#And then family line came up

[raemeh]

“Your planning to work on the dndads event right”

me: yea

“So then what’s that?” *points at nick angst wip that I started a few minutes ago*

me: …..nothing

[starry-bi-sky]

do yall ever think about bruce/batman!clone danny standing in front of his bathroom mirror after finding out he was a clone and silently tracing his face. The slope of his jaw and point of his chin. The high angle of his cheekbones and the shape of his eyes, the curve of his brow bones and the shape of his nose. The volume of his hair and the way it curls and gets fluffy when it gets too long.

His hair is black the same way a crow's wing is black. His dad's hair is black the same way a black bear's fur is black. His dad's eyes are blue like the ocean is blue. Danny's eyes are blue the same way a glacier is blue.

His dad has a square jaw and straight flat hair, and he tans and gets a face full of freckles when he's out in the sun for too long. Danny burns like a lobster and his face remains untouched. Danny has a sharp jaw and tall cheekbones, and Sam says when he's not smiling there's almost something regal about him. You would never call Jack Fenton "regal" when he's not smiling.

Sam says when he's not smiling he looks scary the same way a stone statue is. Jack Fenton when he's not smiling looks scary the same way that german shepherd staring at you across the street is.

Do you ever think he grew up wondering if he was adopted. Because of course, he has black hair and blue eyes like his dad. But having the same color doesn't make you someone's child.

Or, worse, things he's heard from the other kids and the other parents and even some of his teachers growing up; that he was the product of an affair. And that his dad was just too stupid to notice. And Danny would defend his parents until the day he died, because Jack Fenton wasn't an idiot and Maddie Fenton wasn't a cheater.

But doubt comes in with fickle tongue. his parents swear up and down that he is their child when he asks about either. That Danny just had his grandparents' features, but he was their son and they loved him.

But Danny doesn't look like either of his parents. His mom's eyes are blue like an aquamarine and Jazz's too. And they burn like lobsters in the sun too, but Jazz gets freckles on her face and so does Maddie. And as Danny grows up he doesn't bulk up or get stocky like his dad did, and when he hits puberty he doesn't shoot up like a tree like Jack Fenton did.

He stays small, and they say he's a late bloomer (and he is), or that he just has his mom's height. But he's fast and has good stamina, and some days it feels like he's built entirely different from his family. That the things they went through growing up just didn't apply to him. Jack and Maddie Fenton both had acne and breakouts when they hit puberty, and Jazz inherits it and he's seen the amount of skincare products she keeps on her side of the bathroom.

And then he hits puberty and breaks out maybe once or twice, but his skin stays clear for the most part and the problems and changes his dad went through just don't happen to him.

And the truth is worse than all of the lies.

How horrifying.

[storytellering]

"I didn't get these scars falling over in church."

[mameillieureennemie]

what if i wrote a long vi x reader fic because it has been on my mind. 🤔

[greghatecrimes]

Okay. Proper, healthy parents would never have let their sixteen year old know that they were traumatized by something- no matter WHAT it is their kid did- and had to "get over it". Much less drag that out for YEARS.

She was a child.

As @x-birdsong-x says: "you cannot tell your kid that She Did A Bad Thing that It Was All Her Fault that You Can't Believe She Did That that She Was Always The Problem There that She Caused All That Trouble to the point she believes it so strongly to the point she carries so much guilt so much desperation for absolution that when a kid who did the same thing who is the same age she was shows up, she spends every second of it making everything worse by going This Is How It Has To Be This Is What You Need To Do Next".

[urfavisananimegirl]

walter white from breaking bad

Walter Hartwell White (Breaking Bad) is an Anime Girl!

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

I wouldn't really agree that boys are just arm candy in magical girl shows and only there to look cute. Yeah, sure the girls' friendships are the focus, but the boys are usually very much involved in the plot and most shows do explore their feelings about the odd things that happen due to magical shenanigans even if they aren't in the know (It's why ML baffles me even more with how they screwed up Adren's arc when he's the deuteragonist, when all these boys are supporting cast and get well rounded arcs)

I'm not much of a winx fan, but the specialists were very much not arm candy. Did the girls talk about them being cute? Yes, it's what teenage girls do. Did the narrative suggest they were good looking? Yes, but that's standard for most love interests in any genre. But we still got scenes with them talking amongst themselves about how they themselves feel and they got a fair share of badass fight scenes even if they wield no magic. A large amount of episodes actually included the boys and girls working as a team solving a mystery or fighting a villain. The girls might deal the finishing blow but the boys were still integral to the plot.

I hope this doesn't come across as hate, it definitely wasn't my intention. I'm just a bit too passionate about the magical girl genre.

I do think you have a good point with ML having a problem choosing a genre or blending two genres successfully.

For the CCS fans, I will add though that Cardcaptor Sakura had both Tomoyo and Syaoran serve as sources of motivation for Sakura. And both Sakura and Syaoran collecting cards even if Sakura is the only one who could seal them and yet never made you question whether Syaoran was even necessary for the job the way ml does with Chat.

I wasn't trying to say that boys have no part to play in magical girl team shows or that they're always treated as having no lives beyond the girls, that's why I mentioned that the Winx Club boys - aka, the Specialists - have their own (mostly off screen) lives and occasionally show up help the girls:

the boys are usually off doing their own thing and only occasionally show up for a date or to give the girls a ride on their cool bikes or magical spaceship

Even then, this is certainly a simplification of the roles that they play in the story, but I kind of had to simplify their roles down to their base components for the original post's discussion as I was talking in broad strokes of how these stories are written.

In terms of those broad strokes, the Specialists are absolutely only there for shipping fodder. That's why each one is assigned to a girl from the start and why their main role in the narrative is supporting their assigned love interest or causing relationship-based drama for their assigned love interest. If it weren't for shipping, then the Specialists would not exist.

While the Specialists do have fleshed out characters and may even effect the plot, the execution of those elements is designed around the girls. A really obvious example of this is the character Timmy, who has character development as the boy's tech guy. Why is he into technology? Because he's the designated love interest for the fairy of Technology and we have to show why they're a good match. Along similar lines, the boys don't really get plots that are removed from the girls because this is the girl's show. Every episode features one or more of the Winx, but the boys are optional and often don't appear.

This is because, narratively speaking, the boys are just love interests and that brings us back to Miraculous' big problem. You can't have a show where Adrien is written like a Specialist while also being part of the Winx Club and where Alya is written like she's part of the Winx Club while technically being more of a Specialist in terms of power set and actual narrative role.

I'm was thinking back to my memories of various Winx Club plots to find one that really highlighted what I mean here and I remembered that one of the big dramas in season one was the reveal that Bloom's love interest - Sky - was in an arranged marriage and had just never told her. As it turns out, that's a great example of what I'm talking about re Adrien!

Is that plot line technically based around Sky and letting his life effect the plot? Sure, but the fallout of that reveal revolves around Bloom, not Sky. The story doesn't really care how Sky's feeling as the conflict progresses. Instead, it focuses on how it affects Bloom and her friends because of course it does! She's the main character. It would be really weird if that plot suddenly focused on her side character love interest and his friends during one of her darkest hours/biggest moments.

Think of that and then consider how the ending of season five is written. Notice any similarities? Sure, this is Adrien's family drama, but because he's just a Specialist, the focus isn't on him. It's on Winx Club member Marinette and Adrien only shows up at the end for a kiss. That is the problem. That is what I'm talking about when I say that Miraculous will randomly write him as if we're watching a magical girl team show where Adrien is just the love interest.

In fact, let's really dig into this example because it's a good one.

You can have a look at the transcript for the finale episode of Miraculous season five here and see for yourself that Adrien doesn't even show up on screen until the final scenes when the big drama is over. The Winx Club wiki also has episode transcripts, so I took a look to see what happened in Winx land during the arranged marriage reveal plot (I love that this is a thing. It's so useful for fact checking myself!) This is the script for the episode after Bloom learns the truth. Sky does not appear even though his lies and family drama are the fuel for this episode's events, which are a major part of the season's arc. Note how perfectly that matches Adrien's writing?

Similarly, Sky's dialogue in the reveal episode is all about Bloom. He's worried about her learning the truth and thinking less of him. To match that, here's Adrien's only real dialogue in the penultimate episode of season five (full transcript):

Adrien:(Covers his ears.) I cannot transform... (Looks at his ring and tries taking it off.) Plagg: What are you doing?! Adrien: I'm not in my right mind. I'm too angry — at myself for falling short of Marinette's love, at my father for sending me here in London, at this stupid app and these rings that use my image... it makes me sick! This nightmare is giving me the horrible feeling that, if I transform, I'll get akumatized and destroy everything with my Cataclysm — Marinette, Ladybug... (Takes off the ring and hands it to Plagg.)

Switching back to Winx. After Bloom learns the truth about Sky, bad things happen because she's depressed. This results in her and the Winx going off on a journey to learn the truth of who Bloom is. After the girls share this big plot moment and Bloom gets her mojo back, the boys show up to be their ride home and to give Bloom her romance moment where Sky wins her back by declaring that he broke off the arranged married because he loves her.

Sky notably doesn't get an arc about choosing between his arranged marriage and his true love. We don't even know that the marriage is broken off until he tells Bloom because that was never really a conflict as far as the narrative was concerned. Of course he's going to pick Bloom! He's her designated side character love interest! He only exists to be with her. We don't need to treat this as a serious thing for him. The arranged marriage plot was never about him anyway. It was about giving Bloom a reason to have a darkest hour moment that moves the plot forward. Similarly, Sky calling off the marriage is nowhere near as important as him telling Bloom that he's called off the marriage to be with her in a grand romantic gesture.

This perfectly mirrors Miraculous' season five ending where Adrien doesn't appear until after Marinette is done fighting her big girl power fight against his father. As far as the writing is concerned, that fight isn't about him. His connection to the villain only really matters in terms of how it affects Marinette's actions during the final battle. Then, when the battle is over, Adrien shows up to give Marinette her big romance moment because, while the plot may be driven by Adrien's family, he is not a Winx club member. He's just a Specialist. Or, in the words of the head writer:

[image text: She's Barbie, he's Ken. You don't like it. I get it. It won't change. Anything else?] (The full, even more damning context of this tweet can be found here.)

What else can I say other than, "I rest my case."

Oh, and also that I didn't take this as an attack. I just thought it was a good opportunity to really dig into the nuances of this and what I was talking about in that original post as I never know how obvious this stuff is if you don't closely study story telling. As this case study hopefully shows, if a show is about a group of girl friends using the power of friendship, then their love interests may have important roles, but the boys are never going to be more important than the girls and most of the boy's screen time will be focused on romance and how their existence effects the girls because it's ultimately the girls' world. Without them, the show wouldn't exist. Without the boys? Well, then we just wouldn't have a romance plot.

[astranauticus]

i don't have the screenshots on hand because this is just a thought i needed to let out after being woken up by my buildings fire alarm at 7am (i am in shambles, thanks for asking) but back at the start of canto 7 i was trying to figure out what in the Fuck hong lu meant by don quixote being 'the most lucid' of the sinners and eventually my read was that she's the one who's most clear on what she wants because hong lu brought up how her eyes are sparkling and the two times dante notes someone's eyes sparkling in that episode (?) were when don talks about saving all the people in la manchaland and when charon says she wants to eat candy at an amusement park, and also this would very nicely mirror the bit in the final sancho fight when dante ruminates about how so far they've been trying to help the sinners out of their issues by figuring out what they want and then promising it to them but with sancho she doesn't want anything because everything she's wanted as don quixote was part of that dream that she's now woken up from (especially with dulcinae talking at length about the difference between sancho and don's eyes)

but like..... there's one other thing about eyes that dante notices in that early episode

so i'm wondering if this is an idea that's gonna come back in canto 8, that dante's old tricks aren't going to work here either because hong lu just doesn't really want anything for himself when he's been living his whole life surrendering (hah) himself to being used by other people for their own goals

[riftclaw]

i haven't been able to draw much for the last few months for various reasons, which is why i've been writing instead. this is something that @sege-h drew and i coloured

sege has been helping me out by listening to my disjointed ramblings about my 15+ year old pokemon au, which had entirely too much lore developed before pokemon had much lore to go with and is based on the earlier canon to begin with. sege then got very into gurren lagann again, and went "what if i put my blorbo in your pokemon au and he was kind of lance's adoptive brother"

"if you do, i'll make it canon" i said, knowing this could only possibly improve things

i was correct

(sege drew this also)

[akkivee]

i’m not posting this for any other reason than to cry over ichiro’s voice as he teases kuukou lmao 😭😭😭

[lliquidllyrium]

Brainstorming a post canon story where Lucanis is adjusting to life as the first Talon under Caterina’s watchful eye and juggling that with his and Rook’s relationship. Thinking Caterina will be a hardass as usual and criticizing most things Rook does (works with a De Riva but might be even more fitting with a Rook unfamiliar with the politics of the Crows) while Rook is trying Very Hard to earn her approval for Lu’s sake because despite his tense relationship with his grandmother she is important to him.

Culminates in Caterina speaking with Rook alone one night and out of nowhere Caterina swipes their cheek with her cane, leaving a very precise but shallow cut. She tells Rook that had it been an attack from an assassin truly meaning to take their life they would already be dead, and that being the lover of the First Talon requires someone vigilant and able to care for themselves.

Lu returns to their room that night (stressed as he normally is these days) and Rook tries to keep that side of their face angled away from him but Spite catches the scent of dried blood and tips him off. He’s worried and furious of course, but Rook is reluctant to tell him who did it and when they finally do Lu goes to storm out and confront Caterina. Rook stops him and asks if it’s him or Spite and Lu is a little taken aback and hurt that Rook assumes that because it is Caterina who did this he would somehow be less willing to react. He swears that Rook is family, and if Illario is not exempt from consequences for harming family Caterina is at least going to get an earful. Rook apologizes for assuming he wouldn’t stand up for them against his grandmother, and for treating Spite as a rabid animal with no self control. Cue sweet moment with hugs from both arms and wings.

Lu takes a moment to clean the wound up gently, also collecting his thoughts and calming himself down. Rook realizes somewhere in the middle of this that the clever old hag had meant for this all along. Harm Rook superficially after weeks of building tension -> get Lucanis mad enough to confront her in a blind rage -> pontificate on lessons about allowing judgment to be blinded when it comes to Rook. It was a test to see if he would charge in blindly to defend their honor or if he would take a moment to think and plan. He had almost failed, and would have if not for Rook.

He isn’t thrilled that it makes some sort of sense, but she is a 70-something year old assassin who was First Talon until recently so she obviously knows her shit. He approaches her later and insists that both he and Rook had heard her loud and clear, but any further lessons or advice for him will be delivered via verbal communication and counsel. Caterina agrees, looking as proud as a stoic old bat can. She may not be happy with the tone that he takes but something can be said about the fact that he is willing to take it with her after all this time.

She explains that it is crucial that if he as First Talon is to take a lover he must accept that he will not always be able to protect them from the dangers this life entails. They must be able to defend themselves against all threats, but even more important is that if something should happen to them, Lucanis will keep a level head. His enemies will expect him to be blinded by grief and rage, sloppy and prone to leaving himself unguarded. A true First Talon will keep his head about him and make his enemies suffer. A true First Talon will honor a loved one’s memory with the blood of their enemies, not by falling on a sword in their name.

[tiredgeekgirl]

fellas it has been three months since the beach episode and thinking about neil and eva in any capacity still makes me ILL

[sniperdadmaccready]

I keep accidently rizzing up dads at work when they're just trying to buy pokemon cards for their kids 😔

[scatterpatter]

HEY YOU SHOULD WATCH THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER

Oh nooooo if only there were an easy way to find it tho... if only... oh man... if only- oh oops sorry I tripped-

Oh man if only it were easy to watch... oh man...................

[puhpandas]

steel wool has the hugest opportunity in the world for a sb 2 like. vanny cassie plotline of her having been manipulated by mimic to be its new minion by framing Gregory during the elevator scene to cut off her one support system. gregory vanessa and freddy protags fleshing them out with dialogue as characters but also their motivations and what theyve been doing for years. have their long absence in games period but also in universe from helping the glamrocks/setting up mxes be explained by showcasing their fear and trauma by them just wanting to get away and they thought they were safe but they werent. have cassie be the reason they have to jump back into the fray and realize no matter what they do theyll have to kill mimic for good to be truly free even if they're afraid. plot of the game is Gregory trying to convince cassie he didnt do it and that shes being tricked and it takes all campaign to get through to her, probably after an intense dramatic climax. have Roxy be there by Cassies side to show how Freddy abandoning them at the Plex affected her and the 2 sides of the same coin the 2 of them have going on regarding sentience and their relationship with the characters they were designed to be with Freddy who got to be free and roxy who didnt. the actual vanny comes back as a big betrayal towards mimic after killing glitchtrap in hw2, either to become an antihero or to try and take over as mastermind. superstar duo reunite and names cleared. throughout the campaign Gregory finds out about ggy and its revealed in a room with documents about patient 46 and tapes where a final tape is found and Gregory speaks in it or is addressed by name. he grapples with it and not remembering it. btw setting is a modern day fallfest which is like amusement park size instead of small festival. boom peak game

[sketchywhale]

Tutorials really do help a lot. Except for shading on digital drawings, so I just did it like I would on traditional media. But hey, The Nightwings of DC.