#I'm ambivalent about the idea of them making any of this canon

[oroniel]

This little exchange from Ep. 2.02 is giving me pause -

Cirdan: Do you not wish to live in beauty?

Elrond: What is beauty if it is born in part from evil?

Cirdan: No less beautiful.

Elrond: Not to me.

The way that this could be interpreted to hint at some of the (supposedly) wilder fan theories! It would be incredibly ironic if Elrond had to eat his words when he falls in love with a half-Maia Celebrian.

Or maybe it's just a veiled real-world commentary on learning to be okay with beautiful art produced by problematic artists. Who can say.

[wof-reworked]

ok I can't stop thinking about the jade winglet, here's my gender hcs for all of them

Moonwatcher - she/they (nonbinary)

I feel like this is fun bc rn (in canon) her gender is just "anxiety" but like,,, one day in the future she gets to actually play around with it

like she captures a very specific type of person I've met who you go "oh I mean I know she's gay but she's probably cis..." and then you have like one real convo and find out they're like not only nonbinary but better at it then you

I think she should get to be butch when she's older. I think she deserves being a) massive compared to her two twink boyfriends and b) gnc as shit

Kinkajou- any/all (genderfluid +transfem)

Kinkajou strikes me as being like. totally ambivalent to gender. Kinkajou changes her pronouns based on how the fruit he ate for breakfast makes him feel. Kinkajou is better than you

I think she was like staunchly using she/her for a while bc it just felt right and like changes pronouns situationally- Rainwing village is she/her, Jade Academy is any/all, close friends it varies, etc etc

Qibli- he/they (transmasc)

Qibli's just always kind of known who he is, and has been like. pretty contentedly in his corner for a while. I think it's like- a pillar of stability for him of like "at least I know I'm (x)"

Proximity to Moonwatcher puts the they/them in there bc I think it's nice when ppl get more comfortable so they start branching out a lil bit :> Qibli has like. guy who says "he/they" because he doesn't mind they/them and wants his friends to feel supported y'know

Winter- he/him (cis + gnc)

Look I feel bad making him one of like. two cis ppl at JMA but like I think it's funny if he's cis but inflicts a status effect of gender envy on every trans person in his proximity

guy who does makeup flawlessly because "it's fun" and decimates your sense of identity as you wonder why the fuck god gave these gifts to a man

extra funny for the fact that as a dragonet he gets offended by the implication he's pretty. he gets over it eventually I think

Turtle- she/her or he/she/they (transwoman/trans)

See here. Otherwise I think she's like trans and this could go in like. any fucking direction ngl

transmasc turtle??? hell yeah !!! transfem turtle??? hell yeah !!! gender is whatever Turtle has going on and god knows if she knows it

last egg to crack bc Turtle is immune to self reflection that isn't anxiety and self loathing

"Haha everyone hates how other people refer to them and their gender what do you mean? :)" (entire jade winglet: cringing with worry)

Umber- he/him (cis)

cis and a lil insecure about it but like. he's just nice :)

he's like experimented with pronouns and gender and found none of them really stuck so like. cis+. cis (extended dlc). you know what I mean I hope

gonna be honest I'm lost for him bc I genuinely forget he was there bc he peaced out so fast. justice for my boy I want to know more !!!!!

I could be persuaded for transman Umber ngl,,, it tempts me,,,,,,

Peril- she/her (trans woman)

On one hand I'm torn bc I think it almost doesn't make sense for her backstory BUT ON THE OTHER HAND the idea of Scarlet being supportive of Peril's identity and LITERALLY NOTHING ELSE is hysterical to me

though actually if we wanna get sad,,,, that 100% could be a manipulation tactic of Scarlet. "see I love you I even accept you" etc etc. now I just feel bad man

Peril's also in the same camp of Qibli of knowing this abt herself since she could think and being happy in it. She knows what she's about

BONUS:

Carnelian- she/they/he (transmasc)

Look butch can be a gender and sometimes you're a mean butch skywing idk what to tell you

wish she stayed alive bc her and Moon could've been legendary together. girl who will kill for you vs girl who desperately wants you to do anything else please we talked about this you can't solve your problems with murder

I think Carnelian's true gender is Skywing Patriot and idk how to put that in hc form but this is as best I've got

[nobodyfamousposts]

I love the newest part of chloe's lament!!!

As always, the problem with all of chloe's plans Are that she doesn't think them though, because she doesn't think she needs too. She has it in her head that she has future knowledge, and so operates solely on that.

I am very curious as to which student overhead Chloe and Bustier. Sabrina or Adrien who already knows of Chloe's wish? A classmate with no idea of theyre even being a wish? Maybe marinette herself?

Thank you for writing and Sharin chloe's lament btw it's one of my favorit miraculous aus and I just reread it all when i saw the newest post <33

To be fair, it's not just her future knowledge.

The thing about Chloe (or at least the way I'm doing her), is that she has this perception of how the world works and how it SHOULD work based on the many years where the world DID work that way. For years, Chloe could essentially do whatever she wanted and not only were there no consequences, she was never even suggested that she was wrong or anything she did was wrong.

Look at canon: even in the few instances where Chloe "lost", she didn't really lose anything. At most, someone else "won" and she just didn't get something she wanted. And even when she was revealed to have been cheating or acting dishonestly, nobody really calls her out on it. She still at most doesn't get something she wanted. That the adults seem to ignore her behavior and even the narrative made more of an effort to woobify her didn't help matters.

Chloe in this setup is the prime example of someone who thinks she's the main character and the world is just supposed to make things work out for her. This is combined with her future knowledge to make her think that this is an advantage she can use to benefit herself...not realizing that the entire setup has changed and whatever benefits she had before that protected her from consequences are no longer there.

In her limited defense, at this point her future knowledge is really her only advantage. Through it, she knows things that most other people don't. But not only is she trying to use it for selfish reasons, she's trying to apply it in ways where it simply can't be applicable due to the changes already made by the setup of the world.

Half of the akumas Chloe knows about were created because of her. But Chloe isn't in a position anymore do to as many of them this time around.

Do you really think Princess Fragrance is going to happen? It'd be Marinette whom Rose would ask instead of Chloe, and while Marinette may not be able to personally introduce Rose to Prince Ali, she could still take Rose's letter to him. At the very least, she certainly wouldn't just rip it apart in front of her.

Vanisher? Sabrina and Chloe aren't friends.

Rogercop? Haha no. Chloe doesn't have a golden bracelet.

So yes, while she is acting on future knowledge that may not apply, the bigger problem is this "protagonist centered morality" Chloe has where she is operating under the belief that SHE is the protagonist and that things are just supposed to work out in her favor because she is herself. Because that's how they always did before.

But as a result of the Wish, Chloe gave that up. Not just the money and social status, but also the protection and ambivalence she received not just from the adults around her regarding her behavior. Chloe is getting first hand experience of what Marinette and others had to go through when it came to her, and she hates it. But what Chloe especially hates is that unlike her, people don't resent Marinette for being better off and she fails to see it's because of her actions.

It's easier to just act as if Marinette's manipulating everyone or that they're brainwashed than admit that Chloe caused her own issues.

The worst part is that Chloe could have turned her situation around at any point. Her future knowledge would have helped her do that. But that would require her to accept her position for what it is and more importantly, stop repeating her previous behaviors. And given it's Chloe, that's going to be the hardest thing for her.

As far as your question, I'm not going to reveal just yet which student it is. Though I will go ahead and say it isn't Marinette. She's still at the contest, marveling over the other entries and maybe even giving feedback to some of the contestants if they want it.

You're welcome! I'm glad you're enjoying it so far!

[atopvisenyashill]

🇵🇸 🇵🇸 🇵🇸 🇵🇸 🇵🇸 🇵🇸 🇵🇸 🇵🇸 🇵🇸 🇵🇸 🇵🇸 🇵🇸 🇵🇸 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇷🐢🏝️ i got tired of complaining constantly on my main blog (@thewingedwolf is me!) about how sansa and rhaenyra did nothing wrong and also i needed a way to organize my theories and stuff. yes i have read all the books. yes i have (unfortunately) seen the whole show. yes i have seen all of hotd as well. so here we go. my stances are this, so you have an idea what to expect:

i am a catelyn, sansa, brienne, elia, lyanna and rhaenyra stan FIRST and a person SECOND

i would die for Gaemon Palehair, Lady Essie, and Sylvenna Sand, those are my canon OCs, and that’s why they’re my header.

maegor rhaena and aerea also could have saved westeros & jaehaerys should have been aborted in the womb.

Sansa and Bran are my favorites! I am a Sansa will be Queen in the North truther and a Bran will be the King in Harrenhal conspiracy theorist, It Is Heavily Foreshadowed In The Text and I stand on that!!

I'm well aware Rhaenyra has plenty of faults, I am saying that the greens (as in, the characters) do not like her because of her gender, and not for stuff she does that’s actually wrong, also, idc that she did all of that i simply think she’s fun.

Helaena really IS the one who did nothing wrong tho.

i am a Dark Daenerys believer. no, i don’t hate her - in fact, i really love her, although i do hate her show counterpart - I just think her arc is heading towards a dark path and being a villain protagonist is the more interesting route for her character.

House Martell will rise or I will piss in old man germ’s cornflakes.

I Will talk about the racism Dorne faces in the text and outside of it and neither your favorite house nor my favorite house is exempt from this. If you have a problem with that, keep it to yourself bc i do not care 🙏🏽

i multiship!! just bc i ship it doesn’t mean i think it’s gonna happen in the series, i just like the dynamic!!

i am in fact the annoying book jonsa truther they warned you about. i will Stay bitter about this. argue with the wall.

with that said, i also like theonsa, throbb, daemyra, laenyra, rhaewin, nedcat, braime, briensa, and a million other ones. faves listed here. several of them are dead dove-esque; what can i say, that's just george's style.

you decide whether it’s romantic or platonic when it’s an incest one, my opinion changes by the hour & im gonna fight grrm for making me think this much about incest.

i don’t like jonerys!!!!!! i'm sansan & sanrion ambivalent and i simply do not care about littlefucker like that. i would say i’ve thought positively about basically every other ship.

I JUST FINISHED A REREAD and i Have started a rewatch of the tv series as a form of torture.

i first read this series when i was 16 in like 2012-2013. i love to bitch about the takes i’ve seen. i sometimes reblog really old ass graphics bc they deserve new life even tho the creators are long since deactivated. i sometimes make graphics that look like they’re from 2014 bc we should bring that style back dammit i hate the typography movement going on rn.

big on tagging triggers so lmk (i’ll tag for all characters & major triggers but i’m fine with adding a specific one if asked and don't worry about it being a "weird" trigger - if sean bean's face or knives or wolves or whatever trigger you, i'm happy to tag for that!). my spoiler policy is that i’ll tag everything from this season as “hotd spoilers” and any of the Big Events with “episode title spoilers” but i can’t guarantee I can be consistent longer than like 2 days though i will try!! i Will be talking about any book canon events tho, the books have been out for years either you know how to avoid them or you know everything, i’m not tagging that.

i have a tag page that is more organized than the slapdash nonsense on this post, feel free to check it out here.

i may sound angry but i promise i am genuinely just here for a laugh. i just have resting bitch voice and no feel for tone and use the word fuck too much. it’s fine and unserious.

[atoriv-art]

asks :)

guess who let them pile up for months (meeeeeeee)

tysm!!! i share a similar view wrt his hair :) i think it's a very fun way to interpret it given he's one of (/the?) only characters to ever go through a change like that! especially given his snake transformations i think it's completely plausible that he found himself mirroring the guy too much and wanted to distance himself from that lol

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thank youuuu it's one of my favorite things to draw honestly :) especially with the uchihas where their eyes are such an integral part of their character design hehe

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:D the positive reception to them honestly makes me really happy given they're a relatively obscure pairing hahahaha thank you!

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thank you so muuuch 🥺 my biggest goal with my art is capturing like, emotional snapshots of the little guys i like and i'm glad it comes through!! :]

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[ post linked ]

it's a fair question! i might elaborate more someday but atm the basic premise is that it's likely it'd be like a pragmatic deal between them? sasuke needs a source of strength and obito is both very powerful and a sharingan user, and obito has reason to look out for sasuke because of itachi hovering over his shoulder + if he trains sasuke correctly he can have a powerful ally on his side... which is i think?? the reason why obito let sasuke hang out with him for so long in canon but it went nowhere looooool

i find orochimaru's integration and then sudden exit from the plot to be a little bit messy so i like to think of ways of streamlining the process and just having sasuke be with the "main" naruto antagonists from an earlier date :0c with the rest of the kids still being with him as i am very fond of both karin and suigetsu ahahaha

i also find the idea of sasuke being in closer proximity to itachi during the timeskip (while still distant ofc) to be fun, like him being akatsuki-adjacent while itachi is also there brings fun scenarios to think about! + the fact itachi really doesn't like obito, so there's an added layer of 👀 as he hates that obito is the one training him but he can't really do anything abt it without showing his hand lol

and, the rest of the akatsuki interacting with a bunch of kids on a "friendly" level is a funny concept lmao

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grouping these together since i assume it was the same person ^^

kks headcanons: hmm i'm actually not sure! i think a lot about kakashi but im blanking on specific headcanons i have :P

top 5s: without much thought to ordering them i'd sayyy

characters: obito, kakashi, itachi, sasuke, and gaara or neji depending on my mood

pairings: sasuneji, sasugaa, kakaobi, itadei and kisaobi or sasusui

what got you into naruto: mostly being really curious about kakashi 😅 he seemed like the type of character i really would like so we watched a few episodes "for fun" just to meet him and then. you know.

thoughts on kakagai: i love kakagai i think it's super cute :)

do you like sasuke x naruto: people keep asking me this KSDJSKJD i'm ambivalent about the pairing, i can see why people like it but it's not for me

would you ever draw naruto (the character): possibly! just no real guarantee since i tend to focus on a small group of characters is all

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🥺 thank you so much!!! sorry about the 25 minutes hahahaha

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thank you so much!! if it helps any i struggle a lot with traditional art hahaha :P

i haven't ever drawn the rest of team 7 atm, no! if i ever do i'll definitely post it as it seems a lot of people are curious about them hahahah

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😭 tysm!!!!

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:D! i'm a firm believer that sasuke is one of the most sun-adjacent characters i've ever seen but alas he is cursed to be misunderstood because he's an emo boy 😔

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:] i'm glad!!! he's very fun to draw hehehe

[citnamora]

pls tell me more abt ur arospec ace attorney headcanons. my personal fav is lovequeer aro phoenix wright 4 loveless aro miles edgeworth.

Lovequeer Phoenix makes me SO happy!!! AND YESSSS LOVELESS ARO EDGEWORTH!!!!!! Aro4aro Narumitsu is hands down my absolute favorite flavor of the ship!! Oh my goodness!!! ARO4ARO SO TRUE!!!! Two aros absolutely demolishing amatonormativity with their level of trust and devotion to one another <33

Seeing this ask got me so excited to indulge because I'm aro so obviously I love projecting my community's, and my own, labels onto my favorite characters! But AA is something really special because there's very little canon romance which means lots of room for interpretation!!

(So a lot of my headcanons are a result of them just looking like the flags because the arospec community is full of beautifully colored flags I can't help but see everywhere)

Phoenix is recipro to me because any time he's shown romantic interest in someone it's pretty much always been when they hit on him first. Like the idea doesn't even cross his mind until then!! From what I've seen from recipro individuals this is a really common experience which is why it Makes Sense to me! I'm generally open to any and all arospec Phoenix headcanons because they just click with me (for obvious reasons, LOL)

For me, Iris is demiro because her whole story with Phoenix just screams it to me. She probably went in only hoping to get the necklace back from her sister's next victim and then she gets to know him as this kindhearted guy who would do anything for the people he loves and she falls HARD. I don't think they were "dating" the whole time which I'm pretty sure was confirmed by Iris herself but I honest to goodness believe they were lovey dovey in those last weeks or months leading up to Dahlia stepping in! I should also confess I'm a Feenris shipper, haha, so I'm biased on that front. Demiro Iris just means A Lot to me

Maya is aroace lesbian in that she thinks girls are really pretty!! And also in how she kept moving between the aroace and lesbian labels to the point she decided she'd label herself both. This one was mostly inspired by her going "omg that girl was so pretty" to just about every girl she meets which feels very, very sapphic LOL. I hc she's romance indifferent in the sense she doesn't mind dating but it's not something she actively seeks out! Though I think she'd love the meals that come with dinner dates- she's got food on the brain 24/7 after all (just like me for real)

Mia is pan angled aroace, more specifically greypansexual aro! Because she gives me romance repulsed aro vibes at first but her relationship with Diego (and possibly with Lana) would point to her being more romance ambivalent. Pansexual Mia is a headcanon I've had for a looooong time as far back as my first AA hc document while greysexual is a recent development. She's always been aro to me! Aro plant mom <3

Franziska is quiromantic to me. I mean, she's the palette of the platoniromantic flag! This headcanon only came about because of that 4koma comic where Phoenix makes Franziska flustered by telling her Maya's being strong for her because she sees Franziska as a dear friend. I just got the vibes. Also, the colors! I honestly don't think she'd see the appeal of romance with or without the feelings she can't distinguish. She enjoys her independence and I can't see her "settling down" in the slightest

Now, I've bounced around with where I think Edgeworth is on the aromantic spectrum. But I know damn well he belongs there! Lately I've considered Edgeworth being lithro gay, whether he loses feelings upon entering a relationship or doesn't want to act on them in the first place I'm honestly not sure. (Edgeworth is an interesting case for me because I flip flop between him having feelings or being omniaromantic lol) Probably never getting married regardless. Even before the lines about it I had my doubts! I like the idea of him marrying for tax benefits but outside of that.. I can't see him ever entering a traditional marriage let alone traditional romance. It feels out of character for him

There are others but these are by far the most developed ones! Recipro Phoenix and aroace lesbian Maya are my favorites because they feel the most accurate in regards to canon but pan angled aroace Mia is also up there. I'm probably going to post more arospec headcanons as I come up with them because y'all seem to really like them and I like talking about em!!

Thank you so much for asking!

[night-dark-woods]

5, 7, 15 for the fic asks!!

thank you!!! this got extremely long.

5. What’s a fic idea you’ve had that you will never write?

oooh hm. idk about Never, but ive been rotating the idea of Chalco and Aunor interacting bc the different ways they orbit around Ikora FASCINATE me, and the things that have been asked of them are very different. it would have to be epistolary i think and while i DO think i have enough primary sources to get their voices and values alright (letters from Aunor etc, and then WQCE my beloved), im not confident in my ability to do epistolary, & also i'd need something specific for them to argue about (that i also am interested enough in to litigate thru character POVs).

i've yet to decide if I'm accepting the TFS ending cutscene panel where Ikora is using strand, bc im suuuper ambivalent on Ikora using any darkness subclass- i need to re-listen to a bunch more post-campaign stuff to see how i feel about it, bc i know she talks to Mara a LOT in mission voicelines, and i think a lot of their past conflict has been over Mara's antipathy towards the Light & focus on balance over sheer faith in the Traveler (not religious Faith-faith, as we've talked abt before, bc i dont think Ikora sees the Traveler as a *god* like Zavala does- it's like gravity or thermodynamics its simply *true,* and can be explained. its not something that requires faith or sacrifice.)

but if i decide to accept that as canon then i think that would make a FASCINATING argument because Aunor has been Ikora's hunting dog for YEARS, cold-blooded killer putting down guardians who fall to darkness, and i think the sheer betrayal (from Aunor's POV) of Ikora changing her position on that would cause SUCH a crisis of faith for Aunor (what does that mean for what she's done in Ikora's name? what does that mean for how she can live with the weight of it?), and i think constrasting that with Chalco being Ikora's right-hand man (her silly rabbit / does she call you that / no) BUT without the blind loyalty that Petra has for Mara ("you are not the queen and i am NOT one of her cadre") could be sooo fun bc it wouldn't be a simple "Aunor mutiny Chalco loyal." i just dont know if Actually Writing it will provide more enrichment for me than just rotating the concept in my head.

that got long!!! and also ive partially convinced myself to work on it eventually lol.

anyway. that's the main one that i can think of, that isnt a "this scenario sounds hot BUT i dont want to write it bc there isnt enough character work to make the logistical nightmare of writing porn worth it" LMFAO

7. How many ideas for fics do you have right now?

5-ish?

- Elsie&Amanda (nicknamed "horsegirl movie but its a robot with dysphoria") where Elsie needs help fixing some part of her body and she can't do it by herself for some reason and then has to deal with the fact that Amanda regards her body with a simple honest appreciation that Elsie will NEVER feel for herself bc of when and how she became an exo!!! her own mother calls her body a "walking lazaretto" and she watched her father die horribly for this technology!!! god!!!

- Ikora's fight with Madhir & how she let him eat her ability to want anything. god. Ikora Rey woman that you are. also inspired by the way the demon works in dunmeshi bc i think the Ahamkara should work more like that. fuck monkey's paw genie trick wishes, getting exactly what you wished for and in doing so losing part of Who You Are is so much better. the Ahamkara aren't evil tricksters they are PREDATORS they are the very tippy top of the food chain and as dunmeshi says. to eat is the sole privilege of the living. there is no moral weight to that no matter how violent and that makes the violence of it far more interesting!!!

- somewhere between 3 and 5 high-concept porn fics, 2 at WIP stage and several that may or may not get written, all Petra-centric bc i (and Jackie) love to put that dyke in situations (all have Mara/Petra/Sjur as a given established relationship, the two WIPs are focused on Mara/Petra and Petra/Sjur & the ones that may just stay as ideas have bonus Petra/Amrita(/other corsairs) & Petra(/Sjur)/Amanda)

15. How do you come up with titles for your fics/chapters?

song lyrics mostly!!! often the one i was listening to a lot while writing/thinking about it, or one that makes me feel like that post thats like "song that reminds me of my favorite character comes on and i make the most unwell expression known to man."

the problem is i want the vibe of the whole song to mostly fit which means i've recently become aware that i nearly exclusively listen to sad music, apparently, bc i could not find a Single Song i like that fit the very fluffy/conflict-free Amanda/Sloane fic i wrote recently, so instead its both a line from the fic and a bit of a pun on the content lol: follow-through (impact play)

[thaliagrayce]

i've been talking abt my voltron playlists and @iveofficiallygonemad asked to hear them and i want to share with anybody who wants!! i know they're not perfect, i'm working on them & trying to make them better. if you have any recommendations for any of them, let me know!! there's like A Lot and i want to give a lil explanation for most of them, so i'm putting them under the cut ^-^

SO first i have my favorite one <3 it's just. all of them. it's the whole team. it's a mess and it's a bunch of different genres because it's them fighting over the aux cord on a road trip. it's them trying to make each other laugh or annoy each other or play something catchy enough it will infect everyone in the vicinity with brain worms.

Hunk: i'm pretty happy with my Hunk playlist! chill vibes. he strikes me as the kind of guy who listens to calm music to try to find his own calm, and that's what i got here :)

Pidge: this is messier and less cohesive than my usual playlist because frankly i think pidge would have a shit taste in music. all over the board. this is a mix of meme songs and 8-bit covers and vocaloid and stuff that i think pidge would genuinely connect with, and i think pidge listens to all their music on shuffle without any regards for genre or mood because they're a gremlin. nobody gives pidge sole control of the aux.

Coran hears 80's music for the first time and loses his mind. He thinks ABBA is humanity's single greatest achievement.

Lance: i have ideas about where I'm going with this but haven't really settled yet. Lance seems like the kind of boy that loves to dance (is that canon? i forgot) so most of these are Bops That Make You Move in some way or another. he likes to present an upbeat face to the world, so there's no angsting in this playlist! we are clinging to the things that make us happy with both hands until our knuckles turn white!

Keith: i'm gonna be honest. i made him a playlist but i honestly don't think he cares about music very much. it's very important to some people! he's just not one of them! i haven't cracked this playlist open in a while but i'm pretty sure it's full of songs that i think he would conceivably train/work out to.

Shiro: this playlist involves the dumbest headcanon i have for shiro that has just not left me alone since i first thought of it. most of the playlist reflects the fact that he had an emo phase in middle school (that one isn't a headcanon, you just have to look at him to know) but BUT there are a few songs on here that are on here because. little known fact. he also went through a Twilight phase that he told nobody about. (keith knows. keith was there.) he has the entire twilight soundtrack memorized. he moved past the story but the music stays forever. he used to daydream about slow dancing to Flightless Bird, American Mouth. the first time Coran mentions that they have to avoid a place because there's a supermassive black hole there, he has to bite his tongue in order to keep a straight face. do NOT ask me why i believe this so wholeheartedly.

Allura's playlist sucks right now. I think it's because in my heart of hearts i know that, were she on earth today, she would go fucking nuts for taylor swift. i have ambivalent feelings for taylor swift. i cannot do allura justice like this. if you see my vision and have recs as to what might actually fit her, PLEASE.

Klance: i haven't done it yet but i'm gonna go through this and sort it to be a sort of progression of their relationship, starting with the more combative Rivalry songs, then slipping into "oh shit oh shit" songs, then maybe ending on the more lighthearted purely romantic songs <3

(i have two songs in a shallura playlist which does not at all encapsulate how much i'm obsessed with them. the tiny cop inside my head is just constantly screaming at me that i'm going to get yelled at for liking shallura. i am going to kill the cop inside my head.)

[immobiliter]

ship bias for drummer & martha !

ship bias meme / @galaxye

camina drummer !

okay so no. 1 has to be camina & her polyambelterfam - this is her one canon romantic "pairing" and it's just handled so wonderfully by the writers and gives camina so much interesting development from s5 onwards. i'm not sure if i'd say i'm the biggest fan of the way her and oksana's relationship turned out, at least in terms of her specific dynamics with the other main crew members of the dewalt, but i do like what that dynamic achieves for camina's characterisation in addressing that she has so much anger and trauma to overcome in order to accept love from others. it's just so nice to see polyamorous relationships depicted on screen too.

i also have to give a mention to camina & naomi lmao. it should have been canon. they did polyamory with camina and her crew, so it would have been easy to accomplish with naomi & holden too. i'm not sure i necessarily ship camina with holden, i think in an ot3 situation it would have to be a dynamic with naomi at the centre ( as she deserves ), a little like how the writers pitched it during the latter half of s3, but i think they are both incredibly important parts of naomi's life and she deserves to have them both tbh.

then speaking exclusively about the telltale game, i absolutely ship camina & maya. they did everything right when it came to maya ( and one day i'll replay the game so that i can actually save her because rip, that hurt my soul ), camina canonically falls for/chooses to orbit around visionaries and idealists and i think it makes a lot of sense for her to have an early romantic relationship with someone like maya to help inform the sort of preferences she has during the show timeline.

those are my only canon pairings for camina, i think she is way too sharp and savvy for any of the men she spends her time around ( i just can't picture it with dawes, fred or ashford ). but i will always ship her with happiness + people who can look past her scary, tough exterior and appreciate the heart of gold that she has hiding underneath.

martha jones !

so can i preface this by talking about what i absolutely do not, under any circumstances, ship ? martha and ten lmaoooo. no thank you no way. don't get me wrong, i looove ten, he is my favourite doctor and i have so much nostalgia attached to david's run as the doctor, but i have Opinions about him where martha is concerned and frankly would like her to stay away. i do think their dynamic is interesting for very specific reasons, but the further i can pull martha away from her unrequited love plot, the better imo. i'd be even happier if i can just pretend it never existed in the first place. i think this also rules out shipping martha with any other iteration of the doctor too, i'm just Not Interested in really going there, y'know? i prefer doctor who when it's not all about the romantic tension.

martha & mickey is an interesting one. it's the way that martha's story canonically ends and i'm extremely ambivalent about it, probably because we are given absolutely Nothing and no reason to really care about the fact that they are together aside from a quick scene during david's last episode. do i think they could be a good fit ? yes, definitely, do i like that they shafted tom milligan ? nope, not at all lmao. so it's not something i would auto-ship but i absolutely could ship it with the right person, they both have similar experiences of being shafted and dismissed repeatedly by others and both had to prove themselves, so i think on paper it could work really well and i would one day love to explore it.

martha & jack. again, i wouldn't auto-ship it, but i have shipped it in the past and i do love the idea of them together under specific circumstances. do i necessarily think it could work out long term ? i'm on the fence, i'm not sure jack could give martha what she ultimately Needs ( stability, love, a safe home to come back to ) long term. however i love how protective jack is of her throughout both dw and tw and it's obvious that he really really cares about her and her family. and martha is flirtatious, this is a canon fact. so i find it difficult to believe something wouldn't happen between the two of them at some point, however fleeting it was. i think they could learn a lot from each other.

also a quick shoutout to martha & jason ( @synchronzed ) because i always have to credit rat for writing spectacular ships with me and this is one i'm really excited about. martha deserves a silly boy who simps for her, that is all.

and lastly, martha & happiness is up there too. the girl deserves someone who think she is a goddess among mortals because she is and i will not accept anything less for a queen like her. she takes care of everyone around her and it's only right that she has someone who will take care of her in return. i also hc her as bi, so this needn't be restricted to just boys too. i think her dynamic with miranda raison's character in dw ( the showgirl from the 30s ) is super interesting when looked at through that sort of lens.

[navree]

...at least it's not the snyderverse? i'm trying to remain optimistic. 😣

Confession time, I have ambivalent feelings about the Snyderverse. There's stuff I didn't like but there's also stuff I liked a lot.

For one, I think it had really solid casting. Cavill nailed the look of Superman, J.K. Simmons as Gordon is brilliant, Ray Fisher was really good as Cyborg, Jeremy Irons is brilliant in anything and God almighty I wish they'd kept him for The Batman as Alfred cuz I loved his Alfred, and Ben Affleck is a really good actor and he had some great moments and great looks as Bruce Wayne. The only duds were Ezra Miller, who's psycho, and Gal Gadot, because she's not a very good actress (most of the success of Wonder Woman, which I loved, came from Patty's writing moreso than anything intrinsic in Gadot's performance).

There's also some good ideas and good bones to Snyder's ideas for the DCEU. I like most of what he was trying to do with Superman's origin in Man of Steel, and honestly, Batman's motivation for his conflict in Batman v. Superman makes a lot of sense. Bruce is someone whose abhorrence of senseless violence is the cornerstone of his beliefs; his parents were killed in an act of senseless violence, and brutality for brutality's sake without a thought to consequences is something he fights against at all times. It is absolutely reasonable that Bruce, seeing not only wanton destruction from someone who is making no attempt to mitigate it, and has infinitely more power to do real harm than anything else Bruce has seen, has serious concerns and wants to at least be prepared in case he ever goes rogue, not to mention the movie does give us solid reasons for it to be personal with how he loses people in the destruction of the WE building (and also that scene of him running into the danger while everyone runs away? brilliant). I also like that this is an older, more jaded Bruce who has been distinctly marked by the death of his child and the havoc that wreaked on him (though I don't give a FUCK what Mr. Snyder says, that is not Dick Grayson, when has Dick Grayson ever been the dead Robin, that is Jason Todd, I accept nothing else, it's Jason who Bruce lost even in the Snyderverse). It's canon to the comics that Jason's death made Bruce more violent, more volatile, and actively changed him for the worst in a way that not even Jason's resurrection has been able to fully heal, so that being part of Bruce's issues in the Snyderverse works as well.

And I also want to acknowledge that Snyder has absolutely been shafted by WB. The director's cut of BvS does make more sense and have more to the story than the theatrical version. And then there's the whole mess with Justice League, even though I don't fault Snyder for leaving production due to his daughter's death, and I'm fine with the push to see his version that came out of it, especially given a) how bad Josstice League was and b) Joss Whedon being a shithead in general. And there's the fact that WB was clearly gunning for a DC MCU from the getgo, without understanding that, for all its myriad of sins (and oh boy are there many), that took time, and you really had to build up a lot of those characters individually before slowly mixing them into a shared universe that could be its own entity. WB didn't get that, so demanding a Justice League before we even got solo movies for any of the players besides Superman was always gonna be doomed to fail, and executive meddling can't be laid at Snyder's feet.

And I do want to mention that the Snyderverse had movies that weren't created by Snyder or had much input from him, both good and bad. Wonder Woman and Aquaman, I thought, were great, and those were made by different creatives, and Suicide Squad (2016) was atrocious (though I did like that Affleck was willing to make cameos to lend credence to the universe, and that it had Harley as a participant in the death of Robin, because most people don't really grapple with the fact that, even though Harley didn't exist when ADitF happened, any retcon to have her involved with Joker from the getgo is going to have her as a likely participant in the torture and murder of a child, and it's an interesting way to delve into her character and how her own agency intersects with her being a victim of the Joker's abuse).

But there are some serious, serious issues with the Snyderverse that did make it really hard to root for.

Most glaringly, Snyder has good ideas, like I outlined, but I don't think he's a very good writer. Take, for example, the much derided Martha scene. I get what he was going for, Bruce is lost in rage and Clark's focus on saving his mother not only reminds Bruce that Clark too has people he loves, just as Bruce does, but that he has his own underlying humanity, humanity that Bruce cannot ignore anymore and has to confront, that Clark is more than a threat, but a full person. It's a way to highlight how lost Bruce has become in this mission, and to show how humanity comes from who you are, not where you're from, and that Clark is good to his core in a way that's admired. That's the point of the scene, I get that, I understand it, but there had to be a better way to write it than that. I mean, Hell, just have Clark start talking about "my mother" as Bruce is getting ready to gut him, which can lead to confusion on Bruce's part because "your mother's an alien", which leads to Clark struggling to explain that his mom's in danger even as he's near death himself (and also idk why Lois is there, I love Lois as a character, though I wasn't overly fond of Amy Adams's version despite my love for her as an actress, but she shouldn't be there). But instead we get the Martha thing, and it ends up reading as Bruce realizing, somehow, that there are more people named Martha than his mom, and it ends up reading really stupid. This is what plagues a lot of Snyder's DC stuff, especially in BvS and with Bruce, which is that the ideas work but his execution in the minutia really doesn't and bogs the whole thing down. (I will say that I did like the writing of Bruce in the scene at Luthor's party, especially when he was being sneaky, that was good).

Snyder also is a good director in terms of visuals, very good, I like his visuals in a lot of his stuff. But I don't think he's a very good director when it comes to performances. He can't really pull anything stupendous out of any of his actors. And some people, like Ben Affleck, are good enough that you can still get good stuff from them irregardless, but some of them are not. And Henry Cavill, however much I love him in The Tudors, is one of those actors who does need a director to guide him to give a truly memorable performance, especially if he's as outside of his wheelhouse as he was with Clark. So Clark, who's our first introduction to the Snyderverse and also its emotional lynchpin a lot of the time, falls flat, because Snyder doesn't really seem like an actor's director, in spite of his visual eye.

There's also the killing thing. For one, just off the bat (heh), Batman shouldn't kill. Ever. It is the antithesis to who he is on every level, and there's a reason why he sticks to it so rigidly in comics canon and why any attempt to make him a killer, even via inaction (cough Nolanverse cough) rings false and hollow. For two, Superman is a killer in this universe. Not great, but Superman has killed in the comics too. But somehow, this doesn't really seem to bother him. Clark is, indirectly, responsible for a lot of civilian casualties after Man of Steel, and BvS really should have shown him grappling with that continuously, in a serious way. He's standing as a symbol for hope, he wants to help wherever he can, and there are now scores of people who've left behind grieving loved ones, because of him. It should affect him a lot more than it does, drive a lot more than it does, especially as we watch how those deaths harden Bruce, and yet we don't really see anything from him, and it affects his character. Not to mention it makes him a hypocrite when it comes to Batman. "Oh the Batman branded someone while stopping them from sex trafficking young girls, he's so terrible!" you have literally snapped someone's neck, shut the fuck up. And also, yeah, Clark killed Zod. That should also affect him a lot in the next movie, not just because of how killing and loss of life should affect him in general, but because Clark, a Kryptonian orphan with no connection to his homeland, no people like him, has just decimated the only concrete connection to his home that he has. If BvS wants to highlight Clark's solitude, Clark's loneliness as an alien and how that affects him AND the people around him along with the general populace, his feelings on having to cut off a Kryptonian connection to save human lives should get a lot more screentime.

And, while I do laud Snyder having good base ideas, some of the base ideas didn't work. I understand wanting to shift Lex into being the kind of billionaire most people in the 2010s would recognize as "classic billionaire", make him more of a Zuckerberg or an Elon Musk, but the way they went about it didn't work at all. Doomsday coming in last minute didn't work, having Death of Superman this early didn't work, making Batffleck an angry Batman rather than the sad Batman he was born to be didn't work, Jonathan Kent's death didn't work, etc. And honestly, having it be a Dark Knight Returns adaptation really didn't work. Even beyond the general cultural stuff that influence TDKR, and my issues with it as well as Frank Miller as a creative, the Batman against Superman stuff didn't work in the Snyderverse, because Snyder doesn't seem to get why those stories hit so hard. They work because Bruce and Clark are friends, best friends, closer than brothers, they love each other so dearly and would risk so much for each other, put their lives on the line for each other no matter what, be there at their lowest (there's a World's Finest issue dedicated to Clark trying to help Bruce with the aftermath of Jason's murder, it's really good). Seeing them at odds, seeing them fight, it hurts because we know what was once there, and seeing it fall apart into enmity and violence is painful. Longtime friends turning on each other hurts to witness. It doesn't work if Clark and Bruce don't know each other and don't have any personal connection, because that takes away the edge that makes those stories tug at our emotions.

Like I said, ultimately I'm ambivalent. There's stuff that worked, especially in concepts and in broad strokes, and there's stuff that didn't, like Snyder's writing decisions once detail had to get involved. And between that and the ten million behind the scenes issues, like the studio constantly meddling in everything, like Ezra Miller's issues, like Amber Heard having the nerve to be abused by her husband which got everyone real mad at her because he was popular twenty years ago, it ultimately made the whole thing a giant mess that was doomed to fail, even if Snyder had been flawless (which he really wasn't, but the outside stuff that kept coming up in every single installment certainly exacerbated everything).

I'm hoping the studio backs off Gunn, and that he keeps up his good writing streak that we've seen with stuff like Guardians, and that the decisions I've seen that are worrying me turn out fine (or are at least rectified and dealt with in pre-production why is the FUCKING FLASH DIRECTOR in charge of Batman why God why?????? and also again please don't have the starting Robin be Damian I have strong feelings about that even though I love my dear boy), but it's early so we'll see. Fingers crossed.

[juniperhillpatient]

The Ember Island Players Re-Watch

I feel like this episode gets a lot of hate & I totally get why but for the most part, it's just funny to me. I'm not entertained by overanalyzing this one too much, it's just a silly little meta parody. I like Zuko's reference to his mother taking him & Azula to see the players "butcher 'Love Amongst the Dragons'" when they were kids. I like to think of the three of them - Ursa, Zuko, & Azula, having fun tearing the performances apart & having a good time together being hyper-critical theatre nerds. And Zuko & Azula re-enacting the play together as kids <3 Zuko doesn't mention his father, but I wonder if Ozai ever went with them? I wonder if the Fire Family had some really good times like that before it all went bad....

I enjoy the throwbacks & parodies of past interactions, a lot of it makes me laugh. I especially enjoy Toph's utter delight with her own portrayal & savagery toward everyone else. Sokka helping out the actor who plays him & Suki using her warrior skills to get them backstage is also fun.

I have a love-hate relationship with the "did Jet just...die?" moment because it IS pretty funny & I now like to almost kill Jet in my fics but not quite & see if people will comment with that line. BUT - I mean, how many times can I really say "fuck the writers" for how fucking useless to the plot & narrative Jet's death was that the only mentions of Jet afterward are either in reference to the bad things he did (so why even have him show up again at all let alone die trying to help Team Avatar?) & a throwaway meta joke? I've surely said it enough by now, right? Wrong! I can never say it enough. Fuck them.

BUT.....Even though it's terribly written, I WILL take my Jetko crumbs where I can get them. Zuko sounded pretty sad by this realization & in the Good Canon that lives in my head, Jet's death did mean something to him we just didn't see more of his grief 'cause it was off-screen. No, I will not take criticism on this.

I'm sorry but I cracked up at Zuko's actor shoving Iroh's actor to the ground & saying "you smell! I hate you forever!" Again - this episode is kinda stupid but it makes me laugh a lot. I really genuinely enjoyed Zuko & Toph's talk about Iroh though. Toph can be surprisingly emotionally intelligent for how brash she is. I thought it was really cute that Toph was able to make Zuko feel better about himself & hopeful about a reconciliation with his uncle. I love their friendship.

Alright. Ugh. The Katara/Aang kiss....I literally have no idea why the writers would have a scene like this where Katara is so ambivalent about her feelings for Aang & definitely seems to still view him as a little brother (& I want to be clear I LIKE their friendship - I enjoy both characters - I just do NOT see the romantic chemistry, I see a one-sided crush 'cause that's what we were fucking shown lmao) SO close to the end & then.....still have it as endgame? The writing for this "romance" (if you can call it that) is a mess. I'm not interested in arguing about this. If you like the pairing, good for you, but we will never agree lol

Sorry for the rant.

Ahem. Anyway......

Wow, I really have just about nothing else to say about this episode. I mean, it's funny, but it's not exactly rich with scenes to analyze. I feel like this review is coming off more negatively than I intend it to because legit I do crack up every time I watch this episode. I think it's fun, there's just not much to say about it.

The foreshadowing of the final battles & the Fire Nation crowd cheering for the Avatar's downfall was interesting. I laughed when Zuko said "that was not a good play" at the end. That's all I have! No one earned any iconic behavior points in this episode.

OH wait. I'm petty as fuck. Zuko earns +100 for sitting between Katara & Aang. Good for him. Ok, & I guess Suki also gets +100 for getting her & Sokka backstage, that was neat.

[oodlyenough]

For the character meme, Vi Arcane.

First impression: arms... lol honestly, gifsets of her and Cait were why I bothered to try watching the show

Impression now: I'm not sure what it is about Vi that doesn't really click with me but I am pretty ambivalent. On paper she's the kind of character I really like. Something's missing in execution but I don't know what it is. Like, she's fine, but considering I expected her to be my fave I'm not sure she even cracks my top 5. Unpopular opinion section?

Favorite moment: I like the brawl she and Sevika have in the bar -- the first one in particular. Very satisfying to see them go all-out.

Idea for a story: I can't say that I have any

Unpopular opinion: I don't think this is too unpopular, at least amongst the Arcane-first fans, but Vi becoming a Piltie cop is stupid as hell and going to be a terrible arc lol. Makes it hard for me to invest in the character going forward. I also think Arcane has so far treated most of Vi's horrible imprisonment like she was put in a time capsule

Favorite relationship: Cait I suppose, always nice to see some canon lesbians

Favorite headcanon: I never really reached headcanon-level with Vi.

[ninamonday]

hi nina! i'm a big fan of your writing, and i was wondering if you could maybe give me some help/advice. i recently got into txt and would like to write some fic for them, but even though i've watched a bunch of their videos (to do, logs, etc) i still don't feel like i have a good enough sense of characterization;;; do you have any tips for characterization, or maybe guides or anything you could recommend to help out?

Thank you so much! Both for the compliments and for the opportunity to talk about the nerdy side of story craft which I love SO much.

First of all I think you're on the right track with this question, asking for general tips about characterization. A lot of times in rpf we talk about characterization as a matter of consuming enough content to render the truth of the person or what they would do in a certain situation; I think that approach has a pretty low ceiling of usefulness, and that it is more constructive to think about creating a character.

In a basic, literal sense, a character is not a person—it is a text construct designed to undergo a certain kind of development in the confines of a story. We're borrowing some ideas and concepts from a real person to create a new and distinct construct. I usually think of a story as always returning to a central problem—characters are problem-solving entities, using a collection of obstacles and tools in their world, in a series of events that makes up the plot.

I'm kind of describing the classic western/masc hero's journey there, but thinking of it more simply as the story problem is more useful to me. That's just one thing I can always come back to and make sure the world, plot, and characters are on track—what does this have to do with the central problem?

So if I'm looking at canon content for characterization, I'm looking for how they solve problems—how do they identify them, what tools do they use, what comes naturally or requires a stretch, when do they tend to succeed or fail, how do they contradict themselves? Also I think it makes my writing better to do this as nonjudgmentally as possible—not looking for strengths and weaknesses but simply for traits that might serve in one situation and hinder in another.

If I use for example my taejun fake dating fic "Friction"—that's a story where Taehyun tries to solve the problem of his romantic inexperience with the cool logic that usually serves him well, and finds himself in a mess he didn't account for. Yeonjun doesn't see the same problem Taehyun does—he's afraid Taehyun is going to hurt himself solving it his way and so he is fake-going along and hoping it will work out. He is someone who tries to solve problems by floating on the vibes but in fact feels tremendous responsibility and anxiety. It does not serve him and he has to give up the game and admit to his deep un-chillness to actually solve the problem.

I don't think it takes deep canon diving to establish that Taehyun is an enthusiastic tryhard and Yeonjun is an ambivalent tryhard—I think the practice is more boiling it down for myself and communicating that to readers.

I don't usually use character guides—I feel like a lot of them waste my time answering questions about eye color and favorite snack. For me the process of character development is about asking this one question of how do they solve problems over and over in different ways.

I do think plot guides can be useful, though! And as we've now established, plot is character! There are a lot of common ones (the hero's journey, three acts, skin the cat) and I think exploring to find some that work for your brain and the stories you want to tell is worthwhile. The nice thing with these is that you can start with what you know you want to do and then fill in the rest like a puzzle. I really like Dan Harmon's story circle for a few reasons, but one is that the circle shape makes the story a mirror that can help me figure out what I need to seed to pay off later or what images to bring back.

Creating characters in rpf is mostly about cherry-picking a few qualities but I do think I get a lot of mileage out of the stuff left behind. T-logs and stuff aren't rules, they're opportunities for random stuff to pull and use. Canon easter eggs go a long way to making fic feel convincing. Finding ways to incorporate your character's contradictions and edges also makes them feel more real, for all characters really but I bet especially in rpf. And as you expand into situations we don't see these real people in, guessing at how they would act in ways that stretch past the ways we actually see them act can be really rewarding when it works.

I must also say that it is very normal in the kpop fandom environment, rich with content, analysis, and feedback, to make choices that readers disagree with, that new canon renders false, or that you feel like you change your mind about later. Some of that gets better with practice but some is an unavoidable part of the gig, and either way it's not something to let stop you.

And one more thing: before I wrote "Friction," I'd been out of writing for a while and had very little experience jumping into writing a new group. I was watching some content, and I don't even remember what I was doing, but I thought, "Those two should fake date for sure. Ah, maybe one day, when I know them better." And then I started writing like two days later—in some ways I got to know them while writing them. Or, if you'd asked me two hours before I started writing my current project if I had a svt wonhan kdrama novel in me, I'd have told you no, none of those things. When I started trying I did not seriously believe I could do it. But I figured it out as I went along, and apparently I could. Which is a long way to say, just go for it. If you try it, you might like it—and if you don't you can stop and try something else. Good luck!

[littletissueghosts]

for your fandom ask game, Wings of Fire?

The first character I first fell in love with: I think that would probably be Glory! I used to really like her for being one of the "good" queens, although I now realize she made plenty of the same bad mistakes as the others. Imo, Ruby and maybe Moorhen are the only good queens on Pyrrhia right now, and I like it that way. I just wish the others' flaws were showcased a little more.

The character I never expected to love as much as I do now: I would say Peacemaker! I hate his canonical portrayal, as everyone kind of just ignored the numerous effects that making him from an evil dictator could have on him, even if they never told him. But now I enjoy seeing all the different directions that fanon can take him! I've seen surprisingly varied ways in which the fanbase connects him to Darkstalker.

The character everyone else loves that I don’t: I'd say Peril. While I agree that she's a well-written character and I don't hate her, I'm pretty much ambivalent on her mainly because I just don't really feel like I "clicked" with her personality. I will still say that victim-blaming Peril is very bad. Peril is not at fault for being abused; it is Scarlet's fault that she abused Peril.

The character I love that everyone else hates: Honestly, I'm not sure. I can name plenty of popular characters I hate, but I don't think there's any actively hated characters I love. I guess I'm too contrary for that. /hj

The character I used to love but don’t any longer: Haha, probably Glory again. I used to think she was a really cool queen, but after I kind of realizing that she just swooped in to save and rule kingdom she knew nothing about, I became more neutral on her. It feels like the books don't really mention the flaws in her plans, not to mention botch her arc by making her royal.

The character I would totally smooch (adding the modifier on the forehead platonically and tell them everything will be alright): I had to modify this question because I can't imagine wanting to kiss anyone in Wings of Fire. 😅 I'd probably want to comfort Fathom, as I feel really sorry for him after the Summer Palace attack. He spent his childhood terrified of what he would do with everyone hating him for something he couldn't control, after he saved dragons from two separate evil animi before adulthood. He had to go through two incredibly hard betrayals, yet he always stuck strong to his morals to a fault.

The character I’d want to be like: I can't say there's many characters that I aspire to be, considering that a lot of them are very traumatized and I would not want that trauma in my life. But, if I had to choose one, probably Sunny. I find her determination to prove herself while sticking firmly by her morals to be very admirable!

The character I’d slap: Argh, there's too many I want to slap to pick just one (/hj)! One of the more well-liked characters that I'd want to slap is Foeslayer. She literally leaves her kids home alone for days at a time with their dad who's threatened to KILL them! That's not to mention how she plays into Arctic's favoritism game by favoring her more NightWing child, like her children are pawns in a game.

A pairing that I love: I like the idea of Moonwatcher with both Turtle and Kinkajou (w/o Turtlejou obviously because the love spell sucks), once Kinkajou has matured a bit, since she can be kind of insensitive and short-sighted at times. I honestly like both the dynamics of "opposites attract but they're already friends and their differences play well into each other" and "they're both going through similar shit which helps them know how to support each other better." I'm know it's kind of a rare pair, but I think it'd work out better than any of the love triangle ships or Turtlejou.

A pairing that I despise: I definitely don't like Glorybringer. Even besides the age issue, Deathbringer continues making advances on Glory, even though she clearly expresses that she doesn't like it. It's not "tsundere," it's creepy, whether or not she had a crush on him.

[anbroids]

UHAVE NO IDEA the 3 davejakers that are out there are starving and dying off... if u were to make anything for them i would definetly give it a read :] i really like your work so im really interested what exactly youd have for them in mind and how messed up it would be if at all (since you already Get the nature of these two existing as a thing at all lol)

AHHH THANK YOU ANON <3 the davejake ecosystem is so very small… i salute you brave davejakers. i hope i can do them some justice. i'm going to talk endlessly in the read more about my thoughts.

dave and jake are both such passive guys who Unwillingly End Up In Situations (in contrast to john for example who Ambivalently Ends Up In Situations. i think that fact that dave and jake are both particularly resistant to the situations they end up in makes them really interesting to study like specimens) so all this being said. i definitely would like to torture them just a little. for fun.

i think part of what makes them so hard to mash together (not taking their respective relationships in canon into account. cough cough. i can't remember who was the one who said this but davejake is essentially dirk strider on suicide watch etc) is how conflict avoidant they are. dave for the sake of dodging emotionally vulnerable situations where he has to drop his paper thin coolguy nonchalant act and jake for the sake of people pleasing and not ending up in any high stress or emotionally taxing situations. (however i think they end up doing BOTH... jake doesn't want to drop his paper thin silly adventure guy act either, but he will do so more willingly than dave might, and dave also doesn't want too end up in any high stress emotionally taxing situations, but he will rise to the occasion and grin and bear it sooner than jake might)

so it's less a matter of: would dave and jake work out and more: how would they even TRY anything in the first place more meaningful than a "spontaneous hookup" they can both pretend means nothing more than that. how would they even TALK about it. so i think the real challenge about writing them is like... what is the situation in which the conflict avoidance is pushed to the absolute breaking point where they are left with no choice. i think that's kind of fun and fucked up. i like how dysfunctional it is and i would like to stick my fingers in the mess like play dough.

i also think comparing dave and jake's relationship to autonomy extends into an interesting examination of the page and the knight class. in which the knight seems like an active class but it's actually a passive one and the page seems like a passive class but it's an active one. both classes, and for both dave and jake, hinge on the involvement of Other People and in one way or another end up in a kind of acquiescent role. players in general are obliged to "help" the page class reach its full potential, therefore the autonomy of the page class is thrust into the hands of whoever takes this task on and what that potential might be + how it must be useful for the session, and knights function AS the help and solely as the help so the autonomy of the knight hinges on whoever that might be and whatever situation comes along they can service. neither is really fully just. calling their own shots. despite being in different "roles" as technically player serving or self serving. i think that is so interesting. and i would like to strip those themes down to the bone and shove them inside some au situation.

the idea i'm playing with is like. soooo loosely based on the premise of the show maniac. which i did not even finish i literally just enjoy the plot set up and the themes. the psychological horror of being test subjects to an experimental psychiatric drug and simulated therapy program. technology and medicine taking your feelings and humanity and crushing it into data and becoming a plaything to mess around with. simulation and reality becoming indistinguishable as well as the emotions that come with it. i think i would like to see dave and jake, down on their money and luck as emotionally repressed roommates who mutually won't let the other see any other side of themselves than they surface level performance, agreeing to participate as human test subjects in a drug and therapy treatment (for each of their own complicated personal reasons) with the vague intention of "serving as a tool to help people and relationships". and then i would like the test to subject them to what essentially becomes a weird game of survival where they have to perform various cooperative tasks in sync at the cost of their "simulated" lives in kind of a sterile, isolated sci fi setting. the homoeroticism of being two guys alone in the middle of vast, desolate space sort of thing. maybe i just like space shuttles ok. and without giving too much away it allows them to have way too much of an intimate understanding of each other's thoughts and feelings than a human ever should let alone these guys could handle. and then i would like to watch them be extremely abnormal about this and lose their minds a little (a lot) and handle it terribly. WOOOOOOOOO! so yeah i wasn't kidding when i said i wanted them to be rats i trap in a cage together and see what happens.

[lowrezbonuslevel]

Do read this, it's VERY interesting!! there's a lot about TD i hadn't even thought of, yet tumblr kirby fans are always here providing me with the deets. this game just gets more interesting to think about. More of my own thoughts below.

I think one thing that could "salvage" this idea is if the antrs/antlers were considered the highest/ruling class in Floralia—the most beautiful and powerful. I always thought it was kind of funny that spiders are not actually insects, yet the game with an insect character-design theme had the secondary (and primary, as was eventually revealed) antagonist be based on an arachnid.

Yet maybe this ties into Sectonia's story. I think it's reasonable to assume that whatever Sectonia's/Taranza's species is is indeed native to Floralia. But maybe they're seen as outcasts. Like you said, they're not quite fairies and not quite bugs. Devs even said that the name "Sectonia" is supposed to evoke the idea of her being "almost an insect, but not quite."

Maybe she could only see her beauty in comparison to the Antrs/fully-insect denizens, whether she was conscious of this or not. A line that not a lot of people talk about, but I think is extremely important to Sectonia's character, is "true beauty is control." She was judging herself for something she could never change, and wasn't even a problem to begin with. Yet suddenly, she is offered the power to become "ideally" beautiful... eventually, maybe she couldn't resist it.

And I always thought that maybe that's why we don't see any others of Taranza's/Sectonia's species throughout Triple Deluxe... They reminded Sectonia of what she once was, and what she lost. She may have, eventually, driven them all out. Why was Taranza the exception? Well, that's up for (another very interesting) debate.

It was never actually confirmed that Sectonia was BORN into royalty, right? After seeing Triple Deluxe's story and lore, I assumed that she had just SEIZED CONTROL of Floralia at some point, and that that was the common understanding among fans. But it seems it's quite the opposite. I could definitely be wrong, or have missed something, but I don't remember anything in TD stating she was ALWAYS queen. Yes, she was queen "for years," but that doesn't necessarily encompass her lifetime.

I guess what I'm saying is that this story still has the potential to be amazing and impactful (and even sweet. I personally really like Sectaranza), but whether the devs care to explore and develop it or not is ANOTHER story entirely.

And yeah, they have totally done Taranza dirty in subsequent material. They toss out bits of what may be going through his head after Sectonia's demise, but have been content to leave it as a never-ending cycle. Oh, Taranza is back in Kirby Clash Deluxe and he misses Sectonia. Maybe he'll do something questionable and irreversible in her name. Oh, Taranza is back in Star Allies and he misses Sectonia. Maybe he'll do something questionable and irreversible in her name. Or maybe he'll just be reset and have the exact same arc in the next game/manga/novel, who knows!

Sigh. Or maybe I'm just making a mountain out of an Antr hill...

Anyways, I totally relate to your ambivalent relationship with Sectonia as a character. I love her so much, but at the end of the day most of it is just headcanon and theorycrafting because the series seems to be averse to actually doing her justice. Thanks for the thoughtful post. It's ok to be a "hater" sometimes; these frustrations come from a true passion for a fictional world, and storytelling in general!

(And yeah, her canon model does suck. Majorly. Like the devs just couldn't be bothered. Come on, they couldn't even make her a new OUTFIT!?)

last night i was reminded of one of my extremely few Hater Moments (lighthearted) about this series and i never got around to fully articulating my thoughts on it, so it is once again time for our regularly-scheduled kirby rant:

the spider sectonia reveal was poorly-executed on every level.

to start with, this plot element was introduced when the series was in its worst throes of Not Putting The Fucking Lore In The Fucking Games, but I will happily concede that this reveal was at least in a game; just not the game it should have been in.

I almost wonder if the Sectonia Clone as a whole was a leftover from the fact that Robobot started out development as Triple Deluxe 2, but considering that a) TD2 was dropped pretty early on and b) Robobot is just full to the brim with fanservice and callbacks anyway, I don't feel there's much evidence for such a theory.

at any rate, reducing the otherwise very intriguing reveal of Sectonia's prior form to a blink-and-you'll-miss-it easter egg in an entirely different game is pretty... underwhelming. we've had plenty of "reveals" or cool nods and expansions to other lorebits in similar easter eggs, but none of them were nearly as important as "oh, by the way, here's what the character whose whole arc revolves around personal and physical image used to look like! in a totally unrelated game!"

but that's the tamest complaint. that's just the accessibility of this information, which could have been better but certainly could have been worse.

the biggest problem is Sectonia's design. it's bad. it is just not good, fellas. she is literally just genderbent Taranza. it fails visually, it fails conceptually, and it fails really hard story-wise.

this design was so uninspired that when people in the EN sphere first saw it, tons of people thought it just was Taranza. then when we got screenshots, model rips, etc., it was still so painfully similar to Taranza that it made people assume HAL was saying Taranza and Sectonia were related - which turned into just as much of a shitfight as you might think.

even if this weren't attached to such a crucial character reveal, it's just downright a bad design! instead of taking even the slightest efforts to differentiate Sectonia from Taranza, they did the laziest, most barebones "uhhhhhh what if taranza But Girl" design shift possible. she's wearing the exact same outfit as Taranza, just palette-swapped. so little effort went into both the concepting stage and the modelling stage. she's just Taranza's model with the merest tweaks to make sure you know this is a Girl Spider.

genuinely, I would be a hundred times more amenable to this entire plot point if HAL had just bothered to give her an actual design.

but the problem is, making Sectonia a spider kind of just fucks everything about her story and contradicts itself at multiple points.

the aesthetic and theme language in TD is very clear. this is one of the biggest strengths that both it and Robobot share - the identity and literary through-lines of both games pervade every single visual element of them. Robobot tells its tale of capitalistic tech-fuelled colonialism through every part of the game from level backgrounds, to enemy designs, right down to surgical decisions like mechanising the pinwheel tree that was such a fond image from KRtD. every tiny thing bore the mark of the HWC, whether metaphorically or literally, such that you spent the entire game never forgetting that there was one unified force behind all of this, and Haltmann at the end of the game was the culmination of this aesthetic.

TD did the exact same. every part of TD sells that it's a fantastical fairytale romp through a series of themed locations with a connecting thread of the invading Antr* force.

*(this is a way better romanisation than "antler" this is my hill)

if anything, I'd argue that TD's design language in this respect is tighter than Robobot's, because Robobot had a fairly broad theme of "industrialisation and hi-tech space future sci-fi" to draw its foes from, whereas TD had to condense its antagonists under the stricter banner of "evil insect army".

and they did incredibly. every point of design about the Antrs points straight to Sectonia and draws from her in some way or another. it's absolutely seamless. she's the perfect logical endpoint of Antr design from every angle: she's the literal queen bee of this insect hive and the perfect expression of their anatomy. she's bigger than the biggest Antr. she's more developed. she's more powerful. they were so careful and thorough about this design conceit that Antrs have multiple stages that all march straight up to Sectonia. we go from the tiny bronto burt and waddle dee clones with their little wings and eyes that seem so familiar, to the Antr soldiers, all the way up to the Lord Antrs who are one step away from Sectonia. they have stripes and facial markings to echo hers. it's all wrapped up with the genius bow of combining ants, bees, and wasps: they're all hymenoptera! the metaphor goes even deeper than that because there's a species of wasp that parasitizes spiders! controls them, even!

... except no actually, we've decided she's a spider too and all of that buildup and artful design means nothing.

it's awful. it's taking what is far and away one of the best-executed designs in the series and saying that all of that buildup and blatant connection of ideas meant nothing.

but that's just the visual end of it. Sectonia actually being a spider makes no sense in the lore, either.

first of all, TD's incredible design sense and artistic direction applies to Taranza as well. while he's obviously derivative of Magolor, within the context of TD he's clearly meant to evoke the sky fairies. he's designed to look much more like them than any of the insect characters. he's got the same body type, he moves the same way as them, he's a sky fairy with a spider theme. the game draws visual parallels between him and the sky fairies more than once; this is not unintentional.

this is part of what makes Taranza's role as Sectonia's right hand more impactful: he's only insect adjacent, and the design language would have you believe he's more closely related to the fairies than the insects, so him being with the bad guys is notable and interesting.

so why would a spider character be the ruling monarch of the insect hive? why would the line go ant, bigger ant, fancy ant, armoured ant, spider, wasp?

I mean, shit dude, the miiverse posts directly tell us that Sectonia used to "look like her insect underlings". it really feels like the decision to make her be a spider was a total spur-of-the-moment one, between how badly it interacts with the rest of the story and how lazy the design was. Sectonia's backstory had a couple of holes in it regarding the actual timeline of things, but those were just mysteries regarding what order everything happened in. she was both a bodyjacker and a good queen at one point, which don't exactly jive, so it becomes interesting to think about how those two facts coexist. on the other hand, her being a spider just gets shoehorned in there for no apparent reason other than to... heighten her connection to Taranza?

and that just dovetails into the complete mockery HAL made of Taranza's character development after TD, and THAT is a rant for another time.

there was just no point to it all. Sectonia being a spider adds nothing, removes a bunch of nuance and intrigue, and muddies both her story and the background world of TD.