#In the end it's always the same story

[konfuse]

One of the funny things here is that some scholars argue, that Tolkien did get a lot of inspiration from "Niebelungenlied" which is part of Wagner's "Ring Cycle".

Bugs Bunny could have simply walked into Mordor. He would have shown up at the gates of Mordor in a disguise and been like “Evil volcano inspection unit” and flashed a fake ID badge to the confused orc.

[evercelle]

2024 art summary! it sure has been a year

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

I just saw a review of 19 that said that it was bad because it sympathizes with fascist. It was certainly a take any thought.

Dehumanization is a hell of a drug.

[cementcornfield]

Ja'Marr talks about Joe "screaming" at him in college for wearing warming lotion 🔥

[mollysunder]

The Medarda arc of s2 struggled to be good, because the plot viciously smothered it. You can argue that Arcane was never about politics but you cannot say the Medardas were never explicitly a family defined by politics. So when the show shifted it's priorities from a drama steeped in political conflict where even though the setting was fantastical the stakes were grounded to a shift where magic is the end all be all threat to humanity, the Medardas are rendered largely irrelevant.

In s2 Mel's agency over her own story is both largely stripped from her and poorly communicated. Arcane has Mel abducted from the plot to be the Black Rose's captive. Even when Mel manages to free herself it's not through the traits the audience understands are her strengths, her cunning and social intelligence, it's through an innate instinct that natural to her and indecipherable to the audience.

Ambessa as a character is more or less a villain of convenience, which would be fine if she wasn't immediately following Silco's act. Once Mel is removed from the story Ambessa is largely disconnected from any emotional tension fuels conflict between the characters and previously drove the plot in s1. She's there to play the worse bad guy for Caitlyn and then give Viktor the man power for the Glorious Evolution.

It's frustrating to see the Medardas used the way they are in s2 because when they're together I can see how it could be good. When they're together Mel forces emotion out of Ambessa. In Act 1, Ambessa proved she could do circles around Piltover's court, which could actually put Mel in a tight spot.

Their final scene on paper sounds like a good idea where the true resolution to Mel and Ambessa's story was that Ambessa saw Mel's own ruthless behavior as she not only betrayed Ambessa to the Black Rose, but used her as BAIT to double cross LeBlanc. Ambessa died proud that her daughter killed her the way she did, and that's so cool and tragic, but the execution was a flop.

One, their final fight is completely unimportant to the actual Glorious Evolution, Mel's grief can't even be a highlight because it's interrupted by Viktor's mind trap. Two, their fight didn't rely on any of Mel's actual strengths, just magic and the poorly explained MacGuffin LeBlanc gave her. How did Mel even know it would do that?

It's like the writers had the bones for a great story for the Medardas, but then they're like the world's worst archeologists and fit those bones together in the worst way possible because they were convinced the bones made a stegasaurus instead of a T-rex or something.

[ulteri0rm0tives]

It's every iteration.

It's every iteration of V that will always find Johnny. Every iteration of V that Johnny grows to care about. It's every iteration of each other, in every universe, that will always find each other. They'll always become inseparable, tied together in unfathomable ways. Ways they could never truly unravel from each other in the end, no matter the end.

They'll always be destined for one another. No matter what face is worn. No matter what universe. No matter what, they're always meant to be. No matter what, the stars will always align for them, just to come crashing down from the sky.

[sparklingdemon]

i know sorrow's quote was in referral to blue but i feel like it could also be applied to leaf/green herself and abandon lonliness: i am's new ending from a meta standpoint if you think abt it hard enough……….

i mean. did we not see OP try to rewrite history in order to prevent the tragedy of lonliness and leaf rotting in hell? do we dare to forget - to erase what she did to lonliness? can she be forgiven now that it never happened in the first place...?

[descendantofthesparrow]

boom another huma baby

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

The world if people stopped applying their understanding of "conservatism" and "religion/christianity" through a very modern, deeply American view onto Death Note (a manga from the Early-mid 2000s which is very much set in the cultural and societal context of early-mid 2000s Japan and all that entails):

[novelconcepts]

There's something really fascinating about the duality of Van and Lottie. Two kids who opted into stories to keep going, to keep everyone else going. Two kids who told themselves what they needed to make sure they could arrange an inherently nightmare situation into a home they could all stomach. Van with fiction; Lottie with faith. Neither any truer than the other, neither any greater as a lie. There is no such thing as false hope, just hope. Tell it to them all to make sure the despair does not win.

And then the loss of that faith, of that fiction. How it shapes them both in shades of depression, distances them from the others. Lottie speaking less and less; Van joking less and less. Lottie no longer having the trust of any of the others; Van no longer even trusting herself. Both of them striving to rework the narrative and not quite, not quite being able to grasp hold of the threadwork anymore.

Van with scars on her face she wears for the rest of her life. Lottie with a scar on her forehead that is totally invisible in adulthood. Van going off-grid, distancing herself from everyone until given no other choice. Lottie going off-grid, returning with as many people surrounding her as she could manage. Both knowing in their bones the Wilderness, It, is not real. Both falling back into the Hunt anyway. Both staring it in the face, getting dragged back to who they were at seventeen. Lottie embracing. Van rejecting. It makes no difference either way. They follow the same path, the same road, the same endless trail to the same heartless end.

Lottie dying meaninglessly. A murder. Lottie, going back to the vision of fire she's had since she was a teenager. Lottie, who wanted so badly to be useful, to have a purpose, to mean something, and who dies alone.

Van dying meaninglessly. A murder. Van, going back into a house filled with smoke, just as she's feared since she was a teenager. Van, who wanted so badly to have a purpose, to find a reason, and who dies alone.

The story doesn't save either of them. The story only keeps unspooling. More tragedy. More meaninglessness. More stupid death, as all death is stupid--as Travis and the button, Natalie and the needle, Jackie and the snow, Ben and a fabricated trial were all stupid. Meaningless. Unnecessary. But always, always coming for them. You don't actually cheat death. You can't. You can't make meaning out of nothing, but it won't stop you trying. You have to try. That's all we have, all we are. We are all stories in the end, and we are trying so desperately to make that matter.

[s4msatpat]

~40 days and 40 nights, I waited for a guy like you to come and save my life ~

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I love them so much, they’re so silly 🫶

[simcardiac-arrested]

ur probably sick of seeing posts like these but i just want to sit here and muse about how, well, i enjoy tumblr #mytumblr not just because of all the obvious stuff like how it’s not run on an algorithm, and because it’s one of the only social media that i don’t have to jump through hoops to use and that isn’t phone-exclusive (for me)

but i think my favorite thing has to be the askblogs, and running one. which is weird, because if you asked me as little as 3 years ago what i loved most about tumblr, i’d probably say “uh, looking at owl house posts, i guess?”, it’s weird because i never actually planned to make one and created it on a whim based on a few random people’s tags, and even then it was made mostly as a joke. i just never thought about it before—i grew up with askblogs, an era of tumblr that was truly as magical as it was catastrophic (as all things that get vaguely popular), but i never thought about making one because: it’s a commitment, it seems like a lot, i’m inconsistent, how would i draw for it every single time, etc etc all that good stuff

but then i just made it. and fuck me is it the most fun thing ever. it doesn’t have to be consistent. it doesn’t have to be perfect, or polished, or anything really. it just has to be. to exist out there in the world and be open to messages. the most it has to be is loved by me and by u guys.

and that’s the thing! the best thing—i love involving u guys in my writing, pushing the characters in one direction and then the next, seeing where that takes us (because i don’t always know either, that’s what writing is all about babeyyy). i love that i don’t have to just post the most important plot beats one after the other and have the story be done there. i love that i get to weave the development through vaguely connected, sometimes relevant but sometimes completely random joke asks. that i don’t have to write a whole ass novel of build-up or draw everything as one long-running comic just to make my characters feel like they actually exist and react to the things around them, that they’re not just here to get from point a to b. and i love that you’re all part of it. the story seriously just wouldn’t be the way it is without all of you guys who are always so curious to ask something, or call a character out (depending on how much they need to be humbled COUGHHHHCOUGHHHHH)

so yeah, i’m just forever grateful for all of you and for the fact that tumblr allows things like these to happen. i have no idea what other site could possibly offer the same sort of experience, or anything similar, but i am just forever in love with the fact that it’s something you can do here. i wouldn’t trade it for anything. what a cool fucking thing to be able to do

[mollysunder]

I wonder how intentional it was for Jinx's grief in s2 to trample on Sevika's own, because it demonstrated how things haven't actually changed much between them. Obviously, mourning isn't a competition, but it's understood that we have shared practices like funerals to communally express grief for the dead, they're as much for the bereaved as they are for the deceased. When Jinx gave Silco a burial in the river, she denied Sevika a means to mourn and say goodbye.

Some could argue that Sevika's grief was tertiary to the actual story because she was secondary member of the cast. The audience doesn't need to know Sevika spent months living in Silco's office after his death working to keep Zaun together while in an alcoholic depression, which we only know because it was included in a minigame. However, it does create a feeling of horror when you remember that Jinx burned down the Last Drop in her own grief.

In the moment we see Jinx at her lowest, it's unknown to us the audience that Jinx was burning down Sevika's home in her self-destruction, but Jinx did know. The minigame showed that Jinx knew Sevika was living in Silco's office up until the end of Act 2 at least, and still she burned her and Sevika's home, the last place Sevika and Silco ever saw eachother.

Doesn't that revelation shed a new light to the finale? The fire that consumed The Last Drop now feels so similar to the fire that surrounded Sevika and Jinx as the Progress Day shipment of shimmer was destroyed. In either situation Jinx wasn't thinking about Sevika, and in the face of a greater cause Sevika has to swallow it to deal with the crisis at hand. Maybe if we saw how Jinx and Sevika came to their final understanding before the big battle we could see how things changed, but we didn't. Despite the attempt to have the two characters reconcile the overall pattern between these two persists.

[doverstar]

actually I love Tentoo and he is the Doctor and it was the only ending for Rose that worked and it is a huge gift to be able to have the man she loves grow old with her, they were always heading for that, y'all be quiet. I 100% understand the angst but it's okay, they're okay, good ending-

[raikirikiri]

since the naruto timeline is so… you know… inconsistent, for a word, i think it’s really funny if obito and rin are older than kakashi by some years. because then obito is really just having beef with a toddler like kakashi is 6 and obito is 9 or 10 and he finds this little feral dog child to be a major threat to his psyche. meanwhile rin has to be his voice of reason, saying no you can not hurt our 6 year old teammate, look at him he’s just a baby. and kakashi is snarling, on his hands and knees, barking like a chihuahua at them. and minato who’s a very busy jounin asks rin and obito to look after kakashi because he’s very messed up and could use a friend or two. but obito takes it as minato wants him to babysit his ankle biter teammate whom he loathes. but of course rin agrees and obito begrudgingly goes with her. and he doesn’t know how to deal with kids, being one himself, so he tries to boss kakashi around but little selectively mute kakashi glares at him and snaps his teeth at him any time obito so much as breathes air wrong. rin who understood minato’s assignment and asks if kakashi needs help cooking dinner or washing the dishes and is just generally friendly rather than bossy. obito still not understanding and trying to inflict bath time on a dog boy who viciously does not like water and the only people who can actually get him to take a bath are his dead father, minato, and pakkun. kakashi who likes rin enough and lets her sit on his furniture and kakashi who does not trust obito as far as he can throw him and growls at him when he so much as walks into the room. obito who’s had enough and decides to teach the baby a lesson. kakashi and obito who end up having a brawl in the living room while rin watches cartoons because hagoromo otsutsuki she’s just a girl! and she does not have the patience to deal with her asshole baby teammate and her stupid best friend teammate. minato who shows as up eventually and separates kakashi and obito and thinks they’re finally getting along until kakashi lifts his leg and pisses on the ground to mark his territory. the rest of team minato who finally realize that kakashi is actually just a puppy in human form and he is not housebroken…

[yandere-yearnings]

do u have any writing tips dar??? Ur stories are immaculate

nonnie?? that's so sweet of you to say, thank you😭🩷 in general, a lot comes to mind bc there's so many different components to writing (i.e dialogue, characterisation, structure,, even mindset!!) so if you want to hear abt anything specific pls lmk🥺 for now tho, i've summarised a few across the subject that i think are helpful, and they will be below the cut bc i'm shit at explaining things, so i ended up writing a lot hhh

i also wanna point out that these are just things that i've personally made note of over the years from my own experiences + being friends w/ other writers, but that doesn't mean they will apply to everyone!! more than anything, i always believe that you shouldn't let other ppl dictate how you do and enjoy things, so if smth works for you and you like it, there's nothing wrong w/ that even if it contradicts an opinion you got from some rando on the internet (a.k.a. me😔💔)

Know your game

I'd like to say that in writing, there's a vein of liberty that isn't echoed in very many other creative fields; a lot of the times you can go in blind, and still make something of it because the nature of fiction is liquid — if you can imagine it, it can work. So to say, I find that nine times out of ten, room for improvement doesn't necessarily lie in the content of someone's writing, and more so its execution.

You could play a desultory game of chess without knowing all the rules, but if you wanted it to be your best match, you'd have to be aware of every move you could make, no? What you do from there then becomes a matter of choice, and choice is a landmark divider between doing something and being good at doing something. There's a difference in omissions due to lacking the technical knowledge, and omissions made because you are aware they are optimal.

Knowledge on the fundamentals of literature will always serve you, and that isn't to say you have to study all forms and contexts, but if you want to write a story, for example, it will always help to know the common elements of one. Grammar, punctuation, structure — brushing up on those things will build your toolkit, and once you've got that, you have the self-autonomy to decide what to use from it. My three favourite writers only use commas and full stops, and their works are, on all levels, spectacular. Still, if you asked them how to use a semi-colon, they'd be able to tell you.

Appreciating the basics will also tie into your creative exploration as a writer, which is a cornerstone in developing your distinctive writing style. I doubt a person in any type of craft hasn't heard a variation of know the rules before you break them, so studying until you do, inside out, remains beneficial to both new and old writers alike.

2. Have a starting point

This tip is fairly applicable to a range of different types of writing, and how one would practice it depends strongly on individual preference and styles of working. Some people like to plan things out thoroughly whilst others, including myself, like to dive in headfirst, and there's nothing wrong with either approach. The commonality between both types of writer is that regardless, they will have at least a vague idea of where to start from — a scene that they've bullet-pointed prior, a lyric that resonated with them, a mental image, an emotion or even just a single word that everything branches from. What all these details achieve is writing that has motion, because you have something of substance to piggyback you to an end point (the establishment of which is also important, but I will not be covering in this post).

3. Decide a structure

Again, this can be done both comprehensively or as simply as just having the thought to adhere to a certain method. As you gain more experience as a writer, you'll begin to understand what works best for you and create a system of your own, but starting out, there are a number of templates that have already been established by writers that you can follow, and find by researching. What matters most is that by using one — whichever it may be — you're turning your text into a story.

As an example, I'll detail two that I use regularly, in their simplest forms for the sake of brevity:

A linear narrative moves from point A to point B, and from point B to point C, etc. and all subsequent points build on the previous ones until your goal is reached. It's a system that works well for shorter pieces because it has a definite structure, like a length of spine and its individual vertebrae (and although we're talking about writing here, I think Newton's Third Law of Motion sums it up very well: every action has a reaction.)

A coalescing narrative considers all points as separate elements that may or may not always interact, but all contribute to the end point to different extremes. It's a useful template for creating depth in a piece, but due to its complexity, is better applied to longer projects.

They are visualised respectively below.

4. Iterate

If you think of your first draft as a block of clay, everything you do to it will equate to it being moulded and shaped, and if you think of your first draft as a skeleton, everything you do to it will equate to flesh being put on the bones. If you want your piece to be the best it can be, there's a sort of detachment you must have from it, where you won't have the fear of changing it until it is in the image of what you have intended. Write and rewrite, add things, take them away, make a separate copy for every edit if that makes it easier for you, but keep working it until you are happy.

Iteration doesn't just apply to drafts — chapters, paragraphs, sentences and even singular words can be given the same treatment. When you pick up the habit, the process becomes second-nature and you'll find that the first lines you put down are the ones that make it into the final piece, and that is in light of sorting through the renditions unconsciously. Additionally, you don't have to do things in one sitting; sometimes taking a break and coming back to your writing with a fresh outlook is valuable.

5. Analyse and apply

One piece of advice I always see given when someone asks how to improve their writing is to read more, and though it is — at its core — a tip worth acknowledging, it always comes across as unserviceable to me. There is nothing that reading will change for you if you are not actively practicing the things you learn, or even actively learning to begin with. So to address it as a matter of semantics, I feel it's best put as studying the writing of others, as opposed to reading.

If you have a favourite author, go over their works twice — once as a reader to identify what you like about them, and then again as a writer to identify why you like those things. To put it into context, if I read something and decided that I enjoyed how clear and easy to understand it was, I'd do a second pass to figure out the attributing qualities. Perhaps it's the use of punctuation, chosen sentence forms or even the simplicity of words used. My first tip of knowing different literary fundamentals is complementary here, because it makes the analysis and application of isolated features that much more smooth, and also means you'd be able to adapt them into your own style instead of just copying the other writer, which is what you want to avoid.

(Some writers I personally recommend studying are @ozzgin, @monstersholygrail, @aayakashii and @urprettylildoe for readability and clarity in execution, @moyazaika, @carnivorousyandeere and @purerae for characterisation and dialogue, @suiana and @unhappy-last-resort for engaging plots and concepts, and @sabotsen and @lirational for word choice.)