he hit her with magic.)

I love Asha's mother and grandfather so much.

I LOVE STAR!!!!!!! FUCK OFF STARBOY

They structured the plot similar to old, cherished Princess movies like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and most specifically, Sleeping Beauty.

The end credits!!! Having little nods to all the Disney animated movies (except Meet the Robinsons apparently????) it was so sweet.

Could be improved:

The music. I liked about... half of it. The other half felt flat. I think that's because they hired pop radio writers instead of like, lyrical writers, if that makes sense. Both of "This Wish," "Knowing What we Know Now" and "This is the Thanks I Get?!" were so great, but "At All Costs" just had me sitting in the theater like pretty lights, but did we really need the song? and I don't even remember "I'm a Star!" because it felt really flat.

I love Star but we were promised "an origin of the Wishing Star!" and we did not get that. He just happens to be a character. I wish we'd gotten that actual origin story. I wrote a little rewrite about it, in fact, in which Star gives his life and magic to Asha and she is the Wishing Star we see in all the movies.

Also I didn't... much like Valentino. He was funny for the first five minutes he could talk ("Who knew my voice would be this low?") but then he just kind of became obnoxious. He didn't really bring anything to the plot that I can think of (even Hei Hei in Moana justified his role by actually, for once, being useful in catching the heart of Te Fiti).

I think that situating Rosas in a geographically real location was a shortcoming, because suddenly there is a myriad of real-life local cultures native to the Iberian peninsula to chose from aesthetic (clothes, architecture, etc.) wise and they didn't. For example, Asha has long braided hair specifically inspired by the Amazigh people, who the designers imagined her having heritage from specifically from Sakina's side, but there wasn't a lot else there. I like the design of the clothes and stuff in the movie but it feels short compared to culture of the area.

Lore. Apparently this movie is set before all other Disney movies and Asha is the very first person to ever wish on a star? Except clearly her father did the same, and her friends are at least familiar enough with the idea of wishing on stars that they see it as childish (Gabo's comment: "What are you, five?" or something like that.)

Asha deserved a whole magical transformation. Her pose when Star dusts her with sparkles is an exact pose reference to Cinderella, but while Cindy got the most gorgeous change (and Walt Disney's personal most favorite piece of animation), poor Asha just gets glitter. A massive downgrade made even more down because of the reference, in my opinion.

Both liked and could have been so much better:

References. So many of them. Some were nice (Sandra's wish to make the most beautiful dresses being shown as Sleeping Beauty's dress, a man named Peter wishes to build a flying machine and his companion is a brunette dressed in blue like Wendy). Some were weird. Some felt like they had no real business being there (see: Valentino's comment about an animal utopia suspiciously similar to Zootopia.)

(No I swear I'm not bitter that Atlantis and Treasure Planet didn't get in-movie references)

Miscellaneous comments:

I understand the whole "people are reluctant to let Black girls have a love interest" thing and I completely understand. But Starboy was just not it. This fandom already ignores Asha for him and he doesn't actually exist. If he had made it into the movie I already know how people would be treating Asha.

I know I said I love Magnifico as the villain but I would very much love to explore an AU where Asha *did* become his apprentice, and maybe he was like a stand-in father figure to her, actually careful and guiding, before something threatens all the wishes. I don't know what, but I feel like there's a lot of different ways that his trauma could have been explored without necessarily making him lash out and require so much control.

The movie feels rushed. I'm not saying that in an "it was bad, eew" way but in a "it could have been so much better" way. The literal tagline was "A story a century in the making!" and that drummed up a lot of expectations, but the end result is that honestly, it kind of feels like it needed more time to bake.

That being said, it was clearly crafted with a lot of care and thought put into it for what it was meant to be, and time constraints aren't the creators' faults.

[ink-the-artist]

house tour :)

bonus art, lossy versions of the first 2 gifs

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Look what we've become.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[galactaknightyaoi]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GALACTA KNIGHT!!!! And congratulations to Meta Knight for experiencing the Cain Instinct for the first time.

Galacta Knight, as you might've been able to tell already, is one of my favorite characters, and KSSU is one of my favorite games (the original SS was my introduction to Kirby!) so I wanted to go all out. Happy day, old man. I pray for at least 20 more years.

Oh, and don't worry! He's not upset about the cake smash, he thinks it's funny. And he got back at him.

As for the in-universe explanation for there being 16 candles in his cake?

... 500+ didn't fit in safely.

The birthday boy and his family were just a bit too flammable.

[gingermintpepper]

In my Zeus bag today so I'm just gonna put it out there that exactly none of the great Ancient Greek warrior-heroes stayed loyal and faithful and completely monogamous and yet none of them have their greatness questioned nor do we question why they had the cultural prominence that they did and still do.

Jason, the brilliant leader of the Argo, got cold feet when it came to Medea - already put off by some of her magic and then exiled from his birthland because of her political ploys, he took Creusa to bed and fully intended on marrying her despite not properly dissolving things with Medea.

Theseus was a fierce warrior and an incredibly talented king but he had a horrible temper and was almost fatally weak to women. This is the man who got imprisoned in the Underworld for trying to get a friend laid, the man who started the whole Attic War because he couldn't keep his legs closed.

And we cannot at all forget Heracles for whom a not inconsiderable amount of his joy in life was loving people then losing the people around him that he loved. Wives, children, serving boys, mentors, Heracles had a list of lovers - male and female - long enough to rival some gods and even after completing his labours and coming down to the end of his life, he did not have one wife but three.

And y'know what, just because he's a cultural darling, I'll put Achilles up here too because that man was a Theseus type where he was fantastic at the thing he was born to do (that is, fight whereas Theseus' was to rule) but that was not enough to eclipse his horrid temper and his weakness to young pretty things. This is the man that killed two of Apollo's sons because they wouldn't let him hit - Tenes because he refused to let Achilles have his sister and Troilus who refused Achilles so vehemently that he ran into Apollo's temple to avoid him and still couldn't escape.

All four of these men are still celebrated as great heroes and men. All four of these men are given the dignity of nuance, of having their flaws treated as just that, flaws which enrich their character and can be used to discuss the wider cultural point of what truly makes a hero heroic. All four of these men still have their legacies respected.

Why can that same mindset not be applied to Zeus? Zeus, who was a warrior-king raised in seclusion apart from his family. Zeus who must have learned to embrace the violence of thunder for every time he cried as a babe, the Corybantes would bang their shields to hide the sound. Zeus learned to be great because being good would not see the universe's affairs in its order.

The wonderful thing about sympathy is that we never run out of it. There's no rule stopping us from being sympathetic to multiple plights at once, there's no law that necessitate things always exist on the good-evil binary. Yes, Zeus sentenced Prometheus to sufferation in Tartarus for what (to us) seems like a cruel reason. Prometheus only wanted to help humans! But when you think about Prometheus' actions from a king's perspective, the narrative is completely different: Prometheus stole divine knowledge and gifted it to humans after Zeus explicitly told him not to. And this was after Prometheus cheated all the gods out of a huge portion of wealth by having humans keep the best part of a sacrifice's meat while the gods must delight themselves with bones, fat and skin. Yes, Zeus gave Persephone away to Hades without consulting Demeter but what king consults a woman who is not his wife about the arrangement of his daughter's marriage to another king? Yes, Zeus breaks the marriage vows he set with Hera despite his love of her but what is the Master of Fate if not its staunchest slave?

The nuance is there. Even in his most bizarre actions, the nuance and logic and reason is there. The Ancient Greeks weren't a daft people, they worshipped Zeus as their primary god for a reason and they did not associate him with half the vices modern audiences take issue with. Zeus was a father, a visitor, a protector, a fair judge of character, a guide for the lost, the arbiter of revenge for those that had been wronged, a pillar of strength for those who needed it and a shield to protect those who made their home among the biting snakes. His children were reflections of him, extensions of his will who acted both as his mercy and as his retribution, his brothers and sisters deferred to him because he was wise as well as powerful. Zeus didn't become king by accident and it is a damn shame he does not get more respect.

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 209

Now Jason was planning on, well, a lot of things, when he came back to Gotham. He had a lot of plans, several of which had to do with the old man and even more that had to do with cleaning up Crime Alley, making it safer and all that. 

What he was not planning on was to find some sort of lab in the basement of where he was planning on setting up a safehouse. Nor was he planning on finding several literal children in cages inside said lab. Oh and Lazarus Waters- but children! With muzzles! Being experimented on!

Now he’d like to say he had a plan in what happened next, but if he’s honest everything had gone Green and he didn’t remember what happened next, only that he’s back home with said children and covered in blood. Oh and everything smells of smoke. 

… And apparently there’s more of these things dotted around Crime Alley with the rest of these kids, er, siblings? Family? Fright does mean family? Okay kids, he’s not turning into Bruce but you can stay here while he deals with this… however long that takes. 

He better not be turning into Bruce he swears-

[lbhslefttiddie]

youve heard of sex flowers get ready for the flower that makes you into a celestial shoujo herione complete with particle effects you cannot turn the fuck off and creates a wifebeam so powerful it can incapacitate and maim and keeps making you burst into tears and fall on your ass which makes the wifebeam More Powerful and you also cannot turn this off either. and is also still, sort of, a sex flower

from one of my favorite fanfictions, Celestial Afterglow by elanor_pam, a fic that defies description in the best possible way

[fivewholeminutes]

A Series of Small Offerings

PART ONE -8- The Way That You Were

To tear that knife from what once / Would have been dead fingers

I have. Struggled a lot with this one, but I am glad it is done. I've had this idea rotating in my brain for a month and I have tried starting it at least 3 times both traditionally and digitally before I decided to turn it into a cut out, because I feel the most confortable making cut outs, actually.

HUGE, ENORMOUS shotout to @copper-sands / @ancientbygone for being my hand anatomy expert!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Without it this piece would look way worse <3

[mijchi]

>ACT NATURAL

I'm sorry but since when this became natural for Markus?

[gamer-comix]

my new favorite kind of amazon review is people who bought manga but don't know what manga is

[korolation]

amber redesign woooo

[flowercrowngods]

making a real post for @rvspecter pls bear with me

anyway harvey hurt fic where after mike is busted and given a second chance at life (or a third, really) and pearson specter litt seizes the chance to instate a pro bono department mike is heading because he wants to get it right this time and harvey will do just about anything to keep him, these two men finally mention this Thing between them and decide to give it a try. and it’s good. it’s fragile and it’s tentative and it’s gentle and it’s the same as it’s always been but with more tenderness, more honesty, more vulnerability (and more sex of course) and it’s good. against all odds, it’s so good.

but then one day, long after hours, donna approaches harvey in his office and her eyes are shining, but it’s not a glow harvey is used to — he never wants to get used to donna’s eyes filled with tears so he asks her what’s wrong, but he’s not ready for the answer. because she tells him she can’t work for him anymore. she tells him she’s leaving him — to work for louis at first, maybe to quit altogether. the fact do the matter is she can’t be the Donna to his Harvey anymore because she’s in love with him and she thought she had it under control but she doesn’t, okay, she doesn’t and it hurts and she wants to be happy for him and mike because they’re so good but all this time she’d never thought that harvey would ever find someone real, and now that he has, well. she can’t pretend anymore that it doesn’t tear her up inside and she doesn’t want to put that on any of them so she’s doing the mature thing and leaving. to heal. to get over him. to come back stronger.

and she’s so, so sorry.

they listen to gordon one last time, they toast to thirteen years one last time — her words, not his, but they drive a knife into his heart nonetheless because harvey doesn’t do one last-anything and yet here sits his best friend and asks for one last night together and who is he but to give her everything she wants and more. she’s his donna — still, tonight; one last night. she is.

he doesn’t tell mike that night. couldn’t, even if he wanted to; because he doesn’t have the words. but in the secure hold of mike’s arms, he says “donna won’t be working for me anymore, starting tomorrow.” and he doesn’t mention how that means that donna went to jessica and louis first, he doesn’t mention that he was the last to know, he doesn’t explain how he wasn’t given a chance to fix this — not this time. “donna quit?” mike asks, and harvey swallows, shakes his head, shrugs. “just me,” he says. “just me.” and when mike pulls him closer and holds him tighter and tells him “i’m so sorry, harvey,” it’s the first i’m sorry that night that he believes.

unfortunately, sorry never fixed anything.

especially when soon after, mike finds out just why donna left. and he gets all up in his head about it, he allows himself to spiral because he’s so ready to succumb to tunnel vision and obsessing over solutions to problems that aren’t his to fix. and so he tells harvey that he can’t be the thing that comes between him and donna. they’re soulmates after all, mike can’t bear to be the one to sever their bond. harvey doesn’t understand. he’s the one who’s supposed to lose his mind over having lost his best friend and pretend like everything is okay, what right does mike have to make that about himself, to take it upon himself to fix everything when harvey’s the fixer, harvey is the one who solves problems and protects people. but mike won’t hear any of that and tells harvey that he can’t do it like this if it means hurting donna because she’s his best friend, too, and he wants to get it right this time. he doesn’t want to build this new life on decisions that hurt his people — not again. he’s hurt enough people, he can’t keep doing it.

harvey wants to ask him why he’s always so ready to protect everyone at his expense. isn’t this thing between them, their relationship, isn’t it meant to stop them from hurting each other? why is it okay to hurt harvey, but not to hurt donna?

he doesn’t ask any of that, only tells him that they’re not in high school, and that they’re either doing this or not, but he refuses to base their relationship on whether or not his best friend is okay with seeing him happy or not. “you’re either in this with me, mike, or you’re out. that hasn’t changed, and it won’t, because donna will get over it and everything will be back to normal before you know it.”

“you don’t know that.”

“yes i do, because we’re grown-ups and we get over things.”

famous last words, it turns out, because mike just slowly shakes his head, agonising over this and not thinking, clearly not thinking when he says, “i’m sorry, harvey. i can’t to this; not like this.”

and all he can do is watch mike’s back as he all but runs from him, dragging his heart behind him, through the dirt, uncaring as bits and pieces of it chip off with every step mike takes, with every second that passes and allows the words i can’t and i’m sorry, harvey echo in the hollow of his chest.

we’re grown-ups. we get over things. well, tough fucking luck.

and this is how harvey loses the two most important people in his life in the matter of a week. before he knows it, he’s alone, left to fend for himself and hollowed out. his walls are broken down, deconstructed piece by piece by carefully, gentle hands to reveal what’s underneath — only for the hands to retreat, letting in the icy cold and accepting what’s inside to wither and die.

there’s a reason harvey specter makes his own luck; the universe isn’t very forthcoming otherwise. a fact that is proven when he finds a stranger outside his building when all he wants is to curl up and breathe through the cracks of his broken hearts that have pierced his lungs, they must have, surely they must have, because he can’t breathe. and he doesn’t learn how to breathe again when the woman — a kid, really, merely twenty-five — reveals that she’s his half sister. because it turns out the reason lily specter was so ready to up and leave all those years ago; the reason she didn’t fight for her family and instead blamed it all on harvey, was because she was pregnant. and she lied about it — for twenty-six years.

amelia selene specter is the little sister harvey has always wished for — but cancer is a curse that rests on the specter family, and while marcus got lucky twice, selene isn’t. she didn’t have the money for medical resources, and it’s eating harvey alive that he didn’t know, that there was no way for him to help her and that there’s no way now.

but there is. because selene has two kids, seven and four, and she needs his help because they can’t get lost in the system, they can’t live with total strangers or be separated because the system doesn’t actually care about children, they only care about not feeling guilty. and she won’t ask lily. these two angels must be kept from her at all costs because she ruined two families already, she won’t ruin this one.

and harvey is obsessed with the thought of more family, he needs to take care of and be there for someone and he’s ready to take on the world to protect his niece and nephew — but he’s not warm, he’s not available, he’s not even at home most of the time, nor is his place suitable for kids.

he agrees to take them in and find a solution though. he promises selene that he’ll be there for them. he’ll always be there. and when he gets to meet them — a few days before his sister dies way too young, way too alive for something like death to not rip him apart entirely — he gets attached instantly and vows to himself and to selene that nothing will happen to them as long as he’s there.

even though harvey just lost his family — the one he chose, the one he was born into, and the one he never got to meet. even though harvey’s entire world was deconstructed with no one around to put it back together. even though he doesn’t know how, because evidently he got it wrong every single time, harvey gets to build a new family with these kids. and though it tears him up inside, it heals something inside him too — and sometimes they balance each other out, and he can breathe again for just a little while as he reads to charlotte because she’s feisty and afraid of nightmares and not listening when he says she’ll be tired in the morning because “i’m tired in the morning anyway, but now i wanna read” and he trades her going to bed for a bedtime story, and she falls asleep with her face pressed into his side.

it’s so frail, though, so fragile, this little family, and he knows what it’s like when everything breaks. he knows what it’s like to lose one’s family — over and over and over again. and he’s terrified that he’s building himself back up the wrong way. he’s terrified because there’s no one keeping him together but both his hands are occupied holding these children that cry for their mama.

he’s terrified because he’s not supposed to be doing this alone. but everyone else has made their choice and he, as always, is just there to bear the consequences and try to turn it into a win.

one day, he will. he has to. and one day, he’s not alone anymore.

[thelonelyshore-if]

Weird question, but I was wondering if we could get some cute facts for the polys (but with head cannons as how the partners interact without/when MC isn't around)

Ooooh I love this question thank you!! Answers below the cut because I'm prone to writing essays and this got long <3

Beck & Perri:

I've joked recently that they're a bonded pair and this doesn't change once MC is in the picture and their relationship becomes romantic--it simply becomes a bonded trio.

And by this, I mean that Beck and Perri will nearly always be found together in their free time.

They do have their own lives and homes and groups of friends, of course, but they've been best friends since middle school and they really do prefer to be together when they can.

Beck is so, so gentle with Perri.

More gentle than Beck ever thought he could be.

And, in a similar vein, Perri is protective of Beck to the point of being fierce.

It's a little out of character for both of them, but they're a team, and it works.

(MC will also be able to experience this on both ends <3)

I think in their polyship, both Beck and Perri will end up putting in a lot of work to make sure MC feels included. They both love MC so much, and they don't want MC ending up feeling like a third wheel.

But, when MC isn't around, I think they fall right back into their usual habits. Inside jokes, teasing one another, referencing stories from the 6th grade--that sort of thing.

Beck's family adores Perri, but Perri's grandmother thinks Beck is a bad influence.

Kissing one another is literally something neither of them have ever thought about until MC comes along, despite the fact that they're so close. Having someone around who sees them both in a romantic light really makes a lightbulb go off in both of their heads.

Jay & Ravi

Okay so these two didn't become friends until after high school. As a teen Ravi was this quiet shy weirdo while Jay was outgoing and friendly and popular. They didn't run in the same circles.

But once they kicked up a friendship it went fast.

Both of them had been spending a long time looking for something, and they found it in one another.

Ravi needed to connect to another human being. It had been so long, and he was freezing up inside. Becoming completely numb.

Jay needed somebody who knew what was going on but who wasn't on the S&R team. Someone who could challenge them to see things in a bit of a new light, but who could also care about them beyond just what they do for other people.

They actually disagree on a lot! They're very different people. I'm really eager to write the differing ways that MC will be able to work through this--either by taking sides, or by smoothing things over, or by fanning the flames. It'll be fun!

Jay did not see Ravi romantically at all before MC came into the picture. They loved him, sure--he was their best friend--but nothing else. Ravi, on the other hand...hm. It's complicated.

I think Ravi saw the potential for something, but he never would have gone for it without MC. Ever. Too much potential for pain.

Jay reminds Ravi of his ex.

The relationship between Jay and Ravi once the poly route has started is going to depend heavily on late-game events. Which will be delicious.

But overall they'll be very tentative with one another, once they're in a relationship with one another & MC. Shy, but curious to explore this new thing they've got going on.

Jay & Yasmin

I'm going to talk about both the V and Triad routes in the same list because this is already long enough but!!

As I've discussed in-game, Jay and Yasmin have been friends since they were tiny! Alongside Yasmin's dead husband, Seth. Which means that their relationship now is...complicated. In ways I'm pretty excited to get into in the story itself.

For Yasmin, the V route is ideal. She finds MC charming and she adores Jay, Jay's her best friend. In theory. Why not share a partner? I think she'll be very teasing about it, but also she'd be thrilled for Jay and MC.

Jay's feelings on the matter will be slightly more complex. They don't mind that MC is seeing Yasmin, too. Not at all. But they do feel like...well. Maybe Yas is taking this opportunity to avoid talking about the issues between the two of them. For someone so direct she sure can avoid talking about her feelings.

The triad route is a bit different, though!!

Jay and Yasmin adore one another. Genuinely, despite the baggage.

Dating one another alongside MC will be a net positive for them both, once they've figured out their issues (both personal and with one another). They're genuinely a power couple and they'd dote on MC soooooo much.

But, we're talking about them without MC!

One fun fact is that, unlike the other polyships, Jay and Yasmin have thought about dating in the past. They never would have taken that plunge without MC--when the story starts, that's long in the past.

Specifically F!Jay and Yasmin kissed one time when they were teenagers, to 'see what it's like'. This was before either of them figured out that they're queer lol, so they walked away blushing and just like 'huh that was interesting let's never do it again!!!'.

The way it shakes out: Jay had a crush on Yasmin before she and Seth started dating when they were all in school. Yasmin had the inklings of feelings for Jay right after Seth disappeared.

It was never the right time, though, and both of their feelings have long since faded. That is, until a mysterious stranger walks into their lives...

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Detectives at the Disco (Elysium)

[uncleardyn]

(alan wake-gravity falls crossover) man i love that character. you know, the deeply paranoid author who made a pact with a dark entity that ultimately ended with him stranded in another dimension separated from his loved ones for years at a time? takes place in the pacific northwest? has twin imagery associated with him and a reoccurring specific piece of symbology related to the unfortunate situation they're in? doesn't ever explain the reasoning behind his actions and instead just kinda goes "bro trust me"? yeah he also wears an outer layer of clothing with elbow pads on it, that one.

[glittergroovy]