#Mads makes a text

[hinamie]

post-graduation trip airport looks

[fanaticalthings]

the muskification of twitter except it's lex luthor instead of elon lol

<- Prev Masterlist Next ->

[skyberia]

on the agency of puppets

[thevioletcaptain]

i genuinely don't care how good a piece of ai generated art or writing looks on the surface. i don't care if it emulates brush strokes and metaphor in a way indistinguishable from those created by a person.

it is not the product of thoughtful creation. it offers no insights into the creator's life or viewpoint. it has no connection to a moment in time or a place or an attitude. it has no perspective. it has no value.

it's empty, it's hollow, and it exists only to generate clicks (and by extension, ad revenue.)

it's just another revolting symptom of the disease that is late stage capitalism, and it fucking sucks.

[bernard-the-rabbit]

Uni doodles <3

[modawg]

i wish annabeth held more and was able to express more seething rage bc i feel like it would truly elevate her character and i know she has the capacity for it

like i just want her to break some shit and i want her to be fiercely protective and i want her to physically harm people

the only moment i can really think of her doing that is the scene where she punches percy’s bully but when i went back to read that i realised how much it’s really not looked into by rick

for some reason i had it in my head that it was a big moment where annabeth looked like this actual crazy badass who beat tf outta this kid for bullying percy and tho she does look like a badass bro hit him once told him to fuck off and dipped i wanted her to like BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF HIM

annabeth had followed percy all day watched every instance where percy was bullied and just punched him once and walked away ?? nah my annabeth chase would’ve had percy pulling her off him she does not care that he’s mortal she will actually kill him

where’s the feral child on the streets ?? where did she go i want her back

feral abandoned and raised by wolves jason grace ?? more like feral run away and raised by teens annabeth chase

i want her to punch more people please and probably scream a little

[kuroshika]

[p00sy-d3stro7er]

I actually thought that my previous text post would be the last one but I found these in the depths of my gallery so. Enjoy your meal *throws them like chicken feed*

[apostaterevolutionary]

I am so sorry, apparently it’s 2024 and I’m arguing about dragon age again lmao. How did I get here! Why is this happening!! Time is a flat circle!!!

Anyway. People can feel how they want about the past games not mattering in this game. If you’re cool with it, I’m happy for you. But there’s one particular argument in defence of this choice that is really, really bothering me and I have to rant

The thing I keep seeing is “well all this other stuff has nothing to do with the main plot or Rook, so it should be cut” and that’s. Not a good way to tell stories in my opinion. Because here’s the thing: it’s not about the Big Overall Plot. It’s about the characters that live in this world, big and small

I’m going to use the example of Varric and Hawke cause I think it’s the easiest to explain quickly. Varric is a storyteller. That’s the defining trait of his character. He tells stories, and sometimes they’re true and sometimes they’re not and sometimes it’s something in between. In DA2 he tells you about his brother. In inquisition, he talks about hawke and there’s banter about several of the companions. Most of these are just little one liners that don’t “serve the overall plot” but they serve Varric’s character

And that matters

So if we take this character known for telling stories about people that have been in his life, well, he largely can’t do that now. How can he talk about Hawke, someone who can be a very close friend of his, without even their gender being a choice you can select? Or whether Varric should be saying ‘is’ or ‘was’ about them? How can he talk about the companions in DA2 or inquisition when a lot of them don’t have to be recruited or can die? Will he limit himself to only characters that are guaranteed to be a part of it and alive? Or is it that he and Rook will have such a shallow relationship that Varric, of all characters, never talks about his life and past exploits?

Or has Varric as a character changed so much that he doesn’t even want to tell stories anymore? That Hawke living or dying means nothing to him? That the friendships he built with people in 2 games mean nothing to him? That he’s become literally unrecognizable?

This is where the problem is. Sure, Rook maybe doesn’t care about these people they’ve never met. But do they care about Varric? What about if a companion mentions an old friend of theirs, talks about an experience they had that made them who they are - is that only okay if that experience isn’t from a previous game? Or are all the characters so flat that we never learn anything about their connections to others outside of Rook? Is this story SO focused on this player character and this plot that NOTHING else matters, even within the world, and there’s no depth to be found in any of the characters that feature in it?

Writing characters so that they only ever talk about things that “directly serve the plot” is how you get flat, unremarkable, boring, forgettable characters. And that’s not something I would have accused bioware of doing even if some instalments are stronger in this area than others. But it sounds like that’s what they’re doing here, at least with the past characters. Cause sure, maybe Morrigan is so closed off she’ll never mention her son and partner. That’s believable, even if iffy given that they’ve said she’s going to be more involved than we think. But Varric? VARRIC??? Never mentioning ANY of the people he used to spend time with and care about except Solas and maybe some of the inquisition characters that can’t die or not be recruited but also carefully skirting around what happened to them in the game? That’s literally not the same character

And I would expand this to like. A letter mentioning this or a codex mentioning that, or ambient dialogue about so and so - that makes the world feel deep and those random, unimportant NPCs feel richer by connecting them to the larger world. It’s not about “serving the plot”, it’s about making your world and characters deep enough that they feel real, lived in, and like something we can actually care about

[taffywabbit]

idk if i'm way off the mark on this, but the way some people are responding to that Guillermo del Toro interview about the decline of studio animation is a bit frustrating to me. specifically the bit where he talks about "emoji animation" and how everything is over-animated and pushed too far and things are rarely allowed to not be ultra-cartoony (y'know, because animation always needs to be marketable to children who are never trusted to have attention spans, right?). like, i think he's generally correct about it! but some folks are taking the wrong message away from that.

i've seen people going off about how "soulless" and "corporate" various recent examples are, and talking about these pieces of media as though they're the result of some kind of personal failing or lack of skill/range on the part of the animators, and it's just like. do people realize that's the only animation you're usually allowed to DO in the industry, unless you get incredibly lucky and land yourself on a project/studio that's unusually cool?

when i was in college for animation it was literally drilled into us nonstop that everything had to be pushed more, that exaggeration was not a guideline or a sometimes-treat but a hard rule that always had to be applied regardless of what was going on, because the viewer couldn't be trusted to pick up on subtlety and we sure as hell couldn't be trusted to convey it. you ever wonder why there's such a specific vibe to a lot of self-directed student films, particularly ones that are focused on character acting/interaction or deep emotions and introspection (especially when there's minimal/no dialogue)? it's because for a lot of young animators, they haven't had the freedom to experiment with realism and subtlety up to that point and they're likely not going to have it again for a while (or at all, unless their career path leads to higher positions where they might have more creative direction over the things they work on. which also becomes a lot less likely if they're anything other than a cishet white dude, for what it's worth).

i would LOVE to see more nuanced, realistic, understated motion and acting in animation. i WANT more characters to be able to express what they're feeling through natural body language and facial cues and for scenes to allow me to breathe instead of spelling everything out in giant bold flashing text all the time. what del Toro wants to see changed in the animation industry sounds great, and i hope others join him in seeking to revamp what modern animation is allowed to be.

but as things currently stand, and as they've stood for a long while now, most artists doing the grunt work on the shows and movies you see are completely at the mercy of corporations and networks who have a vested interest in producing a very specific kind of marketable and cost-efficient media all the time. (and by extension that style is ALSO what's taught in most animation schools, because their job more than anything is to grind you down into a perfect little sweatshop worker who will bend over backwards to meet quotas and get your work approved and not question the higher-ups, even if you have little to no personal investment in the projects you're working on, so that the studios who employ you can maintain their good reputations or whatever)

anyways idk what my point was here, this really just sorta became a rant and my views have undoubtedly been coloured by my own personal experiences (this kinda shit is largely why i dropped out before my last year of animation school, for the record).

i guess just be kind to folks in the animation industry? they've had it fucking rough nonstop for well over a century (the majority of them are still not unionized and there's HUGE pushback against doing so in many places). i assure you they are doing their best to infuse the latest uninspired illumination flick or weird spinoff kids' show with literally any amount of soul they can. you don't have to like the stuff that gets produced by any means! be a hater! i'm certainly not gonna stop you. just remember where these creative decisions come from and why these conditions exist, and consider that when YOU watched something and thought "hmm that could've been done better", you can bet your ass someone actually working on it probably thought the same thing but couldn't do anything about it. these things WILL change as the industry itself improves, but in the meantime folks have to pay their rent, and that usually means doing what they're told and working in a way that will minimize revisions and meet quotas so they can keep their jobs. it sucks, but it is what it is.

[hyakunana]

"Were you even listening? How many reports, Ikora? How many times did I tell you what I saw?"

[prince-liest]

Saw a post recently that rhetorically asked why authors and show writers leaving character sexuality up to interpretation is disappointing when fifteen years ago getting a statement that things were up to interpretation (as opposed to "Definitely NOT gay, you freaks!") was a blessing, and I make a point of never discoursing on the bird app, but wanted to share some thoughts on the subject here - particularly because Alastor is kind of a hot topic on this subject and I think he actually makes for a great example for my thoughts on this.

Honestly, as someone who did live through the "if you think my characters are gay then you're stupid and should die" era, I think it left me with the perspective that even if there is canon sexuality, then no matter what it is, you're free to then do whatever you want in fandom. People might call you a dick for it if you go about it in certain ways, but you're free to do it.

That said... that's not really what wanting canon confirmation is about. It's about having canon representation, especially for identities that we often don't see representation of. For example: Alastor being aromantic is "up for interpretation," and that specifically feels bad when it's explicitly been framed that way as a cop out to appease shippers (per Viv), especially when in canon you can see he's intended to be aroace based off of how Rosie talks about him.

Yes, things are better now than they were 15 years ago... but standards are higher now, too!

And in particular I think that while in 2008 or so, "It's up to interpretation!" basically meant "Yeah, they might be gay but I can't say it," nowadays the meaning has shifted. I see a lot of people chiming into any mention of aroace Alastor with this attitude of "Um, actually, he's NOT aromantic because it wasn't confirmed by Viv (even though he wasn't confirmed to NOT be aro either)," rather than the spirit of "Oh, yeah, he might be aro, that's a valid interpretation!" It actually feels very similar to seeing people go "Well, X is OBVIOUSLY straight (the default) because he wasn't confirmed to like men!"

...in 2008, haha.

Anyway, fandom always feels to me like a 'do whatever you want' zone, but I think just based off of the sheer volume and depth of genuine and heartfelt reactions people have had to Alastor as a character and his portrayal as aroace... having canon representation and seeing yourself in media you enjoy matters a great deal to many people.

I had a really emotional moment when I read my preorder of House of Hades from the Percy Jackson series back in middle school and realized that Nico di Angelo was an actual gay character in an actual real, physical book that I was holding in my hands, not "just" a headcanon from my nebulously safe online fandom spaces, for the first time ever. Similarly, people have been headcanoning various characters as ace for a long, long time, but to me it's never had the same punch to it as it being official when it comes to those kinds of feelings re: representation.

So leaving that kind of thing "up to interpretation" specifically as an alternative to providing representation to a group of people who rarely sees it is disappointing, but it's not for shipping reasons.

[fanaticalthings]

Most children, once they've grown up and moved out, sometimes come back to visit their parents to use their house as a sort of personal grocery store

And with Bruce being a literal billionaire whose house is always stocked with food and supplies, the batkids (that aren't living in the manor) definitely visit just for the purpose of taking shit for themselves.

---

For Dick, it's just small things, food and maybe some utensils. Bruce is barely in the kitchen so he never notices dishes go missing, and there are like 10 other children in his house so literally any one of the younger kids could've stolen food in the middle of the night, so he doesn't bat an eye at all.

Babs probably steals Bruce's hardware or his tools from the batcave. Sometimes, if she's nice, she'll leave a note.

Steph probably takes shit that no one will notice at the time but will absolutely be annoyed about when they need said thing. Stapler, soap bars, the microwave plate, etc...(Taking after Jason, she steals the hub caps off the batmobile's tires)

However, for Jason, once his relationship with Bruce is somewhat decent, of course he's gonna be petty and start stealing the more expensive shit in the manor for his apartment. Jason's microwave is broken? The next day, the cave's self-made and enhanced microwave made by Bruce for convenience is just gone.

Jason's feeling a coffee maker for his place? The one in Bruce's study disappears, too.

---

At first, Bruce thinks he's just sleep deprived, but then much bigger things start to go missing, like the whole TV and couch set in the living room. He assumes the younger kids are just playing pranks on him (sounds like something Stephanie would do) but then Bruce notices that the thief deliberately avoids stealing things from the kitchen, which is where Alfred is most of the time, and suddenly Bruce has an irritated clue on who the culprit is.

At first, he doesn't say anything, until one day he comes back, tired from a patrol, and is about to log in all the info on the computer only to realize his batchair is gone. That's when he texts Jason a blunt "If you really need things for your place, you can just ask me. I'll buy them for you." (As if Jason himself isn't loaded from his totally legal activities)

---

So now Jason's pettiness levels increase tenfold, and oh, wouldn't you look at it, his bike needs some new tires, and he knows a great place to get some more.

One night, Bruce is just blearily getting up for a late night snack, only to see Damian scamper away with a...lamp? So Bruce immediately follows him into the foyer only to see ALL of his kids (sans the ones not living in the manor), trying to haul two arm chairs out the window, and they just stop dead silent to stare at him until someone whispers a nervous "Crap"

Bruce doesn't even have any energy to fight, he just pinches his nose and is all "What is the meaning of this" in his tired dad voice. And Duke meekly responds with "we wanted more chairs at Jason's place"

And suddenly it all makes sense. Not once did Bruce wonder how the HELL Jason managed to lug a whole 60in TV and a full couch set on his own in one night. Of course, he had accomplices. Bruce just turns right around and goes right the hell back to his room to sleep. He'll deal with this in the morning.

[vlasdygoth]

watch it

[quadrantadvisor]

DP x DC, revenant!Jason Todd

Shortly after meeting, Danny and Jason have a late night conversation about what it means to come back. 1281 words

On AO3

-

Danny woke groggily, in a dark place that he didn't recognize, and took a moment to get his bearings.

He felt the warning ache in his neck that came from being propped up against an arm rest. There were two sources of dim light in the room—the glow of city street lights, muffled behind a curtain, and the green eyes of the man whose lap Danny's feet were propped on.

Right. Danny hadn’t meant to fall asleep on the revenant��s—on Jason’s—couch, but they’d been talking for so long, he must’ve dozed off.

Jason had had so many questions, about ectoplasm, about the zone, about Danny’s own experiences. Danny had done his best to clear up everything he could. A revenant may not be quite the same as he was, but still, it made Danny happy to be able to pass on his hard won knowledge and maybe save someone else a bit of the hurt and confusion that he’d gone through. It was what he’d always wished someone would do for him.

Jason was slumped into the couch, but he didn’t look relaxed. Danny examined his still profile, cast in strange shadows by its own green glow, and wondered how long it had been since he’d moved.

Danny shifted slightly, purposefully producing the fabric sounds of a body against upholstery, to make sure Jason knew he was awake. No reaction. Danny gave him one more moment, then asked, “You okay?”

Jason didn’t look at him when he answered, “You told me I’m basically possessing my own corpse, and I’m supposed to not be upset about that?”

Really, Danny should’ve predicted something like that. How long had he spent, trying to pretend that death hadn’t really touched him? It wasn’t an easy thing to accept.

“What’s the difference between a body and a corpse?” Danny asked.

Jason’s eyes snapped to Danny, their glow intensifying. “I am not dealing with riddle bullshit right now, I swear to-”

“No, I’m being serious,” Danny interrupted, pulling his feet from Jason’s lap and sitting himself up. “There’s one difference between a corpse and a living body, and that’s that someone is living in it. Jason—” he reached out, gripping one of Jason’s hands in his “—you’re alive. That’s what matters. The rest is details.”

Jason’s shoulders bent inwards, his other hand raising to rub at his chest. “You don’t get it,” he said, quiet. “People don’t just come back from what they did to me. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“However you died, it’s not-”

Jason huffed an ugly sound, a short and bitter laugh that Danny hurt to hear. “Is it crazy that that isn’t even what I was talking about? I meant after.” The motion on his chest was repetitive, like he was tracing something underneath his shirt, and Danny got the sinking feeling that he knew just what sort of scar it might be. “I was gone, okay? I was gone, and this body was still here. And they took it, and they cut it open and rummaged around inside to figure out what happened. Which is—” he cut off, sniffed, and Danny gripped his hand tighter “—which is stupid, right? It’s not like it wasn’t obvious.” His fingers twitched, and he continued, haltingly, “I mean, I’ve read the report. Pulled it off his stupid files. The smoke inhalation did me in. After everything that happened, it was the smoke.”

Jasons’ hand pulled out of Danny’s, and they both rose to cover his face, cutting off the glow while he curled in on himself even tighter. His voice was slightly muffled when he said, “And then they had to ship me home, right? So they bled me dry and pumped me full of formaldehyde, and they prettied me up so they could pretend I wasn’t just some empty thing, and Bruce held the tiniest most depressing little funeral known to man and put my ass in the ground, and I had to wake up down there.” His words and his breaths were coming too quick, and Danny didn’t know how to help. He didn’t want Jason to stop, not when it seemed like he needed to say all of this, but he could see just how badly the revenant was hurting.

“But you did wake up,” he whispered.

“Woke up in my own mutilated corpse!” Jason snarled. “Everything I’ve forgotten, and that memory is still crystal fucking clear! It stank in there, like death and vinegar and mud, and it was so small, and I couldn’t even try to scream for help because they sewed my fucking mouth shut—!” He broke off into a sob, and Danny couldn’t stand it anymore, had to lean into Jason’s side and wrap an arm around him as he shook with all the emotion he couldn’t reign in.

“Okay,” Danny said. Not you’re okay, just okay. “Okay, so that’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard, and I regularly hang out with a guy who wants to skin me.”

Jason sniffed. “What?”

“Nevermind. It’s just-”

“No, I think we should go back to the skinning thing-”

“I just don’t want you to let it define you,” Danny interrupted. “I did that. I got into my head about it, the whole ‘being dead’ thing, feeling like I was…” Danny gave himself a second, swallowed, “like some sort of freak. A thing that didn’t belong anywhere. But I’m still alive, and you’re alive, and even if we weren’t, it wouldn’t matter, because we’re still here, and as long as you’re here you can find something that’s worth staying for.” Danny rubbed what he hoped was a soothing pattern into Jason’s admittedly impressive bicep.

Jason let out a sigh. “I must really be pathetic if you’ve gotta pep talk me like that, huh?” he said, and Danny pretended not to see him wiping at his eyes. “Sorry,” he added, “about all this. I’ve got some shit I haven’t dealt with, and this ‘revenant’ stuff brought it up pretty bad.”

“I get it,” Danny said, and hoped Jason could tell how much he meant it.

Jason sighed again, heavy, like he was trying to release something else with his breath, and said, “It still doesn’t make any sense. Logically, I can’t be alive. Where did my blood come from?”

Danny shrugged. “Do you have blood?”

“I definitely have blood. I’ve seen a lot of it.”

That gave Danny pause. “Just like, around?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Jason said, deadpan. “I’ve got a surplus, so I like to leave some here and there, make sure everyone gets a chance to appreciate it.”

“I have no idea how much you’re joking and it frightens me,” Danny told him.

“Weak,” Jason replied.

“Anyways, you gotta not think about it too much. The interdimensional goop is already logic-defying, and you’re mixing magic with it with your special soul willpower or something. Your brain will explode if you try to make it make sense.”

Jason huffed a little laugh, bouncing Danny on his shoulder, and this time it made him feel lighter. “Can I just say that I hate that I’m full of interdimensional goop?”

“Valid,” Danny said.

Even without looking at Jason, Danny could tell that he just rolled his eyes by the way the soft green light moved.

Danny had his ear pressed to Jason’s shoulder, feeling his warmth, and if he focused, he could just make out the revenant’s pulse. Personally, Danny thought it was pretty cool to be full of magic and goop and blood. Much cooler than Danny, who was way more science goop than magic goop. They’d have to compare notes on that sometime.

Maybe Jason would come around to it.

[ladyzirkonia]

If found, please return to me.