#It is still important to tag dis imo

[lil-gae-disaster]

about a week or so into Jonathans and Frederick's elationship (my man has issues):

F: "[...] I cannot believe what we are doing. How can I do such as that without any anxious and conscious thought."

J: "I am able to withdraw my affections should you desire them to seize."

F: "I do not wish for them to stop. They have made my life the brightest it has been in a long time, I am grateful that you have deemed me worthy enough to be receiving of your love. But, I must say, I do not understand why I do not feel towards women like others do. What has my previous incarnation done to condemn me to love who law and society does not want me to love? Why must I endure this suffering? I do not wish for it to be any different, but I have yet to understand what I have done to lack the ability to love lady's as much as gentlemen"

J: "I love and care for you dearly, my love. It pains me that you paint yourself and your own, independent, individual human experience in lesser colors than the experience of other men around. You have been gifted a rare gift, as have I. We are able to see the world through a lense not many can. I wish for your heart to realize such one day."

.....

Then they cuddled and fell asleep

(@kwilooo @marsfingershurt @imobsessedwiththeatre @hamalicious-soup

@unicornsaures @half-eaten-baguetteee @schnitzelsemmerl)

[helga-grinduil]

Oh did you use to be anti-Endeavor? Or something? And now you like him? Or it’s not that you like him but your excited to finally see him do the right thing?

Yeah, I was heavily anti-Endeavor 1.5-2 years ago. I don't LIKE him now, I think he's a coward and is pathetic (and not in a fun way), but just as you said, I'm excited to finally see him do the right thing.

[i-am-hungry-24-7]

[We went on shopping (it didn’t go well)] - TF141*F!Reader

not a chapter actually just a rambling, it's kinda messy and not my style imo, pls feel free to skip this etc. might rewrite this shit when I have time since I’m busy with my job these days and I just accidentally sliced my thumb open making it difficult to type, hence not much to provide sorry :( and the weird stranger incident in the latter part did happen irl damn it’s creepy af, but I was the one telling them to fuck off tho (they harassing my cute friend RAGE)

Summary: You sigh when it's the fifth time someone fights in your poor tea shop this month. You just open it two months ago, in an area ruled by mafia called '141'. Maybe you should find their boss and give them money or what to stop the bullshit keeps happening in your shop. (well, here they come)

Mafia!TF141*F!Reader

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

After your car graduates from its car life in about a week, congratulations, the poor shelf accompanies you since your college life is finally undone, fragments spreading across the floor making you shout Mama and mourn for its graduation.

You don’t have a car right now, so when Gaz offers to drive you to buy a new shelf, you agree to his suggestion without a second thought. Yet when the day comes and you open the car door, only to be greeted by the wide smile of Soap and Gaz, you almost slam the door close in reflex.

“Okay, but why do all of you come together? this isn’t an elementary school field trip!” You gawk at them when you squeeze in the car.

“Sounds fun, how can ye not tell us?” 

“Gaz I thought you could seal your lips!”

“Sorry love, Ghost exchanged it with some goodies.”

Oh yeah, Ghost is sitting in the driver’s seat.

Wait, he’s sitting in the driver's seat?

“Goddamnit—“ Your scream dies out on your tongue when said man puts his foot down. 

Ghost does a good job at providing you the same experience as riding a rollercoaster, glad that you didn’t throw up in the car and arrived at the warehouse without dying. If he's your Uber driver, you will give him five stars and block the hell out of him. 

You hop out of the car and walk to the door. As the automatic door parts after sensing your presence, you feel much better when the cold air of the store. Nice a.c. is one of the important features of a nice store, and you already built a fondness for the warehouse with how refreshing the chilly air is inside.

The first area welcoming you is food. Not bad, 6 out of 10 if it needs to be precise. Gaz pushes the cart and follows you as you saunter to the aisle with cereals.

“Oh, they have my favorite brand.” You murmur to him as your eyes travel across the price tag.

Wait, you must still be dizzy because no way it’s 30% cheaper than the same one you just bought from the supermarket.

“Kyle, it says it’s 3 pounds, right?!” pointing at the tag, your voice raises a whole eight-tone with excitement.

“Yes?”

“Good.”

5 boxes of cereal are added to the cart. 

Actually, 9.9 out of 10 for this place, you fix the evaluation as you watch Gaz putting some of those ten bags of chocolate Ghost and Soap dump into the cart back on the shelf, and as a little revenge to Gaz for letting the other two men join the trip without you knowing, you choose to turn a blind eye when you spot Ghost sneaking all of them back in the cart.

Not forgetting the primary goal for today, you go straight to the furniture area after letting Soap throw five packs of gummy bears in the cart and convincing Ghost not to get a cup of tea from the random tea shop. You’ll make a much better one for him when you get home — you coo when he stares at you with unhappy eyes not covered by the mask, glad that he seems to accept the idea, so he huffs and lets you drag him and Soap out of the food area.

“You should buy this.” 

“Ghost I don’t need a green shelf in my shop thank you.”

“Then ye should buy this bonnie!”

“That’s not even a goddamn shelf, Soap.”

“How about this?” 

Your eyes brighten up when Gaz shows you a wooden shelf, it’s stripped-back, with not many decorations, but it surely will fit wonderfully into your store with its aesthetic vibes and high functionality, thus you pick up your phone to type down the product number immediately.

“Oh my, Kyle, you’re the best.”

and you’re too busy typing the numbers down that you don’t notice him shooting the others a taunt of victory.

The last area before the cashier’s counter sets a bookshop. You don’t plan on buying books, but you indeed need to go to the bathroom, so you dismiss yourself and tell them to look around before you’re done.

Why are the bathrooms always hidden in a bloody long hallway? What if someone can’t hold back during their way? Your footsteps echo through the corridor as your mind starts hitting you with a fresh and unnecessary question, glad that you aren’t that urgent though, so you’re able to get to the destination without wetting your pants.

Washing your hands, you step back to the hallway again, but you yelp in surprise when you bump into someone.

“Sorry!” You nod at the man and start heading back to the bookstore.

but it’s weird, the man you just bump into walks so close to you, that you suddenly realize he’s just a step behind you.

Hey, don’t panic, might just coincidence, you try to tell yourself as you make another step.

“Hey, lovely.” Okay, it’s not a coincidence, fucking hell. You curse when his hand touches your shoulder and stops you.

“Sorry for bumping into you, Sir. Anything that I can help?”

“No, I’m waiting for you to separate from the blokes for a while can’t ask for your phone number when they surround you like dogs.”

“I don’t give strangers my number, sorry.” You try to leave, but the man’s hand grabs your shoulder forcefully preventing you from moving.

“Hey, give us a chance yeah? I’m sure we will have some nice time together.”

“I don’t fucking know you!”

Prying off his hand, you turn and start walking fast, almost running when you hear the stranger’s footsteps coming towards you.

Fuck fuck fuck, you haven’t run with such desperation in years, last time must be high school.

“Who the fok are ye arsehole?”

The tears prickling in your eyes when you hear Soap’s voice ringing in your ears before you feel a pair of warm hands drag you behind him.

“Ghost and Soap will deal with him, let’s go.”

Adrenaline pumping through your body finally subsides when Soap and Ghost reappear from the hallway, you don’t want to know what happened to the stranger, maybe hope they’re still alive and in one piece so you won’t involve yourself in another chaos, 

“I think it’s time to go home, Kyle. Is it okay?”

“Of course, wanna grab some food before we leave?”

“I guess Ghost already bought sufficient chocolate for us.”

A burst of laughter catches your attention whilst Gaz looking at the cart with bags of chocolate stuffing under your cereals with disbelief, and a smile crawls back to your lips as you look at Ghost slamming his forehead against a lower door frame and Soap laughing over him.

They aren’t that bad, maybe, or they reserve the remnants of tenderness for you, you’re not sure whether is correct, but at least they have your back when you need them, and that’s enough for you to stop exploring the answer for now.

“Oh.” A book gets knocked off when you shift to stand up. Turning around to pick it up, you have a good look at the shelf behind your seat.

Your eyes dart from ‘Today’s recommendation’ to the book within your grasp.

‘Surrounded by idiots — by Thomas.’

You will rate this recommendation 10 out of 10 for sure.

After insisting on paying yourself and shooing the men off, you take out your card and place it on the scanner.

‘Insufficient balance :( please try again’

You frown when the machine shoves you a nuh-uh, and you open the bank app to check your balance.

So you overspent 10 pounds huh? What a shame to your title for being a successfully financially broken adult. Which link loses and makes you make a wrong shopping decision? 

you scan the list of items with sharp vision until you land your eyes on a product.

Surrounded by idiots - £ 10.61

Ah.

a/n: thx for reading :D sorry it's messy and unlike my previous writings :( hope I can have time to write again btw Price went on business trip so he's missing everything

tag list :D - @blackhawkfanatic @nexthyperfix @danielle143 @goodbyegh0st @reaperxxxxzz @kaoyamamegami @imyprice @cod-z @poppingaround @live-for-fluff @masterstr0ke @mall0ww @ghostysloot @hxnneydew @cutiecusp @beigechristmastree @rejectedbytheempty @lupikekee @hotvinimon @whitetiger846

[arimvv]

Couple corrections about the spn finale bcs I've seen so many people who have not seen it talk about it and add some completely random things to it that never happened. Don't get me wrong, imo the finale sucked and most criticism towards it is completely valid, but I just wanted to clear things up a bit.

1. Dean dies of tetanus on a rusty nail. THIS IS NOT TRUE AT ALL IT'S A JOKE. He didn't die of tetanus, he was impaled by a huge ass metal pole sticking from the wall. A hole through the stomach/chest is what killed him, not a disease. See picture below.

2. Cas dies and is sent to super turbo mega hell for being gay. This one is again not really true. Cas made a deal wayyy back in season 14 with an Entity living in the big empty, a place where ALL demons and angels go after they die, and that deal stated that Cas will take Jack's place in the empty but only when he feels true happiness will the contract be acted upon. He felt true happiness when he confessed to Dean which activated the deal. He was dragged into the empty BUT was also brought back by Jack offscreen, so he's not really even dead ATM (yes it's still the bury your gays trope since Dean died and Cas did not get any proper mention or screen time in the end even tho he was still alive, fuck you writers) That one gif going around of a person falling into hell is NOT Cas, it's not even from supernatural lol.

3. The car dies and goes to heaven. This one is so funny to me for some reason. In spn everyone's heaven is personal to them and has the people/places/items important to the person in it. The impala is important to Dean ergo it's in his heaven. And no, the car does not have any anti-queer or homophobic stickers slapped onto it, idk where that rumour came from.

Anyways I can't think of anything else to add, please don't take this post too seriously and if you have any more corrections to add feel free to mention them in the tags.

[aejiee]

hi! you asked for marauders fic recs so im here to give you some :)

idk if you’ve read these or any yet, so they might seem kinda basic. they’re just to introduce you to this world/the characters. i wish i had a list like this when i first got into the marauders fandom ngl

also these are only gonna be marauders era fics, if you want golden trio era fics as well, i can give you some!

anyway:

all the young dudes by mskingbean89 (completed, 527k words, wolfstar & jily): this is THE marauders fic for most ppl, and i just think of it as what happened canonically. no fic is perfect, but this should be every1’s first marauders era fic imo (you might’ve read this already cuz it’s SO popular). its from remus’ pov and it follows him throughout hogwarts and until (i think) poa or ootp

the wolf’s tail by myheadsgonenumb (wip, 457k words, no ships yet but prob wolfstar & jily): this one’s pretty underrated imo, and it’s SO WELL WRITTEN!!! this also follows remus throughout hogwarts. however id say the diff between this and atyd is that (so far at least) it focuses more on the war side of the marauders era, even when they are still young and at hogwarts. so if you’re interested in how actually dark and dangerous the times were back then, even for children, you will like this one! the only thing ill say for this is that its kinda very descriptive at points (ex. there’s a lot of newspaper clippings, book quotes, interview transcripts etc) but you can just gloss over them if you think they’re not that important. rn i think their 5th year just started, so keep that in mind (its gonna be a long one)!

the cadence of part-time poets by motswolo (completed, 980k words, wolfstar & jily): AAAAAAHHHH this one is my ALL TIME FAV (marauders era) FIC <33333 this is a muggle au, so no magic! this is also a remus pov (😭) and he goes to hawkings (which is basically hogwarts) in his (i think??) 4th year? or younger? smt like that :,). this fic also has my fav oc (tomny) hehe. as the tags say, its a band fic/au, but i’ll spoil no more!

the making of the map by fox_pitch (completed, 79k words, wolfstar & jily): this is a shorter one, but its also rlyyy good. pretty sure this starts and ends in their sixth year, but as the title suggests, its how the marauders map come to exist! its also how wolfstar gets together and its very cute and wholesome. the ending is kinda ambiguous in the sense that it doesn’t give any hints as to if anything changes in this fic’s universe’s future, but id assume not.

choices by messermoon (completed, 624k words, jegulus, wolfstar & jily): i kinda assumed you wanted the “canon” ships (aka jily and wolfstar) but if you’re interested in jegulus (james potter/regulus black) then this one is prob for you. i personally haven’t finished this fic, but ik its a jegulus classic/canon, just like atyd is for jily (& wolfstar). this one follows james, and it doesn’t start on his first year i think. it has alternating povs as well! however, as the tags warn, it is canon compliant, aka reg dies in the end, so do w that what you will :,)

only the brave by solmussa (completed, 646k words, jegulus, wolfstar, dorlene, rosekiller & pandalily): this is another jegulus fic! it has started being considered a classic and if you read it, you’ll understand why. this also does not start from their first year, and this one also has alternating povs! i love the writing and just general concept/plot of this one; i don’t love jegulus but i was still HOOKED w this fic, so yes. its rly good. and as you can see w the tags, this is a happy ending (aka, reg lives)!!!!! mwah love those.

art heist, baby! by otrbs (completed, 219k words, jegulus, wolfstar, dorlene, alice/frank longbottom - idk their ship name): i also have not read this fic, but ive only heard good things about it (and some sobs but that’s what you get for “major character death” : ) )! i know the ending of it tho, and it is kinda sad, so prepare yourself. it is a muggle au, and they basically wanna pull an art heist? yup lets go w that simple explanation.

that’s it for now bahhaha, and its a LOT, so enjoy! if you want shorter ones, i also have some i can show you, and if you’ve read these, lmk if you like them! <3

OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH 🙏🙏🙏 Ur my savior bro. I'm abt to finish ATYD and I started reading The Making of the Map per your suggestion because it was short enough to download a pdf to read in class 💀💀 I really like both of them!! I need to psych myself up to read some of the 500k+ fics tho bc atyd took me so long 😭😭😭 I'll let you know how I find the rest of them ^^ TYY!!!

[eisforeidolon]

Tumblr shows me such horrendous posts sometimes especially from tags like #dean winchester People genuinely with their whole chest think that he could have been saved from that rebar with a first aid kit 😂(even though he obviously couldn't plus they didn't have gods power anymore) and also thinking he gave up lol as if he hasn't said all along how he knew he'd die a hunter, wanted Sam to have a peaceful life & him dying first was best case scenario. They never listen to Dean the show or Jensen

Oof, yeah. It's been ages since I braved the main tags because - at least on tumblr - this fandom is a trashfire of bizarre and ignorant opinions. Like, just as a thought exercise, let's give the maximum benefit of the doubt possible.

I can see, to an extent, why after the light fantasy irreverence of the Dabb years, someone might be wishfully tempted to forget SPN's horror roots and think the Winchesters might not die at the end. Except Jared and Jensen made it pretty clear every time they talked about the ending that they saw the Winchesters dead at the end, one way or another. Except even when we were full on in the hunting-is-a-lark and constant resurrect-o-rama of Dabbernatural, it was still a show that revolved around monsters and death almost as much as it did the brothers' relationship. Except how do you even end a show where the characters constantly bring each other back from the dead in a way that feels significantly final other than them accepting death?

I can see, to an extent, why there would be some confusion over the severity of injuries, because the show never took them as serious as they would be IRL, Chuck or no Chuck. TV in general is pretty terrible about that. Except as much as I loathe the concept of the Winchesters only being competent and surviving because of Chuck, it was a thing in the show. Except we're talking about being stabbed fully through the main body cavity where there are a lot of pretty vital things you can't live with shish-kebabed. Even if it would have been possible to survive that injury IRL as some kind of medical miracle, it would definitely require medical professionals for him to survive getting off that rebar and they were in a barn in the middle of freakin' nowhere - being realistic is not "giving up". Except we're talking about a fictional character where the entire point was that the writers had decided Dean was going to die then, so it was a fatal injury because it was written as fatal. Except I think it's pretty obvious some fans only wanted Sam rushing around trying to do first aid to avoid 7 minutes of incest Dean's speech showing Sam was still the most important person in Dean's life to the end and he was perfectly capable of saying I love you - despite their reams upon reams of meta claiming otherwise.

I am not in any way saying anybody needs to be happy that Dean died, or even needs like the finale. I actually agree Dean's lack of self-worth and fatalism about how he'd inevitably die fighting monsters relatively young (especially when he said that in a particularly low moment) aren't good things, so him being ultimately right is actually really fucking sad. As is Sam getting the normal life he once wanted when IMO he no longer particularly wants it and it's at the expense of losing Dean after all they'd been through together. Disappointment, even disappointment one should reasonably have seen coming, is totally fair. The ending is meant to be bittersweet with the sweet part coming from the heaven reunion, and even dismissing delusional shippers? Not everybody is going to like that kind of ending. Except there's disappointment and then there's being really fucking weird about that disappointment by insisting a tv show owed you to end the way you wanted and further, it personally wronged you because no one tried to put a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. Also, a character dying from doing something dangerous and acknowledging they are dying when they get a fatal wound doing it instead of trying to insist they're okay is ... endorsing suicidal themes.

[partly-cloudyskies]

tagged by @big-meows always happy to talk about mah storeez

How many works do you have on AO3?

29. seems like a lot, where does the time go?

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

630,542 where??? time??? go??????

3. What fandoms do you write for?

lessee we got ur ducktales, ur gundam with from mercury, night in the woods, amphibia, outer wilds, xcom and deltarune. man i really forgot about that single xcom fic i wrote. i really did intend to write something in that fandom. i still might maybe idk

4. Top five fics by kudos?

There Will Be No Dancing i've always been really happy with this one. i feel like I really caught the energy of the characters. i'm glad people seemed to catch that energy y'know

Hypothesis i wrote this almost immediately after deltarune came out i think it was like the 2nd one with that pairing and i always kind of felt like it got kudos mostly cuz it was so early. i mean it's not bad but idk, i think it just got out the door early and that's why it got attention. my favorite part is the bit with berdly

Under the Shadow of the Snack Falcon the first fic i posted when i started writing fanfic again after, like, over 20 years. i'm glad it's in the mix

Orbits imo this is my most, like, technically accomplished fic. in terms of structure and theme and that. there's another outer wilds fic i wanna write. been sitting on it for a while. hope i get to it someday!

Rite of Spring my night in the woods magnum opus (that i completed, sorry glass factory). i named it after the stravinsky ballet. i felt like it was thematic, idk. i really had fun writing for lori

5. Do you respond to comments?

i try to. i mean people make a stink about comments being important so i try to reply to the ones i get, even if it's something innocuous like 'thx for reading!'

some fics i don't respond at all and it's usually cuz of any number of badbrain circumstances i am under at the moment. always feel a lil bad about that. not enough to make a stink of it, bad in the sense that you see a banana that you left out too long and now it's all brown and mushy. that kind of bad

well, all any of us can do is try

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

the view from mars, i suppose? or maybe it's monument. or quests! i kind of liked quests.

view from mars is kind of a bog standard teen crush melodrama, but i liked writing the girls from amphibia so i thought i'd give it a try. would like to do another amphibia story someday.

monument is an outer wilds fic, so everyone dies (spoilers i guess) and it's about, like, your work outliving your life and then even your work eventually disappears and then what's left? and maybe asking what's left isn't even the right question. you know. existential stuff. play outer wilds

quests is me indulging myself cuz i have a thing for pairings where one half is gonna have to take care of the other half and like, is lena really up for that and what happens when she gets in over her head cuz webby gets in over her head. idk i'm too much of a sap to take this to its angstiest conclusion and it gets resolved p quickly which might make it seem a little pat but the story did what i set out for it to do so i'm cool with it

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

there will be no dancing, probably. it's got a pretty sweet ending. just don't read the stories in the rest of the series. it's fine it's cool

8. Do you get hate on fics?

not that i've seen. i did see a comment where someone was asking a leading question like they wanted to get into some Discourse but i just ignored it and nothing came of it and we all lived our lives

9. Do you write smut?

ya when the notion strikes. if we're examining the ways characters interact with each other sex is one of those ways and it'd be weird to exclude it over all the other imo

10. Craziest crossover?

i never actually tagged this is how we grow as a crossover huh. but @big-meows was the one to initially conceive of a stardew/ducktales crossover so i ain't taking credit. i guess the only other option is red brithright, my current wip: star wars and witch from mercury

it's not really a crazy crossover tho. they're both sci fi franchises that started in the 70s and prominently feature protagonists with complicated relationships with their parents and have laser swords. kind of an obvious crossover

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of. it's hard to know if i'd care even if someone did. i guess i'd be miffed if someone were making money off of it somehow

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

i have had requests, never saw if they actually did it but i always said yes

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

i've had some beta-ing but idk if i'll ever co-write. i've got a pretty light presence in fandoms so i doubt i'll get involved in anything more collaborative then, like, prompt weeks

14. All time favourite ship?

idk man i mean i wouldn't devote days of writing to any ship unless they were my all time fave to some degree. weblena's always gonna have a place, sulemio is the new hotness but i think there's something enduring in it. i'll always have a soft spot for barrisoka

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

i like to think i'll finish all wips eventually. yes i know that's dumb but i still like to think it

16. What are your writing strengths?

idk i like to think i'm p okay at juggling an ensemble. like when there's a lot of characters and giving them all a little moment to characterize themselves. even if it's just a single line. i hope that comes across. and i love to have a sense of place, like an environment that feels authentic. i love a good place and want others to feel like they can see it. who knows if that works

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

i think i tend to get bogged down in details to the point where i have to step back and ask myself if i've lost the thread of the story. like i'll get preoccupied with how characters get from point a to point b when that shit don't matter

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

don't think i've ever done

19. First fandom you wrote in?

starcraft. used to be part of a writing group that did varying degrees of starcraft. all ancient history by now

20. Favourite fic you've written?

hm. probably there will be no dancing. like yeah again i feel like i was pretty on for that one. punchy and funny and written deep in the perspective of the pov character. i really do wish i could keep that kind of writing for long projects! but alas

if you see this feel free to do your own!

[thetrashbagswasteland]

2022 Writing Wrapup

Tagged by: @korblez (ty!!)

Total Words Published: 452,803 words 😳

Additional Words Written: I've got 44,851 strewn through like 20 WIPS at this point lmao

Grand Total of Words: 497,654. Yikes. Before 2022 I'd put maybe 100k words down total in my life, so that's a terrifying number.

Fandoms: Honestly, it's just been Mass Effect all the way down lmao

Highest Everything (raw kudos, hits, comments): Project Sunseeker without a shadow of a doubt. Kinda to be expected all things considered but it's still a scary number yaknow?

Highest Kudos to Hits Ratio: Extended Release - the n7 day posted final chapter from Sunseeker that I forgot I'd planned to finish with (oops)

New Things I Tried: Writing! Actually, y'know, putting words down and publishing them! I cannot stress enough that I published the first chapter of Project Sunseeker having never actually finished a multichaptered work in my life and it's been a STEEP learning curve.

Fic I Spent The Most Time On: Instead of saying the obvious one bc it's already been mentioned at great length, let's go with Beyond Familiar Stars bc putting 80k words down simply takes time no matter how well your brain's vibing.

Fic I Spent The Least Time On: I'm discounting prompts and gifts here bc that's not a fair metric imo and makes things sound like they're less important (when they aren't) but Wipe My Hands Clean was written in like... 13 days straight. Yeah, kinda overdid the NaNoWriMo goal there 😂

Favorite Thing I Wrote: Curiosity Is A Dangerous Concept ties with A Little Too Much Like Me here because they're two very different fics but equally fun and off the cuff!

Favorite Thing I Read: Oh boy, this one's a long one. Let's go with: Broken Mirror by @sparatus, and for that matter the entire exdiff universe Interregnum (Species Swap as a whole for that matter) and Friend of a Friend by @otemporanerys Stellar Parallax and Lost/Found by @korblez Hunger Pangs and Controlled Explosions in Chicago and The Citadel Adventures of Castis Vakarian and Alec Ryder by Missjlh and... let's stop the list there y'know, there's only so much history digging I can do lmao

Writing Goals for 2023: Keep up the momentum! I've got the full sequel to Project Sunseeker in its planning stages - Good Men Don't Go To War should at least start within the year, though I doubt it'll be finished within it because it's going to be massive. I'm also looking forwards to putting that down as well as finishing up Beyond Familiar Stars and Follow My Lead; Heart Of A Dancer and Here We Go Again are also on the cards within that same universe though I'm not sure where they're going quite yet.

New Works: Chomp The Champion Varren, Project Sunseeker, Yes, Sir, Tales In The Last Days, The Idealist, The Only Thing I Ask (Love Me Mercilessly), Poison The Well And Take Me Straight To Hell, 'Your Dad Is My Cardio' & Other Torture Tactics From The Desk Of Avitus Rix, Spectre, You Talk Me Into The Best Bad Situations House of Anarchy, Ryncol Tastes Like Ass, A Fraction Of Your Happy Heart, Shatter, Extended Release, Curiosity Is A Dangerous Concept, Wipe My Hands Clean, Beyond Familiar Stars, Follow My Lead and A Little Too Much Like Me. *dies* Is it too late to make my NY resolution picking shorter titles?

I'm like 90% sure everyone I know has already been tagged but... if you haven't and you wanna do it, self-identify at this point!

[effervescible]

I posted 4,746 times in 2022

That's 3,876 more posts than 2021!

22 posts created (0%)

4,724 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@vivi-mire

@waffilicious

@ahollowyear

@dying-offeels

@kawree

I tagged 4,730 of my posts in 2022

#kh - 1,262 posts

#funny - 309 posts

#laugh rule - 259 posts

#tumblr - 255 posts

#comics - 249 posts

#roxas - 206 posts

#cats - 195 posts

#asscreed - 186 posts

#sora - 174 posts

#fandom - 94 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#this forced me to have to explain why sora didn't at least recognize the name even if he didn't make the connection between the organization

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

waiting for ubisoft to maybe-announce an Assassin’s Creed (1) remaster at their September event like it’s actually going to happen. I’m just a clown in a hood.

69 notes - Posted July 19, 2022

#4

Old Man Ephemer enjoying time with his family, still missing the friends he once had to leave behind (or who left him behind), but absolutely covered in his many adorable grandkids who he loves very much and who love to hear tales of his youthful Keyblade adventures, reblog if you agree

80 notes - Posted April 28, 2022

#3

sometimes I remember that Jiminy Cricket actually, canonically gave Aqua and Ventus Gummi phones with in-universe “summaries of everything that's happened so far” and I desperately want to know wtf THAT was like for them

114 notes - Posted April 25, 2022

#2

This is way too broad to be useful, but pick one underdiscussed or underappreciated aspect of KH and sell me on it.

Dammit GG this is actually kinda hard! But if I had to pick, it's probably the sheer earnestness of it. It's not only an aspect I appreciate a lot, imo it's the ONLY thing that makes the series work.

Like yeah, KH1 is very earnest in that tween adventure, wholesome coming-of-age adventure sort of way that's not unusual for that kind of story, but it persists well after the plot goes turbo anime nonsense. It doesn't take itself overly serious in the sense that it purports to be an Important Take On The Human Condition but even when it flirts with the fourth wall, not ONCE does it try to back off from the stuff it is trying to talk about.

We've all been there, right? Had that indefinable-but-undeniably-there moment when a canon kind of winks at us and chuckles and lets us know it understands how fundamentally silly its premise is, that it's not actually cringey because we're all in on the joke together? At this particular moment in space-time, I could not come up with a specific example to save my life but I also KNOW that KH stands out because it doesn't do this and it doesn't loosen its iron grip on earnestness for a second.

KH is like, fuck that. It actually engages with its ridiculous bits in a way that never make the player feel embarrassed for buying into them. "Dude gets split in half then put back together because he is Special but his other half is still there because of that Specialness and becomes besties with someone he won't remember after she dies because of some bullshit we made up to facilitate a retcon" is objectively pretty eye-rolly, but KH doesn't roll its eyes. KH is like "wow would that be fucked up or what? How would someone's mental health actually be affected by that anime nonsense?" It isn't preachy but it is surprisingly thoughtful.

KH is like, it's fine to have big feelings about stuff! Your teenage angst is not embarrassing! And it applies to the positive things too. It's fine to be sappy and say saccharine and heartfelt things to your friend. It's fine to be silly without having to attach a disclaimer that you're actually a cool and mature person but felt like being temporarily silly. You can just be silly. Whatever emotions are happening in a given cutscene, KH turns them up to 11 and doesn't even consider the fact that there's anything weird about that.

Also, as a shorter second answer, I think KH is great because it doesn't care about specifically explain certain extremely lore-important concepts like the power of waking but it DOES care about explaining why Mickey Mouse didn't have a shirt at the end of the first game. I think that kind of laser-focus on extremely dumb details should be appreciated more.

203 notes - Posted April 29, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

a logical progression

Today chat discussed how it’s funny that Master Xehanort’s one act of kindness had such wildly disproportionate consequences and ultimately fucked him over

367 notes - Posted March 22, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[doctorbluesmanreturns]

I posted 4,545 times in 2022

That's 447 more posts than 2021!

127 posts created (3%)

4,418 posts reblogged (97%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@mothnem

@as-catolica

@mariposasmonarch

@wisegirlandseaweedbrainforever

@13flowersandfoxes

I tagged 667 of my posts in 2022

#youtube - 45 posts

#goncharov - 10 posts

#unreality - 8 posts

#wow - 4 posts

#t h i s - 3 posts

#this - 3 posts

#since he was the first big screaming angry content reviewer who everyone else copied in the early 2010s - 2 posts

#and some of his repeated claims include that all exposition is bad no matter what - 2 posts

#but also any time a story doesn't explicitly tell you everything that's a plot hole - 2 posts

#media criticism has always been more leaned towards bad faith anyway by the nature of the genre - 2 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#the problem imo comes from less talented writers thinking the quips are the whole point rather than being just one ingredient in good media

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Over the years, film critics have often expressed confusion as to the point of Dan Aykroyd's single scene in Goncharov, portraying a loud, obnoxious American tourist who has a one and a half minute monologue (according to Scorsese and others, improvised by Aykroyd on the day of filming) that is abruptly cut short by Goncharov being spotted by hit man Jacob Papageorge and the ensuing chaos. Speculation has run rampant as to why this broadly comedic moment, so out of place in a film whose comedy is otherwise confined to the bleakest of gallows humor, was even in the film at all. Was it a favor to Belushi to allow his best friend to appear? Was Scorsese attempting to jump start the career of a hitherto little known Canadian comedian in whom he saw great potential?

It turns out that the answer is simple: this was a setup for a scene at the end of the film in which Aykroyd's character is revealed to be Elwood Delaney, an undercover INTERPOL detective working with the Sicilian police, who was portraying the brash, "ugly American" tourist to make himself appear harmless. Delaney arrests Papageorge while the latter is hiding in a phone booth.

This scene proved highly unpopular with test audiences, who had found the character of Papageorge to be one of the most sympathetic in the film, and so it was cut and unfortunately the negative has long since been lost, although a single still of a rehearsal for the scene (seen above) was recently discovered. Aykroyd's character was reduced to the single scene, and Papageorge's ending in the film is left ambiguous as he is last seen fleeing the warehouse where Goncharov died.

However, the lost scene had great impact on Aykroyd's future career. As Papageorge is dragged out of the phone booth by Delaney, he claims to have be a businessman about to make a very important phone call. Delaney smiles and asks, "who you gonna call?", a line which later appeared in both The Blues Brothers (1980) and, most famously, as the catchphrase to the Ghostbusters franchise (1984-present).

93 notes - Posted November 20, 2022

#4

Btw once Dracula Daily is finished, everyone needs to check out the Mythgard Academy lecture series about Dracula, it's a free lecture series on YouTube and Spotify in which the lecturer dives into the book and is one of the very few academics out there who wants to examine it on a deep level and who actually knows what he's talking about, it's a very fun series and he also talks about some of the more famous adaptations and the various ways they try and fail to live up to the book.

208 notes - Posted September 9, 2022

#3

Ennio Morricone's score for Goncharov was the only time he worked with Martin Scorsese. When Bernard Herrmann, Scorsese's initial choice, became unavailable, he suggested Scorsese reach out to Morricone, then finishing up work on The Sicilian Checkmate. Morricone liked the idea of an Italian using a Russian alias, and the score features an in-joke: all of the "Russian" sounding music is played on Italian instruments (for example, instead of a balalaika, the main theme is played on mandolin).

266 notes - Posted November 20, 2022

#2

And here is the haunting main theme from Goncharov, a sweet, faux-Russian melody whose light tone symbolizes Goncharov's dream of escaping from his bleak existence in organized crime. Truly one of the most amazing film scores ever.

329 notes - Posted November 20, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Watching Cowboy Bebop is fun because they keep talking about the Great Disaster of 2022 where the moon crashed into the earth and after the past couple years it's like

480 notes - Posted August 5, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[cheswirls]

ok i def have decided i need to rewatch the finale to get a good consensus but after browsing the show's tag (granted this is 2 days after the finale aired so i understand the immediate hype has died down and people have had time to digest and criticize the show as a whole) and being met w a lot of long commentary posts instead of content for the finale i wanted to see (gifs, art, etc) i'm gonna attempt to formulate my thoughts in more detail before doing anything else

largely i do not think anyone's criticism matters to me but it was interesting to see the difference in opinion and a lot of the same critical beats i've seen repeated over and over bother me so (this is in no way a response to anyone btw!!!) here's my two cents:

jellyfish can't swim at night was good. i liked it! but there's a difference between good and great, and the same for liking and loving a show. i know that it was very entertaining and i had a lot of fun watching every episode, but i also didn't think about it much until it was saturday again and a new ep was out.

when i wrote that other post-finale thoughts post i had to look up kiui and kimura's names. i had to make sure meru was the correct girl i was thinking of. there's no denying i enjoyed the show, but i also think that joy was limited to when i was watching it. when i get super into an anime, i have no trouble memorizing everyone's names. the character designs in this anime are all unique and creative while still being in the scope of real-world possible. i say this to highlight that no one looked the same and yet i still struggled to remember everyone's given names, and it didn't help that most of the main cast each had a legal and stage name!

the show being Just Good isn't a problem, btw. it was never meant to be ground-breaking or tell this fantastic tale, after all. it's always been a show about teenage girls making music, and that's completely fine! actually, i didn't even look at it thru yuri-tinted glasses until the 5th episode and hadn't considered anything else beyond that at all (re, kiui possibly being nb). i said before that i was a little sad that kano/mahiru never went anywhere, but after soaking in the (limited) opinions of the masses, i changed my mind: i think it's fine.

largely why i think the finale was okay despite being rushed is that it left everything on a good note. i didn't even realize ep12 was the last until the title card, and yea i do think the narrative could've benefited from a 2-cour season or even a 13th episode, but the way things ended wasn't bad by any means. the point (imo) was to establish things getting better and wrapping up what was left uncertain or was at least not good. by 'not good' i mean not happy, etc. the finale certainly did this and i think it was pulled off rather well! but only because this anime is what it is. the story the creators wanted to tell was accomplished, the most important beats were closed out, and all ends well :)

my main takeaway abt all the yuri "bait" is that i've decided that i don't think of it as bait anymore. the anime in full takes place over the last year of high school for these four girls, and it ends with them graduating and getting ready to pursue their own paths in life. it's a happy, uplifting sorta open-ended, and i appreciate that. these four have found themselves and have worked through some of the issues in their lives that were holding them each back. now they have to get out into the world and explore their lives further. it's great! it's great, and i like that it ended this way. there's no need for absolutely everything to get wrapped up because it's not over! as shown with the montage in the very end, things are still moving forward, just beginning.

it's been a bit and i might be misremembering, but i think the kano/mahiru kiss in ep5 was the first kiss for one of them. it was impulsive and they didn't really talk about it, but i don't think it just "went nowhere" because of everything that followed. they're still on really good terms and they went out (i think one of them explicitly used the term 'date' when they did) and at the end i've decided that it's okay that nothing was explicitly defined. that implies to me that they're both figuring out what they want, and it's something either or both of them will have to grow into. there's a vast difference between queer bait and between putting a pin in a thought/idea. it goes along very well with the anime's open ending for me too.

the first two years after i graduated high school were easily the most pivotal years of my life. i learned so much about myself, and it's largely because of the different environment i was in. now that the four main characters are out of that life (even if only free from social stigma by not being highschool age anymore - kano and kiui weren't in school much but it is still something they can put behind them) and have more freedom to be able to do what they want (even if it just means not being trapped in school for 8+ hrs a day) then they will all definitely begin to change as people, more than the show has already expanded upon. and that is so exciting to me!!

another point abt the open-end is that i think from what i've seen, it's that aspect of the finale that's getting criticized. it's fine to not like open-endings! but they are legit forms of storytelling, and it's not "bad writing" to not tie everything in a pretty bow. to me, after watching the finale, the point of it ending the way it did was to highlight that none of the four main characters' stories are over. the vibe of this show was never supposed to be 100% serious and i think "teasing" mahiru and kano's relationship was meant to plant a seed of the possibility in each of their minds. not liking open-endings is not valid criticism for saying the entire show is terrible and the finale was bad. everyone can have their preferences, but the anime was never supposed to be groundbreaking plot-wise or content-wise and i think having a stigma against it in full bc it didn't feature what you wanted it to is stupid and childish. it showed a snapshot (not even a full year!!!!! c'mon now) in the lives of four different people and did a good enough job of navigating all of them in the runtime it got. not every anime has to be 100% conclusive and this is definitely a good example of such.

[mihai-florescu]

I think i shouldnt have kept my actual response in the tags lmao but i do view ! and !! as stories that explore different themes through the lens of idols. For Crazy:B broadly I dont get the metafictional aspects which are integral to reading characters like eichi, wataru, rei, keito etc. But what i do agree with is that both eichi and rinne question and disrupt the status quo, they're there for a message regarding the themes of the story to be conveyed through.

To me it's ok that people hate eichi for his actions generally, but what i cant stand is when people overlook his role's relevancy. Which is often the case in eichi hate from what i've seen? Or there are the people who don't care to dive into his motivations, which, i find it hard to actually hate him after you learn more about him and his role? But i also have a hard time hating any of the polarizing characters even when i personally don't agree with their actions.

I've been annoyed in the past at people saying rinne and niki are the eichi and wataru of !! because absolutely no theyre not, eichi and wataru are still very much there as themselves, and it does a disservice to rinne and niki as well. But i can see the train of thoughts of how you'd get there, both superficially (gay people real) and more concretely (eichi and rinne both common disruption of the status quo of the idol industry, both ok with painting themselves as villains in the end to achieve their goals, disillusionment with the state of society). But they do it for very different reasons imo? Also they're both characters whose backgrounds are so important in how they were shaped, you cant take their actions in a vacuum and judge rhem just based on that. But, like, that's every character i suppose. I just see it the most with rinne and eichi. And rei. Anyway I think they're both fascinating characters, this all ties in with my sentiment that if anyone is so genuinelly triggered by any one character, they should distance themselves from the story as a whole. Enstars is so incredibly character driven, i don't see why go through reading if you don't enjoy its protagonists or the themes they encompass. They're not real and shouldn't be treated as real criminals on trial.

Ok this is what i actually wanted to say to the ask anon itself, but to reply to the comment too now, i don't think i agree with your statement that eichi isn't self destructive? He's a character constantly tip toeing between wanting to live but not being able to because of his illness, and contemplating suicide out of self loathing. He's very much unstable and self destructive (letting himself be kidnapped in crossroad comes to mind, but just pushing himself to stand on stage and perform all throughout the war is an example. Refusing treatment after his revolution is completed, etc).

I agree that he positioned himself as the protagonist (while being critical of his actions the entire time, rushing the story just to make sure it's completed before he dies) but the whole point of ! is that he makes himself into trickstar's enemy so they can lead a more successful revolution that will bring more happiness than his did. Yes the bad things he's done still happened and resulted in pain but we gotta look at it from a broad storytelling perspective. What story would it be without conflict and change? It all led to story and character development. Eichi didnt stab and spit on some guys in our neighbourhood school during recess, he's a character meant to kickstart and forward the story at the end of the day. One aspect about him is the fact that he's aware of the existence of the story, and that's part of why im fascinated by and love him so much.

handing this take to you bc if i trust anyone with it it’s you anyways it’s funny how i keep seeing big fans of rinne who also like hate eichi as if they did not do the exact same basic shtick of “playing the villain out of love for idols, because they felt it was going to make things better overall” just in different circumstances and done very differently based off their personalities ofc

I love reading things im so far removed from, i had no idea there were rinnePs who hate eichi? I think the only rinneP i follow is mimi whom i respect quite a lot. But yeah, it's hypocritical innit?

[mr-and-mr-pendragon]

Merlin S3 excerpt in which Dudley Dursley is smarter than Merlin

Merlin: You need to learn to use your magic for good, that is its true purpose!!! It's not meant for your own vanity!

Gilly: I'm not gonna apologise for who I am!!! You can be a servant and pretend you're less than that but I'm not gonna-

Merlin: No, that's not what I do!

Gilly: No? You're defending the King! Protecting a man who would have you dead!

Merlin: I'm protecting you!

Gilly: You've been pretending for so long now that you've actually forgotten who you are.

Merlin: ... That's not true...

Gilly: Isn't it? It's time someone struck a blow for the likes of you and me. And if you're too weak then I will.

[qqueenofhades]

I feel more and more like this portrayal of extreme violence against women and also the idea that people in the middle ages were dumb/didn't know what they were doing (of which imo horrific childbirth gore is an example--I know it happened but also it still does!) is very much in line with the idea that history is an always linear progression upwards (dumb to smart, no human rights to many of them you get the drill) so in a way these "realistic" depictions make sense to most people probably because they assume that whatever is happening to women now, it must have been Worse for them back then, and because they're aware women didn't have too many rights until recently (a d even that is debatable) that has only ever been worse in the past too unless they were Joan of Arc

And this is why primary and secondary school history education needs a complete overhaul

*same anon, I just wanted to add to the linear history thing real quick. It also writes off the men as idiots who don't know morals, and humanity in general as stupid, rather than a complex evolved system of thinking which simply is different from contemporary white western civilisation. It just... Feels a lot like the way colonialists looked at the people they called savages.

I mean, yeah. I've written (and ranted) extensively about all of this in the past (as I said, this whole conversation is like being dead-fish-slapped in the face with approximately-2014 Tumblr). I have too many posts on this subject to possibly link and/or remember them all, but my medieval history and women in history tags both come to mind as places where some of that stuff can be found.

Also, either the makers of HOTD or the people writing the Hollywood Reporter article actually used the overturn of Roe v. Wade as a "reason" for it being "important" for the show to depict the "fact!!!" that premodern women "often" died in childbirth (one of the showrunners even came out with some imaginary-but-weirdly-specific statistic about it being a "50-50 chance" for a woman to survive giving birth. Thanks for that, Noted Medieval History Expert, Guy Who Makes Television Shows For HBO!) And like... does any woman in America right now think that what they really need is some mediocre-white-man entertainment executive making a high-budget infomercial about why childbirth is dangerous? Like they suddenly discovered that fact three seconds ago and are like ZOMGZ MORE PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW THIS? When the possibility of women dying in preventable ways due to pregnancy complications has once more become a grim reality, like... we also really need to see this in entertainment now? Because something something realism!!!?

Either way, the overturn of Roe alone should put paid to any serious attempt to argue that things have only gotten "better" for women throughout history, have never gotten worse, and that "human rights" only proceed forward on a chronologically based idea of liberal morality. If the "progress" of history is real, why do we have a literal fascist movement in America that is mouthing all the old and supposedly discredited tenets of fascist thought? Why is that happening again, if we learned back in the 1940s that racist nationalist fascism was bad, fought a pretty major war over it, and then supposedly moved past it for good? Etc etc. People create social attitudes and legal rules according to what they find useful at the time and in response to their needs and fears. As I have said, they also don't live long enough to have any real historical memory or sense of just repeating what has been done in the past, because a) they don't learn history, b) they don't believe it, and c) it hasn't happened to them, they treat history as only the parts of it that they like and which support their point of view, and therefore just go around and around in circles and never actually learn their lesson. Blah.

Anyway, conservatives and the alt-right like the idea that there was supposedly a time when women "knew their place" and weren't treated like people and had no rights and only existed to please their menfolk and Serve God, because that lends "weight" to their attempt to do the exact same thing right now. Liberals like the idea that the Past Was Always Bad For Women because it implies that modern liberalism happily solved that problem and provides them with endless ways to disparagingly call the fascists "medieval," which isn't helpful either and distracts from how modernity has developed and nurtured these toxic ideas for its own purposes. So. Yeah.

[redjaybathood]

Fic Tropes: Jason is a poor little meow meow who never did anything wrong and the Batfam are all mean, authorities thugs and or naïve idiots for not wanting him to go around beheading people and controlling crime.

So I apologize in advance if I misunderstood this ask! But I really struggled with answering this question. Because that's me! Isn't it? Thing is, I don't know!

Altogether those tropes are bad, because it, again, creates an over-the-top impression. Like abused genius baby Tim. But separately, or just carefully balanced... It could work.

Jason as poor little meow meow is, well, as popular as he's hated (by me, at least). Because yeah, our boy went through some shit, and then some more, and more and more yet. And it's honestly - fucking tragic, and I am attracted to this tragedy. But he's like. Giving as good as he gets, it's important imo.

At least, up until he doesn't.

And I might be misunderstanding PLMM as a trend, but I think I do write him like that. I have, I think, at least three fics where Bruce outright kills him? I remember a not-so-good reaction to one of it in particular because I didn't tag it with Major Character Death, even if he empathically does not come back. And I was like, huh, I really didn't tag it. It didn't occur to me, because Jason always dies.

Whether he did something wrong or not, is rarely in my focus. Who cares if you did something wrong when the one who kills you is your father, who is supposed to love you unconditionally? Who wouldn't even kill Joker? (that applies to some extent to fics where Bruce doesn't kill Jason, but they still are antagonistic; i.e. who cares if Jason murders the whole Earth, if, in an ideal world, it wouldn't matter to Bruce either; look, he's a hero, but he is also a father; as a hero, his responsibility to stop Red Hood. As a father, his responsibility is to support him. Yeah! It's not realistic to expect from Batman to support a murderer but! The murder, in this case, is a metaphor, okay)

And then we get to the second part of this trope: Batfam is mean. Yes, I love using this in short stories. Mostly because that's what Batfam stans themselves say: that they, their favorite characters, wouldn't be kind and accepting to Jason, because he's a murderer who's beheading people. Irrevocable differences.

Dick honestly wishes Jason died during his fight with Bruce;

Tim never thought Jason is his Robin, he thinks he's a loser;

Cass would never accept death as a matter of course;

Steph paid with her life for the right not to become a Red Hood of sorts;

Damian had to work to overcome his conditioning and redeem himself (which, a funny fucking premise, Damian's redemption; I would argue that he is not, in fact, at fault or has anything to redeem himself over; I hate the idea of him needing redemption) and so he wouldn't appreciate Red Hood who's still (kinda) how Damian was in the past.

They all will be mean to Jason in my fics because they're mean to him both in comics and in the collective consciousness of their fans.

Seriously, even if I don't look at it as a writer but as a reader, I will have far fewer issues with Batfam being mean vs Batfam welcoming him with open arms. It's not going to happen - it's not supposed to. Jason is passed that, and they, let's face it, were never looking at him charitably. Always seeing the worst of him, from Bruce to Alfred to Barbara to Dick. Which is the view that Tim, Steph, and Cass should have inherited via the stories they were told.

And basically, with Batfam honestly expecting the worst out of Red Hood and whether or not Jason meets their expectations, it's a great premise. For me, it's never about murder good vs murder bad. It's about the extent of family acceptance, and what you personally sacrifice of yourself to fit in. Will Batfam accept Red Hood? (no) Will Red Hood carve out a piece of himself to be accepted? (also no) Will they still remain a family? Were they ever a family? (...)

And this is, like, only one of the probable takes on the trope. Back to my short stories where Bruce just kills Jason and doesn't even realize it, it's honestly just that. A tear-jerker. Yes, not much literary merit to it. And people can, like, judge me about it but don't tell me it's unrealistic.

So my verdict: this is a trope that looks bad but could be good. Jason is a poor little meow meow, Batfam is mean.

If you balance the shit well and don't go over the top, you can pull that off.

Things that will put me off: Batfam not only mean but also morons (talk about unrealistic); OP Jason (he's good but he's not god-level, there have to be some limitations); moralizing (don't try to be Jason Todd's lawyer, please, he doesn't need it).

[majestictoe]

I'm reading thru the centaurworld tag rn and I'm a little ???? about some of the disk horse going on? Re: the nowhere king

His death struck me as a mercy kill first of all, the general half of him as dead and the elk half was deflated and strange prior to their reconnection. He looked Better but he was still oozing that black goo. imo the mysterious woman killing him probably didn't cut his lifespan short by all that much & likely spared him some pain.

And in his final moments she was about as kind as you could realistically expect her to be. She was never obligated to forgive him (all parts of him) for what he caused her and the world, nor did I think she would, it's not like it came out of nowhere. She was honest. Did you expect her to lie? Would you want her to? In the face of everything he's done, would you, in her position, hold his chin gently and tell him everything was going to be alright? Could you do that in the wake of all the death and agony? Would you?

She's a human being with human being emotions and sometimes human beings don't forgive and it's okay. Even if she did he still likely would have died.

I'm sad about the Elktaur too! He's tragic and I think that's kind of the point. He's also incredibly human (in the acts and thinks like one sense. I know he's not actually one) and sure, he was redeemable on the virtue of being so, but that doesn't mean that he *had* to be redeemed in the show or that he inevitably would be. (Plus the length of the season probably wouldn't allow that.) (I think the idea of a villain who is irredeemable in every way w no depth is not the mark of a mature story or one that is interested in saying something meaningful. The elktaur wasn't that. He just simply wasn't redeemed. There's a difference there I think. Not redeemed =/= irredeemable.)

And like. Yeah. Sometimes people who are hurting won't get better. Sometimes they'll hurt others because of it. It's important to recognize the humanity in them, but you can't save everyone, can you? (At the point the Elktaur's life ended, regardless of your opinion on his emotional state, he was just too far gone physically.) Things don't always go back to the way they were. And that's something that centaurworld is well aware of, I think, and it's consistent with everything it's been saying since season 1.

Sometimes relationships can't be mended, sometimes you come out of a new situation not quite the same. People grow and they change.

A lot of Horse's angst in season 1 was the worry that she would come our of centaurworld and fail to recognize Rider, or vice versa. That particular fear didn't come to fruition but the status quo of their relationship did change. They met up and spent time apart again in season 2. They loved each other very much but weren't stuck at the hip anymore. Horse looked different, she could talk now, they were never going to just be a Horse and her Rider again. The power dynamic changed irreversibly.

And it was okay. It was alright. It was hard for them both but they still loved each other and trusted each other to love them, they held on to hope and their love and they were rewarded for it.

That, I think, is the key difference between Horse and Rider and the Mysterious Woman and the Elktaur. The parallel is pretty interesting to me.

Elktaur loved the Mysterious Woman, but he never trusted her to love him as he was. He never gave her the opportunity to. (I don't think this was entirely his fault, the show hinted at some divisions between centaurs and humans that probably fed it.) Horse was scared but she gave Rider the opportunity to love her with how she changed, and she did.

So maybe it's nor really about whether he was irredeemable or not, maybe it was about how opportunities escape us if we can't allow ourselves to hope. Or something.

But yeah. The nowhere king was a sad tragic figure. And his death was part of the tragedy. And I think that it's fine from a writing standpoint. That's what fix it fics are for

A show never has to give a complete happy ending. I don't think his death was about punishing him narratively or whatever. It was just a consequence. It wasn't a happy moment. Endings don't have to be entirely happy.

(If you read all of this kudos I don't think it was very coherent at all lol. Mostly I was just talking to myself.)