#I've tried to write in such a way that it can be enjoyed without context of the rest of the show

[prettyflyshyguy]

Cold posts this at 1 in the morning - get ya sad vampire fix:

[ariaste]

I made a post a few days ago about how dire the hits-to-comments ratio is in this fandom and since then I have tried an experiment, got great results, and I am back to explain how we solve this problem as a community.

Several people made disheartened comments on the previous post about how consumer culture has finally made it to fandom (that is, people don't comment on fics as much any more because they're passive consumers of content rather than equal participants in fandom) but... I kind of think that part of this might be our responsibility as fic authors as well, and something that we as can do something about and take agency over. Because yeah, it's correct that commenting has gone down, but you know what I also don't see very much anymore??? People adding a note at the end of the fic saying "Comments give me life!" or "If you liked this fic, please let me know, a nice comment makes me smile all day" or "Comments keep me energized to write more, please let me know if you enjoyed this!" or "I would love to hear what you thought of this! :)"

The culture of a community is not something that people just know instinctively. It's something that has to be taught, just like manners and etiquette in any other context (you don't know the fish fork from the entree fork from the dessert fork until someone shows you, for example). The venn diagram of "the good old days of fandom when lots of people were in the habit of leaving comments" and "the bad old days when we had to humbly ask people to please comment if they liked it at the end of fics" is probably almost a circle. Yes, it's true that we are living in a society where we are being encouraged to be passive consumers of content and that this is probably leaking into fandom spaces. But the way that we start course-correct is to simply communicate clearly in public about what your needs and preferences are. Not in posts like this, because not everyone is going to see it and it will eventually disappear into the ether, and because one big essay isn't going to affect much change. Just... in small spaces where people will see it immediately when it's relevant, like in the end notes of your fic, or in the caption/description under your fanart post. It is not a bad thing to tell people that you like comments. You are not vain or arrogant for wanting engagement and appreciation for something you made out of love and enthusiasm, you are HUMAN. It is not a bad thing to communicate your needs. And oftentimes it is way more effective than you realize until you have actual data to back it up, like the data I'm looking at right now for this fic.

I made one change on the most recent chapter, and that was to put this at the end:

LISTEN TO ME REAL QUICK HERE, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT SOMETHING. This fandom has the worst comments-to-hits ratios on fics that I've ever seen. That sucks. Comments are part of a healthy fandom ecosystem, and I can't tell you how many unexpected friends I've made just by telling them I liked their fic. If you don't feel like leaving a comment on this fic, that's okay with me. But you have to PROMISE that you'll leave one on the next three IWTV fics you read, ok? Give our authors some love so they'll keep writing. It'd be a really, really long hiatus until s3 without them.

Since posting this, I can only describe the state of my inbox as, "Oh, THAT'S more like it, there we go, much better!" So... try it out? Tell people that their thoughts and comments are welcome? Remind them that this is a good thing to be doing? It's not going to make everyone comment, but I bet it'll make at least a little bit of a positive difference, and the more people start doing it, the faster we'll inch ourselves back to a thriving and healthy fandom ecology. :)

Rome wasn't built in a day, and culture has to be taught, and the best and happiest kinds of communities grow when the participants are aware and intentional about it.

[yayll]

Hiii i hope you're feeling better soon :(( I was wondering if I could request a Dazai x reader fic where the reader has PTSD? Specifically, the beginning of autumn kind of triggers her (sorry if it's a confusing i dunno how to word it lol) Could it be fluff/comfort? Btw I love your writing style so badly so pls tweak the idea if you think it would work better! And no worries if you'd rather pass :33

hii angel i genuinely am sorry that this took me a while! (work and life happened a little more than usual, GOT SICK and barely had time to sit down and write.) it was so ivover but i am fine now thank u so much bub!

i REALLY hope you like this and that it's what u wanted, i've never written someone w PTSD before and i was just rlly hoping i didn't mess this characterization up for ur request ahhh. i had such a nice time writing it and i rlly wanted to explore the impact it could have around reader and dazai and him going out of his way even if it could be a little goofy and sappy to make u feel at least a little better even if u can't talk abt it.

i love uuuu thank u again! <3

~ a little something about Dazai noticing harmful patterns and loving you through them ~

He's been watching you sit by the window for the past half hour as you stare at what seems like the beginning of the new season outside. You were quieter than usual, more withdrawn and jumpy, which could only mean that you weren't sharing something with him- or rather having trouble processing something to the point where you didn't realize he could tell something inside you was on high alert.

Dazai would rather die than see you in such a state, especially during what's supposed to be such an exciting time of the year that's full of the things you usually love to do. Whatever is impeding you from enjoying the leaves falling has to be dealt with the most delicate of methods, but especially with love. If you taught him anything about the past haunting you to the point of mental distress, something he suffered bouts of every now and then when memories made days grow dark, it's that all you need is one person to truly witness you. Just like how you've seen the ugliest parts of him time and time again yet you still look at him with all the stars in the sky, stars he consumes like a black hole waiting to be filled.

Luckily for you, he has an arsenal of things he can try to soothe you with, because he wouldn't be a good detective AND boyfriend if he didn't keep all those context clues in his pocket for a bad day. Mainly though, he was just completely attuned to your every need. You are his happiness, and your wellness isn't up for debate: It's mandatory. He stands up from the loveseat with a deep exhale as he walks over to you, his lips curled in a lazy smile as he tests the waters to see what you could need from him without asking.

"You know, if you stay any more still I could probably paint you like one of those fancy paintings. What do you say, be my model?"

You look over at him from the window, and he can visibly tell you haven't been at ease lately. He suddenly realizes he's just fallen even more in love with you. That there is nothing in this world that could ever let him see you as anything but his heart.

You murmur, a faint smile decorating your serene face.

"Mm, I'm not sure. I don't think I could pose for that long, you know? It would probably be hard to catch my likeness, heh."

He clicks his tongue and rolls his eyes with a playful smirk. Oh how he wants to lean in and worship your likeness with his loving touch, but he decides to take it easy on the physical affection for now, not until he knows you're feeling up for it. He can be a good boy, something he usually isn't.

"Well, I wouldn't mind being the brave young knight who tries~ Shall we take this outside for better lighting?"

You instantly don't give him a good reaction to that. You shrug, seeming conflicted and unsure of yourself, but unable to really bring yourself to explain with words, something uncharacteristic of you.

No problem! Dazai thinks to himself. If you don't want to go outside, he can bring outside to you in the comfort of home. He'll enhance your safe space, and tailor it to just what you need. He hums, tapping his temple in an exaggerated manner as if he were thinking really hard and when he sees that it gets a small giggle out of you, he knows he's on the right track.

"Hm, I know what we should do instead. Wait here, angel.~"

He disappears into the hallway and you sit there as the sound of cabinets opening and rummaging around fills the air. You smile to yourself, and shake your head at the mental image of Dazai becoming a tornado to find whatever he's looking for right now, hoping he doesn't make too much of a mess. You fidget with your hair, twirling it in between your fingers as you take a deep grounding breath while you wait.

A moment later, he comes back with what seems like art supplies and a ton of mini candlesticks.

He knows you're intrigued when you tilt your head in confusion, but then again that's probably just the confusion... Dazai sets down two canvases along with the candles, flashing you a mischievous grin. If you couldn't process your feelings through words, art was always there! You look over the activities he's laid out for you both, awaiting his silver tongued explanation.

"You know when I want to be the little spoon but I don't say anything?"

You laugh softly, and nod.

"Mhm, you get all moody and weird."

He nods back, a half smile on his face as he rests his hands on his hips. He wants to tell you that the only reason he even knew such intimate luxuries is because you showed him that he's worthy of it, of being loved, but he doesn't say anything. He lets the sweet memories between you swim through his mind as fuel for the day he's trying to create for you. His voice sounds more like he's talking out loud now, lost in a thought..

"You make me moody and weird. You also make me want to grab your soft little face and just..."

He then snaps back to the moment, and his tone picks up.

"... But alas, there is no time to waste! Come, sit, I'll get the other things ready.~"

He zooms off to the kitchen, and your heart softens at how much he fusses over you, though you also hope you aren't being too much. You know he'd hate to hear that, so you simply sit down and look over the supplies you had honestly forgotten you had.

Dazai makes tea, because he knows it helps with your fidgeting and you like how the mug feels in your hands, he also begins to set the candle sticks all over the living room, lighting them one by one. You flash him a look of faint concern.

"Feels like Dracula's castle. You sure this is safe, Osamu?"

He simply grins impishly.

"It's called 'mood lighting', cutie. There is an atmosphere to be created!"

"Yeah, and possibly a wildfire."

"Boo, you're no fun. Besides, that sounds like a problem for future us. We live in the moment."

Dazai would never risk your safety and you know that, which is why you don't push the topic any further.

You two settle in, the candles illuminating you both with a warm flame that feels more comforting than you'd like to admit, you feel yourself becoming more immersed in the random little doodles and brush strokes you create as you both talk for hours about literally nothing while sipping on your tea. Nothing feels nice, for once and Dazai can see it in the way you slowly become less and less tense. So mindful, so beautiful.

After you fill your canvas, you set it down, and peer over at Dazai's.

"What'd you paint?"

He smiles sheepishly, and hides his.

"Not finished yet. No peeking!"

He stands up and in one swift motion, runs outside, while leaving you bewildered at the spontaneity of the situation. A few moments later, he runs back inside, huffing with his arms behind his back. He sits back down on the floor with you, criss crossed. He grabs his canvas, and puts something on it as he slowly unveils his work to you.

It's a single crisp leaf he must have plucked from the grass when it fell, the orange and reddish hue placed on the canvas that shows a cartoonishly painted tree as well. He murmurs, eyes trained lovingly on you but with that familiar playful tone.

"I wanted you to get a little air. It's good for one's mood, you know."

You slowly take the leaf, and twiddle it in your thumb as you begin to smile to yourself. You mutter back.

"The weather changes, moods change, it's so overwhelming sometimes..."

He slowly leans in a little closer and places a hand on the small of your back, inching you closer to him too. He wants to distract you from those thoughts affecting you, but it's getting harder when all he can think about is how much you affect him. He whispers.

"My mood never changes, you're the most precious thing I have ever seen all year round."

You look up at him, your eyes communicating what you feel, and he picks up on it with a silent confirmation. You hold each other's gaze for a long quiet moment and when you feel ready you lean into his chest, nuzzling into him. He envelops you in a hug that feels like the remedy you've been searching for this whole time, and it almost brings you to tears. You don't know it also does the same to him. He gives you a soft squeeze and leans down to your ear, his warm breath feeling like the way life is supposed to feel. You mumble, your voice slightly muffled against him.

"Thank you, Osamu. Love you."

He smiles at that. To be something so soothing to you, to be of use for once in his life, it's a feeling that he could never describe. He'll have to find the words when he covers you in kisses from head to toe later, when he makes sure you feel the full extent of his devotion to you through thick and thin. He exhales deeply.

"Change of season, change of mind... It doesn't matter to me. It's still you. It will always be you."

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Since reading that ask about Chloe where you linked Sara Z videos, I wanted to ask, if you'd be willing to share, what you plan for Chloé in your rewrite of the show. I'm not asking if you "think she should be redeemed" bc that is a child in a cartoon lol-but I mean to ask how you'd write, well, whatever happens in her story. Growth or not or a roller coaster of ups and downs.

Overall I really enjoyed your changes to the world and characters and I think about that version of Miraculous often. The scenes where Adrien tries to talk to Chloé about her behavior really stood out to me. I'm just curious to pick your brain a little lol.

(Post in question)

I am a total sucker for a good redemption arc. I like seeing people change for the better! However, just because I like a redemption arc doesn't mean that I'm going to throw one in for no reason. This is especially true for Chloé since redeeming Chloé is not something that you can do with ease. It eats up a lot of screen time because Chloé is not an easy character to redeem. She needs a lot of active attention. That's a problem because this isn't her story. It's Adrien and Marinette's, meaning that the only reason to redeem Chloé is if you want to tie her into one or both of their character arcs.*

That's why I don't blame anyone for ignoring Chloé or only hinting at redemption. Unless you're making her the main character or giving her a big role in the lead characters' story*, you really shouldn't redeem her. The show actively shows why! Felix, Sabrina, Nathalie, and Gabriel's "redemptions" all fall incredibly flat because those stories lacked substance. They needed a lot more screen time to work and a formula show is never going to be able to pull that off.

Now that I've given those disclaimers, let's talk about why I would absolutely take the time to redeem Chloé if the format allowed for that kind of story. The answer is quite simple: Adrien needs an arc focused around setting boundaries and learning that you can't live your life focused on making others happy. An arc where he learns how to decide when he wants to give someone a second chance and when he wants to give up on them. He also needs to learn that giving up on them is okay. That you can't set yourself on fire to keep others warm.

This arc cannot be about him and his father. Adrien is too young for that. The power balance is too stacked against him. He can't cut his father off at fifteen and the arc can't happen after the terrorist reveal makes cutting Gabriel off a possibility in spite of Adrien's youth. That's way too much way too fast. You need a less serious relationship to give this arc to so that it can take its time to be messy and complex. When you embrace the hinted at childhood friendship between Chloé and Adrien, she becomes the perfect fit for this kind of arc. A person who Adrien has equal power to and who he can muddle his way through things with, letting them both learn and grow into better people, setting the stage for Adrien to avoid completely falling apart when he learns the truth about his father. That's why Adrien so desperately needs an arc like this. His naive little sunshine self simply isn't ready to face the Gabriel reveal until he's done some major growing up.

Obviously you could use this setup to give Chloé a damnation arc, but as I said above, I'm a sucker for a good redemption. I want Chloé to be a better person and find happiness! There's also the fact that a damnation arc doesn't work as well as a redemption in this context. It's important for Adrien to be able to make the choice to give Chloé another chance and to have that choice be a struggle. Something he really has to work through. If he abandons Chloé and never looks back or welcomes her back without a second thought, then you're not setting him up to deal with the fallout of what's coming with his father. Chloé needs to feed like a proper proto Gabriel. You want her and Adrien's story to end in a way that makes you feel like he really is as ready as he could ever be to face his father.

It's also worth noting that, if Chloé really was Adrien's childhood friend, then she should have some sort of relationship with Gabriel and/or Emilie. She should know the Agreste's family dynamics way better than any of his new friends, which is another reason why I like redeeming her. I want Adrien to have someone who really gets it.

*If Miraculous was the kind of show where side characters consistently took center stage for a while, then Chloé being redeemed without a clear tie to the leads could work. It's a nice way to pad out the run time and is what I originally thought the show was doing with her. But Miraculous has no interest in giving anyone a proper story, not even the leads, so I'm still baffled by the choices the writers made with Chloé. I will never fully get what was going on there.

[roxtron]

Day 5: Rabbit, Reclaim

AGJGDFJF FINALLY IT'S DAY 5 SO I CAN POST THIS

For some reason everytime i draw him he looks so young because i'm accidentally overcorrecting since i'm used to drawing older characters. So unfortunately he looks way younger than i meant him to lol, whoops.

But wait there's more- AHAHAHA

While I did initially plan this for GGY week I eventually got the idea to use this as an excuse to draw other GGY designs, soo..

(Not sure why tumblr formatted it that way with 1 of them big but it doesn't matter lol)

I've been wanting to do this for a while, I put the tags of each person next to their design but ofc I'm still gonna tag them in the post itself so you can see their art for yourself if you haven't already. But I enjoyed each of these in their own ways so if you don't mind I think I'm gonna type a bit of text next to them..

@chipistrate This was one of the first I drew out of these, the design was pretty fun to draw but sorry if I messed up a few details, it was a bit difficult lol. The mask and goggles are really fun to draw and they make for a cool design, along with all the glowing blue. (and yes, I tried to subtly include the heelies lol)

@lunzi0 This was the first fursuit one I did lol. I adore the little stars in the design, they personalize it so well and make it really unique. I wanna try this design again since I feel like the other ones show my improvement a bit better, but I hope you can appreciate the effort I put in on my first attempt <3

@carouselrabbit This one was really fun to draw, I absolutely love the eye shape/lashes, it stands out and I always love drawing eyes with a bit of eyeliner lol, the daycare theme legwarmers is a cool nod to the balloon boy arcade machine being connected to them, and was just a fun addition in general lol, I like the style of legwarmers what can I say, fnaf changed my fashion sense a bit. also the subtle paraells to freddy's design is a nice way to connect a bit to gregory himself.

@puhpandas I can't remember if I talked about this design last time I drew it but, overall I'm really happy with how this came out, it's such an indicator of improvement since I started drawing this and I'm glad I was able to draw it better than last time lol. All the patchwork and similarities to Vanny's suit work really well, and the rabbit you chose to base it off of was a good fit, the colors make it a bit more difficult to shade for but i like detail lol, hope you like it too :)

@dykevanny I knew I wanted to do this since I started but I wasn't sure if I'd have time, and I'm glad I did! I hope you don't mind I combined aspects from the first design I saw and the second one you replied to my ask with, I liked the big purple sleeves lol. (I just realized after doing all the shading I forgot to include the oil splatter on his jacket, sorry!) It was definitely a bit difficult due to the head shape being so different but.. fluffy. i love drawing fluff. And the glowing swirl on the goggles, the shape of the ears, I love a lot about this design. :D

I have a hard time with writing compliments but I wanted to get some of those thoughts out, some of the things I like about these designs apply to multiple lol. I adore every one of these designs but I find it hard to put into words what I enjoy about them, hope the original creators are happy with these. <3

I also kept the ggys without as much lighting effects on a separate file, I felt like I should add them since they're a bit brighter lol, makes them look different.

Okay now that I've gotten all that- Sorry this post is so long! I didn't think it'd end up taking up so much space lol. Buut.. working on this drawing and thinking about it and potential context behind it gave me an au idea for it, but I'll put it under the cut since I understand most people probably won't care and just wanna see the drawings lol.

Idk if I'm confident enough to write for it but I'll give a bit of a summary.. I'll keep it under the cut for people who aren't interested and just wanna see the art though lol.

After the main events of SB and Ruin, now that the mimic's been set free, Cassie's taken control of by what's left of Vanny, using her as a new host. But with Cassie being the only human left alive down there, after being reawakened, Dr. Rabbit has nowhere left to go but back to his old host.

Vanessa, Freddy, and Gregory hadn't gone back to the Pizzaplex after ruin, but they were trying to figure out a plan to get Cassie back safely. One night after Freddy and Gregory disappear, Vanessa leaves to go find them. As dangerous as the pizzaplex is, it's her best guess for where they might've gone. She doesn't want to think about what could've happened to them, in denial for the worst case scenario. She tries to keep herself calm by telling herself they probably just left to go back for Cassie, maybe they didn't want her stopping them.. but deep down she knows it can't be that simple. She knows something's off, even if she's not ready to admit it.

When returning to the pizzaplex, she brought along her own V.A.N.N.I. mask, though unlike the one Cassie used, it was clear of the mimic's influence. After all, she was going to need some way to travel through potential blocked routes.

By the time she found Gregory, she'd still been wearing the mask, seeing him down the end of a dark hallway. He looked confused, afraid, his mind was a wreck of conflicting emotions. She started rushing towards him, happy to see him okay, until he finally spoke.

"You need to get out of here."

She stepped back, taking off the mask, only to be faced with the worst case scenario.

It was a wreck, covered in stains and tears, but it was still recognizable. He was wearing that old suit again.

As he waved, she could see Freddy's claws peeking out from the doorway, as the two stepped closer towards her.

So, she did what he told her to do, and started running. She could hear a faint voice coming from the mask, and put it back on before finding somewhere she could hide.

It was his voice again, telling her which way to go.

I guess that was the dramatic way to summarize the main idea behind it, lol. Basically Gregory and Dr. Rabbit work the way Sun and Moon work in Ruin, whichever one is in control in the real world, the other is left behind in the AR world. Or at least that's my interpretation of how they worked, considering Sun was always in mask-on scenes and moon was mask-off. I'm not too sure where the plot might go from there, and maybe I'll consider writing for it, I dunno. I've never wrote fanfic before because I get deadly afraid of writing them out of character lol, but maybe?? I have ideas for scenes and premise and stuff but I don't know if I have the confidence to write it.

But anyway! That was just more of a fun side-idea I came up with while working on this, if you read this far thanks, hope you enjoyed :)

here's some silly little lineless doodles as a reward for making it to the end hehe

now that's what I call an art dump

@ggyweek2024

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Am I the asshole for watching a movie as a family without including my dad? Writing it out, I think I know the answer, but this has still been bugging me.

Around Thanksgiving I (30s) visited home. It was also a trip to see for my mom (late 60s) for her birthday, so I was there for a few days longer than a Thanksgiving trip would normally account for. My brother (30s) and his wife (30s) visited for her birthday too. My dad (early 70s) was there as well. They've been married over 30 years. Originally I'd planned to take everybody out to see a movie as a birthday present for my mom...but it turned out there was literally nothing at the theater that my mom was interested in at all. The town is pretty small, and the options were limited. So instead, we started out with a nice dinner, and family board game run-through of a trivia game we all thought we'd have some fun with. My mom ended up winning, which is rare and was not deliberate, and it wrapped the game up way faster than we'd anticipated.

My dad immediately went back into the living room after the game ended, openly a little annoyed that mom had won a trivia game based on something he considers himself the family expert in. He watches old reruns of the show he's seen a million times on a loop every day, and it can be pulling teeth to get him to do anything else. It was just a fluke, but something the rest of us considered a pleasant surprise since none of us had expected she'd win. But he was annoyed. Given that it was still early, Mom suggested we find a movie to watch online, so we could all wind down before bed with something the whole family could enjoy.

Dad said no. Now this feels like important context: I...have a lot of problems with my dad. I love him, but he can be extremely emotionally immature. Downright verbally abusive at times. And very petty. I'm in therapy in no small part due to some of the insecurities he instilled in me over the years. I've worked hard to set basic boundaries with him. He also has multiple medical issues, and I'm pretty sure he has untreated depression and other mental health problems he refuses to acknowledge that contribute to him flying off the handle at a moment's notice. That, combined with the fact that my mom will 100% never, ever leave him, because she was raised in a very specific mindset that she's never been fully able to shake...means my brother and I usually have to grit our teeth when he starts ranting/yelling/complaining during a visit, or we'd just end up ruining the day for our mom. She's done so much for us, and we just wanted her to have a good visit. So, that's what I did for most of the trip. I breathed deep when my dad openly mocked my stutter, and refused to get in a fight about it. I stopped myself from getting visibly upset when he tried to feed my cat table scraps even when I told him the cat needs a special diet. On other days I tried to watch his old shows with him, and ignored the sexist comments he'd make about the female leads, all for the sake of keeping the peace.

But, it was Mom's birthday. And she wanted to watch a movie.

And Dad said no.

He refused to give up his marathon of old westerns from 60 years ago to watch a new movie with his family on the big tv in the living room.

My mom seemed disappointed, so I suggested we watch one on my laptop in the kitchen instead. Without my dad, if he really wanted to watch his show instead. She agreed, and my brother, his wife, my mom and I filed into the kitchen, sat in less-than-comfy chairs, and watched a fantasy heist film that I'd thought they would all enjoy. And they did. My brother was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the movie (I'd already vouched for it being good, none of the others had seen it previously) His wife kept making notes for her dnd campaign. My mom found it hilarious, and liked that some actors from another show she liked were in it.

My dad stayed in the living room, watching his marathon.

Partway through the movie, he came in and asked us what we were watching. We told him, and he passed through the kitchen for something he needed, then said that we were being too loud. More context: the kitchen is right next to the living room, but my dad turns the tv up so loud in there it can get physically painful to be in the room with him. He refuses to get hearing aides, and only recently relented on subtitles. He also has a habit of screaming at anyone who tries to talk for a long time when his shows are on and they're in earshot, even if they're in a different room. We thought he couldn't hear it over his tv, and so when he said something we said sorry and that we'd try to keep it down, but we could already barely hear it through the laptop speakers. We already had subtitles turned on to make sure we didn't miss anything. When we told him that, he got even more annoyed. He asked how we'd like it if he turned the tv up so loud we couldn't understand anything, then proceeded to go into the living room and do just that, just as I was trying to figure out how much more we could lower the volume without losing our whole experience. We called in that we were already turning it down, and he finally turned his volume back down as well. We finished our movie, turning the volume down during action scenes and up during speaking scenes so we could actually hear the dialog. We enjoyed the rest of the film, and then people started getting ready for bed, and my mom went to check on my dad. She told me a few minutes later that he was hurt that we'd watched the movie without him. That he felt left out. I told her that he'd had multiple opportunities to join us, and that is was his choice not to watch with us. And honestly, the fact that he wouldn't give up the real tv for a couple hours so she could have a birthday movie was really upsetting to me.

She still seemed to feel bad that he was left out, and I'm a little worried that he might've sulked for days afterwards, leaving my mom in an even more stressful environment after I left. Am I the asshole for insisting my mom get to watch a movie on her birthday? And would I be the asshole if I told my dad off for what I consider to be extremely selfish behavior?

Also before anyone asks, no, I'm not cutting him off. It's literally impossible to do that without pretty much cutting off my mom as well, and she absolutely doesn't deserve that. And yes, I've offered up my apartment as a place she can stay if she ever needs to. Repeatedly. She hasn't taken me up on it yet.

What are these acronyms?

[frownyalfred]

tl;dr: what's your opinion on posting roleplay replies on ao3?

i know they are frowned upon on ao3, at least that's what i've seen so far, which i can understand... to some extend. they are allowed in the archive, yes, but they also clock tags and it's annoying to read something you don't understand without the other replies and further context. they are tolerated, but i get the sentiment.

here's the thing... i rarely write for myself. i enjoy writing with others and building something together, and sometimes i create pieces i'd love to share. like, recently i have written a reply for someone that explores two different bruce's; one that has helena wayne/the huntress as his biological daughter, one that doesn't, how she got cursed into another universe, and how one deals with losing his child, while the other tries to re-order his life in order to make her fit. it's something beautiful that works on it's own, something i am very fond and proud of, but i'm torn on wether i should post it or not.

i could've kept the fact it's from roleplay a secret, but that also feels shit, lmao. i could keep it to tumblr, but no one would read what i put out -- let's be real, tumblr works very different compared to ao3. so i thought i'd give reaching out to one of my favorite authors a chance.

sorry for the lenght, feel no need to answer.

Hmm. I guess I haven't given it a ton of thought before now. I don't usually engage in roleplay myself, but I absolutely view it as a legitimate version of creation. Just because it's created a certain way doesn't mean it doesn't belong on ao3 -- it's an archive for transformative works, not just cookie-cutter fic formats.

I would say, err on the side of caution and tag as much as you're comfortable (tagging things after the required ao3 warnings is always optional, I want to reiterate, but sometimes additional tags help readers a lot). Make sure it's clear what the structure of the work is, if possible, but don't do yourself a disservice by making roleplay a dirty word, if you use it.

I don't think you're "clogging" up the tag, any more than the person writing 139/250 50 word individual fics haha. There will always be floods of content in various tags, and people who throw shitfits about that need to grow up. Unless someone is breaking the ao3 TOS, everything else is "etiquette" and that truly is nebulous and subjective, even if people will insist it isn't.

As for the missing context and replies -- I think that's something you can get creative with, if you want. But also, if you never fill in those blanks or provide that context, that's okay too. It's an archive, not a site where you have to actively promote your fic and make it the most appealing it can be to the largest group of people.

A final note on context though: I've found that the roleplay chunks I do come across in the wild look a lot like dialogue planning I do for some fics! If you ever want to turn them into a traditional fic structure, I don't think you're very far off at all. But only if you wanted! As I said above, I think what you have is 100% legitimate and should stand on its own on ao3.

[scottmemelordstrashpile]

My Murder Drones series review. (WARNING: SPICY TAKES CONTAINED WITHIN AS WELL AS GENERAL SERIES SPOILERS.) (UPDATED for the August 2024 series finale!)

___________________________________________________________

I hate to say it but I think I'm just done with the series at this point. Or if nothing else I've just kinda stopped giving a shit. At most I might continue to watch out of morbid curiosity but I'm past the point of caring about it on any other level. I'm just here to watch the fire burn.

I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. I really did. But the problems I have with the show just kinda continue to persist. It's sort of a death by a million cuts thing where my issues just continue to pile higher and higher with each new episode.

Please don't take this as a personal attack if you like the show, if you enjoy it that's fine. You're entitled to. This is just my own opinion however if you don't want to read me being overtly negative and critical of the series then feel free to just continue scrolling. If however you'd like to know more then I implore you to click the "Keep reading" button and you can get a better understanding of why I feel this way and why I have a love-hate relationship with this show.

(Author's note August 2024: Originally I wrote this shortly after Episode 7 first came out however I have returned to make some small additions after the premiere of the series finale. That being said most of my thoughts haven't really changed much.)

___________________________________________________________

I have tried very hard to push my feelings aside and put on a positive face.

I kept telling myself "Maybe they'll get better as they go. Maybe the storytelling will get better as it goes on." but every episode I just feel even more confused and frankly kind of annoyed.

Everything just goes by so quickly, we're almost never given time to ruminate or rest. Sometimes it feels like entire scenes are missing with how it jumps between things. Hell, a good example is in-between episodes 4 and 5 where it feels like we missed something in-between. (Episode 5 in general is very confusing and probably my absolute least favorite, but that aside.) The last scene we see is Uzi and N falling asleep on the bus then somehow I guess we're back at the colony in Uzi's room and V is there too now? We don't even know V is there too until later either. At first we think it's just N but then it's revealed V is also unconscious. (And I guess also somehow hooked up to the same simulation or whatever N is? Also how do they know the parts neither of them were there for?) This is just a single example but they do things like this more than once. Jumping between scenes with no context.

It's still unclear who did what or why and they killed off Doll who was like the only character that had a definite motivation which also annoyed me. She was like the only character we actually had a very solid understanding of so to see her get killed off without a thought was almost kind of symbolic with how the writing in this show is. (Though I guess at the same time even Doll didn't 100% make sense like for instance why she was perfectly fine with slaughtering random members of the colony just like the DDs that killed her parents even though they hadn't wronged her or anything to warrant it. I understand she likely needed to due to the solver infection but during the prom scene for instance she kills two random worker drones for basically no reason, just because she could.)

I don't really get the point of masquerading as Tessa when it's pretty much stated outright she can basically brainwash drones by rewriting their memories and programming. And the whole "I wanted you to keep your original personality" spiel just seemed like a lame excuse if I'm going to be honest. (This section has been altered due to later revelations.)

The show just seems to never actually answer any questions and just continuously piles on more and more questions with the few it does answer.

But if I went into intricate detail on every little thing that bothers me or doesn't make any sense I'd be writing a novel and this post is already getting kind of long and ranty. Plus I feel like that'd be a bit petty of me to do. (In addition to just taking way too long.)

(Obviously the part below was written before it was confirmed Episode 8 was going to be the end for the foreseeable future.)

I know I said before I would reserve my judgement until after the show is "Over" so I guess I kind of lied. But since what I presume to be Season 1 is coming to a close and it'll probably be a long while before Season 2 is announced if Glitch's previous tendencies are any indication I'd say it's a decent enough time to form an opinion. If the show hasn't got me by the end of the first season I feel like something might be wrong. I will not deny, it could also just be the show isn't for me to begin with which I guess I can respect. So I won't go out of my way to say it's bad, but I don't like it. And considering there's only one episode left of season 1 I highly doubt it's going to save it for me. It feels like I'm watching the series out of context when I'm not.

Me from August 2024: So now that we know Season 2 is bunk and the future of the series if any at all is uncertain I think I can safely say the series did a really bad job of conveying it's lore to the viewer.

I also really dislike how the series uses so many "Blink and you'll miss it." moments to dispense lore. It gets really tiring, I shouldn't have to analyze a show frame by frame just to have an idea of what is going on. I hate to act like I'm an authority here but I feel like that's bad writing. It feels like the writer(s) completely misunderstand the idea of "Show, don't tell." almost completely.

In general the show suffers from how rushed everything is likely due to its short 8 episode format, but instead of trying to fit the narrative to their limitations it seems like they're trying to cram all of this lore and information into these tiny 8 episodes and the result is a confusing mess.

Now I'm not familiar with Vicker's history but I would assume this is likely his first big project that has gotten this much attention. It feels like he's trying to go way too big and it shows. The show is almost hurt by it's own ambition to be this big sprawling narrative with deep lore and intricate detail when it probably would've been smarter to go for a much more straightforward or simple form of storytelling.

I feel like it would have been a better idea to instead filter things a bit more, knowing that we only have 8 episodes I feel like they should've cut out any unnecessary elements and tried to get everything across that they wanted to as concisely as possible. Like if something wasn't 100% necessary to the narrative it should probably be removed and things that ARE important to the narrative should've been more concisely presented.

In general the show seems to suffer from over ambition, despite that severe restriction. It feels like the 8 episode limit hurt it more than anything not to mention with how expensive the series is to produce I can see another reason why they would want to rush things and not take too much time to let things flow naturally.

I also see a lot of people praising Uzi and N's relationship as well as V's "Character development" but honestly I didn't see much of it at all. Again everything feels so rushed, from our perspective at most Uzi has only known N for a few days at most same for V, it almost feels like kind of whiplash from how she goes from being uncaring psycho to laying down her life for the others.

And while we're on the subject another thing that bothered me a lot about the series was it's seeming indecision on whether it wanted to be series or not, pretty much all of the time. Characters practically die left and right in the series and none of it is taken seriously most of the time infact the characters reactions are usually "lol, lmao even." most of the time so it felt really jarring and not in a good way when V's apparent death was treated so seriously and dramatically when before characters were dropping left and right without a care in the world.

I'm honestly not even sure what Doll's point for existing even is beyond her debut episode either since she doesn't really play much of a role beyond it or really do anything too interesting afterwards. Barring the trap that led to V's death she kind of just exists. Until she doesn't. I feel like she was a waste of potential like a lot of things in the show so far. She COULD have served as an interesting foil/mirror antagonist to Uzi but that potential was basically thrown into the trash.

Here's hoping that Season 2 is allowed to have better pacing because... yeah I'm a bit tired of the plot going a million miles at once.

During GlitchX it was hinted that Season 2 might happen and I recall Liam saying something implying that Season 1 is "Just the setup." so one can hope I suppose.

Me from August 2024: Yup, unfortunately we know now none of that is happening. Oof.

Anyway yeah, probably not going to be discussing it as frequently anymore. So if you were only here for my insane Murder Drones related ranting and want to unfollow now, that's perfectly fine. But I can't ignore my feelings any longer.

I'll still talk about it, but probably not with the same passion I used to. Again it sucks because I really wanted to like the series but... yeah they just keep fucking it up.

Oh yeah, everything else is fantastic though the animation, the voice acting, the soundtrack... I just wish the writing was on-par... I feel like the problem is they're being overly ambitious and trying to cram all of this lore and plot into these mere 8 episodes and it just isn't enough.

I may return to this to make an addition after Episode 8 finally drops on the off chance it somehow changes my opinion, but I doubt it...

Me from August 2024: So yeah, it didn't in fact it kind of went exactly how I expected and almost emphasized everything I said was wrong with the series. We got no answers, lots of flashy action and even a seemingly cliffhanger ending but none of the burning questions were answered and many dangling plot threads were just outright ignored...

I'd also like to take this time to once again emphasize I REALLY WANTED TO LIKE THIS SERIES, I can't stress that enough. Especially because I love robots and media focusing on robots since we don't get that too often. But the series just seem to keep disappointing me more and more with each episode. And it makes me sad. I'm disappointed because I cared and wanted to see the series improved and grow but frankly at a certain point it kind of just started freefalling.

My disappointment cannot be properly conveyed in words.

Feel free to leave thoughts and such I guess. But I'm probably the only idiot that feels this way.

[garrettwrites]

Warning: discussions of homophobia; extremely negative rant over a popular lgbt book.

Post context: I waited a decade to read a certain retelling book that focuses on the development of an lgbt couple, one which has been discussed over the centuries. I'm doing my best to censor its title and characters, so this post doesn't show up in the tags for people who genuinely love this story. The title, one I now view as overrated, is something along the lines of a song about a certain popular greek hero with long blond hair and a particularly fragile heel. I wanted to read the original, the Iliad, first. I was so excited... and finally, I read the Iliad and other classical texts, I studied ancient history, and I was finally in the mood to start, paired with good knowledge of the characters that would feature in it AND the historical context... Only to find out I shouldn't have waited. 14/15 year old me would have loved this. Current me cannot. I find most reviewers must have either been high while reading, or have taken this book as teenagers, because there is no way an adult over the age of 25 with some degree of reading experience would have not seen the glaring problems with this book.

Disclaimer, if you care - I have no problem with story alterations. I can be critical of them, sure. But even that won't stop me from enjoying something. I think Percy Jackson should have followed a more greek setup, and I don't particularly fancy some of the worldbuilding choices, but those books were and still are among my favourite fantasy stories. Even though they're for children. Even though I've read Tolkien. I'm no elitist, nor do I believe shit can't be changed to make a compelling story. What I do have a problem with is how you present information, and how you distort it.

For instance, if you wanted to write a story about Ariadne and her godly husband set in the year of 1850 for some reason, and make opium play a role? I think that's a fucking weird setting. But it could work, if you stuck true to what characterises them, their relationship, and had a story with a beggining middle and end that tries to show something.

Going back to the retelling that inspired this "rant review". I'll let others more qualified than me to talk about the sexism. What shocked me here was the gay lovestory that reads so homophobic in how cliché it is that it hurts.

This story reads as "when you're so progressive you gotta turn a gay couple made up of two masculine, warrior like, war drowned men into "the hot warrior and his healer who hates fighting" so it fits into (the already sexist/misogynistic) heterosexual couple role".

Because god forbid you have a gay couple where you actually need to deconstruct masculinity without villainizing it. God forbid you actually need to write men into a gay story. God forbid these men are not good, and you need to get into their complexity. God forbid the pov character, who is written as a love struck maiden, has a life outside his strong warrior that helps contextualise his love for him.

Listen. Feminine men are amazing. Gay feminine men are too. I have plenty of original characters that fit within these labels. What I do not do is turn two ancient greek warriors into an early 2000s seme uke yaoi dynamic where one of them is a fragile maiden war tent housewife and the other a very hot but detached strong soldier god man. This is not the story to do that. And even if you play with gender roles and have a man take a more "womanly" role, it's not enough to just genderswap - a character is still badly written regardless of wether they're male or female.

If the housewife character here was a woman, I guarantee everyone who praises this book would be losing their marbles. A woman with no personality outside her lover? Afraid of fighting, of standing up, of speaking up, and this never changes? Who becomes a healer not because she studies it, but because her fragile soul has no other option? Who is passive as all hell in the story until the author remembers she has to die in an impactful manner to trigger her male love interest? That is two dimensional and no way to write a girl, and it's not suddenly okay just because this girl has a dick and is a him.

Yet cause it's gay it's okay to write such an insipid character. Praised even. Which is made even worse, because the original version was a man who yes - indeed - was kind to others yet an absolute beast on the battlefield. Who had opinions and gave counsel. This is not even an original character - I wouldn't criticise an original character as harshly, but this author changed a fighter with incredible skill, who killed a son of a god and was a hero in his own right, into this. A character who yes, was kind and beloved. But touched by war regardless. A character who was loved by those around him, but in this book is ridiculed by these very same people.

Why do you think that is.

And no, trying to make the story more anti war is not an answer. The Iliad is anti war. The Iliad literally comments on how war corrupts what it touches, how it fucked up the lives of everyone involved. This is not a modern take on an old story, because the old story in question already talks about it.

But what can I expect, here. I could call this a work that doesn't know how to write gay men without adhering to (already dated even for straight people) gender roles... but truth is? Author doesn't know how to write women either. The moment you unironically think Helen of Troy is just a vain little hot chick you should not be allowed to write an Iliad retelling, me thinks.

Oh, and let's not get into the fact both main characters are meant to be gay. They're not bisexual. Yet this book - a GAY ROMANCE - is not shy about shoving straight sex scenes onto you. Sex scenes with really no purpose, for they're never brought up again later, and have no story impact.

I am not kidding. Character A gets D pregnant, Character P barely reacts to it, and when D gets upset at P for whatever reason THE TWO OF THEM HAVE SEX TOO. NOTHING AS GAY AS FUCKING THE WOMAN IMPREGNATED BY YOUR BOYFRIEND, UH?! And it's never brought up again! Nobody forces Character P into this yet he willingly goes? Excuse me, if you wanted these characters to have sex with women so casually, why not just make them bisexual and open to banging outside their relationship?

It reads as so disgusting, to have an author clearly lean into a soulmate trope, then just pull some of the most uncomfortable to read sex scenes ever outside that soulmate couple (I love purple prose. Purple prose is probably the only reason I didn't hate this book - the writing was beautiful. But the way the sex with Character D goes... good lord it's written in such a puke inducing way). I'm not against poly in books, what I am against is leaning into monogamous tropes for a gay couple, where you write neither of them as bisexual (which, btw, bi-erasure of the original characters) but then have them bang outside their relationship EVEN when nobody is forcing them to. Never have I read a gay book where straight sex is pushed forward so much. And it's not just even weird for the gay couple, it's also written in a really odd way for the women involved.

"Oh you just don't get the theme! It was out of pity! It was-" turn this into a straight romance and tell me, with a straight face, that this story is well written. Bad character development, bad usage of tropes, terrible pacing, and the use of sex outside the main romance purely for reader self insertion (for it contributes with nothing but shoddy erotica, in a book supposedly about AxP) should not be excused just because a book is gay.

Honestly. "Let people enjoy things" well I propose let me be a hater. I went above and beyond to block the book and character names, let's hope it's enough. But I'm against not criticising things just because they're diverse. It's 2024. There's plenty of authors writing good stories with marginalised people.

And let's talk about LGBT+ worldbuilding, shall we? In the beggining of this book - set in Ancient Greece by the way - it's stated men could take male lovers on the side. Then it's not brought up again, until later a woman tells P many married men take lovers on the side. This girl was originally a sex slave by the way, and here she gets Stockholm Syndrome and falls for P. But then another character tells P he's too old to be into men? So, which is it? It's not even a thing about ancient greek men having that thing where it was accepted for an older man to be sexually involved with a young boy, because here the problem brought up is P being too old, not his lover being too old too.

Oh, and the love interest's (A's) mother. She hates their relationship. We are told she hates their relationship because P is mortal and she doesn't want a mortal to be with her son. Yet later on she arranges a marriage between her son and a MORTAL woman. So is the problem really mortality, or homosexuality?

Why is there modern day homophobia in a story that many praise for historical accuracy?

I honestly hate how people care about representation at the cost of quality. It is mind boggling to me that a woman in this century wrote a book more homophobic and misogynistic than greeks almost 3 thousand years ago did.

[teddybeartoji]

MICKEY LOVES TLOU2

here are a fuck ton of thoughts and things i love and things that i've just noticed during my multiple playthroughs!!! i really love this game and i really wanted to talk about it lmao ppl so enjoy lmao!!! though if you know nothing abt the game... this might be very boring bc it's not like i give a lot of context to my thoughts😭😭whatever this was for me okay!!!!!!!!!!!

⚠︎ spoilers spoilers hardcore spoilers i am talking abt every death known to mankind i am not holding anything back type of spoilers ⚠︎

ELLIE

— i have a love/hate relationship with her<3 let's not get into the fact that i also kin her btw this is so irrelevant i adore her and i also kind of want to punch her in the face<333

— i love how much she fidgets. she plays with her fingers and she does this thing where she rubs her chin against her shoulder when she's nervous. it all just makes her so much more real. (i also.. do both of those things. ok no let's not get into that cough)

— when ellie and dina find a clicker crawling on the floor during day one and it very obviously scares ellie and then dina asks her whether she's ok like the good girlfriend that she is, to which ellie first replies 'yeah' with a shaky voice only to clear her throat and give dina a way stronger 'yeah'. as if she's trying to act a bit tougher yk? (ok here's a lil link from a gameplay if u actually wanna hear the difference)

— i love how much ellie fucks up. gonna talk abt the first game here too bc i want to. when she first meets david, she does well by getting the man to give up his gun but then a few minutes later we find out that david had another gun which ellie didn't know abt simply bc she didn't ask abt it!!!!!!!!!!!! she could've died just there.

and then later when david is telling her all about how joel killed all his men and everything, ellie doesn't hear the other man having a gun on her. boom she could've been dead right there. she only lives bc david is a fucking pedophile yayyy

it's just very clear that she is, in fact, a fourteen year old lmao i'm not saying that she should've actually done anything differently - i am actually very very happy with the way they portrayed her there.

and she's the same way in the second one too. she acts very very tough, but she's clumsy and she lets her guard down way too easily. AND IT'S REALISTICCC PLEASEE I'M NOT DISSING HER I LOVE THIS LITTLE DETAIL SOOO SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!

on day two, when she finally reaches the hospital and she's met with her first proper wolf; ellie holds a knife to whitney's throat to ask about nora (the girl she's looking for) and when whitney does tell her the info she needs, ellie kind of zones out for a mere second but that's enough for whitney to yank out of her hold and it almost ends very badly. it's very stupid. even she herself says so.

and on day three, when we're finally met with mel and owen, ellie tries to do the infamous joel and tommy interrogation move. but she fucks it up so bad.

for those who might not know what the fuck i'm talking abt - the move includes having two ppl being faced away from each other, so you can ask one of them to write down the information you want without the other seeing the answer. and then you let the other person do the same, and if the info matches - they're telling the truth!! yayy!!!!!

ellie has both of the people in front of her, so owen would've been able to see exactly where mel is pointing lmao. and then she let's them both get way too close which ends up owen going for her gun and then everything just goes to hell. and she gets fucking nothing out of it other than three more kills.

she also lets nora to get to her, too. the latter brings up joel and the second ellie's gun lowers just an inch, nora smacks her in the face with a fucking platter and therefore is able to make a run for it.

another thing that goes well with this point is just the fact that she is very emotional. gets angry very easily and she tends to act very irrationally. #she's literally me

— have never been angrier when ellie put a knife to lev because ????? lev is THE only reason dina and jj and ellie herself are alive?????????? abby would've 100% killed all of them (rightfully so i'm afraid) but lev was the one that made her stop and now she's threatening to kill him????? be so serious rn ellie my dear

— i hated playing the santa barbara part and i died during the last fight way too many times simply because i was so afraid that i'd actually have to kill abby. i.. thought about not finishing the game lmao

— the last scene of the game............................. i cried so hard. i also cried when they showed us the 'fight' ellie and joel had during the night in jackson bc i was so afraid that that was their last interaction yk? so when we see joel strumming his guitar on his porch.... ohhhhhhhhh:(((( the fact that he says that he'd do it all again. ellie saying that she'd like to try and forgive him and joel crying??????????? just fucking shoot me okay this hurts so fucking bad

and joel bringing up dina ever so gently, being the old man that he is, he tries to show his support even though he knows that ellie probably doesn't even want it................

JOEL

— joel giving his name and lending a hand to a complete stranger after playing the tough guy for over 20 years only for it to blow it up so fucking terribly in his face is just.................... awful my heart still hurts btw

— yes i think he deserved it yes i love him yes i cried so hard that i needed to pause the game

his death didn't really come as a surprise though,, not to sound like some pick-me but i did assume that they'd be fireflies bc........... oh i wonder that was the Big Thing Joel Did In The First Game That Could Come And Bite Him In The Ass yk?? he took away the possibility of a vaccine and he also killed a hospital full of people like joel is not a good man lmao I STILL LOVE HIM THOUGHHH

— joel taught ellie how to swim:(((((((((((((((((((((((((( and then just the whole museum thing aaaaaaaaaaaarrghhhhh yes i cried during this part too. i love how much more open he is at that point, like he's more than comfortable talking about sarah and it's just soo:((((((((((((((

and ohhh the way joel looks at ellie when he's handing her the tape:(((

and hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh the fact that joel kept the little dinosaur pamphlet too:((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((everything hurts please send help

— joel vs abby and the group + the moose vs the wolves statue in the museum yeaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

— joel reading the comic book that ellie is into to have something to talk to her about................................................... i'm so sad

THE JACKSON CREW

— i LOVED JESSSEEEEEEE btw during my first playthrough i was just thinking abt what a cool guy he is and how i hope that nothing happens to him and then he got shot in the face literally in the next scene yeah that was just so amazing thank you game)

and aaaaaahhhh his little enterance was such a big surprise to me!!!!! ok i think it was for everybody actually,, i think that was done really really well

— AND I ABSOLUTELY ADORE DINAA!!!!!!!!!!!! i think she did nothing wrong i think she's perfect!!!!!!!!!! i loved loved loved how gentle she was with ellie until the end,, she loved ellie sm:(((

— tommy.............................................. now that was heartbreak. i can't even descibe the hurt i felt when he brought up abby again......... and when he snaps at ellie for not wanting to go after her....... ouch ouch ouch that genuinely hurt so fucking much bc i loved tommy so bad!!!! i do think that he is in the wrong, i think that he is mostly just bitter about maria fucking leaving him so he's now trying to idk take back time or some shit. i'm not saying that he should be grateful to be alive but... he should. abby could've fucking decimated the whole group (she almost did) and now you're here still obsessing over her

— maria is so hot btw thanks for listening to my ted talk

ABBY

— i love her<3 and i think the only bad thing she ever was did was that she killed jesse (rip my king i loved him sm)

— :33 if you have anything bad to say about her i will not hear it.

— if i ever happen to see another 'who's winning' poll with abby and ellie with ellie fucking winning i am burning down earth because what the fuck are you guys on. even after being strung up on a pole under the californian sun with no food and nothing to drink, she almost won against ellie. who btw had a knife.

and the threater fight????????? abby only had her fists and bricks and bottles while ellie had her ENTIRE BAG including her knife and a shotgun and a bow and trapmines and she still couldn't kill abby????? yeah cmon now abby would fucking eat ellie for breakfast

— but yeah i fucking love abby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i think her storyline is so fucking good and i just overall think that uhh she's a better person than ellie<3 sue me okay sue me i still love ellie but man you cannot deny that abby didn't have a redemption arc while ellie litERALLY STILL WENT AFTER HER IN THE ENDDDD??????????

the way abby turns against the wolves and takes lev under her arm is just soooo:(((((((( they mean the world to me

— omfg and when abby teaches lev what the word 'cool' means but he then messes it up later, saying 'cold' instead😭😭THAT'S MY SONN FR!!!!!!!!!

THE WOLVES (aka the washington liberation front aka the w.l.f)

— i hate owen. i hate owen with every fiber in my body. gets mel pregnant and then just decides to up and leave yeah okay pussy. "we're allowed to be happy." YEAH AND SO DOES MEL ASSHOLE BUT NOW SHE HAS YOUR KID INSIDE HER DURING A FUCKING APOCALYPSE ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME BY ANY CHANCE

i'm sounding like a proper mel pussy rider rn i promise u that i don't actually care that much abt her i just think that... no matter whether owen likes mel or not - he has to take some fucking responsibility for getting her pregnant

btw i have NEVER read a room more wrong than the boat scene. is that bc they're straight?? idk man i was genuinely so upset with owen and with the way he was talking to abby and just the way he was acting and then they.. do That. what

also. he never asked abby about the fuCKING BRUISE AROUND HER NECKKKK???????????????????? kys man i am an owen hater until i die lmao

— the wolves having a goodbye saying of "may your survival be long" and "may your death be swift"

so when nora tells abby the first line as they part in the hospital but abby replies back with "and may my death be swift" is the most insane foreshadowing in the world because only a few hours later ellie arrives at the hospital, beating nora to death in a very slow and a painful manner:3

GAMEPLAY

— INCREDIBLEEEEEEEE genuinely think that the gameplay is fucking extraordinaly i love the weapon sway i love getting oneshotted by a shotgun i love going prone (and yes i keep wanting to say prone bone don't look at me) i love using a bow while laying down on the ground???????? i love breaking glass i love rope mechanics

— SEATTLE DAY 2 WHEN ELLIE IS ALONE AND SHE FINDS A LETTER SAYING THAT FIVE WLF PPL HAVE DESERTED THE GROUP AND ARE NOW ON THE RUN + ELLIE GETTING ATTACK IN THE MIDDLE OF BEING ON THE WORKBENCH SCREEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the little things leading up to that are fucking amazing 1. ellie makes noise no matter how she gets into the building - she either breaks glass or if she gets in from the basement, there are bottles set up by the door so when she opens it they all fall, letting the wolves know that someone is coming 2. there are still growing tomatoes in the apartment, a very tell-tale sign of yk.. somebody living in there lmao 3. ellie finds a locked door and it's just so crazy to think that there are actually people inside that room

hearing the footsteps when you think that you're safely in a you know A Pause Screen was fucking terrifying it scared the shit out of me i loved it

— love the fact that you can hide under things but what i love even more is that enemies do check the places!!!!!!!!!!!! they crouch down and they check it and they fucking pull you out from whatever you're hiding under and that is also fucking scary as shit lmao

— the fact that both big groups have their own Things: the wolves have the dogs (lol) and the seraphites like to communicate by whistling!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i think it's very fun and innovative

plus points to the whistles bc they're even worse while you're playing grounded bc the game doesn't tell you what whistle is what whistle like it does while you're playing it on normal. you gotta remember them yourself if you want to get ahead<333

— overall i love how realistic the combat is?? like the weapon sway is fucking horrid but... that's the point of it, isn't it?? like none of these people are meant to be fucking sharpshooters and you're all bound to miss a fuck ton bc that's just the way it is. and that also makes hitting headshots sooooo much more satisfying too oh my god i love that

— AND I LOVE HOW GNARLY THE COMBAT IS!!!!!!!!!! dismembered limbs and bits and pieces of their people's bodies sliding down the walls after you shoot them with something heavy rrraaaahhhhhh

and the way the blood pools after you kill somebody??? like you can actually see it spread on the ground it's so fucking sick and if you happen to step in it, you leave bloody footprints behind you as well

— the way people cry out when you kill a dog:(((( the way they call their name yeahhhh.... and i do actually love that they put dogs in the game like it's fucking awful and it feels so fucking bad but it's real isn't it?? and like i don't really know if any other game has done smth like this too i think it's a very interesting thing. and the fact that they're very, very hard to deal with.. bc it's not like you can fucking sneak up on a dog now can you???? so the game just forces you to think of new ways to do things!! plus points for making the player feel bad by showing the dogs through abby's eyes later too (like u can play ball with a dog named 'bear' knowing that... you have most definitely killed said dog a day before as ellie....)

— stalkers are fucking terrifying. literally almost shat myself when i first met them. i love it. an absolutely fucked up concept like wdym there are mfs in the room with me who aren't really attacking but just.. looking at me from behind corners and shit???????????? fuck you game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! a very very good design imo!!!!!!!!!!!

— i think it's very fun how the game developers used space. everyone who has played games that are even remotely similar to tlou are used to scouring every crook and nanny of an area assuming that they're gonna find loot but here... there's just a lot of empty space lmao it sounds annoying and it is, but that doesn't make it a dumb little thing i think it just makes the game even more realistic.

— they do this in the first game too but man the attention to detail is insane. you know you actually have to move SLOWLY if you want to be quiet??????????? like typically the fact that you're crouching down is sufficent but not in this one. simply crouching down is just more for like taking cover,, the enemies and esp the clickers will still hear you perfectly if you're trying to 'sneak' around without slowing down your movements!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i think it's a very neat mechanic. this also made me almost quit the game when i first played it because i didn't understand it lmao

MORE OVERALL THOUGHTS

— LESBIAN ELLIEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A FEMALE LESBIAN MAIN CHARACTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! love that she's not bisexual either, like they very clearly even state that she is NOT into men lmao and i fucking love that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

— BUFF ABBBYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH MY GODD SHE'S SO FUCKING AMAZING AND SO HOTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i remember seeing all the hate the character got just bc of her physique like ok cowards just say that you're afraid of women lmao

— LEV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WE HAVE A TRANS CHARACTERR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this sounds like bare minimum and i hate that i have to praise it so bad i wish we had more trans characters but oh my god i love him so fucking much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and i just love his storyline so much too wahh he's my baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

— exceptional soundtrack!!!!!!! i really fucking love it i think the music adds to the scenes so fucking much and gustavo and mac did such a good job with it i owe them my life

— GOING AGAINST TOMMY WAS FUCKING TERRIFYING BTW!!!!! when i finally realized what day i was on and where exactly i was i just... paused the game to rethink my whole life. having told that tommy is one hell of a sniper throughout the first and the second game only to let THE PLAYER go against him.. FOULLLLLL THAT WAS FUCKING HORRIBLEEEE

and i loved that he was used the same move he literally taught ellie earlier in the game - to shoot against cars to attract the infected and to make the players life even worse:33 thanks tommy:3333

ANDDDDD manny's death...... oh my fucking god. that's just another thing i really love abt the game,, like how easily people die. it only took a second for tommy to pop a bullet into his head and it just happened so fucking fast and you don't really have any time to even think about it bc then you already have to move forward. there's no time to mourn or anything.

— the point of it all being the vicious cycle of violence. the game just fucking hammers down it; ellie vs abby, joel vs the fireflies, the wolves vs the seraphites - it's just retaliation upon retaliation. and in the end abby is the only one who truly breaks out of it

— ellie's iconic quote from the first game "i'm scared of ending up alone" becoming real. she doesn't have joel, she doesn't have dina or jj, doesn't have tommy or jesse either. it's just her and the old, empty house.

— ellie losing the fingers she uses to play the one song joel taught her..................................... she really doesn't have anything, does she?

— THE VISUALSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OHHH MY FUCKINGG GODD IT'S ALL SOO BEAUTIFULL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i love the overgrown city thing soo so much i think it's just so gorgeous when moss and plants and vines just grow all over everything and the grass is long and wahhh

like aaaahhh!!!!!!!!!!!! this is soo cool!!!!!!!!!! sorry if the quality is fucking garbage but aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!! i want more games in settings like this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

— MORE ABOUT THE LITTLE THINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! flies. you can hear flies flying around before you're about to run into an infected place. and if it's not flies, than it's the stench - ellie makes notice of the bad smell around her yk signaling that there are rotting corpses and stuff laying around

— THE LITTLE SIDE STORIES THAT YOU GET TO READ ABOUT ARE SOOO COOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you find all these papers and letters, all different stories depending on what chapter you're in. you get to read about boris the archer who loses his shit when the wolves kill her daughter, and who ends up locking alive people into a room with spores bc they didn't want to go against the wolves. and then you get to read about a wolf who gets saved by a seraphite, and who ends up actually joining the other side!!!! idk i think they're such an interesting little feature to add to a game

— THE FIRST PROPER ENCOUNTER WITH THE SERAPHITES IS CRAZYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! here's a little link bc u really need to experience it okay i can't really put it into words even after playing it a few times that still makes me flinch lmao again

— to go with the point above: i think the horror/thriller aspect and the pacing of the game is just fucking brilliant. you've just gotten out of a fight and are now hoping to catch your breath but then as you're walking through the dark woods, you hear whistles??????? and then a hanging body?????????? but you don't see anyone else and you're just like????????????????????????????? and then the arrow happens and it scares the fuck out of you yay thanks game (affectionate i think the scare is very good i love getting jumped)

— you can find safes with a bunch of goodies in them, and while there is always a piece of paper with the code on it, you can actually just listen for the right clicks and you can open the safe without ever finding said piece of paper!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THOUGHS ABOUT GROUNDED (so far.. i'm more than halfway done with it)

— this is the hardest mode you could play on: there's no hud (you cannot see your health AT ALL and the only way to see how much ammo and stuff you have is when you go to your inventory, meaning that you mostly have to keep count of your bullets on your own)

— there's little to NO loot at all. i've had to go through areas with TWO BULLETS AND A BRICK yeah that wasn't too fun i won't even lie

— idk whether enemies actually have more health but you do have to consider that body shots don't do all that much,, so headshots are crucial

— a single shot can kill you:3 you don't have a big health bar to start with but considering that you're bound to take a hit no matter how stealthily you're trying to play - you're not even at max health for the most of the time.

— YOU HAVE TO BE SO FUCKING PATIENT. at first i thought that running would have to be the way to go in quite a few areas just bc there are so many enemies and so little resources but that does not work. at all. you're very likely spotted (and they can fucking hear you) and most of the doors in the areas need you to kind of push them open? so that takes time too and well yeah if you're spotted that you can't fucking do that lmao

so going in guns blazing is obviously not an option either because you just don't have the ammo for it actually wait if this is coming off as me just sucking at the game by not having any ammo i'll have u know that i am actually doing relatively well i beat my first boss on the first try okay let me be

you have to make use of the few bricks and bottles that you find and you really have to master the Dodge move... smhh fists and knives it is bUT THEN AGAIN IT'S NOT LIKE I CAN GO AGAINST FIVE PEOPLE WITH GUNS AND DOGS WITH A FUCKING KNIFE NOW CAN I anyway i'm fine i'm doing okay actually don't talk to me

— but i am loving it. despite how hard it is at times, i definitely feel proud for even making it this far and i am very happy with how i'm doing. i'm also watching a gameplay on the side and the differences between the way he's playing and the way i'm forced to play are very funny!!!!

— oh!!!!!!!!! and one of my favourite things abt grounded is that you can't use listening mode at all!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i'm not a fan of it anyway but it does come in handy when you're in an area with a lot of enemies and a lots and lots of cover. not being able to get an understanding where somebody is can definitely be scary lmao i have uhh gotten shot in the head just as i take a corner bc well.. i didn't know... he was... there..... hgasghahgsghahgsahg STILL VERY FUN THOUGH!!!!!

— i'm pretty sure that enemies can also hear you reloading your gun if they're close enough lmao

++ OKOK THIS IT FOR NOW LMAO!!!!!! this felt really really good thank you for reading if you have actually reached the end,, i genuinely love talking about this game and all the small little nuances of it!!!!!!!!!!!! if u ever have any questions about it... or just wanna share ur own thoughts abt it my inbox is always open:333333 LOVE YOUU!!

[theycallmebecca]

Drabble: Smooth Hips Turner

Today is @nomadicpixel birthday and a few days ago I asked if there was something she'd like me to write her for birthday. Her answer was something hockey romance, with either Cole Turner, Andy Barber or Colin Shea. I had an idea immediately... but that one didn't work out... and I'd given up all hopes of actually being able to write something when this little scene popped into my head this afternoon. Enjoy!

Title: Smooth Hips Turner

Pairing: Cole Turner x female reader

Rating: G

Warnings: n/a

Disclaimer: This work of fiction is not to be reposted, used or translated without my permission.

Usage Disclaimer: This work is for fans only. This author does not give permission for it to be shared, spoken of, referred to in any public manner (podcast, tv, online, etc.) that wants to either make a celebrity uncomfortable, mock fan fiction/fandom in any way, or the author themselves. Requests can be made, but it is unlikely the author will change their mind. If no response is given to a request then the answer is a solid no, not interested and the work cannot be shared, spoken of or even referred to, regardless of the manner or context. 

"Is that who I think it is?"

You barely heard your friend's question, but turned in the direction she was looking and found yourself locking eyes with the "who" in question.

Cole Turner.

You knew him as your younger brother's childhood best friend.

Everyone else in the bar knew him as Cole "Smooth Hips" Turner, the new free agent goalie for the local professional hockey team.

"Oh my god, he's coming this way!" your friend exclaimed.

As he made his way towards you, stopped nearly every foot by an excited patron, you tried to recall the last time you'd seen him. The only for sure meeting you could remember was his and your brother's high school graduation nearly twenty years ago. He'd been 18 at the time and you'd been 20.

The years had been good to him, you saw. 4 years in college hockey and 16 at the professional level had done him good. Gone was the lanky teenager who had helped your brother annoy you. In his place, was a rock solid man, with a full beard, perfectly tufted hair and a charming smile.

"Well I'll be damned," his voice declared as he finally reached the table. "I heard you lived here, but I didn't think I'd run into you on my first night in town."

"And here I was trying to avoid you," you teased as you stood up to give him a hug.

It wasn't until you turned to introduce Cole to your friend that you saw that she was gaping at the pair of you in shock.

"Hi, I'm Cole," he said, holding out his hand to her.

She just blinked at him.

"Sorry," you said, slightly embarrassed by her behavior. Sitting down, you snapped your fingers in front of her face and she blinked.

"Oh my god," she whispered. "You know Smooth Hips?"

Cole flushed at the nickname, but sat down at the table and said, "I grew up next door to her. Her brother is my best friend." Then he added, conspiratorially, "I had the biggest crush on her as a teenager."

"Wait what?" you said. "You didn't."

"I swear I did," he said, leaning back in his seat. "It's the only secret I've ever kept from your brother."

"Did you have a crush on him?" your friend asked. "Is that why you keep the magazine where he's basically naked in your bedside table?"

Cole let out a shocked laugh while you wanted to climb under the table and hide.

Instead, you glared at your friend and she just shrugged as if to say "paybacks a bitch" for not telling her about Cole in the first place.

"I like you," Cole said, pointing at your friend. Then he turned back to you. "I've been here a few times to play, obviously, but I've never really gotten to explore. Wanna show an old friend around and catch up?"

"She'd love to," your friend answered for you. Then she nudged you with her elbow. "Give him your phone number."

After giving Cole your number, he said goodbye and went to join his friends at another table.

"You're welcome," your friend said.

You raised an eyebrow.

"I just got you a date with the hottest guy in hockey," she stated then grinned. "And if you're lucky, maybe he'll show you in person how he does those stretches he posts about on his socials that you like watching so much."

You shoved your friend's shoulder while she cackled.

[piglet26]

Star Wars Rewatch: TROS

Oh, God.

Palpatine come back and ruining Anakin Skywalker's redemption. Why? How? Cloning, okay, so this Palpatine isn't the real Palpatine?!

We get to see Supreme Leader Kylo Ren for about 4 minutes before he's immediately benched by Palpatine as co-pilot. Why? I get they didn't want Kylo Ren as the big bad, but this is just lazy writing.

Green goblin, I remember you don't last long.

R2D2, they never wash him or nothing?

Maybe the First Order should win. They take hits and keep on knocking. They take losses and recovered, quickly and well. They always seem to have intelligence from somewhere. In short, they are competent.

Poe and Finn, have a great dynamic.

Rey is finally training for everyone who had a boner for two movies about her having a rocky fight montage.

They moment where Ren is praying over Darth Vader's mask and his mind bridges with Rey is a great reminder that these two are connected.

This film did something most franchise should never, it responded to criticism in real time.

Poe, you fucked up Han's ship. Stop attacking like she doesn't have a reason to be annoyed. Also, Rey is currently the sole Jedi in the galaxy, she should be training, not running off on every errand you have to do.

Colin Travano (whatever his name is) I wouldn't have wanted his script. Like at all. Poe and Rey do have chemistry though and you can tell they enjoy needling one another. It's just not endgame.

That Finnrey hug was awkward. It's a church hug with their butts sticking out. I'm Reylo to the core, but I have place for FinnRey in my heart. They're soulmates in a different way than Reylo is. Also, Daisy Ridley and John B are adorable and you can tell they enjoy working together.

In a flawed film, Rose Tico being sidelined was a wise decision.

Rey, Poe, Finn, Chewie and 3PO are cute. JJ Adams did seem to love friendships developing and for the third film we needed to see all these characters together on an adventure.

Kylo Ren is forging this dumb ass mask again. Look it worked initially, character wise and so forth, but at this point?! He smashed it and moved past the need for it. The audience liked that he smashed it. We have to see his face for emotional scenes. Why is it back? Oh I know! Because JJ Adams good juvenile friend was sad his mask wasn't in the film anymore. General Hux and Kylo are magically little bottle of goodness. We got so little.

We leave one planet for another planet but I keep forgetting what planet we're on. Title cards too much to ask?

Ren is actually pursuing Rey or The Scavenger because yes he wants her for himself. but he also wants to protect her from Palpatine. Their first force bond......... yeah. I've read the novelization so I understand it's been a minute since they've seen one another, but if I just watched the movie would I have known that? No. There is much they saying yet it's stiff and doesn't make much sense without context.

General Pryde. Why did we need him when we have General Hux?

I think Billie D Williams filmed all his scenes sitting down. He looks happy to be there but tired as hell.

Race through the desert of Pasaana. I like it. This crew does work and it feels like a fun adventure. There are cute, whitty moments between all of them and it works.

She heals a snake - Two halves of the dyad should only have been able to heal one another, but here we are.

The Trio and Co find the evil sith ship or whatever. The Knights of Ren gotta walk while Ren is flying. Ren tries to run down Rey, again this make sense in the novelization and not at all in real life. After Rey injures his planes, he crashes and the majestic prince emerges out of the flames. Seriously?! Why the hell are you covering this guy up?!

In a rip off of The Last Jedi we get a tug-o-war scene between the ship Chewie is on. It's not as great, but it's a good scene and we see how Rey's powers have grown. We know it's a waste of time though. They're evenly matched. It's a nice surprise when the lighting shoots out. Okay, I don't mind her being a Palpatine. I mind the retconning. I mind Palpatine magically coming back.

Rey confesses to Finn about her dream of her and Kylo Ren on the Sith Throne. Where? We would have liked to have seen this.

This is a nice FinnRey scene. Despite her display of "dark power", her killing Chewie presumably, Finn doesn't look at her any different. She's still Rey to him. He's patient and present and she describes her challenges. We still don't acknowledge Finn is force sensitive. Why isn't he training with Rey?

We are blazing through this movie. That's part of the problem we're just pushing plot points at this point. The movie needs to be more selective about slowing down and concentrating on character development. Something painfully lacking in this film. Even the Reylo scenes are about pushing the plot forward rather than pushing the characters forward.

3PO actually has a storyline this movie. Good for him. Look secondary characters in a trilogy, you get your moments and it ain't gonna be every film.

Zorri and Babu are nice additions. I like Zorri and the fact that Ren kicking her ass actually made her like her. Women supporting women. Were Zorri and Poe a thing. What's a spice runner? A space drug dealer?

Rey's social skills lack a bit. but she's great with Droids.

Wait, Chewie and Ren were both on Ren's Destroyer and they didn't even have a scene together?! Chewie's like an uncle to Ren.

Ren, show up in your boss ass destroyer to get your girl.

Standout lines -

Poe: 3PO! Move your metal ass.

3PO: How dare you we just met.

Finn, Poe and Chewie cowboying through the destroyer. Nice scene, doomed for failure I'm afraid.

Second Reylo forceskype is exposition. First real Reylo scene is exposition. Hey, movies gotta get it done haha but Ren literally is like here's the plot of the movie and everything you've been confused on up until this point. I will say watching the progression of the force bond that their spaces are now physically bleeding into one another. Nice touch. It's also nice to see what they each see when looking at one another through the force bond.

General Hux is the spy. Could've gone farther with this. RIP Dawg

Another FinnRey scene where you begin to understand Rey is pissed off and darker than possibly Finn thought.

Palpatine and Ren scene. I'm so annoyed Palpatine is in this movie.

We meet a ragtime band on horses surprise their former stormtroopers. All of them. From the same company. Sure Jan.

Seeing the death star again, so odd and doesn't look a thing like the original. We see scavenger Rey again.

Reylo fights again because Rey is the denial queen and she's free to take out her aggression on Ren. He likes feral Rey. In another less PG film, they've fought and then boned, but Leia died. Also, Dark Rey.... I'm here for it. Mostly cause it looks cool.

The film makers did the best they could with Carrie's Fisher passing. I thought they handled it with class and dignity while incorporating it into the film.

After Leia's passing and Rey healing it. Ren in his ever presented conflict nature overlooks the water when his father appears. It's poignant and character driven scene. It's beautiful scene about the enduring love of a parent. A flawed parent but a loving one nonetheless. Ben had two of those and he seems to finally understand that now.

Poe has a good scene with Leia's body about being a leader. Something that, despite all the bravado, he finally admits he doesn't know how to do. This would've been a great scene with her alive. Part of the issue people have the sequel trilogy of the lack of respect paid for previous generations. As if they are flawed and bigoted. On screen and off screen. A scene where Finn, Poe or Rey paid respect for the accomplishments of previous generations. Their courage and their bravery. Billie D. feels like just a stand-in.

Palpatine army blows up yet another planet. yawn.

Finn is a general bestow as such by Poe. Good choice. Sanitation worker aside no one knows more about The First Order than someone who was a stormtrooper. Finn reveals Palpatine wanted Rey alive...... then why tell Ren to kill her? Because if Rey didn't go dark then Ren was the fall back or vice versa?

So far it's not a bad film, just a disappointing film. The stuff that made my blood boil is about to come.

Rey isolates herself on Acht-to, burns the ship and we see ghost Luke. Why? She saw herself on the dark throne and she's afraid of herself. This might have meant something. At one point. It just feels like a retcon at this point. She's a Palpatine but Leia and Luke didn't care? Then what the hell were you worried about Ben for? If blood and legacy means nothing.

I'm not one of those people that need everything in a movie to make sense. It's also a space fantasy film, but damn.

Rey leads the Resistance to Exegol, she just doesn't know it. That was handy. No, really the way the movie sliced that together worked very well. Poe and Finn make a great speech about the resistance. Not as rousing as I'd like.

Exegol being the basis for the Sith religion is actually really cool. Wish we could've learned more. Empress Palpatine sounds like a boss ass name.

I hate everything about the ending of this film.

Rey once again goes into the enemy territory without a plan. The resistance doesn't really have one either except gumption.

Ben Solo is back! He's great. He's a hero. He's got great hair. He's likeable. We haven't seen him for 20 minutes, he doesn't say a word except "Ow" We have a beautiful Reylo moment where we Rey and Ben see each other through the Force Bond and she looks at Ben with such relief, joy and love that he's there with her. Ben fight like hell to get to her. This is it! Bendemption. We've waited three films for this. Then they tossed him off a cliff.

While it's a great scene of Rey listening to the previous Jedi's and rising up. I'm so confused how the dyad coming together empowers the devil. Ben has been made completely irrelevant.

I mean, we got a Reylo Kiss! It was epic and then it was over. We were lucky to get that considering Disney started to shy away from Reylo due to all the "controversy" I just hate this so we'll move on.

The hug was nice!

Rey Skywalker?

And that's that

[yandere-sins]

Oh my god!! I just found you through your work on ao3 (Yantober), and it was amazing! I left a comment there, but now that I've found ur Tumblr, I'm gonna tell you again of how much I love the story!!(I hope you don't mind that I wrote the same context twice 🥹)

I like how it has those psychological horror elements in it and not just a typical yandere romantic story. I also like how realistic you play it out too! That's exactly what I imagined I'd act everytime I read a yandere work. Though I always thought that submitting is not my way, it's either I can escape or die trying, but your work literally showed me that you really can't do much when you're in a life and death situation, no body can handle the constant physical and mental pain without breaking down, it's a sad fact really.

Also, your writing is the best! I'm currently following up with your posts and read your other works, my current favorite is the yandere x vampire!darling(I'm forever grateful to whoever requested it🙏😭) I've never know how much I craved for a powerful being becoming a pet until I read your work, and now I want more, in fact, I'm hungry for more orz!! If your request is still open then I will request for part two later, if you don't mind that ofc.

Anyway, I hope you have a pleasant day over there. Stay hydrated and take care of yourself well. Also, keep up your good work! But no pressure though, take as much time as you need as your well being always come first.

If you ever feeling down about writing then please know that I like everything you write and I will keep supporting your work, always.

Hey! This is so sweet of you ;; I don't post on Ao3 much anymore but I am happy you found me here because I already tried contacting you over there but (as I found out) Ao3 won't let you chat with people, which is unfortunate! It sounds a bit random if I say this, but there's something about your comment I want to ask you about privately, so please feel free to write me a message if you're up to it, I'd appreciate it ♥

Either way, thank you so much for reading all 31 chapters—that's a lot, lol! And thank you for sharing your thoughts, I see we like the same aspects about the trope, so I'm glad you were able to enjoy my story so much! You're always free to request or chat, it would be a joy to write your ideas!

I hope I can continue writing stories for people like us and I wish you a very nice day! Really appreciate you taking the time to contact me twice, thank you so much! ♥

[luna-rainbow]

What draws you to a character? Is it moral conflict or cardboard good people ??

Oooh thanks for the interesting question but why do I get the vague sense this is bait 😅

Very few people with an ounce of writing experience or critical analysis skills likes “cardboard people” regardless of whether they’re good, bad, or anything in between. A cardboard person has not been written into a character. They’re just a collection of traits to serve a certain role in a story. Depending on the genre and their importance, that is not necessarily a writing flaw. When you have a 100 minute movie you cannot possibly develop every character. However, if your main character is a cardboard person that means the writer hasn't done their job and by gods other writers pick up on that. Nat, for example, was not a character in IM2, she was a cardboard femme fatale, because she had no inner world and no inner conflict to speak of.

On the converse, a well-written character will always have conflict , regardless of whether they’re good, bad, or anything in between! And a good conflict, one that has complexity - both ethical and emotional - will reveal layers about a character's value systems and psyche and make them a whole person, and that's what I like.

As I've always said, the first character I liked in the MCU was Tony, because here is a guy who was introduced to us self-centered and has it all, then you realise how little he has in term of human relationships (partly due to his own doing), and in the end he lets go of some of his material possessions and earns human connections. The second character I loved was Loki, because he's not a bad guy by nature, and he's perpetually torn between genuine love for his adoptive family, and anger at the lies they built around him and the identity they took away from him. The third character I loved was T'Challa, who through a fairly small role in Civil War was able to go through an entire conflict around grief, loss, compassion and forgiveness.

I came to like Steve and Bucky after I've gotten some context about 1930s America that the movies didn't give us. Steve's entire existence is a conflict with the world. He starts off the direct opposite of the eugenics ideal (I want to say 'save for the colour of his skin' but eugenicists scoffed at the Irish, so his colour didn't give him an advantage there) then through the serum became the Aryan ideal. He himself continually questions and disobeys the system that has tried to make him into an avatar for their agendas. He yearns of moving forward but the only way he seems to do that is after he finds the piece of his past that he had let slip through his fingers in the alps. And Bucky has a similar arc, how does he marry the identity that was forced upon him to who he once was and who he now wants to be? He is also trying to move forward, but can only do that by reconnecting with the past that was forcefully taken from him. Speaking without the shipping angle, Bucky is Steve's narrative mirror, and very similar conflicts drive their stories (which is why Endgame did the equivalent of narrative suicide by making Steve just...abandon all his conflicts and leaving Bucky to continue on with the same conflicts without his mirror) and there's something delicious in exploring that.

Conflict doesn't have to be just the character choosing between right and wrong, although that is a common conflict. You can have a pure good character forced to be in conflict with people around them and that can still be an interesting conflict (when well-written), and it doesn't mean that the character is "cardboard good".

If this ask is about Peggy -- I might enjoy her character if the story had the self-awareness to recognise the moral conflicts in her character. But it doesn't. It writes her as a series of contradictions and presents her as the perfect model of goodness. She fails at even being a cardboard character.

[gregoftom]

i don't really know how to explain myself properly but i feel like some people are really concerned about Getting A Good Grade In Succession to the point where they've adopted a very cynical view of tg's relationship because being too earnest about them is ~not the point of the show~ or w/e. which is funny because every other relationship in the show is allowed to be nuanced but not theirs i guess? so you have people going "oh their relationship was only ever about them using each other from the start" when that's demonstrably not true and like. i have really mixed feelings about this season so far and i feel like anything could happen with them by virtue of weird writing choices and i hope with all my heart this doesn't end up being the case but even if the finale tries to diminish the depth of their relationship i don't understand the point of Us acting like there was never anything deeper there? but anyway, all this too say that i agree w/ you that the way people are very cynical and dismissive abt tg specifically has rubbed me the wrong way and thank u for your service ❤️

hiii sweet anon!

A GOOD GRADE IN SUCCESSION ASHAKJSA god honestly, i hear you.

i'm getting real tired of this "point of the show" shit bc it's like. just because tg isn't "the point", isn't a main focal plot [which it is, or at least is part of it], isn't integral to character development [which it is too; without tom greg would not be where he is now which is at a point where he actually could be seriously considered as a fucking CEO, without greg tom wouldn't have learned any self respect or self worth/we would never have been able to see him express himself beyond servitude towards shiv], it doesn't mean it can't be explored and considered as a serious part of the show?

media is created for us to enjoy. yes it's there to interpret and discuss but it doesn't always have to be that way? literally you can watch the show just for tomgreg and that is A OKAY. why? because you don't have to justify why you like something! surprise! and yeah i've noticed that too - other relationships get to be seen as nuanced, but not tg i guess. idk why, seeing as its dynamic is something to be studied under a microscope and fun to not only shippers but normies too lmao. clearly there is something more interesting to it than just, oh it's mutual corporate climbing.

exactly! there's even more contexts provided by the scripts, THE SACRED TEXTS lol that provide us with more knowledge and insight into the feelings of these characters, that show us that their relationship goes beyond using each other. there is an element of that of course, but that's not all they are. why reduce them to that when so very clearly on paper we are affirmed of what we thought we could read textually on the screen? it just baffles me.

i'm hoping too anon, like A Lot. from the looks of the trailer i have a. i have a little bit of hope. even if say, tom has to choose between greg and shiv, if he chooses shiv and has visible trouble with it, like it takes him time, it plagues him, it takes effort, it feels like a real decision affecting his life, like. that counts for something you know? that would, to me, not diminish his relationship with greg. obviously it would be heartbreaking after how loyal greg has been to tom, but the very fact that it would be difficult to tom would mean that greg is important to him in some fashion, and the show would be at least acknowledging it by doing that. like, it's that easy. i ain't asking for much. i know what i'd like, but what i would be satisfied/settle with, well i think the bar is reasonable, you know?

i'm glad you understand me! i mean, who knows maybe some of it is people trying to go on the defensive like, "it's the hope that kills you" so they are trying not to have any by lessening it, saying oh there was nothing there, there was no romance, nothing positive, it was all for mutual professional gain and that's it. but like, personally that doesn't work for me. i think you should at least acknowledge its importance otherwise we're regressing right back to the oh it's a mlm ship? never mind then. i'm not about that, i guess.

thanks for the message buddy god speed <3

[roachliquid]

I've been fascinated by the idea of sapient zombies since my child-to-teenage years, when Xanth books were purchased and devoured with full enthusiasm from my understimulated brain. Funny enough, Piers Anthony's weird sex ideas didn't leave that strong of an impression, but the choice that he made time and time again - to humanize monsters, showing them not just as creatures of destruction but thinking people with their own cultures and customs - that one stuck with me. And I loved the arc when people realized that zombies - formerly believed to be mindless due to their sluggishness and low reactivity - were revealed to, in fact, be people who were simply impaired by the nature of their bodies.

Every time I see another zombie movie, I find myself thinking "what if we didn't default to seeing them as mindless killing hordes?" There have certainly been movies that don't default to this - Night of the Living Dead used the concept very effectively to create genuine horror - but it feels like about 90% of the genre just thinks "mindless masses that it's acceptable to shoot". And I hate that.

It's why I really enjoyed Warm Bodies, a story that uses the concept to talk about depression and the harms of social isolation. Return of the Living Dead is another great entry, that plays the concept for both comedy and horror while acknowledging the humanity and suffering of those afflicted with the zombie disease. I love stories that explore and humanize these concepts, and I'm always looking for more of them.

Naturally, I've come up with a few different concepts of my own, starting with a Resident Evil RP character who was virtually unkillable but otherwise just having the weirdest day of their life. One of my recent takes involves a disease that overheats the brain, causing severe and permanent damage unless the patient can be refrigerated while the initial stage of undeath runs its course. The fact that this requires people to exercise compassion, and not just lock you in a room as soon as they see a bite, is of course the point. After a certain period of figuring things out, allowing victims to turn violent requires malice.

The trouble came when I tried working out how to adapt this concept to a setting without freezers. I've been batting around the idea of a post-apocalypse isekai for a while, largely as an excuse to write SHODAN-inspired cyber femdom, but then - as inspiration took hold, and I remembered one of the silliest post-apocalyptic settings of all time - as a broader parody of the cultural climate that gave us the Fallout games. But also just, in general, because "out-of-context environment where you have to survive" is a deeply compelling concept.

It's worth noting, I love silly worldbuilding. I love when things simply don't make any plausible sense and you can tell it was done that way because the writer(s) just wanted it to happen. Xanth is similar; the worldbuilding is an absolute mess because it's constantly focused on delivering More, Sillier Ideas. I eat that stuff up like I used to eat marshmallow cereal.

So when I set out to create this New Kind of Undead, I naturally got silly with it at once. My first idea was that you catch the disease when you're bitten by a weird beetle, because... shit, IDK, I just like beetles. Refrigeration isn't an option to protect the brain, so fuckit, we're doing live embalming - lifesaving measures for the freshly undead involve replacing most bodily fluids with alcohol. This is of course objectively ridiculous, because zombie virus or not, being embalmed should just kill you - but fuckit, it's for the bit.

Then I remembered the idea I had to parody Fallout's ghouls with people who were typically called mummies. And I went "hmm" and thought, you know what, covering an undead person in bandages makes a lot of sense, actually. Especially if they're still fresh and decaying, but even afterwards, that skin's not gonna grow back, you know? Protective coverings are in. Living mummies are in. And-

hey, wait a minute, I need to rethink that beetle bit.