#Antagonists gotta antagonize

[vaugarde]

i love kirby super star fanfic or comic adaptations where marx and kirby are actually best friends during the course of the entire game and marx blindsides kirby, to the point where i want to do something soooort of similar with my kirbyverse, but i also just kinda love how in canon marx was just like “im gonna very specifically ruin this guys week”

[comicaurora]

When did you decide on introducing Falst as a fakeout villain? in my head it's such an ingrained part of the arc but I have to imagine his intro wasn't always like that.

It wasn't! In the very earliest version of the story, aka the loose pre-scripting nebulous idea for how to get him in with the group, it was a pretty simple scenario where Falst was victimized by some bad guys and the gang helped him out, validated his existence, etc. It was functional for what it needed to accomplish - getting him in as a Main Character - but it had a lot of problems, namely that he had no agency in any of it.

I realized as I got closer to introducing him that Falst had a characteristic that none of the other protagonists had: he was rough. Erin isn't nice like Kendal and Alinua, but he's not going to go out of his way to purposefully hurt anyone who hasn't hurt him first. Erin can be rude and thoughtless, but he likes explaining things, and that does a lot to smooth over potential miscommunication. Falst isn't like that. Despite suffering deeply from loneliness, Falst is not good at making himself palatable for other people, and for the most part doesn't want to, in part because he shouldn't have to. It took a lot of bad stuff to grind him down to the point of seriously contemplating turning himself human to make it stop, and even then, he typically responds to antagonism by hitting back twice as hard, not making himself more inoffensive in the hopes of making it stop. In the trifecta of fight-flight-freeze, he defaults to fight, and he has a lot of reasons to wall off every conceivable vulnerability and snap out at people instead of giving them an in-road to hurting him by being nice to them. This makes him incredibly vulnerable to conflict and miscommunication plotlines because he will never explain himself if he thinks he has any other more combative option available, and that makes it very easy to turn people against him if they aren't willing to reach out and potentially take a hit trying to close that gap.

What I like most about writing Falst is that none of this makes him a monster, and none of it makes him unworthy of chances, love or understanding. He's a ball of sharp corners and he hurts people, and he's very easily framed as an antagonist because of that. And framing him opposite a kind, soft-spoken, eloquent, handsome small town doctor makes it easier to see him as a villain. And the fact that the doctor is actually a manipulative villain doesn't undo any of the stuff Falst did during their initial encounter when they didn't know each other and he made his introduction by robbing the party and lightly maiming Kendal. Falst is not perfectly nice, and it doesn't take much to get him to be actively mean or unnecessarily defensive. It is easy to convince characters and an audience that a character like that is a Problem, because if he weren't a Problem he would be nice and non-confrontational and conventionally attractive. Undercutting aesthetic morality is always fun, and sometimes you just gotta judge a character by their actions and conclude that they might not be good at making you like them but they're not actually doing anything all that bad.

Falst is kind of a jerk. He also has a lot of qualities that are not jerk traits. Falst found people who like him, and the fact that he's a jerk doesn't contradict that. We're all jerks sometimes, and we all tank hits from our friends being jerks sometimes. Falst is at his most interesting when I let him be emotional, hostile and imperfect, and I think it's nice to give him people that love him without undercutting the things that make him believe he's unlovable.

[sugar-grigri]

Gotta admit that Barem is a great antagonist. He instantly lifts up the chapters on which he appears. He's like a professional at antagonism, no one does it like him on this manga except Makima, which makes the fact that he's a willing Makima simp even funnier.

what kills me personally is the differences between him and Makima. Makima never loses her decorum, is insensitive to pain and is silent, whereas Barem loses it extremely easily, doesn't like (AT ALL) pain at all and loves to provoke. Makima : you've killed me 245 times, what are you going to do next? :)

Barem: does the nasty. Denji: punches him Barem: HAAAAAA

yeah, right, he gets his head chopped off with Denji's bare hands and shot at with weapons made to destroy demons… but who cares, it's funny when you put it that way.

I don't know, Barem's got that cartoon villain side, sent into the heavens like Team Rocket, coming back all the time, confidence boosted to 100%

[crescynnt]

Some thoughts about the hollow heads

Why are all of the hollow heads hostile when they first appear? Other than the obvious answer (Alan thought this was just going to be a short one-off animation and a stick figure fight scene would be cool), their names likely attribute to it.

When Victim first appeared, he acted like a victim. He was trapped in a box and was toyed with by Alan. He only fought back in retaliation (something that he's still doing to this day- man, talk about a long grudge).

The Chosen One is weird. His name implies that he's heroic, but the only thing you really see heroic about him is his powers (from the start). But AvA1-4 is seen mostly though Alan's perspective. The Chosen One is seen as the antagonist because that's how the story is presented. But from Chosen's perspective...

...Alan is this god-like being creating them just to toy with them. He may not know what happened with Victim, but his sense of heroism, being the Chosen of the sticks, tells him to fight against this monster.

The Dark Lord is the first stick to be passive when he is created, with his first shots being of him stretching. This is because his name, The Dark Lord, implies that he's evil... and therefore on Alan's side. He was named to be aligned with his creator, so he has no reason to antagonize Alan from the get-go.

At the end of AvA3, we see Dark and Chosen team up. It shows that while they have their names, that is their starting point. Like how a human is born as a blank slate, the sticks are born with their names as the only thing on their slates. They are allowed to choose what to do after they're born. Chosen, being, well, The Chosen One, went against his name to become a terrorist and Dark went against his code to befriend his enemy. But the inherit personalities their names give them still affect their actions.

It's a nature vs. nurture problem, where their nature is defined by their name. In the Showdown, you see that Dark is using his "nature" of being the Dark Lord to carry out his conquest. Unlike Chosen, who is intrinsically a "good guy" and saw the fault in his ways before he went too far, Dark just doesn't have that moral code. He could probably learn it, later on, like when he learned to trust Chosen, but Chosen just... expected him to understand. (Chosen, you gotta talk to your friend!!)

Victim also follows a similar development. After the events of AvA1, he's still maintained that "victim" mindset. Even though he's more powerful now (but only in the box) to the point where he can actually hurt Chosen, he's taken his status as a victim in the past to justify his hatred against Alan.

And The Second Coming, being the only stick figure that was drawn but not named by Alan, his name means that he's the next Chosen One. He was only hostile towards Alan once his friends were deleted, showing the not-so-complete transfer of power between the two. He's still a kid, through and through, and while Chosen is still alive, there's no reason for him to fully take on Chosen's role (not that he's much of a role model anyway). He's the backup force, the kid who can live his life with his friends, until he's needed as the Second Coming (i. e. when Chosen was defeated by the Virabots).

[anonymous-dentist]

Honestly idc about the Tallulah vs Sunny vs Leo babyfight going on because, really, that kind of stuff is just what little girls do.

I work in childcare professionally and seasonally- specifically with 9-10 year olds- and it’s gotten to the point where my higher-ups ended up telling everyone that it isn’t our job to sort out the Little Girl Drama because it happens so often! At least once a day we have at least one group of girls have a dramatic friendship argument that will drastically shape their lives forever, and then they’re best friends again the next day. Little girls can be full of such hatred that is only ever seen otherwise in angry NFL fans after a bad ref call, it’s INSANE.

So Tallulah and Sunny not getting along? And Tallulah actually being pretty mature for a little girl and being all “We can’t be friends yet, but maybe in the future when I’m in a better place” and seemingly working on herself and her problems before tackling the Sunny Problem? That’s chill, 10x more mature than the way the girls at work can be

Leo and Sunny not getting along? Now that’s realistic. Sometimes kids just don’t like each other. You can’t force people to be friends, children included. Doing that just makes the kids hate each other more, especially when one of the kids is as traumatized and depressed as Leo is.

And then both Tallulah and Leo hanging with Empanada and Pepito but not with Sunny? Again, that’s normal for little kids, especially considering how both Tallulah and Leo may have seen/are currently seeing Sunny as an antagonistic force.

Sure, it makes sense that Sunny is hurt by all this, and that’s when an adult figure should step in: when the kid starts to cry and act out aggressively. She’s in a bad situation here, but so is Leo. Sunny fans have gotta start considering Leo’s pov and stop insulting her and her admin, and so on.

If this entire scenario was happening in a school?

Leo and Sunny would be kept apart at all times. Different tables, desks, whatever the classroom uses. Don’t pair them up for activities, and keep them across the room from each other. They don’t get an option in this because of how they antagonize each other.

Tallulah, though, would probably get an option. She’d be allowed to play with Sunny during recess or gym time if she and Sunny can both promise to play nice, and they might even be allowed to eat lunch together depending on how their behavior’s been that day. This is because of the open communication these two kinda have going on; Little Girl Drama isn’t always a constant, sometimes there’s moments of peace within.

This is all to say: this babyfight stuff is awesome because it’s the single most realistic depiction of Little Girl Drama/Friendship I’ve seen in my LIFE, and I’m saying this as someone who works in childcare for a living who has had to deal with Little Girl Drama for years at this point. It’s actually super impressive!! Kudos to the admins, they’re doing great!!!

[entamewitchlulu]

For the Yugioh character ask meme, I'm giving you autismn personified aka Akaba Reiji

Why I like them/why I don’t

I just. Where do i start.

he's just. he's so. -clenches fist- he's so compelling. i love that he's so good at putting on a facade that even the viewers think he should have been a villain. he does his absolute best to act like one at the beginning, because maybe it's easier that way for him, if the others view him as an antagonist. he can work with antagonism. he's been doing it for years, probably, as a child attempting to gain dominance in a world of adults who looked down on him and dismissed him.

And yet despite this facade. he's so good??? he's so purely straightforward. at his core he is a Hero with a capital H, but he doesn't believe he is. He's just doing What He's Supposed To Do, after all. he considers all of his decisions as sacrifices for a greater good, and he doesn't expect anyone to like him or agree with him. He'll be the Bad Guy making the Hard Decisions if he has to be.

And YET!!! beneath all of that he is just a child. he is just a kid, who wants to fix things. who wants to protect people. who strides straight forward and just has the pretense of being a mastermind when he's really just winging it.

He's so intelligent but he's not and never has been a puppetmaster type character because he acknowledges the fact that plans fall apart. he puts on the act of being a master planner, but he's actually a master adapter. He's so good at being a chameleon of what people want to see him as until it's time to get to work and show that he was just holding back the whole time.

i JUST. i could talk about him for hours. He's so good. He's so complicated and yet so straightforward. he needs a hug. he needs a decent adult in his life so he can take a nap.

What I like about their appearance

he's genuinely so handsome??? my Character Type i'm weak for is someone with white/silver hair and either violet or red eyes and he checks ALL the boxes.

like look at him. he's so handsome.

Do I prefer their dub names or original names?

SUB SUB SUB SUB SUB SUB SUB my GOD every time i see the name declan for him i wanna shrivel up. i understand WHY they did it, to match his D/D/Ds, but 1) it completely ruins the Rei theming and 2) any time i see the name Declan all i can fucking think about is the wedding shaming post about the lady who was going to go backpacking in the mountains after no one would give her 1000$ a piece to have her destination wedding and her kid was named declan

i kid you not i have considered downloading a word replacement extension specifically to replace all mentions of his dub name with his real name.

OTP

do i even gotta say it

I'm so soft for them all the time. i love that yuya was the first person to distract Reiji from his plans, and he was like "well obviously it's because i need his power to take down my dad" but then he started having image battles with yuya involuntarily and i was just like oh you're kind of like. he's doing things to you isn't he.

I love how their relationship develops from pure antagonism to Yuya starting to realize just how much of Reiji is a facade and then choosing to trust him unconditionally despite what others say about him, even though before he hated Reiji so much he wanted to punch him! And they become a total battle couple by the end??? they may not be traditional rivals in a yugioh sense, but they truly do push and inspire each other to push beyond their limits and see beyond their originally more narrow viewpoints, and it's so beautiful.

NOTP

I really just don't like anything where reiji is in a relationship with a woman. i'm sorry he's just gay to me. the only exception is yuzu and that's only when yuya is there too.

OT3

As stated above, i do enjoy orchestrashipping now and then. to be honest though, reiji is one of those few characters i ship pretty monogamously.

Favourite card they use

to be completely honest his deck doesn't really do it for me; i'm not a huge fan of the more mechanical designs. if i have to pick though i love how iconic his main three kings are

Also, gotta give a shoutout to how much i think about his contract cards and how his entire deck is built around the concept of broken promises. i promise you i'm normal about this (lying).

Favourite moment they were in

well.

but NO in actuality it has to be his duel against Roget. i love that they were built up all season as like one-to-one rivals, in that Roget was totally focused on him and taking him down, considering him a rival chessmaster, only for when the duel happened for Reiji to completely wipe the floor with him and prove that there was never a contest to begin with.

Least favourite moment

none. any moment he is in i love <333

Would I fuck, marry or kill them

become him

i guess i'd marry him if i have to pick one. he's rich so that would be nice.

thank you for the ask :)

[ghelgheli]

a "contradiction" describes the relationship between medications and conditions they are contraindicated for; such a contradiction becomes "antagonistic" when you gotta take the fucking medication anyway despite having the condition. if you are lucky the antagonism will resolve into a new stage for your body. but watch out.

[dire-vulture]

🍇 🍋 🥝 my evil questions

🍇Share the “villain” or main antagonist of your clan and talk about them!

honestly that's a tough one..i definitely have some morally dubious dragons here and there, but they're generally either staying out of other's ways so as to avoid trouble, or they just have very specific rivalries. (looking at you, Warglobe.) for dragons that could be said to antagonize the community as a whole though...

Paragon's probably the strongest contender, he's a pompous tundra and a con artist lying about his fortune telling abilities, but he's also Tarragon's younger brother and he's more than happy to use Tarragon's innate protectiveness over him to his advantage, pushing around other dragons and facing relatively few consequences. I think he has somewhat chilled out since his earlier years in Florabrisa though. Like, other dragons definitely got sick of his shit and usually he'd just flee when things start to go south, but he already sort of came to Florabrisa as a last resort specifically for Tarragon's protection so dfgsdf with few other options he's mostly laying low now and is just a regular at the clan tavern. Other dragons at the tavern probably have lots of opinions on him though fdgsfd

i also just wanna give an honorable mention to my Pearlcacther Millisievert! She considers herself a pillar of the community, and in many ways she really is, but she's also a busybody and overly concerned with appearances, so bascially she tries to act like a self-appointed HoA for Florabrisa dfgsfd if you're doing something she disapproves of, she is going to let you know and has lots of words to say about it. dfgfd still, she's hardly evil. she's just not fun to rub shoulders with.

🍋What’s the most dramatic/emotional moment in your lore? Explain it, or write one short paragraph of prose set during that moment

ooohh..the most dramatic has gotta be Tamarind and Zaffre's divorce, which i 'summarized' here. Not great when two of your clan's four leaders have a serious falling out and one of their kids go missing dfsfdgfd Zaffre left the clan for half a year after that, before returning to her duties as leader.

and i don't talk about this all that much, but honestly i should and it is related to the above..Florabrisa's biggest victim (and really the only one thankfully) is Clash and I feel so bad for her fdgsfd She's Zaffre's eldest daughter, from her relationship with Kyurem years before meeting the other future Florabrisa leaders. Zaffre was a hardcore survivalist plague dragon who liked living on her own in the wilderness, far away from society, and Kyurem thought that was exciting and loved the adventure and the two fell in love. But then once they had Clash, Kyurem realized they didn't want their daughter to be isolated from everything and grow up with no friends or outside resources. Zaffre vehemently disagreed, believing Clash would have everything she needed in the Wilderness..so due to these different beliefs they split up (no divorce because they never married) and took turns raising Clash. The arrangement seemed to go well at first, young Clash learning lots of useful survival skills with Zaffre and getting more social benefits with Kyurem, but as Clash started getting older (like..6 or 7 at this point) it was becoming clear she wasn't really enjoying her time in isolated wilderness with Zaffre, and even in town with Kyurem where she enjoyed her favorite luxuries like candy, musicals, and indoor plumbing, she wasn't fitting in well with dragons her own age. Zaffre begrudgingly started letting Clash stay with Kyurem for longer periods, and then Zaffre herself decided she would start slowly reconnecting with society, starting by getting in touch with an old coworker/friend named Moraine, who introduced her to Tarragon and Tamarind too.

Honestly Tarragon tends to get the credit since he picked out the location and name, but in many ways, Florabrisa was actually Zaffre's baby. She had been burned by civilization and other dragons many times, but she always saw herself as a leader and she secretly wished she could start her own community. And she was really missing spending time with Clash too...basically after giving tons of pep talks to her friends who were all struggling with Dragon Capitalism in their own ways, she convinced them to start Florabrisa, in large part because she hoped this would finally be the right environment to raise Clash, and of course enjoy her new marriage with Tamarind and have a family with him too.

But then, once they all started getting Florabrisa set up and having to deal with leaderly duties and actually managing a community, Zaffre really didn't have all that much time to raise Clash, and in having a nest of eggs with Tamarind, then Moraine and Tarragon having their own kids too (including taking in Keiji when his parents suddenly died), they kind of ended up shouldering Clash with babysitting duties when she was barely a preteen fdsdgf Clash loves hatchlings, and wanted to be a responsible older sister, but it really wasn't fair to her. I like to think Tarragon, Moraine, and Kyurem did their best to make sure Clash wasn't having too many responsibilities put on her, but Clash tends to be very closed off and great at hiding her feelings, so they still missed a lot of things dfgsfd and there was still the problem of Clash not fitting in with her peers, given her odd fashion sense, stilted speech, and apparent lack of emotions, all of which other kids would mock her for. This unfortunately did not go away in Florabrisa. In fact, Millie up there in the first question is only two years older than Clash and for most of their teenage years was her biggest bully, since Millie (who of course cares so much about Florabrisa's well-being) saw the marital problems between Zaffre and Tamarind, and as a concerned citizen she loved throwing fuel into the rumor mill that Zaffre was cheating on Tamarind with her old flame Kyurem, with Clash right at the center at that,,, Clash had it very very rough growing up fgfdh

So yeah. Florabrisa's cruelest irony is that it was founded in part to be the ideal place to raise Clash, but then they all just. completely flubbed that part. i am so sorry Clash :(

sometimes i have to wonder if she should have even stayed in Florabrisa, but I think as an adult she's found peace and she's much better supported now. She has her wife Antikyra and they have a child who is going to get the dream childhood that Clash deserved!

omg. well, so much for one short paragraph dfgsfdg it's been years and i just finally needed to talk about Clash i guess xD;

🥝If you were to start over on your lore and remake it entirely, what would you change?

Kiwi time dfgsfdgfds. ummm lets see. give Clash a better childhood for starters sfdgsfd

For years I thought to myself if i restarted my lair, I would make it a swamp instead. but then i made my swamp tab and pretty much gave myself everything i wanted so dfgsfd i really don't know! I have thought before that if i had a chance to do something new with my progens, I would make them an M snapper and f bogsneak who are just friends instead of the typical married-progens-thing, but honestly i would never change Moraine and Tarragon and married progens are still fun regardless dsfgsfd having a snapper progen would rule though.

thank you!! and i am sorry for the length of this dfgsdfgdfg

[andyling]

SUP FUCKERS NEW LIFE SERIES JUST DROPPED SO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS I’M LOSING MY FUCKING MIND RIGHT NOW AND Y’ALL GOTTA DEAL WITH THAT!!!

LIMITED LIFE SMP SPOILERS!!!!

TANGO'S POV WOOOOOO 

I GOT MY RANCHERS INTERACTION IT WAS TWO WORDS BUT THAT'S ENOUGH FOR ME FUCK YEAH 

Team TIES my beloveds, the worst cow farmers ever (3/4 are from Team BEST lmao) 

Skizz getting welcomed back through death, love to see it

God they changed the life system around and immediately everyone started dancing with death what the fuck where did everyone's self-preservation go?!?!?!?

Team Rancher is going through their rivals arc and I’m all for it

WHY ARE THEY SO BAD AT BEING COW FARMERS 

love how Team TIES is just showering Etho in redstone

Tango it’s bold of you to assume that anyone on your team has a braincell

JIMMY POV

failing at acquiring monopolies runs in the family i guess 

jimmy and joel really embracing their cringefailness by mining straight into lava ON PURPOSE 

guys i think i found the most antagonistic team this series 

they're all menaces

still not over the rancher comment THANKS JIMMY BUT WTF MAN DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH ANGST YOU'VE JUST CREATED 

Jimmy's home once again burning to the ground, it hasn't even been one episode 

GRIAN BANNING SCAR'S BOONSWAGLING 

THE PUNS HATH RETURNED

SCAR TIME 

Scar's commentary is amazing 

the Clockers are a team i didn't know i needed but will now become way too attached to 

they are also known as Cleo and her two batshit crazy children 

SCAR DOES NOT UNDERSTAND LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP

Cleo left her children alone for two seconds and they immediately adopted several animals 

OH SO THE CLOCKERS WERE THE ONES WHO BURNED DOWN THE MANSION 

Jimmy needs to stop antagonizing Scar, first the ranch now the mansion

this team is gonna be so chaotic i'm so excited

[posi-pan]

hi! i wanted to say/ask two things: one - have you ever done a roundup of videogame pan characters? i've only seen you do books i think (i recently learned that all bg3 companions are pan so i wonder)(also i am working on a game that has a pan4pan main couple bc we gotta do good things for ourselves), and two - i know that you use "pan antagonism" to mean that we're being antagonized but i keep misinterpreting it as like, a phenomenon of having a pan antagonist in a story lol

hi!!! i don’t think i’ve made a post about pan characters in games (my memory is terrible), but i do have a game section on my pan rep masterlist!

[halestrom]

hey hi hello, i am a massive fan of your writing style and your fic cockblock in particular, the way you write is just so expressive and emotional????

anywhizzle, i'm currently writing a novel for my creative writing class and i am Struggling To Find My Writing voice and i keep coming back to your works, do you have any tips or tricks or special magic spells or potions you do to write Like That?

sincerely, a struggling writer who thinks you're really cool :)

Oh wow, hi!! Thank you so much for this it was so sweet to get. I’m going to try and hopefully say something useful, esp since this is a hobby and I have ZERO formal training on anything aside from a few posts I’ve seen floating around/a lot of time since I’ve been writing fanfiction since I was 13.

The quick answer is just time. I’ve been writing for a long time, and I’ve got some of the stuff I wrote when I was thirteen/fourteen and then also from my early 20’s to 30’s I can see how my writing has changed and developed just from writing more. I learned what I like to do, and what I don’t like to do, what I don’t like to see.

Also, ngl. I love fanfiction, I really really do. But we are reading stories of characters we already love so there’s an inherent positive bias towards the story. So, I highly highly recommend reading original fiction and paying attention to why a story in particular resonates with you.  Because you don’t go into the story already loving some aspect of it, so you need to love it as you learn and that can help you figure out your voice better.

But, for me, personally, it doesn’t matter how interesting or unique your plot is, your characters need to be the main focus. You gotta know what you wanna do with your characters within a story, because their actions are what tends to drive a lot of the plot. Finding out what happens to them is why we often want to finish a story/movie/tv show. And when it comes to writing you gotta know where you wanna end up.

I tend to consider myself a panster, as in I don’t plan shit, I just write. But one thing I make sure I do is set what my end goal is for a story, also so I have something to focus on and I get that it’s easy to be like “well im a pantster I don’t know where Im going” which is valid, but also know what you want to tell in the story, why you are writing it. That will help define the ending as well.

Personally when it comes to a love story you gotta figure out how they fall in love and why they should be in love. (ngl a lot of issues I have with modern romance is just bc two people are in the same space and are attractive doesn’t mean they work together. So, figure out why they work. 'Just because' doesn’t work imo and readers are smarter than people realize, even subconsciously)

All genres are the same way. Figure out the reason and a lot can be figured out from that. Even if you don’t have all the minor details yet. Those can be figured out along the way, as well as edited and fixed at the end. (also why I tend to only post wips im almost finished with bc I will go back and edit)

So, for Cockblock specifically, I had the beginning, Jake was gonna cockblock Bradley and someone misunderstood leading to fake dating, but the ending could’ve been a whole variety of things depending on what I felt like. This ending was easy, I wanted Jake and Bradley together, which then started to help me develop the plot. How would I take these two men, who were antagonistic during the movie, and get to them a place where they could be together. So, it was competitive.

And I set the tone in the second chapter with Jake telling Bradley “…work on maybe seeing if we can be friends, which to the rest of the world is gonna look like dating.” Because of their competitive natures they had to get rid of the antagonism which led to a true friendship and without that overarching ego it was easy enough for the friendship to develop and turn into more. And everything else was to push it towards that realization and taking from fake dating to real dating.

The main story I’m working on right now, I have a beginning and I know where I want them to be at around the mid-point of the story, I know what I want the climax of the story to be, and I know where I want them to end up at the end. And because I know that I know I can write the emotions I want out of the characters. And once I know what, I find it a lot easier to focus and just write.

At the end of the day it's just gonna be spending the time writing a lot of shit no one else will ever see for a variety of reasons and that doesn't make them bad, or not worthy, it just means you're learning how to make something work for you. But you can look at those things you don't share and figure out what you do like from them. What you loved about those snippets and use that to help yourself grow.

[dulltoned]

currently brainrotting about the possible antagonists that we could get in Trolls 4 (if that does end up happening) and I need to get this shit out somehow

I’ve seen people talk about Crimp being the next antagonist, and imma be real; I don’t see it- like sure, that lil mop thing is smart, hell, even Velvet acknowledged that and ended up not trusting her as a result, but I highly doubt Crimp could be some kind of evil mastermind (also wondering how she didn’t get arrested as well since, legally speaking she could be considered a as an accomplice to the whole shit fest with Floyd?? make that make sense, but then again, law may work different in their world so what do I know)

some said something about Creek coming back, and let me just say I HATE plots like that-

Creek’s dead, end of story, and even if he is somehow still alive, he doesn’t deserve to fucking return (I hate Creek, alright- can’t stand the little shit)

now, I’ve seen someone speak about a new kind of Troll popping up and I gotta say that caught my eye a bit more; Phonk Trolls- I’d say it would be an interesting concept to play with-

I got a personally idea of mine since, throughout the movies, the subject of grey trolls in general is never truly talked about again- so far, canonically, Branch seems to be the only troll we know of that has turned grey and remained that way for a long period of time- but what if there were more, similar to him? trolls who had lost their colors and just- never gained them back

I find the idea of a whole tribe of grey trolls rather interesting, and it would be a fun concept to tweak and play around with- and how they could pose a threat to our beloved main cast- perhaps they want to rid the world of color, or they want to steal that color to have some sort of happiness back, unfortunately ripping all the others trolls of that same mirth- are they driven by anger, grief, vengeance, or a mix of all of these?

or perhaps the newest antagonist is another species entirely, or a bigger threat than anything they’ve experienced before-

anyways it’s midnight where I am and I need some sleep

-🪶

I don't really have any big hopes for the antagonists of the fourth film, were there to be one. I'd like to see some returning antagonists, to be fair, even if they've all been pretty safely written off and tucked away where they won't be a problem anymore.

I don't remember if the storyboards I saw were real or not but I honestly wouldn't mind if Creek was a returning villain. I'd honestly like to see him antagonize Branch a lot more, I enjoyed their bitter dynamic before the Snack Pack got taken in the first movie. While Chef is most certainly dead we saw Poppy save herself from a similar experience during Get Back Up Again so I don't think it would be entirely out of pocket to have Creek survive somehow.

I just don't know how the franchise could do that in a way that I wouldn't despise. I know that I absolutely loathed how Creek was written into The Beat Goes On and I would hate to have the main series ruined by some blunder like that.

I'd just like to see one of the Trolls movies expand a bit more on what we already know, like how World Tour really went into detail about the Trolls and their different cultures and subspecies. I don't want a whole new species like the Mount Rageons even though I adore them, I think it'd be fun to dig a little deeper into the world we already have and then continue to expand it later down the line maybe.

I like what I've seen a few people say here and there, though. I'd like to see a scenario where Branch is the one that needs help for once, instead of being the one to offer it and pull off the rescue. I love seeing how competent and aware he is but I'd like to see what would happen if the rest of the trolls didn't have Branch to rely on for once. He's always a really big piece of the solution so what would happen if they didn't have him to put things together?

Regardless, if/when a fourth film comes out I hope I love it just as much as the other three. That's all I can really ask for.

[thesilverlady]

Aegon and Daemon having this obsession with Viserys's approval is so annoying because why would Daemon want the approval of the man who caused his unborn child's death or why Aegon would be soo fucked up in the head because the man who never cared about him doesn't love him? I mean i could get it since Viserys is his father and his fixation of his father's love is not as bad as Daemon's since according to Ryan Daemon is "in love" with his brother lmaao

considering we're talking about show version since you mentioned Ryan's comment of daemon being "in love" with his brother (God i remember the day this dropped 😭), we gotta rethink some of the changes they made in the show.

for instance, daemon never loses his unborn child because it doesn't exist. They had mysaria not being pregnant ('cause heaven forbid if daemon dared to have a life outside of Rhaenyra and Viserys) so what was a big turning point of his relationship with his brother is... no longer there

they also really toned down the ambition daemon had in canon. I know lots of people love rolling with the idea that he's uwu family man. But in my opinion he just wanted both. I'm his early years he definitely wanted power aka the throne and that's okay. it's not the end of the world. He tried to go around to gain it in a way that wouldn't necessarily hurt anyone (for instance courting his niece who he already cared about), but in the show we don't have that. They tried to do something with the stepstones but that got lost. Show daemon comes across as very needy and desperate for his brother's love and it's even worse if you consider how much of a shitty brother show Viserys even is.

Daemon doesn't really have lots of things going on. He's been made to be this pathetic man child who can occasionally be an "agent of chaos" who thrived under attention and was desperate for his brother's attention

As for Aegon, his need for Viserys's attention is a bit less bad in comparison as you mentioned but it's still very... exaggerated. Like, whining about it when he's supposed to be a grown man is a bit late? Anger, and hate would make more sense and I think given how Ryan has mischaracterized Alicent already, he doesn't understand the role she also played in her children - in this case most especially to her sons.

in the book she had been fixated and antagonistic towards Rhaenyra since her stepdaughter was 9. All the children she births are used as a weapon against Rhaenyra. I imagine Aegon and Aemond would also have certain issues with her obsession.

In the show the antagonism doesn't really exist and Alicent character is all over the place 'cause in one episode she's like "in this world we defend our own" and at the same time she does nothing to easy up the animosity that seems to exist between her own two sons? And she continues to reject political advantages out of some childish pettiness against her "former bestie". idk she's still a bad parent that has detrimental affect on her own children.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Bill Cipher

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Gravity Falls is one of the greatest cartoons of the 2010s, a fantastic mystery series filled with weird and mysterious monsters. And among those monsters is a bizarre interdimensional demonic triangle with a top hat who sounds like the dude who made Twin Peaks. How much weirder can you ge than that?

Bill Cipher started off as a one-shot monster of the week summoned up by season 1’s reoccurring antagonist Gideon, but considering how he appears so much in symbols throughout the show and just how fun and striking the guy is, he was upgraded to the overarching villain of the whole show, responsible for many of the mysteries and the conflict of the grand finale. So what made this evil Dorito so much cooler than the psychic incel voiced by the dude who made The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack? Read on and maybe I’ll have an answer.

Yfg kilyzyob mlg. R'n mlg gszg hnzig.

Motivation/Goals: Bill is the archetypical trickster and deal-making devil we’ve seen across the ages in fiction, promising wealth, power, and knowledge to suckers in return for furthering his goals. And what are his goals, you might ask? Fuck if I know. Bill seems to relish in pure and utter chaos with no rhyme or reason, his true motives beyond “Call in my friends and fuck around with reality” being beyond my puny mortal understanding. Frankly, it’s really refreshing to see a Disney villain who simply relishes in bringing about the apocalypse for shits and giggles, especially when the classic Disney villain was dying out around the time this show was airing in favor of twist villains like Hans and that Zootopia sheep.

Performance: After being shot down by David Lynch, Alex Hirsch decided to jumo in and voice Bill in a “bad” David Lynch impression. Bad is in quotations because the impression is quite frankly pretty spot on, and much like Lynch himself it adds a sort of surreal ridiculousness to Bill. Hirsch really is the MVP of the show he created, and Bill is one of his best performances in it, though I hesitate to call him better than Grunkle Stan.

Final Fate: The best Disney villains get the very best deaths, and Bill has one of the best of them all. After falling for a ruse between Stanford and Stanley and slipping into the latter’s mind as its being erased, Bill pitifully begs Grunkle Stan for his life. In a move that would make Captain Falcon proud, Stan responds by fucking punching Bill out of existence. FUCK. YEAH.

Bill ends the series as nothing more than a statue. Probably. His final secret backwards message does imply he may return someday...

Best Episodes: The “Weirdmageddon” finale is definitely Bill’s finest hour, but I’ve gotta say “Sock Opera” is a standout as well, as Bill takes over Dipper’s body for his own goals. It hits even harder if you read the real-life version of the Journal, which has Bill pretty blatantly say he was going to make Dipper commit suicide. Jesus Christ.

Final Thoughts & Score: Bill is easily the most impressive Disney villain in recent memory.

Recent Disney movies have seemed content in either making the antagonizing force of a movie a nebulous force like generational trauma, or otherwise have a really bad twist villain. The last time we had an honest to god Disney villain was Tamatoa, who gets a single scene in Moana before vanishing from the film. We just haven’t been getting the sort of high quality antagonists we had back in the 90s anymore.

Bill, though? Bill is just about everything you could want from a villain. He’s funny when he needs to be, he’s terrifying when he needs to be, he wields insane magical power, and most importantly, he absolutely relishes in how much of an evil lunatic he is. He’s like if Kefka was made by David Lynch, and was also a triangle. It’s just beautiful.

I think what makes Bill so great is just the sheer simplicity of the character, from his design to his motivations. It’s very much what you see is what you get with him; he just loves chaos, and he wants to spread it even if it means blowing up the world. He’ll fuck over anyone to get what he wants, and nothing is too low for him to achieve his goals. Villains like this can be very fun to watch if they’re written well, and Bill is written exceptionally well. Every episode with him in it is easily one of the best episodes of the show; even his debut episode, which some have argued is his weakest appearance, is still one of the single best episode’s of the first season. He’s just that damn good.

Bill Cipher gets a 10/10, which isn’t particularly shocking; he might be the best thing Alex Hirsch created for the show after all. If Disney never makes a good villain again and just sticks to generational trauma or awful twist villains, well, at least they’ll always have Bill. 

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[pridelessdaydreamer]

PLOTTER / SHIPPER

taken from: nat's linoan!

tagging: flutters my lashes like a funny lil guy :eye::sparkles:

1. CONNECTIONS

write about how our muses could connect with each other! ex. what does your muse like to do that other people would be involved in? do they have interests that other people might share?

Linhardt is a Black Eagle, and one native to Fódlan. Any who decide to study the politics of the continent would easily stumble upon his house, and connections can be drawn from there (accurate or otherwise).

She is a frequenter of the library though, even if she's most often found there late at night. Aside from her chronic reading, she also likes to fish! Not competitively though. She's not that competitive.

If you can't find them in class, the library, or at the Fishing Grounds though, just wander around the monastery a bit—they're probably asleep underneath a tree somewhere. Or in their room asleep, in which case, good luck finding them.

2. PLATONIC

write about your muse and their concept of friendship. ex. how is your muse like with friends? do they make friends easily or do they find it difficult to connect with others?

Friendship for Lin is... interesting, to say the least. They'll regard you much the same as they would any other person, but perhaps with slightly less rudeness/sass (unless you're really close, then it's worse *cough cough* CASPAR *cough cough*). The chance of summoning them with the click of your heels increases by 0.5%, so that's also a neat bonus! Really, the big thing is that they'll consciously worry about you now (when they think it's necessary to worry, otherwise, you're on your own).

The thing is, once you actually manage to pin him down, so long as you aren't asking him to do work all the time, you'd be pretty alright in his book! The threshold for 'friendship' though is rather hard to pin down—one day you're acquaintances and the next you're friends. It's not really easy to draw the line.

I can't say she makes friends easily considering she... doesn't exactly try, to be quite frank (it's part of the reason the previous bullet is so nebulous). She'd be completely content being alone forever (minus that one hamster), and she doesn't really rely on others that much except to do work she'd rather not do! Actively seeking out a friend isn't really something she does. I can't say she struggles either though—there is simply no effort made at all. Alas.

3. ANTAGONISTIC

write about your muse and the conflicts they have with other people. ex: who are they on bad terms with? what kind of people do they not get along well with? how do they act around people they don’t like?

Hubert. Also Ferdinand. Edelgard to an extent. Caspar sometimes (it's a best friends thing) /j. Yeah. Yeah.

To elaborate, anybody who expects her to put in more than the minimum amount of effort gotta be joking fr! It's not that bad if it's a misunderstanding, but if you try to force it? Yikes. (Edelgard ain't that bad fr cuz she knows when to quit! Also when to appeal. She's cool ong)

Admittedly, antagonism for Linhardt is basically the same as their normal behavior, just snarkier. More witty rebuttals and sharp comments—this man can never be anything but blunt! They're already very likely to just walk away from a conversation, but if they don't like you? Ohoho!

Won't lose sleep over it though. That's a bit too much.

4. ROMANTIC

write about your muse and their relationship with romance. ex. are they searching for love or not interested in it in the slightest? what’s their dating history like? how do they act around crushes? how would they treat their partner if they were in a relationship?

Okay 'cause this is hilarious when the muse is aromantic gwahaha!

This is an aroace lil guy—completely disinterested in romance for romance's sake (because someone tell me how he tells how many different girls they're gonna have kids together in his A-supports? Also in basically every instance it's got something to do with crests and studying them. He's a bit insane).

Their dating history is completely blank. There is actually nothing to see here.

Similarly, there are no crushes for her to act different around! This one is fairly normal (<- this post was brought to you by the Aspec Gang)

As for how he'd treat his partner if he was dating—the same way he would act if they were friends? lol? Literally nothing has changed in his mind except that there might be kisses or something. (Is there a book he can read somewhere on this? Probably.)

Oh well she's probably gonna get married off for political purposes anyway. (This post was brought to you by the Noble Clique.)

[mirandamckenni1]

A Bodybuilder Mistook Aphrodisiac For PreWorkout. This Is What Happened To His Brain. Get a 60-day free trial at https://ift.tt/P2kafQ4 Thanks to ShipStation for sponsoring the show! Patient JC by Chad Collins, PA Tristyn Smith, Special Thanks to Jena Marx Music by @Lifeformed ► https://ift.tt/Pq1cS4X More music by T4N3 ► https://ift.tt/UJdvuh3 Good Playlist ► https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL26HeTCO57qcMQB6CrU6QRzEi9tt9l1FI Timestamps: 0:00 A Bodybuilder 💪 Mistook An Aphrodisiac 😳 for Pre-Workout Supplement 0:22 JC was getting ready 🏋️ for a show 0:55 A wild 😲 supplement appears 1:35 Hey IRS 💵 we doing research 👨‍🔬 and development 1:50 Good ☁️ powder 2:16 haha preworkout 💪 go glug 😳 glug 3:13 The emergency 🚑 room where we are now 4:07 How does 🌳 do all of these?? 4:50 Rumors of this toxicity... are not exaggerated at all. It's not good. 5:50 Neuro 🧠 transmitters gotta 😳 go 😲 fast 6:48 Inside you(r autonomic nervous system) are 2 wolves (just kidding, they're more nervous systems) 7:27 What happens 😳 here? 8:16 Alpha vs beta (not alpha male vs beta male) 9:11 In the central nervous system 9:47 Feedback 🛑 mechanism (in normal function) 10:51 The CEO of systemic... response to adrenergic agents 11:35 Multiple reports in existence 12:02 "Just pull it out of his body bro" 12:23 An Antidote 🐴 But How 🤔 Did We Find It? 14:45 Yea lets not use that here, but we could use something else 15:15 It takes 5 half lives to reach steady state, but Half Life 3 still isn't 😞 here I don't think anyone reads anything that's written here. But here's for the metadata: this video is explicitly about adrenergic receptors. More specifically, the Alpha subtype, and even more specifically, Alpha 2 Adrenergic Receptors. This thing throws a massive curveball to learners in all medical disciplines because Alpha 2 agonism / antagonism are opposite of Alpha 1. The topic of these receptors can be a few weeks long in a Pharm course in Medical and Pharmacy schools, and that course would be dedicated specifically to cardiac pharmacology, so this is as much I can cover in an 18 minute video. There might be people who will go "nooooo u cant just say that about my tree bark supplement" but the point is and has always been to teach about the pharmacology, its mechanism and how the setting of excess changes the pharmacokinetics-- the agent serves as a means for me to teach that because it has that activity. If it didn't have that activity, I'd talk about something else that does in this setting. It's a fascinating molecule, like all natural products. If you don't need to ingest it, don't ingest it, but I trust you are well in your best capacity to make decisions for yourself. These cases are patients who I, or my colleagues have seen. They are de-identified and many instances have been presented in more depth in an academic setting. These videos are not individual medical advice and are for general educational purposes only. I do not give medical advice over the internet. References: Acute neurotoxicity after yohimbine ingestion by a bodybuilder. https://ift.tt/M3DHSK4 Yohimbine: a clinical review. https://ift.tt/XfCBTg3 Alpha-2 Adrenoreceptor Antagonist Yohimbine Potentiates Consolidation of Conditioned Fear. https://ift.tt/dt4xcQW Adrenergic receptors: structure and function. https://ift.tt/zxQvmMY Biopharmaceutics and metabolism of yohimbine in humans. https://ift.tt/eiJMDm0 Yohimbe bark extract. https://ift.tt/vbfFHqr Yohimbine or NO-himbine? A Potentially Fatal Over-the-Counter Supplement. https://ift.tt/K8R3HXw [PREPRINT] Xylazine is an agonist at kappa opioid receptors and exhibits sex-specific responses to naloxone administration. https://ift.tt/2z5uyeO Xylazine, an Emerging Adulterant. https://ift.tt/6luNWR8 Yohimbine. https://ift.tt/ECsDGQ5 via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmT7njYx3MY