#I will not accept criticism over this

[morvith]

[Spoilers for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the kingdom. Also, Bad idea! Angst! Extreme angst! Tw: Death! Read at your own risk!]

I am really craving a fanfic where...

...Zelda remains a dragon forever.

Imagine Link visiting her, and growing old. (She recognized him by scent, sees him change - his hair turns grey, his face wrinkles, his hands are no longer as strong as they used to be - but she does not realise what it means.)

And then one day he does not come any more. (Does he climb a mountain for the last time, just so he can see her fly overhead? Is she the last thing he sees?)

And then the years pass, and he comes back. He always comes back. (He is different every time, even his scent is different, but it's always him.)

The one constant in an ever changing word.

[Yes, I am aware that Zelda remaining a dragon forever and ever would massively screw up the reincarnation cycle and Hyrule because hereditary powers and who the Hell is going to seal the Calamity now?!?!

Maybe that's why Link comes back so many times...]

[naggascradle]

[utilitycaster]

I do think it's worth calling out that a lot of the arguments in favor of killing the gods treat their worshipers as the "haves" amidst a sea of "have-nots" and that's just...flat out false in Exandrian canon, in addition to obliquely pinging certain antisemitic canards I am unfortunately attuned to by necessity, even though I suspect that's largely unintentional.

There are powerful adherents to the gods, but there's a lot of worshipers who gain nothing but whatever meaning they personally draw. We saw the Schuesters in Hupperdook in C2, who were imprisoned for following the Changebringer within the Empire, and seemed to have no cleric or paladin powers; nor, to our knowledge, does Imahara Joe. Technically we learned that Molly did sort of get something out of the Moon Weaver, but he didn't know that during the campaign. Grog thinks The Stormlord is pretty neat but hasn't gotten any powers from him. We saw worshipers of the Lawbearer and Dawnfather in Whitestone and worshipers of the Wildmother elsewhere in Tal'Dorei during Campaign 1, again mostly without any specific powers. In this episode and during the Team Wildemount arc we've seen no shortage of people simply going to temples as a place to seek comfort and meaning. Hell, the Player's Handbook outright says it: "Not every acolyte or officiant at a temple or shrine is a cleric. Some priests are called to a simple life of temple service, carrying out their gods' will through prayer and sacrifice, not by magic and strength of arms."

I think a generous read is that a lot of D&D players who aren't playing a mechanically divinely connected character don't make their character religious in any way, and so it becomes easy, with a PC-focused mindset, to assume that the only religious people are clerics, paladins, and the handful of deity-connected subclasses from other classes, but that isn't true and never has been in Exandria.

[worstloki]

AU where Loki doesn’t interfere with Thor’s banishment at all and it takes Thor years to prove himself worthy and when he returns to Asgard everything is just. The same. Nothing seems to have changed at all and everyone greets him like his absence was a minor obstacle that didn’t fundamentally change Thor and the worst part is Loki stepped down from the place as regent without any delay and Thor can’t help but feel there’s something underlaying the way his brother looks at him now and won’t let him touch him and Thor doesn’t know what he could have missed because he doesn’t think he would have found anything wrong with the things around him and how everyone behaves if he hadn’t spent time on Earth reflecting.

[fernsnouveau]

I actually disliked the direction where I'd recently seen a bunch of the more reasonable S5-critical ML fandom people going. Those discussions and analyses were spiraling increasingly towards demonising Marinette over time, as we were left hanging with the s5 ending for a long time, and the fandom had nothing new to talk about.

I actually liked her flaws.

But then the canon does... this...

And I do admit, it's an in-character way to push Marinette towards a villain arc. Like, if I had to construct a darkfic scenario where Marinette goes evil and try to keep it as close to her canon personality as possible, it would look something like this. Which, I guess, means that it's theoretically easier for me to accept than, for example, S5's occasional incidents of Edgy Murderboy Chat Noir (how is that the same character who had TWO guilt-based mental breakdowns about accidentally cataclysming someone completely out of his control, including the main villain??!). I'm sure there are in-character ways to turn Adrien (or anyone else) into a villain, but Murder-Noir was Not It.

Of course another reason why the writing of Murder-Noir gives me extra heebie jeebies, was how it felt like an abuse apologia excuse, validating Gabriel's accusations for Adrien to not "deserve" autonomy, nor to experience or express any negative, inconvenient emotions. Murder-Noir feels like it's a writing choice directed at child abuse victims in the audience, who related to Adrien. "See, your abuser was right, you're horrible and overly emotional and out of control, so you NEED to be rigidly controlled for your own and everyone else's good!

Anyway.

While I admit that Marinette taking up Gabriel's mantle this way is technically in character, I cannot claim to enjoy the writing choice at all. I liked Marinette's flaws. I wanted to explore them. I did not want her demonised to this extent. She could have been meaningfully flawed without becoming better at being Gabriel, than Gabriel himself was!

After this, the only justification for the lovesquare to stay together, would be as a wish-fulfillment or "reward" for Marinette, and that's not enough for me. When I think about, if there was a real-life abuse victim in Adrien's position (minus the supernatural elements), and then they were friends with, and/orstarted dating someone who repeatedly treated them the way Maribug has been doing (and "repeatedly" is important here, it demonstrates unwillingness to learn from mistakes and be sincere about apologies – S4 was brushed under a rug as soon as Chat Noir superficially forgave!), ESPECIALLY but not only siding with the abusive parent and lying to the victim that the abuse they experienced was "not really abuse" and For Their Own Good, and demonstrated this complete infantilisation and lack of respect for the abuse victim, wanting to see them only as a palatable, innocent fairytale being who's not allowed to be inconvenient, express negative emotions, make informed choices mor generally be a complete person...

Obviously the right thing to do, for the abuse victim, would be to get the hell away from that person.

It does NOT mean that the person is irredeemable. They're just... not owed the abuse victim's forgiveness and continued presence in their life.

And I can't ignore that anymore.

We failed to get an arc about Adrien surviving and escaping Gabriel and healing. He has now been put into a position where, in order to ever be okay, he would have to survive and escape Marinette in order to heal.

I don't like this. It feels very hopeless and bleak and unenjoyable. I don't even think the story is gonna go there and free/heal Adrien (Astruc made it clear that Adrien isn't supposed to be his own character or have agency, he's supposed to be Marinette's accessory and that's never gonna change).

But as far as I'm concerned, any excuse for the lovesquare relationship to get back together after this, would have the unpalatable aftertaste of propaganda to make victims return to their abusers.

I don't like this trajectory!!!

[milquetoad]

of the many injustices put forth toward the show by fans i think the most overall damaging and telling of a complete lack of critical viewership is the idea that sam riegel builds his characters with nothing more than the bit in mind. like you are only telling on yourself if you think characters like scanlan shorthalt and veth brennato are one-dimensional and depthless

[longing-for-rain]

I think it’s funny how people point to the existence of female kataang stans as proof that kataang isn’t written for the male gaze when every female kataang stan I’ve interacted with has said something to the effect of “but he’s so nice, he wouldn’t have done something like that” to dismiss his blatant violation of Katara’s boundaries on screen. It is unfortunately not uncommon for women to flock to the defense of male interests.

[eff-plays]

Sorry I don't wanna go back to more discourse but MAN only an Astarion fan would see a silly goofy fanart of him and Tav meowing at each other (which is a meme reference btw) and start shidding crying throwing up at how much it hurts for them to see Tav make fun of his precious silly side. Bro can you calm down. He's not real. But the person who drew that art IS real. And you going out of your way to leave negative tags on art they spent days making is a much bigger dick move than one fictional character lightly teasing another. Absolutely insane lmao. No concept of anything whatsoever.

[criticalbeauregard]

i've seen a lot of gif sets showing vex's "i don't accept this" with imogen's and while that is a very powerful image i think it is also Very important to me that it be known that imogen is not the vex of this situation and that she is the keyleth

[mistyscenter]

I have been a hater lately so I'm changing that up.

I have my grievances with Baxter dlc, I admit, but I don't hate it I think it's wasted potential which is unfortunate because Baxter is an extremely interesting character.

He's out of place in the our life universe because of how messy he is, the OL universe is very idealistic so Baxter is the more down to earth character that we have in a realistic sense.

I genuinely feel like in order to appreciate Baxter as a character you have to appreciate the absolute mess that he is, not only as a character but as a dlc as well, because again my issues with his dlc is that is a hot mess and it doesn't even know what it wants to do, especially with the lack of choice on the players part. Something that is especially clear in his step 4 and I do genuinely think his step 4 is the whole reason why this dlc left me unsatisfied, because step 3 was such an amazing build up.

We get to know him and how he is as a person, how he constantly feels like he has to put this charming mask and being embarrassed of his more human side, that's one of the reasons why drinks is one of my favorite moments, and we also get to see that due of this façade he feels the need to keep his relationships at an arm distance, hence why he cut out everyone from golden grove, and also why I adore planning. So when the break up happens is both heartbreaking but somehow foreshadowed, and that is so interesting to see on a writing stand point because we knew that he would cut us off, now we just know why.

And then....step 4 comes in ...and...

It is just, it's really messy, especially because Baxter in the wedding dlc was willing to start over so... seeing him ignore mc and projecting what he thinks mc thinks of him was, so disappointing.

This whole dlc is just so disappointing to me because the hype was there!! We had an extremely interesting character that cuts you off, that you can break up with, you can have legit drama in this except....no you don't. Because mc has little to no agency In his dlc, because Kab didn't finish writing this and had someone else finishing it for her, because he feels off as an our life character since he was originally an xoxo droplet character, and also because conflict in our life is always kinda awkward .

I think another reason why step 4 didn't work, is because it's clearly meant to be played as a romantic route when the game advertises itself as being able to do both, but you can't in his dlc and worse of all you guys can't leave each other as just acquaintances. I get that Is the game mechanic but I also think Baxter should have been the exception because he's not ready to be in a romantic relationship.

I played my first run on a romantic relationship and it felt odd, it felt fast, with cove and derek is easier because you've known them for years, you've known Baxter for 3 months after he breaks your heart and he hasn't changed a bit on how his ways.

And again is just really really disappointing because Baxter is such an interesting character to analyze because he's an absolute loser who thinks he's punk but he's not, and who clearly has issues but doesn't know how to handle them AND THEN YOU SEE THE FANDOM NOT SEEING THE ABSOLUTE MESS THAT HE IS AS A CHARACTER AND JUST MAKES HIM THIS DOM DADDY PERSONALITY, and it's so disheartening because I remember when the dlc first dropped everyone was making fun of him, then something changed and suddenly everyone praises his mediocre ass, not for being mediocre but because everyone thinks he's hot and is just 😟

I hate it because writing his dynamic with Pandora and Taliyah (my mcs hi) is so so interesting and makes me explore more things about their personalities, so I just hate that the canon is the way that it is when I know Kab can write good shit and this...felt kinda mid

[hyalithium]

‼️ 🚨 personal emergency alert!!!🚨 ‼️

i don’t have a boop button!!!!

it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to anyone ever. you’re probably asking urself: aw man, why does poor blair always fall prey to life’s most formidable trials AND tribulations? (that’s right, both)

the answer is that i don’t know. i’m not a fighter or a trooper. i’m a whiner. perhaps even a degenerate.

i’m devastated. grieving. (possibly just stupid but that’s requires further deliberation and possibly peer review.)

i even googled it (very tech savvy and independent of me ik thank u) and, alas The Button ™️ is absent.

i know realistically that i must be doing something wrong. but tbh im at a loss. ive exerted all of my knowledge regarding fiddling with funky tech stuff. namely: restarting my phone(old reliable, one might say), checking for app updates, and v briefly skimming my tumblr settings for anything boop related(an act of desperation).

i didn’t have it on april fools either but i chose to be the bigger person (aka i languished in my own misery until the day was over). i could accept my fate bc tbh i forgot april fools was even a thing until i saw the boop button discourse.

for many long and treacherous months i’ve tried (and failed) to move on. every day i wake up, grit my teeth, and endeavour to muster the strength required to thrive in the face of such a hardship. i look at the cute little badges next to everyone’s names and only allow myself several moments bemoan the loss.

but now? on halloween????? this kind of treachery is inadmissible.

if i survive the torment of this until the end of the day i may declare war. but now? i’m gutted. my opportunity to feel joy in this lifetime has been annihilated. i’ll probably never recover from the all encompassing devastation of this incident.

anyway if anyone knows how to fix my boop button i would be eternally grateful.

alternately, i would find euthanasia amendable.

[demons-i-get]

WAIT BIG BRAINED THOUGHT:

Sam does smth stupid hoping Dean won't find out.

Someone rats Sam out to Dean.

Sam gets in trouble and a lecture from Dean (bc Dean is a parent and he is Sam's parent I will not accept criticism on this matter).

Later, Sam makes a group chat consisting of everyone who could have told on him to Dean and just sends this video:

[lemonhemlock]

not to be a hater on main but i just stumbled on a tik tok claiming that tsh both takes itself too seriously and could use more absurd comedy and it nearly made me punch a wall

[elemental-plane]

i love how we never got like confirmation on what elsie and raj were but everyone saw them and immediately deduced they were a divorced couple and i think that's the funniest thing ever

[four-cats-in-a-trenchcoat]

I present to you my beautiful children, who haven't done one single wrong thing ever (they can and will murder you)

[lilyoffandoms]

Detective Lilah Rose for @storyofmychoices

For Day Two of the @choicesjanuary2024 challenge (Theme Prompt: Resolutions)

Lilah got me back into arting a few weeks ago when I was laid up and I got this idea in my head for her (kinda went for a detective noir + femme fatale combo). Then got to thinking that maybe I’d share my things again. Maybe I’ll post a few and run for the hills like I did last time. Who knows haha. But the fandom is quieter and I think I’ve blocked most everyone that likes to whine lol. Guess time will tell.

So here is me dipping my feet back into the Choices art pond. Wish me luck.